BRACHMANS, a sect of Indian philo sophers, known to the ancient Greeks by the name of Gymnosophists. The ancient Brachmans lived upon herbs and pulse, and abstained from every thing that had life in it. They lived in solitude, without matrimony, and without property: and they wished ardentlyfor death, consider ing life only as a burden. The modern Brachmans make up one of the casts or tribes of the Banians. They are the priests of that people, and perform their office of praying and reading the law with several mimical gestures, and a kind of quavering voice. They that, in the beginning, nothing but God arid the water existed, and that the Supreme Be ing, desirous to create the world, caused the leaf of a tree, in the shape of a child playing with its great toe in its mouth, to float on the water. From its navel there issued out a flower, whence Brama drew his original, who was entrusted by God with the creation of the world, and pre sides over it with an absolute sway. They make no distinction between the souls of men and brutes, but say the dignity of the human soul consists in being placed in a better body, and having more room to display its faculties. They allow of
rewards and punishments after this life ; and have so great a veneration for cows, that they look on themselves as blessed, if they can but die with the tail of one of them in their hand. They have preserv ed some noble fragments of the know ledge of the ancient Brachmans. They are skilful arithmeticians, and calculate, with great exactness, eclipses of the sun and moon. They are remarkable for their religions austerities. One'of them has been known to make a vow, to wear about his neck a heavy collar of iron for a considerable time : another to chain himself by the foot to a tree, with a firm resolution to die in that place : and another to walk in wooden shoes stuck full of nails on the inside. Their divine worship consists chiefly of processions, made in honour of their deities. They have a college at Banara, a city seated on the Ganges.