…pilgrimage. An extravagant Hindu legend connects the little hills of Gaya with the history of a giant no less than 576 miles high, who by the power derived from the performance of austerities became, as usual, a terror to the gods. Taking a mean advantage of the- giant's piety, the wily divinities, with Brahma at their head, induced him to allow his sinless body to be used as the altar for a great sacrifice. This prostrate position gave them the opportunity they sought. Upon his huge head they placed a sacred stone, and literally sat upon it; while Vishnu belaboured the poor giant with his terrible mace until he became motionless. In his extremity the blameless monster, thus. overreached by the unscrupulous gods, merely asked, as a favour, that the place where he lay -or rather I should say where his head lay-should ever afterwards be associated with his name, Gaya, and that on this spot " should abide for the good of mankind all ,the sacred pools on the earth, where persons by bathing and offering- of oblations of water and funeral cakes may obtain high merit for themselves, and translate their ancestors, blessed with all that is desirable, and salvation, to the region of Brahma." [1] This foolish and unedifying legend is, we are told by Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra, implicitly believed by the people; but the learned gentleman himself sees in it an allegorical reference to the overthrow, by artifice and force, of the religion of Buddha by the Brahmanical priesthood. Any way, the farsighted and never-to-be-conquered Brahmans have in this case, as in many another one, succeeded in appropriating to their own glory and profit places held sacred by heretical seceders from the fold of Hinduism, and Gaya is now a favourite place of Hindu pilgrimage, where hundreds of thousands flock annually to the Vishnupada Temple, to prostrate themselves before the footprints of the god and to perform the funeral ceremonies of their dead relations.[2] This temple, surmounted by a dome and gilded pinnacle, stands on one of the ridges. The Temple…
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[1] Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra's " Buddh Gaya," pp. - 10-17.
[2] The birth of that man is the occasion of satisfaction to his progenitors, who performs, at the due time, their obsequial rites at Gaya."-Prof. H. H. Wilson's translation of the " Vishnu Purana," book iii. chap. 16.