As a case study of the changing mentalities that emerged in colonial India, this article analyses a discussion that took place among several munshis (secretaries trained in Persian to run the affairs of princely states), and also provides a translation and edition of the text. The subject was a short polemical letter refuting the immortality of the soul, published around 1850 in the Simla Akhbār (Simla News). The main question entertained in this correspondence was not the merit of the sceptical argument, based in part on modern medical findings, but the potential public impact of dismissing a religious doctrine that sustains morality. Two of the participants in this conversation, Shivaprasad and Sital Singh, displayed the full range of changes that made the nineteenth century so extraordinary, and the way they responded illustrates some of the salient features and stages of this process, including the difficulty of foreseeing the elimination of much of the system for which munshis were trained.

作为印度殖民时期出现的心态变化的案例研究，本文分析了几位 munshi（受过波斯语培训、负责管理诸侯国事务的秘书）之间的讨论，并提供了文本的翻译和版本。主题是 1850 年左右发表在Simla Akhbār（西姆拉新闻）上的一封简短的辩论性信件，驳斥了灵魂不朽的观点。这封信函中提出的主要问题不是部分基于现代医学发现的怀疑论的优点，而是驳斥维护道德的宗教教义对公众的潜在影响。这次对话的两位参与者希瓦普拉萨德和西塔尔·辛格展示了使 19 世纪变得如此非凡的全方位变化，他们的回应方式说明了这一过程的一些显着特征和阶段，包括预见未来的困难。取消了孟什人接受培训的大部分系统。