Life in India

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Caleb Wright, 1854 - India - 304 pages

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Page 31 - The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all...
Page 155 - We all feel pity sometimes, but the goor of the Tuponee changes our nature. It would change the nature of a horse. Let any man once taste of that goor, and he will be a Thug though he know all the trades and have all the wealth in the world.
Page 89 - When he calls, she must leave every thing else, and attend upon him alone. A woman has no other god on earth than her husband. The most excellent of all good works she can perform is, to gratify him with the strictest obedience. This should be her only devotion. Though he be aged, infirm, dissipated, a drunkard, or a debauchee, she must still regard him as her god.
Page 91 - Into the thickest wood ; there soon they chose The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as at this day to Indians known In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillared shade High overarched, and echoing walks between...
Page 98 - ... king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world..
Page 126 - I cannot describe to you the horror I felt on seeing the mangled condition she was in : almost every inch of skin on her body had been burnt off; her legs and thighs, her arms and back were completely raw, her breasts were dreadfully torn, and the skin hanging from them in threads ; the skin and nails of her fingers had peeled wholly off, and were hanging to the back of her hands. In fact I never saw and never read of so entire a picture of misery as this poor woman displayed.
Page 106 - twas that foot which broke the spell — alas! Its stocking had a deep, deep tinge of blue — I turned away in sadness, and passed on. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. * * * * * The only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall.
Page 106 - who wishes to perform sacred ablution, wash the feet of her lord, and drink the water ; for a husband is to a wife greater than Shankara or Vishnu. The husband is her god, and guru, and religion, and its services ; wherefore, abandoning everything else, she ought chiefly to worship her husband.
Page 249 - ... of similar masks and tails, attacks the castle of the giant Ravana, to deliver Seeta, a princess who has been stolen away by the giant and his evil spirits from her husband, Rama Chandra; a fruitless attempt having before been made by her husband and his brother, Luchmunu, to effect her rescue. Formerly the youths who personified Rama Chandra, Luchmunu, and Seeta were afterwards sacrificed to the parties they had represented ; but this part of the performance has long since been discontinued....
Page 150 - Feringeea. — I have seen these two, and also the Lughas carrying away the bodies to the grave, in this manner, and the sextons digging the grave with the sacred pickaxe: all is done just as if we had ourselves done it; nothing could be more exact.

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