ORISSA. 439 pure, or lose its reflected sanctity. In the courts of Jagannath, and outside the Lion Gate, 100,000 pilgrims every year are joined in the sacrament of cating the holy food. The lowest may demand it from, or give it to the highest. Its sanctity overleaps all barriers, not only of caste, but of race and hostile faiths: and a l'uri priest will stand the test of receiving the food from a Christian hand. The worship of Jagannath, too, aims at a catholicism which embraces every form of Indian belief, and every Indian conception of the cleity. Nothing is too high, and nothing is too low, to find admission into his temple. The fetishism and bloody rites of the aboriginal races, the mild flower-worship of the Vedas, and every compromise between the two, along with the lofty spiritualities of the great Indian reformers, have here found refuge. The rigid Monotheism of Rámánuja in the twelfth century, the Monastic System of Rámánand in the fifteenth, the mystic Quietism of Chaitanya at the beginning of the sixteenth, and the luxurious Love-Worship of the Vallabháchárís towards its close, ningle within the walls of Jagannath at this present day. He is Vishnu, under whatever forni and by whatever title men call upon his name. Besides thus representing Vislinu in all his manifestations, the priests have superadded the worship of the other members of the Hindu trinity in their various shapes; and the disciple of every Hindu sect can find his beloved rites, and some form of his chosen deity, within the sacred precincts. The very origin of Jagannath proclaims him not less the god of the Bráhmans than of the low-caste aboriginal races. The story of the Divine Log is one of the most popular legends of Orissa. It is entitled the Dáru Brahma,' and, like most of the stories of the people, is an adaptation from the Puranas. In this legend we find the aboriginal people worshipping a blue stone in the depths of the forest. But the deity has grown tired of the jungle offerings of the primitive people, and longs for the cooked food of the more civilised Aryan race. When the Aryan element at length comes on the scene, the rude blue stone disappears, and gives place to a carved image. At the present hour, in every hamlet of Orissa, this twofold worship co-exists. The common people have their shapeless stone or block, which they adore with simple rites in the open air; while side by side with it is a temple to one of the Aryan gods, with its carved image and elaborate worship. Some shapeless log, or a black stone, or a red-stained trunk of a tree, is still the object of adoration among the masses. Whenever the villagers are questioned about their religious beliefs, the same answer is invariably give ven* The common people have no idea of religion but to do right, and to worship the village god.' The worship of Vishnu was not, however, the first form of the Aryan WIS
