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78 HISTORY OF INDIA.

[Book IV.

Orgies of the Sakti worshiii.

AD. — or non-shedding of blood cannot be the main distinction; and accordingly we learn that the left-hand worshippers are guilty of abominations which they dare not publicly avow, and practise in secret orgies. One of the least objec- tionable forms is where the adept goes alone at midnight to a place where dead bodies are buried or burned, or where criminals are executed, and then, seated on a corpse, makes the usual offerings to Siva's consort. If he does this with- out fear, the Bhutas, Yogines, and other male and female goblins become his slaves. On other occasions, where a naked female is worshipped as a represen- tative of the Sakti, men and women meet together, and are guilty of the most scandalous excesses. The Soldi So dhana or Sri Chakra, at which these excesses are chiefly committed, is expressly prescribed by one of the Tantras ; but Pro- fessor Wilson, while admitting that " it is said to be not uncommon, and by some of the more zealous Saktas it is scarcely concealed," differs from Mr. Ward as to its ordinary character, and asserts that " it is usually nothing more than a con- vivial party, consisting of the members of a single family, at which men only are assembled, and the company are glad to eat flesh and drink spirits under the pretence of a religious observance." Be this as it may, it is allowed on all , hands that the Vamacharis, while admitting all classes indiscriminately, without distinction of caste, "are very numerous, especially among the Brahminical tribe." The worst suspicions of the real character of the sect are justified by the fact that many of its members, ashamed or afraid to avow their connec- tion with it, " conceal their creed and observe its practices in privacy." The Keraru. The Only otlicr sect of Saktas requiring notice is that of the Keraris who

were at one time notorious for sacrificing human victims to some of the hideous

personifications of Siva's consort. The .only persons who can now be considered representatives of the sect are "miscreants who, more for pay than devotion, inflict upon themselves bodily tortures, and pierce their flesh with hooks or spits, run sharp- pointed instruments through their tongues and cheeks, recline upon beds of spikes, or gash themselves with knives ; all which practices are occasionally met with throughout India, and have become familiar to Europeans from the excess to which they are carried in Bengal at the Charak Pujahs."

Of the sects classed as miscellaneous, our notice will be confined to the two most important — the Sikhs and the Jains. The former, indeed, as they will again make their appearance in a political character, may at present be disposed

Fakir on Bed of Spikes— From Gold's Oriental Drawings.

Miscellane- ous sects.