Chap. II.] HINDOO EITES AND CEREMONIES. 45
easily adopt a course of religious observance suited to his taste. Both the lofty a.d. —
aspirant and the lukewarm professor are, so to speak, within the pale, and both
will be rewarded according to their deeds. When their final conditions are obsarvances
of the vulgar.
fixed, the difference between them will be not in kind but in degree. There will be no absolute condemnation, for however great the shortcomings of the one may be, his obedience, so far as it has gone, will be approved and accepted. The practical effect of such a rule is easily perceived. While the standard of obedience remains theoretically perfect, the great majority lower it till it becomes what they wish it to be. All duties felt to be irksome and disagreeable are carefully excluded, and every individual worshipper becomes in fact the maker of his own god, investing him only with such attributes as are pleasing to him- self The extent to which this is carried may be inferred from the well-known fact that every form of vice and crime — prostitution, theft, robbery, and mur- der — has found among the gods of the Hindoo pantheon some one who has sanctioned it by his example, and is therefore presumed to welcome those who commit it as acceptable worshippers.
But though the accommodating spirit of Hindooism allows each individual -^["itipiicity
of forms.
great latitude in selecting the objects and manner of his worship, and by per- mitting him to lower the standard to suit his taste, virtually abolishes all reli- gious and moral distinctions, it must be acknowledged that the effect has been not so much to produce religious indifference as to foster a perverse zeal and multiply useless forms. Even those who content themselves with such observ- ances as are necessary to prevent the loss of caste and leave them a hope of escaping final reprobation, have a laborious task to perform, since the omission of any one among a multiplicity of rites and ceremonies might defeat their object. The observances, of course, increase in proportion as higher aspirations are entertained. Some, desirous of attaining a higher order of animated being in their new metempsychosis, must acquire the necessary merit by increas- ing the number and variety of ceremonial acts. Others would fain purchase even a temporary residence in one or other of the fabled heavens appropriated to the gods, but cannot hope to reach the object of their ambition without adding to the routine of ordinary observances numerous acts of will- worship and painful privation. The highest object at which it is possible to aim is exemption from all future transmigrations, by what is called absorption into the divine essence. This, as it is the acme of felicity, is also presumed, as might be expected, to be the most difficult of attainment. How to accomplish it is the great problem which has for ages tasked the ingenuity of Hindoo theolo- gians, and cannot be said to be as yet satisfactorily solved. In one general principle, indeed, they are all agreed. The great obstacles to the final absorp- tion of the soul by the supreme essence are its union with the body, and the various instincts, appetites, and passions which are supposed to be the result of this union. There is thus a thraldom from which the soul must be delivered.
