But none of the Civaite sects we have mentioned, imbecile as appear to be the impostors that represent them, are equal in despicable traits to the C[=a]ktas.  These worshippers of the androgynous Civa (or of Cakti, the female principle alone), do, indeed, include some Vishnuites among themselves, but they are originally and prevailingly Civaite.[43] Blood-offerings and human sacrifices are a modern and an ancient Trait of Civa-worship;[44] and the hill-tribes of the Vindhya and the classical drama show that the cult of Aghor[=i] is a Civaite manifestation which is at once old and derived from un-Aryan sources.  Aghor[=i] and all female monsters naturally associate with Civa, who is their intellectual and moral counterpart.  The older Aghoris exacted human sacrifice in honor of Devi, P[=a]rvat[=i], the wife of Civa.[2] The adoration of the female side of a god is as old as the Rig Veda, but Civaism has combined this cult with features probably derived from other independent local cults, such as that of P[=a]rvat[=i], the ‘mountain goddess.’  They are all united in the person of Civa’s wife of many names, the ‘great goddess,’ Mah[=a]dev[=i], the ‘hard’ Durg[=a], K[=a]l[=i], Um[=a], etc.[45] And it is to this ferocious she-monster that the most abject homage of the Civaites is paid.  So great is the terror inspired by Durg[=a] that they that are not Civaites at all yet join in her festival; for which purpose, apparently, she is dubbed Vishnu’s ‘sister.’  But it is not blood-guiltiness alone which is laid at the door of this cult.  The sectarian religions have an exoteric and an esoteric side, the religion of the ‘right hand’ and of the ‘left hand.’  It is the latter (to which belong many that deny the fact) wherein centre the abominations of Civaism; in less degree, those of Vishnuism also.  Obscenity is the soul of this cult.  Bestiality equalled only by the orgies of the Indic savages among the hill-tribes is the form of this ’religion.’[47] It is screened by an Orphic philosophy, for is not Nature or Illusion the female side of the Divine Male?  It is screened again by religious fervor, for it is pious profligacy that prompts the rites.  It is induced practically by an initial carousal and drunkenness; and this is antique, for even the old soma-feasts were to a great extent drunken revels, and the gods have got drunk from the time of the Vedas[48] to do their greatest deeds.  But in practice, Cakti-worship, when unveiled, amounts to this, that men and women of the same class and family indulge in a Bacchanalian orgy, and that, as they proceed, they give themselves over to every excess which liquor and lust can prompt.  A description of the different rites would be to reduplicate an account of indecencies, of which the least vile is too esoteric to sketch faithfully.  Vaguely to outline one such religious festival will suffice.  A naked woman, the wife of the chief priest, sits in the middle of the ‘holy circle.’  She represents Durg[=a], the divine female principle.