# Narrative of a Journey Through the Upper Provinces of India: From Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825, (with Notes Upon Ceylon,) an Account of a Journey to Madras and the Southern Provinces, 1826, and Letters Written in India/Volume I/Chapter 12

​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/457 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/458 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/459 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/460 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/461 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/462 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/463 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/464 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/465 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/466 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/467 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/468 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/469 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/470 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/471 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/472 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/473 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/474 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/475 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/476 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/477 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/478 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/480 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/481 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/483 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/484 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/485 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/486 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/487 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/488 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/489 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/490 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/491 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/492 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/493 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/494 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/495 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/496 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/497 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/498 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/499 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/500 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/501 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/502 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/503 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/504 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/505 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/506 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/507 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/508 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/509 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/510 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/511 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/512 ​tance. The Himalaya range may, as I was told, be sometimes seen, but nothing of the sort was now visible, nor any mountains at all in a horizon of great extent. The ground, however, of this part of Hindostan is not without inequalities, and though it is certainly one immense plain, it is such a plain as one sees in miniature in England or on the Continent of Europe, not such a mere dead level as Bengal. The bank on which Benares itself stands, is of some height, and there were several ridges of hills as at Chunar and other places within sight, which would fully rank on a level with Hawkstone.
The whole country seems in cultivation, but less with rice than wheat. The villages are numerous and large, but the scattered dwellings few, and there is but little wood. Fuel is, consequently, extremely dear, and to this circumstance is imputed the number of bodies thrown into the river without burning. Suttees are less numerous in Benares than many parts of India, but self-immolation by drowning is very common. Many scores, every year, of pilgrims from all parts of India, come hither expressly to end their days and secure their salvation. They purchase two large Kedgeree pots between which they tie themselves, and when empty these support their weight in the water. Thus equipped, they paddle into the stream, then fill the pots with the water which surrounds them, and thus sink into eternity. Government have sometimes attempted to prevent this practice, but with no other effect than driving the volun​tary victims a little further down the river; nor indeed when a man has come several hundred miles to die, is it likely that a police-officer can prevent him. Instruction seems the only way in which these poor people can be improved, and that, I trust, they will by degrees obtain from us.
The Vidalaya is a large building divided into two courts galleried above and below, and full of teachers and scholars, divided into a number of classes, who learn reading, writing, arithmetic (in the Hindoo manner,) Persian, Hindoo law, and sacred literature, Sanscrit, astronomy according to the Ptolemaic system, and astrology! There are 200 scholars, some of whom of all sorts came to say their lessons to me, though, unhappily, I was myself able to profit by none, except the astronomy, and a little of the Persian. The astronomical lecturer produced a terrestrial globe, divided according to their system, and elevated to the meridian of Benares. Mount Meru he identified with the north pole, and under the southern pole he supposed the tortoise “chukwa” to stand, on which the earth rests. The southern hemisphere he apprehended to be uninhabitable, but on its concave surface, in the interior of the globe, he placed Padalon. He then shewed me how the sun went round the earth once in every day, and how, by a different but equally continuous motion, he also visited the signs of the zodiac. The whole system is precisely that of Ptolemy, and the contrast was very striking between the rubbish which these young men were learning in a Government esta​blishment, and the rudiments of real knowledge which those whom I had visited the day before had acquired, in the very same city, and under circumstances far less favourable. I was informed that it had been frequently proposed to introduced an English and mathematical class, and to teach the Newtonian and Copernican system of astronomy; but that the late superintendent of the establishment was strongly opposed to any innovation, partly on the plea that it would draw the boys off from their Sanscrit studies, and partly lest it should interfere with the religious prejudices of the professors. The first of these arguments is pretty much like what was urged at Oxford, (substituting Greek for Sanscrit,) against the new examinations, by which, however, Greek has lost nothing. The second is plainly absurd, since the Ptolemaic system, which is now taught, is itself an innovation, and an improvement on the old faith of eight worlds and seven oceans, arranged like a nest of boxes.
The truth is, that even the pundit who read me this lecture, smiled once or twice very slily, and said, “our people are taught so and so,” as if he himself knew better. And Mr. Prinsep afterwards told me that learned Brahmins had sometimes said to him, that our system was the most rational, but that the other answered all their purposes. They could construct almanacs, and calculate eclipses tolerably by the one as well as the other, and the old one was quite good enough, in all conscience, to cast nativities with. Nor can we wonder at ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/516 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/517 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/518 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/519 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/520 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/521 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/522 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/523 ​Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/524