add the signs under which the child was born, without having its fate recorded. The poor keep no record whatever. When the child is a few days old, the parents give it a name, which is generally that of a god, the Hindoos believing, that the repetition of the names of the gods is meritorious, and, operating like fire, consumes all sin. Some are the simple names of gods, as Narayünů, Kartiků, Günéshŭ, Văroonů, Păvănů, Bhōōt-nat’hů, Indrů, Gopală, Ununtă, Eeshwěrů, Koovérů, Mühŭ-dévů,1 Bhůgŭvanů, &c. and others have attached to the name of a god another word, as Ram, and Ram-prusadů,5 Krishnů, and Krishna-churunu,6 Bramhanündü,7 Shivu-nat'ho,8 Sooryu-kant'hu.9 The names of the goddesses, with an additional word, is also given to men, as, Doorga-churůně, Gũnga-Ramů, &c. These are very common names among the Hindoo men. Women are named after the goddesses, as Kalee, Doorga, Lukshmee, Suruswütee, Gunga, Radha, &c. To these names some add single words, as Vishnoo-priya.10 A great portion of the various names of the gods and goddesses are chosen and given to men and women. The names of heroes and heroines are also given, as Yoodhist'hiri, and Bheemu; Droupůdēe, and Koontee. Names are also chosen from those of trees, flowers, &c. as Lüvüngü-luta,11 Půdmů,12 Soodha-mookhee,13 Sukhee.14 The father makes known the name, though the mother has generally the privilege of choosing it. Some Hindoos place two lamps on two names beginning with the same letter, and choose that over which the lamp burns most fiercely. Beside the common name, another is given by selecting a letter from the name of the stellar-mansion under which the child was born: this is used in the marriage contract, and at other ceremonies. 1 give an example from the name of the Sungskrită pundit in the Serampore printing-office: Krishnů happened to be the guardian deity of his friends; and they gave this boy, as his common name, Gopalu, one of the names of Krishnŭ; 1 Never that of its father. 2 The names of the gods are also given to towns, gardens, pools, &c. as, Shree Ram-poor, the town of Ramă; Krishnŭ-vaganŭ, the garden of Krishnů; Lukshmee saguru, the sea of Lukshmee. 3 The common name for God. 4 The great god. 5 Prusadů, pleasure; this name intimates that Ramů is pleased with this person. 7 Anundă, joy. 8 Nathu, 11 The climbing plant Luvunga. 9 Kant'bu, beautiful. lord., 12 The water-lily. 6 Churună, foot. 10 The beloved of Vishnoo. 13 She whose mouth is like the water of life. 14 A female friend. and as he was born in the last division of the virgin, the Sungskritu name for which ends in t'h, his stellar name became T'hakoorü-dasă. Some parents give an unpleasant name to a child who may be born after repeated bereavements, as Dookhee, Punch-kouree,† Haranü,‡ Koorů,§ &c. They assign as the reason for this, that as the former were such pleasant children, and had such sweet names, they died through the envy of others. If the child live, they add the name of Ram to one of the above names, as Dookhe-Ramă, &c. A Ilindoo woman suckles her child, if she have only one, till it is five or six years old; and it is not uncommon to see such children standing and drawing the mother's breast.* A Hindoo mother seldom employs a wet-nurse; nor is the child fed with prepared food before the expiration of six months. The children of the rich generally go naked till they arrive at their second or third year, and those of the poor till they are six or seven. As Hindoo women never learn to read, they are unable to teach their children their first lessons, but a father may frequently be seen teaching his child to write the alphabet when five years old; at which age the male children are commonly sent to the village school. Rich men employ persons to teach their children, even at five years of age, how to behave on the approach of a bramhun, a parent, a spiritual guide, &c. how to sit, to bow, and appear to advantage, in society. calls him t'kakoorů, lord; or of his mother, he When a boy speaks of his father, he calls her t'hakooranee. When he reThat which is taken away by force. If a rich man sink into poverty, such sayings as these are common: "See! how sharp men's teeth are !”— "He is ruined entirely because others could not bear to see his happiness."-Some Hindoos think, that the gods hear the prayers of those who desire the evil of others; and that persons are able to injure others by the power of incantations. * It is very remarkable, that the Africans as well as the Hindoos suckle their children long after they are able to walk; that they eat only with the right hand; smoke out of a thing like the hooka; at eight days old shave the head of a child, and give it a name, &c. Their dances, like those of the Hindoos, are also distinguished by indecent gestures. turns from a journey, he bows to his father and mother, and, taking the dust from their feet, rubs it on his head. Considering their inferiority to Europeans in most of the affairs of polished life, the Hindoos in general deserve much credit for their polite address. Almost all the larger villages in Bengal contain common schools, where a boy learns his letters by writing them, never by pronouncing the alphabet, as in Europe; he first writes them on the ground; next with an iron style, or a reed, on a palm leaf; and next on a green plantain leaf. After the simple letters, he writes the compounds; then the names of men, villages, animals, &c. and then the figures. While employed in writing on leaves, all the scholars stand up twice a day, with a monitor at their head, and repeat the numerical tables, ascending from a unit to gundas,* from gundas to voorees,+ from voorees to pinus,‡ and from punus to kahinus ;§ and, during school hours, they write on the palm leaf the strokes by which these numbers are defined. They next commit to memory an addition table, and count from one to a hundred; and after this, on green plantain leaves, they write easy sums in addition and subtraction of money; multiplication, and then reduction of money, measures, &c. The Hindoo measures are all reducible to the weights, beginning with ruttees, and ending with munus. The elder boys, as the last course at these schools, learn to write common letters, agreements, &c.-The Hindoo schools begin early in the morning, and continue till nine or ten; after taking some refreshment at home, the scholars return about three, and continue till dark. The Bengalee school-masters punish with a cane, or a rod made of the branch of a tree; sometimes the truant is compelled to stand on one leg holding up a brick in each hand, or to have his arms stretched out, till he is completely tired. These school-masters are generally respectable shoodrus, Their allowance is though in some instances bramhuns follow this employment. : very small for the first years education, about a penny a month, and a day's provisions. When a boy writes on the palm leaf, two-pence a month; after this, as the boy advances in learning, as much as four-pence or eight-pence a month is given. There are no female schools among the Hindoos; every ray of mental improve * Four. + Twenty. the abrus pricatorius. Eighty. * Eighty lbs. One Thousand Two Hundred and Eighty. A sted of ment is carefully kept from the sex.* As they are always confined to domestic duties, and carefully excluded from the company of the other sex, a Hindoo sees no necessity for the education of females, and the shastrus themselves declare, that a woman has nothing to do with the text of the védů: all her duties are comprized in pleasing her husband, and cherishing her children. Agreeably to this state of manners, respectable women are never seen in the public roads, streets, or places of resort. What would a European say, if the fair sex were at once to be excluded from public view— and if, in every public assembly, every private walk, every domestic circle, he was to meet only the faces of men! When a child is ill, the mother, supposing that her milk is the cause of its sickness, abstains from bathing, eating sour food, fish, &c. and partakes of food only once a day. Sometimes, after making a vow, and promising some gift, if the deity will restore her child to health, she abstains from cutting the child's hair until the expi ration of the vow; others tie up a lock of hair, and repeat over each hair in the lock the name of a different deity: this clotted hair may frequently be seen on the heads of children. Though the children of the highest and the lowest casts seldom play in company, yet the offspring of casts which more nearly approximate are often seen in the streets, playing together with the utmost freedom; and indeed if a child at play should have food in its hand, and the child of another cast partake of it, it is not much noticed. Hindoo children play with earthen balls, and with the small shells which pass for money. Bigger boys amuse themselves in different kinds of inferior gaming, as dice,† throwing kourees, &c. ; in boyish imitations of idolatrous ceremonies; in kites; leaping; wrestling; in a play in which two sides are formed, bounds fixed, and each side endeavours to make incursions into the boundary of the other without being caught; in hide and seek, and the like. Children are seldom corrected, and having none of the * An old adage is always present with the Hindoos, that if a woman learn to read, she will become a widow. -I am informed, however, that women teach the female children of kayŭst'hŭs and bramhŭns to cut figures in paper and plantain leaves, and delineate other forms with paste on seats, walls, &c. Many are taught to spin thread, which is perhaps the most general female employment among the Hindoos. + At the full moon in Ashwină the Hindoos sit up all night and play at dice, in order to obtain the favour of Lükshmee, the goddess of wealth. moral advantages of the children of christian parents, they ripen fast in iniquity, and among the rest in disobedience to parents.* At a very early age, they enter the paths of impurity, in which they meet with no checks either from conscience, the virtuous examples of parents, or the state of public morals.-A bramhun, who appeared to respect Christianity, was one day reading the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans in Bengalee; and while going over this melancholy description of the sins of the heathen, he confessed, with a degree of astonishment, how remarkably applicable it was to the manners of his own countrymen. SECTION II. Marriages. THE Oodwahu-tuttwŭ, a work on the civil and canon law, mentions eight kinds of marriage: 1. Bramhŭ, when the girl is given to a bramhun without reward.-2. Doivu, when she is presented as a gift, at the close of a sacrifice.-3. Arshŭ, when two cows are received by the girl's father in exchange for a bride.-4. Prajapǎtyŭ, when the girl is given at the request of a bramhun.-5. Asooră, when money is received in exchange for a bride.-6. Gandhŭrvŭ, when a marriage takes place by mutual consent.+-7. Rakshūsu, when a bride is taken in war; and 8. Poishachu, when a girl is taken away by craft. A Hindoo, except he be grown up, as in second marriages, never chooses his own * Hindoo youths occasionally leave their homes at ten, twelve, or fourteen years of age, without leave from their parents, and visit different holy places, partly from a disposition to wander, and partly from ideas imbibed in their childhood from hearing stories relative to the merit of visiting holy places. Some afterwards send letters, to acquaint their parents, that they have proceeded to such a holy place; others return after a lapse of some months, while others never return; but after a young person has left home without acquainting his parents, they often conclude that he is gone to some idolatrous ceremony, or to bathe in Gunga, or to some holy place. + The pooranus relate, that formerly, when a king's daughter had not been married in childhood by the contract of her parents, and she was grown up to be old enough for marriage, she might solicit of her father to have what is called a shŭyŭmbŭrů wedding, in which the girl chooses her own husband. To enable her thus to choose, the king makes a great feast, and invites multitudes of kings, and from amongst them the girl chooses her husband. Ramŭ, Urjoonů, Krishnŭ, Nŭlů, and others, are all said to have been chosen by the princesses to whom they were afterwards united. P |