ly they knew the folftice and had brought aftronomy into the aid of religion. In his perfon he muft, like the priests of Egypt, preserve a a fcrupulous cleanlinefs; his hair, nails, and beard, must be clipped; his paffions fubdued, his mantle white, his body pure; carrying in his hand a staff, or wand, an ewer of water, a handful of cufa-grafs, or copy of the Veda, with golden rings in his ears. The fame rigid attention to cleanliness must be kept up in the minutest article of life and conduct; in his conjugal commerce, in the necessary evacuations, &c. (all defcribed in very disgusting detail,) a more than Mahommedan severity must be observed. His manners muft always partake of the gravity of his profeffion; he muft neither dance, nor fing, nor play on musical instruments, except in religious rites; he must neither play at dice nor affociate with any who do, or gain their livelihood by difhonourable and low means: the company even of a king, not a rajah by birth, is an eternal difgrace to the high-born Brahmin.

Having rifen with the twilight, having performed his ablutions, repeated the Gaya

tri, and lighted the facred fire, he muft intenfely, throughout the day, ftudy the Vedas, and regulate his conduct by its facred rules. Let him delight in truth, in justice, in benevolence; let him not give way to either arrogance or pufillanimity; neither be the votary of pleasure, nor the flave of gloom and despair. Let him walk in the path of good men, the path in which his forefathers delighted to walk. Let him honour his parents, refpect his guest, bé tender to his offspring, gentle to his servants. Let him avoid covetoufnefs, and not be greedy of prefents, of which the Brahmins receive many. Let him be fcrupulously delicate in regard to what food he eats and with whom he eats it: the most dreadful violation of his character is infeparable from eating with one of an inferior caft. Towards the conclufion of this chapter there occur fome very fublime paffages con cerning the foul, and the radiant rewards that will, in a future ftate, be the confequence of a life thus paffed in unfullied piety, and the final verfe is as follows: priest who lives always by thefe rules, and

Ii3

who

who is freed from the bondage of fin, fhall be abforbed in the divine effence."

CHAP. V.

On Diet, Purification, and Women.

The precepts inculcated in this chapter are almost entirely of a local nature, and an enumeration of them, even in the most abridged way, would be little interesting or instructive to an European. Under the first article, the banquet of blood, the food of animals, is pofitively forbidden, except of those offered in facrifice; for it is expreffly declared that" as many hairs as grow on the beast, so many fimilar deaths fhall the flayer of that beast, for his own fatisfaction in this world, endure in the next from birth to birth." Under the fecond head are difcuffed the neceffary purifications appointed for those who have been defiled by the touch of a dead body, for thofe who have had illicit concern with women; for women themfelves, after the puerperal and menstrual taint; for accidental contact with a Chandalah, or out. caft: many of these are appointed to be by the fire, but far more by the water, ordeal,

deal, and the

to ten days.

duration generally from three The third article exhibits to us a striking proof in how contemptible a light the amiable part of our fpecies is holden by the faftidious, frozen, self-admiring Brahmin, who would bind the lovelieft beauty in eternal chains, and subject the most tender affection to neglect and cruel dependence. By the Indian, in this respect abominable and unfocial, Code, a woman through every stage of life must be kept in perfect vaffalage; in childhood, to her father; in youth, to her husband; at his decease, to her fons and his kinfmen. stern dogma decides that must never seek independence."

The

a woman

Other cir

cumstances, equally degrading to the fex, are added, by the Brahmins, we must fuppose; for precepts like thefe can never have formed a part of the patriarchal code, fince the Hebrew patriarchs well interpreted that paffage in Genefis relating to the creation of woman, that by her being taken out of the fide of Adam, and not from any fuperior or inferior part of his body, was denoted her equality with her husband.

CHAP. VI.

The fixth chapter is entirely on DEVOTION, and difcuffes the duties incumbent on the third and fourth orders or degrees of Brahmin candidates for final beatitude.

As we have already, in the fifth volume of this work, rather extenfively detailed the history of the four ASHERAM, or degrees of Brahmin probation in this tranfitory world, under the diftinct titles of BRAHMASSARI, GERISHTH, BANPERISTH, and SANIASSI; and, as this chapter is only a confirmation of the actual existence of the painful trials defcribed in it, little more remains for us than to mark out fuch ftriking particulars as could not then be noticed from the want of this authentic document. We have traced

the young Brahmin through his years of pupillage, and have seen him pious, content, and happy, in the conjugal state. Severer precepts impend over his more advanced life. When his muscles become flaccid and his hair gray, and when he beholds the "child of his child," he must check the farther ebullition of paffion, and feek the

feclufion