Cardiff Blavatsky Archive

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H P Blavatsky

 

                              

 

From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan

by

H P Blavatsky

 

Translated From Russian

 

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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 Bombay

 

 

 

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 Calcutta

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