Minor, less prominent but still distinctly present in Egypt and in many
cases was accompanied by hysterical and immoral rites, by mutilations of
the body and offerings of blood. But in most countries such deities and
rites are a matter of ancient history: they decayed as civilization
grew: in China and Japan, as formerly in Greece and Rome, they are not
an important constituent of religion. It is only in India and to some
extent in Tibet, which has been influenced by India, that they have
remained unabashed until modern times.

If it is right to regard with veneration the great forces of nature,
fire, sun and water, a similar feeling towards the reproductive force
cannot be unphilosophic or immoral. Nor does the idea that the supreme
deity is a mother rather than a father, though startling, contain
anything unseemly. Yet it is an undoubted fact that all the great
religions except Hinduism, though they may admit a Goddess of
Mercy--Kuan-yin or the Madonna--agree in rejecting essentially sexual
deities. Modern Europe is probably prudish to excess, but the general
practice of mankind testifies that words and acts too nearly connected
with sexual things cannot be safely permitted in the temple. This remark
would indeed be superfluous were it not that many millions of our Hindu
fellow-citizens are of a contrary opinion.

Such practices prevail chiefly among the Saktas in Bengal and Assam but
similar licence is permitted (though the theoretical justification and
theological setting are different) in some Vishnuite sects. Both are
reprobated by the majority of respectable Hindus, but both find educated
and able apologists. And though it may be admitted that worship of the
linga may exist without bad effects, moral or intellectual, yet I think
that these effects make themselves felt so soon as a sect becomes
distinctly erotic. Anyone who visits two such different localities as
Kamakhya in Assam and Gokul near Muttra must be struck with the total
absence in the shrines of anything that can be called beautiful, solemn
or even terrible. The general impression is of something diseased,
unclean and undignified. The figure of the Great Goddess of life and
death might have fired[82] the invention of artists but as a matter of
fact her worship has paralyzed their hands and brains.

Nor can I give much praise to the Tantras as literature[83]. It is true
that, as some authors point out, they contain fine sayings about God and
the soul.