many pitiful sights. Aged women, crippled men, lean and haggard
invalids with just strength enough to reach the water's edge;
poor, shivering, starving wretches who have spent their last
farthing to reach this place, exhausted with fatigue, perishing
from hunger or disease, struggle to reach the water before their
breath shall fail. Here and there in the crowd appear all forms
of affliction--hideous lepers and other victims of cancerous
and ulcerous diseases, with the noses, lips, fingers and feet
eaten away; paralytics in all stages of the disease, people whose
limbs are twisted with rheumatism, men and women covered with all
kinds of sores, fanatical ascetics with their hair matted with
mud and their bodies smeared with ashes, ragged tramps, blind
and deformed beggars, women leading children or carrying infants
in their arms, handsome rajahs, important officials attended by
their servants and chaplains, richly dressed women with their
faces closely veiled, dignified and thoughtful Brahmins followed
by their disciples, farmers, laborers bearing the signs of toil,
and other classes of human society in every stage of poverty or
prosperity. They crowd past each other up and down the banks,
bathing in the water, drying themselves upon the piers or floats,
filling bottles and brass jars from the sacred stream, kneeling
to pray, listening to the preachers and absorbed with the single
thought upon which their faith is based.
Such exhibitions of faith can be witnessed nowhere else. It is
a daily repetition of the scene described in the New Testament
when the afflicted thronged the healing pool.
After dipping themselves in the water again and again, combing
their hair and drying it, removing their drenched robes--all
in the open air--and putting on holiday garments, the pilgrims
crowd around the priests who sit at the different shrines, and
secure from them certificates showing that they have performed
their duty to the gods. The Brahmins give each a text or a name
of a god to remember and repeat daily during the rest of his or
her life, and they pass on to the notaries who seal and stamp the
bottles of sacred water, sell idols, amulets, maps of heaven, charts
showing the true way of salvation, certificates of purification,
remedies for various diseases, and charms to protect cattle and
to make crops grow. Then they pass on to other Brahmins, who
paint the sign of their god upon their forehead, the frontal
mark which every pilgrim wears. Afterward they visit one temple
after another until they complete the pilgrimage at the Golden
Temple of Siva, where they make offerings of money, scatter barley
upon the ground and drop handfuls of rice and grain into big
stone receptacles from which the beggars who hang around the
temples receive a daily allowance. Finally they go to the priests
of the witness-bearing god, Ganasha, where the pilgrimage is
attested and recorded. Then they buy a few more idols, images
of their favorite gods, and return to their homes with a tale
that will be told around the fireside in some remote village
during the rest of their lives.
[Illustration: BODIES READY FOR BURNING--BENARES]
But the most weird and impressive spectacle at Benares, and one
which will never be forgotten, is the burning of the bodies of
the dead. At intervals, between the temples along the river bank,
are level places belonging to the several castes and leased to
associations or individuals who have huge piles of wood in the
background and attend to the business in a heartless, mercenary
way. The cost of burning a body depends upon the amount and kind
of fuel used. The lowest possible rate is three rupees or about
one dollar in our money. When the family cannot afford that they
simply throw the body into the sacred stream and let it float
down until the fish devour it. When a person dies the manager of
the burning ghat is notified. He sends to the house his assistants
or employes, who bring the body down to the river bank, sometimes
attended by members of the family, sometimes without witnesses.
It is not inclosed in a coffin, but lies upon a bamboo litter,
and under ordinary circumstances is covered with a sheet, but
when the family is rich it is wrapped in the richest of silks and
embroideries, and the coverlet is an expensive Cashmere shawl.
Arriving at the river an oblong pile of wood is built up and
the body is placed upon it. If the family is poor the pile is
low, short and narrow, and the limbs of the corpse have to be
bent so that they will not extend over the edges, as they often
do. When the body arrives it is taken down into the water and
laid in a shallow place, where it can soak until the pyre is
prepared. Usually the undertakers or friends remove the coverings
from the face and splash it liberally from the sacred stream.
When the pyre is ready they lift the body from the litter, adjust
it carefully, pile on wood until it is entirely concealed, then
thrust a few kindlings underneath and start the blaze. When the
cremation is complete the charred sticks are picked up by the
beggars and other poor people who are always hanging around and
claim this waste as their perquisite. The ashes are then gathered
up and thrown upon the stream and the current of the Ganges carries
them away.
Certain contractors have the right to search the ground upon
which the burning has taken place and the shallow river bed for
valuables that escaped the flames. It is customary to adorn the
dead with the favorite ornaments they wore when alive, and while
the gold will melt and diamonds may turn to carbon, jewels often
escape combustion, and these contractors are believed to do a
good business.
All this burning takes place in public in the open air, and sometimes
fifty, sixty or a hundred fires are blazing at the same moment.
You can sit upon the deck of your boat with your kodak in your
hand, take it all in and preserve the grewsome scene for future
reminiscencing.
While the faith of many make them whole, while remarkable cures
are occurring at Benares daily, while the sick and the afflicted
have assured relief from every ill and trouble, mental, moral and
physical, if they can only reach the water's edge, nevertheless
scattered about among the temples, squatting behind pieces of
bamboo matting or lacquered trays upon which rows of bottles
stand, are native doctors who sell all sorts of nostrums and
cure-alls that can possibly be needed by the human family, and
each dose is accompanied by a guarantee that it will surely cure.
These fellows are ignorant impostors and the municipal authorities
are careful to see that their drugs are harmless, while they make
no attempt to prevent them from swindling the people. It seems
to be a profitable trade, notwithstanding the popular faith in
the miraculous powers of the river.
Another class of prosperous humbugs is the fortune-tellers, who
are found around every temple and in every public place, ready
to forecast the fate of every enterprise that may be disclosed
to them; ready to predict good fortune and evil fortune, and
sometimes they display remarkable penetration and predict events
with startling accuracy.
Benares is as sacred to the Buddhists as it is to the Brahmins,
for it was here that Gautama, afterward called Buddha (a title
which means "The Enlightened"), lived in the sixth century before
Christ, and from here he sent out his missionaries to convert
the world. Gautama was a prince of the Sakya tribe, and of the
Rajput caste. He was born 620 B. C. and lived in great wealth
and luxury. Driving in his pleasure grounds one day he met a man
crippled with age; then a second man smitten with an incurable
disease; then a corpse, and finally a fakir or ascetic, walking
in a calm, dignified, serene manner. These spectacles set him
thinking, and after long reflection he decided to surrender his
wealth, to relinquish his happiness, and devote himself to the
reformation of his people. He left his home, his wife, a child
that had just been born to him, cut off his long hair, shaved
his head, clothed himself with rags, and taking nothing with
him but a brass bowl from which he could eat his food, and a
cup from which he could drink, he became a pilgrim, an inquirer
after Truth and Light. Having discovered that he could drink from
the hollow of his hand, he gave away his cup and kept nothing
but his bowl. That is the reason why every pilgrim and every
fakir, every monk and priest in India carries a brass bowl, for
although Buddhism is practically extinct in that country, the
teachings and the example of Gautama had a perpetual influence
over the Hindus.
After what is called the Great Renunciation, Gautama spent six
years mortifying the body and gradually reduced his food to one
grain of rice a day. But this brought him neither light nor peace
of mind. He thereupon abandoned further penance and devoted six
years to meditation, sitting under the now famous bo-tree, near
the modern town of Gaya. In the year 588 B. C. he obtained Complete
Enlightenment, and devoted the rest of his life to the instruction
of his disciples. He taught that all suffering is caused by indulging
the desires; that the only hope of relief lies in the suppression
of desire, and impressed his principles upon more millions of
believers than those of any other religion. It is the boast of
the Buddhists that no life was ever sacrificed; that no blood was
ever shed; that no suffering was ever caused by the propagation
of that faith and the conversion of the world.
After he became "enlightened," Gautama assumed the name of Buddha
and went to Benares, where he taught and preached, and had a
monastery at the town called Sarnath, now extinct, in the suburbs.
There, surrounded by heaps of ruins and rubbish, stand two great
topes or towers, the larger of which marks the spot where Buddha
preached his first sermon. It is supposed to have been built
in the sixth century of the Chinese era, for Hiouen Thsang, a
Chinese traveler who visited Sarnath in the seventh century,
describes the tower and monastery which was situated near it. It
is one of the most interesting as it is one of the most ancient
monuments in India, but we do not quite understand the purpose for
which it was erected. It is 110 feet high, 93 feet in diameter,
and built of solid masonry with the exception of a small chamber
in the center and a narrow shaft or chimney running up to the top.
The lower half is composed of immense blocks of stone clamped
together with iron, and at intervals the monument was encircled
by bands of sculptured relief fifteen feet wide. The upper part
was of brick, which is now in an advanced state of decay and
covered with a heavy crop of grass and bushes. A large tree grows
from the top.
There used to be an enormous monastery in the neighborhood, of
which the ruins remain. The cells and chapels were arranged around
a square court similar to the cloisters of modern monasteries.
A half mile distant is another tower and the ruins of other
monasteries, and every inch of earth in that part of the city is
associated with the life and labor of the great apostle of peace
and love, whose theology of sweetness and light and gentleness
was in startling contrast with the atrocious doctrines taught
by the Brahmins and the hideous rites practiced at the shrines
of the Hindu gods. But these towers are not the oldest relics
of Buddha. At Gaya, where he received the "enlightenment," the
actual birthplace of Buddhism, is a temple built in the year
500 A. D., and it stands upon the site of one that was 700 or
800 years older.
Benares is distinctly the city of Siva, but several thousand
other gods are worshiped there, including his several wives.
Uma is his first wife, and she is the exact counterpart of her
husband; Sati is his most devoted wife; Karali is his most horrible
wife; Devi, another of his wives, is the goddess of death; Kali
is the goddess of misfortune, and there are half a dozen other
ladies of his household whose business seems to be to terrorize
and distress their worshipers. But that is the ruling feature
of the Hindu religion. There is no sweetness or light in its
theology--it exists to make people unhappy and wretched, and to
bring misery, suffering and crime into the world.
The Hindus fear their gods, but do not love them, with perhaps
the exception of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu trinity,
while Brahma is the third. These three are the supreme deities
in the pantheon, but Brahma is more of an abstract proposition
than an actual god. For purposes of worship the Hindus may be
divided into two classes--the followers of Siva and the followers
of Vishnu. They can be distinguished by the "god marks" or painted
signs upon their foreheads. Those who wear red are the adherents
of Siva, and the followers of Vishnu wear white. Subordinate
to these two great divinities are millions of other gods, and
it would take a volume to describe their various functions and
attributes.
Vishnu is a much more agreeable god than Siva, the destroyer; he
has some human feeling, and his various incarnations are friendly
heroes, who do kind acts and treat their worshipers tolerably
well.
The "Well of Healing," one of the holiest places in Benares,
is dedicated to Vishnu. He dug it himself, making a cavity in
the rock. Then, in the absence of water, he filled it with
perspiration from his own body. This remarkable assertion seems
to be confirmed by the foul odor that arises from the water,
which is three feet deep and about the consistency of soup. It
looks and smells as if it might have been a sample brought from
the Chicago River before the drainage canal was finished. It is
fed by an invisible spring, and there is no overflow, because,
after bathing in it to wash away their sins, the pilgrims drink
several cups of the filthy liquid, which often nauseates them,
and it is a miracle that any of them survive.
One of the most curious and picturesque of all the temples is
that of the goddess Durga, a fine building usually called the
Monkey Temple because of the number of those animals inhabiting
the trees around it. They are very tame and cunning and can spot
a tourist as far as they can see him. When they see a party of
strangers approaching the temple they begin to chatter in the
trees and then rush for the courtyard of the temple, where they
expect to be fed. It is one of the perquisites of the priests
to sell rice and other food for them at prices about ten times
more than it is worth, but the tourist has the fun of tossing
it to them and making them scramble for it. As Durga is the most
terrific of all of Siva's wives, and delights in death, torture,
bloodshed and every form of destruction, the Hindus are very
much afraid of her and the peace offerings left at this temple
are more liberal than at the others, a fact very much appreciated
by the priests.
Another of the most notable gods worshiped at Benares is Ganesa,
the first born of Siva and one of his horrible wives. He is the
God of Prudence and Policy, has the head of an elephant, which
is evidence of sagacity, and is attended by rats, an evidence
of wisdom and foresight. He has eight hands, and from the number
of appeals that are made to him he must keep them all busy. He is
invoked by Hindus of all sects and castes before undertaking any
business of importance. It is asserted that none of the million
deities is so often addressed as the God of Wisdom and Prudence.
If a man is undertaking any great enterprise, if he is starting in
a new business, or signing a contract, or entering a partnership;
if he is about to take a journey or buy a stock of goods or engage
in a negotiation, he appeals to Ganesa to assist him, and leaves
an offering at one of his temples as a sort of bribe. If a woman
is going to make a dress, or a servant changes his employer, or
if anyone begins any new thing, it is always safer to appeal
in advance to Ganesa, because he is a sensitive god, and if he
does not receive all the attention and worship he deserves is
apt to be spiteful. Some people are so particular that they never
begin a letter without saluting him in the first line.
Driving along the roads of this part of India one often sees
stones piled up against the trunk of a tree and at the top a
rude elephant's head, decorated with flowers or stained with oil
or red paint, and there will always be a little heap of gravel
before it. That elephant's head represents the god Ganesa, and
each stone represents an offering by some one who has passed
by, usually the poorest, who have not been able to visit the
temple, and, having nothing else to offer, not even a flower,
drop a stone before the rude shrine.
There are many sacred cows in Benares. You find them in temples
and wandering around the streets. Some of them are horribly diseased
and they are all lazy, fat and filthy. They have perfect freedom.
They are allowed to wander about and do as they please. They
feed from baskets of vegetables and salad that stand before the
groceries and in the markets, and sometimes consume the entire
stock of some poor huckster, who dare not drive them away or
even rebuke them. If he should attempt to do so the gods would
visit him with perpetual misfortunes. Children play around the
beasts, but no one ever abuses them. Pilgrims buy food for them
and stuff them with sweetmeats, and it is an act of piety and
merit to hang garlands over their horns and braid ribbons in
their tails. When they die they are buried with great ceremony,
like the sacred bulls of Egypt.
Benares is the principal center of the idol trade, and a large
part of the population are engaged in making images of the various
gods in gold, silver, brass, copper, wood, stone, clay and other
materials. Most of the work is done in the households. There
are several small factories, but none employs more than ten or
a dozen men, and the streets are lined with little shops, no
bigger than an ordinary linen closet in an American house. Each
opens entirely upon the street, there are no doors or windows,
and when the proprietor wants to close he puts up heavy wooden
shutters that fit into grooves in the threshold and the beam
that sustains the roof. The shelves that hang from the three
walls are covered with all kinds of images in all sizes and of
all materials, and between sales the proprietor squats on the
floor in the middle of his little establishment making more.
The largest number are made of brass and clay. They are shaped
in rude molds and afterward finished with the file and chisel.
The large idols found in the temples are often works of art,
but many of them and some of the most highly revered are of the
rudest workmanship.
There is a funny story that has been floating about for many
years that most of the idols worshiped in heathen lands are made
in Christian countries and shipped over by the car load. This
is certainly not true so far as India is concerned. There is
no evidence upon the records of the custom-house to show that
any idols are imported and it would be impossible for any
manufacturer in the United States or Europe to compete with the
native artisans of Benares or other cities.
XXVIII
AMERICAN MISSIONS IN INDIA
About 5,000 missionaries of various religions and cults are working
among the people of India; two-thirds of them Protestants, and about
1,500 Americans, including preachers, teachers, doctors, nurses,
editors and all concerned. Their names fill a large directory,
and they represent all grades and shades of theology, philosophy,
morality and other methods of making human beings better, and
providing for the salvation of their souls. India is a fertile
and favorite field for such work. The languid atmosphere of the
country and the contemplative disposition of the native encourage
it. The Aryan always was a good listener, and you must remember
that India is a very big country--a continent, indeed, with a mixed
multitude of 300,000,000 souls, some striving for the unattainable
and others hopelessly submerged in bogs of vice, superstition
and ignorance. There are several stages of civilization also.
You can find entire tribes who still employ stone implements and
weapons, and several provinces are governed by a feudal system
like that of Europe in the middle ages. There are thousands who
believe that marriage is forbidden by the laws of nature; there
are millions of men with several wives, and many women with more
than one husband. There are tribes in which women control all
the power, hold all the offices, own all the property and keep
the line of inheritance on their side. There are vast multitudes,
on the other hand, in India who believe that women have no souls
and no hereafter, and advocate the murder of girl babies as fast
as they are born, saving just enough to do the cooking and mending
and to keep the race alive. Communities that have reached an
intellectual culture above that of any nation in Europe are
surrounded by 250,000,000 human beings who cannot read or write.
There are thinkers who have reasoned out the profoundest problems
that have ever perplexed mankind, and framed systems of philosophy
as wise as the world has ever known, and many of their wives
and daughters have never been outside of the houses in which
they were born; all of which indicates the size of the field of
missionary labor and the variety of work to be done.
India contains some of the most sublime and beautiful of all the
non-Christian religions, and perfect systems of morals devised
by men who do not believe in a future life. More than 60,000,000
of the inhabitants accept Jesus Christ as an inspired teacher
and worship the same God that we do under another name, and more
than three times that number believe that the Ruler of All Things
is a demon who delights in cruelty and slaughter and gives his
favor only in exchange for suffering and torture. A tribe in
northwest India believes that God lives on the top of a mountain
in plain sight of them, and up in the northeast are the Nagas,
who declare that after the Creator made men He put them into a
cellar from which they escaped into the world because one day
he forgot to put back the stone that covers a hole in the top.
More fantastic theories about the origin and the destiny of man
are to be found in India than in any other country, and those
who have faith in them speak 167 different languages, as returned
by the census. Some of these languages are spoken by millions
of people; others by a few thousand only; some of them have a
literature of poetry and philosophy that has survived the ages,
while others are unwritten and only used for communication by
wild and isolated tribes in the mountains or the jungles.
Christian missionaries have been at work in India for four hundred
years. St. Francis Xavier was one of the pioneers. Protestants
have been there for a little more than a century, and since 1804
have distributed 13,000,000 of Bibles. During the last ten years
they have sold 5,000,000 copies of the Scriptures either complete
or in part; for the Gospels in each of the great Indian languages,
like two sparrows, can now be bought for a farthing. In 1898,
497,000 copies were issued; in 1902, more than 600,000; and thus
the work increases. More than 140 colporteurs, or agents, mostly
natives, are peddling the Bible for sale in different parts of
India. They do nothing else. More than 400 native women are engaged
in placing it in the secluded homes of the Hindus among women of
the harems, and teaching them to read it. No commercial business
is conducted with greater energy, enterprise and ability than
the work of the Bible Society, in this empire, and while the
missionaries have enormous and perplexing difficulties to overcome,
they, too, are making remarkable headway.
You frequently hear thoughtless people, who know nothing of the
facts, but consider it fashionable to sneer at the missionaries,
declare that Hindus never are converted. The official census
of the government of India, which is based upon inquiries made
directly of the individuals themselves, by sworn agents, and
is not compiled from the reports of the missionary societies,
shows an increase in the number of professing Christians from
2,036,000 in 1891 to 2,664,000 in 1901, a gain of 625,000, or
30 per cent in ten years, and in some of the provinces it has
been remarkable. In the Central Provinces and United Provinces
the increase in the number of persons professing Christianity,
according to the census, was more than 300 per cent. In Assam,
which is in the northeastern extremity of India, and the Punjab,
which occupies a similar position in the northwest, the increase
was nearly 200 per cent. In Bengal, of which Calcutta is the
chief city, the gain was nearly 50 per cent; in the province
of Bombay it was nearly 40 per cent, and in Madras and Burmah
it was 20 per cent.
The dean of the American missionary colony is Rev. R. A. Hume,
of Ahmednagar, who belongs to the third, and his daughter to
the fourth, generation of missionaries in the family. He was
born in Bombay, where his father and his grandfather preached
and taught for many years. Rev. Mr. Ballantine, the grandfather
of Mrs. Hume, went over from southern Indiana in 1835 and settled
at Ahmednagar, where the Protestants had begun work four years
previous.