________________
56
RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND OPINIONS
of the Hindus and of the Brahmans especially. They are reprinted in his Essays *, and describe the constant and occasional offices of the Hindus, the rites to be performed daily, and those appropriated to seasons of joy or sorrow, those by which marriage is consecrated and death is solemnized.
Characteristic features in these observances—and they are common to all formal religions--are the prodigal demand which they make upon the time of the observer, and the minuteness of their interference in all the most trivial actions of his life. The Hindu rules compel a Brahman to get out of bed before daylight, and prescribe how many times he shall rince his mouth, and with what sort of a brush and in what attitude he shall clean his teeth. He is then to repair to a river, or piece of water, and bathe. This is not a simple ablution, but a complicated business, in which repeated dippings alternate with a variety of prayers, and a still greater variety of gesticulations. The whole is to precede the rising of the sun, whose appearance is to be waited for and welcomed with other gesticulations and other prayers **. The most celebrated of the latter is the Gáyatrí, held to be the holiest verse in the Vedas, and personified as a goddess, the wife of Brahmá. It is preceded by a mysterious monosyllable, the type of the three divinities, Brahma, Vishńú, Śiva, and the essence of the Vedas -OM, and by three scarcely less sacred words, Bhur,
* [Ed. 1858, p. 76 - 142.] ** [See for details the Acháradarsa. Benares: 1856, p. 1-64.7
