"When the practices taught by the Vedas and the institutes of law shall nearly have ceased, and the close of the Kali Age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahma, and who is the beginning and the end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon the earth. He will be born in the family of Vishnuyasas, an eminent Brahman of Sambhal village, as Kalki, endowed with the eight superhuman faculties. By his irresistible might he will destroy all the Mlechchhas (outcasts), thieves, and all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will then re-establish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of the Kali Age shall be awakened and be made pellucid as crystal. The men who are changed in virtue of that particular time shall be as the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita Age, or Age of Purity."

In the descriptions of Kalki, and in pictures, he is represented as a white man riding upon or bowing down before a white horse, and with a sword in his hand: he is the purifier of the present degenerate age, and the restorer of purity and goodness.

Footnotes

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JAGANNATH.

This deity is not reckoned as one of the Avataras of Vishnu in the Puranic lists. Tradition declares him to be, and common belief accepts him as, an appearance of Vishnu himself, and not the incarnation of a portion of his essence. There is, however, considerable reason

for doubting whether originally Jagannath--the Lord of the World--had any connection with Vishnu. It is possible that he was the local divinity of some now unknown tribe, whose worship was engrafted into Hinduism; and the new god, when admitted into the Pantheon, was regarded as another manifestation of Vishnu; or what is more probable, as Puri was a head centre of Buddhism, when that system was placed under a ban and its followers persecuted, the temple was

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JAGANNATH.

utilized for Hinduism, and Jagannath, nominally a Hindu deity, was really Buddhistic; the strange, unfinished image being nothing else than a disguised form of the symbols of the central doctrine of the Buddhist faith. Possibly, in order to be free from persecution, it was taught that this was a form of Vishnu. There are several legends professing to account for the form in which he is worshipped, and for the peculiar sanctity of Puri, the chief place of his worship.

[paragraph continues] There is a peculiarity in, the phraseology employed by the people who visit his shrine: they speak of going to see Jagannath, not to worship him as is the case with other gods; and it is the sight of the image in the temple, or as it is being bathed, or drawn in its ponderous car, that is so eagerly desired as a means by which sin in the worshipper is destroyed.