he most wicked
of the three, and he has the most followers. These men, proud of his
character, express in their devotions to him their contempt for
the other gods,* his equals and brothers; and, in imitation of his
inconsistencies, while they profess great modesty and chastity, they
publicly crown with flowers, and sprinkle with milk and honey, the
obscene image of the Lingam.

* When a sectary of Chiven hears the name of Vichenou
pronounced, he stops his ears, runs, and purifies himself.

In the rear of these, approach the smaller standards of a multitude of
gods--male, female, and hermaphrodite. These are friends and relations
of the principal gods, who have passed their lives in wars among
themselves, and their followers imitate them. These gods have need of
nothing, and they are constantly receiving presents; they are omnipotent
and omnipresent, and a priest, by muttering a few words, shuts them up
in an idol or a pitcher, to sell their favors for his own benefit.

Beyond these, that cloud of standards, which, on a yellow ground, common
to them all, bear various emblems, are those of the same god, who reins
under different names in the nations of the East. The Chinese adores him
in Fot,* the Japanese in Budso, the Ceylonese in Bedhou, the people of
Laos in Chekia, of Pegu in Phta, of Siam in Sommona-Kodom, of Thibet
in Budd and in La. Agreeing in some points of his history, they all
celebrate his life of penitence, his mortifications, his fastings, his
functions of mediator and expiator, the enmity between him and another
god, his adversary, their battles, and his ascendency. But as they
disagree on the means of pleasing him, they dispute about rites and
ceremonies, and about the dogmas of interior doctrine and of public
doctrine. That Japanese Bonze, with a yellow robe and naked head,
preaches the eternity of souls, and their successive transmigrations
into various bodies; near him, the Sintoist denies that souls can exist
separate from the senses,** and maintains that they are only the effect
of the organs to which they belong, and with which they must perish, as
the sound of the flute perishes with the flute. Near him, the Siamese,
with his eyebrows shaved, and a talipat screen*** in his hand,
recommends alms, offerings, and expiations, at the same time that he
preaches blind necessity and inexorable fate. The Chinese vo-chung
sacrifices to the souls of his ancestors; and next him, the follower of