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You are down in the southernmost district of India. Madras is a little over two hundred miles away behind you at the N. E. 

These are believers in the Hindu god Shiva, whom you meet before the temple gate. Long before the Christian era just such dark-skinned men made sacrifices to the same strange and terrible deity; this part of southern India is thick with ancient temples and remains of temples whose origin no man knows. This particular gopura or ceremonial gate-tower is not more than 400 years old

That first gateway is just a cheap and gorgeous affair of wood and plaster, whitewash and paint. Beyond it you see considerable space intervenes before you would reach the passage-way under the gopura itself. The base of that extraordinary structure is red sandstone, the upper part brick faced with concrete and plaster ; the whole surface, as you can see, every square foot of it, is carved or modelled into exuberant shapes of all sorts of things——grotesque figures of gods and goddesses, beasts and men and monsters, and fantastic symbols of ideas which probably not even these fellows at the gate understand.

Away in beyond the further side of that tall tower there is a great open courtyard enclosing a number of buildings, and watched over from various sides by still other similar towers as puzzling impressive as this. Within one of the buildings (you must stay outside its door, because, as an unbeliever, your presence would pollute the place) there sits upon a dusky throne, dressed in silk and tinsel, with flowers at his feet, the image of the awful Thing before whom men daily say their prayers.

(Steevens' "In India," describes a visit to this very spot. See also Carpenter's "From Adam's Peak to Elephanta." books like Clarke's "Ten Great Religions," and encyclopedia articles on Brahmanism and Hindu religious rites). 

From Notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.

Guardian of Hindu mysteries —— sculptured gate tower at Tanjore, India. 

Gardien de mystères hindous. Tour sculptée d'une porte à Tandjore, Inde. 

Hüter von Hindu Mysterien —— Thurmthor mit Skulpturen in Tanjore, Indien. 

El guardián de los misterios Hindus —— Portada esculpida de la torre en Tanjore, India. 

Väktaren af hinduiska mysterier——skultpterad port vid Tanjore, Indien. 

Хранители Индусскихъ тайнъ--башня со скульпту- рой въ Танчжоріи, Индія.