Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

by Sir W. H. Sleeman

On the 10th[1] we came on ten miles over a plain to Govardhan, a place celebrated in ancient history as the birthplace of Krishna, the seventh incarnation of the Hindoo god of preservation, Vishnu, and the scene of his dalliance with the milkmaids (gōpīs); and, in modern days, as the burial—or burning-place of the Jāt chiefs of Bharatpur and Dīg, by whose tombs, with their endowments, this once favourite abode of the god is prevented from being entirely deserted.[2] The town stands upon a narrow ridge of sandstone hills, about ten miles long, rising suddenly out of an alluvial plain and running north-east and south-west. The population is now very small, and composed chiefly of Brahmans, who are supported by the endowments of these tombs, and the contributions of a few pilgrims. All our Hindoo followers were much gratified as we happened to arrive on a day of peculiar sanctity; and they were enabled to bathe and perform their devotions to the different shrines with the prospect of great advantage. This range of hills is believed by Hindoos to be part of a fragment of the Himālaya mountains which Hanumān, the monkey general of Rāma, the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, was taking down to aid his master in the formation of his bridge from the continent to the island of Ceylon, when engaged in the war with the demon king of that island for the recovery of his wife Sītā. He made a false step by some accident in passing Govardhan, and this small bit of his load fell off. The rocks begged either to be taken on to the god Rāma, or back to their old place; but Hanumān was hard pressed for time, and told them not to be uneasy, as they would have a comfortable resting-place, and be worshipped by millions in future ages—thus, according to popular belief, foretelling that it would become the residence of a future incarnation, and the scene of Krishna's miracles. The range was then about twenty miles long, ten having since disappeared under the ground. It was of full length during Krishna's days; and, on one occasion, he took up the whole upon his little finger to defend his favourite town and its milkmaids from the wrath of Indra, who got angry with the people, and poured down upon them a shower of burning ashes.

As I rode along this range, which rises gently from the plains at both ends and abruptly from the sides, with my groom by my side, I asked him what made Hanumān drop all his burthen here.

'All his burthen!' exclaimed he with a smile; 'had it been all, would it not have been an immense mountain, with all its towns and villages? while this is but an insignificant belt of rock. A mountain upon the back of men of former days, sir, was no more than a bundle of grass upon the back of one of your grass-cutters in the present day.'

Nathū, whose mind had been full of the wonders of this place from his infancy, happened to be with us, and he now chimed in.

'It was night when Hanumān passed this place, and the lamps were seen burning in a hundred towns upon the mountain he had upon his back—the people were all at their usual occupations, quite undisturbed; this is a mere fragment of his great burthen.'

'And how was it that the men of those towns should have been so much smaller than the men who carried them?' 'God only knew; but the fact of the men of the plains having been so large was undisputed—their beards were as many miles long as those of the present day are inches. Did not Bhīm throw the forty-cubit stone pillar, that now stands at Eran,[3] a distance of thirty miles, after the man who was running away with his cattle?'

I thought of poor Father Gregory at Agra, and the heavy sigh he gave when asked by Godby what progress he was making among the people in the way of conversion.[4] The faith of these people is certainly larger than all the mustard-seeds in the world.

I told a very opulent and respectable Hindoo banker one day that it seemed to us very strange that Vishnu should come upon the earth merely to sport with milkmaids, and to hold up an umbrella, however large, to defend them from a shower. 'The earth, sir,' said he, 'was at that time infested with innumerable demons and giants, who swallowed up men and women as bears swallow white ants; and his highness, Krishna, came down to destroy them. His own mother's brother, Kans, who then reigned at Mathurā over Govardhan, was one of these horrible demons. Hearing that his sister would give birth to a son that was to destroy him, he put to death several of her progeny as soon as they were born.[5] When Krishna was seven days old, he sent a nurse, with poison on her nipple, to destroy him likewise; but his highness gave such a pull at it, that the nurse dropped down dead. In falling, she resumed her real shape of a she- demon, and her body covered no less than six square miles, and it took several thousand men to cut her up and burn her, to prevent the pestilence that must have followed. His uncle then sent a crane, which caught up his highness, who always looked very small for his age, and swallowed him as he would swallow a frog. But his highness kicked up such a rumpus in the bird's stomach that he was immediately thrown up again. When he was seven years old his uncle invited him to a feast, and got the largest and most ferocious elephant in India to tread him to death as he alighted at the door. His highness, though then not higher than my waist, took the enormous beast by one tusk, and, after whirling him round in the air with one hand half a dozen times, he dashed him on the ground and killed him.[6] Unable any longer to stand the wickedness of his uncle, he seized him by the beard, dragged him from his throne, and dashed him to the ground in the same manner.'

I thought of poor old Father Gregory and the mustard-seeds again, and told my rich old friend that it all appeared to us indeed passing strange.

The orthodox belief among the Muhammadans is that Moses was sixty yards high; that he carried a mace sixty yards long; and that he sprang sixty yards from the ground when he aimed the fatal blow at the giant Ūj, the son of Anak, who came from the land of Canaan, with a mountain on his back, to crush the army of Israelites. Still, the head of his mace could reach only to the ankle-bone of the giant. This was broken with the blow. The giant fell, and was crushed under the weight of his own mountain. Now a person whose ankle-bone was one hundred and eighty yards high must have been almost as prodigious as he who carried the fragment of the Himālaya upon his back; and he who believes in the one cannot fairly find fault with his neighbour for believing in the other.[7] I was one day talking with a very sensible and respectable Hindoo gentleman of Bundēlkhand about the accident which made Hanumān drop this fragment of his load at Govardhan. 'All doubts upon that point,' said the old gentleman, 'have been put at rest by holy writ. It is related in our scriptures.