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 CHAPTER I 3.

tices like the suttee, or the throwing of children into the Ganges by their mothers, or the suicide of devotees beneath the wheels of the car of Jugunnath, became fashionable, and were looked upon as great acts of virtue.

A large number of minor deities, quite modern in their origin and history, and many of them unknown to the other provinces of the country, had come to be introduced into the national pantheon of Bengal; and their worship was in many cases associated with all manner of excesses, such as the slaying of kids and buffaloes and lavish expenditure for the encouragement of drunkenness and prostitution. A comparatively new system of idolatrous worship called Tantrism, perhaps a legacy of latter-day Buddhism, which encouraged open indulgence in drinking and sensuality, and many other secret and demoralising practices, had been introduced into the country during the preceding six or seven centuries,and claimed at the time many thousands of adherents in all parts of Bengal. To protest against its debasing influence, a reform movement called Vaishnavism was set on foot towards the end of the 15th century by Chaitanya, the far-famed prophet of Bengal; but his followers, too, at the time we are speaking of, fully shared, with their Tantric rivals, in the prevailing corruptions of the times. Losing sight of the fundamen-