[69] It would not be out of place to observe here that liberal Hindoos as a body are not beef-eaters as is vulgarly supposed. They are content with fowls, goat, sheep and fish. About forty years ago before the Calcutta University was founded, the late Baboo Isser Chunder Goopto, the editor of Pravakur, a vernacular news paper, very cleverly hit off and satirised in popular ballads the then growing desire of the young Hindoo reformers to adopt a European style of eating. He commenced with Rammohun Roy—the pioneer of Hindoo reformation—and thus sarcastically described his public career. Addressing Saraswattee the Hindoo goddess of learning, he thus laments: "Oh goddess! in vain have you established schools in Calcutta, look at the end of that Roy (Rammohun Roy); profound learning had wafted him over the waters to a distant region (England), and never brought him back again." As regards the young alumni, he makes a wife thus accost her husband: "Pran, Pran, my heart, my heart, you go to society and lectures every day, and when the Examination is held at the Town Hall you get prizes, heaps and heaps of books you read and always remain outside. Is it written in the books that you should never touch the body of a female? What sort of a gooroo (master) is your Sahib? he is a regular garu (bull) if he give you such lessons. You dislike loochee and mundá (Hindoo sweetmeats) but you get gunda and gunda of fowl eggs and satisfy your hunger, and for you all there is an end of cows and calves." But this is an exaggeration about the eating of beef by the educated Hindoos. Except a few medical students, who have, in a great measure, overcome their prejudices by the constant handling of dead bodies, the rest still feel a sort of natural repugnance to eating beef. This is, perhaps, the effect of early impressions produced by the religious veneration in which a cow is held among the Hindoos. "The superstitious reverence," says an eminent writer, "for the ox, points doubtless to a period when that useful animal was first naturalized in India and protected by a law for its preservation and encouragement, which, now that the original intention is lost sight of in the lapse of ages, has invested the cattle with a religious character, and, indeed, it is not 200 years since the Emperor Jehangir was obliged once to prohibit the slaughter of kine for a term of years, as a measure absolutely required to prevent the ruin of agriculture." It is a striking fact that that loathsome disease, leprosy, is very common among the lower orders of Mussulmans who use this meat freely. Perhaps it is more suited to the inhabitants of milder regions than those of a tropical climate.
[70] So great was the mania for extravagant, ostentations show, that instances were not wanting in which a lakh of Rupees was freely spent on this grand occasion. The late Prankissen Holdar, of Chinsurah, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, expended annually for three or four years the above sum in furnishing his house without stint of cost in truly oriental style, giving rich entertainments to Europeans and Natives, and distributing alms among the poor. There was no Railway then, and consequently the boat hire alone from Calcutta to Chinsurah for English and Native grandees might have cost four to five thousand Rupees. The very invitation cards written in golden letters with gold fringes cost eight to ten Rupees each. For the entertainment of his English friends he used to give ten thousand Rupees to Messrs. Gunter and Hooper, the then public Purveyors of Calcutta. First class wines and provisions were procured in abundance, and arranged in the corridor under European and Mahomedan stewards, while one hundred Brahmins were engaged in prayers, reciting Chundee and repeating the name of the god, Modosoodun, for the propitiation of the goddess and the interests of the family. It sometimes so happened that the clang of knives, forks and spoons was simultaneous with the sound of the holy bell and conch, the one neutralising what the other was supposed to produce in a religious point of view.
[71] "The reader will recollect that the festivals of Bacchus and Cybele were equally noted for the indecencies practised by the worshippers both in their words and actions."
[72] The Reverend Mr. Maurice, a pious clergyman, who had never seen these ceremonies, attempted to paint them in the most captivating terms. Should he think that Hindoo idolatry is capable of exciting the most elevated conceptions about the godhead and leading the mind to the true path of righteousness, let him come and join the Brahmins and their numerous devotees in crying "Hurree Bole! Hurree Bole! Joy Doorga! Joy Kally!" "Mr. Forbes, of Stanmore Hill, in his elegant museum of Indian rarities, numbers two of the bells that have been used in devotion by the Brahmins. They are great curiosities, and one of them in particular appears to be of very high antiquity, in form very much resembling the cup of the lotus, and the tune of it is uncommonly soft and melodious. I could not avoid being deeply affected with the sound of an instrument which had been actually employed to kindle the flame of that superstition which I have attempted so extensively to unfold. My transported thoughts travelled back to the remote period when Brahmin religion blazed forth in all its splendour in the caverns of Elephanta: I was, for a moment, entranced, and caught the odour of enthusiasm. A tribe of venerable priests, arrayed in flowing stoles, and decorated with high tiaras, seemed assembled around me, the mystic song of initiation vibrated in my ear; I breathed an air fragrant with the richest perfumes, and contemplated the deity in the fire that symbolized him." And again, in another place, "She, (the Hindoo religion) wears the similitude of a beautiful and radiant cherub from Heaven, bearing on his persuasive lips the accents of pardon and peace, and on his silken wings benefaction and blessing." What strange hallucinations some of these Christian ministers labour under in attempting to reconcile the ideas of idolatry with those of the True and Living God!
[73] The Hindoos put out their tongues when they are shocked at anything.
[74] "The image of Minerva, it will be recollected, was that of a threatening goddess, exciting terror. On her shields she bore the head of a gorgon. Sir William Jones considers Kali as the Proserpine of the Greeks."
[75] A Reck is a small round basket, with which Natives measure rice, the staff of life in Bengal. Every family has its sacred Reck of paddy which is preserved with religious care and brought out on such special occasions.
[76] A superstitious idea prevails among the Hindoos that unless they illuminate their houses on this particular night, devils would come and take possession of them. In the Upper and Central Provinces it is customary with the Hindoo inhabitants not only to illuminate but whitewash their houses and decorate the doors and walls of shops with colored China paper so that every thing may look "smart" according to Native taste. In the Jubbulpore District I have seen the poorest laborer whitewash the mud walls of his tiled-hut with one farthing's worth of white earth called Sewmattee which is found in great abundance in that part of the country.
[77] One Joy Ghose, a notorious buffoon, was once asked by his old mother to perform the above rite. Joy, instead of reciting the motto in the right way, purposely inverted it just to irritate the old lady, and repeated the first last and the last first. The joke was too much for the sensitive mother; she wrung her breast, tore her hair, and refused to be consoled until the son repeated the song in proper order, i. e., "bad luck out, good luck in." Trifling with Luckee, the goddess of prosperity, is the height of folly. It is punished with misery here and perdition hereafter.
[78] Young Bengal is no longer satisfied with Kali Ghat meat; his taste being improved and his mind disabused, he must needs have kid and mutton from the new Municipal market, which is certainly superior in quality to that of Kali Ghat.