DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12673#0232
HINDOOS OF MALABAR.
213
The Numboory is the scion of an ancient and
celebrated tree. The well known polemic San-
karacharya belonged to this race ; he was born in
the village of Kaludee, in the 3501st, or, according
to others, the 3100th year of the Kali Yug. His
fame rests principally upon his celebrated work,
the sixty-four anacharun, or Exceptions to Estab-
lished Rules, composed for the purpose of regulating
and refining the customs of his fellow religionists.*
No copy of the institutes which have produced
permanent effects upon the people exists in Mala-
bar. There is a history of the saint's life called
Sankaracharya Chureedun, containing about seven
hundred stanzas, written by a disciple.
The Numboory family is governed by several
regulations peculiar to it: only the eldest of any
number of brothers takes a woman of his own
caste to wife. All the juniors must remain single
except when the senior fails in having issue. This
life of celibacy became so irksome to the Brah-
mans that they induced the Nair caste to permit
unrestrained intercourse between their females
and themselves, it being well understood that the
* It ordained, for instance, that corpses shall be burned
within private premises, instead of being carried out for that
purpose into the woods, &c.
213
The Numboory is the scion of an ancient and
celebrated tree. The well known polemic San-
karacharya belonged to this race ; he was born in
the village of Kaludee, in the 3501st, or, according
to others, the 3100th year of the Kali Yug. His
fame rests principally upon his celebrated work,
the sixty-four anacharun, or Exceptions to Estab-
lished Rules, composed for the purpose of regulating
and refining the customs of his fellow religionists.*
No copy of the institutes which have produced
permanent effects upon the people exists in Mala-
bar. There is a history of the saint's life called
Sankaracharya Chureedun, containing about seven
hundred stanzas, written by a disciple.
The Numboory family is governed by several
regulations peculiar to it: only the eldest of any
number of brothers takes a woman of his own
caste to wife. All the juniors must remain single
except when the senior fails in having issue. This
life of celibacy became so irksome to the Brah-
mans that they induced the Nair caste to permit
unrestrained intercourse between their females
and themselves, it being well understood that the
* It ordained, for instance, that corpses shall be burned
within private premises, instead of being carried out for that
purpose into the woods, &c.