India. A Brid’s-Eye View

When within the space of a MK months for instance one has been brought into contact with the business-like Parsi of Bombay the indolent and easy-going Burman the courtly and cultured Brahman of Southern India the primitive Kohl or Bhil of the jungles of Central India the emotional and subtlminded inhabitant of the towns of Bengal the cheery hill-man of the Eastern Himalayas the great lan [...] Towards the close of the Moghul period we see the rise of the Marathas of the Deccan and once more we witness the spectacle so familiar in the long history of India of a great empire sinking to impotence and finally disappearing from the annals of the land. [...] The Towers of Silence necessarily attract the attention of the newcomer on account of theFIRST IMPRESSIONS 15 novelty of the idea of giving over the dead to the fowls of the air rather than to the slow disintegration of the tomb. [...] Within the enclosures are a sacred tank rows of cloisters; mandapams or halls of assembly for the deliveing of discourses the holding of philosophical or religious discussions the recitation of the great epics the singing of sacred songs or the holding of the temple dance and numbers of shrines. [...] Of the years that followed this discovery which drove him forth from home and family in search of a solution of the problem of the sorrow and suffeing of all existence he next sees a picture years of struggle and sustained endeavour of the trial and ultimate rejection of the austerities and penances of extreme asceticism of long periods of introspection and finally of the great moment of