BUDDHISM. 



sacrifices. His images have a terrific and repul- 

 sive aspect. 



The Sakti, or female energy, of Siva, now as 

 prominent in Hindu worship as Siva himself, is 

 worshipped under many names, but those most 

 commonly applied to her are Devi, Kali, Durga, 

 Parvati, Uma. In her worship we see Hindu 

 religion in its most gloomy and disgusting form. 

 She is worshipped with bloody and licentious 

 rites. As Durga she is a kind of goddess of war. 

 Her martial feats consisted in the destruction of 

 a succession of demons who had conquered the 

 gods, and expelled them from heaven. In com- 

 memoration of her victory over one of those 

 demons, the most splendid and popular of the 

 Hindu festivals, the Durgapuja, is annually cele- 

 brated in Bengal about the autumnal equinox. 

 Three weeks later, another festival, called the 

 Kalipuja, in honour of the goddess as Kali (that 

 is, the black), takes place, to commemorate her 

 victory over the demons Chanda and Munda. 

 Here she is represented holding the severed head 

 of Chanda in her hand, with the heads of his 

 soldiers formed into a garland suspended from 

 her neck, and their hands wreathed into a cover- 

 ing round her loins. She is styled the Black God- 

 dess of Terror ; and her worship is based on the 

 assumption, that she can be propitiated only by 

 practices which involve the destruction of life. 

 From the ritual of her worship, it is clear that 

 human sacrifices at one time formed part of it ; 

 special directions are given how the victims are 

 to be killed, and we learn that a sacrifice of three 

 human beings will make her propitious for 100,000 

 years. 



It is clear that, in the popular conception of 

 Siva and of his Sakti, and also in the rites paid 

 to them, Hinduism has borrowed largely from the 

 aboriginal demon-worship, which still lingers in 

 many parts of India. Such as it is, the worship 

 of Siva is now the predominant worship of India. 



The followers of each of the leading Hindu 

 deities are divided into sects, connected by 

 the claim of supremacy which they make for 

 the object of their worship, separated from each 

 other by different views as to his character, or 

 by the religious and other practices which they 

 found on their belief, and distinguished from 

 each other by the sectarian marks which they 

 make upon their bodies. The diversities of belief 

 and practice are especially great among the fol- 

 lowers of Vishnu. A noticeable sect among the 

 worshippers of Siva is that of the Yogins, who 

 practise the most difficult austerities in order to 

 become absorbed into the universal spirit, and 

 thus liberated from future births. The word 

 Yoga means concentration, abstract contempla- 

 tion ; and the idea at the root of the Yoga doctrine 

 is that, to become re-united with the universal 

 spirit, the soul must become disentangled from, 

 or completely indifferent to, all objects. This, it 

 is believed, can be effected by means of self- 

 inflicted penances. This belief, as we have seen, 

 sprung up during the Epic period, and it is not 

 now confined to the votaries of Siva, but it is 

 among them that the practice founded upon it 

 has been most thoroughly carried out. Continued 

 suppression of respiration, painful and difficult 

 postures, fixing the eyes steadily on the point of 

 the nose such are the practices by which the 

 Yogins hope to secure re-union with Siva, whom 



they consider as the source and essence of alB 

 creation. The more devoted subject themselves- 

 to penances far more trying than these, and such, 

 as almost seem too much for human endurance : 

 piercing the side or tongue, and thrusting a heavy 

 piece of iron or a live snake into the opening - r 

 sticking the body full of nails ; sitting under 

 a burning sun surrounded by fires ; swinging, 

 through the air suspended by hooks passed 

 through the fleshy part of the back. The fol- 

 lowers of Vishnu know an easier way to the same 

 universally desired end of absorption into the 

 supreme soul Whoever worships Vishnu with 

 wrapt devotion, makes him the object of all his- 

 actions, gifts, food, sacrifice, will be freed from the 

 bonds of his actions, whatever they may have been, 

 and will ' go unshackled to share the essence of 

 the god.' Here is something like a doctrine of 

 salvation by faith, and in the Purdnas this 

 doctrine is carried as far as ever it was by 

 Christian Antinomians ; faith in Krishna and entire 

 dependence upon him making virtue unnecessary, 

 and sanctifying any vice. The worshippers of 

 the Sakti, or female principle of Siva, are mainly 

 divided into two sects, distinguished from each 

 other by the degree of impurity admitted in their 

 religious rites. 



Besides regular priests, Hinduism has its monks- 

 or devotees to a religious life, whose lives are one 

 endless round of ceremonies. The daily devotions 

 of the lay Hindu vary with his social position and 

 greater or less zeal. The favourite places for per- 

 forming them are the ghats, or flights of steps with, 

 which the margins of rivers and of tanks are lined. 

 There the Hindu performs his ablutions, offers water 

 to ancestors, and invokes his favourite god. Many 

 content themselves with merely making the marks- 

 of their sects on their bodies, and invoking the 

 god with uplifted hands. These sectarial marks- 

 are made mostly with the ashes of cow-dung,, 

 mingled with the urine of the animal an unguent 

 or holy water of great virtue in all consecrations. 

 Pilgrimages to sacred places (fountains, rivers,, 

 cities) and to religious festivals are prominent 

 features of religious practice. A visit to Benares, 

 which is emphatically the holy city of India, is 

 considered to secure eternal happiness. A similar 

 virtue is ascribed to the waters of the Ganges, 

 The temples with which modern Hinduism has 

 covered the country are often grand and elegant 

 structures. Its idols, on the other hand, are mostly 

 rude, grotesque, and hideous. This arises, partly 

 at least, from their excessively symbolical char- 

 acter. No idea of sanctity is attached to them ;. 

 they are merely convenient emblems of the deity. 

 The idols used in a procession are generally 

 thrown away when the ceremony is over. It is- 

 in Southern India that the temples are grandest 

 and most numerous. At Benares, which is in. 

 Northern India, there are still at least icoo Hindu 

 :emples, though many were destroyed by the 

 Mohammedans, or converted into mosques. 



BUDDHISM. 



The most widely received of all religions is 

 jtrange as it may seem a religion without a God., 

 and which regards extinction as the supreme good 

 For men, considering it, too, as a reward so blessed 

 that few are ever able to attain to it That such a- 



427 



