Children of India

by Janet Harvey Kelman

But before a Hindu boy marries he has been taught how he must worship the gods. A little Brahman boy puts on the sacred thread which marks his caste, and which he wears over his right shoulder, when he is eight or nine years old; from that time onwards he must keep all the rules of his caste. When the thread is first put on a priest whispers into the boy’s ear the sacred text or “mantra” of his family. He must remember it well, for he will have to repeat it over and over again each morning before bathing and then again each evening. He must always repeat his text and bathe before he tastes food. If he is a good boy, he will say his text over and over again very often. In some parts of India he must not stop until he has said it one hundred and eight times.

The sacred thread is not the only mark by which a boy shows his caste or the god he worships. He may have a white V marked on his forehead, or a yellow W, or a wavy line right across, with perhaps a grain of rice stuck in the centre, and if he is going to a feast he will have a bright red dot there too.

Hindu boys repeat the names of their gods as well as the sacred text of their caste. One little boy who wished to be very careful that he worshipped his gods well used to say, “Rama, Rama, Rama,” until he had said the name twelve thousand, five hundred times; and then he said, “Siva, Siva, Siva,” six thousand, two hundred and fifty times, every day.

There are special days and weeks at each shrine and temple, when there is more merit in offering gifts than at other times, and on these days people throng to lay their presents before the gods. They bring oil or camphor for the priest to burn in a censer which has a large lamp in the centre for the camphor and five small ones round it for the oil, and when the priest lights the lamps he waves the censer before the idol, and the sweet scent of the camphor fills the shrine. Others bring melted butter and rice, and others fruit and flowers. Marigolds are the favourite flowers to bring, and the temple steps are strewn with them. But with all the other offerings there must be, if possible, a little money, for the priest will look eagerly to see if there are any pice[6] in the offering.

There is no place to which larger crowds of people go to worship than Benares, and if a boy is lucky enough to be there he will see many curious sights. He might see these things in other cities too, but not so many of them all together.

The strangest people he will see are the Fakirs. They wander about from city to city and from temple to temple, and live entirely on the gifts that are given to them by the devout. Even if a Hindu does not wish to be kind and generous, he will give a gift to a Fakir, because he believes that if the Fakir curses him his rice will wither on its stem, his cattle and his children will sicken and die, and ill-luck will follow him in everything. So the very shadow of a Fakir is held sacred, and no one will cross it lest harm should come to him for his want of reverence.

The Fakir wears as little clothes as possible, but he covers his body with mud and ashes, and makes his hair stick out in all sorts of uncouth forms with gum and clay. He wears a rope or some strings of beads round his neck. Sometimes he whitewashes his face, and paints lines on it, and makes himself still more uncanny-looking than he already is with his thin body and his wild hair. He has a boy whom he calls his “Chela” with him, and a brass bowl, and nothing else. The boy goes out with the bowl at breakfast time, and begs till it is full; then he comes back to the Fakir where he rests on the temple steps, or under a cart, or by the wayside, to eat the meal with him. The Fakir himself should never beg, for the gods he worships are supposed to send him all he needs, and if he receives nothing from them, he must starve. Some Fakirs are earnest men who seek to live up to the best they know, and some are only idle loafers who wish to have an easy life, and to get as much as they can by trading on the hopes and fears of other people.

Amongst them there are many men who have wonderful powers of conjuring and of second sight. No one can explain the tricks they do, and there is a weirdness about the men that adds to the weirdness of their doings. Many an English child would run home in terror at the mere sight of a Fakir. But the sight of a Fakir is not nearly so eerie as the sight of some of the things he seems to do. One of these men will suddenly appear to climb up into the air going hand over hand on a rope that is not there, till he vanishes into the sky. In a few minutes he will come quietly along the street as if nothing had happened. Another will take a piece of rope, whirl it round his head, and toss it into the air, where it will seem to the onlookers to stand so firm and strong that a man can climb it, though it is not fastened to anything. One of the commonest of these wonderful things is to make a plant grow while the crowd watch. The Fakir takes a mango fruit, opens it, and lifts out the seeds. He has a little tub of earth into which he drops them, and as the bystanders watch, they see a mango tree grow up, and bear fruit before them.

The chela sees these things, and gradually learns the secrets that belong to them, so that when his Fakir dies he is ready to take his place and be a Fakir himself.

The ways in which the gods are worshipped vary greatly. Some of the idols are washed and dressed and fed each morning, and bathed and put to bed each night, and there are long rites that are performed in the temples. But, there are also many wayside shrines where men and women lay their offerings as they pass, and murmur a few words of prayer.