ORISSA. 449 sweating, shouting and jumping, singing, and praying, and swearing. The distance from the temple to the country-house is less than a mile; but the wheels sink deep into the sand, and the journey takes several days. After hours of severe toil and wild excitement in the July tropical sun, a reaction necessarily follows. Tlie zeal of the pilgrims flags before the garden-house is reached; and the cars, deserted by the devotees, are dragged along by the professional pullers with deepdrawn grunts and groans. These men, 4200 in number, are peasants from the neighbouring Fiscal Divisions, who generally manage to live at free quarters in Puri during the festival. Once arrived at the country-house, the enthusiasm subsides. The pilgrims drop exhausted upon the burning sand of the sacred street, or block up the lanes with their prostrate bodies. When they have slept off their excitement, they rise refreshed and ready for another of the strong religious stimulants of the season. Lord Jagannath is left to get back to his temple as best he can; and in the quaint words of a writer half a century ago, but for the professional car-pullers the god 'Would infallibly stick'at his country-house In a closely-packed, eager throng of a hundred thousand men and women, many of them unaccustomed to exposure or hard labour, and all of them tugging and straining to the utmost under the blazing tropical sun, deaths must occasionally occur. There have, doubtless, been instances of pilgrims throwing themselves under the wheels in a frenzy of religious excitement; but such instances have always been rare, and are now unknown. At one time, several unhappy people were killed or injured every year, but they were almost invariably cases of accidental trampling. The few suicides that did occur were for the most part cases of diseased and miserable objects, who took this means to put themselves out of pain. The official returns now place this beyond doubt. Nothing, indeed, could be more opposed to the spirit of Vishnu worship then self-immolation. Accidental death within the temple renders the whole place unclean. The ritual suddenly stops, and the polluted offerings are hurried away from the sight of the offended god. According to Chaitanya, the apostle of Jagannáth, the destruction of the least of God's creatures is a sin against the Creator. Self-immolation he would have regarded with horror. The copious religious literature of his sect frequently describes the Car Festival, but makes no mention of self-sacrifice, nor does it contain any passage that could be twisted into a sanction for it. Abul Fazl, the keen Musalmán observer, is equally silent, although from the context it is almost certain that, had he heard of the practice, he would have mentioned it. It would be well for Jagannath if these old calumnies were the only charges which his priests had to answer. Lascivious sculptures YOL X. e 2 F
