The official condemnation of the dog by Muhammadans, and the formal terms in which he is out-casted by Hindus, are too monstrous and sweeping to hold good, when one considers the friendly nature of the beast and the real claim he has on the gratitude of mankind. But there are not many examples of human sympathy passing the narrow bounds of a cruel law. The ingenious Mr. Pope has a much-quoted passage about the poor Indian whose untutored mind leads him to hope that when admitted to the equal sky of heaven his faithful dog may bear him company. But ages before Mr. Pope lisped in numbers, and indeed before America was discovered, Asiatic poetry had created the hero Yudhishtira, who refused to enter heaven at all unless his dog might accompany him. Modern India, however, has for the most part forgotten Yudhishtira, and in these days the only dog admitted to the company of the Gods is a cur that serves as the vehicle or vâhan of Bhairon, now one of the most popular of Hindu divinities. This deity bears a bottle of strong drink, in defiance of those shallow folk who claim all Hindus as total abstainers and Bands of Hope, and a staff which is vulgarly reckoned to be the Kotwāl or town magistrate of Benares. His semblance is that of a black or dark blue man, whose raiment is a cloth round his loins and a serpent round his neck; his dog is a black tyke of low degree, nor does the canine race appear to gain in popular esteem from his association with the God, unless the very vulgar saying: "If all the dogs go on pilgrimage to Benares, who will be left to lick the dishes clean?" is an obscure reference to his sacred character.
Muhammadans have granted in popular lore a place in Paradise to Khetmir, the dog of the seven sleepers, who has been suspected of being the same animal as Yudhishtira's hound by some scholars. But they follow the Bible in speaking of him in injurious terms as an expression for disgust and loathing, unclean by immemorial prescription. It is written that the angels of God will not cross the threshold of a house whereon there is even a hair of a dog. If a dog is known to have drunk out of a vessel, it must be washed in seven waters. (A Muhammadan cure for hydrophobia is to look down seven wells.) Neither by Hindu nor Muhammadan writer is ever a kindly word said in appreciation of the admirable sides of canine character. When he has a fair chance he is as faithful and zealous in service in India as elsewhere, but no one notices him. "A dog's death" is an Indian as well as a European phrase for a miserable ending, and it has a peculiar force in India; an idle babbler is said to have eaten a dog's brains, a hasty movement is a dog's jump, the hungry stomach is spoken of as a dog that must be quieted, and it is an ancient saying that though you imprisoned a dog's tail for a dozen years in a bamboo tube, it would still be crooked. That it would probably be perfectly straight after such a process is an irrelevant physiological detail unworthy the attention of a poet or a proverbial philosopher. "What business has a dog in a mosque?" is a scornful snub to an intrusive person of low degree. The sons-in-law and other relatives of wealthy, high-caste Hindus who, under the patriarchal scheme of domestic life, live with their wives' families, are familiarly described in quite a long series of enumeration as household dogs. A sponger or parasite is a tabáqi kūtta, a dish (licking) dog. And the Persian monosyllable for dog, "Săg," is often in a native mouth a more savage term of contempt than "Sūar," pig.
A saying goes, "do not travel in the evening, the Raja and the dog are asleep in the morning"—and in the lawless days but lately past there was sense in the counsel. Of oppressive native subordinates they say: "Why should not a dog bite a defenceless poor man?" To an abusive underling: "Cur! it is not your mouth but your master's that barks." The messenger wears a scarf and brass badge, and is often a jack-in-office, so he is familiarly spoken of as a dog with a collar on. Another saying is based on an incident: "You ate the dawn meal, so you must fast." A Muhammadan during the Ramazān fast found that a dog had eaten the meal which may be lawfully taken before sunrise, and with these words he locked the creature up, and, conceiving himself released from obligation, he breakfasted and dined as usual. We say "Love me, love my dog"; the Oriental admits that if you are devoted heart and soul to a person, you may even take her dog into favour: "Even Leila's dog is dear to Majnūn." This languishing hero is the accepted type of a devoted lover. The dog plays no great part in the story, and I suspect it is in respect of the proverb that a dog is generally introduced by native draughtsmen into the popular bazaar pictures representing these personages. The ordinance in the Code of Menu that certain out-caste tribes should possess no animals but dogs and asses has been a millstone round the necks of these admirable and most useful animals.
OUTCASTES (A BEGGING LEPER AND PARIAH DOGS)
We say that one may as well hang a dog as give him a bad name, thereby admitting the possibility of a good one. But no such allowance seems to have been made for the Indian pariah dog. He has always been on the downhill slope of popular contempt, and it will be long before he can hope to rise. The noble potentialities of his character are ignored, he is discouraged by the distance at which he is kept, for he is never allowed to enter a house, nor to consort on intimate terms with man, the inventor of morals. Perhaps it is not too fantastical to say that when compared with the English dog the poor Indian outcast is a pagan, a creature without faith, or at least without that soul-saving reverence for authority which ennobles character. Lord Bacon says that the master of a properly trained dog is the divinity of the animal who waits upon his will. The Indian pariah does not know the joy of adoration; he has no master, and is an atheist in spite of himself. Tainted with the worst of the philosophy to which he gave his name some centuries ago in Greece, he reveals more of the currish side of canine character than English dogs and dog lovers are aware of. He uncovers more of his teeth when he snarls—and he often snarls—than the civilised dog; he slinks off with inverted tail at the mere hint of a blow or a caress, and his shrill bark echoes the long note of the great dog-father, the wolf, and the poor cousin the jackal. In a fight he does not abandon himself to the delight of battle with the stern joy of the English dog, but calculates odds and backs down with an ignoble care for his skin. In short, he is a lendi, a cur, a coward. We English call him a pariah, but this word, belonging to a low, yet by no means degraded class of people in Madras, is never heard on native lips as applied to a dog, any more than our other word "pie." Like other words, both will be learned from us and incorporated in that wonderful pudding-stone conglomerate of language known as Urdu.
The pie-dog, pariah, or street dog, is usually rufous yellow, but all known dog tints occur, for creole colours now diversify the tawny aboriginal race. Chronic hunger is the central fact of his life, which is one long search for food, and his pastime is another long search for fleas. As a rule he owns himself, but he sometimes selects a master and always belongs to a place. "Why are you so lean, dog? I have to gather my dinner from nine houses."
He is supposed to be valuable as a scavenger, and it is certain that he mostly dines in the night, resembling in this respect his timid cousin the jackal, who usually slinks aside from offal heap or dead carcass as he approaches. The jackal is accused of ghoulish propensities, favoured by the shallow graves dug for their kindred by Muhammadans, but the street dog, if strict truth were told, is almost as great a sinner. He is reported on good authority to frequent the burying-places where Hindus are cremated, and,—but I forbear. Stress of hunger alone leads him to dark deeds which forfeit his claim to human sympathy. It should be remembered in extenuation that he owes little or nothing to a cruelly indifferent humanity, and that he preserves, as we shall presently see, an innate friendliness which no neglect can quite eradicate. He is a street Arab, but he shows preferences for people as well as for places. He follows the cultivator afield and watches the gray bundle of cotton cloth slung to a branch and the hūqqa left under a tree, but I doubt whether he would make any effective defence of them. When the frugal "nooning" of unleavened flap-jacks and butter-milk is eaten he wistfully awaits his share at a respectful distance. The children handle and play with him, and go to sleep by his side when tired of rolling in the dust, but when they grow up they cut his companionship.
PLAYFELLOWS