Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 212

172
BRAHMINICAL PRIVILEGES
matters of form. Nothing is more common than to see
their foreheads ornamented with sandalwood paste and their
mouths full of betel \
If, from want of means
or other causes, a
young Brahmin
unmarried at the age of eighteen or twenty, he ceases
to be a Brahmachari, but at the same time he does not
become a Grahastha. For all that, be his age and con-
dition what they may, from the time that he receives the
cord, he obtains the right to the six privileges which are
inherent in this status. These privileges are
(1) to read
the Vedas, (2) to have them read to him, (3) to perform
the sacrifice of the yagnam, (4) to cause the yagnam to
be performed, (5) to give, and also (6) to receive, pre-
sents and alms.
Three of these privileges, (2), (4), and (5),
are also shared by the Kshatriyas or Rajahs.
As to the
despised Sudras, they possess only one of them, namely,
that which allows them to give alms or presents to those
Brahmins who will condescend to accept them from their
impure hands.
To the Brahmins alone belongs the light of reading the
Vedas, and they are so jealous of this, or rather it is so much
to their interest to prevent other castes obtaining any
insight into their contents, that the Brahmins have in-
culcated the absurd theory, which is implicitly believed,
is still
:
that should anybody of any other caste be so highly im-
prudent as even to read the title-page, his head would
immediately split in two. The very few Brahmins who are
able to read these sacred books in the original only do so
in secret and in a whisper.
Expulsion from caste, without
the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest
punishment for a Brahmin who exposed these books to
the eyes of the profane.
These four marvellous books are held to be the work of
Brahma
who wrote them with his own hand on
Brahma, it is said, explained their meaning
to four famous Munis, or penitents, to whom the books
were entrusted, and to whom was confided the task of
explaining them to the Brahmins. Sumantu, the first of
these celebrated personages, was given the Yajur-Veda
himself,
pages of gold.
;
1
The chewing
occurrence.
Ed.
of betel
by Brahmacharis
is,
nevertheless, an
uncommon