A Muhammadan Faqir
The Muhammadan faqir is altogether different from the Hindu Sadhu in his motives, his ideals, his habits, his dress—in fact, in nearly everything; yet contact with the Hindu Sadhus has had a profound effect upon him, and their philosophies have coloured his religious ideas. The Hindus have, on their part too, not been unaffected by the influx of Muhammadans, bringing their new monotheistic ideas, and some of the Hindu orders appear to be attempts to graft the Muslim monotheism on to the mystical Hindu pantheism. This is seen most developed in the Kabir Panthis and the various orders originating from Guru Nanak. A desire to propitiate and attract their Muhammadan conquerors was probably not wanting in the moulding of these new orders; indeed, Kabir and Guru Nanak seem to have had visions of elaborating a creed in which Muhammadan and Hindu could unite together.
The Indian religious ideal has always been ascetic and despondent: ascetic, perhaps, because life seemed sad and hopeless. On the other hand, the Western ideal is an altruistic and optimistic one.
The young missionary, who very likely appeared to his sympathetic friends in England to be making great sacrifices in order to go “to preach the Gospel to the heathen,” sometimes ignorantly imagines that the people round him in India will recognize what he has denied himself in order to come among them, and will respect him in due proportion. Poor deluded man! The modern Christian in England has not even learnt the alphabet of austerities and self-denials practised in the name of religion, of which the Indians are past masters. He appears to them as one of the ruling race, surrounded by the comforts and luxuries of a house, many servants, books, flowers, photographs, pictures, and the various little creations of civilization, which custom has made the Western no longer to look on as superfluous articles of luxury! Their ideal has been nearer that of the Swami, who had so overcome the bonds of the flesh that he required neither clothes nor viands, but sat nude and impassive, maintaining his vitality on an occasional banana or mango!
Should the missionary try to accommodate himself to the Eastern ideal, and forego many things that are lawful to him in order to gain more influence with the people for his message? Every Indian missionary has probably asked himself this question at some period of his career. At one time such questionings forced themselves on me with great importunity. There seemed such a gulf between myself, in my comfortable house, surrounded by so many conveniences, and the poor people, around me. The multitudinous administrative duties of the missionary in charge of a station seemed to leave so little time for spiritual dealings with inquirers, and at the end of a long day weariness made it difficult to maintain that very essential equipment of every missionary—“a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathize.”
Then I had a desire to learn more about these men, who might be supposed to represent the embodiment of the religious ideals of the East. The best way seemed to be to adopt their dress and habits, and travel about among them for a time. A young Afghan, who was a pupil of mine and a Muhammadan student in the school, begged to be allowed to accompany me as a chela, or disciple. As the time at my disposal was limited, it would not have been possible to visit many of the places where Sadhus most do congregate had we confined ourselves to the more orthodox method of progression on foot, so we decided to ride our bicycles. This did not seem to affect the reception we met with from the fraternity—in fact, it is not at all uncommon to see Sadhus riding; often pious Hindus seek to gain merit for themselves by providing them with the means for doing so.
When we left Bannu, we took no money with us; but we seldom were in want, as we received ungrudging hospitality from Hindus, Muhammadans, and Christians alike. The ochre-coloured garments are sufficient passport all over India, and people give alms and offer hospitality without requiring further evidence of the genuineness of the claims of the applicant on their charity. In fact, unless the Sadhu is of known bad character, the Hindu would gain his end—that of acquiring merit by almsgiving—as much by giving to one as another; and he would be very unhappy were he not afforded these opportunities of keeping up the credit side of his account, all the more if his gains are ill-gotten, or he is conscious of some underhand dealings which require corresponding acts of merit to balance them.
One of the most interesting places we visited was Hardwar, the holy bathing-place on the Ganges, which is visited by tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims from every part of India every year, and the neighbouring Sadhu colony of Rishikes. The latter is a village inhabited only by the Sanzasis and other Sadhus, who have built themselves grass huts in a very picturesque spot, where the Ganges River emerges from the Himalaya Mountains, and commences its long course through the densely-populated plains of India. It is at Hardwar that the great Ganges Canal, one of the great engineering feats of the British rule, has been taken from the river to vivify thousands of acres of good land in the United Provinces to the south, and supply their teeming populations with bread. A little above the town of Rurki a massive aqueduct carries the whole volume of the canal high above a river flowing beneath, and yet higher up two river-beds are conducted over the canal, which passes beneath them. The uniqueness of this piece of engineering is dependent on two other factors—the crystalline limpidity of the blue water and the glorious scenery which forms a setting to all.
I no longer needed to inquire why the common consent of countless generations of Hindus had made this neighbourhood their Holy Land; the appropriateness of it flashed on my mind the moment the glorious vista opened before me. There beyond me were the majestic Himalayas, the higher ranges clothed in the purest dazzling white, emblem of the Great Eternal Purity, looking down impassive on all the vicissitudes of puny man, enacting his drama of life with a selfish meanness so sordid in contrast with that spotless purity; and yet not unmoved, for is there not a stream of life-giving water ever issuing from those silent solitudes, without which the very springs of man’s existence would dry up and wither? And then, in the nearer distance, the lower ranges clothed in the richest verdure of the primeval forest, vast tracts not yet subdued by the plough of man, where the religious devotee can strive to rise from Nature to Nature’s God, amid those solitudes and recesses where no handiwork of man distracts the soul from the contemplation of the illimitable and mysterious First Cause.
While looking down from the elevation of the canal, there was spread out at our feet a bucolic scene of peace and plenty, where villages and hamlets, surrounded by green fields and cultivation, lay scattered among sylvan glades, drinking in vivifying streams which had journeyed down by chasm and defile, through valley and meadow, from those distant solitudes.