ABSTRACT

Finally, Binds freely indulge in spirit drinking, and are very partial to pork, when it can be procured.

The origin of the Bengalí Bráhmans is hidden in obscurity. It is, however, generally traced to the introduction of five Bráhmans from Kanauj by Ádisúra, King of Gau_r, about ad 900; but there are grounds for believing that the Vaidika and Sapt-`Satí were earlier immigrants, and it is probable, as Dr. Hunter thinks, that the first Aryan settlers in Bengal claimed to be the aristocracy of the new country, and as a natural consequence to be Bráhmans, an idea inseparable (in the Aryan mind) from the rank of an aristocracy. This supposition acquires aditional probability from the surviving tradition that Ádisúra applied to the Rájah of Kanauj for priests capable of performing certain Vedic ceremonies, as the false, Bráhmans of Bengal were incapable, through ignorance, of doing so.