'I have no doubt', replied he, 'that the cures which the people

attribute to the spirit of Hardaul Lâla often arise merely from the

firmness of their faith (_itikâd_) in the efficacy of their

offerings; and that any other ceremonies, that should give to their

minds the same assurance of recovery, would be of great advantage in

cases of epidemic diseases. I remember a singular instance of this,'

said he. 'When Jeswant Râo Holkar was flying before Lord Lake to the

banks of the Hyphasis,[8] a poor trooper of one of his lordship's

irregular corps, when he tied the grain-bag to his horse's mouth,

said 'Take this in the name of Jeswant Râo Holkar, for to him you and

I owe all that we have.' The poor man had been suffering from an

attack of ague and fever; but from that moment he felt himself

relieved, and the fever never returned. At that time this fever

prevailed more generally among the people of Hindustan than any I

have ever known, though I am now an old man. The speech of the

trooper and the supposed result soon spread; and others tried the

experiment with similar success, and it acted everywhere like a

charm. I had the fever myself, and, though by no means a

superstitious man, and certainly no lover of Jeswant Râo Holkar, I

tried the experiment, and the fever left me from that day. From that

time, till the epidemic disappeared, no man, from the Nerbudda to the

Indus, fed his horse without invoking the spirit of Jeswant Râo,

though the chief was then alive and well. Some one had said he found

great relief from plunging into the stream during the paroxysms of

the fever; others followed the example, and some remained for half an

hour at a time, and the sufferers generally found relief. The streams

and tanks throughout the districts between the Ganges and Jumna

became crowded, till the propitiatory offering to the spirit of the

living Jeswant Râo Holkar were [sic] found equally good, and far less

troublesome to those who had horses that must have got their grain,

whether in Holkar's name or not.'

There is no doubt that the great mass of those who had nothing but

their horses and their _good blades_ to depend upon for their

subsistence did most fervently pray throughout India for the safety

of this Marâthâ chief, when he fled before Lord Lake's army; for they

considered that, with his fall, the Company's dominion would become

everywhere securely established, and that good soldiers would be at a

discount. '_Company kê amal men kuchh rozgâr nahin hai_,'--'There is

no employment in the Company's dominion,' is a common maxim, not only

among the men of the sword and the spear, but among those merchants

who lived by supporting native civil and military establishments with

the luxuries and elegancies which, under the new order of things,

they have no longer the means to enjoy.

The noisy _pûjâ_ (worship), about which our conversation began, took

place at Sâgar in April, 1832, while I was at that station. More than

four-fifths of the people of the city and cantonments had been

affected by a violent influenza, which commenced with a distressing

cough, was followed by fever, and, in some cases, terminated in

death. I had an application from the old Queen Dowager of Sâgar, who

received a pension of ten thousand pounds a year from the British

Government,[9] and resided in the city, to allow of a _noisy_

religious procession to implore deliverance from this great calamity.

Men, women, and children in this procession were to do their utmost

to add to the noise by 'raising their voices in _psalmody_', beating

upon their brass pots and pans with all their might, and discharging

fire-arms where they could get them; and before the noisy crowd was

to be driven a buffalo, which had been purchased by a general

subscription, in order that every family might participate in the

merit. They were to follow it out for eight miles, where it was to be

turned loose for any man who would take it. If the animal returned,

the disease, it was said, must return with it, and the ceremony be

performed over again. I was requested to intimate the circumstance to

the officer commanding the troops in cantonments, in order that the

hideous noise they intended to make might not excite any alarm, and

bring down upon them the visit of the soldiery. It was, however,

subsequently determined that the animal should be a goat, and he was

driven before the crowd accordingly. I have on several occasions been

requested to allow of such noisy _pûjâs_ in cases of epidemics; and

the confidence they feel in their efficiency has, no doubt, a good

effect.

While in civil charge of the district of Narsinghpur, in the valley

of the Nerbudda, in April 1823, the cholera morbus raged in almost

every house of Narsinghpur and Kandelî, situated near each other,[l0]

and one of them close to my dwelling-house and court. The European

physicians lost all confidence in their prescriptions, and the people

declared that the hand of God was upon them, and by appeasing Him

could they alone hope to be saved.[11] A religious procession was

determined upon; but the population of both towns was divided upon

the point whether a silent or a noisy one would be most acceptable to

God. Hundreds were dying around me when I was applied to to settle

this knotty point between the parties. I found that both in point of

numbers and respectability the majority was in favour of the silent

procession, and I recommended that this should be adopted. The

procession took place about nine the same night, with all due

ceremony; but the advocates for noise would none of them assist in

it. Strange as it may appear, the disease abated from that moment;

and the great majority of the population of both towns believed that

their prayers had been heard; and I went to bed with a mind somewhat

relieved by the hope that this feeling of confidence might be useful.

About one o'clock I was awoke from a sound sleep by the most hideous

noise that I had ever heard; and, not at that moment recollecting the

proposal for the noisy procession, ran out of my house, in

expectation of seeing both towns in flames. I found that the

advocates for noise, resolving to have their procession, had

assembled together about midnight; and, apprehensive that they might

be borne down by the advocates for silence and my police

establishment, had determined to make the most of their time, and put

in requisition all the pots, pans, shells, trumpets, pistols, and

muskets that they could muster. All opened at once about one o'clock;

and, had there been any virtue in discord, the cholera must soon have

deserted the place, for such another hideous compound of noises I

never heard. The disease, which seemed to have subsided with the

silent procession before I went to bed, now returned with double

violence, as I was assured by numbers who flocked to my house in

terror; and the whole population became exasperated with the leaders

of the noisy faction, who had, they believed, been the means of

bringing back among them all the horrors of this dreadful scourge.

I asked the Hindoo Sadar Amîn, or head native judicial officer at

Sâgar, a very profound Sanskrit scholar, what he thought of the

efficacy of these processions in checking epidemic diseases. He said

that 'there could be nothing more clear than the total inefficiency

of medicine in such cases; and, when medicine failed, a man's only

resource was in prayers; that the diseases of mankind were to be

classed under three general heads: first, those suffered for sins

committed in some former births; second, those suffered for sins

committed in the present birth; third, those merely accidental. Now,'

said the old gentleman, 'it must be clear to every unprejudiced mind

that the third only can be cured or checked by the physician.'

Epidemics, he thought, must all be classed under the second head, and

as inflicted by the Deity for some very general sin; consequently, to

be removed only by prayers; and, whether silent or noisy, was, he

thought, matter of little importance, provided they were offered in

the same spirit. I believe that, among the great mass of the people

of India, three-fourths of the diseases of individuals are attributed

to evil spirits and evil eyes; and for every physician among them

there are certainly ten _exorcisers_. The faith in them is very great

and very general; and, as the gift is supposed to be supernatural, it

is commonly exercised without fee or reward. The gifted person

subsists upon some other employment, and _exorcises_ gratis.

A child of one of our servants was one day in convulsions from its

sufferings in cutting its teeth. The Civil Surgeon happened to call

that morning, and he offered to lance the child's gums. The poor

mother thanked him, but stated that there could be no possible doubt

as to the source of her child's sufferings--that the devil had got

into it during the night, and would certainly not be frightened out

by his little lancet; but she expected every moment my old tent-

pitcher, whose exorcisms no devil of this description had ever yet

been able to withstand.

The small-pox had been raging in the town of Jubbulpore for some time

during one hot season that I was there, and a great many children had

died from it. The severity of the disease was considered to have been

a good deal augmented by a very untoward circumstance that had taken

place in the family of the principal banker of the town, Khushhâl

Chand. Sêwâ Râm Sêth, the old man, had lately died, leaving two sons.

Ram Kishan, the eldest, and Khushhâl Chand, the second. The eldest

gave up all the management of the sublunary concerns of the family,

and devoted his mind entirely to religious duties. They had a very

fine family temple of their own, in which they placed an image of

their god Vishnu, cut out of the choicest stone of the Nerbudda, and

consecrated after the most approved form, and with very expensive

ceremonies. This idol Râm Kishan used every day to wash with his own

hands with rosewater, and anoint with precious ointments. One day,

while he had the image in his arms, and was busily employed in

anointing it, it fell to the ground upon the stone pavement, and one

of the arms was broken. To live after such an untoward accident was

quite out of the question, and poor Râm Kishan proceeded at once

quietly to hang himself. He got a rope from the stable, and having

tied it over the beam in the room where he had let the god fall upon

the stone pavement, he was putting his head calmly into the noose,

when his brother came in, laid hold of him, called for assistance,

and put him under restraint. A conclave of the priests of that sect

was immediately held in the town, and Râm Kishan was told that

hanging himself was not absolutely necessary; that it might do if he

would take the stone image, broken arm and all, upon his own back,

and carry it two hundred and sixty miles to Benares, where resided

the high priest of the sect, who would, no doubt, be able to suggest

the proper measures for pacifying the god.

At this time, the only son of his brother, Khushhâl Chand, an

interesting little boy of about four years of age, was extremely ill

of the small-pox; and it is a rule with Hindoos never to undertake

any journey, even one of pilgrimage to a holy shrine, while any

member of the family is afflicted with this disease; they must all

sit at home clothed in sackcloth and ashes. He was told that he had

better defer his journey to Benares till the child should recover;

but he could neither sleep nor eat, so great was his terror, lest

some dreadful calamity should befall the whole family before he could

expiate his crime, or take the advice of his high priest as to the

best means of doing it: and he resolved to leave the decision of the

question to God Himself. He took two pieces of paper, and having

caused Benares to be written upon one, and Jubbulpore upon the other,

he put them both into a brass vessel. After shaking the vessel well,

he drew forth that on which Benares had been written. 'It is the will

of God,' said Râm Kishan. All the family, who were interested in the

preservation of the poor boy, implored him not to set out, lest Dêvî,

who presides over small-pox, should become angry. It was all in vain.

He would set out with his household god; and, unable to carry it

himself, he put it into a small litter upon a pole, and hired a

bearer to carry it at one end, while he supported it at the other.

His brother, Khushhâl Chand, sent his second wife at the same time

with offerings for Dêvî, to ward off the effects of his brother's

rashness from his child. By the time the brother had got with his god

to Adhartâl, three miles from Jubbulpore, on the road to Benares, he

heard of the death of his nephew; but he seemed not to feel this

slight blow in his terror of the dreadful but undefined calamity

which he felt to be impending over him and the whole family, and he

trotted on his road. Soon after, an infant son of their uncle died of

the same disease; and the whole town became at once divided into two

parties--those who held that the children had been killed by Dêvî as

a punishment for Râm Kishan's presuming to leave Jubbulpore before

they recovered; and those who held that they were killed by the god

Vishnu himself, for having been so rudely deprived of one of his

arms. Khushhâl Chand's wife sickened on the road, and died on

reaching Mirzapore, of fever; and, as Dêvî was supposed to have

nothing to do with fevers, this event greatly augmented the advocates

of Vishnu. It is a rule with the Hindoos to bury, and not to burn,

the bodies of those who die of the small-pox; 'for', say they, 'the

small-pox is not only caused by the goddess Dêvî, but is, in fact,

_Dêvî herself_', and to burn the body of the person affected with

this disease is, in reality, neither more nor less than _to burn the

goddess_'.

Khushhâl Chand was strongly urged to bury, and not burn, his child,

particularly as it was usual with Hindoos to bury infants and

children of that age, of whatever disease they might die; but he

insisted upon having his boy burned with all due pomp and ceremony,

and burned he was accordingly. From that moment, it is said, the

disease began to rage with increased violence throughout the town of

Jubbulpore. At least one-half of the children affected had before

survived; but, from that hour, at least three out of four died; and,

instead of the condolence which he expected from his fellow citizens,

poor Khushhâl Chand, a very amiable and worthy man, received nothing

but their execrations for bringing down so many calamities upon their

heads; first, by maltreating his own god, and then by setting fire to

theirs.

I had, a few days after, a visit from Gangâdhar Râo, the Sadar Amîn,

or head native judicial officer of this district, whose father had

been for a short time the ruler of the district, under the former

government; and I asked him whether the small-pox had diminished in

the town since the rains had now set in. He told me that he thought

it had, but that a great many children had been taken off by the

disease.[12]

'I understand, Râo Sahib, that Khushhâl Chand, the banker, is

supposed to have augmented the virulence of the disease by burning

his boy; was it so?'

'Certainly,' said my friend, with a grave, long face; 'the disease

was much increased by this man's folly.' I looked very grave in my

turn, and he continued:- 'Not a child escaped after he had burned his

boy. Such incredible folly! To set fire to the _goddess_ in the midst

of a population of twenty thousand souls; it might have brought

destruction on us all!'

'What makes you think that the disease is itself the goddess?'

'Because we always say, when any member of a family becomes attacked

by the small-pox, "_Dêvî nikalî_", that is, Dêvî has shown herself in

that family, or in that individual. And the person affected can wear

nothing but plain white clothing, not a silken or coloured garment,

nor an ornament of any kind; nor can he or any of his family

undertake a journey, or participate in any kind of rejoicings, lest

he give offence to her. They broke the arm of their god, and he drove

them all mad.[l3] The elder brother set out on a journey with it, and

his nephew, cousin, and sister-in-law fell victims to his temerity;

and then Khushhâl Chand brings down the goddess upon the whole

community by burning his boy![14] No doubt he was very fond of his

child--so we all are--and wished to do him all honour; but some

regard is surely due to the people around us, and I told him so when

he was making preparations for the funeral; but he would not listen

to reason.'

A complicated religious code, like that of the Hindoos, is to the

priest what a complicated civil code, like that of the English, is to

the lawyers. A Hindoo can do nothing without consulting his priest,

and an Englishman can do nothing without consulting his lawyer.

Notes:

1. _Ante_, Chapter 24, following note [4].

2. Sâgar was ceded by the Peshwa in 1818, and a yearly sum of two and

a half lakhs of rupees was allotted by Government for pensions to

Rukmâ Bâî, Vinâyak Râo, and the other officers of the Marâthâ

Government. A descendant of Rukmâ Bâî continued for many years to

enjoy a pension of R.10,000 per annum (_C.P. Gazetteer_ (1870), p,

442). The lady referred to in the text seems to be Rukmâ Bâî.

3. A village about twenty miles north-west of Sâgar. The estate

consists of twenty-six revenue-free villages.

4. The Jewish ceremonial is described in Leviticus xvi. 20-26. After

completing the atonement for the impurities of the holy place, the

tabernacle, and the altar, Aaron was directed to lay 'his hands upon

the head of the live goat', so putting all the sins of the people

upon the animal, and then to 'send him away by the hand of a fit man

into the wilderness; and the goat shall bear upon him all their

iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in

the wilderness'. The subject of scape-goats is discussed at length

and copiously illustrated by Mr. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_, 1st

ed., vol. ii, section 15, pp. 182-217; 3rd ed. (1913) Part VI. The

author's stories in the text are quoted by Mr. Frazer.

5. During the season of 1816-17 the ravages of the Pindhârîs were

exceptionally daring and extensive. The Governor-General, the Marquis

of Hastings, organized an army in several divisions to crush the

marauders, and himself joined the central division in October 1817.

The operations were ended by the capture of Asîrgarh in March 1819.

6. The people in the Sâgar territories used to show several decayed

mango-trees in groves where European troops had encamped during the

campaigns of 1816 and 1817, and declared that they had been seen to

wither from the day that beef for the use of these troops had been

tied to their branches. The only coincidence was in the decay of the

trees, and the encamping of the troops in the groves; that the

withering trees were those to which the beef had been tied was of

course taken for granted. [W. H. S.] The Hindoo veneration for the

cow amounts to a passion, and its intensity is very inadequately

explained by the current utilitarian explanations. The best analysis

of the motives underlying the passionate Hindoo feeling on the

subject is to be found in Mr. William Crooke's article 'The

Veneration of the Cow in India' (_Folklore_, Sept. 1912, pp. 275-

306). In modern times an active, though absolutely hopeless,

agitation has been kept up, directed against the reasonable liberty

of those communities in India who are not members of the Hindoo

system. This agitation for the prohibition of cow-killing has caused

some riots, and has evoked much ill-feeling. The editor had to deal

with it in the Muzaffarnagar district in 1890, and had much trouble

to keep the peace. The local leaders of the movement went so far as

to send telegrams direct to the Government of India. Many other

magistrates have had similar experiences. The authorities take every

precaution to protect Hindoo susceptibilities from needless wounds,

but they are equally bound to defend the lawful liberty of subjects

who are not Hindoos. The Government of the United Provinces on one

occasion yielded to the Hindoo demands so far as to prohibit cow-

killing in at least one town where the practice was not fully

established, but the legality and expediency of such an order are

both open to criticism. The administrative difficulty is much

enhanced by the fact that the Indian Muhammadans profess to be under

a religious obligation to sacrifice cows at the Îdul Bakr festival.

Cholera has been known to exist in India at least since the

seventeenth century (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd ed. (1885),

s.v.).

7. The cultus of Hardaul is further discussed _post_ in Chapter 31.

In 1875, the editor, who was then employed in the Hamîrpur district

of Bundêlkhand, published some popular Hindi songs in praise of the

hero, with the following abstract of the _Legend of Hardaul_:

'Hardaul, a son of the famous Bîr Singh Deo Bundêla of Orchhâ, was

born at Datiyâ. His brother, Jhajhâr Singh, suspected him of undue

intimacy with his wife, and at a feast poisoned him with all his

followers. After this tragedy, it happened that the daughter of

Kunjâvatî, the sister of Jhajhâr and Hardaul, was about to be

married. Kunjâvatî accordingly sent an invitation to Jhajhâr Singh,

requesting him to attend the wedding. He refused, and mockingly

replied that she had better invite her favourite brother Hardaul.

Thereupon she went in despair to his tomb and lamented aloud. Hardaul

from below answered her cries, and said that he would come to the

wedding and make all arrangements. The ghost kept his promise, and

arranged the nuptials as befitted the honour of his house.

Subsequently, he visited at night the bedside of Akbar, and besought

the emperor to command _chabûtras_ to be erected and honour paid to

him in every village throughout the empire, promising that, if he

were duly honoured, a wedding should never be marred by storm or

rain, and that no one who first presented a share of his meal to

Hardaul should ever want for food. Akbar complied with these

requests, and since that time Hardaul's ghost has been worshipped in

every village. He is chiefly honoured at weddings and in Baisâkh

(April-May), during which month the women, especially those of the

lower castes, visit his _chabûtra_ and eat there. His chabûtra is

always built outside the village. On the day but one before the

arrival of a wedding procession, the women of the family worship the

gods and Hardaul, and invite them to the wedding. If any signs of a

storm appears, Hardaul is propitiated with songs '(_J.A.S.B._, vol.

xliv (1875), Part I, p. 389). The belief that Hardaul worship and

cholera had been introduced at the same time prevailed in Hamîrpur,

as elsewhere. The _chabûtra_ referred to in the above extract is a

small platform built of mud or masonry.

8. The Hyphasis is the Greek name for the river Biâs in the Panjâb.

Holkar's flight into the Panjâb occurred in 1805, and in the same

year the long war with him was terminated by a treaty, much too

favourable to the marauding chief. He became insane a few years

later, and died in 1811.

9. See note 2,_ante_.

10. Narsinghpur and Kandelî are practically one town. The Government

offices and houses of the European residents are in Kandelî, which is

a mile east of Narsinghpur. The original name of Narsinghpur was

Gadariâ Khêrâ. The modern name is due to the erection of a large

temple to Narsingha, one of the forms of Vishnu. The district of

Narsinghpur lies in the Nerbudda valley, west and south-west of

Jubbulpore.

11. All classes of Indians still frequently refuse to employ any

medicines in cases of either cholera or small-pox, supposing that the

attempt to use ordinary human means is an insult to, and a defiance

of, the Deity.

12. Vaccination was not practised in India in those days. The

practice of it, although still unpopular in most places, has extended

sufficiently to check greatly the ravages of small-pox. In many

municipal towns vaccination is compulsory.

13._Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat_.

14. The judge cleverly combines the opinions of the adherents of both

sects.

CHAPTER 26

Artificial Lakes in Bundêlkhand--Hindoo, Greek, and Roman Faith.

On the 11th[1] we came on twelve miles to the town of Bamhaurî,

whence extends to the south-west a ridge of high and bare quartz

hills, towering above all others, curling and foaming at the top,

like a wave ready to burst, when suddenly arrested by the hand of

Omnipotence, and turned into white stone. The soil all the way is

wretchedly poor in quality, being formed of the detritus of syenitic

and quartz rocks, and very thin. Bamhaurî is a nice little town,[2]

beautifully situated on the bank of a fine lake, the waters of which

preserved during the late famine the population of this and six other

small towns, which are situated near its borders, and have their

lands irrigated from it. Besides water for their fields, this lake

yielded the people abundance of water-chestnuts[3] and fish. In the

driest season the water has been found sufficient to supply the wants

of all the people of those towns and villages, and those of all the

country around, as far as the people can avail themselves of it.

This large lake is formed by an artificial bank or wall at the south-

east end, which rests one arm upon the high range of quartz rocks,

which run along its south-west side for several miles, looking down

into the clear deep water, and forming a beautiful landscape.

From this pretty town, Ludhaura, where the great marriage had lately

taken place, was in sight, and only four miles distant.[4] It was, I

learnt, the residence of the present Râjâ of Orchhâ, before the death

of his brother called him to the throne. Many people were returning

from the ceremonies of the marriage of 'sâlagrâm' with 'Tulasî'; who

told me that the concourse had been immense--at least one hundred and

fifty thousand; and that the Râjâ had feasted them all for four days

during the progress of the ceremonies, but that they were obliged to

defray their expenses going and coming, except when they came by

special invitation to do honour to the occasion, as in the case of my

little friend the Sâgar high priest, Jânkî Sewak. They told me that

they called this festival the 'Dhanuk jag';[5] and that Janakrâj, the

father of Sîtâ, had in his possession the 'dhanuk', or immortal bow

of Parasrâm, the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, with which he

exterminated all the Kshatriyas, or original military class of India,

and which required no less than four thousand men to raise it on one

end.[6] The prince offered his daughter in marriage to any man who

should bend this bow. Hundreds of heroes and demigods aspired to the

hand of the fair Sîtâ, and essayed to bend the bow; but all in vain,

till young Râm, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu,[7] then a lad of

only ten years of age, came; and at the touch of his great toe the

bow flew into a thousand pieces, which are supposed to have been all

taken up into heaven. Sîtâ became the wife of Râm; and the popular

poem of the Râmâyana describes the abduction of the heroine by the

monster king of Ceylon, Râvana, and her recovery by means of the

monkey general Hanumân. Every word of this poem, the people assured

me, was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by

his inspiration, which was the same thing, and it must, consequently,

be true.[8] Ninety-nine out of a hundred among the Hindoos implicitly

believe, not only every word of this poem, but every word of every

poem that has ever been written in Sanskrit. If you ask a man whether

he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these

books, he replies with the greatest _naïveté_ in the world, 'Is it

not written in the book; and how should it be there written if not

true?' The Hindoo religion reposes upon an entire prostration of

mind, that continual and habitual surrender of the reasoning

faculties, which we are accustomed to make occasionally. While

engaged at the theatre, or in the perusal of works of fiction, we

allow the scenes, characters, and incidents to pass before 'our

mind's eye', and move our feelings, without asking, or stopping a

moment to ask, whether they are real or true. There is only this

difference that, with people of education among us, even in such

short intervals of illusion or abandon, any extravagance in acting,

or flagrant improbability in the fiction, destroys the charm, breaks

the spell by which we have been so mysteriously bound, stops the

smooth current of sympathetic emotion, and restores us to reason and

to the realities of ordinary life. With the Hindoos, on the contrary,

the greater the improbability, the more monstrous and preposterous

the fiction, the greater is the charm it has over their minds;[9] and

the greater their learning in the Sanskrit the more are they under

the influence of this charm. Believing all to be written by the

Deity, or by his inspiration, and the men and things of former days

to have been very different from the men and things of the present

day, and the heroes of these fables to have been demigods, or people

endowed with powers far superior to those of the ordinary men of

their own day, the analogies of nature are never for a moment

considered; nor do questions of probability, or possibility,

according to those analogies, ever obtrude to dispel the charm with

which they are so pleasingly bound. They go on through life reading

and talking of these monstrous fictions, which shock the taste and

understanding of other nations, without once questioning the truth of

one single incident, or hearing it questioned. There was a time, and

that not very distant, when it was the same in England, and in every

other European nation; and there are, I am afraid, some parts of

Europe where it is so still. But the Hindoo faith, so far as

religious questions are concerned, is not more capacious or absurd

than that of the Greeks and Romans in the days of Socrates and

Cicero--the only difference is, that among the Hindoos a greater

number of the questions which interest mankind are brought under the

head of religion.

There is nothing in the Hindoos more absurd than the _piety_ of

Tiberius in offering up sacrifices in the temple, and before the

image of Augustus; while he was solicited by all the great cities of

the empire to suffer temples to be built and sacrifices to be made to

himself while still living; or than Alexander's attempt to make a

goddess of his mother while yet alive, that he might feel the more

secure of being made a god himself after his death.[10] In all

religions there are points at which the professors declare that

reason must stop, and cease to be a guide to faith. The pious man

thinks that all which he cannot comprehend or reconcile to reason in

his own religion must be above it. The superstitions of the people of

India will diminish before the spread of science, art, and

literature; and good works of history and fiction would, I think,

make far greater havoc among these superstitions even than good works

in any of the sciences, save the physical, such as astronomy,

chemistry, &c.[11]

In the evening we went out with the intention of making an excursion

of the lake, in boats that had been prepared for our reception by

tying three or four fishing canoes together;[12] but, on reaching the

ridge of quartz hills which runs along the south-east side, we

preferred moving along its summit to entering the boats. The prospect

on either side of this ridge was truly beautiful. A noble sheet of

clear water, about four miles long by two broad, on our right; and on

our left a no less noble sheet of rich wheat cultivation, irrigated

from the lake by drains passing between small breaks in the ridges of

the hills. The Persian wheel is used to raise the water.[13] This

sheet of rich cultivation is beautifully studded with mango groves

and fields of sugar-cane. The lake is almost double the size of that

of Sâgar, and the idea of its great utility for purposes of

irrigation made it appear to me far more beautiful; but my little

friend the Sarîmant, who accompanied us in our walk, said that 'it

could not be so handsome, since it had not a fine city and castle on

two sides, and a fine Government house on the third'.

'But', said I, 'no man's field is watered from that lake.'

'No', replied he, 'but for every man that drinks of the waters of

this, fifty drink of the waters of that; from that lake thirty

thousand people get _ârâm_ (comfort) every day.'

This lake is called Kêwlas after Kêwal Varmma, the Chandêl prince by

whom it was formed.[14] His palace, now in ruins, stood on the top of

the ridge of rocks in a very beautiful situation. From the summit,

about eight miles to the west, we could see a still larger lake,

called the Nandanvârâ Lake, extending under a similar range of quartz

hills running parallel with that on which we stood.[15] That lake, we

were told, answered upon a much larger scale the same admirable

purpose of supplying water for the fields, and securing the people

from the dreadful effects of droughts. The extensive level plains

through which the rivers of Central India[16] generally cut their way

have, for the most part, been the beds of immense natural lakes;[17]

and there rivers sink so deep into their beds, and leave such ghastly

chasms and ravines on either side, that their waters are hardly ever

available in due season for irrigation. It is this characteristic of

the rivers of Central India that makes such lakes so valuable to the

people, particularly in seasons of drought.[l8] The river Nerbudda

has been known to rise seventy feet in the course of a couple of days

in the rains; and, during the season when its waters are wanted for

irrigation, they can nowhere be found within that [distance] of the

surface; while a level piece of ground fit for irrigation is rarely

to be met with within a mile of the stream.[19]

The people appeared to improve as we advanced farther into

Bundêlkhand in appearance, manners, and intelligence. There is a bold

bearing about the Bundêlas, which at first one is apt to take for

rudeness or impudence, but which in time he finds not to be so.

The employés of the Râjâ were everywhere attentive, frank, and

polite; and the peasantry seemed no longer inferior to those of our

Sâgar and Nerbudda territories. The females of almost all the

villages through which we passed came out with their _Kalas_ in

procession to meet us--one of the most affecting marks of respect

from the peasantry for their superiors that I know. One woman carries

on her head a brass jug, brightly polished, full of water; while all

the other families of the village crowd around her, and sing in

chorus some rural song, that lasts from the time the respected

visitor comes in sight till he disappears. He usually puts into the

Kalas a rupee to purchase 'gur' (coarse sugar), of which all the

females partake, as a sacred offering to the sex. No member of the

other sex presumes to partake of it, and during the chorus all the

men stand aloof in respectful silence. This custom prevails all over

India, or over all parts of it that I have seen; and yet I have

witnessed a Governor-General of India, with all his suite, passing by

this interesting group, without knowing or asking what it was. I

lingered behind, and quietly put my silver into the jug, as if from

the Governor-General.[20]

The man who administers the government over these seven villages in

all its branches, civil, criminal, and fiscal, receives a salary of

only two hundred rupees a year. He collects the revenues on the part

of Government; and, with the assistance of the heads and the elders

of the villages, adjusts all petty matters of dispute among the

people, both civil and criminal. Disputes of a more serious character

are sent to be adjusted at the capital by the Râjâ and his ministers.

The person who reigns over the seven villages of the lake is about

thirty years of age, of the Râjpût caste, and, I think, one of the

finest young men I have ever seen. His ancestors have served the

Orchhâ State in the same station for seven generations; and he tells

me that he hopes his posterity will serve them [_sic_] for as many

more, provided they do not forfeit their claims to do so by their

infidelity or incapacity. This young man seemed to have the respect

and affection of every member of the little communities of the

villages through which we passed, and it was evident that he deserved

their attachment. I have rarely seen any similar signs of attachment

to one of our own native officers. This arises chiefly from the

circumstance of their being less frequently placed in authority among

those upon whose good feelings and opinions their welfare and

comfort, as those of their children, are likely permanently to

depend. In India, under native rule, office became hereditary,

because officers expended the whole of their incomes in religious

ceremonies, or works of ornament and utility, and left their families

in hopeless dependence upon the chief in whose service they had

laboured all their lives, while they had been educating their sons

exclusively with the view of serving that chief in the same capacity

that their fathers had served him before them. It is in this case,

and this alone, that the law of primogeniture is in force in

India.[21] Among Muhammadans, as well as Hindoos, all property, real

and personal, is divided equally among the children;[22] but the

duties of an office will not admit of the same subdivision; and this,

therefore, when hereditary, as it often is, descends to the eldest

son with the obligation of providing for the rest of the family. The

family consists of all the members who remain united to the parent

stock, including the widows and orphans of the sons or brothers who

were so up to the time of their death.[23]

The old 'chobdâr', or silver-stick bearer, who came with us from the

Râjâ, gets fifteen rupees a month, and his ancestors have served the

Râjâ for several generations. The Dîwân, who has charge of the

treasury, receives only one thousand rupees a year, and the Bakshî,

or paymaster of the army, who seems at present to rule the state as

the prime favourite, the same. These latter are at present the only

two great officers of state; and, though they are, no doubt,

realizing handsome incomes by indirect means, they dare not make any

display, lest signs of wealth might induce the Râjâ or his successors

to treat them as their predecessors in office were treated for some

time past.[24] The Jâgîrdârs, or feudal chiefs, as I have before

stated, are almost all of the same family or class as the Râjâ, and

they spend all the revenues of their estates in the maintenance of

military retainers, upon whose courage and fidelity they can

generally rely. These Jâgîrdârs are bound to attend the prince on all

great occasions, and at certain intervals; and are made to contribute

something to his exchequer in tribute. Almost all live beyond their

legitimate means, and make up the deficiency by maintaining upon

their estates gangs of thieves, robbers, and murderers, who extend

their depredations into the country around, and share the prey with

these chiefs, and their officers and under-tenants. They keep them as

_poachers_ keep their _dogs_; and the paramount power, whose subjects

they plunder, might as well ask them for the best horse in the stable

as for the best thief that lives under their protection.[25]

I should mention an incident that occurred during the Râjâ's visit to

me at Tehrî. Lieutenant Thomas was sitting next to the little

Sarîmant, and during the interview he asked him to allow him to look

at his beautiful little gold-hilted sword. The Sarîmant held it fast,

and told him that he should do himself the honour of waiting upon him

in his tent in the course of the day, when he would show him the

sword and tell him its history. After the Râjâ, left me, Thomas

mentioned this, and said he felt very much hurt at the incivility of

my little friend; but I told him that he was in everything he did and

said so perfectly the gentleman, that I felt quite sure he would

explain all to his satisfaction when he called upon him. During his

visit to Thomas he apologized for not having given over his sword to

him, and said, 'You European gentlemen have such perfect confidence

in each other, that you can, at all times, and in all situations,

venture to gratify your curiosity in these matters, and draw your

swords in a crowd just as well as when alone; but, had you drawn mine

from the scabbard in such a situation, with the tent full of the

Râjâ's personal attendants, and surrounded by a devoted and not very

orderly soldiery, it might have been attended by very serious

consequences. Any man outside might have seen the blade gloaming,

and, not observing distinctly why it had been drawn, might have

suspected treachery, and called out "_To the rescue_", when we should

all have been cut down--the lady, child, and all.' Thomas was not

only satisfied with the Sarîmant's apology, but was so much delighted

with him, that he has ever since been longing to get his portrait;

for he says it was really his intention to draw the sword had the

Sarîmant given it to him. As I have said, his face is extremely

beautiful, quite a model for a painter or a statuary, and his figure,

though small, is handsome. He dresses with great elegance, mostly in

azure-coloured satin, surmounted by a rose-coloured turban and a

waistband of the same colour. All his motions are graceful, and his

manners have an exquisite polish. A greater master of all the

_convenances_ I have never seen, though he is of slender capacity,

and, as I have said, in stature less than five feet high.

A poor, half-naked man, reduced to beggary by the late famine, ran

along by my horse to show me the road, and, to the great amusement of

my attendants, exclaimed that he felt exactly as if he were always

falling down a well, meaning as if he were immersed in cold water. He

said that the cold season was suited only to gentlemen who could

afford to be well clothed; but, to a poor man like himself, and the

great mass of people, in Bundêlkhand at least, the hot season was

much better. He told me that 'the late Râjâ, though a harsh, was

thought to be a just man;[26] and that his good sense, and, above

all, his _good fortune_ (ikbâl) had preserved the principality

entire; but that God only, and the forbearance of the Honourable

Company, could now serve it under such an imbecile as the present

chief'. He seemed quite melancholy at the thought of living to see

this principality, the oldest in Bundêlkhand, lose its independence.

Even this poor, unclothed, and starving wretch had a feeling of

patriotism, a pride of country, though that country had been so

wretchedly governed, and was now desolated by a famine.

Just such a feeling had the impressed seamen who fought our battles

in the great struggle. No nation has ever had a more disgraceful

institution than that of the press-gang of England. This institution,

if so it can be called, must be an eternal stain upon her glory--

posterity will never be able to read the history of her naval

victories without a blush--without reproaching her lawgivers who

could allow them to be purchased with the blood of such men as those

who fought for us the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. '_England

expected every man to do his duty_' on that day, but had England done

her duty to every man who was on that day to fight for her? Was not

every English gentleman of the Lords and Commons a David sending his

Uriah to battle?[27]

The intellectual stock which we require in good seamen for our navy,

and which is acquired in scenes of peril 'upon the high and giddy

mast', is as much their property as that which other men acquire in

schools and colleges; and we had no more right to seize and employ

these seamen in our battles upon the wages of common, uninstructed

labour, than we should have had to seize and employ as many

clergymen, barristers, and physicians. When I have stood on the

quarter-deck of a ship in a storm, and seen the seamen covering the

yards in taking in sail, with the thunder rolling, and the lightning

flashing fearfully around them--the sea covered with foam, and each

succeeding billow, as it rushed by, seeming ready to sweep them all

from their frail footing into the fathomless abyss below--I have

asked myself, 'Are men like these to be seized like common felons,

torn from their wives and children as soon as they reach their native

land, subject every day to the lash, and put in front of those

battles on which the wealth, the honour, and the independence of the

nation depend, merely because British legislators know that when

there, a regard for their own personal character among their

companions in danger will make them fight like Englishmen?'

This feeling of nationality which exists in the little states of

Bundêlkhand, arises from the circumstance that the mass of the

landholders are of the same class as the chief Bundêlas; and that the

public establishments of the state are recruited almost exclusively

from that mass. The states of Jhânsî[28] and Jâlaun[29] are the only

exceptions. There the rulers are Brahmans and not Râjpûts, and they

recruit their public establishments from all classes and all

countries. The landed aristocracy, however, there, as elsewhere, are

Râjpûts-either Pawârs, Chandêls, or Bundêlas.

The Râjpût landholders of Bundêlkhand are linked to the soil in all

their grades, from the prince to the peasant, as the Highlanders of

Scotland were not long ago; and the holder of a hundred acres is as

proud as the holder of a million.[30] He boasts the same descent, and

the same exclusive possession of arms and agriculture, to which

unhappily the industry of their little territories is almost

exclusively confined, for no other branch can grow up among so

turbulent a set, whose quarrels with their chiefs, or among each

other, are constantly involving them in civil wars, which render life

and property exceedingly insecure. Besides, as I have stated, their

propensity to keep bands of thieves, robbers, and murderers in their

baronial castles, as poachers keep their dogs, has scared away the

wealthy and respectable capitalist and peaceful and industrious

manufacturer.

All the landholders are uneducated, and unfit to serve in any of our

civil establishments, or in those of any very civilized Governments;

and they are just as unfitted to serve in our military

establishments, where strict discipline is required. The lands they

occupy are cultivated because they depend almost entirely upon the

rents they get from them for subsistence; and because every petty

chief and his family hold their lands rent-free, or at a trifling

quit-rent, on the tenure of military service, and their residue forms

all the market for land produce which the cultivators require. They

dread the transfer of the rule to our Government, because they now

form almost exclusively all the establishments of their domestic

chief, civil as well as military; and know that, were our rule to be

substituted, they would be almost entirely excluded from these, at

least for a generation or two. In our regiments, horse or foot, there

is hardly a man from Bundêlkhand, for the reasons above stated; nor

are there any in the Gwâlior regiments and contingents which are

stationed in the neighbourhood; though the land among them is become

minutely subdivided, and they are obliged to seek service or starve.

They are all too proud for manual labour, even at the plough. No

Bundêlkhand Râjpût will, I believe, condescend to put his hand to

one.

Among the Marâthâ states, Sikhs, and Muhammadans, there is no bond of

union of this kind. The establishments, military as well as civil,

are everywhere among them composed for the most part of foreigners;

and the landed interests under such Governments would dread nothing

from the prospect of a transfer to our rule; on the contrary, they

and the mass of the people would almost everywhere hail it as a

blessing.

There are two reasons why we should leave these small native states

under their own chiefs, even when the claim to the succession is

feeble or defective; first, because it tends to relieve the minds of

other native chiefs from the apprehension, already too prevalent

among them, that we desire by degrees to absorb them all, because we

think our government would do better for the people; and secondly,

because, by leaving them as a contrast, we afford to the people of

India the opportunity of observing the superior advantages of our

rule.

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,' in governments as well

as in landscapes; and if the people of India, instead of the living

proofs of what perilous things native governments, whether Hindoo or

Muhammadan, are in reality, were acquainted with nothing but such

pictures of them as are to be found in their histories and in the

imaginations of their priests and learned men (who lose much of their

influence and importance under our rule), they would certainly, with

proneness like theirs to delight in the marvellous, be far from

satisfied, as they now are, that they never had a government so good

as ours, and that they never could hope for another so good, were

ours removed.[31]

For the advantages which we derive from leaving them independent, we

are, no doubt, obliged to pay a heavy penalty in the plunder of our

wealthy native subjects by the gangs of robbers of all descriptions

whom they foster; but this evil may be greatly diminished by a

judicious interposition of our authority to put down such bands.[32]

In Bundêlkhand, at present, the government and the lands of the

native chiefs are in the hands of three of the Hindoo military

classes, Bundêlas, Dhandêlas, and Pawârs. The principal chiefs are of

the first, and their feudatories are chiefly of the other two. A

Bundêla cannot marry the daughter of a Bundêla; he must take his wife

from one or other of the other two tribes; nor can a member of either

of the other two take his wife from his own tribe; he must take her

from the Bundêlas, or the other tribe. The wives of the greatest

chiefs are commonly from the poorest families of their vassals; nor

does the proud family from which she has been taken feel itself

exalted by the alliance; neither does the poorest vassal among the

Pawârs and Dhandêls feel that the daughter of his prince has

condescended in becoming his wife. All they expect is a service for a

few more yeomen of the family among the retainers of the sovereign.

The people are in this manner, from the prince to the peasant,

indissolubly linked to each other, and to the soil they occupy; for,

where industry is confined almost exclusively to agriculture, the

proprietors of the soil and the officers of Government, who are

maintained out of its rents, constitute nearly the whole of the

middle and higher classes. About one-half of the lands of every state

are held on service tenure by vassals of the same family or clan as

the chief; and there is hardly one of them who is not connected with

that chief by marriage. The revenue derived from the other half is

spent in the maintenance of establishments formed almost exclusively

of the members of these families.

They are none of them educated for civil offices under any other

rule, nor could they, for a generation or two, be induced to submit

to wear military uniform, or learn the drill of regular soldiers.

They are mere militia, brave as men can be, but unsusceptible of

discipline. They have, therefore, a natural horror at the thought of

their states coming under any other than a domestic rule, for they

could have no chance of employment in the civil or military

establishments of a foreign power; and their lands would, they fear,

be resumed, since the service for which they had been given would be

no longer available to the rulers. It is said that, in the long

interval from the commencement of the reign of Alexander the third to

the end of that of David the second,[33] not a single baron could be

found in Scotland able to sign his own name. The Bundêlkhand barons

have never, I believe, been quite so bad as this, though they have

never yet learned enough to fit them for civil offices under us. Many

of them can write and read their own language, which is that common

to the other countries around them.[34]

Bundêlkhand was formerly possessed by another tribe of Râjpûts, the

proud Chandêls, who have now disappeared altogether from this

province. If one of that tribe can still be found, it is in the

humblest rank of the peasant or the soldier; but its former strength

is indicated by the magnificent artificial lakes and ruined castles

which are traced to them; and by the reverence which is still felt by

the present dominant classes of [_sic_] their old capital of Mahoba.

Within a certain distance around that ruined city no one now dares to

beat the 'nakkâra', or great drum used in festivals or processions,

lest the spirits of the old Chandêl chiefs who there repose should be

roused to vengeance;[35] and a kingdom could not tempt one of the

Bundêlas, Pawârs, or Chandêls to accept the government of the parish

['mauza'] in which it is situated. They will take subordinate offices

there under others with fear and trembling, but nothing could induce

one of them to meet the governor. When the deadly struggle between

these two tribes took place cannot now be discovered.[36]

In the time of Akbar, the Chandêls were powerful in Mahoba, as the

celebrated Durgâvatî, the queen of Garhâ Mandlâ, whose reign extended

over the Sâgar and Nerbudda territories and the greater part of

Berâr, was a daughter of the reigning Chandêl prince of Mahoba. He

condescended to give his daughter only on condition that the Gond

prince who demanded her should, to save his character, come with an

army of fifty thousand men to take her. He did so, and 'nothing

loth', Durgâvatî departed to reign over a country where her name is

now more revered than that of any other sovereign it has ever had.

She was killed above two hundred and fifty years ago, about twelve

miles from Jubbulpore, while gallantly leading on her troops in their

third and last attempt to stem the torrent of Muhammadan invasion.

Her tomb is still to be seen where she fell, in a narrow defile

between two hills; and a pair of large rounded stones which stand

near are, according to popular belief, her royal drums turned into

stone, which, in the dead of night, are still heard resounding

through the woods, and calling the spirits of her warriors from their

thousand graves around her. The travellers who pass this solitary

spot respectfully place upon the tomb the prettiest specimen they can

find of the crystals which abound in the neighbourhood; and, with so

much of kindly feeling had the history of Durgâvatî inspired me, that

I could not resist the temptation of adding one to the number when I

visited her tomb some sixteen years ago.[37]

I should mention that the Râjâ of Samthar in Bundêlkhand.[38] is by

caste a Gûjar;[39] and he has not yet any landed aristocracy like

that of the Bundêlas about him. One of his ancestors, not long ago,

seized upon a fine open plain, and built a fort upon it, and the

family has ever since, by means of this fort, kept possession of the

country around, and drawn part of their revenues from depredations

upon their neighbours and travellers. The Jhânsî and Jâlaun chiefs

are Brahmans of the same family as the Peshwâ.

In the states governed by chiefs of the military classes, nearly the

whole produce of the land goes to maintain soldiers, or military

retainers, who are always ready to fight or rob for their chief. In

those governed by the Brahmanical class, nearly the whole produce

goes to maintain priests; and the other chiefs would soon devour

them, as the black ants devour the white, were not the paramount

power to interpose and save them. While the Peshwâ lived, he

interposed; but all his dominions were _running into priesthood_,

like those in Sâgar and Bundêlkhand, and must soon have been

swallowed up by the military chiefs around him, had we not taken his

place. Jâlaun and Jhânsî are preserved only by us, for, with all

their religious, it is impossible for them to maintain efficient

military establishments; and the Bundêla chiefs have always a strong

desire to eat them up, since these states were all sliced out of

their principalities when the Peshwâ was all-powerful in Hindustan.

The Chhatarpur Râjâ is a Pawâr. His father had been in the service of

the Bundêla Râjâ; but, when we entered upon our duties as the

paramount power in Bundêlkhand, the son had succeeded to the little

principality seized upon by his father; and, on the principle of

respecting actual possession, he was recognized by us as the

sovereign.[40] The Bundela Râjâs, east of the Dasân river, are

descended from Râjâ Chhatarsâl, and are looked down upon by the

Bundêla Râjâs of Orchhâ, Chandêrî, and Datiyâ, west of the Dasân, as

Chhatarsâl was in the service of one of their ancestors, from whom he

wrested the estates which his descendants now enjoy. Chhatarsâl, in

his will, gave one-third of the dominion he had thus acquired to the

strongest power then in India, the Peshwâ, in order to secure the

other two-thirds to his two sons Hardî Sâ and Jagatrâj, in the same

manner as princes of the Roman empire used to bequeath a portion of

theirs to the emperor.[41] Of the Peshwâ's share we have now got all,

except Jâlaun. Jhânsî was subsequently acquired by the Peshwâ, or

rather by his subordinates, with his sanction and assistance.[42]

Notes:

1. December, 1835.

2. In the Orchhâ State. This seems to be the same town which the

author had already visited on his way to Tehrî on the 7th December.

_Ante_, Chapter 19 note [15].

3. _Ante_, Chapter 12 following note [9].

4. Sodora in the author's text; see _ante_, Chapter 19, note 11.

5. 'Bow-sacrifice.'

6. The tradition is that a prince of this military class was sporting

in a river with his thousand wives, when Renukâ, the wife of

Jamadagni, went to bring water. He offended her, and her husband

cursed the prince, but was put to death by him. His son Parasrâm was

no less a person than the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, who had

assumed the human shape merely to destroy these tyrants. He vowed,

now that his mother had been insulted, and his father killed, not to

leave one on the face of the earth. He destroyed them all twenty-one

times, the women with child producing a new race each time. [W. H.

S.] The legend is not narrated quite correctly.

7. Râma Chandra, son of Dasaratha.

8. When Râm set out with his army for Ceylon, he is supposed to have

worshipped the little tree called 'cheonkul', which stood near his

capital of Ajodhya. It is a wretched little thing, between a shrub

and a tree; but I have seen a procession of more than seventy

thousand persons attend their prince to the worship of it on the

festival of the Dasahara, which is held in celebration of this

expedition to Ceylon. [W. H. S.] 'As Arjuna and his brothers

worshipped the shumee-tree, the _Acacia suma_, and hung up their arms

upon it, so the Hindus go forth to worship that tree on the festival

of the Dasahara. They address the tree under the name of Aparajita,

the invincible goddess, sprinkle it with five ambrosial liquids, the

'panchamrit', a mixture of milk, curds, sugar, clarified butter, and

honey, wash it with water, and hang garments upon it. They light

lamps and burn incense before the symbol of Aparajita, make

'chandlos' upon the tree, sprinkle it with rose-coloured water, and

set offerings of food before it' (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed.,

s.v. 'Dasahara'). The 'cheonkul' is the _chhonkar_ or _chhaunkar

(Prosopis spicigera_, Linn.), described by Growse as follows:--

'Very common throughout the district; occasionally grows to quite a

large tree, as in the Dohani Kund at Chaksauli. It is used for

religious worship at the festival of the Dasahara, and considered

sacred to Siva. The pods (called _sangri_) are much used for fodder.

Probably _chhonkar_ and _sangri_, which latter is in some parts of

India the name of the tree as well as of the pod, are both

dialectical corruptions of the Sanskrit _sankara_, a name of Siva;

for the palatal and sibilant are frequently interchangeable' ('List

of Indigenous Trees' in _Mathurâ, A. District Memoir_, 3rd ed.,

Allahabad, 1883, p. 422). Sundry leguminous trees are used in

Dasahara ceremonies in the different parts of India, under varying

local names.

9. _Credo quia impossibile_.

10. This comparison is not a happy one. The elements in some of the

Hindoo myths specially repulsive to European taste are their

monstrosity, their inartistic and hideous exaggeration, their

accumulation of sanguinary horrors, and their childish triviality.

Few of the classical myths exhibit these characteristics. The vanity

or policy of Tiberius and Alexander in believing themselves to be, or

wishing to be believed, divine, has nothing in common with the

grotesque imagination of Puranic Hinduism.

11. The roots of Hinduism are so deeply fixed in a thick soil of

custom and inherited sentiment, the growth of thousands of years,

that English education has less effect than might be expected in

loosening the bonds of beliefs which seem to every one but a Hindoo

the merest superstition. Hindoos who can read English with fluency,

and write it with accuracy, are often extremely devout, and Hindoo

devoutness must ever appear to an outsider, even to a European as

sympathetic as the author, to be no better than superstition. A

Hindoo able to read English with ease has at his command all the rich

stores of the knowledge of the West, but very often does not care to

taste them. Enmeshed in a web of ritual and belief inseparable from

himself, he remains as much as ever a Hindoo, and uses his skill in

English merely as an article of professional equipment. 'Good works

of history and fiction' do not interest him, and he usually fails to

digest and assimilate the physical or biological science administered

to him at school or college. In fact, he does not believe it. The

monstrous legends of the Purânas continue to be for his mind the

realities; while the truths of science are to him phantoms, shadowy

and unsubstantial, the outlandish notions of alien and casteless

unbelievers. These observations, of course, are not universally true,

and a few Hindoos, growing in number, are able to heartily accept and

thoroughly assimilate the facts of history and the results of

inductive science. But such Hindoos are few, and it may well be

doubted if it is possible for a man really to believe the amount of

history and science known to an ordinary English schoolboy, and still

be a devout Hindoo. The old bottles cannot contain the new wine. The

Hindoo scriptures do not treat of history and science in a merely

incidental way; they teach, after their fashion, both history and

science formally and systematically; grammar, logic, medicine,

astronomy, the history of gods and men, are all taught in books which

form part of the sacred canon. Inductive science and matter-of-fact

history are absolutely destructive of, and irreconcilable with,

veneration for the Hindoo scriptures as authoritative and infallible

guides. It is impossible, within the narrow limits of a note, to

discuss the problems suggested by the author's remarks. Enough,

perhaps, has been said to show that the many-rooted banyan tree of

Hinduism is in little danger of overthrow from the attacks either of

history or of science, not to speak of 'good works of fiction'.

12. A 'dug-out' canoe is rather a shaky craft. When two or three are

lashed together, and a native cot (_chârpâi_) is stretched across,

the passenger can make himself very comfortable. The boats are poled

by men standing in the stern.

13. _Ante_, Chapter 24, note 1.

14. This prince is not included in the authentic dynastic lists given

in the Chandêl inscriptions. He was probably a younger son, who never

reigned. The principal authorities for the history of the Chandêl

dynasty are _A.S.R._, vol. ii, pp. 439-51; vol. xxi, pp. 77-90, and

V. A. Smith, 'Contributions to the History of Bundêlkhand', in

_J.A.S.B._ vol. 1 (1881), Part I, p. 1; and 'The History and Coinage

of the Chandêl (Chandella) Dynasty' in _Ind. Ant._, 1908, pp. 114-48.

A brief summary will be found in _Early History of India_, 3rd ed.

(1914), pp. 390-4. Most of the great works of the dynasty date from

the period A.D. 950-1200.

15. The long ridges of quartz traversing the gneiss are marked

features in the scenery of Bundêlkhand.

16. The author always uses the phrase Central India as a vague

geographical expression. The phrase is now generally used to mean an

administrative division, namely, the group of Native States under the

Central India Agency at Indore, which deals with about 148 chiefs and

rulers of various rank. Central India in this official sense must not

be confounded with the Central Provinces, of which the capital is

Nâgpur.

17. On this lake theory, see _ante_, Chapter 14, note 13.

18. During a residence of six years in Bundêlkhand the editor came to

the conclusion that most of the ancient artificial lakes were not

constructed for purposes of irrigation. The embankments seem

generally to have been built as adjuncts to palaces or temples. Many

of the lakes command no considerable area of irrigable ground, and

there are no traces of ancient irrigation channels. In modern times

small canals have been drawn from some of the lakes.

19. The desolation of the ravines of the rivers of Central India and

Bundêlkhand offers a very striking spectacle, presenting to the

geologist a signal example of the effects of sub-aerial denudation.

20. This pretty custom is also described, in Tod's _Râjasthân_; and

is still common in Alwar, and perhaps in other parts of Râjputâna

(_N.I. Notes and Queries_, vol. ii (Dec. 1892), p. 152), It does not

seem to be now known in the Gangetic valley.

21. Principalities, and the estates of the talukdârs of Oudh also

descend to the eldest son. The author states (_ante_, Chapter 10, see

text before note [10].) that the same rule applied in his time to the

small agricultural holdings in the Sâgar and Nerbudda territories.

22. This statement is inexact; Hindoo daughters, as a rule, inherit

nothing from their fathers; a Muhammadan daughter takes half the

share of a son.

23. But it is only the smaller local ministerial officers who are

secure in their tenure of office under native Governments; those on

whose efficiency the well-being of village communities depends. The

greatest evil of Governments of the kind is the feeling of insecurity

which pervades all the higher officers of Government, and the

instability of all engagements made by the Government with them, and

by them with the people. [W. H. S.]

24. _Ante_, Chapter 23, text at note [8].

25. In the Gwâlior territory, the Marâthâ 'âmils' or governors of

districts, do the same, and keep gangs of robbers on purpose to

plunder their neighbours; and, if you ask them for their thieves,

they will actually tell you that to part with them would be ruin, as

they are their only defence against the thieves of their neighbours.

[W. H. S.] These notions and habits are by no means extinct. In

October, 1892, a force of about two hundred men, cavalry and

infantry, was sent into Bundêlkhand to suppress robber gangs. Such

gangs are constantly breaking out in that region, in most native

states, and in many British districts. See _ante_, chapter 23, text

following note [13].

26. My poor guide had as little sympathy with the prime ministers,

whom the Tehrî Râjâ put to death, as the peasantry of England had

with the great men and women whom Harry the Eighth sacrificed. [W. H.

S.] _Ante_, Chapter 23, beginning to note [9].

27. The cruel practice of impressment for the royal navy is

authorized by a series of statutes extending from the reign of Philip

and Mary to that of George III. Seamen of the merchant navy, and,

with few exceptions, all seafaring men between the ages of eighteen

and thirty-five, are liable, under the provisions of these harsh

statutes, to be forcibly seized by the press-gang, and compelled to

serve on board a man-of-war. The acts legalizing impressment were

freely made use of during the Napoleonic wars, but since then have

been little acted on, and no Government at the present day could

venture to use them, though they have never been repealed. The fleet

sent against the Russians in 1855 was the first English fleet ever

manned without recourse to forcible impressment: see the article

'Impressment' by David Hannay, in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th

ed., 1910. The work by J. B. Hutchinson entitled _The Press-gang

Afloat and Ashore_ (London: Nash, 1913) gives copious details of the

infamous proceedings.

28. The Brahman chief of Jhânsî was originally a governor under the

Peshwâ. The treaty of November 18, 1817, recognized the then chief

Râmchand Râo, his heirs and successors, as hereditary rulers of

Jhânsî. Râmchand Râo was granted the title of Râjâ by the British

Government in 1832, and died without issue on August 20, 1835

(_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 296). See _post_, Chapter

29.

29. The chiefs of Jâlaun also were officers under the Marâtha

Government of the Peshwâ up to 1817. In consequence of gross

misgovernment, an English superintendent was appointed in 1838, and

the state lapsed to the British Government, owing to failure of

heirs, in 1840 (ibid. p. 229).

30. _Ante_ Chapter 23, note 13.

31. Lapse of years has increased the distance and the enchantment, so

that modern agitators and sentimentalists discover marvellous

excellences in the native Governments of the now remote past. The

methods of government in the existing native states have been so

profoundly modified by the influence of the Imperial Government that

these states are no longer as instructive in the way of contrast as

they were in the author's day.

32. The author consistently held the views above enunciated, and

defended the policy of maintaining the native states. He was of

opinion that the system of annexation favoured by Lord Dalhousie and

his Council 'had a downward tendency, and tended to crush all the

higher and middle classes connected with the land'. He considered

that the Government of India should have undertaken the management of

Oudh, but that it had no right to annex the province, and appropriate

its revenues (_Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, p. 22, &c.).

Since 1858 the policy of annexation has been repudiated. See Sir W.

Lee-Warner, _The Protected Princes of India_ (Macmillan, 1894), and

_The Native States of India_ (1910).

33. A.D. 1249 to A.D. 1371.

34. The Hindi spoken in different parts of Bundêlkhand comprises

several distinct dialects: see Kellogg, _A Grammar of the Hindî

Language_, 2nd ed., 1893; and Grierson, _Linguistic Survey_, vol. vi

(1904), pp. 18-23, where the dialects of Eastern Bundêlkhand are

discussed. Bundêlî, the speech of Bundêlkhand proper, will be treated

as a dialect of Western Hindi in a volume of the _Survey_ not yet

published. Sir G. Grierson has favoured me with perusal of the

proofs, and has used materials collected by me in the Hamîrpur

District nearly forty years ago. Bundêlî has a considerable

literature.

35. The editor was told of a case in which two chiefs suffered for

beating their drums in Mahoba.

36. See _ante_, Chapter 23 note 11, and Chapter 26 note 14, and the

authorities there cited. The Chandêl history occupies an important

place in the mediaeval annals of India. Several important

inscriptions of the dynasty have been correctly edited in the

_Epigraphia Indica_. Mahoba is not now a 'ruined city'; it is a

moderately prosperous country town, with a tolerable bazaar, and

about eleven thousand inhabitants. It is the head-quarters of a

'tahsîldâr', or sub-collector, and a station on the Midland Railway.

The ruined temples and places in and near the town are of much

interest. For many miles round the country is full of remarkable

remains, some of which are in fairly good preservation. The published

descriptions of these works are far from being exhaustive. The author

was mistaken in supposing that the power of the Chandêls was broken

by the Bundêlas. The last Chandêl king, who ruled over an extensive

dominion, was Paramardi Deva, or Parmâl. This prince was defeated in

a pitched battle, or rather a series of battles, near the Betwa

river, by Prithîrâj Chauhân, king of Kanauj, in the year 1182. A few

years later, the victor was himself vanquished and slain by the

advancing Muhammadans. Mahoba and the surrounding territories then

passed through many vicissitudes, imperfectly recorded in the pages

of history, and were ruled from time to time by Musalmâns, Bhars,

Khangârs, and others. The Bundêlas, an offshoot of the Gaharwâr clan,

did not come into notice before the middle of the fourteenth century,

and first became a power in India under the leadership of Champat

Râi, the contemporary of Jahângîr and Shah Jâhan, in the first half

of the seventeenth century. The line of Chandêl kings was continued

in the persons of obscure local chiefs, whose very names are, for the

most part, forgotten. The story of Durgâvatî, briefly told in the

text, casts a momentary flash of light on their obscurity. The

principal nobleman of the Chandêl race now occupying a dignified

position is the Râjâ of Gidhaur in the Mungir (Monghyr) district of

Bengal, whose ancestor emigrated from Mahoba.

The war between the Chandêls and Chauhâns is the subject of a long

section or canto of the Hindi epic, the _Chand-Râisâ_, written by

Chand Bardâi, the court poet of Prithîrâj, of which the original MS.

in 5,000 verses still exists. It was subsequently expanded to 125,000

verses (_E.H.I._, 3rd ed., 1914, p. 387 note). The war is also the

theme of the songs of many popular rhapsodists. The story is, of

course, encrusted with a thick deposit of miraculous legend, and none

of the details can be relied on. But the fact and the date of the war

are fully proved by incontestable evidence.

37. The marriage of Durgâvatî is no proof that her father, the

Chandêl Râjâ, was powerful in Mahoba in the time of Akbar. It is

rather an indication that he was poor and weak. If he had been rich

and strong, he would probably have refused his daughter to a Gond,

even though complaisant bards might invent a Râjpût genealogy for the

bridegroom. The story about the army of fifty thousand men cannot be

readily accepted as sober fact. It looks like a courtly invention to

explain a mésalliance. The inducement really offered to the proud but

poor Chandêl was, in all likelihood, a large sum of money, according

to the usual practice in such cases. Several indications exist of

close relations between the Gonds and Chandêls in earlier times.

Early in Akbar's reign, in the year 1564, Âsaf Khân, the imperial

viceroy of Karrâ Mânikpur, obtained permission to invade the Gond

territory. The young Râjâ of Garhâ Mandlâ, Bîr Narâyan, was then a

minor, and the defence of the kingdom devolved on Durgâvatî, the

dowager queen. She first took up her position at the great fortress

of Singaurgarh, north-west of Jabalpur, and, being there defeated,

retired through Garhâ, to the south-east, towards Mandlâ. After an

obstinately contested fight the invaders were again successful, and

broke the queen's stout resistance. 'Mounted on an elephant, she

refused to retire, though she was severely wounded, until her troops

had time to recover the shock of the first discharge of artillery,

and, notwithstanding that she had received an arrow-wound in her eye,

bravely defended the pass in person. But, by an extraordinary

coincidence, the river in the rear of her position, which had been

nearly dry a few hours before the action commenced, began suddenly to

rise, and soon became unfordable. Finding her plan of retreat thus

frustrated, and seeing her troops give way, she snatched a dagger

from her elephant-driver, and plunged it into her bosom. . . . Of all

the sovereigns of this dynasty she lives most in the recollection of

the people; she carried out many highly useful works in different

parts of her kingdom, and one of the large reservoirs near Jabalpur

is still called the Rânî Talâo in memory of her. During the fifteen

years of her regency she did much for the country, and won the hearts

of the people, while her end was as noble and devoted as her life had

been useful' (_C.P. Gazetteer_ (1870), p. 283; with references to

Sleeman's article on the Râjâs of Garhâ Mandlâ, and 'Briggs'

Farishta', ed. 1829, vol. ii, pp. 217, 218). A memoir of Âsaf Khan

Abdul Majîd, the general who overcame Durgâvatî, will be found in

Blochmann's translation of the _Aîn-i-Akbarî_, vol. i, p. 366.

38. Samthar is a small state, lying between the Betwa and Pahûj

rivers, to the south-west of the Jâlaun district. It was separated

from the Datiyâ State only one generation previous to the British

occupation of Bundêlkhand. A treaty was concluded with the Râjâ in

1812 (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_ (1st ed.), vol. i, p. 578).

39. Gûjars occupy more than a hundred villages in the Jâlaun

district, chiefly among the ravines of the Pahûj river. The Gûjar

caste is most numerous in the Panjâb and the upper districts of the

United Provinces. It is not very highly esteemed, being of about

equal rank with the Âhîr caste and rather below the Jât. Gûjar

colonies are settled in the Hoshangâbâd and Nîmâr districts of the

Central Provinces. The Gûjars are inveterate cattle-lifters, and

always ready to take advantage of any relaxation of the bonds of

order to prey upon their neighbours. Many sections of the caste have

adopted the Muhammadan faith.

40. The small state of Chhatarpur lies to the south of the Hamîrpur

district, between the Dasân and Ken rivers. The town of Chhatarpur,

on the military road from Bânda to Sâgar, is remarkable for the

mausoleum and ruined palace of Râjâ Chhatarsâl, after whom the town

is named. Khajurâho, the ancient religious capital of the Chandêl

monarchy, with its magnificent group of mediaeval Hindoo and Jain

temples, is within the limits of the state, about eighteen miles

south-east of Chhatarpur, and thirty-four miles south of Mahoba. The

Pawâr adventurer, who succeeded in separating Chhatarpur from the

Panna state, was originally a common soldier.

41. Concerning Chhatarsâl (A.D. 1671 to 1731), see notes _ante_,

Chapter 14 note 9, and chapter 23 note 11. He was one of the sons of

Champat Râi. The correct date of the death of Chhatarsâl is Pûs Badi

3, Sanwat, 1788 = A.D. 1731. Hardî (Hirdai) Sâ succeeded to the Râj,

or kingdom, of Pannâ, and Jagatrâj to that of Jaitpur. These kingdoms

quickly broke up, and the fragments are now in part native states and

in part British territory. The Orchhâ State was formed about the

beginning of the sixteenth century, and the Chandêrî and Datiyâ

States are offshoots from it, which separated during the seventeenth

century.

42. As already observed (_ante_, Chapter 26, note 29), the Jâlaun

State became British territory in 1840, four years after the tour

described in the text, and four years before the, publication of the

book. The Jhânsî State similarly lapsed on the death of Râjâ

Gangâdhar Râo in November, 1853. The Rânî Lachhmî Bâî joined the

mutineers, and was killed in battle in June, 1858.

CHAPTER 27

Blights.

I had a visit from my little friend the Sarîmant, and the

conversation turned upon the causes and effects of the dreadful

blight to which the wheat crops in the Nerbudda districts had of late

years been subject. He said that 'the people at first attributed this

great calamity to an increase in the crime of adultery which had

followed the introduction of our rule, and which', he said, 'was

understood to follow it everywhere; that afterwards it was by most

people attributed to our frequent measurement of the land, and

inspection of fields, with a view to estimate their capabilities to

pay; which the people considered a kind of _incest_, and which he

himself, the Deity, can never tolerate. The land is', said he,

'considered as the _mother_ of the prince or chief who holds it--the

great parent from whom he derives all that maintains him--his family

and his establishments. If well treated, she yields this in abundance

to her son; but, if he presumes to look upon her with the eye of

desire, she ceases to be fruitful; or the Deity sends down hail or

blight to destroy all that she yields. The measuring the surface of

the fields, and the frequent inspecting the crops by the chief

himself, or by his immediate agents were considered by the people in

this light; and, in consequence, he never ventured upon these things.

They were', he thought, 'fully satisfied that we did it more with a

view to distribute the burthen of taxation equally upon the people

than to increase it collectively; still', he thought that, 'either we

should not do it at all, or delegate the duty to inferior agents,

whose close inspection of the great _parent_ could not be so

displeasing to the Deity.'[1]

Râm Chand Pundit said that 'there was no doubt much truth in what

Sarîmant Sâhib had stated; that the crops of late had unquestionably

suffered from the constant measuring going on upon the lands; but

that the people (as he knew) had now become unanimous in attributing

the calamities of season, under which these districts had been

suffering so much, to the _eating of beef_-this was', he thought,

'the great source of all their sufferings.'

Sarîmant declared that he thought 'his Pundit was right, and that it

would, no doubt, be of great advantage to them and to their rulers if

Government could be prevailed upon to prohibit the eating of beef;

that so great and general were the sufferings of the people from

these calamities of seasons, and so firm, and now so general, the

opinion that they arose chiefly from the practice of killing and

eating cows that, in spite of all the other superior blessings of our

rule, the people were almost beginning to wish their old Marâthâ

rulers in power again.'

I reminded him of the still greater calamities the people of

Bundêlkhand had been suffering under.

'True,' said he, 'but among them there are crimes enough of everyday

occurrence to account for these things; but, under your rule, the

Deity has only one or other of these three things to be offended

with; and, of these three, it must be admitted that the eating of

beef so near the sacred stream of the Nerbudda is the worst.'

The blight of which we were speaking had, for several seasons from

the year 1829, destroyed the greater part of the wheat crops over

extensive districts along the line of the Nerbudda, and through Mâlwâ

generally; and old people stated that they recollected two returns of

this calamity at intervals from twenty to twenty-four years. The

pores, with which the stalks are abundantly supplied to admit of

their readily taking up the aqueous particles that float in the air,

seem to be more open in an easterly wind than in any other; and, when

this wind prevails at the same time that the air is filled with the

farina of the small parasitic fungus, whose depredations on the corn

constitute what they call the rust, mildew, or blight, the particles

penetrate into these pores, speedily sprout and spread their small

roots into the cellular texture, where they intercept, and feed on,

the sap in its ascent; and the grain in the ear, deprived of its

nourishment, becomes shrivelled, and the whole crop is often not

worth the reaping.[2] It is at first of a light, beautiful orange-

colour, and found chiefly upon the 'alsî' (linseed)[3] which it does

not seem much to injure; but, about the end of February, the fungi

ripen, and shed their seeds rapidly, and they are taken up by the

wind, and carried over the corn-fields. I have sometimes seen the air

tinted of an orange colour for many days by the quantity of these

seeds which it has contained; and that without the wheat crops

suffering at all, when any but an easterly wind has prevailed; but,

when the air is so charged with this farina, let but an easterly wind

blow for twenty-four hours, and all the wheat crops under its

influence are destroyed--nothing can save them. The stalks and leaves

become first of an orange colour from the light colour of the farina

which adheres to them, but this changes to deep brown. All that part

of the stalk that is exposed seems as if it had been pricked with

needles, and had exuded blood from every puncture; and the grain in

the ear withers in proportion to the number of fungi that intercept

and feed upon its sap; but the parts of the stalks that are covered

by the leaves remain entirely uninjured; and, when the leaves are

drawn off from them, they form a beautiful contrast to the others,

which have been exposed to the depredations of these parasitic

plants.

Every pore, it is said, may contain from twenty to forty of these

plants, and each plant may shed a hundred seeds,[4] so that a single

shrub, infected with the disease, may disseminate it over the face of

a whole district; for, in the warm month of March, when the wheat is

attaining maturity, these plants ripen and shed their seeds in a

week, and consequently increase with enormous rapidity, when they

find plants with their pores open ready to receive and nourish them.

I went over a rich sheet of wheat cultivation in the district of

Jubbulpore in January, 1836, which appeared to me devoted to

inevitable destruction. It was intersected by slips and fields of

'alsî', which the cultivators often sow along the borders of their

wheat-fields, which are exposed to the road, to prevent trespass.[5]

All this 'alsî' had become of a beautiful light orange colour from

these fungi; and the cultivators, who had had every field destroyed

the year before by the same plant, surrounded my tent in despair,

imploring me to tell them of some remedy. I knew of none; but, as the

'alsî' is not a very valuable plant, I recommended them, as their

only chance, to pull it all up by the roots, and fling it into large

tanks that were everywhere to be found. They did so, and no 'alsî'

was _intentionally_ left in the district, for, like drowning men

catching at a straw, they caught everywhere at the little gleam of

hope that my suggestion seemed to offer. Not a field of wheat was

that season injured in the district of Jubbulpore; but I was soon

satisfied that my suggestion had had nothing whatever to do with

their escape, for not a single stalk of the wheat was, I believe,

affected; while _some_ stalks of the affected 'alsî' must have been

left by accident. Besides, in several of the adjoining districts,

where the 'alsî' remained in the ground, the wheat escaped. I found

that, about the time when the blight usually attacks the wheat,

westerly winds prevailed, and that it never blew from the east for

many hours together. The common belief among the natives was that the

prevalence of an east wind was necessary to give full effect to the

attack of this disease, though they none of them pretended to know

anything of its _modus operandi_--indeed they considered the blight

to be a demon, which was to be driven off only by prayers and

sacrifices.

It is worthy of remark that hardly anything suffered from the attacks

of these fungi but the wheat. The 'alsî', upon which it always first

made its appearance, suffered something certainly, but not much,

though the stems and leaves were covered with them. The gram (_Cicer

arietinum_) suffered still less--indeed the grain in this plant often

remained uninjured, while the stems and leaves were covered with the

fungi, in the midst of fields of wheat that were entirely destroyed

by ravages of the same kind. None of the other pulses were injured,

though situated in the same manner in the midst of the fields of

wheat that were destroyed. I have seen rich fields of uninterrupted

wheat cultivation for twenty miles by ten, in the valley of the

Nerbudda, so entirely destroyed by this disease that the people would

not go to the trouble of gathering one field in four, for the stalks

and the leaves were so much injured that they were considered as

unfit or unsafe for fodder; and during the same season its ravages

were equally felt in the districts along the tablelands of the

Vindhya range, north of the valley and, I believe, those upon the

Sâtpura range, south. The last time I saw this blight was in March,

1832, in the Sâgar district, where its ravages were very great, but

partial; and I kept bundles of the blighted wheat hanging up in my

house, for the inspection of the curious, till the beginning of

1835.[6]

When I assumed charge of the district of Sâgar in 1831 the opinion

among the farmers and landholders generally was that the calamities

of season under which we had been suffering were attributable to the

increase of _adultery_, arising, as they thought, from our

indifference, as we seemed to treat it as a matter of little

importance; whereas it had always been considered under former

Governments as a case of _life and death_. The husband or his friends

waited till they caught the offending parties together in criminal

correspondence, and then put them both to death; and the death of one

pair generally acted, they thought, as a sedative upon the evil

passions of a whole district for a year or two. Nothing can be more

unsatisfactory than our laws for the punishment of adultery in India,

where the Muhammadan criminal code has been followed, though the

people subjected to it are not one-tenth Muhammadans. This law was

enacted by Muhammad on the occasion of his favourite wife Ayesha

being found under very suspicious circumstances with another man. A

special direction from heaven required that four witnesses should

swear positively to the _fact_.

Ayesha and her paramour were, of course, acquitted, and the

witnesses, being less than four, received the same punishment which

would have been inflicted upon the criminals had the fact been proved

by the direct testimony of the prescribed number--that is, eighty

stripes of the 'korâ', almost equal to a sentence of death. (See

Korân, chap. 24, and chap. 4.)[7] This became the law among all

Muhammadans. Ayesha's father succeeded Muhammad, and Omar succeeded

Abû Bakr.[8] Soon after his accession to the throne, Omar had to sit

in judgement upon Mughîra, a companion of the prophet, the governor

of Basrah,[9] who had been accidentally seen in an awkward position

with a lady of rank by four men while they sat in an adjoining

apartment. The door or window which concealed the criminal parties

was flung open by the wind, at the time when they wished it most to

remain closed. Three of the four men swore directly to the point.

Mughîra was Omar's favourite, and had been appointed to the

government by him, Zâid, the brother of one of the three who had

sworn to the fact, hesitated to swear to the entire fact.

'I think', said Omar, 'that I see before me a man whom God would not

make the means of disgracing one of the companions of the holy

prophet.'

Zâid then described circumstantially the most unequivocal position

that was, perhaps, ever described in a public court of justice; but,

still hesitating to swear to the entire completion of the crime, the

criminals were acquitted, and his brother and the two others received

the punishment described. This decision of the _Brutus of his age_

and country settled the law of evidence in these matters; and no

Muhammadan judge would now give a verdict against any person charged

with adultery, without the four witnesses to the _entire fact_. No

man hopes for a conviction for this crime in our courts; and, as he

would have to drag his wife or paramour through no less than three--

that of the police officer, the magistrate, and the judge--to seek

it, he has recourse to poison, either secretly or with his wife's

consent. She will commonly rather die than be turned out into the

streets a degraded outcast. The seducer escapes with impunity, while

his victim suffers all that human nature is capable of enduring.

Where husbands are in the habit of poisoning their guilty wives from

the want of _legal_ means of redress, they will sometimes poison

those who are suspected upon insufficient grounds. No magistrate ever

hopes to get a conviction in the judge's court, if he commits a

criminal for trial on this charge (under Regulation 17 of 1817), and,

therefore, he never does commit. Regulation 7 of 1819 authorizes a

magistrate to punish any person convicted of enticing away a wife or

unmarried daughter for another's use; and an indignant functionary

may sometimes feel disposed to stretch a point that the guilty man

may not altogether escape.[10]

Redress for these wrongs is never sought in our courts, because they

can never hope to get it. But it is a great mistake to suppose that

the people of India want a heavier punishment for the crime than we

are disposed to inflict--all they want is a fair chance of conviction

upon such reasonable proof as cases of this nature admit of, and such

a measure of punishment as shall make it appear that their rulers

think the crime a serious one, and that they are disposed to protect

them from it. Sometimes the poorest man would refuse pecuniary

compensation; but generally husbands of the poorer classes would be

glad to get what the heads of their caste or circle of society might

consider the expenses of a second marriage. They do not dare to live

in adultery, they would be outcasts if they did; they must be married

according to the forms of their caste, and it is reasonable that the

seducer of the wife should be obliged to defray the coats of the

injured husband's second marriage. The rich will, of course, always

refuse such a compensation, but a law declaring the man convicted of

this crime liable to imprisonment in irons at hard labour for two

years, but entitled to his discharge within that time on an

application from the injured husband or father, would be extremely

popular throughout India. The poor man would make the application

when assured of the sum which the elders of his caste consider

sufficient; and they would take into consideration the means of the

offender to pay. The woman is sufficiently punished by her degraded

condition. The _fatwa_ of a Muhammadan law officer should be

dispensed with in such cases.[11]

In 1832 the people began to search for other causes [_scilicet_, of

bad seasons]. The frequent measurements of the land, with a view to

equalize the assessments, were thought of; even the operations of the

Trigonometrical Survey,[12] which were then making a great noise in

Central India, where their fires were seen every night burning upon

the peaks of the highest ranges, were supposed to have had some share

in exasperating the Deity; and the services of the most holy Brahmans

were put in requisition to exorcise the peaks from which the

engineers had taken their angles, the moment their instruments were

removed. In many places, to the great annoyance and consternation of

the engineers, the landmarks which they had left to enable them to

correct their work as they advanced, were found to have been removed

during their short intervals of absence, and they were obliged to do

their work over again. The priests encouraged the disposition on the

part of the peasantry to believe that men who required to do their

work by the aid of fires lighted in the dead of the night upon _high

places_, and work which no one but themselves seemed able to

comprehend, must hold communion with supernatural beings, a communion

which they thought might be displeasing to the Deity.

At last, in the year 1833, a very holy Brahman, who lived in his

cloister near the iron suspension bridge over the Biâs river, ten

miles from Sâgar, sat down with a determination to _wrestle with the

Deity_ till he should be compelled to reveal to him the real cause of

all these calamities of season under which the people were

groaning.[l3] After three days and nights of fasting and prayer, he

saw a vision which stood before him in a white mantle, and told him

that all these calamities arose from the slaughter of cows; and that

under former Governments this practice had been strictly prohibited,

and the returns of the harvest had, in consequence, been always

abundant, and subsistence cheap, in spite of invasion from without,

insurrection within, and a good deal of misrule and oppression on the

part of the local government. The holy man was enjoined by the vision

to make this revelation known to the constituted authorities, and to

persuade the people generally throughout the district to join in the

petition for the prohibition of _beef-eating_ throughout our Nerbudda

territories. He got a good many of the most respectable of the

landholders around him, and explained the wishes of the vision of the

preceding night. A petition was soon drawn up and signed by many

hundreds of the most respectable people in the district, and

presented to the Governor-General's representative in these parts,

Mr. F. C. Smith. Others were presented to the civil authorities of

the district, and all stating in the most respectful terms how

sensible the people were of the inestimable benefits of our rule, and

how grateful they all felt for the protection to life and property,

and to the free employment of all their advantages, which they had

under it; and for the frequent and large reduction in the

assessments, and remission in the demand, on account of calamities of

seasons. These, they stated, were all that Government could do to

relieve a suffering people, but they had all proved unavailing; and

yet, under this truly paternal rule, the people were suffering more

than under any former Government in its worst period of misrule--the

hand of an _incensed God_ was upon them; and, as they had now, at

last after many fruitless attempts, discovered the real cause of this

anger of the Deity, they trusted that we would listen to their

prayers, and restore plenty and all its blessings to the country by

prohibiting the _eating of beef_. All these dreadful evils had, they

said, unquestionably originated in the (Sadr Bâzâr) great market of

the cantonments, where, for the first time, within one hundred miles

of the sacred stream of the Nerbudda, men had purchased and eaten

cows' flesh.

These people were all much attached to us and to our rule, and were

many of them on the most intimate terms of social intercourse with

us; and, at the time they signed this petition, were entirely

satisfied that they had discovered the real cause of all their

sufferings, and impressed with the idea that we should be convinced,

and grant their prayers.[l4] The day is past. Beef continued to be

eaten with undiminished appetite, the blight, nevertheless,

disappeared, and every other sign of vengeance from above; and the

people are now, I believe, satisfied that they were mistaken. They

still think that the lands do not yield so many returns of the seed

under us as under former rulers; that they have lost some of the

_barkat_ (blessings) which they enjoyed under them--they know not

why. The fact is that under us the lands do not enjoy the salutary

fallows which frequent invasions and civil wars used to cause under

former Governments. Those who survived such civil wars and invasions

got better returns for their seed.

During the discussion of the question with the people, I had one day

a conversation with the Sadr Amîn, or head native judicial officer,

whom I have already mentioned. He told me that 'there could be no

doubt of the truth of the conclusion to which the people had at

length come. 'There are', he said, 'some countries in which

punishments follow crimes after long intervals, and, indeed, do not

take place till some future birth; in others, they follow crimes

immediately; and such is the country bordering the stream of _Mother

Nerbudda_. This', said he, 'is a stream more holy than that of the

great Ganges herself, since no man is supposed to derive any benefit

from that stream unless he either bathe in it or drink from it; but

the sight of the Nerbudda from a distant hill could bless him, and

purify him. In other countries, the slaughter of cows and bullocks

might not be punished for ages; and the harvest, in such countries,

might continue good through many successive generations under such

enormities; indeed, he was not quite sure that there might not be

countries in which no punishment at all would inevitably follow; but,

so near the Nerbudda, this could not be the case.[l5] Providence

could never suffer beef to be eaten so near her sacred majesty

without visiting the crops with blight, hail, or some other calamity,

and the people with cholera morbus, small-pox, and other great

pestilences. As for himself, he should never be persuaded that all

these afflictions did not arise wholly and solely from this dreadful

habit of eating beef. I declare', concluded he, 'that if the

Government would but consent to prohibit the eating of beef, it might

levy from the lands three times the revenue that they now pay.'

The great festival of the Holî, the Saturnalia of India, terminates

on the last day of Phâlgun, or 16th of March.[16] On that day the

Holî is burned; and on that day the ravages of the monster (for

monster they will have it to be) are supposed to cease. Any field

that has remained untouched up to that time is considered to be quite

secure from the moment the Holî has been committed to the flames.

What gave rise to the notion I have never been able to discover, but

such is the general belief. I suppose the siliceous epidermis must

then have become too hard, and the pores in the stem too much closed

up to admit of the further depredation of the fungi.

In the latter end of 1831, while I was at Sâgar, a cowherd in driving

his cattle to water at a reach of the Biâs river, called the

Nardhardhâr, near the little village of Jasrathî, was reported to

have seen a vision that told him the waters of that reach, taken up

and conveyed to the fields in pitchers, would effectually keep off

the blight from the wheat, provided the pitchers were not suffered to

touch the ground on the way. On reaching the field, a small hole was

to be made in the bottom of the pitcher, so as to keep up a small but

steady stream, as the bearer carried it round the borders of the

field, that the water might fall in a complete ring, except at a

small opening--which was to be kept dry, in order that the _monster_

or _demon blight_ might make his escape through it, not being able to

cross over any part watered by the holy stream. The waters Of the

Bias river generally are not supposed to have any peculiar virtues.

The report of this vision spread rapidly over the country; and the

people who had been suffering under so many seasons of great calamity

were anxious to try anything that promised the slightest chance of

relief. Every cultivator of the district prepared pots for the

conveyance of the water, with tripods to support them while they

rested on the road, that they might not touch the ground. The spot

pointed out for taking the water was immediately under a fine large

pîpal-tree[l7] which had fallen into the river, and on each bank was

seated a Bairâgî, or priest of Vishnu. The blight began to manifest

itself in the alsî (linseed) in January, 1832, but the wheat is never

considered to be in danger till late in February, when it is nearly

ripe; and during that month and the following the banks of the river

were crowded with people in search of the water. Some of the people

came more than one hundred miles to fetch it, and all seemed quite

sure that the holy water would save them. Each person gave the

Bairâgî priest of his own side of the river two half-pence (copper

pice), two pice weight of ghî (clarified butter), and two pounds of

flour, before he filled his pitcher, to secure his blessings from it.

These priests were strangers, and the offerings were entirely

voluntary. The roads from this reach of the Bias river, up to the

capital of the Orchhâ Râjâ, more than a hundred miles, were literally

lined with these water-carriers; and I estimated the number of

persons who passed with the water every day for six weeks at ten

thousand a day.[18] After they had ceased to take the water, the

banks were long crowded with people who flocked to see the place

where priests and waters had worked such miracles, and to try and

discover the source whence the water derived its virtues. It was

remarked by some that the pîpal-tree, which had fallen from the bank

above many years before, had still continued to throw out the richest

foliage from the branches above the surface of the water. Others

declared that they saw a _monkey_ on the bank near the spot, which no

sooner perceived it was observed than it plunged into the stream and

disappeared. Others again saw some flights of steps under the water,

indicating that it had in days of yore been the site of a temple,

whose god, no doubt, gave to the waters the wonderful virtues it had

been found to possess. The priests would say nothing but that 'it was

the work of God, and, like all his works, beyond the reach of man's

understanding.' They made their fortunes, and got up the vision and

miracle, no doubt, for that especial purpose.[l9] As to the effect, I

was told by hundreds of farmers who had tried the waters that, though

it had not anywhere kept the blight entirely off from the wheat, it

was found that the fields which had not the advantages of water were

entirely destroyed; and, where the pot had been taken all round the

field without leaving any dry opening for the demon to escape

through, it was almost as bad; but, when a small opening had been

left, and the water carefully dropped around the field elsewhere, the

crops had been very little injured; which showed clearly the efficacy

of the water, when all the ceremonies and observances prescribed by

the vision had been attended to.

I could never find the cowherd who was said to have seen this vision,

and, in speaking to my old friend, the Sadr Amîn, learned in the

shâstras,[20] on the subject, I told him that we had a short saying

that would explain all this: 'A drowning man catches at a straw.'

'Yes,' said he, without any hesitation, 'and we have another just as

good for the occasion: "Sheep will follow each other, though it

should be into a well".'

Notes:

1. We are told in 2 Samuel, chap. xxiv, that the Deity was displeased

at a census of the people, taken by Joab by the order of David, and

destroyed of the people of Israel seventy thousand, besides women and

children. [W. H. S.] The editor, in the course of seven years'

experience in the Settlement department, six of which were agent in

Bundêlkhand, never heard of the doctrine as to the incestuous

character of surveys. Probably it had died out. Even a census no

longer gives rise to alarm in most parts of the country. The wild

rumours and theories common in 1872 and 1881 did not prevail when the

census of 1891 was taken, or during subsequent operations.

2. This theory is, of course, erroneous.

3. The flax plant (_Linum usitatissimum_) is grown in India solely

for the sake of the linseed. Linen is never made, and the stalk of

the plant, as ordinarily grown, is too short for the manufacture of

fibre. The attempts to introduce flax manufacture into India, though

not ultimately successful, have proved that good flax can be made in

the country, from Riga seed. Indian linseed is very largely exported.

(Article 'Flax' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed.)

4. Spores is the more accurate word.

5. That is to say, cattle-trespass. Cattle do not care to eat the

green flax plant. The fields are not fenced.

6. The rust, or blight, described in the text probably was a species

of _Unedo_. The gram, or chick-pea, and various kinds of pea and

vetch are grown intermixed with the wheat. They ripen earlier, and

are plucked up by the roots before the wheat is cut.

7. Chap. 4 of the Korân is entitled 'Women', and chap. 24 is entitled

'Light'. The story of Ayesha's misadventure is given in Sale's notes

to chap. 24.

8. Muhammad died A.D. 632. Abû Bakr succeeded him, and after a

khalîfate of only two years, was succeeded by Omar, who was

assassinated in the twelfth year of his reign.

9. Basrah (Bassorah, Bussorah) in the province of Baghdad, on the

Shatt-ul-Arab, or combined stream of the Tigris and Euphrates, was

founded by the Khalîf Omar.

10. In the author's time the Muhammadan criminal law was applied to

the whole population by Anglo-Indian judges, assisted by Muhammadan

legal assessors, who gave rulings called _fatwas_ on legal points.

The Penal Code enacted in 1859 swept away the whole jungle of

Regulations and _fatwas_, and established a scientific System of

criminal jurisprudence, which bas remained substantially unchanged to

this day. Adultery is punishable under the Code by the Court of

Session, but prosecutions for this offence are very rare. Enticing

away a married woman is also defined as an offence, and is punishable

by a magistrate. Complaints under this head are extremely numerous,

and mostly false. Secret and unpunished murders of women undoubtedly

are common, and often reported as deaths from snake-bite or cholera.

An aggrieved husband frequently tries to save his honour, and at the

same time satisfy his vengeance, by tromping up a false charge of

burglary against the suspected paramour, who generally replies by an

equally false _alibi_.

11. A prosecution under the Penal Code for adultery can be instituted

only by the husband, or the guardian representing him, and the woman

is not punishable. Although the Muhammadan law of evidence has been

got rid of, the Anglo-Indian courts are still unsuitable for the

prosecution of adultery cases, especially where Indians are

concerned. The English courts, though they do not require any

specified number of witnesses, demand strict proof given in open

court, and no Indian, whose honour has really been touched, cares to

expose his domestic troubles to be wrangled over by lawyers. Many

officers, including the editor, would be glad to see the section

which renders adultery penal struck out of the Code. The matrimonial

delinquencies of Indians are better dealt with by the caste

organizations, and those of Europeans by civil action.

12. The Trigonometrical Survey, originated by Colonel Lambton, was

begun at Cape Comôrin in 1800. It is now almost, if not quite,

complete, except in Burma. See Markham, _A Memoir of the Indian

Surveys_ (2nd ed., 1878). The stations are marked by masonry pillars,

for the partial repair of which a small sum is annually allotted.

13. Hindoos believe that holy men, by means of great austerities, can

attain power to compel the gods to do their bidding.

14. For some account of the modern agitation against cow-killing. See

note _ante_, Chapter 26, note 6.

15. On the sacredness of the Nerbudda see note _ante_, Chapter 1,

note 13.

16. The Holî festival marks approximately the time of the vernal

equinox, ten days before the full moon of the Hindoo month Phâlgun.

The day of the bonfire does not always fall on the 16th of March. It

is not considered lucky to begin harvest till the Holî has been

burnt. Mr. Crooke holds that 'on the whole, there seems to be some

reason to believe that the intention to promote the fertility of men,

animals, and crops, supplies the basis of the rites' ('The Holî, a

Vernal Festival of the Hindus', _Folklore_, vol. xxv (1914), p. 83).

I agree.

17. The pîpal-tree (_Ficus religiosa_, Linn.; _Urostigma religiosum_,

Gasp.) is sacred to Vishnu, and universally venerated throughout

India.

18. About four hundred thousand persons.

19. Two pice x 400,000 = 800,000 pice, = 200,000 annas, = 12,500

rupees. Even if the author's estimate of the numbers be much too

large, the pecuniary result must have been handsome, not to mention

the butter and flour.

20. Hindoo sacred books.

CHAPTER 28

Pestle-and-Mortar Sugar-Mills--Washing away of the Soil.

On the 13th [December, 1885] we came to Barwâ Sâgar,[1] over a road

winding among small ridges and conical hills, none of them much

elevated or very steep; the whole being a bed of brown syenite,

generally exposed to the surface in a decomposing state, intersected

by veins and beds of quartz rocks, and here and there a narrow and

shallow bed of dark basalt. One of these beds of basalt was converted

into grey syenite by a large granular mixture of white quartz and

feldspar with the black hornblende. From this rock the people form

their sugar-mills, which are made like a pestle and mortar, the

mortar being cut out of the hornblende rock, and the pestle out of

wood.[2]

We saw a great many of these mortars during the march that could not

have been in use for the last half-dozen centuries, but they are

precisely the same as those still used all over India. The driver

sits upon the end of the horizontal beam to which the bullocks are

yoked; and in cold mornings it is very common to see him with a pair

of good hot embers at his buttocks, resting upon a little projection

made behind him to the beam for the purpose of sustaining it [_sic_].

I am disposed to think that the most productive parts of the surface

of Bundêlkhand, like that of some of the districts of the Nerbudda

territories which repose upon the back of the sandstone of the

Vindhya chain, is [_sic_] fast flowing off to the sea through the

great rivers, which seem by degrees to extend the channels of their

tributary streams into every man's field, to drain away its substance

by degrees, for the benefit of those who may in some future age

occupy the islands of their delta. I have often seen a valuable

estate reduced in value to almost nothing in a few years by some new

_antennae_, if I may so call them, thrown out from the tributary

streams of great rivers into their richest and deepest soils.

Declivities are formed, the soil gets nothing from the cultivator but

the mechanical aid of the plough, and the more its surface is

ploughed and cross-ploughed, the more of its substance is washed away

towards the Bay of Bengal in the Ganges, or the Gulf of Cambay in the

Nerbudda. In the districts of the Nerbudda, we often see these black

hornblende mortars, in which sugar-canes were once pressed by a happy

peasantry, now standing upon a bare and barren surface of sandstone

rock, twenty feet above the present surface of the culturable lands

of the country. There are evident signs of the surface on which they

now stand having been that on which they were last worked. The people

get more juice from their small straw-coloured canes in these pestle-

and-mortar mills than they can from those with cylindrical rollers in

the present rude state of the mechanical arts all over India; and the

straw-coloured cane is the only kind that yields good sugar. The

large purple canes yield a watery and very inferior juice; and are

generally and almost universally sold in the markets as a fruit. The

straw-coloured canes, from being crowded under a very slovenly

System, with little manure and less weeding, degenerate into a mere

reed. The Otaheite cane, which was introduced into India by me in

1827, has spread over the Nerbudda, and many other territories; but

that that will degenerate in the same manner under the same slovenly

system of tillage, is too probable.[3]

Notes:

1. The lake known as Barwâ Sâgar was formed by a Bundêla chief, who

constructed an embankment nearly three-quarters of a mile long to

retain the waters of the Barwâ stream, a tributary of the Betwâ. The

work was begun in 1705 and completed in 1737. The town is situated at

the north-west corner of the lake, on the road from Jhânsî to the

cantonment of Nowgong (properly Naugâon, or Nayâgâon), at a distance

of twelve miles from Jhânsî (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, pp.

243 and 387).

2. The rude sketch given here in the author's text is not worth

reproduction.

3. The 'pestle-and-mortar' pattern of mill above described is the

indigenous model formerly in universal use in India, but, in most

parts of the country, where stone is not available, the 'mortar'

portion was made of wood. The stone mills are expensive. In the Bânda

and Hamîrpur districts of Bundêlkhand sugar-cane is now grown only in

the small areas where good loam soil is found. The method of

cultivation differs in several respects from that practised in the

Gangetic plains, but the editor never observed the slovenliness of

which the author complains. He always found the cultivation in sugar-

cane villages to be extremely careful and laborious. Ancient stone

mills are sometimes found in black soil country, and it is difficult

to understand how sugarcane can ever have been grown there. The

author was mistaken in supposing that the indigenous pattern of mill

is superior to a good roller mill. The indigenous mill has been

completely superseded in most parts of the Panjâb, United Provinces,

and Bihâr, by the roller mill patented by Messrs. Mylne and Thompson

of Bihîa in 1869, and largely improved by subsequent modifications.

The original patent having expired, thousands of roller mills are

annually made by native artisans, with little regard to the rights of

the Bihîa firm. The iron rollers, cast in Delhi and other places, are

completed on costly lathes in many country towns. The mills are

generally hired out for the season, and kept in repair by the

speculator. The Râjâ of Nâhan or Sirmûr in the Panjâb, who has a

foundry employing six hundred men, does a large business of this

kind, and finds it profitable. Since the first patent was taken out,

many improvements in the design have been effected, and the best

mills squeeze the cane absolutely dry. Messrs. Mylne and Thompson

have been successful in introducing other improved machinery for the

manufacture of sugar in villages. The Rosa factory near Shahjahânpur

in the United Provinces makes sugar on a large scale by European

methods.

When the author says that the large canes are sold 'as a fruit' he

means that the canes are used for eating, or rather sucking like a

sugar-stick. The varieties of sugar-cane are numerous, and the names

vary much in different districts. According to Balfour, the Otaheite

(Tahiti) cane is 'probably _Saccharum violaceum_'. The ordinary

Indian kinds belong to the species _Saccharum officinarum_. The

Otaheite cane was introduced into the West Indies about 1794, and

came to India from the Mauritius. It is more suitable for the roller

mill than for the indigenous mill, the stems being hard (_Cyclopaedia

of India_, 3rd ed., 1885, s.v. 'Saccharum'). In a letter dated

December 15, 1844, the author refers to his introduction of the

Otaheite cane, and mentions that the Indian Agricultural Society

awarded him a gold medal for this service. The cane was first planted

in the Government Botanical Garden at Calcutta.

CHAPTER 29

Interview with the Chiefs of Jhânsî--Disputed Succession.

On the 14th[1] we came on fourteen miles to Jhânsî.[2] About five

miles from our last ground we crossed the Baitantî river over a bed

of syenite. At this river we mounted our elephant to cross, as the

water was waist-deep at the ford. My wife returned to her palankeen

as soon as we had crossed, but our little boy came on with me on the

elephant, to meet the grand procession which I knew was approaching

to greet us from the city. The Râjâ of Jhânsî, Râm Chandar Râo, died

a few months ago, leaving a young widow and a mother, but no

child.[3]