4 HISTORY OF THE BRAHMO SAMAJ
tal principles of their faith they were carrying on their sectarian fight on mere matters of external forms and had sunk like the Tantrics into the grossest sensuality.
The corruption and degeneracy of the priesthood was great. The majority of them were as ignorant as the mass of the people about the higher teachings of their sacred books, and contented themselves with learning by rote and repeating parrot-like a number of rules and formularies, all written in the Sanskrit language, which was no longer the spoken language of the people and which many of them did not know. With the decay of Hindu society under Mahomedan rule, the Brahmins had fallen into great poverty, and were then dependent on the lower castes, who had become corrupt in their manners by coming into contact with certain classes of Mahomedans and were accordingly unable to exert a wholesome public opinion. The old learning of the country had perished; its professors had grown scarce; and in their place a class of men, chiefly educated through the Arabic and Persian languages, had come into existence, many of whom were secret disbelievers in the ordinary forms of orthodox Hinduism, but outwardly conformed to its practices, and secretly indulged in many vices previously unknown to Hindus but practised by the aforesaid classes of the Mahomedan people. There
