Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies
Written by the eminent scholar Abbe Dubois, this work is an impressive eye-witness account of life in India at the turn of the century. It combines descriptions of the Hindu religion and Hindu sociology with masterful portraits of the intimate lives of the people among whom the author lived. Many important issues are explored, including the caste system, poverty, the mythical origin of the Brahmins, Hindu sects, ceremonies, religious fasting, morality, the position of women, and Hindu literature.
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Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies
By
Abbe J. A. Dubois
First published in 2005 by
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ISBN: 0-7103-1087-0
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EDITORS PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
THE fact that a third reprint of this complete edition of the Abb Dubois Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies has been called for within a period of a few years is sufficient proof of the high value which is still attached to the Abbs observations and of the wide popularity which his work still enjoys. It was stated in my Preface to the first edition:The impression may be felt in many minds that a book written so long ago can be of little practical use at present; but the fact is that the Abbs work, composed as it was in the midst of the people themselves, is of a unique character, for it combines, as no other work on the Hindus combines, a recital of the broad facts of Hindu religion and Hindu sociology with many masterly descriptions, at once comprehensive and minute, of the vie intime of the people among whom he lived for so many years. With any other people than the Hindus such a work would soon grow out of date; but with them the same ancestral traditions and customs are followed nowadays that were followed hundreds of years ago, at least by the vast majority of the population.
Not only in India but also in the United Kingdom and the Colonies, as well as in several countries of Europe and in the United States of America, reviews and notices of the work have appeared, bearing invariable testimony to the conspicuous merits of the Abbs work. I may add that it formed the subject of the annual address of a learned President of the Royal Historical Society, and of the Presidential Address at an annual meeting of the Hindu Social Conference by the late Mr. Justice Ranade, the famous Mahratta Brahmin leader of Bombay; and it also furnished a text for some observations in an important speech delivered in Bombay by the late Viceroy and Governor-General of India, Lord Curzon.
What may be regarded as still more satisfactory, perhaps, is that by the Indians themselves the work has been received with universal approval and eulogy. The general accuracy of the Abbs observations has nowhere been impugned; and every Indian critic of the work has paid a warm tribute to the Abbs industry, zeal, and impartiality. Perhaps I may quote in conclusion here the opinion expressed by one of the leading Indian newspapers, The Hindu, which in the course of a long review of the book, remarked: It is impossible to run through the immense variety of topics touched in this exceedingly interesting book; but we entirely agree with Mr. Beauchamp in his opinion that the book is as valuable to-day as it ever was. It contains a valuable collection of information on a variety of subjects, including ceremonies and observances which might pass as trifles in the eye of many an ordinary person. The Abbs description might be compared with the experience of the modern Hindu, who will find that while the influence of English education is effecting a quiet and profound change and driving the intellectual and physical faculties of the people into fresh grooves, the bulk of the people, whom that influence has not reached, have remained substantially unaltered since the time of the French Missionary.
H. K. B.
MADRAS, October, 1905.
PREFATORY NOTE
BY THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MLLER
IT is difficult to believe that the Abb Dubois, the author of Murs, Institutions et Crmonies des Peuples de lInde, died only in 1848. By his position as a scholar and as a student of Indian subjects, he really belongs to a period previous to the revival of Sanskrit studies in India, as inaugurated by Wilkins, Sir William Jones, and Colebrooke. I had no idea, when in 1846 I was attending in Paris the lectures of Eugne Burnouf at the Collge de France, that the old Abb was still living and in full activity as Directeur des Missions trangres, and I doubt whether even Burnouf himself was aware of his existence in Paris. The Abb belongs really to the eighteenth century, but as there is much to be learnt even from such men as Roberto de Nobili, who went to India in 1606, from H. Roth, who was much consulted by Kircher in his
