DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9550#0188
14°
A DEEENCE OF
declared the state of celestial gods to be that of demons,
in the Bhasya of the Ishopanishad and of others.
To these authorities a thousand others might be
added. But should the learned gentleman require
some practical grounds for objecting to the idolatrous
worship of the Hindoos, I can be at no loss to give
him numberless instances, where the ceremonies that
have been instituted under the pretext of honouring
the all-perfect Author of Nature, are of a tendency
utterly subversive of every moral principle.
I begin with Krishna as the most adored of the
incarnations, the number of whose devotees is exceed-
ingly great. His worship is made to consist in the
institution of his image or picture, accompanied by one
or more females, and in the contemplation of his
history and behaviour, such as his perpetration of
murder upon a female of the name of Pootna; his
compelling great number of married and unmarried
women to stand before him denuded; his debauching
them and several others, to the mortal affliction of
their husbands and relations ; his annoying them, by
violating the laws of cleanliness and other facts of
the same nature. The grossness of his worship does
not find a limit here. His devotees very often perso-
nify (in the same manner as European actors upon
stages do) him and his female companions, dancing
with indecent gestures, and singing songs relative to
his love and debaucheries. It is impossible to explain
in language fit to meet the public eye, the mode in
which Muhadeva, or the destroying attribute, is wor
shipped by the generality of the Hindoos : suffice it
to say, that it is altogether congenial with the indecent
A DEEENCE OF
declared the state of celestial gods to be that of demons,
in the Bhasya of the Ishopanishad and of others.
To these authorities a thousand others might be
added. But should the learned gentleman require
some practical grounds for objecting to the idolatrous
worship of the Hindoos, I can be at no loss to give
him numberless instances, where the ceremonies that
have been instituted under the pretext of honouring
the all-perfect Author of Nature, are of a tendency
utterly subversive of every moral principle.
I begin with Krishna as the most adored of the
incarnations, the number of whose devotees is exceed-
ingly great. His worship is made to consist in the
institution of his image or picture, accompanied by one
or more females, and in the contemplation of his
history and behaviour, such as his perpetration of
murder upon a female of the name of Pootna; his
compelling great number of married and unmarried
women to stand before him denuded; his debauching
them and several others, to the mortal affliction of
their husbands and relations ; his annoying them, by
violating the laws of cleanliness and other facts of
the same nature. The grossness of his worship does
not find a limit here. His devotees very often perso-
nify (in the same manner as European actors upon
stages do) him and his female companions, dancing
with indecent gestures, and singing songs relative to
his love and debaucheries. It is impossible to explain
in language fit to meet the public eye, the mode in
which Muhadeva, or the destroying attribute, is wor
shipped by the generality of the Hindoos : suffice it
to say, that it is altogether congenial with the indecent