ad feasted them all for four days
during the progress of the ceremonies, but that they were obliged to
defray their expenses going and coming, except when they came by
special invitation to do honour to the occasion, as in the case of my
little friend the Sagar high priest, Janki Sewak. They told me that
they called this festival the 'Dhanuk jag';[5] and that Janakraj, the
father of Sita, had in his possession the 'dhanuk', or immortal bow
of Parasram, the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, with which he
exterminated all the Kshatriyas, or original military class of India,
and which required no less than four thousand men to raise it on one
end.[6] The prince offered his daughter in marriage to any man who
should bend this bow. Hundreds of heroes and demigods aspired to the
hand of the fair Sita, and essayed to bend the bow; but all in vain,
till young Ram, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu,[7] then a lad of
only ten years of age, came; and at the touch of his great toe the
bow flew into a thousand pieces, which are supposed to have been all
taken up into heaven. Sita became the wife of Ram; and the popular
poem of the Ramayana describes the abduction of the heroine by the
monster king of Ceylon, Ravana, and her recovery by means of the
monkey general Hanuman. Every word of this poem, the people assured
me, was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by
his inspiration, which was the same thing, and it must, consequently,
be true.[8] Ninety-nine out of a hundred among the Hindoos implicitly
believe, not only every word of this poem, but every word of every
poem that has ever been written in Sanskrit. If you ask a man whether
he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these
books, he replies with the greatest _naivete_ in the world, 'Is it
not written in the book; and how should it be there written if not
true?' The Hindoo religion reposes upon an entire prostration of
mind, that continual and habitual surrender of the reasoning
faculties, which we are accustomed to make occasionally. While
engaged at the theatre, or in the perusal of works of fiction, we
allow the scenes, characters, and incidents to pass before 'our
mind's eye', and move our feelings, without asking, or stopping a
moment to ask, whether they are real or true. There is only this
difference that, with people of education among us, even in such
short intervals of illusion or abandon, any extravagance in acting,
or flagrant im