HERO WORSHIP IN INDIA.

Western Star, Issue 983, 19 September 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

HERO WORSHIP IN INDIA.

The Indians worship every created thing, but especially men and women. Nothing impresses the primitive or uncultivated mind so much as human personality or character. It is this which accounts for that remarkable offshoot of Buddhism, the Jaina faith, which is nothing else but the worship of deified men; it is this which explains the hero worship of General Nicholson during his life-time in spite of his violent persecution of his own devotees; it is this which explains how the Hindu constantly turns his men into gods, and his gods back again into men, and induces him to worship some other living man in whom the god actually resides. Only lately a missionary of Ahmednegar came across an actual instance of this superstition. In a certain village in his circuit the people met on the Tuesday of each week to worship a living man. At about five o’clock on the evening of that day the departed spirit of a relative was said to have taken possession of him. People came from considerable distances to worship him, to “ ask petitions,” to seek cures 5 and at his feet as a god they laid their offerings of incense and gifts.— J, M. duller, in the Expositor.