, 1877-02-16
A Witt 70 the Aml5hara, the Famous
Psrspiring Statue.


son6ded 10 the Wild Kooshal my desire
A the see AmijhArA, and promised him a
mali reward II We succeeded on
vhich his protruding. luminous eye
laerally blazed With delight. and he
promised to give me every support,
,houeh not, think, sosmaeh because
a the reward ~ for the fun itself.
When people visit the Jain temples ii
usual to send round with them few Of
the priests, or other custodians. and
also some Of the Arab guard. whose
Tufianly appearance has already been
noted. The entrance 10 the concealed
temple, beneath which is the Amijhara
cave. is in the inner south side Of the
inclosure Of the first temple which the
visitor enters-great temple dedicated
10 Neminatha, the twenty-second Tir-
. thankara. No one who did not know Of
h beforehand would suspect the exist
ence of this concealed temple for the
door is part Of the latticed stonework
which forms that part of the enclosure,
and there is nothing-except q small
key-hole, which might easily escape
even close observation-to indicate that
there is any door at all. Having been
minutely instructed as to the position of
this secret entrance, 1 only just privately
noted its whereabouts on first passing
through the courtyard of the temple,
made no allusion whatever to~it, and
pAssed on to an examination of the tenn
Dies. In each of these I fingered as
long as possible. examining everything,
asking interminable questions, and dis
playing a knowledge of all the twenty
four Tirthankaras, and an interest in
them, which surprised even myself, and
made the Man of Pleasure, who was not
in the secret of my plan, to regard me
with astonishmsnt aud respect. The
consequence of this was that the Arab
guard dropped off one by one in disgust
before I was well done with the first
temple-probably deeming it more in
teresting and more lucrative to bully
pilgrims than to hang in attendance
upon Sahib who would evidently do
no harm. As we passed through the
other temples, the priestly and other at
tendants also began to get tired, and
dropped off one by one, and shortly
before began to retrace my steps only
the man carrying the keys and two
others were left. No harm could be ex-
pected from visitor who never asked
about the concealed temple who had
made no demur about taking off
his shoes who never offered to intrude
into any shrine an inch beyond the
point where he was asked to stop, and
who displayed such a respectful inter
est in ParashYantha, Abbinandanatha,
and all the other saints The three at
tendants who remained never suspected
what 1 was after, when, on our return
to the courtyard of the great temple of
Neminatha, expressed a wish to have
another look at the outside Of that
splendid edifce, and, in order to do so,
backed toward the secret door of the
there than turned suddenly upon
them, threw off the disguise of the
third Tirthankara, Shambhavanatha,
which had hitherto been using, and
suddenly said "And now we shall go
and see the Amijhara." Had Adinatha
himself risen from the ground they
could not have been more ethunderstruek,
and they Immediately raised CRY Of
dismay. The man with the keys, which
were only two or three bars of bent
steel, attempted to run of, but the gilt
tering eye Of Kooshal was upon him,
and before he had Withdrawn three steps
the keys we're in the latter's hand.
There was no torture, threat or violence
of any kind simply the keys passed
into Kooshal's hand the secret door of
the concealed temple was opened, and I
found myself at the entrance Of the ex-
cayation below. There was not mo-
ment's time to be lost for the priest
had run of TO the Khengar palace call
ing loudly on the Arab guard and
knew that If waited for their arrival
should never see the Amijhara. So I at
once lighted a small piece of candle
which l brought with me and proceeded
to descend into the cave or underground
chamber, by steps cut iRthe rock, and
going down from a small aperture in
the stone floor of the temple. On this
tne remaining attendants begged me to
allow one Of them to go down with me,
also with light. in order to see that no
PROCLAMATION occurred, which, of course,
was at once assented to. / heard after
ward that this servitor was secretly put
70 death for his share in the business,
out trust and believe that this statement
was one of those numerous inventions
) which are added on to any unusual oc-
currence by the natives of India, and
not by them alone. At all events, did
Lot ask the man to conduct me, or to
go down with me at all, though, as will
appear, it was well for me that he did
80, The jams tenderness for life of all
klnds ought surely to have protected
MIN from such fate as that which he
was said to have met with, but I would
not place much dependence on that ar
Rument for fha Ta.vo oh0r.r kbasr ka,,-