There are in India common women, called Wives of the Idol. When a woman has made a vow to obtain children, if she brings into the world a beautiful daughter, she carries her to Bod, so their idol is called, with whom she leaves her. This girl, when she is arrived at a proper age, takes an apartment in the public place, hangs a curtain before the door, and waits for those who are passing, as well Indians as those of other sects among whom this debauchery is permitted. She prostitutes herself for a certain price, and all that she can thus acquire she carries to the priest of the idol, that he may apply it to the service of the temple. Let us, says the Mohammedan relater, bless the almighty and glorious God, that he has chosen us, to exempt us from all the crimes into which men are led by their unbelief.—Anciennes Relations.
Incited, unquestionably, says Mr. Maurice, by the hieroglyphic emblem of vice so conspicuously elevated, and so strikingly painted in the temples of Mahadeo, the priests of that deity industriously selected the most beautiful females that could be found, and, in their tenderest years, with great pomp and solemnity, consecrated them (as it is impiously called) to the service of the presiding divinity of the pagoda. They were trained up in every art to delude and to delight; and, to the fascination of external beauty, their artful betrayers added the attractions arising from mental accomplishments. Thus was an invariable rule of the Hindoos, that women have no concern with literature, dispensed with upon this infamous occasion. The moment these hapless victims reached maturity, they fell victims to the lust of the Brahmins. They were early taught to practise the most alluring blandishments, to roll the expressive eye of wanton pleasure, and to invite to criminal indulgence, by stealing upon the beholder the tender look of voluptuous languishing. They were instructed to mould their elegant and airy forms into the most enticing attitudes and the most lascivious gestures, while the rapid and graceful motion of their feet, adorned with golden bells, and glittering with jewels, kept unison with the exquisite melody of their voices. Every pagoda has a band of these young syrens, whose business, on great festivals, is to dance in public before the idol, to sing hymns in his honour, and in private to enrich the treasury of that pagoda with the wages of prostitution. These women are not, however, regarded in a dishonourable light; they are considered as wedded to the idol, and they partake of the veneration paid to him. They are forbidden even to desert the pagoda where they are educated, and are never permitted to marry; but the offspring, if any, of their criminal embraces are considered as sacred to the idol: the boys are taught to play on the sacred instruments used at the festivals, and the daughters are devoted to the abandoned occupations of their mothers.—Indian Antiquities.
These impostors take a young maid, of the fairest they can meet with, to be the bride, (as they speak and bear the besotted people in hand) of Jagannat, and they leave her all night in the temple (whither they have carried her) with the idol, making her believe that Jagannat himself will come and embrace her, and appointing her to ask him, whether it will be a fruitful year, what kind of processions, feasts, prayers, and alms he demands to be made for it. In the mean time one of these lustful priests enters at night by a little back-door into the temple, deflowereth this young maid, and maketh her believe any thing he pleaseth; and the next day, being transported from this temple into another with the same magnificence, she was carried before upon the chariot of triumph, on the side of Jagannat her bridegroom: these Brahmans make her say aloud, before all the people, whatsoever she had been taught of these cheats, as if she had learnt it from the very mouth of Jagannat.—Bernier.
Baly.—XV. p. 26.
The fifth incarnation was in a Bramin dwarf, under the name of Vamen; it was wrought to restrain the pride of the giant Baly. The latter, after having conquered the gods, expelled them from Sorgon; he was generous, true to his word, compassionate, and charitable. Vichenou, under the form of a very little Bramin, presented himself before him while he was sacrificing, and asked him for three paces of land to build a hut. Baly ridiculed the apparent imbecility of the dwarf, in telling him, that he ought not to limit his demand to a bequest so trifling; that his generosity could bestow a much larger donation of land. Vamen answered, That, being of so small a stature, what he asked was more than sufficient. The prince immediately granted his request, and, to ratify his donation, poured water into his right hand; which was no sooner done than the dwarf grew so prodigiously, that his body filled the universe! He measured the earth with one pace, and the heavens with another, and then summoned Baly to give him his word for the third. The prince then recognised Vichenou, adored him, and presented his head to him; but the god, satisfied with his submission, sent him to govern the Padalon, and permitted him to return every year to the earth, the day of the full moon, in the month of November.—Sonnerat’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 24.
The sacred cord.—XV. p. 30.
The Brahmans who officiate at the temples generally go with their heads uncovered, and the upper part of the body naked. The Zennar, or sacred string, is hung round the body from the left shoulder; a piece of white cotton cloth is wrapped round the loins, which descends under the knee, but lower on the left side than on the other; and in cold weather they sometimes cover their bodies with a shawl, and their heads with a red cap.—The Zennar is made of a particular kind of perennial cotton, called Verma: it is composed of a certain number of threads of a fixed length: the Zennar worn by the Khatries has fewer threads than that worn by the Brahmans, and that worn by the Bhyse fewer than that worn by the Khatries; but those of the Sodra cast are excluded from this distinction, none of them being permitted to wear it.—Craufurd.
The City of Baly.—XV. p. 31.
Ruins of Malâbalipûr, the City of the great Baly.
A rock, or rather hill of stone, is that which first engrosses the attention on approaching the place; for as it rises abruptly out of a level plain of great extent, consists chiefly of one single stone, and is situated very near to the sea-beach, it is such a kind of object as an inquisitive traveller would naturally turn aside to examine. Its shape is also singular and romantic, and, from a distant view, has an appearance like some antique and lofty edifice. On coming near to the foot of the rock from the north, works of imagery and sculpture crowd so thick upon the eye, as might seem to favour the idea of a petrified town, like those that have been fabled in different parts of the world, by too credulous travellers. Proceeding on by the foot of the hill, on the side facing the sea, there is a pagoda rising out of the ground, of one solid stone, about sixteen or eighteen feet high, which seems to have been cut upon the spot, out of a detached rock, that has been found of a proper size for that purpose. The top is arched, and the style of architecture according to which it is formed different from any now used in those parts. A little further on, there appears, upon a huge surface of stone, that juts out a little from the side of the hill, a numerous group of human figures, in bass-relief, considerably larger than life, representing the most remarkable persons whose actions are celebrated in the Nahâbharit, each of them in an attitude, or with weapons, or other insignia, expressive of his character, or of some one of his most famous exploits. All these figures are doubtless much less distinct than they were at first; for upon comparing these and the rest of the sculptures that are exposed to the sea-air, with others at the same place, whose situation has afforded them protection from that element, the difference is striking; the former being every where much defaced, while the others are fresh as recently finished. An excavation in another part of the east side of the great rock appears to have been made on the same plan, and for the same purpose, that Chowltries are usually built in that country, that is to say, for the accommodation of travellers. The rock is hollowed out to the size of a spacious room, and two or three rows of pillars are left, as a seeming support to the mountainous mass of stone which forms the roof.