Chap. II.] HINDOO DEVOTION. 65
a spirit, that they look as if they had been introduced for the mere purpose of ad. contradicting them or neutralizing their effect; and devotion, so far from depending for its efficacy on purity of heart and amendment of life, derives one of its chief recommendations from its supposed ability to act as a substitute for them. So little, indeed, does this devotion partake of the nature of a reason- able service, that in a passage which has been already quoted, the lower animals are supposed capable of performing and profiting by it. The chief ingredients in it are suppressions of the breath, inaudible utterances, repetitions by rote, irksome or painful postures, voluntary privations, and austerities.
In justification of the chai'acter thus ascribed to Hindoo devotion, it will irrational again be necessary to make a few quotations from the Institutes of Menu, of Hindoo
devotion.
" Even three suppressions of breath, made according to the divine rule, accom- panied with the triverbal phrase and the triliteral syllable, may be considered as the highest devotion of a Brahmin." The "triverbal phrase" consists of three Sanscrit words, bhur, bhurah, swer, meaning earth, sky, heaven. The triliteral syllable is A U M, contracted into om, and considered, as already mentioned, emblematic of the godhead. Again: — " A priest who shall know the Veda, and shall pronounce to himself, both morning and evening, that syllable {pm), and that holy text (the gayatri), preceded by the three words, shall attain the sanc- tity which the Veda confers." Lest the words, "know the Veda," used in this passage, should be supposed to mean a thorough practical knowledge, it is else- where said that "this holy scripture is a sure refuge even for those who under- stand not its meaning ;" and that " a priest who should retain in his memory the whole Rig Veda would be absolved from guilt, even if he had slain the in- habitants of the three worlds, and had eaten food from the foulest hands." The same spirit prevails in all the various modes employed for the expiation of guilt, and whatever the offence, the offender may always purge away the guilt of it by some device which only touches him in his purse or his person, without tending in the least to purify his mind. It is true that many of the penances enjoined are not only severe, but hori'ible ; and that by a kind of will- worship devotees have made a large addition to the number, so that there is scarcely a form of human suffering to which recourse is not had in the vain hope of thereby paci- fying the conscience, and conciliating the divine favour. The number of persons engaged in this hopeless task, and the aggregate amount of suffering which they must endure, attest the existence of a deep religious feeling in the Hindoo, since it is this alone which makes him so ingenious in the art of self-tormenting. The more melancholy, therefore, is the fact, that this religious feeling has only Deep but made him the prey of religious impostors, and bound him in the chains of a super- i«iigious stition so full of absurdity, obscenity, and cruelty. Considering the character of thViilidoos. Hindooism, nothing seems so extraordinary as the hold which it takes of its votaries. The monstrosities of its beliefs, and the painful sacrifices which its worship demands, seem only additional inducements to cling to it with pertina-
VoL. II. 98
