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Title: From Adam's Peak to Elephanta
Sketches in Ceylon and India
Author: Edward Carpenter
Release date: January 19, 2024 [eBook #72756]
Language: English
Original publication: London: S. Sonnenschein & co, 1892
Credits: Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM ADAM'S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
FROM ADAM’S PEAK
TO ELEPHANTA:
_SKETCHES IN CEYLON AND INDIA_.
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
[Illustration]
=ENGLAND’S IDEAL=, and other papers on Social Subjects. Crown 8vo,
cloth 2_s._ 6_d._; paper wrappers 1_s._
=CHANTS OF LABOUR=: A Song Book of the People. With a frontispiece
and title-page designed by WALTER CRANE. Music and Words. Imp.
16mo, cloth 2_s._; paper wrappers 1_s._
=CIVILISATION, ITS CAUSE AND CURE=: and other Essays. Crown 8vo,
cloth 2_s._ 6_d._
“In ‘England’s Ideal’ and ‘Civilisation’ Mr. Carpenter sets forth in
prose his criticism (unsurpassed at times by Ruskin, his master in this
field) of the diseases of polite society, and his faith as to their
meaning and the method of their abatement.”--_Daily Chronicle._
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.: LONDON.
=TOWARDS DEMOCRACY.= Third Edition, 1892, with numerous added poems,
pp. 367. Crown 8vo, cloth 5_s._
“A remarkable work.”--_Academy._
T. FISHER UNWIN: LONDON.
FROM
ADAM’S PEAK
TO
ELEPHANTA
_SKETCHES IN CEYLON AND INDIA_
BY
EDWARD CARPENTER.
[Illustration]
LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.
1892.
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
PREFACE
If asked to write a book about his own country and people a man might
well give up the task as hopeless--yet to do the same about a distant
land in which he has only spent a few months is a thing which the
average traveler quite cheerfully undertakes. I suppose this may be
looked upon as another illustration of the great fact that the less
one knows of a matter the easier it is to write or talk about it. But
there is, it is sometimes said, a certain merit of their own in first
impressions; and I trust that this may appear in the present case.
Certainly though there are many things that are missed in a first
glance there are some things that stand out clearer then than later.
In the following pages I have tried to keep as far as possible to the
relation of things actually seen and heard, and not to be betrayed into
doubtful generalisations. It is so easy in the case of a land like
India, which is as large as Europe (without Russia) and at least as
multifarious in its peoples, languages, creeds, customs, and manners,
to make the serious mistake of supposing that what is true of one
locality necessarily applies to the whole vast demesne, that I must
specially warn the reader not only against falling into this error
himself, but against the possibility of my having fallen into it in
places.
As far as actual experience of life in Ceylon and India is concerned
I have perhaps been fortunate; not only in being introduced (through
the kindness of local friends) into circles of traditional teaching
which are often closed against the English, and in so getting to know
something of the esoteric religious lore of South India; but also in
obtaining some interesting glimpses behind the scenes of the Hindu
ceremonial. I have too had the good luck to find friends and familiar
acquaintances among all classes of native society, down almost to the
lowest; and I must say that the sectional view I have thus obtained of
the mass-people in this part of the world has made me feel with renewed
assurance the essential oneness of humanity everywhere, notwithstanding
the very marked local and superficial differences that undoubtedly
exist.
The spectacle of the social changes now taking place in India is one
that is full of interest to any one who has studied and taken part in
the Socialistic movement at home; and the interest of it is likely to
increase. For though the movement in India is not the same as that at
home, it forms a curious counterpart to the latter; and being backed by
economic changes which will probably persist for years to come is not
likely to die out very soon.
For the rest the book must rely on the description of scenes of nature
and of ordinary human life, whose unexpected vividness forced me to
portray them--though to begin with I had no intention of doing so. The
illustrations are many of them taken from the excellent photographs of
Messrs. Scowen of Colombo, Messrs. Bourn of Bombay, and Messrs. Frith
of Reigate.
E. C.
_Nov. 1892._
CONTENTS
_CEYLON._
CHAPTER I.
COLOMBO.
PAGES
The Suez Canal--Port Said--Gulf of Suez--The Red Sea--
Colombo--Its streets and population--Picturesque
glimpses--Tommy Atkins in a jinrickshaw--The Tamils
and the Cinghalese--Costume and Character--Language
and Literature--The British and the Eurasians--Social
arrangements and amenities--“Spicy gales”--The coco-nut
palm--A catamaran 5–25
CHAPTER II.
KANDY AND PEASANT LIFE.
Primitive habits of the Cinghalese--“Ajax” arrives from
England--A peasant-cabin near Kandy--Marriage-customs--
Devil-dancing--Kalua and Kirrah--Their rice-fields and
mode of life--The great Buddhist temple at Kandy--The
tooth-relic--Ancient MSS.--A Librarian-priest--The
talipot palm--The British and the natives--The “oyster”--
Nuwara Ellia 26–39
CHAPTER III.
KURUNÉGALA.
Cinghalese views on Politics--Kornegalle--The
Elephant-rock--The general landscape in Ceylon--Tanks
and irrigation--The Paddy tax--Modern Commercial
policy--Poverty of the people--The village bath--Decorum
and passivity in manners--The bazaar and the shops--My
friend the opium-seller--The policeman--The gaol and the
prisoners--A Tamil official and his mode of life--The
Bungalow--Mosquitos--Vegetable curries--The Hindu priest
in the household--Native servants, their relation to
British masters--The pariahs, and our slum-dwellers 40–59
CHAPTER IV.
ADAM’S PEAK AND THE BLACK RIVER.
Ascent of Adam’s Peak--A night on the summit--The unclad
natives endure the cold--Advantage of sun-baths--A
society for the encouragement of nudity--Moonlight view
from the summit of the Peak--History of the mountain--
Sunrise--The shadow on the mist, and other phenomena--
Adam’s foot-print--The pavilion on the summit, and
the priests--Caliban doing _poojah_--Descent by the
pilgrim-track--The great woods--Fauna and Flora--
Ratnapura, the city of jewels--Boat-voyage down the
Kaluganga to Kalutara--Descent of rapids--Kalua enjoys
the voyage--A tea-planter at home--Wage-slavery on the
tea-plantations--The tea-factory--Letters from “Ajax”
about the coolies 60–85
CHAPTER V.
BRITISH LAW-COURTS AND BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
The courts a great centre of popular interest--A means of
wreaking personal revenge--The district court--A case of
burglary--The British ideal of life does not appeal to the
natives--A Tamil student of philosophy--To Dambulla in a
bullock-cart--A coterie of Eurasians--The cave-temples
of Dambulla--A boy-priest and his cook--Other Buddhist
temples 86–97
CHAPTER VI.
ANURÁDHAPURA: A RUINED CITY OF THE JUNGLE.
A night in the “mail-coach”--The present village of
Anurádhapura--“Pools of water and a habitation for the
bittern”--The remains of the Brazen Palace--The oldest
tree in the world--Ruins of enormous _dágobas_--Specimens
of early sculpture--Temples, porticos, stone troughs,
cisterns, bathing tanks--A fine statue of Buddha--The
city as it was in the 7th century--Its history--View
to-day from the Abhayagiria dágoba--Moral and sentimental
reflections 99–115
CHAPTER VII.
A NIGHT-FESTIVAL IN A HINDU TEMPLE.
The festival of Taypusam--The temple, the crowd, and blowing
up of trumpets in the full moon--Image of Siva, the raft
and the sacred lake--Hymns and offerings to the god--
Fearful and wonderful music--Temper of the crowd, and
influences of the ceremonial--Interior of Temple--The
_lingam_ and the worship of sex--The bull Nandi--Great
procession of the gods round Temple--Remindful of Bacchic
processions--The Nautch girls, their dress, and dances--
Culmination of the show--Revelation of Siva 116–134
_A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI._
CHAPTER VIII.
A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI.
Two schools of esoteric teachers, the Himalayan and South
Indian--A South-Indian teacher--Three conditions for the
attainment of divine knowledge or _gñánam_--The fraternity
of Adepts--_Yogam_ the preparation for _gñánam_--The
_yogis_--Story of Tilleináthan Swámy--Democratic
character of his teaching--Compare stories of Christ--
Tamil philosophy and popular beliefs concerning Adepts--
The present teacher, his personality and habits--“Joy,
always joy” 137–152
CHAPTER IX.
CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT THOUGHT.
What is the nature of a Gñáni’s experience? Answer given
in modern thought-terms--Slow evolution of a new form
of consciousness--Many a slip and pause by the way--A
consciousness without thought--Meaning of “Nirwana”--
Phenomena of hypnotism--Theory of the fourth dimension--
The true quality of the soul is Space, by which it is
present everywhere--Freedom, Equality--The democratic
basis of Eastern philosophy 153–163
CHAPTER X.
METHODS OF ATTAINMENT.
Physical methods adopted by some of the _yogis_--
Self-mesmerism, fasting, severe penance--The _Siddhi_ or
miraculous powers--Mental methods, (1) the Concentration,
and (2) the Effacement of Thought--Difficulties of
(1) and (2), but great value for the Western peoples
to-day--Concentration and Effacement of Thought are
correlative powers--They lead to the discovery of the
true Self--Moral methods, gentleness, candor, serenity--
Non-differentiation--The final deliverance--Probable
difference between Eastern and Western methods of
attainment--Through the Will, and through Love 164–182
CHAPTER XI.
TRADITIONS OF THE ANCIENT WISDOM-RELIGION.
Difficulty of giving any concise account of Indian teaching--
Personal _rapprochement_ to the Guru, but alienation
from the formalities of his doctrine--Mediæval theories
of Astronomy and Geology--Philosophy of the Siddhantic
system--The five elements, five forms of sensation, etc.--
The twenty-six _tatwas_, and the Self which stands apart
from them all--Evolution and Involution--The five shells
which enclose the soul--Death and Birth--Crudities of
Astrology, Physiology, etc.--Double signification of
many doctrines--Resemblance of modern Guru to a Vedic
Sage--His criticisms of the English and of English rule--
Importance to the West of the Indian traditions 183–203
_INDIA._
CHAPTER XII.
THE SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLES.
Colombo to Tuticorin--The plains of the Carnatic--Thirty
great Dravidian temples--The temple at Tanjore--Colossal
monolithic bull--The pagoda, a fine piece of work--
“It casts no shadow”--Subsidiary temples and frescoed
arcades--A regiment of _lingams_--The Tanjore palace--
The temple at Mádura--The _Choultrie_, the Eastern gate,
and the Hall of a thousand Columns--Crowds in the temple
precincts, gloom and stillness of the interior--Juggernath
cars in the streets--The Temple of Chidámbaram, a goal
of pilgrimage and a den of Brahmans--The weird hall of
a thousand columns, haunted by bats--A cranky Brahman--
Goldsmiths at work for the Temple--A truculent pilgrim
209–226
CHAPTER XIII.
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA.
The streets of Madras--Comparison with Ceylon--Impositions
of drivers, boatmen, hotel managers, etc.--A straggling
dull city--A centre however of Hindu political and
literary life--Visit to Adyar and the Theosophist
headquarters--Blavatsky curios--Scenes of native life--
The river Hooghly--Calcutta city and population--
Festival of bathing in the Ganges--A Circus--Poverty
of the people--Meeting of the Dufferin Fund--British
philanthropy in India--A native school--A group of
Bengalis--Their love of long yarns, and of music--Panna
Lall and his gymnast friends--Chundi Churn performs on the
_sítar_--The Indian music 227–251
CHAPTER XIV.
BENARES.
The plains of the Ganges--The crops, and the peasant life--
Sentiment of the great expanse--Sacredness of the river--
Far-back worship of Siva--Benares a centre of Hindu life--
The streets and shops--The Golden Temple--The riverside,
characteristic scenes--A spring festival--A talk with a
yogi--The burning ghauts--Panna Lall wants to bathe--
Religious ablutions--A self-mutilated fakir 252–267
CHAPTER XV.
THE ANGLO-INDIAN AND THE OYSTER.
Allahabad--Difficulty of really knowing India--The great
gulf of race-difference--The Hindu does not understand
“Duty”--The duty-loving Englishman does not understand the
Hindu--Race-divisions in the United States--We came to
India as conquerors--The gulf remains, and will remain--
Criticisms by an educated “oyster”--Aligarh affords an
instance of friendly feeling between the two sections--
The M.A.O. College--A convivial dinner-party--Sir Syed
Ahmed and the Mahomedan influence--Horse-fair at Aligarh--
Cabulees, and a native wrestling-bout 268–281
CHAPTER XVI.
DELHI AND AGRA.
Approach to Delhi--The Fort and the old Palace--The town
and population--The Jumma Mosque--The environs of Delhi,
a waste of ruined cities--The Kutab Minar and the old
fortress of Lalkab--Agra, the Fort and the Palace--The
Jessamine Tower--Lovely marble and mosaic--The Taj at
twilight--A fairy scene--Flocks of green parrots--
Moonlight on the Jumna--“Do we not respect our women?”--
A coterie of professors--The population of Agra--Scenes
at the railway stations--A favorable specimen of Young
India--An incident in the train 282–298
CHAPTER XVII.
BOMBAY.
The native Bombay a wonderful spectacle--Workshops,
saleshops, opium dens, theatres, temples, mosques--The
population, Mahrattas and Parsees--The modern city and the
manufacturing quarter--The Parsee nose--Justice Telang, a
Mahratta--The Bunya Caste--Tribhovan Das at home--View
from the Malabar Hill--A Bunya wedding--Native theatres--
The Salvation Army--Across the harbor to Elephanta--The
great cave-temple--Sculptured panels, the Hindu Trinity--
The human-divine life of Siva--Impressive effect of the
whole--An opium den--Various sorts of “ecstasy” produced
by these and other drugs--The proletariat at home--Music
and conversation--Dream of a “United India”--Bombay at
night--On the way to Aden--A calm and starlit ocean--A
beautiful panorama. 299–324
_THE OLD ORDER AND THE NEW INFLUENCES._
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE OLD ORDER: CASTE AND COMMUNISM.
Remarkable social movement in India--Complexity and
corruption of Caste system--The Brahmans--Defence of
caste from native point of view--Specimens of caste
regulation--Caste tyranny--Story of a widow re-marriage--
Pharisaism of respectability--Caste in its other aspect
as a Trade-Guild--Tempering competition--Instances of
this--Communism, the second great feature of social life--
Village, Caste and Family communism--The last still
flourishing--Anecdotes--Old sanctions being destroyed by
commercialism--Sacredness of Family tie 327–344
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NEW INFLUENCES: WESTERN SCIENCE AND COMMERCIALISM.
Great spread of Western education--Euclid and Political
Economy at Tuticorin--Schools and Colleges throughout
India--Cricket and golf--Young India--“We are all
Agnostics now”--Similar spread of Commercialism--Interior
of a cotton-mill at Bombay--Large profits, conditions
of labor--Numerous trading posts and clerkships--The
National Indian Congress--Its ideals and influence--
Disliked by the British--The social gulf again--Our
future in India--The break-up of village life--Problem of
pauperism, Sir Henry Maine--Incongruity of Commercialism
with the genius of India--Probable ascendancy of the
former for a time--But only for a time 345–363
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
SEASHORE NEAR COLOMBO _Frontispiece_
CINGHALESE MAN 14
A JAFFNA TAMIL 15
JINRICKSHAW 17
CINGHALESE GIRL 19
KALUA 27
PLOUGHING IN THE RICE-FIELDS 32
BUDDHIST LIBRARIAN-PRIEST 34
KANDY, GENERAL VIEW 36
NATIVE HUT 42
NATIVE STREET, WITH SHOPS 47
VEDDAHS, ABORIGINES OF CEYLON 56
RICE-BOATS ON THE KALUGANGA 76
GROUP OF TAMIL COOLIES 80
TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA 83
BULLOCK-HACKERY, OR LIGHT CART 87
CINGHALESE COUNTRY-CART 92
JETAWANARÁMA DÁGOBA 98
THUPARÁMA DÁGOBA 104
A RUINED BATHING-TANK, ANURÁDHAPURA 108
SMALL GUARDIAN FIGURE, BUDDHIST SCULPTURE 113
A TAMIL MAN 119
NAUTCH GIRL 129
GREAT PAGODA AT TANJORE 208
TEMPLE AT TANJORE, GENERAL VIEW 211
TEMPLE AND TANK AT MYLAPORE 224
CHUNDI CHURN B. 240
PANNA LALL B. 243
WOMAN PLAYING SÍTAR 248
THE GHAUTS AT BENARES 260
THE DEWAN KHAS AT DELHI 283
THE JUMMA MUSJID AT DELHI 285
MARBLE SCREEN-WORK 289
THE TAJ AT AGRA 291
STREET IN BOMBAY, NATIVE QUARTER 300
PARSEE WOMAN 302
PARSEE MERCHANTS 304
THE GREAT CAVE AT ELEPHANTA 311
PANEL SCULPTURE, SIVA AND PARVATI 314
INTERIOR SHRINE AT ELEPHANTA 316
SIDE-CAVE, ELEPHANTA 322
CEYLON
[Illustration: SEASHORE NEAR COLOMBO.
(_Outrigged canoe in foreground._)]
FROM ADAM’S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA.
CHAPTER I.
COLOMBO.
Imagine a blue-green ribbon of water some 60 yards wide, then rough
sandy dunes 10 or 20 feet high, and then beyond, the desert, burning
yellow in the sun--here and there partly covered with scrub, but for
the most part seeming quite bare; sometimes flat and stony, sometimes
tossed and broken, sometimes in great drifts and wreaths of sand, just
like snowdrifts, delicately ribbed by the wind--the whole stretching
away for miles, scores of miles, not a moving form visible, till it is
bounded on the horizon by a ridge of hills of the most ethereal pink
under an intense blue sky. Such is the view to the east of us now, as
we pass through the Suez Canal (19th October, 1890). To the west the
land looks browner and grayer; some reeds mark a watercourse, and about
10 miles off appears a frowning dark range of bare hills about 2,000
feet high, an outlying spur of the hills (Jebel Attákah) that bound the
Gulf of Suez.
In such a landscape one of the signal stations, with its neat tiled
cottage and flagstaff, and a few date palms and perhaps a tiny bit of
garden, is quite an attraction to the eye. These stations are placed at
intervals of about 6 miles all along the canal. They serve to regulate
the traffic, which is now enormous, and continuous night and day. The
great ships nearly fill the waterway, so that one has to be drawn
aside and moored in order to let another pass; and though they are not
allowed to go faster than 4 miles an hour they create a considerable
wave in their rear, which keeps washing down the banks. Tufts of a
reedy grass have been planted in places to hold the sand together;
but the silt is very great, and huge steam-dredges are constantly at
work to remove it. Here and there on the bank is a native hut of dry
reeds--three sides and a flat top--just a shelter from the sun; or an
Arab tent, with camels tethered by the leg around it. At Kantarah the
caravan track from Jerusalem--one of the great highways of the old
world--crosses the canal; there are a few wood and mud huts, and it
is curious to see the string of laden camels and the Arabs in their
unbleached cotton burnouses coming down--just as they might be coming
down from the time of Father Abraham--and crossing the path of this
huge modern steamship, with its electric lights and myriad modern
appliances, the _Kaiser Wilhelm_ now going half-way round the globe.
The desert does not seem quite devoid of animal life; at any rate along
the canal side you may see tracks in the sand of rabbits and hares,
occasional wagtail-like birds by the water, a few crows hovering above,
or a sea-gull, not to mention camels and a donkey or two, or a goat.
Near Port Said they say the lagoons are sometimes white with flocks of
pelicans and flamingoes, but we passed there in the night. It was fine
to see the electric light, placed in the bows, throwing a clear beam
and illuminating the banks for fully half a mile ahead, as we slowly
steamed along. The driven sand looked like snow in the bluish light.
The crescent moon and Venus were in the sky, and the red signal lights
behind us of Port Said.
The canal is 90 miles long, and a large part of it follows the bed of
a very ancient canal which is supposed to have connected the two seas.
It appears that there is a very slight movement of the water through it
from south to north.
We are now nearing Suez, and the heat is so great that it reverberates
from the banks as from a furnace; of course the deck is under an
awning. The remains of a little village built of clay appears, but the
huts have broken down, split by the fierce sun-rays, and some light
frame-houses, roofed and walled with shingles, have taken their place.
_Gulf of Suez._--The town of Suez is a tumbledown little place, narrow
lanes and alleys; two-storied stone houses mostly, some with carved
wooden fronts, and on the upper floors lattice-work, behind which
I suppose the women abide. Some nice-looking faces in the streets,
but a good many ruffians; not so bad though as Port Said, where
the people simply exist to shark upon the ships. In both places an
insane medley of Arabs, fellahs, half-castes and Europeans, touts,
guides, donkey-boys, etc., and every shade of dress and absurd hybrid
costume, from extreme Oriental to correct English; ludicrous scenes
of passengers going on shore, ladies clinging round the necks of
swarthy boatmen; donkey-boys shouting the names of their donkeys--“Mr.
Bradlaugh, sir, very fine donkey,” “Mrs. Langtry,” “Bishop of London,”
etc.; fearful altercations about claimed _baksheesh_; parties beguiled
into outlying quarters of the town and badly blackmailed; refusals of
boatmen to take you back to the ship while the very gong of departure
is sounding; and so forth. Suez however has a little caravan and
coasting trade of its own, besides the railway which now runs thence to
Cairo, and has antique claims to a respectability which its sister city
at the other end of the canal cannot share.
Now that we are out in the gulf, the sea is deep blue, and very
beautiful, the rocks and mountains along the shore very wild and bare,
and in many parts of a strong red color. This arm of the Red Sea is
about 150 miles long, and I think not more than 20 miles wide at any
point; in some places it is much less. We pass jutting capes and
islands quite close on the west of us--great rocky ravine-cut masses
absolutely bare of vegetation. On the east--apparently about 10 miles
distant, but very clear--stands an outlying range of Sinai--Jebel
Sirbal by name--looks about 5,000 or 6,000 feet high, very wild and
craggy, many of the peaks cloven at the summit and gaping as if with
the heat; farther back some higher points are visible, one of which
is probably Jebel Musa. A most extraordinary land; at some places one
can discern--especially with the aid of a glass--large tracts or
plains of loose sand, miles in extent, and perfectly level, except
where they wash up in great drifts against the bases of the mountains.
Across these plains tall dark columns can be distinguished slowly
traveling--the dreaded sand-clouds borne on eddies of the wind.
_Indian Ocean, Oct. 25th._--Much cooler now. In the Red Sea, with
thermometer at 90° in the cabins, heat was of course the absorbing
topic. Everybody mopping; punkahs in full swing. I believe the _water_
there frequently reaches 90° F., and sometimes 95°; but here it is
quite cool, probably not much over 60°, and that alone makes a great
difference. It is a queer climate in the Red Sea: there seems to be
always a haze, due to dust blown from the shores; at the same time
the air is very damp, owing to the enormous evaporation, clothes hung
up get quite wet, and there are heavy dews. When the wind is aft the
oppression from the heat is sometimes so great that ships have to be
turned back and steamed against the breeze; but even so casualties and
deaths are not uncommon. Owing to the haze, and the breadth of the
Red Sea which is as much as 200 miles in parts, little is seen of the
shores. A few rocky islands are passed, and a good many awkward reefs
which the passengers know nothing of. The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb
are curious. The passage between the Island of Perim and the Arabian
mainland is quite narrow, only a mile or two wide; tossed wild-looking
hills on the mainland, 3,000 or 4,000 feet high, with French
fortifications. The island itself lower and more rounded, with English
fort and lighthouse; but looking very black and bare, though owing
to the moisture there is some kind of stunted heathery stuff growing
on it. There are a few English here, and a native town of waggon-like
tents clustered round the fort; some little fishing and sailing boats
along the shores. Turning eastwards along the south coast of Arabia the
same awful land meets the eye as in the Gulf of Suez. A continual cloud
of dust flies along it, through which one discerns sandy plains, and
high parched summits beyond. There must however be water in some parts
of this region, as it is back from here in this angle of Arabia that
Mocha lies and the coffee is grown.
_Colombo._--I fear that the Red Sea combined with mutual boredom had a
bad effect on the passengers’ tempers, for terrible dissensions broke
out; and after six days of the Indian Ocean, during which the only
diversions were flying-fish outside and scandal-mongering inside the
ship, it was a relief to land on the palm-fringed coast of Ceylon. The
slender catamarans--or more properly outrigged canoes--manned by dusky
forms, which come to take you ashore, are indeed so narrow that it is
impossible to sit inside them! They are made of a “dug-out” tree-trunk
(see frontispiece), with parallel bulwarks fastened on only 10 inches
or a foot apart; across the bulwarks a short board is placed, and on
_that_ you can sit. Two arms projecting on one side carry a float or
light fish-shaped piece of wood, which rests on the water 8 feet or
so from the canoe, and prevents the vessel from capsizing, which it
would otherwise infallibly do. Impelled by oars, or by a sail, the
boat bounds over the water at a good speed; and the mode of traveling
is very pleasant. There is no necessity however to embark in these
frail craft, for respectable civilised boats, and even steam-launches,
abound; we are indeed in an important and busy port.
A great granite mole, built five years ago, has converted an open
roadstead into a safe and capacious harbor, and there is now probably
no place in the East better supplied with mails and passenger boats
than Colombo. It is the calling place for the great lines of steamers
_en route_ for Australia, for China and Japan, and for Calcutta and
Burmah, not to mention smaller coasting boats from the mainland of
India, and so forth. The city itself has only the slightest resemblance
to a European town. There is a fort certainly, and a Government House,
and barracks with a regiment of infantry (part of whom however are
generally up country); there are two or three streets of two or even
three-storied houses, with shops, banks, mercantile offices, etc.; a
few hotels and big goods stores, a lighthouse, and a large engineering
works, employing some hundreds of Cinghalese and Tamil operatives;
and then you have done with the English quarter. The land is flat,
and round about the part just described stretch open grass-covered
spaces, and tree-fringed roads, with the tiny booths or huts of the
darkies on both sides of them. Here and there are knots and congeries
of little streets and native markets with multifarious life going on
in them. Here is a street of better built cottages or little villas
belonging to Eurasians--the somewhat mixed descendants of old Dutch
and Portuguese settlers--small one or seldom two-storied houses of
stuccoed brick, with a verandah in front and a little open court
within, clustering round an old Dutch church of the 17th century. Here
is the residential quarter of the official English and of the more
aspiring among the natives--the old Cinnamon Gardens, now laid out
in large villa-bungalows and private grounds. Here again is a Roman
Catholic church and convent, or the grotesque façade of a Hindu temple;
and everywhere trees and flowering shrubs and, as one approaches the
outskirts of the town, the plentiful broad leaves of coco-palms and
bananas overshadowing the roads. Nor in any description of Colombo
should the fresh-water lake be forgotten, which ramifying and winding
in most intricate fashion through the town, and in one place coming
within a hundred yards of the sea, surprises one continually with
enchanting glimpses. I don’t know any more delightful view of its
kind--all the more delightful because so unexpected--than that which
greets the eye on entering the Fort Railway Station at Colombo. You
pass through the booking-office and find yourself on a platform,
which except for the line of rails between might be a terrace on
the lake itself; a large expanse of water with wooded shores and
islands, interspersed with villas, cottages and cabins, lies before
you; white-sailed boats are going to and fro; groups of dark figures,
waist-deep in water, are washing clothes; children are playing and
swimming in the water; and when, as I saw it once, the evening sun is
shining through the transparent green fringe of banana palms which
occupies the immediate foreground, and the calm lake beyond reflects
like a mirror the gorgeous hues of sky and cloud, the scene is one
which for effects of color can hardly be surpassed.
Up and down these streets and roads, and by the side of this lake,
and along the seashore and through the quays and docks, goes,
as may be imagined, a most motley crowd. The Cinghalese and the
Tamils are of course the most numerous, but besides these there are
Mahomedans--usually called Moor-men here--and some Malays. The English
in Ceylon may be divided into three classes: the official English,
the planters, and the small trading English (including employees on
railway and other works). Then there are the anglicised native gentry,
Cinghalese or Tamil, some of whom occupy official positions, and who
largely adopt European dress and habits; the non-anglicised ditto,
who keep to their own ways and costume, and are not much seen in
public; the Dutch Eurasians, many of whom become doctors or solicitors
(proctors); and the Portuguese, who are frequently traders in a small
way.
Specimens of all these, in their different degrees of costume and
absence of costume, may be seen in Colombo, as indeed in almost any
place in Ceylon which can be dignified with the name of a town.
Here for instance is a great big Moor-man with high fez of plaited
grass, baggy white pants and turned-up shoes; a figured vest on his
body, and red shawl thrown over one shoulder. [He is probably a
well-to-do shopkeeper; not an agreeable face, but I find the Mahomedans
have a good reputation for upright dealing and fidelity to their word.]
Here a ruddy-brown Cinghalese man, with hairy chest, and nothing on but
a red loin-cloth, carrying by a string an earthenware pot, probably
of palm-beer. [A peasant. The Cinghalese are generally of this color,
whereas the Tamils tend towards black, though shading off in the higher
castes to an olive tint.]
[Illustration: CINGHALESE MAN.]
Another Cinghalese, dressed all in white, white cotton jacket and
white cloth hanging to below the knees, with elegant semicircular
tortoise-shell comb on his head; a morbidly sensitive face with its
indrawn nose and pouting lips. [Possibly a private servant, or small
official of one of the courts, or _Arachchi_. The comb is a great mark
of the low-country Cinghalese. They draw the hair backwards over the
head and put the comb on horizontally, like an incomplete crown, with
its two ends sticking up above the forehead--very like horns from a
front view! The hair is then fastened in a knot behind, or sometimes
left hanging down the back. This is a somewhat feeble face, but as a
rule one may say that the Cinghalese are very intelligent. They make
excellent carpenters and mechanics. Are generally sensitive and proud.]
[Illustration: A JAFFNA TAMIL.]
Here come two Englishmen in tweed suits and tennis shoes--their
umbrellas held carefully by the middle--apparently of the planter
community, young, but rather weedy looking, with an unsteady, swimmy
look about the eyes which I fear is not uncommon among the planters; I
have seen it already well-developed in a mere boy of eighteen.
Here a dozen or so of _chetties_ (a Tamil commercial caste), with bare
shaven and half-shaven heads, brown skins, and white muslins thrown
gracefully round their full and sleek limbs; the sacred spot marked on
their foreheads, red betel in their mouths, and avarice in their faces.
There a Tamil coolie or wage-worker, nearly naked except for a
handkerchief tied round his head, with glossy black skin and slight yet
graceful figure.
Here a pretty little girl of nine or so, with blue beads round her
neck, and the usual white cotton jacket and colored petticoat or çilai
of the Cinghalese women, walking with a younger brother.
Here three young Eurasian girls in light European costume and straw
hats, hair loose or in pigtails down their backs, very pretty. [They
are off for a walk along the Galle Face promenade by the sea, as the
heat of the day is now past.]
Here also an English lady, young and carefully dressed, but looking
a little bored, driving in her pony-trap to do some shopping, with a
black boy standing behind and holding a sunshade over her.
[Illustration: A JINRICKSHAW.
(_Tamil cooly, Eurasian girl._)]
One of the features of Colombo are the jinrickshaws, or light
two-wheeled gigs drawn by men, which abound in the streets. These
Tamil fellows, in the lightest of costumes, their backs streaming
under the vertical sun, bare-legged and often bare-headed, will trot
with you in a miraculous way from one end of Colombo to the other,
and for the smallest fee. Tommy Atkins delights to sit thus lordly
behind the toiling “nigger.” At eventide you may see him and his
Eurasian girl--he in one jinrickshaw and she in another--driving
out to the Galle Face Hotel, or some such distant resort along the
shore of the many-sounding ocean. The Tamils are mostly slight and
graceful in figure, and of an active build. Down at the docks they
work by hundreds, with nothing on beyond a narrow band between the
thighs, loading and unloading barges and ships--a study of the human
figure. Some of them of course are thick and muscular, but mostly
they excel in a kind of unconscious grace and fleetness of form as
of the bronze Mercury of Herculaneum, of which they often remind me.
Their physiognomy corresponds with their bodily activity; the most
characteristic type that I have noticed among them has level brows,
and eyes deep-set (and sometimes a little close together), straight
nose, and well-formed chin. They are a more enterprising pushing and
industrious people than the Cinghalese, eager and thin, skins often
very dark, with a concentrated, sometimes demonish, look between the
eyes--will-power evidently present--but often handsome. Altogether a
singular mixture of enterprise with demonic qualities; for occultism is
rife among them, from the jugglery of the lower castes to the esoteric
philosophy and speculativeness of the higher. The horse-keepers and
stable boys in Ceylon are almost all Tamils (of a low caste), and are a
charming race, dusky active affectionate demons, fond of their horses,
and with unlimited capacity of running, even over newly macadamised
roads. The tea-coolies are also Tamils, and the road-workers, and
generally all wage-laborers; while the Cinghalese, who have been longer
located in the island, keep to their own little peasant holdings and
are not at all inclined to come under the thumb of a master, preferring
often indeed to suffer a chronic starvation instead.
The Tamil women are, like their lords, generally of a slighter build
than the Cinghalese of the same sex, some indeed are quite diminutive.
Among both races some very graceful and good-looking girls are to be
seen, up to the age of sixteen or so, fairly bright even in manner;
especially among the Cinghalese are they distinguished for their fine
eyes; but at a later age, and as wives, they lose their good looks and
tend to become rather heavy and brutish.
The contrast between the Cinghalese and the Tamils is sufficiently
marked throughout, and though they live on the island on amicable terms
there is as a rule no love lost between them. The Cinghalese came to
Ceylon, apparently from the mainland of India, somewhere in the 6th
century B.C., and after pushing the aborigines up into the woods and
mountains (where some of them may yet be found), occupied the whole
island. It was not long however before the Tamils followed, also from
India; and since then, and through a long series of conflicts, the
latter have maintained their position, and now form the larger part
of the population in the north of the island, while the Cinghalese
are most numerous in the south. Great numbers of Tamil peasants--men,
women, and children--still come over from the mainland every year, and
go up-country to work in the tea-gardens, where there is a great demand
for coolie labour.
[Illustration: CINGHALESE GIRL.]
In character the Cinghalese are more like the Italians, easy-going,
reasonably idle, sensitive, shrewd, and just a bit romantic. Their
large eyes and tortoise-shell combs and long hair give them a very
womanly aspect; and many of the boys and youths have very girlish
features and expressions. They have nearly always grace and dignity of
manner, the better types decidedly handsome, with their well-formed
large heads, short beards, and long black hair, composed and gentle,
remindful of some pictures of Christ. In inferior types you have
thick-featured, morbidly sensitive, and at the same time dull-looking
persons. As a rule their frames are bigger and more fleshy than those
of the Tamils, and their features less cleanly cut. Captain R. Knox,
in his “Nineteen Years’ Captivity in the Kingdom of Conde Uda” (1681),
says of them:--“In carriage and behaviour they are very grave and
stately, like unto Portuguese; in understanding quick and apprehensive;
in design, subtle and crafty; in discourse, courteous, but full of
flatteries; naturally inclined to temperance both in meat and drink,
but not to chastity; near and provident in their families, commending
good husbandry.”
The Cinghalese are nearly all Buddhists, while the Tamils are Hindus.
Buddhism was introduced into Ceylon about the 4th century B.C., and has
flourished here ever since; and Buddhist rock-temples are to be found
all over the island. The Tamils have a quite extensive literature of
considerable antiquity, mostly philosophical or philosophical poetical;
and their language is very rich in vocabulary as well as in its
grammatical forms and inflexions--though very terse, with scanty terms
of courtesy (“thank you,” “good-morning,” and such like), and a little
harsh in sound, _k_’s and _r_’s flying through the teeth at a great
rate. Cinghalese is much more liquid and pleasant in sound, and has
many more Aryan words in it. In fact it is supposed to be an offshoot
of Sanskrit, whereas Tamil seems to have no relation to Sanskrit,
except that it has borrowed a good many words. The curious thing is
that, so little related as races, the Tamils should have taken their
philosophy, as they have done, from the Sanskrit Vedas and Upanishads,
and really expressed the ideas if anything more compactly and
systematically than the Sanskrit books do. Though poor in literature
I believe, yet the Cinghalese has one of the best books of chronicles
which exist in any language--the Mahawanso--giving a very reliable
history of the race (of course with florid adornment of stupendous
miracles, which can easily be stripped off) from their landing in
Ceylon down to modern times. The Mahawanso was begun by Mahanamo, a
priest, who about 460 A.D. compiled the early portion comprising the
period from B.C. 543 to A.D. 301, after which it was continued by
successive authors right down to British times, _i.e._, A.D. 1758!
There are two newspapers in Colombo printed in the Cinghalese language,
one of which is called _The Buddhist World_; there is also a paper
printed in Tamil; and there are three English newspapers. In “places of
entertainment” Colombo (and the same is true of the towns in India) is
very wanting. There is no theatre or concert-hall. It can be readily
understood that though the population is large (120,000), it is so
diverse that a sufficiently large public cannot be found to support
such places. The native races have each their own festivals, which
provide for them all they require in that way. The British are only
few--5,000 in all Ceylon, including military, out of a population
of over three millions; and even if the Eurasian population--who of
course go in for Western manners and ideals--were added, their combined
numbers would be only scanty. An occasional circus or menagerie, or a
visit from a stray theatrical company on its way to Australia, is all
that takes place in that line.
For the rest there is a Salvation Army, with thriving barracks, a
Theosophist Society, a branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and various
other little clubs representing different sections. Society is of
course very much broken up into sections. Even the British, few as they
are, are sadly divided by cliques and jealousies; the line between the
official English and the “second-class” English is terribly severe (as
indeed all over India); and between these again and the Eurasians. Even
where Cinghalese or Tamil or Eurasian families of old standing attain
important official positions, an insuperable stiffness still marks the
intercourse between them and the British. “Ah!” said a planter to a
young friend of mine who had just shaken hands rather cordially with a
native gentleman, “Ah! my boy, you won’t do that when you’ve been here
three years!” Thus a perfect social amalgamation and the sweetness of
brethren dwelling together in unity are things still rather far distant
in this otherwise lovely isle.
Talking about the beauty of the island, I was very much struck, even
on my first landing, with its “spicy gales.” The air is heavy with an
aromatic fragrance which, though it forced itself on my attention for
three or four weeks before I got fairly accustomed to it, I have never
been able to trace to any particular plant or shrub. It is perhaps
not unlike the odor of the cinnamon leaf when bruised, but I don’t
think it comes from that source. I am never tired of looking at the
coco-nut palms; they grow literally by the million all along this coast
to the north and south of Colombo. To the south the sea-shore road is
overshadowed by them. I have been some miles along the road, and the
belt of land, a hundred yards or so wide, between it and the sea, is
thick with their stems right down to the water’s edge, over which they
lean lovingly, for they are fond of the salt spray. On the other side
of the road too they grow, and underneath them are little villas and
farmsteads and tiny native cabins, with poultry and donkeys and humped
cows and black pigs and brown children, in lively confusion; while
groups of peasant men and women in bright-colored wraps travel slowly
along, and the little bullock gigs, drawn by active little brahmin
bulls with jingling bells, trot past at a pace which would do credit
to an English pony--a scene which they say continues much the same the
whole way to Galle (80 miles). These palms do not grow wild in Ceylon;
they are all planted and cared for, whether in huge estates, or in the
rood of ground which surrounds a Cinghalese cabin. The Cinghalese have
a pretty saying that they cannot grow afar from the sound of the human
voice. They have also a saying to the effect that a man only sees a
_straight_ coco-palm once in a lifetime. Many of the other kinds of
palms grow remarkably straight, but this kind certainly does not. In
a grove of them you see hundreds of the grey smooth stems shooting
upwards in every fantastic curve imaginable, with an extraordinary
sense of life and power, reminding one of the way in which a volley of
rockets goes up into the air. Then at the height of 50 or 60 feet they
break into that splendid crown of green plumes which sparkles glossy in
the sun, and waves and whispers to the lightest breeze.
Along this palm-fringed and mostly low and sandy shore the waves
break--with not much change of level in their tides--loudly roaring in
the S.W. monsoon, or with sullen swell when the wind is in the N.E.,
but seldom altogether calm. A grateful breeze tempers the 90° of the
thermometer. A clumsy-hulled lateen-sailed fishing boat is anchored
in the shelter of a sandy spit; two or three native men and boys are
fishing with rod and line, standing ankle-deep at the water’s edge.
The dashing blue waves look tempting for a bathe, but the shore is
comparatively deserted; not a soul is to be seen in the water, infested
as it is by the all-dreaded shark. Only, 300 or 400 yards out, can be
discerned the figure of a man--also fishing with a line--apparently
standing up to his middle in water, but really sitting on a kind of
primitive raft or boat, consisting of three or four logs of wood,
slightly shaped, with upturned ends, and loosely tied together--the
true catamaran (_kattu maram_, tied tree). The water of course washes
up and around him, but that is pleasant on a hot day. He is safe from
sharks; there is a slender possibility of his catching something for
dinner; and there he sits, a relic of pre-Adamite times, while the
train from Kalutara rushes by with a shriek to Colombo.
CHAPTER II.
KANDY AND PEASANT LIFE.
Ernst Haeckel in his book about Ceylon says that the Cinghalese, though
a long civilised race, are as primitive as savages in their dress,
cabins, etc.; and this remark strikes me as very true. As soon as you
get off the railways and main roads you find them living in their
little huts under their coco-palms in the most primitive fashion, and
probably much as they did when they first came to Ceylon, 2,000 or
3,000 years ago.
On the 4th of this month (December), my friend “Ajax” landed at
Colombo from England. He is on his way to Assam, in the tea-planting
line, and is staying a week in the island to break the journey. He is
a thorough Socialist in feeling, and a jolly fellow, always bright
and good-natured, and with a great turn for music. We came up here
to Kandy, and shortly after our arrival went to call on a Cinghalese
peasant whose acquaintance I had lately made--Kalua by name--and found
him in his little cabin, about a mile out of the town among the hills,
where he lives with his brother Kirrah. Leaving Kandy by footpaths
and alongside hedgerows overrun by a wild sunflower, and by that
extraordinary creeper, with a verbena-like blossom, the _lantana_,
which though said to have been introduced only about fifty years ago
now runs in masses over the whole island, we came at last to a lovely
little glen, with rice-lands laid out in terraces at the bottom, and
tangles of scrub and jungle up the sides, among which were clumps of
coco-nut and banana, indicating the presence of habitations. Under one
of these groves, in a tiny little mud and thatch cabin, we found Kalua;
in fact he saw us coming, and with a shout ran down to meet us. We were
soon seated in the shade and talking such broken English and Tamil as
we could respectively command. The brothers were very friendly, and
brought us coco-nut milk and _chágeri_ beer (made by cutting the great
flower-bud off the _chágeri_ palm, and letting the sap from the wounded
stem flow into a jar, where it soon ferments; it has a musty flavor,
and I cannot say that I care for it). Then their father, hearing of
our arrival, came from half a mile off to have a look at us--a regular
jolly old savage, with broad face and broad belly--but unfortunately,
as we could not speak Cinghalese, there was no means of communicating
with him, except by signs. This little valley seems to be chiefly
occupied by the brothers and their kindred, forming a little tribe, so
to speak. Kalua and his father both own good strips of rice-land, and
are perhaps rather better off than most Cinghalese peasants, though
that is not saying much. Married sisters and their children, and other
relatives, also occupy portions of the glen; but Kalua and Kirrah are
not married yet. It seems to be a point of honor with the Cinghalese
(and indeed with most of the East Indian races) not to marry till their
sisters are wedded. Like the Irish, the brothers work to provide a
dowry for their sisters; and generally family feeling and helpfulness
are very strong among them. To strike a father or a mother is, all
over Ceylon (and India), a crime of almost unheard-of atrocity. Kalua
gives a good deal of his earnings to his parents, and buys additions
to the family rice-lands--which as far as I can make out are held to a
considerable extent as common property.
[Illustration: KALUA.]
There was a native king and kingdom of Kandy till about eighty years
ago (1814), when the British overthrew it; and it is curious that
the old Kandian law--which was recognised for some time by the
British--contains very evident traces of the old group-marriage which
is found among so many races in their pre-civilisation period. There
were two kinds of marriage treated of in the Kandian law--the Deega
marriage, in which the wife went (as with us) to the house of her
husband, and became more or less his property; and the Beena marriage,
in which he came to live with her among her own people, but was liable
to expulsion at any time! The latter form is generally supposed to be
the more primitive, and belongs to the time when heredity is traced
through the woman, and when also polygamous and polyandrous practices
prevail. And this is confirmed by a paragraph of the Kandian law,
or custom, which forbade intermarriage between the children of two
brothers, or between the children of two sisters, but allowed it
between the children of a brother and a sister--the meaning of course
being that two brothers might have the same wife, or two sisters
the same husband, but that a brother and sister--having necessarily
distinct wives and husbands--would produce children who could not be
more nearly related to each other than cousins. It is also confirmed by
the fact that a kind of customary group-marriage still lingers among
the Cinghalese--_e.g._ if a man is married, his brothers not uncommonly
have access to the wife--though owing to its being discountenanced by
Western habits and law, this practice is gradually dying out.
Kalua has seen rather more of the world than some of his people,
and has had opportunities of making a little money now and then.
It appears that at the age of twelve or thirteen he took to
“devil-dancing”--probably his father set him to it. He danced in the
temple and got money; but now-a-days does not like the priests or
believe in the temples. This devil-dancing appears to be a relic of
aboriginal Kandian demon-worship: the evil spirits had to be appeased,
or in cases of illness or misfortune driven away by shrieks and frantic
gestures. It is a truly diabolical performance. The dancers (there are
generally two of them) dress themselves up in fantastic array, and then
execute the most extraordinary series of leaps, bounds, demivolts, and
somersaults, in rhythmical climaxes, accompanied by clapping of hands,
shrieks, and tomtomming, for about twenty minutes without stopping,
by the end of which time the excitement of themselves and spectators
is intense, and the patient--if there is one--is pretty sure to be
either killed or cured! When the Buddhists came to the island they
incorporated these older performances into their institutions. Some
two or three years ago however Hagenbeck, of circus celebrity, being
in Ceylon engaged a troupe of Kandians--of whom Kalua was one--to
give a native performance for the benefit of the Europeans; and since
that time the old peasant life has palled upon our friend, and it
is evident that he lives in dreams of civilisation and the West.
Kalua is remarkably well-made, and active and powerful. He is about
twenty-eight, with the soft giraffe-like eyes of the Cinghalese, and
the gentle somewhat diffident manner which they affect; his black hair
is generally coiled in a knot behind his head, and, with an ornamental
belt sustaining his colored skirt, and a shawl thrown over his
shoulder, he looks quite handsome. Kirrah is thinner and weaker, both
mentally and physically, with a clinging affectionateness of character
which is touching. Then there are two nephews, Pinha and Punjha, whom
I have seen once or twice--bright nice-looking boys, anxious to pick
up phrases and words of English, and ideas about the wonderful Western
world, which is beginning to dawn on their horizon--though alas! it
will soon destroy their naked beauty and simplicity. To see Punjha go
straight up the stem of a coco-nut tree fifty feet high is a caution!
He just puts a noose of rope round his two feet to enable him to grasp
the stem better with his soles, clasps his hands round the trunk,
brings his knees up to his ears, and shoots up like a frog swimming!
The coco-nut palm is everything to the Cinghalese: they use the kernel
of the nut for food, either as a curry along with their rice, or as
a flavoring to cakes made of rice and sugar; the shell serves for
drinking cups and primeval spoons; the husky fibre of course makes
string, rope, and matting; the oil pressed from the nut, in creaking
antique mills worked by oxen, is quite an article of commerce, and
is used for anointing their hair and bodies, as well as for their
little brass lamps and other purposes; the woody stems come in for the
framework of cabins, and the great leaves either form an excellent
thatch, or when plaited make natural screens, which in that climate
often serve for the cabin-walls in place of anything more substantial.
When Ajax told Kirrah that there were no coco-palms in England, the
latter’s surprise was unfeigned as he exclaimed, “How do you live,
then?”
[Illustration: PLOUGHING IN THE RICE-FIELDS, WITH BUFFALOS.]
The other great staple of Cinghalese life is rice. Kalua’s family
rice-fields lay below us in larger patches along the bottom of the
glen, and terraced in narrow strips a little way up the hill at the
head of it. The rice-lands are, for irrigation’s sake, always laid
out in level patches, each surrounded by a low mud bank, one or two
feet high; sometimes, where there is water at hand, they are terraced
quite a good way up the hillsides, something like the vineyards in
Italy. During and after the rains the water is led onto the various
levels successively, which are thus well flooded. While in flood
they are ploughed--with a rude plough drawn by humped cattle, or by
buffalos--and sown as the water subsides. The crop soon springs up,
a brilliant green, about as high as barley, but with an ear more
resembling oats, and in seven or eight weeks is ready to be harvested.
Boiled rice, with some curried vegetable or coco-nut, just to give it
a flavor, is the staple food all over Ceylon among the natives--two
meals a day, sometimes in poorer agricultural districts only one; a
scanty fare, as their thin limbs too often testify. They use no bread,
but a few cakes made of rice-flour and ghee and the sugar of the
_chágeri_ palm.
The brothers’ cabin is primitive enough--just a little thatched place,
perhaps twelve feet by eight, divided into two--a large wicker jar or
basket containing store of rice, one or two boxes, a few earthenware
pots for cooking in, fire lighted on the ground, no chair or table, and
little sign of civilisation except a photograph or two stuck on the
wall and a low cane-seated couch for sleeping on. The latter however
is quite a luxury, as the Cinghalese men as often as not sleep on the
earth floor.
We stayed a little while chatting, while every now and then the great
husked coco-nuts (of which you have to be careful) fell with a heavy
thud from the trees; and then Kalua came on with us to Kandy, and we
went to see the great Buddhist temple there, the Devala Maligawa, which
contains the precious tooth-relic of Buddha.
[Illustration: BUDDHIST PRIEST.
(_Librarian at the Temple at Kandy, with palm-leaf MS. book in lap._)]
Architecturally nothing, the temple is interesting for the antique
appearance of its gardens, shrines, priests’ cottages, library,
fishponds, etc.; sacred fish and turtles coming to be fed by the pious;
rude frescoes of the infernal torments of the wicked, not unlike our
mediæval designs on similar subjects; the sacred shrine itself with
ivory and silver doors; the dirty yellow-stoled priests arriving with
huge keys to open it, but first washing their feet in the forecourt;
the tomtoms and horns blowing; flowers scattered about; and then the
interior chamber of the shrine, where behind strong bars of iron
reposes a golden and bell-shaped cover, crusted with jewels--the
outermost of _six_ successive covers, within the last of which is the
tooth itself (reported by Emerson Tennent to be about two inches long,
and probably the fang of a crocodile!); then the little golden and
crystal images of Buddha in various little shrines to themselves; and,
most interesting of all, the library with its old MS. books written
on strips of talipot palm leaf, beautifully done in Cinghalese,
Pali, Sanskrit, etc., illuminated with elegant designs, and bound by
silk cords in covers of fretted silver. The old librarian priest was
a charming specimen of a Buddhist priest--gentle, intelligent, and
apparently with a vein of religious feeling in his character--and spoke
with interest about the various texts and manuscripts. It is a pity
that so much cannot be said of the Buddhist priests generally, who are
as a rule--in Ceylon at any rate--an ignorant, dirty, betel-chewing and
uninviting-looking lot.
At the botanical gardens at Peradeniya--three or four miles out of
Kandy--we saw a specimen of the talipot palm in full flower. This
beautiful palm--unlike the coco palm--grows perfectly erect and
straight; it flowers only once, and then dies. Haeckel says that it
lives from fifty to eighty years, and that the blossom is sometimes
thirty or forty feet long. The specimen that we saw in blossom was
about forty-five feet high in the stem; and then from its handsome
crown of huge leaves sprang a flower, or rather a branched spike of
numerous white flowers, which I estimated at fifteen feet high (but
which I afterwards saw described in the newspapers as twenty feet
high). Baker says that the flower bud is often as much as four feet
long, and that it opens with a smart report, when this beautiful white
plume unfolds and lifts itself in the sun. The natives use the great
leaf of the talipot--which is circular and sometimes eight or nine feet
in diameter--as an umbrella. They fold it together along its natural
corrugations, and then open it to ward off sun or rain.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF KANDY.
(_Native street on left, Buddhist temple on right, English church in
centre._)]
Kandy is very beautiful. It stands nearly 2,000 feet high, by the
side of an artificial lake which the old kings of Kandy made, and
embosomed in hills covered by lovely woods full of tropical plants and
flowers and commanding beautiful views from their slopes and summits.
There is a small native town containing the usual mixed population of
Cinghalese, Tamils, and Moor-men; there are one or two English hotels,
a church, library and reading-room; a few residents’ houses, and a
scattered population of English tea-planters on the hills for some
miles round, who make Kandy their _rendez-vous_.
Ajax makes great friends with the native youths and boys here; he has
an easy friendly way with them, and they get hold of his hand and walk
alongside. Of course they are delighted to find any _Mahate_ who will
treat them a little kindly; but I fear the few English about are much
shocked at our conduct. When I first came to Ceylon my Tamil friend A.
chaffed me about my way of calling him and the rest of the population,
whether Tamil or Mahomedan or Cinghalese, all indiscriminately
_natives_, “as if we were so many _oysters_.” I told this to Ajax, and
of course there was nothing for it after that but to call them all
oysters!
We find the few British whom we have come across in our travels very
much set against the “oysters.” There is something queer about the
British and their insularity; but I suppose it is more their misfortune
than their fault. Certainly they will allow that the oysters are not
without merit--indeed if one keeps them to it they will often speak
quite warmly of the tenderness and affectionateness of servants
who have nursed them through long illnesses, etc.--but the idea of
associating with them on terms of equality and friendship is somehow
unspeakable and not to be entertained. It seems almost _de rigueur_
to say something disparaging about the oyster, when that topic turns
up--as a way of showing one’s own breeding, I suppose; after that has
been done, however, it is allowable to grant that there are exceptions,
and even to point out some kindly traits, pearls as it were, which are
occasionally found in the poor bivalve. It strikes me however that
the English are the chief losers by this insular habit. They look
awfully bored and miserable as a rule in these up-country parts, which
must almost necessarily be the case where there are only five or six
residents in a station, or within accessible distances of each other,
and confined entirely to each other’s society.
One day Ajax and I went up to Nuwara Ellia. The railway carriage was
full of tea-planters (including one or two wives and sisters), and
there were a few at the hotel. It was curious to see some English faces
of the cold-mutton-commercial type, and in quite orthodox English
attire, in this out-of-the-way region. The good people looked sadly
bored, and it seemed a point of honor with them to act throughout as if
the colored folk didn’t exist or were invisible--also as if they were
deaf, to judge by the shouting. In the evening however (at the hotel)
we felt touched at the way in which they cheered up when Ajax and I
played a few familiar tunes on the piano. They came round, saying it
reminded them of home, and entreated us to go on; so we played for
about two hours, Ajax improvising as usual in the most charming way.
Nuwara Ellia is 6,000 feet above the sea--a little village with an
hotel or two--a favorite resort from the sultry airs of Colombo and the
lowlands. Here the Britisher finds fires in the sitting-rooms and thick
mists outside, and dons his great-coat and feels quite at home. But we,
having only just come from the land of fogs, did not appreciate these
joys, and thought the place a little bleak and bare.
CHAPTER III.
KURUNÉGALA.
On my way here, on the coach, I fell in with Monerasingha, a Cinghalese
of some education and ability, a proctor or solicitor. He is a cheerful
little man, an immense talker, and very keen on politics. He was very
amusing about the English; says they are very agreeable at first, “but
after three months’ stay in the island a complete change comes over
them--won’t speak to us or look at us--_but I can give it them back_.”
His idea seems to be that representative institutions are wanted to
restore to the people that interest in public life which has been
taken from them by the destruction of their communal institutions
under British rule. He seems to be a great hater of caste, and thinks
the English have done much good in that matter. “I am loyal enough,
because I know we are much better off than we should be under Russia.
The English are stupid and incapable of understanding us, and don’t go
among us to get understanding; but they mean well, according to their
lights.”
This place (called Kornegalle by the English) is a little town of 2,000
or 3,000 inhabitants, fifty miles from Colombo and eleven miles (by
coach) from Polgahawella, the nearest railway station. It lies just
at the foot of the mountain region of Ceylon, and takes its name,
Kurunégala or Elephant-rock, from a huge Gibraltar-like rock, 600 feet
high, at the base of which it nestles--and whose rounded dark granite
structure, wrinkled with weather and largely bare of trees or any
herbage, certainly bears a remarkable resemblance, both in form and
color, to a couchant elephant. Ascending its steep sides, on which the
sun strikes with fierce heat during the midday, one obtains from the
summit a fine view--westward over low plains, eastward over mountain
ranges rising higher and higher towards the centre of the island. The
prevailing impression of the landscape here, as elsewhere in Ceylon,
is its uniform green. There is no change of summer or winter. (Though
this is the coolest time of year, the daily temperature ranges from 85°
to 90° in the shade.) The trees do not cast their leaves at any stated
time, though individual trees will sleep at intervals, resting so. In
every direction the same color meets the eye--tracts of green scrub,
green expanses of forest, green rice-fields, and the massed green
of bananas and coco-palms. A little monotonous this in the general
landscape, though it is plentifully compensated on a near view by the
detailed color of insect and flower life. One curious feature is that
though the country is well populated, hardly a trace of habitation is
to be seen from any high point such as this. Even Kurunégala, which
lies at our feet, is only distinguishable by its court-house and prison
and one or two other emblems of civilisation; the native cabins,
and even in many cases the European houses--which are of one storey
only--are entirely hidden by trees. Those clumps however of coco-palms
which you see standing like oases in the general woods, or breaking
the levels of the rice-fields, with occasional traces of blue smoke
curling up through them, are sure indications of little native hamlets
clustered beneath--often far far from any road, and accessible only by
natural footpaths worn by naked feet.
[Illustration: NATIVE HUT.
(_Among banana and coco-palms._)]
From the top of the rock one gets a good view of the tank which
supplies irrigation water for the town and neighborhood. It is about
three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile broad, and forms a
pretty little lake, over which kites hover and kingfishers skim, and
in which the people daily bathe. These tanks and irrigation channels
are matters of the utmost importance, to which I think Government can
hardly give too much attention. Their importance was well understood in
past times, as indeed the remains and ruins of immense works of this
kind, over a thousand years old, in various parts of the island fully
testify. A little is being done towards their renewal and restoration,
but the tendency to-day is to neglect the interests of the rice-growing
peasant in favor of the tea-planting Englishman. The paddy tax, which
presses very hardly on the almost starving cultivator, while tea
goes scot-free, is an instance of this. Tea, which is an export and
a luxury, and which enriches the few, is thought to be so much more
important than an article which is grown for home consumption and for
the needs of the many. It is of course only an instance of the general
commercial policy of all modern Governments; but one cannot the less
for that think it a mistake, and an attempt to make the pyramid of
social prosperity stand upon its apex. There is something curious--and
indeed is it not self-contradictory?--in the fact that every country
of the civilized world studies above all things the increase of its
_exports_--is engaged, not in producing things primarily for its own
use, but in trying to get other people to buy what it produces!--as
if we all stood round and tried to shuffle off our bad wares on the
others, in the hope that they by some accident might return us good
stuff in exchange. Somehow the system does not seem as if it would
work; it looks too like the case of that island where the inhabitants
all earned a precarious living by taking in each other’s washing.
What, one may ask, is really the cause of the enormous growth of this
practice of neglecting production for use in favor of production for
export and for the market? Is it not simply money and the merchant
interest? Production at home by the population and for its own use is
and always must be, one would think, by far the most important for the
population and for its own comfort and welfare, though a margin may of
course be allowed for the acquirement by exchange of some few articles
which cannot be grown at home. But production such as this does not
necessarily mean either money or mercantile transaction. Conceivably it
may very well take place without either these or the gains which flow
from their use--without profits or interest or dividends or anything of
the kind. But this would never do! The money and commercial interest,
which is now by far the most powerful interest in all modern states, is
not such a fool as to favor a system of national economy which would be
its own ruin. No; it must encourage _trade_ in every way, at all costs.
Trade, commerce, exchange, exports and imports--these are the things
which bring dividends and interest, which fill the pockets of the
parasites at the expense of the people; and so the nations stand round,
obedient, and carry on the futile game till further orders.
As a matter of fact in these hot countries, like Ceylon and India,
almost unlimited results of productiveness can be got by perfected
irrigation, and as long as the peasantry in these lands are (as they
are) practically starving, and the irrigation works practically
neglected, the responsibility for such a state of affairs must lie with
the rulers; and naturally no mere shuffling of commercial cards, or
encouragement of an export trade which brings fortunes into the hands
of a few tea-planters and merchants, can be expected to make things
better.
It is sad to see the thin and famished mortals who come in here
from the country districts round to beg. Many of them, especially
the younger ones, have their limbs badly ulcerated. One day, going
through the hospital, the doctor--a Eurasian--took me through a ward
full of such cases. He said that they mostly soon got better with the
better hospital diet; “but,” he added, “when they get back to their
old conditions they are soon as bad as ever.” In fact the mass of the
population in a place like Colombo looks far sleeker and better off
than in these country districts; but that only affords another instance
of how the modern policy encourages the shifty and crafty onhanger of
commercial life at the cost of the sturdy agriculturist--and I need not
say that the case is the same at home as abroad.
It is quite a pretty sight to see the bathing in the tanks. It takes
place in the early morning, and indeed during most of the day.
Cleanliness is a religious observance, and engrained in the habits of
the people. Of course there are exceptions, but save among the lowest
castes this is the rule. An orthodox Hindu is expected not only to wash
himself, but his own cloth, at least once a day. The climate makes
bathing a pleasure, and the people linger over it. Men and boys, women
and children, together or in groups not far distant from each other,
revel and splash in the cool liquid; their colored wraps are rinsed
and spread to dry on the banks, their brass pots glance in the sun as
they dip the water with them and pour it over their own heads, their
long black hair streams down their backs. Then, leaving the water,
they pluck a twig from a certain tree, and, squatting on their hams,
with the frayed twig-end rub their teeth and talk over the scandal of
the day. This tooth-cleaning gossiping business lasts till they are
dry, and often a good deal longer, and is, I fancy, one of the most
enjoyable parts of the day to the mild oyster. In unsophisticated
places there is no distinction of classes in this process, and rich
and poor join in the public bathing alike--in fact there is very
little difference in their dress and habits anyhow, as far as regards
wealth and poverty--but of course where Western ideas are penetrating,
the well-to-do natives adopt our habits and conduct their bathing
discreetly at home.
The people never (except it be children) go into the water _quite_
naked, and the women always retain one of their wraps wound round the
body. These wraps are very long, and the skill with which they manage
to wash first one end and then the other, winding and unwinding, and
remaining decorously covered all the time, is quite admirable. I am
struck by the gravity and decorum of the people generally--in outer
behavior or gesture--though their language (among the lower castes)
is by no means always select! But there is none, or very little,
of that banter between the sexes which is common among the Western
populations, and even among the boys and youths you see next to no
frolicking or bear-fighting. I suppose it is part of the passivity
and want of animal spirits which characterise the Hindu; and of course
the sentiment of the relation between the sexes is different in some
degree from what it is with us. On sexual matters generally, as far as
I can make out, the tendency, even among the higher castes, is to be
outspoken, and there is little of that prudery which among us is only
after all a modern growth.
[Illustration: NATIVE STREET, AND SHOPS.]
The town here is a queer mixture of primitive life with modern
institutions. There are two or three little streets of booths, which
constitute the “bazaar.” Walking down these--where behind baskets
of wares the interiors of the dwellings are often visible, and the
processes of life are naïvely exposed to the eye--one may judge
for one’s self how little man wants here below. Here is a fruit and
vegetable shop, with huge bunches of plantains or bananas, a hundred
in a bunch, and selling at five or six a penny; of a morning you may
see the peasant coming in along the road carrying _two_ such bunches--a
good load--slung one at each end of a long pole, or _pingo_, over
his shoulder--a similar figure to that which is so frequent on the
Egyptian monuments of 3,000 years ago; pineapples, from 1_d._ up to
4_d._ each for the very finest; the breadfruit, and its queer relation
the enormous jack-fruit, weighing often as much as 12 to 14 lbs.,
with its pulpy and not very palatable interior, used so much by the
people, growing high up over their cabins on the handsome jack-tree,
and threatening you with instant dissolution if it descend upon your
head; the egg-plant, murngal, beans, potatos, and other vegetables;
and plentiful ready-prepared packets of areca nut and betel leaf for
chewing. Then there is a shop where they sell spices, peppers, chilis,
and all such condiments for curries, not to mention baskets of dried
fish (also for currying), which stink horribly and constitute one of
the chief drawbacks of the bazaars; and an earthenware shop,--and
I must not forget the opium shop. Besides these there are only two
others--and they represent Manchester and Birmingham respectively--one
where they sell shoddy and much-sized cotton goods, and the other which
displays tin ware, soap, matches, paraffin lamps, dinner knives, and
all sorts of damnable cutlery. I have seen these knives and scissors,
or such as these (made only to deceive), being manufactured in the
dens of Sheffield by boys and girls slaving in dust and dirt, breathing
out their lives in foul air under the gaslights, hounded on by mean
taskmasters and by the fear of imminent starvation. Dear children!
if you could only come out here yourselves, instead of sending the
abominable work of your hands--come out here to enjoy this glorious
sunshine, and fraternise, as I know many of you would, with the
despised darkie!
The opium-seller is a friend of mine. I often go and sit in his
shop--on his one chair. He teaches me Tamil--for he is a Tamil--and
tells me long stories, slowly, word by word. He is a thin, soft-eyed,
intelligent man, about thirty, has read a fair amount of English--of
a friendly _riant_ child-nature--not without a reasonable eye to the
main chance, like some of his Northern cousins. There are a few jars of
opium in its various forms--for smoking, drinking, and chewing; a pair
of scales to weigh it with; a brass coconut-oil lamp with two or three
wicks hanging overhead; and a partition for the bed at the back,--and
that is all. The shopfront is of course entirely open to the thronged
street, except at night, when it is closed with shutterboards.
At the corner of the street stands a policeman, of course, else we
should not know we were being civilised. But, O Lord, what a policeman!
How a London street arab would chuckle all over at the sight of him!
Imagine the mild and somewhat timid oyster dressed in a blue woollen
serge suit (very hot for this climate), with a belt round his waist,
some kind of turban on his head, a staff in his hand, and _boots_ on
his feet! A real live oyster in boots! It is too absurd. How miserable
he looks; and as to running after a criminal--the thing is not to be
thought of. But no doubt the boots vindicate the majesty of the British
Government.
While we are gazing at this apparition, a gang of prisoners marches
by--twenty lean creatures, with slouched straw hats on their heads,
striped cotton jackets and pants, and bare arms and lower legs, each
carrying a mattock--for they are going to work on the roads--and the
whole gang followed and guarded (certainly Ceylon is a most idyllic
land) by a Cinghalese youth of about twenty-one, dressed in white
skirts down to his feet, with a tortoise-shell comb on his head, and
holding a parasol to shade himself from the sun. Why do not the twenty
men with mattocks turn and slay the boy with the parasol, and so depart
in peace? I asked this question many times, and always got the same
answer. “Because,” they said, “the prisoners do not particularly want
to run away. They are very well off in prison,--better off, as a rule,
than they are outside. Imprisonment by an alien Government, under alien
laws and standards, is naturally no disgrace, at any rate to the mass
of the people, and so once in prison they make themselves as happy as
they can.”
I visited the gaol one day, and thought they succeeded very well in
that respect. The authorities, I am glad to say, do all they can to
make them comfortable. They have each a large dish of rice and curry,
with meat if they wish, twice a day, and a meal of coffee and bread in
the morning besides; which is certainly better fare than they would
get as peasants. They do their little apology for work in public places
during the day--with a chance of a chat with friends--and sleep in
gangs together in the prison sheds at night, each with his mat, pillow,
and night suit; so possibly on the whole they are not ill-content.
My friend A----, with whom I am staying here, is a Tamil, and an
official of high standing. He became thoroughly Anglicised while
studying in England, and like many of the Hindus who come to London or
Cambridge or Oxford, did for the time quite outwesternise us in the
tendency towards materialism and the belief in science, ‘comforts,’
representative institutions, and ‘progress’ generally. Now however he
seems to be undergoing a reaction in favor of caste and the religious
traditions of his own people, and I am inclined to think that other
westernising Hindus will experience the same reaction.
He lives in an ordinary one-storied stone house, or bungalow, such as
the English inhabit here. These houses, naturally cover a good deal of
ground. The roof, which is made of heavy tiles or thatch, is pitched
high in the middle, giving space for lofty sitting-rooms; the sleeping
chambers flank these at a lower slope, and outside runs the verandah,
almost round the house, the roof terminating beyond it at six or seven
feet from the ground. This arrangement makes the interiors very dark
and cool, as the windows open on the verandah, and the sun cannot
penetrate to them; but I am not sure that I like the sensation of
being confined under this immense carapace of tiles, with no possible
outlook to the sky, in a sort of cavernous twilight all the while. The
verandah forms an easy means of access from one part to another, and
in this house there are no passages in the interior, but the rooms
all open into one another; and plentiful windows--some mere Venetian
shutters, without glass--ensure a free circulation of air.
Mosquitos are a little trying. I don’t think they are more venomous
than the English gnat, but they are far ’cuter. The mosquito is the
’cutest little animal for its size that exists. I am certain from
repeated observations that it _watches one’s eyes_. If you look at it,
it flies away. It settles on the under side of your hand (say when
reading a book), or on your ankles when sitting at table--on any part
in fact which is remote from observation; there is nothing that it
loves better than for you to sit in a cane-bottomed chair. But it never
attacks your face--and that is a curious thing--_except when you are
asleep_. How it knows I cannot tell, but I have often noticed that it
is so. If you close your eyes and pretend to be asleep, it will not
come; but as sure as you begin to drowse off you hear the ping of its
little wing as it swoops past your ear to your cheek.
At night however the mosquito curtains keep one in safety, and I cannot
say that I am much troubled during the day, except on occasions, and
in certain places, as in the woods when there is no breeze. A. is a
vegetarian, and I fancy diet has a good deal to do with freedom from
irritation by insects and by heat. The thermometer reaches 90° in
the shade almost every day here; to sit and run at the same time is
a gymnastic feat which one can easily perform, and at night it is
hot enough to sleep without any covering on the bed; but I enjoy the
climate thoroughly, and never felt in better health. No doubt these
things often affect one more after a time than at first; but there
seems almost always a pleasant breeze here at this time of year, and I
do not notice that languor which generally accompanies sultry weather.
A. has most lovely vegetable curries; plenty of boiled rice, with
four or five little dishes of different sorts of curried vegetables.
This, with fruit, forms our breakfast--at ten; and dinner at six or
seven is much the same, with perhaps an added soup or side-dish. His
wife sometimes joins us at dinner, which I take as an honor, as even
with those Hindu women who are emancipated there is often a little
reserve about eating with the foreigner. She has a very composed and
gentle manner, and speaks English prettily and correctly, though slowly
and with a little hesitation; approves of a good deal of the English
freedom for women, but says she cannot quite reconcile herself to women
walking about the streets alone, and other things she hears they do in
England. However, she would like to come to England herself and see.
The children are very bright and charming. Mahéswari (three years old)
is the sweetest little dot, with big black eyes and a very decided
opinion about things. She comes into the room and lifts up one arm and
turns up her face and prophesies something in solemn tones in Tamil,
which turns out to be, “Father is very naughty to sit down to dinner
before mother comes.” Then she talks Cinghalese to her nurse and
English to me, which is pretty good for a beginner in life. Mahadéva
and Jayanta, the two boys (seven and nine respectively), are in the
bubbling-over stage, and are alternately fast friends and fighting with
each other two or three times a day, much like English boys. They are
dressed more after the English fashion, though they are privileged to
have bare knees and feet--at any rate in the house; and Jayanta has a
pony which he rides out every day.
A. sets apart a little room in this house as a “chapel.” It is quite
bare, with just a five-wicked lamp on a small table in one corner, and
flowers, fruit, etc., on the ground in front. I was present the other
day when the Brahman priest was performing a little service there.
He recited Sanskrit formulas, burned camphor, and gave us cowdung
ashes and sandalwood paste to put on our foreheads, consecrated milk
to drink, and a flower each. The cowdung ashes are a symbol. For as
cowdung, when burnt, becomes clean and even purifying in quality, so
must the body itself be consumed and purified in the flame of Siva’s
presence. A. says they use a gesture identifying the light (of Siva)
within the body with the light of the flame, and also with that of the
sun; and always terminate their worship by going out into the open and
saluting the sun. The Brahman priest, a man about forty, and the boy
of fifteen who often accompanies him, are pleasant-faced folk, not
apparently at all highly educated, wearing but little in the way of
clothes, and not specially distinguishable from other people, except
by the sacred thread worn over the shoulder, and a certain alertness of
expression which is often noticeable in the Brahman--though the trouble
is that it is generally alertness for gain.
The priests generally here, whether Buddhist or Hindu (and Buddhism
is of course the prevailing religion in Ceylon), occupy much the
same relation to the people which the priests occupy in the country
districts of France or Ireland--that is, whatever spiritual power they
claim, they do not arrogate to themselves any worldly supremacy, and
are always poor and often quite unlettered. In fact I suppose it is
only in the commercially religious, _i.e._ Protestant, countries that
the absurd anomaly exists of a priesthood which pretends to the service
of the Jesus who had not where to lay his head, and which at the same
time openly claims to belong to “society” and the well-to-do classes,
and would resent any imputation to the contrary. There are indeed
many points of resemblance between the religions here--especially
Hinduism--and Roman Catholicism: the elaborate ceremonials and
services, with processions, incense, lights, ringing of bells, etc.;
the many mendicant orders, the use of beads and rosaries, and begging
bowls, the monasteries with their abbots, and so forth.
[Illustration: VEDDAHS.
(_Aborigines of Ceylon._)]
There is one advantage in a hot damp climate like this; namely that
things--books, furniture, clothes, etc.--soon get destroyed and done
with, so that there is little temptation to cumber up your house with
possessions. Some English of course try to furnish and keep their rooms
as if they were _still_ living in Bayswater, but they are plentifully
plagued for their folly. The floors here are of some cement or concrete
material, which prevents the white ants surging up through them, as
they infallibly would through boards, and which is nice and cool to the
feet; carpets, cupboards, and all collections of unremoved things are
discountenanced. A chest of drawers or a bookcase stands out a foot or
two from the wall, so that the servants can sweep behind it every day.
Little frogs, lizards, scorpions, and other fry, which come hopping and
creeping in during or after heavy rain can then be gently admonished
to depart, and spiders do not find it easy to establish a footing. The
greatest harbor for vermin is the big roof, which is full of rats. In
pursuit of these come the rat-snakes, fellows five or six feet long,
but not venomous, and wild cats; and the noises at night from them, the
shuffling of the snakes, and the squeals of the poor little rats, etc.,
I confess are trying.
We have three or four male servants about the house and garden, and
there are two _ayahs_, who look after the children and the women’s
apartments. I believe many of these Indian and Cinghalese races love to
be servants (under a tolerably good master); their feminine sensitive
natures, often lacking in enterprise, rather seek the shelter of
dependence. And certainly they make, in many instances and when well
treated, wonderfully good servants, their tact and affectionateness
riveting the bond. I know of a case in which an English civilian
met with an accident when 200 miles away from his station, and his
“bearer,” when he heard the news, in default of other means of
communication, _walked_ the whole distance, and arrived in time to
see him before he died. At the same time it is a mistake to suppose
they will do anything out of a sense of duty. The word duty doesn’t
occupy an important place in the Oriental vocabulary, no more than it
does among the Celtic peoples of Europe. This is a fruitful source
of misunderstanding between the races. The Britisher pays his Indian
servant regularly, and in return expects him to _do his duty_, and to
submit to kicks when he doesn’t. He, the Britisher, regards this as
a fair contract. But the oyster doesn’t understand it in the least.
He would rather receive his pay less regularly, and be treated as “a
man and a brother.” Haeckel’s account of the affection of his Rodiya
servant-lad for him, and of the boy’s despair when Haeckel had to leave
him, is quite touching; but it is corroborated by a thousand similar
stories. But if there is no attachment, what is the meaning of duty?
The oyster, in keeping with his weaker, more dependent nature, is
cunning and lazy--his vices lie in that direction rather than in the
Western direction of brutal energy. If his attachment is not called
out, he can make his master miserable in his own way. And he does so;
hence endless strife and recrimination.
The Arachchi here, a kind of official servant of A.’s, is a most gentle
creature, with remarkable tact, but almost too sensitive; one is afraid
of wounding him by not accepting all his numerous attentions. He glides
in and out of the room--as they all do--noiselessly, with bare feet;
and one never knows whether one is alone or not. The horse-keeper
and I are good friends, though our dialogues are limited for want of
vocabulary! He is a regular dusky demon, with his look of affectionate
bedevilment and way of dissolving in a grin whenever he sees one. A.
says that he thinks the pariahs, or outcastes--and the horse-keepers
are pariahs--are some of the most genuine and good-hearted among the
people; and I see that the author of _Life in an Indian Village_ says
something of the same kind. “As a class, hardworking, honest, and
truthful,” he calls them; and after describing their devotion to
the interests of the families to whom they are often hereditarily
attached, adds, “Such are the illiterate pariahs, a unique class, whose
pure lives and noble traits of character are in every way worthy of
admiration.”
It is curious, but I am constantly being struck by the resemblance
between the lowest castes here and the slum-dwellers in our great
cities--resemblance in physiognomy, as well as in many unconscious
traits of character, often very noble; with the brutish basis
well-marked, the unformed mouth, and the somewhat heavy brows, just
as in Meunier’s fine statue of the ironworker (“puddleur”), but with
thicker lips.
CHAPTER IV.
ADAM’S PEAK AND THE BLACK RIVER.
_January 1st, 1891._--Sitting by an impromptu wood-fire in a little hut
on the summit of Adam’s Peak--nearly midnight--a half-naked Caliban out
of the woods squatting beside me, and Kalua and the guide sleeping on
the floor. But I find it too cold to sleep, and there is _no_ furniture
in the hut.
Altogether an eventful New Year’s day. Last night I spent at Kandy
with Kalua and his brother in their little cabin. They were both
very friendly, and I kept being reminded of Herman Melville and his
Marquesas Island experiences--so beautiful the scene, the moon rising
about ten, woods and valleys all around--the primitive little hut,
Kirrah cooking over a fire on the ground, etc. We were up by moon and
starlight at 5 a.m., and by walking, driving, and the railway, reached
Muskeliya at the foot of the peak by 2.30 p.m. There we got a guide--a
very decent young Tamil--and reached here by 7.30 or 8 p.m. Our path
lay at first through tea-gardens, and then leaving them, it went in
nearly a direct line straight up the mountain side--perhaps 3,000
feet--through dense woods, in step-like formation, over tree-roots
and up the rocks, worn and hacked into shape through successive
centuries by innumerable pilgrims, but still only wide enough for
one. Night came upon us on the way, and the last hour or two we had
to light torches to see our route. Elephant tracks were plentiful all
round us through the woods, even close to the summit. It is certainly
extraordinary on what steep places and rock sides these animals will
safely travel; but we were not fortunate enough to see any of them.
This is a long night trying to sleep. It is the wretchedest hut,
without a door, and unceiled to the four winds! Caliban makes the fire
for me as I write. He has nothing on but a cotton wrap and a thin
jersey, but does not seem to feel the cold much; and the guide is
even more thinly clad, and is asleep, while I am shivering, bundled
in cloth coats. There is something curious about the way in which the
English in this country feel the cold--when it is cold--more than the
natives; though one might expect the contrary. I have often noticed
it. I fancy we make a great mistake in these hot lands in not exposing
our skins more to the sun and air, and so strengthening and hardening
them. In the great heat, and when constantly covered with garments, the
skin perspires terribly, and becomes sodden and enervated, and more
sensitive than it ought to be--hence great danger of chills. I have
taken several sun-baths in the woods here at different times, and found
advantage from doing so.
[Since writing the above, I have discovered the existence of a
little society in India--of English folk--who encourage nudity, and
the abandonment as far as possible of clothes, on three distinct
grounds--physical, moral, and æsthetic--of Health, Decency, and
Beauty. I wish the society every success. Its chief object, as given in
its rules, is to urge upon people “to be and go stark naked whenever
suitable,” and it is a _sine quâ non_ that members should appear at all
its meetings without any covering Passing over the moral and æsthetic
considerations--which are both of course of the utmost importance
in this connection--there is still the consideration of physical
health and enjoyment, which must appeal to everybody. In a place like
India, where the mass of the people go with very little covering, the
spectacle of their ease and enjoyment must double the discomforts of
the unfortunate European who thinks it necessary to be dressed up to
the eyes on every occasion when he appears in public. It is indeed
surprising that men can endure, as they do, to wear cloth coats and
waistcoats and starched collars and cuffs, and all the paraphernalia
of propriety, in a severity of heat which really makes only the very
lightest covering tolerable; nor can one be surprised at the exhaustion
of the system which ensues, from the cause already mentioned. In
fact the direct stimulation and strengthening of the skin by sun and
air, though most important in our home climate, may be even more
indispensable in a place like India, where the relaxing influences are
so terribly strong. Certainly, when one considers this cause of English
enervation in India, and the other due to the greatly mistaken _diet_
of our people there, the fearful quantities of flesh consumed, and of
strong liquors--both things which are injurious enough at home, but
which are ruinous in a hot country--the wonder is not that the English
fail to breed and colonise in India, but that they even last out their
few years of individual service there.]
There is a lovely view of cloudland from the summit now the moon has
risen. All the lower lands and mountains are wrapped in mist, and
you look down upon a great white rolling sea, silent, remote from
the world, with only the moon and stars above, and the sound of the
Buddhist priests chanting away in a low tone round the fire in their
own little cabin or _pansela_.
This is a most remarkable mountain. For at least 2,000 years, and
probably for long enough before that, priests of some kind or another
have kept watch over the sacred footmark on the summit; for thousands
of years the sound of their chanting has been heard at night between
the driven white plain of clouds below and the silent moon and stars
above; and by day pilgrims have toiled up the steep sides to strew
flowers, and to perform some kind of worship to their gods, on this
high natural altar. The peak is 7,400 feet high, and though not quite
the highest point in the island, is by far the most conspicuous. It
stands like a great outpost on the south-west edge of the mountain
region of Ceylon, and can be seen from far out to sea--a sugar-loaf
with very precipitous sides. When the Buddhists first came to Ceylon,
about the 4th century b.c., they claimed the footmark as that of
Buddha. Later on some Gnostic Christian sects attributed it to the
primal man; the Mahomedans, following this idea, when they got
possession of the mountain, gave it the name of Adam’s Peak; the
Portuguese consecrated it to S. Eusebius; and now the Buddhists are
again in possession--though I believe the Mahomedans are allowed a kind
of concurrent right. But whatever has been the nominal dedication of
this ancient “high place,” a continuous stream of pilgrims--mainly of
course the country folk of the island--has flowed to it undisturbed
through the centuries; and even now they say that in the month of
May the mountain side is covered by hundreds and even thousands of
folk, who camp out during the night, and do _poojah_ on the summit by
day. Kalua says that his father--the jolly old savage--once ascended
“Samantakuta,” and like the rest of the Cinghalese thinks a great deal
of the religious merit of this performance.
_Ratnapura, Jan. 3rd._--Sunrise yesterday on the peak was fine, though
“sunrises” are not always a success. The great veil of clouds gradually
dissolved, and a long level “rose of dawn” appeared in the eastern
sky--Venus brilliant above it, the Southern Cross visible, and one
or two other crosses which lie near it, and the half moon overhead;
a dark, peaked and castellated rampart of lower mountains stretched
around us, and far on the horizon were masses of cumulus cloud rising
out of the lowland mists, and catching the early light; while the lower
lands themselves remained partly hidden by irregular pools and rivers
of white fog, which looked like water in the first twilight. A great
fan-like crown of rays preceded the sun, very splendid, of pearly
colors, with great beams reaching nearly to the zenith. We could not
see the sea, owing to mists along the horizon, nor was any habitation
visible, but only the great jungle-covered hills and far plains
shrouded in the green of coco-nut groves.
The shadow of the peak itself, cast on the mists at sunrise, is a very
conspicuous and often-noted phenomenon. Owing to the sun’s breadth, the
effect is produced of an _umbra_ and _penumbra_; and the _umbra_ looks
very dark and pointed--more pointed even than the peak itself. I was
surprised to see how distant it looked--a shadow-mountain among the far
crags. It gradually fell and disappeared as the sun rose.
There is another phenomenon which I have somewhere seen described as
peculiar to Adam’s Peak; though this must be a pious fraud, or one of
those cases of people only being able to see familiar things when they
are in unfamiliar surroundings, since it is a phenomenon which can be
witnessed any day at home. It is that if when there is dew or rain upon
the grass, and the sun is not too high in the heavens, you look at the
shadow of your head on the grass, you will see it surrounded by a white
light, or ‘glory.’ It arises, I imagine, from the direct reflection
of the sunlight on the inner surfaces of the little globules of water
which lie in or near the line joining the sun and the head, and is
enhanced no doubt by the fact that the light so reflected shows all
the clearer from having to pass through a column of shadow to the eye.
Anyhow, whatever the cause, it is quite a flattering appearance, all
the more so because if you have a companion you do not see the ‘glory’
round his head, but only round your own! I once nearly turned the
strong brain of a Positivist by pointing out to him this aureole round
his head, and making as if I could see it. He of course, being unable
to see a similar light round mine, had no alternative but to conclude
that he was specially overshadowed by the Holy Ghost!
The _sripada_--“sacred foot”--is better than I expected: a natural
depression in the rock, an inch or so deep, five feet long,[1] of an
oblong shape, and distantly resembling a foot; but they have “improved”
it in parts by mortaring bits of tile along the doubtful edges! There
are no toes marked, though in “copies” of it that I have seen in
some Buddhist shrines the toes are carefully indicated. The mark is
curiously situated at the very summit of the rock--which is only a few
feet square, only large enough, in fact, to give space for the foot
and for a little pavilion, open to the winds, which has been erected
over it; and on the natural platform just below--which (so steep is
the mountain) is itself encircled by a wall to prevent accidents--are
some curious bits of furniture: four old bronze standard lamps, of
lotus-flower design, one at each corner of the platform, a bell, a
little shrine, and the priests’ hut before mentioned. Looking into the
latter after dawn, I beheld nothing resembling furniture, but a pan in
the middle with logs burning, and three lean figures squatted round it,
their mortal possessions tied in handkerchiefs and hanging from the
roof.
[1] Captain Knox, above quoted, speaks of it as “about two feet
long”; but he does not appear to have actually seen it.
The priests were horribly on the greed for money, and made it really
unpleasant to stay on the top; but I delayed a little in order to
watch Caliban doing _poojah_ at the little shrine I have mentioned. He
brought a hot ember from the fire, sprinkled frankincense on it, burned
camphor and something that looked like saltpetre, also poured some kind
of scented water on the ember, causing fragrance. Very ancient gnarled
rhododendron trees, twenty or thirty feet high, rooting in clefts and
hollows, were in flower (carmine red) all round the top of the rock. No
snow ever falls here, they say; but there are sometimes hoar frosts,
which the natives mistake for snow. I don’t suppose the temperature
that night was below 50° Fahr., but it felt cold, very cold, after the
heat of the lowlands.
The sun rose soon after six, and at 7.30 we started downwards, on
the great pilgrim-track towards Ratnapura. The final cone, for about
1,500 feet, is certainly a steep bit of rock. I have seen it from
several points of view, but the summit angle was always under 90°.
Steps are cut nearly all down this part, and chains hang alongside in
all places of possible difficulty--chains upon chains, things with
links six inches long, all shapes and curiously wrought, centuries and
centuries old--the pious gifts of successive generations of pilgrims.
Here and there are long inscriptions, in Cinghalese characters, on the
rock-faces; and everywhere signs of innumerable labor of successive
travelers in hewing and shaping the path all the way--not to mention
resting-sheds and cabins built in convenient spots lower down. These
however are largely fallen to decay; and indeed the whole place gives
one the impression that the _sripada_ has come somewhat into disrepute
in these modern times, and is only supported by the poorer and more
ignorant among the people.
Ratnapura is only 150 feet or so above the sea; and for twenty-four
miles the path to it from the summit--well-marked but single file--goes
down over rocks and through vast woods, without coming to anything
like a road. Nearly the whole, however, of this great descent of
7,000 feet is done in the first twelve miles to Palábaddala--a tiny
hamlet at the very foot of the mountains--and I don’t know that I
ever felt a descent so fatiguing as this one, partly no doubt owing
to the experiences of the day and night before, and partly no doubt
to the enervation produced by the climate and want of exercise; but
the path itself is a caution, and the ascent of it must indeed be a
pilgrimage, with its huge steps and strides from rock to rock and from
tree-root to tree-root, and going, as it does, almost straight up and
down the mountain side, without the long zigzags and detours by which
in such cases the brunt is usually avoided. All the same it was very
interesting; the upper jungle of rhododendrons, myrtles, and other
evergreen foliage forming a splendid cover for elephants, and clothing
the surrounding peaks and crags for miles in grey-green wrinkles and
folds, with here and there open grassy spaces and glades and tumbling
watercourses; then the vegetation of the lower woods, huge trees 150
or even 200 feet high, with creepers, orchids, and tree-ferns; the
occasional rush of monkeys along the branches; butterflies and birds;
thick undergrowth in parts of daturas, pointsettias, crotons, and
other fragrant and bright-colored shrubs; down at last into coco-nut
plantations and to the lovely Kaluganga, or Black river, which we
forded twice; and ultimately along its banks, shadowed by bamboos and
many flowering trees.
Although, curiously enough, the fig is not grown as a fruit in Ceylon,
yet the _ficus_ is one of the most important families of trees here,
and many of the forest trees belong to it. There is one very handsome
variety, whose massive grey stem rises unbroken to a great height
before it branches, and which in order to support itself throws out
great lateral wings or buttresses, reaching to a height of twelve or
twenty feet from the ground, and spreading far out from the base of
the trunk,--each buttress perhaps three or four inches thick, and
perfectly shaped, with plane and parallel sides like a sawn plank, so
as to give the utmost strength with least expenditure of material.
This variety has small ovate evergreen leaves. Then there are two or
three varieties, of which the banyan (_ficus Indica_) is one, which are
parasitic in their habit. The banyan begins existence by its seed being
dropped in the fork of another tree--not unfrequently a palm--from
which point its rootlets make their way down the stem to the ground.
With rapid growth it then encircles the victim tree, and throwing out
great lateral branches sends down from these a rain of fresh rootlets
which, after swinging in air for a few weeks, reach the ground and
soon become sturdy pillars. I have thus seen a banyan encircling with
its central trunk the stem of a palm, and clasping it so close that a
knife could not be pushed between the two, while the palm, which had
grown in height since this accident happened to it, was still soaring
upwards, and feebly endeavoring to live. There is a very fine banyan
tree at Kalutara, which spans the great high-road from Colombo to
Galle, all the traffic passing beneath it and between its trunks.
Some of the figs fasten parasitically on other trees, though without
throwing out the pillar-like roots which distinguish the banyan; and
it is not uncommon to see one of these with roots like a cataract
of snakes winding round the trunk of an acacia, or even round some
non-parasitic fig, the two trees appearing to be wrestling and writhing
together in a fierce embrace, while they throw out their separate
branches to sun and air, as though to gain strength for the fray. The
parasite generally however ends by throttling its adversary.
There is also the bo-tree, or _ficus religiosa_, whose leaf is of a
thinner texture. One of the commonest plants in open spots all over
Ceylon is the sensitive plant. Its delicately pinnate leaves form a
bushy growth six inches to a foot in depth over the ground; but a
shower of rain, or nightfall, or the trampling of animals through it
causes it to collapse into a mere brown patch--almost as if a fire had
passed over. In a few minutes however after the disturbance has ceased
it regains its luxuriance. There are also some acacia trees which droop
their leaves at nightfall, and at the advent of rain.
There are two sorts of monkeys common in these forests--a small
brown monkey, which may be seen swinging itself from tree to tree,
not unfrequently with a babe in its arms; and the larger _wanderoo_
monkey, which skips and runs on all fours along the ground, and of
which it is said that its devotion to its mate is life-long. Very
common all over Ceylon is a little grey-brown squirrel, with three
yellow longitudinal stripes on its back; almost every tree seems to
be inhabited by a pair, which take refuge there at the approach of a
stranger, and utter a sharp little whistle like the note of an angry
bird. They are very tame however, and will often in inhabited places
run about the streets, or even make their appearance in the houses in
search of food.
The Hindus take no pleasure in killing animals--even the boys do not,
as a rule, molest wild creatures--and the consequence is that birds and
the smaller four-footed beasts are comparatively bold. Not that the
animals are made pets of, but they are simply let alone--in keeping
with the Hindu gentleness and quiescence of disposition. Even the
deadly cobra--partly no doubt from religious associations--is allowed
to go its way unharmed; and the people have generally a good word for
it, saying it will not attack any one unless it be first injured.
On the whole the trouble about reptiles in this country seems to me
to be much exaggerated. There are some places in the forests where
small leeches--particularly in the wet seasons--are a great pest.
Occasionally a snake is to be seen, but I have been rather disappointed
at their rarity; or a millipede nine inches long. The larger scorpion
is a venomous-looking creature, with its blue-black lobster-like body
and claws, and slender sting-surmounted tail, five inches long in all;
but it is not so venomous as generally supposed, and most of these
creatures, like the larger animals--the chetah, the elk, the bear,
the elephant, etc.--keep out of the way of man as well as they can.
Of course native woodmen and others tramping bare-legged through the
tangles occasionally tread on a snake and get bitten; but the tale
of deaths through such casualties, though it may seem numerically
large, taken say throughout Ceylon and India, is in proportion to the
population but a slight matter--about 1 in 15,000 per annum.
There are many handsome butterflies here, especially of the
swallow-tail sort--some of enormous size--and a number of queer
insects. I saw a large green mantis, perhaps six inches long--a
most wicked-looking creature. I confess it reminded me of a highly
respectable British property owner. It sits up like a beautiful green
leaf, with its two foreclaws (themselves flattened out and green to
look like lesser leaves) held up as if it were praying--_perfectly_
motionless--except that all the time it rolls its stalked eyes slowly
around, till it sees a poor little insect approach, when it stealthily
moves a claw, and pounces.
The birds are not so numerous as I expected. There are some
bright-colored kinds and a few parrots, but the woods seem quiet on
the whole. The barbet, a green bird not quite so big as a pigeon, goes
on with its monotonous bell-like call--like a cuckoo that has lost its
second note--on and on, the whole day long; the lizards cluck and kiss,
full of omens to the natives, who call them “the crocodile’s little
brothers”--and say “if you kill a little lizard the crocodile will come
and kill you”; the grasshoppers give three clicks and a wheeze; the
small grey squirrels chirrup; the frogs croak; and the whole air is
full of continuous though subdued sound.
At Palábaddala, the tiny little hamlet at the foot of the mountains,
I was dead-beat with the long jolting downhill, and if it had not
been for the faithful Kalua, who held my hand in the steeper parts, I
should fairly have fallen once or twice. Here we stopped two hours at
a little cabin. Good people and friendly--a father and mother and two
lads--the same anxious, tender mother-face that is the same all over
the world. They brought out a kind of couch for me to lie on, but would
not at first believe that I would eat _their_ food. However, after a
little persuasion they made some tea (for the people are beginning to
use tea quite freely) and some curry and rice--quite palatable. I began
to eat of course with my fingers, native fashion; but as soon as I did
so, they saw that something was wrong, and raised a cry of _Karandi_!
(spoon); and a boy was sent off, despite my protests, to the cabin of a
rich neighbor half a mile off, and ultimately returned in triumph with
a rather battered German-silver teaspoon!
I felt doubtful about doing another twelve miles to Ratnapura; however
thought best to try, and off we went. But the rest had done little
good, and I could not go more than two miles an hour. At 4 p.m., after
walking about four miles, we came out into flat land--a good path,
little villages with clumps of palm and banana, lovely open meadows,
and tame buffalos grazing. Thence along the side of the Kaluganga, most
lovely of rivers, through thickets of bamboo and tangles of shrubs,
and past more hamlets and grazing grounds (though feeling so _done_,
I thoroughly enjoyed every step of the way), till at last at a little
kind of shop (_kadai_) we halted, about 6 p.m. Got more tea, and a
few bananas, which was all I cared to eat; and then went in and lay
down on a trestle and mat for an hour, after which we decided to stay
the night. Kalua stretched himself near me; the men of the place lay
down on the floor--the women somewhere inside; the plank shutters were
built in, and lights put out. I slept fairly well, and woke finally at
the sound of voices and with dawn peeping in through the holes in the
roof. Had a lovely wash in a little stream, and an early breakfast of
tea, bananas, and hot cakes made of rice, coco-nut, and sugar--and then
walked four miles into this place (Ratnapura), where at last we came to
a road and signs of civilisation.
The rest-house here is comfortable; have had another bath, and a good
solid breakfast, and made arrangements for a boat to start with us this
evening down the river to Kalutara (60 miles).
_Sunday, Jan. 4th._--After walking round the town yesterday, and
getting fruit and provisions for our voyage, we embarked about 6 p.m.,
and are now floating lazily down the Kaluganga. The water is rather
low, and the speed not good; but the river is very beautiful, with
bamboos, areca-palms, and other trees, leaning over in profusion.
Ratnapura (the city of jewels) is only a small town--hardly so big as
Kurunégala--just about one long street of little booths and cabins,
a post-office, court-house and cutcherry, and the usual two or three
bungalows of the English agent and officials standing back in park-like
grounds in a kind of feudal reserve. The town derives its name from
the trade in precious stones which has been carried on here for long
enough--rubies, sapphires, and others being found over a great part of
the mountain district. In perhaps half the little shops of Ratnapura
men and boys may be seen squatted on the floor grinding and polishing
jewels. With one hand they use a bow to turn their wheels, and with
the other they hold the stone in position. The jewels are also set and
offered for sale--often at what seem very low prices. But the purchaser
must beware; for the blessings of modern commerce are with us even
here, and many of these precious stones are bits of stained glass
supplied wholesale from Birmingham.
This boat, which is of a type common on the river, consists of two
canoes or “dug-outs,” each twenty feet long, and set five or six
feet apart from each other, with a flooring laid across them, and a
little thatched cabin constructed amidships. The cabin is for cooking
and sleeping--a fire and cooking pots at one end, and mats laid at
the other. At the front end of the boat sit the two rowers, and the
steersman stands behind. We have a skipper and four crew (an old
man, Djayánis; a middle-aged man, Signápu; and two lads, Duánis and
Thoránis). The name of the skipper is Pedri. About two miles below
Ratnapura we drew to the shore and stopped below a temple; and Pedri
and the old man went up to offer money for a favorable voyage! They
washed a few coppers in the river, wrapped them in a bo-tree leaf,
which had also been washed, sprinkled water on their foreheads, and
then went up. They soon came back, and then we started.
[Illustration: RICE-BOATS ON THE KALUGANGA.
(_A clump of bamboos on the right._)]
Hardly any signs of habitation along the river. Now and then rude
steps down to the shore, and a dark figure pouring water on its own
head. The river varying, a hundred yards, more or less, wide. At about
seven it got too dark and we halted against a sandbank, waiting for
the moon to rise, and had dinner--rice, curried eggs, and beans, and a
pineapple--very good. Then got out and sat on the sand, while the boys
lighted a fire. Very fine, the gloom on the tall fringed banks, gleams
from the fire, voices of children far back among the woods, playing in
some village. After a time we went back on board again, and sat round
teaching each other to count, and laughing at our mistakes--_ekkai_,
_dekkai_, _tonai_, _hattarai_--one, two, three, four. The Cinghalese
language (unlike the Tamil) is full of Aryan roots--_minya_, man;
_gáni_, woman; and so on. The small boy Thoránis (12 years) learnt his
“one two three” in no time; he is pretty sharp; he does the cooking,
and prepares our meals, taking an oar between times. The man Pedri
seemed good to the lads, and they all enjoyed themselves till they got
sleepy and lay in a row and snored.
Started again at moonrise, about midnight; after which I went to sleep
till six or so, then went ashore and had a bath--water quite warm. Then
off again; a few slight rapids, but nothing much. We go aground every
now and then; but these boats are so tough--the canoes themselves being
hollowed trees--that a bump even on a rock does not seem to matter
much. The lads quite enjoy the struggle getting over a sandbank, and
Duánis jumps down from his perch and plunges through the water with
evident pleasure. The old man Djayánis steers--a shrewd-faced calm thin
fellow, almost like a North American Indian, but no beak. See a monkey
or a kite occasionally; no crocodiles in this part of the river, above
the rapids; some large and handsome kingfishers, and the fruit-crow,
whose plumage is something like that of a pheasant.
Kalua enjoys the voyage. It suits his lazy sociable temperament, and
he chats away to Pedri and the crew no end. His savage strength and
_insouciance_ are splendid. All over Adam’s Peak he walked barefoot,
with no more sign of fatigue than if it had been a walk round a
garden,--would lie down and sleep anywhere, or not sleep, eat or
not eat, endure cold or heat with apparent indifference; yet though
so complete a savage physically, it is interesting to see what an
attraction for him civilisation, or the little he has seen of it,
exerts. He is always asking me about Europe, and evidently dreaming
about its wealth and splendor. All the modern facilities and inventions
are sort of wonderful toys to this child of nature; and though I think
he is attached to me, and is no doubt of an affectionate disposition,
still it is partly that I am mixed up in his mind with all these
things. I tried one day to find out from K. his idea of god or devil,
or supreme power of any kind; but in vain. His mind wandered to things
more tangible. Many of the Cinghalese however have rather a turn for
speculations of this kind; and at one hotel where I was staying the
chamber-servant entertained me with quite a discourse on Buddha, and
ended by ridiculing the Christian idea that a man can get rid of the
results of sin by merely praying to God or believing in Jesus.
We have now passed the _nárraka-gála_ (bad rock) rapid, which is
about half-way down the river, and is the only rapid which has looked
awkward, the river narrowing to five or six yards between rocks,
and plunging over at a decided slope. We went through with a great
bump, but no damage! The sun and smells on board are getting rather
trying; this dried-fish smell unfortunately haunts one wherever there
are native cabins. But we shall not be long now before reaching my
landing-place, a little above Kalutara.
There are a good many boats like ours on the river, some laden with
rice going down, others poling upwards--sometimes whole families on the
move. Quantities of ragged white lilies fringing the shore.
_Jan. 6th._--Kalua and I left our friends and their boat in the
afternoon, and spent Sunday night at P----’s bungalow. P. is manager
of a tea plantation--a bit of a Robinson Crusoe, living all by
himself--native servants of course--with two dogs, a cat, and a
jackdaw (and at one time a hare!) sharing his meals. Some of these
planter-fellows must find the life a little dreary I fancy, living
isolated on their plantations at a considerable distance from European
neighbors, with very small choice of society at the best, and prevented
no doubt by their position from associating too closely with the only
folk who are near them--their own employees. The more kindly-hearted
among them however do a good deal for their workers in the way of
physicking and nursing them when ill or disabled, advising them when in
difficulties, etc.; and in these cases the natives, with their instinct
of dependence, soon learn to lean like children on their employer, and
the latter finds himself, after a few years, the father (so to speak)
of a large family. There are 200 Tamil coolies permanently employed on
this plantation, and a hundred or two besides, mostly girls and women,
who come in to work when wanted from neighboring Cinghalese villages.
[Illustration: GROUP OF TAMIL COOLIES, OR WAGE-WORKERS.]
But the system, like the commercial system wherever it is found
to-day, is pretty bad and odious in itself, and is no doubt in many
cases a cover for shameful abuses. The Tamil coolies--men, women, and
children--come over in gangs from the mainland of India. An agent is
sent out to tout for them, and to conduct them by sea and land to their
destination. On their arrival on the tea-estate each one finds himself
so many rupees in debt for the expenses of transit! An average wage is
6_d._ a day, but to keep them up to the mark in productiveness their
work is “set” for them to complete a certain task in a certain time,
and if they do not come up to their task they get only half pay; so
that if a man is slow, or lazy, or ill, he may expect about 3_d._ per
diem! Under these circumstances the debt, as may be imagined, goes on
increasing instead of diminishing; the estate is far up country, away
from town or village, and the tea company acts as agent and sells rice
and the other necessaries of life to its own coolies. Poor things, they
cannot buy elsewhere. “Oh, but they like to be in debt,” said a young
planter to me, “and think they are not doing the best for themselves
unless they owe as much as the company will allow.” He was very young,
that planter, and perhaps did not realise what he was saying; but what
a suggestion of despair! Certainly there may have been some truth in
the remark; for when all hope of ever being out of debt is gone, the
very next best thing is to be in debt, as much as ever you can. At the
end of the week the coolie does not see any wage; his rice, etc., has
forestalled all that, and more; only his debt is ticked down a little
deeper. If he runs away to a neighboring estate he is soon sent back
in irons. He is a slave, and must remain so to the end of his days.
That is not very long however; for poor food and thin clothing, and the
mists and cool airs of the mountains soon bring on lung diseases, of
which the slight-bodied Tamil easily dies.
“I dare say 3_d._ a day seems a very small wage to you,” said the
planter youth, “but it is really surprising how little these fellows
will live on.”
“It is surprising, indeed, when you see their thin frames, that they
live at all.”
“Ah, but they are much worse off at home; you should see them when they
come from India.” And so the conversation ended.
And this is how our tea, which we set so much store by, is produced
in Ceylon and other places. These plantations are sad-looking places.
Commercialism somehow has a way of destroying all natural beauty in
those regions where it dwells. Here the mountain sides are torn up,
the immense and beautiful forests ravaged from base to summit, and
the shaly escarpments that remain planted in geometrical lines with
tea-shrubs. You may walk for miles through such weary lands, extending
rapidly now all over the mountain region from the base to near the tops
of the highest mountains, the blackened skeletons of half-burnt trees
alone remaining to tell of the old forests, of which before long there
will be but a memory left.
It is curious, when one comes to think of it, that such huge spaces of
the earth are devastated, such vast amounts of human toil expended,
in the production of two things--tea and wine--which to say the least
are not necessaries, and which certainly in the quantities commonly
consumed are actually baneful. If their production simply ceased,
what a gain it might seem! Yet the commercial policies of the various
nations stimulate these, and always to the neglect of the necessaries
of life. They stimulate the stimulants. We need not be hypercritical,
but there must be something peculiar in the temper of the modern
nations that they make such tremendous sacrifices in order to act in
this way.
[Illustration: TAMIL GIRL COOLIE, PLUCKING TEA.]
On each tea-plantation there are the “lines” (rows of huts) in which
the coolies live, and the “factory”--a large wooden building, with rows
of windows, a steam engine, and machinery for the various processes
concerned--withering, fermenting, rolling, firing, sorting, packing,
etc. The tea-bushes (a variety of the camellia) are not allowed to
grow more than three or four feet high. In Ceylon the plucking goes on
almost all the year round. As soon as the young shoots, with five or
six leaves, have had time to form since the last plucking, a gang of
workers comes round--mostly girls and women for this job--each with a
basket, into which they pluck the young leaves and the little rolled-up
leaf-bud, most precious of all. When taken to the factory the leaves
are first spread out to wither, then rolled by machinery (to look
like buds), then dried or baked by artificial heat. After this they
are sorted through a huge sieve, and the finest quality, consisting of
the small leaf-bud, is called Flowery Pekoe; the next size, including
some of the young leaf, is called Broken Pekoe; and the coarser leaves
come out as Pekoe Souchong, Souchong, etc. The difficulty with tea, as
with wine, is that no two yields are alike; the conditions of plucking,
fermenting, firing, etc., all make a difference in the resultant
flavor. Hence a dealer, say in London, who reckons to supply his
customers with tea of a certain constant flavor, has simply to _make_
such tea as best he can--namely by “blending” any teas which he can lay
hold of in the market, and which will produce the desired result. The
names given in these cases are of course mostly fictitious.
* * * * *
I may as well insert here one or two extracts from letters since
received from our friend “Ajax,” which will perhaps help to show the
condition of the coolies in the tea-gardens where he is now working. He
says:--
“One gets very fond of the coolies, they are so much like children;
they bring all their little grievances to one to settle. A man will
come and complain that his wife refuses to cook his food for him; the
most minute details of family affairs are settled by the sahib of the
garden. The coolies have a hard time, and are treated little better
than slaves; most willing workers they are. Still all I can say is
that they have a much better time than the very poor at home, such as
the factory girls, tailoresses, etc., and laborers. On this garden
they have met with exceptionally hard lines; the manager being an
ill-bred man has had no consideration for his men, and they have died
in hundreds from exposure to weather in the garden and houses, which
had all crumbled away from neglect. Many families of ten or eleven
in number have dwindled away to one or two. In one case, two little
fellows of eight and nine, living together on five rupees a month, are
the only representatives (of a former family)....
“I was sorry to leave (the former garden), very; I had got to know the
coolies, 300 of them at any rate who were under my charge, and they
had got to know me. Many of them wanted to come with me here, but that
is not allowed. Some said they would ‘cut their names,’ that is take
their names off the garden labor-register, and go wherever I went,
but of course they could not do that. I don’t know why they were so
anxious to come, because I know I worked them very hard all the time I
was there. I think my predecessor used to fine them and thrash them a
good deal, often because he did not know what they said, and could not
make them understand. I like the coolies very much, and one gets quite
attached to some of them; they seem instinctively polite; and if you
are ill, they tend you just like a woman--never leave one in fact. The
higher and more respectable class of Baboos are just as objectionable,
I think.”
CHAPTER V.
BRITISH LAW-COURTS AND BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
_Kurunégala._--I have come to the conclusion that the courts and
judicial proceedings out here are a kind of entertainment provided for
the oysters at the expense of the British Government, and that the
people really look upon these institutions very much in that light.
Poor things! their ancient communal life and interests, with all the
local questions and politics which belonged thereto, and even to a
great extent the religious festivals, have been improved away; they
have but few modern joys--no votes and elections such as would delight
our friend Monerasingha--no circuses, theatres, music-halls. What
is there left for them but the sensations of the police-courts? The
district court here is, I find, the one great centre of interest in
the town. Crowds collect in the early morning, and hang about all day
in its vicinity, either watching the cases or discussing the judgments
delivered, till sunset, when they disperse homeward again. Cooling
drinks are sold, beggars ply their trade, the little bullock-hackeries
trot up and down, and the place is as busy as a fair. There is no
particular stigma in conviction by an alien authority; there is a
happy uncertainty in the judgments delivered by the representatives of
a race that has difficulty in understanding the popular customs and
language; and the worst that can happen--namely relegation to prison
life--affords a not unpleasant prospect. Besides, these institutions
can be used to gratify personal spleen; cases can be, and frequently
are, cooked up in the most elaborate manner. Damages can be claimed
for a fictitious assault; and when an injury has really been done, the
plaintiff (and this I find is a constantly recurring difficulty) will
accuse not only the author of the mischief, but Tom, Dick, and Harry
besides, who have had nothing whatever to do with it, but who are
the objects of personal spite, in the hope of getting them too into
trouble. The Cinghalese, as I have said before, are a very sensitive
people. Any grievance rankles in their bosom, and in revenge they will
not unfrequently use the knife. An Eurasian friend, a doctor, says that
he quite thinks cases might occur in which a man who had been wounded
or assaulted by another would _die out of spite_ in order to get the
other hanged!--would connive with his relations and starve himself, and
not try to heal the wound. He says however that the cases of ruptured
spleen--of which we so frequently hear--are genuine, as frequent fevers
often cause immense enlargement of the spleen, which then bursts for a
comparatively slight cause, _e.g._ a planter and a stick.
[Illustration: BULLOCK-HACKERY, COLOMBO.]
The courts in this country are generally large thatched or tiled halls,
sometimes with glass sides, but often open to the wind, with only a low
wall running round, over which, as you sit inside, a crowd of bare arms
and heads and bodies appears. At one end sits the English official,
dutifully but wearily going through his task, a big punkah waving over
his head and helping to dispel the slumbrous noontide heat; below him
stands the _mudaliar_, who acts as interpreter--for the etiquette
properly enough requires that the transactions of the court shall be
given in both languages, even though the official be a native or an
Englishman knowing the native language perfectly; at the table in the
centre are seated a few reporters and proctors, and at the other end
are the prisoners in the dock, and the policemen in their boots.
The cases are largely quarrels, and more or less unfounded accusations
arising out of quarrels, thefts of bullocks or of coco-nuts, and
so forth. The chief case when I was in court some days ago was
rather amusing. A few days before, three or four men, having been
accused, possibly wrongfully, of burglary, and having (on account of
insufficient evidence) been acquitted, went off straight from the
court to an arrack shop and got drunk. They then made it up between
them that they would rob the man thoroughly that evening, even if they
had not done so before, and give him a good hiding into the bargain;
and taking to themselves some other congenial spirits went off on
their errand. They found the man asleep in the verandah of his cabin,
and tying him down gave him some blows. But--as it came out in the
evidence with regard to the very slight marks on the body--before they
could have hurt him much, the man, with great presence of mind, died,
and left them charged with the crime of murder! An old woman--the
man’s mother--with a beautiful face, but _shaking with age_, came
forward to give evidence. She said she was nearly 100 years old, though
the evidence on this point was not very clear. Anyhow, her head was
remarkably clear, and she gave her testimony well; identified several
of the prisoners, said they had broken into the cabin and carried off
valuables, and that one, the leader, had motioned her into a corner of
the cabin, saying, “Stand aside, old mother, or you’ll get hurt,” while
another had come up to her and said, “I think I had better take those
bangles from you, as they are no good to you now, you know.” There were
_nine_ men charged with the offence, and they were committed for trial
in a higher court--very decent-looking scaramouches on the whole, just
about average types of humanity.
The English officials that I have seen here and at other places strike
me as remarkably good-hearted painstaking men; but one feels the
gulf between them and the people--a gulf that can never be bridged.
Practically all that a Government like ours does, or can do, is to
make possible the establishment of our social institutions in the
midst of an alien people--our railways, education, Bible missions,
hospitals, law-courts, wage-slavery, and profit-grinding, and all the
rest of it, in the midst of a people whose whole life springs from
another root, namely religious feeling. The two will never blend,
though the shock produced by the contact of two such utterly different
civilisations may react on both, to the production of certain important
results. Anyhow for a well-meaning official it must be depressing work;
for though he may construct a valuable tank, or what not, from the
highest motives according to his own lights--_i.e._ for the material
welfare of the people and the realisation of a five per cent. profit
to Government--still he never comes near touching the hearts of the
millions, who would probably pay much more respect to a half-luny
_yogi_ than to him and all his percentages.
A.’s friend, Sámanáthan, comes to read English with me every day,
and teaches me a little Tamil in return. He is something of a dandy,
with his green silk coat and hair plaited down his back, and delicate
hands and manners--a fellow over thirty, with a wife and children,
and yet not earning any livelihood, but remaining on at home with his
parents, and dependent on them! And what seems to us most strange, this
is quite an admitted and natural thing to do--such is the familiar
communism which still prevails. He is very much of a student by nature,
and in his native town (in India) gives lectures, philosophical and
theological, free of charge, and which are quite popular. He is reading
S. Mark with me, and reads it pretty well, being evidently familiar
even with the more philosophical words, though doubtful about the
pronunciation of some. He is interested in the story of Jesus, and
thinks Jesus was no doubt a “sage”--_i.e._ an adept--or at any rate
versed in the arcane lore of the East. But he is much amused at the
Christian doctrine of the redemption, which I suppose he has got hold
of, not from Mark but the missionaries.
* * * * *
On the 10th of this month (January), F. Modder and I went off on an
excursion from here to Dambulla (35 miles), and thence to Anurádhapura
(42 miles). Dambulla is celebrated for its Buddhist rock-temples, and
Anurádhapura is the site of a very ancient city, now in ruins amid the
jungle.
Despite all sorts of reports about the length of the journey and its
difficulty--the chief difficulty being that of getting any exact
information--M. managed to secure a bullock-cart _with springs_, and
two pairs of bullocks; and we made a start about 6.30 p.m. A mattress
in the cart and a pillow or two made all comfortable. We sat and
talked for a couple of hours, then walked, and then went to sleep.
With an average speed of _two_ miles an hour we reached the rest-house
at Gokarella at midnight, changed bulls, and immediately went on.
Another six hours brought us to the house of a Government medical
practitioner--a Cinghalese--where we got an early breakfast, and
finally we reached Dr. Devos’ house, at Dambulla, about midday.
[Illustration: CINGHALESE COUNTRY-CART.
(_Thatched with palm-branches._)]
The little bulls went patiently on during the night, the Tamil driver
chirruping “Jack” and “Pitta” to them (corresponding to our carters’
“Orve” and “Gee,”) which some cheerful English traveler is said to
have interpreted into the statement that the natives of Ceylon call
all their cattle either Jack or Peter; the stars shone bright--the
Milky Way innumerable. The road was bad, with occasional descents into
dry sandy torrent beds; jungle stretched all around (with here and
there, M. says, the remains of some town buried in undergrowth); but
we slept--M. slept, I slept, the driver slept, and occasionally even
the good little bulls slept. Once or twice we came thus to a total
stoppage, all sleeping, and then woke up at the unwonted quiet.
Just the first light of dawn, and a few strange bird-calls in the
bush; the great _ficus_ trees with their mighty buttresses stretching
white stems up into the yet ghostly light; ant-hills, conical and
spired, all along the road-side; tangles of creepers, and then, as the
sun rose, quantities of butterflies. I know nothing of butterflies, but
the kinds in this country are very various and beautiful. There is one
which is very common, about four inches across, black and white, with
body a bright red, and underwing spotted with the same colour--very
handsome; and one day, when taking a sun-bath in the woods, an immense
swallow-tail hovered round me, fully ten inches across from tip to tip
of wings.
Modder is a cheerful fellow, of Dutch descent probably, of about
thirty years of age, a proctor or solicitor for native cases, well
up in Cinghalese and Tamil, and full of antiquarian knowledge, yet
can troll a comic song nicely with a sweet voice. I find he is a
regular democrat, and hates the whole caste system in which he lives
embedded--thinks the U.S. must be “a glorious country.” He says he has
often talked to the Tamil and Cinghalese people about the folly of
caste. At first they can’t understand what he means--are completely at
a loss to imagine anything different, but after a time the idea seems
to take hold on them.
Found Devos at Dambulla--a fine clear-faced man of about thirty-three,
genuine, easy-going, carrying on a hospital in this slightly populated
district--just a large native village, no more--but the mails come
through this way, and a few English on their way to Anurádhapura,
and other places. Gangs of Tamil coolies also, from the mainland of
India, pass through Dambulla in going up country, and have to be
medically examined here, for fear of cholera, etc. Living with Devos
are two younger fellows, Percy Carron, who is also an Eurasian, and
a Cinghalese youth, both foresters--a small easy-going bachelors’
household, and all very chummy together. Thought they also treated
their Tamil “boy” John well--actually called him by his name, and did
not shout at him. These fellows all talk English among themselves,
in a close-lipped, rapid, rather neat way. The other two chaffed the
Cinghalese a good deal, who was of the usual sensitive clinging type.
In the afternoon we went up the rock to see the temples. A great rock,
500 or 600 feet high, similar to that at Kurunégala. Half-way up
stretches a broad ledge, 100 yards long, commanding a fine view over
hill and dale, and between this ledge and an overhanging layer of rock
above are niched five temples all in a row. No façade to speak of, mere
stucco walling, but within you pass into large caverns full of rude
statues. The largest of the temples is 150 feet long, 40 deep, and 23
high in front--a great dark space with perhaps fifty colossal images of
Buddha sitting round in the gloom with their sickly smile of Nirvana,
and one huge figure, 30 or 40 feet long, lying down in illumined sleep;
all crudely done, and painted bright yellows and reds, yet rather
impressive. The sides too and roof of the cavern are frescoed in the
same crude manner with stories from the life of Buddha, and with
figures of the Hindu gods. Withal, a fusty smell, a thousand years old,
of priests none too clean, of flaring oil-lamps, of withered flowers
and stale incense, oppressed us horribly, and it was the greatest
relief to get out again into the open. Devos says the scene is very
striking at the great festivals, when multitudinous pilgrims assemble
and offer their lights and their flowers and their money, on benches
each before the figure they affect. Tomtoms beat, worshipers recite
their prayers, lights twinkle, and outside the light of the full moon
pours down upon the rock. Monkeys native to the rock are fed on this
ledge in hundreds by the priests.
Ceylon is of course mainly Buddhist, and all over the hilly part of the
island rock-temples of this sort, though smaller, are scattered--some
mere shrines with a single seated or recumbent image of Buddha. They
are commonly built among the woods, under some overhanging brow of
rock, and the story generally runs that the cavern had in earlier times
been occupied by some hermit-saint, or _yogi_, and that the temple
was built in remembrance of him. There is a little one of this kind
half-way up the rock at Kurunégala, and it is tended by a boy priest of
about thirteen years of age, who, barehead and barefoot, but with his
yellow priest-robe wound gracefully about him, attends in a dignified
manner to the service of the shrine. He is generally followed by a
little attendant (every one has an attendant in the East)--a small boy
of about nine--who turns out to be his _khoki_, or cook! This sounds
luxurious, but by rule the Buddhist priests should live the most
abstemious lives. They are supposed to have no money or possessions
of their own, and to be entirely celibate. Each morning they go out
with their begging bowls on their arm to get their daily food. They
go to a house and stand near the door, asking nothing. Then presently
the woman comes out and puts a little rice in the bowl, and the priest
goes on to the next house. When he has got sufficient he returns, and
his attendant cooks the food (if not already cooked) and he eats it.
For each priest has the privilege to choose a boy or youth to be his
attendant, whom he trains up to the priesthood, and who takes his place
after him. This perhaps explains the presence of the small boy _khoki_
above.
The Buddhist priests, like the Hindu priests, are drawn mostly from
the comparatively uneducated masses, but there is no need in their
case that they should be Brahmans. A vast tolerance, and gentleness
towards all forms of life, characterises the Buddhist institutions; but
in the present day in Ceylon the institutions are decadent, and the
priests, with a few exceptions, are an ignorant and incapable set. The
efforts of Col. Olcott however, on behalf of the Theosophical Society,
and of Sumángala, the present high priest of the island, a man of
great learning and gentleness, have done something in latest years to
infuse a new spirit into the Buddhism of Ceylon and to rehabilitate its
esoteric side.
At Kandy in one of the Buddhist temples outside the town there is a
_standing_ figure of Buddha twenty-seven feet high, carved in the face
of the solid rock, and the temple built round it--rather fine--though
with the usual crude red and yellow paint. It belongs to the time
of the kings of Kandy, and is only about 150 years old. Many of the
ordinary cave-temples are extremely old, however--as old as Buddhism
in the island, 2,000 years or more--and likely were used for religious
purposes even before that.
After looking at the Dambulla temples, which are said to have been
constructed by the king Walagambahu about 100 B.C., we gained the
summit of the rock, whence you have a view over plains towards the
sea and of ranges of hills inland, not unlike that from the rock at
Kurunégala; and then descended, not without difficulty, the precipitous
side. Evening fell, and darkies came out with lamps to our aid.
The same night I pushed on by mail-coach to Anurádhapura, leaving
Modder behind, as he unfortunately had to return to Kurunégala the next
day.
CHAPTER VI.
ANURÁDHAPURA: A RUINED CITY OF THE JUNGLE.
The remains of this ancient city lie near the centre of the great
plain which occupies the north end of the island of Ceylon. To reach
them, even from Dambulla, the nearest outpost of civilisation, one
has to spend a night in the “mail-coach,” which in this case consists
of a clumsy little cart drawn at a jog-trot through the darkness by
bullocks, and generally full of native passengers. Six times in the
forty-two miles the little humped cattle are changed, and at last--by
the time one has thoroughly convinced oneself that it is impossible
to sleep in any attainable position--one finds oneself, about 6 a.m.,
driving through woods full of ruins.
Here, on the site of a once vast and populous town, stands now a small
village. The care of Government has cleared the jungle away from the
most important remains and those lying just around the present site,
so that the chief feature is a beautiful park-like region of grass
and scattered trees, in which stand out scores, and even hundreds,
of columns, with statues, huge dágobas, fragments of palaces, and
innumerable evidences of ancient building. It is a remarkable scene.
The present cutcherry stands on the shore of one of the large
reservoirs which used to supply the city and neighborhood, but which
at present, owing to want of rain and deficiencies of channels, is
nearly dry. On climbing the embankment the bed of the lake stretches
before one, with hundreds of tame buffalos and other cattle grazing on
its level meadows; a few half-naked darkies are fishing in a little
water which remains in one corner; on either hand the lakebottom is
bounded by woods, and out of these woods, and out of the woods behind
one, high above the trees loom green and overgrown masses of masonry,
while below and among them labyrinths of unexplored ruins are hidden in
thick dark tangle. It is as if London had again become a wilderness,
above which the Albert Memorial and S. Paul’s and the Tower still
reared confused heaps of grassy stone and brickwork, while sheep and
oxen browsed peacefully in the bed of the Thames, now diverted into
another channel.
[Illustration: JETAWANARAMA DÁGOBA, ANURÁDHAPURA.
(_Ruins of a temple in foreground._)]
Here for instance still standing in a great square, on a piece of
ground over an acre in extent, are sixteen hundred rough-hewn columns,
solid granite, projecting about ten feet out of the ground, and
arranged in parallel rows at right angles to each other. They are
supposed to form the foundation storey of a building nine storeys high,
no doubt built of wood, but according to the ancient chronicles of the
Mahawanso gorgeously decorated, with its resplendent brass-covered roof
and central hall of golden pillars and ivory throne, erected in the
second century B.C., occupied by the royal folk and the priests, and
called the Brazen Palace.
Close by is the glory of Buddhism and of Ceylon, the oldest historical
tree in the world, the celebrated bo-tree of Anurádhapura, planted
245 years before the Christian era (from a slip, it is said, of the
tree under which Buddha sat when the great illumination came to him),
and now more than twenty-one centuries old. Extraordinary as the age
is, yet the chronicles of this tree’s life have been so carefully kept
(see Emerson Tennent’s _Ceylon_, where twenty-five references from
the Mahawanso and other chronicles are given, covering from B.C. 288
to A.D. 1739), that there is at least fair reason for supposing that
the story is correct. The bo-tree, though belonging to the fig family,
has a leaf strongly resembling that of an aspen. The mid-rib of the
leaf is however prolonged some two inches into a narrow point, which
is sometimes curved into quite a hook. The tremulous motion of the
leaf and the general appearance of the tree also resemble the aspen,
though the growth is somewhat sturdier. Thousands of bo-trees are
planted all over India and Ceylon in memory of Buddha (though the tree
was probably an object of veneration before his time); the ground is
sacred where they stand, and a good Buddhist will on no account cut
one down, however inconveniently it may be growing. This particular
tree, it must be confessed, is somewhat disappointing. It is small, and
though obviously old, does not suggest the idea of _extreme_ antiquity.
It springs from the top of a mound some fifteen feet high, and the
probability I think is that this mound has in the course of centuries
been thrown up round the original trunk to support and protect it--just
as has happened to Milton’s mulberry tree at Cambridge, and to
others--and thus has gradually hidden a great part of the tree from
view. And this idea seems, to be supported by the fact that six or
seven other and lesser stems branch out from neighboring parts of the
same mound, the terraces and shrines which occupy the mound helping to
conceal the fact that these also are, or were at one time, really all
parts of one tree. Anyhow the whole enclosure, which is about an acre
in extent and is surrounded by an ancient wall, is thickly planted with
bo-trees, some of really fine dimensions, so that the pious pilgrim
need have no difficulty in securing a leaf, without committing the
sacrilege of robbing the venerable plant.
Here, to this sacred enclosure, and to deposit flowers and offerings
within it, come at certain festivals thousands of Buddhist pilgrims.
Trudging in on foot or driving by bullock-cart they camp out in the
park-like grounds in the immediate neighborhood of the present village,
and after paying their respects to the holy tree go to visit the
dágobas and other monuments which enshrine a bone or a tooth or a hair
from the brow of their great teacher. For the rest of the year these
places are left almost unvisited. There are no guides to importune the
rare tourist or traveler, and one wanders alone through the woods for
a whole day and sees no one, except it be a troop of monkeys, with
tails erect, playing leap-frog over the stumps of fallen columns, as if
in ridicule of the old priests, or sitting like fakirs on the tops of
those still standing.
The dágobas, which are by far the most important remains here, are
bell-shaped structures mostly of solid brick, originally built to
enshrine some relic. They might ingeniously be mistaken for ornamental
candle-extinguishers made on a vast scale, and have mostly in their
time been coated with a white plaster and decorated here and there with
gold or brass. Round them have been courts supported on stone columns;
and generally at the four points--North, East, West, and South--have
been placed little shrines with well-cut steps and ornamental
balustrades leading up to them. The interiors of these dágobas--such as
they may have been--have never been accessible except to the priests;
sometimes, no doubt, treasures have been concealed within them, but
for the most part probably they have concealed nothing except the
supposed relic, and have been built to gratify the pride and add to the
popularity of the monarch of the day.
The Thuparama Dágoba, which stands at the northern extremity of
the park-like clearings above mentioned, is supposed by Fergusson
(_Handbook to Architecture_, vol. i., p. 41) to be older than any
monument now existing on the continent of India. It was built by
King Dewanipiatissa in B.C. 307 to enshrine the right collar-bone of
Buddha, and was restored some years ago by the pious, so that one gets
a good idea from it of the general appearance these objects originally
presented. It is white, bell-shaped, and some sixty-five feet high,
with a brass pinnacle on the top; and some elegant columns about
eighteen feet high stand yet in admired disorder in the court below.
In the accompanying illustration the dágoba and surrounding columns
appear some distance in the background, and the stone pillars and steps
in the foreground are the remains of the Dalada Maligawa--a temple
which was built to receive the sacred tooth of Buddha when it was first
brought over to Ceylon from the mainland. Round this tooth battles
raged, and in the struggle for its possession dynasties rose and fell.
The enormous saurian fang, which purports to be the same tooth, is now
preserved in great state in the well-known Buddhist temple at Kandy,
as I have already mentioned. The little figure of a gate-keeper or
_dhworpal_ at the foot of the steps is an excellent specimen of early
Buddhist sculpture, and is very graceful and tender. It is given on a
larger scale in a separate illustration (page 113).
[Illustration: THUPARAMA DÁGOBA, ANURÁDHAPURA.
(_With ruins of Dalada Maligawa in foreground._)]
The Ruanweli (or Gold-dust) Dágoba, which rears its unshapely form
close to the present village, gives one a notion of the massiveness
of these ancient structures, and at the same time of the ravages
which lapse of years has wrought upon them. In outline it resembles
a gigantic but ill-made circular haystack, 150 feet high. All the
upper part of it is covered with thick grass, except where recent
lapses have exposed the close yet rather soft brickwork of which the
whole is compacted. The more accessible lower parts and surrounding
terraces have lately been cleaned of undergrowth; and at the foot,
among some well-executed carvings, stand four or five fine statues,
about eight feet high--one of King Dutugemunu who is said to have begun
the building about B.C. 161, the others apparently of Buddha, and all
dignified and noble in conception, if not anatomically perfect in
execution.
But the dágobas which best show the gradual effacement of human
handiwork by Nature are the Jetawanarama and the Abhayagiria, both of
which stand some distance out in the woods, and tower above the foliage
to the heights of 250 feet and 300 feet respectively. The former of
these (see plate at beginning of this chapter) presents a vast cone of
brickwork some 200 feet high, surmounted by a cylindrical column of the
same; and the conical portion is simply overgrown by dense masses of
trees, which inserting their roots into the crevices of the bricks are
continually dislodging portions of this artificial mountain. Cactuses,
varieties of fig, and other trees climb to the very base of the column,
and here, where the brickwork is too steep to be covered with foliage,
the omnipresent _wanderoo_ monkey may be seen disporting itself on the
very summit.
The Abhayagiria is of similar shape, but only covered at present with
a shrub-like growth. Originally it was the largest dágoba in Ceylon,
being 405 feet high--or as high as S. Paul’s--but time has reduced it
to somewhere about 300 feet. A rather precipitous path leads from the
base to the summit, which has recently been restored in some fashion,
and from thence a fine view may be obtained.
As you roam through the woods by jungle paths, or along the two or
three roads which have been made in late years to open up the ruins,
you come upon innumerable smaller remains. Most frequent among these
are groups of columns still standing, twenty or thirty together,
sometimes only rough-hewn, sometimes elegantly shaped, with carven
capitals, which either formed the foundation storeys of wooden
buildings, or being themselves covered with roofs constituted porticos
for the resting-places of the gods in their processions, or habitations
for the use of the priests. There are very few remains of walled
buildings, stone or brick, but plentiful foundation outlines of what
may have been public or sacred enclosures of one kind or another--some
with handsome flights of steps and balustrades leading up to them, and
for the lowest step the frequent half-moon stone carved with elegant
devices of the elephant, the lion, the horse, the brahman bull, the
goose, and the lotus-flower. Here among the tangle is a flight of
half-a-dozen steps, springing from nowhere and apparently leading
nowhither. There is a gigantic stone trough, sixty-two feet long by
four feet four inches wide, over which the learned are in doubt whether
it was used to contain food for the royal elephants or boiled rice for
the priests! Here at any rate is a cistern ten feet long by five wide,
elegantly carved out of a single block of granite, which, tradition
says, served for the priests’ rice-dish; and which only a few years ago
was, by the subscription of a neighboring country side, filled full of
food (see S. M. Burrows’ _Buried Cities of Ceylon_; London, Trübner
& Co., 1885) for the pilgrims of the June full moon. There again is
one of the numerous flat slabs which may be found, bearing an ancient
inscription on its face; and in almost every direction are solid stone
swimming baths or tanks, ten, twenty, or thirty yards up to (in one
case) fully 100 yards in length. Two of these _pókunas_, so-called--the
twin pókunas--stand near the northern circular road, and are still in
good preservation; the one given in the illustration on next page is
forty-four yards long, the other about thirty, and both have handsome
flights of steps at each end by which to descend to the water, and
step-like tiers of stonework round the sides. They were of course not
covered, but open to the sun and air.
[Illustration: A RUINED BATHING TANK, ANURÁDHAPURA.]
As you go along the road after leaving these tanks, at a turn you
suddenly come upon a seated image of Buddha--by the wayside, under
the trees. The figure is about seven feet high as it sits. It is of
dark-colored granite, and though slightly defaced is still by far the
best thing of its kind in the place. Most of the images of Buddha
in the present temples of Ceylon are painfully crude productions;
but this has caught something of the grace of the great Guru. The
eyelids are just shut, yet so slightly as to suggest that the figure
is not lost in the ordinary material sleep, but only in that luminous
slumber which, while closing itself to the outward and transitory
world, opens on the eternal and steadfast consciousness behind. A deep
calm overspreads the face--so deep that it insensibly affects the
passerby. He involuntarily stops and gazes, surrendering himself to its
influence, and to that of the silent forest. His thoughts subside, like
waves on water when the wind ceases. He too for a moment touches the
well-spring of being--he swims into identity with the universe; the
trees flicker in the evening light, the Buddha just gives the slightest
nod, as much as to say, “That’s it”; and then--he is but stone again,
and the road stretches beyond.
Curious that one man should so affect the world that he should leave
his bo-trees and his dágobas and his images in thousands over half
a continent; that he should gather vast cities round his name, and
still, when they have perished and passed away, should remain the most
glorious thing connected with them; yet Buddha could not have had this
ascendancy had not other people in their thousands and hundreds of
thousands experienced in greater or less degree the same facts that
he experienced. We must forgive, after all, the dirty yellow-robed
priests, with their greedy claws and stinking shrines. It was Buddha’s
fault, not theirs, when he explored poor human nature so deeply as to
invest even its lowest manifestations with sanctity.
Where this image now sits perhaps once it looked down upon the busy
turmoil of a great street. The glories of the capital of the Cinghalese
kingdom unrolled before and beneath it. Hear how the chronicler of the
seventh century (quoted by Emerson Tennent) describes--with justifiable
pride--the splendor of the city in his day: “The temples and palaces
whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky, the streets spanned by
arches bearing flags, the ways strewn with sand, and on either side
vessels containing flowers, and niches with statues holding lamps. Here
are multitudes of men armed with swords and bows and arrows. Elephants,
horses, carts, and myriads of people pass and repass--jugglers,
dancers, and musicians of all nations, with chank shells and other
instruments ornamented with gold. The distance from the principal
gate to the east gate is four gows, and the same from the north to
the south gate. The principal streets are Moon Street, Great King
Street, Hinguruwak, and Mahawelli Street--the first containing 11,000
houses, many of them two storeys in height. The smaller streets are
innumerable. The palace has large ranges of buildings, some of them two
and three storeys high, and its subterranean apartments are of great
extent.”
Fa Hian, the Chinese traveler, who visited Ceylon about 413 A.D.,
also says: “The city is the residence of many magistrates, grandees,
and foreign merchants; the mansions beautiful, the public buildings
richly adorned, the streets and highways straight and level, and houses
for preaching built at every thoroughfare.” Nor was the civilisation
of Anurádhapura merely material in its scope, for Tennent tells us
that beside public gardens and baths, halls for music and dancing,
rest-houses for travelers, almshouses, etc., they had hospitals in
which _animals_ as well as men were tenderly cared for. “The corn of
a thousand fields was set apart by one king for their use; another
put aside rice to feed the squirrels which frequented his gardens;
and a third displayed his surgical skill in treating the diseases of
elephants, horses, and snakes.”
Founded by Cinghalese invaders of the island somewhere in the fifth
or sixth centuries B.C., the city attained its first splendor under
King Dewanipiatissa, who came to the throne in B.C. 306. “It was in
his reign,” says Burrows, “that the royal missionary Mahindo, son of
the Indian king Dharmasoka, landed in Ceylon, and either introduced
or regenerated Buddhism. The monarch and all his court, his consort
and her women, became ready converts to the new tenets; the arrival
of Mahindo’s sister, Sanghamitta, with a branch of the identical tree
under which Gautama obtained Buddha-hood, consummated the conversion of
the island; and the king devoted the rest of his reign to the erection
of enormous monuments, rock-temples, and monasteries, to mark his zeal
for the new faith.”
After him troubles began. The Tamils of Southern India--whose history
has been for so long entangled with that of the Cinghalese--or some
branch of the race, attracted probably by the wealth of the new city,
landed in Ceylon about 200 B.C. And from that time forward the history
of Anurádhapura is the record of continual conflict between the races.
There was a second great invasion in B.C. 104, and a third about A.D.
106, in which the Tamils are said to have carried back to the mainland
12,000 Cinghalese captives, as well as great quantities of treasure.
But the peaceful quiet-loving Cinghalese, whose chief talents lay in
the direction of agricultural pursuits and the construction of those
enormous tanks and irrigation works which still form one of the most
remarkable features of the country, were no match in the arts of wars
for the enterprising genius of the Tamils. The latter gradually pushed
their way in more and more, dissensions between the two peoples more
and more disorganised the city, till at last, for some reason not
very clearly explained, in A.D. 769 the then king (Aggrabodhi IV.)
evacuated his capital and established himself at Pollanarua, now also a
buried city of the jungle.
From that time, it may be supposed, Anurádhapura rapidly dwindled away;
the streets were no more filled with gay crowds, the slight habitations
of the populace soon fell to pieces, leaving no trace behind (except
a soil impregnated for miles and miles with the _débris_ of bricks);
the stone palaces and temples lapsed into decay. And now Buddha sits
in the silence of the forest, folded in the ancient calm, just as he
sat centuries and centuries ago in the tumult and roar of the city;
night falls, and the elephant and the bear roam past him through the
brushwood, the herds of spotted deer are startled for a moment by his
lonely form in the moonlight.
If one ascends the Abhayagiria dágoba, from its vantage height of
300 feet he has a good bird’s-eye view of the region. Before him to
the west and north stretches as far as the eye can see a level plain
almost unbroken by hills. This plain is covered, except for a few
reservoirs and an occasional but rare oasis of coco-nut palm, by dense
woods. On all sides they stretch, like a uniform grey-green carpet
over the earth; even the present village of Anurádhapura hardly makes
a break,--so small is it, and interspersed with trees. Through these
woods run narrow jungle paths, and among them, scattered at intervals
for miles and miles, are ruins similar to those I have described. And
this is all that is left to-day of the ancient city.
[Illustration: SMALL GUARDIAN FIGURE, OR DHWORPAL.
(_At entrance to Dalada Maligawa._)]
I suppose the temptation to make moral reflections on such subjects
is very strong! For myself I can only say that I have walked through
these and other such scenes with a sense of unfeigned gratitude that
they belong to a past which is dead and done with. That Time sweeps all
these efforts of mortality (and our own as well) in due course into his
dustbin is a matter for which we can never be sufficiently thankful.
Think, if all the monuments of human pride and folly which have been
created were to endure indefinitely,--if even our own best and most
useful works were to remain, cumbering up the earth with their very
multitude, what a nuisance it would be! The great kings caused glorious
palaces and statues and temples to be made, thinking to outvie all
former and paralyse all future efforts of mankind, perpetuating their
names to the end of the years. But Time, wiser, quickly removed all
these things as soon as their authors were decently out of the way,
leaving us just as much of them as is sufficient to convey the ideas
which underlay them, and no more. As a vast dágoba, containing bricks
enough to build a good-sized town of, is erected to enshrine a single
hair from the head of a great man, so the glorious temples and statues
and pictures and palaces of a whole epoch, all put together, do but
enshrine a tiny atom of the eternal beauty. Let them deliver that, and
go their way.
What a good thing even that our bodies die! How thankful we ought to
be that they are duly interred and done with in course of time. Fancy
if we were condemned always to go on in the same identical forms,
each of us, repeating the same ancient jokes, making the same wise
remarks, priding ourselves on the same superiorities over our fellows,
enduring the same insults from them, wearing the same fusty garments,
ever getting raggeder and raggeder through the centuries--what a fate!
No; let us know there is something better than that. These swarms of
idle priests who ate rice out of troughs at the public expense; these
endless mumbo-jumbo books that they wrote; these mighty kings with
their royal finery, their harlots, and their insane battles; these
animal hospitals; these ruins of great cities lost in thickets; these
Alexandrian libraries burnt to ashes; these Greek statues broken and
buried in the earth--all that is really durable in them has endured and
will endure, the rest is surely well out of the way.
Certainly, as one jogs through the mortal hours of the night in that
said mail-cart, returning the forty-two miles from Anurádhapura to
Dambulla (where one meets with the nearest horse coach), wedged in
with five or six other passengers, and trying in vain to find a place
for one’s feet amid the compacted mass of baggage that occupies the
bottom of the cart, or to avoid the side-rails and rods that impinge
upon one’s back and head--kept well awake by the continual jingling of
bells and the yells and thwacks of the driver, as he urges his active
little brahminy bulls through the darkness, or stopping to change team
at wayside cabins where long conversations ensue, between dusky figures
bearing lamps, on the state of the road and the probabilities of an
encounter with the rogue-elephant who is supposed to haunt it--all
those twelve long hours one has ample time to make suitable reflections
of some kind or other on the transitory and ineffectual nature of our
little human endeavor.
CHAPTER VII.
A NIGHT-FESTIVAL IN A HINDU TEMPLE.
The festival of Taypusam is one of the more important among the many
religious festivals of the Hindus, and is celebrated with great
rejoicings on the night of the first full moon in January each year.
In the case of the great temples of Southern India, some of which are
so vast that their enclosures are more than a mile in circumference,
enormous crowds--sometimes 20,000 people or more--will congregate
together to witness the ceremonials, which are elaborately gorgeous.
There are a few Hindu temples of smaller size in Ceylon, and into one
of these I had the good fortune to be admitted, on the occasion of this
year’s festival (1891), and at the time when the proceedings were about
to commence.
It was nine o’clock, the full moon was shining in the sky, and already
the blaring of trumpets and horns could be heard from within as I
stood at the gate seeking admittance. At first this was positively
denied; but my companion, who was a person, of some authority in the
temple, soon effected an entrance, and we presently stood within the
precincts. It must be understood that these temples generally consist
of a large oblong enclosure, more or less planted with palms and other
trees, within which stands the sanctuary itself, with lesser shrines,
priests’ dwellings and other buildings grouped round it. In the present
case the enclosure was about one hundred yards long by sixty or seventy
wide, with short grass under foot. In the centre stood the temple
proper--a building without any pretensions to architectural form, a
mere oblong, bounded by a wall ten or twelve feet high; unbroken by any
windows, and rudely painted in vertical stripes, red and white. At the
far end, under trees, were some low priests’ cottages; and farther on a
tank or reservoir, not very large, with a stone balustrade around it.
Coming round to the front of the temple, which was more ornamented, and
where the main doorway or entrance was, we found there a considerable
crowd assembled. We were in fact just in time to witness the beginning
of the ceremony; for almost immediately a lot of folk came rushing
out through the doorway of the temple in evident excitement; torches
were lighted, consisting of long poles, some surmounted with a flaming
ring of rags dipped in coco-nut oil, others with a small iron crate in
which lumps of broken coco-nut burned merrily. In a few moments there
was a brilliant light; the people arranged themselves in two lines
from the temple door; sounds of music from within got louder; and a
small procession appeared, musicians first, then four nautch girls, and
lastly a small platform supported on the shoulders of men, on which was
the great god Siva.
At first I could not make out what this last-named object was, but
presently distinguished two rude representations of male and female
figures, Siva and his consort Sakti, apparently cut out of one block,
seated, and about three feet high, but so bedone with jewels and silks
that it was difficult to be sure of their anatomy! Over them was held
a big ornamental umbrella, and behind followed the priest. We joined
the procession, and soon arrived at the edge of the reservoir which I
have already mentioned, and on which was floating a strange kind of
ship. It was a raft made of bamboos lashed to empty barrels, and on it
a most florid and brilliant canopy, covered with cloths of different
colors and surmounted by little scarlet pennants. A flight of steps
down to the water occupied the whole of one side of the tank, the other
three sides were surrounded by the stone balcony, and on these steps
and round the balcony the crowd immediately disposed itself, while the
procession went on board. When the god was properly arranged under his
canopy, and the nautch girls round about him, and when room had been
found for the crew, who with long poles were to propel the vessel, and
for as many musicians as convenient--about a dozen souls in all--a bell
rang, and the priest, a brown-bodied young Brahman with the sacred
thread over his shoulders and a white cloth edged with red round his
loins, made an offering of flame of camphor in a five-branched lamp. A
hush fell upon the crowd, who all held their hands, palms together, as
in the attitude of prayer (but also symbol of the desire to be joined
together and to the god)--some with their arms high above their heads;
a tray was placed on the raft, of coco-nuts and bananas which the
priest opening deposited before the image; the band burst forth into
renewed uproar, and the ship went gyrating over the water on her queer
voyage.
[Illustration: TAMIL MAN.]
What a scene! I had now time to look around a little. All round
the little lake, thronging the steps and the sides in the great
glare of the torches, were hundreds of men and boys, barebodied,
barehead and barefoot, but with white loin-cloths--all in a state of
great excitement--not religious so much as spectacular, as at the
commencement of a theatrical performance, myself and companion about
the only persons clothed,--except that in a corner and forming a pretty
mass of color were a few women and girls, of the poorer class of
Tamils, but brightly dressed, with nose-rings and ear-rings profusely
ornamented. On the water, brilliant in scarlet and gold and blue,
was floating the sacred canopy, surrounded by musicians yelling on
their various horns, in the front of which--with the priest standing
between them--sat two little naked boys holding small torches; while
overhead through the leaves of plentiful coco-nut and banana palms
overhanging the tank, in the dim blue sky among gorgeous cloud-outlines
just discernible, shone the goddess of night, the cause of all this
commotion.
Such a blowing up of trumpets in the full moon! For the first time
I gathered some clear idea of what the ancient festivals were like.
Here was a boy blowing two pipes at the same time, exactly as in the
Greek bas-reliefs. There was a man droning a deep bourdon on a reed
instrument, with cheeks puffed into pouches with long-sustained effort
of blowing; to him was attached a shrill flageolet player--the two
together giving much the effect of Highland bagpipes. Then there were
the tomtoms, whose stretched skins produce quite musical and bell-like
though monotonous sounds; and lastly two old men jingling cymbals and
at the same time blowing their terrible chank-horns or conches. These
chanks are much used in Buddhist and Hindu temples. They are large
whorled sea-shells of the whelk shape, such as sometimes ornament our
mantels. The apex of the spiral is cut away and a mouthpiece cemented
in its place, through which the instrument can be blown like a horn.
If then the fingers be used to partly cover and vary the mouth of the
shell, and at the same time the shell be vibrated to and fro in the
air--what with its natural convolutions and these added complications,
the most ear-rending and diabolically wavy bewildering and hollow
sounds can be produced, such as might surely infect the most callous
worshiper with a proper faith in the supernatural.
The temper of the crowd too helped one to understand the old religious
attitude. It was thoroughly _whole-hearted_--I cannot think of any
other word. There was no piety--in our sense of the word--or very
little, observable. They were just thoroughly enjoying themselves--a
little excited no doubt by chanks and divine possibilities generally,
but not subdued by awe; talking freely to each other in low tones,
or even indulging occasionally--the younger ones--in a little
bear-fighting; at the same time proud of the spectacle and the
presence of the divinity, heart and soul in the ceremony, and anxious
to lend hands as torch-bearers or image-bearers, or in any way, to
its successful issue. It is this temper which the wise men say is
encouraged and purposely cultivated by the ceremonial institutions of
Hinduism. The temple services are made to cover, as far as may be, the
whole ground of life, and to provide the pleasures of the theatre,
the art-gallery, the music hall and the concert-room in one. People
attracted by these spectacles--which are very numerous and very varied
in character, according to the different feasts--presently remain to
inquire into their meaning. Some like the music, others the bright
colors. Many men come at first merely to witness the dancing of the
nautch girls, but afterwards and insensibly are drawn into spheres of
more spiritual influence. Even the children find plenty to attract
them, and the temple becomes their familiar resort from early life.
The theory is that all the ceremonies have inner and mystic
meanings--which meanings in due time are declared to those who are
fit--and that thus the temple institutions and ceremonies constitute
a great ladder by which men can rise at last to those inner truths
which lie beyond all formulas and are contained in no creed. Such is
the theory, but like all theories it requires large deductions before
acceptance. That such theory was one of the formative influences of the
Hindu ceremonial, and that the latter embodies here and there important
esoteric truths descending from Vedic times, I hardly doubt; but on the
other hand, time, custom and neglect, different streams of tradition
blending and blurring each other, reforms and a thousand influences
have--as in all such cases--produced a total concrete result which no
one theory can account for or coordinate.
Such were some of my thoughts as I watched the crowd around me.
They too were not uninterested in watching me. The appearance of an
Englishman under such circumstances was perhaps a little unusual
and scores of black eyes were turned inquiringly in my direction;
but covered as I was by the authority of my companion no one seemed
to resent my presence. A few I thought looked shocked, but the most
seemed rather pleased, as if proud that a spectacle so brilliant and
impressive should be witnessed by a stranger--besides there were two
or three among the crowd whom I happened to have met before and spoken
with, and whose friendly glances made me feel at home.
Meanwhile the gyrating raft had completed two or three voyages round
the little piece of water. Each time it returned to the shore fresh
offerings were made to the god, the bell was rung again, a moment of
hushed adoration followed, and then with fresh strains of mystic music
a new start for the deep took place. What the inner signification of
these voyages might be I had not and have not the faintest idea; it
is possible even that no one present knew. At the same time I do not
doubt that the drama was originally instituted in order to commemorate
some actual event or to symbolise some doctrine. On each voyage a hymn
was sung or recited. On the first voyage the Brahman priest declaimed
a hymn from the Vedas--a hymn that may have been written 3,000 years
ago--nor was there anything in the whole scene which appeared to me
discordant with the notion that the clock had been put back 3,000
years (though of course the actual new departure in the Brahmanical
rites which we call Hinduism does not date back anything like so far
as that). On the second voyage a Tamil hymn was sung by one of the
youths trained in the temples for this purpose; and on the third voyage
another Tamil hymn, with interludes of the most ecstatic caterwauling
from chanks and bagpipes! The remainder of the voyages I did not
witness, as my conductor now took me to visit the interior of the
temple.
That is, as far as it was permissible to penetrate. For the Brahman
priests who regulate these things, with far-sighted policy make it one
of their most stringent rules that the laity shall not have access
beyond a short distance into the temple, and heathen like myself are
of course confined to the mere forecourts. Thus the people feel more
awe and sanctity with regard to the holy place itself and the priests
who fearlessly tread within than they do with regard to anything else
connected with their religion.
Having passed the porch, we found ourselves in a kind of entrance hall
with one or two rows of columns supporting a flat wooden roof--the
walls adorned with the usual rude paintings of various events in Siva’s
earthly career. On the right was a kind of shrine with a dancing figure
of the god in relief--the perpetual dance of creation; but unlike
some of the larger temples, in which there is often most elaborate
and costly stonework, everything here was of the plainest, and there
was hardly anything in the way of sculpture to be seen. Out of this
forecourt opened a succession of chambers into which one might not
enter; but the dwindling lights placed in each served to show distance
after distance. In the extreme chamber farthest removed from the
door, by which alone daylight enters--the rest of the interior being
illumined night and day with artificial lights--is placed, surrounded
by lamps, the most sacred object, the lingam. This of course was
too far off to be discerned--and indeed it is, except on occasions,
kept covered--but it appears that instead of being a rude image of
the male organ (such as is frequently seen in the outer courts of
these temples), the thing is a certain white stone, blue-veined and
of an egg-shape, which is mysteriously fished up--if the gods so
will it--from the depths of the river Nerbudda, and only thence. It
stands in the temple in the hollow of another oval-shaped object which
represents the female _yoni_; and the two together, embleming Siva and
Sakti, stand for the sexual energy which pervades creation.
Thus the worship of sex is found to lie at the root of the present
Hinduism, as it does at the root of nearly all the primitive religions
of the world. Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that such worship
is a mere deification of material functions. Whenever it may have been
that the Vedic prophets descending from Northern lands into India
first discovered within themselves that capacity of spiritual ecstasy
which has made them even down to to-day one of the greatest religious
forces in the world, it is certain that they found (as indeed many of
the mediæval Christian seers at a later time also found) that this
ecstasy had a certain similarity to the sexual rapture. In their hands
therefore the rude, phallic worships, which their predecessors had with
true instinct celebrated, came to have a new meaning; and sex itself,
the most important of earthly functions, came to derive an even greater
importance from its relation to the one supreme and heavenly fact, that
of the soul’s union with God.
In the middle line of all Hindu temples, between the lingam and the
door, are placed two other very sacred objects--the couchant bull Nandi
and an upright ornamented pole, the Kampam, or as it is sometimes
called, the flagstaff. In this case the bull was about four feet in
length, carved in one block of stone, which from continual anointing by
pious worshipers had become quite black and lustrous on the surface.
In the great temple at Tanjore there is a bull twenty feet long cut
from a single block of syenite, and similar bull-images are to be found
in great numbers in these temples, and of all sizes down to a foot
in length, and in any accessible situation are sure to be black and
shining with oil. In Tamil the word _pasu_ signifies both _ox_--_i.e._
the domesticated ox--and the _soul_. Siva is frequently represented
as riding on a bull; and the animal represents the human soul which
has become subject and affiliated to the god. As to the flagstaff, it
was very plain, and appeared to be merely a wooden pole nine inches
or so thick, slightly ornamented, and painted a dull red color. In
the well-known temple at Mádura the kampam is made of teak plated
with gold, and is encircled with certain rings at intervals, and at
the top three horizontal arms project, with little bell-like tassels
hanging from them. This curious object has, it is said, a physiological
meaning, and represents a nerve which passes up the median line of the
body from the genital organs to the brain (? the great sympathetic).
Indeed the whole disposition of the parts in these temples is supposed
(as of course also in the Christian Churches) to represent the human
body, and so also the universe of which the human body is only the
miniature. I do not feel myself in a position however to judge how far
these correspondences are exact. The inner chambers in this particular
temple were, as far as I could see, very plain and unornamented.
On coming out again into the open space in front of the porch, my
attention was directed to some low buildings which formed the priests’
quarters. Two priests were attached to the temple, and a separate
cottage was intended for any traveling priest or lay benefactor who
might want accommodation within the precincts.
And now the second act of the sacred drama was commencing. The god,
having performed a sufficient number of excursions on the tank,
was being carried back with ceremony to the space in front of the
porch--where for some time had been standing, on portable platforms
made of poles, three strange animal figures of more than life-size--a
bull, a peacock, and a black creature somewhat resembling a hog, but
I do not know what it was meant for. On the back of the bull, which
was evidently itself in an amatory and excited mood, Siva and Sakti
were placed; on the hog-like animal was mounted another bejewelled
figure--that of Ganésa, Siva’s son; and on the peacock again the figure
of his other son, Soubramánya. Camphor flame was again offered, and
then a lot of stalwart and enthusiastic worshipers seized the poles,
and mounting the platforms on their shoulders set themselves to form
a procession round the temple on the grassy space between it and the
outer wall. The musicians as usual went first, then came the dancing
girls, and then after an interval of twenty or thirty yards the three
animals abreast of each other on their platforms, and bearing their
respective gods upon their backs. At this point we mingled with the
crowd and were lost among the worshipers. And now again I was reminded
of representations of antique religious processions. The people, going
in front or following behind, or partly filling the space in front of
the gods--though leaving a lane clear in the middle--were evidently
getting elated and excited. They swayed their arms, took hands or
rested them on each other’s bodies, and danced rather than walked
along; sometimes their shouts mixed with the music; the tall torches
swayed to and fro, flaring to the sky and distilling burning drops on
naked backs in a way which did not lessen the excitement; the smell of
hot coco-nut oil mingling with that of humanity made the air sultry;
and the great leaves of bananas and other palms leaning over and
glistening with the double lights of moon and torch flames gave a weird
and tropical beauty to the scene.[2] In this rampant way the procession
moved for a few yards, the men wrestling and sweating under the weight
of the god-images, which according to orthodox ideas are always made
of an alloy of the five metals known to the ancients--an alloy called
_panchaloka_--and are certainly immensely heavy; and then it came to a
stop. The bearers rested their poles on strong crutches carried for the
purpose, and while they took breath the turn of the nautch girls came.
[2] Mrs. Speir, in her _Life in Ancient India_, p. 374, says
that we first hear of Siva worship about B.C. 300, and that
it is described by Megasthenes as “celebrated in tumultuous
festivals, the worshippers anointing their bodies, wearing
crowns of flowers, and sounding bells and cymbals. From
which,” she adds, “the Greeks conjectured that Siva worship
was derived from Bacchus or Dionysos, and carried to the
East in the traditionary expedition which Bacchus made in
company with Hercules.”
[Illustration: NAUTCH GIRL.]
Most people are sufficiently familiar now-a-days, through Oriental
exhibitions and the like, with the dress and bearing of these
Devadásis, or servants of God. “They sweep the temple,” says the author
of _Life in an Indian Village_, “ornament the floor with quaint figures
drawn in rice flour, hold the sacred light before the god, fan him,
and dance and sing when required.” “In the village of Kélambakam,” he
continues, “there are two dancing girls, Kanakambujam and Minakshi. K.
is the concubine of a neighboring Mudelliar, and M. of Appalacharri the
Brahman. But their services can be obtained by others.” I will describe
the dress of one of the four present on this occasion. She had on a
dark velveteen tunic with quite short gold-edged sleeves, the tunic
almost concealed from view by a very handsome scarf or _sari_ such
as the Indian women wear. This sari, made of crimson silk profusely
ornamented with gold thread, was passed over one shoulder, and having
been wound twice or thrice round the waist was made to hang down like a
petticoat to a little below the knee. Below this appeared silk leggings
of an orange color; and heavy silver anklets crowned the naked feet.
Handsome gold bangles were on her arms (silver being usually worn below
the waist and gold above), jewels and bell-shaped pendants in her
nose and ears, and on her head rose-colored flowers pinned with gold
brooches and profusely inwoven with the plaited black hair that hung
down her back. The others with variations in color had much the same
costume.
To describe their faces is difficult. I think I seldom saw any so
inanimately sad. It is part of the teaching of Indian women that they
should never give way to the expression of feeling, or to any kind of
excitement of manner, and this in the case of better types leads to a
remarkable dignity and composure of bearing, such as is comparatively
rare in the West, but in more stolid and ignorant sorts produces a
most apathetic and bovine mien. In the case of these nautch women
circumstances are complicated by the prostitution which seems to be the
inevitable accompaniment of their profession. One might indeed think
that it was distinctly a _part_ of their profession--as women attached
to the service of temples whose central idea is that of sex--but some
of my Hindu friends assure me that this is not so: that they live
where they like, that their dealings with the other sex are entirely
their own affair, and are not regulated or recognised in any way by
the temple authorities, and that it is only, so to speak, an accident
that these girls enter into commercial relations with men--generally,
it is admitted, with the wealthier of those who attend the services--an
accident of course quite likely to occur, since they are presumably
good-looking, and are early forced into publicity and out of the
usual routine of domestic life. All the same, though doubtless these
things are so now, I think it may fairly be supposed that the sexual
services of these nautch girls _were_ at one time a recognised part
of their duty to the temple to which they were attached. Seeing
indeed that so many of the religions of antiquity are known to have
recognised services of this kind, seeing also that Hinduism did at
least incorporate in itself primitive sexual worships, and seeing that
there is no reason to suppose that such practices involved any slur
in primitive times on those concerned in them--rather the reverse--I
think we have at any rate a strong _primâ-facie_ case. It is curious
too that, even to-day, notwithstanding the obvious drawbacks of their
life, these girls are quite recognised and accepted in Hindu families
of high standing and respectability. When marriages take place they
dress the bride, put on her jewels, and themselves act as bridesmaids;
and generally speaking are much referred to as authorities on dress.
Whatever, however, may have been the truth about the exact duties and
position of the Devadásis in old times, the four figuring away there
before their gods that night seemed to me to present but a melancholy
and effete appearance. They were small and even stunted in size, nor
could it be said that any of them were decently good-looking. The face
of the eldest--it was difficult to judge their age, but she might have
been twenty--was the most expressive, but it was thin and exceedingly
weary; the faces of the others were the faces of children who had
ceased to be children, yet to whom experience had brought no added
capacity.
These four waifs of womanhood, then, when the procession stopped,
wheeled round, and facing the god approached him with movements which
bore the remotest resemblance to a dance. Stretching out their right
hands and right feet together (in itself an ungraceful movement) they
made one step forward and to the right; then doing the same with left
hands and feet made a step in advance to the left. After repeating
this two or three times they then, having first brought their finger
points to their shoulders, extended their arms forward towards the
deity, inclining themselves at the same time. This also was repeated,
and then they moved back much as they had advanced. After a few similar
evolutions, sometimes accompanied by chanting, they wheeled round
again, and the procession moved forwards a few yards more. Thus we
halted about half a dozen times before we completed the circuit of the
temple, and each time had a similar performance.
On coming round to the porch what might be called the third act
commenced. The platform of the bull and the god Siva was--not without
struggles--lowered to the ground so as to face the porch, the other
two gods being kept in the background; and then the four girls, going
into the temple and bringing forth little oil-lamps, walked in
single file round the image, followed by the musicians also in single
file. These latter had all through the performance kept up an almost
continuous blowing; and their veined knotted faces and distended cheeks
bore witness to the effort, not to mention the state of our own ears!
It must however in justice be said that the drone, the flageolet,
and the trumpets were tuned to the same key-note, and their combined
music alone would not have been bad; but a chank-shell can no more be
tuned than a zebra can be tamed, and when _two_ of these instruments
together, blown by two wiry old men obdurately swaying their heads,
were added to the tumult, it seemed not impossible that one might go
giddy and perhaps become _theopneustos_, at any moment.
The show was now evidently culminating. The entry of the musicians into
the temple, where their reverberations were simply appalling, was the
signal for an inrush of the populace. We passed in with the crowd, and
almost immediately Siva, lifted from the bull, followed borne in state
under his parasol. He was placed on a stand in front of the side shrine
in the forecourt already mentioned; and a curtain being drawn before
him, there was a momentary hush and awe. The priest behind the curtain
(whom from our standpoint we could see) now made the final offerings of
fruit, flowers and sandalwood, and lighted the five-branched camphor
lamp for the last time. This burning of camphor is, like other things
in the service, emblematic. The five lights represent the five senses.
As camphor consumes itself and leaves no residue behind, so should the
five senses, being offered to God, consume themselves and disappear.
When this is done, that happens in the soul which was now figured in
the temple service; for as the last of the camphor burned itself away
the veil was swiftly drawn aside--and there stood the image of Siva
revealed in a blaze of light.
The service was now over. The priest distributed the offerings among
the people; the torches were put out; and in a few minutes I was
walking homeward through the streets and wondering if I was really in
the modern world of the 19th century.
A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI
CHAPTER VIII.
A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI.
During my stay in Ceylon I was fortunate enough to make the
acquaintance of one of the esoteric teachers of the ancient religious
mysteries. These Gurus or Adepts are to be found scattered all over
the mainland of India; but they lead a secluded existence, avoiding
the currents of Western civilisation--which are obnoxious to them--and
rarely come into contact with the English or appear on the surface
of ordinary life. They are divided into two great schools, the
Himalayan and South Indian--formed probably, even centuries back,
by the gradual retirement of the adepts into the mountains and
forests of their respective districts before the spread of foreign
races and civilisations over the general continent. The Himalayan
school has carried on the more democratic and progressive Buddhistic
tradition, while the South Indian has kept more to caste, and to the
ancient Brahmanical and later Hindu lines. This separation has led to
divergencies in philosophy, and there are even (so strong is sectional
feeling in all ranges of human activity) slight jealousies between the
adherents of the two schools; but the differences are probably after
all very superficial; in essence their teaching and their work may I
think be said to be the same.
The teacher to whom I allude belongs to the South Indian school,
and was only sojourning for a time in Ceylon. When I first made his
acquaintance he was staying in the precincts of a Hindu temple. Passing
through the garden and the arcade-like porch of the temple with its
rude and grotesque frescoes of the gods--Siva astride the bull,
Sakti, his consort, seated behind him, etc.--we found ourselves in a
side-chamber, where seated on a simple couch, his bed and day-seat in
one, was an elderly man (some seventy years of age, though he did not
look nearly as much as that) dressed only in a white muslin wrapper
wound loosely round his lithe and even active dark brown form: his
head and face shaven a day or two past, very gentle and spiritual
in expression, like the best type of Roman Catholic priest--a very
beautiful full and finely formed mouth, straight nose and well-formed
chin, dark eyes, undoubtedly the eyes of a seer, dark-rimmed eyelids,
and a powerful, prophetic, and withal childlike manner. He soon lapsed
into exposition which he continued for an hour or two with but few
interjections from his auditors.
At a later time he moved into a little cottage where for several
weeks I saw him nearly every day. Every day the same--generally
sitting on his couch, with bare arms and feet, the latter often
coiled under him--only requiring a question to launch off into a long
discourse--fluent, and even rapt, with ready and vivid illustration
and long digressions, but always returning to the point. Though
unfortunately my knowledge of Tamil was so slight that I could not
follow his conversation and had to take advantage of the services of a
friend as interpreter, still it was easy to see what a remarkable vigor
and command of language the fellow had, what power of concentration
on the subject in hand, and what a wealth of reference--especially
citation from ancient authorities--wherewith to illustrate his
discourse.
Everything in the East is different from the West, and so are the
methods of teaching. Teaching in the East is entirely authoritative and
traditional. That is its strong point and also its defect. The pupil
is not expected to ask questions of a sceptical nature or expressive
of doubt; the teacher does not go about to “prove” his thesis to the
pupil, or support it with arguments drawn from the plane of the pupil’s
intelligence; he simply re-delivers to the pupil, in a certain order
and sequence, the doctrines which were delivered to him in his time,
which have been since verified by his own experience, and which he can
illustrate by phrases and metaphors and citations drawn from the sacred
books. He has of course his own way of presenting the whole, but the
body of knowledge which he thus hands down is purely traditional, and
may have come along for thousands of years with little or no change.
Originality plays no part in the teaching of the Indian Sages. The
knowledge which they have to impart is of a kind in which invention is
not required. It purports to be a knowledge of the original fact of
the universe itself--something behind which no man can go. The West
may originate, the West may present new views of the prime fact--the
East only seeks to give to a man that fact itself, the supreme
consciousness, undifferentiated, the key to all that exists.
The Indian teachers therefore say there are as a rule three conditions
of the attainment of Divine knowledge or _gñánam_:--(1) The study of
the sacred books, (2) the help of a Guru, and (3) the verification of
the tradition by one’s own experience. Without this last the others
are of course of no use; and the chief aid of the Guru is directed to
the instruction of the pupil in the methods by which he may attain to
personal experience. The sacred books give the philosophy and some of
the experiences of the _gñáni_ or illuminated person, but they do not,
except in scattered hints, give instruction as to how this illumination
is to be obtained. The truth is, it is a question of evolution; and
it would neither be right that such instruction should be given to
everybody, nor indeed possible, since even in the case of those
prepared for it the methods must differ, according to the idiosyncrasy
and character of the pupil.
There are apparently isolated cases in which individuals attain to
_Gñánam_ through their own spontaneous development, and without
instruction from a Guru, but these are rare. As a rule every man who
is received into the body of Adepts receives his initiation through
another Adept who himself received it from a fore-runner, and the
whole constitutes a kind of church or brotherhood with genealogical
branches so to speak--the line of adepts from which a man descends
being imparted to him on his admission into the fraternity. I need
not say that this resembles the methods of the ancient mysteries and
initiations of classic times; and indeed the Indian teachers claim that
the Greek and Egyptian and other Western schools of arcane lore were
merely branches, more or less degenerate, of their own.
The course of preparation for Gñánam is called _yogam_, and the person
who is going through this stage is called a _yogi_--from the root
_yog_, to join--one who is seeking junction with the universal spirit.
Yogis are common all over India, and exist among all classes and in
various forms. Some emaciate themselves and torture their bodies,
others seek only control over their minds, some retire into the jungles
and mountains, others frequent the cities and exhibit themselves in the
crowded fairs, others again carry on the avocations of daily life with
but little change of outward habit. Some are humbugs, led on by vanity
or greed of gain (for to give to a holy man is highly meritorious);
others are genuine students or philosophers; some are profoundly imbued
with the religious sense, others by mere distaste for the world. The
majority probably take to a wandering life of the body, some become
wandering in mind; a great many attain to phases of clairvoyance and
abnormal power of some kind or other, and a very few become adepts of a
high order.
Anyhow the matter cannot be understood unless it is realised that this
sort of religious retirement is thoroughly accepted and acknowledged
all over India, and excites no surprise or special remark. Only some
five or six years ago the son of the late Rajah of Tanjore--a man
of some forty or fifty years of age, and of course the chief native
personage in that part of India--made up his mind to become a devotee.
He one day told his friends he was going on a railway journey, sent
off his servants and carriages from the palace to the station, saying
he would follow, gave them the slip, and has never been heard of since!
His friends went to the man who was known to have been acting as his
Guru, who simply told them, “You will never find him.” Supposing the
G.O.M. or the Prince of Wales were to retire like this--how odd it
would seem!
To illustrate this subject I may tell the story of Tilleináthan Swámy,
who was the teacher of the Guru whose acquaintance I am referring to
in this chapter. Tilleináthan was a wealthy shipowner of high family.
In 1850 he devoted himself to religious exercises, till 1855, when he
became “emancipated.” After his attainment he felt sick of the world,
and so he wound up his affairs, divided all his goods and money among
relations and dependents, and went off stark naked into the woods. His
mother and sisters were grieved and repeatedly pursued him, offering
to surrender all to him if he would only return. At last he simply
refused to answer their importunities, and they desisted. He appeared
in Tanjore after that in ’57, ’59, ’64 and ’72, but has not been seen
since. He is supposed to be living somewhere in the Western Ghauts.
In ’58 or ’59, at the close of the Indian Mutiny, when search was being
made for Nana Sahib, it was reported that the Nana was hiding himself
under the garb (or no garb) of an “ascetic,” and orders were issued to
detain and examine all such people. Tilleináthan was taken and brought
before the sub-magistrate at Tanjore, who told him the Government
orders, and that he must dress himself properly. At the same time the
sub-magistrate, having a friendly feeling for T. and guessing that he
would refuse obedience, had brought a wealthy merchant with him, whom
he had persuaded to stand bail for Tilleináthan in such emergency. When
however the merchant saw Tilleináthan, he expressed his doubts about
standing bail for him--whereupon T. said, “Quite right, it is no good
your standing bail for me; the English Government itself could not
stand bail for one who creates and destroys Governments. I will be bail
for myself.” The sub-magistrate then let him go.
But on the matter being reported at head-quarters the sub. was
reprimanded, and a force, consisting of an inspector and ten men
(natives of course), was sent to take Tilleináthan. He at first refused
and threatened them, but on the inspector pleading that he would
be dismissed if he returned with empty hands T. consented to come
“in order to save the inspector.” They came into full court--as it
happened--before the collector (Morris), who immediately reprimanded T.
for his mad costume! “It is you that are mad,” said the latter, “not
to know that this is my right costume,”--and he proceeded to explain
the four degrees of Hindu probation and emancipation. (These are, of
course, the four stages of student, householder, yogi and gñáni. Every
one who becomes a gñáni must pass through the other three stages. Each
stage has its appropriate costume and rules; the yogi wears a yellow
garment; the gñáni is emancipated from clothing, as well as from all
other troubles.)
Finally T. again told the collector that he was a fool, and that he
T. would punish him. “What will you do?” said the collector. “If you
don’t do justice I will burn you,” was the reply! At this the mass of
the people in court trembled, believing no doubt implicitly in T.’s
power to fulfil his threat. The collector however told the inspector to
read the Lunacy Act to Tilleináthan, but the inspector’s hand shook so
that he could hardly see the words--till T. said, “Do not be afraid--I
will explain it to you.” He then gave a somewhat detailed account of
the Act, pointed out to the collector that it did not apply to his
own case, and ended by telling him once more that he was a fool. The
collector then let him go!
Afterwards Morris--having been blamed for letting the man go--and
Beauchamp (judge), who had been rather impressed already by T.’s
personality, went together and with an escort to the house in Tanjore
in which Tilleináthan was then staying--with an undefined intention,
apparently, of arresting him. T. then asked them if they thought he was
under their Government--to which the Englishmen replied that they were
not there to argue philosophy but to enforce the law. T. asked how they
would enforce it. “We have cannons and men behind us,” said Morris.
“And I,” said T., “can also bring cannons and forces greater than
yours.” They then left him again, and he was no more troubled.
This story is a little disappointing in that no miracles come off, but
I tell it as it was told to me by the Guru, and my friend A. having
heard it substantially the same from other and independent witnesses
at Tanjore it may be taken as giving a fairly correct idea of the
kind of thing that occasionally happens. No doubt the collector would
look upon Tilleináthan as a “luny”--and from other stories I have
heard of him (his utter obliviousness of ordinary conventionalities
and proprieties, that he would lie down to sleep in the middle of the
street to the great inconvenience of traffic, that he would sometimes
keep on repeating a single vacant phrase over and over again for half a
day, etc.), such an opinion might, I should say, fairly be justified.
Yet at the same time there is no doubt he was a very remarkable man,
and the deep reverence with which our friend the Guru spoke of him was
obviously not accorded merely to the abnormal powers which he seems
at times to have manifested, but to the profundity and breadth of his
teaching and the personal grandeur which prevailed through all his
eccentricities.
It was a common and apparently instinctive practice with him to speak
of the great operations of Nature, the thunder, the wind, the shining
of the sun, etc., in the first person, “I”--the identification with, or
non-differentiation from the universe (which is the most important of
esoteric doctrines) being in his case complete. So also the democratic
character of his teaching surpassed even our Western records. He would
take a pariah dog--the most scorned of creatures--and place it round
his neck (compare the pictures of Christ with a lamb in the same
attitude), or even let it eat out of one plate with himself! One day,
in Tanjore, when importuned for instruction by five or six disciples,
he rose up and saying, “Follow me,” went through the streets to the
edge of a brook which divided the pariah village from the town--a line
which no Hindu of caste will ever cross--and stepping over the brook
bade them enter the defiled ground. This ordeal however his followers
could not endure, and--except one--they all left him.
Tilleináthan’s pupil, the teacher of whom I am presently speaking, is
married and has a wife and children. Most of these “ascetics” think
nothing of abandoning their families when the call comes to them, and
of going to the woods perhaps never to be seen again. He however has
not done this, but lives on quietly at home at Tanjore. Thirty or forty
years ago he was a kind of confidential friend and adviser to the then
reigning prince of Tanjore, and was well up in traditional state-craft
and politics; and even only two or three years ago took quite an active
interest in the National Indian Congress. His own name was Ramaswámy,
but he acquired the name Elúkhanam, “the Grammarian,” on account of his
proficiency in Tamil grammar and philosophy, on which subject he was
quite an authority, even before his initiation.
Tamil is a very remarkable, and indeed complex language--rivaling the
Sanskrit in the latter respect. It belongs to the Dravidian group, and
has few Aryan roots in it except what have been borrowed from Sanskrit.
It contains however an extraordinary number of philosophical terms, of
which some are Sanskrit in their origin, but many are entirely its own;
and like the people it forms a strange blend of practical qualities
with the most inveterate occultism. “Tamil,” says the author of an
article in the _Theosophist_ for November, ’90, “is one of the oldest
languages of India, if not of the world. Its birth and infancy are
enveloped in mythology. As in the case of Sanskrit, we cannot say when
Tamil became a literary language. The oldest Tamil works extant belong
to a time, about 2,000 years ago, of high and cultured refinement in
Tamil poetic literature. All the religious and philosophical poetry
of Sanskrit has become fused into Tamil, which language contains a
larger number of popular treatises in Occultism, Alchemy, etc., than
even Sanskrit; and it is now the only spoken language of India that
abounds in occult treatises on various subjects.” Going on to speak
of the Tamil Adepts, the author of this article says: “The popular
belief is that there were eighteen brotherhoods of Adepts scattered
here and there, in the mountains and forests of the Tamil country, and
presided over by eighteen Sadhoos; and that there was a grand secret
brotherhood composed of the eighteen Sadhoos, holding its meetings in
the hills of the Agasthya Kútam in the Tinnevelly district. Since the
advent of the English and their mountaineering and deforestation, these
occultists have retired far into the interior of the thick jungles on
the mountains; and a large number have, it is believed, altogether left
these parts for more congenial places in the Himalayan ranges. It is
owing to their influence that the Tamil language has been inundated,
as it were, with a vast number of works on esoteric philosophy. The
works of Agasthya Muni alone[3] would fill a whole library. The chief
and only object of these brotherhoods has been to popularise esoteric
truths and bring them home to the masses. So great and so extensive is
their influence that the Tamil literature is permeated with esoteric
truths in all its ramifications.” In fact the object of this article is
to point out the vast number of proverbs and popular songs, circulating
among the Tamils to-day, which conceal under frivolous guise the most
profound mystic truths. The grammar too--as I suppose was the case in
Sanskrit--is linked to the occult philosophy of the people.
[3] Or those ascribed to him.
To return to the Teacher, besides state-craft and grammar he is well
versed in matters of law, and not unfrequently tackles a question of
this kind for the help of his friends; and has some practical knowledge
of medicine, as well as of cookery, which he considers important in
its relation to health (the divine health, _Sukham_). It will thus
be seen that he is a man of good practical ability and acquaintance
with the world, and not a mere dreamer, as is too often assumed by
Western critics to be the case with all those who seek the hidden
knowledge of the East. In fact it is one of the remarkable points of
the Hindu philosophy that practical knowledge of life is expressly
inculcated as a preliminary stage to initiation. A man must be a
householder before he becomes a yogi; and familiarity with sexual
experience instead of being reprobated, is rather encouraged, in order
that having experienced one may in time pass beyond it. Indeed it is
not unfrequently maintained that the early marriage of the Hindus is
advantageous in this respect, since a couple married at the age of
fifteen or sixteen have by the time they are forty a grown-up family
launched in life, and having circled worldly experience are then free
to dedicate themselves to the work of “emancipation.”
During his _yoga_ period, which lasted about three years, his wife
was very good to him and assisted him all she could. He was enjoined
by his own teacher to refrain from speech and did so for about a year
and a half, passing most of his time in fixed attitudes of meditation,
and only clapping his hands when he wanted food, etc. Hardly anything
shows more strongly the hold which these religious ideas have upon the
people than the common willingness of the women to help their husbands
in works of this kind, which beside the sore inconvenience of them,
often deprive the family of its very means of subsistence and leave
it dependent on the help of relations and others. But so it is. It is
difficult for a Westerner even to begin to realise the conditions and
inspirations of life in the East.
Refraint from speech is not a necessary condition of initiation, but
it is enjoined in some cases. (There might be a good many cases among
the Westerners where it would be very desirable--with or without
initiation!) “Many practising,” said the Guru one day, “have not
spoken for twelve years--so that when freed they had lost the power
of speech--babbled like babies--and took some time to recover it.
But for two or three years you experience no disability.” “During my
initiation,” he added, “I often wandered about the woods all night, and
many times saw wild beasts, but they never harmed me--as indeed they
cannot harm the initiated.”
At the present time he lives (when at home) a secluded life, mostly
absorbed in trance conditions--his chief external interest no doubt
being the teaching of such people as are led to him, or he is led
to instruct. When however he takes up any practical work he throws
himself into it with that power and concentration which is peculiar
to a “Master,” and which is the natural corollary of the power, of
abstraction when healthily used.
Among their own people these Gurus often have small circles of
disciples, who receive the instruction of their master and in return
are ever ready to attend upon his wants. Sometimes such little parties
sit up all night alternately reading the sacred books and absorbing
themselves in meditation. It appears that Elukhanam’s mother became his
pupil and practised according to instructions, making good progress.
One day however she told her son that she should die that night.
“What, are you ill?” he said. “No,” she replied, “but I feel that I
shall die.” Then he asked her what she desired to be done with her
body. “Oh, tie a rope to it and throw it out into the street,” was
her reply--meaning that it did not matter--a very strong expression,
considering caste regulations on the subject. Nothing more was said,
but that night at 3 a.m. as they and some friends were sitting up
(cross-legged on the floor as usual) reading one of the sacred books,
one of those present said, “But your mother does not move,”--and she
was dead.
When in Ceylon our friend was only staying temporarily in a
cottage, with a servant to look after him, and though exceedingly
animated and vigorous as I have described, when once embarked in
exposition--capable of maintaining his discourse for hours with
unflagging concentration--yet the moment such external call upon his
faculties was at an end, the interest that it had excited seemed to be
entirely wiped from his mind; and the latter returned to that state of
interior meditation and absorption in the contemplation of the world
disclosed to the inner sense, which had apparently become his normal
condition.
I was in fact struck, and perhaps a little shocked, by the want of
interest in things and persons around him displayed by the great
man--not that, as I have said, he was not very helpful and considerate
in special cases--but evidently that part of his nature which held
him to the actual world was thinning out; and the personalities of
attendants and of those he might have casual dealings with, or even the
scenes and changes of external nature, excited in him only the faintest
response.
As I have said he seemed to spend the greater part of the twenty-four
hours wrapt in contemplation, and this not in the woods, but in
the interior of his own apartment. As a rule he only took a brief
half-hour’s walk mornings and evenings, just along the road and back
again, and this was the only time he passed out of doors. Certainly
this utter independence of external conditions--the very small amount
of food and exercise and even of sleep that he took, combined with
the great vigor that he was capable of putting forth on occasion
both bodily and mentally, and the perfect control he had over his
faculties--all seemed to suggest the idea of his having access to some
interior source of strength and nourishment. And indeed the general
doctrine that the gñáni can thus attain to independence and maintain
his body from interior sources alone (eat of the “hidden manna”) is
one much cherished by the Hindus, and which our friend was never tired
of insisting on.
Finally, his face, while showing the attributes of the seer,
the externally penetrating quick eye, and the expression of
_illumination_--the deep mystic light within--showed also the
prevailing sentiment of happiness behind it. _Sandósiam, Sandósiam
eppótham_--“Joy, always joy”--was his own expression, oft repeated.
Perhaps I have now said enough to show--what of course was sufficiently
evident to me--that, however it may be disguised under trivial or even
in some cases repellent coverings, there _is_ some reality beneath all
these--some body of real experience, of no little value and importance,
which has been attained in India by a portion at any rate of those who
have claimed it, and which has been handed down now through a vast
number of centuries among the Hindu peoples as their most cherished and
precious possession.
CHAPTER IX.
CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT THOUGHT.
The question is, What is this experience? or rather--since an
experience can really only be known to the person who experiences
it--we may ask, “What is the nature of this experience?” And in
trying to indicate an answer of some kind to this question I feel
considerable diffidence, just for the very reason (for one) already
mentioned--namely that it is so difficult or impossible for one
person to give a true account of an experience which has occurred to
another. If I could give the exact words of the teacher, without any
bias derived either from myself or the interpreting friend, the case
might be different; but that I cannot pretend to do; and if I could,
the old-world scientific forms in which his thoughts were cast would
probably only prove a stumbling-block and a source of confusion,
instead of a help, to the reader. Indeed, even in the case of the
sacred books, where we have a good deal of accessible and authoritative
information, Western critics though for the most part agreeing that
there _is_ some real experience underlying, are sadly at variance as to
what that experience may be.
For these reasons I prefer not to attempt or pretend to give the exact
teaching, unbiassed, of the Indian Gurus, or their experiences; but
only to indicate as far as I can, in my own words, and in modern
thought-forms, what I take to be the direction in which we must look
for this ancient and world-old knowledge which has had so stupendous an
influence in the East, and which indeed is still the main mark of its
difference from the West.
And first let me guard against an error which is likely to arise. It is
very easy to assume, and very frequently assumed, in any case where a
person is credited with the possession of an unusual faculty, that such
person is at once lifted out of our sphere into a supernatural region,
and possesses every faculty of that region. If for instance he or she
is or is supposed to be clairvoyant, it is assumed that _everything_
is or ought to be known to them; or if the person has shown what seems
a miraculous power at any time or in any case, it is asked by way of
discredit why he or she did not show a like power at other times or in
other cases. Against all such hasty generalisations it is necessary to
guard ourselves. If there is a higher form of consciousness attainable
by man than that which he for the most part can claim at present, it is
probable, nay certain, that it is evolving and will evolve but slowly,
and with many a slip and hesitant pause by the way. In the far past of
man and the animals consciousness of sensation and consciousness of
self have been successively evolved--each of these mighty growths with
innumerable branches and branchlets continually spreading. At any point
in this vast experience, a new growth, a new form of consciousness,
might well have seemed miraculous. What could be more marvelous than
the first revealment of the sense of sight, what more inconceivable
to those who had not experienced it, and what more certain than that
the first use of this faculty must have been fraught with delusion and
error? Yet there may be an inner vision which again transcends sight,
even as far as sight transcends touch. It is more than probable that
in the hidden births of time there lurks a consciousness which is not
the consciousness of sensation and which is not the consciousness
of self--or at least which includes and entirely surpasses these--a
consciousness in which the contrast between the _ego_ and the external
world, and the distinction between subject and object, fall away. The
part of the world into which such a consciousness admits us (call it
_supramundane_ or whatever you will) is probably at least as vast and
complex as the part we know, and progress in that region at least
equally slow and tentative and various, laborious, discontinuous, and
uncertain. There is no sudden leap out of the back parlor onto Olympus;
and the routes, when found, from one to the other, are long and
bewildering in their variety.
And of those who do attain to some portion of this region, we are not
to suppose that they are at once demi-gods, or infallible. In many
cases indeed the very novelty and strangeness of the experiences give
rise to phantasmal trains of delusive speculation. Though we should
expect, and though it is no doubt true on the whole, that what we
should call the higher types of existing humanity are those most likely
to come into possession of any new faculties which may be flying about,
yet it is not always so; and there are cases, well recognised, in
which persons of decidedly deficient or warped moral nature attain
powers which properly belong to a high grade of evolution, and are
correspondingly dangerous thereby.
All this, or a great part of it, the Indian teachers insist on. They
say--and I think this commends the reality of their experience--that
there is nothing abnormal or miraculous about the matter; that the
faculties acquired are on the whole the result of long evolution and
training, and that they have distinct laws and an order of their
own. They recognise the existence of persons of a demonic faculty,
who have acquired powers of a certain grade without corresponding
moral evolution; and they admit the rarity of the highest phases of
consciousness and the fewness of those at present fitted for its
attainment.
With these little provisos then established I think we may go on
to say that what the Gñáni seeks and obtains is a new order of
consciousness--to which for want of a better we may give the name
_universal_ or _cosmic_ consciousness, in contradistinction to
the individual or special bodily consciousness with which we are
all familiar. I am not aware that the _exact_ equivalent of this
expression “universal consciousness” is used in the Hindu philosophy;
but the _Sat-chit-ánanda Brahm_ to which every yogi aspires indicates
the same idea: _sat_, the reality, the all pervading; _chit_, the
knowing, perceiving; _ánanda_, the blissful--all these united in one
manifestation of Brahm.
The West seeks the individual consciousness--the enriched mind, ready
perceptions and memories, individual hopes and fears, ambitions, loves,
conquests--the self, the local self, in all its phases and forms--and
sorely doubts whether such a thing as an universal consciousness
exists. The East seeks the universal consciousness, and in those cases
where its quest succeeds individual self and life thin away to a mere
film, and are only the shadows cast by the glory revealed beyond.
The individual consciousness takes the form of _Thought_, which is
fluid and mobile like quicksilver, perpetually in a state of change
and unrest, fraught with pain and effort; the other consciousness is
_not_ in the form of Thought. It touches, sees, hears, and _is_ these
things which it perceives--without motion, without change, without
effort, without distinction of subject and object, but with a vast and
incredible Joy.
The individual consciousness is specially related to the body. The
organs of the body are in some degree its organs. But the _whole_ body
is only as one organ of the cosmic consciousness. To attain this latter
one must have the power of knowing one’s self separate from the body,
of passing into a state of _ecstasy_ in fact. Without this the cosmic
consciousness cannot be experienced.
It is said:--“There are four main experiences in initiation, (1) the
meeting with a Guru, (2) the consciousness of Grace, or _Arul_ (which
may perhaps be interpreted as the consciousness of a change--even of
a physiological change--working within one), (3) the vision of Siva
(God), with which the knowledge of one’s self as distinct from the body
is closely connected, (4) the finding of the universe within.” “The
wise,” it is also said, “when their thoughts cease to move perceive
within themselves the Absolute consciousness, which is _Sarva sakshi_,
Witness of all things.”
Great have been the disputes among the learned as to the meaning of the
word Nirwana--whether it indicates a state of no-consciousness or a
state of vastly enhanced consciousness. Probably both views have their
justification: the thing does not admit of definition in the terms of
ordinary language. The important thing to see and admit is that under
cover of this and other similar terms there does exist a real and
recognisable fact (that is a state of consciousness in some sense),
which has been experienced over and over again, and which to those who
have experienced it in ever so slight a degree has appeared worthy of
lifelong pursuit and devotion. It is easy of course to represent the
thing as a mere word, a theory, a speculation of the dreamy Hindu;
but people do not sacrifice their lives for empty words, nor do mere
philosophical abstractions rule the destinies of continents. No, the
word represents a reality, something very basic and inevitable in human
nature. The question really is not to define the fact--for we cannot do
that--but to get at and experience it.
It is interesting at this juncture to find that modern Western science,
which has hitherto--without much result--been occupying itself with
mechanical theories of the universe, is approaching from its side
this idea of the existence of another form of consciousness. The
extraordinary phenomena of hypnotism--which no doubt are in some
degree related to the subject we are discussing, and which have been
recognised for ages in the East--are forcing Western scientists to
assume the existence of the so-called _secondary consciousness_ in the
body. The phenomena seem really inexplicable without the assumption of
a secondary agency of some kind, and it every day becomes increasingly
difficult _not_ to use the word consciousness to describe it.
Let it be understood that I am not for a moment assuming that
this secondary consciousness of the hypnotists is in all respects
identical with the cosmic consciousness (or whatever we may call it)
of the Eastern occultists. It may or may not be. The two kinds of
consciousness may cover the same ground, or they may only overlap to a
small extent. That is a question I do not propose to discuss. The point
to which I wish to draw attention is that Western science is envisaging
the possibility of the existence in man of another consciousness of
some kind, beside that with whose working we are familiar. It quotes
(A. Moll) the case of Barkworth who “can add up long rows of figures
while carrying on a lively discussion, without allowing his attention
to be at all diverted from the discussion”; and asks us how Barkworth
can do this unless he has a secondary consciousness which occupies
itself with the figures while his primary consciousness is in the thick
of argument. Here is a lecturer (F. Myers) who for a whole minute
allows his mind to wander entirely away from the subject in hand, and
imagines himself to be sitting beside a friend in the audience and to
be engaged in conversation with _him_, and who wakes up to find himself
still on the platform lecturing away with perfect ease and coherency.
What are we to say to such a case as that? Here again is a pianist
who recites a piece of music by heart, and finds that his recital is
actually hindered by allowing his mind (his primary consciousness) to
dwell upon what he is doing. It is sometimes suggested that the very
perfection of the musical performance shows that it is mechanical or
unconscious, but is this a fair inference? and would it not seem to be
a mere contradiction in terms to speak of an unconscious lecture, or an
unconscious addition of a row of figures?
Many actions and processes of the body, _e.g._ swallowing, are attended
by distinct personal consciousness; many other actions and processes
are quite unperceived by the same; and it might seem reasonable
to suppose that these latter at any rate were purely mechanical
and devoid of any mental substratum. But the later developments of
hypnotism in the West have shown--what is well known to the Indian
fakirs--that under certain conditions consciousness of the internal
actions and processes of the body can be obtained; and not only so, but
consciousness of events taking place at a distance from the body and
without the ordinary means of communication.
Thus the idea of another consciousness, in some respects of wider range
than the ordinary one, and having methods of perception of its own, has
been gradually infiltrating itself into Western minds.
There is another idea, which modern science has been familiarising us
with, and which is bringing us towards the same conception--that namely
of the fourth dimension. The supposition that the actual world has four
space-dimensions instead of three makes many things conceivable which
otherwise would be incredible. It makes it conceivable that apparently
separate objects, _e.g._ distinct people, are really physically united;
that things apparently sundered by enormous distances of space are
really quite close together; that a person or other object might pass
in and out of a closed room without disturbance of walls, doors, or
windows, etc.; and if this fourth dimension were to become a factor of
our consciousness it is obvious that we should have means of knowledge
which to the ordinary sense would appear simply miraculous. There is
much apparently to suggest that the consciousness attained to by the
Indian gñánis in their degree, and by hypnotic subjects in theirs is of
this fourth-dimensional order.
As a solid is related to its own surfaces, so, it would appear, is the
cosmic consciousness related to the ordinary consciousness. The phases
of the personal consciousness are but different facets of the other
consciousness; and experiences which seem remote from each other in the
individual are perhaps all equally near in the universal. Space itself,
as we know it, may be practically annihilated in the consciousness of
a larger space of which it is but the superficies; and a person living
in London may not unlikely find that he has a backdoor opening quite
simply and unceremoniously out in Bombay.
“The true quality of the soul,” said the Guru one day, “is that of
space, by which it is at rest, everywhere. But this space (Akása)
within the soul is far above the ordinary material space. The whole of
the latter, including all the suns and stars, appears to you then as
it were but an atom of the former”--and here he held up his fingers as
though crumbling a speck of dust between them.
“At rest everywhere,” “Indifference,” “Equality.” This was one of
the most remarkable parts of the Guru’s teaching. Though (for family
reasons) maintaining many of the observances of Caste himself, and
though holding and teaching that for the mass of the people caste rules
were quite necessary, he never ceased to insist that when the time came
for a man (or woman) to be “emancipated” all these rules must drop
aside as of no importance--all distinction of castes, classes, all
sense of superiority or self-goodness--of right and wrong even--and the
most absolute sense of Equality must prevail towards every one, and
determination in its expression. Certainly it was remarkable (though
I knew that the sacred books contained it) to find this germinal
principle of Western democracy so vividly active and at work deep down
beneath the innumerable layers of Oriental social life and custom. But
so it is; and nothing shows better the relation between the West and
the East than this fact.
This sense of Equality, of Freedom from regulations and confinements,
of Inclusiveness, and of the Life that “rests everywhere,” belongs
of course more to the cosmic or universal part of man than to the
individual part. To the latter it is always a stumbling-block and an
offence. It is easy to show that men are not equal, that they cannot
be free, and to point the absurdity of a life that is indifferent and
at rest under all conditions. Nevertheless to the larger consciousness
these are basic facts, which underlie the common life of humanity, and
feed the very individual that denies them.
Thus repeating the proviso that in using such terms as cosmic and
universal consciousness we do not commit ourselves to the theory that
the instant a man leaves the personal part of him he enters into
absolutely unlimited and universal knowledge, but only into a higher
order of perception--and admitting the intricacy and complexity of
the region so roughly denoted by these terms, and the microscopical
character of our knowledge about it--we may say once more, also
as a roughest generalisation, that the quest of the East has been
this universal consciousness, and that of the West the personal or
individual consciousness. As is well known the East has its various
sects and schools of philosophy, with subtle discriminations of
qualities, essences, god-heads, devilhoods, etc., into which I do
not propose to go, and which I should feel myself quite incompetent
to deal with. Leaving all these aside, I will keep simply to these
two rough Western terms, and try to consider further the question of
the _methods_ by which the Eastern student sets himself to obtain
the cosmic state, or such higher order of consciousness as he does
encompass.
CHAPTER X.
METHODS OF ATTAINMENT.
The subject of the methods used by the yogis for the attainment of
another order of consciousness has its physical, its mental, and its
moral sides--and doubtless other sides as well.
Beginning with the physical side, it is probable that the discounting
or repression of the physical brain--or of that part of it which is
the seat of the primary consciousness--is the most important: on the
theory that the repression of the primary consciousness opens the
way for the manifestation of any other consciousness that may be
present. Thus hypnotism lulls or fatigues the ordinary brain into a
complete torpor--so allowing the phenomena connected with the secondary
consciousness to come out into the greater prominence. It need not be
supposed that hypnotism _induces_ the secondary consciousness, but only
that it removes that other consciousness which ordinarily conceals or
hinders its expression. Some of the methods adopted by the yogis are
undoubtedly of this hypnotic character, such as the sitting or standing
for long periods absolutely fixed in one position; staring at the
sun or other object; repeating a word or phrase over and over again
for thousands of times, etc.; and the clairvoyant and other results
produced seem in many respects very similar to the results of Western
hypnotism. The yogi however by immense persistence in his practices,
and by using his own will to effect the change of consciousness,
instead of surrendering himself into the power of another person,
seems to be able to transfer his “I” or _ego_ into the new region, and
to remember on his return to ordinary consciousness what he has seen
there; whereas the hypnotic subject seems to be divided into a double
_ego_, and as a rule remembers nothing in the primary state of what
occurred to him in the secondary.
Others of the yogis adopt prolonged fasting, abstinence from sleep,
self-torture and emaciation, with the same object, namely the reduction
of the body, and apparently with somewhat similar results--though in
these cases not only insight is supposed to be gained, but added powers
over nature, arising from the intense forces of control put forth and
educed by these exercises. The fact that the _Siddhi_ or miraculous
powers can be gained in this way is so universally accepted and taken
for granted in India that (even after making all allowances) it is
difficult not to be carried away on the stream of belief. And indeed
when one considers the known powers of the will--cultivated as it is to
but a feeble degree amongst most of us--there seems to be an inherent
probability in the case. The adepts however as a rule, though entirely
agreeing that the attainment of the Siddhi powers is _possible_,
strongly condemn the quest of them by these methods--saying with great
justice that the mere fact of a quest of this kind is a breach of the
law of Indifference and Trust, and that the quest being instigated
by some desire--ambition, spiritual pride, love of gain, or what
not--necessarily ends either by stultifying itself, or by feeding the
desire, and, if some powers are gained, by the devotion of them to evil
ends.
Thus the methods that are mainly physical produce certain
results--clairvoyances and controls--which are largely physical in
their character, and are probably for the most part more or less morbid
and dangerous. They are however very widely spread among the inferior
classes of yogis all over India, and the performances which spring
from them, by exciting the fear and wonder of the populace, often
become--as in the case of mesmeric performances in the West--a source
of considerable gain to the chief actor.
There remain two other classes of methods--the mental and the moral.
Of the mental no doubt the most important is the Suppression of
Thought--and it is not unlikely that this may have, when once
understood, a far-reaching and important influence on our Western
life--over-ridden and dominated as it is by a fever of Thought
which it can by no means control. Nothing indeed strikes one more
as marking the immense contrast between the East and the West than,
after leaving Western lands where the ideal of life is to have an
almost insanely active brain and to be perpetually on the war-path
with fearful and wonderful projects and plans and purposes, to come
to India and to find its leading men--men of culture and learning and
accomplishment--deliberately passing beyond all these and addressing
themselves to the task of effacing their own thoughts, effacing
all their own projects and purposes, in order that the diviner
consciousness may enter in and occupy the room so prepared.
The effacement of projects and purposes--which comes to much the same
thing as the control of desire--belongs more properly to the _moral_
side of the question, and may be considered later on. The subjection of
Thought--which obviously is very closely connected with the subjection
of Desire--may however be considered here.
The _Gñana-yogis_ (so called, to distinguish them from the
_Karma-yogis_ who rely more upon the external and physical methods)
adopt two practices, (1) that of intense concentration of the thoughts
on a fixed object, (2) that of the effacement of thought altogether.
(1) The thoughts may be fixed on a definite object, for instance, on
one’s own breathing--the inflow and outflow of the atmosphere through
the channels of the physical body. The body must be kept perfectly
still and motionless for a long period--so that it may pass entirely
out of consciousness--and the thoughts fixed on the regulated calm
tide of respiration, to the complete exclusion of every other subject.
Or the name of an object--a flower for instance--may be repeated
incessantly--the image of the object being called up at the same
time--till at last the name and the image of the object blend and
become indistinguishable in the mind.
Such practices have their literal and their spiritual sides. If
carried out merely as formulæ, they evidently partake of a mesmeric
(self-mesmeric) character, and ultimately induce mesmeric states of
consciousness.[4] If carried out with a strong sense of their inner
meaning--the presence of the vast cosmic life in the breathing, the
endeavor to realise Brahma himself in the flower or other object
contemplated--they naturally induce a deeper sense of the universal
life and consciousness than that which belongs to the mesmeric state.
Anyhow they teach a certain power and control over the thoughts; and
it is a doctrine much insisted on by the Gurus that in life generally
the habit of the undivided concentration of the mind on that which one
is doing is of the utmost importance. The wandering of the mind, its
division and distraction, its openness to attack by brigand cares and
anxieties, its incapacity to heartily enjoy itself in its work, not
only lame and cripple and torment it in every way, but are a mark of
the want of that faith which believes in the Now as the divine moment,
and takes no thought for the Morrow. To concentrate at all times wholly
and unreservedly in what you are doing at the moment is, they say, a
distinct step in Gñánam.
[4] The Rev. H. Callaway, in a paper on “Divination among
the Natives of Natal” (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, vol. i. p. 176), says that the natives, “in
order to become clairvoyant, attempt to effect intense
concentration and abstraction of the mind--an abstraction
even from their own thoughts.” And this is done by herdsmen
and chiefs alike--though of course with varying success.
(2) The next step, the effacement of Thought, is a much more difficult
one. Only when the power of concentration has been gained can this
be attempted with any prospect of success. The body must be kept,
as before, perfectly motionless, and in a quiet place free from
disturbance; not in an attitude of ease or slumber, but sitting or
standing erect with muscles tense. All will-power is required, and the
greatest vigilance. Every thought must be destroyed on the instant
of its appearance. But the enemy is subtle, and failure--over a long
period--inevitable. Then when success seems to be coming and Thought is
dwindling, Oblivion, the twin-foe, appears and must also be conquered.
For if Thought merely give place to Sleep, what is there gained? After
months, but more probably years, of intermittent practice the power of
control grows; curious but distinct physiological changes take place;
one day the student finds that Thought has gone; he stands for a moment
in Oblivion; then _that_ veil lifts, and there streams through his
being a vast and illumined consciousness, glorious, that fills and
overflows him, “surrounding him so that he is like a pot in water,
which has the liquid within it and without.” In this consciousness
there is divine knowledge but no thought. It is _Samádhi_, the
universal “I Am.”
Whatever people may think of the reality of this “Samádhi,” of the
genuineness or the universality of the consciousness obtained in it,
etc. (and these are questions which of course require examination),
it is incontestable that for centuries and centuries it has been an
object of the most strenuous endeavor to vast numbers even of the very
acutest and most capable intellects of India. Earthly joys paled before
this ecstasy; the sacred literatures are full of its praise. That
there lurks here some definite and important fact of experience is I
think obvious--though it is quite probable that it is not yet really
understood, either by the East that discovered it or the West that has
criticised it.
Leaving however for the present the consideration of this ultimate and
transcendent result of the effacement of Thought, and freely admitting
that the Eastern devotees have in the ardor of their pursuit of it
been often led into mere absurdities and excesses--that they have in
some cases practically mutilated their thinking powers--that they have
refrained from speech for such prolonged years that at last not only
the tongue but the brain itself refused to act--that they have in
instances reduced themselves to the condition of idiots and babbling
children, and rendered themselves incapable of carrying on any kind of
work ordinarily called useful--admitting all this, it still remains
true I think that even in its lower aspects this doctrine is of vast
import to-day in the West.
For we moderns, while we have dominated Nature and external results in
the most extraordinary way through our mechanical and other sciences,
have just neglected this other field of mastery over our own internal
mechanism. We pride ourselves on our athletic feats, but some of
the performances of the Indian fakirs in the way of mastery over
the _internal_ processes of the body--processes which in ordinary
cases have long ago lapsed into the region of the involuntary and
unconscious--such as holding the breath over enormous periods, or
reversing the peristaltic action of the alimentary canal throughout its
entire length--are so astonishing that for the most part the report of
them only excites incredulity among us, and we can hardly believe--what
I take it is a fact--that these physiological powers have been
practised till they are almost reduced to a science.
And if we are unwilling to believe in this internal mastery over the
body, we are perhaps almost equally unaccustomed to the idea of mastery
over our own inner thoughts and feelings. That a man should be a prey
to any thought that chances to take possession of his mind is commonly
among us assumed as unavoidable. It may be a matter of regret that
he should be kept awake all night from anxiety as to the issue of a
lawsuit on the morrow, but that he should have the power of determining
whether he be kept awake or not seems an extravagant demand. The image
of an impending calamity is no doubt odious, but its very odiousness
(we say) makes it haunt the mind all the more pertinaciously--and it is
useless to try to expel it.
Yet this is an absurd position--for man, the heir of all the ages, to
be in: hag-ridden by the flimsy creatures of his own brain. If a pebble
in our boot torments us we expel it. We take off the boot and shake
it out. And once the matter is fairly understood it is just as easy
to expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from the mind. About this
there ought to be no mistake, no two opinions. The thing is obvious,
clear, and unmistakable. It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious
thought from your mind as to shake a stone out of your shoe; and till a
man can do that, it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy over
Nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and a prey to the
bat-winged phantoms that flit through the corridors of his own brain.
Yet the weary and careworn faces that we meet by thousands, even among
the affluent classes of civilisation, testify only too clearly how
seldom this mastery is obtained. How rare indeed to meet a _man_! How
common rather to discover a creature hounded on by tyrant thoughts
(or cares or desires), cowering wincing under the lash--or perchance
priding himself to run merrily in obedience to a driver that rattles
the reins and persuades him that he is free--whom we cannot converse
with in careless _tête-à-tête_ because that alien presence is always
there, on the watch.
It is one of the most prominent doctrines of the Gñánis that the power
of expelling thoughts, or if need be of killing them dead on the spot,
_must_ be attained. Naturally the art requires practice; but like
other arts, when once acquired there is no more mystery or difficulty
about it. And it is worth practice. It may indeed fairly be said that
life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when
instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them
in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct
and despatch and employ where we list (“for He maketh the winds his
messengers and the flaming fire his minister”), life becomes a thing
so vast and grand compared with what it was before that its former
condition may well appear almost antenatal.
If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything
else with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is
so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which
is nine-tenths at least of the torment of life), but it gives him a
concentred power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him
before. The two things are correlative to each other. As already said
this is one of the principles of Gñánam. While at work your thought is
to be absolutely concentrated in it, undistracted by anything whatever
irrelevant to the matter in hand--pounding away like a great engine,
with giant power and perfect economy--no wear and tear of friction, or
dislocation of parts owing to the working of different forces at the
same time. Then when the work is finished, if there is no more occasion
for the use of the machine, it must stop equally absolutely--stop
entirely--no _worrying_ (as if a parcel of boys were allowed to play
their devilments with a locomotive as soon as it was in the shed)--and
the man must retire into that region of his consciousness where his
true self dwells.
I say the power of the thought-machine itself is enormously increased
by this faculty of letting it alone on the one hand and of using it
singly and with concentration on the other. It becomes a true tool,
which a master-workman lays down when done with, but which only a
bungler carries about with him all the time to show that he is the
possessor of it.
Then on and beyond the work turned out by the tool itself is the
knowledge that comes to us apart from its use: when the noise of the
workshop is over, and mallet and plane laid aside--the faint sounds
coming through the open window from the valley and the far seashore:
the dim fringe of diviner knowledge, which begins to grow, poor
thing, as soon as the eternal click-clack of thought is over--the
extraordinary intuitions, perceptions, which, though partaking in some
degree of the character of thought, spring from entirely different
conditions, and are the forerunners of a changed consciousness.
At first they appear miraculous, but it is not so. They are not
miraculous, for they are always there. (The stars are always there.) It
is we who are miraculous in our inattention to them. In the systemic
or secondary or cosmic consciousness of man (I daresay all these
ought to be distinguished, but I lump them together for the present)
lurk the most minute and varied and far-reaching intuitions and
perceptions--some of them in their swiftness and subtlety outreaching
even those of the primary consciousness--but to them we do not attend
because Thought like a pied piper is ever capering and fiddling in
front of us. And when Thought is gone, lo! we are asleep. To open your
eyes in that region which is neither Night nor Day is to behold strange
and wonderful things.
* * * * *
As already said the subjection of Thought is closely related to the
subjection of Desire, and has consequently its specially moral as
well as its specially intellectual relation to the question in hand.
Nine-tenths of the scattered or sporadic thought with which the mind
usually occupies itself when not concentrated on any definite work
is what may be called self-thought--thought of a kind which dwells
on and exaggerates the sense of self. This is hardly realised in its
full degree till the effort is made to suppress it; and one of the
most excellent results of such an effort is that with the stilling of
all the phantoms which hover round the lower self, one’s relations to
others, to one’s friends, to the world at large, and one’s perception
of all that is concerned in these relations come out into a purity and
distinctness unknown before. Obviously while the mind is full of the
little desires and fears which concern the local self, and is clouded
over by the thought-images which such desires and fears evoke, it is
impossible that it should see and understand the greater facts beyond
and its own relation to them. But with the subsiding of the former the
great Vision begins to dawn; and a man never feels less alone than when
he has ceased to think whether he is alone or not.
It is in this respect that the subjection of desire is really
important. There is no necessity to suppose that desire, in itself, is
an evil; indeed it is quite conceivable that it may fall into place
as a useful and important element of human nature--though certainly
one whose importance will be found to dwindle and gradually disappear
as time goes on. The trouble for us is, in our present state, that
desire is liable to grow to such dimensions as to overcloud the world
for us, emprison, and shut us out from inestimable Freedom beneath
its sway. Under such circumstances it evidently is a nuisance and has
to be dominated. No doubt certain sections of the Indian and other
ascetic philosophies have taught the absolute extinction of desire, but
we may fairly regard these as cases--so common in the history of all
traditional teaching--of undue prominence given to a special detail,
and of the exaltation of the letter of the doctrine above the spirit.
The moral element (at which we have now arrived) in the attainment of
a higher order of consciousness is of course recognised by all the
great Indian teachers as of the first importance. The sacred books,
the sermons of Buddha, the discourses of the present-day Gurus, all
point in the same direction. Gentleness, forbearance towards all,
abstention from giving pain, especially to the animals, the recognition
of the divine spirit in every creature down to the lowest, the most
absolute sense of equality and the most absolute candor, an undisturbed
serene mind, free from anger, fear, or any excessive and tormenting
desire--these are all insisted on.
Thus, though physical and mental conditions are held--and rightly--to
be important, the moral conditions are held to be at least equally
important. Nevertheless, in order to guard against misconception which
in so complex a subject may easily arise, it is necessary to state
here--what I have hinted before--that different sections and schools
among the devotees place a very different respective value upon the
three sets of conditions--some making more of the physical, others of
the mental, and others again of the moral--and that as may be easily
guessed the results attained by the various schools differ considerably
in consequence.
The higher esoteric teachers naturally lay the greatest stress on the
moral, but any account of their methods would be defective which passed
over or blinked the fact that they go _beyond_ the moral--because this
fact is in some sense of the essence of the Oriental inner teaching.
Morality, it is well understood, involves the conception of one’s self
as distinct from others, as distinct from the world, and presupposes
a certain antagonism between one’s own interests and those of one’s
fellows. One “sacrifices” one’s own interests to those of another, or
“goes out of one’s way” to help him. All such ideas must be entirely
left behind, if one is to reach the central illumination. They spring
from ignorance and are the products of darkness. On no word did the
“Grammarian” insist more strongly than on the word Non-differentiation.
You are not even to differentiate yourself in thought from others; you
are not to begin to regard yourself as separate from them. Even to talk
about helping others is a mistake; it is vitiated by the delusion that
you and they are twain. So closely does the subtle Hindu mind go to the
mark! What would our bald commercial philanthropy, our sleek æsthetic
altruism, our scientific isophily, say to such teaching? All the little
self-satisfactions which arise from the sense of duty performed, all
the cheese-parings of equity between oneself and others, all the tiny
wonderments whether you are better or worse than your neighbor, have
to be abandoned; and you have to learn to live in a world in which the
chief fact is _not_ that you are distinct from others, but that you are
a part of and integral with them. This involves indeed a return to the
communal order of society, and difficult as this teaching is for us
in this day to realise, yet there is no doubt that it must lie at the
heart of the Democracy of the future, as it has lain, germinal, all
these centuries in the hidden womb of the East.
Nor from Nature. You are not to differentiate yourself from Nature. We
have seen that the Guru Tilleináthan spoke of the operations of the
external world as “I,” having dismissed the sense of difference between
himself and them. It is only under these, and such conditions as these,
that the little mortal creature gradually becomes aware of What he is.
This non-differentiation is the final deliverance. When it enters in
the whole burden of absurd cares, anxieties, duties, motives, desires,
fears, plans, purposes, preferences, etc., rolls off and lies like mere
lumber on the ground. The winged spirit is free, and takes its flight.
It passes through the veil of mortality and leaves that behind. Though
I say this non-differentiation is the final deliverance (from the bonds
of illusion) I do not say it is the final experience. Rather I should
be inclined to think it is only the beginning of many experiences.
As, in the history of man and the higher animals, the consciousness
of self--the local self--has been the basis of an enormous mass of
perceptions, intuitions, joys, sufferings, etc., incalculable and
indescribable in multitudinousness and variety, so in the history of
man and the angels will the consciousness of the cosmic and universal
life--the true self underlying--become the basis of another and far
vaster knowledge.
There is one respect in which the specially Eastern teaching commonly
appears to us Westerners--and on the whole I am inclined to think
justly--defective; and that is in its little insistence on the idea
of Love. While, as already said, a certain gentleness and forbearance
and passive charity is a decided feature of Indian teaching and life,
one cannot help noting the absence--or less prominence at any rate--of
that positive spirit of love and human helpfulness which in some
sections of Western society might almost be called a devouring passion.
Though with plentiful exceptions no doubt, yet there is a certain
quiescence and self-inclusion and absorbedness in the Hindu ideal,
which amounts almost to coldness; and this is the more curious because
Hindu society--till within the last few years at any rate--has been
based upon the most absolutely communal foundation. But perhaps this
fact of the communal structure of society in India is just the reason
why the social sentiment does not seek impetuously for expression
there; while in Europe, where existing institutions are a perpetual
denial of it, its expression becomes all the more determined and
necessary. However that may be, I think the fact may be admitted of a
difference between the East and the West in this respect. Of course
I am not speaking of those few who may attain to the consciousness
of non-differentiation--because in their case the word love must
necessarily change its meaning; nor am I speaking of the specially
individual and sexual and amatory love, in which there is no reason
to suppose the Hindus deficient; but I am rather alluding to the fact
that in the West we are in the habit of looking on devotion to other
humans (widening out into the social passion) as the most natural way
of losing one’s self-limitations and passing into a larger sphere of
life and consciousness; while in the East this method is little thought
of or largely neglected, in favor of the concentration of one’s self in
the divine, and mergence in the universal in that way.
I think this contrast--taking it quite roughly--may certainly be
said to exist. The Indian teachers, the sacred books, the existing
instruction, centre consciously or unconsciously round the development
of Will-power. By will to surrender the will; by determination and
concentration to press inward and upward to that portion of one’s
being which belongs to the universal, to conquer the body, to conquer
the thoughts, to conquer the passions and emotions; always will,
and will-power. And here again we have a paradox, because in their
quiescent, gentle, and rather passive external life--so different from
the push and dominating energy of the Western nations--there is little
to make one expect such force. But while modern Europe and America
has spent its Will in the mastery of the external world, India has
reserved hers for the conquest of inner and spiritual kingdoms. In
their hypnotic phenomena too, the yogis exhibit the force of will, and
this differentiates their hypnotism from that of the West--in which
the patient is operated upon by another person. In the latter there
is a danger of loss of will-power, but in the former (auto-hypnotism)
will-power is no doubt gained, while at the same time hypnotic states
are induced. Suggestion, which is such a powerful agent in hypnotism,
acts here too, and helps to knit the body together, pervading it with
a healing influence, and bringing the lower self under the direct
domination of the higher; and in this respect the Guru to some extent
stands in the place of the operator, while the yogi is his subject.
Thus in the East the Will constitutes the great path; but in the West
the path has been more specially through Love--and probably will be.
The great teachers of the West--Plato, Jesus, Paul--have indicated this
method rather than that of the ascetic will; though of course there
have not been wanting exponents of both sides. The one method means
the gradual dwindling of the local and external self through inner
concentration and aspiration, the other means the enlargement of the
said self through affectional growth and nourishment, till at last it
can contain itself no longer. The bursting of the sac takes place; the
life is poured out, and ceasing to be local becomes universal. Of this
method Whitman forms a signal instance. He is egotistic enough in all
conscience; yet at last through his immense human sympathy, and through
the very enlargement of his _ego_ thus taking place, the barriers break
down and he passes out and away.
“O Christ! This is mastering me!
In at the conquered doors they crowd. I am possessed.
* * * * *
I embody all presences outlawed or suffering;
See myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull unintermitted pain.
* * * * *
Enough! enough! enough!
Somehow I have been stunned. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuffed head, slumbers, dreams,
gaping;
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears, and the blows of bludgeons
and hammers!
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and
bloody crowning.”
But such expressions as these--in which the passion of humanity wraps
the speaker into another sphere of existence--are _not_ characteristic
of the East, and are not found in the Indian scriptures. When its time
comes the West will probably adopt this method of the liberation of the
human soul--through love--rather than the specially Indian method--of
the Will; though doubtless both have to be, and will be in the future,
to a large extent concurrently used. Different races and peoples
incline according to their idiosyncrasies to different ways; each
individual even--as is quite recognised by the present-day Gurus--has
his special line of approach to the supreme facts. It is possible
that when the Western races once realise what lies beneath this great
instinct of humanity, which seems in some ways to be their special
inspiration, they will outstrip even the Hindus in their entrance to
and occupation of the new fields of consciousness.
CHAPTER XI.
TRADITIONS OF THE ANCIENT WISDOM-RELIGION.
I have dwelt so far on the nature of certain experiences (which I
have not however attempted to describe) and on the methods by which,
specially in India, they are sought to be obtained; and I have done
so in general terms, and with an endeavor to assimilate the subject
to Western ideas, and to bring it into line with modern science and
speculation. I propose in this chapter to dwell more especially on the
formal side of our friend’s teaching--which will bring out into relief
the special character of Eastern thought and its _differences_ from our
present-day modes of thought.
I must however again warn the reader against accepting anything I
say, except with the greatest reserve, and especially not to broaden
out into sweeping generalities any detailed statement I may happen to
make. People often ask for some concise account of Indian teaching
and religion. Supposing some one were to ask for a concise account
of the Christian teaching and religion--which of us, with all our
familiarity with the subject, could give an account which the others
would accept? From the question whether Jesus and Paul were initiates
in the Eastern mysteries--as the modern Gurus claim that they were,
and as I think there can be no doubt that they were, either by
tradition or by spontaneous evolution; through the question of the
similarity and differences of their teaching; the various schools of
early Christianity; the Egyptian influences; the Gnostic sects and
philosophy; the formation and history of the Church, its organisations,
creeds and doctrines; mediæval Christianity and its relation to
Aristotle; the mystic teachers of the 13th and 14th centuries; the
ascetic and monastic movements; the belief in alchemy and witchcraft;
the miracles of the Saints; the Protestant movement and doctrines,
etc., etc.; down to the innumerable petty sects of to-day and all
their conflicting views on the atonement and the sacraments and the
inspiration of the Bible, and all the rest of it--who would be so bold
as to announce the gist and resume of it all in a few brief sentences?
Yet the great Indian evolution of religious thought--while historically
more ancient--is at least equally vast and complex and bewildering in
its innumerable ramifications. I should feel entirely incompetent to
deal with it as a whole--and here at any rate am only touching upon the
personality and utterances of one teacher, belonging to a particular
school, the South Indian.
This Guru was, as I have said, naturally one of those who insisted
largely--though not by any means exclusively--on the moral and
ultra-moral sides of the teaching; and from this point of view his
personality was particularly remarkable. His gentleness and kindliness,
combined with evident power; and inflexibility and intensity
underlying; his tense eyes, as of the seer, and gracious lips and
expression, and ease and dignity of figure; his entire serenity and
calm--though with lots of vigor when needed; all these were impressive.
But perhaps I was most struck--as the culmination of character and
manhood--by his perfect simplicity of manner. Nothing could be more
unembarrassed, unselfconscious, direct to the point in hand, free
from kinks of any kind. Sometimes he would sit on his sofa couch in
the little cottage, not unfrequently, as I have said, with bare feet
gathered beneath him; sometimes he would sit on a chair at the table;
sometimes in the animation of discourse his muslin wrap would fall from
his shoulder, unnoticed, showing a still graceful figure, thin, but by
no means emaciated; sometimes he would stand for a moment, a tall and
dignified form; yet always with the same ease and grace and absence
of self-consciousness that only the animals and a few among human
beings show. It was this that made him seem very near to one, as if the
ordinary barriers which divide people were done away with; and if this
was non-differentiation working within, its external effect was very
admirable.
I dwell perhaps the more on these points of character, which made me
feel an extraordinary _rapprochement_ and unspoken intimacy to this
man, because I almost immediately found on acquaintance that on the
plane of ordinary thought and scientific belief we were ever so far
asunder, with only a small prospect, owing to difficulties of language,
etc., of ever coming to an understanding. I found--though this of
course gave a special interest to his conversation--that his views of
astronomy, physiology, chemistry, politics and the rest, were entirely
unmodified by Western thought and science--and that they had come
down through a long line of oral tradition, continually reinforced by
references to the sacred books, from a most remote antiquity. Here
was a man who living in a native principality under an Indian rajah,
and skilled in the learning of his own country, had probably come
across very few English at all till he was of mature years, had not
learned the English language, and had apparently troubled himself but
little about Western ideas of any kind. I am not a stickler for modern
science myself, and think many of its conclusions very shaky; but I
confess it gave me a queer feeling when I found a man of so subtle
intelligence and varied capacity calmly asserting that the earth was
the centre of the physical universe and that the sun revolved about it!
With all seriousness he turned out the theory (which old Lactantius
_Indicopleustes_ introduced from the East into Europe about the 3rd
century A.D.)--namely that the earth is flat, with a great hill, the
celebrated Mount Meru, in the north, behind which the sun and moon
and other heavenly bodies retire in their order to rest. He explained
that an eclipse of the moon (then going on) was caused by one of the
two “dark planets,” Ráku or Kétu (which are familiar to astrology),
concealing it from view. He said (and this is also an ancient doctrine)
that there were 1,008 solar or planetary systems similar to ours,
some _above_ the earth, some _below_, and some on either hand. As to
the earth itself it had been destroyed and recreated many times in
successive æons, but there had never been a time when the divine
knowledge had not existed on it. There had always been an India (_gñána
bhumi_, or Wisdom-land, in contradistinction to the Western _bhoga
bhumi_, or land of pleasure), and always Vedas or Upanishads (or books
corresponding) brought by divine teachers. (About modern theories of
submerged continents and lower races in the far past he did not appear
to know anything or to have troubled his head, nor did he put forth any
views on this subject of the kind mentioned by Sinnett in his _Esoteric
Buddhism_. Many of his views however were very similar to those given
in that book.)
His general philosophy appeared to be that of the Siddhantic system,
into which I do not propose to go in any detail--as it may be found
in the books; and all such systems are hopelessly dull, and may be
said to carry their own death-warrants written on their faces. The
Indian systems of philosophy bear a strong resemblance to the Gnostic
systems of early Christian times--which latter were no doubt derived
from the East. They all depend upon the idea of emanation--which is
undoubtedly an important idea, and corresponds to some remarkable facts
of consciousness; but the special forms in which the idea is cast in
the various systems are not very valuable.
The universe in the Siddhantic system is composed of five elements--(1)
ether, (2) air, (3) fire, (4) water, and (5) earth; and to get over
the obvious difficulties which arise from such a classification, it
is explained that these are not the _gross_ ether, air, fire, water
and earth that we know, but _subtle_ elements of the same name--which
are themselves perfectly pure but by their admixture produce the gross
elements. Thus the air we know is not a true element, but is formed by
a mixture of the subtle air with small portions of the subtle ether,
subtle fire, subtle water, and subtle earth; and so on. This explains
how it is there may be various kinds of air or of water or of earth.
Then the five subtle elements give rise to the five forms of sensation
in the order named--(1) Sound, (2) Touch, (3) Form, (4) Taste, (5)
Smell; and to the five corresponding organs of sense. Also there are
five intellectual faculties evolved by admixture from the subtle
elements, namely, (1) The inner consciousness, which has the quality of
ether or space, (2) Thought (_manas_) which has the quality of aerial
agitation and motion, (3) Reason (_buddhi_) which has the quality of
light and fire, (4) Desire (_chittam_) which has the emotional rushing
character of water, (5) The I-making faculty (_ahankára_), which has
the hardness and resistance of the earth. Also the five organs of
action, the voice, the hands, the feet, the anus, and the penis in the
same order; and the five vital airs which are supposed to pervade the
different parts of the body and to impel their action.
This is all very neat and compact. Unfortunately it shares the
artificial character which all systems of philosophy have, and which
makes it quite impossible to accept any of them. I think our friend
quite recognised this; for more than once he said, and quoted the
sacred books to the same effect, that “Everything which can be thought
is untrue.” In this respect the Indian philosophy altogether excels
our Western systems (except the most modern). It takes the bottom out
of its own little bucket in the most impartial way.
Nevertheless, whatever faults they may have, and however easy it may
be to attack their thought-forms, the great Indian systems (and those
of the West the same) are no doubt based upon deep-lying facts of
consciousness, which it must be our business some time to disentangle.
I believe there are facts of consciousness underlying such unlikely
things as the evolution of the five subtle elements, even though the
_form_ of the doctrine may be largely fantastic. The primal element,
according to this doctrine, is the ether or _space_ (_Akása_), the two
ideas of space and ether being curiously identified, and the other
elements, air, fire, etc., are evolved in succession from this one
by a process of thickening or condensation. Now this consciousness
of space--not the material space, but the space within the soul--is
a form of the supreme consciousness in man, the _sat-chit-ánanda_
Brahm--Freedom, Equality, Extension, Omnipresence--and is accompanied
by a sense which has been often described as a combination of all the
senses, sight, hearing, touch, etc., in one; so that they do not even
appear differentiated from each other. In the course of the descent of
the consciousness from this plane to the plane of ordinary life (which
may be taken to correspond to the creation of the actual world) the
transcendent space-consciousness goes through a sort of obscuration
or condensation, and the senses become differentiated into separate
and distinct faculties. This--or something like it--is a distinct
experience. It may well be that the formal doctrine about the five
elements is merely an attempt--necessarily very defective, since these
things _cannot_ be adequately expressed in that way--to put the thing
into a form of thought. And so with other doctrines--some may contain a
real _inhalt_, others may be merely ornamental thought-fringes, put on
for the sake of logical symmetry or what not. In its _external_ sense
the doctrine of the evolution of the other elements successively by
condensation from the ether is after all not so far removed from our
modern scientific ideas. For the chief difference between the air, and
other such gases, and the ether is supposed by us to be the closeness
of the particles in the former; then in the case of fire, the particles
come into violent contact, producing light and heat; in fluids their
contact has become continuous though mobile; and in the earth and other
solids their contact is fixed.
However, whatever justification the formal analysis of man and the
external world into their constituent parts may have or require,
the ultimate object of the analysis in the Indian philosophy is to
convince the pupil that He is a being apart from them all. “He whose
perception is obscured mistakes the twenty-six _tatwas_ (categories
or ‘thats’) for himself, and is under the illusions of ‘I’ and
‘mine.’ To be liberated by the grace of a proper spiritual teacher
from the operation of this obscuring power and to realise that these
are not self, constitute ‘deliverance.’” Here is the ultimate fact
of consciousness--which is the same, and equally true, whatever the
analysis of the _tatwas_ may be.
“The true quality of the Soul is that of space, by which it is at rest,
everywhere. Then,” continued the Guru, “comes the Air quality--by
which it moves with speed from place to place; then the Fire-quality,
by which it discriminates; then the Water-quality, which gives
it emotional flow; and then the Earth or self-quality, rigid and
unyielding. _As these things evolve out of the soul, so they must
involve again, into it and into Brahm._”
To go with the five elements, etc., the system expounded by the Guru
supposes five shells enclosing the soul. These, with the soul itself,
and Brahm, the undifferentiated spirit lying within the soul, form
seven planes or sections--as in the Esoteric Buddhism of Sinnett and
the Theosophists. The divisions however are not quite identical in the
two systems, which appear to be respectively North Indian and South
Indian. In the North Indian we have (1) the material body, (2) the
vitality, (3) the astral form, (4) the animal soul, (5) the human soul,
(6) the soul proper, and (7) the undifferentiated spirit; in the South
Indian we have (1) the material shell, (2) the shell of the vital airs,
(3) the sensorial shell, (4) the cognitional shell, (5) the shell of
oblivion and bliss in sleep, (6) the soul, and (7) the undifferentiated
spirit. The two extremes seem the same in the two systems, but the
intermediate layers differ. In some respects the latter system is the
more effective; it has a stronger practical bearing than the other,
and appears to be specially designed as a guide to action in the
work of emancipation. In some respects the other system has a wider
application. Neither of course have any particular value except as
convenient forms of thought for their special purposes, and as very
roughly embodying in their different degrees various experiences which
the human consciousness passes through in the course of its evolution.
“It is not till all the five shells have been successively peeled off
that consciousness enters the soul and it sees itself and the universal
being as one. The first three are peeled off at each bodily death of
the man, but they grow again out of what remains. It is not enough to
pass beyond these, but beyond the other two also. Then when that is
done the student enters into the fulness of the whole universe; and
with that joy no earthly joy can for a moment be compared.”
“Death,” he continued, “is usually great agony, as if the life was
being squeezed out of every part--like the juice out of a sugar-cane;
only for those who have already separated their souls from their bodies
is it not so. For them it is merely a question of laying down the body
at will, when its _karma_ is worked out, or of retaining it, if need
be, to prolonged years.” (It is commonly said that Vasishta who first
gave the sacred knowledge to mankind, is still living and providing for
the earth; and Tilleináthan Swámy is said to have seen Tiruválluvar,
the pariah priest who wrote the _Kurral_ over 1,000 years ago.) “In
ordinary cases the last thoughts that cling to the body (‘the ruling
passion strong in death’) become the seed of the next ensuing body.”
In this system the outermost layer of that portion of the human being
which survives death is the shell of thought (and desire). As the body
is modified in every-day life by the action of the thought-forms
within and grows out of them--so the new body at some period after
death grows out of the thought-forms that survive. “The body is built
up by your thought--and not by your thought in this life only, but by
the thought of previous lives.”
Of the difficult question about hereditary likeness, suggesting that
the body is also due to the thought of the parents, he gave no very
detailed account,--only that the atomic soul is carried at some period
after death (by universal laws, or by its own affinities) into a womb
suitable for its next incarnation, where finding kindred thought-forms
and elements it assimilates and grows from them, with the result of
what is called family likeness.
Some of his expositions of Astrology were very interesting to
me--particularly to find this world-old system, with all its queer
formalities and deep under lying general truths still passively
(though I think not actively) accepted and handed down by so able
an exponent--but I cannot record them at any length. The five
operations of the divine spirit, namely (1) Grace, (2) Obscuration,
(3) Destruction, (4) Preservation and (5) Creation, correspond to the
five elements, space, air, fire, water and earth, and are embodied in
the nine planets, thus: (1) Ráku and Kétu, (2) Saturn, (3) the Sun and
Mars, (4) Venus, Mercury and the Moon, (5) Jupiter. It is thus that the
birth of a human being is influenced by the position of the planets,
_i.e._ the horoscope. The male semen contains the five elements, and
the composition of it is determined by the attitude of the nine planets
in the sky! There seems here to be a glimmering embodiment of the
deep-lying truth that the whole universe conspires in the sexual act,
and that the orgasm itself is a flash of the universal consciousness;
but the thought-forms of astrology are as indigestible to a mind
trained in Western science, as I suppose the thought-forms of the
latter are to the philosopher of the East!
When I expostulated with the Guru about these, to us, crudities of
Astrology, and about such theories as that of the flat earth, the
cause of eclipses, etc., bringing the most obvious arguments to attack
his position--he did not meet me with any arguments, being evidently
unaccustomed to deal with the matter on that plane at all; but simply
replied that these things had been seen “in pure consciousness,” and
that they _were_ so. It appeared to me pretty clear however that he
was not speaking authentically, as having seen them so himself, but
simply recording again the tradition delivered in its time to him. And
here is a great source of difficulty; for the force of tradition is
so tremendous in these matters, and blends so, through the intimate
relation of teacher and pupil, with the pupil’s own experience, that
I can imagine it difficult in some cases for the pupil to disentangle
what is authentically his own vision from that which he has merely
heard. Besides--as may be easily imagined--the whole system of
teaching tends to paralyse activity on the thought-plane to such a
degree that the spirit of healthy criticism has been lost, and things
are handed down and accepted in an otiose way without ever being
really questioned or properly envisaged. And lastly there is a cause
which I think acts sometimes in the same direction, namely that
the _yogi_ learns--either from habit or from actual experience of a
superior order of consciousness--so to despise matters belonging to
the thought-world, that he really does not care whether a statement is
true or false, in the mundane sense--_i.e._ consistent or inconsistent
with other statements belonging to the same plane. All these causes
make it extremely difficult to arrive at what we should call truth as
regards matters of fact--appearances alleged to have been seen, feats
performed, or the occurrence of past events; and though there may be no
prejudice against the _possibility_ of them, it is wise--in cases where
definite and unmistakable evidence is absent, to withhold the judgment
either way, for or against their occurrence.
With regard to these primitive old doctrines of Astronomy, Astrology,
Philology, Physiology, etc., handed down from far-back times and still
embodied in the teaching of the Gurus, though it is impossible to
accept them on the ordinary thought-plane, I think we may yet fairly
conclude that there is an element of cosmic consciousness in them, or
at any rate in many of them, which has given them their vitality and
seal of authority so to speak. I have already explained what I mean,
in one or two cases. Just as in the old myths and legends (Andromeda,
Cupid and Psyche, Cinderella and a great many more) an effort was made
to embody indirectly, in ordinary thought-forms, things seen with the
inner eye and which could not be expressed directly--so was the same
process carried out in the old science. Though partly occupied with
things of the Thought-plane, it was also partly occupied in giving
expression to things which lie behind that plane--which we in our
Western sciences have neither discerned nor troubled ourselves about.
Hence, though confused and defective and easily impugnable, it contains
an element which is yet of value. Take the theory of the flat earth for
instance, already mentioned, with Mount Meru in the north, behind which
the sun and moon retire each day. At first it seems almost incredible
that a subtle-brained shrewd people should have entertained so crude a
theory at all. But it soon appears that while being a rude explanation
of external facts and one which might commend itself to a superficial
observer, it is also and in reality a description of certain internal
phenomena seen. There are a sun and moon within, and there is a
Mount Meru (so it is said) within, by which they are obscured. The
universe within the soul and the universe without correspond and are
the similitudes of each other, and so (theoretically at any rate) the
language which describes one should describe the other.
It is well known that much of the mediæval alchemy had this double
signification--the terms used indicated two classes of facts. Sometimes
the inner meaning preponderated, sometimes the outer; and it is
not always easy to tell in the writings of the Alchemists which is
specially intended. This alchemical teaching came into Europe from the
East--as we know; yet it was not without a feeling of surprise that
I heard the Guru one day expounding as one of the ancient traditions
of his own country a doctrine that I seemed familiar with as coming
from Paracelsus or some such author--that of the transmutation of
copper into gold by means of solidified mercury. There is a method he
explained, preserved in mystic language in some of the ancient books,
by which mercury can be rendered _solid_. This solid mercury has
extraordinary properties: it is proof against the action of fire; if
you hold a small piece of it in your mouth, arrows and bullets cannot
harm you; and the mere touch of it will turn a lump of copper into gold.
Now this doctrine has been recognised by students of the mediæval
alchemy to have an esoteric meaning. Quicksilver or mercury--as I think
I have already mentioned--is an image or embodiment of Thought itself,
the ever-glancing, ever-shifting; to render quicksilver solid is to fix
thought, and so to enter into the transcendent consciousness. He who
does that can be harmed neither by arrows nor by bullets; a touch of
that diviner principle turns the man whose nature is but base copper
into pure gold. The Guru however expounded this as if in a purely
literal and external sense; and on my questioning him it became evident
that he believed in some at any rate of the alchemical transmutations
in this sense--though what evidence he may have had for such belief did
not appear.
I remember very well the evening on which this conversation took place.
We were walking along an unfrequented bit of road or by-lane; the sky
was transparent with the colors of sunset, the wooded hills a few miles
off looked blue through the limpid air. He strode along--a tall dark
figure with coal-black eyes--on raised wooden sandals or clogs--his
white wrapper loosely encircling him--with so easy and swift a motion
that it was quite a consideration to keep up with him--discoursing all
the while on the wonderful alchemical and medical secrets preserved
from ages back in the _slokas_ of the sacred books--how in order to
safeguard this arcane knowledge, and to render it inaccessible to
the vulgar, methods had been adopted of the transposition of words,
letters, etc., which made the text mere gibberish except to those who
had the key; how there still existed a great mass of such writings,
inscribed on palm and other leaves, and stored away in the temples and
monasteries--though much had been destroyed--and so forth; altogether a
strange figure--something uncanny and superhuman about it. I found it
difficult to believe that I was in the end of the nineteenth century,
and not three or four thousand years back among the sages of the Vedic
race; and indeed the more I saw of this Guru the more I felt persuaded
(and still feel) that in general appearance, dress, mental attitude,
and so forth, he probably resembled to an extraordinary degree those
ancient teachers whose tradition he still handed down. The more one
sees of India the more one learns to appreciate the enormous tenacity
of custom and tradition there, and that the best means to realise its
past may be to study its present life in the proper quarters.
His criticisms of the English, of English rule in India, and of social
institutions generally, were very interesting--to me at any rate--as
coming from a man so perfectly free from Western “taint” and modern
modes of thought, and who yet had had considerable experience of state
policy and administration in his time, and who generally had circled a
considerable experience of life. He said--what was quite a new idea to
me, but in the most emphatic way--that the rule of the English in the
time of the East India Company had been much better than it had become
since under the Crown. Curiously enough his charge was that “the Queen”
had made it so entirely commercial. The sole idea now, he said, is
money. Before ’57 there had been some kind of State policy, some idea
of a large and generous rule, and of the good of the people, but in the
present day the rule was essentially feeble, with no defined policy
of any kind except that of the money bag. This criticism impressed
me much, as corroborating from an entirely independent source the
growth of mere commercialism in Britain during late years, and of the
nation-of-shopkeepers theory of government.
Going on to speak of government generally, his views would I fear
hardly be accepted by the schools--they were more Carlylean in
character. “States,” he said, “must be ruled by Justice, and then they
will succeed.” (An ancient doctrine, this, but curiously neglected
all down history.) “A king should stand and did stand in old times as
the representative of Siva (God). He is nothing in himself--no more
than the people--his revenue is derived from them--he is elected by
them--and he is in trust to administer justice--especially criminal
justice. In the courtyard of the palace at Tanjore there hung at one
time a bell which the rajah placed there in order that any one feeling
himself aggrieved might come and ring it, and so claim redress or
judgment. Justice or Equality,” he continued, “is the special attribute
of God; and he who represents God, _i.e._ the king, must consider this
before all things. The same with rich people--they are bound to serve
and work for the poor from whom their riches come.”
This last sentence he repeated so often, at different times and
in different forms, that he might almost have been claimed as a
Socialist--certainly was a Socialist in the heart of the matter; and
at any rate this teaching shows how near the most ancient traditions
come to the newest doctrines in these respects, and how far the unclean
commercialism out of which we are just passing stands from either.
As to the English people he seemed to think them hopelessly plunged
in materialism, but said that if they did turn to “sensible pursuits”
(_i.e._ of divine knowledge) their perseverance and natural sense of
justice and truth would, he thought, stand them in good stead. The
difficulties of the gnosis in England were however very great; “those
who do attain some degree of emancipation there do not know that they
have attained; though having experience they lack knowledge.” “You
in the West,” he continued, “say _O God, O God!_ but you have no
_definite_ knowledge or methods by which you can attain to see God. It
is like a man who knows there is _ghee_ (butter) to be got out of a cow
(_pasu_, metaph. for soul). He walks round and round the cow and cries,
_O Ghee, O Ghee!_ Milk pervades the cow, but he cannot find it. Then
when he has learned to handle the teat, and has obtained the milk, he
still cannot find the ghee. It pervades the milk and has also to be
got by a definite method. So there is a definite method by which the
divine consciousness can be educed from the soul, but it is only in
India that complete instruction exists on this point--by which a man
who is ‘ripe’ may systematically and without fail attain the object
of his search, and by which the mass of the people may ascend as by a
ladder from the very lowest stages to such ‘ripeness.’”
India, he said, was the divine land, and the source from which the
divine knowledge had always radiated over the earth. Sanskrit and
Tamil were divine languages--all other languages being of lower caste
and origin. In India the conditions were in every way favorable to
attainment, but in other lands not so. Some Mahomedans had at different
times adopted the Indian teaching and become Gñánis, but it had always
been in India, and not in their own countries that they had done so.
Indeed the Mahomedan religion, though so different from the Hindu,
had come from India, and was due to a great Rishi who had quarrelled
with the Brahmans and had established forms and beliefs in a spirit of
opposition to them. When I asked him what he thought of Christ, he said
he was probably an adept in gñánam, but his hearers had been the rude
mass of the people and his teaching had been suited to their wants.
Though these views of his on the influence of India and its
wisdom-religion on the world may appear, and probably are in their
way, exaggerated; yet they are partly justified by two facts which
appear to me practically certain: (1) that in every age of the world
and in almost every country there has been a body of doctrine handed
down, which, with whatever variations and obscurations, has clustered
round two or three central ideas, of which perhaps that of emancipation
from self through repeated births is the most important; so that
there has been a kind of tacit understanding and freemasonry on this
subject between the great teachers throughout history--from the Eastern
sages, down through Pythagoras, Plato, Paul, the Gnostic schools,
the great mediæval Alchemists, the German mystics and others, to the
great philosophers and poets of our own time; and that thousands of
individuals on reaching a certain stage of evolution have corroborated
and are constantly corroborating from their own experience the main
points of this doctrine; and (2) that there must have existed in India,
or in some neighboring region from which India drew its tradition,
_before all history_, teachers who saw these occult facts and
understood them probably better than the teachers of historical times,
and who had themselves reached a stage of evolution at least equal to
any that has been attained since.
If this is so then there is reason to believe that there is a distinct
body of experience and knowledge into which the whole human race is
destined to rise, and which there is every reason to believe will bring
wonderful and added faculties with it. From whatever mere formalities
or husks of tradition or abnormal growths have gathered round it in
India, this has to be disentangled; but it is not now any more to be
the heritage of India alone, but for the whole world. If however any
one should seek it for the advantage or glory to himself of added
powers and faculties, his quest will be in vain, for it is an absolute
condition of attainment that all action for self as distinct from
others shall entirely cease.
INDIA
[Illustration: GREAT PAGODA IN TEMPLE AT TANJORE.
(_192 feet high._)]
CHAPTER XII.
THE SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLES.
Leaving Colombo by steamer one evening in the later part of January, I
landed on the sandy flat shores of Tuticorin the next day about noon.
The deck was crowded with 250 of the poorest class of Tamils, coolies
mostly, with women and children, lying in decent confusion heaped upon
one another, passively but sadly enduring the evil motion of the ship
and the cold night air. One man, nameless, unknown, and abjectly thin,
died in the night and was cast overboard. I was the only Englishman on
board beside the captain and officers. Said the second officer, “Well,
I would rather have these fellows than a lot of English emigrants.
The lowest class of English are the damnedest, dirtiest, etceteraest
etceteras in the world.”
Tuticorin is a small place with a large cotton mill, several Roman
Catholic churches and chapels, relics of Portuguese times, and a
semi-christianised semi-wage-slaving native population. From there
to Madras is about two days by rail through the great plains of the
Carnatic, which stretch between the sea-shore and the Ghauts--long
stretches of sand and scrub, scattered bushes and small trees, and
the kittool palm; paddy at intervals where the land is moister, and
considerable quantities of cotton on the darker soil near Tuticorin;
mud and thatch villages under clumps of coco-palm (not such fine trees
as in Ceylon); and places of village worship--a portico or shrine with
a great clay elephant or half-circle of rude images of horses facing
it; the women working in the fields or stacking the rice-straw in
stacks similar to our corn-stacks; the men drawing water from their
wells to run along the irrigation channels, or in some cases actually
carrying the water in pots to pour over their crops!
These plains, like the plains of the Ganges, have been the scene of an
advanced civilization from early times, and have now for two thousand
years at any rate been occupied by the Tamil populations. Fergusson
in his _History of Architecture_ speaks of _thirty_ great Dravidian
temples to be found in this region, “any one of which must have cost
as much to build as an English cathedral.” I visited three, those of
Mádura, Tanjore, and Chidámbaram; which I will describe, taking that at
Tanjore first, as having the most definite form and plan.
I have already (chap. VII.) given some account of a smaller Hindu
temple. The temples in this region are on the same general plan. There
is no vast interior as in a Western cathedral, but they depend for
their effect rather upon the darkness and inaccessibility of the inner
shrines and passages, and upon the gorgeous external assemblage of
towers and porticos and tanks and arcades brought together within the
same enclosure. At Mádura the whole circumference of the temple is
over 1,000 yards, and at Sri Rungam each side of the enclosure is as
much as half a mile long. In every case there has no doubt been an
original shrine of the god, round which buildings have accumulated,
the external enclosure being thrown out into a larger and larger
circumference as time went on; and in many cases the later buildings,
the handsome outlying gateways or _gópuras_ and towers, have by their
size completely dwarfed the shrine to which they are supposed to be
subsidiary, thus producing a poor artistic effect.
[Illustration: TEMPLE AT TANJORE, GENERAL VIEW.
(_Portico with colossal bull on the right, priests’ quarters among
trees on the left._)]
In the temple at Tanjore the great court is 170 yards long by 85
wide. You enter through a gateway forming a pyramidal structure 40 or
50 feet high, ornamented with the usual carved figures of Siva and
his demon doorkeepers, and find yourself in a beautiful courtyard,
flagged, with an arcade running round three sides, the fourth side
being occupied by priests’ quarters; clumps of coco-palms and other
trees throw a grateful shade here and there; in front of you rises the
great pyramidal tower, or pagoda, 190 feet high, which surmounts the
main shrine, and between the shrine and yourself is an open portico on
stone pillars, beneath which reposes a huge couchant bull, about six
yards long and four yards high, said to be cut from a solid block of
syenite brought 400 miles from the quarries. This bull is certainly
very primitive work, and is quite brown and saturated with constant
libations of oil; but whether it is 2,700 years old, as the people
here say, is another question. The difficulty of determining dates in
these matters is very great; historical accuracy is unknown in this
land; and architectural style gives but an uncertain clue, since it
has probably changed but little. Thus we have the absurdity that while
natives of education and intelligence are asserting on the one hand
that some of these temples are five or even ten thousand years old, the
Western architects assert equally strongly that they can find no work
in them of earlier date than 1000 A.D., while much of it belongs to the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Probably the architects are in the
main right. It is quite probable however that the inner shrines in most
of these cases _are_ extremely old, much older than 1000 A.D.; but they
are so buried beneath later work, and access to them is so difficult,
and if access were obtained their more primitive style would so baffle
chronology, that the question must yet remain undetermined.
Close to the bull is the _kampam_ or flagstaff, and then, beyond, a
flight of steps leading up to the main sanctuary and the tower or
pagoda. The sanctuary is all fine and simple work of red sandstone in
which horizontal lines predominate. At its far end and under the pagoda
would be no doubt the inner shrine or holy of holies--the _vimana_ or
womb of the temple, a cubical chamber, in which the _lingam_ would
be placed. Into these mysteries we did not penetrate, but contented
ourselves with looking at the pagoda from the outside. It is a very
dignified and reposeful piece of work, supposed by Fergusson to belong
to the early part of the fourteenth century; ninety-six feet square at
the base, with vertical sides for about fifty feet, and then gradually
drawing in narrower through thirteen stories to the summit (see plate
at head of this chapter). The red sandstone walls at the base are
finely and quietly paneled, with statues of Siva--not grotesque, but
dignified and even graceful--in the niches. Higher up in the pyramidal
part the statues are fewer, and are mingled with couchant bulls and
flame-like designs composed of multitudinous cobras and conches and
discs (symbols of the god--who is lord of Time, the revolving disc, and
of Space, represented by the sounding conch) in tiers of continually
diminishing size to the summit, where a small dome--said to be also a
single massive block of stone--is surmounted by a golden pinnacle. The
natural red of the stone which forms the lower walls is artificially
deepened in the panels, and the traces of blue and green tints
remaining, together with silvery and brown incrustations of lichen in
the upper parts, give a wonderful richness to the whole. I am afraid
however that the pyramidal structure is not stone, but brick covered
with plaster. The frequency of the bull everywhere throughout this and
other Saivite temples reminds one of the part played by the same animal
in Persian and Egyptian worship, and of the import of the Zodiacal sign
Taurus as a root-element of the solar religions. The general structure
and disposition of these buildings might I should think also recall the
Jewish and Egyptian temples.
All round the base of the great sanctuary and in other parts of the
temple at Tanjore are immense inscriptions--in Telugu, says one of the
Brahmans, but I cannot tell--some very fresh and apparently modern,
others nearly quite obliterated.
The absolute incapacity shown by the Hindus for reasoned observation
in religious matters was illustrated by my guide--who did not in other
respects appear to be at all a stickler for his religion. When he first
called my attention to the pagoda he said, adding to his praise of its
beauty, “Yes, and it never casts a shadow, never any shadow.” Of course
I did not trouble to argue such a point, and as we were standing at the
time on the sunlit side of the building there certainly was no shadow
visible _there_. Presently however--after say half an hour--we got
round to the other side, and were _actually standing in the shadow_,
which was then quite extensive, it being only about 9 a.m., and the
sun completely hidden from us by the pagoda; I had forgotten all about
the matter; when the guide said again and with enthusiasm, “And it has
no shadow.” Then seeing my face (!) he added, “No, this is not the
shadow.” “But,” said I, “it _is_.” “No,” he repeated, “this is not the
shadow of the _pagoda_, for that never casts any shadow”--and then
he turned for corroboration to an old half-naked Brahman standing
by, who of course repeated the formula--and with an air of mechanical
conviction which made me at once feel that further parley was useless.
It might seem strange to any one not acquainted with the peculiarities
of human nature that people should go on perhaps for centuries calmly
stating an obvious contradiction in terms like that, without ever so to
speak turning a hair! But so it is, and I am afraid even we Westerners
can by no means claim to be innocent of the practice. Among the Hindus,
however, in connection with religion this feature is really an awkward
one. Acute and subtle as they are, yet when religion comes on the field
their presence of mind forsakes them, and they make the most wild and
unjustifiable statements. I am sorry to say I have never witnessed a
real good thungeing miracle myself. We have all heard plenty of stories
of such things in India, and I have met various Hindus of ability and
culture who evidently quite believed them, but (although quite willing
and ready-equipped to believe them myself) I have always felt, since
that experience of the shadow, that one “couldn’t be too careful.”
On either side of the great pagoda, and standing separate in the
courtyard, are two quite small temples dedicated, one to Ganésa and the
other to Soubramániya, very elegant, both of them; and one or two stone
_pandals_ or porticos for resting places of the gods in processions.
One can imagine what splendid arenas for processions and festivals
these courts must afford, in which enormous crowds sometimes assemble
to take part in ceremonials similar to that which I have described in
chapter VII. Owing however to former desecrations by the French (who in
1777 fortified the temple itself), and present treatment by the British
Government, this Tanjore temple is not so much frequented as it used to
be. The late Rajah of Tanjore, prior to 1857, supported the place of
course with handsome funds; but the British Government only undertakes
_necessary_ repairs and allows a pension of four rupees a month to the
existing temple servants. They are therefore in a poor way.
The arcade at the far end and down one side of the court is frescoed
with the usual grotesque subjects--flying elephants trampling on
unbelievers, rajahs worshiping the god, women bathing, etc., and is
furnished the whole way with erect stone _lingams_--there must be at
least a hundred of them. These lingams are cylindrical stones a foot
and a half high or so, and eight or nine inches thick, some bigger,
some smaller, standing in sort of oval troughs, which catch the oil
which is constantly poured over the lingams. Women desiring children
pay their offerings here, of flowers and oil, and at certain festivals
these shrines are, notwithstanding their number, greatly in request.
* * * * *
The palace at Tanjore is a very commonplace round-arched whitewashed
building with several courts--in part of which the women-folk of the
late rajah are still living behind their bars and shutters; the whole
place a funny medley of Oriental and Western influences; a court of
justice opening right on to one of the quadrangles, with great oil
paintings of former rajahs; a library; a harness and dress room,
with elephants’ saddles, horses’ head-gear, rajah’s headgear, etc.;
a reception room also quite open to a court, with sofas, armchairs,
absurd prints, a bust of Nelson, and a clockwork ship on a troubled
sea; elephants wandering about in the big court; painted figures of
English officers on the sideposts of one of the gates, and so forth.
Round the palace, and at some little distance from the temple, clusters
the town itself with its narrow alleys and mostly one-storied cottages
and cabins, in which the goldsmiths and workers in copper and silver
repoussé ware carry on their elegant trades.
* * * * *
The ancient city of Mádura, though with a population of 60,000, is
even more humble in appearance than Tanjore. At first sight it looks
like a mere collection of mud cabins--though of course there are
English bungalows on the outskirts, and a court-house and a church
and an American mission-room and school, and the rest. The weavers
are a strong caste here; they weave silk (and cotton) _saris_, though
with failing trade as against the incoming machine-products of
capitalism--and you see their crimson-dyed pieces stretched on frames
in the streets.
The _choultrie_ leading up to one of the temple gates is a colonnade
110 yards long, a central walk and two aisles, with carven monolithic
columns--a warrior sitting on a rearing horse trampling shields of
soldiers and slaying men or tigers, or a huge seated king or god,
in daring crudeness--and great capitals supporting a stone roof.
Choultries were used as public feeding-halls and resting-places for
Brahmans, as well as for various ceremonies, and in old days when
the Brahmans were all-powerful such places were everywhere at their
service, and they had a high old time. This choultrie has however been
turned into a silk and cotton market, and was gay, when I saw it, with
crowds of people, and goods pinned up to the columns. Emerging from
it, the eastern gate of the temple stands on the opposite side of the
road--a huge _gópura_, pagoda form, fifteen stories or so high, each
tier crowded with figures--Siva hideous with six arms and protruding
eyes and teeth, Siva dancing, Siva contemplative, Siva and Sakti on the
bull, demon doorkeepers, etc.--the whole picked out in the usual crude
reds, yellows, greens, blues, and branching out at top into grotesque
dragon-forms--a strange piece of work, yet having an impressive total
effect, as it rises 200 feet into the resplendent sky over the little
mud and thatch cottages--its crude details harmonised in the intense
blaze, and its myriad nooks of shadow haunted by swallows, doves and
other birds.
There are nine such gópuras or gate-towers in all in this temple, all
on much the same plan, ranging from 40 to 200 feet in height, and
apparently used to some extent as dwelling-places by priests, yogis,
and others. These, together with the various halls, shrines, tanks,
arcades, etc., form a huge enclosure 280 yards long by nearly 250 wide.
On entering the huge doorway of the eastern gópura one finds oneself
immediately in a wilderness of columns--the hall of a thousand
columns--besides arcades, courts, and open and covered spaces,--a
labyrinth full of people (for this temple is much frequented)--many
of whom are selling wares, but here more for temple use, flowers
for offerings, cakes of cowdung ashes for rubbing on the forehead,
embroidered bags to put these in, money-changers, elephants here and
there, with bundles of green stuff among the columns, elephant-keepers,
the populace arriving with offerings, and plentiful Brahmans going to
and fro. The effect of the numerous columns--and there are fully a
thousand of them, fifteen feet high or so--is very fine--the light and
shade, glimpses of sky or trees through avenues of carved monsters, or
cavernous labyrinths of the same ending in entire darkness: grotesque
work and in detail often repulsive, but lending itself in the mass
to the general effect--Siva dancing again, or Ganésa with huge belly
and elephant head, or Parvati with monstrous breasts--“all out of one
stone, all out of one stone,” the guide keeps repeating: feats of
marvelous patience (_e.g._ a chain of separate links all cut from the
same block), though ugly enough very often in themselves.
And now skirting round the inner sanctuary to the left, we come into a
sort of cloister opening on a tank some fifty yards square, from whence
we get a more general view of the place, and realise its expanse. The
five or six gópuras visible from our standpoint serve to indicate
this--all painted in strong color but subdued by distance, roofs of
various portions of the temple, clumps of palm and other trees, two
gold-plated turrets shining brilliantly in the sun, the tank itself
with handsome stone tiers and greenish waters where the worshipers
wash their feet, the cloisters frescoed with elaborate legendary
designs, and over all in the blue sky flocks of birds--swallows,
doves, and bright green parrots chattering. Once more we plunge into
dark galleries full of hungry-eyed Brahmans, and passing the shrine
of Minakshi, into which we cannot gain admittance, come into the very
sombre and striking corridor which runs round the entire inner shrine.
The huge monoliths here are carven with more soberness and grace,
and the great capitals bear cross-beams which in their turn support
projecting architraves. Hardly a soul do we meet as we make the circuit
of the three sides. The last turn brings us to the entrance of the
inner sanctuary itself; and here is the gold-plated _kambam_ which I
have already described (chap. VII.), and close behind it the bull Nandi
and the gloom of the interior lit only by a distant lamp or two. To
these inner parts come only those who wish to meditate in quiet; and
in some secluded corner may one occasionally be seen, seated on the
floor with closed eyes and crossed legs, losing or endeavoring to lose
himself in _samádhi_.
Outside the temple in the streets of Mádura we saw three separate
Juggernath cars, used on occasions in processions. These cars are
common enough even in small Hindu towns. They are unwieldy massive
things, often built in several tiers, and with solid wooden wheels
on lumbering wooden axles, which look as if they were put on (and
probably are) in such a way as to cause the maximum of resistance to
motion. At Streevelliputhur there is a car thirty feet high, with
wheels eight feet in diameter. The people harness themselves to these
things literally in thousands; the harder the car is to move, the
greater naturally is the dignity of the god who rides upon it, and the
excitement becomes intense when he is at last fairly got under weigh.
But I have not witnessed one of these processions.
* * * * *
The temple of Chidámbaram is in some respects more interesting than
those of Tanjore and Mádura. It is in fact more highly thought of as
a goal of pilgrimage and a place of festival than any other South
Indian temple, and may be said to be the Benares of South India. The
word Chidámbaram means _region of pure consciousness_, and Siva is
worshiped here under his most excellent name of Nátarája, _lord of the
dance_. “O thou who dancest thy illimitable dance in the heaven of pure
consciousness.”
There is a little railway station of Chidámbaram, but it is two or
three miles from the temple and the town; and though the town itself
numbers some 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, there is not a single
Englishman resident in the place or within some miles of it, the only
white-faced inhabitant being a Eurasian druggist who keeps a shop
there. When I was there the whole temple was in course of repair, and
the Brahmans were such a nuisance that I really did not get so good
an idea of the place as I could have wished. These gentry swarm here,
and descend upon one like birds of prey, in quest of tips; indeed the
physiognomy of a great many of them suggests the kite family--sharp
eyes, rather close together, and a thin aquiline nose; this with their
large foreheads looking all the larger on account of the shaven head
does not give a very favorable impression.
The ascendancy of the Brahman caste is certainly a very remarkable
historical fact. It is possible that at one time they really resembled
the guardians of Plato’s ideal republic--teachers and rulers who
themselves possessed nothing and were supported by the contributions
of the people; but before so many centuries had gone by they must have
made the first part of their functions subsidiary to the second, and
now--though a good many of them ply trades and avocations of one kind
or another--the majority are mere onhangers of the temples, where they
become sharers of the funds devoted to the temple services, and bleed
the pockets of pious devotees. When a Hindu of any worldly substance
approaches one of these places, he is immediately set upon by five or
six loafers of this kind--each of whom claims that his is the Brahman
family which has always done the priestly services for the visitor’s
family (and indeed they do keep careful note of these matters), and
that _he_ therefore should conduct the visitor to the proper quarter
of the temple, take his offerings to the god, and receive his reward
accordingly.
This temple is I should think about the same size as that at Mádura,
but more open like the Tanjore temple. There are four gópuras of about
equal size--120 feet high or so--at the four points of the compass.
On entering by the eastern one the hall of a thousand columns stands
away in the court to the right, and gives the idea of a complete temple
in itself. The sides and back end are closed in, but the front forms
a sort of portico, and columns similar to those of the portico--every
one a monolith--extend through the entire interior. There is a lane or
aisle down the middle, and then on each side they stand thick, in rows
perhaps ten feet apart. As you go in the gloom gets deeper and deeper.
Only here and there a gap in the external wall throws a weird light.
The whole suggests a rock cave cut in multitudinous pillars to support
the overlying weight, or a gloomy forest of tree-trunks. But the
columns are commonplace in themselves, and their number and closeness
together under a flat roof of no great weight is not architecturally
admirable. When you reach the interior sanctum, where you might expect
to find the god at home, you discover a mere bare cavity, so dark that
you cannot see the roof, and occupied by innumerable bats who resent
your intrusion with squeaks and shrieks. But my guide explained to me
that twice a year the god _does_ come to dwell there, and then they
clean the place up and decorate it with lamps for a season.
A large tank stands just west of this hall--a tank 200 feet long I
should think--in which men (and women) were washing their feet and
clothes. These tanks are attached to every temple. At Mádura there is
a very beautiful one, “the golden lotus tank,” two miles away from the
temple, with a pagoda on an island in the midst of it--to which they
resort at the Taypúsam festival. Also at Mylapore, Madras, there is a
handsome tank with pagoda just outside the temple; but mostly they are
within the precincts.
[Illustration: TEMPLE AND TANK AT MYLAPORE, MADRAS.]
Entering the inner inclosure at Chidámbaram you come to various arcades
and shrines, where Brahmans and chetties raged. The chetties have great
influence at Chidámbaram; their caste supplies I believe the main funds
of the temple--which is practically therefore in their hands. I was
presented with flower garlands and a lime, and expected to make my
money-offering in front of a little temple, of Vishnu I think, which
they seasonably explained to me was to be roofed with gold! On the
other hand--to the left--was a temple to Siva--both these forms being
worshiped here. Into the shrine of Parvati I did not penetrate, but it
looked ancient and curious. Fergusson says that this shrine belongs
to the 14th or 15th centuries, and the inner sanctuaries to somewhere
about 1000 A.D., while the hall of the thousand columns--which shows
Mahomedan influence--is as late as the 17th century.
An elderly stoutish man, half naked, but with some authority
evidently--who proved afterwards to be the head of the
chetties--announced in a loud voice that I was to be treated with
respect and shown as much as possible--which only meant that I was
to give as large an offering as possible. Then an excited-looking
fellow came up, a medium-sized man of about forty, and began talking
cockney English as fluently and idiomatically as if he had been born
by the Thames, rattling off verses and nursery rhymes with absurd
familiarity. The rest said he was a cranky Brahman with an insane gift
for language--knew Sanskrit and ever so many tongues.
Escaping from these I left the temple and went into the village to see
the goldsmiths who are employed (by the chetties) on work connected
with its restoration. Found a large workshop where they were making
brass roof-pinnacles, salvers, pedestals for images, etc., and
plating the same with gold leaf or plates--also store of solid gold
things--armlets and breastplates for the gods, etc.--another touch
remindful of Greek life. The gold leaf was being beaten out between
thin membranes--many leaves at once--with a hammer. All handwork, of
course.
My guide--who is the station clerk and a Brahman, while his
station-master is a Sudra (O this steam-engine!)--told me on the way
back that the others at the station often advised him to give up his
caste practices; but he had plenty of time in the middle of the day,
between the trains, to go through his ablutions and other ceremonies,
and he did not see why he should not do so.
As we walked along the road we met two pilgrims--with orange-colored
cloths--coming along. One of them, a hairy, wild, and obstinate-looking
old man, evidently spotted the hated Englishman from afar, and as he
passed put his tongue gently but firmly out at me!
CHAPTER XIII.
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA.
India beggars description--the interminable races, languages, creeds,
colors, manners, costumes.
The streets of Madras (Blacktown) are a blaze of color--predominant
white, but red, orange, brilliant green and even blue cloths and
turbans meet the eye in every direction. Blacktown reminds one of
Pompeii--as it may have been in its time--mostly one-storied buildings,
stuccoed brick with little colonnades or lean-to thatches in front,
cool dark stone interiors with little or no furniture--a bit of a
court somewhere inside, with a gleam of the relentless sun--a few
mango leaves over the door in honor of the Pongal festival (now going
on), and saffron smeared on doorposts; a woman standing half lost
in shadow, men squatting idling in a verandah, a brahman cow with a
bright brass necklace lying down just in the street--(sometimes in the
verandah itself); a Hindu temple with its queer creepy images fronting
on the street, and a Juggernath car under a tall thatch, waiting for
its festival; or a white arabesqued and gimp-arched mosque with tall
minarets pinnacled with gold spiring up into the blue; absurd little
stalls with men squatted among their baskets and piled grains and
fruits; and always this wonderful crowd going up and down between.
I should think half the people have religious marks on their
foreheads--black, white, or red spots on the frontal sinus--horizontal
lines (Saivite), vertical lines (Vaishnavite)--sometimes two vertical
white marks joined at the base with a red mark between, sometimes a
streak of color all down the ridge of the nose--and so forth. It is as
if every little sect or schism of the Christian Church declared itself
by a symbol on the brow.
How different from Ceylon! There is a certain _severity_ about India,
both climate and people. The dry soil, the burning sun (for though so
much farther north the sun has a more _wicked_ quality about it here),
are matched by a certain aridity and tension in the people. Ceylon
is idyllic, romantic--the plentiful foliage and shade everywhere,
the easy-going nature of the Cinghalese themselves, the absence of
caste--even the English are softened towards such willing subjects.
But here, such barriers, such a _noli-me-tangere_ atmosphere!--the
latent feud between Hindu and Mussulman everywhere, _their_ combined
detestation of the English springing out upon you from faces passing;
rigid orthodoxies and superiorities; the Mahomedans (often big and
moderately well-conditioned men) looking down with some contempt upon
the lean Hindu; the Hindus equally satisfied in their own superiority,
comforting themselves with quotations from _Shastras_ and _Puranas_.
As to the boatmen and drivers and guides and servants generally, they
torment one like gadflies; not swindling one in a nice open _riant_
way like the Italians of the same ilk, but with smothered dodges and
obsequious craft. The last hotel I was at here was odious--a lying
Indian manager, lying and cringing servants, and an idiotic old man
who acted as my “boy” and tormented my life out of me, fiddling around
with my slippers on pretence of doing something, or holding the towel
in readiness for me while I was washing my face. On my leaving, the
manager--as he presented his bill with utmost dignity and grace--asked
for a tip; so did the head-waiter, and all the servants down to the
bath-man; then there were coolies to carry my luggage from the hotel
steps (where the servants of course left it) to the cab, and then when
I had started, the proprietor of the cab ran after it, stopped it, and
demanded a larger fare than I had agreed to! On one occasion (in taking
a boat) I counted eleven people who put in a claim for _bakshish_.
Small change cannot last for ever, and even one’s vocabulary of oaths
is liable to be exhausted in time!
It requires a little tact to glide through all this without exposing
oneself to the enemy. Good old John Bull pays through the nose for
being ruler of this country. He overwhelms the people by force, but
they turn upon him--as the weaker is prone to do--through craft;
and truly they have their revenge. Half believing in the idea that
as _sahib_ and ruler of the country he must live in such and such
style, have so many servants, etc., or he would lose his prestige, he
acquiesces in a system of impositions; he is pestered to death, and
hates it all, but he must submit. And the worst is one is conscious
all the time of being laughed at for one’s pains. But British
visitors must not commit the mistake--so commonly made by people in a
foreign country--of supposing that the classes created in India by our
presence, and who in some sense are the reflection of our own sins, are
or represent the normal population--even though we naturally see more
of them than we do of the latter.
There are however in the great cities of India little hotels kept
and frequented by English folk where one is comparatively safe from
importunities; and if you are willing to be altogether a second-rate
person, and go to these places, travel second class by train, ride in
bullock-hackeries, and “undermine the empire” generally by doing other
such undignified things, you may travel with both peace of mind and
security of pocket.
* * * * *
Madras generally is a most straggling, dull, and (at night) ill-lighted
place. Blacktown, already described, and which lies near the harbor,
is the chief centre of native life; but the city generally, including
other native centres, plexuses of commercial life, knots of European
hotels and shops, barracks, hospitals, suburban villas and bungalows,
stretches away with great intervals of dreary roads between for miles
and miles, over a dead flat on whose shore the surf beats monotonously.
Adyar, where the Theosophists have their headquarters--and which
is still only a suburb of Madras--is seven miles distant from the
harbor. The city however, though shorn of its former importance as
far as the British are concerned, and slumbering on its memories of
a hundred years ago, is a great centre of native activity, literary
and political; the National Indian Congress receives some of its
strongest support from it; many influential oysters reside here; papers
like the _Hindu_, both in English and vernacular, are published here,
and a great number of books printed, in Tamil and other South Indian
languages.
At Adyar I saw Bertram Keightley and one or two others, and had some
pleasant chats with them. Col. Olcott was absent just at the time.
The Theosophist villa, with roomy lecture-hall and library, stands
pleasantly among woods on the bank of a river and within half a mile
of the sea. Passing from the library through sandalwood doors into
an inner sanctum I was shown a variety of curios connected with
Madame Blavatsky, among which were a portrait, apparently done in a
somewhat dashing style--just the head of a man, surrounded with clouds
and filaments--in blue pigment on a piece of white silk, which was
“precipitated” by Madame Blavatsky in Col. Olcott’s presence--she
simply placing her two hands on the white silk for a moment. Keightley
told me that Col. Olcott tested a small portion of the silk so colored,
but found the pigment so fast in the fibre that it could not by any
means be washed out. There were also two oil portraits--heads, well
framed and reverently guarded behind a curtain--of the now celebrated
Kout Houmi, Madame Blavatsky’s Guru, and of another, Col. Olcott’s
Guru--both fine-looking men, apparently between forty and fifty
years of age, with shortish beards and (as far as I could see, for
the daylight was beginning to fail) dark brown hair; and both with
large eyes and what might be called a spiritual glow in their faces.
Madame Blavatsky knew Col. Olcott’s Guru as well as her own, and the
history of these two portraits (as told me by Keightley) is that
they were done by a German artist whom she met in the course of her
travels. Considering him competent for the work--and he being willing
to undertake it--she projected the images of the two Gurus into his
mind, and he painted from the mental pictures--she placing her hand
on his head during the operation. The German artist medium accounted
for the decidedly mawkish expression of both faces, as well as for the
considerable likeness to each other--which considering that Kout Houmi
dates from Cashmere, and the other (I think) from Thibet, might not
have been expected. All the same they are fine faces, and it is not
impossible that they may be, as I believe Madame Blavatsky and Col.
Olcott considered them, good likenesses. Keightley was evidently much
impressed by the “old lady’s” clairvoyant power, saying that sometimes
in her letters from England she displayed a knowledge of what was
going on at Adyar, which he could not account for. Altogether I had an
interesting conversation with him.
Among other places in Madras I visited one of the little Pompeiian
houses in Blacktown, which I have already described--where a Hindu
acquaintance, a small contractor, is living: a little office, then a
big room divided in two by a curtain--parlor in front and domestic
room behind--all cool and dark and devoid of furniture, and little
back premises into which I did not come. He is an active-minded man,
and very keen about the Indian Congress to which he was delegate last
year, sends hundreds of copies of the _Hindu_ and other “incendiary”
publications about the country each week, and like thousands and
hundreds of thousands of his fellow-countrymen to-day, has learnt the
lessons taught him by the British Government so well that the one
thing he lives for is to see electoral and representative institutions
embedded into the life of the Indian peoples, and the images of Vishnu
and Siva supplanted in the temples by those of John Stuart Mill and
Herbert Spencer.
While I was there two elderly gentlemen of quite the old school
called--innocent enough of Herbert Spencer and of cloth coats and
trousers--with their white muslins round their bodies, and red shawls
over their shoulders, and grey-haired keen narrow faces and bare shins
and horny feet, which they tucked up onto their chairs as they sat; but
with good composed unhurried manners, as all Easterns of the old school
seem to have. This habit of the mild Hindu, of tucking his feet under
him, is his ever-present refuge in time of trouble or weariness; at the
railway station or in any public place you may see him sitting on a
seat, and beneath him, in the place where his feet ought to be, are his
red slippers; but of visible connection between them and his body there
is none--as if he had already severed connection with the earth and was
on the way toward heaven.
_Calcutta._--Arrived 6th Feb., about 4 p.m.--steaming all day since
dawn up the Hooghly, 130 miles from the light-boat at its mouth to
Calcutta--a dismal river, with dismal flat shores, sandy and dry in
places and only grown with scrub, in others apparently damp, to judge
by the clumps of bamboo; landscape often like Lincolnshire, trees of
similar shape, stacks of rice-straw looking just like our stacks, mud
and thatch villages; in other places the palmyra and coco-nut palm;
and doubtless in parts wild tangles and jungles haunted by tigers;
aboriginal boats going up and down; and the Hooghly narrowing at last
from four or five miles near its mouth to half a mile at the Howrah
bridge of boats.
Nearing Calcutta brick-kilns and the smoky tall chimneys of
civilisation appear along the banks, and soon we find ourselves
among docks and wharfs, and a forest of shipping alongside of a
modern-looking city (that part of it).
Calcutta is built on a dead flat. There is a considerable European
quarter of five-storied buildings, offices, warehouses, law-courts,
hotels, shops, residences, wide streets and open spaces, gardens, etc.;
after which the city breaks away into long straggling lines of native
dwellings--small flat-roofed tenements and shops, crowded bazaars and
tram-lines--embedding almost aboriginal quarters, narrow lanes with
mere mud and tile cabins--labyrinths where a European is stared at.
The white dome of the Post Office, like a small St. Paul’s, dominates
the whole riverside city with its crowded shipping and animated
quays--fit symbol of modern influences. Round no temple or mosque or
minster does the civilising Englishman group his city, but round the
G.P.O. It would almost seem, here in Calcutta, as if the mere rush of
commercial interests had smashed up the native sanctions of race and
religion. The orderly rigor of caste, which is evident in Madras, is
not seen; dress is untidy and unclean, the religious marks if put on at
all are put on carelessly; faces are low in type, lazy, cunning, bent
on mere lucre. The Bengali is however by nature a versatile flexile
creature, sadly wanting in backbone, and probably has succumbed easily
to the new disorganising forces. Then the mere mixture of populations
here may have a good deal to do with it. A huge turmoil throngs the
bazaars, not only Bengalis, but Hindustanis, Mahomedans, Chinese, and
seedy-looking Eurasians--in whom one can discern no organising element
or seed-form of patriotism, religion, or culture (with the exception
perhaps of the Chinese). It seems to be a case of a dirty Western
commercialism in the place of the old pharisaism of caste and religion,
and it is hard to say which may be the worst.
Sunday (the 8th) was a great day for bathing in the river. I did not
know that the Hooghly was for such purposes considered to be a part
of the Ganges, but it appears that it is; and owing to an important
and rare astronomical conjunction, announced in the almanacs, bathing
on that day was specially purificatory. In the morning the waterside
was thronged with people, and groups of pilgrims from a distance could
be seen coming in along the roads. Wherever the banks shelved down to
the water, or the quays and river-walls allowed, huge crowds (here
mostly dressed in unbleached cotton, with little color) could be seen
preparing to bathe, or renewing themselves afterwards--beggars at all
the approaches spreading their cloths on the ground to catch the scanty
handfuls of rice thrown to them; everywhere squatted, small vendors
of flowers for offerings, or of oil, or sandalwood paste for smearing
the body with after the bath, or of colored pigments for painting
sect-marks on the forehead; strings of peasants followed by their
wives and children; old infirm people piloted by sons and daughters;
here a little old woman, small like a child, drawn in a clumsy wooden
barrow to the waterside; there a horrible blind man with matted hair,
squatted, yelling texts from the holy books; here family groups and
relatives chatting together, or cliques and clubs of young men coming
up out of the water--brass pots glancing, and long hair uncurled in
the wind. If you imagine all this taking place on a fine summer’s day
somewhere a little below London Bridge, the scene would hardly be more
incongruous than it is here by the handsome wharfs of Calcutta Strand,
under the very noses of the great black-hulled steamships which to-day
perhaps or to-morrow are sailing for the West.
The evening before the festival I went with Panna Lall B. to a
European circus which happened to be in the place--same absurd
incongruity--dense masses of “oysters” perched or sitting cross-legged
on their benches--their wraps drawn round them, for the night was
really cold--watching under the electric light the lovely and decidedly
well-developed Miss Alexandra in tights performing on the trapeze, or
little “Minnie” jumping through rings of flame. Considering that,
except among the poorest classes (peasants, etc.), the Bengalis
keep their women closely shut up, and that it is a rare thing to
see a female (unless it be a child or old woman) in the streets of
Calcutta--a scene of this kind at the circus must cause a sufficient
sensation; and indeed the smile which curled the lips of some of these
rather Mephistophelean spectators was something which I shall not
easily forget.
But the mass of the people of India must be wretchedly poor. These
half-starved peasants from the surrounding country wandering
about--their thin thin wives and daughters trailing after them, holding
on to the man’s unbleached and scanty cotton cloth--over the _maidan_,
through the Asiatic Museum, through the streets, by the riverside--with
gaping yet listless faces--are a sad and touching sight; yet it only
corroborates what I have seen in other parts. “Wide and deepening
poverty all over the land, such as the world has never before seen on
so vast a scale,” says Digby; and with some testimony to show that the
people in the native states are in a better condition than those under
our organisation. Even if the poverty is not increasing (and this is a
matter on which it is most difficult to form a definite opinion), there
seems to be no evidence to show that it is decreasing. The famines go
on with at least undiminished severity, and the widespread agricultural
paralysis is by no means really compensated by a fallacious commercial
prosperity, which in the larger centres is enriching the few at the
expense of the many.
After watching these pathetic crowds on Sunday, I went the next
day to a meeting of the Countess of Dufferin’s Fund for the Medical
Education of Indian Women--a well-meant movement, which after being
launched with all advantages and _éclat_ has only met with moderate
success. A very varied spectacle of dress and nationality. Rajahs and
native chiefs of all sorts of hues and costumes; yellow silk tunics
figured with flowers, flowing purple robes, dainty little turbans
over dark mustachioed faces, sprays and feathers of diamonds; English
ladies in the pink of fashion, military uniforms, and the Viceroy and
Lady Lansdowne in the centre in quiet morning costume. The English
speakers belauded the native chiefs present, and the native chiefs
complimented the English ladies; but after the spectacle of the day
before the general congratulations fell rather flat upon me, nor did
they appear to be justified by the rather melancholy and inefficient
appearance of the bevy of native women students and nurses present. Sir
Chas. Elliott, the Lieut.-Governor, made a kindly speech, which left
on one the unpleasant impression that one sometimes gets from those
big-brained doctrinaire persons whose amiability is all the more hard
and narrow-minded because it is so well-intentioned. Lord Lansdowne
underneath an exterior (physical and mental) of decadent aristocracy
seems to have just a spark of the old English high-caste ruling quality
about him--which was certainly good in its time, but will be of little
use I fear to the half-starved peasants of to-day.
I fancy, with all respect to the genuine good intention shown in
these zenana missions, medical education funds, etc., there must be
something rather comical to the natives themselves in philanthropic
efforts of this kind, made by a people who understand the country so
little as the English do; just as there is something rather comical
to the masses at home in the toy “charities” and missions of the lady
and gentleman here, and suggestive of an old parable about a mote
and a beam. In a lecture given by the Maharajah of Benares, in July,
1888, he chaffed these philanthropists somewhat--recounting how one
such lady “actually regretted that the peasant cultivators could not
provide themselves with boots! while another had a long conversation
with a Rani on the ill effects of infant marriage, and was surprised
to hear that the Rani had been married at the age of seven, and had
sons and grandsons, all of whom were happy and contented. The Rani
then turned to the lady, and observing that her hair was turning grey,
inquired whether no one had ever offered her proposals of marriage, and
suggested that the _English_ laws required some modification to insure
ladies against remaining so long in a state of single blessedness.”
But the most interesting people, to me, whom I have met here, are a
little _côterie_ of Bengalis who live quite away in the native part of
the city. Chundi Churn B. is a schoolmaster, and keeps a small school
of thirty or forty boys, which lies back in a tangle of narrow lanes
and alleys, but is quite a civilised little place with benches and
desks just like an English school--except that like all the schools in
this part of the world it is quite open to the street (with trellised
sides in this case), so that passers-by can quite easily see and
be seen. Chundi Churn told me that he started the school on purely
native lines, but had poor success until he introduced the English
curriculum--English history, science, Euclid, Algebra, etc.--when he
soon got as many boys as he wanted. As in all the Indian schools they
work what appear to us frightfully long hours, 7–9 a.m.; then an hour
for breakfast; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then an hour for dinner; and
again from 3 till 6. I fancy they must take it fairly easy; and then
it is certain that the native boys--though they have active little
brains--are much more quiescent than the English, are content to sit
still, and the master has little trouble in keeping order.
[Illustration: CHUNDI CHURN B.]
I have been round several evenings after school hours and chatted with
Chundi Churn and his brother and various friends that dropped in--an
intelligent little community. Two of them are Brahman fellows of about
thirty, with the eager tense look that the Brahmans mostly have, but
good imaginative faces. We discuss the Indian Congress, English and
Indian customs, the child-marriage question (which is raging just now),
and the great question of Caste. They insist on my eating various sweet
cakes of native preparation, but will not eat with me; and they smoke
hubble-bubble pipes, which they pass round--but the Brahmans must have
a hubble-bubble to themselves! At the same time they are careful to
explain that “no one believes in all this now”; but as they are at
home, and only trellis-work between us and the lane, it would not do
to violate the rules. And this, I believe, is largely the state of
affairs. The anglicising population, for the sake of parents’ feelings
(and they are tender on this point), or respectability, or commercial
connection, keep up a show of caste rules which they have ceased or are
ceasing to believe in; and it is an open secret that Brahman gentlemen
of high standing in their caste, not unfrequently when traveling, or in
places where they are not known, resort to British hotels and have a
high feed of beefsteaks and champagne!
One of the Brahmans is clerk in a mercantile establishment in the
English part of Calcutta, and some of the others are students at the
Metropolitan College. Western education is going on at a tremendous
rate--so much so that there will soon be an educated proletariat (what
Grant Duff calls “the worst of evils”) in the great cities of India.
Two or three of the party are very quick at mathematics--which seems to
be a subject in which the Bengalis excel--and readily picked up the key
to one or two little problems which I presented to them. They all seem
to be much impressed with the greatness of Western civilisation--for
the present at any rate, but will react probably before so very long.
Finding I knew something of astronomy they pelted me with questions
about the stars, and insisted on going out at night and trying to
hunt up the ecliptic among the constellations! Then after a time they
would relapse into tale-telling and music. The fellows still show
a truly Oriental love of long stories, and would listen with rapt
attention to one of their party relating some ancient yarn about the
child of a king who was exposed in the woods and ultimately came back
after many convolutions of adventure and claimed his kingdom--just
as if they had not heard it before; or about the chaste Draupatha
(in the Mahabhárata) who--when Duriyodhana, desiring to insult her
before a large assembly, gave orders that she should be stripped of
her cloth--thought of Vishnu, and her cloth went on lengthening and
unwinding indefinitely--their stories lengthening and unwinding like
Draupatha’s cloth, in a way that would have delighted the heart of
William Morris.
[Illustration: PANNA LALL B.]
Panna Lall, Chundi Churn’s brother, is a bright-mannered youth of about
twenty, of a modest affectionate disposition, and with a certain grace
and dignity of bearing. He doesn’t care about books, but has a good
ear and plays one or two musical instruments in an easy unstudied way;
lives in quite primitive style with his father down in one of these
back lanes--but has a tiny little room of his own where he takes me
to sit and chat with friends. There is _no_ furniture, but you squat
cross-legged on the floor--so there is plenty of room for quite a
party. There may be a box or two in a corner, and on the walls some
shelves and a few prints. Indeed it gives one a curious sensation to
see crude colored woodcuts, framed under glass and exactly resembling
the pictures of the Virgin or of Christ common in Catholic countries,
and then on nearer approach to find that they represent Siva or
Parvati, or among the Bengalis Chaitanya, or some other incarnation of
the divinity, standing or seated on a lotus flower and with benign
head encircled by an aureole. These pictures are printed in Calcutta.
Panna Lall is quite an athlete, and interested in anything in that
line. He took me one day to a little bit of ground where he and some
friends have their horizontal bars, etc.; they did some good tumbling
and tight-rope walking, and with their golden-brown skins and muscular
bodies looked well when stripped. The Bengali Babu is often of a
lightish-brown colour. The people generally wear more clothing than
in South India, and at this time of year throw a brown woollen shawl
over their shoulders, _toga_ fashion; their heads are almost always
bare, but they have taken a great fancy lately in Calcutta to wearing
narrow-toed patent-leather shoes, which look sufficiently absurd and
must be fearfully uncomfortable on their well-developed broad feet.
Only it is a mark of distinction and civilisation! Panna Lall every
now and then, when walking, entreats me to stop and rest under a tree,
and then takes off his shoes and waggles his toes about to soothe and
refresh them! I am never tired of admiring the foot in its native
state. It is so broad and free and full and muscular, with a good
concave curve on the inner line, and the toes standing well apart from
each other--so different from the ill-nourished unsightly thing we are
accustomed to. I sometimes think we can never attain to a broad free
and full life on our present understandings in the West.
Another absurd custom of the young Babus here (I am speaking of the
mass of the people) is that of putting on a Manchester cotton shirt,
pure and simple, when they wish to appear in full dress! As they do
not wear trousers, the effect (combined with the patent-leather shoes)
is very naïve and touching.
On the whole Calcutta does not impress me very favorably. There is
the official society, and the trading and commercial ditto, and the
educational and legal sections, and a considerable racing population,
including a great number of jockeys and horse-trainers who come over
with their girls from Australia for the season; there-is a fine
zoological garden and a botanic garden, and the Asiatic Museum, and
various public buildings, and two or three colleges, including a
college for native women; but all these interests seem to serve chiefly
in the direction of _disorganizing_ the mass of the people and the
primitive sanctions of their life. Taking it at its worst the general
population is dirty, lazy and rapacious. As in our slums, a kind of
listlessness and despair marks the people in the poorest quarters--who,
instead of congregating as with us round a beershop, may be seen
perching about on doorsteps and even on the tops of walls, sitting on
their heels with knees drawn up to the chin, and a draggled garment
about them--looking painfully like vultures, and generally chewing
betel, that common resource against hunger. One notes however, even
here, a few fine faces, and a good many very pathetic ones, of old
people.
Chundi Churn plays a little on the _sítar_--the original of our
_guitar_ I suppose--an instrument with a long neck and small belly
made of a pumpkin shell, and four or five wires (originally three
wires, from _si_, three, and _tar_, string). The frets are movable,
so that keeping the same key-note you can play in major, minor, or
other modes. I am beginning to understand the Indian music better now,
after having heard a little in different places; but have not very
much systematic knowledge about it. It appears that they divide the
octave into twenty-two exactly equal parts, called _sruti_--each part
having its own special name. An interval of four _srutis_ may then be
said to constitute a major tone, three _srutis_ a minor tone, and two
a semitone--though this is not _quite_ exact; and out of these three
intervals, major tone, minor tone, and semitone, a seven-step scale is
constituted very nearly similar to ours, and having the semitones in
the same places. The key-note of this scale is called _Sa_ or _Ansa_,
and corresponds to our _Do_, and though not exactly a key-note in the
modern sense of the word, it is the most accentuated note and “rules
the others.” By adopting any of the other six notes as key-note scales
are got very nearly corresponding to the seven Gregorian scales of the
old church music; and one very commonly in use, if I am not mistaken,
corresponds to the Phrygian mode--_i.e._ that which we produce on the
piano by using E as tonic and playing all the white keys.
These seven scales constituted the first system of Hindu music; but
they had a second system in which the notes, though preserving their
names, could be, any of them, raised or dropped by a _sruti_; and a
third system in which one or two notes being omitted, five or six-step
scales were produced.
Out of the hundreds (or thousands) of possible scales thus producible,
the Oriental mind, unable to find the scientific root of the whole
business, made a fantastic selection. There were six sons of Brahma
and Saráswati called Rágas--the genii of the passions. Six principal
scales were named after these genii and called _Rags_, and then each of
these had five feminine sub-scales or _Raginas_ attached to it; and so
forth. Then the numbers five, six and seven became typical of divisions
of the year, days of the week, the number of planets, etc., and very
soon a most fanciful system was elaborated--the remains only of which
have lingered to the present day. The old notation appears to have died
out; but a vast number of time-honored melodies, or rather phrases, in
the different modes and scales, have been preserved by tradition--and
are now called _rags_ and _raginas_, though these names were formerly
applicable to the scales only. These _rags_ and _raginas_ are not what
we should call tunes, but are brief or extended phrases, which have
been classified as suitable for various occasions, emotions, festivals,
times of day, seasons of the year, and the like; and these the musician
uses and combines, within limits, to his taste; and in the hands of a
skilful person they are very effective, but become abominably insipid
and conventional if treated in a mechanical way.
Besides the regular notes belonging to any given scale, the Hindus
use the quarter tones, or _srutis_, a good deal in the little turns
and twanks of which they are so fond; and sometimes by slurring they
pass through every intermediate gradation of tone. The slur, which is
congenial to the mystic vague melody of the East, and so foreign to
the distinct articulation of Western music, is often used in singing;
and on the _sítar_ a slight slurring rise of tone is produced by
drawing the string sideways along the fret--a device which recalls the
clavichord of which Sebastian Bach was so fond, in which instrument the
hammer which struck the string was also the bridge which defined its
length, so that an increased pressure by the finger on the key after
the first striking of the note raised the bridge a little, tightened
the string, and so produced a plaintive rise of tone.
[Illustration: WOMAN PLAYING SÍTAR.]
All this gives the idea of a complicated system of music; and it will
be seen that in the range of mere melody the Hindu music has really
a greater capacity of subtle expression than ours. But in harmony
it is deficient--the ground idea of their harmony being the use of a
drone bass--which bass, though it may change not unfrequently, always
seems to preserve the drone character. And of course the deficiency in
harmony reacts on and limits the play of melody.
The general character of the music, like that of much of the Indian
life, reminds one of our own mediæval times. The monkish plain-song
and the early minstrel music of Europe were probably very similar to
this. There was the same tendency to work from a droning bass rather
than from a key-note in our sense of the word, the same tendency to
subordinate the music to the words, causing vague and not always
balanced flights of intricate melody, the same love of ornamental
kinks, and the same want of absolute definition in the matter of time.
The instruments most commonly used, besides the _Sítar_ and its
relative the _Vina_, are the _Manda_, a horizontal harp somewhat
resembling the Tyrolese _zither_; the _Sigara_, a small clarinet; a
bamboo flageolet, which has a very sweet and mellow tone; the _Tabala_,
a small kettledrum; and the _Taus_, a four-stringed fiddle played with
a bow. This last is a very curious instrument. Beneath the four main
strings are stretched a number of other fine wires, which by their
vibration lightly reinforce and sustain the notes played. The effect
when not played too fast is very graceful and clinging, with subtle
harmonics; and I have heard some most bewitching phrasing on this
instrument--a dialogue one might say between it and the voice--with
accompaniment of the little Tabala. The Tabala itself is very
charming, with its gurgling and bell-like sounds and sudden explosions
and chattering accompaniments, executed by the fingers and the butt end
of the hand on two drums simultaneously. The great effect of the sítar,
whose tone on the whole is thin, is undoubtedly the side tension of the
strings, which gives much expression to it.
At its best the Indian music seems to me to produce a powerful
impression--though generally either plaintive or frenzied. On the deep
background of the drone are wrought these (Wagnerian) phrases, which
are perfectly fluent and variable according to the subject conveyed,
which are extraordinarily subtle in expression, and which generally
rise in intensity and complexity as the piece progresses, till the
hearers are worked into a state of cumulated excitement. When there are
several instruments and voices thus figuring together over the same
bass, the effect is fine. The little tambours with their gurgling notes
record the time in a kind of unconscious way and keep the musicians
together. The big drums and the lower strings of the _vina_ give the
required basses, the _taus_ and _sítars_ and voices fly up and down
in delightful intricacy, quarter notes touched here and there create
a plaintive discord, and even the slur judiciously used adds a weird
effect as of the wind in the forest.
When not at its very best however it is certainly (to me) damnably
rambling, monotonous and wearisome--notwithstanding chromatic effects
of admitted elegance and occasional passages of great tenderness. What
the music most seems to want is distinct form and contrast, and the
ruder rockier elements--nor is their time-system sufficiently developed
to allow change of accent in successive bars, etc. They all say however
that the art is not cultivated to-day, and indeed is greatly decadent
and to some extent actually lost. Like all branches of learning in
India, and the caste-system itself, it has been subject to intense
pedantry and formalism, and has become nearly stifled amid the otiose
rules which cumber it. On the other hand it is interesting to find that
the Hindus call our music not only monotonous (as we call theirs, and
which may be accounted for by mere unfamiliarity--as a town-bred man
thinks all sheep alike), but also coarse and rude--by which I fancy
they mean that our intervals are all very obvious and commonplace, and
the time-system rigid--while probably our sequences of harmony are lost
upon them. Panna Lall, I find, picks up our tunes quite easily; and
seems to like them fairly, but always adds a lot of little kinks and
twanks of his own.
After all, though the vaguely-floating subtle recitative style of the
Indian music has its drawbacks and makes one crave for a little more
definition and articulateness, it presses upon one as possible that
_our_ music might gain something by the adoption and incorporation of
some of these more subtle Eastern elements--if only at times, and as an
enhancement of our range of expression by contrast with our own generic
style.
CHAPTER XIV.
BENARES.
The great plains of the Ganges are very impressive; so vast--with
a stretch, roughly speaking, of a thousand miles, and breadth from
200 to 300 miles--so populous,[5] yet with such an ancient world-old
village life; and dominated always by these tremendous powers of sun
and sky. All the way from Calcutta to Delhi (and beyond) this immense
plain, absolutely flat, spreads in every direction, as far as eye can
see the same, dotted park-like with trees (mangos many of them), which
thickening here and there into a clump of palmyra palms indicate the
presence of a village. The long stretches of bare land with hardly a
blade of grass, shimmering in the noonday heat; oases of barley and
dhol (a shrub-like lentil) looking green at this time of year, but soon
to be reaped and stowed away; patches of potatos, castor-oil plant,
poppy in white flower, small guava trees, indigo, etc.; here and there
a muddy pool or irrigation channel; a herd of slow ungainly buffalos
or the more elegant humped cow’s, browsing miraculously on invisible
herbage; a woman following them, barefoot and barehead, singing a
sad-toned refrain, picking up the precious dung (for fuel) and storing
it in a basket; long expanses of mere sand with a few scrubby trees,
brown crop-lands without a crop, straggling natural roads or tracks
going to the horizon--not a hedge for hundreds of miles--strings of
peasants passing from distant village to village, donkeys laden with
produce, and now and then a great solid-wheeled cart labouring and
creaking by over the unbroken land. The villages themselves are mostly
mere collections of mud huts, looking when partially broken down very
like anthills; and some villages are surrounded by rude mud walls
dating from older and less settled times, and having a very primitive
appearance. The people on the whole (after Southern India) look rather
dirty in their unbleached cotton, but here and there one meets with
bright colors and animated scenes.
[5] With an average density of population of 500 per square
mile, or nearly double that of the United Kingdom!
Here are two peasants drawing water all day from the well to irrigate
their rice-field; one guides the bucket down to the water, the other
runs out on the long lever arm of a horizontal pole--holding on to the
branches of a neighboring tree as he does so--and so brings the bucket
up again. And thus they continue from earliest dawn to latest dusk,
with a few hours’ rest at midday.
Here is one watering his fields by hand, carrying pots and emptying
them over the thirsty plants--a fearful toil!
Here again is the classical picture--the two mild-eyed cows harnessed
at the well mouth. The rope passes over a pulley and draws up a huge
skin full of water as the cows recede from the well; then, as they
remount the slight slope, the skin again falls to the water. To and
fro go the cows; one man guides them, another empties the skins into
the water channel; and so day-long the work continues.
But out on the great plain you may go for hundreds of miles, and mark
but little change or variation. Flocks of green parrots, or of pigeons,
fly by, or lesser birds; kites perpetually wheel and float overhead;
occasionally you may see an antelope or two among the wilder scrub, or
a peahen and her little family; the great cloudless blue (though not by
any means always cloudless) arches over to the complete circle of the
horizon, the whole land trembles in the heat, a light breeze shivers
and whispers in the foliage, the sun burns down, and silence (except
for the occasional chatter of the parrots or the plaintive song of the
peasant) reigns over the vast demesne.
In many of these villages the face of a white man is seldom or never
seen. Even such centres as Allahabad are mere specks in an ocean;
the railway is a slender line of civilisation whose influence hardly
extends beyond the sound of the locomotive whistle; over the northern
borders of the plain the great snows of the Himalayas dawn into sight
and fade away again mornings and evenings, and through its midst wind
the slow broad-bosomed waters of the sacred Ganges.
Over all this region, when night comes, floats a sense of unspeakable
relief. The spirit--compressed during the day in painful self-defence
against the burning sun above and the blinding glare below--expands in
grateful joy. A faint odor is wafted from the reviving herbage. The
flat earth--which was a mere horizon line in the midday light--now
fades into nothingness; the immense and mystic sky, hanging over
on every side like a veil, opens back into myriads and myriads of
stars--and it requires but little imagination to think that this planet
is only an atom in the vast dome of heaven. To the Hindu, Life is that
blinding sun, that fever of desire and discomfort, and night is the
blessed escape, the liberation of the spirit--its grateful passage into
Nirwana and the universal.
One understands (or thinks one does) how these immense plains have
contributed to the speculative character of the Hindu mind. Mountains
and broken ground call out energy and invention, but here there is
no call upon one to leave the place where one is, or to change one’s
habits of life, for the adjoining hundreds of miles present nothing
new. Custom undisturbed consolidates itself; society crystallises
into caste. The problem of external life once solved presents no more
interest, and mechanical invention slumbers; the mind retires inward
to meditate and to conquer. Hence two developments--in the best types
that of the transcendental faculties, but in the worst mere outer
sluggishness and lethargy. The great idea of Indifference belongs
to these flat lands--in its highest form one of the most precious
possessions of the human soul, in its lowest nothing better than
apathy. The peasant too in these plains has for several months nothing
to do. He sows his crop, waters it, and reaps it; works hard, and in
a few months the rich land rewards him with a year’s subsistence; but
he can do no more; the hot weather comes, and the green things are
burnt up; agriculture ceases, and there remains nothing but to worship
the gods. Hence from February to the end of May is the great time for
religious festivals, marriages, and ceremonies and frolics of all kinds.
That the Ganges should be sacred, and even an object of worship, is
easily intelligible--not only on account of its fertilising beneficence
to the land, but there is something impressive in its very appearance:
its absolute tranquillity and oceanic character as it flows, from half
a mile to a mile wide, slowly, almost imperceptibly, onward through
the vast hot plain. The water is greenish, not too clear, charged even
in the lower portions of its course with the fine mud brought from the
mountains; the banks are formed by sandy flats or low cliffs cut in the
alluvial soil. As you stand by the water’s edge you sometimes in the
straighter reaches catch that effect--which belongs to such rivers in
flat countries--of flowing broad and tranquil up to and _over_ the very
horizon--an effect which is much increased by the shimmer of heat over
the surface.
In the Mahabhárata Siva is god of the Himalaya range--or rather he _is_
the Himalayas--its icy crags his brow, its forests his hair. Ganga,
the beautiful Ganga, could not descend to earth till Siva consented
to receive her upon his head. So impetuously then did she rush down
(in rain) that the god grew angry and locked up her floods amid his
labyrinthine hair--till at last he let them escape and find their way
to the plains. The worship of Siva is very old--was there perhaps
when the ancestors of the Brahmans first found their way into these
plains--though we do not hear of it till about 300 B.C.--one of those
far-back Nature worships in which the phenomena of earth and sky are so
strangely and poetically interwoven with the deepest intimations of the
human soul.
On the banks of the Ganges, in the midst of the great plain, stands
Benares, one of the most ancient cities of India, and the most sacred
resort of Northern Hinduism. Hither come pilgrims by the hundred and
the thousand all the year round, to bathe in the Ganges, to burn the
bodies of their friends or cast their ashes in the stream, and to
make their offerings at the 5,000 shrines which are said to exist in
the city. Outside the town along the river-side and in open spots may
be seen the tents of pilgrims, and camels tethered. The city itself
stands on the slightest rising ground--hardly to be called a hill--and
the river banks, here higher than usual, are broken and built into
innumerable terraces, stairs, temples, and shrines. The scene is
exceedingly picturesque, especially as seen from the river; and though
taken in detail the city contains little that is effective in the way
of architecture--the shrines and temples being mostly quite small, the
streets narrow, and the area of the place circumscribed considering its
large population--yet it is the most characteristic and interesting
town of India that I have hitherto seen.
The English make no show here--there are no residents, no hotels--the
English quarter is four miles off, the names of the streets are not
written in English characters, and you hardly see a shop sign in the
same. And I must say the result of all this is very favorable. The
sense of organic life that you immediately experience is very marked
in contrast to a mongrel city like Calcutta. As you thread the narrow
alleys, along which no vehicle can pass, with houses three or four
storeys high forming a close lane above you, balconies and upper floors
projecting in picturesque confusion not unlike the old Italian towns,
you feel that the vari-colored crowd through which you elbow your
way is animated by its own distinct standards and ideals. A manifold
ancient industry little disturbed by modern invention is going on in
the tiny shops on either hand--workshops and saleshops in one. Here is
a street full of brass-workers. The elegant brass pots which the whole
population uses--for holding or carrying water or oil, for pouring
water over the head in bathing, for offering libations in the temples,
and so forth--and which form such a feature of Indian folk-life--are
here being made, from miniature sizes up to huge vessels holding
several gallons. Then there are little brass images, saucers to carry
flowers in, and other fancy ware of the same kind.
Another street is full of sandal and leather workers; another of
sweetmeat or sweet-cake confectioners; another is given to the sale
of woollen and cotton wraps--which are mostly commercial products of
the West; stone and marble effigies, and gems, form another branch of
industry; and cookshops--innocent fortunately of the smell of meat--of
course abound. There are many fine faces, both old and young, but
especially old--grave peaceful penetrative faces--and among the better
types of young men some composed, affectionate, and even spiritual
faces--withal plenty of mere greed and greasy worldliness.
Niched among these alleys are the numerous shrines and temples already
mentioned--some a mere image of Vishnu or Siva, with a lingam in front
of it, some little enclosures with several shrines--the so-called
Golden Temple itself only a small affair, with one or two roofs plated
with gold. In many of the temples brahman cows wander loose, quite
tame, nosing against the worshipers, who often feed them; and the smell
of litter and cowdung mingles with that of frankincense and camphor.
Vulture-eyed Brahmans are on the alert round the more frequented
sanctuaries, and streams of pilgrims and devotees go to and fro.
The river-side is certainly a wonderful scene. A mere wilderness of
steps, stairs, terraces and jutting platforms, more or less in disorder
and decay, stretching for a mile or more by the water. Flights of
a hundred steps going up to small temples or to handsome-fronted
but decayed palaces, or to the Mosque of Aurungzebe, whose two tall
red-sandstone minarets (notwithstanding the incongruity) are the
most conspicuous objects in this sacred metropolis of Hinduism; the
steps covered with motley groups going down to or coming up from the
water--here an old man, a wanderer perhaps from some distant region,
sitting perched by himself, his knees drawn up to his chin, meditating;
there another singing hymns; groups under awnings or great fixed straw
umbrellas, chatting, or listening to stories and recitations; here a
string of pilgrims with baskets containing their scanty bedding,
etc., on their heads, just emerging from one of the narrow alleys;
there on a balcony attached to a big building appear half a dozen young
men, stripped, and with Indian clubs in their hands--their yellow and
brown bodies shining in the early sun; they are students at some kind
of native seminary and are going through their morning exercises; here
are men selling flowers (marigolds) for the bathers to cast into the
water; here is a _yogi_ squatted, surrounded by a little circle of
admirers; there are boats and a quay and stacks of wood landed, for
burning bodies; and there beyond, a burning ghaut.
[Illustration: THE GHAUTS AT BENARES.]
One morning Panna Lall--who had come on with me from Calcutta--wanted
to bathe at a particular ghaut (as each family or caste has its
special sanctuaries), so we went off early to the river-side. He
looked quite jaunty in his yellow silk coat with white nether garment
and an embroidered cap on his head. As it happened, a spring festival
was being celebrated, and everybody was in clean raiment and bright
colors, yellow being preferred. As we approached the river the alleys
began to get full of people coming up after their baths to the various
temples--pretty to see the women in all shades of tawny gold, primrose,
saffron, or salmon-pink, bearing their brass bowls and saucers full of
flowers, and a supply of Ganges water.
The ghauts were thronged. Wandering along them we presently came upon a
_yogi_ sitting under the shade of a wall--a rather fine-looking man of
thirty-five, or nearing forty, with a kindly unselfconscious face--not
at all thin or emaciated or ascetic looking, but a wild man decidedly,
with his hair long and matted into a few close ringlets, black but
turning brown towards his waist, a short unkempt beard, and nothing
whatever on but some beads round his neck and the merest apology for
a loin-cloth. He sat cross-legged before a log or two forming a small
fire, which seemed grateful as the morning was quite cold, and every
now and then smeared his body with the wood-ashes, giving it a white
and floury appearance. For the rest his furniture was even less than
Thoreau’s, and consisted apparently of only one or two logs of firewood
kept in reserve, a pair of tongs, and a dry palm-leaf overhead to ward
off the sun by day and the dews by night. I looked at him for some
time, and he looked at me quietly in return--so I went and sat down
near him, joining the circle of his admirers of whom there were four or
five. He seemed pleased at this little attention and told me in reply
to my questions that he had lived like this since he was a boy, and
that he was very happy--which indeed he appeared to be. As to eating he
said he ate plenty “when it came to him” (_i.e._ when given to him),
and when it didn’t he could go without. I should imagine however from
his appearance that he did pretty well in that matter--though I don’t
think the end of his remark was mere brag; for there was that look
of _insouciance_ in his face which one detects in the faces of the
animals, His friends sat round, but without much communication--at any
rate while I was there--except to offer him a whiff out of their pipes
every now and then, or drop a casual remark, to which he would respond
with a quite natural and pleasant laugh. Of any conscious religion or
philosophy I don’t think there was a spark in him--simply wildness, and
reversion to a life without one vestige of care; but I felt in looking
at him that rare pleasure which one experiences in looking at a face
without anxiety and without cunning.
A little farther on we came to one of the burning ghauts--a
sufficiently dismal sight--a blackened hollow running down to the
water’s edge, with room for three funereal pyres in it. The evening
before we had seen two of these burning--though nearly burnt out--and
this morning the ashes only remained, and a third fresh stack was
already prepared. As we stood there a corpse was brought down--wrapped
in an unbleached cloth (probably the same it wore in life) and slung
beneath a pole which was carried on the shoulders of two men. Round
about on the jutting verges of the hollow the male relatives (as we had
seen them also the day before) sat perched upon their heels, with their
cloths drawn over their heads--spectators of the whole operations. I
could not help wondering what sort of thoughts were theirs. Here there
is no disguise of death and dissolution. The body is placed upon the
pyre, which generally in the case of the poor people who come here is
insufficiently large, a scanty supply of gums and fragrant oils is
provided, the nearest male relative applies the torch himself--and then
there remains nothing but to sit for hours and watch the dread process,
and at the conclusion if the burning is complete to collect the
ashes and scatter them on the water, and if not to throw the charred
remains themselves into the sacred river. The endurance of the Hindu is
proverbial--but to endure such a sight in the case of a dear and near
relative seems ultra-human. Every sense is violated and sickened; the
burning-ground men themselves are the most abhorred of outcasts--and as
they pass to and fro on their avocations the crowd shrinks back from
the defilement of their touch.
We did not stay more than a few minutes here, but passed on and
immediately found ourselves again amongst an animated and gay crowd
of worshipers. This was the ghaut where Panna wished to bathe--a
fine pyramidal flight of stairs jutting into the water and leading
up to the Durga Temple some way above us. While he was making
preparations--purchasing flowers, oil, etc.--I sat down in the most
retired spot I could find, under an awning, where my presence was not
likely to attract attention, and became a quiet spectator of the scene.
After all, there is nothing like custom. One might think that in order
to induce people to bathe by thousands in muddy half-stagnant water,
thick with funeral ashes and drowned flowers, and here and there
defiled by a corpse or a portion of one, there must be present an
immense amount of religious or other fervor. But nothing of the kind.
Except in a few, very few, cases there was no more of this than there
is in the crowd going to or from a popular London church on Sunday
evening. Mere blind habit was written on most faces. There were the
country bumpkins, who gazed about them a bit, and the _habitués_ of
the place; there were plenty with an eye to business, and plenty as
innocent as children; but that it was necessary for some reason or
other to bathe in this water was a thing that it clearly did not enter
into any one’s head to doubt. It simply had to be done.
The coldness of the morning air was forced on my attention by a group
of women coming up, dripping and shivering, out of the river and taking
their stand close to me. Their long cotton cloths clung to their limbs,
and I wondered how they would dress themselves under these conditions.
The steps even were reeking with wet and mud, and could not be used for
sitting on. They managed however to unwind their wet things and at the
same time to put on the dry ones so deftly that in a short time and
without any exposure of their bodies they were habited in clean and
bright attire. Children in their best clothes, stepping down one foot
always first, with silver toe-rings and bangles, were a pretty sight;
and aged people of both sexes, bent and tottering, came past pretty
frequently; around on the various levels were groups of gossipers, and
parties squatting opposite each other, shaving and being shaved. Nearly
opposite to me was one of the frequent stone lingams which abound here
at corners of streets and in all sorts of nooks, and I was amused by
the antics of a goat and a crow, which between them nibbled and nicked
off the flowers, ears of barley, and other offerings, as fast as the
pious deposited them thereon.
While I was taking note of these and other features of the scene, my
attention was suddenly arrested by a figure standing just in front of
me, and I found that I was looking at one of those self-mutilating
fakirs of whom every one has heard. He was a man of a little over
thirty perhaps, clothed in a yellow garment--not very tall though
of good figure; but his left arm was uplifted in life-long penance.
There was no doubt about it; the bare limb, to some extent dwindled,
went straight up from the shoulder and ended in a little hand, which
looked like the hand of a child--with fingers inbent and ending in
long claw-like nails, while the thumb, which was comparatively large
in proportion to the fingers, went straight up between the second
and third. The mans face was smeared all over with a yellow pigment
(saffron), and this together with his matted hair gave him a wild and
demonish appearance.
One often reads of such things, yet somehow without quite realising
them; certainly the sight of this deliberate and lifelong mutilation
of the human body gave me a painful feeling--which was by no means
removed by the expression of the face, with its stultified sadness,
and brutishness not without deceit. His extended right hand demanded
a coin, which I gladly gave him, and after invoking some kind of
blessing he turned away through the crowd--his poor dwindled hand and
half-closed fingers visible for some time over the heads of the people.
Poor fellow! how little spiritual good his sufferings had done him.
His heavy-browed face haunted me for some time. For the rest he was
well-liking enough, and it must be said that these fellows for the
most part make a fair living out of the pious charity of the people,
though I would not be understood to say that all of them adopt this
mode of life with that object.
When Panna came up out of the water and had dressed himself, and I
had satisfied the curiosity of one or two bystanders who wanted to
know whether I had come with him all the way on this pilgrimage out of
friendship, we went up to the temple above--where a little band was
playing strange and grisly music, and a few devotees were chanting
before an image of Siva--and having made an offering returned to our
hotel.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ANGLO-INDIAN AND THE OYSTER.
_Allahabad._--It certainly is a very difficult thing to see the real
India, the real life of the people. You arrive at a railway station,
give the name of a hotel, and are driven there. When you wake up in
the morning you find yourself in a region of straight shady avenues,
villa residences, hotels and churches, lawn-tennis and whisky pegs.
Except that the residences are houses of one storey instead of three,
and that the sun is rather glaring for February, you might just as well
be at Wandsworth or Kew. In some alarm you ask for the native city and
find that it is four miles off! You cannot possibly walk there along
the dusty roads, and there is nothing for it but to drive. If there is
anything of the nature of a “sight” in the city you are of course beset
by drivers; in any case you ultimately have to undergo the ignominy of
being jogged through the town in a two-horse conveyance, stared at by
the people, followed by guides, pestered for _bakshish_, and are glad
to get back to the shelter of your hotel.
If you go and stay with your Anglo-Indian friend in his villa-bungalow,
you are only a shade worse off instead of better. He is hospitality
itself and will introduce you cordially to all the other good folk,
whom (and their ways) you have seen more than once before at
Wandsworth and at Kew; but as to the people of the country, why, you
are no nearer them physically, and morally you are farther off because
you are in the midst of a society where it is the correct thing to damn
the oyster, and all that is connected with him.
The more one sees of the world the more one is impressed, I think, by
the profundity and the impassibility of the gulf of race-difference.
Two races may touch, may mingle, may occupy for a time the same land;
they may recognise each other’s excellencies, may admire and imitate
each other; individuals may even cross the dividing line and be
absorbed on either side; but ultimately the gulf reasserts itself, the
deepset difference makes itself felt, and for reasons which neither
party very clearly understands they cease to tolerate each other. They
separate, like oil and water; or break into flame and fierce conflict;
or the one perishes withering from the touch of the other. There are a
few souls, born travelers and such like, for whom race-barriers do not
exist, and who are everywhere at home, but they are rare. For the world
at large the great race-divisions are very deep, very insuperable.
Here is a vast problem. The social problem which to-day hangs over
the Western lands is a great one; but this looms behind it, even
vaster. Anyhow in India the barrier is plain enough to be seen--more
than physical, more than intellectual, more than moral--a deepset
ineradicable incompatibility.
Take that difference in the conception of Duty, to which I have
already alluded. The central core of the orthodox Englishman, or at
any rate of the public-school boy who ultimately becomes our most
accepted type, is perhaps to be found in that word. It is that which
makes him the dull, narrow-minded, noble, fearless, reliable man that
he is. The moving forces of the Hindu are quite different; they are,
first, Religion; and second, Affection; and it is these which make
him so hopelessly unpractical, so abominably resigned, yet withal so
tender and imaginative of heart. Abstract duty to the Hindu has but
little meaning. He may perform his religious exercises and his caste
injunctions carefully enough, but it is because he realises clearly
the expediency of so doing. And what can the Englishman understand of
this man who sits on his haunches at a railway station for a whole day
meditating on the desirability of not being born again! They do not and
they cannot understand each other.
Many of the I.C.S. are very able, disinterested, hardworking men, but
one feels that they work from basic assumptions which are quite alien
to the Hindu mind, and they can only see with sorrow that their work
takes no hold upon the people and its affections. The materialistic and
commercial spirit of Western rule can never blend with the profoundly
religious character of the social organisation normal to India. We
undertake the most obviously useful works, the administration of
justice, the construction of tanks and railways, in a genuine spirit
of material expediency and with a genuine anxiety to secure a 5 per
cent. return; to the Hindu all this is as nothing--it does not touch
him in the least. Unfortunately, since the substitution of mere open
competition for the remains of _noblesse oblige_, which survived in
the former patronage appointments to the I.C.S., and with the general
growth of commercialism in England, the commercial character of our
rule has only increased during the last thirty years. There is less
belief in justice and honor, more in 5 per cent. and expediency--less
anxiety to understand the people and to govern them well, more to make
a good income and to retire to England with an affluence at an early
date.
Curious that we have the same problem of race-difference still
utterly unsolved in the United States. After all the ardor of the
Abolitionists, the fury of civil war, the emancipation of the slaves,
the granting of the ballot and political equality, and the prophecies
of the enthusiasts of humanity--still remains the fact that in the
parts where negroes exist in any numbers the white man will not even
ride in the same car with his brother, or drink at the bar where he
drinks. So long does it take to surpass and overcome these dividing
lines. We all know that they have to be surpassed--we all know that the
ultimate and common humanity must disentangle itself and rise superior
to them in the end. The Gñáni knows it--it is almost the central fact
of his religious philosophy and practice; the Western democrat knows
it--it is also the central fact of _his_ creed. But the way to its
realisation is long and intricate and bewildering.
We must not therefore be too ready to find fault with the Anglo-Indian
if he only (so to speak) touches the native with the tongs. He may
think, doubtless, that he acts so because the oyster is a poor
despicable creature, quite untrustworthy, incapable, etc.--all of
which may be true enough, only we must not forget that the oyster has
a corresponding list of charges against the Anglo--but the real truth
on both sides is something deeper, something deeper perhaps than can
easily be expressed--a rooted dislike and difference between the two
peoples. Providence, for its own good reasons, seems to have put them
together for a season in order that they may torment each other, and
there is nothing more to be said.
And, putting race-difference aside, it is obvious that the
circumstances of our presence in India make any fusion of the two
parties very difficult. Certainly the spectacle of our domination of
this vast region is a very remarkable one--something romantic, and
almost incredible--the conquest and subjection of so many tribes and of
such diverse elements under one political rule and standard, the mere
handful of foreigners holding the country at such a vast distance from
home and from their base of operations, the patience and pluck with
which the problem has been worked out, the broad and liberal spirit of
administration with less of rapine than perhaps ever known in such a
case before, and even an allowance and tenderness for native customs
and institutions which are especially remarkable considering the
insular habits of the conquerors--all this makes one feel how wonderful
an achievement the thing has been. But as far as intercourse between
the two peoples goes, the result has been inevitable. We came to India
as conquerors, we remain there as a ruling caste. There is a gulf to
begin with; how can it be bridged over?
A young man at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three comes out to
join the official ranks. He finds two societies existing, quite
sundered from each other. He cannot belong to both. He may have the
most cosmopolitan ideas; he might even _prefer_ to associate with the
subject race, but that would be obviously impossible; he must join his
own people--which means the use of the tongs when a native gentleman
calls. As a mere lad, even though of strong character, it is impossible
for him to withstand the tremendous pressure which the Anglos will
bring to bear on him. When he is forty, he will have accommodated his
views to his position. Thus the gulf remains as wide as ever.
Then the people themselves are the conquered, and _they_ have learned
their lesson only too well. Walking through an Indian city is as bad as
walking through a Devonshire parish, where the parson and the squire
have done their deadly work, and the school-children curtsey to you
and the farm-laborer pulls his forelock and calls you “Sir,” if you
only ask the way. I have walked alone through a crowded city in this
part of India for two or three hours without seeing a single white
face--one among scores of thousands--and the people officiously pushing
each other out of the way to make room for me, the native police and
soldiers saluting and shouldering arms as one went by, and if one
chanced to look too straight at a man he covered his face with his
hands and bowed low to the ground! This does not happen fortunately
in the great centres like Bombay and Calcutta, but it does in some of
the up-country cities; and it is a strange experience, impressing
one no doubt with a sense of the power of the little mother-country
ten thousand miles away, which throws its prestige around one--but
impressing one also with a sinister sense of the gulf between man and
man which that prestige has created. It may be imagined that a long
course of this kind of thing soon convinces the average Anglo-Indian
that he really does belong to a superior order of being--reacting
on him just as the curtseys and forelock-pulling react on the
class-infatuation of squire and parson--and so the gulf gets wider
instead of lessening.
At dinner last night I met a dozen or so of the chief officials here,
and thought them a capable, intelligent and good-hearted lot--steeped
of course in their particular English class-tradition, but of their
class as good a sample as one could expect to meet. Talking with
a Bengali gentleman who was present--one of the numerous Bannerji
clan--he reiterated the usual complaint. “The official people,” he
said, “are very good as long as the governed submit and say nothing;
but they will neither discuss matters with individual natives nor
recognise the great social movement (National Congress, etc.) that is
going on. Their methods in fact are those of a hundred years ago.”
“It is a great pity,” he continued, “because in a few years the
growing movement will insist on recognition, and then if that leads
to altercation and division the future will be lost, both for the
English and the native. The people of India are _most_ friendly to the
Government, and if the official classes would stretch out a hand, and
give and take so to speak, they would be loyal to death.”
With these last expressions I am much inclined to agree, for having
talked with oysters of all classes on this subject--from the lowest
to the highest--I have always found but one sentiment, that of
satisfaction with the stability and security which our rule has brought
to the country at large--not of course without serious criticisms
of our policy, but with the general conviction, quite spontaneously
expressed, that a change of government--as to that of Russia--or even a
return to the divided rule of native princes, would be a decided change
for the worse. While however thus gladly and unasked expressing their
loyalty, my interlocutors have (I think in every case) qualified their
remarks by expressing their dissatisfaction at the personal treatment
they receive from the English. As one friend mildly expressed it, “The
English official calls upon you, and you of course take care to return
his call; but he takes care to confine the conversation to the weather
and similar topics, and makes you feel that it is a relief when the
visit is over, and so there is not much cordiality.”
No doubt as rulers of the country and inheriting, as I have said, a
tradition of aloofness and superiority over the ruled, it is difficult
for our Anglo-Indian folk to act otherwise than they do. Some of them
I think feel really grieved at the estrangement. One of the officials
here said to me in quite a pathetic tone, “There is a gulf between
us and the people which it is very difficult to bridge.” The native
gentleman on the other hand is, very naturally, extremely sensitive
about his dignity, and not inclined--under such conditions--to make
advances; or, if not sensitive, tends in some cases to be a toady
for his own ends; in either case further estrangement results. If the
English are to keep India together (supposing that really is a useful
object) they must _rule_ no doubt, and with a firm hand. At the same
time the rapidly growing public opinion beneath the surface _has_ to
be recognised, and will have to be recognised even more in the future.
I myself am inclined to think that timidity has a good deal to do with
the policy of the English to-day. Conscious that they are not touching
the people’s hearts, and cut off from them so as to be unable to fathom
rightly what is going on in their minds, they magnify the perils of
their own position, and entrenching themselves in further isolation and
exclusiveness, by so doing create the very danger that they would avoid.
_Aligurh._--This place affords a striking example of a _rapprochement_
taking place between the rulers and the ruled. It is the only place
in India which I have visited where I have noticed anything like a
cordial feeling existing between the two sections; and this is due
to the presence here of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College, run by
Englishmen whose instincts and convictions lie a little outside the
Anglo-Indian groove. And the fact shows how much might be done by even
a few such men scattered over India. Our friends Theodore Beck and
Harold Cox, both Cambridge men, and the latter a decided Socialist in
opinion, being connected with the college at its first start a few
years ago, naturally made a point of cultivating friendly relations
not only with the boys but with their parents--especially those who
might happen to be residing in the place. Being also, naturally, on
friendly terms with the Anglo-Indians and officials of Aligurh, they
(and the college) became a point of contact between the two sections
of the community. At cricket matches, prize-givings, supper-parties,
etc., the good people of both sides met and established comparatively
cordial relations with each other, which have given, as I say, a quite
distinctive flavor to the social atmosphere here.
Last night (Feb. 17th) I came in for a dinner-party, given in
the college reception-room by one of the Mahomedan _taluqdars_,
or landlords, of the neighborhood--a little grey timid man with
gold-braided cap and black coat--somewhat resembling the conductor of a
German band. Very amusing. Gold caps on beaked and bearded faces, and
gorgeous robes; speeches in Hindustani by Englishmen, and in English
by Mahomedans; a few Hindus present, sitting apart so as not to eat
at the table with us; healths enthusiastically drunk in tea, etc.!
and to crown it all, when the health of the Mahomedans and Hindus
present was proposed, and the English--including officials, collector,
and all--stood up and sang, “For they are jolly good fellows”--the
astonishment of the natives, hardly knowing what it all meant and
unaccustomed to these forms of jollification, was quite touching.
But the influence of Sir Syed Ahmed here must of course not be
overlooked. He is the originator and founder of the M.A.O. College, and
one of the leading Mahomedans of India, as well as a confidant of the
British and of the Government--a man of considerable weight, courage,
and knowledge of the world, if a little ultra-Mahomedan in some of
his views and in his contempt of the mild Hindu. He was a member of
Lord Ripon’s Council and opposed Lord Ripon with all his might in the
matter of the proposed system of popular election to Local Boards and
Municipal Councils. The Mahomedan is poles asunder from the modern
Radical, and Carlylean in his contempt of voting machinery. His fingers
still itch, even in these degenerate days, to cut the Gordian knot of
politics with the sword. He hates the acute and tricky Bengali, whom he
cannot follow in his acuteness, and whom he disdains to follow in his
tricks, and cannot away with his National Congress and representative
reforms. But all this perhaps recommends him the more to Anglo-Indian
sympathies. There is something in the Mahomedan, with his love of
action and dogmatic sense of duty, which makes him more akin to the
Englishman than is the philosophical and supple-minded Hindu. And one
can easily understand how this race ruled India for centuries, and
rejoiced in its rule.
Yet to-day it seems to be the fact that the Mahomedan population
is falling into considerable poverty, which--according to some
opinions--must end either in the extinction of their influence or their
adoption of Western ideas and habits. With the advent of commercialism
the stiff-necked son of Islam finds himself ousted in trade by the
supple chetty or Brahman. Hence the feud between the two races, which
to a certain extent in the country parts was scarring over with mere
lapse of time, seems likely now in the more advancing districts and
commercial centres to break out afresh. “In Bundelkhand,” says Beck in
his _Essays on Indian Topics_, “where society is very old-fashioned,
the Rajas are quite Islamized in their customs and thoughts; while in
Calcutta, where English influence has been longest, the anti-Mahomedan
feeling reaches its greatest height.” That is to say, that in Calcutta
and such places the English have brought with them commercialism
and a desire among the Hindus for political representation, both of
which things have only served to enrage the two parties against each
other--Hindu against Mahomedan, and Mahomedan against Hindu.
When a man of authority and weight could make such a jingo speech as
that of Sir Syed Ahmed at Lucknow in 1887--who in the extremity of
his contempt for the Hindu said, “_We_ do not live on fish; nor are
we afraid of using a knife and fork lest we should cut our fingers
(cheers). Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia
but Asia and Europe to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with
its sword the whole of India, although its peoples were all of one
religion”--one realises how deep-set is the antagonism still existing.
Though forming a minority, fifty or sixty million descendants of a
powerful race sharing such sentiments cannot be ignored; and it is
obvious that the feud between the two races must for a long period yet
form one of the great difficulties and problems of Indian politics.
A few years ago the Hindus tied a pig at night-time in the midst of
the Jumma Mosque at Delhi, where it was found in the morning by the
infuriated Mahomedans. They in retaliation cut up a brahman cow and
threw it into a well used by Hindus. Street fights and assassinations
followed and many people were killed--and the affair might have grown
to a large scale but for the interference of British troops. Such
little amenities are not infrequent, at any rate in certain districts.
* * * * *
There is a big horse-fair going on here just now. A hundred booths
or more arranged in four little streets in form of a cross, with
decorations. All round, bare sandy land with horses tied up for sale.
The Cabulees--great tall men with long hair and skin coats, fur
inside, and ramshackle leggings and shoes--ride in with their strings
of horses, 300 or 400 miles from the frontier--where they are obliged
to pile their arms until they return, as they would play the deuce in
the country if they were to bring their guns with them. They look tidy
ruffians, and no doubt would overrun the country if not held back by
the English or some military power.
Outside the fair is a wrestling arena, with earth-banks thrown up
round it, on which a motley crowd of spectators was seated to-day.
Saw several bouts of wrestling. The Aligarh champion’s challenge was
accepted by a big Punjaubee, a fellow from Meerut, over sixty years of
age, but remarkably powerful--burly, with small nose, battered ears,
and huge frontal prominences like some African chieftain or Western
prize-fighter--good-humored too and even jolly till accused of unfair
play, when he raged among the mob, and the meeting broke up in insane
noise and blows of sticks--a small whirlwind of combatants eddying
away for some distance over the plain. It was characteristic though,
that when they had had enough of fighting, the two parties came back
and appealed for fair play to Beck and me--the only two Englishmen
present--though there did not seem the least reason why they should,
and we were quite unable to afford them any proper satisfaction.
CHAPTER XVI.
DELHI AND AGRA.
The train rushes over an iron girder bridge, crossing the Jumna, into
Delhi. There are sandy flats and bits of garden by the river-side, and
then the great red-sandstone walls of the fort, 30 or 40 feet high,
surmounted by remnants of the old white marble palace of Shah Jehan,
looking out eastward over the great plain. Here are the Pearl Mosque--a
little pure white shrine--the Shah’s private audience hall, the zenana
apartments, and the royal baths, still standing. The women’s apartments
are certainly lovely. White and polished marble floor and marble walls
inlaid with most elegant floral and arabesque designs in mosaics of
colored stones, and in gold; with marble screens of rich lace-like
open work between the apartments and the outer world; and a similarly
screened balcony jutting over the fort wall--through which the river
and the great plains beyond are seen shimmering in the heat. The
private audience hall is of like work--a sort of open portico supported
on some twenty marble columns, with marble floor and rich mosaic
everywhere (see illustration), and the baths the same. Indeed the old
Shah with his fifty queens must have had some high old times in these
baths--one for himself, one for the queens, and one for his children,
all opening conveniently into each other.
Behind the fort used to be the densest part of the city; but after the
Mutiny this was cleared away, and now an open space extends from the
fort walls up to the Jumma Mosque and the present Delhi.
[Illustration: DEWAN KHAS, OR AUDIENCE HALL, IN PALACE AT DELHI.]
A large city of narrow alleys and courtyards--here and there a broad
tree-planted avenue with disheveled little two-storey houses on each
hand, and occasional banks, hotels, and offices. Crowds of people. A
finer-looking race than southwards--more of the Mahomedan element--and
about the Hindus themselves more fling and romance and concreteness;
some handsome faces, verging a little towards the Greek or Italian
types--but looking fine with their dark skins. I suppose that in the
Punjaub the men are finer and taller still, and look down a little
on the folk at Delhi. Cows and brahman bulls throng the streets, and
come out of courtyards in the mid-city. Some of these bulls are public
property, belong to no individual and live on the highways and mingle
with the herds of cows. When they want food they go into the market,
and the Hindus feed them with their hands.
The Jumma Mosque is the first large mosque I have seen in India, but I
am a little disappointed with it. These Indian mosques differ a little
from the Turkish--being quite open to sun and sky. The idea seems to
be, first a large open square, 100 feet across, or 100 yards, or more,
paved with marble if possible, with a tank in the middle for worshipers
to wash their feet in, and an arcade round three sides, very likely
open-work of stone, with fine gateways in each side--and on the fourth
side a sort of very handsome portico, with its floor raised above the
general court, and surmounted by three domes. Right and left of the
portico stand the two tall minarets. To be perfect the whole should be
of white polished marble inlaid with arabesques and scriptures from
the Koran. One of the main points is the absolute purity of the place.
There is nothing whatever under the portico--no likeness of beast or
bird--only three recesses in which one might fairly expect to see an
altar or an image, a flight of three steps on which the reader stands
to read the Koran, and that is all. Attendants continually dust the
whole courtyard with cloths to keep it clean.
From a distance the effect of the domes, the minarets, the open-work
of the arcade, the handsome gateways, and the little kiosks is very
attractive; but within one misses something. It seems as if the portico
ought to open back on a vast interior; but it doesn’t. There is no
mysterious gloom anywhere--not a cranny for a hobgoblin even. There is
no nice Virgin Mary in the niches, or nasty gurgoyle on the angles,
no meditative Buddha or terrifying Kali with necklace of skulls, no
suggestion of companionship human or divine, no appeal to sense. It
doesn’t give one a chance of even having a make-believe god. How
different from Hinduism with its lingams and sexual symbols deified in
the profound gloom of the temple’s innermost recess!
[Illustration: THE JUMMA MOSQUE, DELHI.]
What an extraordinary region is this to the south and west of Delhi--a
huge waste sprinkled with the ruins of six or seven previous Delhis!
Emperors in those days had a cheerful way--when they thought they
had found a securer or more convenient site--of calmly removing a
whole city from its old location. Now you pass through an arid land,
here and there green with crops, but running up into stony ridges
and mounds, and dotted with ruins as far as the eye can see. Stumpy
domes of decayed mosques in every direction looming against the sky,
mere lumps of brickwork, now turned into barns and farmyards, or with
herds of goats sheltering from the sun beneath their arches--the land
in some parts fairly covered with loose stones, remnants of countless
buildings. Here and there, among some foliage, you see a great mosque
tomb in better preservation--kept up by the Government--that of Safdar
Jung, for instance, who died 1753, Akbar’s Vizier, or of the Emperor
Humayoun, or the marble shrine of the poet Khusro. Along the roads go
bullock-carts of all kinds, some with curtains to them, concealing
women folk; and camels with loads of grass, and donkeys with huge
panniers of cowdung; and by the wayside are ash trees and peepul trees,
and wells worked by brahman cows drawing up water in huge skins.
Eleven miles south of Delhi stands the great Kutab Minar, a huge tower
240 feet high and 50 feet diameter at its base--tapering through five
storeys to its summit, which unfortunately has lost its four-columned
watch-turret and has only now a wretched iron rail--a kind of multiple
column breaking out into a sort of scroll-work capital at each
landing--not very beautiful, but impressive in its lonely vastness.
The twin column or _minar_--hardly to be called a minaret--was never
finished; its base alone stands to a height of 40 or 50 feet. Between
them lie the remains of a handsome mosque, and _within_ the courtyard
of the mosque the columned arcades of an ancient Hindu temple; while
the whole group stands within the lines of the old Hindu fortress
of Lalkab built about A.D. 1060. The mosque and minar were built
by Kutab-ud-din about 1200 A.D.; but the Hindu temple is no doubt
considerably older. Within the latter stands the celebrated iron pillar
(22 feet high above ground--and said to be an equal depth below the
surface--by 16 inches diameter at base)--whose construction at that
early date is somewhat of a puzzle. It evidently is not a casting, but
hammered. It is of pure iron, and was probably, I should say, welded
to these huge dimensions piece by piece. A Sanskrit inscription on it,
recording a victory over the Bahilkas near the seven mouths of the
Indus, fixes its date at A.D. 360–400.
This huge Kutab Minar is supposed to have been built as a kind of
glorification of the triumph of Mahomedanism over Hinduism; but now
from its top one looks out over a strange record of arid lands and
deserted cities--both Mahomedan and Hindu--fortified places built one
after another in succession and razed to the ground or deserted. The
circles of their old walls are still however mostly traceable. One of
these, which was called Toglakabad, and was destroyed by Tamerlane
in 1398, lies to the south-east. Another, which the English call the
old Fort, and which lies nearer Delhi, I visited on my way back to
the city. Like most of the villages it stands on an eminence composed
of the _débris_ of former habitations. The walls, 40 feet high, of
this little fortress, whose irregular sides are none of them probably
much more than a quarter of a mile in length, are very rude but
bold stonework, and command a dry ditch. Within there are now only
a hundred or so mud huts, and a red-sandstone mosque of rather good
appearance--from the terrace of which you look out over the Jumna and
see the minarets of the present city only three or four miles off.
Owing however to the dust flying in the air the views were by no means
very clear.
_Agra._--The fort here is quite on the same lines as that at Delhi,
but of earlier date--built by Akbar in 1566 or so--and even finer in
conception. There is indeed something very grand about this bold stern
and practical Mahomedan structure with its lofty seventy-foot walls
and solid gateway of red sandstone, surmounted by the glitter of the
marble and gilt-roofed domes and arcades and terraces which formed the
royal palace within. All these buildings of the royal palace, like
the Taj and other monuments, are now kept and repaired by the British
Government, and with tender care, and are open for visitors to walk
through at their own sweet will--subject to the trivial importunities
of a few guides. One may wander for a whole day through the many courts
of the palace at Agra and keep finding fresh beauties and interest.
After one guide has been exhausted and paid off the others leave one
respectfully alone, and one may sit down in the lovely arcade of the
Dewan Khas, or in the canopied balcony called the Jessamine Tower,
and enjoy the shade and coolness of the marble, or the sight of the
brilliant landscape between the arches--the river banks and the busy
folk washing themselves and their linen--or study the beautiful floral
mosaics upon walls and columns, at one’s leisure.
[Illustration: PERFORATED MARBLE SCREEN IN PALACE AT DELHI.]
In marble and mosaic it is impossible to imagine anything more
elegant than the Mahomedan work of this period--as illustrated by
numbers of buildings--the brilliant coloring and richness of inlaid
stone in coral, agate, jade, bloodstone, turquoise, lapis-lazuli,
or what not; the grace of running leaf and flower; the marble
reliefs--whole plants--in panels, the lily or the tulip or the oleander
conventionalised--one of the most beautiful in the Dewan Khas being a
design of the tomato plant; and then the inimitable open-work screens
(often out of one great slab of stone)--of intricately balanced yet
transparently simple designs--some in the zenana apartments here
almost as elaborate as lacework; and the care and finish with which
they have all been wrought and fitted. It was from this fort and among
these arcades and balconies that 500 English during the early days of
the Mutiny watched the clouds of flame and smoke going up from their
burning homes.
* * * * *
Here at Agra I find myself as usual at least an hour’s walk from
the native city, measuring by milestones--but how far I am from any
possibility of converse with the people there, considering that I
cannot speak their language, that they bow to the ground if I only look
at them, and that my view of _noblesse oblige_ as a Britisher should
forbid my associating freely with them, is more than I can calculate.
To go and see the Taj Mehul is easy: enough; but to explore what lies
behind some of these faces that I see on the road--beautiful as they
are, something more wonderful than even the Taj itself--is indeed
difficult. All this is very trying to people of democratic tendencies;
but perhaps it will be said that such people ought not to visit India,
at any rate under its present conditions.
One must I suppose console oneself with the Taj. I saw it for a few
brief minutes this evening under the magic conditions of deep twilight.
I was standing in the middle of the garden which opens like a lovely
park in front of the tomb. Cypresses and other trees hid its base;
the moonlight was shining very tenderly and faintly on the right of
the great white building; and on its left a touch of the blush of
sunset still lingered on the high dome. The shadows and recesses and
alcoves were folded as it were in the most delicate blue mist; the four
minarets were (in the doubtful light) hardly visible; and in the heart
of the shrine, through the marble lacework of doors and screens, was
seen the yellow glow of the lights which burn perpetually there.
[Illustration: THE TAJ, AT AGRA.]
I think this is the best point of view. The garden foliage hides the
square platform on which the Taj stands--which platform with its four
commonplace minarets is an ugly feature, and looks too obtrusively like
a table turned upside down. Indeed the near view of the building is not
altogether pleasing to me. The absolute symmetry of the four sides,
which are identical even down to the mosaic designs, and the abrupt
right angles of the base give the thing a very artificial look. But the
inlaid work of colored and precious stones--only to be seen on a near
view--is of course perfect.
The Taj stands on a terrace which falls perpendicular into the Jumna
river (behind the building in the above illustration). A mile and a
half away to the west lies the sombre line of the fort walls crowned
with the marble kiosks and minarets of the royal palace. A mile or
two beyond that again lies the city of Agra, with one or two spires
of English churches or colleges; while to the east the lovely tomb
looks out over a wild ravine land, bare and scarred, which suggests a
landscape in the moon as much as anything.
In the daytime the ornamental garden of which I have spoken, with its
gay flowers, and water-tanks, and children at play, sets off the chaste
beauty of the building; while the reflected lights from the marble
platform, with their creamy tints, and blue in the shadows, give an
added aerial charm. The thing certainly stands solid as though it would
last for centuries--and might have been built yesterday for any sign
of decay about it. Indeed I was startled--as if my own thoughts had
been echoed--when I heard a voice behind me say in good English, “This
is rather a different style from your English jerry-building is it
not?”--and looking round saw a somewhat jerry-built native youth, whose
style showed that he came from one of the great commercial centres,
saluting me in these mocking tones.
The small green parrots (the same that one commonly sees in cages
in England) which are common all over India, and which haunt the Taj
here and its garden, billing and chattering close by one, are quite a
feature of the place; their flight, with the long tail straight behind,
is something like a cuckoo’s or a hawk’s. Occasionally one may see
a vulture perched upon some point of vantage looking down upon them
with an envious eye. In Delhi, walking through a crowded street, I
saw a kite swoop down and actually snatch something--some eatable I
think--out of a child’s hand a little in front of me. It then soared
up into the air, leaving the little one terrified and sobbing on a
doorstep.
This great river (the Jumna, and the Ganges the same) and the plain
through which it slowly winds have a great fascination for me--the long
reaches and sandy spurs, the arid steep banks and low cliffs catching
just now the last red light of sunset--here and there a little domed
building standing out on a promontory, with steps down to the water--or
a brown grass-woven tent on the sands below; the great vultures slowly
flapping hitherward through the fading light; a turtle splashing into
the water; the full moon mounting into the sky, though yet with subdued
glory, and already the twinkle of a light in a house here and there;
and on my right this great mountain of marble catching the play of all
the heavenly radiances.
She must have been very beautiful, that queen-wife “the crown of the
palace,” to have inspired and become the soul of a scene like this; or
very lovely in some sense or other--for I believe she was already the
mother of eight children when she died. But indeed it does not matter
much about external or conventional beauty; wherever there is true love
there is felt to be something so lovely that all symbols, all earth’s
shows, are vain to give utterance to it. Certainly if anything could
stand for the living beauty of a loved creature, it might be this dome
pulsating with all the blushes and radiances of the sky, which makes a
greater dome above it.
Across the river, just opposite, you dimly distinguish the outline of
a vast platform--now mainly ploughed up and converted into fields--on
which the good Shah intended to have built a similar or twin tomb for
his own body; fortunately however he died long before this idea could
be carried out, and now he lies more appropriately by the side of his
loved one in the vocal gloom of that lofty interior.
“You say we Mahomedans do not respect our women, yet where in all
Europe can you point out a monument to a woman, equal to this?” said
Syed Mahmoud triumphantly to me one day. And then one remembers that
this precious monument (like so many others that the world is proud of)
was made by the forced and famine labor of 20,000 workmen working for
seventeen years--and one thinks, “What about them and _their_ wives?”
* * * * *
Called on a coterie of professors connected with the university college
at Agra--A. C. Bose, who is professor of mathematics; Gargaris,
professor of physics; Nilmani Dhar, law lecturer; and A. C. Bannerji,
judge of small cause court--an intelligent and interesting lot of
fellows. I found Bose reading a book on Quaternions; when he learnt
that I had known W. K. Clifford at Cambridge he was much interested,
and wanted to hear all about him--has read his book on “The Common
Sense of the Exact Sciences,” and was interested in the theory of
“crumpled space” and the fourth dimension. They told me a good deal
about family communism as it exists among the Bengalis, and spoke
rather feelingly of its drawbacks--in respect of the incubus of poor
relations, etc. They also asked some questions--rather touching--about
sending their sons to study in England, and what treatment they might
expect at the hands of the English at home--“if it were the same as we
receive here, we would never consent to send our sons.” Of course I
assured them that their reception in England would be perfectly cordial
and friendly. At the same time I said that they must not think ill of
the English people generally because of the unfortunate gulf existing
between the two races in India; because after all the officials and
Anglo-Indians generally--though an honorable body--could not be taken
to represent the whole people of England, but only a small section;
and that as a matter of fact the masses of the people in England made
much the same complaint against the moneyed and ruling sections there,
namely, that they were wanting in good manners. Bannerji asked me if I
saw the Lieut.-Governor (Sir A. Colvin) at Allahabad, and I said that
I had had some conversation with him, and that I thought him a man of
marked ability and culture, and probably having more liberality in his
real opinions than his natural reserve and caution would allow him to
give rein to.
Gargaris is a big-headed logical-minded slowish man who inquired much
after the Positivists, and apparently thinks much of them--being indeed
of that type himself. Nilmani Dhar seemed very enthusiastic about the
Brahmo Somaj, which I cannot say I feel any interest in. He is of
course a Theist, but most of the folk now-a-days who go in for Western
learning and ideas are Agnostics, and adopt the scientific materialism
of Huxley and Tyndall.
* * * * *
The men in the streets here--and I noticed the same at Nagpore--are
very handsome, many of them, with their large eyes and well-formed
noses, neither snub nor hooked, and short upper lips. With great
turbans (sometimes a foot high) on their heads, and fine moustaches,
they look quite martial; but like mermaids they end badly, for when you
look below you see two thinnest shins with little tight cotton leggings
round them, and bare feet. How they get these leggings on and off is a
question which I have not yet been able to solve. Anyhow I have come to
the conclusion about the Hindus generally that their legs are too thin
for them ever to do much in the world.
The people sitting by the hundred at all the railway stations in
this part of India, waiting for their trains, are quite a sight.
They congregate in large sheds or areas--hardly to be called waiting
_rooms_--reserved for this purpose; and whether it be that their notion
of time is so defective, or whether it be for the sake of society or of
rest or shelter that they come there, certain it is that at any hour
of day or night you may see these compacted crowds of thin-shanked
undemonstrative men, with wives and children, seated squatting on their
hams, talking or meditating or resigning themselves to sleep, as if the
arrival of their train was an event far remote, and of the very least
importance. They must however really enjoy this method of traveling,
for the third-class carriages are generally crowded with the poorer
natives. They squat on the seats in all attitudes, and berth-like seats
being let down overhead, they sometimes occupy these too--forming
two storeys of cross-legged mortals. The women and children have a
carriage to themselves--a fine exhibition generally of nose-rings
and ear-rings. It is the third class that pays; first and second are
only scantily used; the first by English alone, the second by mixed
English and higher class natives. Though the distances to be covered
by the traveling Englishman are generally large the conditions are not
uncomfortable. Journeys are made largely by night, for coolness; first
and second class are generally small saloons with couch-like seats; and
these couches with the berths available above generally allow of one’s
having a good stretch and a sound sleep.
Traveling second class one meets (though not always) with some pleasant
bivalves. As a specimen (and a favorable one) of the Young India that
is growing up under modern influences I may mention a railway goods
clerk who was my companion in the train between Nagpore and Bombay; a
very bright face with clear well-balanced expression, and good general
ability,--said he worked ten hours a day on the average, Rs. fifteen
a month, but would be raised next year; was leaving Nagpore district
because it was so out of the way--no papers, etc. “In Bombay you
knew what was going on all over the world. Why he had only heard of
Mr. Bradlaugh’s death yesterday--two months after date.” The English
rule was very good. “Under the Mahrattas you were liable any day to
have your goods stolen, but now there was general security, and peace
between the different peoples instead of dissension as there would be
if the English were to go”--a real nice fellow, and I felt quite sorry
when he left the train.
Later on the same evening, in the same train, a little incident
occurred which may be worth recording. I and another Englishman were
the sole occupants of the compartment; it was in fact near midnight,
and we were stretched on our respective couches, when our slumbers were
disturbed by the entrance of a family of four or five Parsees, among
whom were a lady and a child and an old gentleman of somewhat feeble
but refined appearance. Of course, though we were not disturbed, there
was a little conversation and discussion while couches were being
arranged and berths let down, etc.--till at last my fellow-countryman,
losing his little store of patience, rolled over among his rugs with
a growl: “I wish you would stop that chattering, _you Parsees_.” To
which, when they had settled themselves a bit, one of them replied,
“Please to sleep now, _Mr. Gentleman_.”
CHAPTER XVII.
BOMBAY.
The native city of Bombay is really an incredible sight. I walked
through some part of it I suppose every day for a week or more, trying
to photograph its shows upon my brain, yet every day it seemed more
brilliant and original than before--and I felt that description or even
remembrance were nothing to compare with the actual thing. The intense
light, the vivid colors, the extraordinarily picturesque life, the
bustle and movement; the narrow high tumbled houses with projecting
storeys, painted shutters, etc., and alleys simply _thronged_ with
people; the usual little shops with four or five men and boys squatted
in each, and multifarious products and traffic--gold and silver work
of excellent quality, elegant boxes and cabinets, all being produced
in full view of the public--embroidery and cap shops, fruit shops,
sweetmeat shops, cloth merchants, money-changers; such a chattering,
chaffering and disputing, jokes shouted across the street from shop
to shop; Hindu temples, mosques, opium dens, theatres, clubs; and at
night, lights and open casements and balconies above with similar
groups; handsome private houses too scattered about, but some of them
now converted into warehouses or lodging-houses, and looking dirty
enough.
[Illustration: STREET IN BOMBAY, NATIVE QUARTER.
(_Little shops on each side, a mosque on the left._)]
Imagine a great house towering above the rest, with projecting storeys
and balconies and casements--the top tiers nothing but painted wood
and glass, like the stern of a huge three-decker. The basement storey
is open and fronted with great carved wooden columns. Here are a few
plants standing, and among them--his gold-brown body thrown up against
the gloom behind--stands a young boy of eight or nine, nearly naked,
with silver wristlets and string of blue beads round his neck. The
next houses are low, only two or three storeys, and their basements
are let out in tiny shops only a few feet square each. Here squatted
among cushions, smoking his long pipe, sits an old money-lender with
white cap and frock and gold-rimmed spectacles. Near him are boys and
assistants, totting up accounts or writing letters on their knees. The
man is worth thousands of pounds, but his place of business is not
bigger than a dining-room table--and there are scores like him. The
next few shops are all silversmiths--four or five in each shop, couches
and cushions as before, and cabinets full of trinkets. Further on they
are hammering brass and copper--a score of shops at least consecutive.
Now we come to an archway, through which behold a large reservoir,
with people bathing. There is a Hindu temple here, and they do not
like us to enter; but under the arch sits an old ascetic. He has sat
cross-legged for so many years that he can take no other position;
sometimes for extra penance he gets them to lift him up and seat him on
a spiked board; but I fancy he is such a hardened old sinner that he
does not feel even that much! He is a well-known character in the city.
[Illustration: PARSEE WOMAN.]
A little farther on, in a balcony, is a group of girls, with
henna-black eyes, somewhat daintily got up, and on the look-out for
visitors. Now a covey of Parsee women and children comes by, brilliant
in their large silk wraps (for even the poorer Parsee females make a
point of wearing these)--pale-green, or salmon color, or blue--drawn
over their heads and depending even to their feet--their large
dark eyes shining with fire and intelligence, not the timid glance
of the general run of Indian women. Many of the Parsee fair ones,
indeed--especially of the well-to-do classes--are exceedingly handsome.
But the women generally in Bombay form quite a feature; for the
Mahrattas, who constitute the bulk of the population, do not shut up
their women, anymore than the Parsees do, and numbers of these--mostly
of course, though not exclusively, of the poorer classes--may be seen
moving quite freely about the streets: the Mahratta fisher-women for
instance, dressed not in the long depending cloak of the Parsees, but
in the ordinary Indian _sari_, which they wind gracefully about the
body, leaving their legs bare from the knees down. Of the Parsees I
understand that they are very helpful to each other as a community, and
while leaving their women considerable freedom are at pains to prevent
any of them falling through poverty into a life of prostitution.
If you take this general description of the native Bombay, and add
to it a handsome modern city, with fine Banks, Post and Government
offices, esplanades, parks, docks, markets, railway stations, etc.; and
then again add to that a manufacturing quarter with scores of chimneys
belching out smoke, ugly stretches of waste land, and all the dirt of
a Sheffield or Birmingham (only with coco-palms instead of oak-trees
shriveling in the blight); then distribute through it all a population,
mainly colored, but of every nation in the world, from sheerly naked
water-carriers and coolies to discreet long-raimented Parsees and
English “gentlemen and ladies”--you will have an idea of Bombay--the
most remarkable city certainly that I have visited in this part of the
world.
The Parsee nose is much in evidence here. You meet it coming round the
corner of the street long before its owner appears. It is not quite the
same as the Jewish, but I find it difficult to define the difference;
perhaps though larger it is a little suaver in outline--more _suaviter
in modo_, though not less _fortiter in re_. It is followed by a pair of
eyes well on the alert, which don’t miss anything that the nose points
out. At every turn you meet that same shrewd old gentleman with the
beautifully white under-raiment falling to his feet, and a long China
silk coat on, and black brimless hat--so collected and “all there”; age
dims not the lustre of his eye to biz. Somehow he strangely reminds
one of the neighborhood of the London Stock Exchange, only it is a face
of more general ability than you often see in the City.
[Illustration: PARSEE MERCHANTS.]
And (what also is more than can be said for his city _confrère_) he is
up early in the morning for his religious exercises. At sunrise you
may see him on the esplanades, maidans, and other open places, saying
his prayers with his face turned towards the east. He repeats or reads
in an undertone long passages, and then bows three times towards the
light; then sometimes turning round will seem to go through a similar
ceremony with his back to it. The peculiarity of the physiognomy
(not forgetting the nose of course) seems to lie in the depth of the
eye. This together with the long backward line of the eyelid gives a
remarkable look of intelligence and earnestness to the finer faces.
The younger Parsee is also very much to the fore--a smartish fellow
not without some Brummagem self-confidence--pushing in business and
in his efforts to join in the social life of the English; who in
revenge are liable to revile him as the ‘Arry of the East. Anyhow they
are a go-ahead people, these Cursetjees, Cowasjees, Pestonjees, and
Jejeebhoys, and run most of the cotton mills here (though one would
think that they _might_ manage to get on without quite so many “jees”).
Justice Telang spoke to me highly one day of them as a body--their
helpful brotherly spirit and good capacity and versatility. He said
however that they were not taking the lead in _business_ quite so much
as formerly, but turning rather more to political life.
Telang himself is a Mahratta--a sturdy well-fleshed man, of energy and
gentleness combined--able, sound, and sensible, I should say, with
good judgment and no humbug. He of course thinks the creation of a
united India a long and difficult affair: but does not seem to despair
of its possibility; acknowledges that the Mahomedan element is mostly
indifferent or unfriendly to the idea, but the Parsees are favorable.
I was in Telang’s court one day, and admired much the way he conducted
the business. On the whole I thought the English barristers present
showed up only feebly against the native judge and pleaders. I
certainly am inclined to think the educated oysters quite equal or if
anything superior to the Englishman in matters of pure intellect (law,
mathematics, etc.); where they are wanting--taking the matter quite in
bulk, and with many individual exceptions--is in that quality which is
expressed by the word _morale_; and it is that defect which prevents
them being able to make the best use of their brain power, or to hold
their own against us in the long run. So important is that quality. The
Anglo-Saxons, with deficient brains, have it in a high degree, and are
masters of the world.
I called another day on Tribhovan Das, who is head of the Bunyas
here--a large and influential merchant caste. He occupies the house
which belonged to his father, Sir Mungal Das, who was member of the
Bombay Legislative Council and a great man in his time both in wealth
and influence. The house is a large one standing in the native city.
We went and sat in state in a big drawing-room, and then made a tour
of the other reception rooms and the library, and solemnly inspected
and admired the works of art--oscillating models of ships in a storm,
pictures with musical boxes concealed behind them, a huge automatic
musical organ, wax-flowers and fruits in the library, fountains in the
garden, etc.--all quite in the style of the reception rooms of wealthy
natives twenty years or so ago. Tribhovan showed me over it all with
that mingled air of childlike pride and intense boredom which I have
noticed before in Orientals under the same circumstances; then took me
out for a drive in his swagger barouche, with white horses and men in
sky-blue livery--along the Malabar drive and up to the reservoir on the
hill-top, a very charming seaside road, and thronged at that hour on
Sunday evening with carriages and the motley aristocracy of the city.
The view from the reservoir is famous. The Malabar hill is a promontory
jutting southward into the sea, and occupied largely with villa
residences. Westward from its summit you look over the open ocean,
dotted with white sails; eastward, or south-eastward, across a narrow
bay, is seen the long spit of flat land on which modern mercantile
Bombay stands, with its handsome public buildings and long line of
esplanade already at that hour beginning to twinkle with lamps. Beyond
that spit again, and farther eastward, lies another much deeper and
larger bay, the harbor proper, with masts of ships just discernible;
and beyond that again are the hills of the mainland. At the base of the
spit and a little inland lies the native portion of Bombay--largely
hidden, from this point of view, by the masses of coco-nut trees which
grow along its outskirts and amongst its gardens.
Tribhovan said he would much like to come to England, but that as head
of the caste it was quite impossible. He told me that many people think
the Bunyas took their dress (the cylindrical stiff hat like an English
chimney-pot hat without a brim, and the long coat buttoned close round
the neck) from the Parsees; but it was just the opposite--the Parsees
when they came to India having adopted the dress of those Hindus
amongst whom they first found themselves, namely the Bunyas.
Whilst driving back through the city we came upon a marriage ceremony
going on--a garden full of lights, and crowds of people conversing and
taking refreshments. Two houses opened on the same garden, and one of
these was occupied for the occasion by the bridegroom and his friends,
and the other by the bride. This is the orthodox arrangement, enabling
the bridegroom to descend into the garden and go through the ceremony
of taking his bride; and my host explained that houses thus arranged
are often kept and let solely for this purpose--as few people have
houses and gardens of their own large enough for the array of guests
asked, or suitably built for the ceremony. In the thick of the city the
bridegroom will sometimes manage to hire or get the loan of a house
in the same street and opposite to that in which his bride dwells,
and then the street is turned into a temporary garden with ornamental
shrubs and branches, and lanterns are hung (for the ceremony is always
in the evening) and chairs placed in rows, and a large part of the
processions and festivities are as public as the gossips can desire.
All this adds much to the charm of life in this most picturesque city.
The native theatres here are a great institution--crowded mostly by
men and boys of the poorer sort--the performance a curious rambling
business, beginning about 9 p.m. and lasting say till 2 or 3 in the
morning! Murderous and sensational scenes carried out by faded girls
and weak ambrosial youths, and protracted in long-drawn agonies of
operatic caterwauling, with accompaniment of wondrous chromatic runs on
the _taus_ and a bourdon bass on some wind-instrument. Occasionally a
few sentences spoken form a great relief. What makes the performance so
long is the slowness of the action--worse even than our old-fashioned
opera; if the youth is madly in love with the girl he goes on telling
her so in the same “rag” for a quarter of an hour. Then she pretends
to be indifferent, and spurns him in another “rag” for fifteen minutes
more!
Another feature of Bombay now-a-days, and indeed of most of the towns
of India, including even quite small villages, is the presence and work
of the Salvation Army. I must say I am Philistine enough to admire
these people greatly. Here in this city I find “Captain” Smith and
young Jackson (who were on board ship with me coming out), working away
night and day in the “cause,” and always cheerfully and with a smile
on their faces--leading a life of extreme simplicity, penury almost,
having no wages, but only bare board and lodging--with no chance even
to return home if they get sick of the work, unless it were by the
General’s order. “I should have to work my way back on board ship if I
wanted to go, but I shall not want to go, I shall be happy here,” said
Jackson to me. These two at any rate I feel are animated by a genuine
spirit. Whatever one may think of their judgment or their philosophy, I
feel that they really care for the lowest and most despised people and
are glad to be friends and brothers with them--and after all that is
better philosophy than is written in the books. They adopt the dress of
the people and wear turbans and no shoes; and most of them merge their
home identity and adopt a native name. Of course it is easy to say this
is done out of mere religious conceit and bravado; but I am certain
that in many cases it springs from something much deeper than that.
One day I joined a party of five of them on their way to the Caves
of Elephanta--“Captain” and Mrs. Smith, “Sikandra” (Alexander), and
two others. Mrs. Smith is a nice-looking and real good woman of about
thirty years of age, and Sikandra is a boy of ability and feeling who
has been out here about three years. They were all as nice and natural
as could be (weren’t pious at all), and we enjoyed our day no end--a
three hours’ sail across the bay in a lateen-sailed boat with two
natives--the harbor a splendid sight, with its innumerable shipping,
native fish-boats, P. and O. and other liners, two or three ironclads,
forts, lighthouses, etc.--and then on beyond all that to the retired
side of the bay and the islands; picnic on Elephanta Island under the
shade of a great tamarind tree--visit to the caves, etc.; and return
across the water at sundown.
Very _Indian_ these islands--the hot smell of the ground covered with
dead grass and leaves, the faint aromatic odor of sparse shrubs, with
now and then a waft of delicious fragrance from the little white
jessamine, the thorns and cactus, palms, and mighty tamarinds dropping
their sweet-acid fruit. Then the sultry heat at midday, the sea lying
calm and blue below in haze, through which the ridged and rocky
mountains of the mainland indistinctly loom, and the far white sails of
boats; nearer, a few humped cows and a collection of primitive huts,
looking, from above, more like heaps of dead palm-leaves than human
habitations.
[Illustration: THE GREAT CAVE AT ELEPHANTA.
(_Some of the rock-pillars being restored, sculptured figures visible
in background._)]
The great cave impressed me very much. I have not seen any other of
these Indian rock-sanctuaries, but this one gave me a greater sense
of artistic power and splendid purpose than anything in the way of
religious architecture--be it mosque or Hindu temple--that I have seen
in India. It is about half-way up the hillside from the water, and
consists of a huge oblong hall, 50 yards square, cut sheerly into the
face of the rock, with lesser halls opening into it on each side. Huge
pillars of rock, boldly but symmetrically carved, are left in order to
support the enormous weight above; and the inner roof is flat--except
for imitations of architraves running from pillar to pillar. The
daylight, entering in mass from the front, and partly also by ingenious
arrangement from the sides, is broken by the many great pillars, and
subdues itself at last into a luminous gloom in the interior--where
huge figures of the gods, 18 feet high, in strong relief or nearly
detached, stand out from the walls all round. These figures are nobly
conceived and executed, and even now in their mutilated condition
produce an extraordinarily majestic effect, making the spectator fancy
that he has come into the presence of beings vastly superior to himself.
On the back wall immediately opposite the entrance are three huge
panels of sculpture--the most important objects in the temple. The
midmost of these consists of three colossal heads--Brahma, Vishnu
and Siva--united in one; Brahma of course full faced, the others in
profile. Each head with its surmounting tiara is some twelve feet
high, and the portions of the busts represented add another six feet.
The whole is cut deep into the rock so as to be almost detached; and
the expression of the heads--which are slightly inclined forwards--is
full of reserved power and dignity. It is Brahm, the unrealisable
and infinite god, the substratum of all, just dawning into multiple
existence--allowing himself to be seen in his first conceivable form.
In this trinity Vishnu of course represents the idea of Evolution--the
process by which the inner spirit unfolds and generates the universe of
sensible forms--as when a man wakes from sleep and lets his thoughts go
out into light and definition; Siva represents the idea of Involution,
by which thought and the sensible universe are indrawn again into
quiescence; and Brahma represents the state which is neither Evolution
nor Involution--and yet is both--existence itself, now first brought
into the region of thought through relation to Vishnu and Siva.
Each figure with a hand upturned and resting on the base of its neck
holds an emblem: Vishnu the lotus-flower of generation, Brahma the
gourd of fruition, and Siva a cobra, the “good snake” whose bite is
certain dissolution. Siva also has the third eye--the eye of the
interior vision of the universe, which comes to the man who adopts
the method of Involution. There is good reason to suppose, from marks
on the rock, that the recess in which this manifestation of deity is
carved was closed by a veil or screen, only to be drawn aside at times
of great solemnity. A hollow behind the triple head is pointed out, in
which it is supposed that a concealed priest could simulate the awful
tones of the god.
[Illustration: PANEL OF SIVA AND HIS CONSORT PARVATI, ELEPHANTA.]
Of the three forms of the trinity Siva is the most popular in Hindu
devotion, and he forms the centre figure of all the other panels here.
The panel on the right of the principal one just described portrays
the next devolution of godhead--namely into the form of humanity--and
represents Siva as a complete full length human being conjoining the
two sexes in one person. This idea, of the original junction of the
sexes, though it may be philosophically tenable, and though it is no
doubt supported by a variety of traditions--see the Bible, Plato,
etc.--and by certain interior experiences which have been noticed (and
which are probably the sources of tradition) is inartistic enough when
graphically portrayed; and the main figure of this panel, with its left
side projecting into a huge breast and hip, is only a monstrosity. As
to the sexual parts themselves they are unfortunately quite defaced.
The cloud of moving figures however around and above, who seem to be
witnessing this transformation, are very spirited.
The third panel--on the left of the principal one--in which the
differentiation is complete, and Siva and his consort Sakti or Parvati
are represented side by side as complete male and female figures, in
serene and graceful pose--he colossal and occupying nearly the centre
of the panel, she smaller and a little to one side--is a great success.
Round them in the space above their heads a multitude of striding
clean-legged figures bear witness to the energy of creation now fully
manifested in this glorious pair.
The rest of the panels though still colossal are on a slightly smaller
scale, and seem to represent the human-divine life of Siva: his actual
marriage, his abandonment of home, his contest with Rávana, his
terrible triumph over and slaughter of his enemies, his retirement
into solitude and meditation, and his ultimate reabsorption into
Brahm, figured by his frenzied dance in the “hall of illimitable
happiness”--that most favorite subject of the Hindu sculptors. This
last panel--though the legs and arms are all broken--has extraordinary
vigor and animation, and is one of the very best. The whole series
in fact, to those who can understand, is a marvelous panorama of the
human soul. The work is full of allegorical touches and hints, yet
hardly ever becomes grotesque or inartistic. It provides suggestions
of the profoundest philosophy, yet the rudest peasant walking through
these dim arcades could not but be affected by what he sees. In every
direction there are signs of “go” and primitive power which point to
its production as belonging to a time (probably about the 10th cent.
A.D.) of early vigor and mastery and of grand conception.
[Illustration: INTERIOR SHRINE, ELEPHANTA.]
I should not forget to mention that in a square chamber also hewn out
of the rock, but accessible by a door in each of the four sides, is a
huge lingam--which was probably also kept concealed except on great
occasions; and round the exterior walls of the chamber, looking down
the various aisles of the temple, are eight enormous guardian figures,
of fine and composed workmanship. (See illustration--in which a man
is standing beneath the torso of the nearest figure.) Altogether the
spirit of the whole thing is to my mind infinitely finer than that of
the South Indian temples, which with their courts and catacomb-like
interiors suggest no great ideas, but only a general sense of mystery
and of Brahmanical ascendancy.
_March 6th._--A little after sunset yesterday “Sikandra” took me to
see an opium den in the native quarter. It was rather early, as the
customers were only just settling in, but the police close these places
at nine. Much what I expected. A dark dirty room with raised wide bench
round the sides, on which folk could lie, with little smoky lamps for
them to burn their opium. For three pice you get a little thimbleful of
laudanum, and by continually taking a drop on the end of a steel prong
and frizzling it in the flame you at last raise a viscid lump hardly as
big as a pea, which you put in a pipe, and then holding the mouth of
the pipe in the flame, draw breath. Two or three whiffs of thick smoke
are thus obtained--and then more stuff has to be prepared; but the
poison soon begins to work, and before long the smoker lies motionless,
with his eyes open and his pipe dropping out of his hand. I spoke to
a man who was just preparing his dose, and who looked very thin and
miserable, asking him if he did not find it damage his health; but he
said that he could not get along without it--if he gave it up for a day
or two he could not do his work, and felt nervous and ill.
The effect of these drugs, opium, haschisch (hemp or ganja),[6] as well
as of laughing gas, sulphuric ether, etc., is no doubt to produce a
suspension of the specially bodily and local faculties for the time,
and with it an inner illumination and consciousness, very beatific and
simulating the real “ecstasy.” Laughing gas (nitrous oxide) produces a
species of illumination and intuition into the secrets of the universe
at times--as in the case of Sir Humphry Davy, who first used it on
himself and who woke up exclaiming, “Nothing exists but thoughts! the
universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures and pains.” The
feelings induced by opium and haschisch have often been described
in somewhat similar terms; and it has to be remembered that many
much-abused practices--indulgence in various drugs and strong drinks,
mesmeric trance-states, frantic dancing and singing, as well as violent
asceticisms, self-tortures, etc.--owe their hold upon humanity to the
same fact, namely that they induce in however remote and imperfect a
degree or by however unhealthy a method some momentary realisation of
that state of cosmic consciousness of which we have spoken, and of the
happiness attending it--the intensity of which happiness may perhaps be
measured by the strength of these very abuses occurring in the search
for it, and may perhaps be compared, for its actual force as a motive
of human conduct, with the intensity of the sexual orgasm.
[6] As a curiosity of derivation it appears that these two
words _hemp_ and _ganja_ are from the same root: Sanskrit
_goni_, _ganjika_; Persian, Greek and Latin, _cannabis_;
French _chanvre_; German _Hanf_; Dutch _hennep_. _Canvas_
also is the same word.
* * * * *
One evening two or three friends that I had made among the native
“proletariat”--post-office and railway clerks--insisted on giving me a
little entertainment. I was driven down to the native city, and landed
in a garden-like court with little cottages all round. To one of these
we were invited. Found quite a collection of people; numbers increasing
on my arrival till there must have been about fifty. Just a little
front room nine feet square, with no furniture except one folding chair
which had been brought from heaven knows where in my honor. A nice rug
had been placed on the ground, and pillows round the walls; and the
company soon settled down, either inside the room (having left their
shoes at the door), or in the verandah. A musician had been provided,
in the shape of an old man who had a variety of instruments and handled
them skilfully as far as I could judge. But the performance was rather
wearisome and lasted an unconscionably long time.
It was very curious to me, as a contrast to English ways, to see all
these youngish fellows sitting round listening to this rather stupid
old man playing by the hour--so quiescent and _resigned_ if one might
use the word. They are so fond of simply doing nothing; their legs
crossed and heads meditatively bent forward; clerks, small foremen and
bookkeepers, and some probably manual workers--looking very nice and
clean withal in their red turbans and white or black shawls or coats.
There is a certain tastefulness and grace always observable in India.
Here I could not but notice, not only the Mahratta dress, but all the
interior scene; plain color-washed walls edged with a running pattern,
the forms of the various instruments, a few common bowls brought in to
serve as musical glasses, the brass pot from which water was poured
into them--all _artistic_ in design and color, though the house was of
tiniest proportions--only apparently two or three rooms, of the same
size as that one.
After the music a little general conversation ensued, with coffee
and cigarettes, talk of course turning on the inevitable Congress
question and the relations of England and India--a subject evidently
exciting the deepest interest in those present; but not much I think
was added to former conversations. One of the company (a post-office
clerk) says that all the educated and thoughtful people in India are
with the Congress, to which I reply that it is much the same with the
socialist movement in the West. He thinks--and they all seem to agree
with him--that the condition of the agricultural people is decidedly
worse than it used to be; but when I ask for evidence there is not
much forthcoming, except references to Digby. I guess the statement is
on the whole true, but the obvious difficulty of corroborating these
things is very great; the absence of records of the past, the vastness
of India, the various conditions in different parts, etc., etc., make
it very difficult to come to any general and sweeping conclusion.
The same friend pointed out (from Digby) that mere statistics of the
increasing wealth of India were quite illusive “as they only indicated
the increase of profits to merchants and foreigners, and had nothing to
do with the general prosperity”; and to this I quite agreed, telling
him that we had had plenty of statistics of the same kind in England;
but that this was only what might be expected, as the ruling classes
in both countries being infected with commercialism would naturally
measure political success by trade-profits, and frame their laws too
chiefly in view of a success of that kind.
Several of those present maintained that it was quite a mistake to say
the Mahomedans are against the Congress; a certain section of them
is, but only a section, and education is every day tending to destroy
these differences and race-jealousies. I put the question seriously to
them whether they really thought that within 50 or 100 years all these
old race-differences, between Mahomedan and Hindu, Hindu and Eurasian,
or between all the sections of Hindus, would be lost in a sense of
national unity. Their reply was, “Yes, undoubtedly.” Education, they
thought, would abolish the ill-feeling that existed, and indeed was
doing so rapidly; there would soon be one common language, the English;
and one common object, namely the realisation of Western institutions.
Whether right or not in their speculations, it is interesting to find
that such is the ideal of hundreds of thousands of the bulk-people of
India now-a-days. Everywhere indeed one meets with these views. The
Britisher in India may and does scoff at these ideals, and probably
in a sense he is right. It may be (indeed it seems to me quite likely
to be) impossible for a very long time yet to realise anything of the
kind. At the same time who would not be touched by the uprising of a
whole people towards such a dream of new and united life? And indeed
the dream itself--like all other dreams--is a long step, perhaps the
most important step, towards its own realisation.
Thus we chatted away till about midnight, when with mutual compliments,
and the usual presents of flowers to the parting guest, we separated.
These fellows evidently prize a little English society very much;
for though they learn our language in the schools and use it in the
business of every-day life, it rarely, very rarely, happens that they
actually get into any friendly conversation with an Englishman; and I
found that I was able to give them useful information--as for instance
about methods of getting books out from England--and to answer a
variety of other questions, which were really touching in the latent
suggestion they contained of the utter absence of any such help under
ordinary circumstances. It struck me indeed how much a few unpretending
and friendly Englishmen might do to endear our country to this people.
[Illustration: SIDE CAVE, ELEPHANTA.]
It is quite a sight at night walking home--however late one may
be--to see on the maidans and open spaces bright lamps placed on the
dusty turf, and groups of Parsees and others sitting round them on
mats--playing cards, and enjoying themselves very composedly. Round
the neighborhood of the Bunder quay and the club-houses and hotels the
scene is rather more gay and frivolous. How pleasant and cool the night
air, and yet not too cool! The darkies sleep out night-long by hundreds
in these places and on the pavements under the trees. They take their
cloths, wrap them under their feet, bring them over their heads, and
tuck them in at the sides; and lie stretched straight out, with or
without a mat under them, looking for all the world like laid-out
corpses.
* * * * *
_Indian Ocean._--On the way to Aden. The harbor of Bombay looked very
beautiful as we glided out in the SS. _Siam_--with its variegated
shore and islands and shipping. I went down into my berth to have a
sleep, and when I awoke we were out of sight of India or any land. Most
lovely weather; impossible to believe that England is shivering under
a March sky, with north-east winds and gloom. The sea oily-calm; by
day suffused with sunlight up to the farthest horizon--only broken,
and that but seldom, by the back-fin of a porpoise, or the glance of
flying-fish; by night gleaming faintly with the reflection of the
stars and its own phosphorescence. Last night the sea was like a vast
mirror, so smooth--every brighter star actually given again in wavering
beauty in the world below--the horizon softly veiled so that it was
impossible to tell where the two heavens (between which one seemed
suspended) might meet. All so tender and calm and magnificent. Canopus
and the Southern Cross and the Milky Way forming a great radiance in
the south; far ahead to the west Orion lying on his side, and Sirius,
and the ruddy Aldebaran setting. Standing in the bows there was nothing
between one and this immense world--nothing even to show that the
ship was moving, except the rush of water from the bows--which indeed
seemed an uncaused and unaccountable phenomenon. The whole thing was
like a magic and beautiful poem. The phosphorescent stars (tiny jelly
creatures) floating on the surface kept gliding swiftly over those
other stars that lay so deep below; sometimes the black ocean-meadows
seemed to be sown thick with them like daisies. The foam round the bows
lay like a luminous necklace to the ship, and fell continually over in
a cascade of brilliant points, while now and then some bigger jelly
tossed in the surge threw a glare up even in our faces.
One might stand for hours thus catching the wind of one’s own speed--so
soft, so mild, so warm--the delicate aroma of the sea, the faint far
suggestion of the transparent air and water, wafting, encircling one
round. And indeed all my journey has been like this--so smooth, so
unruffled, as if one had not really been moving. I have several times
thought, and am inclined to think even now, that perhaps one has not
left home at all, but that it has been a fair panorama that has been
gliding past one all these months.
THE OLD ORDER
AND
THE NEW INFLUENCES
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE OLD ORDER: CASTE AND COMMUNISM.
There is certainly a most remarkable movement taking place in India
to-day, towards modern commercialism and Western education and ideas,
and away from the old caste and communal system of the past--a movement
which while it is in some ways the reverse of our Western socialist
movement answers curiously to it in the rapidity and intensity of its
development and in the enthusiasm which it inspires. The movement is of
course at present confined to the towns, and even in these to sections
and coteries--the 90 per cent. agricultural population being as yet
practically unaffected by it--but here again it is the old story of the
bulk of the population being stirred and set in motion by the energetic
few, or at any rate following at some distance on their lead; and we
may yet expect to see this take place in the present case.
Knowing as we do at home the evils which attend our commercial and
competitive order of society it is difficult to understand the interest
which it arouses in India, until we realise the decay and degradation
into which caste and the ancient communism have fallen. On these latter
institutions commercialism is destined to act as a solvent, and though
it is not likely that it will obliterate them--considering how deeply
they are rooted in the genius of the Indian people, and considering
how utterly dissimilar that genius is to the genius of the West--still
it may fairly be hoped that it will clean away a great deal of rubbish
that has accumulated round them, and free them to be of some use again
in the future, when the present movement will probably have had its
fling and passed away. On all sides in India one meets with little
points and details which remind one of the Feudal system in our own
lands; and as this passed in its due time into the commercial system
so will it be in India--only there is a good deal to indicate that the
disease, or whatever it is, will not be taken so severely in India as
in the West, and will run its course and pass over in a shorter time.
The complexity into which the caste system has grown since the days
when society was divided into four castes only--Brahmans, Kshattriyas,
Vaisyas, and Sudras--is something most extraordinary. Race, occupation
and geographical position have all had their influence in the growth
of this phenomenon. When one hears that the Brahmans alone are
divided into 1,886 separate classes or tribes, one begins to realise
what a complicated affair it is. “The Brahmans,” says Hunter in his
_Indian Empire_, “so far from being a compact unit are made up of
several hundred castes who cannot intermarry nor eat food cooked
by each other.” Of course locality has a good deal to do with this
sub-division; and it is said that a Brahman of the North-West is the
most select, and can prepare food for all classes of Brahmans (it
being a rule of all high caste that one must not touch food cooked
by an inferior caste); but family and genealogical descent also no
doubt have a good deal to do with it; and as to employment, even among
the Brahmans, though manual labor is a degradation in their eyes,
plentiful individuals may be found who follow such trades as shepherds,
fishermen, porters, potters, etc. Dr. Wilson of Bombay wrote two large
volumes of his projected great work on Caste, and then died; but had
not finished his first subject, the Brahmans!
In the present day the Brahmans are I believe pretty equally
distributed all over India, forming their own castes among the other
races and castes, but of course not intermarrying with them, doing as
a rule little or no manual work, but clustering in thousands round
temples and holy places, full of greed and ever on the look-out for
money. Though ignorant mostly, still they have good opportunities in
their colleges for learning, and some are very learned. They alone
can perform the temple services and priestly acts generally; and
oftentimes they do not disguise their contempt for the inferior castes,
withdrawing their skirts pharisaically as they pass, or compelling an
old and infirm person to descend into the muddy road while they occupy
the narrow vantage of the footway.
This pharisaism of caste marks not only the Brahmans, but other
sections; a thousand vexatious rules and regulations hedge in the
life of every “twice-born” man; and the first glance at the streets
of an Indian town makes one conscious of something antagonistic to
_humanity_, in the broad sense by which it affords a common ground to
the meeting of any two individuals. There are difficulties in the way
of mere human converse. Not only do people not eat together (except
they belong to the same section); but they don’t _touch_ each other
very freely; don’t shake hands, obviously; even the terms of greeting
are scanty. A sort of chill strikes one: a _noli-me-tangere_ sentiment,
which drives one (as usual) to find some of the most grateful company
among the outcast. Yet the people are disposed to be friendly, and in
fact are sensitive and clinging by nature; but this is the form of
society into which they have grown.
The defence of the system from the native religious point of view is
that Caste defines a man’s position and duties at once, limits him to
a certain area of life, with its temptations and possibilities and
responsibilities--(caste for instance puts a check on traveling; to go
to sea is to break all bounds)--and saves him therefore from unbridled
license and the insane scramble of the West; restricts his outward
world and so develops the inward; narrows his life and so causes it
to reach higher--as trees thickly planted spire upward to the sky.
Caste, it is said, holds society in a definite form, without which
vague turmoil would for ever ensue, distracting men to worldly cares
and projects and rendering them incapable of the higher life. When
however this last is developed within an individual, then--for him--the
sanction of caste ceases, and he acknowledges it no more. As to the
criticism--so obvious from the Western point of view--of the unfairness
that a man should be confined all his life to that class or stratum in
which he is born, to the Indian religioner this is nothing; since he
believes that each man _is_ born in those surroundings of life which
belong to his stage of progress, and must get the experience which
belongs to that stage before moving farther.
However this may be, the rigidity of caste as it yet exists gives a
strange shock to one’s democratic notions. “Once a _dhobi_ always
a _dhobi_,” says the proverb. The washerman (dhobi) is one of the
poorest and most despised of men; the word is in fact a common term
of reproach; but once a washerman, a washerman (save in the rarest
cases) you will remain. And once a pariah always a pariah--a thing
that no caste man will touch. Yet--and here comes in the extraordinary
transcendental democracy (if one may call it so) of the Hindu
religion--Brahm himself, the unnameable God, is sometimes called
the _dhobi_, and some of the greatest religious teachers, including
Tiruvalluvar, the author of the Kurral, have been drawn from the ranks
of the Pariahs.
The English themselves in India hardly realise how strong are the
caste feelings and habits among all but the few natives who have
fairly broken with the system. At a levee some few years back a
Lieut.-Governor, to show his cordial feeling towards a native Rajah,
put his hand on the prince’s shoulder, while speaking to him; but the
latter, as soon as he could decently disengage himself, hurried home
and took a bath, to purify himself from the touch! Nor to this day can
the mass of the people of India get over the disgust and disapprobation
they felt towards the English when they found that they insisted on
eating _beef_--a thing that only the very lowest classes will touch;
indeed this habit has not only done a good deal to alienate the
sympathies of the people, but it is one of the chief reasons why the
English find it so hard or next to impossible to get servants of good
caste.
An acquaintance of mine in Ceylon who belongs to the Vellála caste told
me that on one occasion he paid a visit to a friend of his in India who
belonged to the same caste but a different section of it. They had a
Brahman cook, who prepared the food for both of them, but who being of
a higher caste could not eat _after_ them; while _they_ could not eat
together because they did not belong to the same section. The Brahman
cook therefore ate _his_ dinner first, and then served up the remainder
separately to the two friends, who sat at different tables with a
curtain hanging between them!
I myself knew of a case in which an elderly native gentleman was quite
put to it, and had to engage an extra servant, because, though he had
a man already who could cook and draw water for him to drink, this man
was not of the right caste to fill his bath! Can one wonder, when caste
regulations have fallen into such pettiness, that the more advanced
spirits hail with acclaim any new movement which promises deliverance
from the bondage?
Another curious element in the corruption of caste is the growth of the
tyranny of respectability. Among certain sections--mainly I imagine the
merchant and trading castes--some of the members becoming rich form
themselves into little coteries which take to themselves the government
of the caste, and while not altogether denying their communal
fellowship with, do not also altogether conceal their contempt for,
the poorer members, and the divergence of their own interests and
standards from those of the masses. Of course with this high-flying
respectability goes very often (as with us) a pharisaical observance of
religious ordinances, and a good deal of so-called philanthropy.
I have before me a little book called “The Story of a Widow
Re-marriage,” written by a member of the Bunya caste, and printed (for
private circulation) at Bombay in 1890. The author of this book some
years ago married--in defiance of all the proprieties of high-caste
Hinduism--a lady who was already a widow; and he tells the story of
this simple act and the consequent caste-persecution which he had to
endure in a style so genuine and at once naïve and shrewd that the
book is really most interesting. The poor girl whom he married had
lost her husband some years before: he in fact was a mere boy and she
a child at the time of his death. Now she was an “unlucky woman,” a
widow--one of those destined to spend all her life under a ban, to
wear black, to keep away from any festivity lest she should mar it by
her presence. “What happiness in the world have I,” said she, when the
author at their first meeting condoled with her on her fate; “nothing
but death can relieve me of all my woes. I have abjured food for the
last twelve months; I live only on a pice-worth of curd from day to
day. I starve myself, in order that any how my end may come as soon
as possible. I have often thought,” she continued, “of committing
suicide by drowning myself in the sea or in the neighboring tank of
Walkeshwar, or by taking opium. But there are many considerations which
hold me back. According to our Brahmans the Shastras say that those who
commit suicide are doomed to die a similar death seven times over in
their future existence. Moreover I myself believe that taking one’s own
life is as sinful as taking the life of any other person. This gives
me pause, and I do not do what I would do. I have however forsaken all
food, in order that the happy deliverance may come to me in a short
time. I have nothing in this life to live for. If I had a child of my
own, I would have had some cause for hope.”
Moved by the sufferings of the unhappy Dhunkore, as well as by her
youth and beauty, Madhowdas fell genuinely in love with her; and she,
in return, with him; and ere long they determined--notwithstanding
the relentless persecution of the more influential members of the
caste, which they knew would follow--to get married. Madhowdas was in
business, and there was the utmost danger that he would be boycotted
and ruined. To Dhunkore her chief trouble was the thought of the grief
this step would occasion to her mother (with whom she lived). She might
be intimate with Madhowdas “under the rose”--that would be venial; she
might if there were any serious consequences go a “pilgrimage,” as so
many widows do, to some quiet place where a delivery would not attract
attention; but to be publicly married--that could never be forgiven.
Not only her wealthy relations, but even her mother, would never see
her again. So inexcusable would be the act, so dire its consequences.
Nevertheless the pair decided to go through with it. With the utmost
secrecy they made their preparations, knowing well that if any
rumors got abroad the arrangements would likely be interfered with
by mercenary violence; the young woman might even be kidnapped--as
had happened in a similar case before. Only sympathisers and a few
witnesses were invited to the actual ceremony, which however was safely
performed--partly owing to the presence of a European officer and a
body of police! The next morning the _Times of India_, the _Gazette_,
and other Bombay papers were out with an account of the widow
re-marriage, and the native city was convulsed with excitement--the
community being immediately divided (though very unequally) into two
hostile camps over their views of it.
The mother’s alarm at the mysterious disappearance of Dhunkore was only
partly allayed when she found among her daughter’s trinkets a little
note: “Be it known to my dear mother that not being able to bear the
cruel pangs of widowhood, I forsook all kinds of food, and ate only
a piece of curd every day. The consequence was that I became very
weak, but did not die, as I hoped.... My dear mother, it is not at all
likely that we shall meet again hereafter. You may therefore take me
for dead. But I shall be very happy if I ever hear from the lips of
any one that you are all doing well. I have not done this thing at the
instigation of any one, but have resolved upon it of my own free will;
so you will not blame anybody for it. I have taken away nothing from
your house, and you will kindly see for yourself that your property is
quite safe....” And the alarm was changed into dismay when the news
came of what had really happened. A meeting of wealthy relations and
influential members of the caste was called; everything was done to
damage the credit and ruin the business of Madhowdas; and finally he
and his wife were solemnly excommunicated!
The pair however struggled on, contending against many difficulties and
trials, and supported by a few friends, both among their own caste and
the resident English, for some years. Though crippled, their worldly
prospects were not ruined. Gradually Madhowdas established himself
and his business, drew round him a small circle of the more advanced
spirits, settled in a roomy house at Girgaon, and snapped his fingers
at his enemies. Indeed his house became a centre of propaganda on the
subject of widows’ wrongs, and an asylum for other couples situated
as he and his wife had been; meetings, of both English and native
speakers, were held there; quite a number of marriages were celebrated
there; and it appears that the house, to confirm its mission, now goes
by the name of “Widow Re-marriage Hall!”
But what I set out to note in telling this story was the curious way
in which wealth asserts itself even in the caste system of India to
form a tyranny of so-called respectability and of orthodoxy--dividing
the caste, in some cases at any rate, into distinct parties not unlike
those which exist in our society at home. “The real opponents of
widow re-marriage,” says Madhowdas in his book, “are not generally
the simple and poor members of a caste, but its Shetthias. They pose
before the public as the most enlightened members of their caste. In
their conversation with European or Parsi acquaintances they declare
themselves to be ardent advocates of social reform, and they pretend
to deplore the folly, the stupidity, and the ignorance of their
caste-fellows. But as a matter of fact it is these same Shetthias,
these leading citizens, these enlightened members of society, who
are really the bitterest and most uncompromising enemies of social
progress.... Can the reformer turn to the educated classes for help? I
am grieved to say, yet the truth must be told, that their moral fibre
is capable of a great deal of strengthening; and as to their active
faculties, they still lie perfectly dormant. They have indeed the
intelligence to perceive social evils. But their moral indignation on
the tyranny and barbarism of custom evaporates in words.... A race of
idle babblers these. They will speak brave words from the political
platform about their country’s wrongs and their countrymen’s rights.
But talk to them of something to be done, some little sacrifice to
be made, they will shrink away, each one making his own excuse for
his backsliding.... The world generally believes them; and if they
occasionally give a few thousand rupees towards some charity, their
reputation for liberality and large-mindedness is confirmed still more,
and their fame is trumpeted forth by newspapers as men of munificence
and enlightenment.”
* * * * *
It must not be thought however, because the caste-system is in many
ways corrupt and effete, that it is without its better and more
enduring features--even in the present day. Within the caste there
is a certain communal feeling, which draws or tends to draw all the
members together, as forming a corporate body for common ends and
fellowship, and giving every member a claim on the rest in cases of
distress or disability. Moreover a great many of the castes, being
founded on hereditary occupation, form trade societies, having their
own committees of management, and rules and regulations, fines,
feasts and mutual benefit arrangements, almost quite similar to our
old trade-guilds and modern unions. Thus there are the goldsmiths
(a powerful caste which in South India, says Hunter, for centuries
resisted the rule of the Brahmans, and claimed to be the religious
teachers, and wore the sacred thread), the brass-workers, the weavers,
the fishers, and scores of others--each divided into numerous
sub-sections. The caste-guild in these cases regulates wages, checks
competition, and punishes delinquents; the decisions of the guild being
enforced by fines, by causing the offender to entertain all his fellows
at a feast, and by other sanctions. The guild itself derives its
funds not only from fines, but also from entrance fees paid by those
beginning to practise the craft, and from other sources. In any case
whether trade-guild or not, the caste--while it assures its members
against starvation--exercises a continual surveillance over them, as we
have seen in the case of Madhowdas--extending to excommunication and
even expulsion. Excommunication being of three kinds: (1) from _eating_
with other members of the caste, (2) from _marriage_ with them, and
(3) from use of the local barber, washerman, and priest. Expulsion is
rare; and it is said that it seldom takes place unless the offender is
a real bad lot.
As an instance of trade-unionism in caste, Hunter mentions the case
of the bricklayers at Ahmedabad in 1873. Some of the bricklayers were
working overtime, and thus were getting a few pence a day extra, while
at the same time others of them were unemployed. The guild therefore
held a meeting, and decided to forbid the overtime--the result of which
was that employment was found for all.
When I was at Kurunégala in Ceylon, an amusing dispute took place
between the barber caste and the Brahmans of the locality. The
barbers--though a very necessary element of Hindu society, as shaving
is looked upon as a very important, almost religious, function, and is
practised in a vast variety of forms by the different sections--are
still somewhat despised as a low caste; and it appeared that the
Brahmans of the place had given offence to them by refusing to enter
the barbers’ houses in order to perform certain religious ceremonies
and purifications--the Brahmans no doubt being afraid of contaminating
themselves thereby. Thereupon the barbers held a caste meeting, and
decided to boycott the Brahmans by refusing to shave them. This was a
blow to the latter, as without being properly scraped they could not
perform their ceremonies, and to have to shave themselves would be an
unheard-of indignity. _They_ therefore held a meeting, the result of
which was that they managed to get a barber from a distant place--a
kind of blackleg--who probably belonged to some other section of the
barber community--to come over and do their scraping for them. Things
went on merrily thus for a while, and the blackleg no doubt had good
times, when--in consequence of another barbers’ meeting--he was one
day spirited away, and disappeared for good, being seen no more. The
barbers also, in defiance of the Brahmans, appointed a priest from
among their own body to do their own religious choring for them--and
the Brahmans were routed all along the line. What steps were taken
after this I do not know, as about that time I left the place.
When at Bombay I had another instance of how the caste-guild acts as a
trade-union, and to check competition among its members. I was wanting
to buy some specimens of brass-work, and walking down a street where
I knew there were a number of brass-workers’ shops, was surprised
to find them all closed. I then proposed to my companion, who was
a Hindu, that we should go to another street where there were also
brass-workers’ shops; but he said it would be no good, as he believed
this was a half-holiday of the brass-workers’ caste. “But,” I said, “if
it is a half-holiday, there may yet be some who will keep their shops
open in order to get the custom.” “Oh, no,” he replied with a smile at
my ignorance, “they would not do that; it would be against all caste
rules.”
Thus we see that the caste-system contains valuable social elements,
and ancient as it is may even teach us a lesson or two in regard to the
organization of trades.
When we come to the other great feature of Indian social life,
Communism, we find it existing under three great forms--agricultural,
caste, and family communism. Of the first of these--agricultural
communism--I know personally but little, having had no opportunity of
really studying the agricultural life. The conditions of village tenure
vary largely all over India, but apparently in every part there may be
traced more or less distinctly the custom of holding lands in common,
as in the primitive village life of Germany and England. In most Indian
villages there are still extensive outlying lands which are looked upon
as the property of the community; and of the inlying and more settled
lands, their cultivation, inheritance, etc., are largely ruled by
common custom and authority. Maine, however, points out in his _Village
Communities_ that the sense of individual property, derived from
contact with the West, is even now rapidly obliterating these ancient
customs of joint tenure.
Of the second, the caste communism, I have already spoken. It no doubt
is less strongly marked than it was; but still exists, not certainly
as an absolute community of goods, but as a community of feeling and
interest, and some degree of mutual assistance among the members of
the caste. The third is the family communism; and this is still pretty
strongly marked, though the first beginnings of its disintegration are
now appearing.
In speaking of the Family it must be understood that a much larger
unit is meant than we should denote by the term--comparatively distant
relations being included; and there seems to be a tacit understanding
that the members of this larger Family or Clan have a claim on each
other, so that any one in need can fairly expect support and assistance
from the others, and without feeling humiliated by receiving it. This
has its good side--in the extended family life and large-heartedness
that it produces, as well as in its tendency to keep wealth distributed
and to prevent people playing too much for their own hands; but it
has its drawbacks, chiefly in the opportunity it affords to idle
“ne’er-do-weels” to sponge upon their friends.
I have mentioned the case (p. 90) of a young man who came to read
English with me in Ceylon, and who, though married and having children,
turned out to be living with and dependent on his parents. I must not
speak of this as a case of a ne’er-do-weel, as the fellow was genuinely
interested in literature, and was in the habit of giving lectures on
philosophy in his native place--and if one began calling such people
names, one might not know where to stop; but to our Western notions it
was a curious arrangement. Certainly a Bengali gentleman whom I met
one day complained to me very bitterly of the system. He said that he
was in an official position and receiving a moderate salary, and the
consequence was that his relatives all considered him a fair prey. He
not only had his own wife and children, and his father and mother, to
support--of which he would not make a grievance; but he had two or
three younger brothers, who though of age had not yet found anything
to do, and were calmly living on at his cost; and besides these there
were two aunts of his, who had both married one man. The husband of
the aunts had died leaving one of them with children, and now he, the
complainant, was expected to provide for both aunts and children,
besides the rest of his family already mentioned! To a man once bitten
with the idea of “getting on” in the Western sense of the word, one
can imagine how galling it must be to have indefinite strings of
relations clinging around one’s neck; and one can guess how forcibly
the competitive idea is already beginning to act towards the disruption
of family communism.
In Calcutta and other places I noticed considerable numbers of
grown youths loafing about with nothing to do, and apparently with
no particular intention of doing anything as long as their friends
would support them. And this no doubt is a great evil, but I think it
would be hardly fair to lay it all at the door of the family communal
habits. It is rather to the contact of the old communal life with
the new order of things, and to the dislocation of the former which
ensues, that we must attribute the evil. For under the old order a
youth growing up would no doubt, by the obligations of his caste,
religion, etc., have his duties and calling so distinctly set out
for him, that the danger of his giving himself up to idleness and
infringing on the hospitality of his family would seldom arise; but now
the commercial and competitive régime, while loosening his old caste
and religious sanctions, often leaves him quite unprovided with any
opening in life--indeed forbids him an opening except at the cost of a
struggle with his fellows--and so tempts him to relapse into a state of
dependence.
The closeness of the family tie still subsisting is, when all is said,
a beautiful thing. The utmost respect is accorded to parents; and to
strike a father or mother is (as I think I have already remarked) an
almost unheard-of crime. I was much impressed in talking to Justice
Telang at Bombay by the way in which he spoke of his parents. I had
asked him whether he intended coming over to England for the National
Congress--to be held in London in 1893--and reply was that he should
like to, but his parents “would not let him” (no doubt on account of
the loss of caste in crossing the sea). This from a man of forty,
and one of the leading Mahrattas, indeed one of the most influential
politicians in Bombay, was sufficiently striking; but it was said with
a tenderness that made one feel that he would forego almost anything
rather than wound those of whom he spoke.
Thus as in the social progress of the West the sword descending
divides, with often painful estrangement, brother from sister, and
child from parent; so is it also in the East. Only that in the East the
closeness of the parental tie makes the estrangement more odious and
more painful, and adds proportionately to the obstacles which lie in
the path of progress.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NEW INFLUENCES: WESTERN SCIENCE AND COMMERCIALISM.
The first objects that I saw in India--indeed I saw them while still
well out at sea--were a lighthouse and a factory chimney! This was at
Tuticorin, a little place in the extreme south; but afterwards I found
that these objects represented remarkably well the vast spread of
Western influences all over the country, in their two great main forms,
science and commercialism.
I had no idea, until I landed, how Western ideas and education have
of late years overrun the cities and towns, even down to the small
towns, of India; but I was destined to be speedily enlightened on this
subject. Having a few hours to spare at Tuticorin, I was walking up and
down by the sad sea-waves when I noticed a youth of about seventeen
reading a book. Glancing over his shoulder, to my surprise I saw it
was our old friend “Todhunter’s Euclid.” The youth looked like any
other son of the people, undistinguished for wealth or rank--for in
this country there is no great distinction in dress between rich and
poor--simply clad in his cotton or muslin wrap, with bare head and
bare feet; and naturally I remonstrated with him on his conduct. “O
yes,” he said in English, “I am reading Euclid--I belong to Bishop
Caldwell’s College.”--“Bishop Caldwell’s College?”--“Yes,” he said,
“it is a large college here, with 200 boys, from ages of 13 or 14 up
to 23 or 24.”--“Indeed, and what do you read?”--“Oh, we read Algebra
and Euclid,” he replied enthusiastically, “and English History and
Natural Science and Mill’s Political Economy, and” (but here his voice
fell a semitone) “we learn two chapters of the Bible by heart every
day.” By this time other boys had come up, and I soon found myself
the centre of a small crowd, and conversing to them about England,
and its well-known scholars and politicians, and a variety of things
about which they asked eager questions. “Come and see the college,” at
last they said, seeing I was interested; and so we adjourned--a troop
of about fifty--into a courtyard containing various school-buildings.
There did not seem to be any masters about, and after showing me some
of the class-rooms, which were fitted up much like English class-rooms,
they took me to the dormitory. The dormitory was a spacious room or
hall, large enough I daresay to accommodate most of the scholars, but
to my surprise it contained not a single bit of furniture--not a bed or
a chair or a table, far less a washstand; only round the wall on the
floor were the boys’ boxes--mostly small enough--and grass mats which,
unrolled at night, they used for sleeping on. This (combined with J. S.
Mill) was plain living and high thinking indeed. Seeing my look of
mingled amusement and surprise, they said with a chuckle, “Come and
see the dining-hall”--lo! another room of about the same size--this
time with _nothing_ in it, except plates distributed at equal distances
about the floor! The meal hour was just approaching, and the boys
squatting down with crossed feet took each a plate upon his lap, while
serving-men going round with huge bowls of curry and rice supplied them
with food, which they ate with their fingers.
It certainly impressed me a good deal to find a high level of Western
education going on, and among boys, many of them evidently from
their conversation intelligent enough, under such extremely simple
conditions, and in so unimportant a place as Tuticorin might appear.
But I soon found that similar institutions--not all fortunately
involving two chapters of the Bible every day, and not all quite so
simple in their interior instalments--existed all over the land. Not
only are there universities at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, granting
degrees on a broad foundation of Western learning, and affiliated to
Oxford and Cambridge in such a way that the student, having taken his
B.A. at either of the Indian universities, can now take a further
degree at either of the English ones after two years’ residence
only; but there are important colleges and high schools in all the
principal towns; and a graduated network of instruction down to the
native village schools all over the land. Besides these there are
medical colleges, such as the Grant Medical College at Bombay; women’s
colleges, like the Bethune College at Calcutta, which has fifty or
sixty women students, and which passed six women graduates in the
Calcutta university examinations in 1890; and other institutions. In
most cases the principals of these higher institutions are English, but
the staff is largely native.
And as a part of Western education I suppose one may include our games
and sports, which are rapidly coming into use and supplanting, in
populous centres, the native exercises. It is a curious and unexpected
sight to see troops of dark-skinned and barefooted lads and men playing
cricket--but it is a sight one may meet with in any of the towns
now-a-days in the cooler weather. At Bombay the _maidans_ are simply
crowded at times with cricketers--Parsee clubs, Hindu clubs, Eurasians,
English--I reckoned I could count a score of pitches one day from the
place where I was sitting. The same at Calcutta. The same at Nagpore,
with golf going on as well. Yet one cannot help noticing the separation
of the different sections of the population, even in their games--the
English cricket-ground, the “second-class” English ground, the Eurasian
ground, the Hindu and Mahomedan--all distinct!
The effect of this rush of Western ideas and education is of
course what one might expect--and what I have already alluded to
once or twice--namely, to discredit the old religion and the old
caste-practices. As my friend the schoolmaster said at Calcutta, “No
one believes in all this now”; by no one meaning no one who belongs
to the new movement and has gone through the Western curriculum--the
“young India.”
The question may be asked then, What does the young India believe in?
It has practically abandoned the religion of its fathers, largely
scoffs at it, does it accept Christianity in any form in its place? I
believe we may reply No. Christianity in its missions and its Salvation
armies, though it may move a little among the masses, does not to
any extent touch the advanced and educated sections. No, the latter
read Mill, Spencer and Huxley, and they have quite naturally and in
good faith adopted the philosophy of their teachers--the scientific
materialism which had its full vogue in England some twenty years
ago, but which is now perhaps somewhat on the wane. As one of these
enthusiasts said to me one day, “We are all Agnostics now.” With that
extraordinary quickness and receptivity which is one of the great
features of the Hindu mind, though beginning the study so much later
in the day, they have absorbed the teachings of modern science and
leapt to its conclusions almost as soon as we have in the West. That
the movement will remain at this point seems to me in the highest
degree unlikely. There may be a reaction back to the old standpoint,
or, what is more hopeful, a forward effort to rehabilitate the profound
teachings of their forefathers into forms more suited to the times in
which we live, and freed from the many absurdities which have gathered
round the old tradition.
* * * * *
The second great factor in modern India is the growth of Commercialism.
This is very remarkable, and is likely to be more so. Not only at
Tuticorin, but at a multitude of places are factory chimneys growing
up. At Nagpore I saw a cotton-mill employing hundreds of hands. At
Bombay there are between thirty and forty large cotton-mills, there is
a manufacturing quarter, and a small forest of chimneys belching forth
their filth into the otherwise cloudless blue.
I visited one of the largest of these mills (that of the United
Spinning and Weaving Co.) with a friend who at one time had worked
there. It was the counterpart of at Lancashire cotton-mill. There was
the same great oblong building in three or four storeys, the same
spinning jenny and other machinery (all of course brought out from
England, and including a splendid high-pressure condensing engine
of 2,000 H.P.), the same wicked roar and scream of wheels, and the
same sickening hurry and scramble. But how strange to see the poor
thin oysters working under the old familiar conditions of dirt and
unhealth--their dark skins looking darker with grease and dust, their
passive faces more passive than ever--to see scores of Hindu girls with
huge ear-rings and nose-rings threading their way among the machinery,
looking so small, compared with our women, and so abstracted and dreamy
that it hardly seemed safe. And here a little naked boy about 10 years
of age, minding a spinning jenny and taking up the broken threads, as
clever and as deft as can be. Fortunately the Hindu mind takes things
easier than the English, and refuses to be pressed; for the hours are
shamefully long and there is but little respite from toil.
There is no doubt that great fortunes have been and are being made
in this cotton business. It can hardly be otherwise, for as long as
Manchester is in the market the goods of Bombay are in a line as
to price with the products of English manufacture; but they are
produced at very much less cost. I suppose the average wage for
adults in one of these mills is not more than 8_d._ a day (if so
much), and the difference between this and 2_s._ 8_d._ a day say as
in England, gives 2_s._ per diem saved on each employee. In the mill
that I visited there are 1,100 hands--say 1,000 adults; that gives
a saving of 1,000 × 2 shillings, or £100, a day; or £30,000 a year.
Against this must be set the increased price of coal, which they get
all the way from England (the coal of the country being inferior) at
Rs. 15 to 17 per ton--say 25 tons a day at 20_s._ added cost to what
it would be in England--_i.e._, £25 a day, or £7,500 a year. Then it
is clear that despite this and some other drawbacks, the balance in
favor of production in India is very great; and the dividends of the
cotton-mills at Bombay certainly show it, for they run at 20, 25, 50
and even 80 per cent., with very few below 20.
It is clear that such profits as these are likely to draw capital
out to India in rapidly increasing degree, and we may expect a vast
development of manufacturing industry there during the next decade or
two. The country--or at any rate the town-centres--will be largely
commercialised. And as far as the people themselves are concerned,
though the life in mills is wretched enough, still it offers a specious
change from the dull round of peasant labor, and something like a
secure wage (if only a pittance) to a man who in his native village
would hardly see the glint of coin from one year’s end to another; the
bustle and stir of the town too is an attraction; and so some of the
same causes which have already in England brought about the depletion
of the land in favor of the congestion of the cities, are beginning to
work in India.
Then beside the manual employment which our commercial institutions
provide there are innumerable trading posts and clerkships, connected
with merchants’ houses, banks, railways, post-offices, and all manner
of public works, all of which practically are filled by natives; and
some of which, with the moderate salaries attached, are eagerly sought
after. One hardly realises till one sees it, how completely these great
organizations are carried on--except for perhaps one or two Englishmen
at the head--by native labor; but when one does see this one realises
also how important a part of the whole population this section--which
is thus ministering to and extending the bounds of modern life--is
becoming. And this section again is supplemented by at least an equally
numerous section which, if not already employed in the same way, is
desirous of becoming so. And of course among both these sections
Western ideals and standards flourish; competition is gradually coming
to be looked on as a natural law of society; and Caste and the old
Family system are more or less rapidly disintegrating.
* * * * *
Such changes as these are naturally important, and indeed in an old and
conservative country like India strike one as very remarkable--but they
are made even more important by the political complexion they have of
late years assumed. In the National Indian Congress we see that not
only the outer forms of life and thought, but the political and social
ideas which belong to the same stage of historical development, have
migrated from West to East. The people--or at least those sections
of it of which we are speaking--are infected not only with Darwin
and Huxley, but with a belief in the ballot, in parliaments and
town-councils, and in constitutionalism and representative government
generally. The N. I. C. brings together from 1,000 to 1,500 delegates
annually from all parts of India, representing a variety of different
races and sections, and elected in many of the larger towns with the
utmost enthusiasm; and this by itself is a striking fact--a fact
quite comparable in its way with the meetings of the Labor Congresses
in late years in the capitals of Europe. Its conferences have been
mostly devoted to such political questions as the application of the
elective principle to municipal and imperial councils, and to such
social questions as that of child-marriage; and these subjects and
the speeches concerning them are again reviewed and reported by a
great number of newspapers printed both in English and the vernacular
tongues, and having a large circulation. Certainly it is probable
that the Congresses will not _immediately_ lead to any very striking
results--indeed it is hard to see how they _could_ do so; but the fact
of the existence of the N. I. C. movement alone is a pregnant one, and
backed as it is by economical changes, it is not likely--though it may
change its form--to evaporate into mere nothingness.
In fact--despite the efforts of certain parties to minimise it--it
seems to me evident that we are face to face with an important social
movement in India. What the upshot of it may be no one probably can
tell--it may subside again in time, or it may gather volume and force
towards some definite issue; but it certainly cannot be ignored.
The Pagetts, M.P., may be ponderously superficial about it, but the
Kiplings merry are at least equally far from the truth. Of course
in actual numerical strength as compared with the whole population
the party may be small; but then, as in other such movements, since
it is just the most active and energetic folk who join them, their
import cannot be measured by mere numbers. It is useless again to
say that because the movement is not acknowledged by the peasants,
or by the religious folk, or because it is regarded with a jealous
eye by certain sections, that therefore it is of no account; because
similar things are always said and always have been said of every new
social effort--in its inception--however popular or influential it may
afterwards become.
The question which is most interesting at this juncture to any one who
recognises that there really is something like a change of attitude
taking place in the Indian peoples, is: How do the Anglo-Indians regard
this change? and my answer to this--though given with diffidence--since
it is a large generalisation and there may be, certainly are, many
exceptions to it--is: I believe that taken as a whole the Anglos look
upon it with a mingled sentiment of Fear and Dislike. I think they
look upon the movement with a certain amount of Fear--perhaps not
unnaturally. The remembrance of the Mutiny of ’57 is before them; they
feel themselves to be a mere handful among millions. And I am sure they
look upon it with Dislike, for as said above there is no real touch,
no real sympathy, between them and the native races. However it may be
for the liberalising Englishman at home to indulge in a sentimental
sympathy with the aspiring oyster, the Britisher in India feels
that the relation is only tolerable as long as there is a fixed and
impassable distinction between the ruler and the ruled. Take that away,
let the two races come into actual contact on an equality, and ... but
the thought is not to be endured.
And this feeling of race-dislike is I think--as I have hinted in an
earlier chapter--enhanced by the fact that the Britisher in India is a
“class” man in his social feeling. I have several times had occasion
to think that the bulk-people of the two countries--though by no means
agreeing with each other--would, if intercourse were at all possible,
get on better together than the actual parties do at present. The evils
of a commercial class-government which we are beginning to realise so
acutely at home--the want of touch between the rulers and the ruled,
the testing of all politics by the touchstone of commercial profits
and dividends, the consequent enrichment of the few at the expense of
the many, the growth of slum and factory life, and the impoverishment
of the peasant and the farmer, are curiously paralleled by what is
taking place in India; and in many respects it is becoming necessary
to realise that some of our difficulties in India are not merely such
as belong to the country itself, but are part and parcel of the same
problem which is beginning to vex us at home--the social problem,
namely. The same narrowness of social creed, the entire decadence
of the old standards of gentle birth without their replacement by
any new ideal, worthy to be so called, the same trumpery earmarks of
society-connection, etc., distinguish the ruling classes in one country
as in the other; and in both are the signals of coming change.
At the same time it would be absurd to assume that the native of
India is free from serious defects which make the problem, to the
Anglo-Indian, ever so much more difficult of solution. And of these
probably the tendency to evasion, deceit, and underhand dealing is the
most serious. The Hindu especially with his subtle mind and passive
character is thus unreliable; it is difficult to find a man who will
stick with absolute fidelity to his word, or of whom you can be certain
that his ostensible object is his real one; and naturally this sort of
thing creates estrangement.
To my mind this social gulf existing between the rulers and the ruled
is the most pregnant fact of our presence in India--the one that calls
most for attention, and that looms biggest with consequences for the
future. Misunderstandings of all kinds flow from it. “When this want of
intercourse,” says Beck in his _Essays on Indian Topics_, “between the
communities or a reasonable number of people of each, is fixed on my
attention, I often feel with a sinking of the heart that the end of the
British Indian Empire is not far distant.”
I have already pointed out (p. 276) how clear it is by the example
of Aligarh that friendly intercourse is _possible_ between the two
sections--though we have allowed that it is difficult to bring about.
Mr. Beck corroborates this in his _Essays_ by strong expressions. He
says (p. 89), “An Englishman would probably be dubbed a lunatic if he
confessed that the only thing which made life tolerable in his Indian
exile was the culture, the interest, and the affection he found in
native society. Such an Englishman will therefore at most hint at his
condition”; and again--“As one whose circumstances have compelled
him to see more of the people of India than the average Englishman,
I can only say that the effort repays itself, and that, incredible
though it may appear, all degrees of friendship are possible between
the Anglo-Indian and his Eastern fellow-subject.” And further on,
after urging the importance, the vast importance, of cultivating this
intercourse, and so attempting to bridge the fatal gulf, he says:--“To
know the people, and to be so trusted by them that they will open out
to us the inmost recesses of their hearts; to see them daily; to come
to love them as those who have in their nature but an average share of
affection cannot help loving them when they know them well--this is our
ideal for the Indian civilian. Some Englishmen act up to this ideal: in
the early days of our rule several did. If it become the normal thing
the Indian Empire will be built upon a rock so that nothing can shake
it. Agitation and sedition will vanish as ugly shadows. Had it existed
in 1857 the crash would not have come.”
The writer of the above paragraphs thinks nothing of the N. I. C.
movement, or rather I should say thinks unfavorably of it; but of
the importance of bridging the social gulf he cannot say enough--and
in this latter point, as far as I feel competent to form an opinion
at all, I entirely agree with him. But will it ever be bridged?
Unfortunately the few who share such sentiments as those I have quoted
are very few and far between--and of those the greater number must as I
have already explained be tied and bound in the chains of officialdom.
“The Anglo-Indian world up to the hour when the great tragedy of ’57
burst upon them was busily amusing itself as best it can in this
country with social nothings”--and how is it amusing itself now? The
most damning fact that I know against the average English attitude
towards the natives, is the fact that one of the very few places
besides Aligarh, where there is any cordial feeling between the two
parties, is Hyderabad--a place in which, on account of its being under
the Nizam, _the officials are natives_, and their position therefore
prevents their being trampled on!
* * * * *
If the Congress movement is destined to become a great political
movement, it must it seems to me eventuate in one of two ways--either
in violence and civil war, owing to determined hostility on the part
of our Government and the continual widening of the breach between
the two peoples; or,--which is more likely--if our Government grants
more and more representative power to the people--in the immense
growth of political and constitutional life among them, and the
gradual _drowning out_ of British rule thereby. There is a third
possibility--namely the withdrawal of our government, owing to troubles
and changes at home. Either of these alternatives would only be the
beginning of long other vistas of change, which we need not attempt
to discuss. They all involve the decadence of our political power in
India, and certainly, situated as we are--unable to really _inhabit_
the country and adapt ourselves to the climate, and with growing social
forces around us--I can neither see nor imagine any other conclusion.
The Congress movement being founded on the economical causes--the
growth of commercialism, etc.--it is hard to believe that it will not
go on and spread. Certainly it may alter its name and programme; but
granted that commercialism is going to establish itself, it is surely
impossible to imagine it will do so, among so acute and subtle a
people as the Hindus, without bringing with it the particular forms of
political life which go with it, and really belong to it.
One of the most far-reaching and penetrating ways in which this
Western movement is influencing India is in its action on the sense
of _property_. The conception of property, as I have already pointed
out once or twice, is gradually veering from the communistic to the
highly individualistic. In all departments, whether in the family
or the township or the caste, the idea of joint possession or joint
regulation of goods or land for common purposes is dying out in favor
of separate and distinct holding for purely individual ends. It is
well known what an immense revolution in the structure of society has
taken place, in the history of various races and peoples, when this
change of conception has set in. Nor is it likely that India will prove
altogether an exception to the rule. For the change is going on not
only--as might fairly be expected--in the great cities, where Western
influence is directly felt, but even in the agricultural regions, where
ever since the British occupation it has been slowly spreading, partly
through the indirect action of British laws and land settlements, and
partly through the gradual infiltration, in a variety of ways, of
commercial and competitive modes of thought.
Now no estimate of Indian affairs and movements can be said to be of
value, which does not take account of the weight--one might say the
dead weight--of its agricultural life: the 80 or 90 per cent. of the
population who live secluded in small villages, in the most primitive
fashion, with their village goddess and their Hindu temple--hardly
knowing what government they live under, and apparently untouched
from age to age by invention and what we call progress. Nor can the
conservative force so represented be well exaggerated. But if even this
agricultural mass is beginning to slide, we have indeed evidence that
great forces are at work. If the village communities are going to break
up, and the old bonds of rural society to dissolve, we may be destined
to witness, as Henry Maine suggests, the recurrence of “that terrible
problem of pauperism which began to press on English statesmen as soon
as the old English cultivating groups began distinctly to fall to
pieces.” “In India however,” he says, “the solution will be far more
difficult than it has proved here.”
All this assumes the continued spread and growth of the commercial
ideal in India--which is a large question, and wide in its bearings.
Considering all the forces which tend now-a-days in that direction, and
the apparent inevitableness of the thing as a phase of modern life at
home, its growth in India for some years to come seems hardly doubtful.
But it is a curious phenomenon. Anything more antagonistic to the
genius of ancient India--the Wisdom-land--than this cheap-and-nasty,
puffing profit-mongering, enterprising, energetic, individualistic,
“business,” can hardly be imagined; and the queer broil witnessed
to-day in cities like Bombay and Calcutta only illustrates the
incongruity. To Hindus of the old school, with their far-back spiritual
ideal, a civilisation like ours, whose highest conception of life and
religion is the General Post Office, is simply _Anathema_. I will quote
a portion of a letter received from an Indian friend on the subject,
which gives an idea of this point of view. Referring to the poverty of
the people--
“All this terrible destitution and suffering throughout one-seventh
of the world’s population has been brought about without any benefit
to the English people themselves. It has only benefited the English
capitalists and professional classes. The vaunted administrative
capacity of the English is a fiction. They make good policemen and keep
order, when the people acquiesce--that is all. If this acquiescence
ceases, as it must, when the people rightly or wrongly believe their
religion and family life in danger from the government, the English
must pack up and go, and woe to the English capitalist and professional
man! I feel more and more strongly every day that the English with
their commercial ideals and standards and institutions have done far
more to ruin the country than if it had been overrun periodically by
hordes of savage Tatars.”
That Commercialism is bringing and will bring great evils in its train,
in India as elsewhere--the sapping of the more manly and martial
virtues, the accentuation of greed and sophistry, the dominance of
the money-lender--I do not doubt; though I do not quite agree with
the above denunciation. I think if the English have infested and
plagued poor India, it is greatly the fault of the Indians themselves
who in their passiveness and lethargy have allowed it to be so. And
I think--taking perhaps on my side a too optimistic view--that this
growing industrialism and mechanical civilisation may (for a time) do
much good, in the way of rousing up the people, giving _definition_,
so much needed, to their minds and work, and instilling among them the
Western idea of progress, which in some ways fallacious has still its
value and use.
Only for a time however. We in England, now already witnessing
the beginning of the end of the commercial _régime_, are becoming
accustomed to the idea that it is only a temporary phase; and in India
where, as I have said, the whole genius of the land and its traditions
is so adverse to such a system, and the weight of ancient custom so
enormous, we can hardly expect that it will take such hold as here,
or run through quite so protracted a course of years. Commercialism
will no doubt greatly modify and simplify the caste system--but to the
caste system in some purified form I am inclined to think the people
will return; it will do something also to free the women--give them
back at least as much freedom as they had in early times and before
the Mahomedan conquests, if not more; and finally Western science will
strongly and usefully criticise the prevalent religious systems and
practices, and give that definition and _materialism_ to the popular
thought which is so sadly wanting in the India of to-day; but the old
underlying truths of Indian philosophy and tradition it will not touch.
This extraordinary possession--containing the very germ of modern
democracy--which has come all down the ages as the special heritage and
mission of the Indian peoples, will remain as heretofore indestructible
and unchanged, and will still form, we must think, the rallying point
of Indian life; but it is probable and indeed to be hoped that the
criticism of Western thought, by clearing away a lot of rubbish, will
help to make its outline and true nature clearer to the world. However
there we must leave the matter.
THE END.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
Transcriber’s Notes
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