Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 43

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
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at any rate, that they will be aeknowledged to contain
some useful materials for future savants who may under-
take a complete and methodical treatise on the people of
India, a task which is far beyond my powers and which
moreover I could not possibly have laid upon myself,
seeing that I was without literary aids of any kind during
my long and absolute seclusion amongst the natives of the
country.
In this new edition the contents of my first MS. have
been carefully revised and corrected. They have, more-
over, been considerably augmented by many curious details
which did not appear in the original document. At the
same time, I have made no substantial changes in the
order and classification of the contents. Five or six
additional chapters, and a number of corrections and im-
provements in the body of the work, constitute all the
difference between this and the earlier draft.
Since the
English translation of the latter appeared, great political
changes have taken place amongst the people whose
manners and institutions I have sketched but, as these
changes were not taken into account in my original plan,
I have not considered myself bound, when referring to
them, to go beyond the limits which I prescribed for myself
in the first instance.
In all that I say about the administra-
tion of the Peninsula my readers will at once perceive that
I have in mind the Governments preceding that which has
now made itself master of the destinies of the Indian people,
and which has freed them from the iron yoke of a long
series of arbitrary rulers, under whose oppression they
groaned during so many centuries.
;
This colossal dominion, which a European Government
has succeeded in establishing in India without any very
great difficulty and without any very violent shocks, has
filled the people of India with admiration, and has fully
convinced the Powers of Asia of the great superiority of
Europeans in every way, and more especially in the art
of subjugating and governing nations.
We too may well wonder at a conquest which appears
indeed almost miraculous. It is difficult for us to imagine
how a mere handful of men managed to coerce into sub-
missive obedience a hundred millions of people, scattered