What is a virtue in one caste may be a sin in another. The duties are prescribed with such minuteness that a very complex system arises for each person, which must be obeyed in its smallest particular, under penalty of excommunication from one’s caste. The observances and formalities are more numerous with the higher castes. Hence even for the Brahmin, who is as a god to the other castes there is such a weight of formalities and observances that life is not worth living for him. He must perform tedious ceremonies of purification to remove the effect of the most casual accidents. Should he walk abroad and meet one of a lower caste, he must turn back and purify himself. If he should step over a rope to which a calf is tied, he must purify himself. If he should happen to look up and see the sun when setting, or at any time see it reflected in the water, he must purify himself. If he should chance to go out and get caught in a shower, he must purify himself; and so, too, if he happens to step on the wrong foot when he rises from bed. He must not look at his wife when she sneezes or gapes or eats. He must not step on a cotton seed, on a piece of broken crockery, or on ashes. When out in the sun he must look northward; when under the stars, southward; only when under a tree or a roof he may look in any direction. If he should fail to purify himself he will be excommunicated from his caste, and can be restored only by a painful ceremony. The first, second, and third castes are of the twice-born, and they may hear the Vedas, but the Sudras must not read, nor hear read, those holy books. Burning hot oil poured into his ears was the penalty for breaking this law. If the Sudra were to speak evil of a Brahmin or warrior or merchant, the code of Manu decrees that a red-hot iron bar shall be thrust into his mouth. There is more respect shown toward cows than toward the lowest caste of human beings. In fact, the Hindoo will not tread upon ants nor kill brute animals, but founds hospitals for sick or aged cows and monkeys, while he is entirely indifferent to the sufferings of a man from a lower caste.