in the Courts of the Madras Presidency. 9 



Having satisfied themselves, after a natural hesitation, that 

 the whole thing was real and meant in earnest, they went 

 into it with the seriousness of true believers. Accordingly, 

 we find the Madras Sadr Court, with inflexible gravity, 

 awarding to a claimant the precise amount of betel, and the 

 special form of garland to which he was entitled on religious 

 festivals. We find them laying down as undoubted law, 

 " that institution of public worship by one of two rivaj 

 sects, in innovation of prevailing usage, should not be per- 

 mitted ;" and anxiously enquiring of their Pandits whether 

 the same rule did not apply to private as well as to public 

 worship. So far did their complaisance extend, that, not 

 contented with forbidding particular forms of worship, they 

 proceeded to regulate the ritual according to which each 

 form should be conducted. In 1841 they decided upon the 

 admissibility of certain mantrams, or holy verses, and in 

 1858 they solemnly forbade the blasts of a tiruchunam 

 at some special crisis of pagoda performance ; adopting the 

 decision of the lower court, " that the blowing of a tiruclm- 

 nam or trumpet, or the use of any musical instrument at 

 the time of crowning the defendants with the Sadagopam, 

 whether at the commencement or conclusion of their minis- 

 tration, was an unwarrantable innovation on the established 

 and ordinary ritual, of which plaintiffs had a right to com- 

 plain, and by which they would be aggrieved and endamag- 

 ed in their feelings and honour." 



In all these cases, the Native Judges of the original Courts 

 had, as might have been expected, exercised theilr jurisdic- 

 tion unhesitatingly, while the Judges of the Civil Courts fre- 

 quently struggled, either to avoid trying such cases at all, or 

 to decide them according to European notions of justice and 

 liberty. In this effort, however, they were until 1858 in- 

 variably baffled by the older and more Indianised occupants 



of the Sadr Bench. Those Judges regarded the Natives, as 



2 



