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OF THE HINDUS.
233
AGHORIS.
The pretended insensibility of the Paramahansa being of a passive nature is at least inoffensive, and even where it is mere pretence the retired nature of the practice renders the deception little conspicuous or revolting. The same profession of worldly indifference characterises the Aghori, or Aghorapanthi; but he seeks occasions for its display, and demands alms as a reward for its exhibition.
The original Aghori worship seems to have been that of Devi in some of her terrific forms, and to have required even human victims for its performance'. In imitation of the formidable aspect under which the goddess was worshipped, the appearance of her votary was rendered as hideous as possible, and his wand and water-pot were a staff set with bones and the upper half of a skull: the practices were of a similar nature, and flesh and spirituous liquors constituted, at will, the diet of the adept.
The regular worship of this sect has long since been suppressed, and the only traces of it now left are pre
It may be credulity or calumny, but the Bhils, and other hill tribes, are constantly accused by Sanskrit writers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as addicted to this sanguinary worship. The Vrihat Katha is full of stories to this effect, the scene of which is chiefly in the Vindhya range. Its covert existence in cities is inferable from the very dramatic situation in Bhavabhuti's Drama, Málati and Madhava, where Madhava rescues his mistress from the Aghora Ghania, who is about to sacrifice Málati at the shrine of Chamunda [Act V, p. 83].
