kened,
bathed, dressed and put to bed at the close of day. Meals are served
to it at the usual hours. The food thus offered is called _prasad_ (or
favour) and is eaten by the devout. Once or twice a day the god holds
a levee and on festivals he is carried in procession. These ceremonies
are specially characteristic of the worship of Krishna whose images
receive all the endearments lavished on a pet child. But they are also
used in the temples of Siva and Parvati, and no less than twenty-two
of them are performed in the course of the day at the temple of
Bhuvaneshwar in Orissa. It is clear that the spirit of these rites is
very different from that which inspires public worship in other
civilized countries at the present day. They are not congregational or
didactic, though if any of the faithful are in the temple at the time
of the god's levee it is proper for them to enter and salute him.
Neither do they recall the magical ceremonies of the Vedic
sacrifices.[415] The waving of lights (arati) before the god and the
burning of incense are almost the only acts suggestive of
ecclesiastical ritual. The rest consists in treating a symbol or image
as if it were a living thing capable of enjoying simple physical
pleasures. Here there are two strata. We have really ancient rites,
such as the anointing or ornamenting of stones and offerings of food
in sacred places. In this class too we may reckon the sacrifice of
goats (and formerly of human beings) to Kali.[416] But on the other
hand the growing idea of Bhakti, that is faith or devotion, imported a
sentimental element and the worshipper endeavoured to pet, caress and
amuse the deity.

It is hard to see anything either healthy or artistic in this
emotional ritual. The low and foolish character of many temple
ceremonies disgusts even appreciative foreigners, but these services
are not the whole of Hindu worship. All Hindus perform in the course
of the day numerous acts of private devotion varying according to
sect, and a pious man is not dependent on the temple like a Catholic
on his church. Indian life is largely occupied with these private,
intimate, individual observances, hardly noticeable as ceremonies and
concerned with such things as dressing, ablution and the preparation
of food.

The monastic institutions of India seem due to Buddhism. There were
wandering monks before the Buddha's time, but the practice of founding
establishments where they could reside permanently, o