the holy of holies some of the high-caste
worshippers await in prayer and meditation the moment when its ponderous
bronze doors are from time to time thrown open. One old Brahman lady of
singularly refined appearance presses her fingers alternately on her
right and her left nostril, whilst she expels through the other, keeping
her lips all the time tightly closed, the unhallowed air which may have
contaminated her lungs on her way to the temple. Another worshipper lies
full length with his face pressed to the ground in motionless adoration.
Between them flit about laughing, bright-eyed little girls, the
"daughters" of the temple, still unconscious of the life of temple
prostitution to which they have been dedicated from their birth. The
court-yard all around is packed with a surging, howling mob of pilgrims,
many of them from a great distance, fighting for a vantage point from
which they may get a glimpse of the Great Goddess in her inner
sanctuary, even if they cannot hope to penetrate into it.

At last, after much clanging of bells and fierce altercations between
the Brahman priests and the faithful as to payment of necessary fees,
the bronze doors roll back, and in the dim religious twilight one
catches a glint of gold and precious stones, the head-dress of Kali,
whose terrific image barely emerges from the depth of the inner
sanctuary in which it stands, accessible only to its serving Brahmans.
They alone, though strangely enough temple Brahmans as a class enjoy
little credit with their fellow-castemen, can approach the idol and wash
and dress and feed it with offerings. Whilst the doors are open the
frenzy and the noise increases, as the mob of worshippers struggle for a
front place and bawl out their special supplications at the top of their
voices. Then when they are closed again there is a general unravelling
of the tangled knots of perspiring humanity, and those who have achieved
the supreme purpose of their pilgrimage gradually disperse to make room
for another crowd, one stream succeeding another the whole day long on
special festivals, but on ordinary days mostly between sunrise and noon.
At the back of the shrine, as I came away, some privileged worshippers
were waiting to drink a few drops of the foul water which trickles out
of a small conduit through the wall from the holy of holies. It is the
water in which the feet of the idol--and those of the serving
Brahmans--have been washed!

It was in this same