India in the Fifteenth Century by Taylor && Francis Group;

Author:Taylor && Francis Group;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Description of the festival called Mahanadi, which is celebrated with extreme devotion amongst the Infidels.

THE idolators, who exercise an imposing authority in this country, with a view of displaying their pride, their power, their tyranny, and their glory, prepare every year a royal feast, a banquet worthy of a sovereign. This solemnity bears the name of Mahanadi. The manner in which it is celebrated is as follows. In pursuance of orders issued by the king of Bidjanagar, the generals and principal personages from all parts of his empire, which extends over a space of three months’ journey, presented themselves at the palace. They brought with them a thousand elephants, resembling the waves of a troubled sea, or a stormy cloud, which were covered with brilliant armour, and with castles magnificently adorned, in which were jugglers and artificers. On the trunks and ears of these animals had been drawn, with cinnabar and other substances, extraordinary pictures and figures of wonderful beauty. When the chiefs of the army, with the eminent personages and learned Brahmins from each province, as well as the elephants, were collected at the appointed time in the palace, during three consecutive days, in the month of Redjeb, the vast space of land magnificently decorated, in which the enormous elephants were congregated together, presented the appearance of the waves of the sea, or of that compact mass of men which will be assembled together at the day of the resurrection. Over this magnificent space were erected numerous pavilions, to the height of three, four, and five stories, covered from top to bottom with figures in relief. They represented everything that the imagination can picture, men, wild beasts, birds, and animals of every kind, down to flies and gnats : everything was drawn with extraordinary skill and delicacy. Some of these pavilions were arranged in such a manner, that they could turn rapidly round and present a new face. At each moment a new chamber or a new hall presented itself to the view.

In the front of this place rose a palace with nine pavilions, magnificently ornamented. In the ninth the king’s throne was set up. In the seventh was allotted a place to the humble author of this narrative, from which every one was excluded excepting the author’s friends. Between the palace and the pavilions, in an extremely beautiful situation, were musicians and storytellers, who sang and invented tales. The part of musicians is generally filled by women. Some young girls, with cheeks as full as the moon, and with faces more lovely than the spring, clothed in magnificent dresses, and showing features which, like the freshest rose, charmed every heart, were placed behind a pretty curtain opposite the king. On a sudden the curtain was raised and again fell, and the damsels arranged themselves for the dance, with a grace calculated to seduce every sense and captivate every mind. The jugglers execute some feats of skill which are quite wonderful: they place on the ground three pieces of

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