Moses, who is always spoken of by Muhammadans as the converser with God (Kalim ulla), never saw a Berkshire or a Yorkshire hog, and his prohibition of pigs' flesh as a food staple was a wise sanitary measure as well as a religious ordinance. In the course of time the pig has become in the estimation of Semitic peoples a boundary pillar of the faith, a black beacon of uncleanness, enhancing the snow-white purity of the chosen people. Never was so lowly and unoffending a Devil, but he is as necessary to the consciences of thousands of ignorant and devout Moslems as our Christian devil is to us. His potentialities of intelligence, humour, usefulness, and surpassing edibility count for nothing in comparison with his religious functions. When strife arises between Hindu and Muhammadan, the pig, dead or alive, goes in the fore-front of the fray, for he is either driven into the precincts of the mosque or portions of his flesh are thrown over its walls or into its courtyard well. And his innocent name, Sūar, is universally considered the vilest word in all the copious abuse vocabulary of the country. We also use the word pig in this sense, but in a merely academic fashion, for we cherish the animal in life and praise it in death.
It is doubtful whether the natives of India have an adequate conception of the influence exerted by Hinduism and Muhammadanism on each other, and very certain that many Anglo-Indians who see the creeds in conflict fail to notice their frequent fusion. When this curious subject is worked out it will probably be seen that Hindus have learned scorn of the pig from their Muhammadan neighbours. Levitical ordinances have always a contagious effect, appealing to the passion for respectability which is a leading note in Hindu character. A high-caste Hindu of to-day might rate the pig as a non-Aryan animal and suggest that the boar avatar or incarnation of Vishnu as a pig was a concession of early Brahmanism to indigenous taste. Something like this I have heard, but it seems too fine-drawn a conclusion. The chase of the wild boar and a taste for his flesh have always been enjoyed by Rajput nobles and Sikh chiefs. At all events the tame pig is now almost as unclean to the Hindu as to the Muhammadan, although there is little that can be quoted against him from sacred lore. Like the donkey, his low caste makes him suitable for association with disease godlings and demons. A pious Hindu who has recovered from smallpox buys a pig and lets it loose to Sitala or he will be again attacked. Mr. Crooke in his Rural and Agricultural Glossary mentions a curious licensed robbery of pigs. The people of one village turn out and drive off the pigs of another village by force. The owners resist as well as they can, but never prosecute the offenders. This practice is noted as peculiar to the Azamgarh district, but it seems to indicate a denial of even the right of being owned to the animal, which may once have been general.
As low castes rise, it is just possible that the pigs they cherish may rise with them. Some Europeans have tried to breed and feed pigs in the Western fashion and not without success. Others have imported stock from Europe, but not all the dollars in Chicago will avail to prove the industry respectable in native eyes for many a year to come.
But there is nothing to be ashamed of in the character and conduct of wild pigs. They cut for themselves shelters from the sugar-cane or the tall millet stocks, where they breed and sleep, take the best of the crops and defy mankind. The wild boar has been known to face and defeat the tiger, and though his first impulse is to fly before British sportsmen, he often makes a gallant stand before the unequal odds of horses, razor-sharp spears, and legions of yelling rustics brought against him. No swordsman can cut right and left so swiftly and surely as the wild boar with his tusks when fighting for life. He is sometimes shot by Rajput chiefs, by whom he is as strictly preserved as the fox in England. This protection breeds boldness. My son tells me that he was once shown a lane in a suburb of a Rajput town along which a certain well-known wild boar was accustomed to pass at dawn. The animal was next day shot by the ruler of the State and a side of bacon was despatched by special messenger on a camel as a gift to a brother prince some hundred miles away. The Maharaja took just as much interest in pointing out the course of his bullet as an English sportsman who has brought down a stag, and expressed as cordial an appreciation of the quality of the flesh as if it were venison. And yet we are constantly told that all Hindus are strictly vegetarian!
The story of Buddhism is nowadays so completely forgotten that it is possible to shock a Brahman to the bone by telling him how the Lord Buddha attained Nirvana through the lowly gate of indigestion brought on by eating too heartily of the roast pork prepared for him by a faithful disciple. This is duly recorded by the best authorities, nor is it to any fair mind derogatory. The Master was old and very weary, and the Smith, his host, entertaining him in his garden, naturally pressed him to eat. Here is a pathetic note of nature, of human weakness, too often missing from Eastern stories of the half-Divine.
CHAPTER VIII
OF HORSES AND MULES
"Johnson.—'Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and finding it late have bid the coachman make haste, if I happen to attend when he whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish him to desist. No, Sir, I wish him to drive on.'"—Boswell's Life of Johnson.