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OF THE HINDUS.
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charge. Of course no respectable Hindu will admit that he is a Vámáchárí, a follower of the left-hand ritual, or that he is a member of a society in which meat is eaten, wine is drunk, and abominations not to be named are practised. The imputation will be indignantly denied, although, if the Tantras be believed, "many a man who calls himself a Saiva, or a Vaishnava, is secretly a Sákta, and a brother of the left-hand fraternity." But what can any Hindu of reason and right feeling say in vindication of a system which has suffered such enormities to be grafted upon it, which could afford any plea, any suggestion, any opening for abuses of which he admits, when he dares not avow them in his own case, the shame and the sin?
For further information on this subject, I must once more refer you to the 16th and 17th volumes of the Asiatic Researches.
From the survey which has thus been submitted to you, you will perceive that the practical religion of the Hindus is by no means a concentrated and compact system, but a heterogeneous compound, made up of various and not unfrequently incompatible ingredients, and that to a few ancient fragments it has made large and unauthorized additions, most of which are of an exceedingly mischievous and disgraceful nature. It is, however, of little avail yet to attempt to undeceive the multitude; their superstition is based upon ignorance, and until the foundation is taken away, the superstructure, however crazy and rotten,
