Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 342

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EXCLUDING STRANGERS FROM TEMPLES
Europeans should indeed blush and take shame to them-
when they see to what depths of degradation and
abasement the religion of their fathers has sunk in this
country through the misconduct and bad example of their
selves
fellows K
But to
return to the matter in hand
:
many
people
have attributed to narrowmindedness and intolerance the
excessive care which Brahmins take to exclude strangers
from their temples and religious ceremonies. For my part,
I think that their only motive is to secure themselves from
the approach of men who, from the way in which they live,
and from the clothes which they wear, are in their eyes in
a perpetual state of defilement. In the course of my travels,
chance has sometimes brought me to the door, or into the
enclosure, of one of their large temples, just when a crowd
had assembled to witness some solemn ceremony or pro-
cession, and giving way to curiosity, I have stopped to look
on at my leisure. On such occasions the Brahmins them-
selves have sometimes invited me to enter their temple,
being satisfied as to my manner of living and conduct an
honour which, out of respect to my calling, I always felt
;
bound
to decline.
I had to build or restore a church, it was very
often from Brahmins that I obtained the site and the
necessary materials
and when I did occasionally meet
with opposition in the public discharge of my religious
duties, it was never due to Brahmins, but to fanatical
sectaries, to religious mendicants, and to other vagabonds
who are always wandering about the country.
When
;
But
if
Brahmins cannot with any
justice be accused of
intolerance in the matter of religion, the same can certainly
not be said in regard to their civil usages and customs.
On these points they are utterly unreasonable.
have
already seen many proofs of this in the preceding chapters,
and what I am now about to add will form a fitting sequel.
It is part of their principles to avoid and despise strangers.
We
In his Letters on the State of Christianity in India the Abbe goes
into the whole of this question at great length but he ascribes to Brah-
minical influence, rather than to Anglo-Indian immorality, the chief
cause of the impossibility of making real converts to Christianity
among the natives of India.' En.
1
;
'
—