[Illustration: ORNAMENTS WORN BY HINDOO FEMALES. 1. _Tre no lē_, } 2. _Cambălā_, } 3. _Conth măla_, } Necklaces. 5. _Phoomka_, } Worn in the Ear. 4. _Bala_, worn round the Wrist. 6. _Bajoo_, worn over the Arm. DRAWN BY MR. GANGOOLY.] LIFE AND RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. WITH A SKETCH OF MY LIFE AND EXPERIENCE. BY JOGUTH CHUNDER GANGOOLY (BAPTIZED PHILIP). BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, LEE AND COMPANY, 117 WASHINGTON STREET. 1860. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by CROSBY, NICHOLS, LEE & CO., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. University Press, Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. EDITOR’S PREFACE. Having suggested to the writer of the following pages that he should do what some who are more competent, and a great many who are far less competent than himself are doing daily, viz. write a book, I brought upon myself the office of revising his manuscript, and supervising its publication. It was a particular sort of a book which I proposed to him, and as he has come so near to the ideal which I had of what he might write, I have taken care to leave it as he wrote it, with no betterments and no injuries received while the manuscript was in my hands. Something of the interest of Mr. Gangooly’s composition might have been expected to lie in its style and in his peculiar modes of expression. So scrupulous have I been to allow the whole work to stand as his own, that I have seldom ventured to correct even his occasional slips of grammar, and have in no case altered his idiom. The reader will hardly fail to notice how charming and attractive the contents of these pages are made by the natural eloquence, the hearty frankness, and the wonderful power of discernment of this very young and marvellously endowed Hindoo convert to Christ. The perusal of his little book will deepen the impression made upon the minds of a large number of most intelligent persons who had any intercourse with him, that his experience has been profoundly interesting, that he possesses genius and many signal qualities of character, and that he is fitted to accomplish a most serious and useful work in life, if the circumstances hereafter appointed for him shall be propitious, and if he shall remain steadfast in his Christian purposes and zeal.