satisfied therewith, they drink curds and eat cocoa-nuts. If this be a pleasant life—a life of love, flirting with spirits and browsing on curds and cocoa-nuts—I wish Jivanlálji Máháráj joy of his new life. Let those envy it who can. All that I would desire is, that the spirit of this great lord of ladies innumerable, this "friend of female education," this sainted patron of native arts and of Sanskrit, may not, in the other world, where the wronged are righted, encounter the meek and persecuted spirit of Karsandas Mulji.[1]
Europeans and others may think Máhárájism a foul superstition, a system of vile sensualism; but so long as it is sustained by the "odour of sanctity," it will hold in thrall tens of thousands of families in India within its embruted cult. The ritualistic orgies of the Vaishnavas are a "proverb of reproach" even amongst the superstitious and idolatrous Indians. Every sensible native knows that these priests "pollute their sanctuary," and in the name of religion desolate hearths and homes, and poison the fountain of domestic happiness. Karsandás Mulji, the truly
- ↑ The great Hindu reformer of Bombay, who died about 1869.
