BENARES.
The great plains of the Ganges are very impressive; so vast--with
a stretch, roughly speaking, of a thousand miles, and breadth from
200 to 300 miles--so populous,[5] yet with such an ancient world-old
village life; and dominated always by these tremendous powers of sun
and sky. All the way from Calcutta to Delhi (and beyond) this immense
plain, absolutely flat, spreads in every direction, as far as eye can
see the same, dotted park-like with trees (mangos many of them), which
thickening here and there into a clump of palmyra palms indicate the
presence of a village. The long stretches of bare land with hardly a
blade of grass, shimmering in the noonday heat; oases of barley and
dhol (a shrub-like lentil) looking green at this time of year, but soon
to be reaped and stowed away; patches of potatos, castor-oil plant,
poppy in white flower, small guava trees, indigo, etc.; here and there
a muddy pool or irrigation channel; a herd of slow ungainly buffalos
or the more elegant humped cow’s, browsing miraculously on invisible
herbage; a woman following them, barefoot and barehead, singing a
sad-toned refrain, picking up the precious dung (for fuel) and storing
it in a basket; long expanses of mere sand with a few scrubby trees,
brown crop-lands without a crop, straggling natural roads or tracks
going to the horizon--not a hedge for hundreds of miles--strings of
peasants passing from distant village to village, donkeys laden with
produce, and now and then a great solid-wheeled cart labouring and
creaking by over the unbroken land. The villages themselves are mostly
mere collections of mud huts, looking when partially broken down very
like anthills; and some villages are surrounded by rude mud walls
dating from older and less settled times, and having a very primitive
appearance. The people on the whole (after Southern India) look rather
dirty in their unbleached cotton, but here and there one meets with
bright colors and animated scenes.
[5] With an average density of population of 500 per square
mile, or nearly double that of the United Kingdom!
Here are two peasants drawing water all day from the well to irrigate
their rice-field; one guides the bucket down to the water, the other
runs out on the long lever arm of a horizontal pole--holding on to the
branches of a neighboring tree as he does so--and so brings the bucket
up again. And thus they continue from earliest dawn to latest dusk,
with a few hours’ rest at midday.
Here is one watering his fields by hand, carrying pots and emptying
them over the thirsty plants--a fearful toil!
Here again is the classical picture--the two mild-eyed cows harnessed
at the well mouth. The rope passes over a pulley and draws up a huge
skin full of water as the cows recede from the well; then, as they
remount the slight slope, the skin again falls to the water. To and
fro go the cows; one man guides them, another empties the skins into
the water channel; and so day-long the work continues.
But out on the great plain you may go for hundreds of miles, and mark
but little change or variation. Flocks of green parrots, or of pigeons,
fly by, or lesser birds; kites perpetually wheel and float overhead;
occasionally you may see an antelope or two among the wilder scrub, or
a peahen and her little family; the great cloudless blue (though not by
any means always cloudless) arches over to the complete circle of the
horizon, the whole land trembles in the heat, a light breeze shivers
and whispers in the foliage, the sun burns down, and silence (except
for the occasional chatter of the parrots or the plaintive song of the
peasant) reigns over the vast demesne.
In many of these villages the face of a white man is seldom or never
seen. Even such centres as Allahabad are mere specks in an ocean;
the railway is a slender line of civilisation whose influence hardly
extends beyond the sound of the locomotive whistle; over the northern
borders of the plain the great snows of the Himalayas dawn into sight
and fade away again mornings and evenings, and through its midst wind
the slow broad-bosomed waters of the sacred Ganges.
Over all this region, when night comes, floats a sense of unspeakable
relief. The spirit--compressed during the day in painful self-defence
against the burning sun above and the blinding glare below--expands in
grateful joy. A faint odor is wafted from the reviving herbage. The
flat earth--which was a mere horizon line in the midday light--now
fades into nothingness; the immense and mystic sky, hanging over
on every side like a veil, opens back into myriads and myriads of
stars--and it requires but little imagination to think that this planet
is only an atom in the vast dome of heaven. To the Hindu, Life is that
blinding sun, that fever of desire and discomfort, and night is the
blessed escape, the liberation of the spirit--its grateful passage into
Nirwana and the universal.
One understands (or thinks one does) how these immense plains have
contributed to the speculative character of the Hindu mind. Mountains
and broken ground call out energy and invention, but here there is
no call upon one to leave the place where one is, or to change one’s
habits of life, for the adjoining hundreds of miles present nothing
new. Custom undisturbed consolidates itself; society crystallises
into caste. The problem of external life once solved presents no more
interest, and mechanical invention slumbers; the mind retires inward
to meditate and to conquer. Hence two developments--in the best types
that of the transcendental faculties, but in the worst mere outer
sluggishness and lethargy. The great idea of Indifference belongs
to these flat lands--in its highest form one of the most precious
possessions of the human soul, in its lowest nothing better than
apathy. The peasant too in these plains has for several months nothing
to do. He sows his crop, waters it, and reaps it; works hard, and in
a few months the rich land rewards him with a year’s subsistence; but
he can do no more; the hot weather comes, and the green things are
burnt up; agriculture ceases, and there remains nothing but to worship
the gods. Hence from February to the end of May is the great time for
religious festivals, marriages, and ceremonies and frolics of all kinds.
That the Ganges should be sacred, and even an object of worship, is
easily intelligible--not only on account of its fertilising beneficence
to the land, but there is something impressive in its very appearance:
its absolute tranquillity and oceanic character as it flows, from half
a mile to a mile wide, slowly, almost imperceptibly, onward through
the vast hot plain. The water is greenish, not too clear, charged even
in the lower portions of its course with the fine mud brought from the
mountains; the banks are formed by sandy flats or low cliffs cut in the
alluvial soil. As you stand by the water’s edge you sometimes in the
straighter reaches catch that effect--which belongs to such rivers in
flat countries--of flowing broad and tranquil up to and _over_ the very
horizon--an effect which is much increased by the shimmer of heat over
the surface.
In the Mahabhárata Siva is god of the Himalaya range--or rather he _is_
the Himalayas--its icy crags his brow, its forests his hair. Ganga,
the beautiful Ganga, could not descend to earth till Siva consented
to receive her upon his head. So impetuously then did she rush down
(in rain) that the god grew angry and locked up her floods amid his
labyrinthine hair--till at last he let them escape and find their way
to the plains. The worship of Siva is very old--was there perhaps
when the ancestors of the Brahmans first found their way into these
plains--though we do not hear of it till about 300 B.C.--one of those
far-back Nature worships in which the phenomena of earth and sky are so
strangely and poetically interwoven with the deepest intimations of the
human soul.
On the banks of the Ganges, in the midst of the great plain, stands
Benares, one of the most ancient cities of India, and the most sacred
resort of Northern Hinduism. Hither come pilgrims by the hundred and
the thousand all the year round, to bathe in the Ganges, to burn the
bodies of their friends or cast their ashes in the stream, and to
make their offerings at the 5,000 shrines which are said to exist in
the city. Outside the town along the river-side and in open spots may
be seen the tents of pilgrims, and camels tethered. The city itself
stands on the slightest rising ground--hardly to be called a hill--and
the river banks, here higher than usual, are broken and built into
innumerable terraces, stairs, temples, and shrines. The scene is
exceedingly picturesque, especially as seen from the river; and though
taken in detail the city contains little that is effective in the way
of architecture--the shrines and temples being mostly quite small, the
streets narrow, and the area of the place circumscribed considering its
large population--yet it is the most characteristic and interesting
town of India that I have hitherto seen.
The English make no show here--there are no residents, no hotels--the
English quarter is four miles off, the names of the streets are not
written in English characters, and you hardly see a shop sign in the
same. And I must say the result of all this is very favorable. The
sense of organic life that you immediately experience is very marked
in contrast to a mongrel city like Calcutta. As you thread the narrow
alleys, along which no vehicle can pass, with houses three or four
storeys high forming a close lane above you, balconies and upper floors
projecting in picturesque confusion not unlike the old Italian towns,
you feel that the vari-colored crowd through which you elbow your
way is animated by its own distinct standards and ideals. A manifold
ancient industry little disturbed by modern invention is going on in
the tiny shops on either hand--workshops and saleshops in one. Here is
a street full of brass-workers. The elegant brass pots which the whole
population uses--for holding or carrying water or oil, for pouring
water over the head in bathing, for offering libations in the temples,
and so forth--and which form such a feature of Indian folk-life--are
here being made, from miniature sizes up to huge vessels holding
several gallons. Then there are little brass images, saucers to carry
flowers in, and other fancy ware of the same kind.
Another street is full of sandal and leather workers; another of
sweetmeat or sweet-cake confectioners; another is given to the sale
of woollen and cotton wraps--which are mostly commercial products of
the West; stone and marble effigies, and gems, form another branch of
industry; and cookshops--innocent fortunately of the smell of meat--of
course abound. There are many fine faces, both old and young, but
especially old--grave peaceful penetrative faces--and among the better
types of young men some composed, affectionate, and even spiritual
faces--withal plenty of mere greed and greasy worldliness.
Niched among these alleys are the numerous shrines and temples already
mentioned--some a mere image of Vishnu or Siva, with a lingam in front
of it, some little enclosures with several shrines--the so-called
Golden Temple itself only a small affair, with one or two roofs plated
with gold. In many of the temples brahman cows wander loose, quite
tame, nosing against the worshipers, who often feed them; and the smell
of litter and cowdung mingles with that of frankincense and camphor.
Vulture-eyed Brahmans are on the alert round the more frequented
sanctuaries, and streams of pilgrims and devotees go to and fro.
The river-side is certainly a wonderful scene. A mere wilderness of
steps, stairs, terraces and jutting platforms, more or less in disorder
and decay, stretching for a mile or more by the water. Flights of
a hundred steps going up to small temples or to handsome-fronted
but decayed palaces, or to the Mosque of Aurungzebe, whose two tall
red-sandstone minarets (notwithstanding the incongruity) are the
most conspicuous objects in this sacred metropolis of Hinduism; the
steps covered with motley groups going down to or coming up from the
water--here an old man, a wanderer perhaps from some distant region,
sitting perched by himself, his knees drawn up to his chin, meditating;
there another singing hymns; groups under awnings or great fixed straw
umbrellas, chatting, or listening to stories and recitations; here a
string of pilgrims with baskets containing their scanty bedding,
etc., on their heads, just emerging from one of the narrow alleys;
there on a balcony attached to a big building appear half a dozen young
men, stripped, and with Indian clubs in their hands--their yellow and
brown bodies shining in the early sun; they are students at some kind
of native seminary and are going through their morning exercises; here
are men selling flowers (marigolds) for the bathers to cast into the
water; here is a _yogi_ squatted, surrounded by a little circle of
admirers; there are boats and a quay and stacks of wood landed, for
burning bodies; and there beyond, a burning ghaut.
[Illustration: THE GHAUTS AT BENARES.]
One morning Panna Lall--who had come on with me from Calcutta--wanted
to bathe at a particular ghaut (as each family or caste has its
special sanctuaries), so we went off early to the river-side. He
looked quite jaunty in his yellow silk coat with white nether garment
and an embroidered cap on his head. As it happened, a spring festival
was being celebrated, and everybody was in clean raiment and bright
colors, yellow being preferred. As we approached the river the alleys
began to get full of people coming up after their baths to the various
temples--pretty to see the women in all shades of tawny gold, primrose,
saffron, or salmon-pink, bearing their brass bowls and saucers full of
flowers, and a supply of Ganges water.
The ghauts were thronged. Wandering along them we presently came upon a
_yogi_ sitting under the shade of a wall--a rather fine-looking man of
thirty-five, or nearing forty, with a kindly unselfconscious face--not
at all thin or emaciated or ascetic looking, but a wild man decidedly,
with his hair long and matted into a few close ringlets, black but
turning brown towards his waist, a short unkempt beard, and nothing
whatever on but some beads round his neck and the merest apology for
a loin-cloth. He sat cross-legged before a log or two forming a small
fire, which seemed grateful as the morning was quite cold, and every
now and then smeared his body with the wood-ashes, giving it a white
and floury appearance. For the rest his furniture was even less than
Thoreau’s, and consisted apparently of only one or two logs of firewood
kept in reserve, a pair of tongs, and a dry palm-leaf overhead to ward
off the sun by day and the dews by night. I looked at him for some
time, and he looked at me quietly in return--so I went and sat down
near him, joining the circle of his admirers of whom there were four or
five. He seemed pleased at this little attention and told me in reply
to my questions that he had lived like this since he was a boy, and
that he was very happy--which indeed he appeared to be. As to eating he
said he ate plenty “when it came to him” (_i.e._ when given to him),
and when it didn’t he could go without. I should imagine however from
his appearance that he did pretty well in that matter--though I don’t
think the end of his remark was mere brag; for there was that look
of _insouciance_ in his face which one detects in the faces of the
animals, His friends sat round, but without much communication--at any
rate while I was there--except to offer him a whiff out of their pipes
every now and then, or drop a casual remark, to which he would respond
with a quite natural and pleasant laugh. Of any conscious religion or
philosophy I don’t think there was a spark in him--simply wildness, and
reversion to a life without one vestige of care; but I felt in looking
at him that rare pleasure which one experiences in looking at a face
without anxiety and without cunning.
A little farther on we came to one of the burning ghauts--a
sufficiently dismal sight--a blackened hollow running down to the
water’s edge, with room for three funereal pyres in it. The evening
before we had seen two of these burning--though nearly burnt out--and
this morning the ashes only remained, and a third fresh stack was
already prepared. As we stood there a corpse was brought down--wrapped
in an unbleached cloth (probably the same it wore in life) and slung
beneath a pole which was carried on the shoulders of two men. Round
about on the jutting verges of the hollow the male relatives (as we had
seen them also the day before) sat perched upon their heels, with their
cloths drawn over their heads--spectators of the whole operations. I
could not help wondering what sort of thoughts were theirs. Here there
is no disguise of death and dissolution. The body is placed upon the
pyre, which generally in the case of the poor people who come here is
insufficiently large, a scanty supply of gums and fragrant oils is
provided, the nearest male relative applies the torch himself--and then
there remains nothing but to sit for hours and watch the dread process,
and at the conclusion if the burning is complete to collect the
ashes and scatter them on the water, and if not to throw the charred
remains themselves into the sacred river. The endurance of the Hindu is
proverbial--but to endure such a sight in the case of a dear and near
relative seems ultra-human. Every sense is violated and sickened; the
burning-ground men themselves are the most abhorred of outcasts--and as
they pass to and fro on their avocations the crowd shrinks back from
the defilement of their touch.
We did not stay more than a few minutes here, but passed on and
immediately found ourselves again amongst an animated and gay crowd
of worshipers. This was the ghaut where Panna wished to bathe--a
fine pyramidal flight of stairs jutting into the water and leading
up to the Durga Temple some way above us. While he was making
preparations--purchasing flowers, oil, etc.--I sat down in the most
retired spot I could find, under an awning, where my presence was not
likely to attract attention, and became a quiet spectator of the scene.
After all, there is nothing like custom. One might think that in order
to induce people to bathe by thousands in muddy half-stagnant water,
thick with funeral ashes and drowned flowers, and here and there
defiled by a corpse or a portion of one, there must be present an
immense amount of religious or other fervor. But nothing of the kind.
Except in a few, very few, cases there was no more of this than there
is in the crowd going to or from a popular London church on Sunday
evening. Mere blind habit was written on most faces. There were the
country bumpkins, who gazed about them a bit, and the _habitués_ of
the place; there were plenty with an eye to business, and plenty as
innocent as children; but that it was necessary for some reason or
other to bathe in this water was a thing that it clearly did not enter
into any one’s head to doubt. It simply had to be done.
The coldness of the morning air was forced on my attention by a group
of women coming up, dripping and shivering, out of the river and taking
their stand close to me. Their long cotton cloths clung to their limbs,
and I wondered how they would dress themselves under these conditions.
The steps even were reeking with wet and mud, and could not be used for
sitting on. They managed however to unwind their wet things and at the
same time to put on the dry ones so deftly that in a short time and
without any exposure of their bodies they were habited in clean and
bright attire. Children in their best clothes, stepping down one foot
always first, with silver toe-rings and bangles, were a pretty sight;
and aged people of both sexes, bent and tottering, came past pretty
frequently; around on the various levels were groups of gossipers, and
parties squatting opposite each other, shaving and being shaved. Nearly
opposite to me was one of the frequent stone lingams which abound here
at corners of streets and in all sorts of nooks, and I was amused by
the antics of a goat and a crow, which between them nibbled and nicked
off the flowers, ears of barley, and other offerings, as fast as the
pious deposited them thereon.
While I was taking note of these and other features of the scene, my
attention was suddenly arrested by a figure standing just in front of
me, and I found that I was looking at one of those self-mutilating
fakirs of whom every one has heard. He was a man of a little over
thirty perhaps, clothed in a yellow garment--not very tall though
of good figure; but his left arm was uplifted in life-long penance.
There was no doubt about it; the bare limb, to some extent dwindled,
went straight up from the shoulder and ended in a little hand, which
looked like the hand of a child--with fingers inbent and ending in
long claw-like nails, while the thumb, which was comparatively large
in proportion to the fingers, went straight up between the second
and third. The mans face was smeared all over with a yellow pigment
(saffron), and this together with his matted hair gave him a wild and
demonish appearance.
One often reads of such things, yet somehow without quite realising
them; certainly the sight of this deliberate and lifelong mutilation
of the human body gave me a painful feeling--which was by no means
removed by the expression of the face, with its stultified sadness,
and brutishness not without deceit. His extended right hand demanded
a coin, which I gladly gave him, and after invoking some kind of
blessing he turned away through the crowd--his poor dwindled hand and
half-closed fingers visible for some time over the heads of the people.
Poor fellow! how little spiritual good his sufferings had done him.
His heavy-browed face haunted me for some time. For the rest he was
well-liking enough, and it must be said that these fellows for the
most part make a fair living out of the pious charity of the people,
though I would not be understood to say that all of them adopt this
mode of life with that object.
When Panna came up out of the water and had dressed himself, and I
had satisfied the curiosity of one or two bystanders who wanted to
know whether I had come with him all the way on this pilgrimage out of
friendship, we went up to the temple above--where a little band was
playing strange and grisly music, and a few devotees were chanting
before an image of Siva--and having made an offering returned to our
hotel.