ual bears
little resemblance to the Vedic sacrifices and the essence of the
ceremony is the presentation to the goddess of the victim's severed
head in a vessel of gold, silver, copper, brass or wood but not of
iron. The axe with which the decapitation is to be performed is
solemnly consecrated to Kali and the victim is worshipped before
immolation. The sacrificer first thinks of Brahma and the other gods
as being present in the victim's body, and then prays to him directly
as being all the gods in one. "When this has been done" says Siva, who
is represented as himself revealing these rules, "the victim is even
as myself." This identification of the human victim with the god has
many analogies elsewhere, particularly among the Khonds.[735]

It is remarkable that this barbarous and immoral worship, though
looked at askance except in its own holy places, is by no means
confined to the lower castes. A series of apologies composed in
excellent English (but sometimes anonymous) attest the sympathy of the
educated. So far as theology and metaphysics are concerned, these
defences are plausible. The Sakti is identified with Prakriti or with
the Maya of the Advaita philosophy and defined as the energy,
coexistent with Brahman, which creates the world. But attempts to
palliate the ceremonial, such as the argument that it is a
consecration and limitation of the appetites because they may be
gratified only in the service of the goddess, are not convincing. Nor
do the Saktas, when able to profess their faith openly, deny the
nature of their rites or the importance attached to them. An
oft-quoted tantric verse represents Siva as saying _Maithunena
mahayogi mama tulyo na samsayah_. And for practical purposes that is
the gist of Saktist teaching.

The temples of Kamakhya leave a disagreeable impression--an impression
of dark evil haunts of lust and bloodshed, akin to madness and
unrelieved by any grace or vigour of art. For there is no attempt in
them to represent the terrible or voluptuous aspects of Hinduism, such
as find expression in sculpture elsewhere. All the buildings, and
especially the modern temple of Kali, which was in process of
construction when I saw the place, testify to the atrophy and
paralysis produced by erotic forms of religion in the artistic and
intellectual spheres, a phenomenon which finds another sad
illustration in quite different theological surroundings among the
Vallabhacarya sect at Gokul near Muttra.