Fanny Parkes Parlby

“ To restore the peace of the world, Siva, her husband, threw himself amongst the dead bodies at her feet. She continued her dancing, and trampled upon him. When she discovered her husband, she stood still, horror-struck and ashamed, and threw out her tongue to an uncommon length; by this means Siva stopped her frantic dancing, and saved the universe. “The Philistine cursed David by his gods.” A Hindū sometimes in a fit of anger, says to his enemy, “The goddess Kalī shall devour thee; may Dūrga destroy thee!” ”

“ The pīpal is universally sacred: the Hindūs are seen in the early morning putting flowers in pūja at the foot of the tree, and pouring water on its roots. They worship the idols placed beneath it in a similar manner, and they believe that a god resides in every leaf, who delights in the music of their rustling, and their tremulous motion.
Near this place is the spot on which the dead are burned; it is dedicated to Vishnu, as Jalsāī, or “sleeper on the waters;” and there, many a Hindu widow has devoted herself to the flames with the corpse of her husband. ”

“ In front is a Muhammadan Fakīr leading a white bull fancifully adorned with peacocks’ feathers, cowrie shells, coloured worsted tassels, bits of brightly-coloured cloth, and brass bells; the plume on the top of his neck is the tail of the yāk, the cow of Tartary, much used in Hindostān in the adornment of holy bulls and of horses. In the back-ground is an Hindū temple, gilded by the rays of the setting sun. ”

“ Around Rajmahal is a beautiful jangal of magnificent bamboos, fine clumps interspersed with date-palm trees overshadowing the cottages, around which are a number of small cows and fowls of a remarkably good breed: every thing has an air of comfort, and the walks in all directions are cool and pleasant. The steamers from Calcutta take in their coal a mile below, and therefore do not destroy the beauty of the old ruins with their smoke, and noise, and Birmingham appearance. The Rajmahal hills are distant about five miles inland. ”

“ One of the Hindū poets, in answer to the question, “Why has Vishnŭ assumed a wooden shape?” (alluding to the image of Jaganāth) says, “The troubles of his family have turned Vishnŭ into wood: in the first place, he has two wives, one of whom (the goddess of learning) is constantly talking, and the other (the goddess of prosperity) never remains in one place: to increase his troubles, he sits on a snake, his dwelling is in the water, and he rides on a bird.” All the Hindūs acknowledge it is a great misfortune for a man to have two wives, especially if both live in one house. ”

“ The Fākir seated on the ghāt is one in the highest stage of exaltation, in which clothing is almost dispensed with, and his only garment is a chatr, an umbrella made of basket work: his long hair and his beard, matted with cow-dung and ashes, hang in stiff straight locks to his waist, his body is smeared with ashes; he always remains on the same spot, and when suffering from illness, a bit of tattered blanket is thrown over him. Passers by throw cowries and grains of boiled rice at his feet, he remains speechless, disregards all visible objects, asks for nothing, but subsists on alms. ”

“ The Mor-pankhī, as the Nawāb’s state-barge is called, is used during certain festivals at Moorshedabad: boats of this description are numerous, and of different forms, some towering very high, displaying all the colours of the peacock, and all are brilliantly painted and highly gilt. A band of native musicians follow the state-barge in another tastefully-decorated boat, and the scene on the river during the festival is highly picturesque.
Here also are seen the snake-boats: they shoot past you with great swiftness when rowed by twenty men, from their amazing length and extreme narrowness. ”

“ Cold, wild, and stupendous, the dazzling brilliancy of the snow is rendered more striking by its contrast with the dark blue colour of the sky; and at night the stars shine with a lustre they have not in a denser atmosphere. ”

“ If a person should die in his house, and not by the river-side, it is considered as a great misfortune, as he thereby loses the help of the goddess in his last moments. If a person choose to die at home, his memory becomes infamous.
If these unfortunate people recover, after having been exposed by their relatives to die on the banks of the river, they take refuge in the village of Chagdah on the left bank of the Matabangah, forty-six miles from Calcutta, of which people who ought to be corpses, are the sole inhabitants. ”

“ A grass-cutter is looking on: he has just returned from cutting a bundle of dūb-grass: every horse in India has his sāīs, or groom, and his grass-cutter. When a beautiful begam (a native princess) is suffering from the pangs of jealousy, she often exclaims, “I wish I were married to a grass-cutter!” because a man of that class is too poor to be able to keep two wives.
The man on the right is a religious mendicant, a disciple of Siva. When this portrait was taken, his long black hair, matted with cow-dung, was twisted like a turban round his head: he was dreadfully lean, almost a skeleton. ”

“ This ceremony being over, the votary lays down a few cowries, and retires to make room for others. The women generally enter with their garments quite wet, after having performed their ablutions in the Ganges. The quantity of milk, oil, water, and flowers, thrown about the place, renders it dirty and wet until the evening, when, the crowd retiring, the Brahmans clean the temple for the next day.
The music and bells of a hundred temples strike the ear amidst the buzz of human voices ”

“ Lugāo’d, or moored off a sand-bank, is a budjerow, her baggage, and her cook-boat. The crews are cooking and eating their dinners on the sand-bank, and will not recommence their voyage until daybreak, the river being too dangerous to allow of their proceeding further during the hours of darkness. On a clean dry bank in the centre of the Ganges, covered with the finest and most sparkling sand, it is far more agreeable to lugāo your vessel for the night, than on the banks of the river: it is cooler, and you are better defended against thieves ”

“ On the landing-place are natives bathing, and every where the margin of the water is studded with human beings. One man is filling his gharas (earthen water vessels) , which he carries suspended by ropes from a bamboo poised on his shoulder. Bengalī women are bringing empty water jars to fill at the river side, and in the shade a woman is returning from the holy stream on her way to some idol, bearing on her hand a brass tray containing a small vessel filled with water, and oil, and rice, and flowers for pūjā—that is, worship. ”

“ THE TRAVELLER’S PALM. Some cows and a buffalo are beneath a pīpal tree in the park. On the bank is the sarput, or sirkī, high jungle-grass that often rises to the height of sixteen feet; the bloom waves gracefully, bending to the wind, and elegantly recovers its position.
The next is the castor-oil plant (ricinus communis) , much cultivated in Bengal; the oil extracted from the seeds being used medicinally, as well as for burning in lamps.
The tree with the broad and singular leaves is called the Traveller’s Palm: if a knife is stuck into the stem a pure water gushes out. ”

“ A long bamboo, with a large weight of earth attached to it at one end, is poised on a stage above, on which a native stands and causes the end towards the river to sink by the weight of his foot; when the skin below, which is attached to a thin bamboo from above, is filled with water, he removes his foot, which causes the water-bag to rise to the height of the reservoir, when the man below empties it and lets it fall again. In some parts, instead of a skin, a basket is used, which is rendered waterproof inside by a coating of clay and mud. ”

“ A person in his last agonies is frequently carried on his bed, by his friends or relatives, in the coldest or in the hottest weather, from whatever distance, to the river-side, where he lies, if a poor man, without a covering day and night, until he expires. With the pains of death upon him, he is placed up to the middle in water and drenched with it; leaves of the shrub goddess, the sacred tulsī plant, are also put into his mouth, the marks on the pebble god, the Salagram are shown to him, and his relations call upon him to repeat, and repeat for him, the names of Rām, Hurī, Ganga, &c. ”

“ In the foreground is a timber raft, one of the most picturesque objects to be seen on the Ganges. The men who accompany the raft have a strangely wild appearance; fresh from the jangal, they come down with the floating timber for scarcely any payment, just enough to feed them. They are small in stature, their skins are very dark, they shave the head completely, and their bodies are all but naked. ”

“ The horse sacrifice, as described in the purans, is a very curious ceremony. A horse having peculiar colours and qualities is selected, and after a course of pūja (worship) , is turned loose upon the world, followed by the sacrificing party, with an armed retinue: if stopped by the sovereign of another country through which the animal may pass, war must be declared, and the interrupter of the sacrifice subdued:—in this way, after traversing the world, the horse returns, and is put to death by suffocation. ”

“ A voyage up the Ganges may be performed in boats, as various in shape as in size: a Pinnace is a first-class vessel; the next is a Budjerow, which draws very little water, and is divided into two commodious rooms, which may be furnished according to the taste of the traveller: a complete establishment consists of a horse-boat, a washerman’s-boat, and a cook-boat; in this country the cooking is always performed in a separate vessel. ”

“ The worshippers of the female deities adore the jackal as a form of this goddess, and present offerings to him daily. Every worshipper lays the offering on a clean place in his house, and calls the god to come and partake of it. As this is done at the hour when jackals leave their lurking places, one of these animals sometimes comes and eats the food. In temples dedicated to Dūrga and other deities, a stone image of the jackal is placed on a pedestal and daily worshipped. When a Hindū passes a jackal, he must bow to it ”

“ A fair takes place annually at Hurdwar, in the month of April, lasting nearly a fortnight; that being the period chosen by pilgrims, who flock from all parts of India to perform their ablutions in the Ganges: it is held in the bed of the river, which at that period is nearly dry. Two or three hundred thousand people are attracted to this fair, and every twelfth year, it is supposed a million of people assemble at this place. The scene is interesting in the highest degree. Merchants from Calcutta meet with others from Osbeck Tartary, and Cabul; and thousands of Seiks attend the fair. ”

“ The shop of a Modī, a grain merchant and seller of fruit, is now before you. Oranges, melons, limes, jackfruit, pummelos, pine-apples, all that is offered for sale in such abundance and at so small a price in this country are displayed at various seasons most invitingly. The fruit-seller is a very pious man, if we may judge from the pictures of the Hindū deities stuck on the wall of his shop, but which are too much in the shade to be very distinct. ”

“ The fine building here represented is a dhrum-sala, or place to distribute alms, at Benī Māhadēo Ghāt; it is dedicated to a form of Māhadēo, which stands in the shiwālā, or little temple above. Under the arches in the lower part, by the side of the Ganges, is an enormous 61figure of Ganesh; the worshippers pour oil and Ganges water over the image, with rice and flowers, and hang chaplets of flowers around its neck: the idol is generally dripping with oil. The red flag, at the end of a long bamboo displayed from the pīpul tree, denotes the residence of a Fakīr. ”

“ This, the main stream of the Ganges, is not looked upon with equal veneration by the Hindūs as the branch before-mentioned, which, flowing by Sooty and Moorshedabad, is called the Bhāgīrathī, until it reaches Nuddea, at which place it is joined by the Jellinghy, and the united currents flow on, passing Calcutta, to the island of Sāgar, under the name of the Hoogly. Prior to the commencement of the nineteenth century, the Ganges had been traced by Hindū pilgrims from Hindostān into the snowy mountains that run in a direction north-west to south-east on the frontiers of India. ”

“ They say that no one lives upon these rocks; that a Fakīr formerly took up his abode there, but having been eaten by a snake (an ajgar) , one of enormous size, and an eater of human flesh, the people became alarmed; and no holy or unholy person has since taken up their residence on these rocky islands. Small boats fish under the rocks, and snakes, they say, abound upon them: when a gun is fired the echoes awaken and startle the myriads of birds that inhabit them. ”

“ The woman was about 25 years of age, and possessed some property: had she performed satī, her relatives would have raised a little cenotaph, or a mound of earth, by the side of the river; and every Hindū who passed the place returning from bathing, would have made salām to it—a high honour to the family. The shastrs say, “There is no greater virtue than a chaste woman burning herself with her husband.” Mothers collect the cowries, strewn by a satī as she walks round the pile, ere she fires it, and hang them round the necks of their sick children, as a cure for disease. ”

“ In the Museum is a brazen image of Jalsāī floating on Anantā, the great serpent.
THE HINDŪ SCHOOL. In the Bengalī schools a boy learns his letters by writing them, never by pronouncing the alphabet, as in Europe; he first writes them on the ground with a stick, or his fingers; next with an iron style, or a reed, on a palm-leaf; and next on a green plantain-leaf. The Bengalī schoolmasters punish with a cane, or a rod made of the branch of a tree; sometimes a truant is compelled to stand on one leg, holding up a brick in each hand, or to have his arms stretched out, until he is completely tired. ”

“ The rice and flowers offered to the idols are swept up, and for the greater part eaten by the brahmanī bulls. The proverb says:—“At Benares you should be on guard against the women, the sacred bulls, the steps, and the devotees.”
The principal Hindū temples in Benares are crowded with people of both sexes and of all ages, who daily assemble to pay their devotions to the deity of the place, from the hour of eight in the morning until nearly four in the afternoon. The form of worship is very simple: the votary enters the temple and prostrates himself, praying aloud ”

“ One of the officiating Brahmans is seen receiving the offerings of rice, &c. from a party of pilgrims, just about to commence the circuit of the temples. If a rich Hindū present any thing to an inferior, the latter, as a mark of respect, puts it on his head. An offering of cloth, for instance, received at a temple, the receiver not only places on his head, but binds it there. The rice and flowers were formerly thrown into the well; but they rendered the water so putrid, that a defence of planks has been since put up to prevent it. The man near the gyan-bapī carrying a staff, is a dŭndī fakīr. ”

“ Men, women, and children bathe together, uniting the worship of the Ganges or of the gods with their ablutions, washing their long hair with mud, making clay images for pūjā, (worship) , or pouring out libations to their deceased ancestors, whilst the children gambol in the water, or collect clay to assist in making the great image of Bhīm Singh the giant, which is so frequently seen on the side of a ghāt, or that of Hunumān the monkey god. The Hindūs pour out water to the sun, three times a day ”