CHAP. 7. CHAP. VII. Manners. BOOK II. By the manners of a nation are understood the peculiar modes in which the ordinary business of human life is carried on. The business itself is every where essentially the same. In all nations men eat and drink; they meet, converse, transact, and sport together. But the manner in which these and other things are performed is as different as the nations are numerous into which the race is divided. So much of the entire business of life, among the Hindus, consists in religious services, that the delineation of their religion is a delineation of the principal branch of their manners. The singular distinctions, attached to the different classes, present another remarkable feature in the manners of this people. The lower orders, in other countries, are often lamentably debased; in Hindustan they are degraded below the brutes. With the single exception of the Vaisya caste, to whom is appropriated the business of agriculture and of barter, the whole of the productive classes, according to the standards of law and religion, are vile and odious, unworthy to eat, to drink, or to sit with a member of the classes above them. There are four remarkable periods into which, with respect to the three honourable classes, human life is divided. Of these periods; or orders, as they are denominated by the Hindus; the first is that of the student; the second, that of the householder; СНАР. 7. the third, that of the man who performs penance or BOOK II. other religious acts, residing continually in a forest; the fourth, that of the Sannyasi, or the ascetic absorbed in divine contemplation.1 The period of the student commences at the era of investiture. Prior to this age, the situation of children is remarkable; even those of a Brahmen are not held superior in rank to a Sudra.3 The condition of the student much more closely resembles that of an European apprentice than that of a pupil in literature. He dwells in the house of his preceptor, and tends him with the most respectful assiduity. He is commanded to exert himself in all acts useful to his teacher; and of course performs the part of an assistant in all the offices of religion." "As he who digs deep with a spade comes to a spring of water, so the student, who humbly serves his teacher, attains the knowledge which lies deep in his teacher's mind." Upon the student of the priestly order a peculiar burden, or distinction, is imposed: to acquire daily his food by begging." 4 The gift of sacred instruction is not bestowed indiscriminately; but the text, which regulates the choice of pupils, is so vague as to leave the selection nearly at the discretion of the master. "Ten persons," it is declared, "may legally be instructed in the Veda; the son of a spiritual teacher; a boy who is assiduous; one who can impart other knowledge; one who is just; one who is pure; one who is friendly; one who is 1 See Laws of Menu, ch. ii. iii, and vi. 2 See the account of this æra, p. 257 of this volume. 3 Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 173. * Ibid. ch. ii. 191. "Let him carry water-pots, flowers, cow-dung, fresh earth, and cusa grass, as much as may be useful to his preceptor." Ibid. 182. 6 "The subsistence of a student by begging is held equal to fasting in religious merit." Ibid. 218. There are numerous precepts respecting the niceties of begging. Ibid. 48 to 50, and 183 to 190. CHAP. 7. BOOK II. powerful; one who can bestow wealth; one who is honest; and one who is related by blood. Where virtue and wealth are not found, or diligent attention proportioned, in that soil divine instruction must not be sown; it would perish like fine seed in barren land."1 The instruction which is bestowed may soon be described. "The venerable preceptor, having girt his pupil with the thread, must first instruct him in purification, in good customs, in the management of the consecrated fire, and in the holy rites of morning, noon, and evening." The grand object of attention and solicitude is the reading of the Veda. Some elasses of the Brahmens have united with their religious doctrines certain speculations concerning the intellectual and material worlds; and these speculations have been dignified with the name of philosophy ; but the holy rites, and the Veda, form the great, and on most occasions the exclusive object of that higher instruction which is bestowed on the pupil of the Brah men. On this important occasion, as on other occasions, the attention of the Hindu is much more engaged by frivolous observances, than by objects of utility. While the directions laid down respecting the instruction of the pupil are exceedingly few and insignificant, the forms, according to which he must pay his duty to the master, are numerous, minute, and emphatically enjoined. * Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 109, 112. 2 Ibid. 69. 3 Ibid. 70. • When the student is going to read the Veda, he must perform an ablution, as the law ordains, with his face to the north; and at the beginning and end of each lesson, he must clasp both the feet of his preceptor, and read with both his hands closed. "In the presence of his preceptor let him always eat less; and wear a coarser mantle, with worse appendages let him rise before, and go to rest after his tutor. Let him not answer his teacher's orders, or converse with him, reclining on a bed; The duration of the period of study is very indefi- BOOK II. nite. "The discipline of a student in the three Vedas CHAP. 7. may be continued for thirty-six years, in the house of nor sitting, nor eating, nor standing, nor with an averted face: But let him both answer and converse, if his preceptor sit, standing up; if he stand, advancing toward him; if he advance, meeting him; if he run, hastening after him; if his face be averted, going round to front him, from left to right; if he be at a little distance, appoaching him; if reclined, bending to him; and if he stand ever so far off, running toward him. When his teacher is nigh, let his couch or his bench be always placed low; when his preceptor's eye can observe him, let him not sit carelessly at his ease. Let him never pronounce the mere name of his tutor, even in his absence; by censuring his preceptor, though justly, he will be born an ass. He must not serve his tutor by the intervention of another, while himself stands aloof; nor must he attend him in a passion, nor when a woman is near: from a carriage or raised seat he must descend to salute his heavenly director. Let him not sit with his preceptor to the leeward, or to the windward of him; nor let him say any thing which the venerable man cannot hear." Institutes of Menu, ch. ii. 70, 71, and 194 to 199, and 201 to 203. Even to the sons and wives of the preceptor must numerous tokens of profound respect be shown, Ibid. 207 to 218. For his general conduct "these following rules," says Menu, << must a Brahmachari, or student in theology, observe, while he dwells with his preceptor; keeping all his members under control, for the sake of increasing his habitual devotion. Day by day, having bathed and being purified, let him offer fresh water to the gods, the sages, and *.. the manes; let him show respect to the images of the deities, and bring wood for the oblation to fire. Let him abstain from honey, from fleshmeat, from perfumes, from chaplets of flowers, from sweet vegetable juices, from women, from all sweet substances turned acid, and from injury to animated beings; from unguents for his limbs, and from black powder for his eyes, from wearing sandals and carrying an umbrella, from sensual desire, from wrath, from covetousness, from dancing, and from vocal and instrumental music; from gaming, from disputes, from detraction, and from falsehood, from embracing or wantonly looking at women, and from disservice to other men. Let him sleep constantly alone." Next are forbidden several acts of sensual impurity which are too gross to be described; and the holy text thus again proceeds; "Let him carry water-pots, flowers, cow-dung, fresh earth and cusa grass, as much as may be useful to his preceptor. Having brought logs of wood from a distance, let him place them in the open air; and with them let him make an oblation to fire, without remissness, both evening and morning. Let the scholar, when commanded by his preceptor, and even when he has received no command, always exert himself in reading. Let not the sun ever rise or set while he lies asleep in the village." stitutes of Menu, ch. ii. 175 to 183, 186, 191, 219. In 1 BOOK II. his preceptor; or for half that time, or for a quarter of it, or until he perfectly comprehend them: A student, whose rules have not been violated, may assume the order of a married man, after he has read in succession a sac'ha, or branch from each of the three Vedas, or from two or from any one of them." It is even permitted to pass the whole period of life in the state of a pupil; and to this merit so exalted is ascribed, that the very highest rewards of religion are bestowed upon it. "If a student anxiously desire to pass his whole life in the house of a sacerdotal teacher, he must serve him with assiduous care, till he be released from his mortal frame. That Brahmen who has dutifully attended his preceptor till the dissolution of his body, passes directly to the eternal mansion of God."2 Should the teacher die, the student must attend upon his widow, his son, or one of his paternal kinsmen, with the same respect as to the deceased preceptor. Should none of these be living he occupies the seat of the preceptor himself.3 1 Institutes of Menu, ch. iii. 1. 2 Ibid. ii. 243, 244. 3 Ib. 247, 248. The following modes of living are pointed out to the Brahmen; 1. lawful gleaning and gathering; 2. what is given unasked; 3. what is asked as alms; 4. tillage; 5. traffic and money lending: even by these two last, when distressed, he may live; but service for hire is named dog-living, which he must always avoid, iv. 4, 5, 6. His hair, nails, and beard being clipped; his passions subdued; his mantle white; his body pure; let him diligently occupy himself in reading the Veda. Let him carry a staff of Venu, an ewer with water in it, an handful of cusa grass, or a copy of the Veda: with a pair of bright golden rings in his ears. He must not gaze on the sun, whether rising or setting, or eclipsed, or reflected in water, or advanced to the middle of the sky. Over a string to which a calf is tied, let him not step; nor let him run while it rains; nor let him look on his own image in water: this is a settled rule. By a mound of earth, by a cow, by an idol, by a Brahmen, by a pot of clarified butter or of honey, by a place where four ways meet, and by large trees well known in the district, let him pass with his right hand toward them, 35, 36, 37, 38, S9. Let him neither eat with his wife, nor look at her eating, nor sneezing, or yawning, or sitting carelessly at her ease, 43. Some precepts are ludicrous. "Let him not eat his food, wearing |