Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 84

THE 'UNPARDONABLE
44
SIN'
OF HINDUISM
1<>
.Assemblies were
be readmitted to Hinduism.
held in different parts of the country to thoroughly consider
It was everywhere decided that it was quite
their cases.
possible to purify the uncleanness of circumcision and of
intercourse with Mussulmans.
But the crime of eating
sums,
cow's flesh, even under compulsion, was unanimously
declared to be irredeemable and not to be effaced either
by presents, or by fire, or by the pancha-gavia.
A similar decision was given in the case of Sudras who
found themselves in the same position, and who, after
trying all possible means, were not more successful.
One
and all, therefore, were obliged to remain Mahomedans.
A Hindu, of whatever caste, who has once had the
misfortune to be excommunicated, can never altogether
get rid of the stain of his disgrace.
If he ever gets into
trouble his excommunication is always thrown in his
teeth.
CHAPTER IV
Antiquity and Origin of Caste.
Apparently
there is no existing institution older than
the caste system of the Hindus.
Greek and Latin authors
who have written about India concur in thinking that it
and certainly the
has been in force from time immemorial
unswerving observance of its rules seems to me an almost
incontestable proof of its antiquity \ Under a solemn and
;
1
Dr. Muir, in Old Sanskrit Texts, vol.
—
i.
p. 159,
reviewing the texts
which he had cited on this subject, says
First, we have the set of
accounts in which the four castes are said to have sprung from pro-
genitors who were separately created
but in regard to the manner of
their creation we find the greatest diversity of statement.
The most
common story is that the castes issued from the mouth, arms, thighs,
and feet of Purusha, or Brahma. The oldest extant passage in which
this idea occurs, and from which all the later myths of a similar tenor
have no doubt been borrowed, is to be found in the Purusha Sukta but
it is doubtful whether, in the form in which it is there represented, this
representation is anything more than an allegory. In some of the texts
from the Bhagavata Purana traces of the same allegorical character
may be perceived but in Manu and the Puranas the mystical import
of the Yedic text disappears, and the figurative narration is hardened
into a literal statement of fact.
In the chapters of the Vishnu, Vayu,
and Miirkandeya Puranas, where castes arc described as coeval with
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