[Footnote 719: Although the Tantras occasionally say that mere ritual is not sufficient for the highest religions, yet _indispensable preliminary_ is often understood as meaning _sure means_. Thus the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra (X. 202, Avalon's transl.) says "Those who worship the Kaulas with _panca tattva_ and with heart uplifted, cause the salvation of their ancestors and themselves attain the highest end."] [Footnote 720: But on the other hand some Tantras or tantric treatises recommend crazy abominations.] [Footnote 721: Mahânir. Tant. X. 79. Bhartrâ saha kuleśâni na dahet kulakâminim.] [Footnote 722: _Ib._ XI. 67.] [Footnote 723: _E.g._ It does not prescribe human sacrifices and counsels moderation in the use of wine and _maithuna._] [Footnote 724: See Frazer's _Adonis, Attis and Osiris_, pp. 269-273 for these and other stories of dismemberment.] [Footnote 725: See Frazer, _Golden Bough: Spirits of the Corn_, vol. I. 245 and authorities quoted.] [Footnote 726: Images representing this are common in Assam.] [Footnote 727: Hsüan Chuang (Walters, vol. I. chap. VII) mentions several sacred places in N.W. India where the Buddha in a previous birth was dismembered or gave his flesh to feed mankind. Can these places have been similar to the pîths of Assam and were the original heroes of the legend deities who were dismembered like Satî and subsequently accommodated to Buddhist theology as Bodhisattvas?] [Footnote 728: It is an autumnal festival. A special image of the goddess is made which is worshipped for nine days and then thrown into the river. For an account of the festival which makes its tantric character very clear see Durgâ Puja by Pratapachandra Ghosha, Calcutta, 1871.] [Footnote 729: One explanation given is that she was so elated with her victories over giants that she began to dance which shook the Universe. Śiva in order to save the world placed himself beneath her feet and when she saw she was trampling on her husband, she stopped. But there are other explanations. Another of the strangely barbaric legends which cluster round the Śakti is illustrated by the figure called Chinnamasṭakâ. It represents the goddess as carrying her own head which she has just cut off, while from the neck spout fountains of blood which are drunk by her attendants and by the severed head itself.] [Footnote 730: Yet the English mystic Julian, the anchoress of Norwich (c. 1400), insists on the motherhood as well as the fatherhood of God. "God is our mother, brother and Saviour." "As verily God is our father, so verily God is our mother." So too in an inscription found at Capua (C.I.N. 3580) Isis is addressed as _una quae es omnia_. The Power addressed in Swinburne's poems _Mater Triumphalis, Hertha, The Pilgrims_ and _Dolores_ is really a conception very similar to Śakti.] [Footnote 731: These ideas find frequent expression in the works of Bunkim Chandra Chatterjee, Dinesh Chandra Sen and Sister Nivedita.]