CURSES ARE LIKE YOUNG CHICKEN, THEY ALWAYS COME HOME TO ROOST.
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Original page numbers are given in curly brackets. Footnotes have beenrelocated to the end of the book. Passages originally rendered insmall-caps have been changed to all-caps in the text version of thiswork.
Alterations: [pp. 168, 191] Correct misspellings of Edward Moor’slast name; [p. 194] change “battel” to “battle”;and [p. 237] change “Son and Moon” to “Sun and Moon”.
In the religion of the Hindoos, which of all false religions is themost monstrous in its fables, and the most fatal in its effects, thereis one remarkable peculiarity. Prayers, penances, and sacrifices, aresupposed to possess an inherent and actual value, in no degreedepending upon the disposition or motive of the person who performsthem. They are drafts upon Heaven, for which the Gods cannot refusepayment. The worst men, bent upon the worst designs, have in thismanner obtained power which has made them formidable to the SupremeDeities themselves, and rendered an Avatar, or Incarnation ofVeeshnoo the Preserver, necessary. This belief is the foundation ofthe following Poem. The story is original; but, in all its parts,consistent with the superstition upon which it is built; and howeverstartling the fictions may appear, they might almost be calledcredible when compared with the genuine tales of Hindoo mythology.
No figures can be imagined more anti-picturesque, and less poetical,than the mythological personages of the Bramins. This deformity waseasily kept out of sight:—their hundred hands are but a clumsypersonification of power; their numerous heads only a gross image ofdivinity, “whose countenance,” as the Bhagvat-Geeta expresses it, “isturned on every side.” To the other obvious objection, that the religionof Hindostan is not generally known enough to supply fit machinery foran English poem, I can only answer, that, if every allusion to itthroughout the work is not sufficiently self-explained to render thepassage intelligible, there is a want of skill in the poet. Even thosereaders who should be wholly unacquainted with the writings of ourlearned Orientalists, will find all the preliminary knowledge that canbe needful, in the brief explanation of mythological names prefixed tothe Poem.