God has so constituted man that he can find little or no enjoyment in a state of inactivity. The proper employment of time, therefore, is essentially necessary to the progressive development of our powers and faculties, the non exercise of which must needs induce idle and vicious habits. No bread is sweet unless it is earned by the sweat of our brow. The Haldars (priests) of Kali Ghaut having no healthy occupation in which to engage their minds, and depending for their sustenance on a means which requires neither physical nor mental labor, have inevitably been led to adopt the Epicurean mode of life, which says, "eat, drink and be merry." This habit is further confirmed by the peculiar nature of the religious principles which the worship of this goddess enjoins. Certain texts of the Tantra Shaster expressly inculcate that without drinking the mind is not properly prepared for religious exercise and contemplation. The pernicious effects of such a monstrous doctrine are sufficiently obvious. It has been said that not only the men but the women also are in the habit of drinking. As a necessary consequence the vicious practice has not only enervated their minds but made their "wealth small and their want great." Disputes often arise between the worshippers and the priests of the temple respecting the offerings and the proper division of the same, the latter often claiming the lion's share which the former are unwilling to submit to. Gross lies are sometimes told in the presence of the goddess in order to secure to the major portion of the offerings in the interests of the worshippers—an expedient which the notorious rapacity of the officiating Brahmins imperatively demands. Surrounded by an atmosphere densely impregnated with the miasm of a false religion and a corrupt morality, the ennobling thought of a true God and the moral accountability of man never enters their minds. The chief end and aim of their life is to impose on the credulity of their blind votaries, and thereby pander to their unhallowed desires and selfish gratification. Nor can they rise to a higher and purer sphere of life because from their childhood they are nurtured in the cradle of error, ignorance, indolence and profligacy. Who can contemplate the effects of their impure orgies on the eighth, ninth, fourteenth and fifteen nights of the increase and decrease of the moon without being reminded of the saturnalia of the Greeks?[79] If a sober-minded man were to visit the holy shrine of Kali Ghat on one of these nights, he would doubtless be shocked at the unrestrained debauchery that runs riot in the name of religion. The temple, no less than the private domicile of the priests, presents an uninterrupted scene of bacchanalian revelry, which is unspeakably abominable. Men deprived of a sense of shame, and women of decency and morality, mingle in the revels, and the result is that all the cherished notions of the better part of humanity are at once put to flight. It is painful to reflect that notwithstanding the progress of enlightenment in the great centre of Indian civilization, people still cling to the adoration of a blood-thirsty goddess, and to the support of a depraved class of priests. The sacrifices of goats that are daily offered before the altar of Kali being too numerous for local consumption, are sold to outside customers much in the same manner as fruits and vegetables are brought from the neighbouring villages into the market. On Saturday the sale is larger than on the other week days, because that night is specially dedicated to the worship of Bacchus, Sunday affording a respite from work. But the sale of Kali Ghat goat meat has of late been much interfered with by the establishment of rival shrines in several parts of Calcutta, where a pound is to be had for three annas. The owners (mostly prostitutes and drunkards) of these pseudo-goddesses, vulgarly called Kasháye or butcher Kali, sacrifice one or two goats every morning without any ceremony, except on Saturday when the number is doubled to meet increased requirements. Thus a regular and profitable butcher's trade is openly carried on in the name of the goddess, and the generality of the Sakta Hindoos feel no religious scruples in using the meat which is thus sanctified. The comparative ease with which flesh is now obtained in Calcutta has tended, in no small degree, to encourage habits of drinking among a proverbially abstemious race of men; it being the popular impression that meat neutralises the effects of spirituous liquors.[80]
Many images of Kali which have from time to time been set up in and about Calcutta, ostensibly for religious but practically for secular purposes, in imitation of the unrivalled prototype at Kali Ghat, have acquired unenviable celebrity, and been made subservient as a source of income to the owner and the officiating priests, who fatten on the offerings made to the goddess in the shape of money and provisions. Thus, for instance, the Sidhassurry or Kali of Nimtollah obtains a few Rupees daily from such Hindoos as are carried to the riverside to breathe their last, independently of the small presents made at all hours of the day, especially in the mornings and evenings, when the crowd assembles. It is amusing to observe the complaisance with which a Brahmin gives a consecrated Billaputtra or flower to a devotee in return for a Rupee or so. A shrewd Brahmin, like the ancient Roman soothsayer, laughs in his sleeves at such stupidity.
A Sanskrit proverb says that a meritorious work endures. It keeps alive the name of the founder, and this vanity furnishes the strongest stimulus to the endowment of works of a religious character, and of public utility. It is, however, a painful fact that the nature and character of such endowments is, in most cases, lamentably wanting in the element of stability. Two or three generations after the death of the founder, the substance of the estate being impaired, the family is reduced to a state of poverty, the surviving members, often a set of demoralised idlers, depend for their support on the usufruct of the Deybatra, originally set apart for exclusively religious purposes, and placed beyond the reach of law. In these days the offshoots of many families are absolutely dependent on this sacred fund for their subsistence, and the consequence naturally is that the endowment is frittered away and the work itself inevitably falls into decay. Thus in process of time both the fund and the founder's name pass into utter oblivion.[81]
The following account given by Mr. Ward about the death of a devotee of this goddess will not be uninteresting. "In the year 1809, Trigonu Goswamee, a vyuktavudhootu, died at Kali Ghat in the following manner: Three days before his death, he dug a grave near his hut, in a place surrounded by three vilwu trees which he himself had planted. In the evening he placed a lamp in the grave, in which an offering of flesh, greens, rice, &c., to the shakals was made, repeating it the next evening. The following day he obtained from a rich native ten rupees worth of spirituous liquors, and invited a number of mendicants, who sat drinking with him till twelve at noon, when he asked among the spectators at what hour it would be full moon; being informed, he went and sat in his grave, and continued drinking liquors. Just before the time for the full moon, he turned his head towards the temple of Kali, and informed the spectators that he had come to Kali Ghat with the hope of seeing the goddess, not the image in the temple. He had been frequently urged by different persons to visit the temple, but though he had not assigned a reason for his omission, he now asked what he was to go and see there: a temple? He could see that from where he was. A piece of stone made into a face, or the silver hands? He could see stones and silver any where else. He wished to see the goddess herself, but he had not, in this body, obtained the sight. However, he had still a mouth and a tongue, and he would again call upon her; he then called out aloud twice, "Kali? Kali?" and almost immediately died;—probably from excessive intoxication. The spectators, though Hindoos (who in general despise a drunkard), considered this man as a great saint, who had foreseen his own death, when in health. He had not less than four hundred disciples."
The various causes which have hitherto conspired to impart a sanctity to this famous temple are gradually waning in their influence, but it will be a very long time before the minds of the mass of the people are completely purified in the crucible of true Religion, before which superstition and priestcraft must vanish into air.
X.
THE SARASWATI POOJAH.
Saraswati is the Hindoo goddess of learning. She is represented as seated in a water lily and playing on a lute. Throughout Bengal her worship is celebrated with more or less pomp on the fifth day of the increase of the moon, in the Bengali month of Magha or Falgoon (February). As the popular Shastras reckon the commencement of spring from this date, the people, especially the young and gay of both sexes, put on basantee or yellow garments, and indulge in all sorts of low merriment, manifesting a depraved and vitiated taste.