Storia do Mogor 254.1.1

254.1.1

The first error of these Hindus is to believe that they are the only people in the world who have any polite manners ; and the same is the case with cleanliness and orderliness in business. They think all other nations, and above all Europeans, are barbarous, despicable, filthy, and devoid of order. The civilities they pay to each other are as follows, divisible into five categories. In the first they raise the hands to the head and prostrate themselves on the ground ; this is the form in which they adore God, and salute their spiritual leaders, the Sannyasis, who are their monks, and they also employ it for kings, princes, and the great. Although this is practised by nearly every caste, it is not observed by the Brahmans ; they prostrate themselves only before God, their teachers, who are always Brahmans, and their monks, also invariably of their own caste.