Two boats, by order of Government, are in attendance at this point to prevent persons from drowning themselves or their children. The mere act of bathing in the waters of the Gunga, on a particular day, removes ten sins, however enormous, committed in ten previous births. How much greater must be the efficacy at the junction of the Gunga and Yamuna, which the Saraswati, the third sacred river, is supposed to join underground! The benefit arising from bathing at the lucky moment of the conjunction of the moon with a particular star is very great, or at the time of eclipse of the sun or moon.
The holy waters are convenient for washing away a man’s sins, and as efficacious as a pope’s bull for this purpose. Groups of natives stand in the river whilst their Brahman reads to them, awaiting the happy moment at which to dip into the sacred and triple waves. They fast until the bathing is over. Suicide committed at the junction is meritorious in persons of a certain caste, but a sin for a Brahman!
The holy men prefer the loaves and fishes of this world to the immediate moksh or beatitude, without further risk of transmigration, which is awarded to those who die at the sacred junction.
Bathing will remove sins, gain admittance into heaven, and the devotee will be reborn on earth in an honourable station.
A married woman without children often vows to Gunga to cast her first-born into the river: this in former times was often done at Prāg, it now rarely occurs. If the infant’s life is preserved, the mother cannot take it again.
RELIGIOUS MENDICANTS.
The most remarkable people at this Melā are the religious mendicants; they assemble by hundreds, and live within inclosures fenced off by sticks, a little distance from the booths. These people are the monks of the East; there are two orders of them; the Gosāins, or followers of Shivŭ, and the Byragies, disciples of Vishnoo. Any Mahomedan may become a fakīr, and a Hindoo of any caste, a religious mendicant. The ashes of cow-dung are considered purifying: these people are often rubbed over from head to foot with an ashen mixture, and have a strange dirty white, or rather blue appearance. Ganges mud, cow-dung, and ashes of cow-dung, form, I believe, the delectable mixture.
The sectarial marks or symbols are painted on their faces according to their caste, with a red, yellow, white, or brown pigment, also on their breasts and arms. Their only covering is a bit of rag passed between the legs and tied round the waist by a cord or rope.
One man whom I saw this day at the Melā was remarkably picturesque, and attracted my admiration. He was a religious mendicant, a disciple of Shivŭ. In stature he was short, and dreadfully lean, almost a skeleton. His long black hair, matted with cow-dung, was twisted like a turban round his head,—a filthy jŭta[99]! On his forehead three horizontal lines were drawn with ashes, and a circlet beneath them marked in red sanders—his sectarial mark. If possible, they obtain the ashes from the hearth on which a consecrated fire has been lighted. His left arm he had held erect so long that the skin and flesh had withered, and clung round the bones most frightfully; the nails of the hand which had been kept immoveably clenched, had pierced through the palm, and grew out at the back of the hand like the long claws of a bird of prey. His horrible and skeleton-like arm was encircled by a twisted stick, the stem, perhaps, of a thick creeper, the end of which was cut into the shape of the head of the cobra de capello, with its hood displayed, and the twisted withy looked like the body of the reptile wreathed around his horrible arm. His only garment, the skin of a tiger, thrown over his shoulders, and a bit of rag and rope at his waist. He was of a dirty-white or dirty-ashen colour from mud and paint; perhaps in imitation of Shivŭ, who, when he appeared on earth as a naked mendicant of an ashy colour, was recognized as Mahadēo the great god. This man was considered a very holy person. His right hand contained an empty gourd and a small rosary, and two long rosaries were around his neck of the rough beads called mundrāsee. His flag hung from the top of a bamboo, stuck in the ground by the side of a trident, the symbol of his caste, to which hung a sort of drum used by the mendicants. A very small and most beautifully formed little gynee (a dwarf cow) was with the man. She was decorated with crimson cloth, embroidered with cowrie shells, and a plume of peacock’s feathers as a jika, rose from the top of her head. A brass bell was on her neck, and around her legs were anklets of the same metal. Numbers of fakīrs come to the sacred junction, each leading one of these little dwarf cows decorated with shells, cowries, coloured worsted tassels, peacock’s feathers, and bells. Some are very small, about the size of a large European sheep, very fat and sleek, and are considered so sacred that they will not sell them.
Acts of severity towards the body, practised by religious mendicants, are not done as penances for sin, but as works of extraordinary merit, promising large rewards in a future state. The Byragee is not a penitent, but a proud ascetic. These people bear the character of being thieves and rascals.