filial affection. Let not your homes have the scent of the impurities of the temple, whose odour should be disgusting to your nostrils.

Another conspicuous result of the effect of the precepts inculcated by the Mahárájas is the formation of the "Rás Mandalis." These are "carnal love meetings." The institutions, if it may be so called, or rather the practice, is derived from the account of the Rás Lilá, the ancient mythological story of the gopis, or female cowherds, mixing, dancing, and becoming passionately enamoured of Krishņa. The meetings of these societies are held privately at the residence of some orthodox and rich Vaishnavas. They take place in the evening, and at them are read stories from "The Tales of the Eighty-four Vaishnavas," and from "The Tales of the Two Hundred and Fifty-two Vaishnavas," which profess to relate respectively the histories of the converts of Vallabháchárya and of Vithalnáthji. We have had occasion, in our chapter on the doctrines of the Mahárájas, to quote some of these licentious narratives, to which we refer our readers back for illustration, not choosing to cite any more from such prurient sources. The reading of these books excites and stimulates the passions, and we may be prepared to expect what must follow. Indeed, it is very questionable whether this stimulation is not the ostensible and main object of the meeting, rather than any religious motive. These readings, principally for the purpose of exciting concupiscence, is inculcated by the religion. Friendly Vaishnavas take their wives, and possibly females of their acquaintance, with them to these meetings, and a discourse on matters of love and affection is read. It is not to be supposed that these societies have any resemblance to the Platonic concourse of the middle ages, entitled the Cours d'Amours, a Parliament of Love, which pronounced its "arrets," or sentences determining cases of conscience, or propounded ingenious subtleties for discussion. No!

These meetings are of a practical character, with but a step from word to deed. To them sweetmeats are taken, which are consecrated to the books, after reading, and these they put bit by bit into each other's mouth, each feeding another's wife.

"The wife of one Vaishnava will put a morsel into the mouth of another Vaishnava, who, in return, does the same to her, with all the practical manifestations of the most ardent love. After they have exhausted the sweets of these preliminaries, the intoxication of delight so overpowers them, and they become so enrapt with the ardour of the love that inflames them, that, forgetting the earth and its platitudes, they ascend to the very summit of celestial beatitude, and blend together in the ecstacy of superlative bliss."

We have but given a paraphrase of what this passage says in plainer and unmistakable language. We will proceed now to some of the rules which regulate the Rás Mandali. These direct that if one male Vaishnava wish to enjoy the wife of another Vaishnava, the latter should give him that liberty with great delight and pleasure. Not the slightest hesitation is to be made. It is a primary condition that a Vaishnava who wishes to be a member of this Mandali should join it together with his wife. The Vaishnava who has no wife, or who has not been married, can also join the Mandali, and enjoy the wives of other Vaishnavas. There are two or three such Rás Mandalis in Bombay, and they are found in other parts of India where Vaishnavas dwell. Capt. McMurdo, the Resident in Kutch, has noticed the Rás Mandali. He says:-"The well known Rás Mandalis are very frequent among them (the Bháttiás) as among other followers of Vishņu. At these, persons of both sexes and all descriptions, high and low, meet together; and, under the name and sanction of religion, practice every kind of licentiousness."

It is not to be supposed that the Mahárájas permit their

votaries to have the exclusive enjoyment of these Rás Mandalis; for this would be an act of self-denial, not consistent with their tenets. They themselves perform the part of Krishna with the gopis, and represent the Rás Lilá. It occurs in one part of the evidence in the Libel Case that the enactment of this "amorous sport" may be witnessed upon the payment of a fee, and one of the witnesses had actually paid the fee to see it performed between the Maháráj, as Krishna, and a young Bháttiá girl.

CHAPTER VIII.

PROFLIGACY OF THE MAHARAJAS.

OUR whole narrative has been scarcely anything but one continuous recital of the profligacy, debauchery, and licentiousness of the notorious Mahárájas. They find their infatuated votaries such willing victims, that their unresisting weakness tends to perpetuate and aggravate the evil; for all propensities, good and bad, by the very force of habit, become strengthened and confirmed. We cannot wonder, then, that these Mahárájas, accustomed from infancy to be treated with veneration, and to have every desire immediately and profusely met and gratified, should not desist from practices that have become bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. Nurtured in indolence and sensuality, with the barest smattering of education, what can it be expected they should become but the precocious practitioners of every depravity? Accustomed to delicate nurture, the choicest viands, the richest habiliments, the smiles of women, and the abject and debasing servility of men, they unwittingly become gross sensualists; and the great wonder is, that, in the continuous practice of so much debauchery and dissipation, they should live even to the age of manhood. Comparatively few of them reach old age.

The Mahárájas must be often well-favoured, to inspire women with so strong a passion as to purchase intercourse with them at any cost, as they have sometimes done; for this surely cannot always be traced to a religious source, but must often arise from depraved sensuality. Women have been

known to part with their personal ornaments to purchase intercourse with these priests; and, upon returning home, they have pretended to their husbands, or to the elders of the house, that the ornaments were lost in the crush of the throng which pressed to pay adoration to the image of the idol. The Mahárájas are solicitous to obtain the notice of all their female votaries; but only their particular favorites, or the exceptional charms of a beautiful female novice, specially allure them. That they may not lose any opportunity of fascinating, they go to the temple attired in the choicest raiment, from which streams the rich perfume of the unguents they have been anointed with: they are as odorous and as iridescent as a parterre of bright coloured and sweet scented flowers. Can we wonder, then, at the infatuation of the females, thus assailed through every sense, and whose imaginations are intoxicated by the desire and expectation of realizing sensuous connection with an incarnate god? Some females, in their impassioned devotion, dedicate themselves wholly to this sensual enjoyment; and are so strongly impressed with its beneficial and meritorious efficacy, that they dedicate their daughters to the same service. It has often happened, in the case of the sickness of husband or child, that, in order to procure their recovery, women have vowed to dedicate their daughters to the embraces of the priest. But it must be remembered that females, when young, are already initiated, as far as sight is concerned, in the alluring mysteries of this profligate religious frenzy: they behold from infancy all the processes of the atrocious superstition, and grow up to maturity in the pestilential atmosphere of moral impurity. They are thus prepared for what follows.

The profligacy, debauchery, and licentiousness which characterize the sect of Vallabháchárya have been noticed by several distinguished persons, two or three of whom flourished some hundred years ago. Dámodar Svámi, a dramatic writer, com