in the pit or valley of the arm. In that fi tuation they must neceffarily be defrauded of their nourishment, and hang down useless appendages to the body; fo that, unless relieved by charitable attendants, which are numerous at these holy retreats, the fufferers must pefish; being totally unable to help themselves." Others, he observed, who kept their eyes immutably fixed on heaven, like Pliny's gymnofophifts, their heads hanging over their shoulders, and incapable of being moved from that posture from the stiffness contracted, during a long uninterrupted reft, by the tendons of the mufcles and the ligaments of the neck, fo that no aliment, not liquid, can poffibly pass, and even that is fwallowed with much difficulty. Others, by continued abftinence, were fo emaciated, that they appeared like walking fkeletons. All were bedaubed with ashes, and all flept upon the bare ground.

He gives two other remarkable inftances of penitentiary fuffering, the former of which will corroborate what was before inferted concerning the penance between four fires under a meridian fun, and which must have appeared, to one who has not been an eye-witness of thefe horrible exhibitions, abfolutely incredible. A Yogee had refolved, fays our traveller, for

forty

forty days to endure the purgatory of five fires, the blazing fun above his head making the fifth. The folemn act was to take place during a public feftivity, and before an innumerable croud of fpectators. Early in the morning, the penitent was feated on a quadrangular stage, with three afcents to it. He now fell proftrate, and continued fervent at his devotions till the fun began to have confiderable power. He then rose, and affumed the pofition of the Yogee at No. 9, in the print annexed, looking ftedfaftly at the fun, and standing on one of his legs, while the other was kept in a bent posture drawn up under him. In the interim, fays our traveller, four fires being kindled (either of them large enough to roast an ox) at each corner of the stage, the penitent, counting over his beads, and occafionally using his pot of incenfe, like Scævola, with his own hands increafed the flames, adding to them combustible matter by way of incenfe; he then bowed himself down in the centre of the four fires, with his eye ftill fixed upon the fun, and stood upon his head, his feet being bolt upright in the air for three hours; after which he feated himfelf cross-legged, and remained fo all the reft of the day, roasting between those fires, Хуу 4

and

and bathed in the profuse exudation of his own grease.*

Three others of thefe devotees, according to Fryer, had made a vow not to lie down for fixteen years, but to remain standing on their feet during that time. The elder of them had completed the full period of his painful difcipline; of the two others, the first had paffed five, the second three, years in that pofition. The legs of all three were fwollen in a dreadful manner, and deeply ulcerated; but, being unable to fupport the weight of their bodies, they leaned upon pillows fufpended on a string, which hung from one of the branches of the banian-tree, after the manner of the figure, marked No. 7, in the plate. He, who had completed his penance, was afterwards entombed in the fame standing pofition for nine days without taking any fuftenance, and, to prove that he actually continued in his earthy bed during all the nine days, he caufed, fays our author, bank of earth to be thrown up before the mouth of his cave, on which was fown a certain grain, which ears exactly in nine days, and which in fact did ear before his removal thence." Fryer faw the fqualid figure of this penitent imme

* Fryer's Travels, p. 102, edit. fol. 1698.

diately

diately after his refurrection from this fubterraneous prison.*

M. Sonnerat was the eye-witness of many of these extravagant penances on the coast of Coromandel, The following particulars are the result of his obfervation and inquiries. After having defcribed fome of their penances of inferior note, he proceeds to remark: "The Indians have, befides thefe, other more rigid penitents, whom fanaticifm induces to quit friends, relatives, poffeffions, every thing, in order to lead a miserable life. The majority are of the fect of Seeva. The only goods they can poffefs are a lingam, to which they continually offer their adorations, and a tiger's fkin on which they fleep. They exercise on their bodies all that a fanatic fury can convey to their imagination: fome tear their flesh with the strokes of a whip, or fasten themselves to the foot of a tree by a chain, which death only can break; others make a vow to remain all their lives in an uneafy posture, such as keeping the hands fhut, while their nails, which they never cut, in the course of time pierce through them. Some are feen who have their hands always crossed on their breasts, or lifted above their heads in fuch a manner that they

Fryer's Travels, p. 103.

they can no more bend them. These unfortu nate people can neither eat or drink without the affiftance of fome difciples who follow them; and it may be eafily judged what they muft fuffer during feveral years, to reduce their arms to this state of inaction. Many bury themselves, and breathe only through a little hole; and it is wonderful, confidering the time they remain under-ground, that they are not fuffocated. Others, who are less enthufiafts, are contented with burying themselves only up to the neck. Some are found who have made a vow always to ftand upright, without ever lying down; they fleep leaning against a wall or a tree, and, to deprive themselves of all means of fleeping comfortably, they put their necks into certain machines that resemble a kind of grate, which, when once they have rivetted on, can no more be taken off. 0thers ftand whole hours upon one foot, with their eyes fixed on the fun, contemplating -that planet with the most earnest application of mind. Others, again, obferve the fame pofition with one foot in the air, the other refting only on tiptoe, and with both arms elevated; they are placed in the midft of four vafes full of fire, and keep their eyes intenfely fixed on the solar orb.

"There