GHAZIPORE. 
57 
pie or palace. At all events there are no professors 
of the black art now existing in the neighbourhood, 
though, in other parts of India, those who practise 
it are by no means rare. I had a servant of great 
intelligence and insatiable curiosity, a native of Gha- 
zipore, from whom I learnt many strange things 
concerning the Hindoos of the place. Among other 
things he described to me a sect of Brahmins who are 
not supposed to be addicted to the practice of sorcery, 
although very secret in their religious ceremonies, 
and jealous of certain occult peculiarities of their 
sect. Rejecting the belief of metempsychosis, which 
is a very material object of the Hindoo faith, they had 
adopted doctrines so singularly parallel with those of 
Pythagoras in all other respects as to leave little doubt 
as to their real origin. In the first place they teach 
that the entire universe was created b}^ a Supreme 
Deity ; that the souls of men were, before this life, pre- 
existent in the divine being,* into which they will 
ultimately be again merged, after having been purified 
from all evil and earthly propensities. 
These Hindoos are instructed by their priests, not 
only in matters of religion, and the peculiar prejudices 
and ceremonies of their order, but, also, in the ele- 
ments of science and literature. Upon all their fol- 
* This idea is most sublimely expressed by these Brahmins, in 
likening the emanations from the divine spirit to the light and heat 
given forth by the sun, whose essence is thereby neither diminished 
nor dispersed. 
