THE INDIAN VIEW OF NATURE AND ARCHITECTURE
Indians oblivious to scenery. The beauties of Nature.
Results of learning drawing. Hindus' offerings of flowers;
their garlands. Pictures of flowers. The new village church
attracts; impressed by its interior; schoolboys visit it.
Visitors from the Hindu college. A party from the Widows'
Home. Brahmin ladies admire the embroidery. The "religious
bath."
Almost all Indians are apparently oblivious to beautiful scenery. You
rarely see them looking at a gorgeous sunset, or hear them speak about
it. You will seldom hear them make any reference to the beauty or
otherwise of their surroundings. As they travel along the road you
will not see them looking round about them. Some passengers gaze
listlessly out of the windows of the train, but to all appearance
without much interest, except at stations where there is a crowd on
the platform. Even the buildings or shop windows of a city only
attract a languid amount of attention; but a street quarrel, or a war
of words between two excited females, will soon draw a large crowd.
The brightness of the moon and the glory of the stars, astonishingly
brilliant as they are when seen through the clear Indian atmosphere,
does not seem to excite admiration, in spite of the divine attributes
which Hindus ascribe to such objects. Even ordinary secular education
does not do much to stimulate appreciation of the beauties in Nature.
Christianity does something in this direction by extending the range
of mental vision to the possibilities of the heavenly country, and the
knowledge of God as the Creator excites a measure of interest in the
objects of His creation. But even amongst Indian Christians any keen
perception of the beauty of scenery by land or on the sea-coast is
defective.
Drawing is a subject which is now extensively taught in schools in
India, and it is a branch of education which is helping to train the
Indian mind to observe and appreciate form and colour. At one time the
many lads who came to the Mission-house for old Christmas cards
scornfully rejected even the most beautiful pictures of flowers as
being of no worth. Pictures of birds, or beasts, or people they sought
for eagerly, because such objects came within their range of
appreciation, but the beauty of a flower as such they did not
understand.
Loose flowers without stalk or leaves are offered in temples, or they
are strung on a thread and hung on the god like a necklace. But the
value of the offering is in the scent of the flower, and not in the
beauty of its colour or form. The Yerandawana village children often
come to the church with their cap or pocket filled with flowers
plucked in this fashion, which they present as an offering. We have a
large brass bowl in which we receive such gifts, which is then placed
on the altar, with the prayer that those who have thus shown their
goodwill may be led on to give their own hearts to God.
The elaborate garlands which are used so largely as a complimentary
gift to those whom it is thought desirable to honour are also valued
for their scent rather than for any intrinsic beauty which they may
possess. If the flowers happen to be defective in this respect the
defect is corrected by the addition amongst their petals of powerfully
smelling attar of roses. So little is the natural beauty of the flower
recognised that in the more elaborate garlands small round
looking-glasses in tawdry brass frames are strung at intervals,
producing a painful incongruity.
But of late years quite a number of the more advanced students have
called at the Mission-house expressly seeking pictures of flowers as
drawing studies, and their discriminating remarks, and their
admiration of pictures of special beauty, and the excellence of some
of their own efforts in the production of drawings of natural objects,
shows that at any rate this department of education is bringing about
the desired results.
When the church at Yerandawana was building, the first indication that
its unusual design commended itself to the Indian mind was that
passers-by began to stop and look at it. You need to be familiar with
the Indian's state of oblivion concerning his surroundings, already
referred to, in order to understand the force of this. To pause and
gaze at a big building in process of erection is, with most people, a
natural and obvious thing to do; especially if time is of no object
and the design of the building a novelty. But not so the Indian. To
gradually slacken his pace, to turn and look, to pause and discuss,
was an indication that new and unwonted impressions were being made on
the Indian mind. The effect increased as the building approached
completion. Few people passed without regarding it attentively. Many
looked back to take another view before they had got out of sight. And
although, to the villagers at any rate, the church is now a familiar
object, many of them still seem to find a pleasure in looking up at it
as they go by.
Its interior never fails to impress Hindus of whatever age or station,
and it has become a valuable agent in the work of pioneer
evangelisation. People who enter the church in an easygoing way are
impelled to reverence and subdued tones at the sight of its domes, and
the many arches in the massive walls, combined with its extreme
simplicity. Controversial Hindus drop their controversy, and find
themselves uttering expressions of surprised pleasure. Young children
are so attracted by the church that they ask to visit it again and
again. Often when a Hindu boy comes and asks for pictures for the
first time, some of the old stagers will suggest that he must see the
church, and they are eager to display their knowledge of our
religious ways by explaining to him the meaning of what he finds
there.
[Illustration: YERANDAWANA CHURCH FROM A DISTANCE.]
The English stories which are given as text-books in the upper classes
of Indian schools sometimes present great difficulties to the Hindu
masters, who have to explain the meaning of words and phrases. Miss
Yonge's _Little Duke_ was being read in some of the Poona City High
Schools one year. Even the Christian and surname of the author,
pronounced with exact reference to the spelling, produced such a
mysterious result that it was some time before I recognised the real
name buried up in strange sounds. Miss Yonge's references to churches
were often particularly perplexing, and a boy asking what was meant by
"the chancel," his master wisely advised his pupil to pay a visit to a
Christian church and see for himself. Quite a number of young students
at this period came and asked to be shown over the church, and to have
its various parts explained to them. Some of the questions were not
easy to answer, considering that the questioners were Hindus. What is
meant by "Holy Communion?" asked one of these young men. And later on
another, having had the font explained to him, said, "And how about
the ceremony of bread and wine?"
Even a little party of seven or eight female students from a Hindu
college, escorted by the one Christian girl in the establishment, came
to see the church. Some of them were carefully dressed with due
regard to Hindu fashion, but one or two were advanced women of the
modern school, who had introduced several innovations, especially as
regards a freer way of arranging the hair. There was something almost
pathetic in their interest in what they saw, because the hope of their
ever being otherwise than outsiders was, to say the least of it, very
distant. It was, however, a distinct mark of progress that the
Christian girl who brought them was not only tolerated as a boarder in
the college amongst high-caste girls, but she was evidently popular
and looked up to.
About a dozen Hindu widows came over one morning to see the church
from their home in the next village. They displayed a curious
combination of curiosity, apprehension, and interest. One oldish widow
literally fled to the other side of the church when she suddenly
realised that I was standing behind her. The other women were a good
deal amused at her alarm. It was evident that everything that they saw
was an enigma to them. Naturally Hindu visitors constantly ask, "Where
is the God?" and they are a good deal astonished to find that there is
no visible God. The widows were naturally interested in the needlework
of the altar cloths and hangings, and asked several questions about it
and admired it. Like the lady visitors from the Hindu college, they
showed some diversity of taste and opinion in their dress and
ornaments and arrangement of hair.
When plague was bad in Poona City many of the well-to-do people left
their homes and camped round about Yerandawana. In the evening, when
Brahmin ladies were taking a walk with their children, or returning
from their daily visit to the Hindu temple in the village, a party of
them would now and then come into the church and study it at leisure
with great interest. The beautiful figure of the Crucifixion, with Our
Lady and St John, above the high altar, worked in silk and gold, they
looked at and discussed with much appreciation of the skilled
needlework and the richness of the materials. How far the picture
itself appealed to them it was difficult to say. Finally, they would
gather round the great font, sometimes with caution till they saw that
there was no water in it, and listened respectfully to the description
of its use.
"Yes, I see, it is for a religious bath," said one of them; and we
wondered how long it might be before some of these good women would
again gather round the font to receive their own baptism.