ered annually in various parts of southern
India. I have myself seen the sites where such sacrifices were offered
in 1908-9 in Mysore city and in Chidambaram, and in 1912 at Wei near
Poona. The most usual form of sacrifice now-a-days is said to be the
Vajapeya. Much Vedic ritual is still preserved in the domestic life of
the Nambathiri and other Brahmans of southern India. See Cochin,
_Tribes and Castes_, and Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of southern
India._]

[Footnote 409: The outline of a stupa may be due to imitation of
houses constructed with curved bamboos as Vincent Smith contends
(_History of Fine Art_, p. 17). But this is compatible with the view
that stone buildings with this curved outline had come to be used
specially as funeral monuments before Buddhism popularized in India
and all Eastern Asia the architectural form called stupa.]

[Footnote 410: The temple of Aihole near Badami seems to be a
connecting link between a Buddhist stupa with a pradakshina path and
a Hindu shrine.]

[Footnote 411: In most temples (at least in southern India) there are
two images: the _mula-vigraha_ which is of stone and fixed in the
sanctuary, and the _utsava-vigraha_ which is smaller, made of metal
and carried in processions.]

[Footnote 412: Thus Bhattacharya (_Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 127)
enumerates eleven classes of Brahmans, who "have a very low status on
account of their being connected with the great public shrines," and
adds that mere residence in a place of pilgrimage for a few
generations tends to lower the status of a Brahmanic family.]

[Footnote 413: Thus in Bengal there is a special class, the Barna
Brahmans, who perform religious rites for the lower castes, and are
divided into six classes according to the castes to whom they
minister. Other Brahmans will not eat or intermarry with them or even
take water from them.]

[Footnote 414: This is extraordinarily like the temple ritual of the
ancient Egyptians. For some account of the construction and ritual of
south Indian temples see Richards in _J. of Mythic Soc_. 1919, pp.
158-107.]

[Footnote 415: But Vedic mantras are used in these ceremonies. The
libations of water or other liquids are said to be accompanied by the
mantras recited at the Soma sacrifice.]

[Footnote 416: At these sacrifices there is no elaborate ritual or
suggestion of symbolism. The animal is beheaded and the inference is
that Kali likes it. Similarly simple is the offering of coco-