Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 683

SUPERSTITIOUS MOTIVES
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to their extreme tender-heartedness, to their gentle and
compassionate natures ? I should say decidedly not. Such
childish, yet shameful, forgetfulness of the superiority of
man over all other created beings cannot surely arise from
any noble sentiments. I only see in it the foolish errors of
a cowardly and weak-minded people, who are slaves to the
idle fancies of their own imaginations, and whose reason has
become so obscured that they are incapable of recognizing
the just and natural laws governing the safety of mankind 1
The most irreconcilable superstitions 2 and the most ill-
conceived considerations of self-interest are the only motives
which actuate Hindus in this absurd idolatry of birds and
Any one who has made a careful study of the char-
beasts.
acter of Brahmins, who display so much care and tenderness
for monkeys, snakes, and birds of prey, will soon perceive
that these same men show the most utter callousness and
indifference for the misfortunes and wants of their fellow-
men. Food that they bestow so lavishly on all sorts of
.
animals would be pitilessly withheld from an unfortunate
man who was not of their own caste, though he were dying
of hunger at their very doors. Instead of the kindly precept
of Christian charity, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy-
self,' a precept which should draw together the whole human
race in the bonds of brotherhood, the Brahmins have sub-
stituted, Thou shalt love all animals as thyself.'
I will not
go so far as to say that Hindus are unacquainted with those
moral precepts which are more or less common to all civilized
nations
but prej udice and superstition have so perverted
their judgement that they are incapable of regulating their
conduct with due regard to what is right and proper from
a human point of view. More than this
in cases where
'
'
;
:
In India we see the grossest forms of superstition side by side with
the most wonderfully refined systems of philosophy.
The philosophic
Brahmin contends that it is ridiculous to try to inculcate into the common
and uneducated herd the subtler forms of doctrine. Hence the various
forms of idolatrous worship. Ed.
2
People have been surprised that the crocodile was worshipped in one
part of Egypt, while the ichneumon, the mortal enemy of its young, was
worshipped in another. What would they say to the Hindus who might
be found worshipping the deity garuda at the very moment that the
latter was in the act of tearing to pieces and devouring their other deity,
the snake ?
Dubois.
1