ANCIENT HINDŪ RUIN.

My tents were pitched near Merunkee Sarā’e: in the evening, as I was riding into Kanauj, at the tomb of Bala Pīr, I met Captain C⸺ on an elephant, and accompanied him to see the remains of a most ancient Hindū temple. Of all the ruins I have seen this appears to me the most remarkable and the most ancient: the pillars are composed of two long roughly-hewn stones, placed one upon the other, and joined by a tenon and mortise; no cement of any sort appears to have been used. The style of the building is most primitive, and there is a little carving—and but a little—on some of the stones; the structure is rapidly falling into decay. I regret exceedingly I cannot remember the marvellous stories that were related to me connected with this ruin and its inhabitants.

“For they were dead and buried and embalm’d,

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:

Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after their primæval race was run.”

On my return to the tents, my ayha complained bitterly of the annoyance she had experienced on the long march of thirteen miles and a half, over bad roads; she had been upset in her bailī, a native carriage, drawn by two bullocks, and her serenity was sadly discomposed.

7th.—This day, being Sunday, was a halt,—a great refreshment after toil; and Divine Service was performed in the tent of the Governor-General; after which, at 3 P.M., I went, on an elephant, to see two most ancient and curious specimens of Hindū sculpture, the figures of Rām and Lutchman, which are about five feet in height, carved on separate stones, and surrounded by a whole heaven of gods and goddesses: the stones themselves, which are six or seven feet high, are completely covered with numerous images; and a devi (goddess), rather smaller, is on one side.

Passing through the bazār at Kanauj was a fearful thing. There lay the skeleton of a woman who had died of famine; the whole of her clothes had been stolen by the famished wretches around, the pewter rings were still in her ears, but not a rag was left on the bones that were starting through the black and shrivelled skin; the agony on the countenance of the corpse was terrible. Next to her a poor woman, unable to rise, lifted up her skinny arm, and moaned for food. The unhappy women, with their babies in their arms, pressing them to their bony breasts, made me shudder. Miserable boys, absolutely living skeletons, pursued the elephant, imploring for bread: poor wretches, I had but little money with me, and could give them only that little and my tears: I cannot write about the scene without weeping, it was so horrible, and made me very sick. Six people died of starvation in the bazār to-day. Lord Auckland daily feeds all the poor who come for food, and gives them blankets; five or six hundred are fed daily;—but what avails it in a famine like this? it is merciful cruelty, and only adds a few more days to their sufferings; better to die at once, better to end such intolerable and hopeless misery: these people are not the beggars, but the tillers of the soil. When I was last at Kanauj the place was so beautiful, so luxuriant in vegetation,—the bright green trees, the river winding through low fields of the richest pasture: those fields are all bare, not a blade of grass. The wretched inhabitants tear off the bark of the wild fig tree (goolèr), and pound it into food; in the course of four or five days their bodies swell, and they die in agonies. The cultivators sit on the side of their fields, and, pointing to their naked bodies, cry, “I am dying of hunger.” Some pick out the roots of the bunches of coarse grass, and chew them. The people have become desperate; sometimes, when they see a sipahī eating they rush upon him to take his food; sometimes they fall one over the other as they rush for it, and having fallen, being too weak to rise, they die on the spot, blessed in finding the termination of their sufferings. The very locusts appear to have felt the famine; you see the wings here and there on the ground, and now and then a weak locust pitches on a camel. Every tree has been stripped of its leaves for food for animals. The inhabitants of Kanauj, about a lākh of people, have fled to Oogein and to Saugar. The place will be a desert; none will remain but the grain merchants, who fatten on the surrounding misery. There is no hope of rain for five months; by that time the torments of these poor wretches will have ended in death;—and this place is the one I so much admired from the river, with its rich fields, and its high land covered with fine trees and ruins!

I returned to the ancient Hindū building that had so much interested me, to sketch it at leisure, and was thus employed, when I was surrounded by numbers of the starved and wretched villagers. I performed my task as quickly as possible, and whatever errors there may be in the performance, must be attributed to the painful scene by which I was surrounded; some of the poor people flung themselves on the ground before me, attempting to perform pā-bos, that is, kissing the feet; wildly, frantically, and with tears imploring for food; their skeleton forms hideously bearing proof of starvation; the very remembrance makes me shudder. I quitted the ruin, and returned to my tents. To-morrow we quit Kanauj, thank God! It is dreadful to witness and to be unable to relieve such suffering.

I picked up a curious piece of ancient sculpture, Mahadēo, with Pārvatī in the centre, and a devi on each side, which I brought to my tent on the elephant. Considering it too heavy to carry about on the march, we buried it at night under a peepul tree, and shall take it away on our return home, if it will please to remain there.

At this place I learned the following legend. In the olden time, Kanauj was a great city. There were giants in those days, men of enormous stature, who dwelt at Kanauj, and with three steps could accomplish the distance hence to Fathīgarh. En passant, be it remarked, it took the feeble mortals in the camp of the Governor-General three long marches, during three long days, to pass over the same ground. The women were also very powerful; on brushing their houses of a morning, it was their custom to pitch the dirt a stone’s throw from the door. Now, the women being as strong as the men, the dirt was thrown as far as Fathīgarh in a heap; and on the rising ground produced by these dirt-throwing damsels was afterwards erected the Fort of Fathīgarh.

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE HINDŪ TRIAD.

The 330,000,000 Gods of the Hindū Pantheon—The Janéo—Brŭmhŭ—The Trinity—Brahma—Vishnŭ—Shivŭ—The Ten Avatars—The Fish—The Tortoise—The Boar—The Man-lion—Vamana the Dwarf—Parashu-Rāma—Rāma-Chandra—Bala-Rāma—Booddhŭ—Kalkī—Krishnŭ—Radha—Rukmeni—Jagana’th—Kama-deva—Mahadēo—Pārvatī—Ganesh—Kartikeya—Lachhmī—Saraswatī—Durgā—Satī—The Purānas—The Mundane Egg of the Hindūs—The Vedas—Ascension of the God Buddha.

My journal is a constant source of pleasure; it not only amuses me to record passing events, but in writing it I perform a promise given ere I quitted England. Letters from home assure me of the delight with which it is received, of the pleasure with which they follow me through my wanderings, and of the interest they feel in all those scenes that pass before me. The religion of the Hindūs, who are perhaps the most extraordinary people on the face of the earth, is to my friends as interesting as to me; they wish for more information on the subject, therefore, however difficult the task, it must be performed. Performed!—“Aye, there’s the rub,” but how? shall I send them, pour commencer au commencement, a catalogue of the deities in the Hindū Pantheon, amounting to three hundred and thirty millions of gods and goddesses? 330,000,000, “Taintīs karor déotā!”—The nomenclature would be somewhat difficult.

Shall I send them the names of the three hundred gods which are interwoven in silk and gold on the janéo I wear around my neck, to which is appended the key of my cabinet? I have three of these sacred janéos, purchased at Benares; unlike the Brahmanical thread, which bears the same name, but which is merely thread tightly twisted, these janéos are thick strong ribbons made of red, black, yellow, and white silk, interwoven in which are the names of the gods. They are worn over the right shoulder and under the left arm on particular days of pūja, and are esteemed very holy. On one in my possession, formed of red and different coloured silk, the names of three hundred of the gods are interwoven; the letters are in the Sanscrit character; the breadth of the band one inch. On a second, formed of black and coloured silk, and rather narrower, at intervals in several places on the sacred band is woven in the same character, “Srī Radha Krishn.” The third is still narrower, and similarly ornamented. The janéo is considered to possess many virtues: some that I saw at Benares were from two to three inches in breadth, of rich silk, and the names interwoven in gold and silver thread; they were handsome and very expensive.

The Hindoo Triad.

‎‏فاني پارکس‏‎

In my youthful days I devoted much time to drawing out the pedigree of my own family, a task that to me was one of pleasure, on revient toujours à ses premiers amours; in lieu of a dry catalogue of the three hundred and thirty millions of Hindū deities, I will form a short pedigree, if such a term be applicable to it, to assist my own memory, and for the amusement and edification of the beloved one to whom this my journal is dedicated.