of Shrábana, women may be seen coming out of a village with vessels in their hands, containing a composition of rice, milk, and sugar. Proceeding out of the village, they take their station generally near a tank, and offer their homely presents to the goddess on behalf of their children. The presentation being done, they help themselves to the rice, milk, and treacle; and after thanking the goddess, of whom however no image is set up, they return home with the sure hope of seeing their children preserved, during the ensuing season, from the bite of venomous snakes. In towns and large villages, where women cannot go out, this ceremony, termed Ban-bhojan, takes place in the house. In spite, however, of the caution and piety of Hindu mothers, their children are sometimes bitten by snakes. In all such cases the power of Manasá is by no means questioned; the blame rests either on the children themselves, who are alleged to have been killed by their irreverence to her, or on the mothers, who are supposed not to have properly propitiated the angry goddess."

It were needless to attempt a description of all the objects that are found in the Hindu Pantheon, since almost all things have been placed there, and consecrated as the objects of worship. This will have become apparent from what has already been advanced regarding the religious rites of India. The following brilliant description is not an exaggeration of the exuberant fertility of the Hindu mind in surrounding itself with objects of veneration. Pantheism deifies all things. Dr. Duff says, in truth,

“The worlds above this earth are peopled with gods and goddesses, demi-gods and genii; the sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters of Brahma and other superior deities. All the superior gods have separate heavens for themselves. The inferior deities dwell chiefly in the heaven of Indra, the god of the firmament. There they congregate to the number of three hundred and thirty millions! The gods are divided and subdivided into classes or hierarchies,

which vary through every conceivable gradation of rank and power. They are of all colours; some black, some white, some red, some blue, and so through all the blending shades of the rainbow. They exhibit all sorts of shape, size, and figure, in forms wholly human or half human, wholly brutal or variously compounded, like many-headed and many-bodied centaurs, with four, or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand eyes, heads, and arms. They ride through the regions of space on all sorts of etherealised animals; elephants, buffaloes, lions, deer, sheep, goats, peacocks, vultures, geese, serpents, and rats. They hold forth in their multitudinous arms all manner of offensive and defensive weapons; thunderbolts, scimitars, javelins, spears, clubs, bows, arrows, shields, flags, and shells. They discharge all possible functions. There are gods of the heavens above, and of the earth below, and of the region under the earth.—All the virtues and the vices of man; all the allotments of life, beauty, jollity, and sport; the hopes and fears of youth, the felicities and infelicities of manhood, the joys and sorrows of old age; all, all are placed under the presiding influence of superior powers. Every scene, every element, and almost every object in nature; the bud that, bursts forth in spring, the blossom of summer, and the fruits of autumn; meadow and grove, fountain and stream, hill and valley; all have their guardian genii, whose freaks and revelries greatly outstrip, in number and variety, the 'fairy gambols and goblin feats recognised by the credulity of northern superstition.""