We had to endure
this agreeable way of traveling for five hours under a very dark sky.
We reached the Inn of the Pilgrims in the morning at about six o'clock.
The real cause of Nassik's sacredness, however, is not the mutilated
trunk of the giantess, but the situation of the town on the banks
of the Godavari, quite close to the sources of this river which,
for some reason or other, are called by the natives Ganga (Ganges).
It is to this magic name, probably, that the town owes its numerous
magnificent temples, and the selectness of the Brahmans who inhabit
the banks of the river. Twice a year pilgrims flock here to pray,
and on these solemn occasions the number of the visitors exceeds
that of the inhabitants, which is only 35,000. Very picturesque,
but equally dirty, are the houses of the rich Brahmans built on
both sides of the way from the centre of the town to the Godavari.
A whole forest of narrow pyramidal temples spreads on both sides
of the river. All these new pagodas are built on the ruins of
those destroyed by the fanaticism of the Mussulmans. A legend
informs us that most of them rose from the ashes of the tail of
the monkey god Hanuman. Retreating from Lanka, where the wicked
Ravana, having anointed the brave hero's tail with some combustible
stuff set it on fire, Hanuman, with a single leap through the air,
reached Nassik, his fatherland. And here the noble adornment of
the monkey's back, burned almost entirely during the voyage,
crumbled into ashes, and from every sacred atom of these ashes,
fallen to the ground, there rose a temple.
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