Chapter 32

From the Sparrow Hills at Moscow one who has sufficient patience can count 555 gilded and painted domes; from the cupola of St. Peter's one may look down upon the roofs of palaces, cathedrals, columns, obelisks, arches and ruins such as can be seen in no other place; around the fire tower at Pera are spread the marvelous glories of Stamboul, the Golden Horn and other parts of Constantinople; from the citadel at Cairo you can have a bird's-eye view of one of the most typical cities of the East; from the Eiffel Tower all Paris and its suburbs may be surveyed, and there are many other striking panoramas of artificial scenery, but nothing on God's footstool resembles the picture of the holy Hindu city that may be seen from the deck of a boat on the Ganges. It has often been described in detail, but it is always new and always different, and it fascinates its witnesses. There is a repulsiveness about it which few people can overcome, but it is unique, and second only to the Taj Mahal of all the sights in India.

A bathing ghat is a pavilion, pier or platform of stone covered with awnings and roofs to protect the pilgrims from the sun. It reaches into the river, where the water is about two feet deep, and stone steps lead down to the bottom of the stream. Stretching out from these ghats, in order to accommodate a larger number of people, are wooden platforms, piers of slender bamboo, floats and all kinds of contrivances, secure and insecure, temporary and permanent, which every morning are thronged with pilgrims from every part of India in every variety of costumes, crowding in and out of the water, carrying down the sick and dying, all to seek salvation for the soul, relief for the mind and healing for the body which the Holy Mother Ganges is supposed to give.

The processions of pilgrims seem endless and are attended by many pitiful sights. Aged women, crippled men, lean and haggard invalids with just strength enough to reach the water's edge; poor, shivering, starving wretches who have spent their last farthing to reach this place, exhausted with fatigue, perishing from hunger or disease, struggle to reach the water before their breath shall fail. Here and there in the crowd appear all forms of affliction--hideous lepers and other victims of cancerous and ulcerous diseases, with the noses, lips, fingers and feet eaten away; paralytics in all stages of the disease, people whose limbs are twisted with rheumatism, men and women covered with all kinds of sores, fanatical ascetics with their hair matted with mud and their bodies smeared with ashes, ragged tramps, blind and deformed beggars, women leading children or carrying infants in their arms, handsome rajahs, important officials attended by their servants and chaplains, richly dressed women with their faces closely veiled, dignified and thoughtful Brahmins followed by their disciples, farmers, laborers bearing the signs of toil, and other classes of human society in every stage of poverty or prosperity. They crowd past each other up and down the banks, bathing in the water, drying themselves upon the piers or floats, filling bottles and brass jars from the sacred stream, kneeling to pray, listening to the preachers and absorbed with the single thought upon which their faith is based.

Such exhibitions of faith can be witnessed nowhere else. It is a daily repetition of the scene described in the New Testament when the afflicted thronged the healing pool.

After dipping themselves in the water again and again, combing their hair and drying it, removing their drenched robes--all in the open air--and putting on holiday garments, the pilgrims crowd around the priests who sit at the different shrines, and secure from them certificates showing that they have performed their duty to the gods. The Brahmins give each a text or a name of a god to remember and repeat daily during the rest of his or her life, and they pass on to the notaries who seal and stamp the bottles of sacred water, sell idols, amulets, maps of heaven, charts showing the true way of salvation, certificates of purification, remedies for various diseases, and charms to protect cattle and to make crops grow. Then they pass on to other Brahmins, who paint the sign of their god upon their forehead, the frontal mark which every pilgrim wears. Afterward they visit one temple after another until they complete the pilgrimage at the Golden Temple of Siva, where they make offerings of money, scatter barley upon the ground and drop handfuls of rice and grain into big stone receptacles from which the beggars who hang around the temples receive a daily allowance. Finally they go to the priests of the witness-bearing god, Ganasha, where the pilgrimage is attested and recorded. Then they buy a few more idols, images of their favorite gods, and return to their homes with a tale that will be told around the fireside in some remote village during the rest of their lives.

But the most weird and impressive spectacle at Benares, and one which will never be forgotten, is the burning of the bodies of the dead. At intervals, between the temples along the river bank, are level places belonging to the several castes and leased to associations or individuals who have huge piles of wood in the background and attend to the business in a heartless, mercenary way. The cost of burning a body depends upon the amount and kind of fuel used. The lowest possible rate is three rupees or about one dollar in our money. When the family cannot afford that they simply throw the body into the sacred stream and let it float down until the fish devour it. When a person dies the manager of the burning ghat is notified. He sends to the house his assistants or employes, who bring the body down to the river bank, sometimes attended by members of the family, sometimes without witnesses. It is not inclosed in a coffin, but lies upon a bamboo litter, and under ordinary circumstances is covered with a sheet, but when the family is rich it is wrapped in the richest of silks and embroideries, and the coverlet is an expensive Cashmere shawl.

Arriving at the river an oblong pile of wood is built up and the body is placed upon it. If the family is poor the pile is low, short and narrow, and the limbs of the corpse have to be bent so that they will not extend over the edges, as they often do. When the body arrives it is taken down into the water and laid in a shallow place, where it can soak until the pyre is prepared. Usually the undertakers or friends remove the coverings from the face and splash it liberally from the sacred stream. When the pyre is ready they lift the body from the litter, adjust it carefully, pile on wood until it is entirely concealed, then thrust a few kindlings underneath and start the blaze. When the cremation is complete the charred sticks are picked up by the beggars and other poor people who are always hanging around and claim this waste as their perquisite. The ashes are then gathered up and thrown upon the stream and the current of the Ganges carries them away.

Certain contractors have the right to search the ground upon which the burning has taken place and the shallow river bed for valuables that escaped the flames. It is customary to adorn the dead with the favorite ornaments they wore when alive, and while the gold will melt and diamonds may turn to carbon, jewels often escape combustion, and these contractors are believed to do a good business.

All this burning takes place in public in the open air, and sometimes fifty, sixty or a hundred fires are blazing at the same moment. You can sit upon the deck of your boat with your kodak in your hand, take it all in and preserve the grewsome scene for future reminiscencing.

While the faith of many make them whole, while remarkable cures are occurring at Benares daily, while the sick and the afflicted have assured relief from every ill and trouble, mental, moral and physical, if they can only reach the water's edge, nevertheless scattered about among the temples, squatting behind pieces of bamboo matting or lacquered trays upon which rows of bottles stand, are native doctors who sell all sorts of nostrums and cure-alls that can possibly be needed by the human family, and each dose is accompanied by a guarantee that it will surely cure. These fellows are ignorant impostors and the municipal authorities are careful to see that their drugs are harmless, while they make no attempt to prevent them from swindling the people. It seems to be a profitable trade, notwithstanding the popular faith in the miraculous powers of the river.

Another class of prosperous humbugs is the fortune-tellers, who are found around every temple and in every public place, ready to forecast the fate of every enterprise that may be disclosed to them; ready to predict good fortune and evil fortune, and sometimes they display remarkable penetration and predict events with startling accuracy.

Benares is as sacred to the Buddhists as it is to the Brahmins, for it was here that Gautama, afterward called Buddha (a title which means "The Enlightened"), lived in the sixth century before Christ, and from here he sent out his missionaries to convert the world. Gautama was a prince of the Sakya tribe, and of the Rajput caste. He was born 620 B. C. and lived in great wealth and luxury. Driving in his pleasure grounds one day he met a man crippled with age; then a second man smitten with an incurable disease; then a corpse, and finally a fakir or ascetic, walking in a calm, dignified, serene manner. These spectacles set him thinking, and after long reflection he decided to surrender his wealth, to relinquish his happiness, and devote himself to the reformation of his people. He left his home, his wife, a child that had just been born to him, cut off his long hair, shaved his head, clothed himself with rags, and taking nothing with him but a brass bowl from which he could eat his food, and a cup from which he could drink, he became a pilgrim, an inquirer after Truth and Light. Having discovered that he could drink from the hollow of his hand, he gave away his cup and kept nothing but his bowl. That is the reason why every pilgrim and every fakir, every monk and priest in India carries a brass bowl, for although Buddhism is practically extinct in that country, the teachings and the example of Gautama had a perpetual influence over the Hindus.

After what is called the Great Renunciation, Gautama spent six years mortifying the body and gradually reduced his food to one grain of rice a day. But this brought him neither light nor peace of mind. He thereupon abandoned further penance and devoted six years to meditation, sitting under the now famous bo-tree, near the modern town of Gaya. In the year 588 B. C. he obtained Complete Enlightenment, and devoted the rest of his life to the instruction of his disciples. He taught that all suffering is caused by indulging the desires; that the only hope of relief lies in the suppression of desire, and impressed his principles upon more millions of believers than those of any other religion. It is the boast of the Buddhists that no life was ever sacrificed; that no blood was ever shed; that no suffering was ever caused by the propagation of that faith and the conversion of the world.

After he became "enlightened," Gautama assumed the name of Buddha and went to Benares, where he taught and preached, and had a monastery at the town called Sarnath, now extinct, in the suburbs. There, surrounded by heaps of ruins and rubbish, stand two great topes or towers, the larger of which marks the spot where Buddha preached his first sermon. It is supposed to have been built in the sixth century of the Chinese era, for Hiouen Thsang, a Chinese traveler who visited Sarnath in the seventh century, describes the tower and monastery which was situated near it. It is one of the most interesting as it is one of the most ancient monuments in India, but we do not quite understand the purpose for which it was erected. It is 110 feet high, 93 feet in diameter, and built of solid masonry with the exception of a small chamber in the center and a narrow shaft or chimney running up to the top. The lower half is composed of immense blocks of stone clamped together with iron, and at intervals the monument was encircled by bands of sculptured relief fifteen feet wide. The upper part was of brick, which is now in an advanced state of decay and covered with a heavy crop of grass and bushes. A large tree grows from the top.

There used to be an enormous monastery in the neighborhood, of which the ruins remain. The cells and chapels were arranged around a square court similar to the cloisters of modern monasteries. A half mile distant is another tower and the ruins of other monasteries, and every inch of earth in that part of the city is associated with the life and labor of the great apostle of peace and love, whose theology of sweetness and light and gentleness was in startling contrast with the atrocious doctrines taught by the Brahmins and the hideous rites practiced at the shrines of the Hindu gods. But these towers are not the oldest relics of Buddha. At Gaya, where he received the "enlightenment," the actual birthplace of Buddhism, is a temple built in the year 500 A. D., and it stands upon the site of one that was 700 or 800 years older.

Benares is distinctly the city of Siva, but several thousand other gods are worshiped there, including his several wives. Uma is his first wife, and she is the exact counterpart of her husband; Sati is his most devoted wife; Karali is his most horrible wife; Devi, another of his wives, is the goddess of death; Kali is the goddess of misfortune, and there are half a dozen other ladies of his household whose business seems to be to terrorize and distress their worshipers. But that is the ruling feature of the Hindu religion. There is no sweetness or light in its theology--it exists to make people unhappy and wretched, and to bring misery, suffering and crime into the world.

The Hindus fear their gods, but do not love them, with perhaps the exception of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu trinity, while Brahma is the third. These three are the supreme deities in the pantheon, but Brahma is more of an abstract proposition than an actual god. For purposes of worship the Hindus may be divided into two classes--the followers of Siva and the followers of Vishnu. They can be distinguished by the "god marks" or painted signs upon their foreheads. Those who wear red are the adherents of Siva, and the followers of Vishnu wear white. Subordinate to these two great divinities are millions of other gods, and it would take a volume to describe their various functions and attributes.

Vishnu is a much more agreeable god than Siva, the destroyer; he has some human feeling, and his various incarnations are friendly heroes, who do kind acts and treat their worshipers tolerably well.

The "Well of Healing," one of the holiest places in Benares, is dedicated to Vishnu. He dug it himself, making a cavity in the rock. Then, in the absence of water, he filled it with perspiration from his own body. This remarkable assertion seems to be confirmed by the foul odor that arises from the water, which is three feet deep and about the consistency of soup. It looks and smells as if it might have been a sample brought from the Chicago River before the drainage canal was finished. It is fed by an invisible spring, and there is no overflow, because, after bathing in it to wash away their sins, the pilgrims drink several cups of the filthy liquid, which often nauseates them, and it is a miracle that any of them survive.

One of the most curious and picturesque of all the temples is that of the goddess Durga, a fine building usually called the Monkey Temple because of the number of those animals inhabiting the trees around it. They are very tame and cunning and can spot a tourist as far as they can see him. When they see a party of strangers approaching the temple they begin to chatter in the trees and then rush for the courtyard of the temple, where they expect to be fed. It is one of the perquisites of the priests to sell rice and other food for them at prices about ten times more than it is worth, but the tourist has the fun of tossing it to them and making them scramble for it. As Durga is the most terrific of all of Siva's wives, and delights in death, torture, bloodshed and every form of destruction, the Hindus are very much afraid of her and the peace offerings left at this temple are more liberal than at the others, a fact very much appreciated by the priests.

Another of the most notable gods worshiped at Benares is Ganesa, the first born of Siva and one of his horrible wives. He is the God of Prudence and Policy, has the head of an elephant, which is evidence of sagacity, and is attended by rats, an evidence of wisdom and foresight. He has eight hands, and from the number of appeals that are made to him he must keep them all busy. He is invoked by Hindus of all sects and castes before undertaking any business of importance. It is asserted that none of the million deities is so often addressed as the God of Wisdom and Prudence. If a man is undertaking any great enterprise, if he is starting in a new business, or signing a contract, or entering a partnership; if he is about to take a journey or buy a stock of goods or engage in a negotiation, he appeals to Ganesa to assist him, and leaves an offering at one of his temples as a sort of bribe. If a woman is going to make a dress, or a servant changes his employer, or if anyone begins any new thing, it is always safer to appeal in advance to Ganesa, because he is a sensitive god, and if he does not receive all the attention and worship he deserves is apt to be spiteful. Some people are so particular that they never begin a letter without saluting him in the first line.

Driving along the roads of this part of India one often sees stones piled up against the trunk of a tree and at the top a rude elephant's head, decorated with flowers or stained with oil or red paint, and there will always be a little heap of gravel before it. That elephant's head represents the god Ganesa, and each stone represents an offering by some one who has passed by, usually the poorest, who have not been able to visit the temple, and, having nothing else to offer, not even a flower, drop a stone before the rude shrine.

There are many sacred cows in Benares. You find them in temples and wandering around the streets. Some of them are horribly diseased and they are all lazy, fat and filthy. They have perfect freedom. They are allowed to wander about and do as they please. They feed from baskets of vegetables and salad that stand before the groceries and in the markets, and sometimes consume the entire stock of some poor huckster, who dare not drive them away or even rebuke them. If he should attempt to do so the gods would visit him with perpetual misfortunes. Children play around the beasts, but no one ever abuses them. Pilgrims buy food for them and stuff them with sweetmeats, and it is an act of piety and merit to hang garlands over their horns and braid ribbons in their tails. When they die they are buried with great ceremony, like the sacred bulls of Egypt.

Benares is the principal center of the idol trade, and a large part of the population are engaged in making images of the various gods in gold, silver, brass, copper, wood, stone, clay and other materials. Most of the work is done in the households. There are several small factories, but none employs more than ten or a dozen men, and the streets are lined with little shops, no bigger than an ordinary linen closet in an American house. Each opens entirely upon the street, there are no doors or windows, and when the proprietor wants to close he puts up heavy wooden shutters that fit into grooves in the threshold and the beam that sustains the roof. The shelves that hang from the three walls are covered with all kinds of images in all sizes and of all materials, and between sales the proprietor squats on the floor in the middle of his little establishment making more. The largest number are made of brass and clay. They are shaped in rude molds and afterward finished with the file and chisel. The large idols found in the temples are often works of art, but many of them and some of the most highly revered are of the rudest workmanship.

There is a funny story that has been floating about for many years that most of the idols worshiped in heathen lands are made in Christian countries and shipped over by the car load. This is certainly not true so far as India is concerned. There is no evidence upon the records of the custom-house to show that any idols are imported and it would be impossible for any manufacturer in the United States or Europe to compete with the native artisans of Benares or other cities.

XXVIII

AMERICAN MISSIONS IN INDIA

About 5,000 missionaries of various religions and cults are working among the people of India; two-thirds of them Protestants, and about 1,500 Americans, including preachers, teachers, doctors, nurses, editors and all concerned. Their names fill a large directory, and they represent all grades and shades of theology, philosophy, morality and other methods of making human beings better, and providing for the salvation of their souls. India is a fertile and favorite field for such work. The languid atmosphere of the country and the contemplative disposition of the native encourage it. The Aryan always was a good listener, and you must remember that India is a very big country--a continent, indeed, with a mixed multitude of 300,000,000 souls, some striving for the unattainable and others hopelessly submerged in bogs of vice, superstition and ignorance. There are several stages of civilization also. You can find entire tribes who still employ stone implements and weapons, and several provinces are governed by a feudal system like that of Europe in the middle ages. There are thousands who believe that marriage is forbidden by the laws of nature; there are millions of men with several wives, and many women with more than one husband. There are tribes in which women control all the power, hold all the offices, own all the property and keep the line of inheritance on their side. There are vast multitudes, on the other hand, in India who believe that women have no souls and no hereafter, and advocate the murder of girl babies as fast as they are born, saving just enough to do the cooking and mending and to keep the race alive. Communities that have reached an intellectual culture above that of any nation in Europe are surrounded by 250,000,000 human beings who cannot read or write. There are thinkers who have reasoned out the profoundest problems that have ever perplexed mankind, and framed systems of philosophy as wise as the world has ever known, and many of their wives and daughters have never been outside of the houses in which they were born; all of which indicates the size of the field of missionary labor and the variety of work to be done.