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.... And, indeed, when
seen from the mountain, these numberless pagodas, scattered in a
most curious disorderly way, look as if they had really been thrown
down by handfuls from the sky. Not only the river banks and the
surrounding country, but every little island, every rock peeping
from the water is covered with temples. And not one of them is
destitute of a legend of its own, different versions of which are
told by every individual of the Brahmanical community according
to his own taste - of course in the hope of a suitable reward.
Here, as everywhere else in India, Brahmans are divided into two
sects - worshippers of Shiva and wor-shippers of Vishnu - and between
the two there is rivalry and warfare centuries old. Though the
neighborhood of the Godavari shines with a twofold fame derived
from its being the birthplace of Hanuman and the theatre of the
first great deeds of Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, it possesses
as many temples dedicated to Shiva as to Vishnu.
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