scene? Apart from the consideration of
the dishonour done to the ever-blessed God by worship rendered to images
representing gods that are no gods--by which, if a Christian, he must be
painfully affected--there is much in the scene before him to impress
him with the sottish folly into which man can sink in his religious
views and practices; and there is nothing to draw forth his regard and
sympathy, except it be the fervour, the deep though mistaken fervour, of
some of the worshippers, especially of the women, who may sometimes be
seen with children in their arms teaching them to make obeisance to the
idol. In Roman Catholic worship there is much which, as Protestants
ruled by the Bible, we rightly condemn; but in the gorgeous vestments of
its priests, in the magnificence of many of the places in which they
minister, in the grand strains of their music and in their processions,
there is much to impress the senses and awe the mind; but in the worship
carried on in the temple of Bisheshwar it is difficult to find a
redeeming quality. The whole scene is repulsive. The place is sloppy
with the water poured out by the worshippers, and is littered by the
flowers they present. The ear is assailed with harsh sounds. The
ministering priests--Pundas as they are called--are, as a rule,
coarse-looking men, with shaven head, save with a long pendent tuft from
the crown, with the mark of their god on their forehead, and are very
scantily attired. They clamour for a present when a European appears,
and if given it is declared to be an offering to the god of the place.
Among the crowd you see men with matted hair and body bedaubed with
ashes, who have broken away from all domestic and social duties, and
devote themselves to what is called a religious life. Some of these
ascetics are no doubt impelled to follow the life they lead by a
superstitious feeling, but many are idle vagabonds ready for the
practice of every villainy, who find it more pleasant to roam about the
land and live on others than support themselves by honest labour. The
people dread their curse, but many give them neither respect nor love.
At a place like Bisheshwar's temple there is always a host of ordinary
beggars, who clamour for alms, and receive from some two or three
shells, called _cowries_, sixty of which go to make up a halfpenny, from
others a little grain, and from the more liberal or more wealthy a small
coin.

[Sidenote: THE MOSQUE OF AURUNGZEB.]

From