RELIGIOUS SECTS OF THE HINDUS. 215 



fests herself in portions, parts, and portions of parts, and further sub- 

 divisions. The chief Ansas are, besides the five already enumerated, 

 Ganga, Tulasi, Manasa, Sashthi, or Devasena, Mangalachandika, 

 and Kal!; the principal Kolas are Swaha, Swadha, Dakshina, 

 Swasti, Pushti, Tushti, and others, most of which are allegorical 

 personifications, as Dhriii, Fortitude, Pratishthd, Fame, and Adharma, 

 Wickedness, the bride of Mrityn, or Death. Aditi, the mother of the 

 Gods, andDiTi, the mother of the Demons, are also Kalds of Prakriti. 

 The list includes all the secondary goddesses. The Kaldnsas and 

 Ansdnsas, or sub-divisions of the more important manifestations, are 

 all womankind, who are distinguished as good, middling, or bad, ac- 

 cording as they derive their being, from the parts of their great ori- 

 ginal in. which the Satya, Rajas, and Tama Guna, or property of 

 goodness, passion, and vice predominates. At the same time as 

 manifestations of the great cause of all they are entitled to res- 

 pect, and even to veneration : whoever, says the Brahma Vaivartta 

 Purdna, offends or insults a female, incurs the wrath of Prakriti, 

 whilst he who propitiates a female, particularly the youthful daugh- 

 ter of a Brahman, with clothes, ornaments and perfumes, offers wor- 

 ship to Prakriti herself. It is in the spirit of this last doctrine 

 that one of the principal rites of the Sdktas, is the actual worship 

 of the daughter or wife of a Brahman, and leads with one branch 

 of the sect at least to the introduction of gross impurities. But be- 

 sides this derivation of Prakriti, or Sakti, from the Supreme, and 

 the secondary origin of all female nature from her, those who adopt 

 her as their especial divinity, employ the language invariably addressed 

 towards the preferential object of worship in every sect, and contem- 

 plate her as comprising all existence in her essence. Thus she is not 

 only declared to be one with the male deity, of whose energy some 

 one of her manifestations is the type, as Devi with Siva, and Lak- 



