Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/356

Rh wholesome nutriment, as well as more fitting materials to work on, continued ingeniously to spin out of its own substance, and which it required the “Reformation” of a and the “Instauration” of a, with the convulsions of empire and the crash of ancient institutions, to sweep away—can alone convey an approximate conception of the masses of sharp-edged organa, and gossamer-like tenuities that have accumulated in our Indian schools of logic, and constitute the staple commodities of intellectual production and distribution there.

Besides the three principal grades of schools of learning now briefly described, there are seminaries for the inculcation of other branches of Sanskrit learning, which, though fewer in number, must not be wholly passed by unnoticed. There are Medical schools, for the study of the most approved medical shastras, which, containing much that is useful, though intermixed with the strangest fallacies and quackeries, have, in their own department, exercised for ages a supremacy “so absolute and undisputed, as to have repressed all independent inquiry, observation, and experiment.” There are Philosophical schools, in which the Sankya, the Mimansa, and other theistic, atheistic, atomic, and ideal schemes of philosophy are propounded with as much zeal as if they were the happy discoveries of yesterday, instead of the periodically reviving and periodically exploded errors of successive ages and of different climes. There are Puranic or mythological schools, in which are read portions of the Bhagavat and other Puranas, containing fabulous accounts of the creation, the genealogy and achievements of gods and heroes, with all manner of wild and extravagant legends; as also selections from the Ramayana and, the gigantic epic poems of India, the former of which rehearses the exploits of the incarnate deity Ram, and the latter the misfortunes and final victory of a race of kings descended from the great. There are astrological schools, which not only embrace the teaching of the art of divination and the casting of nativities by the situation and aspect of the stars, but also the science of computation in its widest sense, together with mathematical and astronomical knowledge. There are Tantric schools, in which are taught those works that are employed in explaining “the formulæ peculiar to the votaries of Shiva and the female deities, by which they seek to attain supernatural powers, and accomplish objects either good or bad for themselves or others.” The followers of the Tantric system have been justly described by Mr. Adam as “intemperate and licentious in their habits and manners, not only believing that the use of intoxicating liquors (and it might truly be added, an unlimited indul-