Note 162 — Chapter II

Sir William Jones is much prepossessed in favour of the Brahmans at Benares, and the Pagan practices usual in Bengal. In that country, however, greater revolutions have certainly taken place than on the coast of Malabar; and we have consequently just reason to suspect, that the customs prevalent in the former have lost much more of their original purity than those in the latter. On this subject see D’Anville’s Antiquités Géographiques de l’Inde, Paris 1775, where it is said, among other things, p. 117. Le Malabar defendu par les Ghattes a été moins sujèt à des vicissitudes que d’autres parties de l’Inde, &c. At Cangiburam in Carnate there is still a celebrated Brahman school, which, according to the testimony of Ptolemy, existed in the first century of the Christian æra; and its members are certainly equal in celebrity to the Brahmans of Vanares or Benares. The academy of Triciur, on the coast of Malabar, is also in great repute throughout the whole southern part of India. A.

The ceremonies by which marriage, according to the laws of the Indians, is solemnized and rendered indissoluble, serve as a new proof of the wisdom of their first legislators. These men clearly saw that chaste love and good education have a great and useful influence on a state, and the general happiness of its members. F.