A Letter from the East Indies, of Mr. John Marshal to Dr. Coga, giving an Account of the Religion, Rites, Notions, Customs, Manners of the Heathen Priests commonly called Bramines. Communicated by the Reverend Mr. Abraham de la Pryme.
Worthy Sir,
The last time that I had the happiness to be in your good Company, and to partake of those Favours and Blessings that your Goodness was pleased liberally to bestow upon me and our Companions, at our departure, and as it were Exile from our Native Land, does so loudly call out for some recompence or other at our Hands, that I cannot without the greatest Ingratitude imaginable, let slip this (tho' sudden) opportunity of Writing unto you, and presenting of you at this time with what I understand you more value than all the Riches of the East; to wit, a few Specimens of the Knowledge of those People whom we stile Barbarians, Heathens and Idolaters, which I have read in their own Books, and gather'd from the mouths of those that have been the greatest Speakers and Preachers among them. I have always had a profound Veneration for the Dictates of Nature, and the universal Traditions of Nations, for hereby are Infinite Things to be learned, for the establishing of our Glorious Religion against Atheists, and the more easie propagation of the same among Infidels and Heathens.
Upon what account or grounds it is that some Travellers have stiled these People Polytheists, or Atheists, I cannot tell; or whether there be any such People at all in the World, except some of the base common sort in all Nations, I much question? It is very observable here, that their Priests, or Bramines, and Holy Men, whom they call Jagees, when they have occasion to Write any thing they always put a figure of one in the first place, to shew, as they say, that they acknowledge but one God, whom they say is Burme, that is, Immaterial. When they preach to the People, and Instruct them, which is commonly every Feast-day, full Moon, or the time of an Eclipse of either Luminary, they tell the common People much of God, Heaven and Hell, but very Imperfectly, Obscurely and Mystically. They say that when God thought of making the World, he made it in a minute.
They account this World the Body of God, for all that they say he's Immaterial; and say that the Highest Heavens are his Head, the Fire his Mouth, the Air his Breath and Breast, the Water his Seed, and the Earth and the foundations thereof his Legs and Feet. But assert in general that God is the Life of every thing, yet is the thing neither greater nor less for him.
They hold that God dwelt in a Vacuity before that he created the World, and that as he dwelt in that Vacuity he created several Beings out of himself, the first were Angels, the second Souls, the third Spirits, all differing in degrees of Purity, the first being more pure than the second, and the second than the third. The Angels, they say, neither act Good nor Evil, the Souls either Good or Evil, but the Spirits, or Dewta's, as they call them, act scarce any thing but Evil.
They have a good Opinion of the Angels, and think their State mighty happy, hoping that when they dye they shall be made partakers of the same Bliss and Pleasure.
They believe that every thing that hath Life hath a Soul, but especially Man; and they accordingly affirm, that as these Souls behaved themselves in their pre-existent State, so are their Actions in this World either good or bad, by a sort of fatal Necessity, which is very hard to conquer, or to overcome. Hence it is, say they, that there are so many different Humours and Dispositions of Men, for their Souls, before their entrance into their Bodies, being tainted with different Affections, causes the like differences in the Parties, whose Bodies are their Vehicles. So that if a Man happen to have a suddain or unfortunate Death, they immediately ascribe the same to the Party's own Wickedness, or the bad Life that his Soul led before that it enter'd into his Body. For, say they, the afore-acted Evil that his Soul did in its other Life, brought these accidents upon him, by getting the upper hand of him, and by being too powerful and strong. And those that dye thus, they believe that their Souls turn immediately into Devils. They maintain Pythagoras's Transmigration, or Metempsycosis, but in a grosser sense than he did. For they believe that Mens Souls, that have not lived so well as they ought, go as soon as the Body dyes not only into Birds and Beasts, but even into the basest Reptiles, Insects and Plants, where they suffer a strong sort of purgation, to expiate their former Crimes: But as for the Souls of the Jogees, or Fuche's, that is, of Religious Men and Saints, they fancy that they go and inhabit with the good Dewta's, or Angels, among the Stars.