16 SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS. 
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 Yoghi was seen not very long ago (Mill’s India, 1. 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 from food, facilitates union of the human soul with 
