own disposal as regards innocent and lawful amusements, and see that she is "constantly supplied with ornaments, apparel and food at festivals and jubilees." Were this all that we knew, we should be inclined to think that however kind the treatment of the wife, she was regarded rather as the amusement of the hour, as a toy or plaything, than as a companion and equal, that woman's rights were not respected. The following passages show conclusively that such was not the case: "When women are dishonoured all religious acts become fruitless;" "when female relatives are made miserable, the family very soon wholly perishes;" but "when a husband is contented with his wife, and she with her husband, in that house will fortune assuredly be permanent." An unmarried woman is dependent upon, and under the care of her male relatives; who are strictly commanded to honour her. Widows are specially protected by laws; male relatives must not interfere with their property, and the king is the guardian of them as well as of single women. No mention whatever is made of Suttees, indeed they are tacitly forbidden, since the widows of Brahmins are enjoined to lead a holy, virtuous, and austere life.

The fine arts are generally speaking in a rude state. Gold and silver, and precious stones are named as objects of wealth. Money in the shape of the coins called panas is used as a medium of exchange. Cattle, elephants, camels and carriages are enumerated as beasts of burden, and means of conveyance. Although the fine arts are comparatively unknown, various ordinary trades are frequently mentioned, while the number of kinds of grain and different sorts of produce of the earth betoken a fertile country, and a high state of cultivation. Learning through

1 If this passage were all that had come down to us of Menu's Code, what a proof would it yet be of the wisdom and foresight of the Hindu lawgiver!

out the code is greatly honoured, and the pursuit of it recommended to all classes; the Védas with the commentaries upon them, and some few other books being the sources from which that learning must be drawn. Theology, logic, and ethics are all to be gleaned from their pages, the tracts annexed to each Véda containing discourses on these subjects as well as on astronomy, which is treated of in connection with the adjustment of the calendar, fixing the proper period for the performance of the sacred duties.

We shall enter into a fuller examination of these branches of learning when we give a sketch of the present state of Hindú literature, which, so far as they are concerned, has advanced but very little since the time of Menú; and, for the present, bring this introductory chapter to a close with a few general remarks upon the code itself, and the people for whose direction it was drawn up. Did we know more of the ancient Egyptians, we might be able perhaps to trace no small degree of resemblance between them and the Hindús. As it is, we shall find it more convenient as well as satisfactory to compare the latter with the Greeks of the time of Homer, who was nearly contemporary with Menu.

The Greeks for spirit and energy bore the palm from the Hindús, but the latter in everything relating to government, manners, and arts of life were far superior. Their internal administration was more perfect, their laws were more clearly defined, and extended to the decision of points to a knowledge of which the Greeks, with their rude notions of society, had not yet attained; their laws of war were more humane, and their treatment of women recognised in the weaker sex a greater right to equality with themselves, and allotted them a place in the community which they could fill without loss of self-respect. More

over the Hindús were in possession of such an understanding of the true nature of the Deity as was but faintly perceived even by some of the loftiest intellects in the best days of Athens. The Greeks, it is true, so far as their civilisation went, were more polished than the Hindús, and were more assimilated in manners and customs with the neighbouring nations, the result of frequent intercourse with them. The Hindús, on the contrary, aware how vastly superior their intellectual condition was to that of the contiguous peoples, scorned to mix with them, and so grew up, a nation with a civilisation peculiar to itself, good of its kind, but differing widely from that of other countries. This early isolation, though favourable to the growth of original genius, and productive of that essentially distinctive character which lends such an interest to Hindú literature, was, on the whole, a real misfortune, as it led them to despise the institutions of foreigners even when they became, as they eventually did, superior to their own, and caused them to revere more and more their own systems, until at last, rendered incapable of receiving instruction from without, they even began to dislike novelties amongst themselves.

In looking back at the code of Menu, we are especially struck with two peculiarities in respect to the Brahminical cast, by a member of which it appears to have been framed. The first, is the little importance attached to public worship and religious ceremonies. We should naturally have expected to find that the Brahmins, for whom the code everywhere inculcates the greatest reverence, would not have lost so evident an opportunity of increasing their power, and strengthening it so that it might retain its influence under an atmosphere less clouded with superstition, by using the well-known appliances of priestcraft. It is in the multiplying forms of public worship, the setting up of

tradition in the place of Scripture, the canonization of those who have died in the odour of sanctity, and the marshalling of imposing ceremonials, that the Roman priests have been enabled in the worst ages of the Papacy to practise those deceptions upon the weak and credulous, which have been accepted by them as proofs of clerical wisdom and power.

It was fortunate for the continuance of the religion of Brahma that the succeeding ages were ages of still greater darkness: had a light but burst in upon the minds of the people then, the Brahmins would have had but a small chance of retaining that influence which they still though in a less degree possess. As it was, the darkness that followed was taken advantage of, and the neglect of opportunities shown by the compilers of the Institutes was retrieved by the establishment of that debased system of faith which, with its worship of deified heroes, its fabled stories of the gods, and its immoral and impure rites, has replaced the comparatively simple and innocent religion of Menu. The second peculiarity that strikes us is, how it could have been possible for the minute regulations as to manners and life among the Brahmins, which become actually wearisome in their excessive detail, and to attain to a complete knowledge of which would be the labour of a life time, to have been maintained without any regular form of ecclesiastical government or subordination. can only suppose that they were upheld by a superstitious reverence for the law, to which the strict system of early education would conduce, by the strength of habit, and of public opinion, so soon as antiquity had lent its sanction to the rules, and by the vigilance of the Brahmins themselves, who were doubtless aware that their power with the laity would soon wane, were they to relax in their religious duties, or depart to any great extent from the rules laid

We

down in the code. The experience of after-ages, however, shows us that a very considerable change was to be effected in their mode of life, which, while it gave quite a different tone to their own character, did not affect their position with regard to the laity so much as might have been expected. That the power of the Brahmins has declined we cannot doubt; but it has been the result not so much of the alteration in their own manner of life (although this has indirectly led to it, inasmuch as their growing laxity afforded an opportunity for the rise of a class bound by stricter laws and vows) as of the establishment of the monastic orders: who, on the plea of superior sanctity, have acquired the greater part of the influence that the Brahmins have lost.