6a HINDOOSTAN. 



If the Brahmins are masters of any uncommon art or science, they 

 frequently turn it to the purposes of profit from their ignorant vota- 

 ries. Mr. Scarfton says, that they know how to calculate eclipses ; 

 and that judicial astrology is so prevalent among them, that half .he 

 year is taken up with unlucky days ; the head astrologer being always 

 consulted in their councils. The Mahommedans likewise encourage 

 those superstitions, and look upon all the fruits of the Gcntoo indus- 

 try as belonging to themselves. Though the Gentoos are entirely 

 passive, under all their oppressions, and, by their state of existence, 

 the practice of their religion, and the scantiness of their food, have 

 nothing of that refinement in their nature that animates the rest 

 of mankind ; yet they are susceptible of avarice, and sometimes bury 

 their money, and, rather than discover it, put themselves to death by- 

 poison or otherwise. This practice, which it seems is not uncommon, 

 accounts for the vast scarcity of silver that, till of late, prevailed in 

 Hindoostan. 



The reasons above mentioned account likewise for their being less 

 under the influence of their passions than the inhabitants of other 

 countries. The perpetual use of rice, their chief food, gives them 

 but little nourishment ; and their marrying early, the males before 

 fourteen, and, their women at ten or eleven years of age, keeps them 

 low and feeble in their persons. A man is in the decline of life at 

 thirty, and the beauty of their women is on the decay at eighteen : at 

 twenty-five they have all the marks of old age. We are, therefore, 

 not to wonder at their being soon strangers to all personal exertion 

 and vigour of mind : and it is with them a frequent saying, that it is 

 better to sit than to walk, to lie down than to sit, to sleep than to 

 wake, and death is the best of all. 



Learning.. ..The Brahmins, who are the tribe of the priesthood, 

 descend from those Brachmans who are mentioned to us with so 

 much reverence by antiquity; and although much inferior, either as 

 philosophers or men of learning, to the reputation of their ancestors^ 

 as priests, their religious doctrines are still implicitly followed by the 

 whole nation; and as preceptors, they are the source of all the know- 

 ledge which exists in Hindoostan. But the utmost stretch of their 

 mathematical knowledge seems to be the calculation of eclipses. 

 They have a good idea of logic ; but it does not appear that they have 

 any treatises on rhetoric ; their ideas of music, if we may judge from 

 their practice, are barbarous ; and in medicine, they derive no assis- 

 tance from the knowledge of anatomy, since dissections are repug- 

 nant to their religion. 



The poetry of the Asiatics is too turged, and full of conceits, and 

 the diction of their historians very diffuse, and verbose ; but though 

 the manner of eastern compositions differs from the correct taste of 

 Europe, there are many things in the writings of Asiatic authors, 

 worthy the attention of literary men. Mr. Bow observes, that in the 

 Sanscrit or learned language of the Brahmins, which is the grand 

 repository of the religion, philosophy, and history of the Hindoos, 

 there are in particular many u'indred volumes in prose which treat 

 of the ancient Indians and their history. The same writer also re- 

 marks, that the Sanscrit records contain accounts of the affairs of the 

 Western Asia, very different from what any tribe of the Arabians 

 have transmitted to posterity; and that it is more than probable, that, 

 upon examination, the former will appear to bear the marks of more 



