Modern India

In the center of this wonderful museum of sculpture, surrounded by a forest of carved columns, which in the minuteness and beauty of detail stand almost unrivaled even in this land of lavish labor and inexhaustible patience, sits the image of Parswanatha, the god of Peace and Plenty, a divinity that encourages love and gentleness and truth, to whom these temples were dedicated. He is seated upon an exquisite platform of alabaster, with legs crossed and arms folded, silent and immovable, engaged in the contemplation of the good and beautiful, and his lips are wreathed in a smile that comprehends all human beings and will last throughout eternity. Around this temple, as usual with the Jains, is a cloister–a wide colonnade supported by a double row of pillars. There are fifty-five cells opening upon it, but instead of being occupied by monks or priests, in each of them, upon a throne of lotus leaves, sits an exact miniature duplicate of the image of the same god, in the same posture, with the same expression of serene and holy calm. A number of young priests were moving about placing fresh flowers before these idols, and in the temple was a group of dusty, tired, hungry, half-naked and sore-footed pilgrims, who had come a long way with packs on their backs bearing their food and seeking no shelter but the shade of temples or trees. Here at last they found rest and relief and consolation, and it seems a beautiful religion that requires nothing more from its devotees.

The forty-eight columns which sustain the dome of this temple have been pronounced the most exquisite examples of carved marble in existence, and the highest authority on Indian architecture declares that the dome "in richness of ornament and delicacy of detail is probably unsurpassed in the world."

Facing the entrance to the temple is a square building, or portico, containing nine large white elephants, each carved from a monolith of marble. Originally they all had riders, intended to represent Vimala Sah, the Jain merchant, and his family going in procession to worship, but several of the figures have been broken entirely away and others have been badly damaged. These five temples, with their courtyards and cloisters, are said to have cost $90,000,000 and to have occupied fourteen years in building, from 1032 to 1046 A. D.

Mount Abu is the headquarters of the Rajputana administration, the hot weather station for the British troops, and the favorite summer resort of the European colonies of western India. The mountain is encircled with well-made roads, winding among the forests, and picturesque bridle paths. There are many handsome villas belonging to officials and private citizens, barracks, schools, asylums, clubs and other modern structures.

In several of the larger cities of the province can be found temples similar to those I have described; some of them of Saracenic architecture, equal to that of the Alhambra or the Persian palaces. The pure Hindu designs differ from the Saracenic as widely as the Gothic from the Romanesque, but often you find a mixture embracing the strongest features of both. The rich and the strong gave expression to their own sense of beauty and taste when by the erection of these temples they sought to honor and glorify the gods to whom they pray.

Ajmere, the winter capital of the governor general of Rajputana, is one of the oldest and most beautiful cities of western India, having been founded only a hundred years after the beginning of the Christian era, and occupying a picturesque position in an amphitheater made by the mountains, 3,000 feet above the sea. It is protected by a stone wall, with five gateways; many of the residences and most of the buildings are of stone, with ornamental façades, and some of them are of great antiquity. In the olden days it was the fashion to build houses to last forever. Ajmere has a population of about 70,000. It is surrounded by a fertile country, occupied by an industrious, wealthy, and prosperous people. The city is commanded by a fortress that crowns a noble hill called "The Home of the Stars," possesses a mosque that is one of the most successful combinations of Hindu and Saracenic architecture of which I have spoken, the conception of some unknown genius, combining the Mohammedan ideas of grandeur with Hindu delicacy of taste and prodigality of detail. In its decorations may be found some of the most superb marble embroidery that the imagination can conceive of. One of the highest authorities dates its erection as far back as the second century before Christ, but it is certainly of a much later date. Some architects contend that it belongs to the fourteenth century; it is however, considered the finest specimen of early Mohammedan architecture in existence. The mosque can be compared to a grand salon, open to the air at one side, the ceiling, fifty feet high, supported by four rows of columns, eighteen in each row, which are unique in design, and no two of them are alike. The designs are complex and entirely novel, and each is the work of a different artist, who was allowed entire liberty of design and execution, and endeavored to surpass his rivals.

There are several other mosques and temples of great beauty in Ajmere, and some of them are sacred places that attract multitudes of pilgrims, who are fed daily by the benevolence of rich contributors. Enormous rice puddings are cooked in eight enormous earthen caldrons, holding several bushels each, which are ready at noon every day. The composition contains rice, butter, sugar, almonds, raisins and spices, and to fill all of the eight pots costs about $70. The moment the pudding is cooked a bell is rung, and the pilgrims are allowed to help themselves in a grab-game which was never surpassed. Greedy creatures scald themselves in the pudding so badly that they sometimes carry the marks for life. It is counted a miracle caused by the intercession of the saints that no lives have ever been lost in these scrambles, although nearly every day some pilgrim is so badly burned that he has to be taken to a hospital. The custom is ancient, although I was not able to ascertain its origin or the reason why the priests do not allow the pudding to cool below the danger point before serving it.

Ajmere is the headquarters of one of the greatest railways in India, with extensive shops, employing several thousand natives and Europeans. The chief machinists, master mechanics and engineers are almost exclusively Scotchmen.

In this province may be found an excellent illustration of the effect of the policy of the British government toward the native princes. It had good material to work with, because the twenty independent Rajput princes are a fine set of men, all of whom trace their descent to the sun or the moon or to one of the planets, and whose ancestors have ruled for ages. Each family has a genealogical tree, with roots firmly implanted in mythology, and from the day when the ears of their infants begin to distinguish the difference in sounds, and their tongues begin to frame thoughts in words, every Rajput prince is taught the tables of his descent, which read like those in the Old Testament, and the names of his illustrious ancestors. Attached to each noble household is a chronicler or bard, whose business is to keep the family record straight, and to chant the epics that relate the achievements of the clan. As I have said, all the Rajput families are related and belong to the same caste, which has prevented them from diluting their blood by marriage with inferior families. It is his blood, and not the amount of his wealth or the extent of his lands, that ennobles a Rajput. Many of the noblest families are very poor, but the poorest retains the knowledge and the pride of his ancestors, which are often his only inheritance.

These characteristics and other social and religious customs make Rajputana one of the most romantic and fascinating spots in India, and perhaps there is no more interesting place to study the social, political and economical development of a people who once held that only two professions could be followed by a gentleman–war and government. But their ancient traditions have been thoroughly revised and modified to meet modern ideas. They have advanced in prosperity and civilization more rapidly than any other of the native states. Infanticide of girl babies was formerly considered lawful and generally practiced among them, and widows were always burned alive upon the funeral pyres of their husbands, but now the Rajput princes are building hospitals and asylums for women instead, bringing women doctors from Europe to look after the wives and daughters in their harems, and are founding schools for the education of girls.

TOMB OF ETMAH-DOWLAH–AGRA

About three miles from the center of Ajmere is Mayo College, for the exclusive education of Rajput princes, and erected by them. The center building, of white marble, is surrounded by villas and cottages erected for the accommodation of the members of the princely families who are sent there. The villas are all of pure Hindu architecture, and there has been considerable rivalry among the different families to see which should house its cadets in the most elegant and convenient style. Hence, nowhere else in India can be found so many fine examples of modern native residence architecture. The young princes live in great style, each having a little court around him and a number of servants to gratify his wants. It is quite the usual arrangement for a college student to live in a palatial villa, with secretaries, aides-de-camp, equerries and bodyguards, for Indian princes are very particular in such matters, and from the hour of birth their sons are surrounded with as much ceremony as the King of Spain. They would not be permitted to attend the college if they could not continue to live in regal state. Some of them, only 10 or 12 years old, have establishments as large and grand as those of half the kings of Europe, and the Princes Imperial of England or of Germany live the life of a peasant in comparison.

XIII

THE ANCIENT MOGUL EMPIRE

The ancient Mogul Empire embraced almost as much of India as is controlled by the British today, and extended westward into Europe as far as Moscow and Constantinople. It was founded by a young warrior known as Timour the Tartar, or Tamerlane, as he is more frequently called in historical works. He was a native of Kesh, a small town fifty miles south of Samarkand, the capital of Bokhara, which was known as Tartary in those days. This young man conquered more nations, ruled over a wider territory and a larger number of people submitted to his authority than to any other man who ever lived, before or since. His expansion policy was more successful than that of Alexander the Great or Julius Cæsar or Charles V. or Napoleon, and he may properly be estimated as one of the greatest if not the very greatest and most successful soldier in all history. Yet he was not born to a throne. He was a self-made man. His father was a modest merchant, without wealth or fame. His grandfather was a scholar of repute and conspicuous as the first convert to Mohammedanism in the country in which he lived. Timour went into the army when he was a mere boy. There were great doings in those days, and he took an active part in them. From the start he seems to have been cast for a prominent role in the military dramas and tragedies being enacted upon the world's wide stage. He inherited a love of learning from his grandfather and a love of war as well as military genius from some savage ancestor. He rose rapidly. Other men acknowledged his superiority, and before he was 30 years old he found himself upon a throne and acknowledged to be the greatest soldier of his time. He came into India in 1398 and set up one of his sons on a throne at Delhi, where his descendants ruled until the great Indian mutiny of 1857–460 years. He died of fever and ague in 1405, and was buried at Samarkand, where a splendid shrine erected over his tomb is visited annually by tens of thousands of pilgrims, who worship him as divine.

Babar, sixth in descent from Timour, consolidated the states of India under a central government. His memoirs make one of the most fascinating books ever written. He lived a stirring and a strenuous life, and the world bowed down before him. His death was strangely pathetic, and illustrates the faith and the superstition of men mighty in material affairs but impotent before gods of their own creation. His son and the heir to his throne, Humayon, being mortally ill of fever, was given up to die by the doctors, whereupon the affectionate father went to the nearest temple and offered what he called his own worthless soul as a substitute for his son. The gods accepted the sacrifice. The dying prince began to recover and the old man sank slowly into his grave.

The empire increased in wealth, glory and power, and among the Mogul dynasty were several of the most extraordinary men that have ever influenced the destinies of nations. Yet it seems strange that from the beginning each successive emperor should be allowed to obtain the throne by treachery, by the wholesale slaughter of his kindred and almost always by those most shameful of sins–parricide and ingratitude to the authors of their being. Rebellious children have always been the curse of oriental countries, and when we read the histories of the Mogul dynasty and the Ottoman Empire and of the tragedies that have occurred under the shadows of the thrones of China, India and other eastern countries, we cannot but sympathize with the feelings of King Thebaw of Burma, who immediately after his coronation ordered the assassination of every relative he had in the world and succeeded in "removing" seventy-eight causes of anxiety.

Babar, the "Lion," as they called him, was buried at Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and was succeeded by Humayon, the son for whom he gave his life. The latter, on Sunday, Dec. 14, 1517, the day that Martin Luther delivered his great speech against the pope and caused the new word "Protestant"–one who protests–to be coined, drove Sikandar, the last of the Afghan dynasty, from India. When they found the body of that strenuous person upon the battle field, the historians say, "five or six thousand of the enemy were lying dead in heaps within a small space around him;" as if he had killed them all. The wives and slaves of Sikandar were captured. Humayon behaved generously to them, considering the fashion of those times, but took the liberty to detain their luggage, which included their jewels and other negotiable assets. In one of their jewel boxes was found a diamond which Sikandar had acquired from the sultan Alaeddin, one of his ancestors, and local historians, writing of it at the time, declared that "it is so valuable that a judge of diamonds valued it at half the daily expenses of the entire world." This was the first public appearance in good society of the famous Kohinoor, which, as everybody knows, is now the chief ornament in the crown of Edward VII., King of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India. It is valued at £880,000, or $4,400,000 in our money. Queen Victoria never wore it. She had it taken from the crown and replaced by a paste substitute. This jewel thus became one of the heirlooms of the Moguls, who lived in such splendor as has never been seen since or elsewhere and could not be duplicated in modern times.

In the winter of 1555 Humayon was descending a stairway when his foot slipped and he fell headlong to the bottom. He was carried into his palace and died a few days later, being succeeded by his son, a boy of 13, who in many respects was the noblest of the Moguls, and is called in history Akbar the Great. He came to the throne in 1556, and his reign, which lasted until 1605, was almost contemporaneous with that of Queen Elizabeth. In reading his history one is impressed by the striking resemblance between him and the present Emperor of Germany. Beiram, who had been his father's prime minister, and whose clear intellect, iron will and masterful ability had elevated the house of Tamerlane to the glory and power it then enjoyed, remained with the young king as his adviser, and, owing to the circumstances, did not treat him with as much deference and respect as Akbar's lofty notions considered proper. The boy endured the slights for four years, and when he reached the age of 17 there occurred at the court of the Moguls an incident which was repeated several centuries later at Berlin, but it turned out differently.

Beiram, like Bismarck, submitted to the will of his young master, surrendered all insignia of authority, and started on a pilgrimage to Mecca, but before he left India his chagrin and indignation got the better of his judgment and he inspired an insurrection against the throne. He was arrested and brought back to Delhi, where, to his surprise, he was received with the greatest ceremony and honor. According to the custom of the time, nobles of the highest rank clothed him with garments from the king's wardrobe, and when he entered the royal presence Akbar arose, took him by the hand and led the astonished old man to a seat beside the imperial throne. Beiram, realizing the magnanimity of his boyish master, fell upon his knees, kissed the feet of the king, and between sobs begged for pardon. The king conferred the greatest possible honors upon him, but gave him no responsibility, and Beiram's proud and sensitive soul found relief in resuming his pilgrimage to Mecca. But he never reached that holy place. He died on the way by the hand of an Afghan noble, whose father, years before, he had killed in battle.

You must remember Akbar, because so many of the glories of Indian architecture, which culminate at Agra and Delhi, are due to his refined taste and appreciation for the beautiful, and I shall have a good deal to say about him, because he was one of the best men that ever wore a crown. He was great in every respect; he was great as a soldier, great as a jurist, great as an executive, broad-minded, generous, benevolent, tolerant and wise, an almost perfect type of a ruler, if we are to believe what the historians of his time tell us about him. He was the handsomest man in his empire; he excelled all his subjects in athletic exercises, in endurance and in physical strength and skill. He was the best swordsman and the best horseman and his power over animals was as complete as over men. And as an architect he stands unrivaled except by his grandson, who inherited his taste.

Although a pagan and without the light of the gospel, Akbar recognized the merits of Christianity and exemplified the ideals of civil and religious liberty which it teaches, and which are now considered the highest attribute of a well-ordered state. While Queen Elizabeth was sending her Catholic subjects to the scaffold and the rack, while Philip II. was endeavoring to ransom the souls of heretics from perdition by burning their bodies alive in the public plazas of his cities, and while the awful incident of St. Bartholomew indicated the religious condition of France, the great Mogul of Delhi called around his throne ministers of peace from all religions, proclaimed tolerance of thought and speech, freedom of worship and theological controversy throughout his dominions; he abolished certain Hindu practices, such as trials by ordeal, child marriage, the burning of widows and other customs which have since been revived, because he considered them contrary to justice, good morals and the welfare of his people, and displayed a cosmopolitan spirit by marrying wives from the Brahmin, Buddhist, Mohammedan and Christian faiths. He invited the Roman Catholic missionaries, who were enjoying great success at Goa, the Portuguese colony 200 miles south from Bombay, to come to Agra and expound their doctrines, and gave them land and money to build a church. His grandson and successor married a Catholic queen–a Portuguese princess.

But notwithstanding the just, generous and noble life of Akbar, he was overthrown by his own son, Selim, who took the high-sounding title Jehanghir, "Conqueror of the World," and he had been reigning but a short time when his own son, Kushru, endeavored to treat him in the same manner. The revolt was promptly quelled. Seven hundred of the supporters of the young prince were impaled in a row, and that reckless youth was conducted slowly along the line so that he could hear the dying reproaches of the victims of his misguided ambition. Other of his sons also organized rebellions afterward and "the conqueror of the world" had considerable difficulty in retaining his seat upon the throne, but he proved to be a very good king. He was just and tolerant, sober and dignified and scrupulous in observing the requirements of his position, and was entirely subject to the influence of a beautiful and brilliant wife.

His successor was Shah Jehan, one of the most interesting and romantic figures in Indian history, who began his reign by murdering his brothers. That precaution firmly established him upon the throne. He, too, was considered a good king, but his fame rests chiefly upon the splendor of his court and the magnificent structures he erected. He rebuilt the ancient City of Delhi upon a new site, adorned it with public buildings of unparalleled cost and beauty, and received his subjects seated upon the celebrated peacock throne, a massive bench of solid gold covered with mosaic figures of diamonds, rubies, pearls and other precious stones. It cost £6,500,000, which is $32,500,000 of our money, even in those times, when jewels were cheap compared with the prices of today. In 1729 Nadir Shah, the King of Persia, swooped down upon India and carried this wonder of the world to his own capital, together with about $200,000,000 in other portable property.

There are many good traits in the character of Shah Jehan. Aside from his extravagance, his administration was to be highly commended. Under his rule India reached the summit of its wealth and prosperity, and the people enjoyed liberty and peace, but retribution came at last, and his sons did unto him as he had done unto his father, and much more also. They could not wait until he was ready to relinquish power or until death took the scepter from his hand, but four of them rebelled against him, drove him from the throne and kept him a prisoner for the last eight years of his life. But scarcely had they overthrown him when they began to quarrel among themselves, and Aurangzeb, the fourth son, being the strongest among them, simplified the situation by slaughtering his three brothers, and was thus able to reign unmolested for more than half a century, until he died in 1707, 89 years old. His last days were embittered by a not unnatural fear that he would suffer the fate of his own father.

From the time that the Emperor Aurangzeb climbed to the throne of the Moguls upon the dead bodies of his father and three elder brothers, the glory and power of that empire began to decay. He reigned forty-nine years. His court was magnificent. At the beginning his administration was wise and just, and he was without question an able, brave and cultured king. But, whether as an atonement for his crimes or for some other reason, he became a religious fanatic, and after a few years the broad-minded policy of religious liberty and toleration, which was the chief feature of the reign of his father and his grandfather, was reversed, and he endeavored to force all of his subjects into the Mohammedan faith. He imposed a heavy head tax upon all who did not profess that faith; he excluded all but Moslems from the public service; he deprived "infidels," as they were generally termed, of valuable civil rights and privileges; he desecrated the shrines and destroyed the sacred images of the Hindus, and prohibited the religious festivals and other features of their worship. The motive of this policy was no doubt conscientious, but the effect was the same as that which has followed similar sectarian zeal in other countries. The history of the world demonstrates that religious intolerance and persecution always destroy prosperity. No nation ever prospered that prohibited freedom of worship. You will find a striking demonstration of that truth in Spain, in the Balkan states and in the Ottoman Empire, in modern times without going back to the Jews and other ancient races. The career of Aurangzeb is strikingly like that of Philip II. of Spain, and his character was similar to that of Louis XIV. of France, who was his contemporary. Both were unscrupulous, arrogant, egotistical and cruel kings; both were religious devotees and endeavored to compensate for a lack of morals by excessive zeal in persecuting heretics, and in promoting what they considered the interests of their church; and both created disaffection and provoked rebellion among their subjects, and undermined the power and authority of the dynasties to which they belonged.