Note 318:2 — Chapter XXXI
Reading edition
Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 125.
"Every orthodox Hindu is perfectly persuaded that the dirtiest water, if taken from a sacred stream and applied to his body, either externally or internally, will purify his soul." (Prof. Monier Williams: Hinduism, p. 157.) The Egyptians bathed in the water of the Nile; the Chaldeans and Persians in the Euphrates, and the Hindus, at we have seen, in the Ganges, all of which were considered as "sacred waters" by the different nations. The Jews looked upon the Jordan in the same manner.
Herodotus, speaking of the Persians' manners, says:
"They (the Persians) neither make water, nor spit, nor wash their hands in a river, nor defile the stream with urine, nor do they allow any one else to do so, but they pay extreme veneration to all rivers." (Hist. lib. i. ch. 138.)