The persons who have burnt the dead become unclean, and cannot return to their houses till they have bathed. After shaving, bathing, and putting on new garments, one of which is twisted like a rope, or a poita, the heir at law goes home. Yet a son cannot eat or drink on the day of his father's funeral. Before they who have burnt the dead go into the house, they touch some fire, prepared and placed at the door for the purpose: they put their hand on the fire, take the bitter leaf of the lime tree, chew it, and then spit it out again. Near relations put on new clothes, take off their necklaces, refrain from combing their hair, anointing their bodies, carrying an umbrella, riding in a palanqueen, or wearing shoes or a turban. These and other actions are intended as signs of an unclean state, as well as of a time of sorrow.

Many of the poor merely burn the body, without any ceremony. Those who cannot afford to buy wood, perfumes, &c. throw the body into the river, or fasten it in the earth with a stake and a cord by the side of the river, or tie a pan filled with water to the body, and sink it. The bodies of those who leave no heirs, but have left property, are burnt, but no one can put fire to the mouth, or perform any other funeral ceremony, except that of merely burning the body. It is considered as a great misfortune, to have no male or female* relation, to perform the last offices for the dead. The practice of throwing dead bodies into the river, is, in many places, a dreadful nuisance, as, in case a body should float to the side of the river, and remain there, it will continue to infect the whole neighbourhood, till the vultures, dogs, jackals, and other animals, have devoured it. The throwing of dead bodies, and other filth, into the river, makes the Ganges, in the neighbourhood of large towns, resemble a common sewer. Still, however, the natives drink it with the greatest appetite, bathe in it every day, to cleanse both their bodies and souls, and carry it to an immense distance, as the greatest imaginable treasure.

Sometimes, through the want of wood, the body is not quite burnt, when the remains are collected, and thrown into the river.

If a person dies under an evil star, a ceremony is performed to remove the evil

A wife or a daughter may perform the ceremonies for the dead, but they are not considered as so meritorious as when performed by a son.

consequences of this in regard to his future happiness. In this ceremony, a burntsacrifice with clarified butter is offered, and the worship of Vishnoo, Yumů, Ŭgnee, Shivi, Sooryu, Vayoo, and other gods, is performed.

Among some classes of voishnůvŭs, when a person is carried to the river side, on the approach of death, he is preceded by songs and music. I have heard of a Hindoo at Calcutta who, in the last stages of his illness, was preceded, in this journey to the river, by a hundred large drums, and a great number of friends, singing, "Chéla goes, conquering death."

The yogees, a class of Hindoo weavers, bury their dead, and sometimes they bury their widows alive. The mendicant voishnuvus (voiragees) also, bury their dead by the side of the Ganges, or near the toolusee plant, or in a house, placing some salt in the grave, and sometimes planting the tool see upon it. They bury the corpse in a sitting posture; place toolisée leaves in the nostrils, ears, eyes, mouth, &c.; write the name of Krishnu on the arms, neck, breast, forehead, and other parts of the body; encircle the neck with a tools bead roll, and a garland of flowers, and fill up the grave, amidst songs, and the sounds of music.

The burning of the body, and the ceremonies accompanying it, are considered as necessary to a person's happiness after death. The regular Hindoos do not regard the burying of the dead, even by the side of the Ganges, as equally meritorious with burning the body; which is supposed to be purified by passing through the fire.

*For an account of this practice, see vol. ii, page 309.
Ꮓ

SECTION X.

Remarks on the tendency of the Hindoo Institutions, and on the moral state of the natives.

THE unvarying customs of the Hindoos, in proportion to their antiquity, must necessarily posse-s a powerful influence upon the morals and general condition of this people. Without entering at large into their nature, the author wishes to con

clude this chapter with a few observations.

Admitting that

The early marriages of the Hindoos claim our first attention. many well-founded objections may be made to deferring this union too long, still nature seems to require, that the parties should be old enough to nourish, educate, and govern their offspring, which can hardly be the case, where marriages are contracted at the age of twelve or fourteen. To these premature marriages we are undoubtedly to attribute the general appearance of old age in the persons of Hindoo women before they have reached even the meridian of life. Another more serious objection to this custom, arises from the number of persons left in a widowed state before the consummation of the marriage; for, after the performance of the ceremony, the girl, being in many cases too young, remains with her father for one or two years, and there perhaps becomes a widow,—and as widows are prohibited from marriage, she is almost invariably drawn into forbidden paths. I am not prepared to speak to the probable number of these infant widows, but am assured, by unsuspected, because unsuspecting, witnesses, that they are very numerous.

To this unfeeling custom is to be added another, still more barbarous, and which falls upon the whole body of females, that of denying them even the least portion of education; the most direful calamities are denounced against the woman who shall dare to aspire to the dangerous pre-eminence of being able to read and write. Not a single female seminary exists among the Hindoos; and possibly not twenty females, blest with the common rudiments of even Hindoo learning, are to be found among as many millions. How greatly must a nation suffer from this barbarous system, which dooms one half of the immortal beings it contains to a state of brutal ignorance!

This deficiency in the education and information of females not only prevents their becoming agreeable companions to their husbands, but renders them incapable of forming the minds of their children, and of giving them that instruction which lays the foundation of future excellence; by which tender offices, European mothers become greater benefactors to the age in which they live, than all the learned men with which a country can be blessed.

To this we might add, that from the education of the other sex are excluded even the simplest elements of geography, astronomy, natural history, and every portion of history. It might be possible, however, by securing the co-operation and influence of learned natives, to prevail upon the masters of native schools to introduce the elementary principles of science, as additions to their present plan of education, were proper books prepared, and promises held out of rewards to such as should send to the Magistrate of the district, proofs of proficiency in these parts of elementary knowledge.

The exclusion of females from every public and social circle, is another lamentable blemish in the civil institutions of the Hindoos; for who will deny, that to the company of the fair sex, we are to attribute very much of the politeness and urbanity which is found in the manners of modern times amongst European nations?

But the Hindoos not only deny to their females the inestimable benefits of education; even their legislators direct, that they shall be kept in a state of the most complete depression: thus the divine Munoo: "Women have no business with the text of the védú; thus is the law fully settled: having, therefore, no evidence of law, and no knowledge of expiatory texts, sinful women must be as foul as falsehood itself; and this is a fixed rule. Through their passion for men, their mutable temper, their want of settled affection, and their perverse nature, (let them be guarded in this world ever so well) they soon become alienated from their husbands. Mănoo allotted to such women a love of their bed, of their seat, and of ornament, impure appetites, wrath, weak flexibility, desire of mischief, and bad conduct. Day and night must women be held by their protectors in a state of dependance."

The permission of polygamy, and the ease with which a man may put away his wife,* must be highly unfavourable to the interests of virtue, and contribute greatly to the universal corruption of the people. It is only necessary for a man to call his wife by the name of mother, and all connubial intercourse is at an end: this is the only bill of divorcement required.

The Hindoos not only seize many of their widows, and burn them alive: but the perpetual degradation and starvation to which those widows are reduced whom they permit to live, sinks them below many of the most savage tribes.

Domestic slavery, which is very common in India, however mild, surely demands the reprehension of every individual who has a proper idea of the dignity of human nature. In some parts of India, children are as much an article of sale as goats or poultry.

The division of the whole population into different casts, is prejudical, in the highest degree, to the general happiness: it is not the creation of different orders founded on merit, property, &c. which still leaves all the social and benevolent feelings in unconstrained operation, but the cast has all the effect which the prejudices of the Jews against the Samaritans had: "How is it, that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me who am a woman of Samaria ?" If, however, this institution cannot be changed by a summary law, surely, in a case so deeply affecting the happiness of the governed, the whim or enmity of an individual should not be permitted to bring upon a person a disaster worse than death: such a sentence, one would think, should proceed from some regular and acknowledged authority, in consequence of an offence clearly defined and ascertained.

The honours, next to divine, claimed by the bramhans, even where the character

* "A barren wife may be superseded by another in the eighth year; she whose children are all dead, in the tenth; she who brings forth only daughters, in the eleventh; she who speaks unkindly, without delay."Munoo.

+ A person who may be an occasional visitor, not unfrequently addresses himself in this manner to the females of the family, as a pledge for the purity of his behaviour.