Sakti.—The Hindu goddesses are uniformly re presented as the subordinate powers of their respect ive lords. The term is from the Sanskrit, meaning power, strength ; thus Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, the preserver, is the goddess of abundance and prosperity ; Bhawani, the wife of Siva, is the general power of fecundity; and Saraswati, whose husband was the creator, Brahma, possesses the powers of imagination and invention, which may justly be termed creative. She is therefore adored as the patroness of the fine arts, especially of music and rhetoric ;• as the inventress of the Sanskrit language, of the Devanagri writing characters, and of the sciences which writing per petuates; so that her attributes correspond with those of Minerva Musica of Greece or Italy, who invented the flute, and presided over literature.
Mixings.—Saivaisni and Vaishnaism described above are the common everyday religions of the bulk of the Hindu populations. But the internal beliefs of the worshippers have no such com munity, and their various tenets must be sought for under the history of their several sects. A Saiva sect, the Satnami, profess to adore the true name, the one God ; but they nevertheless recog• Iliac the whole Hindu pantheon, and pay reverence to what they consider manifestations of his nature visible in the avatars, particularly Rama and Krishna, The Sadh, on the other hand, utterly reject all kinds of idolatry ; are pure deists, with a simple worship. Between these unitarian sects and such as adore every deity, there is the utmost diversity of theory and practice ; and the fusing of their creeds, doctrines, and customs is continually going on. Major Moor tells of a Mallomedan butcher at Poona, who occasionally supplied the Residency with meat. Being asked if he would kill a calf, he started back with horror at the proposal, ejaculating a prayer to be forgiven for having even heard it. Many Mahomedans of India borrow from the Hindus ceremonies that are celebrated with festivity. They take an active part in the gambols of the Hob, and even solicit the favours of the Indian Plutus at the Diwali. Many Hindus, on the other hand,join in the festival of the Mahar am. The bridal procession of the Mahomedans on the fourth day, with all the sport and gambols of the Chant'hi, is evidently copied from the similar custom of the Hindus. The Mahomedans have adopted the premature marriage of infants, and Hindus largely imitate the Mahornedan seclusion of their wives (Cole broke, As. Res. vii p. 307). A Mahomedan is forbidden to eat meat which has not been killed by one of the faithful, who is directed to halal' or sanctify the animal by turning its face toward Mecca, and, while the blood is ejected, to repeat a short prayer. Many Mahrattas and other Hindus, pleased with the ceremony, bring their sheep, fowls, etc., to Mahomedans to be made 'halal,' and then eat them with increased satisfaction.
Vahan or Vehicles.—Several animals are appro priated as the vahan or vehicles to the mytho logical personages of modern Hinduism. The swan, the eagle, and the bull appertain respect ively to Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and are severally denominated Ilanasa, Garuda, and Nandi. Ganesha, eldest son of Siva and Parvati, the elephant-headed god of prudence and policy, rides a rat, supposed to be a very sagacious animal; Kartika, their second son, generalissimo of the celestial armies, mounts on a peacock. Indra, the powerful regent of the firmament, the Jupiter Pluvius of the Hindus, rides the elephant Airavata, symbolical of might. Writhe., genius of the waters, bestrides a fish; as cloth also Ganga, the prime goddess of rivers. Kama Deva, the god of love, is carried by a Tory or parrot; Agni, god of fire, by an ardent ram.
Village Deities.—Every hamlet has its own
object of adoration, always supposed to be a goddess, and the idol is generally a black stone or piece of wood. Amongst names given to it in Southern India are— Ai. Osuramma.
Ankal-Amma. Sellamma.
Poni-Amma, gold mother. Yellamma.
Kani-A tn ma. Padavettu-Amma.
Yegatal. Tulukan-Amma.
utiala ma, pearl mother. Muttumari.
Tripura-aundari, the beau- Mari-Amman.
tiful of three cities.' Potearamma Paleri-Amma, or Periya- Karikatta.
Aroma, or great goddess. Tanthoniamma.
Dandumari, Choundeswari.
Mallamma. Vadivatta.
Chinnamma. Nagattarruna, Ammannamrna.
A pujali or pujari, a worshipping priest of the Sudra caste, is appointed for her daily worship. He anoints her daily, and puts ashes on her head, —really on the top of the stone, for it is not an image, being entirely without shape, a mere stone from the neighbouring brook or river. In a small pot he cooks rice, which he collects from the villagers in turn, presents it to the idol, and then takes it to his own home. He breaks a cocoanut in front of the idol, to which he offers it. But the one half he keeps for himself, and gives the other to the families from whom he collected the fruit. The villagers make vows to their goddess to offer up to her fowls and sheep in sacrifice, if she will fulfil their desires. Once a-year they collect money by subscription, and celebrate a feast in honour of their goddess, during which sheep and fowls are largely sacrificed. The Sudra Hindus and the entire servile and predial tribes in the south of India have the fullest faith in their respective village goddesses. When they or their children are overtaken by sickness, they seek the idol and consult the pujari, who sings hymns, affects to hear the Amman's voice, and then announces to the worshipper the offering that must be presented. If cholera break out, it is not un usual for some neighbouring village deity suddenly to rise into great importance, and the sacrificial rite is then almost unceasingly performed. The Hindus, too, have even personified this pestilence into a goddess, whom they name Maha-Kali, and believe that if they neglect her worship she destroys them by the disease. Indeed, gods are everywhere in process of establishment, and small pox as well as cholera have thus been personified. Maha-Kali of Ujjain is a cholera goddess, and Mari-Amman or Amur of the Tamils is a small pox deity. When a person is attacked with small pox, they believe that the goddess has taken possession of the sick man. While in the house, the sexes remain apart until the sick person has recovered, and been purified by ablution. They place the leaves of the margosa tree beside the sick person, because the goddess is supposed to delight in this tree. They give cooling food, but employ neither internal nor external remedies, in reverence for the divinity. The women of the household offer rice-flour mixed with jagari or coarse sugar and black gram (Pairu, TAX. Pesalu, TEL.) before the patient in honour of the goddess, and afterwards distribute offerings to Sudras and others. On the seventh day, i.e. what medical men call the fifteenth day, the invalid is bathed in cold water, and the whole body rubbed with a pasty mixture of leaves of the margosa (melia and azadirachta) mixed with turmeric, and on the same day rice mixed with curds are distributed to Sudras. If in the virulence of the disease an eye be lost, it is attributed to something having been done displeasing to the goddess. The goddess, indeed, is supposed to appear in three forms,--as Tatta amavaru or Chinnaniavaru, i.e. small god dess or measles ; Peddamavaru, or great goddess or smallpox ; and Pairamavaru, or goddess of green gram (Phaseolus mungo),—the two first of which are most feared.