An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal. Francis HamiltonЧитать онлайн книгу.
draw near any other Hindu, but would consider themselves as much degraded, by eating, drinking, or cohabiting with a Musulman or Christian; and any of their women who should venture to commit an act of such uncleanness, would be severely punished, as would also be the infidel by whom she had been corrupted. This, however, does not prevent Hindu women of all ranks and casts from being sold as slaves to either Musulmans or Christians. A master or a parent has the power of selling his slave or child, whose consent is not asked, who thereby loses cast, and who has no alternative, but to adopt the religion of her new master. Such incongruities may astonish a person unacquainted with Hindus; and what may add to his surprise is, that, while at Kathmandu, several Hindus, of high cast, among our followers, chose to embrace the Musulman faith, and thereby subjected themselves to severe restrictions and disgrace.
Musulmans have become pretty numerous, and are increasing, as they are zealous in purchasing girls, and in propagating their sect. Christianity has not been equally successful; and, on our arrival, we found the church reduced to an Italian Padre, and a native Portuguese, who had been inveigled from Patna by large promises, which were not made good, and who would have been happy to have been permitted to leave the country.
These are the various casts of Newars. I shall now give an account of the customs that are common to the whole nation.
All the Newars burn the dead; all eat buffaloes, sheep, goats, fowls, and ducks; and all drink spirituous liquors, to the use of which, indeed, they are excessively addicted. The highest of the Sivamargas kill animals with their own hands; but the higher orders of the Buddhmargs abstain from shedding blood, and from eating pork. They all live in towns or villages, and their houses are built of brick with clay mortar, and covered with tiles. These houses are three stories high, the ground floor being appropriated for the cattle and poultry, the second floor for servants, and the third for the family of the owner. This is in the houses of the wealthy. Among the poor, a number of families live under one roof. The rooms are exceeding low, as I could not stand upright in the principal apartment of what was reckoned the best house in Kathmandu, the palace excepted. At first sight, however, the houses look well, especially to a person coming from the towns of Hindustan. In Nepal, they have numerous large windows, which are shut by wooden lattices curiously carved, and which, in some measure, hang over the street, the upper end of the lattice projecting much more than the lower. Within, the houses are exceedingly mean and dirty, and swarm with vermin, which, added to all manner of filth, including the offals of the shambles, and the blood of sacrifices, that is allowed to corrupt in the streets, renders an abode in any of their towns utterly disgusting.
The following account of the Nepalese, or rather Newar, architecture, I have taken from papers communicated by Colonel Crawford.
The Nepalese possess a great advantage in having an excellent clay for making bricks and tiles; and their workmen are very expert. They use moulds nearly of the size and shape of our common bricks, and have also others for the bricks that are used in cornices and other ornaments. For the fronts and ornamental parts of their best houses, they make smooth glazed bricks, that are very handsome. Their bricklayers and masons are also good workmen, but labour under a great disadvantage, the want of lime. The tiles are flat, of an oblong form, and have two longitudinal grooves, one above and another below, which fit into the adjacent tiles, and the whole are put on with great neatness.
The houses of towns are in general three stories high, though some in the cities and large towns rise to four. The lower story has no windows, and the smoke of their kitchens comes out by the door, which renders the outside, even of their houses, very black and dirty. The windows of the second story are always small and nearly square. In each, a wooden trellis, which is highly ornamented by carving, but which cannot be opened and shut, admits the air and light, but prevents strangers from seeing into the apartment. The third or upper story has large windows, extending a great part of the length of each sitting apartment. Most of these windows have in front a wooden balcony composed of lattice work, in general much carved. This slopes outwards from a bench that is a little elevated from the floor, and joins the edge of the roof, which projects considerably beyond the wall. The bench is the favourite seat of the people, who, from thence, command a view of the street. The rooms are always narrow, the difficulty of carrying large timber from the mountains, per-venting them from procuring beams of sufficient dimensions. The beams, which can be usually procured, are fir of about six inches square. These are placed at about a foot distant from each other, and their ends project beyond the walls, so that from the street you can tell the number of beams in each house. The larger houses are square, with an open court in the centre.
In the villages, the houses are built of unburnt bricks, and often also consist of three stories disposed of in the same manner as in towns; but the windows of the upper story are not provided with balconies. Those of two stories are also very common, and one of them is represented by Colonel Kirkpatrick in the plate opposite to page 160.
The temples are of two kinds. One, constructed of solid brick, and peculiar to the worshippers of Buddha, resembles the temples of the same sect in Ava. The other is common to the Bouddhists and followers of the Vedas, and has a strong resemblance to the temples of the Chinese. The temples of this kind are destined to contain idols, and are squares consisting of from two to five stories, each of which is of smaller dimensions than the one below, and the last ends in a point. Each story has a sloping roof, and in some fine temples, these roofs are covered with gilded copper. The lower
The view given by Colonel Kirkpatrick [41a] of Kathmandu affords a good idea of the place, and shows the strong resemblance of its temples to those of Thibet and China. I cannot but therefore wonder, when he says, [41b] “These edifices appeared to differ nothing in their figure or construction from the wooden Mundups, occasionally met with in other parts of India.” I have never in India seen any such, either in structure or in materials, every considerable temple there being either of brick or stone.
The Newar women are never confined. At eight years of age, they are carried to a temple, and married, with the ceremonies usual among Hindus, to a fruit called Bel, (Ægle Marmelos, Roxb.) When a girl arrives at the age of puberty, her parents, with her consent, betroth her to some man of the same cast, and give her a dower, which becomes the property of the husband, or rather paramour. After this, the nuptials are celebrated with feasting, and some religious ceremonies. Among the higher casts, it is required that girls should be chaste till they have been thus betrothed; but in the lower casts, a girl, without scandal, may previously indulge any Hindu with her favours; and this licentiousness is considered a thing of no consequence. Whenever a woman pleases, she may leave her husband; and if, during her absence, she cohabit only with men of her own cast, or of a higher one, she may at any time return to her husband’s house, and resume the command of his family. The only ceremony or intimation that is necessary, before she goes away, is her placing two betel-nuts on her bed. So long as a woman chooses to live with her husband, he cannot take another wife, until she becomes past child-bearing; but a man may take a second wife, when his first chooses to leave him, or when she grows old; and at all times he may keep as many concubines as he pleases. A widow cannot marry again; but she is not expected to burn herself; and may cohabit with any Hindu as a concubine. The children, by the betrothed wife, have a preference in succession to those by concubines; the latter, however, are entitled to some share. A man can be betrothed to no woman except one of his own cast; but he may keep a concubine of any cast, whose water he can drink. If the woman’s cast be lower