And what a swarm of them there is! The town is a vast museum of idols--and all of them crude, misshapen, and ugly.

They flock through one's dreams at night, a wild mob of nightmares.

When you get tired of them in the temples and take a trip on the river, you find idol giants, flashily painted, stretched out side by side on the shore.

And apparently wherever there is room for one more lingam, a lingam is there.

If Vishnu had foreseen what his town was going to be, he would have called it Idolville or Lingamburg.
The most conspicuous feature of Benares is the pair of slender white minarets which tower like masts from the great Mosque of Aurangzeb.