142 
A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH 
CHAPTER 
III. 
June 8. 
Saline earth. 
Sri Vaishna 
vam Brah- 
mans. 
best fields for this cultivation are composed of a sandy red soil. 
The low black clays are reserved entirely for rice. 
In this part of the country much of the soil is impregnated with 
saline matter, and called Soulu munnu. Of this there are two kinds : 
one chiefly impregnated with carbonate of soda, the other with the 
muriates of soda and magnesia. The latter would produce nothing : 
the former is cultivated, although it produces poor crops. The 
manure used for it is formed of the branches of the Emphorbium 
Tirucalli, which in this part of the country are never used on any 
other kind of rice-ground. In the country near Madras they are, 
for all soils, the most esteemed manure. 
Having procured a Sri Vaishnavam Brahman, esteemed a man of 
great learning, I examined him concerning the peculiarities of his 
sect ; but with very little satisfaction. However well these men 
may be instructed in certain dogmas, and the art of disputation, 
they are not qualified to give any satisfactory information con- 
cerning the origin of their order, or the means by which it came 
to prevail over others ; for, of the sectaries which differ from them- 
selves, such as those of Budha, Jaina, or Siva, they profess an almost 
total ignorance, and sovereign contempt. 
This man allows, that in the existing Vedas no mention is made 
of any division of the Brahmans into sects ; but he contends, that 
from the very beginning of the universe all the three sects of 
Smartal, Aayngar, and Madual , existed ; and he says, that they are 
mentioned in the eighteen Purdnas, which, next to the Vedas, are 
by the Brahmans esteemed as most holy. Although the Brahmans 
have existed from the beginning of time, yet in the ninth century 
of the era of Sdlivdhana , or tenth century of Christianity, twenty- 
one heretical sects had arisen in Bharat a-khanda, and had turned 
from the true worship almost the whole of its inhabitants. Each of 
these sects had a Bhasha, or book explaining their doctrine, 
founded partly on dogmas derived from the Vedas, and explained in 
the last six of the eighteen Purdnas, and partly on tenets contrary 
