The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

While Siva appeals rather to the intellect and represents the particular form in which Hindu genius has conceived the universe, Vishnu responds to the eternal needs of the heart. He is the god of love and of faith. He is without question a monistic god; but in order to manifest himself to mortals he has assumed so many different forms that it would be quite impossible to define, or even simply to enumerate them. These incarnations, called the avatars of Vishnu, represent so many special divinities, the worship of each belonging to a particular country, age, or social condition. While the principal ones are only ten in number, there is no limit to the multiplication of the others. One can fearlessly preach to the Hindus whatever god one will, as sublime or as coarse as the imagination of man can conceive; they will very likely adopt it, making it at once an avatar of Vishnu. Thus, Christ, whose history has some analogy with that of Krishna, has become one of these avatars; and to all the representations of the missionaries the Hindus reply that they have nothing to learn from them, being already more Christian than the Christians themselves.

As to external forms, they have always changed, and are still changing. The prodigious imagination of the Hindu, which has so multiplied them, is continually altering them. The Hindus love images and material symbols; they are great formalists in the practice of their religion, whatever it may be. Their temples are full of emblems, the principal ones being the lingam and the yoni, symbols of the male and female natures. Vows, penances, mortifications, the reading of sacred books, litanies, prayers, pilgrimages, are regarded as very meritorious and are very scrupulously observed. No other people has ever shown itself so strict in the performance of religious duties.

The pilgrims of Benares, of Jagannath, and of the great pagodas of the south of India, must still be estimated at hundreds of thousands annually. The celebrated places of pilgrimage are most frequently common to the two great sects. Vishnuites and Sivaites mingle on the solemn day; even Mussulmans sometimes come, not through a motive of curiosity, but for a pious end and to perform a meritorious work.

No place in India is more celebrated for its pilgrimages than Jagannath (popularly known as Juggernaut) or Puri on the coast of Orissa; nowhere, moreover, can one prove so well the singular fraternity of the cults of India, and at the same time their enormous diversity. There is not one of them that is not represented here. To whatever religion a Hindu belongs, at whatever distance his residence, and whatever the difficulties of the journey, he strives to go at least once in his life to Jagannath. In the rites of this temple Vishnu [called here Jagannath] shares with the gloomy and fatal Siva the adorations of the multitude whose over-excited piety rises to the point of delirium. His pagoda on wheels is drawn through the city, and such enthusiasm was aroused in the bosoms of the noisy multitudes that fanatics used to throw themselves beneath the wheels with cries of joy.[22]