56 PICTURES AND PEN - PICTURES

Sanskrit literature. "Amongst flowers, the jasmine;

amongst cities, Eanchi", runs an ancient verse and,
indeed, even today the eye perceives a well-planned city
rich in temples. Countless pilgrims still come to the
annual Juggernaut festival; they wander through the
halls of a hundred pillars and the halls of a thousand
pillars, and they look with admiration upon the
gigantic towers that present a panorama of fifteen
centuries of architecture—centuries in which flourished
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, too, in Eancbi, the
great centre of learning,

South of Conjeevaram are the plains of the east
coast and the Delta of the Oauvery Eiver, a region rich
in crops, studded with temples, and filled with history.
From Conjeevaram to Gape Gomorin, since the early
' centuries of our era, the temples and monuments stand
evidence to the faith, the love of art, and the prosperity
of the successive dynasties that built them. The dams
across the Cauvery Eiver—the oldest dams in India—
prove how much importance both people and. monarchs
attached to the river that gives life to the soil of
their regions.

On an island of this Cauvery Elver is the Srirangam
temple to Vishnu, visited by devotees from everywhere
in India. In the crowded streets round the temple, like
the towers of the temple that soar high above the
buildings of the town, the elephant of Vishnu's shrine
moves majestic and calm. Here, pilgrims buy their
offerings for the idol; there, they throng in the corridors
of the pillared, halls; and on the river, boatmen ply
their coracles for the faithful who go midstream to offer
flowers or leave lamps to float upon the waters of th©