There are, indeed, endless forms to this revival of Hinduism—­as endless as to Hinduism itself—­but what it is perhaps most important for us to note is that, wherever political agitation assumes the most virulent character, there the Hindu revival also assumes the most extravagant shapes.  Secret societies place their murderous activities under the special patronage of one or other of the chief popular deities.  Their vows are taken “on the sacred water of the Ganges,” or “holding the sacred Tulsi plant,” or “in the presence of Mahadevi”—­the great goddess who delights in bloody sacrifices, Charms and amulets, incantations and imprecations, play an important part in the ceremonies of initiation.  In some quarters there has been some recrudescence of the Shakti cultus, with its often obscene and horrible rites, and the unnatural depravity which was so marked a feature in the case of the band of young Brahmans who conspired to murder Mr. Jackson at Nasik represents a form of erotomania which is certainly much more common amongst Hindu political fanatics than amongst Hindus in general.

By no means all, however, are of this degenerate type, and the Bhagvat Gita has been impressed into the service of sedition by men who would have been as incapable of dabbling in political as in any other form of crime, had they not been able to invest it with a religious sanction.  There is no more beautiful book in the sacred literature of the Hindus; there is none in which the more enlightened find greater spiritual comfort; yet it is in the Bhagvat Gita that, by a strange perversion, the Hindu conspirator has sought and claims to have found texts that justify murder as a divinely inspired deed when it is committed in the sacred cause of Hinduism.  Nor is it only the extremists who appeal in this fashion to Hindu religious emotionalism.  It is often just as difficult to appraise the subtle differences which separate the “moderate” from the “advanced” politician and the “advanced” politician from the extremist as it is to distinguish between the various forms and gradations of the Hindu revival in its religious and social aspects.  But it was in the courtyard of the great temple of Kali at Calcutta in the presence of “the terrible goddess” that the “leaders of the Bengali nation,” men who, like Mr. Surendranath Banerjee, have always professed to be “moderates,” held their chief demonstrations against “partition” and administered the Swadeshi oath to their followers.  Equally noteworthy is the part played by the revival of Ganpati celebrations in honour of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, perhaps the most popular of all Hindu deities, in stimulating political disaffection in the Deccan.