ansporting himself from one end of the country to another
with incredible quickness, he has visited every part of India, from Cape
Comorin to the Himalayas, and from Calcutta to Bombay. He preaches the
One Deity and, "Vedas in hand," proves that in the ancient writings
there was not a word that could justify polytheism. Thundering against
idol worship, the great orator fights with all his might against caste,
infant marriages, and superstitions. Chastising all the evils grafted on
India by centuries of casuistry and false interpretation of the Vedas,
he blames for them the Brahmans, who, as he openly says before masses of
people, are alone guilty of the humiliation of their country, once great
and independent, now fallen and enslaved. And yet Great Britain has in
him not an enemy, but rather an ally. He says openly--"If you expel the
English, then, no later than tomorrow, you and I and everyone who rises
against idol worship will have our throats cut like mere sheep. The
Mussulmans are stronger than the idol worshippers; but these last
are stronger than we." The Pandit held many a warm dispute with the
Brah-mans, those treacherous enemies of the people, and has almost
always been victorious. In Benares secret assassins were hired to slay
him, but the attempt did not succeed. In a small town of Bengal, where
he treated fetishism with more than his usual severity, some fanatic
threw on his naked feet a huge cobra. There are two snakes deified by
the Brahman mythology: the one which surrounds the neck of Shiva on his
idols is called Vasuki; the other, Ananta, forms the couch of Vishnu. So
the worshipper of Shiva, feeling sure that his cobra, trained purposely
for the mysteries of a Shivaite pagoda, would at once make an end of
the offender's life, triumphantly exclaimed, "Let the god Vasuki himself
show which of us is right!"

Dayanand jerked off the cobra twirling round his leg, and with a single
vigorous movement, crushed the reptile's head. "Let him do so," he
quietly assented. "Your god has been too slow. It is I who have decided
the dispute, Now go," added he, addressing the crowd, "and tell everyone
how easily perish the false gods."

Thanks to his excellent knowledge of Sanskrit the Pandit does a great
service, not only to the masses, clearing their ignorance about the
monotheism of the Vedas, but to science too, showing who, exactly, are
the Brahmans, the only caste in India which, during centuries, had the
right