Were you standing on the banks of the Ganges you might, perhaps, in one
place see two or three young men carrying a sick female to the river. If
you should ask what they are going to do with her, perhaps they would
reply, We are going to give her up to Gunga, to purify her soul, that
she may go to heaven; for she is our mother. In another place you might
see a father and mother sprinkling a beloved child with muddy water,
endeavoring to soothe his dying agonies by saying, "It is blessed to die
by Gunga, my son; to die by Gunga is blessed, my son." In another place
you might see a man descending from a boat with empty water-pans tied
around his neck, which pans, when filled, will drag down the poor
creature to the bottom, to be seen no more. Here is murder in the name
of religion. He is a devotee, and has purchased heaven, as he supposes,
by this his last good deed. In another place you might see a person
seated in the water, accompanied by a priest, who pours down the throat
of the dying man mud and water, and cries out, "O mother Gunga, receive
his soul." The dying man may be roused to sensibility by the violence.
He may entreat his priest to desist; but his entreaties are drowned.
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