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RELIGIOUS SECTS
Kártik in particular a numerous assemblage of pilgrims takes place at them.
The adoration of Kálí, or Durgs, is however particularly prevalent in Bengal, and is cultivated with practices scarcely known in most other provinces. Her great festival, the Daśahará, is in the West of India marked by no particular honors, whilst its celebration in Bengal occupies ten days of prodigal expenditure. This festival, the Durga Pújá, is now well known to Europeans, as is the extensive and popular establishment near Calcutta, the temple of Káli at Káli Ghát. The rites observed in that place, and at the Durga Pújá, however, almost place the Bengali Sáktas amongst the Vámáchárís, notwithstanding the rank assigned them in the Dakshináchári Tantrarája, which classes the Gauras with the Keralas and Kashmirians, as the three principal divisions of the purer worshippers of SAKTI.
VÁMís, or VÁMÁCHÁRÍS. The Vámís mean the left hand worshippers, or those who adopt a ritual contrary to that which is usual, and to what indeed they dare publicly avow'. They worship Deví, the Sakti of Siva, but all the goddesses,
1 The following verse is from the Syámá Rahasya:
अन्तश्शाता वहिशैवाः सभायां वैष्णवा मताः ।
नानारूपधराः कौला विचरन्ति महीतले ॥ "Inwardly Sáktas, outwardly Saivas, or in society nominally Vaishnavas, the Kaulas assuming various forms, traverse the earth."
