240 HINDOO MANNERS. 



which lias long effected a separation among certain orders 

 of society as complete as if they had belonged to different 

 species, and which, though its power, owing to an increas- 

 ing intercourse with the English, is beginning to be shaken, 

 still continues immense. The four castes proceed in a de- 

 scending scale,— the Bramins, the Cshatryas, the Vaisyas, 

 and the'.Sudras. It is religion, or rather a slavish super- 

 stition, by which these extraordinary distinctions are sanc- 

 tioned, and at the same time reconciled and cemented so as 

 to preserve from disorganization a community in which cer- 

 tain interests are kept in immutable subordination. The 

 sacred books represent the Bramins as having issued in the 

 moment of creation from the mouth of Brama, the Csha- 

 tryas from his arm, the Vaisyas from his thigh, while the 

 Sudras drew their ignoble origin from his foot. Accord- 

 in aly, while the first enjoy a rank almost equal to divinity, 

 the latter are denied the rights and the place of human 



beings. . 



It must appear a remarkable circumstance, and is per- 

 haps owing to the long subjection of India to Moslem do- 

 minion, that while the priestly or Braminical order are 

 held in such unbounded veneration, no tax is levied, no lands 

 assigned by government for their support, no provision even 

 is made for the supply of their most urgent, necessities. 

 Considerable donations have indeed been granted to the 

 brotherhood bv charitable individuals, yet they still profess 

 to be mendicants subsisting solely on alms. The youthful 

 Bramin, as soon as he is invested with the poita or cotton 

 thread which distinguishes his order, begins to ask alms 

 of his parents and of the surround in? company, "i et this 

 situation, which would appear to sink them beneath every 

 other class, is perhaps the chief cause which has led to their 

 exorbitant acquisitions. Depending chiefly on the opinion 

 and favour of the multitude, they are sometimes tempted to 

 employ the most unwarrantable arts for securing and ex- 

 tending their influence. " A Bramin," said one of their 

 number to M. Dubois, "is an ant's nest of lies and impos- 

 tures." They cherish in the people all those debasing su- 

 perstitions to which the mind of man is prone ; while they 

 exalt, in an extravagant degree, the dignity of their own 

 place and office, as well as the merit of those who confer 

 donations unon them. The sacred books are filled with 



