Page:Bengali Religious Lyrics, Śākta.pdf/22

12 The Thugs, robbers who mixed with travellers and then strangled them in lonely places, regarded their victims as sacrificed to Kālī.

In the Śākta-cult, the worst side of Kālī-worship culminates. Of its two sects, the 'right-hand Śāktas' do not practise the more evil ritual. The worship of the 'left-hand Sāktas' is done in secret, usually at night. It consists of partaking of the five tattvas i.e. realities viz. wine, meat, fish, parched grain, and sexual intercourse. Sometimes a naked woman represents the goddess. The worshippers are an equal number of men and women, of any caste, and may be near relations. These rites, and the human character built upon them, have been pictured for us by Bankimehandra Chatterji. in a book which is one of the master-examples of the shorter novel, Kapālakuṇḍalā. The picture is drawn, without revolt or sympathy, in the detached spirit of Art, by one who was in most things a conservative Hindu.

The left-hand Śākta-cult, in addition to its sacrificial and sexual features, is distinguished by a very extensive practice of magic. This is partly built upon a fantastic physiology. The human frame contains an immense number of channels of occult force, the chief of them being the sushkumṇā in the Spinal cord. The occult force is centralised in six circles. In the lowest of these, the goddess lies asleep, coiled three and a half times round a liṅga, serpent-fashion. She can be awakened by Śākta-yoga or Śākta-meditation, and induced to ascend to the highest circle. When asleep in the lowest circle. the mūlādharā, the goddess is called Kuṇḍalinīi, 'The coiled one.' These circles and channels of occult force are sources of miraculous power to the initiated. The Tantras contain many detailed instructions in sorcery, which was practised in early times. In the Māltaī-Mādhava, a drama composed in the eighth century by Bhavahhūuti, the famous Sanskrit poet, we are taken 'in the twilight to the burning-ground, fetid with the fumes