THE INDE.

- In India the morality becomes confused with the religion, and the religion with Brahmes. It is three terms which we cannot separate in a statement. We shall thus extend a little over Brahmes.

The customs of Ariahs appear to have been pure in Aria-Varta, common cradle of Asian Ariahs, and in Septa Sindou their first conquest in India, between delicious valley of Caboul and Serasvati.

The wife was partner so respected as devoted.

The cult was deprived, the head of family could, even without the poet or the bard of the tribe, consume the sacrifice; but soon the poet imposed his presence and he became a priest.

In the principle nothing distinguished the priests of the body of Ariahs or Vishas, ministers; they were, as the other members of the tribe, the ministers, the farmers, the warriors, often three at the same moment.

At the end of the second period védique (the second series of the hymns), the priesthood becomes established with the public cult.

We like Indra sun, whom we enlarge to make Vichnou sun.

Hymns make of Roudra a god in two persons.

It is the impure breath when come sub-himmalayens swamps, the purificatory god when he ( it ? ) hunts ( chases away ? ) the air ( sight ? ) stunk of the slums and the jungles.

When the conquest kisses ( embraces ? ) all the country between Sérasvati and Jumma, the aristocracy warrior forms at the same time as the priestly caste.

Ariahs has to fight ( dispute ? ) _Daysous noirs_ inhabitants of mountains and _Daysous jaunes_ (doubtless of the Mongolian race) who occupy plains; these last ones are advanced ( moved ? ) in the civilization, fight ( dispute ? ) on tanks, have cities with surrounding walls ( speakers ? ). When they are subjected, Brahmes borrows ( takes ? ) them the cult of the geniuses which was their religion.

In the valley of the Ganges, Ariahs civilizes and corrupt; Brahmes favors the establishment of small monarchies to hold in rein the warriors ( Kchattrias) and among the competitors they rest ( support ? ) those who support them.

Someone are warlike and kings.

They are made the gurus (spiritual advisers) and the pourohitas (officiating priests) of rajahs.

To acquire a big prestige, they establish the noviciate of the young people Brahmes and the asceticism of the old men.

Enjoying the peace by the protection of Radjas ( warlike princes), Brahmes divides into two camps; some admit as effective for the safety only the faith and the prayer ( the backti), the others proclaim the sovereign power of the boddhi ([Greek: sorich] Greeks, the knowledge).

In the period védique succeeds the heroic period, India of Kchattrias, which lasts several centuries during which Ariahs seizes: at first of the lower class ( course ? ) of the Ganges, then besides the peninsula.

While the warriors finish the conquest, three classes distinguish themselves and part more and more, Brahmes seizes all the civil and judicial powers.

Brahmes and Kchattrias quarrel the power; the first ones, to flatter ( pat ? ) the crowd, adopt its superstitions and his ( her ? ) gods, they appeal to the non-Aryan races and mainly to the tribes hardly subjected warriors; with their help ( assistant ? ) and that of some kings who declare themselves for them, they exterminate Kchattrias in the South and leave them somewhere else only a subordinate role.

They compose then a series of theological works which changes the religion and which gives them the exclusive possession of all which touches the cult. The coronation of the work is the law of Manou which dedicates their ascendancy on all and in any thing ( matter ? ) and finishes the physical and moral reduction in the dedicated slavish classes, even with the own eyes, by the doctrine of the metempsychosis, with an irreparable decay.

And so Pariahs imagines themselves lower than many animals. By the fear, by the corruption, by the dogma of the blind obedience in the unchanging custom, the institution of Manou lived more that no other one and one would know how to foresee the end. Never and anywhere we grew so far that Brahmes the skill théocratique for the subjection.

What had stayed in Kchattrias and whole caste of Vessiahs ( Vishas) supported ( bore ? ) with impatience the arrogance and the exaggerated privileges of Brahmes.

Théosophes and ascètes, except their caste, fought ( disputed ? ) them in the field of the speculation.

All these opponents met in the Buddhism; he ( it ? ) had such a favour as all which had a certain moral value entered the Buddhist convents: Brahmes abandoned and reduced to their own resources lived on their possessions and on professions which Manou allows them in times of distress. But they did not abandon the part ( party ? ). Whereas the Buddhist celibacy wasted ( destroyed ? ) the high castes which were set against them and left nothing for the recruitment of the religious body, brahmes remained by the family feeling, and by means of perseverance, of talents, of skill and of craftiness, they succeeded in killing ( abolishing ? ) the Buddhism.

By a series of alterations, Brahmes made some deification of the life and the generation, the essence of the religion. Today the Hindus divide into big two sectes: - the admirers of Siva, formerly Roudra, who carry ( wear ? ) in the left hand a ring in which is contained the lingam-yoni, the sort of amulet representing the coupling up of the organs of both sexes, (verenda utriusque sexus in actu copulationis), - and those of Vishnou who carry ( wear ? ) in the forehead ( front ? ) Nahman. It is a sort of trident drawn from the origin of the nose. The vertical line of the environment ( middle ? ) is red and represents the menstrual stream; the lateral straight ( right ? ) lines are of an ash grey and represent the virile semen.

By introducing the sensualism into all which touches the religion, Brahmes had had two objectives.

Tear away ( Extract ? ) from the Buddhism and captivate by images of their unrefined taste the Hindus, especially those of the slavish caste incapable to reach ( affect ? ) the delicacies of the feeling and some ideal. It was with the sculptural representation of the mythological scenes that had certain merit, not of shape, but movement, the means the easiest and maybe unique ( only ? ) to please eyes; it was also a concession in the local cults previous to the conquest, that were so able to continue in the breast of the Pantheism.

The second objective of the Brahmes, that one fundamental and point only a weapon and an expedient of circumstance, is indicated to us by the prescription of Manou: « each has to settle the debt of the ancestors » (credit note at least a son to close him ( her ? ) eyes).

The purpose was to prevent the numeric ( digital ? ) decrease and as a consequence the disappearance of the race of Ariahs, today represented only by Brahmes, and also to develop the slavish population the work of which was the main source of the public wealth. The legislator doubtless thought that it was necessary to incite the passions at people physically rather weak, of a lymphatic temperament, arranged in the anaemia by the incapacity of an exclusively vegetable food and by the dejection of the climate.

The religion naturalist or erotic of India began with the worship of Siva, confused ( merged ? ) at first with the idol of the virile member, the linga. The linga, which we meet everywhere in India, on roads, in crossroads and public places, in fields is not that was in the payenne antiquity the phallus, an obscene image and sometimes an art object. If we were not warned, we would take him ( it ? ) for an almost cylindrical border, that is a little wider on the base than on the summit, who ends by a hardly flattened spherical cap and presenting no projection on the trunk. The one that I brought back ( reported ? ) of India had a height of a metre, an average diameter from 0,25 to 0,30 m. and rested ( based ? ) on an also granite base of one and a half metre aside, clans who ( which ? ) was dug at feet of the trunk a sort of circular groove representing the fold of the yoni (genitals of the woman) represented by the base, as well as it takes place generally.

So, even today, after thirty centuries maybe, the linga and the yoni are not images which speak to the senses ( directions ? ), they are geometrical bodies serving as symbols, as idols.

As he ( it ? ) was no track of fetishism to Ariahs of time védique, and no other idol in the cult later ( posterior ? ) brahmanique, it is necessary to think that the linga is the probably very former ( ancient ? ) idol of a liable race, maybe black Daysous, and that Brahmes, to become attached this race, adopted Siva and the linga, by confusing ( merging ? ) on purpose Siva with Roudra, the védique god which got closer to it most by his ( her;its ? ) attributes: Siva was doubtless the national god of a considerable part ( party ? ) of India before the conquest Aryan; because, from the beginning, he ( it ? ) received the qualification of Issouara, the supreme being.

The linga had not penetrated into the védique religion, where there is no cult of the phallus. Stevenson and Lassen attributes ( awards ? ) to him ( her ? ), with many supporting evidences of their opinion, an origin dravidienne (the dravinienne language, today the tamoul, is used in all the South of the peninsula).

The linga appears in the religion of Brahmes at the same time as Sivaïsme, and this one shows itself to it at once after the period of the hymns; some fragments of the yagur-véda (véda of the ceremonial) suppose a state already advanced ( moved ? ) by the sivaïste religion.

The temple of Issouara (Siva, be supreme) to Benarès appears to have been very former ( ancient ? ); he ( it ? ) was in all his ( its ? ) magnificence during the visit of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien.

Even today, it is the sivaïsme which dominates to Benarès, the holy and learned city par excellence.

Several passages of Mahabarata concerned the cult of Siva and the linga; the Epics, although Vichnouistes, supposes the previous ascendancy of the cult of Mahadèva (the big god, Siva, the existing being by himself ( itself ? )).

In the first legends Buddhists, Lalita-Vistara, for example, Siva comes at once after Brahma and Çakra ( Indra). We know that there was always big sympathy and numerous links ( coming together ? ) between the Buddhism and the sivaïsme, doubtless because this last one was very rationnaliste and almost monotheist, whereas the vishnouvisme represented the pantheism and the idolization. The sivaïsme remained for a long time the professional religion of the Brahmes men of letters.

There is now in the South of India a spiritualist sect which claims to profess the primitive sivaïsme. She ( it ? ) had for interpreter Senathi Radja in her ( its ? ) book: « the sivaïsme in Southern India. »

The sivaïsme, says the author, appears to be the most the ancient ( former ? ) religions; the ancient ( former ? ) literature dravidienne is completely sivaïste. Agastia is the first wise person who taught the monotheism sivaïste, well before six systems of Indian philosophy, by basing him ( it ? ) at the same moment on Vedas and on Agamas, written which were never translated in any European language. Here is the summary of the monotheist doctrine:

« Everything is understood ( included ? ) in three terms: God, the soul, the material ( subject ? ).

Issouara either Siva or God is the efficient cause of the universe, his ( her ? ) creator and its providence.

Siva is unchanging, almighty, omniscient and merciful, he fills ( performs ? ) the universe and nevertheless he postpones from it.

He ( It ? ) is in close union with the immortal human soul, but he ( it ? ) distinguishes itself from individual souls which are lower of a degree than its essence. His ( her ? ) union with a soul becomes obvious when this one frees ( franks ? ) itself from the yoke of the senses ( directions ? ), what she cannot make without the grace ( favour ? ) the dispenser of which Siva is.

The material ( subject ? ) is eternal and passive, it is Siva who moves her ( it ? ); he is the husband of the whole nature which he fertilizes by his universal action.

There is only a god, those who say that there are several gods will be dedicated to the infernal fire.

God's revelation is one, the final fate is one, the moral way for the quite whole humanity is one. »

From there doubtless comes the information following, given by the abbot Dubois: every Brahmane would say to his ( her ? ) son at the time of the initiation: « Remember that there is only a single God; but it is the dogma which you should not reveal because he ( it ? ) would not be understood ( included ? ). »

Siva is the god of India who has most sanctuaries and the linga is the most wide-spread symbol. We find him ( it ? ) in profusion in Cambodia where, every year, on the holiday of the flourish, we walk in streets in procession an immense linga hollow in which is held a young man who forms the spread head.

Curious thing ( matter ? )! The linga is the material ( subject ? ) of a very common ex-voto for ascètes in Cambodia. Here we are, a little abbreviated, the inscription of a linga by one of them (_Journal of the Asian Company ( Society ? ) _).

Om, worship to Siva.

1 °. - 2 °. - 3 °. - preliminary Formulae of worship to Siva.

4 °. The linga set up by the ascète Djana-Priga in the time of the era Çaka expressed by the figure 6, the clouds 7 and the openings of the body 9, is the number 976; respect him ( it ? ), cave dwellers (hermits ascètes) dedicated to the consideration of Siva which lived ( lay ? ) in him.

5 °. Taken refuge with all those who have for activity ( occupation ? ) the science of the boss of bosses of the world ( Siva), he ( it ? ) gave him ( it ? ) ( the linga) to all to protect the sattra (the soma offered in sacrifice as symbol of the divine semen of Siva) from these ascètes to the excellent merits, having pulled ( fired ? ) him ( it ? ) of the intestines of his ( its ? ) body.

6 °. It is the Lord personally (the linga is Siva himself), said themselves all those who have excellent merits (ascètes). So they dedicated an eternal disorder ( affection ? ) to this yoghi aspiring to the liberation (the one who had given the linga).

7 °. For him, brought ( shot ? ) down by axes such as those of Maïtri, and precipitated into this ocean which we call the quality of kindness (the quality of kindness kissed ( embraced ? ) all which is excellent and holy), _les trees that we call six ennemis_ (six senses ( directions ? )) will carry ( wear ? ) no more fruit.

8 °. Taken out of a pure race, he ( it ? ) carried out the virile works which he ( it ? ) had to carry out. And now, his ( her;its ? ) cleansed soul has in division ( sharing ? ) the supreme bliss (even before the death in its pension, etc.).

9 °. We see by this inscription that the wish or the consecration of a linga was an act of austerity and that the linga, as Siva, had a cult rather austere than pleasant ( kind ? ).

The cult of Priape, in Greece, appears to have had about the same character. It was a rural divinity a respectable and nice, by no means loose idea of which Daphnis's delicious novel and Chloé gives us. This character appears to have changed in Rome by the effect of the progress of the eroticism in all the religions of India. According to Richard Payne, author of _Culte of Priape _, Priape had a temple, priests, sacred gooses there. We brought to him ( her ? ) for victims of beautiful girls who had just lost their virginity.

The high antiquity of the cult of the linga in India and the certainty today acquired of an expansion or an eruption of the Hinduism towards the West, previous to seven wise men of Greece, make very likely the opinion that it is from India where came the phallique cult; at first associated doubtless to that of the Assyrian divinities and phéniciennes among what ( which;whom ? ) the one was able to represent Siva, he ( it ? ) becomes established then with brightness on the island of Cyprus which was dedicated to him ( her ? ) quite whole. He ( it ? ) passed from there in Asia Minor, in Greece and in Italy.

Only, in these parts of the country where the art was everything, the linga, still idol to Paphos, is transformed into an image which the ideas of the former ( ancient ? ) on nudities, absolutely different from ours, did not make consider as obscene and what the sculpture efforçât to make so beautiful and so graceful as any other part of human the body. It is what we see in the statue of Hercule phallophore which carries ( wears ? ) a horn of plenty filled ( performed ? ) with phallus, and in a big number of antique cameos. Doubtless we put many of lingas or priapes to serve as demarcation or as mark in fields and gardens. From there the origin of the rural god Priape. It is the primitive ascendancy of the male energy that continued in Greece, whereas, bit by bit, in India, the female energy got the upper hand. At the former ( ancient ? ) poets until Lucrèce, Venus is the goddess of the beauty, the sensual delight, the easy courtship, the games and the laughter rather than the fertility. Junon had for the wives this last character more maybe than Venus; and another goddess, Lucine, presided over the childbirthes ( deliveries ? ). It was probably by the effect of the penetration of the transformed Indian ideas, about the female energies, and maybe also by the natural progress, that the poets philosophers such as Lucrèce celebrated Venus as _mère universal: come omnium parens_.

The cult of Venus on the island of Cyprus gathers ( reunites ? ) many lines ( features ? ) of the cult naturalist of India to the sacred prostitution of the Assyrian religions and phéniciennes, the any statement by the Greek bow.

The temple of Paphos drew a rectangle (shape of the Indian and Greek temples) eighteen metres in length on nine metres in width. Under the péristyle, a phallus of one metre in height, set up on a base, announced the object of the cult. In the middle of the temple raised itself ( drew up itself ? ) a cone of one metre in height (shape of the linga), symbol of the generative organ.

Everything around the cone were arranged numerous goddesses in poses ( installations ? ) suited to the cult of the temple (as gopies around the god Krishna).

The statue of the goddess placed in the sanctuary has the index of the right hand steered towards the pubis (Latchoumy, the goddess of the fertility, appears in the bottom-reliefs of pagodae with a finger placed at once below the pubis).

The left hand becomes round as high as the breast and the index of the left hand is steered towards the nipple of the right ( straight ? ) breast; we wonder if it is a call ( appeal ? ) to the sensual delight or the indication of the feeding.

This statue, admirable work of Praxitèle, is especially graceful and delicate; it is the idealized sensual delight (see on this subject the chapter of Lucien's courtship).

The phénicienne aphrodite is on the contrary a realistic type; she ( it ? ) has the massive forms, the wide and sturdy sides, the plump breast, the hips and the pond widely developed; everything in her inhales the lust.

In the entrance ( entry ? ) of all the temples naturalists of Cyprus, Phoenicia, raise themselves ( draw up themselves ? ) columns of different forms, symbols of the male organ. There was always two of these symbols, columns or obelisks, in front of temples built by Phéniciens, including that of Jerusalem.

Scholars attribute ( award ? ) this origin, as loan makes for the temple of Jerusalem, for both tours ( towers ? ) or the arrows of our Gothic cathedrals; the author of _Génie of christianisme_ suspected it hardly! And however the menhirs of Bass-Brittany, completely similar to those of a big region of the Decan, appear to have belonged to the same cult naturalist [ 1 ].

Let us notice that Sivaïstes and Phéniciens, these as Semites, had, besides the same symbols, the same monotheist faiths.

What we liked to Paphos and in the other temples naturalists, it was the sovereign sensual delight by the union of the sexes, the universal love in the world, the producing force at the living beings.

[ Note 1: Mgr. Laouénan. - The Celtic monuments are very common in India; in the rocky plains which extend among the massifs of the oriental gates until Nerbudda and in mountains Vindhyas, we meet everywhere so to speak constructions identical to those who exist in the North and on the West of Europe. According to the local tradition or the opinion of the intelligent inhabitants, menhirs represent the linga. The etymologys rest ( support ? ) this opinion.]

In the holidays ( name-days ? ) of Adonis the legend of which is a sun myth, we celebrated the return of the sun and the universal love by transport of enjoyment, songs and orgiaques dances (as in the cult of Krishna, embodiment of Vishnou-Soleil).

Then took place the sacred prostitutions considered as sacrifices (they have of the analogy with Sakty pudja, sacrifices of Sackty, that we shall see becoming established farther in Sivaïsme).

« Under light cradles of myrthe and laurel, under tents garlanded with flowers, was held Hériodules, prêtresses by the goddess, the young people and the beautiful Greek or Syrian slaves; they were covered with jewels, dressed in rich materials, put on ( beaten ? ) by a cowl ( mitre ? ) enriched by precious stones, from whom ( which ? ) escaped the long plaits of their blacks hair mixed with festoons of flowers in which deceived a sling scarlet. On their breasts in the firm and round bosoms, which protected a light gauze, hung necklaces of gold, ambre and pearls or brilliant glass, as badges of their religious office; they held the hand a twig of myrthe and the dove, the bird of Venus. »

So adorned, they waited smiling and always ready of celebrating the sweet sacrifice in honour of the goddess with all those who asked them.

Everywhere where dominates the cult of Linga or its equivalents, we are obliged to see an emanation of primitive Sivaïsme, a deification of the power reformer ( restorer ? ), with a secondary role for the goddess of the beauty (in India, Parvati, the woman of Siva).

For this period put off, Siva is the efficient cause which, by its energy or its sakti as instrument, produced or destroyed ( annulled ? ) the world which has for matrix the prakrite or the universal material ( subject ? ) (see, for the definition of the prakriti, the sankya commented by Mr Barthélemy de Saint-Hilaire). The sakty of a god forms with him the only one to be in double face. Bit by bit, by the ascendancy of the sakty, the role of the male element decreased, then faded, but it was enough late. The ascendancy of the sakty of Siva asserts itself only in the last ones Pouranas and in the literature of Tantras which begins in the IVth century AD.

The cult of saktis, such as are described in they _Tantras _, forms a religion to part, that of Saktas, which divides in several branches and which has its special mythology. The dominant divinity is Mahadeva ( Siva). According to Vayou Pourana, non-only Siva had a double male and female nature, but its female nature divided into two halves, the one white and the other black, this last one doubtless imagined for the satisfaction of the castes of Soudras (blacks). In the white nature, or quality of kindness, we connected Saktys or bénéficial goddesses, such as Latchoumy, Seravasti, wives of Vischnou and Brahma; in the black nature Dourga, Candied, Cananda, all the saktys or dreaded goddesses. Mahadévi or the sakty of Siva, that we suppose a transformation of Maya, the feminine principle of Vedas, developed in an infinity of demonstrations or personifications of all the physical, physiological, moral and intellectual forces, which had each their sanctimonious persons and their cult. As some of these goddesses are unmistakably aboriginal divinities, it is likely that the set ( group ? ) was established ( constituted ? ) by the grouping of the female divinities of the aboriginal cults to form a sort of feminine polytheism which Brahmes accepted as a popular religion by introducing in the last degree the mortal women there, since Brahmines.

To dig a deeper separation between the Buddhism and the popular religion, Brahmes had developed until falsify her ( it ? ) Bakti, the ancient ( former ? ) doctrine of the safety by the faith and the worship or the grace ( favour ? ), opposite to that of the safety by the boddhi ( the knowledge), the doctrine of the ancient ( former ? ) thésophie, of the sankia, the Buddhism and the orthodoxy modern brahmanique formulated by Cançara, the résurrecteur of Brahmanisme was almost killed by the Buddhism. The backti addresses, in every sect, the demonstration of the god the most moved closer, for example, to Vichnouvistes, not to Vishnou, but Krishna, the god makes man; he answers it by his grace ( favour ? ). The worship to the god of the sect compensated for everything, for the morality, for the works, for the asceticism, for the pondering. This doctrine is completely developed in the song of _Bien Heureux_ and systematized by Sandilya in his ( her;its ? ) _Sutras of Bakti _, where from Nagardjuna introduced them into the big vehicle Buddhist. By her the religion, up to there stolen from the masses in its essence, becomes a fact of feeling that the Indian sensualism changes very fast in a fact of passion.

By tightening the sectarian worship on a very precise divinity, the bakti grew to the idolization; she ( it ? ) confused ( merged ? ) at first the god with her ( its ? ) image, then distinguished between the sanctuaries of the same god. From there one subdivision in the infinity of sects and cults.

Bakti kisses ( embraces ? ) all the vichnouvisme and a part ( party ? ) only of the sivaïsme.

Bakta or sectateurs of Bakti divided: _main right-hand side _, which is held in Pouranas and in worship for their gods and mythological goddesses (Pouranas is the popular mythology collected officially by Brahmes), and _main left-handler ( left ? ) _, which makes of Kaulo Upanishad and Tantras a sort of veda private individual, sending rather his worship to the energies and the female divinities and mainly to the union of the sexes and to the magic powers. Tantras is books ( pounds ? ) of eroticism and magic.

The rites of the left hand unite both sexes by killing ( abolishing ? ) any distinction of caste. In meetings which are not public, the members, filled with meats and with spirit, like the sakti under the shape of a woman, mostly that of one of them; she ( it ? ) is placed quite bare on a sort of base and an initiated consumes the sacrifice by the charnel act. The ceremony ends by the general coupling up of all, every couple representative Siva and its Sakty and becoming identical with them. It is absorbed in the thought of the divinity and without looking for the satisfaction of the senses ( directions ? ) that the believer ( regular customer ? ) has to carry out these acts. The catechisms which teach these practices are filled ( performed ? ) with high moral theories and even with asceticism, but really, the members of these meetings are only loose hypocritical. We claim that many of brahmes are secretly a part of it although publicly they pretend to reprimand them, because all these practices are opposite in rules on castes and stains.

This fact is only a particular application of the general politics ( policy ? ) of Brahmes which everywhere flattered ( patted ? ) the passions and sowed ( scattered ? ) the corruption, to remove ( untie ? ) from the Buddhism the populations which it had conquered at first.

It is in the same thought that they established ( constituted ? ) the big sect essentially panthéiste of Vichnou, and mainly the cult of Krichna. Much better still than Sivaïsme, Vischnouvisme, by its theory of the embodiments and the continuous action of Vischnou for the conversion of the world and by the divination of the life in all its demonstrations, lent itself to the adoption of all the divinities, all the cults, all the aboriginal superstitions. At present India counts more than 20,000 gods, most former ( old ? ) local divinities which are liked by vishnouvistes, at the same time as Vichnou in his ( her;its ? ) main embodiments of Rama and Krischna and in his ( her;its ? ) god's essential attributes sun, such as conceives him ( it ? ) a big part ( party ? ) of the Hindus, especially most educated.

Krishna was a prince, or a native leader (the word krishna wants to say black), skillful and happy warrior, who returned to Brahmes the services indicated in the class ( course ? ) of their fights against Kchattrias, and the first ones of which, in reward, made an embodiment of Vichnou. His ( her;its ? ) cult and its legends, notably those of its courtship with Radha, were very loose, from the very beginning, and Krishna was doubtless first of all the god of the pleasure. Lalita-Vistara_ ( Buddha's poetic life) confuses ( merges ? ) Krishna with Marah, the tempter, the god of the concupiscence. For the needs of their fight against the Buddhism, Brahmes raised ( found ? ) the cult of Krishna, hardly enjoyed the Indian sensualism; they left him ( her ? ) probably all the license of its practices for the common people, but at the same time they tried hard to surround him ( it ? ) with the eyes of the high classes of a halo of mysticism. Krishna amounts to a big height of religious philosophy in the song of _Bien Happy _; either fortuitous meeting, or loan of the Greek philosopher, the theory of the secondary divinities, the Ministers of the main god, is the same in Platon and in the Indian poet. We commented on the courtship of Krishna with Rhada, as an allegory representing the business of the soul with God. But, as well as we just saw ( saw ? ) him ( it ? ) right now for Tantras and catechisms of Sakty, it is necessary to think that this ( they ? ) claimed divine love existed only for ascètes, and that, at the bottom ( really ? ), it was for Brahmes a way to cover with an appearance of devotion the eroticism of the cult.

As Bakti becomes more marked in the vichnouvisme and as the merits of the worship are more and more considered as exempting from all the others, the religion of Krishna dives more and more into the eroticism and made speak more to the divine love about the language of the passion. This tendency shows itself with an incomparable brightness in Baghavata pourana and with more intensity still in the popular reorganizations of this work spread in all India, notably in Premsagar Indi (Ocean of love).

Baghavata Pourana gives very lascivious descriptions of the courtship of Krishna with gopies (shepherdesses).

The operatic ( lyric ? ) poëme of _Gita Govinda_ (the Song of the pâtre, Krishna) calls back ( reminds ? ) the Song of Songs and Lassen translated him ( it ? ) only into Latin. He ( it ? ) was exceeded in erotic eloquence only by the ode to Priape de Piron. The eroticism infected all the vichnouvisme; Mr. Théodore Pavie saw in Ceylon the disgusting scenes until the disgust. In the province of Bombay and in Bengal, the sanctimonious persons of Krishna, especially in campaigns, have night meetings where, in imitation of the games of Krishna and Gopies, they are excited in common up to a fervent paroxysm and an unlimited license.

Krishna is the real god of the love for the Hindus. As for the god Kama, Indian Cupid, it is obviously a loan made for the Greeks. The word Kama means the carnal pleasure and it is used ( employed ? ) on this sense ( direction ? ) by the most former ( ancient ? ) authors, at the same time as Darma ( religious duty) and I' Artha (the science of the wealth). These three words form the Indian trilogy of the motives of our actions. As the Hindus are strong imitators, they adopted Cupid of the Greeks, after the establishment of these in a part ( party ? ) of Punjab, and gave him ( her ? ) the already very former ( ancient ? ) name of Kama. He appears only in a doubtless relatively recent legend of Pouranas [ 2 ].

[ Note 2: The baron of said Ekstein: « Ariabs borrowed ( took ? ) from Cephenès, their predecessors in India, the god Kama, _pareil in Eros the Greeks _; they embellished him ( it ? ), _bien that it is not up in its principle to their cosmological thought and they have him ( it ? ) _postérieurement_ reproduced in Véda as he ( it ? ) is described by Hosunt.]

Bayadères is not, as we could believe it, dedicated to the god Kama; they are the wives of Soubramaniar, the god of the war.

Having received from the paganism Cupid, under the name of Kama, India, in his turn, seems to have given him ( her ? ), as imitation or import of its more and more corrupted practices, especially those saktis of the left hand, the cult more and more corrupted by Priape, whose knight Richard Payne gave us a history. In here is some essential lines ( features ? ).

Before the celebration of a marriage, we placed the fiancée on the statue of the god, the phallus, so that she is made fertile by the divine principle. In a former ( ancient ? ) poem on Priape (_Priapi Carmen _) we see a lady presenting to the god the paintings of Éléphantis and asking him ( her ? ) seriously to enjoy pleasures over which he ( it ? ) presides, in all the attitudes described by this treaty.

When a woman had filled ( performed ? ) victim's role in the sacrifice to Priape, she ( it ? ) expressed her ( its ? ) gratitude by presents put down ( deposited ? ) on the altar, the phallus in number equal to that of the officiating priests of the sacrifice. Sometimes this number was big and proved that the victim had not been neglected.

These sacrifices were made in night holidays ( name-days ? ), as well as all those offered to the divinities which presided over the generation. The sanctimonious persons in these divinities locked themselves into temples and lived in the crowding there. There were also introduced the customs of which Pétrone painted in some pages which we summarized.

In Corinth and to Ereix, city of Sicily, there were temples dedicated to the prostitution.

According to the scholar Larcher, Venus was the goddess who possessed the biggest number of temples in both Greece; we counted hundred. Several cities of Greece, but especially Athens and Corinth, celebrated its holidays ( name-days ? ) with a number of beautiful women whom we could not gather ( reunite ? ) today. She ( it ? ) was even more in honor in Rome with which she was considered as the mother. Never people carried ( wore ? ) the sensualism farther than Romans; men and women of any condition and any row ( rank ? ) were engaged ( surrendered ? ) with fury in all the excesses.

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