Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 84

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1980
and in one or two of the older institutions, that have become pilgrim centres, they are encrusted with rough uncut gems." On page 84, he adds: “The bases of some images are filled with crushed gems. This prevents any venal lama from stealing them for the precious stones inside them, while they still have the value of the gems enclosed." Thus the inscription on the picture, besides explaining its meaning, presents us with an interesting view of Buddhist life in Turkestan during the eighth century.
Note 2. As regards the wedge-shaped wooden writing tablets from Turkestan called kilamudra, I wish to state that this form of writing tablet is still preserved and is in use in Ladakh. 'T'wo equal boards of wood (wedge-shaped) are connected by a nail joint at the narrow end. They are used for writing on the inside, and then tied by a string at the wider end, wben closed together. As far as I know, this form of writing tablet is found only in Ladakh, and not in Lhasa or Tibet proper. It is found in Turkestan only in the Kharosthî period, i.e., in the second and third century A.D. As the Kharosthî script was also in use in Ladakh at that time, it is probable that these tablets were then introduced from Turkestan. This form of tablet is one of the few surviving links which connect the civilization of Turkestan with that of Ladakh.
ORIGIN OF THE CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA.
BY THE LATE S. CHARLES HILL.
(Continued from p. 54.) (X) Actual existence of true Brahmans and true Brahman Hindu Stales. Brahman Rule. If any one objects that nowadays he nowhere finds such Brahmans as these and nowhere any Hindu State, which follows the true Hindu tradition, one would do well to remember that the system is now, some 4000 years old (Smith's Oxford History, p. 8) and to ponder upon what was written about the Brahmans and Hindu States by European observers as late as the middle of the eighteenth century. About 1762 Luke Scrafton, a servant of the East India Company, wrote in his Reflections (and was approvingly quoted in his Empire Mogol by the Scoto-Frenchman Jean Law, who, like Scrafton, had spent much time in the interior of India) as follows "Such of the Brahmans who are not engaged in worldly pursuits are a very moral, superstitious, innocent people, who promote charity as much as they can to men and beasts, but such who engage in the world are the worst of the Gentool [i. e., the Hindus). for, persuaded the waters of the Ganges will purify them from their sins, and being exempted from the utmost rigour of the Courts of Justice under the Gentoo Government, they run into the greatest excesses." This, it should be remembered, was in the northern parts of India, where alien influences were strongest, for the Muhammadans had conquered Bengal more than 500 years earlier. A little later the French missionary, the Abbé Dubois, writing of the Brahmans of Southern India, says (Hindu Manners, p. 104) ?" The original Brahman is described as a penitent and a philosopher, living apart from the world and its temptations and entirely engrossed in the pursuit of knowledge, leading a life of introspection and practis. ing a life of purity......The simple and blameless lives led by the primitive Brahmans, their contempt for wealth and honours, their disinterestedness and, above all, their extreme sobriety attracted the attention of the Princes and the people.” Even in the good Abbé's time the Brahmans, he says (ibid, p. 159), formed a class of men in tone and manners infinitely superior to the other Hindus, and there were certain villages inhabited almost entirely by Brahmans. This last statement emphasizes the Brahman love of seclusion, natural enough in men inclined to meditation, which led some of the more devout to a life in the forest, accompanied only by their wives, or to the absolutely solitary life of the Sannyasi. Naturally Europeans come rarely into contact and, still less often, into intimacy with the two last classes of Brahmans. “The hate and contempt which they cherish against all strangers,