Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

315

Since the author's time certain industries, the most important being cotton-pressing, cotton-spinning, and jute-spinning, have sprung up and assumed in Bombay, Calcutta, Cawnpore, and a few other places, proportions which, absolutely, are large. But India is so vast that these local developments of manufactures, large though they are, seem to be as nothing when regarded in comparison with the country as a whole. India is still, and, to all appearance, always must be, essentially an agricultural country.

316

The author's teaching concerning freedom of trade in times of famine and the function of dealers in corn is as sound as his doctrine of famine relief. The 'vulgar prejudice', which he denounces, still flourishes, and the 'sad delusion', which he deplores, still obscures the truth. As each period of scarcity or famine comes round, the old cries are again heard, and the executive authorities are implored and adjured to forbid export, to fix fair prices, and to clip the profits of the corn merchant. During the Bengal famine of 1873-4, the demand for the prohibition of the export of rice was urged by men who should have known better, and Lord Northbrook is entitled to no small credit for having firmly withstood the clamour. The more recent experiences of the Russian Government should be remembered when the clamour is again raised, as it will be. The principles on which the author acted in the crisis at Sāgar in 1833 should guide every magistrate who finds himself in a similar position, and should be applied with unhesitating firmness and decision.

317

Ante, Chapter 24, following note [4].

318

Sāgar was ceded by the Peshwa in 1818, and a yearly sum of two and a half lakhs of rupees was allotted by Government for pensions to Rukmā Bāī, Vināyak Rāo, and the other officers of the Marāthā Government. A descendant of Rukmā Bāī continued for many years to enjoy a pension of R.10,000 per annum (C.P. Gazetteer (1870), p, 442). The lady referred to in the text seems to be Rukmā Bāī.

319

A village about twenty miles north-west of Sāgar. The estate consists of twenty-six revenue-free villages.

320

The Jewish ceremonial is described in Leviticus xvi. 20-26. After completing the atonement for the impurities of the holy place, the tabernacle, and the altar, Aaron was directed to lay 'his hands upon the head of the live goat', so putting all the sins of the people upon the animal, and then to 'send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness; and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness'. The subject of scape-goats is discussed at length and copiously illustrated by Mr. Frazer in The Golden Bough, 1st ed., vol. ii, section 15, pp. 182-217; 3rd ed. (1913) Part VI. The author's stories in the text are quoted by Mr. Frazer.

321

During the season of 1816-17 the ravages of the Pindhārīs were exceptionally daring and extensive. The Governor-General, the Marquis of Hastings, organized an army in several divisions to crush the marauders, and himself joined the central division in October 1817. The operations were ended by the capture of Asīrgarh in March 1819.

322

The people in the Sāgar territories used to show several decayed mango-trees in groves where European troops had encamped during the campaigns of 1816 and 1817, and declared that they had been seen to wither from the day that beef for the use of these troops had been tied to their branches. The only coincidence was in the decay of the trees, and the encamping of the troops in the groves; that the withering trees were those to which the beef had been tied was of course taken for granted. [W. H. S.] The Hindoo veneration for the cow amounts to a passion, and its intensity is very inadequately explained by the current utilitarian explanations. The best analysis of the motives underlying the passionate Hindoo feeling on the subject is to be found in Mr. William Crooke's article 'The Veneration of the Cow in India' (Folklore, Sept. 1912, pp. 275-306). In modern times an active, though absolutely hopeless, agitation has been kept up, directed against the reasonable liberty of those communities in India who are not members of the Hindoo system. This agitation for the prohibition of cow-killing has caused some riots, and has evoked much ill-feeling. The editor had to deal with it in the Muzaffarnagar district in 1890, and had much trouble to keep the peace. The local leaders of the movement went so far as to send telegrams direct to the Government of India. Many other magistrates have had similar experiences. The authorities take every precaution to protect Hindoo susceptibilities from needless wounds, but they are equally bound to defend the lawful liberty of subjects who are not Hindoos. The Government of the United Provinces on one occasion yielded to the Hindoo demands so far as to prohibit cow- killing in at least one town where the practice was not fully established, but the legality and expediency of such an order are both open to criticism. The administrative difficulty is much enhanced by the fact that the Indian Muhammadans profess to be under a religious obligation to sacrifice cows at the Īdul Bakr festival. Cholera has been known to exist in India at least since the seventeenth century (Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India, 3rd ed. (1885), s.v.).

323

The cultus of Hardaul is further discussed post in Chapter 31. In 1875, the editor, who was then employed in the Hamīrpur district of Bundēlkhand, published some popular Hindi songs in praise of the hero, with the following abstract of the Legend of Hardaul: 'Hardaul, a son of the famous Bīr Singh Deo Bundēla of Orchhā, was born at Datiyā. His brother, Jhajhār Singh, suspected him of undue intimacy with his wife, and at a feast poisoned him with all his followers. After this tragedy, it happened that the daughter of Kunjāvatī, the sister of Jhajhār and Hardaul, was about to be married. Kunjāvatī accordingly sent an invitation to Jhajhār Singh, requesting him to attend the wedding. He refused, and mockingly replied that she had better invite her favourite brother Hardaul. Thereupon she went in despair to his tomb and lamented aloud. Hardaul from below answered her cries, and said that he would come to the wedding and make all arrangements. The ghost kept his promise, and arranged the nuptials as befitted the honour of his house. Subsequently, he visited at night the bedside of Akbar, and besought the emperor to command chabūtras to be erected and honour paid to him in every village throughout the empire, promising that, if he were duly honoured, a wedding should never be marred by storm or rain, and that no one who first presented a share of his meal to Hardaul should ever want for food. Akbar complied with these requests, and since that time Hardaul's ghost has been worshipped in every village. He is chiefly honoured at weddings and in Baisākh (April-May), during which month the women, especially those of the lower castes, visit his chabūtra and eat there. His chabūtra is always built outside the village. On the day but one before the arrival of a wedding procession, the women of the family worship the gods and Hardaul, and invite them to the wedding. If any signs of a storm appears, Hardaul is propitiated with songs '(J.A.S.B., vol. xliv (1875), Part I, p. 389). The belief that Hardaul worship and cholera had been introduced at the same time prevailed in Hamīrpur, as elsewhere. The chabūtra referred to in the above extract is a small platform built of mud or masonry.

324

The Hyphasis is the Greek name for the river Biās in the Panjāb. Holkar's flight into the Panjāb occurred in 1805, and in the same year the long war with him was terminated by a treaty, much too favourable to the marauding chief. He became insane a few years later, and died in 1811.

325

See note 2,ante.

326

Narsinghpur and Kandelī are practically one town. The Government offices and houses of the European residents are in Kandelī, which is a mile east of Narsinghpur. The original name of Narsinghpur was Gadariā Khērā. The modern name is due to the erection of a large temple to Narsingha, one of the forms of Vishnu. The district of Narsinghpur lies in the Nerbudda valley, west and south-west of Jubbulpore.

327

All classes of Indians still frequently refuse to employ any medicines in cases of either cholera or small-pox, supposing that the attempt to use ordinary human means is an insult to, and a defiance of, the Deity.

328

Vaccination was not practised in India in those days. The practice of it, although still unpopular in most places, has extended sufficiently to check greatly the ravages of small-pox. In many municipal towns vaccination is compulsory.

329

Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

330

The judge cleverly combines the opinions of the adherents of both sects.

331

December, 1835.

332

In the Orchhā State. This seems to be the same town which the author had already visited on his way to Tehrī on the 7th December. Ante, Chapter 19 note [15].

333

Ante, Chapter 12 following note [9].

334

Sodora in the author's text; see ante, Chapter 19, note 11.

335

'Bow-sacrifice.'

336

The tradition is that a prince of this military class was sporting in a river with his thousand wives, when Renukā, the wife of Jamadagni, went to bring water. He offended her, and her husband cursed the prince, but was put to death by him. His son Parasrām was no less a person than the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, who had assumed the human shape merely to destroy these tyrants. He vowed, now that his mother had been insulted, and his father killed, not to leave one on the face of the earth. He destroyed them all twenty-one times, the women with child producing a new race each time. [W. H. S.] The legend is not narrated quite correctly.

337

Rāma Chandra, son of Dasaratha.

338

When Rām set out with his army for Ceylon, he is supposed to have worshipped the little tree called 'cheonkul', which stood near his capital of Ajodhya. It is a wretched little thing, between a shrub and a tree; but I have seen a procession of more than seventy thousand persons attend their prince to the worship of it on the festival of the Dasahara, which is held in celebration of this expedition to Ceylon. [W. H. S.] 'As Arjuna and his brothers worshipped the shumee-tree, the Acacia suma, and hung up their arms upon it, so the Hindus go forth to worship that tree on the festival of the Dasahara. They address the tree under the name of Aparajita, the invincible goddess, sprinkle it with five ambrosial liquids, the 'panchamrit', a mixture of milk, curds, sugar, clarified butter, and honey, wash it with water, and hang garments upon it. They light lamps and burn incense before the symbol of Aparajita, make 'chandlos' upon the tree, sprinkle it with rose-coloured water, and set offerings of food before it' (Balfour, Cyclopaedia, 3rd ed., s.v. 'Dasahara'). The 'cheonkul' is the chhonkar or chhaunkar (Prosopis spicigera, Linn.), described by Growse as follows:—

'Very common throughout the district; occasionally grows to quite a large tree, as in the Dohani Kund at Chaksauli. It is used for religious worship at the festival of the Dasahara, and considered sacred to Siva. The pods (called sangri) are much used for fodder. Probably chhonkar and sangri, which latter is in some parts of India the name of the tree as well as of the pod, are both dialectical corruptions of the Sanskrit sankara, a name of Siva; for the palatal and sibilant are frequently interchangeable' ('List of Indigenous Trees' in Mathurā, A. District Memoir, 3rd ed., Allahabad, 1883, p. 422). Sundry leguminous trees are used in Dasahara ceremonies in the different parts of India, under varying local names.

339

Credo quia impossibile.

340

This comparison is not a happy one. The elements in some of the Hindoo myths specially repulsive to European taste are their monstrosity, their inartistic and hideous exaggeration, their accumulation of sanguinary horrors, and their childish triviality. Few of the classical myths exhibit these characteristics. The vanity or policy of Tiberius and Alexander in believing themselves to be, or wishing to be believed, divine, has nothing in common with the grotesque imagination of Puranic Hinduism.

341

The roots of Hinduism are so deeply fixed in a thick soil of custom and inherited sentiment, the growth of thousands of years, that English education has less effect than might be expected in loosening the bonds of beliefs which seem to every one but a Hindoo the merest superstition. Hindoos who can read English with fluency, and write it with accuracy, are often extremely devout, and Hindoo devoutness must ever appear to an outsider, even to a European as sympathetic as the author, to be no better than superstition. A Hindoo able to read English with ease has at his command all the rich stores of the knowledge of the West, but very often does not care to taste them. Enmeshed in a web of ritual and belief inseparable from himself, he remains as much as ever a Hindoo, and uses his skill in English merely as an article of professional equipment. 'Good works of history and fiction' do not interest him, and he usually fails to digest and assimilate the physical or biological science administered to him at school or college. In fact, he does not believe it. The monstrous legends of the Purānas continue to be for his mind the realities; while the truths of science are to him phantoms, shadowy and unsubstantial, the outlandish notions of alien and casteless unbelievers. These observations, of course, are not universally true, and a few Hindoos, growing in number, are able to heartily accept and thoroughly assimilate the facts of history and the results of inductive science. But such Hindoos are few, and it may well be doubted if it is possible for a man really to believe the amount of history and science known to an ordinary English schoolboy, and still be a devout Hindoo. The old bottles cannot contain the new wine. The Hindoo scriptures do not treat of history and science in a merely incidental way; they teach, after their fashion, both history and science formally and systematically; grammar, logic, medicine, astronomy, the history of gods and men, are all taught in books which form part of the sacred canon. Inductive science and matter-of-fact history are absolutely destructive of, and irreconcilable with, veneration for the Hindoo scriptures as authoritative and infallible guides. It is impossible, within the narrow limits of a note, to discuss the problems suggested by the author's remarks. Enough, perhaps, has been said to show that the many-rooted banyan tree of Hinduism is in little danger of overthrow from the attacks either of history or of science, not to speak of 'good works of fiction'.

342

A 'dug-out' canoe is rather a shaky craft. When two or three are lashed together, and a native cot (chārpāi) is stretched across, the passenger can make himself very comfortable. The boats are poled by men standing in the stern.

343

Ante, Chapter 24, note 1.

344

This prince is not included in the authentic dynastic lists given in the Chandēl inscriptions. He was probably a younger son, who never reigned. The principal authorities for the history of the Chandēl dynasty are A.S.R., vol. ii, pp. 439-51; vol. xxi, pp. 77-90, and V. A. Smith, 'Contributions to the History of Bundēlkhand', in J.A.S.B. vol. 1 (1881), Part I, p. 1; and 'The History and Coinage of the Chandēl (Chandella) Dynasty' in Ind. Ant., 1908, pp. 114-48. A brief summary will be found in Early History of India, 3rd ed. (1914), pp. 390-4. Most of the great works of the dynasty date from the period A.D. 950- 1200.

345

The long ridges of quartz traversing the gneiss are marked features in the scenery of Bundēlkhand.

346

The author always uses the phrase Central India as a vague geographical expression. The phrase is now generally used to mean an administrative division, namely, the group of Native States under the Central India Agency at Indore, which deals with about 148 chiefs and rulers of various rank. Central India in this official sense must not be confounded with the Central Provinces, of which the capital is Nāgpur.

347

On this lake theory, see ante, Chapter 14, note 13.

348

During a residence of six years in Bundēlkhand the editor came to the conclusion that most of the ancient artificial lakes were not constructed for purposes of irrigation. The embankments seem generally to have been built as adjuncts to palaces or temples. Many of the lakes command no considerable area of irrigable ground, and there are no traces of ancient irrigation channels. In modern times small canals have been drawn from some of the lakes.

349

The desolation of the ravines of the rivers of Central India and Bundēlkhand offers a very striking spectacle, presenting to the geologist a signal example of the effects of sub-aerial denudation.

350

This pretty custom is also described, in Tod's Rājasthān; and is still common in Alwar, and perhaps in other parts of Rājputāna (N.I. Notes and Queries, vol. ii (Dec. 1892), p. 152), It does not seem to be now known in the Gangetic valley.

351

Principalities, and the estates of the talukdārs of Oudh also descend to the eldest son. The author states (ante, Chapter 10, see text before note [10].) that the same rule applied in his time to the small agricultural holdings in the Sāgar and Nerbudda territories.

352

This statement is inexact; Hindoo daughters, as a rule, inherit nothing from their fathers; a Muhammadan daughter takes half the share of a son.

353

But it is only the smaller local ministerial officers who are secure in their tenure of office under native Governments; those on whose efficiency the well-being of village communities depends. The greatest evil of Governments of the kind is the feeling of insecurity which pervades all the higher officers of Government, and the instability of all engagements made by the Government with them, and by them with the people. [W. H. S.]

354

Ante, Chapter 23, text at note [8].

355

In the Gwālior territory, the Marāthā 'āmils' or governors of districts, do the same, and keep gangs of robbers on purpose to plunder their neighbours; and, if you ask them for their thieves, they will actually tell you that to part with them would be ruin, as they are their only defence against the thieves of their neighbours. [W. H. S.] These notions and habits are by no means extinct. In October, 1892, a force of about two hundred men, cavalry and infantry, was sent into Bundēlkhand to suppress robber gangs. Such gangs are constantly breaking out in that region, in most native states, and in many British districts. See ante, chapter 23, text following note [13].

356

My poor guide had as little sympathy with the prime ministers, whom the Tehrī Rājā put to death, as the peasantry of England had with the great men and women whom Harry the Eighth sacrificed. [W. H. S.] Ante, Chapter 23, beginning to note [9].

357

The cruel practice of impressment for the royal navy is authorized by a series of statutes extending from the reign of Philip and Mary to that of George III. Seamen of the merchant navy, and, with few exceptions, all seafaring men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, are liable, under the provisions of these harsh statutes, to be forcibly seized by the press-gang, and compelled to serve on board a man-of-war. The acts legalizing impressment were freely made use of during the Napoleonic wars, but since then have been little acted on, and no Government at the present day could venture to use them, though they have never been repealed. The fleet sent against the Russians in 1855 was the first English fleet ever manned without recourse to forcible impressment: see the article 'Impressment' by David Hannay, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1910. The work by J. B. Hutchinson entitled The Press- gang Afloat and Ashore (London: Nash, 1913) gives copious details of the infamous proceedings.

358

The Brahman chief of Jhānsī was originally a governor under the Peshwā. The treaty of November 18, 1817, recognized the then chief Rāmchand Rāo, his heirs and successors, as hereditary rulers of Jhānsī. Rāmchand Rāo was granted the title of Rājā by the British Government in 1832, and died without issue on August 20, 1835 (N.W.P. Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 296). See post, Chapter 29.

359

The chiefs of Jālaun also were officers under the Marātha Government of the Peshwā up to 1817. In consequence of gross misgovernment, an English superintendent was appointed in 1838, and the state lapsed to the British Government, owing to failure of heirs, in 1840 (ibid. p. 229).

360

Ante Chapter 23, note 13.

361

Lapse of years has increased the distance and the enchantment, so that modern agitators and sentimentalists discover marvellous excellences in the native Governments of the now remote past. The methods of government in the existing native states have been so profoundly modified by the influence of the Imperial Government that these states are no longer as instructive in the way of contrast as they were in the author's day.

362

The author consistently held the views above enunciated, and defended the policy of maintaining the native states. He was of opinion that the system of annexation favoured by Lord Dalhousie and his Council 'had a downward tendency, and tended to crush all the higher and middle classes connected with the land'. He considered that the Government of India should have undertaken the management of Oudh, but that it had no right to annex the province, and appropriate its revenues (Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, p. 22, &c.). Since 1858 the policy of annexation has been repudiated. See Sir W. Lee-Warner, The Protected Princes of India (Macmillan, 1894), and The Native States of India (1910).

363

A.D. 1249 to A.D. 1371.

364

The Hindi spoken in different parts of Bundēlkhand comprises several distinct dialects: see Kellogg, A Grammar of the Hindī Language, 2nd ed., 1893; and Grierson, Linguistic Survey, vol. vi (1904), pp. 18-23, where the dialects of Eastern Bundēlkhand are discussed. Bundēlī, the speech of Bundēlkhand proper, will be treated as a dialect of Western Hindi in a volume of the Survey not yet published. Sir G. Grierson has favoured me with perusal of the proofs, and has used materials collected by me in the Hamīrpur District nearly forty years ago. Bundēlī has a considerable literature.

365