Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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When Lord Curzon came to India he determined to reverse the policy
of indifference which had been pursued by Lord Elgin, his
predecessor. The opening of Thibet to Indian trade has been one
of the principal features of his administrative programme. In
1900 he sent to Lhassa an ambassador in the person of Colonel
Younghusband, a distinguished Asiatic traveler, who speaks the
language of Thibet, to talk things over and persuade the Dailai
Lama, as the chief ruler of Thibet is called, to carry out his
promise about the treaties. The Grand Lama refused to receive
Colonel Younghusband, and would have nothing whatever to do with
him, rejecting his overtures without explanation and treating
his messages with contempt.

While England was suffering the worst of the disasters of the
recent war in South Africa the Russian government sent a secret
embassy to Lhassa, carrying rich presents and large sums of money
to the Grand Lamal for the ostensible purpose of securing permission
to construct a branch from its Siberian Railway to Lhassa across
Chinese Turkestan. The Grand Lama afterward sent an embassy to
return the visit at St. Petersburg, which was received with great
honors and presented with rich gifts. The Grand Lama, in recognition
of these attentions, conferred upon the czar the title of "Lord and
Guardian of the Gifts of Faith." It is the supreme Buddhist honor,
and while the title is empty, it is particularly significant in
this case, because it implies protection. It is believed that a
secret treaty was made under which Russia promised to guarantee
the independence of Thibet and protect that government against
invasion in exchange for the privilege of constructing a railway
line through its territory. The Thibetans are supposed to have
accepted these terms because of their fear of China. Until 1895
Thibet was a province of the Chinese Empire, and paid tribute to
the emperor every year, but since the war with Japan the Grand
Lama has sent no messenger to Peking, has paid no tribute and
has ignored the Chinese representative at Lhassa. The priests
postponed negotiations on the pretext that it was necessary to
consult Peking, and promised to send a mission to Calcutta within
six months, but never have done so. In the meantime there has
been continual friction on the border; the Indian authorities
have repeatedly reminded the Grand Lama of his promise and its
postponement, but he has stubbornly refused to communicate with
them, and has even returned their communications unopened.

When the secret relations between Russia and Thibet were discovered
the Chinese authorities were naturally indignant and the Indian
authorities were alarmed. After a conference China granted permission
for England to use whatever methods it thought best to bring the
Grand Lama to terms. Thereupon Colonel Younghusband was sent to
Lhassa again. The Grand Lama again refused to see him, declined
to appoint an official to confer with him and returned his
credentials unopened, and used other means to show his indifference
and contempt for India and England.

When Younghusband returned to Calcutta and reported the failure
of his mission and the insults offered him Lord Curzon decided
that the time had come to act, and as soon as preparations could
be made Colonel Younghusband started back to Lhassa escorted
by 2,500 armed men and carrying provisions for two years. He
was instructed to avoid collisions, to make friends with the
people, to establish permanent posts on the line of march wherever
he thought necessary and to remain at Lhassa until he secured
a treaty opening the markets of Thibet to British merchants.
The treaty is made, and by its terms the Thibetans are to pay
England an indemnity of $3,750,000 to cover the cost of the
expedition. Until the indemnity is paid the Indian troops will
continue to occupy the Churubi Valley which leads to Lhassa.

Lord Curzon did not dispatch this expedition and undertake this
strategic movement without considering the present situation of
Russia. The czar took occasion to engage in negotiations not
only with Thibet, but with Afghanistan also, at the very moment
when England was suffering her most serious disasters and
embarrassments of recent history, and is getting tit for tat.
Before Colonel Younghusband's expedition was dispatched the British
ambassador at St. Petersburg was instructed to inquire if the
Russian government had any relations with Thibet or any interests
there, and was officially informed that it had not, and hence
the etiquette of the situation had been complied with and Lord
Curzon was perfectly free to act.

XXVII

BENARES, THE SACRED CITY

No one can realize what an awful religion Brahminism is until
he visits Benares, the most sacred city of India, upon the banks
of the Ganges, the most sacred river, more holy to more millions
of human souls than Mecca to the Moslem, Rome to the Catholic
or Jerusalem to the Jew. This marvelous city it so holy that
death upon its soil is equivalent to life eternal. It is the
gate to paradise, the abundant entrance to everlasting happiness,
and its blessings are comprehensive enough to include all races,
all religions and all castes. It is not necessary to be a Brahmin
or to worship Siva or Krishna or any other of the Hindu gods,
nor even to believe in them. Their grace is sufficient to carry
unbelievers to the Hindu heavens provided they die within the
area inclosed by a boulevard encircling this city.

There are in Benares 2,000 temples and innumerable shrines, 25,000
Brahmin priests, monks, fakirs and ascetics, and it is visited
annually by more than half a million pilgrims--a larger number than
may be counted at Mecca or Jerusalem, or at any other of the sacred
cities of the world. There are more than 500,000 idols established
in permanent places for worship in Benares, representing every
variety of god in the Hindu pantheon, so that all the pilgrims
who go there may find consolation and some object of worship.
There are twenty-eight sacred cows at the central temples, and
perhaps 500 more at other places of worship throughout the city;
the trees around the temple gardens swarm with sacred monkeys
and apes; there are twenty-two places where the dead are burned,
and the air of the city is always darkened during the daytime by
columns of smoke that rise from the funeral pyres. No other city,
not even London, has so many beggars, religious and otherwise;
nowhere can so many pitiful spectacles of deformity and distress be
seen; nowhere is such gross and repulsive obscenity and sensuality
practiced--and all in the name of religion; nowhere are such sordid
deceptions imposed upon superstitious believers, and nowhere
such gloomy, absurd and preposterous methods used for consoling
sinners and escaping the results of sin. Although Benares in
these respects is the most interesting city in India, and one of
the most interesting in the world, it is also the most filthy,
repulsive and forbidding. Few people care to remain there more
than a day or two, although to the ethnologist and other students,
to artists and people in search of the picturesque, it has more
to offer than can be found elsewhere in the Indian Empire.

Benares is as old as Egypt. It is one of the oldest cities in
existence. It was already famous when Rome was founded; even
when Joshua and his trumpeters were surrounding the walls of
Jericho. It is the hope of every believer in Brahminism to visit
Benares and wash away his sins in the water of the sacred Ganges;
the greatest blessing he can enjoy is to die there; hence, the
palaces, temples, and lodging-houses which line the river banks
are filled with the aged relatives and friends of their owners
and with pilgrims who have come from all parts of India to wait
with ecstatic patience the summons of the angel of death in order
to go straight to heaven.

Nothing in all their religion is so dear to devout Hindus as the
Ganges. The mysterious cavern in the Himalayas which is supposed
to be the source of the river is the most sacred place on earth.
It is the fifth head of Siva, and for 1,600 miles to its delta
every inch of the banks is haunted with gods and demons, and has
been the scene of events bearing upon the faith of two-thirds
of the people of India. The most pious act, and one that counts
more than any other to the credit of a human soul on the great
books above, is to make a pilgrimage from the source to the mouth
of the Ganges. If you have read Kipling's story of "Kim," you will
remember the anxiety of the old lama to find this holy stream, and
to follow its banks. Pilgrims to Benares and other cities upon
the Ganges secure bottles of the precious water for themselves
and send them to friends and kindred in foreign lands. No river
in all the world is so worshiped, and to die upon its sacred
banks and to have one's body burned and his ashes borne away
into oblivion upon its tawny current is the highest aspiration
of hundreds of millions of people.

The Ganges is equally sacred to the Buddhist, and Benares is
associated more closely with the career of Buddha than any other
city. Twenty-five hundred years ago Buddha preached his first
sermon there, and for ten centuries or more it was the headquarters
of Buddhism. Buddha selected it as the center of his missionary
work. He secured the support of its scholars, teachers and
philosophers, and from there sent forth missionaries to China,
Japan, Burmah, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, Siam, Thibet, and
other countries until half the human race accepted him as divine,
his teachings as the law of God, and Benares as the fountain
of that faith. It is a tradition that one of the wise men who
followed the Star of Bethlehem to the Child that was cradled in
a manger was a learned pundit from Benares, and it is certainly
true that the doctors of theology who have lived and taught in the
temples and monasteries there have exercised a greater influence
upon a larger number of men than those of any other city that
ever existed. But in these modern days Benares is wholly given
over to ignorance, superstition, vice, filth and idolatry. The
pure and lofty doctrines of Buddha are no longer taught. The
"Well of Knowledge" is a filthy, putrid hole filled with slime
and rotting vegetation. Buddhism has been swept out of India
altogether, and Brahminism is taught and practiced there in its
most repulsive and depraved forms.

[Illustration: A HINDU ASCETIC--BENARES]

Occasionally some reformer appears who endeavors to rebuke the
depravity and appeals to the thinking members of the Brahmin
sect to restore the ancient philosophy and morality of their
fathers. I saw such an one at Benares. He lives in a bare and
comfortless temple surrounded by a garden; is entirely dependent
upon charity; every mouthful of food that he eats is brought to
him by his disciples. He spends his entire time, day and night,
in contemplation; he sleeps when he is exhausted; he eats when
food is handed him, and if he is neglected he starves until some
thoughtful person brings him a bowl of rice or curry. He wears
nothing but a single shirt of cotton; he owns nothing in all
the world except a brass bowl, which is used for both food and
drink, and a few relics of his predecessor and teacher whom he
lived with and served and whose mantle fell upon him. To those
who come to his temple with serious minds and anxious to know
the truth, he talks freely, and his pride is gratified by having
his visitors inscribe their names in a large book which is kept
for that purpose. And contributions of money are very acceptable
because they enable his disciples to circulate his thoughts and
discourses in printed form. I noticed that most of the names in
the visitors' book were those of Americans, and it occurred to
me that his contemplations must be seriously disturbed by having
so many of them intrude upon him. But he assured me that he was
delighted to see every stranger who called; that it gratified him
to be able to explain to American travelers the true principles of
Brahminism and the correct doctrines of that sect. This was the
more important, he said, because nearly every foreigner formed
his impressions of Brahminism by what he saw and heard among
the pilgrims about the temples.

It is only by contact with the crowds of eager pilgrims and devotees
which throng the streets and temples of Benares that one may
realize the vital force which Brahminism exercises in India.
Next to Mohammedanism it is the livest and most influential and
practical of all religions. The devotee lives and breathes and
feels his faith. It enters every experience of his career, it
governs every act, and compared with Brahminism, Christianity
is perfunctory and exercises practically little control over
its believers. Yet Christianity has come here, as it has entered
all the other sacred cities of India, and under the very shadow
of the Hindu holy of holies, within the circle that bounds the
favored gate of heaven, it has set up and maintained several
of the most prosperous and well attended schools in India. The
government has established a college of high standard in a handsome
gothic building, which many consider the best in India. And all
agree that it is an admirable institution. It has about seven
hundred students and teaches modern sciences which contradict
every principle that the Brahmins propose. There is also a school
there for the higher education of women with about 600 students,
maintained by the Maharaja of Vizianagram, a learned and progressive
Hindu prince, who has large estates in the neighborhood, and
there are several other distinctly modern institutions in whose
light Brahminism cannot live. They are growing and it is slowly
decaying. The number of devotees and pilgrims who come there is
still enormous, but those who have the best means of knowing
declare that it is smaller every year. But while the decrease is
comparatively small, its significance is great, and so great that
prominent Brahmins have recently held a conference to consider
what shall be done to protect the faith and defend it against
the vigorous assaults of the school teachers, the missionaries
and the materialists.

It does not take Hindus long to learn that the teachings of their
priests do not conform to the conditions of modern civilization,
and that their practices are not approved by those who believe
in modern standards of morals. It is difficult for an educated
man to adhere to or accept the teachings of the Hindu priests
while their practices are absolutely repugnant to him. The church,
therefore, if it may be called a church, must be reformed, and
its practices must be revised, if the decay which is now going
on is ever arrested.

Several religions have been born and bred and have died in Benares.
Vedic, Moslem, Buddhist, Brahmin have been nursed and flourished and
have decayed within the same walls. It is impossible to ascertain
when the Ganges was first worshiped, or when people began to build
temples upon its banks, or when Benares first became sacred.
Water was one of the first objects worshiped; the fertilizing and
life giving influence of a stream was one of the first phenomena
of nature recognized. Ganga, the beautiful heroine of a Hindu
legend, is supposed to have lived at the source of the water to
which her name is given, and the river is often represented as
flowing from the head of Siva, the chief deity of the Brahmins,
the most repulsive, the most cruel, the most vicious of all the
gods.

Siva is at once the generator and the destroyer. He represents
time, the sun, water, fire and practically all the mysteries of
nature, and Benares is the center of his influence and worship.
The temple which attracts the most pilgrims is dedicated to him.
The "Well of Knowledge," which is in the courtyard of the Golden
Temple, is his chosen residence, and is resorted to by every pilgrim
who drinks the putrid water from a ladle with which it is dipped
up by the attendant priest. All around the Golden Temple are other
temples and shrines dedicated to other gods, but Siva is supreme,
and before his image is the kneeling bull, the common symbol of
Phallic worship as represented in the legend of Europe. Siva's
hair is a bunch of snakes, serpents wind around his neck, arms,
waist and legs; a crescent is stamped upon his forehead, which
was the chief symbol of the ancient cult of Arabia destroyed by
Mohamet Aurangzeb, one of the Mogul emperors, who was a Mohammedan
fanatic. He came here in the middle of his reign, destroyed half
the Hindu temples and upon the ruins of the oldest and the finest
shrine of Siva erected a mosque which still stands and its slender
minarets almost pierce the sky. This mosque was thrust into the
most sacred place of Hindu worship as an insult to the Brahmins,
but the latter are more tolerant, and though they are very largely
in the majority and control everything there, they permit it
to stand untouched, but the worshipers of Islam are compelled
to enter it through a side door. This, however, is due more to
a desire to preserve the peace and prevent collisions between
fanatics and fakirs than for any other reason.

The great temple of Siva, the Golden Temple, is not imposing. It
is a small building with a low dome in the center and a smaller
dome at each corner, above which rises an artistic tower. These
and the roof are covered with beaten gold; hence the name of the
temple. None but Hindus are permitted to cross the threshold,
but strangers are permitted to block up the entrance and see
everything that is going on inside. It is crowded with priests,
pilgrims and sacred bulls and cows. The floor is covered with
filth, the air is fetid and the atmosphere all around it reeks
with offensive odors, suggesting all kinds of disease. There is
always a policeman to protect strangers from injury or insult,
and if you give the priests a little backsheesh they will look
out for you.

Benares is the seventh city in size in India. Ten years ago it
was fifth, but between the years 1891 and 1901 the population
was reduced 10,000 inhabitants by cholera, famine and plague,
and it dropped down two pegs in the list. It is a miracle that
the entire population does not perish, because, notwithstanding
the cautions and efforts of the government, every sanitary law
is violated by thousands of people daily. The temples and other
places frequented by pilgrims are filthy hotbeds of disease, and
the water they drink from the holy wells is absolutely putrid,
so that the odor can be detected a considerable distance. And
yet half a million devotees from every part of India come here
annually, and not only drink the poisonous stuff, but bathe in
the polluted river and carry back to their homes bottles of it
carefully corked and labeled, which the doctors tell us is an
absolutely certain method of distributing disease. While almost
all the large cities of India increased in population during the
the last decade, Bombay and Benares fell off, the former from
plagues and famine and the latter from all kinds of contagious
and other diseases.

It is a city of great wealth and has many handsome and costly
palaces and mansions which have been erected there by pious Hindu
princes, rajahs, merchants, bankers and others who spend a part of
each year within its sacred precincts, renewing their relations
with the gods just as other people go to the springs and seashore
to restore their physical vitality. The residential architecture
is picturesque but not artistic. The houses are frequently of
fantastic designs, and are painted in gay colors and covered with
carvings that are often grotesque. They have galleries around
them, and broad overhanging eaves to keep out the rays of the
sun, and many of them are set in the midst of attractive groves
and gardens. Some of the modern buildings are very fine. There
is plenty of room for the display of landscape gardening as well
as architecture, but the former has been neglected. The one thing
that strikes a stranger and almost bewilders him is the vivid
colors. They seem unnatural and inappropriate for a sacred city,
but are not more incongruous than other features.

The streets in the outer part of the city are wide, well paved
and well shaded. The business portion of the town, where the
natives chiefly live, is a wilderness of narrow streets hemmed
in with shops, factories, dwelling houses, temples, shrines,
restaurants, cafes and boarding houses for pilgrims. Every shop
is open to the street, and the shelves are bright with brass,
silver and copper vessels and gaily painted images of the gods
which are purchased by the pilgrims and other visitors. Benares
is famous all over the world for its brass work and its silks.
Half the shops in town are devoted to the sale of brass vessels
of various kinds, chiefly bowls of many forms and styles which
are required by the pilgrims in performing their religious duties.
In addition to these there are a hundred different varieties of
domestic and sacred utensils, many of them beautifully chased
and engraved, and they are sold to natives at prices that seem
absurd, but foreigners are expected to pay much more. Indeed,
every purchase is a matter of prolonged negotiation. The merchant
fixes his price very high and then lowers it gradually as he
thinks discreet, according to the behavior of his customer.

Handmade silks from looms in the cottages of the peasants can
still be purchased in Benares and they wear forever. Some are
coarse, and some are fine, but they are all peculiar to this
place and cannot be purchased elsewhere because the product is
limited and merchants cannot buy them in sufficient quantity to
make a profitable trade. The heavier qualities of silk are used
chiefly for men's clothing. They wash like linen, they never wear
out and are cool and comfortable. The brocades of Benares are
equally famous, and are used chiefly for the ceremonial dresses
of the rich and fashionable. Sometimes they are woven of threads
of pure gold and weigh as much as an armor. These are of course
very expensive, and are usually sold by weight. Very little account
is taken of the labor expended upon them, although the designs
and the workmanship are exquisite, because the weavers and
embroiderers are paid only a few cents a day. Beside these heavy
fabrics are costly tissues as fine as spiders' webs, also woven
of silver and gold and silk and linen. They are used by the women
as head dresses and scarfs and rich men use them for turbans.
Sometimes an Indian noble will have seventy or eighty yards of this
delicate gossamer wound about his head and the ends, beautifully
embroidered, with long fringes of gold, hang gracefully down upon
the shoulders.

It is almost impossible to go through the narrow streets of Benares
in the middle of the day, because they are so crowded with men,
women, children, priests, pilgrims, peddlers, beggars, mangy
dogs, sacred cows, fat and lazy bulls dedicated to Siva, and
other animate and inanimate obstructions. It seems to be the
custom for people to live and work in the streets. A family dining
will occupy half the roadway as they squat around their brass
bowls and jars and cram the rice and millet and curry into their
mouths with their fingers. The lower classes of Hindus never
use tables, knives or forks. The entire family eats out of the
same dish, while the dogs hang around waiting for morsels and a
sacred cow is apt to poke its nose into the circle at any time.
The street is often blocked up by a carpenter who is mending a
cabinet or putting a new board into a floor.

A little farther along a barber may be engaged in shaving the
face and head of some customer. Both of them are squatting face
to face, as often in the middle of the road as elsewhere, and
with bowls, razors, soap, bottles and other appurtenances of
the trade spread out between them. Barbers rank next to priests
in the religious aristocracy, and, as it is forbidden by the
Brahmins for a man to shave himself, they are of much importance
in the villages. Houses are usually set apart for them to live
in just as we furnish parsonages for our ministers. The village
barber has certain rights and exemptions that are not enjoyed by
other people. He is not required to do military service in the
native states; he does not have to pay taxes, and all members
of his caste have a monopoly of their business, which the courts
have sustained. The Brahmins also require that a man must be
shaved fasting.

Another matter of great importance which the barbers have to
do with is a little tuft of hair that is allowed to grow from
the top of the head of a child when all the rest of the scalp
is shaven. This is a commendable precaution, and is almost
universally taken in the interest of children, the scalp lock
being necessary to snatch the child away from the devil and other
evil spirits when it is in danger from those sources. As the
person grows older and capable of looking after himself this
precaution is not so important, although many people wear the
scalp lock or sacred topknot through life.

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