VOL. XXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SSQ 



dreds of years, and can liold their breaths, and He in trances for several years 

 together, if they be but kept warm ; and that every year some of them come 

 down to the people at the Ganges, and perform many great cures ; for whom 

 they have such a veneration, that they frequently drink the water they wash 

 their sweaty feet in. The penances and austerities they undergo are almost in- 

 credible; most of them, through their continual fastings, and lying on the 

 parching hot sand in the heat of the sun, are so lean, dried, and withered, that 

 they look like skeletons, and one can scarce perceive them breathe, or feel their 

 pulse beat. 



When any great man dies among them, but especially any of their jogees or 

 saints, they make great preparations for his funeral ; the corpse is laid on its belly, 

 and salt and rice placed round it on the ground. Then the nearest relations 

 to the party deceased carry a pot of water on their shoulders several times about 

 the funeral pile ; then breaking the pot in pieces, they spill the water ; which 

 ceremony being ended, the pile is fired, and then all the relations begin to howl, 

 and embrace one another ; then washing themselves in some neighbouring river, 

 they all depart home ; and as for the remaining ashes, if he be rich, they 

 gather them up, and cast them into the Ganges, or the sea. Sometimes the 

 wife of the deceased party, if she have no children, and be old, or have lost 

 her love for the world, will burn herself with the dead body ; but this hap- 

 pens very seldom. It is said, that in such cases the Bramins give the woman a 

 stupifying liquor, which by the time that she is in the fire makes her senseless of 

 any pain. 



To know into what body the soul of the deceased is transmigrated, they do 

 thus ; they strew the ashes of the dead on the place where he was first laid after 

 his death, and handfuls of odoriferous flowers about the same, and returning 

 again in 44 hours, they judge by some pretended impression or other in the 

 ashes, into what body it is gone ; if the foot of a horse, or dog, or ox, or such 

 like appear, then they pretend that it is gone into that particular animal ; but if 

 nothing appear, then they think it is certainly gone to the starry regions. 



Their learning and knowledge is but small ; they have indeed several books, 

 written in divers languages ; but they contain only a great deal of cant about 

 their worship, rites, and ceremonies. They are ignorant of all parts of the 

 world except their own ; they wonder much at us who take such care and pains, 

 and run through so many dangers both by sea and land, only, as they say, to 

 uphold and nourish pride and luxury. For, say they, every country in the 

 world is sufficiently endowed by nature with whatever is necessary for the life 

 of man, and therefore it is madness to seek for, or desire, what is unnecessary. 



The last time I was at ModufFerpore in Indostan, I had a great deal of talk 



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