repeats another prayer, and then plunges again or throws water over himself thrice. He then fprinkles feven times his forehead, breast, and shoulders; after this, joining his open hands, he fills them eight times with water, and throws it towards the fun, reciting a particular prayer. He then fips the water, and finally repeats the PARAYENAM.” After this ablution, he puts on the different garments above-defcribed, and, accordingly as he may chance to be a brahmin of the Veeshnu or Seeva caft, makes the different marks on his forehead and body with ashes, turmeric, or vermilion; but, if he have bathed in the Ganges, nothing can be more in repute for this ceremony than the clay of that holy river, which washes away all human offences. He now takes up his pilgrim staff, and throws over his fhoulders a leathern belt, with a pouch fastened to it, for the purpose of containing fuch food as benevolence may supply him He then performs the findeyha and

with. bowm.

The former is a prayer attended with a repetition of drinking and sprinkling of water after a particular manner. The latter is a burnt-facrifice, and can only be properly performed in a fire which has been kindled by the friction of two pieces of palass

or

or peepul wood, which are accounted facred. The ceremony confifts in paffing through the fire, or throwing into it, a piece of the fame confecrated wood with which it was kindled, and the flame of which is never fuffered to be wholly extinguished.

When the charity of the pious has fupplied rice or fruits for his fcanty meal, he firft offers it to his tutor, who tastes it, and, having craved his permiffion to eat, with many prayers and ablutions he gets through his vegetable banquet. The luxury of honey, beetel, and perfumes, is denied to the Hindoo afpirant, who never goes where there are finging, dancing, or gaming. As he grows up, the hair of his head is shaven, all but one folitary lock at the back of the crown. He is permitted to have no commerce with women; but the most rigid purity in thought and action is enjoined him. All the ebullitions of anger, envy, and revenge, are checked by the feverest discipline; and the love of truth and virtue inculcated by promises of the most flattering diftinction and attainments in another and more perfect ftate of being. In · prayer, ablution, and ftudying the Vedas, the day is consumed; and, when the fun begins to decline, ceremonies, nearly fimilar to Q993 thofe

those which preceded its appearing above the horizon, are again repeated: the gayteree, the findeyha, the howm. At length he retires to short repose on his wretched bed of straw, or fleeps under the first tree that offers, wrapt up in the skin of a stag, antelope, or some other animal.* Some continue in this initiatory ftate only five years; the more general practice is to remain in it twelve years; but others, from diffidence and other motives, spend all their lives in this preparatory ordeal.

THE SECOND DEGREE, or GERISHTH. When the bramaffari has finished the course of study, devotion, and austerity, prescribed him, if he feel an inclination to continue his spiritual progress, to despise all terrestrial enjoyments, and devote the rest of his life to the service of the stern deity whom he adores, it is in the highest degree meritorious; but if he feel no fuch inclination, or shrink from the severity of future suffering, he is not compelled to advance farther in the dreadful trial. In that cafe, he waits upon his brahmin-preceptor, and obtains permiffion to return to the house of his father. In the ftate of GERISHTH, the dress is entirely changed, except in the article of the zennar, which is retained through life.

Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 219.

life. The initiated now puts on a turban of linen rolled round in many folds; a fhect eight cubits long and two broad ferves to cover his loins and thighs; another fheet four cubits long and two broad is thrown over his fhoulders this latter may have a future, the former must have none.

The Gerifhth rifes four ghurries before daybreak, and goes through all the ceremonies which were obferved by him in his former fate, but his ablutions are doubled, and his prayers, sprinklings, and facrifices, proportionably increased. His day is divided into eight different parts, to each of which a particular duty is affigned, the enumeration of all which would be tedious to an European reader. He offers folemn oblations to the deutahs, and his departed ancestors, whom he hopes fpeedily to rejoin: he supports life by gleaning the fields after the reapers, or by begging here and there a handful of rice, and a part even of this fcanty supply he throws into the fire, as an offering to the deutah and the dead. In the evening, the multiplied ceremonies of ablution, the findehya, and the howm, return; and afterwards he retires to pass the greater part of the night in vigils, obferving the filent courfe of the moon and planets, and conQ994 templating

templating with rapture the blue vault in which the fixed stars are placed; those glittering orbs, among which his impatient spirit burns to mount. In this fenfe alone can we understand what we are told by Abul Fazil, in regard to the brahmins of this degree paffing the evening in the study of philosophy : it was an astronomical philosophy deeply connected with their Sabian theology; and, though the secretary of Akber was not deeply acquainted with their system of astronomy, yet, from that extent in which it is now known to the moderns, we are certain that a very large portion of the night must anciently have been devoted to this study. The awful season of incumbent darkness was that in which anciently the deeper mysteries of the brahmin religion commenced, and nocturnal hymns refounded through the long ailes of Elephanta, and echoed amidst the spacious dome of Salfette. Through the northern gates of those caverns, or cavities, pierced in the roof for the purpose, they watched the motions of the planets, and marked the gradual apparent revolution of the heavens; on particular afpects and conjunctions, rending the midnight air with shouts of joy or outcries of terror. Were