Owing to the segregation which all the Hindu races practise, Brahmans have never formed a compact body, and their influence and power have been local. Learned Brahmans are much respected. At festivals, weddings, and feasts for the dead, they are invited to the houses of the wealthy, are feasted, treated with honour, and on their departure receive gifts of value, dresses, gold and silver vessels, ornaments of numerous kinds, food, and also money. A luau of learning often takes one or more of his scholars to such assemblies, both to enhance his own reputation and to accustom them to respectable society ; and the students also obtain a share of the presents. From gifts of this kind the larger number both of teachers and students in the Hindu schools of learning are supported, their food procured, and their house accommodation provided. Tolas, or native col leges of this kind, are scattered all over the province of Bengal, and one or more may be found in all the great villages. The Zillah of Bardwan, for example, though not particularly celebrated for learning, contained, a few years ago, 190 Sanskrit schools and 1350 students. Some places are more celebrated as seats of learn ing than others. In North India, for instance, Nuddea, Santipur, Tirhut, and above all Benares, contain a large number of colleges. In South India
they are chiefly found in the provinces of Tanjore and Madura. These schools are divided into three classes,—those wherein general literature is studied, the schools of law, and those of philo sophy. In the first the subject-matter of study embraces grammar, lexicology, poetical works. and rhetoric. According to Bunsen, Brahmans have systematically adulterated and adjusted the early history of India (iii. 513). Brahmans were ac quainted with the Talmud ; and Sir W. Jones thought that Genesis ii. 21, 23 is referred to in the form of Siva and Parvati, known as Art'hanesvari, of which the right hand half is Siva and on the left hand Parvati.—Broten on the Jangams; Bunsen's gay pt, iii. 513; Chotr-Chow, p. 44; Mullen's Hindu Philosophy, pp. 10, 11 ; Coleman's Mythology, p. 154 ; Calcutta Jterieu', May 1863; Thtl's Rajas. than, i. p. 512 ; Taylor, Mackeazie MSS. Bhaga• vad-Gita ; Sir George Campbell's Ethnology; Boar ring's Ethnology in B. ifs. Soc. Jo. ; Darwinism in Morals, p. 279; Hunter's Orissa; Imp. Ca:. ; Moor's Pantheon; TVeber's Indian Literature; Wilson's Glossary.