Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 15

8. The land revenue has been largely increased, and the resources and communications of the country have been greatly developed during the last half-century. The formation of the Central Provinces as a separate administration in 1861 secured for the Sagar and Nerbudda territories the attention which they failed to obtain from the distant Government of the North-Western Provinces. Sir Richard Temple, the first Chief Commissioner, administered the Central Provinces with extraordinary energy and success.

9. Raja Chhatarsal Bundela was Raja of Panna. The history of Chhatarsal is related in _I.G._ (1908), vol. xix, p. 400, s.v. Panna State. In 1729 he called in the Marathas to help him against Muhammad Khan Bangash, and when he died in 1731 rewarded them by bequeathing one-third of his dominions to the Peshwa. The correct date of his death is Pus Badi 3, Samvat 1788 (_Hamirpur Settlement Report_ (1880), note at end of chapter 2). The date is often given inaccurately.

10. Chitrakot, in the Banda district of Bundelkhand, under the government of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and seventy-one miles distant from Allahabad, is a famous place of pilgrimage, much frequented by the votaries of Rama. Large fairs are held there.

11. The performance of miraculous cures at the tomb is not necessary for the deification of a person who has been specially feared in his lifetime, or has died a violent death. Either of these conditions is enough to render his ghost formidable, and worthy of propitiation.

Shrines to such persons are very numerous both in Bundelkhand and other parts of India, Miracles, of course, occur at nearly every shrine, and are too common and well attested to attract much attention.

12. These observations are as true to-day as they were in the author's time. Disastrous cases of over-a.s.sessment were common in the early years of British rule, and the mischief so wrought has been sometimes traceable for generations afterwards. Since 1833 the error, though less common, has not been unknown.

13. Since writing the above, I have seen Colonel Sykes's notes on the formations of Southern India in the _Indian Review_. The facts there described seem all to support my conclusion, and his map would answer just as well for Central as for Southern India; for the banks of the Nerbudda and Chambal, Son, and Mahanadi, as well as for those of the Bam and the Bima. Colonel Sykes does not, I believe, attempt to account for the stratification of the basalt; he merely describes it.

[W. H. S.]

The author's theory of the subaqueous origin of the greater part of the basalt of Central and Southern India, otherwise known as the 'Deccan Trap Series', had been supported by numerous excellent geologists, but W. T. Blanford proved the theory to be untenable, there being 'clear and unmistakable evidence that the traps were in great part of sub-aerial formation', The intercalation of sedimentary beds with fresh-water fossils is conclusive proof that the lava-flows a.s.sociated with such beds cannot be submarine. The hypothesis that the lower beds of traps were poured out in a vast, but shallow, freshwater lake extending throughout the area over which the inter- trappean limestone formation extends appears to be extremely improbable. The lava seems to have been poured, during a long succession of ages, over a land surface, uneven and broken in parts, 'with intervals of rest sufficient for lakes, stocked with fresh- water mollusca, to form on the cold surfaces of several of the lava- flows' (Holland, in _I.G._ (1907), i. 88). A great tract of the volcanic region appears to have remained almost undisturbed to the present day, affected by sub-aerial erosion alone. The geological horizon of the Deccan trap cannot be precisely defined, but is now vaguely stated as 'the close of the cretaceous period'. The 'steps', or conspicuous terraces, traceable on the hill-sides for great distances, are explained as being 'due to the outcrop of the harder basaltic strata, or of those beds which resist best the disintegrating influences of exposure'.

The general horizontality of the Deccan trap over an area of not less than 200,000 square miles, and the absence of volcanic hills of the usual conical form, are difficulties which have caused much discussion. Some of the 'old volcanic vents' appear to have existed near Poona and Mahableshwar. The entire area has been subjected to sub-aerial denudation on a gigantic scale, which explains the occurrence of the basalt as the caps of isolated hills. Much further investigation is required to clear up details (_Manual of the Geology of India_, ed. 1, Part I, chap. 13)

14. The author took charge of the Jubbulpore District in March 1828.

15. The fossiliferous beds near Jubbulpore, described in the text, seem to belong to the group now cla.s.sed as the Lameta beds. The bones of a large dinosaurian reptile (_t.i.tanosaurus indicus_) have been identified (_I.G._, 1907, vol. i, p. 88).

16. 'Many years ago Dr. Spry (_Note on the Fossil Palms and Sh.e.l.ls lately discovered on the Table-Land of Sagar in Central India_, in _J.A.S.B._ for 1833, vol. ii, p. 639) and, subsequently to him, Captain Nicholls (_Journal of Asiatic Soc. of Bombay_, vol. v, p.

614), studied and described certain trunks of palm-trees, whose silicified remains are found imbedded in the soft intertrappean mud- beds near Sagar. . . . The trees are imbedded in a layer of calcareous black earth, which formed the surface soil in which they grew; this soil rests on, and was made up of the disintegration of, a layer of basalt. It is covered over by another and similar layer of the same rock near where the trees occur. . . . The palm-trees, now found fossilized, grew in the soil, which, in the condition of a black calcareous earthy bed, we now find lying round their prostrate stems. They fell (from whatever cause), and lay until their silicification was complete. A slight depression of the surface, or some local or accidental check of some drainage-course, or any other similar and trivial cause, may have laid them under water. The process of silicification proceeded gradually but steadily, and after they had there, in lapse of ages, become lapidified, the next outburst of volcanic matter overwhelmed them, broke them, partially enveloped, and bruised them, until long subsequent denudation once more brought them to light' (J. G. Medlicott, in _Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India_, vol. ii. Part II, pp. 200, 203, 204, 205, 216, as quoted in _C. P. Gazetteer_ (1870), p. 435). The intertrappean fossils are all those of organisms which would occur in shallow fresh-water lakes or marshy ground.

Besides the author's friend and relative, Dr. H. H. Spry, Dr.

Spilsbury contributed papers on the Nerbudda fossils to vols. iii, vi, viii, ix, x, and xiii of the _J.A.S.B._ Other writers also have treated of the subject, but it appears to be by no means fully worked out. James Prinsep, to whom no topic came amiss, discussed the Jubbulpore fossil bones in the volume in which Dr. Spry's paper appeared. Dr. Spry was the author of a work ent.i.tled _Modern India: with Ill.u.s.trations of the Resources and Capabilities of Hindustan_ (2 vols. 8vo, 1838). He became F.R.S.

CHAPTER 15

Legend of the Sagar Lake--Paralysis from eating the Grain of the _Lathyrus sativus_.

The cantonments of Sagar are about two miles from the city and occupied by three regiments of native infantry, one of local horse, and a company of European artillery.[1] The city occupies two sides of one of the most beautiful lakes of India, formed by a wall which unites two sandstone hills on the north side. The fort and part of the town stands upon this wall, which, according to tradition, was built by a wealthy merchant of the Banjara caste.[2] After he had finished it, the bed of the lake still remained dry; and he was told in a dream, or by a priest, that it would continue so till he should consent to sacrifice his own daughter, then a girl, and the young lad to whom she was affianced, to the tutelary G.o.d of the place. He accordingly built a little shrine in the centre of the valley, which was to become the bed of the lake, put the two children in, and built up the doorway. He had no sooner done so than the whole of the valley became filled with water, and the old merchant, the priest, the masons, and spectators, made their escape with much difficulty. From that time the lake has been inexhaustible; but no living soul of the Banjara caste has ever since been known to drink of its waters.

Certainly all of that caste at present religiously avoid drinking the water of the lake; and the old people of the city say that they have always done so since they can remember, and that they used to hear from their parents that they had always done so. In nothing does the Founder of the Christian religion appear more amiable than in His injunction, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not'. In nothing do the Hindoo deities appear more horrible than in the delight they are supposed to take in their sacrifice--it is everywhere the helpless, the female, and the infant that they seek to devour--and so it was among the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian colonies. Human sacrifices were certainly offered in the cities of Sagar during the whole of the Maratha government up to the year 1800, when they were put a stop to by the local governor, asa Sahib, a very humane man; and I once heard a very learned Brahman priest say that he thought the decline of his family and government arose from this _innovation_. 'There is', said he, 'no sin in _not_ offering human sacrifices to the G.o.ds where none have been offered; but, where the G.o.ds have been accustomed to them, they are naturally annoyed when the rite is abolished, and visit the place and people with all kinds of calamities.' He did not seem to think that there was anything singular in this mode of reasoning, and perhaps three Brahman priests out of four would have reasoned in the same manner.[3]

On descending into the valley of the Nerbudda over the Vindhya range of hills from Bhopal, one may see by the side of the road, upon a spur of the hill, a singular pillar of sandstone rising in two spires, one turning above and rising over the other, to the height of from twenty to thirty feet. On a spur of a hill half a mile distant is another sandstone pillar not quite so high. The tradition is that the smaller pillar was the affianced bride of the taller one, who was a youth of a family of great eminence in these parts. Coming with his uncle to pay his first visit to his bride in the procession they call the 'barat', he grew more and more impatient as he approached nearer and nearer, and she shared the feeling. At last, unable to restrain himself, he jumped upon his uncle's shoulder, and looked with all his might towards the spot where his bride was said to be seated.

Unhappily she felt no less impatient than he did, and raised 'the fringed curtains of her eye', as he raised his, [and] they saw each other at the same moment. In that moment the bride, bridegroom, and uncle were all converted into stone pillars; and there they stand to this day a monument, in the estimation of the people, to warn men and womankind against too strong an inclination to indulge curiosity. It is a singular fact that in one of the most extensive tribes of the Gond population of Central India, to which this couple is said to have belonged, the bride always goes to the bridegroom in the procession of the 'barat', to prevent a recurrence of this calamity.

It is the bridegroom who goes to the bride among every other cla.s.s of the people of India, as well Muhammadans as Hindoos. Whether the usage grew out of the tradition, or the tradition out of the usage, is a question that will admit of much being said on both sides. I can only vouch for the existence of both. I have seen the pillars, heard the tradition from the people, and ascertained the usage; as in the case of that of the Sagar lake.

The Mahadeo sandstone hills, which in the Satpura range overlook the Nerbudda to the south, rise to between four and five thousand feet above the level of the sea;[4] and in one of the highest parts a fair was formerly, and is, perhaps, still held[5] for the enjoyment of those who a.s.semble to witness the self devotion of a few young men, who offer themselves as a sacrifice to fulfil the vows of their mothers. When a woman is without children she makes votive offerings to all the G.o.ds, who can, she thinks, a.s.sist her, and promises of still greater in case they should grant what she wants. Smaller promises being found of no avail, she at last promises her first- born, if a male, to the G.o.d of destruction, Mahadeo. If she gets a son, she conceals from him her vows till he has attained the age of p.u.b.erty; she then communicates it [_sic_] to him, and enjoins him to fulfil it. He believes it to be his paramount duty to obey his mother's call; and from that moment he considers himself as devoted to the G.o.d. Without breathing to any living soul a syllable of what she has told him, he puts on the habit of a pilgrim or religious mendicant, visits all the celebrated temples dedicated to this G.o.d in different parts of India;[6] and, at the annual fair on the Mahadeo hills, throws himself from a perpendicular height of four or five hundred feet, and is dashed to pieces upon the rocks below.[7] If the youth does not feel himself quite prepared for the sacrifice on the first visit, he spends another year in pilgrimages, and returns to fulfil his mother's vow at the next fair. Some have, I believe, been known to postpone the sacrifice to a third fair; but the interval is always spent in painful pilgrimages to the celebrated temples of the G.o.d. When Sir R. Jenkins was the Governor-General's representative at the court of Nagpur,[8] great efforts were made by him and all the European officers under him to put a stop to these horrors by doing away with the fair; and their efforts were a.s.sisted by the _cholera morbus_, which broke out among the mult.i.tude one season while they were so employed, and carried off the greater part of them. This seasonable visitation was, I believe, considered as an intimation on the part of the G.o.d that the people ought to have been more attentive to the wishes of the white men, for it so happens that Mahadeo is the only one of the Hindoo G.o.ds who is represented with a white face.[9]

He figures among the _dramatis personae_ of the great pantomime of the Ramlila[10] or fight for the recovery of Sita from the demon king of Ceylon; and is the only one with a white face. I know not whether the fair has ever been revived, but [I] think not.

In 1829 the wheat and other spring crops in this and the surrounding villages were destroyed by a severe hail-storm; in 1830 they were deficient from the want of seasonable rains; and in 1831 they were destroyed by blight. During these three years the 'teori', or what in other parts of India is called 'kesari' (the _Lathyrus sativus_ of botanists), a kind of wild vetch, which, though not sown itself, is left carelessly to grow among the wheat and other grain, and given in the green and dry state to cattle, remained uninjured, and thrived with great luxuriance.[11] In 1831 they reaped a rich crop of it from the blighted wheat-fields, and subsisted upon its grain during that and the following years, giving the stalks and leaves only to their cattle. In 1833 the sad effects of this food began to manifest themselves. The younger part of the population of this and the surrounding villages, from the age of thirty downwards, began to be deprived of the use of their limbs below the waist by paralytic strokes, in all cases sudden, but in some cases more severe than in others. About half the youth of this village of both s.e.xes became affected during the years 1833 and 1834, and many of them have lost the use of their lower limbs entirely, and are unable to move. The youth of the surrounding villages, in which the 'teori' from the same causes formed the chief article of food during the years 1831 and 1832, have suffered to an equal degree. Since the year 1834 no new case has occurred; but no person once attacked had been found to recover the use of the limbs affected; and my tent was surrounded by great numbers of the youth in different stages of the disease, imploring my advice and a.s.sistance under this dreadful visitation.

Some of them were very fine-looking young men of good caste and respectable families; and all stated that their pains and infirmities were confined entirely to the parts below the waist. They described the attack as coming on suddenly, often while the person was asleep, and without any warning symptoms whatever; and stated that a greater portion of the young men were attacked than of the young women. It is the prevailing opinion of the natives throughout the country that both horses and bullocks, which have been much fed upon 'teori', are liable to lose the use of their limbs; but, if the poisonous qualities abound more in the grain than in the stalk or leaves, man, who eats nothing but the grain, must be more liable to suffer from the use of this food than beasts, which eat it merely as they eat gra.s.s or hay.

I sent the son of the head man of the village and another, who were among the young people least affected, into Sagar with a letter to my friend Dr. Foley, with a request that he would try what he could do for them; and if he had any fair prospect of being able to restore these people to the use of their limbs, that measures might be adopted through the civil authorities to provide them with accommodation and the means of subsistence, either by private subscription, or by application to Government. The civil authorities, however, could find neither accommodation nor funds to maintain these people while under Dr. Foley's care; and several seasons of calamity had deprived them of the means of maintaining themselves at a distance from their families. Nor is a medical man in India provided with the means found most effectual in removing such affections, such as baths, galvanic batteries, &c. It is lamentable to think how very little we have as yet done for the country in the healing art, that art which, above all others, a benevolent and enlightened Government should encourage among the people of India.

All we have as yet done has been to provide medical attendants for our European officers; regiments, and jails. It must not, however, be supposed that the people of India are without medical advice, for there is not a town or considerable village in India without its pract.i.tioners, the Hindoos following the Egyptian (Misrani), and the Musalmans the Grecian (Yunani) practice. The first prescribe little physic and much fasting; and the second follow the good old rules of Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, with which they are all tolerably well acquainted. As far as the office of physician goes, the natives of India of all cla.s.ses, high and low, have much more confidence in their own pract.i.tioners than in ours, whom they consider too reckless and better adapted to treat diseases in a cold than a hot climate.

They cannot afford to give the only fees which European physicians would accept; and they see them, in their hospital practice, trust much to their native a.s.sistants, who are very few of them able to read any book, much less to study the profound doctrines of the great masters of the science of medicine.[12] No native ventures to offer an opinion upon this abstruse subject in any circle where he is not known to be profoundly read in either Arabic or Sanskrit lore; nor would he venture to give a prescription without first consulting, 'spectacles on nose', a book as large as a church Bible. The educated cla.s.s, as indeed all cla.s.ses, say that they do not want our physicians, but stand much in need of our surgeons. Here they feel that they are helpless, and we are strong; and they seek our aid whenever they see any chance of obtaining it, as in the present case.[13] Considering that every European gentleman they meet is more or less a surgeon, or hoping to find him so, people who are afflicted, or have children afflicted, with any kind of malformation, or malorganization, flock round them [_sic_] wherever they go, and implore their aid; but implore in vain, for, when they do happen to fall in with a surgeon, he is a mere pa.s.ser-by, without the means or the time to afford relief. In travelling over India there is nothing which distresses a benevolent man so much as the necessity he is daily under of telling poor parents, who, with aching hearts and tearful eyes, approach him with their suffering children in their arms, that to relieve them requires time and means which are not at a traveller's command, or a species of knowledge which he does not possess; it is bitter thus to dash to the ground the cup of hope which our approach has raised to the lip of mother, father, and child; but he consoles himself with the prospect, that at no distant period a benevolent and enlightened Government will distribute over the land those from whom the afflicted will not seek relief in vain.[14]

Notes:

1. The garrison is stated in the _Gazetteer_ (1870) to consist of a European regiment of infantry, two batteries of European artillery, one native cavalry and one native infantry regiment. In 1893 it consisted of one battery of Royal Artillery, a detachment of British Infantry, a regiment of Bengal Cavalry, and a detachment of Bengal Infantry. According to the census of 1911, the population of Sagar was 45,908.

2. The Banjaras, or Brinjaras, are a wandering tribe, princ.i.p.ally employed as carriers of grain and salt on bullocks and cows. They used to form the transport service of the Moghal armies, and of the Company's forces at least as late as 1819. Their organization and customs are in many ways peculiar. The development of roads and railways has much diminished the importance of the tribe. A good account of it will be found in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd ed., 1885, s. v. 'Banjara'. Dubois (_Hindu Manners, &c._, 3rd ed.

(1906), p. 70) states that 'of all the castes of the Hindus, this particular one is acknowledged to be the most brutal'.

3. See note on human sacrifice, _ante_, Chapter 8, note 8.

4. In the Hoshangabad district of the Central Provinces. The sandstone formation here attains its highest development, and is known to geologists as the 'Mahadeo sandstones'. The new sanitarium of Pachmarhi is situated in these hills.

5. It has been long since suppressed.

6. Benares is the princ.i.p.al seat of the wors.h.i.+p of Mahadeo (Siva), but his shrines are found everywhere throughout India. One hundred and eight of these are reckoned as important. In Southern India the most notable, perhaps, is the great temple at Tanjore (see chap. 17 of Monier Williams's _Religious Thought and Life in India_).

7. 'This mode of suicide is called Bhrigu-pata, "throwing one's self from a precipice". It was once equally common at the rock of Girnar [in Kathiawar], and has only recently been prohibited' (ibid. p.

349).

8. Nagpore (Nagpur) was governed by Maratha rulers, with the t.i.tle of Bhonsla, also known as the Rajas of Berar. The last Raja, Raghoji, died without heirs in 1853. His dominions were then annexed as lapsed territory by Lord Dalhousie. Sir Richard Jenkins was Resident at Nagpur from 1810 to 1827. Nagpur is now the head-quarters of the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces.

9. 'There is a legend that Siva appeared in the Kali age, for the good of the Brahmans, as "Sveta", "the white one", and that he had four disciples, to all of whom the epithet "Sveta" is applied'

(Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 80, note 2). Various explanations of the legend have been offered. Professor A. Weber is inclined to think that the various references to white teachers in Indian legends allude to Christian missionaries. The Mahabharata mentions the travels of Narada and others across the sea to 'Sveta-dwipa', the 'Island of the White Men', in order to learn the doctrine of the unity of G.o.d. This tradition appears to be intelligible only if understood to commemorate the journeys of pious Indians to Alexandria, and their study of Christianity there (_Die Griechen in Indien_, 1890, p. 34).

10. The Ramlila, a performance corresponding to the mediaeval European 'miracle-play', is celebrated in Northern India in the month of Kuar (or Asvin, September-October), at the same time as the Durga Puja is solemnized in Bengal. Rama and his brother Lachhman are impersonated by boys, who are seated on thrones in state. The performance concludes by the burning of a wicker image of Ravana, the demon king of Lanka (Ceylon), who had carried off Rama's queen, Sita.

The story is the leading subject of the great epic called the Ramayana.

11. The _Lathyrus sativus_ is cultivated in the Punjab and in Tibet.

Its poisonous qualities are attributed to its excessive proportion of nitrogenous matter, which requires dilution. Another species of the genus, _L. cicer_, grown in Spain, has similar properties. The distressing effects described in the text have been witnessed by other observers (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, s.v.

'Lathyrus').

12. One of the tent-pitchers one morning, after pitching our tent, asked the loan of a small extra one for the use of his wife, who was about to be confined. The basket-maker's wife of the village near which we were encamped was called; and the poor woman, before we had finished our breakfast, gave birth to a daughter. The charge is half a rupee, or one s.h.i.+lling for a boy, and a quarter, or sixpence, for a girl. The tent-pitcher gave her ninepence, which the poor midwife thought very handsome, The mother had come fourteen miles upon a loaded cart over rough roads the night before; and went the same distance with her child the night after, upon the same cart. The first midwife in Europe could not have done her duty better than this poor basket-maker's wife did hers. [W. H. S.]

13. The 'present case' was of a medical, not a surgical, nature.

14. The Hindoo pract.i.tioners are called 'baid' (Sanskrit 'vaidya', followers of the Veda, that is to say, the Ayur Veda). The Musalman pract.i.tioners are generally called 'hakim'. The Egyptian school (Misrani, Misri, or Suryani, that is, Syrian) never practise bleeding, and are partial to the use of metallic oxides. The Yunani physicians approve of bleeding, and prefer vegetable drugs. The older writers on India fancied that the Hindoo system of medicine was of enormous antiquity, and that the principles of Galenical medical science were ultimately derived from India. Modern investigation has proved that Hindoo medicine, like Hindoo astronomy, is largely of Greek origin. This conclusion has been expressed in an exaggerated form by some writers, but its general truth appears to be established. The Hindoo books treating of medicine are certainly older than Wilson supposed, for the Bower ma.n.u.script, written in the second half of the fourth century of our era, contains three Sanskrit medical treatises. The writers had, however, plenty of time to borrow from Galen, who lived in the second century. The Indian aversion to European medicine, as distinguished from surgery, still exists, though in a degree somewhat less than in the author's time. Many munic.i.p.al boards have insisted on employing 'baids' and 'hakims' in addition to the pract.i.tioners trained in European methods. Well-to-do patients often delay resort to the English physician until they have exhausted all resources of the 'hakim' and have been nearly killed by his drastic treatment. One medical innovation, the use of quinine as a febrifuge, has secured universal approbation. I never heard of an Indian who disbelieved in quinine. Chlorodyne also is fully appreciated, but most of the European medicines are regarded with little faith.

Since the author wrote, great progress has been made in providing hospital and dispensary accommodation. Each 'district', or unit of civil administration, has a fairly well equipped combined hospital and dispensary at head-quarters, and branch dispensaries exist in almost every district. An Inspector-General of Dispensaries supervises the medical administration of each province, and medical schools have been organized at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lah.o.r.e, and Agra. During Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty and afterwards, energetic steps were taken to improve the system of medical relief for females.

Pandit Madhusadan Gupta, on January 10, 1836, was the first Hindoo who ventured to dissect a human body and teach anatomy. India can now boast of a considerable number of Hindoo and Musalman pract.i.tioners, trained in European methods, and skilful in their profession. Much has been done, infinitely more remains to be done. Details will be found in _I.G._ (1907), vol. iv, chap. 14, 'Medical Administration', The article 'Medicine' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, on which I have drawn for some of the facts above stated, gives a good summary of the earlier history of medicine in India, but greatly exaggerates the antiquity of the Hindoo books. On this question Weber's paper, 'Die Griechen in Indien' (Berlin, 1890, p. 28), and Dr. h.o.e.rnle's remarks on the Bower ma.n.u.script (in _J.A.S.B._, vol. lx (1891), Part I, p. 145) may be consulted. Dr. h.o.e.rnle's annotated edition and translation of the Bower MS. were completed in 1912. Part of the work is reprinted with additions in the _Ind. Ant._ for 1913 and 1914.

CHAPTER 16