Janet Harvey Kelman

“ The crowd watched eagerly, and when the great stone with its added weight of flowers was lifted on to the shoulders of eight men, their joy burst out in shouts, for did they not know that famine and plague and death would leave their city with the goddess. ”

“ His string has caught the string of the green kite and cut it, and the green is dropping to the ground out over the rice field yonder!
There are many curious sights for children to watch in India. One of these is the snake charmer, as he carries his strange pets in a basket or wound round his body. It is not only for his own amusement or for the pleasure of the little crowds that gather round him that the charmer plays. A good Hindu will not kill a snake, nor any other animal. ”

“ Long long ago, the unknown spirit began to play a game of life and death, and he is still playing it. That is what a Hindu child is taught, so life is not a real thing to him, but is only make-believe. Yet the rules of this game are so hard and fast that none of the puppets can escape from them. The Hindu story of life and death all circles round one rule of the game. ”

“ If she had killed both of her baby daughters, doors might still have been open to her amongst her caste people and relations, for the mother of a son, even when she is a widow, is not wholly despised; but because, instead of killing Ramabai, she and Ananta had taught her and had refused to have her married when she was still a child, every door was shut against her. There was no hospital nor home to which she could go. For many a sick man and woman in India the only hospital has been the waters of the Ganges or a living grave. ”

“ The one great hope is that some time in the dim future, by keeping all the rules of the game in one life after another, the spirit may be set free from birth and death, and may drop out of the endless game. It may not seem at first such a very terrible thing to go on living one life after another, but the thought of it has become an awful thing to those who believe in it. ”

“ If the worship of the gods was only kept up in order to give money to the priests; and if, in order to keep up this great system, the priests had to call to their aid the gloomy spirits of caste and custom, then there might be escape for India from these terrible things. And with eyes open to all she saw, Ramabai began to notice more than ever before what a terrible life high caste Hindu widows had to live when they were not the mothers of sons. ”

“ They were allowed to go to the bazaar to buy offerings to carry to the gods, and to have the barber shave them in his rounds. They might fast when they wished, and they need never hear of the faith of Jesus Christ. Ramabai did all that she could to rob the shadows that lay on them of their darkness, only she did not say that they must leave the shadows before they came to her. But ever as the children lived in the Sharada Sadan, they saw that there was one woman—a Hindu widow—on whom the shadow did not rest, one room in which there was no gloom. ”

“ Terrible famines come, and bring hunger and plague and death. And men and women lay all that is left to them of food and of money before the gods, and pray them to send rain. Even when there is no famine in the land the daily observances of custom and the weary round of toil depress the spirits of men, so that the more they think of anything beyond the work of the day, the more they long to give up living altogether. ”

“ Long before the earliest time of which we know anything in the history of our islands, there were wise thinkers and clever workmen in India, and the men and women of that land think of them and of their customs with awe and reverence. And because much of the life of a Hindu child to-day is the result of the thoughts that have come from that far past time, we must listen to some of those old stories. ”

“ But though girls suffer far more from the early marriages of India than boys do, the boys have to bear many unnecessary burdens because of them. They have to work hard in order to help to get food for the household, and wee boys labour for long days in the rice fields. They guide the oxen at the plough, and they carry the pots of water from rivers and canals to fill the little channels that water the fields; and sometimes, even with all these early years of toil, a young man finds that he cannot feed his family or give gifts to the gods. ”

“ But if the baby is a girl everyone is sad, and the father if he is asked about it may say, “It is nothing,” for he thinks it a sorrow to have a little girl child born. He would far rather have a calf, because a cow is a sacred animal, but the birth of a little girl is a sign of the anger of the gods. Besides that the father knows that he will one day have to pay a great sum to her husband at her marriage. When she is still very young her husband will take her away to his father’s house, so that she will never be able to do anything for her father and mother in their old age. ”

“ There are special days and weeks at each shrine and temple, when there is more merit in offering gifts than at other times, and on these days people throng to lay their presents before the gods. They bring oil or camphor for the priest to burn in a censer which has a large lamp in the centre for the camphor and five small ones round it for the oil, and when the priest lights the lamps he waves the censer before the idol, and the sweet scent of the camphor fills the shrine. Others bring melted butter and rice, and others fruit and flowers. ”

“ India is a very old land, and those who live there look far back into the past. They listen to the stories that were told of men and gods in those old days, and follow the customs that were followed then.
There are many gods in India, and many priests who serve in their temples and at their shrines. The priests have more power over the lives of the people than the gods have, but custom has far more power than either gods or priests.
No one can tell how many hundreds of years have passed since the stories that rule the lives of Hindu children to-day were first told. ”

“ In these and countless other ways, the new kingdom of love is seen in India, and can be judged even by those who do not own Christ as King. But there are many who do own Him, and find how much He has to give besides the healing of bodily ills. You remember Chikka, who broke the serpent idol? He was one of the first who learned to serve Christ, though he had to wait a long time before he heard of Him. Chikka’s family was poor, so he could not go to school, nor learn to read or write, and for many years he had no one to tell him of any god other than the idols he despised. ”

“ These men thought that their own nation was cared for by God more than others, but after their Master had withdrawn Himself from their sight, He taught them that all the world is beloved of God, and that in each land He must reign. So it came to pass that as these early followers of the King wandered hither and thither, when they came to countries that they had never seen before, they said each to the other, the men of these lands too are the servants of the King, though they do not know Him; let us tell them of His nobleness, and of the glory of His kingdom. ”

“ For there is something about the King of India that makes men and women who have really seen Him feel that there is nothing so great as to serve Him, and nothing so kind as to help some one else to see Him too. ”

“ But though a Hindu wife is often free from the pain and misery that killed this one, there is always a great fear that hangs over her, for her husband may die, and then she will be a widow. If a little wife dies, her husband may marry again, but a high caste Hindu widow must never marry a second time. Often little girls are married to full grown men; sometimes, even, they are married to old men, so it very often happens that a girl becomes a widow when she is only a child, and there are Hindu widows who are not one year old. ”

“ Whenever the service in the Mosque is over, everyone rushes to the shops, where all kinds of Indian foods can be had, for all are hungry and happy. The scene is like a great fair with picnic parties everywhere, only there are no women to be seen. There are old men, and tiny boys; there are farm-servants and wealthy land-owners, but never a lady nor a girl. ”

“ But Sooboo was so eager to learn to read and so sure of her own faith in the Hindu gods that she said, “What they teach me about that will go in at one ear and out at the other.” Sooboo had said “that.” She meant the religion of the foreigners. She did not know that the Christians had a real living King whom they knew and obeyed. She thought they had just another set of rules about life and stories of gods who could be worshipped but who sat apart and had no care for the men and women who served them. ”

“ At first the child may not know that there is any change in her life, but as she begins to grow older she finds that all the hard work is left for her, and that no one wishes to see her when a feast or a wedding is held, or when anything bright is going on. Then one day a priest comes to her village, and to the house where she lives. She is not afraid of him, for she knows no reason why he should be angry with her. But he is angry with her. He says her beautiful black hair must be cut off, and soon the barber comes and shaves her head all over. ”

“ The boy goes out with the bowl at breakfast time, and begs till it is full; then he comes back to the Fakir where he rests on the temple steps, or under a cart, or by the wayside, to eat the meal with him. The Fakir himself should never beg, for the gods he worships are supposed to send him all he needs, and if he receives nothing from them, he must starve. Some Fakirs are earnest men who seek to live up to the best they know, and some are only idle loafers who wish to have an easy life, and to get as much as they can by trading on the hopes and fears of other people. ”

“ Though there are many Hindus who will not kill any animal because of their caste rules, there are others who do, and some of them are very clever in catching and killing tigers.
The tiger is a very cruel creature that will kill even when he is not hungry, and if one begins to eat men as well as cattle the villagers live in terror of him. He watches warily by the roadways for any stray passer-by, and he will follow a bullock cart for miles in the hope that some one of those who walk by it will fall behind, and give him the chance of attacking him alone. ”

“ Every bend of the Ganges is sacred, and each place where a stream joins it, is yet more holy. Pilgrims go from its mouth to its source and back again. If they walk, they take six months to the pilgrimage, but if they wish to win more merit, they lay themselves down on the ground and cover miles of the bank with their bodies instead of with their feet, and that takes far longer. ”

“ If he is a good boy, he will say his text over and over again very often. In some parts of India he must not stop until he has said it one hundred and eight times.
The sacred thread is not the only mark by which a boy shows his caste or the god he worships. He may have a white V marked on his forehead, or a yellow W, or a wavy line right across, with perhaps a grain of rice stuck in the centre, and if he is going to a feast he will have a bright red dot there too.
Hindu boys repeat the names of their gods as well as the sacred text of their caste. ”

“ It was at the edge of their ground, and we all gathered to watch; each man had some taunt to fling at the foreigners, for they did not do anything to appease the gods; they did not consult with the wise men, nor call the priests to bless the well; they made no offerings at the temple, nor did they feast the Brahmans; and everyone was certain that no water would be found. It is true they did pray to their own God, but everyone was sure He had not given them good guidance, for a child may know that a well should not be dug near the dwellings of outcasts. ”

“ In some parts of India those who belong to different castes are as far apart from each other as if the lower caste men were not human beings at all, and a high caste man will not touch a low caste one even to save his life. The Brahmans are treated almost as if they were gods. Many of them live by the gifts of the people, so they do everything they can to strengthen the old customs and beliefs that make the other Hindus worship them. ”

“ But this King of India is the King of all the world, and He still asks those who have seen Him to help Him in His kingdom. The boys and girls in India to-day could win all their land for Him if they only knew Him. But the boys and girls in Christian lands must help, for even those who are far away have their part to do. Long ago if a boy wished to be a knight he began by serving a knight. ”

“ But those who have held that caste law is not binding have never been able to break the power the priests held over the great masses of the people, and so [21] caste law and not the brotherhood of man still rules.
In many parts of India a boy cannot choose what trade he will follow. If his father belongs to the carpenter caste, he must be a carpenter; if his father is a sweeper, he must be a sweeper; if his father is a robber, he will be a robber. ”

“ It was a terrible thing to Hindu minds for a Brahman to do labourer’s work, but Ananta’s son felt that it was a far more terrible thing to see the father whom he honoured take away his own life, and the lad made up his mind that he would find work of some kind no matter how humble it was, and so bring food and life to his father and mother. ”

“ Amongst them there are many men who have wonderful powers of conjuring and of second sight. No one can explain the tricks they do, and there is a weirdness about the men that adds to the weirdness of their doings. Many an English child would run home in terror at the mere sight of a Fakir. But the sight of a Fakir is not nearly so eerie as the sight of some of the things he seems to do. ”