STB MONIEE MONIEE- WILLIAMS. 5 



with the face downwards. Some went naked, making no 

 distinction between fit or unfit places. Some smeared them- 

 selves with ashes, cinders, dust, or clay. Some inhaled smoke 

 and fire. Some gazed at the sun, or sat surrounded by five 

 fires, or rested on one foot, or kept one arm perpetually up- 

 lifted, or moved about on their knees instead of on their feet, 

 or baked themselves on hot stones, or entered water, or 

 suspended themselves in the air. 



Then, again, a method of fasting called very painful (ati 

 kricchra), described by Manu (xi. 213), was often practised. 

 It consisted in eating only a single mouthful every day for 

 nine days and then abstaining from all food for the three 

 following days. 



Another method, called the lunar fast (vi. 20, xi. 216), con- 

 sisted in beginning with fifteen mouthfuls at full moon, and 

 reducing the quantity by one mouthful till new moon, and 

 then increasing it again in the same way till full moon. 



Passages without number might be quoted from ancient 

 literature to prove that similar practices were resorted to 

 throughout India with the object of bringing the body into 

 subjection to the spirit. And these practices have continued 

 up to the present day. 



A Muhammadan traveller, whose narrative is quoted by 

 Mr. Mill (British India, i. 355), once saw a man standing 

 motionless with his face towards the sun. 



The same traveller, having occasion to revisit the same spot 

 sixteen years afterwards, found the very same man in the very 

 same attitude. He had gazed on the sun's disk till all sense 

 of external vision was extinguished. 



A Yogi was seen not very long ago (Mill's India, i. 353) 

 seated between four fires on a quadrangular stage. He stood 

 on one leg gazing at the sun, while these fires were lighted at 

 the four corners. Then placing himself upright on his head, 

 with his feet elevated in the air, he remained for three hours 

 in that position. He then seated himself cross-legged, and 

 continued bearing the raging heat of the sun above his head 

 and the fires which surrounded him till the end of the day, 

 occasionally adding combustibles with his own hands to 

 increase the flames. 



I, myself, in the course of my travels, encountered Yogis 

 who had kept their arms uplifted for years, or had wandered 

 about from one place of pilgrimage to another under a per- 

 petual vow of silence, or had no place to lie upon but a bed of 

 spikes. 



As to fasting, the idea that attenuation of the body by 

 abstinence frora food, facilitates union of the human soul with 



