Still flows the Ganges the mightiest of Eastern waters! As erst it flowed when rocking the cradle of our common humanity with its green waves—laving the shores whence issued all our race—as like the Heraclean boy it fought and conquered in its tossing cot rolling on the Ganges’ breakers, all hydras which would smother its birth and growth, so do its descendants turn with affection to their natal stream, like the returning Heraclidæ to Greece of old. How rich in scenes of human joy and wo—how replete with the misty veddahs—how full of the corpses of India’s children, sacrificed to its beatific current, rolls the ancient river, its banks green with the growth of ages, with tropic vegetation stretching its umbrageous arms like huge antennæ over the waters of many colors, as they borrow their dolphin-hues from the thousand suns dipped in its waves, from the multifold reflections of the hoary Himmalayeh. And still its fertile flow marks no flight of time or change in the religion of its children. Still wanders the Brahmin, continent and secluded, on its banks, and offers his all to the three-fold Divinity. The air whispering its light susurrus amid the purple and scarlet flowers that form the home of the humming-birds, whirring in their sweet-laden journey like the home-coming bees of Hybla—the ripple of the foaming tide as the lily-tops bow to its inspired influence—the song of the mourning mother as she strips her child for the sacrifice, commune with the mighty Bramah, and repeat the tales of Seeva. And the darkness comprehends it. . . . . .
“O Ganges,” rose the wail of the mother, “ever beneficent as when thou sprangest gushing in maiden purity from the front of Sivah, as kind as when thou visitedest this our chosen land, scattering blessings on every hand, receive now in thy divine bosom—the last, greatest offering of a mother’s heart, and bear it gently on to happiness.” She ceased; no sound but the swaying of the forest-boughs met the ear. Hush! there is a plash, a feeble cry, a dark object floating slowly down the stream! It is the sacrifice. Will it, must it perish, that fair, fragile image of its Maker? Is there no hand to save it? Naught human—naught but the spirit ever-watching. Look! it does not sink, it rests on the broad-leaved lotus, and passes slowly out of the shade of the banks and down the whitening current. Fragrant lilies, with sustaining leaves and petals uphold it from the yawning waters, even as the reedy Nile with conscious wave upheld the destined prophet. As Moses on the sacred stream was saved for future good, so was the infant on the rolling Ganges. Gently floating on its flowery bark, the child went down the eddying current, its soft Indian features upturned to the silver moonbeams, and the stars in the shadowy distance, now rocking fearfully over some little rapid of the stream, now circling round some green-clad point, where the pendent branches swept its cheek, the unconscious mariner floated on; and ever the kindly lotus, strengthened by the will of Bramah, extended its pressed leaves, gemmed with a thousand forms of insect life, still wider for its protection. The sweet echoes rang through the lily-cups to the vibrations of its fragrant petals. Soft melody of innocent life mingled with the voice of the waters. The good spirits sent by Bramah soothed the child now sleeping, and fanned its cheek with their breath, like the smoke of the welcome incense to the divine one. No eye saw the frail burden save Bramah’s, and the holy Ganges, on whose faithful bosom it reposed. And thus they passed down the stream, undisturbed, in the gray of the morning.
The old hermit, Nikaiyah, who, in the early twilight, pursued his devotions on the banks of the river, was making his orisons to the Ganges when the reddening water and glowing east gave tokens of the dawn. As he stooped to perform his ablutions, an object, dark upon the water, caught his eye. It was the lotus-cradle and its burden. The old man’s heart was moved, and, despite the voice of religion, which forbade to rob the Ganges, he listened to the voice of nature, and with many deprecations of the divine wrath, he took up the child and carried it to his humble dwelling. There was no name for the child, and, partly as a peace-offering to the wronged divinity, he called it Ganga! He brought up the infant until its sixteenth year, though troubled by many misgivings as to the propriety of the responsibility of which he had relieved the Ganges. Here, then, the child’s youth was passed in the wilderness. And she grew to be as fair as the hues of her cradle, with eyes glittering like the lotus-leaves when sparkling with the foam-fretting waves of the Ganges, as the first sunbeams strike upon the buds, and the grateful heat unfolds the flowers to the pleasant air of the morning, and the glory of floral existence. Swift passed the days of her childhood; and as gayly as the gaudy butterflies that flitted all day round her dwelling, she passed from day to day, and from object to object, in the bloom of youthful happiness. Bright as the glow-worm, when wooing his mate, was the time of her childish experience. To follow the gayly-painted parrots through the odorous groves of spices, and watch the busy dragon-flies as they chase each other among the blossoms; to bathe in the limpid stream which had kindly borne her thither, and recline on its ever-green banks, watching the flow of the waters; these were her daily occupations, and these she pursued alone, for the old man was absorbed in devotion, and always rapt in pious contemplation. But anxious for her future welfare, he would sometimes, after they had finished their simple meal of vegetables, take her by the hand and unfold the ancient veddahs, or sacred records, and tell her of the Metempsychosis; tell her of the holy Trine, that threefold-unity—the Creator, the Preserver, the Destroyer; the all comprehended in Bramah, the parts in Seeva and Vishnu. How by inferior eyes it is interpreted, the earth, the generator; water, the fructifier; fire, the annihilator. How was born the Ganges, the adored one, by the beneficence of Bramah, described its primal course, and how at last,
——“To India’s favored land
It rolled o’er fields of nard and spicy meads,
And won its heaven-directed way.”
That the divine, the incomprehensible, heed not the rage of the evil, undisturbed by foes in sacred peace. That he who would join their presence must, for his earthly sins, in others’ bodies do expiation; and after the lapse of purging ages, can alone be admitted to taste the heavenly fruit and enjoy the society of the godlike. Then, to please her maiden heart, would he narrate the tales and the sufferings of the unmarried dying, their miseries here and hereafter. And when the virgin Ganga, used to the forms of wilder nature, and remembering only her old protector, would wish to cling to her rude life in the wilderness, then, with a sigh at his own reverses, the old man would recount the ceremonies of the nuptial-feast, and gazing fondly on the Ganges-offering, pray that she might atone for all past offenses by a holy youth and a happy union. Sweet visions of the future, when he might behold his adopted at the solemn ceremony, modest, in the home of the bridegroom, kindly receiving the votive offering—the corn-crowned feast—the joyous revel, the sacred mysteries. Then recurring to the old mythology and the sacred rites, he describes the festival of the Vasanti, the genial goddess of the spring; when, like the bursting out of nature, the people throw away the fetters of caste and custom, and mingle in indiscriminate revelry; the rites of Sitala, the goddess of children, which the mothers celebrate on the hill-top, assembling, crowned with chaplets of roses, jessamine, and oleander, for the purposes of mirth; and the “nine days festival of flowers,” sacred to Ganri, the wife of Siva, the goddess of the harvest, whence comes her golden name. That this takes place at the vernal equinox, when the matronly Ganri casts her golden mantle over the ripened beauties of the verdant Vasanti. Then nature is in perfection—the air is impregnated with aroma, and the crimson poppy contrasts with the spikes of golden grain to form a wreath for the beneficent Ganri. She bears the lotus in her corn-stained hands, and often the implements of death, denoting that the goddess, whose gifts sustain life, is sometimes accessory to the loss of it—thus resembling the Isis and Cybelle of the Egyptians. The corn is sown, and when it germinates, they invoke the blessing of Ganri, and bear her image in solemn procession. Then on the glassy lake the effigy is borne in boats as primitive as those which bore the Argonauts to Colchis. The rising borders of the lake swarm with devout and joyous multitudes. The fair Hindostaneé, fragrant with garlands, wave their scarlet tokens, reflected from the transparent water, and chant their festal hymns. The procession winds slowly down the steep descent with the image of the benefactress, the propitious Ganri, in the centre, blazing with gold and gems, glittering in the tropic sun; the solemn music reëchoes among the narrow passes, announcing the approach of the divine one. The hoary sages bear with reverence the sacred burden. All is joy and innocent happiness. They reach the shore, passing beneath the long, black tresses of the attendant maidens, and embark with sober state to voyage around the lake. This rite performed, the sun ever shines more brightly on the harvest, and the dews descend gently on the young promise of the meadows. Ganri propitious smiles upon the undertakings of her favorite race. Ganga, then, would spring up in delight, and with sparkling eyes wish to remove from their quiet retreat and visit these brilliant festivals. Gently the old man reproaches her, and warns her of ambitious wishes. His kindly words fall as quiet and soothing on the soul of Ganga as the shades of evening on the silent leaves of the forest. But hark! from the distant jungle resounds the howl of the panther, and the muttering of the king of the beasts! The child shrinks fearful and awe-struck into the arms of her protector, as the timid leaves bow before the blast of the tempest. Faltering rose her voice as the quivering notes of the songster, when the thunder rolls in the ether, when fleeing its dread approach, she seeks her sheltered nest, her callow and expectant young, seizing the opportunity when great emotions bare the inner soul, and adapt it to softer impressions. Nikaiyah would speak of the love, the providence always waking; tell her of her perilous voyage on the Ganges, describe her preservation, and ask if she feared the wild beasts, who obeyed their master’s orders. Then the old doctrine of the transmigration would glimmer on her young mind, when explained with persuasive eloquence, like the faint first twinklings of Hesperus, and with as mild and benignant an influence. She would hang upon his words with large, attentive eyes, as he told her that even the ferial nature of the wildest monster was filled by a penance-doing spirit that once had felt as she did—alas! the expiation! Therefore the pious Brahmin forbore to destroy a living thing, fearful of injuring a brother—for then would the unfortunate begin his weary pilgrimage anew. Beware, mortal, of defeating the purposes of Bramah! That to avoid or shorten this term of suffering the good man lived secluded from the world, devoting himself to the study of his own breast, and seeking to know his Creator, or subjected himself to privation, to torture, and to death, to gain the reward of martyrdom unspotted by earthly taint, unwearied by earthly transmigration. Thus did the priests for themselves and others atoning, as did of old in Christian infancy Simon Stylites. For this had Nikaiyah shut himself up in the forest, in voluntary retirement, for a term of years which was even now expiring. Then to the mind of Ganga would come the thought of a previous life, when she might have roamed under some different form through the forest, returned by an accident to her human probation. Vague thoughts like these would steal upon her spirit, like the waves of a distant ocean, an indefinite sea of former existence, surging, rising on the memory, breaking on the shifting sands of the present; and she the storm-tost mariner struggling on the crest of the waves, ever mistaking the foaming phosphorescence of the surf for a light of friendly assistance; or if she turned to the future, that mist-shadowed nothing, she would alternately fancy herself floating smoothly on an unbroken sea, and gazing into its purple depths, sinister yet tempting; or pushing for some unknown shore, prone for great discovery. Thus is life to us all; we stand on the golden sand of an ever-changing present, listening to the echoes of the past receding with the ebbing tide among the hoarse-mouthed caverns; more often, unheeding, gaze upon the calm, open sea of the future, and, regardless of the billows that break tumultuous around us, think only of those serene hopes to come, those halcyon days of peace shining undimmed in times of deceptive distance.
The old man ceased. Night had fallen, and the unwholesome exhalations warned to retire from the unwholesome air—Ganga, soon wrapt in the sweet sleep of youth, lay dreaming over in ever new and magnified forms those doctrines of the Metempsychosis which Nikaiyah had explained to her. She was doomed, it seemed to her, to pass through the stages of an infinite change, and like the banyan tree, as fast as having reached a certain height she seemed to have attained perfection, and must needs bend down to take fresh root in earth. Unconscious that all this was but enlarging her soul and her sphere of good, as the banyan with fresh trunks enlarges its cool and refreshing circumference, and gives wider shelter to the weary and the oppressed. First, she was an ant, busy and careful as the proverb, toiling to increase the glory of the realm and queen; but a hostile invasion of robber tribes relieved her from that insignificant though useful existence—instantly she was rolling, a vast, glittering length, through the crackling under-brush, a gigantic boa; the angry lion, defiant to the last, retreated from those shining meshes, which slow curling in golden folds, could have hugged to death a generation of laocoons. Undisturbed monarch of the wood the monster coiled his serpentine length, glaring—O, horror! that such expression should come from Ganga’s eyes—angrily at the retreating beasts. But with a pang that was finished—she had been struck unawares. Where was she now—how cold! how bleak!—and the feathers! A vulture on the Himmalyah peaks, looking over to the southern sea’s blue on the horizon’s verge—nothing but snow—where were her beautiful valleys—she could fly down, at any rate. What a sensation—to be floating in mid-air unconscious of motion, for want of a standard to measure by; passing through the variously-tinted clouds, seeing naught—the dull flapping of noiseless wings. But now the primeval forest grows green upon the vision—now she swoops at a parrot, all green and yellow, chattering on a dead bough; unconscious she is struck by the arrow of a wandering boy. Now she is happy—a nightingale, singing melodiously in harmonious concert with a thousand sisters amid the sacred grove—fair girls, with jet-black eyes and locks darker than the night, come to hear the song of the nightingales—how sweetly the evening breeze, cool from the water, soughs through the whispering branches! There is something in yonder aisle of trees!—a youth and a maiden walking under the shadows, their arms encircling each other’s waist—soft hours of confidence, of fond anticipation never destined to be realized. They are just passing under the low, vine-covered sandal-tree, when the nightingale sees the leopard crouching among the branches that variegate with green his spotted sides—see the lovers, with heads mutually inclined, engaged in sweet converse—see the fierce beast, bending on the enormous machinery of his huge muscles, preparing for the spring! She will warn them—she flies rapidly to attract their attention—they are just exchanging farewells. O, Heavens! are they not eternal ones! The monster is in the act of rising on his spring—the lovers embrace—the nightingale flies with utmost, but as it seems, fruitless speed—when——
Ganga awoke to the sweet reality of a peaceful security and her quiet home upon the sacred stream. The morning sun was shining brightly. Where was her old friend? Why had he not called her at dawn to perform her matin devotions? Alas! he was sitting dejected by the door, thinking of the trusting charge he was to commit to the tender mercies of the world; for the term of his vow had expired, and he must rejoin his brethren, the Brahmins, in the ministerings and services of the temple.