Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 145

CORRUPTION OF MODERN BRAHM1NISM
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their scrupulous abstinence, not only from meat and all
forms of living food, but even from anything with which
superstition or prejudice may have connected any idea of
pollution.
The religious system of the Brahmins and the absurd
theogony which they have propagated in India seem to be
the points on which they have gone most astray from the
I cannot believe that the
teachings of their predecessors.
original lawgivers of the Hindus intended to introduce
a creed so abominable and palpably absurd as that which
Their mythology origin-
at present exists amongst them.
ally consisted of allegories made intelligible by means of
visible and material objects, so that religious knowledge
should not die out of the minds of men who appeared to
be little influenced by anything that failed to make a direct
But a coarse, ignorant, in-
impression on their senses.
dolent, and superstitious race soon forgot the spirit of its
creed, and ended by believing solely in the forms and
emblems which had been employed so that, before long,
they quite lost sight of the spiritual beings of which these
emblems were only symbolical. But I shall have occasion
to refer to this question again, and so shall merely state
here that the long tissue of fables on which the present
religion of the Hindus is founded is not, to my mind, very
Although
ancient
at least, the greater part of it is not.
;
;
some authors think differently, nothing will persuade me
that their mythology is much older than that of the
Greeks.
The primitive creed of the ancient Brahmins seems to
have been utterly corrupted by their successors. The first
form of idolatry into which all nations fall, after forgetting
traditions concerning the unity of God and the
absolute and exclusive worship He expects from all His
creatures, is the adoration of the stars and conspicuous
Apparently the
elements, such as earth, fire, and water.
first Brahmins practised the purer cult, but afterwards
their descendants reached the lowest stage of idolatry by
adoring images and statues, which were intended only as
It was when
the emblems of the objects of their worship.
this came to pass that India and the greater part of Asia
probably split up into the two beliefs which still exist,
their
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