# The Land of the Veda/Chapter 01

pages 11-65
THE
LAND OF THE VEDA.
CHAPTER I.
THE PEOPLE OF INDIA—CASTE AND ITS IMMUNITIES.
IN my youth I read those amazing descriptions of Oriental magnificence recorded by Sir Thomas Roe—England's first Embassador to India—and others, describing the power and glory of “The Great Mogul” in such glowing terms that they seemed more like the romance of the “Arabian Nights” than the real facts, which they were, of the daily life witnessed in that splendid Court. Europe then heard for the first time of “The Taj,” “The Peacock Throne,” “The Dewanee Khass,” “The Weighing of the Emperor,” when on each birthday his person was placed in golden scales, and twelve times his weight of gold and silver, perfumes and other valuables, were distributed to the populace; but the statements seemed so distant from probability that they were regarded by many as extravagances which might well rank with the asserted facts of “Lalla Rookh;” so that the Embassador, who was three years a resident, and the Poet, who had never been there at all, with their authorities, seemed alike to have drawn upon their imagination for their facts, transcending, as their descriptions did, the ability and the taste of European Courts.
How little I then imagined that it would fall to my lot at a future day to be in that very Dewanee Khass, sitting quietly on the side of his Crystal Throne, beholding the last of the Mogul Emperors, a captive, on trial for his life, in that magnificent ​Audience Hall of his forefathers, where millions have bowed down before them in such abject homage! that I should be there to see him, the last of their line, descending from that throne and $900,000 per annum to a felon's doom and the deck of a convict ship, to breathe out the remnant of his miserable life upon a foreign shore; and then after his departure to behold, as I did, that costly Khass given over to the spoiler's hand, rifled by the English soldiers of its last ornaments, and ruined forever!
Truly has it been said that ofttimes “fact is stranger than fiction;” and the assertion has seldom received more impressive illustrations than are found in the wonderful scenes which I witnessed in the Court of Delhi at the close of 1857.
In reading that stirring account of the great victory won for Christianity near Poictiers on the 3d of October, A. D. 732—when the brave Charles Martel, at the head of his Christian warriors, had to meet Abder Rahman and his Arabian cavalry, 375,000 strong, and there to decide whether Europe should henceforth be Christian or Moslem—one almost trembles as he thinks what would have been the result had Charles failed that day! The hosts of the Arabian Antichrist had already extinguished the seven Churches of Asia, almost swept North Africa of its Christianity, had passed the pillars of Hercules and conquered Spain, crossed the Pyrenees, and were now descending into France and Germany with the intention of completing the circuit of the Mediterranean, and making Europe as Mohammedan as they had made Asia Minor and Palestine. Christendom was terrified, for the Christian Church seemed pressed to the verge of ruin. On the issue of that morning, so far as human eye can penetrate the future, it was then and there to be decided whether Paris and London, and, by consequence, New York and Boston, were to be like Bagdad, Constantinople, and Damascus: whether, instead of the spires of our churches and the sound of our Sabbath bells, our race was to receive, at the sword's point, another faith, whose outward expression would be the Mosque and the Minaret, and the Muezzin's cry calling “the faithful” to the Koran and its prayers!
​Well did Christendom bestow the surname of the “Hammer” upon the heroic Charles! From the blows which he dealt out to those foes of Gospel civilization they reeled back, stunned into the keen conviction that for them and their hateful creed there was no home in Europe. They recrossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and, instead of the Gallic and Germanic races, sought an easier prey in the enervated communities of Oriental heathenism. Thus, instead of France and Britain and Germany, the Crescent of the False Prophet subdued, and for nearly a thousand years waved over, Egypt, Persia, Toorkistan, and India. But for the Providence which gave Charles Martel that decisive victory, Arabic had been the classical language, and Islamism the religion of our race and of Europe; and “America and the Cape, the Compass and the Press, the Steam-engine, the Telescope, and the Copernican System, might all have remained undiscovered until the present day.”
When reading these thrilling events long years since, how free I was from any anticipation that I should yet have to stand in the center of Asia, amid a similar whirl of confusion and blood, organized by that very creed, as it rose in its might to sweep the Eastern hemisphere of every vestige of the Gospel, and plant its triumphant flag on the ruins of Christianity; that it should be my lot to be lost to sight for months amid the rolling clouds of the conflict, where Henry Havelock, victorious over Nana Sahib, accomplished for Oriental Christianity what Charles Martel did a thousand years before for the same faith, in the West; that at length, emerging unscathed, I should have the high honor to be invited by them to render their thanks to God for their victory, on the last battle-field which his heroes won; and, more wonderful still, that there, amid the utter military downfall of that creed and its chief dynasty, I should be privileged to plant the standard of the Cross in the land of the Sepoy, and live to see Churches founded and native ministers raised up from the very race who sought our life and labored to destroy our faith!
How different would the East and the West have been to-day had either Martel or Havelock failed! But God is great for the ​exigencies of his people, and has often, as in both these instances, shown that he can save by few as well as by many. I am fully of the opinion, and think this work will abundantly show, that Oriental Christianity never passed through such an emergency as that of 1857-8. Even worldly men, ay, the very heathen themselves, declared afterward that it was God alone who saved it from complete annihilation. By every law and rule of power, opportunity, and purpose, it must have perished had it been merely human, and true philosophy as well as Christian faith teaches us that it was only saved by the special interposition of Almighty God, its defender and keeper. During the long and weary months of our siege on the summit of Nynee Tal, the handful of villagers there declared that we were the last of the Christian life left in India—that from where we stood, to the sea on either side, our religion and race had been all swept away. We knew well that if this were so our fate was but a question of time that would soon be consummated.
Cut off and excluded, there we stood, our anxious hearts trying to ponder the terrible question, Could this be so? and if so, how fearful must be the result! For we felt assured, if it were, that the successful effort of the India Sepoy would have found cruel imitation in Burmah, China, and Japan, and that it was possible that, at that hour—in those terrible days of July and August, 1857—Christianity might have been extinguished in the blood of its last martyrs on the Oriental hemisphere, and the clock of the world been put back for centuries. We could only turn to God, and “against hope believe in hope,” while we ourselves “stood in jeopardy every hour.” How serious that jeopardy was may be realized by turning to the map, and describing a circle around the geographical center of our mission at Shajehanpore, until its diameter would expand to three hundred miles. That area would encircle nearly the whole of Rohilcund, Oude, and The Doab, and would include the cities of Moradabad, Futtyghur, Bareilly, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Rampore, etc. It would represent the very heart of the great Rebellion. Every city, town, and village within these limits “fell,” so that, with the exception of the handful with us at Nynee Tal, one little group ​that was closely hidden in a Hindoo home in Rohilcund, those in the “Residency” of Lucknow, and those in the intrenchments at Cawnpore—not a white face in all that great valley was left alive. Within that fearful circle on the 31st of May, 1857, were five American missionaries. I am the only one of the number that came out of the terrible vortex; all the rest, with their wives and children, were ruthlessly murdered. We knew them well—Brothers Freeman, Campbell, Johnson, and M’Mullen, and their devoted ladies and little ones, honored and beloved missionaries of the American Presbyterian Church. We alone of the number are left alive to tell the story of the circumstances under which they suffered, and of our own wonderful escape from a similar death! How well we can appreciate the victory of Christian civilization over heathen cruelty and purposes, as well as the amazing strides made by the Gospel and by education since that fearful day!
The reader will well remember how the world stood horrified in the fall of that year as mail after mail brought the tidings of cruelty and massacre, in which neither age nor sex was spared, and also with what anxiety they watched the progress of the feeble bands of heroes who, under such leaders as the gallant and saintly Havelock, fought their dreadful way to our rescue, too late to save even one at Cawnpore, but in time to rescue us and those at Lucknow.
The intervention of the civil war in this country necessarily for the time turned away attention from the horrors which were fourteen thousand miles distant; but the public interest in this subject has not ceased, nor will the story of the “Sepoy Rebellion” ever be forgotten while men admire and honor heroic sufferings, Anglo-Saxon pluck, and sublime Christian courage, exhibited against the most fearful odds and in the face of certain death, in the center of a whole continent of raging foes, while the Prince of the powers of the air marshaled the hosts of hell to annihilate the religion of the Son of God. Doubtless “the rulers of the darkness of this world” had more interest and part in that fearful struggle than was taken by the poor, ignorant Sepoy or his crafty priest. It was earth ​and hell combined. No other theory can account for its character. Of this the reader will judge for himself from the facts presented.
Fourteen years have passed since closed that great “wrestling with flesh and blood, with principalities and powers, and wicked spirits in high places.” Eight of those years were spent by the writer amid the scenes of 1857-8, giving him occasion to verify and examine the facts where they transpired, and correct his judgment by as good an opportunity as could be desired. I feel the responsibility to see that such facts shall not drop into oblivion. They should not be allowed to die, especially associated as they are with the history of the Methodist Church in India, whose foundations were laid in such “troublous times.”
It will assist the reader's attention, and promote a more adequate understanding of our subject, to introduce to him at this point the people of whom we are speaking, and also unfold somewhat their character and peculiar civilization. The wood-cuts are mostly from photographs brought from India, and of course are faithful representations of the various classes as they appear there. The first group are Hindoos, as they sit round a Brahmin to listen to the reading of the Vedas.
Hindoos and their Teacher.
Their separation into castes and classes have tended to individualism, and to an utter indifference to politics or the public good; so that you seek in vain for what we call patriotism or love of country. The Hindoo, as a general fact, cares not who rules the land if only he is allowed to cultivate his fields and eat his rice in peace. If left to himself, the last thing he would have thought of would have been rebellion; indeed, the Hindoos, as a people, did not rebel. They looked on in astonishment, and left the whole affair to be carried on and fought out by the Sepoys and the Budmashes (the thieves and vagabonds) of the cities.
In every respect they are a contrast to the Mohammedans among them. No tendency to amalgamation with them has ever been developed. They regard them as aliens and oppressors, and are even thankful that they are no longer under their control.
About eight hundred years ago there came pouring down into India from the countries of the North-west a hardy, large-boned, intolerant race of men, made up of various nations, who had heard of the “barbaric pearl and gold” of Hindustan, and who panted to extend over its wide realms their religion and rule. Before this Mohammedan invasion the Hindoo race succumbed, though the strangers were not one seventh of their number. But they were a unit; and, taking the Hindoo nations in detail, they conquered. Then, filling the positions of trust and the offices of Government with their own creatures, and as far as they could making a monopoly of education, they continued to compensate for deficiency of numbers by a politic use of their opportunities, and left the Hindoo to till the soil and pay the yearly tribute which they had laid upon him. The usual alternative of the Mohammedan conquerors—conformity to their creed or grinding taxation, or even death—had to be foregone in this instance, as its attempted enforcement over a people so much more numerous would have been too much for even Hindoo patience, and have ended probably in the extermination of their iconoclastic conquerors. The distinctive characteristics of each are religiously ​kept up. One of them is in the fastening of the outer garment. On meeting either party, though the dress is much the same, you at once distinguish the Mohammedan from the Hindoo by the universal fact that the latter has his tunic made to button on the right side, while the Mohammedan hooks his on the left. There is about the Mohammedan a fierce, haughty aspect, which he takes no trouble to conceal. He cannot forget that he had ruled in India for seven hundred years, until the hated English came and broke the rod of his strength, and he is all the more disposed to show his bitterness of spirit because the Hindoo race, with the exception of a few Brahmins, hailed the change with sincere gladness, and can now set him at defiance. It was on this fact that Englishmen relied for the perpetuity of their rule; and on it they might have depended for long centuries to come, had it not been for a combination of peculiar circumstances which existed in 1857, and which will be detailed in their place.
Taking individual portraits, for the sake of more distinctness, I here present a Brahmin, as the acknowledged head of Hindoo society, and an associate of the most exclusive and singular of all earthly orders.
A Brahmin.
How they hate that republican Christianity which declares that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men,” and that Gospel equality which announces that saints “are one in Christ Jesus,” and that, having “all one Father,” “all we are brethren” in a blessed communion, where no lofty pretensions or imprescriptable rights are allowed to any, but he that would be greatest must be the servant of all.
I have seen a person of this class, on approaching a low-caste man, wave his right hand superciliously thirty yards before they could meet, and so send him off to the other side of the road. The poor despised man meekly bowed and obeyed the haughty intimation. No sacerdotal tyranny has ever been so relentlessly and scornfully enforced as that of the Brahminical rule, and none has been such an unmitigated curse to the nation where it was exercised.
Caste is an institution peculiarly Brahminical. The Sanscrit word is varna, which denotes color—probably the ancient distinction between the Hindoo invaders and the aborigines. Caste, from the Portuguese casta a breed, exactly expresses the Brahminical idea. Their account of its origin, abridged from the Institutes of Menu, the oldest system of law extant save the Pentateuch, is as follows:
“In order to preserve the universe, Brahma caused the Brahmin to proceed from his mouth, the Kshatriya to proceed from his arm, the Vaisya to proceed from his thigh, and the Sudra to proceed from his foot. And Brahma directed that the duties of the Brahmins should be reading and teaching the Veda; sacrificing, and assisting others to sacrifice; giving alms if they be rich, and receiving alms if they be poor. And Brahma directed that the duties of the Kshatriyas should be to defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Veda, and to keep their passions under control. And he directed that the duties of the Vaisyas should be to keep herds of cattle, to give alms, to read the Shasters, to carry on ​trade, to lend money at interest, and to cultivate land. And he directed that the Sudra should serve all the three mentioned castes, namely, the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas, and the Vaisyas, and that he should not depreciate nor make light of them. Since the Brahmin sprang from the mouth, which is the most excellent part of Brahma, and since he is the first-born and possesses the Veda, he is by right the chief of the whole creation. Him Brahma produced from his own mouth, that he might perform holy rites; that he might present ghee to the gods, and cakes of rice to the Pitris, or progenitors of mankind.”—Code of Hindoo Law, I, pp. 88, 94.
The Bhagvat Geeta, their most sublime treatise, repeats the same arrangement, and makes their observance a condition of salvation and moral perfection. Each class had thus a separate creation, constituting it, in fact, a distinct species, involving a denial of the doctrine that “God hath made of one blood all men.” The Hindoos thus reject our common humanity, and hold it to be heresy to believe that all men are fellow-creatures, scouting the idea that we should “honor all men,” or “love our neighbors as ourselves.”
Brahmins at Prayer.
Any thing more singular and whimsical than the forms prescribed for him were never enjoined upon humanity as religious ritual. In illustration of this, from a paper in the “Asiatic Researches,” by Mr. Colebrook, as quoted by Dr. Duff, we ask the reader's attention to the following extract. Speaking of the duties of morning worship, one of which is the religious ablution, as here represented, “the Sacred Books” strictly enjoin as follows:
“He may bathe with water drawn from a well, from a fountain, or from the basin of a cataract; but he should prefer water which lies above ground—choosing a stream rather than stagnant water, a river in preference to a small brook, a holy stream before a vulgar river, and above all the water of the Ganges. If the Ganges be beyond his reach he should invoke that holy river, saying, ‘O, Gunga, hear my prayers! for my sake be included in this small quantity of water with the other sacred streams.’ Then, standing in the water, he must hallow his intended performance by the inaudible recitation of certain sacred texts. Next, sipping water and sprinkling some before him, the worshiper throws water eight times on the crown of his head, on the earth, toward the sky; again toward the sky, on the earth, on the crown of his head; and lastly on the ground, to destroy the demons who wage war with the gods. During the performance of this act of ablution he must be reciting these prayers: ‘O waters! since ye afford delight, grant us present happiness and the rapturous sight of the Supreme Being. Like tender mothers, make us here partakers of your most auspicious essence. We become contented with your essence, with which ye satisfy the universe. Waters, grant it to us.’ Immediately after this first ablution he should sip water without swallowing it, silently praying. These ceremonies and prayers being concluded, he plunges thrice into the water, each time repeating the prescribed expiatory texts.
“He then meditates in the deepest silence. During this moment of intense devotion he is striving to realize that ‘Brahma, with four ​faces and a red complexion, resides in his bosom; Vishnu, with four arms and a black complexion, in his heart; and Shiva, with five faces and a white complexion, in his forehead!’ To this sublime meditation succeeds a suppression of the breath, which is thus performed: Closing the left nostril with the two longest fingers of his right hand, he draws his breath through the right nostril; and then, closing that nostril likewise with his thumb, he holds his breath, while he internally repeats to himself the Gayatri, the mysterious names of the three worlds, the triliteral monosyllable, and the sacred text of Brahma; last of all, he raises both fingers off the left nostril, and emits the breath he had suppressed through the right. This process being repeated three several times, he must next make three ablutions, with the following prayer: ‘As the tired man leaves drops of sweat at the foot of a tree; as he who bathes is cleansed from all foulness; as an oblation is sanctified by holy grass, so may this water purify me from sin.’ He must next fill the palm of his hand with water, and, presenting it to his nose, inhale the fluid by one nostril, and, retaining it for a while, exhale it through the other, and throw away the water to the north-east quarter. This is considered as an internal ablution which washes away sin. He then concludes by sipping water with the following prayer: ‘Water! thou dost penetrate all beings; thou dost reach the deep recesses of the mountains; thou art the mouth of the universe; thou art sacrifice; thou art the mystic word vasha; thou art light, taste, and the immortal fluid.’ ”
After a variety of genuflections and prayers, of which these are but a mere sample, he concludes his devotions by worshiping the rising sun. The veneration in which the Brahmin is to be held by all classes, the privileges which he is to enjoy, his occupations and modes of life, are laid down with wonderful minuteness in this Code of Hindoo Law. A mere sample of his assumptions, under the head of Veneration, will suffice: “The Brahmin is entitled to the whole of the universe by the right of primogeniture. He possesses the Veda, and is alone permitted to teach the laws. By his sacrifices and imprecations he could destroy a Rajah in a moment, ​together with all his troops, elephants, horses, and chariots. In his wrath he could frame new worlds, with new gods and new mortals. A man who barely assaulted a Brahmin, with the intention of hurting him, would be whirled about for a century in the hell termed Tamasa. He who smote a Brahmin with only a blade of grass, would be born an inferior quadruped during twenty-one transmigrations. But he who should shed the blood of a Brahmin, save in battle, would be mangled by animals in his next birth for as many years as there were particles of dust rolled up by the blood shed. If a Sudra (a low-caste man) sat upon the same seat with a Brahmin, he was to be gashed in the part offending.”—Institutes of Menu, I, 94, etc.
Thus a body of men, supposed to number not more than a few hundred thousand, have held the two hundred millions of their fellow-countrymen for thirty centuries in the terrors of this sacerdotal legislation, enforcing its claims to the last limit of endurance, though at the fearful price of the utter ignorance, degradation, and slavery of their nation. The reader can well appreciate the indignant feelings with which this greedy, proud, and supercilious order of men contemplated the incoming of a Christian Government, which would make all men “equal before the law,” and the advent of a Religion whose great glory it is to vindicate the oppressed and “preach the Gospel to the poor.”
The Kshatriya caste (derived from Kshetra, land) and the Vaisyas (traders) had the privilege of the investiture with the sacred string; but to the Sudras there was to be no investiture, no sacrifice, and no Scriptures. They were condemned by this law to perpetual servitude. Yet this class, with the Outcasts, were necessarily the great majority of the nation, and those who might have been their instructors and guides, heartlessly took away the key of knowledge, made it a legal crime to “teach them how sin might be expiated,” and deliberately degraded them for time and eternity. The Vedas expressly state that the benefits of the Hindoo religion are open only to three of the four castes! The fourth-caste man could have no share in religion and hold no property. He was a ​bondsman, and that forever. No system of human slavery ever equaled this; for it was intense, unalterable, and unending, by the act of God himself.
The distinctions of society, by the ordinances of the Hindoo Lawgiver, were thus indicated: Brahmins, or Priests; Kshatriyas, or Soldiers and Rajahs; Vaisyas, or Merchants and Farmers; Sudras, the servile class.
The arrangements indicate a pastoral condition of society, far removed from the stirring scenes of the life of the nineteenth century. The ordinances made no preparation for the wider wants of men or intercommunication of other nations, or the development of our race. They had no provision for manufacturing, mining, or commercial life, but expected the world to move on forever in their limited conservative methods. These four castes were subdivided, according to the theory, into sixty-four, and in the grooves thus opened the divisions of labor were expected to run, so that even trade should become hereditary; and thus, whatever the genius or ability developed in any man, he was expected to be content to remain in the profession of his father. He might have the germ and the buddings of a mind like Newton's, but, according to “their cast-iron rules of social life, if his father made shoes he too must stick to the last.”
No man of one caste can eat, smoke, marry with, or touch the cooking-vessels of a person of another caste. The prohibition is fearfully strict, and guarded with terrible sanctions. And it is as destitute of humanity as it is singular; so that, were a stranger of their own nation, coming into one of their towns, to be taken suddenly ill, and unable to speak and explain of what caste he was, he would certainly be liable to perish, for the high-caste people would be afraid to touch him, lest they should break their caste, and those of the low-caste would be unwilling, lest their contact (on the supposition of his superior order) might irrecoverably contaminate him. In their hands the man would perish unaided.
This unique masterpiece of Brahminism was intended by its framers to be a wall of brass around their system, to secure its ​unalterable permanency. But, its own heartless selfishness and cruel tendencies had so far overdone the work that it was found practically impossible to sustain the integrity of the arrangements. Innovations crept in and conflicts ensued, and, despite the desperate efforts of the Brahmins, confusion has marred Menu's strange designs, while the introduction of Western civilization, the teachings of Christianity, and the light of true knowledge, have delivered such severe and repeated shocks that the venerable and hideous monstrosity is tottering to its final fall.
Four Stages of Life are marked out by Menu for the Brahmin: 1. The Brahmachari, or Studentship of the Veda; 2. The Grihastha, or Married State; 3, The Vanaprastha, or Hermit Life; 4. The Sannyasi, or Devotee Condition.
The Brahmachari stage begins with the investiture of the sacred thread, which act signifies “a second birth.” The investiture takes place in his eighth year in case of a Brahmin, the eleventh year for a Kshatriya, and the twelfth for a Vaisya. The investiture introduces the “twice-born” Brahmin boy to a religious life, and is supposed to sanctify him for the study of the Veda.
The thread of the Brahmin is made of cotton and formed of three strings; that of the Kshatriya is made of hemp, and that of the Vaisya is of wool. It is termed the “sacrificial cord,” because it entitles the wearer to the privilege of sacrifice and religious services. Certain ceremonies are observed for girls as well as for boys, but neither girls nor women are invested with the sacred thread nor the utterance of the sacred mantras. They have consequently no right to sacrifice. Indeed, the nuptial ceremony is considered to be for woman equivalent to the investiture of the thread, and is the commencement of the religious life of the female, (Menu, II, 66, 67.) So that, a lady remaining unmarried, has nothing equivalent to their “second birth” here, and can look forward to no certainty of a happy life hereafter. The poor Sudra is entirely excluded. Thus, the Servile Man and the unmarried woman of any, even the highest, caste are equally left outside the pale of Brahminical salvation—exactly that condition to which ​High-Church Puseyism consigns all “Dissenters” when they hand them over to “the uncovenanted mercies of God.”
In addition to the exclusion of woman and the lower caste, this terrible Code proceeds to sink still deeper vast multitudes of their fellow-creatures. The “Outcasts” are numbered by the million. Some of these are called “Chandalas,” and concerning them this heartless and cruel Lawgiver ordains: “Chandalas must dwell without the town. Their sole wealth must be dogs and asses; their clothes must consist of the mantles of deceased persons; their dishes must be broken pots, and their ornaments must consist of rusty iron. No one who regards his duties must hold any intercourse with them, and they must marry only among themselves. By day they may roam about for the purposes of work, and be distinguished by the badges of the Rajah; and they must carry out the corpse of any one who dies without kindred. They should always be employed to slay those who are sentenced by the laws to be put to death; and they may take the clothes of the slain, their beds, and their ornaments.”—Code, X, 51-58.
Can the Western reader wonder that, tame and subdued though the Asiatics may be, these aristocratic ordinances should have proved too much for human nature, or that the introduction of English rule and fair play, elevating these long-crushed millions to legal equality with these proud Brahmins, was an immense mercy to nearly one sixth of the human family?
As a sample of how this sacerdotal law, framed for his special glorification, discriminated in favor of the Brahmin, it may suffice to quote a sentence or two. On the question of his privileges when called to testify in a Court of Justice, he must be assumed to be the “very soul of honor,” and his oath, without exposure to penalty, was to be held sufficient. The Code decreed that “A Brahmin was to swear by his veracity; a Kshatriya by his weapons, horse, or elephant; and a Vaisya by his kine, grain, or gold; but a Sudra was to imprecate upon his own head the guilt of every possible crime if he did not speak the truth.”—VIII, 113. “To a Brahmin the Judge should say, ‘Declare;’ to a Kshatriya he ​should say, ‘Declare the truth;’ to the Vaisya he should compare perjury to the crime of stealing kine, grain, or gold; to the Sudra he should compare perjury to every crime in the following language: ‘Whatever places of torture have been prepared for the murderer of a Brahmin, for the murderer of a woman, or child, have also been ordained for that witness who gives false evidence. If you deviate from the truth you shall go naked, shorn, and blind, and be tormented with hunger and thirst, and beg food with a potsherd at the door of your enemy; or shall tumble headlong into hell in utter darkness. Even if you give imperfect testimony, and assert a fact which you have not seen, you shall suffer pain like a man who eats fish and swallows the sharp bones.’ ”—Menu, VIII, 79-95.
The scale of punishments in the case of a Brahmin (in the few instances where he was at all amenable to the law it could only touch his property, never, under any consideration, his person) was equally drawn in his favor, and was all the lighter in proportion to the inferiority of caste of the man whom he had injured; while, on the other hand, it was equally to be increased in severity (for the same crime in both cases) in proportion to the same distinction. Says the law, “A Kshatriya who slandered a Brahmin was to be fined a hundred panas; for the same crime a Vaisya was to be fined a hundred and fifty or two hundred panas; but a Sudra was to be whipped.” On the other hand, if a Brahmin slandered a Kshatriya “he was to be fined fifty panas; if he slandered a Vaisya he was to be fined twenty-five panas; but if he slandered a Sudra he was only to be fined twelve panas. If, however, a Sudra insulted any man of the twice-born castes with gross invectives, he was to have his tongue slit; if he mentioned the name and caste of the individual with contumely, an iron style, ten fingers long, was to be made red-hot and thrust into his mouth; and if, through pride, he dared to instruct a Brahmin respecting his duty, the Rajah was to order that hot oil should be poured into his mouth and ear,”—Menu, VIII, 266-276.
The “pana” was then nearly equal to our cent, so his privilege ​of slandering a Sudra could at any time be exercised with impunity for a dime, while, if it was so done unto him, the law took good care that the plebeian wretch should never repeat the offense, for his tongue was to be slit. How truly could the Almighty, whose name they blasphemously invoke for their outrageous legislation, say of them, “Are not your ways unequal?”
Even in salutations the Code ordained the forms, and gave them a religious significance. “A Brahmin was to be asked whether his devotion had prospered, a Kshatriya whether he had suffered from his wounds, a Vaisya whether his wealth was secure, and a Sudra whether he was in good health.”—Menu, II, 127.
The food, the privileges, the duties, of this pampered monopolist are all minutely laid down in the Code, but they are too diffuse and too childish to place before the reader, and would not be worth the space occupied. In proof of this I quote one sentence from the fourth chapter, merely remarking that the whimsical injunctions are left without any rhyme or reason. They are as unaccountable as they are singular. “He (the Brahmin) must not gaze on the sun while rising or setting, or eclipsed or reflected in water; he must not run while it rains; he must not look on his own image in water; when he sees the bow of Indra in the sky he must not show it to any man, he must not step over a string to which a calf is tied; and he must not wash his feet in a pan of mixed metal.”
In these stages of its development and claims, Brahminism is nothing less than a system of supreme selfishness, and was worthy of the express teaching with which the Brahmin was directed, in an emergency, to sacrifice every thing to his own precious self, in the following rule: “Against misfortune let him preserve his wealth; at the expense of his wealth let him preserve his wife; but let him at all events preserve himself, even at the hazard of his wife and riches.”
How little can such a religion or such a law know of disinterested affection, or of that devotion which would risk every thing for the safety and happiness of its beloved object?
​His student life ended, the Brahmin commences his married existence with forms and rules which will be referred to when we come to speak of the condition of woman under Hindoo law. In this second stage of his life he is required to have “his hair and beard properly trimmed, his passions subdued, and his mantle white; he is to carry a staff of Venu, a ewer with water in it, handful of Kusa grass, or a copy of the Vedas, with a pair of bright golden rings in his ears, ready to give instruction in the sacred books, or political counsel, and to administer justice.”
Then in order would come the third and fourth stages of his life, the rules of which are so unique. Such an amazing contrast to the unbounded privileges of the previous stages, and withal so little like what ordinary humanity would impose upon itself, that we must quote them for the information of the reader. These two stages express the very essence of Brahminism. In the Hermit stage, the theory is a course of life that will mortify the passions and extinguish desire; this being accomplished, the last order, or Devotee stage, is religious contemplation with the view to final beatitude.
Menu says, “When the twice-born man has remained in the order of Grihastha, or householder, until his muscles become flaccid and his hair gray, and he sees a child of his child, let him abandon his household and repair to the forest, and dwell there in the order of Vanaprastha, or Hermit. He should be accompanied by his wife if she choose to attend him, but otherwise he should commit her to the care of his sons. He should take with him the consecrated fire, and all the domestic implements for making oblations to fire, and there dwell in the forest, with perfect control over all his organs. Day by day he should perform the five sacraments. He should wear a black antelope's hide, or a vesture of bark, and bathe morning and evening; he should suffer his nails and the hair of his head and beard to grow continually. He should be constantly engaged in reading the Veda; he should be patient in all extremities; he should be universally benevolent, and entertain a tender affection for all living creatures; his mind should be ever ​intent upon the Supreme Being; he should slide backward and forward, or stand a whole day on tiptoe, or continue in motion by rising and sitting alternately; but every day, at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset, he should go to the waters and bathe. In the hot season he should sit exposed to five fires, namely: four blazing around him, while the sun is burning above him. In the rainy season he should stand uncovered, without even a mantle, while the clouds pour down their heaviest showers. In the cold season he should wear damp vesture. He should increase the austerity of his devotion by degrees, until by enduring harsher and harsher mortifications he has dried up his bodily frame.”—Code, VI, 22 ; Vishnu Purana, III, 9, etc.
As regards the life to be pursued by a Sannyasi, Menu lays down the following directions:
“When a Brahmin has thus lived in the forest during the third portion of his life as a Vanaprastha, he should for the fourth portion of it become a Sannyasi, and abandon all sensual affections, and repose wholly in the Supreme Spirit. The glory of that Brahmin who passes from the order of Grihastha to that of Sannyasi illuminates the higher worlds. He should take an earthen water-pot, dwell at the roots of large trees, wear coarse vesture, abide in total solitude, and exhibit a perfect equanimity toward all creatures. He should wish neither for death nor for life, but expect his appointed time, as a hired servant expects his wages. He should look down as he advances his foot, lest he should touch any thing impure. He should drink water that has been purified by straining through a cloth, lest he hurt an insect. He should bear a reproachful speech with patience, and speak reproachfully to no man; and he should never utter a word relating to vain, illusory things. He should delight in meditating upon the Supreme Spirit, and sit fixed in such meditation, without needing any thing earthly, without one sensual desire, and without any companion but his own soul.
“He should only ask for food once a day, and that should be in the evening, when the smoke of the kitchen fires has ceased, when ​the pestle lies motionless, and the burning charcoal is extinguished; when people have eaten, and when dishes are removed. If he fail to obtain food he should not be sorrowful; if he succeed in obtaining it he should not be glad. He should only care to obtain a sufficiency to support life, and he should not be anxious about his utensils.”
As to the character of his thoughts: “A Sannyasi should reflect on the transmigrations of men, which are caused by their sinful deeds; on their downfall into a region of darkness, and their torments in the mansions of Yama, (the God of the dead;) on their separation from those whom they love, and their union with those whom they hate; on their strength being overpowered by old age, and their bodies racked with disease; on their agonizing departure from this corporeal frame, and their formation again in the womb; on the misery attached to embodied spirits from a violation of their duties, and the imperishable bliss which attaches to embodied spirits who have abundantly performed every duty.
“The body is a mansion, with bones for its rafters and beams, with nerves and tendons for cords, with muscles and blood for mortar, with skin for its outward covering, and filled with no sweet perfumes, but loaded with refuse. It is a mansion infested by age and by sorrow, the seat of diseases, harassed by pains, haunted with the quality of darkness, and incapable of standing long. Such a mansion of the vital soul should always be quitted with cheerfulness by its occupier.”—Institutes of Hindoo Law, VI, 76, 77.
When you look around and inquire for these self-denying recluses, with their sublime superiority to the things of earth and the wants and wishes of the human heart, you will not find them; certainly not among the Brahmins. Few of these have ever adopted in reality a life so like that of the Yogee, or Self-torturer. All testimony goes to show that Menu's ordinances for the third and fourth stages of the Brahmin's life have lain in his law-book with not one Brahmin in ten thousand even commencing to make them a reality of human experience. It was too much for humanity, and could only be embraced by some fanatic of a Fakir, who would ​voluntarily assume such a condition for self-righteous and self-glorifying ends. Such men can and will do, for such reasons, what other men have not nerve enough to adventure merely in obedience to the theoretic rules of their order.
The Brahmins would fain be regarded as the learned class of India. Of course there was a time when, in the earlier ages of the world, they were so, as compared to men in other nations. No scholar can doubt this for a moment. But the world and education are no longer what they once were; both have advanced amazingly, while the Brahmin has not only stood still, but he has retrograded. The ruins of India's colleges, observatories, and scientific instruments, especially in Benares, (once “the eye of Hindustan,”) convince the traveler too painfully of this fact. Even there, in that renowned city, there is not a single public building devoted to, or containing, the treasures of India's arts, sciences, or literature; no paintings, sculptures, or libraries; no colleges of learning, no museums of her curiosities; no monuments of her great men; only beastly idolatry, filthy fakirs, shrines of vileness without number, and festivals of saturnalian license, all sustained and illustrated by a selfish and ignorant Brahminhood.
A Lady of India in Full Dress.
We now turn from them to introduce the reader to one of the ladies of the land.
The opposite picture is from a photograph for which this lady, Zahore Begum, of Seereenugger, consented to sit. As her face had to be seen by the artist, the concession was a very singular one for any lady of her race. It was done to gratify the Queen of England, who, on the assumption of the direct sovereignty of India—on the abolition of the East India Company in 1859—requested that photographs of the people, and their various races, trades, and professions, might be taken and sent to her. Her Majesty graciously consented to have her valuable collection copied, and by the courtesy of Captain Meadows Taylor, the Oriental author, the ​writer obtained copies of this and several others of much value, which will appear in these pages.
My readers have, therefore, before them a faithful picture of a Hindoo lady of the highest rank, as she appears in her Zenana home, under the best circumstances, having made herself as attractive as silk, and muslin, and cashmere cloth, and a profusion of jewelry, can render her. In the jewel on the thumb of the left hand there is inserted a small looking-glass, of which the fair lady makes good use. The usual gold ring, strung with pearls, is in her nose, lying against her left cheek; and her forehead, ears, arms, fingers, ankles, and toes are crowded with jewelry and tinkling ornaments, the sounds of which proclaim her presence and approach always.
The wood-cut does no justice to her warm olive color, many of them being even almost fair. Most of them have a figure of great beauty, and a natural elegance of movement which their drapery and rich clothing well become. But the mind is totally neglected. In fact, until lately, when a gleam of light has begun to shine for women in the Land of the Veda, it might be said, without qualification, that no part of an American definition of education would apply to the culture under which a daughter of India is fitted for future life. It does not, for her, include reading, or writing, or history, or science, or aught else which we include in its meaning. Education, in its proper sense, is denied to the females of India; denied on principle, and for reasons which are unblushingly avowed, and all of which are reflections upon her womanly nature—one of them being the position that education in the hands of a woman would most likely become an instrument of evil power. She is deliberately doomed by modern Hindooism to a life of ignorance because she is a woman.
The Nautch Girl of India.
The sad story of the wrongs of woman in India will be told after we have traced the rise and fall of the great Rebellion; for the mitigations of her condition, which Christian law had in mercy enforced, were then put forward by her Brahminical oppressors as one of the reasons why they had renounced their allegiance to British rule.
But there is one class of women, and it is a very large class, in India, who are under no such restrictions and jealous seclusion as the lady on the former page. These court publicity, and you can see them every-where. This order of females are released from the doom of an illiterate mind. They can read, write, and quote the poets, and jest with the conundrums and “wise saws” of the land. The writer has known of attempts made by this class of girls to enter our schools in order to add the English tongue to their acquisitions, to be used by them for the worst of purposes. These are the “Nauch Girls,” a portrait of one of whom, from a photograph, is here given as she appears in public.
Their title means dancing-girls. No man in India would allow his wife or daughter to dance, and as to dancing with another man, he would forsake her forever, as a woman lost to virtue and modesty, if she were to attempt it. In their observation of white women, there is nothing that so much perplexes them as the fact that fathers and husbands will permit their wives and daughters to indulge in promiscuous dancing. No argument will convince them that the act is such as a virtuous female should practice, or that its tendency is not licentious. The prevalence of the practice in “Christian” nations makes our holy religion—which they suppose ​must allow it—to be abhorred by many of them, and often it is cast in the teeth of our missionaries when preaching to them. But what would these heathen say could they enter our operas and theaters, and see the shocking exposure of their persons which our public women there present before mixed assemblies? Yet they would be ten times more astonished that ladies of virtue and reputation should be found there, accompanied by their daughters, to witness the sight, and that, too, in the presence of the other sex! But, then, they are only heathens, and don't appreciate the high accomplishments of Christian civilization! Still, Heaven grant that the future Church of India may ever retain at least this item of the prejudices of their forefathers! Dancing forms, then, no part of a daughter's education in India, and it probably never will, that is, unless they become corrupted by “Christian” example.
All of that sort of thing that they ever desire, on occasions of festivals and ceremonies, they hire from the temples and bazaars. Four or five of these women, tricked out in all their finery and jewelry, and tinkling ornaments on arms, necks, and feet, will, for four or five dollars, dance and jest, and sing India's licentious songs for hours; but even they don't dance except with their own sex. They are prostitutes, and yet they are undoubtedly the only intelligent and cultivated class of Hindoo women. So that the profane and debased have a monopoly of education, while the virtuous and retiring ladies of the land are condemned to a life of ignorance. Such is woman in India as to her mind.
The Maharajah Duleep Singh.
“Make vice pleasing and damnation shine,”
but whose guests are in the depths of hell.
We next present to the reader one of the upper class of Hindoo society just as he would appear at a “Durbar,” or State ceremonial, or in receiving guests at his palace, or in connection with some public display.
The dress of a gentleman in India is regulated as to its quality by his wealth and position, and in its variations of form by his creed and locality; but the Maharajah costume here shown may be regarded generally as that of his countrymen.
Their dress is free and flowing, adapted to the climate, and leaving to the limbs a greater freedom of action, with more circulation of air, than the American style of dress can ever know. Although to our imagination it appears somewhat effeminate in its aspect, yet it is eminently graceful and becoming to the wearers, as any one who has seen a company of Hindoo gentlemen together will have observed. There is something so conservative and biblical in the aspect of it, that you feel at once that the fluctuations of the fashions can have no influence upon it. Here is something that is at once suitable and unchanging—a style of comfort and elegance which the past five hundred years has not varied, and which will probably remain unaltered when five hundred more years have passed away.
The dress here represented shows a vest of “Kinkob”—cloth of gold—slightly exposed at the breast; a loose-fitting coat falling below the knees, made of rich yellow satin from the looms of Delhi, bordered with gold embroidery; a Cashmere shawl of great value encircles the loins, and the usual “Kummerbund” binds all to the waist of the wearer. The turban is made of several yards of fine India muslin, twisted round the head, heavily adorned with chains of pearls, and aigrettes of diamonds and precious stones. These, with the pearls encircling his neck, are of large size and extraordinary beauty and value, the heir-looms of many generations. ​He holds by his side his State sword, the hilt of which is studded with precious stones. To all this “glory” might have been added the matchless Koh-i-noor diamond, for this prince was the heir of “The Mountain Light,” his father, the Maharajah Runjeet Singh, having been its last possessor; but the great diamond was sent as a present to Queen Victoria, and he himself is handsome and happy enough without it.
How significant of the resources of India is the fact that every article on the person of this princely man, from the gold and gems on his head to the embroidered slippers on his feet, is the production of his own country, and all of native manufacture! How quietly in this respect he outshines the Broadway “exquisite” or Parisian belle, whose finery must be sought for in a score of climes and imported from many lands!
The Maharajah is considered one of the handsomest of his countrymen. The excellent wood-cut here representing him does not, however, do justice to his black, lustrous eyes, or his finely formed features and intelligent look.
The education of the gentlemen of India is sadly deficient. Conducted in the Zenana, among ladies ignorant of the most elementary knowledge, their mental training and acquisitions are usually of the most superficial sort, and destitute of healthful stimulus. But the gentleman here represented is one of the exceptions to this rule; and as he has had the moral courage to separate himself from heathenism and receive the Christian faith, the reader may be pleased with some further notice of him.
He is the first royal person in India who has become a follower of Jesus Christ. His highness is the son and heir of the Maharajah Runjeet Singh, who, from the ferocity and valor with which he conducted his wars and ruled his people, was called “The Lion of the Punjab.” The old gentleman's policy left his nation in confusion, and the English power, in the wars that resulted, found his forces to be the sturdiest foe with whom they had ever measured swords in India. Runjeet died in 1839, and his son, this Duleep Singh, then only four years old, was placed upon the throne. His ​uncles ruled in his name, but the ten years which followed were times of anarchy and bloodshed, the Regents being assassinated in succession, and the country one vast camp. The army superseded the civil power, and in their folly actually crossed the frontier, and in 1845 invaded British India. They were repulsed, but only to renew the effort four years later, when they were overthrown, and the Punjab—the country of the five rivers, as the word means, the rivers named in Alexander's invasion, and which unite to form the Indus at Attock—was annexed to the British Empire. The young Maharajah was pensioned, and placed for education under the care of the Government, God mercifully guided the Governor-general in the selection of guardian and tutor for the little prince. Dr. (now Sir John) Logan, of the medical service, and a member of the Presbyterian Church, was appointed his guardian, and Mr. Guise, of the civil service, was selected as his tutor. To Mr. Guise's other high qualifications for his duties was added a beautiful Christian character. He had need of all his fitness, for the little ex-king had never been used to any restraint, much less to study or to books, and claimed the right to run wild and neglect all mental acquisitions. But the patience and conscientiousness of the faithful tutor overcame every difficulty; good habits and a taste for reading were at length formed. Their home was at Futtyghur, on the Ganges, where the American Presbyterian Church has a Mission, (the missionaries being mentioned by name on a previous page,) in which many young men were receiving a Christian education. The prince expressed a desire to have some one of good birth and talents for a companion, and a young Brahmin, by name Bhajan Lal, who had been educated in the mission-school, and had there, though unconverted, contracted a love for the Christian Scriptures, was chosen for the position. He soon enjoyed the entire confidence of the young Maharajah. Bhajan was in the habit of studying the Bible in his leisure moments, and the prince two or three times having come upon him thus engaged, was led to inquire what book it was that so interested him. He was told, and at his request Bhajan promised to read and explain the Word of God to ​him, but on condition that it should not be known. The priests of his own religion that had accompanied him from the Punjab, and were training him in the tenets of their faith, were soon seen by him in a new light as he continued to read the Scriptures. When he began to compare them, in all their mummery, immorality, and covetousness, with the purity and spirituality of the Christians around him, whose lives and examples he had carefully noted, a feeling of disgust with heathenism, and a preference and love for the religion of the Bible, sprang up in his heart, to which he soon gave expression. Thus the reading of God's holy Word, taught and explained even by a heathen youth and Brahmin, led the Maharajah to give up idolatry, and to express a desire to break his caste and be baptized.
The priests were amazed and confounded, and offered what resistance they could. But the guardianship of the prince effectually shielded him from all persecution. Yet, as he was so young, and the step contemplated so important, his guardian, though rejoiced at his purpose, and ready to aid it in every proper way, suggested delay till he could more fully study the religion of Jesus and act with fuller deliberation. He accepted the advice, drew nearer to the missionaries, attended the services, and enjoyed the association of the Christians. He was led to embrace Christ as his Saviour, and on the 8th of March, 1853, was baptized and received into the Christian Church. The Rev. W. J. Jay, the chaplain of the station, administered the holy ordinance in the presence of all the missionaries, the native Christians and Europeans at the station, and the servants of the Maharajah. He was clad as here represented, and when he took off his turban, and with much firmness and humility bowed his head to receive the sacred ordinance, every heart in the assembly was moved, and many a prayer went up that he might have grace to fulfill his vows and honor his Christian profession.
He has faithfully done so to the present time. Immediately after his baptism he established relief societies at Futtyghur and Lahore, placing them under the control of the American missions ​at both places. Besides assisting in the support of the missions, he established, and still sustains, a number of village schools for the education of the people, and has been a liberal contributor to every good object brought to his notice. When the writer was at Futtyghur he had the opportunity of witnessing the results which were being accomplished by the Christian liberality of the Maharajah in and around that station. He was then aiding the cause of Christ and the poor to the extent, probably, of fully one tenth of his whole income annually, and I presume his liberality is no less now.
Some time after his baptism, with a desire to improve his mind by foreign travel, he visited England. He took with him a devoted Christian, who had formerly been a Hindoo Pundit, named Nil Knath, by whose instructions he was more fully established in the doctrines of the Gospel, and with whom he enjoyed daily prayer and other religious privileges. On his arrival in London the Government placed a suitable residence in Wimbledon at his disposal, and the Queen and Prince Albert showed him much attention and kindness.
The Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 distressed him exceedingly, and probably alienated him from his native land. His entire severance from the religion of his countrymen, and, most of all, probably, reasons of State in view of the English rule in his country, which he would not wish by his presence there to disturb in any way, led him to prefer England as a residence. A magnificent home has been provided for him near London, and there, on the allowance of his rank paid yearly by the British Government, he is spending the present portion of his life, honored and respected by all around him. He has probably ere now come to the conclusion that the loss of the throne of the Punjab may have been for him a good providence. During the rebellion his life might have been sacrificed. In the peace and honor that surround him he is not only entirely free from the evil influences of an Oriental court, and the distractions of irresponsible government, but he may reflect, judging the present from the past, that, had he remained and reigned, he might very probably, like his uncles and predecessors, have met a violent death.
​Gentlemen in other lands having the means and leisure of the higher classes of Hindoo society would be cultivating their minds, enlarging and enriching the literature of their times by their authorship, by foreign travel, by collections of books and works of art, and institutions for developing the resources of their great country. But there are no authors in India, no libraries in its homes; not one in a thousand of its aristocracy ever saw the outside of his native land. Learned societies, museums, or fruits of genius are not to be found there. Education, when acquired, is restricted mostly to the mere ability of reading and writing and talking in courtly style, while there are multitudes of wealthy men that cannot do that much; nay, there are even kings without the power to write their own names, who can give validity to State documents only by stamping them with “the signet on their right hand.” The sovereign of the Punjab—father of the Maharajah here represented—was one such. He was unable to write or read his own name, and to the day of his death could not tell one figure from another.
The little information of general news which they acquired from time to time had been obtained by a singular arrangement. Each great family, or king's court, had its “editor.” He was expected to furnish the news daily, or as often as he could. So he collected from any source within his reach, and got his newspaper ready. But he had no press, nor type, nor office, nor newsboy to aid him. He simply enters on his broad sheet, in writing, one after another, all the news or gossip he could collect, until his paragraphs fill his pages, and he sallies forth in the morning to circulate the news, commencing with the members of the household, and thence to the servants, and so on to the neighbors, reading for each circle the news he had previously collected and written out, and receiving his fees from each company as he goes round the neighborhood. Of express trains, telegraphs, associated press, pictorial papers, and all our Christian appliances for collecting and distributing the news of the wide world, he is utterly ignorant. But the poor editor is on a par with the education of his patrons, and he can rest ​assured they are not likely to outstrip him in the race for knowledge. And so it goes on from generation to generation, until now, when this wonderful innovator, Christianity, has walked right into the midst of this venerable ignorance, and, to the horror of these editorial oracles, has lifted many even of the Pariah youth of their bazaars to a plane of education and knowledge up to which millions look with amazement as they wonder what is going to happen now, when boys “whose fathers they would have disdained to set with the dogs in their flocks” are actually becoming possessed of an education which even their Pundits do not enjoy!
The habits of the India aristocracy are in many respects decidedly peculiar. The residence, for instance, is usually very mean, as compared with the wealth of the parties. While they will spend millions upon a temple or tomb, they are content to dwell in a house which a man in America, with one fiftieth of their income, would scorn to inhabit. A Rajah with a rent-roll of say fifty thousand dollars or more per annum will sometimes pass his life in a residence built of sun-dried brick, with a tiled roof, that cost less than two thousand dollars, surrounded on all sides with mud hovels, and in the midst of a bazaar where the din and smoke and effluvia would be intolerable to any decent American.
No doubt this want of appreciation of surrounding circumstances in their life is caused by their inability while heathens justly or truly to estimate that idea of home which Christianity has created for man, especially in the “honorable estate” of the married life which she ordains and blesses, and to which she leads the grateful, loving husband to bring his means and ingenuity to adorn it, to make it a convenient, cheerful, happy dwelling for the blessed wife whom he loves and the dear children whom God has given them. Such a home, with its joy and honor, the heathen or polygamist can never know or appreciate. His residence is but a convenience, not the sanctuary of the affections, and his estimate of home must be, and is, defective and perverted.
They eschew furniture, in our sense of the word—tables, chairs, ​knives and forks. They eat with the fingers alone, and generally sleep on a charpoy or mat When you enter a Hindoo home you are at once struck with the naked look of the room—no chair or sofa to sit upon, no pictures on the walls, no piano or musical instrument, no library of books, no maps, no table with the newspaper or periodical or album upon it, and you wonder how they can bear to live such a life; to you it would be a misery and a blank. But you are a Christian, and your holy religion has made you to differ, and taught you the nature and value of a Christian home and its conveniences and joys.
Nothing would more surprise them in visiting our Western world than to see how generally, according to the ability of each, we beautify and adorn our residences, and surround them with flowers and verdure and neatness. They would think this all very artificial, and perhaps unnecessary, and could not enter into the feelings of those whose constant effort seems to be to make their abode on earth, in its purity, companionship, and peace, a type of the home in heaven.
Woman alone in heathenism, even where she has possessed peculiar wealth and power and opportunity for the effort, cannot make this earthly paradise; she requires Christianity to be successful. Cases have occurred where European ladies have been induced—in Delhi, Lucknow, etc.—to enter even royal zenanas as wives. But though knowing the difference, and probably fondly hoping they could by their presence and ability constitute a happy social state, they soon realized that the very atmosphere forbid the development of the home they hoped to cultivate, and the fair experimenters had, in utter despair, to abandon their efforts and their hopes, and not only so, but themselves to sink to the sad level of the heathenish community into which they had ventured!
“Home is the sacred refuge of our life.”
True, but India's sons can never learn the sentiment and experience which Dryden's line thus expresses till the daughters of India receive the Christianity which alone can cultivate their minds and ​hearts, and take under its divine guardianship their sacred mission in India, as in America, to
“Give to social man true relish of himself.”
The men of India have never known woman's high power as “a helpmeet” in mind, heart, social life, or usefulness, and until they do they cannot enjoy the blessed home which only honored and elevated women can create.
If there be any one thing, short of salvation, in which America and India contrast each other most vividly, it is woman's high position in her home, and man's consequent happiness resulting therefrom—as wife, living for the husband whom she loves; as mother, making her abode a nursery for the Eden on high; the friend and patron of all that is lovely, virtuous, and of good report; her plastic influence of mind and heart and character molding those within her sphere into sympathy with her own goodness, while she thus sweetly
“Allures to brighter worlds, and leads the way.”
In presence of this excellence—and, thank Heaven! Christianity has thousands such—every thing beautiful on earth brightens. The holiest and happiest men in this world bask in this blessed social sunshine, and are led by it to the contemplation and earnest hope of those “better things” which it typifies; their sanctified domestic joy becoming a sign and promise of the felicity that will be endless when they come to realize at last what they so often sing below—
“My heavenly home is bright and fair.”
The food and manner of eating is quite Oriental, with the peculiarity on the part of the stricter Brahminical caste that they never touch flesh of any kind; but the rich variety of fruits and vegetables, and other products of the field and garden, with milk, butter, etc., enables them to enjoy a full variety. The favorite dish of India is the “curry,” and natives and foreigners alike seem to agree that it is the king of all dishes. If it was not the “savory meat” that Isaac loved, the latter was probably very like it; but ​the dish itself is never equal, in piquancy and aroma, out of India to what you receive there. The eating is done without the aid of knives or forks, the fingers alone being used. This is the mode for all, no matter how high or wealthy. The writer saw the Emperor of Delhi take his food in this way. When they have finished, a servant lays down a brass basin before them and pours water on their hands, and presents a towel to wipe them, reminding one of Elisha “pouring water on the hands of Elijah,” acting as his attendant in honor of the man of God.
The amusements of the India aristocracy are very limited. The enervation of the climate may have something to do with this, but it is probably more due to a want of that developed manliness and self-assertion which belongs only to a higher civilization. They hardly ever think of going out hunting, or fishing, or fowling. Of the chase they know nothing, and I presume there is not one base-ball club in the country; gymnastic exercises they never take, their music is barbarous, and they do not play. When a feast or marriage requires entertainment they hire professional musicians, dancers, jugglers, or players to perform before their guests, but take no part whatever personally. Operas and theaters and promiscuous dancing they hold in abhorrence, as too immoral for them or their families to witness. They are fond of formal calls upon their equals, or social and civil superiors, and like display and exhibitions of their standing and wealth. They are regularly scientific in the art of taking their ease, being bathed and shampooed, fanned to sleep and while asleep. They love to be decorated with dress and jewelry, enjoy frequent siestas, and divide the remainder of their leisure time in the society of women whom they choose to entertain in their zenanas; but of public spirit and efforts, disinterested devotion to the welfare of others, intellectual enjoyments, the culture and training of their children's minds or morals, or the exalting influence of communion with a refined and intelligent wife or mother, they know but little or nothing, because they are utter strangers to the inspiration of the holy religion whose fruits these joys and virtues are.
​When they undertake to pay a visit of ceremony it is, to our views, very singular what form and punctiliousness they deem to be indispensable. The whole establishment seems turned out for the purpose, for the larger the “following” so much the more you are expected to be impressed with the standing and dignity of the great man who has come to honor you with his call. An outrunner or two reaches your door in advance, and announces the master's approach; then come an armed squad, and his confidential servant, or “vakeel,” and behind them the great man himself on his elephant, or in his palanquin; another crowd of retainers bring up the rear, the whole train numbering from thirty to sixty persons, or even more. Often, as I have looked at them, have I been reminded of the figure in the Revelations, where the blessed dead are represented as accompanied on their way into the kingdom of heaven by the escort of the good deeds of their faithful lives, which rise up to accompany them as so many evidences of their devotion to God—“Their works do follow them.” The interview is merely a ceremony. The lady of the house is not expected to make her appearance; but where the visit is to a missionary family the lady generally does show herself, and, joining in the conversation, watches the opportunity to say a word for the truth of the Gospel. The native gentleman is evidently amazed, though he conceals it as well as he can, at her intelligence and her self-possession in the presence of another man than her husband, so unlike the prejudices that fill his mind about the female members of his own household. No doubt, amazing are the descriptions he carries home of what he has seen and heard on such an occasion.
But it is in connection with “durbars,” governmental levees and marriage festivals, that the whole force of the native passion for parade and ostentation develops itself. As a sample: At the durbar some time ago in the Punjab, Diahn Singh, one of the nobles, came mounted on a large Persian horse, which curveted and pranced about as though proud of his rider. The bridle and saddle were covered with gold embroidery, and underneath was a saddle-cloth of silver tissue, with a broad fringe of the same ​material, which nearly covered the animal. The legs and tail of the horse were dyed red—the former up to the knees, and the latter half-way to the haunches—an emblem, well understood by the crowd, of the number of enemies which this military chief was supposed to have killed in battle, and that their blood had covered his horse thus far. The chief himself was dressed with the utmost magnificence, loaded with jewels, which hung, row upon row, round his neck, in his turban, on the hilt of his sword and dagger, and over his dress generally, while a bright cuirass shone resplendent on his breast. Add to this a face and person handsome and majestic, and you have the man as he delighted to be seen on the occasion.
But even this was outdone a few months ago on the occasion of the visit of one of Queen Victoria's sons, the Duke of Edinburgh, to India. A part of the pageant was the procession of elephants. These animals, one hundred and seventy in number, and the finest in size and appearance in India, were each decorated in the richest housings, and ridden by the Nawabs and Rajahs who owned them, each trying hard to outvie the other. Perhaps the Maharajah of Putteallah carried off the palm. The housings of his immense elephant were of such extraordinary richness that they were covered with gold and jewels. The Maharajah, who rode on him, wore a robe of black satin embroidered with pearls and emeralds. The howdah—seat on the elephant's back—in which the Rajah of Kuppoorthullah sat, was roofed with a triple dome made of solid silver.
The Mohammedans of India.
It was considered necessary to the dignity of the occasion that the bridegroom's party should expend at least six hundred thousand rupees—$300,000 gold—during the festival. A large part of this sum was to be distributed freely in the procession; so it was loaded on elephants, and persons were appointed to fling it among the crowds as the cavalcade passed on its way. They scattered copper money all along the road from their home till within seven miles of Bullubghur. From this point to the gate of the fort they scattered silver, and from the gate of the fort to the door of the palace they scattered gold and jewels. The son of the Putteallah chief, a lad of about ten years, had the post of honor in the distribution. He sat on his elephant, and beside him was a bag of gold mohurs—each mohur is worth eight dollars gold—mixed up with an immense variety of gold ear-rings, pearls, and precious stones. His turn for scattering began as they neared the palace door. Seeing some European gentlemen, who had come to look at the procession, standing on the balcony, the little chief thought they should have their share, so he heaved up vigorously several handfuls of the pearls, mohurs, and jewels, as he passed them. Not one of them, of course, would condescend to stoop to take up any, but the servants in attendance upon them showed no such dignified forbearance.
The costs of the family of the bride are always much greater than that of the bridegroom. They are obliged to entertain, at their own expense, all the bridegroom's guests which go with him for his bride, as well as their own, as long as they remain.
From this running description of the superficial, self-glorifying, and aunless lives which these men follow, the reader may easily imagine what must be the condition of their minds, their morals, and their characters.
The Mohammedans, a picture of whom we present here, are a more energetic people than the Hindoos. Their aspect is haughty and intolerant, and in meeting them you are under no liability to ​mistake them for the milder race whom they have so long crushed down and ruled. They are descended from original Asiatics of Persia. Arabia, etc., while the Hindoos are of western stock.
“The natives of India attach far more weight to form and ceremony than do Europeans. It is considered highly disrespectful to use the left hand in salutation or in eating, or, in fact, on any other occasion when it can be avoided. To remove the turban is disrespectful; and still more so not to put off the shoes on entering a strange house. Natives, when they make calls, never rise to go till they are dismissed, which among Mohammedans is done by giving betel and sprinkling rose essence, and with Hindoos by hanging wreaths of flowers around the visitor's neck, at least on great occasions. Discourteous Englishmen are apt to cut short a long visit by saying Ab jao—‘Now go!’ than which nothing can be more offensive. The best way is to say, ‘Come and see me again soon,’ or, ‘Always make a practice of visiting my house,’ which will be speedily understood. Or to one much inferior you may say, Rukhsat lena—‘Leave to go,’ or, better, Rukhsat lijiye—‘Please to take leave.’ A letter closed by moistening the wafer or the gum with the saliva of the mouth should not be given to a native. The feet must not be put upon a chair occupied by them, nor must the feet be raised so as to present the soles to them. One must avoid touching them as much as possible, especially their beards, which is a gross insult. If it can be avoided, it is better not to give a native three of any thing. Inquiries are never made after the female relations of a man. If they are mentioned at all it must be as ‘house.’ ‘Is your house well?’ that is, ‘Is your wife well?’ There are innumerable observances to avoid the evil eye; and many expressions seemingly contradictory are adopted for this purpose. Thus, instead of our ‘Take away,’ it is proper to say, ‘Set on more;’ and for ‘I heard you were sick,’ ‘I heard your enemies were sick.’ With Mohammedans of rank it is better not to express admiration of any thing they possess, as they will certainly offer it; in case of acceptance they would expect something of more value in return. To approach a Hindoo of high caste while at his meal is ​to deprive him of his dinner; to drink out of his cup may deprive him of his caste, or seriously compromise him with his caste-fellows. Leather is an abomination to Hindoos; as is every thing made from the pig, as a riding-saddle, to the Moslem. When natives of a different rank are present you must be careful not to allow those to sit whose rank does not entitle them, and to give each his proper place.”—Murray's Handbook.
Such are the people of that land toward whom for ages the attention of outside nations has been directed with so much interest. We will now consider briefly their composition and numbers, and some of those singular chronological, historical, and religious views which they have entertained so tenaciously, and so long.