________________
366
RELIGIOUS SECTS
society, founded on the terms in which they are spoken of by Manu, and the application of the expression *Priesthood’ to the Brahmanical Order by Sir WilLIAM Jones. In the strict sense of the phrase it never was applicable to the Brahmans; for although some amongst them acted in ancient times as family priests, and conducted the fixed or occasional ceremonials of household worship, yet even MANU* holds the Brahman, who ministers to an idol, infamous during life, and condemned to the infernal regions after death, and the Sanskrit language abounds with synonymes for the priest of a temple, significant of his degraded condition both in this world and the next. Ministrant Priests in temples, therefore, the Brahmans, collectively speaking, never were-- and although many amongst them act in that capacity, it is no more their appropriate province than any other lucrative occupation. In the present day, however, they have ceased to be in a great measure the ghostly advisers of the people, either individually or in their households. This office is now filled by various persons, who pretend to superior sanctity, as Gosáins, Vairágís, and Sannyásís. Many of these are Brahmans, but they are not necessarily so, and it is not as Brahmans that they receive the veneration of their lay followers. They derive it, as we have seen, from individual repute, or more frequently from their descent from the founder of some particular division, as is the case with the
* [III, 152. See also Lassen, Ind. Alt., I, 794.]
