An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

TIBET. 309Nor, in the great variety of visitorsthat occasionally came to me, didI ever perceive the slightest scruple to partake either of tea, or of otherliquors, as prepared by my own servants. This I notice, as a traitdiametrically opposite to the unalterable practice of the Hindoos. ABrahman would deem ita profanation of the deepest dye, even to eatin the presence of one of an inferior cast ;much more to partake of thesame repast, with a person of a different religion. A rigid Hindoo,though the most needy of his race, would rather suffer death, thansubmit to such disgrace.In nothing, however, does there appear so great a difference, as intheir relictions establishments.The religionof the Hindoo, without any acknowledged individualsuperior, and almost without any edifices of magnitude, set apart forits professors (at least in Bengal and Hindostan), mixes all alike in thecommon business of the world ; and a promiscuous multitude is continuallypassing before the eye,among whom no external distinctionof character can be traced, unless by chance you shall discover thatsacred and discriminating mark, the Zennar, which is a small cord,made of the cusa grass, worn next the skin, passing over the shoulderto the hip, by the Brahman only. On such a discovery, I have seena clean and well dressed man, come up to another, who had been employedas a messenger between two Englishmen, humiliating himselfbefore hira with profound respect, touching the ground he trod on, andeven kissing his slipper, after he had been passing through wet anddirty roads.Those who are interested in keeping up the illusion, aremixed and blended invariably, with every rank of society ;so that the