Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 345

PREJUDICE AGAINST EUROPEANS
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considering the immense and incontestable superiority that
the many Europeans who live in this country have over
them ? The Brahmins, on the other hand, far from accept-
ing this superiority, scornfully repudiate anything that they
hear in regard to the ingenious contrivances and useful
discoveries which have made such giant strides in Europe
of late years.
Nothing that has not been discovered by
Brahmins, and nothing that is not to be found in their
books, would be considered worthy of one moment's atten-
tion on their part.
You may often meet with men of the
Brahmin caste who, from some interested motive or other,
have learnt European languages and understand them
thoroughly, but you never find in their hands a book
written in one of these languages, and no one could ever
persuade them that such a book contained anything useful
which they did not already know, or which was not to be
found in one of their books. No doubt frank and friendly
relations between them and educated Europeans may in
time overcome this absurd and inexplicable perverseness
but nothing leads one to hope that they will ever seek to
establish such relations \
How, indeed, could a Brahmin or any other Hindu have
any real feelings of friendship or esteem for Europeans so
long as the latter continue to eat the flesh of the sacred
cow, which a Hindu considers a much more heinous offence
than eating human flesh, so long as he sees them with
Pariahs as domestic servants, and so long as he knows that
they have immoral relations