CHAPTER IV.

THE MYTHOLOGY OF INDIA.

THE FEARFUL SYSTEM TO BE OVERTHROWN-THE GREAT BRUMTHE IMMENSE NUMBER OF THEIR GODS-THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE PEOPLE-THE PRIESTHOOD-THE POWER OF THE BRAMINS ON THE DECLINE-THE JOGEES-THEIR ESTIMATION IN FORMER TIMES, COMPARED WITH THEIR PRESENT CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE.

In what terms shall I describe the Hindoo Mythology? There never was, in any age, nor in any country, a superstition so cruel, so atrocious and so diabolical as that which has reigned over this peo

ple. It is a personification of evil. Satan seems to have used all his ingenuity, his malice and his gigantic power to create a system which would represent all his own attributes upon the earth, render its votaries as much like his angels as possible, and make Hindosthan an image of the infernal regions. No one can imagine the mountains of difficulty which, in India, oppose the progress of the truth. It is not here, as it is in England, where though iniquity abounds in the hearts and in the lives of men, there is a conscience to arraign, and

to support the claims of truth, and where the individual has to overturn the barriers of reason, of religion, of example and of privilege in his mad career. It is not here as in the South Sea Islands where, notwithstanding the natural ferocity and barbarism of the people, their superstition was so gross that it was easily exposed; their priesthood was more dependent upon its own cunning and deceit for its stability, than upon its hereditary succession and its despotic control; their mythology was contained in the traditions which memory could retain, more than in writings which could boast of antiquity; and their whole system held its sway only over a scattered population which it was fast exterminating from the soil. It is not here as it is in Africa and the West Indies where the sons of Ham have been broken into wandering tribes, where a few imaginary beings have presided over their destiny, and where, under the oppression of barbarism on the one side, or under the yoke of slavery on the other, that gospel which proclaims liberty to the captive and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, and brings glad tidings to the meek and binds up the broken-hearted, appeared a welcome balm to heal their woes.-No! In India there is a system venerable for its antiquity; imposing in its ritual and its ceremonies; boasting of its sages, philosophers, its heroes and its martyrs; enshrined in vedas, shasters and pooranus; renowned for the splendour of its temples, the grandeur of its

festivals, and the exploits of its deities; binding its hundreds of millions together, by the chains of caste, as with fetters of iron; and sending forth, upon the whole world, from its bulwarks and its strongholds, a scowl of defiance. It will be necessary to take a short review of this system in various particulars, and contrast its former power with its present condition.

In the Mythology of the Hindoos, Brum is the great, the self-existent, the independent and eternal one. Residing in perpetual silence he takes no interest whatever in the affairs of the universe ; his happiness consists in eternal and undisturbed repose; he is the soul of the world; his essence pervades all space; he is the life-giving energy in angels, in men, in devils, in the animate and inanimate creation; he fills all with his nature, and since the human soul is a part of his essence, and more of the latter is to be found in Bramins and ascetics than in any others, he receives divine honour and worship, in proportion as it is rendered to them. Absorption, therefore, into the Deity is considered supreme happiness, and so long as the spirit is associated with matter, and struggles through its various births, and is disunited from the great spirit, so long it is considered a miserable wanderer from good and from felicity.

Brum gave existence to Brumha the creator, to Vishnoo the preserver, and to Sceva the destroyer, who, with their wives, have become incarnate in