or ceremony, a slight yellow line, drawn horizontally between his
eyebrows, with a paste composed of ground sandal-wood, denotes that
he has purified himself externally and internally, by bathing and
prayers. To omit this, even by the most unavoidable chance to appear
in public without it, were to incur a grave public scandal; only
excepting the reason of mourning, when, by an expressive Oriental
figure, the absence of the caste-mark is accepted for the token of a
profound and absorbing sorrow, which takes no thought even for the
customary forms of decency. The disciple of Siva crossbars his
forehead with ashes of cow-dung or ashes of the dead; the sectary of
Vishnu adorns his with a sort of trident, composed of a central
perpendicular line in red, and two oblique lines, white or yellow.
But the true Brahmin knows no Siva or Vishnu, no sectarian
distinctions or preferences; Indra has set no seal upon his brow, nor
Krishna, nor Devendra. For, ignoring celestial personalities, it is
the Trimurti that he grandly adores,--Creation, Preservation,
Destruction triune,--one body with three heads; and the right line
alone, or _pottu_, the mystic circle, describes the sublime
simplicity of his soul's aspiration.
When Asirvadam was but seven years old, he was invested with the
triple cord, by a grotesque, and in most respects absurd, extravagant,
and expensive ceremony, called the _Upanayana_, or Introduction to
the Sciences, because none but Brahmins are freely admitted to their
mysteries. This triple cord consists of three thick strands of cotton,
each composed of several finer threads; these three strands,
representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, are not twisted together, but
hang separately, from the left shoulder to the right hip. The
preparation of so sacred a badge is entrusted to none but the purest
hands, and the process is attended with many imposing ceremonies.
Only Brahmins may gather the fresh cotton; only Brahmins may card
and spin and twist it; and its investiture is a matter of so great
cost, that the poorer brothers must have recourse to contributions
from the pious of their caste, to defray the exorbitant charges of
priests and masters of ceremonies.
It is a noticeable fact in the natural history of the always
insolent Asirvadam, that, unlike Shatriya, the warrior, Vaishya, the
cultivator, or Soodra, the laborer, he is not born into the full
enjoyment of his honors, but, on the contrary, is scarcely of more
consideration than a Pariah, until by the Upanayana he has been
admitted to his birthright. Yet, once decorated with the ennobling
badge of his order, our friend became from that moment something
superior, something exclusive, something supercilious, arrogant,
exacting,--Asirvadam, the high Brahmin,--a creature of wide strides
without awkwardness, towering airs without bombast, Sanscrit
quotations without pedantry, florid phraseology without hyperbole,
allegorical illustrations and proverbial points without
sententiousness, fanciful flights without affectation, and formal
strains of compliment without offensive adulation.
When Asirvadam meets Asirvadam in the way, compliments pass: each
touches his forehead with his right hand, and murmurs twice the
auspicious name of Rama. But the passing Vaishya or Soodra elevates
reverently his joined palms above his head, and, stepping out of his
slippers, salutes the descendant of the Seven Holy Penitents with
_namaskaram_, the pious obeisance. _Andam arya_! "Hail, exalted
Lord!" he cries; and the exalted lord, extending the pure lilies of
his hands lordliwise, as one who condescends to accept an humble
offering, mutters the mysterious benediction which only Gooroos and
high Brahmins may bestow,--_Asirvadam_!
The low-caste slave who may be admitted to the distinguished
presence of our friend, to implore indulgence, or to supplicate
pardon for an offence, must thrice touch the ground, or the honored
feet, with both his hands, which immediately he lays upon his
forehead; and there are occasions of peculiar humiliation which
require the profound prostration of the _sashtangam_, or abasement of
the eight members, wherein the suppliant extends himself face
downward on the earth, with palms joined above his head.
If Asirvadam--having concluded a visit in which he has deferentially
reminded me of the peculiar privilege I enjoy in being admitted to
social converse with so select a being--is about to withdraw the
light of his presence, he retires backward, with many humbly gracious
salaams. If, on the other hand, I have had the honor to be his
distinguished guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking
my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness,
that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable,
so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares
me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from
mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib,
who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to
Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning or the end of
that.
When Asirvadam crosses my threshold, he leaves his slippers at the
door. I am flattered by the act into a self-appreciative complacency,
until I discover that he thereby simply puts me on a level with his
cow. When he converses with me, he keeps respectful distance, and
gracefully averts from me the annoyance of his breath by holding his
hand before his mouth. I inwardly applaud his refined breeding,
forgetting that I am a Pariah of Pariahs, whose soul, if I have one,
the incense of his holy lungs might save alive,--forgetting that he
is one to whose very footprint the Soodra salaams, alighting from
his palanquin,--to whose shadow poor Chakili, the cobbler, abandons
the broad highway,--the feared of gods, hated of giants, mistrusted
of men, and adored of himself,--Asirvadam the Brahmin.
"They, the Brahmin Asirvadam, to him, Phaldasana, who is obedient,
who is true, who has every faithful quality, who knows how to serve
with cheerfulness, to submit in silence, who by the excellent
services he renders the Brahmins has become like unto the stone
Chintamani, the bringer of good, who by the number and variety and
acceptableness of his gifts shall attain, without further trials, to
the paradise of Indra: _Asirvadam_!
"The year Vikarj, the tenth of the month Phalguna: we are at Benares
in good health; bring us word of thine. It shall be thy privilege to
make sashtangam at the feet--which are the true lilies of Nilufar--
of us the Lord Brahmin, who are endowed with all the virtues and all
the sciences, who are great as Mount Meru, to whom belongs
illustrious knowledge of the four Vedas, the splendor of whose
beneficence is as the noon-flood of the sun, who are renowned
throughout the fourteen worlds, whom the fourteen worlds admire.
"Having received with both hands that which we have abased ourself
by writing to thee, and having kissed it and set it on thy head,
thou wilt read with profound attention and execute with grateful
alacrity the orders it contains, without swerving from the strict
letter of them, the breadth of a grain of sesamum. Having hastened
to us, as thou art blessed in being bidden, thou shalt wait in our
presence, keeping thy distance, thy hands joined, thy mouth closed,
thine eyes cast down,--thou who art as though thou wert not,--until
we shall vouchsafe to perceive thee. And when thou hast obtained our
leave, then, and not sooner, shalt thou make sashtangam at our
blessed feet, which are the pure flowers of Nilufar, and with many
lowly kisses shalt lay down before them thy unworthy offering,--ten
rupees, as thou knowest,--more, if thou art wise,--less, if thou
darest.
"This is all we have to say to thee. _Asirvadam_!"
In the epistolary style of Asirvadam the Brahmin we are at a loss
which to admire most,--the flowers or the force, the modesty or the
magnificence.
Among the cloistral cells of the women's quarter, which surround the
inner court of Asirvadam's domestic establishment, is a dark and
narrow chamber which is the domain of woman's rights. It is called
"the Room of Anger," because, when the wife of the bosom has been
tempted by inveigling box-wallahs with a love of a pink coortee, or
a pair of chased bangles, "such darlings, and so cheap," and has
conceived a longing for the same, her way is, without a word
beforehand, to go shut herself up in the Room of Anger, and pout and
sulk till she gets them; and seeing that the wife of the bosom is
also the pure concocter of the Brahminical curry and server of the
Brahminical rice, that she is the goddess of the sacred kitchen and
high-priestess of pots and pans, it is easy to see that her success
is certain. Poor little brown fool! that twelve feet square of
curious custom is all, of the world-wide realm of beauty and caprice,
that she can call her own.
When the enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the
lover's presents,--the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the
loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the
fruits,--the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal
lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of
his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not
eat,--she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings,
nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe,
she does not dream,--she feeds.
Around her neck a strange ornament of gold, having engraved upon it
the likeness of Lakshmee, is suspended by a consecrated string of
one hundred and eight threads of extreme fineness, dyed yellow with
saffron. This is the Tahli, the wife's badge,--"Asirvadam the Brahmin,
his chattel." They brought it to her on a silver salver garnished
with flowers, she sitting with her betrothed on a great cushion; and
ten Brahmins, holding around the happy pair a screen of silk,
invoked for them the favor of the three divine couples,--Brahma with
Sarawastee, Vishnu with Lakshmee, Siva with Paravatee. Then they
offered incense, to the Tahli, and a sacrifice of fire, and they
blessed it with many mantras, or holy texts; and as the bride turned
her to the east, and fixed her inmost thought on the "Great Mountain
of the North," Asirvadam the Brahmin clasped his collar on her neck,
never to be loosened till he, dying, shall leave her to be burned,
or spurned.
No man, when he meets Asirvadam the Brahmin, presumes to ask,
"How is the little brown fool today?" No man, when he visits him,
ventures to inquire if she is at home; it is not the etiquette.
Should the little brown fool, having a mind of her own, and being
resolved not to endure this any longer, suddenly make Asirvadam
ridiculous some day, the etiquette is to hush it up among their
friends.
As Raja, the warrior, sprang from the right arm of Brahma, and
Vaishya, the cultivator, from his belly, and Soodra, the laborer,
from his feet,--so Asirvadam the Brahmin was conceived in the head
and brought forth from the mouth of the Creator; and he is above the
others by so much as the head is above arms, belly, and feet; he is
wiser than the others, inasmuch as he has lain among the thoughts of
the god, has played with his inventions, and made excursions through
the universe with his speech. Therefore, if it be true, as some say,
that Asirvadam is an ant-hill of lies, he is also a snake's-nest of
wisdom, and a beehive of ingenuity. Let him be respected, for his
rights are plain.
It is his right to be taught the Vedas and the mantras, all the
tongues of India, and the sciences; to marry a child-wife, no matter
how old he may be,--or a score of wives, if he be a Kooleen Brahmin,
so that he may drive a lively business in the way of dowries; to
peruse the books of magic, and perform the awful sacrifice of the
Yajna; to receive presents without limit, levy taxes without law,
and beg with insolence.
It is his duty to study diligently; to conform rigorously to the
rules of his caste; to honor and obey his superiors without question
or hesitation; to insult his inferiors, for the magnifying of his
office; to get him a wife without loss of time, and a male child by
all means. During his religious minority he is expected to bathe and
sacrifice twice a day, to abstain from adorning his forehead or his
breast with sandal, to wear no flowers in his hair, to chew no betel,
to regard himself in no mirrors.
Under Hindoo law, which is his own law, Asirvadam the Brahmin pays no
taxes, tolls, or duties; corporal punishment can in no case be
inflicted upon him; if he is detected in defalcation or the taking
of bribes, partial restitution is the worst penalty that can befall
him. "For the belly," he says, "one will play many tricks." To smite
his cheek with your leathern glove, or to kick him with your shoe,
is an outrage at which the gods rave; to kill him would draw down a
monstrous calamity upon the world. If he break faith with you, it is
as nothing; if you fail him in the least promise, you take your
portion with Karta, the Fox, as the good Abbé Dubois relates.
"Karta, Karta!" screamed an Ape, one day, when he saw a fox feeding
on a rotten carcass, "thou must, in a former life, have committed
some dreadful crime, to be doomed to a new state in which thou
feedest on such garbage."
"Alas!" replied the Fox, "I am not punished more severely than I
deserve. I was once a man, and then I promised something to a Brahmin,
which I never gave him. That is the true cause of my being
regenerated in this shape. Some good works, which I did have, won for
me the indulgence of remembering what I was in my former state, and
the cause for which I have been degraded into this."
Asirvadam has choice of a hundred callings, as various in dignity
and profit as they are numerous. Under native rule he makes a good
cooly, because the officers of the revenue are forbidden to search a
Brahmin's baggage, or anything that he carries. He is an expeditious
messenger, for no man may stop him; and he can travel cheaply for
whom there is free entertainment on every road. "For the belly one
will play many tricks"; and Asirvadam, in financial straits, may
teach dancing to nautch-girls; or he may play the mountebank or the
conjurer, and with a stock of mantras and charms proceed to the
curing of murrain in cattle, pip in chickens, and short-windedness
in old women,--at the same time telling fortunes, calculating
nativities, finding lost treasure, advising as to journeys and
speculations, and crossing out crosses in love for any pretty dear
who will cross the poor Brahmin's palm with a rupee. He may engage
in commercial pursuits; and in that case, his bulling and bearing at
the opium-sales will put Wall Street to the blush. He may turn his
attention to the healing art; and allopathically, homoeopathically,
hydropathically, electropathically, or by any other path, run a muck
through many heathen hospitals. The field of politics is full of
charms for him, the church invites his taste and talents, and the
army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the
shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making
mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer,
fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy,
he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,--sleekest of lackeys, most
servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of
hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent of beggars, most
versatile of adventurers, most inventive of charlatans, most
restless of schemers, most insidious of jesuits, most treacherous of
confidants, falsest of friends, hardest of masters, most arrogant of
patrons, cruelest of tyrants, most patient of haters, most
insatiable of avengers, most gluttonous of ravishers, most infernal
of devils,--pleasantest of fellows.
Superlatively dainty as to his fopperies of orthodoxy, Asirvadam is
continually dying of Pariah roses in aromatic pains of caste. If in
his goings and comings one of the "lilies of Nilufar" should chance
to stumble upon a bit of bone or rag, a fragment of a dish, or a
leaf from which some one has eaten,--should his sacred raiment be
polluted by the touch of a dog or a Pariah,--he is ready to faint,
and only a bath can revive him. He may not touch his sandals with
his hand, nor repose in a strange seat, but is provided with a mat,
a carpet, or an antelope's skin, to serve him for a cushion in the
houses of his friends. With a kid glove you may put his
respectability in peril, and with your patent-leather pumps affright
his soul within him. To him a pocket-handkerchief is a sore offence,
and a tooth-pick monstrous. All the Vedas could not save the Giaour
who "chews"; nor burnt brandy, though the Seven Penitents distilled
it, purify the mouth that a tooth-brush has polluted. Beware how you
offer him a wafered letter; and when you present him with a copy of
your travels, let it be bound in cloth.
He has the Mantalini idiosyncrasy as to dem'd unpleasant bodies; and
when he hears that his mother is dead, he straight-way jumps into a
bath with his clothes on. Many mantras and much holy-water, together
with incense of sandal-wood, and other perfumery, regardless of
expense, can alone relieve his premises of the deadness of his wife.
For a Soodra even to look upon the earthen vessels wherein his rice
is boiled implies the necessity of a summary smash of the infected
crockery; and his kitchen is his holy of holies. When he eats, the
company keep silence; and when he is full, they return fervent
thanks to the gods who have conducted him safely through a
complexity of dangers;--a grain of rice, falling from his lips, might
have poisoned his dinner; a stain on his plantain-leaf might have
turned his cake to stone. His left hand, condemned to vulgar and
impolite offices, is not admitted to the honor of assisting at his
repasts; to the right alone, consecrated by exemption from indecorous
duties, belongs the distinction of conducting his happy grub to the
heaven of his mouth. When he would quench his thirst, he disdains to
apply the earth-born beaker to his lips, but lets the water fall
into his solemn swallow from on high,--a pleasant feat to see, and
one which, like a whirling dervis, diverts you by its agility, while
it impresses you by its devotion.
It is easy to perceive, that, if our friend Asirvadam were not one
of the "Young Bengal" lights who do not fash themselves with trifles,
his orthodox sensibilities would be subjected to so many and gross
affronts from the indiscriminate contacts of a mixed community, that
he would shortly be compelled to take refuge in one of those
Arcadias of the triple cord, called _Agragramas_, where pure
Brahmins are met in all the exclusiveness of high caste, and where
the more a man rubs against his neighbor the more he is sanctified.
True, the Soodras have an irreverent saying, "An entire Brahmin at
the Agragrama, half a Brahmin when seen at a distance, and a Soodra
when out of sight"; but then the Soodras, as everybody knows, are
saucy, satirical rogues, and incorrigible jokers.
There was once a foolish Brahmin, to whom a rich and charitable
merchant presented two pieces of cloth, the finest that had ever
been seen in the Agragrama. He showed them to the other Brahmins,
who all congratulated him on so fortunate an acquisition; they told
him it was the reward of some deed that he had done in a previous
life. Before putting them on, he washed them, according to custom,
in order to purify them from the pollution of the weaver's touch,
and hung them up to dry, with the ends fastened to two branches of a
tree. Presently a dog, happening to pass that way, ran under them,
and the Brahmin could not decide whether the unclean beast was tall
enough to touch the cloth, or not. He questioned his children, who
were present; but they were not quite certain. How, then, was he to
settle the all-important point? Ingenious Brahmin! an idea struck him.
Getting down on all fours, so as to be of the same height as the dog,
he crawled under the precious cloths.
"Did I touch it?"
"No!" cried all the children; and his soul was filled with joy.
But the next moment the terrible conviction took possession of his
mind, that the dog had a turned-up tail; and that, if, in passing
under the cloths, he had elevated and wagged it, their defilement
must have been consummated. Ready-witted Brahmin! another idea. He
called the cleverest of his children, and bade it affix to his
breech-cloth a plantain-leaf, dog's-tail-wise, and waggishly. Then
resuming his all-fours-ness, he passed a second time under the cloth,
and conscientiously, and anxiously, wagged.
"A touch! a touch!" cried all the children, and the Brahmin groaned,
for he knew that his beautiful raiment was ruined. Thrice he wagged,
and thrice the children cried, "A touch! a touch!"
So the strict Brahmin leaped to his feet, in a frightful rage, and,
tearing the precious cloth from the tree, rent it in a hundred shreds,
while he cursed the abominable dog and the master that owned him.
And the children admired and were edified, and they whispered among
themselves,--
"Now, surely, it behooveth us to take heed to our ways, for our
father is particular."
Moral: And the Brahmin winked.
The Samaradana is an institution for which our friend Asirvadam
entertains peculiar veneration. This is simply an abundant feast of
Brahminical good things, to which the "fat and greasy citizens" of
the caste are bidden by some zealous or manoeuvring Soodra,--on
occasion of the dedication of a temple, perhaps, or in a season of
drought, or when a malign constellation is to be averted, or to
celebrate the birth or marriage of some exalted personage. From all
the country round about, the Brahmins flock to the feasting, singing
Sanscrit hymns and obscene songs, and shouting, _Hara! hara! Govinda!_
The low fellow who has the honor to entertain so select a company is
not suffered to seat himself in the midst of his guests, much less
to partake of the viands he has been permitted to provide; but in
consideration of his "deed of exalted merit," and his expensive
appreciation of the beauties and advantages of high-caste society,
as expressed in all the delicacies of the season, he may come, when
the last course has been discussed, and, prostrating himself in the
sashtangam posture, receive the unanimous asirvadam of the company.
If, in taking leave of his august guests, he should also signify his
sense of the honor they have done him, by presenting each with a
piece of cloth or a sum of money, he is assured that he is altogether
superior in mind and person to the gods, and that, if he is wise, he
will not neglect to remind his friends of his munificence by another
exhibition of it within a reasonable time.
In the creed of Asirvadam the Brahmin, the drinker of strong drink
is a Pariah, and the eater of cow's flesh is damned already. If, then,
he can tell a cocktail from a cobbler, and scientifically
discriminate between a julep and a gin-sling, it must be because the
Vedas are unclasped to him; for in the Vedas all things are taught.
It is of Asirvadam's father that the story is told, how, when a fire
broke out in his house once, and all the pious neighbors ran to
rescue his effects, the first articles saved were a tub of pickled
pork and a jar of arrack. But this, also, no doubt, is the malicious
invention of some satirical rogue of a Soodra. Asirvadam, as is well
known, recoils with horror from the abomination of eating aught that
has once lived and moved and had a being; but if, remembering that,
you should seek to fill his soul with consternation by inviting him
to inspect a fig under a microscope, he would quietly advise you to
break your nasty glass and "go it blind."
But there is one custom which Asirvadam the Brahmin observes in
common with the Pariah, and that is the solemn ceremonial of Death.
When his time comes, he dies, is burned, and presently forgotten;
and it is a consolation for his ever having been at all, that some
one is sure to be the richer and happier and freer for his ceasing
to be. True, he may assume new earthly conditions, may pass into
other vexatious shapes of life; but the change must ever be for the
better in respect of the interests of those who have suffered by the
powers and capabilities of the shape which he relinquishes. He may
become a snake; but then he is easily scotched, or fooled out of his
fangs with a cunning charmer's tom-tom;--he may pass into the foul
feathers of an indiscriminately gluttonous adjutant-bird; but some
day a bone will choke him;--his soul may creep under the mangy skin
of a Pariah dog, and be kicked out of compounds by scullions; he may
be condemned to the abominable offices of a crow at the burning
ghauts, a jackal by the wells of Thuggee, or a rat in sewers; but he
can never again be such a nuisance, such a sore offence to the minds
and hearts of men, as when he was Asirvadam the Brahmin.