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From the Caves and
Jungles of Hindostan
by
H P Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN
By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Translated From The Russian
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Translator's Preface
"You must remember," said Mme. Blavatsky, "that I
never meant this for a
scientific work. My letters to the Russian Messenger, under the
general
title: 'From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan,' were written in
leisure moments, more for amusement than with any serious design.
"Broadly speaking, the facts and incidents are true; but I
have freely
availed myself of an author's privilege to group, colour, and
dramatize
them, whenever this seemed necessary to the full artistic effect;
though, as I say, much of the book is exactly true, l would rather
claim
kindly judgment for it, as a romance of travel, than incur the
critical
risks that haunt an avowedly serious work."
To this caution of the author's, the translator must add another;
these
letters, as Mme Blavatsky says, were written in leisure moments,
during
1879 and 1880, for the pages of the Russki Vyestnik, then edited by
M.
Katkoff. Mme. Blavatsky's manuscript was often incorrect; often
obscure.
The Russian compositors, though they did their best to render
faithfully
the Indian names and places, often produced, through their
ignorance of
Oriental tongues, forms which are strange, and sometimes
unrecognizable.
The proof-sheets were never corrected by the author, who was then
in
local and personal names to their proper form.
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A similar difficulty has arisen with reference to quotations and
cited authorities, all of which have gone through a double process
of
refraction: first into Russian, then into English. The translator,
also
a Russian, and far from perfectly acquainted with English, cannot
claim to possess the erudition necessary to verify and restore the
many
quotations to verbal accuracy; all that is hoped is that, by a
careful
rendering, the correct sense has been preserved.
The translator begs the indulgence of English readers for all
imperfections of style and language; in the words of the Sanskrit
proverb: "Who is to be blamed, if success be not reached after
due
effort?"
The translator's best thanks are due to Mr. John C. Staples, for
valuable help in the early chapters.--
Contents
In
On the Way to Karli
In the
Vanished Glories
A City of the Dead
Brahmanic Hospitalities
A Witch's Den
God's Warrior
The Banns of Marriage
The Caves of Bagh
An Isle of Mystery
Jubblepore
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FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN
In
Late in the evening of
voyage which lasted thirty-two days, joyful exclamations were heard
everywhere on deck. "Have you seen the lighthouse?"
"There it is at
last, the
Cards, books, music, everything was forgotten. Everyone rushed on
deck.
The moon had not risen as yet, and, in spite of the starry tropical
sky,
it was quite dark. The stars were so bright that, at first, it
seemed
hardly possible to distinguish, far away amongst them, a small
fiery
point lit by earthly hands. The stars winked at us like so many
huge
eyes in the black sky, on one side of which shone the Southern
Cross.
At last we distinguished the lighthouse on the distant horizon. It
was
nothing but a tiny fiery point diving in the phosphorescent waves.
The
tired travellers greeted it warmly. The rejoicing was general.
What a glorious daybreak followed this dark night! The sea no
longer
tossed our ship. Under the skilled guidance of the pilot, who had
just
arrived, and whose bronze form was so sharply defined against the
pale
sky, our steamer, breathing heavily with its broken machinery,
slipped
over the quiet, transparent waters of the
the harbour. We were only four miles from
trembled with cold only a few weeks ago in the
been so glorified by many poets and so heartily cursed by all
sailors,
our surroundings simply seemed a magical dream.
After the tropical nights of the
that had tortured us since
experienced something strange and unwonted, as if the very fresh
soft
air had cast its spell over us. There was not a cloud in the sky,
thickly strewn with dying stars. Even the moonlight, which till
then had
covered the sky with its silvery garb, was gradually vanishing; and
the
brighter grew the rosiness of dawn over the small island that lay
before
us in the East, the paler in the West grew the scattered rays of
the
moon that sprinkled with bright flakes of light the dark wake our
ship
left behind her, as if the glory of the West was bidding good-bye
to us,
while the light of the East welcomed the newcomers from far-off
lands.
Brighter and bluer grew the sky, swiftly absorbing the remaining
pale
stars one after the other, and we felt something touching in the
sweet dignity with which the Queen of Night resigned her rights to
the
powerful usurper. At last, descending lower and lower, she
disappeared
completely.
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And suddenly, almost without interval between darkness and light,
the
red-hot globe, emerging on the opposite side from under the cape,
leant
his golden chin on the lower rocks of the island and seemed to stop
for
a while, as if examining us. Then, with one powerful effort, the
torch
of day rose high over the sea and gloriously proceeded on its path,
including in one mighty fiery embrace the blue waters of the bay,
the
shore and the islands with their rocks and cocoanut forests. His
golden
rays fell upon a crowd of Parsees, his rightful worshippers, who
stood
on shore raising their arms towards the mighty "Eye of
Ormuzd." The
sight was so impressive that everyone on deck became silent for a
moment, even a red-nosed old sailor, who was busy quite close to us
over
the cable, stopped working, and, clearing his throat, nodded at the
sun.
Moving slowly and cautiously along the charming but treacherous
bay, we
had plenty of time to admire the picture around us. On the right
was a
group of islands with Gharipuri or Elephanta, with its ancient
temple,
at their head. Gharipuri translated means "the town of
caves" according
to the Orientalists, and "the town of purification"
according to the
native Sanskrit scholars. This temple, cut out by an unknown hand
in
the very heart of a rock resembling porphyry, is a true apple of
discord amongst the archaeologists, of whom none can as yet fix,
even
approximately, its antiquity. Elephanta raises high its rocky brow,
all
overgrown with secular cactus, and right under it, at the foot of
the
rock, are hollowed out the chief temple and the two lateral ones.
Like
the serpent of our Russian fairy tales, it seems to be opening its
fierce black mouth to swallow the daring mortal who comes to take
possession of the secret mystery of Titan. Its two remaining teeth,
dark
with time, are formed by two huge pillars t the entrance,
sustaining the
palate of the monster.
How many generations of Hindus, how many races, have knelt in the
dust before the Trimurti, your threefold deity, O Elephanta? How
many
centuries were spent by weak man in digging out in your stone bosom
this
town of temples and carving your gigantic idols? Who can say? Many
years
have elapsed since I saw you last, ancient, mysterious temple, and
still
the same restless thoughts, the same recurrent questions vex me snow
as
they did then, and still remain unanswered. In a few days we shall
see
each other again. Once more I shall gaze upon your stern image,
upon
your three huge granite faces, and shall feel as hopeless as ever
of
piercing the mystery of your being. This secret fell into safe
hands
three centuries before ours. It is not in vain that the old
Portuguese
historian Don Diego de Cuta boasts that "the big square stone
fastened
over the arch of the pagoda with a distinct inscription, having
been
torn out and sent as a present to the King Dom Juan III,
disappeared
mysteriously in the course of time....," and adds, further,
"Close to
this big pagoda there stood another, and farther on even a third
one,
the most wonderful of all in beauty, incredible size, and richness
of
material. All those pagodas and caves have been built by the Kings
of
Kanada, (?) the most important of whom was Bonazur, and these
buildings
of Satan our (Portuguese) soldiers attacked with such vehemence
that in
a few years one stone was not left upon another...." And,
worst of
all, they left no inscriptions that might have given a clue to so
much.
Thanks to the fanaticism of Portuguese soldiers, the chronology of
the
Indian cave temples must remain for ever an enigma to the
archaeological
world, beginning with the Brah-mans, who say Elephanta is 374,000
years
old, and ending with Fergusson, who tries to prove that it was
carved
only in the twelfth century of our era. Whenever one turns one's
eyes to
history, there is nothing to be found but hypotheses and darkness.
And
yet Gharipuri is mentioned in the epic Mahabharata, which was
written,
according to Colebrooke and Wilson, a good while before the reign
of
Cyrus. In another ancient legend it is said that the
was built on Elephanta by the sons of Pandu, who took part in the
war
between the dynasties of the Sun and the Moon, and, belonging to
the
latter, were expelled at the end of the war. The Rajputs, who are
the
descendants of the first, still sing of this victory; but even in
their
popular songs there is nothing positive. Centuries have passed and
will
pass, and the ancient secret will die in the rocky bosom of the
cave
still unrecorded.
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On the left side of the bay, exactly opposite Elephanta, and as if
in
contrast with all its antiquity and greatness, spreads the Malabar
Hill,
the residence of the modern Europeans and rich natives. Their
brightly
painted bungalows are bathed in the greenery of banyan, Indian fig,
and
various other trees, and the tall and straight trunks of cocoanut
palms
cover with the fringe of their leaves the whole ridge of the hilly
headland. There, on the south-western end of the rock, you see the
almost transparent, lace-like Government House surrounded on three
sides by the ocean. This is the coolest and the most comfortable
part of
The
name from the goddess Mamba, in Mahrati Mahima, or Amba, Mama, and
Amma,
according to the dialect, a word meaning, literally, the Great
Mother.
Hardly one hundred years ago, on the site of the modern esplanade,
there
stood a temple consecrated to Mamba-Devi. With great difficulty and
expense they carried it nearer to the shore, close to the fort, and
erected it in front of Baleshwara the "Lord of the
Innocent"--one of
the names of the god Shiva.
islands, the most remarkable of which are Salsetta, joined to
a mole, Elephanta, so named by the Portuguese because of a huge
rock cut
in the shape of an elephant thirty-five feet long, and Trombay,
whose
lovely rock rises nine hundred feet above the surface of the sea.
looks, on the maps, like an enormous crayfish, and is at the head
of
the rest of the islands. Spreading far out into the sea its two
claws,
brothers. Between it and the Continent there is a narrow arm of a
river,
which gets gradually broader and then again narrower, deeply
indenting
the sides of both shores, and so forming a haven that has no equal
in
the world. It was not without reason that the Portuguese, expelled
in
the course of time by the English, used to call it "Buona
Bahia."
In a fit of tourist exaltation some travellers have compared it to
the
Bay of
other as a lazzaroni is like a Kuli. The whole resemblance between
the
former consists in the fact that there is water in both. In
well as in its harbour, everything is original and does not in the
least
remind one of
boats; both are built in the likeness of the sea bird
"sat," a kind
of kingfisher. When in motion these boats are the personi-fication
of
grace, with their long prows and rounded poops. They look as if
they
were gliding backwards, and one might mistake for wings the
strangely
shaped, long lateen sails, their narrow angles fastened upwards to
a
yard. Filling these two wings with the wind, and careening, so as
almost
to touch the surface of the water, these boats will fly along with
astonishing swiftness. Unlike our European boats, they do not cut
the
waves, but glide over them like a sea-gull.
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The surroundings of the bay transported us to some fairy land of
the
Arabian Nights. The ridge of the
there by some separate hills almost as high as themselves,
stretched all
along the
they are all overgrown with impenetrable forests and jungles
inhabited
by wild animals. Every rock has been enriched by the popular
imagination
with an independent legend. All over the slope of the mountain are
scattered the pagodas, mosques, and temples of numberless sects.
Here
and there the hot rays of the sun strike upon an old fortress, once
dreadful and inaccessible, now half ruined and covered with prickly
cactus. At every step some memorial of sanctity. Here a deep
vihara,
a cave cell of a Buddhist bhikshu saint, there a rock protected by
the
symbol of Shiva, further on a Jaina temple, or a holy tank, all
covered
with sedge and filled with water, once blessed by a Brahman and
able to
purify every sin, all indispensable attribute of all pagodas. All
the
surroundings are covered with symbols of gods and goddesses. Each
of the
three hundred and thirty millions of deities of the Hindu Pantheon
has
its representative in something consecrated to it, a stone, a
flower, a
tree, or a bird. On the West side of the Malabar Hill peeps through
the
trees Valakeshvara, the temple of the "Lord of Sand." A
long stream of
Hindus moves towards this celebrated temple; men and women, shining
with
rings on their fingers and toes, with bracelets from their wrists
up
to their elbows, clad in bright turbans and snow white muslins,
with
foreheads freshly painted with red, yellow, and white, holy
sectarian
signs.
The legend says that Rama spent here a night on his way from
Ayodhya
(
the wicked King Ravana. Rama's brother Lakshman, whose duty it was
to send him daily a new lingam from
evening. Losing patience, Rama erected for himself a lingam of
sand.
When, at last, the symbol arrived from
and the lingam erected by Rama was left on the shore. There it
stayed
during long centuries, but, at the arrival of the Portuguese, the
"Lord
of Sand" felt so disgusted with the feringhi (foreigners) that
he jumped
into the sea never to return. A little farther on there is a
charming
tank, called Vanattirtha, or the "point of the arrow."
Here Rama, the
much worshipped hero of the Hindus, felt thirsty and, not finding
any
water, shot an arrow and immediately there was created a pond. Its
crystal waters were surrounded by a high wall, steps were built
leading
down to it, and a circle of white marble dwellings was filled with
dwija
(twice born) Brahmans.
is not a ruin, not a monument, not a thicket, that has no story
attached
to it. Yet, however they may be entangled in the cobweb of popular
imagination, which becomes thicker with every generation, it is
difficult to point out a single one that is not founded on fact.
With
patience and, still more, with the help of the learned Brahmans you
can always get at the truth, when once you have secured their trust
and
friendship.
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The same road leads to the temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers.
At its
altar burns an unquenchable fire, which daily consumes
hundredweights of
sandal wood and aromatic herbs. Lit three hundred years ago, the
sacred
fire has never been extinguished, notwithstanding many disorders,
sectarian discords, and even wars. The Parsees are very proud of
this
Hindu pagodas look like brightly painted Easter eggs. Generally they
are
consecrated to Hanuman, the monkey-god and the faithful ally of
Rama, or
to the elephant headed Ganesha, the god of the occult wisdom, or to
one
of the Devis. You meet with these temples in every street. Before
each
there is a row of pipals (Ficus religiosa) centuries old, which no
temple can dispense with, because these trees are the abode of the
elementals and the sinful souls.
All this is entangled, mixed, and scattered, appearing to one's
eyes
like a picture in a dream. Thirty centuries have left their traces
here. The innate laziness and the strong conservative tendencies of
the Hindus, even before the European invasion, preserved all kinds
of
monuments from the ruinous vengeance of the fanatics, whether those
memorials were Buddhist, or belonged to some other unpopular sect.
The Hindus are not naturally given to senseless vandalism, and a
phrenologist would vainly look for a bump of destructiveness on
their
skulls. If you meet with antiquities that, having been spared by
time,
are, nowadays, either destroyed or disfigured, it is not they who
are
to blame, but either Mussulmans, or the Portuguese under the
guidance of
the Jesuits.
At last we were anchored and, in a moment, were besieged, ourselves
as
well as our luggage, by numbers of naked skeleton-like Hindus,
Parsees,
Moguls, and various other tribes. All this crowd emerged, as if
from the
bottom of the sea, and began to shout, to chatter, and to yell, as
only
the tribes of
soon as possible, we took refuge in the first bunder boat and made
for
the shore.
Once settled in the bungalow awaiting us, the first thing we were
struck
with in
to speak, the County Council of the town, whose duty it is to clean
the
streets, and to kill one of them is not only forbidden by the
police,
but would be very dangerous. By killing one you would rouse the
vengeance of every Hindu, who is always ready to offer his own life
in
exchange for a crow's. The souls of the sinful forefathers
transmigrate
into crows and to kill one is to interfere with the law of Karma
and
to expose the poor ancestor to something still worse. Such is the
firm
belief, not only of Hindus, but of Parsees, even the most
enlightened
amongst them. The strange behaviour of the Indian crows explains,
to
a certain extent, this superstition. The vultures are, in a way,
the
grave-diggers of the Parsees and are under the personal protection
of the Farvardania, the angel of death, who soars over the Tower of
Silence, watching the occupations of the feathered workmen.
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The deafening caw of the crows strikes every new comer as uncanny,
but,
after a while, is explained very simply. Every tree of the numerous
cocoa-nut forests round
sap of the tree drops into it and, after fermenting, becomes a most
intoxicating beverage, known in
naked toddy wallahs, generally half-caste Portuguese, modestly
adorned
with a single coral necklace, fetch this beverage twice a day,
climbing
the hundred and fifty feet high trunks like squirrels. The crows
mostly build their nests on the tops of the cocoa-nut palms and
drink
incessantly out of the open pumpkins. The result of this is the
chronic
intoxication of the birds. As soon as we went out in the garden of
our
new habitation, flocks of crows came down heavily from every tree.
The
noise they make whilst jumping about everywhere is indescribable. There
seemed to be something positively human in the positions of the
slyly
bent heads of the drunken birds, and a fiendish light shone in
their
eyes while they were examining us from foot to head.
We occupied three small bungalows, lost, like nests, in the garden,
their roofs literally smothered in roses blossoming on bushes
twenty
feet high, and their windows covered only with muslin, instead of
the
usual panes of glass. The bungalows were situated in the native
part of
the town, so that we were transported, all at once, into the real
We were living in
by
and customs, her religion, superstitions and rites, to learn her
legends, in fact, to live among Hindus.
Everything in
of the tiger and the unsuccessful English missionary, is original
and
strange. Everything seems unusual, unexpected, and striking, even
to one
who has travelled in
tropical regions the conditions of nature are so various that all
the
forms of the animal and vegetable kingdoms must radically differ
from
what we are used to in
their way to a well through a garden, which is private and at the
same
time open to anyone, because somebody's cows are grazing in it. To
whom
does it not happen to meet with women, to see cows, and admire a
garden?
Doubtless these are among the commonest of all things. But a single
attentive glance will suffice to show you the difference that
exists
between the same objects in
in
majesty of the tropical growth is such that our highest trees would
look
dwarfed compared with banyans and especially with palms. A European
cow,
mistaking, at first sight, her Indian sister for a calf, would deny
the
existence of any kinship between them, as neither the
mouse-coloured
wool, nor the straight goat-like horns, nor the humped back of the
latter would permit her to make such an error. As to the women,
each of
them would make any artist feel enthusiastic about the gracefulness
of her movements and drapery, but still, no pink and white, stout
Anna
Ivanovna would condescend to greet her. "Such a shame, God
forgive me,
the woman is entirely naked!"
This opinion of the modern Russian woman is nothing but the echo of
what
was said in 1470 by a distinguished Russian traveler, "the
sinful slave
of God, Athanasius son of Nikita from Tver," as he styles
himself. He
describes
naked, never cover their heads, and wear their hair braided. Women
have
babies every year. Men and women are black. Their prince wears a
veil
round his head and wraps another veil round his legs. The noblemen
wear
a veil on one shoulder, and the noblewomen on the shoulders and
round
the loins, but everyone is barefooted. The women walk about with
their
hair spread and their breasts naked. The children, boys and girls,
never
cover their shame until they are seven years old...." This
description
is quite correct, but Athanasius Nikita's son is right only
concerning
the lowest and poorest classes. These really do "walk
about" covered
only with a veil, which often is so poor that, in fact, it is
nothing
but a rag. But still, even the poorest woman is clad in a piece of
muslin at least ten yards long. One end serves as a sort of short
petticoat, and the other covers the head and shoulders when out in
the
street, though the faces are always uncovered. The hair is erected
into
a kind of Greek chignon. The legs up to the knees, the arms, and
the
waist are never covered. There is not a single respectable woman
who
would consent to put on a pair of shoes. Shoes are the attribute
and the
prerogative of disreputable women. When, some time ago, the wife of
the
women to cover their breasts, the place was actually threatened
with
a revolution. A kind of jacket is worn only by dancing girls. The
Government recognized that it would be unreasonable to irritate
women,
who, very often, are more dangerous than their husbands and
brothers,
and the custom, based on the law of Manu, and sanctified by three
thousand years' observance, remained unchanged.
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For more than two years before we left
correspondence with a certain learned Brahman, whose glory is great
at present (1879) all over
guidance, the ancient country of Aryas, the Vedas, and their
difficult
language. His name is Dayanand Saraswati Swami. Swami is the name
of the
learned anchorites who are initiated into many mysteries
unattainable by
common mortals. They are monks who never marry, but are quite
different
from other mendicant brotherhoods, the so-called Sannyasi and Hossein.
This Pandit is considered the greatest Sanskritist of modern
and is an absolute enigma to everyone. It is only five years since
he appeared on the arena of great reforms, but till then, he lived,
entirely secluded, in a jungle, like the ancient gymnosophists
mentioned
by the Greek and Latin authors. At this time he was studying the
chief
philosophical systems of the "Aryavartta" and the occult
meaning of the
Vedas with the help of mystics and anchorites. All Hindus believe
that
on the
there exist spacious caves, inhabited, now for many thousand years,
by
these anchorites. Bhadrinath is situated in the north of
the river Bishegunj, and is celebrated for its
the heart of the town. Inside the temple there are hot mineral
springs,
visited yearly by about fifty thousand pilgrims, who come to be
purified
by them.
From the first day of his appearance Dayanand Saraswati produced
an immense impression and got the surname of the "Luther of
India."
Wandering from one town to another, today in the South, tomorrow in
the
North, and transporting himself from one end of the country to
another
with incredible quickness, he has visited every part of
Comorin to the
One Deity and, "Vedas in hand," proves that in the
ancient writings
there was not a word that could justify polytheism. Thundering
against
idol worship, the great orator fights with all his might against
caste,
infant marriages, and superstitions. Chastising all the evils
grafted on
he blames for them the Brahmans, who, as he openly says before
masses of
people, are alone guilty of the humiliation of their country, once
great
and independent, now fallen and enslaved. And yet
him not an enemy, but rather an ally. He says openly--"If you
expel the
English, then, no later than tomorrow, you and I and everyone who
rises
against idol worship will have our throats cut like mere sheep. The
Mussulmans are stronger than the idol worshippers; but these last
are stronger than we." The Pandit held many a warm dispute
with the
Brah-mans, those treacherous enemies of the people, and has almost
always been victorious. In
him, but the attempt did not succeed. In a small town of
he treated fetishism with more than his usual severity, some
fanatic
threw on his naked feet a huge cobra. There are two snakes deified
by
the Brahman mythology: the one which surrounds the neck of Shiva on
his
idols is called Vasuki; the other, Ananta, forms the couch of
Vishnu. So
the worshipper of Shiva, feeling sure that his cobra, trained
purposely
for the mysteries of a Shivaite pagoda, would at once make an end
of
the offender's life, triumphantly exclaimed, "Let the god
Vasuki himself
show which of us is right!"
Dayanand jerked off the cobra twirling round his leg, and with a
single
vigorous movement, crushed the reptile's head. "Let him do
so," he
quietly assented. "Your god has been too slow. It is I who
have decided
the dispute, Now go," added he, addressing the crowd,
"and tell everyone
how easily perish the false gods."
Thanks to his excellent knowledge of Sanskrit the Pandit does a
great
service, not only to the masses, clearing their ignorance about the
monotheism of the Vedas, but to science too, showing who, exactly,
are
the Brahmans, the only caste in
right to study Sanskrit literature and comment on the Vedas, and
which
used this right solely for its own advantage.
Long before the time of such Orientalists as Burnouf, Colebrooke
and Max
Muller, there have been in
pure monotheism of the Vedic doctrines. There have even been
founders
of new religions who denied the revelations of these scriptures;
for
instance, the Raja Ram Mohun Roy, and, after him, Babu Keshub
Chunder
Sen, both
did nothing but add new denominations to the numberless sects
existing
in
and Keshub Chunder Sen, having founded the community of
"Brahmo-Samaj,"
which professes a religion extracted from the depths of the Babu's
own
imagination, became a mystic of the most pronounced type, and now
is only "a berry from the same field," as we say in
Spiritualists, by whom he is considered to be a medium and a
Swedenborg. He spends his time in a dirty tank, singing praises to
Chaitanya, Koran, Buddha, and his own person, proclaiming himself
their
prophet, and performs a mystical dance, dressed in woman's attire,
which, on his part, is an attention to a "woman goddess"
whom the Babu
calls his "mother, father and eldest brother."
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In short, all the attempts to re-establish the pure primitive
monotheism
of Aryan India have been a failure. They always got wrecked upon
the
double rock of Brahmanism and of prejudices centuries old. But lo!
here
appears unexpectedly the pandit Dayanand. None, even of the most
beloved of his disciples, knows who he is and whence he comes. He
openly
confesses before the crowds that the name under which he is known
is not
his, but was given to him at the Yogi initiation.
The mystical school of Yogis was established by Patanjali, the
founder
of one of the six philosophical systems of ancient India. It is
supposed
that the Neo-platonists of the second and third Alexandrian Schools
were
the followers of Indian Yogis, more especially was their theurgy
brought
from India by Pythagoras, according to the tradition. There still
exist
in India hundreds of Yogis who follow the system of Patanjali, and
assert that they are in communion with Brahma. Nevertheless, most
of
them are do-nothings, mendicants by profession, and great frauds,
thanks
to the insatiable longing of the natives for miracles. The real
Yogis
avoid appearing in public, and spend their lives in secluded
retirement
and studies, except when, as in Dayanand's case, they come forth in
time of need to aid their country. However, it is perfectly certain
that
India never saw a more learned Sanskrit scholar, a deeper metaphysician,
a more wonderful orator, and a more fearless denunciator of every
evil,
than Dayanand, since the time of Sankharacharya, the celebrated
founder
of the Vedanta philosophy, the most metaphysical of Indian systems,
in fact, the crown of pantheistic teaching. Then, Dayanand's
personal
appearance is striking. He is immensely tall, his complexion is
pale,
rather European than Indian, his eyes are large and bright, and his
greyish hair is long. The Yogis and Dikshatas (initiated) never cut
either their hair or beard. His voice is clear and loud, well
calculated
to give expression to every shade of deep feeling, ranging from a
sweet
childish caressing whisper to thundering wrath against the evil
doings
and falsehoods of the priests. All this taken together produces an
indescribable effect on the impressionable Hindu. Wherever Dayanand
appears crowds prostrate themselves in the dust over his
footprints;
but, unlike Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, he does not teach a new
religion, does not invent new dogmas. He only asks them to renew
their
half-forgotten Sanskrit studies, and, having compared the doctrines
of
their forefathers with what they have become in the hands of
Brahmans,
to return to the pure conceptions of Deity taught by the primitive
Rishis--Agni, Vayu, Aditya, and Anghira--the patriarchs who first
gave
the Vedas to humanity. He does not even claim that the Vedas are a
heavenly revelation, but simply teaches that "every word in
these
scriptures belongs to the highest inspiration possible to the earthly
man, an inspiration that is repeated in the history of humanity,
and,
when necessary, may happen to any nation....."
During his five years of work Swami Dayanand made about two million
proselytes, chiefly amongst the higher castes. Judging by appearances,
they are all ready to sacrifice to him their lives and souls and
even
their earthly possessions, which are often more precious to them
than
their lives. But Dayanand is a real Yogi, he never touches money,
and
despises pecuniary affairs. He contents himself with a few handfuls
of
rice per day. One is inclined to think that this wonderful Hindu
bears
a charmed life, so careless is he of rousing the worst human
passions,
which are so dangerous in India. A marble statue could not be less
moved
by the raging wrath of the crowd. We saw him once at work. He sent
away
all his faithful followers and forbade them either to watch over
him
or to defend him, and stood alone before the infuriated crowd,
facing
calmly the monster ready to spring upon him and tear him to pieces.
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Here a short explanation is necessary. A few years ago a society of
well-informed, energetic people was formed in New York. A certain
sharp-witted savant surnamed them "La Societe des Malcontents
du
Spiritisme." The founders of this club were people who,
believing in the
phenomena of spiritualism as much as in the possibility of every
other
phenomenon in Nature, still denied the theory of the
"spirits." They
considered that the modern psychology was a science still in the
first
stages of its development, in total ignorance of the nature of the
psychic man, and denying, as do many other sciences, all that
cannot be
explained according to its own particular theories.
From the first days of its existence some of the most learned
Americans
joined the Society, which became known as the Theosophical Society.
Its
members differed on many points, much as do the members of any
other
Society, Geographical or Archeological, which fights for years over
the sources of the Nile, or the Hieroglyphs of Egypt. But everyone
is
unanimously agreed that, as long as there is water in the Nile,
its sources must exist somewhere. So much about the phenomena of
spiritualism and mesmerism. These phenomena were still waiting
their
Champollion--but the Rosetta stone was to be searched for neither
in
Europe nor in America, but in the far-away countries where they
still
believe in magic, where wonders are performed daily by the native
priesthood, and where the cold materialism of science has never yet
reached--in one word, in the East.
The Council of the Society knew that the Lama-Buddhists, for
instance,
though not believing in God, and denying the personal immortality
of the
soul, are yet celebrated for their "phenomena," and that
mesmerism was
known and daily practised in China from time immemorial under the
name
of "gina." In India they fear and hate the very name of
the spirits whom
the Spiritualists venerate so deeply, yet many an ignorant fakir
can
perform "miracles" calculated to turn upside-down all the
notions of
a scientist and to be the despair of the most celebrated of
European
prestidigitateurs. Many members of the Society have visited
India--many
were born there and have themselves witnessed the
"sorceries" of the
Brahmans. The founders of the Club, well aware of the depth of
modern
ignorance in regard to the spiritual man, were most anxious that
Cuvier's method of comparative anatomy should acquire rights of
citizenship among metaphysicians, and, so, progress from regions
physical to regions psychological on its own inductive and
deductive
foundation. "Otherwise," they thought, "psychology
will be unable to
move forward a single step, and may even obstruct every other
branch of
Natural History." Instances have not been wanting of
physiology poaching
on the preserves of purely metaphysical and abstract knowledge, all
the time feigning to ignore the latter absolutely, and seeking to
class
psychology with the positive sciences, having first bound it to a
Bed
of Procrustes, where it refuses to yield its secret to its clumsy
tormentors.
In a short time the Theosophical Society counted its members, not
by hundreds, but by thousands. All the "malcontents" of
American
Spiritualism--and there were at that time twelve million
Spiritualists
in America--joined the Society. Collateral branches were formed in
London, Corfu, Australia, Spain, Cuba, California, etc. Everywhere
experiments were being performed, and the conviction that it is not
spirits alone who are the causes of the phenomena was becoming
general.
In course of time branches of the Society were in India and in
Ceylon.
The Buddhist and Brahmanical members became more numerous than the
Europeans. A league was formed, and to the name of the Society was
added the subtitle, "The Brotherhood of Humanity." After
an active
correspondence between the Arya-Samaj, founded by Swami Dayanand,
and
the Theosophical Society, an amalgamation was arranged between the
two bodies. Then the Chief Council of the New York branch decided
upon
sending a special delegation to India, for the purpose of studying,
on
the spot, the ancient language of the Vedas and the manuscripts and
the wonders of Yogism. On the 17th of December, 1878, the
delegation,
composed of two secretaries and two members of the council of the
Theosophical Society, started from New York, to pause for a while
in
London, and then to proceed to Bombay, where it landed in February,
1879.
It may easily be conceived that, under these circumstances, the
members
of the delegation were better able to study the country and to make
fruitful researches than might, otherwise, have been the case.
Today
they are looked upon as brothers and aided by the most influential
natives of India. They count among the members of their society
pandits of Benares and Calcutta, and Buddhist priests of the Ceylon
Viharas--amongst others the learned Sumangala, mentioned by
Minayeff
in the description of his visit to Adam's Peak--and Lamas of
Thibet,
Burmah, Travancore and elsewhere. The members of the delegation are
admitted to sanctuaries where, as yet, no European has set his
foot.
Consequently they may hope to render many services to Humanity and
Science, in spite of the illwill which the representatives of
positive
science bear to them.
As soon as the delegation landed, a telegram was despatched to
Dayanand,
as everyone was anxious to make his personal acquaintance. In
reply, he
said that he was obliged to go immediately to Hardwar, where
hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims were expected to assemble, but he insisted on
our remaining behind, since cholera was certain to break out among
the
devotees. He appointed a certain spot, at the foot of the
Himalayas, in
the jab, where we were to meet in a month's time.
Alas! all this was written some time ago. Since then Swami
Dayanand's
countenance has changed completely toward us. He is, now, an enemy
of
the Theosophical Society and its two founders--Colonel Olcott and
the
author of these letters. It appeared that, on entering into an
offensive
and defensive alliance with the Society, Dayanand nourished the
hope that all its members, Christians, Brahmans and Buddhists,
would
acknowledge His supremacy, and become members of the Arya Samaj.
Needless to say, this was impossible. The Theosophical Society
rests on
the principle of complete non-interference with the religious
beliefs
of its members. Toleration is its basis and its aims are purely
philosophical. This did not suit Dayanand. He wanted all the
members,
either to become his disciples, or to be expelled from the Society.
It
was quite clear that neither the President, nor the Council could
assent
to such a claim. Englishmen and Americans, whether they were
Christians
or Freethinkers, Buddhists, and especially Brahmans, revolted
against
Dayanand, and unanimously demanded that the league should be
broken.
However, all this happened later. At the time of which I speak we
were
friends and allies of the Swami, and we learned with deep interest
that
the Hardwar "mela," which he was to visit, takes place
every twelve
years, and is a kind of religious fair, which attracts
representatives
from all the numerous sects of India.
Learned dissertations are read by the disputants in defence of
their
peculiar doctrines, and the debates are held in public. This year
the Hardwar gathering was exceptionally numerous. The
Sannyasis--the
mendicant monks of India--alone numbered 35,000 and the cholera,
foreseen by the Swami, actually broke out.
As we were not yet to start for the appointed meeting, we had
plenty of
spare time before us; so we proceeded to examine Bombay.
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The Tower of Silence, on the heights of the Malabar Hill, is the
last
abode of all the sons of Zoroaster. It is, in fact, a Parsee
cemetery.
Here their dead, rich and poor, men, women and children, are all
laid in
a row, and in a few minutes nothing remains of them but bare
skeletons.
A dismal impression is made upon a foreigner by these towers, where
absolute silence has reigned for centuries. This kind of building
is
very common in every place were Parsees live and die. In Bombay, of
six
towers, the largest was built 250 years ago, and the least but a
short
time since. With few exceptions, they are round or square in shape,
from
twenty to forty feet high, without roof, window, or door, but with
a
single iron gate opening towards the East, and so small that it is
quite covered by a few bushes. The first corpse brought to a new
tower--"dakhma"--must be the body of the innocent child
of a mobed
or priest. No one, not even the chief watcher, is allowed to
approach
within a distance of thirty paces of these towers. Of all living
human
beings "nassesalars"--corpse-carriers--alone enter and
leave the "Tower
of Silence." The life these men lead is simply wretched. No
European
executioner's position is worse. They live quite apart from the
rest
of the world, in whose eyes they are the most abject of beings.
Being
forbidden to enter the markets, they must get their food as they
can.
They are born, marry, and die, perfect strangers to all except
their own
class, passing through the streets only to fetch the dead and carry
them
to the tower. Even to be near one of them is a degradation.
Entering
the tower with a corpse, covered, whatever may have been its rank
or
position, with old white rags, they undress it and place it, in
silence, on one of the three rows presently to be described. Then,
still
preserving the same silence, they come out, shut the gate, and burn
the
rags.
Amongst the fire-worshippers, Death is divested of all his majesty
and
is a mere object of disgust. As soon as the last hour of a sick
person
seems to approach, everyone leaves the chamber of death, as much to
avoid impeding the departure of the soul from the body, as to shun
the
risk of polluting the living by contact with the dead. The mobed
alone
stays with the dying man for a while, and having whispered into his
ear
the Zend-Avesta precepts, "ashem-vohu" and
"Yato-Ahuvarie," leaves the
room while the patient is still alive. Then a dog is brought and
made
to look straight into his face. This ceremony is called
"sas-did,"
the "dog's-stare." A dog is the only living creature that
the
"Drux-nassu"--the evil one--fears, and that is able to
prevent him from
taking possession of the body. It must be strictly observed that no
one's shadow lies between the dying man and the dog, otherwise the
whole
strength of the dog's gaze will be lost, and the demon will profit
by
the occasion. The body remains on the spot where life left it,
until the
nassesalars appear, their arms hidden to the shoulders under old
bags,
to take it away. Having deposited it in an iron coffin--the same
for
everyone--they carry it to the dakhma. If any one, who has once
been
carried thither, should happen to regain consciousness, the
nassesalars
are bound to kill him; for such a person, who has been polluted by
one
touch of the dead bodies in the dakhma, has thereby lost all right
to return to the living, by doing so he would contaminate the whole
community. As some such cases have occurred, the Parsees are trying
to
get a new law passed, that would allow the miserable ex-corpses to
live
again amongst their friends, and that would compel the nassesalars
to
leave the only gate of the dakhma unlocked, so that they might find
a
way of retreat open to them. It is very curious, but it is said
that the
vultures, which devour without hesitation the corpses, will never
touch
those who are only apparently dead, but fly away uttering loud
shrieks.
After a last prayer at the gate of the dakhma, pronounced from afar
by
the mobed, and re-peated in chorus by the nassesalars, the dog
ceremony
is repeated. In Bombay there is a dog, trained for this purpose, at
the
entrance to the tower. Finally, the body is taken inside and placed
on
one or other of the rows, according to its sex and age.
We have twice been present at the ceremonies of dying, and once of
burial, if I may be permitted to use such an incongruous term. In
this
respect the Parsees are much more tolerant than the Hindus, who are
offended by the mere presence at their religious rites of an
European.
N. Bayranji, a chief official of the tower, invited us to his house
to
be present at the burial of some rich woman. So we witnessed all
that
was going on at a distance of about forty paces, sitting quietly on
our obliging host's verandah. While the dog was staring into the
dead
woman's face, we were gazing, as intently, but with much more
disgust,
at the huge flock of vultures above the dakhma, that kept entering
the
tower, and flying out again with pieces of human flesh in their
beaks.
These birds, that build their nests in thousands round the Tower of
Silence, have been purposely imported from Persia. Indian vultures
proved to be too weak, and not sufficiently bloodthirsty, to
perform
the process of stripping the bones with the despatch prescribed by
Zoroaster. We were told that the entire operation of denuding the
bones
occupies no more than a few minutes. As soon as the ceremony was
over,
we were led into another building, where a model of the dakhma was
to be
seen. We could now very easily imagine what was to take place
presently
inside the tower. In the centre there is a deep waterless well,
covered
with a grating like the opening into a drain. Around it are three
broad
circles, gradually sloping downwards. In each of them are
coffin-like
receptacles for the bodies. There are three hundred and sixty-five
such
places. The first and smallest row is destined for children, the
second
for women, and the third for men. This threefold circle is
symbolical of
three cardinal Zoroastrian virtues--pure thoughts, kind words, and
good
actions. Thanks to the vultures, the bones are laid bare in less
than
an hour, and, in two or three weeks, the tropical sun scorches them
into
such a state of fragility, that the slightest breath of wind is
enough
to reduce them to powder and to carry them down into the pit. No
smell
is left behind, no source of plagues and epidemics. I do not know
that
this way may not be preferable to cremation, which leaves in the
air
about the Ghat a faint but disagreeable odour. The Ghat is a place
by the sea, or river shore, where Hindus burn their dead. Instead
of
feeding the old Slavonic deity "Mother Wet Earth" with
carrion, Parsees
give to Armasti pure dust. Armasti means, literally,
"fostering cow,"
and Zoroaster teaches that the cultivation of land is the noblest
of all
occupations in the eyes of God. Accordingly, the worship of Earth
is
so sacred among the Parsees, that they take all possible
precautions
against polluting the "fostering cow" that gives them
"a hundred golden
grains for every single grain." In the season of the Monsoon,
when,
during four months, the rain pours incessantly down and washes into
the
well everything that is left by the vultures, the water absorbed by
the
earth is filtered, for the bottom of the well, the walls of which
are
built of granite, is, to this end, covered with sand and charcoal.
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The sight of the Pinjarapala is less lugubrious and much more
amusing.
The Pinjarapala is the Bombay Hospital for decrepit animals, but a
similar institution exists in every town where Jainas dwell. Being
one
of the most ancient, this is also one of the most interesting, of
the
sects of India. It is much older than Buddhism, which took its rise
about 543 to 477 B.C. Jainas boast that Buddhism is nothing more
than a
mere heresy of Jainism, Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, having
been a
disciple and follower of one of the Jaina Gurus. The customs,
rites,
and philosophical conceptions of Jainas place them midway between
the
Brahmanists and the Buddhists. In view of their social
arrangements,
they more closely resemble the former, but in their religion they
incline towards the latter. Their caste divisions, their total
abstinence from flesh, and their non-worship of the relics of the
saints, are as strictly observed as the similar tenets of the
Brahmans,
but, like Buddhists, they deny the Hindu gods and the authority of
the Vedas, and adore their own twenty-four Tirthankaras, or Jinas,
who
belong to the Host of the Blissful. Their priests, like the
Buddhists',
never marry, they live in isolated viharas and choose their
successors
from amongst the members of any social class. According to them,
Prakrit
is the only sacred language, and is used in their sacred
literature,
as well as in Ceylon. Jainas and Buddhists have the same
traditional
chronology. They do not eat after sunset, and carefully dust any
place
before sitting down upon it, that they may not crush even the
tiniest of
insects. Both systems, or rather both schools of philosophy, teach
the
theory of eternal indestructible atoms, following the ancient
atomistic
school of Kanada. They assert that the universe never had a
beginning
and never will have an end. "The world and everything in it is
but an
illusion, a Maya," say the Vedantists, the Buddhists, and the
Jainas;
but, whereas the followers of Sankaracharya preach Parabrahm (a
deity
devoid of will, understanding, and action, because "It is
absolute
understanding, mind and will"), and Ishwara emanating from It,
the
Jainas and the Buddhists believe in no Creator of the Universe,
but teach only the existence of Swabhawati, a plastic, infinite,
self-created principle in Nature. Still they firmly believe, as do
all Indian sects, in the transmigration of souls. Their fear, lest,
by
killing an animal or an insect, they may, perchance, destroy the
life of
an ancestor, develops their love and care for every living creature
to
an almost incredible extent. Not only is there a hospital for
invalid
animals in every town and village, but their priests always wear a
muslin muzzle, (I trust they will pardon the disrespectful
expression!)
in order to avoid destroying even the smallest animalcule, by
inadvertence in the act of breathing. The same fear impels them to
drink
only filtered water. There are a few millions of Jainas in Gujerat,
Bombay, Konkan, and some other places.
The Bombay Pinjarapala occupies a whole quarter of the town, and is
separated into yards, meadows and gardens, with ponds, cages for
beasts
of prey, and enclosures for tame animals. This institution would
have
served very well for a model of Noah's Ark. In the first yard,
however,
we saw no animals, but, instead, a few hundred human skeletons--old
men,
women and children. They were the remaining natives of the,
so-called,
famine districts, who had crowded into Bombay to beg their bread.
Thus,
while, a few yards off, the official "Vets." were busily
bandaging the
broken legs of jackals, pouring ointments on the backs of mangy
dogs,
and fitting crutches to lame storks, human beings were dying, at
their
very elbows, of starvation. Happily for the famine-stricken, there
were
at that time fewer hungry animals than usual, and so they were fed
on
what remained from the meals of the brute pensioners. No doubt many
of
these wretched sufferers would have consented to transmigrate
instantly
into the bodies of any of the animals who were ending so snugly
their
earthly careers.
But even the Pinjarajala roses are not without thorns. The
graminivorous
"subjects," of course, could mot wish for anything
better; but I doubt
very much whether the beasts of prey, such as tigers, hyenas, and
wolves, are content with the rules and the forcibly prescribed
diet.
Jainas themselves turn with disgust even from eggs and fish, and,
in
consequence, all the animals of which they have the care must turn
vegetarians. We were present when an old tiger, wounded by an
English
bullet, was fed. Having sniffed at a kind of rice soup which was
offered
to him, he lashed his tail, snarled, showing his yellow teeth, and
with
a weak roar turned away from the food. What a look he cast askance
upon
his keeper, who was meekly trying to persuade him to taste his nice
dinner! Only the strong bars of the cage saved the Jaina from a
vigorous
protest on the part of this veteran of the forest. A hyena, with a
bleeding head and an ear half torn off, began by sitting in the
trough
filled with this Spartan sauce, and then, without any further
ceremony,
upset it, as if to show its utter contempt for the mess. The wolves
and the dogs raised such disconsolate howls that they attracted the
attention of two inseparable friends, an old elephant with a wooden
leg and a sore-eyed ox, the veritable Castor and Pollux of this
institution. In accordance with his noble nature, the first thought
of
the elephant concerned his friend. He wound his trunk round the
neck
of the ox, in token of protection, and both moaned dismally.
Parrots,
storks, pigeons, flamingoes--the whole feathered tribe--revelled
in their breakfast. Monkeys were the first to answer the keeper's
invitation and greatly enjoyed themselves. Further on we were shown
a
holy man, who was feeding insects with his own blood. He lay with
his
eyes shut, and the scorching rays of the sun striking full upon his
naked body. He was literally covered with flies, mosquitoes, ants
and
bugs.
"All these are our brothers," mildly observed the keeper,
pointing to
the hundreds of animals and insects. "How can you Europeans
kill and
even devour them?"
"What would you do," I asked, "if this snake were
about to bite you? Is
it possible you would not kill it, if you had time?"
"Not for all the world. I should cautiously catch it, and then
I should
carry it to some deserted place outside the town, and there set it
free."
"Nevertheless; suppose it bit you?"
"Then I should recite a mantram, and, if that produced no good
result,
I should be fair to consider it as the finger of Fate, and quietly
leave
this body for another."
These were the words of a man who was educated to a certain extent,
and
very well read. When we pointed out that no gift of Nature is
aimless,
and that the human teeth are all devouring, he answered by quoting
whole
chapters of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection and Origin of
Species.
"It is not true," argued he, "that the first men
were born with
canine teeth. It was only in course of time, with the degradation
of
humanity,--only when the appetite for flesh food began to
develop--that
the jaws changed their first shape under the influence of new
necessities."
I could not help asking myself, "Ou la science va-t'elle se
fourrer?"
The same evening, in Elphinstone's Theatre, there was given a
special
performance in honour of "the American Mission," as we
are styled here.
Native actors represented in Gujerati the ancient fairy drama
Sita-Rama,
that has been adapted from the Ramayana, the celebrated epic by
Vilmiki.
This drama is composed of fourteen acts and no end of tableaux, in
addition to transformation scenes. All the female parts, as usual,
were
acted by young boys, and the actors, accord-ing to the historical
and
national customs, were bare-footed and half-naked. Still, the
richness
of the costumes, the stage adornments and transformations, were
truly
wonderful. For instance, even on the stages of large metropolitan
theatres, it would have been difficult to give a better representation
of the army of Rama's allies, who are nothing more than troops of
monkeys under the leadership of Hanuman--the soldier, statesman,
dramatist, poet, god, who is so celebrated in history (that of
India
s.v.p.). The oldest and best of all Sanskrit dramas, Hanuman-Natak,
is
ascribed to this talented forefather of ours.
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Alas! gone is the glorious time when, proud of our white skin
(which
after all may be nothing more than the result of a fading, under
the
influences of our northern sky), we looked down upon Hindus and
other "niggers" with a feeling of contempt well suited to
our own
magnificence. No doubt Sir William Jones's soft heart ached, when
translating from the Sanskrit such humiliating sentences as the
following: "Hanuman is said to be the forefather of the
Europeans."
Rama, being a hero and a demi-god, was well entitled to unite all
the bachelors of his useful monkey army to the daughters of the
Lanka
(Ceylon) giants, the Rakshasas, and to present these Dravidian
beauties
with the dowry of all Western lands. After the most pompous
marriage
ceremonies, the monkey soldiers made a bridge, with the help of
their
own tails, and safely landed with their spouses in Europe, where
they
lived very happily and had a numerous progeny. This progeny are we,
Europeans. Dravidian words found in some European languages, in
Basque
for instance, greatly rejoice the hearts of the Brahmans, who would
gladly promote the philologists to the rank of demi-gods for this
important discovery, which confirms so gloriously their ancient
legend.
But it was Darwin who crowned the edifice of proof with the
authority of
Western education and Western scientific literature. The Indians
became
still more convinced that we are the veritable descendants of
Hanuman,
and that, if one only took the trouble to examine carefully, our
tails
might easily be discovered. Our narrow breeches and long skirts
only add
to the evidence, however uncomplimentary the idea may be to us.
Still, if you consider seriously, what are we to say when Science,
in
the person of Darwin, concedes this hypothesis to the wisdom of
ancient
Aryas. We must perforce submit. And, really, it is better to have
for a
forefather Hanu-man, the poet, the hero, the god, than any other
monkey,
even though it be a tailless one. Sita-Rama belongs to the category
of mythological dramas, something like the tragedies of Aeschylus.
Listening to this production of the remotest antiquity, the
spectators
are carried back to the times when the gods, descending upon earth,
took
an active part in the everyday life of mortals. Nothing reminds one
of
a modern drama, though the exterior arrangement is the same.
"From the
sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step," and vice
versa. The
goat, chosen for a sacrifice to Bacchus, presented the world
tragedy
(greek script here). The death bleatings and buttings of the
quadrupedal
offering of antiquity have been polished by the hands of time and
of
civilization, and, as a result of this process, we get the dying
whisper of Rachel in the part of Adrienne Lecouvreur, and the
fearfully
realistic "kicking" of the modern Croisette in the
poisoning scene of
The Sphinx. But, whereas the descendants of Themistocles gladly
receive,
whether captive or free, all the changes and improvements
considered
as such by modern taste, thinking them to be a corrected and
enlarged
edition of the genius of Aeschylus; Hindus, happily for
archaeologists
and lovers of antiquity, have never moved a step since the times of
our
much honoured forefather Hanuman.
We awaited the performance of Sita-Rama with the liveliest
curiosity.
Except ourselves and the building of the theatre, everything was
strictly indigenous and nothing reminded us of the West. There was
not
the trace of an orchestra. Music was only to be heard from the
stage,
or from behind it. At last the curtain rose. The silence, which had
been
very remarkable before the performance, considering the huge crowd
of spectators of both sexes, now became absolute. Rama is one of
the
incarnations of Vishnu and, as most of the audience were
worshippers of
Vishnu, for them the spectacle was not a mere theatrical
performance,
but a religious mystery, representing the life and achievements of
their
favourite and most venerated gods.
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The prologue was laid in the epoch before creation began (it may
safely
be said that no dramatist would dare to choose an earlier one)--or,
rather, before the last manifestation of the universe. All the
philosophical sects of India, except Mussulmans, agree that the
universe
has always existed. But the Hindus divide the periodical
appearances and
vanishings into days and nights of Brahma. The nights, or
withdrawals of
the objective universe, are called Pralayas, and the days, or
epochs
of new awakening into life and light, are called Manvantaras,
Yugas, or
"centuries of the gods." These periods are also called,
respectively,
the inbreathings and outbreathings of Brahma. When Pralaya comes to
an
end Brahma awakens, and, with this awakening, the universe that
rested
in deity, in other words, that was reabsorbed in its subjective
essence,
emanates from the divine principle and becomes visible. The gods,
who
died at the same time as the universe, begin slowly to return to
life.
The "Invisible" alone, the "Infinite," the
"Lifeless," the One who is
the unconditioned original "Life" itself, soars,
surrounded by shoreless
chaos. Its holy presence is not visible. It shows itself only in
the
periodical pulsation of chaos, represented by a dark mass of waters
filling the stage. These waters are not, as yet, separated from the
dry land, because Brahma, the creative spirit of Narayana, has not
yet
separated from the "Ever Unchanging." Then comes a heavy
shock of
the whole mass and the waters begin to acquire transparency. Rays,
proceeding from a golden egg at the bottom, spread through the
chaotic
waters. Receiving life from the spirit of Narayana, the egg bursts
and
the awakened Brahma rises to the surface of the water in the shape
of a
huge lotus. Light clouds appear, at first transparent and web-like.
They
gradually become condensed, and transform themselves into
Prajapatis,
the ten personified creative powers of Brahma, the god of
everything
living, and sing a hymn of praise to the creator. Something naively
poetical, to our unaccustomed ears, breathed in this uniform melody
unaccompanied by any orchestra.
The hour of general revival has struck. Pralaya comes to an end.
Everything rejoices, returning to life. The sky is separated from
the
waters and on it appear the Asuras and Gandharvas, the heavenly
singers
and musicians. Then Indra, Yama, Varuna, and Kuvera, the spirits
presiding over the four cardinal points, or the four elements,
water,
fire, earth, and air, pour forth atoms, whence springs the serpent
"Ananta." The monster swims to the surface of the waves
and, bending its
swanlike neck, forms a couch on which Vishnu reclines with the
Goddess
of Beauty, his wife Lakshmi, at his feet. "Swatha! Swatha!
Swatha!"
cries the choir of heavenly musicians, hailing the deity. In the
Russian
church service this is pronounced Swiat! Swiat! Swiat! and means
holy!
holy! holy!
In one of his future avatars Vishnu will incarnate in Rama, the son
of
a great king, and Lakshmi will become Sita. The motive of the whole
poem
of Ramayana is sung in a few words by the celestial musicians.
Kama, the
God of Love, shelters the divine couple and, that very moment, a
flame
is lit in their hearts and the whole world is created.
Later there are performed the fourteen acts of the drama, which is
well
known to everybody, and in which several hundred personages take
part.
At the end of the prologue the whole assembly of gods come forward,
one after another, and acquaint the audience with the contents and
the
epilogue of their performance, asking the public not to be too
exacting.
It is as though all these familiar deities, made of painted granite
and
marble, left the temples and came down to remind mortals of events
long
past and forgotten.
The hall was full of natives. We four alone were representatives of
Europe. Like a huge flower bed, the women displayed the bright
colors of
their garments. Here and there, among handsome, bronze-like heads,
were
the pretty, dull white faces of Parsee women, whose beauty reminded
me
of the Georgians. The front rows were occupied by women only. In
India
it is quite easy to learn a person's religion, sect, and caste, and
even
whether a woman is married or single, from the marks painted in
bright
colors on everyone's forehead.
Since the time when Alexander the Great destroyed the sacred books
of
the Gebars, they have constantly been oppressed by the idol
worshippers.
King Ardeshir-Babechan restored fire worship in the years 229-243
A.C.
Since then they have again been persecuted during the reign of one
of
the Shakpurs, either II., IX., or XI., of the Sassanids, but which
of
them is not known. It is, however, reported that one of them was a
great
protector of the Zartushta doctrines. After the fall of Yesdejird,
the fire-worshippers emigrated to the island of Ormasd, and, some
time
later, having found a book of Zoroastrian prophecies, in obedience
to
one of them they set out for Hindustan. After many wanderings,
they appeared, about 1,000 or 1,200 years ago, in the territory of
Maharana-Jayadeva, a vassal of the Rajput King Champanir, who
allowed
them to colonize his land, but only on condition that they laid
down
their weapons, that they abandoned the Persian language for Hindi,
and
that their women put off their national dress and clothed themselves
after the manner of Hindu women. He, however, allowed them to wear
shoes, since this is strictly prescribed by Zoroaster. Since then
very
few changes have been made. It follows that the Parsee women could
only
be distinguished from their Hindu sisters by very slight
differences.
The almost white faces of the former were separated by a strip of
smooth
black hair from a sort of white cap, and the whole was covered with
a
bright veil. The latter wore no covering on their rich, shining
hair,
twisted into a kind of Greek chignon. Their foreheads were brightly
painted, and their nostrils adorned with golden rings. Both are
fond of
bright, but uniform, colors, both cover their arms up to the elbow
with
bangles, and both wear saris.
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Behind the women a whole sea of most wonderful turbans was waving
in the
pit. There were long-haired Rajputs with regular Grecian features
and
long beards parted in the middle, their heads covered with
"pagris"
consisting of, at least, twenty yards of finest white muslin, and
their persons adorned with earrings and necklaces; there were
Mahrata
Brahmans, who shave their heads, leaving only one long central
lock, and
wear turbans of blinding red, decorated in front with a sort of
golden
horn of plenty; Bangas, wearing three-cornered helmets with a kind
of
cockscomb on the top; Kachhis, with Roman helmets; Bhillis, from
the
borders of Rajastan, whose chins are wrapped three times in the
ends
of their pyramidal turbans, so that the innocent tourist never
fails to
think that they constantly suffer from toothache; Bengalis and
Calcutta
Babus, bare-headed all the year round, their hair cut after an
Athenian
fashion, and their bodies clothed in the proud folds of a white
toga-virilis, in no way different from those once worn by Roman
senators; Parsees, in their black, oilcloth mitres; Sikhs, the
followers
of Nanaka, strictly monotheist and mystic, whose turbans are very
like
the Bhillis', but who wear long hair down to their waists; and
hundreds
of other tribes.
Proposing to count how many different headgears are to be seen in
Bombay
alone, we had to abandon the task as impracticable after a
fortnight.
Every caste, every trade, guild, and sect, every one of the
thousand
sub-divisions of the social hierarchy, has its own bright turban,
often
sparkling with gold lace and precious stones, which is laid aside
only
in case of mourning. But, as if to compensate for this luxury, even
the
mem-bers of the municipality, rich merchants, and Rai-Bahadurs, who
have
been created baronets by the Government, never wear any stockings,
and
leave their legs bare up to the knees. As for their dress, it
chiefly
consists of a kind of shapeless white shirt.
In Baroda some Gaikwars (a title of all the Baroda princes) still
keep
in their stables elephants and the less common giraffes, though the
former are strictly forbidden in the streets of Bombay. We had an
opportunity of seeing ministers, and even Rajas, mounted on these
noble
animals, their mouths full of pansupari (betel leaves), their heads
drooping under the weight of the precious stones on their turbans,
and
each of their fingers and toes adorned with rich golden rings.
While
the evening I am describing lasted, however, we saw no elephants,
no
giraffes, though we enjoyed the company of Rajas and ministers. We
had
in our box the hand-some ambassador and late tutor of the
Mahararana
of Oodeypore. Our companion was a Raja and a pandit. His name was a
Mohunlal-Vishnulal-Pandia. He wore a small pink turban sparkling
with
diamonds, a pair of pink barege trousers, and a white gauze coat.
His raven black hair half covered his amber-colored neck, which was
surrounded by a necklace that might have driven any Parisian belle
frantic with envy. The poor Raiput was awfully sleepy, but he stuck
heroically to his duties, and, thoughtfully pulling his beard, led
us
all through the endless labyrinth of metaphysical entanglements of
the
Ramayana. During the entr'actes we were offered coffee, sherbets,
and
cigarettes, which we smoked even during the performance, sitting in
front of the stage in the first row. We were covered, like idols,
with
garlands of flowers, and the manager, a stout Hindu clad in
transparent
muslins, sprinkled us several times with rose-water.
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in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
The performance began at eight p.m. and, at half-past two, had only
reached the ninth act. In spite of each of us having a
punkah-wallah
at our backs, the heat was unbearable. We had reached the limits of
our endurance, and tried to excuse ourselves. This led to general
disturbance, on the stage as well as in the auditorium. The airy
chariot, on which the wicked king Ravana was carrying Sita away,
paused
in the air. The king of the Nagas (serpents) ceased breathing
flames,
the monkey soldiers hung motionless on the trees, and Rama himself,
clad
in light blue and crowned with a diminutive pagoda, came to the
front of
the stage and pronounced in pure English speech, in which he
thanked
us for the honour of our presence. Then new bouquets, pansu-paris,
and
rose-water, and, finally, we reached home about four a.m. Next
morning
we learned that the performance had ended at half-past six.
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
On The Way To Karli
It is an early morning near the end of March. A light breeze
caresses
with its velvety hand the sleepy faces of the pilgrims; and the
intoxicating perfume of tuberoses mingles with the pungent odors of
the
bazaar. Crowds of barefooted Brahman women, stately and
well-formed,
direct their steps, like the biblical Rachel, to the well, with
brass
water pots bright as gold upon their heads. On our way lie numerous
sacred tanks, filled with stagnant water, in which Hindus of both
sexes
perform their prescribed morning ablutions. Under the hedge of a
garden
somebody's tame mongoose is devouring the head of a cobra. The
headless
body of the snake convulsively, but harmlessly, beats against the
thin
flanks of the little animal, which regards these vain efforts with
an
evident delight. Side by side with this group of animals is a human
figure; a naked mali (gardener), offering betel and salt to a
monstrous
stone idol of Shiva, with the view of pacifying the wrath of the
"Destroyer," excited by the death of the cobra, which is
one of his
favourite servants. A few steps before reaching the railway
station, we
meet a modest Catholic procession, consisting of a few newly
converted
pariahs and some of the native Portuguese. Under a baldachin is a
litter, on which swings to and fro a dusky Madonna dressed after
the
fashion of the native goddesses, with a ring in her nose. In her
arms
she carries the holy Babe, clad in yellow pyjamas and a red
Brah-manical
turban. "Hari, hari, devaki!" ("Glory to the holy
Virgin!") exclaim the
converts, unconscious of any difference between the Devaki, mother
of
Krishna, and the Catholic Madonna. All they know is that, excluded
from
the temples by the Brahmans on account of their not belonging to
any
of the Hindu castes, they are admitted sometimes into the Christian
pagodas, thanks to the "padris," a name adopted from the
Portuguese
padre, and applied indiscriminately to the missionaries of every
European sect.
At last, our gharis--native two-wheeled vehicles drawn by a pair of
strong bullocks--arrived at the station. English employes open wide
their eyes at the sight of white-faced people travelling about the
town
in gilded Hindu chariots. But we are true Americans, and we have
come
hither to study, not Europe, but India and her products on the
spot.
If the tourist casts a glance on the shore opposite to the port of
Bombay, he will see a dark blue mass rising like a wall between
himself
and the horizon. This is Parbul, a flat-topped mountain 2,250 feet
high.
Its right slope leans on two sharp rocks covered with woods. The
highest
of them, Mataran, is the object of our trip. From Bombay to Narel,
a
station situated at the foot of this mountain, we are to travel
four
hours by railway, though, as the crow flies, the distance is not
more
than twelve miles. The railroad wanders round the foot of the most
charming little hills, skirts hundreds of pretty lakes, and pierces
with
more than twenty tunnels the very heart of the rocky ghats.
We were accompanied by three Hindu friends. Two of them once
belonged to
a high caste, but were excommunicated from their pagoda for association
and friendship with us, unworthy foreigners. At the station our
party
was joined by two more natives, with whom we had been in
correspondence
for many a year. All were members of our Society, reformers of the
Young
India school, enemies of Brahmans, castes, aid prejudices, and were
to
be our fellow-travelers and visit with us the annual fair at the
temple
festivities of Karli, stopping on the way at Mataran and Khanduli.
One was a Brahman from Poona, the second a moodeliar (landowner)
from Madras, the third a Singalese from Kegalla, the fourth a
Bengali
Zemindar, and the fifth a gigantic Rajput, whom we had known for a
long
time by the name of Gulab-Lal-Sing, and had called simply
Gulab-Sing. I
shall dwell upon his personality more than on any of the others,
because
the most wonderful and diverse stories were in circulation about
this
strange man. It was asserted that he belonged to the sect of
Raj-Yogis,
and was an initiate of the mysteries of magic, alchemy, and various
other occult sciences of India. He was rich and independent, and
rumour
did not dare to suspect him of deception, the more so because,
though
quite full of these sciences, he never uttered a word about them in
public, and carefully concealed his knowledge from all except a few
friends.
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CF24-1DL
He was an independent Takur from Rajistan, a province the name of
which
means the land of kings. Takurs are, almost without exception,
descended
from the Surya (sun), and are accordingly called Suryavansa. They
are
prouder than any other nation in the world. They have a proverb,
"The
dirt of the earth cannot stick to the rays of the sun." They
do not
despise any sect, except the Brahmans, and honor only the bards who
sing
their military achievements. Of the latter Colonel Tod writes
somewhat
as follows,* "The magnificence and luxury of the Rajput courts
in the
early periods of history were truly wonderful, even when due
allowance
is made for the poetical license of the bards. From the earliest
times
Northern India was a wealthy country, and it was precisely here
that
was situated the richest satrapy of Darius. At all events, this
country
abounded in those most striking events which furnish history with
her
richest materials. In Rajistan every small kingdom had its
Thermopylae,
and every little town has produced its Leonidas. But the veil of
the
centuries hides from posterity events that the pen of the historian
might have bequeathed to the everlasting admiration of the nations.
Somnath might have appeared as a rival of Delphi, the treasures of
Hind
might outweigh the riches of the King of Lydia, while compared with
the
army of the brothers Pandu, that of Xerxes would seem an
inconsiderable
handful of men, worthy only to rank in the second place."
* In nearly every instance the passages quoted from various
authorities
have been retranslated from the Russian. As the time and labor
needful
for verification would he too great, the sense only of these
passages is
given here. They do not pretend to be textual.--Translator
England did not disarm the Rajputs, as she did the rest of the
Indian
nations, so Gulab-Sing came accompanied by vassals and
shield-bearers.
Possessing an inexhaustible knowledge of legends, and being
evidently
well acquainted with the antiquities of his country, Gulab-Sing
proved
to be the most interesting of our companions.
"There, against the blue sky," said Gulab-Lal-Sing,
"you behold the
majestic Bhao Mallin. That deserted spot was once the abode of a
holy
hermit; now it is visited yearly by crowds of pilgrims. According
to
popular belief the most wonderful things happen there--miracles. At
the
top of the mountain, two thousand feet above the level of the sea,
is
the platform of a fortress. Behind it rises another rock two
hundred and
seventy feet in height, and at the very summit of this peak are to
be
found the ruins of a still more ancient fortress, which for
seventy-five
years served as a shelter for this hermit. Whence he obtained his
food
will for ever remain a mystery. Some think he ate the roots of wild
plants, but upon this barren rock there is no vegetation. The only
mode
of ascent of this perpendicular mountain consists of a rope, and
holes,
just big enough to receive the toes of a man, cut out of the living
rock. One would think such a pathway accessible only to acrobats
and
monkeys. Surely fanaticism must provide wings for the Hindus, for
no
accident has ever happened to any of them. Unfortunately, about
forty
years ago, a party of Englishmen conceived the unhappy thought of
exploring the ruins, but a strong gust of wind arose and carried
them
over the precipice. After this, General Dickinson gave orders for
the
destruction of all means of communication with the upper fortress,
and
the lower one, once the cause of so many losses and so much
bloodshed,
is now entirely deserted, and serves only as a shelter for eagles
and
tigers."
Listening to these tales of olden times, I could not help comparing
the
past with the present. What a difference!
"Kali-Yug!" cry old Hindus with grim despair. "Who
can strive against
the Age of Darkness?"
This fatalism, the certainty that nothing good can be expected now,
the
conviction that even the powerful god Shiva himself can neither
appear
nor help them are all deeply rooted in the minds of the old
generation.
As for the younger men, they receive their education in high
schools and
universities, learn by heart Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill,
Darwin
and the German philosophers, and entirely lose all respect, not
only for
their own religion, but for every other in the world.
The young "educated" Hindus are materialists almost
without exception,
and often achieve the last limits of Atheism. They seldom hope to
attain
to anything better than a situation as "chief mate of the
junior clerk,"
as we say in Russia, and either become sycophants, disgusting
flatterers
of their present lords, or, which is still worse, or at any rate
sillier, begin to edit a newspaper full of cheap liberalism, which
gradually develops into a revolutionary organ.
But all this is only en passant. Compared with the mysterious and
grandiose past of India, the ancient Aryavarta, her present is a
natural Indian ink background, the black shadow of a bright
picture, the
inevitable evil in the cycle of every nation. India has become
decrepit
and has fallen down, like a huge memorial of antiquity, prostrate
and
broken to pieces. But the most insignificant of these fragments
will for
ever remain a treasure for the archeologist and the artist, and, in
the course of time, may even afford a clue to the philosopher and
the
psychologist. "Ancient Hindus built like giants and finished
their work
like goldsmiths," says Archbishop Heber, describing his travel
in India.
In his description of the Taj-Mahal of Agra, that veritable eighth
wonder of the world, he calls it "a poem in marble." He
might have added
that it is difficult to find in India a ruin, in the least state of
preservation, that cannot speak, more eloquently than whole
volumes, of
the past of India, her religious aspirations, her beliefs and
hopes.
There is not a country of antiquity, not even excluding the Egypt
of
the Pharaohs, where the development of the subjective ideal into
its demonstration by an objective symbol has been expressed more
graphically, more skillfully, and artistically, than in India. The
whole
pantheism of the Vedanta is contained in the symbol of the bisexual
deity Ardhanari. It is surrounded by the double triangle, known in
India
under the name of the sign of Vishnu. By his side lie a lion, a
bull,
and an eagle. In his hands there rests a full moon, which is
reflected
in the waters at his feet. The Vedanta has taught for thousands of
years
what some of the German philosophers began to preach at the end of
last
century and the beginning of this one, namely, that everything
objective
in the world, as well as the world itself, is no more than an
illusion,
a Maya, a phantom created by our imagination, and as unreal as the
reflection of the moon upon the surface of the waters. The
phenomenal
world, as well as the subjectivity of our conception concerning our
Egos, are nothing but, as it were, a mirage. The true sage will
never
submit to the temptations of illusion. He is well aware that man
will
attain to self-knowledge, and become a real Ego, only after the
entire
union of the personal fragment with the All, thus becoming an
immutable,
infinite, universal Brahma. Accordingly, he considers the whole
cycle of
birth, life, old age, and death as the sole product of imagination.
Generally speaking, Indian philosophy, split up as it is into
numerous
metaphysical teachings, possesses, when united to Indian
ontological
doctrines, such a well developed logic, such a wonderfully refined
psychology, that it might well take the first rank when contrasted
with
the schools, ancient and modern, idealist or positivist, and
eclipse
them all in turn. That positivism expounded by Lewis, that makes
each
particular hair on the heads of Oxford theologians stand on end,
is ridiculous child's play compared with the atomistic school of
Vaisheshika, with its world divided, like a chessboard, into six
categories of everlasting atoms, nine substances, twenty-four
qualities,
and five motions. And, however difficult, and even impossible may
seem the exact representation of all these abstract ideas,
idealistic,
pantheistic, and, sometimes, purely material, in the condensed
shape of
allegorical symbols, India, nevertheless, has known how to express
all
these teachings more or less successfully. She has immortalized
them in
her ugly, four-headed idols, in the geometrical, complicated forms
of
her temples, and even in the entangled lines and spots on the
foreheads
of her sectaries.
We were discussing this and other topics with our Hindu
fellow-travellers when a Catholic padre, a teacher in the Jesuit
College
of St. Xavier in Bombay, entered our carriage at one of the
stations.
Soon he could contain himself no longer, and joined in our
conversation.
Smiling and rubbing his hands, he said that he was curious to know
on the strength of what sophistry our companions could find
anything
resembling a philosophical explanation "in the fundamental
idea of the
four faces of this ugly Shiva, crowned with snakes," pointing
with his
finger to the idol at the entrance to a pagoda.
"It is very simple," answered the Bengali Babu. "You
see that its four
faces are turned towards the four cardinal points, South, North,
West,
and East--but all these faces are on one body and belong to one
god."
"Would you mind explaining first the philosophical idea of the
four
faces and eight hands of your Shiva," interrupted the padre.
"With great pleasure. Thinking that our great Rudra (the Vedic
name
for this god) is omnipresent, we represent him with his face turned
simultaneously in all directions. Eight hands indicate his
omnipotence,
and his single body serves to remind us that he is One, though he
is
everywhere, and nobody can avoid his all-seeing eye, or his
chastising
hand."
The padre was going to say something when the train stopped; we had
arrived at Narel.
It is hardly twenty-five years since, for the first time, a white
man
ascended Mataran, a huge mass of various kinds of trap rock, for
the
most part crystalline in form. Though quite near to Bombay, and
only
a few miles from Khandala, the summer residence of the Europeans,
the
threatening heights of this giant were long considered
inaccessible. On
the north, its smooth, almost vertical face rises 2,450 feet over
the
valley of the river Pen, and, further on, numberless separate rocks
and hillocks, covered with thick vegetation, and divided by valleys
and
precipices, rise up to the clouds. In 1854, the railway pierced one
of
the sides of Mataran, and now has reached the foot of the last
mountain,
stopping at Narel, where, not long ago, there was nothing but a
precipice. From Narel to the upper plateau is but eight miles,
which you
may travel on a pony, or in an open or closed palanquin, as you
choose.
Considering that we arrived at Narel about six in the evening, this
course was not very tempting. Civilization has done much with
inanimate
nature, but, in spite of all its despotism, it has not yet been
able to
conquer tigers and snakes. Tigers, no doubt, are banished to the
more remote jungles, but all hinds of snakes, especially cobras and
coralillos, which last by preference inhabit trees, still abound in
the forests of Mataran as in days of old, and wage a regular
guerilla
warfare against the invaders. Woe betide the belated pedestrian, or
even
horseman, if he happens to pass under a tree which forms the
ambuscade
of a coralillo snake! Cobras and other reptiles seldom attack men,
and
will generally try to avoid them, unless accidentally trodden upon,
but these guerilleros of the forest, the tree serpents, lie in wait
for
their victims. As soon as the head of a man comes under the branch
which
shelters the coralillo, this enemy of man, coiling its tail round
the branch, dives down into space with all the length of is body,
and
strikes with its fangs at the man's forehead. This curious fact was
long
considered to be a mere fable, but it has now been verified, and
belongs
to the natural history of India. In these cases the natives see in
the
snake the envoy of Death, the fulfiller of the will of the
bloodthirsty
Kali, the spouse of Shiva.
But evening, after the scorchingly hot day, was so tempting, and
held
out to us from the distance such promise of delicious coolness,
that we
decided upon risking our fate. In the heart of this wondrous nature
one
longs to shake off earthly chains, and unite oneself with the
boundless
life, so that death itself has its attractions in India.
Besides, the full moon was about to rise at eight p.m. Three hours'
ascent of the mountain, on such a moonlit, tropical night as would
tax
the descriptive powers of the greatest artists, was worth any
sacrifice.
Apropos, among the few artists who can fix upon canvas the subtle
charm
of a moonlit night in India public opinion begins to name our own
V.V.
Vereshtchagin.
Having dined hurriedly in the dak bungalow we asked for our sedan
chairs, and, drawing our roof-like topees over our eyes, we
started.
Eight coolies, clad, as usual, in vine-leaves, took possession of
each
chair and hurried up the mountain, uttering the shrieks and yells
no
true Hindu can dispense with. Each chair was accompanied besides by
a
relay of eight more porters. So we were sixty-four, without
counting
the Hindus and their servants--an army sufficient to frighten any
stray
leopard or jungle tiger, in fact any animal, except our fearless
cousins
on the side of our great-grandfather Hanuman. As soon as we turned
into
a thicket at the foot of the Mountain, several dozens of these
kinsmen
joined our procession. Thanks to the achievements of Rama's ally,
monkeys are sacred in India. The Government, emulating the earlier
wisdom of the East India Company, forbids everyone to molest them,
not
only when met with in the forests, which in all justice belong to
them,
but even when they invade the city gardens. Leaping from one branch
to another, chattering like magpies, and making the most formidable
grimaces, they followed us all the way, like so many midnight
spooks.
Sometimes they hung on the trees in full moonlight, like forest
nymphs
of Russian mythology; sometimes they preceded us, awaiting our
arrival
at the turns of the road as if showing us the way. They never left
us.
One monkey babe alighted on my knees. In a moment the authoress of
his
being, jumping without any ceremony over the coolies' shoulders,
came to
his rescue, picked him up, and, after making the most ungodly
grimace at
me, ran away with him.
"Bandras (monkeys) bring luck with their presence,"
remarked one of
the Hindus, as if to console me for the loss of my crumpled topee.
"Besides," he added, "seeing them here we may be
sure that there is not
a single tiger for ten miles round."
Higher and higher we ascended by the steep winding path, and the
forest
grew perceptibly thicker, darker, and more impenetrable. Some of
the
thickets were as dark as graves. Passing under hundred-year-old
banyans
it was impossible to distinguish one's own finger at the distance
of two
inches. It seemed to me that in certain places it would not be
possible
to advance without feeling our way, but our coolies never made a
false
step, but hastened onwards. Not one of us uttered a word. It was as
if
we had agreed to be silent at these moments. We felt as though
wrapped
in the heavy veil of dark-ness, and no sound was heard but the
short,
irregular breathing of the porters, and the cadence of their quick,
nervous footsteps upon the stony soil of the path. One felt sick at
heart and ashamed of belonging to that human race, one part of
which
makes of the other mere beasts of burden. These poor wretches are
paid
for their work four annas a day all the year round. Four annas for
going
eight miles upwards and eight miles downwards not less than twice a
day; altogether thirty-two miles up and down a mountain 1,500 feet
high,
carrying a burden of two hundredweight! However, India is a country
where everything is adjusted to never changing customs, and four
annas a
day is the pay for unskilled labor of any kind.
Gradually open spaces and glades became more frequent and the light
grew
as intense as by day. Millions of grasshoppers were shrilling in
the forest, filling the air with a metallic throbbing, and flocks
of
frightened parrots rushed from tree to tree. Sometimes the thundering,
prolonged roars of tigers rose from the bottom of the precipices
thickly
covered with all kinds of vegetation. Shikaris assure us that, on a
quiet night, the roaring of these beasts can be heard for many
miles
around. The panorama, lit up, as if by Bengal fires, changed at
every
turn. Rivers, fields, forests, and rocks, spread out at our feet
over
an enormous distance, moved and trembled, iridescent, in the
silvery
moonlight, like the tides of a mirage. The fantastic character of
the
pictures made us hold our breath. Our heads grew giddy if, by
chance, we
glanced down into the depths by the flickering moonlight. We felt
that
the precipice, 2,000 feet deep, was fascinating us. One of our
American
fellow travelers, who had begun the voyage on horseback, had to
dismount, afraid of being unable to resist the temptation to dive
head
foremost into the abyss.
Several times we met with lonely pedestrians, men and young women,
coming down Mataran on their way home after a day's work. It often
happens that some of them never reach home. The police
unconcernedly
report that the missing man has been carried off by a tiger, or
killed
by a snake. All is said, and he is soon entirely forgotten. One
person,
more or less, out of the two hundred and forty millions who inhabit
India does not matter much! But there exists a very strange
superstition
in the Deccan about this mysterious, and only partially explored,
mountain. The natives assert that, in spite of the considerable
number
of victims, there has never been found a single skeleton. The
corpse,
whether intact or mangled by tigers, is immediately carried away by
the
monkeys, who, in the latter case, gather the scattered bones, and
bury
them skillfully in deep holes, that no traces ever remain.
Englishmen
laugh at this superstition, but the police do not deny the fact of
the
entire disappearance of the bodies. When the sides of the mountain
were
excavated, in the course of the construction of the railway,
separate
bones, with the marks of tigers' teeth upon them, broken bracelets,
and
other adornments, were found at an incredible depth from the
surface.
The fact of these things being broken showed clearly that they were
not
buried by men, because, neither the religion of the Hindus, nor
their
greed, would allow them to break and bury silver and gold. Is it
possible, then, that, as amongst men one hand washes the other, so
in
the animal kingdom one species conceals the crimes of another?
Having spent the night in a Portuguese inn, woven like an eagle's
nest
out of bamboos, and clinging to the almost vertical side of a rock,
we
rose at daybreak, and, having visited all the points de vue famed
for
their beauty, made our preparations to return to Narel. By daylight
the panorama was still more splendid than by night; volumes would
not
suffice to describe it. Had it not been that on three sides the
horizon
was shut out by rugged ridges of mountain, the whole of the Deccan
plateau would have appeared before our eyes. Bombay was so distinct
that
it seemed quite near to us, and the channel that separates the town
from
Salsetta shone like a tiny silvery streak. It winds like a snake on
its
way to the port, surrounding Kanari and other islets, which look
the
very image of green peas scattered on the white cloth of its bright
waters, and, finally, joins the blinding line of the Indian Ocean
in the
extreme distance. On the outer side is the northern Konkan,
terminated
by the Tal-Ghats, the needle-like summits of the Jano-Maoli rocks,
and,
lastly, the battlemented ridge of Funell, whose bold silhouette
stands
out in strong relief against the distant blue of the dim sky, like
a
giant's castle in some fairy tale. Further on looms Parbul, whose
flat
summit, in the days of old, was the seat of the gods, whence,
according
to the legends, Vishnu spoke to mortals. And there below, where the
defile widens into a valley, all covered with huge separate rocks,
each
of which is crowded with historical and mythological legends, you
may
perceive the dim blue ridge of mountains, still loftier and still
more
strangely shaped. That is Khandala, which is overhung by a huge
stone
block, known by the name of the Duke's Nose. On the opposite side,
under
the very summit of the mountain, is situated Karli, which,
according
to the unanimous opinion or archeologists, is the most ancient and
best
preserved of Indian cave temples.
One who has traversed the passes of the Caucasus again and again;
one
who, from the top of the Cross Mountain, has beheld beneath her
feet
thunderstorms and lightnings; who has visited the Alps and the
Rigi;
who is well acquainted with the Andes and Cordilleras, and knows
every corner of the Catskills in America, may be allowed, I hope,
the
expression of a humble opinion. The Caucasian Mountains, I do not
deny,
are more majestic than Ghats of India, and their splendour cannot
be
dimmed by comparison with these; but their beauty is of a type, if
I may
use this expression. At their sight one experiences true delight,
but
at the same time a sensation of awe. One feels like a pigmy before
these Titans of nature. But in India, the Himalayas excepted,
mountains
produce quite a different impression. The highest summits of the
Deccan,
as well as of the triangular ridge that fringes Northern Hindostan,
and
of the Eastern Ghats, do not exceed 3,000 feet. Only in the Ghats
of the
Malabar coast, from Cape Comorin to the river Surat, are there
heights
of 7,000 feet above the surface of the sea. So that no comparison
can
be dawn between these and the hoary headed patriarch Elbruz, or
Kasbek,
which exceeds 18,000 feet. The chief and original charm of Indian
mountains wonderfully consists in their capricious shapes.
Sometimes
these mountains, or, rather, separate volcanic peaks standing in a
row,
form chains; but it is more common to find them scattered, to the
great
perplexity of geologists, without visible cause, in places where
the
formation seems quite unsuitable. Spacious valleys, surrounded by
high
walls of rock, over the very ridge of which passes the railway, are
common. Look below, and it will seem to you that you are gazing
upon
the studio of some whimsical Titanic sculptor, filled with half
finished
groups, statues, and monuments. Here is a dream-land bird, seated
upon
the head of a monster six hundred feet high, spreading its wings
and widely gaping its dragon's mouth; by its side the bust of a
man,
surmounted by a helmet, battlemented like the walls of a feudal
castle;
there, again, new monsters devouring each other, statues with
broken
limbs, disorderly heaps of huge balls, lonely fortresses with
loopholes,
ruined towers and bridges. All this scattered and intermixed with
shapes changing incessantly like the dreams of delirium. And the
chief
attraction is that nothing here is the result of art, everything is
the
pure sport of Nature, which, however, has occasionally been turned
to
account by ancient builders. The art of man in India is to be
sought
in the interior of the earth, not on its surface. Ancient Hindus
seldom
built their temples otherwise than in the bosom of the earth, as
though they were ashamed of their efforts, or did not dare to rival
the
sculpture of nature. Having chosen, for instance, a pyramidal rock,
or
a cupola shaped hillock like Elephanta, Or Karli, they scraped away
inside, according to the Puranas, for centuries, planning on so
grand a
style that no modern architecture has been able to conceive
anything
to equal it. Fables (?) about the Cyclops seem truer in India than
in
Egypt.
The marvellous railroad from Narel to Khandala reminds one of a
similar
line from Genoa up the Apenines. One may be said to travel in the
air,
not on land. The railway traverses a region 1,400 feet above
Konkan,
and, in some places, while one rail is laid on the sharp edge of
the
rock, the other is supported on vaults and arches. The Mali Khindi
viaduct is 163 feet high. For two hours we hastened on between sky
and
earth, with abysses on both sides thickly covered with mango trees
and
bananas. Truly English engineers are wonderful builders.
The pass of Bhor-Ghat is safely accomplished and we are in
Khandala.
Our bungalow here is built on the very edge of a ravine, which
nature
herself has carefully concealed under a cover of the most luxuriant
vegetation. Everything is in blossom, and, in this unfathomed
recess,
a botanist might find sufficient material to occupy him for a
lifetime.
Palms have disappeared; for the most part they grow only near the
sea. Here they are replaced by bananas, mango trees, pipals (ficus
religiosa), fig trees, and thousands of other trees and shrubs,
unknown
to such outsiders as ourselves. The Indian flora is too often
slandered
and misrepresented as being full of beautiful, but scentless,
flowers.
At some seasons this may be true enough, but, as long as jasmines,
the various balsams, white tuberoses, and golden champa (champaka
or
frangipani) are in blossom, this statement is far from being true.
The
aroma of champa alone is so powerful as to make one almost giddy.
For
size, it is the king of flowering trees, and hundreds of them were
in
full bloom, just at this time of year, on Mataran and Khandala.
We sat on the verandah, talking and enjoying the surrounding views,
until well-nigh midnight. Everything slept around us.
Khandala is nothing but a big village, situated on the flat top of
one
of the mountains of the Sahiadra range, about 2,200 feet above the
sea
level. It is surrounded by isolated peaks, as strange in shape as
any we
have seen.
One of them, straight before us, on the opposite side of the abyss,
looked exactly like a long, one-storied building, with a flat roof
and
a battlemented parapet. The Hindus assert that, somewhere about
this
hillock, there exists a secret entrance, leading into vast interior
halls, in fact to a whole subterranean palace, and that there still
exist people who possess the secret of this abode. A holy hermit,
Yogi,
and Magus, who had inhabited these caves for "many
centuries," imparted
this secret to Sivaji, the celebrated leader of the Mahratta armies.
Like Tanhauser, in Wagner's opera, the unconquerable Sivaji spent
seven
years of his youth in this mysterious abode, and therein acquired
his
extraordinary strength and valour.
Sivaji is a kind of Indian Ilia Moorometz, though his epoch is much
nearer to our times. He was the hero and the king of the Mahrattas
in
the seventeenth century, and the founder of their short-lived
empire. It
is to him that India owes the weakening, if not the entire
destruction,
of the Mussulman yoke. No taller than an ordinary woman, and with
the
hand of a child, he was, nevertheless, possessed of wonderful
strength,
which, of course, his compatriots ascribed to sorcery. His sword is
still preserved in a museum, and one cannot help wondering at its
size
and weight, and at the hilt, through which only a ten-year-old
child
could put his hand. The basis of this hero's fame is the fact that
he, the son of a poor officer in the service of a Mogul emperor,
like
another David, slew the Mussulman Goliath, the formidable Afzul
Khan.
It was not, however, with a sling that he killed him, he used in
this
combat the formidable Mahratti weapon, vaghnakh, consisting of five
long
steel nails, as sharp as needles, and very strong. This weapon is
worn
on the fingers, and wrestlers use it to tear each other's flesh
like
wild animals. The Deccan is full of legends about Sivaji, and even
the English historians mention him with respect. Just as in the
fable
respecting Charles V, one of the local Indian traditions asserts
that
Sivaji is not dead, but lives secreted in one of the Sahiadra
caves.
When the fateful hour strikes (and according to the calculations of
the
astrologers the time is not far off) he will reappear, and will
bring
freedom to his beloved country.
The learned and artful Brahmans, those Jesuits of India, profit by
the profound superstition of the masses to extort wealth from them,
sometimes to the last cow, the only food giver of a large family.
In the following passage I give a curious example of this. At the
end
of July, 1879, this mysterious document appeared in Bombay. I
translate
literally, from the Mahratti, the original having been translated
into
all the dialects of India, of which there are 273.
"Shri!" (an untranslatable greeting). "Let it be
known unto every one
that this epistle, traced in the original in golden letters, came
down
from Indra-loka (the heaven of Indra), in the presence of holy
Brahmans,
on the altar of the Vishveshvara temple, which is in the sacred
town of
Benares.
"Listen and remember, O tribes of Hindustan, Rajis-tan,
Punjab, etc.,
etc. On Saturday, the second day of the first half of the month
Magha,
1809, of Shalivahan's era" (1887 A.D.), "the eleventh
month of the
Hindus, during the Ashwini Nakshatra" (the first of the twenty-seven
constellations on the moon's path), "when the sun enters the
sign
Capricorn, and the time of the day will be near the constellation
Pisces, that is to say, exactly one hour and thirty-six minutes
after
sunrise, the hour of the end of the Kali-Yug will strike, and the
much desired Satya-Yug will commence" (that is to say, the end
of the
Maha-Yug, the great cycle that embraces the four minor Yugas).
"This
time Satya-Yug will last 1,100 years. During all this time a man's
lifetime will be 128 years. The days will become longer and will
consist
of twenty hours and forty-eight minutes, and the nights of thirteen
hours and twelve minutes, that is to say, instead of twenty-four
hours
we shall have exactly thirty-four hours and one minute. The first
day
of Satya-Yug will be very important for us, because it is then that
will
appear to us our new King with white face and golden hair, who will
come
from the far North. He will become the autonomous Lord of India.
The
Maya of human unbelief, with all the heresies over which it
presides,
will be thrown down to Patala" (sig-nifying at once hell and
the
antipodes), "and the Maya of the righteous and pious will
abide with
them, and will help them to enjoy life in Mretinloka" (our
earth).
"Let it also be known to everyone that, for the dissemination
of this
divine document, every separate copy of it will be rewarded by the
forgiveness of as many sins as are generally forgiven when a pious
man
sacrifices to a Brahman one hundred cows. As for the disbelievers
and
the indifferent, they will be sent to Naraka" (hell).
"Copied out and
given, by the slave of Vishnu, Malau Shriram, on Saturday, the 7th
day of the first half of Shravan" (the fifth month of the
Hindu year),
"1801, of Shalivalian's era" (that is, 26th July, 1879).
The further career of this ignorant and cunning epistle is not
known
to me. Probably the police put a stop to its distribution; this
only
concerns the wise administrators. But it splendidly illustrates,
from
one side, the credulity of the populace, drowned in superstition,
and
from the other the unscrupulousness of the Brahmans.
Concerning the word Patala, which literally means the opposite
side,
a recent discovery of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, whom I have already
mentioned in the preceding letters, is interesting, especially if
this
discovery can be accepted by philologists, as the facts seem to
promise.
Dayanand tries to show that the ancient Aryans knew, and even
visited,
America, which in ancient MSS. is called Patala, and out of which
popular fancy constructed, in the course of time, something like
the
Greek Hades. He supports his theory by many quotations from the
oldest
MSS., especially from the legends about Krishna and his favourite
disciple Arjuna. In the history of the latter it is mentioned that
Arjuna, one of the five Pandavas, descendants of the moon dynasty,
visited Patala on his travels, and there married the widowed
daughter of
King Nagual, called Illupl. Comparing the names of father and
daughter
we reach the following considerations, which speak strongly in
favour of
Dayanand's supposition.
(1) Nagual is the name by which the sorcerers of Mexico, Indians
and
aborigines of America, are still designated. Like the Assyrian and
Chaldean Nargals, chiefs of the Magi, the Mexican Nagual unites in
his
person the functions of priest and of sorcerer, being served in the
latter capacity by a demon in the shape of some animal, generally a
snake or a crocodile. These Naguals are thought to be the
descendants
of Nagua, the king of the snakes. Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg
devotes a
considerable amount of space to them in his book about Mexico, and
says
that the Naguals are servants of the evil one, who, in his turn,
renders
them but a temporary service. In Sanskrit, likewise, snake is Naga,
and the "King of the Nagas" plays an important part in
the history of
Buddha; and in the Puranas there exists a tradition that it was
Arjuna
who introduced snake worship into Patala. The coincidence, and the
identity of the names are so striking that our scientists really
ought
to pay some attention to them.
(2) The Name of Arjuna's wife Illupl is purely old Mexican, and if
we
reject the hypothesis of Swami Daya-nand it will be perfectly
impossible
to explain the actual existence of this name in Sanskrit
manuscripts
long before the Christian era. Of all ancient dialects and
languages
it is only in those of the American aborigines that you constantly
meet
with such combinations of consonants as pl, tl, etc. They are
abundant
especially in the language of the Toltecs, or Nahuatl, whereas,
neither
in Sanskrit nor in ancient Greek are they ever found at the end of
a word. Even the words Atlas and Atlantis seem to be foreign to the
etymology of the European languages. Wherever Plato may have found
them,
it was not he who invented them. In the Toltec language we find the
root atl, which means water and war, and directly after America was
discovered Columbus found a town called Atlan, at the entrance of
the
Bay of Uraga. It is now a poor fishing village called Aclo. Only
in America does one find such names as Itzcoatl, Zempoaltecatl, and
Popocatepetl. To attempt to explain such coincidences by the theory
of
blind chance would be too much, consequently, as long as science
does
not seek to deny Dayanand's hypothesis, which, as yet, it is unable
to
do, we think it reasonable to adopt it, be it only in order to
follow
out the axiom "one hypothesis is equal to another."
Amongst other things
Dayanand points out that the route that led Arjuna to America five
thousand years ago was by Siberia and Behring's Straits.
It was long past midnight, but we still sat listening to this
legend and
others of a similar kind. At length the innkeeper sent a servant to
warn us of the dangers that threatened us if we lingered too long
on the
verandah on a moonlit night. The programme of these dangers was
divided
into three sections--snakes, beasts of prey, and dacoits. Besides
the
cobra and the "rock-snake," the surrounding mountains are
full of a kind
of very small mountain snake, called furzen, the most dangerous of
all. Their poison kills with the swiftness of lightning. The
moonlight
attracts them, and whole parties of these uninvited guests crawl up
to
the verandahs of houses, in order to warm themselves. Here they are
more
snug than on the wet ground. The verdant and perfumed abyss below
our verandah happened, too, to be the favorite resort of tigers and
leopards, who come thither to quench their thirst at the broad
brook
which runs along the bottom, and then wander until daybreak under
the
windows of the bungalow. Lastly, there were the mad dacoits, whose
dens
are scattered in mountains inaccessible to the police, who often
shoot
Europeans simply to afford themselves the pleasure of sending ad
patres
one of the hateful bellatis (foreigners). Three days before our
arrival
the wife of a Brahman disappeared, carried off by a tiger, and two
favorite dogs of the commandant were killed by snakes. We declined
to
wait for further explanations, but hurried to our rooms. At
daybreak we
were to start for Karli, six miles from this place.
In The Karli Caves
At five o'clock in the morning we had already arrived at the limit,
not
only of driveable, but, even, of rideable roads. Our bullock-cart
could
go no further. The last half mile was nothing but a rough sea of
stones.
We had either to give up our enterprise, or to climb on all-fours
up an
almost perpendicular slope two hundred feet high. We were utterly
at
our wits' end, and meekly gazed at the historical mass before us,
not
knowing what to do next. Almost at the summit of the mountain,
under
the overhanging rocks, were a dozen black openings. Hundreds of
pilgrims
were crawling upwards, looking, in their holiday dresses, like so
many
green, pink, and blue ants. Here, however, our faithful Hindu
friends
came to our rescue. One of them, putting the palm of his hand to
his
mouth, produced a strident sound something between a shriek and a
whistle. This signal was answered from above by an echo, and the
next
moment several half naked Brahmans, hereditary watchmen of the
temple,
began to descend the rocks as swiftly and skillfully as wild cats.
Five minutes later they were with us, fastening round our bodies
strong
leathern straps, and rather dragging than leading us upwards. Half
an
hour later, exhausted but perfectly safe, we stood before the porch
of the chief temple, which until then had been hidden from us by
giant
trees and cactuses.
This majestic entrance, resting on four massive pillars which form
a
quadrangle, is fifty-two feet wide and is covered with ancient moss
and
carvings. Before it stands the "lion column," so-called
from the four
lions carved as large as nature, and seated back to back, at its
base.
Over the principal entrance, its sides covered with colossal male
and female figures, is a huge arch, in front of which three
gigantic
elephants are sculptured in relief, with heads and trunks that
project
from the wall. The shape of the temple is oval. It is 128 feet long
and
forty-six feet wide. The central space is separated on each side
from the aisles by forty-two pillars, which sustain the
cupola-shaped
ceiling. Further on is an altar, which divides the first dome from
a second one which rises over a small chamber, formerly used by the
ancient Aryan priests for an inner, secret altar. Two side passages
leading towards it come to a sudden end, which suggests that, once
upon
a time, either doors or wall were there which exist no longer. Each
of
the forty-two pillars has a pedestal, an octagonal shaft, and a
capital, described by Fergusson as "of the most exquisite
workmanship,
representing two kneeling elephants surmounted by a god and a
goddess."
Fergusson further says that this temple, or chaitya, is older and
better
preserved than any other in India, and may be assigned to a period
about
200 years B.C., because Prinsep, who has read the inscription on
the
Silastamba pillar, asserts that the lion pillar was the gift of
Ajmitra
Ukasa, son of Saha Ravisobhoti, and another inscription shows that
the temple was visited by Dathama Hara, otherwise Dathahamini, King
of
Ceylon, in the twentieth year of his reign, that is to say, 163
years
before our era. For some reason or other, Dr. Stevenson points to
seventy years B.C. as the date, asserting that Karlen, or Karli,
was
built by the Emperor Devobhuti, under the supervision of
Dhanu-Kakata.
But how can this be maintained in view of the above-mentioned
perfectly
authentic inscriptions? Even Fergusson, the celebrated defender of
the
Egyptian antiquities and hostile critic of those of India, insists
that
Karli belongs to the erections of the third century B.C., adding
that
"the disposition of the various parts of its architecture is
identical
with the architecture of the choirs of the Gothic period, and the
polygonal apsides of cathedrals."
Above the chief entrance is found a gallery, which reminds one of
the
choirs, where, in Catholic churches, the organ is placed. Besides
the
chief entrance there are two lateral entrances, leading to the aisles
of the temple, and over the gallery there is a single spacious
window in
the shape of a horseshoe, so that the light falls on the daghopa
(altar)
entirely from above, leaving the aisles, sheltered by the pillars,
in obscurity, which increases as you approach the further end of
the
building. To the eyes of a spectator standing at the entrance, the
whole
daghopa shines with light, and behind it is nothing but
impenetrable
darkness, where no profane footsteps were permitted to tread. A
figure
on the dag-hopa, from the summit of which "Raja priests"
used to
pronounce verdicts to the people, is called Dharma-Raja, from
Dharma,
the Hindu Minos. Above the temple are two stories of caves, in each
of
which are wide open galleries formed by huge carved pillars, and
from
these galleries an opening leads to roomy cells and corridors,
sometimes
very long, but quite useless, as they invariably come to an abrupt
termination at solid walls, without the trace of an issue of any
kind.
The guardians of the temple have either lost the secret of further
caves, or conceal them jealously from Europeans.
Besides the Viharas already described, there are many others,
scattered
over the slope of the mountain. These temple-monasteries are all
smaller
than the first, but, according to the opinion of some
archeologists,
they are much older. To what century or epoch they belong is not
known
except to a few Brahmans, who keep silence. Generally speaking, the
position of a European archaeologist in India is very sad. The
masses,
drowned in superstition, are utterly unable to be of any use to
him, and
the learned Brahmans, initiated into the mysteries of secret
libraries
in pagodas, do all they can to prevent archeological research.
However,
after all that has happened, it would be unjust to blame the
conduct of
the Brahmans in these matters. The bitter experience of many
centuries
has taught them that their only weapons are distrust and
circumspection,
without these their national history and the most sacred of their
treasures would be irrevocably lost. Political coups d'etat which
have
shaken their country to its foundation, Mussulman invasions that
proved
so fatal to its welfare, the all-destructive fanaticism of
Mussulman
vandals and of Catholic padres, who are ready for anything in order
to
secure manuscripts and destroy them--all these form a good excuse
for the action of the Brahmans. However in spite of these manifold
destructive tendencies, there exist in many places in India vast
libraries capable of pouring a bright and new light, not only on
the
history of India itself, but also on the darkest problems of
universal
history. Some of these libraries, filled with the most precious
manuscripts, are in the possession of native princes and of pagodas
attached to their territories, but the greater part is in the hands
of the Jainas (the oldest of Hindu sects) and of the Rajputana
Takurs,
whose ancient hereditary castles are scattered all over Rajistan,
like
so many eagles' nests on high rocks. The existence of the
celebrated
collections in Jassulmer and Patana is not unknown to the
Government,
but they remain wholly beyond its reach. The manuscripts are
written in
an ancient and now completely forgotten language, intelligible only
to
the high priests and their initiated librarians. One thick folio is
so sacred and inviolable that it rests on a heavy golden chain in
the
centre of the temple of Chintamani in Jassulmer, and taken down
only
to be dusted and rebound at the advent of each new pontiff. This is
the work of Somaditya Suru Acharya, a great priest of the
pre-Mussulman
time, well-known in history. His mantle is still preserved in the
temple, and forms the robe of initiation of every new high priest.
Colonel James Tod, who spent so many years in India and gained the
love
of the people as well as of the Brahmans--a most uncommon trait in
the
biography of any Anglo-Indian--has written the only true history of
India, but even he was never allowed to touch this folio. Natives
commonly believe that he was offered initiation into the mysteries
at the price of the adoption of their religion. Being a devoted
archaeologist he almost resolved to do so, but, having to return to
England on account of his health, he left this world before he
could
return to his adopted country, and thus the enigma of this new book
of
the sibyl remains unsolved.
The Takurs of Rajputana, who are said to possess some of the
underground
libraries, occupy in India position similar to the position of
European
feudal barons of the Middle Ages. Nominally they are dependent on
some
of the native princes or on the British Government; but de facto
they
are perfectly independent. Their castles are built on high rocks,
and
besides the natural difficulty of entering them, their possessors
are
made doubly unreachable by the fact that long secret passages exist
in
every such castle, known only to the present owner and confided to
his
heir only at his death. We have visited two such underground halls,
one
of them big enough to contain a whole village. No torture would
ever
induce the owners to disclose the secret of their entrances, but
the
Yogis and the initiated Adepts come and go freely, entirely trusted
by
the Takurs.
A similar story is told concerning the libraries and subterranean
passages of Karli. As for the archaeologists, they are unable even
to
determine whether this temple was built by Buddhists or Brahmans.
The huge daghopa that hides the holy of holies from the eyes of the
worshippers is sheltered by a mushroom-shaped roof, and resembles a
low
minaret with a cupola. Roofs of this description are called
"umbrellas,"
and usually shelter the statues of Buddha and of the Chinese sages.
But, on the other hand, the worshippers of Shiva, who possess the
temple
nowadays, assert that this low building is nothing but a lingam of
Shiva. Besides, the carvings of gods and goddesses cut out of the
rock
forbid one to think that the temple is the production of the
Buddhists.
Fergusson writes, "What is this monument of antiquity? Does it
belong
to the Hindus, or to the Buddhists? Has it been built upon plans
drawn
since the death of Sakya Sing, or does it belong to a more ancient
religion?"
That is the question. If Fergusson, being bound by facts existing
in
inscriptions to acknowledge the antiquity of Karli, will still
persist
in asserting that Elephanta is of much later date, he will scarcely
be
able to solve this dilemma, because the two styles are exactly the
same,
and the carvings of the latter are still more magnificent. To
ascribe
the temples of Elephanta and Kanari to the Buddhists, and to say
that
their respective periods correspond to the fourth and fifth
centuries
in the first case, and the tenth in the second, is to introduce
into
history a very strange and unfounded anachronism. After the first
century A.D. there was not left a single influential Buddhist in
India.
Conquered and persecuted by the Brahmans, they emigrated by
thousands to
Ceylon and the trans-Himalayan districts. After the death of King
Asoka,
Buddhism speedily broke down, and in a short time was entirely
displaced
by the theocratic Brahmanism.
Fergusson's hypothesis that the followers of Sakya Sing, driven out
by
intolerance from the continent, probably sought shelter on the
islands
that surround Bombay, would hardly sustain critical analysis.
Elephanta
and Salsetta are quite near to Bombay, two and five miles distant
respectively, and they are full of ancient Hindu temples. Is it
credible, then, that the Brahmans, at the culminating point of
their
power, just before the Mussulman invasions, fanatical as they were,
and
mortal enemies of the Buddhists, would allow these hated heretics
to
build temples within their possessions in general and on Gharipuri
in particular, this latter being an island consecrated to their
Hindu
pagodas? It is not necessary to be either a specialist, an
architect,
or an eminent archeologist, in order to be convinced at the first
glance
that such temples as Elephanta are the work of Cyclopses, requiring
centuries and not years for their construction. Whereas in Karli
everything is built and carved after a perfect plan, in Elephanta
it
seems as if thousands of different hands had wrought at different
times,
each following its own ideas and fashioning after its own device.
All
three caves are dug out of a hard porphyry rock. The first temple
is
practically a square, 130 feet 6 inches long and 130 feet wide. It
contains twenty-six thick pillars and sixteen pilasters.
Between some of them there is a distance of 12 or 16 feet, between
others 15 feet 5 inches, 13 feet 3 1/2 inches, and so on. The same
lack
of uniformity is found in the pedestals of the columns, the finish
and
style of which is constantly varying.
Why, then, should we not pay some attention to the explanations of
the
Brahmans? They say that this temple was begun by the sons of Pandu,
after "the great war," Mahabharata, and that after their
death every
true believer was bidden to continue the work according to his own
notions. Thus the temple was gradually built during three
centuries.
Every one who wished to redeem his sins would bring his chisel and
set
to work. Many were the members of royal families, and even kings,
who
personally took part in these labors.
On the right hand side of the temple there is a corner stone, a
lingam
of Shiva in his character of Fructifying Force, which is sheltered
by a
small square chapel with four doors. Round this chapel are many
colossal
human figures. According to the Brahmans, these are statues
representing
the royal sculptors themselves, they being doorkeepers of the holy
of
holies, Hindus of the highest caste. Each of the larger figures
leans
upon a dwarf representative of the lower castes, which have been
promoted by the popular fancy to the rank of demons (Pisachas).
Moreover, the temple is full of unskillful work. The Brahmans hold
that
such a holy place could not be deserted if men of the preceding and
present generations had not become unworthy of visiting it. As to
Kanari
or Kanhari, and some other cave temples, there is not the slightest
doubt that they were all erected by Buddhists. In some of them were
found inscriptions in a perfect state of preservation, and their
style
does not remind one in the least of the symbolical buildings of the
Brahmans. Archbishop Heber thinks the Kanari caves were built in
the
first or second centuries B.C. But Elephanta is much older and must
be
classed among prehistoric monuments, that is to say, its date must
be assigned to the epoch that immediately followed the "great
war," Mahabharata. Unfortunately the date of this war is a
point of
disagreement between European scientists; the celebrated and
learned
Dr. Martin Haug thinks it is almost antediluvian, while the no less
celebrated and learned Professor Max Muller places it as near the
first
century of our era as possible.
The fair was at its culmination when, having finished visiting the
cells, climbing over all the stories, and examining the celebrated
"hall
of wrestlers," we descended, not by way of the stairs, of
which there is
no trace to be found, but after the fashion of pails bringing water
out
of a deep well, that is to say, by the aid of ropes. A crowd of
about
three thousand persons had assembled from the surrounding villages
and
towns. Women were there adorned from the waist down in
brilliant-hued
saris, with rings in their noses, their ears, their lips, and on
all
parts of their limbs that could hold a ring. Their raven-black hair
which was smoothly combed back, shone with cocoanut oil, and was
adorned
with crimson flowers, which are sacred to Shiva and to Bhavani, the
feminine aspect of this god.
Before the temple there were rows of small shops and of tents,
where
could be bought all the requisites for the usual
sacrifices--aromatic
herbs, incense, sandal wood, rice, gulab, and the red powder with
which
the pilgrim sprinkles first the idol and then his own face. Fakirs,
bairagis, hosseins, the whole body of the mendicant brotherhood,
was
present among the crowd. Wreathed in chaplets, with long uncombed
hair
twisted at the top of the head into a regular chignon, and with
bearded
faces, they presented a very funny likeness to naked apes. Some of
them
were covered with wounds and bruises due to mortification of the
flesh.
We also saw some bunis, snake-charmers, with dozens of various
snakes
round their waists, necks, arms, and legs--models well worthy of
the
brush of a painter who intended to depict the image of a male Fury.
One
jadugar was especially remarkable. His head was crowned with a
turban
of cobras. Expanding their hoods and raising their leaf-like dark
green
heads, these cobras hissed furiously and so loudly that the sound
was
audible a hundred paces off. Their "stings" quivered like
lightning,
and their small eyes glittered with anger at the approach of every
passer-by. The expression, "the sting of a snake," is
universal, but
it does not describe accurately the process of inflicting a wound.
The
"sting" of a snake is perfectly harmless. To introduce
the poison into
the blood of a man, or of an animal, the snake must pierce the
flesh
with its fangs, not prick with its sting. The needle-like eye teeth
of
a cobra communicate with the poison gland, and if this gland is cut
out
the cobra will not live more than two days. Accordingly, the
supposition
of some sceptics, that the bunis cut out this gland, is quite
unfounded.
The term "hissing" is also inaccurate when applied to
cobras. They do
not hiss. The noise they make is exactly like the death-rattle of a
dying man. The whole body of a cobra is shaken by this loud and
heavy
growl.
Here we happened to be the witnesses of a fact which I relate
exactly
as it occurred, without indulging in explanations or hypotheses of
any
kind. I leave to naturalists the solution of the enigma.
Expecting to be well paid, the cobra-turbaned buni sent us word by
a
messenger boy that he would like very much to exhibit his powers of
snake-charming. Of course we were perfectly willing, but on
condition
that between us and his pupils there should be what Mr. Disraeli
would
call a "scientific frontier."* We selected a spot about
fifteen paces
from the magic circle. I will not describe minutely the tricks and
wonders that we saw, but will proceed at once to the main fact.
With the
aid of a vaguda, a kind of musical pipe of bamboo, the buni caused
all
the snakes to fall into a sort of cataleptic sleep. The melody that
he
played, monotonous, low, and original to the last degree, nearly
sent us
to sleep ourselves. At all events we all grew extremely sleepy
without
any apparent cause. We were aroused from this half lethargy by our
friend Gulab-Sing, who gathered a handful of a grass, perfectly
unknown
to us, and advised us to rub our temples and eyelids with it. Then the
buni produced from a dirty bag a kind of round stone, something
like a
fish's eye, or an onyx with a white spot in the centre, not bigger
than
a ten-kopek bit. He declared that anyone who bought that stone
would be
able to charm any cobra (it would produce no effect on snakes of
other
kinds) paralyzing the creature and then causing it to fall asleep.
Moreover, by his account, this stone is the only remedy for the
bite
of a cobra. You have only to place this talisman on the wound,
where it
will stick so firmly that it cannot be torn off until all the
poison is
absorbed into it, when it will fall off of itself, and all danger
will
be past.
* Written in 1879.
Being aware that the Government gladly offers any premium for the
invention of a remedy for the bite of the cobra, we did not show
any
unreasonable interest on the appearance of this stone. In the
meanwhile,
the buni began to irritate his cobras. Choosing a cobra eight feet
long,
he literally enraged it. Twisting its tail round a tree, the cobra
arose
and hissed. The buni quietly let it bite his finger, on which we
all saw
drops of blood. A unanimous cry of horror arose in the crowd. But
master
buni stuck the stone on his finger and proceeded with his
performance.
"The poison gland of the snake has been cut out,"
remarked our New York
colonel. "This is a mere farce."
As if in answer to this remark, the buni seized the neck of the
cobra,
and, after a short struggle, fixed a match into its mouth, so that
it
remained open. Then he brought the snake over and showed it to each
of
us separately, so that we all saw the death-giving gland in its
mouth.
But our colonel would not give up his first impression so easily.
"The
gland is in its place right enough," said he, "but how
are we to know
that it really does contain poison?"
Then a live hen was brought forward and, tying its legs together,
the
buni placed it beside the snake. But the latter would pay no
attention
at first to this new victim, but went on hissing at the buni, who
teased
and irritated it until at last it actually struck at the wretched
bird.
The hen made a weak attempt to cackle, then shuddered once or twice
and
became still. The death was instantaneous. Facts will remain facts,
the
most exacting critic and disbeliever notwithstanding. This thought
gives
me courage to write what happened further. Little by little the
cobra
grew so infuriated that it became evident the jadugar himself did
not
dare to approach it. As if glued to the trunk of the tree by its
tail,
the snake never ceased diving into space with its upper part and
trying
to bite everything. A few steps from us was somebody's dog. It
seemed to
attract the whole of the buni's attention for some time. Sitting on
his
haunches, as far as possible from his raging pupil, he stared at
the dog
with motionless glassy eyes, and then began a scarcely audible
song.
The dog grew restless. Putting his tail between his legs, he tried
to
escape, but remained, as if fastened to the ground. After a few
seconds
he crawled nearer and nearer to the buni, whining, but unable to
tear
his gaze from the charmer. I understood his object, and felt
awfully
sorry for the dog. But, to my horror, I suddenly felt that my
tongue
would not move, I was perfectly unable either to get up or even to
raise
my finger. Happily this fiendish scene was not prolonged. As soon
as
the dog was near enough, the cobra bit him. The poor animal fell on
his
back, made a few convulsive movements with his legs, and shortly
died.
We could no longer doubt that there was poison in the gland. In the
meanwhile the stone had dropped from the buni's finger and he
approached
to show us the healed member. We all saw the trace of the prick, a
red
spot not bigger than the head of an ordinary pin.
Next he made his snakes rise on their tails, and, holding the stone
between his first finger and thumb, he proceeded to demonstrate its
influence on the cobras. The nearer his hand approached to the head
of
the snake, the more the reptile's body recoiled. Looking
steadfastly at
the stone they shivered, and, one by one, dropped as if paralyzed.
The
buni then made straight for our sceptical colonel, and made him an
offer
to try the experiment himself. We all protested vigorously, but he
would
not listen to us, and chose a cobra of a very considerable size.
Armed
with the stone, the colonel bravely approached the snake. For a
moment
I positively felt petrified with fright. Inflating its hood, the
cobra
made an attempt to fly at him, then suddenly stopped short, and,
after
a pause, began following with all its body the circular movements
of the
colonel's hand. When he put the stone quite close to the reptile's
head,
the snake staggered as if intoxicated, its hissing grew weak, its
hood
dropped helplessly on both sides of its neck, and its eyes closed.
Drooping lower and lower, the snake fell at last on the ground like
a
stick, and slept.
Only then did we breathe freely. Taking the sorcerer aside we
expressed
our desire to buy the stone, to which he easily assented, and, to
our
great astonishment, asked for it only two rupees. This talisman
became
my own property and I still keep it. The buni asserts, and our
Hindu
friends confirm the story, that it is not a stone but an
excrescence. It
is found in the mouth of one cobra in a hundred, between the bone
of the
upper jaw and the skin of the palate. This "stone" is not
fastened to
the skull, but hangs, wrapped in skin, from the palate, and so is
very
easily cut off; but after this operation the cobra is said to die.
If
we are to believe Bishu Nath, for that was our sorcerer's name,
this
excrescence confers upon the cobra who possesses it the rank of
king
over the rest of his kind.
"Such a cobra," said the buni, "is like a Brahman, a
Dwija Brahman
amongst Shudras, they all obey him. There exists, moreover, a
poisonous
toad that also, sometimes, possesses this stone, but its effect is
much
weaker. To destroy the effect of a cobra's poison you must apply
the
toad's stone not later than two minutes after the infliction of the
wound; but the stone of a cobra is effectual to the last. Its
healing
power is certain as long as the heart of the wounded man has not
ceased
to beat."
Bidding us good-bye, the buni advised us to keep the stone in a dry
place and never to leave it near a dead body, also, to hide it
during
the sun and moon eclipses, "otherwise," said he, "it
will lose all its
power." In case we were bitten by a mad dog, he said, we were
to put the
stone into a glass of water and leave it there during the night,
next
morning the sufferer was to drink the water and then forget all
danger.
"He is a regular devil and not a man!" exclaimed our
colonel, as soon
as the buni had disappeared on his way to a Shiva temple, where, by
the
way, we were not admitted.
"As simple a mortal as you or I," remarked the Rajput
with a smile,
"and, what is more, he is very ignorant. The truth is, he has
been
brought up in a Shivaite pagoda, like all the real snake-charmers.
Shiva
is the patron god of snakes, and the Brahmans teach the bunis to
produce
all kinds of mesmeric tricks by empirical methods, never explaining
to
them the theoretical principles, but assuring them that Shiva is
behind
every phenomenon. So that the bunis sincerely ascribe to their god
the
honor of their 'miracles."'
"The Government of India offers a reward for an antidote to
the poison
of the cobra. Why then do the bunis not claim it, rather than let
thousands of people die helpless?"
"The Brahmans would never suffer that. If the Government took
the
trouble to examine carefully the statistics of deaths caused by
snakes,
it would be found that no Hindu of the Shivaite sect has ever died
from
the bite of a cobra. They let people of other sects die, but save
the
members of their own flock."
"But did we not see how easily he parted with his secret,
notwithstanding we were foreigners. Why should not the English buy
it as
readily?"
"Because this secret is quite useless in the hands of
Europeans. The
Hindus do not try to conceal it, because they are perfectly certain
that
without their aid nobody can make any use of it. The stone will
retain
its wonderful power only when it is taken from a live cobra. In
order to
catch the snake without killing it, it must be cast into a
lethargy, or,
if you prefer the term, charmed. Who is there among the foreigners
who
is able to do this? Even amongst the Hindus, you will not find a
single
individual in all India who possesses this ancient secret, unless
he be
a disciple of the Shivaite Brahmans. Only Brahmans of this sect
possess
a monopoly of the secret, and not all even of them, only those, in
short, who belong to the pseudo-Patanjali school, who are usually
called
Bhuta ascetics. Now there exist, scattered over the whole of India,
only
about half-a-dozen of their pagoda schools, and the inmates would
rather
part with their very lives than with their secret."
"We have paid only two rupees for a secret which proved as
strong in the
colonel's hands as in the hands of the buni. Is it then so
difficult to
procure a store of these stones?" Our friend laughed.
"In a few days," said he, "the talisman will lose
all its healing powers
in your inexperienced hands. This is the reason why he let it go at
such
a low price, which he is, probably, at this moment sacrificing
before
the altar of his deity. I guarantee you a week's activity for your
purchase, but after that time it will only be fit to be thrown out
of
the window."
We soon learned how true were these words. On the following day we
came
across a little girl, bitten by a green scorpion. She seemed to be
in
the last convulsions. No sooner had we applied the stone than the
child
seemed relieved, and, in an hour, she was gaily playing about,
whereas,
even in the case of the sting of a common black scorpion, the
patient
suffers for two weeks. But when, about ten days later, we tried the
experiment of the stone upon a poor coolie, just bitten by a cobra,
it
would not even stick to the wound, and the poor wretch shortly
expired.
I do not take upon myself to offer, either a defence, or an
explanation
of the virtues of the "stone." I simply state the facts
and leave the
future career of the story to its own fate. The sceptics may deal
with
it as they will. Yet I can easily find people in India who will
bear
witness to my accuracy.
In this connection I was told a funny story. When Dr. (now Sir J.)
Fayrer, who lately published his Thanatophidia, a book on the
venomous
snakes of India, a work well known throughout Europe, he
categorically
stated in it his disbelief in the wondrous snake-charmers of India.
However, about a fortnight or so after the book appeared amongst
the
Anglo-Indians, a cobra bit his own cook. A buni, who happened to
pass
by, readily offered to save the man's life. It stands to reason
that
the celebrated naturalist could not accept such an offer.
Nevertheless,
Major Kelly and other officers urged him to permit the experiment.
Declaring that in spite of all, in less than an hour his cook would
be
no more, he gave his consent. But it happened that in less than an
hour
the cook was quietly preparing dinner in the kitchen, and, it is
added,
Dr. Fayrer seriously thought of throwing his book into the fire.
The day grew dreadfully hot. We felt the heat of the rocks in spite
of
our thick-soled shoes. Besides, the general curiosity aroused by
our
presence, and the unceremonious persecutions of the crowd, were
becoming
tiring. We resolved to "go home," that is to say, to
return to the cool
cave, six hundred paces from the temple, where we were to spend the
evening and to sleep. We would wait no longer for our Hindu
companions,
who had gone to see the fair, and so we started by ourselves.----
On approaching the entrance of the temple we were struck by the
appearance of a young man, who stood apart from the crowd and was
of
an ideal beauty. He was a member of the Sadhu sect, a
"candidate for
Saintship," to use the expression of one of our party.
The Sadhus differ greatly from every other sect. They never appear
unclothed, do not cover themselves with damp ashes, wear no painted
signs on their faces, or foreheads, and do not worship idols.
Belonging
to the Adwaiti section of the Vedantic school, they believe only in
Parabrahm (the great spirit). The young man looked quite decent in
his
light yellow costume, a kind of nightgown without sleeves. He had
long
hair, and his head was uncovered. His elbow rested on the back of a
cow,
which was itself well calculated to attract attention, for, in
addition
to her four perfectly shaped legs, she had a fifth growing out of
her
hump. This wonderful freak of nature used its fifth leg as if it
were
a hand and arm, hunting and killing tiresome flies, and scratching
its head with the hoof. At first we thought it was a trick to
attract
attention, and even felt offended with the animal, as well as with
its
handsome owner, but, coming nearer, we saw that it was no trick,
but an
actual sport of mischievous Nature. From the young man we learned
that
the cow had been presented to him by the Maharaja Holkar, and that
her
milk had been his only food during the last two years.
Sadhus are aspirants to the Raj Yoga, and, as I have said above, usually
belong to the school of the Vedanta. That is to say, they are
disciples
of initiates who have entirely resigned the life of the world, and
lead
a life of monastic chastity. Between the Sadhus and the Shivaite
bunis there exists a mortal enmity, which manifests itself by a
silent
contempt on the side of the Sadhus, and on that of the bunis by
constant
attempts to sweep their rivals off the face of the earth. This
antipathy
is as marked as that between light and darkness, and reminds one of
the
dualism of the Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman of the Zoroastrians. Masses
of people look up to the first as to Magi, sons of the sun and of
the
Divine Principle, while the latter are dreaded as dangerous
sorcerers.
Having heard most wonderful accounts of the former, we were burning
with anxiety to see some of the "miracles" ascribed to
them by some even
among the Englishmen. We eagerly invited the Sadhu to visit our
vihara
during the evening. But the handsome ascetic sternly refused, for
the
reason that we were staying within the temple of the
idol-worshippers,
the very air of which would prove antagonistic to him. We offered
him
money, but he would not touch it, and so we parted.
A path, or rather a ledge cut along the perpendicular face of a
rocky
mass 200 feet high, led from the chief temple to our vihara. A man
needs
good eyes, sure feet, and a very strong head to avoid sliding down
the
precipice at the first false step. Any help would be quite out of
the
question, for, the ledge being only two feet wide, no one could
walk
side by side with another. We had to walk one by one, appealing for
aid
only to the whole of our personal courage. But the courage of many
of us
was gone on an unlimited furlough. The position of our American
colonel
was the worst, for he was very stout and short-sighted, which
defects,
taken together, caused him frequent vertigos. To keep up our
spirits
we indulged in a choral performance of the duet from Norma,
"Moriam'
insieme," holding each other's hands the while, to ensure our
being
spared by death or dying all four in company. But the colonel did
not
fail to frighten us nearly out of our lives. We were already half
way up
to the cave when he made a false step, staggered, lost hold of my
hand,
and rolled over the edge. We three, having to clutch the bushes and
stones, were quite unable to help him. A unanimous cry of horror
escaped
us, but died away as we perceived that he had succeeded in clinging
to
the trunk of a small tree, which grew on the slope a few steps
below
us. Fortunately, we knew that the colonel was good at athletics,
and
remarkably cool in danger. Still the moment was a critical one. The
slender stem of the tree might give way at any moment. Our cries of
distress were answered by the sudden appearance of the mysterious
Sadhu
with his cow.
They were quietly walking along about twenty feet below us, on such
invisible projections of the rock that a child's foot could barely
have
found room to rest there, and they both traveled as calmly, and
even
carelessly, as if a comfortable causeway were beneath their feet,
instead of a vertical rock. The Sadhu called out to the colonel to
hold
on, and to us to keep quiet. He patted the neck of his monstrous
cow,
and untied the rope by which he was leading her. Then, with both
hands
he turned her head in our direction, and clucking with his tongue,
he
cried "Chal!" (go). With a few wild goat-like bounds the
animal reached
our path, and stood before us motion-less. A for the Sadhu himself,
his
movements were as swift and as goat-like. In a moment he had
reached the
tree, tied the rope round the colonel's body, and put him on his
legs
again; then, rising higher, with one effort of his strong hand he
hoisted him up to the path. Our colonel was with us once more,
rather
pale, and with the loss of his pince-nez, but not of his presence
of
mind.
An adventure that had threatened to become a tragedy ended in a
farce.
"What is to be done now?" was our unanimous inquiry.
"We cannot let you
go alone any further."
"In a few moments it will be dark and we shall be lost,"
said Mr. Y----,
the colonel's secretary.
And, indeed, the sun was dipping below the horizon, and every
moment was
precious. In the meanwhile, the Sadhu had fastened the rope round
the
cow's neck again and stood before us on the pathway, evidently not
understanding a word of our conversation. His tall, slim figure
seemed
as if suspended in the air above the precipice. His long, black
hair,
floating in the breeze, alone showed that in him we beheld a living
being and not a magnificent statue of bronze. Forgetting our recent
danger and our present awkward situation, Miss X----, who was a
born
artist, exclaimed: "Look at the majesty of that pure profile;
observe
the pose of that man. How beautiful are his outlines seen against
the
golden and blue sky. One would say, a Greek Adonis, not a
Hindu!" But
the "Adonis" in question put a sudden stop to her
ecstasy. He glanced at
Miss X---- with half-pitying, half-kindly, laughing eyes, and said
with
his ringing voice in Hindi--
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"Bara-Sahib cannot go any further without the help of someone
else's
eyes. Sahib's eyes are his enemies. Let the Sahib ride on my cow.
She
cannot stumble."
"I! Ride on a cow, and a five-legged one at that? Never!"
exclaimed the
poor colonel, with such a helpless air, nevertheless, that we burst
out
laughing.
"It will be better for Sahib to sit on a cow than to lie on a
chitta"
(the pyre on which dead bodies are burned), remarked the Sadhu with
modest seriousness. "Why call forth the hour which has not yet
struck?"
The colonel saw that argument was perfectly useless, and we
succeeded in
persuading him to follow the Sadhu's advice, who carefully hoisted
him
on the cow's back, then, recommending him to hold on by the fifth
leg,
he led the way. We all followed to the best of our ability.
In a few minutes more we were on the verandah of our vihara, where
we
found our Hindu friends, who had arrived by another path. We
eagerly
related all our adventures, and then looked for the Sadhu, but, in
the
meanwhile, he had disappeared together with his cow.
"Do not look for him, he is gone by a road known only to
himself,"
remarked Gulab-Sing carelessly. "He knows you are sincere in
your
gratitude, but he would not take your money. He is a Sadhu, not a
buni,"
added he proudly.
We remembered that it was reported this proud friend of ours also
belonged to the Sadhu sect. "Who can tell," whispered the
colonel in my
ear, "whether these reports are mere gossip, or the
truth?"
Sadhu-Nanaka must not be confounded with Guru-Nanaka, a leader of
the
Sikhs. The former are Adwaitas, the latter monotheists. The
Adwaitas
believe only in an impersonal deity named Parabrahm.
In the chief hall of the vihara was a life-sized statue of Bhavani,
the
feminine aspect of Shiva. From the bosom of this devaki streams
forth
the pure cold water of a mountain spring, which falls into a
reservoir
at her feet. Around it lay heaps of sacrificial flowers, rice,
betel
leaves and incense. This hall was, in consequence, so damp that we
preferred to spend the night on the verandah in the open air,
hanging,
as it were, between sky and earth, and lit from below by numerous
fires
kept burning all the night by Gulab-Sing's servants, to scare away
wild
beasts, and, from above, by the light of the full moon. A supper
was
arranged after the Eastern fashion, on carpets spread upon the
floor,
and with thick banana leaves for plates and dishes. The noiselessly
gliding steps of the servants, more silent than ghosts, their white
muslins and red turbans, the limitless depths of space, lost in
waves of
moonlight, before us, and behind, the dark vaults of ancient caves,
dug out by unknown races, in unknown times, in honor of an unknown,
prehistoric religion--all these, our surroundings, transported us
into a
strange world, and into distant epochs far different from our own.
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We had before us representatives of five different peoples, five
different types of costume, each quite unlike the others. All five
are
known to us in ethnography under the generic name of Hindus.
Similarly
eagles, condors, hawks, vultures, and owls are known to ornithology
as
"birds of prey," but the analogous differences are as
great. Each of
these five companions, a Rajput, a Bengali, a Madrasi, a Sinhalese
and
a Mahratti, is a descendant of a race, the origin of which European
scientists have discussed for over half a century without coming to
any
agreement.
Rajputs are called Hindus and are said to belong to the Aryan race;
but
they call themselves Suryavansa, that is to say, descendants of
Surya or
the sun.
The Brahmans derive their origin from Indu, the moon, and are
called
Induvansa; Indu, Soma, or Chandra, meaning moon in Sanskrit. If the
first Aryans, appearing in the prologue of universal history, are
Brahmans, that is to say, the people who, according to Max Muller,
having crossed the Himalayas conquered the country of the five
rivers,
then the Rajputs are no Aryans; and if they are Aryans they are not
Brahmans, as all their genealogies and sacred books (Puranas) show
that
they are much older than the Brahmans; and, in this case, moreover,
the
Aryan tribes had an actual existence in other countries of our
globe
than the much renowned district of the Oxus, the cradle of the
Germanic
race, the ancestors of Aryans and Hindus, in the fancy of the
scientist
we have named and his German school.
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The "moon" line begins with Pururavas (see the
genealogical tree
prepared by Colonel Tod from the MS. Puranas in the Oodeypore
archives),
that is to say, two thousand two hundred years before Christ, and
much
later than Ikshvaku, the patriarch of the Suryavansa. The fourth
son of
Pururavas, Rech, stands at the head of the line of the moon-race,
and
only in the fifteenth generation after him appears Harita, who
founded
the Kanshikagotra, the Brahman tribe.
The Rajputs hate the latter. They say the children of the sun and
Rama
have nothing in common with the children of the moon and Krishna. As
for the Bengalis, according to their traditions and history, they
are
aborigines. The Madrasis and the Sinhalese are Dravidians. They
have, in
turn, been said to belong to the Semites, the Hamites, the Aryans,
and,
lastly, they have been given up to the will of God, with the
conclusion
drawn that the Sinhalese, at all events, must be Mongolians of
Turanian
origin. The Mahrattis are aborigines of the West of India, as the
Bengalis are of, the East; but to what group of tribes belong these
two
nationalities no ethnographer can define, save perhaps a German.
The
traditions of the people themselves are generally denied, because
they
are not in harmony with foregone conclusions. The meaning of
ancient
manuscripts is disfigured, and, in fact, sacrificed to fiction, if
only
the latter proceeds from the mouth of some favorite oracle.
The ignorant masses are often blamed and found to be guilty of
superstition for creating idols in the spiritual world. Is not,
then, the educated man, the man who craves after knowledge, who is
enlightened, still more inconsistent than these masses, when he
deals
with his favorite authorities? Are not half a dozen laurel-crowned
heads
allowed by him to do whatever they like with facts, to draw their
own
conclusions, according to their own liking, and does he not stone
every one who would dare to rise against the decisions of these
quasi-infallible specialists, and brand him as an ignorant fool?
Let us remember the case in point of Louis Jacolliot, who spent
twenty
years in India, who actually knew the language and the country to
perfection, and who, nevertheless, was rolled in the mud by Max
Muller,
whose foot never touched Indian soil.
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The oldest peoples of Europe are mere babes com-pared with the
tribes
of Asia, and especially of India. And oh! how poor and
insignificant are
the genealogies of the oldest European families compared with those
of
some Rajputs. In the opinion of Colonel Tod, who for over twenty
years
studied these genealogies on the spot, they are the completest and
most
trustworthy of the records of the peoples of antiquity. They date
from
1,000 to 2,200 years B.C., and their authenticity may often be
proved
by reference to Greek authors. After long and careful research and
comparison with the text of the Puranas, and various monumental
inscriptions, Colonel Tod came to the conclusion that in the
Oodeypore
archives (now hidden from public inspection), not to mention other
sources, may be found a clue to the history of India in particular,
and
to universal ancient history in general. Colonel Tod advises the
earnest
seeker after this clue not to think, with some flippant
archaeologists
who are insufficiently acquainted with India, that the stories of
Rama, the Mahabharata, Krishna, and the five brothers Pandu, are
mere
allegories. He affirms that he who seriously considers these
legends
will very soon become thoroughly convinced that all these so-called
"fables" are founded on historical facts, by the actual
existence of
the descendants of the heroes, by tribes, ancient towns, and coins
still
extant; that to acquire the right to pronounce a final opinion one
must
read first the inscriptions on the Inda-Prestha pillars of Purag
and
Mevar, on the rocks of Junagur, in Bijoli, on Aravuli and on all
the
ancient Jaina temples scattered throughout India, where are to be
found
numerous inscriptions in a language utterly unknown, in comparison
with
which the hieroglyphs will seem a mere toy.
Yet, nevertheless, Professor Max Muller, who, as already mentioned,
was
never in India, sits as a judge and corrects chronological tables
as is
his wont, and Europe, taking his words for those of an oracle,
endorses
his decisions. Et c'est ainsi que s'ecrit l'histoire.
Talking of the venerable German Sanskritist's chronology, I cannot
resist the desire to show, be it only to Russia, on what a fragile
basis are founded his scientific discussions, and how little he is
to
be trusted when he pronounces upon the antiquity of this or that
manuscript. These pages are of a superficial and descriptive
nature,
and, as such, make no pretense to profound learning, so that what
follows may seem incongruous. But it must be remembered that in
Russia,
as elsewhere in Europe, people estimate the value of this
philological
light by the points of exclamation lavished upon him by his
admiring
followers, and that no one reads the Veda Bhashaya of Swami
Dayanand.
It may even be that I shall not be far from the truth in saying
that the
very existence of this work is ignored, which may perhaps be a
fortunate
fact for the reputation of Professor Max Muller. I shall be as
brief as
possible. When Professor Max Muller states, in his Sahitya-Grantha,
that
the Aryan tribe in India acquired the notion of God step by step
and
very slowly, he evidently wishes to prove that the Vedas are far
from
being as old as is supposed by some of his colleagues. Having
presented,
in due course, some more or less valuable evidence to prove the
truth
of this new theory, he ends with a fact which, in his opinion, is
indisputable. He points to the word hiranya-garbha in the mantrams,
which he translates by the word "gold," and adds that, as
the part
of the Vedas called chanda appeared 3,100 years ago, the part
called
mantrams could not have been written earlier than 2,900 years ago.
Let me remind the reader that the Vedas are divided into two parts:
chandas--slokas, verses, etc.; and mantrams--prayers and rhythmical
hymns, which are, at the same time, incantations used in white
magic.
Professor Max Muller divides the mantram ("Agnihi
Poorwebhihi,"
etc.) philologically and chronologically, and, finding in it the
word
hiranya-garbha, he denounces it as an anachronism. The ancients, he
says, had no knowledge of gold, and, therefore, if gold is
mentioned in
this mantram it means that the mantram was composed at a
comparatively
modern epoch, and so on.
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But here the illustrious Sanskritist is very much mistaken. Swami
Dayanand and other pandits, who sometimes are far from being
Dayanand's
allies, maintain that Professor Max Muller has completely
misunderstood
the meaning of the term hiranya. Originally it did not mean, and,
when
united to the word garbha, even now does not mean, gold. So all the
Professor's brilliant demonstrations are labor in vain. The word
hiranya
in this mantram must be translated "divine
light"--mystically a symbol
of knowledge; analogically the alchemists used the term
"sublimated
gold" for "light," and hoped to compose the
objective metal out of its
rays. The two words, hiranya-garbha, taken together, mean,
literally,
the "radiant bosom," and, when used in the Vedas,
designate the first
principle, in whose bosom, like gold in the bosom of the earth,
rests
the light of divine knowledge and truth, the essence of the soul
liberated from the sins of the world. In the mantrams, as in the
chandas, one must always look for a double meaning: (1) a
metaphysical
one, purely abstract, and (2) one as purely physical; for everything
existing upon the earth is closely bound to the spiritual world,
from
which it proceeds and by which it is reabsorbed. For instance
Indra, the
god of thunder, Surya, the sun-god, Vayu, god of the wind, and
Agni,
god of fire, all four depending on this first divine principle,
expand,
according to the mantram from hiranya-garbha, the radiant bosom. In
this
case the gods are the personifications of the forces of Nature. But
the
initiated Adepts of India understand very clearly that the god
Indra,
for instance, is nothing more than a mere sound, born of the shock
of
electrical forces, or simply electricity itself. Surya is not the
god of
the sun, but simply the centre of fire in our system, the essence
whence
come fire, warmth, light, and so on; the very thing, namely, which
no European scientist, steering an even course between Tyndall and
Schropfer, has, as yet, defined. This concealed meaning has totally
escaped Professor Max Muller's attention, and this is why, clinging
to
the dead letter, he never hesitates before cutting a Gordian knot.
How
then can he be permitted to pronounce upon the antiquity of the
Vedas,
when he is so far from the right understanding of the language of
these
ancient writings.
The above is a resume of Dayanand's argument, and to him the
Sanskritists must apply for further particulars, which they will
certainly find in his Rigvedadi Bhashya Bhoomika.
In the cave, every one slept soundly round the fire except myself.
None of my companions seemed to mind in the least either the hum of
the thousand voices of the fair, or the prolonged, far-away roar of
the
tigers rising from the valley, or even the loud prayers of the
pilgrims
who passed to and fro all night long, never fearing to cross the steep
passage which, even by daylight, caused us such perplexity. They
came
in parties of twos and threes, and sometimes there appeared a
lonely
unescorted woman. They could not reach the large vihara, because we
occupied the verandah at its entrance, and so, after grumbling a
little,
they entered a small lateral cave something like a chapel,
containing
a statue of Devaki-Mata, above a tank full of water. Each pilgrim
prostrated himself for a time, then placed his offering at the feet
of
the goddess and bathed in the "holy waters of
purification," or, at
the least, sprinkled some water over his forehead, cheeks, and
breast.
Lastly, retreating backwards, he knelt again at the door and
disappeared
in the darkness with a final invocation: "Mata, maha
mata!"--Mother, O
great mother!
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Two of Gulab-Sing's servants, with traditional spears and shields
of
rhinoceros skin, who had been ordered to protect us from wild
beasts,
sat on the steps of the verandah. I was unable to sleep, and so
watched
with increasing curiosity everything that was going on. The Takur,
too,
was sleepless. Every time I raised my eyes, heavy with fatigue, the
first object upon which they fell was the gigantic figure of our
mysterious friend.
Having seated himself after the Eastern fashion, with his feet
drawn up
and his arms round his knees, the Rajput sat on a bench cut in the
rock
at one end of the verandah, gazing out into the silvery atmosphere.
He
was so near the abyss that the least incautious movement would
expose
him to great danger. But the granite goddess, Bhavani herself,
could not
be more immovable. The light of the moon before him was so strong
that the black shadow under the rock which sheltered him was doubly
impenetrable, shrouding his face in absolute darkness. From time to
time
the flame of the sinking fires leaping up shed its hot reflection
on the
dark bronze face, enabling me to distinguish its sphinx-like
lineaments
and its shining eyes, as unmoving as the rest of the features.
"What am I to think? Is he simply sleeping, or is he in that
strange
state, that temporary annihilation of bodily life?... Only this
morning he was telling us how the initiate Raj-yogis were able to
plunge
into this state at will... Oh, if I could only go to sleep....."
Suddenly a loud prolonged hissing, quite close to my ear, made me
start, trembling with indistinct reminiscences of cobras. The sound
was
strident and evidently came from under the hay upon which I rested.
Then it struck one! two! It was our American alarum-clock, which
always
traveled with me. I could not help laughing at myself, and, at the
same
time, feeling a little ashamed of my involuntary fright.
But neither the hissing, nor the loud striking of the clock, nor my
sudden movement, that made Miss X---- raise her sleepy head,
awakened
Gulab-Sing, who still hung over the precipice. Another half hour
passed.
The far-away roar of the festivity was still heard, but everything
round
me was calm and still. Sleep fled further and further from my eyes.
A
fresh, strong wind arose, before the dawn, rustling the leaves and
then
shaking the tops of the trees that rose above the abyss. My
attention
became absorbed by the group of three Rajputs before me--by the two
shield bearers and their master. I cannot tell why I was specially
attracted at this moment by the sight of the long hair of the
servants,
which was waving in the wind, though the place they occupied was
comparatively sheltered. I turned my eyes upon their Sahib, and the
blood in my veins stood still. The veil of somebody's topi, which
hung
beside him, tied to a pillar, was simply whirling in the wind,
while the
hair of the Sahib himself lay as still as if it had been glued to
his
shoulders, not a hair moved, nor a single fold of his light muslin
garment. No statue could be more motionless. What is this then? I
said
to myself. Is it delirium? Is this a hallucination, or a wonderful
inexplicable reality? I shut my eyes, telling myself I must look no
longer. But a moment later I again looked up, startled by a
crackling
sound from above the steps. The long, dark silhouette of some
animal
appeared at the entrance, clearly outlined against the pale sky. I
saw
it in profile. Its long tail was lashing to and fro. Both the
servants
rose swiftly and noiselessly and turned their heads towards
Gulab-Sing,
as if asking for orders. But where was Gulab-Sing? In the place
which,
but a moment ago, he occupied, there was no one. There lay only the
topi, torn from the pillar by the wind. I sprang up: a tremendous
roar
deafened me, filling the vihara, wakening the slumbering echoes,
and
resounding, like the softened rumbling of thunder, over all the
borders
of the precipice. Good heavens! A tiger!
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Before this thought had time to shape itself clearly in my mind,
the
sleepers sprang up and the men all seized their guns and revolvers,
and
then we heard the sound of crashing branches, and of something
heavy
sliding down into the precipice. The alarm was general.
"What is the matter now?" said the calm voice of
Gulab-Sing, and I again
saw him on the stone bench. "Why should you be so
frightened?"
"A tiger! Was it not a tiger?" came in hasty, questioning
tones from
Europeans and Hindus.
Miss X---- trembled like one stricken with fever. "Whether it
was a
tiger, or something else, matters very little to us now. Whatever
it
was, it is, by this time, at the bottom of the abyss,"
answered the
Rajput yawning.
"I wonder the Government does not destroy all these horrid
animals,"
sobbed poor Miss X----, who evidently believed firmly in the
omnipotence
of her Executive.
"But how did you get rid of the 'striped one'?" insisted
the colonel.
"Has anyone fired a shot?"
"You Europeans think that shooting is, if not the only, at
least the
best way to get rid of wild animals. We possess other means, which
are
sometimes more efficacious than guns," explained Babu
Narendro-Das Sen.
"Wait until you come to Bengal, there you will have many
opportunities
to make acquaintance with the tigers."
It was now getting light, and Gulab-Sing proposed to us to descend
and
examine the rest of the caves and the ruins of a fortress before
the day
became too hot, so, at half-past three, we went by another and
easier
way to the valley, and, happily, this time we had no adventures.
The
Mahratti did not accompany us. He disappeared without informing us
whither he was going.
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We saw Logarh, a fortress which was captured by Sivaji from the
Moguls
in 1670, and the ruins of the hall, where the widow of Nana
Farnavese,
under the pretext of an English protectorate, became de facto the
captive of General Wellesley in 1804, with a yearly pension of
12,000
rupees. We then started for the village of Vargaon, once fortified
and
still very rich. We were to spend the hottest hours of the day
there,
from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, and proceed
afterwards to the historical caves of Birsa and Badjah, about three
miles from Karli.
At about two P.M. when, in spite of the huge punkahs waving to and
fro,
we were grumbling at the heat, appeared our friend the Mahratta
Brahman,
whom we thought we had lost on the way. Accompanied by half-a-dozen
Daknis (inhabitants of the Dekhan plateau) he was slowly advancing,
seated almost on the ears of his horse, which snorted and seemed
very
unwilling to move. When he reached the verandah and jumped down, we
saw the reason of his disappearance. Across the saddle was tied a
huge
tiger, whose tail dragged in the dust. There were traces of dark
blood
in his half opened mouth. He was taken from the horse and laid down
by
the doorstep.
Was it our visitor of the night before? I looked at Gulab-Sing. He
lay on a rug in a corner, resting his head on his hand and reading.
He
knitted his brows slightly, but did not say a word. The Brahman who
had just brought the tiger was very silent too, watching over
certain
preparations, as if making ready for some solemnity. We soon
learned
that, in the eyes of a superstitious people, what was about to
happen
was a solemnity indeed.
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A bit of hair cut from the skin of a tiger that has been killed,
neither
by bullet, nor by knife, but by a "word," is considered
the best of all
talismans against his tribe.
"This is a very rare opportunity," explained the
Mahratti. "It is very
seldom that one meets with a man who possesses the word. Yogis and
Sadhus do not generally kill wild animals, thinking it sinful to
destroy
any living creature, be it even a cobra or a tiger, so they simply
keep
out of the way of noxious animals. There exists only one brotherhood
in
India whose members possess all secrets, and from whom nothing in
nature
is concealed. Here is the body of the tiger to testify that the
animal
was not killed with a weapon of any kind, but simply by the word of
Gulab-Lal-Sing. I found it, very easily, in the bushes exactly
under our
vihara, at the foot of the rock over which the tiger had rolled,
already
dead. Tigers never make false steps. Gulab-Lal-Sing, you are a
Raj-Yogi,
and I salute you!" added the proud Brahman, kneeling before
the Takur.
"Do not use vain words, Krishna Rao!" interrupted
Gulab-Sing. "Get up;
do not play the part of a Shudra."
"I obey you, Sahib, but, forgive me, I trust my own judgment.
No
Raj-Yogi ever yet acknowledged his connection with the brotherhood,
since the time Mount Abu came into existence."
And he began distributing bits of hair taken from the dead animal.
No
one spoke, I gazed curiously at the group of my fellow-travelers.
The
colonel, President of our Society, sat with downcast eyes, very
pale.
His secretary, Mr. Y----, lay on his back, smoking a cigar and
looking
straight above him, with no expression in his eyes. He silently
accepted
the hair and put it in his purse. The Hindus stood round the tiger,
and the Sinhalese traced mysterious signs on its forehead.
Gulab-Sing
continued quietly reading his book.----
The Birza cave, about six miles from Vargaon, is constructed on the
same plan as Karli. The vault-like ceiling of the temple rests upon
twenty-six pillars, eighteen feet high, and the portico on four,
twenty-eight feet high; over the portico are carved groups of
horses,
oxen, and elephants, of the most exquisite beauty. The "Hall
of
Initiation" is a spacious, oval room, with pillars, and eleven
very deep
cells cut in the rock. The Bajah caves are older and more
beautiful.
Inscriptions may still be seen showing that all these temples were
built
by Buddhists, or, rather, by Jainas. Modern Buddhists believe in
one
Buddha only, Gautama, Prince of Kapilavastu (six centuries before
Christ) whereas the Jainas recognize a Buddha in each of their
twenty-four divine teachers (Tirthankaras) the last of whom was the
Guru
(teacher) of Gautama. This disagreement is very embarrassing when
people
try to conjecture the antiquity of this or that vihara or chaitya.
The
origin of the Jaina sect is lost in the remotest, unfathomed
antiquity,
so the name of Buddha, mentioned in the inscriptions, may be
attributed
to the last of the Buddhas as easily as to the first, who lived
(see
Tod's genealogy) a long time before 2,200 B.C.
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One of the inscriptions in the Baira cave, for instance, in
cuneiform
characters, says: "From an ascetic in Nassik to the one who is
worthy,
to the holy Buddha, purified from sins, heavenly and great."
This tends to convince scientists that the cave was cut out by
Buddhists.
Another inscription, in the same cave, but over an-other cell,
contains
the following: "An agreeable offering of a small gift to the
moving
force [life], to the mind principle [soul], the well-beloved
material
body, fruit of Manu, priceless treasure, to the highest and here
present, Heavenly."
Of course the conclusion is drawn that the building does not belong
to
the Buddhists, but to the Brahmans, who believe in Manu.
Here are two more inscriptions from Bajah caves.
"An agreeable gift of the symbol and vehicle of the purified
Saka-Saka."
"Gift of the vehicle of Radha [wife of Krishna, symbol of
perfection] to
Sugata who is gone for ever."
Sugata, again, is one of the names of Buddha. A new contradiction!
It was somewhere here, in the neighborhood of Vargaon, that the
Mahrattis seized Captain Vaughan and his brother, who were hanged
after
the battle of Khirki.
Next morning we drove to Chinchor, or, as it is called here,
Chinchood.
This place is celebrated in the annals of the Dekkan. Here one
meets
with a repetition in miniature of what takes place on a larger
scale
at L'hassa in Tibet. As Buddha incarnates in every new Dalai-Lama,
so,
here, Gunpati (Ganesha, the god of wisdom with the elephant's head)
is
allowed by his father Shiva to incarnate in the eldest son of a
certain
Brahman family. There is a splendid temple erected in his honor,
where
the avatars (incarnations) of Gunpati have lived and received
adoration
for over two hundred years.
This is how it happened.
About 250 years ago a poor Brahman couple were promised, in sleep,
by
the god of wisdom that he would incarnate in their eldest son. The
boy
was named Maroba (one of the god's titles) in honor of the deity.
Maroba
grew up, married, and begot several sons, after which he was
commanded
by the god to relinquish the world and finish his days in the
desert.
There, during twenty-two years, according to the legend, Maroba
wrought
miracles and his fame grew day by day. He lived in an impenetrable
jungle, in a corner of the thick forest that covered Chinchood in
those
days. Gunpati appeared to him once more, and promised to incarnate
in
his descendants for seven generations. After this there was no
limit
to his miracles, so that the people began to worship him, and ended
by
building a splendid temple for him.
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At last Maroba gave orders to the people to bury him alive, in a
sitting
posture, with an open book in his hands, and never to open his
grave
again under penalty of his wrath and maledictions. After the burial
of Maroba, Gunpati incarnated in his first-born, who began a
conjuring
career in his turn. So that Maroba-Deo I, was replaced by
Chintaman-Deo
I. This latter god had eight wives and eight sons. The tricks of
the
eldest of these sons, Narayan-Deo I, became so celebrated that his
fame
reached the ears of the Emperor Alamgir. In order to test the
extent of
his "deification," Alamgir sent him a piece of a cow's
tail wrapped in
rich stuffs and coverings. Now, to touch the tail of a dead cow is
the
worst of all degradations for a Hindu. On receiving it Narayan
sprinkled
the parcel with water, and, when the stuffs were unfolded, there
was
found enclosed in them a nosegay of white syringa, instead of the
ungodly tail. This transformation rejoiced the Emperor so much that
he
presented the god with eight villages, to cover his private
expenses.
Narayan's social position and property were inherited by
Chintaman-Deo
II., whose heir was Dharmadhar, and, lastly, Narayan II came into
power. He drew down the malediction of Gunpati by violating the
grave
of Maroba. That is why his son, the last of the gods, is to die
without
issue.
When we saw him he was an aged man, about ninety years old. He was
seated on a kind of platform. His head shook and his eyes
idiotically
stared without seeing us, the result of his constant use of opium.
On
his neck, ears, and toes, shone precious stones, and all around
were
spread offerings. We had to take off our shoes before we were
allowed to
approach this half-ruined relic.----
On the evening of the same day we returned to Bombay. Two days
later we
were to start on our long journey to the North-West Provinces, and
our
route promised to be very attractive. We were to see Nassik, one of
the
few towns mentioned by Greek historians, its caves, and the tower
of
Rama; to visit Allahabad, the ancient Prayaga, the metropolis of
the
moon dynasty, built at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna;
Benares,
the town of five thousand temples and as many monkeys; Cawnpur,
notorious for the bloody revenge of Nana Sahib; the remains of the
city
of the sun, destroyed, according to the computations of Colebrooke,
six
thousand years ago; Agra and Delhi; and then, having explored
Rajistan
with its thousand Takur castles, fortresses, ruins, and legends, we
were
to go to Lahore, the metropolis of the Punjab, and, lastly, to stay
for
a while in Amritsar. There, in the Golden Temple, built in the
centre
of the "Lake of Immortality," was to be held the first
meeting of the
members of our Society, Brahmans, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc.--in a
word,
the representatives of the one thousand and one sects of India, who
all
sympathized, more or less, with the idea of the Brotherhood of
Humanity
of our Theosophical Society.
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Vanished Glories
Benares, Prayaga (now Allahabad), Nassik, Hurdwar, Bhadrinath,
Matura--these were the sacred places of prehistoric India which we
were
to visit one after the other; but to visit them, not after the
usual
manner of tourists, a vol d'oiseau, with a cheap guide-book in our
hands
and a cicerone to weary our brains, and wear out our legs. We were
well
aware that all these ancient places are thronged with traditions
and
overgrown with the weeds of popular fancy, like ruins of ancient
castles
covered with ivy; that the original shape of the building is
destroyed
by the cold embrace of these parasitic plants, and that it is as
difficult for the archaeologist to form an idea of the architecture
of the once perfect edifice, judging only by the heaps of
disfigured
rubbish that cover the country, as for us to select from out the
thick
mass of legends good wheat from weeds. No guides and no cicerone
could
be of any use whatever to us. The only thing they could do would be
to
point out to us places where once there stood a fortress, a castle,
a
temple, a sacred grove, or a celebrated town, and then to repeat
legends
which came into existence only lately, under the Mussulman rule. As
to
the undisguised truth, the original history of every interesting
spot,
we should have had to search for these by ourselves, assisted only
by
our own conjectures.
Modern India does not present a pale shadow of what it was in the
pre-Christian era, nor even of the Hindostan of the days of Akbar,
Shah-Jehan and Aurungzeb. The neighborhood of every town that has
been
shattered by many a war, and of every ruined hamlet, is covered
with
round reddish pebbles, as if with so many petrified tears of blood.
But,
in order to approach the iron gate of some ancient fortress, it is
not
over natural pebbles that it is necessary to walk, but over the
broken
fragments of some older granite remains, under which, very often,
rest
the ruins of a third town, still more ancient than the last. Modern
names have been given to them by Mussulmans, who generally built
their
towns upon the remains of those they had just taken by assault. The
names of the latter are sometimes mentioned in the legends, but the
names of their predecessors had completely disappeared from the
popular
memory even before the Mussulman invasion. Will a time ever come
for these secrets of the centuries to be revealed? Knowing all this
beforehand, we resolved not to lose patience, even though we had to
devote whole years to explorations of the same places, in order to
obtain better historical information, and facts less disfigured
than
those obtained by our predecessors, who had to be contented with a
choice collection of naive lies, poured forth from the mouth of
some
frightened semi-savage, or some Brahman, unwilling to speak and desirous
of disguising the truth. As for ourselves, we were differently
situated.
We were helped by a whole society of educated Hindus, who were as
deeply
interested in the same questions as ourselves. Besides, we had a
promise
of the revelation of some secrets, and the accurate translation of
some
ancient chronicles, that had been preserved as if by a miracle.
The history of India has long since faded from the memories of her
sons,
and is still a mystery to her conquerors. Doubtless it still
exists,
though, perchance, only partly, in manuscripts that are jealously
concealed from every European eye. This has been shown by some
pregnant words, spoken by Brahmans on their rare occasions of
friendly
expansiveness. Thus, Colonel Tod, whom I have already quoted
several
times, is said to have been told by a Mahant, the chief of an
ancient
pagoda-monastery: "Sahib, you lose your time in vain
researches. The
Bellati India [India of foreigners] is before you, but you will
never see the Gupta India [secret India]. We are the guardians of
her
mysteries, and would rather cut out each other's tongues than
speak."
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Yet, nevertheless, Tod succeeded in learning a good deal. It must
be
borne in mind that no Englishman has ever been loved so well by the
natives as this old and courageous friend of the Maharana of
Oodeypur,
who, in his turn, was so friendly towards the natives that the
humblest
of them never saw a trace of contempt in his demeanour. He wrote
before
ethnology had reached its present stage of development, but his
book
is still an authority on everything concerning Rajistan. Though the
author's opinion of his work was not very high, though he stated
that
"it is nothing but a conscientious collection of materials for
a future
historian," still in this book is to be found many a thing
undreamed of
by any British civil servant.
"Let our friends smile incredulously. Let our enemies laugh at
our
pretensions to penetrate the world-mysteries of Aryavarta," as
a certain
critic recently expressed himself. However pessimistic may be our
critics' views, yet, even in the event of our conclusions not
proving
more trustworthy than those of Fergusson, Wilson, Wheeler, and the
rest
of the archeologists and Sanskritists who have written about India,
still, I hope, they will not be less susceptible of proof. We are
daily
reminded that, like unreasonable children, we have undertaken a
task
before which archaeologists and historians, aided by all the
influence
and wealth of the Government, have shrunk dismayed; that we have
taken
upon ourselves a work which has proved to be beyond the capacities
of
the Royal Asiatic Society.
Let it be so.
Let everyone try to remember, as we ourselves remember, that not
very
long ago a poor Hungarian, who not only had no means of any kind
but was
almost a beggar, traveled on foot to Tibet through unknown and
dangerous
countries, led only by the love of learning and the eager wish to
pour light on the historical origin of his nation. The result was
that
inexhaustible mines of literary treasures were discovered.
Philology,
which till then had wandered in the Egyptian darkness of
etymological
labyrinths, and was about to ask the sanction of the scientific
world
to one of the wildest of theories, suddenly stumbled on the clue of
Ariadne. Philology discovered, at last, that the Sanskrit language
is,
if not the forefather, at least--to use the language of Max
Muller--"the
elder brother" of all classical languages. Thanks to the
extraordinary
zeal of Alexander Csoma de Koros, Tibet yielded a language the
literature of which was totally unknown. He partly translated it
and
partly analyzed and explained it. His translations have shown the
scientific world that (1) the originals of the Zend-Avesta, the
sacred
scriptures of the sun-worshippers, of Tripitaka, that of the
Buddhists,
and of Aytareya-Brahmanam, that of the Brahmans, were written in
one and
the same Sanskrit language; (2) that all these three
languages--Zend,
Nepalese, and the modern Brahman Sanskrit--are more or less
dialects of
the first; (3) that old Sanskrit is the origin of all the less
ancient
Indo-European languages, as well as of the modern European
tongues and dialects; (4) that the three chief religions of
heathendom--Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Brahmanism--are mere
heresies
of the monotheistic teachings of the Vedas, which does not prevent
them
from being real ancient religions and not modern falsifications.
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The moral of all this is evident. A poor traveler, without either
money
or protection, succeeded in gaining admittance to the Lamaseries of
Tibet and to the sacred literature of the isolated tribe which
inhabits
it, probably because he treated the Mongolians and the Tibetans as
his brothers and not as an inferior race--a feat which has never
been
accomplished by generations of scientists. One cannot help feeling
ashamed of humanity and science when one thinks that he whose
labors
first gave to science such precious results, he who was the first
sower
of such an abundant harvest, remained, almost until the day of his
death, a poor and obscure worker. On his way from Tibet he walked
to
Calcutta without a penny in his pocket. At last Csoma de Koros
became
known, and his name began to be pronounced with honor and praise
whilst
he was dying in one of the poorest parts of Calcutta. Being already
very
ill, he wanted to get back to Tibet, and started on foot again
through
Sikkhim. He succumbed to his illness on the road and was buried in
Darhjeeling.
It is needless to say we are fully aware that what we have
undertaken is
simply impossible within the limits of ordinary newspaper articles.
All we hope to accomplish is to lay the foundation stone of an
edifice,
whose further progress must be entrusted to future generations. In
order
to combat successfully the theories worked out by two generations
of
Orientalists, half a century of diligent labor would be required.
And,
in order to replace these theories with new ones, we must get new
facts,
facts founded not on the chronology and false evidence of scheming
Brahmans, whose interest is to feed the ignorance of European
Sanskritists (as, unfortunately, was the experience of Lieutenant
Wilford and Louis Jacolliot), but on indubitable proofs that are to
be found in inscriptions as yet undeciphered. The clue to these
inscriptions Europeans do not possess, because, as I have already
stated, it is guarded in MSS. which are as old as the inscriptions
and
which are almost out of reach. Even in case our hopes are realized
and
we obtain this clue, a new difficulty will arise before us. We
shall
have to begin a systematic refutation, page by page, of many a
volume
of hypotheses published by the Royal Asiatic Society. A work like
this might be accomplished by dozens of tireless, never-resting
Sanskritists--a class which, even in India, is almost as rare as
white
elephants.
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Thanks to private contributions and the zeal of some educated Hindu
patriots, two free classes of Sanskrit and Pali had already been
opened--one in Bombay by the Theosophical Society, the other in
Benares
under the presidency of the learned Rama-Misra-Shastri. In the
present
year, 1882, the Theosophical Society has, altogether, fourteen
schools
in Ceylon and India.
Our heads full of thoughts and plans of this kind, we, that is to
say,
one American, three Europeans, and three natives, occupied a whole
carriage of the Great Indian Peninsular Railroad on our way to
Nassik,
one of the oldest towns in India, as I have already mentioned, and
the most sacred of all in the eyes of the inhabitants of the
Western
Presidency. Nassik borrowed its name from the Sanskrit word
"Nasika,"
which means nose. An epic legend assures us that on this very spot
Lakshman, the eldest brother of the deified King Rama, cut off the
nose
of the giantess Sarpnaka, sister of Ravana, who stole Sita, the
"Helen
of Troy" of the Hindus.
The train stops six miles from the town, so that we had to finish
our
journey in six two-wheeled, gilded chariots, called ekkas, and
drawn by
bullocks. It was one o'clock A.M., but, in spite of the darkness of
the
hour, the horns of the animals were gilded and adorned with
flowers,
and brass bangles tinkled on their legs. Our waylay through ravines
overgrown with jungle, where, as our drivers hastened to inform
us, tigers and other four-footed misanthropes of the forest played
hide-and-seek. However, we had no opportunity of making the acquaintance
of the tigers, but enjoyed instead a concert of a whole community
of
jackals. They followed us step by step, piercing our ears with
shrieks,
wild laughter and barking. These animals are annoying, but so
cowardly
that, though numerous enough to devour, not only all of us, but our
gold-horned bullocks too, none of them dared to come nearer than
the
distance of a few steps. Every time the long whip, our weapon
against
snakes, alighted on the back of one of them, the whole horde
disappeared
with unimaginable noise. Nevertheless, the drivers did not dispense
with
a single one of their superstitious precautions against tigers.
They
chanted mantrams in unison, spread betel over the road as a token
of
their respect to the Rajas of the forest, and, after every couplet,
made the bullocks kneel and bow their heads in honor of the great
gods.
Needless to say, the ekka, as light as a nutshell, threatened each
time
to fall with its passenger over the horns of the bullocks. We had
to
endure this agreeable way of traveling for five hours under a very
dark
sky. We reached the Inn of the Pilgrims in the morning at about six
o'clock.
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The real cause of Nassik's sacredness, however, is not the
mutilated
trunk of the giantess, but the situation of the town on the banks
of
the Godavari, quite close to the sources of this river which, for
some
reason or other, are called by the natives Ganga (Ganges). It is to
this magic name, probably, that the town owes its numerous
magnificent
temples, and the selectness of the Brahmans who inhabit the banks
of
the river. Twice a year pilgrims flock here to pray, and on these
solemn
occasions the number of the visitors exceeds that of the
inhabitants,
which is only 35,000. Very picturesque, but equally dirty, are the
houses of the rich Brahmans built on both sides of the way from the
centre of the town to the Godavari. A whole forest of narrow
pyramidal
temples spreads on both sides of the river. All these new pagodas
are built on the ruins of those destroyed by the fanaticism of the
Mussulmans. A legend informs us that most of them rose from the
ashes
of the tail of the monkey god Hanuman. Retreating from Lanka, where
the wicked Ravana, having anointed the brave hero's tail with some
combustible stuff set it on fire, Hanuman, with a single leap
through
the air, reached Nassik, his fatherland. And here the noble
adornment
of the monkey's back, burned almost entirely during the voyage,
crumbled
into ashes, and from every sacred atom of these ashes, fallen to
the ground, there rose a temple.... And, indeed, when seen from
the mountain, these numberless pagodas, scattered in a most curious
disorderly way, look as if they had really been thrown down by
handfuls
from the sky. Not only the river banks and the surrounding country,
but
every little island, every rock peeping from the water is covered
with temples. And not one of them is destitute of a legend of its
own, different versions of which are told by every individual of
the
Brahmanical community according to his own taste--of course in the
hope
of a suitable reward.
Here, as everywhere else in India, Brahmans are divided into two
sects--worshippers of Shiva and worshippers of Vishnu--and between
the
two there is rivalry and warfare centuries old. Though the
neighborhood
of the Godavari shines with a twofold fame derived from its being
the
birthplace of Hanuman and the theatre of the first great deeds of
Rama,
the incarnation of Vishnu, it possesses as many temples dedicated
to
Shiva as to Vishnu. The material of which the pagodas consecrated
to
Shiva are constructed is black basalt. And it is, exactly, the
color
of the material which is the apple of discord in this case. The
black
material is claimed by the Vaishnavas as their own, it being of the
same color as the burned tail of Rama's ally. They try to prove
that
the Shivaites have no right to it. From the first days of their
rule
the English inherited endless lawsuits between the fighting
sectarians,
cases decided in one law-court only to be transferred on appeal to
another, and always having their origin in this ill-omened tail and
its
pretensions. This tail is a mysterious deus ex machina that directs
all
the thoughts of the Nassik Brahmans pro and contra.
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On the subject of this tail were written more reams of paper and
petitions than in the quarrel about the goose between Ivan Ivanitch
and
Ivan Nikiphoritch; and more ink and bile were spilt than there was
mud
in Mirgorod, since the creation of the universe. The pig that so
happily
decided the famous quarrel in Gogol would be a priceless blessing
to
Nassik, and the struggle for the tail. But unhappily even the
"pig" if
it hailed from "Russia" would be of no avail in India;
for the English
would suspect it at once, and arrest it as a Russian spy!
Rama's bathing place is shown in Nassik. The ashes of pious
Brahmans are
brought hither from distant parts to be thrown into the Godavari,
and so
to mingle for ever with the sacred waters of Ganges. In an ancient
MS.
there is a statement of one of Rama's generals, who, somehow or
other,
is not mentioned in the Ramayana. This statement points to the
river
Godavari as the frontier between the kingdoms of Rama, King of
Ayodya
(Oude), and of Ravana, King of Lanka (Ceylon). Legends and the poem
of
Ramayana state that this was the spot where Rama, while hunting,
saw a
beautiful antelope, and, intending to make a present to his beloved
Sita
of its skin, entered the regions of his unknown neighbor. No doubt
Rama,
Ravana, and even Hanuman, promoted, for some unexplained reason, to
the rank of a monkey, are historical personages who once had a real
existence. About fifty years ago it was vaguely suspected that the
Brahmans possessed priceless MSS. It was reported that one of these
MSS. treats of the prehistoric epoch when the Aryans first invaded
the
country, and began an endless war with the dark aborigines of
southern
India. But the religious fanaticism of the Hindus never allowed the
English Government to verify these reports.
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The most interesting sights of Nassik are its cave-temples, about
five
miles from the town. The day before we started thither, I certainly
did not dream that a "tail" would have to play an
important part in
our visit to Nassik, that, in this case, it would save me, if not
from
death, at least from disagreeable and perhaps dangerous bruises.
This is
how it happened.
As the difficult task of ascending a steep mountain lay before us,
we decided to hire elephants. The best couple in the town was
brought
before us. Their owner assured us "that the Prince of Wales
had ridden
upon them and was very contented." To go there and back and
have them in
attendance the whole day--in fact the whole pleasure-trip--was to
cost
us two rupees for each elephant. Our native friends, accustomed
from
infancy to this way of riding, were not long in getting on the back
of
their elephant. They covered him like flies, with no predilection
for
this or that spot of his vast back. They held on by all kinds of
strings
and ropes, more with their toes than their fingers, and, on the
whole,
presented a picture of contentment and comfort. We Europeans had to
use
the lady elephant, as being the tamer of the two. On her back there
were two little benches with sloping seats on both sides, and not
the
slightest prop for our backs. The wretched, undergrown youngsters
seen
in European circuses give no idea of the real size of this noble
beast.
The mahout, or driver, placed himself between the huge animal's
ears
whilst we gazed at the "perfected" seats ready for us
with an uneasy
feeling of distrust The mahout ordered his elephant to kneel, and
it
must be owned that in climbing on her back with the aid of a small
ladder, I felt what the French call chair de poule. Our
she-elephant
answered to the poetical name of "Chanchuli Peri," the
Active Fairy, and
really was the most obedient and the merriest of all the
representatives
of her tribe that I have ever seen. Clinging to each other we at
last
gave the signal for departure, and the mahout goaded the right ear
of
the animal with an iron rod. First the elephant raised herself on
her
fore-legs, which movement tilted us all back, then she heavily rose
on
her hind ones, too, and we rolled forwards, threatening to upset
the
mahout. But this was not the end of our misfortunes. At the very
first steps of Peri we slipped about in all directions, like
quivering
fragments of blancmange.
The journey came to a sudden pause. We were picked up in a hasty
way,
replaced on our respective seats, during which proceeding Peri's
trunk
proved very active, and the journey continued. The very thought of
the
five miles before us filled us with horror, but we would not give
up
the excursion, and indignantly refused to be tied to our seats, as
was
suggested by our Hindu companions, who could not suppress their
merry
laughter.... However, I bitterly repented this display of vanity.
This
unusual mode of locomotion was something incredibly fantastical,
and,
at the same time, ridiculous. A horse carrying our luggage trotted
by Peri's side, and looked, from our vast elevation, no bigger than
a
donkey. At every mighty step of Peri we had to be prepared for all
sorts
of unexpected acrobatic feats, while jolted from one side to the
other by her swinging gait. This experience, under the scorching
sun, unavoidably induced a state of body and mind something between
sea-sickness and a delirious nightmare. As a crown to our
pleasures,
when we began to ascend a tortuous little path over the stony slope
of
a deep ravine, our Peri stumbled. This sudden shock caused me to
lose my
balance altogether. I sat on the hinder part of the elephant's
back,
in the place of honor, as it is esteemed, and, once thoroughly
shaken,
rolled down like a log. No doubt, next moment I should have found
myself
at the bottom of the ravine, with some more or less sad loss to my
bodily constitution, if it had not been for the wonderful dexterity
and
instinct of the clever animal. Having felt that something was wrong
she
twisted her tail round me, stopped instantaneously and began to
kneel
down carefully. But my natural weight was too much for the thin
tail
of this kind animal. Peri did not lose hold of me, but, having at
last
knelt down, she moaned plaintively, though discreetly, thinking
probably
that she had nearly lost her tail through being so generous. The
mahout
hurried to my rescue and then examined the damaged tail of his
animal.
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We now witnessed a scene that clearly showed us the coarse cunning,
greediness and cowardice of a low-class Hindu, of an outcast, as
they
are denominated here.
The mahout very indifferently and composedly examined Peri's tail,
and
even pulled it several times to make sure, and was already on the
point
of hoisting himself quietly into his usual place, when I had the
unhappy
thought of muttering something that expressed my regret and
compassion.
My words worked a miraculous transformation in the mahout's
behavior. He
threw himself on the ground, and rolled about like a demoniac,
uttering
horrible wild groans. Sobbing and crying he kept on repeating that
the
Mam-Sahib had torn off his darling Peri's tail, that Peri was
damaged
for ever in everybody's estimation, that Peri's husband, the proud
Airavati, lineal descendant of Indra's own favourite elephant,
having
witnessed her shame, would renounce his spouse, and that she had
better
die.... Yells and bitter tears were his only answer to all
remonstrances
of our companions. In vain we tried to persuade him that the
"proud
Airavati" did not show the slightest disposition to be so
cruel, in vain
we pointed out to him that all this time both elephants stood
quietly
together, Airavati even at this critical moment rubbing his trunk
affectionately against Peri's neck, and Peri not looking in the
least
discomfited by the accident to her tail. All this was of no avail!
Our
friend Narayan lost his patience at last. He was a man of
extraordinary
muscular strength and took recourse to a last original means. With
one
hand he threw down a silver rupee, with the other he seized the
mahout's
muslin garment and hurled him after the coin. Without giving a
thought
to his bleeding nose, the mahout jumped at the rupee with the
greediness
of a wild beast springing upon its prey. He prostrated himself in
the
dust before us repeatedly, with endless "salaams," instantly
changing
his deep sorrow into mad joy. He gave another pull at the
unfortunate
tail and gladly declared that, thanks to the "prayers of the
sahib," it
really was safe; to demonstrate which he hung on to it, till he was
torn
away and put back on his seat.
"Is it possible that a single, miserable rupee can have been
the cause
of all this?" we asked each other in utter bewilderment.
"Your astonishment is natural enough," answered the
Hindus. "We need
not express how ashamed and how disgusted we all feel at this
voluntary
display of humiliation and greed. But do not forget that this
wretch,
who certainly has a wife and children, serves his employer for
twelve
rupees a year, instead of which he often gets nothing but a
beating.
Remember also the long centuries of tyrannical treatment from
Brahmans,
from fanatical Mussulmans, who regard a Hindu as nothing better
than an
unclean reptile, and, nowadays, from the average Englishman, and
maybe
you will pity this wretched caricature of humanity."
But the "caricature" in question evidently felt perfectly
happy and
not in the least conscious of a humiliation of any kind. Sitting on
the
roomy forehead of his Peri, he was telling her of his unexpected
wealth,
reminding her of her "divine" origin, and ordering her to
salute the
"sahibs" with her trunk. Peri, whose spirits had been
raised by the gift
of a whole stick of sugar-cane from me, lifted her trunk backwards
and
playfully blew into our faces.
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On the threshold of the Nassik caves we bid good-bye to the modern
pigmy India, to the petty things of her everyday life, and to her
humiliations. We re-entered the unknown world of India, the great
and
the mysterious.
The main caves of Nassik are excavated in a mountain bearing the
name
of Pandu-Lena, which points again to the undying, persistent,
primaeval
tradition that ascribes all such buildings to the five mythical (?)
brothers of prehistoric times. The unanimous opinion of
archaeologists
esteems these caves more interesting and more important than all
the
caves of Elephanta and Karli put together. And, nevertheless--is it
not
strange?--with the exception of the learned Dr. Wilson, who, it may
be,
was a little too fond of forming hasty opinions, no archaeologist
has,
as yet, made so bold as to decide to what epoch they belong, by
whom
they were erected, and which of the three chief religions of
antiquity
was the one professed by their mysterious builders.
It is evident, however, that those who wrought here did not all
belong
either to the same generation or to the same sect. The first thing
which
strikes the attention is the roughness of the primitive work, its
huge
dimensions, and the decline of the sculpture on the solid walls,
whereas
the sculpture and carvings of the six colossi which prop the chief
cave
on the second floor, are magnificently preserved and very elegant.
This circumstance would lead one to think that the work was begun
many centuries before it was finished. But when? One of the
Sanskrit
inscriptions of a comparatively recent epoch (on the pedestal of
one of
the colossi) clearly points to 453 B.C. as the year of the
building. At
all events, Barth, Stevenson, Gibson, Reeves, and some other
scientists,
who being Westerns can have none of the prejudices proper to the
native
Pundits, have formed this conjecture on the basis of some
astronomical
data. Besides, the conjunction of the planets stated in the
inscription
leaves no doubt as to the dates, it must be either 453 B.C., or
1734
of our era, or 2640 B.C., which last is impossible, because Buddha
and
Buddhist monasteries are mentioned in the inscription. I translate
some
of the most important sentences:
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"To the most Perfect and the Highest! May this be agreeable to
Him! The
son of King Kshaparata, Lord of the Kshatriya tribe and protector
of
people, the Ruler of Dinik, bright as the dawn, sacrifices a
hundred
thousand cows that graze on the river Banasa, together with the
river,
and also the gift of gold by the builder of this holy shelter of
gods,
the place of the curbing of the Brahmans' passions. There is no
more
desirable place than this place, neither in Prabhasa, where
accumulate
hundreds of thousands of Brahmans repeating the sacred verse, nor
in the
sacred city Gaya, nor on the steep mountain near Dashatura, nor on
the
Serpents' Field in Govardhana, nor in the city Pratisraya where
stands the monastery of Buddhists, nor even in the edifice erected
by
Depana-kara on the shores of the fresh water [?] sea. This place,
giving
incomparable favors, is agreeable and useful in all respects to the
spotted deerskin of an ascetic. A safe boat given also by him who
built
the gratuitous ferry daily transports to the well-guarded shore. By
him
also who built the house for travelers and the public fountain, a
gilded
lion was erected by the ever-assaulted gate of this Govardhana,
also
another [lion] by the ferry-boat, and another by Ramatirtha.
Various
kinds of food will always be found here by the scanty flock; for
this
flock more than a hundred kinds of herbs and thousands of mountain
roots are stored by this generous giver. In the same Govardhana, in
the
luminous mountain, this second cave was dug by the order of the
same
beneficent person, during the very year when the Sun, Shukra and
Rahu,
much respected by men, were in the full glory of their rise; it was
in
this year that the gifts were offered. Lakshmi, Indra and Yama
having
blessed them, returned with shouts of triumph to their chariot,
kept on
the way free from obstacles [the sky], by the force of mantrams.
When
they [the gods] all left, poured a heavy shower....." and so
on.
Rahn and Kehetti are the fixed stars which form the head and the
tail
of the constellation of the Dragon. Shukra is Venus. Lakshmi, Indra
and
Yama stand here for the constellations of Virgo, Aquarius and
Taurus,
which are subject and consecrated to these three among the twelve
higher
deities.
The first caves are dugout in a conical hillock about two hundred
and
eighty feet from its base. In the chief of them stand three statues
of
Buddha; in the lateral ones a lingam and two Jaina idols. In the
top
cave there is a statue of Dharma Raja, or Yudhshtira, the eldest of
the
Pandus, who is worshipped in a temple erected in his honor, between
Pent
and Nassik. Farther on is a whole labyrinth of cells, where
Buddhist
hermits probably lived, a huge statue of Buddha in a reclining
posture.
and another as big, but surrounded with pillars adorned with
figures of
various animals. Styles, epochs and sects are here as much mixed up
and
entangled as different trees in a thick forest.
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It is very remarkable that almost all the cave temples of India are
to
be found inside conical rocks and mountains. It is as though the
ancient
builders looked for such natural pyramids purposely. I noticed this
peculiarity in Karli, and it is to be met with only in India. Is it
a mere coincidence, or is it one of the rules of the religious
architecture of the remote past? And which are the imitators--the
builders of the Egyptian pyramids, or the unknown architects of the
under ground caves of India? In pyramids as well as in caves
everything
seems to be calculated with geometrical exactitude. In neither case
are
the entrances ever at the bottom, but always at a certain distance
from
the ground. It is well known that nature does not imitate art, and,
as
a rule, art tries to copy certain forms of nature. And if, even in
this
similarity of the symbols of Egypt and India, nothing is to be
found but
a coincidence, we shall have to own that coincidences are sometimes
very
extraordinary. Egypt has borrowed many things from India. We must
not
forget that nothing is known about the origin of the Pharaohs, and
that the few facts science has succeeded in discovering, far from
contradicting our theory, suggest India as the cradle of the
Egyptian
race. In the days of remote antiquity Kalluka-Bhatta wrote:
"During the
reign of Visvamitra, first king of the Soma-Vansha dynasty, after a
five
days battle, Manu-Vena, the heir of ancient kings, was abandoned by
the
Brahmans, and emigrated with his army, and, having traversed Arya
and
Barria, at last reached the shores of Masra....."
Arya is Iran or Persia; Barria is an ancient name of Arabia; Masr
or
Masra is a name of Cairo, disfigured by Mussulmans into Misro and
Musr.
Kalluka-Bhatta is an ancient writer. Sanskritists still quarrel
over his
epoch, wavering between 2,000 years B.C., and the reign of the
Emperor
Akbar (the time of John the Terrible and Elizabeth of England). On
the
grounds of this uncertainty, the evidence of Kalluka-Bhatta might
be
objected to. In this case, there are the words of a modern
historian,
who has studied Egypt all his life, not in Berlin or London, like
some
other historians, but in Egypt, deciphering the inscriptions of the
oldest sarcophagi and papyri, that is to say, the words of Henry
Brugsch-Bey:
"... I repeat, my firm conviction is that the Egyptians came
from Asia
long before the historical period, having traversed the Suez
promontory,
that bridge of all the nations, and found a new fatherland on the
banks
of the Nile."
An inscription on a Hammamat rock says that Sankara, the last
Pharaoh of
the eleventh dynasty, sent a nobleman to Punt: "I was sent on
a ship to
Punt, to bring back some aromatic gum, gathered by the princes of
the
Red Land."
Commenting on this inscription, Brugsch-Bey explains that
"under the
name of Punt the ancient inhabitants of Chemi meant a distant land
surrounded by a great ocean, full of mountains and valleys, and
rich
in ebony and other expensive woods, in perfumes, precious stones
and
metals, in wild beasts, giraffes, leopards and big monkeys."
The name of
a monkey in Egypt was Kaff, or Kafi, in Hebrew Koff, in Sanskrit
Kapi.
In the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, this Punt was a sacred land,
because Punt or Panuter was "the original land of the gods,
who left
it under the leadership of A-Mon [Manu-Vena of Kalluka-Bhatta?] Hor
and
Hator, and duly arrived in Chemi."
Hanuman has a decided family likeness to the Egyptian Cynocephalus,
and
the emblem of Osiris and Shiva is the same. Qui vivra verra!
Our return journey was very agreeable. We had adapted ourselves to
Peri's movements and felt ourselves first-rate jockeys. But for a
whole
week afterwards we could hardly walk.
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A City Of The Dead
What would be your choice if you had to choose between being blind
and
being deaf? Nine people out of ten answer this question by positively
preferring deafness to blindness. And one whose good fortune it has
been
to contemplate, even for a moment, some fantastic fairy-like corner
of
India, this country of lace-like marble palaces and enchanting
gardens,
would willingly add to deafness, lameness of both legs, rather than
lose
such sights.
We are told that Saadi, the great poet, bitterly complained of his
friends looking tired and indifferent while he praised the beauty
and
charm of his lady-love. "If the happiness of contemplating her
wonderful
beauty," remonstrated he, "was yours, as it is mine, you
could not
fail to understand my verses, which, alas, describe in such meagre
and
inadequate terms the rapturous feelings experienced by every one
who
sees her even from a distance!"
I fully sympathize with the enamoured poet, but cannot condemn his
friends who never saw his lady-love, and that is why I tremble lest
my
constant rhapsodies on India should bore my readers as much as
Saadi
bored his friends. But what, I pray you, is the poor narrator to
do,
when new, undreamed-of charms are daily discovered in the lady-love
in question? Her darkest aspects, abject and immoral as they are,
and
sometimes of such a nature as to excite your horror--even these
aspects
are full of some wild poetry, of originality, which cannot be met
with
in any other country. It is not unusual for a European novice to
shudder
with disgust at some features of local everyday life; but at the
same
time these very sights attract and fascinate the attention like a
horrible nightmare. We had plenty of these experiences whilst our
ecole
buissoniere lasted. We spent these days far from railways and from
any
other vestige of civilization. Happily so, because European
civilization
does not suit India any better than a fashionable bonnet would suit
a
half naked Peruvian maiden, a true "daughter of Sun," of
Cortes' time.
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All the day long we wandered across rivers and jungles, passing
villages
and ruins of ancient fortresses, over local-board roads between
Nassik
and Jubblepore, traveling with the aid of bullock cars, elephants,
horses, and very often being carried in palks. At nightfall we put
up
our tents and slept anywhere. These days offered us an opportunity
of seeing that man decidedly can surmount trying and even dangerous
conditions of climate, though, perhaps, in a passive way, by mere
force
of habit. In the afternoons, when we, white people, were very
nearly
fainting with the roasting heat, in spite of thick cork topis and
such
shelter as we could procure, and even our native companions had to
use
more than the usual supplies of muslin round their heads--the
Bengali
Babu traveled on horseback endless miles, under the vertical rays
of the
hot sun, bareheaded, protected only by his thick crop of hair. The
sun
has no influence whatever on Bengali skulls. They are covered only
on
solemn occasions, in cases of weddings and great festivities. Their
turbans are useless adornments, like flowers in a European lady's
hair.
Bengali Babus are born clerks; they invade all railroad stations,
post
and telegraph offices and Government law courts. Wrapped in their
white muslin toga virilis, their legs bare up to the knees, their
heads
unprotected, they proudly loaf on the platforms of railway
stations, or
at the entrances of their offices, casting contemptuous glances on
the
Mahrattis, who dearly love their numerous rings and lovely earrings
in
the upper part of their right ears. Bengalis, unlike the rest of
the
Hindus, do not paint sectarian signs on their foreheads. The only
trinket they do not completely despise is an expensive necklace;
but
even this is not common. Contrary to all expectations, the
Mahrattis,
with all their little effeminate ways, are the bravest tribe of
India,
gallant and experienced soldiers, a fact which has been demonstrated
by centuries of fighting; but Bengal has never as yet produced a
single
soldier out of its sixty-five million inhabitants. Not a single
Bengali
is to be found in the native regiments of the British army. This is
a
strange fact, which I refused to believe at first, but which has
been
confirmed by many English officers and by Bengalis themselves. But
with
all this, they are far from being cowardly. Their wealthy classes
do
lead a somewhat effeminate life, but their zemindars and peasantry
are
undoubtedly brave. Disarmed by their present Government, the
Bengali
peasants go out to meet the tiger, which in their country is more
ferocious than elsewhere, armed only with a club, as composedly as
they
used to go with rifles and swords.
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Many out-of-the-way paths and groves which most probably had never
before been trodden by a European foot, were visited by us during
these
short days. Gulab-Lal-Sing was absent, but we were accompanied by a
trusted servant of his, and the welcome we met with almost
everywhere
was certainly the result of the magic influence of his name. If the
wretched, naked peasants shrank from us and shut their doors at our
approach, the Brahmans were as obliging as could be desired.
The sights around Kandesh, on the way to Thalner and Mhau, are very
picturesque. But the effect is not entirely due to Nature's beauty.
Art
has a good deal to do with it, especially in Mussulman cemeteries.
Now
they are all more or less destroyed and deserted, owing to the
increase
of the Hindu inhabitants around them, and to the Mussulman princes,
once
the rightful lords of India, being expelled. Mussulmans of the
present
day are badly off and have to put up with more humiliations than
even
the Hindus. But still they have left many memorials behind them,
and,
amongst others, their cemeteries. The Mussulman fidelity to the
dead is
a very touching feature of their character. Their devotion to those
that are gone is always more demonstrative than their affection for
the living members of their families, and almost entirely
concentrates
itself on their last abodes. In proportion as their notions of
paradise
are coarse and material, the appearance of their cemeteries is
poetical,
especially in India. One may pleasantly spend whole hours in these
shady, delightful gardens, amongst their white monuments crowned
with
turbans, covered with roses and jessamine and sheltered with rows
of
cypresses. We often stopped in such places to sleep and dine. A
cemetery
near Thalner is especially attractive. Out of several mausoleums in
a
good state of preservation the most magnificent is the monument of
the
family of Kiladar, who was hanged on the city tower by the order of
General Hislop in 1818. Four other mausoleums attracted our
attention
and we learned that one of them is celebrated throughout India. It
is a
white marble octagon, covered from top to bottom with carving, the
like of which could not be found even in Pere La Chaise. A Persian
inscription on its base records that it cost one hundred thousand
rupees.
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By day, bathed in the hot rays of the sun, its tall minaret-like
outline
looks like a block of ice against the blue sky. By night, with the
aid
of the intense, phosphorescent moonlight proper to India, it is
still
more dazzling and poetical. The summit looks as if it were covered
with
freshly fallen snow-crystals. Raising its slender profile above the
dark
background of bushes, it suggests some pure midnight apparition,
soaring
over this silent abode of destruction and lamenting what will never
return. Side by side with these cemeteries rise the Hindu ghats,
generally by the river bank. There really is something grand in the
ritual of burning the dead. Witnessing this ceremony the spectator
is
struck with the deep philosophy underlying the fundamental idea of
this
custom. In the course of an hour nothing remains of the body but a
few handfuls of ashes. A professional Brahman, like a priest of
death,
scatters these ashes to the winds over a river. The ashes of what
once
lived and felt, loved and hated, rejoiced and wept, are thus given
back
again to the four elements: to Earth, which fed it during such a
long
time and out of which it grew and developed; to Fire, emblem of
purity,
that has just devoured the body in order that the spirit may be rid
of everything impure, and may freely gravitate to the new sphere of
posthumous existence, where every sin is a stumbling block on the
way to
"Moksha," or infinite bliss; to Air, which it inhaled and
through which
it lived, and to Water, which purified it physically and
spiritually,
and is now to receive its ashes into her pure bosom.
The adjective "pure" must be understood in the figurative
sense of the
mantram. Generally speaking, the rivers of India, beginning with
the
thrice sacred Ganges, are dreadfully dirty, especially near
villages and
towns.
In these rivers about two hundred millions of people daily cleanse
themselves from the tropical perspiration and dirt. The corpses of
those who are not worth burning are thrown in the same rivers, and
their
number is great, because it includes all Shudras, pariahs, and
various
other outcasts, as well as Brahman children under three years of
age.
Only rich and high-born people are buried pompously. It is for them
that
the sandal-wood fires are lit after sunset; it is for them that
mantrams
are chanted, and for them that the gods are invoked. But Shudras
must
not listen on any account to the divine words dictated at the
beginning
of the world by the four Rishis to Veda Vyasa, the great theologian
of
Aryavarta. No fires for them, no prayers. As during his life a
Shudra
never approaches a temple nearer than seven steps, so even after
death
he cannot be put on the same level with the "twice-born."
Brightly burn the fires, extending like a fiery serpent along the
river.
The dark outlines of strange, wildly-fantastical figures silently
move
amongst the flames. Sometimes they raise their arms towards the
sky, as
if in a prayer, sometimes they add fuel to the fires and poke them
with
long iron pitchforks. The dying flames rise high, creeping and
dancing,
sputtering with melted human fat and shooting towards the sky whole
showers of golden sparks, which are instantly lost in the clouds of
black smoke.
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in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
This on the right side of the river. Let us now see what is going
on
on the left. In the early hours of the morning, when the red fires,
the
black clouds of miasmas, and the thin figures of the fakirs grow
dim and
vanish little by little, when the smell of burned flesh is blown
away by
the fresh wind which rises at the approach of the dawn, when, in a
word,
the right side of the river with its ghotas plunges into stillness
and silence, to be reawakened when the evening comes, processions
of a
different kind appear on the left bank. We see groups of Hindu men
and
women in sad, silent trains. They approach the river quietly. They
do not cry, and have no rituals to perform. We see two men carrying
something long and thin, wrapped in an old red rug. Holding it by
the
head and feet they swing it into the dirty, yellowish waves of the
river. The shock is so violent that the red rug flies open and we
behold
the face of a young woman tinged with dark green, who quickly
disappears
in the river. Further on another group; an old man and two young
women.
One of them, a little girl of ten, small, thin, hardly fully
developed,
sobs bitterly. She is the mother of a stillborn child, whose body
is to
be thrown in the river. Her weak voice monotonously resounds over
the
shore, and her trembling hands are not strong enough to lift the
poor
little corpse that is more like a tiny brown kitten than a human
being.
The old man tries to console her, and, taking the body in his own hands,
enters the water and throws it right in the middle. After him both
the
women get into the river, and, having plunged seven times to purify
themselves from the touch of a dead body, they return home, their
clothes dripping with wet. In the meanwhile vultures, crows and
other
birds of prey gather in thick clouds and considerably retard the
progress of the bodies down the river. Occasionally some
half-stripped
skeleton is caught by the reeds, and stranded there helplessly for
weeks, until an outcast, whose sad duty it is to busy himself all
his
life long with such unclean work, takes notice of it, and catching
it
by the ribs with his long hook, restores it to its highway towards
the
ocean.
But let us leave the river bank, which is unbearably hot in spite
of
the early hour. Let us bid good-bye to the watery cemetery of the
poor.
Disgusting and heart-rending are such sights in the eyes of a
European!
And unconsciously we allow the light wings of reverie to transport
us
to the far North, to the peaceful village cemeteries where there
are no
marble monuments crowned with turbans, no sandal-wood fires, no
dirty
rivers to serve the purpose of a last resting place, but where
humble
wooden crosses stand in rows, sheltered by old birches. How
peacefully
our dead repose under the rich green grass! None of them ever saw
these
gigantic palms, sumptuous palaces and pagodas covered with gold.
But
on their poor graves grow violets and lilies of the valley, and in
the
spring evenings nightingales sing to them in the old birch-trees.
No nightingales ever sing for me, either in the neighboring groves,
or
in my own heart. The latter least of all.----
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society
in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
Let us stroll along this wall of reddish stone. It will lead us to
a
fortress once celebrated and drenched with blood, now harmless and
half
ruined, like many another Indian fortress. Flocks of green parrots,
startled by our approach, fly from under every cavity of the old
wall,
their wings shining in the sun like so many flying emeralds. This
territory is accursed by Englishmen. This is Chandvad, where,
during
the Sepoy mutiny, the Bhils streamed from their ambuscades like a
mighty
mountain torrent, and cut many an English throat.
Tatva, an ancient Hindu book, treating of the geography of the
times
of King Asoka (250-300 B.C.), teaches us that the Mahratti
territory
spreads up to the wall of Chandvad or Chandor, and that the Kandesh
country begins on the other side of the river. But English people
do
not believe in Tatva or in any other authority and want us to learn
that
Kandesh begins right at the foot of Chandor hillocks.----
Twelve miles south-east from Chandvad there is a whole town of
subterranean temples, known under the name of Enkay-Tenkay. Here,
again,
the entrance is a hundred feet from the base, and the hill is
pyramidal.
I must not attempt to give a full description of these temples, as
this
subject must be worked out in a way quite impossible in a newspaper
article. So I shall only note that here all the statues, idols, and
carvings are ascribed to Buddhist ascetics of the first centuries
after
the death of Buddha. I wish I could content myself with this
statement.
But, unfortunately, messieurs les archeologues meet here with an
unexpected difficulty, and a more serious one than all the
difficulties
brought on them by the inconsistencies of all other temples put
together.
In these temples there are more idols designated Buddhas than
anywhere
else. They cover the main entrance, sit in thick rows along the
balconies, occupy the inner walls of the cells, watch the entrances
of all the doors like monster giants, and two of them sit in the
chief
tank, where spring water washes them century after century without
any
harm to their granite bodies. Some of these Buddhas are decently
clad,
with pyramidal pagodas as their head gear; others are naked; some
sit,
others stand; some are real colossi, some tiny, some of middle
size.
However, all this would not matter; we may go so far as to overlook
the
fact of Gautama's or Siddhartha-Buddha's reform consisting
precisely in
his earnest desire to tear up by the roots the Brahmanical
idol-worship.
Though, of course, we cannot help remembering that his religion
remained
pure from idol-worship of any kind during centuries, until the
Lamas of
Tibet, the Chinese, the Burmese, and the Siamese taking it into
their
lands disfigured it, and spoilt it with heresies. We cannot forget
that,
persecuted by conquer-ing Brahmans, and expelled from India, it
found, at last, a shelter in Ceylon where it still flourishes like
the
legendary aloe, which is said to blossom once in its lifetime and
then
to die, as the root is killed by the exuberance of blossom, and the
seeds cannot produce anything but weeds. All this we may overlook,
as I
said before. But the difficulty of the archaeologists still exists,
if
not in the fact of idols being ascribed to early Buddhists, then in
the
physiognomies, in the type of all these Enkay-Tenkay Buddhas. They
all,
from the tiniest to the hugest, are Negroes, with flat noses, thick
lips, forty five degrees of the facial angle, and curly hair! There
is not the slightest likeness between these Negro faces and any of
the
Siamese or Tibetan Buddhas, which all have purely Mongolian
features
and perfectly straight hair. This unexpected African type, unheard
of in
India, upsets the antiquarians entirely. This is why the
archaeologists
avoid mentioning these caves. Enkay-Tenkay is a worse difficulty
for
them than even Nassik; they find it as hard to conquer as the
Persians
found Thermopylae.
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society
in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
We passed by Maleganva and Chikalval, where we examined an
exceedingly
curious ancient temple of the Jainas. No cement was used in the
building
of its outer walls, they consist entirely of square stones, which
are so
well wrought and so closely joined that the blade of the thinnest
knife
cannot be pushed between two of them; the interior of the temple is
richly decorated.
On our way back we did not stop in Thalner, but went straight on to
Ghara. There we had to hire elephants again to visit the splendid
ruins
of Mandu, once a strongly fortified town, about twenty miles due
north
east of this place. This time we got there speedily and safely. I
mention this place because some time later I witnessed in its
vicinity a
most curious sight, offered by the branch of the numerous Indian
rites,
which is generally called "devil worship."
Mandu is situated on the ridge of the Vindhya Mountains, about two
thousand feet above the surface of the sea. According to Malcolm's
statement, this town was built in A.D. 313, and for a long time was
the
capital of the Hindu Rajas of Dhara. The historian Ferishtah points
to
Mandu as the residence of Dilivan-Khan-Ghuri, the first King of
Malwa,
who flourished in 1387-1405. In 1526 the town was taken by
Bahadur-Shah,
King of Gujerat, but in 1570 Akbar won this town back, and a marble
slab
over the town gate still bears his name and the date of his visit.
On entering this vast city in its present state of solitude (the
natives
call it the "dead town") we all experienced a peculiar
feeling, not
unlike the sensation of a man who enters Pompeii for the first
time.
Everything shows that Mandu was once one of the wealthiest towns of
India. The town wall is thirty-seven miles long. Streets ran whole
miles, on their sides stand ruined palaces, and marble pillars lie
on
the ground. Black excavations of the subterranean halls, in the
coolness
of which rich ladies spent the hottest hours of the day, peer from
under
dilapidated granite walls. Further on are broken stairs, dry tanks,
waterless fountains, endless empty yards, marble platforms, and
disfigured arches of majestic porches. All this is overgrown with
creepers and shrubs, hiding the dens of wild beasts. Here and there
a
well-preserved wall of some palace rises high above the general
wreck,
its empty windows fringed with parasitic plants blinking and
staring at
us like sightless eyes, protesting against troublesome intruders.
And
still further, in the very centre of the ruins, the heart of the
dead
town sends forth a whole crop of broken cypresses, an untrimmed
grove
on the place where heaved once so many breasts and clamoured so
many
passions.
In 1570 this town was called Shadiabad, the abode of happiness. The
Franciscan missionaries, Adolf Aquaviva, Antario de Moncerotti, and
others, who came here in that very year as an embassy from Goa to
seek
various privileges from the Mogul Government, described it over and
over
again. At this epoch it was one of the greatest cities of the
world,
whose magnificent streets and luxurious ways used to astonish the
most
pompous courts of India. It seems almost incredible that in such a
short
period nothing should remain of this town but the heaps of rubbish,
amongst which we could hardly find room enough for our tent. At
last we
decided to pitch it in the only building which remained in a
tolerable
state of preservation, in Yami-Masjid, the cathedral-mosque, on a
granite platform about twenty-five steps higher than the square.
The
stairs, constructed of pure marble like the greater part of the
town
buildings, are broad and almost untouched by time, but the roof has
entirely disappeared, and so we were obliged to put up with the
stars
for a canopy. All round this building runs a low gallery supported
by
several rows of thick pillars. From a distance it reminds one, in
spite
of its being somewhat clumsy and lacking in proportion, of the
Acropolis
of Athens. From the stairs, where we rested for a while, there was
a
view of the mausoleum of Gushanga-Guri, King of Malwa, in whose
reign
the town was at the culmination of its brilliancy and glory. It is
a
massive, majestic, white marble edifice, with a sheltered peristyle
and
finely carved pillars. This peristyle once led straight to the
palace,
but now it is surrounded with a deep ravine, full of broken stones
and
overgrown with cacti. The interior of the mausoleum is covered with
golden lettering of inscriptions from the Koran, and the
sarcophagus
of the sultan is placed in the middle. Close by it stands the
palace
of Baz-Bahadur, all broken to pieces--nothing now but a heap of
dust
covered with trees.
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
We spent the whole day visiting these sad remains, and returned to
our sheltering place a little before sunset, exhausted with hunger
and thirst, but triumphantly carrying on our sticks three huge
snakes,
killed on our way home. Tea and supper were waiting for us. To our
great
astonishment we found visitors in the tent. The Patel of the
neighboring
village--something between a tax-collector and a judge--and two
zemindars (land owners) rode over to present us their respects and
to
invite us and our Hindu friends, some of whom they had known
previously,
to accompany them to their houses. On hearing that we intended to
spend
the night in the "dead town" they grew awfully indignant.
They assured
us it was highly dangerous and utterly impossible. Two hours later
hyenas, tigers, and other beasts of prey were sure to come out from
under every bush and every ruined wall, without mentioning
thousands
of jackals and wild cats. Our elephants would not stay, and if they
did
stay no doubt they would be devoured. We ought to leave the ruins
as
quickly as possible and go with them to the nearest village, which
would
not take us more than half an hour. In the village everything had
been
prepared for us, and our friend the Babu was already there, and
getting
impatient at our delay.
Only on hearing this did we become aware that our bareheaded and
cautious friend was conspicuous by his absence. Probably he had
left
some time ago, without consulting us, and made straight to the
village
where he evidently had friends. Sending for us was a mere trick of
his.
But the evening was so sweet, and we felt so comfortable, that the
idea
of upsetting all our plans for the morning was not at all
attractive.
Besides, it seemed quite ridiculous to think that the ruins,
amongst
which we had wandered several hours without meeting anything more
dangerous than a snake, swarmed with wild animals. So we smiled and
returned thanks, but would not accept the invitation.
"But you positively must not dare to stay here," insisted
the fat Patel.
"In case of accident, I shall be responsible for you to the
Government.
Is it possible you do not dread a sleepless night spent in fighting
jackals, if not something worse? You do not believe that you are
surrounded with wild animals..... It is true they are invisible
until
sunset, but nevertheless they are dangerous. If you do not believe
us,
believe the instinct of your elephants, who are as brave as you,
but a
little more reasonable. Just look at them!"
We looked. Truly, our grave, philosophic-looking elephants behaved
very
strangely at this moment. Their lifted trunks looked like huge
points of
interrogation. They snorted and stamped restively. In another
minute one
of them tore the thick rope, with which he was tied to a broken
pillar,
made a sudden volte-face with all his heavy body, and stood against
the
wind, sniffing the air. Evidently he perceived some dangerous
animal in
the neighborhood.
The colonel stared at him through his spectacles and whistled very
meaningly.
"Well, well," remarked he, "what shall we do if
tigers really assault
us?"
"What shall we do indeed?" was my thought. "Takur
Gulab-Lal-Sing is not
here to protect us."
Our Hindu companions sat on the carpet after their oriental
fashion,
quietly chewing betel. On being asked their opinion, they said they
would not interfere with our decision, and were ready to do exactly
as
we liked. But as for the European portion of our party, there was
no use
concealing the fact that we were frightened, and we speedily
prepared to
start. Five minutes later we mounted the elephants, and, in a
quarter
of an hour, just when the sun disappeared behind the mountain and
heavy
darkness instantaneously fell, we passed the gate of Akbar and
descended
into the valley.
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society
in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
We were hardly a quarter of a mile from our abandoned camping place
when
the cypress grove resounded with shrieking howls of jackals,
followed
by a well-known mighty roar. There was no longer any possibility
of doubting. The tigers were disappointed at our escape. Their
discontentment shook the very air, and cold perspiration stood on
our brows. Our elephant sprang forward, upsetting the order of our
procession and threatening to crush the horses and their riders
before
us. We ourselves, however, were out of danger. We sat in a strong
howdah, locked as in a dungeon.
"It is useless to deny that we have had a narrow escape!"
remarked the
colonel, looking out of the window at some twenty servants of the
Patel,
who were busily lighting torches.
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
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Brahmanic Hospitalities
In an hour's time we stopped at the gate of a large bungalow, and
were
welcomed by the beaming face of our bareheaded Bengali. When we
were
all safely gathered on the verandah, he explained to us that,
knowing
beforehand that our "American pigheadedness" would not
listen to any
warning, he had dodged up this little scheme of his own and was
very
glad he had been successful.
"Now let us go and wash our hands, and then to supper.
And," he added,
addressing me, "was it not your wish to be present at a real
Hindu meal?
This is your opportunity. Our host is a Brahman, and you are the
first
Europeans who ever entered the part of his house inhabited by the
family."----
Who amongst Europeans ever dreamed of a country where every step,
and
the least action of everyday life, especially of the family life,
is
controlled by religious rites and cannot be performed except
according
to a certain programme? India is this country. In India all the
important incidents of a man's life, such as birth, reaching
certain
periods of a child's life, marriage, fatherhood, old age and death,
as well as all the physical and physiological functions of everyday
routine, like morning ablutions, dressing, eating, et tout ce qui
s'en
suit, from a man's first hour to his last sigh, everything must be
performed according to a certain Brahmanical ritual, on penalty of
expulsion from his caste. The Brahmans may be compared to the
musicians
of an orchestra in which the different musical instruments are the
numerous sects of their country. They are all of a different shape
and
of a different timbre; but still every one of them obeys the same
leader
of the band. However widely the sects may differ in the
interpretation
of their sacred books, however hostile they may be to each other,
striving to put forward their particular deity, every one of them,
obeying blindly the ancient custom, must follow like musicians the
same
directing wand, the laws of Manu. This is the point where they all
meet
and form a unanimous, single-minded community, a strongly united
mass.
And woe to the one who breaks the symphony by a single discordant
note!
The elders and the caste or sub-caste councils (of these there are
any
number), whose members hold office for life, are stern rulers.
There is
no appeal against their decisions, and this is why expulsion from
the caste is a calamity, entailing truly formidable consequences.
The
excommunicated member is worse off than a leper, the solidarity of
the
castes in this respect being something phenomenal. The only thing
that
can bear any comparison with it is the solidarity of the disciples
of
Loyola. If members of two different castes, united by the sincerest
feelings of respect and friendship, may not intermarry, may not
dine
together, are forbidden to accept a glass of water from each other,
or
to offer each other a hookah, it becomes clear how much more severe
all
these restrictions must be in the case of an excommunicated person.
The
poor wretch must literally die to everybody, to the members of his
own
family as to strangers. His own household, his father, wife,
children,
are all bound to turn their faces from him, under the penalty of
being excommunicated in their turn. There is no hope for his sons
and
daughters of getting married, however innocent they may be of the
sin of
their father.
From the moment of "excommunication" the Hindu must
totally disappear.
His mother and wife must not feed him, must not let him drink from
the
family well. No member of any existing caste dares to sell him his
food
or cook for him. He must either starve or buy eatables from
outcasts
and Europeans, and so incur the dangers of further pollution. When
the
Brahmanical power was at its zenith, such acts as deceiving,
robbing and
even killing this wretch were encouraged, as he was beyond the pale
of
the laws. Now, at all events, he is free from the latter danger,
but
still, even now, if he happens to die before he is forgiven and
received
back into his caste, his body may not be burned, and no purifying
mantrams will be chanted for him; he will be thrown into the water,
or
left to rot under the bushes like a dead cat.
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
CF24-1DL
This is a passive force, and its passiveness only makes it more
formidable. Western education and English influence can do nothing
to change it. There exists only one course of action for the
excommunicated; he must show signs of repentance and submit to all
kinds
of humiliations, often to the total loss of all his worldly
possessions.
Personally, I know several young Brahmans, who, having brilliantly
passed the university examinations in England, have had to submit
to the
most repulsive conditions of purification on their return home;
these
purifications consisting chiefly in shaving off half their
moustaches
and eyebrows, crawling in the dust round pagodas, clinging during
long hours to the tail of a sacred cow, and, finally, swallowing
the
excrements of this cow. The latter ceremony is called
"Pancha-Gavya,"
literally, the five products of the cow: milk, curds, butter, etc.
The voyage over Kalapani, the black water, that is to say the sea,
is
considered the worst of all the sins. A man who commits it is
considered
as polluting himself continually, from the first moment of his
going on
board the bellati (foreign) ship.
Only a few days ago a friend of ours, who is an LL.D., had to
undergo this "purgation," and it nearly cost him his
reason. When we
remonstrated with him, pointing out that in his case it was simply
foolish to submit, he being a materialist by conviction and not
caring
a straw for Brahmanism, he replied that he was bound to do so for
the
following reasons:
"I have two daughters," he explained, "one five, the
other six years
old. If I do not find a husband for the eldest of them in the
course of
the coming year, she will grow too old to get married, nobody will
think
of espousing her. Suppose I suffer my caste to excommunicate me,
both
my girls will be dishonored and miserable for the rest of their
lives.
Then, again, I must take into consideration the superstitions of my
old
mother. If such a misfortune befell me, it would simply kill
her....."
But why should he not free himself from every bond to Brahmanism
and
caste? Why not join, once for all, the ever-growing community of
men
who are guilty of the same offence? Why not ask all his family to
form a
colony and join the civilization of the Europeans?
All these are very natural questions, but unfortunately there is no
difficulty in finding reasons for answering them in the negative.
There were thirty-two reasons given why one of Napoleon's marshals
refused to besiege a certain fortress, but the first of these
reasons
was the absence of gunpowder, and so it excluded the necessity of
discussing the remaining thirty-one. Similarly the first reason why
a
Hindu cannot be Europeanized is quite sufficient, and does not call
for
any additional ones. This reason is that by doing so a Hindu would
not improve his position. Were he such an adept of science as to
rival
Tyndall, were he such a clever politician as to eclipse the genius
of
Disraeli and Bismarck, as soon as he actually had given up his
caste and
kinsmen, he would indubitably find himself in the position of
Mahomet's
coffin; metaphorically speaking, he would hang half-way between the
earth and the sky.
It would be an utter injustice to suppose that this state of things
is the result of the policy of the English Government; that the
said
Government is afraid of giving a chance to natives who may be
suspected
of being hostile to the British rule. In reality, the Government
has
little or nothing to do with it. This state of things must be
attributed
entirely to the social ostracism, to the contempt felt by a
"superior"
for an "inferior" race, a contempt deeply rooted in some
members of
the Anglo-Indian society and displayed at the least provocation.
This question of racial "superiority" and
"inferiority" plays a
more important part than is generally believed, even in England.
Nevertheless, the natives (Mussulmans included) do not deserve
contempt,
and so the gulf between the rulers and the ruled widens with every
year,
and long centuries would not suffice to fill it up.
I have to dwell upon all this to give my readers a clear idea on
the
subject. And so it is no wonder the ill-fated Hindus prefer
temporary humiliations and the physical and moral sufferings of the
"purification," to the prospect of general contempt until
death. These
were the questions we discussed with the Brahmans during the two
hours
before dinner.
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Dining with foreigners and people belonging to different castes is,
no
doubt, a dangerous breach of Manu's sacred precepts. But this time,
for
once, it was easily explained. First, the stout Patel, our host,
was
the head of his caste, and so was beyond the dread of
excommunication;
secondly, he had already taken all the prescribed and advisable
precautions against being polluted by our presence. He was a
free-thinker in his own way, and a friend of Gulab-Lal-Sing, and so
he rejoiced at the idea of showing us how much skillful sophistry
and
strategical circumspection can be used by adroit Brahmans to avoid
the
law in some circumstances, while adhering at the same time to its
dead
letter. Besides, our good-natured, well-favored host evidently
desired
to obtain a diploma from our Society, being well aware that the
collector of his district was enrolled amongst our members.
These, at any rate, were the explanations of our Babu when we
expressed
our astonishment; so it was our concern to make the most of our
chance, and to thank Providence for this rare opportunity. And this
we
accordingly did.
Hindus take their food only twice a day, at ten o'clock in the morning
and at nine in the evening. Both meals are accompanied by
complicated
rites and ceremonies. Even very young children are not allowed to
eat
at odd times, eating without the prescribed performance of certain
exorcisms being considered a sin. Thousands of educated Hindus have
long
ceased to believe in all these superstitious customs, but,
nevertheless,
they are daily practised.
Sham Rao Bahunathji, our host, belonged to the ancient caste of
Patarah
Prabhus, and was very proud of his origin. Prabhu means lord, and
this
caste descends from the Kshatriyas. The first of them was Ashvapati
(700
B.C.), a lineal descendant of Rama and Prithu, who, as is stated in
the
local chronology, governed India in the Dvapara and Treta Yugas,
which
is a good while ago! The Patarah Prabhus are the only caste within
which
Brahmans have to perform certain purely Vedic rites, known under
the
name of the "Kshatriya rites." But this does not prevent
their being
Patans, instead of Patars, Patan meaning the fallen one. This is
the fault of King Ashvapati. Once, when distributing gifts to holy
anchorites, he inadvertently forgot to give his due to the great
Bhrigu.
The offended prophet and seer declared to him that his reign was
drawing near its end, and that all his posterity would perish. The
king,
throwing himself on the ground, implored the prophet's pardon. But
his
curse had worked its fulfilment already. All that he could do to
stop the mischief consisted in a solemn promise not to let the
king's
descendants disappear completely from the earth. However, the
Patars
soon lost their throne and their power. Since then they have had to
"live by their pens," in the employment of many
successive governments,
to exchange their name of Patars for Patans, and to lead a humbler
life
than many of their late subjects. Happily for our talkative
Amphitryon,
his forefathers became Brahmans, that is to say "went through
the golden
cow."
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The expression "to live by their pens" alludes, as we
learned later on,
to the fact of the Patans occupying all the small Government posts
in
the Bombay Presidency, and so being dangerous rivals of the Bengali
Babus since the time of British rule. In Bombay the Patan clerks
reach
the considerable figure of five thousand. Their complexion is
darker
than the complexion of Konkan Brahmans, but they are handsomer and
brighter. As to the mysterious expression, "went through the
golden
cow," it illustrates a very curious custom. The Kshatriyas,
and even
the much-despised Shudras, may become a sort of left-hand Brahmans.
This
metamorphosis depends on the will of the real Brahmans, who may, if
they
like, sell this right for several hundreds or thousands of cows.
When
the gift is accomplished, a model cow, made of pure gold, is
erected
and made sacred by the performance of some mystical ceremonies. The
candidate must now crawl through her hollow body three times, and
thus
is transformed into a Brahman. The present Maharaja of Travankor,
and
even the great Raja of Benares, who died recently, were both
Shudras who
acquired their rights in this manner. We received all this
information
and a notion of the legendary Patar chronicle from our obliging
host.
Having announced that we must now get ready for dinner, he
disappeared
in the company of all the gentlemen of our party. Being left to
ourselves, Miss X---- and I decided to have a good look at the
house
whilst it was empty. The Babu, being a downright, modern Bengali,
had
no respect for the religious preparations for dinner, and chose to
accompany us, proposing to explain to us all that we should
otherwise
fail to understand.
The Prabhu brothers always live together, but every married couple
have
separate rooms and servants of their own. The habitation of our
host
was very spacious. There were small several bungalows, occupied by
his brothers, and a chief building containing rooms for visitors,
the
general dining-room, a lying-in ward, a small chapel with any
number
of idols, and so on. The ground floor, of course, was surrounded by
a
verandah pierced with arches leading to a huge hall. All round this
hall
were wooden pillars adorned with exquisite carving. For some reason
or
other, it struck me that these pillars once belonged to some palace
of
the "dead town." On close examination I only grew more
convinced that
I was right. Their style bore no traces of Hindu taste; no gods, no
fabulous monster animals, only arabesques and elegant leaves and
flowers
of nonexistent plants. The pillars stood very close to each other,
but
the carvings prevented them from forming an uninterrupted wall, so
that
the ventilation was a little too strong. All the time we spent at
the
dinner table miniature hurricanes whistled from behind every
pillar,
waking up all our old rheumatisms and toothaches, which had
peacefully
slumbered since our arrival in India.
The front of the house was thickly covered with iron
horseshoes--the
best precaution against evil spirits and evil eyes.
At the foot of a broad, carved staircase we came across a couch or
a
cradle, hung from the ceiling by iron chains. I saw somebody lying
on
it, whom, at first sight, I mistook for a sleeping Hindu, and was
going
to retreat discreetly, but, recognizing my old friend Hanuman, I
grew
bold and endeavored to examine him. Alas! the poor idol possessed only
a
head and neck, the rest of his body was a heap of old rags.
On the left side of the verandah there were many more lateral
rooms,
each with a special destination, some of which I have mentioned
already.
The largest of these rooms was called "vattan," and was
used exclusively
by the fair sex. Brahman women are not bound to spend their lives
under veils, like Mussulman women, but still they have very little
communication with men, and keep aloof. Women cook the men's food,
but
do not dine with them. The elder ladies of the family are often
held in
great respect, and husbands sometimes show a shy courteousness
towards
their wives, but still a woman has no right to speak to her husband
before strangers, nor even before the nearest relations, such as
her
sisters and her mother.
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As to the Hindu widows, they really are the most wretched creatures
in
the whole world. As soon as a woman's husband dies she must have
her
hair and her eyebrows shaven off. She must part with all her
trinkets,
her earrings, her nose jewels, her bangles and toe-rings. After
this is
done she is as good as dead. The lowest outcast would not marry
her. A
man is polluted by her slightest touch, and must immediately
proceed to
purify himself. The dirtiest work of the household is her duty, and
she
must not eat with the married women and the children. The
"sati," the
burning of the widows, is abolished, but Brahmans are clever
managers,
and the widows often long for the sati.
At last, having examined the family chapel, full of idols, flowers,
rich
vases with burning incense, lamps hanging from its ceiling, and
aromatic
herbs covering its floor, we decided to get ready for dinner. We
carefully washed ourselves, but this was not enough, we were
requested
to take off our shoes. This was a somewhat disagreeable surprise,
but a
real Brahmanical supper was worth the trouble.
However, a truly amazing surprise was still in store for us.
On entering the dining-room we stopped short at the entrance--both
our
European companions were dressed, or rather undressed, exactly like
Hindus! For the sake of decency they kept on a kind of sleeveless
knitted vest, but they were barefooted, wore the snow-white Hindu
dhutis
(a piece of muslin wrapped round to the waist and forming a
petticoat),
and looked like something between white Hindus and Constantinople
garcons de bains. Both were indescribably funny, I never saw
anything
funnier. To the great discomfiture of the men, and the scandal of
the
grave ladies of the house, I could not restrain myself, but burst
out
laughing. Miss X----blushed violently and followed my example.
A quarter of an hour before the evening meal every Hindu, old or
young,
has to perform a "puja" before the gods. He does not
change his clothes,
as we do in Europe, but takes off the few things he wore during the
day.
He bathes by the family well and loosens his hair, of which, if he
is
a Mahratti or an inhabitant of the Dekkan, he has only one long
lock at
the top of his shaven head. To cover the body and the head whilst
eating
would be sinful. Wrapping his waist and legs in a white silk dhuti,
he goes once more to salute the idols and then sits down to his
meal.----
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But here I shall allow myself to digress. "Silk possesses the
property
of dismissing the evil spirits who inhabit the magnetic fluids of
the
atmosphere," says the Mantram, book v., verse 23. And I cannot
help
wondering whether this apparent superstition may not contain a
deeper
meaning. It is difficult, I own, to part with our favorite theories
about all the customs of ancient heathendom being mere ignorant
superstitions. But have not some vague notions of these customs
being
founded originally on a true knowledge of scientific principles
found
their way amongst European scientific circles? At first sight the
idea
seems untenable. But why may we not suppose that the ancients
prescribed
this observance in the full knowledge that the effect of
electricity
upon the organs of digestion is truly beneficial? People who have
studied the ancient philosophy of India with a firm resolve to
penetrate
the hidden meaning of its aphorisms have for the most part grown
convinced that electricity and its effects were known to a
considerable
extent to some philosophers, as, for instance, to Patanjali.
Charaka and
Sushruta had pro-pounded the system of Hippocrates long before the
time
of him who in Europe is supposed to be the "father of
medicine." The
Bhadrinath temple of Vishnu possesses a stone bearing evident proof
of
the fact that Surya-Sidhanta knew and calculated the expansive
force of
steam many centuries ago. The ancient Hindus were the first to
determine
the velocity of light and the laws of its reflection; and the table
of
Pythagoras and his celebrated theorem of the square of hypotenuse
are to
be found in the ancient books of Jyotisha. All this leads us to
suppose
that ancient Aryans, when instituting the strange custom of wearing
silk during meals, had something serious in view, more serious, at
all
events, than the "dismissing of demons."
Having entered the "refectory," we immediately noticed
what were the
Hindu precautions against their being polluted by our presence. The
stone floor of the hall was divided into two equal parts. This
division
consisted of a line traced in chalk, with Kabalistic signs at
either
end. One part was destined for the host's party and the guests
belonging
to the same caste, the other for ourselves. On our side of the hall
there was yet a third square to contain Hindus of a different
caste. The
furniture of the two bigger squares was exactly similar. Along the
two
opposite walls there were narrow carpets spread on the floor,
covered
with cushions and low stools. Before every occupant there was an
oblong
on the bare floor, traced also with chalk, and divided, like a
chess
board, into small quadrangles which were destined for dishes and
plates.
Both the latter articles were made of the thick strong leaves of
the
butea frondosa: larger dishes of several leaves pinned together
with
thorns, plates and saucers of one leaf with its borders turned up.
All the courses of the supper were already arranged on each square;
we
counted forty-eight dishes, containing about a mouthful of
forty-eight
different dainties. The materials of which they were composed were
mostly terra incognita to us, but some of them tasted very nice.
All
this was vegetarian food. Of meat, fowl, eggs and fish there
appeared no
traces. There were chutneys, fruit and vegetables preserved in
vinegar
and honey, panchamrits, a mixture of pampello-berries, tamarinds,
cocoa
milk, treacle and olive oil, and kushmer, made of radishes, honey
and
flour; there were also burning hot pickles and spices. All this was
crowned with a mountain of exquisitely cooked rice and another
mountain
of chapatis, which are something like brown pancakes. The dishes
stood
in four rows, each row containing twelve dishes; and between the
rows
burned three aromatic sticks of the size of a small church taper.
Our part of the hall was brightly lit with green and red candles.
The
chandeliers which held these candles were of a very queer shape.
They
each represented the trunk of a tree with a seven-headed cobra
wound
round it. From each of the seven mouths rose a red or a green wax
candle
of spiral form like a corkscrew. Draughts blowing from behind every
pillar fluttered the yellow flames, filling the roomy refectory
with
fantastic moving shadows, and causing both our lightly-clad
gentlemen
to sneeze very frequently. Leaving the dark silhouettes of the
Hindus
in comparative obscurity, this unsteady light made the two white
figures
still more conspicuous, as if making a masquerade of them and
laughing
at them.
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The relatives and friends of our host came in one after the other. They
were all naked down to the waist, all barefooted, all wore the
triple
Brahmanical thread and white silk dhutis, and their hair hung
loose.
Every sahib was followed by his own servant, who carried his cup,
his
silver, or even gold, jug filled with water, and his towel. All of
them,
having saluted the host, greeted us, the palms of their hands
pressed
together and touching their foreheads, their breasts, and then the
floor. They all said to us: "Ram-Ram" and
"Namaste" (salutation to
thee), and then made straight for their respective seats in perfect
silence. Their civilities reminded me that the custom of greeting
each
other with the twice pronounced name of some ancestor was usual in
the
remotest antiquity.
We all sat down, the Hindus calm and stately, as if preparing for
some
mystic celebration, we ourselves feeling awkward and uneasy,
fearing to
prove guilty of some unpardonable blunder. An invisible choir of
women's
voices chanted a monotonous hymn, celebrating the glory of the
gods.
These were half a dozen nautch-girls from a neighboring pagoda. To
this
accompaniment we began satisfying our appetites. Thanks to the
Babu's
instructions, we took great care to eat only with our right hands.
This
was somewhat difficult, because we were hungry and hasty, but quite
necessary. Had we only so much as touched the rice with our left
hands
whole hosts of Rakshasas (demons) would have been attracted to take
part
in the festivity that very moment; which, of course, would send all
the
Hindus out of the room. It is hardly necessary to say that there
were no
traces of forks, knives or spoons. That I might run no risk of
breaking the rule I put my left hand in my pocket and held on to my
pocket-handkerchief all the time the dinner lasted.
The singing lasted only a few minutes. During the rest of the time
a
dead silence reigned amongst us. It was Monday, a fast day, and so
the usual absence of noise at meal times had to be observed still
more
strictly than on any other day. Usually a man who is compelled to
break
the silence by some emergency or other hastens to plunge into water
the middle finger of his left hand, which till then had remained
hidden
behind his back, and to moisten both his eyelids with it. But a
really
pious man would not be content with this simple formula of
purification;
having spoken, he must leave the dining-room, wash thoroughly, and
then
abstain from food for the remainder of the day.
Thanks to this solemn silence, I was at liberty to notice
everything
that was going on with great attention. Now and again, whenever I
caught
sight of the colonel or Mr. Y----, I had all the difficulty in the
world
to preserve my gravity. Fits of foolish laughter would take
possession
of me when I observed them sitting erect with such comical
solemnity and
working so awkwardly with their elbows and hands. The long beard of
the
one was white with grains of rice, as if silvered with hoar-frost,
the chin of the other was yellow with liquid saffron. But
unsatisfied
curiosity happily came to my rescue, and I went on watching the
quaint
proceedings of the Hindus.
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Each of them, having sat down with his legs twisted under him,
poured
some water with his left hand out of the jug brought by the
servant,
first into his cup, then into the palm of his right hand. Then he
slowly and carefully sprinkled the water round a dish with all
kinds
of dainties, which stood by itself, and was destined, as we learned
afterwards, for the gods. During this procedure each Hindu repeated
a
Vedic mantram. Filling his right hand with rice, he pronounced a
new
series of couplets, then, having stored five pinches of rice on the
right side of his own plate, he once more washed his hands to avert
the
evil eye, sprinkled more water, and pouring a few drops of it into
his
right palm, slowly drank it. After this he swallowed six pinches of
rice, one after the other, murmuring prayers all the while, and
wetted
both his eyes with the middle finger of his left hand. All this
done,
he finally hid his left hand behind his back, and began eating with
the
right hand. All this took only a few minutes, but was performed
very
solemnly.
The Hindus ate with their bodies bent over the food, throwing it up
and
catching it in their mouths so dexterously that not a grain of rice
was lost, not a drop of the various liquids spilt. Zealous to show
his consideration for his host, the colonel tried to imitate all
these
movements. He contrived to bend over his food almost horizontally,
but,
alas! he could not remain long in this position. The natural weight
of
his powerful limbs overcame him, he lost his balance and nearly
tumbled
head foremost, dropping his spectacles into a dish of sour milk and
garlic. After this unsuccessful experience the brave American gave
up
all further attempts to become "Hinduized," and sat very
quietly.
The supper was concluded with rice mixed with sugar, powdered peas,
olive oil, garlic and grains of pomegranate, as usual. This last
dainty is consumed hurriedly. Everyone nervously glances askance at
his
neighbor, and is mortally afraid of being the last to finish,
because
this is considered a very bad sign. To conclude, they all take some
water into their mouths, murmuring prayers the while, and this time
they
must swallow it in one gulp. Woe to the one who chokes! 'Tis a
clear
sign that a bhuta has taken possession of his throat. The
unfortunate
man must run for his life and get purified before the altar.
The poor Hindus are very much troubled by these wicked bhutas, the
souls of the people who have died with ungratified desires and
earthly
passions. Hindu spirits, if I am to believe the unanimous
assertions
of one and all, are always swarming round the living, always ready
to
satisfy their hunger with other people's mouths and gratify their
impure
desires with the help of organs temporarily stolen from the living.
They
are feared and cursed all over India. No means to get rid of them
are despised. The notions and conclusions of the Hindus on this
point categorically contradict the aspirations and hopes of Western
spiritualists.
"A good and pure spirit, they are confident, will not let his
soul
revisit the earth, if this soul is equally pure. He is glad to die
and
unite himself to Brahma, to live an eternal life in Svarga (heaven)
and
enjoy the society of the beautiful Gandharvas or singing angels. He
is
glad to slumber whole eternities, listening to their songs, whilst
his
soul is purified by a new incarnation in a body, which is more
perfect
than the one the soul abandoned previously."
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The Hindus believe that the spirit or Atma, a particle of the GREAT
ALL, which is Parabrahm, cannot be punished for sins in which it
never
participated. It is Manas, the animal intelligence, and the animal
soul or Jiva, both half material illusions, that sin and suffer and
transmigrate from one body into the other till they purify
themselves.
The spirit merely overshadows their earthly transmigrations. When
the
Ego has reached the final state of purity, it will be one with the
Atma,
and gradually will merge and disappear in Parabrahm.
But this is not what awaits the wicked souls. The soul that does
not
succeed in getting rid of earthly cares and desires before the
death of
the body is weighed down by its sins, and, instead of reincarnating
in
some new form, according to the laws of metempsychosis, it will
remain
bodiless, doomed to wander on earth. It will become a bhuta, and by
its
own sufferings will cause unutterable sufferings to its kinsmen.
That is
why the Hindu fears above all things to remain bodiless after his
death.
"It is better for one to enter the body of a tiger, of a dog,
even of a
yellow-legged falcon, after death, than to become a bhuta!" an
old Hindu
said to me on one occasion. "Every animal possesses a body of
his own
and a right to make an honest use of it. Whereas the bhutas are
doomed
dakoits, brigands and thieves, they are ever watching for an
opportunity
to use what does not belong to them. This is a horrible state--a
horror
indescribable. This is the true hell. What is this spiritualism
they
talk so much of in the West? Is it possible the intelligent English
and
Americans are so mad as this?"
And all our remonstrances notwithstanding, he refused to believe
that
there are actually people who are fond of bhutas, who would do much
to
attract them into their homes.
After supper the men went again to the family well to wash, and
then
dressed themselves.
Usually at this hour of the night the Hindus put on clean malmalas,
a kind of tight shirt, white turbans, and wooden sandals with knobs
pressed between the toes. These curious shoes are left at the door
whilst their owners return to the hall and sit down along the walls
on carpets and cushions to chew betel, smoke hookahs and cheroots,
to
listen to sacred reading, and to witness the dances of the
nautches.
But this evening, probably in our honor, all the Hindus dressed
magnificently. Some of them wore darias of rich striped satin, no
end of
gold bangles, necklaces mounted with diamonds and emeralds, gold
watches
and chains, and transparent Brahmanical scarfs with gold
embroidery.
The fat fingers and the right ear of our host were simply blazing
with
diamonds.
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The women, who waited on us during the meal, disappeared afterwards
for a considerable time. When they came back they also were
luxuriously
overdressed and were introduced to us formally as the ladies of the
house. They were five: the wife of the host, a woman of twenty-six
or
twenty-seven years of age, then two others looking somewhat
younger, one
of whom carried a baby, and, to our great astonishment, was
introduced
as the married daughter of the hostess; then the old mother of the
host
and a little girl of seven, the wife of one of his brothers. So
that our
hostess turned out to be a grandmother, and her sister-in-law, who
was
to enter finally into matrimony in from two to three years, might
have
become a mother before she was twelve. They were all barefooted,
with
rings on each of their toes, and all, with the exception of the old
woman, wore garlands of natural flowers round their necks and in
their
jet black hair. Their tight bodices, covered with embroidery, were
so
short that between them and the sari there was a good quarter of a
yard
of bare skin. The dark, bronze-coloured waists of these well-shaped
Women were boldly presented to any one's examination and reflected
the
lights of the room. Their beautiful arms and their ankles were
covered
with bracelets. At the least of their movements they all set up a
tinkling silvery sound, and the little sister-in-law, who might
easily
be mistaken for an automaton doll, could hardly move under her load
of
ornaments. The young grandmother, our hostess, had a ring in her
left
nostril, which reached to the lower part of the chin. Her nose was
considerably disfigured by the weight of the gold, and we noticed
how
unusually handsome she was only when she took it off to enable
herself
to drink her tea with some comfort.
The dances of the nautch girls began. Two of them were very pretty.
Their dancing consisted chiefly in more or less expressive
movements
of their eyes, their heads, and even their ears, in fact, of the
whole
upper part of their bodies. As to their legs, they either did not
move
at all or moved with such a swiftness as to appear in a cloud of
mist.
After this eventful day I slept the sleep of the just.
After many nights spent in a tent, it is more than agreeable to
sleep in
a regular bed, even if it is only a hanging one. The pleasure
would, no
doubt, have been considerably increased had I but known I was
resting on
the couch of a god. But this latter circumstance was revealed to me
only
in the morning, when descending the staircase I suddenly discovered
the poor general en chef, Hanuman, deprived of his cradle and
unceremoniously stowed away under the stairs. Decidedly, the Hindus
of
the nineteenth century are a degenerate and blaspheming race!
In the course of the morning we learned that this swinging throne
of
his, and an ancient sofa, were the only pieces of furniture in the
whole
house that could be transformed into beds.
Neither of our gentlemen had spent a comfortable night. They slept
in an
empty tower that was once the altar of a decayed pagoda and was
situated
behind the main building. In assigning to them this strange resting
place, the host was guided by the praiseworthy intention of
protecting
them from the jackals, which freely penetrate into all the rooms of
the
ground floor, as they are pierced by numberless arches and have no
door and no window frames. The jackals, however, did not trouble
the
gentlemen much that night, except by giving their nightly concert.
But
both Mr. Y---- and the colonel had to fight all the night long with
a
vampire, which, besides being a flying fox of an unusual size,
happened
to be a spirit, as we learned too late, to our great misfortune.
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This is how it happened. Noiselessly hovering about the tower, the
vampire from time to time alighted on the sleepers, making them
shudder
under the disgusting touch of his cold sticky wings. His intention
clearly was to get a nice suck of European blood. They were wakened
by
his manipulations at least ten times, and each time frightened him
away.
But, as soon as they were dozing again, the wretched bat was sure
to
return and perch on their shoulders, heads, or legs. At last Mr.
Y----,
losing patience, had recourse to strong measures; he caught him and
broke his neck.
Feeling perfectly innocent, the gentlemen mentioned the tragic end
of
the troublesome flying fox to their host, and instantly drew down
on
their heads all the thunder-clouds of heaven.
The yard was crowded with people. All the inhabitants of the house
stood
sorrowfully drooping their heads, at the entrance of the tower. Our
host's old mother tore her hair in despair, and shrieked
lamentations in
all the languages of India. What was the matter with them all? We
were
at our wits' end. But when we learned the cause of all this, there
was
no limit to our confusion.
By certain mysterious signs, known only to the family Brahman, it
had
been decided ten years ago that the soul of our host's elder
brother had
incarnated in this blood-thirsty vampire-bat. This fact was stated
as
being beyond any doubt. For nine years the late Patarah Prabhu
existed
under this new shape, carrying out the laws of metempsychosis. He
spent
the hours between sunrise and the sunset in an old pipal-tree
before the
tower, hanging with his head downwards. But at night he visited the
old tower and gave fierce chase to the insects that sought rest in
this out-of-the-way corner. And so nine years were spent in this
happy
existence, divided between sleep, food, and the gradual redemption
of
old sins committed in the shape of a Patarah Prabhu. And now? Now
his
listless body lay in the dust at the entrance of his favorite
tower,
and his wings were half devoured by the rats. The poor old woman,
his
mother, was mad with sorrow, and cast, through her tears,
reproachful,
angry looks at Mr. Y----, who, in his new capacity of a heartless
murderer, looked disgustingly composed.
But the affair was growing serious. The comical side of it
disappeared
before the sincerity and the intensity of her lamentations. Her
descendants, grouped around her, were too polite to reproach us
openly,
but the expression of their faces was far from reassuring. The
family
priest and astrologer stood by the old lady, Shastras in hand,
ready to
begin the ceremony of purification. He solemnly covered the corpse
with
a piece of new linen, and so hid from our eyes the sad remains on
which
ants were literally swarming.
Mr. Y---- did his best to look unconcerned, but still, when the
tactless
Miss X---- came to him, expressing her loud indignation at all
these
superstitions of an inferior race, he at least seemed to remember
that
our host knew English perfectly, and he did not encourage her
farther
expressions of sympathy. He made no answer, but smiled
contemptuously.
Our host approached the colonel with respectful salaams and invited
us
to follow him.
"No doubt he is going to ask us to leave his house
immediately!" was my
uncomfortable impression.
But my apprehension was not justified. At this epoch of my Indian
pilgrimage I was far, as yet, from having fathomed the metaphysical
depth of a Hindu heart.
Sham Rao began by delivering a very far-fetched, eloquent preface.
He reminded us that he, personally, was an enlightened man, a man
who
possessed all the advantages of a Western education. He said that, owing
to this, he was not quite sure that the body of the vampire was
actually
inhabited by his late brother. Darwin, of course, and some other
great
naturalists of the West, seemed to believe in the transmigration of
souls, but, as far as he understood, they believed in it in an
inverse
sense; that is to say, if a baby had been born to his mother
exactly at
the moment of the vampire's death, this baby would indubitably have
had a great likeness to a vampire, owing to the decaying atoms of
the
vampire being so close to her.
"Is not this an exact interpretation of the Darwinian
school?" he asked.
We modestly answered that, having traveled almost incessantly
during the
last year, we could not help being a bit behindhand in the questions
of modern science, and that we were not able to follow its latest
conclusions.
"But I have followed them!" rejoined the good-natured
Sham Rao, with a
touch of pomposity. "And so I hope I may be allowed to say
that I have
understood and duly appreciated their most recent developments. I
have
just finished studying the magnificent Anthropogenesis of Haeckel,
and have carefully discussed in my own mind his logical, scientific
explanations of the origin of man from inferior animal forms
through
transformation. And what is this transformation, pray, if not the
transmigration of the ancient and modern Hindus, and the
metempsychosis
of the Greeks?"
We had nothing to say against the identity, and even ventured to
observe
that, according to Haeckel, it does look like it.
"Exactly!" exclaimed he joyfully. "This shows that
our conceptions are
neither silly nor superstitious, as is maintained by some opponents
of Manu. The great Manu, anticipated Darwin and Haeckel. Judge for
yourself; the latter derives the genesis of man from a group of
plastides, from the jelly-like moneron; this moneron, through the
ameoba, the ascidian, the brainless and heartless amphioxus, and so
on,
transmigrates in the eighth remove into the lamprey, is transformed,
at
last, into a vertebrate amniote, into a premammalian, into a
marsupial
animal.... The vampire, in its turn, belongs to the species of
vertebrates. You, being well read people all of you, cannot
contradict
this statement." He was right in his supposition; we did not
contradict
it.
"In this case, do me the honor to follow my argument...."
We did follow his argument with the greatest attention, but were at
a
loss to foresee whither it tended to lead us.
"Darwin," continued Sham Rao, "in his Origin of
Species, re-established
almost word for word the palin-genetic teachings of our Manu. Of
this I
am perfectly convinced, and, if you like, I can prove it to you
book in
hand. Our ancient law-giver, amongst other sayings, speaks as
follows:
'The great Parabrahm commanded man to appear in the universe, after
traversing all the grades of the animal kingdom, and springing
primarily
from the worm of the deep sea mud.' The worm be-came a snake, the
snake
a fish, the fish a mammal, and so on. Is not this very idea at the
bottom of Darwin's theory, when he maintains that the organic forms
have
their origin in more simple species, and says that the
structureless
protoplasm born in the mud of the Laurentian and Silurian
periods--the
Manu's 'mud of the seas,' I dare say--gradually transformed itself
into
the anthropoid ape, and then finally into the human being?"
We said it looked very like it.
"But, in spite of all my respect for Darwin and his eminent
follower
Haeckel, I cannot agree with their final conclusions, especially
with
the conclusions of the latter," continued Sham Rao. "This
hasty and
bilious German is perfectly accurate in copying the embryology of
Manu
and all the metamorphoses of our ancestors, but he forgets the
evolution
of the human soul, which, as it is stated by Manu, goes hand in
hand
with the evolution of matter. The son of Swayambhuva, the Self
Becoming,
speaks as follows: 'Everything created in a new cycle, in addition
to
the qualities of its preceding transmigrations, acquires new
qualities,
and the nearer it approaches to man, the highest type of the earth,
the
brighter becomes its divine spark; but, once it has become a
Brahma, it
will enter the cycle of conscious transmigrations.' Do you realize what
that means? It means that from this moment, its transformations
depend
no longer on the blind laws of gradual evolution, but on the least
of a
man's actions, which brings either a reward or a punishment. Now
you
see that it depends on the man's will whether, on the one hand, he
will
start on the way to Moksha, the eternal bliss, passing from one
Loka to
another till he reaches Brahmaloka, or, on the other, owing to his
sins,
will be thrown back. You know that the average soul, once freed
from
earthly reincarnations, has to ascend from one Loka to another,
always
in the human shape, though this shape will grow and perfect itself
with
every Loka. Some of our sects understood these Lokas to mean
certain
stars. These spirits, freed from earthly matter, are what we mean
by
Pitris and Devas, whom we worship. And did not your Kabalists of
the
middle ages designate these Pitris under the expression Planetary
Spirits? But, in the case of a very sinful man, he will have to
begin once more with the animal forms which he had already
traversed
unconsciously. Both Darwin and Haeckel lose sight of this, so to
speak,
second volume of their incomplete theory, but still neither of them
advances any argument to prove it false. Is it not so?"
"Neither of them does anything of the sort, most
assuredly."
"Why, in this case," exclaimed he, suddenly changing his
colloquial tone
for an aggressive one, "why am I, I who have studied the most
modern
ideas of Western science, I who believe in its representatives--why
am I
suspected, pray, by Miss X---- of belonging to the tribe of the
ignorant and superstitious Hindus? Why does she think that our
perfected
scientific theories are superstitions, and we ourselves a fallen
inferior race?"
Sham Rao stood before us with tears in his eyes. We were at a loss
what
to answer him, being confused to the last degree by this outburst.
"Mind you, I do not proclaim our popular beliefs to be
infallible
dogmas. I consider them as mere theories, and try to the best of my
ability to reconcile the ancient and the modern science. I
formulate
hypotheses just like Darwin and Haeckel. Besides, if I understood
rightly, Miss X---- is a spiritualist, so she believes in bhutas.
And,
believing that a bhuta is capable of penetrating the body of a
medium,
how can she deny that a bhuta, and more so a less sinful soul, may
enter
the body of a vampire-bat?"
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CF24-1DL
I own, this logic was a little too condensed for us, and so,
avoiding a
direct answer to a metaphysical question of such delicacy, we tried
to
apologize and excuse Miss X----'s rudeness as well as we could.
"She did not mean to offend you," we said, "she only
repeated a calumny,
familiar to every European. Besides, if she had taken the trouble
to
think it over, she probably would not have said it...."
Little by little we succeeded in pacifying our host. He recovered
his
usual cheerfulness, but could not resist the temptation of adding a
few words to his long argumentation. He had just begun to reveal to
us
certain peculiarities of his late brother's character, which
induced him
to be prepared, judging by the laws of atavism, to see their
repetition
in the propensities of a vampire bat, when Mr. Y----suddenly dashed
in
on our small group and spoiled all the results of our conciliatory
words
by screaming at the top of his voice: "The old woman has gone
demented!
She keeps on cursing us and says that the murder of this wretched
bat
is only the forerunner of a whole series of misfortunes brought on
her
house by you, Sham Rao," said he, hastily addressing the
bewildered
follower of Haackel. "She says you have polluted your
Brahmanical
holiness by inviting us. Colonel, you had better send for the
elephants.
In another moment all this crowd will be on us..."
"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed poor Sham Rao, "have
some consideration
for my feelings. She is an old woman, she has some superstitions,
but
she is my mother. You are educated people, learned people... Advise
me,
show me a way out of all these difficulties. What should you do in
my
place?"
"What should I do, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Y----, completely
put out of
temper by the utter ludicrousness of our awkward predicament.
"What
should I do? Were I a man in your position and a believer in all
you
are brought up to believe, I should take my revolver, and in the
first
place, shoot all the vampire bats in the neighborhood, if only to
rid
all your late relations from the abject bodies of these creatures,
and, in the second place, I should endeavor to smash the head of
the
conceited fraud in the shape of a Brahman who invented all this
stupid
story. That is what I should do, sir!"
But this advice did not content the miserable descendant of Rama.
No
doubt he would have remained a long time undecided as to what
course
of action to adopt, torn as he was between the sacred feelings of
hospitality, the innate fear of the Brahman-priest, and his own
superstitions, if our ingenious Babu had not come to our rescue.
Learning that we all felt more or less indignant at all this row,
and
that we were preparing to leave the house as quickly as possible,
he persuaded us to stay, if only for an hour, saying that our hasty
departure would be a terrible outrage upon our host, whom, in any
case,
we could not find fault with. As to the stupid old woman, the Babu
promised us to pacify her speedily enough: he had his own plans and
views. In the meantime, he said, we had better go and examine the
ruins
of an old fortress close by.
We obeyed very reluctantly, feeling an acute interest in his
"plans." We
proceeded slowly. Our gentlemen were visibly out of temper. Miss
X----
tried to calm herself by talking more than usual, and Narayan, as
phlegmatic as usual, indolently and good-naturedly chaffed her
about
her beloved "spirits." Glancing back we saw the Babu
accompanied by the
family priest. Judging by their gestures they were engaged in some
warm
discussion. The shaven head of the Brahman nodded right and left,
his
yellow garment flapped in the wind, and his arms rose towards the
sky,
as if in an appeal to the gods to come down and testify to the
truth of
his words.
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CF24-1DL
"I'll bet you a thousand dollars, no plans of our Babu's will
be of any
avail with this fanatic!" confidently remarked the colonel as
he lit his
pipe.
But we had hardly walked a hundred steps after this remark when we
saw
the Babu running after us and signaling us to stop.
"Everything ended first-rate!" screamed he, as soon as we
could hear.
"You are to be thanked... You happen to be the true saviours
and
benefactors of the deceased bhuta... You..."
Our Babu sank on the ground holding his narrow, panting breast with
both
his hands, and laughed, laughed till we all burst into laughter
too,
before learning any-thing at all.
"Think of it," began the Babu, and stopped short,
prevented from going
on by his exuberant hilarity. "Just think of it! The whole
transaction
is to cost me only ten rupees.... I offered five at first... but he
would not.... He said this was a sacred matter..... But ten he
could not
resist! Ho, ho, ho...."
At last we learned the story. All the metempsychoses depend on the
imagination of the family Gurus, who receive for their kind offices
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty rupees a year. Every rite
is
accompanied by a more or less considerable addition to the purse of
the
insatiable family Brahman, but the happy events pay better than the
sad ones. Knowing all this, the Babu asked the Brahman point-blank
to
perform a false samadhi, that is to say, to feign an inspiration
and
to announce to the sorrowing mother that her late son's will had
acted
consciously in all the circumstances; that he brought about his end
in the body of the flying fox, that he was tired of that grade of
transmigration, that he longed for death in order to attain a
higher
position in the animal kingdom, that he is happy, and that he is
deeply
indebted to the sahib who broke his neck and so freed him from his
abject embodiment.
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CF24-1DL
Besides, the observant eye of our all-knowing Babu had not failed
to
remark that a she-buffalo of the Guru's was expecting a calf, and
that
the Guru was yearning to sell it to Sham Rao. This circumstance was
a trump card in the Babu's hand. Let the Guru announce, under the
influence of samadhi, that the freed spirit intends to inhabit the
body
of the future baby-buffalo and the old lady will buy the new
incarnation
of her first-born as sure as the sun is bright. This announcement
will
be followed by rejoicings and by new rites. And who will profit by
all
this if not the family priest?
At first the Guru had some misgivings, and swore by everything
sacred
that the vampire bat was veritably inhabited by the brother of Sham
Rao. But the Babu knew better than to give in. The Guru ended by
understanding that his skillful opponent saw through his tricks,
and
that he was well aware that the Shastras exclude the possibility of
such
a transmigration. Growing alarmed, the Guru also grew meek, and asked
only ten rupees and a promise of silence for the performance of a
samadhi.
On our way back we were met at the gate by Sham Rao, who was simply
radiant. Whether he was afraid of our laughing at him, or was at
loss to
find an explanation of this new metamorphosis in the positive
sciences
in general, and Haeckel in particular, he did not attempt to
explain why
the affair had taken such an unexpectedly good turn. He merely
mentioned awkwardly enough that his mother, owing to some new
mysterious
conjectures of hers, had dismissed all sad apprehensions as to
the destiny of her elder son, and he then dropped the subject
completely.----
In order to wipe away the traces of the morning's perplexities from
our
minds, Sham Rao invited us to sit on the verandah, by the wide
entrance
of his idol room, whilst the family prayers were going on. Nothing
could suit us better. It was nine o'clock, the usual time of the
morning
prayers. Sham Rao went to the well to get ready, and dress himself,
as
he said, though the process was more like undressing. In a few
moments
he came back wearing only a dhuti, as during dinner time, and with
his
head uncovered. He went straight to his idol room. The moment he
entered
we heard the loud stroke of a bell that hung under the ceiling, and
that
continued tolling all the time the prayers lasted.
The Babu explained to us that a little boy was pulling the bell
rope
from the roof.
Sham Rao stepped in with his right foot and very slowly. Then he
approached the altar and sat on a little stool with his legs
crossed.
At the opposite side of the room, on the red velvet shelves of an
altar
that resembled an etagere in the drawing-room of some fashionable
lady,
stood many idols. They were made of gold, of silver, of brass and of
marble, according to their im-portance and merits. Maha-Deva or
Shiva
was of gold. Gunpati or Ganesha of silver, Vishnu in the form of a
round
black stone from the river Gandaki in Nepal. In this form Vishnu is
called Lakshmi-Narayan. There were also many other gods unknown to
us,
who were worshipped in the shapes of big sea-shells, called Chakra.
Surya, the god of the sun, and the kula-devas, the domestic gods,
were
placed in the second rank. The altar was sheltered by a cupola of
carved
sandal-wood. During the night the gods and the offerings were
covered
by a huge bell glass. On the walls there were many sacred images
representing the chief episodes in the biographies of the higher
gods.
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CF24-1DL
Sham Rao filled his left hand with ashes, murmuring prayers all the
while, covered it for a second with the right one, then put some
matter
to the ashes, and mixing the two by rubbing his hands together, he
traced a line on his face with this mixture by moving the thumb of
his
right hand from his nose upwards, then from the middle of the
forehead
to the right temple, then back again to the left temple. Having
done
with his face he proceeded to cover with wet ashes his throat,
arms,
shoulders, his back, head and ears. In one corner of the room stood
a
huge bronze font filled with water. Sham Rao made straight to it
and
plunged into it three times, dhuti, head, and all, after which he
came
out looking exactly like a well-favored dripping wet Triton. He
twisted
the only lock of hair on the top of his shaved head and sprinkled it
with water. This operation concluded the first act.
The second act began with religious meditations and with mantrams,
which, by really pious people, must be repeated three times a
day--at
sunrise, at noon and at sunset. Sham Rao loudly pronounced the names
of
twenty-four gods, and each name was accompanied by a stroke of the
bell.
Having finished he first shut his eyes and stuffed his ears with
cotton,
then pressed his left nostril with two fingers of his left hand,
and
having filled his lungs with air through the right nostril, pressed
the
latter also. Then he tightly closed his lips, so that breathing
became
impossible. In this position every pious Hindu must mentally repeat
a
certain verse, which is called the Gayatri. These are sacred words
which
no Hindu will dare to pronounce aloud. Even in repeating them
mentally
he must take every precaution not to inhale anything impure.
I am bound by my word of honor never to repeat the whole of this
prayer,
but I may quote a few unconnected sentences:
"Om... Earth... Heaven.... Let the adored light of.... [here
follows a
name which must not be pronounced] shelter me. Let thy Sun, O thou
only
One, shelter me, the unworthy... I shut my eyes, I shut my ears, I
do
not breathe... in order to see, hear and breathe thee alone. Throw
light
upon our thoughts [again the secret name]... "
It is curious to compare this Hindu prayer with the celebrated
prayer
of Descartes' "Meditation III" in his L'Existence de
Dieu. It runs as
follows, if I remember rightly:
"Now I shut my eyes, cover my ears, and dismiss all my five
senses, I
will dwell on the thought of God alone, I will meditate on His
quality
and look on the beauty of this