get the highest laudation.  Other rivers, such as the Gomal and Sarasvat[=i], are also extolled, and the list is very long of places which to see or to bathe in releases from sin.  “He who bathes in Ganges purifies seven descendants.[53] As long as the bones of a man touch Ganges-water so long that man is magnified in heaven.”  Again:  “No place of pilgrimage is better than Ganges; no god is better than Vishnu; nothing is better than brahma—­so said the sire of the gods” (iii. 85. 94-96).  The very dust of Kuru-Plain makes one holy, the sight of it purifies; he that lives south of the Sarasvat[=i], north of the Drishadvat[=i] (i.e., in Kuru-Plain), he lives in the third heaven (iii. 83. 1-3=203-205[54]).  This sort of expiation for sin is implied in a more general way by the remark that there are three kinds of purity, one of speech, one of act, and one of water (iii. 200. 82).  But in the epic there is still another means of expiating sin, one that is indicated in the Brahmanic rule that if a woman is an adulteress she destroys half her sin by confessing it (as above), where, however, repentance is rather implied than commanded.  But in the epic Pur[=a]na it is distinctly stated as a Cruti, or trite saying, that if one repents he is freed from his sin; na tat kury[=a]m punar is the formula he must use, ‘I will not do so again,’ and then he is released from even the sin that he is going to commit a second time, as if by a ceremony—­so is the Cruti in the laws, dharmas (iii. 207. 51, 52).[55] Confession to the family priest is enjoined, in xii. 268. 14, to escape punishment.

Two other religious practices in the epic are noteworthy.  The first is the extension of idolatry in pictures.  The amiable ’goddess of the house’ is represented, to be sure, as a R[=a]kshas[=i], or demoniac power, whose name is Jar[=a].  But she was created by the Self-existent, and is really very friendly, under certain conditions:  “Whoever delineates me with faith in his house, he increases in children; otherwise he would be destroyed.”  She is worshipped, i.e., her painted image is worshipped, with perfumes, flowers, incense, food, and other enjoyable things (II. 18).[56] Another practice that is very common is the worship of holy trees.  One may compare the banyan at Bodhi Gay[=a] with the ‘worshipful’ village-tree of II. 24. 23.  Seldom and late is the use of a rosary mentioned (e.g., III. 112. 5, aksham[=a]l[=a], elsewhere aksha), although the word is employed to make an epithet of Civa, Aksham[=a]lin.[57]

As has been said already, an extraordinary power is ascribed to the mere repetition of a holy text, mantra.  These are applied on all occasions without the slightest reference to the subject.  By means of mantra one exorcises; recovers weapons; calls gods and demons, etc.[58] When misfortune or disease arrives it is invariably ascribed to the malignant action of a devil, although the karma teaching should