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    minister would become the head of the clan , and consequently- that from which the Rajahs would be selected ; but there can be little fear of any such contingency , as the person of the Rajah is held to be sacred . For instance , should two clans go to war , the inferior members on both sides might be killed , but no one would think of killing either Rajah . .... After the death of a Rajah his body ia kept in this state ( smokedried ) for two months before burial , in order that his family and clan may still have the satisfaction of having him before them . He is then interred with grand honours , cows and pigs being killed to feast the whole clan , and pieces of their flesh sent to distant villages . The heads of the animals killed at his burial are placed on large posts of wood over his grave . His son , however young , is then elected Rajah , and looked up to with an almost superstitious respect .

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    BARBARIC PEARLS . Bhagavad-Gita ; or , the Sacred Lay . A New Edition of the Sanskrit Text ; with a Vocabulary . By J . Cockburn Thomson . Hertford : Stephen Austin . The Bhagavad-Gita . Translated , with Copious Notes , an Introduction on Sanskrit Philosophy , and other matter , by J . Cockburn Thomson . Hertford : Stephen Austin . The Private Life of an Eastern King . By a Member of the Household of his late Majesty , Nussir-u-Deen , King of Oude . Hope and Co . Journal of a Tour in the Principalities , Crimea , and Countries Adjacent to the Black Sea , in the Years 1835-36 . By Lord De Ros . John W . Parker and Son . Histoby and tradition are equally silent on the subject of the aboriginal tribes of India . Nothing is known , and very little even conjectured ,

    regarding the ages antecedent to the irruption of the Aryans , or Hindoos , " a race of simple cowherds , -who entered the Peninsula at the north-west corner , and long dwelt on the banks of the Scinde ere they penetrated into the interior . " So complete was the work of conquest , that the conquered were reduced to a state worse even than slavery . They were enrolled , without distinction , into a fourth , or lowest caste—the Shudras—and treated as beings of a lower order than human . The three other castes were the Brahmans , or priests ; the Kshatriyas , or warriors ; and the Vaishyas , or artisans : who were all in some measure united by the common " privilege

    of investiture with the Brahmamcal thread at years of maturity . " Alone possessed of any pretensions to learning , the priesthood asserted their supremacy by declaring the murder of a Brahman to be a crime inexpiable , either in the present life or in that to come . The warrior caste in like manner affirmed their superiority over the artisans , and after a time a divine origin was claimed for this absolute hierarchy , this arrogant nobility . But although the character of the native race was effaced by that of the more hardy invaders , the latter , in their turn , were subdued by the enervating influence of the climate . Mind and body being equally unemployed , both priests and warriors conceived a disgust for life , and found"it " necessary to seek consolation in a hidden and uncertain futm-e . " Hence arose a system of philosophy based on the doctrine of metempsychosis , or the transmigration of souls . Polytheism and hero-worship , while they exalted men unto gods , had reduced the gods to the level of men . At the same time " the life of the jungle and the love of the chase" had taught the Indian to descry human attributes in many of the inferior animals : —

    Thus gods , animals , and even elements and natural phenomena , were , so to speak , humanised ; while , on the other hand , men and beasts were deified ; and hence the recognition of like souls in all three classes of beings . But the likeness of these souls to one another would immediately give rise to the idea that the same soul ? passed through certain grades of bodies , from animals to man , from man to gods . This idea once implanted , the belief in the eternity of the soul would immediately ensue , since it would be seen that in passing from one body to another , the body it quitted died , whereas the soul died not , and this idea would be repeated to infinity . The eternity of the soul once established , a certain number of individual souls would be supposed to exist , and to have existed , from the creation of matter which they occupy , and thus a common origin would have been easily asserted for them . This common origin was Spirit , which was later only identified with the Supreme Being ; and since the individual souls emanated from it , they must also , at the dissolution of matter , be reabsorbed into it . It therefore exists , and continues to exist , and keeps up its connexion to a certain degree with the souls which have emanated from it .

    The great problem of life , then , was to accelerate the process of rcabsorption by the acquisition of knowledge . Having passed from reptile to beast , from beast to man , from man to inferior deity , and thence to superior deity , the soul attained the utmost limit of material bodies ; but the final emancipation from matter could only be effected by perfect knowledge , the result of con tc in pi ati on . Having established the existence of the soul , the Aryan philosophers deduced the existence of spirit . And in like manner having acknowledged " the individual existence and connexion of material bodies , " they inferred

    the existence of a material essence . But then arose the question of the object and reason of an arbitrary existence which few would accept had they the option of refusing it . This inquiry Kapila undertook to answer by giving to the material essence the will and power to decree the euiunation and reabsorption of all matter . The material essence thus became , under the name of Prakrit ! or Nature , " the plastic principle , and to a certain degree , tho deity of his 6 ystem . " Many of his followers , however , denied the volition of matter , and conceded it nlone to the spiritual essence . A new school was thus formed which found adherents among tho vast majority of mankind whose timid intellect demands some palpable object of worship .

    It was the will of tho Supremo that he himself should undergo this development into individual soul and organtaed matter . It was his will that evil should exist beside good , which alone existed in aim ; and that tho soul , placed in a body tho lowest in the Hcale , should gradually ascend till it reached that of man . To man alone was tho choice between good aud evil grunted , to him alone was it possible to effect hia emancipation from mutcriul life , by tho same means which Kapila had set forward—perfection through knowledge ; or by tho neglect of thia means , to riao in the scale of material bodies by obedience to tho established religion , or to sink by neglect of both . It being agreed on all hands that perfect knowledge was indispensable for

    the final emancipation from , matter , it became an object of the highest moment to determine how this knowledge was to be obtained . According to Patanjali , who probably nourished several centuries before the Christian era , - —though posterior to the revolution of Buddha—this desirable consummation could be achieved only by the most rigid asceticism , and the loftiest stage of mental abstraction . B y these means , he maintained , the soul and even the mind would become invested with transcendental powers that would gradually effect the reabsorption into the universal spiritual essence . But a doctrine so seductive to the indolent and naturally contemplative Hindoo was fraught with great social dangers , for the counteraction of which a wise , sensible , and ingenious Brahman composed the sacred poem entitled Bhagavad-Gttd . The object of the sacred Lay was to fcdd the ethical element to the speculative and theological systems that then prevailed .

    It was the work of a Brahman , a philosopher , and a poet , united in one man . With unparalleled skill its author converted the very doctrines—which , originating with Patanjali , had seduced thousands from the active duties of the city , or the provinces to the monastic seclusion of the jungle—to a means of recalling them to those duties ' of setting a limit to the fanaticism and ambition of the nobility , of establishing the necessity of restrictions of caste even under the most difficult circumstances , and of infusing into the hearts of all , a religious , a philosophic , and in some respects almost a Christian morality . This poem , the most remarkable work belonging to the ancient literature of the Hindoos , has been ably translated and explained by Mr . Cockburn Thomson , -whose intimate knowledge of his subject has enabled him to compress into a brief treatise the history of Sanskrit philosophy , and to illustrate in a particularly clear and lucid manner the distinctive tenets of the different schools .

    The contrast between the ascetic Hindoo and the sensual Mussulmaun strikes the most casual observer on his first arrival in the country . And the more familiar he becomes with the habits and manners of the two peoples , the greater will be his commiseration for the conquered , and his contempt for the conquering race . In the kingdom of Oude , for instance , he will observe the niost gross debauchery practised by the court , the most abject servility among the lower orders , and the vilest corruption pervading all classes . The anonymous author of the Private Life of an Eastern King •—whom we take to have been portrait-painter to his late Majesty Uussirood-deen , of detestable memory—has drawn aside the thin veil that partially concealed from the public gaze the scenes of riotous excess daily enacted in the royal palace at Oude , and has furnished a strong argument to those who insist upon the necessity of annexing that unhappy country . The king from of

    appears to have been in a constant state of transition one stage inebriety to the next ; his two chief characteristics being drunkenness and cruelty . In the one he was heartily joined by the wretched European parasites who attach themselves to every native Court , and in the other he was seldom checked even by a mild remonstrance . These creatures the author is pleased to speak of as " courtiers , " of whom the most powerful was the Barber , originally cabin-boy in a merchant-ship . One day two of these " courtiers "—of whom the author was one—while driving through the streets of Lucknow , " came upon a trampled bloody mass , bearing , still some resemblance to a human figure . " It was the corpse of a female , whom they supposed to have been made " an example" of by the king ' s orders : but what Englishman ever cared for prince or potentate when a woman ' s wrongs were to be redressed ? Let this noble Briton , this Christian gentleman , tell his own tale .

    Apparently she was quite dead ; and we did not delay . A courtier must not interfere with the vengeance of a king ; so that , even had we seen signs of life , I candidly confess I do not think , we should have descended from the vehicle to succour her , impressed as we were with the conviction that the execution was by the king's

    orders . On another occasion , in a combat between a tiger and a horse , the latter broke the jaw of his terrible foe , and came off proudly triumphant . " Let another tiger be set at him 1 " shouted the king to the natives , after he had watched him for a moment or two . " Damn him ; I will have my revenge for his destroying Burrhea . " The latter observation was addressed to us , the attendant European courtiers , and was in English . We rubbed our hands , smiled , said it was most just , bowed , and awaited further sport . Fau"h ! But we will not insult our readers by delaying them amid the disgusting scenes so ilippantly described b y this accomplished courtier , of whom it ° is sufficient to say that he . xemained upwards of three years in attendance on a monarch who , iu the words of the Calcutta Review , " more thnn perpetuated the worst practices of his predecessors . "

    Engaged in every species of debauchery , and surrounded by wretches , English , Eurasian , and Native , of the lowest description , his whole reign was one continued satire upon the subsidiary and protected system . Bred in a palace , nurtured by women and eunuchs , he added tho natural fruits of a vicious education to » those resulting from his protected position . His Majesty might one hour be seen in a state of drunken nudity with his boon companions ; at another he would parade the streets of Lucknow , driving one of his own elephants . In hia time all decency , all propriety , was banished from the Court . Such more than once was his conduct , that Colonel Lowe , the Resident , refused to see him , or to transact business with hia minions .

    It is quite refreshing to turn from the vulgarity and unredeemed coarseness of the anonymous " courtier , " to the unpretending and inoffensive little volume from the pen of Lord de Ros . If his lordship ' s Diary has no other merit , it possesses in an eminent degree that of brevity . Considerable jealousy , it seems , had arisen ii > this country , in the years 1834 and 193 *> , with regard to the warlike preparations then being made by Russia in tuo Black Sea , as if with some hostile designs against the Porte . I he trovernment , therefore , despatched Lord de Ros anu Captain Drinkwat or jo ascwtain , bv nersonal inspection , how far these rumours were just . iieaoy any

    appearance of unusual activity in the fortresses , ports , *™*™ Z ™ £££ the shores of the Euxine . Tho result of tins mission is not vw , ' « J « gg discernible from his lordship ' s narrative , but , from ^ f . ^ K ^^ fiJ by the Humans for the furtherance of their object , " ^ " ^ n aVrec ^ ble vie ^ tho two British oflicers were more deeply luipro ^ sed with an agiecable vievr of Muscovite hospitality than alnrmod by any tears of Muscovite aggression .

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    August 18 , 1855 . ] THE L 1 ADEE . 797

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 18, 1855, page 797, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2102/page/17/