ns; and
when trees, rivers, mountains, and a thousand other objects represent
to the popular mind separate godlets? One can well say that India has
gone mad in its passion for populating the world with gods.

3. Moreover, this pantheon has been incarnated. It has descended into
a wild and hideous idolatry. There is no other land on earth where
idolatry is so rampant as it is in India. Images are found everywhere.
If the gods are numberless, how much more the idols which represent
them, and which are found in every hamlet and house and upon
roadsides!

In addition to those idols which are made for regular and permanent
worship, there are myriad others which are made of clay and other
perishable substances, to be used for the time only, and then to be
thrown into the river or to be washed away by the rain.

And what hideous objects these idols of India are! The images of the
gods of the ancient Greeks were beautiful, and one feels sometimes
almost inclined to excuse an image-worship where ignorance weds art
to religion and combines beauty with devotion.

But there is no such excuse for the idolatry of India. In all my
travels through this great land I have hardly seen an image, or an
idol, which is what may be called an artistically beautiful object. On
the other hand, many of them are peculiarly gross and revolting in
appearance. The most universally worshipped god in all India is
Ganesh. His idols are found all over the land, not only in temples and
shrines, but on roadsides, and in all places where people assemble.
And this Ganesh, the son of Siva, is represented by the grossest and
most hideous idol. This "pot-bellied god" has his body crowned with an
elephant head!

Of course, Hindu taste cannot be judged by western standards. One
cannot fail to recognize this fact in trying to judge types of human
beauty in this land. But even Hindu types of beauty are not at all
realized in their idols. It would often seem as if that which was most
revolting in appearance is that which appeals most strongly to the
Hindu, as an outward expression of the divine. In any case, it is true
that the idolatry of India is farthest removed from the chaste, the
beautiful, and the elevating.

And this evil is intensified by the fact that all worshipped idols are
bathed with oil, and therefore attract all the dust, dirt, and grime
of the immediate vicinity.

Educated Hindus, though they tell you that these idols are only for
the ignor