ard of Civaism. Ancient and
recent observers enumerate a sad list of them. The devotees of the
'highest bird' are a low set of ascetics, who live on voluntary alms,
the result of their affectation of extreme penance. The
[=U]rdhvab[=a]hus, 'Up-arms,' raise their arms till they are unable to
lower them again. The [=A]k[=a]camukhas, 'Sky-facers,' hold their
faces toward the sky till the muscles stiffen, and they live thus
always. The Nakhls, 'Nail' ascetics, allow their nails to grow through
their clenched hands, which unfits them for work (but they are all too
religiously lazy to work), and makes it necessary for the credulous
faithful to support them. Some of these, like the K[=a]naph[=a]ts,
'Ear-splitters,' who pierce the ear with heavy rings, have been
respectable Yogis in the past, but most of them have lost what sense
their philosophic founders attached to the sign, and keep only the
latter as their religion. Some, such as the [=U]kharas and
S[=u]kharas, appear to have no distinctive features, all of them being
the 'refuse of beggars' (Wilson). Others claim virtue on the strength
of nudity, and subdue their passions literally with lock and key. The
'Potmen,' the 'Skull-men,' G[=u]daras and K[=a]p[=a]likas, are
distinguished, as their names imply, only by their vessels. The
former, however, are the remnant of a once thoughtful sect known by
name since the sixth century, and K[=a]naph[=a]ts and K[=a]p[=a]likas
both show that very likely others among these wretches are but the
residue of ancient Civaite sects, who began as philosophers (perhaps
Buddhists), and became only ascetic and thus degraded; for, Civa
apparently has no power to make his worshippers better than himself,
and he is a dirty monster, now and then galvanized into the
resemblance of a decent god.

There is a well-known verse, not in Manu, but attributed to him (and
for that reason quite a modern forgery),[41] which declares that
Cambhu (Civa) is the god of priests; Vishnu, the god of warriors;
Brahm[=a], the god of the V[=a]icyas (farmers and traders); and
Ganeca, the god of slaves. It is, on the contrary, Civa himself, not
his son Ganeca, who is the 'god of low people' in the early
literature. It is he who 'destroys sacrifice,' and is anything but a
god of priests till he is carefully made over by the latter. Nowadays
some Brahmans profess the Civaite faith, but they are Vishnuite if
really sectarian.

No Brahman, for instance, will serve at a Ci