Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s1.90

v2.c27.s1.90

Benefactions to Nāthdwāra.—The dead stock of Krishna’s shrine is augmented chiefly by those who hold life “ unstable as the dew-drop on the lotus ” ; and who are happy to barter “ the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind ” for the intercessional prayers of the high priest, and his passport to Haripur, the heaven of Hari. From the banks of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the coasts of the Peninsula to the shores of the Red Sea, the gifts of gratitude or of fear are lavishly poured in ; and though the unsettled aspect of the last half-century curtailed the transmission of the more bulky but least valuable benefactions, it less affected the bills of exchange from the successful sons of commerce, or the legacies of the dead. The safe arrival of a galleon from Sofala or Arabia produced as much to the shrine as to the insurance office, for Kanhaiya is the Saint Nicholas of the Hindu navigator, as was Apollo to the Grecian and Celtic sailors, who purchased the charmed arrows of the god to calm the troubled