to an abyss of misery; and the inferior orders are now afraid of giving their daughters to these nobles among the bramhŭns.

These customs are the cause of infinite evils: koolēēnů married women abandoned by their husbands, in hundreds of instances, live in adultery; in some cases, with the knowledge of their parents.* The houses of ill-fame at Calcutta, and other large towns, are filled with the daughters of kooleenŭ bramhúns; and the husbands of these women have lately been found, to a most extraordinary extent, among the most notorious and dangerous dakaits-so entirely degraded are these favourites of Bullalsénů!!

The customs of the shrotriyus and vungshujus are not different from those of other bramhuns except in their marriages: the son of a vingshiju makes a present of money to obtain the daughter of a shrotriyu. The greatest number of learned men in Bengal at present, are found amongst the rarhees, and voidikus. A person who performs religious ceremonies according to the formulas of some particular védă, is called a rig. védů, yůjoor-védů, samů-védů, or ŭt'hŭrvů-védů bramhún.

The bramhuns are not distinguished by any difference in their dress, the poita excepted; nor is there any peculiar insignia attached to kooleenus, or the other orders; they are known, however, by the titles appended to their names.

Innumerable instances of the foetus in the womb being destroyed by these women, are well known among all the Hindoos. A koolēēnă bramhún assured me, that he had heard more than fifty women, daughters of koolēēnus, confess these murders!! To remove my doubts, he referred me to an instance which took place in the village where he was born, when the woman was removed in the night to an adjoining village, till she had taken medicines, and destroyed the fœtus. Her paramour and his friends were about to be seized, on a charge of murder, when the woman returned home, having recovered from the indisposition occasioned by the medicines she had taken. On making further enquiry into this subject, a friend, upon whose authority I can implicitly rely, assured me, that a very respectable and learned bramhăn, who certainly was not willing to charge his countrymen with more vices than they possessed, told him, it was supposed, that a thousand of these abortions took place in Calcutta every month!! This statement is doubtless exaggerated, but what an unutterably shocking idea does it give of the moral condition of the heathen part of Calcutta. The same bramhŭn affirmed, that he did not believe there was a single Hindoo, male or female, in the large cities of Bengal, who did not violate the laws of chastity !! -Many koolēēnus retain Musulman mistresses, without suffering in cast, although these irregularities are known to all the neighbours. The practice of keeping women of other casts, and of eating with women of ill-fame, is become very general among the bramhuns. A great proportion of the chief dakaits, (plunderers) are brainhuns. I am informed, that in one day ten bramhuns were once hanged at Dinagepore as robbers, and I doubt not, the well known remark of Governor Holwell is, in substance, true: "During almost five years that we presided in the judicial cutchery court of Calcutta, never any murder or other atrocious crime came before us, but it was proved in the end a bramhun was at the bottom of it." Holwell's Historica! Events, vol. 2.

Beside these, many bramhans are fallen in the estimation of their countrymen:*

viz.

The Ugrudanee* bramhuns, of whom there are four or five hundred families in Bengal, by receiving the gifts of sesamum, gold, calves, bedsteads, &c. at the prétůshraddhŭ, have sunk in cast. They marry and visit amongst themselves only. It is singular, that after the shastră has directed these things to be given to bramhuns, the reception of them should involve persons in dishonour.

The Murŭipora bramhŭns,† who repeat the incantations over the dead just before the body is burnt, and receive from one to ten roopees as a fee, lose their honour by officiating on these occasions, and are compelled to visit and marry among themselves.

The Kupalee bramhŭns are the officiating priests to a cast of shoodrus called kupalees, and on this account are sunk in honour.

The Swůrnŭkarů, Gopali, Dhova, Sootridharů, Kuloo, Bagdee, Doolleerů, Patunee, Jaliki, Shoundikŭ, and Domi bramhŭns, are priests to the goldsmiths, milkmen, washermen, joiners, oilmen, fishermen, dealers in spirituous liquors, basketmakers, &c. and are on that account so sunk in honour, that the other bramhuns will not touch the water which they drink, nor sit on the same mat with them.

The Doivignů bramhuns, who profess to study the Hindoo astrological works, are also fallen in rank. They cast nativities, discover stolen goods, &c. and are able to compose almanacks, one of which is frequently seen in their hands in the streets.

The Můdyůdoshee (or Müdyůdéshee) bramhuns are descended from Viroopakshň, a Veerbhoomee bramhun, who was a notorious drunkard, but who at the same

* According to the Annikŭ-tŭttwŭ, and other shastrŭs, brambŭns lose their honour by the following things: By becoming servants to the king; by pursuing any secular business; by becoming priests to shōōdrůs; by offici ating as, riests for a whole village; by neglecting any part of the three daily services. At present, however, there scarcely a single bramhun to be found who does not violate some one or other of these rules.

That is, the dead-burning bramhuns.

time was famous as a religious mendicant, possessing the power of working mira

cles.

Vyasi, the moonee, once raised a shoodră to bramhŭnhood; this man's descendants are called Vyas-oktů bramhuns, or the bramhins created by the word of Vyasŭ, many of whom are to be found in Bengal; they marry and visit among themselves only, being despised by other bramhŭns.

Not only in these last instances are many of the bramhůns sunk into disgrace, but, if this order is to be judged by the Hindoo law, they are all fallen. We are assured, that formerly, bramhuns were habitually employed in austere devotion and abstinence, but now they are worldly men, seeking service with the unclean, dealing in articles prohibited by the shastri, &c. This general corruption of manners is, in a great measure, to be attributed to the change of government: the Hindoo kings used to enforce upon all casts a strict attention to idolatrous ceremonies, on pain of corporal punishment; and they supported great multitudes of bramhŭns, and patronized them in the pursuit of learning. Having lost this patronage, as well as the fear of losing their honour, and of being punished, they neglect many of the forms of their religion, and apply to things, in their apprehension, more substantial. A number of bramhuns, however, may be found, especially at a distance from large towns, who despise worldly employments, and spend their lives in idolatrous ceremonies, or in visiting holy places, repeating the names of the gods, &c.

As it respects learning also, the bramhuns are equally sunk as in ceremonial purity: they are, it is true, the depositaries of all the knowledge their country contains, but it must be remembered, that a bramhun who can read what his forefathers wrote, is now scarcely to be found in Bengal.* For an account of the state of religion among the bramhuns, see vol. 2, Introduction, p. lx.

Many bramhuns are employed by Europeans and rich Hindoos;+ the Hindoo rajas See a following article in this volume, relative to the present state of learning in Bengal.

+ A sensible bramhun, whose opinion I asked on this point, supposed that three fourths of the bramhuns in Beagal were the servants of others, and that the other quarter were supported as priests, and by teaching youth, &c.

still maintain a number; others are employed in the courts of justice; some find a subsistence from the offerings where a celebrated image is set up; many are employed as pundits to Europeans; others pursue a mercantile life; while a number become farmers, employing shoodrus to cultivate their fields, that they may avoid the sin of killing insects with the plough-share; others are drapers, shop-keepers, &c. The shastru expressly forbids their selling milk, iron, lac, salt, clarified butter, sesamum, &c. yet many bramhuns now deal in these things without regard to the shastră, or the opinions of stricter Hindoos, and add thereto the sale of skins, spirits, and flesh. A bramhun who is an accomptant will write the accounts, and receive the allowance called dustooree, upon every joint of beef purchased by his employer, without a qualm, but if you mention his killing a cow, he claps his hands on his ears in the utmost haste, as though he were shocked beyond expression. I have heard of a bramhun at Calcutta, who was accustomed to steal beef, and sell it to the butchers: many traffic in spirituous liquors.

It has become a practice in Bengal for men of property to promise annual presents to bramhuns, especially to such as are reputed learned; these presents very frequently descend from father to son: they consist of corn, or garments, or money, according to the promise of the giver; and instances occur of a bramhun's receiving as much as a thousand roopees from one donor. These annual donations are generally given at the festivals.

Other sources of support arise from collecting disciples, and becoming their spiritual guides; from pretending to remove diseases by incantations, repeating the name of some god, &c.; many are employed as ghŭtŭkus, in contracting marriages. Large presents are also received at the numerous festivals, and it is said, that no fewer than five thousand bramhuns subsist in Calcutta on the bounty of rich Hindoos.

But the greatest means of support are the Dévotturus, viz. houses, lands, pools, orchards, &c. given in perpetuity to the gods; and the Brümhotturus, similar gifts to the bramhuns. The donors were former kings, and men of property, who ex

pected heaven as the reward of their piety. It is still not uncommon for houses, trees, pools, &c. to be offered to these celestial and terrestrial deities; but it is far from being so frequent as formerly; and indeed the Honourable Company, I am informed, forbid this appropriation of lands, as the revenue is thereby injured. When a gift is made as a dévottŭrů, the donor, in presenting it, entreats the officiating priests whe own the image to worship the god with the produce of what he gives. Sometimes a son on the death of his father and mother, to rescue them from misery, presents to his spiritual guide, or, to the bramhuns, a house, or some other gift. Formerly, poor bramhüns solicited alms of rich land-owners, who gave them portions of land in perpetuity, In these ways, the dévotturus and brumhottürüs have accummulated, till the produce amounts to an enormous sum. I have been informed, that in the district of Burdwan, the property applied to the support of idolatry amounts to the annual rent of fifteen or twenty lacks of roopees.* It has been lately ascertained, as my native informants say, that the lands given to the gods and bramhuns by the different rajahs in the zillah of Nudeeya, amount to eighteen lacks of bigahs, or about 600,000 acres. When all these things are considered, it will appear, that the clergy in catholic countries devour little of the national wealth compared with the bramhuns.

SECTION II.

Of the Kshůtriyŭ cast.

THIS is the second order of Hindoos; said to have been created "to protect the earth, the cattle, and bramhuns." Some affirm, that there are now no kshatriyus ; that in the kulee-yoogu only two casts exist, bramhuns and shoodrus, the second and third orders having sunk into the fourth.

The sungskarus, including investiture with the poita, belong to the kshitriyus as well as to the bramhans; with this difference, that the kshutriyus are permitted to

* It is necessary, however, to remark, that in this sum are included what are called Phŭkiranŭ, or lands granted to Musulman saints; and Mühüttranŭ, lands granted to shōōdrus by kings, or great land-owners.