Four Pilgrims

by William Boulting

The monks wear three different kinds of dress, either red or yellow in colour. Merchants, for the most part, go bare-footed, stain the teeth red or black, bind up the hair, and pierce the nose for the wearing of ornaments there. Everybody is very cleanly, washing before eating, never eating of a dish served twice over, never passing the dish on. Wooden and stone vessels are destroyed after use; metal ones are polished. The teeth are cleansed with a willow-stick after eating; the hands and mouth are washed; and folk do not touch one another until these duties are carried out. The body is washed after attending to the calls of nature, and then perfumes are used. The bath is taken before religious functions, and also at the time when the King washes himself. Each province keeps its own record of events. Education is begun early. Young Buddhists are put to the study of the five Vidyâs, or treatises on grammar, progressively; first come the principles of mechanics; then elements of medicine and drugs and the use of charms; then the principles of right-doing and the distinction between the true and the false; and, finally, the various “vehicles” of the faith. Brâhmans are trained on similar lines by skilled teachers. Some “rise above mundane rewards, and are as insensible to renown as to contempt of the world.... Rulers value men of reputation highly; but are unable to draw them to court.” But the thirst of others for honour leads them on in the search for wisdom, and, if they finish their education at thirty, they seek for occupation. Some Brâhmans are devoid of virtuous principles, and waste their substance in riotous excess. Unhappily the Buddhist schools are not without reproach: “they are constantly at variance, and their contentious utterances swell like the waves of an angry sea”; yet, “in various directions, they do aim at one end.” Knowledge of sacred books and successful exegesis are rewarded by successive grades of distinction, beginning with exemption from control and leading up to the possession of “an elephant-carriage,” and even to a “surrounding escort.” A successful disputant, like Hiuen-Tsiang, is mounted on an elephant (as he was), the animal is completely covered over with precious ornaments, and the rider is conducted by a numerous suite to the gates of the convent. But woe betide the unhappy wretch who proves himself a fool at these mental wrestling bouts; “his face is painted red and white; he is bedaubed with dust and dirt, and then borne off to some deserted spot, or cast into a ditch!” For slight faults a monk is only reprimanded; for graver offences, silence is enforced; for a great fault, he is cast out of the convent to find a home for himself and take up some kind of work, or he may wander about the roads.

We are told next about the four great castes, The Brâhman, or hereditary priest takes precedence of the Kshattriya or military descendents of the Aryan conquerors, a caste which rules, and observes human kindliness. Next come the traders (Vaiśyas); fourth is the Sûdra, the caste of tillers of the soil. When one marries, he takes social position according as he preserves or impairs purity of caste. Widows may not marry again.

“The succession of Râjas is confined to the Kshattriya caste, who have from time to time achieved power by means of usurpation and bloodshed.” The army of the Râja is one of the many separate hereditary castes of India. In times of peace, it is garrisoned around the Râja’s palace. In each Indian army are elephants, protected by strong armour, and the tusks capped with sharp metal. A general issues his command from a car, driven by two attendants, between whom he sits, and is drawn by four horses abreast. The generals of the foot soldiers also ride in cars and are protected by a guard. An attack is met by the cavalry, who also carry orders. The infantry is very brave. It is armed with spear and shield, bows and arrows, swords, axes, slings and many other weapons of ancient usage.

Hiuen-Tsiang speaks of the common people in the highest terms. As Wheeler remarks they “would almost appear to have been a different race from the modern Hindus. They had not yet been moulded into existing forms by ages of Brahmanical repression and Musselman tyranny; and they bore a stronger resemblance to the unsophisticated Buddhists of modern Burma than to the worshippers of Vishnu and Siva.”[4] Our traveller admits that they are volatile, but “gentle and sweet, straight-forward, honourable, keeping their word, with no fraud, treachery or deceit about them.” Criminals are rare, and these few are not even beaten, and are never put to death, but cast into prison and left to live or die, “not being counted among men.” A small payment is exacted for a small offence; but those who seriously offend the moral sense of the community are mutilated in various ways, or expelled from it. Frank confession is followed by punishment proportioned to the offence; but denial, or attempt to wriggle out, is met by trial by ordeal. Of this there are four kinds:—1, The accused person is put into one sack and a stone into another; both sacks are tied together and thrown into deep water: If the man sinks lowest, he is deemed guilty. 2, The accused has to stand or sit on red hot iron, or to handle it, or have it applied to his tongue: If no scars result, he is deemed innocent. 3, He is weighed against a stone: If he weighs it down, he is innocent. 4, An incision is made in the right thigh of a ram, and all manner of poisons and some food of the accused are put into the wound. Should the ram survive, the man is innocent. “The way of crime is blocked by these four methods.” It is obvious to us that the issue of every one of these ordeals could be manipulated in the interests of justice, or against them.

We are next told of etiquette, and are informed that no less than nine ways of being polite are employed. Of these, the most respectful is to cast one’s self on the ground, and then to kneel “and laud the virtues of the one you address.” When one of inferior rank receives orders, he lifts the skirt of his superior, and casts himself on the ground. The “honourable person thus reverenced must speak gently to the inferior, and touch his head, or pat him on the back, and give him kindly orders or good advice, in order to show affection.”

When ill, there is no rush to the physic-bottle. “Everyone who falls sick, fasts for seven days. Should he not get well in the course of this period, he takes medicine.” Hiuen-Tsiang causes us no surprise when he informs us that “doctors differ in their modes of treatment.”

At funerals there are weepings and lamentable cries, rending of garments and beatings of head and breast. No one takes food in a house where someone has died until after the funeral; and all who have been at the death-bed are unclean until they have bathed outside the town. Those who desire release from life “receive a farewell meal at the hands of relatives or friends,” and then are put into a boat amid strains of music; and this is shot into mid-Ganges, “where such persons drown themselves.” Sometimes, but rarely, one of these may be seen on the banks, not yet quite dead.

Hiuen-Tsiang speaks of the civil administration as being mild and benevolent. Officials have “a portion of land assigned to them for their personal support.” There is neither registration of families nor forced labour. Râjas possess their own private domains, divided into four portions; whereof one provides for state-matters and the cost of sacrifices; one, for salaries; one, for rewarding men of exceptional talent; and the fourth affords charity to religious bodies. By this arrangement taxation is light, and the personal service required is moderate, labour at public works being paid for. “Everyone keeps his own belongings in tranquillity; and all till the ground for food. Those who cultivate the royal estate pay a sixth part of the produce as tribute.” There is a light tax payable on travel by river and at barriers across the roadways.

Such people as smell of onion and garlic are thrust out of the town. The usual food is simple, consisting of milk, cream, butter, sugar-candy, corn cakes and mustard. Fish, mutton and venison are eaten; other flesh is prohibited. Brâhmans and warriors drink unfermented syrup of the grape; but the trading caste indulges in strong drink. Rich and poor eat precisely the same food, but out of very different vessels, both as to material and cost. They eat with the fingers, and have no spoon, cup, or chopstick.