British India in its relation to the decline of Hindooism, and the progress of Christianity. Containing remarks on the manners, customs, and literature of the people ... / By the Rev. William Campbell ... Illustrated with engravings on wood, by G. Baxter.

  • Campbell, William, active 1827.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: British India in its relation to the decline of Hindooism, and the progress of Christianity. Containing remarks on the manners, customs, and literature of the people ... / By the Rev. William Campbell ... Illustrated with engravings on wood, by G. Baxter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pression of the nearness and the solemnity of death and judgment, appeared to rest on the community. But to behold the whole city given up to idolatry ; what a sight! Every object brings their gross and degrading superstition to your view; the mark of the beast is engraven on their foreheads. Their pagodas, their muntapas,^ their altars, and their idols of stone, meet your eye, on every side. If they adorn their houses, it must be with figures of their deities. Their dress, their very ornaments, their trades and occupations, their shops and mer- chandize, their schools of learning, their public edifices, their manners and customs, and intercourse, —all remind you of their debasing mythology. Your heart sickens within you, while you pass through the streets of Black Town, and behold crowds of immortal beings busy upon the trifles of an hour, almost ready to devour one another to obtain the riches and vanities of earth, panting after worldly fame and renown, and many of them inflicting the most excruciating tortures upon them- selves, to become the idols of the multitude, or to propitiate an offended deity; but all without God and without hope, famishing for want of the bread that endureth to life everlasting, and perishing in their sins. In every age, India has been the region of re- * A muntapa is a small house built upon the road-side, and containing an idol, at whose shrine, travellers may pay their devotions.