It is but another anomaly in this land of anomalies that that should be the strongest possible sanction in a community where there is no social intercourse in the Western sense, where individual families live so entirely aloof, that their womenkind do not visit each other.
But the fact is, there is nothing more unassailable than caste. In the second century before Christ Buddha strove to break it down—Gautama Buddha, who was so reverenced by the Hindu that he is considered an incarnation of Krishna.... Yet, to-day, in Buddha Gaya, the preacher of the brotherhood of man sits in the beautiful old Temple, to which Hindu and Buddhist alike come on pilgrimage, with a caste mark on his forehead! And under the very shadow of the image the Brahmin will throw away the food or water defiled by contact with the outer-brother.
We see men travelling by the same train (and of course this and all the other cohesive tendencies always being quoted to us do effect something), and we think this represents a breaking down of barriers. Does it, of the real barrier? Listen to the Water-Carriers on the platform: “Water, water for the Mahommedan”; “Water for the Hindu”; “Water for the Brahmin.” The Brahmin may “water” any caste, the highest may stoop to serve the lowest; but the highest may not accept service of any but the highest.
To my mind this caste problem is one which will need grapplement before any single other object or aim or ambition can be made national, representative. There is neither speech nor language in orthodoxy, yet its voice is heard by those who live among the masses away from the Anglification of the great cities; and it is a voice that asserts, that none dream of disobeying. It is a voice that curses; men fear to disobey, even when they writhe under the curse. And all the full ecstatic organ stop of the handful of vociferating Reformers in the Metropolis would not drown one silent syllable of its perpetual invocation!
One word more. I have called this study the Nasal test. We all know what happens when a Hindu wife lapses from rectitude. There is no scene in a law Court, but she goes through life self-betrayed; she has lost the tip of her nose. The pain of the punishment is obviously its publicity; but it would be interesting to know whether in origin it had any connection with caste. Is it possible that the mutilated nose was but symbolical of the husband’s right to excommunicate? “For this sin you are to me outcast. I know no greater punishment. Reap even as you have sown!”
IX
THE MOTHERS OF FIGHTERS
Rugged hills, all stone and cactus bush, and brown-white dust and grass the colour of dust; and, from the desert beyond the hills, hot dry winds smiting the face.... Such is the country which breeds the warrior caste—grim and gaunt and attractive. Nothing of softness in man and soil, even the very fold of the hills where elsewhere in the smiling uplands of the Deccan or the rhododendron-clad Himalayas, or the jungle-veiled hills of Central India, you expect a handful at least of grass, green and succulent for the sheepfolk: even this here breeds stones to hurl at the invader when other missiles fail. The Rajput hill-giant opens his mailed fist and shows you David’s weapons.
“Nothing of softness in man or soil.” And yet once you are inside those hill-fortresses the grimness relaxes—you get the very romance of beauty—lace work in marble, water palaces and walled gardens. Thus at Oodeypore, at the foot of that wonderful rock-hung fortress of the King who was saved by his Nurse, is the Suggun Niwas, sitting like a lotus flower on its broad green leaf—a series of marble lattices and balconies and exquisite turrets, built round the quiet peace of a water garden of fruit trees, gorgeous study in orange and green, or the potpourri of the flower garden of my Lady Rosebody. Or there again, is the Queen of Cities, the Universal Mother standing to greet you at the mouth of a great mountain gorge. The road winds higher and higher, the gates of the outer world close upon you; you are at home here in the peace place of “the heart’s true ease,” beside the lake of pink mimosa and sweet-scented thyme....
You walk in the dead cities—the walls have outlived the rivalry of Kings—the white palaces glitter on the hill tops, and the priceless mosaics still hide in the niches.... The fierce upstanding men of the divided beard, their swords girt upon their loins, are fighters still. You know that when you meet them in the Cities of the Living, they have not lost their cult of the sword, their love for the soil, these earth-born. But, what of the women? The gardens are deserted and the baths and robing-rooms, the summer palaces, and the sandal-wood halls of pleasure, and all the dainty or thoughtful arrangements which prove the Rajputni an individual in the eye of her lord—all deserted.... Here, when the King held his moonlight Durbar on the roof of the palace, she had hidden to watch the pomp and circumstance of feudalism, the glitter of jewelled daggers, the soft richness of brocade, or the sheen of those richer garments of light ... and the Lake lay peaceful at her feet, and the twin fortresses frowned watch and ward.... Here she was suttee when her Lord died fighting at the Gate; here she led his armies to victory; here she drank smiling, the poisoned cup, which was to save the honour of a line of Kings....
Down this dusty road, between the high walled mountains, she walked in the procession of women, all garlanded with roses and jasmine, to make oblation before the Goddess of Children. Or, now again it is “the Festival of Flowers” itself; the grain has sprouted and the women go with singing and dancing to bathe in the sacred Lake before they carry to their lords the green sprig which, worn in the turban, is sign of love and unity. It is the Women’s Festival. No man may take part in it; but the grim men of the grim mountains, with love and reverence at their hearts, stand at the salute—a guard of honour for the women as they pass.