At four o'clock in the morning we crossed the Vagrey and Girna, or
rather, comme coloris local, Shiva and Parvati. Probably, following the
bad example of the average mortal husband and wife, this divine couple
were engaged in a quarrel, even at this early hour of the day. They were
frightfully rough, and our ferry, striking on something at the bottom,
nearly upset us into the cold embrace of the god and his irate better
half.
Like all the cave temples of India, the Bagh caverns are dug out in the
middle of a vertical rock--with the intention, as it seems to me, of
testing the limits of human patience. Taking into consideration that
such a height does not prevent either glamour or tigers reaching the
caves, I cannot help thinking that the sole aim of the ascetic
builders was to tempt weak mortals into the sin of irritation by the
inaccessibility of their airy abodes. Seventy-two steps, cut out in the
rock, and covered with thorny weeds and moss, are the beginning of the
ascent to the Bagh caves. Footmarks worn in the stone through centuries
spoke of the numberless pilgrims who had come here before us. The
roughness of the steps, with deep holes here and there, and thorns,
added attractions to this ascent; join to this a number of mountain
springs exuding through the pores of the stone, and no one will be
astonished if I say that we simply felt faint under the weight of
life and our archeological difficulties. The Babu, who, taking off his
slippers, scampered over the thorns as unconcernedly as if he had hoofs
instead of vulnerable human heels, laughed at the "helplessness of
Europeans," and only made us feel worse.
But on reaching the top of the mountain we stopped grumbling, realizing
at the first glance that we should receive our reward. We saw a whole
enfilade of dark caves, through regular square openings, six feet wide.
We felt awestruck with the gloomy majesty of this deserted temple. There
was a curious ceiling over the square platform that once served as a
verandah; there was also a portico with broken pillars hanging over
our heads; and two rooms on each side, one with a broken image of some
flat-nosed goddess, the other containing a Ganesha; but we did not
stop to examine all this in detail. Ordering the torches to be lit, we
stepped into the first hall.
A damp breath as of the tomb met us. At our first word we all shivered:
a hollow, prolonged echoing howl, dying away in the distance, shook
the ancient vaults and made us all lower our voices to a whisper. The
torch-bearers shrieked "Devi!... Devi!..." and, kneeling in the dust,
performed a fervent puja in honor of the voice of the invisible goddess
of the caves, in spite of the angry protestations of Narayan and of the
"God's warrior."
The only light of the temple came from the entrance, and so two-thirds
of it looked still gloomier by contrast. This hall, or the central
temple, is very spacious, eighty--four feet square, and sixteen feet
high. Twenty-four massive pillars form a square, six pillars at each
side, including the corner ones, and four in the middle to prop up the
centre of the ceiling; otherwise it could not be kept from falling,
as the mass of the mountain which presses on it from the top is much
greater than in Karli or Elephanta.
There are at least three different styles in the architecture of
these pillars. Some of them are grooved in spirals, gradually and
imperceptibly changing from round to sixteen sided, then octagonal and
square. Others, plain for the first third of their height, gradually
finished under the ceiling by a most elaborate display of ornamentation,
which reminds one of the Corinthian style. The third with a square
plinth and semi-circular friezes. Taking it all in all, they made a most
original and graceful picture. Mr. Y----, an architect by profession,
assured us that he never saw anything more striking. He said he could
not imagine by the aid of what instruments the ancient builders could
accomplish such wonders.
The construction of the Bagh caves, as well as of all the cave temples
of India, whose history is lost in the darkness of time, is ascribed by
the European archeologists to the Buddhists, and by the native tradition
to the Pandu brothers. Indian paleography protests in every one of its
new discoveries against the hasty conclusions of the Orientalists.
And much may be said against the intervention of Buddhists in this
particular case. But I shall indicate only one particular. The theory
which declares that all the cave temples of India are of Buddhist origin
is wrong. The Orientalists may insist as much as they choose on the
hypothesis that the Buddhists became again idol-worshipers; it will
explain nothing, and contradicts the history of both Buddhists and
Brahmans. The Brahmans began persecuting and banishing the Buddhists
precisely because they had begun a crusade against idol-worship. The
few Buddhist communities who remained in India and deserted the pure,
though, maybe--for a shallow observer--somewhat atheistic teachings
of Gautama Siddhartha, never joined Brahmanism, but coalesced with the
Jainas, and gradually became absorbed in them. Then why not suppose that
if, amongst hundreds of Brahmanical gods, we find one statue of Buddha,
it only shows that the masses of half-converts to Buddhism added this
new god to the ancient Brahmanical temple. This would be much more
sensible than to think that the Buddhists of the two centuries before
and after the beginning of the Christian era dared to fill their temples
with idols, in defiance of the spirit of the reformer Gau-tama. The
figures of Buddha are easily discerned in the swarm of heathen gods;
their position is always the same, and the palm of its right hand is
always turned upwards, blessing the worshipers with two fingers. We
examined almost every remarkable vihara of the so-called Buddhist
temples, and never met with one statue of Buddha which could not have
been added in a later epoch than the construction of the temple; it does
not matter whether it was a year or a thousand years later. Not being
perfectly self-confident in this matter, we always took the opinion of
Mr. Y----, who, as I said before, was an experienced architect; and he
invariably came to the conclusion that the Brahmanical idols formed a
harmonic and genuine part of the whole, pillars, decorations, and
the general style of the temple; whereas the statue of Buddha was an
additional and discordant patch. Out of thirty or forty caves of Ellora,
all filled with idols, there is only one, the one called the Temple
of the Tri-Lokas, which contains nothing but statues of Buddha, and
of Ananda, his favourite disciple. Of course, in this case it would be
perfectly right to think it is a Buddhist vihara.
Most probably, some of the Russian archeologists will protest against
the opinions I maintain, that is to say, the opinions of the Hindu
archeologists, and will treat me as an ignoramus, outraging science. In
self-defence, and in order to show how unstable a ground to base one's
opinions upon are the conclusions even of such a great authority as Mr.
Fergusson, I must mention the following instance. This great architect,
but very mediocre archeologist, proclaimed at the very beginning of
his scientific career that "all the cave temples of Kanara, without
exception, were built between the fifth and the tenth centuries." This
theory became generally accepted, when suddenly Dr. Bird found a brass
plate in a certain Kanara monument, called a tope. The plate announced
in pure and distinct Sanskrit that this tope was erected as a homage
to the old temple, at the beginning of 245 of the Hindu astronomical
(Samvat) era. According to Prinsep and Dr. Stevenson, this date
coincides with 189 A.D., and so it clearly settles the question of when
the tope was built. But the question of the antiquity of the temple
itself still remains open, though the inscription states that it was
an old temple in 189 A.D., and contradicts the above-quoted opinion of
Fergusson. However, this important discovery failed to shake Fergusson's
equanimity. For him, ancient inscriptions are of no importance, because,
as he says, "the antiquity of ruins must not be fixed on the basis
of inscriptions, but on the basis of certain architectural canons and
rules," discovered by Mr. Fergusson in person. Fiat hypothesis, ruat
coelum!
And now I shall return to my narrative.
Straight before the entrance a door leads to another hall, which is
oblong, with hexagonal pillars and niches, containing statues in a
tolerable state of preservation; goddesses ten feet and gods nine feet
high. After this hall there is a room with an altar, which is a regular
hexagon, having sides each three feet long, and protected by a cupola
cut in the rock. Nobody was admitted here, except the initiates of the
mysteries of the adytum. All round this room there are about twenty
priests' cells. Absorbed in the examination of the altar, we did not
notice the absence of the colonel, till we heard his loud voice in the
distance calling to us:
"I have found a secret passage.... Come along, let us find where it
leads to!"
Torch in hand, the colonel was far ahead of us, and very eager to
proceed; but each of us had a little plan of his own, and so we were
reluctant to obey his summons. The Babu took upon himself to answer for
the whole party:
"Take care, colonel. This passage leads to the den of the glamour....
Mind the tigers!"
But once fairly started on the way to discoveries, our president was not
to be stopped. Nolens volens we followed him.
He was right; he had made a discovery; and on entering the cell we saw
a most unexpected tableau. By the opposite wall stood two torch-bearers
with their flaming torches, as motionless as if they were transformed
into stone caryatides; and from the wall, about five feet above the
ground, protruded two legs clad in white trousers. There was no body to
them; the body had disappeared, and but that the legs were shaken by
a convulsive effort to move on, we might have thought that the wicked
goddess of this place had cut the colonel into two halves, and having
caused the upper half instantly to evaporate, had stuck the lower half
to the wall, as a kind of trophy.
"What is become of you, Mr. President? Where are you?" were our alarmed
questions.
Instead of an answer, the legs were convulsed still more violently,
and soon disappeared completely, after which we heard the voice of the
colonel, as if coming through a long tube:
"A room... a secret cell.... Be quick! I see a whole row of rooms....
Confound it! my torch is out! Bring some matches and another torch!" But
this was easier said than done. The torch-bearers refused to go on;
as it was, they were already frightened out of their wits. Miss X----
glanced with apprehension at the wall thickly covered with soot and then
at her pretty gown. Mr. Y---- sat down on a broken pillar and said he
would go no farther, preferring to have a quiet smoke in the company of
the timid torch-bearers.
There were several vertical steps cut in the wall; and on the floor we
saw a large stone of such a curiously irregular shape that it struck
me that it could not be natural. The quick-eyed Babu was not long in
discovering its peculiarities, and said he was sure "it was the stopper
of the secret passage." We all hurried to examine the stone most
minutely, and discovered that, though it imitated as closely as possible
the irregularity of the rock, its under surface bore evident traces of
workmanship and had a kind of hinge to be easily moved. The hole was
about three feet high, but not more than two feet wide.
The muscular "God's warrior" was the first to follow the colonel. He was
so tall that when he stood on a broken pillar the opening came down to
the middle of his breast, and so he had no difficulty in transporting
himself to the upper story. The slender Babu joined him with a single
monkey-like jump. Then, with the Akali pulling from above and Narayan
pushing from below, I safely made the passage, though the narrowness of
the hole proved most disagreeable, and the roughness of the rock
left considerable traces on my hands. However trying archeological
explorations may be for a person afflicted by an unusually fine
presence, I felt perfectly confident that with two such Hercules-like
helpers as Narayan and Ram-Runjit-Das the ascent of the Himalayas would
be perfectly possible for me. Miss X---- came next, under the escort of
Mulji, but Mr. Y---- stayed behind.
The secret cell was a room of twelve feet square. Straight above the
black hole in the floor there was another in the ceiling, but this time
we did not discover any "stopper." The cell was perfectly empty with
the exception of black spiders as big as crabs. Our apparition,
and especially the bright light of the torches, maddened them;
panic-stricken they ran in hundreds over the walls, rushed down, and
tumbled on our heads, tearing their thin ropes in their inconsiderate
haste. The first movement of Miss X---- was to kill as many as she
could. But the four Hindus protested strongly and unanimously. The old
lady remonstrated in an offended voice:
"I thought that at least you, Mulji, were a reformer, but you are as
superstitious as any idol-worshiper."
"Above everything I am a Hindu," answered the "mute general." "And the
Hindus, as you know, consider it sinful before nature and before their
own consciences to kill an animal put to flight by the strength of man,
be it even poisonous. As to the spiders, in spite of their ugliness,
they are perfectly harmless."
"I am sure all this is because you think you will transmigrate into a
black spider!" she replied, her nostrils trembling with anger.
"I cannot say I do," retorted Mulji; "but if all the English ladies are
as unkind as you I should rather be a spider than an Englishman."
This lively answer coming from the usually taciturn Mulji was
so unexpected that we could not help laugh-ing. But to our great
discomfiture Miss X---- was seriously angry, and, under pretext of
giddiness, said she would rejoin Mr. Y---- below.
Her constant bad spirits were becoming trying for our cosmopolitan
little party, and so we did not press her to stay.
As to us we climbed through the second opening, but this time under the
leadership of Narayan. He disclosed to us that this place was not new to
him; he had been here before, and confided to us that similar rooms, one
on the top of the other, go up to the summit of the mountain. Then,
he said, they take a sudden turn, and descend gradually to a whole
underground palace, which is sometimes temporarily inhabited. Wishing
to leave the world for a while and to spend a few days in isolation, the
Raj-Yogis find perfect solitude in this underground abode. Our president
looked askance at Narayan through his spectacles, but did not find
anything to say. The Hindus also received this information in perfect
silence.
The second cell was exactly like the first one; we easily discovered the
hole in its ceiling, and reached the third cell. There we sat down for a
while. I felt that breathing was becoming difficult to me, but I thought
I was simply out of breath and tired, and so did not mention to my
companions that anything was wrong. The passage to the fourth cell was
almost stopped by earth mixed with little stones, and the gentlemen of
the party were busy clearing it out for about twenty minutes. Then we
reached the fourth cell.
Narayan was right, the cells were one straight over the other, and the
floor of the one formed the ceiling of the other. The fourth cell was
in ruins. Two broken pillars lying one on the other presented a very
convenient stepping-stone to the fifth story. But the colonel stopped
our zeal by saying that now was the time to smoke "the pipe of
deliberation" after the fashion of red Indians.
"If Narayan is not mistaken," he said, "this going up and up may
continue till tomorrow morning."
"I am not mistaken," said Narayan almost solemnly. But since my visit
here I have heard that some of these passages were filled with earth,
so that every communication is stopped; and, if I remember rightly, we
cannot go further than the next story."
"In that case there is no use trying to go any further. If the ruins are
so shaky as to stop the passages, it would be dangerous for us."
"I never said the passages were stopped by the hand of time.... They did
it on purpose...."
"Who they? Do you mean glamour?..."
"Colonel!" said the Hindu with an effort. "Don't laugh at what I say.
... I speak seriously."
"My dear fellow, I assure you my intention is neither to offend you nor
to ridicule a serious matter. I simply do not realize whom you mean when
you say they."
"I mean the brotherhood.... The Raj-Yogis. Some of them live quite close
to here."
By the dim light of the half-extinguished torches we saw that Narayan's
lips trembled and that his face grew pale as he spoke. The colonel
coughed, rearranged his spectacles and remained silent for a while.
"My dear Narayan," at last said the colonel, "I do not want to believe
that your intention is to make fun of our credulity. But I can't believe
either, that you seriously mean to assure us that any living creature,
be it an animal or an ascetic, could exist in a place where there is no
air. I paid special attention to the fact, and so I am perfectly sure I
am not mistaken: there is not a single bat in these cells, which shows
that there is a lack of air. And just look at our torches! you see how
dim they are growing. I am sure, that on climbing two or three more
rooms like this, we should be suffocated!"
"And in spite of all these facts, I speak the truth," repeated Narayan.
"The caves further on are inhabited by them. And I have seen them with
my own eyes."
The colonel grew thoughtful, and stood glancing at the ceiling in a
perplexed and undecided way. We all kept silent, breathing heavily.
"Let us go back!" suddenly shouted the Akali. "My nose is bleeding."
At this very moment I felt a strange and unexpected sensation, and
I sank heavily on the ground. In a second I felt an indescribably
delicious, heavenly sense of rest, in spite of a dull pain beating in my
temples. I vaguely realized that I had really fainted, and that I should
die if not taken out into the open air. I could not lift my finger; I
could not utter a sound; and, in spite of it, there was no fear in my
soul--nothing but an apathetic, but indescribably sweet feeling of rest,
and a complete inactivity of all the senses except hearing. A moment
came when even this sense forsook me, because I remember that I listened
with imbecile intentness to the dead silence around me. Is this death?
was my indistinct wondering thought. Then I felt as if mighty wings
were fanning me. "Kind wings, caressing, kind wings!" were the recurring
words in my brain, like the regular movements of a pendulum, and
interiorily under an unreasoning impulse, I laughed at these words. Then
I experienced a new sensation: I rather knew than felt that I was lifted
from the floor, and fell down and down some unknown precipice, amongst
the hollow rollings of a distant thunder-storm. Suddenly a loud voice
resounded near me. And this time I think I did not hear, but felt it.
There was something palpable in this voice, something that instantly
stopped my helpless descent, and kept me from falling any further.
This was a voice I knew well, but whose voice it was I could not in my
weakness remember.
In what way I was dragged through all these narrow holes will remain an
eternal mystery for me. I came to myself on the verandah below, fanned
by fresh breezes, and as suddenly as I had fainted above in the impure
air of the cell. When I recovered completely the first thing I saw was
a powerful figure clad in white, with a raven black Rajput beard,
anxiously leaning over me. As soon as I recognized the owner of this
beard, I could not abstain from expressing my feelings by a joyful
exclamation: "Where do you come from?" It was our friend Takur
Gulab-Lal-Sing, who, having promised to join us in the North-West
Provinces, now appeared to us in Bagh, as if falling from the sky or
coming out of the ground.
But my unfortunate accident, and the pitiable state of the rest of
the daring explorers, were enough to stop any further questions and
expressions of astonishment. On one side of me the frightened Miss
X----, using my nose as a cork for her sal-volatile bottle; on the other
the "God's warrior" covered with blood as if returning from a battle
with the Afghans; further on, poor Mulji with a dreadful headache.
Narayan and the colonel, happily for our party, did not experience
anything worse than a slight vertigo. As to the Babu, no carbonic acid
gas could inconvenience his wonderful Bengali nature. He said he was
safe and comfortable enough, but awfully hungry.
At last the outpour of entangled exclamations and unintelligible
explanations stopped, and I collected my thoughts and tried to
understand what had happened to me in the cave. Narayan was the first to
notice that I had fainted, and hastened to drag me back to the passage.
And this very moment they all heard the voice of Gulab-Sing coming from
the upper cell: "Tum-hare iha aneka kya kam tha?" "What on earth brought
you here?" Even before they recovered from their astonishment he ran
quickly past them, and descending to the cell beneath called to them to
"pass him down the bai" (sister). This "passing down" of such a solid
object as my body, and the picture of the proceeding, vividly imagined,
made me laugh heartily, and I felt sorry I had not been able to witness
it. Handing him over their half-dead load, they hastened to join the
Takur; but he contrived to do without their help, though how he did it
they were at a loss to understand. By the time they succeeded in getting
through one passage Gulab-Sing was already at the next one, in spite of
the heavy burden he carried; and they never were in time to be of any
assistance to him. The colonel, whose main feature is the tendency to go
into the details of everything, could not conceive by what proceedings
the Takur had managed to pass my almost lifeless body so rapidly through
all these narrow holes.
"He could not have thrown her down the passage before going in himself,
for every single bone of her body would have been broken," mused the
colonel. "And it is still less possible to suppose that, descending
first himself, he dragged her down afterwards. It is simply
incomprehensible!"
These questions harassed him for a long time afterwards, until they
became something like the puzzle: Which was created first, the egg or
the bird?
As to the Takur, when closely questioned, he shrugged his shoulders,
and answered that he really did not remember. He said that he simply
did whatever he could to get me out into the open air; that all our
traveling companions were there to watch his proceedings; he was under
their eyes all the time, and that in circumstances when every second is
precious people do not think, but act.
But all these questions arose only in the course of the day. As to the
time directly after I was laid down on the verandah, there were other
things to puzzle all our party; no one could understand how the Takur
happened to be on the spot exactly when his help was most needed, nor
where he came from--and everyone was anxious to know. On the verandah
they found me lying on a carpet, with the Takur busy restoring me to my
senses, and Miss X---- with her eyes wide open at the Takur, whom she
decidedly believed to be a materialized ghost.
However, the explanations our friend gave us seemed perfectly
satisfactory, and at first did not strike us as unnatural. He was in
Hardwar when Swami Dayanand sent us the letter which postponed our going
to him. On arriving at Kandua by the Indore railway, he had visited
Holkar; and, learning that we were so near, he decided to join us sooner
than he had expected. He had come to Bagh yesterday evening, but knowing
that we were to start for the caves early in the morning he went there
before us, and simply was waiting for us in the caves.
"There is the whole mystery for you," said he.
"The whole mystery?" exclaimed the colonel. "Did you know, then,
beforehand that we would discover the cells, or what?"
"No, I did not. I simply went there myself because it is a long time
since I saw them last. Examining them took me longer than I expected,
and so I was too late to meet you at the entrance."
"Probably the Takur-Sahib was enjoying the freshness of the air in the
cells," suggested the mischievous Babu, showing all his white teeth in a
broad grin.
Our president uttered an energetic exclamation. "Exactly! How on earth
did I not think of that before?... You could not possibly have any
breathing air in the cells above the one you found us in.... And,
besides,... how did you reach the fifth cell, when the entrance of the
fourth was nearly stopped and we had to dig it out?"
"There are other passages leading to them. I know all the turns and
corridors of these caves, and everyone is free to choose his way,"
answered Gulab-Sing; and I thought I saw a look of intelligence pass
between him and Narayan, who simply cowered under his fiery eyes.
"However, let us go to the cave where breakfast is ready for us. Fresh
air will do all of you good."
On our way we met with another cave, twenty or thirty steps south from
the verandah, but the Takur did not let us go in, fearing new accidents
for us. So we descended the stone steps I have already mentioned,
and after descending about two hundred steps towards the foot of the
mountain, made a short reascent again and entered the "dining-room,"
as the Babu denominated it. In my role of "interesting invalid," I was
carried to it, sitting in my folding chair, which never left me in all
my travels.
This temple is much the less gloomy of the two, in spite of considerable
signs of decay. The frescoes of the ceiling are better preserved than in
the first temple. The walls, the tumbled down pillars, the ceiling, and
even the interior rooms, which were lighted by ventilators cut through
the rock, were once covered by a varnished stucco, the secret of
which is now known only to the Madrasis, and which gives the rock the
appearance of pure marble.
We were met by the Takur's four servants, whom we remembered since our
stay in Karli, and who bowed down in the dust to greet us. The carpets
were spread, and the breakfast ready. Every trace of carbonic acid had
left our brains, and we sat down to our meal in the best of spirits.
Our conversation soon turned to the Hardwar Mela, which our
unexpectedly-recovered friend had left exactly five days ago. All the
information we got from Gulab-Lal-Sing was so interesting that I wrote
it down at the first opportunity.
After a few weeks we visited Hardwar ourselves, and since I saw it, my
memory has never grown tired of recalling the charming picture of its
lovely situation. It is as near a primitive picture of earthly Paradise
as anything that can be imagined.
Every twelfth year, which the Hindus call Kumbha, the planet Jupiter
enters the constellation of Aquarius, and this event is considered very
propitious for the beginning of the religious fair; for which this day
is accordingly fixed by the astrologers of the pagodas. This gathering
attracts the representatives of all sects, as I said before, from
princes and maharajas down to the last fakir. The former come for the
sake of religious discussions, the latter, simply to plunge into the
waters of Ganges at its very source, which must be done at a certain
propitious hour, fixed also by the position of the stars.
Ganges is a name invented in Europe. The natives always say Ganga, and
consider this river to belong strictly to the feminine sex. Ganges is
sacred in the eyes of the Hindus, because she is the most important of
all the fostering goddesses of the country, and a daughter of the old
Himavat (Himalaya), from whose heart she springs for the salvation of
the people. That is why she is worshiped, and why the city of Hardwar,
built at her very source, is so sacred.
Hardwar is written Hari-avara, the doorway of the sun-god, or Krishna,
and is also often called Gangadvara, the doorway of Ganga; there is
still a third name of the same town, which is the name of a certain
ascetic Kapela, or rather Kapila, who once sought salvation on this
spot, and left many miraculous traditions.
The town is situated in a charming flowery valley, at the foot of the
southern slope of the Sivalik ridge, between two mountain chains. In
this valley, raised 1,024 feet above the sea-level, the northern nature
of the Himalayas struggles with the tropical growth of the plains;
and, in their efforts to excel each other, they have created the most
delightful of all the delightful corners of India. The town itself is
a quaint collection of castle-like turrets of the most fantastical
architecture; of ancient viharas; of wooden fortresses, so gaily painted
that they look like toys; of pagodas, with loopholes and overhanging
curved little balconies; and all this over-grown by such abundance
of roses, dahlias, aloes and blossoming cactuses, that it is hardly
possible to tell a door from a window. The granite foundations of many
houses are laid almost in the bed of the river, and so, during four
months of the year, they are half covered with water. And behind
this handful of scattered houses, higher up the mountain slope, crowd
snow-white, stately temples. Some of them are low, with thick walls,
wide wings and gilded cupolas; others rise in majestical many-storied
towers; others again with shapely pointed roofs, which look like the
spires of a bell tower. Strange and capricious is the architecture of
these temples, the like of which is not to be seen anywhere else.
They look as if they had suddenly dropped from the snowy abodes of the
mountain spirits above, standing there in the shelter of the mother
mountain, and timidly peeping over the head of the small town below at
their own images reflected in the pure, untroubled waters of the sacred
river.
Here the Ganges is not yet polluted by the dirt and the sins of her
many million adorers. Releasing her worshipers, cleansed from her icy
embrace, the pure maiden of the mountains carries her transparent waves
through the burning plains of Hindostan; and only three hundred and
forty-eight miles lower down, on passing through Cawnpore, do her waters
begin to grow thicker and darker, while, on reaching Benares, they
transform themselves into a kind of peppery pea soup.
Once, while talking to an old Hindu, who tried to convince us that his
compatriots are the cleanest nation in the world, we asked him:
"Why is it then that, in the less populous places, the Ganges is pure
and transparent, whilst in Benares, especially towards evening, it looks
like a mass of liquid mud?"
"O sahibs!" answered he mournfully, "it is not the dirt of our bodies,
as you think, it is not even the blackness of our sins, that the devi
(goddess) washes away... Her waves are black with the sorrow and shame
of her children. Her feelings are sad and sorrowful; hidden suffering,
burning pain and humiliation, despair and shame at her own helplessness,
have been her lot for many past centuries. She has suffered all this
till her waters have become waves of black bile. Her waters are poisoned
and black, but not from physical causes. She is our mother, and how
could she help resenting the degradation we have brought ourselves to in
this dark age."
This sorrowful, poetical allegory made us feel very keenly for the poor
old man; but, however great our sympathy, we could not but suppose that
probably the woes of the maiden Ganga do not affect her sources. In
Hardwar the color of Ganges is crystal aqua marina, and the waters run
gaily murmuring to the shore-reeds about the wonders they saw on their
way from the Himalayas.
The beautiful river is the greatest and the purest of goddesses, in the
eyes of the Hindus; and many are the honors given to her in Hardwar.
Besides the Mela celebrated once every twelve years, there is a month in
every year when the pilgrims flock together to the Harika-Paira, stairs
of Vishnu. Whosoever succeeds in throwing himself first into the river,
at the appointed day, hour and moment, will not only expiate all his
sins, but also have all bodily sufferings removed. This zeal to be first
is so great that, owing to a badly-constructed and narrow stair leading
to the water, it used to cost many lives yearly, until, in 1819, the
East India Company, taking pity upon the pilgrims, ordered this ancient
relic to be removed, and a new stairway, one hundred feet wide, and
consisting of sixty steps, to be constructed.
The month when the waters of the Ganges are most salutary, falls,
according to the Brahmanical computation, between March 12th and April
10th, and is called Chaitra. The worst of it is that the waters are
at their best only at the first moment of a certain propitious hour,
indicated by the Brahmans, and which sometimes happens to be midnight.
You can fancy what it must be when this moment comes, in the midst of a
crowd which exceeds two millions. In 1819 more than four hundred people
were crushed to death. But even after the new stairs were constructed,
the goddess Ganga has carried away on her virgin bosom many a disfigured
corpse of her worshipers. Nobody pitied the drowned, on the contrary,
they were envied. Whoever happens to be killed during this purification
by bathing, is sure to go straight to Swarga (heaven). In 1760, the
two rival brotherhoods of Sannyasis and Bairagis had a regular battle
amongst them on the sacred day of Purbi, the last day of the religious
fair. The Bairagis were conquered, and there were eighteen thousand
people slaughtered.
"And in 1796," proudly narrated our warlike friend the Akali, "the
pilgrims from Punjab, all of them Sikhs, desiring to punish the
insolence of the Hossains, killed here about five hundred of these
heathens. My own grandfather took part in the fight!"
Later on we verified this in the Gazetteer of India, and the "God's
warrior" was cleared of every suspicion of exaggeration and boasting.
In 1879, however, no one was drowned, or crushed to death, but a
dreadful epidemic of cholera broke out. We were disgusted at this
impediment; but had to keep at a distance in spite of our impatience
to see Hardwar. And unable to behold distant summits of old Himavat
ourselves, we had in the meanwhile to be contented with what we could
hear about him from other people.
So we talked long after our breakfast under the cave vault was finished.
But our talk was not so gay as it might have been, because we had to
part with Ram-Runjit-Das, who was going to Bombay. The worthy Sikh shook
hands with us in the European way, and then raising his right hand gave
us his blessing, after the fashion of all the followers of Nanaka.
But when he approached the Takur to take leave of him, his countenance
suddenly changed. This change was so evident that we all noted it. The
Takur was sitting on the ground leaning on a saddle, which served him as
a cushion. The Akali did not attempt either to give him his blessing or
to shake hands with him. The proud expression of his face also
changed, and showed confusion and anxious humility instead of the usual
self-respect and self-sufficiency. The brave Sikh knelt down before
the Takur, and instead of the ordinary "Namaste!"--"Salutation to you,"
whispered reverently, as if addressing the Guru of the Golden Lake: "I
am your servant, Sadhu-Sahib! give me your blessing!"
Without any apparent reason or cause, we all felt self-conscious and
ill at ease, as if guilty of some indiscretion. But the face of the
mysterious Rajput remained as calm and as dispassionate as ever. He was
looking at the river before this scene took place, and slowly moved his
eyes to the Akali, who lay prostrated before him. Then he touched the
head of the Sikh with his index finger, and rose with the remark that we
also had better start at once, because it was getting late.
We drove in our carriage, moving very slowly because of the deep sand
which covers all this locality, and the Takur followed us on horseback
all the way. He told us the epic legends of Hardwar and Rajistan, of
the great deeds of the Hari-Kulas, the heroic princes of the solar race.
Hari means sun, and Kula family. Some of the Rajput princes belong to
this family, and the Maharanas of Oodeypur are especially proud of their
astronomical origin.
The name of Hari-Kula gives to some Orientalists ground to suppose that
a member of this family emigrated to Egypt in the remote epoch of the
first Pharaonic dynasties, and that the ancient Greeks, borrowing the
name as well as the traditions, thus formed their legends about the
mythological Hercules. It is believed that the ancient Egyptians adored
the sphinx under the name of Hari-Mukh, or the "sun on the horizon." On
the mountain chain which fringes Kashmir on the north, thirteen thousand
feet above the sea, there is a huge summit, which is exactly like a
head, and which bears the name of Harimukh. This name is also met with
in the most ancient of the Puranas. Besides, popular tradition considers
this Himalayan stone head to be the image of the setting sun.
Is it possible, then, that all these coincidences are only accidental?
And why is it that the Orientalists will not give it more serious
attention? It seems to me that this is a rich soil for future research,
and that it is no more to be explained by mere chance than the fact that
both Egypt and India held the cow sacred, and that the ancient Egyptians
had the same religious horror of killing certain animals, as the modern
Hindus.