From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

But out on the great plain you may go for hundreds of miles, and mark but little change or variation. Flocks of green parrots, or of pigeons, fly by, or lesser birds; kites perpetually wheel and float overhead; occasionally you may see an antelope or two among the wilder scrub, or a peahen and her little family; the great cloudless blue (though not by any means always cloudless) arches over to the complete circle of the horizon, the whole land trembles in the heat, a light breeze shivers and whispers in the foliage, the sun burns down, and silence (except for the occasional chatter of the parrots or the plaintive song of the peasant) reigns over the vast demesne.

In many of these villages the face of a white man is seldom or never seen. Even such centres as Allahabad are mere specks in an ocean; the railway is a slender line of civilisation whose influence hardly extends beyond the sound of the locomotive whistle; over the northern borders of the plain the great snows of the Himalayas dawn into sight and fade away again mornings and evenings, and through its midst wind the slow broad-bosomed waters of the sacred Ganges.

Over all this region, when night comes, floats a sense of unspeakable relief. The spirit—compressed during the day in painful self-defence against the burning sun above and the blinding glare below—expands in grateful joy. A faint odor is wafted from the reviving herbage. The flat earth—which was a mere horizon line in the midday light—now fades into nothingness; the immense and mystic sky, hanging over on every side like a veil, opens back into myriads and myriads of stars—and it requires but little imagination to think that this planet is only an atom in the vast dome of heaven. To the Hindu, Life is that blinding sun, that fever of desire and discomfort, and night is the blessed escape, the liberation of the spirit—its grateful passage into Nirwana and the universal.

One understands (or thinks one does) how these immense plains have contributed to the speculative character of the Hindu mind. Mountains and broken ground call out energy and invention, but here there is no call upon one to leave the place where one is, or to change one’s habits of life, for the adjoining hundreds of miles present nothing new. Custom undisturbed consolidates itself; society crystallises into caste. The problem of external life once solved presents no more interest, and mechanical invention slumbers; the mind retires inward to meditate and to conquer. Hence two developments—in the best types that of the transcendental faculties, but in the worst mere outer sluggishness and lethargy. The great idea of Indifference belongs to these flat lands—in its highest form one of the most precious possessions of the human soul, in its lowest nothing better than apathy. The peasant too in these plains has for several months nothing to do. He sows his crop, waters it, and reaps it; works hard, and in a few months the rich land rewards him with a year’s subsistence; but he can do no more; the hot weather comes, and the green things are burnt up; agriculture ceases, and there remains nothing but to worship the gods. Hence from February to the end of May is the great time for religious festivals, marriages, and ceremonies and frolics of all kinds.

That the Ganges should be sacred, and even an object of worship, is easily intelligible—not only on account of its fertilising beneficence to the land, but there is something impressive in its very appearance: its absolute tranquillity and oceanic character as it flows, from half a mile to a mile wide, slowly, almost imperceptibly, onward through the vast hot plain. The water is greenish, not too clear, charged even in the lower portions of its course with the fine mud brought from the mountains; the banks are formed by sandy flats or low cliffs cut in the alluvial soil. As you stand by the water’s edge you sometimes in the straighter reaches catch that effect—which belongs to such rivers in flat countries—of flowing broad and tranquil up to and over the very horizon—an effect which is much increased by the shimmer of heat over the surface.

In the Mahabhárata Siva is god of the Himalaya range—or rather he is the Himalayas—its icy crags his brow, its forests his hair. Ganga, the beautiful Ganga, could not descend to earth till Siva consented to receive her upon his head. So impetuously then did she rush down (in rain) that the god grew angry and locked up her floods amid his labyrinthine hair—till at last he let them escape and find their way to the plains. The worship of Siva is very old—was there perhaps when the ancestors of the Brahmans first found their way into these plains—though we do not hear of it till about 300 B.C.—one of those far-back Nature worships in which the phenomena of earth and sky are so strangely and poetically interwoven with the deepest intimations of the human soul.

On the banks of the Ganges, in the midst of the great plain, stands Benares, one of the most ancient cities of India, and the most sacred resort of Northern Hinduism. Hither come pilgrims by the hundred and the thousand all the year round, to bathe in the Ganges, to burn the bodies of their friends or cast their ashes in the stream, and to make their offerings at the 5,000 shrines which are said to exist in the city. Outside the town along the river-side and in open spots may be seen the tents of pilgrims, and camels tethered. The city itself stands on the slightest rising ground—hardly to be called a hill—and the river banks, here higher than usual, are broken and built into innumerable terraces, stairs, temples, and shrines. The scene is exceedingly picturesque, especially as seen from the river; and though taken in detail the city contains little that is effective in the way of architecture—the shrines and temples being mostly quite small, the streets narrow, and the area of the place circumscribed considering its large population—yet it is the most characteristic and interesting town of India that I have hitherto seen.

The English make no show here—there are no residents, no hotels—the English quarter is four miles off, the names of the streets are not written in English characters, and you hardly see a shop sign in the same. And I must say the result of all this is very favorable. The sense of organic life that you immediately experience is very marked in contrast to a mongrel city like Calcutta. As you thread the narrow alleys, along which no vehicle can pass, with houses three or four storeys high forming a close lane above you, balconies and upper floors projecting in picturesque confusion not unlike the old Italian towns, you feel that the vari-colored crowd through which you elbow your way is animated by its own distinct standards and ideals. A manifold ancient industry little disturbed by modern invention is going on in the tiny shops on either hand—workshops and saleshops in one. Here is a street full of brass-workers. The elegant brass pots which the whole population uses—for holding or carrying water or oil, for pouring water over the head in bathing, for offering libations in the temples, and so forth—and which form such a feature of Indian folk-life—are here being made, from miniature sizes up to huge vessels holding several gallons. Then there are little brass images, saucers to carry flowers in, and other fancy ware of the same kind.

Another street is full of sandal and leather workers; another of sweetmeat or sweet-cake confectioners; another is given to the sale of woollen and cotton wraps—which are mostly commercial products of the West; stone and marble effigies, and gems, form another branch of industry; and cookshops—innocent fortunately of the smell of meat—of course abound. There are many fine faces, both old and young, but especially old—grave peaceful penetrative faces—and among the better types of young men some composed, affectionate, and even spiritual faces—withal plenty of mere greed and greasy worldliness.

Niched among these alleys are the numerous shrines and temples already mentioned—some a mere image of Vishnu or Siva, with a lingam in front of it, some little enclosures with several shrines—the so-called Golden Temple itself only a small affair, with one or two roofs plated with gold. In many of the temples brahman cows wander loose, quite tame, nosing against the worshipers, who often feed them; and the smell of litter and cowdung mingles with that of frankincense and camphor. Vulture-eyed Brahmans are on the alert round the more frequented sanctuaries, and streams of pilgrims and devotees go to and fro.