448 ORISSA. rooted is the spirit of compromise in this great national temple, that the sacred enclosure also contains a shrine to Bimalá, the stainless' queen of the All-Destroyer, who is every year adored with midnight rites and bloody sacrifices. Festivals. ----Twenty - four high festivals enliven the religious year, They consist chiefly of Vishnuite celebrations, but freely admit the ceremonials of the rival sects. A vein of the old aboriginal rites runs through them all. At the Red-Powder Festival (Chandan-jutri), which occurs in the month of Baisakh, and lasts for three weeks, a boat procession of the gods passes along the sacred lake. Vishnu and Siva enjoy equal honours in the ceremony. The wild age is yearly commemorated in the abduction of the fair nymph by the enainoured god, a primitive form of marriage per raplionem, acknowledged by ancient Hindu law. The Aryan advance through India is celebrated on Ráma's birthday, on which the god appears in the dress and arms of the Sanskrit hero who marched through the southern jungles of the peninsula, and slew the cannibal king of Ceylon. At the Bathing Festival (Snún-játrá), when the images are brought down in great pomp to one of the artificial lakes, a proboscis is fastened to their noses, so as to give them the look of the elephant god of the aboriginal tribes (Ganesh). The supremacy of Vishnu is declared, however, in the festival of the slaughter of the deadly Cobra-da-Capello (Káli-damana), the familiar of Siva and his queen. The indecent rites that have crept into Vishnuism, and which, according to the spirit of the worshipper, are either high religious mysteries or simple obscenities, are represented by the Birth Festival (Janam), in which a priest takes the part of the father, and a dancing-girl that of the mother, of Jagannath, and the ceremony of his nativity is performed to the life. The Car Festival (Rath-játrá) is the great event of the year. It takes place, according as the Hindu month falls, in June or July, and for weeks beforehand pilgrims come trooping into Purí by thousands every day. The whole District is in a ferment. The great car is 45 feet in height. This vast structure is supported on sixteen wheels of 7 feet dianieter, and is 35 feet square. The brother and sister of Jagannath have separate cars a few feet smaller. When the sacred images are at length brought forth and placed upon their chariots, thousands fall on their knees and bow their foreheads in the dust. The vast multitude shouts with one throat, and, surging backwards and forwards, drags the wheeled edifices down the broad street towards the country-house of lord Jagannath. Music strikes up before and behind, drums beat, cymbals clash, the priests harangue from the cars, or shout a sort of fescennine medley enlivened with broad allusions and coarse gestures, which are received with roars of laughter by the crowd. And so the dense mass struggles forward by convulsive jerks, tugging and
