Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 49

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
beg that my readers will not
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suppose that
my own, I
have done so out of vanity and with the object of posing
However severely
as a profound scholar, which I am not.
critics may attack my work, they cannot be more keenly
aware of its imperfections than myself. I know well that
my researches might have been presented in a form more
There
agreeable, more animated, and more methodical.
are many matters mentioned by me which called for more
profound discussion, clearer criticism, and wider treatment.
A more correct and more brilliant style would have con-
But I beg indulgent
cealed the dryness of certain details.
readers to consider the circumstances which have prevented
me from satisfying such conditions. Separated as I was
for more than thirty years from all intercourse with my
fellow-countrymen, communicating only rarely and occa-
sionally with Europeans, passing my whole life in villages
in the midst of rude cultivators of the soil, deprived of
all the advantages which great cities offer to those writers
who are clever enough to profit by the labours of
their predecessors, prevented from invoking the aid and
counsel of intelligent men, having no books to refer to
except my Bible and a few writings without merit and
without interest which chance rather than choice put into
my hands, compelled indeed to rely upon the imperfect
recollection of what I had read and learned in my youth
with all these disadvantages it was only to be expected
that my work would be defective. Nevertheless I am
persuaded that the notes which I have taken so much
of
I
:
trouble to collect will afford some useful material to others
more favourably situated than myself and I have there-
fore no hesitation in offering them to the public.
There is one motive which above all others has in-
fluenced my determination.
It struck me that a faithful
picture of the wickedness and incongruities of polytheism
and idolatry would by its very ugliness help greatly to set
It was
off the beauties and perfections of Christianity.
thus that the Lacedaemonians placed drunken slaves in
the sight of their children in order to inspire the latter
with a horror of intemperance.
There is every reason to believe that the true God was
well known to the people of India at the time when they
;
B
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