DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.641#0133
12<5 THE HINDOO 1MYTHOLOGY.
of secular persons too, drawn to the annual festivals cele-
brated in these forests, fall victims to the tygers.
SECT. XXXIV.—Perishing in Cold Regions.
The Hindoos have a way to heaven without dying. If
the person who wishes to go this way to heaven, through
repeating certain incantations, survive the cold, he at last
arrives at Himaluyii, the residence of Shivii. Such a per-
son is said 'to go the great journey.' Yoodhist'hirti,
according to the pooranus, went this way to heaven; hut
his companions Bheemu, tJrjoonii, Nakoolu, Suhu-deVu,
and Droupudee, perished by the cold on the mountain.
This forms another method in which the Hindoos may
meritoriously put a period to their existence. It is also
one of the Hindoo atonements for great offences.
It is difficult to form an estimate of the number of Hin-
doos who perish annually, the victims of superstition; and
the author fears any reasonable conjecture would appear to
many as highly exaggerated, and intended to prejudice the
public mind against the Hindoos as idolaters.. He wishes
to feel and avow a just abhorrence of idolatry, and to de-
plore it as one of the greatest scourges ever employed by a
Being, terrible in anger, to punish nations who have re-
jected the direct and simple means which nature and con-
science supply of knowing himself; but he would use no
unfair means of rendering even idolatry detestable: and
with this assurance, he now enters on as correct a conjee-
of secular persons too, drawn to the annual festivals cele-
brated in these forests, fall victims to the tygers.
SECT. XXXIV.—Perishing in Cold Regions.
The Hindoos have a way to heaven without dying. If
the person who wishes to go this way to heaven, through
repeating certain incantations, survive the cold, he at last
arrives at Himaluyii, the residence of Shivii. Such a per-
son is said 'to go the great journey.' Yoodhist'hirti,
according to the pooranus, went this way to heaven; hut
his companions Bheemu, tJrjoonii, Nakoolu, Suhu-deVu,
and Droupudee, perished by the cold on the mountain.
This forms another method in which the Hindoos may
meritoriously put a period to their existence. It is also
one of the Hindoo atonements for great offences.
It is difficult to form an estimate of the number of Hin-
doos who perish annually, the victims of superstition; and
the author fears any reasonable conjecture would appear to
many as highly exaggerated, and intended to prejudice the
public mind against the Hindoos as idolaters.. He wishes
to feel and avow a just abhorrence of idolatry, and to de-
plore it as one of the greatest scourges ever employed by a
Being, terrible in anger, to punish nations who have re-
jected the direct and simple means which nature and con-
science supply of knowing himself; but he would use no
unfair means of rendering even idolatry detestable: and
with this assurance, he now enters on as correct a conjee-