Beast and man in India : a popular sketch of Indian animals in their relations with the people / by John Lockwood Kipling.

  • Kipling John Lockwood, 1837-1911.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Beast and man in India : a popular sketch of Indian animals in their relations with the people / by John Lockwood Kipling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    power in India might have succeeded that of the Gupta kings. No mention is made of the horrible hole of the pit from which the country was digged ; and the events that really shaped the character and habits of the people are ignored in favour of ancient lawgivers and forgotten Vedas. Nothing could be more scholarly, amiable, sentimental, or mistaken, and the plain result is a falsification of history which has more ill effects than are visible on the narrow horizon of an English study. It is not a pleasant subject to dwell upon, but there is no more fitting adjective than cruel for the India of the late Mogul and the Pindari. We may allow that through centuries of trouble the Hindu system availed to preserve Brahmanical ordinances, but these only affected a limited portion of the community. The masses of the people, who really have to do with animals, could not but be demoralised. So general precepts of mercy for the many shrank into ritual observances for the few. Moreover, such precepts as exist have been exag- gerated in report. Strictly speaking, the Parsee religious code alone, among those of Oriental races, directly enjoins a hum.ane and considerate treatment of all animals during their life, as may be fully learned from the Book of Ardha Viraf, the Dante of the Zoroastrian Infej'no. The Hindu worships the cow, and as a rule is reluctant to take the life of any animal except in sacrifice. But that does not preserve the ox, the horse, and the ass from being unmercifully beaten,
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