[Sidenote:  The masses and the sense of sin.]

[Sidenote:  Prescriptions for sinners.]

For the ignorant masses, the sense of sin has been worn out by the importance attached to religious and social externals and by the artificial value of the service of a hereditary monopolist priesthood.  These right, all is right in the eyes of the millions of India.  When one of the multitude proposes to himself a visit to some shrine or sacred spot, no doubt the motive often is some divine dissatisfaction with himself; it is a feeling that God is not near enough where he himself lives.  But what is poured into his ears?  By a visit to Dwaraka, the city of Krishna’s sports, he will be liberated from all his sins.  By bathing in the sacred stream of the Ganges he will wash away his sins.  All who die at Benares are sure to go to heaven.  By repeating the Gayatri (a certain verse of the Rigveda addressed to the sun) a man is saved.  “A brahman who holds the Veda in his memory is not culpable though he should destroy the three worlds”—­so says the Code of Manu.  The Tantras, or ritual works of modern Hinduism, abound in such prescriptions for sinners.  “He who liberates a bull at the Aswamedika place of pilgrimage obtains mukti, that is salvation or an end of his rebirths.”  “All sin is destroyed by the repetition of Kali’s thousand names.”  “The water of a guru’s [religious teacher’s] feet purifies from all sin.”  “The man who carries the guru’s dust [the dust of the guru’s feet] upon his head is emancipated from all sin and is [the god] Siva himself.”  “By a certain inhalation of the breath through the left nostril, and holding of the breath, with repetition of yam, the V[=a]yu Bija or mystical spell of wind or air, the body and its indwelling sinful self are dessicated, the breath being expelled by the right nostril."[122] And so on ad infinitum.  Superstition, Western or Eastern, has no end of panaceas.  We recall the advertisements of “Plenaria indulgenzia” on the doors of churches in South Italy.  Visiting Benares, the metropolis of popular Hinduism, the conception of salvation everywhere obtruded upon one is that it is a question of sacred spots, and of due offerings and performances thereat.

[Sidenote:  The signification of sacrifices to the Indian masses.]

[Sidenote:  Description of animal sacrifice.]

What to the masses is sacrifice even, the word which to western ears, familiar with the term in our Scriptures, suggests acknowledgment of sin and atonement therefor?  It is a mistake to regard sacrifices in India as expiatory; they are gifts to the Deities as superior powers for boons desired or received, or they are the customary homage to the powers that be, at festivals and special occasions.  Animal sacrifices are distinguished from the offerings of fruits and flowers only in being limited to particular Deities and pertaining to more special occasions.  An actual instance will show the place that sacrifices