240 Of two Edicts "bestowing Land. [No. 3. 



a dew-drop on the point of a spear of grass is the vital breath of 

 human kind. Ah! virtue is one's sole, companion on the journey 



8'ivapurdna is still more comprehensive in its enumeration of those who are dis- 

 qualified for partaking of the sacred food. The Kds'i-khanda eulogizes the prac- 

 tice of wetting the head with water with which the priapic emblem of S'iva lias 

 been sprinkled. The merit of so doing is alleged to be equal to that of bathing in 

 the Ganges ; and he who thrice drinks water that drips from the linya, is cleansed 

 from all the three classes of sin, — the corporeal, verbal, and mental. 



The Tithi-tattwa, Hemddri, and Paris' ishta assert that food, leaves, flowers, 

 fruit, and water, offered to S'iva, acquire purity only when he is represented by 

 the ammonite, in the worship of the pane hay at ana, or ' receptacle of five deities, 

 or types. 7 



The deities represented, or symbolized in the panchdyatana are S'iva, Vishnu, 

 Surya, Ganes'a, and Durga. Four of the images, or types are arranged around the 

 fifth, the most highly considered of all ; and this varies accordingly as the wor- 

 shipper is a S'aiva, a Vaishnava, a Sawra, a Ganapatya, or a S'akta. 



In the Nirnay a-sindhu , Bopadeva and the Paddr thddars' a and vouched for the 

 disposition of these idols, or symbols. In the A'chdrdrka a memorial verse is, 

 more commodiously recited, to suggest their succession : 



<\ 



S'am stands for S'ankara, or S'iva ; Nd, for Narayana. or Vishnu ; Sic, for 

 Surya; Ga, for Ganes'a; and Bha, for Bhagavati, or Durga. The first named 

 divinity of each group comes in the centre. The rest, in the order here shown, are 

 placed about him, at the interquarters, beginning with the N. E. 



Sometimes these images are seen collected in temples. They are then of liberal 

 dimensions ; and only one of the five objects, the obscene emblem of S'iva, has 

 other than an animal form, more or less distorted. Most Hindus have a private 

 set of the five types, on a small scale. These they carry in a metallic vessel, hemis- 

 pherical in shape, about an inch and a half in diameter, provided with a cover, and 

 havino- a stiff paper bottom to preserve these reverend remembrancers from falling 

 into horizontal confusion. The vessel is now and then constructed in the simili- 

 tude of a lotus. The symbolical substitutes of S'iva, Vishnu, Surya, Ganes'a, and 

 Dur°-a, are, in order as enumerated, a phallus of stone from the Bani, an ammo- 

 nite from the Gandaki, a piece of the crystal called siirya/cdnta, some leaves of the 

 red-blossomed oleander, and a lump of pyritic iron-ore. 



The Nirnay a-sindhu or Nirnaya-kamaldkara has, for its author, Kamahikara 

 Bhatta, son of Ramakrislma Bhatta and Uma, and younger brother of Divakara 

 Bhatta. It was composed in the Samvat year 1661, or A. D. 1718. The A'chd- 

 rdrka is by S'ankara Bhatta, son of Nilakantha Bhatta, son of S'ankara Bhatta. 



