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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY,
[MAY, 1875.
all; and the uninvested youth became an out- was carried, and the great hold upon the people cast, degraded from the gayatri and despised; for which the Brahman class succeeded in obthe second birth, or peculiar stamp, of the taining by reason of their practical monopoly of superior race consisted in this institution (p. 25, learning and education. 68) by force of an ordinance of revealed law The people in general must have been ex(p. 39, 172). "The young man is on a level with ceedingly credulous and superstitious; for the a Sadra before his new birth from the revealed authors of the Sastra themselves give sanction scripture." Women secured their second birth to many ignorant beliefs. They taught (p. 21, in a similar manner. "The same ceremonies," 30) that there were fortunate and unfortunate says Manu (p. 25, 66), "must be duly perform- days of the moon, lucky and unlucky hours, ed for women at the same age and in the and that the stars exercised good or bad insame order, that the body may be made perfect; fluences according to their qualities. Also that but, without any texts from the Veda, the | an auspicious name was valuable (p. 21, 33, nuptial ceremony is considered as the complete p. 52, 9 and 10). To sacred texts and to gems institution of women, ordained for them in the of certain kinds extraordinary virtues were asVeda, together with reverence to their husbands, cribed (p. 27, 76 to 85). They were prescribed dwelling first in their father's family, the busi- as charms (p. 187, 217 and 218) and as antiness of the house, and attention to sacred fire." dotes to poison. Thunder and lightning were Kullaka's gloss excepts from the ceremonies looked upon as portents (p. 103, 115, p. 102, for women that of the sacrificial thread," and 106). Signs and omens were to be regarded. probably this exception corresponded with an On the appearance of a beast used in agriculture, increased inferiority in the situation of women a frog, a cat, a dog, a snake, an ichneumon, or subsequently to the time when the original a rat, the reading of the Veda must be interpassage was written. The omission of the mitted for a day and a night (p. 105, 26): and Vedic texts was the natural consequence of the much more of the like kind. Strangely enough, exclusion of women from the direct application any one who observed a rainbow in the sky was of the revealed scripture.
forbidden to draw the attention of any other The observance of this rite seems to be person to it! historic, or rather memorial, in its intrinsic There is little or nothing which deserves the characteristics. It is analogous in this respect name of natural science in the Institutes : an to the Passover of the Jews; and we are carried interpolation in the narrative of the creation back by it to a time when the Aryan entered (p. 6, 43 to 49) pretends to be a general classithe land a stranger or new-comer, with his loins fication of animals and vegetables, but it is of girt and staff in hand, clad in leathern jacket, a very crude character and betrays no real the pioneer of a new civilization. How or when observation of fact. Gold and silver were the rite sprang into being, or grew into political supposed to be products of fire and water comand religious importance, we have not the mate- bined (p. 137, 113). The celestial phenomena rials in Mann wherefrom to form a judgment. go almost without notice. The only exception But it is possibly not without significance that is to be found in the following remarkable pasin the leading passages which describe the cere- sage, which occurs seemingly as an interpolation mony we find the three classes spoken of or in Bhrigu's preface (p. 9, 64 et seq.): "eighteen referred to quite as often as priest, soldier, and nimeshas* are one kashthas, thirty hashthas merchant as Brahman, Kshatriya, and one kala, thirty kalas one muhurta, and just Vaisya. In the time of the writer they could so many muhurtas let mankind consider as the scarcely have been viewed as the subjects of duration of their day and night. The sun causes separate creation.
the distribution of day and night both divine and Funeral ceremonies and feasts receive most human: night being for the repose of beings, elaborate treatment in the Dharma Sastra and day for their exertion. A month is a day (p. 67, p. 80, 226) and we thus become acquaint- and a night of the Pitris, and the division being ed with the surprising extent to which priestcraft into equal halves; the half beginning from the • 1 nimesha = a little more than
1 kala=1%. 1 kashtha=3"
1 muhurta= of an hour.
