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HINDOO....????
Namaste!
Just now I got one book, "The Treasury of the Encyclopedia Britanica",
published by VIKING. I found some information about the word not
"Hindus" but "Hindoos".
Following lines are exactly same (Including spellings!)
as it is written in the book, without permission of the publisher,
and just for the sake of making aware.
Please read this and comment.
Vikas Deshpande.
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HINDOOS or GENTOOS, the inhabitants of the part of India known by the
name of Hindostan or the Mogul's empire, who profess the religion of the
Bramins, supposed to be the same with that of the ancient Gymnosophists
of Ethiopia.
>From the earliest period of history these people seem to have maintained
the same religion, laws, and customs, which they do at this day; and
indeed they and the Chinese are examples of perserversance in these
respects altogether unknown in the western world. In the time of
Diodorus Siculus they are said to have been divided into seven casts or
tribes; but the intercourse betwixt Europe and India was in his time so
small, that we may well suppose the historian to have been mistaken, and
that the same tenacity for which they are so remarkable in other
respects has manifested itself also in this. At present they are
divided into four tribes; 1. The Bramin; 2. The Khatry; 3. The Bhyse;
and 4. The Soodera. All these have distinct and separate offices , and
cannot according to their laws, intermingle with each other; but for
certain offences they are subject to the loss of their cast, which is
reckoned the highest punishment they can suffer; and hence is formed a
fifth kind of cast named "Pariars" on the cost of Coromandel, but in
Shanscrit or sacred language "Chandalas". These are esteemed the dregs
of the people , and are never employed but in the meanest offices.
There is besides a general division which is taken from the worships of
their gods "Vishnou" and "Sheevah"; the worshippers of the former being
named "Vishnou-bukht"; of the latter "Sheevah -bukht".
Of these four casts the bramins are accounted the foremost in every
respect ; and all the laws have such an evident partiality towards them,
as cannot but induce us to suppose that they have had the principal hand
in framing them.....
No Hindoo is allowed to quit the cast in which he was born upon any
account. All of them are very scrupulous with regard to their diet; but
the bramins much more so than any of the rest . They eat no flesh, nor
shed blood; which we are informed by Porphyry and Clemens Alexandrinus
was the case in their time. Their ordinary food is rice and other
vegetables, dressed with "ghee", (A kind of butter melted and refined so
as to be capable of being kept for a long time), and seasoned with
ginger and other spices. The food which they most esteem, however is
milk as coming from the cow; an animal for which they have most
extravagent veneration, insomuch that it is enacted in the code of
Gentoo laws, that any one who exacts labour from a bullock that is
hungry or thirsty, or that shall oblige him to labour when fatiged or
out of season, is liable to be fined by the magistrate.
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Ref: "Celebrating 225 years of the Human Mind At Its Best: The Treasury
of The Encyclopedia Britannica"
General Editor : Clifton Fadiman.
First published in 1992 by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books
USA Inc. pp 262-263.
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Thanks for taking time to read and comment!
Vikas Deshpande.
