ANCIENT INDIA. 



17 



the lower orders, feeling of self-respect becomes lost through 

 taking money for their daughters from proprietors of harems ; 

 they become the ready applauders of crime and the submis- 

 sive victims of every kind of injustice and oppression." 



11. Monastic Institutions.— There appears every reason to 

 believe that with the introduction of Buddhism monastic 

 establishments were instituted with a hygienic object. Thus 

 a large proportion of men who joined them were those who 

 had been surfeited with pleasure, whose health had doubtless 

 suffered thereby, and to whom a quiet regular manner of 

 existence was in reality the best restorative. A strange 

 mixture must those have formed who first took monastic vows ! 

 Besides those already mentioned, there were those without 

 hope or joy in the world, voluptuaries, free-booters, filthy 

 yogis, the healthy and the afilicted — women predominated. 

 In connection with temples of various kinds the remains 

 of which have of late years been investigated, the extent 

 and completeness of some of their sanitary works furnish 

 subject for wonder and admiration ; this more especially with 

 regard to reservoirs and aqueducts or conduits in "Western 

 India. 



12. Personal Hygiene. — As in the Mosaic law, so the injunc- 

 tions of the ancient Hindu sages with regard to matters of 

 personal hygiene received the impress of religious ceremonies. 

 Man was said to be like a coachman driving his own carriage ; 

 if this be well made and he continue to drive cautiously it 

 will go a long time (100 years), but if he drives it upon bad 

 roads the wheels will get injured and the carriage will soon 

 get worn out. As a principal item under the present 

 heading was personal cleanliness ; the eyes of gods, so it was 

 said, were too pure to behold ancleanness ; hence numerous cere- 

 monies were instituted, the object of which was to maintain 

 purity of the person and command over the bodily organs. 

 Among the observances which come within the scope of this 



a 



