which throng the streets and temples of Benares that one may
realize the vital force which Brahminism exercises in India.
Next to Mohammedanism it is the livest and most influential and
practical of all religions. The devotee lives and breathes and
feels his faith. It enters every experience of his career, it
governs every act, and compared with Brahminism, Christianity
is perfunctory and exercises practically little control over
its believers. Yet Christianity has come here, as it has entered
all the other sacred cities of India, and under the very shadow
of the Hindu holy of holies, within the circle that bounds the
favored gate of heaven, it has set up and maintained several
of the most prosperous and well attended schools in India. The
government has established a college of high standard in a handsome
gothic building, which many consider the best in India. And all
agree that it is an admirable institution. It has about seven
hundred students and teaches modern sciences which contradict
every principle that the Brahmins propose. There is also a school
there for the higher education of women with about 600 students,
maintained by the Maharaja of Vizianagram, a learned and progressive
Hindu prince, who has large estates in the neighborhood, and
there are several other distinctly modern institutions in whose
light Brahminism cannot live. They are growing and it is slowly
decaying. The number of devotees and pilgrims who come there is
still enormous, but those who have the best means of knowing
declare that it is smaller every year. But while the decrease is
comparatively small, its significance is great, and so great that
prominent Brahmins have recently held a conference to consider
what shall be done to protect the faith and defend it against
the vigorous assaults of the school teachers, the missionaries
and the materialists.
It does not take Hindus long to learn that the teachings of their
priests do not conform to the conditions of modern civilization,
and that their practices are not approved by those who believe
in modern standards of morals. It is difficult for an educated
man to adhere to or accept the teachings of the Hindu priests
while their practices are absolutely repugnant to him. The church,
therefore, if it may be called a church, must be reformed, and
its practices must be revised, if the decay which is now going
on is ever arrested.
Several religions have been born and bred and have died in Benares.
Vedic, Moslem, Buddhist, Brahmin have been nursed and flourished and
have decayed within the same walls. It is impossible to ascertain
when the Ganges was first worshiped, or when people began to build
temples upon its banks, or when Benares first became sacred.
Water was one of the first objects worshiped; the fertilizing and
life giving influence of a stream was one of the first phenomena
of nature recognized. Ganga, the beautiful heroine of a Hindu
legend, is supposed to have lived at the source of the water to
which her name is given, and the river is often represented as
flowing from the head of Siva, the chief deity of the Brahmins,
the most repulsive, the most cruel, the most vicious of all the
gods.
Siva is at once the generator and the destroyer. He represents
time, the sun, water, fire and practically all the mysteries of
nature, and Benares is the center of his influence and worship.
The temple which attracts the most pilgrims is dedicated to him.
The "Well of Knowledge," which is in the courtyard of the Golden
Temple, is his chosen residence, and is resorted to by every pilgrim
who drinks the putrid water from a ladle with which it is dipped
up by the attendant priest. All around the Golden Temple are other
temples and shrines dedicated to other gods, but Siva is supreme,
and before his image is the kneeling bull, the common symbol of
Phallic worship as represented in the legend of Europe. Siva's
hair is a bunch of snakes, serpents wind around his neck, arms,
waist and legs; a crescent is stamped upon his forehead, which
was the chief symbol of the ancient cult of Arabia destroyed by
Mohamet Aurangzeb, one of the Mogul emperors, who was a Mohammedan
fanatic. He came here in the middle of his reign, destroyed half
the Hindu temples and upon the ruins of the oldest and the finest
shrine of Siva erected a mosque which still stands and its slender
minarets almost pierce the sky. This mosque was thrust into the
most sacred place of Hindu worship as an insult to the Brahmins,
but the latter are more tolerant, and though they are very largely
in the majority and control everything there, they permit it
to stand untouched, but the worshipers of Islam are compelled
to enter it through a side door. This, however, is due more to
a desire to preserve the peace and prevent collisions between
fanatics and fakirs than for any other reason.
The great temple of Siva, the Golden Temple, is not imposing. It
is a small building with a low dome in the center and a smaller
dome at each corner, above which rises an artistic tower. These
and the roof are covered with beaten gold; hence the name of the
temple. None but Hindus are permitted to cross the threshold,
but strangers are permitted to block up the entrance and see
everything that is going on inside. It is crowded with priests,
pilgrims and sacred bulls and cows. The floor is covered with
filth, the air is fetid and the atmosphere all around it reeks
with offensive odors, suggesting all kinds of disease. There is
always a policeman to protect strangers from injury or insult,
and if you give the priests a little backsheesh they will look
out for you.
Benares is the seventh city in size in India. Ten years ago it
was fifth, but between the years 1891 and 1901 the population
was reduced 10,000 inhabitants by cholera, famine and plague,
and it dropped down two pegs in the list. It is a miracle that
the entire population does not perish, because, notwithstanding
the cautions and efforts of the government, every sanitary law
is violated by thousands of people daily. The temples and other
places frequented by pilgrims are filthy hotbeds of disease, and
the water they drink from the holy wells is absolutely putrid,
so that the odor can be detected a considerable distance. And
yet half a million devotees from every part of India come here
annually, and not only drink the poisonous stuff, but bathe in
the polluted river and carry back to their homes bottles of it
carefully corked and labeled, which the doctors tell us is an
absolutely certain method of distributing disease. While almost
all the large cities of India increased in population during the
the last decade, Bombay and Benares fell off, the former from
plagues and famine and the latter from all kinds of contagious
and other diseases.
It is a city of great wealth and has many handsome and costly
palaces and mansions which have been erected there by pious Hindu
princes, rajahs, merchants, bankers and others who spend a part of
each year within its sacred precincts, renewing their relations
with the gods just as other people go to the springs and seashore
to restore their physical vitality. The residential architecture
is picturesque but not artistic. The houses are frequently of
fantastic designs, and are painted in gay colors and covered with
carvings that are often grotesque. They have galleries around
them, and broad overhanging eaves to keep out the rays of the
sun, and many of them are set in the midst of attractive groves
and gardens. Some of the modern buildings are very fine. There
is plenty of room for the display of landscape gardening as well
as architecture, but the former has been neglected. The one thing
that strikes a stranger and almost bewilders him is the vivid
colors. They seem unnatural and inappropriate for a sacred city,
but are not more incongruous than other features.
The streets in the outer part of the city are wide, well paved
and well shaded. The business portion of the town, where the
natives chiefly live, is a wilderness of narrow streets hemmed
in with shops, factories, dwelling houses, temples, shrines,
restaurants, cafes and boarding houses for pilgrims. Every shop
is open to the street, and the shelves are bright with brass,
silver and copper vessels and gaily painted images of the gods
which are purchased by the pilgrims and other visitors. Benares
is famous all over the world for its brass work and its silks.
Half the shops in town are devoted to the sale of brass vessels
of various kinds, chiefly bowls of many forms and styles which
are required by the pilgrims in performing their religious duties.
In addition to these there are a hundred different varieties of
domestic and sacred utensils, many of them beautifully chased
and engraved, and they are sold to natives at prices that seem
absurd, but foreigners are expected to pay much more. Indeed,
every purchase is a matter of prolonged negotiation. The merchant
fixes his price very high and then lowers it gradually as he
thinks discreet, according to the behavior of his customer.
Handmade silks from looms in the cottages of the peasants can
still be purchased in Benares and they wear forever. Some are
coarse, and some are fine, but they are all peculiar to this
place and cannot be purchased elsewhere because the product is
limited and merchants cannot buy them in sufficient quantity to
make a profitable trade. The heavier qualities of silk are used
chiefly for men's clothing. They wash like linen, they never wear
out and are cool and comfortable. The brocades of Benares are
equally famous, and are used chiefly for the ceremonial dresses
of the rich and fashionable. Sometimes they are woven of threads
of pure gold and weigh as much as an armor. These are of course
very expensive, and are usually sold by weight. Very little account
is taken of the labor expended upon them, although the designs
and the workmanship are exquisite, because the weavers and
embroiderers are paid only a few cents a day. Beside these heavy
fabrics are costly tissues as fine as spiders' webs, also woven
of silver and gold and silk and linen. They are used by the women
as head dresses and scarfs and rich men use them for turbans.
Sometimes an Indian noble will have seventy or eighty yards of this
delicate gossamer wound about his head and the ends, beautifully
embroidered, with long fringes of gold, hang gracefully down upon
the shoulders.
It is almost impossible to go through the narrow streets of Benares
in the middle of the day, because they are so crowded with men,
women, children, priests, pilgrims, peddlers, beggars, mangy
dogs, sacred cows, fat and lazy bulls dedicated to Siva, and
other animate and inanimate obstructions. It seems to be the
custom for people to live and work in the streets. A family dining
will occupy half the roadway as they squat around their brass
bowls and jars and cram the rice and millet and curry into their
mouths with their fingers. The lower classes of Hindus never
use tables, knives or forks. The entire family eats out of the
same dish, while the dogs hang around waiting for morsels and a
sacred cow is apt to poke its nose into the circle at any time.
The street is often blocked up by a carpenter who is mending a
cabinet or putting a new board into a floor.
A little farther along a barber may be engaged in shaving the
face and head of some customer. Both of them are squatting face
to face, as often in the middle of the road as elsewhere, and
with bowls, razors, soap, bottles and other appurtenances of
the trade spread out between them. Barbers rank next to priests
in the religious aristocracy, and, as it is forbidden by the
Brahmins for a man to shave himself, they are of much importance
in the villages. Houses are usually set apart for them to live
in just as we furnish parsonages for our ministers. The village
barber has certain rights and exemptions that are not enjoyed by
other people. He is not required to do military service in the
native states; he does not have to pay taxes, and all members
of his caste have a monopoly of their business, which the courts
have sustained. The Brahmins also require that a man must be
shaved fasting.
Another matter of great importance which the barbers have to
do with is a little tuft of hair that is allowed to grow from
the top of the head of a child when all the rest of the scalp
is shaven. This is a commendable precaution, and is almost
universally taken in the interest of children, the scalp lock
being necessary to snatch the child away from the devil and other
evil spirits when it is in danger from those sources. As the
person grows older and capable of looking after himself this
precaution is not so important, although many people wear the
scalp lock or sacred topknot through life.
The sacred thread is even of greater importance in Hinduism,
and the Brahmins require that each child shall be invested with
it in his eighth year. Until that year also he must bear upon
his forehead the sign of his caste, which Ryas, our bearer, calls
"the god mark." The sacred thread is a fine silk cord, fastened
over the left shoulder, hanging down under the right arm like
a sash. None but the two highest castes have the right to wear
it, although members of the lower castes are even more careful
to do so. It is put on a child by the priest or the parent on
its eighth birthday with ceremonies similar and corresponding
to those of our baptism. After the child has been bathed and its
head has been carefully shaved it is dressed in new garments,
the richest that the family can afford. The priest or godfather
ties on the sacred thread and teaches the child a brief Sanskrit
text called a mantra, some maxim or proverb, or perhaps it may be
only the name of a deity which is to be kept a profound secret
and repeated 108 times daily throughout life. The deity selected
serves the child through life as a patron saint and protector.
Frequently the village barber acts in the place of a priest and
puts on the sacred thread. A similar thread placed around the
neck of a child, and often around its waist by the midwife
immediately after birth, is intended as an amulet or charm to
protect from disease and danger. It is usually a strand of silk
which has been blessed by some holy man or sanctified by being
placed around the neck of an idol of recognized sanctity.
The streets of the native quarters of Indian cities are filled
with naked babies and children. It is unfashionable for the members
of either sex to wear clothing until they are 8 or 10 years old.
The only garment they wear is the sacred string, with usually
a little silver charm or amulet suspended from it. Sometimes
children wear bracelets and anklets of silver, which tinkle as
they run about the streets. The little rascals are always fat
and chubby, and their bright black eyes give them an appearance
of unnatural intelligence. The children are never shielded from
the sun, although its rays are supposed to be fatal to full grown
and mature persons. Their heads being shaved, the brain is deprived
of its natural protection, and they never wear hats or anything
else, and play all day long under the fierce heat in the middle
of the road without appearing any the worse for it, although
foreign doctors insist that this exposure is one of the chief
causes of the enormous infant mortality in India. This may be
true, because a few days after birth babies are strapped upon
the back of some younger child or are carried about the streets
astride the hips of their mothers, brothers or sisters without
any protection from the sun.
[Illustration: A HINDU BARBER]
All outdoors is an Indian barber-shop. The barbers have no regular
places of business, but wander from house to house seeking and
serving customers, or squat down on the roadside and intercept
them as they pass. In the large cities you can see dozens of
them squatting along the streets performing their sacred offices,
shaving the heads and oiling the bodies of customers. Cocoanut oil
is chiefly used and is supposed to add strength and suppleness
to the body. It is administered with massage, thoroughly rubbed
in and certainly cannot injure anybody. In the principal parks
of Indian cities, at almost any time in the morning, you can see
a dozen or twenty men being oiled and rubbed down by barbers or
by friends, and a great deal of oil is used in the hair. After
a man is grown he allows his hair to grow long and wears it in a
knot at the back of his head. Some Hindus have an abundance of
hair, of which they are very proud, and upon which they spend
considerable care and labor.
The parks are not only used for dressing-rooms, but for bedrooms
also. Thousands of people sleep in the open air day and night,
stretched full length upon the ground. They wrap their robes
around their heads and leave their legs and feet uncovered. This
is the custom of the Indians of the Andes. No matter how cold
or how hot it may be they invariably wrap the head and face up
carefully before sleeping and leave the lower limbs exposed.
A Hindu does not care where he sleeps. Night and day are the
same to him. He will lie down on the sidewalk in the blazing
sunshine anywhere, pull his robe up over his head and sleep the
sleep of the just. You can seldom walk a block without seeing
one of these human bundles all wrapped up in white cotton lying
on the bare stone or earth in the most casual way, but they are
very seldom disturbed.
You have to get up early in the morning to see the most interesting
sights in Benares, which are the pilgrims engaged in washing
their sins away in the sacred but filthy waters of the Ganges,
and the outdoor cremation of the bodies of people who have died
during the night and late in the afternoon of the preceding day.
Hindus allow very little time between death and cremation. As
soon as the heart ceases to beat the undertakers, as we would
call the men who attend to these arrangements, are sent for and
preparation for the funeral pyre is commenced immediately. Three
or four hours only are necessary, and if death occurs later than
1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon the ceremony must be postponed
until morning. Hence all of the burning ghats along the river
bank are busy from daylight until mid-day disposing of the bodies
of those who have died during the previous eighteen or twenty
hours.
The death rate in Benares is very high. Under ordinary circumstances
it is higher than that of other cities of India because of its
crowded and unsanitary condition, and because all forms of contagious
diseases are brought by pilgrims who come here themselves to die. As
I have already told you, it is the highest and holiest aspiration
of a pious Hindu to end his days within an area encircled by
what is known as the Panch-Kos Road, which is fifty miles in
length and bounds the City of Benares. It starts at one end of
the city at the river banks, and the other terminus is on the
river at the other end. It describes a parabola. As the city is
strung along the bank of the river several miles, it is nowhere
distant from the river more than six or seven miles. All who die
within this boundary, be they Hindu or Christian, Mohammedan or
Buddhist, pagan, agnostic or infidel, or of any other faith or
no faith, be they murderers, thieves, liars or violators of law,
and every caste, whatever their race, nationality or previous
condition, no matter whether they are saints or sinners, they
cannot escape admission to Siva's heaven. This is the greatest
possible inducement for people to hurry there as death approaches,
and consequently the non-resident death rate is abnormally high.
We started out immediately after daylight and drove from the
hotel to the river bank, where, at a landing place, were several
boats awaiting other travelers as well as ourselves. They were
ordinary Hindu sampans--rowboats with houses or cabins built
upon them--and upon the decks of our cabin comfortable chairs
were placed for our party. As soon as we were aboard the boatmen
shoved off and we floated slowly down the stream, keeping as
close to the shore as possible without jamming into the rickety
piers of bamboo that stretched out into the water for the use
of bathing pilgrims.
The bank of the river is one of the most picturesque and imposing
panoramas you can imagine. It rises from the water at a steep
grade, and is covered with a series of terraces upon which have
been erected towers, temples, mosques, palaces, shrines, platforms
and pavilions, bathing-houses, hospices for pilgrims, khans or
lodging-houses, hospitals and other structures for the accommodation
of the millions of people who come there from every part of India
on religious pilgrimages and other missions. These structures
represent an infinite variety of architecture, from the most severe
simplicity to the fantastic and grotesque. They are surmounted by
domes, pinnacles, minarets, spires, towers, cupolas and canopies;
they are built of stone, marble, brick and wood; they are painted
in every variety of color, sober and gay; the balconies and windows
of many of them are decorated with banners, bunting in all shapes
and colors, festoons of cotton and silk, garlands of flowers and
various expressions of the taste and enthusiasm of the occupants
or owners.
From the Sparrow Hills at Moscow one who has sufficient patience
can count 555 gilded and painted domes; from the cupola of St.
Peter's one may look down upon the roofs of palaces, cathedrals,
columns, obelisks, arches and ruins such as can be seen in no other
place; around the fire tower at Pera are spread the marvelous glories
of Stamboul, the Golden Horn and other parts of Constantinople;
from the citadel at Cairo you can have a bird's-eye view of one
of the most typical cities of the East; from the Eiffel Tower all
Paris and its suburbs may be surveyed, and there are many other
striking panoramas of artificial scenery, but nothing on God's
footstool resembles the picture of the holy Hindu city that may
be seen from the deck of a boat on the Ganges. It has often been
described in detail, but it is always new and always different,
and it fascinates its witnesses. There is a repulsiveness about
it which few people can overcome, but it is unique, and second
only to the Taj Mahal of all the sights in India.
A bathing ghat is a pavilion, pier or platform of stone covered
with awnings and roofs to protect the pilgrims from the sun. It
reaches into the river, where the water is about two feet deep,
and stone steps lead down to the bottom of the stream. Stretching
out from these ghats, in order to accommodate a larger number of
people, are wooden platforms, piers of slender bamboo, floats
and all kinds of contrivances, secure and insecure, temporary
and permanent, which every morning are thronged with pilgrims
from every part of India in every variety of costumes, crowding
in and out of the water, carrying down the sick and dying, all
to seek salvation for the soul, relief for the mind and healing
for the body which the Holy Mother Ganges is supposed to give.