“There is but one religion—the service of man and personal holiness by realization of God. No need for rules of conduct, for commandments. Realize God and even the desire to transgress is slain. But realize God and the place even of sin in the scheme of the world will be clear. There is nothing which is outside God. Yes—this is a hard doctrine, to be learnt only by sitting aloof from men, sitting in a place of green trees, in solitudes where blow the winds of God, fresh and pure.”
Perhaps one reason of the ascendency of the Priesthood was that at one time the priests were the moneylenders of the Community. We know this was so even as late as the eighteenth century. Say a man wished to borrow £3: he went to the Faqir who put the sum into his hand in the presence of witnesses, but about 15s. had to be returned to himself as a present. Interest was never less than 12 per cent. and the lender kept a watch-dog at the expense of the borrower, to see that he did not run away! So the poor wretch seldom got more than half the sum he borrowed, while, to compel repayment, children were often sold, and most cruelly tortured.
It is curious to recall in this connection the old Sanskritic tale of the learner who went to the Sage to ask what might be the best penance for deeds of evil.
“Gifts of Cows, of land, and especially of gold to Brahmins.”
“Why specially gold?” “The purifying power of gold. Oh! Purusurama,” was the answer, “is very great. They who bestow it, bestow the Gods.”
“How so?” said the obstinate Learner.
“Know, oh! Hero, that Agni (fire) comprehends all the Gods, and gold is of the essence of Agni.”
Women Priestesses there are; but not as a regular institution of the Purdah. If it is right to conclude that the system of seclusion is encouraged and italicized by the Priests in order to preserve the man’s monopoly, the reason will be obvious.
Also it would seem as though except as a religious elect before or from birth, or remarkable for peculiar learning, like my Holiness, the Priestess chooses the humbler position of the service of a Guru, leaving guidance to her male counterpart. Some act procurator in positions not possible of relation; but there must be exceptions, and one charming young Priestess at least have I known who owed her attractions neither to the sacred learning nor to prophecy. She was from the North country, and appeared suddenly one pilgrim season in the vicinity of Nasik, in Western India. Tall and beautiful, of commanding presence, clad in shell-pink draperies; a close-cropped head, discoloured to a brilliant copper by the fumes of the opium fire—such was the figure that stood, pilgrim flag in hand, by the roadside, asking protection of a passing stranger. Remarkable to look upon she would have been in any costume, but thus, against the glow of a low sun-setting, she was arresting.
And her story? full of humour and pathos. She and a younger Brother, orphaned early in life, were left to the care of an Uncle. The property was the Brother’s with reversion to herself. The Brother died while still a child; helped out of life, she conceived when old enough to understand these things, and the property was hers and she bride-elect to her cousin. She had loved her Brother passionately—Oh! you saw that, in her eyes and in the picture she left with you of her attempts to push Death away from the threshold. “Stroke the brindled cow,” was the last prescription of the old Priestess, who sat in the near-by forest: and the child brought in the old cow to the neglected bedside. Then, in a frenzy, she ran to the old Priestess: “Cut off my hair”—she was but ten years old—“and initiate me. It will, maybe, please the Gods, and spare the life.” And the Priestess, alleged seller of God-favours, initiated the child, being not unaware of her position and prospects.