ing in the figure of a beast,
sometimes of a man, which is the original of their pagods, of whom they
relate so many fables.

They add, that Brama, having likewise a desire of children, made himself
visible, and begot the Brachmans, whose race has infinitely multiplied.
The people believe them demi-gods, as poor and miserable as they are.
They likewise imagine them to be saints, because they lead a hard and
solitary life; having very often no other lodging than the hollow of a
tree, or a cave, and sometimes living exposed to the air on a bare
mountain, or in a wilderness, suffering all the hardships of the weather,
keeping a profound silence, fasting a whole year together, and making
profession of eating nothing which has had life in it.

But after all, there was not perhaps a more wicked nation under the
canopy of heaven. The fruit of those austerities which they practice in
the desart, is to abandon themselves in public to the most brutal
pleasures of the flesh, without either shame or remorse of conscience.
For they certainly believe, that all things, how abominable soever, are
lawful to be done, provided they are suggested to them by the light which
is within them. And the people are so infatuated with them, that they
believe they shall become holy by partaking in their crimes, or by
suffering any outrage from them.

On the other side, they are the greatest impostors in the world; their
talent consists in inventing new fables every day, and making them pass
amongst the vulgar for wonderful mysteries. One of their cheats is to
persuade the simple, that the pagods eat like men; and to the end they
may be presented with good cheer, they make their gods of a gigantic
figure, and are sure to endow them with a prodigious paunch. If those
offerings with which they maintain their families come to fail, they
denounce to the people, that the offended pagods threaten the country
with some dreadful judgment, or that their gods, in displeasure, will
forsake them, because they are suffered to die of hunger.

The doctrine of these Brachmans is nothing better than their life. One of
their grossest errors is to believe that kine have in them somewhat of
sacred and divine; that happy is the man who can be sprinkled over with
the ashes of a cow, burnt by the hand of a Brachman; but thrice happy be,
who, in dying, lays hold of a cow's tail, and expires with it betwixt his
hands; for, thus assisted, the soul departs out of the body p