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nations, readily laugh at the absurdities of every sect but their own, and Poornia gave him better counsel. It is a part of the ceremonial preceding the sacrifice of the individual, that the principal persons of the sect should assemble on the bank of some holy stream, and placing in a basket the lingum images of the whole assembly, purify them in the sacred waters. The destined victim, in conformity to the advice of his friend, suddenly seized the basket and overturned its contents into the rapid Caveri. Now, my friends, said he, we are on equal terms: let us prepare to die together. The discussion terminated according to expectation. The whole party took an oath of inviolable secrecy, and each privately provided himself with a new image of the lingum.

Mr. Ellis considers the Jungum of the upper countries, and the Pandarum of the lower, to be of the same sect, and both to deny in the most unequivocal terms the doctrine of the metempsychosis. A manuscript in the Mackenzie collection ascribes the origin of the Pandarums, as a sacerdotal order of the servile cast, to the religious disputes which terminated in the suppression of the Jain religion in the Pandian (Madura) kingdom, and the influence which they attained, to the aid which they rendered to the bramins in that controversy; but this origin seems to require confirmation. In a large portion, perhaps in the whole, of the braminical temples dedicated to Siva in the provinces of Arcot, Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tinnevelly, the Pandarum is the high priest of the temple, and has the entire direction of the revenues, but allows the bramins to

officiate in the ceremonial part according to their own good pleasure, as a concern altogether below his notice. He has generally the reputation of an irreproachable life, and is treated by the bramins of the temple with great reverence; while on his part he looks down with compassion at the absurd trifles which occupy their attention.

These facts seem to point to some former revolution in which a Jungum government obtained the superiority over the braminical establishments, and adopted this mild mode of superseding the substantial part of their authority. It is a curious instance of the sooder being the spiritual lord of the bramin, and is worthy of farther historical investigation.

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The following abstract is the result of several conversations with Dhermia, a Jain bramin far advanced in years, whom Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie has discovered and taken into his service since that essay was written; and corresponds in what relates to their doctrines, with the notes of similar discussions taken by Pere Dubois, a worthy and intelligent missionary who has lived for seventeen years among the Hindoos as one of themselves.

The ancient religion of India, and, as Dhermia supposes, of the whole world, was uniform: namely, the worship of one God, a pure spirit, indivisible, without form, or extent, or any corporeal attribute, omniscient, all powerful, passessing infinite wisdom, and infinite happiness. Absorbed in the contemplation of his own perfec

tions, he interferes in no respect in the government of the universe, or in terrestrial concerns. Having originally given to all things their appointed order and course of action; having rendered punishment the inevitable result of vice, and happiness after death the sure reward of virtue; he leaves mankind to the consequences of their actions, and considers with indifference the complicated effects of good and evil upon earth which necessarily arise from the operation of free will.

After death the virtuous go to Heordwaloga (Paradise), and the wicked to Ashdaloga (Hell), for a determined number of years, according to the measure of their actions upon earth; at the expiration of that period they return again on earth to a new state of existence, determined also by their conduct in the last; and thus to circulate through various transmigrations. Buta superior degree of sanctity purifies the soul from the grossness of corporeal contact, and causes it to be reunited for ever with the divine spirit. The twenty-four Teerters, or saints, of this religion have thus been deified, and they are worshipped accordingly, as being intimately and inseparably united with God.

Although the fourfold division of casts prevails among the Jain, and they, like the ordinary Hindoos, have their bramins, we are obliged for want of more convenient terms to discriminate the sects, by calling the doctrine of the latter that of the bramins, and the former that of the Jain. To the bramins the Jain attributes all the corruptions of the present state of religion; the fabrication of the four vedas; the eighteen Pooranas; the

blasphemous doctrine of the Trimourty, or three Gods, and the monstrous fables which relate to it; the Avatars of Vishnoo; the obscene worship of the lingum, of cows and snakes, of the sun, the stars, the planets, and the elements; the sacredness of the waters of the Ganges, and other rivers; and the whole catalogue of moderu superstition. These corruptions, as the Jain affirms, did not take place at once, but have been gradually introduced; and among them the crime of murder, in the sacrifice of animals, which though less frequent now than at some former times, is still practised in the Egniam.

Even the remnant of the Jain which had survived the repeated persecutions incited by the bramins has not escaped the corrup tion of the times; and the rites of their religion in the temples formerly most sacred (as those of Canara, Baligola, and Mudgery) are now performed by unqualified persons of the third cast; whom Dhernia considers as heretics. I have myself conversed with the Gooroos of the two former places, mentioned by Major Mackenzie and Doctor Buchanan in the ninth volume of the Asiatic Researches ; and they have acknowledged to me that they are Vaysias. The Jain bramins appear to have been the select objects of persecution; and in all Mysoor not more than fifty or sixty families now remain. I have heard of none in any other part of the south, and the only temple where the rites of the religion are duly performed is in the small village of Maleyoor, of which Dhermia is one of the officiating priests.

The bramins relate with exulta

tion

tion the lacs of Jain who have been destroyed at different periods, in persecutions which appear to have been more sanguinary than any recorded in the western world: and the following brief notice of these persecutions is taken chiefly from the bramins, and from documents in the Mackenzie collection. The earliest persecutor of the Jain of whom I have received any distinct account, is Bhutt Acharya, who lived about or before the commence ment of the Christian æra. This person had become the disciple of a Jain Gooroo for the express purpose of learning the philosophy of that sect (in which the bramins admit that they excelled), and thus defeating them with their own weapons. He betrayed what he found exceptionable in their doctrines; and after having excited against them the most active persecution, finally condemned himself to perish by a slow fire, as an expiation for the crime of having betrayed his Gooroo. In the act of sustaining this punishment at Hurdwar, where the Ganges enters Hindostan, he was visited by the celebrated Sancara Acharya, a native of Kerala or Malabar. In the midst of his sufferings Bhutt Acharya instructed this apt disciple, and exhorted him to continue the holy work of persecution: an injunction which Sancara Acharya effectually observed in his travels through every part of India. The Jain religion however continued to flou. rish to the south, to the extent of being professed by several dynasties of kings, among whom we may enumerate with some certainty a very ancient dynasty which ruled at or near Conjeveram before that part of Drauveda was conquered or colonized by the Chola dynasty, and assumed the name of Tonda

mundelum, from the name of the son of the Chola king who commanded the expedition; the Pandian ruling at Madura; and a branch of it in Canara; and the Hoisala or Bellals who ruled at Doorasummoder, now called, the Hallabede, near the western range of the hills of Mysoor. In 1133 Ramanuja or Ramanjacharee, the famous Vishnavite reformer, flying from the persecution of a king of the Chola dynasty in Tanjore of the sect of Siva, who exacted a confession of faith from all his subjects, ascended to Mysoor, and converted to the Vishnavite religion the reigning king of the last mentioned dynasty, named Veera Narsa Bellal, who thenceforth assumed the name of Vishnoo Verdana; and it is to the persecution of this period that the bramins exultingly refer for the final extinction of the Jain, by the most extensive slaughter and unheard of torments, one of which was that of grinding them in an oil-mill.

The relative antiquity of the Jain and the bramins cannot perhaps at present be decided: there is little room to doubt that they were originally the same, and the question would relate to the doctrine which each of them pretend to have preserved unpolluted. But it appears to me incontestable, that the distinction of doctrine and separation of sects had taken place before the expedition of Alexander. On asking Dhermia the reason of prefixing the popular term Sravana to the names of all their temples, he tells me that the word is a corruption of Sramana, the most usual term for the sect, or rather for the holy persons belonging to it; he enumerated six other distinctive terins which are indiscriminately applied to them, viz. Arbata, Di

gumbera,

gumbera, Jenna, Jaina, and Pramâna. It will not probably be questioned that the Sramana are the Sarmanes, Germanes, Samanes; and Prainana the Pramme of the ancient authors of the west. Strabo would seem to consider the Germanes and the Pramnæ as distinct sects; but both are said to be opponents of the Brackmanes, and the latter particularly to ridicule their study of astrology. It may be noticed as a confirmation of the distinction of doctrine at this period, that Philostratus and Pliny speak of the Brachmanes as worshipping the sun; but although some obscurity may be expected in the imperfect information of the ancients, I do not find this worship any where attributed to the Sarmanes or Pramnæ, who to this day hold it in abhorrence. The Zarmanochagas, noticed so much by ancient authors for having publicly destroyed himself at Athens, was probably a Jain. In a note on Strabo, lib.15-1048, on this name, we are told that old manuscripts (Veteres libri) have two distinct words, Zarmanas and Chagas, and Dion Cassius names this person Zarmanes without any addition, Sramana-ganna, as Dhermia informs me, is the usual form of speech to indicate the sect of Jain.

PRESENT STATE OF EDUCATION AND LITERATURE IN ICELAND. BY HENRY HOLLAND, M. D. From Sir George Steuart Macken

zie's Travels in Iceland.

In the Dissertation prefixed to this volume, an attempt has been nade to explain the circumstances in which the literature of the Ice

landers originated, and to trace its progress through the successive periods of the history of the island. It will be the object of this chapter to complete the view of Icelandic literature, by exhibiting the present state of mental cultivation among the people; their institutions for the promotion of learning; and the modes of education among different classes of the community. From the more minute description to which they lead, these circumstances could not with propriety form a part in the general history of the country; though, as a sequel to it, they may possibly be interesting to the reader.

The picture of the present state of literature in Iceland is much less imposing than that of its early condition and growth. The changes however, which the lapse of time has effected, are rather relative, than absolute in their nature; and though the glory of the Icelanders is now for ever sunk, and their name almost lost among nations, yet in their own island they still keep alive much of that spirit of literary pursuit, by which the character of their ancestors was so greatly distinguished. A few of the names which adorn the modern history of the country have already been mentioned. At the present time there are many indiand from their situation exposed viduals, living on this remote spot, to innumerable privations, whose talents and acquirements would grace the most refined circles of civilized society. The business of education is systematically carried on among all ranks of the inhabitants; and the degree of information existing, even among the lower classes, is probably greater

than

than in almost any part of continental Europe.

This state of mental culture will appear more wonderful, when it is considered that the circumstances of the country do not allow of any extended scheme of public education, and that the transmission of knowledge can take place only through the private and domestic habits of the people. In the existence among the Icelanders of habits which are fitted to this end, we contemplate a feature which is justly entitled to admiration and

esteem.

At the present time, the school of Bessestad is actually the only establishment for education in Iceland. About the middle of the 16th century, when the reformation of religion took place in the island, two schools were founded; one at Skalholt, the other at Hoolum in the northern province; and a landed property was attached to these institutions, sufficient for the support of between twenty and thirty scholars at each place. Towards the close of the last century, the two schools were united into one, and transferred to Reikiavik; while in lieu of the school lands, which were appropriated by the crown, an annual sum from the public money was allotted to the support of the establishment. A few years ago, the school was again transferred to its present situation at Bessestad; the building being vacant which was formerly the abode of the governors of Iceland. This edifice, though by no means in good repair, is from its size better adapted than any other in the country for the purposes to which it is now applied; and, but for the intervention of the war

between England and Denmark, would have been further improved by the completion of some additional buildings, which are yet in an unfinished state.

The establishment at Bessestad consists at present of three masters, and twenty-three or twentyfour scholars; the funds of the school not allowing the reception of a greater number. The headmaster, or Lector Theologiæ, has an annual salary of 600 rix-dollars. It is his office to superintend the general concerns of the school, and to conduct more especially the theological department, and the study of the Hebrew language. At the time of our arrival in Iceland, the person who held this situation was Mr. Steingrim Jonson; a man apparently not more than thirty-five years of age, but possessed of talents and learning which well fitted him for the discharge of its important duties. For several years he was the pupil and secretary of the late Bishop Finsson at Skalholt, after whose death be studied some time at Copenhagen, where, as a classical scholar, he acquired very great credit. knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages is said to be accurate and extensive; and to theological studies he has given a very minute attention, being intimately acquainted with the writings of the most eminent of the German theologians. This gentleman, during our stay in Iceland, was removed from Bessestad to the church of Oddè, in Rangaavalle Syssel, one of the most valuable livings in the island. He was succeeded by another person, of the same name, who is likewise reputed to be a man of learning and acquirements.

His

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