1836,] Bombay Asiatic Society, 1836. 309 



are found resident in tne jungles, and in mountainous districts, and who 

 are probably the remains of the Aborigines of the country, are particu- 

 larly worthy of investigation. Attention to them is called for, by all 

 who desire to advance their civilization, and to elevate them from their 

 present degradation. Description must precede any considerable efforts 

 made for their improvement. Perhaps some similarities may be dis- 

 covered in their language, religion, and customs, which may lead to 

 important conjectures as to the ancient history of India. Of many of 

 them it has been already ascertained, that they have had no connexion 

 with Brahmanism, except in so far as they may have felt its unhallowed 

 influence in excluding them from the common privileges of humanity, 

 and banishing them to the wilds, or dooming them to ignorance, and 

 unwilling and unrewarded servitude*. 



Though on the Hindu religion and literature in general, our publica- 

 tions contain rather scanty observations, some of our members have added 

 greatly to the information communicated by the distinguished literati of 

 the other side of India, and of Europe. Our Society was the first body 

 to submit to the public a proposal for a union for the promotion of trans- 

 lations from the Sanskrita. Its claim to this honour, it is right again to 

 re-assert. It will be established by a reference to a letter addressed to 

 the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in 1806, by Sir James Mackintosh, and 

 published as an appendix to the first volume of our Transactionst. Such 

 translations were practically encouraged by the Society itself, in the case 

 of the Lilawati, a treatise on Arithmetic and Geometry by Bhaskara Achar- 

 ya, and the Prabodh Chandrodaya, a curious allegorical play illustrative 

 of the opinions of the Vedantikas, and both published by the late Dr. 

 John Taylor. The first general account, of any considerable size, of 

 the Hindu Pantheon, is by one of our members, Major Edward Moor. 

 In Colonel Kennedy's Ancient and Hindu Mythology, we have a work, 

 than which none more important, if we refer either to original quotations 

 from the Shdstras, or learned disquisitions, has yet appeared. I make this 

 remark with the more freedom, that circumstances called me, on the pub- 

 lication of the work, to animadvert on the estimate which it forms of" the 

 moral character of Brahmanism in a manner which gave the learned author 

 offence. In the Essay on the Vedanta by the same gentleman, we have 

 the best account of that very curious system of speculation, considered in 

 a philosophical point of view, which has yet appeared, — an account which 

 proves it to be a system of spiritual pantheism, and as such entirely dif- 

 ferent, except in occasional expression, from that of the Mystics of 

 Europe, to which it had been maintained to be similar by Sir Wtlliam 

 Jones, and other writers^. It was in this place that the first defence, by 

 a Native, of both the exoteric and esoteric systems of Hinduism, in reply 

 to those who seek to propagate the principles of our Holy Faith, appeared ; 

 and it was here that a rejoinder, embracing briefly the consideration of 



* See particularly Mr. Baber's Answers to the Queries of a Committee of the 

 House of Lords on the state of Slavery in the South West of India, 

 t Page 310. 



X In the works of the Mystics, and of the pious writers, to whom Sir William 

 Jones alludes in the course of his reasonings, there are figures of speech, and other 

 expressions, very similar to those used by the Vedantists. Others, still more strik- 

 ingly similar, could easily be produced. I give one from the Poems of Richard 

 Baxter. 



11 But O ! how wisely hast thou made the twist I 



To love thee and myself do well consist. 



Love is the closure of connaturals ; 



The soul's return to its originals : 



As every brook is toward the ocean bent : 



And all things to their proper element : 



And as the inclination of the sight, 



How small soever is unto the light : 



