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RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND OPINIONS
vation, and regeneration, referable to the same works, first engaged our attention. We then adverted to the introduction of Hero worship by the mytho - Heroic poems, its dissemination under new modifications by the Puráňas, and its still further alteration and adaptation to the taste of the people by persons and orders of modern date, who had introduced new divinities and new elements of belief in the passionate devotion and all-sufficient faith of which Krishúa was in particular the object, and we lastly noticed the mystical and debasing rites which, founded upon the class of works called Tantras, were exercising at present a most baneful influence upon the manners and principles of the Hindus. These circumstances, although comprehending even the better informed and more learned amongst the natives of India, apply still more particularly to the religious practices of the people at large. We have now to treat of topics which concern the educated and learned more especiallyto the opinions which they have been taught, by men whom they consider as little lower than divinities, to entertain on some of the most important subjects of reflexion, which in all ages have exercised and tested the energies of the human mind.
The speculative notions of the Hindus originate, in a great degree, with the same authorities that have enjoined their religious practices. Although in their widest scope familiar only to the learned, and to some only amongst them, yet the subjects of speculation, and the modes in which they are investigated,
