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their own funeral pile." The fire is produced by the attrition of the two pieces of wood.

On the occasion of producing it for household and sacrificial fires, the priest recites this prayer: "Fires! this (wood) is thy origin, which is attainable in all seasons, whence being produced thou dost shine. Knowing this, seize on it, and afterwards augment our wealth."

Swaha, the sacti of Agni, resembles the younger Vesta, or goddess of fire, of the Romans, who had no images in their temples to represent her, Thus Ovid has said,

"No image Vesta's semblance can express;

Fire is too subtile to admit of dress."

Neither have I met with an image of Swaha. Those of Agni are usually seen in pictures. In the collection of the late General Stuart was a basalt sculpture of him, seated on a couchant ram, the back ground waved with flames. The Romans, although they had no images of Vesta in their temples usually placed one in the porches or entrances of their houses, and offered daily sacrifices to her. The Hindus have, as I have before stated, also their sacred household fires.

It has been justly observed, that nothing could be a stronger or more lively symbol of the Supreme Being than fire: accordingly we find this emblem in early use throughout all the east. The Persians held it in veneration long before the time of Zoroaster; the Prytanei of the Greeks were perpetual and holy fires, and Eneas carried with him to Italy his penates (or the household gods), the palladium, and the sacred fire.

Agni has several names. His heaven is called Agni-loka. Fig. 4, plate 22, represents him on a ram: in one hand is a spear, in another a lotus flower, and in a third a bead roll.

* Hence the name of Vestibulum.

CHAPTER IX.

Gunga. The Sactis.—Indra and Indrani.-Surya.-Chandra.-Brishput.-Mungula.—Budh. Sukra. Sani.-Rahu.-Ketu. Varuna.

GUNGA.

"By the autumn led,

Fondly impatient to her ocean lord,
Tossing her waves, as with offended pride,

And pining fretful at the lengthened way."

Wilson's Translation of Mudra Rakshasa.

THE honour of having given birth to this goddess, the personification of the sacred stream of the Ganges, has been claimed for their deities, as I have related in my account of Siva, both by the Saivas and Vishnaivas, the former alleging that she sprang from the locks of Siva, and the latter urging that she issued from the foot of Vishnu. It would be highly desirable to have this important point placed, indisputably, beyond farther discussion; but as both parties adhere most pertinaciously to their opinions, I fear an attempt of the kind would impose upon a mediator a task of no little difficulty, and probably of some danger. I shall, therefore, content myself with imagining that she was heaven-descended, leaving the reader to determine whether the head of Siva gave her birth, or whether that deity merely caught her in his plaited locks as she was rushing impetuously to the earth, to prevent her crushing it by her fall. This the Vishnaivas assert; and as their assertion is as likely to be true as any other, it may be as well to leave the matter as it is. From the heaven, however, of either Vaicontha or Kailasa, we must allow her to have come, which she was induced with much difficulty to do, to restore to King Suguru the sixty thousand sons

whom that procreative deity Brigu had caused his wife to have at one birth, and who, for some malpractices, had been reduced to ashes. In her passage towards the sea she was swallowed by a holy sage for disturbing him in his worship; but, by some channel or other, she contrived to make her escape, and having divided herself into a hundred streams (now forming the delta of the Ganges), reached the ocean, where, it is fabled, she descended into Patala, to deliver the sons of Suguru.

All castes of the Hindus worship this goddess of their sacred stream. Numerous temples are erected on the banks of the river in honour of her, in which clay images are set up and worshipped. The waters of the river are highly reverenced, and are carried in compressed vessels to the remotest parts of the country; from whence also persons perform journeys of several months' duration, to bathe in the river itself. By its waters the Hindus swear in our courts of justice.

Mr. Ward informs us that there are 3,500,000 places sacred to Gunga; but that a person, by either bathing in or seeing the river, may be at once as much benefited as if he visited the whole of them.

For miles, near every part of the banks of the sacred stream, thousands of Hindus of all ages and descriptions pour down, every night and morning, to bathe in or look at it. Persons in their dying moments are carried to its banks to breathe their last: by which means the deaths of many are frequently accelerated; and instances have been known wherein such events have thereby been actually produced. The bodies are thus left to be washed away by the tide; and from on board the ships in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, numbers of them are seen floating down every ebb, with carrion crows and kites about them feeding upon their entrails.

Several festivals are held during the year in honour of Gunga. She is described as a white woman with a crown on her head, holding a water-lily in one of her hands, and a water vessel in another, riding upon a sea animal resembling an alligator (see fig. 1, plate 23), or walking on the surface of the water with a lotus in each hand.

THE SACTIS

Are the consorts or energies of the Hindu gods: thus Parvati is the sacti of Siva; Lakshmi, that of Vishnu; and Suraswati, Brahma or Brahmini, of Brahma. As their energies, they participate in their various avatars or incarnations; Lakshmi, in those of Vishnu, being Varahi, Narasinhi, Sita, Radha, &c., and in like manner are the other sactis.

In the eighth volume of the Asiatic Researches, Mr. Colebrooke calls them also Matris or mothers, and says "they are named Brahmi, &c., because they issued from the bodies of Brahma and the other gods respectively." These important lords of the Hindu pantheon appear, like the lords of the creation in many countries, to lead a tolerably idle sort of life, contenting themselves to will an act, and leaving the execution of it to their ever-ready partners, who on these occasions are endowed with the full power and attributes of their husbands. Durga and the sactis are thus seen fighting the battles of the gods with the giants. See fig. 1 in the frontispiece, and fig. 1, plate 20, of Durga; and fig. 2, plate 7, of Lakshmi, as Varahi, with three heads (one a boar's) and numerous hands, armed with various instruments of war.

As the gods are the regents of the eight divisions of the world, so are the sactis protectors of them; though some of them appear to have jostled into places not under the immediate dominion of their lords. These trifling incongruities are, however, of little moment in Hindu mythology, as the ladies are as devoutly invoked by their worshippers for favours and protection, as if they were in their proper positions.

The sactis have numerous followers, who worship them exclusively. The emblem of worship is the yoni. One branch of these worshippers is so grossly licentious and addicted to debauchery, that they are held in the utmost detestation by the other sects, and even by a large portion of their own. In the wars of the gods and the giants, the Amazonian Matris rendered themselves highly conspicuous. Mr. Colebrooke, to whom the learned world is so eminently indebted for his researches into the mythology and literature of

"The energy of each same decorations, and the

the Hindus, has thus described their military array. god, exactly like him, with the same form, the same vehicle, came to fight against the demons. The sacti of Brahma, girt with a white cord and bearing a hollow gourd, arrived on a car yoked with swans: her title is Brahmani. Maheswari came riding on a bull, and bearing a trident, with a vast serpent for a ring and a crescent for a gem. Caumara, bearing a lance in her hand, and riding on a peacock, being Ambica in the form of Kartikeya, came to make war on the children of Diti.* The sacti named Vishnaivi also arrived sitting on an eagle, and bearing a conch, a discus, a club, a bow, and a sword, in her several hands. The energy of Hari, who assumed the unrivalled form of the holy boar, likewise came there, assuming the body of Varahi. Narasinhi, too, arrived there, embodied in a form precisely similar to that of Narasinha, with an erect mane reaching to the host of stars. Aindri (Indrani) came bearing the thunderbolt in her hand, and riding on the king of elephants, and in every respect like Indra, with a hundred eyes. Lastly came the dreadful energy named Chandica, who sprung from the body of Devi, horrible, howling like a hundred shakals. She, surnamed Aparajita, the unconquered goddess, addressed Isana, whose head is encircled by his dusky braided locks."

With these were the demons conquered and slain. Mr. Colebrooke mentions, from other Puranas, some trifling variations respecting these heroines and their vahans; but it will be unnecessary to describe them here, beyond saying, that Kuveri, the energy of Kuvera, the god of riches, not (as is also found in modern times) an unimportant arm in war, was likewise one of the warlike sactis; as was Chamunda, sprung from a frown of Parvati.

We may here learn that the sactis, in these contests, multiplied themselves into the various forms of the several avatars of their lords; and that Parvati, who, as Durga, possessed an independant power, having been armed with the attributes of all the gods, created female warriors at will from her frowns; of which, if we may judge from her images, she was not in the least sparing. In the foregoing extract, Maheswari and Chandica are forms of Parvati; and Narasinhi, Vishnaivi, and Varahi, those of Lakshmi.

The giants, or Assoors.

R

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