Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 651

INCENTIVES TO RELIGIOUS PROFESSION
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from God, it necessarily follows that the religion is identical
with the system of morality which prevails there, because
religion, even when it is false, is the best guarantee that
men can have of the honesty of other men.'
Some few articles of the Hindu faith, if freed from the
absurd trammels with which Brahmin deceit has surrounded
them, would be capable of offering successful resistance to
the inroads of corrupt influences. For instance, the fear
of the punishments reserved for the wicked in hell, the
hope of the reward apportioned to the blessed in the Abodes
of Bliss, and even the strange doctrine of metempsychosis
which grants to the man who is neither altogether virtuous
nor altogether vicious the prospect of a new birth more or
less advantageous and proportionate to his deeds, would
be so many incentives, which, if inculcated in the minds
of the people by disinterested teachers and men of good
faith, would contribute powerfully towards bringing them
back into the paths of righteousness. But how different
is this way of looking at things from that of the Brahmins
The punishments of hell, exclusion from the Abodes of
Bliss, and regenerations in vile bodies are reserved only
for those who have done some injury to these hypocritical
and selfish persons, or who have not helped to enrich them.
!
—
Robbers, liars, murderers indeed the greatest criminals
are sure of immunity after death, provided they give
presents to the Brahmins, or contribute in some way to
their worldly comfort.
The only real good which the Hindu religion does is to
unite in one body under its banner the various castes and
tribes of India, the differences between which are such as
would otherwise constitute them, so to speak, different
nations.
Without this common tie it may reasonably be
presumed that only disorder and anarchy would prevail.
It is quite true, therefore, that a religion, however bad
and absurd it may be, is still preferable to the absence of
any religion at all. Unquestionably, in my opinion, the
worshipper of the Trimurti is much less contemptible than
the free-thinker who presumes to deny the existence of
God l A Hindu who professes the doctrine of met em
.
1
I say
wlio 'presumes,' because there cannot be an atheist by con-
viction.
This would mean a man who, by making use of the reason
'