Baroda

“ To sum up, Baroda is a good place enough, but it is dull, dull beyond description. There is no living here; it is a mere humdrum existence. Between the people and the "upper ten thousand" there is no sympathy. You have no such institution as Society.
Exhortation.
How is it there is no missionary here? I demand. Import one, ye powers that be; he is indispensable to progress and enlightenment. Get up popular lectures and street-preaching. "Steady internal progress," and all that, is very well, but let the people learn to enjoy life under your administration. ”

“ The leader of the gang was that giant Hindoo who was such a picture in the strong light when we were leaving those Hindoo betrothal festivities at two o'clock in the morning—Rao Bahadur Baskirao Balinkanje Pitale, Vakeel to the Gaikwar of Baroda. It was he that brought me the invitation from his master to go to Baroda and lecture to that prince—and now he was misbehaving in my dreams. But all things can happen in dreams. ”

“ Kázi Sháhbuddin has a remarkably clear head, and his revenue administration of Baroda would do credit to any English Civilian in India. In the dismal history of Mahomedan management of public affairs in this part of India, Kázi Sháhbuddin's official career is the only "shining part." The flourishing state of Baroda revenues, and the comparative ease with which they are collected, speak much for him. "With a rare mastery of details, he knows and appreciates large principles, and applies them with judicious modifications, to the existing state of things." ”

“ A much better appearance was offered by the Gaekwar's subjects than by the natives seen in Bombay. Baroda has a population of 100,000, and a street-car line is among the city's attractions, the cars being drawn by horses. Away from the bazaar, or business center, Baroda is provided with good streets, with trees growing on each side. A creditable park is located near the city, the grounds containing a museum, an art gallery, and a zoo. ”

“ From all that I know of Baroda affairs, Ican honestly bear out Sir Mádav Row's opinion of the Agent of the paramount power. Mr. Melvill has nothing of the petty intermeddling spirit which, unfortunately, characterises the generality of Political Agents; and being above local prejudices, he discharges his duties of arbiter between the State and its vassals with a calm impartiality which seldom leaves room for appeal. Though ready and anxious to help forward the good work inaugurated by Sir Mádav Row, he never yields an inch where principles require firmness and consistency. ”

“ But in spite of all this prosperity, Sir Mádav Row's administration of Baroda is far from popular either with the Maráthás or the Gujarátis. Sir Mádav Row is not only an avowed admirer of Anglo-Indian statesmanship; he is a servile imitator of the same. He worships routine and centralization. The result has been disastrous, as it could hardly be otherwise in a state where the masses are yet struggling with poverty and ignorance. ”

“ He was generally allowed to be a man of talent, one of the most educated men in India, with a will and capacity for work. Thus came His Excellency to Baroda, conquering and to conquer. Luckily for him, the Government sent a local Agent and Resident who was well qualified by temperament and training to second His Excellency in every detail of administration. The Dewán of Baroda had, indeed, good cause to be thankful for the appointment of Mr. P. S. Melvill ”

“ To-night, however, the conversation about the Baroda executions has brought the whole thing back to me, and I recognize you perfectly now. I cannot be mistaken.”
“It is to be regretted, for your own sake, that you are,” replied Frederick, “and very much so, too. I will hold you accountable for this deliberate calumny, Colonel Clery. A man should have proper proof before daring to accuse a gentleman of such crimes as those which your Count Waldberg or Walderburg seems, according to your story, to have committed.” ”

“ Three years later these and various other engagements were consolidated into a systematic plan for the administration of the Baroda territory, under a prince with a revenue of three-quarters of a million sterling, perfectly independent in all internal matters, but practically kept on his throne by subsidiary British troops. For some time the history of the gaekwars was very much the same as that of most territorial houses in India: an occasional able minister, more rarely an able prince ”

“ The princes of Baroda were one of the chief branches of the Mahratta confederacy, which in the 18th century spread devastation and terror over India. About 1721 one Pilaji gaekwar carved a fertile slice of territory out of Gujarat, and afterwards received the title of "Leader of the Royal Troops" from the peshwa. During the last thirty-two years of the century the house fell a prey to one of those bitter and unappeasable family feuds which are the ruin of great Indian families. In 1800 the inheritance descended to a prince feeble in body and almost idiotic in mind. ”

“ Instead of the army of athletes who expended their brute force in wrangling with brute creatures, Sir Mádov Row introduced an army of intellectual wrestlers who fight their foes in their several provinces with faithful courage. Mulhár Ráo's Baroda was the most uncleanable of Augean stables; but with their brooms and mops and spades (no offence, gentlemen, this may be a fine Sanskrit figure) the enlightened warriors have swept away all abuses, and made it all "sweet and clean" for young Siáji Ráo and his little family of eighteen lacs. [23]
Administration Details. ”

“ So says Sir Mádav Row, and the Agent bears him out. This is another refutation, if needed, of the vulgar prejudice that journalists never make good men of business. Mr. Jánardan S. Gádjil is another member of the fourth estate whose services to Baroda have proved valuable.
Mr. F. A. Elliot, C.S.,
is the tutor to His Highness the young Guicowár. This excellent officer has succeeded very well in his delicate, if not arduous work. His report of the progress made during the year by his princely pupil is in itself a certificate of his own high abilities and character. ”

“ Exceptionally, at Pattan, in Baroda State, there is a rich and thriving community of trading Bohrās of the Sunni section; they have no intercourse with their Shī'a namesakes.
The history of the Bohrās is still very obscure ”

“ Frederick assured her that he would frequently avail himself of her permission,and the conversation then turned to European topics and to social scandal both at home and abroad, concerning which the widow appeared [Pg 63] to know much more than might reasonably have been expected from a Hindoo lady living in the seclusion of a Baroda Zenana. ”

“ For centuries past the ruling monarchs of Barodia had been famous for their ginger whiskers. "As lost as the King of Barodia without his whiskers" was indeed a proverb of those times. A King without a pair, and at such a crisis in his country's fortunes! It was inconceivable. At the least he would have to live in retirement until they grew again, and without the leadership of their King the Barodian army would become a rabble.
The Chancellor was not distressed at the thought; he was looking forward to his return to Euralia, where he kept a comfortable house. ”

“ Barada's a big power down there—political, commercial, and social. An amusing devil in his way, quite capable of inviting you to dinner and after feeding you full of good food passing the wink to have a knife inserted in vulnerable portions of your anatomy as you leave his doorstep smoking one of his cigars—a special article that costs him two dollars apiece. Nothing's too good for his enemies! ”

“ They obey the divine law which bids them follow nature in drinking the amrita, gaining immortality like the gods in creation of life, which may change, yet never dies, aging but reviving, the mystery of the Trimoorti. Clothed with the resplendent atmosphere, touched by the beams of the rising sun, its effulgent dagob a mountain of gold, the Boro Budoor bursts out in the bloom of excellence, not the sepulchre of a discarded religion, of a fallen nation’s dreams, but a token of the germinal truth of all religion, a prophetic expression of things to be. ”

“ Enter Bardas deprecatingly, followed by Antonio.
Bardas: Antonio! not in the sea? You live?
Antonio: I say, where is she?
Bardas: You are mortal?
Antonio (groaning with impatience) : O
This utter superstition! (Pricking his arm.) Is it not blood?
Bardas: You live! and live? but let her think your death!
You let her! still devising for yourself
Safety and preservation!
Antonio: She's not safe?
Bardas: O, safe—if she had shrift!
Charles (hoarsely) : The dead are so!
Bardas: Ay, so. ”

“ CHAPTER II THE CHANCELLOR OF BARODIA HAS A LONG WALK HOME
Once more it was early morning on the castle walls.
The King sat at his breakfast table, a company of archers drawn up in front of him.
"Now you all understand," he said. "When the King of Baro—when a certain—well, when I say 'when,' I want you all to fire your arrows into the air. You are to take no aim; you are just to shoot your arrows upwards, and—er—I want to see who gets highest. ”

“ Baro`da (2,415) , a native state of Gujerat, in the prov. of Bombay, with a capital (101) of the same name, the sovereign of which is called the Guicowar; the third city in the presidency, with Hindu temples and a considerable trade.
Baro`nius, Cæsar, a great Catholic ecclesiastic, born near Naples, priest of the Congregation of the Oratory under its founder, and ultimately Superior; cardinal and librarian of the Vatican ”

“ Very black, tall in stature, deep in chest and comparatively speaking refined in feature, a Barotse is readily distinguishable amidst a mixed group of natives. Being numerically small they form an oligarchy in which, with few exceptions, each man holds rank in a chieftainship of which there are three grades. Next to the chiefs rank their descendants who have not themselves acquired chief’s rank and hold an intermediate position as freeborn ”

“ Bahulya marvelled to see this behaviour of Barada Babu’s, and a feeling of remorse rose in his mind. The sergeant of police said to Barada Babu: Sir, the people of Bengal never touch a man of the sweeper caste: it must be no easy matter for you, being a Bengali, to do as you are doing: you must be no ordinary person. As he said this, he put the prisoner in the charge of a constable and went off himself to a palki stand, where by a liberal expenditure of threats and promises, he managed to get a palki, and sent the injured man off to the hospital in charge of Barada Babu. ”

“ The greater part of the country is a British protectorate, forming part of Rhodesia. The Barotse are the paramount tribe in the region of the Upper Zambezi basin, but by popular usage the name is also applied to contiguous subject tribes, Barotseland being the country over which the Barotse paramount chief exercises authority. ”

“ By right, an accused chief is tried by his peers, each of whom in rotation from junior to senior gives his verdict, after which the president reports the finding of the court to the paramount chief, who passes sentence. As to their religious beliefs the Barotse imagine the sun to be the embodiment of a great god whose sole care is for the amelioration of man. Him they worship, though more pains are taken to appease evil spirits, in whose existence they also believe, to whom every evil to which man is heir is attributed. ”

“ In the dull light of dawn and of the sickly lamp she saw the great canvas on the trestles that his eyes, without seeing it, yet stared at;—it was the great picture of the Barabbas, living its completed life in color: beautiful, fearful, and divine, full of its majesty of godhead and its mockery of man. ”

“ Baroja, though his career has not been as dramatic as Blasco's, has at all events taken a hand in the life of his time and country and served his day in the trenches of the new enlightenment. He is anything but a theorist. But there is surely no little significance in his final retreat to his Basque hillside, there to seek peace above the turmoil. He is, one fancies, a bit disgusted and a bit despairing. But if it is despair, it is surely not the despair of one who has shirked the trial. ”

“ Antonio: My father?
Bardas: O, well feigned.
Be sure none will suspect he is too old
For knightly feat like this—and that he has
A son!
Antonio: To Helena! my father! sealed!
Hæmon: Bardas, you bring the truth?—And so, my lord,
You stab me through another—you, my friend?
Antonio (to Bardas) : Do you mean that——?
Bardas: Until this hour I held
The race of Charles di Tocca bold, or other
But empty of all lies in deed or speech,
It grows—a little low?
Antonio: Why you are mad! ”

“ Should blossom; only weeds whose withering
Can hurt no heart!
Bardas: These tears should seal fierce oaths
Against him!
Hæmon: And they shall! until God wrecks
Him in the tempest raised of his outrage!
Bardas: Then may I be the rock on which he breaks!
But hear; who comes? (Revellers are heard approaching.)
We must aside until
This mirth is past. (They conceal themselves.)
Enter revellers dressed as bacchanals and bacchantes, dancing and singing.
[ 32 ]
Bacchus, hey! ”

“ But even though the Primary Clear Light be not recognized, the Clear Light of the second Bardo being recognized, Liberation will be attained. If not liberated even by that, then that called the third Bardo or the Chönyid Bardo dawneth.
In this third stage of the Bardo, the karmic illusions come to shine. It is very important that this Great Setting-face-to- face of the Chönyid Bardo be read: it hath much power and can do much good. ”