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When knowledge was locked up in Egyptian temples, or secreted by Indian Bramins for their own selfish traffic, it was indeed difficult to increase this imaginary circle of yours: but no sooner was it diffused among mankind, by the discovery of the alphabet, than, in a short period, it was succeeded by the wonders of Greece and Rome.
The reason of examining this matter was, that many of the bramins refused to embrace the Christian faith, because obliged to renounce these threads.
In a MS. account of Malabar, it is said that little more than 2300 years ago, the sea came up to the foot of the Sukien mountains, or the western gauts. The emerging of the country from the waters is fabulously related to have been occasioned by the piety or penitence of Puresram Rama, who prayed to Varauna, the God of the ocean, to give him a track of land to bestow on the Bramins.
Lac is westwards from the shrine of St Thomas, from whence the Bramins have their original, who are the honestest merchants in the world, and will not lie on any account. They faithfully keep any thing committed to their charge, or as brokers, they will sell or barter merchandize for others, with great fidelity.
Thus does solitude recruit the powers of the body as well as those of the mind. It is among hermits that are found the men who carry human existence to its extreme limits; such are the Bramins of India.
The Brahmans, erroneously called Bramins, do not eat meat. Literally, "she would have repeated the Kalima," or "Confession of Faith" of the followers of Muhammad, which is as follows: "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet." Some profane wags have parodied this creed into a Jewish one, viz.
On account of certain great fish which kill the divers, they hire bramins to charm them from doing harm, and these have the twentieth part of the pearls, the king getting the tenth part ; These oysters are only found from the beginning of April to the end of May in this place; but from the beginning of September to the middle of October, they are got in another place, about three hundred miles distant.
The rajah likewise informed Albuquerque, that from certain bramins who had come from Calicut he was informed of the intentions and preparations of the zamorin for reducing Cochin; and as he had little reliance on his own subjects, he requested some Portuguese troops might be left for his defence.
Such are the laws of the Shaster, so far as they regard all the superior casts, except the Bramins; but if any of the most inferior casts commit adultery with a woman of the casts greatly superior, he is not only to be dismembered, but tied to a hot iron plate, and burnt to death; whereas the highest casts may commit adultery with the very lowest, for the most trifling fine; and a Bramin, or priest, can only suffer by having the hair of his head cut off; and, like the clergy of Europe, while under the dominion of the Pope, he cannot be put to death for any crime whatever.
Above all, beware of their Bramins, a faithless, perjured race, given over to all kinds of vile, heathen practices, such as you have no notion of. Let a Bramin once raise his finger against you among these people and you are lost, for by means of their manifold sorceries they have reduced the whole Gentoo population to be their slaves."
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