AMONG THE HILLS OF ORISSA.
Before proceeding further, it will not be amiss to give the reader
some account of this Rajpoot and his daughter. And that he may
better understand the personal anecdotes of bravery, honest zeal,
and devotedness that distinguished him in life, I must turn to the
still broader and deeper historical incidents which are the marked
characteristics of the race to which he belonged. I do not undertake to
treat of this portion of India at large, but only to look at the small
corner of it in which Rama the Rajpoot was born.
In the district of Orissa stands on a cluster of hills, in the midst of
an arid and undulating plateau, the city of Megara, composed for the
most part of houses of mean aspect, with only a few handsome mansions
and stately edifices to relieve their monotonous insignificance,
possessing few fine trees large enough to afford shade, with the
exception of the sacred groves dedicated to the earth-goddess Dâvee
and the sun-god Dhupyâ; and with water barely sufficient to quench
the excessive thirst of its parched inhabitants, alternately swept by
piercing blasts and scorched by intense heats, Megara would certainly
present but few attractions to the traveller but for the mysterious
reverence which has rested ever since the time of Alexander over the
illimitable plains of Hindostan. Tragic and terrible are the memories
that poetry has woven about this land of undefined distances and
nearly fabulous magnificence, where men adopt, from father to son, the
professions of murderers, highwaymen, robbers, soldiers, warriors, and
priests, where each man lives as if surrounded by internal and external
enemies, and expects from every circling point of the horizon a foeman
instead of a friend.
From the remotest times there has been a ceaseless march of tribes into
this vast peninsula, from which there is no outlet. Pouring across
the Indus or straggling down through the passes of the Himalaya, each
wave of immigration pushed its predecessors farther into the country.
Thus the Aryan nations followed in their turn, at the same time
reacting powerfully on the creeds and usages of the primitive people.
But various remains of the earlier and rude aboriginal tribes are
still found here among the hilly regions and woody fastnesses of the
peninsula. Many of them are quite distinct from one another, evidently
belonging to different eras of an indefinitely remote and abysmal past.
The Rajpoots are the most remarkable of these aboriginal tribes, and
they are described as a noble race, tall and athletic, with symmetric
features, half-way between the Roman and Jewish types, large eyed, and
with fine long hair falling in natural locks upon their shoulders;
high-bred, though with the decline of their country under British rule
the decline of their character has kept pace. Revolutions have done
their work upon them, if, indeed, the word "revolution" may be applied
to the insurrections and mutinies that have kept this portion of India
in a state of petty warfare for the last three hundred years.
The comparatively treeless character of the hills where they dwell
appears to indicate that, in former times, large spaces had been laid
under cultivation, whereas at present they lead a savage life as
freebooters and robbers.
Around these desolate hills and valleys cluster a variety of
tribes and races, of diverse tongues and customs, creeds and
religions,--worshippers of Mohammed and of the Buddha, followers of
Brahma and of Indra, of Vishnu and Siva, of the many-breasted and
teeming Dâvee, and the triple-headed and triple-bodied Dhupyâ. Over
all these different peoples the Rajpoot, or warrior caste, has held
for centuries an undisputed sway. Among all these tribes the "Meriâh"
sacrifice prevails, as the only means of propitiating the earth-goddess.
The victims for these yearly sacrifices are furnished by a regular
class of procurers, who either supply them to order or raise them on
speculation. They are bought from their parents in hard famine times,
or they are kidnapped on the plains. Devoted often in their childhood
to the earth-goddess Dâvee, they are suffered to grow up as consecrated
privileged beings, to marry, to hold lands and flocks and herds and
other worldly goods, and are cherished and beloved by the community for
whom they are willing to be offered up to serve as mediator and friend
in the shadowy world beyond the grave for the short space of one year,
when the insatiable earth-goddess is said to demand a fresh victim.
I ought not to omit to say here, as a faithful recorder of the
facts that have reached me, that in spite of the tremendous doom
that overshadows the victims consecrated to Dâvee's altar, they
lead resigned and even joyous lives up to the last moment of their
existence; and the saying is, that the soul of a god enters the martyr,
and transfigures him into a divine, ineffable being, incapable of
feeling any pain or regret at the moment of death.
For unnumbered centuries the vast hilly province of Orissa verging on
Gondwana, and comprising all the eastern portion of the Vindhya chain,
has been the scene of this revolting and inhuman custom; and from time
immemorial thousands of men whom we in our enlightenment call "savage
hordes" have offered themselves up for the good of their fellow-men.
Surely an effluence from the Divine Soul must have passed over these
strange mystic mediators, as they stood trembling upon Dâvee's altar,
clutching the sharp knife in their uplifted hand, their faces turned
towards the darkening earth, singing the supreme song, and uttering the
supreme cry, "O Dâvee! do all thy acts to me. Spend all thy fury upon
me. Spare my race from the hungry grave (earth). Drink of my blood, and
be appeased." And as the echoes of this cry of triumph and of despair
die away in the distance, the self-sacrificing victim plunges the
bright steel into his own warm heart, bends forward to sprinkle with
his life's blood the insatiable earth, repeating his song in whispers
that grow fainter and fainter as he slowly draws out the fatal steel
and falls dead upon her bare bosom.
The Rajpoots are still the chiefs. They levy a tax on the various
tribes who inhabit these hilly regions, and who are, in great measure,
dependent upon them, trained warriors from their childhood, for their
protection. They are not distinct from their neighbors, so far as the
ceremonials of religion are concerned. The number of marriages among
them is, however, contracted by the exclusion of all but their own
peculiar clan or caste. Marriage itself is an expensive thing, from
the costly usages with which it is attended among them, while at the
same time celibacy is disgraceful. An unmarried daughter is a reproach
to her parents and to herself; therefore it has been an established
custom with the Rajpoot to preserve the chastity of his daughter and
the honor of his house by doing away with his female children a few
hours after their birth. When a messenger from the Zennânâ announces to
him the birth of a daughter, the Rajpoot will coolly roll up between
his fingers a tiny ball of opium, to be conveyed to the mother, who
thereupon, with many a bitter tear, rubs on her nipple the sleep-giving
poison, and the babe drinks in death with its mother's milk.
Here again we find a striking anomaly in the Hindoo character. The
parental instinct is as strong in the people of India as in any people
of the world; and even where no parental tie exists, the tenderness
with which strong, bearded men devote themselves to the care of young
children is as touching as it is remarkable. A childless woman, too,
is a miserable creature, a hissing and a reproach among men, and
barrenness is only accounted for as a punishment for some grievous
sin committed against the gods in a pre-existent state. Nevertheless,
among the high-caste Rajpoot tribes female infanticide is universally
practised; so that, in the district in which Rama was born, owing to
its decline from the prosperity of former years, a high-born girl was
rarely if ever heard of.
On a high and projecting rock, whose scarped and rugged outlines bid
defiance to the pedestrian, stood the stately mansion of Dhotee Bhad,
the chieftain of Megara, and the father of Rama, recognizable by its
grand appearance, its balconies of fretted stone, and its long windows,
which commanded for miles the surrounding country. It is a wild and
solitary spot, and out of the direct road to any place; but it had two
advantages,--it was almost inaccessible, and it overlooked valleys
which were as luxuriant with verdure as the hills around were sterile
and barren. Two miles from this spot rises the Ghât Meriâh, crowned
with a grove of stately trees, whose profound brown shadows and lurid
gloom is said to be caused by the spirits of the victims offered up
yearly there, and whose grand proportions are dimly visible at points
here and there as you approach the grove. At the foot of this Ghât, in
a thick and all but impenetrable forest, are several magnificent ponds
from which the inhabitants draw their water.
Such was the home and the birthplace of our hero Rama.