Children of India

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Children of India, by Janet Harvey Kelman
A VILLAGE STREET
CHILDREN OF INDIA BY JANET HARVEY KELMAN
WITH EIGHT COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH
CHILDREN OF INDIA
India is a very old land, and those who live there look far back into the past. They listen to the stories that were told of men and gods in those old days, and follow the customs that were followed then.
There are many gods in India, and many priests who serve in their temples and at their shrines. The priests have more power over the lives of the people than the gods have, but custom has far more power than either gods or priests.
No one can tell how many hundreds of years have passed since the stories that rule the lives of Hindu children to-day were first told. Long before the earliest time of which we know anything in the history of our islands, there were wise thinkers and clever workmen in India, and the men and women of that land think of them and of their customs with awe and reverence. And because much of the life of a Hindu child to-day is the result of the thoughts that have come from that far past time, we must listen to some of those old stories.
Before America was discovered by Columbus men here had strange ideas about the shape of the world. Men in India had thought of that too, long before anyone in Britain did, and this is the picture of the world they made for themselves.
They saw a beautiful large lotus flower held up on the back of an elephant, in the midst of seven seas. One sea was of salt water and another of fresh, and these two were the only ones that were at all like the seas of earth. One of the others was a sticky sea, for the waves that broke on its shores were of sugar-cane juice. Another was clear and sparkling with dancing waves of wine. Then there was an oily sea of melted butter, a flat sea of curds, and a beautiful white sea of milk. But no one had looked at these strange seas, nor had anyone seen the great elephant that held the lotus flower on his back. Only the flower itself at the centre of all was seen or known. India to the south, and the other lands to the north, the east, and the west of the Himalayas, formed the petals of the world lotus, and at its centre amongst the great snow mountains the god Siva sat on his throne on Mount Meru.