together, the elder brother succeeding to the father's power, and to a large extent holding the property of the others in his hands. The mother-in-law is supreme over the females, and strangely deems it part of her duty to prevent too great tenderness between her sons and their wives,— —an obligation in the discharge of which she too often wounds so deeply the feelings of the daughter-in-law, that she betakes herself for protection to her father's roof, and is not induced to return till after negotiations and apologies. Not even caste itself more tends to compact Hindu society than this family system; for a man may arrive at middle age, or more, before he has a house of his own; his wife and children being liable to be taken from him in any dispute which would alienate himself from the family circle. Not a few, when they contemplate embracing Christianity, are menaced by this trial, in addition to others. All the people freely claim the right of home in the house of a relation. If a man be in flourishing circumstances, his brothers, uncles, cousins, and other near kin, will live upon him without scruple, nor concern themselves to obtain an independent livelihood, so long as he retains his means; and I believe the cases are very rare in which their claim, however unreasonable, is rejected. The private scenes of Hindu life are covered from all but members of the same caste; and, as Europeans do not belong to any of the castes, all family circles are closed against them. An European may live for years in a town, and be on the most friendly terms with the people; but he is debarred their homes. For the most part he never enters the door; and if he do, it is only to a conversation in the outer apartment with the males of the family, or to some great entertainment, with nothing domestic in its character, which, instead of showing him their family life, only shows how far they can succeed, upon an occasion, in laying out a table in English style. True, they manage, by garlands, scents, and dancing-girls, to give the matter a native air; but though this enables travellers of a certain class to talk of entertainments at the houses of natives, to one really desirous of studying their inner life, it only gives painful evidence of the care with which it is covered from his view. Much knowledge, however, is gained by daily intercourse with them, and careful observation of their allusions to in-door acts. The number of their meals is usually two. The first duty of the morning is, for the females to proceed to the well to draw water. And as the men may not partake of the morning meal before they have performed their ablutions, they go to the tank, bathe leisurely, wash their cloths, put carefully on their foreheads the marks of their sect, and repeat forms of prayer. In these duties the Bramhans are specially strict; and the Shudras almost totally negligent. These ceremonies, and others of a religious character, performed at home, being terminated, the first meal is taken about ten o'clock the second, which is also preceded by ablutions, is taken about sunset. "He who eats," says the Vishnu Purana, "without performing ablutions, is fed in hell with filth; and he who repeats not his prayers, with matter and blood... .Let the householder, having bathed, and offered libations to the gods and manes, and decorated his hands with jewels, proceed to take his meal..........................He must not eat with a single garment on, nor with wet hands and feet, but dressed in clean clothes, perfumed, and wearing garlands of flowers: he must not eat with his face to any intermediate point of the horizon, but fronting the east or the north and thus with a smiling countenance, happy and attentive, let him partake of food of good quality, wholesome, boiled with clean water, procured from no vile person nor by improper means, nor improperly cooked..........The man who commences his meal with fluids, then partakes of solid food, and finishes with fluids again, will ever be strong and healthy. In this manner let him feed without fault, silent and contented with his food; taking without uttering a word, to the extent of five handfuls, for the nutriment of the vital principle. Having eaten sufficiently, the householder is then to rinse his mouth, with his face turned towards the east or the north, and having again sipped water, he is to wash his hands from the wrist downwards. With a pleased and tranquil spirit, he is then to take a seat, and call to memory his tutelary deity; and then he is thus to pray: 'May fire, excited by air, convert this food into the earthly elements of this frame, and in the space afforded by the ethereal atmosphere cause it to digest, and yield me satisfaction! May this food, in its assimilation, contribute to the vigour of the earth, water, fire, and air of my body, and afford unmixed gratification! May Agasti, Agni, and submarine fire, effect the digestion of the food of which I have eaten; may they grant me the happiness which its conversion into nutriment engenders; and may health ever animate my form! May Vishnu, who is the chief principle of all invested with the bodily structure and the organs of sense, be propitiated by my faith in him, and influence the assimilation of the invigorating food which I have eaten! For verily Vishnu is the eater, and the food, and the nutriment; and through this belief, may that which I have eaten be digested! The Bramhans, the Lingha worshippers, and large sections of the other castes, do not touch animal food; and the statements made by Montgomery Martin and others, respecting beef-steaks at Bramhans' tables, and similar things, can be received only as proof that, in the centre of English influence, a few individuals begin to despise the sacred laws of their caste; for it must not be for a moment supposed that such offenders are other than the rarest, and, to the people at large, the most disgusting, exceptions. Of the many millions who compose those castes, not one, from birth to death, tastes anything that has lived, fish included, and even eggs. They loathe all animal food, as we do human flesh; and they profess to know a flesheater by his scent. In some of the northern countries, where caste-laws are in general less stringently maintained than in the south, many of the Bramhans eat fish, calling it a sea-vegetable. Even those castes who allow animal food, never let beef cross their lips; that enormity is left to the outcastes alone; and even they never kill the cow in order to obtain it, but only take the carcases of such as have died. The staple food of the Hindus varies with the climate of their different countries: rice, Indian corn, raaji, and some other grains, are each, in different places, the staff of life. Milk, in its various preparations, is an essential article of food; curds are highly esteemed; but clarified butter in a liquid state is their highest delicacy, and elicits their most dilated praises. It is called ghee, and affirmed to be quite as much in favour among the gods as among mortals. As corpulency is indicative of respectability, (for all poor men are thin,) and as ghee is supposed to assist in obtaining it, those who can afford to indulge their vanity use it in large quantities, and sometimes drink it pure. With their food they freely use spices, which, mixed and pounded, form currie, the delicious accompaniment of their boiled rice or other food. This currie, as eaten by the natives, is frequently so hot, that no European palate, except one long accustomed to it, could bear more than a few spoonfuls. Our countrymen universally use and highly prize it, but in milder forms. It must be remembered that spices are their only stimulant at meals; for even those who do allow themselves to taste exciting drinks never make them a beverage at table, if we may speak of a table where none exists. A currie generally contains ginger, lime, onion, salt, coriander-seed, cloves, pepper, red, and perhaps black, turmerick, citron, saffron, and garlic; with which are mixed cocoa-nut milk, tamarinds, and other ingredients, and, being mixed with vegetables fried in ghee, produce a condiment capable of being varied in endless ways, and in all its varieties pleasing.* Temperance is the most striking virtue of the Hindus. The laws both of the Bramhans and the Lingha worshippers proscribe all drinks that inebriate; and the use of these is confined to the lowest orders, except in rare and monstrous exceptions. Amongst respectable persons drunkenness is held in the utmost detestation; and in their eyes Europeans have been more degraded by intemperance than by all other causes combined; because in this vice they were obviously below themselves. Such is their horror of spirituous liquors, that when in fear of cholera, and willing to accept medicine prepared by Europeans, I have known them to declare they would not touch it, unless satisfied of its freedom from brandy. Several divisions of the Shudra caste use toddy and arrack, and so do all the outcastes; but even these latter, though more infected with the vice than any other class of the people, are not universally chargeable with drunkenness. I doubt, indeed, whether any class of the people can, as a class, be called drunkards, unless it be in some large cities where they have long had our example. In the matter of temperance, both Hindu and Mohammedan join, with pride and derision, to boast their superiority to the Christian! Nor is our shame lessened by alleging numerous defections among these two classes, when it is sadly manifest that these apostasies are often due to our presence. Toddy is the juice of the palm. In every palm-grove you see trees with small pots attached to them in different places: these are affixed to an aperture caused by boring, and receive the exuded juice. They are changed every morning; and the liquid, when fresh, is said to be delicious, and not intoxicating; but it is seldom drunk till after fermentation. Arrack is a strong spirit, distilled from rice, and also from several other substances. The vender of these drinks ranks amongst the most disreputable professions. Their temperance is not equally commendable in food as in drink. Though many avoid animal food, such abstinence does not necessarily imply moderation. Taking but two meals a day, they sit down with a sharp appetite; and when they rise, the lightly-covered person roundly displays the effects of the repast. A Bramhan, on seeing me return to my study after dinner, looked at me, and said, "What is the use of your going to dinner? You come back just as you went away." I assured him that my visit to the table was of very essential utility. "But," said he, patting his person, as they always do on any allusion to gastric operations, cannot see that dinner makes the least alteration in your appearance: you are just as you were before!" A native after dinner bears symptoms as plain as a colt coming from a field of clover. Of cooks and epicures the Bramhans claim to be the first-born. It is their birthright, as gods of the earth, specially to enjoy the fruits of their domain. When perfectly at home, and set upon the theme, they descant with luscious eloquence on their peerless skill in dressing and enjoying food. They boast much of their 66 one Those who are curious on Hindu cookery will find a tract on that subject in the "Miscellaneous Translations" of the Oriental Translation Fund. ability to fast; and when in another humour, boast as loudly, though less haughtily, of their ability to feast. They will smile, and quote the Shloka : - "Dear to Vishtnu is veneration; 66 They tell of most extravagant gourmand feasts by members of their own fraternity. "O,” said a panting Bramhan, after an entertainment, “I am choking with thirst." Why not take a little water?" asked a friend. "Bah! you simpleton; don't you think, if I had room for water, I would have taken another sweetmeat?" I do not mean to charge the people generally with gluttony, though they misrepresent themselves if they are not easily tempted to eat to excess; and I should have regarded the above statements respecting the Bramhans as slanderous, had they not come from themselves. The service of a Hindu meal is as primitive as can be. In Europe, we summon all nature and all art to wait upon us at dinner, and do us honour. The forest yields its rich woods, the mine its steel and silver, copper and tin, the field its fine linen; the hard flint appears in delicate and variegated porcelain; the tusk of the elephant presents our cutlery in smooth and beautiful cases; the sand of the sea comes in crystal goblets to moisten our lips. Then, how turner and joiner, weaver and miner, cutler and silversmith, potter and glass-worker, have shown their skill! But none of this elaboration is known in India. A good man just sits down upon the floor; a few leaves sewn together contain his food; and with his own fingers he conveys it to his mouth, as satisfactorily as if all Sheffield had been at his service. When the repast is over, the leaf-plate is thrown away, and another provided as the next meal is preparing. ness. But the simplicity of a Hindu meal is not more striking than its loneliIn all the length and breadth of vast Hindustan, such a thing as a family-board is not known! We look on that simple thing, a familyboard, as an indifferent, almost an unavoidable, accident of family life; but go to India, and you see no such thing. Let all the homes of that wide continent open to your eye to-day, and in every one you see a man sitting down alone, eating his food in silence; his wife abjectly waiting upon him till he has done, then taking away the food, and silently eating in a separate apartment. You may then exclaim, "Is it possible that even my familyboard, where affections circulate, and joys revive, is another of the boons for which I am indebted to the Gospel?" The furniture of a Hindu home is not more inferior in comfort to that of an English one, than are its domestic relations in joy. There the heart is ruled by another code than that which warms our hearths. Amongst all the unaccountable things said about India in Europe, perhaps, considering the character and opportunities of Sir Thomas Munro, the most unaccountable is that which he said before a Committee of the House of Commons, in 1813, respecting the domestic character of the Hindus:-"A treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy." What that most respectable man could mean by these words, I cannot even conjecture; unless that, having lived in India from boyhood, he, in his laudable attachment to the natives, an attachment to which they gave a merited return, had learned to appreciate the Hindu treatment of females, not by the just standard of Christianity, which he had seen in practice in Scotland 3 z VOL. III.FOURTH SERIES. when a boy, but by the detestable oppressions of Mohammedanism, which had been under his notice during all his active life. The Hindu woman is not, like her more unhappy Mohammedan neighbour, doomed to perpetual prison she has the privilege of other animals of seeing the sky, and breathing the free air. On this, therefore, may she congratulate herself; but in view of the rights given her of God she has much ground to complain. Her husband is taught in the popular Punchatuntara, that one essential quality of a great man is severity to women. Wickedness, deceit, impurity, and baseness, are pronounced inseparable from her nature! “Let the wife," says the Skanda Purâna, quoted by Dr. Wilson," who wishes to perform sacred ablution, wash the feet of her lord, and drink the water; for a husband is to a wife greater than Shankara or Vishtnu. The husband is her god, and guru, and religion, and its services: wherefore, abandoning everything else, she ought chiefly to worship her husband." From the Padma Purana, Dubois cites the following and similar passages:"Let him" (the husband) "be choleric and dissipated, irregular, a drunkard, a gambler, a debauchee; suppose him reckless of domestic affairs,—even agitated like a demon; let him live in the world destitute of honour; let him be deaf or blind; his crimes and his infirmities may weigh him down; but never shall his wife regard him but as her god..........In every stage of life a woman is created to obey. At first she yields obedience to her father and mother. When married, she submits to her husband, and her father and mother-in-law. In old age she must be ruled by her children.......................... When in the presence of her husband, a woman must not look on one side or the other. She must keep her eyes on her master, to be ready to receive his commands....... .Her husband may sometimes be in a passion; he may threaten her; he may use imperious language; nay, he may unjustly beat her; but under no circumstances shall she make any return but meek and soothing words." These startling extracts show the principles inculcated upon Hindu husbands by their most venerable authorities; but one would suppose that, by their revolting nature, they would prove their own antidote. I often questioned men on this subject; and, amongst those who were unaware of the way in which Christians feel, I invariably found a perfect concurrence in the abominable sentiments of the Shastras. A respectable man said, in reply to such interrogations, "The most fatal error one can commit is to treat his wife affectionately. From the day he exhibits tenderness towards her, his independence and his peace are gone. She will dread him no longer; all the vices of her nature will break forth; his home is no more his own; and he must bear her tongue and her temper all his days. If," added he,-and I shall never forget the words,—“ if you bear affection to a parent, a brother, a child, or even a servant, you may display it; but if you love your wife, you must never allow her to suspect it; or farewell to peace!" This calamitous sentiment could never be carried into practice where marriage is a voluntary contract between persons of mature age. But in India the bride is probably not older than five or seven: she may be as young as three. She most likely has never seen her lord before the wedding-day, and possibly may see him no more for years. Affection, on the one part or the other, has no place in originating the union; and that it should arise out of it, at least on the part of the husband, to any tender extent, he is taught to regard as weak and unseemly. No wonder Dubois should say, "During the long period of my observance of them and their habits, I am not sure that I saw two Hindu marriages that closely united the hearts by a true and inviolable attachment." |