through terrible regions of torture, for a great number of BOOK II. years, are condemned to the following births at the close CHAP. VI. of that period. The slayer of a Brahmen must enter thebody of a dog, a boar, an ass, a camel, a bull, a goat, a sheep, a stag, a bird, a Chandala, or a Pucassa. He, who steals the gold of a priest, shall pass a thousand times into the bodies of spiders, of snakes, and camelions, of crocodiles, and other aquatic monsters, or of mischievous blood-sucking demons. He who violates the bed of his natural or spiritual father, migrates a hundred times into the forms of grasses, of shrubs with crowded stems, or of creeping and twining plants, carnivorous animals, beasts with sharp teeth, or cruel brutes." After a variety of other cases, a general rule is declared, for those of the four castes who neglect the duties of their order: "Should a Brahmen omit his peculiar duty, he shall be changed into a demon, with a mouth like a firebrand, who devours what has been vomited; a Cshatriya, into a demon who feeds on ordure and carrion; a Vaisya, into an evil being who eats purulent carcases; and a Sudra, who neglects his occupations, into a foul embodied spirit, who feeds on lice."2 The reward of the most exalted piety, of the most profound meditation, of that exquisite abstemiousness which dries up the mortal frame, is peculiar: such a perfect soul becomes absorbed in the Divine essence, and is for ever exempt from transmigration.3

We might very easily, from the known laws of human nature, conclude, notwithstanding the language held by the Hindus on the connexion between future happiness and the virtue of the present life, that rewards and punishments, very distant and very obscure, would be wholly impotent against temptations to crime, though, at the

1 Institutes of Menu, ch. xii. 54 to 58.

3 Ib. ch. xii. 125.

2 Ib. 71, 72.

4 According to Mr. Ward, as presently cited, the Hindus are in this respect not dissimilar from other people, whatever be their religious faith. This is a question we are not called upon to discuss, but as far as it bears upon the Hindus, it may be remarked, once for all, that Mr. Ward, notwithstanding the epithets bestowed upon him in the text, is neither an experienced nor an admirable witness; his experience was limited to Bengal, in which the best specimens of the Hindu character are comparatively rare, and his station and circumstances brought him into contact chiefly with bad specimens even of Bengalis. Although an intelligent man, he was not a man of comprehensive views, and his views were necessarily still more narrowed by his feelings as a missionary; his testimony, therefore, although not without value, must be received with considerable distrust, and admitted only with constant qualification and correction.-W.

BOOK II. instigation of the priests, they might engage the people in CHAP. VI. a ceaseless train of wretched ceremonies. The fact corre

sponds most exactly with the anticipation. An admirable witness has said, "The doctrine of a state of future rewards and punishments, as some persons may plead, has always been supposed to have a strong influence on public morals: the Hindoos not only have this doctrine in their writings, but are taught to consider every disease and misfortune of life as an undoubted symptom of moral disease, and the terrific appearance of its close-pursuing punishment. Can this fail to produce a dread of vice, and a desire to merit the favour of the Deity? I will still further," he adds, "assist the objector; and inform him, that the Hindoo writings declare, that till every immoral taint is removed, every sin atoned for, and the mind has obtained perfect abstraction from material objects, it is impossible to be re-united to the great spirit; and that, to obtain this perfection, the sinner must linger in many hells, and transmigrate through almost every form of matter." Our informant then declares; "Great as these terrors are, there is nothing more palpable than that, with most of the Hindoos, they do not weigh the weight of a feather, compared with the loss of a roopee. The reason is obvious: every Hindoo considers all his actions as the effect of his destiny; he laments, perhaps, his miserable fate, but he resigns himself to it without a struggle, like the malefactor in a condemned cell." This experienced observer adds, which is still more comprehensive, that the doctrine of future rewards and punishments has, in no situation, and among no people, a power to make men virtuous.1

1 "To this," he says, "may be added, what must have forced itself on the observation of every thoughtful observer, that, in the absence of the religious principle, no outward terrors, especially those which are invisible and future, not even bodily sufferings, are sufficient to make men virtuous. Painful experience proves, that even in a Christian country, if the religious principle does not exist, the excellence and the rewards of virtue, and the dishonour and misery attending vice, may be held up to men for ever, without making a single convert." Ward, "View, &c. of the Hindoos," Introd. p. lxxxiv. Here, however, Mr. Ward ought to have explained what he meant by the "religious principle," by which different persons mean very different things. This was the more necessary, that, having taken away all efficacy from the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, he strips religion of all power over the lives and actions of men, except in so far as good effects may be expected from the "religious principle," which, whatever else it may not be, is at any rate, in his estimation, not the expectation of future rewards and punishments.-M. The whole of this review of the religion, as of the laws of the Hindus, is full

CHAP. VII.

Manners.

By the manners of a nation are understood the peculiar modes in which the ordinary business of human life is carThe business itself is everywhere essentially the

ried on.

same.

In all nations men eat and drink; they meet, converse, transact, and sport together. But the manner in which these and other things are performed is as different as the nations are numerous into which the race is divided.

So much of the entire business of life, among the Hindus, consists in religious services, that the delineation of their religion is a delineation of the principal branch of their manners.

The singular distinctions, attached to the different classes, present another remarkable feature in the manners of this people. The lower orders, in other countries, are often lamentably debased; in Hindustan they are degraded below the brutes. With the single exception of the Vaisya caste, to whom is appropriated the business of agriculture and of barter, the whole of the productive classes, according to the standards of law and religion, are vile and odious, unworthy to eat, to drink, or to sit with a member of the classes above them.1

of very serious defects, arising from inveterate prejudices and imperfect knowledge. Every text, every circumstance, that makes against the Hindu character, is most assiduously cited, and every thing in its favour as carefully kept out of sight, whilst a total neglect is displayed of the history of Hindu belief. The doctrines of various periods and of opposing sects, have been forced into one time and one system, and the whole charged with an incongruity, which is the creation of the writer. Had he been more impartially disposed, indeed, it would not have been easy to have given an unobjectionable account of the Hindu religion, as his materials were exceedingly defective. Manu is good authority for the time to which it refers, and Mr. Colebrooke's essays furnish authentic details of particular parts of the ritual, but the different travellers who are given as authorities of equal weight, are utterly unworthy of regard. A word more on the subject of Fate, as understood by the Hindus; as it is something very different from that of other people. It is necessity, as the consequence of past acts-that is, a man's station and fortunes in his present life are the necessary consequences of his conduct in his pre-existence. To them he must submit, but not from despair. He has his future condition in his own power, and it depends upon himself in what capacity he shall be born again. He is not therefore the helpless victim of an irresistible and inscrutable destiny, but the sufferer for his own misdeeds, or the possessor of good which his own merits have secured him.-W.

1 A very mistaken view is here taken of the condition of the "productive classes;" and on all the most important occasions of social life, they hold quite as independent and respectable a position as they do in Europe. That they

BOOK II.

CHAP. VII.

BOOK II.

There are four remarkable periods into which, with CHAP. VII. respect to the three honourable classes, human life is divided. Of these periods, or orders, as they are denominated by the Hindus, the first is that of the student; the second, that of the householder; the third, that of the man who performs penance or other religious acts, residing continually in a forest! the fourth, that of the Sannyasi, or the ascetic absorbed in divine contemplation.1

The period of the student commences at the era of investiture. Prior to this age, the situation of children is remarkable: even those of a Brahmen are not held superior in rank to a Sudra. The condition of the student much more closely represents that of an European apprentice than that of a pupil in literature. He dwells in the house of his preceptor, and tends him with the most respectful assiduity. He is commanded to exert himself in all acts useful to his teacher; and of course performs the part of an assistant in all the offices of religion. “As he who digs deep with a spade comes to a spring of water, so the student, who humbly serves his teacher, attains the knowledge which lies deep in his teacher's mind." Upon the student of the priestly order a peculiar burden, or distinction, is imposed: to acquire daily his food by begging.

The gift of sacred instruction is not bestowed indiscriminately; but the text, which regulates the choice of pupils, is so vague as to leave the selection nearly at the discretion of the master. "Ten persons," it is declared,

may not eat, drink, or intermarry with the castes above them, is no hardship to races who would not avail themselves of the privileges of such intercourse with many of the castes who are their equals. These laws of segregation are, in their case, self-imposed. European writers can little understand the prevailing feeling of the Hindus in these matters. It is pride-not shame of caste, that animates them down even to the meanest; and the sweeper is much more tenacious of his caste than the Brahman. As to "sitting" with them, let a blacksmith acquire wealth, and he will have his levee well attended by Brahmans of the most respectable descent. Instances are not wanting of this, at all the principal towns in India.-W.

1 See Laws of Menu, ch. ii. iii. and vi.

2 See the account of this æra, in another part of this volume.

3 Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 173.

4 Ibid. 491.

5"Let him carry water-pots, flowers, cow-dung, fresh earth, and cusa grass, as much as may be useful to his preceptor." Ibid. 182.

6 "The subsistence of a student by begging is held equal to fasting in religious merit." Ibid. 218. There are numerous precepts respecting the niceties of begging. Ibid. 48 to 50, and 183 to 190.

"may legally be instructed in the Veda; the son of a spi- BOOK I. ritual teacher; a boy who is assiduous; one who can impart CHAP. VII. other knowledge; one who is just; one who is pure; one who is friendly; one who is powerful; one who can bestow wealth; one who is honest; and one who is related by blood. Where virtue and wealth are not found, or diligent attention proportioned, in that soil divine instruction must not be sown; it would perish like fine seed in barren land." 1

The instruction which is bestowed may soon be described. "The venerable preceptor, having girt his pupil with the thread, must first instruct him in purification, in good customs, in the management of the consecrated fire, and in the holy rites of morning, noon, and evening." 2 The grand object of attention and solicitude is the reading of the Veda. 3 Some classes of the Brahmens have united with their religious doctrines certain speculations concerning the intellectual and material worlds; and these speculations have been dignified with the name of philosophy; but the holy rites, and the Veda, form the great, and on most occasions the exclusive object of that higher instruction which is bestowed on the pupil of the Brahmen.

On this important occasion, as on other occasions, the attention of the Hindu is much more engaged by frivolous observances, than by objects of utility. While the directions laid down respecting the instruction of the pupil are exceedingly few and insignificant, the forms, according to which he must pay his duty to the master, are numerous, minute, and emphatically enjoined.1

4 When the student is going to read the Veda, he must perform an ablution, as the law ordains, with his face to the north; and at the beginning and end of each lesson, he must clasp both the feet of his preceptor, and read with both his hands closed. "In the presence of his preceptor let him always eat less; and wear a coarser mantle, with worse appendages: let him rise before, and go to rest after his tutor. Let him not answer his teacher's orders, or converse with him, reclining on a bed; nor sitting, nor eating, nor standing, nor with an averted face: But let him both answer and converse, if his preceptor sit, standing up; if he stand, advancing toward him; if he advance, meeting him; if he run, hastening after him; if his face be averted, going round to front him, from left to right: if he be at a little distance, approaching him; if reclined, bending to him; and if he stand ever so far off, running toward him. When his teacher is nigh, let his couch or his bench be always placed low: when his preceptor's eye can observe him, let him not sit carelessly at his ease. Let him never pronounce the mere name of his tutor, even in his absence: by censuring his preceptor, though justly, he will be born an ass. He must not serve his tutor by the intervention of another, while himself stands aloof; nor