Identifier: empireofindia01full (find matches)
Title: The empire of India
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Fuller, Bampfylde, Sir, 1854-1937
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, Little, Brown, and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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her to the altar with offerings offlowers. There are fewer men than women. Generallythe cultivator takes his religion easily, and is less concernedwith formal worship than with the magical rites thatpropitiate the seasons of sowing and harvest. Grace maybe obtained in various ways—^by adoring the image of thegod, by circumambulating his shrine, by repeating,thousands of times over, the sacred names of Rama andSita, by bathing in sacred waters, by pilgrimage and byasceticism. Pilgrimages are exceedingly popular, andsince merit is not lost by using the train, they add veryconsiderably to the earnings of Indian railways. Thereare shrines throughout the country—^from the slopes ofthe Himalayas to the sea-coast at Cape Comorin—eachannually attracting a crowd of visitants. Prominent insanctity is the shrine of Jaganndth (a title of Siva) onthe Orissa coast. Food taboos are for the occasion ^ It is curious that in China, also, smallpox should beregarded, as a mark of divine favour, 162
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MEANS OF grace: suspended and all may eat freely of the temple rice ; thegod is drawn forth in his chariot, and, in days gone by,the most ecstatic of his devotees flung themselves todeath beneath its wheels. Rivers are generally regardedwith veneration : riverside towns are clustered thickwith temples leading down by steps to the waters edge.Muttra on the Jumna and Benares on the Ganges areparticularly holy, and during festival time people crowdinto them by the hundred thousand to win by bathinga remission of sins. The meeting of two rivers is a place ofsanctity. At the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna,near Allahabad, a bathing fair attracts on occasion halfa miUion people ; the rivers are then low and their broadsandy beds are covered with a city of booths and shanties.The Ganges is apostrophised as Mother : its wateris a precious libation and is carried by pilgrims from shrineto shrine. It is the dream of pious Hindus to die uponits banks, or at least to have their ashes thrown in

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