The Religion of the Hindoos

Account of the Writings, Religion, and Manners of the Hindoos

Of all nations, ancient and modern, there is none among whom religion occupies so prominent a place as among the Hindoos. Its language is constantly on their lips, and its ceremonies mingle with all their daily avocations. Almost every natural object on which their eye falls is in some way associated with it; and on every side are beheld shrines and pagodas, in which the objects of its worship are supposed to be more immediately present. Its whole theological system, too, instead of being transmitted by such an imperfect vehicle as oral tradition, has been consigned to written volumes, believed to have been communicated by divine revelation, and therefore to contain truth without any mixture of error. To these volumes of course the ultimate appeal must be made, and therefore, whenever the object is to ascertain what the Hindoo religion is, at least in theory, it is only necessary to ask, What saith the Veda? By this name, meaning “science,” the volumes composing the Hindoo scriptures are designated. They are chiefly composed of four works, distinguished by the names of Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, written in a form of Sanskrit so ancient, and so different from its more modern form, that only the more learned of the Brahmins understand them. It is impossible to say when they were first committed to writing; but it is admitted that as they now exist they are a compilation made from the original materials by an individual who has ever since been known by the name of Vyasa, or Vedavyasa, meaning “compiler of the Veda.” He is supposed to have flourished in the twelfth or fourteenth century before the Christian era. The contents of the Vedas have not yet been thoroughly examined, but enough has been translated to prove that the system of religion which they teach does not countenance the numerous extravagances which have been engrafted on it, and which give to modern Hindooism many of its most revolting features. In several texts a pure monotheism seems to be taught, since it is repeatedly declared that “there is in truth but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the universe, whose work is the universe.” This monotheistic theory does not seem, however, to be consistently maintained, for mention is made of numerous gods who ought to be worshipped, and have power to reward their worshippers.

Next to the Vedas, as a source of religious information, are the Institutes of Menu, which, though later in date, must have been composed before the system taught in them had undergone any essential change, and are understood to contain a faithful abstract of it. From this work, therefore, till the contents of the Vedas are better known, the true character of the primitive Hindoo theology will be best obtained. In its opening passage, Menu, who seems to be a personification of deity, rather than a real existence, is represented as sitting “reclined, with his attention fixed on one object.” The divine sages approach, and “after mutual salutations in due form” thus address him, “Deign, sovereign Ruler, to apprise us of the sacred laws, in their order, as they must be followed by all the classes, and by each of them in their several degrees, together with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, only knowest the true sense, the first principle, the prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural Veda, unlimited in extent, and unequalled in authority.” Menu, complying with their request, begins thus:—“This universe existed only in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, undiscovered, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. Then the self-existing power, himself undiscerned, but making this world discernible, with five elements, and other principles, appeared with undiminished glory, dispelling the gloom. He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even He, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. He having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed, which became an egg, bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg he was born himself, the great forefather of all spirits.

Having proceeded thus far, Menu stops to explain that the waters were called nara, because they were the production of Nara (or the spirit of God), and that because they were his first ayana (or place of motion), he is named Narayana (or moving on the waters), and then continues:—“From that which is, the first cause, not the object of sense, existing, not existing, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma. In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year, at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself; and from its two divisions he framed the heaven and the earth; in the midst the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.” The material world having been thus created by Brahma, “from the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by sense, immaterial, and consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler.”

What follows is so indistinct and elliptical that a gap in the original may be suspected; and therefore without continuing to quote, it will be sufficient to give the substance of what is most remarkable in the subsequent part of this account of the creation. Brahma, having produced the great soul and all vital forms, the perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation, and pervaded “with emanations from the supreme Spirit, the minutest portion of six principles immensely operative,” framed all creatures, and assigned to them “distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations.” Supreme over all, “he created an assemblage of inferior deities, with divine attributes and pure souls, and a number of genii exquisitely delicate.” From fire, from air, and from the sun, he “milked out the three primordial Vedas,” gave being “to time and the divisions of time, to the stars also, and to the planets, to rivers, oceans, and mountains, to level plains and uneven valleys; to devotion, speech, complacency, desire, and wrath,” and to creation generally, for all came into existence simply because “He willed” it. Moreover, for the sake of distinguishing actions, he “made a total difference between right and wrong,” and inured sentient creatures “to pleasure and pain, and other opposite pairs.” Thus all was “composed in fit order,” for “in whatever occupation the supreme Lord first employed any vital soul, to that occupation the same soul attaches itself spontaneously, when it receives a new body again and again; whatever quality, noxious or innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, he conferred on any being the same quality enters it: as the seasons of the year attain respectively their peculiar marks, in due time and of their own accord, even so the several acts of each embodied spirit.”

In the above account man is not distinctly mentioned, but the apparent omission is now supplied by the following abrupt announcement:—“That the human race might be multiplied, He caused the Brahmin, the Cshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot.” In what shape they came forth, whether singly or in pairs of male and female, is not explained; but the latter may be inferred from its being immediately added, that “having divided his own substance, the mighty Power became half male half female.” This statement, however, is not made for the purpose of accounting for the difference of sex in human beings, but of founding a very extraordinary claim by Menu himself. Brahma, we are told, from the female portion of him produced a male called Viraj, and this Viraj is solemnly declared to be Menu’s own father. “Know me,” says Menu, addressing the sages who were consulting him, “know me to be that person whom the male power, having performed austere devotion, produced by himself.” This statement, startling as it is, is followed by another still more startling, in which Menu, ascribing to himself creative power, says, “It was I who, desirous of giving birth to a race of men, performed very difficult religious duties, and first produced ten lords of created beings eminent in holiness.” After giving their names he continues thus:—“They, abundant in glory, produced seven other Menus, together with deities, and the mansions of deities, and Maharshis, or great sages unlimited in power; benevolent genii and fierce giants, bloodthirsty savages, heavenly quiristers, nymphs and demons, huge serpents and snakes of smaller size, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of Pitris, or progenitors of mankind; lightning and thunderbolts, clouds and coloured bows of Indra, falling meteors, earth-rending vapours, comets, and luminaries of various degrees; horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth; small and large reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies, with every biting gnat and immovable substances of distinct sorts. Thus was this whole assembly of stationary and moveable bodies framed by those high-minded beings, through the force of their own devotion, and at my command, with separate actions allotted to each.”

Having described two creations—a primary by Brahma, and a secondary by himself, Menu asserts that, what he calls “this tremendous world of beings,” is always tending to decay, and gives an explanation of the mode in which its final dissolution is accomplished. “He whose powers are incomprehensible having thus created both me and this universe, was again absorbed in the supreme Spirit, changing time for time. When that Power awakes, then has this world its full expansion; but when he slumbers with a tranquil spirit, then the whole system fades away; for while he reposes in calm sleep, embodied spirits, endued with principles of action, depart from their several acts, and the mind itself becomes inert; and when they once are absorbed in that supreme essence, then the divine soul of all beings withdraws his energy and placidly slumbers; then, too, this vital soul, with all the organs of sense and of action, remains long immersed in darkness, and performs not its natural functions, but migrates from its corporeal frame; when being composed of minute elementary principles, it enters at once into vegetable or animal seed, it then assumes form. Thus that immutable Power, by waking and reposing alternately, revivifies and destroys in eternal succession this whole assemblage of locomotive and immovable creatures.

Menu, after this description, prepares to quit the scene. His code of law, made known to him fully “in the beginning” by Brahma, he taught to the “ten lords of created beings” whom he had produced, and to one of those, Bhrigu, who had learned to recite the whole of it, he assigns the task of communicating it to the sages “without omission.” Bhrigu accordingly becomes the narrator, and continues thus:—“From this Menu, named Swayambhuva, came six descendants, other Menus, each giving birth to a race of his own, all exalted in dignity, eminent in power.” The duration of the reign of a Menu or his Manwantara, is calculated as follows:—The sun by his alternate presence and absence, gives mortals their day and night. A month of mortals is a day and a night of the Pitris (or inhabitants of the moon). The division being into two equal halves, “the half beginning from the full moon is their day for actions, and that beginning from the new moon is their night for slumber.” A year of mortals “is a day and night of the gods,” their day being “the northern, and their night the southern course of the sun.” Four thousand years of the gods form a yuga or age of mortals; but the whole four yugas—the satya, treta, dwapara, and cali—are necessary to form an age of the gods, which, of course, includes 12,000 divine years. Multiply this age of the gods by seventy-one, and you have the duration of a Manwantara. It is added that “there are numberless Manwantaras, creations also, and destructions of worlds.” The Being “supremely exalted performs all this as if in sport again and again,” and has ample scope for working, because it takes a thousand ages of the gods to form a single day, and another thousand to form a single night of Brahma.

In the above Hindoo cosmogony there is much vagueness and extravagance, and we look in vain for anything so explicit as the first verse of Genesis:—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;” or so sublime as its third verse: “God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” It is not to be denied, however, that it contrasts favourably with all other heathen cosmogonies, and in some instances so closely resembles the Mosaic record, not only in thought but in language, as to leave little doubt that it has incorporated with its fables fragments of the earliest truths communicated by primitive revelation to the human race. The one object on which Menu had his attention fixed when the divine sages accosted him, is explained by commentators to have been the supreme God, and must not be confounded with Brahma, who had not a formal existence till he was born as a divine male in the mundane egg. If born, he was not himself the “self-existing power,” “the first cause,” “without beginning or end.” To whom, then, or what do these epithets apply? The answer is, Not to Brahma, who at first male, afterwards subdivides so as to become female; but to Brahm, an antecedent mysterious essence not possessed of any gender, and therefore usually described as neuter. The existence of Brahm as the one sole universal Lord is undoubtedly taught in the Vedas as a fundamental article of the Hindoo creed, and the Brahmins, who claim to be the exclusive expounders of this creed, confidently appeal to this article when they would prove that they are monotheists and not idolaters. This much may be conceded to them—that if they are idolaters, they sin against a clearer light, for it would be easy to produce passages in which the divine perfections are described in terms which even a Christian need not repudiate. Take the following specimen quoted by Sir William Jones, from a learned Brahmin:—“Perfect truth; perfect happiness; without equal; immortal; absolute unity; whom neither speech can describe, nor mind comprehend; all-pervading; all-transcending; delighted with his own boundless intelligence; not limited by space or time; without feet moving swiftly; without hands grasping all worlds; without eyes, all-surveying; without ears, all-hearing; without an intelligent guide, understanding all; without cause, the first of all causes; all ruling; all-powerful; the creator, preserver, transformer of all things; such is the Great One.”

Striking as the above passage is, there is a very serious defect in it. The description is true so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. It speaks only of the natural perfections of God, and says nothing of His moral perfections, though it is by these alone that any practical relation between the Creator and his creatures is established. This is not an accidental omission, but forms an essential feature in Hindoo theology; and hence, the only inference that can be drawn from its loftiest descriptions of deity is, that it would be vain to worship him. Seated at an immeasurable distance, and wholly absorbed in his own perfections, he regards the actions of men with perfect indifference. It is even doubtful if he has any proper personality, for when the language in which he is described is strictly analyzed, many of the attributes ascribed to him prove to be abstract qualities and imaginary potentialities existing in some inexplicable manner apart from any essence. The universe itself, instead of being the voluntary production of Brahm, thus becomes identified with him, and the theory of monotheism is set aside to make way for that of pantheism.

The practical result is that, while individuals of a philosophical and contemplative turn of mind profess to adhere to the original doctrine of the Vedas, the great mass of the population have rushed headlong into idolatry of the most extravagant and grovelling description. Every thing animate and inanimate, real or fancied, has been converted into a god, and the Hindoo pantheon now boasts of being able to muster 330,000,000 deities. It is almost needless to observe that multitudes of these are duplicates and endless repetitions of the same beings or objects, under a variety of names; and that it is possible, after discarding the common herd, to give a sufficient view of the polytheism of the Hindoos by selecting for description only a few of the more celebrated divinities. The first place, of course, belongs to the Trimurti or Triad, consisting of Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Siva, the destroyer. These three have sometimes been supposed to constitute a trinity in the ordinary sense of the term, and hence to present a singular coincidence with the Christian doctrine of one Godhead in three Persons or hypostases. It seems, however, to be established that the three are regarded as only separate forms, which the one supreme god assumes; according as he is employed in creating, preserving, or destroying. According to the Brahmins this is the orthodox view; but the popular idea is very different, and worshippers, so far from recognizing the identity or even the equality of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, have become ranged in hostile sects, among which the main distinction is the place which they assign to each as supreme or subordinate. In the contests which have thus arisen Brahma has fared worst. As creator, the primary place originally belonged to him, and in the usual representations of the triad, in which three heads are figured as rising from one body, he occupies the centre of the group, with the whole face displayed, while the other two, one on each side, are only in profile; but this barren honour is all that is left him, and while his colleagues count their shrines by thousands and their votaries by millions, he cannot boast of a single temple dedicated to him. In the temples of others a place is occasionally assigned to him, and he is seen standing or squatted, with a body usually painted red, and differing from the human only by the possession of four heads and four arms. The heads are encircled with an aureola or glory, and in the hands are held respectively a book, understood to be the Veda, a spoon for sacrifice, a water-jug for ablution, and a rosary, used by Hindoos just as in the Church of Rome, for counting prayers. Beside him often stands his vahan or vehicle, in the form of a goose.

Each of the triad gods is provided with a sakti or consort, through whom far more than by himself his energy is exerted. That of Brahma is Saraswati, who is figured as a white woman standing on a lotus, or riding on a peacock, with a lute in her hand. She is regarded as the goddess of learning, poetry, and music, and is more fortunate than her husband in worshippers, who hold an annual festival in her honour, and present at her shrine perfumes, flowers, and rice. Of the sons whom she bare to Brahma, the principal are—Viswakarma, who, as the architect of heaven, performs the same part as Vulcan among the Greeks; Nareda, who, as the messenger of the gods, is the subject of many legends; and Swayambhuva, in whom, as the first and chief of the Menus, Sir William Jones finds traces of identity with Adam. A leading feature in Hindoo mythology is the appearance of the gods in human form. Of this avatar or incarnation, Brahma furnishes only one remarkable example in Daksha, who gave his daughter in marriage to Siva, and having afterwards lost his head in a quarrel with his son-in-law had it replaced by that of a he-goat. In this monstrous form, brutish and human, he is still seen.

Vishnu, holding the second place in the triad, is usually represented as a comely placid youth, richly dressed. The only thing monstrous about him is his four arms. In one hand he holds a club, in another a discus or quoit, in another a chank or wreathed shell, and in another a lotus. His vahan, named Garuda, is in the form of a youth, with the wings and beak of a bird. He has two wives, Lakshmi and Satyavama. The former is his favourite, and he is sometimes seen sitting on a throne of lotus, with one of his arms around her. His name occurs seldom in the Veda, and not at all in the Institutes of Menu; but he has myriads of worshippers in every quarter, and has furnished by his avatars the subject of many of the most remarkable legends in Hindoo mythology and literature. According to what is called the orthodox view he ought to yield precedence to Brahma; but most of his worshippers, assuming in his honour the name of Vishnaivas, insist not only on giving him the first place, but in usurping for him the peculiar offices of the other members of the triad, and making them in fact not his equals but his creatures. He thus figures not only as preserver but as creator, destroyer, and renovator, and under names so numerous, that at least a thousand are counted as invested exclusively with all the attributes of the sole supreme deity. In one representation, while he floats on the surface of the primeval waters, reclining, with Lakshmi at his feet, on the serpent Shesha, or Ananta, a well known symbol of eternity, he gives birth to Brahma, who is seen emerging from the centre of his body on the top of a lotus. The superiority thus claimed for him derives no countenance from the Vedas, but is fully developed in several of the mythological poems, called Puranas, which, though of later date and less venerable authority, are in much greater repute with modern Hindoos. The legend on which the above representation is founded is given by Kennedy from the Kurma Purana, and, as a specimen of the kind of fables by which the Vishnaivas establish the supremacy of their favourite divinity, deserves to be quoted. For explanation, it is necessary to mention that both Kurma, who narrates the legend, and the Narayana, with the mention of whom it opens, are here meant to be only different forms of Vishnu. Kurma in a long discourse, addressing three sages or Brahmins, continues thus:—

“All was one tremendous ocean in which Narayana, with a thousand heads and a thousand eyes, reposing on Shesha, slumbered profoundly; and while thus immersed in mysterious sleep the thought of creation arose in his mind. Instant, then, in divine and wondrous sport, a lotus sprang from his pure navel; expanding to the distance of 100 yojans, refulgent as the young sun, blooming with sacred petals and filaments, and diffusing celestial fragrance; and from this lotus, after a long time had elapsed, was produced Brahma. Bewildered by illusion he immediately approached the universal Lord, and, awakening him with his hand, thus addressed him in gentle accents:—‘In this tremendous, unpeopled, and darkness-involved ocean, why, O Lord, dost thou repose solitary and alone?’ Vishnu smiling replied, in a voice loud as the clashing of clouds, ‘O excellent being! Know that I am Narayana, the one God, the Lord of all things; and behold in me the creator of the universe, and the great father of all animated beings; but who art thou?’ Brahma replied, ‘I am Dhata, Vidhata, Swayambhu, Brahma, the origin of the Vedas.’ On hearing these words, Vishnu, by means of mysterious power, entered the body of Brahma, and within it beheld comprised the three worlds, with angels, demons, and men, and having then issued from his mouth, Vishnu thus addressed Brahma: ‘Now, O Lord, enter within me, and behold thou also the three worlds.’ Having heard this agreeable speech, Brahma immediately entered within Vishnu, and there viewed with wonder this universe and all that it contains. But while he wandered, contemplating it, Vishnu closed the gates, and Brahma could find no exit except through the stem of the lotus, from which he had been produced; and then seated on its flower, he thus addressed Vishnu in a voice loud as the clashing of clouds: ‘What, O Lord! hast thou, desirous of victory, now done? but I am the sole omnipotent being: there is no other than me, and no one therefore can overcome me.’ To pacify him Vishnu thus replied in gentle words: ‘O Brahma! it was not through malice that I closed the gates, but merely through sport; for who can oppose Pitamaha, the god of gods? But since thou hast been produced by me, thou shalt be considered as my son, and shall be named the Lotus-born.’ Brahma replied: ‘There is but one God, the supreme Lord of all things; how then can there be two, and Narayana and Brahma be each that Lord?’ Vishnu then said: ‘Who can acknowledge the supremacy of Brahma, when I alone am without beginning and end, and the sole supreme being? Therefore, O Brahma! seek protection from me.’ Pitamaha with anger thus replied: ‘O Lord! I know myself to be supreme, imperishable, the creator of the universe, the most excellent recipient; and nowhere can there be found any other supreme God than me. Dispel therefore thy slumber, and know thyself.’ Having heard these angry words, Vishnu thus spoke: ‘O Brahma, why art thou thus deceived by illusion; and perceivest not the real truth that I alone am the supreme Lord?’

Singularly enough, on this occasion neither of the contending deities proves victor, for, in the midst of the strife, Siva suddenly makes his appearance, and compels both to confess that in claiming supremacy they were trenching on his prerogative.

Vishnu is in many respects the most attractive deity of the triad. His heaven, called Vaikunta, is 80,000 miles in circuit, and entirely of gold. Precious stones form its pillars as well as the ornaments of its buildings, which are constructed of jewels. Crystal showers descending upon it form a magnificent river, and feed numerous fine lakes, the surface of which are covered with water lilies—blue, red, and white, some of them with a hundred and others with a thousand petals. On a seat glorious as the meridian sun, sits Vishnu himself, and on his right hand Lakshmi, whose face shines like a continued blaze of lightning, and whose body diffuses the fragrance of the lotus for 800 miles. Glorified Vishnaivas are their ministering servants, and divine or angelic natures find constant employment in meditating on their perfections or singing their praise. On earth, too, there is less of a revolting nature in his worship than in that of most other gods of the pantheon. No bloody sacrifices are offered to him; and in all his avatars some beneficent or praiseworthy object has been contemplated. Of these avatars nine are already past, and a tenth is still to be realized. From the prominent place which they hold in Hindoo mythology, they are entitled to more than a passing notice.

In the first, or Matsya avatar, Vishnu’s object was to recover the Veda, which had been stolen by the demon Hayagriva. With this view he assumed the form of a small fish in the river Cretamala; and when a pious king, called Satyavrata, came to its banks to make a libation, thus accosted him:—“How canst thou leave me in this stream, exposed to its monsters who are my dread?”

Compassionating its condition, Satyavrata removed it to a small vase full of water. In a single night it outgrew the vase, and was placed successively in a cistern, a tank, and a lake. In each of these its dimensions increased so rapidly, that as a last resource it was thrown into the sea. Here it resumed its complaints, and asked to be delivered from horned sharks and other great monsters of the deep. Satyavrata, astonished above measure, began to suspect the truth, and asked, “Who art thou that beguilest me in this assumed shape? Surely thou art the great God whose dwelling was on the waves. Say for what cause thou hast thus appeared?” Vishnu, disclosing himself, replied, “Seven days hence the three worlds will be plunged in an ocean of death, but in the midst of the destroying waves a large vessel sent by me for thy use shall stand before thee. Then take all medicinal herbs, all the variety of seeds, and accompanied by seven saints, encircled by pairs of all brute animals, enter the spacious ark, and continue in it secure from the flood on an immense ocean, without light except the radiance of thy companions. When the ship shall be agitated by an impetuous wind, fasten it with a large sea serpent to my horn, for I will be near thee, drawing the vessel with thee and thy attendants. I will remain on the ocean till a day of Brahma shall be ended.” In due time the flood came, and all mankind perished except Satyavrata and his companions, who sailed in safety within the ship attached to the horn of the fish, which again appeared blazing like gold, and extending a million of leagues. After this deliverance Vishnu accomplished the great object of his Matsya avatar, by slaying the demon and recovering the Veda.

The singular resemblance which the above account bears, notwithstanding many ludicrous and extravagant additions, to the Mosaic account of the deluge, will justify the full detail which has been given. The second, or Varaha avatar, not possessing a similar recommendation, may be more summarily dismissed. A powerful and malignant giant, after afflicting the earth in various ways, rolled it up into a shapeless mass, and plunged with it into the abyss. Vishnu in order to recover it issued from the side of Brahma in the shape of a varaha or boar, which at first of small dimensions became in the course of an hour as large as an elephant. After uttering a voice which sounded like thunder, and shook the universe, the boar-shaped god suddenly descended from the air, dived into the ocean, which as if in terror rolled back on either side in huge billows, and on arriving at the bottom where the earth lay huge and barren, poised it on one of his tusks and brought it to the surface. There it still lies floating, spread out like a carpet.

In the third, or Kurma avatar, Vishnu assumed the form of a tortoise, for a very fantastic purpose. While the celestial inhabitants were seated on the summit of Mount Meru, their fabled heaven, in deep meditation, earnestly longing to discover the amrita, or water of immortality, Narayan (another name for Vishnu) suggested to Brahma that the true way of finding it was to churn the ocean like a pot of milk. The Suras, a kind of demigods, and the Asuras, a race of gigantic demons resembling the Titans, were to be the churners, and the implement was a mountain named Mandar. For this purpose it was lifted out of its place, with all its forests and streams, and rested for support on the back of the king of the tortoises, who it seems was none else than Vishnu. The churning shaft was thus provided, but another difficulty remained. How was it to be worked? The device fallen upon was to employ the huge serpent Vasuki as a rope. By twisting it round the mountain, while the Asuras and Suras pulled alternately at the head and tail, a circular motion was given, and the churning process commenced. Meanwhile, a continued stream of fire, smoke, and wind was belched forth by the serpent, the forests of the mountain were wrapped in flames, and its numerous products—vegetable, mineral, and apparently animal also, carried down by a heavy shower which the lord of the firmament sent down to quench the conflagration—mingled with the milk of the ocean. The butter formed was thus a very heterogeneous compound, which yielded among other extracts the amrita, destined thenceforth to be the favourite beverage of the gods. The good obtained was not unmingled with evil. The venomous breath of the serpent tainted the ocean butter, and a pestilential stench proceeding from it threatened to make the world unhabitable. This fatality was only escaped by the aid of Siva, who at the command of Brahma swallowed the drug. The amrita itself was next in danger, for the Asuras had seized it, and were resolved to keep it to themselves. Its recovery was due to Vishnu, who assumed the form of a beautiful female, and so fascinated the Asuras by her charms, that they voluntarily placed it in her hands. Thereafter a dreadful battle ensued, but the Asuras were defeated mainly by the prowess of Vishnu, to whose keeping the amrita has in consequence been intrusted.

The fourth, or Nara-Singh avatar took place under the following circumstances. The giant who buried the earth at the bottom of the sea was succeeded by a younger brother named Hiranyacasipa, who resembled him in all his worst qualities, and in particular refused to do homage to Vishnu. His son Praulhaud was, however, of a very different temper, and for expressing disapprobation of his father’s conduct was banished, after narrowly escaping with his life. A reconciliation having afterwards taken place, the subject of Vishnu’s supremacy was discussed between them. Hiranyacasipa persisting in his impiety asserted that Vishnu was in no respect greater than himself, and when Praulhaud, on the contrary, maintained that Vishnu was supreme over all, and present everywhere, tauntingly asked, “Is he in this pillar? (striking it with his sceptre); if he be, let him appear.” The moment the words were spoken the pillar burst in twain, and Vishnu issuing from it in the form of a man with a lion’s head tore the impious monarch in pieces, and placed Praulhaud on the throne.

The fifth avatar, called Vamana, because in it Vishnu assumed the form of a dwarf, is evidently a Brahminical fiction. The narrative is as follows:—A king called Maha Bali gained so much power in the spiritual world by his sacrifices and austerities that the very gods became afraid of him. They had actually been compelled to yield him the dominion of the earth and sea, and were waiting in consternation for the result of his last sacrifice, which it was thought would put him in possession of the heavens also. Their only resource was to supplicate the aid of Vishnu, who adopted the following singular device to effect their deliverance:—Having assumed the form of a Brahmin dwarf, he appeared before the king with every appearance of poverty, and asked for ground on which to build a dwelling for himself and his books. So humble were his views, he would be satisfied with as much as he could measure by three steps. Maha Bali at once promised the grant, and confirmed it by an oath in the most solemn form, by pouring sacred water from a vessel over the hands of the grantee. The moment the water reached his hands Vishnu started up, and at two successive steps strode over the earth and the ocean. There was no third place to plant his foot, and Maha Bali unable to perform the promise which he had so solemnly confirmed, was only released from it on condition of descending to the lower regions. In accordance with this fable, many of the most solemn acts of Hindoo devotion commence with the words, “Thrice did Vishnu step,” &c., and the god himself is frequently addressed as Trivikram, or the Three-stepper.

In the avatars already described Vishnu has appeared under monstrous forms. That of the Brahmin dwarf can scarcely be considered as an exception, since in the very moment he begins to act, it is thrown aside never to be resumed. In the three following avatars he makes a nearer approach to humanity, and performing actions which, while they partake largely of the marvellous, are not unfrequently connected with events which occupy a place in genuine history. In the sixth avatar his form is that of a Brahmin hero, Parasa Rama, or more properly Paris Ram, who makes war upon the Cshatriyas, and desists not till he has extirpated the whole race. The origin of his deadly enmity is thus explained. His parents, when they were childless, withdrew from the world, to pass their time in prayers, sacrifices, and religious austerities, in the hope that they might thus ingratiate themselves with Vishnu, and obtain through him the most earnest wish of their hearts, the gift of a son. They were successful, for in due time Paris Ram was born. He was not only beautiful, but endowed with every great and noble quality, as he well might be, seeing he was nothing less than Vishnu himself in human form. Mahadeva, another name for Siva, was so pleased with him, that he carried him to his heaven on the summit of Mount Kailasa. Here he remained till his twelfth year, and then descended on earth to defend his father against Deeraj, a cruel and vindictive tyrant of the Cshatriya class. It was too late, for when he arrived it was only to see the remains of the funeral pile on which the bodies of both his parents had been consumed. His father, first oppressed, had at last been murdered by Deeraj; and his mother, refusing to survive him, had immolated herself by suttee. Paris Ram instantly vowed the destruction, not only of Deeraj, but of his whole class. To any mere mortal, or even to an inferior deity, the accomplishment of the vow would have been impossible, for Deeraj was in himself a mighty host, being possessed of a thousand arms, each wielding a destructive implement of war; but nothing could withstand an incarnate Vishnu, and Deeraj soon paid the penalty of his misdeeds.

The object of the seventh avatar is, like that of the sixth, to avenge oppression; but the means employed are different, and branch out into numerous details, often not devoid of interest, though we can hardly afford to glance at them. Here Vishnu appears as Rama Chandra, the warlike and virtuous son of a powerful Indian prince, whose capital was Ayodha or Oude. A monstrous giant of the name of Ravana, who reigned over Lanka, or the island of Ceylon, having partly by sorcery, and partly by an affectation of piety, extended his dominion over the whole world, threw off the mask, and openly avowed himself the enemy of the gods. Vishnu, as Rama Chandra, undertook to destroy him. This exploit forms the subject of the celebrated epic poem, Ramayana, and therefore properly belongs to the chapter in which the literature of the Hindoos will be considered. At present a short explanation may suffice. A prince of the name of Janaka had a beautiful daughter Sita, and a bow which a thousand of his stoutest archers could not raise. Many sought Sita in marriage, but Janaka declared that only he who could wield the bow should be her husband. Ravana tried and failed. Rama succeeded and carried off the prize by a double merit, for besides performing the task assigned by the father, he had previously gained the affections of the daughter. Ravana was enraged, but having full knowledge of Rama’s strength and prowess, determined to pursue his object by stratagem, and not by open force. Circumstances favoured him. Somehow Rama, though the heir to his father’s throne, had been excluded from it, and retired with his beloved Sita into a forest, to lead a life of seclusion and austerity. Ravana followed them, and by devices, of which various accounts are given, succeeded at last in seizing Sita, and carrying her off through the air in triumph. Rama, inconsolable for his loss, and determined to avenge it, set out on an expedition to Lanka. He obtained a powerful auxiliary in a sovereign of the name of Sugriva, who furnished him with an army of monkeys, headed by a renowned monkey general, called Hanuman. Some difficulty was experienced in bridging over the strait between India and Ceylon, but the skill and courage of Hanuman and his monkeys surmounted all obstacles, and a battle ensued, in which Ravana, though he had a charmed life, was slain. Rama returned along with Sita to Oude, where he reigned prosperously some ten thousand years, and then ascended to Vishnu’s heaven. The services rendered by Hanuman have never been forgotten; and not only to him and the monkeys who accompanied Rama, but to their living descendants divine honours are still paid.

The eighth avatar introduces to our notice Krishna, in whose form Vishnu has eclipsed all his other exploits, and made himself the most popular deity in the Hindoo pantheon. The Mahabharata, an epic still more celebrated than the Ramayana, forms the subject of this avatar, which is in consequence scarcely less familiar to European than to Indian ears. The Brahmins, when speaking of it, seem unable to find language sufficiently hyperbolical, and gravely declare that “though all the seas were ink, and the whole earth paper, and all the inhabitants were to do nothing but write night and day for the space of 100,000 years, it would be impossible to describe all the wonders which Krishna performed.” Though truly an incarnation of Vishnu, he was ostensibly the son of Vasudeva and Devaki, belonging to the royal family of Mattra on the Jumna. The reigning prince at the time of his birth was Kansa, who, to prevent the fulfilment of a prophecy which foretold that one of the children of Vasudeva and Devaki would destroy him, had issued a decree that none of them should be permitted to live. To elude this inhuman decree, Krishna was secretly removed and brought up by a neighbouring herdsman. Every year of his life furnishes the subject of some legend. When a mere child he began his exploits, and signalized himself in particular by destroying serpents and giants. As time passed on he grew into a handsome youth, and spent his time among the gopis or milkmaids, captivating their hearts by playing on the pipe, dancing and sporting with them. Not satisfied with his conquests among rural beauties, he lifted his eyes to the princesses of Hindoostan and was equally successful. The whole of his early life, indeed, is filled with love adventures, in which, owing to the general admiration which he excites, it sometimes becomes necessary for him to resist the importunities of his fair votaries, and caution them against the inconveniences which their excessive ardour might produce. In general, however, he is free from scruple, and frankly returns all the love which is offered him, even by those who could not give it without being guilty of conjugal infidelity. The excuse made for them is that the intrigue which would have been criminal with an ordinary mortal, becomes meritorious when carried on with him. On this loose principle he consents to act, at the same time managing, by means of illusion, to convince every individual among the myriads of his lovers that she possesses his heart and person without a rival. As he advances in years his amours become less frequent, and he performs many heroic exploits. Having overthrown the tyrant who had sought to destroy him at his birth, he mounts the throne, but is driven from it by foreign enemies, and retires to Dwarika in Gujarat. Here his alliance is courted by the Pandus, who were contesting the sovereignty of Hastinapur, supposed to have been situated to the north-east of Delhi, with their relations, the Curus. This war, of which the Mahabharata makes him the hero, having terminated in the triumph of the Pandus, he returns to his capital; not, however, to spend the residue of his human life in peace: civil discord ensues, and though he outlives it, it is only to die by the arrow of a hunter who, shooting unawares in a thicket, wounded him in the foot. The licentiousness generally characteristic of Krishna’s career, and the gross indelicacy with which his amours are described in poetry or embodied in sculpture, perhaps furnish the best explanation of the fact that he counts among his worshippers all the opulent and luxurious, all the women, and a very large proportion of all ranks of Indian society. As a justification of the preference thus given him, it is often alleged that while in other avatars Vishnu exhibited only a portion of his godhead, in that of Krishna all his fulness was displayed, without diminution of power or splendour.

Buddha, whose worship though now almost banished from India has spread over countries of far wider area, is usually ranked as the ninth avatar of Vishnu. This, however, is denied by the Buddhists, who claim for the object of their worship a more ancient and loftier origin, and also by most of the Brahmins, who, regarding Buddhism as an abominable heresy, and hating it for its hostility to their domination as a caste, hold it impossible that there could ever have been any identity of form or purpose between Buddha and Vishnu. The tenth or Khalki avatar is only expected, and will not take place till the end of the cali yuga, when Vishnu will appear in the form of a white horse to close the present order of things and dissolve the existing universe preparatory to a new creation. The horse is represented holding up the foot of his right fore leg. When the catastrophe takes place he will give the signal for it by stamping with that foot on the ground. In concluding this account of Vishnu, it is necessary to prevent misapprehension by observing that, when his avatars are spoken of as ten, the meaning is, or should be, only that in that number are included all whose importance entitles them to special notice. In point of fact, as observed by Mr. Elphinstone,¹ “his incarnations or emanations, even as acknowledged in books, are innumerable; and they are still more swelled by others, in which he is made to appear under the form of some local saint or hero whom his followers have been disposed to deify.”

Siva, the destroyer, to whom the third place in the Hindoo triad is usually assigned, is distinguished by numerous names and represented by various forms. Among the names those of Maha Deo or Mahadeva and Rudra, are of the most frequent occurrence. Among his forms the most characteristic are those that are most hideous, since thus only is it possible to portray the features of divinity whom the Puranas describe as “wandering about surrounded by ghosts and goblins, inebriated, naked, and with dishevelled hair, covered with the ashes of a funeral pile, ornamented with human skulls and bones, sometimes laughing and sometimes crying.” His body, painted of a white or silver colour, differs from the human, chiefly in the head and arms. Instead of only one head, he has more frequently five, each of them with a third eye in the forehead; the arms vary from four to six. In his hands he usually holds a trident, one or more human heads, a cup supposed to contain human blood, and a sword or some other instrument of destruction. Occasionally he is mounted on his vahan, the bull called Nandi, while his wife, usually called Parvati, but known also as Devi, Bhavani, Durga, Kali, &c. sits on his knee. In his less revolting forms he is represented with his hair coiled up like a religious mendicant asking alms, or seated as if in profound thought. His heaven is Keilas, one of the most stupendous summits of the Himalaya, where he is enthroned on the edge of a yawning gulf among eternal snows and glaciers. In Parvati he has a mate every way worthy of him. In appearance she resembles a fury rather than a goddess; her skin is black and her features absolutely hideous; her body is encircled with snakes, and hung round with a chaplet of skulls and human heads, while her whole attitude indicates defiance and menace. She delights in blood, and it is a well-authenticated fact that at one time human victims were sacrificed to her.

Siva, like the other members of the triad, has advanced a claim to exclusive supremacy, and in the opinion of his more devoted worshippers, named Saivas, is believed to have established it. Of the many legends relating to this subject, the following is a specimen:—Siva, meeting with Brahma, insultingly asked him, “Whence camest thou, and who created thee?” Brahma had then five heads, and with the mouth of one of them replied, “And whence art thou? I know thee well, thou form of darkness.” After much contumelious language banded to and fro, Siva lost temper, and gave a practical proof of his superiority by seizing the head of Brahma which performed the part of spokesman, and cutting it off with his left thumb. The Saivas think themselves entitled, in consequence of this exploit, to address their favourite divinity as the one supreme lord.

Since the process of destruction is, as a general rule, preparatory to that of some form of renovation, Siva is conceived to preside over both, and hence the Linga and Yoni, as representing the productive and regenerating powers of nature, are the great emblems used in his worship. It is not difficult to understand how the idea of such emblems may have been suggested to contemplative minds unaccompanied by any approach to obscenity, but the great body of mankind are totally incapable of allegorizing purely on such a subject. To them grossness is too familiar, even as an object of thought, and when exhibited in a visible form only fosters licentious feelings and leads in practice to innumerable abominations. For these the shrines of Siva are notorious, but not so notorious as those of his consort Parvati, who, under various names, and more especially those of Kali and Durga, receives a worship of the most disgusting and atrocious description. The kind of carnage in which she delights is significantly indicated in the Kalika Purana, which, after an enumeration of the animals to be offered to her in sacrifice, adds, that one human victim would please her for 1000 years, and three human victims for 100,000 years. Circumstances do not allow her worshippers any longer to gratify her in this manner, but she has still full opportunity of satisfying her thirst for blood. In her temple at Kalighat, near Calcutta, 1000 goats, besides various other animals, are sacrificed every month; and it used to be the boast of her priest at Bindabashni, where the Vindhya Hills abut on the Ganges, that the blood before her image was never allowed to dry. This profuse shedding of blood, disgusting as it is, is not the worst feature in her worship. During the great festival of Durga Puja, celebrated in her honour, the name of religion is employed as a cloak for secret orgies, in which parties of both sexes meet and give themselves up to unbounded licentiousness.

The properties and offices assigned to the members of the Hindoo triad are so numerous and diversified that all the other gods of the pantheon seem to be little more than repetitions of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, under new names and forms. According to this view, the infinite multiplicity of gods disappears, and instead of hundreds of millions, only a few great names stand forth as representatives of the whole. However correct this view may be as a theory, there is too much reason to fear that it does not hold true in practice, and that in the opinion of the great mass of Hindoos everything in the shape of a god to which a name has been given, and any act of worship is paid, has a separate and independent existence. It is necessary, therefore, to go beyond the triad and to give some account of other deities, who could not without straining be included under it, and yet either from the nature of the worship paid to them, or the number of their worshippers, cannot be left unnoticed. In the list of such gods, the two first places unquestionably belong to Agni, the god of fire, and Indra, the god of the firmament.

Agni is perhaps entitled, in so far as antiquity gives precedence, to stand at the head of all the gods of the Hindoo pantheon. In the first four books of the Rig Veda—the portion of it now made accessible to English readers by the admirable labours of Professor Wilson—while the name of Siva is not once mentioned, and only two of the hymns of which the body of the work consists are addressed to Vishnu, no fewer than 147 are addressed to Agni. His domain embraces the heavens, where he appears in the sun and other celestial bodies as the great source of light and heat; the air, where he flashes in lightning and speaks in thunder; and the earth, where his presence is recognized in all kinds of artificial fire employed for common and sacred purposes. From the frequent use of fire in the religious services of the Hindoos, the worship of Agni may be said to be universal throughout India. All Brahmins fulfilling the obligations of their class are Agnihotras, that is, have a consecrated fire which is never allowed to be extinguished; and though, from the general laxity which now prevails, the great majority fail to do so, Agni must, so long as Hindooism continues to exist, be one of its most influential divinities. Though worshipped chiefly as an element possessed of the highest efficacy in removing all kinds of impurity, moral as well as ceremonial, he is also personified in various forms. Most usually he is drawn with a forked representation of fire issuing from his mouth; but this is sometimes wanting, and he is figured as a mitred prince, seated on a ram, which he guides by one of his four hands, while in the other three he holds a spear, a lotus flower, and a chaplet of beads.

Indra, the god of the firmament, holds a prominent place in the Rig Veda, and, like Agni, forms the subject of a large portion of its hymns. He is supposed to preside over atmospheric phenomena generally, and more especially over those productive of humidity. Hence the formation of rain forms part of his peculiar province, and he is sometimes seen engaged in sending down fertilizing showers, while a cloud, represented as a demon, combats his benevolent intentions by refusing to yield up its moisture. In his personified form Indra appears as a white man, seated on the elephant called Airavat, which is fabled to have been produced at the churning of the ocean. His wife, Indrani, usually accompanies him, but is sometimes represented separately, sitting on a lion with a child in her arms. Their heaven, called Sverga, situated on Mount Meru, is one of the masterpieces of Viswakarma, the architect of the gods, and so glistens with gold and gems as to outshine the radiance of a dozen suns. In connection with Indra may be mentioned Pavana, the god of the winds. They are held to be independent divinities, but it is very difficult to assign distinct provinces to them, and prevent them from encroaching on each other. Pavana is represented riding on a deer or antelope, and holding in one hand a pennon, and in another an arrow. Deities of an inferior grade called Maruts, who are, in fact, only the winds personified, are his ministering servants, or rather perhaps the common messengers of all the higher gods. From the gods personifying the elements of fire and air, we naturally pass to another element, that of water, personified by a god of the name of Varuna, who may be regarded as the Indian Neptune, and is represented as a four-armed, white man, riding on a sea animal, with a rope in one hand and a club in another. He is much worshipped by fishermen; and being supposed capable of sending rain, is supplicated by husbandmen in seasons of drought.

The heavenly bodies form an important class of Hindoo deities. The first place of course belongs to Surya, the sun, and Soma, the moon, in regard to both of which many wild fictions are current. Surya, however, has suffered by a kind of competition with Agni, who, by appropriating most of his attributes, has left him comparatively little room for separate agency. In the usual representation Surya, in the form of a crowned prince, his head encircled with golden rays, sits on a splendid car, drawn by a seven-headed horse. In front of him sits his charioteer, Arun, holding the reins. Sometimes he seems to be regarded as the supreme lord of the universe, and as such is addressed in the Gayatri, which is the most solemn and mysterious of all the texts of the Veda. A much lower position is, however, usually assigned to him, and he even condescends so far as to become the parent, not merely of demigods, but of mortal men. His wife is Prabha, or brightness; but this form she has sometimes been obliged to exchange for that of its opposite, Chaya, or shade, in consequence of being unable to endure his intense splendour. He has not been always faithful to her. On one occasion Parvati, the wife of Siva, met him in the shape of a mare, and being impregnated with sunbeams by his breathing through her nostrils, became the mother of the Aswini, two of whom are the Twins of the zodiac. By Chandri, the wife of the moon, or the moon himself, usually represented as a male, but capable apparently of being transformed into a female, he had a numerous family called Pulindas. The mortals to whom he has given birth are the original progenitors of the race of Suryabans, who are hence called, and, what is more, seriously believed by multitudes to be, children of the sun. His worshippers are numerous, and he has several temples exclusively dedicated to him, though often, when exhibited in a bodily form, he is obliged to content himself with a place in the temples of other deities.

The moon, designated indifferently Soma and Chandra, is usually represented as a beautiful youth, sitting in a chariot drawn by an antelope, and holding in his hands a club and a lotus. The influence which he is supposed to possess in this lower world has given him many worshippers, who imagine that the whole current of life depends on lucky and unlucky days, of which he is the great regulator. The planet Budh, our Mercury, is considered to be his son, and the first sovereign of the lunar race, distinguished by the name of Chandrabans. The other planets are in like manner deified; but though they thus hold a place in the Hindoo pantheon, they are not entitled to a separate notice, as little more is expected from them than to furnish data for the calculation of nativities.

Among the gods who are conceived to exercise a more immediate influence on human affairs are Ganesa, the remover of difficulties, Cuvera, the god of wealth, Cartikeia, the god of war, and Kama, the god of love. It will be proper to describe them briefly in their order.

Ganesa, or Gampatti, is represented as a short round fat man, with four arms and the head of an elephant. He is usually seated on a lotus, but sometimes rides on a rat, or has one near him, to indicate the prudence and foresight of which that animal is an emblem. In his hands he holds the ankas, or hook for guiding the elephant, a shell, for which a kind of battle-axe is sometimes substituted, a conical ball, and a cup with small cakes. He is much worshipped, particularly in the Deccan, where his temples probably outnumber those of any god except Siva. The Peishwa Bajee Rao had an image of him in solid gold, with eyes of diamonds. Its value was estimated at £50,000. It is not thought prudent or safe to commence a journey, or a building, or even transact any ordinary matter of business, without invoking him, and hence, both to remind worshippers of this duty and furnish convenient means of performing it, his statues are set up on the public roads and other open places of resort. Not unfrequently, too, his image is placed over the doors of houses and shops, as a guarantee for the prosperity of those who occupy them. The god to whom all this homage is paid makes no pretensions to a very exalted origin.

He had no father, and in the ordinary sense of the term, cannot be said to have had a mother, though that relationship is both claimed and gloried in by Parvati. The fable is, that while she was bathing, she collected all the scum and impurities of the bath, kneaded it into the human form, and gave it life by pouring water of the Ganges upon it. Accounts differ as to the mode in which he became possessed of the elephant’s head. Some say that Parvati made him so at first; but the more generally received account is, that he had originally a human head, and was deprived of it by Siva, who, finding him placed as a sentinel at the door of Parvati’s bath, and not knowing who he was, cut it off at a stroke. Afterwards, on seeing his wife overwhelmed with grief for the loss of her child, Siva seized an elephant’s head, which happened to be the first that came in his way, and placed it on Ganesa’s shoulders. One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with the mythology of Ganesa is the existence of a living incarnation of him at Chincore, near Poona. This incarnation was first realized in the form of a saint of the name of Maroba, who was removed to heaven, while Ganesa not only took his place but undertook to occupy it in the persons of Maroba’s descendants to the seventh generation. This imposture, gross as it is, has found multitudes credulous enough to be deceived by it, and the Brahmins, who profited by it, found little difficulty, even after the seventh generation elapsed, in continuing the farce of Ganesa’s living incarnation. In 1809, Maria Graham paid a visit to the reputed deity. Her account of it is as follows:—“The whole place looked dirty, and every window was crowded with well-fed sleek Brahmins, who doubtless take great care of the Deo’s revenues. We found his little godship seated in a mean verandah, on a low wooden seat, not any way distinguished from other children but by an anxious wildness of the eyes, said to be occasioned by the quantity of opium which he is daily made to swallow. He is not allowed to play with other boys: nor is he permitted to speak any language but Sanskrit, that he may not converse with any but the Brahmins. He received us very politely, and said he was always pleased to see English people. After some conversation, which a Brahmin interpreted, we took leave, and were presented by his divine hand with almonds and sugarcandy, perfumed with asafetida, and he received in return a handful of rupees.

Cuvera, the god of wealth, has no temples dedicated to him, and no altars at which oblations are made, but is amply compensated by the practical homage which he receives from all ranks and conditions of men. His mythology possesses little interest. He resides in a splendid palace, and when he travels is borne through the air in a radiant car, or rather palanquin, by four attendants. On his head is a richly ornamented crown, and two of his four hands hold closed flowers of the lotus. In none of these particulars is it possible to discover felicity of invention, or any peculiar appropriateness. In short, the Indian Plutus, like too many of his most ardent and successful worshippers, is indifferent to everything but wealth, and while he possesses it, and has the power of bestowing it, can dispense with any other attraction.

Cartikeia, the god of war, is regarded as the son of Siva, and was brought into existence by some very extraordinary process, for the express purpose of combating a giant of the name of Tarika, who had become a terror even to the gods. Brahma had been induced by the giant’s penances and austerities to promise him universal power and dominion. This promise could not be recalled, and there seemed no means of escaping from the fatal consequences, for Tarika, abusing Brahma’s blundering liberality, was threatening the whole creation with destruction: robbing the ocean of its riches, and the sun of its fire, commanding the moon to stand still, and subjecting all the other celestials to harsh and contumelious treatment.

In this dilemma the gods assembled a council, and after full deliberation saw only one possible means of deliverance. By Brahma’s grant Tarika was declared to be invincible except to a son of Siva. But where was such a son to be found? Siva was at this time childless, and was leading a life of austerity, which precluded the hope of offspring. Various devices, in which Parvati and the god of love bore the principal part, were adopted, and at last, Cartikeia, having been deposited as a germ and nourished in the bosom of Gunga or the Ganges, emerged in the form of a beautiful male infant. After due nursing by females who came to the river to bathe, he grew up, and becoming fit for martial exploits fulfilled the great end of his creation by slaying Tarika. When his character of god of war is considered, he might have been expected to take a prominent part in all the wars in which the gods figure as allies or auxiliaries. In general, however, only a secondary place is assigned to him, and it almost appears as if his merits had been purposely obscured by rivals jealous of his fame. For this apparent injustice he has some compensation in the number of his worshippers, and more especially in the honours paid to him during his annual festival. On that occasion images of him, to the number, in Calcutta alone, of 5,000, some of them of gigantic stature, are set up for worship, and at the conclusion of it thrown into the river. These images usually exhibit him as a young man of warlike appearance, situated very incongruously on a peacock, and holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. Sometimes the peacock is treading on a serpent, and two additional hands are given him, in which he holds a spear and a trident.

Kama, called also Kamadeva or Camdeo, the god of love, is the subject of many pleasing fictions, and occupies a prominent place in ancient tales, poems, and dramas. Singular enough, notwithstanding the sway which he is described as possessing over gods and men, he cannot boast of possessing a single temple, or of being the object of any distinct and formal worship. Being thus more of an historical than an actually recognized divinity, little more need be said of him. The fables give him a double birth. By the first he is a son of Brahma, by the second a son of Vishnu and Lakshmi, during their avatars as Krishna and Rukmini. In both births the illusive prevailed over the real, and he is therefore designated the son of Maya, or illusion. His father Brahma, having promised that his dominion should not be confined to the hearts of the inhabitants of the world, but be felt even by the members of the triad, the youth was malicious enough to test his power by letting fly an arrow, which pierced Brahma’s own bosom. He appears to have been equally successful with Vishnu. Not so with Siva. This god, when it was desired that he might become the father of a son destined to slay Tarika, was living retired in the practice of religious austerities. Kama, notwithstanding, presumed to send a shaft at him. It took effect, but Siva, incensed at the interruption given to his devotion, turned his third eye upon the infatuated archer, and with it burned him to ashes. After his second birth a demon carried him off, and threw him into the sea, where he was swallowed by a fish. From this living tomb he was afterwards rescued, and delivered as an infant to the care of the demon’s wife. She, by some strange metamorphosis, proved to be no other than Reti, or affection, the wife of Kama during his first life. After a time a mutual recognition took place, and the demon was destroyed. Kama is usually personified as a beautiful youth riding or kneeling on a parrot, and holding in his hands a bow ready bent and strung with bees, while a quiver of arrows, tipped with flowers, hangs behind his shoulder. His standard, adopted probably as a memorial of his marine adventure, is a fish. He is described as accompanied by Reti, and attended by the humming bee, the cuckoo, and gentle breezes. As he is constantly wandering over the world, no permanent locality can be assigned him, though his favourite haunt is with Krishna and his milkmaids, on the banks of the Yamuna or Jumna.

From the god of love we pass to one of a very different description, Yama, the god of the infernal regions and judge of the dead. He has two distinct personifications. In the one called Dhermarajah he appears with a mild and benevolent countenance, seen only by those to whom a place of happiness is to be awarded. In the other, as Yama, he is seated on a buffalo with a crown on his head and a club and a rope or pashu in his hands. His inflamed eyes, dreadful teeth, and grim aspect are well fitted to inspire terror. The road to his palace is long and painful, over burning sand and red-hot or sharp-pointed stones, amidst showers of burning cinders, scalding water, and molten metal, and through dark passages beset with snakes, tigers, enormous giants, and all other imaginable horrors. The road is 668,000 miles long, and at the end of it, after crossing the Vaitarini, or Indian Styx, Yama himself is seen. His stature is 240 miles, his eyes of a purple colour expand like lakes, his voice resembles thunder, and his breathing the roaring of a tempest, a flame proceeds from his mouth, and every hair on his body is as long as a palm-tree. Attended by Chitra Gupta, a monster little less terrible than himself, he judges the trembling sinners as they come into his presence, and dooms them to their different hells. Though Yama has no temple dedicated to him, the terror which he inspires will not allow him to be forgotten. Oblations of water are made to him every day, and two annual festivals devoted to him are carefully observed.

In the above enumeration of gods, all those occupying the first rank have been more or less fully described. The subject, however, is of boundless extent, and to give anything like a complete view of Hindoo theogony and mythology, it would be necessary to take some notice of numerous subordinate deities, many of them recognized only in particular localities, in which they are regarded either as a kind of patron saints to be courted for the blessings which they may confer, or malignant demons to be deprecated for the evils which they may inflict. Both the heavens and the infernal regions are peopled with such imaginary beings. They are also constantly moving in the air, on the earth, and in the waters, and acting as the willing messengers or unwilling thralls of the higher gods. To the better class belong the Brahmadicas, or sons of Brahma, the Menus, the Rishis, good angels and good genii, Apsaras and Gandarras, or heavenly nymphs and choristers, by whose dances, songs, and music the inhabitants of the celestial mansions are constantly entertained. To the malignant class belong the Asuras, who, though of the race of gods, were disinherited and cast into darkness; the Deityas, a species of demons who have mustered armies and made war in heaven; Rakshasas, Pisachas, and still lower spirits, not unlike our nursery ghosts and goblins. By all of these much of the homage which is due only to the Supreme Power is practically monopolized.

Another series of imaginary beings which play an important part in the religion of the Hindoos are personifications of sacred streams—above all, the Ganges, which figures as a female divinity under the name of Gunga, and is both honoured and worshipped. So highly estimated is the honour of having given birth to Gunga, that Vishnu and Siva are represented by their respective votaries as laying claim to it. According to the Vishnaivas she had her first beginning in Vishnu’s heaven, Vaikontha, and sprung from his foot; according to the Saivas, Keilas, Siva’s heaven, was the place of her birth. There she sprung from his head, and after long wandering among his matted locks descended at last upon the earth in a mighty stream, with all her train of fishes, snakes, turtles, and crocodiles. She is represented as a white woman with a crown on her head, either walking on the surface of the water or riding on a marine animal of rather nondescript form, though bearing some resemblance to an alligator, holding a water-jug in one of her four hands and a water-lily in another. After descending to the earth Gunga made a narrow escape, for a sage whom she disturbed in his devotions was so incensed that he swallowed her up. Having contrived ultimately to find an outlet, she divided herself into the numerous streams which now form a network across her delta. The modes in which homage is paid to her are countless. Her shrines exceed 3,000,000 in number; her banks are crowded with temples erected in her honour; long pilgrimages are made to obtain the privilege of bathing in her stream; for those who cannot make the pilgrimage, the water is transported to the remotest parts of the country and eagerly purchased; even the dying are carried to her banks to breathe their last, and in this way not unfrequently accelerate the event which might have been deferred for days, or months, or years, by wiser and gentler treatment. In consequence of this practice the sacred stream can hardly be viewed without disgust, from the number of dead bodies which are floated down upon it.

The character of the Hindoo religion may be legitimately inferred from that of the gods who are the objects of its worship; but a much more vivid impression may be obtained by passing from theory to practice, and viewing it under the forms it assumes both in daily life and on extraordinary occasions. In regard to all forms, private and public, one common remark may be made. The religious service performed is entirely of a ceremonial nature, and has nothing to do with the heart and conscience. If words of the Veda are repeated by rote as a kind of charm—if the breath is suppressed and made to pass in a peculiar manner through one nostril, while the other is stopped by the finger—if water is sipped, poured out, or used in bathing, while a number of minute regulations are carefully observed—by these, and such like mummeries, the worshipper considers himself cleansed from all impurity and entitled to claim the divine favour. If higher degrees of merit are aspired to, the means to be employed are not genuine sorrow for past sins and earnest endeavours to advance in holiness, but penances and austerities, the efficacy of which is estimated by the amount of bodily suffering which they inflict. The tortures to which multitudes submit with this view are often of the most barbarous and shocking description. The highest place in heaven is thus reserved for those who, from physical constitution or long training, possess most strength of bodily endurance, and the greatest villain on earth, without repenting of one of his crimes or forsaking one of his vices, may acquire the reputation and the privileges of a saint. Under such a system there is no inducement to virtuous practice. Every man has only to follow the bent of his own inclinations, assured that into whatever enormities passion or interest may lead him, it will always be easy to find some divinity who will accept his worship, and in return for it cancel all his guilt. In illustrating the highest form of religious observance required of a Hindoo in the ordinary routine of life, we shall be sure not to understate the matter by selecting the Brahmin as an example.

Assuming that the Brahmin performs all that is required of him, his daily course will be as follows:—On rising from sleep the first thing he does is to clean his teeth with a twig of the racemiferous fig-tree, repeating to himself during the operation the following prayer: “Attend, lord of the forest, Soma, king of herbs and plants, has approached thee; mayest thou and he cleanse my mouth with glory and good auspices, that I may eat abundant food. Lord of the forest! grant me life, strength, glory, splendour, offspring, cattle, abundant wealth, virtue, knowledge, and intelligence.” The use of the twig, ordinarily deemed so indispensable that the omission of it would render all other religious services fruitless, is forbidden on certain specified days, when as a substitute for it the mouth must be twelve times rinsed with water. Having thrown away the twig into some place known to be free from impurity, he proceeds to perform his ablutions. In these it is necessary to be very circumspect, as there are a number of minute rules which he must not violate. The water should, if possible, be taken not from a depth, as a well, but from the surface, and not from a stagnant pool but from a running stream—a river of the number of those deemed holy. In this respect, the Ganges is of course to be preferred to all others, but when it cannot be had the want of it may be supplied by the following prayer: “O Gunga, hear my prayers; for my sake be included in this small quantity of water, with the other sacred streams.” The ablution then proceeds, the Brahmin standing in the water, sipping it, sprinkling it, throwing it about on the crown of his head, on the earth, towards the sky, plunging thrice into it, and finally completing the process by washing his mantle in it. While thus engaged he repeats various prayers and texts of the Vedas, including the gayatri, styled the holiest of all, though it contains no more than this, “We meditate on the adorable light of the resplendent Generator, which governs our intellects.” Another mysterious utterance employed is that of O M, a contraction of the trilateral syllable A U M, the recognized symbol of the triad.

The ablutions performed, the Brahmin, supposed to have risen before the sun, prepares to worship that luminary as he emerges from the horizon. For this purpose various preliminary ceremonies are required. First, he ties the lock of hair on the crown of his head, takes up a bundle of cusa grass (Poa cynosuroides) in his left and three blades of it in his right hand, sips water, repeating the gayatri, and performing numerous mummeries, and after exclaiming “May the waters preserve me,” engages in deep meditation. The subject is curious, for he is only striving to realize the thought that “Brahma, with four faces and a red complexion, resides in his bosom; Vishnu, with four arms and a black complexion, in his heart, and Siva, with five faces and a white complexion, in his forehead.” This meditation is followed by a suppression of breath, the mode of effecting which is minutely and even ludicrously regulated. Closing the left nostril by the two longest fingers of the right hand, he draws a breath through the right nostril, and then by stopping this nostril also with the thumb remains without respiring till he has internally repeated the gayatri, the symbolical syllable O M, and a sacred text. This suppression of breath repeated thrice is followed by ablutions, a singular inhalation of water by the nose, and a sipping, at the end of which he exclaims, “Water, thou dost penetrate all beings; thou dost reach the deep recesses of the mountains; thou art the mouth of the universe; thou art the mystic word vasha; thou art light, taste, and the immortal fluid.” He is now in a fit state to offer acceptable worship to the sun, which he addresses standing on one foot with his face to the east and his hands in a hollow form. Among other things, he says of him that “he is the soul of all which is fixed or locomotive,” and apostrophizes him thus, “Thou art self-existent; thou art the most excellent ray; thou givest effulgence; grant it unto us.” An oblation, consisting of tela or sesamum, flowers, barleywater, and red sandal-wood, is then made in a copper vessel shaped like a boat and placed on the head. With various other prayers and ceremonies, including an invocation of the gayatri, which is characterized as “light,” as “seed,” as “immortal life,” as “the holiest sacrifice,” and “the divine text who dost grant our best wishes,” the daily morning devotion is brought to a close.

At noon and in the evening the service slightly varied ought to be repeated. Other portions of the day should be occupied with what are called “the five great sacraments.” These are—1. The sacrament of the Vedas, or the teaching and studying of them. 2. The sacrament of the Manes, or an oblation of cakes and water to departed ancestors and progenitors generally. 3. The sacrament of the Deities, or prayers to all the gods of the pantheon, accompanied with an oblation to fire. 4. The sacrament of Spirits, or an oblation of rice and other food to all animated creatures; and 5. The sacrament of Men, or the performance of the rites of hospitality. In all of these the observance must be accompanied with prayers, ceremonies, and gestures, still more minute, unmeaning, and fantastical than those required in morning devotion, the whole forming an irksome routine, in which neither the intellect nor the affections have any share, and the most solemn religious acts degenerate into mere mechanism. It is not to be wondered at that a great majority of the Brahmins have found means to evade the letter of these requirements, and to curtail them to such a degree that one hour suffices for rites for which, if fully performed, at least four hours would be necessary. Unfortunately, in curtailing frivolous and useless ceremonies, no care has been taken to supply their place by something better, and the only effect has consequently been to bring that class which ought to set the example to all other classes, nearer than before to practical atheism.

The great mass of the population, ever ready to take the law from those whom they regard as their superiors, select only those observances which are most agreeable, and thus make religion not a curb, but rather a stimulus to their natural depravity. In pursuing this course they are countenanced by a remarkable peculiarity in Hindoo faith and practice. A fundamental axiom of the Christian religion is, that he who offends in one point is guilty of all; in other words, that every precept is of absolute obligation, and consequently that the habitual neglect of any one known duty makes him who is guilty of it virtually an infidel. The Hindoo axiom, on the contrary, is, that all obedience is optional, and that within certain limits every individual is at liberty to lay down a rule for himself. He who aspires to the highest degree of future bliss will be contented with nothing short of perfection, and will consequently endeavour to fulfil every obligation to the very letter. He, on the other hand, who has no such exalted aims, and desires to be religious only so far as may be necessary to secure him against the loss of caste and the worst forms of future punishment, may easily adopt a course of religious observance suited to his taste. Both the lofty aspirant and the lukewarm professor are, so to speak, within the pale, and both will be rewarded according to their deeds. When their final conditions are fixed, the difference between them will be not in kind but in degree. There will be no absolute condemnation, for however great the shortcomings of the one may be, his obedience, so far as it has gone, will be approved and accepted. The practical effect of such a rule is easily perceived. While the standard of obedience remains theoretically perfect, the great majority lower it till it becomes what they wish it to be. All duties felt to be irksome and disagreeable are carefully excluded, and every individual worshipper becomes in fact the maker of his own god, investing him only with such attributes as are pleasing to himself. The extent to which this is carried may be inferred from the well-known fact that every form of vice and crime—prostitution, theft, robbery, and murder—has found among the gods of the Hindoo pantheon some one who has sanctioned it by his example, and is therefore presumed to welcome those who commit it as acceptable worshippers.

But though the accommodating spirit of Hindooism allows each individual great latitude in selecting the objects and manner of his worship, and by permitting him to lower the standard to suit his taste, virtually abolishes all religious and moral distinctions, it must be acknowledged that the effect has been not so much to produce religious indifference as to foster a perverse zeal and multiply useless forms. Even those who content themselves with such observances as are necessary to prevent the loss of caste and leave them a hope of escaping final reprobation, have a laborious task to perform, since the omission of any one among a multiplicity of rites and ceremonies might defeat their object. The observances, of course, increase in proportion as higher aspirations are entertained. Some, desirous of attaining a higher order of animated being in their new metempsychosis, must acquire the necessary merit by increasing the number and variety of ceremonial acts. Others would fain purchase even a temporary residence in one or other of the fabled heavens appropriated to the gods, but cannot hope to reach the object of their ambition without adding to the routine of ordinary observances numerous acts of will-worship and painful privation. The highest object at which it is possible to aim is exemption from all future transmigrations, by what is called absorption into the divine essence. This, as it is the acme of felicity, is also presumed, as might be expected, to be the most difficult of attainment. How to accomplish it is the great problem which has for ages tasked the ingenuity of Hindoo theologians, and cannot be said to be as yet satisfactorily solved. In one general principle, indeed, they are all agreed. The great obstacles to the final absorption of the soul by the supreme essence are its union with the body, and the various instincts, appetites, and passions which are supposed to be the result of this union. There is thus a thraldom from which the soul must be delivered.

Only two modes seem practicable. By retiring within itself and engaging in profound meditation and contemplation, it may render itself insensible to the existence of the external world, and thus gradually prepare for becoming part of a pure, spiritual, uncompounded essence. Thus acting, the soul assumes the offensive, and in a manner achieves its own freedom. This is one of the modes, and is in high repute with those who are of a metaphysical turn, and fond of indulging in dreamy indolence. In the other mode the mind is more passive, and the same object is sought to be gained by weakening the powers of the body and thus rendering it incapable of exercising its wonted tyranny. This mode is suited to the taste of those who, incapable of abstract thought and long-continued meditation, excel in physical endurance, and are able, as they think, to keep the body under by subjecting it to attenuating processes of hunger and thirst, painful postures, nakedness, extremes of heat and cold, lacerations, gashes, mutilations, and numerous barbarities not the less shocking from being self-inflicted.

As a general rule, both modes of discipline are practised by the same individual, and hence while careful to prepare for contemplation by suppressions of breath and mysterious utterances, the Brahmin having, during the last portion of his life abandoned all sensual affections, is enjoined in the Institutes of Menu to “dry up his bodily frame” by means of “harsher and harsher mortifications,” and in certain cases to feed “on water and air,” till he has “shuffled off his body.” The severest penances mentioned in the Institutes are to “slide backwards and forwards on the ground,” to “stand a whole day on tiptoe,” and endure the extremes of heat, cold, and moisture; but superstition the longer it is indulged always becomes the stronger, and hence to give a list of the severities practised in modern times by the devotees called Yogis and Fakirs, were to enumerate almost all the imaginable modes of torture. Keeping the palms of the hands closed till the nails grow into the flesh on one side and re-appear on the other—creeping along in twisted forms till permanent and unnatural distortion is produced—holding the arms upright till they lose their power of motion and become shrivelled—lying on beds of iron spikes—hanging over slow fires—burying in a living grave with only a small aperture to prevent suffocation—such are only a few of the modes by which superstition proves how expert it is in the art of tormenting. Superstition, indeed, cannot lay claim to all the diabolical ingenuity displayed, but must share it with impostors of various grades who infest the country as mendicants, and extort alms either by the commiseration which their sufferings excite, or the desire to be rid of their filthy and disgusting presence. Naked bodies smeared with the ashes of cow-dung, hair hanging in locks matted together with filth, human skulls filled with the same material, and human bones strung around the neck, are among the more common devices used by those who, without practising self-denial, are ambitious of the honour or greedy of the profit which even a hypocritical semblance of it too often commands.

In order to obtain a full display of the Hindoo religion, and the monstrous practices which it permits and encourages, it will be necessary after having seen how it operates in everyday life, to behold it when crowds are gathered to celebrate its greater festivals. As it would be difficult, if not impossible, to give a common description applicable to all, the advisable course will be to select as a specimen the festival of Kali, to whose delight in carnage reference has already been made, and the festival of Juggernaut, which, through the early attention which was drawn to it, is perhaps more familiar and interesting to the British mind than any other.

Kali or Maha Kali is, as will be remembered, identical with Parvati the wife of Siva, and is celebrated in an annual festival, which receives the name Charak Pujah from the chakra or discus, emblematical of the wheeling or swinging employed in its most characteristic performance. Owing to the savage character of Kali, and the numerous crimes of which she is regarded as the patroness, the Brahmins and more respectable native classes of Calcutta, in the neighbourhood of which the festival is held, keep aloof from an open participation in it, but at the same time show where their sympathies lie by contributing largely to the expense, and countenancing the proceedings by their presence as spectators. By the more zealous votaries a whole month before the festival, by others three days, are employed in initiatory ceremonies of purification and devotion. When the first day devoted to it arrives, an upright pole twenty to thirty feet in height is erected, and across its summit a horizontal beam is placed to move round on a pivot. From each end of the beam hangs a rope, the one loosely and the other with two hooks attached to it. The performance now begins. A devotee coming forward prostrates himself and is immediately fastened to the hooks, which for this purpose are run through the fleshy parts of his back near the shoulders. The end of the other rope is then seized by a number of persons, who commence running round with it at a rapid pace. This motion is of course communicated at once to the hooks, and the wretched devotee lifted up into the air is swung round in agony. Were the flesh to give way, the force with which he is whirled as well as the height would project him like a shot from a gun, and his death would be inevitable. The devotee by giving a signal may be relieved from peril and torture, but he is in no haste to give it, and usually remains suspended from ten minutes to half an hour, for, strange to say! this is a religious service, the merit of which is proportioned to the length of time the agony is endured. The moment he descends and is taken off the hooks, another steps forward to take his place, and the machine is kept wheeling till the day is far spent. In estimating the aggregate amount of suffering inflicted, it is necessary to remember that these horrid swings are not confined to the suburbs of Calcutta, where Kali’s temple stands, but that in thousands of towns and villages throughout Bengal, they are in simultaneous operation, torturing the infatuated devotees, while multitudes of spectators stand around gaping with applause and wonder.

When the swinging terminates, another equally cruel and more murderous exhibition succeeds. A number of spikes or knives, with their points sloping outwards, are made to protrude from a large straw bag or mattress, and placed in front of a wall or scaffolding from twenty to thirty feet in height. The performance of the devotees is to leap from the scaffolding to the mattress. As the spikes are left somewhat loose, and there is room for the exercise of dexterity in taking the leap, the greater part escape uninjured, but several sustain serious injuries, and a few are killed on the spot. For the last, the spectators feel no pity, because the belief is that the fate which they have met is the punishment of some enormous crime, which they must have committed either in the present or in some former life. At night the devotees, seated in the open air, make an incision in the skin of their forehead as a receptacle for an iron wire to which they suspend a lamp. These lamps are kept burning till dawn, the wearers meanwhile celebrating the praises of their favourite divinity. It were easy to produce a long list of other self-inflicted tortures—of deluded wretches with their arms and breasts stuck full of pins—of others bound in a sitting posture to the rim of an enormous wheel, every revolution of which must reverse the natural position of head and heels—and of others, who, placing some mustard seeds on some mud with which they have covered the under lip, stretch themselves out on their backs, under a vow that they will lie there night and day, without change of position, till the seed shall germinate; but enough has been already said to show by what kind of works the favour of Hindoo deities can be courted.

The observances already mentioned are rather the preliminaries of the festival than its actual celebration, which can only be seen with all its accompaniments in the vicinity of the temple itself, situated near the extremity of a plain immediately south-east of the capital of British India, and known by the name of Kali-Ghat. It owes its site, and the veneration in which it is held, to a very singular legend. Siva’s wife was Sati, the daughter of Brahma. After the marriage the two gods quarrelled. Brahma, who was the aggressor, not only insulted his son-in-law by leaving him uninvited to a banquet which he gave to the immortals, but stigmatized him as a wandering beggar, a dweller among tombs, a carrier of human skulls. Sati took the quarrel so much to heart, that she proceeded to the banks of the Ganges and yielded up her life, thereby furnishing an example, on which the Brahmins for want of a better have eagerly seized, to justify the immolation of widows, hence called satis or suttes. Siva on beholding his wife’s lifeless body was literally distracted, and thrusting his trident into it began whirling it in the air with frantic gestures. His violence shook the three worlds, and threatened the universe with destruction. Even the gods were in alarm, and Vishnu, as preserver, hastened to interpose. With the view of calming Siva he reminded him that the world has no real existence, and that everything in it is only maya, or illusion. This was but sorry comfort, and Siva in his frenzy continued to rage and gesticulate as furiously as before. It next occurred to Vishnu that his fellow-god would calm down if Sati’s body was removed from his sight, and therefore while it was whirling on the trident, he took a scimitar and kept hacking it till the whole had disappeared. Siva was not aware of this hacking process till it was completed, but as soon as the object which made him frantic was removed, returned to a sound mind. He was afterwards completely consoled by the return of Sati to him under the form of Parvati, the daughter of Himalaya. From the rapidity with which her body was whirled when Vishnu hewed it in pieces, the fragments were carried to great distances, and have made all the places where they were found famous. The toes of the right foot fell at Kali-Ghat and had lain in the ground undiscovered for ages, when a Brahmin, to whom their position had been revealed in a dream, dug them up, and erected on the site the temple which now bears the name of Kali. The hideous form usually borne by the idol has already been described, and it therefore only remains to give an account of the great day of the festival. The means have happily been provided by a most competent eye-witness, and we shall therefore do little more than abridge and occasionally quote verbatim from the graphic description given by Dr. Duff.

At early dawn the native population of Calcutta begin to move in myriads along the road leading to Kali-Ghat—mere spectators, in promiscuous throngs, gaily dressed as for a holiday—and devotees in isolated groups, easily distinguished by their loose robes and their foreheads liberally besprinkled with vermilion. “Two or three of them are decked in speckled or party-coloured garments, uttering ludicrous unmeaning sounds, and playing off all sorts of antic gestures not unlike the merry-andrews on the stage of a country fair. Two or three with garlands of flowers hanging about their neck, or tied round the head, have their sides transpierced with iron rods, which project in front, and meet at an angular point, to which is affixed a small vessel in the form of a shovel.

Devotees of KALI.¹—From Soltykof.

Two or three, covered with ashes, carry in their hands iron spits or rods of different lengths, small bamboo canes or hukah tubes, hard twisted cords or living snakes whose fangs have been extracted, bending their limbs into unsightly attitudes and chanting legendary songs. Two or three more are the bearers of musical instruments—horned trumpets, gongs, tinkling cymbals, and large hoarse drums, surmounted with towering bunches of black and white ostrich feathers. Then instruments blown or beaten lustily make loud and discordant music. Besides the groups of devotees who move along in succession as far as the eye can reach, others are seen advancing and spreading over the southern side of the plain where the temple stands, with flags and other pageants, and with portable stages “on which men and women are engaged in ridiculous, and often worse than ridiculous, pantomimic performances.” The temple is surrounded by a high wall and a court, and the principal access to it is by a gate on the west side. Opposite to this gate stands a party of Brahmins distributing consecrated flowers, and receiving free-will offerings of money in return. After the gate is passed the temple “starts up full in view.” The spectators keep moving along a narrow pathway on the south side between the temple and a portico, while the devotees pass on the outside of the portico itself towards the eastern side of the court. The proceedings which there take place are thus described:—

“Towards the wall there were stationed several blacksmiths with sharp instruments in their hands. Those of a particular group that carried the rods, canes, and other implements, now came forward. One would stretch out his hand, and getting it instantly pierced through, in would pass one of his rods or canes. Another would hold out his arm, and getting it perforated, in would pass one of his iron spits or tubes. A third would protrude his tongue, and getting it also bored through, in would pass one of his cords or serpents. And thus all of a group that desired it, had themselves variously transpierced or perforated. When these groups had finished, another group was waiting in readiness to undergo the cruel operation; and so another and another apparently without end.” Everything was now in readiness for the most solemn act of worship. It is thus described:—“Those of the different groups that carried in front the vessels already referred to, now ranged themselves all round the interior of the colonnade. All the rest assembled themselves within this living circle. On a sudden, at a signal given, commenced the bleating, and the lowing, and the struggling of the animals slaughtered in sacrifice at the farthest end of the portico; and speedily was the ground made to swim with sacrificial blood. At the same moment of time the vessel carriers threw upon the burning coals in their vessels handfuls of Indian pitch, composed of various combustible substances. Instantly ascended the smoke, and the flame, and the sulphureous smell. Those who had the musical instruments sent forth their loud, and jarring, and discordant sounds. And those who were transpierced began dancing in the most frantic manner—pulling backwards and forwards through their wounded members the rods and the canes, the spits and the tubes, the cords and the writhing serpents, till their bodies seemed streaming with their own blood.” During this frightful scene the spectators looked on and applauded, ever and anon raising loud shouts of “Victory to Kali! Victory to the great Kali!” the grim idol which, seated within the temple, enveloped in a gloom artificially created by allowing no light to enter except by the door, was supposed to listen delighted to the homage thus offered.

Juggernaut, or Jagannath, justly designated as “that mighty pagoda, the mirror of all wickedness and idolatry,” stands on the coast of Orissa, near the north-western shore of the Bay of Bengal, at the end of the principal street of the town of same name, every span of which, as well as a large adjoining district, is regarded as holy ground. Being the first object which meets the eye of the stranger, who, after a long voyage, is approaching the mouth of the Hooghly, it would be a welcome sight, were not its name associated with monstrous delusions and shocking barbarities. Seen from a distance, whether by sea or land, it has certainly an imposing appearance, and even a nearer approach in the latter direction does not destroy this impression, for the whole town is inclined by luxuriant groves and gardens, which produce the best fruit of the province; but at last the filth and stench, the swarms of religious mendicants, and other objects offensive alike to the eye, the ear, and the nostril, dispel all illusion, and leave little room for any feeling but disgust.

The temple, erected A.D. 1198, stands in a square area, inclined by a lofty stone wall, each side of which is about 650 feet in length. It is built chiefly of a coarse granite, resembling sandstone, and appears as a vast mass of masonry, surmounted by several lofty towers. Its architecture is rude and inelegant, and no taste has been displayed in the selection and execution of its ornaments. These defects are rendered still more prominent by the treatment which it has received in modern times. A coating of chunam with which it was covered has all been washed away, except a few stains and patches, and many parts of the sculpture, in order to stand out more prominently, have been barbarously bedaubed with red paint. After entering the enclosure by the principal gate of entrance on the east, a flight of steps leads to a terrace, twenty feet in height, inclosed by a second wall, 445 feet square. Within this enclosure most of the principal deities of the Hindoo pantheon have temples. More especially under the great tower, which forms its sanctuary, stand idols of Balbhadra, identified with Siva—Subhadra, identified with Devi or Kali—as well as of Jagannath, or the lord of the universe, of whom some account must now be given. For this purpose it will be necessary to select from competing legends the one which is most generally received.

Krishna, it will be remembered, was accidentally killed in a thicket by an arrow. The hunter who shot the arrow left the body to rot under a tree, but some pious persons collected the bones and placed them in a box. Here they remained till the following incident took place:—Indra Dhooma, the King or Maharajah of Oojein, distinguished for his piety, was supplicating the favour of Vishnu, when the god appeared and assured him that he might gain the fruit of all his religious austerities, by putting the bones of Krishna into the belly of an image of Juggernaut. The king asked who should make the image, and was instructed to make application by prayer to Vishwakarma, the architect of the gods. Vishwakarma consented, but at the same time declared that if any one disturbed him while at work, he would leave the image unfinished. In one night he built a temple on what is called the Blue Mountain in Orissa, and then began with the image. After fifteen days had elapsed the king became impatient, and went to see what progress had been made. The architect thus interrupted put his threat in execution, and left the image without hands or feet. The king, greatly disconcerted, applied to Brahma, who promised to make the image famous in its present shape. Accordingly, when it was set up he not only invited all the gods to be present, but condescended to act as high-priest, and gave both eyes and soul to Juggernaut, whose fame was thus completely established.

The above legend is so far defective that it does not account for the fact that the temple, instead of being consecrated to Vishnu alone, under his form of Juggernaut, is held as a kind of joint tenancy between him and two other gods. The Brahmins of Orissa have availed themselves of this circumstance to maintain that the worship in that temple is more spiritual than what is generally practised elsewhere. Their explanation is that the deity worshipped at Juggernaut is not subordinate to any other but the supreme Spirit itself; that the images are shapeless because the Vedas declare that the deity has no particular form; and that their grotesque and hideous form has been given them in order to terrify the vulgar into the discharge of duty. It may be true that some allegorical meaning, far more rational than that which is generally received, may be hidden under both the shape and the number of the shapeless idol, but the only thing which can be asserted without contradiction is, that if the object was to produce terror, it has been accomplished.

IDOL OF JUGGERNAUT. From Ferguson’s Hindu Architecture.

The number of annual festivals celebrated at Juggernaut is thirteen, but two, called the Asnan and the Rath Jatras, are greatly distinguished above the rest, because then only the monstrous idols are publicly exposed to view. The Rath Jatra, again, takes precedence of the Asnan, because on it alone the idols, besides being publicly exposed, pay a visit on their car to a place about a mile and a half distant. To the Rath, therefore, as the greatest of all the festivals, our attention will now be confined. In anticipation of the appointed day, vast numbers of pilgrims have assembled from all parts of the country. Many of these, affecting superior sanctity, or desirous of acquiring superior merit, have measured the whole length of the way with their own bodies, and others of them suffer voluntarily or of necessity so many privations, that the pilgrimage is said to be every year the direct or indirect cause of from 2000 to 3000 deaths. This computation will not appear exaggerated when it is considered that the aggregate number of pilgrims is not less than 50,000, and that the roads leading to the temple are in many places literally strewed with the bones or other remains of human beings.

The festival is celebrated on the second day of the new moon in Asar, that is in the end of June or beginning of July. After various prayers and ceremonies within the temple, the idols are brought forth beyond the principal entrance, called the Lion Gate, from its being flanked with colossal figures of lions, or more properly griffins in a sitting posture. Balbhadra, Juggernaut, and Subhadra, the so-called deities, are nothing more than wooden busts, about six feet in height, fashioned into a rude resemblance of the human head, resting on a sort of pedestal. The first two, as representatives of Siva and Vishnu, or rather of their incarnations Bala Rama and Krishna, are considered brothers; the third as an incarnation of Devi or Kali is their sister. The brothers, painted respectively white and black, have arms projecting horizontally forward from the ears; the sister, painted yellow, is left devoid of similar appendages. All three have frightfully grim and distorted countenances, and wear a head-dress of cloth of different colours, shaped somewhat like a helmet. In bringing them out without the gate the priests, after placing them on a kind of litter, fasten a common rope round their necks. This done, some drag them down the steps, and through the mud, while others keep them erect, and help their movements by shoving them from behind in the most unceremonious manner. Balbhadra, as the elder brother, enjoys a kind of precedence which it would be dangerous to withhold, owing to the fanaticism of the Sivaites, who honour in him their favourite divinity. He is brought out first, occupies the largest car, and takes the lead in the procession which is to follow, but neither he nor his sister receives a tithe of the adoration which is paid to Juggernaut, whose appearance is hailed with an universal shout, to be likened only to that which at the council of Pandemonium “tore hell’s concave.” The cars, respectively 43, 41, and 40 feet high, move on ponderous wheels, of which Balbhadra’s has sixteen, and each of the others fourteen wheels. To put them in motion strong cables have been provided, and the moment the signal is given, first the inhabitants of the neighbouring districts, whose peculiar duty and privilege it is, and then the multitudes generally, make a rush, and seizing the cables, drag forward the raths or cars. The shoutings which they raise, the clatter of hundreds of harsh-sounding instruments, and the creaking, crashing sound of the ponderous machines are absolutely deafening. The violent effort required in dragging cannot be continued without alternate pauses, at each of which the dytaks, or charioteers of the god, advance to a projecting part of the stage, and, by words and gestures, give utterance and display to gross obscenity. The multitude shout applause, and the dragging is resumed. At one period numerous instances of self-immolation occurred. Devotees, throwing themselves in front of the cars while in motion, were in a moment crushed to death beneath the wheels. Such cases are now so rare that they cannot be fairly represented as forming part of the regular celebration of the festival, but numerous other abominations and extravagances remain to justify the worst that can be said of it. The following description of an eye-witness, in June, 1814, is given in the Asiatic Journal:—

“The sights here beggar all description. Though Juggernaut made some progress on the 19th, and has travelled daily ever since, he has not yet reached the place of his destination. His brother is ahead of him, and the lady in the rear. One woman has devoted herself under the wheels, and a shocking sight it was. Another also intended to devote herself, missed the wheels with her body, and had her arm broken. Three people lost their lives in the crowd. The place swarms with fakirs and mendicants, whose devices to attract attention are, in many instances, ingenious. You see some standing for half the day on their heads, bawling all the while for alms; some having their eyes filled with mud, and their mouths with straw; some lying in puddles of water; one man with his foot tied to his neck, another with a pot of fire on his belly, and a third enveloped in a network made of rope.

When the question is asked, At whose instigation, and for whose benefit is this monstrous festival celebrated? the answer must be, That of the Brahmins, who are maintained in idleness and luxury on the endowments of the temple, and the immense revenue obtained by levying a pilgrim tax. Upwards of 3000 of their families subsist in this way, and manage to have not only lodging, but also board, free of expense. The appetite of the idol is so insatiable that he eats fifty-two times a day, and gives sufficient occupation to nearly 400 cooks. It is needless to say that their cookery goes to other mouths than that of Juggernaut, and that the voluntary presents of rice which pilgrims are encouraged to make as a means of propitiating his favour, besides sufficing for the priests, leaves a surplus, which, deriving additional value from having been consecrated, finds numerous and eager purchasers. Even such palpable imposture suffices not to satisfy the Brahminical avarice, and votaries are allured to the temple by means of a far more disgraceful nature. Among the regular attendants of the temple are 120 dancing girls. The nature of their employment is thus explained by Dubois:—“The service they perform consists of dancing and singing. The first they execute with grace, though with lascivious attitudes and motions. Their chanting is generally confined to the obscene songs which relate to some circumstance or other of the licentious lives of their gods. They perform these religious duties at the temple to which they belong twice a day—morning and evening. They are also obliged to assist at all the public ceremonies, which they enliven with their dance and merry song. As soon as their public business is over, they open their cells of infamy, and convert the temple of worship into a den of licentiousness.”

In reading such descriptions as the above, one would fain forget how closely connected the British government once was with this very temple. When, in the course of conquest, the territory in which it was situated became an integral part of our Indian empire, it was necessary that some precautions should be taken against the disturbance of the public peace, by the vast crowds brought together from all parts of the country to celebrate the festivals. Had the East India Company, acting with the consent, or rather by the direct authority of the government at home, confined themselves to interference for this purpose alone, it could not have been misunderstood, and would in itself have been unobjectionable. Most unwisely, and we need not hesitate to add, impiously, they virtually took the grim and obscene idol under their protection, by undertaking to levy his revenues, and defray all the expenses of his establishment. In consequence of the connection thus formed they not only appointed one of their servants to collect the pilgrim tax, and pay over any residue which might accrue into their own treasury, but furnished part at least of the trappings used in the festival. There can be no doubt of the fact; and hence Stirling, in his excellent account of Orissa, inserted in volume xv. of the Asiatic Researches, when alluding incidentally to the appearance of the raths or cars, says, that “every part of the ornament is of the most mean and paltry description, save only the covering of striped and spangled broadcloth furnished from the export warehouse of the British government, the splendour and gorgeous effect of which compensate in a great measure for other deficiencies of decoration.” The cutting censure here implied is afterwards distinctly pronounced when he describes the difficulty of dragging the cars from the flagging zeal of the pilgrims; and then adds—“Even the gods’ own proper servants will not labour zealously and effectually without the interposition of authority. I imagine the ceremony would soon cease to be conducted on its present scale and footing, if the institution were left entirely to its fate, and to its own resources, by the officers of the British government.” In other words, a government professedly Christian was engaged in the unhallowed task of not only countenancing idolatry in its most abominable form, but of propping it up when it was falling by its own weight. It is needless to examine the arguments, partly mercenary and partly Machiavellian, employed to justify this alliance with idolatry, since the moral sense revolts against it, and public opinion, once blinded, has become alive to its enormity, and extinguished it for ever.

The character of the gods and the kind of worship deemed acceptable to them having been explained, it will now be necessary to examine the other leading articles of the Hindoo creed, and thus obtain a key to the motives by which those who profess it are influenced in their religious observances. Man never sinks so low as not to have some religion. The idea of the existence of a higher order of beings than himself is so natural that some have conceived it to be innate, and there is an easy transition from this idea to the conviction, that such beings, besides being cognizant of human affairs, exercise a direct and powerful influence over them. Hence the important question arises—According to what rule do they act in distributing their favours? or, By what course of conduct may these be most effectually secured? The importance of this question is greatly increased by the consideration of a future state. When the body dies, the spirit which animated it is not extinguished. It only departs from the tabernacle in which it dwelt, or escapes from the prison-house in which it was confined, and has thereby, in all probability, been rendered more susceptible than ever of pleasure and pain. The belief that these are not dispensed indiscriminately, but awarded according to desert, gives meaning, and is in fact the great incentive to religious observance. Some homage might indeed be paid to a higher nature from instinctive respect and veneration, without expectation of ulterior benefit, but formal and regular worship never would be performed by any one not persuaded that he might by means of it promote at once his present and his future welfare. All systems of religion, therefore, how widely soever they may differ in their particular features, must be based on certain fundamental beliefs—an over-ruling providence belonging exclusively to one Supreme Being, or ascribed by a foolish imagination to an indefinite series of so-called deities—a future state—and a distribution of rewards and punishments, according to some fixed rule of favour or supposed desert. In the Christian system each of these is exhibited in its most perfect form—one only God, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness—a future state, in which the destiny of every individual, the moment he quits the present life, is irrevocably fixed—and a distribution of happiness and misery, not indeed according to a desert of which human nature is incapable, but as the completion of a wondrous plan in which truth meets with mercy, and righteousness with peace. In all these respects Hindooism presents not a resemblance, but a hideous contrast. The nature of its gods has been seen. Turn now to its future state.

The great peculiarity of the Hindoo creed in regard to a future state is its doctrine of a transmigration of souls, which, having been borrowed from them by the Greeks, has received the name of metempsychosis. According to this doctrine, the present life is intended not so much for probation as for transition. As a general rule, the soul on quitting the body passes into another, and thus commences a new life, no longer, it may be, in the form of a human being, but in that of a lower animal, or even of a vegetable. There is no necessity for confining this curious process to the future, and hence it is actually extended to both the present and the past. All the forms of life now existing are animated by beings who, though utterly unconscious of the fact, previously existed, and owe their present place in the scale of being to the course of conduct which they then pursued. Those in the lower and more degrading forms are paying the penalty of former misdeeds; those more favourably situated are entitled, besides congratulating themselves on their good fortune, to take credit for a fund of merit of which they are now reaping the reward. This strange doctrine leads directly to important practical results. Poverty, misfortune, and all the ills which flesh is heir to, we have been taught to regard as divine dispensations, sent more in mercy than in judgment, and designed for the moral improvement, both of the sufferers themselves, and of those who only witnessed their sufferings. While the former are invited to look upward, and aspire to a better happiness than this world can bestow, the latter are enjoined to sympathize with the distresses, and minister as stewards of the divine bounty to the necessities of their less fortunate brethren. The Hindoo view does not allow any such lessons to be taught. It first identifies misfortune with crime, committed in the present or in a former life, and then refuses to relieve it, on the hypocritical pretext that to do so were to thwart the design of the deity by whom the penalty is inflicted. This is not a theoretical inference, but a well ascertained fact; and hence, when, as not unfrequently happens, the flesh of one of the swinging devotees gives way, and he is dashed down to instant death, the spectators either look on with apathy, or give utterance to their belief that he would not have been killed in this way if he had not deserved it.

This hardness of heart, steeling a man against his fellow, and making him indifferent to his fate, is not the only pernicious consequence of the dogma of transmigration. While it destroys mutual sympathy, and thus deprives society of one of the strongest bonds by which its stability and good order are maintained, it operates still more injuriously on the individual. Life has an object truly worthy of the name, when it is regarded as the period during which immortal happiness must be gained, or for ever forfeited. On the contrary, when it is regarded as nothing more than one in a series of metamorphoses, of which many have already taken place and others are to follow in almost endless succession, its main interest is destroyed, and it becomes incapable of furnishing the necessary incentive to piety and virtue in the shape of a final and eternal reward. What the human soul longs for, after it has been made sensible of its original dignity and desirous of regaining it, is a haven of purity and felicity, where it may rest secure after all the toils and trials of the present life are ended; whereas Hindooism only offers a repetition of the same toils and trials under a new form—a repetition which indeed has some imaginary limits assigned to it, but those so remote, that it may after the lapse of ages give no signs of drawing to a close.

A less unfavourable view of the dogma of transmigration is sometimes taken, and it has been said that by it “hope seems denied to none; the most wicked man, after being purged of his crimes by ages of suffering and repeated transmigrations, may ascend in the scale of being, until he may enter into heaven, and even attain the highest reward of all the good, which is incorporation in the essence of God.” Such a result being certainly possible, it may be worth while to trace the steps of the process by which it is to be obtained. In the twelfth chapter of the Institutes of Menu, which treats at length of transmigration and final beatitude, the explanation of the dogma is as follows:— “A rational creature has a reward or a punishment for mental acts in his mind; for verbal acts in his organs of speech; for corporeal acts in his bodily frame. For sinful acts corporeal, a man shall assume a vegetable or mineral form; for such acts verbal, the form of a bird or a beast; for acts mental, the lowest of human conditions.” Again: “Be it known, that the three qualities of the rational soul are a tendency to goodness, to passion, and to darkness; and endued with one or more of them, it remains incessantly attached to all these created substances.” “When a man perceives in the reasonable soul a disposition tending to virtuous love, unclouded with any malignant passion, clear as the purest light, let him recognize it as the quality of goodness; a temper of mind which gives uneasiness, and produces disaffection, let him consider as the adverse quality of passion, ever agitating embodied spirits; that indistinct, inconceivable, unaccountable disposition of a mind naturally sensual and clouded with infatuation, let him know to be the quality of darkness.” Each of these three qualities or dispositions of mind admits of three degrees—a highest, a middle, and a lowest. The corresponding transmigrations are thus described:—1. “Vegetable and mineral substances, worms, insects and reptiles, fish, snakes, tortoises, cattle, shakals, are the lowest forms to which the dark quality leads; elephants, horses, men of the servile class, and contemptible Mlech’has (barbarians), lions, tigers, and boars, are the mean states procured by the quality of darkness; dancers and singers, birds, and deceitful men, giants and blood-thirsty savages, are the highest conditions to which the dark quality can ascend.” 2. “Jhallas or cudgel-players, mallas or boxers and wrestlers, natus or actors, those who teach the use of weapons, and those who are addicted to gaming and drinking, are the lowest forms occasioned by the passionate quality; kings, men of the fighting class, domestic priests of kings, and men skilled in the war of controversy, are the middle states caused by the quality of passion; gandharas or aerial musicians, ghuyacas and yacshas or servants and companions of Cuvera, genii attending superior gods, as the vidyadharas and others; together with various companies of apsarases or nymphs, are the highest of those forms which the quality of passion attains.” 3. “Hermits, religious mendicants, other Brahmins, such orders of demigods as are wafted in airy cars, genii of the signs and lunar mansions, and daityas, are the lowest of the states procured by the quality of goodness; sacrificers, holy sages, deities of the lower heaven, genii of the Vedas, regents of stars, divinities of years, pitris or progenitors of mankind, and the demigods named sadhyas, are the middle forms to which the good quality conveys; Brahma with four faces, creators of worlds, as Marichi, the genius of virtue, the divinities presiding over Mahat or the Mighty, and Avyacta or Unperceived, are the highest conditions to which, by the good quality, souls are exalted.”

In regard to those possessing the quality of goodness, it seems to be held that as soon as the present body dies, the soul rises at once to its destined elevation, and hence goodness in the highest degree exempts its possessor from transmigration of any kind, and gives him what is conceived to be the greatest of all possible rewards—immediate absorption into the divine essence. Where goodness is possessed in its middle and lowest, and passion in its highest degree, the reward, though immediate, requires a transmigration. Persons thus qualified are admitted to some kind of celestial mansion, where they either act as ministering servants in the form of aerial musicians, nymphs, and genii, or become demigods, wafted in airy cars, occupants of the lunar mansions, regents of stars, deities of the lower heaven, &c. Here doubtless their happiness is great, for Hindoo imagination has done its best to furnish the habitations of the gods with everything that ministers to enjoyment—with palaces of gold resplendent with gems, magnificent gardens watered by crystal streams and producing all kinds of delicious fruits, lovely flowers and fragrant perfumes, music chanted by aerial choristers, and perpetual feasts, by which the appetite is always gratified and never cloyed. The abode of Yama must indeed be visited before these heavens can be reached; but for them it has no terrors, since their path lies along delightful meadows, under the shade of magnificent trees, and by the banks of streams covered with the lotus. The mansions which those possessing only the lower degrees of goodness are taught to anticipate, are in fact far more attractive than the final reward of absorption, which, in any view that can be taken of it, looks very like annihilation. It is not therefore surprising that the number who would be contented with the former is far greater than that of those who aspire to the latter. In the Hindoo system, however, even the happiness of heaven has a canker in it. It is not immortal. After a period, which, however long it may be, is so fixed and definite, that its days and years can be counted, a new cycle begins. The inhabitants, in the midst of their enjoyments, cannot forget the fact that they must sooner or later quit them, and be driven into exile, to enter on some new state of being, in which it may be their lot to sink to some unfathomable abyss of misery. When thus taught that blessedness, even when attained, is held by a precarious tenure, the worshipper does not reason very illogically when he resolves to give up all thoughts of the future, and confine his aspirations to the present life.

Besides those who are at once united to Brahma by absorption, without transmigration, and those who possess merit sufficient to obtain temporary admission into some kind of heaven, there are others—forming, it is to be suspected, the far greater number—to whom the future presents itself only as a period of fearful retribution. These consisting chiefly of those in whom the quality of darkness predominates, are not considered fit even for transmigration till they have, in part at least, expiated their guilt in one of the numerous hells provided for that purpose. When after death they set out for the court of Yama, who is to sit in judgment on them and fix their doom, they perform the journey amid inconceivable horrors, and rend the air with shrieks and wailing. The sentence passed consigns them to a hell where the torment is adapted to the guilt which it is meant to punish. One sticks in the mud with his head downward, another is plunged in boiling oil, another is being sawed in two; some stand among molten metal, some have their toe nails or tongues wrenched out, and numbers have their entrails perpetually gnawed by ravenous beasts, birds, and reptiles. It is only after “having passed,” as the Institutes of Menu express it, “through terrible regions of torture for a great number of years,” that they are condemned to new births. And what births? Some migrate “a hundred times into the forms of grasses, of shrubs with crowded stems, or of creeping and twining plants, of carnivorous animals, of beasts with sharp teeth, or of cruel brutes;” others “pass a thousand times into the bodies of spiders, of snakes and cameleons, of aquatic monsters, or of mischievous blood-sucking demons.” Again, “If a man steal grain in the husk, he shall be born a rat; if a yellow mixed metal, a gander; if water, a plava or diver; if honey, a great stinging gnat; if milk, a crow; if expressed juice, a dog; if clarified butter, an ichineumon weasel,” and so on through a long list, in some of which a congruity between the crime and the punishment may be detected, while in others the birth seems to have been selected at random by fancy run riot. It is added that “women who have committed similar thefts incur a similar taint, and shall be paired with those male beasts in the form of their females.” Such, then, is the future state which Hindooism has prepared for those who embrace it. An absorption into the divine essence, destructive of personal identity, and consequently equivalent to annihilation, is the highest blessedness to which its greatest saints can aspire; a heaven furnished with all that is most captivating to the senses, but not destined for perpetuity, constitutes its next highest reward; and a hell of unspeakable misery, to be followed after thousands of years by reappearance in the world, under some degenerate form, is the only doom which the great majority of worshippers can anticipate. As even this doom is not fixed beyond the possibility of change, there is a sense in which it may be said, that “hope is denied to none;” but the truth of the case would be more accurately expressed by saying, that to all professing Hindoos, with the exception of a comparatively small number, to whom peculiar favour is shown, the natural tendency of their creed is not to cherish hope, but to produce indifference or despair. This will be made manifest by attending to the mode in which its rewards and punishments are distributed.

All actions not indifferent, naturally range themselves under the two great heads of “virtuous” and “vicious.” Every form of religion, false as well as true, recognizes this important classification, and professes to distribute rewards and punishments in accordance with it. In this respect Hindooism follows the common rule, and presents a system of morality which, notwithstanding some glaring defects and excrescences, does not suffer by comparison with any other system derived from the mere light of nature. Thus, not only is the fundamental principle laid down, that, “for the sake of distinguishing actions, He (the supreme Ruler) made a total difference between right and wrong;” but the peculiar qualities belonging to each are enumerated with considerable accuracy and fulness. Even from the Institutes of Menu, though not specially intended to furnish a complete moral code, it would be possible to extract a series of precepts enjoining the observance of almost all individual and relative duties. The following quotations give a sufficient specimen. In regard to the natural tendencies of virtue and vice, it is declared that “even here below an unjust man attains no felicity;” and, therefore, though a man should be “oppressed by penury, in consequence of his righteous dealings, let him never give his mind to unrighteousness; for he may observe the speedy overthrow of iniquitous and sinful men. Yes; iniquity once committed, fails not of producing fruit to him that wrought it; if not in his own person, yet in his sons, or if not in his sons, yet in his grandsons. He grows rich for a while through unrighteousness; then he beholds good things; then it is that he vanquishes his foes; but he perishes at length from his root upwards.” To these observations, equally sound in principle and confirmed by experience, it is immediately added, “Let a man continually take pleasure in truth, in justice, in laudable practices, and in purity; let him chastise those whom he may chastise in a legal mode; let him keep in subjection his speech, his arm, and his appetite; wealth and pleasures repugnant to law, let him shun; and even lawful acts, which may cause future pain or be offensive to mankind. Let him not have nimble hands, restless feet, or voluble eyes; let him not be crooked in his ways; let him not be flippant in his speech, nor intelligent in doing mischief; let him walk in the path of good men.” Should the discharge of duty involve the loss of life, it is expressly decided that the former must be preferred. “On a comparison between death and vice, the learned pronounce vice the more dreadful, since after death a vicious man sinks to regions lower and lower, while a man free from vice reaches heaven.” In a similar spirit the superiority of moral obligations to ritual observances is thus declared—“A wise man should constantly discharge all the moral duties, though he perform not constantly the ceremonies of religion; since he falls low if, while he performs ceremonial acts only, he discharge not his moral duties.” And again, “To a man contaminated by sensuality, neither the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor strict observances, nor pious austerities, ever procure felicity.”

It ought also to be observed, that the morality inculcated is not that which consists merely in outward act, but that which has its seat in the heart, and controls its secret purposes. Accordingly, it is forbidden to “injure another in deed or in thought;” and in several passages some approach is made to a celebrated declaration in the “Sermon on the Mount,” by stigmatizing lascivious looks and thoughts as a species of adultery. A still more marked resemblance to the morality of the New Testament is observable in the homage paid to what are called the passive virtues. One of those specially recommended is “returning good for evil;” and in describing the course which a Brahmin ought to follow in the last stage of his appointed discipline, it is said, “Let him not wish for death; let him not wish for life; let him expect his appointed time, as a kind servant expects his wages; let him utter words purified by truth; let him by all means keep his heart purified.” Again, “Let him bear a reproachful speech with patience; let him speak reproachfully to no man; let him not, on account of this frail and feverish body, engage in hostility with any one living. With an angry man let him not in his turn be angry; abused, let him speak mildly. Delighted with meditating on the supreme Spirit, sitting fixed in such meditation, without needing anything earthly, without one sensual desire, without any companion but his own soul, let him live in this world seeking the bliss of the next.”

From the pure and elevated tone pervading these quotations, it might be supposed that Hindooism demands from all its votaries a strict observance of moral precepts, and confers its highest future rewards, without distinction of persons, on those who make the greatest progress in true piety and virtue. The rule actually followed is very different. In the lives of the favourite deities, licentiousness prevails to such an extent as to counteract, by its example, the practical effect of any precepts opposed to it; and hence, while morality is in a great measure discarded, a substitute for it has been found in mummeries and austerities which, though dignified with the name of devotion, are merely mechanical, inasmuch as the performance of them does not require any act of the understanding or call forth any emotion of the heart. This so-called devotion is thus eulogized—“All the bliss of deities and of men is declared by sages who discern the sense of the Veda, to have in devotion its cause, in devotion its continuance, and in devotion its fulness.” “Perfect health or unfailing medicines, divine learning, and the various mansions of deities, are acquired by devotion alone; their efficient cause is devotion. Whatever is hard to be traversed, whatever is hard to be acquired, whatever is hard to be visited, whatever is hard to be performed, all this may be accomplished by true devotion; for the difficulty of devotion is the greatest of all. Even sinners in the highest degree, and of course the other offenders, are absolved from guilt by austere devotion well practised. Worms and insects, serpents, moths, beasts, birds, and vegetables, attain heaven by the power of devotion. Whatever sin has been conceived in the hearts of men, uttered in their speech, or committed in their bodily acts, they speedily burn it away by devotion, if they preserve devotion as their best wealth.

In regard to this devotion, it is to be observed in the first place, that the portion of it which is conceived to constitute the highest perfection, and for which, consequently, the greatest rewards are reserved, is utterly impracticable to the great body of the Hindoo population. It requires free access to the Veda, but in point of fact this access is so far from being free that it is fenced round by an impassable barrier. The whole Sudra class—in other words, the people generally—are strictly prohibited from forming any acquaintance with it. It must not be read in their presence; and the Brahmin presuming to teach it to them, commits a sin so heinous as to sink him to one of the lowest hells. Even the mode of expiating sin must not be taught to a Sudra; and in any religious act in which he may “imitate the practice of good men,” he must not make mention of “any holy text,” though it is again and again declared that on such mention the efficacy of the act itself mainly depends. Hence it appears that Hindooism, so far from placing all men on an equal footing, and rewarding them according to their deserts, is a system of unvarnished and revolting favouritism, confining the means of attaining final felicity to the few, and consigning the many to a state of helpless ignorance, which makes their perdition all but inevitable.

It is to be observed, in the second place, with regard to this lauded devotion, that when it is closely examined the praises bestowed upon it are found to be undeserved. In some passages quoted above from the Institutes of Menu, the insufficiency of mere ritual observances is distinctly declared. The following passage goes still farther; for it declares that forgiveness cannot be obtained without a repentance proved genuine by its fruits:—“In proportion as a man who has committed a sin shall truly and voluntarily confess it, so far he is disengaged from that offence, like a snake from his slough; and in proportion as his heart sincerely loathes his evil deed, so far shall his vital spirit be freed from the taint of it. If he commit sin, and actually repent, that sin shall be removed from him; but if he merely say, ‘I will sin thus no more,’ he can only be released by an actual abstinence from guilt.” Such passages, however, prove only to be lights shining in a dark place. Many other passages breathe so different a spirit, that they look as if they had been introduced for the mere purpose of contradicting them or neutralizing their effect; and devotion, so far from depending for its efficacy on purity of heart and amendment of life, derives one of its chief recommendations from its supposed ability to act as a substitute for them. So little, indeed, does this devotion partake of the nature of a reasonable service, that in a passage which has been already quoted, the lower animals are supposed capable of performing and profiting by it. The chief ingredients in it are suppressions of the breath, inaudible utterances, repetitions by rote, irksome or painful postures, voluntary privations, and austerities.

In justification of the character thus ascribed to Hindoo devotion, it will again be necessary to make a few quotations from the Institutes of Menu. “Even three suppressions of breath, made according to the divine rule, accompanied with the triverbal phrase and the trilateral syllable, may be considered as the highest devotion of a Brahmin.” The “triverbal phrase” consists of three Sanskrit words, bhur, bhuruh, swer, meaning earth, sky, heaven. The trilateral syllable is A U M, contracted into om, and considered, as already mentioned, emblematic of the godhead. Again:—“A priest who shall know the Veda, and shall pronounce to himself, both morning and evening, that syllable (om), and that holy text (the gayatri), preceded by the three words, shall attain the sanctity which the Veda confers.” Lest the words, “know the Veda,” used in this passage, should be supposed to mean a thorough practical knowledge, it is elsewhere said that “this holy scripture is a sure refuge even for those who understand not its meaning;” and that “a priest who should retain in his memory the whole Rig Veda would be absolved from guilt, even if he had slain the inhabitants of the three worlds, and had eaten food from the foulest hands.” The same spirit prevails in all the various modes employed for the expiation of guilt, and whatever the offence, the offender may always purge away the guilt of it by some device which only touches him in his purse or his person, without tending in the least to purify his mind. It is true that many of the penances enjoined are not only severe, but horrible; and that by a kind of will-worship devotees have made a large addition to the number, so that there is scarcely a form of human suffering to which recourse is not had in the vain hope of thereby pacifying the conscience, and conciliating the divine favour. The number of persons engaged in this hopeless task, and the aggregate amount of suffering which they must endure, attest the existence of a deep religious feeling in the Hindoo, since it is this alone which makes him so ingenious in the art of self-tormenting. The more melancholy, therefore, is the fact, that this religious feeling has only made him the prey of religious impostors, and bound him in the chains of a superstition so full of absurdity, obscenity, and cruelty. Considering the character of Hindooism, nothing seems so extraordinary as the hold which it takes of its votaries. The monstrosities of its beliefs, and the painful sacrifices which its worship demands, seem only additional inducements to cling to it with pertinacity.

City; and while almost on every other subject a general listlessness and apathy prevail, Hindooism, without one particle of rational evidence to support it, keeps its head erect, and stands its ground even when confronted with Christianity. This tenaciousness of life is doubtless owing in part to the way in which it gratifies the wishes of our fallen nature; but there is reason also to suspect that a nervous anxiety to avoid everything that might tend to awaken suspicion or alarm in the native mind has often operated as a direct encouragement to Hindooism, and placed it on a kind of vantage ground which it is not entitled to occupy.

Hindooism is precluded by its very nature from attempting to gain converts from other religions. Every individual who professes it must have been born a Hindoo, and belong to one or other of its numerous castes. The admission of a foreigner is consequently impossible, and there can be no such thing as conversion in the ordinary sense of the term. Men not born Hindoos cannot possibly become so by any other kind of process. Occasionally some eccentric European has renounced his own civilization, and become a professed worshipper of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and others of the multifarious gods of the Hindoo pantheon; but nothing could remove the taint of his birth, or make him anything better than an outcast. From not attending to this fact, or drawing the proper inference from it, some writers have launched out in the praises of Hindooism as a tolerant system, and contrasted it in this respect with the intolerance and persecution which figure so frequently and prominently in the history of the Christian church. A Hindoo, it is said, bears no enmity to a Mahometan or a Christian. Neither to the one nor the other does he apply the opprobrious epithets of heretic and infidel. On the contrary, he liberally expresses his belief that the supreme Being who gave him his religion gave them theirs, and that each, therefore, does right in worshipping according to his own. This talk is specious but hollow. The Hindoo, regarding his religion as his birthright, cannot think that any disparagement is cast upon it when those born without its pale, and consequently incapable of belonging to it, worship differently. The true way to test his toleration is to attend to the feelings with which he regards those who, born Hindoos like himself, differ with him in regard to some of the essential points of their common faith. Here only there is risk of collision, and therefore here only is there full scope for the exercise of toleration. Brought to this test, it will be found that Hindoos are as illiberal, virulent, and bloodthirsty as the worst persecutors who have disgraced the Christian name.

Though the Hindoos do not, like the Roman Catholics, pretend to be under the guidance of a living infallible head, who, by deciding points of faith, secures a species of external unity, they possess standards which they believe to be inspired, and to which, therefore, whenever questions arise, the ultimate appeal must be made. These are the writings of which some account has already been given. They are included under the general name of Sastras or Shasters, and are both voluminous in bulk and multifarious in contents, consisting of the Vedas and the Puranas. The latter are alleged to have been, like the former, compiled by Vyasa, but are evidently of various later dates, between the eighth and the sixteenth centuries of our era, and though regarded as authentic, disfigured by sectarian fables. Those who profess to receive all those Shasters, and to worship in conformity to them, are considered orthodox. Not being easily reconciliable with themselves or with each other, the Shasters afford large room for latitude of opinion, and for the selection of favourite divinities out of the long list of those to whom worship is authorized. To this latitude and this selection no objection is made, and the great body of the Brahmins, while holding their peculiar views and gratifying their particular fancies, treat each other with mutual forbearance. There are many, however, whom this kind of forbearance does not satisfy. It is not enough for them that they may be worshippers of Vishnu, or of Siva, or of any of the old recognized divinities, according as their choice may be; they also claim the right of insisting that their favourite divinity is supreme, and ought consequently to be worshipped to the exclusion of every other. Some go still farther, and introduce not only old gods under new forms, but new gods altogether. Here forbearance having reached its limit stops, collision becomes inevitable, and in the strife which ensues, though a body of so-called orthodox remains, a number of distinct sects are formed. The Hindoo sects are usually ranged in four classes—Vaishnavas, or worshippers of Vishnu; Saivas, or worshippers of Siva; Saktas, or worshippers of Saktis, the consorts or energies of the male divinities; and Miscellaneous, including all who do not belong to any of the other three. A very complete account of these sects has been given by Professor Wilson, in the sixteenth and seventeenth volumes of the Asiatic Researches; and all that need be done here is to select from it a description of some features common to all these sects, and of the more remarkable opinions and practices by which some of the leading sects are distinguished.

Of the common features there is one which, as it strikes the eye, is the first that attracts notice. All sects are in the practice of discriminating themselves from the orthodox and from each other by various fantastical streaks on their faces, breasts, and arms. For this purpose all the Vaishnavas employ a white earth called gopichanduna. To be of the purest form it should be taken from a pool in which the gopis, or milkmaids, are said to have drowned themselves when they heard of Krishna’s death; but as this is not easily attainable, a substitute is found in a material to which the same name is given, though it is only a magnesian or calcareous clay. In using it, one sect draws two vertical lines from the root of the hair to the commencement of each eyebrow, and unites them by a transverse streak across the root of the nose; in the centre between the vertical lines a parallel streak of red is introduced. The breast and each upper arm are similarly marked. Some, not satisfied with these marks, have impressions of the shell, discus, club, and lotus, which Vishnu bears in his four hands, stamped on their bodies by carved wooden blocks, or sometimes even burned in by heated metallic plates. Such marks not only serve for distinction, but are supposed to possess great virtue; and hence it is asserted in the work called Kasi Khand, that Yama directs his ministers to avoid such as bear them, and that no sin can exist in the individuals who make use of them, be they of whatever caste. This mention of caste suggests another feature common though not universal among all sects. For the most part the distinction of caste is utterly disregarded by them, and the Brahmins as a class are eyed with hatred and treated with contempt, especially by the sectarian devotees of greatest pretensions.

Another more important feature common to the sects, is the subdivision of their members into various classes, especially into two, which Professor Wilson, for want of a better name, calls clerical and lay. The latter includes the great bulk of the votaries; the former are divided as in the Romish church into secular and regular, but without having the yoke of celibacy imposed on them. The unmarried, however, are in highest estimation as teachers, and as a general rule, the most influential members of each sect are solitaries and cenobites, who have secluded themselves from the ordinary cares and enjoyments of life, and live either by themselves as hermits, or in communities as monks. Convents are of course required, and under the name of maths, asthals, and akuras, are scattered over the whole country. Each math is under the control of a mahant or superior, with a certain number of resident chelas or disciples. By those, and from among their own number, he is usually elected; but in some instances, where the mahant marries, he transmits the office to his descendants. There is nothing like compulsory residence within the math, and hence most of the members spend the earlier part of their life wandering over the country singly or in bodies, and subsisting by alms, merchandise, or more questionable means. When old and infirm, they retire into some math previously existing, or found a new one. Among their mendicant and monastic orders of all sects, are certain devotees professing more than usual austerity, and distinguished by the names of Sanyasis, Vairagis, and Nagas. In a similar sense, the term fakir is also used by Hindoos, though being of Mahometan origin it is more properly descriptive of the mendicants of that faith. The only one of these classes which it is necessary particularly to notice are the Nagas, who, as their name implies, throw off every kind of covering and go naked. Having eradicated the sense of shame, they give free indulgence to all the vices which it might have helped them to cover, and are unquestionably the most worthless and profligate members of their respective religions. They always carry weapons—usually a matchlock, and sword, and shield, and wander in troops, soliciting alms, or rather levying contributions. The hatred which those of opposite sects bear to each other, has often led to sanguinary conflicts, in one of which, at Hurdwar, it is said that 18,000 of the Vaishnava Nagas were left dead on the field.

The sects of Vaishnavas are ranked by Professor Wilson under twenty different heads, but as many of them are ramifications of a single sect, the whole number may be greatly reduced. The most ancient and respectable of all is the Sri Sampradaya, founded about the twelfth century by the Vaishnava reformer, Ramanuja Acharya, from whom the members take the name of Ramanujyas. Ramanuja was a native of the south of India, and is the subject of many legends. According to one of these, he is an incarnation of the serpent Sesha, and had for his chief companions and disciples the embodied discus, mace, lotus, and other insignia of Vishnu. His usual residence was at Sri Ranga or Seringham. Here he composed his principal works, and hither, after visiting various parts of India, and reclaiming to Vishnu various shrines which the Saivas had usurped, he returned. During his absence, the disputes between the Vaishnavas and Saivas had become extremely violent, and the King of Chola, attached to the latter sect, issued an order to all the Brahmins in his dominions, to sign an acknowledgment of Siva’s supremacy. Ramanuja refused; and when armed men were sent to seize him, escaped to the Ghauts. On the death of the Chola king, his persecutor, he wandered back to Seringham, and there ended his days as a recluse. His followers are numerous, particularly in the Deccan, where they have many establishments. Their worship is addressed to Vishnu and Lakshmi, and their respective incarnations either singly or conjointly; the most striking peculiarities in their practice are the individual preparation and scrupulous privacy of their meals. Each person cooks for himself, and if seen by a stranger while thus engaged, or while eating, would bury the viands in the ground. Beside the marks above mentioned, they wear a necklace of the wood of the tulasi, and carry a rosary composed of its seeds or those of the lotus. Their chief religious tenet is that Vishnu was before all worlds, and the creator of all, and is, in fact, Brahm, the one self-existent principle, not however devoid of form or quality, but endowed with all good qualities, and with a twofold form—the supreme Spirit, or cause, and the universe or matter, the effect.

The most important branch of the Ramanujyas is the Ramawats or Ramnanandis, so called from their founder, Ramanand, who, though sometimes said to be an immediate disciple of Ramanuja, seems not to be earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. He was, however, of the sect of Ramanuja, till the scruples of some of its members drove him from its communion. As he had travelled much, they thought it impossible that he could have observed that privacy in his meals to which they attach so much importance. On this ground they condemned him to take his food by himself. He resented the treatment, and breaking off all connection with the Ramanujyas, founded a sect of his own. He resided at Benares, where he is said to have had a math which the Mahometans destroyed, and where a stone platform bearing the supposed impression of his feet is still shown. In Benares, as well as in many parts of Upper Hindoostan, his followers are numerous and influential. In their worship they recognize all the incarnations of Vishnu, but attach themselves particularly to that of Ramachandra. Hence their name of Ramawats. They also take the name of Aradhuta, or liberated, from discarding the peculiar strictness of the Ramanuja sect as to eating, leaving every one in this to follow his own inclination, or comply with common practice.

The most celebrated of Ramanand’s disciples was Kabir, the founder of a Vaishnava sect known by the name of the Kabir Panthis. He is entitled to particular notice from the boldness with which he assailed the whole system of idolatrous worship, and ridiculed the learning of the Pundits and the doctrines of the Shasters. As usual, his followers have given him a divine origin, by making him an incarnation of Vishnu. The legend is—that Nima, the wife of Nuri, a weaver, found him when an infant floating on a lotus in a pond near Benares. From this circumstance he has received the surname of the “Weaver.” It is not easy to fix the date when he flourished, because a life protracted to three hundred years is gravely claimed for him; but he probably belongs to the first half of the fifteenth century. The distinguishing feature of the sect is the refusal to worship any Hindoo deity, or perform any Hindoo rite. At the same time, the members enjoy considerable latitude, and if so disposed, may conform to the usages of the sect or caste to which they may happen to belong. This they justify on the ground, that as the state of the mind and heart is alone important, all outward acts are matters of indifference. In all sects implicit submission to the guru or spiritual guide is considered indispensable; but even in this, the Kabir Panthis give proof of an independent spirit, by refusing to acknowledge the authority of the guru until by previous examination his fitness has been fully tested. In the simplicity of this sect, and the Quaker-like spirit and demeanour of its members, there is little to captivate the populace; and hence, though widely diffused, it plumes itself more upon the character than the number of its adherents. Few of these are within the limits of Bengal proper; but at Benares, where the sect originated, it has still its principal seat, and is said to have on one occasion mustered its members to the number of 35,000. The importance of the sect is greatly increased by the number of branches which it has thrown out, and of other sects which sometimes with, and oftener without acknowledgment, have borrowed from its doctrines and been emboldened by its example.

The above subdivisions of Vaishnavas have their chief adherents in professed ascetics, or among those of the general mass of society, who are of a bold and curious spirit; but the opulent and luxurious among the men, and the far greater part of the women, confine their worship to Krishna and his mistress Radha.

The only worship which rivals it in popularity is that of the infant Krishna, or the Bala Gopala. It originated with Vallabha Acharya, the founder of a sect called after him Vallabhacharis, but better known under the two other names of Radha Sampradayas, or Gokulasta Gosains. One singular article of their creed is, that privation forms no part of sanctity, and that it is the duty of the teacher and his disciples to worship their deity “not in nudity and hunger, but in costly apparel and choice food—not in solitude and mortification, but in the pleasures of society and the enjoyment of the world.” Their practice corresponds. Most of their Gosains or teachers are married, and possessing unlimited influence over their followers, whom they bind to subjection of tan, mun, and dhan, or body, mind, and wealth, are maintained in ease and luxury. Great numbers of the mercantile class belong to this sect, and while constantly wandering over the country in the professed character of pilgrims, have a keen eye to the profits of trade. One of their dogmas is, that Golaka, the residence of Krishna, is far above the three worlds—Vaikunta and Keilas, the respective heavens of Vishnu and Siva, being no less than 500,000,000 of yoganas below it. While all else is subject to annihilation, Golaka is indestructible, and in its centre dwells Krishna, “of the colour of a dark cloud, in the bloom of youth, clad in yellow raiment, splendidly adorned with celestial gems, and holding a flute. Radha was produced from his left side, and 300 gopas, or male companions, exuded from the pores of his skin. The pores of Radha were equally prolific, and produced the same number of gopis, or female companions. In the temples and houses of the sect are images of Gopal, Krishna, and Radha, and other relative incarnations. The image of Krishna, not unfrequently of gold, represents him as a chubby boy, of a dark hue, richly decorated. In the temples he receives homage eight times a day. The nature of this homage is curious, and proceeds on the figment that the image is the living god, performing all the ordinary functions of life. Thus, in the morning, about half an hour after sunrise, the image, taken from the couch on which it is supposed to have slept, is washed and dressed, and being placed upon a seat is presented with slight refreshments. About an hour and a half afterwards, being anointed, perfumed, and richly dressed, he holds his public court. A visit is again paid him, when he is supposed to attend his cattle; and at midday, when he is supposed to return, a dinner, composed of all sorts of delicacies, is placed before him. A siesta is now deemed necessary, and is followed at intervals by an afternoon meal, an evening toilet, and preparations for going to bed. This accomplished, the worshippers retire, and the temple is shut till the following morning, when the same routine begins. At stated times, festivals of great celebrity are held. One of these, in which Krishna, in his form of Juggernaut, holds the principal place, has already been described. Another commemorates his nativity, and a third his dance with sixteen gopis. Both of these, but particularly the latter, when celebrated at Benares, attract immense crowds. The sect has many subdivisions, which form separate communities, but agree with it in all essential particulars. The most celebrated of its shrines is that of Sri Nath Dwar, in Ajmere. Hither the image is said to have transported itself from Mathura or Muttra, when Aurungzebe ordered the temple there to be destroyed. All the members of the sect are bound annually to visit this shrine, and of course contribute to it, in return for a certificate of their visit; the high-priest, or chief Gosain, holds the office by descent, and to this alone is indebted for the veneration paid to him. So little are peculiar sanctity and learning required, that the office has been frequently held by individuals destitute of both. At the time when Professor Wilson drew up his sketch, the actual chief was said not to understand the certificate he signed.

The only other Vaishnavas whom it seems necessary to mention, are those entitled by way of distinction Vaishnavas of Bengal, where they are supposed to form at least one-fifth of the whole population. Their founder was Chitanya, the son of a Brahmin originally from Silhet. He was born in 1485; but as he had been thirteen months in the womb, and was ushered into the world during an eclipse of the moon, his birth was regarded as a supernatural event. His followers accordingly regard him as an incarnation of Krishna, who assumed the form of Chitanya, for the purpose of instructing mankind in the true mode of worshipping him in this age. Chitanya, whose simplicity and enthusiasm fitted him for being a tool, had been put forward by two leading individuals of the names of Adwaitanaud and Nityanaud; and hence, in order to complete the connection, it has been deemed necessary that Krishna, besides incarnating Chitanya, should also animate the other two as anansas or portions of himself. At the age of twenty-four, Chitanya became a Vairagi, and spent six years wandering between Muttra and Juggernaut. At the end of this period, having appointed his two coadjutors to preside over the Vaishnavas of Bengal, he fixed his residence at Cuttack, and allowed his imagination to get so much the better of his judgment, that he was perpetually seeing beatific visions of Krishna, Radha, and the gopis. In one of these he mistook a river for the sea, and fancying that he saw Radha sporting in its blue waters, walked in till he was floated off his legs, and very narrowly escaped drowning by being dragged to shore in a fisherman’s net. His death, of which there is no distinct account, may be presumed to have happened in some similar way.

The Chitanyas regard Krishna as the Paramatma, or supreme Spirit, at once the cause and substance of creation. As creator, preserver, and destroyer, he is Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; but besides these greater manifestations, has assumed specific shapes, as avaturs, or descents; ansas, or portions; anssansas, or portions of portions; and so on, ad infinitum. His principal appearance as Krishna was renewed in Chitanya, who is therefore worshipped as that deity himself. His other form, as Gopal the cow-herd, or Goponath the lord of the milkmaids of Vindraban, are not forgotten; and due prominence is given to his juvenile feats under the name of Lila, or sport. The whole religious and moral code of the sect is comprised in the word bhakti, “a term that signifies a union of implicit faith with incessant devotion,” and “is the momentary repetition of the name of Krishna, under a firm belief that such a practice is sufficient for salvation.” Hence Krishna himself declares in the Bhagavat Gita that the worship of him alone gives the worshipper “whatever he wishes—paradise, liberation, godhead, and is infinitely more efficacious than all or any observances, than abstraction, than knowledge of the divine nature, than the subjugation of the passions, than the practice of the Yoga, than charity, than virtue, or than anything that is deemed most meritorious.” Besides the divisions which may be considered to belong to the sect, there are in Bengal three classes, which, though agreeing with it in many respects, differ so much in others, that they ought to be ranked as seceders from it. One of these, the Spashtha Dayaksa, presents two remarkable singularities—first, a denial of the divine character and despotic authority of the guru; and, secondly, the residence of male and female coenobites in the same math. The latter practice professes to be platonic. The male and female members regard each other as brothers and sisters, and have no other intercourse than that which arises from community of belief and interest, and the joint celebration of Krishna and Chitanya, with song and dance. The sisters act as the spiritual instructors of the females of respectable families, to which they have unrestricted access. The effect of this influence is manifested in “the growing diffusion of the doctrines of this sect in Calcutta, where it is specially established.”

The Saivas being far less numerous than the Vaishnavas, will not require to occupy so much space as has been given to their rivals. To judge by the number of shrines dedicated to the Linga, the only form under which Siva is worshipped, it might seem to be the most prevalent of all modes of adoration; but these shrines have comparatively few votaries, and are not regarded with much veneration. The temple of Visweswara at Benares is indeed thronged with a never-ceasing crowd of worshippers; but even here, though the most celebrated resort of Siva’s votaries, no enthusiasm is displayed, and the votive offerings of flowers or fruit are thrown before the image with no appearance of solemnity and veneration. Among the Brahmins, indeed, and the orthodox generally, Siva is a favourite divinity, and the Linga receives their adoration in temples, private houses, and by the banks of streams; but in Upper India he has never been a popular deity. His emblem, little understood or regarded by the uninitiated, neither interests the feelings nor excites the imagination, and none of the legends recorded of him are of a pleasing and poetical character. The number of the Saiva sects in Professor Wilson’s list amounts to nine, but only a few of these are so important or independent as to require separate notice.

The Dandis, distinguished by carrying a small dand or wand, with several processes or projections, and attached to the wand a piece of cord dyed with red ochre, in which the sacrificial cord is supposed to be enshrined, are legitimate representatives of the last stage of Brahminical life. According to rule, they should live, not in but only near towns, as solitaries; but generally disregarding the rule, they live like other mendicants collected in maths. The worship of Siva as Bhairava is their prevailing form; and their common ceremony of initiation consists in inflicting a small incision on the inner part of the knee, and presenting the blood which flows as an acceptable offering. The use of fire being absolutely prohibited to them, they dispose of their dead by putting them into coffins, and burying them or committing them to some sacred stream. The Dasnami Dandis, regarded as descendants of the original fraternity, derive their origin from the celebrated teacher Sankara Acharya, who figures much in the religious history of Hindoostan, though his influence has been overrated. The period when he flourished cannot be fixed with certainty, but seems to have been about the eighth or ninth century. From him ten classes of mendicants have descended. Three of these and part of a fourth, regarded as the only genuine Sankara Dandis, are numerous at Benares and in its vicinity, and besides distinguishing themselves as able expounders of the Vedanta, have rendered important service to different branches of Sanskrit literature. Others of them are notorious as sturdy beggars, and claiming a close connection with the Brahmins, never fail, when a feast is given to them, to appear, and insist on a share of the good things which have been provided.

The Yogis are so called from the Yoga or Patanjala school of philosophy, which maintains the practicability of acquiring, even in this life, entire command over elementary matter. The modes of accomplishing this are very various, consisting chiefly “of long-continued suppressions of respiration; of inhaling and exhaling the breath in a particular manner; of sitting in eighty-four different attitudes; of fixing the eyes on the top of the nose, and endeavouring by the force of mental abstraction to effect a union between the portion of the vital spirit residing in the body and that which pervades all nature.” On effecting this union, the Yogi, though in a human body, is liberated “from the dog of material incumbrance.” He can make himself light or heavy, vast or minute, as he pleases; traverse all space, animate a dead body, render himself invisible, become equally acquainted with present, past, and future, and by final union with Siva exempt himself from all future transmigration. Few Yogis lay claim at present to this perfection, and therefore, as a substitute, most of them content themselves with mummeries and juggling tricks which cheat the vulgar into a belief of their powers. One of these tricks, of which the explanation has not been discovered, is sitting in the air and remaining for a considerable period under water. One individual has made extraordinary displays of this kind, but the secret has not been communicated to his fellow-devotees. As a popular sect the Yogis acknowledge Gorakhnath as their founder. He probably flourished in the beginning of the fifteenth century. They are usually called Kanphatas, from having their ears bored and rings inserted in them at the time of their initiation.

The next important sect of Saivas is that of the Lingayets or Jangamas, whose essential characteristic is the wearing a representation of the Linga on some part of their dress or person. They are very numerous in the Deccan, but are rarely met with in Upper India except as mendicants, “leading about a bull, the living type of Nandi, the bull of Siva, decorated with housings of various colours, and strings of cowrie shells.” Accompanying a conductor, who carries a bell in his hand, they go about from place to place, subsisting upon alms. The Paramahansas, another sect, pretend to be solely occupied with the investigation of Brahma, or spirit, and to be equally indifferent to pleasure or pain. Some, in proof of having acquired this perfection, go naked in all weathers, never speak, and never indicate any natural want. They are hence fed by their attendants, as if they were helpless as infants. Under this pretended helplessness much knavery is practised. But superstition assumes a still more offensive form in the Aghoris. Their original worship was paid to Devi, in some of her more terrific forms, and is said to have consisted partly in offering human victims. Hence they assumed a corresponding appearance, and carried about for a wand and water-pot a staff set with bones and the upper half of a human skull. The abominable worship has long been suppressed, but traces of it still exist in disgusting wretches who go about extorting alms. They eat and drink whatever is offered to them, should it be carrion or ordure. With the latter they smear their bodies, and carry it about with them in a wooden cup or skull, either to swallow it, if by so doing they can gain a few pice, or to throw it on the persons or into the houses of those who refuse to comply with their demands. They also inflict gashes on their limbs, that the crime of blood may rest on those who deny them charity; and by means of this and similar devices, work upon the timid and credulous Hindoo. Other Saivas are distinguished by similar though less disgusting enormities, and practise the tortures which have been mentioned in describing the festivals of Kali and Juggernaut. Thus the Urdhabahus are the devotees who extend one or both arms above their heads till they remain of themselves thus elevated, and allow their nails to grow till they completely perforate the hand; and the Akasmukhis hold up their faces to the sky till the muscles of the back of the neck become contracted and retain it in that position.

The Saktas, or worshippers of the Sakti, the wives, or active energies of the male deities, are numerous among all classes. If their bias is in favour of the supremacy of Vishnu, their worship is offered to Lakshmi; on the other hand, if the bias is towards Siva, the worship is offered to Parvati, Bhavani, or Durga. In Bengal the latter worship is by far the more popular. Saraswati, also, is not so much forgotten as Brahma her lord; and among the populace generally a great number of malevolent and hideous demons are regularly worshipped. One great authority for the Sakti worship is the Brahma Vaivartta Purana, one section of which, the Prakriti Khanda, is devoted to the subject. According to it, Brahma having determined to create the universe, became twofold—the right half male, and the left half female. The latter was Prakriti, illusion, eternal and without end, and under her various forms, chiefly of Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati, has produced all other female existences. Besides her principal avatars, she has also subdivided herself into almost endless portions, and thus given rise not only to the whole body of goddesses, and nymphs of every order, but to every creature, human or brutal, of the female sex: while Purusha, the other half of Brahma, has in like manner given rise to all males. Another still more important series of authorities for the Sakti worship are an immense body of writings called the Tantras, which those who follow them regard as a fifth Veda, as ancient as the others, and even of superior authority. A few of them may have existed before the tenth century, but most of them are of recent origin, and appear to have been written chiefly in Bengal and the eastern districts. They are all in the form of a dialogue between Siva and his bride, the former in answer to questions proposed by the latter, explaining, under a strict injunction of secrecy to all but the initiated, the various ceremonies, prayers, and incantations that are to be employed.

The leading sect of the Saktas forms two branches, the Dakshinacharis and Vamacharis, or the followers of the right-hand and left-hand ritual. The Dakshinacharis, called also Bhaktas, have the credit of worshipping agreeably to Vaidik or Puranik ritual, and abstaining from the impure practices of other votaries of Sakti. Their bali or oblation should consist only of pulse, rice and milk, with what are called the three sweet articles—ghee, honey, and sugar; but many make offerings of blood, particularly kids killed by decapitation, except where the still more barbarous practice is used of pummelling the animal to death with the fists. The immense carnage at the festival of Kali, already described, is part of the worship of the Dakshinacharis, and it is therefore difficult to draw the line of demarcation between them and the more heterodox branch of Vamis or Vamacharis. After what has been said, it is obvious that the shedding or non-shedding of blood cannot be the main distinction; and accordingly we learn that the left-hand worshippers are guilty of abominations which they dare not publicly avow, and practise in secret orgies. One of the least objectionable forms is where the adept goes alone at midnight to a place where dead bodies are buried or burned, or where criminals are executed, and then, seated on a corpse, makes the usual offerings to Siva’s consort. If he does this without fear, the Bhutas, Yogines, and other male and female goblins become his slaves. On other occasions, where a naked female is worshipped as a representative of the Sakti, men and women meet together, and are guilty of the most scandalous excesses. The Sukti Sodhana or Sri Chakra, at which these excesses are chiefly committed, is expressly prescribed by one of the Tantras; but Professor Wilson, while admitting that “it is said to be not uncommon, and by some of the more zealous Saktas it is scarcely concealed,” differs from Mr. Ward as to its ordinary character, and asserts that “it is usually nothing more than a convivial party, consisting of the members of a single family, at which men only are assembled, and the company are glad to eat flesh and drink spirits under the pretence of a religious observance.” Be this as it may, it is allowed on all hands that the Vamacharis, while admitting all classes indiscriminately, without distinction of caste, “are very numerous, especially among the Brahminical tribe.” The worst suspicions of the real character of the sect are justified by the fact that many of its members, ashamed or afraid to avow their connection with it, “conceal their creed and observe its practices in privacy.”

The only other sect of Saktas requiring notice is that of the Keraris who were at one time notorious for sacrificing human victims to some of the hideous personifications of Siva’s consort.

The only persons who can now be considered representatives of the sect are “miscreants who, more for pay than devotion, inflict upon themselves bodily tortures, and pierce their flesh with hooks or spits, run sharp-pointed instruments through their tongues and cheeks, recline upon beds of spikes, or gash themselves with knives; all which practices are occasionally met with throughout India, and have become familiar to Europeans from the excess to which they are carried in Bengal at the Charak Pujahs.”

Of the sects classed as miscellaneous, our notice will be confined to the two most important—the Sikhs and the Jains. The former, indeed, as they will again make their appearance in a political character, may at present be disposed of summarily. They take the name of Nanak Shahis, from their founder Nanak Shah, who was born in 1469 at Talwandi, now Rayapur, situated in the Punjab, on the banks of the Beyah or Hyphasis. He had early shown strong devotional feeling, which increased as he grew up. Though a Hindoo by birth, he was early brought into connection with the Mahometans, and seemed at first disposed to embrace their faith by becoming a fakir; but neither the Hindoo nor Mussulman creed satisfied him; and after a long course of travels, during which he visited the most celebrated places of worship of both religions, he became an independent religious reformer, took up his residence at Khutipur Dekra, on the banks of the Ravee, and died there, after performing numerous miracles. His great object is said to have been to reconcile the jarring principles of Hindooism and Mahometanism, by recommending to the followers of both exclusive attention to the great principles of “devotion to God and peace towards men.” The only means he employed for this purpose was “mild persuasion.” His doctrines, after receiving many modifications from his successors, were moulded anew by Govind Sinh, who succeeded his father, Tegh Behadur, as sat-guru or chief spiritual leader, in 1675, and ranks as the tenth in descent from Nanak. The persecutions which the Sikhs had suffered from the Mahometan rulers had changed their peaceful character, and converted their tenets into a kind of military code. Govind Sinh followed out this policy, and placed it on a firmer basis. Nanak, in order to conciliate the Hindoos, had left their civil institutions untouched. Govind Sinh adopted a bolder course; and in order to arm the whole population against the Mahometans, with whom he and his followers were at open war, proclaimed his determination to admit converts from every tribe, and make worldly wealth and rank equally accessible to all. One of his sayings was, that the four classes—Brahmins, Cshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras, “would, like pan (betel-leaf), chunam (lime), supari (betel-nut), and khat (terra japonica or catechu), become all of one colour when chewed.” Instead of the peaceful spirit of Nanak, he made war the profession of all his followers, binding them “always to have steel about them in one shape or other.” Nanak admitted that Mahomet was a prophet “sent by God to this world to do good, and to disseminate the knowledge of one God through means of the Koran; but he, acting on the principle of free-will which all human beings exercise, introduced oppression and cruelty, and the slaughter of cows, for which he died.” He added—“I am now sent from heaven to publish unto mankind a book, which shall reduce all the names given unto God to one name which is God; and he who calls Him by any other, shall fall into the path of the devil, and have his feet bound in the chains of wretchedness.” After adverting to the hatred subsisting between Mahometans and Hindoos, he continues thus—“I am sent to reconcile your jarring faiths, and I implore you to read their scriptures as well as your own; but reading is useless without obedience to the doctrine taught; for God has said, No man shall be saved except he has performed good works. The Almighty will not ask to what tribe or persuasion he belongs. He will only ask, What has he done? Therefore, those violent and continued disputes which subsist between the Hindoos and Moslemans, are as impious as they are unjust.” ¹

Govind Sinh, while adopting the leading principle of Nanak as to the acceptableness of all sincere worship to the supreme Being, is chiefly distinguished from him by the abolition of the distinction of castes, the mode of admitting proselytes, and not only permitting the use of arms, but making it the religious duty of all his followers. As to the mode of admitting a proselyte, it may be sufficient to mention, that he required him to clothe himself from head to foot in a blue dress, to allow his hair to grow, put into his hand five weapons—a sword, a firelock, a bow, an arrow, and a pike; and after reading some of the first chapters of a work composed by Nanak, and of another composed by himself, concluded the initiation by exclaiming—Wa! Guruji ka Khalsu! Wu! Guruji ki Fateh (Success to the state of the Guru! Victory attend the Guru!) The forms still observed differ little from the above. At present, the Sikhs consist of seven distinct branches, all professing to follow the doctrines of Nanak, though separated by differences in practice or the choice of a teacher. The Ulasis, professing, as their name denotes, indifference to worldly vicissitudes, are purely religious characters, devote themselves to prayer and meditation, practise celibacy, and are usually collected in sanjats, colleges, or convents. They may be regarded as the genuine disciples of Nanak. The Suthrek Shahis, distinguished by wearing a perpendicular black streak down the forehead, and carrying two small black sticks, about half a yard long, which they clash together when they solicit alms, lead a vagabond life, begging and singing songs, mostly of a moral or mystic tendency. They bear a bad name, and must deserve it, as many of them are gamblers, drunkards, and thieves. The great body of the nation are both politically and religiously Govind Sinh, or followers of the celebrated chief of whom some account has been given. In addition to what has been said of their tenets, it will be sufficient here to observe, that though they have their own sacred books and eat all kinds of flesh, except that of kine, and treat the distinction of castes as imposture or delusion, they are still, to a certain extent, Hindoos. They worship Hindoo deities, celebrate Hindoo festivals, and derive their legends and their literature from Hindoo sources.

The religion of Buddha, who, as we have seen, is often ranked as one of the avatars of Vishnu, at one time gained an ascendency in India, and has left in many parts of the country, and particularly in some of the rock caves, remarkable monuments of its power and popularity. These having brought it into collision with the Brahmins, a fierce contest ensued, and terminated in its expulsion. In many adjoining countries, it still holds undisputed sway, and counts its followers by hundreds of millions; but in India its extermination has been so complete, that it has almost ceased to be one of its existing forms of religion. Before it fell, however, a kindred faith, exhibiting many of its peculiar features, had arisen, and after many vicissitudes it still maintains its ground. The faith referred to is that of the Jains, who form a large section of the Hindoo population, and are still more influential by wealth than by numbers. Holding much in common with Brahmins and Buddhists, and at the same time differing with them in several important particulars, they may be regarded as intermediate to both. In all the three religions, the final blessedness aspired to is a state of perfect apathy, differing more in name than in reality from absolute annihilation, and the ordinary process of attaining it is by a series of transmigrations, previous to which, or in the intervals between them, the good enjoy the solace of various heavens, and the bad suffer the torments of numerous hells. The only other prominent point in which they all agree, is in their tenderness of animal life. In regard to this point, however, the Jains and Buddhists take much higher ground than the Brahmins; and in order to guard against the accidents by which animal

life might be unintentionally destroyed, employ numerous precautions of an extravagant and ludicrous nature. They must not drink water until it has been thrice strained; nor leave any liquor uncovered lest an insect should be drowned in it; nor eat in the dark lest they should swallow a fly. Their priests and devotees are still more scrupulous—wearing a piece of cloth over their mouths to prevent insects from flying into them, and carrying a brush to sweep any place on which they are about to sit down, and thus give ants, or any other living creatures that may be upon it, timely warning of their danger. Even this does not satisfy them; and as if to show the extreme absurdity to which scrupulosity, when it has taken a particular direction, may be carried, the Jains, in particular, have actually built and endowed hospitals for the reception of animals of all kinds. Fleas, maggots, and similar vermin, are specially favoured, and parts of the establishment are set apart for their habitation and maintenance. It is even said, though it is difficult to credit the statement, that the more zealous devotees occasionally pass the night in these places, in order to regale the inmates with a feast on their own persons.

The views which the Jains take of the divine nature border, like those of the Buddhists, on atheism. Without actually denying the existence of God, they render their belief of it unavailing, by denying his activity and providence, and by reserving their divine honours for deified saints. In this respect their system is peculiar. These saints, who by practices of self-denial and mortification, acquire a station superior to that of the gods, are called Tirtankeras. Their aggregate number cannot be defined, but they are conceived to rule for a certain period only, and in classes, each of which consists of twenty-four individuals. There are thus twenty-four who presided over the past-period or age, twenty-four actually presiding over the present, and twenty-four who are destined to preside over the future. The whole seventy-two are enumerated by name, but those only presiding over the present attract much attention. Even among them, for some reason not well explained, a choice has been made; and in Hindoostan, the worship of the Jains is confined almost exclusively to Parswanath, the twenty-third, and Mahavira, the twenty-fourth, on the list of present Tirtankeras. The statues of all, however, sometimes of colossal size, and usually of white or black marble, are placed in the temples, and receive such adoration as the Jains are disposed to bestow. This is very meagre; for while the Yatis or devotees dispense with outward acts of worship at pleasure, the lay votaries are only bound daily to visit a temple in which Tirtankeras are placed, walk round it three times, accompany an obeisance to the images with some trifling offering, and repeat some short form of prayer or salutation.

In regard to caste, the Jains act inconsistently. They have no hereditary priesthood, and leave it accessible to men of every class; but their members have distinctions among themselves, which, though they have not the name, are castes in effect, since the members of these different divisions avoid intermarriages and other intercourse with each other. Moreover, in the south and west of India, the distinction of caste is in full operation among them, in the same manner as among other Hindoos; and even in the north-east, it is not so much abolished as in abeyance. This is proved by the fact, that a Jain becoming a convert to Hindooism takes his place in one of the castes, as if he had always belonged to it. This necessarily implies that he must all along have retained proofs of his descent.

The point which must have brought both Buddhists and Jains into most direct collision with the Brahmins, is their rejection of the authority of the Vedas, and of their fundamental doctrines in regard to worship. The rejection of the Buddhists is absolute, admitting of no compromise; but the Jains, according to their usual mode of proceeding, have taken an intermediate course. In so far as their tenets are countenanced by the Vedas, they readily avail themselves of their support, and appeal to them as if they were of infallible authority; but the moment a competition arises between the doctrines of the Vedas and their own practices, and either the one or the other must be abandoned, they have no difficulty in making their choice. For instance, the oblations by fire, which form so important a portion of the regular Hindoo ritual, are regarded by the Jains as an abomination, both because they are often the prelude to bloody sacrifices, and also because the fire employed can hardly fail to occasion even unintentionally a destruction of animal life.

The Jains have no monastic establishments, and profess to follow a moral code of great simplicity, consisting of five mahavratas or great duties, four merits, and three restraints. The duties are, refraining from injury to life, truth, honesty, chastity, and freedom from worldly desires; the merits are, liberality, gentleness, piety, and penance; and the restraints are, government of the mind, government of the tongue, and government of the person. Their system seems to have originated about the sixth or seventh century, to have become powerful about the ninth, when Buddhism was suppressed, to have attained its greatest prosperity in the eleventh, and to have begun to decline in the twelfth. Its followers are still numerous, particularly in Gujarat, Rajpootana, and Canara, and, numbering among them many bankers and opulent merchants, possess a large portion of the commercial wealth of the country.

In the course of this brief survey of the Hindoo religion, it is impossible not to have been struck with the numerous changes of form which it has undergone. As it was originally brought into India by strangers, its very first introduction was a great and successful innovation on the beliefs of the earlier inhabitants. As unfolded in the Vedas, it assumes the form of an almost pure theism, or acknowledges only personifications of the elements as emblems of deity. In course of time, the Hindoo triad appears, and Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, recognized as three distinct forms of one God, or three distinct beings sharing the godhead among them, become the great objects of worship. The process of multiplication then begins to be rapidly carried on, and the pantheon becomes crowded with myriads of fabulous existences, male and female, embodying in their persons all imaginable qualities, virtuous as well as vicious. The old gods of the triad were then involved in a struggle for supremacy. Brahma first gave way, and ceased to have any external worship paid to him. Vishnu and Siva, though they at first seemed to fare better, ultimately shared a similar fate, their place being usurped partly by the consorts arbitrarily given to them, and partly by younger deities, who, though said to be only their avatars or incarnations, did, in fact, push them from their stools and reign in their stead. Idolatry now had full scope, and the mere image became, instead of a figurative representation of some spiritual nature, the very god himself, being lodged and clothed, and fed, and served, as if it were a living being. Amid this degeneracy, a so-called orthodoxy was still recognized; but numbers disdained to be bound by its rules, and sects, setting them at nought, sprung up in every quarter. Many of these sects, though of comparatively recent origin, have gained multitudes of converts; and Hindooism, instead of forming one compact whole, consists, in fact, of discordant religions in almost endless variety, battling with each other for supremacy or existence. Nothing, therefore, can be more erroneous than the representation often given. Hindooism, we are told, is one of the most ancient things now existing in the world; and while all around has been decaying, it has stood firm and unshaken. The inference meant to be drawn is, that it is equally hopeless and sacrilegious to attempt its overthrow. To this representation and inference it is sufficient to reply, that the whole history of Hindooism records only a series of changes, by means of which it has been deprived of all that ever gave it any claim to veneration. As it now exists, it is not one uniform system, but a thing of shreds and patches - not a religion bearing the impress of a high antiquity, but a grovelling superstition, full of monstrosities and abominations, many of them of a comparatively recent date. It has thus neither the respectability nor the stability which great age might have given it; and therefore there is good reason to hope, that its power of resistance to the efforts made to overthrow it, becoming gradually weaker and weaker, it will at no distant period tumble into ruins. No one who desires the welfare of India can wish for any other result; and no one who confides, as he ought, in the power of divine truth, will despair of its accomplishment.