A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903
My second visit to India took place in the early months of 1903, and I
approached it this time from Burmah. Fielding Hall's "Soul of a People"
had thrown its magic spell over me, and Miss Greenlow and I were both
anxious also to see the far-famed Shwé Dagon Temple.
I came to the conclusion from what I saw, and still more from what I
heard, that Mr Fielding Hall must have appealed sometimes to his
imagination for his facts, and allowed an exquisite poetical fancy to
cast its glamour even over these. But the beautiful Golden Temple of
Rangoon defies all powers of exaggeration. We went there again and
again, and wandered amongst its endless small temples, representing
various forms of worship, including even a Chinese joss-house, which is
stamped upon my memory through a disaster, which I have always connected
with this special temple; rank superstition though it be.
We had spent several weeks upon the Irrawaddy River; had wandered
through beautiful, dusty Mandalay; had explored Bhamo and marvelled over
the exquisite visions of fairy-like beauty, painted anew for us morning
and evening, on this most glorious river; and had finally returned to
Rangoon for a few days' rest before starting for Calcutta.
It was an exquisite evening, just before our departure, when we went,
towards sunset, to say farewell to the Shwé Dagon. At that hour it is to
be seen at its best, for the level rays of the Eastern sun, light up the
golden cupola into startling and fairy-like magnificence.
Having watched this glorious spectacle for some minutes, the air grew
chilly, compared with the intense heat of the day, and darkness was
coming on apace as we turned to retrace our steps.
A few days before, we had noticed a Chinese joss-house, standing in one
corner of the huge elevated platform upon which the Shwé Dagon rests. In
the maze of buildings, and owing to the swiftly falling darkness, we
could not at once locate this temple; and most unfortunately for _me_,
with the stupid persistence which such a failure sometimes brings, both
Miss Greenlow and I were determined to find it out before leaving the
Golden Temple. At last a joyous exclamation warned me that my friend had
been successful in her quest.
The first time I had seen this joss-house I had run up the steps
heedlessly, but felt such an unpleasant influence on entering it that I
came away at once, and only regret not having been equally prudent a
second time.
Miss Greenlow was gazing at some grotesque carvings in one corner of the
temple, still dimly visible, and called out to me to come and look at
them also. Very reluctantly I joined her, and stood for a few minutes
waiting, till she was ready to leave.
There was something so gloomy, so uncanny, and depressing--I must even
say _malignant_--in the building at this twilight hour, that I could
stand the influence no longer, and as Miss Greenlow seemed inclined to
linger, I hurried down the stone steps, saying: "_I can't stay in that
place! I will wait for you at the top of the marble stairs._"
Now these steps, broken and dirty, and lined by small booths selling
every imaginable toy and bit of tinsel, including small models of the
various temples, led by steep flights up and down from the huge platform
of ground I have mentioned. Some small link-boys were crowding round as
Miss Greenlow rejoined me, clamouring to be allowed to light us down the
steps--a very necessary precaution, for the darkness was quickly
replacing the exquisite sunset colouring.
I am, as a rule, rather a remarkably sure-footed person, and the
lanterns of the boys threw ample light upon the steps, yet the first
moment of my descent I was considerably surprised to find myself at the
bottom of the first whole flight of hard marble steps! I had no
recollection of a slip even--one moment I was standing, carefully
prepared to descend; the next I was lying on my back at the bottom of a
long flight of steps, with the link-boys gaping in astonishment. They
could not have been more astonished than I was! The very swiftness of
the fall was probably my salvation; otherwise I think my spine _must_
have been injured. As it was, I was very much hurt, however; the pain
was intense for a time, and the muscles of my back were so swollen that
they stood up in ridges as big as a good-sized finger, for some time
after the escapade. In fact, it was quite six weeks before all local
trouble was over, and many more weeks before I had recovered from the
unexpected shock.
I have had several falls in my life, but never one other where there was
absolutely _no_ preliminary warning or sense of slipping, however swift.
The experience was exactly that of being suddenly _hurled down_ the
steps by some outside force. I can only add that I deeply deplored my
unguarded words to Miss Greenlow, when I told her I was sure there was
some malignant spirit in the joss-house.
Perhaps he wished politely to demonstrate the correctness of my remark.
The short voyage from Rangoon to Calcutta was made pleasant by the
kindness of a European friend in Rangoon, who came "to see us off," and
asked if he should introduce to me a little Burmese lady, very rich and
very _dévote_, who was on board with us, going to Calcutta to pay a
visit to her husband, who lived in that city.
"She is one of our principal native residents," my Rangoon friend
explained to me before introducing her. "She is also intensely
interested in her Buddhist religion, and I think this may interest you,
from what you have told me of your investigations."
So the little lady was duly presented, and thinking to open our
conversation pleasantly, I remarked that Mr Rowell had told me that she
was much interested in religious questions, and that although not a
theosophist myself, I numbered several of them amongst my friends.
But I found myself quite on the wrong tack. She screwed up her little
mouth, as if tasting some nasty medicine, and then said in excellent
colloquial English:
"Oh, they are no good at all. They have muddled everything up, and got
it all wrong. That is why we are beginning to write tracts and send out
missionaries. The great Buddha made no propaganda; neither did we for
many, many centuries. We believe that people must grow into this
knowledge; but now when you Western people come and take little bits of
our system, and piece them together all wrong--well, then, we are forced
to show you what is the truth! It is like a puzzle map, and all you
theosophists are trying to fit the pieces in, wrong side upward." And
she finished with a merry and apologetic laugh, remembering, no doubt,
that I had spoken of having friends amongst these "stupid muddlers"!
She gave me quite a number of the "tracts" of which she had spoken,
setting forth the true Buddhism, and mostly printed in Mandalay, and I
made a point of passing these on to some of the friends I had mentioned
to her.
I can only trust they were appreciated, and efficacious in reducing the
confusion resulting from trying to adapt Eastern mysticism to Western
consumption!
Our conversation became still more interesting when I discovered that a
mysterious fellow-passenger of ours on board the _Devonshire_, sailing
from Marseilles to Rangoon, had taken this voyage at the expense of the
Burmese lady, and, I am sorry to say, had occasioned her a great and
quite inexcusable disappointment.
This man, whom I will call Dr Gröne, was a professor at a celebrated
university in the south of Europe, and was certainly a scholar--if not a
gentleman!
He had studied the Buddhist writings very deeply, and his name had been
conveyed to this Burmese lady as that of one eager to throw off all ties
of kinship, and retire--like the great Buddha himself--from the world,
and find repose and enlightenment in a Burmese monastery. The only thing
lacking in carrying out this excellent resolve was--as usual--_money_.
The native lady, delighted to hear of so learned a gentleman, and one
holding such an honourable position in Europe, being converted to the
tenets of her religion, and thus wishing to give the best example of
their influence upon him, agreed joyfully to forward the funds for his
journey and to make arrangements for his stay in Rangoon before
proceeding to Mandalay, where he was to be received as a Buddhist priest
after a certain course of initiation.
We had all remarked Dr Gröne on board--partly because he was so thin and
tall, and walked the deck so persistently in fine weather or foul;
partly because he owned an exceptionally fine and long beard, which
parted and waved in the breeze as he passed to and fro in his lonely
perambulations. I never saw him speak to anyone on board except my own
table companion, Dr Gall, the Secretary of the Church Missionary
Society, and a very interesting and intelligent man. This latter was
also a distinguished Arabic scholar, and had lent me some striking
monographs he had written on the Mohammedan faith, striking both by the
scholarship and breadth of view and tolerance, which one does not
generally associate with the Society that he represented.
I had seen him more than once in the company of Dr Gröne, and when we
reached Colombo, and read in the papers handed to us on broad that our
ship contained the famous European professor who was journeying to
Mandalay to become a Buddhist priest, after a touching farewell with
wife and children, Dr Gall expressed both astonishment and incredulity.
"He never said a word about it to me," was his remark. "I know he has
studied the Buddhist religion very deeply, and he is anxious to get
access to some MSS., which he hopes to find in Burmah; but that is not
the same thing as becoming a priest. I expect the papers have
exaggerated the facts."
As a matter of fact, Dr Gröne certainly gave a lecture on Buddhism in
Colombo on the day of our arrival, for one of our fellow-passengers had
the curiosity to be present, but he, also, told me nothing had been said
about the lecturer becoming a priest.
The matter did not specially interest me; but on arrival at Rangoon, the
only decent (?) hotel was crowded, and most of us had to put up with a
very inferior class of accommodation.
A few hours of this establishment sufficed for most of the passengers,
who promptly went up country or on the river; but Miss Greenlow and I
were obliged to spend three or four days in Rangoon, and Dr Gröne was at
first our only companion.
So, of course, we spoke to each other in self-defence. He talked of his
home life and university work, and casually mentioned the death of his
wife, _five years previously_, and the children who were awaiting him
at home.
This certainly tallied more with Dr Gall's ideas than the sensational
Colombo newspaper account of his wife and children, to whom, like the
great Buddha, he had bidden an eternal farewell! Naturally one did not
touch upon this delicate subject, but I asked him how long he expected
to remain in Rangoon. To my surprise, he said at once that his stay was
quite uncertain--he might even be returning by the _Devonshire_, which
was to sail within a week of her arrival.
It seemed a long and expensive journey to take for so short a stay; but
doubtless he had business reasons, and the matter dropped from my mind.
When we returned, three or four weeks later, he was no longer in Rangoon
apparently, and I did not expect to come upon his tracks again.
The Burmese lady explained the Gröne mystery with some bitterness, and
no wonder!
Having come out free, upon the understanding with her, already
mentioned, she had taken a room for him at the hotel, and had busied
herself in buying blankets and a carpet and other small luxuries, to
break the Mandalay monastery to him as gently as possible.
When three days passed and he made no sign of moving on, she quietly
intimated that it might be as well to begin the new life without delay,
and said she had written to her brother, himself a priest in the
monastery, to meet Dr Gröne at Mandalay and present him to the
authorities at the monastery.
This must probably have been about the time that I asked him innocently
how long he would be staying in Rangoon.
His plan had doubtless been to go to Mandalay in a dilettante sort of
fashion, and to live in the monastery for a time, with the hope of
getting access to some valuable and little known MSS.; but it did not
suit his plans at all to be met at once by the brother of his
benefactress, and kept under the eye of this priest, who knew exactly
the circumstances under which he had been enabled to take the long
journey from Marseilles.
Being evidently a prudent man, he determined to seize the first
opportunity for retreat from an impossible situation. How he raised
enough money for the return voyage is not known. My Burmese acquaintance
thought he must have applied to one of the Consulates, and that his
university position would doubtless ensure his raising a loan.
Anyway, he shipped himself surreptitiously once more on board the
_Devonshire_, and arranged that the letter, containing the usual excuse
of a "sudden telegram from Marseilles announcing the unexpected death of
a near relation," should not be handed to his benefactress until the
anchor was safely weighed.
It was not a pleasant story, and treachery is no less perfidious for
having an intellectual motive. I felt glad that Dr Gröne was not a
fellow-countryman.
Having disburdened herself on this one point of righteous indignation,
our little Burmese lady became as bright and cheery as a child, wearing
her collection of pretty native dresses, which could all have been
packed easily into a fair-sized doll's trunk, with singular grace and
charm. When the tender arrived to disembark us in Calcutta, her husband
came with it, and was speedily introduced.
We had tea with them a few days later in their handsome Calcutta flat,
and this gave me the opportunity for a long and interesting talk with
the husband, who proved to be a most intelligent and open-minded man.
He spoke of Fielding Hall's delightful book with appreciation tinged by
kindly amusement.
"He has been many years in the country, but he still judges us as a
foreigner."
When I suggested that the judgment was at least very flattering to the
Burmese, this Burmese gentleman laughed, and said:
"Flattering? Yes--but not always quite true. One must see from _inside_,
not from outside, to be quite true in one's judgments; and no foreigner
can see from outside. It is a question of race and heredity, not of
having spent twenty or thirty years, or even a lifetime, in a foreign
land."
I suggested that those who saw from _inside_ only, might also lack some
essential factor in forming an accurate judgment.
He agreed heartily to this, adding: "Yes, indeed. The ideal critic must
have lived neither too near nor too far--mentally as well as physically;
also he must have intuition. Now Mr Fielding Hall is an artist as well
as a poet, but in judging my country he lets his intuition run riot
sometimes, as well as his imagination."
After reporting this conversation, it is unnecessary to add that my
Burmese friend spoke English rather better than I did myself.
We then talked about the position of woman in Burmah, and how much this
had been extolled and held up as a object lesson to the rest of the
world.
If the position of woman is the true test of a nation's civilisation, as
has been so often affirmed, then certainly Burmah must be in the van of
the nations! Yet this is scarcely borne out by facts.
I put this point as politely as I could, and my mind was at once set at
ease by the purely impersonal way in which he met my remark.
"Of course, we are not in the van of the nations, and yet it is quite
true that our women have an exceptional position--quite a good enough
one for an election cry for the Woman's Suffrage! Ah, yes! I have been
in England," he added, with a merry twinkle in his little black eyes.
"But you must realise that the unique position of woman with us is
somewhat accidental. It is not the result of philosophical or moral
conviction on the part of our men; it has been the natural outcome of
circumstances, and a question of expediency rather than of ethics. So it
was not really a 'test paper' for us at all! Our frequent wars in the
past have taken the men out of their homes, and the women, at such
times, were left alone to cope with not only the domestic, but the
agricultural problems. All business of this kind passed through their
hands, and in time they developed the qualities of industry, good
judgment and power of taking responsibility, necessary for success in
such a life. Then when the husbands came back and found everything going
on so well and without trouble to themselves, they were only too glad to
fall in with the existing state of things. We Burmese are lazy fellows
after all. We can rise to a big call, but if our women will look after
our business for us, we are quite content to smoke our pipes in peace
and look on--and, of course, the one who makes the wheels go round is
the one who really drives the coach. Believe me, there is more of
expediency than nobility in the attitude of our men towards our women,
and more of laziness than either, perhaps! But Fielding Hall would call
this blasphemy, I am afraid!"
And so, with a joking word, our interesting talk came to an end, leaving
me with a sincere hope that I might some day meet again both the
intelligent husband and the charming wife.
I found the air at Simla quite marvellous for psychic possibilities,
and this was certainly a great surprise to me; nor was it only a
question of altitude and a dry atmosphere. Missouri and the Dhera Doon
are celebrated for the purity of air and climate generally, but the
influences there were quite different.
Even Peshawar, with its glorious crown of snow-capped mountains, brought
no special psychic atmosphere to me; nor the Khyber Pass, where I had
thoroughly expected to be haunted by the horrors of the past; nothing of
the kind occurred. The beauty of the day when we visited this historic
pass was only to be matched by its own extreme natural beauty; but no
haunting memories hung round it for me.
Perhaps a night passed in those rocky defiles might have brought some
weird experience, but no European would be allowed to woo adventure in
this way, even with the laudable desire for advance in psychological
phenomena! But I stayed there quite long enough to prove--for the
hundredth time--that _an attitude of expectation_ acts with me as a
deterrent rather than encouragement, where the Unseen is in question.
I had heard so much of Simla Society and Simla Scandals, and so little
of Simla Beauty and Loveliness!--in Nature, I mean--not Human Nature.
It is true we were there at the most exquisite time in the year, when
the air was still fresh and keen, when the last snows and the first
blooms of rhododendrons were greeting each other, when the long
stretches of valley, brown and purple and emerald green, lay like soft
velvet in the immense distances towards the horizon line.
As I looked at all this, day after day, it seemed to me that Simla,
without its crowds of social butterflies, male and female, and the dust
and the flies, and even the heat that they bring with them, was one of
the most exquisitely beautiful spots that the Great Creator ever
"thought out" in His mind. Nowhere have I seen such a _velvety_ effect
of rolling hill and soft mountain-side; such gorgeous atmospheric
visions; such a carnival of beauty and colour.
We must have seen Simla at the most ideal time in the year, or people
must become _blasé_ and blinded to its intoxicating beauty, thanks to
tennis tournaments and Government House receptions and the whole stupid
Social mill.
Not even the beauties of Kashmir have dimmed the memory of Simla for me;
but I would not go there again, and in the season, for anything that
could be offered to me.
All beauty is sacred, and I guard jealously my sacred memory of the
place, known to so many merely as a byword for folly and flirtation.
Some strange and curious experiences came to me there, both in automatic
writing and other ways; but these are of too private a nature for
publication.
And so, with the beauty of Simla and the romance of Kashmir as jewels in
my memory, I must end my second visit to India.
It is said that pleasant as well as painful experiences are apt to run
in _threes_. I trust this may be the case. If so, it will mean that once
again I shall tread upon Indian soil.