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grim on foot, one rupee. On every pilgrim with a horse or palanquin, two rupees. On every pilgrim with an elephant, twenty rupees, &c. Vast numbers of deluded creatures flock every year to these temples. In 1825, the number that arrived at Juggernaut was estimated at two hundred and twenty-five thousand, and in some cases they have been calculated to amount to more than a million. The deprivations and miseries suffered by many of these wretched beings are almost incredible. Dr. Buchanan, who visited Juggernaut temple in June, 1806, gives the following statement. "Numbers of pilgrims die on the road, and their bodies generally remain unburied. On a plain near the pilgrim Caravansera, 100-miles from Juggernaut, I saw more than 100 skulls; the dogs, jackalls, and vultures, seem to live here on human prey. Wherever I turn my eyes, I meet death in one shape or other. From the place where I now stand, I have a view of a host of people, like an army encamped at the outer gate of the town of Juggernaut, where a guard of soldiers is posted, to prevent them from entering the town until they have paid the tax. A pilgrim announced that he was ready to offer himself a sacrifice to the idol. He laid himself down on the road before the car as it was moving along, on his face, with his arms stretched forward. The multitude passed him, leaving the space clear, and he was crushed to death by the wheels. How much I wished that the proprietors of India stock would have attended the wheels of Juggernaut, and seen this peculiar source of their revenue! I beheld a distressing scene this morning in the place of skulls; a poor woman lying dead, or nearly so, and her two children by her, looking at the dogs and vultures which were near. The people passed by without noticing the children! I asked them where was their home? They said they had no home but where their mother was. O there is no pity at Juggernaut! Those who support his kingdom, err, I trust, from ignorance; they know not what they do."

"The loss of life," says Colonel Phipps, who witnessed this festival in 1822, "by this deplorable superstition, probably exceeds that of any other. The aged,

the weak, the sick, are persuaded to attempt this pilgrimage as a remedy for all evils. The number of women and children is also very great, and they leave their families and their occupations to travel an immense distance, with the delusive hope of obtaining eternal bliss. Their means of subsistence on the road are scanty, and their light clothing and little bodily strength, are ill calculated to encounter the inclemency of the weather. When they approach the temple, they find scarcely enough left to pay the tax to government, and to satisfy the rapacious brahmins; and, on leaving Juggernaut, with a long journey before them, their means of support are often quite exhausted. The work of death then becomes rapid, and the route of the pilgrims may be traced by the bones left by jackalls and vultures, and the dead bodies may be seen in every direction."

The Rev. W. Bampton, in an account of this festival, in July, 1823, states, "in the front of one of the cars lay the body of a dead man; one arm and one leg were eaten; and two dogs were then eating him; many people were near, both moving and stationary, but they did not seem to take any notice of the circumstance. I went to see the pilgrims, who, because they could not pay the tax, were kept without one of the gates. In the course of the morning, I saw within a mile of the gate six more dead, and the dogs and birds were eating three of them. Five or six lay dead within a mile of the gate. A military officer pointed out a piece of ground, scarcely an acre, on which he had, last year, counted twenty-five dead bodies." Mr. Lacey, a missionary, who was at the festival in June 1825, states, "On the evening of the 19th I counted upwards of sixty dead and dying, from the temple, to about half a mile below-leaving out the sick that had not much life. In every street, corner, and open space-in fact, wherever you turned your eyes, the dead and the dying met your sight. I visited one of the Golgothas between the town and the principal entrance, and I saw sights which I never shall forget. The small river there was quite glutted with the dead bodies. The wind had drifted them all together, and they were a complete

mass of putrefying flesh. They also lay upon the ground in heaps, and the dogs and birds were able to do but little towards devouring them." Such horrid details could be multiplied without number; every one who has visited such scenes of misery and depravity, gives similar relations, some of which are still more horrible and revolting. With regard to the number that perish on such occasions, the Rev. Mr. Ward estimates that 4000 pilgrims perish every year, on the roads to and at holy places-an estimate which is considered by others as far below the truth. Captain F estimates those who died at Cuttack and Pooree, and between the two stations, at 5000. How many of these miserable people must have died before they reached their homes! many of them coming three, six, or nine hundred miles. Mr. M -, the European collector of the tax at Pooree, estimated the mortality at 20,000!

Juggernaut is one of the most celebrated stations of idolatry in India. All the land within twenty miles is considered holy; but the most sacred spot is enclosed within a stone wall twenty-one feet high, forming a square of about 656 feet. Within this area are about fifty temples; but the most conspicuous buildings consist of one lofty stone tower, 184 feet high and twenty-eight and a half feet square inside. The idol Juggernaut, his brother Bulbudra, and his sister Sabadra, occupy the tower. The roofs are ornamented with representations of monsters; the walls of the temple are covered with statues of stone, representing Hindoo gods with their wives in attitudes grossly indecent. The three celebrated idols alluded to, are wooden busts six feet high, having a rude resemblance of the human head, and are painted white, yellow and black, with frightfully grim and distorted countenances. They are covered with spangled broadcloth, furnished from the export warehouse of the British government. The car on which the idol is drawn, measures forty-three and a half feet high, has sixteen wheels of six and a half feet diameter, and a platform thirtyfour and a half feet square. The ceremonies connect

ed with this idolatrous worship, are, in many instances, exceedingly revolting and obscene. At Ranibut, in the province of Gurwal, is a temple sacred to Rajah Ishwara, which is principally inhabited by dancing women. The initiation into this society is performed by anoint. ing the head with oil taken from the lamp placed before the altar, by which act, they make a formal abjuration of their parents and kindred, devoting their future lives to prostitution, and the British government, by giving annually 512 rupees to the religious mendicants who frequent this temple, directly sanction this system of obscenity and pollution. Many temples of impurity exist in other places of Hindostan. Tavernier mentions a village where there is a pagoda to which all the Indian courtezans come to make their offerings. This pagoda is full of a great number of naked images. Girls of eleven or twelve years old, who have been bought and educated for the purpose, are sent by their mistresses to this pagoda, to offer and surrender themselves up to this idol.

In order to induce ignorant devotees to forsake their homes, and commence pilgrims to these temples of impurity and idolatry, a set of avaricious villains termed Pilgrim hunters are employed to traverse the country, and by all manner of falsehoods, to proclaim the greatness of Juggernaut and other idols. They declare, for example, that this idol has now so fully convinced his conquerors, [that is, the British] of his divinity, that they have taken his temple under their own superintendency and that they expend 60,000 rupees from year to year to provide him with an attendance worthy of his dignity. These pilgrim hunters are paid by the British government. If one of them can march out a thousand persons and persuade them to undertake the journey, he receives 1500 rupees, if they be of the lower class; and 3,000 rupees, if they be persons belonging to the highest class. But, what is worst of all-the conduct of the British government in relation to this system, has led many of the natives to believe that the British nation approves of the idolatrous worship established in India. A hindoo inquired of a missionary in

India, "If Juggernaut be nothing, why does the Company take so much money from those who come to see him?" Mr. Lacey, a Missionary who went to relieve the destitute on the road to Cuttack, during one of the festivals, relates the following incident :-" You would have felt your heart moved, to hear, as I did, the natives say Your preaching is a lie;-for, if your Saviour and your religion are thus merciful, how do you then take away the money of the poor and suffer him to starve?" It is indeed no wonder that when the natives see a poor creatare lying dying for want; they should reflect, that the two rupees he paid as a tax, would have kept him alive. Nor is it indeed a pleasing reflection to a European mind, that these two rupees form precisely the difference between life and death to many who have perished for want on their road home. Another missionary relates, "Passing one evening a large temple, I caught a sight of one of the idols, and exclaimed, sinful, sinful! The native who was with me asked, 'Sir, is that sinful for which the Company give thousands.' A man said to me a few days ago, If the government does not forsake Juggernaut, how can you expect that we should?" In this way the efforts of Christian missionaries to turn the Hindoo from idolatry, are, in many instances completely paralyzed.*

Such is the worship which the British government supports, and from which it derives an annual revenue: Such is the covetousness literally and directly connected with "idolatry," manifested by those who give their sanction and support to a system of idol-worship, distinguished for rapacity, cruelty, obscenity, and every thing shocking to the feelings of humanity! If we are commanded to "flee from idolatry," "to abstain from meats offered to idols," and to "hate even the garment spotted by the flesh," what shall we think of the practice of receiving hundreds of thousands of rupees annually, for permitting blinded idolaters to worship the most despicable idols-of clothing those idols, repairing their

*Most of the facts above stated have been selected and abridged from Mr. Pegg's "Pilgrim tax in India.”

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