From The Caves and Jungles of Hindostan by Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891
From The Caves and Jungles of Hindostan by Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891
From The Caves and Jungles of Hindostan by Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891
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Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN
***
[[Transcribed by M.R.J.]]
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.
Contents
In Bombay
On the Way to Karli
In the Karli Caves
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
In Bombay
After the tropical nights of the Red Sea and the scorching hot
days that had tortured us since Aden, we, people of the distant
North, now 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.
The legend says that Rama spent here a night on his way from Ayodhya
(Oudh) to Lanka (Ceylon) to fetch his wife Sita who had been stolen
by the wicked King Ravana. Rama's brother Lakshman, whose duty
it was to send him daily a new lingam from Benares, was late in
doing so one evening. Losing patience, Rama erected for himself
a lingam of sand. When, at last, the symbol arrived from Benares,
it was put in a temple, 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.
Once settled in the bungalow awaiting us, the first thing we were
struck with in Bombay was the millions of crows and vultures. The
first are, so 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.
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 Bombay is provided with a hollow
pumpkin. The sap of the tree drops into it and, after fermenting,
becomes a most intoxicating beverage, known in Bombay under the
name of toddy. The 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.
----------
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 India as follows: "This is the land
of India. Its people are 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 Madras governor thought of passing a law that should
induce native 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.
----------
For more than two years before we left America we were in constant
correspondence with a certain learned Brahman, whose glory is great
at present (1879) all over India. We came to India to study, under
his 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 India 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 Bhadrinath Mountains (22,000 feet above the
level of the sea) there exist spacious caves, inhabited, now for
many thousand years, by these anchorites. Bhadrinath is situated
in the north of Hindustan on the river Bishegunj, and is celebrated
for its temple of Vishnu right in 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.
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."
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.
----------
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.
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.
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.
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 institu-tion.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
-----------
* 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.
"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.
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."
"With great pleasure. Thinking that our great Rudra (the Vedic
name for this god) is omnipresent, we repre-sent 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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 light-ning, 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.
----------
* 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."
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.
"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."
"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 empiri-cal 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."'
"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?"
"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.
-------------
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.
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.
"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--
"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."
"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.
"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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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!
"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?"
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."
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 0f 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.
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.
"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.
-------------
This tends to convince scientists that the cave was cut out by Buddhists.
Of course the conclusion is drawn that the building does not belong
to the Buddhists, but to the Brahmans, who believe in Manu.
"An agreeable gift of the symbol and vehicle of the purified Saka-Saka."
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.
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.
Vanished Glories
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."
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.
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.
"Is it possible that a single, miserable rupee can have been the
cause of all this?" we asked each other in utter bewilderment.
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:
"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.
In the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, this Punt was a sacred land,
because Punt or Pa-nuter 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."
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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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!"
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.
Brahmanic Hospitalities
"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."
-------------
"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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 to-gether 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.
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."
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
We did follow his argument with the greatest attention, but were
at a loss to foresee whither it tended to lead us.
"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?"
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...."
"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.
But we had hardly walked a hundred steps after this remark when
we saw the Babu running after us and signaling us to stop.
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.... "
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?
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.
---------
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.
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.
"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]... "
"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 wondrous radiancy."
After this prayer Sham Rao read many other prayers, holding with
two fingers his sacred Brahmanical thread. After a while began
the ceremony of "the washing of the gods." Taking them down from
the altar, one after the other, according to their rank, Sham Rao
first plunged them in the big font, in which he had just bathed
himself, and then bathed them in milk in a smaller bronze font
by the altar. The milk was mixed up with curds, butter, honey,
and sugar, and so it cannot be said that this cleansing served
its purpose. No wonder we were glad to see that the gods underwent
a second bathing in the first font and then were dried with a
clean towel.
When the gods were arranged in their respective places, the Hindu
traced on them the sectarian signs with a ring from his left hand.
He used white sandal paint for the lingam and red for Gunpati and
Surya. Then he sprinkled them with aromatic oils and covered them
with fresh flowers. The long ceremony was finished by "the
awakening of the gods." A small bell was repeatedly rung under
the noses of the idols, who, as the Brahman probably supposed,
all went to sleep during this tedious ceremony.
Having noticed, or fancied, which often amounts to the same thing,
that they were wide awake, he began offering them his daily sacrifices,
lighting the incense and the lamps, and, to our great astonishment,
snapping his fingers from time to time, as if warning the idols to
"look out." Having filled the room with clouds of incense and fumes
of burning camphor, he scattered some more flowers over the altar
and sat on the small stool for a while, murmuring the last prayers.
He repeatedly held the palms of his hands over the flame of the
tapers and rubbed his face with them. Then he walked round the
altar three times, and, having knelt three times, retreated backwards
to the door.
A little while before our host had finished his morning prayers
the ladies of the house came into the room. They brought each a
small stool and sat in a row murmuring prayers and telling the
beads of their rosaries.
We left the women to their prayers and followed our host to the
cow house. The cow symbolizes the "fostering earth," or Nature,
and is worshipped accordingly. Sham Rao sat down by the cow and
washed her feet, first with her own milk, then with water. He
gave her some sugar and rice, covered her forehead with powdered
sandal, and adorned her horns and four legs with chains of flowers.
He burned some incense under her nostrils and brandished a burning
lamp over her head. Then he walked three times round her and sat
down to rest. Some Hindus walk round the cow one hundred and
eight times, rosary in hand. But our Sham Rao had a slight
tendency to freethinking, as we knew, and besides, he was too much
of an admirer of Haeckel. Having rested himself, he filled a cup
with water, put in it the cow's tail for a moment, and then drank it!
After this he performed the rite of worshipping the sun and the
sacred plant tulsi. Unable to bring the god Surya from his heavenly
altar and wash him in the sacred font, Sham Rao contented himself
by filling his own mouth with water, standing on one leg, and
spirting this water towards the sun. Needless to say it never
reached the orb of day, but, very unexpectedly, sprinkled us instead.
--------------
A Witch's Den
Our kind host Sham Rao was very gay during the remaining hours of
our visit. He did his best to entertain us, and would not hear
of our leaving the neighborhood without having seen its greatest
celebrity, its most interesting sight. A jadu wala--sorceress--
well known in the district, was just at this time under the
influence of seven sister-goddesses, who took possession of her
by turns, and spoke their oracles through her lips. Sham Rao said
we must not fail to see her, be it only in the interests of science.
The evening closes in, and we once more get ready for an excursion.
It is only five miles to the cavern of the Pythia of Hindostan;
the road runs through a jungle, but it is level and smooth. Besides,
the jungle and its ferocious inhabitants have ceased to frighten us.
The timid elephants we had in the "dead city" are sent home, and
we are to mount new behemoths belonging to a neighboring Raja.
The pair, that stand before the verandah like two dark hillocks,
are steady and trust worthy. Many a time these two have hunted
the royal tiger, and no wild shrieking or thunderous roaring can
frighten them. And so, let us start!
The ruddy flames of the torches dazzle our eyes and increase the
forest gloom. Our surroundings seem so dark, so mysterious. There
is something indescribably fascinating, almost solemn, in these
night-journeys in the out-of-the-way corners of India. Everything
is silent and deserted around you, everything is dozing on the
earth and overhead. Only the heavy, regular tread of the elephants
breaks the stillness of the night, like the sound of falling
hammers in the underground smithy of Vulcan. From time to time
uncanny voices and murmurs are heard in the black forest.
"The wind sings its strange song amongst the ruins," says one of us,
"what a wonderful acoustic phenomenon!" "Bhuta, bhuta!" whisper
the awestruck torch-bearers. They brandish their torches and
swiftly spin on one leg, and snap their fingers to chase away the
aggressive spirits.
We left the thick forest behind us, and reached a deep glen, on
three sides bordered with the thick forest, where even by day the
shadows are as dark as by night. We were about two thousand feet
above the foot of the Vindhya ridge, judging by the ruined wall
of Mandu, straight above our heads. Suddenly a very chilly wind
rose that nearly blew our torches out. Caught in the labyrinth
of bushes and rocks, the wind angrily shook the branches of the
blossoming syringas, then, shaking itself free, it turned back
along the glen and flew down the valley, howling, whistling and
shrieking, as if all the fiends of the forest together were joining
in a funeral song.
"It is too dark to see the village. Besides, the huts are so small,
and so hidden by the bushes, that even by daytime you could hardly
find them. And there is no light in the houses, for fear of the spirits."
"And where is your witch? Do you mean we are to watch her performance
in complete darkness?"
Sham Rao cast a furtive, timid look round him; and his voice, when
he answered our questions, was somewhat tremulous.
"I implore you not to call her a witch! She may hear you. ..... It
is not far off, it is not more than half a mile. Do not allow this
short distance to shake your decision. No elephant, and even no
horse, could make its way there. We must walk. ... But we shall
find plenty of light there.... "
This was unexpected, and far from agreeable. To walk in this gloomy
Indian night; to scramble through thickets of cactuses; to venture
in a dark forest, full of wild animals--this was too much for Miss X---.
She declared that she would go no further. She would wait for us
in the howdah, on the elephant's back, and perhaps would go to sleep.
Narayan was against this parti de plaisir from the very beginning,
and now, without explaining his reasons, he said she was the only
sensible one among us.
"You won't lose anything," he remarked, "by staying where you are.
And I only wish everyone would follow your example."
"What ground have you for saying so, I wonder?" remonstrated Sham Rao,
and a slight note of disappointment rang in his voice, when he saw
that the excursion, proposed and organized by himself, threatened
to come to nothing. "What harm could be done by it? I won't insist
any more that the `incarnation of gods' is a rare sight, and that
the Europeans hardly ever have an opportunity of witnessing it;
but, besides, the Kangalim in question is no ordinary woman. She
leads a holy life; she is a prophetess, and her blessing could
not prove harmful to any one. I insisted on this excursion out
of pure patriotism."
It would have been a striking sight for our European and American
friends if they had beheld our procession on that dark night. Our
way lay along a narrow winding path up the mountain. Not more
than two people could walk together--and we were thirty, including
the torch-bearers. Surely some reminiscence of night sallies
against the confederate Southerners had revived in the colonel's
breast, judging by the readiness with which he took upon himself
the leadership of our small expedition. He ordered all the rifles
and revolvers to be loaded, despatched three torch-bearers to march
ahead of us, and arranged us in pairs. Under such a skilled chieftain
we had nothing to fear from tigers; and so our procession started,
and slowly crawled up the winding path.
A new glen opened before us, the entrance of which, from the valley,
was well masked by thick trees. We understood how easily we might
have wandered round it, without ever suspecting its existence. At the
bottom of the glen we discovered the abode of the celebrated Kangalim.
The den, as it turned out, was situated in the ruin of an old Hindu
temple in tolerably good preservation. In all probability it was
built long before the "dead city," because during the epoch of the
latter, the heathen were not allowed to have their own places of
worship; and the temple stood quite close to the wall of the town,
in fact, right under it. The cupolas of the two smaller lateral
pagodas had fallen long ago, and huge bushes grew out of their altars.
This evening, their branches were hidden under a mass of bright
colored rags, bits of ribbon, little pots, and various other talismans;
because, even in them, popular superstition sees something sacred.
"And are not these poor people right? Did not these bushes grow
on sacred ground? Is not their sap impregnated with the incense
of offerings, and the exhalations of holy anchorites, who once
lived and breathed here?"
The learned, but superstitious Sham Rao would only answer our
questions by new questions.
But the central temple, built of red granite, stood unharmed by time,
and, as we learned afterwards, a deep tunnel opened just behind
its closely-shut door. What was beyond it no one knew. Sham Rao
assured us that no man of the last three generations had ever stepped
over the threshold of this thick iron door; no one had seen the
subterranean passage for many years. Kangalim lived there in
perfect isolation, and, according to the oldest people in the
neighborhood, she had always lived there. Some people said she
was three hundred years old; others alleged that a certain old
man on his death-bed had revealed to his son that this old woman
was no one else than his own uncle. This fabulous uncle had settled
in the cave in the times when the "dead city" still counted several
hundreds of inhabitants. The hermit, busy paving his road to Moksha,
had no intercourse with the rest of the world, and nobody knew how
he lived and what he ate. But a good while ago, in the days when
the Bellati (foreigners) had not yet taken possession of this mountain,
the old hermit suddenly was transformed into a hermitess. She
continues his pursuits and speaks with his voice, and often in his
name; but she receives worshippers, which was not the practice of
her predecessor.
We had come too early, and the Pythia did not at first appear. But
the square before the temple was full of people, and a wild, though
picturesque, scene it was. An enormous bonfire blazed in the centre,
and round it crowded the naked savages like so many black gnomes,
adding whole branches of trees sacred to the seven sister-goddesses.
Slowly and evenly they all jumped from one leg to another to a tune
of a single monotonous musical phrase, which they repeated in chorus,
accompanied by several local drums and tambourines. The hushed
trill of the latter mingled with the forest echoes and the hysterical
moans of two little girls, who lay under a heap of leaves by the fire.
The poor children were brought here by their mothers, in the hope
that the goddesses would take pity upon them and banish the two
evil spirits under whose obsession they were. Both mothers were
quite young, and sat on their heels blankly and sadly staring at
the flames. No one paid us the slightest attention when we appeared,
and afterwards during all our stay these people acted as if we
were invisible. Had we worn a cap of darkness they could not have
behaved more strangely.
"They are simply under the influence of toddy and opium!" retorted
the irreverent Babu.
All this was frightful enough, but many more horrors were in store
for us.
Waiting for the appearance of the prima donna of this forest opera
company, we sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, ready to ask
innumerable questions of our condescending host. But I was hardly
seated, when a feeling of indescribable astonishment and horror
made me shrink back.
"What can this be?" was our unanimous question. None of us had
ever met anything like it, and even the colonel looked aghast.
"If the collector of this district ever hears that this antediluvian
relic adorns the den of your--ahem!--witch," remarked the Babu,
"it won't adorn it many days longer."
All round the skull, and on the floor of the portico there were
heaps of white flowers, which, though not quite antediluvian, were
totally unknown to us. They were as large as a big rose; and
their white petals were covered with a red powder, the inevitable
concomitant of every Indian religious ceremony. Further on, there
were groups of cocoa-nuts, and large brass dishes filled with rice;
and each adorned with a red or green taper. In the centre of the
portico there stood a queer-shaped censer, surrounded with chandeliers.
A little boy, dressed from head to foot in white, threw into it
handfuls of aromatic powders.
"These people, who assemble here to worship Kangalim," said Sham Rao,
"do not actually belong either to her sect or to any other. They
are devil-worshippers. They do not believe in Hindu gods, but live
in small communities; they belong to one of the many Indian races,
which usually are called the hill-tribes. Unlike the Shanars of
Southern Travancore, they do not use the blood of sacrificial animals;
they do not build separate temples to their bhutas. But they are
possessed by the strange fancy that the goddess Kali, the wife of
Shiva, from time immemorial has had a grudge against them, and
sends her favorite evil spirits to torture them. Save this little
difference, they have the same beliefs as the Shanars. God does
not exist for them; and even Shiva is considered by them as an
ordinary spirit. Their chief worship is offered to the souls of
the dead. These souls, however righteous and kind they may be in
their lifetime, become after death as wicked as can be; they are
happy only when they are torturing living men and cattle. As the
opportunities of doing so are the only reward for the virtues they
possessed when incarnated, a very wicked man is punished by becoming
after his death a very soft-hearted ghost; he loathes his loss of
daring, and is altogether miserable. The results of this strange
logic are not bad, nevertheless. These savages and devil-worshippers
are the kindest and the most truth-loving of all the hill-tribes.
They do whatever they can to be worthy of their ultimate reward;
because, don't you see, they all long to become the wickedest
of devils!.... "
And put in good humor by his own wittiness, Sham Rao laughed till his
hilarity became offensive, considering the sacredness of the place.
"A year ago some business matters sent me to Tinevelli," continued he.
"Staying with a friend of mine, who is a Shanar, I was allowed to be
present at one of the ceremonies in the honor of devils. No European
has as yet witnessed this worship--whatever the missionaries may say;
but there are many converts amongst the Shanars, who willingly describe
them to the padres. My friend is a wealthy man, which is probably
the reason why the devils are especially vicious to him. They poison
his cattle, spoil his crops and his coffee plants, and persecute his
numerous relations, sending them sunstrokes, madness and epilepsy,
over which illnesses they especially preside. These wicked demons
have settled in every corner of his spacious landed property--in
the woods, the ruins, and even in his stables. To avert all this,
my friend covered his land with stucco pyramids, and prayed humbly,
asking the demons to draw their portraits on each of them, so that
he may recognize them and worship each of them separately, as the
rightful owner of this, or that, particular pyramid. And what do
you think?.... Next morning all the pyramids were found covered
with drawings. Each of them bore an incredibly good likeness of
the dead of the neighborhood. My friend had known personally almost
all of them. He found also a portrait of his own late father amongst
the lot..... "
"Indeed? But do you mean to say that this strange people worshipped
Captain Pole also?"
"Of course they did! Captain Pole was such a worthy man, such an
honest officer, that, after his death, he could not help being
promoted to the highest rank of Shanar devils. The Pe-Kovil,
demon's house, sacred to his memory, stands side by side with the
Pe-Kovil Bhadrakali, which was recently conferred on the wife of
a certain German missionary, who also was a most charitable lady
and so is very dangerous now."
"But what are their ceremonies? Tell us something about their rites."
Sham Rao stopped abruptly, struck dumb. Kangalim stood before us!
Mr. Y--- and the colonel both grew pale under her stare, and Mr. Y---
made a movement as if about to rise.
Three hundred years old! Who can tell? Judging by her appearance,
we might as well conjecture her to be a thousand. We beheld a
genuine living mummy, or rather a mummy endowed with motion. She
seemed to have been withering since the creation. Neither time,
nor the ills of life, nor the elements could ever affect this living
statue of death. The all-destroying hand of time had touched her
and stopped short. Time could do no more, and so had left her.
And with all this, not a single grey hair. Her long black locks
shone with a greenish sheen, and fell in heavy masses down to her knees.
The demoniac little girls raised their heads from be-neath the
leaves, and set up a prolonged animal-like howl. Their example
was followed by the old man, who lay exhausted by his frantic dance.
The witch tossed her head convulsively, and began her invocations,
rising on tiptoe, as if moved by some external force.
The mad race round the bonfire had lasted twelve minutes, but we
looked in vain for a trace of fatigue on the deathlike face of
the witch. She stopped only for a moment, just the necessary time
for the goddess to release her. As soon as she felt free, by a
single effort she jumped over the fire and plunged into the deep
tank by the portico. This time, she plunged only once; and whilst
she stayed under the water, the second sister-goddess entered her
body. The little boy in white produced another dish, with a new
piece of burning camphor, just in time for the witch to take it up,
and to rush again on her headlong way.
The colonel sat with his watch in his hand. During the second
obsession the witch ran, leaped, and raced for exactly fourteen
minutes. After this, she plunged twice in the tank, in honor of
the second sister; and with every new obsession the number of her
plunges increased, till it became six.
It was already an hour and a half since the race began. All this
time the witch never rested, stopping only for a few seconds, to
disappear under the water.
"What is the matter with him?" was my thought, but I had no time
to ask him, because the witch was again in full swing, chasing
her own shadow.
But with the seventh goddess the programme was slightly changed.
The running of the old woman changed to leaping. Sometimes bending
down to the ground, like a black panther, she leaped up to some
worshipper, and halting before him touched his forehead with her
finger, while her long, thin body shook with inaudible laughter.
Then, again, as if shrinking back playfully from her shadow, and
chased by it, in some uncanny game, the witch appeared to us like
a horrid caricature of Dinorah, dancing her mad dance. Suddenly
she straightened herself to her full height, darted to the portico
and crouched before the smoking censer, beating her forehead against
the granite steps. Another jump, and she was quite close to us,
before the head of the monstrous Sivatherium. She knelt down again
and bowed her head to the ground several times, with the sound of
an empty barrel knocked against something hard.
We had hardly the time to spring to our feet and shrink back when
she appeared on the top of the Sivatherium's head, standing there
amongst the horns.
Narayan alone did not stir, and fearlessly looked straight in the
eyes of the frightful sorceress.
But what was this? Who spoke in those deep manly tones? Her lips
were moving, from her breast were issuing those quick, abrupt phrases,
but the voice sounded hollow as if coming from beneath the ground.
"Hush, hush!" whispered Sham Rao, his whole body trembling. "She
is going to prophesy!.... " "She?" incredulously inquired Mr. Y---.
"This a woman's voice? I don't believe it for a moment. Someone's
uncle must be stowed away somewhere about the place. Not the
fabulous uncle she inherited from, but a real live one!.... "
Sham Rao winced under the irony of this supposition, and cast an
imploring look at the speaker.
"Woe to you! woe to you!" echoed the voice. "Woe to you, children
of the impure Jaya and Vijaya! of the mocking, unbelieving lingerers
round great Shiva's door! Ye, who are cursed by eighty thousand sages!
Woe to you who believe not in the goddess Kali, and you who deny us,
her Seven divine Sisters! Flesh-eating, yellow-legged vultures!
friends of the oppressors of our land! dogs who are not ashamed to
eat from the same trough with the Bellati!" (foreigners).
"It seems to me that your prophetess only foretells the past," said
Mr. Y---, philosophically putting his hands in his pockets. "I
should say that she is hinting at you, my dear Sham Rao."
"Yes! and at us also," murmured the colonel, who was evidently
beginning to feel uneasy.
As to the unlucky Sham Rao, he broke out in a cold sweat, and tried
to assure us that we were mistaken, that we did not fully understand
her language.
But, alas! after the third second had passed, we all came to the
embarrassing conclusion that, judging from the loud clang of the
door of the cave, the representative of the Seven Sisters had
ignominiously fled. The moment she had disappeared from our
inquisitive eyes to her subterranean domain, we all realized that
the unearthly hollow voice we had heard had nothing supernatural
about it and belonged to the Brahman hidden under the Sivatherium--
to someone's live uncle, as Mr. Y--- had rightly supposed.
-----------
Miss X--- woke up, and asked what was the meaning of all this noise.
The noise of many voices and the sounds of the many retreating
footsteps, the general rush of the crowd, had frightened her. She
listened to us with a condescending smile, and a few yawns, and
went to sleep again.
Sham Rao still looked confused when he shook hands with us at parting,
and expressed to us the best wishes of his family and himself.
God's Warrior
Meanwhile, the Bagh caves were quite close to us, not more than
fifty miles off, to the east from Mandu. We were undecided whether
to leave them alone or go back to the Nerbudda. In the country
situated on the other side of Kandesh, our Babu had some "chums,"
as everywhere else in India; the omnipresent Bengali Babus, who
are always glad to be of some service to you, are scattered all
over Hindostan, like the Jews in Russia. Besides, our party was
joined by a new member.
The day before we had received a letter from Swami Dayanand, carried
to us by a traveling Sannyasi. Dayanand informed us that the
cholera was increasing every day in Hardwar, and that we must
postpone making his acquaintance personally till the end of May,
either in Dehra-Dun, at the foot of Himalaya, or in Saharanpur,
which attracts every tourist by its charming situation.
Our new friend was a native of Amritsar, in the Punjab, and had
been brought up in the "Golden Temple," on the banks of Amrita-Saras,
the "Lake of Immortality." The head Guru, or instructor, of Sikhs
resides there. He never crosses the boundaries of the temple. His
chief occupation is the study of the book called Adigrantha, which
belongs to the sacred literature of this strange bellicose sect.
The Sikhs respect him as much as the Tibetans respect their Dalai-Lama.
The Lamas in general consider the latter to be the incarnation of
Buddha, the Sikhs think that the Maha-Guru of Amritsar is the
incarnation of Nanak, the founder of their sect. Nevertheless,
no true Sikh will ever say that Nanak was a deity; they look on
him as a prophet, inspired by the spirit of the only God. This
shows that our Sannyasi was not one of the naked travelling monks,
but a true Akali; one of the six hundred warrior-priests attached
to the Golden Temple, for the purpose of serving God and protecting
the temple from the destructive Mussulmans. His name was Ram-Runjit-Das;
and his personal appearance was in perfect accordance with his title
of "God's warrior." His exterior was very remarkable and typical;
and he looked like a muscular centurion of ancient Roman legions,
rather than a peaceable servant of the altar. Ram-Runjit-Das appeared
to us mounted on a magnificent horse, and accompanied by another
Sikh, who respectfully walked some distance behind him, and was
evidently passing through his noviciate. Our Hindu companions had
discerned that he was an Akali, when he was still in the distance.
He wore a bright blue tunic without sleeves, exactly like that we
see on the statues of Roman warriors. Broad steel bracelets
protected his strong arms, and a shield protruded from behind his
back. A blue, conical turban covered his head, and round his waist
were many steel circlets. The enemies of the Sikhs assert that
these sacred sectarian belts become more dangerous in the hand of
an experienced "God's warrior," than any other weapon.
The Sikhs are the bravest and the most warlike sect of the whole
Punjab. The word sikh means disciple. Founded in the fifteenth
century by the wealthy and noble Brahman Nanak, the new teaching
spread so successfully amongst the northern soldiers, that in 1539 A.D.,
when the founder died, it counted one hundred thousand followers.
At the present time, this sect, harmonizing closely with the fiery
natural mysticism, and the warlike tendencies of the natives, is
the reigning creed of the whole Punjab. It is based on the principles
of theocratic rule; but its dogmas are almost totally unknown to
Europeans; the teachings, the religious conceptions, and the rites
of the Sikhs, are kept secret. The following details are known
generally: the Sikhs are ardent monotheists, they refuse to
recognize caste; have no restrictions in diet, like Europeans;
and bury their dead, which, except among Mussulmans, is a rare
exception in India. The second volume of the Adigrantha teaches
them "to adore the only true God; to avoid superstitions; to help
the dead, that they may lead a righteous life; and to earn one's
living, sword in hand." Govinda, one of the great Gurus of the Sikhs,
ordered them never to shave their beards and moustaches, and not
to cut their hair--in order that they may not be mistaken for
Mussulmans or any other native of India.
Many a desperate battle the Sikhs fought and won, against the
Mussulmans, and against the Hindus. Their leader, the celebrated
Runjit-Sing, after having been acknowledged the autocrat of the
Upper Punjab, concluded a treaty with Lord Auckland, at the
beginning of this century, in which his country was proclaimed an
independent state. But after the death of the "old lion," his
throne became the cause of the most dreadful civil wars and disorders.
His son, Maharaja Dhulip-Sing, proved quite unfit for the high
post he inherited from his father, and, under him, the Sikhs became
an ill-disciplined restless mob. Their attempt to conquer the
whole of Hindostan proved disastrous. Persecuted by his own soldiers,
Dhulip-Sing sought the help of Englishmen, and was sent away to
Scotland. And some time after this, the Sikhs took their place
amongst the rest of Britain's Indian subjects.
But still there remains a strong body of the great Sikh sect of old.
The Kuks represent the most dangerous underground current of the
popular hatred. This new sect was founded about thirty years ago
[written in 1879] by Balaka-Rama, and, at first, formed a bulk of
people near Attok, in the Punjab, on the east bank of the Indus,
exactly on the spot where the latter becomes navigable. Balaka-Rama
had a double aim; to restore the religion of the Sikhs to its
pristine purity, and to organize a secret political body, which
must be ready for everything, at a moment's notice. This brotherhood
consists of sixty thousand members, who pledged themselves never
to reveal their secrets, and never to disobey any order of their
leaders. In Attok they are few, for the town is small. But we
were assured that the Kuks live everywhere in India. Their
community is so perfectly organized that it is impossible to find
them out, or to learn the names of their leaders.
The title the British Residency bears, and everything it may contain
at the present time, are mere trifles compared with the past. I
remember reading a chapter of the History of Hyderabad, by an
English author, which contained something to the following effect:
Whilst the Resident entertained the gentlemen, his wife was similarly
employed receiving the ladies a few yards off, in a separate palace,
which was as sumptuous, and bore the name of Rang-Mahal. Both
palaces were built by Colonel Kirkpatrick, the late minister at
the Nizam's court. Having married a native princess, he constructed
this charming abode for her personal use. Its garden is surrounded
by a high wall, as is customary in the Orient, and the centre of
the garden is adorned with a large marble fountain, covered with
scenes from the Ramayana, and mosaics, Pavilions, galleries and
terraces--everything in this garden is loaded with adornments of
the most costly Oriental style, that is to say, with abundance of
inlaid designs, paintings, gilding, ivory and marble. The great
attraction of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's receptions were the nautches,
magnificently dressed, thanks to the generosity of the Resident.
Some of them wore a cargo of jewels worth L 30,000, and literally
shone from head to foot with diamonds and other precious stones.
The glorious times of the East India Company are beyond recall,
and no Residents, and even no native princes, could now afford to
be so "generous." India, this "most precious diamond of the British
crown," is utterly exhausted, like a pile of gold in the hands of
an alchemist, who thriftlessly spent it in the hope of finding the
philosopher's stone. Besides ruining themselves and the country,
the Anglo-Indians commit the greatest blunders, at least in two
points of their present Government system. These two points are:
first, the Western education they give to the higher classes; and,
secondly, the protection and maintenance of the rights of idol
worship. Neither of these systems is wise. By means of the first
they successfully replace the religious feelings of old India, which,
however false, had the great advantage of being sincere, by a
positive atheism amongst the young generation of the Brahmans;
and by the means of the second they flatter only the ignorant masses,
from whom nothing is to be feared under any circumstances. If the
patriotic feelings of the bulk of the population could possibly be
roused, the English would have been slaughtered long ago. The rural
populace is unarmed, it is true, but a crowd seeking revenge could
use the brass and stone idols, sent to India by thousands from
Birmingham, with as great success as if they were so many swords.
But, as it is, the masses of India are indifferent and harmless;
so that the only existing danger comes from the side of the educated
classes. And the English fail to see that the better the education
they give them, the more careful they must be to avoid reopening
the old wounds, always alive to new injury, in the heart of every
true Hindu. The Hindus are proud of the past of their country,
dreams of past glories are their only compensation for the bitter
present. The English education they receive only enables them to
learn that Europe was plunged in the darkness of the Stone Age,
when India was in the full growth of her splendid civilization.
And so the comparison of their past with their present is only the
more sad. This consideration never hinders the Anglo-Indians from
hurting the feelings of the Hindus. For instance, in the unanimous
opinion of travelers and antiquarians, the most interesting building
of Hyderabad is Chahar-Minar, a college that was built by Mohamed-
Kuli-Khan on the ruins of a still more ancient college. It is built
at the crossing of four streets, on four arches, which are so high
that loaded camels and elephants with their turrets pass through
freely. Over these arches rise the several stories of the college.
Each story once was destined for a separate branch of learning.
Alas! the times when India studied philosophy and astronomy at
the feet of her great sages are gone, and the English have transformed
the college itself into a warehouse. The hall, which served for
the study of astronomy, and was filled with quaint, medieval apparatus,
is now used for a depot of opium; and the hall of philosophy contains
huge boxes of liqueurs, rum and champagne, which are prohibited by
the Koran, as well as by the Brahmans.
What could we say against all this? We cast one more sorrowful
look at the caves, and returned to our antediluvian carriages. The
Babu and Narayan said we must spend the night at the house of a
certain "chum" of the Babu, who resided in a small town, three
miles further on, and bearing the same name as the caves; and we
unwillingly acquiesced.
"But why do you intend taking us to the place of a man whom you
consider as a thief and a robber?" objected one of us timidly.
No doubt they were right. We were in Central India, the very nest
of all kinds of superstitions, and were surrounded by Bhils. All
along the Vindya ridge, from Yama, on the west of the "dead city,"
the country is thickly populated by this most daring, restless and
superstitious of all the half-savage tribes of India.
The Orientalists think that the naive Bhils comes from the Sanskrit
root bhid, which means to separate. Sir J. Malcolm supposes
accordingly that the Bhils are sectarians, who separated from the
Brahmanical creed, and were excommunicated. All this looks very
probable, but their tribal traditions say something different. Of
course, in this case, as in every other, their history is strongly
entangled with mythology; and one has to go through a thick shrubbery
of fancy before reaching the tribe's genealogical tree.
The relation of the absent dhani, who spent the evening with us,
told us the following: The Bhils are the descendants of one of
the sons of Mahadeva, or Shiva, and of a fair woman, with blue
eyes and a white face, whom he met in some forest on the other
side of the Kalapani, "black waters," or ocean. This pair had
several sons, one of whom, as handsome as he was vicious, killed
the favorite ox of his grandfather Maha-deva, and was banished by
his father to the Jodpur desert. Banished to its remotest southern
corner, he married; and soon his descendants filled the whole
country. They scattered along the Vindya ridge, on the western
frontier of Malva and Kandesh; and, later, in the woody wilderness,
on the shores of the rivers Maha, Narmada and Tapti. And all of
them, inheriting the beauty of their forefather, his blue eyes
and fair complexion, inherited also his turbulent disposition
and his vice.
The "mediators" between Shiva and the Bhils possess such unrestricted
authority that the most awful crimes are accomplished at their
lightest word. The tribe have thought it necessary to decrease
their power to a certain extent by instituting a kind of council
in every village. This council is called tarvi, and tries to cool
down the hot-headed fancies of the dhanis, their brigand lords.
However, the word of the Bhils is sacred, and their hospitality
is boundless.
The history and the annals of the princes of Jodpur and Oodeypur
confirm the legend of the Bhil emigration from their primitive
desert, but how they happened to be there nobody knows. Colonel
Tod is positive that the Bhils, together with the Merases and the
Goands, are the aborigines of India, as well as the tribes who
inhabit the Nerbuda forests. But why the Bhils should be almost
fair and blue-eyed, whereas the rest of the hill-tribes are almost
African in type, is a question that is not answered by this statement.
The fact that all these aborigines call themselves Bhumaputra and
Vanaputra, sons of the earth and sons of the forest, when the
Rajputs, their first conquerors, call themselves Surya-vansa and
the Brahmans Indu-putras, descendants of the sun and the moon,
does not prove everything. It seems to me, that in the present
case, their appearance, which confirms their legends, is of much
greater value than philology. Dr. Clark, the author of Travels
in Scandinavia, is very logical in saying that, "by directing our
attention on the traces of the ancient superstitions of a tribe,
we shall find out who were its primitive forefathers much more easily
than by scientific examination of their tongue; the superstitions
are grafted on the very root, whereas the tongue is subjected to
all kinds of changes."
Whatever Pinkerton and others may say, the modern Rajput warriors
do not answer in the least the description Hippocrates gives us
of the Scythians. The "father of medicine" says: "The bodily
structure of these men is thick, coarse and stunted; their joints
are weak and flabby; they have almost no hair, and each of them
resembles the other." No man, who has seen the handsome, gigantic
warriors of Rajistan, with their abundant hair and beards, will
ever recognize this portrait drawn by Hippocrates as theirs.
Besides, the Scythians, whoever they may be, buried their dead,
which the Rajputs never did, judging by the records of their most
ancient MSS. The Scythians were a wandering nation, and are
described by Hesiod as "living in covered carts and feeding on
mare's milk." And the Rajputs have been a sedentary people from
time immemorial, inhabiting towns, and having their history at
least several hundred years before Christ--that is to say, earlier
than the epoch of Herodotus. They do celebrate the Ashvamedha,
the horse sacrifice; but will not touch mare's milk, and despise
all Mongolians. Herodotus says that the Scythians, who called
themselves Skoloti, hated foreigners, and never let any stranger
in their country; and the Rajputs are one of the most hospitable
peoples of the world. In the epoch of the wars of Darius, 516 B.C.,
the Scythians were still in their own district, about the mouth
of the Danube. And at the same epoch the Rajputs were already
known in India and had their own kingdom. As to the Ashvamedha,
which Colonel Tod thinks to be the chief illustration of his theory,
the custom of killing horses in honor of the sun is mentioned in
the Rig-Veda, as well as in the Aitareya-Brahmana. Martin Haug
states that the latter has probably been in existence since
2000-2400 B.C.
------
But it strikes me that the digression from the Babu's chum to the
Scythians and the Rajputs of the antediluvian epoch threatens to
become too long, so I beg the reader's pardon and resume the
thread of my narrative.
Next day, early in the morning, the local shikaris went under the
leadership of the warlike Akali, to hunt glamoured and real tigers
in the caves. It took them longer than we expected. The old Bhil,
who represented to us the absent dhani, proposed that in the
meanwhile we should witness a Brahmanical wedding ceremony. Needless
to say, we jumped at this. The ceremonies of betrothal and marriage
have not changed in India during the last two millenniums at least.
They are performed according to the directions of Manu, and the
old theme has no new variations. India's religious rites have
crystallized long ago. Whoever has seen a Hindu wedding in 1879,
saw it as it was celebrated in ancient Aryavarta many centuries ago.
-------------
Having read this we laughed heartily, though we did not give full
credit to this description, and thought it a good deal exaggerated.
We knew Parsi and Brahman families in which were husbands of ten
years of age; but had never heard as yet of a bride who was a
baby in arms.
---------
If both the mothers have children of the same sex, it will not
upset the Brahman in the least; he will say this was the will of
the goddess Mata, it shows that she desires the new-born babies to
be two loving brothers, or two loving sisters, as the case may be,
in future. And if the children grow up, they will be acknowledged
heirs to the properties of both mothers. In this case, the Brahman
breaks the bonds of the marriage by the order of the goddess, is
paid for doing so, and the whole affair is dropped altogether. But
if the children are of different sexes these bonds cannot be broken,
even if they are born cripples or idiots.
-----------
All the above holds good as far as the men are concerned; but
with the women it is quite different.
Every nautcha can read, and receives the highest Hindu education.
They all read and write in Sanskrit, and study the best literature
of ancient India, and her six chief philosophies, but especially
music, singing and dancing. Besides these "godborn" priestesses
of the pagodas, there are also public nautches, who, like the
Egyptian almeas, are within the reach of ordinary mortals, not
only of gods; they also are in most cases women of a certain culture.
But with the invasion of the Persians, in the seventh century, and
later on of the fanatical, all-destroying Mussulmans, all this
changed. Woman became enslaved, and the Brahmans did everything
to humiliate her. In towns, the position of the Hindu woman is
still worse than amongst agricultural classes.
-----------
When we arrived on the spot, where the Bagh cere-mony was celebrated,
the festivity was at its height. The bridegroom was not more than
fourteen years old, while the bride was only ten. Her small nose
was adorned with a huge golden ring with some very brilliant stone,
which dragged her nostril down. Her face looked comically piteous,
and sometimes she cast furtive glances at us. The bridegroom, a
stout, healthy-looking boy, attired in cloth of gold and wearing
the many storied Indra hat, was on horseback, surrounded by a whole
crowd of male relations.
We were also told that the whole of the previous night had been
given up to the worship of various spirits. The last rites, begun
weeks ago, were hurriedly brought to an end during this last night.
Invocations to Ganesha, to the god of marriages; to the gods of
the elements, water, fire, air and earth; to the goddess of the
smallpox and other illnesses; to the spirits of ancestors and
planetary spirits, to the evil spirits, good spirits, family spirits,
and so on, and so on. Suddenly our ears were struck by strains
of music.... Good heavens! what a dreadful symphony it was! The
ear-splitting sounds of Indian tom-toms, Tibetan drunis, Singalese
pipes, Chinese trumpets, and Burmese gongs deafened us on all sides,
awakening in our souls hatred for humanity and humanity's inventions.
The Babu and Mulji offered their faces to the little hand, full
of saffron, with smiles of condescending generosity. But the
indomitable Narayan shrank from the vestal so unexpectedly at the
precise moment when, with fiery glances at him, she stood on tiptoe
to reach his face, that she quite lost countenance and sent a full
dose of powder over his shoulder, whilst he turned away from her
with knitted brow. Her forehead also showed several threatening
lines, but in a moment she overcame her anger and glided towards
Ram-Runjit-Das, sparkling with engaging smiles. But here she met
with still less luck; offended at once in his monotheism and his
chastity, the "God's warrior" pushed the vestal so unceremoniously
that she nearly upset the elaborate pot-decoration of the altar.
A dissatisfied murmur ran through the crowd, and we were preparing
to be condemned to shameful banishment for the sins of the warlike
Sikh, when the drums sounded again and the procession moved on.
In front of everyone drove the trumpeters and the drummers in a car
gilded from top to bottom, and dragged by bullocks loaded with
garlands of flowers; next after them walked a whole detachment
of pipers, and then a third body of musicians on horseback, who
frantically hammered huge gongs. After them proceeded the cortege
of the bridegroom's and the bride's relations on horses adorned
with rich harness, feathers and flowers; they went in pairs. They
were followed by a regiment of Bhils in full disarmour--because no
weapons but bows and arrows had been left to them by the English
Government. All these Bhils looked as if they had tooth-ache,
because of the odd way they have of arranging the ends of their
white pagris. After them walked clerical Brahmans, with aromatic
tapers in their hands and surrounded by the flitting battalion of
nautches, who amused themselves all the way by graceful glissades
and pas. They were followed by the lay Brahmans--the "twice born."
The bridegroom rode on a handsome horse; on both sides walked
two couples of warriors, armed with yaks' tails to wave the flies
away. They were accompanied by two more men on each side with
silver fans. The bridegroom's group was wound up by a naked
Brahman, perched on a donkey and holding over the head of the boy
a huge red silk umbrella. After him a car loaded with a thousand
cocoa-nuts and a hundred bamboo baskets, tied together by a red
rope. The god who looks after marriages drove in melancholy
isolation on the vast back of an elephant, whose mahout led him
by a chain of flowers. Our humble party modestly advanced just
behind the elephant's tail.
We had to stop before every tree, every pagoda, every sacred tank
and bush, and at last before a sacred cow. When we came back to
the house of the bride it was four in the afternoon, and we had
started a little after six in the morning. We all were utterly
exhausted, and Miss X--- literally threatened to fall asleep on
her feet. The indignant Sikh had left us long ago, and had persuaded
Mr. Y--- and Mulji--whom the colonel had nicknamed the "mute general"
--to keep him company. Our respected president was bathed in his
own perspiration, and even Narayan the unchangeable yawned and
sought consolation in a fan. But the Babu was simply astonishing.
After a nine hours' walk under the sun, with his head unprotected,
he looked fresher than ever, without a drop of sweat on his dark
satin-like forehead. He showed his white teeth in an eternal smile,
and chaffed us all, reciting the "Diamond Wedding" of Steadman.
The bridegroom and the bride were placed before the altar. The
officiating Brahman tied their hands with some kus-kus grass, and
led them three times round the altar. Then their hands were untied,
and the Brahman mumbled a mantram. When he had finished, the
boy husband lifted his diminutive bride and carried her three
times round the altar in his arms, then again three turns round
the altar, but the boy preceding the girl, and she following him
like an obedient slave. When this was over, the bridegroom was
placed on a high chair by the entrance door, and the bride brought
a basin of water, took off his shoes, and, having washed his feet,
wiped them with her long hair. We learned that this was a very
ancient custom. On the right side of the bridegroom sat his mother.
The bride knelt before her also, and, having performed the same
operation over her feet, she retired to the house. Then her mother
came out of the crowd and repeated the same ceremony, but without
using her hair as a towel. The young couple were married. The
drums and the tom-toms rolled once more; and half-deaf we started
for home.
-------------
In the tent we found the Akali in the middle of a sermon, delivered
for the edification of the "mute general" and Mr. Y---. He was
explaining to them the advantages of the Sikh religion, and comparing
it with the faith of the "devil-worshipers," as he called the Brahmans.
It was too late to go to the caves, and, besides, we had had enough
sights for one day. So we sat down to rest, and to listen to the
words of wisdom falling from the lips of the "God's warrior." In
my humble opinion, he was right in more than one thing; in his
most imaginative moments Satan himself could not have invented
anything more unjust and more refinedly cruel than what was invented
by these "twice-born" egotists in their relation to the weaker sex.
An unconditioned civil death awaits her in case of widowhood--even
if this sad fate befalls her when she is two or three years old.
It is of no importance for the Brahmans if the marriage never
actually took place; the goat sacrifice, at which the personal
presence of the little girl is not even required--she being
represented by the wretched victim--is considered binding for her.
As for the man, not only is he permitted to have several lawful
wives at a time, but he is even required by the law to marry again
if his wife dies. Not to be unjust, I must mention that, with the
exception of some vicious and depraved Rajas, we never heard of a
Hindu availing himself of this privilege, and having more than
one wife.
In the meanwhile, the fate of the widow is what the Brahmans wish
it to be. As soon as the corpse of her husband is burned the widow
must shave her head, and never let it grow again as long as she
lives. Her bangles, necklaces and rings are broken to pieces and
burned, together with her hair and her husband's remains. During
the rest of her life she must wear nothing but white if she was
less than twenty-five at her husband's death, and red if she was
older. Temples, religious ceremonies, society, are closed to her
for ever. She has no right to speak to any of her relations, and
no right to eat with them. She sleeps, eats and works separately;
her touch is considered impure for seven years. If a man, going
out on business, meets a widow, he goes home again, abandoning
every pursuit, because to see a widow is accounted an evil omen.
In the past all this was seldom practised, and concerned only
the rich widows, who refused to be burned; but now, since the
Brahmans have been caught in the false interpretation of the Vedas,
with the criminal intention of appropriating the widows' wealth,
they insist on the fulfilment of this cruel precept, and make what
once was the exception the rule. They are powerless against
British law, and so they revenge themselves on the innocent and
helpless women, whom fate has deprived of their natural protectors.
Professor Wilson's demonstration of the means by which the Brahmans
distorted the sense of the Vedas, in order to justify the practice
of widow-burning, is well worth mentioning. During the many
centuries that this terrible practice prevailed, the Brahmans
had appealed to a certain Vedic text for their justification,
and had claimed to be rigidly fulfilling the institutes of Manu,
which contain for them the interpretation of Vedic law. When
the East India Company's Government first turned its attention
to the suppression of suttee, the whole country, from Cape Comorin
to the Himalayas, rose in protest, under the influence of the
Brahmans. "The English promised not to interfere in our religious
affairs, and they must keep their word!" was the general outcry.
Never was India so near revolution as in those days. The English
saw the danger and gave up the task. But Professor Wilson, the
best Sanskritist of the time, did not consider the battle lost.
He applied himself to the study of the most ancient MSS., and
gradually became convinced that the alleged precept did not exist
in the Vedas; though in the Laws of Manu it was quite distinct,
and had been translated accordingly by T. Colebrooke and other
Orientalists. An attempt to prove to the fanatic population that
Manu's interpretation was wrong would have been equivalent to an
attempt to reduce water to powder. So Wilson set himself to
study Manu, and to compare the text of the Vedas with the text
of this law-giver. This was the result of his labors: the Rig
Veda orders the Brahman to place the widow side by side with the
corpse, and then, after the performance of certain rites, to lead
her down from the funeral pyre and to sing the following verse
from Grhya Sutra:
Then those present at the burning were to rub their eyes with
collyrium, and the Brahman to address to them the following verse:
The Vedas never permitted the burning of the widows, and there
is a place in Taittiriya-Aranyaka, of the Yajur Veda, where the
brother of the deceased, or his disciple, or even a trusted friend,
is recommended to say to the widow, whilst the pyre is set on fire:
"Arise, O woman! do not lie down any more beside the lifeless corpse;
return to the world of the living, and become the wife of the one
who holds you by the hand, and is willing to be your husband." This
verse shows that during the Vedic period the remarriage of widows
was allowed. Besides, in several places in the ancient books,
pointed out to us by Swami Dayanand, we found orders to the widows
"to keep the ashes of the husband for several months after his
death and to perform over them certain final rituals."
Like all the cave temples of India, the Bagh caverns are dug out
in the middle of a vertical rock--with the intention, as it seems
to me, of testing the limits of human patience. Taking into
consideration that such a height does not prevent either glamour
or tigers reaching the caves, I cannot help thinking that the sole
aim of the ascetic builders was to tempt weak mortals into the
sin of irritation by the inaccessibility of their airy abodes.
Seventy-two steps, cut out in the rock, and covered with thorny
weeds and moss, are the beginning of the ascent to the Bagh caves.
Footmarks worn in the stone through centuries spoke of the
numberless pilgrims who had come here before us. The roughness
of the steps, with deep holes here and there, and thorns, added
attractions to this ascent; join to this a number of mountain
springs exuding through the pores of the stone, and no one will
be astonished if I say that we simply felt faint under the weight
of life and our archeological difficulties. The Babu, who, taking
off his slippers, scampered over the thorns as unconcernedly as
if he had hoofs instead of vulnerable human heels, laughed at the
"helplessness of Europeans," and only made us feel worse.
A damp breath as of the tomb met us. At our first word we all
shivered: a hollow, prolonged echoing howl, dying away in the
distance, shook the ancient vaults and made us all lower our voices
to a whisper. The torch-bearers shrieked "Devi!... Devi!... " and,
kneeling in the dust, performed a fervent puja in honor of the
voice of the invisible goddess of the caves, in spite of the angry
protestations of Narayan and of the "God's warrior."
The only light of the temple came from the entrance, and so two-thirds
of it looked still gloomier by contrast. This hall, or the central
temple, is very spacious, eighty--four feet square, and sixteen
feet high. Twenty-four massive pillars form a square, six pillars
at each side, including the corner ones, and four in the middle
to prop up the centre of the ceiling; otherwise it could not be
kept from falling, as the mass of the mountain which presses on
it from the top is much greater than in Karli or Elephanta.
"I have found a secret passage.... Come along, let us find where
it leads to!"
Torch in hand, the colonel was far ahead of us, and very eager to
proceed; but each of us had a little plan of his own, and so we
were reluctant to obey his summons. The Babu took upon himself
to answer for the whole party:
"Take care, colonel. This passage leads to the den of the glamour....
Mind the tigers!"
"What is become of you, Mr. President? Where are you?" were our
alarmed questions.
There were several vertical steps cut in the wall; and on the
floor we saw a large stone of such a curiously irregular shape
that it struck me that it could not be natural. The quick-eyed
Babu was not long in discovering its peculiarities, and said he
was sure "it was the stopper of the secret passage." We all
hurried to examine the stone most minutely, and discovered that,
though it imitated as closely as possible the irregularity of the
rock, its under surface bore evident traces of workmanship and
had a kind of hinge to be easily moved. The hole was about three
feet high, but not more than two feet wide.
The muscular "God's warrior" was the first to follow the colonel.
He was so tall that when he stood on a broken pillar the opening
came down to the middle of his breast, and so he had no difficulty
in transporting himself to the upper story. The slender Babu
joined him with a single monkey-like jump. Then, with the Akali
pulling from above and Narayan pushing from below, I safely made
the passage, though the narrowness of the hole proved most
disagreeable, and the roughness of the rock left considerable
traces on my hands. However trying archeological explorations
may be for a person afflicted by an unusually fine presence, I
felt perfectly confident that with two such Hercules-like helpers
as Narayan and Ram-Runjit-Das the ascent of the Himalayas would
be perfectly possible for me. Miss X--- came next, under the
escort of Mulji, but Mr. Y--- stayed behind.
The secret cell was a room of twelve feet square. Straight above
the black hole in the floor there was another in the ceiling, but
this time we did not discover any "stopper." The cell was perfectly
empty with the exception of black spiders as big as crabs. Our
apparition, and especially the bright light of the torches, maddened
them; panic-stricken they ran in hundreds over the walls, rushed
down, and tumbled on our heads, tearing their thin ropes in their
inconsiderate haste. The first movement of Miss X--- was to kill
as many as she could. But the four Hindus protested strongly and
unanimously. The old lady remonstrated in an offended voice:
"I thought that at least you, Mulji, were a reformer, but you are
as superstitious as any idol-worshiper."
"I am sure all this is because you think you will transmigrate into
a black spider!" she replied, her nostrils trembling with anger.
"I cannot say I do," retorted Mulji; "but if all the English
ladies are as unkind as you I should rather be a spider than
an Englishman."
This lively answer coming from the usually taciturn Mulji was so
unexpected that we could not help laugh-ing. But to our great
discomfiture Miss X--- was seriously angry, and, under pretext
of giddiness, said she would rejoin Mr. Y--- below.
Her constant bad spirits were becoming trying for our cosmopolitan
little party, and so we did not press her to stay.
The second cell was exactly like the first one; we easily
discovered the hole in its ceiling, and reached the third cell.
There we sat down for a while. I felt that breathing was becoming
difficult to me, but I thought I was simply out of breath and
tired, and so did not mention to my companions that anything was
wrong. The passage to the fourth cell was almost stopped by earth
mixed with little stones, and the gentlemen of the party were busy
clearing it out for about twenty minutes. Then we reached the
fourth cell.
Narayan was right, the cells were one straight over the other, and
the floor of the one formed the ceiling of the other. The fourth
cell was in ruins. Two broken pillars lying one on the other
presented a very convenient stepping-stone to the fifth story.
But the colonel stopped our zeal by saying that now was the time
to smoke "the pipe of deliberation" after the fashion of red Indians.
"I never said the passages were stopped by the hand of time....
They did it on purpose.... "
"My dear Narayan," at last said the colonel, "I do not want to
believe that your intention is to make fun of our credulity. But
I can't believe either, that you seriously mean to assure us that
any living creature, be it an animal or an ascetic, could exist
in a place where there is no air. I paid special attention to the
fact, and so I am perfectly sure I am not mistaken: there is not
a single bat in these cells, which shows that there is a lack of
air. And just look at our torches! you see how dim they are growing.
I am sure, that on climbing two or three more rooms like this, we
should be suffocated!"
In what way I was dragged through all these narrow holes will
remain an eternal mystery for me. I came to myself on the verandah
below, fanned by fresh breezes, and as suddenly as I had fainted
above in the impure air of the cell. When I recovered completely
the first thing I saw was a powerful figure clad in white, with a
raven black Rajput beard, anxiously leaning over me. As soon as
I recognized the owner of this beard, I could not abstain from
expressing my feelings by a joyful exclamation: "Where do you
come from?" It was our friend Takur Gulab-Lal-Sing, who, having
promised to join us in the North-West Provinces, now appeared to
us in Bagh, as if falling from the sky or coming out of the ground.
"He could not have thrown her down the passage before going in
himself, for every single bone of her body would have been broken,"
mused the colonel. "And it is still less possible to suppose that,
descending first himself, he dragged her down afterwards. It is
simply incomprehensible!"
But all these questions arose only in the course of the day. As
to the time directly after I was laid down on the verandah, there
were other things to puzzle all our party; no one could understand
how the Takur happened to be on the spot exactly when his help was
most needed, nor where he came from--and everyone was anxious to
know. On the verandah they found me lying on a carpet, with the
Takur busy restoring me to my senses, and Miss X--- with her eyes
wide open at the Takur, whom she decidedly believed to be a
materialized ghost.
"The whole mystery?" exclaimed the colonel. "Did you know, then,
beforehand that we would discover the cells, or what?"
"There are other passages leading to them. I know all the turns
and corridors of these caves, and everyone is free to choose his
way," answered Gulab-Sing; and I thought I saw a look of intelligence
pass between him and Narayan, who simply cowered under his fiery eyes.
"However, let us go to the cave where breakfast is ready for us.
Fresh air will do all of you good."
On our way we met with another cave, twenty or thirty steps south
from the verandah, but the Takur did not let us go in, fearing new
accidents for us. So we descended the stone steps I have already
mentioned, and after descending about two hundred steps towards
the foot of the mountain, made a short reascent again and entered
the "dining-room," as the Babu denominated it. In my role of
"interesting invalid," I was carried to it, sitting in my folding
chair, which never left me in all my travels.
After a few weeks we visited Hardwar ourselves, and since I saw it,
my memory has never grown tired of recalling the charming picture
of its lovely situation. It is as near a primitive picture of
earthly Paradise as anything that can be imagined.
Every twelfth year, which the Hindus call Kumbha, the planet Jupiter
enters the constellation of Aquarius, and this event is considered
very propitious for the beginning of the religious fair; for
which this day is accordingly fixed by the astrologers of the pagodas.
This gathering attracts the representatives of all sects, as I said
before, from princes and maharajas down to the last fakir. The
former come for the sake of religious discussions, the latter,
simply to plunge into the waters of Ganges at its very source,
which must be done at a certain propitious hour, fixed also by
the position of the stars.
Here the Ganges is not yet polluted by the dirt and the sins of
her many million adorers. Releasing her worshipers, cleansed from
her icy embrace, the pure maiden of the mountains carries her
transparent waves through the burning plains of Hindostan; and
only three hundred and forty-eight miles lower down, on passing
through Cawnpore, do her waters begin to grow thicker and darker,
while, on reaching Benares, they transform themselves into a kind
of peppery pea soup.
"O sahibs!" answered he mournfully, "it is not the dirt of our bodies,
as you think, it is not even the blackness of our sins, that the
devi (goddess) washes away... Her waves are black with the sorrow
and shame of her children. Her feelings are sad and sorrowful;
hidden suffering, burning pain and humiliation, despair and shame
at her own helplessness, have been her lot for many past centuries.
She has suffered all this till her waters have become waves of
black bile. Her waters are poisoned and black, but not from physical
causes. She is our mother, and how could she help resenting the
degradation we have brought ourselves to in this dark age."
The month when the waters of the Ganges are most salutary, falls,
according to the Brahmanical computation, between March 12th and
April 10th, and is called Chaitra. The worst of it is that the
waters are at their best only at the first moment of a certain
propitious hour, indicated by the Brahmans, and which sometimes
happens to be midnight. You can fancy what it must be when this
moment comes, in the midst of a crowd which exceeds two millions.
In 1819 more than four hundred people were crushed to death. But
even after the new stairs were constructed, the goddess Ganga has
carried away on her virgin bosom many a disfigured corpse of her
worshipers. Nobody pitied the drowned, on the contrary, they were
envied. Whoever happens to be killed during this purification by
bathing, is sure to go straight to Swarga (heaven). In 1760, the
two rival brotherhoods of Sannyasis and Bairagis had a regular
battle amongst them on the sacred day of Purbi, the last day of
the religious fair. The Bairagis were conquered, and there were
eighteen thousand people slaughtered.
"And in 1796," proudly narrated our warlike friend the Akali, "the
pilgrims from Punjab, all of them Sikhs, desiring to punish the
insolence of the Hossains, killed here about five hundred of these
heathens. My own grandfather took part in the fight!"
So we talked long after our breakfast under the cave vault was
finished. But our talk was not so gay as it might have been,
because we had to part with Ram-Runjit-Das, who was going to Bombay.
The worthy Sikh shook hands with us in the European way, and then
raising his right hand gave us his blessing, after the fashion of
all the followers of Nanaka. But when he approached the Takur to
take leave of him, his countenance suddenly changed. This change
was so evident that we all noted it. The Takur was sitting on the
ground leaning on a saddle, which served him as a cushion. The
Akali did not attempt either to give him his blessing or to shake
hands with him. The proud expression of his face also changed,
and showed confusion and anxious humility instead of the usual
self-respect and self-sufficiency. The brave Sikh knelt down
before the Takur, and instead of the ordinary "Namaste!"--"Salutation
to you," whispered reverently, as if addressing the Guru of the
Golden Lake: "I am your servant, Sadhu-Sahib! give me your blessing!"
An Isle of Mystery
When evening began to draw on, we were driving beneath the trees
of a wild jungle; arriving soon after at a large lake, we left
the carriages. The shores were overgrown with reeds--not the reeds
that answer our European notions, but rather such as Gulliver was
likely to meet with in his travels to Brobdingnag. The place was
perfectly deserted, but we saw a boat fastened close to the land.
We had still about an hour and a half of daylight before us, and
so we quietly sat down on some ruins and enjoyed the splendid view,
whilst the servants of the Takur transported our bags, boxes and
bundles of rugs from the carriages to the ferry boat. Mr. Y--- was
preparing to paint the picture before us, which indeed was charming.
"I am afraid it will be too dark in an hour," said Mr. Y---, opening
his color box. "And as for tomorrow, we shall probably have to start
very early."
"Oh, no! there is not the slightest need to start early. We may
even stay here part of the afternoon. From here to the railway
station it is only three hours, and the train only leaves for J
ubbulpore at eight in the evening. And do you know," added the
Takur, smiling in his usual mysterious way, "I am going to treat
you to a concert. Tonight you shall be witness of a very interesting
natural phenomenon connected with this island."
"Do you mean that island there? and do you really think we must go?"
asked the colonel. "Why should not we spend the night here, where
we are so deliciously cool, and where... "
"Where the forest swarms with playful leopards, and the reeds
shelter snug family parties of the serpent race, were you going
to say, colonel?" interrupted the Babu, with a broad grin. "Don't
you admire this merry gathering, for instance? Look at them!
There is the father and the mother, uncles, aunts, and children....
I am sure I could point out even a mother-in-law."
"If you do not stop screaming you will attract all the wild animals
of the forest in another ten minutes," said he. "None of you have
anything to fear. If you do not excite an animal he is almost
sure to leave you alone, and most probably will run away from you."
With these words he lightly waved his pipe in the direction of the
serpentine family-party. A thunderbolt falling in their midst
could not have been more effectual. The whole living mass looked
stunned for a moment, and then rapidly disappeared among the reeds
with loud hissing and rustling.
"But you do not deny, do you, that you have studied this science
and possess this gift?"
"You have guessed rightly," absently answered Mr. Y---, busy over
his drawing apparatus. "Narayan sees in you something like his
late deity Shiva; something just a little less than Parabrahm.
Would you believe it? He seriously assured us--in Nassik it was--
that the Raj-Yogis, and amongst them yourself--though I must own
I still fail to understand what a Raj-Yogi is, precisely--can force
any one to see, not what is before his eyes at the given moment,
but what is only in the imagination of the Raj-Yogi. If I remember
rightly he called it Maya.... Now, this seemed to me going a little
too far!"
"Well! You did not believe, of course, and laughed at Narayan?"
asked the Takur, fathoming with his eyes the dark green deeps of
the lake.
"And knowing Mr. Y--- as I do," said the colonel, I can add, for
my part, that even were any of these phenomena to happen to himself
personally, he, like Dr. Carpenter, would doubt his own eyes rather
than believe."
"What you say is a little bit exaggerated, but there is some truth
in it. Maybe I would not trust myself in such an occurrence; and
I tell you why. If I saw something that does not exist, or rather
exists only for me, logic would interfere. However objective my
vision may be, before believing in the materiality of a hallucination,
I feel I am bound to doubt my own senses and sanity.... Besides,
what bosh all this is! As if I ever will allow myself to believe
in the reality of a thing that I alone saw; which belief implies
also the admission of somebody else governing and dominating, for
the time being, my optical nerves, as well as my brains."
"However, there are any number of people, who do not doubt, because
they have had proof that this phenomenon really occurs," remarked
the Takur, in a careless tone, which showed he had not the slightest
desire to insist upon this topic.
"No doubt there are!" he exclaimed. "But what does that prove?
Besides them, there are equal numbers of people who believe in
the materialization of spirits. But do me the kindness of not
including me among them!"
Mr. Y--- was growing altogether too excited, and the Takur dropped
the subject, and talked of something else.
Miss X--- excepted, none of our party had ever been numbered amongst
the spiritualists, least of all Mr. Y---. We Theosophists did not
believe in the playfulness of departed souls, though we admitted
the possibility of some mediumistic phenomena, while totally
disagreeing with the spiritualists as to the cause and point of
view. Refusing to believe in the interference, and even presence
of the spirits, in the so-called spiritualistic phenomena, we
nevertheless believe in the living spirit of man; we believe in
the omnipotence of this spirit, and in its natural, though benumbed
capacities. We also believe that, when incarnated, this spirit,
this divine spark, may be apparently quenched, if it is not guarded,
and if the life the man leads is unfavorable to its expansion,
as it generally is; but, on the other hand, our conviction is
that human beings can develop their potential spiritual powers;
that, if they do, no phenomenon will be impossible for their
liberated wills, and that they will perform what, in the eyes of
the uninitiated, will be much more wondrous than the materialized
forms of the spiritualists. If proper training can render the
muscular strength ten times greater, as in the cases of renowned
athletes, I do not see why proper training should fail in the
case of moral capacities. We have also good grounds to believe
that the secret of this proper training--though unknown to, and
denied by, European physiologists and even psychologists--is
known in some places in India, where its knowledge is hereditary,
and entrusted to few.
Mr. Y--- was a novice in our Society and looked with distrust
even on such phenomena as can be pro-duced by mesmerism. He had
been trained in the Royal Institute of British Architects, which
he left with a gold medal, and with a fund of scepticism that
caused him to distrust everything, en dehors des mathematiques
pures. So that no wonder he lost his temper when people tried to
convince him that there existed things which he was inclined to
treat as "mere bosh and fables."
The Babu and Mulji left us to help the servants to transport our
luggage to the ferry boat. The remainder of the party had grown
very quiet and silent. Miss X--- dozed peacefully in the carriage,
forgetting her recent fright. The colonel, stretched on the sand,
amused himself by throwing stones into the water. Narayan sat
motionless, with his hands round his knees, plunged as usual in
the mute contemplation of Gulab Lal-Sing. Mr. Y--- sketched
hurriedly and diligently, only raising his head from time to time
to glance at the opposite shore, and knitting his brow in a
preoccupied way. The Takur went on smoking, and as for me, I sat
on my folding chair, looking lazily at everything round me, till
my eyes rested on Gulab-Sing, and were fixed, as if by a spell.
A good while ago, more than twenty-seven years, I met him in the
house of a stranger in England, whither he came in the company of
a certain dethroned Indian prince. Then our acquaintance was
limited to two conversations; their unexpectedness, their gravity,
and even severity, produced a strong impression on me then; but,
in the course of time, like many other things, they sank into
oblivion and Lethe. About seven years ago he wrote to me to
America, reminding me of our conversation and of a certain promise
I had made. Now we saw each other once more in India, his own
country, and I failed to see any change wrought in his appearance
by all these long years. I was, and looked, quite young, when I
first saw him; but the passage of years had not failed to change
me into an old woman. As to him, he appeared to me twenty-seven
years ago a man of about thirty, and still looked no older, as if
time were powerless against him. In England, his striking beauty,
especially his extraordinary height and stature, together with his
eccentric refusal to be presented to the Queen--an honour many a
high-born Hindu has sought, coming over on purpose--excited the
public notice and the attention of the newspapers. The newspapermen
of those days, when the influence of Byron was still great, discussed
the "wild Rajput" with untiring pens, calling him "Raja-Misanthrope"
and " Prince Jalma-Samson," and in-venting fables about him all the
time he stayed in England.
All this taken together was well calculated to fill me with consuming
curiosity, and to absorb my thoughts till I forgot every exterior
circumstance, sitting and staring at him in no wise less intensely
than Narayan.
And he rose because the Babu and Mulji had informed us that the
ferry boat was ready to start, and were shouting and making signs
to us to hasten.
"Just let me finish," said Mr. Y---, "I have nearly done. Just
an additional touch or two."
"Let us see your work. Hand it round!" insisted the colonel and
Miss X---, who had just left her haven of refuge in the carriage,
and joined us still half asleep.
Mr. Y--- hurriedly added a few more touches to his drawing and rose
to collect his brushes and pencils.
We glanced at his fresh wet picture and opened our eyes in astonishment.
There was no lake on it, no woody shores, and no velvety evening mists
that covered the distant island at this moment. Instead of all this
we saw a charming sea view; thick clusters of shapely palm-trees
scattered over the chalky cliffs of the littoral; a fortress-like
bungalow with balconies and a flat roof, an elephant standing at
its entrance, and a native boat on the crest of a foaming billow.
"Now what is this view, sir?" wondered the colonel. "As if it was
worth your while to sit in the sun, and detain us all, to draw
fancy pictures out of your own head!"
"What on earth are you talking about?" exclaimed Mr. Y---. "Do
you mean to say you do not recognize the lake?"
By this time all our party gathered round the colonel, who held
the drawing. Narayan uttered an exclamation, and stood still,
the very image of bewilderment past description.
"I know the place!" said he, at last. "This is Dayri--Bol, the
country house of the Takur-Sahib. I know it. Last year during
the famine I lived there for two months."
At last Mr. Y--- finished arranging and packing his things, and
approached us in his usual lazy, careless way, but his face showed
traces of vexation. He was evidently bored by our persistency in
seeing a sea, where there was nothing but the corner of a lake.
But, at the first sight of his unlucky sketch, his countenance
suddenly changed. He grew so pale, and the expression of his
face became so piteously distraught that it was painful to see.
He turned and returned the piece of Bristol board, then rushed
like a madman to his drawing portfolio and turned the whole contents
out, ransacking and scattering over the sand hundreds of sketches
and of loose papers. Evidently failing to find what he was looking
for, he glanced again at his sea-view, and suddenly covering his
face with his hands totally collapsed.
Mr. Y-- did not give any answer, as if gathering strength and thinking
it over. After a few moments he answered in hoarse and tremulous tones:
Mr. Y--- did not answer him. He made an effort to calm his feelings,
and bravely stepped on the ferry boat with firm foot. Then he sat
down, apart from us all, obstinately looking at the large surface
of water round us, and struggling to seem his usual self.
"Please stop this nonsense, Miss X---. You know I don't believe
in spiritualism. Poor Mr. Y---, was not he upset?"
Receiving this rebuke and no sympathy from me, she could not think
of anything better than drawing out the Babu, who, for a wonder,
had managed to keep quiet till then.
"What do you say to all this? I for one am perfectly confident that
no one but the disembodied soul of a great artist could have painted
that lovely view. Who else is capable of such a wonderful achievement?"
The island was a tiny one, and so overgrown with tall reeds that,
from a distance, it looked like a pyramidal basket of verdure. With
the exception of a colony of monkeys, who bustled away to a few mango
trees at our approach, the place seemed uninhabited. In this virgin
forest of thick grass there was no trace of human life. Seeing the
word grass the reader must not forget that it is not the grass of
Europe I mean; the grass under which we stood, like insects under
a rhubarb leaf, waved its feathery many-colored plumes much above
the head of Gulab-Sing (who stood six feet and a half in his stockings),
and of Narayan, who measured hardly an inch less. From a distance
it looked like a waving sea of black, yellow, blue, and especially
of rose and green. On landing, we discovered that it consisted of
separate thickets of bamboos, mixed up with the gigantic sirka reeds,
which rose as high as the tops of the mangos.
Whilst our coolies and servants were busy clearing a place for
our tents, pitching them and preparing the supper, we went to pay
our respects to the monkeys, the true hosts of the place. Without
exaggeration there were at least two hundred. While preparing
for their nightly rest the monkeys behaved like decorous and well-
behaved people; every family chose a separate branch and defended
it from the intrusion of strangers lodging on the same tree, but
this defence never passed the limits of good manners, and generally
took the shape of threatening grimaces. There were many mothers
with babies in arms amongst them; some of them treated the children
tenderly, and lifted them cautiously, with a perfectly human care;
others, less thoughtful, ran up and down, heedless of the child
hanging at their breasts, preoccupied with something, discussing
something, and stopping every moment to quarrel with other monkey
ladies--a true picture of chatty old gossips on a market day,
repeated in the animal kingdom. The bachelors kept apart, absorbed
in their athletic exercises, performed for the most part with the
ends of their tails. One of them, especially, attracted our
attention by dividing his amusement between sauts perilleux and
teasing a respectable looking grandfather, who sat under a tree
hugging two little monkeys. Swinging backward and forward from
the branch, the bachelor jumped at him, bit his ear playfully and
made faces at him, chattering all the time. We cautiously passed
from one tree to another, afraid of frightening them away; but
evidently the years spent by them with the fakirs, who left the
island only a year ago, had accustomed them to human society. They
were sacred monkeys, as we learned, and so they had nothing to fear
from men. They showed no signs of alarm at our approach, and,
having received our greeting, and some of them a piece of sugar-cane,
they calmly stayed on their branch-thrones, crossing their arms,
and looking at us with a good deal of dignified contempt in their
intelligent hazel eyes.
The sun had set, and we were told that the supper was ready. We
all turned "homewards," except the Babu. The main feature of his
character, in the eyes of orthodox Hindus, being a tendency to
blasphemy, he could never resist the temptation to justify their
opinion of him. Climbing up a high branch he crouched there,
imitating every gesture of the monkeys and answering their
threatening grimaces by still uglier ones, to the unconcealed
disgust of our pious coolies.
Snugly sheltered by the high "grass," we had not the heart to spend
this magnificent night in prosaic sleeping. Besides, we were
waiting for the "concert" which the Takur had promised us.
"Be patient," said he, "the musicians will not appear before the
moon rises."
The fickle goddess was late; she kept us waiting till after ten
o'clock. Just before her arrival, when the horizon began to grow
perceptibly brighter, and the opposite shore to assume a milky,
silvery tint, a sudden wind rose. The waves, that had gone quietly
to sleep at the feet of gigantic reeds, awoke and tossed uneasily,
till the reeds swayed their feathery heads and murmured to each
other as if taking counsel together about some thing that was going
to happen.... Suddenly, in the general stillness and silence, we
heard again the same musical notes, which we had passed unheeded,
when we first reached the island, as if a whole orchestra were
trying their musical instruments before playing some great composition.
All round us, and over our heads, vibrated strings of violins, and
thrilled the separate notes of a flute. In a few moments came
another gust of wind tearing through the reeds, and the whole
island resounded with the strains of hundreds of Aeolian harps.
And suddenly there began a wild unceasing symphony. It swelled
in the surrounding woods, filling the air with an indescribable
melody. Sad and solemn were its prolonged strains; they resounded
like the arpeggios of some funeral march, then, changing into a
trembling thrill, they shook the air like the song of a nightingale,
and died away in a long sigh. They did not quite cease, but grew
louder again, ringing like hundreds of silver bells, changing from
the heartrending howl of a wolf, deprived of her young, to the
precipitate rhythm of a gay tarantella, forgetful of every earthly
sorrow; from the articulate song of a human voice, to the vague
majestic accords of a violoncello, from merry child's laughter to
angry sobbing. And all this was repeated in every direction by
mocking echo, as if hundreds of fabulous forest maidens, disturbed in
their green abodes, answered the appeal of the wild musical Saturnalia.
The colonel and I glanced at each other in our great astonishment.
The Hindus smiled, but did not answer us. The Takur smoked his
gargari as peacefully as if he was deaf.
Alas! the charm of these sounds is soon exhausted, and you begin
to feel that they cut like knives through your brain. A horrid
fancy haunts our bewildered heads; we imagine that the invisible
artists strain our own veins, and not the strings of imaginary
violins; their cold breath freezes us, blowing their imaginary
trumpets, shaking our nerves and impeding our breathing.
"For God's sake stop this, Takur! This is really too much," shouted
the colonel, at the end of his patience, and covering his ears with
his hands. "Gulab-Sing, I tell you you must stop this."
The three Hindus burst out laughing; and even the grave face of
the Takur lit up with a merry smile. "Upon my word," said he,
"do you really take me for the great Parabrahm? Do you think it
is in my power to stop the wind, as if I were Marut, the lord of
the storms, in person. Ask for something easier than the
instantaneous uprooting of all these bamboos."
"I beg your pardon; I thought these strange sounds also were some
kind of psychologic influence."
"So sorry to disappoint you, my dear colonel; but you really must
think less of psychology and electrobiology. This develops into
a mania with you. Don't you see that this wild music is a natural
acoustic phenomenon? Each of the reeds around us--and there are
thousands on this island--contains a natural musical instrument;
and the musician, Wind, comes here daily to try his art after
nightfall--especially during the last quarter of the moon."
"The wind!" murmured the colonel. "Oh, yes! But this music begins
to change into a dreadful roar. Is there no way out of it?"
"I at least cannot help it. But keep up your patience, you will
soon get accustomed to it. Besides, there will be intervals when
the wind falls."
We were told that there are many such natural orchestras in India.
The Brahmans know well their wonderful properties, and calling this
kind of reed vina-devi, the lute of the gods, keep up the popular
superstition and say the sounds are divine oracles. The sirka
grass and the bamboos always shelter a number of tiny beetles,
which make considerable holes in the hollow reeds. The fakirs of
the idol-worshipping sects add art to this natural beginning and
work the plants into musical instruments. The islet we visited
bore one of the most celebrated vina-devis, and so, of course,
was proclaimed sacred.
"Tomorrow morning," said the Takur, "you will see what deep knowledge
of all the laws of acoustics was in the possession of the fakirs.
They enlarged the holes made by the beetle according to the size
of the reed, sometimes shaping it into a circle, sometimes into
an oval. These reeds in their present state can be justly considered
as the finest illustration of mechanism applied to acoustics.
However, this is not to be wondered at, because some of the most
ancient Sanskrit books about music minutely describe these laws,
and mention many musical instruments which are not only forgotten,
but totally incomprehensible in our days."
All this was very interesting, but still, disturbed by the din,
we could not listen attentively.
"Don't worry yourselves," said the Takur, who soon understood our
uneasiness, in spite of our attempts at composure. "After midnight
the wind will fall, and you will sleep undisturbed. However, if
the too close neighborhood of this musical grass is too much for
you, we may as well go nearer to the shore. There is a spot from
which you can see the sacred bonfires on the opposite shore."
"He did not say anything.... Your question shows that you don't
know our Swami yet," laughed the Babu. "He simply jumped to his
feet, and, uprooting the first sacred reed on his way, gave such
a lively European bakshish (thrashing) to the pious puja-makers,
that they instantly took to their heels. The Swami ran after them
for a whole mile, giving it hot to everyone in his way. He is
wonderfully strong is our Swami, and no friend to useless talk, I
can tell you."
"But it seems to me," said the colonel, "that that is not the right
way to convert crowds. Dispersing and frightening is not converting."
"Not a bit of it. The masses of our nation require peculiar treatment....
Let me tell you the end of this story. Disappointed with the effect
of his teachings on the inhabitants of Dehra-Dun, Dayanand Saraswati
went to Patna, some thirty-five or forty miles from there. And before
he had even rested from the fatigues of his journey, he had to receive
a deputation from Dehra-Dun, who on their knees entreated him to come
back. The leaders of this deputation had their backs covered with
bruises, made by the bamboo of the Swami! They brought him back
with no end of pomp, mounting him on an elephant and spreading
flowers all along the road. Once in Dehra-Dun, he immediately
proceeded to found a Samaj, a society as you would say, and the
Dehra-Dun Arya-Samaj now counts at least two hundred members, who
have renounced idol-worship and superstition for ever."
"I was present," said Mulji, "two years ago in Benares, when Dayanand
broke to pieces about a hundred idols in the bazaar, and the same
stick served him to beat a Brahman with. He caught the latter in
the hollow idol of a huge Shiva. The Brahman was quietly sitting
there talking to the devotees in the name, and so to speak, with
the voice of Shiva, and asking money for a new suit of clothes the
idol wanted."
"Is it possible the Swami had not to pay for this new achievement
of his?"
"Oh, yes. The Brahman dragged him into a law court, but the judge
had to pronounce the Swami in the right, because of the crowd of
sympathizers and defenders who followed the Swami. But still he
had to pay for all the idols he had broken. So far so good; but
the Brahman died of cholera that very night, and of course, the
opposers of the reform said his death was brought on by the sorcery
of Dayanand Saraswati. This vexed us all a good deal."
"I have only one Guru and only one God on earth, as in heaven,"
answered Narayan; and I saw that he was very unwilling to speak.
"And while I live, I shall not desert them."
"I know who is his Guru and his God!" thoughtlessly exclaimed the
quick-tongued Babu. "It is the Takur--Sahib. In his person both
coincide in the eyes of Narayan."
We sat down, and only then I realized how tired and sleepy I was--
and no wonder, after being on foot since four in the morning, and
after all that had happened to me on this memorable day. The
gentlemen went on talking, and I soon became so absorbed in my
thoughts that their conversation reached me only in fragments.
Wake up, wake up!" repeated the colonel, shaking me by the hand.
"The Takur says that sleeping in the moonlight will do you harm."
"Wake up, for God's sake! Think of what you are risking!" continued the
colonel. "Wake up and look at the landscape before us, at this wonderful
moon. Have you ever seen anything to equal this magnificent panorama?"
I looked up, and the familiar lines of Pushkin about the golden moon
of Spain flashed into my mind. And indeed this was a golden moon.
At this moment she radiated rivers of golden light, poured forth
liquid gold into the tossing lake at our feet, and sprinkled with
golden dust every blade of grass, every pebble, as far as the eye
could reach, all round us. Her disk of silvery yellow swiftly glided
upward amongst the big stars, on their dark blue ground.
Many a moonlit night have I seen in India, but every time the
impression was new and unexpected. It is no use trying to describe
these feerique pictures, they cannot be represented either in words
or in colors on canvas, they can only be felt--so fugitive is their
grandeur and beauty! In Europe, even in the south, the full moon
eclipses the largest and most brilliant of the stars, so that hardly
any can be seen for a considerable distance round her. In India
it is quite the contrary; she looks like a huge pearl surrounded
by diamonds, rolling on a blue velvet ground. Her light is so
intense that one can read a letter written in small handwriting;
one even can perceive the different greens of the trees and bushes--
a thing unheard of in Europe. The effect of the moon is especially
charming on tall palm trees. From the first moment of her appearance
her rays glide over the tree downwards, beginning with the feathery
crests, then lighting up the scales of the trunk, and descending
lower and lower till the whole palm is literally bathing in a sea
of light. Without any metaphor the surface of the leaves seems
to tremble in liquid silver all the night long, whereas their
under surfaces seem blacker and softer than black velvet. But
woe to the thoughtless novice, woe to the mortal who gazes at
the Indian moon with his head uncovered. It is very dangerous
not only to sleep under, but even to gaze at the chaste Indian
Diana. Fits of epilepsy, madness and death are the punishments
wrought by her treacherous arrows on the modern Acteon who dares
to contemplate the cruel daughter of Latona in her full beauty.
The Hindus never go out in the moonlight without their turbans
or pagris. Even our invulnerable Babu always wore a kind of white
cap during the night.
As soon as the reeds concert reaches its height and the inhabitants
of the neighborhood hear the distant "voices of the gods," whole
villages flock together to the bank of the lake, light bonfires,
and perform their pujas. The fires lit up one after the other,
and the black silhouettes of the worshippers moved about on the
opposite shore. Their sacred songs and loud exclamations, "Hari,
Hari, Maha-deva!" resounded with a strange loudness and a wild
emphasis in the pure air of the night. And the reeds, shaken in
the wind, answered them with tender musical phrases. The whole
stirred a vague feeling of uneasiness in my soul, a strange
intoxication crept gradually over me, and in this enchanting place
the idol-worship of these passionate, poetical souls, sunk in dark
ignorance, seemed more intelligible and less repulsive. A Hindu
is a born mystic, and the luxuriant nature of his country has made
of him a zealous pantheist.
"A propos of Orpheus," asked the Takur, "do you know that the lyre
of this Greek demigod was not the first to cast spells over people,
animals and even rivers? Kui, a certain Chinese musical artist,
as they are called, expresses something to this effect: `When I
play my kyng the wild animals hasten to me, and range themselvis
into rows, spellbound by my melody.' This Kui lived one thousand
years before the supposed era of Orpheus."
"Do you think, then, that the Chinese ever understood anything
about music?" said the colonel, with an incredulous smile. "In
California and other places I heard some traveling artists of the
celestial empire. Well, I think, that kind of musical entertainment
would drive any one mad."
"But the music of nature has been everywhere the first step to
the music of art. This is a universal rule. But there are
different ways of following it. Our musical system is the greatest
art, if--pardon me this seeming paradox--avoiding all artificiality
is art. We do not allow in our melodies any sounds that cannot be
classified amongst the living voices of nature; whereas the modern
Chinese tendencies are quite different. The Chinese system comprises
eight chief tones, which serve as a tuning-fork to all derivatives;
which are accordingly classified under the names of their generators.
These eight sounds are: the notes metal, stone, silk, bamboo,
pumpkin, earthenware, leather and wood. So that they have metallic
sounds, wooden sounds, silk sounds, and so on. Of course, under
these conditions they cannot produce any melody; their music
consists of an entangled series of separate notes. Their imperial
hymn, for instance, is a series of endless unisons. But we Hindus
owe our music only to living nature, and in nowise to inanimate
objects. In a higher sense of the word, we are pantheists, and so
our music is, so to speak, pantheistic; but, at the same time,
it is highly scientific. Coming from the cradle of humanity, the
Aryan races, who were the first to attain manhood, listened to the
voice of nature, and concluded that melody as well as harmony are
both contained in our great common mother. Nature has no false
and no artificial notes; and man, the crown of creation, felt
desirous of imitating her sounds. In their multiplicity, all
these sounds--according to the opinion of some of your Western
physicists--make only one tone, which we all can hear, if we know
how to listen, in the eternal rustle of the foliage of big forests,
in the murmur of water, in the roar of the storming ocean, and even
in the distant roll of a great city. This tone is the middle F,
the fundamental tone of nature. In our melodies it serves as the
starting point, which we embody in the key-note, and around which
are grouped all the other sounds. Having noticed that every musical
note has its typical representative in the animal kingdom, our
ancestors found out that the seven chief tones correspond to the
cries of the goat, the peacock, the ox, the parrot, the frog, the
tiger, and the elephant. So the octave was discovered and founded.
As to its subdivisions and measure, they also found their basis
in the complicated sounds of the same animals."
Gulab-Lal-Sing spoke in his usual calm voice, but the Babu was
evidently burning to break forth for his country's honor, and
at the same time, he was afraid of offending his seniors by
interrupting their conversation. At last he lost patience.
"Don't get so excited, Babu," said the Takur. "Every one has the
right, if not to discuss, then to ask questions about a new subject.
Otherwise no one would ever get any information. If Hindu music
belonged to an epoch as little distant from us as the European--
which you seem to suggest, Babu, in your hot haste; and if, besides,
it included all the virtues of all the previous musical systems,
which the European music assimilates; then no doubt it would have
been better understood, and better appreciated than it is. But
our music belongs to prehistoric times. In one of the sarcophagi
at Thebes, Bruce found a harp with twenty strings, and, judging by
this instrument, we may safely say that the ancient inhabitants
of Egypt were well acquainted with the mysteries of harmony. But,
except the Egyptians, we were the only people possessing this art,
in the remote epochs, when the rest of mankind were still
struggling with the elements for bare existence. We possess
hundreds of Sanskrit MSS. about music, which have never been
translated, even into modern Indian dialects. Some of them are
four thousand and eight thousand years old. Whatever your
Orientalists may say to the contrary, we will persist in believing
in their antiquity, because we have read and studied them, while
the European scientists have never yet set their eyes on them.
There are many of these musical treatises, and they have been
written at different epochs; but they all, without exception,
show that in India music was known and systematized in times when
the modern civilized nations of Europe still lived like savages.
However true, all this does not give us the right to grow indignant
when Europeans say they do not like our music, as long as their
ears are not accustomed to it, and their minds cannot understand
its spirit.... To a certain extent we can explain to you its technical
character, and give you a right idea of it as a science. But nobody
can create in you, in a moment, what the Aryans used to call Rakti;
the capacity of the human soul to receive and be moved by the
combinations of the various sounds of nature. This capacity is
the alpha and omega of our musical system, but you do not possess
it, as we do not possess the possibility to fall into raptures
over Bellini."
"No doubt this is so. But the influence it has over the physiology
of the ear cannot be so overpowering after all."
"Perfectly true; but that does not explain to me the secret charm
of your melodies...."
"I see. You mean that your music has something to do with the Vedas?"
"Some day this opinion may become a certainty. There is not the
slightest doubt that the purest and the highest of all the musical
forms of antiquity belongs to India. All our legends ascribe magic
powers to music; it is a gift and a science coming straight from
the gods. As a rule, we ascribe all our arts to divine revelation,
but music stands at the head of everything else. The invention of
the vina, a kind of lute, belongs to Narada, the son of Brahma.
You will probably laugh at me if I tell you that our ancient priests,
whose duty it was to sing during the sacrifices, were able to produce
phenomena that could not but be considered by the ignorant as signs
from supernatural powers; and this, remember, without a shadow of
trickery, but simply with the help of their perfect knowledge of
nature and certain combinations well known to them. The phenomena
produced by the priests and the Raj-Yogis are perfectly natural
for the initiate--however miraculous they may seem to the masses."
"But do you really mean that you have no faith what-ever in the
spirits of the dead?" timidly asked Miss X---, who was always ill
at ease in the presence of the Takur.
The witch's den near the "dead city" suddenly flashed into my mind;
the fat Brahman, who played the oracle in the head of the Sivatherium,
caught and rolling down the hole; the witch herself suddenly taking
to her heels. And with this recollection also occurred to me what
I had never thought of before: Narayan had acted under the orders
of the Takur--doing his best to expose the witch and her ally.
"The unknown power which possesses the mediums (which the spiritualists
believe to be spirits of the dead, while the superstitious see in it
the devil, and the sceptics deceit and infamous tricks), true men
of science suspect to be a natural force, which has not as yet been
discovered. It is, in reality, a terrible power. Those possessed
by it are generally weak people, often women and children. Your
beloved spiritualists, Miss X---, only help the growth of dreadful
psychic diseases, but people who know better seek to save them from
this force you know nothing whatever about, and it is no use
discussing this matter now. I shall only add one word: the real
living spirit of a human being is as free as Brahma; and even
more than this for us, for, according to our religion and our
philosophy, our spirit is Brahma himself, higher than whom there
is only the unknowable, the all-pervading, the omnipotent essence
of Parabrahm. The living spirit of man cannot be ordered about
like the spirits of the spiritualists, it cannot be made a slave of...
However, it is getting so late that we had better go to bed. Let
us say good-bye for tonight."
----------
Gulab-Lal-Sing would not talk any more that night, but I have
gathered from our previous conversations many a point without
which the above conversation would remain obscure. The Vedantins
and the followers of Shankaracharya's philosophy, in talking of
themselves, often avoid using the pronoun I, and say, "this body
went," "this hand took," and so on, in everything concerning the
automatic actions of man. The personal pronouns are only used
concerning mental and moral processes, such as, "I thought," "he
desired." The body in their eyes is not the man, but only a
covering to the real man.
The real interior man possesses many bodies; each of them more
subtle and more pure than the preceding; and each of them bears
a different name and is independent of the material body. After
death, when the earthly vital principle disintegrates, together
with the material body, all these interior bodies join together,
and either advance on the way to Moksha, and are called Deva (divine),
though it still has to pass many stadia before the final liberation,
or is left on earth, to wander and to suffer in the invisible world,
and, in this case, is called bhuta. But a Deva has no tangible
intercourse with the living. Its only link with the earth is its
posthumous affection for those it loved in its lifetime, and the
power of protecting and influencing them. Love outlives every
earthly feeling, and a Deva can appear to the beloved ones only
in their dreams--unless it be as an illusion, which cannot last,
because the body of a Deva undergoes a series of gradual changes
from the moment it is freed from its earthly bonds; and, with
every change, it grows more intangible, losing every time something
of its objective nature. It is reborn; it lives and dies in new
Lokas or spheres, which gradually become purer and more subjective.
At last, having got rid of every shadow of earthly thoughts and
desires, it becomes nothing from a material point of view. It is
extinguished like a flame, and, having become one with Parabrahm,
it lives the life of spirit, of which neither our material conception
nor our language can give any idea. But the eternity of Parabrahm
is not the eternity of the soul. The latter, according to a Vedanta
expression, is an eternity in eternity. However holy, the life of
a soul had its beginning and its end, and, consequently, no sins
and no good actions can be punished or rewarded in the eternity of
Parabrahm. This would be contrary to justice, disproportionate,
to use an expression of Vedanta philosophy. Spirit alone lives in
eternity, and has neither beginning nor end, neither limits nor
central point. The Deva lives in Parabrahm, as a drop lives in
the ocean, till the next regeneration of the universe from Pralaya;
a periodical chaos, a disappearance of the worlds from the region
of objectivity. With every new Maha-yuga (great cycle) the Deva
separates from that which is eternal, attracted by existence in
objective worlds, like a drop of water first drawn up by the sun,
then starting again downwards, passing from one region to another,
and returning at last to the dirt of our planet. Then, having
dwelt there whilst a small cycle lasted, it proceeds again upwards
on the other side of the circle. So it gravitates in the eternity
of Parabrahm, passing from one minor eternity to another. Each
of these "human," that is to say conceivable, eternities consists
of 4,320,000,000 years of objective life and of as many years of
subjective life in Parabrahm, altogether 8,640,000,000 years,
which are enough, in the eyes of the Vedantins, to redeem any
mortal sin, and also to reap the fruit of any good actions
performed in such a short period as human life. The individuality
of the soul, teaches the Vedanta, is not lost when plunged in
Parabrahm, as is supposed by some of the European Orientalists.
Jubblepore
They are there without any apparent reason, as if they were a wart
on the smooth cheek of mother nature. White and pure, they are
heaped up on each other as if after some plan, and look exactly
like a huge paperweight from the writing-table of a Titan. We
saw them when we were half-way from the town. They appeared and
disappeared with the sudden capricious turnings of the river;
trembling in the early morning mist like a distant, deceitful
mirage of the desert. Then we lost sight of them altogether.
But just before sunrise they stood out once more before our
charmed eyes, floating above their reflected image in the water.
As if called forth by the wand of a sorcerer, they stood there on
the green bank of the Nerbudda, mirroring their virgin beauty on
the calm surface of the lazy stream, and promising us a cool and
welcome shelter.... And as to the preciousness of every moment of
the cool hours before sunrise, it can be appreciated only by those
who have lived and traveled in this fiery land.
For many Yugas this goddess has been engaged in a desperate contest
with her lawful husband Shiva, who, in his shape of Trikutishvara,
a three-headed lingam, has dishonestly claimed the rocks and the
river for his own--the very rocks and the very river over which
Kali presides in person. And this is why people hear dreadful
moaning, coming from under the ground, every time that the hand
of an irresponsible coolie, working by Government orders in
Government quarries, breaks a stone from the white bosom of the
goddess. The unhappy stone-breaker hears the cry and trembles,
and his heart is torn between the expectations of a dreadful
punishment from the bloodthirsty goddess and the fear of his
implacably exacting inspector in case he disobeys his orders.
Kali is the owner of the Marble Rocks, but she is the patroness
of the ex-Thugs as well. Many a lonely traveler has shuddered on
hearing this name; many a bloodless sacrifice has been offered
on the marble altar of Kali. The country is full of horrible tales
about the achievements of the Thugs, accomplished in the honor of
this goddess. These tales are too recent and too fresh in the
popular memory to become as yet mere highly-colored legends.
They are mostly true, and many of them are proved by official
documents of the law courts and inquest commissions.
One day we visited a very aged ex-Thug. In his young days he was
transported to the Andaman Islands, but, owing to his sincere
repentance, and to some services he had rendered to the Government,
he was afterwards pardoned. Having returned to his native village,
he settled down to earn his living by weaving ropes, a profession
probably suggested to him by some sweet reminiscences of the
achievements of his youth. He initiated us first into the mysteries
of theoretic Thugism, and then extended his hospitality by a ready
offer to show us the practical side of it, if we agreed to pay for
a sheep. He said he would gladly show us how easy it was to send
a living being ad patres in less than three seconds; the whole
secret consisting in some skillful and swift movements of the
righthand finger joints.
We refused to buy the sheep for this old brigand, but we gave him
some money. To show his gratitude he offered to demonstrate all
the preliminary sensation of the rumal on any English or American
neck that was willing. Of course, he said he would omit the final
twist. But still none of us were willing; and the gratitude of
the repentant criminal found issue in great volubility.
During many long years these invisible bands, scattered all over
the country, and working in parties of from ten to sixty men,
enjoyed perfect freedom, but at last they were caught. The
inquiries unveiled horrid and repulsive secrets: rich bankers,
officiating Brahmans, Rajas on the brink of poverty, and a few
English officials, all had to be brought before justice.
This deed of the East India Company truly deserves the popular
gratitude which it receives.
-------------
On our way back from the Marble Rocks we saw Muddun-Mahal, another
mysterious curio; it is a house built--no one knows by whom, or
with what purpose--on a huge boulder. This stone is probably some
kind of relative to the cromlechs of the Celtic Druids. It shakes
at the least touch, together with the house and the people who feel
curious to see inside it. Of course we had this curiosity, and
our noses remained safe only thanks to the Babu, Narayan and the
Takur, who took as great care of us as if they had been nurses,
and we their babies.
The yard was full of devotees, and of ascetics. But our attention
was especially attracted by three ancient, perfectly naked fakirs.
As wrinkled as baked mushrooms, as thin as skeletons, crowned with
twisted masses of white hair, they sat or rather stood in the most
impossible postures, as we thought. One of them, literally leaning
only on the palm of his right hand, was poised with his head downwards
and his legs upwards; his body was as motionless as if he were the
dry branch of a tree. Just a little above the ground his head rose
in the most unnatural position, and his eyes were fixed on the
glaring sun. I cannot guarantee the truthfulness of some talkative
inhabitants of the town, who had joined our party, and who assured
us that this fakir daily spends in this posture all the hours between
noon and the sunset. But I can guarantee that not a muscle of his
body moved during the hour and twenty minutes we spent amongst the
fakirs. Another fakir stood on a "sacred stone of Shiva," a small
stone about five inches in diameter. One of his legs was curled
up under him, and the whole of his body was bent backwards into
an arc; his eyes also were fixed on the sun. The palms of his
hands were pressed together as if in prayer. He seemed glued to
his stone. We were at a loss to imagine by what means this man
came to be master of such equilibration.
The third of these wonderful people sat crossing his legs under him;
but how he could sit was more than we could understand, because
the thing on which he sat was a stone lingam, not higher than an
ordinary street post and little wider than the "stone of Shiva,"
that is to say, hardly more than five or seven inches in diameter.
His arms were crossed behind his back, and his nails had grown
into the flesh of his shoulders.
"This one never changes his position," said one of our companions.
"At least, he has not changed for the last seven years."
"Now, you see that this pedestal is far from being steady. And
also you have seen that, under the weight of the fakir, it is as
immovable as if it were planted in the ground."
When the fakir was put back on the stone, he and it at once resumed
their appearance, as of one single body, solidly joined to the ground,
and not a line of the fakir's body had changed. By all appearance,
his bending body and his head thrown backward sought to bring him
down; but for this fakir there was evidently no such thing as the
law of gravity.
N.C. Paul, G.B.M.C., wrote a small, but very interesting and very
scientific pamphlet. He was only a regimental surgeon in Benares,
but his name was well known amongst his compatriots as a very learned
specialist in physiology. The pamphlet was called A Treatise on the
Yoga Philosophy, and produced a sensation amongst the representatives
of medicine in India, and a lively polemic between the Anglo-Indian
and native journalists. Dr. Paul spent thirty-five years in studying
the extraordinary facts of Yogism, the existence of which was, for
him, beyond all doubt. He not only described them, but explained
some of the most extraordinary phenomena, for instance, levitation,
the seeming evidence to the contrary of some laws of nature,
notwithstanding. With perfect sincerity, and evident regret, Dr.
Paul says he could never learn anything from the Raj-Yogis. His
experience was almost wholly limited to the facts that fakirs and
Hatha-Yogis would consent to give him. It was his great friendship
with Captain Seymour chiefly which helped him to penetrate some
mysteries, which, till then, were supposed to be impenetrable.
I was told that the pamphlet of Dr. Paul was ordered to be burned
"as being offensive to the science of physiology and pathology."
At the time I visited India copies of it were very great rarities.
Out of a few copies still extant, one is to be found in the library
of the Maharaja of Benares, and another was given to me by the Takur.
This evening we dined at the refreshment rooms of the railway station.
Our arrival caused an evident sensation. Our party occupied the
whole end of a table, at which were dining many first-class passengers,
who all stared at us with undisguised astonishment. Europeans on an
equal footing with Hindus! Hindus who condescended to dine with
Europeans! These two were rare and wonderful sights indeed. The
subdued whispers grew into loud exclamations. Two officers who
happened to know the Takur took him aside, and, having shaken hands
with him, began a very animated conversation, as if discussing some
matter of business; but, as we learned afterwards, they simply
wanted to gratify their curiosity about us.
Here we learned, for the first time, that we were under police
supervision, the police being represented by an individual clad
in a suit of white clothes, and possessing a very fresh complexion,
and a pair of long moustaches. He was an agent of the secret police,
and had followed us from Bombay. On learning this flattering piece
of news, the colonel burst into a loud laugh; which only made us
still more suspicious in the eyes of all these Anglo-Indians,
enjoying a quiet and dignified meal. As to me, I was very
disagreeably impressed by this bit of news, I must confess, and
wished this unpleasant dinner was over.
The train for Allahabad was to leave at eight P.M., and we were
to spend the night in the railway carriage. We had ten reserved
seats in a first-class carriage, and had made sure that no strange
passengers would enter it, but, nevertheless, there were many
reasons which made me think I could not sleep this night. So I
obtained a provision of candles for my reading lamp, and making
myself comfortable on my couch, began reading the pamphlet of Dr.
Paul, which interested me greatly.
Here is his theory in brief. The Yogis have discovered the reason
of the wondrous capacity of the chameleon to assume the appearance
of plumpness or of leanness. This animal looks enormous when his
lungs are filled with air, but in his normal condition he is quite
insignificant. Many other reptiles as well acquire the possibility
of swimming across large rivers quite easily by the same process.
And the air that remains in their lungs, after the blood has been
fully oxygenated, makes them extraordinarily lively on dry land
and in the water. The capacity of storing up an extraordinary
provision of air is a characteristic feature of all the animals
that are subjected to hibernation.
The Hindu Yogis studied this capacity, and perfected and developed
it in themselves.
The means by which they acquire it--known under the name of Bhastrika
Kumbhala--consist of the following: The Yogi isolates himself in
an underground cave, where the atmosphere is more uniform and more
damp than on the surface of the earth: this causes the appetite
to grow less. Man's appetite is proportionate to the quantity of
carbonic acid he exhales in a certain period of time. The Yogis
never use salt, and live entirely on milk, which they take only
during the night. They move very slowly in order not to breathe
too often. Movement increases the exhaled carbonic acid, and so
the Yoga practice prescribes avoidance of movement. The quantity
of exhaled carbonic acid is also increased by loud and lively talking:
so the Yogis are taught to talk slowly and in subdued tones, and
are even advised to take the vows of silence. Physical labor is
propitious to the increase of carbonic acid, and mental to its
decrease; accordingly the Yogi spends his life in contemplation
and deep meditation. Padmasana and Siddhasana are the two methods
by which a person is taught to breathe as little as possible.
"Place the left foot upon the right thigh, and the right foot upon
the left thigh; straighten the neck and back; make the palms of
the hands rest upon the knees; shut the mouth; and expire forcibly
through both nostrils. Next, inspire and expire quickly until you
are fatigued. Then inspire through the right nostril, fill the
abdomen with the inspired air, suspend the breath, and fix the
sight on the tip of the nose. Then expire through the left nostril,
and next, inspiring through the left nostril, suspend the breath... "
and so on.
However, the gifts of the true Raj-Yogis are much more interesting,
and a great deal more important for the world, than the phenomena
of the lay Hatha-Yogis. These gifts are purely psychic: to the
knowledge of the Hatha-Yogis the Raj-Yogis add the whole scale of
mental phenomena. Sacred books ascribe to them the following gifts:
foreseeing future events; understanding of all languages; the
healing of all diseases; the art of reading other people's thoughts;
witnessing at will everything that happens thousands of miles from
them; understanding the language of animals and birds; Prakamya,
or the power of keeping up youthful appearance during incredible
periods of time; the power of abandoning their own bodies and
entering other people's frames; Vashitva, or the gift to kill,
and to tame wild animals with their eyes; and, lastly, the mesmeric
power to subjugate any one, and to force any one to obey the
unexpressed orders of the Raj-Yogi.
The End
---------------------------------
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