But it is not only in this that men
have been falling off from the letter and spirit of the law; for we
now hear drums beating and trumpets sounding even among the tombs of
the saints, a thing that our forefathers would not have considered
possible. In former days it was only a prophet like Moses, Jesus, or
Muhammad, that was suffered to have a stone placed over his head.' I
asked them how it was that the people crowded to the tombs of their
saints, as I saw them at that of Kutb Shah in old Delhi, on the
Basant, a Hindoo festival. 'It only shows,' said they 'that the end
of the world is approaching. Are we not divided into seventy-two
sects among ourselves, all falling off into Hinduism, and every day
committing greater and greater follies? These are the manifest signs
long ago pointed out by wise and holy men as indicating the approach
of the _last day_.'[33]
A man might make a curious book out of the indications of the end of
the world according to the notions of different people or different
individuals. The Hindoos have had many different worlds or ages; and
the change from the good to the bad, or the golden to the iron age,
is considered to have been indicated by a thousand curious
incidents.
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