Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840/The Temple of Juggernaut
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THE TEMPLE OF JUGGERNAUT.
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THE TEMPLE OF JUGGERNAUT.[1]
This is the most celebrated and sacred temple in Hindostan, and was built about the year 1108, by Rajah Anonda Bheem Deb, at a cost of £500.000. The principal entrance is the Singha-Devar, or the "Lion-Gate," immediately in front of which is a beautiful column dedicated to the sun.
The chief idol, called Juggernaut, is a huge unsightly figure of wood, bearing some distant resemblance to the human form: it is painted black, with a red mouth, and large red and white circles for eyes.
The ceremony of drawing the car takes place in June, and it is calculated that about 200,000 pilgrims, three-fourths of them females, annually resort to this festival, of whom at least 50,000 perish by sickness, hunger, and fatigue, and by voluntarily throwing themselves under its ponderous wheels.
The winds are stirred with tumult—on the air
Sound drum and trumpet, atabal and gong—
Strong voices loud uplift a barbarous song.
Vast is the gathering—while the priests declare
The seven-headed god is passing there.
On roll his chariot-wheels, while every roll
From prostrate bodies crushes forth a soul:
Rejoicing such last agony to bear.
Such are thy creeds, O man! when thou art given
To thy own fearful nature—false and stern!
What were we now, but that all-pitying Heaven
Sent us a holier, purer faith to learn?—
Type of its message came the white-winged dove—
What is the Christian's creed?—Faith, Hope, and Love.
- ↑ Note: Although this poem is not signed L. E. L., Mary Howitt states clearly in her preface that eight of Landon’s poems were prepared. This lies in seventh place between Thomas Clarkson, number six, and Villages of Brumhanna, eighth and last. Moreover, from the style and content alone, there can be no doubt that it is by Letitia Landon.