Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/583

Rh and on the first of these is performed the service of bringing the goddess into the image. The figure, as it comes from the hands of the image-maker, is only looked upon as a representation of her form, but on this day it is to be animated by her actual presence, and thus become an object of worship. This is the doctrine of the intelligent; but the ignorant look upon the image as truly transformed into Durga herself, very much as the Roman Catholic believes the wafer to be transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ. This introduction of the deity is effected by certain prayers and ceremonies on the part of the officiating priest, who touches with his fingers the breast, the cheeks, the eyes, and the forehead of the image, each time saying, "Let the spirit of Durga long continue in happiness in this image." He touches the eyes with soot, and having thus invoked the goddess, she is believed to look forth through these eyes, to smell with the nostrils, and to hear with the ears. The goddess is as it were infused into the image, so as to make it her body.

Flowers and fruits, incense and music are offered by her delighted votaries, and these offerings, as they believe, are received by her