form of ecclesiastical government or subordination. Various causes contributed to support this discipline, which, at first, seems to have been left to chance,—the superstitious reverence for the divine law, which must in time have been felt even by the class whose progenitors invented it; their strict system of early education; the penances enjoined by religion, perhaps enforced by the aid of the civil authority; the force of habit and public opinion after the rules had obtained the sanction of antiquity; but, above all, the vigilance of the class itself, excited by a knowledge of the necessity of discipline for the preservation of their power, and by that intense feeling of the common interest of the class which never, perhaps, was so deeply seated as in the heart of a Bramin.

In spite of these forces, however, the Bramin discipline has gradually declined. Their rules have been neglected in cases where the temptation was strong, or the risk of loss of influence not apparent, until the diminished sanctity of their character has weakened their power, and has thrown a considerable portion of it into the hands of men of other classes, who form the great body of the monastic orders.

CHAP.
V.

BOOK
I.

BOOK II.

CHANGES SINCE MENU, AND STATE OF THE
HINDÚS IN LATER TIMES.

HOUGH the Hindús have preserved their customs more entire than any other people with whom we are acquainted, and for a period exceeding that recorded of any other nation; yet it is not to be supposed that changes have not taken place in the lapse of twenty-five centuries.

I shall now attempt to point out those changes; and, although it may not always be possible to distinguish such of them as may be of Mahometan origin, I shall endeavour to confine my account to those features, whether in religion, government, or manners, which still characterise the Hindús.

I shall preserve the same order as in the Code, and shall commence with the present state of the classes.

CHAP. I.

CHANGES IN CAST.

I.

It is, perhaps, in the division and employment CHAP. of the classes that the greatest alterations have been made since Menu.

Changes in the four

classes.

Those of Cshetriya and Veisya, perhaps even of great Súdra, are alleged by the Bramins to be extinct; a decision which is by no means acquiesced in by those immediately concerned. The Rájpúts still loudly assert the purity of their descent from the Cshetriyas, and some of the industrious classes claim the same relation to the Veisyas. The Bramins, however, have been almost universally successful, so far as to exclude the other classes from access to the Védas, and to confine all learning, human and divine, to their own body.

The Bramins themselves, although they have preserved their own lineage undisputed, have, in a great measure, departed from the rules and practice of their predecessors. In some particulars they are more strict than formerly, being denied the use of animal food*, and restrained from inter

* Some casts of Bramins in Hindostan eat certain descriptions of flesh that has been offered in sacrifice. In such circumstances flesh is everywhere lawful food; but, in the Deckan, this sort of sacrifice is so rare that probably few Bramins ever witnessed it.

II.

The

BOOK marriages with the inferior classes; but in most respects their practice is greatly relaxed. whole of the fourfold division of their life, with all the restraints imposed on students, hermits, and abstracted devotees, is now laid aside as regards the community; though individuals, at their choice, may still adopt some one of the modes of life which formerly were to be gone through in turn by all.

Bramins now enter into service, and are to be found in all trades and professions. The portion of them supported by charity, according to the original system, is quite insignificant in proportion to the whole. It is common to see them as husbandmen, and, still more, as soldiers; and even of those trades which are expressly forbidden to them under severe penalties, they only scruple to exercise the most degraded, and in some places not even those.* In the south of India, however, their peculiar secular occupations are those connected with writing and public business. From the minister of state down to the village accountant, the greater number of situations of this sort are in their hands, as is all interpretation of the Hindú law, a large share of the ministry of religion, and many employments (such as farmers of the revenue, &c.), where a knowledge of writing and of business is required.

In the parts of Hindostan where the Mogul

I.

system was fully introduced, the use of the Persian CHAP. language has thrown public business into the hands of Mussulmans and Cáyets.* Even in the Nizam's territories in the Deckan the same cause has in some degree diminished the employment of the Bramins; but still they must be admitted to have everywhere a more avowed share in the government than in the time of Menu's Code, when one Bramin counsellor, together with the judges, made the whole of their portion in the direct enjoyment of power.

It might be expected that this worldly turn of their pursuits would deprive the Bramins of some part of their religious influence; and accordingly it is stated by a very high authority † that (in the provinces on the Ganges, at least) they are null as a hierarchy, and as a literary body few and little countenanced. Even in the direction of the consciences of families and of individuals they have there been supplanted by Gosáyens and other monastic orders. +

Yet even in Bengal they appear still to be the objects of veneration and of profuse liberality to the laity. The ministry of most temples, and the conduct of religious ceremonies, must still remain with them; and in some parts of India no dimi

* A cast of Súdras; see page 108. of this volume.

+ Professor Wilson, Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii. pp. 310,

311.

Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 311.

§ Ward's Hindoos, vol. i. p. 68-71.