The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-13 00:00:00

THE SUN,

LITERATURE.

ORISSA AND THE TEMPLE OF JAGAN-
-IVATH. By William F. B. Laurie. Johnstone
and Hunter.
Fourteen centuries before the birth of our
Saviour, the Vedas, or four sacred books of
the Indian mythology, were compiled ; and
about tho period when Homer was wandering
barefooted among the principal citiei of
Greece, namely 900 n.c., the great Hindu lawgiver
Menu was incorporating the doctrine of monotheism
in his celebrated institutes. Since those memorable
epochs the religious belief of the Asiatics, like that
of moat Pagan worshippers, has frightfully degene-
rated. A creed that at one time articulated the,

holiest doctrines and the purest morality has

come at last to be a mere chaos of inde-
cencies and abominations. From the one in-
visible creator, preserver, and destroyer of the
univurse, Brehm, have sprung a multitude of divini-
ties so enormous as to be estimated by one writrr in

round numbers at " three hundred and thirty mil-
lions !" To track the rnaz:s of the Hindu
mythologists, therefore, through all these count-
less fictions it may well be imagined is a task
of insuperable difficulty. The mere narrative of
the Avatars, or divine visitants of mankind, is
enough to bewilder an ordinary reader by the variety
of the circumstances recorded. When, moreover, it is
considered that the study of these subjects is, in ad-
dition to all this, of the most repulsive character ima-
ginable, it may be seen that enough obstacles stand
in the way of any adventurous inquirer. "To know
the Hindu idolatry as it is," says Ward, " a person
must wade through the filth of the thirty-six pooran tis
and other popular books—he must read and hear the
modern popular poems and songs—he must follow the
Brahmin through his midnight orgies before the
image of hales and other goddesses ; or he must
accompany him to the nightly revels, the jatras, and
listen to the filthy dialogues which are rehearsed re-
specting Krishnil and the daughters of the milkmen."
Enough this, in all conscience, one might
think, to deter the most daring student of
oriental literature from penetrating further than
the mere surface of the Hindu mythology ! In-
citements, nevertheless, there are sufficiently power-
ful to counteract these motives of indifference en-
gendered by disgust, and to egg on the most labo-
rious of our scholars in the prosecution of these ♦ery
terrible investigations. Considering the vastness of
our empire in Hindostan, and the huge number
of the subjects of her Britannic Majesty, who are be-
lievers in these mythic iniquities, it becomes a matter
of extraordinary interest to pierce the crust of ob-
scurities and reach those stratus of pseudo-religious
fiction in which are preserved the debris and
the fossilized skeletons of the Faith. Patriotism
of a certain sort, therefore, as well as curiosity, im-
pels the adepts in oriental literature to the in-
quiries we have particularized. Among these very
enterprising and praiseworthy students, Lieutenant
William F. B. Laurie, of the Madras Artillery,
has achieved for himself a high and conspicuous
position—his present volume, " Orissa," being
in its way a really remarkable display of erudition.
In his previous work " The French in India," he
had shown himself a lively writer and a shrewd
observer, from whose pen, after a little practice, better
things still might be confidently anticipated. "Orissa"

is a brilliant justification of these hopes in his regard,
and to it, therefore, we are desirous of directing
public attention, as to a book from which much
valuable information may be derived, relating at
large to Indian idolatry and superstition, and in an
especial manner furnishing an account of British con-
nexion with the Temple of Jaganildth. The import-
ance of the latter subject is forcibly indicated in the
following sentences extracted from the Friend of
India, of October 26th, 1848 :
" By none except the trivoloue, the light-headed, the
morally and religiously indifferent, can the subject itself
be reckoned of secondary importance. It is one which
for nearly half a century has engrossed much of the
time and attention of our leading Indian statesmen, at
home and abroad. It is one which has proved an ex-
citing theme, not to thousands only, but to millions of the
soberest and most intelligent of the community of the
British Isles. Nor is this at all surprising. For, apart
altogether from the religious interest which attaches to
it, it involves principles of political importance—prin•
ciples of extensive learning and momentous application
in a regio❑ so bestud with the shrines and temples of
idolatry."
A direct application of the closing remark in this
quotation was furnished by Allen's Indian Mail of
the 15th ult., in which occurred the subjoined para-
graph, headed—