ASIATIC JOURNAL FOR JULY 1818. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. Cheltenham, 27th April, 1818. SIR,-In hopes that the subject of the pay of Retired Captains and Subalterns of the Honorable Company's service, commenced in your number for February last, would have been followed by a more competent pen, I have waited until now addressing you. Your able correspondent, A Retired Subaltern of the Bengal Army" has so well advocated our cause, as to leave me only the part of stating the comparative pay of the two services. Capt.'s Pay. Lieut. tired List, but which does not specify whether on full or half pay. I suppose one-third of the Captains to be on full pay. The difference of expense to make the income of the Company's Retired Officers equal to that of His Majesty's would be as follows: 27 Capts. on full pay at Per day. Per ann. Total per ann. 684 7 6 0 6 20 36 10 0 246 7 6 1,971 O O 16 27 7.6 Total 2,901 15 0 Uniting your other correspondent on the subject, in the anxious hope of our case attracting the noFull. Half Half Pay tice of those who have the power, as I doubt not they have the incli26 nation to bring it duly forward, I am, Sir, s. d. S. King's per day....10 6 Difference....0 6 2 s. d. 40 1 6 In the last East-India register there are eighty-one Captains and twenty-five Subalterns on the Re Your most obedient humble servant, A HALF-PAY LIEUTENANT of Sixteen Years Service in India. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIR, A paragraph in your last number announces the intention of Parliament to settle by an Act, the question of the validity of marriages performed by the clergy of the Church of Scotland resident in Asiatic Jour.-No. 31. India. Before the Act of the 53d Geo. III, commonly called the New Charter Act, which provided Scotch clergy for our East-Indian settlements, was passed, no member of the Scotch Church hesitated VOL. VI. B in submitting to the forms of the Church of England for the performance of that rite, and doubtless concluded that they were as truly and lawfully married as if the rite had been performed by their own clergy in Scotland. I would therefore just ask the question, why the Company's servants, and others, in India, should have run the risk of entering into an invalid engagement on a concern of such vast importance as that of marriage, and not at least to have waited a reference home on the subject;* or, as delay in such *It does not appear that any marriages had been solemnized by the Scottish clergy, the act appears to us likely to be merely prospective in its influence, although it with propriety provides retrospectively for contingencies. As to the utility of the act, we beg our correspondent to bear in mind, that it is for members of the church of Scotland alone to decide on that question. At all events, we do not find ourselves in a mood presumptuously to question the wisdom of Parliament, in a matter which has no doubt been maturely deliberated, and in which the wishes of a national church, as respectable always for piety and talent as that of any land, have no doubt been regarded. Ed. matters is not always advisable or pleasing, why not, till such reference had been made, have continued to conform to the rites of the Church of England? I would also inquire of those of your readers who may be competent to give a legal opinion, whether the marriages which have been so entered into, can be considered as valid before the passing of the bill† alluded to in your former number, or whether they must wait the passing of the act before the contracts can be binding? The question involves considerations of no light import To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIR,-Your correspondent Civis has taken occasion, in a late number, to point out in that valuable work, L'Abbe Dubois' description of the people of India, premises whence he has made deductions, which, though demonstration is, in the nature of things, out of the case, are probable, and well worthy attention. In looking over the Abbe's book, I was much surprised to read, p. 323, the following passage; speaking of the philosophers, he says: "they were soon separated into two parties, "the first called Dwitam, the sect "of two, that is those who hold "the existence of two beings or "substances, namely, God and "the world which he created, "and to which he is united." Now the object of my writing this is to inquire if the word created be correct. It has with abundant reason been doubted whether the ancients of Europe had any idea of creation as we understand the term; indeed I might more justly say it is very certain that they never dreamed of mooting the question, whether even divine power could produce something out of nothing, and such, till I read this passage, I supposed was the doctrine of the sects in India, China, and all the East; (the disciples of Muhammed excepted of course, his system being derived from the Christian scriptures); indeed, upon reading the context, I can consider the expression as no other than a slip. The Hindus are, I had understood, divisible into two philosophical sects; the first, those who hold the independent existence of two principles, mind and matter, of course both eternal and both uncreated; this might properly be denominated materialism: the other, those who assert that matter has no existence, the earth and skies with all their thousand thousand appearances, the human frame and all its sensations, being but one grand illusion, the consequence of the divinity having thought that it would be very curious and very amusing to see himself thus wonderously diversified; for besides him nothing does exist. This may be called immaterialism. It is curious to observe how extensively prevalent this doctrine, with various modifications, has been among mankind. It formed the charm of the schools of the ancients, the thesis for the interminable disputations of the middle or dark ages; it has won the attention and praise of the moderns, and has been celebrated by poets, who have versified the system "Whose body nature is, and God the soul." In contradiction to these doctrines, as they prevailed in Egypt, there is much probability that the opening sentence of the Hebrew scriptures was directed, "In the beginning God created the heavens "and the earth." 66 Polytheists of a Queen of Heaven 66 This assertion of Dubois, I must say, appears of very doubtful authority; but I hope before I die to see a publication which shall bring under one view the the various systems, intellectual or material, of the philosophers of all ages, whose writings can be produced in evidence; there will be found on comparison, I am apt to think, a very great similarity of doctrine, of the train of reasoning, and sometimes even of expression." a knowledge of their sacred In mentioning the subject of this " rights." speculative system, I cannot refrain from noticing the information which the Abbe gives us on the next leaf, concerning the doctrine of the Saktis or goddesses, the powers or influences of their respective gods. I do not know that there is a more marked feature of the derivation of one superstition from another, than is observed in the almost universal instalment by He says also, that the Romans having resolved to institute the worship of Ceres after the Grecian fashion, sought a priest from Velia, called Calcitana, or, as some assert, Caliphenna; that they might have a priest to perform the ancient rites of the goddess. "advised by the Sybilline books to Cicero says there were twelve sent, "singulis Etruriæ populis," "Being "bis sex "placate the most ancient Ceres, "they sent to Enna ten deputies." Now it is evident from all this, that the ancient Romans, those whom Cicero calls ancients, supposed themselves not properly instructed in the practice of their own civic religion; there were mysteries they did not pretend to understand: and it is not improbable, as Ceres was a lady of very respectable rank on Olympus, that the doctrine of the Saktis was one, perhaps the leading article of the creed so much in request; at all events, Ceres is one of the celestial mothers of the western, as Sri, under another title, is of the eastern pantheon. Of the extent and hold which this superstition had in ancient Italy, we have a very good criterion in the imitation which papal Rome has thought it politic to adopt. The Pagans, or inhabitants of the villages, being unalienably addicted to the worship of the goddesses, it became necessary to produce a substitute in the Mother of God. If you consider, Mr. Editor, the above thoughts of sufficient interest to obtain a page in your journal, I shall on some future occasion offer a few remarks on some of the other metaphysical notions which the Hindus have borrowed from another people with whom they have had intercourse. H. H. G. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIR,-Having read in the daily papers lately several letters recommending alterations and improvements in many of our Public Buildings, I have been induced to address you, in order to point out to the Court of Directors, that at a very trifling expense I should imagine they might render the East-India College at Hertford a much handsomer building than it is at present. The façade, which is first seen on the approach to it from London, is really very magnificent, and is I believe an exact model of an ancient temple of Diana; but proceeding on towards Hertford, the contrast is too of marked, that side of the building To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIR,-Most of your readers are aware, that Haridwar is the most celebrated place of pilgrimage of Northern Hindostan, and is the resort at particular seasons of wonderful crowds of devotees: the sacred river there descends from the no less sacred mountains; JUVENAL. great are the benefits of bathing there, and no less valued the opportunities of commerce. You will allow, perhaps, that the following little extract is of sufficient interest to obtain a place in your next number; it is from a Calcutta writer, speaking of the Epi |