The Old World and Its Ways

At the recent Mela five hundred of these fakirs marched in a procession naked, even the breech cloth having been abandoned for the occasion, and so great was the reverence for them that their followers struggled to obtain the sand made sacred by their tread, a number of people meeting their death in the crowd. These fakirs are supposed to have reached a state of sinlessness, but one of them seized a child along the line of march and dashed out its brains in the presence of its mother, claiming to be advised that the gods desired a human sacrifice. He was arrested by the British officials and is now awaiting trial on the charge of murder. The papers recently reported another instance in which a fakir was the cause of a murder. He was consulted by a woman who had lost several children and was anxious to protect her prospective child from a like fate. The fakir told her that she could insure her child's life if she would herself bathe in human blood, and she and her husband enticed a seven-year-old boy into their home and killed him to secure the blood necessary for the bath. The fakirs are not only a danger to the community in some cases and a source of demoralization at all times, but they are a heavy drain upon the producing wealth of the country. Adding nothing to the material, intellectual or moral development of the country, they live upon the fears and credulity of the people.

The Hindu religion claims something more than two hundred millions of human beings within its membership; it teaches the transmigration of the soul or reincarnation as it is generally called. The Hindu mind takes kindly to the metaphysical, and the Hindu priests have evolved an intricate system of philosophy in support of their religious beliefs. Reincarnation is set forth as a theory necessary to bring God's plans into accord with man's conception of justice. If a man is born blind or born into unfavorable surroundings, it is explained on the theory that he is being punished for sins committed during a former existence; if he is born into a favorable environment he is being rewarded for virtue previously developed.

It is not quite certain whether the Hindus have many gods or many forms of one god, for the ancient Vedas speak of each of several gods as if they were supreme. The most popular god is a sort of trinity, Bramah, the creator; Vischnu, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer, being united in one. Sometimes the trinity is spoken of as representing creation, destruction and renovation, in which Krishna appears as the principal god. Out of this system have sprung a multitude of gods until the masses bow down "to sticks and stones."

The most pernicious product of the Hindu religion is the caste system. Infant marriage is terrible, but that will succumb to education; the seclusion of the women is benumbing, but it will give way before the spread of European and American influence, and with it will go the practical servitude of widows, as the practice of suttee (the burning of widows) has practically gone. But the caste system, resting upon vanity, pride and egotism, is more difficult to eradicate. Nowhere in the world is caste so inexorable in its demands or so degrading in its influence. The line between the human being and the beast of the field is scarcely more distinctly drawn than the line between the various castes. The Brahmins belong to the priestly class, and are supposed to have sprung from the mouth of Brahm, the great creator; the Kshatrias, or warrior class, are supposed to have sprung from the shoulders of Brahm; the Vaisyas, or merchant class, are supposed to have sprung from the thighs of Brahm; while the Sudras, or laborers, are supposed to have sprung from the feet of Brahm. There are numerous sub-divisions of these castes, and besides these there are outcasts; although there does not seem to be any room below the Sudras for any other class. The caste system not only affects social intercourse and political progress, but it complicates living. A high caste Hindu can not accept food or drink from a low caste, and must purify his water bottle if a low caste touches it.

About seventy years ago a reform in Hinduism was begun under the name of Brahmo Somaj. It was built upon monotheism, or the worship of one god, for which it claimed to find authority in the Hindu sacred books. It drew to itself a number of strong men, among them Mr. Tagore and Mr. Sen, the latter making a trip to England to present the principles of the new faith before prominent religious bodies there.

The Arya Somaj, another reform sect, sprung up later. Both of these have exerted considerable influence upon the thought of India, far beyond their numerical strength. So far, however, Christianity has made greater inroads upon Hinduism than any of the reformations that have been attempted from within.

At Allahabad we found two Christian colleges, the Allahabad Christian College for men and the Wanamaker School for girls. Dr. A. H. Ewing is at the head of the former and Miss Foreman, the daughter of an early missionary, at the head of the latter. Both of these schools have been built with American money, Mr. Wanamaker having been the most liberal patron. They are excellently located, are doing a splendid work and are affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Fifty dollars will pay for the food, room, clothes and tuition of one boy, while thirty dollars will provide for one girl, and interested Americans have already established several scholarships, but money is badly needed to enlarge the facilities of both these schools.

We spent the Sabbath at Allahabad and visited both of these schools, and our appreciation of their work was enhanced by our observation at Benares. It seemed like an oasis in the desert. Surely those who have helped to create this green spot – may it ever widen – will find intense satisfaction in the good that these schools are doing and will do.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MOHAMMEDAN INDIA

Strictly speaking, the term, Mohammedan India, could only be applied to those frontier districts in which the Mohammedans have a preponderating influence, but the Mohammedan emperors left such conspicuous monuments of their reign in Lucknow, Delhi and Agra that it does not violate the proprieties to thus describe this section. The Mohammedans themselves have laid virtual claim to this territory by the establishment of their chief college at Aligahr, nearly equidistant from Agra and Delhi, and their claim is still further strengthened by the fact that while they have not a majority, they have a very large percentage of the population of both of the last named cities.

In approaching this section of India from the east, the tourist passes through Cawnpore, made memorable by the massacre of the British residents during the mutiny of 1857. The recollection of the mutiny is still fresh in the minds of the British officials, and numerous monuments have been reared to the bravery of the besieged garrisons.

At Calcutta one is shown a black piece of pavement which covers a part of the Black Hole of Calcutta (the rest of the hole is now covered by a building) where in 1756 one hundred and forty-six human beings were forced to spend the night and from which only twenty-three escaped alive. The hole was twenty-two by fourteen feet and only sixteen or eighteen feet in height, and the awful sufferings of those who perished there are commemorated by an obelisk which stands near by.

But the cruelty practiced at the time of the mutiny far more stirred the English heart, and as the uprising was more extensive, several cities contain memorials. Of these the most beautiful is at Cawnpore, and is called "The Angel of the Resurrection." It is made of white marble and represents an angel with hands crossed and each holding a palm. It stands upon an elevated mound in a beautiful park, and is enclosed by a stone screen. It was the gift of Lord and Lady Canning and bears the following inscription: "Sacred to the perpetual memory of a great company of Christian people, chiefly women and children, who near this spot were cruelly murdered by the followers of the rebel Nana Dhundu Pant, of Bithur, and cast, the dying with the dead, into the well below, on the 15th day of July, 1857."

There is also at Cawnpore, in another park, a stately memorial church, the inner walls of which are lined with tablets containing the names of British soldiers who lost their lives during the mutiny.

Lucknow is not far from Cawnpore, and here, too, the mutiny has left its scars and monuments. The Lucknow residency, now an ivy mantled ruin, was the scene of the great siege that lasted from the first of July, 1857, to the seventeenth of November. At the beginning there were within the walls nine hundred British troops and officers, one hundred and fifty volunteers, seven hundred native troops, six hundred women and children and seven hundred non-combatant natives; total, about three thousand. When relief came but one thousand remained. The night before the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell with reinforcements, one of the besieged, a Scotch girl, dreamed of the coming of relief, and her dream gave rise to the song so familiar a generation ago, "The Campbells Are Coming."5

There are in Lucknow a number of tombs, mosques and buildings that gave us our first glimpse of the architecture of the Mogul emperors – great domes, gigantic gateways and graceful minarets, stately columns and vaulted galleries. The most interesting of the buildings, Imambarah, built by Asaf-ud-daulah, contains a great hall more than a hundred and fifty feet long and about fifty feet in breadth and height. On one side of the court is a private mosque and on the other a group of apartments built around a well as a protection against the summer's heat. From the top of the Imambarah one obtains an excellent view of Lucknow and its surroundings.

At Aligarh I found a great educational institution which must be taken into consideration in estimating the future of Mohammedanism in India. It was founded in 1877, largely through the influence and liberality of Sir Syed Ahmed, who until his death in 1898 devoted himself entirely to its development. He was a large-minded man and full of zeal for the enlightenment of his co-religionists. He recognized the low intellectual standard of the Mohammedan Indians, and the controlling purpose of his life was to assist in their improvement. At first, his educational enterprise met with a cold reception at the hands of the leaders of his church. Emissaries were even sent from Mecca to assassinate him, but, nothing daunted, he pursued his plans until the church authorities recognized the importance of the school.

As the Mohammedans are numerically weaker than the Hindus and unable to cope with them in intellectual contests, Sir Syed opposed the national congress proposition which the Hindus have long urged and the Aligarh school became conspicuous for its pro-British leanings on this question. This may account in part for the interest taken in it by the colonial government. (The Central Hindu College at Benares refuses government aid and is, therefore, more independent.) But since the death of Sir Syed the congress idea is growing among the students of Aligarh.

Aligarh College now has an enrollment of seven hundred and four, more than a hundred of whom are law students. It has an English Cambridge graduate for president and several English professors. I might add that England, like America, has sent many teachers to India, and that they are engaged in work, the importance of which can not be overestimated. I had the pleasure of meeting those connected with St. John's College at Agra as well as those at Aligarh.

Delhi is one of India's most ancient cities. When the Aryans came down from the northwest and conquered the aboriginal tribes, they founded a city which they called Indrapat, just south of the present site of Delhi. How old it is no one knows, for the names of its founders have been forgotten, its records, if it had any, have been destroyed, and its streets are winding footpaths which one follows with difficulty. Every wave of invasion that has swept down from the north or west has passed over Indrapat, and its stones would tell a thrilling story if they could but speak. The city has been rebuilt again and again, the last time about three hundred years ago, but it has little to exhibit now but its antiquity. There is a massive city wall with huge gates, there are tumble-down buildings occupied by a few people and some goats, and there is a stone library building erected hundreds of years before Carnegie was born, but the glory of Indrapat has departed. Not far from Indrapat is the splendid tomb of Humayun and another of the Asoka pillars.

Eleven miles south of the present Delhi is what is called old Delhi (Delhi seems to have had a movable site) immortalized by the famous Kutab Minar, or tower, erected near the close of the twelfth century by one of the earliest Mohammedan conquerors after the capture of Delhi. The tower – a tower of victory – is two hundred and thirty-eight feet in height, forty-seven feet in diameter at the base and nine at the top. It has been described as one of the architectural wonders of the world, and it certainly gives one a profound respect for the mind that planned it. There are so many mausoleums and mosques scattered over the plains around Delhi that space forbids particular description.

Within a century after the death of Mohammed the Moslems made an attack upon India, but it was five hundred years later before they became masters of the great peninsula. Then for five hundred more it was the scene of conflict between rival Moslems until Timur (Tamerlan, the Tartar) plundered it and drenched it with blood. In all these wars Delhi was the strategic point, the natural capital of the north. After Timur, came his descendant of the sixth generation, Babar, who consolidated the Indian empire by bravery, tact and wisdom. He is the first of the great Mogul rulers, but he was so occupied with the extension of his sovereignty that he was compelled to leave the development of the empire to his descendants. His grandson, Akbar, built three great forts, one at Allahabad, to which reference has been made in another article, another at Agra, which he made his capital, and the third at Atok, still farther north. He also built Fatepur Sikri about twenty miles from Agra. This was to be his home, and here on a sandstone ridge overlooking the plain he reared a group of buildings which even now, though deserted for two centuries, attracts tourists from all over the world. While the material employed is red sandstone, the buildings are models of beauty as well as strength, and the minute and elaborate carvings are masterpieces in their line.

The fort built by Akbar at Agra, while not proof against modern missiles, was impregnable in its day and still bears testimony to the constructive genius of the second of the Moguls.

Six miles from Agra at Sikandra stands the magnificent tomb which Akbar built and where he rests. It is constructed of red sandstone and is part Buddhist and part Saracenic in design. The base is three hundred and twenty feet square and its four retreating galleries terminate in a roofless court of white marble in which stands a marble casket surrounded by screens of marble most exquisitely carved. Special interest is felt in the tomb because one of its ornaments was the famous Kohinoor diamond, the largest in the world. It had come down to Akbar from his grandfather, who in turn secured it from the Rajputs. The diamond was carried away by Persian conquerors, and later was returned to India only to be transferred to Queen Victoria.

But if Akbar surpassed his grandfather as a builder, he was in turn surpassed by his grandson, Shah Jehan. This emperor, the last of the three great Moguls, who began his career by murdering two brothers and two cousins whose rivalry he feared, and who closed his career a prisoner of his rebellious son, has linked his name with some of the most beautiful structures ever conceived by the mind of man. At Agra within the walls of his grandfather's fort, he built the Pearl Mosque which has been described as "the purest, loveliest house of prayer in existence." It is constructed of milk white marble and combines strength, simplicity and grace. He also built the Gem Mosque at Delhi.

The fort at Delhi was built by Shah Jehan, and if its resemblance to the fort at Agra deprives him of credit for originality, that argument can not be raised against the palace within, for this is unrivaled among palaces. The marble baths, the jeweled bed chambers, the pillared halls, the graceful porticoes – all these abound in rich profusion. But it was upon the great hall of Private Audience that he lavished taste and wealth. The floor is of polished marble, the pillars and the arched ceiling of polished marble inlaid with precious stones, so set as to form figures and flowers. Each square inch of it speaks of patient toil and skill, and the whole blends harmoniously. For this magnificent audience room he designed a throne fit for the chamber in which it stood. "It was called the peacock throne because it was guarded by two peacocks with expanded tails ornamented with jewels that reproduced the natural colors of the bird. The throne itself was made of gold, inlaid with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Over it was a canopy of gold festooned with pearls supported by twelve pillars, all emblazoned with gems. On either side stood the Oriental emblem of royalty, an umbrella, each handle eight feet high and of solid gold, studded with diamonds, the covers being of crimson velvet crusted and fringed with magnificent pearls." Thus it was described. It was too tempting a prize for greedy conquerors to leave undisturbed, and was carried off some centuries ago by a Persian, Nadir Shah. Shah Jehan, after contemplating this audience chamber and throne, had inscribed upon the wall in Persian characters a verse which has been freely translated to read:

"If on earth be an Eden of bliss,It is this, it is this, it is this."

And yet, in view of his sad fate there seems as much irony in the lines as there was in the delicately poised scales of justice which he had inlaid on one of the walls of his palace after he had put his relatives out of the way.

But of all the works of art that can be traced to his genius, nothing compares with the tomb, the Taj Mahal, which he reared in honor of the best-loved of his wives, Numtaj Mahal, "the chosen of the palace." This building, unique among buildings and alone in its class, has been described so often that I know not how to speak of it without employing language already hackneyed. When I was a student at college I heard a lecturer describe this wonderful tomb, and it was one of the objective points in our visit to India. Since I first heard of it I had read so much of it and had received such glowing accounts from those who had seen it, that I feared lest the expectations aroused might be disappointed. We reached Agra toward midnight, and, as the moon was waning, drove at once to the Taj that we might see it under the most favorable conditions, for in the opinion of many it is most beautiful by moonlight. There is something fascinating in the view which it thus presents, and we feasted our eyes upon it. Shrouded in the mellow light, the veins of the marble and the stains of more than two and a half centuries are invisible, and it stands forth like an apparition. We visited it again in the daytime, and yet again, and found that the sunlight increased rather than diminished its grandeur. I am bringing an alabaster miniature home with me, but I am conscious that the Taj must be seen full size and silhouetted against the sky to be appreciated.

Imagine a garden with flowers and lawn, walks and marble water basins and fountains; in this garden build a platform of white marble eighteen feet high and three hundred feet square, with an ornamented minaret one hundred and thirty-seven feet high at each corner; in the center of this platform rear a building one hundred and eighty feet square and a hundred feet high, with its corners beveled off and, like the sides, recessed into bays; surmount it with a large central dome and four smaller ones; cover it inside and out with inlaid work of many colored marbles and carvings of amazing delicacy; beneath the central dome place two marble cenotaphs, inlaid with precious stones, the tombs of Shah Jehan and his wife, and enclose them in exquisitely carved marble screens – imagine all this, if you can, and then your conception of this world-famed structure will fall far below the Taj Mahal itself. It is, indeed, "a dream in marble." And yet, when one looks upon it and then surveys the poverty and ignorance of the women who live within its shadow, he is tempted to ask whether the builder of the Taj might not have honored his wife more had the six million dollars invested in this tomb been expended on the elevation of womanhood. The contrast between this artistic pile and the miserable tenements of the people about it robs the structure of half its charms.

CHAPTER XXV.

WESTERN INDIA

There is so much of interest in India that I find it difficult to condense all that I desire to say into the space which it seems proper to devote to this country. In speaking of the various cities, I have been compelled to omit reference to the numerous industries for which India is famed. Long before the European set foot upon the soil the artisans had won renown in weaving, in carving and in brass. It was, in fact, the very wealth of Indus that attracted the attention of the western world and turned the prows of merchant vessels toward the Orient. While India can complain that some of her arts have been lost since she has been under the tutelage of foreigners, enough remains to make every tourist a collector, to a greater or less extent, of attractive souvenirs.

Benares is the center of the plain brass manufacture, and her bazaars are full of vases, trays, candlesticks, bowls, etc. Lucknow is noted for her silversmiths, but her products do not command so high a price as those of southern India. Delhi leads in ivory and wood carving, and one can find here the best specimens of this kind of work. Several of the addresses presented to the Prince of Wales upon his recent visit were encased in ivory caskets richly carved and studded with gems. Painting on ivory is also carried to a high state of perfection here, and sandalwood boxes can be found in all the stores.

At Agra one finds rugs woven in Turkish and Persian, as well as in original, designs. Agra is also renowned for its inlaid work, many of the designs of the Taj being copied. The Tag itself is reproduced in miniatures at prices ranging from one dollar up into the hundreds.

In all the cities of upper India, Kashmir shawls may be secured, Kashmir itself being far north of the line of travel. These shawls are of goat's hair, and some of them are so delicate that though two yards square, they can be drawn through a finger ring.

At Jaipore the chief industries which attract the attention of foreigners are enameling on gold and brass, the latter being the best known. Few who visit the bazaars can resist the temptation to carry away some samples of this ware, so graceful are the vessels and so skillful is the workmanship.

Jaipore, the first of the western cities, and the only one of the native states that we visited, is deserving of some notice, partly because it gives evidence of considerable advancement and partly because the government is administered entirely by native officials. The Maharaja is one of the most distinguished of native princes and a descendant of the famous Rajput line of kings. He lives in oriental style, has a number of wives, and elephants, camels and horses galore. He is an orthodox Hindu of the strictest type and drinks no water but the water of the Ganges. When he went to England to attend the coronation, he chartered a ship, took his retinue with him and carried Ganges water enough to last until his return. He is very loyal to the British government and in return he is permitted to exercise over his subjects a power as absolute as the czar ever claimed. There is an English resident at his capital, but his council is composed of Indians, his judges are Indians, his collectors are Indians, his school teachers are Indians, and he has an Indian army. I had the pleasure of meeting one of the council and the head of the school system of the state, and found them men of fine appearance and high culture. The illiteracy in his state compares favorably with that in the states under British administration, and the graduates from the Maharaja's college compete successfully in the examinations with the graduates from other colleges. They have at Jaipore an art school in which all kinds of manual training are taught, and the sale-room of this school gives accurate information as to the capacity of the natives for industrial development. We found here the only native pottery of merit that we noticed in the country.