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The most interesting sights of Nassik are its cave-temples, about
five
miles from the town. The day before we started thither, I
certainly
did not dream that a "tail" would have to play an important part
in
our visit to Nassik, that, in this case, it would save me, if not
from
death, at least from disagreeable and perhaps dangerous bruises. This
is
how it happened.
As the difficult task of ascending a steep
mountain lay before us,
we decided to hire elephants. The best couple in the
town was brought
before us. Their owner assured us "that the Prince of Wales
had ridden
upon them and was very contented." To go there and back and have
them in
attendance the whole day--in fact the whole pleasure-trip--was to
cost
us two rupees for each elephant. Our native friends, accustomed
from
infancy to this way of riding, were not long in getting on the back
of
their elephant. They covered him like flies, with no predilection
for
this or that spot of his vast back. They held on by all kinds of
strings
and ropes, more with their toes than their fingers, and, on the
whole,
presented a picture of contentment and comfort. We Europeans had to
use
the lady elephant, as being the tamer of the two. On her back
there
were two little benches with sloping seats on both sides, and not
the
slightest prop for our backs. The wretched, undergrown youngsters
seen
in European circuses give no idea of the real size of this noble
beast.
The mahout, or driver, placed himself between the huge animal's
ears
whilst we gazed at the "perfected" seats ready for us with an
uneasy
feeling of distrust The mahout ordered his elephant to kneel, and
it
must be owned that in climbing on her back with the aid of a
small
ladder, I felt what the French call chair de poule. Our
she-elephant
answered to the poetical name of "Chanchuli Peri," the Active
Fairy, and
really was the most obedient and the merriest of all the
representatives
of her tribe that I have ever seen. Clinging to each other we
at last
gave the signal for departure, and the mahout goaded the right ear
of
the animal with an iron rod. First the elephant raised herself on
her
fore-legs, which movement tilted us all back, then she heavily rose
on
her hind ones, too, and we rolled forwards, threatening to upset
the
mahout. But this was not the end of our misfortunes. At the very
first
steps of Peri we slipped about in all directions, like quivering
fragments of
blancmange.
The journey came to a sudden pause. We were picked up in a
hasty way,
replaced on our respective seats, during which proceeding Peri's
trunk
proved very active, and the journey continued. The very thought of
the
five miles before us filled us with horror, but we would not give
up
the excursion, and indignantly refused to be tied to our seats, as
was
suggested by our Hindu companions, who could not suppress their
merry
laughter.... However, I bitterly repented this display of vanity.
This
unusual mode of locomotion was something incredibly fantastical,
and,
at the same time, ridiculous. A horse carrying our luggage trotted
by
Peri's side, and looked, from our vast elevation, no bigger than a
donkey. At
every mighty step of Peri we had to be prepared for all sorts
of unexpected
acrobatic feats, while jolted from one side to the
other by her swinging
gait. This experience, under the scorching
sun, unavoidably induced a state
of body and mind something between
sea-sickness and a delirious nightmare. As
a crown to our pleasures,
when we began to ascend a tortuous little path over
the stony slope of
a deep ravine, our Peri stumbled. This sudden shock caused
me to lose my
balance altogether. I sat on the hinder part of the elephant's
back,
in the place of honor, as it is esteemed, and, once thoroughly
shaken,
rolled down like a log. No doubt, next moment I should have found
myself
at the bottom of the ravine, with some more or less sad loss to
my
bodily constitution, if it had not been for the wonderful dexterity
and
instinct of the clever animal. Having felt that something was wrong
she
twisted her tail round me, stopped instantaneously and began to
kneel
down carefully. But my natural weight was too much for the thin
tail
of this kind animal. Peri did not lose hold of me, but, having at
last
knelt down, she moaned plaintively, though discreetly, thinking
probably
that she had nearly lost her tail through being so generous. The
mahout
hurried to my rescue and then examined the damaged tail of his
animal.
We now witnessed a scene that clearly showed us the coarse
cunning,
greediness and cowardice of a low-class Hindu, of an outcast, as
they
are denominated here.
The mahout very indifferently and
composedly examined Peri's tail, and
even pulled it several times to make
sure, and was already on the point
of hoisting himself quietly into his usual
place, when I had the unhappy
thought of muttering something that expressed
my regret and compassion.
My words worked a miraculous transformation in the
mahout's behavior. He
threw himself on the ground, and rolled about like a
demoniac, uttering
horrible wild groans. Sobbing and crying he kept on
repeating that the
Mam-Sahib had torn off his darling Peri's tail, that Peri
was damaged
for ever in everybody's estimation, that Peri's husband, the
proud
Airavati, lineal descendant of Indra's own favourite elephant,
having
witnessed her shame, would renounce his spouse, and that she had
better
die.... Yells and bitter tears were his only answer to all
remonstrances
of our companions. In vain we tried to persuade him that the
"proud
Airavati" did not show the slightest disposition to be so cruel, in
vain
we pointed out to him that all this time both elephants stood
quietly
together, Airavati even at this critical moment rubbing his
trunk
affectionately against Peri's neck, and Peri not looking in the
least
discomfited by the accident to her tail. All this was of no avail!
Our
friend Narayan lost his patience at last. He was a man of
extraordinary
muscular strength and took recourse to a last original means.
With one
hand he threw down a silver rupee, with the other he seized the
mahout's
muslin garment and hurled him after the coin. Without giving a
thought
to his bleeding nose, the mahout jumped at the rupee with the
greediness
of a wild beast springing upon its prey. He prostrated himself in
the
dust before us repeatedly, with endless "salaams," instantly
changing
his deep sorrow into mad joy. He gave another pull at the
unfortunate
tail and gladly declared that, thanks to the "prayers of the
sahib," it
really was safe; to demonstrate which he hung on to it, till he
was torn
away and put back on his seat.
"Is it possible that a single,
miserable rupee can have been the cause
of all this?" we asked each other in
utter bewilderment.
"Your astonishment is natural enough," answered the
Hindus. "We need
not express how ashamed and how disgusted we all feel at
this voluntary
display of humiliation and greed. But do not forget that this
wretch,
who certainly has a wife and children, serves his employer for
twelve
rupees a year, instead of which he often gets nothing but a
beating.
Remember also the long centuries of tyrannical treatment from
Brahmans,
from fanatical Mussulmans, who regard a Hindu as nothing better
than an
unclean reptile, and, nowadays, from the average Englishman, and
maybe
you will pity this wretched caricature of humanity."
But the
"caricature" in question evidently felt perfectly happy and
not in the least
conscious of a humiliation of any kind. Sitting on the
roomy forehead of his
Peri, he was telling her of his unexpected wealth,
reminding her of her
"divine" origin, and ordering her to salute the
"sahibs" with her trunk.
Peri, whose spirits had been raised by the gift
of a whole stick of
sugar-cane from me, lifted her trunk backwards and
playfully blew into our
faces.
On the threshold of the Nassik caves we bid good-bye to the
modern
pigmy India, to the petty things of her everyday life, and to
her
humiliations. We re-entered the unknown world of India, the great
and
the mysterious.
The main caves of Nassik are excavated in a
mountain bearing the name
of Pandu-Lena, which points again to the undying,
persistent, primaeval
tradition that ascribes all such buildings to the five
mythical (?)
brothers of prehistoric times. The unanimous opinion of
archaeologists
esteems these caves more interesting and more important than
all the
caves of Elephanta and Karli put together. And, nevertheless--is it
not
strange?--with the exception of the learned Dr. Wilson, who, it may
be,
was a little too fond of forming hasty opinions, no archaeologist
has,
as yet, made so bold as to decide to what epoch they belong, by
whom
they were erected, and which of the three chief religions of
antiquity
was the one professed by their mysterious builders.
It is
evident, however, that those who wrought here did not all belong
either to
the same generation or to the same sect. The first thing which
strikes the
attention is the roughness of the primitive work, its huge
dimensions, and
the decline of the sculpture on the solid walls, whereas
the sculpture and
carvings of the six colossi which prop the chief cave
on the second floor,
are magnificently preserved and very elegant.
This circumstance would lead
one to think that the work was begun
many centuries before it was finished.
But when? One of the Sanskrit
inscriptions of a comparatively recent epoch
(on the pedestal of one of
the colossi) clearly points to 453 B.C. as the
year of the building. At
all events, Barth, Stevenson, Gibson, Reeves, and
some other scientists,
who being Westerns can have none of the prejudices
proper to the native
Pundits, have formed this conjecture on the basis of
some astronomical
data. Besides, the conjunction of the planets stated in the
inscription
leaves no doubt as to the dates, it must be either 453 B.C., or
1734
of our era, or 2640 B.C., which last is impossible, because Buddha
and
Buddhist monasteries are mentioned in the inscription. I translate
some
of the most important sentences:
"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.
It is very
remarkable that almost all the cave temples of India are to
be found inside
conical rocks and mountains. It is as though the ancient
builders looked for
such natural pyramids purposely. I noticed this
peculiarity in Karli, and it
is to be met with only in India. Is it
a mere coincidence, or is it one of
the rules of the religious
architecture of the remote past? And which are the
imitators--the
builders of the Egyptian pyramids, or the unknown architects
of the
under ground caves of India? In pyramids as well as in caves
everything
seems to be calculated with geometrical exactitude. In neither
case are
the entrances ever at the bottom, but always at a certain distance
from
the ground. It is well known that nature does not imitate art, and,
as
a rule, art tries to copy certain forms of nature. And if, even in
this
similarity of the symbols of Egypt and India, nothing is to be found
but
a coincidence, we shall have to own that coincidences are sometimes
very
extraordinary. Egypt has borrowed many things from India. We must
not
forget that nothing is known about the origin of the Pharaohs,
and
that the few facts science has succeeded in discovering, far
from
contradicting our theory, suggest India as the cradle of the
Egyptian
race. In the days of remote antiquity Kalluka-Bhatta wrote: "During
the
reign of Visvamitra, first king of the Soma-Vansha dynasty, after a
five
days battle, Manu-Vena, the heir of ancient kings, was abandoned by
the
Brahmans, and emigrated with his army, and, having traversed Arya
and
Barria, at last reached the shores of Masra....."
Arya is Iran or
Persia; Barria is an ancient name of Arabia; Masr or
Masra is a name of
Cairo, disfigured by Mussulmans into Misro and Musr.
Kalluka-Bhatta is an
ancient writer. Sanskritists still quarrel over his
epoch, wavering between
2,000 years B.C., and the reign of the Emperor
Akbar (the time of John the
Terrible and Elizabeth of England). On the
grounds of this uncertainty, the
evidence of Kalluka-Bhatta might be
objected to. In this case, there are the
words of a modern historian,
who has studied Egypt all his life, not in
Berlin or London, like some
other historians, but in Egypt, deciphering the
inscriptions of the
oldest sarcophagi and papyri, that is to say, the words
of Henry
Brugsch-Bey:
"... I repeat, my firm conviction is that the
Egyptians came from Asia
long before the historical period, having traversed
the Suez promontory,
that bridge of all the nations, and found a new
fatherland on the banks
of the Nile."
An inscription on a Hammamat
rock says that Sankara, the last Pharaoh of
the eleventh dynasty, sent a
nobleman to Punt: "I was sent on a ship to
Punt, to bring back some aromatic
gum, gathered by the princes of the
Red Land."
Commenting on this
inscription, Brugsch-Bey explains that "under the
name of Punt the ancient
inhabitants of Chemi meant a distant land
surrounded by a great ocean, full
of mountains and valleys, and rich
in ebony and other expensive woods, in
perfumes, precious stones and
metals, in wild beasts, giraffes, leopards and
big monkeys." The name of
a monkey in Egypt was Kaff, or Kafi, in Hebrew
Koff, in Sanskrit Kapi.
In the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, this Punt
was a sacred land,
because Punt or Panuter was "the original land of the
gods, who left
it under the leadership of A-Mon [Manu-Vena of
Kalluka-Bhatta?] Hor and
Hator, and duly arrived in Chemi."
Hanuman
has a decided family likeness to the Egyptian Cynocephalus, and
the emblem of
Osiris and Shiva is the same. Qui vivra verra!
Our return journey was
very agreeable. We had adapted ourselves to
Peri's movements and felt
ourselves first-rate jockeys. But for a whole
week afterwards we could hardly
walk.
A City Of The Dead
What would be your
choice if you had to choose between being blind and
being deaf? Nine people
out of ten answer this question by positively
preferring deafness to
blindness. And one whose good fortune it has been
to contemplate, even for a
moment, some fantastic fairy-like corner of
India, this country of lace-like
marble palaces and enchanting gardens,
would willingly add to deafness,
lameness of both legs, rather than lose
such sights.
We are told that
Saadi, the great poet, bitterly complained of his
friends looking tired and
indifferent while he praised the beauty and
charm of his lady-love. "If the
happiness of contemplating her wonderful
beauty," remonstrated he, "was
yours, as it is mine, you could not
fail to understand my verses, which,
alas, describe in such meagre and
inadequate terms the rapturous feelings
experienced by every one who
sees her even from a distance!"
I fully
sympathize with the enamoured poet, but cannot condemn his
friends who never
saw his lady-love, and that is why I tremble lest my
constant rhapsodies on
India should bore my readers as much as Saadi
bored his friends. But what, I
pray you, is the poor narrator to do,
when new, undreamed-of charms are daily
discovered in the lady-love
in question? Her darkest aspects, abject and
immoral as they are, and
sometimes of such a nature as to excite your
horror--even these aspects
are full of some wild poetry, of originality,
which cannot be met with
in any other country. It is not unusual for a
European novice to shudder
with disgust at some features of local everyday
life; but at the same
time these very sights attract and fascinate the
attention like a
horrible nightmare. We had plenty of these experiences
whilst our ecole
buissoniere lasted. We spent these days far from railways
and from any
other vestige of civilization. Happily so, because European
civilization
does not suit India any better than a fashionable bonnet would
suit a
half naked Peruvian maiden, a true "daughter of Sun," of Cortes'
time.
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.
The
adjective "pure" must be understood in the figurative sense of the
mantram.
Generally speaking, the rivers of India, beginning with the
thrice sacred
Ganges, are dreadfully dirty, especially near villages and
towns.
In
these rivers about two hundred millions of people daily cleanse
themselves
from the tropical perspiration and dirt. The corpses of
those who are not
worth burning are thrown in the same rivers, and their
number is great,
because it includes all Shudras, pariahs, and various
other outcasts, as well
as Brahman children under three years of age.
Only rich and high-born
people are buried pompously. It is for them that
the sandal-wood fires are
lit after sunset; it is for them that mantrams
are chanted, and for them that
the gods are invoked. But Shudras must
not listen on any account to the
divine words dictated at the beginning
of the world by the four Rishis to
Veda Vyasa, the great theologian of
Aryavarta. No fires for them, no prayers.
As during his life a Shudra
never approaches a temple nearer than seven
steps, so even after death
he cannot be put on the same level with the
"twice-born."
Brightly burn the fires, extending like a fiery serpent
along the river.
The dark outlines of strange, wildly-fantastical figures
silently move
amongst the flames. Sometimes they raise their arms towards the
sky, as
if in a prayer, sometimes they add fuel to the fires and poke them
with
long iron pitchforks. The dying flames rise high, creeping and
dancing,
sputtering with melted human fat and shooting towards the sky
whole
showers of golden sparks, which are instantly lost in the clouds
of
black smoke.
This on the right side of the river. Let us now see
what is going on
on the left. In the early hours of the morning, when the red
fires, the
black clouds of miasmas, and the thin figures of the fakirs grow
dim and
vanish little by little, when the smell of burned flesh is blown away
by
the fresh wind which rises at the approach of the dawn, when, in a
word,
the right side of the river with its ghotas plunges into
stillness
and silence, to be reawakened when the evening comes, processions
of a
different kind appear on the left bank. We see groups of Hindu men
and
women in sad, silent trains. They approach the river quietly. They
do
not cry, and have no rituals to perform. We see two men carrying
something
long and thin, wrapped in an old red rug. Holding it by the
head and feet
they swing it into the dirty, yellowish waves of the
river. The shock is so
violent that the red rug flies open and we behold
the face of a young woman
tinged with dark green, who quickly disappears
in the river. Further on
another group; an old man and two young women.
One of them, a little girl of
ten, small, thin, hardly fully developed,
sobs bitterly. She is the mother of
a stillborn child, whose body is to
be thrown in the river. Her weak voice
monotonously resounds over the
shore, and her trembling hands are not strong
enough to lift the poor
little corpse that is more like a tiny brown kitten
than a human being.
The old man tries to console her, and, taking the body in
his own hands,
enters the water and throws it right in the middle. After him
both the
women get into the river, and, having plunged seven times to
purify
themselves from the touch of a dead body, they return home,
their
clothes dripping with wet. In the meanwhile vultures, crows and
other
birds of prey gather in thick clouds and considerably retard
the
progress of the bodies down the river. Occasionally some
half-stripped
skeleton is caught by the reeds, and stranded there helplessly
for
weeks, until an outcast, whose sad duty it is to busy himself all
his
life long with such unclean work, takes notice of it, and catching
it
by the ribs with his long hook, restores it to its highway towards
the
ocean.
But let us leave the river bank, which is unbearably hot in
spite of
the early hour. Let us bid good-bye to the watery cemetery of the
poor.
Disgusting and heart-rending are such sights in the eyes of a
European!
And unconsciously we allow the light wings of reverie to transport
us
to the far North, to the peaceful village cemeteries where there are
no
marble monuments crowned with turbans, no sandal-wood fires, no
dirty
rivers to serve the purpose of a last resting place, but where
humble
wooden crosses stand in rows, sheltered by old birches. How
peacefully
our dead repose under the rich green grass! None of them ever saw
these
gigantic palms, sumptuous palaces and pagodas covered with gold.
But
on their poor graves grow violets and lilies of the valley, and in
the
spring evenings nightingales sing to them in the old
birch-trees.
No nightingales ever sing for me, either in the neighboring
groves, or
in my own heart. The latter least of all.----
Let us
stroll along this wall of reddish stone. It will lead us to a
fortress once
celebrated and drenched with blood, now harmless and half
ruined, like many
another Indian fortress. Flocks of green parrots,
startled by our approach,
fly from under every cavity of the old wall,
their wings shining in the sun
like so many flying emeralds. This
territory is accursed by Englishmen. This
is Chandvad, where, during
the Sepoy mutiny, the Bhils streamed from their
ambuscades like a mighty
mountain torrent, and cut many an English
throat.
Tatva, an ancient Hindu book, treating of the geography of the
times
of King Asoka (250-300 B.C.), teaches us that the Mahratti
territory
spreads up to the wall of Chandvad or Chandor, and that the
Kandesh
country begins on the other side of the river. But English people
do
not believe in Tatva or in any other authority and want us to learn
that
Kandesh begins right at the foot of Chandor
hillocks.----
Twelve miles south-east from Chandvad there is a whole
town of
subterranean temples, known under the name of Enkay-Tenkay. Here,
again,
the entrance is a hundred feet from the base, and the hill is
pyramidal.
I must not attempt to give a full description of these temples, as
this
subject must be worked out in a way quite impossible in a
newspaper
article. So I shall only note that here all the statues, idols,
and
carvings are ascribed to Buddhist ascetics of the first centuries
after
the death of Buddha. I wish I could content myself with this
statement.
But, unfortunately, messieurs les archeologues meet here with
an
unexpected difficulty, and a more serious one than all the
difficulties
brought on them by the inconsistencies of all other temples
put
together.
In these temples there are more idols designated Buddhas
than anywhere
else. They cover the main entrance, sit in thick rows along
the
balconies, occupy the inner walls of the cells, watch the entrances
of
all the doors like monster giants, and two of them sit in the chief
tank,
where spring water washes them century after century without any
harm to
their granite bodies. Some of these Buddhas are decently clad,
with pyramidal
pagodas as their head gear; others are naked; some sit,
others stand; some
are real colossi, some tiny, some of middle size.
However, all this would not
matter; we may go so far as to overlook the
fact of Gautama's or
Siddhartha-Buddha's reform consisting precisely in
his earnest desire to tear
up by the roots the Brahmanical idol-worship.
Though, of course, we cannot
help remembering that his religion remained
pure from idol-worship of any
kind during centuries, until the Lamas of
Tibet, the Chinese, the Burmese,
and the Siamese taking it into their
lands disfigured it, and spoilt it with
heresies. We cannot forget that,
persecuted by conquer-ing Brahmans, and
expelled from India, it
found, at last, a shelter in Ceylon where it still
flourishes like the
legendary aloe, which is said to blossom once in its
lifetime and then
to die, as the root is killed by the exuberance of blossom,
and the
seeds cannot produce anything but weeds. All this we may overlook, as
I
said before. But the difficulty of the archaeologists still exists,
if
not in the fact of idols being ascribed to early Buddhists, then in
the
physiognomies, in the type of all these Enkay-Tenkay Buddhas. They
all,
from the tiniest to the hugest, are Negroes, with flat noses,
thick
lips, forty five degrees of the facial angle, and curly hair!
There
is not the slightest likeness between these Negro faces and any of
the
Siamese or Tibetan Buddhas, which all have purely Mongolian
features
and perfectly straight hair. This unexpected African type, unheard
of in
India, upsets the antiquarians entirely. This is why the
archaeologists
avoid mentioning these caves. Enkay-Tenkay is a worse
difficulty for
them than even Nassik; they find it as hard to conquer as the
Persians
found Thermopylae.
We passed by Maleganva and Chikalval,
where we examined an exceedingly
curious ancient temple of the Jainas. No
cement was used in the building
of its outer walls, they consist entirely of
square stones, which are so
well wrought and so closely joined that the blade
of the thinnest knife
cannot be pushed between two of them; the interior of
the temple is
richly decorated.
On our way back we did not stop in
Thalner, but went straight on to
Ghara. There we had to hire elephants again
to visit the splendid ruins
of Mandu, once a strongly fortified town, about
twenty miles due north
east of this place. This time we got there speedily
and safely. I
mention this place because some time later I witnessed in its
vicinity a
most curious sight, offered by the branch of the numerous Indian
rites,
which is generally called "devil worship."
Mandu is situated on
the ridge of the Vindhya Mountains, about two
thousand feet above the surface
of the sea. According to Malcolm's
statement, this town was built in A.D.
313, and for a long time was the
capital of the Hindu Rajas of Dhara. The
historian Ferishtah points to
Mandu as the residence of Dilivan-Khan-Ghuri,
the first King of Malwa,
who flourished in 1387-1405. In 1526 the town was
taken by Bahadur-Shah,
King of Gujerat, but in 1570 Akbar won this town back,
and a marble slab
over the town gate still bears his name and the date of his
visit.
On entering this vast city in its present state of solitude (the
natives
call it the "dead town") we all experienced a peculiar feeling,
not
unlike the sensation of a man who enters Pompeii for the first
time.
Everything shows that Mandu was once one of the wealthiest towns
of
India. The town wall is thirty-seven miles long. Streets ran
whole
miles, on their sides stand ruined palaces, and marble pillars lie
on
the ground. Black excavations of the subterranean halls, in the
coolness
of which rich ladies spent the hottest hours of the day, peer from
under
dilapidated granite walls. Further on are broken stairs, dry
tanks,
waterless fountains, endless empty yards, marble platforms,
and
disfigured arches of majestic porches. All this is overgrown
with
creepers and shrubs, hiding the dens of wild beasts. Here and there
a
well-preserved wall of some palace rises high above the general
wreck,
its empty windows fringed with parasitic plants blinking and staring
at
us like sightless eyes, protesting against troublesome intruders.
And
still further, in the very centre of the ruins, the heart of the
dead
town sends forth a whole crop of broken cypresses, an untrimmed
grove
on the place where heaved once so many breasts and clamoured so
many
passions.
In 1570 this town was called Shadiabad, the abode of
happiness. The
Franciscan missionaries, Adolf Aquaviva, Antario de
Moncerotti, and
others, who came here in that very year as an embassy from
Goa to seek
various privileges from the Mogul Government, described it over
and over
again. At this epoch it was one of the greatest cities of the
world,
whose magnificent streets and luxurious ways used to astonish the
most
pompous courts of India. It seems almost incredible that in such a
short
period nothing should remain of this town but the heaps of
rubbish,
amongst which we could hardly find room enough for our tent. At last
we
decided to pitch it in the only building which remained in a
tolerable
state of preservation, in Yami-Masjid, the cathedral-mosque, on
a
granite platform about twenty-five steps higher than the square.
The
stairs, constructed of pure marble like the greater part of the
town
buildings, are broad and almost untouched by time, but the roof
has
entirely disappeared, and so we were obliged to put up with the
stars
for a canopy. All round this building runs a low gallery supported
by
several rows of thick pillars. From a distance it reminds one, in
spite
of its being somewhat clumsy and lacking in proportion, of the
Acropolis
of Athens. From the stairs, where we rested for a while, there was
a
view of the mausoleum of Gushanga-Guri, King of Malwa, in whose
reign
the town was at the culmination of its brilliancy and glory. It is
a
massive, majestic, white marble edifice, with a sheltered peristyle
and
finely carved pillars. This peristyle once led straight to the
palace,
but now it is surrounded with a deep ravine, full of broken stones
and
overgrown with cacti. The interior of the mausoleum is covered
with
golden lettering of inscriptions from the Koran, and the
sarcophagus
of the sultan is placed in the middle. Close by it stands the
palace
of Baz-Bahadur, all broken to pieces--nothing now but a heap of
dust
covered with trees.
We spent the whole day visiting these sad
remains, and returned to
our sheltering place a little before sunset,
exhausted with hunger
and thirst, but triumphantly carrying on our sticks
three huge snakes,
killed on our way home. Tea and supper were waiting for
us. To our great
astonishment we found visitors in the tent. The Patel of the
neighboring
village--something between a tax-collector and a judge--and
two
zemindars (land owners) rode over to present us their respects and
to
invite us and our Hindu friends, some of whom they had known
previously,
to accompany them to their houses. On hearing that we intended to
spend
the night in the "dead town" they grew awfully indignant. They
assured
us it was highly dangerous and utterly impossible. Two hours
later
hyenas, tigers, and other beasts of prey were sure to come out
from
under every bush and every ruined wall, without mentioning
thousands
of jackals and wild cats. Our elephants would not stay, and if they
did
stay no doubt they would be devoured. We ought to leave the ruins
as
quickly as possible and go with them to the nearest village, which
would
not take us more than half an hour. In the village everything had
been
prepared for us, and our friend the Babu was already there, and
getting
impatient at our delay.
Only on hearing this did we become
aware that our bareheaded and
cautious friend was conspicuous by his absence.
Probably he had left
some time ago, without consulting us, and made straight
to the village
where he evidently had friends. Sending for us was a mere
trick of his.
But the evening was so sweet, and we felt so comfortable, that
the idea
of upsetting all our plans for the morning was not at all
attractive.
Besides, it seemed quite ridiculous to think that the ruins,
amongst
which we had wandered several hours without meeting anything
more
dangerous than a snake, swarmed with wild animals. So we smiled
and
returned thanks, but would not accept the invitation.
"But you
positively must not dare to stay here," insisted the fat Patel.
"In case of
accident, I shall be responsible for you to the Government.
Is it possible
you do not dread a sleepless night spent in fighting
jackals, if not
something worse? You do not believe that you are
surrounded with wild
animals..... It is true they are invisible until
sunset, but nevertheless
they are dangerous. If you do not believe us,
believe the instinct of your
elephants, who are as brave as you, but a
little more reasonable. Just look
at them!"
We looked. Truly, our grave, philosophic-looking elephants
behaved very
strangely at this moment. Their lifted trunks looked like huge
points of
interrogation. They snorted and stamped restively. In another
minute one
of them tore the thick rope, with which he was tied to a broken
pillar,
made a sudden volte-face with all his heavy body, and stood against
the
wind, sniffing the air. Evidently he perceived some dangerous animal
in
the neighborhood.
The colonel stared at him through his spectacles
and whistled very
meaningly.
"Well, well," remarked he, "what shall we
do if tigers really assault
us?"
"What shall we do indeed?" was my
thought. "Takur Gulab-Lal-Sing is not
here to protect us."
Our Hindu
companions sat on the carpet after their oriental fashion,
quietly chewing
betel. On being asked their opinion, they said they
would not interfere with
our decision, and were ready to do exactly as
we liked. But as for the
European portion of our party, there was no use
concealing the fact that we
were frightened, and we speedily prepared to
start. Five minutes later we
mounted the elephants, and, in a quarter
of an hour, just when the sun
disappeared behind the mountain and heavy
darkness instantaneously fell, we
passed the gate of Akbar and descended
into the valley.
We were hardly
a quarter of a mile from our abandoned camping place when
the cypress grove
resounded with shrieking howls of jackals, followed
by a well-known mighty
roar. There was no longer any possibility
of doubting. The tigers were
disappointed at our escape. Their
discontentment shook the very air, and cold
perspiration stood on
our brows. Our elephant sprang forward, upsetting the
order of our
procession and threatening to crush the horses and their riders
before
us. We ourselves, however, were out of danger. We sat in a
strong
howdah, locked as in a dungeon.
"It is useless to deny that we
have had a narrow escape!" remarked the
colonel, looking out of the window at
some twenty servants of the Patel,
who were busily lighting
torches.
Brahmanic Hospitalities
In an hour's
time we stopped at the gate of a large bungalow, and were
welcomed by the
beaming face of our bareheaded Bengali. When we were
all safely gathered on
the verandah, he explained to us that, knowing
beforehand that our "American
pigheadedness" would not listen to any
warning, he had dodged up this little
scheme of his own and was very
glad he had been successful.
"Now let
us go and wash our hands, and then to supper. And," he added,
addressing me,
"was it not your wish to be present at a real Hindu meal?
This is your
opportunity. Our host is a Brahman, and you are the first
Europeans who ever
entered the part of his house inhabited by the
family."----
Who
amongst Europeans ever dreamed of a country where every step, and
the least
action of everyday life, especially of the family life, is
controlled by
religious rites and cannot be performed except according
to a certain
programme? India is this country. In India all the
important incidents of a
man's life, such as birth, reaching certain
periods of a child's life,
marriage, fatherhood, old age and death,
as well as all the physical and
physiological functions of everyday
routine, like morning ablutions,
dressing, eating, et tout ce qui s'en
suit, from a man's first hour to his
last sigh, everything must be
performed according to a certain Brahmanical
ritual, on penalty of
expulsion from his caste. The Brahmans may be compared
to the musicians
of an orchestra in which the different musical instruments
are the
numerous sects of their country. They are all of a different shape
and
of a different timbre; but still every one of them obeys the same
leader
of the band. However widely the sects may differ in the
interpretation
of their sacred books, however hostile they may be to each
other,
striving to put forward their particular deity, every one of
them,
obeying blindly the ancient custom, must follow like musicians the
same
directing wand, the laws of Manu. This is the point where they all
meet
and form a unanimous, single-minded community, a strongly united
mass.
And woe to the one who breaks the symphony by a single discordant
note!
The elders and the caste or sub-caste councils (of these there are
any
number), whose members hold office for life, are stern rulers. There
is
no appeal against their decisions, and this is why expulsion from
the
caste is a calamity, entailing truly formidable consequences.
The
excommunicated member is worse off than a leper, the solidarity of
the
castes in this respect being something phenomenal. The only thing
that
can bear any comparison with it is the solidarity of the disciples
of
Loyola. If members of two different castes, united by the
sincerest
feelings of respect and friendship, may not intermarry, may not
dine
together, are forbidden to accept a glass of water from each other,
or
to offer each other a hookah, it becomes clear how much more severe
all
these restrictions must be in the case of an excommunicated person.
The
poor wretch must literally die to everybody, to the members of his
own
family as to strangers. His own household, his father, wife,
children,
are all bound to turn their faces from him, under the penalty
of
being excommunicated in their turn. There is no hope for his sons
and
daughters of getting married, however innocent they may be of the sin
of
their father.
From the moment of "excommunication" the Hindu must
totally disappear.
His mother and wife must not feed him, must not let him
drink from the
family well. No member of any existing caste dares to sell him
his food
or cook for him. He must either starve or buy eatables from
outcasts
and Europeans, and so incur the dangers of further pollution. When
the
Brahmanical power was at its zenith, such acts as deceiving, robbing
and
even killing this wretch were encouraged, as he was beyond the pale
of
the laws. Now, at all events, he is free from the latter danger,
but
still, even now, if he happens to die before he is forgiven and
received
back into his caste, his body may not be burned, and no
purifying
mantrams will be chanted for him; he will be thrown into the water,
or
left to rot under the bushes like a dead cat.
This is a passive
force, and its passiveness only makes it more
formidable. Western education
and English influence can do nothing
to change it. There exists only one
course of action for the
excommunicated; he must show signs of repentance and
submit to all kinds
of humiliations, often to the total loss of all his
worldly possessions.
Personally, I know several young Brahmans, who, having
brilliantly
passed the university examinations in England, have had to submit
to the
most repulsive conditions of purification on their return home;
these
purifications consisting chiefly in shaving off half their
moustaches
and eyebrows, crawling in the dust round pagodas, clinging
during
long hours to the tail of a sacred cow, and, finally, swallowing
the
excrements of this cow. The latter ceremony is called
"Pancha-Gavya,"
literally, the five products of the cow: milk, curds, butter,
etc.
The voyage over Kalapani, the black water, that is to say the sea,
is
considered the worst of all the sins. A man who commits it is
considered
as polluting himself continually, from the first moment of his
going on
board the bellati (foreign) ship.
Only a few days ago a
friend of ours, who is an LL.D., had to
undergo this "purgation," and it
nearly cost him his reason. When we
remonstrated with him, pointing out that
in his case it was simply
foolish to submit, he being a materialist by
conviction and not caring
a straw for Brahmanism, he replied that he was
bound to do so for the
following reasons:
"I have two daughters," he
explained, "one five, the other six years
old. If I do not find a husband for
the eldest of them in the course of
the coming year, she will grow too old to
get married, nobody will think
of espousing her. Suppose I suffer my caste to
excommunicate me, both
my girls will be dishonored and miserable for the rest
of their lives.
Then, again, I must take into consideration the superstitions
of my old
mother. If such a misfortune befell me, it would simply kill
her....."
But why should he not free himself from every bond to
Brahmanism and
caste? Why not join, once for all, the ever-growing community
of men
who are guilty of the same offence? Why not ask all his family to form
a
colony and join the civilization of the Europeans?
All these are
very natural questions, but unfortunately there is no
difficulty in finding
reasons for answering them in the negative.
There were thirty-two reasons
given why one of Napoleon's marshals
refused to besiege a certain fortress,
but the first of these reasons
was the absence of gunpowder, and so it
excluded the necessity of
discussing the remaining thirty-one. Similarly the
first reason why a
Hindu cannot be Europeanized is quite sufficient, and does
not call for
any additional ones. This reason is that by doing so a Hindu
would
not improve his position. Were he such an adept of science as to
rival
Tyndall, were he such a clever politician as to eclipse the genius
of
Disraeli and Bismarck, as soon as he actually had given up his caste
and
kinsmen, he would indubitably find himself in the position of
Mahomet's
coffin; metaphorically speaking, he would hang half-way between the
earth and the sky. |
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