Evening star., 1927-10-09
BEFORE BUDDHA.

Y vERE is Hindu. Do not look at his
~ eyes, for they will hold you too long.
Look first at his dress, which is least
4 important; he has abandoned the flow
ing robes of his ancestors and descended to the
dull conformity of European pantaloons. But
still the turban characterizes him, wound
around his head with the generosity of magi-
clan unful ling endless silk. Under those white
folds a dark skin; not black. but deep rich
brown-the finest complexion in the world
And features Gf he is not of the lower castes)
dclicately chiseed and refined; it is the face
of y scholar not soed with greed and not
coarsened with cruelty.
And now look into his eyes. They are as
brown as his skn or as black as his hair; but
always dark and brilliant like lakes at night
rejecting a cratcr's glow. There was passion
here once, as there were tribal wars in India,
but now the fire burns low like India's free
dom. Only among the women of the West are
there eyes as soft these; certain WEAKNESS
in them that tells of centuries spent in effort
and ending in defeat, and an infinite gentle.
ness that knows the barbarity Of strife and
the vanity of victory. One could look for
hours into those eyes.
What is the soul that hides behind them?
How. did this fine and subtle human type de-
yelop? Why is it that this man. when he
talks, reveals of profundity and delicacy of
thought that makes us so conscious OF our
youth? Perhaps we shall learn sopething if
we let him speak.
His country it seems, has not even name
of it's own; the Hindus had such word as
India, nor any name at all for their vast PENN
sula, which was not till own time politi-
cal unity. But the Persans applied to the
northern part the Hindu word for river
sindhu-since it was land of rivers; the
Greeks changed the word to India, and the
English adopted it as applying to all the thou
md hat alxo nd
The vast peninsula contains a million and
threequarters Of square miles-as much as
Europe west of Russia; it is 5000 miles from
north to south, and in it are 3C0, 100000 people,
each soul that sees the universe revolving
about it the center of all movement and
meaning.
1t is continent rather than country, with
every variety of climate and physical feature
In the north the snow w-crowned Himaayas
loftiest mountains in the world. run across
from east to west for 500 miles. On those
heights great river systems form-the Indus,
the Brahmaputra and the Ganges. Among the
mountains dwell Mongol tribes that form an
ethic transition to Tibet and China; in the river
valleys nearly 200, 900 "Aryans' dwell. and
in the Deccan, lower half Of the great tri
angle, the black skinned Dravidians rem.
nants of the race which the invading Aryans
drove down from the north Here and there
constituting one-fifth Of the land) the primitive
jungle remains, breeding place Of lions, tigers
leopards, wolves and snakes that make life as
dangerous in India as in the streets of Chicago
and New York. Every year the lords of the
jungle soothe their hunger with $4,000 Hindus
X X
South of the river valleys the sun rules like
an unchecked despot, and heat makes the re.
ligion, the history and the character of the
Hindu. One traveller assures us that "the heat
is quite tolerable in the Winter months" Eng
lishmen cannot stay there much more than
five years at a time and If a hundred thousand
of them rule 300O00,000 Hindus it is because
they have not remained there long enough. Let
them stay, and they will take the quietude
of the Hindu. as they tend to take on his
superstitions.