This ingenuous conception seems to have taken deep and complete possession of the Hindus; it dominates in their most subtile abstractions, and embodies itself in a thousand forms to their vivid and luxuriant imagination. The _Saktians_, a sect wedded to sensual materialism, represent Máyá as a _Saktí_ or energy of Siva; she is “the mother of the universe;” “non-entity finds no access to this creator, the garment of perishableness does not sit right upon the body of this fascinating empress; the dust of nothingness does not move round the circle of her dominion; the real beings and the accidental creatures of the nether world are equally enamoured and intoxicated with desire before her.” Above the six circles, into which the Hindus divide the human body, is “the window of life, and the passage of the soul, which is the top and middle of the head, and in that place is the _flower of the back_ of one thousand leaves: this is the residence of the glorious divinity, that is, of the world-deceiving queen, and in this beautiful site reposes her origin. With the splendor of one hundred thousand world-illuminating suns, she wears, at the time of rising, manifold odoriferous herbs and various flowers upon her head, and around her neck: her resplendent body is penetrated with perfumes of divers precious ingredients, such as musk, safran, sandal, and amber, and bedecked with magnificent garments; in this manner, she is to be represented.”[138] Thus we see the poetical imagination of the Hindus, playing, as it were, with abstruseness, materializing what is spiritual, and spiritualizing what is material. Characteristic of and peculiar to the Hindus, are their conceptions relative to the states of the embodied soul, which are chiefly three: “_waking_, _dreaming_, and _profound sleep_.”[138] In these three conditions the soul is imprisoned, but it may, by virtue and sanctity, break the net of illusion, that is, acquire the consciousness of the illusion which captivates it, and know that, even when awake, man is dreaming: this is the triumph of his perfection. Such, and other notions, in their development and application, form a system of metaphysics, in which excess and abuse of refined speculations lose themselves in obscurity, contradiction, and absurdity. Among the Indian sectaries appear the _Charvak_, who, rejecting the popular religion, follow their own system of philosophic opinions.