346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



baffled by that ne plus ultra of systematic insanity, the creed of the 

 orthodox Brahraans. Buddhism, the worship of death and sorrow, 

 has, indeed, almost vanished from the land of its birth. Its infatua- 

 tions prevailed against the primitive religions of the Mongols, Siamese, 

 Cingalese, Tartars, and Thibetans, but in Hindostan the cow and 

 monkey worshipers carried the day ; the champions of Sakya-Muni 

 had found their match, and, after an hierarchical rough-and-tumble 

 fight of fourteen hundred years, their doom was sealed by a crushing 

 defeat. In vain the Dalai Lamas convoked council after council ; in 

 vain the bonzes howled on the highways and prayed day and night on 

 the public streets the monkey Hanuman triumphed, and at this mo- 

 ment a hundred and twenty million Hindoos are ready to risk their 

 lives in defense of a creed which, in the words of Baron Orlich, " com- 

 bines the extremes of priestly arrogance with endless ceremonies and 

 the most extravagant dogmatic absurdities." The clerical tyranny of 

 Brahmanism may have been surpassed in papal Rome, and the com- 

 plexity of its rites in Thibet ; but its dogmatic absurdity is sui generis, 

 and can really defy competition. " Credo, quia absurdum videtur," 

 said the chief theologist of the Patristic era, but the quintessence of 

 the Athanasian confession would seem insipid to devotees who have 

 been fuddled with the opium of Brahma ; and Father Hue expressed 

 merely the recognition of a practical impossibility when he advised 

 his countrymen not to send any more missionaries to Hindostan. The 

 clergy, missions, and convents of the Spanish church cost the country 

 a yearly aggregate of forty-two million dollars after all, less than 

 twenty per cent of the total national revenue and the emissaries of 

 that church may well shrink from the competition with a priesthood 

 that persuades its constituents to sacrifice two fifths of their field-crops 

 to a greedy swarm of four-footed divinities. The hunchback ox {Bos 

 JBramanus) enjoys the freedom of every East Indian town. Even 

 Calcutta has its " cow-dung subui-bs " (the British soldiers use a strong- 

 er term). He defiles the sidewalks, monopolizes the tree-shade, and 

 mingles with the crowd of the market-place. If he collects his per- 

 quisites by force, the natives remark that giving is more blessed than 

 receiving ; if he knocks them down, they feel with Cardinal Newman 

 that the devotion of the truly faithful shows itself in the endurance 

 of oppressive measures. In every larger city there are walled tanks 

 where sacred crocodiles await the contributions of the pious. In 

 Benares they subsist upon the rent of a real-estate legacy and occa- 

 sional donations of the wealthy produce-merchants. But even the 

 poorest of the poor contribute to the support of the sacred baboons. 

 The bhunder-baboon and the Hanuman ( Cercopithecus entellits) have 

 every reason to regard themselves as the primates of the animal king- 

 dom, and man as a humble relative, gifted with certain horticultural 

 talents for the purpose of ministering to the wants of his four-handed 

 superiors. Northern India is dotted with mahahhunds, or monkey- 



