Sir A. C. Lyall remarks, "like the palace in the Persian parable, is but a caravanserai.” Demonolatry. Demons and malevolent spirits are the objects of almost universal dread and reverence, especially in Burma. It is the main feature of worship that marks the animist also. The wide prevalence of this largely nonAryan superstition is thus stated by Sir Monier-Williams: "The ordinary Hindu peasant's religion consists mainly in seeking deliverance from the evil inflicted by demons. . . The great majority of the inhabitants of India are, from the cradle to the burning-ground, victims of a form of mental disease which is best expressed by the term demonophobia. They are haunted and oppressed by a perpetual dread of demons. They are firmly convinced that evil spirits of all kinds, from malignant fiends to mischievous imps and elves,,are ever on the watch to harm, harass, and torment them; to cause plague, sickness, famine, and disaster; to impede, injure, and mar every good work.' Burmese Nat Worship.-In Burma there is a modification of demonolatry, as many of the spirits are benevolent and are only demons in this restricted sense. Nat, the name for these spirits, has "two distinct meanings, one kind of nats being the inhabitants of the six inferior heavens, the devas, transferred from the Vedic mythology, and the other, the spirits of the air, water, and forest. The last are the most diligently propitiated, for fear of the harm they may do, at a shrine at the end of each village. Sometimes it is a mere bamboo cage with a gaudy image or images of a fetish-like ugliness, to which offerings are made by the villagers. In fact the whole category of local spirits, disease spirits, demons, omens, and magicworkers is to be found in considerable force in Burma, though greatly frowned upon by local [Buddhist] priests. The butterfly spirit is the Burmese idea of the essential spirit of human life, which may wander in dreams, 1 Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, pp. 210, 211, be charmed or afflicted by demons or wizards, be preserved by witch-doctors, and which finally departs at death."" The Trimurti- Brahmá. - India's gods and goddesses are in many cases less worthy of honor than some of the objects of worship already mentioned. At the head of the pantheon stand the Hindu triad, or trimurti, Brahmá, masculine, the offspring of the Eternal Supreme Being Brahma, neuter, the maker of all things; Vishnu, the preserver; and Siva, the destroyer and reproducer. Of these Brahmá is without a temple, save at Pushkara, the other gods having deprived him of worship, because he thrice told a lie and hired the cow, Kamadhenu, and the three Kataki as false witnesses. If they had been equally conscientious regarding their own sins, there would have been no Hindu pantheon; for mortals guilty of a tithe of the crimes that mark the story of Vishnu and Siva would have been jailed and executed by any modern court of justice. - Vishnu as Krishna. — The idea underlying the avatars or incarnations of Vishnu is praiseworthy, their object professedly being to correct glaring evils or to effect some great good for the world. Of his ten principal incarnations, the eighth, that of Krishna, "the dark god," is widely celebrated. He is the most popular of all the later deities of India. "Krishna, as conceived by the Hindus now, is a strangely mixed character. He is the warlike prince of Dwaraka, in Gujarat; he is the licentious cowherd of Vrindavana; and he is the Supreme Divinity incarnate. . . . Unhappily the Hindu mind delights especially in the foul tales told of him in the second of these characters; and among the embellishments of Hindu dwellings may often be found pictures representing him sporting with the Gopis [female cowherds]. The influence for evil which the story of Krishna's early life has had in debasing the Hindu mind has been immense." 1 Bettany, The World's Religions, pp. 309, 310. * Mitchell, Hinduism Past and Present, pp. 119, 120. He has been characterized as the incarnation of Lust and is said to have had 16,100 wives and 180,000 sons.1 Siva. - And Siva, the third member of the trimurti, the companion of prostitutes whose eyes are red from intoxication, is most fitly represented by the symbols of generation, the linga and yoni combined. "Temples to hold this symbol, which is of a double form to express the blending of the male and female principles in creation, are probably the most numerous now to be seen in India." It may be added that Vishnu is most popular in the North, while Siva is the favorite god of Southern India. Ganesa. Ganesa, son of Siva, is a god of secondary, yet great, importance to the Hindu, though his elephant head and bloated body do not suggest it. As lord of the troops of mischievous and malignant spirits who cause obstacles and difficulties, he is invoked at the beginning of all undertakings. Schoolboys, especially, pray to him for aid in their studies, while every orthodox Indian book begins with an invocation to him, the writing of a book, according to Monier-Williams, being peculiarly liable to obstruction from spiteful and jealous spirits, whose malignity must be counteracted. Goddesses. Not to speak of the myriads of other Hindu gods, mention must be made of a few of the goddesses most popular in India. Each god has one or more wives, who represent the active principle of the divine nature, as he does the quiescent principle. Brahma's Sakti, or active principle, is Sarasvati, the goddess of learning; Lakshmi is the wife of Vishnu and is the goddess of fortune; and Siva's wife is Kali, "black," variously known as Parvati and Himavati, because a daughter of the Himalayas, Bhairavi, “the terrible," Durga, overcomer of the giant of that name, or simply as Mahadevi, "the great goddess." As the latter appellation suggests, Kali is par excellence the 1 Murdoch, Popular Hinduism, pp. 30, 31. Monier-Williams, Hinduism, p. 93. great goddess or India, and from her the metropolis gets its first syllable, Calcutta signifying "dwelling of Kali." This goddess" is represented as a black woman with four arms. In one hand she has a weapon, in another the head of the giant she has slain; with the two others she is encouraging her worshipers. For earrings she has two dead bodies; she wears a necklace of skulls. Her only clothing is a girdle made of dead men's hands, and her tongue protrudes from her mouth. Her eyes are red as those of a drunkard, and her breasts are smeared with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh and the other on the breast of her husband." Saktas. Worshipers of the Sakti, or female principle of the gods, are known as Saktas. They are divided into two parties, those of the right hand, whose practices are merely marked by mystery, magic, and folly, and those of the left hand, whose immorality is unsurpassed by the worst that ancient Greece and Rome dreamed of, and probably has been unequalled in any other system. At their meetings a woman must be present as the living representative of the Sakti goddess. She is first stripped of all her clothing; wine and flesh are given to her and to the company, which must be composed of both sexes. The women drink first out of goblets of cocoanut or human skulls. The men then drink. No regard is paid to caste. Excitement, even intoxication, is produced by the abundant use of liquor. The lights are extinguished, and then follow doings indescribable. Professor H. H. Wilson rightly designates these as 'most scandalous orgies.' The abominable character of the whole celebration is heightened by the declaration of the sect that all is done, not for sensual gratification, but as an exalted form of divine worship.""" As it has been estimated that three-fourths of the Hindus in Bengal are Saktas, the loathsomeness, and awful danger 1 Murdoch, Popular Hinduism, p. 36. 2 Mitchell, Hinduism. Past and Present, p. 144, |