2-982-518 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sacred Tank, and Marble Causeway leading to a Sikh Temple, in Umritzir, [India] - from a drawing by W. Carpenter, Jun., 1858. 'Umritzir, the religious capital of the Sikh people...[When Runjeet Singh undertook the rebuilding of the temple, he used]...the white marble pinnacles from the Padshahi Musjid at Lahore, and...beautiful inlaid work from the tomb of Jehangheesi...It now adorns the lower part of this brilliant temple, the upper story of which is of copper gilt: the causeway leading to it is also entirely of inlaid white marble from the same sources. Altogether it forms one of the most striking and picturesque scenes in the whole of our Indian empire. The crowds of worshippers constantly moving on the causeway to the temple; the gay dresses of the women reflected in the water...broken into little waves by the agitation caused by the numerous bathers (the men afterwards sitting on the steps combing their long hair); then the groups of devotees and their disciples "reading the Grunt'h," or holy book, with here and there a stern Akali dressed in blue, his high turban and his wrists covered with steel circles and chains, stately Brahmin bulls, and flights of pigeons...altogether combine to add variety and interest to the ever-changing scene'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.