Page:Picturesque Nepal.djvu/288

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182
SKETCHES

or endeavour to hide in the modelled surfaces of the god; the dappled shadows of the overhanging trees move across the surface of the tank, which is confined within low moss-green walls. Four carved stone posts—as of an old-fashioned bed—rise out of the water at each corner, evidently the supports of a canopy which has long since disappeared, and the face now gazes calmly into the waving tree-tops and the sky. Transversely across the broad forehead are painted the three white parallel lines of the caste mark of Shiva, while the head is crowned with a wreath of brilliant yellow marigold flowers—real blossoms placed there by some devout pilgrim. The moving water laps gently the stony face, and the god smiles serenely from his cool liquid bed where he has lain day and night, through sunshine, rain, and cold, for nearly two hundred years.

The visitor naturally asks, What is the story of this stony god in his watery bed? And the answer is an interesting Hindu legend. Narain is the creator Brahma, who, according to Manu, was so called because the waters