Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/11

Rh THE history of these gods is a heap of the greatest absurdities. It is Eswara twisting off the neck of Brama; it is the Sun, who gets his teeth 'knocked out, and the Moon, who has her face beat black and blue at a feast, at which the gods quarrel and fight with the spirit of a mob. They say that the Sun and Moon carry in their faces to this day the marks of this broil. Here and there a moral or metaphysical allegory, and sometimes a trace of the history of a first legislator, is discernible in these stories; but in general they are so very extravagant and incoherent, that we should be left to wonder tow a people so reasonable in other respects should have adopted such a code of nonsense as a creed of religion, did we not find the same credulity in the histories of nations much more enlightened. THE Bramins, who are the tribe of the priesthood, descend from those Brachmans who are mentioned to us with so much reverence by antiquity; and although much inferior either as philosophers or men of learmng to the reputation of their ancestors, as priests their religious doctrines are still implicitly followed by the whole nation; and as preceptors they are the source of all the knowledge which exists in Indostan. EVEN at this day some of them are capable of calculating an eclipse, which seems to be the utmost stretch of their mathematical knowledge. They have a good idea of logic; but it does not appear that they have any treatises on rhetoric; their ideas of music if we may judge from the practice, are barbarous; and in medicine they derive no assistance from the knowledge of anatomy, since dissections are repugnant to their religion. THEY shed no blood and eat no flesh, because they believe in the transmigration of souls; they encourage wives to burn themselves with their deceased husbands, and seem to make the perfection of religion consist in a punctual observance of numerous ceremonies performed in the worship of their gods, and in a strict attention to keep their bodies free from pollution. Hence purifications and