438 ORISSA. earth. A tract sold to pilgrims at the door of the temple states that 'even Siva is unable to comprehend its glory; how feeble, then, the efforts of mortal men ! This great yearning after Jagannath is to some extent the outcome of centuries of companionship in suffering between the people and their god. In every disaster of Orissa, Jagannath has borne his share. In every flight of the people before an invading power, he has been their companion. The priests, indeed, put the claims of their god upon higher ground. 'In the first boundless space,' they say, 'dwelt the Great God, whom men call Náráyan, or Parameswar, or Jagannath.' enturing beyond this world's history, the first indistinct vn of Orissa tradition discloses Purí as the refuge of an exiled creed. In the uncertain dawn of Indian tradition, the highly spiritual doctrines of Buddha obtained shelter here; and the Golden Tooth of the founder remained for centuries at Purí, then the Jerusalem of the Buddhists, as it has for centuries been of the Hindus. Jagannath makes his first historical appearance in the year 318 A.D., when the priests fled with the sacred image and left an empty city to Rakta Bahu and his buccaneers (vide Statistical Account of Bengal, xviii. p. 182). For a century and a half, the image remained buried in the western jungles, till a pious prince drove out the foreigners, and brought back the deity. Three times has it been buried in the Chilká lake; and whether the invaders were pirates from the sea, or the devouring cavalry of Afghánistán, the first thing that the people saved was their god. The true source of Jagannath's undying hold upon the Hindu race consists in the fact that he is the god of the people. As long as his towers rise upon the Purí sands, so long will there be in India a perpetual and visible protest of the equality of man before God. His apostles penetrate to every hamlet of Hindustán, preaching the sacrament of the Holy Food (maháprased). The poor outcast learns that there is a city on the far eastern shore in which high and low eat together. In his own village, if he accidentally touches the clothes of a man of good caste, he has committed a crime, and his outragel superior has to wash away the pollution before he can partake of food or approach his god. In some parts of the country, the lowest castes are not permitted to build within the towns, and their miscrable hovels cluster amid heaps of broken potsherds and dunghills on the outskirts. Throughout the southern part of the continent it used to be a law, that no man of these degraded castes might cnter the village bcforc nine in the morning or after four in the evening, lest the slanting rays of the sun should cast his shadow across the path of a Brahman. But in the presence of the Lord of the World, priest and peasant are cqual. The rice that has once been placed before the god can never cease to be
