HINDU VIEWS CONCERNING THE SOUL 175 Others hold the more traditional view that the soul does not wait for such a thing, but that it quits its shape on account of its weakness while another body has been prepared for it out of the elements. This body is called ativahika, " that which grows in haste," because it does not come into existence by being born. The soul stays in this body a complete year in the greatest agony, no matter whether it has deserved to be rewarded or to be punished. For this reason the heir of the deceased must, according to Hindu usage, fulfil the rites of the year for the deceased, duties which end with the end of the year, for then the soul goes to that place which is prepared for it. It is well known that the popular mind leans toward the sensible world and has an aversion to the world of abstract thought, which is understood only by highly educated people, of whom there are but few in any time and any place. And as common people will ac- quiesce only in pictorial representations, many of the leaders of religious communities have so far deviated from the right path as to give such imagery place in their books and houses of worship. These words of mine would at once receive a sufficient illustration if a picture were made of the Prophet, for example, or of Mecca and the Ka'ba, and were shown to an unedu- cated man or woman. Their joy in looking at the thing would bring them to kiss the picture, to rub their cheeks against it, and to roll themselves in the dust before it, as if they were seeing not the picture, but the original, and were performing the rites of pilgrimage, the great
