Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/12

iv noticeable tales, traditions, customs, beliefs, and ceremonies of the Hindus. And itis to be hoped that many others of his educated fellow-countrymen will follow his good example. For there are mines of wealth to be exploited in this manner, and there is work for many scores of writers, compilers and translators.

There is no country in the world, moreover, where such studies are of more importance than in India, for with the Hindu, customs and traditions explain almost every act of his everyday life. As a learned writer on the Hindus has well said:—"With the Hindu, religion is not a thing for times and seasons only, but professes to regulate his life in its many relations. It orders ceremonies to be performed on his behalf before he is born, and others after his death. It ordains those attendant on his birth, his early training, his food, his style of dress and its manufacture, his employment, marriage, amusements. It seeks to regulate not only his private life, but also his domestic and national. To treat of the ordinary life of the Hindu is to describe his religion."

It follows from this that for Hindus to know themselves, or for others to know them, a study of such matters as Pandit Natesa Sastri sets