death will conduct them before Yamen. This incorruptible and severe judge will condemn them according to the faults they have committed. Those who have despised the duties of religion shall be cast on heaps of cutting arms, and suffer this torment as many years as they have hairs on their bodies. Those who insult the Bramins and persons in high office, shall be cut in pieces. Adulterers shall be forced to embrace a statue made hot with fire. Those who fail in their duty, who do not take care of their family, and who abandon them to roam about, shall be continually torn by the crows. Those who do hurt to men, or who kill animals, shall be cast from precipices to be tormented by wild beasts. Those who have not reverenced their parents, nor the Bramins, shall burn in a fire whose flames shall rise to 10,000 yogenais. Those who have ill-used old men and children shall be cast into furnaces. Those who have slept in the day time with lewd women shall be forced to walk on thorns. Slanderers and calumniators, stretched upon beds of redhot iron, shall be obliged to eat excrements.1 Misers shall serve for food to the worms. Those who rob the Bramins shall be sawed through the middle of their bodies. Those who from motives of vanity slay cows and other animals in the sacrifices, shall be beat on an anvil. False witnesses shall be flung from the top of high mountains. Lastly, the sensual, the idlers, and those who have had no pity on the poor and miserable, shall be flung into burning caverns; shall be crushed under mill-stones, and trod under foot by elephants; and their bruised and torn flesh shall serve for food to those animals. All these miserable sinners shall suffer in this manner during many thousand years; and their imperishable bodies, although divided by torments, shall re-unite as soon as quicksilver. They afterwards shall be condemned to a new life, during

1 See 2 Kings, xviii. 27; Isaiah, xxxvi. 12. It is said that these disgusting expressions are still used.-J. W. W.

which their torments shall be lengthened, and by an effect of the Divine power they shall find themselves again in the seed of man. This seed diffused in the womb, shall be, during a whole night, like mud. The fifth day it shall be like globules of water. In the fourth month, the sinews of the fœtus shall be formed. In the fifth, he shall experience hunger and thirst. In the sixth, an epidermis shall cover his body. In the seventh, he shall be sensible of motions. He will inhabit the right side of his mother, and be nourished by the suction of the nourishment she takes. Reduced to flutter in his excrements, the worms shall bite him; the sharp nutriture and warm water which his mother drinks will give him acute pains. He will suffer much in his birth; and when born will be still subject to infinite pains. It is thus that this painful birth shall be renewed, till these unhappy creatures have the courage to give themselves up entirely to the practice of virtue."

"ALL souls whom a violent death hastens to the grave, except those who perish in a war, or in defence of their gods or their country, remain wandering and rambling upon the earth as long a time as they were destined to live in the bodies they lately animated. They can be judged only after this interval."

"If the destiny of the soul has been so unfortunate, that it is doomed to animate the body of an animal, it will successively pass into different disguises of this kind, except some fortunate circumstance delivers it from this deplorable state; because an animal cannot perform a meritorious act. Those fortunate circumstances are, the sight of a deity, whether in his temples or in the streets during the ceremony of a procession. Sometimes the sight alone of a holy place may operate for the deliverance. At this epocha the soul passes into the body of a man, and thus wanders from body to body till it becomes perfectly pure."

"THE gods and the giants desiring to procure themselves immortality, after the counsel of Vichenou, transported the mountain of Mandriguiri into the sea of milk, to get the Amourdon: they surrounded it with the serpent Addissechen, and drawing it alternately, some by the head and some by the tail, they turned the mountain topsyturvy, that they might change the sea into butter. They drew it with such swiftness, that Adissechen, overcome with weariness, could no longer support the fatigue; his body trembled, his thousand shivering mouths made the earth resound with his hissings; a torrent of flame issued from his eyes; his thousand tongues, black and hanging, palpitated; and he vomited a terrible poison, which in an instant spread itself every where. Vichenou, more intrepid than the other gods and giants, who fled, took the poison, and rubbed his body with it, which immediately became blue. It is in commemoration of this event, that in almost all the temples dedicated to him, they represent him of a blue colour. The gods and giants returned to their work; they laboured during a thousand years, after which the mountain sunk by degrees into the sea. Vichenou then took the form of a tortoise of an extraordinary size, went into the sea, and easily lifted up the sunk mountain. All the gods, after having given him praises, united to turn the mountain. At last, after many ages, the cow Camadenou came out of the sea of milk, as also the horse Outchisaravam, and the white elephant Ariapadam, and the tree Calpaga Vroucham. Their labours also produced three goddesses, Latchimi, goddess of riches, wife of Vichenou; Sarasouadi, goddess of sciences and harmony, whom Brahma took to his wife; and Moudevi, goddess of discord and misfortune, with whom, for good reason, no person would trouble themselves; for the Indians suppose, that whoever is under her influence will never have a grain of rice to appease his hunger. She is represented green, mounted on an ass, carrying a banner in her hand, on which a raven

is painted. Those animals are given her as attributes, because they are held infamous by the Gentoos. The physician Danouvandri afterwards came out from the bottom of the sea with a vase full of Amourdon. Vichenou distributed it among the gods alone; and the giants, who saw themselves disappointed, furious for having been deceived, dispersed themselves over the earth, preventing homage being paid to any deity whatever, and exercised all kinds of cruelty to make themselves adored."

"VICHENOU assumed the form of a woman, under the name of Moyeni, to seduce the giants and take the Amortam from them. Eswara was so struck with her beauty, that he could not resist his desires, and became with her the father of Ayenar. The Gentoos esteem this son of Eswara and Vichenou as the protector of the world, of good order, and of the police; but they do not rank him with gods of the first class. They build small temples to him in the woods, commonly at a distance from the highway, but never in towns. He is known by the quantity of horses made of dried earth, which they consecrate to him, and are placed without side the temple, but under cover. It is not permitted to pass near those temples in a carriage, on horseback, or on foot with shoes on. He is the only god to whom sanguinary offerings are made; kids and cocks being sacrificed to him."

"LATCHIMI, the wealth-giver, the mother of the world, the perfectly beautiful, had by her husband Vichenou, Manmadin, god of love, a child in figure like Cupid, carrying a quiver on his shoulders, and a bow and arrow in his hand; but his bow is of sugar cane, his arrows of all sorts of flowers, and he is mounted on a parroquet. Although an infant, they have given him a wife called Radi, which signifies Debauch; they represent her as a beautiful woman, on her knees, on horseback, throwing a dart."

"ESWARA unites in himself both sexes,

his wife Parvadi is only a part of himself. The first and greatest of his sons is Pollear. He presides over marriages. The Indians build no house, without having first carried a Pollear on the ground, which they sprinkle with oil, and throw flowers on it every day. If they do not invoke it before they undertake any enterprize, they believe that God will make them forget what they wanted to undertake, and that their labour will be in vain. He has an elephant's head, and rides a rat: but in the pagodas they place him on a pedestal with his legs almost crossed. A rat is always put before the door of his chapel. This rat was a giant, Gudje-mougachourin, on whom the gods had bestowed immortality, as well as great powers; which he abused, and did much harm to mankind. Pollear, intreated by the sages and penitents to deliver them, pulled out one of his tusks, and threw it against the oppressor. The tooth entered the giant's stomach, and overthrew him. He immediately changed himself into a rat, as large as a mountain, and came to attack Pollear: who sprung on his back, telling him, that hereafter he should ever be his carrier. The Hindoos, in their adoration of this god, cross the arms, shut the fist, and in this manner give themselves several blows on the temples: then, but always with the arms crossed, they take hold of their ears, and make three inclinations, bending the knee; after which, with their hands joined, they address their prayers to him, and strike their forehead. They have a great veneration for this deity, whose image they place in all temples, streets, highways, and in the country at the foot of some tree, that all the world may have an opportunity of invoking him, before they undertake any concern, and that travellers may make their adorations and offerings to him before they pursue their journey."

"THE second son of Eswara is Soupramanier, whom his father produced from the eye in the middle of his forehead, to destroy the giant Soura-Parpma. This last, by

strength of penances, had obtained the government of the world and immortality; but became so wicked that God was obliged to punish him. He sent Soupramanier, who fought him unsuccessfully for ten days; but at last, making use of the Velle, arms which he had received from his father, he cut the giant in two. These two parts changed, one into a peacock, and the other into a cock. Soupramanier gave them a better heart, and from that moment they paid homage to Eswara. He enjoined the peacock always to carry him, and the cock to be always in his standard."

“Vairevert, the third son of Eswara, was created from his breath, to overthrow the pride of the Deverkels and the Penitents, and to humble Brahma, who had vaunted that he was the greatest of the three gods. Vairevert pulled off one of Brahma's heads, and received the blood of all the Deverkels and Penitents in the skull; but afterwards brought them to life again, and gave them purer hearts. This is the god who by Eswara's command will come to destroy the world at the end of the ages. He is blue, three-eyed, with two tusks like crescents, a collar of heads round his neck, falling on his stomach; his girdle is made of serpents, his hair of a fire colour, bells are on his feet, he rides a dog."

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. Bely ridiculed the apparent imbecility of the dwarf, in telling him, that he ought not to limit his demand to a request 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 Bely to give him his word for the third. The prince then recognized Vichenou, adored him, and presented his head to him: but the god, satisfied with his submission, sent him to govern Padalon, and permitted him to return annually to the earth, on the day of the full moon in November, the anniversary of his overthrow, to witness the fireworks and illuminations, a sight of which he was very fond."

"PARASSOURAMA was only one part of Vichenou. He declared war against the kings of the race of the sun, defeated them all, and gave their kingdom to the Bramins. He would afterwards have retired into a corner of the country he had presented them, to pass his days in tranquillity, but none of the Bramins would permit him: and finding no asylum on the earth, he retired on the Gauts, whose foundation was washed by the waves. It was there that he called Varounin, god of the sea, begging him to withdraw his waters, in order to

The classical reader will call to mind HoMER'S description of strife, Iliad, A. 443.

Οὐρανῷ ἐστήριξε κάρη, και ἐπὶ χθονὶ βαίνει. With which may be compared the words in the Book of Wisdom, "It touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth." xviii. 16.

J. W. W.

give him a place he could inhabit; he only desired the space of an arrow's flight, which he would shoot. Varounin consented, but the penitent Narader, witness of the promise he had just given, made him sensible of his imprudence, by assuring him, that it was Vichenou himself, and that he would send his arrow beyond all the seas; in which case Varounin would not know what to do with his waters. Varounin, lamenting at not being able to recall his promise, ran speedily to Yamen, god of death, begging his assistance in this dilemma. To oblige him, Yamen changed himself into a white ant, called Karia among the Indians, who, in the night time came when Parassourama was asleep, and by favour of the darkness gnawed his bow-string in such a manner, as to leave just string enough to keep the bow stretched. Parassourama, not perceiving the trick played him, repaired in the morning to the sea shore; he put an arrow to his bow, which he was preparing to shoot with all his strength; but in drawing the string, to give it more elasticity, it broke in such a manner, that the arrow could not go far. The land over which it passed dried, and formed the country of Malealon, which we call the coast of Malabar. Parassourama recalling to mind the ingratitude of the Bramins, cursed them, and imposed this lot upon them, that if a Bramin should die on this new spot of earth, he should return to earth again, in the shape of an ass. Therefore no Bramin's residence is to be seen on this proscribed coast. According to the Tamoul tradition, this god still lives on the Malabar coast. They represent him a terrible and disagreeable figure. On the Coromandel coast he is painted green, with a more agreeable countenance, holding in one hand a hatchet, and a fan of palm leaves in the other."

"MARIATALE was wife of the penitent

2 All these materials were of course collected for the "Curse of Kehama." This is quoted to the lines.

"It chanced that near her, on the river brink,