182 INDIAN POVERTY 



feathers. The residue of his worldly goods consists 

 of a few cooking pots and, it must be admitted, a 

 few ornaments on his wife. 



But a sparrow is usually well fed and quite happy. 

 It has no property simply because it wants none. 

 If it stored honey like the busy bee, or nuts like 

 the thrifty squirrel, it would be a prey to constant 

 anxiety and stand in hourly danger of being plun- 

 dered of its possessions, and perhaps killed for the 

 sake of them. Therefore to speak of a Hindu's 

 poverty as if it certainly implied want and un- 

 happiness is mere misrepresentation born of ignor- 

 ance. In all ages there have been men so enamoured 

 of the possessionless life that they have abandoned 

 their worldly goods and formed brotherhoods pledged 

 to lifelong poverty. The majority of religious 

 beggars in India belong to brotherhoods of this kind, 

 and are the sturdiest and best-fed men to be seen 

 in the country, especially in time of famine. 



But the Hindu peasant is not a begging friar, and 

 may be supposed to have some share of the love 

 of money which is common to humanity ; so it is 

 worth while to inquire why he is normally so very 

 poor. There are two reasons, both of which are 

 so obvious and have so often been pointed out by 

 those who have known him best, that there is little 

 excuse for overlooking them. The first of them is 

 thus stated in Tennant's Indian Recreations, written 

 in 1797, before British rule had affected the people 

 of India much in one direction or another. " In- 



