Note 16 — Chapter III · AUSH-ER, JUNE.

This is one of the leading features of Hindoo piety. In order to secure the blessing of a god or goddess, it is essentially needful to withdraw ourselves from the world, and take a vow to spend a certain portion, or the whole of our life in the wilderness; to abstain from food, drink, and recreation, and gradually to bring ourselves to that state in which we do not live by “bread alone,” but by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” We read in the lives of the Hindoo sages the process they had used to subdue their bodies, by continual fasts and self-torture. In the early part of their hermit life, they used to take a little food once a day, then once in two, and after a while one meal at the end of the week. In warm weather their seat was surrounded by a blazing fire made on purpose, and in winter they used to immerse their bodies in water, and pray.