Many Men Devote Their Fortunes To Works Of Charity, As In Building
Serais, Or Lodging-Houses For Travellers, Digging Wells,
Or
constructing tanks near highways, that the travellers may have water;
and where such cannot be had, they will hire
Poor men to sit by the
way-sides, and offer water to the passengers. The day of rest among the
Hindoos is Thursday, as Friday is among the Mahometans, Saturday with
the Jews, and Sunday with the Christians.[241] They have many solemn
festivals, and they make pilgrimages, among which the most famous are
Nagracut and Syba, formerly mentioned; where, if Mr Coryat may be
believed, who says he carefully observed the same, people cut off part
of their tongues out of devotion. It were easy to enlarge on this
subject, but I will not any farther describe their stupid idolatry. The
sum of the whole is, that both the Hindoos and Mahometans ground all
their opinions on tradition, not on reason, and are content to perish
with their fore-fathers, out of preposterous zeal and fond perverseness,
never rightly considering the grounds of their belief.
[Footnote 241: Monday is the day of rest with the people of Pegu. In
Java, each individual keeps that day holy on which he has begun some
great work. - Purch.]
Both the Mahometans and Hindoos are under subjection to the Great Mogul,
the term Mogul signifying a circumcised man, so that Great Mogul means
the Chief of the Circumcision. The present king is the ninth in lineal
descent from that famous eastern conqueror, whom we name Tamerlane, and
who in their histories is named Timor.
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