What is life without the charms of fiction,
and without the leisure and recreations which these sacred imaginings
tend to give to the great mass of those who have nothing but the
labour of their hands to depend upon for their subsistence! Let no
such fictions be believed, and the holidays and pastimes of the lower
orders in every country would soon cease, for they have almost
everywhere owed their origin and support to some religious dream
which has commanded the faith and influenced the conduct of great
masses of mankind, and prevented one man from presuming to work on
the day that another wished to rest from his labours. The people were
of opinion, they told me, that the Ganges, as a sacred stream, could
last only sixty years more, when the Nerbudda would take its place.
The waters of the Nerbudda are, they say already so much more sacred
than those of the Ganges that to see them is sufficient to cleanse
men from their sins, whereas the Ganges must be touched before it can
have that effect.[13]
At the temple built on the top of a conical hill at Bheraghat,
overlooking the river, is a statue of a bull carrying Siva, the god
of destruction, and his wife Parvati seated behind him; they have
both snakes in their hands, and Siva has a large one round his loins
as a waistband.
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