Hindu Manners

( Prof. Edward L Margetts , Pharmacology and Therapeutics Collection ) Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies. By the Abbé J. A. Dubois. Translated and edited by Henry K. Beauchamp. About the author : Abbe J.A. Dubois (January 1765 – 17 February 1848) was a French Catholic missionary in India, and member of the ‘Missions Etrangères de Paris’. He was known as Fraadh Saaibh to the parishioners of the Holy Cross Church, Cordel in Mangalore, among whom he ministered. He was at first attached to the Pondicherry mission, and worked in the southern districts of the present Madras Presidency. On the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, he went to Mysore to reorganize the Christian community that had been shattered by Tipu Sultan.

He was credited with the founding of agricultural colonies and the introduction of vaccination as a preventive of smallpox. His most notable was his record of Hindu manners, customs and ceremonies. He abjured European society, adopted the native style of clothing, and made himself in habit and costume as much like a Hindu as he could. He used to go around in the garb of sanyasi and abstained from eating meat for many years. Although Dubois disclaimed the title of author, his collections were not so much drawn from the Hindu sacred books as from his own careful and vivid observations, and it is this, united to a remarkable prescience. It is divided into three parts: A general view of society in India, and especially of the caste system The four states of Brahminical life Dubois left India in January 1823, with a special pension conferred on him by the East India Company. On reaching Paris, he was appointed director of the Missions Étrangères de Paris, of which he afterwards became superior (1836-1839). He translated into French the famous book of Hindu fables called Panchatantra, and also a work called The Exploits of the Guru Paramarta.