Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 239

THE HINDU RELIGION NOT BORROWED
199
which the law of Moses laid down for the children of Israel
concerning the various kinds of defilements, real and
l
technical
.
in fact, impossible to
striking points of resemblance
It
is,
deny that there are many
between Jewish and Hindu
Should one then conclude that the
customs.
latter copied
them from the former 1 I think not. If they are
in some essentials, they display great dissimilarity in
alike
their
Besides, there is nothing that I know of
in the history either of the Egyptians or of the Jews to
show that these people existed as a nation prior to the
Hindus. The peculiarity of the dogmas and rites of the
outward forms.
Hindu
religion,
the strong antipathy which the Hindus feel
for anything that savours of imitation, the unshaken firm-
ness with which they cling to ideas which originated at
a date now lost in the darkness of antiquity, the intolerance,
the pride, the presumption of the Brahmins, and above all
their detestation and contempt for foreigners and foreign
customs all these make me confident that the Hindus
never borrowed anything from other nations. Everything
connected with the Hindus is stamped with the impress of
Never could this vain and
originality and independence.
self-sufficient people, who are so filled with the idea of their
own moral ascendency, have condescended to model their
habits and customs on those of foreigners, whom they have
always kept at the greatest possible distance. How, then,
came the Hindus to originate these singular notions of
:
I feel that I possess neither
defilement and purification ?
the necessary learning nor the necessary talent to cope
I must therefore
satisfactorily with this difficult question.
beg my readers' indulgence in briefly laying before them
the conjectural opinions which I have formed on the
subject.
Even before the Flood men were imbued with these
Amongst animals
notions of defilement and purification.
God recognized this
there were the clean and the unclean.
distinction when He dictated to Noah the number of each
species that was to go into the ark \
It is probable that the tradition of this classification of
things clean and unclean was handed down by the deseen-
1
Leviticus xv. 11-15.
a
Genesis
vii. 2.