and Kayestus of Bengal, those of lower orders continue to use fish
without any scruple. It is a remarkable fact that Hindoo _women_ are
more fond of fish than _men_. There are some men, especially among the
_Boystubs_, followers of Krishna, who feel an abhorrence to eat fish at
all by reason of its offensive smell, but there is not a single woman
whose husband is alive that can live without it. When a girl becomes a
widow, she can hardly take half the quantity of boiled rice she was
accustomed to take before for want of this, to her, necessary article of
food.
XX.
SICKNESS, DEATH, AND _SHRAD_, OR FUNERAL CEREMONY.
As I have said in the beginning that a Hindoo lives religiously and dies
religiously, so his last days are attended with a degree of melancholy
interest which is characteristic of the religion which he professes, as
well as of the race to which he belongs. When a Hindoo becomes seriously
ill, the first thing he does is to consult the Almanac as to the stellar
mansion of the period, and engage the officiating priest to perform a
series of religious atonements, called _sastyana_, for the removal of
the evil spirit, and the restoration of health. Mornings and evenings
are dedicated to the service, and the mother or the wife of the patient,
as the case may be, makes a vow to the gods, promising to present
suitable offerings on his recovery, for which purpose a small sum of
money is laid aside as a tangible proof of sincerity. If the patient
should be a useful member of the family, enjoying a good income, greater
solicitude is, as must naturally be expected, manifested for his sake
than for that of an unproductive member; it being not uncommon that a
whole family, consisting of eight or ten persons, male and female,
depend for their sustenance on the earnings of a single individual,--the
inevitable result of a joint Hindoo family. It is customary among the
Hindoos, as it is among other civilized nations, that when a person is
ill, his friends and relatives come to see and console him. The sick man
generally remains in the inner apartment of the house, where the
females--the ministering angels of life--watch him and administer to his
comfort. When visitors enter the room, they go away for a time, but it
must be mentioned that they are not wanting in attention,
kind-heartedness and careful nursing. Days and nights of watching pass
over their heads without a murmur, prayers are continually offered to
the guardian deity for a favorable turn in the fortune of the family,
and available supernatural agency is secretly employed for the
attainment of the end. The following conversation will give some idea of
the melancholy scene:--
Ramkanto (a neighbour), enters the room, and gently accosts Mohun (the
son of the patient.)
Ramkanto, sitting, asks How is your father? I see he is very much pulled
down; the times are very bad, I hear of sickness on all sides, when did
he get ill? Have you seen the almanac? Have you arranged for _sastyana_
(religious atonement)? Don't you despair. He will get well through the
blessing of God; who attends him?
Brojobundhoo (doctor) replies Mohun.
Ramkanto. Yes, he is a good doctor, but you must have a good _Khobiraj_
also (native physician) who understands the _naree_ (pulse) well; these
English doctors do not much care about the pulse.
Mohun--Well, sir, I have engaged Gopeebullub (native physician) to feel
the pulse and watch the progress of the disease.
Ramkanto--That is good, Gopeebullub is a very clever physician, though
not old, he understands pulsation and other symptoms thoroughly. When
does the fever come on? See, how he remains to-day; should the pulse
sink after fever, send for an English doctor to-morrow, either Dr.
Charles or Dr. Coates, both are very good doctors.
Mohun--My uncle gave the same advice.
Ramkanto, (taking Mohun aside) Baba, what will I say? To tell you the
truth, I have no very great hopes of his recovery, the case is serious,
if through the blessing of God he gets well, it would be a _second_
birth; your father has been a great friend of mine, you all know very
well, he is a staunch Hindoo; in these days of depravity, when the
customs of the _Mlechas_ (Christians) threaten to obliterate all traces
of distinction, and merge everything in one homogeneous element after
the English fashion, very few men are to be found like your father,
ready to sacrifice his life for the purity of his religion; if his end
do not accord with his faith, his future state (_parakall_) is
jeopardised; you, young men may laugh at us, old fools, thinking we have
no sense; a few pages of English do not make a man learned; English
shastra does not make us wise unto salvation; one's own religion is the
best panacea for the good of his _parakall_ or future state. If you lose
your father, you will never get a father again, he has nourished you
with care and affection up to this day; as a dutiful son you are bound
to serve him in this his last stage; you must be prepared to take him to
the river side when need be, and that is not far distant; if you
neglect, you commit a very great sin, quite unpardonable. What do
fathers and mothers wish children for? It is only for the good of the
_parakall_, and to take them to Gunga (Ganges) in proper time. Let your
father pass three nights on the river side. I return this afternoon;
take care, watch him closely and let Gopeebullub see him constantly.
Giving these instructions, Ramkanto goes away. After three or four
hours, the fever returns, the patient becomes delirious and talks
nonsense, and the wife becoming very uneasy calls the son in a very
depressed tone, and tells him to send for the English doctor. The son
obeying the order sends for the English doctor at once.
After an hour or so, in comes Dr. Charles accompanied by Baboo
Brojobundhoo. Entering the sick man's room, Dr. Charles examines the
patient carefully, asks Brojobundhoo what medicines he has been giving
him, (the women all the while peeping through the window, unable to
understand what the doctors are talking about), and being satisfied on
this point, comes out and tells the son that his father is dangerously
ill, and that his friend's prescriptions are all right; he, Dr. Charles,
could not do better.
Here enters Ramkanto with two other friends. Before going inside he thus
speaks to the son: I hear Dr. Charles was here, what did he say? How was
the fever to-day.
Mohun answers, Dr. Charles said father is very ill, the paroxysm to-day
was somewhat more violent than that of other days.
Ramkanto--That's bad; day by day the fever eats into the vitals of his
system. (Here the native physician comes). Well, _Khobiraj Mohashoy_,
please go and see how the patient is doing? Gopeebullub (native
physician) goes inside, examines the sick man with great care, satisfies
the eager enquiries of the women by assuring them that there is no fear,
and returns outside.
Ramkanto to Gopeebullub--How did you find him? Is the pulse in its right
place? Do you apprehend any immediate danger? Dr. Charles was here, you
have heard what he has said, whatever the youngsters may say, I have
greater confidence in you than in the English doctors; take good care
and tell us the exact time when to remove the patient to the river side,
that is our last sacred office; should anything happen at home, which
God forbid, we shall never be able to show our faces through shame. What
with such a big son, and so many friends and relations, it would be a
crying shame if the patient die at home? Destiny will have its course
but your _hathjuss_ (skill) will go a great way.
Gopeebullub--Everything depends on the will of God, what can we mortals
do? Whatever fate has ordained must come to pass, we are mere
instruments in the hands of God; the patient is gradually sinking, the
pulse neither steady nor in its right place, we must be prepared for the
worst, a _strong_ pulse in a _weak_ body is an ominous sign, there is no
fear tonight, I can guarantee that.
Ramkanto--Well, it appears his end is nigh, he is no more destined to
have rice and water.[113] Then, pointing to Mohun, Ramkanto says,
to-morrow morning his _Boyetarni_ rite[114] must be performed; make the
necessary preparations at once, and send a man to procure a cot
(charpoy), also see that nothing may be wanting to hurry him to the
riverside.
Mohun--I must do what you bid me do, hitherto I remained behind a
mountain, now I shall be without protection.
Next morning, the rite of _Boyetarni_ being performed, preparations are
made to carry the sick man to the river side: all the nearest relations
and friends assemble, and the patient, then in the full possession of
his senses, is brought outside and laid on the _charpoy_; his forehead
is daubed with the mud of the Ganges, and a _toolsee_ plant is placed
about his head. He is told to repeat the name of his guardian deity, and
one man going up to him says, let's go to visit the mother Gunga, at
which he nods; this serves as a signal for lifting the _charpoy_, and
putting it on the shoulders of four strong persons of equal size. The
heart-rending scene that ensues hereupon among the females cannot be
adequately described. Their falling on the ground, their loud and
affecting cries, the tearing of their dishevelled locks, the wringing of
their breast, the contortions of their bodies, all produce a mournful
scene of anguish and despair which my feeble pen can hardly pourtray.
The sick man is thus carried, perhaps a distance of two or three miles,
in a state of consciousness[115] exposed to all the dangers of
inclement weather, fully aware of his approaching end, the carriers
exchanging their shoulders every now and then, and shouting out every
five minutes, "Hurry, Hurrybole, Gunga Narain, Brahma, Shiva Rama,"
until they reach their destination, which, in Calcutta, is Nimtollah
Ghaut, on the banks of the Hooghly.[116] When the _charpoy_ on which the
sick man is borne is placed on the ground, some one calls out to the
patient to see the sacred stream, which he does in a state of mind that
can be better imagined than described. On opening his eyes he beholds a
dark, gloomy scene, the ghastliness of which is enough to strike horror
into the heart of the most callous and indifferent. Here a dying man
suffering from the convulsive agony of acute pain, is, perhaps, gasping
for breath, there a fellow mortal is taken in a hurry to the very edge
of the holy water to breathe out the last flicker of life; to deepen the
gloom perhaps a corpse borne on a Hindoo hearse is just brought to the
Ghaut amidst the vociferous cries of "Hurry, Hurrybole," which is a
significant death-warrant.
"'Tis too horrible;
The weariest and most loathed earthly life
Which age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death?"
Can imagination conceive a more dismal, ghastly scene? But religion has
crowned the practice with the weight of national sanction, and thus
deadened the finer sensibilities of our nature. Sad as this picture is,
the most staunch advocate of liberalism can hardly expect to escape such
a fate. To a person accustomed to such scenes, death, and its
concomitant agony, loses half its terrors. How many Hindoos are annually
hurried to their eternal home by reason of this superstitious, inhuman
practice? Instances are not wanting to corroborate the truth of this
painful fact. Persons entrusted with the care and nursing of a dying man
at the burning Ghaut soon get tired of their charge, and rather than
administer to his comfort, are known to resort to artificial means,
whereby death is actually accelerated. They unscrupulously pour the
unwholesome, muddy water of the river down his already choked throat,
and in some cases suffocate him to death. "These are not the ebullient
flashes from the glowing caldron of a kindled imagination," but
undeniable facts founded on the realities of life.
The process of Hindoo _antarjal_ or immersion is another name for
suffocation. Life is so tenacious, especially in what the Hindoos call
_old bones_, or aged persons, that I have seen some persons brought back
home after having undergone this murderous process nine or ten times in
as many days. The patient, perhaps an uncared-for widow cast adrift in
the world, retaining the faculty of consciousness unimpaired, is willing
to die rather than continue to drag on a loathsome existence, but nature
would not readily yield the vital spark. In spite of repeated murderous
processes, the apparently dying flicker of life would not become
extinct. In the case of an aged man, the return home after _immersion_
is infamously scandalous, but in that of an aged widow the disgrace is
more poignant than death itself. I have known of an instance in which
an old widow was brought back after fifteen _immersions_, but being
overpowered by a sense of shame she drowned herself in the river after
having lived a disgraceful life for more than a year. As I have observed
elsewhere, no expression is more frequent in the mouth of an aged widow
than the following: "Shall I ever die?" Scarcely any effort has ever
been made to suppress or even to ameliorate such a barbarous practice,
simply because religion has consecrated it with its holy sanction.
But to return to the thread of my narrative, the sick man dies after a
stay of four days at the Ghaut, suffering perhaps the most excruciating
pangs and agony generally attendant on a deat-bed. The names of his gods
are repeatedly whispered in his ears, and the consolations of religion
are offered him with an unsparing hand, in order to mitigate his
sufferings, and if possible to brighten his last hours. The corpse is
removed from the resting place to the burning Ghaut, a distance of a few
hundred yards, and preparations for a funeral pile are speedily made.
The body is then covered with a piece of new cloth and laid upon the
pyre, the upper and lower part of which is composed of firewood,
faggots, and a little sandalwood and ghee to neutralize the effects of
effluvia. The _Marooyapora_ Brahmin,[117] (an outcast) reads the
formula, and the son or the nearest of kin sets fire to the pile; the
body is consumed to ashes, but the navel remaining unburnt is taken out
and thrown into the river. Thus ends the ceremony of cremation; the son
putting a few jars of holy water on the pile, bathes in the stream, and
returns home with his friends, changing his old garment for new white
clothes, called _uttary_, on one end of which is fastened an iron key to
keep off evil spirits. It is worthy of remark here, that providence is
so propitious to us in every respect that in a few hours the son becomes
reconciled to his unhappily altered circumstances caused by the loss of
his father; instead of bemoaning his loss in a despondent frame of mind,
he is soon awakened to a sense of his new responsibility.
On reaching the gate of the house, all persons touch fire, and putting
_neem_ leaves and a few grains of _kalie_ (a kind of pulse) into the
mouth, cry out as before "Hurrybole, Hurrybole" and enter the house. The
lamentation of the females inside the house, which was suppressed for a
while through sheer exhaustion, is instantly renewed at the sound of
"Hurrybole," as if fresh fuel were added to the flame, and every voice
is drowned in the overwhelming surge of grief. Their melancholy strain,
their pointed, pathetic allusion to the bereavement, the cadence of
their plaintive voices, the utter dejection of their spirit, their loud,
doleful cries reverberating from one side of the house to the other, the
beating of their breasts, and the tearing of their hair, are too
affecting not to make the most obdurate shed tears of sorrow.
The son, from the hour of his father's death to the conclusion of the
funeral ceremony, is religiously forbidden to shave, wear shoes, shirts,
or any garment other than the piece of white cloth, his food being
confined to a single meal consisting only of _atab_ rice, _khasury
dhall_ (a sort of inferior pulse) milk, ghee, sugar and a few fruits,
which must be cooked either by his mother or his wife; at night he takes
a little milk, sugar and fruits. This course of _regime_ lasts ten days
in the case of a Brahmin, and thirty-one days in that of a
_Soodra_.[118] Here the advantages of the privileged class are twofold;
(1), he has to observe the rigid discipline for ten days only; (2), he
has ample excuse for small expenditure at the funeral ceremony on the
score of the shortness of time. This austere mode of living for a month
in the case of a _Kayast_, by far the most aristocratic and influential
portion of the Hindoo population, serves as a tribute of respect and
gratitude to the memory of a departed father. As the country is now in a
transition state, a young educated Hindoo does not strictly abide by the
above rule, but breaks it privately in his mode of living, of which the
inmates of the family only are cognisant. He repudiates publicly what he
does privately. Thus the outer man and the inner man are not exactly one
and the same being, he dares not avow without what he does within, in
short, he plays the hypocrite. But an orthodox Hindoo observes the rule
in all its integrity, he is more consistent if not more rational, he
does not play a double game, but conforms to the rules of his creed with
scrupulous exactness.
Fifteen or sixteen days after the demise of his father, the son, if
young, is assisted by his friends in drawing an estimate of the probable
cost of the approaching _Shrad_ or funeral ceremony. In the generality
of cases, an estimate is made out according to the length of the purse
of the party; a few exceed it under a wrong impression that a debt is
warranted by the special gravity of the occasion, which is one of great
merit in popular estimation.[119]
The Sobha Bazar Rajah family, the Dey family of Simla, the Mullick and
Tagore families of Patooriaghatta, all of Calcutta, were said to have
spent upwards of L20,000 or two lacks of Rupees each on a funeral
ceremony. They not only gave rich presents to almost all the learned
Brahmins of Bengal, in money and kind, fed vast crowds of men of all
classes, but likewise distributed immense sums among beggars and poor
people,[120] who for the sake of one Rupee, walked a distance of perhaps
thirty miles, bringing with them their little children in order to
increase their numerical strength. Some really destitute women, far
advanced in a state of pregnancy, were known to have been delivered in
the midst of this densely crowded multitude. Although, now-a-days, the
authorities do not sanction such a tumultuous gathering, or tolerate
such a nuisance oftentimes attended with fatal accidents, no _Shrad_ of
any note at all takes place without the assemblage of a certain number
of beggars and paupers, who receive from two to four annas each.
After the twentieth day, the son, accompanied by a Brahmin and a servant
who carries a small carpet for the Baboo to sit on, walks barefooted to
the house of each and every one of his relations, friends and
neighbours, to announce that the _Shrad_ is to take place on such a day,
_i. e._, on the thirty-first day after death, and to request that they
should honour him with their presence and see that the ceremony is
properly performed, adding such other complimentary epithets as the
occasion suggests. This ceremonious visit is called _lowkata_, and those
who are visited return the compliment in time. The practice is deserving
of commendation, inasmuch as it manifests a grateful remembrance for the
memory of one to whom he is indebted for his being.
Precisely on the thirtieth day, the son and other near relatives shave,
cut their nails, and put on new clothes again, giving the old clothes to
the barber. Meantime invitations are sent round to the Brahmins as well
as to the Soodras, requesting the favor of their presence at the _Sabha_
or assembly on the morning of the _Shrad_, and at the feast on the
following day or days. On the thirty-first day, early in the morning,
the son, accompanied by the officiating priest, goes to the river side,
bathes and performs certain preliminary rites. Here the _rayowbhats_ and
_tastirams_ (religious mendicants), who watch these things just as
closely as a vulture watches a carcase, give him a gentle hint about
their rights, and follow him to the house, waiting outside for their
share of the articles offered to the manes of the deceased. These men
were so troublesome or boisterous in former days, when the Police were
not half so vigilant as they now are, that for two days successively
they would continue to shout and roar and proclaim to the passers by
that the deceased would never be able to go into _Boykanta_ or paradise,
and that his soul would burn in hell fire until their demands were
satisfied. Partly from shame, but more from a desire to avoid such a
boisterous, unseemly scene, the son is forced to succumb and satisfy
them in the best way he can.
As the style of living among the Hindoos has of late become rather
expensive, and the potent influence of vanity--purely the result of an
artificial state of society--exerts its pressure even on this mournful
occasion, the son, if he be well to do in the world, spends from five to
six thousand Rupees on a _Shrad_; the richer, more. He has to provide
for the apparently solemn purpose the following silver utensils,
_viz._:--_Ghara_, _Gharoo_, _Thalla_, _Batta_, _Battee_, _Raykab_,
glass, besides couch, bedding, shawls, broadcloth, a large lot of brass
utensils and hard silver in cash, all which go to pay the Brahmins and
Pundits, who had been invited. The waning ascendency of this privileged
class is strikingly manifest on an occasion of this nature. For one or
two rupees they will clamour and scramble, and unblushingly indulge in
all manner of fulsome adulation of the party that invited them.[121]
The Pundits of the country, however learned they may be in classical
lore and logical acumen, are very much wanting in the rules of polished
life. The manner in which they display their profound learning is alike
puerile and ludicrous. History does not furnish us with sufficient data
regarding their conduct in ancient days. As far as research or
investigation has elucidated the point, it is reasonable to conclude
that the ascendency of the Brahmins was built on the ignorance of the
people, and there is a very strong probability that there was a secret
coalition between the priests and the rulers for the purpose of keeping
the great mass of the nation in a state of perpetual darkness and
subjection, the latter being oftentimes content with the barter of
"solid pudding against empty praise." But the progress of enlightenment
is so irresistible that the strongest bulwark of secret compact for the
conservation of unnatural Brahminical authority is liable, as it should
be, to crumble into dust. It would be a great injustice to deny that
among these Brahmins there were some justly distinguished for their
profound erudition and saintly lives; they displayed a piety, a zeal, a
constant and passionate devotion to their faith, which contrast
strangely enough with the profligacy and worldliness of the present
ecclesiastics.