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RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND OPINIONS
of rank in the countries of Europe. The diligent discharge of the duties assigned to each caste is one of the means by which the members are prepared for the attainment of higher grades of perfection.
The period of life, of the three master castes, was divided into four portions or stages. The first, that of the student, was to be devoted to sacred study: the second, that of the householder, to the duties of active life; the third, that of the hermit, to solitude and contemplation: the fourth and last, that of the mendicant, to self-denial and abstraction. This distribution leaves, therefore, but one-fourth of existence for the offices of a householder, the father of a family, the citizen; and this is one respect in which the tendency of the Hindu system to depreciate active, social, and moral obligations is most mischievously manifested. It is not to be imagined that the Hindus are ignorant of the foundations of all morality, or that they do not value truth, justice, imtegrity, benevolence, charity to all that lives, and even the requital of evil with good. “The tree," says one of their familiar illustrations, withholds not its shade from the woodman that is cutting it down." "The sandal-tree," says another, “communicates its fragrance to the hatchet that levels it with the ground *.”
[ tagfaa ayatTaxi TEATTā i छत्तुः पार्श्वगतां छायां नोपसंहरते द्रुमः ॥ सुजनो न याति वैरं परहितबुद्धिर्विनाशकाले ऽपि ।
छेदे ऽपि चन्दनतरुः सुरभयति मुखं कुठारस्य ॥ Hitopad. I, 52. Bohlen ad Bhartrih. II. 62.]
