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chap, iv WORSHIP OF PERUMAL, VISHNU 149
from being baptized, and from working for the conversion of the idolaters afterwards.
Such
is the present condition of the idolaters throughout Asia. I come now
to those of India in detail and to their gross errors, after which I
shall speak of their customs and of the penances of their Fakirs.
CHAPTER V
Concerning the belief of the Idolaters with respect to the Deity.
The idolaters
of India yield to creatures like the cow, the ape, and different
monsters, honours which are only due to the true Deity, although it is
certain that they acknowledge one infinite God, all-powerful and
all-wise, Creator of the heavens and the earth, who is omnipresent.
They call him in some places Permesser, in others Peremael,1 as, for example, towards the coast of Malabar ; and Vvistnou 2
in the language of the Brahmans who inhabit the coast of Coromandel. As
the idolaters have perhaps heard that the circle is the most perfect of
all figures, they have thought to improve upon it by saying God is of
an oval figure, and it is for this reason that they generally keep in
their pagodas an oval pebble, which they obtain from the Ganges,3 and adore as God. They
1 Perumal, ' great man ', is the most common title of Vishnu in the Tamil country (B. Ziegenbalg, Genealogy of the South-Indian Gods, Madras, 1869, p. 83); Permesser in the text represents Paramesvara, ' Supreme Lord'.
3
Vishnu, the preserver, one of the Hindu triad. He is represented as a
dark man with four arms—one hand holds a club, another a shell, the
third a chakra, or metal quoit, and the fourth the lotus.
3
This is the so-called Salagram stone. The Son river supplies some which
are, it is believed, sihcious pebbles derived from the basalt; others
are obtained from the Himalayas, and these are said to include fossils,
ammonites. The Salagram is connected with the worship of Vishnu, but it
may be worshipped as representing for the time being any god. According
to Ward {History of the Hindus, ed. 1815, ii. 221 ff. ; Sleeman, Rambles, ed. 1915, p. 121 ; Dubois, Hindu Manners, ed.
1906, p. 648 f.) the Salagram is black, hollow, and nearly round, and
is obtained from the Gandak river. As much as 2,000 rupees was given
for one of the
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