dance in Kailas, his heaven in the Himalayas. The
Tantras, according to Professor Monier-Williams, inculcate an exclusive
worship of Siva's wife as the source of every kind of supernatural
faculty and mystic craft. The principle of female energy is known
as Sakti, and is personified in the female counterparts of all the
Gods of the Hindu triad, but is practically concentrated in Devi or
Kali. The five requisites for Tantra worship are said to be the five
Makaras or words beginning with M: Madya, wine; Mansa, flesh; Matsya,
fish; Mudra, parched grain and mystic gesticulation; and Maithuna,
sexual indulgence. Among the Vam-Margis both men and women are said
to assemble at a secret meeting-place, and their rite consists in the
adoration of a naked woman who stands in the centre of the room with a
drawn sword in her hand. The worshippers then eat fish, meat and grain,
and drink liquor, and thereafter indulge in promiscuous debauchery. The
followers of the sect are mainly Brahmans, though other castes may be
admitted. The Vam-Margis usually keep their membership of the sect a
secret, but their special mark is said to be a semicircular line or
lines of red powder or vermilion on the forehead, with a red streak
half-way up the centre, and a circular spot of red at the root of
the nose. They use a rosary of rudraksha or of coral beads, but of no
greater length than can be concealed in the hand, or they keep it in
a small purse or bag of red cloth. During worship they wear a piece
of red silk round the loins and decorate themselves with garlands of
crimson flowers. In their houses they worship a figure of the double
triangle drawn on the ground or on a metal plate and make offerings
of liquor to it.

They practise various magical charms by which they think they can kill
their enemies. Thus fire is brought from the pyre on which a corpse
has been burnt, and on this the operator pours water, and with the
charcoal so obtained he makes a figure of his enemy in a lonely place
under a pipal tree or on the bank of a river. He then takes an iron
bar, twelve finger-joints long, and after repeating his charms pierces
the figure with it. When all the limbs have been pierced the man whose
effigy has been so treated will die. Other methods will procure the
death of an enemy in a certain number of months or cause him to lose
a limb. Sometimes they make a rosary of 108 fruits of the _dhatura_
[406] and pierce the figure of the enemy through th