INDIAN LIFE 
 
INDIAN LIFE 
 
 15Y 
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL OMAN 
 
 PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE IN THE GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, LAHORE 
 
 T FISHER UN WIN 
 26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 J1DCCCLXXXIX 
 
 [All rights reserved.} 
 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GEORGE CHESNEY, 
 R.E., C.B., C.S.I., C.I.E. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " INDIAN POLITY,'' ETC., ETC. 
 MILITARY MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF THE VICEROY OF INDIA, 
 
 (fttjta Volume t0, 
 
 WITH PERMISSION, INSCRIBED, 
 
 AS A TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION AND RESPECT, 
 BY HIS OBLIGED AND OBEDIENT SERVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HAVING seen a great deal of India, from the Vale of 
 Kashmir to the tropical uplands of Ceylon, from the 
 historic borderland of the Indus to the forest-covered 
 banks of the Brahmaputra, having resided in each 
 of the Provinces of Northern India from Assam to 
 the Punjab, and having done my best to understand 
 the character and intellectual condition of the people 
 of the country, I trust the sketches of Indian life 
 which I have embodied in this volume may prove 
 acceptable to readers who take an interest in the 
 two hundred and fifty millions of Hindus and Muham- 
 madans in India, so frequently alluded to in con- 
 temporary writings. 
 
 Of the inner life of a people who adhere to the 
 rigid rules of caste, and keep their women in seclu- 
 sion, it is not, perhaps, possible for an alien to form 
 a just opinion ; and this difficulty certainly exists in 
 regard to the entire upper and middle classes of the 
 Indian world, whether Hindu or Muslim. But the 
 common people, more free and open in their domestic 
 arrangements, afford better opportunities for obser- 
 vation, and I have not neglected the chances which 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 have come in my way of gaining an insight into the 
 mode of life and habits of thought of the humbler 
 ranks of the community. In Part II. of this volume 
 I have recorded, from personal knowledge, many 
 particulars connected with the somewhat peculiar 
 domestic life of the lower orders, which may help 
 English readers towards accurate conceptions re- 
 garding the lives and ideas of many millions of men 
 and women in British India. 
 
 J. C. O. 
 LONDON, 
 
 \Qth January^ 1889. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, THE SAGES OF INDIA ... II 
 
 II. EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS 48 
 
 III. A STRANGE CULT; THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR PIR 66 
 
 IV. THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER 86 
 
 V. THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ 125 
 
 VI. A BRAHMO WEDDING 133 
 
 VII. TWO VISITS TO THE GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE 
 
 SIKHS I3 8 
 
 VIII. THE CENOTAPH OF MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH, 
 
 THE LION OF THE PUNJAB I$2 
 
 ix. "BAZAAR GUP,'' OR RUMOURS OF THE MARKET- 
 PLACE 168 
 
 X. AT THE PLAY : THE NEW INDIAN THEATRE ... 183 
 XI. THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH ; OR, BUDDH 
 
 GAYA AND BUDDHISM ... ... 2OO 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY NOTE 245 
 
 II. WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, AND OTHER 
 
 POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS...* 2^7 
 
 III. OLD FAKEERAH AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES ... 277 
 
 IV. BHUJNU AND CHEROKEEAH, OR MAN AND WIFE. 295 
 V. THE SLAVE GIRL 302 
 
 VI. THIEF-CATCHING 309 
 
 VII. A YOUTHFUL SAINT 312 
 
 VIII. THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 315 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 1 1 line 7 for 
 
 90 last line ,, 
 
 ,, 98 line 15 ., 
 
 20 1 line 28 ,, 
 
 258 last line ,, 
 
 263 line 31 
 
 ,, 284 line 31 omit 
 
 309 line 5 for 
 
 "Panjab" read 
 
 "woman" ,, 
 
 "Hindu" 
 ' unscrutable " ,, 
 
 " sooon " ,, 
 
 " asiduous " ,, 
 " back." 
 " know " 
 
 " Punjab." 
 " women." 
 " Hindi." 
 inscrutable." 
 
 " soon." 
 'assiduous." 
 
 " known." 
 
I. 
 
 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, THE 
 SAGES OF INDIA. 
 
 " The brooding East with awe beheld 
 
 Her impious younger world. 
 The Roman tempest swelled and swelled, 
 And on her head was hurled. 
 
 The East bowed low before the blast, 
 
 In patient, deep disdain : 
 She let the legions thunder past, 
 
 And plunged in thought again." 
 
 A SWOLLEN river rushing brimful, with rapid and 
 audible current, past town and hamlet, past field 
 and forest, is a sight that has attractions for most 
 people. And the old Hydraotes of Greek geographers 
 the Ravi big with the melted snows of the 
 Himalayas and the rain of the wide plains of the 
 Panjab, is as good a river to watch in flood as many 
 another; so on a Sunday in July I took a drive from 
 Lahore to see the rush of water by the bridge of 
 boats, for I knew the river was pretty full at that time. 
 Passing the European cemetery and the Taksali 
 gate of the city, my way lay behind the stately 
 mosque of Aurangzeb, with its marble domes gleam- 
 
12 YOGIS AND MAf/ATMAS, 
 
 ing in the morning twilight. Beyond the mosque a 
 well-metalled road, sheltered by trees and skirted 
 by green fields of cotton and sugar-cane, traversed 
 the open country to the river and not to the river 
 only, but, as the finger-post indicated, to distant 
 Peshawar on the western frontier of the Indian 
 Empire. 
 
 It was one of those sultry mornings so suggestive 
 to the victim of an Indian summer of the pleasures 
 of the bath, that with the idea in my own mind I 
 had little difficulty in accounting to myself for the 
 number of natives of both sexes on the road between 
 the city and the river. As I proceeded, however, 
 the scene became unusually animated. There was 
 a holiday look about the people I met, and, before 
 long, I discovered that the object of attraction was 
 not merely the refreshing water, but a group of 
 tents which had been pitched upon the open plain 
 to the left of the trestle bridge which spans an 
 old channel, now known as the Chota Ravi. 
 
 I drew up and approached the encampment, along 
 with a stream of natives on their way to the bathing- 
 place or the tents. A large enclosed space on the 
 sandy river-bank was occupied by open pavilions. 
 In the one nearest the direction of approach there 
 were seated, round a smouldering fire, four yogis very 
 much wwdressed, and rubbed over from head to foot 
 with mud and ashes. One of them was beating a 
 gong. Towards the centre of the enclosure, on a 
 slightly raised place, sat the principal yogi. I had 
 seen lots of yogis and other ascetics in different 
 parts of India ; but had never come across an 
 encampment of yogis like the one before me. As for 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 13 
 
 the leader of the party, there was about his appear- 
 ance neither the emaciation of person one might 
 expect to see in a professed ascetic, nor the absent, 
 self-concentred look one would be prepared to find 
 in a devotee given to severe and long-continued 
 contemplation. He was apparently between thirty- 
 five and forty years of age, in excellent condition, 
 and apparently in vigorous health, with the com- 
 manding presence, easy carriage, and self-possessed 
 manner of one accustomed to the homage of men. 
 Round about him, in picturesque disorder, were 
 groups of men, women, and children, seated on the 
 ground as close to his feet as possible. Three 
 yogis repeating some Sanskrit Mantras* probably 
 quite unintelligible to themselves, were walking 
 rapidly round the saint and then round the fire at 
 which their companions were seated. A diminutive 
 tent erected under the general canopy contained 
 some Hindu idols grotesque representations of the 
 Deity which two men were fanning in a listless 
 sort of way. 
 
 1 " Mantra a hymn of invocation or form of prayer in the 
 Sanskrit language. Mantras are used in the performance of 
 every religious rite. They are of various sorts, invocatory, 
 evocatory, deprecatory, conservatory. They are beneficent or 
 hurtful, salutary or pernicious. By means of them, it is be- 
 lieved that great and various effects may be produced. Some 
 are for casting out evil spirits, some inspiring love or hatred, 
 for curing diseases or bringing them on, for causing death or 
 averting it. Some are of a contrary nature to others, and 
 counteract their effect : the stronger overcoming the influence 
 of the weaker. Some are potent enough, it is said, to occasion 
 the destruction of a whole army ; while there are others which 
 the gods themselves are constrained to obey." Garrett's 
 "Classical Dictionary of Indra." 
 
i 4 YOGIS AND MA H ATM AS, 
 
 From time to time the principal yogi rose to his 
 feet with all the pride of sanctity pride often as 
 overbearing and offensive as any other kind of pride. 
 His rising was the signal for the devout to make 
 their offerings, which they did with tokens of the 
 most humble veneration. The men were respectful 
 enough in their manner; as for the women, they, 
 in the effusiveness of their nature, seemed literally 
 to worship the yogi. I saw them dip their fingers 
 into brass lotas of Ravi water (for they had 
 approached the great man after their morning ablu- 
 tions), rub their moist hands over the yogi's dirty 
 feet and legs, and then apply the offscum to their 
 eyelids and foreheads. 
 
 In return for their offerings the visitors received, 
 as tokens of the saint's favour, a few flowers, which 
 they would carry away as charms and talismans to 
 be used in the cure of the sick, or to bring good 
 fortune to their homes. 
 
 And who can tell what real or imagined benefit 
 the sanctified trifles may have brought to many a 
 sick-bed in Lahore ! Indeed, I was afterwards 
 told, by one who professed to speak from personal 
 knowledge, of a remarkable cure effected by the 
 yogi. A boy had been ill of fever for some time. 
 All the usual remedies had been tried without 
 success, when the mother had the sufferer carried 
 into the presence of the yogi. The holy man 
 touched him, and handing his mother a few chillies, 
 directed her to give the patient one every morning. 
 She did so, and in a very short time the boy. was quite 
 restored to health. .Perhaps, as currently believed, 
 faith works wonders ; perhaps the excitement of the 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 15 
 
 interview with the famous saint brought about a 
 favourable change in the sick child's condition ; or 
 maybe the story is, after all, only one of those very 
 doubtful ones which spring up and cluster round 
 every religious teacher or famous ascetic. 
 
 I had taken up a convenient position just outside 
 the enclosure when I overheard a native address 
 another in English, evidently with the object of 
 attracting my attention. I entered into convex sation 
 with him about the yogis, and gleaned the following 
 particulars with regard to them. The chief man, 
 the centre of attraction, was a native of Lahore, 
 who had been away some twelve years engaged, 
 according to popular belief, in deep, ecstatic contem- 
 plation and the most impossible austerities. He 
 had now come back to his native place with all the 
 prestige of sainthood about him. Certainly the 
 hardships he had voluntarily endured had left no 
 trace upon his person. And perhaps this fact was, 
 to his admirers, only a more convincing proof of his 
 sanctity and power. In conversing with me my 
 informant expressed his regret at the ignorance and 
 superstition of the common people, as if to draw the 
 line between himself and the vulgar herd. Supersti- 
 tion, however, is an Old Man of the Sea not to be 
 easily shaken off, and I am very much mistaken if a 
 threatened curse from the yogi he affected to con- 
 temn would not have reduced my loquacious friend 
 to a state of abject terror, for every Indian knows 
 how direful and irrevocable are curses proceeding 
 from the mouth of one who has obtained super- 
 human power by the practice of austerities. 
 
 This remarkable and peculiarly Hindu notion, 
 
1 6 YOGIS AND MA HA TMAS, 
 
 which deserves attention in connection with the sub- 
 ject of yogis, has been made familiar to the English 
 reader by Southey, who, in his poem " The Curse of 
 Kehama," has worked out the subject with much 
 skill and force. 
 
 When the great yogi had his attention drawn to me 
 he rose and approached the spot were I was standing, 
 carrying in his hands a present, consisting of two 
 mangoes and half a cocoa-nut. I accepted his gift 
 with a salaam, but believing that the rules of Oriental 
 etiquette required, in such a case, some return, how- 
 ever trifling, I told the saint that I had no money 
 (" rupees ") with me to make a suitable requital for 
 his courtesy. He put on a deprecating smile, raised 
 his hands above his head, and, in an exceedingly 
 natural and graceful attitude, gave me his benedic- 
 tion, observing, with reference to my remark, and in 
 truly Oriental phrase, that " by my favour he was 
 sufficiently rich." When I was about to withdraw, 
 another yogi came up, with garlands of flowers taken 
 off the saint's neck, and placed them in my hands. 
 My casual visit to the yogi has, I have little doubt, 
 been already exaggerated into a devout pilgrimage. 
 Probably while I write this, stones are passing from 
 mouth to mouth regarding the Sahib who came 
 deliberately to pay his respects to the yogi and made 
 him most valuable offerings. That I could have 
 come that way merely for a morning drive, or for the 
 pleasure of looking at the rushing river, did not, in 
 all probability, occur to any soul present, and so the 
 assembled crowd must, and most naturally too, have 
 connected my presence there with the yogi's fame, 
 while the little romance about valuable offerings 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 17 
 
 would almost of necessity find a place in an Oriental 
 account of my pilgrimage to the renowned ascetic. 
 
 Before I left the spot, three young yogis, with a 
 large dog as companion, proceeded from the enclosure 
 apparently on a begging expedition to the city. All 
 three were well fed, in good condition, and full of 
 animal spirits, as was evident from the brisk and 
 boyish scamper with which they started on their 
 pleasant and profitable errand. 
 
 On my return home the presents I had received 
 from the yogi were begged for eagerly by my ser- 
 vants to whom the syce (groom) had related my 
 morning's adventure. One of them gave expression 
 to the opinion, shared no doubt by his fellows, that 
 my good luck was boundless in having been thus 
 favoured by the great yogi, whose fame was spread- 
 far and wide. So widely, indeed, had his fame ex- 
 tended, and so great had been his success, that he had, 
 on more than one occasion, been able to feast a vast 
 number of the city people, both Hindus and Muham- 
 inadans, on the open plain near his pavilion. I was 
 told that several college students had partaken of the 
 yogi's hospitality. Those who had done so did not 
 relish my knowing the fact, but could not conceal 
 from me that they secretly entertained a superstitious 
 respect for the successful ascetic. 
 
 That the yogi had achieved a great reputation in 
 Lahore was indisputable. Speaking of him, an edu- 
 cated native x remarked to me, that not the least 
 
 1 By the term educated native is meant, throughout this book, 
 the native who has been educated in European learning and 
 science through the medium of the English language, this being 
 the meaning now universally attached to the term in India. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 YOGIS A ND MA HA TMA S, 
 
 4 'miraculous " act of the yogi, was feeding the multi- 
 tude when he had not a rupee tocall his own. " Who," 
 he asked, " could, without supernatural power, have 
 induced the stingy bunneahs and close-fisted mahajans 
 to open their stores and supply him (as they cer- 
 tainly had done), without money and without price? " 
 The obvious answer, from a European point of view, 
 that superstitious dread of the yogi's power was 
 quite sufficient to account for his success with the 
 ignorant tradesfolk, did not find favour with my 
 Hindu friend, who, with characteristic leaning to- 
 wards the supernatural and mystical, preferred his 
 own explanation of the yogi's influence in the 
 Lahore bazaar. 
 
 To obviate the production of any false impression 
 on the reader's mind by the foregoing narrative, I 
 must state that there are hundreds of yogis in India 
 very unlike those well-nourished and worldly-wise 
 saints who treated me with so much courtesy on the 
 banks of the Ravi. Indeed, there are yogis who have 
 deliberately cut themselves off from all interest in 
 the active pursuits of life. Seldom appearing in the 
 busy haunts of men, these devotees practise rigid 
 self-denial, undergo the most painful self-inflicted 
 tortures, and spend their lives in solitary contempla- 
 tion. 
 
 Every one who has seen much of India must have 
 come across some of these ascetics, living skele- 
 tons, almost naked, and overlaid with dirt and 
 ashes. Sometimes they are to be met with seated in 
 the midst of five fires, four smouldering round them 
 and the fifth the sun -pouring its fierce rays upon 
 their unclothed bodies, fro'm a sky that looks like 
 
THE SA GES OF INDIA . i g 
 
 brass. In remote out-of-the-way places the traveller 
 may occasionally see a yogi, with an arm, attenu- 
 ated and quite rigid, upraised above his matted locks, 
 or with hands so long closed that the growing nails 
 have penetrated the lifeless flesh. These are certainly 
 rare, though I have come across one or two in my 
 time. If current belief is to be trusted, the solitudes 
 of the jungle and the lone caverns of the Himalayas 
 are tenanted by many earnest yogis, who have re- 
 tired as far as possible from the world and its 
 distractions. 
 
 To the ordinary European, whether resident or 
 tourist, these ascetics are incomprehensible z and 
 loathsome ; 2 but the Indian sees them with very 
 different eyes, and regards them with very different 
 feelings. To the Hindu the yogi is both a saint and 
 a philosopher. Indeed it may not be too much to 
 say that a comprehension of the ideas which under- 
 lie the practices of the yogis is indispensable to the 
 student of the spiritual and religious side, which is 
 by far the most important side, of Indian life and 
 character. Save in their voluntary penances and 
 self-inflicted tortures, the yogis bear no resemblance 
 to the Christian anchorites who, in the earl}' cen- 
 turies of our era, weighed down by a sense of their 
 own unworthiness, and awed by the expected 
 approaching destruction of the world, fled to the 
 
 1 " To me these men are living enigmas, and I look in vain 
 for the sphinx who can or will give me the clue." Baron 
 Hiibner's "Through the British Empire," vol. ii. pp. 173-174. 
 
 2 "... for their reverence of such degraded, filthy, naked, and 
 unclean beasts, as these fakers, there is simply no excuse." - 
 " Two Years in the Jungle/' by William T. Hornaday, p. 86 
 
20 YO CIS A ND MA HA TMA 5, 
 
 wilderness to mortify their flesh and humble them- 
 selves before God. Far from making any profes- 
 sions of humility or acknowledgment of unworthi- 
 ness, the yogis put forward the most extravagant 
 claims to knowledge and power, said to be obtained 
 by following out a certain painful and difficult course 
 of mental and physical discipline. " The adept 
 acquires the knowledge of everything past and future, 
 remote or hidden ; he divines the thoughts of others, 
 gains the strength of an elephant, the courage of a 
 lion, and the swiftness of the wind ; flies in the air, 
 floats in the water and dives into the earth, contem- 
 plates all worlds at one glance, and performs other 
 strange feats." x 
 
 Ascetic practices are common all the world over, 
 especially amongst" peoples in a low stage of civiliza- 
 tion, " for the purpose of bringing on those abnormal 
 mental states which are supposed to imply either 
 possession by spirits or communion with spirits ;" 
 or with the view of producing the maniacal excite- 
 ment which is mistaken for inspiration. 2 The pecu- 
 liarity in the case of the yogi is that he follows out 
 an elaborate system of ascetic exercises, essentially 
 Indian in conception, and framed to meet the require- 
 ments of a subtle school of philosophy, which has 
 had, and still has, a potent influence upon the specu- 
 lative conceptions and practical life of the people of 
 India. 
 
 As might have been expected, the possessors of 
 such powers as those ascribed to the yogis are 
 objects of dread to the ignorant, who dare not so 
 
 1 Colebrooke's " Essays," vol. i. p. 263. 
 
 - Mr. Herbert Spencer's " Ecclesiastical Institutions," 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 21 
 
 much as question them about their lives or past 
 history ; T but invent and believe the most ridiculous 
 stories about them. An Indian, himself a believer 
 in the yogis, writing about certain members of this 
 order, says they are " objects of great reverence to 
 the ignorant hill-tribes living in the neighbourhood, 
 who fear that the yogis may assume the forms of 
 tigers and eat them up." 2 
 
 Amongst Hindus trained in European modes of 
 thought, and more or less acquainted with the results 
 of European science, a goodly number unhesitatingly 
 reject the pretensions of the yogis. Some, while 
 believing that the Yoga system is true, are per- 
 suaded that, in these degenerate times, no one is 
 able to act up to it. But, on the other hand, many 
 Hindus of marked ability profess undoubting belief 
 in the reality of the so-called Yog-science and in the 
 existence of adepts or mahatmas at the present day. 
 As for the ignorant millions, without knowledge of 
 yoga-vidya, its objects, or its practices, they have an 
 unfaltering faith in the power of the yogi, and vene- 
 rate him accordingly, with the reverence that is born 
 of dread. The system seems to have had its attrac- 
 tions for even so sceptical a mind as that of the 
 great Akbar, regarding whom Professor H. H. Wilson 
 says : " He wore his hair after their fashion, and 
 anticipated the liberation of his soul by the fonte- 
 nelle as they (the yogis) teach." 3 But it may be 
 added that Akbar's admiration of the yoga system 
 did not prevent his allowing a pitched battle in his 
 presence between the rival sects of the Sannyasis 
 
 1 " Theosophist," vol. i. pp. 90-92. 2 Ibid. p. 92. 
 
 3 "Essays," vol. ii. p. 395. 
 
22 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 and Yogis, which (notwithstanding their superhuman 
 powers) ended in the complete discomfiture of the 
 latter. 1 
 
 Let us not, however, turn away from the yogi 
 with contemptuous indifference on account of his 
 preposterous pretensions, for naked, emaciated, and 
 covered with ashes though he be, he represents, 
 albeit in an unhealthy form, an important idea. In 
 the grovelling world of polytheistic India, he stands 
 forth a bold and ever-present asserter of man's in- 
 herent dignity and exalted position in the universe. 
 Before the multitude cowering in abject terror at the 
 altars of hideous and terrible idols, he appears as an 
 embodiment of the belief that man, even though he 
 be degraded and trammelled by his fleshly garment, 
 can by his own exertions raise himself to divine 
 heights of knowledge and power. The yogi is also 
 highly interesting as a living exemplification of the 
 attitude, since time immemorial, of the Indian mind 
 towards life and nature ; of the world weariness 
 which has oppressed the East since ages before the 
 dawn of European history, and caused her sons to fly 
 from the struggles and pleasures of life to the quiet 
 retreat of the jungle, and to seek in a living death an 
 escape from the disquieting, and to them unbearable, 
 activity of thought itself. 
 
 It was probably during the Macedonian invasion 
 that the European world made its first direct and 
 personal acquaintance with the Indian anchorites, 
 when one of them, the naked Dandamis, reclining 
 on his bed of leaves, treated with scornful indiffer- 
 
 1 Sir H. Elliot's '*' Muhammadan Historians of India," by 
 Dowson, vol. v. p. 318. 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA, 23 
 
 ence the haughty messengers of Alexander, bidding 
 them go tell their master: " Dandamis has no need 
 of aught that is yours, and therefore will not go to 
 you, but if you want anything from Dandamis come 
 you to him." * That event occurred more than two 
 thousand years ago. But for centuries prior to the 
 Macedonian invasion India had been par excellence 
 the land of anchorites, and during the long interval, 
 from the days of Alexander to the present time, has 
 produced an abundant crop of hermits, misanthropes, 
 and mystics. Some of the grandest figures in Indian 
 epic poetry are the anchorites, who, according to the 
 poets, were in their day a terror to the gods them- 
 selves. 
 
 Writing in the middle of the ninth century of our 
 era, the Mussulman historian Abu Zaid said: 
 
 " In India there are persons who, in accordance with their 
 profession, wander in the woods and mountains, and rarely 
 communicate with the rest of mankind. Sometimes they have 
 nothing to eat but herbs and the fruits of the forest. . . . Some 
 of them go about naked. Others stand naked with the face 
 turned to the sun, having nothing on but a panther's skin. In 
 my travels I saw a man in the position I have described ; six- 
 teen years afterwards I returned to that country and found him 
 in the same posture. What astonished me was that he was not 
 melted by the heat of the sun." 2 
 
 Succeeding historians down to our own time have 
 referred to or described the Indian ascetics, for they 
 have ever been a noteworthy feature in the Indian 
 
 1 J. W. McCrindle's "Ancient India as Described by Megas- 
 thenes and Arrian," p. 126. 
 
 2 Sir H. Elliot's " History of India as told by its own His- 
 torians," vol. i. p. 6. 
 
24 YOGIS AND MAHA TMAS, 
 
 world. Here is a modern picture which I present 
 to the reader as of interest from more than one point 
 of view : 
 
 " Wolff went also with Mr. Wilson to see one of the celebrated 
 Yoghees, who was lying in the sun in the street, the nails of 
 whose hands were grown into his cheek, and a bird's nest upon 
 his head. Wolff asked him, ' How can one obtain the knowledge 
 of God?' He replied, ' Do not ask me questions ; you may 
 look at me, for I am God.' Wolff indignantly said to him, 
 ' You will go to hell if you speak in such a way.' " ' 
 
 All, however, who practise austerities are not 
 necessarily yogis ; nor need they be actuated by the 
 yogi's desire to attain utter unconsciousness of his 
 individual existence by identification with the Uni- 
 versal Spirit. 
 
 Here and there, all over India, may be seen men 
 who practise, or pretend that they have practised, 
 austerities for their purification from guilt and the 
 ultimate attainment of beatitude. And there are, no 
 doubt, in the ranks of the ascetics many disappointed 
 men for whom the battle of life has been too hot, and 
 who have taken refuge in flight ; the spirit of renun- 
 ciation which lies at the root of true aceticism being 
 only too much in harmony with the passive, despond- 
 ing temper of the Indian mind. 
 
 The yogis, however, must not be confounded with 
 other ascetics. They form a distinct order, hold 
 peculiar doctrines, and go through, or pretend to go 
 through, a prescribed course of discipline for the at- 
 tainment of certain objects which they have in view. 
 
 The yoga-vidya is one of the six recognized ortho- 
 dox systems of Hindu philosophy, and the text-book 
 1 Dr. George Smith's " Life of Dr. Wilson," p. 74. 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 25 
 
 of the yogis is an old Sanskrit work, the "yoga-Satra " 
 of Patan-jali, T which teaches that by contemplation, 
 posturing, the suspension of the breath, and other 
 practices, the ascetic can disengage his soul from its 
 gross earthly connections and then be able to attain 
 a full knowledge of the past and of the future, of the 
 condition of this and of other worlds, and of the very 
 thoughts of his fellow-men. Not only far-reaching 
 knowledge, but power over man and nature of the 
 most extraordinary and unlimited kind, is promised 
 to the successful yogi. 
 
 It is certainly not, at the present day, easy for the 
 Western mind to enter into the spirit of the so-called 
 yoga philosophy ; but the student of religious 
 opinions is aware that in the early centuries of our 
 era the Gnostics, Manichaeans, and Neoplatonists, 
 derived their peculiar tenets and practices from the 
 yoga-vidya of India, and that, at a later date, the 
 Sufi philosophy of Persia drew its most remarkable 
 ideas from the same source. 2 
 
 1 This work has been translated into English by Dr. Ra- 
 jendra Lala Mitra. 
 
 2 Professor Weber's " Indian Literature " (English transla- 
 tion), page 239. 
 
 "The principal points of contact, however, between Indian 
 philosophy and Gnosticism may be regarded as common to both 
 branches of the former. These are (i) the doctrine of the 
 emanation of the world from the one absolute existence and of 
 its final reabsorption into that existence ; (2) the doctrine of 
 the inherent evil, and at the same time of the unreality of 
 matter ; (3) the doctrine of the antagonism between spirit and 
 matter, and the practical consequence, that the highest aim of 
 religion is to free the soul from the contamination of matter 
 and to raise it to a final absorption in the being of the 
 absolute.'' " Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Cen- 
 turies," by Dean Manscl, pp. 29, 30. 
 
26 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 The great historian of the Roman Empire refers 
 to the subject in the following passage : 
 
 "The fakirs of India and the monks of the Oriental Church, 
 were alike persuaded, that in total abstraction of the faculties 
 of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the 
 enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice 
 of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in 
 the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. 
 ' When thou art alone in thy cell,' says the ascetic teacher, 
 1 shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner ; raise thy mind 
 above all things vain and transitory ; recline thy beard and 
 chin on thy breast ; turn thy eyes and thy thoughts towards 
 the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel ; and search 
 the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all will be 
 dark and comfortless ; but if you persevere day and night, you 
 will feel an ineffable joy ; and no sooner has the soul discovered 
 the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and 
 ethereal light.' This light, the production of a distempered 
 fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, 
 was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of 
 God himself." 1 
 
 A system like that of the yogis, which has lasted 
 so many centuries, which is still believed in, and 
 which influenced the ideas and practices of ascetics 
 in far distant lands, can hardly be undeserving of 
 attention. 
 
 Without entering into unnecessary details many 
 of them are simply disgusting I shall quote, as 
 samples, a few of the rules of practice required to be 
 followed by the would-be yogi in order to induce a 
 state of samadhi hypnotism or trance which is 
 the condition or state in which the yogi is to enjoy 
 the promised privileges of yoga. The extracts are 
 
 1 Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," 
 chap. Ixiii. 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 27 
 
 from a treatise on the yoga philosophy by Assistant- 
 Surgeon Nobin Chander Paul. 1 
 
 " Place the left foot upon the right thigh and the right foot 
 upon the left thigh ; hold with the right hand the right great 
 toe and with the left hand the left great toe (the hands coming 
 from behind the back and crossing each other) ; rest the chin 
 on the interclavicular space and fix the sight on the tip of the 
 nose. 
 
 #*"*##'-* 
 
 " Inspire through the left nostril, fill the stomach with the 
 inspired air by the act of deglutition, suspend the breath, and 
 then expire through the right nostril. Next inspire through 
 the right nostril, swallow the inspired air, suspend the breath, 
 and finally expire through the left nostril. 
 
 " J3e seated in a tranquil posture, and fix your sight on the 
 tip of the nose for the space of ten minutes. 
 
 " Close the ears with the middle fingers, incline the head a 
 little to the right side and listen with each ear attentively to the 
 sound produced by the other ear, for the space of ten minutes. 
 
 " Pronounce inaudibly twelve thousand times the mystic 
 syllable Otn, and meditate upon it daily after deep inspirations. 
 
 " After a few forcible inspirations swallow the tongue, and 
 thereby suspend the breath, and deglutate the saliva for two 
 hours. 
 
 " Listen to the sounds within the right ear abstractedly for 
 two hours, with the left ear. 
 
 " Repeat the mystic syllable Om 20,736,000 times in silence 
 and meditate upon it. 
 
 " Suspend the respiratory movements for the period of 
 twelve days, and you will be in a state of Samadhi." 
 
 Such are a few of the rules of discipline prescribed 
 by the Hat ha yog system ; and although the reader 
 
 1 Republished in " The Theosophist." 
 
28 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 may not, perhaps, feel surprised at the yogi's attaining 
 samadhi, or anything else, after successfully perform- 
 ing feats of which the above are only samples, it can 
 hardly fail to strike him, if he be at all acquainted 
 with what has been improperly called the science 
 of " animal magnetism," that the rules in question, 
 however extravagant they may be, have, some of 
 them at least, been framed with a practical know- 
 ledge, if not an intelligent appreciation, of the means 
 by which self-hypnotization may be produced. I 
 refer more especially to the rules requiring the yogi 
 to fix his eyes on a near point, as the tip of his nose, 
 and to concentrate his attention for a prolonged 
 period upon a particular sound, as that supposed to 
 be produced in the right or left ear. 1 
 
 Leaving out of consideration the crowning feat of 
 yogaism complete absorption into or identification 
 with the Universal Spirit an impartial account of the 
 system and its results requires that mention should be 
 made of some strange achievements of the yogis, for 
 which at least there is ample testimony whatever 
 that testimony may be worth. Only a generation ago, 
 if we are to credit the statements of several eye- 
 witnesses, the yogi Haridas, after voluntarily falling 
 into an hypnotic condition in the presence of Maha- 
 
 1 On this subject a recent writer says: "On retrouve en 
 Orient, et en particulier dans 1'Inde, des dtats analogues a 
 1'etat hypnotique ; pour les provoquer, les uns, comme les 
 fakirs, regardent fixement le ciel, un objet lumineux on le bout 
 de leur nez ; les autres, comme les moines du Mont Athos, 
 contemplent leur nombril, d'ou le nom d'Omphalopsyches 
 qui leur a dte donne" " (" Le Magnetisme Animal, etude 
 critique et experimentale sur 1'hypnotisme," par le Dr. Fernand 
 Bottey. Paris, 1884). 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 29 
 
 rajah Runjeet Singh, of the Punjab, and his court, 
 was carefully buried in a garden outside the city of 
 Lahore. For forty days strict watch was kept over the 
 grave, and, at the expiration of that time, the yogi 
 was exhumed, cold, stiff, and unconscious; but was 
 gradually restored to animation by applying warmth 
 to the head and friction to the body, while forcing air 
 gently into the lungs. Granting the truth of the 
 story, and the absence of any collusion or trickery, 
 the only legitimate inference from the facts is, of 
 course, that Haridas, in the practice of yoga-vidya, 
 or otherwise, had acquired the art of suspending 
 animation for a considerable period ; an art not with- 
 out interest from a physiological point of view, but 
 one the acquisition of which, Europeans are 
 never likely to care for. As regards Haridas himself, 
 it is said that he was a man of loose morals, against 
 whom several complaints were made to Runjeet Singh ; 
 that he eloped with a Katrany woman, made his way 
 to the hills, died there, and was duly buried according 
 ot the custom of the country. 1 
 
 Referring to the case of Haridas, the writer, 
 (W. F. K.) of the article " Hybernation " in the new 
 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica says : 
 
 " Long continued suspension of consciousness in man, 
 whether voluntary or otherwise, is rare in temperate climates? 
 but it is more frequent in India, where some religious ascetics 
 are stated, on unimpeachable authority, to possess the power 
 of throwing themselves into a state closely resembling hyber- 
 nation for an indefinite period. Many curious cases have been 
 
 1 See "Thirty-five Years in the East," by Ur. Honigberger, 
 Physician to the Court of Lahore, pp. 126, 130. London, 1852. 
 
30 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 recorded by Mr. Braid in his small treatise on ' Human Hyber- 
 nation 3 published in 1850, the most celebrated of which is that 
 of a fakir who was actually buried alive at Lahore in 1837 in the 
 presence of Runjeet Singh and Sir Claude Wade, and who was 
 dug up and restored to consciousness several months r after- 
 wards, after every precaution had been taken to prevent any 
 from disturbing the grave in the interval." 
 
 Besides the Hatha yog system, which I have briefly 
 described above, there is another one, the Raj yog, 
 according to which samadhi may be attained without 
 severe bodily discipline, by the mere force of self-con- 
 trol and meditation, possibly combined with fixation of 
 attention on some object (e.g. the nose) near enough 
 to cause squinting. Whether this system owes its 
 origin to the extreme difficulty, not to say impractica- 
 bility, of acting up to the rules of the Hatha yog 
 system, or whether, as I have been assured, it is older 
 than that system, I do not pretend to say. But I 
 should state here that some who claim to be author- 
 ities on the subject maintain that one could not 
 attain samadhi through the Raj yog alone, unless, 
 indeed, one had gone through the terrible discipline 
 of the Hatha yog in a previous existence. 2 
 
 The Raj yog philosophy, as expounded in English 
 by the Madras yogi Sabhapaty Swami, with whom 
 I had the pleasure of conversing on one occasion, 
 teaches that man's existence, as distinct and separate 
 from the Infinite Universal Spirit, is a mere delusion, 
 which arises from the genesis of the so-called twelve 
 faculties, due to the circulation of the Universal 
 
 1 Dr. Honigberger, who was at Runjeet Singh's court at the 
 time, says/6>r/y days. J. C. O. 
 
 - Swami Dyanand Saraswati in " Theosophist," vol. ii. p. 47. 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 31 
 
 Spirit through the human body, in a triple set of 
 hollow vessels, answering in some way to animal 
 functions, mind, and soul reminding one of Lytton's 
 impressive description of the red, the azure, and the 
 silvery light circulating through Margrave's pros- 
 trate frame in the museum under the power of Sir 
 Philip Derval's spells. The position and course of 
 these vessels is indicated in a fantastic diagram 
 in the Madras yogi's pamphlet. In its passage 
 through them the Infinite Spirit evolves, at different 
 points, the several faculties, senses, and desires of 
 men ; hut these, being entirely gross and delusive, 
 must be subdued and annihilated, if the soul in man 
 is to gain its lost omniscience and serenity. For the 
 attainment of this object the Madras yogi himself 
 a professed adept who had been privileged to fly 
 through the air to Kailas, the celestial mountain, and 
 there to behold the Great God Siva employed in 
 yoga practices lays clown detailed rules, having for 
 their aim and object a gradual extinction of all the 
 human faculties, senses, and desires, by means of 
 arguments addressed to them separately ; by a course 
 of long continued meditation with closed eyes in a 
 secluded place ; by drawing the spirit up and down 
 through the triple channel of the sikmana (or Sash- 
 umna) nddee, and by the uttering of certain spells or 
 
 mantras. 
 
 
 
 Addressing the neophyte, the Madras yogi ob- 
 serves : 
 
 " Remember . . . that you must be very cautious that the 
 twelve faculties dead and buried should not give forth the bad 
 effluvia of their putrification and annoy and disturb you at the 
 time of your samadhi. I again warn you and say beware of those 
 
32 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 treacherous faculties, and become not again their servile, 
 crouching, mean and ignoble slave and victim. 
 
 "If in this state you have any consciousness of seeing the 
 Infinite Spirit, cancel that consciousness also. For who is it 
 that sees, and what is that that is seen ? In fact empty your- 
 self from the consciousness'of wisdom and duality ; you must 
 become the Infinite Spirit without the idea of becoming the 
 Infinite Spirit." 
 
 Thus by the practice of Raj yog and the attain- 
 ment of samadhi the devotee becomes unconcious 
 of his existence as a man, and passes, as it were 
 into the full consciousness of divinity with all its 
 attributes. But what becomes of the body ? On 
 this point the Madras yogi says that the rishis 
 and yogis, after remaining, as long as they like, in 
 the condition of absorption in the Infinite, meta- 
 morphose their bodies into lingams, 1 many of which 
 may be seen in the ashrums, and then enter into final 
 reunion with the Universal Spirit. The Madras 
 yogi goes on to say that many ancient rishis, stated 
 to have died thousands of years ago, are still living, 
 and are visited periodically by the yogis on the 
 Neilgherry Hills. 2 So congenial are marvels to the 
 genius of the East, that possibly when Mr. Ryder 
 Haggard's powerful story, " She," finds its way into 
 the hands of Indian believers in yoga-vidya, they 
 will pretend that the yogis had long since discovered 
 the wonderful fire which is the Spirit of the World, 
 the very life of Nature, and, bathing in its life- 
 
 1 The phallic emblem worshipped by the followers of the 
 god Siva. 
 
 2 A treatise on " Vedantic Raj Yoga Philosophy " by the 
 Mahatma Giana Guroo Yogi Sabhapaty Swami. Edited by 
 Siris Chandra Basil. Lahore, 1880. 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 33 
 
 giving flames, had secured themselves against 
 physical decay and death. 
 
 In one form or other the idea which underlies 
 the doctrine of yoga has a profound and abiding- 
 influence on the religious life of the entire Hindu 
 race, and a fascination even for minds which have 
 emancipated themselves, to a large degree, from 
 hereditary and traditional influences. Yoga in its 
 spiritual aspect, and in an Occidental disguise, is 
 well presented by the late Babu Keshub Chunder 
 Sen, "the Apostle of the New Dispensation" and 
 leader of the Brahmo sect, in the following interest- 
 ing passage : 
 
 " What does yoga literally mean ? Union. The English 
 word which makes the nearest approach to it is Communion. 
 The created soul, in its worldly and sinful condition, lives 
 separate and estranged from the Supreme Soul. A reconcilia- 
 tion is needed ; nay, more than mere reconciliation. A har- 
 monious union is sought and realized. This union with Deity 
 is the real secret of Hindu yoga. It is a spiritual unification, 
 it is consciousness of two in one ; duality in unity. To the 
 philosophical and thoughtful Hindu this is the highest heaven. 
 He pants for no other salvation ; he seeks no other miikti or 
 deliverance. Separation, disunion, estrangement, a sense of 
 distinction, duality, the pride of the eye, this is to him the root 
 of all sin and suffering ; and the only heaven he aspires to is 
 conscious union and oneness with Deity. He is ever struggling 
 and striving to attain this blessed condition of divine humanity. 
 Once in possession of it, he is above all sorrow and distraction, 
 sin and impurity, and he feels all is serene and tranquil within. 
 All his devotions and prayers, his rites and ceremonies, his 
 meditations and his self-denials, are but means and methods 
 which help him on to this heaven." ' 
 
 1 "Yoga : Objective and Subjective." Calcutta : The Brahmo 
 Tract Society, 1884. 
 
 3 
 
34 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 It will be evident, after what has already been 
 stated in this paper, that this yogaism of the Brahmo 
 is not quite that of the orthodox Hindu, but, like 
 Dr. Jenkinson's Christianity in Mr. Mallock's " New 
 Republic," is " really a new firm trading under an 
 old name and trying to purchase the goodwill of the 
 former establishment." 
 
 During the last few years the yoga-vidya system 
 has attracted an unusual amount of attention 
 amongst the educated classes in India, owing to the 
 fact that a Yankee colonel and a clever Russian 
 lady went about the country openly professing their 
 belief in the existence of yogi adepts and their 
 extraordinary powers. The gallant colonel told a 
 large audience of natives, in the most emphatic 
 manner, that there were at the present time Indian 
 adepts in Yog-Vidya who could carry on conversa- 
 tion with one another, at any distance, without the 
 cumbrous appliances (" poles, wires, and pots of 
 chemicals ") of the European electric telegraph ; 
 omitting, however, to add that the wonderful occult 
 telegraph system of the yogi independent of poles, 
 wires, and pots of chemicals has not been of much 
 use to the people of India and that the vast know- 
 ledge of the secrets of nature possessed by these 
 sages, has not helped their compatriots to make 
 life one whit more pleasant or endurable. As for 
 the Russian lady, she took higher ground : for, 
 although not an adept herself, she enjoyed the 
 privilege of the friendship and countenance of one 
 of the great yogis or mahatmas of the Himalayas, 
 Koot Hoomi Lai Singh, whose mighty aid enabled 
 her, it seems, to accomplish a few feats such as 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 35 
 
 ordinary conjurors perform every day without the 
 help of such highly endowed patrons. 
 
 Certain classes of the natives of India naturally 
 hailed, with joy and pride, the advent of these new 
 allies from the advanced and civilized countries 
 beyond the sea ; allies who were never tired of 
 flattering their national vanity, by telling them that 
 their own yogi adepts, dwelling in remote parts of 
 the Himalayas, had satisfactorily solved problems 
 towards which European science was only just feebly 
 groping its way. That many Hindus should, under 
 the circumstances, become ardent followers of these 
 new apostles from the West, was only natural. But 
 it has to be added that the clever lady and her 
 colleague actually found believers and followers 
 amongst the highest and best educated class of 
 Europeans in India. Possibly a strong tincture of 
 the prevailing scepticism with regard to all ancient 
 beliefs, combined with a leaning towards the new 
 Comtean religion of humanity, may have led these 
 gentlemen to give a favourable reception to the idea 
 of the existence of human-gods in the inaccessible 
 mountains. But whether this surmise be correct 
 or not, it is certain that several Europeans of good 
 social position joined the Theosophical Society, and 
 became humble disciples of Madame Blavatsky and 
 the invisible but potent Root Hoomi Lai Singh. 
 One convert to the new religion wrote a very read- 
 able book on the occult world, in which he unfalter- 
 ingly believed. Others gave what countenance and 
 support they could to the new movement. A shrine 
 of Koot Hoomi, with a lock and key, was set up, 
 and many remarkable, if meaningless, phenomena 
 
3 6 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 took place there ; for instance, fragments of a broken 
 saucer were introduced into the shrine and the door 
 locked. On opening it, a whole saucer was found 
 inside. We are of course to believe that the whole 
 saucer was made in some wonderful way by the 
 presiding divinity out of the broken pieces put into 
 the cabinet though the sceptical have been wicked 
 enough to suggest the existence of sliding backs and 
 such-like things. 
 
 In April 1883, I had the pleasure of listening to, 
 and exchanging a few words with, one who professed 
 to be an advanced Chela, or disciple, of the mahat- 
 mas of the Himalayas and Thibet, that dark 
 borderland of mystery to the Indians of our days, 
 as it was to their forefathers ; who believed that on 
 Mount Meru lived the Uttara Kurus, who reached 
 the age of ten thousand years on the banks of 
 streams flowing in golden beds. His advent was 
 thus publicly announced : 
 
 " An advanced Chela (on his way from the North) has con- 
 descended to attend the meeting, and to show certain test 
 phenomena, in order to convince the people as to the reality 
 of occult forces, and will also narrate his personal experiences 
 in yoga-vidya as well as give an account of the Mahatmas of 
 the Theosophical Society." 
 
 The chela was a very spare, diminutive, dark- 
 skinned man, evidently a Dravidian from southern 
 India, although, for obvious reasons, he declined to 
 reveal his nationality. His dress was peculiar. On 
 his head he wore a small skull-cap of orange-yellow 
 cloth with a dark border, below which his long hair 
 could be seen. A loose-sleeved robe of a brown 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 37 
 
 material reached nearly to his ankles. Over it was 
 a sleeveless vest of a gay pattern. Dark coloured 
 trowsers and well-fitting English boots of untanned 
 leather, laced up the front, completed this strange 
 costume. 
 
 As for the " Mahatmas of the Theosophical So- 
 ciety," they are adepts in yoga-vidya, like the 
 mythical Root Hoomi Lai Singh, " whose compre- 
 hension of Nature and Humanity ranges," according 
 to Mr. A. P. Sinnett, " so far beyond the science and 
 philosophy of Europe, that only the broadest-minded 
 representatives of either will be able to realize the 
 existence of such powers in Man as those he 
 constantly exercises." r These are the words of a 
 European, but we shall better understand what the 
 people of India think about such matters by letting 
 the chela enlighten us on the subject. 
 
 Addressing his audience in English, he said that 
 when quite a little child, only seven or eight years 
 of age, a yogi appeared before him unexpectedly. 
 A radiance streamed from the person of the 
 holy man, and so surprised and awed him that 
 he fell down and worshipped his visitor, regarding 
 him as a god, "for," added the chela, naively, "in 
 those days I believed in a God, in fact in many 
 gods." The yogi taught the child some signs, 
 which he learned, later on, were masonic signs, and 
 then vanished. After this visit the child became 
 thoughtful, gave up the companionship of his young 
 playmates, refused food, and did nothing but long 
 for the reappearance of the wonderful yogi. His 
 
 1 "The Occult World," by A. P. Sinnett; Dedication. Triib- 
 ner and Co., 1881. 
 
3 3 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 parents thought that he had gone mad, and were 
 sore distressed on his account. At length he became 
 possessed I forget how of a talisman, by means of 
 which he could constrain the yogi to appear before 
 him. He exercised his power, and the yogi, who 
 was really a mahatma of exalted wisdom and sanc- 
 tity, came and carried him off, apparently without 
 the knowledge and consent of his parents. He 
 subjected the boy to a very severe course of disci- 
 pline. For instance, if the chela had to proceed to 
 a village one mile away, his master would order him 
 to go there by a circuitous route of seven miles. If 
 he lay down to rest in any spot, the yogi would, in a 
 most arbritrary way, order him to rise and lie down 
 somewhere else, and all this simply to test his pupil's 
 capacity for implicit obedience. The yogi eventually, 
 however, rewarded the chela's devotion by instructing 
 him in occult science. He then wandered through 
 many countries, Assam, Bengal, the Himalayas, 
 and Tibet, living in the forests in great physical 
 discomfort, often obliged to climb up a tree and tie 
 himself at night to its branches for security against 
 wild beasts. Once in traversing a pathless jungle 
 he found himself suddenly upon the verge of a stu- 
 pendous precipice. He hesitated to retrace his steps, 
 because he was superstitious and thought that such 
 a course would be inauspicious, so he prayed earnestly 
 to his guru who suddenly made his appearance, and 
 bade him follow him. He did so. Before him no 
 pathway was visible, and, as he proceeded, there was 
 none behind, but between himself and his guide there 
 was a distinct and well-marked pathway. "-Let 
 science explain this if it can ! " said the chela, 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 39 
 
 triumphantly. In this strain was he proceeding, 
 when voices in the audience (all present except 
 myself were natives) suggested that as darkness was 
 closing in upon us, the exhibition of the promised 
 test phenomena should not be delayed. Well, they 
 were at last arrived at, and proved to be simple 
 enough. To establish the truth of yoga-vidya and 
 the reality of the hidden forces in which the so-called 
 occultists profess belief, the " advanced chela " offered 
 to allow one of his fingers to be cut ; asserting that 
 no blood would flow from it, and that if that member 
 were amputated entirely, it would be miraculously 
 restored. I examined the particular finger which 
 was thus ready to bear the heavy burden of occultism. 
 It was a thin, fleshless, skinny finger, but resembled 
 in these respects, its fellows on the same hand. A 
 ring encircled this finger. An educated and highly 
 respectable native gentleman of good position ex- 
 amined the ring critically, remarking to me that he 
 knew a certain talisman, and wished to see if this 
 was the same, apparently prepared to find the finger 
 fully protected from the knife by the virtue of the 
 charmed circlet. In reply to an inquiry, the chela 
 said he would not object to another finger being 
 experimented upon, provided the ring were trans- 
 ferred to it, thus admitting or declaring the potency 
 of the ring. 
 
 Mr. Sinnett, already quoted, writes as follows : 
 
 " Ask any cultivated Hindoo if he has ever heard of M ahatmas 
 and yoga-i'idyii) or occult science, and it is a hundred to one that 
 you will find he has and, unless he happens to be one of the 
 hybrid products of Anglo-Indian Universities, that he fully 
 believes in the reality of the powers ascribed to yoga." 
 
40 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 This statement I am prepared to endorse. And on 
 the occasion I refer to, there were present many 
 "cultivated Hindoos" of the type approved of by 
 Mr. Sinnett, and also several of the " hybrid products 
 of Anglo-Indian Universities," whose scepticism re- 
 garding the truth of yoga vidya was apparent in 
 their eagerness to put the chela's pretensions to the 
 test. 
 
 In response to the chela's challenge, one young 
 man came forward to cut the finger. Several ap- 
 plauded him ; others cried shame ! The president 
 vetoed the proceeding, saying, that the amputation 
 or cutting of the finger would be regarded by the law 
 as a case of causing grevious hurt, duly punishable 
 under the penal code. The maintenance of order 
 was now impossible. Everybody pressed forward to 
 see what was going on. An animated dispute was 
 being carried on round the chelae Two of the three 
 kerosine lamps on the table had been extinguished, 
 whether by accident or otherwise I could not tell. 
 The affair had become, literally, a screaming farce, and 
 I thought it time to withdraw. 
 
 But the matter did not end here. The chela and 
 his supporters were followed to their lodgings. The 
 fulfilment of the proposed test was pressed home, 
 with the result that a young student in the Govern- 
 ment College sliced off a portion of the flesh from 
 the end of the chela's finger, followed of course by 
 a copious flow of blood. The facts of the case were 
 stated to me by the man who performed the opera- 
 tion ; and the incident may be taken as a fair sample 
 of the uncompromising struggle just commencing in 
 India, with more than ordinary warmth, between the 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 41 
 
 deeply rooted time-honoured superstitions of the 
 East and the modern ideas imported from the West. 
 In a recent work Professor Max Mtiller says that 
 the yogi hermits living in the forests of the Himalaya 
 would be the last to claim any mysterious knowledge 
 beyond what the sastras supply. 1 I do not know 
 what authority the learned Professor may have for 
 this statement ; but as far as my experience goes, 
 yogaism in the eyes even of men who have had the 
 privilege of instruction in Western science is, with- 
 out doubt, a system of strange, extraordinary, and 
 mysterious knowledge, giving its possessor very ex- 
 tensive power over men and natural phenomena. 
 Only three or four years ago a graduate of an Indian 
 University thought it worth while to publish a 
 treatise on yoga-vidya, embodying such puerilities as 
 the following : 
 
 " In a lonely place let a student of yoga stand with his back 
 towards the sun or moon. Let him fix his eyes on the throat 
 of the shadow he throws and repeat the mantra, Oin K ram para 
 brahmane mansah for one hundred and eight times, standing 
 in the same position. Let him see into the sky. In this 
 practice let him persevere for six months. He shall see the 
 great light, and obtain powers over those who walk on earth. 
 The subject is a very extensive one. There are many other 
 advantages in this practice. If it is carried on for two years, 
 past as well as future becomes present to the man." 2 
 
 The passage just cited refers, I believe, to the fact 
 that if you stare intently for some time at your own 
 shadow cast by the bright sunshine and then look up 
 at the sky, you will see your image reproduced there. 
 
 1 " Biographical Essays," p. 177. 
 
 2 "The Science of Breath," by Pandit Rama Prasad 
 Kasyapa, B.A. 
 
42 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 This after-image Indian mystics call the astral body, 
 and they declare that it is possible to establish 
 familiar intercourse with it, to induce it to converse 
 freely and to get it to render assistance in the affairs 
 of life. Thus upon a 'fact well known to scientific 
 men, and easily explainable, the exuberant Oriental 
 imagination has built up an airy fabric of mystery 
 and delusion. 
 
 The ethical system of the yogi is simple enough. 
 He has apparently no duties to perform in regard to 
 his fellow-men, though he is required to abstain from 
 slaughter, falsehood, theft, incontinence and avarice. 1 
 His object in life is to withdraw, as far as possible, 
 from human society, from its business, its troubles, 
 its aspirations, and, in silent solitude, to deliberately 
 annihilate every faculty and attribute of his man- 
 hood. The world of humanity may go its way while 
 the yogi is lost in the Universal Spirit. With a 
 strange want of appreciation of the legitimate 
 powers and functions of the healthy human mind, 
 without even a glimmering of the beauty and interest 
 of the infinitely varied phenomena which science has 
 brought within its ken, the yogi shuts his eyes to the 
 sensible world around him, and expects universal 
 knowledge from idle self-contemplation. 
 
 The root idea of the yoga philosophy and practice 
 must be looked for in that pantheism which has 
 ever been the esoteric creed of Brahmanic India and 
 of Asia generally. Since man is really and essen- 
 tially a part of the Universal Deity (the all-God), 
 consisting of both spiritual and material elements, it 
 is surely possible, argued the Brahman, for the in- 
 
 1 " Hindu Philosophy," by Ram Chandra Bose, M.A., p. .175. 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 43 
 
 telligent part of him to attain to a consciousness of 
 its oneness with Deity, or rather the Universal Spirit, 
 and in doing so to become possessed of all the 
 attributes of godhood. The real difficulty in the way 
 was the body, with its senses, its appetites, and its 
 passions. If these could be subdued the desired 
 object would be secured. 1 In a state of trance the 
 bodily functions become suspended, and hence it 
 seemed to the Brahman that the attainment of this 
 condition should be the aim of any one who desired 
 to be reunited with the Universal Spirit. And as 
 already remarked, the practices enjoined by the rules 
 of theyoga-vidya would seem to be such as the experi- 
 ence of the Hindus had found to be most conducive 
 to the production of a state of hypnotism. Thus far 
 we can follow the yogi. Beyond this comes dream- 
 land, mental hallucination and deliberate imposture. 
 Although there are, and must at all times have 
 been, honest yogis, yet the calling has, undoubtedly, 
 its attractions for impostors. The disappointed man, 
 disgusted with life, and willing to renounce it, turns 
 for consolation to a system which promises complete 
 release from the illusions of human hopes and the 
 penalties of human infirmities. The ambitious en- 
 thusiast enters upon its practices to acquire the 
 power he expects to attain by the proper observance 
 of the prescribed conditions ; whereas the knave, on 
 his part, takes up the calling without any serious 
 intention of abiding by the rules, but with the very 
 
 1 The reader of Plato will not need to be reminded how 
 Socrates taught that the body, with its eyes and ears and other 
 organs of sense, was only a hindrance to- the soul in the acquisi-~ 
 tion of the knowledge of existence (' Phaxlo "). 
 
44 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 sufficient object of imposing upon the credulous 
 multitude, under the influence of the vague, inde- 
 finable terror inspired by the superhuman power he 
 arrogantly lays claim to, and which the vulgar are 
 only too ready to attribute to him. 
 
 Of the fact that some men who practise yog at the 
 present day do honestly believe they acquire extra- 
 ordinary power thereby, we had a curious instance 
 at Lahore. A yogi, who believed himself possessed 
 of a commanding influence over wild animals, in 
 order to put his powers to the test, attempted some 
 familiarities with the tiger in the Lahore Zoological 
 Gardens, and got himself so mauled that his arm 
 had to be amputated. 
 
 Cases of deliberate imposture are numerous, and 
 sometimes come before our law courts. 
 
 Some years ago the following story went the round 
 of the Anglo-Indian newspapers : -A yogi predicted 
 that on a certain important occasion an idol would 
 emerge from the ground at Bithooria in Jodhpore. 
 In due time an idol rose gradually above the surface 
 of the earth, and immediately became an object of 
 worship to tens of thousands, who flocked to lay 
 their offerings before the god who had thus miracu- 
 lously made his appearance in the world. The place 
 was taken under the Maharajah's protection, and 
 yielded a considerable revenue, though probably only 
 for a brief period, as the idol retreated into the earth, 
 as slowly and mysteriously as it had come forth. 
 The explanation of the mystery was that the 
 prophet had dug a deep but narrow pit, and filled it, 
 almost to the brim, with gram. On this foundation 
 he placed the idol and covered it up. He then 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 45 
 
 allowed a sufficient supply of water to reach the 
 gram, which in swelling in the narrow pit raised the 
 idol above the ground. When, subsequently, the 
 gram was allowed to dry or rot the idol subsided with 
 it, and was lost to the anxious gaze of its worshippers. 
 A philosophy of quietism is natural to the indolence 
 and enervation of an Indian life. While European 
 writers are never tired of insisting that action is the 
 object of man's existence, or as Carlyle put it 
 " the end of Man is an Action and not a Thought, 
 though it were the noblest " the Hindu philoso- 
 pher deprecates action, believing rather in quiet 
 contemplation. Hence yogaism flourishes and has 
 flourished for ages in India, and the question natu- 
 rally presents itself : What has been the practical 
 outcome of the system ? The question may not be 
 easy to answer, but this much at least may be said 
 without hesitation, that the best minds have been 
 withdrawn, through yogaism, from the pursuit of 
 practical objects, and drowned in a dull lethargic 
 sleep, unprofitable alike to themselves and their 
 country ; while upon the masses, unacquainted with 
 the subtle doctrines of pantheism and so-called yoga 
 philosophy, the effect of having before them the 
 lazy, dirty, repulsive yogi as an ideal of excellence 
 and a pattern for imitation, cannot have been other- 
 wise than injurious. How long the unwashed, un- 
 kempt ascetic, who, disregarding every duty and 
 obligation to family or society, sits absorbed in the 
 contemplation of the tip of his own nose, or wanders 
 about the country living upon the credulity and fears 
 of the ignorant, shall remain an object of veneration 
 to the people, must depend upon the many and 
 
46 YOGIS AND MAHATMAS, 
 
 various influences now at work in modifying the 
 ideas and character of the natives of India. Of 
 course it is the heroic, and not the obviously repul- 
 sive, side of asceticism which, in the case of the yogi 
 or any other anchorite, commands, in the first in- 
 stance, the admiration of the people. The ascetic's 
 self-denial, his contempt of the world and worldly 
 pleasures, his self-inflicted penances and mortifica- 
 tions, are indications of will-force, determination, 
 tenacity of purpose and self-sufficiency, which attract 
 and overawe the multitude. The ascetic, by his 
 scornful renunciation of all they hold most valuable, 
 asserts his superiority to and commands the homage 
 of the vulgar, which in the case of the yogi is en- 
 hanced by dread of his supposed power. After 
 making allowances, however, for whatever of good 
 there may be in yogaism and in the yogis themselves, 
 it will be admitted, at any rate by Europeans, that 
 until these useless, selfish, and uncouth idols are 
 dethroned, the Indian mind will not rise to a just 
 appreciation of real (as distinguished from ceremo- 
 nial) cleanliness, manly energy, and public spirit. 
 
 Happily there are already signs which indicate 
 that even such educated natives as cannot emanci- 
 pate themselves from a belief in yoga. - vidya 
 national beliefs die hard are beginning to be 
 ashamed of the dirty, indolent, and repulsive 
 mendicants who perambulate the country, and, for 
 the credit of the. so-called yog science, pretend that 
 the real yogis are very different from these unclean 
 and disgusting objects of popular veneration. 
 
 With the spread of Western ideas, and with the 
 growth of new objects of ambition created by inti- 
 
THE SAGES OF INDIA. 47 
 
 mate contact with the restless civilization and free 
 institutions of Europe, the yogi and his system will 
 necessarily occupy a diminishing place in the 
 thoughts and in the hearts of the people of India ; 
 but so thoroughly suited is yoga-vidya to the genius 
 of the East, that probably many generations will pass 
 away before it is numbered with the extinct systems 
 of a vanished state of society. 
 
II. 
 
 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE- 
 TELLERS. 
 
 " You cannot doubt the seer's prophetic sight ; 
 Trust me, what he hath said will surely be. 
 Whatever is uttered by the holy Brahman, 
 Who is the light divine and manifest, 
 Must come to past." 
 
 Uttara-Rama-Charitra (Professor H. H. 
 WILSON'S Translation). 
 
 A WELL-DRESSED man, with a big wallet under his 
 arm and a pamphlet in his hand, presented himself 
 before me as I sat in my verandah, announcing his 
 presence in these words, " Fartune taller sar ! " 
 which I believe represented his entire stock of what 
 was meant for English. He was of middle stature, 
 of that clean yellow-brown complexion (which has 
 been compared to the colour of a new saddle) 
 common amongst natives of the better sort in India. 
 His features were well-cut, his eyes sharp and in- 
 telligent. A white line was neatly painted down the 
 length gf his nose, and two other white lines ran along 
 the outer margins of his ears. He wore gold earrings 
 set with pearls, and from his neck hung two strings 
 
EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 49 
 
 of beads, the shorter one consisting of alternate 
 pieces of gold and red coral, the longer one of neatly 
 shaped bits of sweet-scented sandal-wood. There 
 was nothing of the gipsy about this man. Quite 
 the reverse ; he looked a person in easy circumstances, 
 enjoying comfortable relations with his neighbours 
 and the world in general. 
 
 I asked to see the pamphlet he carried. He 
 handed it to me very readily. It was an astrological 
 almanac for the year, and, after a little chaffering, 
 he sold it to me for six annas, which I afterwards 
 learned was just six times its market value. After 
 buying the pamphlet I told the fortune-teller to go 
 away, but he was by far too experienced in his trade 
 to be got rid of so easily, and immediately had 
 recourse to the old trick so familiar to professors 
 of his art. Without examining my hand he could 
 tell, from the indications given by my face alone, that 
 the fate in store for me was a very good one ; but he 
 protested that the pleasant details of the future 
 could only be read in the lines of the open palm. 
 "Just show me your hand," he said, "and I will 
 reveal to you all the secrets of the future. Yours is 
 a good fate." I still refused. He next tried flattery. 
 Looking straight into my eyes, as if to read me 
 through and through, he affirmed, with much im- 
 pressiveness, that I was a man of strict probity and 
 one who never broke his word ; and this, for reasons 
 which became apparent in the sequel, he reiterated 
 several times. In regard to my past life he hazarded 
 some vague guesses, which in a few cases were fairly 
 correct and in others very wide of the truth. 
 Having prolonged these preliminaries sufficiently for 
 
 4 
 
50 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 
 
 my purpose, which was to draw the fortune-teller 
 out, I resigned my palm to him. After scanning it 
 attentively, he began predicting with much volubility 
 the length of the years, eighty-four, allotted to me ; 
 the number of children, thirteen, I was to be father 
 to, and so on. Suddenly he paused in the midst of 
 his vaticinations, as if in some perplexity, and then 
 announced, with every mark of deep and natural 
 concern, that an enemy was endeavouring to cause 
 serious injury to me and mine. "The enemy," he 
 said, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, with a far-off 
 look in his eyes, as if peering into the mystery, 
 " was probably a disappointed servant ; " but when 
 pressed on this point, the astrologer admitted that 
 he could not make any positive assertion on the 
 subject. But whoever he might be, the enemy in 
 question had, after the manner of the practisers of 
 the black art in all countries, made tiny images 
 (putlas) to represent me and the members of my 
 family, and, invoking a terrible curse upon these 
 simulacra, had consumed them with fire. 1 With an 
 appearance of earnestness which would certainly 
 have had considerable effect upon any credulous 
 
 1 " There are districts in Great Britain and America, and 
 many more on the continent of Europe, where spells that 
 waste and destroy are still believed in ; where effigies of 
 wax and even onions are labelled with some hated name, and 
 stuck over with pins, and set near fires to be melted or dried 
 up, in full belief that some subject of the charm will be con- 
 sumed by disease along with the object used." Convvay's 
 " Demonology," vol. i. p. 272. 
 
 The same custom was known to Plato and is practised by 
 negroes (Lang's " Myth, Ritual, and Religion," i. 98). As 
 every reader of modern English poetry knows, the superstition 
 
EXrElUENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 5! 
 
 person, the Brahman revealed to me that the danger 
 hanging over me and mine was death to at least 
 three members of my household, and a long and 
 dangerous illness in my own case. He very pru- 
 dently did not threaten me with- an untimely end, 
 having already announced that I was to live to the 
 advanced age of eighty-four years. Although I tried to 
 betray no signs of incredulity, the Brahman seemed 
 to think that my faith in his knowledge or veracity 
 needed strengthening. " Doubt me not," he said, 
 with uplifted hands and eyes turned heavenwards; 
 " I am a Brahman, and God will strike me blind if 
 I am telling you any untruth. May my strength 
 forsake me, may my very life be the sacrifice, if what 
 I am asserting be false." " Sit down here," he 
 added, " and I will make this matter clear to you. 
 I will put it beyond all doubt." He asked for a 
 flower and a basin of water. A rose and a bowl of 
 water were brought. The Brahman made me wash 
 my hands and arms carefully to a little above the 
 wrists, and repeating strange incantations (Sanskrit, 
 mantras), he made me close my right hand over the 
 rose and dip both hands, tightly closed, into the 
 vessel of water. I had no idea of what was going 
 
 in question is woven into Dante Gabriel Rossetti's impressive 
 little poem " Sister Helen," the first stanza of which is : 
 
 " \Vhy did you melt your waxen man, 
 
 Sister Helen ? 
 
 To-day is the third since you began ! 
 The time was long, yet the time ran, 
 
 Little brother. 
 (O Mother, Mary Mother, 
 Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven !) " 
 
52 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 
 
 to follow, but willing to see and learn, I passively 
 obeyed all the directions of the fortune-teller. After 
 awhile he ceased his muttered spells, requested me 
 to take my hands out of the water, and turning up 
 the right sleeve of my coat, showed me to my 
 surprise, I must confess a dark mark upon my bare 
 skin just above the wrist, resembling a rudely 
 designed figure with a round head, an oval trunk, 
 arms expanded widely, and legs far apart. Pointing 
 to the mark, the seer said, with bated breath, " The 
 effigies made by your enemy were like that ! Do 
 you believe me now ? How terrible is the danger 
 that menaces you ; but, happily, I can assist you 
 to ward it off." 
 
 A metal plate or salver, a little salt, and an iron 
 nail were required at this stage, and were produced. 
 Three pinches of the salt J were cast upon the dark 
 portentous mark which still disfigured my arm, and 
 then the Brahman gradually washed it out by 
 rubbing it with the iron nail repeatedly dipped in the 
 water. He next placed the rose on the salver, and 
 after passing it round my head a particular number 
 of times, he made me pour three and a half handfuls 
 of water upon it. From his wallet he produced a 
 bit of old flat iron about three inches long and three- 
 fourths of an inch wide. This he placed in the 
 salver. Still muttering spells and invoking gods 
 and saints (the names of Jesus and Muhammad 
 being strangely blended with the names of the gods 
 and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon), he asked for 
 
 1 That demons hate or dread salt is an old and widespread 
 superstition. See Conway's " Demonology and Devil-lore," ii. 
 p. 297. 
 
F.. XPERTENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 53 
 
 some clothes which had been worn by me. The 
 required articles, having been produced, were placed 
 by him under my feet. Next the inevitable piece of 
 silver was required, and when handed to him was 
 deposited in the salver. I was requested to step over 
 it and back again three times. Now followed more 
 mutterings of spells. The salver was made to rest 
 on both my hands, and the Brahman bid me fix my 
 attention upon the piece of iron lying on it in the 
 water. Speaking after my friend, as I may now call 
 him, I transferred to the lifeless bit of old iron in 
 the tray the curses which had been heaped upon me 
 and mine by our unknown, but not less dangerous 
 foe. While the Brahman muttered his mantras for my 
 preservation, I waited with no very lively curiosity 
 to see what the next proceeding would be. Suddenly 
 I was startled by the scrap of inanimate iron making 
 a lively jump quite out of the salver which was 
 resting on my hands. It fell upon the Brahman's 
 thigh as he sat squat upon the carpet. With 
 well-feigned excitement he interpreted this incident 
 as establishing satisfactorily that the rite we had 
 performed had had the desired effect. The spell 
 cast upon me and mine had been broken. 
 
 I thought the business was over, as the Brahman 
 said that the impending evil having been averted by 
 his counter spells, my good fortune would now be 
 very great. Rising above vague generalities, he 
 ventured upon the specific prediction that within 
 three weeks I should receive information of the 
 most gratifying kind, adding that when the happy 
 event occurred he would come to me in person and 
 claim a reward of five rupees. Indeed he was even 
 
54 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS, 
 
 more explicit in his prediction. A sum of money 
 due to me, the payment of which had been delayed 
 on account of some misunderstanding, would soon 
 be received by me, and I would, probably, before 
 long, leave Lahore for a better appointment else- 
 where. 
 
 The affair, however, was not quite over yet. It 
 was undoubtedly true that the children and myself 
 were now out of danger, but a special peril still 
 threatened the Mem Sahib (the lady). Having averted 
 the danger from myself, surely I would not leave the 
 lady in trouble. Was I sceptical about the risk to 
 which she was still exposed ? My doubts could easily 
 be set at rest. 
 
 This time a small lump of cotton, dipped in com- 
 mon olive oil, was required and duly provided. 
 Talking volubly, with great apparent earnestness and 
 many confidential whispers, the fortune-teller made 
 us hold the cotton between our hands, placed one 
 upon the other, palm to palm, and after sundry 
 muttered spells he lifted up the cotton and squeezed 
 the oil from it, quite of a blood-red colour. Of 
 course this was only a token of an impending 
 calamity of some sort, to avert which a piece of 
 clean cotton cloth and some silver were needed. 
 The indispensable articles were brought, and after 
 the appropriate mantras had been uttered, became, I 
 need hardly say, the property of the clever fortune- 
 teller. 
 
 The business was at last over ; the Brahman 
 had only to write out two pieces of paper with 
 cabalistic signs, one in the name of my wife and the 
 other in my name. Whilst so employed a little son 
 
\VITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 55 
 
 of mine was standing by with a new inkstand in his 
 hand, one of those ordinary traveller's inkstands 
 shaped like a box, with a spring lid. The Brahman 
 wished to see it, took it in his hand, opened it, ob- 
 served that there was no ink in it, and quietly placed 
 it just before him on the carpet. He slowly com- 
 pleted his cabalistic papers. One was to be thrown 
 into water the next day, together with some goor 
 (crude sugar) and a flower ; the other to be wrapped 
 up in a piece of red cloth, with a clove and a 
 cardamum, and laid under my pillow, until the 
 fulfilment of his prediction that I should receive, 
 within three weeks, good news of a very acceptable 
 kind. 
 
 Affirming for the twentieth time the implicit trust 
 that could be placed upon my every word, he now 
 put the empty inkstand into one of my hands and 
 some old clothes in the other, and getting me to 
 repeat certain words after him, the artful Brahman 
 led me, quite easily and without my perceiving 
 exactly what he was about, to make him a formal 
 present of the inkstand, which I really had had no 
 intention of doing. 
 
 I now took up and examined the piece of iron 
 which had indicated, in such a lively and demonstra- 
 tive manner, its willingness to stand vicariously for 
 us. It was a little bit of ordinary flat iron, doubled 
 over at one end to the extent of about one-sixth of 
 an inch.. Wedged, but not tightly, in the fold I 
 found a small white bead, which the Brahman 
 quickly removed when his attention was drawn to it, 
 assuring me that it was only a common bead which 
 must have got in there by accident when the iron 
 
56 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 
 
 was lying, with a lot of other things, in his bag. 
 But the little intruder, I think, betrayed a secret, for, 
 in all probability, by means of it and the help of a long 
 fine hair, the bit of iron had been persuaded into 
 energetic acceptance of the danger threatening us. 
 As to the figure that had appeared upon my arm, it 
 had, of course, been impressed upon my damp skin 
 as the soothsayer was pretending to show me the 
 exact position in which I should hold my hands 
 in the water. 
 
 Our friend was packing up now. From the ready 
 way in which we had carried out his instructions, he 
 must and naturally enough have concluded that he 
 had credulous dupes to deal with, and so made a last 
 attempt to derive profit either from my superstitious 
 fears or my unwariness. Pointing to the bit of iron 
 which I had replaced in the salver, he requested me 
 to tell him to take that away, together with the 
 dangers which had been threatening us. Too wide- 
 awake this time to be taken in, I lifted the iron out 
 of the salver, and, handing the rusty scrap of metal 
 to him, told him to take it away. This ended the 
 proceedings. 
 
 And now for the fulfilment of the prediction of 
 speedy good news. Well, no good news of any 
 kind reached me; but such is the irony of fate- 
 on the very last day of the three weeks within 
 which I was to receive glad tidings, a letter was 
 handed to me containing the most disappointing 
 piece of intelligence affecting my own prospects 
 which could well have been imagined. In this way 
 were the truthful Brahman's predictions fulfilled. 
 Let him look to it in the next world. For, if we 
 
EXPEKTENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 57 
 
 may trust Dante, our Brahman seer, and men of his 
 kind, having presumed to look too far ahead, will for 
 ever wander backwards about the dismal pit with 
 their heads turned round and set the contrary way 
 on their shoulders and the} 7 will richly deserve their 
 punishment. 
 
 I cannot hope to have given my reader an 
 adequate idea of the art and power of the crafty 
 Brahman. His earnest and continued appeals to 
 God, his constant and solemn invocations of curses 
 upon his own head if he were departing from the 
 truth, were really very impressive, even to me who 
 had no reason to place the smallest confidence in 
 him. I can well understand how, under ordinary 
 circumstances, such a man could play upon the 
 credulity and fears of the ignorant and superstitious 
 Hindus; how weak, impulsive women would be ready 
 dupes of his clever appeals to their hopes and fears, 
 how he would excite their curiosity, how his sleight 
 of hand would impose upon them, and how the 
 respect and awe inspired by his sacred character 
 as a Brahman would complete the delusion of his 
 victims. 
 
 On another occasion I allowed a Brahman fortune- 
 teller to practise his art at my expense. His method 
 of proceeding was somewhat different from that 
 already described. He did not commit himself to 
 any reckless statements in regard to my past life, 
 nor did he venture any very definite predictions about 
 my future. He confined himself to saying that I 
 had a certain object in view, the accomplishment of 
 which I earnestly desired, and that he could easily 
 satisfy me whether I should gain my end or not. 
 
58 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 
 
 After examining my hand, and getting my palm 
 crossed with silver, he made me procure a piece of 
 thread, break it myself into five hits, roll the frag- 
 ments up together and drop them, hap-hazard, on a 
 strip of cloth covered with various cabalistic signs 
 and figures. The process of dropping the thread on 
 the mystic cloth was repeated several times, the 
 Brahman pretending to take special note of the par- 
 ticular signs upon which the ball of thread fell on 
 each occasion. Once, however, he asked me to 
 separate and count the pieces of thread, in order, as 
 he said, that there might be no mistake about the 
 matter. I did so. At length he handed me the 
 pellet of thread, requesting me to place it in my 
 mouth. I had next to wash my hands and cross 
 them on my breast, solemnly fixing my thoughts on 
 God, and calling to mind any wish I might have 
 specially at heart. I was also to blow five times 
 on the back of my hands as they lay crossed on 
 my breast. While I remained in this position, the 
 Brahman kept repeating various mantras in Sanskrit. 
 He assured me that if a mark appeared on the palm 
 of my left hand, my wish would be fulfilled after the 
 lap'se of a considerable time ; but that if a mark 
 appeared on the palm of my right hand, I might cal- 
 culate upon the speedy accomplishment of my hopes. 
 I removed my hands, the left one first. There was 
 no mark on it. But the right hand bore a con- 
 spicuous one on the centre of the palm, seeing which 
 the Brahman said that all would be well with me. 
 He then got some more money, which had to be 
 passed over and round my head three times, with 
 the prayer that all my misfortunes might pass away. 
 
EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 59 
 
 At this stage the fortune-teller requested me to 
 remove the pellet of thread from my mouth, saying 
 that if the pieces had joined together, then every 
 possible doubt in regard to the fulfilment of my 
 wishes would be removed. I took the thread out of 
 my mouth, and, sure enough, there was but one long 
 piece instead of five little ones. The Brahman now 
 put some salt in my hand, upon the dark mark, and 
 with the rupees and salt rubbed it out, as well as he 
 could, and eventually obliterated it completely, with 
 the aid of five roses, which had been brought for 
 the purpose from my garden. Finally, as a parting 
 admonition, the seer warned me to be very circum- 
 spect in what I said ; always to keep my own 
 counsel, and not even to relate my dreams to any 
 one. Desiring every soul to quit the room, he 
 whispered into my ear a secret recipe for the pre- 
 paration of a sweetmeat of which I dare not 
 particularize the ingredients which would possess 
 the strange property of winning for me the sympathy 
 and affection of any person who might partake of it. 
 Seeing my evident surprise at the nature of his pre- 
 scription, the Brahman told me that I might please 
 myself about making use of the knowledge he had 
 imparted to me, but that I need not fear to act upon 
 his recommendation, for the sin (goonah), if any, 
 would be on his head, not mine. Throughout the 
 proceedings the Brahman swore by his sacred thread 
 and by his son, who had accompanied him and was 
 waiting in the verandah outside. 
 
 The reader will probably expect me to give an ex- 
 planation, should I have one to offer, regarding the 
 appearance of the black mark on my hand and the 
 
60 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS, 
 
 joining up of the five pieces of thread in my mouth. 
 I must confess that, although I was as vigilant as 
 possible, the clever dexterity of the Brahman eluded 
 my suspicious watchfulness over his proceedings, so 
 that I am not in a position to say how his tricks were 
 actually accomplished, though possible explanations 
 have occurred to me. One always fancies that one 
 can unmask the clever juggler, but generally the wish 
 to show him up is stronger than the ability to do so. 
 
 It will be evident from the foregoing narrative 
 what a clever, worldly-wise fellow the Indian for- 
 tune-teller is. He travels much I have met the 
 same man at Agra and at Lahore and he skilfully 
 adapts himself to every age and to all circumstances 
 of life. I remember a Brahman telling me my fortune 
 at Calcutta when I was quite a youth. At that im- 
 pressionable time of life, what more appropriate road 
 to the purse that the tender passion ? So the crafty 
 Brahman solemnly assured me that a married friend 
 of mine, young and good looking, was madly in love 
 with me, and offered me his assistance to bring us 
 together. 
 
 Brahman fortune-tellers are the astrologers who 
 play so important a part in the every-day life of the 
 Hindu. 
 
 They are consulted, especially by the women, 
 before taking nearly every important or trivial step in 
 life. Is a throne to be ascended ? Is a battle to be 
 fought ? The astrologer must name the proper time. 1 
 Is a marriage to be arranged? The astrologer must 
 
 1 Elliot's " Muhammadan Historians of India," by Prof. 
 Dowson, vol. v. p. 77. "Voyages de Frangois Bernier," tome 
 i. pp. 213-216. Amsterdam, 1699. 
 
EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 61 
 
 give his approval and must fix the auspicious day. 
 Is a journey to be undertaken ? The astrologer 
 must appoint the day upon which to set off. Has 
 the weather become so hot that people wish to 
 leave their rooms and transfer their beds to the flat 
 terraced roofs of their houses ? The astrologer must 
 tell them when this important migration should be 
 carried out. Is the love of a man or a woman 
 desired ? The astrologer is again appealed to for 
 charms and spells and love-potions. 
 
 Pausing one day, just for a minute, by the Bohar 
 gate, near the little bridge over the canal which forms 
 the favourite bathing-place of the people of Multan, 
 a picturesque and interesting scene presented itself 
 to my view. On one side of the bridge the men and 
 on the other the women, very much undraped, were 
 enjoying their morning bath. On the steps leading 
 from the water I noticed a woman in clean new 
 garments whose graceful form attracted my attention. 
 Ascending the flight of steps, she passed through 
 the precincts of the temple of Siva and deposited a 
 small offering before the lingam. An hour afterwards 
 I was at the ancient temple of Prahladpuri, and 
 observed, through the wide open door, the same 
 woman, in close consultation with a Brahman in an 
 adjoining building. The priest was unfolding before 
 her a long roll of astrological paper, and with a look 
 of great apparent sincerity seemed helping her to 
 unveil the secrets of the future. Of what he said or 
 what she wished to know, I have, of course, no 
 knowledge ; but probably an interesting romance was 
 there being worked out under the cunning hands of 
 the wily Br,ahmans. 
 
62 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 
 
 That the Indian fortune-teller can sometimes play 
 a prominent and personal part in the drama of 
 domestic life will appear from the following character- 
 istic story which was related to me by a Muhamma- 
 dan who knew the parties concerned. A woman 
 whose husband had gone on a journey was very 
 anxious about his prolonged absence from home, as 
 she had received no letter from him since his de- 
 parture. What more natural than to consult an 
 astrologer? He would surely know what was the 
 matter with the absent man. The reader of secrets 
 was accordingly interviewed very privately. The 
 astrological books were no doubt referred to, and, 
 instructed by the stars, the seer was able to say that 
 at midnight on a certain day of the month her hus- 
 band would return home ; but, for very private and 
 important reasons, would not wish his visit to be 
 known to any one. She was accordingly to keep the 
 matter a dead secret, and on no account to awaken 
 the curiosity or suspicions of her neighbours by any 
 preparations or unusual proceedings. The appointed 
 night arrived, and with it a gentle tap on the door 
 and a low voice asking admission. The woman 
 opened the door of her house with eagerness and 
 admitted her silent and muffled visitor, who, affecting 
 to be very tired, found his way to the little charpoy and 
 lay down upon it, inviting the woman to join him. It 
 was not long before she discovered, even in the dark- 
 ness of the little cabin, that her visitor and her husband 
 were very different persons. What was she to do ? 
 Had the wretch who occupied the bed come to murder 
 her for her gold and silver ornaments ? Should she 
 call out for help ? She was alone and at the mercy of 
 
EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 63 
 
 a possibly armed man. Protesting that her lord should 
 not sleep without food after his long journey, she 
 commenced cooking some poories, cakes fried in oil. 
 The firelight confirmed her suspicions, and the man 
 in the charpoy, no other than the Brahman astro- 
 loger, feeling he was detected, attempted to snatch 
 some ornaments from her person, but she seized the 
 pot and poured the boiling oil over him. His involun- 
 tary cries of pain roused the neighbours and led to 
 his apprehension. 
 
 Muhammadans also go about pretending to predict 
 fortunes. They use dice in their divinations, and, if 
 I may judge from those with whom I have come in 
 contact, are but shallow fellows in comparison with 
 their Brahman rivals. 
 
 "According to an assertion of the Prophet, what a fortune-teller 
 says may be true ; because one of the jinn steals away the truth, 
 and carries it to the magician's ear ; for the angels come down 
 to the region next the earth (the lowest heaven), and mention 
 the works that have been pre-ordained in heaven ; and the devils 
 (or evil jinn) listen to what the angels say, and hear the orders 
 predestined in heaven and carry them to the fortune-tellers. It 
 is oh such occasions that shooting stars are hurled at the devils. 
 It is said that 'the diviner obtains the services of the Sheytan 
 (Shaitan) by magic arts, and by names invoked, and by the 
 burning of perfumes, and he informs him of secret things.'-'" 
 
 As might be expected, it occasionally happens 
 that the predictions of the astrologers turn out cor- 
 rect. In that case the word is carried from mouth 
 to mouth, and the fame of the fulfilled prophecy 
 travels far and wide ; but when events do not tally 
 with the declared anticipations of the prophet, the 
 ignorant are readily persuaded that the nonfulfilment 
 
 1 Hughes' " Dictionary of Islam," art. Magic. 
 
64 EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 
 
 of the prediction is due entirely to some want of 
 formality or exactitude in carrying out the cere- 
 monies prescribed by the Brahman. 
 
 A very interesting instance of the fulfilment of a 
 Brahmanical prophecy will be found recorded in 
 Colonel Meadows Taylor's Autobiography. A 
 written prediction based upon the horoscope of the 
 Rajah of Sholapoor was shown to the Colonel, under 
 a solemn promise of secrecy, many years before the 
 predicted events came to pass. In this document 
 the astrologer had foretold that the Rajah would lose 
 both his state and his life before he attained the age 
 of twenty-four, and the prophecy was verified to the 
 letter under very peculiar circumstances. The story 
 is well told by Colonel Taylor, but from other 
 opinions and statements in his autobiography, there 
 would appear to be reason to believe that the 
 gallant officer was not without a tincture of super- 
 stition in his nature, which may have coloured his 
 view and perhaps his narrative of this event. Be- 
 sides, as horoscopes are consulted- in all Hindu 
 families, it is very improbable that the Rajah of 
 Sholapoor's horoscope was kept so profound a secret 
 as Colonel Taylor imagined. Any way, a lucky bit 
 outweighs a thousand misses, and the world of 
 India goes on, as it has done for ages, consulting the 
 stars in their progress, and easily duped by, but 
 ever trusting with childlike confidence, its astute 
 hereditary priesthood, as, I think, the following 
 extract from a" native paper conducted in English 
 will show : 
 
 " It is reported from Bombay that a Bania, named Trikam- 
 das, an inhabitant of Ahmedabad, was informed by a Brahman 
 
EXPERIENCES WITH FORTUNE-TELLERS. 65 
 
 that his death would take place on a certain day in the month 
 of Vaisakh. Thereupon the Bania repaired to the holy shrine 
 of Palitana to perform his funeral rites. But not dying on due 
 date, he returned to Ahmedabad and interviewed the Brahman, 
 who said that he had made a mistake in the calculation, and 
 that Trikamdas would die in the month of Sravan. The 
 devotee has thereupon gone back to Palitana to die ! " l 
 
 Could faith or credulity go further? 
 
 India, indeed, is pre-eminently the land of sooth- 
 sayers and fortune-tellers, and has given to Europe 
 the race of gipsies so well known in story and, to a 
 slighter extent, in real life. 
 
 1 l^ribunc, June 24, 1882. 
 
III. 
 
 A STRANGE CULT; THE WORSHIP 
 OF ZAHIR-PIR. 
 
 11 The Lalbegis once a year erect a long pole covered with 
 flags, coloured cloth, and other things, including cocoa-nuts, in 
 honour of Pir Zahir, or Lai Guru, as he is likewise called ; to 
 which they render worship as to a god. In this they are like 
 the low Muhammadans, who worship a similarly decorated 
 pole erected to Gazi-Mian, a pir or saint." SHERRING'S 
 " Hindu Tribes and Castes as represented at Benares." 
 
 ON the fertile religious soil of India there flourish, 
 in rank luxuriance, many strange forms of worship, 
 one of which forms the subject of this paper. 
 
 The quotation at the head of the page alludes, very 
 briefly, to the religious observances I am about to 
 describe; but, like too many such condensed descrip- 
 tions, it is not quite accurate, for, as far as I have been 
 able to learn, the pole is nowhere worshipped as a god. 
 
 At Bagar, in the district of Bikanir, is the tomb of 
 a Pir or saint, well known from the Himalayas to 
 the Narbada, of whom the following marvellous and 
 unmeaning story is told. 1 
 
 1 The legend as I give it in this paper differs in some, though 
 not very essential, points from that contained in General 
 
THE WORSHIP OF zAHIR-PIR. 67 
 
 A Rajah of Bagar-des had two wives (twin sisters 
 resembling one another very closely), Bachal and 
 Kachal by name. Both were childless, and both 
 anxious to become mothers. Bachal, perhaps even 
 more than her sister, longed for the honour of 
 maternity. In order to obtain her object, Bachal 
 served Guru Goracknath, a celebrated yogi, in a 
 menial capacity for some twelve years. The all- 
 powerful yogi, who lived in the Rajah's garden at 
 Bagar, pleased with her assiduous attentions to 
 him, promised that on a certain date he would grant 
 her request. In the meanwhile, the Rajah's sister 
 was doing her utmost to get him to repudiate 
 Bachal, who, she said, had degraded herself by per- 
 forming menial offices even for a yogi, and ought to 
 be sent back to her own people. Unaware of the 
 intrigues in the palace, Bachal was looking forward 
 with eager hope to the fulfilment of the yogi's 
 promise, which she had foolishly (as after events 
 proved) made known to her twin sister Kachal. On 
 the appointed day Kachal rose very early, and, 
 trusting to the close resemblance she bore her twin 
 sister, presented herself before the yogi, boldly 
 asking him to redeem his promise. The holy man, 
 unconscious of the deception that was being practised 
 upon him, put two grains of wheat into her hand 
 with instructions to eat them, upon doing which her 
 desire would be accomplished. Thus reaping where 
 she had not sown, the unscrupulous and unsisterly 
 Kachal hurried away home. A little later Bachal 
 
 Cunningham's Archaeological Report for 1878-79, vol. xiv. 
 The General does not deal with the religious ceremonies and 
 observances I have described. 
 
68 A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 came and prostrated herself before Guru Goracknath, 
 claiming the promised reward of her long and faithful 
 ministrations. The saint was puzzled and, after 
 what had occurred in the morning, not a little in- 
 censed at Bachal's request ; but when he understood 
 the real state of the case, said that though he had 
 already given two sons to Kachal, he would not 
 suffer the woman who had served him with so much 
 devotion for years to go away unrewarded. To this 
 end he handed her an apple, of which she was to eat 
 three-fourths and give the remainder to her favourite 
 mare. While these events were transpiring, the 
 Rajah's sister had succeeded in inducing him to 
 put Bachal away, and the unfortunate princess was 
 accordingly packed off to her ancestral home. In 
 due course Kachal became the mother of twin sons, 
 and the event was celebrated with great rejoicings. 
 Bachal's time was also drawing nigh, but she was 
 now in her father's house. At this stage certain 
 marvellous events occurred. Bachal's unborn child, 
 addressing its mother, advised her to go back to her 
 husband's home, as it would not be creditable for him 
 to be born away from the paternal roof. The 
 mother objected that her father would never hear of 
 her returning to a husband who had repudiated her, 
 and that if she insisted upon going she would have 
 to walk the whole way, as she would, on no account, 
 be helped by her own people in carrying out such a 
 project. The child then told its mother to have a 
 tree that stood before their house felled, and a cart 
 made out of the wood. As for oxen to draw it, he 
 informed his mother that if she sent a servant into 
 the neighbouring forest, he would there find a pair, 
 
THE WORSHIP OF zAHIR-PIR. 69 
 
 named Sona and Mona, ready for use. The mother 
 pointed out that the only carpenter available was 
 blind, but the child got over that difficulty by telling 
 her to instruct the carpenter in question to press 
 his hands over his eyes and his sight would be 
 restored. Everything turned out exactly as the child 
 had predicted. The cart was duly made, the oxen 
 found and yoked to it, and the journey towards 
 Bagar commenced. Freighted with such an im- 
 portant burden, the cart, as it passed along, seemed 
 to shake the earth to its very foundations. The 
 king of the serpents was in his subterranean kingdom, 
 and sent some huge snakes to destroy the audacious 
 mortals who dared to invade his repose. His 
 commands were so far carried out, that the driver 
 of the cart and the two oxen were killed; but Bachal 
 escaped on foot, and returned to her father's house 
 in deep distress. She upbraided the child who had 
 caused all this trouble, but he maintained that 
 neither the oxen nor the driver were dead, and 
 desired her to send men to inquire about them. True 
 enough, they were found restored to life, and, after a 
 little delay, the journey was resumed. The Rajah 
 of Bagar-des received his wife back again, and the 
 marvellous child was ushered into the world with 
 the customary rejoicings. Shortly after his birth 
 he was, in accordance with universal custom in 
 India, laid in the sun, in order to be purified by the 
 rays of that god. He was left alone for a few 
 minutes, and when his attendants returned they 
 found him playing with a deadly cobra. They 
 looked on in mute terror, which turned to horror and 
 amazement when they saw him put the cobra's head 
 
70 A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 into his own mouth and suck it. The infant, 
 mirabile dictu, suffered no harm, and this incident, 
 I was gravely assured, gave rise to his popular name 
 of Zahir-Pir (or poison saint). 1 When he arrived at 
 man's estate he succeeded his father on the musnud. 
 Of course a wife was found for him, and while he 
 was away from home on a visit to his bride's father, 
 his brothers (the twin sons of Kachal) plotted to seize 
 the throne with the assistance of the Emperor of 
 Delhi. The young prince had only just reached 
 home with his bride, when he was obliged to defend 
 himself against a force raised at Delhi and headed 
 by his brothers. In hot haste he collected such of 
 his men as were at hand, and mounting his steed 
 Leilah, a foal of the mare that had been favoured 
 with a bit of the yogi's apple, he set out to meet his 
 adversaries. When about to start for the battle- 
 field, his mother laid her solemn injunctions upon 
 him to spare the lives of his brothers. 
 
 In the heat of the contest that ensued, Zahir-Pir 
 was miraculously protected from harm. The birds 
 hovered over him to shield him from the sun, they 
 received on their own wings the bullets that would 
 have struck him. His mare Leilah performed 
 wonders. She literally flew about, and in one of her 
 wild swoops the Pir's sword struck off the heads of 
 both his brothers at one stroke, and, in some in- 
 explicable manner, they rolled into his lap. He 
 gathered up his clothes round his waist with the two 
 heads, and rode on. The chiefs thus disposed of, the 
 
 1 General Cunningham says that this saint "received his title 
 of Zahir-Pir, or the 'manifested saint,' because he appeared to 
 his wife after death " (Archaeological Report, vol. xiv. p. 84). 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 7 1 
 
 battle was over. His enemies melted from the field, 
 and Zahir-Pir returned home. At the gate he was 
 met by his mother, whose first question was about 
 the fate of Kachal's sons. Instead of replying, the 
 exhausted soldier asked for water ; but without 
 giving him what he wanted she again pressed him 
 for news of his brothers. Iritated at her solicitude 
 regarding the fate of his treacherous foes, the victor 
 told her that he had brought some cocoa-nuts for her, 
 and, so saying, rolled out upon the floor the bloody 
 heads which he had carried in his girdle. The old 
 Ranee started back with horror from these gory 
 trophies, and in her indignation vowed that she 
 would see her son's face no more. 
 
 Up to this time the prince had been a Hindu. 
 He now turned Muhammadan, and went off alone on 
 a pilgrimage to Mecca. His mother thought he was 
 dead, and his young bride mourned his loss, but he 
 came back safe and well, and secretly made himself 
 known to his wife, whom he found means of visiting 
 clandestinely. An evident change in the bearing 
 and manners of the supposed widow, her cheerful- 
 ness and gaiety, so out of harmony with her con- 
 dition, aroused the suspicions of the mother-in-law. 
 The old Ranee reproached her daughter-in-law with 
 forgetting her duty as a widow, and even accused her 
 of unfaithfulness to her dead husband. Stung by 
 the keen edge of the old lady's tongue, the princess 
 determined to clear her character. She invited her 
 mother-in-law to conceal herself in her bed-room at 
 night. The prince came as usual. The mother 
 recognized her son. All her maternal affection went 
 out towards him, and, unmindful of her vow, she 
 
72 A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 rushed forward to embrace him ; but the prince, 
 who had been deeply mortified by his mother's 
 conduct and her vow, fled away hastily and never 
 returned again. His mother had him searched for 
 high and low, far and near, but without avail. At 
 length it was discovered that he had found a quiet 
 refuge in the bosom of mother Earth, into which he 
 had gently descended, steed and all, leaving only the 
 head of his spear and the pennon attached to it to 
 mark the spot of his engulfment. On this now 
 sacred spot his mother erected a mausoleum, which 
 is the centre of attraction to his followers. 
 
 Somehow this Pir has been specially selected as 
 the patron saint of the Lalbagis, a section of the 
 Mehter or sweeper caste, who, in affliction or trouble, 
 vow to make certain offerings at his tomb, or in his 
 name, in the hope, or on condition, that he will help 
 them in their distress. But the tomb is remote from 
 the great centres of population and wealth. Lal- 
 bagis, like other people, need some more present 
 object to quicken their devotion and open their purse- 
 strings than a distant grave. This the custodians of 
 the tomb thoroughly understand, so they periodically 
 send out missionaries to remind the Lalbagis of the 
 necessity of contributing towards the maintenance of 
 the tomb and its guardians, if they desire to enjoy a 
 continuance of the blessings secured to them through 
 the favour of the saint. 
 
 The missionaries, who are Mussulmans, go over 
 the country promising the protection and good offices 
 of the Pir to those who will become his followers. 
 Offerings of some sort are, of course, expected, and 
 empty-handed worshippers are of little account. 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 73 
 
 Men who in infancy were specially dedicated by 
 their parents, with suitable ceremonies and offerings, 
 to the saint of Bagar, enjoy certain privileges on the 
 occasions selected for publicly honouring their patron. 
 As might have been expected, children devoted to the 
 special service of the Pir are generally sickly ones, 
 for whom his fostering care is deemed necessary. 
 
 In their periodical wanderings, the missionaries of 
 the Zahir-Pir grant, for a stipulated consideration, 
 permission to a few mehters in each district to raise 
 the standard of the saint for a fixed number of days, 
 and to carry it about in procession. These privileged 
 men are known as B hag gats. I believe it is gene- 
 rally understood that they have visited the saint's 
 tomb in person and been authorized on the spot " to 
 raise his standard," as the phrase is. According to 
 popular belief, the standard, at any rate a portion of 
 it, is received direct from the custodians of the Pir's 
 tomb, upon which it has been duly laid, thus acquir- 
 ing a portion of the sacredness of the holy spot from 
 which it comes. The custodians of the tomb at 
 Bagar exercise a sufficient control over the Bhaggats, 
 and insist upon the observance by them of the 
 customary practices. A case of irregularity happened 
 at Lahore in 1885. A Bhaggat, in order to steal a 
 march upon the others, set up his standard before 
 the usual time, and began to circumambulate the 
 city for contributions. He met with tolerable suc- 
 cess ; but on the representation of the other Bhag- 
 gats he was fined and severely reprimanded by the 
 missionaries from Bagar, who moreover allowed the 
 other Bhaggats to extract from him his irregularly- 
 gotten gains. 
 
74 A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 The standard consists of a long bamboo tricked 
 out with scraps of gay-coloured cloth, having at the 
 top of it a sort of huge brush, covered on the outside 
 with peacocks' feathers. Along the length of the 
 pole are suspended bunches of cocoa-nuts, with fans 
 and moorchals. This is the appearance it has to an 
 uninitiated onlooker. Indeed, I was for a long time 
 under the impression that the pole, with the tuft of 
 feathers at the top, was nothing but a huge broom, 
 the most important implement of the mehter's 
 (sweeper's) trade. But I was utterly wrong. To the 
 initiated this huge broom adorned with flags, fitted 
 to a gigantic handle, and carried by a man, is trans- 
 figured into a bridegroom dressed out in his wedding 
 garments, and seated on horseback. In fact, it repre- 
 sents Zahir-Pir himself on the memorable occasion 
 of his return home with his bride, the occasion on 
 which he slew his half-brothers and incurred the 
 displeasure of his mother. The cocoa-nuts, I pre- 
 sume, have some connection with the Pir's grim jest 
 about the heads of the sons of Kachal, but why there 
 should be more than two suspended to the pole I 
 failed to find out. In such cases consistency can 
 hardly be expected, and should not, perhaps, be 
 looked for. Already, it would appear, the symbolical 
 character of the cocoa-nuts is forgotten, and it is an 
 object of pride to the Bhaggat to outdo his rivals in 
 the. number of nuts suspended from his pole. The 
 fans and moorchals are probably attached as emblems 
 of royal, or at any rate of exalted, rank. 
 
 The dressing up of the pole, or standard as they 
 call it, is quite an elaborate affair, and is carried out 
 to the accompaniment of the drum and vocal music, 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 75 
 
 The tall bamboo is first anointed with mustard oil, 
 next coloured with a yellow ochre, and then washed 
 with milk sponged over it with a handful of doob 
 grass. After these anointings and ablutions the 
 sirmohr, or head-dress, is tied on. The head-dress is 
 only worn by bridegrooms on their wedding day. 
 Two large triangular pieces of cloth, one blue, the 
 other red, are next attached to the pole, and the 
 costume of the bridegroom is completed by the addi- 
 tion of a couple of fans, one or two moorchals, and a 
 large number of cocoa-nuts tied about the place where 
 his neck might have been and right away to the 
 bottom of the pole. 
 
 The festival in honour of Zahir-Pir takes place 
 about the month of July or August every year. A 
 great number of people assemble to see the standard 
 raised, and follow it to the accompaniment of a noisy 
 band of drummers and fifers. Disciples specially 
 dedicated to the saint enjoy the privilege on such 
 occasions of acting as his horses. They carry the 
 standard by turns, supported in a sort of strong 
 leather cup sewn on to a stout belt of the same 
 material fastened round the waist. By this arrange- 
 ment the hands are free to steady the pole and keep 
 it erect. As each man (or " horse ") receives the 
 sacred burden, he salutes it with joined palms and a 
 look of wrapt adoration, the genuine character of 
 which there is no reason to doubt. The privilege of 
 carrying the standard is a much coveted one. Each 
 "horse," as he staggers about under the sacred burden* 
 shouts out, " I am his horse," while the followers 
 cry, " Victory to Zahir-Pir." To carry the fiction of 
 their equine nature still further, the " horses " are 
 
76 A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 actually made to eat some gram (a pulse on which 
 horses are fed in India) and a few blades of green 
 grass. 
 
 Wrought upon by the drumming and shouting, the 
 " horses " imitate the pawing of a spirited steed, and 
 prance about as much as the weight of the pole and 
 their own strength will permit ; but should they begin 
 to caper too much, the Bhaggat smacks his whip, 
 made of iron chains mounted on an iron handle. 
 Should their capering be due to their being possessed 
 by some demon unfriendly to the Pir, the Bhaggat 
 soon whips the unwelcome intruder out of his subject ; 
 but it is well known that if the capering of the " horse " 
 be due merely to the influence of the sacred afflatus of 
 the " Pir Sahib," why then the whip of iron chains 
 falls quite harmlessly upon the back of the lively 
 steed, and there is more glory to Zahir-Pir. To 
 steady the pole and obviate any chance of its falling, 
 a catastrophe which might be followed by very grave 
 consequences, it is usual, though not absolutely 
 necessary, to have three or four long stay-ropes 
 attached high up. The ends of these are held by 
 appointed persons, whose duty it is to watch the pole 
 and keep it as vertical as possible. Should the pole, 
 however, owing to the curvetting or awkwardness of 
 the " horse," lean over too much to one side, a shout 
 is immediately raised of " Kurrhyee ! Kurryhce I " 
 which means dish, dish. The " horse " is immediately 
 relieved of his sacred burden, his belt is formally 
 taken away, and he is deprived of his privileges until 
 he atones for his carelessness by treating his caste- 
 mates to a dish of sweetmeats. 
 
 All who follow the procession are expected to have 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 77 
 
 had a bath and to have put on clean clothes. They 
 are required to attend barefooted and to dispense 
 with the luxury of an umbrella. Beyond following 
 the standard and shouting " Zahir-Pir Ke Jye," or 
 victory to Zahir-Pir, the adoration consists, practi- 
 cally, in a humble obeisance to the decorated pole 
 on the part of each person, and the presentation of 
 some gift, however trifling, to what we may call the 
 lessees of the standard. 
 
 Women, always in an inferior position in the East, 
 are on no account to touch the sacred pole. If they 
 have offerings to make they hand them to the Bhag- 
 gat, who graciously accepts the gifts and then, after 
 applying a bundle of peacock's feathers to the pole, 
 touches the female worshippers with it in token of 
 the Pir's goodwill and protection. 
 
 After being carried about for hours with deafening 
 shouts and more deafening drumming, the standard 
 is taken to a river, whither the other standards from 
 the same town are also carried on the same day. 
 The bearer steps into the stream and, raising some of 
 the water in his hand, pays his respects to the river. 
 A day or two later the standard is carried round on a 
 begging expedition, which, in the particular case I 
 took note of, was hardly successful, seeing that the 
 net result of, the whole day's work was only one rupee 
 and four annas. It is also taken on an appointed 
 day to the house of any one who is willing to give a 
 feast or a present in fulfiment of some vow or other. 
 
 On a bright moonlight night all the standards are 
 set up in some populous centre, and a mela or fair is 
 held there. Stalls for the sale of sweets and tea, 
 &c., are arranged upon the spot, and merry-go-rounds 
 
78 A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 are erected for the amusement of the young. Fun 
 and frolic reign supreme, and the fair is kept up to 
 a late hour. The hoarded, or borrowed pice (more 
 frequently the latter) are freely produced, and go to 
 swell the gains of the enterprising dealers in the 
 saint's good offices. On the following day all the 
 standards are carried to some appointed meeting-place 
 with any amount of tom-toming, singing, and noise. 
 The cocoa-nuts are now removed from the sacred 
 pole, and some of them are given as prizes to the 
 successful competitors in foot-races or other sports, 
 open to all comers. The -remainder of the cocoa- 
 nuts are distributed in little pieces to the saint's fol- 
 lowers, by whom they are much prized as charms. 
 In this distribution the " horses " get the largest 
 share, and sometimes they even receive a small pro- 
 portion of the Bhaggats' profits. It is easy to see how 
 the honoured position accorded to the " horses " at 
 these religious gatherings becomes an object of 
 desire ; and how parents, to secure the envied prece- 
 dence for their sons on such public occasions, are 
 willing to pay the price demanded by the dispensers 
 of such favours. My inquiries satisfied me that, 
 apart from any theoretical considerations, it was a 
 subject of pride to a Mehter's family to have one 
 member at least enrolled as one of the Pir's 
 " horses." 
 
 The practical working of this system and the nature 
 of the worship may be illustrated by the following 
 facts. On one occasion of the annual celebration a 
 quarrel arose as to who should carry the standard. 
 One young man got possession of it, and was acting 
 " horse," when he received a blow on the face which 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 79 
 
 caused the standard to sway and nearly fall to the 
 ground. The blow which caused this was clearly an 
 act of sacrilege. It was a blow given to a young 
 man while acting in the capacity of " Ghora," or 
 horse, to the " Pir Sahib," and could only be expi- 
 ated by a heavy fine and a general feast to the caste 
 fellows. There and then the excited crowd excom- 
 municated the bold and impious man whose hand 
 had struck the offensive blow, and it was months, 
 nay years, before he was quite reinstated in social 
 position amongst his brethren ; not, indeed, until the 
 emissaries from Bagar had themselves condoned 
 his rash act for a certain number of rupees and a 
 promise of better behaviour in the future. On 
 another occasion a young fellow entrusted with the 
 standard allowed his attention to wander towards 
 the women, and the pole became unsteady. A 
 zealous, but too rash attendant, not himself a Ghora, 
 carried away by his indignant feelings, ventured to 
 strike the pole-bearer, and for this irregularity his 
 hand become partially paralyzed, and only recovered 
 its full power after years of propitiation had appeased 
 the outraged saint. As for the too eager admirer 
 of the fair sex, he became very ill and lost his life 
 shortly after. 
 
 To give something of a serious, solemn character to 
 the elevation of the Pir's standard, all the " horses" 
 are required to undergo a sort of purificatory penance 
 for a month previous to the ceremony. They are 
 required to abstain frpm all indulgences, and to sleep 
 not on a bed of any kind, but on the bare floor, 
 alone, and quite apart from all other members of the 
 family. When in attendance on the standard, they 
 
8o A STRANGE CULT; 
 
 are expected to keep their minds free from carnal 
 thoughts and desires. I heard of the case of one 
 man who met with a severe fall while attending the 
 procession. The nature of the accident was much 
 exaggerated, and was attributed to the Pir's anger at 
 some unbecoming thoughts having entered into the 
 mind of the sufferer. And within my own knowledge 
 a case of severe illness was put down confidently to 
 an infringement of the strict rules for the conduct of 
 a pure life enjoined on these occasions. The Pir, 
 unfortunately, cannot or will not give a favourable 
 answer to every prayer. A little infant was dying in 
 our compound of what seemed to me to be want of 
 nourishment. The father begged a rupee and re- 
 ceived it. I naturally concluded he would buy 
 milk and such-like suitable food for the little starve- 
 ling; but after the child's death, which took place 
 within. a day or two, I found out that the rupee had 
 been put into a small bag and tied round the child's 
 neck, with the* vow thaf jf Zahir-Pir would preserve 
 the little one's life, the rupee would be expended in 
 the purchase of a kid to be sacrificed in his honour. 
 
 The curious cult of which I have just given an out- 
 line sketch is not undeserving of study. The Mehters 
 are an inferior caste,[subdivided into seven sub-castes, 
 one of these (the Shaik) professing the Muham- 
 madan religion. The other six sub-castes, inclu* 
 ding the Lalbagi, although reverencing the Brahmans 
 and holding strictly enough to caste observances, do 
 not, as far as I have been able to ascertain, consider 
 themselves Hindus. Whether the Mehters are 
 descendants of Hindu out-castes, or of aborigines who 
 have adopted the caste system, I cannot say. At 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 8r 
 
 the present day their occupation is for the most part 
 that of sweepers and scavengers. The Lalbagis then, 
 he it remembered, are rejected of Hinduism. They 
 do not even call themselves Hindus, although 
 often classed as such by Europeans. They are cer- 
 tainly not Mussulmans. But, like a race of out-castes, 
 they haunt the outer courts of the temples of both 
 religions to pick up such crumbs of comfort as they 
 may be permitted to appropriate. They believe in 
 the Brahman ; they consult him on most occasions 
 of life and he takes their money. The Mussulman 
 Fakir is equally an object of veneration to them, and 
 many an offering do they make on the graves of 
 Syuds. Although neither Hindus nor Muhamma- 
 dans, they take part in many festivals peculiar to the 
 -two creeds, and have succeeded in rinding for them- 
 selves a patron saint who combines in himself the 
 double advantage of having belonged at different 
 times to both creeds, having been, as stated before, 
 born a Hindu and dying a good Muslim. 
 
 The pole itself would seem to be essentially a com- 
 promise. A visible symbol as the object of worship 
 was demanded ; indeed more than that, an anthropo- 
 morphic symbol. But the stern and sweeping con- 
 demnation of idolatry in the Koran could not be 
 disregarded by the Muhammadan custodians of the 
 tomb. Out of these conflicting elements has come 
 the decorated pole which I have described a mere 
 standard of the saint to those who desire to so regard 
 it ; but to the imaginative Lalbagi, a veritable repre- 
 sentation of his patron at the most critical and 
 interesting moment of his life. 
 
 When this cult arose, and how it arose, I have" 
 
82 A STRANGE CC/LT; 
 
 not been able to ascertain. For the patron saint no 
 greater antiquity is at present claimed than the age 
 of Akbar, A.D. 1556-1605. 
 
 What a certain popular school of mythologists 
 could make out of the stories which have clustered 
 about the name of Zahir-Pir, I would not venture to 
 say. Perhaps they could prove that the whole is a 
 solar allegory ; a myth of the dawn, or something ol 
 that sort. The Pir's voice before birth is perhaps 
 the fresh breeze which precedes the rising son. His 
 conquest of the serpents, 1 a victory over clouds and 
 darkness. His wonderful horse is obviously one of 
 the coursers of the sun. The journey westward to 
 Mecca is the sun on his westward march, his tem- 
 porary concealment is an eclipse, and his final dis- 
 appearance beneath the earth only a sunset ; while 
 the spear-head left above the ground is surely a last 
 lingering ray of the vanished sun striking across the 
 sky and visible to men after the bright orb itself has 
 sunk to rest. Comparative mythologists have not to 
 be told, for the point is too obvious, that in this way 
 the life of almost any famous man may be resolved 
 into a solar myth. There are first the symptoms of 
 his advent, then his early struggles, followed by the 
 dangers and conflicts of manhood. To this succeeds 
 his meridian splendour, then his gradual decay, and 
 
 1 The idea of the superiority of a saintly child to the terrible 
 destructive power of serpents is an old one, and occurs in the 
 mythology of many nations. " Thus it is said that All, when 
 an infant, was left alone in Mecca, the inhabitants, including 
 his parents, having fled at the approach of a huge dragon. The 
 infant rent it asunder by the jaws " (Gonway's " Demonology," 
 vol. ii. p. 12). 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAH1R-P1R. 83 
 
 his disappearance into the bosom of mother earth. 
 Finally his spiritual re-birth. Mr. Tylor has shown 
 admirably, and most ingeniously, how even a nursery 
 rhyme, like " four and twenty blackbirds baked in a 
 pie," may be explained as a solar myth. But we 
 have so many old stories explained as solar myths 
 or myths of the dawn or fire, that one can hardly 
 resist the temptation of speculating regarding the 
 fate of such a legend as that of Zahir-Pir in the 
 hands of certain professed comparative mythologists. 
 We are told that 
 
 "The story of Herakles life and labours is a pure but most 
 elaborate sun-myth. From his birth, where he strangles the 
 serpents in his cradle the serpents of darkness, like the python 
 which Apollo slew through his Herculean labours to his death, 
 we watch the labours of the sun through the mists and clouds 
 of heaven to its ruddy setting ; and these stories are so like to 
 others which are told of the northern Herakles, Thorr, that we 
 cannot refuse to believe that they were known in the main 
 in days before there were either Greek-speaking Greeks or 
 Teutons." ' 
 
 Again, the well-known story of William Tell, which 
 proved to have really no foundation in history, is, it 
 appears, nothing but a solar myth : 
 
 " William Tell, whether of Cloudland or Altdorf, is the last 
 reflection of the beneficent divinity of daytime and summer, 
 constrained for a while to obey the caprice of the powers 
 of cold and darkness, as Apollo served Laomedon, and 
 Herakles did the bidding of Eurystheus. His solar character 
 is well preserved, even in the sequel of the Swiss legend, in 
 which he appears no less skilful as a steersman than as an 
 archer, and in which, after traversing, like Dagon, the tempes- 
 
 1 Kearny's "The Dawn of History," p. 136. 
 
84 A STRANGE CULTj 
 
 tuous sea of night, he leaps at daybreak in regained freedom 
 upon the land, and strikes down the oppressor who has held 
 him in bondage." J 
 
 The story of the wanderings of Ulysses, and a hun- 
 dred other stories equally well known, are, we learn 
 from the mythologists, sun myths and nothing more. 
 The histories of Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth have 
 heen denied all historical foundation, and been 
 explained away as solar allegories, according to the 
 approved principles of interpretation adopted by an 
 influential school of mythologists. 
 
 To my mind it seems probable (I write with great 
 deference to the opinions of learned mythologists) 
 that at least a large number of the so-called solar 
 myths have originated in the circumstances of the 
 life of some very substantial human being dis- 
 tinguished above his fellows in his day and genera- 
 tion, and that his form seen through the -mists of 
 time has loomed larger and larger upon the mental 
 vision of his followers or descendants, who by a 
 very natural process have come to compare him to 
 the most glorious object in nature, the sun, and per- 
 haps have given him some name derived from the 
 great luminary, or even identified him with it. The 
 process has not been one of personifying the sun and 
 inventing a history -with apparently human actors 
 built upon the daily or annual course of the sun in 
 the heavens with its attendant incidents, but some- 
 thing very different, viz., the exaggerated comparison 
 of a remarkable human life lived upon this earth of 
 ours, to the progress of the bright orb which in every 
 
 1 " Myths and Myth-makers," by John Fiske, M.A., L.L.B., 
 p. 24. 
 
THE WORSHIP OF ZAHIR-PIR. 85 
 
 climate is the most striking object in nature. As to 
 Zahir-Pir, I think we need not resolve him into an 
 unsubstantial solar myth ; but may without much 
 scruple admit that the original of the extravagant 
 legend given in the preceding pages did really walk 
 the earth in human form, and was buried at Bagar 
 in the desert of Bikanir although it would be very 
 unwise to follow the Euhemeristic method of simply 
 stripping off all improbabilities in the legend and 
 accepting the remainder as genuine history. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS 
 FOUNDER. 
 
 THE presence, as rulers, of the Muhammadans in 
 India ever since the beginning of the eleventh century 
 has had an influence upon the religious development 
 of the Hindus, which the historical student can hardly 
 help noting, as successive Hindu reformers appear 
 at long intervals it is true on the stage of Indian 
 history, bearing aloft the standard of revolt against 
 the national polytheism and the rigid distinctions of 
 caste. The direct influence of Islam on the teaching 
 of many Indian reformers is unquestionable, and that 
 particular form of the Muhammadan religion known 
 as Sufiism which, in all probability, owes its origin 
 to a Hindu source (the Vedanta philosophy) was 
 welcomed home, as it were, by certain Hindus with 
 a warmth which a purely exotic system of ideas 
 would not have called forth. 
 
 One important religious reformation, Sikhism, 
 alluded to in a subsequent part of this volume, was 
 undoubtedly due to the stimulating presence of Islam 
 and the natural leaning of the Indian mind to the 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 87 
 
 doctrines held by the Sufis. The theistic reforms 
 now agitating India are, however, of a somewhat dif- 
 ferent character from those which preceded them, 
 and bear the unmistakable stamp of Christian influ- 
 ence and of English political and social ideas and 
 principles. 
 
 There have been two distinct developments of the 
 modern theistic movement in India, known respec- 
 tively as the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj. 
 The former is well known in Europe, because the 
 leaders of the sect have been men who deliberately 
 kept themselves as prominently as possible before 
 the English world, visited England, won the personal 
 regard of many Europeans both at home and in 
 India, and unintentionally raised false hopes of their 
 conversion to the religion of Christ. Indeed it is 
 not too much to say that the appreciative welcome 
 given to Brahmoism by many pious Europeans was 
 due to a belief that Brahmoism was the first step 
 towards a great turning of the people of India to the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 The Arya Samaj which forms the subject of this 
 paper, though perhaps not less interesting than the 
 Bramo Samaj, is younger, and is certainly less known 
 in Europe. 
 
 In November, 1879, a young native gentleman 
 who was well aware of the lively interest I took in 
 the movements for religious and social reform which 
 had for some time past been agitating native society 
 through the length and breadth of India, placed in 
 my hands a programme of the proceedings to be 
 observed on the occasion of the second anniversary 
 of the Lahore Arya Samaj, or Aryan Society. A 
 
88 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 glance at the paper showed me that besides the 
 usual reading of reports and election of officers, 
 appropriate to the occasion, there were to he hymns 
 and prayers, lectures in Hindi and English, and the 
 celebration of the " Horn." 
 
 As the opportunity was one well worth improving, 
 I made up my mind to be present during a portion, 
 at least, of the ceremonies of the day, particularly 
 the Horn J sacrifice. 
 
 By 7 a.m. of the appointed Sunday, I arrived in 
 my carnage at the Shahalmi gate of the city. 2 There 
 I was joined by several of those bright-faced intelli- 
 gent youths to be found at the present day in every 
 town of British India, who, under the stimulus of 
 Western education, are in a state of intellectual 
 restlessness, eager for reforms and innovations in 
 what they feel is a backward state of society, and 
 who, with the generous ardour and confidence of 
 boys, hope to, be able to recast, upon an improved 
 model, institutions which are the outcome of a 
 hundred influences operating through many an 
 eventful century. But however crude the ideas of 
 
 " Homa a sort of burnt-offering which can be made by 
 Brahmans only. It is only made on special occasions, such as 
 the celebration of a festival, the investiture of a young Brahman 
 with the sacred thread, marriages and funerals. The method 
 of making it is as follows : During the utterance of Mantras, 
 five species of consecrated wood, together with the Dharba grass, 
 rice and butter, are kindled and burnt, and the fire is then kept 
 burning as long as the festival or ceremony lasts. Great effi- 
 cacy is ascribed to this rite." Garrett's " Classical Dictionary 
 of India." 
 
 2 The "city" is the native town, outside of which lies the 
 European quarter of Lahore. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 89 
 
 these would-be reformers, however Utopian many of 
 their schemes, it is impossible not to sympathize 
 with their earnest aspirations for the intellectual and 
 social advancement of their countrymen, and it was 
 with much pleasure that I found my young friends 
 awaiting my arrival at the city gate. Here I had to 
 quit my carriage, for it could not go into the narrow 
 crowded thoroughfares of the native quarter which 
 lay within the gate, and with my companions I 
 walked up the lanes which led to the premises of the 
 Arya Samaj. On the doorway was a board bearing, 
 in large English characters, the words " Arya 
 Samaj," and below that, in smaller characters, the 
 same words in Hindi and Urdu. 
 
 Ascending a flight of stairs and passing through a 
 narrow passage, we entered an open space or court, 
 bounded on one side by high and on the remaining 
 three sides by low buildings. The place of meeting 
 was a very humble one, with unsightly walls all 
 round and the open canopy of heaven overhead. In 
 one corner was a recess, perhaps six feet square, 
 roofless like the other portions of the court. Here 
 preparations had been made for the performance of 
 the Horn sacrifice. Floor-cloths had been laid 
 down for the visitors to sit upon, and festoons of 
 leaves had been hung in great loops right round the 
 inclosure. The entrance to the little recess where 
 the Horn was to be performed was specially adorned 
 in homely but not ungraceful style. A green plan- 
 tain tree had been placed on each side of the en- 
 trance, and garlands of leaves and flowers had been 
 hung between them. These simple attempts at 
 decoration were not unpleasing to the eye, and gave 
 
90 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 the meeting-place something of a holiday look. At 
 one end of the open court was placed a small table 
 covered over with a white cloth of English manufac- 
 ture. Upon it were ranged three brass vases con- 
 taining flowers. At this table the lecturer stood 
 when, in his appointed turn, he addressed the 
 audience "on the wants of our country." Some- 
 what in advance of the table, i.e., a little nearer to 
 the centre of the court, there was a small carpet, and 
 a very low table, just a few inches high. These 
 were for the use of the Guru when he read to the 
 audience out of the Vedas. 
 
 At the other end of the court three or four 
 musicians were squatted tuning their instruments 
 in a listless fashion. A little way behind them I 
 noticed the Society's charity-box, marked in English 
 and two vernacular languages, the uppermost line 
 and the largest characters being English. There 
 were not more than twenty-five persons in the place 
 when I entered it, but the number gradually in- 
 creased to about one hundred and fifty men and 
 children. No women were present in the assembly, 
 but I was told that there were a number of them 
 congregated in the upper rooms overlooking the 
 courtyard. None, however, were visible, and I dare 
 say most of the fair ladies behind the purdahs 
 understood little and cared less for the new-fangled 
 proceedings of the Arya Samaj. Those, of them 
 who comprehended the matter were, in all proba- 
 bility, opposed to a movement which, if successful, 
 would isolate them from the pomp and excitement 
 of the polytheistic idolatry in which they had been 
 reared. Indeed the woman of India, brought up in 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 91 
 
 the seclusion of the Zenanas, are, as I have often 
 been told hy respectable Indian gentlemen, an in- 
 surmountable obstacle to reforms which would 
 simplify the ritual of their religion or lead to the 
 abolition of objectionable but time-honoured rites, 
 ceremonies, and festivals. 
 
 The reader who has followed me thus far will, if 
 not already familiar with the subject, wish to be 
 informed who the members of the Arya Samaj are - 
 what distinctive doctrines they profess, and what 
 common objects they have set before themselves ? 
 In answer to which questions I shall here quote a 
 passage from a letter which appeared in a Lahore 
 newspaper under the signature of "An Arya," as it 
 gives sufficient information for my present purpose : 
 
 " The Arya movement in the Punjab began with the advent 
 of Swami Dayanand Saraswati in the beginning of 1877. 
 This learned Pandit, who is regarded by the people of India as 
 the greatest Vedic scholar of the age, in that year delivered a 
 series of lectures on the ancient civilization of the country. 
 The eyes of the educated community were at once opened. 
 They saw that the reforms which they were advocating, and to 
 which there was so much opposition in the land, could easily 
 be carried out by throwing off all the accumulated excrescences 
 which had grown upon their religious and social systems during 
 the lapse of ages, and by falling back upon their pristine books 
 of authority, the Vcdas. Dreading still further the growth of 
 materialistic and atheistic views in the country, it was con- 
 sidered expedient to establish places of congregational worship 
 where all should meet once a week to pray and hear lectures 
 and sermons delivered. 
 
 " Within the last two years these Samajes which exist in the 
 Punjab, the North-west, and the Deccan have acted as so many 
 safeguards of public morals. They admit among their body 
 all who believe in one God, discard idolatry and regard the 
 Vedas as the original revelation given to man. Their meetings 
 
92 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 are open and resorted to by the Hindus and Muhammadans and 
 Christians all alike. Such are the aims and such the scope of 
 this useful institution." J 
 
 The religious writings known as the Vedas to 
 which the members of the Arya Samaj have turned 
 as the original, and perhaps sole, revelation given 
 by God to man are four in number, the earliest 
 being a collection of over a thousand hymns, which, 
 according to our best authorities, date from 1500 to 
 1000 B.C. The hymns of the Rig Veda are of various 
 dates and separate origins, and were, for centuries, 
 preserved orally, in different priestly or minstrel 
 families, till finally brought together and embodied 
 in one comprehensive collection such as has been 
 preserved to our own day. 2 Older than the poems 
 of Homer, older than the psalms of David, these 
 venerable hymns are amongst the earliest yearnings 
 of the human heart towards the Deity, which have 
 been preserved to later ages in the records of the 
 past, and must ever possess a special and unique 
 value in the eyes of the student of the evolution of 
 religious thought. The Vedic hymns embody the 
 simple prayers of a pastoral people addressed to the 
 clouds, the storm, the sun, the sky, the dawn, and 
 other such objects and natural phenomena, and 
 reflect, as in a mirror, the grand and ever-varying 
 features of the giant snow-capped mountains over 
 which the wandering Aryans had found their way 
 from " the roof of the world " to the plains of 
 
 1 " Civil and Military Gazette," March 6, 1879. 
 
 3 Prof. Max Dunkers "Ancient History of India," p. 28, 
 on the authority of Prof. Max Miiller's "History of Sanskrit 
 Literature." 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 93 
 
 Northern India. In the Vedic hymns the gods are 
 invited to come down and partake of the sacrifices 
 offered to them, and, in return, are called upon to 
 provide pasture for the cattle and horses, to fill the 
 udders of the cows, to bestow health, wealth, and 
 long life, to afford protection to man and heast 
 against the evil spirits, and to grant their worshippers 
 victory over the enemies of the tribe. 
 
 The second, or Yajur Veda, prescribes the forms 
 and ceremonies to be observed in the performance 
 of the sacrifices appropriate to different occasions. 
 The third, or Sauia Veda, consists of a selection of 
 hymns from the Rig Veda, to be sung when the juice 
 of the Soma plant was the principal offering made 
 to the gods. The fourth, and last Veda, called the 
 Atharva Veda, is a collection of spells, charms, and 
 incantations against sickness and death. 
 
 Although the Vedic hymns are plainly the outcome 
 of a very primitive society which had not emerged 
 from the tribal condition, and, although the religion 
 of the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans was chiefly physi- 
 olatry, or the worship of the forces and phenomena 
 of nature, yet there is in the hymns ample evidence 
 of the fact that, at a very early date, polytheistic, 
 pantheistic, and monotheistic conceptions had all 
 been arrived at by the Aryan rishis, and had found 
 expression in immortal song. 1 Indeed, the fact that 
 they lend themselves to all forms of religious thought 
 is what gives to the Vedas their wonderful vitality. 
 Add to this that it was in the Punjab that these 
 
 1 Edgar Ouinet's " Le genie des Religions," p. 119. Prof. 
 Sir Monier Williams' "Religious Thought and Life in India," 
 p. 7. 
 
94 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 songs of the foreworld first rose to heaven with the 
 patriarchal sacrifices of the earliest Aryan settlers 
 in India, and there is no room for wonder that the 
 Vedas, and the literature that has grown out of 
 them, are objects of especial and fervent veneration 
 to the Hindus of the Land of the Five Rivers, or of 
 the seven rivers of the Vedic poets. 
 
 The youthful society, which is the subject of this 
 paper, apparently desires, and perhaps deems it an 
 easy task to revive in these days the long extinct 
 Vedic religion, or, as they prefer to*call it, Vcdic 
 Theism of the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans. What the 
 religion of the Vedas really was it may be no easy 
 task to make out now. A competent authority- 
 Professor Sir Monier Williams says : 
 
 "Although the majority of the Hindus believe ,that the four 
 Vedas contain all that is good, great, and divine, yet these 
 compositions will .be found, when taken as a whole, to abound 
 more in puerile ideas than in lofty conceptions. At the same 
 time it is clear that they give no support to any of the present 
 objectionable usages and customs for which they were once, 
 through ignorance of their contents, supposed to be an authority. 
 The doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, 
 which became an essential characteristic of Brahmanism and 
 Hinduism in later times, has no place in the religion of the 
 Veda. Nor do the hymns give any sanction to the prohibition 
 of widow-marriages, the general prevalence of child-marriages, 
 the tyrannical sway of caste, the interdiction of foreign travel, 
 and the practice of idolatry." z 
 
 It would appear that the Aryas of our day under 
 the leadership of a Mahratta Brahman named 
 Uayanand Saraswati, have agreed to put their faith 
 
 1 "Religious Thought and Life in India," p. 18. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 95 
 
 in the Rig and Yajur Vedas with the commentaries 
 upon them, written prior to the date of the Maha- 
 bharata. What doctrines the modern believers in 
 these Vedas actually profess to find sanctioned by 
 the old books, whose authority they acknowledge, I 
 shall endeavour to state, briefly, later on. But I may 
 here remark that Dayanand's views and opinions are 
 rank heresies, stoutly opposed by the orthodox 
 pandits, who, at a large and influential meeting held 
 in Calcutta in the year 1881, placed on record, for 
 the benefit of the Hindu public, their own decision 
 in regard to what books were to be regarded as 
 authoritative scripture, and affirmed very plainly' 
 their approval of practices which had been con- 
 demned by the reformer. 
 
 The Horn had not been commenced when I 
 entered the premises of the Arya Samaj. Through 
 the courtesy of certain native gentlemen connected 
 with the ceremonies of the day, I was assigned a 
 seat quite near the place where the sacrifice was to 
 be offered, and had the best possible opportunity of 
 witnessing all the arrangements for, and the entire 
 details of, the interesting performance. The fuel 
 (neatly cut pieces of dry wood) was arranged in a 
 little square sacrificial pit. At each of the four 
 corners of the pit stood a small black candle, if I 
 may call it so, about six inches in height, made up 
 of fragrant gums and other combustibles. Round 
 the sacrificial pit were placed five brass vessels, one 
 containing ghee (clarified butter), and the other, four 
 a mixture of various grains and spices moistened 
 with ghee and milk. A young Sannyasi, learned in 
 Sanskrit-lore, presided at the ceremonies. He was 
 
96 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 well and warmly attired, and wore on his head a 
 conspicuous turban of orange-yellow cloth. 
 
 The firewood and the four odorous candles were 
 ignited, and then the priest commenced to recite 
 Sanskrit mantras, each of which ended with the word 
 Svaha, which served as a signal for pouring a ladleful 
 of ghee upon the fire, and casting into it a small 
 quantity of the other offerings. 
 
 The language of the golden -tongued rishis, the 
 dead language of the dead gods of a long past age, 
 sounded strange, as the Sannyasi rolled out in slow 
 and measured tones the mystic texts appropriate to 
 the occasion. When the whole string of selected 
 mantras had been repeated, some portion of the obla- 
 tions still remained in the plates. In a whispered 
 consultation amongst the officiating priests it was 
 arranged that the leaders should repeat the Gayatri * 
 over and over again, while the five assistants kept 
 feeding the flames with the offerings, until the whole 
 quantity that had been provided should be duly con- 
 sumed. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say with what interest I 
 watched this ceremonial which the Sanskrit-speak- 
 ing Aryans had practised so many centuries ago at 
 the very dawn of the historical period. But I could 
 not help feeling that the ancient rite had quite lost 
 what significance it might have had in the old time, 
 
 1 The Gayatri is a form of prayer, consisting of ten Sanskrit 
 words, which should be used by all Hindus daily, both morning 
 and evening. It is translated as follows by Prof. Monier 
 Williams : " Let us meditate (or we meditate) on that excellent 
 glory of the divine vivifier. May he enlighten (or stimulate) 
 our understandings " (" Hinduism," p. 61). 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 97 
 
 and that, as performed in my presence that day, it 
 was hut a lifeless ghost, a hollow ceremonial, mean- 
 ingless to the spectators and entirely uncalculated to 
 awaken in them any feelings of enthusiasm, of 
 reverence, or even of solemnity. The attendants, it 
 is true, performed their office with decorum, but I 
 looked in vain for any indication of deep feeling or 
 genuine interest on their features. As for the on- 
 lookers, they watched the performance as they might 
 have watched a small bonfire, and listened with dull 
 unconscious ears to the mantras, the Sanskrit lan- 
 guage being quite unknown to nearly all of them. 
 Some, indeed, were even less attentive than that. 
 While the Horn sacrifice was being performed I 
 noticed two or three young men leaning over the 
 table in the reading-room looking through the news- 
 papers. 
 
 In the old time the fire for such a sacrifice would 
 have been kindled by the friction of two pieces of 
 wood, and the goddess of fire (Agni) would thus have 
 been mysteriously born again, under the hands of the 
 operator, as the fire-drill (which, if we are to believe 
 the philologists,, gave rise to the myth of Pro- 
 metheus), 1 gradually elicited the living, glowing 
 flames from the dark inert timber. But the obtaining 
 of fire by the friction of wood is a troublesome 
 process, and so our modern Aryas preferred the 
 simpler plan of igniting the fuel in the sacrificial pit 
 by means of live charcoal brought from the domestic 
 hearth. 
 
 I was amused and interested to find in conversa- 
 tion with several members of the Samaj, that they 
 
 1 Fiske-'s " Myths and Myth-makers," p. 64. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 were disposed to deny the sacrificial character of the 
 Horn and to maintain that it was intended to purify 
 the air, for here, as elsewhere, the Zeitgeist is too 
 strong to allow of the revival of the old worn- 
 out religions, except as solemn mockeries of things 
 long dead. 
 
 At the termination of the Horn the musicians 
 struck up a hymn, singing, in a clear but subdued 
 tone, to the accompaniment of their instruments. 
 In regard to Hindu, or any other music, I am not 
 competent to give a critical opinion, but the hymns 
 sung on this occasion had certainly a plaintive 
 sweetness of their own, which was exceedingly 
 agreeable to my ear. The hymns for the day, some 
 in Hindu and some in Punjabi, had been selected 
 from a collection which had been made and printed 
 for the use of the Samaj. But the choir, strange to 
 say, consisted of hired singers of the Muhammadan 
 religion, with no faith or heart in the ceremonies or 
 the beliefs of the Aryas. This fact alone would 
 indicate the artificial character of the entire arrange- 
 ment, and would serve to show how utterly futile is 
 the attempt to revive, for any beneficial purpose, the 
 obsolete practices of a long-past age. As soon as 
 the selected hymns had all been sung, the lecturer 
 took his place at the table. He first repeated the 
 Gayatri in slow devout tones, and, in a quavering 
 voice, pronounced the mystic Om with marked 
 solemnity. So much had I heard and read about 
 the pious horror of the orthodox twice-born Hindu, 
 at the mere thought of uttering this sacred word in 
 the hearing of an outcaste or an unbeliever, that I 
 was not a little surprised to hear it pronounced so 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 99 
 
 often, as on this day, before a mixed audience, con- 
 sisting of Hindus of all castes without distinction, 
 and of many persons altogether outside the pale -of 
 Hinduism. 
 
 The lecturer in his discourse took up what may be 
 called the stock questions of the Hindu reformer. 
 He dwelt upon the weak points of the system of 
 early, or rather infant, marriage. He alluded to the 
 evils that inevitably spring from the cruel rule of 
 Hindu society, which refuses to permit a widow, even 
 a virgin-widow, to wed a second time. He pointed 
 o'ut the urgent necessity that exists for general and 
 technical education, and, above all, for national union 
 and self-help. Turning to more strictly religious 
 topics the lecturer declaimed against idolatry, and 
 scornfully pointed out, apparently with reference to 
 a real existing evil, the absurdity of uneducated 
 people becoming Sannyasis. In denouneing idolatry 
 the lecturer stated that in Vedic times men who 
 bowed down to images made of wood or stone would 
 have been punished like ordinary malefactors in 
 fact, like thieves and robbers. I am not aware what, 
 if any, historical authority there may be for this 
 statement, but this was the only part of the lecture 
 that met with general applause, indicated by the 
 clapping of hands in quite a European fashion. At 
 the present time there is in Hindu society an almost 
 feverish desire for social reforms of all kinds. 
 No objectionable practice, however old, or however 
 trifling, escapes the keen criticism of men of the 
 rising generation, leavened with new ideas from 
 the West. And it cannot be doubted that the modern 
 spirit of reform will lead, slowly but surely, to the 
 
ioo THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 most satisfactory results. Not long ago a Hindu 
 wrote strongly against " the custom of using obscene 
 language on the occasion of marriage ceremonies," 
 and the singing of immoral songs in the streets by 
 women of respectable families and good position, on 
 the occasion of Hindu festivals (Regenerator of 
 Aryavarta, 22nd December, 1884), and I was told by 
 a young Hindu friend of mine that the Khattris in 
 Lahore had taken up the matter in an earnest, prac- 
 tical spirit, and that the panchyats of the caste had 
 determined to impose a fine upon any Khattri whose 
 wife indulged in obscene songs in the streets of 
 Lahore. Even trifling matters are not above the 
 notice of these energetic reformers, e.g., it has been 
 the custom, at all seasons of the year, to carry, as a 
 present, on the occasion of a visit from the bride- 
 groom's family to the bride's family, two large 
 earthern vessels containing curds. Now, in the hot 
 weather in India, these curds are usually an utter 
 abomination of bad odours, but the practice was still 
 rigidly, I may say religiously, maintained. The 
 Lahore panchyat have now pronounced the observ- 
 ance of this custom unnecessary. From these 
 examples it will be apparent that an honest desire 
 for social improvement has taken possession of a 
 large section of the Hindu community, and that real 
 good work will be done. 
 
 At the conclusion of the lecture the musicians 
 again struck up a hymn, and, while they were 
 chanting it, two or three men went round casting 
 flowers over the visitors, and throwing garlands of 
 flowers about their necks. One was placed in my 
 hand, with the remark in English, " Of course, you 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 101 
 
 need not put this on." And thus ended the proceed- 
 ings announced for the forenoon of that day. 
 
 Three years later, in November, 1882 (or, as 
 the public notice put it, in " the Aryan era, 
 1,960,892,983 "), I again attended the anniversary 
 celebration of the Samaj. There was not much to 
 note in the way of change. Even the Mussalman 
 musicians were in attendance, as in 1879. But such 
 changes as attracted my attention were in the right 
 direction. The meeting-place, the same as on the 
 occasion previously described, showed some well- 
 meant attempts at decoration. I noticed that a 
 couple of small-sized wall-mirrors had been hung 
 up, and that something had been .done to cover the 
 bare, unsightly, and dilapidated surrounding walls. 
 The gathering, moreover, was larger than on the 
 occasion of my previous visit, and there were not 
 wanting signs of a healthy and more extended 
 interest in the work of the Society. In fact, the 
 Arya Samaj was clearly getting on in the world. But 
 as clearly also it was experiencing the fate of all 
 more or less successful movements. It was 
 struggling against the opposition aroused by its 
 growth at the expense of older institutions. There 
 appeared to be a controversial tone in the addresses 
 delivered, and it was considered desirable to affirm 
 frequently (evidently in reply to objectors) that the 
 Horn was not a religious observance, that it was not 
 a worship of Agni (fire) ; but was carried out from 
 purely sanitary considerations ; since the products 
 of the combustion of the particular substances used 
 diffused through the atmosphere of a crowded 
 assembly were of a distinctly healthful character. 
 
102 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 In private conversation with me a member of the 
 Samaj supported this view with some warmth, re- 
 ferring to the common practice of disinfecting 
 barracks, hospitals, and infected places generally by 
 sulphur fumigation. But the reader does not need 
 to be told that the Horn, accompanied as it is by the 
 solemn recital of sacred Sanskrit mantras, carried 
 out in the open air, at a professedly religious 
 gathering is not, in any sense, analogous to the 
 ordinary process of purifying an unwholesome place 
 by disinfectants. Beside, it is well known that to 
 Agni (fire) the greatest number of invocations are 
 addressed in the hymns of the. Rig Veda, and that 
 the idea involved in the ordinary Vedic sacrifice 
 is that the gods are gratified and nourished by the 
 aroma of the burnt-offering. 1 Indeed it would be 
 impossible for a religion based on the Vedas to get 
 on at all without sacrifices which seem to be the very 
 essence of the Vedic religion. 2 
 
 The truth, apparently, is that at the formation of 
 the Samaj, when idolatrous rites were proscribed, 
 the Horn was retained on account of its Vedic origin, 
 and also, perhaps, as a sort of connecting link 
 with Brahmanism, from which ancestral religion 
 the members of the new Samaj (either through 
 prudence, or from feelings of tender association) 
 could not quite break away. But opponents, both 
 orthodox and heterodox, having taken exception to 
 
 1 Prof. Sir Monier Williams' " Religious Thought and Life 
 in India," p. 12. 
 
 ~ On this subject the reader may consult " Cosmology of the 
 Rig Veda," by H. W. Willis, 1887. Williams and Norgate, 
 London. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 103 
 
 the Horn as being inconsistent with the purely 
 theistic pretensions of the Arya Sarnaj, it has now 
 become a stumbling-block to the Society. It 
 remains to be seen whether the reasonable objections 
 of opposing sects will make the Samaj abandon a 
 ceremony which is admittedly not of religious signi- 
 ficance, or whether it will arouse a spirit of obstinate 
 conservatism, tending to the retention of the Horn 
 at all costs. 
 
 The anniversary meeting of November, 1882, was 
 the subject of an article in " The Arya Magazine." 
 Here is an extract from it : 
 
 " The long, spacious, and lofty ball of the Samaj was taste- 
 fully carpeted on the occasion. Silken and laced hangings 
 adorned the windows. Large mirrors in magnificent frames, 
 principles of the Samaj, written in letters of gold, and other 
 mantras from the Vedas in variegated hues, made the room 
 sumptuous with glowing colours. Two grand tables stood east 
 and west of the hall ; on one were arranged books for sale, and 
 on the other prizes for girls. Between these two there was 
 another table covered with precious cloth for the lecturer. 
 Bunches of flowers in slender marble vases were arranged on 
 either side of the table, and a highly valuable timekeeper stood 
 in the middle. Parterres of flowers of every form and hue 
 were arranged alongside the walls, and beauties of blooming 
 nature were surrounding the hall. In the north a Horn (Kund) 
 altar was made which was surrounded by grown-up plantain 
 trees, and a long chain of flowers of different colours encircled 
 them all. Wreaths of flowers entwined with evergreen were 
 adjusted on the borders of each window. The whole hall 
 presented a scene more enchanting than a poet's dream of 
 Eden a Puranic-man's vision of paradise. It was a rapture 
 merely to sit there and breathe, though every other faculty 
 were suspended. 
 
 " The entrance was also as much beautified as the inner 
 
 hall . . ." ' ____, 
 
 1 " The Arya Magazine," vol. i. p. 236. 
 
104 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 As the above glowing description seems to have 
 been intended seriously, one can only wonder at the 
 writer's unbridled imagination which could transform 
 the whole scene so completely. Possibly for persons 
 whose ordinary surroundings are unlovely in the 
 extreme, the simple and not inappropriate decora- 
 tions of the meeting-place may have had an excep- 
 tional charm ; but there can be no excuse whatever 
 for writing of an open court, roofed only by the 
 canopy of heaven, as a " lofty hall." The entire 
 description, reproduced above, is instructive as a bit 
 of unblushing exaggeration, and as an example (only 
 too common) of that predilection for brag and utter 
 disregard of strict accuracy which so constantly 
 and disagreeably obtrudes itself upon the attention 
 of the real friends of India. It is proper to add that 
 the Arya Samaj cannot be held responsible for the 
 description which I have criticised above, as " The 
 Arya Magazine," although devoted to the interests of 
 the Samaj is, I understand, a purely private under- 
 taking. 
 
 Of the life of Dayanand Saraswati Swami, the 
 founder and acknowledged head of the Arya Samaj, 
 something is known, and that of so interesting a 
 character, that I shall not apologize for introducing 
 it in this place. In the latter part of 1879 Daya- 
 nand commenced the* publication of his autobio- 
 graphy in the pages of "The Theosophist," r from 
 which source most of the particulars respecting his 
 personal history here given have been drawn. 
 
 According to the Swami's narrative, he had been 
 carefully instructed in the Vedas, which means that 
 1 October, 1879 ; December, 1879; November, 1880. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 105 
 
 he had been made to commit a great portion of 
 them to memory, and had been initiated at an early 
 age into the rites and mysteries of the Seva sect to 
 which his family belonged ; but while still a mere 
 boy his mind had revolted against the practices of 
 idolatry. He could not bring himself to acknow- 
 ledge that the image of Siva seated on his bull, the 
 helpless idol which, as he had himself observed in 
 the watches of the night, allowed the mice to run 
 over it with impunity, ought to be worshipped as 
 the Omnipotent Deity. To quote the autobio- 
 graphy : 
 
 " Is it possible, I asked myself, that this semblance of man, 
 the idol of a personal god, that I see bestriding his bull before 
 me, and who, according to all religious accounts, walks about, 
 eats, sleeps, and drinks, can hold a trident in his hand, beat 
 upon his dumroo (drum), and pronounce curses upon men, 
 is it possible that he can be the Mahadeva, the Great Deity ? " 
 
 The sudden death of a sister produced a great 
 impression on the naturally religious temperament 
 of the young man. He resolved to give up the 
 world and to devote himself entirely to a religious 
 life. To .marriage he had an extreme aversion, but 
 his parents, believing that domestic life would tend 
 to wean the young enthusiast from his religious 
 mania, were all the more anxious to give him a wife, 
 and made arrangements accordingly. . Dayanand, 
 however, now twenty- one years of age, ran away 
 from home to avoid matrimony, and set out upon his 
 wanderings with the object of pursuing, without let 
 or hindrance, the study of metaphysics, a branch of 
 knowledge which he hoped to acquire from the 
 
io6 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 learned and devout pandits, sannyasis, and yogis, 
 to be found in different parts of India. 
 
 After leaving home he got himself admitted into 
 the ascetic order of the Brahmacharees, and was 
 wandering about in the habit of that order, and 
 under a new name, when his father, a respectable 
 man in easy circumstances, who had been constantly 
 in search of his runaway son, at length traced him 
 successfully and came up with him. The Swami 
 relates most naively, and with apparent unconscious- 
 ness of the ugliness of falsehood and duplicity, that 
 on the sudden and unwelcome appearance of his 
 father, he at once assured the old man, falling at his 
 feet in the most abject manner to appease his wrath, 
 that in leaving home he had acted upon bad advice, 
 that, like a true prodigal son, he was returning home, 
 that his father's arrival at this critical moment was 
 most providential, and that he would willingly 
 accompany his parent back to his native village. 
 The father, however, did not trust his pious son's 
 protestations. He placed Dayanand under sur- 
 veillance, but the young man managed to elude the 
 vigilance of his guards and effected his escape, to 
 pursue, without further hindrance from his parents 
 (for they appear to have quite lost all trace of him), 
 his wandering life of adventure in quest of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Amidst pathless jungles, in busy cities, and 
 amongst the snows of the Himalayas, did Dayanand 
 travel for years with supreme indifference to bodily 
 hardships; conversing and disputing with learned 
 pandits and holy ascetics, ever in earnest search of 
 " the secret knowledge, the Vidya, or true erudition of 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 107 
 
 a genuine Yogi : the Mooktee, which is reached only 
 by the purity of one's soul and certain attainments, 
 unattainable without it. Meanwhile, the performance 
 of all the duties of man towards his fellow-men, and 
 the elevation of humanity thereby." Such is the 
 statement of the object of his life which the Swami 
 gave to the inquiring head of a prosperous monastery; 
 but it would be very interesting to learn what Daya- 
 nand's idea of duty to his fellow-men really was, and 
 whether his social and moral code recognized the 
 obligations of honest labour instead of vagrancy, and 
 strict honesty in word and deed. " It is the duty of 
 every son to serve his parents with all possible 
 devotion while they are still living " a precept laid 
 down by Dayanand himself 1 is in curious contrast 
 with his own conduct towards his parents, and only 
 shows how little theoretical ideas of right and wrong 
 govern men's actions. 
 
 From the many interesting anecdotes of adventure 
 included in the autobiography, there are a few well 
 worth reproducing here, as they throw some light 
 upon the character of the man, upon the present 
 state of Hindu education, upon the mental unrest so 
 prevalent amongst earnest thinkers in India, and 
 upon the chaotic state of opinion amongst them. 
 
 Once, in his wanderings, Dayanand made the ac- 
 quaintance of some Raj pandits of great learning, 
 and was invited to dinner by one of them. He went, 
 but what was his horror to find a large company of 
 pandits assembled round a meat dinner, apparently 
 including beef (for he refers to these pandits as 
 
 1 " Theosophist," vol. i. p. 151. 
 
io8 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 *' beef-eating "). Dayanand turned away in disgust 
 from the repast, and hurried from the spot. 
 
 In his pursuit of the so-called science of Yog, the 
 enthusiastic ascetic had been studying certain works 
 which treated of the nervous system. He had not 
 succeeded in grasping the descriptions and explana- 
 tions he had read and pondered over, and began to 
 doubt their correctness. While in this frame of 
 mind, he happened to see a corpse floating down the 
 river, and resolved, there and then, to bring to the 
 test of actual comparison with nature the anatomical 
 science of his books. He entered the river, dragged 
 the corpse out of the water, and " with a large knife " 
 commenced a dissection, which resulted in his satis- 
 fying himself that the books were totally and entirely 
 incorrect, whereupon he tore them into pieces, and 
 flung them into the river along with the mutilated 
 corpse. Dayanand does not state what particular 
 points of human anatomy he wished to clear up, and, 
 when one calls to mind the refined methods of 
 modern research, there is something droll about his 
 proceeding to carry out his anatomical investigations 
 " with a large knife." But even such a rude instru- 
 ment would be quite aid enough to demonstrate the 
 untruth of much that is affirmed regarding the 
 structure of the human body in Hindu books on 
 anatomy. For instance, it is asserted in such works, 
 and currently believed by the pandits, that six 
 organs, known as chakms or wheels, somewhat 
 resembling the lotus are to be found in the human 
 body, placed one above the other, and joined together 
 by three connecting vessels. These chakms have 
 different colours, and from four to sixteen petals. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 109 
 
 But wild as are these statements they are sober 
 when compared with the still more imaginative 
 declaration that the human body contains a tortoise, 
 a serpent, a goose, and fire. Whatever may have 
 been the origin of these fanciful statements, a native 
 writer in "The Calcutta Review," 1 assures us that they 
 are now accepted as verities by the Brahmans and, 
 of course, by orthodox Hindus in general. Such 
 being the teachings of Hindu anatomical science, we 
 need be at no loss to understand how readily the 
 Swami could, with the aid of his large knife, satisfy 
 himself that they were utterly false and nothing but 
 impudent fabrications, if, indeed, they were ever 
 intended to be taken literally. At the same time, the 
 fact that Dayanand could handle a corpse, and 
 actually dissect it, proves to what a degree he had 
 emancipated himself from the ordinary, but deep- 
 rooted prejudices of Hinduism. The grand figure 
 of the Mahratta Brahman, angrily and contemp- 
 tuously consigning to the flowing river the so-called 
 science of his ancestors will make an excellent subject 
 for the Hindu painter when, at some future time, art 
 in India, rising above the very narrow convention- 
 alities which have characterized it so long, shall 
 attain a true conception of its scope and limits. 
 
 During his wandering life Dayanand, according 
 to his own confession, acquired the habit of using 
 bhang to such an extent as to be at times under its 
 intoxicating influence. While in this condition the 
 houseless ascetic sought shelter one rainy night in 
 the veranda of a temple of the bull-god Nandi. 
 
 1 Art. " Physical Errors of Hinduism," by Baboo Bipin Behari 
 Shome, "Calcutta Review," June, 1849. 
 
no THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 For him the huge idol which stood there had no 
 sanctity, as he had long enjoyed the full as- 
 surance that he himself was Brahma " a portion 
 of Brahm ; Jiv (soul) and Brahm, the deity, being 
 one." So, rinding the hollow interior of the god 
 a convenient resting-place, he crept into it, and fell 
 asleep. In the morning a woman came to the idol 
 with her simple offerings of sugar and curds, and, 
 mistaking the Swami for an incarnation of the god 
 himself, begged him to accept her gifts. Dayanand, 
 being hungry, was nothing loath to oblige her, and 
 disposed of the curds and sugar without, as he says, 
 attempting to disabuse her of her false impression 
 with regard to his divinity. He adds, thankfully, that 
 the curds presented by the woman, being sour, served 
 to cure him of the effects of the bhang, 1 which he had 
 been indulging in. For how much of his ecstatic 
 visions and self-hallucinations the yogi is indebted 
 to bhang it would be profitless to speculate, but that 
 that powerful narcotic contributes largely towards 
 the creation of his wild fancies no reasonable person 
 will doubt. 
 
 Dayanand's life is, in some respects, a good 
 example of that led by hundreds, I may say 
 thousands, of men in India, who for various and 
 very opposite reasons adopt the wandering habits of 
 one or other of the ascetic orders. Supported by the 
 voluntary liberality of the people, these restless 
 spirits travel immense distances over the country, 
 carrying with them, to the remotest corners of the 
 land, the ideas fermenting in the minds of the more 
 vigorous leaders of Hindu theological speculation. 
 1 " Theosophist," vol. ii. p. 47. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. in 
 
 The adventures incident to their vagabond life, un- 
 accompanied as it is by either special danger or 
 peculiar hardship, have charms sufficient for the 
 majority of idle men who take up the calling of yogi 
 or sannyasi. But the more earnest souls amongst 
 them are often driven to despair by discovering the 
 immorality, greed, selfishness, shallowness, and pre- 
 sumption of teachers of great reputation to whose 
 feet they have come for knowledge. Disillusioned, 
 they fall back upon that grand resource of the Hindu 
 for solving the mysteries of the universe silent and 
 solitary contemplation. They retire to some lone place 
 to think out the dark problem of existence, and, if 
 their lives are spared for a few years, acquire, in pro- 
 portion to their eccentricity and repulsiveness, the 
 reputation of immense sanctity and superhuman 
 wisdom. 
 
 Dayanand, however, was made of different stuff. 
 Endowed with a robust frame and commanding 
 stature, a self-reliant nature, a masterful temper, 
 much knowledge of Hindu literature, and great 
 eloquence, the Mahratta Brahman came forward as 
 an aggressive reformer. Eager to establish the cor- 
 rectness of his own views he was ever ready to meet, 
 in open discussion, Hindu pandits, Christian mis- 
 sionaries, or Muhammadan moulvis, and, if his 
 admiring followers are to be believed, quite as willing 
 to convince an adversary with a stick as with a 
 syllogism. It should be added here that, although 
 he did not retire altogether from active life to end 
 his days in the solitude of some lone forest or moun- 
 tain cave, the reformer, like the great majority of his 
 countrymen, was a firm believer in the importance 
 
ii2 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 and efficacy of Yog, of which I have given some 
 account elsewhere, 1 and actually practised Yog for a 
 season in the desert of Chandi. 
 
 After many years of vigorous and energetic mis- 
 sionary work, involving much opposition on the part 
 of the orthodox, the Vedic reformer died at Ajmere 
 on the 3Oth of October, 1883, at the age of fifty-nine, 
 having, according to the accounts of his followers, 
 been poisoned with arsenic by some of the many 
 enemies whom his religious reforms had raised up 
 against him. His end is said to have been edifying. 
 His last word, we are told, was, " Shanti " (God's 
 will be done). Of course the great event had its 
 portentous accompaniments. That was inevitable. 
 The sun grew pale when it knew that Swami-ji was 
 wanted back in the celestial mansions, and shed 
 tears which made themselves manifest in that re- 
 markable fore- and after-glow in the morning and 
 evening sky, which, at that time, attracted attention 
 all the world over. The Earth, as soon as she 
 became aware that Dayanand must return home, 
 heaved a deep sigh, which rent her bosom, and 
 resulted in the terrible and destructive outburst of 
 Krakatoa, together with an earthquake in Greece. 
 And when the fatal moment arrived, Aryavarta 
 trembled to the very Himalayas, while a brilliant 
 meteor flashed across the sky towards the northern 
 pole. 2 
 
 Here we have some natural phenomena, which 
 actually occurred, ingeniously connected with the 
 
 1 Supra. 
 
 2 For the above particulars I am indebted to " The Regene- 
 rator of Aryavarta/' vol. i. No. 45. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 113 
 
 death of the Hindu reformer. And let European 
 science offer what explanation it may regarding the 
 phenomena referred to ; let it eventually demonstrate 
 the remarkable fore- and after-glow in the skies to be 
 due to aqueous vapour, cosmic dust, or volcanic ashes, 
 as the case may be, the more ignorant followers of 
 Dayanand will, in all probability, ever connect the 
 phenomena in question with the death of their vene- 
 rated leader. As time goes by the death-scene will, 
 in all likelihood, become, by an addition here and 
 another there, more and more striking and impres- 
 sive, until, at last, future generations will be asked to 
 to believe that the soul of the Indian prophet returned 
 to God amidst the most awful convulsions of nature. 
 
 For years previous to his death the learned Swami 
 was engaged upon a most interesting and important 
 task a translation into Hindi of both the Rig and 
 Yajur Vedas. 1 This interpretation of the oldest of 
 Sanskrit books, although not accepted by the ortho- 
 dox Hindus, would, no doubt, repay translation into 
 English. 
 
 What Dayanand has done in his Hindi version of 
 the Vedas is to give a rationalistic interpretation of 
 these ancient writings. On the assumption that the 
 Vedas are a direct revelation from the Supreme 
 Being, it follows that they must be correct, and, 
 therefore, cannot possibly conflict with God's other 
 revelation to man, viz., the truths of science, physical 
 and natural. Nothing, therefore, is necessary, but 
 
 1 " Veda-Bhashya, by Swami Dayanand Saraswati. A cor- 
 rect translation of Rig and Yagur Vedas as taught by Rishis in 
 Anti-Mahabharat period, both in Sanskrit and Hindi." Vedic 
 Press, Allahabad. 
 
 8 
 
ii4 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 to put a rationalistic interpretation on the obscure 
 and doubtful passages, and to find a new meaning for 
 such statements or injunctions as seem to conflict 
 with well-established facts and principles. With 
 this method of exegesis and its unhappy results 
 Europe has long been familiar, and the Hindu re- 
 former does not seem to have been more fortunate in 
 its application than Western theologians. 
 
 " To him not only was everything contained in the Vedas per- 
 fect truth, but he went a step further, and by the most incredible 
 interpretations succeeded in persuading himself and others that 
 everything worth knowing, even the most recent inventions of 
 modern science, were alluded to in the Vedas. Steam-engines, 
 railways, and steam-boats, all were shown to have been known, 
 at least in their germs, to the poets of the Vedas, for Veda, he 
 argued, means divine knowledge, and how could anything have 
 been hid from that ?"* 
 
 Three or four years ago, at one of the anniversary 
 meetings of the Society, a member gravely stated that 
 the Vedas mentioned pure fire, and as pure fire was 
 nothing but electricity, it was evident the Indians of 
 the Vedic period were acquainted with electricity. 
 
 Under the guidance of Dayanand, the Aryas, as far 
 as I can ascertain, profess to find pure monotheistic 
 doctrines in the Vedas, and boldly assert that the 
 different nature-gods of the Vedic Aryans, Agni, 
 Vayu, Indra, are but one and the same god. Now 
 the invocations in the Rig Veda are addressed to the 
 dawn, to fire, to winds and storms, to Indra the 
 sender of rain, and so on, but there appears to have 
 been no order of precedence in this hierarchy of 
 
 1 Prof. Max Mu'ller's " Biographical Essays Dayananda 
 Saraswati," p. 170. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 115 
 
 celestials, for the language of the hymns attributes 
 supreme power to the god who may be the special 
 subject of invocation and from whom benefits are 
 being craved. As Professor Max Miiller observes : 
 
 " When these individual gods are invoked they are not con- 
 ceived as limited by the power of others as superior or inferior 
 in rank. Each god is to the mind of the suppliant as all the 
 gods. He is felt at the time as a real divinity, as supreme and 
 absolute in spite of the necessary limitation which, to our 
 mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All 
 the rest disappear from the vision of the poet and he only 
 who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes 
 of the worshippers. '-' l 
 
 Beneath these inconsistencies in the Vedic hymns 
 the modern/' Aryas" find a pure monotheism, where we 
 would be more inclined to discover pantheism if any- 
 thing. But the incongruities noticed above, if not due 
 merely to exaggeration and flattery, may have arisen 
 from the several gods invoked in the Vedic hymns 
 having been peculiar and special tribal gods, before 
 the hymns were brought together to form a national 
 collection. In contrast with the denial on the part 
 of the modern " Aryas " that the Vedas, when cor- 
 rectly interpreted, lend any countenance to panthe- 
 istic theories, is the fact that the founder of the sect 
 himself believed in yoga-vidya which surely cannot 
 be reconciled with monotheism as ordinarily under- 
 stood. The principles of the new sect are stated as 
 follows by themselves in what they are pleased to 
 call their decalogue. 
 
 "I. God is the Fountain of all true knowledge, and the 
 primeval cause of all things knowable. 
 
 Hibbert Lectures," 1878, p. 285. 
 
ii6 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 "II. Worship is alone due to God who is All-truth, All- 
 knowledge, All-beatitude, Boundless, Almighty, Just, Merciful, 
 Un-begotten, Infinite, Unchangeable, without a Beginning, 
 Incomparable, the support and the Lord of all, All-pervading, 
 Omniscient, Imperishable, Immortal, Eternal, Holy, and the 
 Cause of the universe. 
 
 " III. The Vedas are the Books of true knowledge, and it is 
 the paramount duty of every Arya to read or hear them read ; 
 to teach and preach them to others. 
 
 " IV. An Arya should always be ready to accept truth and re- 
 nounce untruth when discovered. 
 
 " V. Truth arrived at after consummate deliberation should 
 be his guiding principle in all actions. 
 
 " VI. The primary object of the Samaj is to do good to the 
 world by improving the physical, intellectual, spiritual, moral 
 and social condition of mankind. 
 
 " VII. Due love for all and appreciation of Justice, an Arya 
 should manifest in his behaviour towards others. 
 
 " VIII. He should endeavour to diffuse knowledge and dispel 
 ignorance. 
 
 " IX. He should not be content with his own improvement, 
 but look for it. in that of others. 
 
 " X. In matters which affect the general social well-being of 
 our race he ought to discard all differences and not allow his 
 individuality to interfere, but in strictly personal matters every 
 one may have his own way." z 
 
 Notwithstanding their decalogue there is still a 
 good deal of uncertainty and vagueness about the 
 tenets of the Arya Samaj, and no doubt this very 
 vagueness helps at present to swell the ranks of its 
 followers. But there are rocks ahead. Dayanand's 
 mantle has not fallen on the shoulders of any one. 
 No successor was appointed by the master, and it is 
 more than probable that the new sect will soon 
 disintegrate into sections, each with its own special 
 and peculiar views. There are some points, however, 
 
 " Arya Magazine," vol. i. p. 3. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 117 
 
 regarding which we can speak with tolerable confi- 
 dence. The members of the Arya Samaj are Hindus 
 inasmuch as they retain and observe those most 
 essential peculiarities of Hinduism, the distinctions 
 of caste and veneration of the cow. They also ' 
 believe in the transmigration of souls. But they are 
 unorthodox Hindus, inasmuch as they condemn 
 idolatry and reject a large portion of the later scrip- 
 tures acknowledged as sacred by their co-religionists. 
 They also manifest a strong hostility to the Brah- 
 mans ; but this, I learn, is more in theory than in 
 practice. 
 
 After a long time I was present again, in November, 
 1886, at a portion of the anniversary celebration of 
 the Arya Samaj. The business extended over two 
 entire days. As on previous occasions the sacrifice 
 known as the Horn was duly provided for; also much 
 singing of hymns (partly to the accompaniment of 
 a harmonium), reading of reports and lectures. 
 Of these last one was to be given by a woman. A 
 Hindu woman lecturing in public ! This was a real 
 attraction; an opportunity not to be neglected. 
 
 The premises of the Samaj I found very much 
 improved, and the place of assembly, although the 
 same, looked very much changed. The area was 
 more restricted, as a part of the open space I had 
 seen before was now built upon, forming a quadrangle, 
 bounded by double-storeyed buildings with picturesque 
 balconies. As on the other occasions, all present, 
 with the exception of myself, were natives. The 
 female lecturer did not give me a chance of writing 
 a description of her charms, for she stood behind a 
 screen, and poured forth, from her place of conceal- 
 
nS THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 ment, a long discourse in Hindi on women's rights. 1 
 She began by maintaining the thesis that women 
 were quite as capable of education as men, and, to 
 prove her contention, sent forward a little girl of 
 about six or seven years of age, who recited a long 
 Vedic poem the Mai had taught her. MaiBhagwati, 
 the lecturer, then proceeded to refer to the admirable 
 manner in which everything in nature was ordered. 
 She drew special attention to the important function 
 of maternity. She told. us a story, with the inevitable 
 Rajah in -it, to prove or give emphasis to her state- 
 ment that each one would receive according to his 
 deserts. To the oppression of women in the Zena- 
 nas of Hindustan she attributed the subject condition 
 of the country, adding that the blows, ill-treatment, 
 and abuse her countrymen received from the English 
 was the just retribution of their acts in the Zenana. 
 This remark called forth some applause and mer- 
 riment. Of course Mai Bhagwati's remark was 
 pointed against the unmanly domestic tyranny of 
 her own countrymen, the English being, in her eyes, 
 but the unconscious avengers of the wrongs of the 
 
 1 The purdah system amongst Hindus is said to have been 
 adopted during Muhammadan domination. However that may 
 be, the purdah is now looked upon as a mark of gentility, and 
 will not easily be lifted, even by the reforming spirit of 'the age- 
 One might think that the spread of education will soon release 
 women from their present seclusion, but in some cases it pro- 
 duces the very opposite effect. The cheap education now 
 available in most parts of India raises a great many persons 
 out of their natural humble sphere of life. The wives of such 
 men, who once enjoyed the privilege of moving about freely in 
 their own village, are converted into purdah nashcens, the 
 seclusion of the women being an indication of superior rank. 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 119 
 
 harem. Following up these remarks, our invisible 
 advocate of women's rights said that the husbands 
 who beat and ill-used their wives here would be born 
 again as dogs to be kicked and beaten in their turn, 
 that those who ensnared women would be fishes who 
 would be duly entangled in the meshes of the fisher- 
 man's net, and so on, statements which may, for 
 anything I know to the contrary, rest on Vedic 
 authority, but which were received with incredulous 
 smiles by her male audience. 
 
 Later on another lecturer addressed us in Urdu, 
 advocating, in a very excellent speech, the claims to 
 national support of the Anglo-Vedic College proposed 
 to be established in memory of Dayanand, and to 
 such good purpose did he speak, that at the end 
 of his discourse a goodly stream of rupees for the 
 establishment of the college came pouring in. One 
 elderly man advanced to the table, and, divesting 
 himself of his gold bangles, presented them as a 
 contribution to the college. He then, with great 
 deliberation, took off his earrings, one by one, and 
 handed them over also, together with a small sum of 
 money. His action was received with much popular 
 applause, and he was showered with flowers by the 
 sympathetic onlookers. Before retiring, he stipulated 
 that the present he had made should be applied 
 specially towards the building of a room in the 
 boarding-house of the college to be named after his 
 wife. His example stimulated many others to offer 
 their ornaments, and many a ring and silver Kurra 
 was handed up, with the name of the donor, amidst 
 the plaudits of the assembly. But one gift more 
 particularly brought the house down a subscription 
 
120 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 of sixteen rupees and two annas from the inmates of 
 the Christian Mission boarding-house. 
 
 The influence of the spirit of scientific rationalism 
 which, with the diffusion of European education, has 
 for years past been making itself felt throughout 
 India, rendered inevitable the eventual abandon- 
 ment, reconstruction, or reform of the ancient creeds 
 of the country. That a new and a rationalistic 
 interpretation of the Vedas could be made by a 
 Brahman unacquainted with any European language 
 shows to what a depth below the surface the modern 
 spirit has permeated. The persistent and organized 
 aggressiveness of Christian Missionary effort has 
 also forced the Hindus, particularly the educated 
 and priestly classes, to reconsider the foundations 
 of their faith, while creating a strong feeling of 
 opposition to their well-meant efforts at evangeliza- 
 tion. Between the unanswerable truths of science 
 on the one hand, and the uncompromising attitude 
 of condemnation taken up by the Christian mission- 
 aries on the other, the leaders of native thought 
 in India felt that something had to be done, and 
 done quickly. The old strongholds had become 
 untenable, the greater portion of the land was 
 clearly defenceless, so the Arya retiring before the 
 enemy and practically surrendering the whole coun- 
 try has taken refuge behind the bulwarks of a little- 
 known and very ancient fortress in the recesses of 
 the mountain. 
 
 Viewed broadly, and without a too close reference 
 to its more or less settled tenets and opinions, the 
 Arya movement is an acknowledgment on the part of a 
 section of the Hindu community of the intellectually 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 121 
 
 unsustainable character of Hinduism ; and it is also 
 a patriotic demonstration against Christianity. In 
 this last respect lies its real influence as a factor in 
 the future of native society, but to me it seems to 
 possess too little vitality to make a successful stand 
 against Brahman and Missionary, although I am 
 assured that the enthusiasm at present for the Arya 
 cause is so great that many men give to the Samaj 
 a month's pay every year and others as much as half 
 Ihcir entire salary. Others, again, put aside, in a 
 separate vessel, a handful of meal out of every 
 supply taken for their daily food, and sell the ac- 
 cumulated store for the benefit of the Samaj at the 
 end of each month. Widows, who have no further 
 need of their jewels, are frequently known to present 
 them to the Samaj. 
 
 To a certain extent the Arya sect is in the first 
 of the many stages through which the Brahmo 
 Samaj has passed. It pins its faith' upon the Vedas 
 as did the earlier Brahmos ; but there is this differ- 
 ence the Arya has a new interpretation of the 
 Vedas to go upon. It is the Vedas not as usually 
 understood, but as interpreted by Dayanand, that he 
 believes in. But this, on the face of it, is not a 
 very stable foundation upon which to rear a new 
 religion. The men who have become the disciples 
 of Dayanand are, with a very few exceptions perhaps, 
 by no means competent to understand or critically 
 appreciate the soundness, or otherwise, of his inter- 
 pretation of the Vedas. They have been drawn to 
 him, not from a scholarly conviction of his genuine 
 knowledge, but by the personal influence of the man, 
 and by his offering them a rational and national 
 
122 THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 religion without idolatry. The Arya may think he 
 has found, or may profess to find, in the Rig and 
 and Yajur Vedas a purer and more reasonable faith 
 than that preached by the Christian or Muslim 
 missionaries, but there is strong ground for believing 
 that as long as he clings to any form of Hinduism 
 he will not be able to free himself from the heredi- 
 tary priesthood who have guided and ruled the 
 social life of India for so many centuries. Although 
 I have taken much trouble to inquire into the matter, 
 I have not been able to find that a single one of the 
 Aryas has dared to openly set at naught the here- 
 ditary customs in which the Brahmans play a part, 
 though an attempt has been made to modify some 
 of the ceremonies. For instance, two young men 
 were invested with the sacred thread at Lahore 
 under the auspices of the Arya Samaj. A Brahman 
 pandit was induced to officiate on the occasion, but 
 all rites of an idolatrous character were omitted. 
 The Brahman's fee for the double investiture and 
 the other necessary expenses came up to fifteen 
 rupees, so that the cost to each of the young men 
 was a moiety of that amount. For a long time the 
 two young men in question were objects of ridicule 
 to their orthodox fellows, who proposed, in derision 
 of the irregular ceremony which had been performed 
 with the countenance of the Arya Samaj, to invest 
 any sweeper with the thread on his paying the now 
 recognized fee of seven rupees and eight annas. No 
 doubt reforms are not to be easily carried out in 
 a conservative society like that of the Hindus. 
 Besides, professions and practice are very different 
 things. It is, I understand, a rule of the Arya 
 
THE ARYA SAMAJ AND ITS FOUNDER. 123 
 
 Samaj to abandon the custom of early marriages. 
 Yet a prominent member of the sect, a university 
 graduate, and the minister of a foreign state, broke 
 the rule in the case of his own son. 
 
 After a careful consideration of the matter, I am 
 inclined to think that the Arya Samaj is at most 
 destined to form one inconsiderable sect amongst 
 the innumerable sects into which Hinduism is 
 divided. But even as a numerically inconsiderable 
 Hindu sect, the Arya Samaj, composed as it is 
 mostly of men who have received an English educa- 
 tion, will probably be an important factor in the 
 regeneration of India. The marked leaning of the 
 society towards physical and natural science is a 
 most hopeful augury of its intellectual future, whilst 
 its open abandonment of idolatry and its public 
 profession of monotheism cannot fail to have a 
 healthy influence on religious opinion in India. 
 And although unable as yet to claim any success 
 worth speaking of in the direction of social reforms, 
 the Society, if true to its present principles, may 
 be calculated upon to throw the weight of its influ- 
 ence on the right side when the favourable moment 
 for energetic action shall have arrived. Latterly the 
 Arya Samaj has manifested a growing tendency to 
 take a share in the political agitation which has of 
 recent years been set on foot in India ; a fact which, 
 I think, shows that the Society owes its existence 
 quite as much to national as to religious aspirations. 
 
 I have, I regret to say, not been able to obtain any 
 reliable statistics regarding the numbers not very 
 large I believe formally enrolled in the Arya Samaj ; 
 nor do I know of any .special work successfully 
 
1 24 THE ARYA SA MAJ A ND ITS FO UNDER. 
 
 carried out by the society with the exception of the 
 Anglo- Vedic School recently established at Lahore 
 with some additional college classes, for the prepara- 
 tion of students for the lower examinations of the 
 Punjab University. 
 
V. 
 THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ. 
 
 ALTHOUGH not unaware of the existence of the new 
 and very aggressive sect of theists known as Brah- 
 mas, or Brahmos, nor unacquainted with their gene- 
 rally-accepted doctrines, I had not visited any of 
 their places of worship when the following public 
 notice attracted my attention : 
 
 " The sixteenth anniversary of the Punjab Brahmo 
 Samaj will be celebrated on Sunday, the gth of 
 November, 1879, at tne Brahma Mandir, Anarkalli 
 Lahore. The public are cordially invited to attend 
 on the occasion." 
 
 Taking advantage of the Society's invitation to 
 the public generally, I went to their place of worship 
 in time for the morning service. 
 
 I found the Brahmo mandir situated in a humble 
 quarter of the town, and devoid of any architectural 
 pretensions whatever. It is a hall about fifty feet 
 long, by eighteen or twenty feet wide, with a 
 veranda in front, partly converted into a little 
 Vestry, where Brahmo publications were exposed 
 
126 THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ, 
 
 for sale. Narrow verandas also shelter the hall 
 on the right and left sides, running along the entire 
 length of the building, which, to suit the climate, 
 is provided with ample means of ventilation. 
 
 On the occasion of the anniversary celebration, 
 regarding which I am writing, there were no pic- 
 tures, statues, or such objects, in the hall. They 
 would have been out of place in the temple of this 
 purely theistic and ostentatiously iconoclastic sect. 
 The occasion was, however, a special one, and some 
 attempt at decoration seemed not only permissible, 
 but called for. Flowers and leaves were innocent 
 enough to be admitted into the precincts of the 
 austere theistic hall, and were used, though not 
 profusely, in giving something of a holiday.look to 
 the blank walls of the plain brick building. Between 
 the doorways, on small wooden brackets, were placed 
 glass vases with flowers in them ; the doors were 
 ornamented with strings of leaves and flowers. 
 Within the hall, on one side of the entrance door- 
 way, stood an American clock, and on the other a 
 charity-box, labelled in English and, lower down, 
 in Urdu characters. 
 
 The floor was carpeted with cotton carpets, known 
 in India as durrees. White floor-cloths (not quite 
 clean) were laid for the people to sit upon. A portion 
 of the extreme end of the hall perhaps a fourth of 
 fifth of the entire room had been partitioned off by 
 a temporary screen for the accommodation of such 
 women and children as might care to attend. From 
 this extemporized gynecium they could heai^ and 
 perhaps see, all that was going on, without being 
 exposed to the rude gaze of the male worshippers. 
 
THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ. 127 
 
 Yet, when the service was proceeding, some little 
 children, and a few girls of about ten or eleven years 
 of age, well dressed and well bejewelled, more irre- 
 pressible or more curious than the rest, came 
 tripping, with tinkling anklets, into the veranda, 
 to have a few furtive looks through the open doors 
 at what was going on within the hall. With the 
 exception of myself all present were natives. 
 
 A little in advance of the temporary screen of the 
 gynecium the Brahmo missionary from Bengal took 
 up his position. There was no pulpit or raised plat- 
 form of any kind for the preacher. The Eastern 
 does not like to stand, and our Brahmo missionary 
 from Bengal was no exception to the general rule, 
 for he sat squat on the floor, the place immediately 
 in front of him being walled in by flower-pots and 
 strewn with flowers. Here he prayed and preached 
 and sang in turns, seated the whole while, and with 
 his eyes shut. The hymns for the day were taken 
 from a small vernacular hymn-book of only a few 
 printed pages. The choir-singers and musicians 
 were the same three Muhammadans I had seen at 
 the Arya Samaj ; l but the congregation in the 
 Brahmo mandir seemed to take part in the singing 
 to a greater extent % than did the congregation at the 
 Arya meeting. Several persons present joined in the 
 hymns, swaying their bodies about gently to the 
 measure. There were prayers, long ones too, in 
 which the congregation took part in a devout 
 manner. 
 
 In his prayers the Brahmo missionary asked that 
 Brahma would cause the Hindus, Muhammadans, 
 1 Supra p. 98. 
 
128 THE LAHORE BRA HMO SAMAf. 
 
 and Christians to turn to him and become Brahmos. 
 I could not help thinking that much of the forms 
 of the prayers, or rather the style of the expres- 
 sions used, were copied, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, from the prayer-book of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 During his lecture the missionary, to give point to 
 his speech, quoted an episode from the Ramayana 
 about " Seta Dabi " and " Hanooman Sahib," in 
 which the poet says that the monkey-god destroyed 
 a certain city because he could not find the name of 
 God there. At one stage of the proceedings, while 
 a hymn was being sung, two or three men got up 
 and went about placing garlands of flowers round 
 the necks of the people present. 
 
 As far as I could judge, the congregation was 
 drawn from the ranks of the well-to-do middle class 
 of the native society of Lahore. The upper classes 
 sent no representatives, nor did the labourers and 
 artizans. Several Bengalis were present. The 
 entire congregation, excluding the women and chil- 
 dren behind the curtain, did not, on the sixteenth 
 anniversary of the Punjab Brahmo Samaj, exceed 
 fifty souls, and of these several had been present at, 
 and taken part in, the Arya celebration described in 
 a previous paper a fact which, I take it, is a fair 
 indication of the absence at that time of narrow 
 sectarian feeling in both movements. At the door I 
 purchased some Brahmo publications, and then left 
 the hall, carrying away with me the impression that 
 the Brahmo theistic church, which originated in 
 Bengal, had certainly not met with much success in 
 the Punjab. 
 
THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ. 129 
 
 On a subsequent occasion I was present at an 
 interesting ceremony which took place in the Lahore 
 Brahmo mandir. Public notice of the event was 
 given in the following terms : 
 
 " We have been requested to inform the public that Pandit 
 , who is a minister of the Punjab Brahmo Samaj, has 
 resolved to enter the Sanyasa Ashrama, z>., to renounce his 
 secular life, on the 2oth instant, it being the 32nd anniversary 
 of his birthday. The ceremony of his initiation into the new 
 sphere of life will be performed in the hall of the Brahmo 
 Mandir on that day, at 6.30 p.m. The public are cordially 
 invited to witness the ceremony." 
 
 The public, at any rate the native public (for 
 Europeans in India care for none of these things), 
 accepted the invitation as cordially as it was given, 
 and in hundreds thronged the Brahmo mandir long 
 before the appointed hour. Through the courtesy of 
 a member of the Samaj a chair was placed for me 
 quite close to the raised platform, surrounded with 
 plants and flowers, on which the officiating minister 
 was to take his seat for the purpose of conducting 
 the ceremony of initiation. The man who had 
 determined to renounce his secular life was a married 
 man with three children, and held a good appoint- 
 ment on a salary of a hundred and fifty rupees a 
 month. He had deliberately resigned his post in 
 order to lead a religious life, and the probable fate 
 of his wife and family was a matter of speculation 
 to many present that evening. 
 
 The proceedings, which were throughout con- 
 ducted with great solemnity, were carried out in 
 accordance with a programme of the evening's work, 
 
 9 
 
130 THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ. 
 
 copies of which were distributed amongst the 
 audience. 
 
 The candidate, with head and face shaved quite 
 smooth, appeared before the audience, well-clad in 
 garments dyed of the orange-yellow colour affected 
 by ascetics in India. The officiating minister, a 
 native gentleman of good standing, engaged for the 
 most part in the secular work of vernacular educa- 
 tion, wore his ordinary dress, but had, in honour of 
 the occasion, thrown an orange-coloured sheet over 
 his shoulders. After the preliminary divine service, 
 the minister gave the candidate a new name, by 
 which he was to be known henceforth, and read out 
 various precepts, culled from the Hindu Shastras, in 
 regard to a virtuous life. He whispered into the ear 
 of the new ascetic the " sacred watchword," and 
 then addressed him at great length upon the 
 responsibilities which his new life imposed upon 
 him. 
 
 But the most interesting portion of the evening's 
 proceedings was the new sannyasi's own address, 
 fluently delivered in Urdu, interspersed with a very 
 few expressive English words and phrases. In this 
 speech he explained to the assembly that the step 
 he had just taken was not a hasty one, conceived 
 and carried out on the spur of the moment, but had 
 been the subject of anxious thought and long 
 deliberation. Years previously he had proposed to 
 abandon the world for the life of a sannyasi, but 
 had been dissuaded from doing so by a most worthy 
 man, himself a sannyasi, who strongly advised him 
 not to act precipitately, but to wait till he felt strong 
 enough to make so great a sacrifice. The time for 
 
THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ. 131 
 
 action had at length come. In anxious and earnest 
 prayer and communion with the All-father had been 
 passed the night preceding the day on which the 
 final step had been taken. Many conflicting feelings 
 had contended for mastery in the speaker's breast. 
 Sore had been the temptation of the world's emolu- 
 ments and pleasures. Suggestions of the comfort, 
 enjoyment and consideration to be derived from his 
 regular and not inconsiderable earnings stole into 
 his mind, in seductive whispers, but the thought of 
 what Gautama, the Buddha, had voluntarily re- 
 nounced his princely rank, his lovely wife, his 
 child but a day old brought forcibly before the 
 troubled mind of the doubter that, in his case, the 
 sacrifice would, by comparison, be inconsiderable 
 indeed. That reflection had determined his present 
 action, and as for the future he left that to God. 
 But though now a sannyasi and a beggar in the sight 
 of men, he had no intention of abandoning his 
 faithful wife and his little children ; and it would be 
 his care to provide for them in the years that were 
 to come. This last statement was received with 
 prolonged applause by the audience. Turning away 
 from the assembled crowd and facing a screened 
 doorway behind which his wife had, it appears, been 
 placed, he addressed her in pathetic words broken 
 with sobs, and so worked upon the feelings of his 
 auditors that many in the hall that night were 
 deeply affected even to tears. 
 
 The step taken by the pandit was of course freely 
 criticized by the orthodox party and by non-Brahmos 
 generally. It was asked, tauntingly, and perhaps not 
 unreasonably, what Brahmos, who professed to have 
 
1 32 THE LAHORE BRAHMO SAMAJ. 
 
 risen superior to all the puerile rites and ceremonies 
 of ancient Hinduism, had to do with the yellow dress 
 of the sannyasi ? And the idea of a grihasthi Babu 
 initiating a man into an ascetic order, and conferring 
 upon him the title of Swami, was held up to ridicule 
 by the opponents of Brahmoism. 
 
VI. 
 A BRAHMO WEDDING. 
 
 ON the 3rd of January, 1884, I received the fol- 
 lowing invitation, beautifully printed in gold letters 
 on a pink glazed card : 
 
 " God's mercy alone availeth. 
 
 " LALLA * * * * 
 
 presents his compliments to J. C. Oman, Esq., Pro- 
 fessor of N. Science, and solicits the favour of his 
 kind attendance at the Anarkali Brahmo Mandir on 
 5th January, 1884, at 6.30 p.m., to witness the nup- 
 tials of his daughter :;: * :;: with Lalla * * * 
 
 " N.B. Kindly present this card at the door of 
 the Mandir." 
 
 At a quarter after six, on the appointed day, I was 
 at the closed door of the mandir, and found it 
 besieged by a crowd eager to get admittance. The 
 Brahmo mandir I have already described, and will 
 only add that, on this occasion, it was illuminated 
 with cheraghs in the usual Indian manner. I took 
 my stand outside amongst some native friends and 
 waited. The door was at length opened partially, 
 

 134 A B RAH MO WEDDING. 
 
 and then commenced a long struggle between the 
 masters of ceremonies and the visitors. Probably 
 some of those so anxious to assist at the ceremony 
 had come uninvited and were denied admittance ; be 
 this as it may, the door was at very short intervals 
 closed forcibly on all, whether invited guests or 
 otherwise. Meanwhile, a band of native musicians, 
 armed with instruments of European make, amongst 
 which the shrill bagpipes were unmistakable, filled 
 the air with what was looked upon as English music, 
 "Auld Lang Syne," and "Home, sweet home," 
 being at least recognizable in the medley to which 
 we were treated. I pressed forward and stood as 
 close as I could get to the entrance, when a native 
 gentleman beckoned me to follow him, and introduced 
 me into the mandir by a side door. On entering I 
 had the pleasure of meeting and exchanging greet- 
 ings with the president of the Society and the pandit 
 now Swanvi who, as already described, had 
 assumed the garb of an ascetic, and was going to 
 act as priest for the solemnization of the marriage. 
 
 I was courteously accommodated with a chair 
 quite close to the raised platform, where the nuptial 
 ceremony was to be performed. When the hall was 
 well filled, and the crowd induced to sit down on the 
 floor as well as they could a business of no little 
 difficulty, and occupying more than a hour the 
 Swami took his seat on the dais covered with red 
 cloth, which had been erected against the side wall 
 of the hall, between two doors. At the four corners 
 of the dais plantain trees had been put up, and 
 the entire hall was decorated with strings of 
 flowers. 
 
AlBRAHMO WEDDING. 135 
 
 After a preliminary hymn had been sung by cer- 
 tain hired musicians, the bridegroom, arrayed in 
 scarlet clothes, entered, or rather slid noiselessly in, 
 at one of the doors just beside the dais, and sat 
 down on the right hand of the Swami, while the 
 bride's father, followed by the bride, entered by the 
 other door, and, as unobtrusively as possible, took 
 their places on the left hand of the minister, the 
 father being somewhat in advance and the bride 
 modestly in the background. At the entry of the 
 wedding-party some rose-water was sprinkled about 
 over the assembled guests as they sat huddled 
 together on the floor. 
 
 How did the bride look ? How was she dressed ? 
 How did she behave on this interesting occasion ? 
 I regret to have to confess that to these important 
 questions I can give only very unsatisfactory replies. 
 The bride was dressed entirely, from head to foot, in 
 red. The chudder, or sheet, which covered her head 
 was drawn completely over her face, so that her 
 countenance was invisible to us all, and her voice, in 
 responding to the minister's interrogations, was quite 
 inaudible, even where I sat. The bridegroom, a good- 
 looking young fellow of about twenty, seemed to be 
 sufficiently self-possessed, and did his part credit- 
 ably. 
 
 The marriage ceremony was very simple. It con- 
 sisted in the formal declaration by the father, in 
 words dictated by the minister, that he was freely 
 bestowing the hand of his daughter on the bride- 
 groom. The bridegroom was asked whether he 
 would take the young woman to be his wife, and, 
 of course, answered in the affirmative. The bride 
 
136 A BRA HMO WEDDING. 
 
 was similarly questioned with respect to the young 
 man, and gave a suitable response. The minister 
 then addressed the young couple on the duties and 
 responsibilities of married life, and made each one 
 repeat after him a formula, much resembling that in 
 the prayer-book of the Church of England (and 
 probably adopted from it), which begins with the 
 words, " I take thee, C. D., to be my wedded wife," 
 &c., &c. 
 
 When these formal and necessary declarations had 
 been made and obligations accepted, the minister 
 joined the hands of the young couple and tied them 
 together with a string of flowers. At this point the 
 musicians set up an appropriate hymn, and, while the 
 music continued, the young couple sat silently joined 
 together by the floral chain. 
 
 The minister then addressed the married couple 
 and the audience at great length. He dwelt upon 
 the many disadvantages and evils of child-marriage, 
 and commended, in glowing terms, the courage of 
 the bride's father, who, in defiance of custom and 
 public opinion, had, from a sense of duty, educated 
 his girl with the care only given in ordinary cases to 
 the education of a boy, and had not sought a hus- 
 band for her till she had attained the age of fifteen, 
 and was sufficiently instructed to take upon herself 
 the responsibilities of a married life. The minister 
 condemned very forcibly the existing Hindu system 
 of child-marriage, which led inevitably to the ship- 
 wreck of so many lives, and he exhorted his hearers 
 to come forward manfully and assist, by example, 
 the reform to which so many were ready to give 
 their approval, but which so few were prepared to 
 
A BRAHMO WEDDING. 137 
 
 carry out in practice. The Swami spoke eloquently 
 in respect to English home-life, as he had heard it 
 described by Indians who had lived in England, and 
 told his hearers that it was far more important for 
 the people of India to learn from the Englishman 
 how to make a quiet, happy home, than to acquire 
 from him skill in any number of mechanical arts or 
 industries, important as these may be to the welfare 
 of the country. 
 
 The Swami's speech concluded the proceedings, 
 and the meeting broke up with a distribution of 
 garlands, and amidst showers of flowers. 
 

 VII. 
 
 TWO VISITS TO THE GOLDEN 
 TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 
 
 THE word Sikh means a disciple, and is the dis- 
 tinguishing name of the followers of a religion, 
 originally founded by Baba Nanak, in the early 
 part of the sixteenth century. At the present time, 
 the Sikhs number about a million and a quarter, 
 nearly ninety per cent, of the whole being residents 
 of the Punjab. They are a warlike sect, who 
 attained predominance in the Punjab during the 
 troubled times which attended the decline and fall 
 of the Mogul Empire in India, and under French 
 officers made a gallant, if unsuccessful, resistance to 
 the British arms in many a well-fought field. 
 
 To be seen to advantage, the Golden Temple of the 
 Sikhs should be visited on the occasion of the Diwali 
 festival, when the fane and its surroundings are 
 brilliantly illuminated with thousands upon thousands 
 of those little terra-cotta lamps, known in India as 
 cheraghs. 
 
 The Diwali festival takes place annually, on 
 the darkest day of the year, according to Hindu 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 139 
 
 reckoning ; and on this day, in 1882, I paid a visit 
 to the temple, accompanied by my wife and children. 
 Passing through the very narrow and crowded 
 streets of the city, we suddenly entered a large open 
 space, bounded by stately buildings, and there 
 before us lay a fine sheet of water, from the centre 
 of which rose the beautiful Sikh temple with its 
 marble walls and gilded cupolas. A broad walk, for 
 the greater portion paved with marble, runs along 
 the four sides of the great tank in which it stands. 
 A wide causeway of cut stone, also paved with 
 marble, joins the north side of the temple to the 
 land. The lower portion of the building is decorated 
 with the handsome inlaid work so common in India. 
 The dome and cupolas, and the greater part of the 
 upper portion of the building, are covered over with 
 sheet copper, richly gilded ; hence the name " Golden 
 Temple" usually applied to it by Europeans. 
 Viewed from the platform on the east side of the 
 artificial lake, . or, better still, from an elevated 
 position like the great tower known as the Baba 
 Atal, the temple with its surroundings forms a 
 picture both unique and beautiful. According to 
 Professor Sir Monier Williams, it may be said to 
 rank next to the Taj at Agra as one of the most 
 striking sights in India ; x while Dr. Fergusson 
 considers this temple as " splendid an example of its 
 class (of nineteenth century temples) as can be found 
 in India; " 2 though he does not commend either its 
 outline or its details. The building, which combines 
 in itself characteristics of both Hindu and Muham- 
 
 c " Religious Thought and Life in India," p. 175. 
 
 2 " History of Indian and Eastern Architecture," p. 469. 
 
140 ' TWO VISITS TO THE 
 
 madan styles of architecture, is not imposing in its 
 dimensions ; the dome, too, is low and squat ; but 
 the material of the building is good, the finish 
 elaborate, and, taken as a whole and in connection 
 with its surroundings, the Golden Temple is a 
 decidedly attractive and pleasing object. 
 
 When our little party arrived at the temple, known 
 locally as the Durbar Sahib, about an hour before 
 sunset, the scene was extremely picturesque and 
 animated. A stream of human beings was setting 
 steadily towards the central building, and the crowd 
 was every minute getting more and more dense. 
 Looking down from the platform at the base of the 
 new clock-tower, the're appeared a troubled sea of 
 white and coloured turbans, filling the entire ap- 
 proach to the temple. We told some policemen, 
 who were there on duty, that we wished to go inside 
 the building. At first they raised difficulties about 
 it, saying that the crowd between us and the Durbar 
 Sahib was too great to admit of our passing forward. 
 Seeing, however, that we had a strong mind to try, 
 they undertook to conduct us to the sanctuary. But 
 certain preliminaries had first to be gone through. 
 We were asked to sit down on a bench and exchange 
 our boots for moccasins made of cloth, as it was not 
 admissible to tread the hallowed precincts of the 
 Durbar Sahib shod with leather. This necessary 
 concession to Sikh customs having been satisfactorily 
 carried out, two tall policemen undertook to clear 
 the way for us no easy matter at first sight, for we 
 had to get through a closely packed and struggling 
 mass of human beings, which occupied the entire 
 space between us and the door of the shrine. But 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 141 
 
 the policemen, representatives of the irresistible 
 power of the Sarkar, brought us safely, and in a very 
 few minutes, to the desired goal. With loud shouts, 
 vigorous pushes to right and left, and, it must be 
 confessed, free use of their official batons on the 
 turbaned heads of their unoffending countrymen, the 
 policemen cleared the way for us, without, as far as 
 I could observe, creating the smallest outward sign 
 of irritation in the men so unceremoniously handled. 
 Possibly the stolid countenances of the Sikhs masked 
 the resentment which such treatment would only 
 too naturally awaken. I tried, but unsuccessfully, 
 to restrain the superabundant energy of our guides 
 and protectors. They were apparently acting ac- 
 cording to their ordinary procedure, and smilingly 
 protested that no harm was being done. 
 
 When we reached the door of the shrine, it was 
 thronged by a crowd of eager visitors. On the pave- 
 ment, damp and dirty from the feet of the multitudes 
 that had already been there, devout pilgrims were 
 prostrating themselves with touching humility ; whilst 
 others were silently, and very undemonstratively, 
 struggling to enter the holy place, in order to present 
 the offerings, rich or trifling, which they had brought 
 in their hands. 
 
 We entered the inner room or sanctuary, a vaulted 
 chamber of very moderate dimensions, with a richly 
 ornamented ceiling. In the centre of it was a heavy 
 canopy or baldaquin of cloth of gold, supported on 
 four silver posts. Under this was the sacred book 
 of the Sikhs, the Adi-Granth, covered over with 
 costly brocade, and before the volume, facing the 
 main entrance, sat the chief priest of the temple. 
 
142 TWO VISITS TO THE 
 
 Round about were several officiating priests. On 
 one side squatted three or four musicians, who, 
 while we stood there, were playing on stringed 
 instruments (sitars and saringhis), with the accom- 
 paniment of the tabla or drum, the well-known air of 
 " Taza ba Taza," the ever popular song of Hafiz, 
 breathing of love and wine. 
 
 There was no idol nor graven image in the shrine. 
 The only object of veneration was the Book. We 
 stood for a few minutes to watch the scene. Thou- 
 sands had come from distant places to pay their 
 respects and perform their devotions at the temple 
 on this important occasion. They struggled, a few 
 at a time, into the chamber where the sacred volume 
 lay, r and made their offerings of money, sweets or 
 flowers ; receiving back from the hands of the priest 
 some trifle perhaps a crushed and broken flower 
 taken from the heaps before him. Observing our 
 presence in the temple, one of the priests came for- 
 ward and began directing our attention to various 
 points of interest in the architecture of the place. 
 He also handed us a couple of lumps of sugar- 
 candy, and some flowers. I ventured at first to 
 decline these presents ; but he pressed them upon us 
 so courteously that we were obliged to accept them. 
 A visit to the upper floor of the building and to the 
 roof, well repaid us for the slight trouble of ascend- 
 ing a well-built staircase. The prospect from the 
 windows was strikingly beautiful and interesting. 
 The bright water of immortality (for such it is to the 
 Sikhs) reflecting the image of the Golden Temple, 
 with the surrounding structures, and disturbed only 
 by a few devout bathers near the shrine, lent a 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 143 
 
 peculiar charm to the view, and tempted us to linger 
 undisturbed for many minutes in the quiet upper 
 storeys of the building. On one side, towards the 
 causeway, the Akal Bunga, the stately palace of the 
 Akalis, with its gilded dome and towering flag- 
 staffs, made a fine object ; on another, the palace of 
 a Sikh Sirdar with its lofty minarets attracted the 
 eye; and a little way off the gigantic tower, sur- 
 mounted by a gilt cupola, which covers the remains 
 of Baba Atal, gave additional beauty to an unusually 
 striking panorama. 
 
 The sacred pool itself which lay below us, ex- 
 cavated by Guru Ram Das in 1574, has known many 
 vicissitudes. More than once has it been filled up 
 by the Muhammadans, and in 1762 it was dese- 
 crated by Ahmed Shah, who caused slaughtered cows 
 to be thrown into the holy water. But this sacrilege 
 was amply avenged in later years, when " numerous 
 mosques were demolished, and Afghans in chains 
 were made to wash the foundations with the blood 
 of hogs." J The temple which now stands in the 
 centre of the quadrangular tank owes its gilding to 
 the piety or superstition of Maharajah Runjeet Singh 
 (A.D. 1780-1839), who, in his day of power, despoiled 
 many of the finest Muhammadan tombs in Lahore 
 and its neighbourhood, to embellish the chief temple 
 of the sect to which he belonged ; an act of 
 vandalism not yet forgotten by the Punjab Muslims, 
 to whom the Durbar Sahib is a standing eyesore to 
 this day. 
 
 While we were at the temple, preparations for 
 the illumination were being vigorously pushed on. 
 1 Cunningham's " History of the Sikhs/' p. 103. 
 
144 TW O VISITS TO THE 
 
 The cheraghs were being arranged as closely as 
 possible, along all the principal lines of the archi- 
 tecture. On the roof itself, these little lamps were 
 screened on the outer side by a row of thin glass 
 flasks containing water, variously coloured to pro- 
 duce the effect of polychromatic lights, and well 
 indeed, as we afterwards saw, was the desired result 
 secured by this very simple device. 
 
 The return through the closely packed crowd was 
 only a repetition of our progress to the temple, and 
 was accomplished without any contretemps. Near 
 the clock-tower we found that the authorities (muni- 
 cipal or other) had placed several rows of seats for 
 European spectators of the illumination. Here we 
 settled ourselves down to watch the gradual lighting 
 up of the temple and its surroundings. In an open 
 space just behind us, a band of musicians the town- 
 band, I suppose were treating us to popular English 
 airs. As the dusk of evening approached, the ap- 
 pearance in quick succession, on different parts of 
 the temple, around the boundaries of the tank and 
 on the adjacent buildings, of bright points of fire, 
 each point faithfully reproduced in the bosom of the 
 tranquil lake, told us that the cheraghs were being 
 deftly lighted by many practised hands. Silently 
 and rapidly line after line of fire flashed into exist- 
 ence, revealing to our admiring eyes the gemmed 
 outlines of a veritable fairy city. When the build- 
 ings had all been lighted up, we were treated to 
 a brilliant display of fireworks on three sides of the 
 tank, the effect of the whole, as a display of light and 
 colour, being most striking and admirable. But, for 
 my part, I would willingly have dispensed with both 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 145 
 
 the English band and the pyrotechnics, for they 
 seemed to me out of keeping with the place and the 
 occasion. 
 
 One consequence of the fireworks was to set in 
 wild confused flight over our heads a host of pigeons, 
 birds held sacred in so many religious cities, and 
 not less sacred at Amritsar, where it would be 
 dangerous for any one to kill a pigeon near the 
 Golden Temple. 
 
 Unfortunately illuminations and fireworks are not 
 free from smoke. We were soon glad to leave the 
 heavy air in the neighbourhood of the temple, and 
 take our way back through the now brilliantly lighted 
 streets of Amritsar. The Diwali festival, in honour 
 of which the temple and the city were illuminated, is 
 known in Bengal as the Kali Poojah, and in that 
 province is attended with the sacrifice of countless 
 victims, particularly sheep, goats, and buffaloes. 1 In 
 the North-Western Provinces of India and in the 
 Punjab, the Diwali day is that on which the Hindu 
 tradesmen open their account-books for the new 
 year and indulge largely in gambling as an omen of 
 the luck they are to have during the ensuing twelve 
 months. Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune, is on this 
 night worshipped in the form of a current gold or 
 silver coin. The dwelling-houses are all thoroughly 
 cleaned and set in order, if only on this one occasion 
 in the year, to be fit places for the reception of the 
 goddess ; while the illumination is to keep devils 
 from entering the houses under cover of the dark- 
 
 1 "The Hindoos as They Are," by Sahib Chunder Bose, 
 p. 138 ct seq. 
 
 10 
 
146 TWO VISITS TO THE 
 
 nes?. 1 Some say that in rural Punjab the lamps are 
 chiefly lighted in honour of the spirits of departed 
 ancestors. 2 
 
 Be the object what it may, every town in Northern 
 India glitters on Diwali night with thousands upon 
 thousands of twinkling lights, while the Hindu in- 
 habitants perform such rites as they deem likely to 
 bring them good fortune. The Sikhs, although 
 seceders from orthodox Hinduism, are unwilling to 
 lose their chance of the good fortune that Lakshmi 
 may be disposed to give her votaries, so they too 
 illuminate their temple in her honour, and with no 
 niggardly hand. 
 
 On Diwali night the Indian bazaars, swept, gar- 
 nished, and brilliantly illuminated, are crowded with 
 people. The prominent feature of the occasion is 
 the abundance of toys: toys in sugar, in clay, in 
 paper. The toy shops and sweetmeat shops are full 
 to overflowing with houses, towers, and boats, men, 
 elephants, and horses, oxen, fishes, and birds. Indeed 
 the variety of shapes in sugar and in baked clay, 
 gorgeously painted and tinselled over, which com- 
 pete for public favour, must be quite bewildering to 
 the little ones who, dressed in their holiday finery, 
 crowd round the stalls. Amidst the toys there are 
 many representations of the gods of Hindustan ; but 
 nothing having the slightest claim to artistic merit 
 is to be seen anywhere. Some interesting objects 
 may, however, reward the quest of the curious in 
 such matters. For example, an Indian form of the 
 
 1 Sahib Chunder Bose, " The Hindoos as They Are," p. 140. 
 
 2 Mr. Denzil Ibbitson in The Civil and Military Gazette, 
 March, 1884. 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 147 
 
 scientific toy with concealed syphon known as the 
 Cup of Tantalus may be bought at some of the shops. 
 It is a small basin of burnt clay, in the centre of 
 which is the figure of a man carrying on his shoul- 
 ders the god Krishna. When water is poured into 
 the cup, it rises to the feet of Krishna and then flows 
 away commemorating an event in the history of 
 that favourite Hindu deity, who, being carried across 
 the Jumna, was saluted by the river, which rose up 
 in adoration to touch his divine feet and then respect- 
 fully retired. 
 
 All along the crowded streets, men carrying 
 Chinese lanterns, suspended from light bamboos, 
 tempt the children to spend their money, while 
 others exhibit a large cylindrical paper lantern over 
 the sides of which a number of shadow-figures pass 
 noiselessly in succession. The lantern has within it 
 a light frame set with paper figures, which is made 
 to revolve round the central lamp, hence the shadows. 
 It was a lantern of this kind, long familiar to the 
 East, which suggested that well-known quatrain in 
 Fitzgerald's version of " Omar Khayyam " 
 
 " We are no other than a moving row 
 Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go 
 Round with the sun-illumined lantern held 
 In midnight by the master of the show." 
 
 Second Visit. 
 
 As I wished to see the Durbar Sahib on an ordi- 
 nary occasion, free from the bustle and confusion of a 
 grand festival, I paid it another visit early one Sep- 
 tember morning. The causeway was occupied by a 
 
148 TWO VISITS TO THE 
 
 crowd of visitors going to and returning from the 
 shrine. In the sanctuary itself a guru and several 
 attendants were seated near the Adi-Granth, which, 
 covered over with a handsome cloth, lay on a small 
 stand, a few inches above the floor. It was the 
 object of special adoration, and was being fanned the 
 whole time, as Hindu idols and great chiefs always 
 are on ceremonial or state occasions. So sacred is 
 the Granth held by the Sikhs, that the rich and 
 ignorant amongst them consider it meritorious even 
 to have it read for them, from beginning to end, and 
 delegate the duty to a priest, who duly performs it for 
 a trifling consideration four or five rupees and a suit 
 of clothes. Sometimes this ceremony, known as pdt t 
 is performed for the benefit of a dead person at the 
 expense of his surviving relatives. Near the Granth 
 in the Golden Temple, four or five musicians were 
 playing on their instruments, and occasionally a song 
 or hymn was set up, filling the vaulted chamber with 
 a loud but not unpleasant sound. The numerous 
 worshippers, mostly women of the middle class, many 
 of them Hindus not properly belonging to the Sikh 
 sect, performed their devotions by peregrinating the 
 corridor which surrounds the central chamber three, 
 five, or seven times, and then laying some small 
 offering before the book. As for the chief priest, his 
 duty seemed limited to receiving the offerings and 
 making a trifling return in the shape of a flower or 
 two. The oblations, when they are not of small 
 value, are given in fulfilment of some vow or other. 
 I was shown a richly caparisoned horse which had 
 been presented by a Sikh Rajah, and which was to 
 be maintained at his expense for one year and then 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 149 
 
 sold for the benefit of the temple. I was assured 
 that the unmeaning and unprofitable service which I 
 have described was carried on without intermission 
 from early morning till late at night by relays of 
 priests and attendants. I had, however, seen a much 
 more interesting religious service in another Sikh 
 place of worship the baba ka baree in Sealkote 
 where I found a mixed congregation of Sikhs and 
 Hindus listening most attentively to the reading and 
 exposition of the Granth ; and I learned, on inquiry, 
 that in an upper room of the Golden Temple the 
 sacred book was similarly expounded every day. 
 
 At the Akali Palace I was shown the chamber in 
 which the Adi-Granth of the temple is placed for 
 safe custody at night, and whence it is carried each 
 morning with great state and ceremony to the shrine. 
 On the marble pavement before the palace a Brah- 
 man was reading out of and interpreting one of the 
 Hindu shastras,to a small knot of women and children 
 Round the margin of the tank, within the sacred pre- 
 cincts which I was not permitted to tread with shoes 
 on my feet, artizans were manufacturing and selling 
 neat little wooden combs. Others were displaying 
 for sale various articles made of iron, particularly 
 the ornaments worn by Sikhs as distinguishing 
 badges of the sect. Others, again, were laying down 
 marble flags on the broad roadway beside the tank, 
 for the Durbar Sahib is not quite finished yet, leav- 
 ing ample room for the pious generosity of the 
 followers of Guru Nanak and Govind Singh. Here 
 a physician, with the least possible quantity of 
 clothing on his person, was applying a plaster to 
 the head of a squalling infant ; there several persons 
 
150 TWO VISITS TO THE 
 
 were walking round a sacred plum tree planted by 
 some holy personage; while one or two yogis, rubbed 
 over with ashes, sat, seemingly wrapped in contem- 
 plation, on the cold pavement. In one place a 
 woman, seated behind a covered volume, was con- 
 versing with some members of her own sex. In 
 another a granthi, with a similar coverecl-up book 
 before him, was carrying on a confidential conversa- 
 tion with a middle-aged man, probably a shopkeeper. 
 As I passed I caught the words, "It can be man- 
 aged," uttered confidently by the possessor of the 
 sacred book. On. inquiring about these irregular 
 teachers, male and female, clinging, as it were, to 
 the outskirts of the temple, I learned that they were 
 despicable wretches who, under the garb of religion, 
 lent themselves to the furtherance of the most 
 immoral practices. Seated tranquilly behind the 
 sacred volume of their faith, they arrange illicit 
 meetings, for which I was told the purlieus of the 
 temple afford only too great facilities. Although 
 local circumstances may, in the case of the Golden 
 Temple, favour the exercise of their calling by these 
 shameless wretches, who make a disgraceful profit 
 out of the frailties of others, the class to which 
 they belong probably owes its origin and prosperity 
 to the restrictions imposed upon social intercourse 
 between the sexes in India. 
 
 What I saw and learnt during my two visits to 
 the most important of all Sikh places of worship 
 satisfied me that, at the present time, Sikhism, 
 as a distinct religion, possesses little vitality, and 
 that it will, in all probability, be reunited in a gene- 
 ration or two to the Hinduism from which it sprang. 
 
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. 151 
 
 To pave the way for this reunion, the Brahmans, 
 on their part, would, I dare say, willingly recognize 
 Nanak and Govind Singh (the founder and the reor- 
 ganizer of Sikhism) as incarnations of some god or 
 other, and find good scriptural authority for the 
 worship of the Granth, which, it would appear, is 
 already an object of adoration to many Hindus; 
 while the Sikhs, who already bow down to the old 
 divinities of India, would not, in all likelihood, object 
 to the formal admission of their gurus and their 
 Book into the Hindu Pantheon. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE CENOTAPH OF MAHARAJAH 
 RUNJEET SINGH. 
 
 WITHOUT the walls of the city of Lahore, on the 
 border of a vast maidan or open plain, and flanked by 
 monuments of historical interest, stands the Samadh 
 of Runjeet Singh, the famous Sikh ruler of the 
 Punjab (A.D. 1780-1839). The place itself can boast 
 of no antiquity. It is not half a century old, 1 but 
 yet old enough to carry one back to a state of society 
 very different from the present, and to inhuman 
 customs which have been suppressed by the firm 
 hand of a civilized and civilizing Government. On 
 one side of it is the little garden known as the 
 Hazooree Bagh, the work of Runjeet himself, and the 
 great mosque of Aurangzeb (A.D. 1674). On the 
 other side stands the shrine of the Sikh Guru, Arjun 
 Mai. Facing the tomb is the entrance to the fort 
 and palace of the Mogul Emperors, now guarded by 
 British soldiers. 
 
 Viewed from the open space between it and the 
 
 1 Mrs. Hervey saw it in an unfinished state in November, 
 1850 ("Adventures of a Lady in Tartary, Thibet, China, and 
 Kashmer," vol.J.) 
 
MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH. 153 
 
 Fort, the building presents a long double-storeyed 
 fa$ade which nearly conceals the cenotaph itself from 
 sight. From a distance the mausoleum, with its 
 domed roof and gilt finials, though not an imposing 
 object, presents to the eye of the spectator a by no 
 means unpleasing illustration of the mixed Hindu 
 and Muhammadan style of architecture. A small 
 central portal fitted with a carved wooden door gives 
 entrance to the Samadh. 
 
 The mausoleum, or rather cenotaph, has been 
 erected in honour of a man conspicuous in his day 
 and generation, and both on this account and because 
 of certain interesting details connected with its his- 
 tory and architecture, is not undeserving of attention. 
 
 Passing through the small entrance doorway, I 
 entered a long low room or vestibule. It contained 
 a native string-bottomed cot, a rickety old table, a 
 small pile of firewood, and a tin mug, evidently the 
 property of one of the custodians of the place, who 
 would see nothing inappropriate in letting these 
 homely articles of domestic use lie about the very 
 entrance to the Samadh of his venerated chief. 
 Within this room is a staircase, by which I ascended 
 to a large platform on a level with the upper floor of 
 the frontage. 
 
 Before entering the Samadh, I noticed an apart- 
 ment in which the Ashtpujee Debi was enshrined in 
 state. The Brahmans in attendance were very civil, 
 but objected to admit me into the sacred chamber 
 with boots on. I removed mine. Within the 
 chamber there was nothing of any special interest. 
 I was told that the horn is burnt twice a year on the 
 open platform before the door of the Debi's chapel, 
 
154 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 and the exact spot, blackened by fire, was pointed 
 out to me. 
 
 In reply to my inquiries the attendants asserted 
 that the Ashtpujee Debi was the goddess who had 
 given into the hands of Guru Govind the sword of 
 which he taught his people to make such good use,, 
 and hence the special place of honour assigned to 
 her in the Samadh. 
 
 The central portion of the platform is occupied by 
 the lofty tomb, if it can be called so, of the Sikh 
 king, and the posterior part by a separate building of 
 very subordinate character, which covers the ashes 
 of Runjeet's son Khuruk Singh, and his grandson 
 No Nihal Singh. The elder of these princes, there 
 is good reason to believe, was slowly and deliber- 
 ately poisoned; while the younger one, by a convenient 
 accident, was crushed to death, by the falling of a 
 portion of an archway on the very day on which the 
 body of his father, Khuruk Singh, was committed to 
 the flames. 
 
 The building is a specimen of the mixed Hindu 
 and Muhammadan style of architecture which came 
 generally into fashion in Northern India after the 
 time of the Emperor Akbar. 1 It consists of a lofty 
 central chamber surmounted by a dome with galleries- 
 all round. The ceiling is elaborately decorated with 
 convex mirrors arranged in patterns done in stucco. 
 In the middle of the central chamber is a marble; 
 canopy about ten feet high, raised on pillars over a 
 platform of marble. Beneath lie, perhaps, some of 
 the ashes of the chief and of several others besides. 
 Upon a small carpet on one side rests a copy of the 
 
 1 Furgusson's " Handbook of Architecture," pp. 116, 117. 
 
MA HARAJAH RUNJEE T SIXGIf. 1 5 5 
 
 " Granth Sahib," with a velvet coverlet over it. The 
 side walls of the arches in the gallery are decorated 
 with fresco paintings representing scenes from Hindu 
 mythology taken chiefly from those inexhaustible 
 sources of Hindu legendary lore, the Mahabharata 
 and Ramayana. But the marble platform under the 
 canopy is the most noteworthy object here. It is 
 surmounted by a large lotus of the conventional 
 pattern, also in marble, having grouped round it 
 thirteen similar but smaller ones of the same material. 
 Of these the big central ornament commemorates 
 the departed king; four of the smaller ones as many 
 wives who performed the rite of sati with their dead 
 lord. Seven others mark the devotion of seven 
 female slaves who also perished with the body of 
 Runjeet Singh ; the remaining two marble lotuses 
 stand fora pair of pigeons, who, it is said, voluntarily 
 fluttered down to die in the flames of the funeral pyre 
 of the unscrupulous profligate but successful chief. 
 
 It is not fifty years since the eleven women whose 
 ashes rest under those marble slabs perished by fire 
 to do honour to the obsequies of a man without the 
 remotest tincture of chivalry or devotion to the sex, 
 a man whose shameless vices it were needless to 
 speak of, but may be sufficiently indicated by saying 
 that they were those of the most depraved period of 
 the Roman Empire. 
 
 Several persons, hereditary custodians of the tomb 
 and hangers-on generally, followed me about from 
 idle curiosity or the hope of backshcesh. Conversing 
 with these, and carefully avoiding the expression of 
 any opinion of my own, I found that they were 
 unanimous in praise of sati, and disapproved of the 
 
156 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 suppression of that rite by the British Government. 
 It might have been a half-hearted regret on their 
 part, and a mere captious disapproval of the inter- 
 ference of an alien government, but the feeling, as 
 far as it went, appeared to me to be quite genuine. 1 
 
 One of the custodians of the place explained to me 
 that when a woman performed the rite of sati with 
 the corpse'of her husband, her act was so meritorious 
 that it ensured for herself and her dead lord a place 
 in heaven for as many years as there were hairs 
 on her body. And I subsequently learned that the 
 Brahmans, in order to give a precise idea of the 
 period in question, reckon the hairs on the human 
 body at some thirty-five millions. 2 Considered from 
 this point of view, of what aeons of bliss has not the 
 Act for the suppression of sati deprived the much 
 married Hindu ! When I spoke of the sufferings of 
 the unfortunate women, I was assured that from the 
 moment they ascended the pile they were insensible 
 to all pain, and only rejoiced at their fate amidst the 
 flames that consumed them. As a matter of fact, 
 they were often drugged with opium and bhang. 3 
 
 1 " The old crime of Sati, whereby Hindu widows were 
 burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands, has ceased 
 long ago throughout the British territories. The ideas from 
 which it sprang have no longer any hold upon the minds of the 
 highly educated classes. Possibly the practice would revive 
 among the less educated classes if the British prohibition were 
 withdrawn. The monuments always erected on the spots where 
 the dread rite has been observed are regarded with popular 
 veneration." Sir R. Temple's " India in 1880," p. 196. 
 
 2 Colebrooke's " Essays," vol. i. p. 135. 
 
 3 "Travels in Kashmir," by G. T. Vigne, vol. i. pp. 8286, 
 may be consulted for some interesting details regarding satis 
 witnessed by the author. 
 
MA HA RAJA H R UNJEE T SINGH. 1 5 7 
 
 The reality of sati was never so forcibly brought 
 before my mind as when standing by these memorials 
 of painful suffering. Sati, even to the Anglo-Indian, 
 seems a far-off dimly historical thing like the gladia- 
 torial contests in the Flavian Amphitheatre, but these 
 eloquent stone records of only the last generation 
 bring it nearer to one obtrude it, as it were, into the 
 very present. Standing here, one can picture the 
 terrible scene as it occurred on thousands of occa- 
 sions. One can see the bustling eager crowd, the ex- 
 citement and the hubbub of what was really a holiday. 
 One can hear the remark : " So and so is to be 
 burnt to-day, and his wives will be burnt with him. 
 Let us hasten to the scene, let us secure good places! " 
 One can see the funeral pile erected upon an open 
 space, and the victim, adorned as for a great festival, 
 lei three times round the pyre by the officiating 
 Brahmans, in presence of the assembled multitude. 
 One can see the dead man's son apply, with filial 
 piety, the torch to the dry wood, and the devoted 
 woman ascend the already kindled pile. 1 One can 
 see the smoke and blaze, and hear, above the shouts 
 of the excited crowd, the agonized shrieks of the 
 suffering woman in the grasp of the consuming 
 flames. But, indeed, we are not left entirely to 
 imagination, for European travellers, ancient and 
 ' modern, have witnessed such scenes of horror and 
 
 1 " With this benediction, and uttering the mystic Namo 
 Namah, she (the widow) ascends the flaming pile" (Colebrooke's 
 "Essays," vol. i. p. 135). It would appear, however, that the 
 widow was often placed upon the pyre and even bound down 
 upon it with cords, or regularly and completely thatched in, 
 before the torch was applied to the wood. 
 
158 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 have described them. Bernier tells of women whom 
 he had seen forced into the fire by the Brahmans 
 with long sticks, and of others, sometimes mere 
 children, whom he had seen tied down hand and foot 
 upon the pyre ("Voyages," tome ii. pp. 117-119). 
 
 On the other hand there cannot be any doubt that 
 in India, as well as in other countries, women have 
 often voluntarily perished after the death of their 
 husbands, animated by heroic devotion, 1 pride of race, 
 religious excitement, or horror of the Hindu widow's 
 miserable, degraded, and abject position. 
 
 " One morning on dismissing the regiment from 
 parade," writes Sir George Lawrence, "the havildar 
 major (native adjutant) requested my permission to 
 attend a ' tomasha ' (an extraordinary sight). On 
 inquiry it turned out that a suttee was about to 
 take place in the neighbourhood of the cantonment 
 of Neemuch, and I resolved to witness it myself. 
 On reaching the spot I found a large crowd collected 
 around a funeral pyre, on which a poor victim 
 about to immolate herself was seated. Seeing a 
 number of my own troopers in the crowd, I asked 
 them if they would stand by me if I attempted 
 to rescue the woman from her dreadful fate, and 
 finding that they were quite willing, I approached 
 the pyre near enough to address her, saying I was 
 
 1 " Garcilassa says that a dead Ynca's wives volunteered to 
 be killed, and their number was often such that the officers 
 were obliged to interfere, saying that enough had gone at 
 present ; and according to Cieza, some of the women, in order 
 that their faithful service might be held in more esteem, finding 
 that there was delay in completing the tomb, would hang them- 
 selves up by their own hair, and so kill themselves." Herbert 
 Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," vol. i. p. 205. 
 
 
MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH. 159 
 
 ready to save her life if she desired it. She expressed 
 her gratitude, but refused, saying she was willing to 
 die. Immediately afterwards the flames enveloped 
 her, and in a few seconds she was burnt to ashes. 
 Her calm intrepidity was most astonishing, especially 
 as she had not even the excitement of her husband's 
 body to be consumed with her, only a portion of his 
 clothes, as he himself had died far from his home." r 
 The great missionary Carey describes a sati which 
 he witnessed in 1799. The victim ascended the pile 
 " and danced on it with her hands extended as if in 
 the utmost tranquillity of spirit," in order to show her 
 contempt. of death. When she lay down on the 
 wood, she was secured in the usual way with bamboo 
 poles laid across and fastened down, and was then 
 consumed amidst the deafening shouts of the by- 
 standers. 2 The story of one romantic rescue from 
 the pyre, and the sequel, can bear repetition. It is 
 related of Job Charnock, the East India Company's 
 agent in Bengal, and founder of Calcutta, that he 
 
 <; went one time with his ordinary guard of soldiers to see a 
 young widow act that tragical catastrophe, but he was so smitten 
 with the widow's beauty that he sent his guards to take her by 
 force from her executioners, and conducted her to his own 
 lodgings. They lived lovingly many years and had several 
 children. At length she died, after he had settled in Calcutta, 
 but instead of converting her to Christianity she made him a 
 proselyte to Paganism ; and the only part of Christianity that 
 was remarkable in him, was burying her decently. He built a 
 tomb over her, where all his life, after her death, he kept the 
 
 1 u Forty-three years in India," by Sir George Lawrence, 
 p.p. 3-4. 
 
 2 "Life of William Car^y," by Dr. Gaorge Smith, p.p. 107- 
 109. 
 
160 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 anniversary day'of her death by sacrificing a cock on her tomb, 
 after the Pagan manner ; this was and is the common report, 
 and I have been credibly informed, both by Christians and 
 Pagans, who lived at Calcutta under his agency, that the story 
 was really true matter of fact." * 
 
 In regard to the sati of the wives of Runjeet Singh 
 we have ample details. After the Ranees unveiled 
 to the public eye for the first time in their lives, and 
 on foot, but accompanied by their attendants had 
 distributed their jewels amongst certain of the by- 
 standers, the funeral procession was arranged, and 
 proceeded slowly towards the pyre already erected 
 for the dreadful ceremony. Heading the procession 
 came the corpse of the deceased Maharajah, borne 
 on a bier made in the form of a ship, with sails and 
 flags of cloth of gold, and the costly shawls of Kash- 
 mir. Next came the Ranees, habited in simple silk 
 attire, without any ornaments about their persons, 
 carried in open palanquins, offering to the onlookers 
 an example of quiet dignity and heroic self-sacrifice. 
 Immediately behind the Ranees walked seven bare- 
 footed slave-girls, some of them not more than four- 
 teen or fifteen years of age, whom superstition, and 
 perhaps unlawful threats, had driven to sacrifice 
 their young lives in the cruel flames, to add to the 
 pomp of the deceased king's funeral. Arrived at the 
 pyre, the Maharajah's bier was divested of its costly 
 ornaments, which were then given away. The drums 
 kept up a low solemn rumbling. The funeral cere- 
 monies for the dead were performed by Brahmans, as 
 well as by Sikh Gurus, while the Muhammadans, 
 
 1 Captain Hamilton, quoted in Wheeler's " Early Records of 
 British-India," pp. 189, 190. 
 
MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH. 161 
 
 not to be behind the others in testifying their respect 
 for the departed Maharajah, .broke in frequently 
 with " Ya-Allah." When the appropriate rites, 
 which occupied nearly an hour, were completed, the 
 corpse was respectfully deposited, by the grandees of 
 the court, on the top of the funeral pile, built of dry 
 wood strewn over with cotton seeds. The Ranees, 
 one by one, taking precedence according to rank, 
 ascended the ladder to the top of the pile, and seated 
 themselves at the head of the corpse. The slave- 
 girls then mounted and took up their position at the 
 feet of the royal body. As they sat there awaiting 
 their now inevitable doom, " a strong thick mat of 
 reeds," was brought and put over them, and probably 
 secured. They had looked their last on earth ! To 
 add to the combustibility of the mat it was saturated 
 with oil. All the needful preparations being now 
 completed, the sirdars and attendants descended from 
 the pile, which was then lighted at the four corners. 
 In a few minutes eleven human victims perished in 
 the smoke and flames ; but the pyre took two days to 
 be entirely consumed. 1 From its ashes a few human 
 bones and relics were carefully and privately 
 gathered. These, after being placed in separate 
 mortuary urns, were conveyed in great state to the 
 banks of the Ganges and committed to the waters of 
 the sacred river. The remains of Runjeet Singh and 
 the four Ranees were carried away from Lahore in 
 five palanquins, with all the pomp and attention the 
 deceased were accustomed to in their lifetime. The 
 
 1 That sati was not exactly a compulsory ceremony is evident 
 from the fact that some forty of the Ranees of Runjeet Singh 
 survived him, of whom three were living in 1882. 
 
 I I 
 
162 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 palanquinwhich contained the ashes of the Maharajah 
 had its screens drawn back, while the others were 
 closely curtained as though their modest occupants 
 still shunned the public gaze. Tents of Kashmir 
 shawls, with poles overlaid with silver and gold, were 
 provided for the march, and these, with innumerable 
 costly presents, were given away to the attendant 
 Brahmans at the place where the remains of the 
 chief and his consorts were finally entrusted to the 
 sacred river. 1 Regarding such remains of the slave- 
 girls as the fire may have left, the chronicler says 
 nothing, so we may presume that they were neg- 
 lected as unworthy of any special attention. On the 
 spot where the sati was performed, now stands the 
 Samadh of Maharajah Runjeet Singh. 
 
 For a people who believe in the transmigration 
 of souls, and who practise cremation of the dead, 
 monuments such as this can have but little signifi- 
 cance ; and indeed in their erection the Hindus merely 
 followed the fashion of the Muhammadans, whose 
 imposing and costly tombs formed so important a 
 feature in the architectural works of the Muslim 
 conquerors of India. 
 
 The rite of sati was once practised in nearly 
 every part of India on the authority of certain texts 
 and injunctions in the sacred books of the Hindus, 
 from the Rig Veda downwards. 2 Some authorities, 
 however, maintain that the Vedas do not sanction 
 
 1 The above details have been taken from the narrative of an 
 eye witness, Dr. J. M. Honigberger, who was " Physician to the 
 Court of Lahore." See his " Thirty-three Years in the East." 
 H. Bailliere, 219, Regent Street, London, 1852. 
 
 2 Colebroke's " Essays," vol. i. p. 135. 
 
MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH. 163 
 
 the rite of widow-burning, but rather the reverse. 
 Indeed, Professor Max Miiller affirms that the par- 
 ticular text of the Rig Veda usually cited in support 
 of sati was deliberately falsified by the unscrupulous 
 Brahmans. 1 
 
 At what precise period the right of sati became 
 general in India, history does not inform us. We 
 know it was practised to some extent at the time of 
 Alexander's invasion of India in the fourth century 
 before the Christian era, and it is alluded to in the 
 Ramayana and Mahabharata. 2 The causes which 
 probably helped to encourage and perpetuate t*.is 
 cruel custom are well and briefly stated by Sir A. C. 
 Lyall in the following words : 
 
 11 Perhaps the best example of a selfish device obtaining 
 vogue under the cloak of a necessary rite is afforded by the 
 famous practice of a widow becoming Sati, or burning herself 
 alive with her dead husband, which is undoubtedly, as Sir 
 H. Maine has pointed out, connected with the desire to get 
 rid of her right, if she is childless, to a tenancy for life upon 
 her husband's lands. It is also connected, among the great 
 families, as may be easily observed still in certain parts of 
 India, with the wish of an heir to free himself by this simple 
 plan from many inconveniences and encumbrances entailed 
 upon him by the bequest of a number of stepmothers, who 
 cannot marry again. 3 
 
 Polygamy may also, as Dr. Marshman believed, 
 have contributed in another way to encourage sati, 
 through the jealousy of the old husbands of young 
 wives, who, clinging to their exclusive possession 
 even in death, would leave instructions with their 
 
 1 Prof. Max Muller's "Selected Essays," vol. i. pp. 333-336. 
 
 2 Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra's, " Indo-Aryans," vol. ii. p. 137. 
 
 3 "Asiatic Studies," by Sir Alfred Lyall, p. 56. 
 
1 64 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 heirs to use every possible means to accomplish the 
 desired sacrifice. 1 But the origin of the custom 
 must be looked for deeper and further back. From 
 the very earliest ages down to our own times it has 
 been the practice amongst many barbarous peoples, 
 who believe in the existence of the soul after death, 
 to kill the wives and favourite slaves of a king, chief, 
 or other person on the occasion of his funeral 
 obsequies, in order that they might attend the de- 
 ceased and minister to his wants in the shadow-land 
 beyond the grave. The practice is still in full force 
 and carried to terrible excess amongst many African 
 tribes. It was at one time very widely spread, but 
 came in many countries to be gradually replaced by 
 ceremonies derived from the original observances, 
 but not involving loss of life. For instance, the 
 widow would be laid upon the pyre, but removed 
 before the flames actually reached her ; or images 
 representing wives and slaves would be consumed 
 with the corpse. There would appear to be some 
 ground for concluding that in the Vedic age in India 
 the practice of widow-burning had gone somewhat 
 out of fashion, though, perhaps, never quite given 
 up, and that modified ceremonies like those to which 
 reference has just been made were coming into 
 favour. The subsequent revival, under Brahmanical 
 influences, of widow-burning, and its continuance to 
 our own day, may be largely due to the causes 
 pointed out by Sir Henry Maine. Of course, the 
 degradation of the widow who chose to survive her 
 husband would be a necessary complement to sati. 
 
 1 Bishop Heber's narrative of a journey through the Upper 
 Provinces of India, 1824-25. 
 
MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH. 165 
 
 Make the position of the widow intolerable, and sati 
 would be chosen by every high-spirited woman as 
 the lesser of two evils. To the affectionate wife and 
 to the timid soul, the priest offered reunion with the 
 dead and long ages of happiness in the celestial 
 mansions, thereby throwing the halo of religious 
 sanctions over a horrid and revolting custom. Indeed, 
 sati would seem to be a survival of a very ancient 
 rite, fostered and maintained for selfish ends. Un- 
 fortunately, the women of India have not only suffered 
 in person by the cruel rite of sati, but have had a 
 slur no doubt an unmerited one cast upon them by 
 historians seeking to account for the origin of the 
 hideous custom. Strabo * tells us, and several 
 travellers have repeated the same story, 2 that sati 
 was introduced by law in order to put a stop to the 
 widespread crime of husband-poisoning, to which 
 Indian wives who fell in love with young men were 
 said to be particularly given. 
 
 I am not aware that any one of the many re- 
 ligious reformers who have appeared from time to 
 time in India, loudly preaching theological doctrines 
 more or less heterodox, made any effort whatever to 
 suppress, or even to discourage, the inhuman rite 
 of sati. It is true the author of the Dabistan (A.D. 
 1615-1670) observes that 
 
 " The enlightened doctors say that by a woman's becoming 
 suttee is meant that on her husband's decease she should con- 
 
 1 Strabo, bk. xv. chap. 30. The great geographer himself 
 doubts the existence of the law, and, necessarily, of the reason 
 assigned for its enactment. 
 
 I-'or instances, see Dr. Norman Chever's " Indian Medical 
 Jurisprudence," p. 104. 
 
1 66 THE CENOTAPH OF 
 
 sume in the fire along with him all her desires, and thus die 
 before the period assigned by nature ; as in metaphysical 
 language woman signifies 'passion ' ; or in other words she is to 
 cast all her passions into the fire ; but not throw herself into it 
 along with the deceased, which is far from being praiseworthy." z 
 
 Probably Muslim influences and feelings opposed 
 to sati were rinding expression in the doctrines thus 
 referred to by Moshan Fani ; but it remained for 
 foreign rulers, unhampered by unhealthy Brahman- 
 ical traditions, to discountenance and eventually 
 abolish the barbarous practice. The Emperor 
 Akbar, we learn from Abu-1-Fazl, appointed in- 
 spectors to prevent women being forcibly burnt 
 with their dead husbands and, on one occasion he 
 mounted his horse and rode at full speed to prevent, 
 in person, an unwilling woman being sacrificed on 
 the pyre to the unnatural bigotry of her son. 2 But 
 whatever the Mogul rulers may have done towards 
 mitigating the horrible custom, the credit of abolish- 
 ing it belongs to the English. 
 
 In 1824-25, Bishop Heber, travelling through the 
 Upper Provinces of India, learnt from Dr. Marshman 
 that satis had latterly become more frequent in 
 Bengal, and that the famous missionary attributed 
 this unhappy fact to the increasing luxury of the 
 upper and middle classes, and their expensive imita- 
 tion of European habits, which often so narrowed 
 their means as to make them anxious to be freed 
 from the necessity of supporting their widowed 
 relations. If the presence of the European in India 
 
 1 " Dabistan," translated by Shea and Troyer, vol. ii. p. 77. 
 
 2 "Akbar-nama of Abu-1-Fazl," Elliot's "Muhammadan 
 Historians of India," by Dowson, vol. vi. pp. 68, 69. 
 
MAHARAJAH RUNJEET SINGH. 167 
 
 tended, however indirectly, to increase the sacrifice 
 of Hindu widows, it is satisfactory to know that, 
 within five years of the Bishop's tour, vigorous pre- 
 ventive measures were adopted by Lord William 
 Bentinck, who, as Governor-General of India, passed 
 a law in 1829 under which any one who abetted the 
 act of sati would be considered guilty of culpable 
 homicide. The effect of this regulation has been the 
 almost complete suppression of sati throughout the 
 British possessions in India, though it still prevails 
 in the Independent Hill States on the borders of 
 British territory, and occurs occasionally in the 
 countries ruled by feudatory princes. As recently 
 as 1883 a sati was performed at Utarna, in Raj- 
 putana, within five miles of a British cantonment, 
 but the abettors of the crime were severely punished 
 by the Jeypore Durbar, probably at the instance of the 
 Governor-General's agent. 
 
 A few generations hence, the crime which had been 
 countenanced and encouraged in India for more than 
 twenty centuries will be extinct, and probably as 
 revolting to the feelings of the people as to those of 
 their foreign rulers, affording an apt illustration of 
 the mode in which legislation may contribute to 
 form the manners, the morals, and the character of 
 a people. 
 
IX. 
 
 BAZAAR GUP; OR, RUMOURS OF 
 THE MARKET-PLACE. 
 
 " When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, 
 but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed 
 breeze." CARLYLE. 
 
 THE stories that circulate in the bazaars of India, 
 and find credence amongst the people, are perhaps a 
 fair indication, if not a measure, of the intellectual 
 condition of the masses, and afford, in addition, some 
 idea of the standpoint from which they regard the 
 actions of their foreign rulers. For these reasons I 
 have thought it worth while to note down here a few 
 samples of bazaar gup which have come to my know- 
 ledge within the last few years. 
 
 My grass-cutter came to me one day and begged 
 earnestly that I would get him a. pass to cut grass 
 in the Lawrence Park, as he dreaded going into the 
 less frequented parts to obtain grass, since the 
 Mumiyai Sahib was going about with his myrmidons. 
 
 The Mumiyai Sahib / I had never heard of him, 
 and naturally inquired who and what he was, and 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 169 
 
 why his presence in the neighbourhood should inter- 
 fere with my getting grass for my horses as usual. 
 My questions elicited the following circumstantial 
 details : 
 
 The European in question, known throughout 
 the country as the Mumiyai Sahib, has a host of 
 agents who go about dressed in black, each armed 
 with a short stick having the peculiar power of 
 causing any person who smells it to follow its pos- 
 sessor, in spite of what friends and neighbours might 
 say to dissuade him from so doing. 
 
 Under the spell of this magic wand the unhappy 
 victim follows the Mumiyai Sahib's agent on and on 
 until he is led to some solitary place, usually a dis- 
 tant tope or jungle, far removed from human habita- 
 tions. Here the miserable man is seized, has a hole 
 bored through the top of his skull, and is then sus- 
 pended, head downwards, over a caldron of boiling 
 oil, with a roaring fire under it. Into the hot oil the 
 drippings from the victim's brain are allowed to fall 
 and form a most valuable medicine, known as mumi- 
 yai t and also as silajit. This is bad enough, but 
 mark ! these proceedings are all carried out by order 
 of the Sirkar (Government), as the medicine is much 
 prized by Europeans. 
 
 All the servants in my establishment, except a 
 Muhammadan cook somewhat above the average in 
 education, could confirm the above statements, and 
 were able to add some interesting details, as, for 
 instance, that very black people were particularly 
 prized for the manufacture of silajit. One of my 
 informants had actually possessed a little of the 
 precious medicine made out of the brains of black 
 
170 BAZAAR GUP; OR, 
 
 men. He got it from a servant connected with 
 a state dispensary, and believed that what he received 
 must have been stolen from the Government stock. 
 
 Latterly people have become wary of the dangerous 
 men dressed in black ; so the wily Sahib now employs 
 women to carry out his nefarious object, who go 
 about with flowers, missie, soorma, and such -like 
 things, and, under pretence of selling these necessary 
 articles of an Indian toilet, get their innocent victims 
 to smell some of that fatal magic substance which 
 leads to inevitable destruction. My servants were 
 aware of one or two persons who had somewhat 
 suddenly disappeared, and must have been kidnapped 
 by the terrible Mumiyai Sahib, that strange phar- 
 macist, tolerated, if not employed by, the British 
 Government. In fact the fatal snares of this objec- 
 tional gentleman appeared to them to be the rational 
 and only explanation of the disappearance of the 
 persons referred to. When I pressed my servants 
 to say whether they really believed the Sirkar would 
 authorize, would even allow, such destruction of 
 innocent people, one man promptly observed : "Why 
 not, Huzzoor ? the Mumiyai Sahib pays a special 
 tax to the Sirkar for permission to carry on his 
 business," and this seemed to settle the matter con- 
 clusively as far as the speaker and his fellow-servants 
 were concerned. 
 
 Now it happens that there are such substances 
 known to the Indian druggist as mumiyai and silajit, 
 black, hard, heavy, bituminous solids (Asphaltum Per- 
 sicwn and Asphaltum silajit), obtained from Persia or 
 the Himalayas, which enjoy a great reputation for 
 their curative properties, particularly in cases of 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 171 
 
 bone fracture. 1 These rare and unfamiliar sub- 
 stances, brought from foreign parts, command a 
 high price at Lahore, and afford to the ignorant a 
 sufficiently substantial basis for the acceptance of 
 the wild story about the Mumiyai Sahib. Desirous of 
 knowing more about this curious popular belief, I 
 inquired of some educated natives whether they had 
 ever heard of it. Oh yes ; it had been well known to 
 them for several years. And this, no doubt, was true ; 
 for I find from Mr. Gust's " Pictures of Indian Life" 
 (p. 135) that the belief was current during the Sikh 
 campaigns. My educated native friends also told 
 me that it was commonly believed that the stray 
 dogs killed every summer by order of the European 
 authorities were required for the manufacture of a 
 medicine out of their tongues, and that the water 
 about to be supplied by the Lahore municipality was 
 expressly designed to deprive the people of their 
 caste. 2 Accustomed as they have been for centuries 
 
 1 Dr. Honigberger's "Thirty-five Years in the East," vol. ii. 
 pp. 238, 239. The word mummy is said to be derived from 
 mmniyai) such bituminous substances being employed in the 
 embalming of bodies. 
 
 2 About the time of my inquiries regarding the Mumiyai 
 Sahib, The Madras Times contained the following : 
 
 " Some of the ignorant natives have given credence to a 
 report that men of the Lubbay caste are prowling about the 
 streets of the town with the object of kidnapping children, who, 
 it is said, are wanted to be sacrificed in connection with the 
 Harbour works. So firmly is the rumour believed, that every 
 Lubbay is looked upon with suspicion, and some ugly quarrels 
 have taken place. Yesterday morning, in Popham's Broadway, 
 there was quite a commotion on a Lubbay being suspected in 
 the way we have stated. It would appear that while the man 
 was walking along the Broadway he had accidentally touched 
 a little boy, and it being supposed that he wished to get the boy 
 
172 BAZAAR GUPj OR, 
 
 to government based on narrow selfishness, the mass 
 of the people of India are not yet able to understand 
 or appreciate the principles of British rule. It is 
 vain to endeavour to persuade even the tolerably 
 well-informed that the English authorities are 
 honestly desirous of promoting the public good. 
 They may acquiesce in the statement, but their 
 manner shows too plainly how far they are from 
 believing it. And, after all, this is not to be 
 wondered at, in the face of the haughty and unsym- 
 pathetic attitude of British officers and of Europeans 
 generally towards the people of the country ; for it is 
 certainly hard to believe that men who keep the 
 loaves and fishes to themselves and shrink, almost 
 nervously, from contact with the people, really care 
 very much about their welfare or happiness. Owing 
 no doubt to this want of cordiality between the 
 rulers and the ruled, malicious falsehoods are often 
 circulated by designing persons with the object of 
 making the English government unpopular. 
 
 During the summer of 1878, when smallpox was 
 going about Lahore, I was told by one of my domes- 
 tic servants, not without a touch of suppressed 
 feeling, that the Sirkar had given orders that the 
 
 under his power in some sinister manner with a view to kidnap 
 him, a mob of men got together to assault him, and he had to 
 seek shelter in a shop. A similar rumour was spread abroad, 
 and generally believed in among the poorer classes of the 
 natives, when the Madras Pier was in course of construction. 
 It is an idea prevalent among the ignorant masses of the 
 natives that no large work, such as the Pier or the Harbour 
 works, can be carried to completion without the sacrifice of 
 human life ; hence the ready credence given to the rumour we 
 have alluded to." 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 173 
 
 native women should all be vaccinated, not, as usual, 
 on the arm, but on the breast. 
 
 Not infrequently the Sirkar's name is used to serve 
 some purely private end, as the following particulars, 
 while throwing light upon other matters, will very 
 clearly show. It appears that when a wedding is to 
 take place in the family of a fairly well-to-do man, 
 there collect to the expected feast, from many miles 
 round, a host of idle and ignorant Brahmans ; also a 
 number of bards, who chant the praises of the 
 family ; strolling minstrels with dancing girls, and 
 wandering sannyasies. 1 All these self-invited guests 
 are feasted by the host, and presented with money 
 and other gifts, at an expense often very dispropor- 
 tionate to his means. To add to the troubles of the 
 bride's family, Muhammadans from the neighbouring 
 villages and low caste people from all sides flock in 
 for backshcesh. For the credit of the house the host 
 will do his utmost to gratify these unscrupulous 
 harpies, but it is not always possible to do so. At a 
 village wedding at which my informant a Univer- 
 sity graduate was present, a number of sannyasies 
 presented themselves, and insisted upon having not 
 less than one rupee each. The host declared he 
 could not afford so much as that, but offered to give 
 half a rupee to each man. The offer was indignantly 
 spurned. As the host held out, the sannyasies 
 resorted to their usual tactics. One man beat his 
 forehead with a sharp stone till the blood flowed. 
 In this state he moved about amongst the assembled 
 guests, while his companions commenced chanting a 
 funeral dirge. Such a dirge at a wedding, and the 
 1 Men of any caste may join this sect. 
 
174 BAZAAR GUP j OR, 
 
 disgusting aspect of the bleeding man, effected the 
 purpose of the unscrupulous sannyasies, and, to get 
 rid of them, their demands were satisfied as quickly 
 as possible by the unwilling host. The evil is, of 
 course, no new one, and it would need a deal of 
 courage and concerted action to make a successful 
 stand against the impositions of these worthless 
 mendicants. Under the stimulus of Western ideas 
 and feelings, some educated young men at Lahore 
 formed themselves into a society for the purpose 
 of regulating marriage expenses, which at present 
 sometimes plunge a family into hopeless ruin. A 
 tariff was drawn up. The maximum amount to be 
 given to each Brahman was duly fixed, and it was 
 decided that the bards, who on account of their sar- 
 castic tongues are much feared, should receive twice 
 as much as any ordinary Brahman, instead of, as 
 hitherto, four or five times as much ; while the stroll- 
 ing minstrels, Muhammadans, and low caste people, 
 were to be sent away empty-handed. The proposed 
 scheme met with favour in many quarters, but fear 
 of the Brahmans restrained a great many persons 
 from openly accepting the proposed rules and scale 
 of rates. To gain their object, the promoters of the 
 scheme gave out that the rules had been framed 
 by Government, and that any infringement of them 
 would be punished with a heavy fine, thus delibe- 
 rately setting afloat one more untrue report regard- 
 ing the Sirkar and its doings. 
 
 Official records and the proceedings of the courts 
 of justice abound in instances of the propagation, for 
 fraudulent purposes, of false rumours regarding orders 
 said to have emanated from the Government. A few 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 175 
 
 years ago a subordinate state official was brought to 
 trial in Assam for circulating a report that Govern- 
 ment had directed the preparation of a list of good- 
 looking and marriageable girls, who were to be given 
 as rewards to the officers and men of a certain force 
 engaged on the eastern frontier. Of course the 
 official concerned intended making money out of the 
 affair, by promising to obtain, for a substantial con- 
 sideration, an exemption for any fair one whose name 
 might appear on the list of eligible beauties. 
 
 The religious contentions of Hindus and Muham- 
 madans, unfortunately too common, sometimes fill 
 the air with false reports of sedition and disaffection, 
 set on foot by one or other party, with the design of 
 discrediting their opponents in the eyes of the 
 authorities. As might have been expected, such 
 cases have found their way into the law courts, and 
 been sifted to the bottom by Indian magistrates. 
 
 Religious and other superstitions are also prolific 
 sources of bazaar gup. When Maharajah Dhuleep 
 Singh, sometime King of the Punjab, was about 
 to visit India with the permission of the British 
 Government, all sorts of rumours in connection with 
 his coming were floating about the bazaars of his 
 native country, not the least important of which 
 was that the Maharajah was being sent out to dis- 
 place the ruler of Kashmir, who was no longer in 
 favour with the paramount power. It is needless to 
 say how disturbing such gossip must have been to 
 both Punjabees and Kashmirees, especially if it be 
 remembered that Dhuleep Singh was the subject of a 
 prophecy contained in the Sakhee Book of the Sikhs, 
 to the effect that he would "drive his victorious 
 
i/6 BAZAAR GUP; OR, 
 
 elephant through the world," and would " be the 
 emperor over all the kings." z I well remember with 
 what excited eagerness I was cross-questioned about 
 the Maharajah and his movements, when I went one 
 morning to visit the tomb of the Sikh Guru Arjan 
 Singh, hard by the fort of Lahore. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Dhuleep Singh, instead of 
 being made ruler of Kashmir by the British Govern- 
 ment, was, on account of certain grave indiscretions 
 on his part, not even allowed to land in India, and at 
 the present time is, in his own words, " England's 
 implacable enemy," somewhere on the continent of 
 Europe, most probably in Russia. 
 
 As a relic of the troubled times which preceded 
 the British conquest of India, a belief lingers about 
 the bazaars of Upper India that Delhi is fated to be 
 " looted " every hundred years, Lahore every fifty 
 years, and Multan every thirty years. Regardless 
 of history and chronology, the people are persuaded 
 that the destined period has arrived for all three cities, 
 and the Punjabi mind, I am told, is, or was recently, 
 on the tip-toe of expectation, watching with anxiety 
 for the inevitable bloodshed and disorder. 
 
 In war time the bazaar gup in an Indian town is 
 especially interesting and significant. At such a 
 time rumours of reverses or disasters are always in 
 the air, are eagerly listened to, and perhaps mali- 
 ciously kept afloat. Let me give one instance out of 
 any number that might be cited. During the Afghan 
 war of 1878-1880 we had, for a few days, no news 
 of General Roberts and the forces immediately under 
 
 '"The Sakhee Book," translated by Sirdar Attar Singh, 
 Chief of Bhadour, pp. 35-37. 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 177 
 
 his command. The bazaar was, as usual on such 
 occasions, teeming with the most circumstantial 
 accounts of what was going- on at the front. The 
 gallant General had been murdered near Cabul, and 
 his little army totally destroyed by the tribesmen. 
 Such was the story that found ready acceptance in 
 the market-place, while in reality the General was 
 making a quiet and completely successful entry into 
 the Afghan capital, in company with Yakub Khan. 
 
 Sir John Kaye has dealt with this subject of bazaar 
 news in a spirit of something like poetical exaggera- 
 tion, which the real circumstances of the case by no 
 means justify. This historian says : 
 
 " It is a fact that there is a certain description of news, which 
 travels in India, from one station to another, with a rapidity 
 almost electric. Before the days of the ' lightning post ' there was 
 sometimes intelligence in the bazaars of the native dealers and 
 the lines of the native soldiers, especially if the news imported 
 something disastrous to the British, days before it reached, in 
 any official shape, the high functionaries of government. We 
 cannot trace the progress of these evil tidings. The natives of 
 India have an expressive saying that ' it is in the air.' It often 
 happened that an uneasy feeling an impression that something 
 had happened, though they ' could not discern the shape there- 
 of ' pervaded men's minds, in obscure anticipation of the news 
 that was travelling towards them in all its tangible proportion?. 
 All along the line of road, from town to town, from village to 
 village, were thousands to whom the feet of those who brought 
 the glad tidings were beautiful and welcome. The British 
 magistrate returning from his evening ride, was perhaps met 
 on the road near the bazaar by a venerable native on 
 an ambling pony a native respectable of aspect, with white 
 beard and whiter garments, who salaamed to the English 
 gentleman as he passed, and went on his way freighted with 
 intelligence refreshing to the souls of those to whom it was 
 communicated, to be used with judgment and sent on with 
 
 12 
 
1 78 BAZAAR GUP j OR, 
 
 despatch. This was but one of many costumes worn by the 
 messenger of evil. In whatever shape he passed, there was 
 nothing outwardly to distinguish him. Next morning there 
 was a sensation in the bazaar, and a vague excitement in the 
 Sepoy lines. But when rumours of disaster reached the houses 
 of the chief English officers, they were commonly discredited. 
 Their own letters were silent on the subject. It was not likely 
 to be true, they said, as they had heard nothing about it. But 
 it was true, and the news had travelled another hundred miles 
 whilst the white gentlemen, with bland scepticism, were shaking 
 their heads over the lies of the bazaar." 1 
 
 It seems a pity to pry too closely into this 
 mysterious system of disseminating intelligence, 
 which, some would actually have us believe, was 
 carried on by the imaginary mahatmas of the Hima- 
 layas " by their own methods," 2 that is, if I am not 
 mistaken, along strange magnetic currents in the 
 atmosphere ; but as the circumstance dealt with by 
 Sir John Kaye is often referred to in India as some- 
 thing more or less inexplicable, and as the plain 
 matter-of-fact explanation of the whole thing is so 
 obvious, I cannot refrain from pausing a moment to 
 consider it here. 
 
 In the time of the terrible Indian mutiny and 
 rebellion to which Sir John Kaye's remarks apply, 
 disaster followed disaster, and the predictions or 
 guesses of the bazaar, always hostile to the British, 
 were unfortunately too often verified ; but, the cir- 
 cumstances of the case being considered, there was 
 surely nothing strange or mysterious in this. When 
 a rising at any station was pre-arranged to take 
 place on a certain date, it was obviously quite 
 
 1 Kaye's " Sepoy War," vol. i. pp. 491, 492. 
 
 2 Sinnett's "Occult World," p. 21, foot-note. 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 179 
 
 possible for any one in the secret to travel to a dis- 
 tance and declare on the appointed day, and'even at 
 the appointed hour, that a mutiny had broken out 
 at such a station, and that the Europeans there had 
 all been massacred ; for indeed they had little chance 
 of escape. There was nothing particularly mys- 
 terious in all this. If the rumours of the town did 
 not tally with the facts as they were eventually 
 known, the false reports were at once forgotten. 
 Had the rumours current in Lahore, about the 
 disaster said to have befallen Sir Frederick Roberts 
 at Cabul, been to any degree borne out by events, we 
 may imagine what an effect the coincidence would 
 have produced, and how much some people would be 
 disposed to make out of it. As it was, the events 
 gave the lie to the rumour, and it at once dropped 
 out of men's minds. Indeed, mendacious stories of 
 disaster to the British arms have been current in the 
 bazaars whenever our forces have been engaged in a 
 war beyond our own borders, and Sir John Kaye has 
 himself given several instances of such false rumours 
 of reverses. 1 
 
 How news is manufactured in the East we may 
 learn from a Muhammadan historian. 
 
 " When the besieged were thus reduced," says Zian-d din 
 Barni, "to extremities, and were suing for peace, very nearly 
 a month had passed since any couriers had arrived from the 
 Sultan, although the Khan had previously received two or three 
 letters every week. This want of intelligence from the court 
 caused some uneasiness in the minds of the Khan and his 
 officers ; they imagined that some of the posts on the road had 
 been destroyed, and that consequently the couriers had been 
 
 Kaye's " Sepoy War," vol. i. pp. 35, 266, and 483. 
 
i8o BAZAAR GUP; OR, 
 
 unable to prosecute their journeys with the news. It also caused 
 apprehension and misgivings to spread among the troops, and 
 stories were carried from one to another. Ubaid the poet, and 
 Shaikh Zada-i Dimashki, two evil-disposed and turbulent 
 fellows, who by some means had been introduced to the Khan, 
 fanned the strife, and spread false reports among the soldiers 
 to the effect that the Sultan was dead, that the government had 
 been overthrown, that a new prince now sat upon the throne of 
 Delhi, and that the way was quite closed against all couriers 
 and messengers. So every man took his own course. These 
 two malicious men trumped up another false story. They went 
 to Malik Tamar, Malik Tigin, Malik Mall Afghan, and Malik 
 Kafur, keeper of the seal, and told these nobles that Ulugh 
 Khan looked upon them with envy and suspicion, as generals 
 and nobles of the reign of Alan-d din, and as obstacles to his 
 attaining the throne ; that their names were written down in a 
 list as men to be disposed of, and that they would be all seized 
 at once and beheaded. These nobles were aware that these 
 two treacherous men were constantly about Ulugh Khan, and 
 so they credited their statements. They therefore agreed to 
 take flight, and joining together their followers they left the 
 camp. Through this defection a panic fell upon the army, 
 trouble and tumult arose, and no man thought of another. 
 This event was very opportune for the besieged Hindus, and 
 saved them. They sallied forth and plundered the baggage of 
 the army, and Ulugh Khan, with his immediate followers, 
 retreated to Deogir. The soldiers were worn out, and fell in 
 .all directions. As they retreated, couriers arrived from the 
 court, bringing news of the health and safety of the Sultan." x 
 
 It is unnecessary to remark that the rumour set 
 on foot by the conspirators might have turned out to 
 be true, as indeed it did in the following case : 
 
 " While the Emperor was on this campaign against Khan- 
 Zainun, the author's father remained at Agra, in the per- 
 
 1 From the " Tarikh-i Feroz Shahi " of Zian-d din Barni. 
 Elliot's " Muhammadan Historians of India," vol. iii. pp. 231, 
 232. 
 
RUMOURS OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 181 
 
 formancc of his duty to the Emperor, and the author himself 
 was at Agra with him. Every day turbulent and designing 
 men spread disastrous news. One day I said to one of my 
 companions, 'Suppose we set some favourable reports afloat ;' 
 and he asked what we should say, and I replied, ' Let us say 
 that news has come that they are bringing in the heads of Khan 
 Zuman and Bahadur Khan.' I told this story to several per- 
 SDns. Three days afterwards, Abdullah, son of Murad Beg, 
 brought in the heads of Khan Zaman and Bahddur Khan. 
 The rumour was started in Agra on the very day they were 
 slain." 
 
 There are some, I am quite aware, who regard the 
 rumours of disaster which fill the bazaars in time 
 of war as indications of the hostile feelings of the 
 people towards their foreign rulers. I myself attach 
 no such importance to the matter. The vast 
 majority of the people know nothing and care 
 nothing about political or military matters. The 
 picture sometimes drawn of the two hundred and 
 fifty millions of our Indian fellow-subjects, or even 
 of the forty millions of Indian Muhammadans, 
 watching the political horizon with keen and intelli- 
 gent interest, is superlatively ridiculous. During 
 that critical period, the early part of 1885, I often 
 asked English-speaking natives about the news, and 
 found that they were as ignorant and indifferent 
 about it as if they had been dwellers in the Fiji 
 Islands. The totally uneducated are, if possible, 
 even more indifferent. The gossip in war time 
 comes from the camp and camp-followers, and the 
 rumours of disaster are circulated in the towns by a 
 few malicious persons. Sometimes the bazaar gup 
 originates with dishonest speculators, who hope to 
 profit by a panic ; but is perhaps more frequently 
 
182 BAZAAR GUP. 
 
 set afloat by wags and foolish fellows who wish to 
 get up a little excitement. At the same time it is 
 not to be denied that there are in the English press 
 itself elements sufficient to unsettle the minds of the 
 Indian people. For how is it possible that the masses 
 of the large towns in India should learn with indif- 
 ference, through the distorting medium of the ver- 
 nacular press, the complaints constantly made in 
 England, for party purposes, of the naval and mili- 
 tary weakness of the country, of the utterly unpro- 
 tected state of the British Isles, and of the vast 
 superiority of foreign nations in men and weapons ? 
 
 I have, perhaps, said enough in this paper to 
 indicate the nature of the rumours which, originating 
 in various ways and circulated for various purposes, 
 float about the Indian bazaars in ordinary times 
 as well as on special occasions. That such false 
 rumours, however baseless and absurd, might at a 
 critical moment be productive of grave consequences 
 to the state, no one will question. There is, how- 
 ever, but one remedy education. Much has already 
 been done by schools, colleges, and universities, but 
 a great deal yet remains to be done to enlighten the 
 masses not the country folks only, but the urban 
 populations as well. 
 
AT THE PLAY: THE NEW INDIAN 
 THE A TRE. 
 
 THERE is perhaps less difference between London 
 and Lahore than there is between a play like 
 "Pleasure," at Drury Lane, and one like " Indur 
 Sabbha " on a Hindu stage in Anarkali. 
 
 The performances, interesting from many points 
 of view, which I am about to describe, took place in 
 mere temporary sheds, simply because there were no 
 permanent theatres or better accommodation for such 
 theatrical representations existing in the capital of 
 the Punjab, or, as far as I know, anywhere in 
 Northern India. At Calcutta, I understand, the 
 Bengalees have got two or three theatres of their 
 own, but I regret to say I have as yet had no oppor- 
 tunity of visiting them. However, I have before me 
 a copy of a play-bill of one of the Bengalee theatres, 
 which may be found interesting to the reader. Its 
 moral tone is not the least remarkable part of this 
 play-bill, which I reproduce below exactly as it 
 appeared in a Lahore newspaper. There are, unfor- 
 tunately, some obvious misprints in it, but I have 
 not ventured to make any alterations. 
 
184 AT THE PLAY: 
 
 SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 28TH AND 29111 MAY. 
 NATIONAL THEATRE, 6, BEADON STREET. 
 
 Saturday the iWi May, 1881. 
 
 At 9 P.M. will be repeated with necessary improvements and 
 additional grandeur, that new and original historical drama by 
 Babu Grish Chunder Ghosh 
 
 ANUNDO ROHO, OR AKBAR. 
 
 This new drama is no stale story told in dull monotonous 
 dialogue, nor is the work crammed with tremendous tiring 
 octavo speeches and soliloquies. The greatest statesman and 
 mightiest monarch Akbar is portrayed with a truely histrionic 
 pen. 
 
 The dying speech of Rana Pratap will bring tears from every 
 human eye ! 
 
 The scene where Akbar suffers from the effects of poison, fall- 
 ing a victim to his own malicious machinations, that monarch 
 of monarchs whose single breath could one day change the for- 
 tune of this vast Indian Empire suffering all the untold tortures 
 of hell in his _ secluded pavilion in the centre of a tank, and 
 now so poor as so console his burning soul or pour a drop of 
 water on his scalded tongue, this awfully grand scene we say 
 will have an impression in the mind of the spectators never to 
 be effaced, and impart a lesson illustrative of the Truth, that 
 the crooked path of policy is always perilous ! 
 
 BETAL. A quite original and strictly national character, 
 sublime and magnanimous, will be played by Babu Grish 
 Chunder Ghosh. 
 
 Soul dissolving songs where religion and love are harmo- 
 niously blended together will even for the instant inspire con- 
 fidence and love for Good in the heart of the most ungodly ! 
 
 SCENES. As for our scenic grandeur, we need only say 
 " Come and see ! " 
 
 NEXT DAY, SUNDAY. AT 6 P.M., THAT SPARKLING 
 
 MELODRAMA, 
 MAGIC STATUE. 
 
 All the local papers have spoken very highly of this piece, 
 both as a practical production and stage play. 
 
 iiT Please note. This is that well received play in fat finale 
 of which marble statues are transformed into living beauties. 
 
 G. C. GHOSH, 
 
 Manager. 
 
THE NE W INDIA N THE A TRE. 1 8 5 
 
 On the 3rd of March, 1883, I went, accompanied 
 by a friend, to witness the performance of " Aladdin, 
 or the Wonderful Lamp," in the temporary theatre 
 erected not far from the Mayo Hospital at Lahore, 
 by a Parsee dramatic company. The theatre was a 
 huge shed, very dimly lighted by a single chandelier 
 of only four lamps, suspended in the centre of the 
 room, and a couple of wall-lamps with reflectors fixed 
 against side-posts. These six lamps, with the row 
 of foot-lights on the stage, constituted the entire 
 lighting arrangements of the theatre, and, as might 
 be readily imagined, every part of this big shed, with 
 the exception of the stage, was in semi-darkness. 
 When my friend and I arrived, about twenty minutes 
 before the time appointed for the commencement of 
 the play, the place was already thronged with an 
 audience representing all ranks of the native com- 
 munity except the highest. There were also present, 
 occupying for the most part the front rows, a small 
 number of Europeans and Eurasians of the lower 
 classes, including a sprinkling of respectable repre- 
 sentatives of the gentler sex, some of them in demi- 
 toilette and evidently dressed for the occasion. 
 
 The stage, as we soon had an opportunity of learn- 
 ing, was got up after the European model, and was 
 provided with an abundance of trap-doors and lifts, so 
 necessary for the sudden appearance and disappear- 
 ance of the genii who figure in the story of Aladdin. 
 
 The piece was performed in the Urdu language, 
 and the whole of it, with trifling exceptions, was sung 
 to the accompaniment of a sarungce and a drum. I 
 had not been prepared for this musical performance, 
 and found it rather more difficult to follow the 
 
1 86 AT THE PLAY: * 
 
 words as they reached us not a little disguised 
 by their passage through the nasal organs of the 
 performers. 
 
 The troupe consisted of ten Parsee men and one 
 young European woman, whom a strange fate had 
 brought into association with this roving company of 
 men of an entirely alien race and creed. 
 
 The curtain rose to discover a black, thickly 
 bearded, well-featured man standing at a small table, 
 with alembics and crucibles in the background, en- 
 gaged in some magic rites. In his hand he held an 
 hour-glass. This was the famous magician of the 
 story. After consulting the hour-glass attentively 
 once or twice, he fired a pistol below the table, and 
 immediately up rose a fairy, from whom, after a short 
 colloquy, he received a ring. The fairy then vanished 
 as suddenly as she had appeared. Rubbing the ring 
 and again discharging the pistol brought up, this 
 time, the venerable king of the genii, from whom the 
 magician learned particulars as to how possession of 
 the wonderful lamp might be secured. 
 
 During these proceedings, there lay unnoticed a 
 dark figure prostrate on the floor. A kick from the 
 magician brought the sleeper to his feet in apparent 
 confusion, and introduced to the audience a dumb half- 
 witted Abyssinian slave, who henceforward played a 
 part, more or less irrelevant and absurd, in every suc- 
 ceeding scene. 
 
 This character has, as far as I remember, no war- 
 rant whatever in the " Arabian Nights." It is appar- 
 ently introduced as a concession to the rules of the 
 modern Indian theatre, which, " like the ancient, has 
 its bidushaka or privileged buffoon, the companion of 
 
 
777^ NE IV INDIAN THE A TRE. 1 87 
 
 the king ; who generally unites great shrewdness and 
 mother-wit with love of creature comforts." J 
 
 The next was a street scene. 2 Aladdin and a num- 
 ber of youths were playing at ball, and quarrelling and 
 fighting over their game, when Aladdin's old mother 
 came upon them, and not without some little trouble 
 got her wayward, petulant boy away from the others, 
 advising him to give up childish frivolities, and to 
 learn wisdom at last. The acting in this scene, of both 
 mother and son, was good, that of the old lady parti- 
 cularly so, and gave me a favourable opinion of the his- 
 trionic talent of at least some members of the troupe. 
 
 As scene after scene of the well-known story, 
 which has delighted many successive generations of 
 young people in the West as well as in the East, was 
 presented to us, as " old lamps for new " was being 
 cried in the streets of Bagdad, as the wily magician 
 gradually got Aladdin into his toils, as the genii came 
 and went in obedience to the possessor of the lamp, 
 I felt somehow that this story, so entirely in keep- 
 ing with the genius of the East, enacted thus in an 
 Eastern tongue, before an Oriental audience, and with 
 appropriate natural surroundings, lost much of its 
 improbability, and seemed to be a presentment of 
 what might have actually happened. In fact I was 
 for the moment under the spell, as it were, of the 
 mystic genius of Asia. 
 
 "The Modern Hindu Drama," by Babu Kissory Chand 
 Mitra, Calcutta Review, vol. Ivii. 
 
 - To appreciate the fact of the use of scenery in these popular 
 representations, it should be remembered that as Professor 
 Wilson says, writing on the Indian theatre, the Hindus probably 
 never knew what scenes were, and substituted curtains for 
 them. 
 
1 88 AT THE PLAY: 
 
 As I mentioned before, there was but one woman 
 in the troupe, and she a European. Women never 
 appear now on the regular stage in India, and 
 only, as far as I know, take part in the panchaly per- 
 formances in the Bengal zenanas. Nor need we be 
 surprised at this, when we recollect that it was not 
 until the Restoration that females appeared on the 
 boards of an English theatre. But I should add that, 
 according to Professor H. H. Wilson, female charac- 
 ters were generally represented on the old Hindu stage 
 by females, although it was not uncommon for men 
 or lads to personate females in certain cases. No 
 native women were, as far as I could see, present at 
 the performance of Aladdin ; net even hdarcz, who, 
 it is certain, frequented the Greek theatre, from 
 which respectable females were excluded. 
 
 Very different from Aladdin, and performed by an 
 entirely different company, was the play I now 
 proceed to describe, a very popular modern drama, 
 " Indur Sabha," composed, it is said, by a Mussul- 
 man poet, by command of Wajid Ali Shah, ex-king 
 of Oudh. 
 
 The theatre was a huge framework of bamboos, 
 badly put together and covered with thin sheeting. 
 The stage was good enough, and was lighted by 
 some fifteen lamps with reflectors. There were no 
 other lamps in the big enclosure, but a tropical 
 moon shining through the ceiling-cloth gave a 
 subdued light which was far from disagreeable. 
 The reserved seats consisted of a double row of 
 chairs, the first class of a similar double row a little 
 further back ; then came a barrier, and behind it 
 a rude arrangement of seats for the bulk of the 
 
THE NEW INDIAN THEATRE. 189 
 
 spectators. The charges for seats varied from three 
 rupees to four annas each, and there was a special 
 place reserved, at eight annas a seat, for " native 
 females " ; but I did not see any there, or anywhere 
 else in the theatre. The performance was adver- 
 tised to commence at nine. At about two minutes 
 to that hour, I took my seat in what appeared an 
 almost empty house. A quarter of an hour went by ; 
 I ventured to inquire of an attendant connected 
 with the theatre when the performance commenced. 
 "At nine," he said, but added significantly, "You 
 see they don't come till late " referring, as I under- 
 stood, to the audience. " And so you wait for them ? " 
 I observed. " Yes," he replied, " we must wait for 
 them." Twenty minutes past nine, the half-past 
 nine gun, and no sign of business nor the slightest 
 indication of impatience on the part of the audience, 
 which had now increased considerably. This, at any 
 , rate, gave me time to study my company. In the 
 first row of all, and just before me, was a young 
 Eurasian woman in a yellow satin dress, evidently 
 got up for the "opera"; a portly companion in a 
 serviceable stuff dress chaperoned her ; a little boy 
 about twelve years of age and a native girl, perhaps 
 a trifle younger, dressed in a saree of flaring red, 
 completed the party. The little girl took her seat 
 quite naturally with her beautiful big eyes riveted, 
 in mute wonder, on the glories of the drop-screen, 
 when she was rudely awakened from her fairy 
 dreams by one of the attendants, who told her to 
 go further back and not to sit with the sahibs. Very 
 reluctantly the little girl, whose "first opera" this 
 evidently was, retired, without withdrawing her eyes 
 
190 AT THE PLAY: 
 
 from the stage where evidently she expected some- 
 thing wonderful to take place. A quarter to ten 
 tinkle ! tinkle ! tinkle ! and up goes the screen to 
 reveal to a delighted audience a sort of fairy palace- 
 garden, where, on a comfortable sofa, lay a sleeping 
 prince, Goolfam of Hind. Bang ! and behold a 
 fairy all in green, and glittering with tinsel, floats 
 down from the upper air on cords, alas ! too visible. 
 The prince does not awake, and Subz Peri for that 
 is her name hovers round him enamoured of his 
 beauty. In song and dance (the slow voluptuous 
 measure peculiar to the East) she gives expression 
 to her tender feelings, to the accompaniment of 
 an unseen orchestra of stringed instruments and 
 tablas. 
 
 The next scene reveals the court of Indur. Seated 
 on his throne, with courtiers and attendants about 
 him, appears the King of Heaven, against a striking 
 background of forked lightning, stars and suns, with 
 the most impossible of mountain ranges that scene- 
 painter ever put on canvas. Stiff, uncomfortable, 
 and very much bored looked poor ludur "one of 
 the principal deities of heaven " according to the 
 playbill as he sat in state upon his tinselled throne, 
 and it did not surprise me when he ordered a demon 
 attendant to summon a heavenly nautch-girl to 
 amuse him. Immediately there appeared, from a 
 trap-door, a peri all in gauze and glittering tinsel, 
 with enough clothing on to satisfy the most prudish 
 taste, decked with jewellery of various sorts, amongst 
 which tinkling anklets and wristlets were not 
 omitted ; but there were no shoes on her feet. She 
 danced, or rather glided, with clinking anklets, 
 
THE NEW INDIAN THEATRE. 191 
 
 before the king to a sort of slow measure, never 
 lifting her feet more than half an inch off the floor, 
 swaying her body about gently and moving her 
 uplifted arms in a graceful manner. Nothing in the 
 world could be more in contrast than the dress, the 
 movements, and the manner of this bayadere and 
 those of a jumping ballet-dancer in silk tights on 
 the boards of a European theatre, which contrast will 
 not be lessened by the fact that the graceful peri 
 was after all a man, who figures in the playbill as 
 " Master Homi." The audience highly appreciated 
 the peri's performance, and the King of Heaven was 
 also so well pleased that he wanted more entertain- 
 ment of the same kind, and had three other peris 
 in succession dancing before him, the last of 
 these being the too susceptible Subz Peri, who on 
 her way to the court had seen Goolfam asleep in the 
 garden. Dreary and puerile appeared to me the 
 protracted scene, as peri after peri, introduced by 
 trap-doors from below, came forward and sang and 
 danced to please the King of Heaven. To my 
 untutored ear, the measure and the music seemed 
 always the same, and the sentiments, as far as I 
 could understand them, not very novel. But tastes 
 differ, and the audience, I am bound to say, viewed 
 the performance with very different eyes from mine, 
 and were highly pleased with it. 
 
 The glories of Indur's reception-hall gave place to 
 a small room, in which the poor green peri, madly 
 in love with Goolfam, persuades a demon of the 
 court to bring the prince to her. Hardly has the 
 demon consented to carry out her wishes, when lo ! 
 suspended in mid-air, appears the couch of the still 
 
192 AT THE PLAY : 
 
 slumbering Goolfam. The demon awakes him, and 
 then conceals himself. The mystified and astonished 
 prince, lost in wonder at his new surroundings, feels, 
 as one would feel quite naturally in the East, that 
 he is in the toils of some magician. The greei> 
 peri appears and attempts to reassure him, offering 
 him her love in the most forward, unblushing, and 
 disagreeable style, 1 but the prince cannot reconcile 
 himself to his new situation, looks regretfully to- 
 wards his native Hind, and repulses her with cold 
 disdain. Learning, however, that the peri comes 
 from Indur's court, he is carried away by a desire 
 to see the wonders of the celestial kingdom, and 
 promises to return the peri's affection if she will 
 only take him there. But to introduce a mortal 
 amongst the celestials was a serious business, beset 
 with the gravest difficulties, and Subz Peri protests 
 her inability to gratify his whim. To gain his point, 
 the prince hints that far from being a peri of 
 Indur's heaven, his admirer must be at best only 
 the mistress of some wretched demon ; an insinua- 
 tion which Subz Peri resents by giving him a smart 
 box on the ear. In vain the peri declares that no 
 human being could gain admittance to Indur's 
 court ; Goolfam is obdurate, and in the end Green- 
 peri poor enamoured peri yields to his importuni- 
 ties, and conceals him in a place from which he can 
 view the glittering spectacle he so longed to see. 
 
 1 This is not an uncommon feature of the plays which delight 
 a modern Indian audience. Women in love are frequently 
 represented as pursuing the object of their passion in the most 
 unblushing manner, notwithstanding the rudest rebuffs. See 
 the story of Puran Bhagat, at the end of this paper. 
 
THE NE W INDIAN THE A TRE. 193 
 
 Here in the midst of the usual enjoyments, the 
 singing and dancing of the celestial nautch-girls, a 
 demon attendant smells the human intruder and 
 drags him before the king. All is now apparent 
 to an indignantly virtuous court. The wanton peri, 
 with wings clipped, is banished, and the Prince of 
 Hind sentenced to pass his life in a solitary cave. 
 In the last act everything is put right. The fame 
 of the beauty and power of song of a certain 
 wandering female devotee reaches King Indur, and 
 he requests her presence at his court. She comes, 
 and charms the god with both her person and her 
 voice. To reward her, Indur offers her one costly 
 gift after another, but she declines them all. He 
 then offers to give her whatever she might ask for. 
 " Give me Goolfam," says the happy yognee, who is, 
 of course, no other than Subz Peri, and the Prince 
 of Hind is duly restored to her loving arms. 
 
 Of the two plays I have just described, " Aladdin," 
 though Oriental in its genius and surroundings, and 
 with a large element of the supernatural in it, was 
 acted by men who had, I fancy, formed their style 
 upon European models, and who accordingly intro- 
 duced a good deal of vivacity and human interest 
 into the piece. The acting and singing in " Indur 
 Sabha " was dull and stately, without animation, 
 action, or expression ; but, as I have already said, 
 unquestionably suited the taste of the audience. The 
 music was at times decidedly pleasant even to my 
 ears, all untrained in the mysteries of Eastern 
 harmony. The representation closed with a melody 
 which is certainly not without a beauty of its own, 
 and fairly carried the audience away. 
 
 13 
 
194 AT THE PLAY: 
 
 Somehow the court of Indur, when the lifted 
 curtain disclosed to our view the Olympians sitting 
 in solemn state, reminded me forcibly of the final 
 result of the Katputlee ka tamasha, an Indian per- 
 formance of marionettes not unfamiliar to most 
 Anglo-Indian children, which mainly consists in a 
 lot of tinselled Rajahs coming out and taking their 
 seats, in solemn state, on a row of tinselled thrones. 
 As each high and mighty Rajah floats into the 
 reception-hall, suspended by a fine wire which ought 
 to be invisible, the manager announces the many 
 grand-sounding titles which it is his happy privilege 
 to possess, and the pompous grandee slowly subsides 
 into his seat. The attendant musicians play vigor- 
 ously on their tablahs, and another slow and solemn 
 chief of world-wide fame enters ; and so on, till at 
 last the entire row of seats is occupied by the gaudy 
 dolls, whose appearance, as they sit in state on their 
 tiny thrones, is as ridiculous as their titles. 
 
 One more account of an Indian theatrical repre- 
 sentation, and I have done. This, time the play was 
 acted at the expense of a successful tradesman, who 
 hoped to acquire some religious merit by having a 
 moral drama produced for the benefit of his fellow- 
 townsmen. Admission being free, the audience was 
 by no means select ; but it was as orderly and well- 
 behaved as the best-bred audience could have been. 
 There was a stage for the actors ; but there were 
 no seats for the audience, who contentedly squatted 
 down on a terrace floor before the stage, under the 
 open canopy of a lovely starlit heaven and a more 
 suitable auditorium could not be imagined for a 
 sultry night of an Indian summer. 
 
THE NEW INDIAN THEATRE. 195 
 
 The play selected, known as " Prahlad," is a good 
 sample of highly popular Indian dramas. I went to 
 the performance at half-past nine and left at mid- 
 night, when the play was only half over. The first 
 scene opened with a potter's oven. A few homely 
 and very familiar articles of Indian pottery, chiraghs 
 and chillums, were about to be baked under the 
 superintendence of a woman, who was dressed 
 very much better than women of her station in 
 life usually are. In the potter's oven a cat had 
 placed four of her kittens, and Prahlad (the king's 
 son), who happened to come that way, observ- 
 ing them, told the woman that she should remove 
 the helpless creatures or they would be burnt to 
 death. " If it is the will of god (Rama) that they 
 should live, they will be safe enough in the oven ! " 
 said the woman. " Rama ! " replied the lad ; 
 " why, my father is greater than he, 1 and my father 
 himself could not save them alive in the blazing 
 furnace." " Let us see," was the answer. For four 
 days the fire was allowed to glow, but, strange to say, 
 the kittens were none the worse for it. Prahlad, 
 upon this, became a devoted and fanatical follower 
 of Rama, who he confessed was a greater being than 
 his father the king. His devotion to the worship of 
 Rama roused the indignation of his mother, who, 
 curiously enough, made him over to a Brahman 
 schoolmaster to be taught better ways. Nothing, 
 
 1 Prahlad's boast was not without some good foundation, 
 as bis father, " Hiranya-Kasipu, in his wars with the gods, had 
 wrested the sovereignty of heaven from Indra, and dwelt there 
 in luxury" (Professor Dowson's " Classical Dictionary of Hindu 
 Mythology "). 
 
196 A T THE PLA Y: 
 
 however, could bhake his reverence for Rama, whose 
 name was always on his lips. 
 
 The scene in the Brahman's school, brought on 
 the stage before us, was intended to be a humorous 
 one. The boys cuffed one another behind the 
 master's back, made faces at the pedagogue when 
 he could not see them, and so on. Prahlad him- 
 self took no great part in the pranks and horseplay 
 of the other boys, but frequently exclaimed " Rama ! 
 Rama ! " for which unseasonable interruption the 
 master would give him a taste of the cane. He was, 
 however, incorrigible. Tired out by his refractory 
 pupil, the Brahrnan went to the king, who took the 
 boy in hand himself, and, after trying argument and 
 pursuasion in vain, ordered him to be put to death. 
 The pious young prince, the devoted adorer of 
 Rama, was taken out to be hanged was, in fact, 
 actually hanged before us, but the rope broke ; he 
 was thrown from a hill, but not hurt ; he was struck 
 by the executioner's sword, but remained unharmed. 
 Enraged beyond endurance, the father drew his 
 own mighty sabre upon his obstinate son. At this 
 critical moment the ground opened, and Rama 
 (Vishnu), in the form of a formidable tiger, appear- 
 ing upon the scene, tore the impious king to pieces. 
 Could anything in the world be more religious, more 
 tedious, and more utterly Indian ? 
 
 As for the acting in this very serious and moral 
 piece, it was enough to make one laugh outright ; 
 though the audience, to judge from their almost 
 reverent attention, seemed very much impressed by 
 it. In the opening scene, when the dialogue took 
 place between the prince and the potter's wife, the 
 
THE NE W INDIA N THE A TRE. 1 97 
 
 speaker always stood near the left-hand corner of 
 the stage, behind which the prompter was concealed. 
 The prince, about to take up the dialogue, would 
 step slowly to the left-hand corner and the potter's 
 wife would go, as slowly, to the right hand corner of 
 the stage. After he had said his say, they would 
 change places, slowly and majestically, and the 
 woman would repeat what the prompter told her 
 from behind the curtain. Although this ridiculous 
 interchange of places went on for ever so long, not 
 a soul amongst the audience appeared in the least 
 degree amused by it. 
 
 As my object in this short paper has been to give 
 an idea, however inadequate and imperfect, of the 
 popular modern Indian drama, at least in the 
 Punjab, I make no apology for reproducing here the 
 argument of the favourite opera, " Puran Bhagat," as 
 given in the play-bills, since it will perhaps afford 
 some insight into the conditions of Eastern life and 
 the taste of the people in regard to the subjects best 
 suited for dramatic representation. 
 
 The play-bill says, in regard to the opera, " Puran 
 Bhagat " 
 
 "This piece, which is in the mouth of every one in the 
 Province, is expressly translated with some alterations from a 
 Punjabi domestic true story. It gives an example of the pro- 
 verbial saying * Murder will out,' and the author has no doubt 
 intended to intimate that though secrecy may veil the deed 
 of the murderer for a time, * Providence,' that suffers not a 
 sparrow to fall to the ground unnoticed, will by some means 
 or other both expose and punish the evil-doer. The triumph of 
 virtue over vice is also represented in an affecting manner. 
 
 ''ARGUMENT OF THE OPERA. 
 " In Sealkote (Punjab) there was a King called Saliwan who 
 
198 AT THE PLAY: 
 
 had a Queen by name Lona (daughter of a cobbler), she was 
 both accomplished and fair, but equally cruel and incontinent. 
 The King had no issue by her. 
 
 "He had a son called Puran by his first Queen. The King 
 was very fond of Lona. having never loved his first Queen since 
 espousing her. One day the King ordered his son Puran to 
 visit his stepmother. The Prince wished to obey the command 
 of his royal father, but was advised by his mother to avoid 
 Queen Lona, as she was a woman of an intriguing nature. 
 However, he obeyed his father's orders, and was received in a 
 very kind manner. Queen Lona fell in love with him, and 
 there and then declared her passion. Puran refused her pro- 
 posal with disdain ; she, disappointed and thwarted in her 
 desires, accused Puran of dishonourable conduct and of 
 attempts against her honour and constancy. King Saliwan 
 entering the palace finds his wife in a sorrowful mood, and 
 believing her words to be true, orders Puran to be kept in close 
 confinement. Lona, mad with love, again wishes to persuade 
 Puran, and after obtaining permission from the King, visits him 
 in prison on a pretence to advise him to desist from such 
 immoral conduct, and instead of advising urges him again to 
 satisfy her passion. The Prince refuses, and she on seeing the 
 King and Puran's mother eavesdropping, pretends her love 
 to Puran as that of a mother, but Puran was still bad and 
 wanted to love her as a mistress ; the King gets incensed 
 beyond measure, orders the poor Prince to be thrown into 
 a well. The Queen mother tries to get him pardoned, but 
 the King gets angry with her also, and turns her out to the 
 jungles. 
 
 " Some hermits discover Puran in the well ; relieve him from 
 his confinement ; he joins them as a Faqueer. Puran enters 
 a city as a Dervish and asks charity in a house, where the 
 owner is a beautiful orphan lady called Soondra, she pities him 
 and. falls in love, and urges Puran to accept her proposal. He 
 advises her to abstain from such a bad passion. She suppli- 
 cates. At this time Puran's Saint enters, and advises Puran to 
 desist from this world's pleasures. She in disappointment goes 
 after Puran in the disguise of a Nun. 
 
 " One night King Saliwan dreams, and sees Puran's Saint 
 revealing to him the intrigues of Lona and Puran's innocence. 
 The Saint by his power, as a punishment makes him blind, 
 
THE NEW INDIAN THEATRE. 199 
 
 and as the only cure to his malady, recommends the King to 
 wash his hands in Lona's blood. 
 
 " On one hand the Queen mother, and on the other hand 
 Soondra, wandering encounter each other in a jungle, where 
 after mutual explanations they recognize each other in disguise. 
 But here we must digress a little. 
 
 "The King having now become aware of his folly, intends of 
 revenge and to bring an end Lona's life. At this juncture 
 Puran enters, and requests his father to pardon her. The Saint 
 presses him to end her life, but at the urgent solicitation of 
 Puran, Lona is forgiven. Lona apologizes sincerely for her 
 crime. The Saint promises the King to cure him, sends Puran 
 in search of his mother, who after surmounting vast difficulties 
 finds them in a jungle, and a happy meeting takes place. The 
 disconsolate King is relieved from all pains, unites Puran with 
 Soondra, and the curtain falls to the strains of a pleasant 
 son.?." 
 
THE. MOS7^ SACRED SPOT ON 
 
 EARTH ; OR, BUDDH GAY A 
 
 AND BUDDHISM. 
 
 IF it were possible to ascertain, by any means, what 
 particular spot on earth is the most sacred in the 
 opinion of mankind, there is every reason to think 
 that the majority of votes would be given in favour 
 of Buddh Gaya. 
 
 Leaving the busy town of Bankipore one afternoon 
 in April, I travelled some fifty-seven miles to Gaya, 
 by the branch railway, over a level uninteresting 
 looking country, unredeemed in its drear monotony 
 except by picturesque groups of slender palm trees, 
 which always and everywhere lend grace and beauty 
 to the landscape they adorn. 
 
 I arrived at Gaya after dark. It was quite an 
 early hour ; but the town, with its population of 
 76,000 souls, was already beginning to retire to rest. 
 The atmosphere was oppressive, and the dimly 
 lighted streets, which were being turned into dormi- 
 tories for the night, presented anything but agreeable 
 pictures. Here and there a perspiring half-clad 
 .hulwai, who had not yielded to the early closing 
 
BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 201 
 
 movement, squatted listlessly in his " fly swarmed 
 sweetmeat shop " behind a few trays of uninviting 
 confectionary ; or a drowsy bunneah, with his knees 
 drawn up to his chin, dozed over his uncovered heaps 
 of rice, dull, atah, and ghee. These half-awake shop- 
 men were apparently the principal, if not the only, 
 representatives of trade in Gaya at that hour. 
 Charpoys in scores were already occupying the main 
 thoroughfare in very unpicturesque disorder. On 
 some of these rickety beds, unprovided with mat- 
 tresses or pillows, the owners were stretched full- 
 length ; on others, two or three almost naked men 
 sat silently fanning themselves in a drowsy way 
 with little palm-leaf fans or with the free ends 
 of their dhotics. What was the burden of their 
 thoughts, as they sat there on these charpoys in the 
 hot and dusty street of the sacred city ? Were they 
 thinking, as so many of their national sages had 
 thought before them, that, after all, life was not worth 
 living? or were they performing that act of cogita- 
 tion on the merits and defects of the British Govern- 
 ment which Sir Richard Temple seems to think the 
 two hundred and fifty millions of the Indian people 
 perform every day ? J Not being able to divine their 
 
 1 '' It is difficult to summarize concisely what two hundred and 
 fifty millions of people are presumably saying to themselves 
 every day. But probably the sum of their thoughts amounts 
 to this, that they are by the will of an unscrutable fate living 
 under foreign rule ; that they are ineffably better, nicer, pleasanter 
 people than their rulers ; that they have a purity of descent, a 
 grandeur of tradition, an antiquity of system, with which a 
 European nation has nothing to compare ; that, despite their 
 union, socially and morally, they cannot hold together politically, 
 &o.'' Fortnightly Review^ January, 1883. 
 
202 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH j 
 
 thoughts, I can only say that my own mind was 
 occupied with a sort of vague anxiety as to whether 
 I should be able to get accommodation for the night 
 in the Government bungalow for travellers, as Buddh 
 Gaya did not contain a single hotel. 
 
 Fortunately I found a vacant room in the travellers' 
 bungalow, where I passed a most uncomfortable 
 night under the punkah. The furniture of the room 
 consisted of the usual table, a couple of chairs, and 
 a bed ; but there were two photographs of the great 
 Buddh Gaya temple on the wall at the foot of my 
 bed, which attracted my attention and somehow 
 mingled in a most fantastic and disagreeable manner 
 with all my dreams during that restless night. 
 
 As early as possible next morning I started for 
 Buddh Gaya in a one-horse carriage, a sort of cab- 
 with double seats and sliding doors. 
 
 The dim twilight of approaching dawn revealed 
 street scenes even more unlovely than those I had 
 witnessed the night before. People sleeping out on 
 the dirty road upon cots or mats, but more frequently 
 upon the bare sand or mud. Cows and oxen calmly 
 reposing in the middle of the highway ; goats also 
 and poultry, quite at home upon the streets, under 
 the open canopy of heaven. In the hot sweltry 
 atmosphere men and women lay asleep, contorted 
 in every ungainly position imaginable. From some 
 the light covering had slipped away, and left them 
 almost if not quite naked. I had often been through 
 Indian towns at a very early hour of the morning, but 
 had never before seen such a combination of squalor 
 and repulsiveness. There was just light enough to 
 show the hideous nightmare spectacle in all its 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 203 
 
 ugliness, a spectacle so disagreeable in every way as 
 not to be easily forgotten. The return through the 
 same streets some hours Jater was more pleasant. 
 Glorious sunlight gilded the mean huts and dirty 
 alleys of the town what would the East be without 
 its sunshine ? the people were astir, all more or 
 less clothed according to Indian fashions, which 
 depend but little either upon modiste or tailor. 
 
 The town of Gaya is situated near some low, 
 barren, but not unpicturesque hills, and is associated 
 with the ever-memorable life and work of the founder 
 of the Buddhist religion ; it is also a famous place of 
 Hindu pilgrimage. An extravagant Hindu legend 
 connects the little hills of Gaya with the history of 
 a giant no less than 576 miles high, who by the 
 power derived from the performance of austerities 
 became, as usual, a terror to the gods. Taking a 
 mean advantage of the giant's piety, the wily divini- 
 ties, with Brahma at their head, induced him to 
 allow his sinless body to be used as the altar for a 
 great sacrifice. This prostrate position gave them 
 the opportunity they sought. Upon his huge head 
 they placed a sacred stone, and literally sat upon it ; 
 while Vishnu belaboured the poor giant with his 
 terrible mace until he became motionless. In his 
 extremity the blameless monster, thus overreached by 
 the unscrupulous gods, merely asked, as a favour, 
 that the place where he lay or rather I should say 
 where his head lay should ever afterwards be asso- 
 ciated with his name, Gaya, and that on this spot 
 " should abide for the good of mankind all the sacred 
 pools on the earth, where persons by bathing and 
 offering of oblations of water and funeral cakes may 
 
204 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 obtain high merit for themselves, and translate their 
 ancestors, blessed with all that is desirable, and sal- 
 vation, to the region of Brahma." * This foolish and 
 unedifying legend is, we are told by Dr. Rajendra 
 Lala Mitra, implicitly believed by the people ; but 
 the learned gentleman himself sees in it an allegori- 
 cal reference to the overthrow, by artifice and force, 
 of the religion of Buddha by the Brahmanical priest- 
 hood. Any way, the far-sighted and never-to-be- 
 conquered Brahmans have in this case, as in many 
 another one, succeeded in appropriating to their own 
 glory and profit places held sacred by heretical sece- 
 ders from the fold of Hinduism, and Gaya is now a 
 favourite place of Hindu pilgrimage, where hundreds 
 of thousands flock annually to the Vishnupada 
 Temple, to prostrate themselves before the footprints 
 of the god and to perform the funeral ceremonies of 
 their dead relations. 2 This temple, surmounted by a 
 dome and gilded pinnacle, stands on one of the 
 ridges. The Temple of the Sun, with its sacred 
 tank, occupies the low ground within the town. 
 
 The principal object of my visit was, however, 
 Buddh Gaya, where five hundred years before the 
 birth of Christ the immortal founder of the Buddhist 
 religion had obtained ''enlightenment" ^a spot 
 considered the most sacred place on this earth of 
 ours by perhaps a fourth of the entire human race. 
 Even in this matter-of-fact age, which is supposed 
 
 1 "Buddh Gaya," by Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra, pp. 10-17. 
 
 2 " The birth of that man is the occasion of satisfaction to his 
 progenitors, who performs, at the due time, their obsequial rites 
 at Gaya." Prof. H. H. Wilson's translation of the " Vishnti 
 Purana,"book iii. chap. 16. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAYA AND BUDDHISM. 205 
 
 to have eyes and ears only for utilities, one may be 
 pardoned for leaving the direct road to Calcutta in 
 order to visit a spot round which so many memories 
 cluster. 
 
 My way lay along a dusty road through open fields, 
 and for some distance alongside the dry sandy bed 
 of the river Phalgu. The country through which I 
 passed presented this April morning a very different 
 appearance, no doubt, from what it wears during 
 the brief winter which succeeds the rainy season in 
 India. Under the mild winter sky, man and beast, 
 field and forest, seem to revive a little, and the 
 European tourist flits through the verdant country, 
 charmed with the mild sunshine of these favoured 
 climes. And if he writes a book of his travels, its 
 pages reflect the charming blue sky and the soft, 
 mild climate he has been enjoying. In April it is 
 otherwise, as the resident in India knows only too 
 well. As I proceeded on my way, a carved stone 
 here and another there on the roadside, or built 
 into a mud hut, served to indicate my approach to 
 Buddh Gaya and its ancient temple. 
 
 A drive of about six miles from the Government 
 Dak Bungalow brought me to a large group of 
 buildings enclosed within a high masonry wall, which 
 the driver of my cab seemed to think must be the 
 object of my visit. It was a Hindu monastery, well 
 situated in a garden on the riverside. I went in 
 through the wide-open gateway, accompanied by my 
 coachman. On the terraced roof of a building of 
 some three or four storeys, the Mahant or Abbot 
 Maharaj they styled him was taking his ease, and 
 after being informed by my loquacious coachman, 
 
206 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 who knew nothing whatever about me, that I was 
 a visitor from Calcutta, directed his servants to 
 show me over the place. Later on he expressed a 
 wish to make my acquaintance. He asked many 
 inquisitive questions about myself and about the object 
 of my visit, and showed me with much pride a copy 
 of Dr. Mitra's book on Buddh Gaya, which had 
 been presented to him by the Government of Bengal 
 He could not read English, and seemed to care little 
 for the Buddhist temple, but he could appreciate the 
 compliment paid him by the British authorities, and 
 I dare say found pleasure in the big picture-book 
 they had given him, which was in all probability the 
 only illustrated volume in his possession. 
 
 The monastery over which this abbot presides was, 
 according to Dr. Mitra, originally established in the 
 early part of the last century by a mendicant of the 
 order of Giri. A successor appropriated the then 
 neglected Buddhist temple, which became a source 
 of large income to him from the gifts of Hindu 
 pilgrims to the sacred Bo-tree. In the course of 
 time the society acquired considerable property, and 
 Hindu temples sprang up in the neighbourhood. 
 
 A very short walk from the Hindu monastery 
 brought me to the ancient temple I had come to see, 
 the hoary relic of many fleeting centuries. As it 
 stood there before me it looked quite new, and I 
 must confess that a feeling of disappointment took 
 possession of me as I contemplated the " restored" 
 edifice, with the fresh stucco mouldings and Port- 
 land cement additions of the Department of Public 
 Works. In my disappointment I could not help 
 thinking that the renovated temple might, perhaps, 
 
OR, BUDDH GAYA AND BUDDHISM. 207 
 
 bear as much resemblance to the original temple 
 erected on the spot as the Buddhism of some recent 
 European writers to the doctrines of Sakya Muni. 
 
 In the belief of three hundred millions of 
 Buddhists, the site occupied by this temple is the 
 identical one on which, seated in the shade of a 
 spreading Bo-tree, Gautama known also as Prince 
 Siddartha and Sakya Muni attained " enlighten- 
 ment " some five hundred years before the Christian 
 era ; and although so remote in time, the event 
 referred to still makes itself unmistakably felt, across 
 the long intervening centuries, in the life and thought 
 of many nations. 
 
 Three hundred years later, the Buddhist king 
 Asoka erected a vehara here for the accommodation 
 of Buddhist monks, which was replaced by a temple 
 perhaps as far back .as the first century B.C., when 
 image-worship would appear to have already become 
 a recognized feature of Buddhism. In A.D. 637 the 
 Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang visited this temple, 
 and his description of it shows that the building 
 which attracts the modern traveller is substantially 
 the same as that erected some eighteen or nineteen 
 hundred years ago. There is evidence to show that, 
 having fallen into decay, it was repaired by the 
 Burmese in the early years of the fourteenth century, 
 Notwithstanding partial attention and repairs, the 
 corroding breath of five hundred years again reduced 
 the old building to a ruinous condition, when, in 
 1876, the Burmese came once more to the rescue of 
 the dilapidated temple. Upon this the Government 
 of Bengal, actuated by a proper regard for the 
 venerable old-world monument which the vicissitudes 
 
208 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 of fortune had brought within its jurisdiction, re- 
 solved to have it carefully examined and thoroughly 
 repaired. The result of this determination was 
 before me ; a sort of revised, abbreviated, and 
 amended edition of the original temple of Buddh 
 Gaya prepared by order of Government. 
 
 Defaced by time and the hand of man, transformed 
 a good deal through well-meant restorations, the 
 celebrated temple at Buddh Gaya, even in its modern 
 disguised condition, with its nineteenth century 
 stucco about it and its brand-new gilt finial, is an 
 imposing structure about one hundred and seventy 
 feet high and fifty feet wide at its base. All things 
 considered, it has certainly lasted remarkably well, 
 the material of which it is constructed being only 
 well-burnt brick cemented with mud. Stone has 
 been used only in the door-frames and flooring. The 
 building is plastered with lime-mortar. It is built 
 in the form of a pyramid of nine storeys, embellished 
 on the outer side with niches and mouldings. Facing 
 the rising sun is the entrance doorway, and above it, 
 at an elevation greater than the roof of the porch 
 which once adorned the temple, there is a triangular 
 opening to admit the morning glory to fall upon the 
 image in the sanctuary. 
 
 Around the base of this ancient structure the 
 debris of centuries had entirely covered, to a depth 
 of nearly twenty feet, a host of interesting shrines 
 and memorials which the recent excavations carried 
 out by the Government have brought to light votive 
 Stupas, 1 images of Buddha in different attitudes, and 
 
 1 " Models or miniatures of tumuli and graves varying in 
 size, at Buddh Gaya, from three inches to about three feet, the 
 
OK, BUDDH GA YA AND BUDDHISM. 209 
 
 a substantial and ornamented stone railing as old as 
 the time of Asoka. Within the shadow of the great 
 temple many modern buildings are also to be seen 
 Hindu temples and the burial-place of the Hindu 
 abbots of the neighbouring monastery ; z while 
 monuments seen by the early Chinese pilgrims have 
 entirely disappeared. And where is the Bo-tree ? 
 Gone, like the olives of Gethsemane, centuries ago, 
 with many a successor fabled to be a lineal descendant 
 of that original Bo-tree whose trembling leaves were, 
 in Buddhist belief, witnesses of the greatest events 
 in the history of the world. A raised platform 
 attached to the temple now supports a young and 
 vigorous Peepul-tree (Ficus religiosa), a sort of senti- 
 mental representative of the Bo-tree of the sixth 
 century before Christ, which in its day stood over 
 the miraculous diamond throne, a structure as old 
 as the world itself, nearly a hundred feet in circum- 
 ference, and reaching down to the bottom of the 
 earth. An attendant mentioned to me, not without 
 a trace of dissatisfaction in his tone and manner, 
 that the young tree before me was not even a 
 descendant of its predecessor on the same spot, 
 which had attained a great age, but had perished, he 
 said, from ill-usage during the excavations. Its 
 wood, he assured me, had for the most part been 
 taken by the King of Burmah for the fashioning of 
 images of the sage. Professor Sir Monier Williams, 
 
 oldest being hemispherical, like a water-bubble." Dr. Rajen- 
 dra Lala Mitra's " Buddh Gaya." 
 
 " The dead bodies of the monks, unlike those of other 
 Hindus, are buried. . . . The body is buried in a sitting 
 posture." Idem, p. 4. 
 
 14 
 
210 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 who visited the place, was told that the tree had 
 been destroyed by the excessive devotion of Budd- 
 hist pilgrims, who watered its roots with Eau de 
 Cologne. 
 
 However stately may be the venerable fane which 
 has for so many centuries adorned Buddh Gaya, its 
 real claims upon the attention of the traveller are 
 due to the site on which it is built. On that spot 
 near the old Narainjana of the Buddhist writers, and 
 by those low, dreary hills, Gautama successfully 
 defied the terrors and resisted the temptations of the 
 Evil One. Here he attained Btiddha-hood, and from 
 this spot he went forth to proclaim to the world that 
 the way of deliverance from death was found. 
 
 For such as may be interested in the history or 
 doctrines of Buddhism, an ample literature, gathered 
 from many lands and translated from many different 
 ancient and modern languages of Central and Eastern 
 Asia, is now available thanks to the researches and 
 labours of the many learned Orientalists who have 
 toiled in this fruitful field. Possibly, however, for 
 the majority of even well-informed persons, the only 
 source of Buddhist lore has been Sir Edwin Arnold's 
 beautiful and charming poem, "The Light of Asia," 
 which embodies in a refined, Europeanized form, 
 but with glowing Oriental imagery and rich local 
 colouring, such an outline of the Buddhistic legend 
 as cannot but be acceptable to every lover of the 
 beautiful in language or sentiment. But it must 
 be confessed, however reluctantly, that the Prince 
 Siddartha with whose person, life, and thoughts we 
 have of late grown familiar, is, for the most part, 
 a creation of European literature and scholarship. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAYA AND BUDDHISM. 21 r 
 
 The legend, as preserved in various countries, 
 though not in identical forms, relates that Buddha 
 had no earthly father ; but in the fulness of time 
 descended of his own accord from the celestial 
 regions to help the world, and was born on earth 
 as the son of Mya, the wife of Suddhodana, king of 
 Kapelavastu. The universe thrilled with joy to its 
 very core at these auspicious events, and signs and 
 wonders in heaven and earth attended the con- 
 ception and birth of this saviour of mankind, 
 who, on entering the world, stepped boldly forward, 
 proclaiming in a loud voice that he was the chief 
 of the world, and that this was his last birth. 
 When a few days after he was presented at the 
 temple, the Hindu gods did obeisance to him. After 
 this it will not surprise any one to learn that, while 
 still a mere infant, being on one occasion left alone 
 in the shade of a tree, he was found there . some 
 hours later sitting cross-legged in the posture 
 appropriate to deep meditation, and that the shadow 
 of the tree which protected him from the sun had 
 kept its position over him, while the shadows of the 
 other trees had moved, as usual, with the altered 
 position of the sun in the heavens. To such a very 
 precocious and favoured child no earthly teachers 
 could well impart knowledge, and those appointed 
 his tutors had naturally to own their immense in- 
 feriority to their young pupil in all the arts and 
 sciences. In his home at Kapelavastu (in the 
 modern district of Goruckpore), within view of the 
 mighty Himalayas, the boy grew up thoughtful and 
 religious, caring so little for martial pursuits as to 
 call forth the taunts of his fellow nobles. But when 
 
212 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 put to the test he easily surpassed all competitors, 
 performing the most wonderful and startling feats of 
 daring and strength. After the birth of his first son, 
 Gautama resolved upon what has been called " the 
 great renunciation," and abandoning his life of 
 pleasure, went forth alone, at the fated hour, from his 
 father's capital, to discover in the usual Indian way, 
 by solitary contemplation, a remedy for the miseries 
 of existence. Before and since the great renunciation 
 of Gautama men have gone out into the wilderness in 
 quest of peace or in search of knowledge. Before 
 and since Gautama's time nobles like St. Bernardo 
 have, in a fit of piety, given up the pomps and 
 vanities of a brilliant and luxurious world of 
 chivalry and fashion for the solitude of the caves, 
 and round them too the chronicler and poet have 
 woven their glittering curtain of legend and romance. 
 Such an event as the great renunciation afforded 
 ample materials for a highly dramatic treatment, 
 and good use has been made of the situation by the 
 Eastern poets. Even to this day millions of hearts 
 melt with tender pity as they recall the scene in 
 which the prince takes a last fond look at his lovely 
 wife sleeping with her infant on her arm, 1 and steals 
 through the lordly chambers of his sumptuous palace 
 away into the silent moonlight, to find out in poverty 
 and solitude a way of deliverance for mankind. But 
 the deliverance of mankind was an object by no 
 means acceptable to Mara, the Evil One, who, 
 
 1 Years afterwards Buddha revisited his native city and had 
 a most affecting interview with his wife, whose conjugal love, 
 equal to any sacrifice, led her to become one of the first of the 
 Buddhist nuns. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 213 
 
 appearing in the sky, urged Gautama to give up his 
 mission and accept universal sovereignty instead. 
 Unmoved by the glittering offer of temporal power, 
 the prince, burdened with the sorrow of the world, 
 and with the thirst of the wilderness upon him, 
 pursued his way from Kapelavastu to the little hills 
 near Rajagriha, and there studied Hindu philosophy 
 with the Brahman hermits in the caves. Having 
 learnt what these wise men had to teach, he removed 
 with five disciples to the neighbourhood of the place 
 where the temple of Buddh Gaya now stands. What 
 events occurred here ; why this particular spot is 
 regarded by a fourth part of the human race as the 
 most sacred place on earth, we learn from the 
 Lalita Vistara, a work which is supposed to date 
 from the third century before Christ, and which I 
 shall follow in the next few pages. 1 
 
 In accordance with the requirements of Hindu 
 religious opinion in such matters, Gautama now 
 resolved to carry out a six years' penance or mortifi- 
 cation of the flesh. Selecting a suitable place, he 
 sat there cross-legged for the appointed period, 
 exposed, through summer and winter, to sun, wind 
 and rain, practising the severest penances and self- 
 mortifications, in which fasting and suspension of 
 the breath are especially mentioned, till he was 
 reduced almost to the verge of death. A scarcely 
 
 1 ' : The highest authority, on the life of Sakya is the Lalita 
 Vistara. Parts of it were compiled either in his lifetime or 
 immediately after his death, and others within a century and a 
 half of that event'"' (Dr. Mitra's "Buddh Gaya/' p. 22). A 
 French translation of the Lalita Vistara, published in Paris 
 in 1848, by M. Foucaux, introduced this ancient work to the 
 Western world. 
 
214 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 living skeleton, 1 naked and covered with dirt, the 
 sage, who looked like a churchyard ghost, was, we 
 are told in the Lalita Vistara, an ohject of contempt 
 even to the ignorant villagers of Uruvilva, who came 
 to gather leaves and sticks ahout the place in which 
 he had established himself. But the gods were 
 watching the ascetic with intense interest, and fear- 
 ing he would die, his mother, now Maya-Devi, 
 descended from heaven in great distress, attended hy 
 troupes of Apsaras. The hermit reassured her, how- 
 ever, and after covering him with flowers from the 
 Elysian groves, she gracefully retired to the sound of 
 divine music. During his long penance the Gods, 
 the Nagas, the Asouras, and the other heavenly 
 hosts, waited upon Gautama night and day, and 
 offered sacrifices to him ; while, on the other hand, 
 the wicked demons lost no opportunity of whisper- 
 ing doubts and discouragements into his ear, and 
 making tempting suggestions in regard to easier 
 and pleasanter ways of attaining virtue and its 
 rewards. 
 
 His painful austerities were at length successfully 
 accomplished, but, reduced to a condition of great 
 enfeeblement, he felt that he could not thus reach 
 the goal of his endeavours. He resolved, therefore, 
 to abandon all further self-mortifications, and did so, 
 to the great astonishment and disgust of his five 
 companions, who thereupon left him and went away. 
 
 It would, to say the least, be both tedious and 
 
 1 An interesting little piece of sculpture from the Yusufzai 
 district, now in the British Museum (case No. 5), represents 
 the emaciated and repulsive form of Gautama after his arduous 
 penance of six years on the banks of the Narainjana: 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 215 
 
 unprofitable to reproduce, with all the miraculous 
 and trivial details in which the Lalita Vistara 
 abounds, the story of the subsequent events in the 
 hermit's life at Gaya ; so I shall, in the interests 
 of the reader, condense the exuberant narrative into 
 the briefest epitome possible. 
 
 Watched over by admiring gods, Gautama bathed 
 himself in the river Narainjana, put on new clothes, 
 and partook of food prepared for him by a village 
 maiden from the milk of a thousand cows. Vigour 
 and beauty returned to him, and he proceeded to the 
 tree of knowledge. His course was a grand triumphal 
 procession, in which Gods, Upsaras, Nagas, and 
 other beings in thousands and millions took part. 
 Flowers rained down from heaven, perfumed breezes 
 sported over the favoured land ; jewelled pavilions, 
 costly banners, cool tanks of limpid water appeared 
 along the way, while divine music filled the delighted 
 air. Gautama, whose tread shook the startled 
 \vorld, took his seat on some tender grass under the 
 Bo-tree, and commenced his meditations. A bril- 
 liant light issued from his body, and attracted a 
 countless host of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, who 
 came to do him homage. When these had retired, 
 Gautama shot forth from between his eyebrows a 
 terrible flame, which warned Mara, the Evil One, 
 of his approaching triumph. This challenge, for such 
 it was intended to be, aroused the angry passions of 
 the demon king, and he resolved to attack Gautama 
 beneath the Bo-tree. 
 
 Legions of hideous demons, some headless, some 
 with as many as a hundred thousand heads, capable 
 of assuming at will monstrous, terrible, and dis- 
 
216 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 gusting shapes, hurried to the Bo-tree. Armed with 
 all sorts of deadly weapons, their hands and feet 
 entwined with venomous serpents, their ugly features 
 still more deformed by passion, their eyes red and 
 flaming, their misshapen mouths bristling with 
 enormous teeth and spitting forth flames and venom, 
 the host of Mara, howling savagely, amidst a terrible 
 war of elements, surged around Gautama on that 
 eventful night. 1 But the demons could not daunt 
 or even disturb the sage, against whom their 
 weapons were powerless ; their very missiles dis- 
 charged against him being changed to flowers. The 
 Evil One, foiled and disappointed, essayed to com- 
 pass Gautama's defeat by other means. Instead 
 of the deformed and terrible monsters who had 
 threatened his personal safety, there now appeared 
 before him, near the Bo-tree, forms of voluptuous and 
 entrancing beauty, female forms of different ages 
 from girlhood to ripe maturity, who endeavoured to 
 attract his attention by the witchery of their charms. 
 Some exposed their rounded busts and shapely forms 
 while pretending to adjust their garments, others 
 coquettishly veiled their beauties under diaphanous 
 draperies. Some artful ones tried the power of 
 flattery. Some bolder than the rest drew attention 
 to their own charms of person, and invited the sage 
 to share with them the delights of love. Two and 
 thirty modes of seduction were tried by these lovely 
 syrens, but tried in vain. All their soft wooing, all 
 their lascivious blandishments, all their winsome 
 
 1 The reader will hardly fail to recall to mind, and to contrast 
 with this, Milton's description of the temptation in the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 217 
 
 beauty and subtle arts of love, were powerless 
 against Gautama, who had conquered and was 
 superior to all sensuous passions, all carnal desires 
 and weaknesses, and met their advances with a 
 homily on the evils to which the passions give 
 birth. 
 
 The author of the Lalita Vistara. lingers over the 
 details of the voluptuous scene, which affords ample 
 opportunities for poetical and artistic treatment. 
 Human nature changes little, and while I write this, 
 "The Temptation of St. Anthony," by a French 
 artist, representing the father of Western monachism 
 surrounded by a bevy of attractive girls in the 
 costume of Eve before the fall, is being exhibited to 
 admiring hundreds in a London show-room. 
 
 After the discomfiture of the fair temptresses, the 
 demons made one more furious attack upon Gau- 
 tama, and tried to overwhelm him with, amongst 
 other things, red-hot globes of fire of the size of 
 Mount Meru; but the Sage had only to strike the 
 ground with his hand to prostrate his enemies in 
 helpless ruin. 
 
 A curious fresco painting from the caves of Ajanta, 
 reproduced in Dr. Mitra's " Buddh Gaya," is sup- 
 posed to represent Mara's assault on Gautama under 
 the Bo-tree. In the centre of the picture is the 
 colossal and conventional figure of Buddha in con- 
 templation, seated cross-legged on a raised throne. 
 The demons, armed with swords and other weapons, 
 crowd about him with threatening gestures. Some 
 of them, in a rather childish way, are making 
 grimaces at him. One monster, with a stupid face, 
 is pulling down his lower eyelids with his fingers in 
 
218 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH j 
 
 order to display the whites of his eyes ; another is 
 stretching his own mouth, as naughty boys some- 
 times do, with his two forefingers, and glaring at 
 the sage with fiendish eyes. At each side of the 
 throne, and leaning on it, stands an exuberantly 
 developed, bejewelled woman, while four other 
 languishing and characterless beauties of the same 
 type occupy, in a listless and objectless manner, the 
 foreground of the picture in front of and below the 
 throne. Apparently the artist has endeavoured to 
 combine in this one picture the twofold trial to 
 which Gautama is said to have been exposed ; but 
 the grotesque arrangement of figures he has pro- 
 duced, though not wanting in some good touches, 
 fails entirely to do justice to the poet's conception 
 of either ordeal in the wilderness at Gaya. 
 
 From his conflicts with the powers of evil, Gautama 
 eventually arose with the assurance of complete en- 
 lightenment and knowledge of the way of deliverance 
 from the ills of existence. He was now a Buddha. All 
 nature thrilled with intense rapture at the glad event, 
 and to this day the large long-stalked leaves of the 
 peepul trees everywhere quiver with excitement at 
 the recollection of the scenes which were witnessed 
 under the Bo-tree at Gaya. All former Buddhas 
 rejoiced exceedingly, and hosts of heavenly beings 
 hastened to pay their respects to the new Buddha. 
 Without the aid of gods or men, Gautama had, by 
 persistent effort through many lives, at last found 
 the sure path for himself, and had reached the 
 golden summits whence he could look down upon 
 care and sorrow, upon birth and death. Emanci- 
 pated, enlightened, he had now only to enter into 
 
OR, BUDDH GAYA AND BUDDHISM. 219 
 
 his rest. The foiled demon ventured once more into 
 the presence of the Buddha to suggest that his work 
 was accomplished, and the long-sought goal eternal 
 rest at hand. " No ! " said the enlightened one, 
 " not until my followers understand the law and can 
 teach it ; not until Buddha, the law and the order, 
 are established, shall I enter into my rest." With 
 inordinate vanity the three daughters of Mara came 
 forward, even at this eleventh hour, to tempt the 
 Buddha with their mature loveliness, but, like 
 Mr. Haggard's "She" in the wonderful moun- 
 tain cave, they stood near the Bo-tree, shrivelled 
 up into aged decrepitude, from which state they 
 were, however, released on humbly asking the 
 Buddha's pardon. 
 
 But, after all, was it worth while to think of other 
 and less fortunate beings ? Would they understand 
 the method of salvation ? Would they be able to 
 follow the eightfold path that leads to rest ? Such 
 were the thoughts of the Buddha, and, according to 
 the Lalita Vistara, it was nothing short of a direct, 
 earnest, and humble appeal made by Brahma, Indra, 
 and the other gods, that induced the enlightened 
 one to share his knowledge with the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 The resolution thus adopted led to the formal 
 preaching of the law at Benares, where the eight- 
 fold way of deliverance was made known for the 
 benefit of gods and men. 
 
 Although the nobly simple Buddha of many 
 European scholars may not be the Buddha of the 
 East, yet for those who care to look below the 
 surface, the story of the great renunciation, of the 
 
220 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH y 
 
 temptation under the Tree of Knowledge at Gaya, 
 and of the hesitation which Buddha felt to proclaim 
 his discovery to the world, overlaid though it be with 
 a rank growth of sickly legend, has a permanent 
 interest which time cannot destroy. 
 
 By a judicious, if necessarily arbitrary, system of 
 elimination and pruning a system, however, by no 
 means to be depended upon for truthful results 
 the legend of the Buddha may be made to yield an 
 attractive picture of an earnest human soul striving 
 nobly, honestly, and fearlessly to understand and to 
 explain the mystery of sorrow, and happiness of 
 virtue and wickedness. The son of a princely, if not 
 very powerful house, brought up in comfort and 
 honour, of a speculative turn of mind, caring little 
 for the martial pursuits of his peers, comes, through 
 circumstances which it is needless to speculate 
 about, to ask himself, as did the preacher of old, 
 " What profit hath a man of all his labour which he 
 taketh under the sun ? " 
 
 An heir having been born to him, his duty to his 
 family and society was fulfilled. He had attained 
 the mature age of twenty-nine. It was time to retire 
 from the world with its hollow vanities, its stale 
 pleasures, and its unprofitable duties ; it was time 
 to join the society of holy hermits, who, in the soli- 
 tude of the forest, were striving for peace of mind 
 and for communion with the Deity. To the forest 
 he goes, and after years of self-imposed penance, of 
 study, of intercourse with dreamers and teachers, 
 orthodox and heterodox, the noble devotee arrives at 
 certain conclusions of his own in respect to religious 
 doctrines and practices. After some natural hesita- 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 221 
 
 tion as to the prudence or desirability of making his 
 opinions known to an ignorant and sinful world, he 
 decides to do so, and sets up as a regular teacher in 
 the holy city of Benares. 
 
 As I recalled the old story in the shadow of the 
 temple at Buddh Gaya, I felt it a privilege to stand 
 on a spot connected with so many poetic and re- 
 ligious associations, so many episodes embalmed in 
 verse, recorded in sculpture, and still living in the 
 hearts of many nations. Near this memorable spot, 
 the river may still be found as of yore sometimes 
 flowing, sometimes dry a veritable emblem of the 
 instability of things terrestrial ; and the eternal, if 
 not very imposing, hills are there also, still dreaming, 
 perhaps, of the saintly hermits who once peopled 
 their dark caverns. A substantial temple com- 
 memorates, rather inadequately, the great deliverance 
 of gods and men ; but no Buddhist pilgrim, no 
 Buddhist monk, is to be found in the neighbourhood, 
 and not a single worshipper within many and many 
 a score of leagues of it. The memory of other days 
 lingers only in the name. The religion of Buddha, sup- 
 planted by Hinduism at Gaya about fifteen hundred 
 years ago, has nearly forgotten its birthplace, while, 
 under the unsparing criticism of modern European 
 investigation, the personality of Buddha himself as- 
 sumes the most uncertain outline in the dim back- 
 ground of Indian history. Not only has the Buddha's 
 form become shadowy behind the mist of legends 
 raised by his followers, but their very endeavour to 
 glorify him has led some scholars to doubt whether 
 the entire story about him is not, after all, only a 
 solar allegory, as the learned M. Senart maintains. 
 
222 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 Is the Buddhistic legend only a sun myth ? was 
 the unwelcome thought which flitted through my 
 mind as I sat down on an old memorial stone to 
 contemplate the temple as the sun (the real 
 Buddha ?) flooded the old building and its sur- 
 soundings with a glory which ennobled and trans- 
 figured whatever it touched, even the restored temple, 
 hardly venerable now in its nineteenth century gilt 
 and plaster. The pleasant voices of three or four 
 brown-limbed children, with large soft eyes, who 
 had wonderingly followed me to the temple, and 
 were now timidly asking for " backsheesh," recalled 
 me gently from the regions of solar allegory. 
 
 When imagination, literary ingenuity, and destruc- 
 tive criticism have done their utmost, there still 
 remains the fact of the Buddhist religion, behind 
 which a veritable Buddha too is discernible, ob- 
 scured, it is true, by such absurd legends as those, 
 amongst a host of others, which record how, before 
 his birth, the embryo Buddha preached to the 
 angels who watched over him, and how in the 
 sixth year of his Buddhahood he visited heaven 
 to teach his dead mother the way of deliver- 
 ance. But notwithstanding the legends, we may 
 perhaps be able, under the guidance of modern 
 research, to form a more or less accurate idea of the 
 circumstances under which Buddhism arose, and 
 of the earliest form of a religion which, like every 
 other religion, has passed through different phases 
 and undergone much modification and alteration. 
 
 The commonly accepted idea which finds a place 
 in nearly every text-book of general or Oriental his- 
 tory, and in special works on the history of religions, 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 223 
 
 is that Buddhism was a revolt against the intolerable 
 burden of the Brahmanic ritual, a reaction against 
 the galling chains which the ceremonial law of the 
 Brahmans the most complicated system of sacrifices 
 and ceremonies ever invented had coiled round the 
 life of the people of India, till all freedom of action 
 was stifled, and men and women were mere slaves 
 and puppets in the hands of the hereditary priests, 
 who claimed the knowledge and arrogated the right 
 of regulating the minutest details of public or private 
 life. Buddhism is also usually represented as 
 being pre-eminently a manly and vigorous protest 
 against caste, as well as all other invidious distinctions 
 between man and man. These views would not, we 
 may presume, have been put forward and been 
 so favourably received by competent scholars had 
 there not been some plausible grounds for their 
 support. But with the growth of knowledge in 
 respect to Buddhist literature, an excellent plea for 
 a reconsideration of the older opinions regarding the 
 origin and object of Buddhism has been made out 
 by learned students of comparative theology, and 
 particularly by Professor Oldenburg of Berlin, in his 
 important work, "Buddha:' his Life, his Doctrine, his 
 Order." * According to this learned Professor, India 
 in the time of Buddha was divided into many king- 
 doms, and that portion of the country which was the 
 scene of Buddha's missionary activity, far from being 
 under the grinding yoke of the Brahmans, was some- 
 what beyond the pale of Brahmanical influences ; 
 at any rate a good deal more free from such in- 
 
 1 Translated into English by Dr. William Hoey (Williams 
 and Norgate, London). 
 
224 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 fluences than the country which lay further west- 
 ward. This Eastern, and perhaps heterodox, land 
 became the theatre of the activities of rival religious 
 teachers, who it would appear were, according to the 
 fashion of the time, founders or important members 
 of competing monastic orders. Amongst these 
 leaders of men, who were not necessarily Brahmans, 
 the noble Gautama attained a pre-eminent position ; 
 not to the exclusion of others, however, for a certain 
 contemporary and rival of his, Nataputta, founded a 
 sect (the Jains) which exists in India even to this 
 day ; and one of Gautama's own followers, Dewa- 
 datta, broke with his master and founded an order of 
 his own during Buddha's lifetime. 
 
 The community in which Buddha and his contem- 
 poraries laboured had already attained its maturity. 
 It had grown familiar with discussions on all the 
 important problems of existence ; and it is evident 
 from the -extant literature that disputatious philo- 
 sophers, conceited sophists, overbearing and vain- 
 glorious dialecticians, not slow to slander one 
 another or use opprobious epithets, were only too 
 common in the time of Buddha. 1 The religious and 
 philosophical opinions current in that land were 
 not those which find favour with a fresh, vigorous, 
 and progressive race, an historical people confident in 
 themselves and in their protecting gods ; but rather 
 those which are natural to a worn-out society, only 
 anxious for peace and rest. " The old childlike joy in 
 life so manifest in the Vedas had died away." 2 The 
 
 1 See Dr. Fausboll's " Sutta-Nipata," pp. 164-174. 
 - Mr. Rhys Davids in " Encyclopaedia Britannica," article 
 Buddhism. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAYA AND BUDDHISM. 225 
 
 Aryas in their new home had pondered and disputed 
 till they had philosophized away all that makes life 
 beautiful, enjoyable, glorious ; leaving only a residue 
 of misery and death as the undesirable heritage of 
 unhappy man. Whence this pessimism ? Surely 
 the endless monotonous plains, the brazen sky of 
 summer, the soppy ground and steamy heat of the 
 rains, the malaria-laden atmosphere of autumn, 
 redeemed only by the briefest of mild winters, is 
 sufficient to account, in a good measure, for the 
 feeling. Where everything grows up rapidly and as 
 rapidly decays, where men and women who reckon 
 not many years of life have already, in the relaxing 
 climate of Eastern India, passed their prime, have 
 already outlived passions and ambitions, the desire 
 for rest and retirement comes early. To live a 
 quiet inactive life in a shady grove, honoured of men, 
 and with little if anything to do, seems, under the 
 circumstances, to be the most desirable existence pos- 
 sible, when once the too short days of youth and vigour 
 are gone. All excitement, even intellectual excite- 
 ment, becomes distasteful. Quiet contemplation and. 
 mystic reverie are alone tolerable. " There is," 
 says the Dhammapada, " no happiness higher than 
 rest." * But the climate, unfavourable though it be, 
 does not account for all. Those other. and impor- 
 tant factors, the leaden weight of despotism, rigid 
 caste distinctions, a vegetarian diet, and the cir- 
 cumscribed, uneventful life, must also have produced 
 their full effect. The prevailing pessimism of which 
 I write gives us the key to Buddhism, which is " to 
 be regarded as pessimism pure and simple, and 
 1 Professor Max Miiller's "Dhammapada," verse 202. 
 
226 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 as the direct progenitor of the modern German 
 systems." * 
 
 Notwithstanding the religious activity of a 
 heretical character in Behar during the time of 
 Buddha, there is a good deal of evidence to show 
 that the Brahmans, far from being treated as enemies 
 in the early Buddhistic literature, were always men- 
 tioned with the greatest respect ; and as for caste, it 
 does not appear that the Buddhists, in their day of 
 power, ever attempted to abolish it. Caste exists 
 with Buddhism in Ceylon, and indeed it is doubtful 
 whether it was not introduced into the island by the 
 Buddhists themselves. 2 
 
 There was, as we shall presently see, no place in 
 the system established by Buddha for any active 
 opposition to caste, any open hostility to Brah- 
 manism, or any revolt against despotism. There 
 was no special thought of the rights of man, or of 
 the brotherhood of men and nations. The object of 
 Buddhism w r as to escape from the social and political 
 world not to improve it. Deliverance from suffer- 
 ing and death that was the keynote of Buddhism ; 
 that was all it aimed at. " As the vast ocean, O 
 disciples, is impregnated with one taste, the taste of 
 salt, so also, my disciples, this Law and Doctrine is 
 impregnated with one taste, the taste of deliver- 
 ance." 3 
 
 Buddha was neither a social nor a political re- 
 former ! He professed only to point out the means 
 
 1 S ally's " Pessimism," p. 38. 
 
 2 Earth's " Religions of India," p. 125. 
 
 3 Cullavagga ix. I, 4, quoted in Dr. Oldenburgh's " Buddha," 
 p. 2cr. 
 
OR, BUDDH GA YA AND BUDDHISM. 227 
 
 of escape from the world of transmigrations. On the 
 other hand, we shall also see that his way of deliver- 
 ance implied the insufficiency of the national gods, 
 the futility of the ceremonial law, and the inutility 
 of the Brahmanical priesthood. In so far, then, 
 though without open warfare against or active con- 
 demnation of the existing regime, Buddhism un- 
 doubtedly introduced and popularized a new order of 
 conceptions, and has probably on this account been 
 sharply opposed to and contrasted with Hinduism 
 by Oriental scholars. 
 
 However, or whenever, it may have originated, the 
 doctrine of the transmigration of souls was at the 
 time of Buddha an accepted doctrine of Hinduism, 
 and must detain us a moment if we are to form a 
 just conception of Buddha's work and his place 
 among religious teachers. Metempsychosis, or the 
 doctrine that the soul passes through the bodies of 
 various men in successive generations and even 
 takes up its temporary abode in animals and plants, 
 though it finds no place in the Rig Veda, 1 is a 
 fundamental one in the Hindu religion, and, as 
 Professor Knight observes, " is probably the most 
 widely spread and permanently influential of all 
 speculative theories as to the origin and destiny of 
 the soul." 2 It was a prominent belief in the ancient 
 Egyptian religion, and occupies an important place 
 in their " Ritual of the Dead." Pythagoras (530- 
 500 B.C.), who is stated to have travelled in Egypt, 
 appears to have introduced the doctrine to the 
 
 1 Professor Max Miiller's " Chips from a German Work- 
 shop," vol. i. p. 45. 
 
 2 Fortnightly Review, September, 1878. 
 
228 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 Greeks. Plato (429-347 B.C.), as every one knows, 
 indulged in fanciful speculations about the human 
 soul, arguing for its pre-existence on the basis of the 
 curious doctrine of reminiscence. He also believed 
 in the immortality of the soul, and held that its 
 transmigration into successive bodies took place for 
 its punishment or its purification. 1 And it is a very 
 remarkable fact in the history of human opinions 
 that there have been sects (e.g. the followers of Car- 
 pocrates) who have believed that successive re-births 
 were necessary in order that souls should " pass 
 through every form of action usually reputed sinful, 
 in order to complete their defiance of the powers 
 which rule the world." 2 When and how the doc- 
 trine originated in India is not known. It has at 
 any rate been an article of faith there for at least 
 twenty-five centuries. If not derived directly from 
 Egypt or the indigenous populations amongst whom 
 the Aryas settled, it seems probable that the intense 
 deep-rooted pantheism of the Brahmans may have 
 suggested the idea, as an inference from the belief in 
 the unity of all life, human or other, and the inde- 
 structibility of life as such. The ethical justification 
 of this doctrine is the apparent injustice of the distri- 
 bution of riches and poverty, of happiness and misery, 
 in this present life. The sufferings of the virtuous 
 become intelligible if they are the punishment in- 
 flicted for evil done in a previous existence ; so also 
 
 1 Meno, pp. 260-273 ; Phsedo, pp. 418, 429, 430, 463 ; Pha> 
 drus, pp. 582, 583, of Professor Jowett's translation of the Dia- 
 logues, vol. i., 1871. 
 
 2 Dean Hansel's " The Gnostic Heresies of the First and 
 Second Centuries" (London : John Murray, 1875). 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 229 
 
 the triumph and happiness of the wicked are recon- 
 cilable with the sense of abstract justice, if the life 
 of the present time is only one phase of a series of 
 successive existences. That in the opinion of the 
 Oriental world the doctrine of metempsychosis could 
 afford consolation and teach fortitude in trouble, we 
 may judge from the story of Queen Samavati, who, 
 when her palace was on fire and all hope of escape 
 cut off, exhorted her attendants to bear in mind that 
 " in the countless existences that have had no begin- 
 ning it would be impossible to reckon the number of 
 times that they had perished by fire." * 
 
 Wherever the doctrine may have come from, or 
 however it may have originated, its early accept- 
 ance in India is certain, and equally certain that 
 while accepting it as the decree of a Fate superior to 
 all gods, the Indian, in a sort of despair, cast about 
 for some means of escape from its pitiless round of 
 formation and dissolution. Life, in the opinion of 
 the Indian sage, being not worth living, the idea of 
 an endless succession of lives was simply intolerable, 
 and the object of every religious teacher was to show 
 a way out of this gloomy vortex of endless births and 
 endless deaths. 2 Buddha accepted the doctrine of 
 the transmigration of souls. He had himself like 
 every one else passed through a long series of pre- 
 vious existences, and we are in possession of a big 
 story-book containing accounts of his previous lives, 
 a story-book so ancient that it is believed to be the 
 
 1 Captain Rogers' translation of Buddhaghosha's " Parables," 
 p. 56. 
 
 " Religious Thought and Life in India," by Sir Monier 
 Williams, p. 41. 
 
230 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 oldest collection of folk-tales in the world. Old 
 though it be, it has not yet lost its charm for the 
 simple children of the East, who, in the lovely palm- 
 groves cf Ceylon and elsewhere, still listen to its 
 recital with wonder and delight. 
 
 In respect to the Buddhist doctrine of Metempsy- 
 chosis, we are warned by competent investigators 
 that, according to Buddha's teaching, it is not one and 
 the same soul which inhabits in succession a series 
 of different forms ; but that, by the operation of a 
 primordeal, inexorable, and, no doubt, inexplicable 
 law, the action of one sentient being gives rise at 
 its dissolution to the birth of another sentient being, 
 whose state or condition is good or bad in accord- 
 ance with the merits or demerits of the being or long 
 chain of sentient beings whom it succeeds. 1 Like 
 the flame of a lamp, which is not the same flame at 
 successive moments, but is, as it were, being unin- 
 
 1 " Karma, from a Buddhist point of view, avoids the super- 
 stitious extreme, on the one hand, of those who believe in the 
 separate existence of some entity called the soul ; and the irre- 
 ligious extreme, on the other, of those who do not believe in 
 moral justice and retribution. Buddhism claims to have looked 
 through the word soul for the fact it purports to cover ; and to 
 have found no fact at all, but only one or other of twenty dif- 
 ferent delusions which blind the eyes of men. Nevertheless, 
 Buddhism is convinced that if a man reaps sorrow, disappoint- 
 ment, pain, he himself, and no other, must at some time have 
 sown folly, error, sin ; and if not in this life, thenjn some former 
 birth. Where, then, in the latter case, is the identity between 
 him who sows and him who reaps ? In that which alone re- 
 mains when a man dies, and the constituent parts of the sen- 
 tient being are dissolved ; in the result, namely, of his action, 
 speech, and thought, in his good or evil Karma (literally his 
 ' doing ') which does, not die."" Buddhism," by T. W. Rhys 
 Davids, p. 103. 
 
OR, BUDDH GA YA AND BUDDHISM. 231 
 
 terruptedly extinguished and re-kindled, so sentient 
 existence flows on, never the same, yet always linked 
 with preceding sentient existences. But " the 
 number of these beings never varies save on those 
 few occasions when one of them, either in earth or 
 heaven, attains Nirvana." * Such were the subtle 
 ideas of the Buddhist metaphysicians ; which did not, 
 however, trouble the common people, who naturally 
 believed in the identity of the person or soul through 
 successive lives. 
 
 According to the Buddhists, the eightfold path 
 leading to enlightenment and deliverance is made 
 up of right faith, right resolve, right speech, right 
 action, right living, right effort, right thought, right 
 self-concentration, 2 and involved, it will be observed, 
 not only good conduct, but also intellectual excel- 
 lence and self-restraint. Self-mortification, which 
 holds the first place in the Hindu scheme of deliver- 
 ance, is left out by Buddha, whose teaching in this 
 respect diverges entirely from the orthodox school 
 from which it sprang. " Not nakedness, not platted 
 hair, not dirt, not fasting, or lying on the earth, not 
 rubbing with dust, not sitting motionless, can purify 
 a mortal who has not overcome desires." 3 
 
 The gods, whether Hindu or other, have no 
 special place in the Buddhistic system. The exist- 
 ence of gods and spirits is not denied quite the 
 reverse; but the gods, like men, are themselves 
 subject to the evils of birth and death. They may 
 
 1 Mr. Rhys Davids in "Encyclopaedia Britannica," article 
 Buddhism. 
 
 Dr. Oldenberg's "Buddha," p. 128. 
 
 3 Professor Max Miiller's " Dhammapada," verse 141. 
 
232 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 in previous lives have been men, or animals, or 
 plants, or may again in future lives pass through 
 like forms, so it is useless to look to them for assist- 
 ance. True, the gods enjoy a very much longer and 
 happier existence than men do, but the world of the 
 gods, like the other worlds, has its limit of duration 
 and is reorganized at the end of each Kalpa. 
 Under such a system of belief the gods dwindle 
 away into insignificance, and with the degrada- 
 tion of the old gods their priests necessarily sink 
 into the background. Indeed "God and the Uni- 
 verse trouble not the Buddhist ; he knows only one 
 question, How shall I in this world of suffering be 
 delivered from suffering ? " I 
 
 The morality of Buddhism is of the highest type. 
 " It will not be deemed rash," says the Roman 
 Catholic Bishop Bigandet, " to assert that most of 
 the moral truths prescribed by the gospel are to be 
 met with in the Buddhistic scriptures." It should 
 be borne in mind, however, in this connection, that 
 Buddha says coldly: "Let no man love anything; 
 loss of the beloved is evil. Those who love nothing 
 and hate nothing have no fetters. . . . From affec- 
 tion comes grief, from affection comes fear; he who 
 is free from affection knows neither grief nor fear," 2 
 which may be wise counsel from Buddha's point of 
 view, but is assuredly selfish, and differs from that 
 other injunction : " Love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 But leaving comparisons aside, the accepted Budd- 
 hist doctrine of moral retribution must have had a 
 wholesome effect upon the life of the follower of 
 
 1 Dr. Olclenberg's "Buddha," p. 130. 
 
 2 Professor Max Miiller's " Dhammapada," verses 211,213. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 233 
 
 Gautama, who is warned that " not in the heavens, 
 not in the midst of the sea, not if thou hidest thy- 
 self away in the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou 
 find a place on earth where thou canst escape the 
 fruit of thy evil actions." * On the other hand, 
 good actions as certainly brought their reward in 
 the present or some future life ; in this or some 
 other world. But even good actions cannot relieve 
 a man from the necessity of re-birth, though they 
 might help him to the attainment of that frame of 
 mind which leads to enlightenment and eventual 
 emancipation from birth and death. Final and 
 complete deliverance could be attained only through 
 Xirvana, which (we here follow Mr. Rhys Davids) 
 is a sinless, calm state of mind ; perfect peace, 
 goodness, and wisdom ; to be followed after the 
 natural dissolution of the body by " utter death, 
 with no new life to follow." Professor Max M tiller, 
 while admitting that according to the Buddhist 
 canon " Nirvana, the highest aim, the summum 
 bonuin of Buddhism, is the absolute nothing," be- 
 lieves that the popular view of Nirvana represents 
 the original teaching of Buddha, and that according 
 to this popular view Nirvana is "the entrance of the 
 soul into rest, a subduing of all wishes and desires, 
 indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil, an 
 absorption of the soul in itself and a freedom from 
 the circle of existences from birth to death, and 
 from death to a new birth." 2 But an existence 
 without wishes and desires, without joy and pain, 
 
 1 " Dhammapada," verse 127. 
 
 .-.Introduction to Captain Rogers' translation of Buddha - 
 ghosha's " Parables," pp. xl., xlv. Trubner and Co., 1870. 
 
234 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH j 
 
 without even a preference for good or evil, if not 
 annihilation is very near it indeed. Professor 
 Oldenburg, on his part, trys to show that Buddha 
 himself purposely and deliberately evaded this im- 
 portant question. 
 
 Whatever may have been the stern creed of the 
 philosopher, the rank and file of Buddhists did not 
 look forward to annihilation, even as a final state, 
 to be reached by the soul " after having passed 
 through the worlds of the gods and of the highest 
 spirits," T and it was perhaps rarely if ever seriously 
 sought after even by the philosopher. The popular 
 mind never did accept the philosophical negation, 
 but imagined for itself pleasant heavens of enjoy- 
 ment beyond the dark valley. And there were hells, 
 too, for the wicked. " Some people are born again ; 
 evil-doers go to hell, righteous people go to heaven ; 
 those who are free from all worldly desires enter 
 Nirvana." 2 Virtue and good works here would 
 entail, as a natural consequence, happiness and 
 reward in the next existence : wickedness and wrong 
 actions the reverse. This was enough, surely, for 
 the ordinary man. He was by no means under 
 the necessity of seeking after annihilation, and if it 
 was really as their philosophers perhaps held the 
 highest attainable good ; why, let those who wanted 
 it strive for it. The layman, at any rate, had no 
 hope of attaining Nirvana and annihilation as the 
 result of his labours and conduct in this life. It was 
 the monk and the monk alone who, cut off from con- 
 tact with the world and its temptations, could have 
 
 1 Professor Max M tiller's " Essay on Buddhistic Nihilism." 
 
 2 Professor Max Miiller's " Dhammapada," verse 126. 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 235 
 
 any rational expectation of attaining the necessary 
 freedom from desires of all kinds which preceded 
 and led to Nirvana renunciation of the world being 
 indeed the first step towards freedom. Accordingly 
 we find that Buddhism was essentially a monastic 
 system, " a church of monks and nuns," with the 
 absolutely necessary and very convenient addition of 
 lay sympathizers, supporters, and followers, who, if 
 cut off from the highest possible reward, had still 
 much to look forward to. For, as Professor Olden- 
 berg remarks : " The Buddhist believer who did not 
 feel in himself the power to renounce the world, 
 could console himself with coming ages ; he could 
 hope for this, that it might then be vouchsafed to 
 him, as a disciple of Mettayya, or one of the count- 
 less Buddhas who shall come after him, to don 
 the garb of a monk, and to taste the bliss of deliver- 
 ance." J This, then, was the religion which Gau- 
 tama went forth from Uruvela now Buddh Gaya 
 to preach to men and gods. 
 
 From the very earliest times this was the most 
 sacred spot in the Motherland of Buddhism. Here 
 was the " Tree of Knowledge " which early became 
 an object of deep veneration and a place of pilgrim- 
 age for monks and nuns, and the celebration of 
 special festivals. Where the temple of Buddh 
 Gaya has stood for thirteen centuries, there was, 
 before its erection, a Vcliara or monastery. So that 
 on this spot, year after year, tonsured monks in 
 orange-coloured rags, admitted from all castes 
 without distinction, 2 pledged to poverty and chastity 
 
 1 Dr. Oldenberg's " Buddha," p. 387. 
 
 2 This was not a Buddhist innovation. Admission to Hindu 
 
236 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH ; 
 
 and bound to abstain from willingly taking the life 
 of any creature, have passed the rainy season in 
 quiet meditation and solitary study, or perhaps not 
 less frequently in quarrelling, evil-speaking, and 
 cursing, for we learn from the story of, Tissa-Thera 
 and others that the monks were not above such 
 weaknesses. 1 From this place they would go daily, 
 almsbowl in hand, to the neighbouring villages, to 
 beg the morsels for their -daily meal of rice, bread, 
 fish, or even meat; 2 and here, in accordance with the 
 rules of the order, they would punctually meet twice 
 a month, at night, for the performance of the most 
 important duty of the public confessional. Nuns, 
 too, probably availed themselves of the shelter 
 afforded by the Vehara at Buddh Gaya, for women 
 were admitted into the order, although always re- 
 garded as in subordination to the monks. 
 
 When the rainy season was over, the monks would 
 begin their annual wanderings through the country, 
 carrying with them the doctrines of their church. 
 Doubtless it was these annual missionary wander- 
 ings which helped so much to spread the religion 
 of Buddha amongst a people who, weary of Brah- 
 manical tyranny and interference, must have sighed 
 for a little freedom of thought and action. 
 
 The Buddhism which spread far and wide amongst 
 
 ascetic orders was also open to men of all castes, a fact which 
 looks like a standing protest against the proud exclusiveness of 
 the Brahman. 
 
 1 Buddhaghosha's " Parables." 
 
 2 The use of meat as food does not appear to have been 
 prohibited, although the monks themselves were required not 
 to kill any living thing. Buddha himself died after a hearty 
 meal of young pork. 
 
(97?, BUDDH GA YA AND BUDDHISM. 237 
 
 the people could not, however, have been the philo- 
 sophical creed which has as its highest aim Nirvana 
 and annihilation, to be attained only after complete 
 extinction of all desire for life, all preference for good 
 or evil, right or wrong. Such a creed was un- 
 doubtedly calculated to produce only a narrow, 
 selfish, and exceedingly limited sect. What the 
 Buddhism was which made its way to popularity we 
 may gather from such a work as Buddhaghosha's 
 11 Parables," a collection of very ancient stories, 1 de- 
 signed, it would seem, to illustrate how virtue, and 
 especially liberality to monks, is rewarded ; and how 
 wickedness, but more particularly offences against 
 the monks, is punished in succeeding existences. 
 One gem there is in this collection, the story of 
 Kisagotami and her dead child, in which the univer- 
 sality of death is touchingly and beautifully brought 
 home to the understanding of the bereaved mother. 
 But apart from such literary interest as they may 
 possess, these so-called parables are almost all of 
 the,m extravagant, stupid, and tiresome, full of mar- 
 vels and puerilities. For example, in these tales the 
 monks fly about and transport themselves from place 
 to place in an incredibly short space of time. One 
 monk forbids the sun to rise, and it obeys ; another, 
 to gratify a whim, peoples a monastery with a thou- 
 sand phantom monks of his own creation, and so on. 
 
 1 " I do not think that scholars calling these parables the par- 
 ables of Mahinda, if not of Buddha himself, and referring their 
 elate to the third century B.C., could expose themselves at pre- 
 sent to any formidable criticism." Professor Max Miiller's 
 Introduction to Captain Rogers' translation of Buddhaghosha's 
 " Parables," p. xvii. 
 
238 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 What these parables really do inculcate is liberality 
 and kindness to monks. Be liberal to the monks, 
 and you will get an immediate and manifold reward, 
 or perhaps as soon as you die you will be re-born 
 the son of a great king, or other important person- 
 age. Do evil, and especially be niggardly towards 
 the monks, and you must expect poverty and want 
 in your next life, or you may be condemned to boil 
 for ages, like a grain of rice, in the great hellpot 
 prepared for evil-doers. Such a system, leading 
 inevitably to the pride, luxury, ignorance, and cor- 
 ruption of the monks, contained within itself the 
 seeds of its own decay, and it is not surprising that 
 when it degenerated as it seems to have done quickly 
 enough into devil-worship 1 and witchcraft, the power- 
 ful hereditary Brahmanical priesthood were able to 
 exterminate Buddhism in India during the eighth 
 and ninth centuries of our era. Of the history of 
 this period we know nothing. History was, for 
 many reasons, never cultivated in India ; but if Dr. 
 Mitra is right, we have, alas ! instead of the history 
 of the stirring events of a most important period, a 
 monstrous and absurd allegory about a giant some 
 hundreds of miles high. 
 
 If the foregoing account of early Buddhism be a 
 fairly correct one, the reader may well ask why 
 there is any temple at all at Buddh Gaya. If the 
 gods cannot help men, to whom has the temple been 
 erected ? Let us explore the fane itself for an 
 answer. Entering the cello, by the eastern and only 
 
 1 In Euddhaghosha's parables we are told that " all who 
 make offerings to the guardian-Nats of trees will be rewarded 
 (" Parables/" p. 139). 
 
OR, BUDDH CAYA AND BUDDHISM. 239 
 
 door, we find a huge gilt figure of Buddha. There 
 it is, seated cross-legged, with listless hands and 
 impassive features, stiff, constrained, conventional ; 
 the embodiment, in concrete form, of the highest 
 ideal of Indian religious aspiration; "the man who 
 is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who 
 has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced 
 all desires." * There sits the Buddha of the East, 
 the duly canonized saint of the Romish calendar, for, 
 strange as it may seem, Buddha and St. Joshaphat 
 are undoubtedly one and the same person. 2 Although 
 not a god, it is not difficult to understand how the 
 gratitude of men would lead them to raise temples 
 in honour of the man who, higher than gods, taught 
 them the path of deliverance. But after all, in a 
 religion like Buddhism, the temple is really an 
 anomaly, and a recent well-informed writer tells us 
 that in China, where Buddhism is the nominal 
 religion of the majority of the people, the temple " is 
 from time to time used as a theatre, a club, a cara- 
 vanserai, or a market. It contains no furniture than 
 the altar and the stools on which rest the different 
 forms of Buddha," which are readily removed and 
 placed upon the ground without ceremony to suit the 
 convenience of the traveller who may use the temple 
 as a rest house. 3 
 
 The life history of Buddha, and what he himself 
 
 1 '' Dbammapada," chap. vi. p. 97. 
 
 2 On this point the reader may consult Professor Max 
 Miiller's Essay on the Migration of Fables (" Selected Essays," 
 vol. i. pp. 541-547). 
 
 " China : Its Social, Political, and Religious Life," by M. 
 (i. Mug. Simon, pp. 64-65. London, 1887. 
 
240 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH; 
 
 actually taught, some four and twenty centuries ago, 
 must ever remain doubtful matters, and doubtful too 
 will always be the vexed question of the extent to 
 which Christianity has been influenced by Buddhism 
 and Buddhism by Christianity. In the absence of 
 any reliable chronology to help us, and with a mass 
 of legends at our disposal instead of history, we shall 
 never be able to know, with any degree of accuracy, 
 at what particular time special institutions, cere- 
 monials, or creeds came into existence in the East ; 
 we shall never have any reasonable confidence in the 
 dates assigned, by this or that scholar, to the ancient 
 works on which we must fall back for our facts about 
 the Eastern world ; nor probably will scholars ever 
 be able to tell us to what extent these works have 
 undergone alteration and modification in compara- 
 tively modern times. Under such circumstances, 
 the interesting controversy as to whether the un- 
 doubted resemblances between the Buddhist and 
 Christian monastic systems are due to the influence 
 of Buddhism on Christianity, or the reverse, will 
 probably remain unfruitful in its results. Of this, 
 however, we can assure ourselves, that primitive 
 Buddhism was something different from, something 
 superior to, modern Buddhism, of which, as might 
 have been expected, there are many existing varieties. 
 Even the stay-at-home Englishman has become 
 familiar with the Buddhist idols in the museums, 
 and their so-called prayer-wheels, hollow cylinders 
 containing written prayers, which, set revolving by 
 water power or other means, grind out the prayers 
 of a household or a village. He will even find, in 
 the national collections, the hideous masks used in 
 
OR, BUDDH GAY A AND BUDDHISM. 241 
 
 Ceylon T and elsewhere by modern Buddhists in their 
 devil-worship ; and he can see supposed sacred relics 
 of Buddha himself in the British Museum. 2 The 
 worship of relics early obtained favour in the Budd- 
 hist Church, and has not lost its fervour, if I may 
 judge from what I saw in 1874, when I had the good 
 fortune to witness the procession of elephants carry- 
 ing, by torchlight, the supposed tooth of Buddha 
 through the streets of the beautiful mountain town 
 of Kandy, in Ceylon, with the usual accompaniment 
 of drums and other equally noisy instruments of 
 music. With respect to these worshippers of the 
 tooth relic, a recent writer says : " In practice the 
 Ceylon Buddhist, among the masses, is both better 
 and worse than his creed. Better, because instead of 
 a distant Nirvana, or a series of births, he has before 
 him the next birth only, which he thinks will be in 
 heaven if he is good, and in hell if he is bad; because 
 he calls on God in times of distress, and has a sort 
 of faith in the One Creator, whom his priests would 
 teach him to deny. Worse, because his real refuge is 
 neither Buddha, nor his books, nor his order, but 
 devils and devil-priests, and charms and astrology, 
 and every form of grovelling superstition. "3 
 
 Preparing to leave the temple about which I have 
 been writing, I witnessed a scene which showed me 
 how completely Hinduism had appropriated to its 
 own use this holy place of the Buddhists, and how 
 futile had been the teaching of Buddha to lift from 
 off the shoulders of his countrymen the burden of 
 
 1 British Museum, case 19-26. 2 Ibid., case 155. 
 
 3 Article on Buddhism by the Bishop of Colombo in Nine- 
 teenth Century for July, 1888. 
 
 16 
 
242 THE MOST SACRED SPOT ON EARTH. 
 
 the Brahmanical ritual. Near the old temple two 
 men were performing the ceremony of the shraad. 
 They had come from long distances, and were both 
 elderly men. A boy Brahman officiated. These 
 three sat down on the ground together ; the boy 
 repeated the prescribed formularies, and from time 
 to time took lumps of wheat-flour mixed with water 
 from a brass plate and placed them on the ground 
 before him. The two men repeated the words of the 
 Brahman youth, and put little pats of flour on the 
 ground as he did, and their ancestors had gained one 
 more step towards the attainment of happiness. 
 
 A last look at the old temple with its new face, 
 and then homewards. My path lay by the tombs of 
 the M ah ants, who had appropriated to their own use 
 this sacred spot at Buddh Gaya. If the Buddhists 
 are right, those defunct Mahants must still have been 
 near me, though somewhat transformed, for Buddha- 
 ghosha assures us that " whoever shall take for 
 himself or for another any consecrated land, shall 
 become a mite, or white ant, upon that consecrated 
 land for the whole of a hundred thousand cycles." 
 Perhaps I inadvertently crushed them under foot, 
 only to be re-born there and then. 
 
PART II. 
 
I. 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Ix a work published a few years ago, Mr. Talboys 
 Wheeler wrote : 
 
 " As a matter of fact, plots and intrigues of one sort or 
 another are the daily life of the natives of India. There are 
 more plots and intrigues in a single establishment of native 
 servants than in a hundred English households. An English- 
 man in India, who chooses to study the character of his servants, 
 will know more in a few months of native thoughts and ways 
 than he can learn in books from the study of a lifetime." r 
 
 No one who knows anything about the matter 
 will hesitate to endorse this opinion, with the very 
 necessary caution, however, that although native 
 servants in the households of Europeans in India 
 possess, to the full extent, the general charac- 
 teristics of their fellow-countrymen, they form, after 
 all, a very small class out of the vast population of 
 the country regarding whose domestic life, whether 
 in the hut of the peasant or the zenana of the 
 gentleman, Europeans in India have little direct 
 knowledge. At the same time it has to be borne 
 
 1 Note at page 628 of Mr. Talboys Wheeler's " Short History 
 of India." Macmillan Co., 1880. 
 
246 INTRO D UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 in mind that the native servants of Europeans in 
 India form a class very considerably above the 
 average of their fellow-countrymen in intelligence 
 and experience of the world. So that however 
 ignorant and superstitious they may appear in these 
 pages, the bulk of the Indian people the agricul- 
 tural population must be placed upon a decidedly 
 lower intellectual level. 
 
 The following sketches cf the domestic life of the 
 lower orders are, in every case, based on full notes 
 jotted down at the time at which the events described 
 actually occurred or the anecdotes were related to 
 me, and, whatever their value, may at least claim to 
 embody, as accurately as possible, the facts which 
 came under my observation. 
 
II. 
 
 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POS- 
 SESSION, AND OTHER SUPER- 
 STITIONS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 DURING the intensely hot summer nights at Agra 
 we were obliged to keep nearly every door and 
 window of our bungalow open to let in any wandering 
 breeze that might be about, and since thieves (and 
 they abound in that district) might quite as easily 
 as stray zephyrs find their way into the house, it 
 was necessary to have a night-watchman, specially 
 entrusted with the guardianship of the premises 
 during the hours of darkness. The chowkeedar, as 
 this watchman was called, received the sum of five 
 rupees as his monthly wages, and lived in a small 
 out-house in the compound. All night he was 
 supposed to be on the look-out, taking his rounds 
 and, according to Indian custom, uttering unearthly 
 yells to rcare away robbers. But from dawn till 
 dewy eve his time was his own. To sleep away a 
 good portion of the day when the rest of the world 
 was astir, and to wake alone all the quiet night long, 
 was a dull, lonely life, so one day our chowkeedar 
 
248 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 brought home a wife to cheer his solitude and 
 prepare his rotee. The woman was in rags, and 
 filthy rags too, when she came to live with the 
 chowkeedar, but he bought her a new cloth as a 
 nuptial present on the day she joined him. When 
 he made her acquaintance shall I say fell in love 
 with her ? she was employed in grinding corn for 
 a miller in the bazaar, who provided her with food 
 in return for her labour. For months, perhaps for 
 years, she had laboured for him at the monotonous 
 drudgery of grinding corn in a hand-mill. From 
 morning till evening her duty had been to make 
 the upper revolve upon the nether mill-stone with 
 one hand, while she fed the hopper with the other, 
 but yet she was in the miller's debt to the extent of 
 four rupees. Leave hirri she could not until she had 
 either paid or worked off the amount, which last 
 was an impossible task, seeing that, according to the 
 miller's calculation, her keep was at best only just 
 covered by the work she did. As the miller's claim 
 to the woman's services was not to be disputed, the 
 chowkeedar borrowed the money needed to free her, 
 and, having paid it to the miller, quietly marched 
 her off. But the match was an unfortunate one. 
 The half-starved woman, as soon as she got the 
 opportunity, began to make up for the scanty meals 
 she had so long been forced to live upon. She 
 devoured the chowkeedar's provisions in a manner 
 he had not calculated upon, so he told her to go 
 back to her old master, from whom he would 
 claim a refund of the four rupees he had paid 
 on her account. The discarded wife, now a free 
 woman, went her way, but the chowkeedar never 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 249 
 
 got back his purchase money. The matter, how- 
 ever, did not end there. Months went by, and 
 the friends from whom the chowkeedarhad borrowed 
 the money which he paid to the miller wanted to 
 be settled with. They (a man and his wife) came 
 to the chowkeedar to demand payment. A dispute 
 arose, abusive language was freely resorted to ; the 
 quarrel ended in a fight, in which the chowkeedar 
 came off victorious. The enraged and ill-used credi- 
 tors beat a hasty retreat, heaping dire curses upon 
 the devoted head of the chowkeedar, and threatening 
 that a day of reckoning would soon come. Two or 
 three days after this fracas the victor was struck 
 down by a rather sharp attack of fever. He com- 
 plained of severe pain in the chest, and declared 
 that when alone at night demons used to come and 
 ride upon his breast. It was pitiful to see the poor 
 man lying upon a scrap of mat, without a pillow for 
 his head, and with only a rag of a quilt to cover him. 
 His cabin contained but a few earthen pots and one 
 brass lotah for water, and these were all his earthly 
 possessions. Occasionally a fellow-servant would 
 give him a drop of water, and perhaps, once a day, 
 offer to bake him some bread. As he lay tossing in 
 high fever on his wretched mat, he called to mind 
 the curses that had been hurled at him by his two 
 baffled creditors, and he was convinced that his 
 illness was but the fulfilment of those curses. He 
 was, in fact, according to his own idea, possessed, 
 and could not possibly recover unless the curses 
 were withdrawn. He begged piteously that the 
 creditors he had so summarily got rid of only a few 
 days before should be brought to him, and when 
 
250 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 they came he grovelled at their feet, begging of them 
 to remove the curses. At first they seemed rather 
 surprised, but, profiting by the occasion, they pro- 
 mised to do so, provided he paid them up in full 
 the very next time he received his wages from me. 
 The chowkeedar readily consented. Thereupon the 
 woman sat down beside him, sprinkled a little water 
 on him, made several passes over his person in a 
 deliberate manner with a small branch of the neein- 
 tree, and withdrew the curses that had been piled 
 upon his devoted head. Relieved in mind by this 
 simple ceremony of exorcism, the sick man began to 
 rally rapidly, and in a few days was restored to 
 health and to his round of nightly duty. 
 
 One morning in June my coachman fell down in a 
 fit not far from the door of the room in which I was 
 seated. I went out to see him, and found several 
 natives standing round the prostrate figure, but, 
 with characteristic apathy, simply looking on without 
 attempting to render the slightest assistance. When 
 
 I suggested that they should splash some water 
 upon his face, all of them objected on the ground 
 that they were not of the same caste as the coach- 
 man, and therefore ought not to do it. Amongst 
 the on-lookers was an old woman, who stated in a 
 very positive tone that water was by no means 
 necessary, the proper remedy for the fit being merely 
 to take the man's shoes off his feet and make him 
 smell them. This remedy, although curious, was 
 not so revolting as that recommended for the "fall- 
 ing-sickness " in some old books of medicine, viz., 
 
 II an ounce or two of the brains of a young man 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 251 
 
 carefully dried over the fire." z However, the man 
 was brought round without resorting to the old 
 woman's specific. Inquiring later in the day, I was 
 told that the coachman was not subject to such fits, 
 that he had never had one before, and that it was 
 clearly a case of witchcraft. He had been sitting 
 in a punchayat (or council) of his caste-people the 
 day before, and the person against whom he had 
 given his vote must have cursed him. Hence these 
 dire results. But subsequently the coachman was 
 struck down on two or three occasions by severe 
 and very sudden fits, and himself attributed them 
 to the spells cast upon him by a wife who had 
 deserted him, and who, I suspect, had not been 
 over well treated by her lord. On my giving him 
 notice of my intention of dispensing with his 
 services, he assured me in the most confident 
 manner that he would not get another fit, as he 
 had, with the assistance of an adept, sent the demon 
 back to take possession of and plague his wicked 
 wife, who was the sole cause of his troubles. 
 
 On another occasion there came to my knowledge 
 the case of a woman who attributed her illness (a 
 severe hemorrhage) to the magic arts of a fellow- 
 servant. According to her story the man concerned 
 had made improper advances to her, and on her 
 repulsing him he vowed vengeance against her. A 
 few days after this she got ill, and found out that her 
 enemy, as we may now call him, had gone to a well 
 with a male companion ; that they had carried with 
 them a lemon, which they cut in halves, and, repeat- 
 Hugh Miller's "My Schools and Schoolmasters," p. 55. 
 
252 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 ing some spells, squeezed out the juice of the fruit 
 into the well, accompanying the act with the expres- 
 sion of a wish that the blood of so and so (naming 
 her) might pour out as the juice had just oozed out 
 of the lemon under the pressure of their hands. 
 The curse, of course, had its effect, and the unfortu- 
 nate woman was a miserable sufferer for her virtuous 
 conduct. It only remains to be added that the 
 hapless woman learnt the details above given from 
 the wife of the man who aided her enemy and 
 quondam lover in carrying out the mischievous and 
 wicked rites which cost her so dear. 
 
 Not only have the powerful spells of the wicked 
 to be dreaded ; the dead are not less capable of 
 resenting any neglect or affront, and when offended 
 have to be duly propitiated by gifts and offerings. A 
 servant of mine at Lahore had been absent from 
 his duties for some days on account of ill-health. 
 Inquiring into his condition and the treatment he 
 had been receiving, I learned that he had, a few days 
 previously, been prostrated by an attack of fever. 
 On the second day of his illness he was, apparently, 
 delirious, and in that state revealed the fact that his 
 fever was due to his having pulled down some 
 branches from a babool tree [Acacia Arabica) which 
 grew over a Syud's grave just outside my compound. 
 It was a miserable dilapidated structure this Syud's 
 grave, but the dead occupant was none the less 
 jealous of its honour. According to the sick man the 
 Syud had taken possession of him, and was wreaking 
 his vengeance upon him for having dared to dis- 
 honour his shrine. Something had to be done to 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 253 
 
 appease the irate saint, and so the invalid's afflicted 
 wife caused a mussuk (leather bag) of water to be 
 poured over the Syud's grave, apparently to cool his 
 temper. At the same time a fellow-servant, skilled 
 in such matters, administered a charmed clove to the 
 patient in order to break the spell which had been 
 cast upon him by the indignant Syud. But the 
 invalid, instead of improving, became worse, and in 
 his delirium the spirit of the Syud, which had now 
 taken full possession of him, kept uttering through 
 the mouth of the fever- stricken man such contemp- 
 tuous remarks as these " Oh, indeed ! you have 
 eaten a charmed clove, have you ? I will give you a 
 stomach full of charmed cloves ! " 
 
 The unsuccessful exorcist was called in to try 
 another spell, but as, after the clove episode, the 
 efficacy of his spells appeared somewhat doubtful, 
 the precaution was also taken of endeavouring to 
 pacify the Syud with gifts. He was promised a 
 chcraghy or light, upon his tomb, for a certain number 
 of successive Thursday evenings, with an offering of 
 sweetmeats in addition, if he would but forgive the 
 offender. Still the invalid did not mend, and his 
 wife was making up her mind to promise the Syud a 
 more worthy peace-offering (a cock or a kid) if he 
 would only restore her husband to health, when I 
 became acquainted with the particulars of the case, 
 and recommended her to postpone her vow of a costly 
 offering till she had first tried the effects of sulphate 
 of quinine. I gave her some of the drug with direc- 
 tions how to use it. She followed my instructions, 
 and, to her great satisfaction, found that the bitter 
 white powder had the power either of expelling the 
 
254 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 spirit or of appeasing it, for her husband quickly 
 rallied, and was able to resume work after a few 
 days. I have reason to believe, however, that, after 
 all, the recovery was attributed more to the spells 
 that had been employed and to the promises made 
 to the saint than to the drug I had administered. 
 
 Another interesting case came under my notice at 
 Lahore. A servant, a punkah-puller of the mehter 
 caste, was reported dying in an out-office in my com- 
 pound. The man had been at work only a few hours 
 before. I went down to see him, and found him 
 stretched out on a low cot with his eyes shut. His 
 weeping wife and son were endeavouring to rouse him, 
 but he could not or would not move, or give any sign 
 of consciousness. A dose of brandy and water, put 
 into his mouth by spoonfuls, followed after a little 
 while by a strong cup of tea, brought him round. 
 On questioning him as to the nature and causes of 
 his illness, he asserted that a Syud took possession 
 of him every now and then, and was persecuting him 
 on account of the non-fulfilment of certain vows. It 
 appeared that three or four months previously his 
 wife was very ill, and while sitting beside her, with 
 some members of the family and a few visitors, the 
 spirit of the Syud took possession of him. He began 
 to be violently agitated, and then spoke, not in his 
 own person, but in that of the spirit that possessed 
 him. He talked about many things, and in his 
 discourse predicted that the sick woman, his wife, 
 would die within a week. This prediction uttered in 
 her hearing so alarmed her that she begged piteously 
 for life, promising, if she were spared, to offer five 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 255 
 
 goats and five cocks on the Syud's grave. She did 
 not die and did not fulfil her vow, so the angry Syud 
 was now victimizing the husband, presumably as 
 the responsible head of the house. 
 
 This supposed possession of mehters by the spirits 
 of deceased descendants of the Prophet of Arabia 
 seems to indicate a strange confusion in the religion 
 of the lower castes in India, though the spiritual 
 anarchy in the present case is easily accounted for, 
 being due, most probably, to a growing respect for 
 Islam, a consequent recognition of the potency of 
 the Mussulman saints, and an imitation of certain 
 Muhammadan practices to be described later on. 
 But the ordinary Mussulmans of India, almost as 
 deeply tainted by caste prejudices as their Hindu 
 fellow-countrymen, do not take this view of the 
 matter ; and when consulted about it, usually aver 
 indignantly that no Syud's spirit would demean 
 itself to enter a mehter's body, but that men of that 
 despicable caste, when possessed, must be under the 
 influence of some BHUT (devil) of their own. 
 
 One morning the dead body of a large and venom- 
 ous snake, which had been killed near the servants' 
 quarters the night before, was brought to me. It 
 appeared that the cold clammy weight of the horrid 
 reptile upon her neck had roused a woman who was 
 sleeping in the open air at the door of one of the 
 out-houses. Instinctively, she flung the snake off, 
 and immediately called for help. Her brother-in- 
 law, the dhoby or washerman, ran to her help, and 
 despatched the intruder with a stick. On the follow- 
 
256 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 ing day the dhoby was taken ill, and his work got 
 into arrears. I wanted to know what was the 
 matter with the man, and found out that his illness 
 was due solely to his having neglected to give the 
 customary funeral feast in memory of his deceased 
 wife, who had died in her native village some months 
 previously. The snake which had visited the ser- 
 vants' quarters was none other than the late wife 
 herself, and had come to wreak her vengeance on the 
 woman, who, it would appear, had stood very much 
 in the way of the funeral feast, and was, moreover, 
 responsible for the neglect which the deceased had 
 experienced during her lifetime. Somehow, and for 
 unknown reasons, the Fates had protected the offend- 
 ing sister-in-law, but the neglectful husband was 
 suffering the punishment of his sins of omission and 
 commission, and it was quite clear that it would go 
 hard with him if he did not very soon make amends 
 for his past misconduct. The first thing to be done 
 was to rescue the sufferer from the vindictive clutches 
 of the spirit of the departed wife. An exorcist was 
 called in, and immediately commenced operations. 
 In the open air, beside the bed of the sick man, he 
 placed a lighted cheragh, or lamp, and just before it, 
 drew on the ground a small circle about three inches 
 across, with two diameters at right angles to each 
 other. He put a couple of cloves at one end of each 
 diameter. Outside the circle he laid a few more 
 cloves and also three small packets, one containing 
 flowers, another camphor, and the third incense. 
 Standing up, with his face turned to the full moon, 
 which was just rising, the exorcist rubbed an open 
 penknife between his hands and kept uttering some- 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 257 
 
 thing which was meant for magical words or incan- 
 tatory phrases. He then applied the blade to his 
 forehead and sat down, still muttering to himself in 
 a low tone. He next passed the cloves round and 
 over the flame of the lamp. After which he gashed 
 his own arm with the penknife, and collecting the 
 blood on the blade, wet the cloves with it. Next he 
 took all the cloves in his right hand and, closing his 
 fist, passed it, heavily and slowly, over tfre sick man, 
 beginning from a little above the knee and going 
 gradually up to and round the head, as if drawing or 
 gathering something up towards the top of the head. 
 Whenever the invalid groaned, and he did so pretty 
 often, partly from excitement and partly, no doubt, 
 from the pain experienced under the rough treatment 
 of his physician, the latter expressed his satisfaction, 
 and seemed to coax the spirit to come out. Some- 
 times the spirit which had taken possession of the 
 sick man would, as it were, struggle under the grasp 
 of the exorcist, and seem as if about to slip away 
 from him. At this his ire would be roused, and, 
 apparently much excited, he would address the 
 enemy in no complimentary terms, while he himself 
 groaned and puffed as if in a severe and exhausting 
 conflict. At length the spirit was safely conducted 
 to the crown of the invalid's head, and was then suc- 
 cessfully drawn out of him. 
 
 After the completion of this satisfactory operation, 
 the exorcist offered the cloves to the bystanders, 
 but they prudently declined the proffered gifts, 
 objecting to be made the recipients of the sick man's 
 cast-out spirit. After some wrangling, the exorcist 
 determined to retain the cloves himself, and con- 
 
258 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 eluded the ceremony by burning some camphor in 
 the flame of the lamp. 
 
 The personal appearance of the exorcist was any- 
 thing but prepossessing. He looked from the very 
 commencement of his proceedings wild and excited, 
 but during his struggles with the refractory spirit he 
 was like a madman. 
 
 The reader familiar with the customs of savages, 
 as described by travellers, and reproduced in most 
 modern works on " the primitive condition of man," 
 will at once recognize in our exorcist the medicine- 
 man of savage countries, of the wilds of South 
 America, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, of Aus- 
 tralia and Africa ; but he seems peculiarly out of 
 place in India, in contact with English civilization, 
 and in the broad light of the nineteenth century. 
 However, in India he is, and, I doubt not, will long 
 continue there, sharing with native and European 
 drugs, the credit of driving away disease and of 
 restoring the sick to health and strength. 
 
 Not only is exorcism commonly practised for the 
 cure of the sick ; but also for the relief of sufferers 
 from the effects of snake bites, the bites of dogs or 
 the stings of venomous insects and other animals. 
 
 A female servant attracted my attention one night, 
 by her loud cries. She had been stung on the foot 
 by something in the dark a scorpion she said and 
 was apparently in great pain. Her first thought was 
 to obtain the assistance of a man who happened to 
 be living in my compound, and was well-skilled in 
 affording relief in such cases. My aid not being 
 required, I did not interfere. The man whose 
 services were in request came as sooon as he was 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 259 
 
 summoned, and began making sundry passes over 
 the wound, in order, as he said, " to bring the pain 
 down ; " but instead of coming down it went on ex- 
 tending higher up the limb. The woman evidently 
 suffered a good deal. At this stage something like 
 the following colloquy took place : 
 
 Woman (sharply) : " What are you about ? The 
 pain instead of coming down is going up, higher and 
 higher. Oh dear ! oh dear ! " 
 
 Man : " Wait a bit, mother ; be a little patient." 
 
 Woman (apparently not relishing the advice) : 
 " Be patient ! you say. Be patient ! while the pain 
 is extending higher up. Oh ! ma : oh ! ma-go." 
 
 Man : " Yes, mother, yes ! " 
 
 Woman (testily) : " Why do you say ' yes, yes ? ' 
 I want the pain to come down." 
 
 Man (naively) : Of course, mother ; but the pain 
 must first be allowed to go up, and then I'll bring it 
 down." 
 
 Woman (fairly enraged): "Be off, you fool ! Bad 
 luck to you," &c., c. " I'll go and ask the sahib for 
 some medicine." 
 
 All the subjects of demoniacal possession referred 
 to in the preceding pages belonged to the lowest 
 castes of the Indian community, which lie practically 
 outside the pale of Hinduism. Amongst them the 
 belief in demoniacal passion is in full force to-day, 
 although it is by no means confined to them. The 
 air is pervaded by magic and witchcraft. The happi- 
 ness, the health, the very lives of men, are at the 
 mercy of spells and counter-spells. Ay, and the 
 very gods themselves are not exempt from the influ- 
 
25o WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 ence of magical rites ; but must obey the behests of 
 the powerful magician. 
 
 Syuds, being lineal descendants of the great 
 Prophet of Arabia, have, as we have already seen, 
 special influence on the fate of men, but they by no 
 means enjoy a monopoly of power for good or evil 
 over the living. The disembodied spirit of any man 
 or- woman may become troublesome or dangerous. 
 A deceased wife is particularly to be dreaded by her 
 successor. 
 
 A female servant alluding to the death of a man's 
 third wife, remarked to me that such things always 
 occurred amongst the wretched Muhammadans, 
 but that people of her caste avoided dangers of 
 that sort. She explained that the death of the 
 second and subsequent wives was usually caused 
 by the spirit of the first wife, whose jealous spite 
 brought them to an untimely end. To avert danger 
 from this quarter the spirit of the deceased wife had 
 to be propitiated, and it was customary amongst her 
 people to do it in this wise. The likeness of a 
 woman done in silver (known as a ihttppa) was worn 
 as a locket by the second wife. This image repre- 
 sented the first wife, and had to be constantly pro- 
 pitiated. At every meal the second wife offered a 
 pinch of food to the " thuppa " before she herself 
 began to. eat, and when she was about to put on new 
 clothes or ornaments the second wife first offered 
 them in due form to the "thuppa." Appeased and 
 gratified by these attentions, the spirit of the first 
 wife was won over to spare her successor. 
 
 There appears to be a kind of possession known 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 261 
 
 amongst the Muhammadans in India. The symp- 
 toms are these. Some man, usually one of blame- 
 less life and strict habits, is selected by a departed 
 Pir or Syud as the vehicle for conveying his 
 wishes to the living. The entry of the saint's 
 spirit into the body of his chosen vessel is accom- 
 panied with violent convulsions. The man possessed 
 of the spirit is thrown into a state of uncontrollable 
 agitation. He foams at the mouth, and usually 
 tosses his head from side to side, or up and down, in 
 a frantic manner. At length he speaks, asserting 
 energetically that he is some Pir or other, and 
 demanding that a certain offering shall be made at 
 his grave, which seems to be all the Pir cares about. 
 The awe-stricken bystanders promise everything 
 required, and the spirit departs, leaving his medium 
 in a state of much physicial prostration. I have 
 had personal knowledge of several cases of this 
 kind. 
 
 The 2-j-th of November, 1886, being a Muham- 
 madan festival, I paid a visit to the shrine of Dada 
 Gunge Baksh at Lahore. I found a large concourse 
 of people seated near the outer wall of the shrine 
 in the open air. Three musicians, two playing 
 on stringed instruments and one on a drum, were 
 singing away lustily a hymn in praise of the saint. 
 Several greybeards sat in a sort of solemn abstrac- 
 tion close to the wall, while a middle-aged man, 
 dressed in green, with a string of beads round his 
 neck, occupied a prominent position a little in front 
 of the elders. The congregation and onlookers, con- 
 sisting of two or three hundred persons, sat huddled 
 together on durrics or carpets in the foreground. As 
 
262 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 the music went on with a peculiar sort of throb, one 
 here and another there from the midst of the con- 
 gregation seemed convulsed, as if by galvanic shocks. 
 Presently their movements became more energetic 
 and violent. In one case a man threw himself for- 
 ward, resting, in a crouching position, on his hands 
 and knees. He swayed his head in a frantic manner 
 from side to side, and it was a marvel to me how it 
 escaped collision with the ground. But escape it 
 did. Exhausted at length by the wild energy of his 
 movements, the man fell in a fit upon the ground. 
 One of his companions now came forward and began 
 to shampoo his limbs, in order, I presume, to calm 
 the excitement of his overwrought nerves. Another 
 man, after the usual premonitory convulsions, 
 writhed on the ground in wild contortions. Two 
 men rushed forward, apparently to prevent him from 
 hurting himself, and holding him up by the waist, 
 allowed him to fling himself backwards and forwards 
 in the wildest manner possible. Several other men 
 became excited and convulsed under the influence of 
 the Pir, but all the cases of possession I noticed 
 could be referred to one or other of the types I have 
 just described. None of the convulsionnaires uttered 
 a single word throughout the proceedings. On a 
 previous occasion I visited one of the favourite places 
 for the exhibition of such manifestations. On 
 reaching the ground, I found several persons congre- 
 gated round a boy of about ten years of age, who 
 appeared to be in a semi-unconscious state. This 
 poor |ittle fellow had been hanging, I don't know 
 for how long, suspended head downwards from the 
 branch of a tree. In this uncomfortable position he 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 263 
 
 had been swaying himself about in a sort of frenzy, 
 and had almost lost consciousness before he was 
 taken down. His father and other friends who were 
 present on the spot assured me that no harm could 
 come to any one taken possession of by the spirit of 
 the Pir sahib. A tailor in my service, a weakly lad 
 with a very queer look about his eyes, used to be a 
 favourite of some Pir or other, lie was fond of 
 attending assemblies such as I have described, would 
 readily fall into the ecstatic state, and died very 
 young. As contributions are expected from those 
 who frequent assemblies of the kind just described, 
 it is evident that the guardians of the shrines where 
 they take place reap a substantial advantage, but it 
 is not easy to see what benefit the poor fellows get 
 who may be called the performers on these occasions. 
 They have themselves told me that in the ecstatic 
 state they are unconscious of the world around 
 them, and have the very gates of paradise opened 
 to them. 
 
 In India we live in a world which is accustomed to 
 receive supernatural visitants who associate familiarly 
 with men. We are, indeed, still in the age of the 
 " Arabian Nights." A holy Mussulman faquir, who 
 enjoyed a considerable local reputation, told me of 
 his own experiences with a Jin. The Jin, in human 
 form, used to visit him, but always came with a green 
 shade over his eyes, as if suffering from sore-eyes. 
 He represented himself as a devotee who, attracted by 
 the fame of my informant, had come to sit at his 
 feet. He was asiduous in his attentions, and one 
 day asked my friend if he knew who he was. On 
 
264 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 receiving a reply to the effect that the faquir knew 
 nothing about him beyond what he had himself 
 stated, he said he was in reality a Jin. My friend 
 received the statement with incredulity. Not long 
 after this being disturbed in his devotions by the 
 noisy chattering of two minas, my informant asked 
 his disciple to drive them away, when what was his 
 surprise to find the pretended devotee put forth his 
 hand and catch the birds although they were ten or 
 twelve feet above his head. Another time the Jin, to 
 oblige him, caught a young fox by simply putting 
 out his foot and placing it upon its neck. The 
 Jin continued to wear the green shade, because he 
 wished to escape being recognized by that well- 
 known pecularity of Jins, their inability to wink. 
 During his sojourn with the faquir the Jin fell out 
 with one of the persons, a chupprasee, who was in 
 the habit of visiting the holy man, and having been 
 abused by his adversary caused the death of his 
 children, by literally passing into the poor fellow's 
 house, through closed doors, and strangling his un- 
 offending infants. The mother, in great distress, 
 came and complained to the faquir about the cruel 
 wrong she had suffered. The holy man suggested 
 that she should go for redress to the law courts, but 
 she explained that it was a case of magic, and not 
 one with which the magistrates could deal. On 
 this the faquir reproved the Jin, and desired him to 
 discontinue his visits; but the Jin promised better 
 behaviour in future, and, to make amends for the 
 murder he had committed, promised to give the 
 object of his anger the father of the strangled 
 babes whatever he asked for, provided he never told 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 265 
 
 any one how he came by it. The aggrieved father 
 looked upon this as unc mauvaise plaisantcrie ; but one 
 day being in sore need of four rupees, he held out 
 his cloth and called upon the Jin to fulfil his promise. 
 Immediately four rupees fell into his cloth. After 
 this he asked for several other things and received 
 them ; but one of the prying women of his household 
 having found out how the money came, made a boast 
 of it to some of her friends. The spell was broken. 
 Nothing more was ever received, and the Jin, en- 
 raged at his secret having been made public, destroyed 
 two more members of the chupprasee's family. At 
 the faquir's very urgent and positive request, the Jin 
 at length made himself scarce. Every word of this 
 wonderful story the holy faquir assured me was 
 absolutely true. 
 
 As a general rule, natives of India of all classes be- 
 lieve in the reality of possession, demoniacal or other- 
 wise. They unhesitatingly admit that some favoured 
 men and women are chosen as the media of com- 
 munication between departed saints and the human 
 race; but they are not equally ready to recognize the 
 validity of the pretensions of particular individuals. 
 In fact there is often an odd mixture of superstition 
 and shrewed scepticism or shall I say suspicious- 
 ness ? in the Indian character. I well remember a 
 Mussulman telling me, with a good deal of humour 
 and self-satisfaction, the following story. A Pathan 
 from beyond the western border had arrived in his 
 neighbourhood. The rumour went abroad that at 
 times the spirits of certain departed Syuds descended 
 upon the Muslim visitor, or, as the native expression 
 
266 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 is, "got upon" him. He was under the influence 
 now of one and now of another departed saint. Of 
 course he became at once an object of awe and vene- 
 ration to the people. Every one who longed for the 
 gratification of some cherished desire approached 
 him in his hour of possession, and hoped, by homage 
 and gifts, to obtain the assistance of his controlling 
 spirits. My informant, like others, had his end to 
 gain, and one night, unknown to the members of his 
 own household, stole out to pay his respects to the 
 Pathan. It was warm summer-time, so he went out 
 very lightly clad, and he did not wear the usual tur- 
 ban, in the hope that the absence of this customary 
 head-dress might render him less easily recognizable 
 by any acquaintances he might chance to meet. 
 When he got near the Pathan he found a large 
 number of persons, chiefly females, congregated on 
 the spot. The Pathan, of course, had his satellites 
 and attendants. Some were beating drums, others 
 talking confidentially to the bystanders in praise of 
 their master and acting generally as go-betweens. 
 My informant, who watched the proceedings with 
 keen interest, presently thought he detected manifest 
 signs of imposture, and no longer felt disposed to 
 crave the assistance of the Syuds through their 
 Pathan medium. In the little gathering were some 
 persons not unknown to him, at least by sight, and 
 of whose history he had learned something from the 
 gossips of the town. He could, he thought, guess 
 pretty well what they wanted from the saint, and as 
 he felt sure that he was unrecognized by any one 
 present, he was tempted to perpetrate a practical 
 joke. He sat down near one of the drummers, and, 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 267 
 
 by the help of a little silver adroitly handed to him, 
 secured his good offices. Placing a few flowers 
 before himself, he began in the orthodox fashion 
 to toss his head violently from side to side with his 
 face turned downwards, and in a feigned voice 
 repeated over and over again, " I am Syud So-and- 
 so," naming some saint well known to the people of 
 that place. The drummer called attention to this 
 remarkable case of possession, and my informant 
 soon became the centre of attraction. Using his 
 local knowledge and taking advantage of the credulity 
 of the people, he was able to extract for the benefit 
 of his friend the drummer several rupees from his 
 deluded neighbours, giving them in return many 
 promises and a few flowers or cloves. But this 
 opposition business did not suit the Pathan and his 
 more zealous supporters. Angry inquiries were 
 made about the new-comer, and there appeared 
 symptoms of an approaching storm. Collision with 
 the formidable Pathans was not to be lightly risked, 
 so my informant hung his head down and stopped 
 shaking it, thus indicating, by a well-understood 
 sign, that the spirit of the Syud had departed. As 
 he had not pocketed any of the money he had 
 gathered there he was allowed to leave unmolested, 
 and thankfully escaped into the darkness of the 
 night and the intricacies of the lanes with, as he 
 laughingly told me, a confused head and a neck 
 which, unaccustomed to such violent exercise, ached 
 for days and days afterwards. 
 
 Any one acquainted with the history of the mad- 
 dening terror which witchcraft inspired in Europe 
 during the Middle Ages, and the horrible widespread 
 
268 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 and barbarous persecutions which resulted from it, 1 
 cannot help noticing, when brought into contact with 
 witchcraft in India, that it stands upon an entirely 
 different footing there. The cause of this is not 
 far to seek. In Christian Europe magicians, necro- 
 mancers, witches, were regarded as the enemies of 
 God, as monsters in league with Satan and con- 
 demned to eternal damnation. They were accord- 
 ingly destroyed, at the instigation of the clergy, 
 without mercy, and upon the warrant of Holy Scrip- 
 ture. To rid the earth of witches was a religious 
 duty which the priests and ministers (Protestant and 
 Roman Catholic alike) carried out with a burning 
 zeal and a horrid eagerness worthy of a better cause. 
 In India, on the other hand, especially amongst the 
 Hindus, magic and witchcraft are not without a 
 certain respectability. The Brahmans themselves 
 are the possessors of spells (mantras) which even 
 the gods are unable to resist. It is true that in the 
 Vishun Parana it is said " he who practises magic 
 rites for the harm of others will be punished in the 
 hell called Krimisa " (that of insects). 2 But this 
 threat is neither generally known nor does it prac- 
 tically affect the attitude of the people towards 
 wizards and necromancers. The practisers of the 
 black art in India may be objects of terror to the 
 people, but they do not inspire them with feelings 
 of religions horror. 
 
 According to popular belief, magicians, sorcerers, 
 and conjurers abound in India. Most of the calami- 
 
 1 Lecky's " Rise anil Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism 
 in Europe." 
 ~ Professor H. H. Wilson's translation, bk. ii. chap. iv. 
 
OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 269 
 
 ties of life are attributed to them, and it is worth 
 noting that among certain of the aboriginal tribes 
 " even those who are accused of being witches do 
 not deny the impeachment, but accept the position 
 readily with all its pains and penalties." 1 Yet the 
 evil is not without a remedy, for sorcerer may be 
 pitted against sorcerer, and the spells of one be 
 nullified by the counter-spells of another. Thus also 
 in Europe, holy water, church ceremonies, conse- 
 crated relics, and priestly exorcism were employed 
 against sorcery, witchcraft, and demoniacal posses- 
 sion. 
 
 The more powerful conjurers in India inspire 
 dread and command respect. These, therefore, live 
 at ease on the credulity of the many, but occasionally 
 the popular vengeance is wreaked upon some 
 wretched man or woman who is suspected of hav- 
 ing caused mischief, and who at the same time is 
 not sufficiently dreaded to hold the rabble in check. 
 
 The records of our criminal courts contain many 
 cases of this kind. The following may be cited as 
 an example : 
 
 "Wall, an old Bheel woman, about 70 years of age, and her 
 sister Chit'ri, residents of Deshgaon, Nassick District, were 
 believed by the villagers to be witches possessed of a hidden 
 charm, by which they were supposed to have worked the sorcery 
 to which the deaths of several persons in the village were 
 attributed. ... A religious mendicant arrived at the village 
 and denounced the sisters as witches, and forthwith the villagers 
 laid hold of Chitri, swung her by a rope to a mango tree, and 
 beat her to extort the hidden charm. She escaped without 
 serious consequences. Wali, the other sister, who had gone to 
 
 1 Ball's "Jungle Life in India," p. 115. 
 
270 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 a neighbouring village to beg, was fetched to Deshgaon the 
 same evening, and was the following morning swung by the feet 
 to a tree near the village police-station, was maltreated in the 
 presence and with the connivance of many of the villagers, and 
 was required to disclose the hidden charm by which she and 
 her sister caused deaths 'in the village. She was removed in a 
 fainting condition to her house, where she died the same day. 
 Three persons were instrumental in causing her death. One, 
 a police constable, swung her to a tree by the feet with a rope 
 and struck her several blows with a hempen thong, another 
 struck her with a shoe, while the third, the police patel of the 
 village, superintended the proceedings and instigated violence 
 to the wretched woman. These three persons were tried, and 
 sentenced to rigorous imprisonment." z 
 
 If it were not for the protection afforded even to 
 "witches" by the British law, cases of this kind 
 would undoubtedly be multiplied to a very great 
 extent. At the beginning of the present century 
 (1802) a self-constituted native tribunal tried five 
 women at Patna for sorcery, found them guilty, and 
 put them to death. The case attracted the atten- 
 tion of the British authorities, and a proclamation 
 was issued by the Governor-General, declaring that 
 any persons taking upon themselves to act as the 
 members of the irregular Patna tribunal had done, 
 would be considered guilty of murder. 2 There is no 
 reason to doubt that this order has had the effect of 
 saving the lives of a great many women who would 
 otherwise have fallen victims to the popular belief 
 in witches and witchcraft, yet since the date of the 
 proclamation thousands upon thousands must have 
 perished in out-of-the-way places, at the hands of 
 
 1 Bombay Gazette, 1881. 
 
 - " Medical Jurisprudence for India," by Dr. Norman 
 Chevers, p. 12. 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 271 
 
 their superstitious countrymen, with the knowledge 
 and connivance of the equally superstitious village 
 police. Only the other day there appeared in the 
 English and Indian newspapers a painful story of 
 the death, under very tragic circumstances, of a 
 woman belonging to a village in Oudh who believed 
 herself to be possessed by an evil spirit. The 
 woman's husband gave out that he had received a 
 divine command to destroy her eyes, which would be 
 miraculously restored. The villagers assembled; the 
 unfortunate woman was held down ; and, in the 
 presence of the expectant crowd, the husband gouged 
 out her eyes. As might have been foreseen, the un- 
 happy victim of the barbarous operation died almost 
 immediately. 
 
 The genius of Hinduism is peculiarly favourable 
 to a belief in witchcraft and demoniacal possession, 
 but the modern Hindu thinks that magic with 
 other useful lore perished, to a great extent, with the 
 men who fell at Kurukshetra, in the war described 
 in the Mahabharata. Muhammadan traditions and 
 literature are also full of records of events brought 
 about by magic arts, but the Indian Muslim holds, 
 like his Hindu countryman, that knowledge of these 
 arts is in a very imperfect condition now. 
 
 In ages long gone by there existed a city whose 
 inhabitants had attained, by unlawful and forbidden 
 arts, to a degree of knowledge not inferior to that of 
 the angels. Gabriel was directed to visit this city, 
 and on entering found only children in it. The 
 messenger addressed one of these, inquiring where 
 the elders were, and when they might be expected 
 
272 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, 
 
 back. Without replying to the question, the child 
 observed that he himself was quite ready to answer 
 any questions the stranger desired to put. The 
 angel asked where Gabriel was at that time. After 
 a short pause, the boy replied with a thoughtful ex- 
 pression on his face, " I have scanned the four quarters 
 of the universe, even to the throne of the Almighty, 
 but no Gabriel could I find. Therefore, either I am 
 or you are Gabriel." The messenger departed in as- 
 tonishment, and carried to heaven a report of his 
 mission ; upon which the Almighty decreed that 
 the guilty city, with its inhabitants and its thousands 
 of volumes of unhallowed lore, should be whelmed 
 in one common ruin. A troop of angels was sent 
 to overturn the city from its very foundations, and 
 bury it with its inhabitants for ever. There escaped, 
 however, from the general destruction, a stray leaf 
 or two of the books of divination, and on the im- 
 perfect hints derived from these, the modern sciences 
 of magic and astrology have been reared during a 
 succession of ages. 
 
 On the superstitions of the people of India 
 volumes might be written ; for India is still where 
 Europe was in the dark ages, and belief in witch- 
 craft, demoniacal possession, the transmutation of 
 metals, the efficacy of charms, spells, and love-nitres, 
 is quite general amongst all classes of the people. 
 Let me add a few instances to those already given. 
 
 Not long ago a native, referring to the wasting 
 disease (marasmus) from which an infant seemed to 
 be suffering, assured me that even the shadow of the 
 little child falling upon one in health might prove 
 fatal to the latter. The disease, he said, might in 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 273 
 
 some cases be cured at the expense of the vegetable 
 world ; for example, it was well known that if a 
 child suffering from marasmus were taken into a 
 sugar-cane field, there undressed and bathed, and its 
 cast-off clothes left on the ground, the child might 
 recover, but in that case the sugar-cane would all be 
 blighted. I subsequently learned another mode of 
 curing the disease. The mother of the sufferer 
 should secure a black dog and decapitate it in the 
 dead of night. She should then boil its head in 
 water, and bathe herself and child in this broth, 
 exactly at the hour of midnight. 
 
 During an excessively dry summer, as I was 
 sitting one evening in the open air, the clouds 
 began gathering rapidly overhead. Every one was 
 anxiously looking out for rain. The sultry heat 
 had caused an outbreak of sickness, and the price of 
 food had gone up considerably. I remarked to a 
 native standing beside me that we would now in all 
 probability have the much desired rain. He looked 
 up towards the dark overcast sky above, and then 
 shaking his head doubtfully, expressed his fear that 
 the rascally bunneahs vendors of food-grains and 
 other articles of consumption would not let it rain. 
 The idea was a new one to me. I was familiar 
 with the old Hindu notion that the dark clouds are 
 malicious demons who obstruct or intercept the rain- 
 fall, and are only overcome by Indra's flashing 
 thunderbolts, which rend them asunder in the in- 
 terests of the human race and the parched and 
 gaping earth. But I had never heard that the 
 bunneahs were credited with meteorological powers 
 
 18 
 
274 WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIACAL POSSESSION, - 
 
 of so very important a character. I pressed the 
 man to explain his remarks. " Don't you know," he 
 said, " that it is to the interest of the bunneahs that 
 the prices of all articles of consumption should be 
 as high as possible, and that rain should not fall ? 
 Well, to attain their object, they make cakes of wheat- 
 flour and other things, and then deliberately deal 
 with these heaven-sent gifts in such a manner as to 
 offend the gods and make them withhold the rain." 
 He went into details with respect to the proceedings 
 of the bunneahs which I need not mention here. 
 
 At another time I learned that a bunneah had 
 recourse to a still more effectual method of keeping off 
 the rain. He had a chukra, or spinning-wheel, made 
 outof thebones of dead men. Suchan article couldonly 
 be made very secretly and for a large sum of money, 
 but its action was most potent. Whenever the 
 clouds were gathering the bunneah set his virgin 
 daughter to work the chukra the reverse way, and by 
 that means unwound or unwove the clouds, as- it 
 were, thus driving away the rain ; and this over and 
 over again, notwithstanding that the young Hindu 
 maidens had gone forth, harnessed themselves to 
 the plough, and with suitable ceremonies and offer- 
 ings had invoked the gods for rain, while the 
 Muhammadans on their part had assembled in the 
 Musjid and offered up prayers to Allah for the much 
 needed showers. 
 
 Where credulity abounds, impostors are of course 
 not wanting to take advantage of the credulous, as 
 the following anecdote amusingly illustrates. 
 
 A cowherd reported in his village that he often 
 
AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 275 
 
 heard a human voice proceeding from the interior of 
 an old neglected grave, demanding to be released. 
 The villagers assembled round the spot indicated. 
 They heard the stifled voice with their own ears, 
 and following the advice of the herdsman, and one 
 or two others in league with him, opened out the 
 dilapidated grave, not, however, without trepidation 
 and many misgivings. As the result of their labour, 
 they exhumed a miserable looking man in grave- 
 clothes and covered with mud. To the inquiries of 
 the bystanders regarding himself he would give no 
 verbal response, but by means of signs, which were 
 readily interpreted by his confederates, he gave the 
 simple rustics to understand that he had been dead 
 for ever so long a time ; that his soul had been in 
 paradise, and had but just returned to reanimate his 
 body, which had been lying in the ground exempt 
 from the influences of decay. The subject of such 
 marvellous experiences was, of course, an object of 
 veneration to the people. The herdsman and one 
 or two others constituted themselves the guardians 
 of the " resurrected " man, and shared with him the 
 gifts and offerings of the credulous peasants. 
 
 As in Europe during the Middle Ages, and much 
 later too, 1 so in India to-day the subject of the 
 transmutation of metals is one which attracts a 
 good deal of attention. As a teacher of science 
 
 1 "Goethe in Frankfurt was busy with researches after the 
 ' virgin earth.' The philosophers' stone had many eager 
 seekers. In 1787, Semler sent to the Academy of Berlin his 
 discovery that gold grew in a certain atmospheric salt when 
 kept moist and warm." Lewes's " Life of Goethe," vol. i. p. 
 
276 WITCHCRAFT, AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 I have frequently been questioned about the practi- 
 cability of converting copper into silver or gold, and 
 I have found that a very strong and widespread 
 confidence prevails, even amongst the educated, in 
 regard to the existence of a secret art of trans- 
 muting metals known to a few adepts. Indeed, 
 some men have assured me that they have seen 
 the process successfully carried out, although they 
 were not admitted into the secret of the art. 
 
III. 
 
 OLD FAKEERAH AND HIS 
 CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 
 
 YEARS ago, when I was quite a child, our old home 
 of pleasant memories was broken up, and the 
 numerous servants of a comfortable Anglo-Indian 
 household had, nearly all of them, to be discharged. 
 Amongst those who were told that their services 
 would not be required any longer was Fakeerah, who 
 had been my father's " bearer," or valet. He was a 
 Muhammadan of Colgong, or Kahalgaon, and owned 
 a small bit of land in his native village. When the 
 time for settling up accounts arrived he came, with 
 tears in his eyes, to receive his well-earned wages. 
 Palm joined to palm, he stood before my mother 
 and respectfully said, with unfeigned emotion, " For 
 years I have eaten the sahib's salt, and now that 
 he is gone shall I desert the children ? You cannot 
 do without servants. Some you must have, however 
 few in number. I will stay with you for small 
 wages, or even for none at all. Have I not my bit 
 of land at Colgong ? " The man was thoroughly in 
 earnest, and, true to his generous resolve, remained 
 
278 OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 in our service on much smaller wages than he had 
 before. He accompanied us to Calcutta, was in all 
 things thoroughly honest and trustworthy, evinced a 
 genuine affection for us children, and seemed con- 
 tented and happy. But as years went by a home- 
 sickness came upon him. The picturesque little 
 village, under the shadow of the low hills, on the 
 banks of the Ganges, where the noisy river rushes 
 madly amongst the noble granite rocks he knew so 
 well, seemed to draw him with irresistible power, 
 and so one day he explained, in his usual deferential 
 way, with many apologies and much hesitation, that 
 he wished to visit his " moolluk," and begged leave 
 of absence for three months. According to Indian 
 custom he brought us a btidlee, or substitute, and 
 arranged to proceed on his journey with some com- 
 panions who were going towards the same part of 
 the country as himself. There were but a few miles 
 of railway open in India at that time; the journey 
 to Colgong was to be performed on foot by easy 
 stages. As Thugs and other highway robbers w 7 ere 
 unfortunately too common in those days, no traveller 
 would make a journey without companions ; few 
 would venture on the road without arms. 
 
 The appointed day arrived. Fakeerah came to 
 make his farewell salaams. He was a slim man, a 
 little over five feet in height, with fine, well-cut 
 features, and a clean brown complexion. His 
 moustache, except at the two ends, was clipped 
 close and partly shaven, so as to leave a clear narrow 
 space immediately over the upper lip. This is the 
 orthodox Muhammadan style of dressing the mous- 
 ache, and has for its object to prevent food eaten by 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLP2S. 279 
 
 the believer from being contaminated by contact with 
 the hair. The beard, however, is allowed to grow in 
 full luxuriance, and in Fakeerah's case attained a 
 length of several inches without the slightest curl 
 or irregularity, although now largely sprinkled with 
 grey. 
 
 He was ready for his journey, with his loins 
 girded up, and well do I remember his appearance 
 as he came to take leave of us. A small bundle of 
 clothes was tied across his back ; a strong bamboo 
 stick rested on his right shoulder, carrying his quilt 
 slung easily upon it, and at the extremity of the 
 stick was his pair of shoes. One would think that 
 the feet, and not the end of the stick, was the proper 
 place for the shoes ; but the poor native, accustomed 
 from infancy to go barefooted, reserves his shoes for 
 rough ground, and willingly removes them when 
 treading smooth roads or plodding through mud and 
 slush. At his side was a tulwar, or curved sword, in 
 a leather scabbard, purchased for the occasion, and 
 from his left hand, by a strong cord, hung his brass 
 lotah. The sword was, of course, for his protection 
 from Thugs, dacoits, wild beasts, and other dangers 
 of the highway ; the lotah and string were to enable 
 him, during his long and dusty march, to draw cool 
 water from the roadside wells ; what money he had 
 was carefully secreted in the folds of his waistband. 
 Thus fully equipped Fakeerah departed on his 
 journey to Colgong, between which place and Cal- 
 cutta there lay some two hundred and fifty miles 
 of road, passing for long distances through dreary 
 jungles tenanted only by wild beasts or robbers. 
 
 Three months passed away, four and five months 
 
2 8o OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 passed away, and yet Fakeerah did not return. We 
 began to speculate amongst ourselves whether he 
 had been detained by the charms of home, or whether 
 sickness was the cause of his prolonged absence. 
 We even began to fear that he might have fallen 
 into the hands of Thugs and been strangled by them. 
 Many a story of these dreadful assassins had we 
 heard and remembered only too well, for Colgong 
 (Kahalgaon), was a noted centre of their criminal 
 practices at the time of which I write, and, indeed, 
 had enjoyed an unenviable notoriety in this respect 
 at least as far back as the days when the Chinese 
 pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang, visited India (A,D. 637). z 
 So much was Thuggee in our thoughts in connection 
 with the prolonged absence of our faithful old ser- 
 vant, and so interesting, for many reasons, is that 
 unparalleled system of assassination and robbery 
 that I trust the reader will pardon a short digres- 
 sion on the subject in this place. Thuggee is an 
 institution peculiar to India. Amongst the cus- 
 toms of most barbarous races there have existed 
 practices of a character revolting to our modern 
 ideas ; but nothing more repugnant to feelings of 
 humanity could be imagined than the cold-blooded 
 assassinations which, for purposes of gain, but under 
 religious sanctions, and with religious ceremonies, were 
 systematically committed by the Thugs in a land 
 where civilization had already made considerable 
 progress. Thuggee was not confined to any one 
 part of India, but extended far and wide, and, 
 curiously enough, embraced both Hindus and Mu- 
 
 1 General Cunningham's " Archaeological Survey of India," 
 vol. xv. p. 35. 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 281 
 
 hammadans in the great brotherhood of crime. A 
 secret dialect and a set of secret signs facilitated 
 intercourse between the initiated from different parts 
 of the country, while a share in the spoils of their 
 murderous expeditions, or the superstitious awe in- 
 spired by their mysterious calling, secured for them 
 the protection of the Zemindars, or landholders, and 
 the native police. Strange to say, the members of the 
 Thug fraternity belonged to many grades of society, 
 to different castes, including Brahmans, and generally 
 followed some peaceful and respectable avocation. 
 They were artizans, agriculturists, and traders, a 
 fact which seriously hindered the British authorities 
 in their endeavours to bring the criminals to justice ; 
 for when a suspected gang was followed up it soon 
 disappeared in the mass of the apparently respect- 
 able population. 1 Whenever a plundering expedition 
 was to be undertaken, a number of the brotherhood 
 assembled by appointment at some convenient spot, 
 and travelling along the road in various disguises 
 and for various ostensible objects, fell in with 
 travellers along the highway. Trained in every 
 
 1 " Dr. Cheek had a child's bearer, z>., a he-nurse, who ha4 
 charge of his children. The man was a special favourite, re- 
 markable for his kind and tender ways with his little charges, 
 gentle in manner, and unexceptionable in all his conduct. 
 Every year he obtained leave from his master and mistress, as 
 he said, for the filial purpose of visiting his aged mother, for 
 one month ; and returning after the expiry of that time, with the 
 utmost punctuality, resumed with the accustomed affection and 
 tenderness the charge of his little darlings. 1 'Jiis mild and 
 exemplary being was the missing Thug! Kind, gentle, con- 
 scientious, and regular at his post for eleven months in the 
 year, he devoted the twelfth to strangulation." Tayler's 
 "Thirty-eight Years in India/" p. 194. 
 
282 OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 artifice required to promote the success of their 
 horrible trade, the Thugs easily gained the con- 
 fidence of the unsuspecting wayfarers with whom 
 they fell in along the dusty high-roads of the 
 country, and when a suitable opportunity for in- 
 stance, a secluded locality presented itself, trea- 
 cherously strangled their victims in cold blood. No 
 feeling of pity ever stayed the fatal noose when once 
 the omens were propitious. What mattered it to 
 the Thugs that the companions who trudged by their 
 side were, after years of absence, returning to their 
 distant village homes, and to their expectant wives 
 and children ? What mattered it to them that the 
 men they wished to murder were fellow-countrymen 
 and co-religionists ? Had not the goddess Kali 
 delivered the victims into their hands ? and were 
 they not bound, under penalty of incurring her dis- 
 pleasure, to take their lives with the consecrated 
 roomal, or handkerchief. The deed accomplished, the 
 murderers at once secured the property of their 
 victims, even to the clothing on their persons, and 
 then with the sacred axe buried the bodies out of 
 sight as quickly as possible. In most cases an im- 
 penetrable mystery shrouded for ever the fate of the 
 unfortunate wayfarers, and the Thugs, emboldened 
 by success and immunity from punishment, pushed 
 their cruel trade with greater audacity than before. 
 There was a method in the perpetration of these 
 revolting crimes, and an observance of religious 
 ceremonies, which excites astonishment and lends 
 special and peculiar interest to the practices of this 
 extraordinary sect of assassins. It is difficult to tell 
 when the Thugee system first began to develop 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 283 
 
 itself in India. 1 It can undoubtedly date back to a 
 distant period ; but it was not till 1829 that the 
 British Government made a serious and systematic 
 attempt to suppress the widespread evil which 
 seemed to have become naturalized in every part of 
 India. 
 
 The legend which enshrines the origin of Thuggee 
 relates that at some remote period a terrible demon, 
 named Rukut Beij-dana, who was so gigantic that 
 he could stand in the deepest part of the ocean with 
 his body above the waves, was busy destroying the 
 human race when the goddess Kali interfered to save 
 mankind, and with her mighty sword severed him in 
 two pieces. But from his blood other demons sprang 
 into existence, and as fast as Kali disposed of them 
 .more monsters were generated from the blood of 
 those who had perished by her sword. Weary of 
 her fruitless labour, the goddess created two men out 
 of the sweat which trickled from one of her arms, 
 and giving them roomals or handkerchiefs directed 
 
 1 Sir R. Temple thinks "it arose from the disregard of human 
 life caused by scenes of incessant bloodshed during wars and 
 revolutions, and from the demoralizing effects of the ruthless 
 system of spoliation established by the Mahrattas and con- 
 tinued by the Pindarics" (" India in 1880," p. 196). Probably 
 these causes helped to encourage the spread of Thuggee, but it 
 undoubtedly existed long before the time of the Mahrattas and 
 Pindarics. We have an account of the capture of about a 
 thousand Thugs near Delhi in the thirteenth century (Elliot's 
 " Muhammadan Historians of India," by Dowson, vol. iii. p. 
 141). The grave of one reputed founder of Thuggee, Shah 
 Nizamaldin, who lived about six hundred years ago, is still to 
 be seen at Delhi. But the system, as already indicated in the 
 text (p. 280), can probably claim a far higher antiquity. 
 
284 OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 them to strangle the demons. When they had duly 
 accomplished their alloted task, and came to give up 
 the roomals to Kali, that grateful goddess bade them 
 keep those serviceable weapons and hand them down 
 to their descendants with instructions to use them, 
 for their own profit, in the destruction of all men 
 who were not of their kindred. 
 
 To the goddess Kali, therefore, the Thugs looked 
 for protection, and they believed that if they carried 
 out their horrid murders only when the omens were 
 propitious and the proper rites and ceremonies had 
 been observed, they would enjoy both safety and pros- 
 perity. With what revolting indifference their cold- 
 blooded and wholesale assassinations were carried 
 out, and afterwards talked over with pride and 
 pleasure, became known to the world when the task 
 of suppressing Thuggee was taken in hand by the 
 East India Company, and the secret doings of the 
 fraternity were dragged to the light of day. 
 
 Once attacked with vigour and determination, the 
 timidity and treachery of members of the infamous 
 brotherhood helped the Government officers materi- 
 ally towards the suppression of the abomination. 
 Many Thugs apprehended upon suspicion, losing 
 faith in their patron goddess, turned king's evidence 
 and revealed the secrets of the fraternity, their slang 
 vocabulary, their private signs, their reljgious cere- 
 monies, superstitions, and methods of procedure. 
 From the mouths of these approvers particulars were 
 obtained which, while enabling the police authori- 
 ties to track the criminals and bring them back to 
 justice, afforded the British officers the opportunity 
 of unfolding a page in the secret history of human 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 285 
 
 institutions which could hardly be surpassed in 
 gloomy interest. 1 
 
 However, although the perils of the road beset 
 with Thugs and haunted by wild beasts were real 
 enough, Fakeerah did come back at last, and pre- 
 sented himself at the door well and hearty. His 
 face, which was naturally light-complexioned for a 
 native of India, was burnt black by the sun, his grey 
 beard looked ragged, and his moustache over-grown ; 
 but he was not much the worse for his long journey, 
 and in his undemonstrative way appeared pleased to 
 see the " baba logue " (children) again. We wanted 
 to know what had kept him away so long, and 
 were forthwith admitted to a tale of domestic woe. 
 When he reached his village his old friends were re- 
 solved upon giving him a wife. Probably he was 
 not reluctant to get one, although he protested that 
 such was not the case. A wife was found for him, 
 and, evidently pleased with his partner, he determined 
 to bring her with him to Calcutta. This time the 
 journey was to be made by water. A boat bound for 
 Calcutta was found at Colgong, and Fakeerah en- 
 gaged places in it for himself and his wife. There 
 were several other passengers for the capital and 
 intermediate places; but Fakeerah's wife was the 
 only woman on board. Hardly had the boat pro- 
 ceeded a day's journey from its starting place when 
 a storm arose, and it was completely wrecked upon 
 a sand-bank in the river. Either because she was 
 the only woman on board, or on account of some 
 
 1 For a short account of Thuggee the reader may consult 
 Mr. James Hutton's "Thugs, Dacoits, and Gang-robbers of 
 India.'' W. H. Allen and Co., London. 
 
286 OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 unlucky marks about her face or person, Fakeerah's 
 wife was fixed upon by the travellers as the cause 
 of their misfortune. Her husband apparently shared 
 this opinion, and, reluctantly we may presume, con- 
 ducted her back to her village, whence, after some 
 delay, he started once more for Calcutta, but this 
 time alone. It was useless to argue with the old 
 man about the absurdity of supposing that his wife 
 could possibly be the cause of the wreck of the boat. 
 His reply was that all the passengers said so, and 
 that seemed to settle the matter for him. With the 
 lapse of time, his opinion in regard to the blame 
 attributable to his young wife for their mishap on the 
 Ganges seems to have undergone some modification, 
 for he asked and obtained permission to go and fetch 
 her. The long journey home and back was this time 
 successfully accomplished, and the couple arrived at 
 Calcutta apparently quite well and happy. The wife 
 was rather good-looking, and attracted some attention 
 by her costume, which was that worn in her native 
 village ; a full skirt and short bodice, with a sheet 
 or chudder thrown gracefully over the head, quite 
 unlike the saree of Bengal. She was very shy, and 
 kept her face concealed as much as possible, whilst 
 she made the very best use of a pair of handsome 
 black eyes. However, the treacherous chudder 
 revealed enough of her face, from time to time, to 
 enable us to say that it was decidedly bright and 
 pretty. Absorbed in her domestic duties, we saw and 
 heard little enough of Fakeerah's wife. But after a 
 few months the climate of Calcutta began to disagree 
 with her. She was constantly ill. Her husband 
 grumbled. " What was the use," he said, " of a wife 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 287 
 
 who could not cook his rice, and who needed to be 
 nursed and looked after? She would be better at 
 home." So he sent her back to her village. 
 
 Fakeerah himself did not think very much of 
 Calcutta. He used to pronounce it a perfect Baby- 
 lon, the very soil of which was demoralizing, and, to 
 give point to his opinion, related the following story 
 to me : 
 
 An old woman, a native of a remote village in the 
 west, came to Calcutta to pay a visit to her son who was 
 employed in that city. She was very infirm, and so 
 old that she had not a tooth left in her head. After 
 being two or three days in Calcutta, the old woman 
 said to her son, " Do you happen to know any 
 suitable person to whom you could get me married ? " 
 The son, unwilling to expose his mother to ridicule, 
 recommended her not to mention her wish to any 
 one, promising, at the same time, to make every 
 necessary inquiry in person. He thus put her off 
 for some days. Unable, at length, to withstand her 
 importunities, he told her that he was himself anxious 
 to get married, but desired to take a wife from 
 amongst his own people. He advised her to select a 
 husband in the same quarter. In order to carry out 
 this object they ^started homeward the next morning, 
 the son carrying a bag containing something which 
 he was very careful to conceal from his mother. 
 When they had travelled for two days, the son told 
 the mother that they were approaching a village 
 where he had many friends and acquaintances, and 
 he knew of one at least who w r ould be delighted to 
 marry her. " Fie! my son," was the reply, "thus to 
 jest with an old woman like me your mother tco 
 
288 OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 tottering, as I am, on the brink of the grave." The 
 son said no more. That evening he carefully spread 
 the contents of his bag under the mat on which his 
 mother was to sleep. In the course of the night she 
 said to him, " Son, I have been thinking over what 
 you said to me to-day. True, I am an old woman, 
 but not so very old after all, and, if I married, I 
 would be no longer a burden on you, my dear boy. 
 Do you know anybody in this village who would 
 make an eligible match for me ? " "I shall see 
 about the matter to-morrow," said the young man. 
 On mentioning the proposal to the old woman next 
 day, she looked rather foolish and disconcerted, but 
 treated the affair as a mere joke. " You surely did 
 not think I was in earnest ? " was all she said, and 
 the son heard never a word more about the matter. 
 At Calcutta she had been eager for marriage, but 
 away from the naughty city the desire had passed 
 away, except when the long extinguished fires were 
 temporarily revived by the proximity of the mere soil 
 of the Indian Babylon, which the son had carried in 
 his bag and spread under the old woman's mat by 
 way of experiment. 
 
 To return to old Fakeerah himself. Whether his 
 wife died on her return home I am not aware, but 
 the lonely bearer suddenly consoled himself with a 
 new wife. We were at this time living at the little 
 French settlement of Chandernagore. The new 
 wife was stout, and by no means young according to 
 Indian notions, a fact which seemed to require some 
 explanation. It was no use, the garrulous old man 
 said, to marry a mere girl who knew nothing, whose 
 thoughts would run upon finery, and who would 
 
AXD HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 289 
 
 neglect the house and his interests ; nor would it do 
 to seek a wife from amongst his own people, for the 
 air and water (hawa, pance) of Calcutta would not 
 agree with the up-country woman, as he had already 
 found out to his cost. The new wife was a native of 
 Bengal, was not too young, and in all probability 
 would keep good health and be useful. Keep good 
 health she did, and proved it by having a remarkably 
 good appetite. Beingin her own country and amongst 
 her own kith and kin, she had many friends and visi- 
 tors, and rather liked to entertain them and show her 
 hospitality. Poor old Fakeerah was in despair. All 
 this was more than he had bargained for. What 
 he wanted was a thrifty wife who would save him 
 from some domestic duties, look after him when he 
 happened to be sick, and save money. Great was 
 his disappointment. At the end of the first month 
 of his wedded life he came, with tears in his eyes, to 
 relate the details of the consumption of rice, dall, 
 ghee, &c., that had taken place in his household, and 
 protested that he must certainly get rid of the woman, 
 who was no better than a voracious glutton and would 
 assuredly land him in jail if he kept her much 
 longer. 
 
 Just at this time we removed to Calcutta, and, 
 taking advantage of the opportunity, Fakeerah gave 
 his wife the slip, and congratulated himself upon his 
 fortunate release from such a terribly extravagant 
 woman. However, he never dared to show his face 
 in Chandernagore again, for fear of the personal 
 vengeance of the relatives of his deserted wife. 
 Legal proceedings he seems never to have dreaded 
 or dreamt of. 
 
 19 
 
2 9 o OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 All alone again, the old man went on quietly enough 
 for a little time, but presently set up a constant 
 complaint of the hardship of having to cook his own 
 food. After our past experience we could guess 
 pretty well what all this would lead to, and one fine 
 day Fakeerah asked a week's leave to get married 
 again. 
 
 A young woman of a rather flashy appearance was 
 his new partner. She was quiet enough, and ap- 
 parently the couple got on fairly well together. One 
 morning the old man came with a very mysterious 
 look on his face, and kept muttering to himself as 
 he went about his duties. Inquiry elicited the 
 whispered statement that his wife had the extra- 
 ordinary habit of stealing out on moonlight nights 
 into the garden, and collecting flowers. There was 
 no doubt about it ; he had watched her himself over 
 and over again and could not get rid of the idea that 
 she was a witch for did any one ever hear of an 
 ordinary woman doing such things ? It was too 
 terrible ; he could not consent to live with her any 
 longer. We suggested that she might be a som- 
 nambulist, but that did not mend matters at all. 
 What arrangements he made with her I do not know, 
 but get rid of her he did, at the expense, I fancy, of 
 a pretty big slice out of his hoarded savings. For 
 two or three years the old man continued a crusty, 
 grumbling solitary. He lived very parsimoniously, 
 and out of his wages (which had by this time been 
 considerably increased) and little extras in the way 
 of dustooree had made "a respectable hoard. The 
 rent derived from his little bit of land at Colgong had 
 also been carefully put away. Silver and gold orna- 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 291 
 
 ments were the form his savings took, but a bag of 
 rupees was also quietly hid away at the bottom of 
 his old trunk. 
 
 My duties next took me to Burdwan, and while 
 there, old Fakeerah found a fourth wife. She was 
 quite a girl, with a frank open face, beautiful large 
 eyes, a neat slim figure and a rather loud voice. 
 She wore only the saree, which is a single sheet 
 wound round the waist, brought gracefully over the 
 bosom and then passed over the head, generally 
 leaving the back quite bare. This dress, peculiar to 
 the women of Lower Bengal, when made, as it usually 
 is, of diaphanous material, forms, to say the least, an 
 exceedingly light garment, and used to be an object 
 of special aversion to my old bearer; but he had to 
 put up with it now. Instead of being kept down, 
 the Bengali girl soon got the upper hand of the old 
 man. She would tell him that she was not going to 
 be treated as he had treated his other wives. She 
 would scold him well, and between bullying and 
 wheedling managed to get possession of all his 
 money. I wonder what he would have had to say, 
 after his extensive experience, on the subject " Is 
 marriage a failure ? " which is exercising the minds 
 and pens of so many persons just at present. 
 
 The poor old fellow got very ill, and died, when I 
 was away from home. Loyal to the end, his last 
 words were a touching message to me, expressing his 
 regret at not being able to see me ere he died. The 
 widow, enriched with the spoils she had secured, went 
 off in a few days with a bugler in a native infantry 
 regiment, and we never heard of her again. 
 
 I mentioned at the beginning of this paper that the 
 
292 OLD FAKEERAH 
 
 subject of my narrative was a Muhammadan ; but I 
 believe he had been born a Hindu and possessed a 
 sort of doubtful belief in the Hindu gods, though, 
 like other renegades, he was disposed to show up his 
 old religion. 
 
 His lingering faith in the gods of the Hindu 
 pantheon, as well as his desire to vindicate the 
 supremacy of Islam, may be illustrated by a couple 
 of anecdotes. 
 
 I was observing to him one day, that in a certain 
 district of Bengal the women seemed healthier and 
 stronger than the men ; to which his immediate reply 
 was, that probably the districts where such was the 
 case were those in which peculiar respect was paid to 
 some female divinity, Kali perhaps, who would of 
 course favour her own sex. The recognition, in this 
 way, by Indian Mussalmans of the power of Hindu 
 deities is by no means uncommon. Islam, originally 
 deeply imbued with superstitions of its own, has 
 acquired a further tincture of the same element from 
 its contact with Hinduism, and from its Hindu con- 
 verts. So that many an Indian Muslim of the lower 
 classes readily acknowledges the truth of the Hindu 
 legends, assigning a place to their gods amongst 
 the numerous demons and malignant spirits in his 
 calendar, precisely as the early Christians did in 
 respect to the deities held in esteem by the Pagans. 
 
 According to Fakeerah, the Hindu god Jagannath, 
 of whose terrible car so much has been written by 
 the missionaries, was originally nothing more nor 
 less than a thievish, lying cook in the service of a 
 Muhammadan Fir. Once Jagannath, tempted by the 
 savoury odour of some delicacy which he was pre- 
 
AND HIS CONJUGAL TROUBLES. 293 
 
 paring for his master, indulged himself by partaking 
 of a portion of it. The Pir detected the delinquency, 
 and took his servant severely to task for his miscon- 
 duct. Jagannath protested vehemently that he 
 was innocent of the fault imputed to him. He had 
 not even tasted the dish. The Pir became angry, 
 and, pious man that he was, directed that Jagannath's 
 hands ana leet should be cut off as a punishment for 
 his theft and mendacity. In this mutilated state the 
 wretched man (no longer in a condition to help him- 
 self) implored his master either to assist him to drag 
 on a weary existence, or else to put an end to his life 
 and his sufferings without delay. The Pir's heart 
 was touched with remorse and pity. He advised his 
 unhappy cook to proceed to a certain place, where he 
 predicted he would be treated with the highest con- 
 sideration by the Hindus would, in fact, be venerated 
 by them as a deity. Of course the Pir could not be 
 wrong, and this is the origin of Jagannath the famous 
 divinity of Puree, worshipped by the Hindus under 
 the form of the misshapen torso of a man with mere 
 stumps for arms and legs. 
 
 The perpetual rivalry and hatred existing between 
 the Hindus and Muhammadans in India, which has 
 given rise to many a sanguinary sqene and many a 
 bitter memory, which even within recent years has 
 caused serious riots, and which at the present 
 moment divides them into two hostile camps, has 
 not been barren of fruits of a less tragic character. 
 Stories holding up one side or the other to ridicule 
 are common. Here is one from a Muhammadaa 
 source : 
 
 Some Hindu and Muhammad an sepoys were 
 
294 OLD FAKEERAH. 
 
 travelling together. At a well the Hindus of the 
 party noticed a tulasi plant, and, after performing 
 their usual ablutions, went and paid their respects to 
 it, prostrating themselves on the ground before it. 
 The Muhammadans laughed at them. A dispute 
 arose, and the followers of the Prophet of Mecca, 
 applying the logic so commonly used in such cases 
 to prove the vanity of idolatry, pulled up the plant 
 by the roots, to establish their contention that it was 
 a mere stock and had no power to resent an outrage. 
 The occurrence naturally led to much ill-feeling and 
 strained relations in the little party. The Hindus 
 looked confidently for the vengeance of the offended 
 deity upon the sacrilegious Muslims, but their ex- 
 pectations were not realized. Some days after the 
 incident of the tulasi plant, one of the Muhammadan 
 sepoys prostrated himself with great veneration 
 before some bushes on the wayside. The Hindus 
 noticed this, and coming forward began, by way of 
 retaliation, to tear up the plants which had been the 
 object of his adoration. He warned them that his 
 gods were not so supine as the tulasi plant respected 
 by themselves, but would take speedy revenge for the 
 outrage ; and, true enough, they soon had cause to 
 repent of their rashness, for the Muslim wag had got 
 them to handle a lot of stinging-nettles. 
 
IV. 
 
 BHUJNU AND CHEROKEEAH, OR 
 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 FAR away amongst the lofty pine trees of cool and 
 pleasant Simla, a woman came to our cottage one 
 summer day to offer herself as Ayah (lady's maid, or 
 child's nurse) in our household. She was from Kot- 
 gurh, a picturesque little village nestling in the valley 
 of the Sutlej, under the shadow of lofty mountains, 
 not many miles from the spot where the river de- 
 bouches into the plains of Northern India. 
 
 When the woman presented herself she was 
 attired in the costume of her country. Her head- 
 dress consisted of a peculiar cap, covering the hair 
 almost entirely, with a band right across the forehead 
 like that worn by certain nuns. She was dressed in 
 a very full skirt gathered in at the waist, a loose 
 bodice, with long sleeves, reaching down to the hips, 
 and a long folded piece of white cloth wrapped round 
 the neck. Her most conspicuous ornament was a 
 huge nose-ring. She looked what she really was, 
 a genuine rustic, with nothing of the smartness or 
 address of the experienced, \vell-trained ayah about 
 her. But she had a frank, intelligent face, and a 
 
2^6 BHUJNU AND CHEROKEEAH, 
 
 certain natural grace which won favour for her and 
 outweighed "all her deficiencies. She was duly en- 
 gaged and put to work, after she had changed her 
 Kotgurh costume for the customary dress of her 
 new occupation. 
 
 Bhujnu, for that was her name, made herself very 
 useful, and, being quick of apprehension, turned out 
 an excellent servant. On leaving Simla at the end 
 of the season, my wife promised to re-engage her on 
 our return from Calcutta in the following summer. 
 
 At the approach of the hot weather, when coats 
 were becoming a positive encumbrance, and ice and 
 punkah-wallahs were in demand, began the usual 
 exodus from Calcutta of the Government establish- 
 ments. Great and small hurried eagerly to the hills, 
 scornfully regardless of the annually recurring growls 
 of the Calcutta public, and equally indifferent to the 
 economical objections of the Indian press. Over- 
 crowded railway trains carried us 1150 miles to Um- 
 ballah, and dak gharries conveyed us, jolted, dusty, 
 and tired, along thirty-six miles of road to the foot of 
 the Himalayas. But Simla was still a long way off. 
 The luxury of driving rapidly up to the Indian 
 Capua, over fifty miles of good hill-road, was not 
 known at that time. The regular postal route to 
 Simla was by the military station of Kussowlee, and 
 zigzagged over one alpine range and then another, 
 with many a splendid view of mountain scenery, and 
 many a lovely bit of light and shade and colour upon 
 the glorious hills to charm the eye of the appre- 
 ciative traveller. 
 
 The sun was low in the heavens as we were 
 passing along the thickly wooded road which leads 
 
OR MAN AND WIFE. 297 
 
 into Boileaugunge, the " west end " of Simla, and we 
 were silently admiring the blaze of crimson with 
 which the rhododendrons in full bloom literally lit up 
 the hillsides from base to summit, when two figures 
 in white hurried up to us with low salaams. They 
 were Bhujnu and her husband Cherokeeah, who 
 had been patiently waiting for us, day after day, at 
 this spot. Cherokeeah, who was unknown to us, 
 professed to be a kitmatgar, or table servant, and, 
 unrolling a small pocket-handkerchief, produced a 
 few dirty-looking pieces of paper for us to read, 
 which were certificates from former employers. We 
 took the pair into our service, and on reaching our 
 house assigned them an out-office to live in. The 
 man did his work pretty well, the woman very 
 satisfactorily. But they did not live in harmony. 
 There arose constant bickerings and quarrels be- 
 tween them, which sometimes disturbed -the quiet 
 of our compound. Annoyed by their conjugal dif- 
 ferences, we called the pair before us, and warned 
 them that they would both be summarily dismissed 
 if they allowed their quarrels to trouble us. The 
 man received this warning in silence, and went off 
 quietly to perform his usual duties. Not so the 
 woman, whose heart was too full, or whose tongue 
 was less under control. She seized the opportunity 
 to explain, in detail, how very miserable she was. 
 Her narrative revealed domestic arrangements of so 
 peculiar a kind, and afforded glimpses of ideas and 
 feelings so very unlike those entertained by the 
 Western world, that I thought it worth while to note 
 down her statements, which I now reproduce. 
 
 According to Bhujnu's story, she had been married 
 
298 BHUJNU AND CHEROKEEAH, 
 
 to Cherokeeah for several years, when he took a fancy 
 to her younger sister and induced her also to live 
 with him. 1 Although the new arrangement was not 
 quite to her liking, Bhujnu managed for some 
 months to live amicably with her more favoured 
 sister, and for a while things went on smoothly 
 enough in their little village home, till the younger 
 sister transferred her affections and herself to 
 another man, and now, strange to say, began the 
 discord between the husband and his wife. 
 
 Cherokeeah was deeply wounded by the desertion 
 of his favourite, and would have it that his elder 
 wife had either prevailed upon her sister to go away, 
 or had driven her out of the house by unkindness. 
 In moments of vexation he used to draw contrasts 
 between the two sisters, much to the disadvantage 
 of the elder one, likening the younger to an elephant 
 
 1 Polygamy is not the general rule amongst the inhabitants 
 of the Himalayas. Polyandry is, if anything, more common. 
 A woman is often married to a whole family of brothers. It is 
 said that fathers object strongly to give their daughters to men 
 who have no brothers, because the death of the single husband 
 would leave the widow without a natural protector. The pre- 
 valence of the custom of polyandry in many countries (e.g., in 
 Britain in the time of Caesar) is well known, and its origin has 
 generally been attributed to the poverty of the people, coupled 
 with the habit, so general amongst barbarians, of long absences 
 from home on predatory or other excursions, and the necessity 
 thence arising of a plurality of guardians for the domestic 
 hearth. Touching polyandry, Herbert Spencer says : " Some 
 who have had 'good opportunities of judging' contend that in 
 certain places it is advantageous. It would seem that just as 
 there are habitats in which only inferior forms of animals can 
 exist, so in societies physically conditioned in particular ways, 
 the inferior forms of domestic life survive because they alone 
 are practicable" ("Principles of Sociology," i. 677). 
 
OR MAN AND WIFE. 299 
 
 in grace and beauty. Under the influence of time, 
 that great healer, the soreness may have gradually 
 passed away, and Cherokeeah may have got recon- 
 ciled to his lot, but his wounded feelings were 
 periodically irritated by a visit from the younger 
 woman, who had also come to Simla, and saw no 
 reason why she should not be on friendly terms with 
 her elder sister, for apparently there was not the 
 least ill blood between the two women. Her visits 
 used to stir up old recollections, and revive Chero- 
 keeah's unreasonable anger against his wife. Bitter 
 upbraidings followed each of these unlucky visits, 
 and the squabble usually ended in the woman get- 
 ting a beating, whereupon she would wisely raise an 
 uproar in order to bring the other servants to her 
 rescue. Sometimes the husband would end the 
 quarrel by refusing to take food, and threatening to 
 commit suicide. If he persisted in abstaining from 
 food for a day or so, the miserable wife would become 
 frantic and fall at his feet promising to get back her 
 sister. The younger woman, however, was too 
 comfortable in her new companionship to have any 
 wish to return to the old dual arrangement. 
 
 Such had been the state of affairs for some months. 
 So weary had the poor woman become of the cat- 
 and-dog life they were leading, that she wished to 
 separate from her husband, and had repeatedly 
 begged of him to set her free. But to this he .would 
 not consent. He knew his own interests too well. 
 She was valuable property ; she was a source of 
 income to him. Her wages were larger than his. 
 When the question of separation came up between 
 them he never failed to remind her that he had paid 
 
300 BHUJNU AND CHEROKEEAH, 
 
 five rupees for her to her parents, and he protested 
 that he was not going to be done out of his money. 
 I suggested to the woman that, as this purchase 
 money seemed to he the great difficulty in the way 
 of her emancipation, she had better pay the amount 
 and be done with it. With a blank look on her face, 
 she inquired where she was to get the necessary 
 rupees from. I pointed out to her that she earned 
 every month twice as much as her husband claimed 
 on account of purchase money, and might easily pay 
 him the five rupees he gave for her. " Oh, no ! " 
 she said, with something like despair in her .tone, 
 '' don't you see all my earnings are his? I cannot 
 pay him out of what is his own property." It was 
 no use explaining to her that she was a free woman 
 and not a slave. Amongst us, she would say, it is 
 different, for with her the customs and usages of her 
 caste and tribe were everything, let Acts of Parlia- 
 ment and of the Indian Legislature be what they may. 
 Loth to interfere too actively in a peculiar dispute 
 of this kind, I refrained from pressing the point, and 
 let the matter drop, hoping that the threat of dis- 
 missal would keep the badly -yoked pair in order. 
 But further disputes soon arose, followed by 
 applications for my arbitration now that the facts 
 of the case had been made known to me. The 
 course of action generally adopted in such cases by 
 Europeans in India is a very simple one. They 
 haughtily or petulantly decline to listen to the 
 statements of the troublesome disputants; dismiss 
 them at a moment's notice, and engage other ser- 
 vants in their places. This course was open to me, 
 but I hesitated to drop the curtain in this summary 
 
OR MAN AND WIFE. 301 
 
 fashion upon a little domestic drama so charac- 
 teristic of Eastern life, and I therefore adopted 
 another plan. To the great joy of the ayah, I 
 offered to pay off the intolerable debt of five rupees 
 which hung like a millstone round her neck. Che- 
 rokeeah accepted the offer not, however, without 
 great reluctance, and only after his claim to all the 
 woman's w r orldly possessions on that day, including 
 her ornaments and even her very clothes, had been 
 admitted. Willingly did Bhujnu part with all her 
 worldly possessions to be. freed from a bondage 
 which had become intolerable to her. The money 
 was paid, and the property handed over to Chero- 
 keeah. Henceforward the two lived apart, and peace 
 reigned in our compound. 
 
 At the end of the Simla season, when the time 
 arrived for our return to Calcutta, the woman ear- 
 nestly begged to be furnished with a written 
 statement, signed by me, to the effect that Chero- 
 keeah had received back, in full, the five rupees he 
 had paid to her parents on the occasion of their 
 marriage. This was a precautionary measure. She 
 was going for the winter months to her native 
 village, and feared that her late husband would 
 claim her again and deny having received payment. 
 I gave her the paper she wanted, and we had reason 
 to know that, armed with this important document, 
 she was able, without the intervention of any of Her 
 Majesty's divorce courts, to keep herself free from 
 the clutches of her former lord and master, and to 
 enter into other matrimonial arrangements on her 
 own account. 
 
V. 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 THE particulars embodied in the following brief nar- 
 rative will help the reader to understand the estima- 
 tion in which women, at any rate those of the lower 
 classes, are held in India. 
 
 In the summer of 187-, a young man of the 
 Mehter J caste made overtures for the hand of a 
 young girl with whom, we may suppose, he had 
 fallen in love. Her guardians^ distant relations of 
 hers, were willing enough to get her married ; but the 
 opportunity was a legitimate one for making a little 
 money, and they were not going to forego their right 
 to sell the girl whom they had maintained for some 
 years. The young man's proposal was accordingly 
 received v/ith favour, and he was informed that he 
 might take the girl to wife on paying her guardians 
 thirty rupees in hard cash. 
 
 Our swain was absolutely penniless, and thirty 
 rupees a large sum in his eyes, seeing that he would 
 probably never at any time of his life earn more than 
 five or six rupees a month; but then he could 
 
 1 The Mehters are a low caste, mostly employed as sweepers 
 and scavengers. They are a specially intelligent class, strong, 
 plucky, and somewhat quarrelsome. 
 
THE SLAVE GIRL. 303 
 
 borrow every native of India knows how to do that, 
 and perhaps some bunneah or other would advance 
 the required sum, on the personal security of a friend 
 or two. It is true that the money-lender, handing 
 over good current coin of the realm on such very 
 slender security, would expect and, as far as possible, 
 would screw out exorbitant interest ; that, however, 
 was a secondary consideration. To get thirty rupees 
 and the girl of his fancy was all that the lover cared 
 about at the moment : how the money, when bor- 
 rowed, was to be repaid, with the interest upon it, 
 did not, I feel certain, trouble him at all. He cast 
 about for some one to help him to raise the required 
 amount. A good-natured but improvident friend, 
 named Ghusseetah, who had a large family of his 
 own to support, and only some fifteen rupees a 
 month by way of income the joint earnings of 
 himself and his wife was induced to be surety for 
 the ardent young man. An accommodating bunneah 
 advanced the needful sum of money, the girl's 
 guardians received it, and the marriage was duly 
 celebrated. 
 
 Bholee took his young wife home, and the girl was, 
 in accordance with time-honoured custom in India, 
 made the drudge and slave of her mother-in-law. 
 For well, indeed, might Indian daughters-in-law ex- 
 claim in Shelley's words 
 
 " Even from our childhood have we learn'd to steep 
 The bread of slavery in the tears of woe." 
 
 What actually occurred in the little household is 
 unknown to me, but it appears probable that the 
 young wife chafed under the treatment she ex- 
 
304 THE SLA VE GIRL. 
 
 perienced, and, perhaps, became stiff-necked and 
 obstinate, for eventually her mother-in-law pro- 
 nounced her incorrigible. Domestic peace being 
 impossible under the circumstances, her husband 
 turned her adrift, leaving Lahore at the same time 
 to avoid being called to account for his conduct by 
 the panchyat of his caste. 
 
 The bunneah had not been paid a single fraction 
 of the sum originally borrowed from him, though 
 he had managed to extort a respectable amount of 
 money under the name of interest. Ghusseetah, 
 the surety, was warned that as the principal had 
 absconded, he would be required to pay up to the 
 uttermost cowrie. Already in the toils of the 
 bunneah on account of other transactions, and 
 often, when short of cash, dependent upon him for 
 the bare necessaries of life, the poor man acknow- 
 ledged his obligations and humbly promised to pay. 
 But was there no compensation to be had for the 
 loss occasioned by the base ingratitude of his 
 defaulting friend ? He pondered the matter, and 
 struck upon the idea of boldly annexing the girl 
 who was the innocent cause of his indebtedness. 
 He told her that as her husband had absconded 
 without paying the money, and had left him solely 
 responsible to the bunneah for the amount where- 
 with she had been purchased from her guardians, she 
 was now his (Ghusseetah's) property. The argument 
 appeared unanswerable, and, fully persuaded of the 
 justice and lawfulness of this conclusion, the young 
 woman accompanied her new master to his home, 
 and was in due course made over to the tender 
 mercies of his wife. The slave thus acquired for 
 
THE SLA VE GIRL. 305 
 
 slave she practically was, be the law of the land 
 what it may had now to do all the household work 
 of a large and very poor family. In such a position 
 her duties were by no means light. She had to fetch 
 water for domestic purposes, grind corn into flour 
 for the daily consumption of the whole family, prepare 
 the meals, wash the pots and pans, sweep the room 
 and at any rate once a week plaster it over with 
 a mixture of clay and cow-dung, and last, though 
 not least, she had to look after the little ones. Hers 
 was one incessant round of toil, and although recog- 
 nized as a member of the household and entitled to 
 a share of food, she had to wear rags, to endure the 
 angry vituperation of her mistress, and often the 
 blows of the children, who did not fail to remind her 
 of her servile condition. 
 
 When Ghusseetah and his wife entered my service 
 as sweeper and ayah respectively, they were the 
 owners of the slave girl. They took up their abode 
 in a room in my servants' quarters or out-offices. 
 The room was about eight or nine feet square. It 
 had one entrance-door, and on the opposite side a 
 little window, with strong wooden bars across it. At 
 this time the family consisted of a son, about eleven 
 years of age, and his child wife ; two younger boys, 
 an infant in arms, and the slave, whose age was pro- 
 bably not more than seventeen or eighteen. In my 
 compound the family lived quietly enough, and we 
 had no knowledge of the peculiar position the young 
 woman occupied in the ayah's household. The debt,, 
 however, still remained unpaid, and the bunneah 
 threatened legal proceedings. 
 
 Although no beauty, the household drudge was 
 20 
 
306 THE SLA VE GIRL. 
 
 young ; and youth, clothed even in dirty rags, has its 
 attractions for the opposite sex. A tender feeling for 
 the girl sprang up in the impressionable heart of her 
 master, an elderly grey-headed man, with a rather 
 gaunt appearance. Certain indiscretions on his part 
 aroused ayah's suspicions. She thereupon, unknown 
 to her husband, suggested to the bunneah that he 
 should arrange, if possible, to pass the young woman 
 on to some man or other who would engage to take 
 over the debt. The bunneah, who had probably 
 been paid a portion of the interest on the money 
 advanced by him, found a willing bachelor, and 
 arranged the matter satisfactorily. But now a 
 curious difficulty arose Ghusseetah was not as 
 willing as his wife that the young woman should 
 leave his house. He threw what obstacles he could 
 in the way of the final conclusion of the new 
 arrangement. He did not approve of the future 
 husband, he did not feel sure that the bargain was 
 a safe one. Matters had, however, under his wife's 
 guidance, advanced too far to be easily set aside. 
 The girl was made over to her new lord, who, when 
 he came to conduct her home, brought a gaudy suit 
 of clothes for her. Arrayed in her new finery, and 
 escorted by a small party of friends, she went off 
 cheerfully to her new lord's home, and the fate that 
 might be in store for her there. 
 
 On the young woman's departure Ghusseetah 
 broke down completely. He refused to eat or drink, 
 and became reduced to a veritable skeleton. Dis- 
 consolate and down-hearted, he wrapped his ex-slave's 
 ragged and dirty sheet about his loins, took a staff in 
 his hand, and wandered forth alone, threatening to 
 
THE SLA VE GIRL. 307 
 
 go away for ever to some distant land. When 
 he thus cast domestic life behind him and started 
 forth on his tramp, his poor wife and children 
 followed him crying bitterly, and begging of him to 
 come back. The loud lamentations of the deserted 
 family attracted my attention, and from a window I 
 observed the pathetic scene, to which the distraught 
 manner and unusual garb of my generally very sober 
 and orderly servant gave no slight tincture of 
 absurdity. I did not at the moment know what was 
 the matter, and suspected a conjugal difference of a 
 more or less trifling kind. Regardless of the en- 
 treaties of his wife and children, Ghusseetah went his 
 way. At night, however, he returned home ; but 
 not to eat or to drink. He threw himself down on 
 the bare ground, with only the ex-slave's cast-off 
 rags as a pillow. This display of tender feeling was 
 too much for the long-suffering wife. She snatched 
 up the rags, flung them on the fire and burnt them 
 to ashes, while, in Indian fashion, she heaped curses 
 upon her ex-slave, her parents, grand-parents, fore- 
 fathers, and upon her unborn descendants. Ghus- 
 seetah, on his part, refused to be consoled without 
 Subratun, whose name he kept repeating in his sleep. 
 There was no sham about it ; the man was evidently 
 quite unhinged. In the day he used to wander about 
 disconsolate ; at night he would come home to a 
 restless bed. He gradually got so weak and ill that 
 his family became alarmed for his safety. He told 
 his wife and children that now the end was at hand, 
 all he wished them to do for him was to follow him 
 to the grave, and to deposit in it his favourite hookah 
 and two pounds of good tobacco. 
 
3 o8 7 HE SLA VE GIRL. 
 
 However, he did not die. With time he recovered 
 his senses. He no longer refused food, and gradually 
 got as strong as he had formerly been. But now 
 comes another curious feature of the case. He 
 solemnly averred that he had no recollection of what 
 he had said or done in the matter of Subratun. He 
 protested that he had been bewitched by some 
 enemy, who had given him poison to eat, and had 
 made him ridiculous in the eyes of everybody. He 
 could not be prevailed upon to acknowledge his own 
 responsibility for his sayings and doings ; stoutly 
 maintaining that he had been under evil influences 
 and not his own master. 
 
 When Ghusseetah got mad as his wife called it 
 and could not do his work, I inquired into the circum- 
 stances of the case, and then, without any diffi- 
 cult}^ or cross-questioning, learnt all the particulars 
 detailed above. I was careful to note down imme- 
 diately the facts as they were communicated to me, 
 for they seemed to afford a glimpse of the inner life 
 of the people which might be as interesting to others 
 as it was to me. 
 
VI. 
 THIEF-CA TCHING. 
 
 THIEF-CATCHING carried out in a thoroughly Indian 
 way has its peculiarities not devoid of interest. 
 
 Fifteen rupees had been abstracted out of a box 
 in my study. I called my servants together, made 
 know the loss, and threatened a police investigation. 
 What such an inquiry involved the servants were 
 well aware. The faces of those upon whom, from 
 the nature of their duties, suspicion would naturally 
 fall, showed only too well that their imaginations 
 were already busy, conjuring up the disgraceful 
 scene in which the native constables would endeavour 
 to elicit the truth from them, literally at the point 
 of the baton, dug into their unfortunate sides. The 
 magistrate and his sentence upon the offender are 
 secondary considerations in these cases. It is the 
 preliminary police investigation that is most dreaded. 
 I had not the slightest intention of handing my 
 servants over to the tender mercies of the constables. 
 My threat was merely intended to frighten out a 
 confession, if possible, and I willingly acceded to a 
 proposal, made by one or two of the servants, to 
 investigate the matter themselves. 
 
3 1 o THIEF- CA TCHING. 
 
 After performing certain religious ablations, the 
 cook, a grave Mussulman much respected in the 
 household, produced a shoe, into the inside of 
 which he stuck a shoemaker's awl, and with this 
 instrument proceeded with great solemnity to the 
 detection of the thief. The names of the several 
 servants were written upon separate scraps of paper. 
 The cook and one other man, acting jointly, lifted 
 the shoe, each man applying only one finger under 
 the round head of the handle of the awl. Suspended 
 in this way, the scraps of paper with the servants' 
 names were dropped into the shoe in succession, and 
 it was well understood by all present that when the 
 thief's name was put into the shoe it would turn 
 round in a horizontal plane. It turned very dis- 
 tinctly at the name of a certain servant, and, as 
 might have been expected, the result was received 
 by him with anything but satisfaction. However, 
 he was a Hindu, and affected to believe that this 
 Mussulman mode of thief-catching was not quite 
 fair, at any rate to Hindus, and it was agreed that 
 a reference should bo made on the subject to a 
 Brahman in the city, whose verdict would be con- 
 sidered conclusive. Next day the Brahman was 
 appealed to. He went through a form of divination, 
 and then oracularly declared that the thief was a 
 man, not a woman, that he was more than thirty 
 and less than forty years of age, and so on. He very 
 impressively affirmed his ability to lay hands on the 
 thief there and then, but he refrained from doing so, 
 advising the culprit to restore the money within the 
 next two days, otherwise he would expose him and 
 let the law take its course. The Brahman's descrip- 
 
THJEf-CA TCHING. 3 1 1 
 
 tion of the thief did to some extent tally with that 
 of the man already pointed out by the cook's divining 
 shoe, and confirmed the suspicion against him. 
 Next morning the suspected man came and informed 
 me that the money was in the inner pocket of the 
 broadcloth coat worn by a fellow-servant, a boy of 
 about fourteen years of age. The boy was called, 
 ostensibly to perform some ordinary duty, and upon 
 being suddenly asked what was in his pocket, ap- 
 peared ready to drop with fear. Seven rupees were 
 found in his pocket, and many were the stories ne 
 told in regard to the manner in which he had come 
 into possession of them ; but he at last affirmed, and 
 stuck to the assertion, that they had been given to 
 him for safe custody by the suspected man, who 
 declared his intention of replacing them in the box 
 whence he had abstracted them as soon as a favour- 
 able opportunity presented itself. Anyhow, between 
 the shoe and the Brahman, the thief or thieves for 
 I believe the pair were confederates were detected, 
 and a portion at least of the missing money recovered 
 with little trouble. 
 
VII. 
 A YOUTHFUL SAINT. 
 
 ATTRACTED by the voices of some people passing my 
 window, and especially noticing a high treble voice, 
 like that of a child, speaking in rather more authori- 
 tative tones than his years seemed to justify, I looked 
 out and saw a small boy of about twelve years of age, 
 dressed in clean clothes, attended by several of my 
 servants, all apparently most attentive to him. One 
 man, of whom he inquired where his mangoes were, 
 ran off at once, apparently to fetch them, but really 
 to purchase some in the bazaar. The youthful 
 centre of this little group was sauntering in a very 
 leisurely manner towards the gate, conversing with 
 his companions, when suddenly, in the most capri- 
 cious manner, he turned round and took an opposite 
 direction towards the out-offices at the back of the 
 house. His full face was now in view, and struck 
 me strongly as being very wanting in intelligence, if 
 not bearing visible traces of insanity. 
 
 The boy had been living in my out-houses for two 
 or three days. He had come in there of his own 
 accord, and was being feasted and feted to the full 
 extent of their means by my poor but ever improvi- 
 
A YOUTHFUL SAINT. 313 
 
 dent domestics, who were never tired of supplying 
 his wants or humouring his caprices : for, it would 
 seem, the boy was a remarkable person, one espe- 
 cially favoured by Allah. 
 
 In his native village near Gujranwallah, his father 
 had recently been engaged in erecting the mud walls 
 of a hut for himself. His humble, if useful, work 
 required a plentiful supply of water, and this the 
 owner of the well hard by absolutely refused to give 
 him. Without water the work could not be carried 
 on. The builder was in* great perplexity, when his 
 young son came to his rescue with words of com- 
 fort, telling him that what his fellow -man re- 
 fused Allah would give freely ; and so saying, he 
 planted his little foot down vigorously on the ground, 
 out of which a spring of fresh water instantly welled 
 up, and continues flowing to this day. So remark- 
 able an event could not fail to attract attention. 
 The spring became famous all through the neigh- 
 bourhood. Visitors from near and far flocked to see 
 it. It became a place of pilgrimage. The water 
 was found to have wonderful curative power. Even 
 leprosy was cured by bathing in it, and quantities 
 were stored and carried away for the benefit of sufferers 
 unable to come to the holy spot, where Allah had so 
 remarkably manifested His power and His beneficent 
 remembrance of the wants of the poor. One miser- 
 able leper, cured of his disease at the spring, carried 
 away some of the water to Amritsar and sold it there 
 to another sufferer from the same grievous affliction. 
 The purchaser was duly restored to a sound condition 
 by the use of the water ; but alas, the mercenary 
 vendor of God's precious, but freely given, gift of 
 
314 A YOUTHFUL SAINT. 
 
 healing was attacked again by the hideous malady 
 as a punishment for his avarice. 
 
 As suddenly and capriciously as he came, so sud- 
 denly and capriciously the boy went away, and I 
 lost all further trace of this interesting little worker 
 of miracles, who, if he does not go mad, will per- 
 haps hereafter add a new sect or sub-sect to the 
 innumerable ones already flourishing in India. 
 
VIII. 
 THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. 
 
 HAVING occasion one cold winter to pass close to 
 the out-offices occupied by my servants, I noticed a 
 young woman, I may say a girl, lightly clad, sitting 
 outside in the keen frosty air eating her solitary 
 dinner. She was outside, and alone, because, for- 
 sooth, she might not eat in the presence of the male 
 members of the family, who were enjoying their 
 dinner, in warmth and comfort, within doors. The 
 woman was the wife of my dhoby, or washerman, 
 a Hindu of a low caste. I subsequently ascertained 
 that the rule in this case is sometimes so far relaxed 
 as to allow of the woman's eating with her back 
 turned to her lords and masters. Nor do these rules 
 hold only in the case of the inferior castes or the 
 lower orders. They are of universal application in 
 India. " It is a well-known fact," says a Bengali 
 writer, " that Hindoo males and females do not take 
 their meals together ; ... it is held highly unbe- 
 coming in a grown-up female to be seen eating by 
 a male member of the family. . . . The choicest 
 part of the food is offered in the first instance to the 
 males, and the residue is kept for the females. 1 
 1 "The Hindoos as They Are," by Shib Chunder Bose, pp. 8, 9. 
 
3i6 THE DA UGHTER-IN-LA W. 
 
 A short time after the incident referred to above, 
 my attention was attracted by a woman's voice 
 crying in loud and pitiful tones. In an Indian house- 
 hold such an event would generally be noticed only 
 by a peremptory order to " stop that noise," accom- 
 panied by a threat of summary ejectment or worse 
 punishment in the event of a repetition of the 
 nuisance. But having nothing particular on hand, 
 I thought it worth while to go down to the out- 
 offices, which were at some distance from my dwell- 
 ing-house, and make inquiries into the uproar. As 
 soon as I appeared, the servants began relating a 
 doleful tale of systematic oppression and cruelty. 
 The victim was the girl I had previously seen 
 turned out to eat her dinner in the cold. The 
 oppressor was her mother-in-law. Never a day 
 went, so said the servants, without the young 
 woman being soundly thrashed, with a stick if it 
 were at hand, or with blows and kicks, as might be 
 convenient. The reasons for these assaults were 
 many and various : no fault, no offence, neglect or 
 oversight, being too trivial to excite the mother-in- 
 law's anger and cause her to become violent. I 
 could not find out what was the real ground for the 
 assault on this particular occasion, but it was quite 
 apparent that the girl had been severely beaten 
 about the face, as it was swollen up, and there was 
 some blood about her person. The mother-in-law 
 was not to be found, and the girl's husband, in a 
 most abject way, tried to explain that the punish- 
 ment was well merited, as his wife had not performed 
 the tasks which had been allotted her. His fellow- 
 servants stated that the young woman was up every 
 
THE DA UGHTER-IN-LA W. 317 
 
 day hours before daylight to grind the corn for the 
 entire household ; that she had to sweep the house 
 and lay on a fresh wash of clay over the floor every 
 day; that she had to cook the food, carry it herself 
 two-and-a-half miles to the river where the washer- 
 men were engaged, bring back the plates, and cook 
 the evening meal against the return of the dhobies. 
 According to all accounts she worked early and late, 
 but could never please her mother-in-law. I insisted 
 that the old woman should be produced. Her son 
 swore she had gone out ; presently, however, I dis- 
 covered that she was concealed in one of the rooms, 
 and she was brought forward much against her will. 
 The old witch I had never seen her before was a 
 wiry woman about fifty years of age, with ill-nature 
 stamped on every feature of her face. I scolded her 
 for her cruelty to the girl ; I pointed out that her 
 daughter-in-law was no slave, and that she had no 
 legal right whatever to strike her. But the old hag 
 was not to be put down so easily. She assumed a 
 defiant air, and said she had spent her money in 
 getting the girl and would have her work out of 
 her. To argue with the old termagant was useless. 
 " When a master does not get his work done, doesn't 
 he beat his servants ? and when I don't get my 
 work done I shall of course beat the girl." Such was 
 her contention. She insisted that as she had spent 
 her money in getting the girl for her son, she had a 
 clear right to her services. The girl was from a 
 distant village, and possibly her parents had received 
 fifteen or twenty rupees on the occasion of handing her 
 over to her husband, and had, in all likelihood, spent 
 the amount in providing a simple feast of rice and 
 
3 1 8 THE DA UGHTER-IN-LA W. 
 
 sugar for their rustic friends and neighbours. Yet on 
 the strength of this small sum of money the girl was 
 a real slave to her mother-in-law. I threatened to 
 send for the police, to clear up this point for her, 
 but the old woman was not to be intimidated. The 
 son stood by making apologies with his palms joined 
 together in the most abject manner, but the old 
 witch affirmed boldly, and with a significance not to 
 be mistaken, that whatever the police might do, the 
 Sirkar would not take her daughter-in-law away from 
 her. The girl had not a word to say. With her 
 head bowed down and her face almost quite con- 
 cealed, she sat scrubbing a brass lotah, as if afraid 
 that any interruption of her labours would entail 
 further punishment. Without. doubt she considered 
 herself a purchased slave, a view in which the by- 
 standers apparently acquiesced, though they thought 
 she ought to be treated with a little less cruelty. 
 And as she sat there, in her coarse, filthy rags, she 
 presented a sad contrast to her mother-in-law in her 
 green and black chintz petticoat, white bodice, and 
 red sheet. The contrast between the two women 
 was so marked, that I began to take note of the 
 appearance of the other members of the family. 
 The men were dressed in clean white clothes, the 
 mother-in-law as already stated, and her own little 
 girl in a nice yellow petticoat, with a white sheet 
 over her head. All looked clean and respectable, 
 except the young wife, the domestic drudge, the 
 slave that had been purchased for so many rupees, 
 silently busy cleaning the brass pot even while her 
 wrongs were being discussed in her presence. I 
 began seriously to regret my interference in the 
 
THE DA UGHTER-IN LAW. 319 
 
 matter. I foresaw that the girl's fate would not be 
 improved by my advocacy. To let the young wife 
 know her legal rights was useless, for her mind, 
 oppressed by the customs of her people, could not 
 rise to a conception of them. She never dreamed 
 of freedom. She was not indignant at, or humiliated 
 by, being abused and ill-treated publicly. She simply 
 cried out when she was beaten, just as a dog might 
 do. The fellow-servants were not outraged at the 
 conduct of the old woman in thrashing her daughter- 
 in-law or exacting task-work from her. That was 
 customary. They merely thought she was rather 
 hard upon the girl. 
 
 Had the case been made over to the police, the 
 girl would probably have said she had -nothing to 
 complain about, and that the blow in her face had 
 been caused by a fall. 
 
 Month after month the ill-starred girl was beaten 
 and starved by her brutal mother-in-law, without 
 any interference on the part of the husband or 
 other member of the family, and although she did 
 not lay violent hands upon herself, 1 came eventually 
 to an untimely end by neglecting, in times of illness, 
 the sympathetic advice of her neighbours, as well 
 
 1 "It is a well-known fact that females who commit suicide in 
 India are generally between the ages of twelve and twenty, and 
 that these acts may almost always be traced to the oppression 
 of cruel mothers-in-law, That the daughter-in-law is, in every 
 Hindu household, regarded as a servant, is evident from the 
 fact that when the bridegroom is about to proceed to the house 
 of his bride on the occasion of the marriage ceremonies, his 
 mother asks him where he is going to, and he replies with the 
 prescribed formula : 'To bring in your maid-servant.'" " The 
 Hindus as They Are," by Shib Chunder Bose, p. 57. 
 
320 THE DA UGHTER-IN-LA W. 
 
 as every precaution which common sense would 
 suggest. Deserted by her husband, and cruelly 
 ill-used by her mother-in-law even when the chill 
 hand of death was unmistakably upon her, the poor 
 girl died as a dog might die, uncared for and alone. 
 Often had she been heard to wish herself dead, and 
 to console herself with the thought that she would 
 return as a clioorail to persecute and destroy her 
 tyrant, relying upon a widely spread superstition, 
 which sometimes has the wholesome effect of re- 
 straining, in some degree, the hand of the domestic 
 oppressor. But in the case I am writing about the 
 vengeance of the poor dead woman was completely 
 and effectually guarded against by means of appro- 
 priate ceremonies. At the various halting places to 
 the grave mustard seed had been scattered about, 
 and a few iron tacks had been driven into the ground 
 with the prayer that the spirit of the deceased might 
 not be permitted to disturb the living. The ghost of 
 the injured woman might haunt the graveyard, but 
 in seeking its former earthly habitation it would 
 have to retrace the road along which its corpse had 
 been borne. Here it would always find a spiritual 
 garden of mustard plants, and, beguiled into collect- 
 ing the flowers, would lose the precious hours of the 
 night, and be forced by approaching dawn to hasten 
 back to the land of the dead. 
 
 10 58 26 
 

 
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