Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 232

DISREGARDING NATIVE PREJUDICES
192
Pariahs, however,
defilement which cannot be purified.
are tacitly allowed to feast on the flesh of those animals
which die of old age or disease. In their case this is not
but, as we have already
looked upon exactly as a crime
seen, this privilege, of which these miserable outcastes
avail themselves without scruple, contributes a good deal
towards keeping up that sort of curse which overshadows
;
them.
The flesh of the buffalo, camel, horse, elephant, &c, in
fact everything that comes under the head of large meat,
inspires all Hindus, Pariahs excepted, with almost as great
an abhorrence as the flesh of the cow or ox. There is the
same idea of defilement connected with it.
I have already pointed out that Europeans do not seem
disposed to adopt the same rules of abstinence as are
followed by the people among whom they live, and that,
without paying any attention to the disgust which they
It is certain that
cause, they continue to eat beef openly.
this conduct estranges them from all the better classes of
Hindus, who, consequently, in this respect place them far
below the Pariahs. It is true that the first conquerors of
India, in defiance of the most sacred and long-established
customs of the country, killed oxen and cows without
exciting a general insurrection against such an insult as
the slaughter of animals worshipped by Hindus as their
gods and it is also true that for several succeeding cen-
turies the handful of foreigners established among them
have been allowed to kill these sacred animals with impunity
to satisfy their own appetites
but they have only to
thank the mild, temperate, and indolent character of the
nation which has spared them 1
Amongst ancient nations there are few who would with
so much patience have allowed their religious beliefs to
;
;
.
1
This horror of cow-killing is as strong among Hindus throughout
India to-day as it ever was. The remarkable revival of Hinduism
during the last few years has been characterized by the formation of
innumerable secret religious societies for the protection of the cow, and
the riots among Hindus and Mahomedans in recent years are more or
less directly traceable, it is asserted, to the propaganda of these societies.
It may be mentioned that in Kashmir, until quite recently, cow-killing
was punishable with death, and imprisonment for life is now the penalty.
—Ed.