The old Brahman—The Triveni—The Achivut—The Pātal Pooree—Temples of Bhardoajmun—Radha Krishnŭ—Hindoo oath—The Tulsī—The Peepul-tree—The Letin leaves—Lamps in the air—Paintings on Ubruk—Impressions on leaves and flowers—The Mootee Musjid—The Crows a pest—Byā birds—Haymaking—The silver Tankard—An Earthquake—Transferring diseases to flowers—Perjury—Farming operations—Oats—Bhoodder Ram the Dwarf—The Camel—The Powder-works and Rocket manufactory.
1831, July 6th.—I study the customs and superstitions of the Hindoos so eagerly, that my friends laugh and say, “We expect some day to see you at pooja in the river!”
In one of the temples near the Circuit bungalow, I was surprised at seeing two small brazen figures of Krishnŭ and his love Radha, or, to speak more correctly, of Radha Krishnŭ, dressed up in silks and satins. Making a reverence, “Salāmut,” I exclaimed, in Hindostani, “yah! yah!” “Oh, my father, what a beautiful Krishnŭ is this! and there is Radha the beloved. This is, indeed, a Krishnŭ; I never saw so beautiful a fellow!” The old Brahman made many salāms and reverences, exclaiming, “There is an excellent mem sāhiba! she understands all, she understands every thing!” As Krishnŭ of yore charmed every woman who beheld him, so that quitting all on earth they followed and worshipped him alone, I suppose the old Hindoo imagined his god still retained the power of fascination.
The Hindoos think it most meritorious to make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Prāg (Allahabad); but this is not perfect, unless they visit three different places on that spot:
1st. The junction of the Ganges and Jumna.
2nd. The holy Achibut, or Akhivut.
3rd. The temples of Bhardoajmun.
One of the holiest spots of the Ganges is where it joins the Jumna (Yamuna), just below the fort. The Saraswati is supposed to unite with them underground, whence the junction is called Triveni or Tribeni. This spot is deemed so holy that a person dying there is certain of immediate moskh or beatitude, without risk of further transmigration.
There is a mythological representation of the Triveni, or mystical union of the three divine rivers personified,—“Gunga, Yamuna, Saraswati.” The drawing represents a female with three heads and six arms, riding astride upon a fish. The Hindoos say the Ganges and Jumna unite above ground; the Saraswati joins them below; this they see with the eye of faith. In reality, the Saraswati falls into the Jumna a little below Delhi; and, therefore, they all three unite below the fort at Prāg. Saraswati, the wife of Vishnoo, by the curse of a Brahman was turned into the river which bears her name.
The Purānas declare that the sight, the name, or the touch of Gunga takes away all sin, however heinous; that thinking of Gunga when at a distance is sufficient to remove the taint of sin; but that bathing in Gunga has blessings in it, of which no imagination can conceive. At the Tribeni they bathe and make pooja.
This tree grows in, or is enclosed within the walls of the fort, in such a manner that you cannot see it from any place. They take you into a room, which was formerly one of an hummām, or steam bath. This room is called the Achibut chamber, and there, with the eye of faith, the pilgrims behold the everlasting tree; which they believe has been there from the beginning of time, and will remain there to all eternity. They showed me a crack in the roof, and said, “Do you not see the branch of the tree has cracked the roof in three places?” I certainly saw three cracks, but whether from a tree or ivy I cannot say; not a leaf was visible. The door of this chamber has been blocked up, on account of a native in the collector’s office wishing to put up his idol there; the man is a worshipper of Parisnāth, the god of the heretical Hindoos. No orthodox Hindoo will worship in a temple where there is an image of Parisnāth; and as this man had raised an altar in the Achibut chamber, and wished to place his idol thereon, it caused a great commotion; to quell which, the Commandant of the fort bricked up the door, and has never allowed the people entrance since that time.
There are about four hundred heretical Hindoos at Prāg; I did not know until to-day such a caste existed.
The sacred Achibut is the bér, or great banyan tree, the Ficus Indica; the burgot of the Mahrattas; the Portuguese arbor de rayz, i.e. the rooting-tree. It is sacred to Vishnoo, who was born on its leaves. It is called the rooting tree, from the circumstance that it propagates itself by letting a kind of gummy string fall from its branches, which takes root, grows large, and by this means the branches often spread to a vast circuit, affording the most delightful shade in a hot climate; it is one of the largest and most majestic trees in the world.
At the gate of the magazine is a very fine young bér tree. Although sacred to Vishnoo, the preserver, nevertheless, it is said that “a demon resides under a bér tree.[80]” The goblin attached to this tree is reported to be exceedingly obstinate. Demons or goblins are said to be attached to different places; as to Musans, or places where the dead are burned; and to various trees and shrubs.
There is a remarkable passage in the Brahma Purāna, respecting the Achibut.
“Let the man who is afflicted with a grievous and incurable disease enter a burning fire, or procure his death by starvation, or by plunging into unfathomable waters, or by precipitating himself from an eminence, or by ascending to Paradise by a respectful pilgrimage to the Himalaya mountains; whoever relinquishes life under these circumstances,—by precipitating himself from the sacred bér tree at Prāg (Allahabad), or his time being come destroys himself; that high-minded person shall receive a great reward in the future state, and shall not be considered a suicide; even although he may have been a great sinner, he shall meet with supreme bliss in Paradise.”
The pooja of the Achibut takes place on the 9th of June (jet ke pondrah tarik). All bér trees are holy; no Hindoo will cut them.
On the outside of the magazine is a subterraneous passage, called Pātal Pooree; it is built of stone. From the entrance, you pass down a long stone passage, the walls of which on both sides are covered with idols; you arrive at a chamber, supported by pillars; in this place there are forms of Mahadēo, that are worshipped.
When the Achibut chamber was blocked up, the Brahmans set up the stump of a bér tree in the Pātal Pooree, and declared that it was a branch of the real Achibut, that had penetrated through the walls.
They certainly have established it firmly in that situation, making good the proverb, “Its roots have already reached to Pātal[81]” (the infernal regions). The morning I visited the Pātal Pooree, I saw this stump, which must have been freshly worshipped, as the earth at its base was covered with oil, ghee, boiled rice, and flowers. The passage itself, and the chamber also, were oily, dark, very hot, and slippery: we saw it by lamp-light; the chirāgh (lamp) was carried by a portly Brahman, who has charge of the place, and makes much money during the time of the fair. The resident Hindoos of Prāg, who know the trick the Brahmans have played, do not pooja the false Achibut. In this place is the mysterious passage which they say leads underground to Delhi; devotees were making pooja before it.
The third holy spot visited by the devotees are some mhuts, Hindoo temples, about two miles from the fort, near the circuit Bungalow. This spot was formerly the abode of Bhardoajmun, a fakir, and here he displayed his red flag from a bamboo. This Bhardoajmun was a very holy man; after his departure, or after his ashes had been consigned to Gunga-jee, some temples were raised on the spot, and dedicated to Mahadēo, the great god. There are three principal mhuts, in one of which is a white marble image or form of Mahadēo, with four faces, very well executed. In the second is an image in stone of the old fakir himself, about fifteen inches high, to which divine honours are paid. There are, counting all the small mhuts, some nine or ten temples, under the shade of very fine tamarind trees, which are very picturesque. The eyes of the images are covered with thin silver plates, and the eyes themselves are about five times larger than the natural size; in one of the temples the face of the idol was covered or made of a thin plate of gold.
One of the temples is dedicated to Varaha, an avatār or incarnation of Vishnoo; and represents a man with a boar’s head, on whose tusks rests a crescent, containing in its concavity an epitome of the earth, which had been immerged in the ocean as a punishment for its iniquities,—the story of the deluge. Vishnoo, in the form of a boar, dived into the abyss, and restored the earth on the points of his tusks. This is the first temple I have seen dedicated to Varaha: also, for the first time, I here saw a shrine, sacred to Radha Krishnŭ, the wife of a cowherd, whom Krishnŭ carried off from her husband to a forest on the banks of the Jumna, where they resided for some time; she has been deified with the god, and her image is worshipped at his festivals. If a Hindoo be charged with any particular act, of which he wishes to express his abhorrence, he exclaims “Radha Krishnŭ!” Many persons repeat, “Ram, Ram, Ram!” on such occasions, but no one says Seeta Ram; yet, when Krishnŭ’s name is to be repeated they always join to it that of his beloved Radha. It has passed into a proverb, “Apne Radha ko yad ker.” As Krishnŭ always thought of Radha, so they say, “Attend to your own Radha[82],” either in anger or laughingly; i.e. attend to your own business.
What a noise the people are making! a Hindoo is taking an oath. The man is holding in both hands a lota, a brass drinking vessel, filled with Ganges water, on which is placed a sprig of the sacred tulsī, and by Gunga-jee he swears. I would bet ten to one all he is swearing is false, from the elevation of his voice, and his insisting so strongly on its being true. In the plate, entitled “The Thug’s Dice,” figure 4 represents a highly ornamented small brass lota, containing the Ganges water, and a sprig of the kālā tulsī on the top of it.
The tulsī or tulasī is a native of India, and there are several sorts of it. The kālā tulsī, purple-stalked basil, (ocymum sanctum,) is more especially worshipped by the Hindoos, and is the most sacred of all the tulsīs. The Malays cultivate this plant with care, for the purpose of strewing on graves; it is highly aromatic.
Suffaid tulsī, white basil, or Indian tea, (ocymum album,) seldom rises more than a foot high; the stem is of a greenish white colour, and woody at the base; the leaves, which are two or three inches long, have an aromatic taste and agreeable smell.
Mummerree, or nazbo, (ocymum pilosum,) ciliated basil: the scent is delicious and powerful; the bruised leaves have an odour resembling that of lemon. The Baghuts (a class of Hindoos who neither eat meat nor drink wine,) wear rosaries made of the root of the tulsī. These plants are all considered sacred. But to return to the man of whose veracity I felt in doubt: Their own proverbs condemn the Hindoos: “What need of economy in telling lies[83]?” and to a man who has an unconquerable habit of lying, they apply a very singular proverb[84].
A peepul tree grows on the banks of the Jumna, just in front of our house; the fine old tree moans in the wind, and the rustling of the leaves sounds like the falling of rain; this is accounted for by the almost constant trembling of its beautiful and sacred leaves, which is occasioned by the great length and delicacy of the foot stalks; whence it is called Chalada, or the tree with tremulous leaves. The leaves are of a beautiful bright glossy green, heart-shaped, scalloped, and daggered; from their stalks, when gathered, a milky juice pours out; on wounding the bark of the trunk this milk is also poured out, with which the natives prepare a kind of birdlime.
There is a remarkable similarity between the Ancient Britons and the Hindoos: on the sixth day of the moon’s age, which is called Aranya-Shashti, “women walk in the forests, with a fan in one hand, and eat certain vegetables, in hope of beautiful children. See the account, given by Pliny, of the druidical misletoe, or viscum, which was to be gathered when the moon was six days old, as a preservative from sterility[85].” The Hindoo women eat the fruit of the peepul tree, and believe it to have the same wondrous qualities. There is another similarity between the hill tribes and the Ancient Britons, which will be mentioned hereafter. The peepul is sacred to Vishnoo, one of the Hindoo Triad; they believe a god resides in every leaf, who delights in the music of their rustling and their tremulous motion.
During the festival of the Muharram, the followers of the prophet suspend lamps in the air, and in their houses, made of the skeleton leaves of the peepul tree, on which they paint figures; some of these lamps are beautifully made; no other leaves will form such fine and delicate transparencies; I have tried the large leaf of the teak tree, but could not succeed as well with it as with that of the ficus religiosa. The Chinese paint beautifully on these leaves, first putting a transparent varnish over them. At Schwalbach, in Germany, I purchased skeleton leaves of the plane, in the centre of which the figure of Frederick the Great was preserved in the green of the leaf, whilst all around the skeleton fibres were perfect; how this is accomplished, I know not. The skeleton leaves are very beautiful, and easily prepared[86].
The peepul is universally sacred; the Hindoo women, and the men also, are often seen in the early morning putting flowers in pooja at the foot of the tree, and pouring water on its roots. They place their idols of stone beneath this tree, and the bér (banyan), and worship them constantly; nor will they cut a branch, unless to benefit the tree.
The native panchāyats (courts of justice) are often held beneath it. The accused first invokes the god in his sylvan throne above him, to destroy him and his, (as he himself could crush a leaf in his hand,) if he speak anything but the truth; then gathering and crushing a leaf, he makes his deposition.
The Hindoos suspend lamps in the air on bamboos, in the month Kartiku, in honour of their gods; these lamps are generally formed of ubruk (talc). Sometimes they are formed of clay, pierced through with fretwork, in remarkably pretty patterns. This offering to all the gods in this month procures many benefits, in their belief, to the giver; and the offering of lamps to particular gods, or to Gunga-jee, is also esteemed an act of merit.
Speaking of ubruk reminds me of the many uses to which it is applied. The costumes of native servants, Nāch women and their attendants, the procession of the Muharram, the trades, &c., are painted upon it by native artists, and sold in sets; the best are executed at Benares. By the aid of ubruk, drawings can be very correctly copied; they are speedily done, and look well[87]. We also used ubruk in lieu of glass for the windows of the hummām.
It was a source of great pleasure to me, at Allahabad, to ride out long distances in the early morning, hunting for rare plants and flowers; on my return I took off the impressions in a book of Chinese paper, and added to it the history of the tree or plant, its medicinal virtues, its sacred qualities, and all the legends attached to it, that I could collect[88].
From the Calcutta John Bull, July 26th, 1831.
“The Governor-general has sold the beautiful piece of architecture, called the Mootee Musjid, at Agra, for 125,000 rupees (about £12,500), and it is now being pulled down! The taj has also been offered for sale! but the price required has not been obtained. Two lacs, however, have been offered for it. Should the taj be pulled down, it is rumoured that disturbances may take place amongst the natives.”
If this be true, is it not shameful? The present king might as well sell the chapel of Henry the Seventh in Westminster Abbey for the paltry sum of £12,500: for any sum the impropriety of the act would be the same. By what authority does the Governor-general offer the taj for sale? Has he any right to molest the dead? To sell the tomb raised over an empress, which from its extraordinary beauty is the wonder of the world? It is impossible the Court of Directors can sanction the sale of the tomb for the sake of its marble and gems. They say that a Hindoo wishes to buy the taj to carry away the marble, and erect a temple to his own idols at Bindrabund!
The crows are a pest; they will pounce upon meat carried on a plate, and bear it off: they infest the door of the Bawarchī Khānā (cook room), and annoy the servants, who retaliate on a poor kawwā, if they can catch one, by dressing it up in an officer’s uniform, and letting it go to frighten the others. The poor bird looks so absurd hopping about. Sometimes they drill a hole through the beak, and passing a wire through it, string thereon five cowries; this bears the poor crow’s head to the ground, and must torture it. Such cruelty I have forbidden. The crow is a bird of ill omen.
On a babūl-tree in the grounds are twelve or fifteen beautiful nests pendant from the extremity of slender twigs—the habitations of a little community of Byā birds. I took down three of the nests; they contained two, three, and four little white eggs; the parent birds made a sad lament when the nests were taken. If you take a nest with the young birds in it, the parent bird will follow and feed them. The natives consider it highly improper to shoot the Byā birds; they are sacred, and so tame. One of my servants has brought me a young bird, it flies to my hand when I call it. There is a pretty fable which says, “The old birds put a fire-fly into their nests every night to act as a lamp.” Perhaps they sometimes feed their young on fire-flies, which may be the origin of the story. It is pleasing to imagine the sacred birds swinging in their pretty nests pendant from the extreme end of a branch, the interior lighted by a fire-fly lamp. The Byā bird is the Indian yellow-hammer; the nests I speak of are almost within reach of my hand, and close to the house. For the shape of the nests, see the sketch entitled “The Spring Bow.” They are of grass beautifully woven together, and suspended by a long thin tapering end, the entrance hanging downwards. In the nests containing the young, there is no division, the swelling on the side is the part in which the young ones nestle together. Some of the nests appear as if they were cut short off: these are purposely built so, and contain two apartments, which are, I suppose, the places where the parent birds sit and confabulate on the aspect of affairs in general. The birds are very fond of hanging their nests from slender twigs, over a pool of water, as in the sketch, the young birds thus being in greater safety.
The wood of the babūl (acacia Arabica) is extremely hard, and is used by the Brahmans to kindle their sacred fire, by rubbing two pieces of it together, when it is of a proper age, and sufficiently dried. It produces the Indian gum Arabic. The gold ear-rings made in imitation of the flower of the babūl, worn by Indian women, and by some men also, are beautiful.
My ayha is ill with cholera: there is no hope of her recovery. The disease came across the Jumna, about four miles higher up than our house, and is regularly marching across the country to the Ganges: as it proceeds no fresh cases occur in the villages it leaves behind.
The old peepul moans and rustles in the wind so much, that deceived by the sound, we have often gone into the verandah joyously exclaiming “There is the rain!” To our sorrow it was only the leaves of the tree agitated by the wind.
In such a climate and during the hot winds, you cannot imagine how delightful the noise of the wind (like rain) in the old peepul appeared to us, or the lullaby it formed. It is a holy tree, every leaf being the seat of a god. They do not listen to the music of its rustling with greater pleasure than I experience; indeed, my penchant for the tree is so great, I am half inclined to believe in its miraculous powers.
August 31st.—The ice has lasted four months and fifteen days, which we consider particularly fortunate. It was opened the 15th of April.
Oct.—We are collecting grass and making hay for use during the hot winds. The people cut the grass in the jungles, and bring it home on camels. We have one stack of hay just finished, and one of straw.
“Bring me the silver tankard.” “I have it not, I know not where it is,” said the khidmatgār. The plate-chest was searched, it was gone.
It was the parting gift of a friend; we would not have lost it for fifty times its value. The servants held a panchāyat, and examined the man who had charge of the plate. When it was over, he came to me, saying, “I had charge of the tankard—it is gone—the keys were in my hands; allow me to remain in your service; cut four rupees a month from my pay, and let another silver cup be made.” The old man lived with us many years, and only quitted us when he thought his age entitled him to retire on the money he had earned honestly and fairly in service.
My tame squirrel has acquired a vile habit of getting up the windows and eating all the flies; if he would kill the musquitoes, it would be a very good employment, but he prefers the great fat flies—a little brute. The little squirrel is the only animal unaffected by the heat; he is as impudent as ever, and as cunning as possible.
Oct. 24th.—A slight earthquake has just taken place—this instant. I did not know what was the matter; there was a rumbling noise for some time, as if a carriage were driving over the roof of the house. My chair shook under me, and the table on which I am writing shook also. I became very sick and giddy, so much so, that I fancied I had fallen ill suddenly. When the noise and trembling ceased, I found I was quite well, and the giddy sickness went off. I never felt the earth quake before. Every one in the house was sensible of it. At the Circuit bungalow, nearly three miles off, it was felt as much as on the banks of the Jumna.
In a native family, if a person be ill, one of the relations takes a small earthen pan, filled with water, flowers, and rice, and places it in the middle of the road or street, in front of the house of the sick person, believing that if any one en passant should touch the offering, either by chance or design, the illness would quit the sufferer and cleave to the person who had touched the flowers or the little pan containing the offering. A native carefully steps aside and avoids coming in contact with the flowers.
To-day, a man was punished for perjury in this manner; he was mounted on a donkey, with his face to the tail of the animal; one half of his face was painted black, the other white, and around his neck was hung a necklace of old shoes and old bones. Surrounded by a mob of natives, with hideous music and shouts, he was paraded by the police all through the town! An excellent punishment.
Our farming operations commenced last September. On the banks of the Ganges, near the fort, we planted thirty beeghās with oats, and expect a crop sufficient to feed our horses and sheep, with plenty of straw to cut into bhoosa. The oats are not so large and heavy as those of England, nevertheless, very good. During the hot weather, we give our horses half oats half gram (chanā); in the cold season, oats and carrots; the latter are remarkably fine, we purchase them by the beeghā. A beeghā, or bīghā, is a quantity of land, containing twenty katthās, or 120 feet square.
In Calcutta, oats are procurable in abundance, and are usually to be had at those stations where there are race-horses; but they are not generally cultivated, and where they are a novelty the natives speak of them as “wheat gone mad.” At Allahabad, the gentlemen at the station cultivate large quantities on the river side.
I have just taken a sketch of a dwarf, a Hindoo, called Bhoodder Ram; he is fifty years of age, is married, and has a tall son, aged twelve years.
Bhoodder Ram measures three feet one inch and seven-eighths of an inch in height; his face bears the stamp of more than his age; his body is like a child’s; he is a native of Gyah. His brother, a tall man, accompanied him; the dwarf rode on a little pony. I asked him, “How old is your wife?” He answered, “She is tall, and like your sirdar-bearer,—as old as he is; and her face resembles his as nearly as nineteen is equal to twenty!” The dwarf is of low caste; he makes a great deal of money by asking charity, and travelling about the country.
I questioned him as to whom he made pooja to: he said, “God has made me little, and I go about asking charity; I was never taught how to make pooja to any god.” He wears a turban of gold and silver tinsel; but some foolish people, instead of allowing him to wear an Hindoo dress, have decked him out in the blue cloth frock and linen trowsers of an European child; a crimson scarf is thrown over his shoulders, and in his ears are gold hoops.
A man from Cabul passed me this morning, leading a beautiful high caste camel, with two humps on its back: the animal was very handsome, its hair remarkably long. I wished to sketch it, but the Arab was too great a gentleman to come out of his way for a rupee. The animals in general use have only one hump; they are, in fact, dromedaries, although generally called camels. The dokaha (camelus bactrianus), the real camel, has two humps or elevations on the back.
Nov. 7th.—We took the hounds to Papamhow, and soon found a jackal in the grounds: he took shelter in a field of joār or jwār, millet (andropogon sorghum), from which he could not again be started. Hounds in this country are extremely expensive; it is scarcely possible to keep them alive. Out of eight couple brought from England and added to the pack at Allahabad a few months ago, only three couple are alive. We rode over the grounds: how deserted they looked! the flowers dead, the fountain dry.
“Demons take possession of an empty house[89];” the place is a wilderness. The old Brahman, who lives at a picturesque temple in the grounds by the side of the Ganges, did not remember me; he spoke in the warmest terms of the agent for gunpowder to the Government, who formerly lived here; and said he prayed to Mahadēo to send him back to Papamhow, as the natives had never had so good a master, either before or since.
A fair is annually held in these grounds, at which period the old Brahman reaps a plentiful harvest of paisā. The people who attend the fair make pooja at his little temple. The old man had an idiot son, who, having a great dislike to clothes, constantly tore all his attire to pieces; in the sketch, entitled Adansonia Digitata, he is represented in his usual attitude, with both arms stretched out, remonstrating (after his fashion) with his father, on the impropriety of wearing clothes. The poor boy was speechless, but not dumb, for he could utter the most horrible sounds: and when enraged at his father’s attempting to clothe him, he would howl, make angry gestures, and tear off the obnoxious attire. During the time of the fair, the groups of natives, of horses, and odd-looking conveyances are very picturesque beneath the spreading branches of the great Adansonia trees.
Our friend was not only agent for gunpowder, but also, by the order of Government, he had established a manufactory for rockets at Papamhow, in consequence of the congreve rockets sent from England having proved unserviceable. He was obliged to make many experiments, to suit the composition to our burning climate, and to test the result of exposure to the sun. When the trials were to be made, and the rockets proved, I often went down upon the white sands in the bed of the river, to see the experiments.
The Ganges is from forty to forty-five feet deeper during the rains than during the dry season; and banks of the finest white sand, of immense extent, are left dry for many months in the bed of the river when the rains have passed away. The sands extended three or four miles, and being without cultivation or inhabitants, were exactly suited to the purpose. When the rockets were laid upon the sands, and fired, it was beautiful to see them rushing along, leaving a train of fire and smoke behind them; the roar of the large rockets was very fine,—quite magnificent.
When the rockets were fired from an iron tube at an elevation, it was surprising to see them ranging through the air for a mile and a half or two miles before they came to the sands, where, a certain distance being marked by range pegs at every fifty yards, the extent of their ranges was accurately ascertained: one of the large rockets ranged 3700 yards, upwards of two miles. I should think they would prove most formidable weapons in warfare.
Nov. 14th.—Some natives have just brought a lynx to the door,—such a savage beast! it was caught in the grounds of the circuit Bungalow; the first animal of the sort I have beheld. At Papamhow we found a wolf, and had a long chase, until the hounds lost him in an immense plantation of sugar-cane, from which there were too few dogs to dislodge him.
15th.—This is delightful weather; we ride from six to eight, A.M., and take a drive at four in the evening, returning to dinner at six, at which time a coal fire is agreeable. I am in stronger health than I ever before enjoyed in India, which I attribute to the cold weather and great exercise.