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ANCIENT RELIGION OF INDIA.
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rescued by her lover*. No such divinities, however, neither Siva nor Durgá, much less any of their terrific forms, are even named, so far as we know, in the Vedas, and therefore these works could not be authority for their sanguinary worship. That the practice is enjoined on particular occasions by the Tantras and some of the Puráúas connected with this branch of the Hindu faith, is, no doubt, true; but these are works of a much later date, within the limits mostly of the Mohammedan government within the period of which the works were compiled, and under which their injunctions could not safely have been carried into operation; and they never amounted perhaps to more than the expression of the feeling inspired by the character of the divinities worshipped, although they may have been occasionally attempted to be realized by some fierce and fanatical enthusiasts. These practices, therefore, are of a very different character from those which there is reason to believe might have actually taken place, though rarely and under special circumstances, under the authority of the Veda, and which originated in a common feeling and faith diffused throughout the most civilized nations of the world--the nations of the East-in the remotest periods of antiquity.
* [Act V, p. 82 ff.]
