Travels in India (Tavernier) 121.6

121.6

13. Is the position of another penitent, whose weakness has caused his hands to fall behind his back, not being able to lower his arms, which are dried up from lack of nutrition. There are an infinity of other penitents, some of whom assume positions altogether contrary to the natural attitude of the human body, having their eyes always turned to the sun ; others who have their eyes directed to the ground, without ever looking at any one in the face, nor saying a single word ; and the diversity is so great that it would be sufficient to form the subject of a long discourse. In order to give more satisfaction to the curious, and to enable them to understand matters more distinctly, I shall add here other pictures of these same penitents, which I have had drawn, on the spot, after nature. Modesty has compelled me to conceal the parts which they have no shame about exposing to view, for at all times, both in the country and in the towns, they go about altogether as naked as they came out of their mothers’ wombs ; and although the women approach them out of devotion in order to do what cannot be named for shame, you do not see in them any sign of sensuality; but on the contrary, without regarding any one, and rolling the eyes terribly, you would say they are absorbed in abstraction.