NATURE 



H5 



,, HINDU MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



V'indu Manners., Customs and Ceremonies. By the Abbe 



J. A. Dubois. Translated from the Author's later 



^French MS., and edited with notes, corrections, and 



(biography by Henry K. Beauchamp. With a Prefatory 



■ Note by the Right Hon. F. Max Muller, and a Portrait. 



Pp. x.\xvi 4- 730. (Oxford : at the Clarendon Press, 



i 1897.) 



rHE work of the Abbe Dubois, both in the original 

 French, and in the English editions — the one pub- 

 •ihed in 1816, the other some thirty odd years ago — has 

 jng been a standard work on modern Indian customs, 

 luch valued and frequently quoted by ethnologists. But 

 range to say, what has hitherto been known as the 

 .bbe's work is in fact merely a roug-h sketch and (as Mr. 

 ■eauchamp says) " only an extremely poor representation 

 f what the Abbe's great work really was." The history 

 f the book is peculiar. The French MS. of the original 

 raft was placed in the hands of Major Wilks in the year 

 806, when the Abbe had been about fourteen years in 

 jndia. Major Wilks studied the work, and on his re- 

 lommendation the MS. was, in 1807, purchased by the 

 ladras Government and transmitted to London for 

 ranslation and publication. Vet the English translation 

 ii^as not published until 1816. In 1815 the MS. was 

 eturned to the Abbe, and he " put into it all the ad- 

 (litions and corrections suggested by many years of 

 idditional study and investigation ; and when he sent it 

 jack to the Government of Madras, it was, practically 

 '.peaking, a different work altogether." However, neither 

 his revised MS., nor a finally corrected copy prepared 

 ay the Abb^ three years later, have ever been used for 

 •he editions hitherto published, although both MSS. were 

 tent to England and preserved in the India Office Library. 

 One copy of the finally revised MS. was left in the records 

 pf Fort St. George, and this has now been translated and 

 edited by Mr. Beauchamp, so that at last we possess the 

 Abbe's work in its final and corrected shape. 



The work of the Abbe Dubois is vastly superior to the 

 Ordinary accounts of travellers and missionaries in India. 

 Few Europeans have succeeded in obtaining so much 

 valuable information concerning the life of the natives 

 as the Abbe. The secret of his success is best told in 

 his own words (p. 10) : 



" I had no sooner arrived amongst the natives of India 

 than 1 recognised the absolute necessity of gaining their 

 conhclence. Accordingly I made it my constant rule to 

 live as they did. I adopted their style of clothing, and I 

 studied their customs and methods of life in order to be 

 exactly like them. I even went so far as to avoid any 

 display of repugnance to the majority of their peculiar 

 prejudices. By such circumspect conduct I was able to 

 ensure a free and hearty welcome from people of all 

 castes and conditions, and was often favoured of their 

 own accord with the most curious and interesting 

 particulars about themselves." 



That he went about in this way, and identified himself, 

 as it were, with the people, makes the Abbe's account of 

 Hindu manners, customs, and ceremonies so very valu- 

 able even in the imperfect form in which it has been known 

 NO. 1520, VOL. 59] 



for years, and of course all the more valuable in its final 

 and corrected form as presented to us by Mr. Beauchamp. 

 Times have changed, no doubt, since the days when Abbe' 

 Dubois wrote. But Mr. Beauchamp is certainly right in 

 saying that the work is " as valuable to-day as ever it 

 was ; even more valuable in some respects." For although 

 the Abbe's work is merely an account of the inner life of 

 the Hindus as seen and studied by him at the beginning 

 of this century and in a limited area, viz. the country that 

 lies south of the Vindhyan range, yet the broad facts of 

 Hindu religion and sociology, as recited by the Abbe, are 

 to a great extent true for a much wider area, and they 

 are extremely instructive when compared with the facts 

 known from ancient Hindu literature on the one hand, 

 and with the manners and customs of the present day on 

 the other. 



Mr. Beauchamp has added some very valuable notes 

 which go far to prove that the Hindu character is not 

 quite as unprogressive as it is generally imagined to be, 

 that even in India civilisation is not at a standstill, but 

 that some progress has been made even within the short 

 space of seventy or eighty years. On the other hand, if 

 we compare the Abbe's account of Hindu life with what 

 we know from ancient Hindu literature (and our know- 

 ledge of ancient Hindu life has become infinitely more 

 accurate and comprehensive than it was when the Abbe 

 wrote), we are constantly startled by the tenacity with 

 which ancient customs survive in India. .And for this 

 very reason the Abbe's description is of inestimable value 

 for the student of ancient India. 



The most valuable parts of the book are those in which 

 the author relates what he has seen himself The Abbe 

 is a shrewd and patient observer, and his account is full 

 of the most interesting information about caste divisions, 

 religious ceremonies and superstitions, about witchcraft, 

 social customs, especially marriage rites (pp. 214-235), 

 burial and mourning customs (pp. 321 sq.; 354 sqq.; 

 488 sqq.), about the status of women (pp. 315 sqq., 339- 

 370, &c.), infanticide, customary law, snake worship, cattle 

 worship, &c. The Abbe has even a vague idea of what 

 is now called comparative mythology {cf. p. 550 sqq.). 



But what he relates, not from his own observation, but 

 from literary documents (written in Sanskrit or Tamil), 

 must be used with great caution, and should be compared 

 with more recent and authentic publications, such as the 

 works on Hindu law and ritual translated in the "Sacred 

 Books of the East." The books from which the Abbe 

 derives his information are mostly modern compilations 

 of a sectarian character. Thus, the " Nittia-Karma" 

 (rather " Nityakarma"), from which the author quotes 

 largely (p. 238 sqq.), is evidently a te.xt of the Vaishnava 

 sect, and many of its details would not be applicable to 

 members of other sects. 



It must also be borne in mind that the Abbe is a 

 Christian missionary, and his judgment is by no means 

 unbiased. His strictures on the Hindu character are 

 certainly most unfair, and his wholesale condemnation of 

 the Brahmans as a class cannot be accepted by any 

 serious student. Our acquaintance with the history of 

 civilisation in India enables us to gain a far more favour- 

 able view, both of the moral and intellectual development 

 of the Hindu nation. To quote only one example. What 

 the Abbe says (p. 380 sqq.) about the learning of the 



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