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course, the priests: "Reverence to priests, and to the Creator ... May Hr[=i], Çr[=i] (Modesty and Beauty), Fame, Glory, Prosperity, Um[=a] (Çiva's wife), Lakshmi (Vishnu's wife), and also Sarasvat[=i], (may all these female divinities) guard thy path, because thou reverest thy elder brother," is a woman's prayer (III. 37. 26-33).[45]
Of the sectarian cults just mentioned the brahmamaha, I. 164. 20, elsewhere referred to, is the all-caste[46] feast in honor of Brahm[=a] (or of the Brahmans); as ib. 143.3 one finds asam[=a]ja in honor of Çiva; and distinctly in honor of the same god of horror is the sacrifice, i.e., immolation, of one hundred kings, who are collected in the temple of Çiva," to be slaughtered like cattle in M[ra]gadha (II. 15. 23); an act which the heroes of the epic prevent, and look upon with scorn.[47] As a substitute for ther[=aljass=ulya, which may be connected with the human sacrifice (Ind. Streifen, I. 61), but is the best sacrifice because it has the best largesse (III. 255. 12), the Vaishnava is suggested to Duryodhana. It is a great sattram or long sacrifice to Vishnu (ib. 15 and 19); longer than a Vishnuprabodha (26 Oct.). There is a Smriti rite described in III. 198. 13 as a svastiv[=a canam, a ceremony to obtain a heavenly chariot which brings prosperity, the priests being invoked for blessings (svasti). Quite modern, comparatively speaking, is the cult of holy pools; but it is to be observed that the blessings expected are rarely more than the acquirement of brahma-worlds, so that the institution seems to be at least older than the sectarian religions, although naturally among the holy pools is intruded a Vishnu-pool. This religious rite cannot be passed over in silence. The custom is late Brahmanic (as above), and still survives. It has been an aspect of Hindu religion for centuries, not only in the view taken of the pools, but even occasionally in the place itself. Thus the Ganges, Gay[=a), Pray[=a]ga, and Kuru-Plain are to-day most holy, and they are mentioned as among the holiest in the epic catalogue.[48] Soma is now revamped by a bath in a holy pool (IX. 35. 75). As in every antithesis of act and thought there are not lacking passages in the epic which decry the pools in comparison with holy life as a means of salvation. Thus in III. 82. 9 ff., the poet says: "The fruit of pilgrimage (to holy pools)—he whose hands, feet, and mind are controlled;[49] he who has knowledge, asceticism, and fame, he gets all the fruit that holy pools can give. If one is averse from receiving gifts, content, freed from egoism, if one injures not, and
