What would be your choice if you had to choose between being blind and
being deaf? Nine people out of ten answer this question by positively
preferring deafness to blindness. And one whose good fortune it has been
to contemplate, even for a moment, some fantastic fairy-like corner of
India, this country of lace-like marble palaces and enchanting gardens,
would willingly add to deafness, lameness of both legs, rather than lose
such sights.
We are told that Saadi, the great poet, bitterly complained of his
friends looking tired and indifferent while he praised the beauty and
charm of his lady-love. "If the happiness of contemplating her wonderful
beauty," remonstrated he, "was yours, as it is mine, you could not
fail to understand my verses, which, alas, describe in such meagre and
inadequate terms the rapturous feelings experienced by every one who
sees her even from a distance!"
I fully sympathize with the enamoured poet, but cannot condemn his
friends who never saw his lady-love, and that is why I tremble lest my
constant rhapsodies on India should bore my readers as much as Saadi
bored his friends. But what, I pray you, is the poor narrator to do,
when new, undreamed-of charms are daily discovered in the lady-love
in question? Her darkest aspects, abject and immoral as they are, and
sometimes of such a nature as to excite your horror--even these aspects
are full of some wild poetry, of originality, which cannot be met with
in any other country. It is not unusual for a European novice to shudder
with disgust at some features of local everyday life; but at the same
time these very sights attract and fascinate the attention like a
horrible nightmare. We had plenty of these experiences whilst our ecole
buissoniere lasted. We spent these days far from railways and from any
other vestige of civilization. Happily so, because European civilization
does not suit India any better than a fashionable bonnet would suit a
half naked Peruvian maiden, a true "daughter of Sun," of Cortes' time.
All the day long we wandered across rivers and jungles, passing villages
and ruins of ancient fortresses, over local-board roads between Nassik
and Jubblepore, traveling with the aid of bullock cars, elephants,
horses, and very often being carried in palks. At nightfall we put up
our tents and slept anywhere. These days offered us an opportunity
of seeing that man decidedly can surmount trying and even dangerous
conditions of climate, though, perhaps, in a passive way, by mere force
of habit. In the afternoons, when we, white people, were very nearly
fainting with the roasting heat, in spite of thick cork topis and such
shelter as we could procure, and even our native companions had to use
more than the usual supplies of muslin round their heads--the Bengali
Babu traveled on horseback endless miles, under the vertical rays of the
hot sun, bareheaded, protected only by his thick crop of hair. The sun
has no influence whatever on Bengali skulls. They are covered only on
solemn occasions, in cases of weddings and great festivities. Their
turbans are useless adornments, like flowers in a European lady's hair.
Bengali Babus are born clerks; they invade all railroad stations, post
and telegraph offices and Government law courts. Wrapped in their
white muslin toga virilis, their legs bare up to the knees, their heads
unprotected, they proudly loaf on the platforms of railway stations, or
at the entrances of their offices, casting contemptuous glances on the
Mahrattis, who dearly love their numerous rings and lovely earrings in
the upper part of their right ears. Bengalis, unlike the rest of the
Hindus, do not paint sectarian signs on their foreheads. The only
trinket they do not completely despise is an expensive necklace; but
even this is not common. Contrary to all expectations, the Mahrattis,
with all their little effeminate ways, are the bravest tribe of India,
gallant and experienced soldiers, a fact which has been demonstrated
by centuries of fighting; but Bengal has never as yet produced a single
soldier out of its sixty-five million inhabitants. Not a single Bengali
is to be found in the native regiments of the British army. This is a
strange fact, which I refused to believe at first, but which has been
confirmed by many English officers and by Bengalis themselves. But with
all this, they are far from being cowardly. Their wealthy classes do
lead a somewhat effeminate life, but their zemindars and peasantry are
undoubtedly brave. Disarmed by their present Government, the Bengali
peasants go out to meet the tiger, which in their country is more
ferocious than elsewhere, armed only with a club, as composedly as they
used to go with rifles and swords.
Many out-of-the-way paths and groves which most probably had never
before been trodden by a European foot, were visited by us during these
short days. Gulab-Lal-Sing was absent, but we were accompanied by a
trusted servant of his, and the welcome we met with almost everywhere
was certainly the result of the magic influence of his name. If the
wretched, naked peasants shrank from us and shut their doors at our
approach, the Brahmans were as obliging as could be desired.
The sights around Kandesh, on the way to Thalner and Mhau, are very
picturesque. But the effect is not entirely due to Nature's beauty. Art
has a good deal to do with it, especially in Mussulman cemeteries. Now
they are all more or less destroyed and deserted, owing to the increase
of the Hindu inhabitants around them, and to the Mussulman princes, once
the rightful lords of India, being expelled. Mussulmans of the present
day are badly off and have to put up with more humiliations than even
the Hindus. But still they have left many memorials behind them, and,
amongst others, their cemeteries. The Mussulman fidelity to the dead is
a very touching feature of their character. Their devotion to those
that are gone is always more demonstrative than their affection for
the living members of their families, and almost entirely concentrates
itself on their last abodes. In proportion as their notions of paradise
are coarse and material, the appearance of their cemeteries is poetical,
especially in India. One may pleasantly spend whole hours in these
shady, delightful gardens, amongst their white monuments crowned with
turbans, covered with roses and jessamine and sheltered with rows of
cypresses. We often stopped in such places to sleep and dine. A cemetery
near Thalner is especially attractive. Out of several mausoleums in a
good state of preservation the most magnificent is the monument of the
family of Kiladar, who was hanged on the city tower by the order of
General Hislop in 1818. Four other mausoleums attracted our attention
and we learned that one of them is celebrated throughout India. It is a
white marble octagon, covered from top to bottom with carving, the
like of which could not be found even in Pere La Chaise. A Persian
inscription on its base records that it cost one hundred thousand
rupees.
By day, bathed in the hot rays of the sun, its tall minaret-like outline
looks like a block of ice against the blue sky. By night, with the aid
of the intense, phosphorescent moonlight proper to India, it is still
more dazzling and poetical. The summit looks as if it were covered with
freshly fallen snow-crystals. Raising its slender profile above the dark
background of bushes, it suggests some pure midnight apparition, soaring
over this silent abode of destruction and lamenting what will never
return. Side by side with these cemeteries rise the Hindu ghats,
generally by the river bank. There really is something grand in the
ritual of burning the dead. Witnessing this ceremony the spectator is
struck with the deep philosophy underlying the fundamental idea of this
custom. In the course of an hour nothing remains of the body but a
few handfuls of ashes. A professional Brahman, like a priest of death,
scatters these ashes to the winds over a river. The ashes of what once
lived and felt, loved and hated, rejoiced and wept, are thus given back
again to the four elements: to Earth, which fed it during such a long
time and out of which it grew and developed; to Fire, emblem of purity,
that has just devoured the body in order that the spirit may be rid
of everything impure, and may freely gravitate to the new sphere of
posthumous existence, where every sin is a stumbling block on the way to
"Moksha," or infinite bliss; to Air, which it inhaled and through which
it lived, and to Water, which purified it physically and spiritually,
and is now to receive its ashes into her pure bosom.
The adjective "pure" must be understood in the figurative sense of the
mantram. Generally speaking, the rivers of India, beginning with the
thrice sacred Ganges, are dreadfully dirty, especially near villages and
towns.
In these rivers about two hundred millions of people daily cleanse
themselves from the tropical perspiration and dirt. The corpses of
those who are not worth burning are thrown in the same rivers, and their
number is great, because it includes all Shudras, pariahs, and various
other outcasts, as well as Brahman children under three years of age.
Only rich and high-born people are buried pompously. It is for them that
the sandal-wood fires are lit after sunset; it is for them that mantrams
are chanted, and for them that the gods are invoked. But Shudras must
not listen on any account to the divine words dictated at the beginning
of the world by the four Rishis to Veda Vyasa, the great theologian of
Aryavarta. No fires for them, no prayers. As during his life a Shudra
never approaches a temple nearer than seven steps, so even after death
he cannot be put on the same level with the "twice-born."
Brightly burn the fires, extending like a fiery serpent along the river.
The dark outlines of strange, wildly-fantastical figures silently move
amongst the flames. Sometimes they raise their arms towards the sky, as
if in a prayer, sometimes they add fuel to the fires and poke them with
long iron pitchforks. The dying flames rise high, creeping and dancing,
sputtering with melted human fat and shooting towards the sky whole
showers of golden sparks, which are instantly lost in the clouds of
black smoke.
This on the right side of the river. Let us now see what is going on
on the left. In the early hours of the morning, when the red fires, the
black clouds of miasmas, and the thin figures of the fakirs grow dim and
vanish little by little, when the smell of burned flesh is blown away by
the fresh wind which rises at the approach of the dawn, when, in a word,
the right side of the river with its ghotas plunges into stillness
and silence, to be reawakened when the evening comes, processions of a
different kind appear on the left bank. We see groups of Hindu men and
women in sad, silent trains. They approach the river quietly. They
do not cry, and have no rituals to perform. We see two men carrying
something long and thin, wrapped in an old red rug. Holding it by the
head and feet they swing it into the dirty, yellowish waves of the
river. The shock is so violent that the red rug flies open and we behold
the face of a young woman tinged with dark green, who quickly disappears
in the river. Further on another group; an old man and two young women.
One of them, a little girl of ten, small, thin, hardly fully developed,
sobs bitterly. She is the mother of a stillborn child, whose body is to
be thrown in the river. Her weak voice monotonously resounds over the
shore, and her trembling hands are not strong enough to lift the poor
little corpse that is more like a tiny brown kitten than a human being.
The old man tries to console her, and, taking the body in his own hands,
enters the water and throws it right in the middle. After him both the
women get into the river, and, having plunged seven times to purify
themselves from the touch of a dead body, they return home, their
clothes dripping with wet. In the meanwhile vultures, crows and other
birds of prey gather in thick clouds and considerably retard the
progress of the bodies down the river. Occasionally some half-stripped
skeleton is caught by the reeds, and stranded there helplessly for
weeks, until an outcast, whose sad duty it is to busy himself all his
life long with such unclean work, takes notice of it, and catching it
by the ribs with his long hook, restores it to its highway towards the
ocean.
But let us leave the river bank, which is unbearably hot in spite of
the early hour. Let us bid good-bye to the watery cemetery of the poor.
Disgusting and heart-rending are such sights in the eyes of a European!
And unconsciously we allow the light wings of reverie to transport us
to the far North, to the peaceful village cemeteries where there are no
marble monuments crowned with turbans, no sandal-wood fires, no dirty
rivers to serve the purpose of a last resting place, but where humble
wooden crosses stand in rows, sheltered by old birches. How peacefully
our dead repose under the rich green grass! None of them ever saw these
gigantic palms, sumptuous palaces and pagodas covered with gold. But
on their poor graves grow violets and lilies of the valley, and in the
spring evenings nightingales sing to them in the old birch-trees.
No nightingales ever sing for me, either in the neighboring groves, or
in my own heart. The latter least of all.----
Let us stroll along this wall of reddish stone. It will lead us to a
fortress once celebrated and drenched with blood, now harmless and half
ruined, like many another Indian fortress. Flocks of green parrots,
startled by our approach, fly from under every cavity of the old wall,
their wings shining in the sun like so many flying emeralds. This
territory is accursed by Englishmen. This is Chandvad, where, during
the Sepoy mutiny, the Bhils streamed from their ambuscades like a mighty
mountain torrent, and cut many an English throat.
Tatva, an ancient Hindu book, treating of the geography of the times
of King Asoka (250-300 B.C.), teaches us that the Mahratti territory
spreads up to the wall of Chandvad or Chandor, and that the Kandesh
country begins on the other side of the river. But English people do
not believe in Tatva or in any other authority and want us to learn that
Kandesh begins right at the foot of Chandor hillocks.----
Twelve miles south-east from Chandvad there is a whole town of
subterranean temples, known under the name of Enkay-Tenkay. Here, again,
the entrance is a hundred feet from the base, and the hill is pyramidal.
I must not attempt to give a full description of these temples, as this
subject must be worked out in a way quite impossible in a newspaper
article. So I shall only note that here all the statues, idols, and
carvings are ascribed to Buddhist ascetics of the first centuries after
the death of Buddha. I wish I could content myself with this statement.
But, unfortunately, messieurs les archeologues meet here with an
unexpected difficulty, and a more serious one than all the difficulties
brought on them by the inconsistencies of all other temples put
together.
In these temples there are more idols designated Buddhas than anywhere
else. They cover the main entrance, sit in thick rows along the
balconies, occupy the inner walls of the cells, watch the entrances
of all the doors like monster giants, and two of them sit in the chief
tank, where spring water washes them century after century without any
harm to their granite bodies. Some of these Buddhas are decently clad,
with pyramidal pagodas as their head gear; others are naked; some sit,
others stand; some are real colossi, some tiny, some of middle size.
However, all this would not matter; we may go so far as to overlook the
fact of Gautama's or Siddhartha-Buddha's reform consisting precisely in
his earnest desire to tear up by the roots the Brahmanical idol-worship.
Though, of course, we cannot help remembering that his religion remained
pure from idol-worship of any kind during centuries, until the Lamas of
Tibet, the Chinese, the Burmese, and the Siamese taking it into their
lands disfigured it, and spoilt it with heresies. We cannot forget that,
persecuted by conquer-ing Brahmans, and expelled from India, it
found, at last, a shelter in Ceylon where it still flourishes like the
legendary aloe, which is said to blossom once in its lifetime and then
to die, as the root is killed by the exuberance of blossom, and the
seeds cannot produce anything but weeds. All this we may overlook, as I
said before. But the difficulty of the archaeologists still exists, if
not in the fact of idols being ascribed to early Buddhists, then in the
physiognomies, in the type of all these Enkay-Tenkay Buddhas. They all,
from the tiniest to the hugest, are Negroes, with flat noses, thick
lips, forty five degrees of the facial angle, and curly hair! There
is not the slightest likeness between these Negro faces and any of the
Siamese or Tibetan Buddhas, which all have purely Mongolian features
and perfectly straight hair. This unexpected African type, unheard of in
India, upsets the antiquarians entirely. This is why the archaeologists
avoid mentioning these caves. Enkay-Tenkay is a worse difficulty for
them than even Nassik; they find it as hard to conquer as the Persians
found Thermopylae.
We passed by Maleganva and Chikalval, where we examined an exceedingly
curious ancient temple of the Jainas. No cement was used in the building
of its outer walls, they consist entirely of square stones, which are so
well wrought and so closely joined that the blade of the thinnest knife
cannot be pushed between two of them; the interior of the temple is
richly decorated.
On our way back we did not stop in Thalner, but went straight on to
Ghara. There we had to hire elephants again to visit the splendid ruins
of Mandu, once a strongly fortified town, about twenty miles due north
east of this place. This time we got there speedily and safely. I
mention this place because some time later I witnessed in its vicinity a
most curious sight, offered by the branch of the numerous Indian rites,
which is generally called "devil worship."
Mandu is situated on the ridge of the Vindhya Mountains, about two
thousand feet above the surface of the sea. According to Malcolm's
statement, this town was built in A.D. 313, and for a long time was the
capital of the Hindu Rajas of Dhara. The historian Ferishtah points to
Mandu as the residence of Dilivan-Khan-Ghuri, the first King of Malwa,
who flourished in 1387-1405. In 1526 the town was taken by Bahadur-Shah,
King of Gujerat, but in 1570 Akbar won this town back, and a marble slab
over the town gate still bears his name and the date of his visit.
On entering this vast city in its present state of solitude (the natives
call it the "dead town") we all experienced a peculiar feeling, not
unlike the sensation of a man who enters Pompeii for the first time.
Everything shows that Mandu was once one of the wealthiest towns of
India. The town wall is thirty-seven miles long. Streets ran whole
miles, on their sides stand ruined palaces, and marble pillars lie on
the ground. Black excavations of the subterranean halls, in the coolness
of which rich ladies spent the hottest hours of the day, peer from under
dilapidated granite walls. Further on are broken stairs, dry tanks,
waterless fountains, endless empty yards, marble platforms, and
disfigured arches of majestic porches. All this is overgrown with
creepers and shrubs, hiding the dens of wild beasts. Here and there a
well-preserved wall of some palace rises high above the general wreck,
its empty windows fringed with parasitic plants blinking and staring at
us like sightless eyes, protesting against troublesome intruders. And
still further, in the very centre of the ruins, the heart of the dead
town sends forth a whole crop of broken cypresses, an untrimmed grove
on the place where heaved once so many breasts and clamoured so many
passions.
In 1570 this town was called Shadiabad, the abode of happiness. The
Franciscan missionaries, Adolf Aquaviva, Antario de Moncerotti, and
others, who came here in that very year as an embassy from Goa to seek
various privileges from the Mogul Government, described it over and over
again. At this epoch it was one of the greatest cities of the world,
whose magnificent streets and luxurious ways used to astonish the most
pompous courts of India. It seems almost incredible that in such a short
period nothing should remain of this town but the heaps of rubbish,
amongst which we could hardly find room enough for our tent. At last we
decided to pitch it in the only building which remained in a tolerable
state of preservation, in Yami-Masjid, the cathedral-mosque, on a
granite platform about twenty-five steps higher than the square. The
stairs, constructed of pure marble like the greater part of the town
buildings, are broad and almost untouched by time, but the roof has
entirely disappeared, and so we were obliged to put up with the stars
for a canopy. All round this building runs a low gallery supported by
several rows of thick pillars. From a distance it reminds one, in spite
of its being somewhat clumsy and lacking in proportion, of the Acropolis
of Athens. From the stairs, where we rested for a while, there was a
view of the mausoleum of Gushanga-Guri, King of Malwa, in whose reign
the town was at the culmination of its brilliancy and glory. It is a
massive, majestic, white marble edifice, with a sheltered peristyle and
finely carved pillars. This peristyle once led straight to the palace,
but now it is surrounded with a deep ravine, full of broken stones and
overgrown with cacti. The interior of the mausoleum is covered with
golden lettering of inscriptions from the Koran, and the sarcophagus
of the sultan is placed in the middle. Close by it stands the palace
of Baz-Bahadur, all broken to pieces--nothing now but a heap of dust
covered with trees.
We spent the whole day visiting these sad remains, and returned to
our sheltering place a little before sunset, exhausted with hunger
and thirst, but triumphantly carrying on our sticks three huge snakes,
killed on our way home. Tea and supper were waiting for us. To our great
astonishment we found visitors in the tent. The Patel of the neighboring
village--something between a tax-collector and a judge--and two
zemindars (land owners) rode over to present us their respects and to
invite us and our Hindu friends, some of whom they had known previously,
to accompany them to their houses. On hearing that we intended to spend
the night in the "dead town" they grew awfully indignant. They assured
us it was highly dangerous and utterly impossible. Two hours later
hyenas, tigers, and other beasts of prey were sure to come out from
under every bush and every ruined wall, without mentioning thousands
of jackals and wild cats. Our elephants would not stay, and if they did
stay no doubt they would be devoured. We ought to leave the ruins as
quickly as possible and go with them to the nearest village, which would
not take us more than half an hour. In the village everything had been
prepared for us, and our friend the Babu was already there, and getting
impatient at our delay.
Only on hearing this did we become aware that our bareheaded and
cautious friend was conspicuous by his absence. Probably he had left
some time ago, without consulting us, and made straight to the village
where he evidently had friends. Sending for us was a mere trick of his.
But the evening was so sweet, and we felt so comfortable, that the idea
of upsetting all our plans for the morning was not at all attractive.
Besides, it seemed quite ridiculous to think that the ruins, amongst
which we had wandered several hours without meeting anything more
dangerous than a snake, swarmed with wild animals. So we smiled and
returned thanks, but would not accept the invitation.
"But you positively must not dare to stay here," insisted the fat Patel.
"In case of accident, I shall be responsible for you to the Government.
Is it possible you do not dread a sleepless night spent in fighting
jackals, if not something worse? You do not believe that you are
surrounded with wild animals..... It is true they are invisible until
sunset, but nevertheless they are dangerous. If you do not believe us,
believe the instinct of your elephants, who are as brave as you, but a
little more reasonable. Just look at them!"
We looked. Truly, our grave, philosophic-looking elephants behaved very
strangely at this moment. Their lifted trunks looked like huge points of
interrogation. They snorted and stamped restively. In another minute one
of them tore the thick rope, with which he was tied to a broken pillar,
made a sudden volte-face with all his heavy body, and stood against the
wind, sniffing the air. Evidently he perceived some dangerous animal in
the neighborhood.
The colonel stared at him through his spectacles and whistled very
meaningly.
"Well, well," remarked he, "what shall we do if tigers really assault
us?"
"What shall we do indeed?" was my thought. "Takur Gulab-Lal-Sing is not
here to protect us."
Our Hindu companions sat on the carpet after their oriental fashion,
quietly chewing betel. On being asked their opinion, they said they
would not interfere with our decision, and were ready to do exactly as
we liked. But as for the European portion of our party, there was no use
concealing the fact that we were frightened, and we speedily prepared to
start. Five minutes later we mounted the elephants, and, in a quarter
of an hour, just when the sun disappeared behind the mountain and heavy
darkness instantaneously fell, we passed the gate of Akbar and descended
into the valley.
We were hardly a quarter of a mile from our abandoned camping place when
the cypress grove resounded with shrieking howls of jackals, followed
by a well-known mighty roar. There was no longer any possibility
of doubting. The tigers were disappointed at our escape. Their
discontentment shook the very air, and cold perspiration stood on
our brows. Our elephant sprang forward, upsetting the order of our
procession and threatening to crush the horses and their riders before
us. We ourselves, however, were out of danger. We sat in a strong
howdah, locked as in a dungeon.
"It is useless to deny that we have had a narrow escape!" remarked the
colonel, looking out of the window at some twenty servants of the Patel,
who were busily lighting torches.