Vietnam or Thailand? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week!
Want to type faster? Practice with a typing test or have fun with typing games!
Updated: October 3, 2026
Again and again bread cast on the waters has been found after many days. The greed of the Pundas and Gungaputrs of Benares is notorious. Many a poor pilgrim has suffered from their exactions, and we may suppose that reverence for the sacred city has received a shock under such treatment similar to that which Luther experienced on his visit to Rome.
These are Gungaputrs sons of the Ganges a class of Brahmans, whose duty it is to take care of the clothes of the people as they bathe, to put a mark on their forehead to show they have bathed, and who receive a small offering from them as they retire. All bring with them their bathing-dress, and they most deftly take off and put on their scanty clothing.
The Pundits, the guardians and expositors of their sacred books; the Pundas who minister in the temples; the Gungaputrs who serve at the river side; the Purohits, the family priests; the Gurus, the father confessors and guides of the people; and the Jyotishees, the astrologers, with their families and relations, would be stripped of their honour and gain, of their very means of living, if Hinduism was at once abandoned.