It is even a justifiable economy to leave Brahma, the chiefest god of all, out of your studies, for he seems to cut no great figure in India.  The vast bulk of the national worship is lavished upon Shiva and Vishnu and their families.  Shiva’s symbol—­the “lingam” with which Vishnu began the Creation—­is worshiped by everybody, apparently.  It is the commonest object in Benares.  It is on view everywhere, it is garlanded with flowers, offerings are made to it, it suffers no neglect.  Commonly it is an upright stone, shaped like a thimble-sometimes like an elongated thimble.  This priapus-worship, then, is older than history.  Mr. Parker says that the lingams in Benares “outnumber the inhabitants.”

In Benares there are many Mohammedan mosques.  There are Hindoo temples without number—­these quaintly shaped and elaborately sculptured little stone jugs crowd all the lanes.  The Ganges itself and every individual drop of water in it are temples.  Religion, then, is the business of Benares, just as gold-production is the business of Johannesburg.  Other industries count for nothing as compared with the vast and all-absorbing rush and drive and boom of the town’s specialty.  Benares is the sacredest of sacred cities.  The moment you step across the sharply-defined line which separates it from the rest of the globe, you stand upon ineffably and unspeakably holy ground.  Mr. Parker says:  “It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the intense feelings of veneration and affection with which the pious Hindoo regards ‘Holy Kashi’ (Benares).”  And then he gives you this vivid and moving picture: 

“Let a Hindoo regiment be marched through the district, and as soon as they cross the line and enter the limits of the holy place they rend the air with cries of ’Kashi ji ki jai—­jai—­jai! (Holy Kashi!  Hail to thee!  Hail!  Hail!  Hail)’.  The weary pilgrim scarcely able to stand, with age and weakness, blinded by the dust and heat, and almost dead with fatigue, crawls out of the oven-like railway carriage and as soon as his feet touch the ground he lifts up his withered hands and utters the same pious exclamation.  Let a European in some distant city in casual talk in the bazar mention the fact that he has lived at Benares, and at once voices will be raised to call down blessings on his head, for a dweller in Benares is of all men most blessed.”

It makes our own religious enthusiasm seem pale and cold.  Inasmuch as the life of religion is in the heart, not the head, Mr. Parker’s touching picture seems to promise a sort of indefinite postponement of that funeral.

CHAPTER LI.

Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either. 
                                  —­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

Yes, the city of Benares is in effect just a big church, a religious hive, whose every cell is a temple, a shrine or a mosque, and whose every conceivable earthly and heavenly good is procurable under one roof, so to speak—­a sort of Army and Navy Stores, theologically stocked.