edly eaten cow's flesh, he must perform the chandrayůnů vrůtů, and forfeit a bull and a cow. If a person eat the flesh of elephants, horses, camels, snakes or dogs, he must continue offering the prajapŭtyŭ atonement during twelve months. If a bramhŭn drink spirits, he must again undergo investiture with the poita. If a bramhún repeatedly eat onions, he must perform the chandrayuné vrůtů, and be again invested with the poita. If a person drink the milk of a cow, before the expiration of ten days after she has calved, he must fast two days. If any man drink the milk of sheep, or buffalos, he must fast two nights.

If a bramhun eat once with a person whose father was a shōōdru and his mother a bramhŭnēc, he must perform the chandrayŭnů vrŭtŭ, or make an offering of eight cows and their calves; or 22 kahunūs of kourees. If a bramhun eat the food, or semen, or urine, or ordure of a voishyŭ, he must perform the prajapŭtyŭ vrŭtă ; or perform the other things prescribed instead of this atonement. If any person be compelled to eat the boiled rice of a chandalu, he must fast twelve days; but this may be commuted by giving to a bramhin five cows with their calves, or 15 kahŭnŭs of kourees. If the rice be unboiled, the eater must fast three days. If a bramhun unknowingly drink water from the pitcher with which a chandalŭ draws water from his well, he must fast three nights, and the next day he must eat cow-dung, cow's urine, milk, clarified butter, and curds, mixed together.* If he do this designedly, the atonement must be doubled. If a bramhun drink water from, or

bathe in, a pool dug by a chandalň, he must eat cow-dung, cow's urine, milk, curds and clarified butter, mixed together. If a dog touch a bramhun while he has food in his hand, the latter must fast one day. If a chandală touch a bramhun before he have washed his hands and mouth after eating, the latter must fast three days, and repeat the gayůtree a thousand times.

If a chandalů, or mléchchů, break a bramhŭn's poita, the bramhun must offer the můha-santŭpănă atonement† twice.

* In proportion to the quantity of cow-dung, he must take twice as much urine, four times as much milk, eight times as much clarified butter, and of curds the same as clarified butter.

+ In this atonement the person must mix water steeped in koostŏ-grass, milk, curds, clarified butter, cow-dung and cow's urine together, and eat them, and the day after he must fast.

A person, having finished the ceremonies of an atonement, must lay a handful of grass before a cow; which, if she eat, it is a proof, that the sin of the offender is re moved. If she refuse it, the atonement must be offered again.*

If sins be not expiated by the necessary atonements, the offenders will descend into hell, from whence, after expiation, they will again arise, perhaps, to human birth, in consequence of some fragment of merit which they possessed in the preceding birth; but they will continue to wear the marks of the sin in which they died.† Such persons must offer the proper atonements, when these sins will be removed. If such a diseased person die without having offered the atonement, the funeral rites must be refused. Should any one burn his body, he must perform the chandrayănă

vrůtů.

* Some years ago, a rich Hindoo of Calcutta, who had committed many sins, thought it necessary to expiate them by an atonement. He invited learned natives from Nŭdēēya to ascertain the proper atonement, which he afterwards offered, but when he came to finish the ceremony by giving grass to the cow, she would not receive it. This excited the greatest anxiety, and several pundits were consulted, to ascertain whether the law for the cere mony had been properly laid down. They all affirmed that it had, but on Jugănnat'hů-türkü-punchanǎnů being interrogated, he declared, that the commutation, instead of three should have been five kahůnus of kourees for each cow. Upon this information the increased sum was paid; the cow then ate the grass, and the offender's sin was known to be expiated!! Several other anecdotes of this kind are in Circulation among the natives.-------There is a remarkable coincidence betwixt this story and that related of Apis, the ox worshipped by the Egyptians, of whom it is said, that he took food from those that came to consult him; but that he refused to eat from the hands of Germanicus Cæsar, who died not long after.

+ Munoo says, " A stealer of gold from a bramhån has whitlows on his nails; a drinker of spirits, black teeth; the slayer of a bramhŭn, a marasmus; the violater of his gooroo's bed, shall be a deformed wretch.---For sinful acts mostly corporeal, a man shall assume after death a vegetable or mineral form. For such acts mostly verbal, the form of a bird or a beast; for acts mostly mental, the lowest of human conditions.---The slayer of a bramhun must enter, according to the circumstances of his crime, the body of a dog, a boar, an ass, a camel, a bull, a goat, a sheep, a stag, a bird, a chandală, or a puccassa.----A priest, who has drank spirituous liquors, shall migrate into the form of a smaller or larger worm or insect, of a moth, of a fly feeding on ordute, or of some ravenous animal. ----He who steals the gold of a priest, shall pass a thousand times into the bodies of spiders, of snakes and camelions, of crocodiles and other aquatick monsters, or of mischievous blood-sucking demous.----He who violates the bed of his natural or spiritual father, migrates a hundred times into the forms of grasses, of shrubs with crowded stems, or of creeping and twining plants, of vultures and other carnivorous animals, and other beasts with sharp teeth, or of tigers, and other cruel brutes.----They who hurt any sentient beings, are born cats and other eaters of raw flesh; they, who taste what ought not to be tasted, maggots or small flies; they, who steal ordinary things, devourers of each other; they who embrace very low women, become restless ghosts.----If a man steal grain in the husk, he shall be born a rat; if a yellow mixed metal, a gander; if water, a plava, or diver; if Rr honey

If a person weep for the death of a self-murderer, or for a person killed by a cow, or by a bramhun, he or she must offer an atonement. If a woman repent after astending the funeral pile, or after resolving to renounce life in any way allowed by the shastră, he or she must perform the prajapŭtyŭ vrătů.

For expiating the sin of falsehood, a person must repeat the name of Vishnoo once.* To preserve the life of a bramhŭn, and to appease an angry wife, falsehood may be spoken innocently.

When there are many offenders in his kingdom, who are unable to offer the proper atonements, a king must perform the chandrayŭnů vrůtů; by which he will obtain the pardon of the sins of these subjects, and deliver his kingdom from the effects of sin remaining unexpiated.t

honey, a great stinging gnat; if milk, a crow; if expressed juice, a dog; if clarified butter, an ichneumon.If exquisite perfumes, a musk-rat; if potherbs, a peacock; if dressed grain in any of its various forms, a porcupine; if raw grain, a hedge hog.---If a deer or an elephant, he shall be born a wolf; if a horse, a tiger; if roots or fruit, an ape; if a woman, a bear; if water from a jar, the bird chataca; if carriages, a camel; if small cattle, a goat.---Women, who have committed similar thefts, incur a similar taint, and shall be paired with those male beasts in the form of their females.----As far as vital souls, addicted to sensuality, indulge themselves in forbidden pleasures, even to the same degree shall the acuteness of their senses be raised in their future bodies, that they may endure analogous pains.---They shall first have a sensation of agony in Tamisrů, or ütter darkness, and in other seats of horror; in Usipătrăvănă, or the sword-leaved forest, and in different places of binding fast and of rending.---Multifarious tortures await them: they shall be mangled by ravens and owls; shall swallow cakes boiling hot; shall walk over inflamed sands, and shall feel the pangs of being baked like the vessels of a potter.---They shall assume the forms of beasts continually miserable, and suffer alternate afflictions from extremities of cold and of heat, surrounded with terrors of various kinds.---More than once shall they lie in different wombs, and, after agonizing births, be condemned to severe captivity and to servile attendance on creatures like themselves.----Then shall follow separations from kindred and friends; forced residence with the wicked; painful gains and ruinous losses of wealth; friendships hardly acquired, and at length changed into enmities.--Old age without resource; discases attended with anguish; pangs of innumerable sorts, and, lastly, unconquerable death."

* On the other hand, it is a common saying among the Ilindoos, derived from some of their shastrŭs, that if a person utter a lie, his family, for fourteen generations, will successively fall into hell.

+ I have heard a native Christian, when preaching to his countrymen, mention this atonement, to illustrate the fact of God's having given his Son as an atonement for sins committed in his earthly kingdom.

CHAPTER V.

Doctrines of the Hindoo Religion.

The reader is referred to another part of this work for the speculative theories of the The author has begun these theories where they appear to be

Hindoo mythology.

interwoven with the popular superstition.

SECTION I,

Of the transmigration of souls.

AFTER death, the person is conveyed by the messengers of Yumŭ through the air to the place of judgment. After receiving his sentence, he wanders about the earth for twelve months, as an ærial being or ghost, and then takes a body suited to his future condition, whether he ascend to the gods, or suffer in a new body, or be hurled into some hell. This is the doctrine of several pooranos; others maintain, that immediately after death and judgment, the person suffers the pains of hell, and removes his sin by suffering; and then returns to the earth in some bodily form.

I add a few particulars respecting the transmigration of souls from the work called Kūrmŭ-vipakŭ : He who destroys a sacrifice will be punished in hell; he will afterwards be born again, and remain a fish for three years; and then ascend to human birth, but will be afflicted with a continual flux. He who kills an enemy subdued in war, will be cast into the hell Krükŭchů; after which he will become a bull, a deer, à tyger, a bitch, a fish, a man; in the last state he will die of the palsy. He who eats excellent food without giving any to others, will be punished in hell 30,000 years, and then be born a musk-rat; then a deer; then a man whose body emits an offensive smell, and who prefers bad to excellent food. The man who refuses to his father and mother the food they desire, will be punished in hell, and afterwards be born a crow; then a man. In the latter birth he will not relish any kind of food. The

stealer of a water-pan, will be born an alligator, and then a man of a monstrous size. The person who has lived with a woman of superior cast, will endure torments in hell during seventy-one yoogus of the gods; after this, in another hell, he will continue burning like a blade of grass for 100,000 years. He will next be born a worm, and after this ascend to human birth, but his body will be filled with disease. The stealer of rice will sink into hell; will afterwards be born and continue eighteen years a crow; then a heron for twelve years; then a diseased man. He who kills an animal, not designing it for sacrifice, will, in the form of a turtle, be punished in hell; then be born a bull, and then a man afflicted with an incurable distemper. He who kills an animal by holding its breath, or laughs at a poorană at the time of its recital, will, after enduring infernal torments, be born a snake, then a tyger, a cow, a white heron, a crow, and a man having an asthma. He who steals alms, will sink into hell, and afterwards be born a blind man, afflicted with a consumption. A beautiful woman who despises her husband, will suffer in hell a variety of torments; she will then be born a female, and, losing her husband very soon after marriage, will long suffer the miseries of widowhood.

The Ŭgnee pooranů says, that a person who loses human birth, passes through 8,000,000 births among the inferior creatures before he can again obtain human birth; of which he remains 2,100,000 births among the immoveable parts of creation, as stones, trees, &c. ; 900,000 among the watery tribes; 1,000,000 among insects, worms, &c.; 1,000,000 among the birds; and 3,000,000 among the beasts. In the ascending scale, if his works be suitable, he continues 400,000 births among the lower casts of men; during 100 births among bramhuns; and after this he may obtain absorption in Brůmhŭ.

Whether the doctrine of the metempsychosis originated with the politician or the philosopher, its influence on the state of society might form an interesting subject of enquiry. As far as I have been able to trace its influence, it appears to have the most unhappy effects upon the present race of Hindoos. All their sins are considered as necessary consequences of actions done in a former life, on which account they seldom charge their consciences with guilt for committing them. If a Hindoo be