Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 235

ABLUTIONS IN SACRED WATERS
195
The
to which the Brahmins have become slaws.
Brahmins have allowed themselves to believe that without
tion
either the wish or the intention of renouncing evil it is
possible for the soul to be purified by various means, which,
through the extreme facility with which they can be em-
ployed, can only tend to lessen the real abhorrence of sin
and give a false sense of security to the sinner. The pancha-
gavia, for example, is sufficient to obtain the remission of
any sin whatever, even when the sin has been committed
and that is really why the use of such a dis-
deliberately
gusting liquid (the urine of the cow) is so strongly upheld.
Looking as they do upon sin as a material or bodily defile-
ment, it is not surprising that they consider mere ablutions
Ablutions performed
of the body sufficient to wipe it out.
in certain sacred rivers, such as the Ganges, the Indus, the
Godavari, the Cauvery, and others, purify both soul and
body from any defilements they may ever have contracted.
It is even possible for a person living at a distance to obtain
the advantages conferred by their cleansing waters without
he has only to transport himself thither
leaving his house
in intention, and to think of the place while bathing.
There are several celebrated streams and tanks in India
but some of them
credited with the same purifying virtue
only possess this virtue at intervals more or less frequent.
Thus the waters of the famous tank of Combaconum, in
Tan j ore, are only endowed with cleansing properties once
while those of the spring which rises in
in twelve years
the hill Tirutanimalai, in the Carnatic, are efficacious every
three years.
There are few provinces in India which do
not possess sacred tanks. When the year and the day
arrive for people to bathe in these sanctifying waters,
a pilgrimage is made to the spot by enormous crowds of
devotees, who have been warned beforehand by messengers
sent in all directions by the Brahmins, who are interested
On the appointed day
in keeping up this holy fervour.
they all stand round the tank, awaiting the propitious
moment to plunge into it. Directly the purohita gives the
signal, all present, men and women, rush into the water,
shouting and screaming, and making an indescribable
They soon find themselves heaped one on top
uproar.
It almost
of the other, so that they can hardly move.
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