Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/418

366 worth talking about it was Padré Poor, whom he saw in Madura. He was a man indeed; and, after praising him warmly, he added, “If Siva were to drink the water in which Padré Poor had washed his feet, he would get heaven!"

The images, even of the most famous gods, are treated with an entire want of respect. The great god of Cuttack, the famous Juggernaut, is dragged by a rope around his neck to his place upon the car. Obscene jests are made at the expense of other idols. In times of too much rain they bring out the image from the temple, and expose it to the pouring torrents, that the god may learn the inconvenience of such weather; and in parching droughts they either expose it in the sun, or else pour cold water on its head, that the fierce ardour of the deity may be cooled off.

Their worship of the gods is such as we should expect from this state of things. It consists of coaxing, bribing, flattering, and threatening. If the god will do so and so, they will give him a new cloth or a cocoanut, or they will sing his praises through the whole world. They do not ask or promise holiness;