272 Lieut .-Colonel Tod on the Religious Establishments of Mewar. 



agricultural proprietors and the rent-receiving Brahmans being dead ; and 

 apathy united to superstition admits their claims without inquiry. 



The antiquary who has dipped into the records of the dark period in 

 European church history, can have ocular illustration in Rajast'han of 

 traditions which may in Europe appear questionable. The vision of 

 the Bishop of Orleans,* who saw Charles Martel in the depths of hell, 

 undergoing the tortures of the damned, for having stripped the churches of 

 their possessions, " thereby rendering himself guilty of the sins of all those 

 who had endowed them," would receive implicit credence from every 

 Hindu, whose ecclesiastical economy might both yield and derive illustra- 

 tion from a comparison, not only with that of Europe, but with the more 

 ancient Egyptian and Jewish systems, whose endowments, as explained by 

 Moses and Ezekiel, bear a strong analogy to those of the Hindus. The dispo- 

 sition of landed property in Egypt was, as amongst the ancient Hindus, imme- 

 morially vested in the cultivator ; and it was only through Joseph's ministry 

 in the famine, that " the land became Pharaoh's, for the Egyptians sold 

 every man his field. "t And the coincidence is manifest even in the tax 

 imposed on them as occupants of their ancient inheritance {wuttun), being 

 one-fijlh of the crops to the king, while the maximum rate among the Hindus 

 is a sixlh.% The Hindus also, in visitations such as occasioned the disposses- 

 sion of the ryots of Egypt, can mortgage or sell their patrimony {hapotd)%. 

 Joseph did not attempt to infringe the privileges of the sacred order when 

 the whole of Egypt became crown-land, " except the lands of the priests 

 which became not Pharaoh's," and these priests, according to Diodorus, 

 held for themselves and the sacrificers no less than one-third of the lands of 

 Egypt. But we learn from Herodotus that Sesostris, who ruled after Joseph's 



* Saint-Euclier, evCque d'Orleans, eut une vision qui etonna les princes. II faut que jc 

 rapporte a ce sujet la lettre que les fiveques, assembles a Reims, ecrivent a Louis-le-Germa- 

 nique, qui etoit entre dans les terres de Charles-le-chauve, parcequ'elle est tres-propre a nous 

 t'aire voir quel etoit', dans ces temps-la, I'etat des choses, et la situation des esprita. lis disent 

 que " Saint Eucher ayant ete ravi dans le ciel, il vit Charles Martel tourmente dans I'enfer 

 inferieur par I'ordre des saints qui doivent assister avec Jesus-Christ au jugement dernier; qu'il 

 avoit ete condamng a cette peine avant le temps pour avoir depouille les eglises de leurs biens, 

 et s'etre par la rendu coupable des peches de tous ceux qui les avoient dotees." — Monlesquieu, 

 V Esprit des Lois, livre xxxi, ch. xi. p. 460. 



f Genesis, chap, xlvii. v. 20. 



X Menu, chap. VII. § From bap, father. 



