of God in the last of these five as ether is, according to the Saiva school of philosophy, the highest form of worship, for, it is not the worship of God in a tangible form, but the worship of what, to ordinary minds, is vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of a knowledge of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the shape of any linga, which is, after all, an emblem. That this is the case at Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he ever asks the priests to show him the God in the temple he is pointed to an empty space in the most holy of the holies, which has been termed the Akasa, or ether-linga. In this hes the so-called Chidambara-rahasya—the secret of worship in the sacred city of Chidambaram. When any devotee has reached the stage of worshipping God in this manner, he is, according to the Saiva doctrine, deemed to be exempt from all future births and is supposed to secure absorption in the supreme essence of God. It is on account of this high nature of worship that the main hall of the Siva temple in this town is termed the chit-sabha—the hall in which the true devotee acquires illimitable and supernatural powers
