Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 83

UNPARDONABLE
SINS OE CASTE
t3
body of a cow namely, milk, curds, ghee (clarified butter),
dung and urine, which are mixed together. The last-
named, urine, is looked upon as the most efficacious for
I have often seen
purifying any kind of uncleanness.
superstitious Hindus following the cows to pasture, waiting
;
for the moment when they could collect the precious liquid
in vessels of brass, and carrying it away while still warm
I have also seen them waiting to catch it
to their houses.
in the hollow of their hands, drinking some of it and rubbing
Rubbing it in this
their faces and heads with the rest.
way is supposed to wash away all external uncleanness,
and drinking it to cleanse all internal impurity. When
this disgusting ceremony of the pa?icha-gavia is over, the
person who has been reinstated is expected to give a great
feast to the Brahmins who have collected from all parts to
witness it. Presents of more or less value are also expected
by them, and not until these are forthcoming does the
guilty person obtain all his rights and privileges again.
There are certain offences so heinous in the sight of
Hindus, however, as to leave no hope of reinstatement to
Such, for example, would be
those who commit them.
the crime of a Brahmin who had openly cohabited with
a Pariah woman. Were the woman of any other caste,
I believe that it would be possible for a guilty person, by
getting rid of her and by repudiating any children he had
had by her, to obtain pardon, after performing many
But
purifying ceremonies and expending much money.
hopeless would be the case of the man who under any
circumstances had eaten of cow's flesh. There would be
no hope of pardon for him, even supposing he had com-
mitted such an awful sacrilege under compulsion.
It would be possible to cite several instances of strange
punishment of caste offences.
the last Mussulman Prince reigned in Mysore and
sought to proselytize the whole Peninsula, he began by
having several Brahmins forcibly circumcised, compelling
them afterwards to eat cow's flesh as an unequivocal token
of their renunciation of caste.
Subsequently the people
were freed from the yoke of this tyrant, and many of those
who had been compelled to embrace the Mahomedan
religion made every possible effort, and offered very large
and
inflexible severity in the
When