MADRAS IN 1714. 



father's brothers as elder and younger fathers, and their 

 mother's sisters as elder and younger mothers ; whilst the 

 sister of their father, ' given ' in marriage to another family, 

 is simply a stranger to them. As a fact, the marriage of a 

 boy to the daughter of his mother's brother is supposed to be 

 held to be obligatory by most castes in South India. 



A very natural and satisfactory explanation of the absence 

 of written laws, indeed one so good that I cannot believe any 

 Indian ever evolved it out of his inner consciousness — Father 

 Bouchet surely must have invented it himself — is given in 

 the following passage: "Je leur ai quelquefois demande 

 pourquoi ils n'avoient pas ramasse ces coutumes dans des 

 Livres que Ton put consulter au besoin. Ils me repondoient 

 que, si ces coutumes estoient ecrites dans des Livres, il n'y 

 auroit que des Scavants qui pourroient les lire ; au lieu qu'etant 

 transmises de siecle en siecle par le canal de la tradition, 

 tout le monde en est parfaitement instruit. Cependant, 

 ajoutent-ils, il ne s'agit ici que des Loix generales et des 

 coutumes universales ; car, pour ce qui est des coutumes 

 particulieres, elles etoient ecrites sur des lames de cuivre qu'on 

 gardoit avec soin dans une grande tour a Canjibouram, Les 

 Mores ayant presque entierement ruine cette grande et 

 fameuse ville, on n'a pu decouvrir ce qu'estoient devenues 

 ces lames : on scait seulement qu'elles contenoient ce qui 

 regardoit en particulier chacune des Castes et l'ordre que les 

 Castes diff erentes devoient observer entr'elles." 



The idea of particular customs of castes being recorded on 

 copper-plates kept at Conjeveram at the first blush must 

 appear to be altogether mythic : but on consideration I am 

 not altogether indisposed to admit the possibility of it being 

 based partly on truth. Father Bouchet affirms that he 

 himself was aware of a certain brass title-deed of a church 

 having been fetched from Conjeveram, and of the fact that 

 the Brahmans resident there still kept up the tradition of I ; . 



