2"d S. N<» 92., Oct. 3. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



261 



LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1857. 

 BRAMINISM AN IMPOSTURE. 



You have inserted an early question of mine in 

 a recent Note (2"* S. iv. 221.) respecting the com- 

 plicity of Bramins in the Indian mutiny. An 

 explanation received from a high quarter, to which 

 England, no less than myself, must be grateful 

 for it, leaves the matter beyond a doubt. The 

 evidence before me allows no hesitation at all ; 

 and I must distinctly and solemnly affirm in the 

 face of the world that the Bramins are the prin- 

 cipals and instigators of the plot, and that the 

 cruelties committed are by their distinct order. 

 So flagrant are the proofs of the fact, however con- 

 trary to the general opinion, that if the English 

 executive use but common foresight and energy, 

 the reign of the B^^mins in India has ceased, and 

 for ever. 



It is an apparently slight, but in truth a re- 

 markable coincidence in the case, that our letters 

 from India speak of the hostile party as Pandies. 

 The term is indeed deduced by one correspondent 

 from Mongol Pandy, who was the first mutineer 

 hanged. But whatever be the merit conferred by 

 this compendious process of canonisation, — and 

 the blowing from guns seems its legitimate coun- 

 terpart, — it is clear that the term Pandy bears a 

 direct reference to the Pandhya, that mysterious 

 race of ancient India, imperfectly known to-scho- 

 lars, whose designation survives in a variety of 

 corruptions if so, we may style them ; as the 

 Pundit, or sage, and his assumed emblem, the 

 Pundook, or dove, sufficiently show the symbol of 

 the Bramins. 



It is indeed well worthy notice how fully the 

 case before us brings out a characteristic not to 

 be found in any other great political commotion 

 known to history ; namely, the close conjunction 

 between the actual category and the historical 

 traditions, for such there are, of ancient India. 

 The rule of the Bramins is in truth founded solely 

 on tradition ; and the religious doctrines on the 

 one hand, and the religious rites on the other, 

 have certainly no other basis. To thoroughly 

 understand the Indian outbreak, therefore, we 

 should be to some material extent acquainted 

 with the earliest lore of Hindostan. But where is 

 this to be found ? Certainly not with the Bra- 

 mins, who,, so far as appearances go, — and are 

 they merely such? — do not possess it. Yet how 

 else could they have continued the system from 

 age to age ? Not assuredly from their pretended 

 autocthonics, but for some 600 or 700 years, to 

 say the least. It is clear to the most superficial 

 Asiatic scholar, that the Bramins in Alexander's 

 time (330 b.c.) were not those of the present day. 

 The Lat pillars of Girnar, &c., which they claimed 



as their own early Sanscrit records, and of an age 

 so remote that its very characters had perished 

 amongst its conservators — risum teneatis, amici — 

 turn out to be, not Sanscrit at all, either in cha- 

 racters or language, but the treaties of (Sandra- 

 cottus) Chandragupta with Antigonus, and the 

 laws and lucubrations of Piyadesi, loved of the 

 gods, about the same period. ■ Such aflTection, 

 we may safely presume, has been rarer of late, 

 and under Bramin dispensation. 



If then upon this ignorance and the oppression 

 of the original natives of India the system of those 

 atrocious interlopers has grounded a faith so de- 

 testable that its rites are crimes ; a history so false 

 that it never approaches tangibility; a language so 

 elaborate as to be obviously derived, and a written 

 character of asserted originality every form of 

 which is stolen, — all these, superadded to a code 

 of morals that excludes every principle of nature, 

 and a pretension to antiquity based on the utter 

 absence of every evidence in its favour, and the 

 bias and tendency of every known fact in abnega- 

 tion ; — all these, I repeat, indicate to the least 

 observant eye the striking truth and inevitable 

 conclusion, that Braminism, like all else of mortal 

 institution, bears in its bosom the seed of its own 

 dissolution. Its domination over man is the direst 

 tyranny, its rule over the mind is the lawless reign 

 of fiends, its claim on its followers and victims is 

 the outrageous violation of domesticity, decency, 

 duty, and shame ; while the infinity of its ceremo- 

 nials in every, the least, commonest, and most 

 indispensable actions of life, attests the craft, 

 caution, and cowardice that dreads to leave to its 

 subjects one single moment for thought, one op- 

 portunity, however rare or slender, for exertion 

 of the intellect. The man who must perform 

 from forty to sixty of these ceremonials before he 

 can taste food in the morning is in a mental vice : 

 and though he passes them off wholesale, much as 

 the Buddhist wheel in every revolution dispatches 

 a dozen or two of prayers into heaven; and 

 though he finds time to chat freely and discuss 

 the concerns of life, yet must he never think ; for 

 the thought that comes necessarily first, is, that 

 he has yet the same rites and ceremonials in the 

 same ratio of numbers to perform, every instant 

 throughout the day, and every day. 



The key of a System so gross can never be far 

 to find ; and nothing, certainly nothing, has pre- 

 vented its discovery but the persuasion they have 

 spread, and we have blindly received, that this sys- 

 tem is really inscrutably ancient. The sagacity of 

 European scepticism has on every occasion doubted 

 and denied everything that was possible, probable, 

 or true — the evidence of fact, the words of Deity. 

 The only point on which all have concurred to 

 agree is in receiving the monstrosities, impossi- 

 bilities and falsehoods of the Bramins, notoriously 

 the greatest liars in existence. We have ac- 



