Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

W >> William Eleroy Curtis >> Modern India

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

The lane from the mausoleum leads into the courtyard of the Jumma
Musjid, a mosque erected by Ahmed Shah at the height of his power
and glory. It is considered one of the most stately and satisfactory
examples of Saracenic architecture.

The most beautiful piece of carving, however, in this great
collection is a window in a deserted mosque called Sidi Sayid.
Perhaps you are familiar with it. It has been photographed over
and over again, and has been copied in alabaster, marble, plaster
and wax; it has been engraved, photographed and painted, and is used
in textbooks on architecture as an illustration of the perfection
reached by the sculptors of India. The design is so complicated
that I cannot describe it, but the central features are trees,
with intertwining boughs, and the Hindu who made it could use
his chisel with as free and delicate a hand as Raphael used his
brush. Fergusson, who is recognized as the highest authority on
architecture, says that it is "more like a work of nature than
any other architectural detail that has yet been designed, even
by the best masters of Greece or the middle ages." Yet the mosque
which this precious gem made famous is abandoned and deserted,
and the courtyard is now a cow pasture.

X

JEYPORE AND ITS MAHARAJA

A board of geographic names, similar to that we have in Washington,
is badly needed in India to straighten out discrepancies in the
nomenclature on the maps. I was told that only three towns in
all the vast empire have a single spelling; all the rest have
several; some have many; and the name of one town--I have forgotten
which--is given in sixty-five different ways. Jeypore, for example,
is given in fifteen. The sign over the entrance to the railway
station reads "Jeypure;" on the lamps that light the platform
it is painted "Jeypoor"; on the railway ticket it was "Jaypur";
on the bill of fare in the refreshment-room of the station it
was "Jaipor"; on a telegram delivered by the operator at the
station it was spelled "Jaiphur." If the employes about a single
establishment in the town can get up that number of spells, what
are we to expect from the rest of the inhabitants of a city of
150,000 people, and Jeypore is one of the simplest and easiest
names in the gazetteer. The neighboring city of Jodpore, capital
of the adjoining native state of Marwar, offers an even greater
variety of orthoepy, for it appears in a different spelling on each
of the three maps I carried around--a railway map, a government
map, and the map in Murray's Guide Book. This is a fair illustration
of the dissensions over nomenclature, which are bewildering to
a stranger, who never knows when he gets the right spelling,
and sometimes cannot even find the towns he is looking for.

Jodpore is famous for its forts, which present an imposing appearance
from a wide spreading plain, as they are perched at the top of a
rocky hill three hundred feet high, with almost perpendicular
sides. The only way to reach it is by a zigzag road chiseled
out of the cliff, which leads to a massive gateway. The walls
are twenty-eight feet high, twenty-eight feet thick, and are
crowned with picturesque towers. During ascent you are shown
the impressions of the hands of the fifteen wives of one of the
rajahs who were all burned in one grand holocaust upon his funeral
pyre. I don't know why they did it, but the marks are there.
Within the walls are some very interesting old palaces, built
in the fifteenth century, of pure Hindu architecture, and the
carvings and perforated marble work are of the most delicate
and beautiful designs. The treasury, which contains the family
jewels and plate, is the chief object of tourist curiosity, and
they are a collection worth going far to see. The pearls and
emeralds are especially fine, and are worth millions. The saddles,
bridles, harness and other stable equipments are loaded with gold
and silver ornaments set with precious stones, and the trappings
for elephants are covered with the most gorgeous gold and silver
embroidery.

About half a mile outside the city walls is a temple called the
Maha Mandir, whose roof is supported by a hundred richly decorated
columns. On each side of it are palaces intended exclusively
for the use of spirits of former rulers of the country. Their
beds are laid out with embroidery coverings and lace, sheltered
by golden canopies and curtains of brocade, but are never slept
in by living people, being reserved for the spirits of the dead.
This is the only exhibition of the kind to be seen in India,
and why the dead and gone rulers of Marwar should need lodgings
when those of the other Indian states do not, is an unsolved
mystery.

In the royal cemetery, three miles to the north, rows of beautiful
but neglected cenotaphs mark the spots where the remains of each
of some 300 rajahs were consumed with their widows. Some of them
had more and some less, according to their taste and opportunities,
and sutti, or widow burning, was enforced in Jodpore more strictly
than anywhere else in India. You can imagine the thoughts this
extraordinary place suggests. Within its walls, in obedience
to an awful and relentless custom, not less than nine hundred
or a thousand innocent, helpless women were burned alive, for
these oriental potentates certainly must have allowed themselves
at least three wives each. That would be a very moderate estimate.
I have no doubt that some of them had forty, and perhaps four
hundred, and we know that one had fifteen. But no matter how
many times a rajah went to the matrimonial altar, every wife that
outlived him was burned upon his funeral pyre in order that he
might enjoy her society in the other world. Since widow burning was
stopped by the British government in the sixties, the spirits of
the rajahs of Jodpore have since been compelled to go to paradise
without company. But they do not take any chances of offending the
deities by neglect, for on a hill that overlooks their cemetery
they have erected a sort of sweepstakes temple to Three Hundred
Million Gods.

At the palace of the rajah of Ulwar, in a city of the same name,
sometimes spelled Alwar and in forty other different ways, which
lies about thirty miles north of Jodpore, is another collection
of jewels, ranked among the finest in India. The treasure-house
contains several great chests of teakwood, handsomely carved
and gilded, bound with gold and silver bands, and filled with
valuable plate, arms, equipment, vessels and ornaments that have
accumulated in the family during several centuries, and no matter
how severe the plague or how many people are dying of famine,
these precious heirlooms have never been disturbed. Perhaps the
most valuable piece of the collection is a drinking cup, cut from
a single emerald, as large as those used for after dinner coffee.
There is a ruby said to be one of the largest in existence and
worth $750,000; a yellow diamond valued at $100,000; several
strings of almost priceless pearls and other jewels of similar
value. There are caskets of gold and ivory in which hundreds of
thousands of dollars' worth of jewels are imbedded, perfumery
bottles of solid gold with the surfaces entirely incrusted with
pearls and diamonds, and hung upon the walls around the apartment
are shawls that are worth a thousand times their weight in gold.
The saddles, harness and elephant trappings are much more beautiful
and costly than those at Jodpore, and in the adjoining armory is
a remarkable collection of swords and other weapons with hilts
of gold, jade, enamel and jewels. A coat of mail worn by Bani
Singh, grandfather of the present rajah, is made of solid gold,
weighing sixteen and a half pounds, and is lavishly decorated
with diamonds. The library is rich in rare oriental books and
manuscripts wonderfully illuminated in colors and gold. It has
a large collection of editions of the Koran in fifty or more
different languages, and one manuscript book called "The Gulistan"
is claimed to be the most valuable volume in India. The librarian
insisted that it is worth 500,000 rupees, which is equivalent to
about $170,000, and declared that the actual cost of the gold
used in illuminating it was more than $50,000. It is a modern
manuscript copy of a religious poem, made in 1848 by a German
scribe at the order of the Maharaja Bani Singh. The miniatures
and other pictures were painted by a native artist at Delhi,
and the ornamental scroll work upon the margins of the pages and
the initial letters were done by a resident of Ulwar.

Nearly all of the capitals of the provinces of Rajputana have
similar treasures, the accumulations of centuries, and it seems
like criminal negligence to keep such enormous sums of money tied
up in jewels and useless ornaments when they might be expended or
invested to the great advantage of the people in public works and
manufactories. Some of the towns need such industries very badly
because, off the farms, there is nothing in the way of employment
for either men or women, and every branch of agriculture is
overcrowded. One may moralize about these conditions as long
as he likes; however, changes occur very slowly in India, and as
Kipling so pertinently puts it in one of his poems, it's only
a fool "Who tries to hustle the East."

Jeypore is the best, the largest and most prosperous of the twenty
Rajput capitals, and is beyond comparison the finest modern city
in India. It is also the busiest. Everybody seems to have plenty
to do, and plenty to spend. The streets are as crowded and as
busy as those of London or New York, with a bustling and stalwart
race of men and women, happy and contented, and showing more
energy than you often see in an oriental country. The climate is
cool, dry and healthful. The city stands upon a sandy and arid
plain, 1,600 feet above the sea, surrounded by stony hills and
wide wastes of desert, but, even these natural disadvantages have
contributed to its wealth and industries, for the barren hills are
filled with deposits of fine clays, rare ores and cheap jewels
like garnets, carbuncles and agates, which have furnished the
people one of their most profitable trades. Out of this material
they make an enamel which is famous everywhere, and has been the
source of great gain and fame. It is shipped in large quantities
to Europe, but the greater part is sold in the markets of India.

[Illustration: STREET CORNER--JEYPORE, INDIA]

Jeypore is surrounded by a wall twenty feet high and nine feet
thick, built within the last century, and hence almost in perfect
condition. Indeed the town, unlike most of the Indian cities,
is entirely without ruins, and you have to ride five miles on
the back of an elephant in order to see one. The streets are
wide and well paved, and laid out at exact angles. Four great
thoroughfares 111 feet wide run at equal intervals at right angles
with each other. All the other streets are fifty-five feet wide
and the alleys are twenty-eight feet. Parks and public squares
are laid out with the same regularity, and the houses are of
uniform heights and generally after the same pattern. The facades
are almost fantastic, being covered profusely with stucco and
"ginger-bread work," so much that it is almost bewildering. The
roofs are guarded by highly ornamental balustrades that look
like perforated marble, but are only molded plaster; the windows
are filled with similar material; the doorways are usually arched
and protected with overhanging canopies, and the doors are painted
with pictures in brilliant colors. The entire city has been
"whitewashed" a bright rose color, every house having almost the
same tint, which gives a peculiar appearance. There is nothing
else like it in all the world. The outer walls of many of the
house are painted with pictures of animals and birds, trees,
pagodas and other fantastic designs, and scenes like those on
the drop curtains of theatres, which appear to have been done
by unskilled amateurs, and the whole effect--the colors, the
gingerbread work and the tints--reminds you of the frosted cakes
and other table decorations you sometimes see in confectioners'
windows at Christmas time. You wonder that the entire city does
not melt and run together under the heat of the burning sun.
The people wear colors even more brilliant than those of their
houses, and in whichever direction you look you see continual
streams passing up and down each broad highway like animated
rainbows, broken here and there by trains of loaded camels, huge
elephants with fanciful canopies on their backs and half-naked
Hindus astride their heads, guiding them. Jeypore was the first
place we found elephants used for business purposes, and they
seemed to be quite numerous--more numerous than horses--and some
of them were covered with elaborate trappings and saddles, and
had their heads painted in gay tints and designs. That was a
new idea also, which I had never seen before, and I was told
that it is peculiar to Jeypore. The bullock carts, which furnish
the only other means of transportation, are also gayly painted.
The designs are sometimes rude and the execution bears evidence
of having been done with more zeal than skill. The artist got the
giddiest colors he could find, and laid them on without regard
to time or expense. The wheels, bodies and tongues of the carts;
and the canopies that cover those in which women are carried,
are nightmares of yellows, greens, blues, reds and purples, like
cheap wooden toys. Everything artificial at Jeypore is as bright
and gay as dyes and paint can make it.

A great deal of cloth is manufactured there, both cotton and
silk; most of it in little shops opening on the sidewalk, and it
is woven and dyed by hand where everybody can see that the work
is honestly done. As you walk along the business part of town you
will see women and children holding long strips of red, green,
orange, purple or blue cloth--sometimes cotton and sometimes silk,
fresh from the vats of dye, out of the dust, in the sunshine,
until the colors are securely fastened in the fibers. Even the men
paint their whiskers in fantastic colors. It is rather startling
to come up against an old gentleman with a long beard the color of
an orange or a spitzenberg apple. You imagine they are lunatics,
but they are only pious Mohammedans anxious to imitate the Prophet,
who, according to tradition, had red whiskers.

About half of the space of the four wide streets is given up
to sidewalk trading, and rows of booths, two or three miles in
length, occupy the curbstones, with all kinds of goods; everything
that anybody could possibly want, fruits, vegetables, groceries,
provisions, boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, hats and caps,
cotton goods and every article of wearing apparel you can think
of, household articles, furniture, drugs and medicines, jewelry,
stationery, toys--everything is sold by these sidewalk merchants,
who squat upon a piece of matting with their stock neatly piled
around them.

One feature of the street life in Jeypore, however, is likely
to make nervous people apprehensive. The maharaja and other rich
men keep panthers, leopards, wildcats and other savage beasts
trained for tiger hunting and other sporting purposes, and allow
their grooms to lead them around through the crowded thoroughfares
just as though they were poodle dogs. It is true that the brutes
wear muzzles, but you do not like the casual way they creep up
behind you and sniff at the calves of your legs.

Siwai Madhao Singh, Maharaja of Jeypore, is one of the most
interesting persons in India, and he represents the one hundred
and twenty-third of his family, descendants of the hero of a
great Sanskrit epic called the Ramayana, while the emperor of
Japan represents only the one hundred and twenty-third of his
family, which is reckoned the oldest of royal blood. The poem
consists of 24,000 stanzas, arranged in seven books, and describes
the adventures and sets forth the philosophy of Rama, the seventh
incarnation of Vishnu, one of the two greatest of the gods.

[Illustration: MAHARAJA OF JEYPORE AND HIS PRIME MINISTER]

Siwai Madhao Singh is proud of his ancestry, proud of his ancient
faith, proud of the traditions of his race, and adheres with
scrupulous conservatism to the customs and the manners of his
forefathers. At the same time he is very progressive, and Jeypore,
his capital, has the best modern museum, the best hospital, the
best college, the best industrial and art school, and the largest
school for girls among all the native states of India, and is more
progressive than any other Indian city except Calcutta and Bombay.
The maharaja was selected to represent the native princes at the
coronation of King Edward, and at first declined to go because he
could not leave India for a foreign country without losing caste.
When the reasons for his selection had been explained to him, and
he was informed that his refusal must be construed as an act of
disrespect to his sovereign, he decided that it was his duty to
waive his religious scruples and other objections and show his
esteem and loyalty for the Emperor of India. But he could not
go without great preparation. He undertook to protect himself
as much as possible from foreign influences and temptations,
and adhered as strictly as circumstances would allow to the
requirements of his caste and religion. He chartered a ship to
carry him from Bombay to London and back; loaded it with native
food supplies sufficient to last him and his party for six months,
and a six months' supply of water from the sacred Ganges for
cooking and drinking purposes. His preparations were as extensive
and complete as if he were going to establish a colony on some
desert island. He was attended by about 150 persons, including
priests, who carried their gods, altars, incense, gongs, records,
theological works, and all the appurtenances required to set up
a Hindu temple in London. He had his own stewards, cooks and
butchers--servants of every kind--and, of course, a good supply
of wives and dancing girls. A temporary temple was set up on the
dock in Bombay before sailing, and Rama, his divine ancestor,
was worshiped continuously for two weeks by the maharaja's priests
in order to secure his beneficent favor on the voyage. When London
was reached the entire outfit was transferred to a palace allotted
to his use, and such an establishment as he maintained there
was never seen in the world's metropolis before.

Siwai Madhao Singh was received with distinguished honors by the
king, the court, the ministry, the statesmen and the commercial
and industrial interests of England. He was one of the most
conspicuous persons at the coronation, and if he had been trained
from childhood for the part he could not have conducted himself
with greater grace and dignity. Everybody was delighted with him,
and he was delighted with his reception. He returned to Jeypore
filled with new ideas and inspired with new ambitions to promote
the welfare of his people, and although he had previously shown
remarkable capacity for government he feels that his experience
and the knowledge he acquired during his journey were of inestimable
value to him. One of the results is a determination to send his
sons to England to be educated, because he feels that it would
be an injustice to them and to the people over whom they must
some time rule, to deprive them of the advantages offered by
English institutions and by association with the people that
he desires them to meet. Caste is no longer an objection. The
maharaja has broken caste without suffering any disadvantage,
and has discovered that other considerations are more important.
He has learned by actual personal experience that the prejudices
of his race and religion against travel and association with
foreigners has done an immeasurable amount of injustice. He has
seen with his own eyes how the great men of England live and
prosper without caste, and is willing to do like them. They do
not believe in it. They regard it as a narrow, unjust and
inconvenient restriction, and he is partially convinced that they
are right. The most distinctive feature of Hindu civilization
thus received a blow from which it can never recover, because
Siwai Madhao Singh is recognized as one of the ablest, wisest
and most sincere of all the Hindu princes, and his influence in
this and as in other things is almost unlimited. He expects to
go to England again. He desires to visit other countries also,
because he realizes that he can learn much that is of value to
him and to his people by studying the methods and the affairs
of foreign nations.

[Illustration: HALL OF THE WINDS--JEYPORE]

In November, 1902, when Lord Curzon visited Jeypore, a banquet
was given in his honor, at which the maharaja made a remarkable
speech, alluding to his experience in England and the benefit
he derived from that visit. In reply Lord Curzon said: "When
I persuaded Your Highness to go to England as the chosen
representative of Rajputana at the coronation of the king, you
felt some hesitation as to the sharp separation from your home
and from the duties and the practices of your previous life.
But you have returned fortified with the conviction that dignity
and simplicity of character, and uprightness and magnanimity of
conduct are esteemed by the nobility and the people of England
not less than they are here. I hope that Your Highness' example
may be followed by those who come after you, and that it may
leave an enduring mark in Indian history."

The palace and gardens of the maharaja cover one-seventh of the
entire area of the city of Jeypore, and are inclosed within a
mighty wall, which is entered through several stately gates.
The only portion of the palace visible from the street is called
the Hawal Mahal, or "Hall of the Winds," which Sir Edwin Arnold's
glowing pen describes as "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness,
nine stories of rosy masonry, delicate overhanging balconies and
latticed windows, soaring tier after tier of fanciful architecture,
a very mountain of airy and audacious beauty, through a thousand
pierced screens and gilded arches. Aladdin's magician could have
called into existence no more marvelous an abode, nor was the
pearl and silver palace of the Peri more delicately charming."

Those who have had the opportunity to compare Sir Edwin Arnold's
descriptions with the actual objects in Japan, India and elsewhere
are apt to give a liberal allowance to his statements. He may be
an accomplished poet, but he cannot see straight. He looks at
everything through rose-colored magnifying glasses. The Hall of
the Winds is a picturesque and unique piece of Hindu architecture.
It looks like the frosting on a confectioners' cake. But it is
six instead of nine stories in height, is made of the cheapest
sort of stucco, and covered with deep pink calcimine. It is the
residence of the ladies of the harem, or zenana, as that mysterious
part of a household is called in India.

The palace of the maharaja is a noble building, but very ornate,
and is furnished with the most tawdry and inappropriate French
hangings and furniture. It is a pity that His Highness did not
allow his own taste to prevail, and use nothing but native furniture
and fabrics. His garden is lovely, being laid out in the highest
style of Hindu landscape art. At the foot of the grounds is a
great marble building, open on all sides, with a picturesque
roof sustained by a multitude of columns, which is the public
or audience hall, where His Highness receives his subjects and
conducts affairs of ceremony. Behind it is a relic of some of
his semi-barbarous ancestors in the form of a tank, in which a
lot of loathsome crocodiles are kept for the amusement of people
who like that sort of thing. They are looked after by a venerable,
half-naked old Hindu, who calls them up to the terrace by uttering
a peculiar cry, and, when they poke their ugly noses out of the
water and crawl up the steps, teases them with dainty morsels
he has obtained at the nearest slaughter-house. It is not a
soul-lifting spectacle.

The stables are more interesting. The maharaja maintains the
elephant stud of his ancestors, and has altogether about eighty
monsters, which are used for heavy work about the palace grounds
and for traveling in the country. In the stud are two enormous
savage beasts, which fight duels for the entertainment of the
maharaja and his guests. These duels take place in a paddock
where horses are exercised. His Highness has erected a little
kiosk, in which he can sit sheltered from the sun while the sport
goes on. He also has a lot of leopards, panthers and cheetahs
(Hindu wildcats), trained like dogs for hunting purposes, and
are said to be as useful and intelligent as Gordon setters. He
frequently takes a party of friends into the jungle for tiger
shooting, and uses these tame beasts to scare up the game.

He is fond of horses and has 300 breeding mares and stallions
kept in long stables opening upon the paddock in which they are
trained. Each horse has a coolie to look after it, for no coolie
could possibly attend to more than one. The man has nothing else
to do. He sleeps on the straw in the stall of the animal, and
seldom leaves it for a moment from the time he is assigned to
the duty until his services are no longer required. The maharaja
has spent a great deal of money and taken a great deal of pains
to improve the stock of his subjects, both horses and cattle. He
has an experimental farm for encouraging agriculture and teaching
the people, and a horticultural garden of seventy acres, with a
menagerie, in which are a lot of beautiful tigers captured by
his own men upon his own estates within twelve miles of town.
They catch a good many tigers alive, and one of his amiable habits
is to present them to his friends and people whom he desires to
honor.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33