Across India Part 20

The dancing had been renewed, and this conversation continued till later.

At this wedding Lord Tremlyn met a gentleman whom he introduced to some of his party as Sahib Govind. This gentleman had just invited him to visit a theatrical performance at a private house, such as a European can very rarely witness.

"I never went to a theatre in my life!" protested Mrs. Belgrave.

"But this is a representation in connection with the religious traditions of the Hindus," argued his lords.h.i.+p.

It was decided to go, the scruples of the Methodists being overcome by the fact that it was a religious occasion, and not at all like the stage performances of New York. The carriages conveyed them to the house indicated by Sahib Govind, and they were conducted to a hall, at one end of which was a stage, with a thin calico curtain in front of it. The performance was just beginning.

A Brahmin came out in front of the curtain, with some musicians, and set up an image of Ganesa, the G.o.d of wisdom; then he prayed this idol to enlighten the minds of the actors, and enable them to perform their parts well, which was certainly very untheatrical, the Americans thought, when Sir Modava had translated the substance of the invocation. The Brahmin then announced that the subject of the play was the loves of the G.o.d Krishna.

"Who is the hero of the piece, Sir Modava?" asked Mr. Woolridge, who was a theatre-goer at home.

"He is really Vishnu, one of the Hindu trinity, known as the preserver.

Vishnu has a considerable number of forms, or incarnations, one of which is Krishna, the most human of them all."

The curtain rose, and cut short the explanation. The scene, painted on canvas, was an Indian temple. A figure with an enormous wig, his half-naked body daubed all over with yellow paint, was seated before it, abstracted in the deepest meditation. The interpreter told them it was Ris.h.i.+, a supernatural power, a genius who is a protector to those who need his services. Then a crowd of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses rushed on the stage, and each of them made a long speech to the devotee-G.o.d, which Sir Modava had not time to render into English, even with the aid of Sahib Govind.

The actors were fantastically dressed. One had an elephant's head, and all of them wore high gilt mitres. Krishna enters, and the other divinities make their exit. He is a nice-looking young man, painted blue, and dressed like a king. His wife enters, and throws herself at his feet. Then she reproaches him for forsaking her, in a soft and musical voice, her eyes raining tears all the time. She embraces his knees.

Then appears the rival in her affections with Krishna, Rukmini, an imperious woman, and tells by what artifices she has conquered the weak husband. Then follows a spirited dialogue between the two women. The rival boasts of her descent from Vishnu, and of her beauty and animation, and reproaches Krishna with his unworthy love. Sir Modava wrote this down in his memorandum book, and handed it to the Americans.

Satyavama, the wife, insists that her only crime was her love for her divine husband. She narrates her early history, when she was a peasant girl on the banks of the Jumna, with her companions, and drew upon herself the attention of the G.o.d. Her life had been simple, and she had always been a faithful wife. Yet Rukmini triumphs over her. Her pride is aroused; she rushes off, and returns with her little son.

"Kill us both, since we cannot live without your love!" the interpreters rendered her piteous cry. The rival ridicules her, and, urged on by her, Krishna hands her a cup of poison, which she drinks, and sinks to the ground.

"It is not the poison that rends me; it is that my heart is broken by the ingrat.i.tude of one I have so dearly loved." She forgives him, and dies.

But not thus does the Indian love-story end; for the genie enters, and in thundering tones calls Krishna to an account for his deeds. The festive G.o.d is tortured with remorse, but has no excuse to offer. He drives Rukmini from him, and implores the yellow-painted G.o.d for forgiveness; and, as he is the preserver, it is granted. Satyavama is brought back to life. She presents her son to her husband, who holds out his arms to embrace him; and the curtain drops in a blaze of Bengal lights, and the "Wah! Wahs!" of the Hindu audience.

The interpreters finished their explanations, and the company retired with the salaams of the crowd. It was very late when they retired to rest that night.

CHAPTER XXI

JUGGERNAUT AND JUGGLERS

The next day was Sunday, and none of the party appeared in the parlor till quite late; not because it was the Sabbath, but because they were all very tired, even the four lively boys, who had done more sightseeing than the rest of the tourists. They were always on the wing, and while the older ones rested, they always found some novelty which drew them away from the hotel. Of the four servants only two attended upon them. They had practically retired two of them with some difficulty when they were away from the party, for they were a nuisance to them, so many of them.

Sayad and Moro were retained, however; for they were more intelligent than the others, spoke English better, and were more enterprising, frequently suggesting some means of amus.e.m.e.nt to them. They were interested in the boys and girls, and Sayad told Louis and Felix all about them,--about their homes, their schools, their sports; and Moro did the same for Scott and Morris. On this Sunday they were conducted to a Sunday-school of two hundred scholars, under the direction of the missionaries, though the teachers are mostly natives.

It was a strange sight to them, the variety of races, the strange costumes, and the absence of any considerable portion of costume at all. There were Mohammedans, Chinamen, negroes, Jews, and a few Europeans. They fell in with the missionary from England, who told them a good deal about their work, and how interested they were in it, declaring that they could see the fruits of their labors, detailing a number of instances of conversions.

They had a day-school also, and they hired a strict Hindu because he taught English so well. He hated the Christians, and did his work only because he was paid for it; but he had to listen to the prayers and exhortations, and finally he yielded in spite of himself, and became a very useful Christian minister.

This gentleman said that the number of Christians in India had doubled within ten years. He invited the party to come to the church, and the boys hastened back to the hotel to tell their friends about it. They all went to this meeting, including their three distinguished guides. The service was about the same as at home, the clergyman was a native of the Brahmin caste, and he preached a very earnest and sensible sermon. The funds of the mission were increased at least a thousand dollars by this visit.

In the evening the entire company attended the Church of England at the invitation of Lord Tremlyn; and the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Bombay. The Methodists were as much pleased with it as though it had been delivered by one of their own fold. A portion of the day was pa.s.sed in writing letters to their friends at home, and quite a bundle of them was collected for the post by Louis. They were all sealed, with stamps affixed, and Morris's servant Mobarak was directed to put them in the mail-box. But the fellow shook his head, and declined to obey.

His sahib was proceeding to give him a lecture in rather energetic terms, when Sir Modava interposed, and explained that the servant had religious scruples, knowing that the stamp had been wet on the tongues of the senders, which made it unclean to him, and he could not touch it.

"I have heard of a young man not older than Mobarak who lost his life rather than come in contact with the saliva of a foreigner; but I doubt if many would carry their fanaticism to that extent," he added.

The next morning the party were up at six o'clock, and after they had taken their coffee, carried up to them by their servants, went out to walk by two and threes; but they returned by seven o'clock, and were a.s.sembled in the parlor. The sights in the streets had become rather an old story by this time, and there was not much to be said about them.

"Have you recovered from the fatigues of Sat.u.r.day, Mrs. Belgrave?" asked Lord Tremlyn.

"Entirely, my Lord. I am quite ready for the next item in your programme,"

replied the lady.

"How did you enjoy the play, madam?" inquired Sir Modava.

"As a religious exhibition, from my point of view, it was a failure."

"It does not convey much of an idea of even the mythology of the Hindus,"

added Professor Giroud. "If Krishna was a divinity, or even an incarnation of one, he is a very bad representation of the piety and morality of the G.o.ds. The affair was well enough as a love-story, but the conclusion looked like a pleasant satire on those authors who insist that their tales and novels shall have an agreeable ending;" and the professor indulged in a hearty laugh as he recalled the manner in which Satyavama had been brought back to life by the divinity in yellow paint.

"I like that kind of a winding up of a story, and I don't like the other kind," added the magnate of the Fifth Avenue. "We read novels, if we read them at all, for the fun of it, with some incidental information in the right direction. When I was a young man I had a taste for the sea, as most boys have, and I read Marryat's novels with immense pleasure. In 'The King's Own,' after following the young fellow in his adventures all over the world, his life terminated just as he was reaching home, and I was disgusted. I have read most of this author's books again, but I never looked into 'The King's Own' a second time."

"I think we all like to have a story 'end well,' though it was a rather violent bringing up Sat.u.r.day night," said Dr. Hawkes. "But the actresses in that play were all exceedingly pretty girls, and I did not suppose so many of them could be found in all India."

"That was just what I was saying to Govind after the performance, and he laughed as though he would choke himself to death," interposed Lord Tremlyn, laughing rather earnestly himself. "There was not a single female on the stage; for the custom of the theatre here does not permit women to appear, any more than it did in the time of Shakespeare."

"But I saw them!" exclaimed the surgeon. "I think I know a woman when I see one, though I am an old bachelor, and rather a tough one at that."

"Not always, Doctor; for not one of those you call girls was a female. A woman on the Hindu stage is a thing unknown," rallied the viscount.

"I suppose I must give it up, though I would not do so on any less authority than that of your lords.h.i.+p," replied the surgeon good-naturedly.

All the rest of the party expressed their astonishment in terms hardly less strong; and the ladies were even more incredulous than the gentlemen.

"As Govind told me, all the female parts were taken by boys remarkable for their beauty and the sweetness of their voices," added his lords.h.i.+p. "But this is understood to be our last day in Bombay, though the limitation of time does not come from any suggestion of mine; and we must make the best use of what remains. You have not half seen Bombay yet."

"We should need ten years for our trip if we were to exhaust every place we visit," replied Captain Ringgold. "All we expect is to get a fair idea of a city; and I think we have done that here, especially as we shall see the same things, as far as manners and customs are concerned, many times before we finally take our leave of the country at Colombo in Ceylon."

"While we are quietly seated here, I should like to ask for some information in regard to Juggernaut," said Uncle Moses. "I used to read the most horrible stories in my Sabbath-school books about that idol."

"Those stories, as I have been informed by elderly Englishmen, were published in the United Kingdom, and all of them are inventions or gross exaggerations," replied Sir Modava, with his pleasant smile. "Puri, or Juggernaut, is in the district of Orissa, on the western sh.o.r.e of the Bay of Bengal. It is one of the holiest places in India among the Hindus. It contains a temple of Juggernaut, in honor of Vishnu, in which is an idol of this Hindu G.o.d, called Jagannath, which is mentioned in history as far back as A.D. 318. Vishnu is the Preserver of the Hindu trinity, and therefore in an especial sense the G.o.d of the people; and sometimes 100,000 natives gather at this shrine, bringing offerings to the value of nearly 40,000.

"The town has a population of twenty-two thousand, and it contains six thousand lodging-houses for the pilgrims who visit it. The chief temple has a hundred and twenty others in an enclosure, with a tower one hundred and ninety-two feet high. Juggernaut's car, of which you have read, Mr.

Scarburn, is a sort of temple, thirty-five feet square, and forty-five feet high, with wheels seven feet high. The car-festival is the chief of twenty-four held every year, when the idol is dragged to the country house.

Though the distance is less than a mile, the sand is so deep in the roadway that it requires several days to complete the journey.

"The idols in the temple are hideous-looking objects, with enormous eyes and crescent-shaped mouths, the horns pointing upwards. But they are very richly ornamented; for the idol has an income of over 30,000 from lands and religious houses. It used to be currently reported and believed that fanatical, crazy devotees cast themselves under the wheels of the car, and were crushed to death, immolating themselves as an offering to the G.o.d. But these statements have been strictly investigated, and branded as the calumnies of English writers. Two distinguished savants have declared that self-immolation is utterly contrary to the wors.h.i.+p of Juggernaut, the very unusual deaths at the car-festival being almost invariably accidental."

"It is a great pity that these horrible stories were ever poured into the minds of children, and I am thankful that the libraries contain nothing of the kind now," added Uncle Moses.