Reminiscences Part 12

The February sun already shone scorchingly hot upon the low, shadeless valley, the thermometer rising to 90. In the night, however, it was unusually cold for that country, and most of the pilgrims being poor and their clothing and food wretched, dangerous diseases began to break out among the weak and exhausted. The terrible cholera claimed numerous victims every day, many died from weakness and negligence, others again perished through accidents on land and water, for n.o.body seemed to be very particular about human life, since death just there was considered so very desirable. Along the sh.o.r.es of the river flickered hundreds of fires, at which the remains of the dead are burned to ashes and scattered into the river by the officiating Brahmins, to the infinite edification of the relatives of the dead.

The Hindoos are a very peaceful and loyal people, and willingly submit to order and discipline. Thus designated groups were conducted to the water at certain times and places, which was highly necessary, as otherwise the strong would have trampled down and crushed the weak.

The first ceremony consists in shaving the head, or at least the front part of it; the hair which is cut off ought to be offered to the Ganges, but the barber smuggles most of it out of the way, to be sold in more civilized countries. From the barber the pilgrim is turned over to the care of the Brahmin, who leads him down into the river, under the following ceremonies: The Brahmin repeats a Sanscrit formula which is called "Sankalpa," and which states that "the pilgrim N. N. on the day X. of the month Y., and in the year Z., takes his bath in the sacred water for the purpose and intention of cleansing himself from all sins and frailties," after which the pilgrim immerses himself several times under the water and rinses his mouth with a handful of it, after a few minutes returning to the sh.o.r.e where he is at once surrounded by peddlers who offer him flowers, milk and lean cows or goats for sale at an exorbitant price. He always buys the flowers and the milk and offers them to the river, and, if he has sufficient money, he buys a cow or a goat and offers it to the Brahmin; but if his means are too limited the latter must be content with the few coins the pilgrim can spare. Most of them, however, have brought a handsome offering to the Brahmin, because they regard the duty toward him just as important as the duty toward the river G.o.d.

Then follows the "s.h.i.+adda" ceremony, consisting of an offering of cake, sugar, plums and dainties to the ghosts of their deceased relatives; next a banquet is spread before the Brahmins, the sacred places of the vicinity are visited, offerings are made at most of these, and a present called "vidagi" is made to the Brahmin who has attended to the spiritual wants of the giver.

And now the object of the long and arduous journey is accomplished, the pilgrimage, "tisthayatra," is successfully performed, and the cleansed sinner stands ready to begin a new record of sin. He has been plundered of his last penny, and, if he succeeds in reaching his distant home, his neighbors and friends will look up to him as an exceptionally happy being, and his own soul is filled with the hope of temporal and eternal bliss.

Those who have reaped the pecuniary benefits of the pilgrimage are the Brahmins and Fakirs, the former through offerings and the latter through begging. They have filled their coffers and collected large herds of cattle, and now they can lead a gay and happy life until the next Mela, when they will again try to fan the dying embers of enthusiasm into a flame by sending emissaries all over India for the purpose of convincing the credulous populace that it is greatly to be feared that the Ganges will soon lose its power of salvation, and that therefore as many as possible ought to come next time, which may be the last chance.

CHAPTER XX.

Benares, the Holy City of the Hindoos--Its Temples and Wors.h.i.+pers--The Sacred Monkeys.

Returning from Allahabad I visited Benares, the holy city of India and the centre of Hindooism or Brahminism, its religion, art and literature.

It is situated on an elevation on the east bank of the Ganges about four hundred and seventy-six miles from Calcutta. Benares is to the Hindoos what Jerusalem was to the Jews, Rome to the mediaeval Christians, and what Mecca is to the Mohammedans, and it is visited by thousands of pilgrims and penitents every year. The learned men or Pundits of India have their academies and gatherings there, and many of its princes and n.o.bles have their costly palaces in which they usually spend a few weeks every year.

The whole city seems abandoned to sacrificing priests and idolatry in its most disgusting forms. There are one thousand four hundred temples for idols, and nearly three hundred mosques, besides hundreds of shrines, holy graves, wells, trees and other objects of Hindoo wors.h.i.+p.

Benares is a very old city; great and renowned when Babylon and Nineveh were competing with each other; when Tyre sent out her colonists; when Athens was in her infancy; before Rome existed, and long before Nebuchadnezzar had carried the Israelites into captivity.

We are accustomed to look at h.o.a.ry ruins with reverent interest, and it is no wonder that the first sight of the historical monuments of Benares made a profound impression on my mind. I felt almost as if transported to a time far back in the misty past, and found it difficult to realize that I walked the same streets, lanes and market places where the Babylonian heralds of war and the amba.s.sadors of Alexander the Great were received by the same people whose descendants still inhabit the same city, and have retained the same civilization and the same inst.i.tutions through all the intervening centuries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HINDOO TEMPLES.]

The sun cast its last rays over the memorable city when I had the pleasure of seeing it for the first time. At a distance of two miles I could see the palaces and temples with their domes, cupolas, and minarets merged into a confused ma.s.s, and on the summit of the hill towered the renowned mosque of Emperor Arungzebes with two minarets, the spires of which rise two hundred and fifty feet above the level of the Ganges. It was a beautiful oriental picture, the most beautiful I had yet seen.

The next morning at sunrise a Mohammedan dragoman or interpreter took me down the river in a boat, and in the course of an hour we pa.s.sed, according to the estimate of the interpreter, over twenty thousand bathing Hindoos. Every two miles are built ghats, or broad flights of steps down to river, some of these being eighty feet high. Along the edge of the water Brahmins are squatting about twenty feet apart under large sun shades made of palm leaves in the form of an umbrella. These Brahmins have a certain inherited right to these little spots where they have thus raised their sun shades for the purpose of collecting an offering from every bather. Men and women bathe side by side. They all go into the water in their thin cotton suits, and everything is conducted with order and decorum.

After the bath flowers are offered to the river, and oils and fruits to the Brahmin.

A short distance above the edge of the water is an open place for the cremation of the bodies of the dead, and on the river close by are scores of boats and barges loaded with wood which is cut into small sticks and is used for the funeral-pyres. We stopped a few minutes here while three corpses were brought on biers. They were covered by a white cloth with a red dye-stuff scattered over the chest. The body was first immersed in the river and then placed on its pyre, which was kindled by the nearest relative of the deceased. After the cremation the ashes were scattered on the river by the Brahmin, who, of course, charged a round sum for these highly important services.

We next went up the high steps and visited several temples and other objects of interest of which I shall give a brief description.

The Hindoo temples are not so large as our churches, but only from fifteen to forty feet square, and their style of architecture is frequently very pleasing to the eye. They contain no seats or pulpits, and the ceremonies consist exclusively of offerings, prayers, and signs.

People come and go incessantly, there is no silence or devotion, but all is noise and turmoil. The Brahmins glide quietly around everywhere and watch closely so that no one escapes until he or she has parted with as much loose change as possible, and it frequently happens that the Brahmin and the wors.h.i.+per get into a loud quarrel about the fee which the latter is to pay for the benediction.

We ascended an eight-foot-wide street paved with large flag stones, which were crowded with endless rows of people coming out or going into the temples on either side. To some of these a few steps led downward, to others upward.

In some of the nooks and niches formed by the outer walls of the temple sat peddlers selling ornaments, flowers, fruit, boiled rice, popcorn, confectioneries, and small idols, of stone, porcelain, or metal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DYING BRAHMIN.]

We stepped into the so-called golden temple, dedicated to Bishashar, or s.h.i.+va, the most prominent deity of Benares. Like most of the temples it is built of brick, and has a gray coat of plastering on the outside. It has three domes which are covered with colored metal, and the interior is divided into three rooms, in each of which is a stone image representing the creative principle. The wors.h.i.+pers throw rice and flowers at these images, and officiating Brahmins continually pour over them water from the Ganges. Within a separate inclosure is a sacred well called "Gyan-Bapi," or the well of knowledge, into which the rice and the flowers from the images are washed by a continual stream of water.

Out of this well rises an intolerable stench from the putrefying ma.s.s which poisons the air in and around the temple, for it is not permitted to take these offerings out of the well. Around the well is a colonnade of small beautiful pillars, back of which, on the east side, is a seven-foot-high stone statue of a bull consecrated to the G.o.d of Mahadeva.

Another temple is divided into stalls which contain well-fed sacred animals, such as bulls, cows, goats and birds, all of which are objects of wors.h.i.+p of the faithful. This temple was kept more clean than the former, but the bellowing of the animals and the jostling and crowding of the wors.h.i.+pers made the visit to those deities intolerable.

One of the finest temples in Benares is called "Durga Kund," and is devoted to the G.o.ddess Durga. It is a large and beautiful pyramidal structure with a number of towers and steeples of different sizes, and the whole building is adorned with fine works of sculpture, representing the sacred animals of Hindoo mythology. Inside the temple, facing a wide entrance, stands a large stone statue of Durga with the face of an ape, and in front of this is a well into which the faithful throw flowers.

But the most interesting feature about this temple is the great number of monkeys which are kept there. A large, square court surrounds the temple, and in this as well as on the steps, floors, pillars, roof and walls, inside and outside of the temple itself and in the neighboring houses, in the trees, on the streets, in the gardens, in short, wherever they can find a footing, there are thousands of gray, yellow, black, white and brown monkeys, with all possible monkey physiognomies and monkey natures, sitting, lying, jumping, hanging and climbing. They are considered sacred and must not be killed, consequently they are increasing so fast that if no interdicts are fulminated against them they will soon become the ruling element in Benares. And so a.s.siduously is this temple visited by well-to-do and generous wors.h.i.+pers that both the Brahmins and the monkeys live in affluence and luxury. Incredible as it may seem, I have myself seen one crowd of people after another enter this temple and prostrate themselves in wors.h.i.+ping the living monkeys as well as the ape-faced stone image, and then return home rejoicing because the Brahmins have a.s.sured them that their wors.h.i.+p and offerings have opened for them the gates of heaven.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONKEY TEMPLE IN BENARES.]

In some temples domestic animals are sacrificed by the servants of the priests, the blood and the meat being distributed among the priests, the intestines and other offal among the poor. In others, b.u.t.ter, oils, sweetmeats and rice are offered by first giving the idols a taste in the same manner as our children feed their dolls, whereupon the rest is consumed by the priests and the people. In several temples are Fakirs or saints sitting in unnatural positions with lean limbs and vacant looks, and these are also objects of the wors.h.i.+p and offerings of the people.

In other temples are even lewd women, who, by their dancing and singing, act as mediators between the people and their angry G.o.ds.

As far as these descriptions go, they may be applied to all temples and ceremonies, and the chief and absolute universal feature is the question of money and other offerings to the Brahmins. All the temples are surrounded with beggars who are as importunate as the Brahmins themselves, and the whole of it makes the European wish to get away from the sacred places of the Orient as soon as possible.

Man Modir, is the name of a remarkable astronomical observatory which towers above the temples on the Ganges, close to the place where the dead bodies are cremated. It was built two hundred years ago by the emperor, Jai Sing, and still remains in well-preserved condition as an evidence of the deep astronomical knowledge of the Hindoos at that period. It is a large stone building with a flat roof, on which are constructed astronomical instruments and figures of brick and mortar of gigantic proportions. As examples I shall mention a quadrant which is eleven feet high and nine feet wide in the direction of the meridian, and is made for calculating the alt.i.tude of the sun, and another instrument, thirty-six feet long and four and one-half feet high which is used in calculating the alt.i.tude and distance of a planet or a star from the meridian.

Descending from the observatory my attention was called to a large crowd of people on a knoll near the river bank. Going over there I found what might be called a religious circus attended by thousands of people, in the midst of which was a group of Fakirs. Most of them were squatting with crossed legs, one arm extended toward the river, and the eyes fixed on a certain spot in the water or on the sky. One was squatting on a plank through which long sharp nails were driven with their points projecting upward over an inch. I counted eight such nails about an inch long under each foot. The nails had not caused bleeding wounds, but simply made deep indentures in the flesh which must have been very painful, at least in the beginning. One Fakir had suspended himself on an eight-foot-tall cross, with the head downward, by tieing one of his feet to the top of the cross by a cord. Formerly they used to suspend themselves by a big iron hook penetrating their muscles, thus swinging their bodies back and forth for hours; but this practice is now prohibited by the English government. An acrobatic Fakir was turning sommersets on a gra.s.s mat, and was considered very holy because he could twist his limbs as if they had been without bones. Another carried an iron cage which was forged around his neck, and which he had carried thus for years in order to mortify his flesh. A loathsome dwarf, kept in an iron cage, was blessing the admiring crowd, several dancing girls gave animation to the scene by singing and dancing, some Brahmins were exhibiting a sacred bull, others sacred monkeys, and liberal offerings were made everywhere by the enraptured pilgrims. Such are the religious ceremonies in the sacred city of India.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FAKIR WITH IRON CAGE.]

During my stay in Benares I visited one of the most remarkable ruins in the world, situated six miles from the sacred city. It is the remnants of two large and tall towers built of brick and cut stone, about three thousand years ago. These towers were closely connected with the history of Buddha, one of them, according to tradition, being his dwelling and the other his place of wors.h.i.+p. This was formerly the site of a great city, called Sarnath.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWER OF SARNATH.]

CHAPTER XXI.

Nimtoolaghat--Cremation in India--Pa.r.s.ee Funeral Rites.

India is the only country in the world where the civilization of the East and that of the West are found side by side with equal rights and equal chances of a free and full development. For, although the English have conquered, and at present rule the country, they have respected the peculiar customs and manners of the Hindoos, and guaranteed them liberty to practice the same and to develop their social and religious inst.i.tutions in so far as they do not conflict with the generally acknowledged principles of humanity.

Accordingly in Calcutta and other cities in India we frequently find a stately Christian church side by side with a Hindoo temple with its officiating priests. On one side of the street we may see a fine European residence filled with guests around the dinner-table, eating, chatting, and toasting just as at home, and on the other a Hindoo villa, where turbaned Brahmins, in a squatting posture, eat their rice or smoke their hokah, while extolling the merits of their juggernaut. At popular meetings and fetes European lords, bishops, officials, and ladies are often seen engaged in a friendly conversation with Hindoo princes, or learned pundits, Mohammedan warriors, Persian, Armenian or Jewish merchants. On the streets and promenades the European carriage and the Hindoo palanquin are seen side by side; in Calcutta there are scores of high schools and academies on the European plan, and close to these again others where young students in oriental costumes and turbaned heads, squat before a half-naked Brahmin, seeking wisdom and knowledge from the works of the Vedas or Shastras.

It is therefore not surprising that in the very harbor where American and European flags are waving from hundreds of mast-heads lies Nimtoolaghat, a Hindoo place of cremation, from which the whole day long dense clouds of smoke arise, scattering the vapors of burning human bodies. It is a large brick building which is divided into two apartments by a brick wall. The apartment which is next to the street is covered by a roof, but the one next to the harbor is open at the top.

The floor is made of clay, excepting the spots under the funeral pyres, where it consists of large flagstones. I have often stood at this place, and it always seemed to me that our cemeteries with their monuments, gra.s.s plots, trees, and flowers are dear places which, to some extent, reconcile man to stern death, while here everything seemed dead and hopeless. I will describe for the reader what I saw at one of my visits to this place of desolation. On the flagstones in the roofless apartment were six separate pyres, two of which were already reduced to ashes when I entered, two others were about half consumed by the fire, only a few bones being visible among the fire-brands; but on each of the other two was a naked corpse, the outside of which was scorched by the flames, while blood and water were slowly oozing out of mouth and nostrils, while the burning flesh hissed and sputtered where the heat was most intense, so that the whole presented a shocking sight. A score of half-naked Brahmins were busy around the pyres muttering prayers and making signs over the dead, while the nearest relatives walked around the corpses uttering cries of lamentation. Particularly violent was the grief of a young woman whose mother had just been laid upon the pyre, deep sorrow and heart-rending lamentations testifying to the love she had borne the deceased.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIMTOOLAGHAT--PLACE OF CREMATION.]

Now the fine-split wood is piled up into a new pyre about six feet long, two feet wide, and two and one-half feet high, and four men bring the corpse of a man on a bier. It is covered with a white sheet, which is taken away, so as to leave only a small piece of cloth covering the corpse. This is the body of a Fakir, a stately man with fine features, and past the prime of life. As soon as the body is placed on the pyre, two Brahmins pile fine-split wood around and over it so that only the face is visible. Then comes the eldest son of the deceased and rubbing the face with fresh b.u.t.ter lays several lumps of it on the pyre. He then walks three times around the corpse and lights with a fire-brand a whisk of straw in his father's pyre. The fire spreads rapidly through the dry wood. The melting b.u.t.ter flows through it, the flames roar and crackle, and the dead body makes writhing muscular motions under the influence of the fire, the skin bursting open in several places, and a thin fluid trickling out which adds fuel to the flames. The face shrinks and vanishes under our eyes, an unpleasant smell of burnt flesh permeates the air, and in a little while all is over, and the Brahmins gather the ashes and scatter them on the waters of the sacred Ganges.

Who can wonder that a stranger, witnessing such a ceremony, experiences in his own breast questions and surmises such as these: Is this, then, all? Where is the Fakir who mortified his body by all kinds of torture, who struggled and suffered in order to become acceptable to the G.o.ds?

Was there nothing more than that sh.e.l.l, consumed before our eyes? Is the man who spent half of his life-time gazing into the boundless realm of s.p.a.ce and yearning and longing for the unknown, the infinite, no longer in existence? Was his longing only a mockery, or was it a foreshadowing of that which is to come? What would life be if all terminated in the pyre or in the grave? To what purpose, then, all n.o.ble endeavors, whose aim and object only relate to the uncertain future? The deepest premonitions of the human soul, and the most beautiful hopes of the heart, how far are these from the thought that all our feelings, our loftiest ambitions,--in one word the best part of our being,--can be annihilated in a crematory! The Fakir whose body was now reduced to ashes had lived in the faith of his immortality, had wors.h.i.+ped the deities of his people, because he knew no better, but was he on that account less welcome in the everlasting mansions?

Formerly the wife was burned alive on the pyre of her husband, but this practice has been abolished by the English government, although it is still said to be adhered to secretly in the interior of the country.

That woman is considered very fortunate who can enjoy the privilege of "sati," that is, be burned alive on the funeral pyre of her husband, for thereby she secures unquestionable happiness in the next world. So strongly can religious enthusiasm, even in our days, influence a sensible and civilized people. We generally suppose cremation in India to be an imposing ceremony, such as a great pyre, intense heat, which keeps a devout congregation at a proper distance, etc. Such is not the case, however; for, leaving out the mourning relatives, it may better be compared with the hilarious soldiers around the camp-fire roasting the booty of a nightly raid,--a shote or a quarter of beef.

An entirely different mode of burial is used among the Pa.r.s.ees, who are descendants of the ancient Persians, and live in the western part of India where they were driven from Iran by the Mohammedans. They profess the religion of Zoroaster and are fire-wors.h.i.+pers. They regard the earth, air, water and fire as sacred objects, but a corpse, on the contrary, as something unclean, and therefore they would not pollute the fire by burning the dead, nor soil the earth or the sea by burying them.