Description of the character, manners, and customs of the people of India; and of their institutions, religious and civil / by the Abbé J.A. Dubois ; translated from the French manuscript.

  • Jean-Antoine Dubois
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Description of the character, manners, and customs of the people of India; and of their institutions, religious and civil / by the Abbé J.A. Dubois ; translated from the French manuscript. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/604 page 8
    “ our houses by the heat; all our wants and business which would “ create a greater intercourse with the natives is done for us, and we “ are in fact strangers in the land. I have personally found the want “ of a work to which reference could be made for a just description of “ the native opinions and manners. I am of opinion that, in a political “ point of view, the information which the work of the Abbé Dubois & has to impart might be of the greatest benefit in aiding the servants “ of the government in conducting themselves more in unison with the “ customs and prejudices of the natives.” In the continuation of Major Wilks’s Letter, that gentleman, so advan- tageously known to the world by his own writings, suggests, in liberal cri- ticism of the Manuscript, that, “ though absolutely divested of all po- «litical matter, it contains for example a variety of opinions on the “ utility of the subdivision of the casts, on the origin of the Hindoo « system, &c. which like all speculative opinions, are liable to be ques- “ tioned, and may perhaps be left to find their own supporters and “ opponents, the public having only to do with the facts; and in the « general arrangement of the matter, I believe few faults or errors will be found. But if it should be deemed expedient to divest the work of any of the opinions to which I have adverted, the most con- venient mode would probably be in the first instance to purchase the manuscript.” The work was accordingly brought over, and remained for a consider- able time in the Company’s Library, accessible to the curious, until the beginning of the present year, when the translation was commenced under the sanction of the Honourable the Court of Directors, Charles Grant, Esq. M.P. being then Chairman, and Thomas Reid, Esq. Deputy Chairman of the Court. It is now submitted to the Public without any attempt to alter or improve the speculations of the Author. His candour, sincerity, piety, and high sentiment are so uniformly conspicuous and expressive, that no danger is likely to attend any of his doctrines or the- ories. And if his zeal may at any time betray him, in argument, to conclusions apparently a little at variance, it would have been found but an ungrateful service to interrupt the reader with notes for the purpose of exposing small incongruities or in attempting to reconcile them. The 11
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3