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Two Lectures on the Religious Practices and Opinions of the Hindus
Two Lectures on the Religious Practices and Opinions of the Hindus Author:Horace Hayman Wilson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTUKE II. T/"E yesterday considered the state of the Hindus in regard to those practices of a religious character which are prevalent in India. The domestic... more » worship which originated with the Vedas, and of which portions are still retained in the daily and occasional observances of individuals in their purifications, their marriage, and their funeral ceremonies, and the public worship of the Divine attributes of creation, preservation, and regeneration, referable to the same works, first engaged our attention. We then adverted to the introduction of Hero worship by the mytho-Heroic poems, its dissemination under new modifications by the Puranas, and its still further alteration and adaptation to the taste of the people by persons and orders of modern date, who had introduced new divinities and new elements of belief in the passionate devotion and all-sufficient faith of which Krishna was in particular the object, and we lastly noticed the mystical and debasing rites which, founded upon the class of works called Tantras, were exercising at present a most baneful influence upon the manners and principles of the Hindus. These circumstances, although comprehending even the better informed and more learned amongst the natives of India, apply still more particularly to the religious practices of the people at large. We have now to treat of topics whichconcern the educated and learned more especially— to the opinions which they have been taught, by men whom they consider as little lower than divinities, to entertain on some of the most important subjects of reflexion, which in all ages have exercised and tested the energies of the human mind. The speculative notions of the Hindus originate, in a great degree, with the same authorities that have enjoined their religious practices. ...« less