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The Sikhs are the bravest and the most warlike sect of the whole
Punjab.
The word sikh means disciple. Founded in the fifteenth century by
the
wealthy and noble Brahman Nanak, the new teaching spread so
successfully
amongst the northern soldiers, that in 1539 A.D., when the
founder died,
it counted one hundred thousand followers. At the present time,
this
sect, harmonizing closely with the fiery natural mysticism, and
the
warlike tendencies of the natives, is the reigning creed of the
whole
Punjab. It is based on the principles of theocratic rule; but its
dogmas
are almost totally unknown to Europeans; the teachings, the
religious
conceptions, and the rites of the Sikhs, are kept secret. The
following
details are known generally: the Sikhs are ardent monotheists,
they
refuse to recognize caste; have no restrictions in diet, like
Europeans;
and bury their dead, which, except among Mussulmans, is a rare
exception
in India. The second volume of the Adigrantha teaches them "to
adore the
only true God; to avoid superstitions; to help the dead, that
they
may lead a righteous life; and to earn one's living, sword in
hand."
Govinda, one of the great Gurus of the Sikhs, ordered them never
to
shave their beards and moustaches, and not to cut their hair--in
order
that they may not be mistaken for Mussulmans or any other native
of
India.
Many a desperate battle the Sikhs fought and won, against
the
Mussulmans, and against the Hindus. Their leader, the
celebrated
Runjit-Sing, after having been acknowledged the autocrat of the
Upper
Punjab, concluded a treaty with Lord Auckland, at the beginning of
this
century, in which his country was proclaimed an independent state.
But
after the death of the "old lion," his throne became the cause of
the
most dreadful civil wars and disorders. His son, Maharaja
Dhulip-Sing,
proved quite unfit for the high post he inherited from his
father,
and, under him, the Sikhs became an ill-disciplined restless mob.
Their
attempt to conquer the whole of Hindostan proved disastrous.
Persecuted
by his own soldiers, Dhulip-Sing sought the help of Englishmen,
and was
sent away to Scotland. And some time after this, the Sikhs took
their
place amongst the rest of Britain's Indian subjects.
But still
there remains a strong body of the great Sikh sect of old.
The Kuks represent
the most dangerous underground current of the popular
hatred. This new sect
was founded about thirty years ago [written in
1879] by Balaka-Rama, and, at
first, formed a bulk of people near Attok,
in the Punjab, on the east bank of
the Indus, exactly on the spot where
the latter becomes navigable.
Balaka-Rama had a double aim; to restore
the religion of the Sikhs to its
pristine purity, and to organize a
secret political body, which must be ready
for everything, at a moment's
notice. This brotherhood consists of sixty
thousand members, who pledged
themselves never to reveal their secrets, and
never to disobey any order
of their leaders. In Attok they are few, for the
town is small. But we
were assured that the Kuks live everywhere in India.
Their community
is so perfectly organized that it is impossible to find them
out, or to
learn the names of their leaders.
In the course of the
evening our Akali presented us with a little
crystal bottle, filled with
water from the "Lake of Immortality." He
said that a drop of it would cure
all diseases of the eye. There are
numbers of fresh springs at the bottom of
this lake, and so its water is
wonderfully pure and transparent, in spite of
hundreds of people daily
bathing in it. When, later on, we visited it, we had
the opportunity to
verify the fact that the smallest stone at the bottom is
seen perfectly
distinctly, all over the one hundred and fifty square yards of
the lake.
Amrita-Saran is the most charming of all the sights of Northern
India.
The reflection of the Golden Temple in its crystal waters makes
a
picture that is simply feerique.
We had still seven weeks at our
disposal. We were undecided between
exploring the Bombay Presidency, the
North-West Provinces and the
Rajistan. Which were we to choose? Where were we
to go? How best to
employ our time? Before such a variety of interesting
places we became
irresolute. Hyderabad, which is said to transport the
tourists into the
scenery of the Arabian Nights, seemed so attractive that we
seriously
thought of turning our elephants back to the territory of the
Nizam.
We grew fond of the idea of visiting this "City of the Lion," which
was
built in 1589 by the magnificent Mohamed-Kuli-Kuth-Shah, who was so
used
to luxuries of every kind as to grow weary even of Golkonda, with
all
its fairyland castles and bright gardens. Some buildings of
Hyderabad,
mere remnants of the past glory, are still known to
renown. Mir-Abu-Talib,
the keeper of the Royal Treasury, states that
Mohamed-Kuli-Shah spent the
fabulous sum of L 2,800,000 sterling on the
embellishment of the town, at the
beginning of his reign; though the
labor of the workmen did not cost him
anything at all. Save these few
memorials of greatness, the town looks like a
heap of rubbish nowadays.
But all tourists are unanimous on one point,
namely, that the British
Residency of Hyderabad still deserves its title of
the Versailles of
India.
The title the British Residency bears, and
everything it may contain at
the present time, are mere trifles compared with
the past. I remember
reading a chapter of the History of Hyderabad, by an
English author,
which contained something to the following effect: Whilst the
Resident
entertained the gentlemen, his wife was similarly employed receiving
the
ladies a few yards off, in a separate palace, which was as
sumptuous,
and bore the name of Rang-Mahal. Both palaces were built by
Colonel
Kirkpatrick, the late minister at the Nizam's court. Having married
a
native princess, he constructed this charming abode for her
personal
use. Its garden is surrounded by a high wall, as is customary in
the
Orient, and the centre of the garden is adorned with a large
marble
fountain, covered with scenes from the Ramayana, and mosaics,
Pavilions,
galleries and terraces--everything in this garden is loaded
with
adornments of the most costly Oriental style, that is to say,
with
abundance of inlaid designs, paintings, gilding, ivory and marble.
The
great attraction of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's receptions were the
nautches,
magnificently dressed, thanks to the generosity of the Resident.
Some
of them wore a cargo of jewels worth L 30,000, and literally shone
from
head to foot with diamonds and other precious stones.
The
glorious times of the East India Company are beyond recall, and
no Residents,
and even no native princes, could now afford to be so
"generous." India, this
"most precious diamond of the British crown," is
utterly exhausted, like a
pile of gold in the hands of an alchemist, who
thriftlessly spent it in the
hope of finding the philosopher's stone.
Besides ruining themselves and the
country, the Anglo-Indians commit the
greatest blunders, at least in two
points of their present Government
system. These two points are: first, the
Western education they give to
the higher classes; and, secondly, the
protection and maintenance of the
rights of idol worship. Neither of these
systems is wise. By means of
the first they successfully replace the
religious feelings of old India,
which, however false, had the great
advantage of being sincere, by a
positive atheism amongst the young
generation of the Brahmans; and by
the means of the second they flatter only
the ignorant masses, from
whom nothing is to be feared under any
circumstances. If the patriotic
feelings of the bulk of the population could
possibly be roused, the
English would have been slaughtered long ago. The
rural populace is
unarmed, it is true, but a crowd seeking revenge could use
the brass and
stone idols, sent to India by thousands from Birmingham, with
as great
success as if they were so many swords. But, as it is, the masses
of
India are indifferent and harmless; so that the only existing
danger
comes from the side of the educated classes. And the English fail to
see
that the better the education they give them, the more careful they
must
be to avoid reopening the old wounds, always alive to new injury,
in
the heart of every true Hindu. The Hindus are proud of the past of
their
country, dreams of past glories are their only compensation for
the
bitter present. The English education they receive only enables
them
to learn that Europe was plunged in the darkness of the Stone Age,
when
India was in the full growth of her splendid civilization. And so
the
comparison of their past with their present is only the more sad.
This
consideration never hinders the Anglo-Indians from hurting the
feelings
of the Hindus. For instance, in the unanimous opinion of
travelers
and antiquarians, the most interesting building of Hyderabad
is
Chahar-Minar, a college that was built by Mohamed-Kuli-Khan on the
ruins
of a still more ancient college. It is built at the crossing of
four
streets, on four arches, which are so high that loaded camels
and
elephants with their turrets pass through freely. Over these arches
rise
the several stories of the college. Each story once was destined
for
a separate branch of learning. Alas! the times when India
studied
philosophy and astronomy at the feet of her great sages are gone,
and
the English have transformed the college itself into a warehouse.
The
hall, which served for the study of astronomy, and was filled
with
quaint, medieval apparatus, is now used for a depot of opium; and
the
hall of philosophy contains huge boxes of liqueurs, rum and
champagne,
which are prohibited by the Koran, as well as by the
Brahmans.
We were so enchanted by what we heard about Hyderabad, that we
resolved
to start thither the very next morning, when our ciceroni and
companions
destroyed all our plans by a single word. This word was: heat.
During
the hot season in Hyderabad the thermometer reaches ninety-eight
degrees
Fahrenheit in the shade, and the temperature of the water in the
Indus
is the temperature of the blood. As to Upper Sindh, where the dryness
of
the air, and the extreme aridity of the sandy soil reproduce the
Sahara
in miniature, the usual shade temperature is one hundred and
thirty
degrees Fahrenheit. No wonder the missionaries have no chance
there.
The most eloquent of Dante's descriptions of hell could hardly
produce
anything but a cooling effect on a populace who live perfectly
contented
under these circumstances.
Calculating that there was no
obstacle to our going to the Bagh caves,
and that going to Sindh was a
perfect impossibility, we recovered our
equanimity. Then the general council
decided that we had better abandon
all ideas of a predetermined plan, and
travel as fancy led us.
We dismissed our elephants, and next day, a
little before sunset,
arrived at the spot where the Vagrey and Girna join.
These are two
little rivers, quite famous in the annals of the Indian
mythology, and
which are generally conspicuous by their absence, especially
in summer.
At the opposite side of the river, there lay the illustrious Bagh
caves,
with their four openings blinking in the thick evening mist.
We
thought of crossing to them immediately, by the help of a ferry boat,
but our
Hindu friends and the boat-men interposed. The former said
that visiting
these caves is dangerous even by daytime; because all the
neighborhood is
full of beasts of prey and of tigers, who, I concluded,
are like the Bengali
Babus, to be met with everywhere in India. Before
venturing into these caves,
you must send a reconnoitring party of
torch-bearers and armed shikaris. As
to the boatmen, they protested on
different grounds, but protested strongly.
They said that no Hindu would
dare to approach these caves after the sun set.
No one but a Bellati
would fancy that Vagrey and Girna are ordinary rivers,
for every Hindu
knows they are divine spouses, the god Shiva and his wife
Parvati.
This, in the first instance; and in the second, the Bagh tigers are
no
ordinary tigers either. The sahibs are totally mistaken. These
tigers
are the servants of the Sadhus, of the holy miracle-workers, who
have
haunted the caves now for many centuries, and who deign sometimes
to
take the shape of a tiger. And neither the gods, nor the Sadhus,
nor
the glamour, nor the true tigers are fond of being disturbed in
their
nightly rest.
What could we say against all this? We cast one
more sorrowful look
at the caves, and returned to our antediluvian carriages.
The Babu and
Narayan said we must spend the night at the house of a certain
"chum"
of the Babu, who resided in a small town, three miles further on,
and
bearing the same name as the caves; and we unwillingly
acquiesced.
Many things in India are wonderful and unintelligible, but
one of the
most wonderful and the most unintelligible, is the geographical
and the
topographical disposition of the numberless territories of this
country.
Political conjunctures in India seem to be everlastingly playing
the
French game casse-tete, changing the pattern, diminishing one part
and
adding to another. The land that only yesterday belonged to this Raja
or
that Takur, is sure to be found today in the hands of quite a
different
set of people. For instance, we were in the Raj of Amjir in Malva,
and
we were going to the little city of Bagh, which also belongs to
Malva
and is included in the Amjir Raj. In the documents, Malva is
included
in the independent possessions of Holkar; and nevertheless the Amjir
Raj
does not belong to Tukuji-Rao-Holkar, but to the son of the
independent
Raja of Amjir, who was hanged, "by inadvertence" as we were
assured, in
1857. The city, and the caves of Bagh, very oddly belong to the
Maharaja
Sindya of Gwalior, who, besides, does not own them personally,
having
made a kind of present of them, and their nine thousand rupees
of
revenue, to some poor relation. This poor relation, in his turn,
does
not enjoy the property in the least, because a certain Rajput
Takur
stole it from him, and will not consent to give it back. Bagh
is
situated on the road from Gujerat to Malva, in the defile of
Oodeypur,
which is owned accordingly by the Maharana of Oodeypur. Bagh itself
is
built on the top of a woody hillock, and being disputed property
does
not belong to any one in particular, properly speaking; but a
small
fortress, and a bazaar in the centre of it are the private
possessions
of a certain dhani; who, besides being the chieftain of the
Bhimalah
tribe, was the personal "chum" of our Babu, and a "great thief
and
highway robber," according to the assertions of the said
Babu.
"But why do you intend taking us to the place of a man whom you
consider
as a thief and a robber?" objected one of us timidly.
"He is
a thief and a brigand," coolly answered the Bengali, "but only in
the
political sense. Otherwise he is an excellent man, and the truest
of friends.
Besides, if he does not help us, we shall starve; the bazaar
and everything
in the shops belong to him."
These explanations of the Babu
notwithstanding, we were glad to learn
that the "chum" in question was
absent, and we were received by a
relation of his. The garden was put at our
disposal, and before our
tents were pitched, we saw people coming from every
side of the garden,
bringing us provisions. Having deposited what he had
brought, each of
them, on leaving the tent, threw over his shoulder a pinch
of betel and
soft sugar, an offering to the "foreign bhutas," which were
supposed to
accompany us wherever we went. The Hindus of our party asked
us,
very seriously, not to laugh at this performance, saying it would
be
dangerous in this out-of-the-way place.
No doubt they were right.
We were in Central India, the very nest of
all kinds of superstitions, and
were surrounded by Bhils. All along the
Vindya ridge, from Yama, on the west
of the "dead city," the country is
thickly populated by this most daring,
restless and superstitious of all
the half-savage tribes of India.
The
Orientalists think that the naive Bhils comes from the Sanskrit root
bhid,
which means to separate. Sir J. Malcolm supposes accordingly that
the Bhils
are sectarians, who separated from the Brahmanical creed,
and were
excommunicated. All this looks very probable, but their tribal
traditions say
something different. Of course, in this case, as in every
other, their
history is strongly entangled with mythology; and one has
to go through a
thick shrubbery of fancy before reaching the tribe's
genealogical
tree.
The relation of the absent dhani, who spent the evening with us,
told
us the following: The Bhils are the descendants of one of the sons
of
Mahadeva, or Shiva, and of a fair woman, with blue eyes and a
white
face, whom he met in some forest on the other side of the
Kalapani,
"black waters," or ocean. This pair had several sons, one of whom,
as
handsome as he was vicious, killed the favorite ox of his
grandfather
Maha-deva, and was banished by his father to the Jodpur desert.
Banished
to its remotest southern corner, he married; and soon his
descendants
filled the whole country. They scattered along the Vindya ridge,
on
the western frontier of Malva and Kandesh; and, later, in the
woody
wilderness, on the shores of the rivers Maha, Narmada and Tapti. And
all
of them, inheriting the beauty of their forefather, his blue eyes
and
fair complexion, inherited also his turbulent disposition and his
vice.
"We are thieves and robbers," naively explained the relative of
the
Babu's "chum," "but we can't help it, because this is the decree of
our
mighty forefather, the great Maha-deva-Shiva. Sending his grandson
to
repent his sins in the desert, he said to him: 'Go, wretched murderer
of
my son and your brother, the ox Nardi; go and live the life of an
exile
and a brigand, to be an everlasting warning to your brethren!... '
These
are the very words of the great god. Now, do you think we
could
disobey his orders? The least of our actions is always regulated by
our
Bhamyas--chieftains--who are the direct descendants of Nadir-Sing,
the
first Bhil, the child of our exiled ancestor, and being this, it is
only
natural that the great god speaks to us through him."
Is not it
strange that Apis, the sacred ox of the Egyptians, is honored
by the
followers of Zoroaster, as well as by the Hindus? The ox Nardi,
the emblem of
life in nature, is the son of the creating father, or
rather his life-giving
breath. Ammianus Marcellinus mentions, in one of
his works, that there exists
a book which gives the exact age of Apis,
the clue to the mystery of creation
and the cyclic calculations. The
Brahmans also explain the allegory of the ox
Nardi by the continuation
of life on our globe.
The "mediators"
between Shiva and the Bhils possess such unrestricted
authority that the most
awful crimes are accomplished at their lightest
word. The tribe have thought
it necessary to decrease their power to a
certain extent by instituting a
kind of council in every village. This
council is called tarvi, and tries to
cool down the hot-headed fancies
of the dhanis, their brigand lords. However,
the word of the Bhils is
sacred, and their hospitality is
boundless.
The history and the annals of the princes of Jodpur and
Oodeypur confirm
the legend of the Bhil emigration from their primitive
desert, but how
they happened to be there nobody knows. Colonel Tod is
positive that the
Bhils, together with the Merases and the Goands, are the
aborigines of
India, as well as the tribes who inhabit the Nerbuda forests.
But why
the Bhils should be almost fair and blue-eyed, whereas the rest
of
the hill-tribes are almost African in type, is a question that is
not
answered by this statement. The fact that all these aborigines
call
themselves Bhumaputra and Vanaputra, sons of the earth and sons
of
the forest, when the Rajputs, their first conquerors, call
themselves
Surya-vansa and the Brahmans Indu-putras, descendants of the sun
and
the moon, does not prove everything. It seems to me, that in the
present
case, their appearance, which confirms their legends, is of much
greater
value than philology. Dr. Clark, the author of Travels in
Scandinavia,
is very logical in saying that, "by directing our attention on
the
traces of the ancient superstitions of a tribe, we shall find out
who
were its primitive forefathers much more easily than by
scientific
examination of their tongue; the superstitions are grafted on the
very
root, whereas the tongue is subjected to all kinds of
changes."
But, unfortunately, everything we know about the history of the
Bhils is
reduced to the above-mentioned tradition, and to a few ancient
songs
of their bards. These bards or bhattas live in Rajistan, but
visit
the Bhils yearly, in order not to lose the leading thread of
the
achievements of their countrymen. Their songs are history, because
the
bhattas have existed from time immemorial, composing their lays
for
future generations, for this is their hereditary duty. And the songs
of
the remotest antiquity point to the lands over the Kalapani as
the
place whence the Bhils came; that is to say, some place in Europe.
Some
Orientalists, especially Colonel Tod, seek to prove that the
Rajputs,
who conquered the Bhils, were newcomers of Scythian origin, and
that
the Bhils are the true aborigines. To prove this, they put forward
some
features common to both peoples, Rajput and Scythian, for instance
(1)
the worship of the sword, the lance, the shield and the horse; (2)
the
worship of, and the sacrifice to, the sun (which, as far as I
know,
never was worshiped by the Scythians); (3) the passion of
gambling
(which again is as strong amongst the Chinese and the Japanese);
(4)
the custom of drinking blood out of the skull of an enemy (which is
also
practised by some aborigines of America), etc., etc.
I do not
intend entering here on a scientific ethnological discussion;
and, besides, I
am sure no one fails to see that the reasoning of
scientists sometimes takes
a very strange turn when they set to prove
some favorite theory of theirs. It
is enough to remember how entangled
and obscure is the history of the ancient
Scythians to abstain from
drawing any positive conclusions whatsoever from
it. The tribes that go
under one general denomination of Scythians were many,
and still it is
impossible to deny that there is a good deal of similitude
between the
customs of the old Scandinavians, worshipers of Odin, whose land
indeed
was occupied by the Scythians more than five hundred years B.C. and
the
customs of the Rajputs. But this similitude gives as much right to
the
Rajputs to say that we are a colony of Surya-vansas settled in the
West
as to us to maintain that the Rajputs are the descendants of
Scythians
who emigrated to the East. The Scythians of Herodotus and the
Scythians
of Ptolemy, and some other classical writers, are two perfectly
distinct
nationalities. Under Scythia, Herodotus means the extension of land
from
the mouth of Danube to the Sea of Azoff, according to Niebuhr; and
to
the mouth of Don, according to Rawlinson; whereas the Scythia of
Ptolemy
is a country strictly Asiatic, including the whole space between
the
river Volga and Serika, or China. Besides this, Scythia was divided
by
the western Himalayas, which the Roman writers call Imaus, into
Scythia
intra Imaum, and Scythia extra Imaum. Given this lack of
precision,
the Rajputs may be called the Scythians of Asia, and the
Scythians
the Rajputs of Europe, with the same degree of likelihood.
Pinkerton's
opinion is that European contempt for the Tartars would not be
half
so strong if the European public learned how closely we are
related
to them; that our forefathers came from northern Asia, and that
our
primitive customs, laws and mode of living were the same as theirs;
in
a word, that we are nothing but a Tartar colony... Cimbri, Kelts
and
Gauls, who conquered the northern part of Europe, are different names
of
the same tribe, whose origin is Tartary. Who were the Goths, the
Swedes,
the Vandals, the Huns and the Franks, if not separate swarms of the
same
beehive? The annals of Sweden point to Kashgar as the fatherland
of
the Swedes. The likeness between the languages of the Saxons and
the
Kipchak-Tartars is striking; and the Keltic, which still exists
in
Brittany and in Wales, is the best proof that their inhabitants
are
descendants of the Tartar nation.
Whatever Pinkerton and others
may say, the modern Rajput warriors do
not answer in the least the
description Hippocrates gives us of the
Scythians. The "father of medicine"
says: "The bodily structure of these
men is thick, coarse and stunted; their
joints are weak and flabby; they
have almost no hair, and each of them
resembles the other." No man,
who has seen the handsome, gigantic warriors of
Rajistan, with their
abundant hair and beards, will ever recognize this
portrait drawn by
Hippocrates as theirs. Besides, the Scythians, whoever they
may be,
buried their dead, which the Rajputs never did, judging by the
records
of their most ancient MSS. The Scythians were a wandering nation,
and
are described by Hesiod as "living in covered carts and feeding
on
mare's milk." And the Rajputs have been a sedentary people from
time
immemorial, inhabiting towns, and having their history at least
several
hundred years before Christ--that is to say, earlier than the epoch
of
Herodotus. They do celebrate the Ashvamedha, the horse sacrifice;
but
will not touch mare's milk, and despise all Mongolians. Herodotus
says
that the Scythians, who called themselves Skoloti, hated foreigners,
and
never let any stranger in their country; and the Rajputs are one
of
the most hospitable peoples of the world. In the epoch of the wars
of
Darius, 516 B.C., the Scythians were still in their own district,
about
the mouth of the Danube. And at the same epoch the Rajputs were
already
known in India and had their own kingdom. As to the Ashvamedha,
which
Colonel Tod thinks to be the chief illustration of his theory,
the
custom of killing horses in honor of the sun is mentioned in
the
Rig-Veda, as well as in the Aitareya-Brahmana. Martin Haug states
that
the latter has probably been in existence since 2000-2400
B.C.----
But it strikes me that the digression from the Babu's chum
to the
Scythians and the Rajputs of the antediluvian epoch threatens to
become
too long, so I beg the reader's pardon and resume the thread of
my
narrative.
The Banns Of Marriage
Next
day, early in the morning, the local shikaris went under the
leadership of
the warlike Akali, to hunt glamoured and real tigers
in the caves. It took
them longer than we expected. The old Bhil, who
represented to us the absent
dhani, proposed that in the meanwhile
we should witness a Brahmanical wedding
ceremony. Needless to say,
we jumped at this. The ceremonies of betrothal and
marriage have not
changed in India during the last two millenniums at least.
They are
performed according to the directions of Manu, and the old theme
has
no new variations. India's religious rites have crystallized long
ago.
Whoever has seen a Hindu wedding in 1879, saw it as it was celebrated
in
ancient Aryavarta many centuries ago.----
A few days before we
left Bombay we read in a small local newspaper two
announcements of
marriages: the first the marriage of a Brahman heiress,
the second of a
daughter of the fire-worshipers. The first announcement
was something to the
following effect: "The family of Bimbay Mavlankar,
etc., etc., are preparing
for a happy event. This respectable member
of our community, unlike the rest
of the less fortunate Brahmans of
his caste, has found a husband for his
grand-daughter in a rich Gujerat
family of the same caste. The little
Rama-bai is already five, her
future husband is seven. The wedding is to take
place in two months and
promises to be brilliant."
The second
announcement referred to an accomplished fact. It appeared
in a Parsi paper,
which strongly insists on the necessity of giving up
"disgusting
superannuated customs," and especially the early marriage.
It justly
ridiculed a certain Gujerati newspaper, which had just
described in very
pompous expressions a recent wedding ceremony in
Poona. The bridegroom, who
had just entered his sixth year "pressed to
his heart a blushing bride of two
and a half!" The usual answers of this
couple entering into matrimony proved
so indistinct that the Mobed had
to address the questions to their parents:
"Are you willing to have him
for your lawful husband, O daughter of
Zaratushta?" and "Are you willing
to be her husband, O son of Zoroaster?"
"Everything went as well as it
could be expected," continued the newspaper;
"the bridegroom was led out
of the room by the hand, and the bride, who was
carried away in arms,
greeted the guests, not with smiles, but with a
tremendous howl, which
made her forget the existence of such a thing as a
pocket-handkerchief,
and remember only her feeding-bottle; for the latter
article she asked
repeatedly, half choked with sobs, and throttled with the
weight of the
family diamonds. Taking it all in all, it was a Parsi marriage,
which
shows the progress of our speedily developing nation with the
exactitude
of a weather glass," added the satirical newspaper.
Having
read this we laughed heartily, though we did not give full credit
to this
description, and thought it a good deal exaggerated. We knew
Parsi and
Brahman families in which were husbands of ten years of
age; but had never
heard as yet of a bride who was a baby in
arms.----
It is not
without reason that the Brahmans are fervent upholders of
the ancient law
which prohibits to everyone, except the officiating
Brahmans, the study of
Sanskrit and the reading of the Vedas. The
Shudras and even the high-born
Vaishyas were in olden times to be
executed for such an offence. The secret
of this rigour lies in the fact
that the Vedas do not permit matrimony for
women under fifteen to twenty
years of age, and for men under twenty-five, or
even thirty. Eager
above all that every religious ceremony should fill their
pockets, the
Brahmans never stopped at disfiguring their ancient sacred
literature;
and not to be caught, they pronounced its study accursed. Amongst
other
"criminal inventions," to use the expression of Swami Dayanand, there
is
a text in the Brahmanical books, which contradicts everything that
is
to be found in the Vedas on this particular matter: I speak of the
Kudva
Kunbis, the wedding season of all the agricultural classes of
Central
Asia. This season is to be celebrated once in every twelve years,
but
it appears to be a field from which Messieurs les Brahmans
gathered
the most abundant harvest. At this epoch, all the mothers have to
seek
audiences from the goddess Mata, the great mother--of course through
her
rightful oracles the Brahmans. Mata is the special patroness of all
the
four kinds of marriages practised in India: the marriages of adults,
of
children, of babies, and of specimens of humanity that are as yet to
be
born.
The latter is the queerest of all, because the feelings it
excites are
so very like gambling. In this case, the marriage ceremony is
celebrated
between the mothers of the future children. Many a curious
incident is
the result of these matrimonial parodies. But a true Brahman
will
never allow the derision of fate to shake his dignity, and the
docile
population never will doubt the infallibility of these "elect of
the
gods." An open antagonism to the Brahmanical institutions is more
than
rare; the feelings of reverence and dread the masses show to the
Brahmans are
so blind and so sincere, that an outsider cannot help
smiling at them and
respecting them at the same time.
If both the mothers have children of
the same sex, it will not upset the
Brahman in the least; he will say this
was the will of the goddess Mata,
it shows that she desires the new-born
babies to be two loving brothers,
or two loving sisters, as the case may be,
in future. And if the
children grow up, they will be acknowledged heirs to
the properties of
both mothers. In this case, the Brahman breaks the bonds of
the marriage
by the order of the goddess, is paid for doing so, and the whole
affair
is dropped altogether. But if the children are of different sexes
these
bonds cannot be broken, even if they are born cripples or
idiots.
While I am dealing with the family life of India, I had better
mention
some other features, not to return to them any more. No Hindu has
the
right to remain single. The only exceptions are, in case the child
is
destined to monastic life from the first days of his existence, and
in
case the child is consecrated to the service of one of the gods of
the
Trimurti even before he is born. Religion insists on matrimony for
the
sake of having a son, whose duty it will be to perform every
prescribed
rite, in order that his departed father may enter Swarga, or
paradise.
Even the caste of Brahmacharyas, who take vows of chastity, but
take a
part and interest in worldly life--and so are the unique
lay-celibates
of India--are bound to adopt sons. The rest of the Hindus must
remain
in matrimony till the age of forty; after which they earn the right
to
leave the world, and to seek salvation, leading an ascetic life in
some
jungle. If a member of some Hindu family happens to be afflicted
from
birth with some organic defect, this will not be an impediment to
his
marrying, on the condition that his wife should be also a cripple,
if
she belongs to the same caste. The defects of husband and wife must
be
different: if he is blind, she must be hump-backed or lame, and
vice
versa. But if the young man in question is prejudiced, and wants
a
healthy wife, he must condescend to make a mesalliance; he must stoop
to
choose a wife in a caste that is exactly one degree lower than his
own.
But in this case his kinsmen and associates will not acknowledge
her;
the parvenue will not be received on any conditions whatever.
Besides,
all these exceptional instances depend entirely on the family
Guru--on
the priest who is inspired by the gods.
All the above holds
good as far as the men are concerned; but with the
women it is quite
different.
Only the nautches--dancing girls consecrated to gods, and
living
in temples--can be said to be free and happy. Their occupation
is
hereditary, but they are vestals and daughters of vestals,
however
strange this may sound to a European ear. But the notions of the
Hindus,
especially on questions of morality, are quite independent, and
even
anti-Western, if I may use this expression. No one is more severe
and
exacting in the questions of feminine honor and chastity; but the
Brahmans
proved to be more cunning than even the Roman augurs. Rhea
Sylvia, for
instance, the mother of Romulus and Remus, was buried alive
by the ancient
Romans, in spite of the god Mars taking an active part in
her faux pas. Numa
and Tiberius took exceedingly good care that the good
morals of their
priestesses should not become merely nominal. But the
vestals on the banks of
the Ganges and the Indus understand the question
differently from those on
the banks of the Tiber. The intimacy of the
nautch-girls with the gods, which
is generally accepted, cleanses them
from every sin and makes them in every
one's eyes irreproachable
and infallible. A nautcha cannot sin, in spite of
the crowd of the
"celestial musicians" who swarm in every pagoda, in the form
of
baby-vestals and their little brothers. No virtuous Roman matron
was
ever so respected as the pretty little nautcha. This great
reverence
for the happy "brides of the gods" is especially striking in the
purely
native towns of Central India, where the population has preserved
intact
their blind faith in the Brahmans.
Every nautcha can read, and
receives the highest Hindu education. They
all read and write in Sanskrit,
and study the best literature of ancient
India, and her six chief
philosophies, but especially music, singing and
dancing. Besides these
"godborn" priestesses of the pagodas, there are
also public nautches, who,
like the Egyptian almeas, are within the
reach of ordinary mortals, not only
of gods; they also are in most cases
women of a certain culture.
But
the fate of an honest woman of Hindostan is quite different; and a
bitter and
incredibly unjust fate it is. The life of a thoroughly good
woman, especially
if she happens to possess warm faith and unshaken
piety, is simply a long
chain of fatal misfortunes. And the higher her
family and social position,
the more wretched is her life. Married women
are so afraid of resembling the
professional dancing girls, that they
cannot be persuaded to learn anything
the latter are taught. If a
Brahman woman is rich her life is spent in
demoralizing idleness; if
she is poor, so much the worse, her earthly
existence is concentrated
in monotonous performances of mechanical rites.
There is no past, and no
future for her; only a tedious present, from which
there is no possible
escape. And this only if everything be well, if her
family be not
visited by sad losses. Needless to say that, amongst Brahman
women,
marriage is not a question of free choice, and still less of
affection.
Her choice of a husband is restricted by the caste to which her
father
and mother happen to belong; and so, to find a suitable match for a
girl
is a matter of great difficulty, as well as of great expense. In
India,
the high-caste woman is not bought, but she has to buy the right to
get
married. Accordingly, the birth of a girl is not a joy, but a
sorrow,
especially if her parents are not rich. She must be married not
later
than when she is seven or eight; a little girl of ten is an old maid
in
India, she is a discredit to her parents and is the miser-able butt
of
all her more fortunate contemporaries.
One of the few noble
achievements of Englishmen in India which have
succeeded is the decrease of
infanticide, which some time ago was a
daily practice, and still is not quite
got rid of. Little girls were
killed by their parents everywhere in India;
but this dreadful custom
was especially common amongst the tribes of Jadej,
once so powerful in
Sindh, and now reduced to petty brigandage. Probably
these tribes were
the first to spread this heartless practice. Obligatory
marriage for
little girls is a comparatively recent invention, and it alone
is
responsible for the parents' decision rather to see them dead
than
unmarried. The ancient Aryans knew nothing of it. Even the
ancient
Brahmanical literature shows that, amongst the pure Aryans,
woman
enjoyed the same privileges as man. Her voice was listened to by
the
statesmen; she was free either to choose a husband, or to remain
single.
Many a woman's name plays an important part in the chronicles of
the
ancient Aryan land; many women have come down to posterity as
eminent
poets, astronomers, philosophers, and even sages and
lawyers.
But with the invasion of the Persians, in the seventh century,
and later
on of the fanatical, all-destroying Mussulmans, all this changed.
Woman
became enslaved, and the Brahmans did everything to humiliate
her.
In towns, the position of the Hindu woman is still worse than
amongst
agricultural classes.
The wedding ceremonies are very
complicated and numerous. They are
divided into three groups: the rites
before the wedding; the rites
during the ceremony; and the rites after the
celebration has taken
place. The first group consists of eleven ceremonies:
the asking in
marriage; the comparison of the two horoscopes; the sacrifice
of a goat;
the fixing of a propitious day; the building of the altar; the
purchase
of the sacred pots for household use; the invitation of guests;
the
sacrifices to the household gods; mutual presents and so on. All
this
must be accomplished as a religious duty, and is full of
entangled
rites. As soon as a little girl in some Hindu family is four years
old,
her father and mother send for the family Guru, give him her
horoscope,
drawn up previously by the astrologer of their caste (a very
important
post), and send the Guru to this or that inhabitant of the place
who is
known to have a son of appropriate age. The father of the little boy
has
to put the horoscope on the altar before the family gods and to
answer:
"I am well disposed towards the Panigrhana; let Rudra help us." The
Guru
must ask when the union is to take place, after which he is bowed
out.
A few days later the father of the little boy takes the horoscope of
his
son as well as of the little girl to the chief astrologer. If the
latter
finds them propitious to the intended marriage, it will take place;
if
not, his decision is immediately sent to the father of the little
girl,
and the whole affair is dropped. If the astrologer's opinion is
favorable,
however, the bargain is concluded on the spot. The astrologer
offers a
cocoa-nut and a handful of sugar to the father, after which
nothing can be
altered; otherwise a Hindu vendetta will be handed down
from generation to
generation. After the obligatory goat-sacrifice, the
couple are irrevocably
betrothed, and the astrologer fixes the day of
the wedding.
The
sacrifice of the goat is very interesting, so I am going to describe
it in
detail.
A child of the male sex is sent to invite several married ladies,
old
women of twenty or twenty-five, to witness the worship of the Lares
and
Penates. Each family has a household goddess of its own--which is
not
impossible, since the Hindu gods number thirty-three crores. On the
eve
of the sacrificial day, a kid is brought into the house, and all
the
family sleep round him. Next morning, the reception hall in the
lower
story is made ready for the ceremony. The floor is thickly covered
with
cow-dung, and, right in the middle of the room a square is traced
with
white chalk, in which is placed a high pedestal, with the statue of
the
goddess. The patriarch of the family brings the goat, and, holding
him
by the horns, lowers his head to salute the goddess. After this,
the
"old" and young women sing marriage hymns, tie the legs of the
goat,
cover his head with red powder, and make a lamp smoke under his
nose,
to banish the evil spirits from round him. When all this is done,
the
female element puts itself out of the way, and the patriarch comes
again
upon the stage. He treacherously puts a ration of rice before the
goat,
and as soon as the victim becomes innocently absorbed in gratifying
his
appetite, the old man chops his head off with a single stroke of
his
sword, and bathes the goddess in the smoking blood coming from the
head
of the animal, which he holds in his right arm, over the idol. The
women
sing in chorus, and the ceremony of betrothal is over.
The
ceremonies with the astrologers, and the exchange of presents,
are too long
to be described. I shall mention only, that in all these
ceremonies the
astrologer plays the double part of an augur and a family
lawyer. After a
general invocation to the elephant-headed god Ganesha,
the marriage contract
is written on the reverse of the horoscopes and
sealed, and a general
blessing is pronounced over the assembly.
Needless to say that all these
ceremonies had been accomplished long ago
in the family to whose marriage
party we were invited in Bagh. All these
rites are sacred, and most probably
we, being mere strangers, would
not have been allowed to witness them. We saw
them all later on in
Benares--thanks to the intercession of our
Babu.
When we arrived on the spot, where the Bagh cere-mony was
celebrated,
the festivity was at its height. The bridegroom was not more
than
fourteen years old, while the bride was only ten. Her small nose
was
adorned with a huge golden ring with some very brilliant stone,
which
dragged her nostril down. Her face looked comically piteous,
and
sometimes she cast furtive glances at us. The bridegroom, a
stout,
healthy-looking boy, attired in cloth of gold and wearing the
many
storied Indra hat, was on horseback, surrounded by a whole crowd of
male
relations.
The altar, especially erected for this occasion,
presented a queer
sight. Its regulation height is three times the length of
the bride's
arm from the shoulder down to the middle finger. Its materials
are
bricks and white-washed clay. Forty-six earthen pots painted with
red,
yellow and green stripes--the colors of the Trimurti--rose in two
pyramids on
both sides of the "god of marriages" on the altar, and all
round it a crowd
of little married girls were busy grinding ginger.
When it was reduced to
powder the whole crowd rushed on the bridegroom,
dragged him from his horse,
and, having undressed him, began rubbing him
with wet ginger. As soon as the
sun dried him he was dressed again by
some of the little ladies, whilst one
part of them sang and the other
sprinkled his head with water from lotus
leaves twisted into tubes. We
understood that this was a delicate attention
to the water gods.
We were also told that the whole of the previous night
had been given up
to the worship of various spirits. The last rites, begun
weeks ago,
were hurriedly brought to an end during this last night.
Invocations to
Ganesha, to the god of marriages; to the gods of the elements,
water,
fire, air and earth; to the goddess of the smallpox and other
illnesses;
to the spirits of ancestors and planetary spirits, to the evil
spirits,
good spirits, family spirits, and so on, and so on. Suddenly our
ears
were struck by strains of music.... Good heavens! what a
dreadful
symphony it was! The ear-splitting sounds of Indian tom-toms,
Tibetan
drunis, Singalese pipes, Chinese trumpets, and Burmese gongs deafened
us
on all sides, awakening in our souls hatred for humanity and
humanity's
inventions.
"De tous les bruits du monde celui de la
musique est le plus
desagreable!" was my ever-recurring thought. Happily,
this agony did
not last long, and was replaced by the choral singing of
Brahmans and
nautches, which was very original, but perfectly bearable. The
wedding
was a rich one, and so the "vestals" appeared in state. A moment
of
silence, of restrained whispering, and one of them, a tall,
handsome
girl with eyes literally filling half her forehead, began
approaching
one guest after the other in perfect silence, and rubbing their
faces
with her hand, leaving traces of sandal and saffron powders. She
glided
towards us also, noiselessly moving over the dusty road with her
bare
feet; and before we realized what she was doing she had daubed me
as
well as the colonel and Miss X----, which made the latter sneeze
and
wipe her face for at least ten minutes, with loud but vain utterances
of
indignation.
The Babu and Mulji offered their faces to the little
hand, full of
saffron, with smiles of condescending generosity. But the
indomitable
Narayan shrank from the vestal so unexpectedly at the precise
moment
when, with fiery glances at him, she stood on tiptoe to reach his
face,
that she quite lost countenance and sent a full dose of powder over
his
shoulder, whilst he turned away from her with knitted brow. Her
forehead
also showed several threatening lines, but in a moment she overcame
her
anger and glided towards Ram-Runjit-Das, sparkling with
engaging
smiles. But here she met with still less luck; offended at once in
his
monotheism and his chastity, the "God's warrior" pushed the vestal
so
unceremoniously that she nearly upset the elaborate pot-decoration
of
the altar. A dissatisfied murmur ran through the crowd, and we
were
preparing to be condemned to shameful banishment for the sins of
the
warlike Sikh, when the drums sounded again and the procession
moved
on. In front of everyone drove the trumpeters and the drummers in a
car
gilded from top to bottom, and dragged by bullocks loaded with
garlands
of flowers; next after them walked a whole detachment of pipers,
and
then a third body of musicians on horseback, who frantically
hammered
huge gongs. After them proceeded the cortege of the bridegroom's
and
the bride's relations on horses adorned with rich harness, feathers
and
flowers; they went in pairs. They were followed by a regiment of
Bhils
in full disarmour--because no weapons but bows and arrows had been
left
to them by the English Government. All these Bhils looked as if they
had
tooth-ache, because of the odd way they have of arranging the ends
of
their white pagris. After them walked clerical Brahmans, with
aromatic
tapers in their hands and surrounded by the flitting battalion
of
nautches, who amused themselves all the way by graceful glissades
and
pas. They were followed by the lay Brahmans--the "twice born."
The
bridegroom rode on a handsome horse; on both sides walked two
couples
of warriors, armed with yaks' tails to wave the flies away.
They
were accompanied by two more men on each side with silver fans.
The
bridegroom's group was wound up by a naked Brahman, perched on a
donkey
and holding over the head of the boy a huge red silk umbrella. After
him
a car loaded with a thousand cocoa-nuts and a hundred bamboo
baskets,
tied together by a red rope. The god who looks after marriages drove
in
melancholy isolation on the vast back of an elephant, whose mahout
led
him by a chain of flowers. Our humble party modestly advanced just
behind the
elephant's tail.
The performance of rites on the way seemed
endless.
We had to stop before every tree, every pagoda, every sacred
tank and
bush, and at last before a sacred cow. When we came back to the
house
of the bride it was four in the afternoon, and we had started a
little
after six in the morning. We all were utterly exhausted, and Miss
X----
literally threatened to fall asleep on her feet. The indignant
Sikh
had left us long ago, and had persuaded Mr. Y---- and Mulji--whom
the
colonel had nicknamed the "mute general"--to keep him company.
Our
respected president was bathed in his own perspiration, and even
Narayan
the unchangeable yawned and sought consolation in a fan. But the
Babu
was simply astonishing. After a nine hours' walk under the sun, with
his
head unprotected, he looked fresher than ever, without a drop of
sweat
on his dark satin-like forehead. He showed his white teeth in an
eternal
smile, and chaffed us all, reciting the "Diamond Wedding" of
Steadman.
We struggled against our fatigue in our desire to wit-ness the
last
ceremony, after which the woman is forever cut off from the
external
world. It was just going to begin; and we kept our eyes and ears
wide open. |
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