CHAPTER VIII. FOOD-STATURE-DRESS-ORNAMENTS-AND THE prejudices existing in Europe respecting the Hindoos are innumerable. Those relating to caste, to religion, and to their general manners, we have endeavoured to remove. Our ordinary ideas of their food, of the simplicity of their habits, of their universal abstemiousness, sobriety, and superstitious reluctance to destroy animal life, next present themselves for our consideration. In the imagination of many writers, India has hitherto been a kind of Utopia, where, amid palmyra groves and bloodless altars, a race of gentle character, regarding the inferior animals as their brethren, in whose bodies the souls of their erring forefathers and deceased relations had been lodged in penance, lead a peaceful, harmless life. This view of the matter is supported, it must be owned, by authorities to which the public are accustomed to attribute considerable weight. The Court of Directors of the East India Company, who should know something of the character and habits of their subjects, inform the world that the great majority of the Hindoos "live all their days upon rice, and go only half-covered with a slight cotton cloth'." Montes 1 Quoted by Mr. Rickards in his useful and valuable work on India, vol. i. p. 48. The testimony of this writer is entitled to very great respect, not merely because a large portion of his life has been spent in India-for others have lived much longer in that country and yet returned full of prejudices-but because his views are distinguished for sound manly good sense. He quieu, from whom the Directors would appear to have borrowed their notions of the condition and wants of their own subjects, recurring, as usual, to his favourite ideas on the influence of climate, remarks, that that of the Hindoos "neither requires nor permits the use of almost any of our commodities. Accustomed to go almost naked, the country furnishes them with the scanty raiments they wear; and their religion, to which they are in absolute subjection, instils into them an aversion to that sort of food which we consume. They, therefore, need nothing from us but our metals, which are the signs of value, and for which they give in return the merchandize that their frugality and the nature of the country supply in abundance." These assertions are to a great extent supported by the testimony of a writer who has passed the better part of his life in Hindoostan, and who is by many regarded as the first existing authority on whatever relates to the customs and manners of the Hindoos. The Abbé Dubois, after delineating a magnificent picture of the knowledge and moral virtues of the ancient Brahmins, whose simple and innocent manners commanded the respect of both kings and people, observes, that, although the Brahmins of the present day have altogether degenerated from the virtues of their ancestors, they still preserve a great deal of their character and habits, exhibiting a predilection for retirement, and seclusion from the bustle of the world, selecting for their residence villages quite retired, into which they permit no has also laboured, and we trust not without effect, to remove the erroneous ideas which prevail respecting the character and castes of the Hindoos; and Sir Alexander Johnston, an unprejudiced and competent judge, bore testimony, in his examination before the House of Lords, to the correctness of his views. Report from the Lords, July 8th, 1830, p. 136. CHAPTER VIII. FOOD-STATURE-DRESS-ORNAMENTS-AND THE prejudices existing in Europe respecting the Hindoos are innumerable. Those relating to caste, to religion, and to their general manners, we have endeavoured to remove. Our ordinary ideas of their food, of the simplicity of their habits, of their universal abstemiousness, sobriety, and superstitious reluctance to destroy animal life, next present themselves for our consideration. In the imagination of many writers, India has hitherto been a kind of Utopia, where, amid palmyra groves and bloodless altars, a race of gentle character, regarding the inferior animals as their brethren, in whose bodies the souls of their erring forefathers and deceased relations had been lodged in penance, lead a peaceful, harmless life. This view of the matter is supported, it must be owned, by authorities to which the public are accustomed to attribute considerable weight. The Court of Directors of the East India Company, who should know something of the character and habits of their subjects, inform the world that the great majority of the Hindoos "live all their days upon rice, and go only half-covered with a slight cotton cloth1." Montes 1 Quoted by Mr. Rickards in his useful and valuable work on India, vol. i. p. 48. The testimony of this writer is entitled to very great respect, not merely because a large portion of his life has been spent in India-for others have lived much longer in that country and yet returned full of prejudices-but because his views are distinguished for sound manly good sense. He quieu, from whom the Directors would appear to have borrowed their notions of the condition and wants of their own subjects, recurring, as usual, to his favourite ideas on the influence of climate, remarks, that that of the Hindoos "neither requires nor permits the use of almost any of our commodities. Accustomed to go almost naked, the country furnishes them with the scanty raiments they wear; and their religion, to which they are in absolute subjection, instils into them an aversion to that sort of food which we consume. They, therefore, need nothing from us but our metals, which are the signs of value, and for which they give in return the merchandize that their frugality and the nature of the country supply in abundance." These assertions are to a great extent supported by the testimony of a writer who has passed the better part of his life in Hindoostan, and who is by many regarded as the first existing authority on whatever relates to the customs and manners of the Hindoos. The Abbé Dubois, after delineating a magnificent picture of the knowledge and moral virtues of the ancient Brahmins, whose simple and innocent manners commanded the respect of both kings and people, observes, that, although the Brahmins of the present day have altogether degenerated from the virtues of their ancestors, they still preserve a great deal of their character and habits, exhibiting a predilection for retirement, and seclusion from the bustle of the world, selecting for their residence villages quite retired, into which they permit no has also laboured, and we trust not without effect, to remove the erroneous ideas which prevail respecting the character and castes of the Hindoos; and Sir Alexander Johnston, an unprejudiced and competent judge, bore testimony, in his examination before the House of Lords, to the correctness of his views. Report from the Lords, July 8th, 1830, p. 136. We sitions, upon the testimony of a single traveller. Forbes, who had likewise passed the better half of his life in the Company's service, and therefore possessed ample means of acquiring a knowledge of the Hindoo people, remarks of the Brahmins that r their simple diet consists of milk, rice, fruit, and vegetables; they abstain from every thing that either had or could enjoy life, and use spices to flavour the rice, which is their principal food; it is also enriched with ghee, or clarified butter. cannot but admire the principle which dictates this humanity and self-denial: although did they through a microscope observe the animalculæ which cover the mango, and compose the bloom of the fig, or perceive the animated myriads that swarm on every vegetable they eat, they must on their present system be at a loss for subsistence. Some of the Brahmins carry their austerities to such a length, as never to eat any thing but the grain that has passed through the cow, which being afterwards separated from its accompaniments, is considered by them as the purest of all food. In such veneration is this animal held by the Hindoos." Elsewhere, speaking of the cow, he adds: "A subject of Travancore who is detected selling a bullock to an European is impaled alive! Religious prejudices operate powerfully in the preservation of this animal; but it is politic in a country where milk forms a great part of the food, and oxen are very useful in commerce and agriculture"." From all this it would appear to be established that the Hindoos, and more particularly the Brahmins, religiously abstain from the use of animal food. In fact, this was asserted so late as the year 1830 in the House of Lords. But the assertion must not be 8 Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. p. 70, 71, 377. 9 Report from the Lords, &c. July 8th, 1830, p. 44. |