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LETTER II.

MY DEAR SIR,

Benares, 30th September, 1782.

HAVING given you a cursory detail of

my journey from Calcutta to Benares, with the remarks that occured; I will now lay before you the refult of my enquiries and obfervations at this place. Should errors arife in the investigation of a subject, hitherto flightly difcuffed, and, from its extenfive variety, perplexed and abstrufe, I must entreat an indulgent eye; and though mistaken in my opinions, I prefume to hope for fome commendation, were it only for endeavouring to administer a rational pleasure.

THE city of Benares, for its wealth, coftly buildings, and the number of its inhabitants, is claffed in the first of those now remaining in the poffeffion of the Hindoos. To defcribe with a due degree of precifion the various temples dedicated at Benares, to the almost innumerable deities, and to explain the origin of their foundation with the neceffary arrangement, would require a knowledge far fuperior to mine in the mysterious subject of Hindoo Mythology. It is at this day enveloped in fuch deep

deep obfcurity, that even those pundits the most skilfully versed in the Sanfcrit,* are not able to render it moderately comprehenfible to the generality of people.

Bur as fome relation of a city fo famous in Hindoostan, and now fo well known in Europe for fupplying one of the grand fources of the religious worship of the Hindoos, and being the chief repofitory of the science yet existing among them, may not be unacceptable to you, together with a curfory investigation of the Mythology of Brimha; the task shall be attempted with attention to the object, and, I truft, with a ftrict adherence to truth.

Ar the distance of eight miles from the city of Benares, as it is approached on the river, from the eastward, the eye is attracted by the view of two lofty minarets, which were erected by Aurungzebe, on the foundation of an ancient Hindoo temple, dedicated to the Mhah Deve. The conftruction on this facred ruin of so towering a Mahometan pile, which from its elevated height, feems to look down with triumph and exultation on the fallen state of a city fo profoundly revered by the Hindoos, would appear to have been prompted to the mind of Arungzebe, by a bigotted and intemperate defire of infulting their religion. If fuch was his wifh, it hath been completely fulfilled. For the Hindoos

* The language in which the facred legends of the Hindoos have been preferved.

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confider this monument, as. the difgraceful record of a foreign yoke, proclaiming to every stranger, that their favorite city has been debafed, and the worship of their gods defiled. From the top of the minarets is seen the entire profpect of Benares, which occupies a space of about two miles and an half along the northern bank of the Ganges, and generally a mile in-land from the river. Many of the houses, which are remarkably high, some of them having fix and seven floors, are built of ftone, resembling that species found in the quarries of Portland,* and which abounds in this part of the country. But the streets where these lofty buildings stand, are so narrow as not to admit of two common carriages abreast. In addition to the pernicious effect which must proceed from a confined atmosphere, there is in the hot season, an intolerable stench arising from the many pieces of ftagnated water difpersed in different quarters of the town, whose waters and borders are appropriated to the necessary uses of the inhabitants. The filth also, which is indiscriminately thrown into the streets, and there left expofed, (for the Hindoos poffefs but a small portion of general cleanliness), add to the compound of ill smells, so offenfive to the European inhabitants of this city. The irregular and compreffed manner which has been invariably adopted in forming the streets of Benares, has destroyed the effects which fymmetry and arrange

* The Benares or Chunar-Ghur ftone, is clofer grained and deeper coloured, than that of Portland.

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ment would have otherwise bestowed on a city, intitled from its valuable buildings, to a preference of any capital which I have seen in India.

IN my research into the principles of the Hindoo religion, I received great aid from a converfant knowledge of the Marhatta language, and an acquaintance, though very trivial, with the Sanfcrit. The use of this last tongue, now chiefly confined to a particular fect of Bramins, who officiate in the character of priests, hath ever been made the channel of conveying to the Hindoos, the efsential tenets of their religion, with all the various forms of their worship. The Sanscrit is a sonorous language, abounding in pith and conciseness; and its periods flow with boldness, and terminate in a cadence peculiarly mufical. An extract of a floke, or stanza, which has been quoted by Mr. Halhed, is a striking testimony of the nervous compofition, and the laconic turn of the Sanfcrit. Being composed of only four lines, I will infert it, and endeavour to give the translation literally, and in verse.

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The Mother who hath loft her fame,
The Sire profufe and foe to fhame,
Are to their race a peft:

A Bride's foft joys oft' thorns implant,

And he who roams in Folly's haunt,
Destroys his Father's rest.

THE Hindoos believe in one God, without beginning and without end, on whom they bestow, defcriptive of his powers, a variety of epithets. But the most common appellation, and which conveys the fublimeft fenfe of his greatness, is, Sree Mun Narrain.* The Hindoos, in their fupplication to the Deity, addrefs him as endowed with the three attributes of omnipotence, omniprefence, and omniscience, which in the Sanfcrit are expreffed by the terms, Neerangin, Neerakar, and Neergoon. Though these

There is reason to believe, that in the more early periods of time, before the priests of the Hindoos had found it expedient, for the firmer establishment of their fway over the minds of the people, to raise a huge fuperftucture of emblematical worship, the temples erected to the Supreme Being were plain, and void of perfonification; the remains of one of these are now to be seen on the fummit of a hill, near the city of Kashmire; which, according to tradition, had been dedicated to the Creator of the world; in which the prayers of those who entered, were addressed to the Deity without fupplicating the interceffion of an intermediate agent, and where no image, or fymbol of Divine power, had a place. A gentleman of curious research on the coaft of Coromandel, informed me, that at Chilemberum, about 20 miles to the fouthward of Cudalore, he saw a religious Hindoo edifice, plain, and without any interior figure, which was devoted to the worthip of " the Invisible God," and was never approached but with tokens of profound awe and reverence.

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