Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Página 546

SUBJECTS FOR STUDY
506
1 may remark thai houses thatched with palmyra or
cocoanut leaves are very common in India.
He must not wear cotton cloths he must only
IV.
wear materials made of vegetable fibres.'
This latter kind of cloth is not uncommon in Northern
India. It is as soft as silk to the touch, and has the advan-
tage, inestimable for a Hindu, of not being, like cotton,
'
;
liable to pollution.
He must observe with the most scrupulous accuracy
V.
the rules prescribed for Brahmins, especially those regarding
ablutions and the prayers accompanying them, which must
be performed three times a day.'
VI. 'He must pay the greatest attention to the choice
His usual diet should be the plants and fruits
of his food.
which grow wild in the jungle. He must abstain from all
those whose root or stem grows in the form of a bulb.'
I have already remarked that the Brahmins of the present
day retain this rule of diet.
Meditation and the contemplation of Parabrahma
VII.
'
'
must occupy
He must strive by this means
Supreme Deity.'
elsewhere the different steps by which this
all his leisure.
to attain to union with the
I will detail
union
achieved.
is
Sacrifice, and above all that of the yagnam, should
be reckoned one of the principal religious exercises.'
It will be seen in the following chapter of what this
famous yagnam sacrifice consists.
The acquisition of knowledge was another of the principal
occupations of these hermits. Theology, metaphysics, and
astronomy were what they cultivated by choice. Many of
them devoted themselves to the vain study of astrology
and it is to them that the Hindus are indebted for the
majority of their books of magic, from which magicians
even at the present day learn the tricks which cause them
to be so much in request.
According to these Vana/prastha philosophers, three
principal desires are innate in man, viz. land, gold, and
VIII.
'
;
l
women or, in other words, ambition, wealth, and luxury
By the desire of land, they understood ancestral estates
.
;
These three great desires are expressed by the words loka-vaticha/ia-
Dubois.
artha-vanchana, sthree-vanchana.
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