An apology for promoting christianity in India

Contents

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Letter addressed to the Court of Directors of the Honourable the East 'India Company, dated 25th May, 18 13, in Reply to the Statements of Charles Bidler, Esq. M. P. concerning the idol Juggernaut. — Printed by order of the House of Commons . 16

Appendix

No. I. Letter from the Bengal Government to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, dated 7th December, 1807, in Reply to the Memorial presented by the liev. Dr. Buchanan „ . . 10G

No. II. Letter from the Court of Directors

to the Governor General in Council at Fort William in Bengal, dated 7th September, ±808, in Beply to their Dispatch, detailing ike Proceedings respecting the Missionaries 121

No. III. Letter from General Hay M'Dowall, Commander in Chief of the Forces under the Presidency of Fort St. George, to the Governor and Council of that Presidency ; dated 24tth JVov. ±807, respecting the Mutiny at Vellore ; ivith the proceedings of Government thereupon ... ±29

No. IV. Minute of George Udny, Esq, Member of the Supreme Council in Bengal, protesting against 64 superintending" the Idol Juggernaut, "as tending to perpetuate a System of gross Idolatry extracted from » the Bengal Judicial Consultations of sd April,. 1808 . . , . " . , . . 135

No. V. Letter' from Charles Butler , Esq. M, P. to the Hon. the Court of Directors, respecting the Idol Juggernaut ; dated the mth May, 1813 . . T ..... . 138

CONTENTS*

$0. VI. " The Forerunner of the Holy Bible" being a Translation of a Tract in the Bengalee Language, printed by the Missionaries $ which the Bengal Government transmitted to the Court of Directors as being, in their judgment, calculated to inflame the prejudices of the Hindoos . . . 145

No. VII. Memorial addressed by the Baptist Missionaries to the Right Hon. Gilbert Lord Minto, Governor General of India, praying that the Bengal Government would spare their Mission ; dated Mission-Rouse, Serampore, Both Sept. 1807 .... 150

No. VIII. Natural History cultivated by . the Protestant Missionaries in India 167

No. IX, Report of the Immolation of Females, between Cossimbazar, in Bengal, and the mouth of the Hooghly, in the months of May and June, 1812 171

No. X. Testimony of the Honourable the East- India Company to the Character of Mr. Swartz 173

No. XI. The Apology of Mr, Swartz, in Answer to a Speech delivered in the British Parliament in 1793 . . . . . 17$

PREFACE,

The immolations under the Car of the Hindoo Deity are not particularly considered in the following Letter, that not being the subject which 1 was called upon to notice : but, as Mr. Buller is of opinion, " that people may with as much justice censure our Government at home for not preventing suicide, as they may the Government abroad for not preventing the immolations in question ;" and since a comparison between " immolations in India, and suicide in England," has actually been made in Parliament since the printing of his letter, it seems to be proper to weigh the merits of such a comparison. I allege that there is no ground for the comparison, either as to the frequency of the deed or as to the principle.

And, first, with respect to the frequency of the deed. — Mr. Buller observes, that when he happened to be at Juggernaut, at the festival of the Rutt in 1809, " he heard but 01 one instance of an immolation under the wheels of the car." If Mr. Buller can only speak of what he " heard." no dependence is to be placed on his information, as he well knows, even respecting this one immolation which he mentions. When 1 was at Juggernaut, had I not followed the Idol's chariot mvself, I should probably

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have never u heard 59 of the two immolations which I witnessed. If the writer wished to have communicated to the nation any certain information concerning these self-devotements„ lie ought, every morning, during the height of the festival, to have visited the Golgotha, or place where the dead bodies are cast forth ; and also the sands between the Idol's tower and the sea, and the precincts of the town. And while examining these scenes, he ought to have counted the bodies whose bones were bruised by the car ; for it is very easy to distinguish the skeletons which have been crushed— J say skeletons, for the dogs and vultures generally eat off the flesh before the morning. The writer computes the number of pilgrims present at the Rutt Jattra of 1809, at about 100,000 ; although he observes elsewhere*, that this was a small number compared to that of other years. Does he then know what was the daily mortality, from different causes, of this one hundred thousand pilgrims ? Was it twenty, or fifty, or one hundred, per day ? We know the calculation which has been made, of the daily casualties in an army of 100,000 men, when in a generally healthy state. What, then, must be the daily average of deaths in an army of one hundred* thousand pilgrims ; « a large proportion of whom, 5 ' according to Mr. Buller, « consists of the old and infirm, who come for the express purpose of laying their bones within the precincts of the city !" Or did he ever make any inquiry respecting the daily devastation of the various causes of death, so as to be able to offer even a conjecture on the sub-

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ject ? Did he ever send for the hurries (or corpse-carriers) and investigate accurately how many immolations took place while he resided in Orissa ? Or can he safy certainly, from any authentic data, that there were not in fact many self-devotenients during that period ? — I think it probable, that the writer cannot answer one of these questions in the affirmative. A simple case will explain my meaning in proposing them. During the many years Mr. Builer resided in Calcutta, he probably never saw more than three or four women burned I do not know that he saw one ; — yet it now appears, from unquestionable evidence, that a very considerable number of females were immolated within a short distance of his residence during that period. As it was with respect to immolations at and near Calcutta, so, we would infer, it might have been as to immolations at Juggernaut.

It will be proper here to assign the reason why so few immolations of women are seen by Europeans in India ; for I understand the circumstance has greatly perplexed the minds of some. The causes are these :

1. There are in India 30,000 English, and fifty millions of natives. In Calcutta alone ? the calculation, a few years ago, was 1500 English, and about half a million natives. '

2. By a law of the East-India Company, no British subject can reside above ten miles' distance from a principal settlement, without a, special licence.

3. The burnings do not always occur in the same place • but at some convenient spot near

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the house of the deceased Hindoo, and geiierally on the banks of a river.

4>. The burning generally begins next forenoon after the decease of the husband ; or if he die during the night, it takes place next evening, on account of the state of the corpse in a hot climate. Immediately on the decease of the husband, the Brahmins wait on the widow, to know if she means to burn ; and all is settled in an hour or two.

3. If the burning takes place in the forenoon, it does not begin generally till ten o'clock, or later, when the sun is hot, and when no Englishman goes to any distance without necessity., If it takes place in the evening, the flame may he seen at a distance ; but as it is more likely to be merely the burning of a dead body (the pile for which is generally lighted in the evening), the expectation of a woman burning alive is not excited. From the terraces of the houses in Calcutta, funeral piles may be seen on the other side of the river so commonly, that they are not particularly noticed. No person thinks of going over to examine what is doing; as it is known to be, in general cases, only the burning of a dead body.

6. Unless an Englishman comes casually upon the scene, he never can, generally speaking, see a burning. The only expedient is, to desire your Kimloo servants to mention when they hear that one is about to take place. But again, your Hindoo servants live in your own house, ami not in the native part of the town ; and unless it be one of their own relations who is dead, they seldom hear any thing of the event

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till afterwards. Another obstacle is, that they are averse to communicate to Christians any information concerning a custom which they know is not approved. The Mahometans, on the other hand, have less difficulty; but then they have less acquaintance with what is passing among Hindoo families. My sircar (or house-steward) has more than once apprised me of a burning ; but I do not recollect that a Mahometan servant ever did. And, again, even if you should receive timely intelligence, it may happen that the distance is inconvenient. The usual place of burning, on the Calcutta side of the water, is at Chitpore Ghaut, about four miles from the English part of the town ; and few of the English will choose to travel eight miles, under a hot sun, through crowded bazars, to witness the scene.

7. To all these causes may be added, the utter disinclination of the English, in general, to inquire into what the natives are doing. Nothing relating to them excites much interest. They constitute a distinct world from the English. Their language, manners, and religion, the English understand not. But chiefly the personal degradation of the Hindoos, from poverty of circumstances and ignorance of mind, separates the two nations ; so that an English lady or gentleman, in Calcutta, is generally much better acquainted with what has passed during the former year on the banks of the river Thames, [in England] than with the scenes on the banks of the Ganges.

These considerations will shew what weight is due to the argument so often repeated, viz. 1*

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That the immolations of women must be fm§ since so few English gentlemen have seen them.

The same observations will^for the most part 9 account for that prevailing ignorance concerning Hindoo scenes in general, such as the licentious ceremonies of the Mutt Jattra, and the immolations of men in the various ways in" which the) are practised ;' for numerous are the modes in which religious suicide is perpetrated, besides that of being crushed under the chariot of an idol. To compare the immolations of men in India with suicide in England, is exceedingly preposterous. It is a received maxim of philosophic writers, that, in any .nation, the cases of suicide by the men greatly exceed those by the women ; and the fact' is accounted for on self-evident principles. But it has been sa~ tisiaeiorily established, that upwards of ten thousand women commit suicide annually in India, What becomes, then, of the analogy between ihe immolations of men in India and in England ?

Again : the immolations in India differ entirely from suicide in England, in the principle «, or moving cause of the act, — Religious suicide among the Hindoos is an act quite distinct from that suicide in Europe which results from despair. A Hindoo is not usually urged to this act by a sentiment of despair, but by the con- Yiction of a meritorious deed ; by the belief that he purchases heaven by his own blood ; or by sympathetic phrensy. He devotes himself to death with the same feeling, and on the same principle, that he devotes his " first-born child to Gunga," and can behold the infant in the

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jaws of the alligator without compassion or compunction. The advocates for the tranquil continuance of the superstition of Brahma will not deny, that, whatever he its actual character, or whoever he the spiritual deity that rules its votaries, it destroys all the " tender visit - ings of nature. 5 '

It is proper I should say something on the subject of the Second Letter in the following pages. In three publications concerning India, viz. " A Memoir of the Expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment," the " Christian Researches in Asia," and the " Brief View of the State of the British Colonies in Respect to Religious Instruction," there is no exposition of the peculiar subject of that letter. And it is most certain, that it would not now have been given, had not an attempt been made, in a paper laid before the Council of the Nation, to represent the " sculptures on the walls of Juggernaut" as being as harmless, in regard to their moral effect on the Hindoos, as the figures on an Etruscan vase are to us : from which the conclusion naturally would be, that the worship of the Hindoos is not more contaminated by indelicacy than that of the English.

I would beg leave to notice in this place the late discussion in Parliament concerning the enormities of the Hindoo worship, and the attempt made by some Honorable Members to qualify them. I understood, some time ago, that the statement in my own writings whicn chiefly excited animadversion, was that which refers to the burning of women. But I pres

PREFACE, sume that it is now generally known, that subsequent statements of indubitable authority have far exceeded mine, and have set the question at rest.

Perhaps the Honorable Members above alluded to are not aware, that a work has been recently published ia Bengal, in four volumes quarto, entitled, " An Account of the Writings, Religion, and Manners of the Hindoos, including Translations from their principal Works ; by William Ward, one of the Baptist Missionaries at Serampore $" which has been bought up with avidity in India, has already passed through two editions, and is now republishing in this country. It was printed under the immediate eye of the Supreme Government (as it necessarily must be), and possesses an unquestionable authenticity, generally, on the various subjects concerning which it treats. It takes the high ground of literal translations from the Hindoo books, recent events, and living witnesses. — Now, this work not only confirms the statements in my volumes, in most points which were controverted, but it goes far beyond them. It describes, for example, the atrocities connected with the burning of women, self-torture, and the impurity of the Hindoo worship, in such a manner as shews that I have scarcely entered the vestibule of their temple. It states, that an attempt was made to ascertain the number of widows who were burned alive, within thirty miles around Calcutta, in the year 1803, and " that the return made a total of four hundred and thirty-eight.^ And, in regard to the circumstances of horror which

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sometimes attend these scenes, I beg the reader will accept the two following examples. The first has already been noticed in the House of Commons, in answer to an opposing statement which asserted the "filial piety" of the Hindoos.

" About the year 1796, the following most shocking and attrocious murder, under the name of suhumurunu,* was perpetrated at Mujilupoor, about a day's journey south from Calcutta. Vaucha-ramu, a Bramhun, of the above place, dying, his wife went to be burnt with the body ; all the previous ceremonies were performed ; she was fastened on the pile, and the fire was kindled. The funeral pile was by the side of some brushwood, and near a river. It was at a late hour when the pile was lighted, and was a very dark, rainy night. When the fire began to scorch this poor woman, she contrived to disentangle herself from the dead body, crept from under the pile, and hid Jherself among the brushwood. In a little time it was discovered that only one body was on the pile. The relations immediately took the alarm, and began to hunt for the poor wretch who had made her escape. After they had found her, the son dragged her forth, and insisted upon her throwing herself upon the pile again, or that she should drown or hang herself. She pleaded for her life, at the hands of her own son, and declared she could not embrace so horrid a death. But she pleaded in vain ; the son urged that he should lose his cast, and that, therefore, he would die or she should. Unable to

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persuade her to hang or drown herself, the son and the others then tied her hands and her feet, and threw her on the funeral pile, where she quickly perished."

The other example, which far exceeds the foregoing in awful enormity, is the following : — Goopinat'hu, a Bramlmn employed in the Serampore printing-office, in the year 1799 saw twenty4wo females burnt alive with the remains of Ununtu, a Bramhun of Bagnuparu, near Nudeeyu. This Koolimi Bramhun had more than a hundred wives* At the first kindling of the fire only three of these wives had arrived. The fire was kept kindled three days I When one or more arrived, the ceremonies were gone through, and they threw themselves on the blazing fire! On the first day three were burned ; on the second and third days, nineteen more. Among these women, some were as much as forty years old, and others as young as sixteen. The three first had lived with this Bramhun, the others had seldom seen him. He married in one house four sisters ; two of these were among the number burnt."

Now, if the horrible transaction here related did not take place, it is very easy to ascertain the fact. Nudeeyu, or as it is commonly called, Nuddeea, is at no great distance up the river above Calcutta. The event is said to have occurred in 1799. If it did take place in that year, hundreds of people now alive must have w itnessed it. The Brahmin, who had a hundred wives, must have been well known. Let the inquiry then be made ; and let the credit of tfsg work? generally, rest on the result. I kn«|V¥

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nothing of tlie merits of the book, but I depend on the character of the authors and the circumstances under which it is published; and I say that the probability of the truth of the transaction just related is as great as the absurdity would be of supposing the following case, viz, " That an author could be found in England who should publish a work, in four volumes quarto, in which it should be stated, that in the year 1799 twenty-two women were burnt alive on the banks of the Thames at Richmond, and that the fire was kept burning three days ; and moreover, that the book was published with the express leave of the King, under the eye and responsibility of his government. 59 *

* As certain gentlemen from India have been accused in Parliament of ''pertinaciously denying 1 facts, as the easiest mode of resisting* the relig'ious improvement of India/' it is proposed to do them justice, and to prove their sagacity, by the investigation of the above sacrifice of twenty-two women on one pile ; and their attention should be steadily fixed in the contemplation of the subject, until they or their parliamentary accusers shall have obtained the victory. Or if they should like the investigation of the following fact better, it may be adopted with equal propriety : the event occurred in May or June of last year, at Chunakuli,. not far from Calcutta ; and the account of It was soon after printed and published in Bengal. A Kooleen Brahmin died at Chunakuli, "who had married twenty-five women, thirteen of whom died during* his life-time : the remaining" twelve perished with him on the funeral pile, leaving thirty children to deplore the fatal effects of this horrid system." — The same printed account immediately states the following' fact, as illustrative of the system : — " Some years ago a Kooleen Brahmin, of considerable property, died at Sookachura, three miles east of Serampore (where the Missionaries

I, J;

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Zeigenbalg, and his fellow-missionaries, first gave the only satisfactory account of the manners and religion of the South of India.* It was to be expected that the present Missionaries in Bengal would give the most particular account of the North. In every heathen nation, the Missionaries are generally best qualined to delineate the character of the inhabitants. Both in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres the religious men have described the country and manners of the people. The commercial men in the East know, in general, very

live.) He had married more than forty women, all of whom died before him, excepting eighteen. On this occasion a fire, extending ten or twelve yards in length, was prepared, into which the remaining eighteen threw themselves, leaving more than forty children, many of whom are still living."

Or, if the case of the seventy women, who were sacrificed in May and Jane of last year, within two hundred miles of Calcutta, of whom the twelve above-mentioned were a part, and of whom a list and particular account, recording name and place, was lately inserted in the public papers, should be thought a more suitable subject for enquiry, it may be undertaken. This, indeed, appears to be the fittest case of all for trial and actual proof ; for it is stated that there are "one hundred and eighty -four" witnesses, who may be produced ; namely, the one hundred and eighty-four orphans of the deceased fathers and sacrificed mothers. The places where these witnesses reside have all been printed ; and are not, in general, far from Calcutta.— {Sea Appendix, No. IX.)

* The transactions of the Tranquebar Mission filf many volumes in quarto, in the German language. A very small portion of them has been translated into English.

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little of the subject. Resident generally in towns or on the sea-coast, and occupied by foreign avocations, they rarely penetrate into the interior, to investigate, under a meridian sun, the manners and customs of the people. As to the literary men, again, who merely consult books, their advantages of information are confessedly very far inferior to those of the Missionaries. Of this general ignorance of English residents in India concerning native scenes, we have lately had some remarkable examples in the evidence delivered at the bar of the House of Commons. Gentlemen who had occupied high official stations in that country betrayed a defect of information respecting the state of the natives, and the progress of Christianity in different provinces, which has been contemplated by many with utter astonishment. The circumstance, however, may be accounted for, iu some degree, by the following consideration. India is not less than three thousand miles in extent. Now the Shetland Islands are only seven hundred miles from London ; but a merchant in London knows very little about the manners and customs of the Shetland Isles. Thus it is in Hindustan. A merchant in Bengel knows in general very little of what is passing seven hundred miles from that province. But, if the question respects a distance of two thousand or three thousand miles, it is much if he have a map of the country. In the time of Governor Hastings, the life and acts of the illustrious Swartz, his contemporary, and of his learned predecessors and their transactions at the Courts of Tanjore and Mysore, and the progress of

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Christianity in the southern regions and Cey* Ion, were all of them circumstances nearly as much unknown in Bengal, as the transactions of the Catholic Missionaries at the Court of Pe~ kin, or the state of Christianity in the interior of China.

The great extent of Hindostan in longitude and latitude, may also account, in some degree, for the discrepancy of relations concerning the Hindoo people ; for in the nations between Ceylon and Cabul, there are as great differences in manners, customs, and religion, as in those between the Shetland Isles and Constantinople. Our nation has lately w ondered at the flattering account giv en of the Hindoos at the bar of the House of Commons, by some eloquent advocates for the continuance of their existing state. But the above consideration, of the great extent of the Indian Continent, may suggest the possibility, that, in some favoured region, a people may ex« ist, differing in certain respects, from the Hindoos in general ; " a civilized and moral people, 59 who" treat their females with confidetice.respect and delicacy;" who practice the virtues of "hospitality and charity;" w ho are " distinguished by the finest qualities of the mind;" who are " brave, generous and humane ; and their truth as remarkable as their courage ;" and who, in short, like St. Pierre's " happy Indian family," may well make Christians blush. The accounts do not add w hether these Hindoos have renounced the worship of the Lingam ; for the adage still holds good, " If you would know the character of the nation, look at the temple." It is a good rule in our general reflections on nations*

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to beware, lest by unduly exalting paganism, we should deba. e Christianity. It is yet a better rule to acknowledge the Bible in our old age, and to do some honour to Christianity before we die.* Many of us from India had, certainly, little opportunity of doing honour to Christianity there. Let us then look into the Bible at home ; and while we cherish with laudable anxiety a desire to do justice to the Hindoos, to give to Brahma that which is Brahma's, let us also endeavour " to give unto God that which is God's." We shall shortly be placed in circumstances, even perhaps before we leave this world, when the reflection that we had "stood on the Lord's side," will be grateful to the soul, and support the sinking spirits ; and, when, in the review of all the nations which we have witnessed, and in re-* collection of their principles and actions, we shall bequeath to them this wish, That the book of God's revealed will may go forth among them, as the best blessing to mankind !

* It is to be hoped, for the credit of British India, that the next generation of gentlemen returning' from that country, will not expose themselves to the severe and pointed remark of Lord Milton, the son of Earl Fitzwilliam, in his speech in the House of Commons. " I want no more," said he, " to convince me of the necessity of the religious improvement of India, than the sentiments which have been uttered this evening by gentlemen returned from that quarter." — -Debate of the 17th June, 1813.

LETTER L

TO THE COURT OF DIRECTORS OF THE HON. EAST-INDIA COMPANY.

HONORABLE SIRS,

1 WAS yesterday favoured with a copy of a letter addressed by Mr. Charles Buller to your Honourable Court* dated the 19th instant, which has been ordered to be laid on the table of the House of Commons, relating to the worship of the idol Juggernaut ; and I now beg leave to submit some remarks on that document. The reference which the writer makes to me by name, and to my publications on this subject, will apologize for oiy doing myself the honour of addressing your Honourable Court,

Par. 1. Mr. Buller fully confirms, in essential points, the general statements made by me, concerning the part which the Bengal Government has taken in the superintendance of Juggernaut, and in deriving revenue from the worship of the idol ; but he defends the policy. With that I have nothing to do. He admits, also, that self-immolation under the wheels of the ear is practiced, but thinks the instances are rare. 1 am of opinion that they are rare also ; rare, I mean, when compared with the number of females immolated on the funeral