Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 171

ILLICIT
CONNEXIONS
131
a birth, at the ceremony of the diksha (initiation), at
a marriage, or at a death.
If these pastoral visits were of very frequent occurrence
it is evident that the resources of the poor flock would soon
be exhausted. Fortunately, those of the chief gurus, which
Some make
are the most expensive, take place but seldom.
a tour of their districts once in five years, others once in
ten only, and others, again, only once in a lifetime.
Some gurus are married, but most are celibates. The
latter, however, do not appear to adhere very strictly to
Their conduct on this head is the
their vow of chastity.
more open to misconstruction in that they can have one
According to the
or two women in their houses as cooks.
customs and ideas of the country, for a man to keep a
female servant and to have her as his mistress are one and
the same thing. No Hindu can be persuaded of the possi-
bility of free, and at the same time innocent, intercourse
between a man and a woman.
But in spite of this, the common herd, who fancy that
gurus are not made of the same clay as other mortals and
are consequently impeccable, are in no wise shocked at
Sensible people take no notice,
these illicit connexions.
but shut their eyes and say that allowances must be made
for human weakness.
The Brahmins pretend that they are the gurus for all
castes, and that they alone have a right to the rank and
honours appertaining to that profession but, as I have
already mentioned, a number of common Sudras also con-
The
trive to raise themselves to that dignified position.
Brahmins, of course, look upon them as intruders, but this
does not in the least prevent their enjoying all the honours
and advantages which belong to their rank in the caste
and sect by which they are acknowledged.
Except when they are making their tours of inspection,
most gurus live in seclusion, shut up in isolated hermitages
called mutts.
They are rarely seen in public. Some of
them live in the vicinity of the large pagodas. But the
high priests, whose large households and daily hospitalities
;
entail considerable expenditure, generally live in the large
agraharas or towns inhabited principally by Brahmins,
and for this reason called punyasthalas, or abodes of virtue.