"Why, what else is he? Is not his skin white?" said a youth, presumptuously thrusting himself into the conclave of the elders.
"Peace! Since when was it meet for children to prattle in the presence of their grandsires?" demanded a grey-haired coolie contemptuously. "Know, boy, that Shri Krishn's skin was of the same colour when he moved among us on earth."
Krishna, the Second Person of the Hindu Trinity, the best-loved god of all their mythological heaven, is represented in the cheap coloured oleographs sold in the bazaars in India as being of fair complexion.
"Is he Krishna himself?" asked a female coolie eagerly, the glass bangles on her arm rattling as she raised her hand to draw her sari over her face when she thus addressed men. "Is he Krishna, think you? He is handsome enough to be the Holy One."
"Who knows, daughter? It may be. Shri Krishn has many incarnations," said the old man solemnly.
"Nay, I do not think that he is Krishna," remarked an elderly coolie. "It may be that he is another of the Holy Ones."
"Perhaps he is Gunesh," ventured a younger man.
"No; he bestrides Gunesh. I think he must be Krishna," chimed in another. "What lesser god would dare to use Gunesh as his steed?"
"He is Gunesh himself," asserted a grey-beard. "Does he not range the jungle and the mountains at the head of all the elephants of the Terai? Can he not call them to his aid as Hanuman did the monkeys?"
"He is certainly a Holy One or else a very powerful demon," declared the old man. "It is an evil and a dangerous thing to molest those whom he protects. The Bhuttias, ignorant pagans that they are, carried off the missie baba he favours. What, think ye, has been their fate? With your own eyes ye have all seen the blood and the flesh of men upon the tusk and legs of his sacred elephant."