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The figure on the left of engraving, No. 31 was found among some ruins in Behar. It is an image of Shiva, who, according to Hindu mythology, is the husband of Kali. He has eight arms and three eyes, one of which is in the centre of his forehead. The serpent with which he is decorated is rearing its head over his right shoulder. With one foot he is crushing an enemy in the act of drawing a sword; with two of his hands he is tossing a human victim on the points of a trident; in a third he holds a drum, in a fourth an axe, in a fifth a sword, in a sixth a portion of the Vedas, and in a seventh a club, on the end of which is a human head.

The figure on the right was copied from a sculpture on the wall of a temple at Gaya. It has four legs, sixteen arms, and seven heads. Its girdle and crown are ornamented with heads. In each hand it has an animal on a plate, as if dressed for food. It is dancing on four men's bodies, two prostrated and two ready to be crushed. Above, beneath, and on each side, were armed female furies dancing on human carcasses; but these are not copied into the engraving. By the inhabitants of Gaya, this image is called Mahamaya, another name for Kali; but it is a male, and, perhaps, was originally intended to represent her husband, Shiva.

In the month of April, a festival in honor of Shiva is celebrated in almost every town and village. One of these festivals I witnessed in Calcutta. On the first day, at sunset, the worshippers assembled at different places, and danced, to the sound of drums. and other rude and noisy music, before an image of Shiva. Then, one after another, they were suspended from a beam, with the head downward, over a fire. The next day, about five o'clock in the afternoon, each company reassembled and erected a stage about ten feet in height, from which they threw themselves upon large knives. The knives being placed in a sloping position, the greater part of the thousands that fall upon them escape unhurt; but occasionally an individual is cruelly mangled. About forty persons threw themselves from one stage. None but the last appeared to receive much injury. He pretended to be killed, and was carried off with great shouting. During the whole of the night, Calcutta resounded with the sound of gongs, drums, trumpets, and the boisterous shouts of the worshippers. Early the next morning, forty or fifty thousand persons were assembled

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water, or eaten any food cooked by these villagers, or even drank pure water from their vessels, she would have lost caste. And what then? Her own children would have fled from her as from one infected with the plague; her husband would not have permitted her to enter his house; even the parental roof would not have afforded her an asylum for a single moment; had any friends or relatives dared to associate with her, they too would have lost caste and been involved in the same disgrace. Thus she would necessarily become an outcast and a vagabond.

In most of the large houses in India, there is an apartment which serves as a family chapel. Engraving, No. 27 represents such an apartment in a very elegantly-finished house in the city of Benares. In the farther part of the chapel is the altar or shrine on which the idols are placed. Each member of the family is expected to offer up his devotions to these idols every morning and evening.

According to their own standard, the Hindus are preeminently a religious people. The number of their gods, as stated in their Shasters, is three hundred and thirty millions. These fabled gods are not represented as acting in concert; they fight and quarrel with each other, and with their wives and children, murder the innocent for the sake of plunder, and commit crimes, the bare recital of which to a Christian audience would excite the utmost horror and disgust. It is generally admitted, that neither nations nor individuals aim at greater purity of morals than their religion requires. We may expect to find any community below, rather than above this standard. This is true in regard to the Hindus. Their gods and goddesses being extremely vicious, the manner in which they are worshipped must correspond with their character; it cannot be expected that the moral character of the people should be other than it is, a compound of every thing that is debasing. Gross and polluted as their divinities are, they are yet too refined and elevated, in their estimation, to be worshipped without imagery. Images are made in forms as various, unnatural, and horrid, as the imagination can conceive. When one of them is consecrated by the Brahmin, the divinity for whom it is designed is supposed to take up his abode in it, and is propitious or unpropitious according to the manner in which it is worshipped.

The goddess Kali, (See Number 29) is represented as a woman of a dark blue color, with four arms, in the act of trampling under her feet her prostrate and supplicating husband. In hand

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No. 26. Vishnu, reposing on his Serpent Couch.".

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No. 27. Interior of a House in the City of Benares.

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