AND RUINS AT MAVALIPURAM. 169 



44 fort of worfhip, the precepts of which we are quite 

 44 unacquainted with. The God Baouth, of whom at 

 " prefent they know no more in India than the name, 

 44 was the object of this worfhip ; but it is now totally 

 44 abolifhed; except that there may poffibly yet be found 

 44 fome families of Indians who have remained faithful 

 ' 4 to Baouth, and do acknowledge the religion of 

 (i the Bramins, and who are on that account feparated 

 44 from, and defpifed by, the other cafts. 



44 I have not, indeed, heard that there are any fuch 

 44 families in the neighbourhood of Pondicherry ; but 

 44 there is a circumftance well worthy of remark, 

 44 which none of the travellers that have treated of the 

 44 Coaft of Choromandel and Pondicherry feem to have 

 44 noticed. It is this, that at a fhort league's diftance 

 44 to the fouth of this town, in the plain of Virapatnam, 

 44 and pretty near the river, we find a ftatue of granite 

 44 very hard and beautiful. This ftatue, which is from 

 44 three feet to three and a half in height, is funk in the 

 " fandtothewaift, and weighs doubilefs many thoufand 

 44 weight : it is, as it were, abandoned in the midit of 

 44 this extenfive plain. I cannot give a better idea of 

 44 it, than by faying, that it exactly agrees with and re- 

 ct fembles the Sommonacodomof theSiamefe; its head 

 44 is of the fame form, it has the fame features, its arms 

 44 are in the fame attitude, and its ears are exactly fimilar. 

 44 The form of this divinity, which has certainly been 

 44 made in the country, and which in no refpectrefembles 

 44 the prefent idols of the Gentoos, (truck me as I paffed 

 44 this plain. I made various inquiries concerning this 

 44 fingular figure, and the Tamulians, one and all, af- 

 44 fured me that this was the God Baouth, who was now 

 44 no longer regarded, for that his worfhip and his fefti- 

 44 vals had been abolifhed ever fince the Bramins had 

 4C made themfelves matters of the people's faith.' 1 * 



Vol. I. O M. Gentil 



* " Ce systeme est aussi celui des Brames de nos jours ; il fait 

 " la Base de la religion qu'ils ont apportee dans le sud la pres- 

 " qu'isle de l'lndostan, la Madure, le Taniaour, et le Maissour. 



