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Among others who have described their rites is M. Sonnerat.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries travelers in the East gave accounts of this disease. Sonnerat, a French traveler, describes a pestilence having all the characteristics of Asiatic cholera which prevailed in the neighborhood of Pondicherry and the Coromandel coast from 1768 to 1769, and which, within a year, carried off 60,000 of those attacked.
The sacred images of the Tartars, Japanese, and Indians are almost all placed upon it, of which numerous instances occur in the publication of Kaempfer, Sonnerat, etc: The Brama of India is represented sitting upon a lotus throne, and the figures upon the Isaic table hold the stem of this plant, surmounted by the seed vessel in one hand, and the cross representing the male organs in the other: thus signifying the universal power, both active and passive, attributed to that goddess."
Sonnerat, however, complains that art, trade, and commerce had not recovered from these severe blows; though, he adds, fortunately the Chinese, in spite of prohibitory decrees, are returning through the corrupt connivance of the governor and officials.
L.K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, The Cochin Tribes and Castes, i. (Madras, 1909) pp. 201-203. As to the seclusion of menstruous women among the Hindoos, see also Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orientates et
The Indians have also a little jewel called taly, worn, in like manner, by females round their necks as a charm. It is presented to them on their wedding day by their husbands, who receive it from the hands of the Brahmins. Upon these jewels is engraved the representation, either of the Lingham or of the Pulleiar. The following anecdote connected with this custom is given by M. Sonnerat.
762. Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orientals et
"Among animals, they chiefly look upon the cow, ox, elephant, ape, eagle, swan, peacock, and serpent, as sacred; among plants, the lotus, the banana, and the mango-tree. "The Brahmins have an especial veneration for a stone, which is, according to Sonnerat, a fossil ammonite in slate.
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