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Updated: May 9, 2025
After which the Bramins speak to the adverse kings, and generally succeed to make up matters without any battle or farther slaughter. The king sometimes rides on an elephant, but at other times is carried by his nairs or nobles, and when he goes out is always followed by a numerous band of minstrels, making a prodigious noise with drums, timbrels, tambourets, and other such instruments.
Had the manners and customs of the Asiatic women been subject to the same changes as they are in Europe, we might have expected the same changes in the sentiments and writings of their men. But, as this is not the case, we have reason to presume that the sentiments entertained by Solomon, by the apocryphal writers, and by the ancient Bramins, are the sentiments of this day.
Everywhere in shops and offices and fields it appeared to him that his neighbors were doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways: What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars, even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness.... I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.
These Gentoos, as they are called in that part of India, are the original natives of the country, who follow the idolatrous religion taught by their Bramins, practising human sacrifices and other rites too vile for description.
Colonel Davidson also mentions a race in Bundelcund called Kunjurs who were in the habit, as he was informed by the Bramins, of "catching lizards, scorpions, snakes, and foxes," which, if it is meant that they use them for food, is analogous to the omnivorous propensities of the gipsies.
His princes and nobles endeavoured to dissuade him from this resolution, but he continued firm to his purpose, and went into the torcul or religious state of seclusion, accompanied by some of his chief bramins or chaplains. Soon afterwards, his mother sent him word that great changes had taken place in Calicut since his seclusion.
It would not be amiss therefore, if you were to accompany the young gentlemen and ladies into my little appartments, that they may be eye witnesses to the mortifying consequences of an ill spent and vicious life, even to those who have not arrived at the age of manhood." The captain informs that this inscription is in the language of the ancient Bramins.
He commanded the Bramins to deliver every day to the troops discourses on the meritoriousness of slaughtering the mahummedans, in order to excite zeal for expelling them. He ordered them to describe the butchery of cows, the insults to sacred images, and destroying of temples, practised by the true believers.
When any one is in debt, and refuses to pay, the creditor goes to the judges, of whom there are said to be a hundred, and having made due proof of the debt, he receives a certain stick or branch of a tree, with authority to arrest his debtor, to whom, when he is able to find him, he uses these words: "I charge you by the heads of the Bramins, and by the head of the king, that you stir not from the spot on which you stand till you pay me what you owe."
The Bramins and Pythagoras propounded the same question, and if any poet has witnessed the transformation he doubtless found it in harmony with various experiences. We have all seen changes as considerable in wheat and caterpillars. He is the poet and shall draw us with love and terror, who sees through the flowing vest the firm nature, and can declare it.
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