Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis
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William Eleroy Curtis >> Modern India
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The sacred thread is even of greater importance in Hinduism,
and the Brahmins require that each child shall be invested with
it in his eighth year. Until that year also he must bear upon
his forehead the sign of his caste, which Ryas, our bearer, calls
"the god mark." The sacred thread is a fine silk cord, fastened
over the left shoulder, hanging down under the right arm like
a sash. None but the two highest castes have the right to wear
it, although members of the lower castes are even more careful
to do so. It is put on a child by the priest or the parent on
its eighth birthday with ceremonies similar and corresponding
to those of our baptism. After the child has been bathed and its
head has been carefully shaved it is dressed in new garments,
the richest that the family can afford. The priest or godfather
ties on the sacred thread and teaches the child a brief Sanskrit
text called a mantra, some maxim or proverb, or perhaps it may be
only the name of a deity which is to be kept a profound secret
and repeated 108 times daily throughout life. The deity selected
serves the child through life as a patron saint and protector.
Frequently the village barber acts in the place of a priest and
puts on the sacred thread. A similar thread placed around the
neck of a child, and often around its waist by the midwife
immediately after birth, is intended as an amulet or charm to
protect from disease and danger. It is usually a strand of silk
which has been blessed by some holy man or sanctified by being
placed around the neck of an idol of recognized sanctity.
The streets of the native quarters of Indian cities are filled
with naked babies and children. It is unfashionable for the members
of either sex to wear clothing until they are 8 or 10 years old.
The only garment they wear is the sacred string, with usually
a little silver charm or amulet suspended from it. Sometimes
children wear bracelets and anklets of silver, which tinkle as
they run about the streets. The little rascals are always fat
and chubby, and their bright black eyes give them an appearance
of unnatural intelligence. The children are never shielded from
the sun, although its rays are supposed to be fatal to full grown
and mature persons. Their heads being shaved, the brain is deprived
of its natural protection, and they never wear hats or anything
else, and play all day long under the fierce heat in the middle
of the road without appearing any the worse for it, although
foreign doctors insist that this exposure is one of the chief
causes of the enormous infant mortality in India. This may be
true, because a few days after birth babies are strapped upon
the back of some younger child or are carried about the streets
astride the hips of their mothers, brothers or sisters without
any protection from the sun.
[Illustration: A HINDU BARBER]
All outdoors is an Indian barber-shop. The barbers have no regular
places of business, but wander from house to house seeking and
serving customers, or squat down on the roadside and intercept
them as they pass. In the large cities you can see dozens of
them squatting along the streets performing their sacred offices,
shaving the heads and oiling the bodies of customers. Cocoanut oil
is chiefly used and is supposed to add strength and suppleness
to the body. It is administered with massage, thoroughly rubbed
in and certainly cannot injure anybody. In the principal parks
of Indian cities, at almost any time in the morning, you can see
a dozen or twenty men being oiled and rubbed down by barbers or
by friends, and a great deal of oil is used in the hair. After
a man is grown he allows his hair to grow long and wears it in a
knot at the back of his head. Some Hindus have an abundance of
hair, of which they are very proud, and upon which they spend
considerable care and labor.
The parks are not only used for dressing-rooms, but for bedrooms
also. Thousands of people sleep in the open air day and night,
stretched full length upon the ground. They wrap their robes
around their heads and leave their legs and feet uncovered. This
is the custom of the Indians of the Andes. No matter how cold
or how hot it may be they invariably wrap the head and face up
carefully before sleeping and leave the lower limbs exposed.
A Hindu does not care where he sleeps. Night and day are the
same to him. He will lie down on the sidewalk in the blazing
sunshine anywhere, pull his robe up over his head and sleep the
sleep of the just. You can seldom walk a block without seeing
one of these human bundles all wrapped up in white cotton lying
on the bare stone or earth in the most casual way, but they are
very seldom disturbed.
You have to get up early in the morning to see the most interesting
sights in Benares, which are the pilgrims engaged in washing
their sins away in the sacred but filthy waters of the Ganges,
and the outdoor cremation of the bodies of people who have died
during the night and late in the afternoon of the preceding day.
Hindus allow very little time between death and cremation. As
soon as the heart ceases to beat the undertakers, as we would
call the men who attend to these arrangements, are sent for and
preparation for the funeral pyre is commenced immediately. Three
or four hours only are necessary, and if death occurs later than
1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon the ceremony must be postponed
until morning. Hence all of the burning ghats along the river
bank are busy from daylight until mid-day disposing of the bodies
of those who have died during the previous eighteen or twenty
hours.
The death rate in Benares is very high. Under ordinary circumstances
it is higher than that of other cities of India because of its
crowded and unsanitary condition, and because all forms of contagious
diseases are brought by pilgrims who come here themselves to die. As
I have already told you, it is the highest and holiest aspiration
of a pious Hindu to end his days within an area encircled by
what is known as the Panch-Kos Road, which is fifty miles in
length and bounds the City of Benares. It starts at one end of
the city at the river banks, and the other terminus is on the
river at the other end. It describes a parabola. As the city is
strung along the bank of the river several miles, it is nowhere
distant from the river more than six or seven miles. All who die
within this boundary, be they Hindu or Christian, Mohammedan or
Buddhist, pagan, agnostic or infidel, or of any other faith or
no faith, be they murderers, thieves, liars or violators of law,
and every caste, whatever their race, nationality or previous
condition, no matter whether they are saints or sinners, they
cannot escape admission to Siva's heaven. This is the greatest
possible inducement for people to hurry there as death approaches,
and consequently the non-resident death rate is abnormally high.
We started out immediately after daylight and drove from the
hotel to the river bank, where, at a landing place, were several
boats awaiting other travelers as well as ourselves. They were
ordinary Hindu sampans--rowboats with houses or cabins built
upon them--and upon the decks of our cabin comfortable chairs
were placed for our party. As soon as we were aboard the boatmen
shoved off and we floated slowly down the stream, keeping as
close to the shore as possible without jamming into the rickety
piers of bamboo that stretched out into the water for the use
of bathing pilgrims.
The bank of the river is one of the most picturesque and imposing
panoramas you can imagine. It rises from the water at a steep
grade, and is covered with a series of terraces upon which have
been erected towers, temples, mosques, palaces, shrines, platforms
and pavilions, bathing-houses, hospices for pilgrims, khans or
lodging-houses, hospitals and other structures for the accommodation
of the millions of people who come there from every part of India
on religious pilgrimages and other missions. These structures
represent an infinite variety of architecture, from the most severe
simplicity to the fantastic and grotesque. They are surmounted by
domes, pinnacles, minarets, spires, towers, cupolas and canopies;
they are built of stone, marble, brick and wood; they are painted
in every variety of color, sober and gay; the balconies and windows
of many of them are decorated with banners, bunting in all shapes
and colors, festoons of cotton and silk, garlands of flowers and
various expressions of the taste and enthusiasm of the occupants
or owners.
From the Sparrow Hills at Moscow one who has sufficient patience
can count 555 gilded and painted domes; from the cupola of St.
Peter's one may look down upon the roofs of palaces, cathedrals,
columns, obelisks, arches and ruins such as can be seen in no other
place; around the fire tower at Pera are spread the marvelous glories
of Stamboul, the Golden Horn and other parts of Constantinople;
from the citadel at Cairo you can have a bird's-eye view of one
of the most typical cities of the East; from the Eiffel Tower all
Paris and its suburbs may be surveyed, and there are many other
striking panoramas of artificial scenery, but nothing on God's
footstool resembles the picture of the holy Hindu city that may
be seen from the deck of a boat on the Ganges. It has often been
described in detail, but it is always new and always different,
and it fascinates its witnesses. There is a repulsiveness about
it which few people can overcome, but it is unique, and second
only to the Taj Mahal of all the sights in India.
A bathing ghat is a pavilion, pier or platform of stone covered
with awnings and roofs to protect the pilgrims from the sun. It
reaches into the river, where the water is about two feet deep,
and stone steps lead down to the bottom of the stream. Stretching
out from these ghats, in order to accommodate a larger number of
people, are wooden platforms, piers of slender bamboo, floats
and all kinds of contrivances, secure and insecure, temporary
and permanent, which every morning are thronged with pilgrims
from every part of India in every variety of costumes, crowding
in and out of the water, carrying down the sick and dying, all
to seek salvation for the soul, relief for the mind and healing
for the body which the Holy Mother Ganges is supposed to give.
The processions of pilgrims seem endless and are attended by
many pitiful sights. Aged women, crippled men, lean and haggard
invalids with just strength enough to reach the water's edge;
poor, shivering, starving wretches who have spent their last
farthing to reach this place, exhausted with fatigue, perishing
from hunger or disease, struggle to reach the water before their
breath shall fail. Here and there in the crowd appear all forms
of affliction--hideous lepers and other victims of cancerous
and ulcerous diseases, with the noses, lips, fingers and feet
eaten away; paralytics in all stages of the disease, people whose
limbs are twisted with rheumatism, men and women covered with all
kinds of sores, fanatical ascetics with their hair matted with
mud and their bodies smeared with ashes, ragged tramps, blind
and deformed beggars, women leading children or carrying infants
in their arms, handsome rajahs, important officials attended by
their servants and chaplains, richly dressed women with their
faces closely veiled, dignified and thoughtful Brahmins followed
by their disciples, farmers, laborers bearing the signs of toil,
and other classes of human society in every stage of poverty or
prosperity. They crowd past each other up and down the banks,
bathing in the water, drying themselves upon the piers or floats,
filling bottles and brass jars from the sacred stream, kneeling
to pray, listening to the preachers and absorbed with the single
thought upon which their faith is based.
Such exhibitions of faith can be witnessed nowhere else. It is
a daily repetition of the scene described in the New Testament
when the afflicted thronged the healing pool.
After dipping themselves in the water again and again, combing
their hair and drying it, removing their drenched robes--all
in the open air--and putting on holiday garments, the pilgrims
crowd around the priests who sit at the different shrines, and
secure from them certificates showing that they have performed
their duty to the gods. The Brahmins give each a text or a name
of a god to remember and repeat daily during the rest of his or
her life, and they pass on to the notaries who seal and stamp the
bottles of sacred water, sell idols, amulets, maps of heaven, charts
showing the true way of salvation, certificates of purification,
remedies for various diseases, and charms to protect cattle and
to make crops grow. Then they pass on to other Brahmins, who
paint the sign of their god upon their forehead, the frontal
mark which every pilgrim wears. Afterward they visit one temple
after another until they complete the pilgrimage at the Golden
Temple of Siva, where they make offerings of money, scatter barley
upon the ground and drop handfuls of rice and grain into big
stone receptacles from which the beggars who hang around the
temples receive a daily allowance. Finally they go to the priests
of the witness-bearing god, Ganasha, where the pilgrimage is
attested and recorded. Then they buy a few more idols, images
of their favorite gods, and return to their homes with a tale
that will be told around the fireside in some remote village
during the rest of their lives.
[Illustration: BODIES READY FOR BURNING--BENARES]
But the most weird and impressive spectacle at Benares, and one
which will never be forgotten, is the burning of the bodies of
the dead. At intervals, between the temples along the river bank,
are level places belonging to the several castes and leased to
associations or individuals who have huge piles of wood in the
background and attend to the business in a heartless, mercenary
way. The cost of burning a body depends upon the amount and kind
of fuel used. The lowest possible rate is three rupees or about
one dollar in our money. When the family cannot afford that they
simply throw the body into the sacred stream and let it float
down until the fish devour it. When a person dies the manager of
the burning ghat is notified. He sends to the house his assistants
or employes, who bring the body down to the river bank, sometimes
attended by members of the family, sometimes without witnesses.
It is not inclosed in a coffin, but lies upon a bamboo litter,
and under ordinary circumstances is covered with a sheet, but
when the family is rich it is wrapped in the richest of silks and
embroideries, and the coverlet is an expensive Cashmere shawl.
Arriving at the river an oblong pile of wood is built up and
the body is placed upon it. If the family is poor the pile is
low, short and narrow, and the limbs of the corpse have to be
bent so that they will not extend over the edges, as they often
do. When the body arrives it is taken down into the water and
laid in a shallow place, where it can soak until the pyre is
prepared. Usually the undertakers or friends remove the coverings
from the face and splash it liberally from the sacred stream.
When the pyre is ready they lift the body from the litter, adjust
it carefully, pile on wood until it is entirely concealed, then
thrust a few kindlings underneath and start the blaze. When the
cremation is complete the charred sticks are picked up by the
beggars and other poor people who are always hanging around and
claim this waste as their perquisite. The ashes are then gathered
up and thrown upon the stream and the current of the Ganges carries
them away.
Certain contractors have the right to search the ground upon
which the burning has taken place and the shallow river bed for
valuables that escaped the flames. It is customary to adorn the
dead with the favorite ornaments they wore when alive, and while
the gold will melt and diamonds may turn to carbon, jewels often
escape combustion, and these contractors are believed to do a
good business.
All this burning takes place in public in the open air, and sometimes
fifty, sixty or a hundred fires are blazing at the same moment.
You can sit upon the deck of your boat with your kodak in your
hand, take it all in and preserve the grewsome scene for future
reminiscencing.
While the faith of many make them whole, while remarkable cures
are occurring at Benares daily, while the sick and the afflicted
have assured relief from every ill and trouble, mental, moral and
physical, if they can only reach the water's edge, nevertheless
scattered about among the temples, squatting behind pieces of
bamboo matting or lacquered trays upon which rows of bottles
stand, are native doctors who sell all sorts of nostrums and
cure-alls that can possibly be needed by the human family, and
each dose is accompanied by a guarantee that it will surely cure.
These fellows are ignorant impostors and the municipal authorities
are careful to see that their drugs are harmless, while they make
no attempt to prevent them from swindling the people. It seems
to be a profitable trade, notwithstanding the popular faith in
the miraculous powers of the river.
Another class of prosperous humbugs is the fortune-tellers, who
are found around every temple and in every public place, ready
to forecast the fate of every enterprise that may be disclosed
to them; ready to predict good fortune and evil fortune, and
sometimes they display remarkable penetration and predict events
with startling accuracy.
Benares is as sacred to the Buddhists as it is to the Brahmins,
for it was here that Gautama, afterward called Buddha (a title
which means "The Enlightened"), lived in the sixth century before
Christ, and from here he sent out his missionaries to convert
the world. Gautama was a prince of the Sakya tribe, and of the
Rajput caste. He was born 620 B. C. and lived in great wealth
and luxury. Driving in his pleasure grounds one day he met a man
crippled with age; then a second man smitten with an incurable
disease; then a corpse, and finally a fakir or ascetic, walking
in a calm, dignified, serene manner. These spectacles set him
thinking, and after long reflection he decided to surrender his
wealth, to relinquish his happiness, and devote himself to the
reformation of his people. He left his home, his wife, a child
that had just been born to him, cut off his long hair, shaved
his head, clothed himself with rags, and taking nothing with
him but a brass bowl from which he could eat his food, and a
cup from which he could drink, he became a pilgrim, an inquirer
after Truth and Light. Having discovered that he could drink from
the hollow of his hand, he gave away his cup and kept nothing
but his bowl. That is the reason why every pilgrim and every
fakir, every monk and priest in India carries a brass bowl, for
although Buddhism is practically extinct in that country, the
teachings and the example of Gautama had a perpetual influence
over the Hindus.
After what is called the Great Renunciation, Gautama spent six
years mortifying the body and gradually reduced his food to one
grain of rice a day. But this brought him neither light nor peace
of mind. He thereupon abandoned further penance and devoted six
years to meditation, sitting under the now famous bo-tree, near
the modern town of Gaya. In the year 588 B. C. he obtained Complete
Enlightenment, and devoted the rest of his life to the instruction
of his disciples. He taught that all suffering is caused by indulging
the desires; that the only hope of relief lies in the suppression
of desire, and impressed his principles upon more millions of
believers than those of any other religion. It is the boast of
the Buddhists that no life was ever sacrificed; that no blood was
ever shed; that no suffering was ever caused by the propagation
of that faith and the conversion of the world.
After he became "enlightened," Gautama assumed the name of Buddha
and went to Benares, where he taught and preached, and had a
monastery at the town called Sarnath, now extinct, in the suburbs.
There, surrounded by heaps of ruins and rubbish, stand two great
topes or towers, the larger of which marks the spot where Buddha
preached his first sermon. It is supposed to have been built
in the sixth century of the Chinese era, for Hiouen Thsang, a
Chinese traveler who visited Sarnath in the seventh century,
describes the tower and monastery which was situated near it. It
is one of the most interesting as it is one of the most ancient
monuments in India, but we do not quite understand the purpose for
which it was erected. It is 110 feet high, 93 feet in diameter,
and built of solid masonry with the exception of a small chamber
in the center and a narrow shaft or chimney running up to the top.
The lower half is composed of immense blocks of stone clamped
together with iron, and at intervals the monument was encircled
by bands of sculptured relief fifteen feet wide. The upper part
was of brick, which is now in an advanced state of decay and
covered with a heavy crop of grass and bushes. A large tree grows
from the top.
There used to be an enormous monastery in the neighborhood, of
which the ruins remain. The cells and chapels were arranged around
a square court similar to the cloisters of modern monasteries.
A half mile distant is another tower and the ruins of other
monasteries, and every inch of earth in that part of the city is
associated with the life and labor of the great apostle of peace
and love, whose theology of sweetness and light and gentleness
was in startling contrast with the atrocious doctrines taught
by the Brahmins and the hideous rites practiced at the shrines
of the Hindu gods. But these towers are not the oldest relics
of Buddha. At Gaya, where he received the "enlightenment," the
actual birthplace of Buddhism, is a temple built in the year
500 A. D., and it stands upon the site of one that was 700 or
800 years older.
Benares is distinctly the city of Siva, but several thousand
other gods are worshiped there, including his several wives.
Uma is his first wife, and she is the exact counterpart of her
husband; Sati is his most devoted wife; Karali is his most horrible
wife; Devi, another of his wives, is the goddess of death; Kali
is the goddess of misfortune, and there are half a dozen other
ladies of his household whose business seems to be to terrorize
and distress their worshipers. But that is the ruling feature
of the Hindu religion. There is no sweetness or light in its
theology--it exists to make people unhappy and wretched, and to
bring misery, suffering and crime into the world.
The Hindus fear their gods, but do not love them, with perhaps
the exception of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu trinity,
while Brahma is the third. These three are the supreme deities
in the pantheon, but Brahma is more of an abstract proposition
than an actual god. For purposes of worship the Hindus may be
divided into two classes--the followers of Siva and the followers
of Vishnu. They can be distinguished by the "god marks" or painted
signs upon their foreheads. Those who wear red are the adherents
of Siva, and the followers of Vishnu wear white. Subordinate
to these two great divinities are millions of other gods, and
it would take a volume to describe their various functions and
attributes.
Vishnu is a much more agreeable god than Siva, the destroyer; he
has some human feeling, and his various incarnations are friendly
heroes, who do kind acts and treat their worshipers tolerably
well.
The "Well of Healing," one of the holiest places in Benares,
is dedicated to Vishnu. He dug it himself, making a cavity in
the rock. Then, in the absence of water, he filled it with
perspiration from his own body. This remarkable assertion seems
to be confirmed by the foul odor that arises from the water,
which is three feet deep and about the consistency of soup. It
looks and smells as if it might have been a sample brought from
the Chicago River before the drainage canal was finished. It is
fed by an invisible spring, and there is no overflow, because,
after bathing in it to wash away their sins, the pilgrims drink
several cups of the filthy liquid, which often nauseates them,
and it is a miracle that any of them survive.
One of the most curious and picturesque of all the temples is
that of the goddess Durga, a fine building usually called the
Monkey Temple because of the number of those animals inhabiting
the trees around it. They are very tame and cunning and can spot
a tourist as far as they can see him. When they see a party of
strangers approaching the temple they begin to chatter in the
trees and then rush for the courtyard of the temple, where they
expect to be fed. It is one of the perquisites of the priests
to sell rice and other food for them at prices about ten times
more than it is worth, but the tourist has the fun of tossing
it to them and making them scramble for it. As Durga is the most
terrific of all of Siva's wives, and delights in death, torture,
bloodshed and every form of destruction, the Hindus are very
much afraid of her and the peace offerings left at this temple
are more liberal than at the others, a fact very much appreciated
by the priests.
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