CHAPTER V.
INDIAN SOCIAL LIFE IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
Once more we find Hiuen-Tsiang by the Kâbul river. Many years had passed since he rested on its banks and and entered India. Since that time he had made himself a finished Sanskrit scholar; he had visited three and a half score of States; he had traversed the whole breadth and well-nigh the whole length of the great Peninsula; he had debated the subtlest questions with the profoundest scholars and acutest minds in India; he had been entertained by powerful princes as their venerated guest. In every corner of a vast territory, he had met with large hospitality at the hands of men of differing creeds; he had seen many new things, strange and wonderful; more than once, his life had been in jeopardy, and narrow indeed had been his escape; he had visited every spot connected with the life of Gautama, from the scene where Bôdhisattva “descended spiritually into the womb of his mother” to the place where he became Buddha, and to the place of his death. He had visited every spot sacred to Asôka-râja, the great promulgator of the faith. It had been granted him to see the shadow of Buddha. And, above all, he had not failed in his quest. Written on prepared palm-leaves and carefully packed, were the so much lacking sacred scriptures; much of them tales of the absurdest fantasy and most extravagant romance, it is true; but the sympathetic eye can still discover in the fable the mild and sweet moral teaching of the Buddhist faith.
In the Si-yu-ki (Observations on Western Lands) there is a very full account of India in the early Seventh Century. So long a residence in that land, and such a wide knowledge of its various peoples as the Master of the Law had acquired in personal intercourse with them makes this invaluable. The work is preceded by a general description of the Great Peninsula, which applies more particularly to that land, so sacred to a Buddhist, which lies between the Jumna and the lower slopes of the Himalayas. And, now that Hiuen-Tsiang is leaving India, it will be well to know what he has to tell us concerning that vast region.
He begins by discussing the various names given to In-tu (India); for each district is differently called. He gives its shape, extent and climate. “The north is a continuation of mountains and hills, the ground being dry and salt. On the east, there are valleys and plains, which, being well-watered and cultivated, are fruitful and productive. The southern district is wooded and herbaceous; the western parts are stony and barren.”[3]
Indian measures of length and the Indian Calendar and seasons are next described, and the author then goes on to treat of towns and buildings, seats and clothing, dress and habits, ablutions, language and literature, schools, castes, marriages, kings, troops, weapons, manners and customs, administration of laws, ceremonial observances, revenues, natural products, and commercial dealings—all in systematized order. The lapse of thirteen centuries; conquest by Mohammedan and European invaders; and Mohammedan and Brahmanistic oppression would appear to have altered but little the ways and external appearance of Indian life since Hiuen-Tsiang’s time. He tells us that “the walls of towns are wide and high; the streets and lanes, tortuous; the roads, winding; the thoroughfares, dirty; the stalls, arranged on both sides of the road and furnished with appropriate signs. Butchers, fishermen, dancers, executioners, scavengers and their like dwell outside the city. Coming and going these people must keep to the left side of the road.” The city-walls are of brick, but their towers are made of wood or bamboo; the houses are plastered with cob, “mixed with cow-dung for purity”; they are provided with wooden balconies, coated with mortar and shaded by tiles. The roofs are of rushes, branches, tiles, or boards. It is a habit to scatter flowers before the house. The sarighârâmas, or monasteries, are very cleverly built in quadrangles, ornamented with dome-shaped buildings of two or three stories at the corners of each quadrangle, and joists and beams are adorned with carving; there is much decoration and mural painting; the cells being plain on the outside only.
Everybody takes his rest on a mat of one uniform size, but of various degrees of ornamentation; but the Râja has an imposing throne, studded with gems, and nobles use painted and enriched seats. The garb is of pure white silk or cotton or hemp or goat’s hair, uncut to fit the body and wound round the waist, gathered up under the armpits, and then slung across the body to the right. There is quaint humour in our pilgrim’s observation that “some of the men shave their moustaches and have other odd customs”: one thinks of the strange appearance of some of our long-shore men.
Women keep their shoulders covered, and their robes reach the ground. Their hair is knotted up on the crown; otherwise it hangs loose. They wear crowns and caps and flower-wreaths on the head, and necklaces of jewels.
In North India, where the climate is colder, close-fitting garments are worn. Some non-believers wear peacock-feathers, or necklaces made of the bones of the skull; some cover their nakedness with leaf or bark, or go bare. Some pull out the hair; others wear their whiskers bushy and braid their hair.