Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 336

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IRREVERENCE FOR THE GODS
to hear them speaking of their gods in terms of the most
utter contempt.
When they are displeased with their idols
they do not scruple to upbraid them fiercely to their faces,
at the same time heaping the grossest insults upon them,
with every outward gesture and sign of anger and resent-
ment. In fact, there is absolutely no limit to the blas-
phemies, curses, and abuse which they hurl at them under
these circumstances \
There is a well-known Hindu proverb which says,
temple mouse fears not the gods.' This exactly applies to
the Brahmins, who enter their temples without showing the
slightest sign of serious thought or respect for the divinities
who are enshrined in them. Indeed, they often seem to
choose these particular places to quarrel and to fight in.
Even while performing their numerous religious fooleries,
their behaviour shows no indication of fervour or real
devotion. As a matter of fact, their religious devotion
increases or diminishes in proportion to the amount of
profit they expect to make out of it, and it also depends
on the amount of publicity surrounding them. Those
deities who do not contribute towards the welfare of their
votaries here below only receive very careless and per-
'
A
functory worship.
The
histories of their
gods are so ridiculous and so ex-
1
Any one who is familiar with the vernaculars of India knows that
they contain an immense number of terms of abuse, which are so ex-
traordinary, and so abominably obscene, that it would be impossible
to find their counterpart in any Billingsgate of Europe.
However,
disgusting expressions are so greatly to the taste of the Hindus, that,
not content with their own well-endowed vocabulary, they carefully
learn and appropriate all the bad language that they hear in their
quarrels with the foreigners who live amongst them.
When Hindus
are angry with their gods, which is usually the case when they do not
receive a favourable answer to their prayers, one may see them entering
the temples with many outward expressions of rage and mortification,
and exhausting their vocabulary in curses and reproaches hurled against
their unhappy gods, whom they openly accuse of impotence and fraud.
In their ordinary conversation they often use most irreverent expres-
sions regarding their gods, one of the least obnoxious being, If I do not
keep my word may the same punishment fall upon me as I should
deserve if I had seduced the wife of my god.' If a person of high position
has a grievance against the gods, he sometimes revenges himself by
having the doors of their temples stopped up with thorns and brambles,
so that no one can enter to worship or to offer sacrifices.
Dubois.
'