Letters from foreign lands . in goodcondition. They come up to the visitorsand steal from them the nuts and fruit thatis brought in for distribution. One impstole from me a bag of nuts that was intendedfor the entire lot. He came up behind meand snatched it out of my hand. THE PILGRIMS AND THEIR TRIBUTE. At the Sahki Vinayak Temple, or templecf the witnessing deity, crowds of pilgrimsstood around awaiting their turns to get cer-tificates from the officiating priests, attestingto the fact that they had paid their devotions 78 to the proper number of temples, bsen oftenenough in the holy river,
Letters from foreign lands . in goodcondition. They come up to the visitorsand steal from them the nuts and fruit thatis brought in for distribution. One impstole from me a bag of nuts that was intendedfor the entire lot. He came up behind meand snatched it out of my hand. THE PILGRIMS AND THEIR TRIBUTE. At the Sahki Vinayak Temple, or templecf the witnessing deity, crowds of pilgrimsstood around awaiting their turns to get cer-tificates from the officiating priests, attestingto the fact that they had paid their devotions 78 to the proper number of temples, bsen oftenenough in the holy river, and said prayersenough to win the right to return home assainted individuals. The rounds these poordupes had to go and the number of fees theyhad to pay mnst have amounted to a consid-erable sum since there are in Benares over2,000 temples. These are presided over by30,000 priests. The priest to whom I paidthe rupee sneeringly asked me how far Ithought that would go when divided upamong the 400 priests of the one institution. Hindoo Cremation. over which he conducted us. They arealways on the lookout for money. But forthem, under present rule, the people wouldbe well and prosperous. Slowly the Englishand American missionaries are establishingschools among them that are sure in time toemancipate enough of them from supersti-tion, to break this yoke. Their religion isnot at all like what we call religion. It ishue that the Brahmin priests have a religionfor themselves that approaches ours, but tothe people as a mass religion is only a meansof securing good luck in this life and thenext. Their prayers are not offered to Brahm,their supreme God, but to Siva, Vishnu, and 79 other deities that they seek to propitiate forfear of their bringing bad luck to them. Theone all-pervading doctrine of India is that ofre-incarnation. If a man sins he will beborn blind, or lame, or a leper, or a manwithout caste, or a dog, or a snake, or a pig,at his next incarnation. If he is very sinfulhe wil
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectphysicians, bookyear1
