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The further history of the Sikhs is political rather than religious, and need not detain us here. Despite the efforts of the Mughals to exterminate them, they were favoured by the disturbed state of the country in the early decades of the eighteenth century, for the raids of Afghans and Persians convulsed and paralyzed the empire of Delhi. The government of the Khalsa passed into the hands of a body of fanatics, called Akâlis, but the decision of grave matters rested with a council of the whole community which occasionally met at Amritsar. Every Sikh claimed to have joined the confederacy as an independent soldier, bound to fight under his military leaders but otherwise exempt from control, and entitled to a share of land. This absolute independence, being unworkable in practice, was modified by the formation of Misals or voluntary associations, of which there were at one time twelve. From the middle of the eighteenth century onwards the Sikhs were masters of the Panjab and their great chief Ranjit Singh (1797-1839) succeeded in converting the confederacy into a despotic monarchy. Their power did not last long after his death and the Panjab was conquered by the British in the two wars of 1846 and 1849.

With the loss of political independence, the differences between the Sikhs and other Hindus tended to decrease. This was natural, for nearly all their strictly religious tenets can be paralleled in Hinduism. Guru Govind waged no war against polytheism but wished to found a religious commonwealth equally independent of Hindu castes and Mohammedan sultans. For some time his ordinances were successful in creating a tribe, almost a nation. With the collapse of the Sikh state, the old hatred of Mohammedanism remained, but the Sikhs differed from normal Hindus hardly more than such sects as the Lingâyats, and, as happened with decadent Buddhism, the unobtrusive pressure of Hindu beliefs and observances tended to obliterate those differences. The Census of India,⁶⁷⁸ 1901, enumerated three degrees of Sikhism. The first comprises a few zealots called Akâlis who observe all the precepts of Govind. The second class are the Guru Govind Sikhs, who observe the Guru's main commands, especially the prohibition to smoke and cut the hair. Lastly, there are a considerable number who profess a respect for the Guru but follow Hindu beliefs and usages wholly or in part. Sikhism indeed reproduces on a small scale the changeableness and complexity of Hinduism, and includes associations called Sabhâ, whose members aim at restoring or maintaining what they consider to be the true faith. In 1901 there was a tendency for Sikhs to give up their peculiarities and describe themselves as ordinary Hindus, but in the next decade a change of sentiment among these waverers caused the Sikh community as registered to increase by thirty-seven per cent. and a period of religious zeal is reported.⁶⁷⁹

CHAPTER XXXII
ŚÂKTISM ⁶⁸⁰

Among the principal subdivisions of Hinduism must be reckoned the remarkable religion known as Śâktism, that is the worship of Śakti or Śiva's spouse under various names, of which Devî, Durgâ and Kâlî are the best known. It differs from most sects in not being due to the creative or reforming energy of any one human founder. It claims to be a revelation from Śiva himself, but considered historically it appears to be a compound of Hinduism with un-Aryan beliefs. It acquired great influence both in the courts and among the people of north-eastern India but without producing personalities of much eminence as teachers or writers.

It would be convenient to distinguish Śâktism and Tantrism, as I have already suggested. The former means the worship of a goddess or goddesses, especially those who are regarded as forms of Śiva's consort. Vishnuites sometimes worship female deities, but though the worship of Lakshmî, Râdhâ and others may be coloured by imitation of Śâktist practices, it is less conspicuous and seems to have a different origin. Tantrism is a system of magical or sacramental ritual, which professes to attain the highest aims of religion by such methods as spells, diagrams, gestures and other physical exercises. One of its bases is the assumption that man and the universe correspond as microcosm and macrocosm and that both are subject to the mysterious power of words and letters.

These ideas are not modern nor peculiar to any Indian sect. They are present in the Vedic ceremonial, in the practices of the Yoga and even in the teaching of the quasi-mussulman sect of Kabir, which attaches great importance to the letters of the divine name. They harmonize with the common Indian view that some form of discipline or physical training is essential to the religious life. They are found in a highly developed form among the Nambuthiris and other Brahmans of southern India who try to observe the Vedic rules and in the Far East among Buddhists of the Shingon or Chên-yen sect.⁶⁸¹ As a rule they receive the name of Tantrism only when they are elaborated into a system which claims to be a special dispensation for this age and to supersede more arduous methods which are politely set aside as practicable only for the hero-saints of happier times. Tantrism, like salvation by faith, is a simplification of religion but on mechanical rather than emotional lines, though its deficiency in emotion often finds strange compensations.

But Tantrism is analogous not so much to justification by faith as to sacramental ritual. The parallel may seem shocking, but most tantric ceremonies are similar in idea to Christian sacraments and may be called sacramental as correctly as magical. Even in the Anglican Church baptism includes sprinkling with water (abhisheka), the sign of the cross (nyâsa) and a formula (mantra), and if any one supposes that a child so treated is sure of heaven whereas the future of the unbaptized is dubious, he holds like the Tantrists that spiritual ends can be attained by physical means. And in the Roman Church where the rite includes exorcism and the use of salt, oil and lights, the parallel is still closer. Christian mysticism has had much to do with symbolism and even with alchemy,⁶⁸² and Zoroastrianism, which is generally regarded as a reasonable religion, attaches extraordinary importance to holy spells.⁶⁸³ So Indian religions are not singular in this respect, though the uncompromising thoroughness with which they work out this like other ideas leads to startling results.

The worship of female deities becomes prominent somewhat late in Indian literature and it does not represent—not to the same extent as the Chinese cult of Kwan-yin for example—the better ideals of the period when it appears. The goddesses of the Ṛig Veda are insignificant: they are little more than names, and grammatically often the feminine forms of their consorts. But this Veda is evidently a special manual of prayer from which many departments of popular religion were excluded. In the Atharva Veda many spirits with feminine names are invoked and there is an inclination to personify bad qualities and disasters as goddesses. But we do not find any goddess who has attained a position comparable with that held by Durgâ, Cybele or Astarte, though there are some remarkable hymns⁶⁸⁴ addressed to the Earth. But there is no doubt that the worship of goddesses (especially goddesses of fertility) as great powers is both ancient and widespread. We find it among the Egyptians and Semites, in Asia Minor, in Greece, Italy, and among the Kelts. The goddess Anahit, who was worshipped with immoral rites in Bactria, is figured on the coins of the Kushans and must at one time have been known on the north-western borders of India. At the present day Śîtalâ and in south India Mariamman are goddesses of smallpox who require propitiation, and one of the earliest deities known to have been worshipped by the Tamils is the goddess Koṭṭavai.⁶⁸⁵ Somewhat obscure but widely worshipped are the powers known as the Mothers, a title which also occurs in Keltic mythology. They are groups of goddesses varying in number and often malevolent. As many as a hundred and forty are said to be worshipped in Gujarat. The census of Bengal (1901) records the worship of the earth, sun and rivers as females, of the snake goddesses Manasâ and Jagat Gaurî and of numerous female demons who send disease, such as the seven sisters, Ola Bibi, Jogini and the Churels, or spirits of women who have died in childbirth.

The rites celebrated in honour of these deities are often of a questionable character and include dances by naked women and offerings of spirituous liquors and blood. Similar features are found in other countries. Prostitution formed part of the worship of Astarte and Anahit: the Tauric Artemis was adored with human sacrifices and Cybele with self-inflicted mutilations. Similarly offerings of blood drawn from the sacrificer's own body are enjoined in the Kâlikâ Purâṇa. Two stages can be distinguished in the relations between these cults and Hinduism. In the later stage which can be witnessed even at the present day an aboriginal goddess or demon is identified with one of the aspects (generally a "black" or fierce aspect) of Śiva's spouse.⁶⁸⁶ But such identification is facilitated by the fact that goddesses like Kâlî, Bhairavî, Chinnamasṭakâ are not products of purely Hindu imagination but represent earlier stages of amalgamation in which Hindu and aboriginal ideas are already compounded. When the smallpox goddess is identified with Kâlî, the procedure is correct, for some popular forms of Kâlî are little more than an aboriginal deity of pestilence draped with Hindu imagery and philosophy.

Some Hindu scholars demur to this derivation of Śâktism from lower cults. They point to its refined and philosophic aspects; they see in it the worship of a goddess, who can be as merciful as the Madonna, but yet, since she is the goddess of nature, combines in one shape life and death. May not the grosser forms of Śâktism be perversions and corruptions of an ancient and higher faith? In support of this it may be urged that the Buddhist goddess Târâ is as a rule a beautiful and benevolent figure, though she can be terrible as the enemy of evil and has clear affinities to Durgâ. Yet the history of Indian thought does not support this view, but rather the view that Hinduism incorporated certain ancient ideas, true and striking as ancient ideas often are, but without purging them sufficiently to make them acceptable to the majority of educated Indians.

The Yajur Veda⁶⁸⁷ associates Rudra with a female deity called Ambikâ or mother, who is however his sister, not his spouse. The earliest forms of the latter seem to connect her with mountains. She is Umâ Haimavatî, the daughter of the Himalayas, and Pârvatî, she of the mountains, and was perhaps originally a sacred peak. In an interesting but brief passage of the Kena Upanishad (III. 12 and IV. 1) Umâ Haimavatî explains to the gods that a being whom they do not know is Brahman. In later times we hear of a similar goddess in the Vindhyas, Mahârânî Vindhyeśvarî, who was connected with human sacrifices and Thugs.⁶⁸⁸ Śiva's consort, like her Lord, has many forms classified as white or benignant and black or terrible. Umâ belongs to the former class but the latter (such as Kâlî, Durgâ, Câmundâ, Candâ and Karalâ) are more important.⁶⁸⁹ Female deities bearing names like these are worshipped in most parts of India, literally from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, for the latter name is derived from Kumârî, the Virgin goddess.⁶⁹⁰ But the names Śâkta and Śâktism are usually restricted to those sects in Bengal and Assam who worship the Consort of Śiva with the rites prescribed in the Tantras.

Śâktism regards the goddess as the active manifestation of the godhead. As such she is styled Śakti, or energy (whence the name Śâkta), and is also identified with Mâyâ, the power which is associated with Brahman and brings the phenomenal world into being. Similar ideas appear in a philosophic form in the Sâṅkhya teaching. Here the soul is masculine and passive: its task is to extricate and isolate itself. But Prakṛiti or Nature is feminine and active: to her is due the evolution of the universe: she involves the soul in actions which cause pain but she also helps the work of liberation.⁶⁹¹ In its fully developed form the doctrine of the Tantras teaches that Śakti is not an emanation or aspect of the deity. There is no distinction between Brahman and Śakti. She is Parabrahman and parâtparâ, Supreme of the Supreme.

The birthplace of Śâktism as a definite sect seems to have been north-eastern India⁶⁹² and though it is said to be extending in the United Provinces, its present sphere of influence is still chiefly Bengal and Assam.⁶⁹³ The population of these countries is not Aryan (though the Bengali language bears witness to the strong Aryan influence which has prevailed there) and is largely composed of immigrants from the north belonging to the Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer and Shan families. These tribes remain distinct in Assam but the Bengali represents the fusion of such invaders with a Munda or Dravidian race, leavened by a little Aryan blood in the higher castes. In all this region we hear of no ancient Brahmanic settlements, no ancient centres of Vedic or even Puranic learning⁶⁹⁴ and when Buddhism decayed no body of Brahmanic tradition such as existed in other parts of India imposed its authority on the writers of the Tantras. Even at the present day the worship of female spirits, only half acknowledged by the Brahmans, prevails among these people, and in the past the national deities of many tribes were goddesses who were propitiated with human sacrifices. Thus the Chutiyas of Sadiya used to adore a goddess, called Kesai Khati—the eater of raw flesh. The rites of these deities were originally performed by tribal priests, but as Hindu influence spread, the Brahmans gradually took charge of them without modifying their character in essentials. Popular Bengali poetry represents these goddesses as desiring worship and feeling that they are slighted: they persecute those who ignore them, but shower blessings on their worshippers, even on the obdurate who are at last compelled to do them homage. The language of mythology could not describe more clearly the endeavours of a plebeian cult to obtain recognition.⁶⁹⁵

The Mahâbhârata contains hymns to Durgâ in which she is said to love offerings of flesh and wine,⁶⁹⁶ but it is not likely that Śâktism or Tantrism—that is a system with special scriptures and doctrines—was prevalent before the seventh century A.D. for the Tantras are not mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims and the lexicon Amara Kosha (perhaps c. 500 A.D.) does not recognize the word as a designation of religious books. Bâṇa (c. 630) gives more than once in his romances lists of sectaries but though he mentions Bhâgavatas and Pâśupatas, he does not speak of Śaktas.⁶⁹⁷ On the other hand Tantrism infected Buddhism soon after this period. The earlier Tibetan translations of the Tantras are attributed to the ninth century. MSS. of the Kubjikâmata and other Tantras are said to date from the ninth and even from the seventh century and tradition represents Sankarâcârya as having contests with Śâktas.⁶⁹⁸ But many Tantras were written in the fifteenth century and even later, for the Yogini Tantra alludes to the Koch king Bishwa Singh (1515-1540) and the Meru Tantra mentions London and the English.

From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Buddhism, itself deeply infected with Tantrism, was disappearing, Śâktism was probably the most powerful religion in Bengal, but Vishnuism was gaining strength and after the time of Caitanya proved a formidable rival to it. At the beginning of the fifteenth century we hear that the king of the Ahoms summoned Brahmans to his Court and adopted many Hindu rites and beliefs, and from this time onward Śâktism was patronized by most of the Assamese Rajas although after 1550 Vishnuism became the religion of the mass of the people. Śâktism never inspired any popular or missionary movement, but it was powerful among the aristocracy and instigated persecutions against the Vishnuites.

The more respectable Tantras⁶⁹⁹ show considerable resemblance to the later Upanishads such as the Nṛisinhatâpanîya and Râmatâ-panîya, which mention Śakti in the sense of creative energy.⁷⁰⁰ Both classes of works treat of magical formulæ(mantras) and the construction of mystic diagrams or yantras. This resemblance does not give us much assistance in chronology, for the dates of the later Upanishads are very uncertain, but it shows how the Tantras are connected with other branches of Hindu thought.

The distinction between Tantras and Purâṇas is not always well-marked. The Bhâgavata Purâṇa countenances tantric rites⁷⁰¹ and the Agni Purâṇa (from chapter XXI onwards) bears a strong resemblance to a Tantra. As a rule the Tantras contain less historical and legendary matter than the Purâṇas and more directions as to ritual. But whereas the Purâṇas approve of both Vedic rites and others, the Tantras insist that ceremonies other than those which they prescribe are now useless. They maintain that each age of the world has its own special revelation and that in this age the Tantra-śâstra is the only scripture. Thus in the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra Śiva says:⁷⁰² "The fool who would follow other doctrines heedless of mine is as great a sinner as a parricide or the murderer of a Brahman or of a woman.... The Vedic rites and mantras which were efficacious in the first age have ceased to have power in this. They are now as powerless as snakes whose fangs have been drawn and are like dead things." The Kulârṇava Tantra (I. 79 ff.) inveighs against those who think they will obtain salvation by Vedic sacrifices or asceticism or reading sacred books, whereas it can be won only by tantric rites.

Various lists of Tantras are given and it is generally admitted that many have been lost. The most complete, but somewhat theoretical enumeration⁷⁰³ divides India and the adjoining lands into three regions to each of which sixty-four Tantras are assigned. The best known names are perhaps Mahânirvâṇa,⁷⁰⁴ Sâradâtilaka,⁷⁰⁵ Yoginî, Kulârṇava⁷⁰⁶ and Rudra-Yâmala. A Tantra is generally cast in the form of a dialogue in which Śiva instructs his consort but sometimes vice versâ. It is said that the former class are correctly described as Âgamas and the works where the Śakti addresses Śiva as Nigamas.⁷⁰⁷ Some are also called Yâmalas and Dâmaras but I have found no definition of the meaning of these words. The Prapañcasâra Tantra⁷⁰⁸ professes to be a revelation from Nârâyaṇa.

Śâktism and the Tantras which teach it are generally condemned by Hindus of other sects.⁷⁰⁹ It is arguable that this condemnation is unjust, for like other forms of Hinduism the Tantras make the liberation of the soul their object and prescribe a life of religious observances including asceticism and meditation, after which the adept becomes released even in this life. But however much new tantric literature may be made accessible in future, I doubt if impartial criticism will come to any opinion except that Śâktism and Tantrism collect and emphasize what is superficial, trivial and even bad in Indian religion, omitting or neglecting its higher sides. If for instance the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra which is a good specimen of these works be compared with Śaṅkara's commentary on the Vedânta Sûtras, or the poems of Tulsi Das, it will be seen that it is woefully deficient in the excellences of either. But many tantric treatises are chiefly concerned with charms, spells, amulets and other magical methods of obtaining wealth, causing or averting disease and destroying enemies, processes which even if efficacious have nothing to do with the better side of religion.⁷¹⁰

The religious life prescribed in the Tantras⁷¹¹ commences with initiation and requires the supervision of the Guru. The object of it is Siddhi or success, the highest form of which is spiritual perfection. Siddhi is produced by Sâdhana, or that method of training the physical and psychic faculties which realizes their potentialities. Tantric training assumes a certain constitution of the universe and the repetition in miniature of this constitution in the human body which contains various nervous centres and subtle channels for the passage of energy unknown to vulgar anatomy. Thus the Śakti who pervades the universe is also present in the body as Kuṇḍalinî, a serpentine coil of energy, and it is part of Sâdhana to arouse this energy and make it mount from the lower to the higher centres. Kuṇḍalinî is also present in sounds and in letters. Hence if different parts of the body are touched to the accompaniment of appropriate mantras (which rite is called nyâsa) the various Śaktis are made to dwell in the human frame in suitable positions.

The Tantras recognize that human beings are not equal and that codes and rituals must vary according to temperament and capacity. Three conditions of men, called the animal, heroic and divine,⁷¹² are often mentioned and are said to characterize three periods of life—youth, manhood and age, or three classes of mankind, non-tantrists, ordinary tantrists, and adepts. These three conditions clearly correspond to the three Guṇas. Also men, or rather Hindus, belong to one of seven groups, or stages, according to the religious practices which it is best for them to follow. Śâktists apparently demur⁷¹³ to the statement commonly made by Indians as well as by Europeans that they are divided into two sects the Dakshiṇâcârins, or right-hand worshippers, whose ritual is public and decent, and the Vâmâcârins who meet to engage in secret but admittedly immoral orgies. But for practical purposes the division is just, although it must not be supposed that Dakshiṇâcârins necessarily condemn the secret worship. They may consider it as good for others but not for themselves. Śâktists apparently would prefer to state the matter thus. There are seven stages of religion. First come Vedic, Vishnuite and Śivaite worship, all three inferior, and then Dakshiṇâcâra, interpreted as meaning favourable worship, that is favourable to the accomplishment of higher purposes, because the worshipper now begins to understand the nature of Devî, the great goddess. These four kinds of worship are all said to belong to pravritti or active life. The other three, considered to be higher, require a special initiation and belong to nivritti, the path of return in which passion and activity are suppressed.⁷¹⁴ And here is propounded the doctrine that passion can be destroyed and exhausted by passion,⁷¹⁵ that is to say that the impulses of eating, drinking and sexual intercourse are best subjugated by indulging them. The fifth stage, in which this method is first adopted, is called Vâmâcâra.⁷¹⁶ In the sixth, or Siddhântâcâra,⁷¹⁷ the adept becomes more and more free from passion and prejudice and is finally able to enter Kaulâcâra, the highest stage of all. A Kaula is one who has passed beyond all sects and belongs to none, since he has the knowledge of Brahman. "Possessing merely the form of man, he moves about this earth for the salvation of the world and the instruction of men."⁷¹⁸

These are aspirations common to all Indian religion. The peculiarity of the Tantras is to suppose that a ritual which is shocking to most Hindus is an indispensable preliminary to their attainment.⁷¹⁹ Its essential feature is known as pancatattva, the five elements, or pancamakâra the five m's, because they all begin with that letter, namely, madya, mâṃsa, matsya, mudrâ, and maithuna, wine, meat, fish, parched grain and copulation. The celebration of this ritual takes place at midnight, and is called cakra or circle. The proceedings begin by the devotees seating themselves in a circle and are said to terminate in an indiscriminate orgy. It is only fair to say that some Tantras inveigh against drunkenness and authorize only moderate drinking.⁷²⁰ In all cases it is essential that the wine, flesh, etc., should be formally dedicated to the goddess: without this preliminary indulgence in these pleasures is sinful. Indeed it may be said that apart from the ceremonial which they inculcate, the general principles of the Tantras breathe a liberal and intelligent spirit. Caste restrictions are minimized: travelling is permitted. Women are honoured: they can act as teachers: the burning of widows is forbidden:⁷²¹ girl widows may remarry⁷²² and the murder of a woman is peculiarly heinous. Prostitution is denounced. Whereas Christianity is sometimes accused of restricting its higher code to Church and Sundays, the opposite may be said of Tantrism. Outside the temple its morality is excellent.

A work like the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra presents a refined form of Śâktism modified, so far as may be, in conformity with ordinary Hindu usage.⁷²³ But other features indubitably connect it with aboriginal cults. For instance there is a legend which relates how the body of the Śakti was cut into pieces and scattered over Assam and Bengal. This story has an uncouth and barbarous air and seems out of place even in Puranic mythology. It recalls the tales told of Osiris, Orpheus and Halfdan the Black⁷²⁴ and may be ultimately traceable to the idea that the dismemberment of a deity or a human representative ensures fertility. Until recently the Khonds of Bengal used to hack human victims in pieces as a sacrifice to the Earth Goddess and throw the shreds of flesh on the fields to secure a good harvest.⁷²⁵ In Sanskrit literature I have not found any authority for the dismemberment of Satî earlier than the Tantras or Upapurâṇas (e.g. Kâlikâ), but this late appearance does not mean that the legend is late in itself but merely that it was not countenanced by Sanskrit writers until medieval times. Various reasons for the dismemberment are given and the incident is rather awkwardly tacked on to other stories. One common version relates that when Satî (one of the many forms of Śakti) died of vexation because her husband Śiva was insulted by her father Daksha, Śiva took up her corpse and wandered distractedly carrying it on his shoulder.⁷²⁶ In order to stop this penance Vishṇu followed him and cut off pieces from the corpse with his quoit until the whole had fallen to earth in fifty-one pieces. The spots where these pieces touched the ground are held sacred and called pîths. At most of them are shown a rock supposed to represent some portion of the goddess's body and some object called a bhairabi, left by Śiva as a guardian to protect her and often taking the form of a lingam. The most important of these pîths are Kâmâkhyâ near Gauhati, Faljur in the Jaintia Parganas, and Kalighat in Calcutta.⁷²⁷

Though the Śakti of Śiva is theoretically one, yet since she assumes many forms she becomes in practice many deities or rather she is many deities combined in one or sometimes a sovereign attended by a retinue of similar female spirits. Among such forms we find the ten Mahâvidyâs, or personifications of her supernatural knowledge; the Mahâmâtris, Mâtrikâs or the Great Mothers, allied to the aboriginal goddesses already mentioned; the Nâyakas or mistresses; the Yoginîs or sorceresses, and fiends called Ḍâkinîs. But the most popular of her manifestations are Durgâ and Kâlî. The sects which revere these goddesses are the most important religious bodies in Bengal, where they number thirty-five million adherents. The Durgâpûja is the greatest festival of the year in north-eastern India⁷²⁸ and in the temple of Kalighat at Calcutta may be seen the singular spectacle of educated Hindus decapitating goats before the image of Kâlî. It is a black female figure with gaping mouth and protruded tongue dancing on a prostrate body,⁷²⁹ and adorned with skulls and horrid emblems of destruction. Of her four hands two carry a sword and a severed head but the other two are extended to give blessing and protection to her worshippers. So great is the crowd of enthusiastic suppliants that it is often hard to approach the shrine and the nationalist party in Bengal who clamour for parliamentary institutions are among the goddess's devotees.

It is easy to criticize and condemn this worship. Its outward signs are repulsive to Europeans and its inner meaning strange, for even those who pray to the Madonna are startled by the idea that the divine nature is essentially feminine.⁷³⁰ Yet this idea has deep roots in the heart of Bengal and with it another idea: the terrors of death, plague and storm are half but only half revelations of the goddess-mother who can be smiling and tender as well. Whatever may be the origin of Kâlî and of the strange images which represent her, she is now no she-devil who needs to be propitiated, but a reminder that birth and death are twins, that the horrors of the world come from the same source as its grace and beauty and that cheerful acceptance of the deity's terrible manifestations is an essential part of the higher spiritual life.⁷³¹ These ideas are best expressed in the songs of Râma Prasâda Sen (1718-1775) which "still reign supreme in the villages" of Bengal and show that this strange worship has really a hold on millions of Indian rustics.⁷³² The directness and childlike simplicity of his poems have caused an Indian critic to compare him to Blake. "Though the mother beat the child," he sings,

 
"the child cries mother, mother, and
clings still tighter to her garment. True, I
cannot see thee, yet I am not a lost child.
I still cry mother, mother."
 
 
"All the miseries that I have suffered and am suffering,
I know, O mother, to be your mercy alone."
 

I must confess that I cannot fully sympathize with this worship, even when it is sung in the hymns of Râma Prasâda, but it is clear that he makes it tolerable just because he throws aside all the magic and ritual of the Tantras and deals straight with what are for him elemental and emotional facts. He makes even sceptics feel that he has really seen God in this strange guise.