The Religions of India Part 43

[Footnote 59: Noteworthy is the fact that parts of the civaite thirteenth book seem to be most Buddhistic (ch. i.; 143. 48, etc.), and monotheistic (16. 12 ff.): though the White Islanders are made Vishnuite in the twelfth. Compare Holtzmann, _ad. loc_.]

[Footnote 60: Nirv[=a]na, loosely used; termini technici; possibly the evils of the fourth age; the mention of (Buddhist) temples, etc.]

[Footnote 61: On this point we agree neither with Weber, who regards the _avatars_ as an imitation of the Incarnation (_Ind. St._ ii. p. 169), nor with Schroeder, who (_Literatur und Cultur_, p. 330) would derive the notion from the birth-stories of Buddha. In our opinion the _avatar_-theory is older than either and is often only an a.s.similation of outlying totem-G.o.ds to the Brahman's G.o.d, or as in the case of the flood-story the necessary belief that the 'fish' must have been the G.o.d of the race. Some of these _avatars_ are Brahmanic, presumably pre-Buddhistic.]

[Footnote 62: Krishna's Geburtsfest (_janm[=a][s.]tam[=i]),_ 1867.]

[Footnote 63: Since they do not appear till after the real epic we date them tentatively as arising after 600 A.D. Most of them are in still later Pur[=a]nas.]

[Footnote 64: Incidental rapport with the Greeks has been pointed out in other instances; the _surang[=a]_, a mine, of the late tale in i. 148. 12, etc (_Ind. St._ ii. p. 395), has been equated with syrinx; Skanda with Alexander, etc. It is needless to say that each of these is only a guess in etymology. But Greek influence is perceptible in the Greek soldiers and names of (Greek) kings that are found in the epic.]

[Footnote 65: _Ind. St._ i. 423; ii. 169. Weber believes that little is native to India which resembles Christianity in the way of theology; lore of G.o.d, special grace, monotheism, all to him are stolen. We regret that we must disagree with him in these instances.]

[Footnote 66: Ekata, Dvita, Trita. A Dvita appears as early as the Rig Veda. Ekata is an a.n.a.logous formation and is old also.]

[Footnote 67: Hrish[=i]keca is 'lord of senses,' a common epithet of Vishnu (Krishna).]

[Footnote 68: i. 107. 1 ff. The spirits of the dead come to him and comfort him in the shape of birds--an old trait, compare B[=a]udh. Dh. c[=a]st. ii. 8. 14. 10; cat. Br. vi.

1. 1. 2.]

[Footnote 69: xii. 300. 20.]

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PUR[=A]NAS.--EARLY SECTS, FESTIVALS, THE TRINITY.

Archaeologia, 'ancient lore,' is the meaning of Pur[=a]na _(pur[=a]na_, 'old'). The religious period represented by the extant writings of this cla.s.s is that which immediately follows the completion of the epic.[1] These works, although they contain no real history, yet reflect history very plainly, and since the advent and initial progress of Puranic Hinduism, with its various cults, is contemporary with important political changes, it will be necessary briefly to consider the circ.u.mstances in which arose these new creeds, for they were destined to become in the future the controlling force in the development of Hindu religion.

In speaking of the extension of Buddhism we showed that its growth was influenced in no small degree by the fact that this caste-less and, therefore, democratic religion was adopted by post-Alexandrine rulers in the Graeco-Bactrian period. At this time the Aryans were surrounded with foreigners and pagans. To North and South spread savage or half Hinduized native tribes, while soldiers of Greece and Bactria encamped in the valley of the Ganges. Barbarians had long been active in the North, and some scholars have even claimed that Buddha's own family was of Turanian origin. The Brahmans then as now retained their prestige only as being repositories of ancient wisdom; and outside of their own 'holy land' their influence was reduced to a minimum by the social and political tendencies that accompanied the growth of Buddhism. After the fourth century B.C. the heart of India, the 'middle district,' between the Him[=a]laya and Vindhya mountains from Delhi to Benares,[2] was trampled upon by one Graeco-Bactrian horde after another. The princ.i.p.al effect of this rude dominion was eventually to give political equality to the two great rival religions. The Buddhist and the Brahman lived at last if not harmoniously, at least pacifically, side by side. Members of the same reigning family would profess Buddhism or Brahmanism indifferently.

One king would sometimes patronize both religions. And this continued to be the case till Buddhism faded out, replaced by that Hinduism which owed its origin partly to native un-Aryan influence (paganism), partly to this century-long fusion of the two state religions.

To review these events: In the first decades of the fourth century (320 or 315-291 B.C.) Candragupta, Sandrocottos, had built up a monarchy in Beh[=a]r[3] on the ruins left by the Greek invasion, sharing his power with Seleucus in the Northwest, and had thus prepared the way for his grandson, Ac.o.ka, the great patron of Buddhism (264 or 259). This native power fell before the hosts of Northern barbarians, which, after irruptions into India in the second century, got a permanent foothold there in the first century B.C. These Northern barbarians (their nationality is uncertain), whose greatest king was Kanishka, 78 A.D., ruled for centuries the land they had seized; but they were vanquished at last in the sixth century, probably by Vikram[=a]ditya,[4] and were driven out. The breathing-s.p.a.ce between Northern barbarian and Mohammedan was nominally not a long one, but since the first Moslem conquests had no definitive result the new invaders did not quite overthrow Hindu rule till the end of the tenth century. During this period the native un-Aryan tribes, with their Hinduizing effect, were more destructive as regards the maintenance of the old Brahmanic cult than were outsiders.[5]

When Tamerlane invaded India his was the fourth invasion after the conquest of the Punj[=a]b by the Moslem in 664.[6] In 1525 the fifth conqueror, Baber, fifth too in descent from Tamerlane, founded the Mogul empire that lasted till the fall of this dynasty (nominally till 1857). But it must be remembered that each new conqueror from 997 till 1525 merely conquered old Mohammedan dynasties with new invasions. It was all one to the Hindu. He had the Mohammedan with him all this time only each new rival's success made his lot the harder, But Baber's grandson, the Great Mogul, Akbar (who reigned from 1556 to 1605), gave the land not only peace but kindness; and under him Jew, Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan at last forgot to fear or fight. After this there is only the overthrow of the Mohammedan power to record; and the rise of the Mahratta native kingdoms. A new faith resulted from the amalgamation of Hinduism with Mohammedism (after 1500), as will be shown hereafter. [8] In the pauses before the first Mohammedan invasion, and between the first defeat of the Mohammedans and their successful second conquest, the barbarians being now expelled and Buddhism being decadent, Brahmanism rallied. In the sixth century there was toleration for all faiths. In the seventh century k.u.m[=a]rila renewed the strength of Brahmanism on the ritualistic side with attacks on Buddhism, and in the ninth century cankara placed the philosophy of unsectarian pantheism on a firm basis by his commentary on the Ved[=a]nta S[=u]tra.[7] These two men are the re-makers of ancient Brahmanism, which from this time on continued in its stereotyped form, adopting Hindu G.o.ds very coyly, and only as spirits of small importance, while relying on the laws as well as the G.o.ds of old, on holy _[=a]c[=a]ra_ or 'custom,' and the now systematized exposition of its old (Upanishad) philosophy.[8] Its creative force was already spent. Buddhism, on the other hand, was dying a natural death. The time was ripe for Hinduism, which had been gathering strength for centuries. After the sixth century, and perhaps even as late as 1500, or later, were written the modern Pur[=a]nas, which embody the new belief.[9] They cannot, on account of the distinct advance in their cult, have appeared before the end of the epic age.

The breathing spell (between barbarian and complete Mohammedan conquest) which gave opportunity to k.u.m[=a]rila to take a high hand with Buddhism, was an opportunity also for the codification of the new creeds. It is, therefore, to this era that one has probably to refer the first of the modern sectarian Pur[=a]nas, though the ritualistic Tantras and [=A]gamas of the lower civaite sects doubtless belong rather to the end than to the beginning of the period. We are strengthened in this belief by the fact that the oldest of these works do not pretend to antedate k.u.m[=a]rila's century, though the sects mentioned in the epic are known in the first centuries of the Christian era. The time from the first to the seventh centuries one may accordingly suppose to have been the era during which was developing the Brahmanized form of the early Hindu sects, the literature of these and subsequent sects being composed in the centuries succeeding the latter term. These sects again divide into many subdivisions, of which we shall speak below. At present we take up the character of the Pur[=a]nas and their most important points of difference as compared with the sectarian parts of the earlier pseudo-epic, examining especially the trinitarian doctrine, which they inculcate, and its history.

Save in details, even the special 'faith-scriptures' called Tantras go no further than go the Pur[=a]nas in advocating the cult of their particular divinities. And to this advocacy of special G.o.ds all else in this cla.s.s of writings is subordinated. The ideal Pur[=a]na is divided into five parts, cosmogony, new creations, genealogies of G.o.ds and heroes, _manvantaras_ (descriptions of periodic 'ages,' past and future), and dynasties of kings. But no extant Pur[=a]na is divided thus. In the epic the doctrine of trinitarianism is barely formulated.

Even in the Harivanca, or Genealogy, _va[.n]ca_, of Vishnu, there is no more than an inverted triunity, 'one form, three G.o.ds,' where, in reality, all that is insisted upon is the ident.i.ty of Vishnu and civa, Brahm[=a] being, as it were, perfunctorily added.[10] In the Pur[=a]nas, on the other hand, while the trinity is acknowledged, religion is resolved again into a sort of sectarian monotheism, where the devotee seems to be in the midst of a squabbling horde of temple-priests, each fighting for his own idol. In the calmer aspects of religion, apart from sectarian schism, these writings offer, indeed, much that is of second-rate interest, but little that is of real value. The idle speculations in regard to former divinities are here made cobweb thin. The philosophy is not new, nor is the spirit of religion raised, even in the most inspired pa.s.sages, to the level which it has reached in the Divine Song. Some of these Pur[=a]nas, of which eighteen chief are cited, but with an unknown number of subordinate works,[11] may claim a respectable age; many of them are the most wretched stuff imaginable, bearing about the same literary and historical relation to earlier models as do the later legal Smritis. In fact, save for their religious (sectarian) purport, the Pur[=a]nas for sections together do not differ much in content from legal Smritis, out of which some may have been evolved, though, probably, they were from their inception legendary rather than didactic. It is more probable, therefore, that they appropriated Smriti material just as they did epic material; and though it is now received opinion that legal Smritis are evolved out of S[=u]tras, this yet can be the case only with the oldest, even if the statement then can be accepted in an unqualified form. In our own opinion it is highly probable that Pur[=a]nas and later legal Smritis are divergent developments from the same source.[12] One gives an account of creation, and proceeds to tell about the social side; the other sticks to the accounts of creation, goes on to theology, takes up tales of heroes, introduces speculation, is finally wrenched over to and amplified by sectarian writers, and so presents a composite that resembles epic and law, and yet is generally religious and speculative.

A striking instance of this may be seen in the law-book of 'Vishnu.'

Here there is an old base of legal lore, S[=u]tra, interlarded with Puranic material, and built up with sectarianism. The writer is a Vishnuite, and while recognizing the trinity, does not hesitate to make his law command offerings to Krishna V[=a]sudeva, and his family (Pradyumna, Aniruddha), along with the regular Brahmanic oblations to older spirits.[13] Brahmanism recognized Hindu deities as subordinate powers at an early date, at least as early as the end of the S[=u]tra period; while Manu not only recognizes Vishnu and civa (Hara), but recommends an oblation to cr[=i] and K[=a]l[=i] (Bhadrak[=a]li, here, as elsewhere, is Durg[=a]).[14]

In their original form the Pur[=a]nas were probably Hesiodic in a great extent, and doubtless contained much that was afterwards specially developed in more prolix form in the epic itself. But the works that are come down as Pur[=a]nas are in general of later sectarian character, and the epic language, phraseology, and descriptions of battles are more likely taken straight from the epic than preserved from ante-epic times. Properly speaking one ought to give first place to the Pur[=a]nas that are incorporated into the epic. The epic M[=a]rkandeya Pur[=a]na, for instance, is probably a good type of one of the earlier works that went by this name. That the present Pur[=a]nas are imitations of the epic, in so far as they treat of epic topics, may be presumed from the fact that although they often have the formulae intact of the battlefield,[15] yet do they not remain by epic descriptions but add weapons, etc., of more modern date than are employed in the original.[16]

The sectarian monotheism of the Pur[=a]nas never resulted in dispensing with the pantheon. The Hindu monotheist is a pantheist, and whether sectarian or philosophical, he kept and added to his pantheon.[17] Indra is still for warriors, Maruts for husbandmen, although old views shift somewhat. So for example, in the K[=u]rma Pur[=a]na the Gandharvas are added for the c[=u]dras.[18] The fourfoldness, which we have shown in the epic to be characteristic of Vishnu, is now represented by the military epithet _caturvy[=u]has_ (agmen quadratum), in that the G.o.d represents peace, wisdom, support, and renunciation; though, as a matter of fact, he is _avy[=u]ha, i.e_., without any of these.[19] Starting with the physical 'G.o.d of the four quarters,' one gets even in the epic the 'controller of four,' or perfect person, conceived like [Greek: aner tetragonos].

Tennyson's 'four-square to all the winds that blow' is a good connecting link in the thought. The Pur[=a]nas are a mine of legend, although most of the stories seem to be but epic tales, more or less distorted. Nala 'the great-great-grandson of R[=a]ma' is described after the history of R[=a]ma himself; the installation of P[=u]ru, when his father had pa.s.sed over his eldest son, and such reminiscences of the epic are the stock in trade of the legendary writers.[20]

The origin of the four castes;[21] the descriptions of h.e.l.l, somewhat embellished,[22] where the 'sinful are cooked in fire';[23] the exaltation of Vishnu as Krishna or K[=a]ma in one, and that of civa in another--these and similar aspects are reflections of epic matter, spirit, tone, and language, only the faith is still fiercer in religious matters, and the stories are fainter in historical references. According to the Pur[=a]na last cited: "There is no expiation for one that bows to a phallic emblem," _i.e_., civaite, and "all the B[=a]uddhas are heretics";[24] and according to the K[=u]rma Pur[=a]na: "Vishnu is the divinity of the G.o.ds; civa, of the devils,"

although the preceding verses teach, in the spirit of the Divine Song, that each man's divinity is that which he conceives to be the divinity. Such is the concluding remark made by Vasistha in adjudicating the strife between the Vishnuite and civaite sectaries of the epic heroes.[25] The relation that the Puranic literature bears to religion in the minds of its authors is ill.u.s.trated by the remark of the N[=a]rad[=i]ya to the effect that the G.o.d is to be honored "by song, by music, by dance, and by recounting the Pur[=a]nas" (xvii. 9).

Some of the epic religious ceremonies which there are barely alluded to are here described with almost the detail of a technical handbook.

So the N[=a]nd[=i]ya (xix.) gives an elaborate account of the raising of a _dhvaja_ or standard as a religious ceremony.[26] The legal rules affecting morality and especially caste-intercourse[27] show a laxity in regard to the rules as formerly preached. Even the old Puranic form of the epic is reproduced, as when M[=a]rkandeya converses again with Yudhistris, exactly as he does in the epic.[28] The duration of the ages; the fruit of sacrifices, among which are still mentioned the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya, acvamedha_, and other ancient rites;[29] the virtue of holy-places;[30] the admixture of pure pantheism with the idea of a personal creation[31]--these traits are again just those which have been seen already in the epic, nor is the addition of sections on temple-service, or other more minute details of the cult, of particular importance in a history of religious ideas.

The Pur[=a]nas for our present purpose may all be grouped with the remark that what is ancient in them is a more or less fugitive resemblance to the epic style and matter;[32] what is new is the more p.r.o.nounced sectarianism with its advent.i.tious growth of subordinate spiritualities and exaggerated miracles. Thus for instance in the Var[=a]ha Pur[=a]na there are eleven, in the Bh[=a]gavat Pur[=a]na twenty (instead of the older ten) _avatars_ of Vishnu. So too the G.o.d of love--although K[=a]ma and his dart are recognized in the late Atharvan--as a petty spirit receives homage only in the latest S[=u]tra (as Cupid, [=A]pastamba, ii, 2. 4. 1), and in late additions to the epic he is a little G.o.d; whereas in the drama he is prominent, and in the Pur[=a]nas his cult is described at length (though to-day he has no temple). The 'mother'-fiend P[=u]tan[=a], who suckles babes to slay them, is scarcely known to the early epic, but she is a very real personality in the late epic and Pur[=a]nas.

The addition to the trinity of the peculiar inferior G.o.dhead that is advocated in any one Pur[=a]na, virtually making four divinities, is characteristic of the period.

In proportion as sectarian ardor is heightened religious tone is lowered. The Puranic votary clinging to his one idea of G.o.d curses all them that believe in other aspects of the divinity. Blind bigotry fills the worshipper's soul. Religion becomes mere fanaticism. But there is also tolerance. Sometimes in one and the same Pur[=a]na rival forms are honored. The modern Hindu sects are in part the direct development of Puranic doctrine. But most of the sects of to-day are of very recent date, though their principles are often of respectable antiquity, as are too their sectarian signs, as well as the animals of their G.o.ds, some of which appear to be totems of the wild tribes, while others are merely objects of reverence among certain tribes.

Thus the ram and the elephant are respectively the ancient beasts of Agni and Indra. civa has the bull; his spouse, the tiger. Earth and Skanda have appropriated the peac.o.c.k, Skanda having the c.o.c.k also.

Yama has the buffalo (compare the Khond, wild-tribe, subst.i.tution of a buffalo for a man in sacrifice). Love has the parrot, etc; while the boar and all Vishnu's animals in _avatars_ are holy, being his chosen beasts.[33]

EARLY SECTS.

A cla.s.sification of older sects (the unorthodox) than those of the present remains to us from the works of cankara's reputed disciple, [=A]nanda Giri, and of M[=a]dhava [=A]c[=a]rya, the former a writer of the ninth, the latter of the fourteenth century. According to the statements made by these writers there were a great number of sects, regarded as partly heterodox or wholly so, and it is interesting in examining the list of these to see that some of the epic sects (their names at least) are still in full force, while on the other hand the most important factions of to-day are not known at all; and that many sects then existed which must have been at that time of great antiquity, although now they have wholly pa.s.sed away.[34] These last are indeed to the author of the critique of the sects not wholly heterodox. They are only too emphatic, in worshipping their peculiar divinity, to suit the more modern conceptions of the Hindu reviewer.

But such sects are of the highest importance, for they show that despite all the bizarre bigotry of the Pur[=a]nas the old Vedic G.o.ds (as in the epic) still continue to hold their own, and had their own idols and temples apart from other newer G.o.ds. The Vedic divinities, the later additions in the shape of the G.o.d of love, the G.o.d of wealth, Kubera,[35] the heavenly bird, Garuda, the world-snake, cesha, together with countless genii, spirits, ghosts, the Manes, the heavenly bodies, stars, etc., all these were revered, though of less importance than the G.o.ds of Vishnuite and civaite sects. Among these latter the civaite sects are decidedly of less interest than the corresponding Vishnuite heresies, while the votaries of Brahm[=a]

(exclusively) are indeed mentioned, but they cannot be compared with those of the other two great G.o.ds.[36] To-day there is scarcely any homage paid to Brahm[=a], and it is not probable that there ever was the same devotion or like popularity in his case as in the case of his rivals. Other interesting sects of this period are the Sun-worshippers, who still exist but in no such numbers as when [=A]nand[=a] Giri counted six formal divisions of them. The votaries of these sub-sects worshipped some, the rising sun, some, the setting sun, while some again worshipped the noonday sun, and others, all three as a _tri-m[=u]rti._ Another division worshipped the sun in anthropomorphic shape, while the last awakens the wrath of the orthodox narrator by branding themselves with hot irons.[37]

Ganeca,[38] the lord of civa's hosts, had also six cla.s.ses of worshippers; but he has not now as he then had a special and peculiar cult, though he has many temples in Benares and elsewhere. Of the declared civaite sects of that day, six are mentioned, but of these only one survives, the 'wandering' Jangamas of South India, the civaite R[=a]udras, Ugras, Bh[=a]ktas, and P[=a]cupatis having yielded to more modern sectaries.

Some at least among the six sects of the Vishnuite sects, which are described by the old writers, appear to have been more ancient. Here too one finds Bh[=a]ktas, and with them the Bh[=a]gavatas, the old P[=a]ncar[=a]tras, the 'hermit' V[=a]ikh[=a]nasas, and Karmah[=i]nas, the latter "having no rites." Concerning these sects one gets scanty but direct information. They all worshipped Vishnu under one form or another, the Bh[=a]ktas as V[=a]sudeva, the Bh[=a]gavatas[39] as Bhagavat. The latter resembled the modern disciples of R[=a]m[=a]nuja and revered the holy-stone, appealing for authority to the Upanishads and to the Bhagavad Git[=a], the Divine Song. Some too worshipped Vishnu exclusively as N[=a]r[=a]yana, and believed in a heaven of sensual delights. The other sects, now extinct, offer no special forms of worship. What is historically most important is that in this list of sects are found none that particularly worship the popular divinities of to-day, no peculiar cult of Krishna as an infant and no monkey-service.

Infidel sects are numerous in this period, of which sects the worst in the old writers' opinion is the sensual C[=a]rv[=a]ka. Then follow the (Buddhist) c[=u]nyav[=a]ds, who believe in 'void,' and S[=a]ugatas, who believe that religion consists only in kindness, the Kshapanakas, and the Jains. The infamous 'left-hand' sectaries are also well known.

To one side of the Puranic religions, from the earlier time of which comes this account of heresies, reference has been made above: the development of the fables in regard to the infant Krishna. That the cult is well known in the later Pur[=a]nas and is not mentioned in this list of wrong beliefs seems to show that the whole cult is of modern growth, even if one does not follow Weber in all his signs of modification of the older practice.

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS.

For the history of the cult there is in these works much to interest one in the description and determination of popular festivals in honor of the great sectarian G.o.ds. Further details of more specific nature are given in other works which need not here be regarded. By far the most important of these festivals are those that seem to have been absorbed by the sectarian cults, although they were originally more popular. Weber in the paper on the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya_, to which we have had occasion several times to refer, has shown that a popular element abided long in the formal celebrations of the Brahmanic ritual.[40]

is soundly beaten; that gaming creeps into the ceremony as a popular aspect; that there was a special ceremony to care _katsenjammer_ caused by over-drinking; and that the whole ceremony was a popular spring festival, such as is found to-day (but without the royal part in the play).

Undoubtedly the original celebration was a popular one. Today the most interesting of these popular fetes is in all respects the New Year's Festival and the Spring Festival. The latter has been cut up into several parts, and to show the whole intent of the original ceremonial it is necessary to take up the _disjecta membra_ and place them side by side, as has been done by Wilson, whose sketch of these two festivals, together with that by Gover of the New Year's Feast called Pongol, we give in abstract, premising that, however close be the comparison with European festivals of like nature, we doubt whether there is any historical connection between them and the Hindu celebrations.

We begin with the more popular New Year's, the Pongol:[41] The interesting feature of this South India festival is that the Hindus have done their best to alter its divinities and failed. They have, indeed, for Indra and Agni got Krishna formally accepted as the G.o.d in whose honor it is supposed to be held, but the feast remains a native festival, and no one really thinks of the Puranic G.o.ds in connection with it. Europe also has seen such dynamic alterations of divinities in cases where feasts would insist till patrons of an orthodox kind were foisted upon them to give an air of propriety to that which remained heathenish.[42] The Pongol is a New Year's festival lasting for three days. The first day is for Indra; the second, for (Agni) S[=u]rya;[43] the third (to which is added, as a wind-up, a fourth day), for cattle. The whole feast is a harvest-home and celebration of cattle. The chief ceremony is the cooking of rice, which is put to boil with great solemnity, and luck for the next year is argued from its boiling well. If it does so a universal shout arises,[44] all rush about, congratulate, and give presents to each other, and merry-making follows. On the cattle-days the beasts are led about with painted horns and decorated with ribbons, and are then chased and robbed by the boys. The image of Ganeca is the only one seen, and his worship is rather perfunctory. On the evening of the last day the women have a party, paying obeisance to a peac.o.c.k, and indulging in a family reunion of very simple character. On this occasion the girl-wife may return for a few hours to her mother. It is the only general fete for women during the year.

Not unlike this festival of the extreme south is the New Year's celebration at the mouth of the Ganges. Here there is a grand fair and jewels are cast into the river as propitiation to the river-G.o.ddess.

Not long ago it was quite customary to fling children also into the river, but this usage has now been abolished.[45] Offerings are made to the Manes, general and particular, and to the All-G.o.ds. As with the Pongol, the feast is one of good-fellowship where presents are distributed, and its limit is the end of the third day. After this the festivities have no religious character. Thousands of pilgrims a.s.semble for this fete. Wilson, who gives an account of this celebration, compares the ancient Roman New Year's, with the _mutui amoris pignora_ which were sent at that season. The gifts in India are sweetmeats and other delicacies, ominous of good for the next year.[46]

On the 2d of February occurs a feast to cr[=i], or Lakshm[=i], Vishnu's bride, patroness of all prosperity to her worshippers. At present it is a literary festival on which all books, inkstands, pens, etc., are cleaned and worshipped, as adjuncts to Sarasvat[=i], the G.o.ddess of learning. This is rather significant, for Sarasvat[=i] is properly the wife of Brahm[=a], but the Vishnuites of Bengal have made her the wife of Vishnu, and identified her with cr[=i]. It is to be noticed that in this sole celebration of abstract learning and literature there is no recognition of civa, but rather of his rival.