Sir George Birdwood published on Wednesday a long letter in
the Times, in which, amidst much that is fanciful, there is much of social and even political interest. He says that, aLecording to the " Rewa. Purana," the special sanctity of the 'Ganges, which throughout India is now "the holy river, the 'redeeming flood," will in 1895 be transferred to the Nerbudda, the river for which the Sun-God clove the rocks at a place still marked by the unusual iridescence of the white marble sides of a high gorge. Sir George Birdwood, who himself heard 'the subject discussed in Western India forty years ago, specu- lates on the possible effects of this prophecy, belief in which would ruin Benares and a host of smaller holy cities, and observes that it must produce a disturbing effect on Hindoo imagination, and possibly intensify the Hindoo sense of the danger to their system involved in British rule. We hardly perceive the sequitur ; but the prophecy, if it really -exists, may produce important religious consequences. The Eastern Brahmins will not give up the Ganges, belief in -which has been woven into their very lives ; and if the Western Brahmins do, Hindooism will be rent by a schism which, in the nature of things, will be irreconcilable. We suspect, how- ever, that the deconseeration of the Ganges in the eyes of Hindoos is beyond any human power.
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