PENANCES OF THE HINDOOS.

Allahabad, July 1799.

Of the various modes of appeafing the irritated conscience of offenders, that of penances and expiations has been moft univerfal among fuperftitious nations; and from the extent to which they have carried the doctrine, perhaps no invention of prieftcraft has been more injurious to the interests of morality. In no ftage of fociety, not even in the highest degrees of virtue and information which it has ever attained, are men beyond the reach of remorfe, fince they are always liable to mifconduct and error; in a rude age, however, when, from the imperfection of government, crimes and irregularities are more frequent, and when the character of deity and all that pertains to hereafter, are viewed through the awful obfcurity of ignorance, the powers of confcience are aided by imagination, and its upbraidings are beyond endurance.

IN

IN fuch cases relief is grafped at without enquiry into the aptitude of the means; and to reftore a man to peace of mind, and felf eftimation, if it can be done without injuring virtue, is one of the best offices of a religious inftructor.

PENANCES and expiations are those external acts appointed by the priesthood, to appease confcience under the notion of removing moral turpitude. They are founded on a principle univerfal in human nature; and in every country have, in a greater or lefs degree, become an engine of power to the priesthood. In ages of ignorance men are least able to detect encroachments of this nature: their fuperftitious fears feem rather to invite them: hence history has always exhibited this branch of ecclefiaftical power and emolument, bearing a strict proportion to the ignorance of the people.

ACTS naturally indifferent are put on the fame footing with immoralities; eating certain articles of food, drinking certain liquors, or touching certain objects, are declared forfeitures, and are expiated by penance as immoral conduct. In most of the Afiatic governments, where the priesthood have acquired great influence, the doctrine of penances and expiations has been extended to almost every action and fituation of life; and the people have been gradually fubjected to a jurifdiction as unlimited as their own fuperftitious imaginations, and provided with punishments as various as their fears.

THE

THE Jewish institutions have been preserved to us in records more authentic than thofe of any other ancient people. By them we learn in what various cases a man was rendered impure, whether from guilt, or from circumstances accidental, or by actions indifferent. But whatever were the means by which guilt or impurity was contracted, expiation was indifpenfable, before the finner could be admitted into fociety, partake in any religious folemnity, or even eat or drink with his brethren *.

Thefe

laws were guarded by punishments fo fevere, as enfured their obfervance; difobedience in certain cafes incurred the fame punishment as murder: "The

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man that shall be unclean and shall not purify himself, that foul fhall be cut off from among the "congregation."

A large portion of the Hindoo Scripture is appro priated to the fubject of expiation. The great fyftem of Metempfychofis itfelf, as laid down in the facred books, makes a part of this doctrine*. The fufferings endured by undergoing a certain number of tranfmigrations, are in no inftance declared eternal: "when the taint arifing from guilt is remov

ed,"

*Numb. chap. xix. v. 22. The delinquent was not merely excluded from fociety; "but whatsoever the unclean perfon toucheth fhall be unclean, and the foul that toucheth it fhall be alfo unclean.”

+ Vide Inftitut. of Menu, chap. xii. paflim.

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ed," the foul again recovers, beatitude; and after its purification is complete, it is abforbed into the univerfal spirit *.

THE machinery of the Hindoo fyftem is awful and tremendous; and had it been uniformly employed in the defence of virtue, its effects must always have been confiderable, as well as very falutary.

THEIR regions of torment are various, and in great number; and the pains fuffered in them are proportioned to the fuppofed guilt of the offenders; who " as often as they repeat criminal acts are "doomed to pains more and more intenfe, in defpi"cable forms upon this earth. They shall first have "a fenfation of agony in Tamifra †, or utter dark"nefs, and in other feats of horror. Multifarious "tortures await them they fhall be mangled by ravens and owls; and fwallow cakes boiling hot; "fhall walk over inflamed fands; and fhall feel the pangs of being baked like the veffels of a potter ‡."

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.

EVEN thefe regions of darknefs are not altogether inacceffible to hope, and the criminal in the abyfs of

torment might look forward to a period in which his guilt would be expiated, and when the gates of blifs would be no longer fhut against him. Eternal punishments feem, to the Hindoo, injurious to virtue, and repugnant to mercy.

So far may the Hindoo fyftem of expiation be regarded as abetting the cause of virtue, but there are other parts of it that feem calculated to fubvert the moral fenfe, and obliterate the distinction between right and wrong. The claffification of crimes totally unequal, and the fubjecting actions indifferent, to the fame punishment as offences the most injurious to fociety, certainly tends to weaken the moral faculty. It is a maxim in legislation, that law fhould not counteract morals, and that the crimes of the ftatute-book should correspond with the dictates of conscience; but in a fyftem erected by interested craft upon ignorance, we are not to expect that this rule shall be strictly adhered to.

We find accordingly in the Braminical code, crimes of the most different degrees of turpitude claffed together, without any regard to proportion in their punishment. Thus, "forgetting texts of fcripture," is claffed with "perjury;" eating things forbidden, to "killing a friend :" incest and adultery, are compared to flaying a bull or a cow; drinking for

Menu, chap. xii. v. 55, &c.