STORIES From SUSSEX
The Sacred Memory of the Lonely Downs
Far away on the Downs, in a lonely place which fits it well, stands the
Chattri, one of the most moving monuments of the War.
It is one of the touching memories of the Great War. For this astonishing
monument, standing out in a great space with no sign of life about it, an
Eastern temple in a Christian land, is an act of remembrance by their compatriots
of strangers who died in a strange land, giving their lives for us, going
from the war to these green Downs alive, and dying here far from home. In
Brighton, at the pavilion, are gates set up by the Indian Princes in memory
of the kindness of the town to these men.
To this spot in the years of the war they brought the Hindus and Sikhs
who died at Brighton, and set them on a funeral pyre. The fires were lit on
two great stones still visible, and this white temple of Sicilian marble,
its canopy raised on eight ornamental pillars, is in memory of all the Indians
who gave their lives for us. Their ashes are on the site of the funeral pyre
where they passed through the fire, and the temple stands like a shining white
memory in this green amphitheatre of the Downs.
One or two towers on the hills and the youngest windmill in Sussex are all
there is to see. it is a moving thing, this gleaming whiteness in this solitary
place, in memory of those who came from their own far country to die for us
in a quarrel that was not theirs.
See also 'Oddities -
Chattri'
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