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12515 - Interior Dilwara Temple, Mount Abu, India.

Landing at Bombay and moving 400 miles north we are at Mount Abu, notes for the famous Dilwara temple. This one was built by two brothers 700 years ago. It is said to have taken fourteen years and $10,000,000 to build. It is a Jain temple; the Jains are sometimes classified as a sect of Buddhists, but they were founded separately by a contemporary of Gautama Buddha. Their system is a philosophy rather than a religion, and like Buddhists they can scarcely be said to have a God. But the temple building passion is with them and they have hundreds of most costly sanctuaries.

The sculptures of the interior of this temple show the high-water mark of the Hindu workers in marble. Fergusson, who is the standard on Indian architecture, is unstinted in his praise of the ornamental work of this temple. He says: "For innate delicacy of carving ad beauty of detail it stands almost unrivalled in the land of patient and lavish labor".

Northeast of Mount Abu, 423 miles by rail, is Agra, on the superb capitals of the Grand Moguls. Its supreme glory is the Taj Mahal-the loveliest gem on the bosom of Earth. Those who are favored of heaven to visit this matchless tomb personally, understand the feelings of Lady Sleeman, who said she would willingly die tomorrow to have such a monument. From the gate, from the garden, from the Jumna River, by sunlight or moonlight, the Taj is glorious-an undying vision, an immortality.