Page:The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy Vol 2.djvu/225



, like other large empires, is divided into several extensive provinces, principally inhabited by Hindoos and Mussulmans. The latter admit but a small degree of variety in their domestic and religious usages, while the Hindoos of each province, particularly those of Bengal, are distinguished by peculiarities of dialect, habits, dress, and forms of worship; and notwithstanding they unanimously consider their ancient legislators as inspired writers, collectively revealing human duties, nevertheless there exist manifest discrepancies among them in the received precepts of civil law.

2. When we examine the language spoken in Bengal, we find it widely different from that of any part of the western provinces, (though both derived from the same origin;) so that the inhabitants of the upper country require long residence to understand the dialect of Bengal; and although numbers of the natives of the upper provinces, residing in Bengal, in various occupations, have seemingly familiarized themselves to the Bengalees, yet the former are imperfectly understood, and distantly associated with by the latter. The language of Tellingana and other provinces of the Dukhun not being of Sunskrit origin, is still more strikingly different from the language of Bengal and the dialects of the upper provinces. The variety observable in their respective