hending the Veda, practising pious austerities, acquiring divine knowledge, CHAP. VI. command over the organs of sense and action, avoiding all injury to sentient creatures, and showing reverence to a natural and spiritual father, are the chief branches of duty which ensure final happiness." * "Even three suppressions of breath made according to the divine rule, accompanied with the triverbal phrase, and the triliteral syllable, may be considered as the highest devotion of a Brahmen; for as the dross and impurities of metallic ores are consumed by fire, thus are the sinful acts of the human organs consumed by suppressions of the breath."+ If we examine that highest degree of merit to which the imagination of the Hindu can ascend, that of the Sanyassi, or professor of austere devotion, we shall find it to consist in an absolute renunciation of all moral duties, and moral affections. 66 Exemption from attachments, and affection for children, wife, and home;" nay," the abandonment of all earthly attachments," § form a neces+ sary part of that perfection after which he aspires.

ties and loose

bined in the

It is by no means unnatural for the religion of a rude people to unite opposite Harsh austeriqualities, to preach the most harsh austerities, and at the same time to encourage morality are the loosest morality. It may be matter of controversy to what degree the inde- naturally comcent objects employed in the Hindu worship imply depravity of manners; but a religion of a rude people. religion which subjects to the eyes of its votaries the grossest images of sensual pleasure, and renders even the emblems of generation objects of worship; which ascribes to the supreme God an immense train of obscene acts; which has these engraved on the sacred cars, pourtrayed in the temples, and presented to the people as objects of adoration, which pays worship to the Yoni, and the Lingam, cannot be regarded as favourable to chastity.|| Nor can it be supposed,

* Institutes of Menu, ch. xii. 83. Bhagvat-Geeta, p. 102.

+ Ib. vi. 70, 71.

Institutes of Menu, ch. vi. 81.

See a fanciful account of the origin of this worship by Mr. Paterson, Asiat. Res. viii. 54. His description of the moral effects of this superstition is more to our purpose: "It is probable," says he, "that the idea of obscenity was not originally attached to these symbols; and, it is likely, that the inventors themselves might not have foreseen the disorders which this worship would occasion amongst mankind. Profligacy eagerly embraces what flatters its propensities, and ignorance follows blindly wherever example excites: it is therefore no wonder that a general corruption of manners should ensue, increasing in proportion as the distance of time involved the original meaning of the symbol in darkness and oblivion. Obscene mirth became the principal feature of the popular superstition, and was, even in after times, extended to, and intermingled with, gloomy rites and bloody sacrifices. An heterogeneous mixture which appears totally irreconcileable, unless by tracing the steps which led to it. It will appear that the ingrafting of a new symbol, upon the old superstition, occasioned this strange medley. The sect of Vishnu was not wholly free from the propensity of the times to obscene rites; it had been united in interest with

Book II. when to all these circumstances is added the institution of a number of girls, attached to the temples, whose business is dancing and prostitution, that this is a virtue encouraged by the religion of the Hindus.

Another contrast to the tortures and death which the religion of the Hindus exhorts them to inflict upon themselves, is the sacredness which it imprints upon the life of animals. Not only are the Hindus prohibited the use of animal food, except at certain peculiar sacrifices; even the offerings to the gods consist almost entirely of inanimate objects; and to deprive any sensitive creature of life, is a heinous transgression of religious duty. Many of the inferior creatures, both animals and plants, are the objects of religious veneration; such, in particular, that of Siva, in their league against the sect of Brahma, as was expressed by an image, called HarHeri, half Siva, and half Vishnu. This union seems to have continued till the time when an emblem of an abstract idea, having been erected into an object of worship, introduced a revolution in religion, which had a violent and extended effect upon the manners and opinions of mankind. It was then that a gloomy superstition arose, which spread its baneful influence with rapidity amongst mankind; which degraded the Deity into an implacable tyrant; which filled its votaries with imaginary terrors; which prescribed dreadful rites; and exacted penances, mortifications, and expiatory sacrifices." (Ibid. p. 55.) See also a picture of these religious immoralities by Bernier, (Lettre sur les Gentils, pp. 129, 130). But the writer who, above all others, has furnished superabundant evidence of the immoral influence of the Hindu religion, and the deep depravity which it is calculated to produce, is Mr. Ward, in his " View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos." From the facts which he records in great detail, the following are the results."The characters of the gods, and the licentiousness which prevails at their festivals, and abounds in their popular works, with the enervating nature of the climate, have made the Hindoos the most effeminate and corrupt people on earth. I have, in the course of this work, exhibited so many proofs of this fact, that I will not again disgust the reader by going into the subject. Suffice it to say, that fidelity to marriage vows is almost unknown among the Hindoos; the intercourse of the sexes approaches very near to that of the irrational animals.... But to know the Hindoo idolatry, as it is, a person must wade through the filth of the thirty-six pooranus, and other popular books-he must read and hear the modern popular poems and songs-he must follow the Bramhun through his midnight orgies, before the image of Kalēē, and other goddesses; or he must accompany him to the nightly revels, the jatras, and listen to the filthy dialogues which are rehearsed respecting Krishnŭ and the daughters of the milkmen; or he must watch him, at midnight, choking with the mud and waters of the Ganges a wealthy relation, while in the delirium of a fever; or, at the same hour, while murdering an unfaithful wife, or a supposed domestic enemy; or he must look at the Bramhun hurrying the trembling half-dead widow round the funeral pile, and throwing her like a log of wood by the side of the dead body of her husband, tying her and then holding her down with bamboo levers, till the fire has deprived her of the power of rising and running away....... This system of heathenism communicates no purifying knowledge of the divine perfections, supplies no one motive to holiness while living, no comfort to the afflicted, no hope to the dying; but, on the contrary, excites to every vice, and hardens its followers in the most flagrant crimes." (Introductory Remarks, pp. 94, 95.)

are the cow, the lotos, and cusa grass. Nor, in this enumeration, must the dung CHAP. VI. and urine of the cow be forgotten; things so holy as to be of peculiar efficacy in the ceremonies of purification. To whatever origin we may ascribe this strange application of the religious principle, it has at least been very widely diffused. It is known that many negro tribes worship animals and reptiles; and that they carry the solicitude for their preservation to a still more extravagant pitch than even the Hindus; punishing with death those who hurt them even casually.* The sacred character in Egypt of the ox, and of many other animals, is too familiarly known to require any proof. The cow was oracular, and sacred among the Amonians. Not only cows, but horses, eagles, lions, bears, were divine animals among the Syrians. The Egyptian priests respected as sacred the life of all animals, and animal food seems to have been interdicted not less in Egypt than in Hindustan.§ At an early period, the Greeks, and even the Romans, punished with death, the killing of an ox. The worship of this species of quadrupeds appears indeed to have been common to all the idolatrous nations from Japan to Scandinavia.** That, in India, it was a worship directed to no moral end, is evident upon the slightest inspection. To renounce the benefits which the inferior animals are fitted by nature to render to man, is not humanity, any more than swinging before an idol, by an iron hook, forced through the muscles of the back, is the virtue of self-command. And that this superstition took not its rise from a sensibility to the feelings of animated creatures, is evident from the barbarous character of several of the nations where it prevails; from the proverbial cruelty suffered by the labouring animals of Hindustan; and from the apathy with which human beings are left to expire by hunger and disease, while reptiles are zealously tended and fed.††

*Edward's Hist. of the West Indies, ii. 77. 4to. Ed.

+ Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, i. 323. Lucian, De Syria Dea.

The priests of Egypt, says Herodotus, account it unholy to kill any thing which has life, saving what they use in sacrifice; Herod. Hist. lib. 1. cap. 140: and Porphyry informs us that it was not till a late period of their history that animal sacrifices were introduced. De Abstin. lib. ii. et iv. Ab hoc antiqui manus ita abstinere voluerunt, ut capite sanxerint, si quis occidisset. Varro, De Re Rustica, lib. ii. cap. 5.

** See the satisfactory proofs adduced in the very learned and instructive, though erroneous work of Dupuis, Origine de tous les Cultes, liv. iii. ch. viii.

††“ Although the killing an animal of this" (the ox) "kind is by all Hindus considered as a kind of murder, I know no creature whose sufferings equal those of the labouring cattle of Hindustan." (Buchanan, Journey, &c. i. 167.) See also Ward on the Hindus, Introd. p. xliii. An hospital for the sick poor, says Dr. Tennant, was never known in India, before the establishment 20

VOL. I.

Book II.

Religion consists of two great doctrines, that concerning the nature and service of God; and that concerning the nature and destination of the human soul. The

of the British; though there were for dogs, cats, &c. (Indian Recreations, i. 73.) The authors of
the Universal History inform us gravely, on the authority of Ovington, that the Hindus have a
care for the preservation of fleas, bugs, and other vermin, which suck the blood of man: for in a
hospital near Surat, built for their reception, a poor man is hired now and then to rest all night
upon the kot or bed where the vermin are put; and lest their stinging should force him to take his
flight before morning, he is tied down to the place, and there lies for them to glut themselves with
human gore." (Modern Univ. Hist. vi. 262.) Anquetil Duperron, who describes a temple near
Surat, full of those sacred animals, adds: "La vue de l'hopital des animaux, entretenu par des
etres raisonables avec tout l'ordre, le soin, le zele meme que l'on pourroit exiger d'eux, s'il etoit
question de leur semblable, et cela meme dans un pays, ou il n'y a d'etablissemens publics, ni pour
les malades, ni pour les vieillards; la vu d'un pareil hopital auroit de quoi etonner, si l'on ne sçavoit
pas que la nature se plait aux disparates en Asie comme en Europe. (Voyages aux Indes Orient. Disc.
Prelim. Zendavesta, i. ccclxii.) "The Gentoos, though they will not kill their neat, make no con-
science to work them to death, allowing them hardly food to keep them alive. Neither are they less
inhuman towards their sick, a woman being brought to die among the tombs in my sight." Fryer's
Travels, ch. v. sect. 3. See to the same purpose, the Abbé Dubois, p. 132; Ward on the Hindoos,
Introd. p. lv. It is worth observing that Milton, the universality of whose knowledge is not the
least remarkable particular of his wonderful mind, was acquainted with the disgusting superstition
of letting the vermin devour the man: "Like the vermin," says he, "of an Indian Catharist,
which his fond religion forbids him to molest." Tetrachordon, Milton's Prose Works, ii. 122, 8vo.
Edit. Tenderness to animals was a part of the religion of Zoroaster. We are informed in the
Sadda, that he obtained from God a view of the regions of infernal torment, where he saw a
number of kings, and among the rest one without a foot. He begged to know the reason, and
God said to him; "that wicked king never performed but one good action in his life. He saw,
as he was going to the chase a dromedary tied at too great a distance from its provender, endea-
vouring to eat, but unable to reach it: he pushed the provender towards it with his foot. I have
placed that foot in heaven; all the rest of him is here. Voltaire, Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit
de Nations, ch. v. The following, Porphyry tells us, (De Abstin. lib. iv. p. 431) were laws of Trip-
tolemus, 1. To honour our parents; 2. To offer nothing to the gods but the fruits of the earth; 3.
Never to hurt animals. "The inhabitants of Miniana," (a place not far from Sego, in the heart
of Africa)" eat their enemies, and strangers, if they die in the country. They eat the flesh of
horses. But such is their veneration for the cow, that she is never killed."
Africa, p. 166.

Park's last Mission to

Mr. Richardson (see his Dissertation on Eastern Manners, p. 16) denies the authenticity of the fragments of the Zendavesta collected by Anquetil Duperron, on account of "the uncommon stupidity," as he is pleased to express it, "of the work itself." Yet it is in a strain remarkably resembling that of the Vedas; the same sublime praises bestowed upon the Divinity, superstitions equally gross, discourses equally childish. We must not however on this account question the authenticity of the Vedas and the Puranas, though we must renounce the vulgar belief of the great wisdom of the Brahmens. In truth, the stupidity, as Mr. Richardson calls it, of the Zendavesta, and its remarkable similarity to the sacred books of the

first of these, in the complicated superstition of the Hindus, presented many CHAP. VI. questions which it needed a considerable accumulation of evidence to solve. Of the latter, fortunately, a just idea may be conveyed, without many words.

destination of

It is well known that the metempsychosis, or the transmigration of the soul Nature and into various orders of being, reviving in one form when it ceases to exist in the human another, is the tenet adopted by the Hindus. This is a theory well calculated soul. to present itself to the mind of the rude inquirer, when first excited to stretch his views beyond the present term of sensation and action. The vegetable life, which expires in autumn in the plant, revives in the seed in spring. The sluggish worm, which undergoes a species of death, and buries itself in a tomb of its own formation, springs to life a gay and active creature, as different in appearance as in appetites and powers. Every thing on earth is changed, nothing annihilated; and the soul of the man who expires to day, revives in something else, to which at that instant life is imparted.

Some very obvious, and very impressive appearances, must have suggested the notion of the metempsychosis, since it is one of the most ancient, and one of the most general of all religious opinions. "No doctrine," says Dupuis, "was ever

Hindus, is the most striking proof of its authenticity. There is the strongest reason to conclude that the ancient Magi, and the ancient Brahmens, were people very much upon a level; and that the fame of Zoroaster for wisdom is no better founded than that of the Indian sages. There is a radical difference, he says, between the language of the Zendavesta, and the modern Persian (Ibid.) But the same is the case with the Sanscrit, which Sir William Jones thinks, from this circumstance, can never have been vernacular in Hindustan. (See Disc. on the Hindus, Asiat. Researches, i. 422.) The language, he says, of the Zendavesta has many words, which a modern Persian could not pronounce. But there are many words in the German lánguage, which an Englishman or Frenchman cannot pronounce, though the German is the basis of the languages of both. The Zendavesta, he says, contains Arabic words; but it contains Arabic only as the Greek contains Sanscrit. In fact, the identities which can be traced in all languages is one of the most remarkable circumstances in the history of speech. Of the Vedas, a man who had unrivalled opportunities of information informs us, "They contain nothing important or rational. In fact, they have nothing but their antiquity to recommend them. As to any thing further, they include all the absurdities of Hindu paganism, not only such as it has originally been, but also the pitiful details of fables which are at present current in the country, relating to the fantastical austerities of the Hindu hermits, to the metamorphoses of Vishnu, or the abominations of the lingam. The fourth of them, called Atharvana-veda, is the most dangerous of all for a people so entirely sunk in superstition, because it teaches the art of magic, or the method of injuring men by the use of witchcraft and incantation." (Description, &c. of the People of India, by the Abbé Dubois, p. 102.) Even the gayatri, the most holy of all holy things, is an assemblage, says the Abbé, of unmeaning terms, " unintelligible to the Brahmens themselves. I have never met with any one who could give me a tolerable explication of it." Ib. p. 79.