APPENDIX

"Desecrated, burnt and battered, it still stood firm-a monument to our humiliation and ingratitude. I can scarcely describe the burning shame which I felt on that early morning as I walked the broken floor of the once-hallowed sabhamantap littered with broken pillars and scattered stones. Lizards slipped in and out of their holes at the sound of my unfamiliar steps, and-Oh! the shame of it-an inspector's horse, tied there, neighed at my approach with sacrilegious impertinence."

The dreamer in Munshi saw the temple as it was in 1024, its spire rising to the sky, mighty acharyas and kings laying their heads in humility at the door-step of the sanctum. He heard the jingling anklets of the temple dancers as they sang to the joyous rhythm of drumbeats.

He saw vast crowds anxious to have darshan of the deity, hope in their hearts and humility in their souls. And he also saw the invader, his sword gory with the blood of innocent worshippers, break the image into three parts. It was out of this dream that came his most famous novel Jaya Somanatha, most of which was written in Pahalgam in Kashmir with the Shishnaga dancing from stone to stone with endless exuberance in front of him.

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