Sanyasi

“ Sānto.—A sub-division of Oriya Brāhmans and Bhāyipuos.
Sanyāsi.—“A Sanyāsi is literally a man who has forsaken all, and who has renounced the world and leads a life of celibacy, devoting himself to religious meditation and abstraction, and to the study of holy books. He is considered to have attained a state of exalted piety that places him above most of the restrictions of caste and ceremony. ”

“ When a man becomes a Sanyási, he must give up all desire to return again into the world. They are distinguished by names, and divided into ten classes, namely: Ban, Áran, Tírthah, Áshram, Kar, Parbatah, Sákar, Bhárthy, Perí, and Sarsatí. ”

“ The people, astonished at the bulk of the stone, sat down at night in a lurking-place, so that they saw the Sanyásí with 144 the great stone on his shoulder. On that account they represented to him: What is the reason of undergoing such labour? Command, and we will bring the stone down from the mountain, and shape it right, provided the block be not too large. The Sanyási got angry, and left the village.’ Chatúr Vapah afterwards added: ‘Rise, and let us go to see him:’ we went there. Sitting cross-legged, he was occupied with himself. Chatúr Vapah said to him: ‘This Durvish is my friend ”

“ They are to wear only white clothes, and are never to pierce their noses for the wearing of jewelry. Death on the husband’s funeral pyre is not to be the sacred duty of the Nambūtiri widow, who is advised to seek in the life of a self-sacrificing Sanyāsi a sure means of salvation. ”

“ The final aim of Hindu religious life is Nirvāna or Mōksham in the next life, and this can only be attained by those holy men, whose life escapes, after smashing the skull, through the sushumnā nādi, a nerve so called, and supposed to pervade the crown of the head. The dying or dead Sanyāsi is considered to have led such a holy life as to have expired in the orthodox manner, and the fiction is kept up by breaking the skull post mortem, in mimicry of the guarantee of his passage to eternal bliss. ”

“ In those days of famine there were but few real hermits in that part of the country. For the real sanyasis lived on alms; and the people were finding it difficult enough to save their own lives, not to speak of giving alms. The real sanyasis consequently migrated to the places of pilgrimage like Benares and Allahabad. As a camouflage, the Children assumed the yellow robes of the sanyasis, changing costumes whenever they felt it necessary. At the very suggestion of trouble they put off their yellow robes, and the hungry sepoys, soldiers and policemen then found no sanyasis anywhere. ”

“ It has often been noticed that it is during such periods of calamity that sannyasis are well served by village-folk. So our Sadhu Baba made up his mind to remain for some time at this village.
In passing I should like to note one or two things that I have observed about sannyasis. I have seen many of them, and mixed intimately with them several times in my life. I am not going to extenuate their faults, which are well-known to everybody. I will speak of their merits. We all know the type who becomes a sannyasi purely as a means of livelihood ”

“ But Saneha considered himself unsafe so near the frontier, and proceeded to the Upper Tenu, perhaps the south of Palestine. Here he encountered a tribe, with which he dwelt for some time, marrying the eldest daughter of its chief, and he became wealthy in land and cattle and was regarded with much respect. But as he grew older a great longing came upon him to behold the land of Egypt once more. King Senusert was communicated with, and permission was granted to Saneha to return. The king received him kindly and his bedouin garments were exchanged for costly Egyptian robes. ”

“ The Sáni women are not exclusively devoted to their traditional profession. Some of them marry the men of the caste and live respectably at home with them. The men moreover do not. as in the dancing castes of the south, assist in the dancing (as by playing the accompaniments or forming a chorus) , but are cultivators and petty traders. Bógam men, however, follow the southern custom. The Sánis, like the dancing-girl castes of the south, keep up their numbers by the adoption and even purchase of girls of other castes, such as Kápus, Kammas and Ídigas. ”

“ The miraculous birth of Bata in his third transformation is, as we have noticed, closely paralleled by the birth of Atys from the almond. The idea at the root of this is that of self-creation or self-existence, as in the usual Egyptian phrase, "bull of his mother."
The king flying up to heaven is a regular expression for his death: "the hawk has soared," "the follower of the god has met his maker," so Sanehat describes it (see ist series, pp. 97, 98) .
This hawk-form of the king may be connected with the hawk bearing the double crown which is perched on the top of the ka name of each king. ”

“ Sântals, who reigned a long time; at last the people rose up and killed all the Saonts they could; one man only escaped by hiding in the house of a low-caste potter (Kumhâr) ; for this reason to this day the Saonts will eat and drink with the Kumhârs. To this man Vâsuli Devi appeared in a dream, and encouraged him to try his fortune, assuring him of success; the man was filled with profound respect for her, and having undergone various fasts, &c., he gathered together 11 other Saonts and kept wandering in the jangals ”

“ In the evening of the 23d, when encamped upon the Mogetch, came Sanuda, the person who had made Socinios king, and who had been Ras under him; he was received with great marks of favour, in reward of the treacherous part he had acted. He brought with him prisoners, Guebra Denghel, the Ras's son-in-law, one of the best and most amiable men in Abyssinia, but who had unfortunately embraced the wrong side of the question; and with him Sebaat Laab and Kefla Mariam, both men of great families in Tigré. ”

“ All Tennu assembled to behold it, and ‘every heart was sorry for Saneha,’ who was to encounter so redoubtable a foe. But of course Saneha triumphs, and obtains possession of his enemy’s person and goods. ‘I got great treasure and wealth, I got much cattle.’
In spite of riches and renown and royal favour, the heart of the exile grows sad; old age is at hand, and an irrepressible longing after home and native land seizes upon him. He ventures to approach the [Pg 59] all-powerful King of Egypt with a humble petition for pardon and recall. ”

“ Thereafter, when [151] the process of mortification is complete he should beg his bread as a Sanniāsi. But only those who enter the religious orders now become Sanniāsis, and the name is therefore confined to them. Dasnāmi means the ten names, and refers to the ten orders in which the Gosains or Sivite anchorites are commonly classified. Sādhu is a generic term for a religious mendicant. The name Gosain is now more commonly applied to the married members of the caste, who pursue ordinary avocations, while the mendicants are known as Sādhu or Sanniāsi. ”

“ Sanuda took me by the hand, saying in a whisper, "Don't fear him, I am here; but go home; next time you come here you will have horses enough along with you." He, too, seemed in liquor; and, making me a sign to withdraw, I left the king and his minister together with great willingness, and returned to Koscam to the Iteghé, to whom I told what had passed, and who ordered me to stay near Ozoro Esther, as in her service, and go no more to the palace. ”

“ He was going back to the camp near Blidah, a camp that would be poignantly painful to him with the recollections it would induce. He would see her at every turn, the big tent that had sheltered her would be a perpetual reminder, dominated by the memory of her presence. Even the locality would be hateful to him, but to go further was impossible while Sanois’ arrangements were still incomplete. There was no other course for him to take, no other way by which he could effectually prevent any further meeting between them. With a little shiver he turned and went heavily into the house. ”

“ A champion of the Tenu came to defy
108 THE ADVENTURES OF SANEHAT
me in my tent: a bold man without equal, for he had vanquished the whole country. He said, "Let Sanehat fight with me;" for he desired to overthrow me, he thought to take my cattle for his tribe. The prince counselled with me. I said, "I know him not. I certainly am not of his degree, I hold me far from his place. Have I ever opened his door, or leaped over his fence? It is some envious jealousy from seeing me; does he think that I am like some steer among the cows, whom the bull overthrows? ”

“ The Janganis adore the same deity, and carry about a Linga. The Sevras are Jain beggars, who regard their chiefs as superior to the gods of other sects. The Sannyasis are mendicant followers of Shiva; they never touch metals or fire, and, in religious parlance, they take up the staff They are opposed to the Viragis, worshippers of Vishnu, who contend as strongly against the worshippers of gods who receive bloody offerings, as a Christian could do against idolatry. ”

“ Here the Sannyasi wished me farewell, and pointing to the high road below, he said, "Now you will know your way home;" but I would not part from him. I said, "All this will appear a dream to me unless you will fix a day and promise to meet me here again." "I promise," he said. "No, promise me by an oath on the head of my idol." Again he promised, and touched the head of my idol. "Be here," he said, "this day fortnight." When the day came I anxiously kept my engagement and went and sat on the stone on the path. ”

“ He came to picture the mating of these two—Sanchia the salient, beautiful woman, and his master of the clear, long-enduring, searching eyes, and that strange look of second-sight upon him which those only have who live apart from men, under the sky. It is a look you can never mistake. Sailors have it, and shepherds, and dwellers in the desert. The eye sees through you—into you, and beyond you. ”

“ The Oni put her in a boat and rowed away across a river to his castle. There she cooked for him such dishes as he had never before tasted, and they were good.
But when she came to make rice dumplings, the Oni said to her, “You are a good cook, but you are wasteful. When you cook rice put but one grain into the pot.”
“One grain!” she cried. “Tee-hee-hee! how could any one live on one grain of rice?”
“I will show you,” said the Oni. “For though you are a woman and think you know much, there are some things which I know better than you.”
Sanja was silent ”

“ And a Dogra of the hills answered bluntly, "Fool, thou art blind"; whereat the Sansi lapsed into a stony silence, and was led away like a child.
In the tribe of the Sansis, who wander from Tajawala to Jagadhri where the brass-workers are, and from Jagadhri to Karnal, is a blind madman who bears on his scarred face the impress of a hand. It is said that he can cure all diseases at will, for he is the only man living who has stood face to face with a god. ”

“ If you only retain your health, we shall succeed, for it is not so very far to Abyssinia. And even though we do not succeed, though we fall into Smain's hand, do not think that he will revenge himself upon us. He never in his life saw either Gebhr or the Bedouins; he knew only Chamis, but what was Chamis to him? Besides, we need not tell Smain that Chamis was with us. If we succeed in reaching Abyssinia, then we are saved, and if not, you will not fare any worse, but better, for tyrants worse than those men probably cannot be found in the world. Do not fear me, Nell. ”

“ I could locate none of my close railroad friends. But I found Sanina. Sanina was an attractive quadroon from Jamaica who could pass as white. Before prohibition she presided over a buffet flat. Now she animated a cosy speakeasy. Her rendezvous on upper Seventh Avenue, with its pink curtains and spreads, created an artificial rose-garden effect. It was always humming like a beehive with brown butterflies and flames of all ages from the West Indies and from the South.
Sanina infatuated them all. She possessed the cunning and fascination of a serpent, and more charm than beauty. ”

“ The Jainas do not hold the doctrines of Budh in a pure state. They have mingled with them Brahminic views. They say that sanyasees, or holy men, having mortified their appetites and passions, become completely insensible to pleasure or pain, to hunger, thirst, or any want. Their souls, freed from earthly pollution, rest upon God in unbroken contemplation. Finally, the body dissolving, or evaporating like camphor when heated, returns to the elements, and the soul, returning to God from whence it sprung, becomes a part of his essence. ”

“ Hulwan and its territories extended up to what is now known as Shahr-i-Zur, and behind the site of the modern Halabja, in the hills which form an amphitheatre behind it, there was a large town called Sasan. Here were great stone buildings, and their ruins still stand, ordinary walls and pillars of the great Sasanian age of Persia. There is every indication, besides legend, to show that a great city existed here, and in the Shahr-i-Zur plain below were a number of villages whose inhabitants cultivated its rich and well-watered soil. ”

“ The real presence of Sanchia was always with him, to intensify, accentuate, and make reasonable the perceptions of his quickened senses. Sense blended with sense—as when the sharp fragrance of the thyme which his feet crushed gave him the vision of her immortal beauty, or when, in the rustle of the wind-swept grasses, he had a consciousness of her thrilled heart beating near by. ”