NOTES.

NOTES.Calmly she took her seat.—I. p. 8.She, says Bernier, whom I saw burn herself, when I parted fromSuratto travel intoPersia, in the presence of MonsieurChardinofParis, and of manyEnglishandDutch, was of a middle age, and not unhandsome. To represent unto you the undaunted cheerfulness that appeared in her countenance, the resolution with which she marched, washed herself, spoke to the people; the confidence with which she looked upon us, viewed her little cabin, made up of very dry millet-straw and small wood, went into this cabin, and sat down upon the pile, and took her husband’s head into her lap, and a torch into her own hand, and kindled the cabin, whilst I know not how manyBrahmanswere busy in kindling the fire round about: To represent to you, I say, all this as it ought, isnot possible for me; I can at present scarce believe it myself, though it be but a few days since I saw it.They strip her ornaments away.—I. p. 8.She went out again to the river, and taking up some water in her hands, muttered some prayers, and offered it to the sun. All her ornaments were then taken from her; and her armlets were broken, and chaplets of white flowers were put upon her neck and hands. Her hair was tucked up with five combs; and her forehead was marked with clay in the same manner as that of her husband—Stavorinus.Around her neck they leaveThe marriage-knot alone.—I. p. 8.When the time for consummating the marriage is come, they light the fire Homam with the wood of Ravasiton. The Bramin blesses the former, which being done, the bridegroom takes three handfuls of rice, and throws it on the bride’s head, who does the same to him. Afterwards the bride’s father clothes her in a dress according to his condition, and washes the bridegroom’s feet; the bride’s mother observing to pour out the water. This being done, the father puts his daughter’s hand in his own, puts water into it, some pieces of money,and, giving it to the bridegroom, says, at the same time, I have no longer any thing to do with you, and I give you up to the power of another. TheTali, which is a ribbon with a golden head hanging at it, is held ready; and, being shewn to the company, some prayers and blessings are pronounced; after which the bridegroom takes it, and hangs it about the bride’s neck. This knot is what particularly secures his possession of her; for, before he had had theTalion, all the rest of the ceremonies might have been made to no purpose; for it has sometimes happened, that, when the bridegroom was going to fix it on, the bride’s father has discovered his not being satisfied with the bridegroom’s gift, when another, offering more, has carried off the bride with her father’s consent. But when once theTaliis put on, the marriage is indissoluble; and, whenever the husband dies, theTaliis burnt along with him, to shew that the marriage bands are broke. Besides these particular ceremonies, the people have notice of the wedding by aPandal, which is raised before the bride’s door some days before. The whole concludes with an entertainment which the bride’s father gives to the common friends; and during this festivity, which continues five days, alms are given to the poor, and the fire Homam is kept in. The seventh day, the new-married couple set out for thebridegroom’s house, whither they frequently go by torch-light. The bride and bridegroom are carried in a sedan, pass through the chief streets of the city, and are accompanied by their friends, who are either on horseback or mounted on elephants.—A. Roger.They force her on, they bind her to the dead.—I. p. 9.’Tis true, says Bernier, that I have seen some of them, which, at the sight of the pile and the fire, appeared to have some apprehension, and that, perhaps, would have gone back. Those demons, the Bramins, that are there with their great sticks, astonish them, and hearten them up, or even thrust them in; as I have seen it done to a young woman that retreated five or six paces from the pile, and to another, that was much disturbed when, she saw the fire take hold of her clothes, these executioners thrusting her in with their long poles.At Lahor, I saw a very handsome and a very young woman burnt; I believe she was not above twelve years of age. This poor unhappy creature appeased rather dead than alive when she came near the pile; she shook and wept bitterly. Meanwhile, three or four of these executioners, the Bramins, together with an old hag that held her under the arm, thrust her on, and made her sit down upon the wood; and, lest she should run away,they tied her legs and hands; and so they burnt her alive. I had enough to do to contain myself for indignation.—Bernier.Pietro Della Valle conversed with a widow, who was about to burn herself by her own choice. She told him, that, generally speaking, women were not forced to burn themselves; but sometimes, among people of rank, when a young woman, who was handsome, was left a widow, and in danger of marrying again, (which is never practised among them, because of the confusion and disgrace which are inseparable from such a thing,) or of falling into other irregularities, then, indeed, the relations of the husband, if they are at all tenacious of the honour of the family, compel her to burn herself, whether she likes it or no, merely to prevent the inconveniences which might take place.Dellon also, whom I consider as one of the best travellers in the East, expressly asserts, that widows are burnt there “de gré, ou de force. L’on n’en voit que trop qui aprés avoir desiré et demandé la mort avec un courage intrepide, et aprés avoir obtenu et acheté la permission de se brûler, ont tremblé à là veuë du bucher, se sont repenties, mais trop tard, de leur imprudence, et ont fait d’inutiles efforts pour se retracter. Mais lorsque cela arrive, bien loin que les Bramenes soient touchésd’aucune pieté, ils lient cruellement ces malheureuses, et les brûlent par force, sans avoir aucun egard à leurs plaintes, ni à leurs cris.”—Tom. i. p. 138.It would be easy to multiply authorities upon this point. Let it suffice to mention one important historical fact: When the great Alboquerque had established himself it Goa, he forbade these accursed sacrifices, the women extolled him for it as their benefactor and deliverer, (Commentarios de Alb.ii. 20,) and no European in India was ever so popular, or so revered by the natives. Yet, if we are to believe the anti-missionares, none but fools, fanatics, and pretenders to humanity, would wish to deprive the Hindoo women of the right of burning themselves! “It may be useful (says Colonel Mark Wilks,) to examine the reasonableness of interfering with the most exceptionable of all their institutions. It has been thought an abomination not to be tolerated, that a widow should immolate herself on the funeral pile of her deceased husband. But what judgement should we form of the Hindoo, who (if any of our institutions admitted the parallel) shouldforciblypretend to stand between a Christian and the hope of eternal salvation? And shall we not hold him to be a driveller in politics and morals, a fanatic in religion, and a pretender in humanity, who would forcibly wrest this hope from the Hindoowidow?”—Historical Sketches of the South of India, vol. i. p. 499.Such opinions, and such language, may safely be left to the indignation and pity which they cannot fail to excite. I shall only express my astonishment, that any thing so monstrous, and so miserably futile, should have proceeded from a man of learning, great good sense, and general good feelings, as Colonel Wilks evidently appears to be.One drops, another plunges in.—I. p. 10.When Bernier was passing from Amad-Avad to Agra, there came news to him in a borough, where the caravan rested under the shade, (staying for the cool of the evening to march on their journey,) that a woman was then upon the point of burning herself with the body of her husband. I presently rose, says he, and ran to the place where it was to be done, which was a great pit, with a pile of wood raised in it, whereon I saw laid a dead corpse, and a woman, which, at a distance, seemed to me pretty fair, sitting near it on the same pile, besides four or five Bramins, putting the fire to it from all sides; five women of a middle age, and well enough dressed, holding one another by the hand, and dancing about the pit, and a great crowd of people, men and women, lookingon. The pile of wood was presently all on fire, because store of oil and butter had been thrown upon it: and I saw, at the same time, through the flames, that the fire took hold of the clothes of the woman, that were imbued with well-scented oils, mingled with powder of sandal and saffron. All this I saw, but observed not that the woman was at all disturbed; yea, it was said, that she had been heard to pronounce, with great force, these two words,five,two, to signify, according to the opinion of those that hold the soul’s transmigration, that this was thefifthtime she had burnt herself with the same husband, and that there remained but two more for perfection; as if she had at that time this remembrance, or some prophetical spirit. But here ended not this infernal tragedy: I thought it was only by way of ceremony that these five women sung and danced about the pit; but I was altogether surprised when I saw, that the flame having taken hold of the clothes of one of them, she cast herself, with her head foremost, into the pit; and that after her, another, being overcome by the flame and the smoke, did the like; and my astonishment redoubled afterwards, when I saw that the remaining three took one another again by the hand, continued their dance without any apparent fear; and that at length they precipitated themselves, one after another, into the fire, as theircompanions had done. I learnt that these had been five slaves, who, having seen their mistress extremely afflicted at the sickness of her husband, and heard her promise him, that she would not survive him, but burn herself with him, were so touched with compassion and tenderness towards this their mistress, that they engaged themselves in a promise to follow her in her resolution, and to burn themselves with her.—Bernier.This excellent traveller relates an extraordinary circumstance which occurred at one of these sacrifices. A woman was engaged in some love-intrigues with a young Mahommedan, her neighbour, who was a tailor, and could play finely upon the tabor. This woman, in the hopes she had of marrying this young man, poisoned her husband, and presently came away to tell the tailor, that it was time to be gone together, as they had projected, or else she should be obliged to burn herself. The young man, fearing lest he might be entangled in a mischievous business, flatly refused her. The woman, not at all surprised at it, went to her relations, and advertised them of the sudden death of her husband, and openly protested that she would not survive him, but burn herself with him. Her kindred, well satisfied with so generous a resolution, and the great honour she did to the whole family, presently had a pit made and filled with wood, exposingthe corpse upon it, and kindling the fire. All being prepared, the woman goes to embrace and bid farewell to all her kindred that were there about the pit, among whom was also the tailor, who had been invited to play upon the tabor that day, with many others of that sort of men, according to the custom of the country. This fury of a woman being also come to this young man, made sign as if she would bid him farewell with the rest; but, instead of gently embracing him, she taketh him with all her force about his collar, pulls him to the pit, and tumbleth him, together with herself, into the ditch, where they both were soon dispatched.—Bernier.The Hindoos sometimes erect a chapel on the spot where one of these sacrifices has been performed, both on account of the soul of the deceased, and as a trophy of her virtue. I remember to have seen one of these places, where the spot on which the funeral pile had been erected was inclosed and covered with bamboos, formed into a kind of bower planted with flowering creepers. The inside was set round with flowers, and at one end, there was an image.—Crawfurd.Some of the Yogees, who smear themselves with ashes, use none but what they collect from funeral piles,—human ashes!Pietro Della Valle.From a late investigation, it appears, that the numberof women who sacrifice themselves within thirty miles round Calcutta every year, is, on an average, upwards of two hundred. The Pundits have already been called on to produce the sanction of their Shasters for this custom. The passages exhibited are vague and general in their meaning, and differently interpreted by the same casts. Some sacred verses commend the practice, but none command it; and the Pundits refer once more tocustom. They have, however, intimated, that if government will pass a regulation, amercing by fine every Brahmin who attends a burning, or every Zemindar who permits him to attend it, the practice cannot possibly long continue; for that the ceremony, unsanctified by the presence of the priests, will lose its dignity and consequence in the eyes of the people.The civilized world may expect soon to hear of the abolition of this opprobrium of a Christian administration, the female sacrifice; which has subsisted, to our certain knowledge, since the time of Alexander the Great.—Claudius Buchanan.This practice, however, was manifestly unknown when the Institutes of Menu were written. Instructions are there given for the conduct of a widow: “Let her,” it is said, “emaciate her body, by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and fruit; but let her not, when herlord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man. Let her continue till death forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules of virtue, which have been followed by such women as were devoted to one only husband. Many thousands of Brahmins, having avoided sensuality from their early youth, and having left no issue in their families, have ascended nevertheless to heaven; and, like those abstemious men, a virtuous wife ascends to heaven, though she have no child, if, after the decease of her lord, she devote herself to pious austerity: but a widow, who, from a wish to bear children, slights her deceased husband by marrying again, brings disgrace on herself here below, and shall be excluded from the seat of her lord.”—Inst. of Menu, ch. 5, 157-161.Second marriages were permitted to men.—Ibid. 167, 8-9.Lo! Arvalan appears.—II. p. 11.Many believe that some souls are sent back to the spot where their bodies were burnt, or where their ashes are preserved, to wait there until the new bodies they are destined to occupy be ready for their reception. This appears to correspond with an opinion of Plato, which,with many other tenets of that philosopher, was adopted by the early Christians; and an ordinance of the Romish church is still extant, prohibiting having lights or making merriment in church-yards at night, lest they should disturb the souls that might come thither.—Crawfurd.According to the Danish missionaries, the souls of those who are untimely slain wander about as diabolical spectres, doing evil to mankind, and possessing those whom they persecute.—Niecamp. i. 10. § 14.The inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahall believe, that when God sends a messenger to summon a person to his presence, if the messenger should mistake his object, and carry off another, he is desired by the Deity to take him away; but as the earthly mansion of his soul must be decayed, it is destined to remain mid-way between heaven and earth, and never can return to the presence of God. Whoever commits homicide without a divine order, and whoever is killed by a snake, as a punishment for some concealed crime, will be doomed to the same state of wandering; and whoever hangs himself will wander eternally with a rope about his neck.—Asiat. Researches.Pope Benedict XII. drew up a list of 117 heretical opinions held by the Armenian Christians, which he sent to the king of Armenia,—instead of any other assistance,when that prince applied to him for aid against the Mahomedans. This paper was first published by Bernino, and exhibits a curious mixture of mythologies. One of their opinions was, that the souls of the adult wander about in the air till the day of judgment; neither hell, nor the heavenly, nor the terrestrial paradise, being open to them till that day shall have past.Davenant, in one of his plays, speculates upon such a state of wandering as the lot of the soul after death:—I must to darkness go, hover in clouds,Or in remote untroubled air, silentAs thoughts, or what is uncreated yet;Or I must rest in some cold shade, and shallPerhaps ne’er see that everlasting springOf which philosophy so long has dreamt,And seems rather to wish than understand.Love and Honour.I know no other author who has so often expressed to those who could understand him, his doubts respecting a future state, and how burthensome he felt them.But I, all naked feeling and raw life.—II. p. 13.By the vital souls of those men who have committedsins in the body, another body, composed ofnerves, with five sensations, in order to be susceptible of torment, shall certainly be assumed after death; and being intimately united with those minute nervous particles, according to their distribution, they shall feel in that new body the pangs inflicted in each case by the sentence of Yama.—Inst. of Menu.Henry More, the Platonist, has two applicable stanzas in his Song of the Soul:—Like to a light fast lock’d in lanthorn dark,Whereby by night our wary steps we guideIn slabby streets, and dirty channels mark,Some weaker rays through the black top do glide,And flusher streams, perhaps, from horny side;But when we’ve past the peril of the way,Arrived at home, and laid that case aside,—The naked light how clearly doth it ray,And spread its joyful beams as bright as summer’s day.Even so the soul, in this contracted state,Confined to these strait instruments of sense,More dull and narrowly doth operate;At this hole hears,—the sight must ray from thence,—Here tastes, there smells;—but when she’s gone from hence,Like naked lamp she is one shining sphere,And round about has perfect cognoscence,Whatever in her horizon doth appear.She is one orb of sense, all eye, all airy ear.Amid the uncouth allegory, and more uncouth language, of this strange series of poems, a few passages are to be found of exceeding beauty. Milton, who was the author’s friend, had evidently read them.Undying as I am!—II. p. 12.The Soul is not a thing of which a man may say, it hath been, it is about to be, or is to be hereafter; for it is a thing without birth; it is ancient, constant, and eternal, and is not to be destroyed in this its mortal frame. How can the man who believeth that this thing is incorruptible, eternal, inexhaustible, and without birth, think that he can either kill or cause it to be killed! As a man throweth away old garments and putteth on new, even so the Soul, having quitted its old mortal frames, entereth into others which are new. The weapon divideth it not, the fire burneth it not, the water corrupteth it not, the wind drieth it not away;—for it is indivisible, inconsumable, incorruptible, and is not to be dried away;—it is eternal, universal, permanent, immoveable; it isinvisible, inconceivable, and unalterable.—Bhagvat Geeta.Mariataly.—II. p. 15.Mariatale, as Sonnerat spells the name, was wife of the penitent Chamadaguini, and mother of Parassourama, who was, in part, an incarnation of Veeshno. This goddess, says Sonnerat, commanded the elements, but could not preserve that empire longer than her heart was pure. One day, while she was collecting water out of a tank, and, according to her custom, was making a bowl of earth to carry it to the house, she saw on the surface of the water, some figures of Grindovers (Glendoveers) which were flying over her head. Struck with their beauty, her heart admitted an impure thought, and the earth of the bowl dissolved. From that time she was obliged to make use of an ordinary vessel. This discovered to Chamadaguini that his wife had deviated from purity; and, in the excess of his rage, he ordered his son to drag her to the place where criminals were executed, and to behead her. The order was executed; but Parassourama was so much afflicted for the loss of his mother, that Chamadaguini told him to take up the body, and fasten the head upon it, and repeat a prayer (which he taught him for that purpose) in her ear, and then his motherwould come to life again. The son ran eagerly to perform what he was ordered, but, by a very singular blunder, he joined the head of his mother to the body of a Parichi, who had been executed for her crimes; a monstrous union, which gave to this woman the virtues of a goddess, and the vices of a criminal. The goddess, becoming impure by such a mixture, was driven from her house, and committed all kinds of cruelties. The Deverkels, perceiving the destruction she made, appeased her by giving her power to cure the small-pox, and promising that she should be implored for that disorder. Mariatale is the great goddess of the Parias;—to honour her, they have a custom of dancing with several pots of water on their heads, placed one above the other: These pots are adorned with the leaves of the Margosies, a tree consecrated to her.It was my hour of folly.—II. p. 13.Among the qualities required for the proper execution of public business, mention is made, “That a man must be able to keep in subjection his lust, his anger, his avarice, hisfolly, and his pride.” The folly there specified is not to be understood in the usual sense of the word in an European idiom, as a negative quality, or the mere want of sense, but as a kind of obstinately stupidlethargy, or perverse absence of mind, in which the will is not altogether passive: It seems to be a weakness peculiar to Asia, for we cannot find a term by which to express the precise idea in the European languages. It operates somewhat like the violent impulse of fear, under which men will utter falsehoods totally incompatible with each other, and utterly contrary to their own opinion, knowledge, and conviction; and, it may be added also, their inclination and intention.A very remarkable instance of this temporary frenzy happened lately in the supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, where a man (not an idiot) swore, upon a trial, that he was no kind of relation to his brother, who was then in Court, and who had constantly supported him from his infancy; and that he lived in a house by himself, for which he paid the rent from his own pocket, when it was proved that he was not worth a rupee, and when the person in whose house he had always resided stood at the bar close to him.Another conjecture, and that exceedingly acute and ingenious, has been started upon thisfolly, that it may mean the deception which a man permits to be imposed on his judgment by his passions, as acts of rapacity and avarice are often committed by men who ascribe them to prudence and a just assertion of their own right; maliceand rancour pass for justice, and brutality for spirit. This opinion, when thoroughly examined, will very nearly tally with the former; for all the passions, as well as fear, have an equal efficacy to disturb and distort the mind: But to account for thefollyhere spoken of as being the offspring of the passions, instead of drawing a parallel between it and the impulses of those passions, we must suppose the impulses to act with infinitely more violence upon an Asiatic mind than we can ever have seen exemplified in Europe. It is, however, something like the madness so inimitably delineated in the Hero of Cervantes, sensible enough upon some occasions, and at the same time completely wild, and unconscious of itself upon others; and that, too, originally produced by an effort of the will, though, in the end, overpowering and superseding its functions.—Halhed.The little songsters of the skySit silent in the sultry hour.—IV. p. 29.The tufted lark, fixed to this fruitful land, says Sonnini, speaking of Egypt, never forsakes it; it seems, however, that the excessive heat annoys him. You may see these birds, as well as sparrows, in the middle of the day, with their bills half open, and the muscles of their breasts agitated, breathing with difficulty, and as if they pantedfor respiration. The instinct which induces them to prefer those means of subsistence which are easily obtained, and in abundance, although attended with some suffering, resembles the mind of man, whom a thirst for riches engages to brave calamities and dangers without number.The Watchman.—V. 35.The watchmen are provided with no offensive weapons excepting a sling; on the contrary, they continue the whole day standing in one single position, upon a pillar of clay raised about ten feet, where they remain bellowing continually, that they may terrify, without hurting, the birds who feed upon the crop. Every considerable field contains several such centinels, stationed at different corners, who repeat the call from one to another so incessantly, that the invaders have hardly any opportunity of making good a livelihood in the field.These watchmen are forced, during the rains, to erect, instead of a clay pillar, a scaffolding of wood as high as the crop, over which they suspend a roof of straw, to shelter their naked bodies from the rain.—Tennant.The Golden Palaces.—V. 35.Every thing belonging to the sovereign of Ava has theaddition of [Transcriber: the last letter of the word “sho-” is unreadable], or golden, annexed to it; even his majesty’s person is never mentioned but in conjunction with this precious metal. When a subject means to affirm that the king has heard any thing, he says, “it has reached the golden ears;” he who obtained admission to the royal presence has been at the “golden feet.” The perfume of otto of roses, a nobleman observed one day, “was an odour grateful to the golden nose.”—Symes.A cloud ascending in the eastern skySails slowly o’er the vale,And darkens round, and closes in the night.—V. p. 37.At this season of the year, it is not uncommon, towards the evening, to see a small black cloud rising in the eastern part of the horizon, and afterwards spreading itself to the north-west. This phenomenon is always attended with a violent storm of wind, and flashes of the strongest and most vivid lightning and heavy thunder, which is followed by rain. These storms sometimes last for half an hour or more; and, when they disperse, they leave the air greatly freshened, and the sky of a deep, clear, and transparent blue. When they occur near the full moon, the whole atmosphere is illuminated by a soft but brilliant silver light, attended with gentle airs.—Hodges.A white flag, flapping to the winds of night,Marks where the tyger seized his human prey.—V. p. 37.It is usual to place a small white triangular flag, fixed to a bamboo staff, of ten or twelve feet long, at the place where a tyger has destroyed a man. It is common for the passengers, also, each to throw a stone, or brick, near the spot, so that, in the course of a little time, a pile equal to a good waggon-load is collected. This custom, as well as the fixing a rag on any particular thorn-bush, near the fatal spot, is in use likewise on various accounts. Many brambles may be seen in a day’s journey, completely covered with this motley assemblage of remnants. The sight of the flags and piles of stones imparts a certain melancholy, not perhaps altogether devoid of apprehension: They may be said to be of service in pointing out the places most frequented by tygers.—Oriental Sports, vol. ii. p. 22.Pollear.—V. p. 45.The first and greatest of the sons of Sevee is Pollear: he presides over marriages: The Indians build no house without having first carried a Pollear on the ground, which they sprinkle with oil, and throw flowers on itevery day. If they do not invoke it before they undertake any enterprise, they believe that God will make them forget what they wanted to undertake, and that their labour will be in vain. He is represented with an elephant’s head, and mounted on a rat; but in the pagodas they place him on a pedestal, with his legs almost crossed. A rat is always put before the door of his chapel. This rat was a giant, called Gudja-mouga-chourin, on whom the gods had bestowed immortality, as well as great powers, which he abused, and did much harm to mankind. Pollear, entreated by the sages and penitents to deliver them, pulled out one of his tusks, and threw it against Gudja-mouga-chourin; the tooth entered the giant’s stomach, and overthrew him, who immediately changed himself into a rat as large as a mountain, and came to attack Pollear, who sprung on his back, telling him, that hereafter he should ever be his carrier.The Indians, in their adoration of this god, cross their arms, shut the fist, and in this manner give themselves several blows on the temples; then, but always with the arms crossed, they take hold of their ears, and make three inclinations, bending the knee; after which, with their hands joined, they address their prayers to him, and strike their forehead. They have a great veneration for this deity, whose image they place in all temples, streets,highways, and, in the country, at the foot of some tree, that all the world may have an opportunity of invoking him before they undertake any concern, and that travellers may make their adorations and offerings to him before they pursue their journey.—Sonnerat.The Glendoveers.—VI. p. 48.This word is altered from theGrindouversof Sonnerat, who describes these celestial children of Casyapa as famous for their beauty; they have wings, he adds, and fly in the air with their wives. I do not know whether they are theGandharvasof the English orientalists. The wings with which they are attired in the poem are borrowed from the neglected story of Peter Wilkins, a work of great genius. Whoever the author was, his winged people are the most beautiful creatures of imagination that ever were devised. I copy his minute description of thegraundee, as he calls it:—Stothard has made some delightful drawings of it in the Novelist’s Magazine.“She first threw up two long branches, or ribs, of the whale-bone, as I called it before, (and indeed for several of its properties, as toughness, elasticity, and pliableness, nothing I have ever seen can so justly be compared to it,) which were jointed behind to the upper-bone of the spine, and which, when not extended, lie bent over the shoulderson each side of the neck forwards, from whence, by nearer and nearer approaches, they just meet at the lower rim of the belly in a sort of point; but, when extended, they stand their whole length above the shoulders, not perpendicularly, but spreading outwards, with a web of the softest and most pliable and spungy membrane that can be imagined in the interstices between them, reaching from their root or joint on the back up above the hinder part of the head, and near half way their own length; but, when closed, the membrane falls down in the middle upon the neck, like an handkerchief. There are also two other ribs, rising, as it were, from the same root, which, when open, run horizontally, but not so long as the others. These are filled up in the interstice between them and the upper ones with the same membrane; and on the lower side of this is also a deep flap of the membrane, so that the arms can be either above or below it in flight, and are always above it when closed. This last rib, when shut, flaps under the upper one, and also falls down with it before to the waist; but it is not joined to the ribs below. Along the whole spine-bone runs a strong, flat, broad, grisly cartilage, to which are joined several other of these ribs, all which open horizontally, and are filled in the interstices with the above membrane, and are jointed to the ribs of the person just wherethe plane of the back begins to turn towards the breast and belly; and, when shut, wrap the body round to the joints on the contrary side, folding neatly one side over the other.“At the lower spine are two more ribs extended horizontally when open, jointed again to the hips, and long enough to meet the joint on the contrary side cross the belly: and from the hip-joint, which is on the outermost edge of the hip-bone, runs a pliable cartilage quite down the outside of the thigh and leg to the ancle; from which there branch out divers other ribs, horizontally also when open, but, when closed, they encompass the whole thigh and leg, rolling inwards cross the back of the leg and thigh, till they reach and just cover the cartilage. The interstices of these are filled up with the same membrane. From the two ribs which join to the lower spine-bone, there hangs down a sort of short apron, very full of plaits, from hip-joint to hip-joint, and reaches below the buttocks, half way or more to the hams. This has also several small limber ribs in it. Just upon the lower spine-joint, and above the apron, as I call it, there are two other long branches, which, when close, extend upon the back from the point they join at below to the shoulders, where each rib has a clasper, which, reaching over the shoulders, just under the fold of the uppermost branchor ribs, hold up the two ribs flat to the back, like a V, the interstices of which are filled up with the aforesaid membrane. This last piece, in flight, falls down almost to the ancles, where the two claspers, lapping under each leg within-side, hold it very fast; and then, also, the short apron is drawn up, by the strength of the ribs in it, between the thighs forward, and covers as far as the rim of the belly. The whole arms are covered also from the shoulders to the wrist with the same delicate membrane, fastened to ribs of proportionable dimensions, and jointed to a cartilage on the outside in the same manner as on the legs. It is very surprising to feel the difference of these ribs when open and when closed; for closed, they are as pliable as the finest whale-bone, or more so; but, when extended, are as strong and stiff as a bone. They are tapering from the roots, and are broader or narrower, as best suits the places they occupy, and the stress they are put to, up to their points, which are almost as small as a hair. The membrane between them is the most elastic thing I ever met with, occupying no more space, when the ribs are closed, than just from rib to rib, as flat and smooth as possible; but, when extended in some postures, will dilate itself surprisingly,“It is the most amazing thing in the world to observe the large expansion of this graundee when open, and,when closed, (as it all is in a moment, upon the party’s descent,) to see it fit so close and compact to the body as no tailor can come up to it; and then the several ribs lie so justly disposed in the several parts, that instead of being, as one would imagine, a disadvantage to the shape, they make the body and limbs look extremely elegant; and by the different adjustment of their lines on the body and limbs, the whole, to my fancy, somewhat resembles the dress of the old Roman warriors in their buskins; and, to appearance, seems much more noble than any fictitious garb I ever saw, or can frame a notion of to myself.”Mount Himakoot.—VI. p. 49.Dushmanta. Say, Matali, what mountain is that which, like an evening cloud, pours exhilarating streams, and forms a golden zone between the western and eastern seas?Matali. That, O king! is the mountain of Gandharvas, named Hémacúta: The universe contains not a more excellent place for the successful devotion of the pious. There Casyapa, father of the immortals, ruler of men, son of Marichi, who sprang from the self-existent, resides with his consort Aditi, blessed in holy retirement.—We now enter the sanctuary of him who rulesthe world, and the groves which are watered by streams from celestial sources.Dushmanta. I see with equal amazement both the pious and their awful retreat. It becomes, indeed, pure spirits to feed on balmy air in a forest blooming with trees of life; to bathe in rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus, and to fortify their virtue in the mysterious bath; to meditate in caves, the pebbles of which are unblemished gems; and to restrain their passions, even though nymphs of exquisite beauty frolick around them. In this grove alone is attained the summit of true piety, to which other hermits in vain aspire.—Sacontala.Her death predoom’dTo that black hour of midnight, when the MoonHath turn’d her face away,Unwilling to beholdThe unhappy end of guilt!—VI. p. 50.I will now speak to thee of that time in which, should a devout man die, he will never return; and of that time in which, dying, he shall return again to earth.Those holy men who are acquainted with Brahm, departing this life in the fiery light of day, in the bright season of the moon, within the six months of the sun’s northerncourse, go unto him: but those who depart in the gloomy night of the Moon’s dark season, and whilst the Sun is yet within the southern part of his journey, ascend for a while into the regions of the Moon, and again return to mortal birth. These two, Light and Darkness, are esteemed the World’s eternal ways: he who walketh in the former path returneth not; whilst he who walketh in the latter, cometh back again upon the earth.—Kreeshna,in the Bhagvat Geeta.Indra.—VI. p. 52.The Indian God of the visible Heavens is calledIndra, or the King; andDivespetir, Lord of the Sky. He has the character of the RomanGenius, or chief of the Good Spirits. His consort is namedSachi; his celestial cityAmaravati; his palaceVaijayanta; his gardenNandana; his chief elephantAirevat; his charioteerMatali; and his weaponVajra, or the thunder-bolt. He is the regent of winds and showers, and, though the East is peculiarly under his care, yet his Olympus is Meru, or the North Pole, allegorically represented as a mountain of gold and gems. He is the Prince of the beneficent Genii.—SirW. Jones.A distinct idea of Indra, the King of Immortals, may be collected from a passage in the ninth section of the Geta.“These having, through virtue, reached the mansion of the king ofSuras, feast on the exquisite heavenly food of the Gods; they, who have enjoyed this lofty region ofSwerga,butwhose virtue is exhausted, revisit the habitation of mortals.”He is the God of thunder and the five elements, with inferior Genii under his command; and is conceived to govern the eastern quarter of the world, but to preside, like theGeniusorAgathodæmonof the ancients, over the celestial bands, which are stationed on the summit ofMeru, or the North Pole, where he solaces the Gods with nectar and heavenly music.TheCinnarasare the male dancers inSwerga, or the Heaven of Indra, and the Apsaras are his dancing girls, answering to the fairies of the Persians, and to the damsels called in the Koranhhúru lûyùn, or,with antelope’s eyes.—SirW. Jones.I have seen Indra tremble at his prayer,And at his dreadful penances turn pale.—VI. p. 52.Of such penances Mr. Halhed has produced a curious specimen:“In the wood, Midhoo, which is on the confines of the kingdoms of Brege, Tarakee selected a pleasant and beautiful spot, adorned with verdure and blossoms, andthere exerted himself in penance and mortification, externally, with the sincerest piety, but, in reality, the most malignant intention, and with the determined purpose of oppressing the Devetas; penances such as credulity itself was astonished to hear; and they are here recounted:—1. For a hundred years, he held up his arms and one foot towards heaven, and fixed his eyes upon the sun the whole time.2. For a hundred years, he remained standing on tip-toe.3. For a hundred years more, he nourished himself with nothing but water.4. For a hundred years more, he lived upon nothing but air.5. For a hundred years more, he stood and made his adorations in the river.6. For a hundred years more, he made those adorations buried up to his neck in the earth.7. For a hundred years more, enveloped with fire.8. For a hundred years more, he stood upon his head with his feet towards heaven.9. For a hundred years more, he stood upon the palm of one hand resting on the ground.10. For a hundred years more, he hung by his hand from the branch of a tree.11. For a hundred years more, he hung from a tree with his head downwards.When he at length came to a respite from these severe mortifications, a radiant glory encircled the devotee, and a flame of fire, arising from his head, began to consume the whole world.”—From the Seeva Pooraun,Maurice’sHistory of Hindostan.You see a pious Yogi, motionless as a pollard, holding his thick bushy hair, and fixing his eyes on the solar orb. Mark—his body is half covered with a white ant’s edifice made of raised clay; the skin of a snake supplies the place of his sacerdotal thread, and part of it girds his loins; a number of knotty plants encircle and wound his neck, and surrounding birds’ nests almost conceal his shoulders.Dushmanta. I bow to a man of his austere devotion.—Sacontala.

Calmly she took her seat.—I. p. 8.

She, says Bernier, whom I saw burn herself, when I parted fromSuratto travel intoPersia, in the presence of MonsieurChardinofParis, and of manyEnglishandDutch, was of a middle age, and not unhandsome. To represent unto you the undaunted cheerfulness that appeared in her countenance, the resolution with which she marched, washed herself, spoke to the people; the confidence with which she looked upon us, viewed her little cabin, made up of very dry millet-straw and small wood, went into this cabin, and sat down upon the pile, and took her husband’s head into her lap, and a torch into her own hand, and kindled the cabin, whilst I know not how manyBrahmanswere busy in kindling the fire round about: To represent to you, I say, all this as it ought, isnot possible for me; I can at present scarce believe it myself, though it be but a few days since I saw it.

They strip her ornaments away.—I. p. 8.

She went out again to the river, and taking up some water in her hands, muttered some prayers, and offered it to the sun. All her ornaments were then taken from her; and her armlets were broken, and chaplets of white flowers were put upon her neck and hands. Her hair was tucked up with five combs; and her forehead was marked with clay in the same manner as that of her husband—Stavorinus.

Around her neck they leaveThe marriage-knot alone.—I. p. 8.

When the time for consummating the marriage is come, they light the fire Homam with the wood of Ravasiton. The Bramin blesses the former, which being done, the bridegroom takes three handfuls of rice, and throws it on the bride’s head, who does the same to him. Afterwards the bride’s father clothes her in a dress according to his condition, and washes the bridegroom’s feet; the bride’s mother observing to pour out the water. This being done, the father puts his daughter’s hand in his own, puts water into it, some pieces of money,and, giving it to the bridegroom, says, at the same time, I have no longer any thing to do with you, and I give you up to the power of another. TheTali, which is a ribbon with a golden head hanging at it, is held ready; and, being shewn to the company, some prayers and blessings are pronounced; after which the bridegroom takes it, and hangs it about the bride’s neck. This knot is what particularly secures his possession of her; for, before he had had theTalion, all the rest of the ceremonies might have been made to no purpose; for it has sometimes happened, that, when the bridegroom was going to fix it on, the bride’s father has discovered his not being satisfied with the bridegroom’s gift, when another, offering more, has carried off the bride with her father’s consent. But when once theTaliis put on, the marriage is indissoluble; and, whenever the husband dies, theTaliis burnt along with him, to shew that the marriage bands are broke. Besides these particular ceremonies, the people have notice of the wedding by aPandal, which is raised before the bride’s door some days before. The whole concludes with an entertainment which the bride’s father gives to the common friends; and during this festivity, which continues five days, alms are given to the poor, and the fire Homam is kept in. The seventh day, the new-married couple set out for thebridegroom’s house, whither they frequently go by torch-light. The bride and bridegroom are carried in a sedan, pass through the chief streets of the city, and are accompanied by their friends, who are either on horseback or mounted on elephants.—A. Roger.

They force her on, they bind her to the dead.—I. p. 9.

’Tis true, says Bernier, that I have seen some of them, which, at the sight of the pile and the fire, appeared to have some apprehension, and that, perhaps, would have gone back. Those demons, the Bramins, that are there with their great sticks, astonish them, and hearten them up, or even thrust them in; as I have seen it done to a young woman that retreated five or six paces from the pile, and to another, that was much disturbed when, she saw the fire take hold of her clothes, these executioners thrusting her in with their long poles.

At Lahor, I saw a very handsome and a very young woman burnt; I believe she was not above twelve years of age. This poor unhappy creature appeased rather dead than alive when she came near the pile; she shook and wept bitterly. Meanwhile, three or four of these executioners, the Bramins, together with an old hag that held her under the arm, thrust her on, and made her sit down upon the wood; and, lest she should run away,they tied her legs and hands; and so they burnt her alive. I had enough to do to contain myself for indignation.—Bernier.

Pietro Della Valle conversed with a widow, who was about to burn herself by her own choice. She told him, that, generally speaking, women were not forced to burn themselves; but sometimes, among people of rank, when a young woman, who was handsome, was left a widow, and in danger of marrying again, (which is never practised among them, because of the confusion and disgrace which are inseparable from such a thing,) or of falling into other irregularities, then, indeed, the relations of the husband, if they are at all tenacious of the honour of the family, compel her to burn herself, whether she likes it or no, merely to prevent the inconveniences which might take place.

Dellon also, whom I consider as one of the best travellers in the East, expressly asserts, that widows are burnt there “de gré, ou de force. L’on n’en voit que trop qui aprés avoir desiré et demandé la mort avec un courage intrepide, et aprés avoir obtenu et acheté la permission de se brûler, ont tremblé à là veuë du bucher, se sont repenties, mais trop tard, de leur imprudence, et ont fait d’inutiles efforts pour se retracter. Mais lorsque cela arrive, bien loin que les Bramenes soient touchésd’aucune pieté, ils lient cruellement ces malheureuses, et les brûlent par force, sans avoir aucun egard à leurs plaintes, ni à leurs cris.”—Tom. i. p. 138.

It would be easy to multiply authorities upon this point. Let it suffice to mention one important historical fact: When the great Alboquerque had established himself it Goa, he forbade these accursed sacrifices, the women extolled him for it as their benefactor and deliverer, (Commentarios de Alb.ii. 20,) and no European in India was ever so popular, or so revered by the natives. Yet, if we are to believe the anti-missionares, none but fools, fanatics, and pretenders to humanity, would wish to deprive the Hindoo women of the right of burning themselves! “It may be useful (says Colonel Mark Wilks,) to examine the reasonableness of interfering with the most exceptionable of all their institutions. It has been thought an abomination not to be tolerated, that a widow should immolate herself on the funeral pile of her deceased husband. But what judgement should we form of the Hindoo, who (if any of our institutions admitted the parallel) shouldforciblypretend to stand between a Christian and the hope of eternal salvation? And shall we not hold him to be a driveller in politics and morals, a fanatic in religion, and a pretender in humanity, who would forcibly wrest this hope from the Hindoowidow?”—Historical Sketches of the South of India, vol. i. p. 499.

Such opinions, and such language, may safely be left to the indignation and pity which they cannot fail to excite. I shall only express my astonishment, that any thing so monstrous, and so miserably futile, should have proceeded from a man of learning, great good sense, and general good feelings, as Colonel Wilks evidently appears to be.

One drops, another plunges in.—I. p. 10.

When Bernier was passing from Amad-Avad to Agra, there came news to him in a borough, where the caravan rested under the shade, (staying for the cool of the evening to march on their journey,) that a woman was then upon the point of burning herself with the body of her husband. I presently rose, says he, and ran to the place where it was to be done, which was a great pit, with a pile of wood raised in it, whereon I saw laid a dead corpse, and a woman, which, at a distance, seemed to me pretty fair, sitting near it on the same pile, besides four or five Bramins, putting the fire to it from all sides; five women of a middle age, and well enough dressed, holding one another by the hand, and dancing about the pit, and a great crowd of people, men and women, lookingon. The pile of wood was presently all on fire, because store of oil and butter had been thrown upon it: and I saw, at the same time, through the flames, that the fire took hold of the clothes of the woman, that were imbued with well-scented oils, mingled with powder of sandal and saffron. All this I saw, but observed not that the woman was at all disturbed; yea, it was said, that she had been heard to pronounce, with great force, these two words,five,two, to signify, according to the opinion of those that hold the soul’s transmigration, that this was thefifthtime she had burnt herself with the same husband, and that there remained but two more for perfection; as if she had at that time this remembrance, or some prophetical spirit. But here ended not this infernal tragedy: I thought it was only by way of ceremony that these five women sung and danced about the pit; but I was altogether surprised when I saw, that the flame having taken hold of the clothes of one of them, she cast herself, with her head foremost, into the pit; and that after her, another, being overcome by the flame and the smoke, did the like; and my astonishment redoubled afterwards, when I saw that the remaining three took one another again by the hand, continued their dance without any apparent fear; and that at length they precipitated themselves, one after another, into the fire, as theircompanions had done. I learnt that these had been five slaves, who, having seen their mistress extremely afflicted at the sickness of her husband, and heard her promise him, that she would not survive him, but burn herself with him, were so touched with compassion and tenderness towards this their mistress, that they engaged themselves in a promise to follow her in her resolution, and to burn themselves with her.—Bernier.

This excellent traveller relates an extraordinary circumstance which occurred at one of these sacrifices. A woman was engaged in some love-intrigues with a young Mahommedan, her neighbour, who was a tailor, and could play finely upon the tabor. This woman, in the hopes she had of marrying this young man, poisoned her husband, and presently came away to tell the tailor, that it was time to be gone together, as they had projected, or else she should be obliged to burn herself. The young man, fearing lest he might be entangled in a mischievous business, flatly refused her. The woman, not at all surprised at it, went to her relations, and advertised them of the sudden death of her husband, and openly protested that she would not survive him, but burn herself with him. Her kindred, well satisfied with so generous a resolution, and the great honour she did to the whole family, presently had a pit made and filled with wood, exposingthe corpse upon it, and kindling the fire. All being prepared, the woman goes to embrace and bid farewell to all her kindred that were there about the pit, among whom was also the tailor, who had been invited to play upon the tabor that day, with many others of that sort of men, according to the custom of the country. This fury of a woman being also come to this young man, made sign as if she would bid him farewell with the rest; but, instead of gently embracing him, she taketh him with all her force about his collar, pulls him to the pit, and tumbleth him, together with herself, into the ditch, where they both were soon dispatched.—Bernier.

The Hindoos sometimes erect a chapel on the spot where one of these sacrifices has been performed, both on account of the soul of the deceased, and as a trophy of her virtue. I remember to have seen one of these places, where the spot on which the funeral pile had been erected was inclosed and covered with bamboos, formed into a kind of bower planted with flowering creepers. The inside was set round with flowers, and at one end, there was an image.—Crawfurd.

Some of the Yogees, who smear themselves with ashes, use none but what they collect from funeral piles,—human ashes!Pietro Della Valle.

From a late investigation, it appears, that the numberof women who sacrifice themselves within thirty miles round Calcutta every year, is, on an average, upwards of two hundred. The Pundits have already been called on to produce the sanction of their Shasters for this custom. The passages exhibited are vague and general in their meaning, and differently interpreted by the same casts. Some sacred verses commend the practice, but none command it; and the Pundits refer once more tocustom. They have, however, intimated, that if government will pass a regulation, amercing by fine every Brahmin who attends a burning, or every Zemindar who permits him to attend it, the practice cannot possibly long continue; for that the ceremony, unsanctified by the presence of the priests, will lose its dignity and consequence in the eyes of the people.

The civilized world may expect soon to hear of the abolition of this opprobrium of a Christian administration, the female sacrifice; which has subsisted, to our certain knowledge, since the time of Alexander the Great.—Claudius Buchanan.

This practice, however, was manifestly unknown when the Institutes of Menu were written. Instructions are there given for the conduct of a widow: “Let her,” it is said, “emaciate her body, by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and fruit; but let her not, when herlord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man. Let her continue till death forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules of virtue, which have been followed by such women as were devoted to one only husband. Many thousands of Brahmins, having avoided sensuality from their early youth, and having left no issue in their families, have ascended nevertheless to heaven; and, like those abstemious men, a virtuous wife ascends to heaven, though she have no child, if, after the decease of her lord, she devote herself to pious austerity: but a widow, who, from a wish to bear children, slights her deceased husband by marrying again, brings disgrace on herself here below, and shall be excluded from the seat of her lord.”—Inst. of Menu, ch. 5, 157-161.

Second marriages were permitted to men.—Ibid. 167, 8-9.

Lo! Arvalan appears.—II. p. 11.

Many believe that some souls are sent back to the spot where their bodies were burnt, or where their ashes are preserved, to wait there until the new bodies they are destined to occupy be ready for their reception. This appears to correspond with an opinion of Plato, which,with many other tenets of that philosopher, was adopted by the early Christians; and an ordinance of the Romish church is still extant, prohibiting having lights or making merriment in church-yards at night, lest they should disturb the souls that might come thither.—Crawfurd.

According to the Danish missionaries, the souls of those who are untimely slain wander about as diabolical spectres, doing evil to mankind, and possessing those whom they persecute.—Niecamp. i. 10. § 14.

The inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahall believe, that when God sends a messenger to summon a person to his presence, if the messenger should mistake his object, and carry off another, he is desired by the Deity to take him away; but as the earthly mansion of his soul must be decayed, it is destined to remain mid-way between heaven and earth, and never can return to the presence of God. Whoever commits homicide without a divine order, and whoever is killed by a snake, as a punishment for some concealed crime, will be doomed to the same state of wandering; and whoever hangs himself will wander eternally with a rope about his neck.—Asiat. Researches.

Pope Benedict XII. drew up a list of 117 heretical opinions held by the Armenian Christians, which he sent to the king of Armenia,—instead of any other assistance,when that prince applied to him for aid against the Mahomedans. This paper was first published by Bernino, and exhibits a curious mixture of mythologies. One of their opinions was, that the souls of the adult wander about in the air till the day of judgment; neither hell, nor the heavenly, nor the terrestrial paradise, being open to them till that day shall have past.

Davenant, in one of his plays, speculates upon such a state of wandering as the lot of the soul after death:—

I must to darkness go, hover in clouds,Or in remote untroubled air, silentAs thoughts, or what is uncreated yet;Or I must rest in some cold shade, and shallPerhaps ne’er see that everlasting springOf which philosophy so long has dreamt,And seems rather to wish than understand.Love and Honour.

I must to darkness go, hover in clouds,Or in remote untroubled air, silentAs thoughts, or what is uncreated yet;Or I must rest in some cold shade, and shallPerhaps ne’er see that everlasting springOf which philosophy so long has dreamt,And seems rather to wish than understand.Love and Honour.

I know no other author who has so often expressed to those who could understand him, his doubts respecting a future state, and how burthensome he felt them.

But I, all naked feeling and raw life.—II. p. 13.

By the vital souls of those men who have committedsins in the body, another body, composed ofnerves, with five sensations, in order to be susceptible of torment, shall certainly be assumed after death; and being intimately united with those minute nervous particles, according to their distribution, they shall feel in that new body the pangs inflicted in each case by the sentence of Yama.—Inst. of Menu.

Henry More, the Platonist, has two applicable stanzas in his Song of the Soul:—

Like to a light fast lock’d in lanthorn dark,Whereby by night our wary steps we guideIn slabby streets, and dirty channels mark,Some weaker rays through the black top do glide,And flusher streams, perhaps, from horny side;But when we’ve past the peril of the way,Arrived at home, and laid that case aside,—The naked light how clearly doth it ray,And spread its joyful beams as bright as summer’s day.Even so the soul, in this contracted state,Confined to these strait instruments of sense,More dull and narrowly doth operate;At this hole hears,—the sight must ray from thence,—Here tastes, there smells;—but when she’s gone from hence,Like naked lamp she is one shining sphere,And round about has perfect cognoscence,Whatever in her horizon doth appear.She is one orb of sense, all eye, all airy ear.

Like to a light fast lock’d in lanthorn dark,Whereby by night our wary steps we guideIn slabby streets, and dirty channels mark,Some weaker rays through the black top do glide,And flusher streams, perhaps, from horny side;But when we’ve past the peril of the way,Arrived at home, and laid that case aside,—The naked light how clearly doth it ray,And spread its joyful beams as bright as summer’s day.Even so the soul, in this contracted state,Confined to these strait instruments of sense,More dull and narrowly doth operate;At this hole hears,—the sight must ray from thence,—Here tastes, there smells;—but when she’s gone from hence,Like naked lamp she is one shining sphere,And round about has perfect cognoscence,Whatever in her horizon doth appear.She is one orb of sense, all eye, all airy ear.

Amid the uncouth allegory, and more uncouth language, of this strange series of poems, a few passages are to be found of exceeding beauty. Milton, who was the author’s friend, had evidently read them.

Undying as I am!—II. p. 12.

The Soul is not a thing of which a man may say, it hath been, it is about to be, or is to be hereafter; for it is a thing without birth; it is ancient, constant, and eternal, and is not to be destroyed in this its mortal frame. How can the man who believeth that this thing is incorruptible, eternal, inexhaustible, and without birth, think that he can either kill or cause it to be killed! As a man throweth away old garments and putteth on new, even so the Soul, having quitted its old mortal frames, entereth into others which are new. The weapon divideth it not, the fire burneth it not, the water corrupteth it not, the wind drieth it not away;—for it is indivisible, inconsumable, incorruptible, and is not to be dried away;—it is eternal, universal, permanent, immoveable; it isinvisible, inconceivable, and unalterable.—Bhagvat Geeta.

Mariataly.—II. p. 15.

Mariatale, as Sonnerat spells the name, was wife of the penitent Chamadaguini, and mother of Parassourama, who was, in part, an incarnation of Veeshno. This goddess, says Sonnerat, commanded the elements, but could not preserve that empire longer than her heart was pure. One day, while she was collecting water out of a tank, and, according to her custom, was making a bowl of earth to carry it to the house, she saw on the surface of the water, some figures of Grindovers (Glendoveers) which were flying over her head. Struck with their beauty, her heart admitted an impure thought, and the earth of the bowl dissolved. From that time she was obliged to make use of an ordinary vessel. This discovered to Chamadaguini that his wife had deviated from purity; and, in the excess of his rage, he ordered his son to drag her to the place where criminals were executed, and to behead her. The order was executed; but Parassourama was so much afflicted for the loss of his mother, that Chamadaguini told him to take up the body, and fasten the head upon it, and repeat a prayer (which he taught him for that purpose) in her ear, and then his motherwould come to life again. The son ran eagerly to perform what he was ordered, but, by a very singular blunder, he joined the head of his mother to the body of a Parichi, who had been executed for her crimes; a monstrous union, which gave to this woman the virtues of a goddess, and the vices of a criminal. The goddess, becoming impure by such a mixture, was driven from her house, and committed all kinds of cruelties. The Deverkels, perceiving the destruction she made, appeased her by giving her power to cure the small-pox, and promising that she should be implored for that disorder. Mariatale is the great goddess of the Parias;—to honour her, they have a custom of dancing with several pots of water on their heads, placed one above the other: These pots are adorned with the leaves of the Margosies, a tree consecrated to her.

It was my hour of folly.—II. p. 13.

Among the qualities required for the proper execution of public business, mention is made, “That a man must be able to keep in subjection his lust, his anger, his avarice, hisfolly, and his pride.” The folly there specified is not to be understood in the usual sense of the word in an European idiom, as a negative quality, or the mere want of sense, but as a kind of obstinately stupidlethargy, or perverse absence of mind, in which the will is not altogether passive: It seems to be a weakness peculiar to Asia, for we cannot find a term by which to express the precise idea in the European languages. It operates somewhat like the violent impulse of fear, under which men will utter falsehoods totally incompatible with each other, and utterly contrary to their own opinion, knowledge, and conviction; and, it may be added also, their inclination and intention.

A very remarkable instance of this temporary frenzy happened lately in the supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, where a man (not an idiot) swore, upon a trial, that he was no kind of relation to his brother, who was then in Court, and who had constantly supported him from his infancy; and that he lived in a house by himself, for which he paid the rent from his own pocket, when it was proved that he was not worth a rupee, and when the person in whose house he had always resided stood at the bar close to him.

Another conjecture, and that exceedingly acute and ingenious, has been started upon thisfolly, that it may mean the deception which a man permits to be imposed on his judgment by his passions, as acts of rapacity and avarice are often committed by men who ascribe them to prudence and a just assertion of their own right; maliceand rancour pass for justice, and brutality for spirit. This opinion, when thoroughly examined, will very nearly tally with the former; for all the passions, as well as fear, have an equal efficacy to disturb and distort the mind: But to account for thefollyhere spoken of as being the offspring of the passions, instead of drawing a parallel between it and the impulses of those passions, we must suppose the impulses to act with infinitely more violence upon an Asiatic mind than we can ever have seen exemplified in Europe. It is, however, something like the madness so inimitably delineated in the Hero of Cervantes, sensible enough upon some occasions, and at the same time completely wild, and unconscious of itself upon others; and that, too, originally produced by an effort of the will, though, in the end, overpowering and superseding its functions.—Halhed.

The little songsters of the skySit silent in the sultry hour.—IV. p. 29.

The tufted lark, fixed to this fruitful land, says Sonnini, speaking of Egypt, never forsakes it; it seems, however, that the excessive heat annoys him. You may see these birds, as well as sparrows, in the middle of the day, with their bills half open, and the muscles of their breasts agitated, breathing with difficulty, and as if they pantedfor respiration. The instinct which induces them to prefer those means of subsistence which are easily obtained, and in abundance, although attended with some suffering, resembles the mind of man, whom a thirst for riches engages to brave calamities and dangers without number.

The Watchman.—V. 35.

The watchmen are provided with no offensive weapons excepting a sling; on the contrary, they continue the whole day standing in one single position, upon a pillar of clay raised about ten feet, where they remain bellowing continually, that they may terrify, without hurting, the birds who feed upon the crop. Every considerable field contains several such centinels, stationed at different corners, who repeat the call from one to another so incessantly, that the invaders have hardly any opportunity of making good a livelihood in the field.

These watchmen are forced, during the rains, to erect, instead of a clay pillar, a scaffolding of wood as high as the crop, over which they suspend a roof of straw, to shelter their naked bodies from the rain.—Tennant.

The Golden Palaces.—V. 35.

Every thing belonging to the sovereign of Ava has theaddition of [Transcriber: the last letter of the word “sho-” is unreadable], or golden, annexed to it; even his majesty’s person is never mentioned but in conjunction with this precious metal. When a subject means to affirm that the king has heard any thing, he says, “it has reached the golden ears;” he who obtained admission to the royal presence has been at the “golden feet.” The perfume of otto of roses, a nobleman observed one day, “was an odour grateful to the golden nose.”—Symes.

A cloud ascending in the eastern skySails slowly o’er the vale,And darkens round, and closes in the night.—V. p. 37.

At this season of the year, it is not uncommon, towards the evening, to see a small black cloud rising in the eastern part of the horizon, and afterwards spreading itself to the north-west. This phenomenon is always attended with a violent storm of wind, and flashes of the strongest and most vivid lightning and heavy thunder, which is followed by rain. These storms sometimes last for half an hour or more; and, when they disperse, they leave the air greatly freshened, and the sky of a deep, clear, and transparent blue. When they occur near the full moon, the whole atmosphere is illuminated by a soft but brilliant silver light, attended with gentle airs.—Hodges.

A white flag, flapping to the winds of night,Marks where the tyger seized his human prey.—V. p. 37.

It is usual to place a small white triangular flag, fixed to a bamboo staff, of ten or twelve feet long, at the place where a tyger has destroyed a man. It is common for the passengers, also, each to throw a stone, or brick, near the spot, so that, in the course of a little time, a pile equal to a good waggon-load is collected. This custom, as well as the fixing a rag on any particular thorn-bush, near the fatal spot, is in use likewise on various accounts. Many brambles may be seen in a day’s journey, completely covered with this motley assemblage of remnants. The sight of the flags and piles of stones imparts a certain melancholy, not perhaps altogether devoid of apprehension: They may be said to be of service in pointing out the places most frequented by tygers.—Oriental Sports, vol. ii. p. 22.

Pollear.—V. p. 45.

The first and greatest of the sons of Sevee is Pollear: he presides over marriages: The Indians build no house without having first carried a Pollear on the ground, which they sprinkle with oil, and throw flowers on itevery day. If they do not invoke it before they undertake any enterprise, they believe that God will make them forget what they wanted to undertake, and that their labour will be in vain. He is represented with an elephant’s head, and mounted on a rat; but in the pagodas they place him on a pedestal, with his legs almost crossed. A rat is always put before the door of his chapel. This rat was a giant, called Gudja-mouga-chourin, on whom the gods had bestowed immortality, as well as great powers, which he abused, and did much harm to mankind. Pollear, entreated by the sages and penitents to deliver them, pulled out one of his tusks, and threw it against Gudja-mouga-chourin; the tooth entered the giant’s stomach, and overthrew him, who immediately changed himself into a rat as large as a mountain, and came to attack Pollear, who sprung on his back, telling him, that hereafter he should ever be his carrier.

The Indians, in their adoration of this god, cross their arms, shut the fist, and in this manner give themselves several blows on the temples; then, but always with the arms crossed, they take hold of their ears, and make three inclinations, bending the knee; after which, with their hands joined, they address their prayers to him, and strike their forehead. They have a great veneration for this deity, whose image they place in all temples, streets,highways, and, in the country, at the foot of some tree, that all the world may have an opportunity of invoking him before they undertake any concern, and that travellers may make their adorations and offerings to him before they pursue their journey.—Sonnerat.

The Glendoveers.—VI. p. 48.

This word is altered from theGrindouversof Sonnerat, who describes these celestial children of Casyapa as famous for their beauty; they have wings, he adds, and fly in the air with their wives. I do not know whether they are theGandharvasof the English orientalists. The wings with which they are attired in the poem are borrowed from the neglected story of Peter Wilkins, a work of great genius. Whoever the author was, his winged people are the most beautiful creatures of imagination that ever were devised. I copy his minute description of thegraundee, as he calls it:—Stothard has made some delightful drawings of it in the Novelist’s Magazine.

“She first threw up two long branches, or ribs, of the whale-bone, as I called it before, (and indeed for several of its properties, as toughness, elasticity, and pliableness, nothing I have ever seen can so justly be compared to it,) which were jointed behind to the upper-bone of the spine, and which, when not extended, lie bent over the shoulderson each side of the neck forwards, from whence, by nearer and nearer approaches, they just meet at the lower rim of the belly in a sort of point; but, when extended, they stand their whole length above the shoulders, not perpendicularly, but spreading outwards, with a web of the softest and most pliable and spungy membrane that can be imagined in the interstices between them, reaching from their root or joint on the back up above the hinder part of the head, and near half way their own length; but, when closed, the membrane falls down in the middle upon the neck, like an handkerchief. There are also two other ribs, rising, as it were, from the same root, which, when open, run horizontally, but not so long as the others. These are filled up in the interstice between them and the upper ones with the same membrane; and on the lower side of this is also a deep flap of the membrane, so that the arms can be either above or below it in flight, and are always above it when closed. This last rib, when shut, flaps under the upper one, and also falls down with it before to the waist; but it is not joined to the ribs below. Along the whole spine-bone runs a strong, flat, broad, grisly cartilage, to which are joined several other of these ribs, all which open horizontally, and are filled in the interstices with the above membrane, and are jointed to the ribs of the person just wherethe plane of the back begins to turn towards the breast and belly; and, when shut, wrap the body round to the joints on the contrary side, folding neatly one side over the other.

“At the lower spine are two more ribs extended horizontally when open, jointed again to the hips, and long enough to meet the joint on the contrary side cross the belly: and from the hip-joint, which is on the outermost edge of the hip-bone, runs a pliable cartilage quite down the outside of the thigh and leg to the ancle; from which there branch out divers other ribs, horizontally also when open, but, when closed, they encompass the whole thigh and leg, rolling inwards cross the back of the leg and thigh, till they reach and just cover the cartilage. The interstices of these are filled up with the same membrane. From the two ribs which join to the lower spine-bone, there hangs down a sort of short apron, very full of plaits, from hip-joint to hip-joint, and reaches below the buttocks, half way or more to the hams. This has also several small limber ribs in it. Just upon the lower spine-joint, and above the apron, as I call it, there are two other long branches, which, when close, extend upon the back from the point they join at below to the shoulders, where each rib has a clasper, which, reaching over the shoulders, just under the fold of the uppermost branchor ribs, hold up the two ribs flat to the back, like a V, the interstices of which are filled up with the aforesaid membrane. This last piece, in flight, falls down almost to the ancles, where the two claspers, lapping under each leg within-side, hold it very fast; and then, also, the short apron is drawn up, by the strength of the ribs in it, between the thighs forward, and covers as far as the rim of the belly. The whole arms are covered also from the shoulders to the wrist with the same delicate membrane, fastened to ribs of proportionable dimensions, and jointed to a cartilage on the outside in the same manner as on the legs. It is very surprising to feel the difference of these ribs when open and when closed; for closed, they are as pliable as the finest whale-bone, or more so; but, when extended, are as strong and stiff as a bone. They are tapering from the roots, and are broader or narrower, as best suits the places they occupy, and the stress they are put to, up to their points, which are almost as small as a hair. The membrane between them is the most elastic thing I ever met with, occupying no more space, when the ribs are closed, than just from rib to rib, as flat and smooth as possible; but, when extended in some postures, will dilate itself surprisingly,

“It is the most amazing thing in the world to observe the large expansion of this graundee when open, and,when closed, (as it all is in a moment, upon the party’s descent,) to see it fit so close and compact to the body as no tailor can come up to it; and then the several ribs lie so justly disposed in the several parts, that instead of being, as one would imagine, a disadvantage to the shape, they make the body and limbs look extremely elegant; and by the different adjustment of their lines on the body and limbs, the whole, to my fancy, somewhat resembles the dress of the old Roman warriors in their buskins; and, to appearance, seems much more noble than any fictitious garb I ever saw, or can frame a notion of to myself.”

Mount Himakoot.—VI. p. 49.

Dushmanta. Say, Matali, what mountain is that which, like an evening cloud, pours exhilarating streams, and forms a golden zone between the western and eastern seas?

Matali. That, O king! is the mountain of Gandharvas, named Hémacúta: The universe contains not a more excellent place for the successful devotion of the pious. There Casyapa, father of the immortals, ruler of men, son of Marichi, who sprang from the self-existent, resides with his consort Aditi, blessed in holy retirement.—We now enter the sanctuary of him who rulesthe world, and the groves which are watered by streams from celestial sources.

Dushmanta. I see with equal amazement both the pious and their awful retreat. It becomes, indeed, pure spirits to feed on balmy air in a forest blooming with trees of life; to bathe in rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus, and to fortify their virtue in the mysterious bath; to meditate in caves, the pebbles of which are unblemished gems; and to restrain their passions, even though nymphs of exquisite beauty frolick around them. In this grove alone is attained the summit of true piety, to which other hermits in vain aspire.—Sacontala.

Her death predoom’dTo that black hour of midnight, when the MoonHath turn’d her face away,Unwilling to beholdThe unhappy end of guilt!—VI. p. 50.

I will now speak to thee of that time in which, should a devout man die, he will never return; and of that time in which, dying, he shall return again to earth.

Those holy men who are acquainted with Brahm, departing this life in the fiery light of day, in the bright season of the moon, within the six months of the sun’s northerncourse, go unto him: but those who depart in the gloomy night of the Moon’s dark season, and whilst the Sun is yet within the southern part of his journey, ascend for a while into the regions of the Moon, and again return to mortal birth. These two, Light and Darkness, are esteemed the World’s eternal ways: he who walketh in the former path returneth not; whilst he who walketh in the latter, cometh back again upon the earth.—Kreeshna,in the Bhagvat Geeta.

Indra.—VI. p. 52.

The Indian God of the visible Heavens is calledIndra, or the King; andDivespetir, Lord of the Sky. He has the character of the RomanGenius, or chief of the Good Spirits. His consort is namedSachi; his celestial cityAmaravati; his palaceVaijayanta; his gardenNandana; his chief elephantAirevat; his charioteerMatali; and his weaponVajra, or the thunder-bolt. He is the regent of winds and showers, and, though the East is peculiarly under his care, yet his Olympus is Meru, or the North Pole, allegorically represented as a mountain of gold and gems. He is the Prince of the beneficent Genii.—SirW. Jones.

A distinct idea of Indra, the King of Immortals, may be collected from a passage in the ninth section of the Geta.

“These having, through virtue, reached the mansion of the king ofSuras, feast on the exquisite heavenly food of the Gods; they, who have enjoyed this lofty region ofSwerga,butwhose virtue is exhausted, revisit the habitation of mortals.”

He is the God of thunder and the five elements, with inferior Genii under his command; and is conceived to govern the eastern quarter of the world, but to preside, like theGeniusorAgathodæmonof the ancients, over the celestial bands, which are stationed on the summit ofMeru, or the North Pole, where he solaces the Gods with nectar and heavenly music.

TheCinnarasare the male dancers inSwerga, or the Heaven of Indra, and the Apsaras are his dancing girls, answering to the fairies of the Persians, and to the damsels called in the Koranhhúru lûyùn, or,with antelope’s eyes.—SirW. Jones.

I have seen Indra tremble at his prayer,And at his dreadful penances turn pale.—VI. p. 52.

Of such penances Mr. Halhed has produced a curious specimen:

“In the wood, Midhoo, which is on the confines of the kingdoms of Brege, Tarakee selected a pleasant and beautiful spot, adorned with verdure and blossoms, andthere exerted himself in penance and mortification, externally, with the sincerest piety, but, in reality, the most malignant intention, and with the determined purpose of oppressing the Devetas; penances such as credulity itself was astonished to hear; and they are here recounted:—

1. For a hundred years, he held up his arms and one foot towards heaven, and fixed his eyes upon the sun the whole time.

2. For a hundred years, he remained standing on tip-toe.

3. For a hundred years more, he nourished himself with nothing but water.

4. For a hundred years more, he lived upon nothing but air.

5. For a hundred years more, he stood and made his adorations in the river.

6. For a hundred years more, he made those adorations buried up to his neck in the earth.

7. For a hundred years more, enveloped with fire.

8. For a hundred years more, he stood upon his head with his feet towards heaven.

9. For a hundred years more, he stood upon the palm of one hand resting on the ground.

10. For a hundred years more, he hung by his hand from the branch of a tree.

11. For a hundred years more, he hung from a tree with his head downwards.

When he at length came to a respite from these severe mortifications, a radiant glory encircled the devotee, and a flame of fire, arising from his head, began to consume the whole world.”—From the Seeva Pooraun,Maurice’sHistory of Hindostan.

You see a pious Yogi, motionless as a pollard, holding his thick bushy hair, and fixing his eyes on the solar orb. Mark—his body is half covered with a white ant’s edifice made of raised clay; the skin of a snake supplies the place of his sacerdotal thread, and part of it girds his loins; a number of knotty plants encircle and wound his neck, and surrounding birds’ nests almost conceal his shoulders.

Dushmanta. I bow to a man of his austere devotion.—Sacontala.

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