Fifteen or sixteen days after the demise of his father, the son, if young, is assisted by his friends in drawing an estimate of the probable cost of the approaching Shrád or funeral ceremony. In the generality of cases, an estimate is made out according to the length of the purse of the party; a few exceed it under a wrong impression that a debt is warranted by the special gravity of the occasion, which is one of great merit in popular estimation.[119]
The Sobha Bazar Rajah family, the Dey family of Simla, the Mullick and Tagore families of Patooriagháttá, all of Calcutta, were said to have spent upwards of £20,000 or two lacks of Rupees each on a funeral ceremony. They not only gave rich presents to almost all the learned Brahmins of Bengal, in money and kind, fed vast crowds of men of all classes, but likewise distributed immense sums among beggars and poor people,[120] who for the sake of one Rupee, walked a distance of perhaps thirty miles, bringing with them their little children in order to increase their numerical strength. Some really destitute women, far advanced in a state of pregnancy, were known to have been delivered in the midst of this densely crowded multitude. Although, now-a-days, the authorities do not sanction such a tumultuous gathering, or tolerate such a nuisance oftentimes attended with fatal accidents, no Shrad of any note at all takes place without the assemblage of a certain number of beggars and paupers, who receive from two to four annas each.
After the twentieth day, the son, accompanied by a Brahmin and a servant who carries a small carpet for the Baboo to sit on, walks barefooted to the house of each and every one of his relations, friends and neighbours, to announce that the Shrad is to take place on such a day, i. e., on the thirty-first day after death, and to request that they should honour him with their presence and see that the ceremony is properly performed, adding such other complimentary epithets as the occasion suggests. This ceremonious visit is called lowkata, and those who are visited return the compliment in time. The practice is deserving of commendation, inasmuch as it manifests a grateful remembrance for the memory of one to whom he is indebted for his being.
Precisely on the thirtieth day, the son and other near relatives shave, cut their nails, and put on new clothes again, giving the old clothes to the barber. Meantime invitations are sent round to the Brahmins as well as to the Soodras, requesting the favor of their presence at the Sabhá or assembly on the morning of the Shrád, and at the feast on the following day or days. On the thirty-first day, early in the morning, the son, accompanied by the officiating priest, goes to the river side, bathes and performs certain preliminary rites. Here the rayowbhats and tastirams (religious mendicants), who watch these things just as closely as a vulture watches a carcase, give him a gentle hint about their rights, and follow him to the house, waiting outside for their share of the articles offered to the manes of the deceased. These men were so troublesome or boisterous in former days, when the Police were not half so vigilant as they now are, that for two days successively they would continue to shout and roar and proclaim to the passers by that the deceased would never be able to go into Boykanta or paradise, and that his soul would burn in hell fire until their demands were satisfied. Partly from shame, but more from a desire to avoid such a boisterous, unseemly scene, the son is forced to succumb and satisfy them in the best way he can.
As the style of living among the Hindoos has of late become rather expensive, and the potent influence of vanity—purely the result of an artificial state of society—exerts its pressure even on this mournful occasion, the son, if he be well to do in the world, spends from five to six thousand Rupees on a Shrad; the richer, more. He has to provide for the apparently solemn purpose the following silver utensils, viz.:—Ghara, Gharoo, Thalla, Batta, Battee, Raykab, glass, besides couch, bedding, shawls, broadcloth, a large lot of brass utensils and hard silver in cash, all which go to pay the Brahmins and Pundits, who had been invited. The waning ascendency of this privileged class is strikingly manifest on an occasion of this nature. For one or two rupees they will clamour and scramble, and unblushingly indulge in all manner of fulsome adulation of the party that invited them.[121]
The Pundits of the country, however learned they may be in classical lore and logical acumen, are very much wanting in the rules of polished life. The manner in which they display their profound learning is alike puerile and ludicrous. History does not furnish us with sufficient data regarding their conduct in ancient days. As far as research or investigation has elucidated the point, it is reasonable to conclude that the ascendency of the Brahmins was built on the ignorance of the people, and there is a very strong probability that there was a secret coalition between the priests and the rulers for the purpose of keeping the great mass of the nation in a state of perpetual darkness and subjection, the latter being oftentimes content with the barter of "solid pudding against empty praise." But the progress of enlightenment is so irresistible that the strongest bulwark of secret compact for the conservation of unnatural Brahminical authority is liable, as it should be, to crumble into dust. It would be a great injustice to deny that among these Brahmins there were some justly distinguished for their profound erudition and saintly lives; they displayed a piety, a zeal, a constant and passionate devotion to their faith, which contrast strangely enough with the profligacy and worldliness of the present ecclesiastics.
The Pundits of the present day, when they assemble at a Shrad—and that is considered a fit arena for discussion—are generally seen to engage in a controversy, the bone of contention being a debatable point in grammar, logic, metaphysics or theology. They love to indulge in sentimental transcendentalism, as if utterly unconscious of the matter-of-fact tendency of the age we live in. A strong desire of displaying their deep learning and high classical acquirements in Sanskrit, not sometimes unmixed with a contemptible degree of affectation, insensibly leads them to violate the fundamental laws of decorum. When two or more Pundits wrangle, the warmth of debate gradually draws them nearer and closer to each other, until from sober, solid argumentation, they descend to the argumentum ad ignorantiam, if not, to the argumentum adbaculum. Their taking a pinch of snuff, the quick moving of their hands, the almost involuntary unrobing of their garment, which consists of a single dhooty and dubja often put round the neck, the vehement tone in which they conduct a discussion, the utter want of attention to each other's arguments, and their constant divergence from the main point whence they started, throw a serio-comic air over the scene which a Dave Carson only could imitate. They do not know what candour is, they are immovable in their own opinion, and scarcely anything could conquer their dogged persistence in their own argument, however fallacious it may be. They are as prodigal in the quotation of specious texts in support of their own particular thesis as they are obstinately deaf to the sound logical view of an opponent. Brahminical learning is certainly uttered in "great swarths" which, like polished pebbles, are sometimes mistaken for diamonds. The way in which the disputants give flavour to their arguments is quite a study in the art of dropping meanings. The destruction of the old husks, and the transparent sophistries, of the disputatious Brahmins, is one of the great marvels achieved by the rapid diffusion of Western knowledge.
When engaged in an animated discussion, these Pundits will not desist or halt until they are separated by their other learned friends of the faculty. Some of them are very learned in the Shastra, especially in Smrittee, on which a dispute often hangs, but they have very little pretension to the calm and dispassionate discussion of a subject. Cogency of argument is almost invariably lost in the vehemence of declamation and in the utterance of unmeaning patter. Their arguments are not like Lord Beaconsfield's speeches,—a little labored and labyrinthine at first, but soon working themselves clear and becoming amusing and sagacious. Let it not be understood from this that the language (Sanskrit) in which they speak is destitute of sound logic, as Mr. James Mill would have his readers believe; it is certainly deficient in science and the correct principles of natural philosophy as developed by modern discoveries, but the elegance of its diction, the beautiful poetical imagery in which it abounds, the sound moral doctrines which it inculcates, the force of argument by which it is distinguished, and the elevated ideas which its original system of theology unfolds, afford no good reason why it should not be stamped with the dignity and importance of a classical language, and why "the deep students of it should not enjoy some of the honors and estimation conferred by the world on those who have established a name for an erudite acquaintance with Latin and Greek." If the respective merits of all the classical languages are properly estimated, it is not too much to say that the Sanskrit language will in no way suffer by the comparison, though as history abundantly testifies it labored under all the adverse circumstances of mighty political changes and convulsions, no less than the intolerant bigotry of many of the Moslem conquerors, whose unsparing devastations have destroyed some of the best specimens of Sanskrit composition. "When our princes were in exile," says a celebrated Hindoo writer, "driven from hold to hold and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records," and we should say, of literary excellence? The deep and laborious researches of Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, Macnaghten, Wilson, Wilkins, and a host of other distinguished German and French savants, have, in a great measure, brought to light the hidden treasures of the Sanskrit language.
From eight o'clock in the morning to 2 o'clock in the evening, the house of a Shrad is crammed to suffocation. A spacious awning covers the open space of the court-yard, preventing the free access of air; carpets and satterangees are spread on the ground for the Kayastas and other castes to sit on, while the Brahmins and Pundits by way of precedence take their seats on the raised Thacoordallan, or place of worship. The couch-cot with bedding, and the dan consisting of silver and brass utensils enumerated before, with a silver salver filled with Rupees, are arranged in a straight line opposite the audience, leaving a little open space for kittanees, or bands of songsters or songstresses and musicians, which form the necessary accompaniment of a Shrad for the purpose of imparting solemnity to the scene. Three or four door-keepers guard the entrance, so that no intruders may enter and create a disturbance. The guests begin to come in at eight, and are courteously asked to take their appropriate seats (Brahmins among Brahmins, and Kayastas among Kayastas,) the servants in waiting serve them with hookah and tobacco,[122] those given to the Brahmins having a thread or string fastened at the top for the sake of distinction. The Kayastas and other guests are seen constantly going in and coming out, but the generality of the Brahmins stick to their places until the funeral ceremony is completed. The current topics of the day form the subject of conversation while the hookah goes round the assembly with great precision and punctuality. The female relatives are brought in covered palkees, as has been described before, by a separate entrance, shut out from the gaze of the males. But as this is a mourning scene their naturally convivial spirit gives way to condolence and sympathy. Excessive grief does not allow the mother or the wife of the deceased to take an active part in the melancholy proceedings of the day; they generally stay aloof in a separate room, and are perhaps heard to mourn or cry. The very sight of the mourning offerings, instead of affording any consolation, almost involuntarily enkindles the flame of sorrow, and produces a train of thoughts in keeping with the commemoration of the sad event. Sisters of a congenial spirit try to soothe them by precepts and examples, but their admonition and condolence prove in the main unavailing. The appearance of a new face revives the sad emotions of the heart. Nothing can dispel from the minds of a disconsolate mother or wife the gloomy thoughts of her bereavement, and the still more gloomy idea of a perpetual widowhood. The clang of khole and kharatal (musical instruments), which is fitted, as it were, from its very dissonance, to drive away the ghost and kill the living, falls doubly grating on her ears, while the fond endearments of Jasoda, the mother of Krishna, rehearsed by the songsters in the outer court-yard, but aggravate her grief the more. Weak and tenderhearted by nature, she gradually sinks under the overwhelming load of despondency, and raising her hand to her forehead mournfully exclaims, "has Fate reserved all this for me?" In such cases, there is appropriateness in silence.