From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

COLOMBO. PAGES The Suez Canal--Port Said--Gulf of Suez--The Red Sea-- Colombo--Its streets and population--Picturesque glimpses--Tommy Atkins in a jinrickshaw--The Tamils and th...

Primitive habits of the Cinghalese--“Ajax” arrives from England--A peasant-cabin near Kandy--Marriage-customs-- Devil-dancing--Kalua and Kirrah--Their rice-fields and mode of li...

Cinghalese views on Politics--Kornegalle--The Elephant-rock--The general landscape in Ceylon--Tanks and irrigation--The Paddy tax--Modern Commercial policy--Poverty of the peopl...

Ascent of Adam’s Peak--A night on the summit--The unclad natives endure the cold--Advantage of sun-baths--A society for the encouragement of nudity--Moonlight view from the summ...

The courts a great centre of popular interest--A means of wreaking personal revenge--The district court--A case of burglary--The British ideal of life does not appeal to the nat...

A night in the “mail-coach”--The present village of Anurádhapura--“Pools of water and a habitation for the bittern”--The remains of the Brazen Palace--The oldest tree in the wor...

The festival of Taypusam--The temple, the crowd, and blowing up of trumpets in the full moon--Image of Siva, the raft and the sacred lake--Hymns and offerings to the god-- Fearf...

Two schools of esoteric teachers, the Himalayan and South Indian--A South-Indian teacher--Three conditions for the attainment of divine knowledge or _gñánam_--The fraternity of...

What is the nature of a Gñáni’s experience? Answer given in modern thought-terms--Slow evolution of a new form of consciousness--Many a slip and pause by the way--A consciousnes...

Physical methods adopted by some of the _yogis_-- Self-mesmerism, fasting, severe penance--The _Siddhi_ or miraculous powers--Mental methods, (1) the Concentration, and (2) the...

Difficulty of giving any concise account of Indian teaching-- Personal _rapprochement_ to the Guru, but alienation from the formalities of his doctrine--Mediæval theories of Ast...

Colombo to Tuticorin--The plains of the Carnatic--Thirty great Dravidian temples--The temple at Tanjore--Colossal monolithic bull--The pagoda, a fine piece of work-- “It casts n...

The streets of Madras--Comparison with Ceylon--Impositions of drivers, boatmen, hotel managers, etc.--A straggling dull city--A centre however of Hindu political and literary li...

The plains of the Ganges--The crops, and the peasant life-- Sentiment of the great expanse--Sacredness of the river-- Far-back worship of Siva--Benares a centre of Hindu life--...

Allahabad--Difficulty of really knowing India--The great gulf of race-difference--The Hindu does not understand “Duty”--The duty-loving Englishman does not understand the Hindu-...

Approach to Delhi--The Fort and the old Palace--The town and population--The Jumma Mosque--The environs of Delhi, a waste of ruined cities--The Kutab Minar and the old fortress...

The native Bombay a wonderful spectacle--Workshops, saleshops, opium dens, theatres, temples, mosques--The population, Mahrattas and Parsees--The modern city and the manufacturi...

Remarkable social movement in India--Complexity and corruption of Caste system--The Brahmans--Defence of caste from native point of view--Specimens of caste regulation--Caste ty...

Great spread of Western education--Euclid and Political Economy at Tuticorin--Schools and Colleges throughout India--Cricket and golf--Young India--“We are all Agnostics now”--S...

Imagine a blue-green ribbon of water some 60 yards wide, then rough sandy dunes 10 or 20 feet high, and then beyond, the desert, burning yellow in the sun--here and there partly...

Ernst Haeckel in his book about Ceylon says that the Cinghalese, though a long civilised race, are as primitive as savages in their dress, cabins, etc.; and this remark strikes...

On my way here, on the coach, I fell in with Monerasingha, a Cinghalese of some education and ability, a proctor or solicitor. He is a cheerful little man, an immense talker, an...

_January 1st, 1891._--Sitting by an impromptu wood-fire in a little hut on the summit of Adam’s Peak--nearly midnight--a half-naked Caliban out of the woods squatting beside me,...

_Kurunégala._--I have come to the conclusion that the courts and judicial proceedings out here are a kind of entertainment provided for the oysters at the expense of the British...

The remains of this ancient city lie near the centre of the great plain which occupies the north end of the island of Ceylon. To reach them, even from Dambulla, the nearest outp...

The festival of Taypusam is one of the more important among the many religious festivals of the Hindus, and is celebrated with great rejoicings on the night of the first full mo...

During my stay in Ceylon I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of one of the esoteric teachers of the ancient religious mysteries. These Gurus or Adepts are to be foun...

The question is, What is this experience? or rather--since an experience can really only be known to the person who experiences it--we may ask, “What is the nature of this exper...

The subject of the methods used by the yogis for the attainment of another order of consciousness has its physical, its mental, and its moral sides--and doubtless other sides as...

I have dwelt so far on the nature of certain experiences (which I have not however attempted to describe) and on the methods by which, specially in India, they are sought to be...

Leaving Colombo by steamer one evening in the later part of January, I landed on the sandy flat shores of Tuticorin the next day about noon. The deck was crowded with 250 of the...

1777 fortified the temple itself), and present treatment by the British Government, this Tanjore temple is not so much frequented as it used to be. The late Rajah of Tanjore, pr...

The streets of Madras (Blacktown) are a blaze of color--predominant white, but red, orange, brilliant green and even blue cloths and turbans meet the eye in every direction. Bla...

The great plains of the Ganges are very impressive; so vast--with a stretch, roughly speaking, of a thousand miles, and breadth from 200 to 300 miles--so populous,[5] yet with s...

_Allahabad._--It certainly is a very difficult thing to see the real India, the real life of the people. You arrive at a railway station, give the name of a hotel, and are drive...

The train rushes over an iron girder bridge, crossing the Jumna, into Delhi. There are sandy flats and bits of garden by the river-side, and then the great red-sandstone walls o...

The native city of Bombay is really an incredible sight. I walked through some part of it I suppose every day for a week or more, trying to photograph its shows upon my brain, y...

There is certainly a most remarkable movement taking place in India to-day, towards modern commercialism and Western education and ideas, and away from the old caste and communa...

The first objects that I saw in India--indeed I saw them while still well out at sea--were a lighthouse and a factory chimney! This was at Tuticorin, a little place in the extre...