Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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The Kutab Minar, the completed tower, is not only a notable structure
and one of the most perfect in the world, second only in height
to the Washington monument, but it is particularly notable for
its geometrical proportions. Its height, 238 feet, is exactly
five times the diameter of its base. It is divided into five
stories each tapering in perfect proportions and being divided
by projecting balconies or galleries. The first story, 95 feet
in height, consists of twenty-four faces in the form of convex
flutings, alternately semicircular and rectangular, built of
alternate courses of marble and red sandstone. The second story
is 51 feet high and the projections are all semicircular; the
third story is 41 feet and the projections are all rectangular;
the fourth, 26 feet high, is a plain cylinder, and the fifth or
top story, 25 feet high, is partly fluted and partly plain. The
mean diameter of each story is exactly one-fifth of its height,
and the material is alternate courses of marble and red sandstone,
the entire exterior surface being incrusted with inscriptions from
the Koran, sculptured in sharp relief. It has been compared for
beauty of design and perfection of proportions to the Campanile
at Florence, but that is conventional in every respect, while
the Kutab Minar is unique. The sculptures that cover its surface
have been compared to those upon the column of Trajan in Rome and
the Column Vendome in Paris, but they are intended to relate the
military triumphs of the men in whose honor they were erected, while
the inscription upon the Kutab Minar is a continuous recognition
of the power and glory of God and the virtues of Mahomet, His
prophet.

Whichever way you look, whichever way you drive, in that
extraordinary place, you find artistic taste, the religious devotion,
the love of conquest and the military genius of the Mohammedans
combined and perpetuated in noble forms. The camel driver of
Mecca, like the founder of Christianity, was a teacher of peace
and an example of humility, but his followers have been famous
for their pride, their brilliant achievements, their audacity
and their martial violence and success. The fortresses scattered
over the plain bear testimony to their fighting qualities, and
are an expression of their authority and power; their gilded
palaces and jeweled thrones testify to their luxurious taste
and artistic sentiment, while the massive mausoleums which arise
in every direction testify to their pride and their determination
that posterity shall not forget their names. I have told you in
a previous chapter about the tomb of Humayun, the son of Baber
(the Lion of the Faith), who transmitted to a long line of Moguls
the blood of conquerors. But it is only one of several noble
examples of architecture and pretensions, and as evidence of
the human sympathies of the man who built it, the tomb of his
barber is near by.

About a mile across the plain is another group of still more
remarkable sepulchers, about seven or eight miles from Delhi.
They are surrounded by a grove of mighty trees, whose boughs
overhang a crumbling wall intended to protect them. As we passed
the portal we found ourselves looking upon a large reservoir,
or tank, as they call them here, which long ago was blessed by
Nizamu-Din, one of the holiest and most renowned of the Brahmin
saints, so that none who swims in it is ever drowned. A group of
wan and hungry-looking priests were standing there to receive
us; they live on backsheesh and sleep on the cold marble floors
of the tombs. No dinner bell ever rings for them. They depend
entirely upon charity, and send out their chelas, or disciples,
every morning to skirmish for food among the market men and people
in the neighborhood. While we stood talking to them a group of six
naked young men standing upon the cornice of a temple attracted
our attention by their violent gesticulations, and then, one
after another, plunged headlong, fifty or sixty feet, into the
waters of the pool. As they reappeared upon the surface they
swam to the marble steps of the pavilion, shook themselves dry
like dogs and extended their hands for backsheesh. It was an
entirely new and rather startling form of entertainment, but
we learned that it was their way of making a living, and that
they are the descendants of the famous men and women who occupy
the wonderful tombs, and are permitted to live among them and
collect backsheesh from visitors as they did from us. Several
women were hanging around, and half a dozen fierce-looking mullahs,
or Mohammedan priests, with their beards dyed a deep scarlet
because the prophet had red hair.

The most notable of the tombs, the "Hall of Sixty-four Pillars,"
is an exquisite structure of white marble, where rests Azizah Kokal
Tash, foster brother of the great Mogul Akbar. He was buried here
in 1623, and around him are the graves of his mother and eight
of his brothers and sisters. Another tomb of singular purity
and beauty is that of Muhammud Shah, who was Mogul from 1719
to 1748--the man whom Nadir Shah, the Persian, conquered and
despoiled. By his side lie two of his wives and several of his
children.

The tomb of Jehanara, daughter of the great Emperor Shah Jehan,
is a gem of architecture, a dainty bungalow of pure white marble.
The roof is a low dome with broad eaves, and the walls are slabs
of thin marble perforated in geometric designs like the finest
lace. The inscription calls her "Heavenly Minded," and reminds us
that "God is the Resurrection and the Life;" that it was her wish
that nothing but grass might cover her dust, because "Such a pall
alone was fit for the lowly dead," and closes with a prayer for
the soul of her father. Notwithstanding her wishes, so expressed,
the tomb cost $300,000, but such sentiments, which appear upon
nearly all of the Mogul tombs, are not to be taken literally. The
inscription over the entrance to one of the grandest in India,
where lies "The Piercer of Battle Ranks," admits that "However
great and powerful man may be in the presence of his fellow
creatures; however wide his power and influence, and however
large his wealth, he is as humble and as worthless as the smallest
insect in the sight of God." Human nature was the same among the
Moguls as it is to-day, and the men who were able to spend a
million or half a million dollars upon their sepulchers could
afford to throw in a few expressions of humility.

[Illustration: TOMB OF AMIR KHUSRAN--PERSIAN POET--DELHI. _With
panels of perforated marble_]

The most beautiful of the tombs is that of Amir Khusrau, a poet
who died at Delhi in 1315, the author of ninety-eight poems,
many of which are still in popular use. He was known as "the
Parrot of Hindustan," and enjoyed the confidence and patronage
of seven successive Moguls. His fame is immortal. Lines he wrote
are still recited nightly in the coffee-houses and sung in the
harems of India, and women and girls and sentimental young men
come daily to lay fresh flowers upon his tomb.

In the center of Delhi and on the highest eminence of the city
stands the Jumma Musjid, almost unrivaled among mosques. There
is nothing elsewhere outside of Constantinople that can compare
with it, either in size or splendor, and we are told that 10,000
workmen were employed upon it daily for six years. It was built by
Shah Jehan of red sandstone inlaid with white marble; is crowned
with three splendid domes of white marble striped with black,
and at each angle of the courtyard stands a gigantic minaret
composed of alternate stripes of marble and red sandstone. There
are three stately portals approached by flights of forty steps,
the lowest of which is 140 feet long. Through stately arches you
are led into a courtyard 450 feet square, inclosed by splendid
arcaded cloisters. In the center of the court is the usual fountain
basin, at which the worshipers perform their ablutions, and at
the eastern side, facing toward Mecca, at the summit of a flight
of marble steps, is the mosque, 260 feet long and 120 feet wide.
The central archway is eighty feet high.

Over in one corner of the cloisters is a reliquary guarded by
a squad of fierce-looking priests, which contains some of the
most precious relics of the prophet in existence. They have a
hair from his mustache, which is red; one of his slippers, the
print of his foot in a stone, two copies of portions of the
Koran--one of them written by his son-in-law, Imam Husain, very
clear and well preserved, and the other by his grandson, Imam
Hasan. Both are very beautiful specimens of chirography, and would
have a high value for that reason alone, but obtained especial
sanctity because of the tradition that both were written at the
dictation of the Prophet himself, and are among the oldest copies
of the Koran in existence.

XVIII

THUGS, FAKIRS, AND NAUTCH DANCERS

The most interesting classes among the many kinds of priests,
monks and other people, who make religion a profession in India,
are the thugs, fakirs and nautch girls, who are supposed to devote
their lives and talents to the service of the gods. There are
several kinds of fakirs and other religious mendicants in India,
about five thousand in number, most of them being nomads, wandering
from city to city and temple to temple, dependent entirely upon
the charity of the faithful. They reward those who serve them
with various forms of blessings; give them advice concerning
all the affairs of life from the planting of their crops to the
training of their children. They claim supernatural powers to
confer good and invoke evil, and the curse of a fakir is the
last misfortune that an honest Hindu cares to bring upon himself,
for it means a failure of his harvests, the death of his cattle
by disease, sickness in his family and bad luck in everything
that he undertakes. Hence these holy men, who are familiars of the
gods, and are believed to spend most of their time communicating
with them in some mysterious way about the affairs of the world,
are able to command anything the people have to give, and nobody
would willingly cross their shadows or incur their displeasure.
The name is pronounced as if it were spelled "fah-keer."

These religious mendicants go almost naked, usually with nothing
but the smallest possible breech clout around their loins, which
the police require them to wear; they plaster their bodies with
mud, ashes and filth; they rub clay, gum and other substances
into their hair to give it an uncouth appearance. Sometimes they
wear their hair in long braids hanging down their backs like the
queue of a Chinaman; sometimes in short braids sticking out in
every direction like the wool of the pickaninnies down South.
Some of them have strings of beads around their necks, others
coils of rope round them. They never wear hats and usually carry
nothing but a small brass bowl, in imitation of Buddha, which
is the only property they possess on earth. They are usually
accompanied by a youthful disciple, called a "chela," a boy of
from 10 to 15 years of age, who will become a fakir himself unless
something occurs to change his career.

Many of the fakirs endeavor to make themselves look as hideous
as possible. They sometimes whitewash their faces like clowns
in circuses; paint lines upon their cheeks and draw marks under
their eyes to give them an inhuman appearance. At certain seasons
of the year they may clothe themselves in filthy rags for the
time being as an evidence of humility. Most of them are very
thin and spare of flesh, which is due to their long pilgrimages
and insufficient nourishment. They sleep wherever they happen
to be. They lie down on the roadside or beneath a column of a
temple, or under a cart, or in a stable. Sometimes kindly disposed
people give them beds, but they have no regular habits; they
sleep when they are sleepy, rest when they are tired and continue
their wanderings when they are refreshed.

About the time the people of the country are breakfasting in
the morning the chela starts out with the brass bowl and begs
from house to house until the bowl is filled with food, when he
returns to wherever his master is waiting for him and they share
its contents between them. Again at noon and again at night the
chela goes out on similar foraging expeditions and conducts the
commissary department in that way. The fakir himself is supposed
never to beg; the gods he worships are expected to take care of
him, and if they do not send him food he goes without it. It is
a popular delusion that fakirs will not accept alms from anyone
for any purpose, for I have considerable personal experience to
the contrary. I have offered money to hundreds of them and have
never yet had it refused. A fakir will snatch a penny as eagerly
as any beggar you ever saw, and if the coin you offer is smaller
than he expects or desires he will show his disapproval in an
unmistakable manner.

The larger number of fakirs are merely religious tramps, worthless,
useless impostors, living upon the fears and superstitions of
the people and doing more harm than good. Others are without
doubt earnest and sincere ascetics, who believe that they are
promoting the welfare and happiness of their fellow men by depriving
themselves of everything that is necessary to happiness, purifying
their souls by privation and hardship and obtaining spiritual
inspiration and light by continuous meditation and prayer. Many
of these are fanatics, some are epileptics, some are insane. They
undergo self-torture of the most horrible kinds and frequently
prove their sincerity by causing themselves to be buried alive, by
starving to death, or by posing themselves in unnatural attitudes
with their faces or their arms raised to heaven until the sinews
and muscles are benumbed or paralyzed and they fall unconscious
from exhaustion. These are tests of purity and piety. Zealots
frequently enter temples and perform such feats for the admiration
of pilgrims and by-standers. Many are clairvoyants and have the
power of second sight. They hypnotize subjects and go into trances
themselves, in which condition the soul is supposed to leave
the body and visit the gods. Some of the metaphysical phenomena
are remarkable and even startling. They cannot be explained.
You have doubtless read of the wonderful fakir, Ram Lal, who
appears in F. Marion Crawford's story of "Mr. Isaacs," and there
is a good deal concerning this class of people in Rudyard Kipling's
"Kim." Those two, by the way, are universally considered the best
stories of Indian life ever written. You will perhaps remember
also reading of the astonishing performances of Mme. Blavatsky,
who visited the United States some years ago as the high priestess
of Theosophy. Her supernatural manifestations attracted a great
deal of attention at one time, but she was finally exposed and
denounced as a charlatan.

Among the higher class of fakirs are many extraordinary men,
profound scholars, accomplished linguists and others whose knowledge
of both the natural and the occult sciences is amazing. I was
told by one of the highest officials of the Indian Empire of
an extraordinary feat performed for his benefit by one of these
fakirs, who in some mysterious way transferred himself several
hundred miles in a single night over a country where there were no
railroads, and never took the trouble to explain how his journey
was accomplished.

The best conjurers, magicians and palmists in India are fakirs.
Many of them tell fortunes from the lines of the hand and from
other signs with extraordinary accuracy. Old residents who have
come in contact with this class relate astounding tales. While
at Calcutta a young lady at our hotel was incidentally informed
by a fortune-telling fakir she met accidentally in a Brahmin
temple that she would soon receive news that would change all
her plans and alter the course of her life, and the next morning
she received a cablegram from England announcing the death of
her father. If you get an old resident started on such stories
he will keep telling them all night.

Of course you have read of the incredible and seemingly impossible
feats performed by Hindu magicians, of whom the best and most
skillful belong to the fakir class. I have seen the "box trick,"
or "basket trick," as they call it, in which a young man is tied
up in a gunny sack and locked up in a box, then at a signal a
few moments after appears smiling at the entrance to your house,
but I have never found anyone who could explain how he escaped
from his prison. This was performed daily on the Midway Plaisance
at the World's Fair at Chicago and was witnessed by thousands
of people. And it is simple compared with some of the doings
of these fakirs. They will take a mango, open it before you,
remove the seeds, plant them in a tub of earth, and a tree will
grow and bear fruit before your eyes within half an hour. Or,
what is even more wonderful, they will climb an invisible rope
in the open air as high as a house, vanish into space, and then,
a few minutes after, will come smiling around the nearest street
corner. Or, if that is not wonderful enough, they will take an
ordinary rope, whirl it around their head, toss it into the air,
and it will stand upright, as if fastened to some invisible bar,
so taut and firm that a heavy man can climb it.

These are a few of the wonderful things fakirs perform about
the temples, and nobody has ever been able to discover how they
do it. People who begin an inquiry usually abandon it and declare
that the tricks are not done at all, that the spectators are simply
hypnotized and imagine that they have seen what they afterward
describe. This explanation is entirely plausible. It is the only safe
one that can be given, and it is confirmed by other manifestations
of hypnotic power that you would not believe if I should describe
them. Fakirs have hypnotized people I know and have made them
witness events and spectacles which they afterward learned were
transpiring, at the very moment, five and six thousand miles
away. For example, a young gentleman, relating his experience,
declared that under the power of one of these men he attended his
brother's wedding in a London church and wrote home an account
of it that was so accurate in its details that his family were
convinced that he had come all the way from India without letting
them know and had attended it secretly.

Many of the snake charmers to whom I referred in a previous chapter
are fakirs, devoted to gods whose specialties are snakes, and
pious Hindus believe that the deities they worship protect them
from the venom of the reptiles. Sometimes you can see one of
them at a temple deliberately permit his pets to sting him on
the arm, and he will show you the blood flowing. Taking a little
black stone from his pocket he will rub it over the wound and then
rub it upon the head of the snake. Then he will rub the wound
again, and again the head of the snake, all the time muttering
prayers, making passes with his hands, bowing his body to the
ground, and going through other forms of worship, and when he
has concluded he will assure you that the bite of the snake has
been made harmless by the incantation.

I have never seen more remarkable contortionists than the fakirs
who can be always found about temples in Benares, and frequently
elsewhere. They are usually very lean men, almost skeletons. As
they wear no clothing, one can count their bones through the
skin, but their muscles and sinews are remarkably strong and
supple. They twist themselves into the most extraordinary shapes.
No professional contortionist upon the vaudeville stage can compare
with these religious mendicants, who give exhibitions in the
open air, or in the porticos of the temples in honor of some
god and call it worship. They acquire the faculty of doing their
feats by long and tedious training under the instruction of older
fakirs, who are equally accomplished, and the performances are
actually considered worship, just as much as an organ voluntary,
the singing of a hymn, or a display of pulpit eloquence in one of
our churches. The more wonderful their feats, the more acceptable
to their gods, and they go from city to city through all India,
and from temple to temple, twisting their bodies into unnatural
shapes and postures under the impression that they will thereby
attain a higher degree of holiness and exalt themselves in the
favor of heaven. They do not give exhibitions for money. They
cannot be hired for any price to appear upon a public stage.
Theatrical agents in London and elsewhere have frequently tempted
them with fortunes, but they cannot be persuaded to display their
gifts for gain, or violate their caste and the traditions of
their profession.

There is a fearful sect of fakirs devoted to Siva and to Bhairava,
the god of lunacy, who associate with evil spirits, ghouls and
vampires, and practice hideous rites of blood, lust and gluttony.
They tear their flesh with their finger-nails, slash themselves
with knives, and occasionally engage in a frantic dance from
which they die of exhaustion.

The nautches of India have received considerable attention from
many sources. They are the object of the most earnest admonitions
from missionaries and moralists, and no doubt are a very bad lot,
although they do not look it, and are a recognized and respected
profession among the Hindus. They are consecrated to certain
gods soon after their birth; they are the brides of the impure
and obscene deities of the Hindu pantheon, and are attached to
their temples, receiving their support from the collections of
the priests or the permanent endowments, often living under the
temple roof and almost always within the sacred premises. The
amount of their incomes varies according to the wealth and the
revenues of the idol to which they were attached. They dance
before him daily and sing hymns in his honor. The ranks of the
nautch girls are sometimes recruited by the purchase of children
from poor parents, and by the dedication of the daughters of pious
Hindu families to that vocation, just as in Christian countries
daughters are consecrated to the vocation of religion from the
cradle and sons are dedicated to the priesthood and ministry.
Indeed it is considered a high honor for the daughter of a Hindu
family to be received into a temple as a nautch.

They never marry and never retire. When they become too old to
dance they devote themselves to the training of their successors.
They are taught to read and write, to sing and dance, to embroider
and play upon various musical instruments. They are better educated
than any other class of Hindu women, and that largely accounts for
their attractions and their influence over men. They have their
own peculiar customs and rules, similar to those of the geishas of
Japan, and if a nautch is so fortunate as to inherit property it
goes to the temple to which she belongs. This custom has become
law by the confirmation of the courts. No nautch can retain any
article of value without the consent of the priest in charge of
the temple to which she is attached, and those who have received
valuable gifts of jewels from their admirers and lovers are often
compelled to surrender them. On the other hand, they are furnished
comfortable homes, clothing and food, and are taken care of all
of their lives, just the same as religious devotees belonging
to any other sect. Notwithstanding their notorious unchastity
and immorality, no discredit attaches to the profession, and
the very vices for which they are condemned are considered acts
of duty, faith and worship, although it seems almost incredible
that a religious sect will encourage gross immorality in its
own temples. Yet Hinduism has done worse things than that, and
other of its practices are even more censurable.

Bands of nautches are considered necessary appurtenances of the
courts of native Hindu princes, although they are never found
in the palaces of Mohammedans. They are brought forward upon
all occasions of ceremony, religious, official and convivial.
If the viceroy visits the capital of one of the native states he
is entertained by their best performances. They have a place on
the programme at all celebrations of feast days; they appear at
weddings and birthday anniversaries, and are quite as important
as an orchestra at one of our social occasions at home. They are
invited to the homes of native gentlemen on all great occasions
and are treated with the utmost deference and generosity. They
are permitted liberties and are accorded honors that would not be
granted to the wives and daughters of those who entertain them,
and stand on the same level as the Brahmin priests, yet they
are what we would call women of the town, and receive visitors
indiscriminately in the temples and other sacred places, according
to their pleasure and whims.

A stranger in India finds it difficult to reconcile these facts,
but any resident will assure you of the truth. The priests are
said to encourage the attentions of rich young Hindus because of
the gifts of money and jewels they are in the habit of showering
upon nautches they admire, but each girl is supposed to have a
"steady" lover, upon whom she bestows her affections for the
time being. He may be old or young, married or unmarried, rich or
poor, for as a rule it is to these women that a Hindu gentleman
turns for the companionship which his own home does not supply.

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