Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1887 — India’s Poetic Religion. [ARTICLE]

India’s Poetic Religion.

The Tamil Brahmins have a peculiarly poetic language, and, though their ideas are not always poetical, yet they are generally picturesque. The insect kingdom is the human world in disguise, and accordingly they call the bee a Brahmin from its selfish exclusiveness and its dislike to insects than bees; the wasp is the videgar, or priest; the grasshopper and locust, soldiers, from their destructive qualities; a large insect, being a species of glow-worm, a cowherd or milkman ; the mosquito and the flea, household servants; the bug, a doctor; the butterfly, a Brahmin woman, and the horsefly, a dog. And, in conclusion, should any of my readers ever desire the speddy departure of a Brahmin from his house, I have but to say let

him call into the room a dog, for to a pure Brahmin a dog or a fowl is as much an abhorrence as is a hog to an orthodox Hebrew or to'faithful followers of Mohammed.—Non Francisco Clironicle.