Travels in India (Tavernier) 145.5

145.5

The King authorises public women, but they have to live in their own separate quarter, under a chief who protects them from insult from any one. When one of them dies her body is not burnt as is that of a respectable woman, but is thrown into a place where it becomes the food of dogs and crows. It is estimated that there are in this Kingdom more than 200,000 priests called Bonzes who are held in great veneration both by the court and by the people. The King himself regards some of them with such awe as to humiliate himself in their presence. The extraordinary respect which every one shows them has inspired in them, sometimes, so much pride, that some of them have pushed their desires as far as the throne. But when the King discovers anything of the kind he takes their lives, as was the case some time ago in a rebellion, the author of which was a Bonze, whom the King executed.