Every devil or infernal spirit has alfo his wife. Like the ancient Jews, the Brahmins ascribe evrry disease to a devil. The gout, fays Faria, they attribute to fhe-devils in the fhape of fwine. A fpecies of the antient manicheism of Perfia is mixed with their religion, and the Destroyer, or the Frightful Demon, as already obferved, is worshipped by the authority of their facred books. The first thing they meet in the morning, be it ass, hog, or dog, they worship during the course of the day. Scarcely more ftupid were the Pelufians: Crepitus ventris inflati, says Hierome, Pelufiaca religio eft. 66 The horrid facrifice of the widows burnt along with the corpfe of the deceased husband, is peculiar to India. The opinion that it was inftituted to prevent them from poisoning their husbands, muft be falfe, for the facrifice muft be voluntary. "The Brah"mins," fays Mr. H." take unwearied pains to encourage, 66 promote, and confirm in the minds of the Gentoo wives, this fpirit of burning." And the origin of it, according to our author, is thus. At the demife of Bramah's mortal part, his wives (fo it feems our angel kept a feraglio) inconfolable for his lofs offered themselves voluntary victims on his funeral pile. All the good wives of the Rajahs and the Gentoos, unwilling to be thought deficient in affection, followed the heroic example, and the Brahmins gave it the ftamp of religion, and pronounced "that the delinquent fpirits of these heroines, immediately ceafed from "their tranfmigrations, and entered the firft Boboon of purification." The Brahmins, fays our author, ftrained fome obfcure paffages of Brahma's Shaftah to countenance this their declared sense; in ftituted tituted the ceremonials that were to accompany the facrifice, and foifted it into the Chatah and Aughtorrah Bhades. Mr. Dow gives a very different account of this facrifice. His words are thefe, "The extraordinary custom of the women "burning themselves with their deceased husbands, has, for the "most part, fallen into defuetude in India; nor was it ever "reckoned a religious duty, as has been very erroneously fup"posed in the Weft." Whence then this late alteration? The beginning of an affimilation to European ideas can only account for it. For furely it did not proceed from any text of their sacred scriptures. Nay, a text of the facred Shafter, as cited by Mr. D. plainly encourages the horrid practice, "The woman "who dies with her husband, fhall enjoy life eternal with him in "heaven." Feeble minds, fays he, mifinterpreted this into a precept. To thofe, however, who are unfkilled in gloffing cafuiftry, no admonition can be more obvious. And nothing can be more evident than that this facrifice is a prieftly inftitution; the priests and their scriptures encourage, direct, and attend it: it is therefore a religious ceremony. Yet amid all this grofs fuperftition it cannot be fuppofed but that fome virtues, however obliquely, are occafionally taught. They * A very pretty allegory from Faria's account of the Brahmin legends will be here in place. "Darmaputrem being favoured with a view of hell, faw a man encompaffed with immenfe treasure, yet miferably perishing with hunger. He enquired the reafon, and was answered, That upon earth the fufferer had enjoyed thefe treasures, but had never given any alms; only that They particularly inculcate the comprehenfive virtue of hu manity, which is enforced by the opinion, that Divine Beings often assume the habit of mendicants, in order to distinguish the charitable from the inhuman. The Malabrians have feveral traditions of the virtuous on these happy trials being tranflated into heaven; the beft defigned incitement to virtue, perhaps, which their religion contains. Befides the Brahmins, the principal fect of that vast region called India, there are several others, who are divided and fubdivided, according to innumerable variations, in every province. In Cambaya, the Banians, a fect who strictly abstain from all animal food, are numerous. From their religion and philosophy, these pilots of human manners, we now proceed to the peculiar characteristics of the Gentoos. As the Gentoo tribes never intermarry, India may properly be faid to contain four different nations. They will neither eat together, nor drink out of the fame veffel. The Brahmins are allowed to eat nothing but what is cooked by themselves: If they trespass in thefe, or in many other fimilar points, they are held as polluted, rejected from their tribe, and are obliged to herd with a defpifed crew, called the Hallachores, who are the lowest of the community, the rabble of India. This that one time, by pointing with his finger, he had directed a poor man to the house where the rice given away in charity was kept. Darmaputrem bade him put the finger with which he pointed into his mouth. The sufferer did fo, and immediately was refreshed by the tafte of the most excellent viands. Darmaputrem on his return to the earth gave great alms, and afterward for his charity was received into Paradife. This prohibition of intermarriage gives us a very mean idea of Indian policy. The bent of genius and affection, as Camoëns obferves, are thus barbaroufly facrificed. If a nobleman, fays our poet, should touch or be touched by one of another tribe, A thoufand rites, and washings o'er and o'er Nothing, says Oforius, but the death of the unhappy commoner can wipe off the pollution. Yet we are told by the fame author, that Indian nobility (and in Europe it is too much the fame) cannot be forfeited, or even tarnished, by the basest and greatest of crimes; nor can one of mean birth become great or noble by the moft illuftrious actions. But what above all may be called the characteristic of the Indian, is his total infenfibility to the paffion of Love; Loft to the heart-ties, to his neighbour's arms Sentiment, or the leaft delicacy of affection, have no share in the intercourfe of the fexes in India. This groffnefs of their ideas is indifputably proved by the very spirit of their laws, which suppose that female chastity cannot exist. Conjugal fidelity is neither enjoined, nor hoped for; and the right of fucceffion by law devolves to the fifter's children, it being esteemed impoffible VOL. II. e may impoffible for any man to know which is his own fon; whereas the affinity of the female line is by nature certain. To fome perhaps the feeblenefs of the conftitutions of the Gentoos may account for this wretched apathy; and to feveral circumstances their feebleness be attributed. The men marry before fourteen and the women at about ten or eleven. Rice, their principal food, affords but little nourishment, and they are extremely averse to any manly exercife. It is better to fit than to walk, they fay, to lie down than to fit, to fleep than to wake, and death is better than all. The unparalleled pufillanimity with which they have long fubmitted to the oppreffions of a few Arabs, their Mohammedan masters, likewife fhews their deadness to every manly refentment: 100 millions enflaved by 10 millions, (the number, according to Mr. Orme, of the Gentoos and their Mohammedan masters) is a deep difgrace to human nature. Yet notwithstanding all this dormancy of the nobler paffions, though incapable of love they prove the pofition, (for which phyficians can eafily account,) that debility and the very fever of the vileft letchery go hand in hand*. Many of the Brahmins * Montefquieu, in enumerating his reasons why Christianity will never prevail in the Eaft, advances, as one, the prohibition of polygamy, which he mentions as the appointment of nature, and neceffary in thefe climates. Triftram Shandy tells us, that his father was a most excellent fystembuilder, was fure to make his theory look well, though no man ever crucified the truth at fuch an unmerciful rate. With all due deference to the great genius of Montefquieu, his philofophy here is exactly contrary to experience. In every country the births of males and females are nearly proportionated to cach other. If in any country polygamy is the appointment of nature, the more athletic nations of Europe have the best claim. But the warlike independent spirit of the northern tribes, who viewed their princes |