SHAH ALLUM. 
75 
tree during three hundred and sixty-five revolutions 
of the earthy as he expressed it, or a whole year. He 
was suspended by a cord with a strong bamboo 
crossing the end; upon which he sat, while a strap 
confined him to the rope and thus prevented his fall- 
ing: this he described as the severest infliction to 
which he had ever submitted. I gave him a trifling 
gratuity with which he departed perfectly satisfied. 
The self-tortures inflicted by these fanatics are en- 
tirely voluntary ; they are, like many of the Roman 
Catholic penances, merely acts of supererogation and 
are not necessarily enjoined in the Hindoo ritual, as 
will appear from the Mahabbarat, a work esteemed 
almost of divine authority among the Hindoos.* 
“ Those men who perform severe mortifications of the 
flesh not authorised by the Sastra are possessed of 
hypocrisy and pride ; they are overwhelmed with 
lust, passion and tyrannic strength. Those fools tor- 
ment the spirit that is in the body and myself who 
am in them.” t 
Whilst we remained at Delhi, I could not help con- 
trasting the wretched condition of the reigning em- 
peror with that of its former sovereigns, who esta- 
blished the Mogul dominion upon the ruins of the 
Afghan or Patan dynasty and erected the standard 
of the crescent in almost every district of Hindostan. 
The late emperor, Shah Allum the Second, exhibited 
* See the Bhagvat Geeta, an episode of the Mahabbarat, 
translated by Sir Charles Wilkins from the original Sanscrit, 
lecture xvii. page 120. 
t This is spoken by Krishna, the chief avatar or incarnation 
of Vishnu. 
