“Born in the most distinguished cast of India, she was betrothed, in childhood, to a young Brahmin of superior rank; but, from the morning she received the golden girdle of marriage, she beheld him no more. He had devoted himself to the Tupaseya, or sacred pilgrimage, until the age of his bride should permit him to claim her. He went to the sacred Caves of Elora, he, visited the Temple of Jaggarnauth, and died on his return to Cashmire, at Nurdwar, while engaged in performing penance near the source of the Ganges.
“Tender, pious, and ambitious, Luxima would have ascended the funeral pile. The tears and infirmities of her grandsire prevailed. Childless but for her, she consented for his sake to live, and embraced the alternative held out to women in her situation of becoming a Brachmachira, being the only child of an only child. The riches of her opulent family, according to the laws of Menu, centre in herself, and are expended in such acts of public and private beneficence as are calculated to increase the popular veneration, which her extraordinary zeal, and the austere purity of her life, have awakened. To make pilgrimages, frequently to repeat the worship of her sect, and to lead a life of vestal purity, are the peculiar duties of her order. To be endowed with the spirit of prophecy is its peculiar gift. Multitudes, from every part of India, come to consult her on future events; and her vague answers are looked upon as decisions, which, sometimes verified by chance, are seldom suffered by prepossession to be considered as false.
“There are few of this order now existing in India, and Luxima is the most celebrated. But it is not to her zeal only she owes her unrivalled distinction: she is, by birth, a sacerdotal woman and a Cashmirian; the ascendency of her beauty, therefore, is sometimes mistaken for the influence of the zeal which belongs to her profession; and perhaps the Priestess too often receives an homage which the woman only excites[13]. She is a disciple of the Vedanti school: the delicate ardour of her imagination finds a happy vehicle in the doctrines of her pure but fervid faith; and the sublime but impassioned tenets of religious love flow with peculiar grace from lips which seem equally consecrated to human tenderness. Every thing adds to the mystic charm which breathes o’er her character and person. Abstracted in her brilliant error, absorbed in the splendid illusion of her religious dreams, believing herself the purest incarnation of the purest spirit, her elevated soul dwells not on the sensible images by which she is surrounded, but is wholly fixed upon the heaven of her own creation; and her beauty, her enthusiasm, her graces, and her genius, alike capacitate her to propagate and support the errors of which she herself is the victim.
“Such is the proselyte I propose to your zeal. Once converted, her example would operate like a spell on her compatriots, and the follower of Brahma would fly from the altar of his ancient gods, to worship in that temple in which she would become a votarist.”
The Pundit paused, and the Nuncio was still silent. At last he asked, “if the Pundit had not observed, that an interview with an Indian woman of the Brahminical cast was next to impossible?”
“It is nearly so with all Indian women of distinction,” he replied; “but a Brachmachira, from being more sacred than other women, excites more confidence in her friends[14]. To approach her would be deemed sacrilege in any cast but her own; but her obligation to perform worship to the morning and evening sun, on the banks of consecrated rivers, exposes her to the view of those who are withheld by no prejudices, or restrained by no law, from approaching her.”
They had now reached the Missionary’s tent. The Pundit took his leave, and the Christian retired, to give himself up to the usual religious exercise of the evening.