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The second act began with religious meditations and with
mantrams,
which, by really pious people, must be repeated three times a
day--at
sunrise, at noon and at sunset. Sham Rao loudly pronounced the names
of
twenty-four gods, and each name was accompanied by a stroke of the
bell.
Having finished he first shut his eyes and stuffed his ears with
cotton,
then pressed his left nostril with two fingers of his left hand,
and
having filled his lungs with air through the right nostril, pressed
the
latter also. Then he tightly closed his lips, so that breathing
became
impossible. In this position every pious Hindu must mentally repeat
a
certain verse, which is called the Gayatri. These are sacred words
which
no Hindu will dare to pronounce aloud. Even in repeating them
mentally
he must take every precaution not to inhale anything
impure.
I am bound by my word of honor never to repeat the whole of this
prayer,
but I may quote a few unconnected sentences:
"Om... Earth...
Heaven.... Let the adored light of.... [here follows a
name which must not be
pronounced] shelter me. Let thy Sun, O thou only
One, shelter me, the
unworthy... I shut my eyes, I shut my ears, I do
not breathe... in order to
see, hear and breathe thee alone. Throw light
upon our thoughts [again the
secret name]... "
It is curious to compare this Hindu prayer with the
celebrated prayer
of Descartes' "Meditation III" in his L'Existence de Dieu.
It runs as
follows, if I remember rightly:
"Now I shut my eyes, cover
my ears, and dismiss all my five senses, I
will dwell on the thought of God
alone, I will meditate on His quality
and look on the beauty of this 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.
The part played by
the rosaries in India is as important as in all
Buddhist countries. Every god
has his favorite flower and his favorite
material for a rosary. The fakirs
are simply covered with rosaries. The
rosary is called mala and consists of
one hundred and eight beads. Very
pious Hindus are not content to tell the
beads when praying; they must
hide their hands during this ceremony in a bag
called gomukha, which
means the cow's mouth.
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.----
It is still a mystery to us
why the plant tulsi, Royal Basilicum, is
worshipped. However, towards the end
of September we yearly witnessed
the strange ceremony of the wedding of this
plant with the god Vishnu,
notwithstanding that tulsi bears the title of
Krishna's bride, probably
because of the latter being an incarnation of
Vishnu. On these occasions
pots of this plant are painted and adorned with
tinsel. A magical circle
is traced in the garden and the plant is put in the
middle of it. A
Brahman brings an idol of Vishnu and begins the marriage
ceremony,
standing before the plant. A married couple hold a shawl between
the
plant and the god, as if screening them from each other, the
Brahman
utters prayers, and young women, and especially unmarried girls, who
are
the most ardent worshippers of tulsi, throw rice and saffron over
the
idol and the plant. When the ceremony is concluded, the Brahman
is
presented with the shawl, the idol is put in the shade of his wife,
the
Hindus clap their hands, rend everyone's ears with the noise of
tom-toms, let
off fireworks, offer each other pieces of sugar-cane, and
rejoice in every
conceivable way till the dawn of the next day.
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.
The plaintive murmur is lost in the distance. The forest is once
more
filled with the cadences of its invisible nocturnal life--the
metallic
whirr of the crickets, the feeble, monotonous croak of the
tree-frog,
the rustle of the leaves. From time to time all this suddenly
stops
short and then begins again, gradually increasing and
increasing.
Heavens! What teeming life, what stores of vital energy are
hidden
under the smallest leaf, the most imperceptible blades of grass, in
this
tropical forest! Myriads of stars shine in the dark blue of the sky,
and
myriads of fireflies twinkle at us from every bush, moving sparks,
like
a pale reflection of the far-away stars.
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.
"Here we are," said Sham Rao,
dismounting. "Here is the village; the
elephants cannot go any
further."
"The village? Surely you are mistaken. I don't see anything but
trees."
"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."
"Sahib, if your
patriotism consists in displaying before foreigners the
worst of our plagues,
then why did you not order all the lepers of your
district to assemble and
parade before the eyes of our guests? You are a
patel, you have the power to
do it."
How bitterly Narayan's voice sounded to our unaccustomed ears.
Usually
he was so even-tempered, so indifferent to everything belonging to
the
exterior world.
Fearing a quarrel between the Hindus, the colonel
remarked, in a
conciliatory tone, that it was too late for us to reconsider
our
expedition. Besides, without being a believer in the "incarnation
of
gods," he was personally firmly convinced that demoniacs existed even
in
the West. He was eager to study every psychological phenomenon,
wherever
he met with it, and whatever shape it might assume.
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.
It cannot be said that the inquisitive travelers, who
appeared later on,
in the den of the prophetess of Mandu, shone through the
freshness and
elegance of their costumes. My gown, as well as the traveling
suits of
the colonel and of Mr. Y---- were nearly torn to pieces. The
cactuses
gathered from us whatever tribute they could, and the Babu's
disheveled
hair swarmed with a whole colony of grasshoppers and fireflies,
which,
probably, were attracted thither by the smell of cocoa-nut oil.
The
stout Sham Rao panted like a steam engine. Narayan alone was like
his
usual self; that is to say, like a bronze Hercules, armed with a
club.
At the last abrupt turn of the path, after having surmounted the
difficulty
of climbing over huge, scattered stones, we suddenly found
ourselves on a
perfectly smooth place; our eyes, in spite of our many
torches, were dazzled
with light; and our ears were struck by a medley
of unusual sounds.
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 feel the
approach of the gods! The atmosphere is full of their
sacred emanations!"
mysteriously explained Sham Rao, contemplating
with reverence the natives,
whom his beloved Haeckel might have easily
mistaken for his "missing link,"
the brood of his " Bathybius Haeckelii."
"They are simply under the
influence of toddy and opium!" retorted the
irreverent Babu.
The
lookers-on moved as in a dream, as if they all were only
half-awakened
somnambulists; but the actors were simply victims of St.
Vitus's dance. One
of them, a tall old man, a mere skeleton with a long
white beard, left the
ring and begun whirling vertiginously, with his
arms spread like wings, and
loudly grinding his long, wolf-like teeth.
He was painful and disgusting to
look at. He soon fell down, and was
carelessly, almost mechanically, pushed
aside by the feet of the others
still engaged in their demoniac
performance.
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.
I beheld the skull of a monstrous animal, the like of
which I could not
find in my zoological reminiscences. This head was much
larger than the
head of an elephant skeleton. And still it could not be
anything but an
elephant, judging by the skillfully restored trunk, which
wound down
to my feet like a gigantic black leech. But an elephant has no
horns,
whereas this one had four of them! The front pair stuck from the
flat
forehead slightly bending forward and then spreading out; and
the
others had a wide base, like the root of a deer's horn, that
gradually
decreased almost up to the middle, and bore long branches enough
to
decorate a dozen ordinary elks. Pieces of the transparent
amber-yellow
rhinoceros skin were strained over the empty eye-holes of the
skull, and
small lamps burning behind them only added to the horror, the
devilish
appearance of this head.
"What can this be?" was our
unanimous question. None of us had ever met
anything like it, and even the
colonel looked aghast.
"It is a Sivatherium," said Narayan. "Is it
possible you never came
across these fossils in European museums? Their
remains are common
enough in the Himalayas, though, of course, in fragments.
They were
called after Shiva."
"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....."
"Well? And was he satisfied?"
"Oh, he was very glad,
very satisfied. It enabled him to choose the
right thing to gratify the
personal tastes of each demon, don't you
see? He was not vexed at finding his
father's portrait. His father
was somewhat irascible; once he nearly broke
both his son's legs,
administering to him fatherly punishment with an iron
bar, so that
he could not possibly be very dangerous after his death. But
another
portrait, found on the best and the prettiest of the pyramids,
amazed
my friend a good deal, and put him in a blue funk. The whole
district
recognized an English officer, a certain Captain Pole, who in
his
lifetime was as kind a gentleman as ever lived."
"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."
"Their
rites consist chiefly of dancing, singing, and killing
sacrificial animals.
The Shanars have no castes, and eat all kinds of
meat. The crowd assembles
about the Pe-Kovil, previously designated by
the priest; there is a general
beating of drums, and slaughtering of
fowls, sheep and goats. When Captain
Pole's turn came an ox was killed,
as a thoughtful attention to the peculiar
tastes of his nation. The
priest appeared, covered with bangles, and holding
a wand on which
tinkled numberless little bells, and wearing garlands of red
and white
flowers round his neck, and a black mantle, on which were
embroidered
the ugliest fiends you can imagine. Horns were blown and drums
rolled
incessantly. And oh, I forgot to tell you there was also a kind
of
fiddle, the secret of which is known only to the Shanar priesthood.
Its
bow is ordinary enough, made of bamboo; but it is whispered that
the
strings are human veins.... When Captain Pole took possession of
the
priest's body, the priest leapt high in the air, and then rushed on
the
ox and killed him. He drank off the hot blood, and then began
his
dance. But what a fright he was when dancing! You know, I am
not
superstitious.... Am I?..."
Sham Rao looked at us inquiringly, and
I, for one, was glad, at this
moment, that Miss X---- was half a mile off,
asleep in the howdah.
"He turned, and turned, as if possessed by all the
demons of Naraka. The
enraged crowd hooted and howled when the priest begun
to inflict deep
wounds all over his body with the bloody sacrificial knife.
To see him,
with his hair waving in the wind and his mouth covered with foam;
to see
him bathing in the blood of the sacrificed animal, mixing it with
his
own, was more than I could bear. I felt as if hallucinated, I fancied
I
also was spinning round...."
Sham Rao stopped abruptly, struck dumb.
Kangalim stood before us!
Her appearance was so unexpected that we all
felt embarrassed. Carried
away by Sham Rao's description, we had noticed
neither how nor whence
she came. Had she appeared from beneath the earth we
could not have been
more astonished. Narayan stared at her, opening wide his
big jet-black
eyes; the Babu clicked his tongue in utter confusion. Imagine a
skeleton
seven feet high, covered with brown leather, with a dead child's
tiny
head stuck on its bony shoulders; the eyes set so deep and at the
same
time flashing such fiendish flames all through your body that you
begin
to feel your brain stop working, your thoughts become entangled and
your
blood freeze in your veins.
I describe my personal impressions,
and no words of mine can do them
justice. My description is too
weak.
Mr. Y---- and the colonel both grew pale under her stare, and
Mr.
Y----made a movement as if about to rise.
Needless to say that
such an impression could not last. As soon as the
witch had turned her
gleaming eyes to the kneeling crowd, it vanished
as swiftly as it had come.
But still all our attention was fixed on this
remarkable
creature.
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.
To my great shame, I must confess
that a disgusting reminiscence flashed
into my memory. I thought about the
hair and the nails of corpses
growing in the graves, and tried to examine the
nails of the old woman.
Meanwhile, she stood motionless as if suddenly
transformed into an ugly
idol. In one hand she held a dish with a piece of
burning camphor, in
the other a handful of rice, and she never removed her
burning eyes from
the crowd. The pale yellow flame of the camphor flickered
in the wind,
and lit up her deathlike head, almost touching her chin; but she
paid no
heed to it. Her neck, as wrinkled as a mushroom, as thin as a stick,
was
surrounded by three rows of golden medallions. Her head was adorned
with
a golden snake. Her grotesque, hardly human body was covered by a
piece
of saffron-yellow muslin.
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 goddess, one of the seven sisters, begins to take possession
of
her," whispered Sham Rao, not even thinking of wiping away the big
drops
of sweat that streamed from his brow. "Look, look at her!"
This
advice was quite superfluous. We were looking at her, and at
nothing
else.
At first, the movements of the witch were slow, unequal,
somewhat
convulsive; then, gradually, they became less angular; at last, as
if
catching the cadence of the drums, leaning all her long body
forward,
and writhing like an eel, she rushed round and round the
blazing
bonfire. A dry leaf caught in a hurricane could not fly swifter.
Her
bare bony feet trod noiselessly on the rocky ground. The long locks
of
her hair flew round her like snakes, lashing the spectators, who
knelt,
stretching their trembling arms towards her, and writhing as if
they
were alive. Whoever was touched by one of this Fury's black curls,
fell
down on the ground, overcome with happiness, shouting thanks to
the
goddess, and considering himself blessed for ever. It was not human
hair
that touched the happy elect, it was the goddess herself, one of
the
seven. Swifter and swifter fly her decrepit legs; the young,
vigorous
hands of the drummer can hardly follow her. But she does not
think
of catching the measure of his music; she rushes, she flies
forward.
Staring with her expressionless, motionless orbs at something
before
her, at something that is not visible to our mortal eyes, she
hardly
glances at her worshippers; then her look becomes full of fire;
and
whoever she looks at feels burned through to the marrow of his
bones.
At every glance she throws a few grains of rice. The small handful
seems
inexhaustible, as if the wrinkled palm contained the bottomless bag
of
Prince Fortunatus.
Suddenly she stops as if
thunderstruck.
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.
"She is a fiend, she cannot be a woman!" exclaimed the colonel,
seeing
the head of the witch immersed for the sixth time in the
water.
"Hang me if I know!" grumbled Mr. Y----, nervously pulling his
beard.
"The only thing I know is that a grain of her cursed rice entered
my
throat, and I can't get it out!"
"Hush, hush! Please, do be quiet!"
implored Sham Rao. "By talking you
will spoil the whole business!"
I
glanced at Narayan and lost myself in conjectures. His features,
which
usually were so calm and serene, were quite altered at this moment, by
a
deep shadow of suffering. His lips trembled, and the pupils of his
eyes
were dilated, as if by a dose of belladonna. His eyes were lifted
over
the heads of the crowd, as if in his disgust he tried not to see
what
was before him, and at the same time could not see it, engaged in a
deep
reverie, which carried him away from us, and from the whole
performance.
"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.
"It is not about you, it is not about
you! It is of me she speaks,
because I am in Government service. Oh, she is
inexorable!"
"Rakshasas! Asuras!" thundered the voice. "How dare you
appear before
us? how dare you to stand on this holy ground in boots made of
a cow's
sacred skin? Be cursed for etern----"
But her curse was not
destined to be finished. In an instant the
Hercules-like Narayan had fallen
on the Sivatherium, and upset the whole
pile, the skull, the horns and the
demoniac Pythia included. A second
more, and we thought we saw the witch
flying in the air towards the
portico. A confused vision of a stout, shaven
Brahman, suddenly emerging
from under the Sivatherium and instantly
disappearing in the hollow
beneath it, flashed before my dilated
eyes.
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.
Oh, Narayan! how carelessly.... how disorderly
the worlds rotate around
us.... I begin to seriously doubt their reality.
From this moment I
shall earnestly believe that all things in the universe
are nothing but
illusion, a mere Maya. I am becoming a Vedantin.... I doubt
that in the
whole universe there may be found anything more objective than a
Hindu
witch flying up the spout.----
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.
Next morning, at daybreak, we very
reluctantly, it must be owned, bade
good-bye to the kind-hearted,
good-natured Sham Rao. The confoundingly
easy victory of Narayan hung heavily
on his mind. His faith in the holy
hermitess and the seven goddesses was a
good deal shaken by the shameful
capitulation of the Sisters, who had
surrendered at the first blow from
a mere mortal. But during the dark hours
of the night he had had time to
think it over, and to shake off the uneasy
feeling of having unwillingly
misled and disappointed his European
friends.
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.
As to the heroes of this truthful narrative, they mounted
their
elephants once more, and directed their heavy steps towards the
high
road and Jubbulpore.
God's Warrior
The
direction of our pilgrimage of self-improvement lay towards the
north-west,
as was previously decided. We were very impatient to see
these status in
statu of Anglo-India, but.... Do what you may, there
always will be a
but.
We left the Jubbulpore line several miles from Nassik; and, to
return to
it, we had to go back to Akbarpur, then travel by doubtful
Local-Board
roads to the station Vanevad and take the train of Holkar's line,
which
joins the Great Indian Peninsular Railway.
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.
The Sannyasi brought us also a nosegay from
the Swami, a nosegay of the
most extraordinary flowers, which are totally
unknown in Europe. They
grow only in certain Himalayan valleys; they possess
the wonderful
capacity of changing their color after midday, and do not look
dead even
when faded. The Latin name of this charming plant is Hibiscus
mutabilis.
At night they are nothing but a large knot of pressed green
leaves,
but from dawn till ten o'clock the flowers open and look like
large
snow-white roses; then, towards twelve o'clock, they begin to
redden,
and later in the afternoon they look as crimson as a peony.
These
flowers are sacred to the Asuras, a kind of fallen angels in
Hindu
mythology, and to the sun-god Surya. The latter deity fell in love
with
an Asuri at the beginning of creation, and since then is
constantly
caught whispering words of fiery love to the flower that shelters
her.
But the Asura is a virgin; she gives herself entirely to the
service
of the goddess Chastity, who is the patroness of all the
ascetic
brotherhoods. The love of Surya is vain, Asura will not listen to
him.
But under the flaming arrows of the enamoured god she blushes and
in
appearance loses her purity. The natives call this plant lajjalu,
the
modest one.
We were spending the night by a brook, under a shadowy
fig-tree. The
Sannyasi, who had made a wide circuit to fulfil Dayanand's
request, made
friends with us; and we sat up late in the night, listening
whilst he
talked about his travels, the wonders of his native country, once
so
great, and about the heroic deeds of old Runjit-Sing, the Lion of
the
Punjab.
Strange, mysterious beings are found sometimes amongst
these traveling
monks. Some of them are very learned; read and talk Sanskrit;
know all
about modern science and politics; and, nevertheless, remain
faithful to
their ancient philosophical conceptions. Generally they do not
wear any
clothes, except a piece of muslin round the loins, which is
insisted
upon by the police of the towns inhabited by Europeans. They wander
from
the age of fifteen, all their lives, and die generally very aged.
They
live never giving a thought to the morrow, like the birds of heaven,
and
the lilies of the field. They never touch money, and are contented
with
a handful of rice. All their worldly possessions consist of a small
dry
pumpkin to carry water, a rosary, a brass cup and a walking stick.
The
Sannyasis and the Swamis are usually Sikhs from the Punjab, and
monotheists.
They despise idol-worshipers, and have nothing to do with
them, though the
latter very often call themselves by their names.
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. |
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