"Pan, Pan is Dead"
"If there is one thing that refreshes my soul
above all others, it is that I shall behold the
Redeemer gloriously triumphant at the winding up
of all things."
_Henry Martyn, N. India._
"PARTLY founded upon a well-known tradition, mentioned by Plutarch,
according to which, at the hour of the Saviour's Agony, a cry of, 'Great
Pan is dead,' swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners,
and the oracles ceased." So reads the head-note to one of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning's poems. We look up a classical dictionary, and find
the legend there. "This was readily believed by the Emperor, and the
astrologers were consulted, but they were unable to explain the meaning
of so supernatural a voice."
Pan, and with him all the false gods of the old world, die in the day of
the death of our Saviour,--this according to the poem--
"Gods, we vainly do adjure you,--
Ye return nor voice nor sign!
Not a votary could secure you
Even a grave for your Divine;
Not a grave, to show thereby,
Here these grey old gods do lie.
Pan, Pan is dead."
And yet--is he dead? quite dead?
. . . . . . .
Night, moonless and hot. Our camp is pitched on the west bank of the
river; we are asleep. Suddenly there is what sounds like an explosion
just outside. Then another and another,--such a bursting bang,--then a
s-s-swish, and I am out of bed, standing out on the sand; and for a
moment I am sure the kitchen tent is on fire. Then it dawns on me, in
the slow way things dawn in the middle of the night: it is only
fireworks being let off by the festival people--only fireworks!
But I stand and look, and in the darkness everything seems much bigger
than it is and much more awful. There is the gleaming of water, lit by
the fires of the crowd on the eastern bank of the river. There are
torches waving uncertainly in and out of the vast black mass--black even
in the black of night--where the people are. There is the sudden burst
and s-s-swish of the rockets as they rush up into the night, and fall in
showers of colours on the black mass and the water; and there is the
hoarse roar of many voices, mingled with the bleat of many goats. I
stand and look, and know what is going on. They are killing those
goats--thirty thousand of them--killing them now.
Is Pan dead? . . .
Morning, blazing sun, relentless sun, showing up all that is going on.
We are crossing the river-bed in our cart. "Don't look!" says my
comrade, and I look the other way. Then we separate. She goes among the
crowds in the river bed, where the sun is hottest and the air most
polluted and the scenes on every side most sickening, and I go up the
bank among the people. We have each a Tamil Sister with us, and farther
down the stream another little group of three is at work. In all seven,
to tens of thousands. But we hope more will come later on.
We have arranged to meet at the cart at about ten o'clock. The bandy-man
is directed to work his way up to a big banyan tree near the temple. He
struggles up through a tangle of carts, and finds a slanting
standing-ground on the edge of the shade of the tree.
All the way up the bank they are killing and skinning their goats. You
look to the right, and put your hands over your eyes. You look to the
left, and do it again. You look straight in front, and see an extended
skinned victim hung from the branch of a tree. Every hanging rootlet of
the great banyan tree is hung with horrors--all dead, most mercifully,
but horrible still.
We had thought the killing over, or we should hardly have ventured to
come; but these who are busy are late arrivals. One tells oneself over
and over again that a headless creature cannot possibly feel, but it
looks as if it felt . . . it goes on moving. We look away, and we go on,
trying to get out of it,--but thirty thousand goats! It takes a long
time to get out of it.
We see groups of little children watching the process delightedly. There
is no intentional cruelty, for the god will not accept the sacrifice
unless the head is severed by a single stroke--a great relief to me. But
it is most disgusting and demoralising. And to think that these children
are being taught to connect it with religion!
With me is one who used to enjoy it all. She tells me how she twisted
the fowls' heads off with her own hands. I look at the fine little brown
hands, such loving little hands, and I can hardly believe it.
"You--_you_ do such a thing!" I say. And she says, "Yes; when the day
came round to sacrifice to our family divinity, my little brother held
the goat's head while my father struck it off, and I twisted the
chickens' heads. It was my pleasure!"
We go up along the bank; still those crowds, and those goats killed or
being killed. We cannot get away from them.
At last we reach a tree partly unoccupied, but it is leafless, alas! On
one side of it a family party is cheerfully feeding behind a shelter of
mats. A little lower down some Pariahs are haggling over less polite
portions of the goat's economy. They wrap up the stringy things in
leaves and tuck them into a fold of their seeleys. At our feet a small
boy plays with the head. We sit down in the band of shade cast by the
trunk of the tree, and, grateful for so much shelter, invite the
passers-by to listen while we sing. Some listen. An old hag who is
chaperoning a bright young wife draws the girl towards us, and sits
down. She has never heard a word of our Doctrine before, and neither has
the girl. Then some boys come, full of mischief and fun, and threaten an
upset. So we pick out the rowdiest of them and suggest he should keep
order, which he does with great alacrity, swinging a switch most
vigorously at anyone likely to interfere with the welfare of the
meeting.
My little companion speaks to them, as only one who was once where they
are ever can. I listen to her, and long for the flow at her command. "Do
you not do this and this?" she says, naming the very things they do;
"and don't you say so and so?" They stare, and then, "Oh, she was once
one of us! What is her Caste? When did she come? Where are her father
and mother? What is her village? Is she not married? Why is she not? And
where are her jewels?" Above all, everyone asks it at once, "What is her
Caste?" And they guess it, and probably guess right.
You can have no idea, unless you have worked among them, how difficult
it is to get a heathen woman to listen with full attention for ten
consecutive minutes. They are easily distracted, and to-day there are so
many things to distract them, they don't listen very well. They are
tired, too, they say; the wild, rough night has done its work. Yesterday
it was different; we got good listeners.
Being women, and alone in such a crowd of idolaters, we do not attempt
an open-air meeting, but just sit quietly where we can, and talk to any
we can persuade to sit down beside us. Hindus are safer far than
Mohammedans; they are very seldom rude; but to-day we know enough of
what is going on to make us keep clear of all men, if we can. They would
not say anything much to us, but they might say a good deal to each
other which is better left unsaid.
By the time we have gathered, and held, and then had to let go, three or
four of such little groups, it is breakfast time, and we want our
breakfast badly. So we press through the crowd, diving under mat sheds
and among unspeakable messes, heaps of skins on either side, and one
hardly knows what under every foot of innocent-looking sand; for the
people bury the débris lightly, throwing a handful of sand on the
worst, and the sun does the rest of the sanitation. It is rather
horrible.
At last we reach the cart, tilted sideways on the bank, and get through
our breakfast somehow, and rest for a few blissful minutes, in most
uncomfortable positions, before plunging again into that sea of sun and
sand and animals, human and otherwise; and then we part, arranging to
meet when we cannot go on any more.
Is Pan dead? . . .
Noon, and hotter, far hotter, than ever. Oh, how the people throng and
push, and kill and eat, and bury remains! How can they enjoy it so? What
can be the pleasure in it?
We find our way back to that ribbon of shade. It is a narrower ribbon
now, because the sun, riding overhead, throws the shadow of a single
bough, instead of the broader trunk. But such as it is, we are glad of
it, and again we gather little groups, and talk to them, and sing.
Some beautiful girls pass us close, the only girls to be seen anywhere.
Only little children and wives come here; no good unmarried girls. One
of the group is dressed in white, but most are in vivid purples and
crimsons. The girl in white has a weary look, the work of the night
again. But most of the sisterhood are indoors; in the evening we shall
see more of them, scattered among the people, doing their terrible
master's work. These pass us without speaking, and mingle in the crowd.
After an hour in the band of shade, we slowly climb the bank again, and
find ourselves among the potters, hundreds and hundreds of them. Every
family buys a pot, and perhaps two or three of different sizes; so the
potters drive a brisk trade to-day, and have no leisure to listen to us.
It is getting very much hotter now, for the burning sand and the
thousands of fires radiate heat-waves up through the air, heated already
stiflingly. We think of our comrades down in the river bed, reeking with
odours of killing and cooking, a combination of abominations unimagined
by me before.
We look down upon a collection of cart tops. The palm-woven mat covers
are massed in brown patches all over the sand, and the moving crowds are
between. We do not see the others. Have they found it as difficult as we
find it, we wonder, to get any disengaged enough to want to listen? At
last we reach the long stone aisle leading to the temple. On either side
there are lines of booths, open to the air but shaded from the sun, and
we persuade a friendly stall-keeper to let us creep into her shelter.
She is cooking cakes on the ground. She lets us into an empty corner,
facing the passing crowds, and one or two, and then two or three, and so
on till we have quite a group, stop as they pass, and squat down in the
shade and listen for a little. Then an old lady, with a keen old face,
buys a Gospel portion at half price, and folds it carefully in a corner
of her seeley. Two or three others buy Gospels, and all of them want
tracts. The shop-woman gets a bit restive at this rivalry of wares. We
spend our farthings, proceeds of our sales, on her cakes, and she is
mollified. But some new attraction in the gallery leading to the temple
disperses our little audience, to collect it round itself. The old
woman explains that the Gospel she has bought is for her grandson, a
scholar, she tells us, aged five, and moves off to see the new show, and
we move off with her.
There, in the first stall, between the double row of pillars, a man is
standing on a form, whirling a sort of crackling rattle high above his
head. In the next, another is yelling to call attention to his clocks.
There they are, ranged tier upon tier, regular "English" busy-bee
clocks, ticking away, as a small child remarks, as if they were alive.
Then come sweet-stalls, clothes-stalls, lamp-stalls, fruit-stalls,
book-stalls, stalls of pottery, and brass vessels, and jewellery, and
basket work, and cutlery, and bangles in wheelbarrow loads, and
medicines, and mats, and money boxes, and anything and everything of
every description obtainable here. In each stall is a stall-keeper.
Occasionally one, like the clock-stall man, exerts himself to sell his
goods; more often he lazes in true Oriental fashion, and sells or not as
fortune decides for him, equally satisfied with either decree. How
Indian shopkeepers live at all is always a puzzle to me. They hardly
ever seem to do anything but _moon_.
On and on, in disorderly but perfectly good-natured streams, the people
are passing up to the temple, or coming down from worship there. All who
come down have their foreheads smeared with white ashes. Even here there
are goats; they are being pulled, poor reluctant beasts, right to the
steps of the shrine, there to be dedicated to the god within. Then they
will be dragged, still reluctant, round the temple walls outside, then
decapitated.
I watch a baby tug a goat by a rope tied round its neck. The goat has
horns, and I expect every moment to see the baby gored. But it never
seems to enter into the goat's head to do anything so aggressive. It
tugs, however, and the baby tugs, till a grown-up comes to the baby's
assistance, and all three struggle up to the shrine.
We are standing now in an empty stall, just a little out of the crush.
Next door is an assortment of small Tamil booklets in marvellous
colours, orange and green predominating. There is an empty barrel rolled
into the corner, and we sit down on it, and begin to read from our Book.
This causes a diversion in the flow of the stream, and we get another
chance.
But it grows hotter and hotter, and we get so thirsty, and long for a
drink of cocoanut water. It is always safe to drink that. No cocoanuts
are available, though, and we have no money. Then a man selling native
butter-milk comes working his way in and out of the press, and we become
conscious that of all things in the world the thing we yearn for most is
a drink of butter-milk. The man stops in front of our stall, pours out a
cupful of that precious liquid, and seeing the thirst in our eyes, I
suppose, beseeches us to drink. We explain our penniless plight. "Buy
our books, and we'll buy your butter-milk," but he does not want our
books. Then we wish we had not squandered our farthings on those
impossible cakes. The butter-milk man proposes he should trust us for
the money; he is sure to come across us again. He is a kind-hearted man;
but debt is a sin; it is not likely we shall see him again. The
butter-milk man considers. He is poor, but we are thirsty. To give
drink to the thirsty is an act of merit. Acts of merit come in useful,
both in this world and the next. He pours out a cupful of butter-milk
(he had poured the first one back when we showed our empty hands). We
hesitate; he is poor, but we are so very thirsty. The next stall-keeper
reads our hearts, throws a halfpenny to the butter-milk man. "There!" he
says, "drink to the limit of your capacity!" and we drink. It is a
comical feeling, to be beholden to a seller of small Tamil literature of
questionable description; but we really are past drawing nice
distinctions. Never was butter-milk so good; we get through three brass
tumbler-fuls between us, and feel life worth living again. We give the
good bookseller plenty of books to cover his halfpenny, and to gratify
us he accepts them; but as he does not really require them, doubtless
the merit he has acquired is counted as undiminished, and we part most
excellent friends.
And now the crowd streaming up to the temple gets denser every moment.
Every conceivable phase of devotion is represented here, every
conceivable type of worshipper too. Some are reverent, some are rampant,
some are earnest, some are careless, awestruck, excited, but more
usually perfectly frivolous; on and on they stream.
I leave my Tamil Sister safely with two others at the cart. But the
comrade whom I am to meet again at that same cart some time to-day has
not turned up. So I go off alone for another try, drawn by the sight of
that stream, and I let myself drift along with it, and am caught in it
and carried up--up, till I am within the temple wall, one of a stream
of men and women streaming up to the shrine. We reach it at last. It is
dark; I can just see an iron grating set in darkness, with a light
somewhere behind, and there, standing on the very steps of Satan's seat,
there is a single minute's chance to witness for Christ. The people are
all on their faces in the dust and the crush, and for that single minute
they listen, amazed at hearing any such voice in here; but it would not
do to stay, and, before they have time to make up their minds what to
make of it, I am caught in another stream flowing round to the right,
and find myself in a quieter place, a sort of eddy on the outer edge of
the whirlpool, where the worship is less intense, and very many women
are sitting gossiping.
There, sitting on the ground beside one of the smaller shrines which
cluster round the greater, I have such a chance as I never expected to
get; for the women and children are so astonished to see a white face in
here that they throw all restraint to the winds, and crowd round me,
asking questions about how I got in. For Indian temples are sacred to
Indians; no alien may pass within the walls to the centre of the shrine;
moreover, we never go to the temples to see the parts that are open to
view, because we know the stumbling-block such sight-seeing is to the
Hindus. All this the women know, for everything a missionary does or
does not do is observed by these observant people, and commented on in
private. Now, as they gather round me, I tell them why I have come (how
I got in I cannot explain, unless it was, as the women declared, that,
being in a seeley, one was not conspicuous), and they take me into
confidence, and tell me the truth about themselves, which is the last
thing they usually tell, and strikes me as strange; and they listen
splendidly, and would listen as long as I would stay. But it is not wise
to stay too long, and I get into the stream again, which all this time
has been pouring round the inner block of the temple, and am carried
round with it as it pours back and out.
And as I pass out, still in that stream, I notice that the temple area
is crowded with all kinds of merchandise, stalls of all sorts, just as
outside. Vendors of everything, from mud pots up to jewels, are roaming
over the place crying their wares, as if they had been in a market; and
right in the middle of them the worship goes on at the different shrines
and before the different idols. There it is, market and temple, as in
the days of our Lord; neither seems to interfere with the other. No one
seems to see anything incongruous in the sight of a man prostrated
before a stone set at the back of a heap of glass bangles. And when
someone drops suddenly, and sometimes reverently, in front of a stall of
coils of oily cakes, no one sees anything extraordinary in it; they know
there is a god somewhere on the other side of the cakes.
On and out, through the aisle with its hundred pillars, all stone--stone
paving, pillars, roof; on and out, into the glare and the sight of the
goats again. But one hardly sees them now, for between them and one's
eyes seem to come the things one saw inside--those men and women,
hundreds of them, worshipping that which is not God.
Is Pan dead? . . .
Pan is dead! Oh, Pan is dead! For, clearer than the sight of that
idolatrous crowd, I saw this--I had seen it inside those temple
walls:--a pile of old, dead gods. They were bundled away in a corner,
behind the central shrine--stone gods, mere headless stumps; wooden gods
with limbs lopped off; clay gods, mere lumps of mud; mutilated and
neglected, worn-out old gods. Oh, the worship once offered to those
broken, battered things! No one worships them now! For full five minutes
I had sat and looked at them--
"Gods bereavëd, gods belated,
With your purples rent asunder!
Gods discrowned and desecrated,
Disinherited of thunder!"
There were withered wreaths lying at the feet of some of the idols near;
there were fresh wreaths round the necks of others. There were no
wreaths in this corner of dead gods. I looked, and looked, and looked
again. Oh, there was prophecy in it!
And as I came out among the living people, the sight of that graveyard
of dead gods was ever with me, and the triumph-song God's prophetess
sang, sang itself through and through me--Pan is dead! _Quite dead!_
"'Twas the hour when One in Sion
Hung for love's sake on a cross;
When His brow was chill with dying,
And His soul was faint with loss;
When His priestly blood dropped downward,
And His kingly eyes looked throneward--
Then, Pan was dead.
"By the love He stood alone in,
His sole Godhead rose complete,
And the false gods fell down moaning,
Each from off his golden seat;
All the false gods with a cry
Rendered up their deity--
Pan, Pan was dead."