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quence of having supplied them with food when they retired into Mount Aventine. Besides the great similarity of names, there is a singular coincidence in the times of their worship, the festivals of Anna Purna taking place in the early part of the increase of the moon in the month Choitru (partly in March), and those of the Roman goddess on the Ides of March. If, however, the patriotic country dame Anna Perenna was raised to the rank of a deity for her express services, there can be no great cause to imagine that she travelled from Benares to Rome on the occasion; so that we must suppose these coincidences, like many others that have been used to identify important personages, to be altogether casual.

GANESHA JUNANI

Is another form of Parvati, under which she is represented sitting on a lotus, dressed in red, and supporting the infant Ganesha in her arms (fig. 5, plate 20). Very expensive festivals are held in honour of this form of Parvati.

Fig. 4, in the same plate, from a model by Chit Roy, represents her under a form not known to me. She is apparelled like the forms of Durga from the other models, seated on a horse, without a saddle or bridle, and holding under her arm a jar. Her hands have probably had some distinguishing emblems placed in them, but they are now without any thing. I do not, at this moment, recollect to have seen this form of Durga or Parvati in Calcutta.

Fig. 1, in plate 20, is Durga seated on a lion or tiger, armed to encounter the giants. Fig. 2, is Parvati at prayer; both from sculptures.

JUGUD'HATRI,

A form of Parvati as Durga. She is represented as a yellow woman sitting on a lion, holding in her four hands a shell, a discus, a lotus flower, and a club. This goddess is worshipped with much rejoicing in the month Kartiku, on which occasions large sums are expended. After the ceremony

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model by Chit Roy. 2. Kama Deva, the God of Love, from a Drawing Purushed by Pirhy Allen London $3?

PL. 21.

her images, like those of Durga, are conveyed, attended in the customary manner with much noisy music, to the banks of the river, and cast into the stream. Fig, 1, plate 21, represents her seated on a lion, which is bestriding and wounding with his fore-paws an elephant, whose trunk is twined round one of the hinder legs of the lion. From a handsome model by Chit Roy.

KRISHNA KRORA

Is another form of Parvati as Durga, under which she is giving suck to Krishna, to prevent the effects of the poison which he received in subduing the monstrous serpent Kalya.

This monster infested the banks of the river Yamuna, and destroyed the herds of the Gokals. Krishna attacked and conquered him. He then asked that deity where he was to go, as, if he remained on shore, Garuda would destroy him. Krishna pressed his foot on his head, and told him that the impression would secure him from Garuda. The venom of the serpent, however, affected Krishna, which Durga cured by administering to him her own milk.

KAMULA KAMINI,

Another form of Durga, in which she is described pulling an elephant out of her mouth. Fig. 6, plate 26, from the temple of Rama, represents a personage of some kind mounted on the back of another, pulling an elephant from the mouth of a fish. Whether this has any relation to the present form of Durga I am unacquainted; as I am, indeed, with the legend to which the figures refer.

Parvati has numerous other names, some of the most important of which will be noticed, under their respective heads, in the third part of this work.

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CHAPTER VIII.

Viraj; Ardha-Nari.-Heri-Hari.-Narayana.-Prithivi.-Ganesha.-Kuvera.—Pavana.
Yama.-Agni.

VIRAJ,

THE primeval being, represented under a form half male, half female. The term is usually applied to Siva and Parvati; but where gods meet gods at every step, it is impossible to decide which of them was the primeval being. Mr. Colebrooke informs us, that "he, the primeval being, felt not delight, therefore man delights not when alone. He wished the existence of another, and instantly became such as is man and woman in mutual embrace. He caused this, his own self, to fall in twain, and thus became a husband and wife: therefore was this body, so separated, an imperfect moiety of himself. This blank, therefore, is completed by woman: he approached her, and thus were human beings produced.

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"She reflected doubtingly: How can he, having produced me from himself, incestuously approach me? I will now assume a disguise.' She became a cow, and the other became a bull, and approached her; and the issue were kine. She then became successively a mare, a she-ass, a female goat, an ewe, &c. &c. ad infinitum, and he a male of every species; so that all kinds of animals, &c. down to the minutest insect, were created."

According to some, Viraj was the first issue of the mighty being who had thus divided himself, and was consequently the first man and the founder of the human race. Swayambhuva is considered to have been his son. There are many accounts respecting their descendants, each at variance with the other. I need only, therefore, say that they were the Brahmadicas, Menus, and Rishis; and the race of the Children of the Sun, the descendants of Surya.

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