Page:Bengali Religious Lyrics, Śākta.pdf/21

Rh reproduction, and his worship is most widespread in its phallic form, the adoration of the liṅga. But that symbol has been so changed from its true shape that the sight of it does not do the evil that might be expected. It is otherwise with the worst side of śakti-worship.

Durgā is first mentioned in the Mahābhārata, in a passage where she is the sister of Kṛishṇa, like him dark-blue in colour; she upholds heaven by her chastity, lives in the Vindhya mountains, and delights in wine, flesh, and animal sacrifice. Presently we find her 'definitely made the wife of Śiva,' and addressed as Umā, the gentle and propitious. In later legend, she destroys demons and giants, devours the flesh of her enemies and drinks blood. The Durgā-pūjā is the great festival of Bengal, when friends and families come together. Durgā's image is decorated on the sixth day she is awakened; on the night of the eighth day countless goats and some buffaloes are sacrificed to her. Many families, however, especially Vaishṇava ones, celebrate the pūjā with bloodless sacrifices of sugarcane or pumpkins, severed in half in one blow, just as the living victims are decapitated with one stroke. One great family offers a single betel-nut, which is laid before the image, and then sacrificed by a blacksmith who has been practising the feat of exact division in two for the past three months, and receives a hundred rupees for his services. In other cases, all pretence of 'sacrifice' is dropped and flowers are offered. The pūjā seems to be growing yearly gentler in spirit. The goddess keeps her ten arms and weapons of menace, but the latter are hidden with tinsel and lotuses; the face is benign, and the whole figure is made beautiful. Fewer goats are sacrificed, fewer houses have their own images, the pūjā becoming less of a worship, and much more just a national holiday of great happiness.

To Durgā as Kālī, human sacrifices used to be offered, before their prohibition by the British Government.