Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 637

FANATICAL SELF-TORTURE
597
dehed the principles of modesty with which nature seems
to have endowed even the majority of brute beasts that
many modern writers, and among them Voltaire, have
What would they say of the
called its truth in question.
infamous festivals of which I have just drawn a sketcli
The authority of husbands in India is moreover such that
it is impossible for debauchery of this kind to be carried
on without their consent. But does superstition know any
bounds
Many Hindu religious practices afford irrefutable
proofs of the truth of similar incredible details which ancient
historians have handed down to us.
Here the scene changes. It is no longer a question of
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licentious libertines profiting by the vicious tendencies or
the stupid credulity of women in order to satisfy their
passions.
It is concerning the silly fanatics who make it
their task to torture themselves and to mutilate their
bodies in a hundred different ways. It is not uncommon
to hear of Hindus, in case of a serious illness or of some
imminent danger, making a vow to mortify some important
part of their bodies, on condition of recovery. The most
common penance of this sort consists in stamping upon the
shoulders, chest, and other parts of the body, with a red-
hot iron, the marks symbolical of their gods brandings
which are never effaced, and which they display with as
much ostentation as a warrior does the wounds he has
received in battle.
Devotees are often seen stretched at full length on the
ground and rolling in that p