The kings or satraps of Persia of the oldest dynasties were sheltered by the sovereign Parasol. Chardin, in his Voyages, describes bas-reliefs of a time long before that of Alexander the Great, in which the king of Persia is frequently represented sometimes just about to mount his horse, at others surrounded by young slave-girls—beautiful as day, as a poet might write for sake of a simile—among whom one inclines a Sunshade, while another uses a flyflap made of a horse’s silky tail. Other bas-reliefs, again, represent the Persian monarch on a throne, at the conclusion of a victorious battle, whilst the rebels are being crucified, and writhe under the punishment, and prisoners brought up, one after the other, make humble submission. Here the Sunshade has the floating appearance of a glorious standard. It symbolised also the power of life and death, vested in the savage conqueror over the unfortunate conquered, delivered up wholly to his mercy.
In ancient India, the cradle of the human race, as it is said, the Parasol in every time, and more than anywhere else, is unfolded in its splendour and the grace of its contexture, as an immutable symbol of royal majesty. It seems really that it was under the deep azure of the admirable Indian sky that the coquettish instrument, of which we are exposing here by literary zigzags the historic summary, was invented. It must have been born there first as a fragile buckler to oppose the ardour of the sun; afterwards, doubtless, it developed, little by little, into a large dome, carried in the arms of slaves, or on the back of an elephant, showing the sparkle of its colours, the originality of its form, the richness of its tissues, all overloaded with fine gold and silver filigree, making its spangles and jewels scintillate in the full leaping light, in the slow oscillation given to it by the march of its bearers, or the swayings of a heavy pachyderm, in the midst of magic powers, of dancers and enchantments without number among the most bizarre palaces of the world.
In Hindostan the large Parasol is commonly called Tch’hâtâ, the small ordinary Parasol Tch’hâtry, and the bearer of the Parasol for dignitaries tch’hâtâ-wâlâ.
The Parasol of seven stages (savetraxat) is the first ensign of royalty: it is found graven on the royal seal. The mythology and literature of the Hindoos are, so to speak, confusedly peopled with Parasols. In his fifth incarnation, Vishnu descends to Hades with a Parasol in his hand. On the other hand, from the seventh century, Hiouen Thsang has remarked, according to the rites of the kingdom of Kapitha, Brâhma and Indra were represented holding in their hand, one a flyflap, the other a Parasol. In the Râmayana (ch. xxvi. scloka 12), Sitâ, speaking of Râma, whose beautiful eyes resemble the petals of the lotus, expresses herself thus—“Covered with the Parasol striped with a hundred rays, and such as the entire orb of the moon, why do I not see thy most charming face shining beneath it?”
We read also in the Mahâbârata (sclokas 4941-4943)—“The litter on which was placed the inanimate body of the monarch Pândou was adorned with a flyflap, a fan, and a white Sunshade; at the sound of all the instruments of music, men by hundreds offered, in honour of the extinguished shoot of Kourou, a crowd of flyflaps, white Sunshades, and splendid robes.”
The Mahratta princes who reigned in Punah and Sattara held the title of Tch’hâtâ pati, “Lord of the Parasol;” and we are told that one of the most esteemed titles of the monarch of Ava was also that of “King of the White Elephant, and Lord of the Four-and-twenty Parasols.”
When, in 1877, the Prince of Wales, future inheritor of the throne of England, undertook his famous voyage into India, it was absolutely necessary—says Dr. W. H. Russell, the scrupulous historian of that princely expedition—in order to make him known to the natives, to set the Prince upon an elephant, and to hold over his head the golden Sunshade, symbol of his sovereignty.
There may be seen to-day in the South Kensington Museum, in the admirable Indian gallery which has just been installed, some score of the Parasols brought back by the Prince from his voyage, of which each particular type deserves a description which cannot, alas! to our sincere regret, find its place here. One may admire there the state Umbrella of Indore, in the form of a mushroom; the Sunshade of the Queen of Lucknow, in blue satin stitched with gold and covered with fine pearls; next the Parasols of gilt paper, others woven of different materials, some entirely covered with ravishing feathers of rare birds, all with long handles in gold or silver, damascened, in painted wood, in carved ivory, of a richness and an execution not to be forgotten.