chap, vii WHY WEALTH IS BURIED 159
Rajas
or other rich persons, who enjoy the pleasures of life as a reward for
the good deeds they had done in other bodies. This is the reason why
the Fakirs, of whom I have spoken in the preceding chapter, perform
such horrible penances ; and as all men are not able to bring
themselves to suffer so much in this world, they seek during their
lives to make up by good works for the want of penances, and by their
wills direct their heirs to give alms to Brahmans, to the end that, by
the power of the prayers which they order them to say, God may assign
them the body of some grand personage. In the month of January of the
year 1661 the Shroff or moneychanger of the Dutch Company, named
Mondas Parek,1 died at Surat. He was a rich man and very
charitable, and bestowed much alms during his life on the Christians as
well as on the idolaters ; for the Rev. Capuchin Fathers2 of
Surat used to live for a part of the year on the rice, butter, and
vegetables which he sent to them. This Banian was ill only for four or
five days, and during that time, as well as for eight or ten days after
his death, his brothers distributed 9,000 or 10,000 rupees, and burnt
his body, adding to the ordinary wood much sandal and aloes, believing
that by this means the soul of their brother, on passing into another
body, would become a great noble in some other country. There are some
among them who are foolish enough to bury their treasures during their
lifetime, as, for instance, nearly all the rich men of the Kingdom of
Assam, so that if they enter, after death, the body of any poor and
miserable mendicant, they can have recourse to the money which they
have buried in order to draw from it at necessity.3 This is the reason why so much gold and silver and so many precious stones are buried in India,4 and an idolater must be poor indeed
1 His name was perhaps Mohandas, ' slave of the captivating one ', Krishna : parakh, ' a money-tester '.
J
Manucci (i. 62) speaks of ' a little church ', at Surat, ' belonging to
the French Capuchin Fathers, whose superior was the famous priest
Brother Ambrozio '. Cf. Fryer, i. 225.
' See p. 219 below.
*
The enormous absorption of gold by India and its disappearance, is
explained by many writers in the same way. Bernier, (p. 223) among
others may be mentioned, but the subject is too extensive to be entered
