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When, in the preceding chapter, I contended that the Indian Triad of Deity was (what I firmly belive that Triad to be) the corruption of a nobler doctrine, and when I combated the idea of Seeva being the DESTROYING POWER, on the ground that their system of philosophical theology allows not of the deftruction of any object in nature, I by no means intended to convey an idea that the Indians are not impreffed with the most awful conceptions of God the Avenger. The dreadful catalogue of penances, enumerated above, and voluntarily endured to avert that vengeance, inconteftably proves the existence of those conceptions in their minds; and the religious rites, at present in practice among them, demonftrate that they confider Seeva as the delegated minifter of the Almighty vengeance. On the fubject of these and other apparent contradictions in the courfe of this differtation, I beg permission to offer one general, and not, I truft, inadequate, apology.

On a subject so extenfive and so complex as the ANCIENT RELIGION OF INDIA, a religion fo involved in the fables of mythology, fo darkened by the deepest fhades of superstition, and in the investigation of which, such

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an ample fcope muft neceffarily be allowed to opinion and conjecture, an exact arrangement of the various matter conftantly rifing for investigation could not always be preferved, nor unimpeachable accuracy of delineation be always expected. If, however, I have, in one page, represented the Indian religion as mild and benevolent, and, in another, as fanguinary and terrible, the inconsistency is not to be imputed to me, but to that religion itself, which has, in different ages, and under varying circumftances, altered her feature, her voice, and her gefture. Upon this account it is, that she presents to the inquirer a two-fold, or rather multi-fold, afpect; bearing alternately the fmile of beauty and complacency, and the frown of horror and deformity. At one time arrayed in all the giant terrors of fuperftition, fhe appears, like a fable and vindictive DÆMON from NARAKA, to stalk in defolating fury over the continent of India, brandishing an uplifted scourge, and clanking an iron chain; while, after her, are borne a band of famished YOGEES ftretched on the wheels of torture, and languishing in various attitudes of penance. Her tone is high and menacing, her footsteps are marked with blood, and her edicts are stamped with Hhh 2

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the characters of death. At another time, the wears the fimilitude of a beautiful and radiant CHERUB from HEAVEN, bearing on her perfuafive lips the accents of pardon and peace, and on her filken wings benefaction and bleffing. Now, referved and stately, she delights in pompous facrifices and fplendid

oblations: fhe exults to fee her altars decorated with brocade, and her images glittering with jewels; a numerous train of priests, gorgeoufly arrayed, officiating in her temples, and wafting around, from golden cenfers, the richest odours of the Eaft. Again The affumes a rustic garb, and arrays her afpect in festive smiles: fhe mingles in the jocund train of dancing girls that furround her altar, and will accept none but the simplest oblations; fruits, flowers, and honey. This difference of religious feature is of a nature confonant with the divifion of the HINDOOs, noticed before, into two grand fects; that of VEESHNU, and that of SEEVA;—and it may in part be accounted for by the different character of the patron-deities; the one, a mild and preferving, the other, to adopt the language and fentiments of the brahmins, a fierce, vindictive, and destroying, deity!

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But whence originally arofe this aftonishing contrariety of fentiment, this diametrical oppofition of character, as wide afunder as earth from heaven, between the two great fects of India? Whence came that divifion itself, if, in reality, the Indians derived their defcent from ONE COMMON ANCESTOR, and are univerfally bound by the laws of ONE GREAT LEGISLATOR? We have from the authentic, the incontrovertible, evidence of Mr. Orme, in one page, delineated the gentle Hindoo fhuddering at the fight of blood,* and, upon that account, though skilled in all other branches of the medical science, totally ignorant of anatomical diffection; and we have, in another, from the equally incontrovertible evidence of Sir William Jones and Mr. Wilkins, independently of ancient claffical authority, reprefented them as profusely Shedding the blood of men, bulls, and horfes, in facrifice. Nay, even at this day, certain tribes of the ferocious race of Mahrattas are more than fufpected of fecretly cherishing a number of human victims, the most remarkable for perfonal beauty that can poffibly be obtained, and generally in the full vigour and bloom of youth, for the rites

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* See before, in page 181 of this Volume.

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of the ALTAR; of fattening them like the ftall-fed oxen for flaughter: and, on grand folemnities of feftivity or grief, of actually offering up thofe unhappy victims to their gloomy goddess in all the pomp of that tremendous facrifice.*

With diffidence natural to an author of uneftablished character, who feels himfelf advancing upon dangerous and difputable ground, and yet engaged in the difcuffion of a variety of topics, equally important and interesting, I have hitherto refrained from difclofing to the reader my real fentiments on fo abftrufe a fubject, and from unfolding a system, of which the novelty might subject me to the charge of prefumption, and the precariousness of it to the cenfures of critical severity. At the hazard of being at once. accounted inconfiftent in my affertion, and incompetent to the difcharge of that high hiftoric function which I have perhaps too rafhly adventured

*An intelligent gentleman, who refided fome years in India, related this circumftance to me, and told me, I might depend upon it for a FACT. Another gentleman, who filled a refpectable civil office in one of our fettlements, writes me word, that one morning, while he was attending the duties of his station, a decapitated child was discovered at the door of a celebrated pagoda. On inquiry, it was found to be a facrifice to avert fome dreaded evil, and the father was the executioner.

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