HINDU INDIA.
Before beginning the trip through the interior, a paragraph must
be given to Indian travel. There are no Pullman sleepers in this
country, and the tourist must carry his bedding with him. Night
trains have compartments containing broad seats which can be used
as couches and hanging shelves upon which one may lie. The traveler
carries his own blanket, pillow, sheet, towels, soap, etc., and
occasionally has to rely on these at hotels as well as on the
trains. The cars are entered from the side, and one must take his
chance of waking at the right station, for there is no official to
give him warning. In India it is customary for foreigners to take
an Indian servant with them who acts as an interpreter and looks
after the baggage--and looking after the baggage is no easy task in
this part of the British empire. After we had made one short trip
without assistance we were glad to yield to the custom, and Goolab,
a Calcutta Mussulman, proved himself an invaluable aid in dealing
with the baggage coolies, whose language we could not understand
and whose charges vary from the legal rate as the minimum to three
or four times that if the tourist shows himself a novice at the
business.
The hotels of India are declared by the guide books to be bad, and
one does not feel like disputing these authorities after having made
the trip. I do not mean to say that there is no difference between
them, for in several places we found comfortable rooms and in some
places palatable food. Everywhere we were so interested in what we
saw that we could endure almost any kind of accommodations, but at
one place the fare was so unsatisfactory that we were reduced to
eggs and toast. Goolab, overhearing some mutterings of discontent,
took it upon himself to report in the hope of securing some
improvement, and the clerk asked me for particulars. I told him that
I had not intended to make any complaint, but that as he was good
enough to inquire, I would say that we did not like the cooking;
that the crackers were sometimes mouse-eaten and that we found worms
in the cabbage. He thought that the mice were inexcusable, but, as
if the question disposed of the matter, asked: "The worm was dead,
wasn't it?" I was compelled to admit that it was.
Leaving Calcutta, we sought the ancient city of Benares, which bears
the distinction of being the center of Hinduism. In fact, it has
been the religious capital of India for two thousand years or more.
At Sarnath, just outside Benares, stands the first Buddhist pagoda,
said to have been erected nearly five hundred years before the
beginning of the Christian era to commemorate a spot in the deer
park where Buddha taught his disciples. Recent excavations near
there have brought to light one of the Asoka pillars which, though
unfortunately broken, still bears testimony to the skill of the
sculptor as well as to the zeal of the great Buddhist king. But
these ruins are all that is left of Buddhism in this vicinity,
where Buddha lived and taught and where his doctrines were once
triumphant, or Hinduism has virtually rooted out Buddhism, adopting,
it is said, the device of making him one of the incarnations of
their own god.
[Illustration: THE CAMEL IN INDIA.]
At Benares one sees idolatry in its grossest and most repulsive
forms, and it is therefore as interesting to-day to the student of
the world's great religions as to the devoted Hindu who travels
hundreds of miles over dusty roads to bathe in the Ganges, whose
waters he considers sacred. Benares is built upon the north bank of
the Ganges, and it is estimated that each year it is visited by a
million pilgrims. When more than three hundred miles from the city,
we saw the caravan of one of the Maharaja (Maharaja is the title
borne by native princes) on its way to the river. There were five
elephants, a dozen camels and twenty or thirty bull carts, besides
numerous pack animals and horses. The trip could not be made in much
less than two months, and all this for the sake of a bath in the
waters of the sacred river.
[Illustration: CULTIVATING PSYCHIC POWER ON SPIKES AT BENARES, INDIA.]
The bank of the Ganges is lined for a long distance with bathing
ghats (as the steps leading to the river are called), and at one
point there is a burning ghat, where the bodies of the dead are
cremated. Cremation is universal among the Hindus, sandalwood
being used where the relatives can afford it. Taking a boat, as is
customary, we rowed up and down the river in the early morning,
and such a sight! Down the steps as far as the eye could reach
came the bathers, men, women and children, and up the steps went a
constant stream of those who had finished their ablutions. Most of
them carried upon their heads water pots of shining brass, and some
carried bundles of wearing apparel. The bathing is done leisurely as
if according to ritual, with frequent dippings; water is poured out
to the sun and prayers are said. The lame, the halt and the blind
are there, some picking their way with painful step, others assisted
by friends. Here, a leper sought healing in the stream; near him a
man with a emaciated form mixed his medicine with the holy water,
and not far off a fakir with matted hair prayed beneath his big
umbrella. On one of the piers a young man was cultivating psychic
power by standing on one leg while he told his beads with his face
toward the sun.
Dressing and undressing is a simple matter with the mass of the
people. Men and women emerging from the water throw a clean robe
around themselves, and then unloosing the wet garment, wring it out
and are ready to depart. Those who bring water pots fill them from
the stream, out of which they have recently come, and carry them
away as if some divinity protected the water from pollution. As the
river contains countless dead and receives the filth of the city
as well as the flowers cast into it by worshipers, it requires a
strong faith to believe it free from lurking disease and seeds of
pestilence.
[Illustration: BATHING GHAT ON THE GANGES.]
When we reached the burning ghat, we found one body on the funeral
pyre and another soaking in the water as a preparation for burning.
So highly is the Ganges revered that aged people are brought
there that they may die, if possible, in the water. While we were
watching, a third body was prepared for the burning, and it was
so limp that death could not have occurred long before. While the
flames were consuming those three corpses, we saw coming down the
steps a man carrying the body of a child, apparently about two years
old, wrapped in a piece of thin cotton cloth. (The children of the
poor are buried in the stream because of the cost of wood.) The man
bore his lifeless burden to a little barge and made the corpse fast
to a heavy stone slab. The boatman then pushed out from the shore,
and when the middle of the stream was reached the man in charge of
the body dropped it overboard, and the burial was over.
[Illustration: PUNDIT SAKHARAM GANESH.]
No one has seen India until he has seen the Ganges; no one has seen
the Ganges until he has seen it at Benares; and no one who has seen
the Ganges at Benares will ever forget it.
In the suburbs of the city stands the Durga Temple, better known
as the Monkey Temple, because it is the home of a large family of
monkeys, which are regarded as sacred. Photographs of the temple
present rather an attractive appearance, but the original is
anything but beautiful, and the monkeys and general filth of the
place deprive it of all appearance of a place of worship.
The Golden Temple, however, is the one most visited by tourists,
and it would be difficult to picture a less inviting place. The
buildings are old and greasy, and the narrow streets are filled
with images and thronged with beggars. One finds his interest in
missionary work quickened if he wanders through these streets and
sees the offering of incense to the elephant god and the monkey god,
and to images innumerable. The air is heavy with perfume and the
odor of decaying flowers, and one jostles against the sacred bulls
as he threads his way through the crowd. We have not seen in any
other land such evidences of superstition, such effort to ward off
evil spirits and to conciliate idols. The educated Hindus, and there
are many learned men among the Hindus, regard these idols as only
visible representations of an invisible God, but the masses seem to
look no farther than the ugly images before which they bow.
It was a relief to find near this dark pool of idolatry an
institution of learning, recently founded, which promises to be a
purifying spring. I refer to the Central Hindu College, of which
Mrs. Annie Besant, the well known theosophist, is the head. Although
the school is but seven years old, it already includes a valuable
group of buildings and has some five hundred students. Among the
professors are several Englishmen who serve without compensation,
finding sufficient reward in the consciousness of service.
Next to Benares Allahabad is the most important Hindu center. The
city is on the Ganges, at its junction with the Jumna, one of its
longest branches. There is an old tradition that another river,
flowing underground, empties into the Ganges at this point, and the
place is referred to as the junction of the three rivers. The great
Mogul Akbar built a splendid fort where the Ganges and the Jumna
meet, and probably on this account Allahabad is the capital of the
United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Within the walls of the fort
there is another of the Asoka pillars, a very well preserved one,
forty-nine feet high and bearing numerous inscriptions, among which
are the famous edicts of Asoka, issued in 240 B. C., against the
taking of life. Within the fort in a subterranean room is another
object of interest, the Akhshai Bar or undecaying banyan tree. As
this tree is described by a Chinese pilgrim of the seventh century,
it is either of remarkable antiquity or has been renewed from time
to time.
The religious importance of Allahabad is largely due to a fair which
is held there every year and which on every twelfth year becomes a
national event. It is called the Mela, and last January brought to
the city a crowd estimated at from one and a half to three millions.
This every-twelfth-year fair brings together not only the devout
Hindus, who come as a matter of religious duty, and innumerable
traders, who at such times find a market for their wares, but it
draws large numbers of fakirs (pronounced fah-keers, with the accent
upon the last syllable) or holy men. They wear full beards and long
hair and no clothing except the breech cloth. They put ashes and
even manure upon their heads, and their hair and whiskers are matted
and discolored. These men are supposed to have raised themselves
to a high spiritual state by asceticism and self-punishment. They
undergo all sorts of hardships, such as hanging over a fire, holding
up the arm until it withers, and sitting upon a bed of spikes. We
saw many fakirs at Benares and Allahabad and some elsewhere (for
they are scattered over the whole country), and at the latter place
one accommodated us by taking his seat upon the spikes.
[Illustration: HINDU TYPES.]
At the recent Mela five hundred of these fakirs marched in a
procession naked, even the breech cloth having been abandoned for
the occasion, and so great was the reverence for them that their
followers struggled to obtain the sand made sacred by their tread, a
number of people meeting their death in the crowd. These fakirs are
supposed to have reached a state of sinlessness, but one of them
seized a child along the line of march and dashed out its brains in
the presence of its mother, claiming to be advised that the gods
desired a human sacrifice. He was arrested by the British officials
and is now awaiting trial on the charge of murder. The papers
recently reported another instance in which a fakir was the cause of
a murder. He was consulted by a woman who had lost several children
and was anxious to protect her prospective child from a like fate.
The fakir told her that she could insure her child's life if she
would herself bathe in human blood, and she and her husband enticed
a seven-year-old boy into their home and killed him to secure the
blood necessary for the bath. The fakirs are not only a danger to
the community in some cases and a source of demoralization at all
times, but they are a heavy drain upon the producing wealth of the
country. Adding nothing to the material, intellectual or moral
development of the country, they live upon the fears and credulity
of the people.
[Illustration: HINDU FAIR AT ALLAHABAD--INDIA]
The Hindu religion claims something more than two hundred millions
of human beings within its membership; it teaches the transmigration
of the soul or reincarnation as it is generally called. The Hindu
mind takes kindly to the metaphysical, and the Hindu priests have
evolved an intricate system of philosophy in support of their
religious beliefs. Reincarnation is set forth as a theory necessary
to bring God's plans into accord with man's conception of justice.
If a man is born blind or born into unfavorable surroundings, it
is explained on the theory that he is being punished for sins
committed during a former existence; if he is born into a favorable
environment he is being rewarded for virtue previously developed.
[Illustration: HINDU FAKIR.]
It is not quite certain whether the Hindus have many gods or many
forms of one god, for the ancient Vedas speak of each of several
gods as if they were supreme. The most popular god is a sort of
trinity, Bramah, the creator; Vischnu, the preserver, and Siva, the
destroyer, being united in one. Sometimes the trinity is spoken
of as representing creation, destruction and renovation, in which
Krishna appears as the principal god. Out of this system have sprung
a multitude of gods until the masses bow down "to sticks and stones."
[Illustration: MRS. BESANT'S COLLEGE.]
The most pernicious product of the Hindu religion is the caste
system. Infant marriage is terrible, but that will succumb to
education; the seclusion of the women is benumbing, but it will give
way before the spread of European and American influence, and with
it will go the practical servitude of widows, as the practice of
suttee (the burning of widows) has practically gone. But the caste
system, resting upon vanity, pride and egotism, is more difficult
to eradicate. Nowhere in the world is caste so inexorable in its
demands or so degrading in its influence. The line between the human
being and the beast of the field is scarcely more distinctly drawn
than the line between the various castes. The Brahmins belong to
the priestly class, and are supposed to have sprung from the mouth
of Brahm, the great creator; the Kshatrias, or warrior class, are
supposed to have sprung from the shoulders of Brahm; the Vaisyas,
or merchant class, are supposed to have sprung from the thighs of
Brahm; while the Sudras, or laborers, are supposed to have sprung
from the feet of Brahm. There are numerous sub-divisions of these
castes, and besides these there are outcasts; although there does
not seem to be any room below the Sudras for any other class. The
caste system not only affects social intercourse and political
progress, but it complicates living. A high caste Hindu can not
accept food or drink from a low caste, and must purify his water
bottle if a low caste touches it.
About seventy years ago a reform in Hinduism was begun under the
name of Brahmo Somaj. It was built upon monotheism, or the worship
of one god, for which it claimed to find authority in the Hindu
sacred books. It drew to itself a number of strong men, among them
Mr. Tagore and Mr. Sen, the latter making a trip to England to
present the principles of the new faith before prominent religious
bodies there.
[Illustration: A GALA DAY IN INDIA.]
The Arya Somaj, another reform sect, sprung up later. Both of these
have exerted considerable influence upon the thought of India, far
beyond their numerical strength. So far, however, Christianity has
made greater inroads upon Hinduism than any of the reformations that
have been attempted from within.
[Illustration: CREMATION OF DEAD BODIES--BURNING GHAT]
At Allahabad we found two Christian colleges, the Allahabad
Christian College for men and the Wanamaker School for girls. Dr.
A. H. Ewing is at the head of the former and Miss Foreman, the
daughter of an early missionary, at the head of the latter. Both of
these schools have been built with American money, Mr. Wanamaker
having been the most liberal patron. They are excellently located,
are doing a splendid work and are affiliated with the Presbyterian
Church. Fifty dollars will pay for the food, room, clothes and
tuition of one boy, while thirty dollars will provide for one
girl, and interested Americans have already established several
scholarships, but money is badly needed to enlarge the facilities of
both these schools.
[Illustration: HINDU GROUP]
We spent the Sabbath at Allahabad and visited both of these schools,
and our appreciation of their work was enhanced by our observation
at Benares. It seemed like an oasis in the desert. Surely those who
have helped to create this green spot--may it ever widen--will find
intense satisfaction in the good that these schools are doing and
will do.