Thread by @HindooHistory

The Times-Dispatch, 1910

"AWAKENING OF THE HINDUS-- HOW MODERN CIVILIZATION AFFECTS THEIR CASTES AND RELIGION -- STRANGE GODS AND HEATHEN DEVILS"

#HindooHistory #FrankCarpenter

"In the holy city of Benares, on the banks of old Mother Ganges, where I can hear the splashing of the pilgrims as they wash off their sins, I write of the Hindu religion"

"The subject is too big for abstruse discussion, too varied for detailed narration and too complicated for the ordinary Christian mind, without study, to grasp it."

" I shall attempt only to mention a few of its principal features, and especially some which are involved in the great unrest which is spreading over India today"

"The Hindu religion is one of the oldest on earth. it sprang from our Aryan forefathers and was practiced thousands of years before Christ. From age to age and generation to generation it has been the faith of hundreds of millions..."

"and today one-eighth of all mankind upon it rest their hope of salvation There are twice as many believers of this religion in India as there are men, women and children in the United States"

"They form two-thirds of the whole population, and most of them are earnest that they will suffer pain and death rather than renounce their belief. The Hindus are naturally religious."

"In one form or another they worship almost everything under the sun. They long for salvation and they live in daily fear of hell and damnation. This is especially so of the common people and to a large extent the Brahman"

"I despair of giving you an adequate conception of the Gods of the Hindus. Taking into account their idols, temples, shrines and other objects of worship, it is estimated that they number, all told, something like three hundred millions"

"And, notwithstanding this, the Hindus base their belief upon the god alone, of whom they say there is no second. They say that God made the heavens and the earth, and that he permeates all creation. He is in every man, and in every thing"

"He is a part of you and me, and therefore your acts and my acts are His acts. We cannot sin if God is doing the acting, and at the best our future is fated."

"When we are babies the life we would lead was written upon our foreheads, and our joys and misfortunes were settled before we saw light"

"The Hindus believe that God manifests himself in many incarnations. Any great philosopher, priest or king may represent Him, and they have taken Buddha has one of His manifestations. They say that God as a whole is so great that he is beyond human conception..."

"and therefore they worship Him in his various incarnations. In this sense everything may be worshiped as a part of god, and it should be so, according as it is pure or good or as it is terrible and to be feared."

"The lower classes of the Hindus pray to animals and to the dead. They pray to the spirits of those who have done well in life, and also to the supreme Gods of Hinduism or the incarnations of the deity as represented in their sacred books"

"The last of the three great gods is Shiva, the destroyer, associated with whom is his wife, the terrible Kali. This sacred lady wears a garland of human skulls, a necklace of dead man's hands and her long outstretched red tongue is supposed to always drip blood"

"I visited one of her chief temples during my stay at Calcutta. It lies on the banks of the Hooghly, and in it sacrifices of kids and goats are now made almost daily. They were killing a goat during my stay, and scores of worshipers passed me on my way in..."

"each carrying a kid in his arms. Before the British took India human sacrifices were made to propitiate this goddess, and during a famine of about a generation ago, human heads decked with flowers were placed on the altar"

"Kali was the goddess of the thugs, the caste which used to travel throughout India, strangling victims in her honor. She is supposed to live in the cemeteries and delight in pestilence and famine and all the misery of mankind".

"Her worship is altogether a worship of fear. It is one of the most revolting features of the Hindu religion."