The Gosāin’s Temple.
Just above the Fort of Allahabad, on the banks of the Jumna, close to the Jāmma Musjid, or large mosque, amongst the ruins of the ancient city of Prāg, within a Boorj (or Bastion), is an old well, from which the bank has been washed away by the river, and which now stands within the edge of the stream.
The well in the centre of the Boorj descends into the Jumna; over it is built a most peculiar, circular, and singular temple; this and a small square outer building is the residence of the gosāin, who by his incantations, made the servants restore the 150 rupees that had been stolen.
The pillars are peculiar—Ionic—no further ornamental work is visible: perforated stone fills up the openings above: some have been blocked up: the Nagree writing in red letters at the foot of the pillar is recent: several boorj (bastions) beyond this one, which contains the water-gate, have sunk into the river: there were eight originally, seven of which are still visible. Accompanied by a gentleman, I went to sketch it, and asked the gosāin to allow us to see the interior. The holy man made some difficulty in allowing us to enter; sweet words induced him to open the door.
“By sweet words and gentleness you may draw an elephant by a hair[44].”
Within was a small room, in which was the gosāin’s bed, and a large green painted chest, iron clamped, on wheels, which, I suppose, contained his valuables: it must have been put together in the room, being too large to have come in through the door-way. In a nitch of the wall was a small brazen image of Krishna, with a smaller one of Rhada, the latter dressed in a full red and yellow petticoat, stretched out like a fan, and many times wider than the height of the idol.
This is the second time I have seen a place consecrated to these images. The worship is very impure, I am told; and, in spite of the holy character of the priest, histories are whispered about which account for the marvellous properties of the seeds of the peepul-tree. Women principally worship at this shrine.
The circular temple above the well, to which there is a grating, contains either the gosāin’s money or zenāna, or both: he would not allow us to take a view of the interior. On the outside, at the foot of the temple, is a neglected and broken image, in stone, of Varaha, the avatār of Vishnoo with the head of a boar.
Whilst sketching the temple, we remarked its strong resemblance to the temple of the Sibyl, and were greatly surprised at its Ionic style of architecture.
On my return to England, a gentleman, seeing the sketch, said, “You must have painted from imagination, no such architecture is in the East.” This remark annoyed me. I defended the truth and faithfulness of my pencil, and determined, should fate ever carry me back to the ancient city of Prāg, to pay most particular attention to the architecture, and to re-sketch the temple. The mystery of its similarity to that of the Sibyl will be explained hereafter.
I must give a specimen of the natives. I asked the man who has the charge of the rabbits, why a remarkably handsome buck was missing, and a white doe was in its place?
The man vowed that “the day being extremely hot, the sun had turned the black buck white, and had altered the sex also!” I called a chaprāsī, desired him to pay the man’s wages, deducting the value of the buck, and turn him out of my service: his penitence and recantation were in vain. “I wish you would give me a beating, and let me remain in your service,” said the man. “You may have a beating if you wish it,” said I, “but unless it changes your sex, you shall not remain in my service.”
“THE DIVER WHO THINKS ON THE JAWS OF THE CROCODILE, WILL NEVER GATHER PRECIOUS PEARLS[45].”
This saying is very applicable to Europeans in India: the climate is worse than the jaws of the crocodile; and as for the pearls—when large appointments, in the hope of attaining which men have been slaving upon small allowances, fall vacant, the shears are applied, and a reduction of one-third or more follows. It is rumoured, but upon doubtful evidence, that the Governor-general and members of Council determined to sacrifice part of their allowances to contribute to the general exigencies of the state, but found they were restricted from receiving less by the Act of Parliament, by which their salaries are fixed. The Governor-general, in common parlance, is called “the clipper.”
It is to be hoped the Half Batta measure will be abandoned; if it is insisted upon, the experiment will be somewhat perilous. Let the Board of Control look at the numbers carried off by the climate, and they must acknowledge their pay is blood-money. The sipahīs are deserting from different stations, eight and nine a day, and some regiments are almost in a state of mutiny. The men desert to Runjeet Singh; and I understand the officers of many regiments will not dine at the Government-house, and only make their appearance when obliged by order. Heaven help those poor fellows who have wives and children to starve on half batta!
A DHURMSĀLĀ BENE MAHADĒO CHAUT.
Sketched on the spot and on Stone by Major Parlby.
CHAPTER XII.
SKETCHES AT ALLAHABAD.
“THE LAMP BURNS NOT BEFORE THE BLACK SNAKE[46],”
Which, like the Burmese idols, is supposed to carry a bright jewel in its head.
1829.—The Snake-charmer—Ram Leela—Board of Works—The Hukāk—Kurand Patthar—Pebbles from the Soane and Cane Rivers—Raj Ghāt—The Dhrumsāla—The Ginee—Temple of Hŭnoomān, Ram, and Seeta—Ravuna the Giant—Bene-Māhadēo—The Adansonia—Little Jack Bunce—Encampment of the Governor-general—Ashes of a Rajah consigned to the Ganges—Christmas-boxes.
1829, Oct.—Snakes are very numerous in our garden; the cobra de capello, and the black snake, whose bite is just as mortal. This morning I turned over some tiles with my foot, when a cobra I had disturbed glided into the centre of the heap, where we killed him.
Mohummud said, “Kill snakes, and kill the snake which has two black lines upon its back, and kill the snake called abter, on account of its small tail; for verily these two kinds of snake blind the eyes as soon as they are looked at. You must not kill the snakes that live in the houses, because they are not snakes but a kind of genii. Domestic snakes, which are genii, must be warned to depart; if they do not, they are to be killed. The genii are of three kinds, one kind have wings, and fly; another are snakes and dogs; and the third move about from place to place like men.”
“But do not hurry in killing them, but say, ‘do not incommode me, if you do, I shall kill you.’ Then, if it goes away, so much the better; but if not, kill it, because it is an infidel genius.”
“Kill all snakes, except the small white one, which is not poisonous[47].”
Several were in the stable and hen-house. A snake-charmer came, who offered to fascinate and catch the snakes for me at one rupee a head. He caught one, for which I gave him a rupee; but as I had it killed, he never returned—the charm was broken—it was a tame fangless snake, which he had tried to pass off as the wild one.
We killed three scorpions in the dining-room, of rather large dimensions. Our friend and neighbour had much compassion on frogs. Many an enormous bull-frog he rescued alive from the jaws of the snakes he killed in his garden. The poor frogs lost their defender on his return to England, and we an excellent friend.
During the Burmese war I had presents made me of seven or eight idols: one was of gold, several of silver; some of black, some of white marble, others of bronze. The soldiers in Burmah opened the heads of many of the large idols, and found jewels within them. I have never disturbed the “reflecting gems” within the brains of my Burmese gods; they may contain, for aught I know, “heaps of gold, inestimable jewels,”—there let them rest.
Oct. 29th.—We drove to the Parade-ground, to view the celebration of the Ram Leela festival. Ram the warrior god is particularly revered by the sipahīs. An annual tamāshā is held in his honour, and that of Seeta his consort. A figure of Rawan the giant, as large as a windmill, was erected on the Parade-ground: the interior of the monster was filled with fireworks. This giant was destroyed by Ram. All sorts of games are played by the sipahīs, on the Parade. Mock fights and wrestling matches take place, and fireworks are let off. Two young natives, about ten or twelve years old, are often attired to represent Ram and Seeta; and men with long tails figure as the army of monkeys, headed by their leader Hŭnoomān.
On dit, that the children who personate Ram and Seeta, the handsomest they can select, never live more than a year after the festival—for this I vouch not—it is said they are poisoned.
One ceremony was very remarkable: each native regiment took out its colours and made pooja to the standards, offering them sweetmeats, flowers, rice, and pān, as they do to a god! At Cawnpore I saw the men of the third cavalry riding round the image of the giant, with their colours flying, after having made pooja to them.
At the conclusion of the tamāshā, the figure of Rawan is blown up by the conqueror Ram. At the great Mela at Allahabad, I procured a large marble image of Ram, which came from Jeypore; it is highly gilt and ornamented: in his left hand is the bow of power, and the quiver full of arrows in his right: the trident mark adorns his forehead, and on his head is a crown. See the figure on the left of Ganesh in the [frontispiece].
“Ram, the deified hero, was a famous warrior, and a youth of perfect beauty. He was the happy possessor of the divine bow Danush, which the giant Ravuna could not bend, and with which he contested for, and won, the hand of the goddess Seeta. It was ordained, that he only who could bend this bow, and with it shoot a fish, while revolving on a pole, through the left eye, not seeing the fish, but its reflection in a pan of oil, should espouse Seeta. The name of Ram is used beyond the pale of his own sectarists, in supplication and praise.”
Rám, rám, is a usual salutation, like our good-morrow, between friends at meeting or parting. It is reverently reiterated at times in aid of abstraction, and in moments of enthusiasm or distress.
On the birthday of this god the Hindoo merchants in general begin their year’s accounts; and on this day the gods caused a shower of flowers to fall from heaven.
“Ravuna, a giant who reigned at Ceylon, having seized Hŭnoomān, ordered his tail to be set on fire. The enraged monkey, with his burning tail, leaped from house to house, and set all Lŭnka (Ceylon) on fire; after finishing which, he came to Seeta, and complained that he could not extinguish the fire that had kindled on his tail. She directed him to spit upon it; and he, raising it to his face for this purpose, set his face on fire. He then complained, that when he arrived at home with such a black face, all the monkeys would laugh at him. Seeta, to comfort him, assured him, that all the other monkeys should have black faces also; and when Hŭnoomān came amongst his friends, he found that, according to the promise of Seeta, they had all black faces as well as himself.
“Mŭndodŭrēē, the chief wife of Ravuna the giant, whom Ram had killed, came to Ram weeping; and he, not knowing who she was, gave her this blessing, that she should never become a widow. Finding his mistake, having just killed her husband, he ordered Hŭnoomān continually to throw wood upon the fire, according to a proverb amongst the Hindoos, that as long as the body of the husband is burning, a woman is not called a widow.
“To this day, therefore, Hŭnoomān keeps laying logs on the fire; and every time a Hindoo puts his fingers in his ears and hears a sound, he says he hears the bones of the giant Ravuna burning[48].”
The marks on the foreheads of Ram’s followers very much resemble a trident.
At the time of death many Hindoos write the name of Ram on the breast and forehead of the dying person, with earth taken from the banks of the Ganges; and thence those persons after death, instead of being dragged to Yamu, the Holy King, the Judge of the Dead, to receive sentence, immediately ascend to heaven.
The mock fights at the Ram Leela are in remembrance of the time when Hŭnoomān and his monkeys constructed a bridge from the continent of India to Ceylon (Lŭnka), over which Ram’s army passed, and rescued the imprisoned Seeta from the hands of the giant Rawan or Ravuna, who had carried her off. Seeta then passed through the ordeal of fire, and by her miraculous incombustibility assured the world of her purity; Ram placed the mālā, the chaplet of marriage, around her neck, and the monkeys capered and gambolled with delight.
The white marble figure in the [frontispiece] to the left of Ganesh represents Ram, the deified hero, with his bow and quiver. The brass figure in front of the latter is Hŭnoomān, bearing Ram Seeta on his shoulders.