By the lake side the moisture-loving, rose-coloured primula reappeared in
masses, and as I followed down its outgoing stream towards the camp, I
waded through a tangle of columbine, white and blue; a great purple salvia,
arnica, and a profusion of varied flowers in rampant bloom.
_Saturday, July_ 8.--An early start homewards yesterday, in the cold dawn,
rewarded us by the sight of the first beams of the rising sun lighting up
the threefold head of Haramok with an unspeakable glory, as we crossed the
open boulder-strewn uplands, before descending into the nullah, which lay
below us still wrapped in a mysterious purple haze. The downward zigzags,
with their uncompromising steepness, proved almost as tiring as the ascent
had been, and we were more than ready for breakfast by the time we reached
the ruined temples of Vernag.
These temples, built probably about the beginning of the eighth century,
are, like all the others which I have seen in Kashmir, small, and somewhat
uninteresting, except to the archaeologist. They consist, invariably, of a
"cella" containing the object of veneration, the lingam, surmounted by a
high-pitched conical stone roof. In structure they show apparently signs
of Greek influence in the doorways, and the triangular pediments above
them. Phallic worship would seem to have been always confined to these
temples, with ophiolatry--the nagas or water-snake deities being
accommodated in sacred tanks, in the midst of which the early Kashmir
temples were usually placed.
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