Superstitions.—Hindus believe in omens, good and bad, and look for them as encouragements or warnings on most occasions, such as in journeying from one place to another, or when a marriage is on the tapis. It is considered a favourable omen, if, when proceeding on business, a crow fly from left to right; or the traveller meet two Brahmans, or a married woman, or a Sudra with a stick in his hand, or a jackal be seen. If these good omens occur, they believe that they will certainly succeed in the object of their journey. It is a bad omen to meet a single Brahman, or a widow, or if a crow fly from right to left, or a cat cross their path. On seeing any of these evil omens, almost every Hindu will postpone his journey, however emergent ; though in this latter case he may return home for a little and start again. It is a good omen, if, when a marriage is under dis cussion, the toll of a bell be heard or the neigh of a horse ; but a person sneezing or the sudden extinguishing of a light are had omens.
No Hindu ever takes any important step with out first consulting the stars, by referring to a Brahman astrologer or to the astrological almanac. If business will not admit of delay, he will con sult the Sivagy-anmut or Advices of Siva, or the buchuns or sayings of Khona, wife of the great astronomer Vamhamira, to ascertain whether the time be auspicious. With many Hindu and ab original races, the snake is reverenced ; and if a cobra be killed, they inter it or burn it with all the ceremonies usual for a human being.
When an epidemic disease seems to be approach ing a village, the village tutelary divinity is carried in procession to meet the god of the pestilence, and with shouts, execrations, and defiant gestures they deter the advance.
The names, both of men and women, and of their towns, are frequently those of their gods and their avatars, or of their deified heroes,—as Siva, Ananda, Eswara, Gopala, Narayana, llama, Bhawani, for men; Durga, Kali, Ganga, Lakshmi, Radha, Saraswati, for women ; and Bhima, Yudishtra, Draupadi, Kunti, their ancient heroes and heroines.
Charity and Alms. —Almsgiving is expressly enjoined by the Brahmanical religion, as con ferring merit and power over the unseen world, not for compassion or brotherly love, or for doing as we would be done by. Hindu charities consist in feeding Brahmans and pilgrims ; building choultries, and houses, and temples, and bridges ; in planting trees, and groves, and gardens ; making roads ; in supplying water to travellers ; in digging wells or tanks. It is, how ever, an oriental idiosyncrasy for every man to desire, not to found. a family or restore an old ancestral residence, but rather to leave some residence exclusively commemorative of himself, and to repair nothing which his predecessors have left, lest they should have the credit of it with posterity. If they give alms, it is to persons of their own or of a higher caste. For a Hindu to bestow alms on a Pariah, however urgently in need the latter may be, is almost an unknown act.
Fowl, Cooking, and Ilespitality.—Like that of the bulk of the human race, the food of the Hindu is obtained almost wholly from the vege table kingdom. But with the Hindu the adher ence to this kind of diet forms part of their religious belief. Unlike the Hebrews (Dent. xiv.; Leviticus xi.) or the Mahomedans, to whom only certain creatures were forbidden, several Brah manical tribes do not touch animal food at all, and no Hindu of the four great castes can partake of the flesh of the cow, much less avow that he had so done. They also require their food to be prepared by people of their own or a higher caste, or, in their dread of pollution, even by their own hands. With some sects this dread is carried to such an extent, that they do not permit any un converted eye to see them cooking, and if acci dentally overlooked, will bury or give away the materials under preparation, however hungry they be. Many Hindus likewise cook within a sacred circle, and if any lower caste or no-caste person enter it, the cooking is suspended, and the article destroyed. Many Hindus eat their meals dressed in silk clothes used only for sacred rites, and waited on by their wives or female relations, who do not presume to eat until their husbands have finished. They eat off metal dishes, of gold, or silver, or brass; but the ordinary platter is made of leaves of the plantain, banyan, lotus, or palasa, pinned together with grass stalks in the form of a dish. These are sold in every bazar. They are employed to ensure safety from pollution, being thrown away after the meal. The custom mentioned in John ii. 8, of appointing a governor of the feast, is one followed by Hindus at a large feast. There is a continued stream of their
hospitality, such as it is, but castes will rarely eat with one another ; and at meals each Brahman sits with his own leafy platter apart from his neighbour, to prevent the possibility of even acci dental pollution by his own food touching that of another, or vice versa. Where such stringency exists as regards people of their own faith, their associating at meals with people of other creeds is of course an impossibility. These remarks apply to the Brahmanical Hindus in general ; but the members of many of their reformed sects eat with each other, without regard to former caste distinctions. In like manner, as followers of one faith, all individuals are equally entitled to the pritsad'ham, or food which has been previously presented to a deity ; and it is probably the dis tribution of this in all temples, and, for instance, annually at Jaganath, that has given rise to the idea prevalent in Europe, that at this place all castes of Hindus eat together. A Hindu in general cats twice daily, in the forenoon and after sunset; but a Brahman widow eats only once daily, at noon. The food of the Hindus along the seaboard of India is rice,--when they can afford it,—partaken of with vegetable curries or pickles as condiments. In the higher lands of the interior, and in the more northern portions of India, the pulses and millets, with wheat and maize, are the articles in common use, in the form of cakes. The prior processes which in Europe fall to the miller and the baker, are got through in the Hindu household. The pestle and mortar is with Hindu families a very important domestic imple ment, and few are without it. Tho mortar is generally of stone, but often a block of wood, the lower part shaped like an hourglass stand, and in the upper is a conical cavity of the contents of about two gallons. The pestle is of hard wood, about four feet long, and two inches in diameter, with the ends tipped or ferruled with iron, to prevent their splitting or wearing. It is usual for two women, to whose lot beating rice out of the husks and similar domestic operations generally fall, to work together. The pestle is raised perpen dicularly by the right hand of one, and as it falls is caught by the right hand of the other, she who raised it quitting it in its fall; when tired with their right hands, they use the left, relieving them. A song is frequently chanted the work. The stone mill, so often alluded to in the Old and New Testament, consisting of two flat stones worked by one or two women, is in use in every house. The religious restriction to vegetable diet is doubtless of Buddhist origin. Buddhism had the effect of inspiring a great respect for life ; and all orthodox Hindus regard the inviolability of animal life as the most sacred of laws. In whatever degree sanguinary rites may be practised by any portion of these people, such are directly opposed not only to the influence and example of almost all the Brahmans, but to the practice of the immense majority of the more cultivated and the higher castes. Myriads of Hindus have lived and died without ever partaking of animal food ; and amonast the Jains, every precaution is taken to prevent themselves involuntarily destroying or swallowing even insect life. Their priests never partake of stale food, lest living creatures should have been generated in it, keeping a cloth over their mouths lest an insect unconsciously enter ; and they walk with a small soft broom in hand, with which they gently sweep the ground on which they are to tread or sit. With all this, there is occasionally witnessed amongst some one or other of the races following Hinduism an apathy and indifference as to the preservation of the lives of their fellow-creatures which Euro peans fail to understand. An instance of this occurred in 1820 at the fair at Hardwar, in which 700 persons are stated to have lost their lives. It was calculated that not less than two millions of people had assembled on the occasion, when, at the opening of the fair, the rush was so great towards the steps of the bathing-place as to cause this melancholy catastrophe. Dreadful as it was, the exertions of the British officers only prevented its being infinitely greater. An eye-witness remarked that the Brahmans looked on not only with apathy, but with joy depicted in their countenances ; and women at a short distance were bathing in other parts of the sacred water, with as much indiffer ence as if the utmost serenity prevailed around them. After the fair, the roads for miles round Hardwar were strewed with dead bodies of men, women, horses, camels, and dogs.