Theosophical Society,
H P Blavatsky
From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan
by
H P Blavatsky
Translated
From Russian
Translator's Preface
"You must remember," said Mme. Blavatsky, "that I
never
meant this for a scientific work.
My letters to the Russian
Messenger, under the general title:
'From the Caves and Jungles
of Hindostan,' were written in leisure moments, more for amusement
than with any serious design.
"Broadly speaking, the facts and incidents are true; but
I have freely availed myself of an author's privilege to group,
colour, and dramatize them, whenever this seemed necessary to the
full artistic effect;
though, as I say, much of the book is exactly
true, l would rather claim kindly judgment for it, as a romance
of travel, than incur the critical risks that haunt an avowedly
serious work."
To this caution of the author's, the translator must add
another; these letters, as
Mme Blavatsky says, were written in
leisure moments, during 1879 and 1880, for the pages of the Russki
Vyestnik, then edited by M. Katkoff. Mme. Blavatsky's manuscript
was often incorrect; often
obscure. The Russian compositors,
though they did their best to render faithfully the Indian names
and places, often produced, through their ignorance of Oriental
tongues, forms which are strange, and sometimes unrecognizable.
The proof-sheets were never corrected by the author, who was then
in India; and, in
consequence, it has been impossible to restore
all the local and personal names to their proper form.
A similar difficulty has arisen with reference to quotations
and cited authorities, all of which have gone through a double
process of refraction: first
into Russian, then into English.
The translator, also a Russian, and far from perfectly acquainted
with English, cannot claim to possess the erudition necessary to
verify and restore the many quotations to verbal accuracy; all
that is hoped is that, by a careful rendering, the correct sense
has been preserved.
The translator begs the indulgence of English readers for
all imperfections of style and language; in the words of the
Sanskrit proverb: "Who
is to be blamed, if success be not reached
after due effort?"
The translator's best thanks are due to Mr. John C. Staples,
for valuable help in the early chapters.
--London, July, 1892
FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN
By H P Blavatsky
In
Late
in the evening of the sixteenth of February, 1879,
after
a rough voyage which lasted thirty-two days, joyful exclamations
were
heard everywhere on deck. "Have you
seen the lighthouse?"
"There
it is at last, the Bombay lighthouse."
Cards,
books, music, everything was forgotten.
Everyone
rushed
on deck. The moon had not risen as yet,
and, in spite of
the
starry tropical sky, it was quite dark.
The stars were so
bright
that, at first, it seemed hardly possible to distinguish,
far
away amongst them, a small fiery point lit by earthly hands.
The
stars winked at us like so many huge eyes in the black sky,
on
one side of which shone the Southern Cross.
At last we
distinguished
the lighthouse on the distant horizon.
It was
nothing
but a tiny fiery point diving in the phosphorescent waves.
The
tired travellers greeted it warmly. The
rejoicing was general.
What
a glorious daybreak followed this dark night!
The sea no
longer
tossed our ship. Under the skilled
guidance of the pilot,
who
had just arrived, and whose bronze form was so sharply defined
against
the pale sky, our steamer, breathing heavily with its
broken
machinery, slipped over the quiet, transparent waters of
the
Indian Ocean straight to the harbour. We
were only four miles
from
Bombay, and, to us, who had trembled with cold only a few
weeks
ago in the Bay of Biscay, which has been so glorified by
many
poets and so heartily cursed by all sailors, our surroundings
simply
seemed a magical dream.
After
the tropical nights of the Red Sea and the scorching hot
days
that had tortured us since Aden, we, people of the distant
North,
now experienced something strange and unwonted, as if the
very
fresh soft air had cast its spell over us.
There was not a
cloud
in the sky, thickly strewn with dying stars.
Even the moonlight,
which
till then had covered the sky with its silvery garb, was
gradually
vanishing; and the brighter grew the
rosiness of dawn
over
the small island that lay before us in the East, the paler
in
the West grew the scattered rays of the moon that sprinkled with
bright
flakes of light the dark wake our ship left behind her, as
if
the glory of the West was bidding good-bye to us, while the
light
of the East welcomed the newcomers from far-off lands.
Brighter
and bluer grew the sky, swiftly absorbing the remaining
pale
stars one after the other, and we felt something touching
in
the sweet dignity with which the Queen of Night resigned her
rights
to the powerful usurper. At last,
descending lower and
lower,
she disappeared completely.
And
suddenly, almost without interval between darkness and light,
the
red-hot globe, emerging on the opposite side from under the
cape,
leant his golden chin on the lower rocks of the island and
seemed
to stop for a while, as if examining us.
Then, with one
powerful
effort, the torch of day rose high over the sea and
gloriously
proceeded on its path, including in one mighty fiery
embrace
the blue waters of the bay, the shore and the islands with
their
rocks and cocoanut forests. His golden
rays fell upon a
crowd
of Parsees, his rightful worshippers, who stood on shore
raising
their arms towards the mighty "Eye of Ormuzd." The sight
was
so impressive that everyone on deck became silent for a moment,
even
a red-nosed old sailor, who was busy quite close to us over
the
cable, stopped working, and, clearing his throat, nodded at the sun.
Moving
slowly and cautiously along the charming but
treacherous
bay, we had plenty of time to admire the picture
around
us. On the right was a group of islands
with Gharipuri or
Elephanta,
with its ancient temple, at their head.
Gharipuri
translated
means "the town of caves" according to the Orientalists,
and
"the town of purification" according to the native Sanskrit
scholars. This temple, cut out by an unknown hand in
the very
heart
of a rock resembling porphyry, is a true apple of discord
amongst
the archaeologists, of whom none can as yet fix, even
approximately,
its antiquity. Elephanta raises high its
rocky brow,
all
overgrown with secular cactus, and right under it, at the foot
of
the rock, are hollowed out the chief temple and the two lateral
ones. Like the serpent of our Russian fairy tales,
it seems to be
opening
its fierce black mouth to swallow the daring mortal who
comes
to take possession of the secret mystery of Titan. Its two
remaining
teeth, dark with time, are formed by two huge pillars
t
the entrance, sustaining the palate of the monster.
How
many generations of Hindus, how many races, have knelt
in
the dust before the Trimurti, your threefold deity, O Elephanta?
How
many centuries were spent by weak man in digging out in your
stone
bosom this town of temples and carving your gigantic idols?
Who
can say? Many years have elapsed since I
saw you last, ancient,
mysterious
temple, and still the same restless thoughts, the same
recurrent
questions vex me snow as they did then, and still remain
unanswered. In a few days we shall see each other
again. Once more
I
shall gaze upon your stern image, upon your three huge granite faces,
and
shall feel as hopeless as ever of piercing the mystery of your
being. This secret fell into safe hands three
centuries before ours.
It
is not in vain that the old Portuguese historian Don Diego de Cuta
boasts
that "the big square stone fastened over the arch of the
pagoda
with a distinct inscription, having been torn out and sent
as
a present to the King Dom Juan III, disappeared mysteriously
in
the course of time....," and adds, further, "Close to this big
pagoda
there stood another, and farther on even a third one, the
most
wonderful of all in beauty, incredible size, and richness of
material. All those pagodas and caves have been built
by the Kings
of
Kanada, (?) the most important of whom was Bonazur, and these
buildings
of Satan our (Portuguese) soldiers attacked with such
vehemence
that in a few years one stone was not left upon another...."
And,
worst of all, they left no inscriptions that might have given
a
clue to so much. Thanks to the
fanaticism of Portuguese soldiers,
the
chronology of the Indian cave temples must remain for ever an
enigma
to the archaeological world, beginning with the Brah-mans,
who
say Elephanta is 374,000 years old, and ending with Fergusson,
who
tries to prove that it was carved only in the twelfth century
of
our era. Whenever one turns one's eyes
to history, there is
nothing
to be found but hypotheses and darkness.
And yet Gharipuri
is
mentioned in the epic Mahabharata, which was written, according
to
Colebrooke and Wilson, a good while before the reign of Cyrus.
In
another ancient legend it is said that the temple of Trimurti
was
built on Elephanta by the sons of Pandu, who took part in the
war
between the dynasties of the Sun and the Moon, and, belonging
to
the latter, were expelled at the end of the war. The Rajputs,
who
are the descendants of the first, still sing of this victory;
but
even in their popular songs there is nothing positive. Centuries
have
passed and will pass, and the ancient secret will die in the
rocky
bosom of the cave still unrecorded.
On
the left side of the bay, exactly opposite Elephanta,
and
as if in contrast with all its antiquity and greatness, spreads
the
Malabar Hill, the residence of the modern Europeans and rich
natives. Their brightly painted bungalows are bathed
in the greenery
of
banyan, Indian fig, and various other trees, and the tall and
straight
trunks of cocoanut palms cover with the fringe of their
leaves
the whole ridge of the hilly headland.
There, on the south-
western
end of the rock, you see the almost transparent, lace-like
Government
House surrounded on three sides by the ocean. This is
the
coolest and the most comfortable part of Bombay, fanned by
three
different sea breezes.
The
island of Bombay, designated by the natives "Mambai,"
received
its name from the goddess Mamba, in Mahrati Mahima, or Amba,
Mama,
and Amma, according to the dialect, a word meaning, literally,
the
Great Mother. Hardly one hundred years
ago, on the site of
the
modern esplanade, there stood a temple consecrated to Mamba-Devi.
With
great difficulty and expense they carried it nearer to the shore,
close
to the fort, and erected it in front of Baleshwara the "Lord
of
the Innocent"--one of the names of the god Shiva. Bombay is
part
of a considerable group of islands, the most remarkable of
which
are Salsetta, joined to Bombay by a mole, Elephanta, so named
by
the Portuguese because of a huge rock cut in the shape of an
elephant
thirty-five feet long, and Trombay, whose lovely rock rises
nine
hundred feet above the surface of the sea.
Bombay looks, on
the
maps, like an enormous crayfish, and is at the head of the
rest
of the islands. Spreading far out into
the sea its two claws,
Bombay
island stands like a sleepless guardian watching over his
younger
brothers. Between it and the Continent there
is a narrow
arm
of a river, which gets gradually broader and then again narrower,
deeply
indenting the sides of both shores, and so forming a haven
that
has no equal in the world. It was not
without reason that
the
Portuguese, expelled in the course of time by the English, used
to
call it "Buona Bahia."
In
a fit of tourist exaltation some travellers have compared it
to
the Bay of Naples; but, as a matter of
fact, the one is as
much
like the other as a lazzaroni is like a Kuli.
The whole
resemblance
between the former consists in the fact that there
is
water in both. In Bombay, as well as in
its harbour, everything
is
original and does not in the least remind one of Southern Europe.
Look
at those coasting vessels and native boats;
both are built
in
the likeness of the sea bird "sat," a kind of kingfisher. When
in
motion these boats are the personi-fication of grace, with their
long
prows and rounded poops. They look as if
they were gliding
backwards,
and one might mistake for wings the strangely shaped,
long
lateen sails, their narrow angles fastened upwards to a yard.
Filling
these two wings with the wind, and careening, so as almost
to
touch the surface of the water, these boats will fly along with
astonishing
swiftness. Unlike our European boats,
they do not
cut
the waves, but glide over them like a sea-gull.
The
surroundings of the bay transported us to some fairy land of
the
Arabian Nights. The ridge of the Western
Ghats, cut through
here
and there by some separate hills almost as high as themselves,
stretched
all along the Eastern shore. From the
base to their
fantastic,
rocky tops, they are all overgrown with impenetrable
forests
and jungles inhabited by wild animals.
Every rock has been
enriched
by the popular imagination with an independent legend.
All
over the slope of the mountain are scattered the pagodas,
mosques,
and temples of numberless sects. Here
and there the hot
rays
of the sun strike upon an old fortress, once dreadful and
inaccessible,
now half ruined and covered with prickly cactus.
At
every step some memorial of sanctity.
Here a deep vihara, a
cave
cell of a Buddhist bhikshu saint, there a rock protected by
the
symbol of Shiva, further on a Jaina temple, or a holy tank,
all
covered with sedge and filled with water, once blessed by a
Brahman
and able to purify every sin, all indispensable attribute
of
all pagodas. All the surroundings are
covered with symbols of
gods
and goddesses. Each of the three hundred
and thirty millions
of
deities of the Hindu Pantheon has its representative in something
consecrated
to it, a stone, a flower, a tree, or a bird.
On the
West
side of the Malabar Hill peeps through the trees Valakeshvara,
the
temple of the "Lord of Sand."
A long stream of Hindus moves
towards
this celebrated temple; men and women,
shining with rings
on
their fingers and toes, with bracelets from their wrists up
to
their elbows, clad in bright turbans and snow white muslins,
with
foreheads freshly painted with red, yellow, and white, holy
sectarian
signs.
The
legend says that Rama spent here a night on his way from Ayodhya
(Oudh)
to Lanka (Ceylon) to fetch his wife Sita who had been stolen
by
the wicked King Ravana. Rama's brother
Lakshman, whose duty
it
was to send him daily a new lingam from Benares, was late in
doing
so one evening. Losing patience, Rama
erected for himself
a
lingam of sand. When, at last, the
symbol arrived from Benares,
it
was put in a temple, and the lingam erected by Rama was left
on
the shore. There it stayed during long
centuries, but, at the
arrival
of the Portuguese, the "Lord of Sand" felt so disgusted
with
the feringhi (foreigners) that he jumped into the sea never
to
return. A little farther on there is a
charming tank, called
Vanattirtha,
or the "point of the arrow."
Here Rama, the much
worshipped
hero of the Hindus, felt thirsty and, not finding any
water,
shot an arrow and immediately there was created a pond. Its
crystal
waters were surrounded by a high wall, steps were built
leading
down to it, and a circle of white marble dwellings was
filled
with dwija (twice born) Brahmans.
India
is the land of legends and of mysterious nooks and corners.
There
is not a ruin, not a monument, not a thicket, that has no
story
attached to it. Yet, however they may be
entangled in the
cobweb
of popular imagination, which becomes thicker with every
generation,
it is difficult to point out a single one that is not
founded
on fact. With patience and, still more,
with the help
of
the learned Brahmans you can always get at the truth, when once
you
have secured their trust and friendship.
The
same road leads to the temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers.
At
its altar burns an unquenchable fire, which daily consumes
hundredweights
of sandal wood and aromatic herbs. Lit
three
hundred
years ago, the sacred fire has never been extinguished,
notwithstanding
many disorders, sectarian discords, and even wars.
The
Parsees are very proud of this temple of Zaratushta, as they
call
Zoroaster. Compared with it the Hindu
pagodas look like
brightly
painted Easter eggs. Generally they are
consecrated to
Hanuman,
the monkey-god and the faithful ally of Rama, or to the
elephant
headed Ganesha, the god of the occult wisdom, or to one
of
the Devis. You meet with these temples
in every street. Before
each
there is a row of pipals (Ficus religiosa) centuries old,
which
no temple can dispense with, because these trees are the
abode
of the elementals and the sinful souls.
All
this is entangled, mixed, and scattered, appearing to one's
eyes
like a picture in a dream. Thirty
centuries have left their
traces
here. The innate laziness and the strong
conservative
tendencies
of the Hindus, even before the European invasion,
preserved
all kinds of monuments from the ruinous vengeance of the
fanatics,
whether those memorials were Buddhist, or belonged to
some
other unpopular sect. The Hindus are not
naturally given
to
senseless vandalism, and a phrenologist would vainly look for
a
bump of destructiveness on their skulls.
If you meet with
antiquities
that, having been spared by time, are, nowadays, either
destroyed
or disfigured, it is not they who are to blame, but
either
Mussulmans, or the Portuguese under the guidance of the Jesuits.
At
last we were anchored and, in a moment, were besieged, ourselves
as
well as our luggage, by numbers of naked skeleton-like Hindus,
Parsees,
Moguls, and various other tribes. All
this crowd emerged,
as
if from the bottom of the sea, and began to shout, to chatter,
and
to yell, as only the tribes of Asia can.
To get rid of this
Babel
confusion of tongues as soon as possible, we took refuge
in
the first bunder boat and made for the shore.
Once
settled in the bungalow awaiting us, the first thing we were
struck
with in Bombay was the millions of crows and vultures. The
first
are, so to speak, the County Council of the town, whose duty
it
is to clean the streets, and to kill one of them is not only
forbidden
by the police, but would be very dangerous.
By killing
one
you would rouse the vengeance of every Hindu, who is always
ready
to offer his own life in exchange for a crow's.
The souls
of
the sinful forefathers transmigrate into crows and to kill one
is
to interfere with the law of Karma and to expose the poor
ancestor
to something still worse. Such is the
firm belief, not
only
of Hindus, but of Parsees, even the most enlightened amongst
them. The strange behaviour of the Indian crows
explains, to a
certain
extent, this superstition. The vultures
are, in a way,
the
grave-diggers of the Parsees and are under the personal protection
of
the Farvardania, the angel of death, who soars over the Tower
of
Silence, watching the occupations of the feathered workmen.
The
deafening caw of the crows strikes every new comer as uncanny,
but,
after a while, is explained very simply.
Every tree of the
numerous
cocoa-nut forests round Bombay is provided with a hollow
pumpkin. The sap of the tree drops into it and, after
fermenting,
becomes
a most intoxicating beverage, known in Bombay under the
name
of toddy. The naked toddy wallahs,
generally half-caste
Portuguese,
modestly adorned with a single coral necklace, fetch
this
beverage twice a day, climbing the hundred and fifty feet
high
trunks like squirrels. The crows mostly
build their nests
on
the tops of the cocoa-nut palms and drink incessantly out of
the
open pumpkins. The result of this is the
chronic intoxication
of
the birds. As soon as we went out in the
garden of our new
habitation,
flocks of crows came down heavily from every tree.
The
noise they make whilst jumping about everywhere is indescribable.
There
seemed to be something positively human in the positions
of
the slyly bent heads of the drunken birds, and a fiendish light
shone
in their eyes while they were examining us from foot to head.
----------
We
occupied three small bungalows, lost, like nests, in the garden,
their
roofs literally smothered in roses blossoming on bushes
twenty
feet high, and their windows covered only with muslin,
instead
of the usual panes of glass. The
bungalows were situated
in
the native part of the town, so that we were transported, all
at
once, into the real India. We were
living in India, unlike
English
people, who are only surrounded by India at a certain distance.
We
were enabled to study her character and customs, her religion,
superstitions
and rites, to learn her legends, in fact, to live
among
Hindus.
Everything
in India, this land of the elephant and the poisonous
cobra,
of the tiger and the unsuccessful English missionary, is
original
and strange. Everything seems unusual,
unexpected, and
striking,
even to one who has travelled in Turkey, Egypt, Damascus,
and
Palestine. In these tropical regions the
conditions of nature
are
so various that all the forms of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms
must radically differ from what we are used to in Europe.
Look,
for instance, at those women on their way to a well through
a
garden, which is private and at the same time open to anyone,
because
somebody's cows are grazing in it. To
whom does it not
happen
to meet with women, to see cows, and admire a garden?
Doubtless
these are among the commonest of all things.
But a
single
attentive glance will suffice to show you the difference
that
exists between the same objects in Europe and in India. Nowhere
more
than in India does a human being feel his weakness and
insignificance. The majesty of the tropical growth is such
that
our
highest trees would look dwarfed compared with banyans and
especially
with palms. A European cow, mistaking,
at first sight,
her
Indian sister for a calf, would deny the existence of any
kinship
between them, as neither the mouse-coloured wool, nor the
straight
goat-like horns, nor the humped back of the latter would
permit
her to make such an error. As to the
women, each of them
would
make any artist feel enthusiastic about the gracefulness
of
her movements and drapery, but still, no pink and white, stout
Anna
Ivanovna would condescend to greet her.
"Such a shame, God
forgive
me, the woman is entirely naked!"
This
opinion of the modern Russian woman is nothing but the echo
of
what was said in 1470 by a distinguished Russian traveler, "the
sinful
slave of God, Athanasius son of Nikita from Tver," as he
styles
himself. He describes India as
follows: "This is the land
of
India. Its people are naked, never cover
their heads, and wear
their
hair braided. Women have babies every
year. Men and women
are
black. Their prince wears a veil round
his head and wraps
another
veil round his legs. The noblemen wear a
veil on one
shoulder,
and the noblewomen on the shoulders and round the loins,
but
everyone is barefooted. The women walk
about with their hair
spread
and their breasts naked. The children,
boys and girls,
never
cover their shame until they are seven years old. . . ."
This
description is quite correct, but Athanasius Nikita's son is
right
only concerning the lowest and poorest classes.
These really
do
"walk about" covered only with a veil, which often is so poor
that,
in fact, it is nothing but a rag. But
still, even the poorest
woman
is clad in a piece of muslin at least ten yards long. One
end
serves as a sort of short petticoat, and the other covers
the
head and shoulders when out in the street, though the faces
are
always uncovered. The hair is erected
into a kind of Greek
chignon. The legs up to the knees, the arms, and the
waist are
never
covered. There is not a single
respectable woman who would
consent
to put on a pair of shoes. Shoes are the
attribute and
the
prerogative of disreputable women. When,
some time ago, the
wife
of the Madras governor thought of passing a law that should
induce
native women to cover their breasts, the place was actually
threatened
with a revolution. A kind of jacket is
worn only by
dancing
girls. The Government recognized that it
would be
unreasonable
to irritate women, who, very often, are more dangerous
than
their husbands and brothers, and the custom, based on the
law
of Manu, and sanctified by three thousand years' observance,
remained
unchanged.
----------
For
more than two years before we left America we were in constant
correspondence
with a certain learned Brahman, whose glory is great
at
present (1879) all over India. We came
to India to study, under
his
guidance, the ancient country of Aryas, the Vedas, and their
difficult
language. His name is Dayanand Saraswati
Swami. Swami
is
the name of the learned anchorites who are initiated into many
mysteries
unattainable by common mortals. They are
monks who never
marry,
but are quite different from other mendicant brotherhoods,
the
so-called Sannyasi and Hossein. This
Pandit is considered
the
greatest Sanskritist of modern India and is an absolute enigma
to
everyone. It is only five years since he
appeared on the arena
of
great reforms, but till then, he lived, entirely secluded, in
a
jungle, like the ancient gymnosophists mentioned by the Greek
and
Latin authors. At this time he was
studying the chief
philosophical
systems of the "Aryavartta" and the occult meaning
of
the Vedas with the help of mystics and anchorites. All Hindus
believe
that on the Bhadrinath Mountains (22,000 feet above the
level
of the sea) there exist spacious caves, inhabited, now for
many
thousand years, by these anchorites.
Bhadrinath is situated
in
the north of Hindustan on the river Bishegunj, and is celebrated
for
its temple of Vishnu right in the heart of the town. Inside
the
temple there are hot mineral springs, visited yearly by about
fifty
thousand pilgrims, who come to be purified by them.
From
the first day of his appearance Dayanand Saraswati produced
an
immense impression and got the surname of the "Luther of India."
Wandering
from one town to another, today in the South, tomorrow
in
the North, and transporting himself from one end of the country
to
another with incredible quickness, he has visited every part
of
India, from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, and from
to
Bombay. He preaches the One Deity and,
"Vedas in hand," proves
that
in the ancient writings there was not a word that could justify
polytheism. Thundering against idol worship, the great
orator
fights
with all his might against caste, infant marriages, and
superstitions. Chastising all the evils grafted on India by
centuries
of casuistry and false interpretation of the Vedas,
he
blames for them the Brahmans, who, as he openly says before
masses
of people, are alone guilty of the humiliation of their
country,
once great and independent, now fallen and enslaved.
And
yet Great Britain has in him not an enemy, but rather an ally.
He
says openly--"If you expel the English, then, no later than
tomorrow,
you and I and everyone who rises against idol worship
will
have our throats cut like mere sheep.
The Mussulmans are
stronger
than the idol worshippers; but these
last are stronger
than
we." The Pandit held many a warm
dispute with the Brah-mans,
those
treacherous enemies of the people, and has almost always
been
victorious. In Benares secret assassins
were hired to slay
him,
but the attempt did not succeed. In a
small town of Bengal,
where
he treated fetishism with more than his usual severity,
some
fanatic threw on his naked feet a huge cobra.
There are two
snakes
deified by the Brahman mythology: the
one which surrounds
the
neck of Shiva on his idols is called Vasuki;
the other, Ananta,
forms
the couch of Vishnu. So the worshipper
of Shiva, feeling
sure
that his cobra, trained purposely for the mysteries of a
Shivaite
pagoda, would at once make an end of the offender's life,
triumphantly
exclaimed, "Let the god Vasuki himself show which of
us
is right!"
Dayanand
jerked off the cobra twirling round his leg, and with a
single
vigorous movement, crushed the reptile's head.
"Let him
do
so," he quietly assented. "Your
god has been too slow. It
is
I who have decided the dispute, Now go," added he, addressing
the
crowd, "and tell everyone how easily perish the false gods."
Thanks
to his excellent knowledge of Sanskrit the Pandit does a
great
service, not only to the masses, clearing their ignorance
about
the monotheism of the Vedas, but to science too, showing who,
exactly,
are the Brahmans, the only caste in India which, during
centuries,
had the right to study Sanskrit literature and comment
on
the Vedas, and which used this right solely for its own advantage.
Long
before the time of such Orientalists as Burnouf, Colebrooke
and
Max Muller, there have been in India many reformers who tried
to
prove the pure monotheism of the Vedic doctrines. There have
even
been founders of new religions who denied the revelations
of
these scriptures; for instance, the Raja
Ram Mohun Roy, and,
after
him, Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, both Calcutta Bengalees. But
neither
of them had much success. They did
nothing but add new
denominations
to the numberless sects existing in India.
Ram Mohun
Roy
died in England, having done next to nothing, and Keshub Chunder
Sen,
having founded the community of "Brahmo-Samaj," which professes
a
religion extracted from the depths of the Babu's own imagination,
became
a mystic of the most pronounced type, and now is only "a
berry
from the same field," as we say in Russia, as the Spiritualists,
by
whom he is considered to be a medium and a Calcutta Swedenborg.
He
spends his time in a dirty tank, singing praises to Chaitanya,
Koran,
Buddha, and his own person, proclaiming himself their prophet,
and
performs a mystical dance, dressed in woman's attire, which,
on
his part, is an attention to a "woman goddess" whom the Babu
calls
his "mother, father and eldest brother."
In
short, all the attempts to re-establish the pure primitive
monotheism
of Aryan India have been a failure. They
always got
wrecked
upon the double rock of Brahmanism and of prejudices
centuries
old. But lo! here appears unexpectedly
the pandit
Dayanand. None, even of the most beloved of his
disciples, knows
who
he is and whence he comes. He openly
confesses before the
crowds
that the name under which he is known is not his, but was
given
to him at the Yogi initiation.
The
mystical school of Yogis was established by Patanjali, the
founder
of one of the six philosophical systems of ancient India.
It
is supposed that the Neo-platonists of the second and third
Alexandrian
Schools were the followers of Indian Yogis, more
especially
was their theurgy brought from India by Pythagoras,
according
to the tradition. There still exist in
India hundreds
of
Yogis who follow the system of Patanjali, and assert that they
are
in communion with Brahma. Nevertheless,
most of them are
do-nothings,
mendicants by profession, and great frauds, thanks
to
the insatiable longing of the natives for miracles. The real
Yogis
avoid appearing in public, and spend their lives in secluded
retirement
and studies, except when, as in Dayanand's case, they
come
forth in time of need to aid their country.
However, it is
perfectly
certain that India never saw a more learned Sanskrit
scholar,
a deeper metaphysician, a more wonderful orator, and a
more
fearless denunciator of every evil, than Dayanand, since the
time
of Sankharacharya, the celebrated founder of the Vedanta
philosophy,
the most metaphysical of Indian systems, in fact,
the
crown of pantheistic teaching. Then,
Dayanand's personal
appearance
is striking. He is immensely tall, his
complexion is
pale,
rather European than Indian, his eyes are large and bright,
and
his greyish hair is long. The Yogis and
Dikshatas (initiated)
never
cut either their hair or beard. His
voice is clear and loud,
well
calculated to give expression to every shade of deep feeling,
ranging
from a sweet childish caressing whisper to thundering
wrath
against the evil doings and falsehoods of the priests. All
this
taken together produces an indescribable effect on the
impressionable
Hindu. Wherever Dayanand appears crowds prostrate
themselves
in the dust over his footprints; but,
unlike Babu
Keshub
Chunder Sen, he does not teach a new religion, does not
invent
new dogmas. He only asks them to renew
their half-forgotten
Sanskrit
studies, and, having compared the doctrines of their
forefathers
with what they have become in the hands of Brahmans,
to
return to the pure conceptions of Deity taught by the primitive
Rishis--Agni,
Vayu, Aditya, and Anghira--the patriarchs who first
gave
the Vedas to humanity. He does not even
claim that the Vedas
are
a heavenly revelation, but simply teaches that "every word in
these
scriptures belongs to the highest inspiration possible to
the
earthly man, an inspiration that is repeated in the history
of
humanity, and, when necessary, may happen to any nation....."
During
his five years of work Swami Dayanand made about two million
proselytes,
chiefly amongst the higher castes.
Judging by appearances,
they
are all ready to sacrifice to him their lives and souls and
even
their earthly possessions, which are often more precious to
them
than their lives. But Dayanand is a real
Yogi, he never touches
money,
and despises pecuniary affairs. He
contents himself with a
few
handfuls of rice per day. One is
inclined to think that this
wonderful
Hindu bears a charmed life, so careless is he of rousing
the
worst human passions, which are so dangerous in India. A
marble
statue could not be less moved by the raging wrath of the
crowd. We saw him once at work. He sent away all his faithful
followers
and forbade them either to watch over him or to defend
him,
and stood alone before the infuriated crowd, facing calmly
the
monster ready to spring upon him and tear him to pieces.
----------
Here
a short explanation is necessary. A few
years ago a society
of
well-informed, energetic people was formed in New York. A
certain
sharp-witted savant surnamed them "La Societe des Malcontents
du
Spiritisme." The founders of this
club were people who, believing
in
the phenomena of spiritualism as much as in the possibility of
every
other phenomenon in Nature, still denied the theory of the
"spirits." They considered that the modern psychology
was a
science
still in the first stages of its development, in total
ignorance
of the nature of the psychic man, and denying, as do