1 2 and tends him with the most respectful assiduity. He is commanded to exert himself in all acts useful to his teacher; and of course performs the part of an assistant in all the offices of religion. "As he who digs deep with a spade comes to a spring of water, so the student, who humbly serves his teacher, attains the knowledge which lies deep in his teacher's mind." Upon the student of the priestly order a peculiar burden, or distinction, is imposed: to acquire daily his food by begging.3 The gift of sacred instruction is not bestowed indiscriminately; but the text, which regulates the choice of pupils, is so vague as to leave the selection nearly at the discretion of the master. "Ten persons," "it is declared, "may legally be instructed in the Veda; the son of a spiritual teacher; a boy who is assiduous; one who can impart other knowledge; one who is just; one who is pure; one who is friendly; one who is powerful; one who can bestow wealth; one who is honest; and one who is related by blood. Where virtue and wealth are not found, or diligent attention proportioned, in that soil divine instruction must not be sown; it would perish like fine seed in barren land."4 The instruction which is bestowed may soon be described. "The venerable preceptor, having girt his pupil with the thread, must first instruct him in purification, in good customs, in the management 1 Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 491. "Let him carry water-pots, flowers, cow-dung, fresh earth, and cusa grass, as much as may be useful to his preceptor." lbid. 182. 3 "The subsistence of a student by begging is held equal to fasting in religious merit." Ibid. 218. There are numerous precepts respecting the niceties of begging. Ibid. 48 to 50, and 183 to 190. Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 109, 112. BOOK II. СНАР. 7. BOOK II of the consecrated fire, and in the holy rites of morn CHAP. 7. ing, noon, and evening.": The grand object of attention and solicitude is the reading of the Veda.* Some classes of the Brahmens have united with their religious doctrines certain speculations concerning the intellectual and material worlds; and these speculations have been dignified with the name of philosophy; but the holy rites, and the Veda, form the great, and on most occasions the exclusive object of that higher instruction which is bestowed on the pupil of the Brahmen. On this important occasion, as on other occasions, the attention of the Hindu is much more engaged by frivolous observances, than by objects of utility. While the directions laid down respecting the instruction of the pupil are exceedingly few and insignificant, the forms, according to which he must pay his duty to the master, are numerous, minute, and emphatically enjoined. 3 1 Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 69. 3 Ibid. 70. 3 When the student is going to read the Veda, he must perform an ablution, as the law ordains, with his face to the north; and at the beginning and end of each lesson, he must clasp both the feet of his preceptor, and read with both his hands closed. "In the presence of his preceptor let him always eat less; and wear a coarser mantle, with worse appendages : let him rise before, and go to rest after his tutor. Let him not answer his teacher's orders, or converse with him, reclining on a bed; nor sitting, nor eating, nor standing, nor with an averted face: But let him both answer and converse, if his preceptor sit, standing up; if he stand, advancing toward him; if he advance, meeting him; if he run, hastening after him; if his face be averted, going round to front him, from left to right if he be at a little distance, approaching him; if reclined, bending to him; and if he stand ever so far off, running toward him. When his teacher is nigh, let his couch or his bench be always placed low: when his preceptor's eye can observe him, let him not sit carelessly at his ease. Let him never pronounce the mere name of his tutor, even in his absence; by censuring his preceptor, though justly, he will be born an ass. He must not serve his tutor by the intervention of another, while himself CHAP. 7. The duration of the period of study is very indefi- BOOK II. nite. "The discipline of a student in the three Vedas may be continued for thirty-six years, in the house of his preceptor; or for half that time, or for a quarter of it, or until he perfectly comprehend them: A student, whose rules have not been violated, may assume the order of a married man, after he has read in succession a sac'ha, or branch from each of the three Vedas, or from two or from any one of them." It is even permitted to pass the whole stands aloof; nor must he attend him in a passion, nor when a woman is Institutes of Menu, ch. iii. 1. CHAP. 7. BOOK II. period of life in the state of a pupil; and to this, merit so exalted is ascribed, that the very highest rewards of religion are bestowed upon it. If a student anxiously desire to pass his whole life in the house of a sacerdotal teacher, he must serve him with assiduous care, till he be released from his mortal frame. That Brahmen who has dutifully attended his preceptor till the dissolution of his body, passes directly to the eternal mansion of God." Should the teacher die, the student must attend upon his widow, his son, or one of his paternal kinsmen, with the same respect as to the deceased preceptor. Should none of these be living, he occupies the seat of the preceptor himself." Institutes of Menu, ii. 243, 244. Ibid. 247, 248. The following modes of living are pointed out to the Brahmen: 1. lawful gleaning and gathering; 2. what is given unasked; 3. what is asked as alms; 4. tillage; 5. traffic and money lending: even by these two last, when distressed, he may live; but service for hire is named dog-living, which he must always avoid, iv. 4, 5, 6. His hair, nails, and beard being clipped; his passions subdued; his mantle white; his body pure; let him diligently occupy himself in reading the Veda. Let him carry a staff of Venu, an ewer with water in it, an handful of cusa grass, or a copy of the Veda; with a pair of bright golden rings in his ears. He must not gaze on the sun, whether rising or setting, or eclipsed, or reflected in water, or advanced to the middle of the sky. Over a string to which a calf is tied, let him not step; nor let him run while it rains; nor let him look on his own image in water: this is a settled rule. By a mound of earth, by a cow, by an idol, by a Brahmen, by a pot of clarified butter or of honey, by a place where four ways meet, and by large trees well known in the district, let him pass with his right hand toward them, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. Let him neither eat with his wife, nor look at her eating, nor sneezing, or yawning, or sitting carelessly at her ease, 43. Some precepts are ludicrous. "Let him not eat his food, wearing only a single cloth, nor let him bathe quite naked; nor let him eject urine or fæces in the highway, nor on ashes, nor where kine are grazing, nor on tilled ground, nor in water, nor on wood raised for burning, nor, unless he be in great need, on a mountain, nor on the ruins of a temple, nor at any time on a nest of white ants, nor in ditches with living creatures in them, CHAP. 7. To the state of the student succeeds that of the BOOK II. married man or the housekeeper. It is at this epoch that the Hindu begins to sustain a part as the member of Society. Marriage is a religious duty; and a duty of the highest order. Except for some grand plan of devotion, as that of remaining a student, or of becoming a fakeer, no man neglects at an early age to fulfil this sacred obligation. As the sacrament of obsequies to the manes of ancestors can be performed only by a male descendant, and as any failure in these obsequies deeply affects the spirits of the dead, to die without a son is regarded as one of the greatest of all calamities.1 nor walking, nor standing, nor on the bank of a river, nor on the summit of a mountain: nor let him ever eject them, looking at things moved by the wind, or at fire, or at a priest, or at the sun, or at water, or at cattle: But let him void his excrements, having covered the earth with wood, potherbs, dry leaves and grass, or the like, carefully suppressing his utterance, wrapping up his breast and his head: By day let him void them with his face to the north; by night, with his face to the south; at sunrise and sunset, in the same manner as by day; In the shade of darkness, whether by day or by night, let a Brahmen ease nature with his face turned as he pleases; and in places where he fears injury to life from wild beasts or from reptiles." 45 to 51. "Let not a man, desirous to enjoy long life, stand upon hair, nor upon ashes, bones, or potsherds, nor upon seeds of cotton, nor upon husks of grain," 78. An infinite number of things relative to food are to be attended to, 207 to 225. A man is nevertheless forbidden to marry before his elder brother. Ibid. 172. But if among several brothers of the whole blood, one have a son born, Menu pronounces them all fathers of a male child, by means of that son. Ibid. 182. There is a singular importance attached to the having of a son: "By a son a man obtains victory over all people; by a son's son he enjoys immortality; and afterwards by a son of that grandson he reaches the solar abode." Ibid. 137. Kinsmen, as among the Jews, were allowed to raise up seed to one another. Not only was a widow, left without children, permitted to conceive by a kinsman of her husband; but |
