Page:A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of the District, or Zila, of Dinajpur.djvu/99

Rh Brahmins, however, justify the action; not from their alleging that a Kayostho should read the work of a Muni, but because the works that have been translated are not in reality the composition of Vyas.

Persons who are desirous of extending their knowledge to the study of the law (Smriti), after such a course of Vyakoron, are qualified to begin with the works of, a Brahmin of Nodiya, whose great-grandson is said to be still alive. His works are said to be very voluminous, and to consist of 28 books. Of those however 8 only are usually studied in this district, and these require five years of constant application. They are as follows:

1. Tithi Tottwo, which treats of the laws to be observed in the performance of ceremonies at new moons and eclipses. 2. Prayoschitto Tottwo, concerning the ceremonies which ought to be performed for the remission of sin. 3. Dayo Tottwo, concerning succession to property. 4. Molomas Tottwo, concerning what is to be done or omitted during the intercalary month of the lunar year. 5. Suddhi Tottwo, concerning what is to be eaten on certain days, especially those of mourning. 6. Udbaho Tottwo, concerning marriage. 7. Ahnik Tottwo, concerning the rules for prayer. 8. Sraddho Tottwo, concerning what is to be done in commemoration of deceased parents.

After this course of law one Pandit reads with his pupils one of the 18 Purans called Sribhagvot, as containing an useful illustration of the dry precepts of Roghunondon. He supposes that this work was written by Vyas in the end of the first Dwapor yugo age, and that it is prophetical, as it gives an account of the wars which followed soon after. He also supposes, that there have been a great many successions of these ages, in which the same personages and transactions that appeared in one appeared also in the others; and that the history of the wars which Vyas delivered at the end of the first Dwapor yugo, is just as applicable to the war which happened in the commencement of the present degenerate age, as it was to the war which immediately followed the first composition of the work, in which most people will be disposed to coincide with this learned man. This, however, is one of the works that have been translated into the profane tongue, and doubts are now raised concerning its authenticity. In this school men have usually finished their education in the law by the time that they are thirty years of age. Some of the Pandits however, in place of this flight to poetical regions, after having finished the usual 8 books of Roghunondon, teach the Prachín Smriti, composed by Sulpani, a Brahmin of Yosor (Jessore), which treats of the same subject with the 2nd book of Roghunondon. They then give their pupils the Sraddho Chintamoni, a work of, a Maithilo Brahmin, which treats on the laws for performing funeral ceremonies.

Grammar (Vyakoron) is a necessary preliminary to all science, but many proceed to study metaphysics or philosophy without attending to law, and many on the contrary study law without a previous knowledge of that important branch of knowledge. Metaphysics of the Nyayo Sastro are the glory of the Pandits of Bengal, and are no where in India so much studied. The Pandits here say, that the science was first disclosed by the god Sib to Gautom, who wrote a treatise on the subject that has been lost. Although the Brahmins strenuously assert the contrary, I think there is great reason to believe, that this Gautom is the same with the 4th great legislator of the Buddhists, whose doctrines being now thought heterodox will readily account for his philosophy having disappeared. The most ancient work on