Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Vol-7
XXXIII
RELIGION, CIVILISATION, AND MIRACLES
(The Appeal-Avalanche)
"I am a monk," he said, as he sat in the parlors of La Salette
Academy, (On January 21, 1894.) which is his home while in
Memphis, "and not a priest. When at home I travel from place to
place, teaching the people of the villages and towns through which
I pass. I am dependent upon them for my sustenance, as I am not
allowed to touch money."
"I was born," he continued, in answer to a question, "in Bengal
and become a monk and a celibate from choice. At my birth my
father had a horoscope taken of my life, but would never tell me
what it was. Some years ago when I visited my home, my father
having died, I came across the chart among some papers in my
mother's possession and saw from it that I was destined to become
a wanderer on the face of the earth."
There was a touch of pathos in the speaker's voice and a murmur of
sympathy ran around the group of listeners. Kananda (American
reporters generally spelt his name as Vive Kananda in those days.)
knocked the ashes from his cigar and was silent for a space.
Presently someone asked:
"If your religion is all that you claim it is, if it is the only
true faith, how is it that your people are not more advanced in
civilisation than we are? Why has it not elevated them among the
nations of the world?"
"Because that is not the sphere of any religion," replied the
Hindu gravely. "My people are the most moral in the world, or
quite as much as any other race. They are more considerate of
their fellow man's rights, and even those of dumb animals, but
they are not materialists. No religion has ever advanced the
thought or inspiration of a nation or people. In fact, no great
achievement has ever been attained in the history of the world
that religion has not retarded. Your boasted Christianity has not
proven an exception in this respect. Your Darwins, your Mills,
your Humes, have never received the endorsement of your prelates.
Why, then, criticise my religion on this account?"
"I would not give a fig for a faith that does not tend to elevate
mankind's lot on earth as well as his spiritual condition," said
one of the group, 'and therein I am not prepared to admit the
correctness of your statements. Christianity has founded colleges,
hospitals and raised the degenerate. It has elevated the downcast
and helped its followers to live."
"You are right there to a certain extent," replied the monk
calmly, "and yet it is not shown that these things are directly
the result of your Christianity. There are many causes operating
in the West to produce these results.
"Religious thought should be directed to developing man's
spiritual side. Science, art, learning and metaphysical research
all have their proper functions in life, but if you seek to blend
them, you destroy their individual characteristics until, in time,
you eliminate the spiritual, for instance, from the religious
altogether. You Americans worship what? The dollar. In the mad
rush for gold, you forget the spiritual until you have become a
nation of materialists. Even your preachers and churches are
tainted with the all-pervading desire. Show me one in the history
of your people, who has led the spiritual lives that those whom I
can name at home have done. Where are those who, when death comes,
could say, 'O Brother Death, I welcome thee.' Your religion helps
you to build Ferris wheels and Eiffel towers, but does it aid you
in the development of your inner lives?"
The monk spoke earnestly, and his voice, rich and well modulated,
came through the dusk that pervaded the apartment, half-sadly,
half-accusingly. There was something of the weird in the comments
of this stranger from a land whose history dates back 6,000 years
upon the civilisation of the Nineteenth Century America.
"But, in pursuing the spiritual, you lost sight of the demands of
the present," said some one. "Your doctrine does not help men to
live."
"It helps them to die," was the answer.
"We are sure of the present."
"You are sure of nothing."
"The aim of the ideal religion should be to help one to live and
to prepare one to die at the same time."
"Exactly," said the Hindu, quickly, "and it is that which we are
seeking to attain. I believe that the Hindu faith has developed
the spiritual in its devotees at the expense of the material, and
I think that in the Western world the contrary is true. By uniting
the materialism of the West with the spiritualism of the East I
believe much can be accomplished. It may be that in the attempt
the Hindu faith will lose much of its individuality."
"Would not the entire social system of India have to be
revolutionised to do what you hope to do?"
"Yet, probably, still the religion would remain unimpaired."
The conversation here turned upon the form of worship of the
Hindus, and Kananda gave some interesting information on this
subject. There are agnostics and atheists in India as well as
elsewhere. "Realisation" is the one thing essential in the lives
of the followers of Brahma. Faith is not necessary. Theosophy is a
subject with which Kananda is not versed, nor is it a part of his
creed unless he chooses to make it so. It is more of a separate
study. Kananda never met Mme. Blavatsky, but has met Col. Olcott
of the American Theosophical Society. He is also acquainted with
Annie Besant. Speaking of the "fakirs" of India, the famous
jugglers or musicians [magicians?], whose feats have made for them
a world-wide reputation, Kananda told of a few episodes that had
come within his observation and which almost surpass belief.
"Five months ago," he said, when questioned on this subject, "or
just one month before I left India to come to this country, I
happened in company in a caravan or party of 25 to sojourn for a
space in a city in the interior. While there we learned of the
marvellous work of one of these itinerant magicians and had him
brought before us. He told us he would produce for us any article
we desired. We stripped him, at his request, until he was quite
naked and placed him in the corner of the room. I threw my
travelling blanket about him and then we called upon him to do as
he had promised. He asked what we should like, and I asked for a
bunch of California [?] grapes, and straightway the fellow brought
them forth from under his blanket. Oranges and other fruits were
produced and finally great dishes of steaming rice."
Continuing, the monk said he believed in the existence of a "sixth
sense" and in telepathy. He offered no explanation of the feats of
the fakirs, merely saying that they were very wonderful. The
subject of idols came up and the monk said that idols formed a
part of his religion insomuch as the symbol is concerned.
"What do you worship?" said the monk, "What is your idea of God?"
"The spirit," said a lady quietly.
"What is the spirit? Do you Protestants worship the words of the
Bible or something beyond? We worship the God through the idol."
"That is, you attain the subjective through the objective," said a
gentleman who had listened attentively to the words of the
stranger.
"Yes, that is it," said the monk, gratefully.
Vive Kananda discussed further in the same strain until the call
terminated as the hour for the Hindu's lecture approached.
XXXIV
RELIGIOUS HARMONY
(The Detroit Free Press, February 14, 1894)
Swami is a person of medium stature, with the dusky complexion
common with people of his nationality, gentle in manner,
deliberate in movement, and extremely courteous in every word,
movement, and gesture. But the most striking feature of his
personality are his eyes, which are of great brilliancy. The
conversation naturally drifted upon the subject of religion, when
Swami said among many other striking remarks:
"I make the distinction between religion and creed. Religion is
the acceptance of all existing creeds, seeing in them the same
striving towards the same destination. Creed is something
antagonistic and combative. There are different creeds, because
there are different people, and the creed is adapted to the
commonwealth where it furnishes what people want. As the world is
made up of infinite variety of persons of different natures,
intellectually, spiritually, and materially, so these people take
to themselves that form of belief in the existence of a great and
good moral law, which is best fitted for them. Religion recognizes
and is glad of the existence of all these forms because of the
beautiful underlying principle. The same goal is reached by
different routes and my way would not be suited perhaps to the
temperament of my Western neighbour, the same that his route would
not commend itself to my disposition and philosophical way of
thinking. I belong to the Hindu religion. That is not the
Buddhists' creed, one of the sects of the Hindu religion. We never
indulge in missionary work. We do not seek to thrust the
principles of our religion upon anyone. The fundamental principles
of our religion forbid that. Nor do we say anything against any
missionaries whom you send from this country anywhere. For all of
us they are entirely welcome to penetrate the innermost recesses
of the earth. Many come to us, but we do not struggle for them; we
have no missionaries striving to bring anyone to our way of
thinking. With no effort from us many forms of the Hindu religion
are spreading far and wide, and these manifestations have taken
the form of Christian Science, theosophy, and Edwin Arnold's Light
of Asia. Our religion is older than most religions and the
Christian creed - I do not call it religion, because of its
antagonistic features - came directly from the Hindu religion. It
is one of the great offshoots. The Catholic religion also takes
all its forms from us - the confessional, the belief in saints and
so on - and a Catholic priest who saw this absolute similarity and
recognised the truth of the origin of the Catholic religion was
dethroned from his position because he dared to publish a volume
explaining all that he observed and was convinced of."
"You recognise agnostics in your religion?" was asked.
"Oh, yes; philosophical agnostics and what you call infidels. When
Buddha, who is with us a saint, was asked by one of his followers:
'Does God exist?' He replied: 'God. When have I spoken to you
about God? This I tell you, be good and do good.' The
philosophical agnostics - there are many of us - believe in the
great moral law underlying everything in nature and in the
ultimate perfection. All the creeds which are accepted by all
people are but the endeavours of humanity to realise that infinity
of Self which lies in the great future."
"Is it beneath the dignity of your religion to resort to
missionary effort?"
For reply the visitor from the Orient turned to a little volume
and referred to an edict among other remarkable edicts.
"This," he said, "was written 200 B.C., and will be the best
answer I can give you on that question."
In delightfully clear, well modulated tones, he read:
"The King Piyadasi, beloved of the gods, honours all sects, both
ascetics and householders; he propitiates them by alms and other
gifts, but he attaches less importance to gifts and honours than
to endeavour to promote the essential moral virtues. It is true
the prevalence of essential virtues differs in different sects,
but there is a common basis. That is, gentleness, moderation in
language and morality. Thus one should not exalt one's own sect
and decry others, but tender them on every occasion the honour
they deserve. Striving thus, one promotes the welfare of his own
sect, while serving the others. Striving otherwise, one does not
serve his own sect, while disserving others; and whosoever, from
attachment to his own sect and with a view to promoting it,
decries others, only deals rude blows to his own sect. Hence
concord alone is meritorious, so that all bear and love to bear
the beliefs of each other. It is with this purpose that this edict
has been inscribed; that all people, whatever their fate may be,
should be encouraged to promote the essential moral doctrines in
each and mutual respects for all other sects. It is with this
object that the ministers of religion, the inspectors and other
bodies of officers should all work."
After reading this impressive passage Swami Vive Kananda remarked
that the same wise king who had caused this edict to be inscribed
had forbidden the indulgence of war, as its horrors were
antagonistic to all the principles of the great and universal
moral doctrine. "For this reason," remarked the visitor, "India
has suffered in its material aspect. Where brute strength and
bloodshed has advanced other nations, India has deprecated such
brutal manifestations; and by the law of the survival of the
fittest, which applies to nations as well as to individuals, it
has fallen behind as a power on the earth in the material sense."
"But will it not be an impossibility to find in the great
combative Western countries, where such tremendous energy is
needed to develop the pressing practical necessities of the
nineteenth century, this spirit which prevails in placid India?"
The brilliant eyes flashed, and a smile crossed the features of
the Eastern brother.
"May not one combine the energy of the lion with the gentleness of
the lamb?" he asked.
Continuing, he intimated that perhaps the future holds the
conjunction of the East and the West, a combination which would be
productive of marvellous results. A condition which speaks well
for the natures of the Western nation is the reverence in which
women are held and the gentle consideration with which they are
treated.
He says with the dying Buddha, "Work out your own salvation. I
cannot help you. No man can help you. Help yourself." Harmony and
peace, and not dissension, is his watchword.
The following story is one which he related recently regarding the
practice of fault-finding among creeds:
"A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It
was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small
frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there to tell us
whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake,
we must take it for granted that it had eyes, and that it every
day cleansed the waters of all the worms and bacilli that lived in
it, with an energy that would give credit to our modern
bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek
and fat - perhaps as much so as myself. Well, one day another frog
that lived in the sea, came and fell into the well.
"'Whence are you from?'
"'I am from the sea.'
"'The sea? How big is that? Is it as big as my well?' and he took
a leap from one side of the well to the other.
"'My friend,' says the frog of the sea, 'how do you compare the
sea with your little well?'
"'Then the frog took another leap and asked; 'Is your sea so big?'
"'What nonsense you speak to compare the sea with your well.'
"Well, then,' said the frog of the well, 'nothing can be bigger
than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow
is a liar, so turn him out.'
"That has been the difficulty all the while.
"I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well, and thinking
that the world is my well. The Christian sits in his little well
and the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his well
and thinks the whole world that. I have to thank you of America
for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of
this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord
will help you to accomplish that purpose."
XXXV
FALLEN WOMEN
(The Detroit Tribune, March 17, 1894)
"Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.
Lilith was her very great-grandmamma, and that was before the days
of Eve, as everyone knows. In the West people say rude things
about Lalun's profession and write lectures about it, and
distribute the lectures to young persons in order that morality
may be preserved. In the East, where the profession is hereditary,
descending from mother to daughter, nobody writes lectures or
takes any notice." - RUDYARD KIPLING.
The story of which the sentences that precede this one are a
paragraph, was written in India. They were written by Rudyard
Kipling, from whom most of us have learned all that we definitely
know about India, with the exception of the fact that India raises
wheat enough to be a great competitor of our own farmers, that men
work there for two cents a day and that women throw their babies
into the Ganga, which is the sacred river of the country.
But Vive Kananda, since he came to this country, has exploded the
story about the women of India feeding their babies to the
alligators, and now he says that he never heard of Rudyard Kipling
until he came to America, and that it is not proper in India to
talk of such a profession as that of Lalun, out of which Mr.
Kipling has made one of his most delightful and instructive tales.
"In India," said Kananda yesterday, "we do not discuss such
things. No one ever speaks of those unfortunate women. When a
woman is discovered to be unchaste in India, she is hurled out
from her caste. No one thereafter can touch or speak to her. If
she went into the house, they would take up and clean the carpets
and wash the walls she breathed against. No one can have anything
to do with such a person. There are no women who are not virtuous
in Indian society. It is not at all as it is in this country. Here
there are bad women living side by side with virtuous women in
your society. One cannot know who is bad and who is good in
America. But in India once a woman slips, she is an outcast for
ever - she and her children, sons and daughters. It is terrible, I
admit, but it keeps society pure."
"How about the men?" was asked. "Does the same rule hold in regard
to them? Are they outcast when they are proven to be unchaste?"
"Oh, no. It is quite different with them. It would be so, perhaps,
if they could be found out. But the men move about. They can go
from place to place. It is not possible to discover them. The
women are shut up in the house. They are certainly discovered if
they do anything wrong. And when they are discovered, they are
thrown out. Nothing can save them. Sometimes it is very hard when
a father has to give up his daughter or a husband his wife. But if
they do not give them up, they will be banished with them too. It
is very different in this country. Women cannot go about there and
make associations as they do here. It is very terrible, but it
makes society pure.
"I think that unchastity is the one great sin of your country. It
must be so, there is so much luxury here. A poor girl would sell
herself for a new bonnet. It must be so where there is so much
luxury."
Mr. Kipling says this about Lalun and her profession:
"Lalun's real husband, for even ladies of Lalun's profession have
husbands in the East, was a great, big jujube tree. Her mama, who
had married a fig, spent ten thousand rupees on Lalun's wedding,
which was blessed by forty-seven clergymen of mama's church, and
distributed 5,000 rupees in charity to the poor. And that was a
custom of the land."
"In India when a woman is unfaithful to her husband she loses her
caste, but none of her civil or religious rights. She can still
own property and the temples are still open to her.
"Yes," said Kananda, "a bad woman is not allowed to marry. She
cannot marry any one without their being an outcast like herself,
so she marries a tree, or sometimes a sword. It is the custom.
Sometimes these women grow very rich and become very charitable,
but they can never regain their caste. In the interior towns,
where they still adhere to the old customs, she cannot ride in a
carriage, no matter how wealthy she may be; the best that she is
allowed is a pair of bullocks. And then in India she has to wear a
dress of her own, so that she can be distinguished. You can see
these people going by, but no one ever speaks to them. The
greatest number of these women is in the cities. A good many of
them are Jews too, but they all have different quarters of the
cities, you know. They all live apart. It is a singular thing
that, bad as they are, wretched as some of these women are, they
will not admit a Christian lover. They will not eat with them or
touch them - the 'omnivorous barbarians', as they call them. They
call them that because they eat everything. Do you know what that
disease, the unspeakable disease, is called in India? It is called
'Bad Faringan', which means 'the Christian disease'. It was the
Christian that brought it into India.
"Has there been any attempt in India to solve this question? Is it
a public question the way it is in America?"
"No, there has been very little done in India. There is a great
field for women missionaries if they would convert prostitutes in
India. They do nothing in India - very little. There is one sect,
the Veshnava [Vaishnava] (Words in square brackets are ours. -
Ed.), who try to reclaim these women. This is a religious sect. I
think about 90 per cent [?] of all prostitutes belong to this
sect. This sect does not believe in caste and they go everywhere
without reference to caste. There are certain temples, as the
temple of Jagatnot [Jagannath], where there is no caste. Everybody
who goes into that town takes off his caste while he is there,
because that is holy ground and everything is supposed to be pure
there. When he goes outside, he resumes it again, for caste is a
mere worldly thing. You know some of the castes are so particular
that they will not eat any food unless it is prepared by
themselves. They will not touch any one outside their caste. But
in the city they all live together. This is the only sect in India
that makes proselytes. It makes everybody a member of its church.
It goes into the Himalayas and converts the wild men. You perhaps
did not know that there were wild men in India. Yes, there are.
They dwell at the foot of the Himalayas."
"Is there any ceremony by which a woman is declared unchaste, a
civil process?" Kananda was asked.
"No, it is not a civil process. It is just custom. Sometimes there
is a formal ceremony and sometimes there is not. They simply make
pariahs out of them. When any woman is suspected sometimes they
get together and give her a sort of trial, and if it is decided
that she is guilty, then a note is sent around to all the other
members of the caste, and she is banished.
"Mind you," he exclaimed, "I do not mean to say that this is a
solution of the question. The custom is terribly rigid. But you
have no solution of the question, either. It is a terrible thing.
It is a great wrong of the Western world."
Translation of Writings
NOTE
Swami Vivekananda left Calcutta for the West, for the second time,
on the 20th June, 1899, by the BISN steamship Golconda. In reading
these pages the reader should remember that Swamiji wrote them in
a light, humorous tone in Bengali, which it is impossible to
render in English.
The second sectionof these memoirs, relates to his return journey
from the West at the end of 1900.
These were originally published in the Udbodhan.
EDITOR.
MEMOIRS OF EUROPEAN TRAVEL
(Translated from Bengali)
I
Om Namo Nârâyanâya, ("Salutations to the Lord"; the usual form of
addressing a Sannyasin. These memoirs of his second journey to the
West were addressed to Swami Trigunatitananda, Editor, Udbodhan
and hence this form of address.) Swâmi. - Pronounce the last
syllable of the second word in a high pitch, brother, in the
Hrishikesh fashion. For seven days we have been on board the ship
and every day I think of writing to you something about our mode
of life, and of writing materials also you have given me enough,
but the characteristic lethargy of a Bengali stands in the way and
foils everything. In the first place, there is idleness; every day
I think of writing - what do you call it - a diary, but then, on
account of various preoccupations, it is postponed to the endless
"tomorrow", and does not progress an inch. In the second place, I
do not remember the dates etc., at all; you must do me the favour
to fill these up yourselves. And, besides, if you be very
generous, you may think that like the great devotee, Hanuman, it
is impossible for me to remember dates and such other trivialities
- owing to the presence of the Lord in the heart. But the real
truth is that it is due to my foolishness and idleness. What
nonsense! What comparison can there be between "the Solar Dynasty"
(Swamiji here refers to Kâlidâsa's famous line of the
Raghuvamsham: "O the difference between the majestic Solar Dynasty
and my poor intellect!") - I beg your pardon - between Hanuman
with his whole heart given to Shri Râma, the crown of the Solar
Dynasty, and me, the lowest of the low! But then he crossed at one
bound the ocean extending a hundred Yojanas, while we are crossing
it confined within a wooden house, so to say, being pitched this
side and that and somehow keeping ourselves on our feet with the
help of posts and pillars. But there is one point of superiority
on our side in that he had the blessed sight of Râkshasas and
Râkshasis after reaching Lankâ, whereas we are going in company
with them. At dinner time that glittering of a hundred knives and
the clattering of a hundred forks frightened brother T__
(Turiyananda) out of his wits. He now and then started lest his
neighbour with auburn hair and grey, cat-like eyes, through
inadvertence might plunge her knife into his flesh, and the more
so, as he is rather sleek and fat. I say, did Hanuman have
sea-sickness while crossing the sea? Do the ancient books say
anything on that? You are all well-read men, proficient in the
Ramayana and other scriptures, so you may settle that question.
But our modern authorities are silent on that point. Perhaps he
had not; but then the fact of his having entered into the jaws of
somebody raises a doubt. Brother T__ is also of opinion that when
the prow of the ship suddenly heaves up towards heaven as if to
consult with the king of gods, and immediately after plunges to
the bottom of the ocean as if to pierce king Vali, residing in the
nether worlds - he at that time feels that he is being swallowed
by the terrible and wide-gaping jaws of somebody.
I beg your pardon, you have entrusted your work to a nice man! I
owe you a description of the sea-voyage for seven days which will
be full of poetry and interest, and be written in a polished,
rhetorical style, but instead of that I am talking at random. But
the fact is, having striven all my life to eat the kernel of
Brahman, after throwing away the shell of Maya, how shall I now
get the power of appreciating nature's beauties all of a sudden?
All my life I have been on the move all over India, "from Varanasi
to Kashmir, and thence to Khorasan, and Gujarat (Tulsidâs.)". How
many hills and rivers, mountains and springs, and valleys and
dales, how many cloud-belted peaks covered in perpetual snow, and
oceans tempestuous, roaring and foamy, have I not seen, and heard
of, and crossed! But sitting on a shabby wooden bedstead in a dark
room of the ground floor, requiring a lamp to be lighted in the
day-time, with the walls variegated by the stain of chewed betel
leaves and made noisy by the squeaking and tickling of rats and
moles and lizards, by the side of the main street resounding with
the rattle of hackneys and tram-cars and darkened by clouds of
dust - in such poetic environment, the pictures of the Himalayas,
oceans, meadows, deserts, etc., that poet Shyamacharan, puffing at
the all too familiar hookah, has drawn with such lifelike
precision, to the glory of the Bengalis - it is vain for us to try
to imitate them! Shyamacharan in his boyhood went for a change to
the up-country, where the water is so stimulating to the digestive
functions that if you drink a tumblerful of it even after a very
heavy meal, every bit of it will be digested and you will feel
hungry again. Here it was that Shyamacharan's intuitive genius
caught a glimpse of the sublime and beautiful aspects of nature.
But there is one fly in the pot - they say that Shyamacharan's
peregrinations extended as far as Burdwan (in Bengal) and no
further!
But at your earnest request and also to prove that I am not wholly
devoid of the poetic instinct either, I set myself to the task
with God's name, and you, too, be all attention.
No ship generally leaves the port in the night - specially from a
commercial port like Calcutta and in a river like the Hooghly or
Ganga. Until the ship reaches the sea, it is in the charge of the
pilot, who acts as the Captain, and he gives the command. His duty
ends in either piloting the ship down to the sea or, if it be an
incoming ship, from the mouth of the sea to the port. We have got
two great dangers towards the mouth of the Hooghly - first, the
James and Mary Banks near Budge-Budge, and second, the sandbank
near the entrance to Diamond Harbour. Only in the high tide and
during the day, the pilot can very carefully steer his ship, and
in no other condition; consequently it took us two days to get out
of the Hooghly.
Do you remember the Ganga at Hrishikesh? That clear bluish water -
in which one can count the fins of fishes five yards below the
surface - that wonderfully sweet, ice-cold "charming water of the
Ganga (From Valmiki's hymn.)", and that wonderful sound of "Hara,
Hara" of the running water, and the echo of "Hara, Hara" from the
neighbouring mountain-falls? Do you remember that life in the
forest, the begging of Mâdhukari (Meaning, collected from door to
door, in small bits.) alms, eating on small islands of rock in the
bed of the Ganga, hearty drinking of that water with the palms,
and the fearless wandering of fishes all round for crumbs of
bread? You remember that love for Ganga water, that glory of the
Ganga, the touch of its water that makes the mind dispassionate,
that Ganga flowing over the Himalayas, through Srinagar, Tehri,
Uttarkasi, and Gangotri - some of you have seen even the source of
the Ganga! But there is a certain unforgettable fascination in our
Ganga of Calcutta, muddy, and whitish - as if from contact with
Shiva's body - and bearing a large number of ships on her bosom.
Is it merely patriotism or the impressions of childhood? - Who
knows? What wonderful relation is this between mother Ganga and
the Hindus? Is it merely superstition? May be. They spend their
lives with the name of Ganga on their lips, they die immersed in
the waters of the Ganga, men from far off places take away Ganga
water with them, keep it carefully in copper vessels, and sip
drops of it on holy festive occasions. Kings and princes keep it
in jars, and at considerable expense take the water from Gangotri
to pour it on the head of Shiva at Rameshwaram! The Hindus visit
foreign countries - Rangoon, Java, Hongkong, Madagascar, Suez,
Aden, Malta - and they take with them Ganga water and the Gitâ.
The Gita and the sacred waters of the Ganga constitute the
Hinduism of the Hindus. Last time I went to the West, I also took
a little of it with me, fearing it might be needed, and whenever
opportunities occurred I used to drink a few drops of it. And
every time I drank, in the midst of the stream of humanity, amid
that bustle of civilisation, that hurry of frenzied footsteps of
millions of men and women in the West, the mind at once became
calm and still, as it were. That stream of men, that intense
activity of the West, that clash and competition at every step,
those seats of luxury and celestial opulence - Paris, London, New
York, Berlin, Rome - all would disappear and I used to hear that
wonderful sound of "Hara, Hara", to see that lonely forest on the
sides of the Himalayas, and feel the murmuring heavenly river
coursing through the heart and brain and every artery of the body
and thundering forth, "Hara, Hara, Hara!"
This time you, too, I see, have sent Mother Ganga, for Madras.
But, dear brother, what a strange vessel have you put Mother in!
Brother T__ is a Brahmachârin from his boyhood, and looks "like
burning fire through the force of his spirituality (Kâlidâsa's
Kumârasambhavam.)". Formerly as a Brâhmana he used to be saluted
as "Namo Brahmané", and now it is - oh, the sublimity of it! -
"Namo Nârâyanâya", as he is a Sannyâsin. And it is perhaps due to
that, that Mother, in his custody, has left her seat in the
Kamandalu of Brahmâ, and been forced to enter a jar! Anyhow,
getting up from bed late at night I found that Mother evidently
could not bear staying in that awkward vessel and was trying to
force her passage out of it. I thought it most dangerous, for if
Mother chose to re-enact here those previous scenes of her life,
such as piercing the Himalayas, washing away the great elephant
Airâvata, and pulling down the hut of the sage Jahnu, then it
would be a terrible affair. I offered many prayers to Mother and
said to her in various supplicatory phrases, "Mother, do wait a
little, let us reach Madras tomorrow, and there you can do
whatever you like. There are many there more thick-skulled than
elephants - most of them with huts like that of Jahnu - while
those half-shaven, shining heads with ample hair-tufts are almost
made of stone, compared to which even the Himalayas would be soft
as butter! You may break them as much as you like; now pray wait a
little." But all my supplications were in vain. Mother would not
listen to them. Then I hit upon a plan, and said to her, "Mother,
look at those turbaned servants with jackets on, moving to and fro
on the ship, they are Mohammedans, real, beef-eating Mohammedans,
and those whom you find moving about sweeping and cleaning the
rooms etc., are real scavengers, disciples of Lâl Beg; and if you
do not hear me, I will call them and ask them to touch you! Even
if that is not sufficient to quiet you, I will just send you to
your father's home; you see that room there, if you are shut in
there, you will get back to your primitive condition in the
Himalayas, when all your restlessness will be silenced, and you
shall remain frozen into a block of ice." That silenced her. So it
is everywhere, not only in the case of gods, but among men also -
whenever they get a devotee, they take an undue advantage over
him.
See, how I have again strayed from my subject and am talking at
random. I have already told you at the outset that those things
are not in my line, but if you bear with me, I shall try again.
There is a certain beauty in one's own people which is not to be
found anywhere else. Even the denizens of Paradise cannot compare
in point of beauty with our brothers and sisters, or sons and
daughters, however uncouth they may be. But, if, even roaming over
Paradise and seeing the people there, you find your own people
coming out really beautiful, then there is no bound to your
delight. There is also a special beauty in our Bengal, covered
with endless verdant stretches of grass, and bearing as garlands a
thousand rivers and streams. A little of this beauty one finds in
Malabar, and also in Kashmir. Is there not beauty in water? When
there is water everywhere, and heavy showers of rain are running
down arum leaves, while clumps of cocoanut and date palms slightly
bend their heads under that downpour, and there is the continuous
croaking of frogs all round - is there no beauty in such a scene
as this? And one cannot appreciate the beauty of the banks of our
Ganga, unless one is returning from foreign countries and entering
the river by its mouth at Diamond Harbour. That blue, blue sky,
containing in its bosom black clouds, with golden-fringed whitish
clouds below them, underneath which clumps of cocoanut and date
palms toss their tufted heads like a thousand chowries, and below
them again is an assemblage of light, deep, yellowish, slightly
dark, and other varieties of green massed together - these being
the mango, lichi, blackberry, and jack-fruit trees, with an
exuberance of leaves and foliage that entirely hide the trunk,
branches, and twigs - while, close by, clusters of bamboos toss in
the wind, and at the foot of all lies that grass, before whose
soft and glossy surface the carpets of Yarkand, Persia, and
Turkistan are almost as nothing - as far as the eye can reach that
green, green grass looking as even as if some one had trimmed and
pruned it, and stretching right down to the edge of the river - as
far down the banks as where the gentle waves of the Ganga have
submerged and are pushing playfully against, the land is framed
with green grass, and just below this is the sacred water of the
Ganga. And if you sweep your eye from the horizon right up to the
zenith, you will notice within a single line such a play of
diverse colours, such manifold shades of the same colour, as you
have witnessed nowhere else. I say, have you ever come under the
fascination of colours - the sort of fascination which impels the
moths to die in the flame, and the bees to starve themselves to
death in the prison of flowers? I tell you one thing - if you want
to enjoy the beauty of Gangetic scenery, enjoy it to your heart's
content now, for very soon the whole aspect will be altered. In
the hands of money-grabbing merchants, everything will disappear.
In place of that green grass, brick kilns will be reared and
burrow-pits for the brickfields will be sunk. Where, now, the tiny
wavelets of the Ganga are playing with the grass, there will be
moored the jute-laden flats and those cargo-boats; and those
variegated colours of cocoanuts and palms, of mangoes and lichis,
that blue sky, the beauty of the clouds - these you will
altogether miss hereafter; and you will find instead the
enveloping smoke of coal, and standing ghostlike in the midst of
that smoke, the half-distinct chimneys of the factories!
Now our ship has reached the sea. The description, which you read
in Kalidasa's Raghuvamsham of the shores "of the sea appearing
blue with forests of palm and other trees" and "looking like a
slender rim of rust on the tyre of an iron wheel" etc. - is not at
all accurate and faithful. With all my respects for the great
poet, it is my belief that he never in his life saw either the
ocean or the Himalayas. (Swamiji afterwards changed his opinion
with regard to the last part, i.e. Kalidasa's acquaintance with
the Himalayas.)
Here there is a blending of white and black waters, somewhat
resembling the confluence of the Ganga and Jamuna at Allahabad.
Though Mukti (liberation) may be rare in most places, it is sure
at "Hardwar, Allahabad, and the mouth of the Ganga". But they say
that this is not the real mouth of the river. However, let me
salute the Lord here, for "He has His eyes, and head and face
everywhere (Gita, XIII, 13.)".
How beautiful! As far as the eye reaches, the deep blue waters of
the sea are rising into foamy waves and dancing rhythmically to
the winds. Behind us lie the sacred waters of the Ganga, whitened
with the ashes of Shiva's body, as we read in the description,
"Shiva's matted locks whitened by the foam of the Ganga
(Shankaracharya's hymn.)". The water of the Ganga is comparatively
still. In front of us lies the parting line between the waters.
There ends the white water. Now begin the blue waters of the ocean
- before, behind and all round there is only blue, blue water
everywhere, breaking incessantly into waves. The sea has blue
hair, his body is of a blue complexion, and his garment is also
blue. We read in the Puranas that millions of Asuras hid
themselves under the ocean through fear of the gods. Today their
opportunity has come, today Neptune is their ally, and Aeolus is
at their back. With hideous roars and thundering shouts they are
today dancing a terrible war-dance on the surface of the ocean,
and the foamy waves are their grim laughter! In the midst of this
tumult is our ship, and on board the ship, pacing the deck with
lordly steps, are men and women of that nation which rules the
sea-girt world, dressed in charming attire, with a complexion like
the moonbeams - looking like self-reliance and self-confidence
personified, and appearing to the black races as pictures of pride
and haughtiness. Overhead, the thunder of the cloudy monsoon sky,
on all sides the dance and roar of foam-crested waves, and the din
of the powerful engines of our ship setting at naught the might of
the sea - it was a grand conglomeration of sounds, to which I was
listening, lost in wonder, as if in a half-waking state, when, all
of a sudden, drowning all these sounds, there fell upon my ears
the deep and sonorous music of commingled male and female voices
singing in chorus the national anthem, "Rule Britannia, Britannia
rules the waves!" Startled, I looked around and found that the
ship was rolling heavily, and brother T__, holding his head with
his hands was struggling against an attack of sea-sickness.
In the second class are two Bengali youths going to the West for
study, whose condition is worse. One of them looks so frightened
that he would be only too glad to scuttle straight home if he were
allowed to land. These two lads and we two are the only Indians on
the ship - the representatives of modern India. During the two
days the ship was in the Ganga, brother T__, under the secret
instructions of the Editor, Udbodhan, used to urge me very much to
finish my article on "Modern India" quickly. I too found an
opportunity today and asked him, "Brother, what do you think is
the condition of modern India?" And he, casting a look towards the
second class and another at himself, said, with a sigh, "Very sad,
getting very much muddled up!"
The reason why so much importance is attached to the Hooghly
branch of the Ganga, instead of the bigger one, Padmâ, is,
according to many, that the Hooghly was the primary and principal
course of the river, and latterly the river shifted its course,
and created an outlet by the Padma. Similarly the present
"Tolley's Nullah" represents the ancient course of the Ganga, and
is known as the Âdi-Gangâ. The sailing merchant, the hero of
Kavikankan's work, makes his voyage to Ceylon along that channel.
Formerly the Ganga was navigable for big ships up to Triveni. The
ancient port of Saptagrâm was situated a little distance off
Triveni ghat, on the river Saraswati. From very ancient times
Saptagram was the principal port for Bengal's foreign trade.
Gradually the mouth of the Saraswati got silted up. In the year
1539 it silted up so much that the Portuguese settlers had to take
up a site further down the Ganga, for their ships to come up. The
site afterwards developed into the famous town of Hooghly. From
the commencement of the sixteenth century both Indian and foreign
merchants were feeling much anxiety about the silting up of the
Ganga. But what of that? Human engineering skill has hitherto
proved ineffectual against the gradual silting up of the river-bed
which continues to the present day. In 1666 a French Missionary
writes that the Ganga near Suti got completely silted up at the
time. Holwell, of Black-Hole fame, on his way to Murshidabad was
compelled to resort to small country-boats on account of the
shallowness of the river at Santipur. In 1797 Captain Colebrook
writes that country-boats could not ply in the Hooghly and the
Jalangi during summer. During the years 1822-1884, the Hooghly was
closed to all boat-traffic. For twenty-four years within this
period the water was only two or three feet deep. In the
seventeenth century, the Dutch planted a trade settlement at
Chinsura, one mile below Hooghly. The French, who came still
later, established their settlement at Chandernagore, still
further down the river. In 1723 the German Ostend Company opened a
factory at Bankipore, five miles below Chandernagore on the other
side of the river. In 1616 the Danes had started a factory at
Serampore, eight miles below Chandernagore, and then the English
established the city of Calcutta still further down the river.
None of the above places are now accessible to ships, only
Calcutta being open now. But everybody is afraid of its future.
There is one curious reason why there remains so much water in the
Ganga up to about Santipur even during summer. When the flow of
the surface water has ceased, large quantities of water
percolating through the subsoil find their way into the river. The
bed of the Ganga is even now considerably below the level of the
land on either side. If the level of the river-bed should
gradually rise owing to the subsidence of fresh soil, then the
trouble will begin. And there is talk about another danger. Even
near Calcutta, through earthquakes or other causes, the river at
times dried up so much that one could wade across. It is said that
in 1770 such a state of things happened. There is another report
that on Thursday, the 9th October, 1734, during ebb-tide in the
noon, the river dried up completely. Had it happened a little
later, during the inauspicious last portion of the day, I leave it
to you to infer the result. Perhaps then the river would not have
returned to its bed again.
So far, then, as regards the upper portion of the Hooghly; now as
regards the portion below Calcutta. The great dangers to be faced
in this portion are the James and Mary Banks. Formerly the river
Damodar had its confluence with the Ganga thirty miles above
Calcutta, but now, through the curious transformations of time,
the confluence is over thirty-one miles to the south of it. Some
six miles below this point the Rupnarayan pours its waters into
the Ganga. The fact is there, that these two feeders rush
themselves into the Ganga in happy combination - but how shall
this huge quantity of mud be disposed of? Consequently big
sandbanks are formed in the bed of the river, which constantly
shift their position and are sometimes rather loose and sometimes
a compact mass, causing no end of fear. Day and night soundings of
the river's depth are being taken, the omission of which for a few
days, through carelessness, would mean the destruction of ships.
No sooner will a ship strike against them than it will either
capsize or be straightway swallowed up in them! Cases are even
recorded that within half an hour of a big three-masted ship
striking one of these sandbanks, the whole of it disappeared in
the sand, leaving only the top of the masts visible. These
sandbanks may rightly be considered as the mouth of the
Damodar-Rupnarayan. (There is a pun on the words
Damodar-Rupnarayan which not only imply the two rivers, but also
mean "Narayana as Damodara, or swallowing everything
(Damodara-rupa-Narayana).") The Damodar is not now satisfied with
Santhal villages, and is swallowing ships and steamers etc. as a
sauce by way of variety. In 1877 a ship named "County of
Sterling", with a cargo of 1,444 tons of wheat from Calcutta, had
no sooner struck one of these terrible sandbanks than within eight
minutes there was no trace left of it. In 1874 a steamer carrying
a load of 2,400 tons suffered the same fate in two minutes.
Blessed be thy mouth, O Mother Ganga! I salute thee for allowing
us to get off scot-free. Brother T__ says, "Sir, a goat ought to
be offered to the Mother for her benignity." I replied, "Exactly
so, brother, but why offer only one day, instead of everyday!"
Next day brother T__ readverted to the topic, but I kept silent.
The next day after that I pointed out to him at dinner-time to
what an extent the offering of goats was progressing. Brother
seemed rather puzzled and said, "What do you mean? It is only you
who are eating." Then at considerable pains I had to explain to
him how it was said that a youth of Calcutta once visited his
father-in-law's place in a remote village far from the Ganga.
There at dinner-time he found people waiting about with drums
etc., and his mother-in-law insisted on his taking a little milk
before sitting to dinner. The son-in-law considered it might
perhaps be a local custom which he had better obey; but no sooner
had he taken a sip of the milk than the drums began to play all
around and his mother-in-law, with tears of joy, placed her hand
on his head and blessed him, saying, "My son, you have really
discharged the duties of a son today; look here, you have in your
stomach the water of the Ganga, as you live on its banks, and in
the milk there was the powdered bone of your deceased
father-in-law; so by this act of yours his bones have reached the
Ganga and his spirit has obtained all the merits thereof." So here
was a man from Calcutta, and on board the ship there was plenty of
meat preparations and every time one ate them, meat was being
offered to mother Ganga. So he need not be at all anxious on the
subject. Brother T__ is of such a grave disposition that it was
difficult to discover what impression the lecture made on him.
What a wonderful thing a ship is! The sea, which from the shore
looks so fearful, in the heart of which the sky seems to bend down
and meet, from whose bosom the sun slowly rises and in which it
sinks again, and the least frown of which makes the heart quail -
that sea has been turned into a highway, the cheapest of all
routes, by ships. Who invented the ship? No one in particular.
That is to say, like all machinery indispensable to men - without
which they cannot do for a single moment, and by the combination
and adjustment of which all kinds of factory plants have been
constructed - the ship also is the outcome of joint labour. Take
for instance the wheels; how absolutely indispensable they are!
From the creaking bullock-cart to the car of Jagannath, from the
spinning wheel to the stupendous machinery of factories,
everywhere there is use for the wheel. Who invented the wheel? No
one in particular, that is to say, all jointly. The primitive man
used to fell trees with axes, roll big trunks along inclined
planes; by degrees they were cut into the shape of solid wheels,
and gradually the naves and spokes of the modern wheel came into
vogue. Who knows how many millions of years it took to do this?
But in India all the successive stages of improvement are
preserved. However much they may be improved or transformed, there
are always found men to occupy the lower stages of evolution, and
consequently the whole series is preserved. First of all a musical
instrument was formed with a string fixed to a piece of bamboo.
Gradually it came to be played by a horsehair bow, and the first
violin was made; then it passed through various transformations,
with different sorts of strings and guts, and the bow also assumed
different forms and names, till at last the highly finished guitar
and sarang etc., came into existence. But in spite of this, do not
the Mohammedan cabmen even now with a shabby horsehair bow play on
the crude instrument made of a bamboo pipe fixed to an earthen
pot, and sing the story of Majwar Kahar weaving his fishing net?
Go to the Central Provinces, and you will find even now solid
wheels rolling on the roads - though it bespeaks a dense intellect
on the part of the people, specially in these days of rubber
tyres.
In very ancient times, that is, in the golden age, when the common
run of people were so sincere and truthful that they would not
even cover their bodies for fear of hypocrisy - making the
exterior look different from the interior - would not marry lest
they might contract selfishness, and banishing all ideas of
distinction between meum and tuum always used to look upon the
property of others "as mere clods of earth", on the strength of
bludgeons, stones, etc. (Swamiji is ironically describing the
naked primitive man, to whom marriage was unknown, and who had no
respect for person or property.); - in those blessed times, for
voyaging over water, they constructed canoes and rafts and so
forth, burning out the interior of a tree, or by fastening
together a few logs of trees. Haven't you seen catamarans along
the sea-coast from Orissa to Colombo? And you must have observed
how far into the sea the rafts can go. There you have rudiments of
ship-building.
And that boat of the East Bengal boatmen boarding which you have
to call on the five patron-saints of the river for your safety;
your house-boat manned by Chittagong boatmen, which even in a
light storm makes its helmsmen declare his inability to control
the helm, and all the passengers are asked to take the names of
their respective gods as a last resort; that big up-country boat
with a pair of fantastic brass eyes at the prow, rowed by the
oarsmen in a standing posture; that boat of merchant Shrimanta's
voyage (according to Kavikankan, Shrimanta crossed the Bay of
Bengal simply by rowing, and was about to be drowned owing to his
boat getting caught in the antennae of a shoal of lobsters, and
almost capsizing! Also he mistook a shell for a tiny fish, and so
on), in other words the Gangasagar boat - nicely roofed above and
having a floor of split bamboos, and containing in its hold rows
of jars filled with Ganga water (which is deliciously cool, I beg
your pardon, you visit Gangasagar during hard winter, and the
chill north wind drives away all your relish for cooling drinks);
and that small-sized boat which daily takes the Bengali Babus to
their office and brings them back home, and is superintended over
by the boatman of Bally, very expert and very clever - no sooner
does he sight a cloud so far away as Konnagar than he puts the
boat in safety! - they are now passing into the hands of the
strong-bodied men from Jaunpur who speak a peculiar dialect, and
whom your Mahant Maharaj, out of fun ordered to catch a heron -
which he facetiously styled as "Bakâsur (A demon of the shape of a
big heron, mentioned in the Bhagavâta.)", and this puzzled them
hopelessly and they stammered out, "Please, sire, where are we to
get this demon? It is an enigma to us"; then that bulky,
slow-moving (cargo) boat nicknamed "Gâdhâ (donkey)" in Bengali,
which never goes straight, but always goes sideways; and that big
species of boats, like the schooner, having from one to three
masts, which imports cargoes of cocoanuts, dates and dried fish
from Ceylon, the Maldives, or Arabia; - these and many others too
numerous to mention, represent the subsequent development in naval
construction.
To steer a ship by means of sails is a wonderful discovery. To
whichever direction the wind may be blowing, by a clever
manipulation of the sails, the ship is sure to reach her
destination. But she takes more time when the wind is contrary. A
sailing ship is a most beautiful sight, and from a distance looks
like a many-winged great bird descending from the skies. Sails,
however, do not allow a ship to steer straight ahead, and if the
wind is a little contrary, she has to take a zigzag course. But
when there is a perfect lull, the ship is helpless and has to
lower her sails and stand still. In the equatorial regions it
frequently happens even now. Nowadays sailing ships also have very
little of wood in them and are mostly made of iron. It is much
more difficult to be the captain or sailor of a sailing ship than
in a steamer, and no one can be a good captain in sailing ship
without experience. To know the direction of the wind at every
step and to be on one's guard against danger-spots long ahead -
these two qualifications are indispensably necessary in a sailing
ship, more than in a steamer. A steamer is to a great extent under
human control - the engines can be stopped in a moment. It can be
steered ahead, or astern, sideways or in any desired direction,
within a very short time, but the sailing ship is at the mercy of
the wind. By the time the sails can be lowered or the helm turned,
the ship may strike a bank or run up on a submarine rock or
collide with another ship. Nowadays sailing ships very seldom
carry passengers, except coolies. They generally carry cargo, and
that also inferior stuff, such as salt etc. Small sailing ships
such as the schooner, do coasting trade. Sailing ships cannot
afford to hire steamers to tow them along the Suez Canal and spend
thousands of rupees as toll, so they can go to England in six
months by rounding Africa.
Due to all these disadvantages of sailing ships, naval warfare in
the past was a risky affair. A slight change in the course of the
wind or in the ocean-current would decide the fate of a battle.
Again, those ships, being made of wood, would frequently catch
fire, which had to be put out. Their construction also was of a
different type; one end was flat and very high, with five or six
decks. On the uppermost deck at this end there used to be a wooden
verandah, in front of which were the commander's room and office
and on either side were the officers' cabins. Then there was a
large open space, at the other end of which were a few cabins. The
lower decks also had similar roofed halls, one underneath the
other. In the lowermost deck or hold were the sailor's sleeping
and dining rooms, etc. On either side of each deck were ranged
cannon, their muzzles projecting through the rows of apertures in
the ships' walls; and on both sides were heaps of cannon balls
(and powder bags in times of war). All the decks of these ancient
men-of-war had very low roofs and one had to carry his head down
when moving about. Then it was a troublesome business to secure
marines for naval warfare. There was a standing order of the
Government to enlist men by force or guile wherever they could be
found. Sons were violently snatched away from their mothers, and
husbands from their wives. Once they were made to board the ship,
(which perhaps the poor fellows had never done in their lives),
they were ordered straightway to climb the masts! And if through
fear they failed to carry out the order, they were flogged. Some
would also die under the ordeal. It was the rich and influential
men of the country who made these laws, it was they who would
appropriate the benefits of commerce, or ravage, or conquest of
different countries, and the poor people were simply to shed their
blood and sacrifice their lives - as has been the rule throughout
the world's history! Now those laws exist no longer, and the name
of the Pressgang does not now send a shiver through the hearts of
the peasantry and poor folk. Now it is voluntary service, but many
juvenile criminals are trained as sailors in men-of-war, instead
of being thrown into prison.
Steam-power has revolutionised all this, and sails are almost
superfluous ornaments in ships nowadays. They depend very little
on winds now, and there is much less danger from gales and the
like. Ships have now only to take care that they do not strike
against submarine rocks. And men-of-war of the present day are
totally different from those of the past. In the first place, they
do not at all look like ships, but rather like floating iron
fortresses of varying dimensions. The number of cannon also has
been much reduced, but compared with the modern turret-guns, those
of the past were mere child's play. And how fast these men-of-war
are! The smallest of these are the torpedo-boats; those that are a
little bigger are for capturing hostile merchant-ships, and the
big ones are the ponderous instruments for the actual naval fight.
During the Civil War of the United States of America, the Unionist
party fixed rows of iron rails against the outer walls of a wooden
ship so as to cover them. The enemy's cannon-balls striking
against them were repulsed without doing any harm to the ship.
After this, as a rule, the ship's sides began to be clad in iron,
so that hostile balls might not penetrate the wood. The ship's
cannon also began to improve - bigger and bigger cannon were
constructed and the work of moving, loading, and firing them came
to be executed by machinery, instead of with the hand. A cannon
which even five hundred men cannot move an inch, can now be turned
vertically or horizontally, loaded and fired by a little boy
pressing a button, and all this in a second! As the iron wall of
ships began to increase in thickness, so cannon with the power of
thunder also began to be manufactured. At the present day, a
battle-ship is a fortress with walls of steel, and the guns are
almost as Death itself. A single shot is enough to smash the
biggest ship into fragments. But this "iron bridal-chamber" -
which Nakindar's father (in the popular Bengali tale) never even
dreamt of, and which, instead of standing on the top of "Sâtâli
Hill" moves dancing on seventy thousand mountain-like billows,
even this is mortally afraid of torpedoes! The torpedo is a tube
somewhat shaped like a cigar, and if fired at an object travels
under water like a fish. Then, the moment it hits its object, the
highly explosive materials it contains explode with a terrific
noise, and the ship under which this takes place is reduced to its
original condition, that is, partly into iron and wooden
fragments, and partly into smoke and fire! And no trace is found
of the men who are caught in this explosion of the torpedo - the
little that is found, is almost in a state of mince-meat! Since
the invention of these torpedoes, naval wars cannot last long. One
or two fights, and a big victory is scored or a total defeat. But
the wholesale loss of men of both parties in naval fight which men
apprehended before the introduction of these men-of-war has been
greatly falsified by facts.
If a fraction of the volley of balls discharged during a
field-fight from the guns and rifles of each hostile army on the
opponents hit their aim, then both rival armies would be killed to
a man in two minutes. Similarly if only one of five hundred shots
fired from a battle-ship in action hit its mark, then no trace
would be left of the ships on both sides. But the wonder is that,
as guns and rifles are improving in quality, as the latter are
being made lighter, and the rifling in their barrels finer, as the
range is increasing, as machinery for loading is being multiplied,
and rate of firing quickened - the more they seem to miss their
aim! Armed with the old fashioned unusually long-barrelled musket
- which has to be supported on a two-legged wooden stand while
firing, and ignited by actually setting fire and blowing into it -
the Barakhjais and the Afridis can fire with unerring precision,
while the modern trained soldier with the highly complex
machine-guns of the present day fires 150 rounds in a minute and
serves merely to heat the atmosphere! Machinery in a small
proportion is good, but too much of it kills man's initiative and
makes a lifeless machine of him. The men in factories are doing
the same monotonous work, day after day, night after night, year
after year, each batch of men doing one special bit of work - such
as fashioning the heads of pins, or uniting the ends of threads,
or moving backwards or forwards with the loom - for a whole life.
And the result is that the loss of that special job means death to
them - they find no other means of living and starve. Doing
routine work like a machine, one becomes a lifeless machine. For
that reason, one serving as a schoolmaster or a clerk for a whole
lifetime ends by turning a stupendous fool.
The form of merchantmen and passenger-ships is of a different
type. Although some merchant-ships are so constructed that in
times of war they can easily be equipped with a few guns and give
chase to unarmed hostile merchant-ships, for which they get
remuneration from their respective Governments, still they
generally differ widely from warships. These are now mostly
steamships and generally so big and expensive that they are seldom
owned by individuals, but by companies. Among the carrying
companies for Indian and European trade, the P. & O. Company
is the oldest and richest, then comes the B. I. S. N. Company, and
there are many others. Among those of foreign nationalities, the
Messageries Maritimes (French) the Austrian Lloyd, the German
Lloyd, and the Rubattino Company (Italian), are the most famous.
Of these the passenger-ships of the P. & O. Company are
generally believed to be the safest and fastest. And the
arrangements of food in the Messageries Maritimes are excellent.
When we left for Europe this time, the last two companies had
stopped booking "native" passengers for fear of the
plague-infection. And there is a law of the Indian Government that
no "native" of India can go abroad without a certificate from the
Emigration Office, in order to make sure that nobody is enticing
him away to foreign countries to sell him as a slave or to impress
him as a coolie, but that he is going of his own free will. This
written document must be produced before they will take him into
the ship. This law was so long silent against the Indian gentry
going to foreign countries. Now on account of the plague epidemic
it has been revived, so that the Government may be informed about
every "native" going out. Well, in our country we hear much about
some people belonging to the gentry and some to the lower classes.
But in the eyes of the Government all are "natives" without
exception. Maharajas, Rajas, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas,
Shudras - all belong to one and the same class - that of
"natives". The law, and the test which applies to coolies, is
applicable to all "natives" without distinction. Thanks to you, O
English Government, through your grace, for a moment at least I
feel myself one with the whole body of "natives". It is all the
more welcome, because this body of mine having come of a Kâyastha
family, I have become the target of attack of many sections.
Nowadays we hear it from the lips of people of all castes in India
that they are all full-blooded Aryans - only there is some
difference of opinion amongst them about the exact percentage of
Aryan blood in their veins, some claiming to have the full measure
of it, while others may have one ounce more or less than another -
that is all. But in this they are all unanimous that their castes
are all superior to the Kayastha! And it is also reported that
they and the English race belong to the same stock - that they are
cousins-german to each other, and that they are not "natives". And
they have come to this country out of humanitarian principles,
like the English. And such evil customs as child-marriage,
polygamy, image-worship, the sutti, the zenana-system, and so
forth have no place in their religion - but these have been
introduced by the ancestors of the Kayasthas, and people of that
ilk. Their religion also is of the same pattern as that of the
English! And their forefathers looked just like the English, only
living under the tropical sun of India has turned them black! Now
come forward with your pretensions, if you dare! "You are all
natives", the Government says. Amongst that mass of black, a shade
deeper or lighter cannot be distinguished. The Government says,
"They are all natives". Now it is useless for you to dress
yourselves after the English fashion. Your European hats etc.,
will avail you little henceforth. If you throw all the blame on
the Hindus, and try to fraternise with the English, you would
thereby come in for a greater share of cuffs and blows and not
less. Blessings to you, O English Government! You have already
become the favoured child of Fortune; may your prosperity increase
ever more! We shall be happy once more to wear our loin-cloth and
Dhoti - the native dress. Through your grace we shall continue to
travel from one end of the country to the other, bare-headed, and
barefooted, and heartily eat our habitual food of rice and Dâl
with our fingers, right in the Indian fashion. Bless the Lord! We
had well-nigh been tempted by Anglo-Indian fashions and been duped
by its glamour. We heard it said that no sooner did we give up our
native dress, native religion, and native manners and customs,
than the English people would take us on their shoulders and
lionise us. And we were about to do so, when smack came the whip
of the Englishman and the thud of British boots - and immediately
men were seized by a panic and turned away, bidding good-bye to
English ways, eager to confess their "native" birth.
"The English ways we'd copy with such pains,
The British boots did stamp out from our brains!"
Blessed be the English Government! May their throne be firm and
their rule permanent. And the little tendency that remained in me
for taking to European ways vanished, thanks to the Americans. I
was sorely troubled by an overgrown beard, but no sooner did I
peep into a hair-cutting saloon than somebody called out, "This is
no place for such shabby-looking people as you." I thought that
perhaps seeing me so quaintly dressed in turban and Gerua cloak,
the man was prejudiced against me. So I should go and buy an
English coat and hat. I was about to do this when fortunately I
met an American gentleman who explained to me that it was much
better that I was dressed in my Gerua cloak, for now the gentlemen
would not take me amiss, but if I dressed in European fashion,
everybody would chase me away. I met the same kind of treatment in
one or two other saloons. After which I began the practice of
shaving with my own hands. Once I was burning with hunger, and
went into a restaurant, and asked for a particular thing,
whereupon the man said, "We do not stock it." "Why, it is there."
"Well, my good man, in plain language it means there is no place
here for you to sit and take your meal." "And why?" "Because
nobody will eat at the same table with you, for he will be
outcasted." Then America began to look agreeable to me, somewhat
like my own caste-ridden country. Out with these differences of
white and black, and this nicety about the proportion of Aryan
blood among the "natives"! How awkward it looks for slaves to be
over-fastidious about pedigree! There was a Dom (a man of the
sweeper-caste) who used to say, "You won't find anywhere on earth
a caste superior to ours. You must know we are Dom-m-m-s!" But do
you see the fun of it? The excesses about caste distinctions
obtain most among peoples who are least honoured among mankind.
Steamships are generally much bigger than sailing ships. The
steamships that ply across the Atlantic are just half as much
bigger than the "Golconda". (The B. I. S. N. steamer in which
Swami Vivekananda went to the West for the second time.) The ship
on which I crossed the Pacific from Japan was also very big. In
the centre of the biggest ships are the first class compartments
with some open space on either side; then comes the second class,
flanked by the "steerage" on either side. At one end are the
sailors' and servants' quarters. The steerage corresponds to the
third class, in which very poor people go as passengers, as, for
instance, those who are emigrating to America, Australia, etc. The
accommodation for them is very small and the food is served not on
tables but from hand to hand. There is no steerage in ships which
ply between England and India, but they take deck-passengers. The
open space between the first and second classes is used by them
for sitting or sleeping purposes. But I did not notice a single
deck-passenger bound for a long journey. Only in 1893, on my way
to China, I found a number of Chinamen going as deck-passengers
from Bombay to Hongkong.
During stormy weather, the deck-passengers suffer great
inconvenience, and also to a certain extent at ports when the
cargo is unloaded. Excepting in the hurricane-deck which is on top
of all, there is a square opening in all other decks, through
which cargo is loaded and unloaded, at which times the
deck-passengers are put to some trouble. Otherwise, it is very
pleasant on the deck at night from Calcutta to Suez, and in
summer, through Europe also. When the first and second class
passengers are about to melt in their furnished compartments on
account of the excessive heat, then the deck is almost a heaven in
comparison. The second class in ships of this type is very
uncomfortable. Only, in the ships of the newly started German
Lloyd Company plying between Bergen, in Germany and Australia, the
second class arrangements are excellent; there are cabins even in
the hurricane-deck, and food arrangements are almost on a par with
those of the first class in the "Golconda". That line touches
Colombo on the way.
In the "Golconda" there are only two cabins on the hurricane-deck,
one on each side; one is for the doctor, and the other was
allotted to us. But owing to the excessive heat, we had to take
shelter in the lower deck, for our cabin was just above the
engine-room of the ship. Although the ship is made of iron, yet
the passengers' cabins are made of wood. And there are many holes
along the top and bottom of the wooden walls of these, for the
free passage of air. The walls are painted over with ivory-paint
which has cost nearly £25 per room. There is a small carpet spread
on the floor and against one of the walls are fixed two frameworks
somewhat resembling iron bedsteads without legs, one on top of the
other. Similarly on the opposite wall. Just opposite the entrance
there is a wash-basin, over which there is a looking-glass, two
bottles, and two tumblers for drinking water. Against the sides of
each bed is attached a netting in brass frames which can be fixed
up to the wall and again lowered down. In it the passengers put
their watch and other important personal necessaries before
retiring. Below the lower bedstead, there is room for storing the
trunks and bags. The second class arrangements are on a similar
plan, only the space is narrower and the furniture of an inferior
quality. The shipping business is almost a monopoly of the
English. Therefore in the ships constructed by other nations also,
the food arrangements, as well as the regulation of the time, have
to be made in the English fashion, to suit the large number of
English passengers in them. There are great differences between
England, France, Germany, and Russia, as regards food and time.
Just as in our country, there are great differences between
Bengal, Northern India, the Mahratta country, and Gujarat. But
these differences are very little observed in the ships, because
there, owing to a majority of English-speaking passengers,
everything is being moulded after the English fashion.
The Captain is the highest authority in a ship. Formerly the
Captain used to rule in the ship in the high seas, punishing
offenders, hanging pirates, and so forth. Now he does not go so
far, but his word is law on board a ship. Under him are four
officers (or malims, in Indian vernacular). Then come four or five
engineers, the chief engineer ranking equally with an officer and
getting first class food. And there are four or five steersmen
(sukanis, in Indian vernacular) who hold the helm by turns - they
are also Europeans. The rest, comprising the servants, the
sailors, and the coalmen are all Indian, and all of them
Mohammedans; Hindu sailors I saw only on the Bombay side, in P.
& O. ships. The servants and the sailors are from Calcutta,
while the coalmen belong to East Bengal; the cooks also are
Catholic Christians of East Bengal. There are four sweepers
besides, whose duty it is to clear out dirty water from the
compartments, make arrangements for bath and keep the latrines
etc. clean and tidy. The Mohammedan servants and lascars do not
take food cooked by Christians; besides, every day there are
preparations of ham or bacon on board the ship. But they manage to
set up some sort of privacy for themselves. They have no objection
to taking bread prepared in the ship's kitchen, and those servants
from Calcutta who have received the "new light" of civilisation,
do not observe any restrictions in matters of food. There are
three messes for the men, one for the servants, one for the
sailors, and one for the coalmen. The company provides each mess
with a cook and a servant; every mess has got a separate place for
cooking. A few Hindu passengers, were going from Calcutta to
Colombo, and they used to do their cooking in one of these
kitchens after the servants had finished theirs. The servants draw
their own drinking water. On every deck two pumps are fixed
against the wall, one on each side; the one is for sweet and the
other for salt water, and the Mohammedans draw sweet water from
this for their own use. Those Hindus who have no objection to
taking pipe-water can very easily go on these ships to England and
elsewhere, observing all their orthodoxy in matters of food and
drink. They can get a kitchen, and drinking water free from the
touch of any, and even the bathing water need not be touched by
anybody else; all kinds of food such as rice, pulse, vegetables,
fish, meat, milk, and ghee are available on the ship, especially
on these ships where mostly Indians are employed, to whom rice,
pulse, radish, cabbage, and potato, etc. have to be supplied every
day. The one thing necessary is money. With money you can proceed
anywhere alone, observing full orthodoxy.
These Bengali servants are employed nowadays in almost all ships
that ply between Calcutta and Europe. They are gradually forming
into a class by themselves. Several nautical terms also are being
coined by them; for instance, the captain is termed bariwallah
(landlord); the officer malim; the mast 'dôl'; a sail sarh; bring
down aria; raise habish (heave), etc.
The body of lascars and coalmen have each a head who is called
serang, under whom are two or three tindals, and under these come
the lascars and coalmen.
The head of the khansamas, or "boys", is the butler, over whom
there is a European steward. The lascars wash and cleanse the
ship, throw or wind up the cables, set down or lift the boats and
hoist or strike sail (though this last is a rare occurrence in
steamships) and do similar kind of work. The Serang and the Tindal
are always moving about watching them and assisting in their work.
The coalmen keep the fire steady in the engine-room; their duty is
to fight day and night with fire and to keep the engines neat and
clean. And it is no easy task to keep that stupendous engine and
all its parts neat and tidy. The Serang and his assistant (or
"Brother", in the lascar's parlance) are from Calcutta and speak
Bengali; they look gentlemanly and can read and write, having
studied in school; they speak tolerable English also. The Serang
has a son, thirteen years of age, who is a servant of the Captain
and waits at his door as an orderly. Seeing these Bengali lascars,
coalmen, servants, and boys at work, the feeling of despair with
regard to my countrymen which I had, was much abated. How they are
slowly developing their manhood, with a strong physique - how
fearless, yet docile! That cringing, sycophant attitude common to
"natives" even the sweepers do not possess - what a
transformation!
The Indian lascars do excellent work without murmur, and go on a
quarter of a European sailor's pay. This has dissatisfied many in
England, especially as many Europeans are losing their living
thereby. They sometimes set up an agitation. Having nothing else
to say against them - for the lascars are smarter in work than
Europeans - they only complain that in rough weather, when the
ship is in danger, they lose all courage. Good God! In actual
circumstances, that infamy is found to be baseless. In times of
danger, the European sailors freely drink through fear and make
themselves stupid and out of use. Indian sailors never take a drop
of liquor in their life, and up to now, not one of them has ever
shown cowardice in times of great danger. Does the Indian soldier
display any cowardice on the field of battle? No, but they must
have leaders. An English friend of mine, named General Strong, was
in India during the Sepoy Mutiny. He used to tell many stories
about it. One day, in the course of conversation, I asked him how
it was that the sepoys who had enough of guns, ammunition, and
provisions at their disposal, and were also trained veterans, came
to suffer such a defeat. He replied that the leaders among them,
instead of advancing forward, only kept shouting from a safe
position in the rear, "Fight on, brave lads", and so forth; but
unless the commanding officer goes ahead and faces death, the rank
and file will never fight with heart. It is the same in every
branch. "A captain must sacrifice his head," they say. If you can
lay down your life for a cause, then only you can be a leader. But
we all want to be leaders without making the necessary sacrifice.
And the result is zero - nobody listens to us!
However much you may parade your descent from Aryan ancestors and
sing the glories of ancient India day and night, and however much
you may be strutting in the pride of your birth, you, the upper
classes of India, do you think you are alive? You are but mummies
ten thousand years old! It is among those whom your ancestors
despised as "walking carrion" that the little of vitality there is
still in India is to be found; and it is you who are the real
"walking corpses". Your houses, your furniture, look like museum
specimens, so lifeless and antiquated they are; and even an
eye-witness of your manners and customs, your movements and modes
of life, is inclined to think that he is listening to a
grandmother's tale! When, even after making a personal
acquaintance with you, one returns home, one seems to think one
had been to visit the paintings in an art gallery! In this world
of Maya, you are the real illusions, the mystery, the real mirage
in the desert, you, the upper classes of India! You represent the
past tense, with all its varieties of form jumbled into one. That
one still seems to see you at the present time, is nothing but a
nightmare brought on by indigestion. You are the void, the
unsubstantial nonentities of the future. Denizens of the
dreamland, why are you loitering any longer? Fleshless and
bloodless skeletons of the dead body of Past India you are, why do
you not quickly reduce yourselves into dust and disappear in the
air? Ay, on your bony fingers are some priceless rings of jewel,
treasured up by your ancestors, and within the embrace of your
stinking corpses are preserved a good many ancient
treasure-chests. Up to now you have not had the opportunity to
hand them over. Now under the British rule, in these days of free
education and enlightenment, pass them on to your heirs, ay, do it
as quickly as you can. You merge yourselves in the void and
disappear, and let New India arise in your place. Let her arise -
out of the peasants' cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts
of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring
from the grocer's shop, from beside the oven of the
fritter-seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and
from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills
and mountains. These common people have suffered oppression for
thousands of years - suffered it without murmur, and as a result
have got wonderful fortitude. They have suffered eternal misery,
which has given them unflinching vitality. Living on a handful of
grain, they can convulse the world; give them only half a piece of
bread, and the whole world will not be big enough to contain their
energy; they are endowed with the inexhaustible vitality of a
Raktabija. (A demon, in the Durgâ-Saptashati, every drop of whose
blood falling on the ground produced another demon like him.) And,
besides, they have got the wonderful strength that comes of a pure
and moral life, which is not to be found anywhere else in the
world. Such peacefulness, such contentment, such love, such power
of silent and incessant work, and such manifestation of lion's
strength in times of action - where else will you find these!
Skeletons of the Past, there, before you, are your successors, the
India that is to be. Throw those treasure-chests of yours and
those jewelled rings among them, as soon as you can; and you
vanish into the air, and be seen no more - only keep your ears
open. No sooner will you disappear than you will hear the
inaugural shout of Renaissant India, ringing with the voice of a
million thunders and reverberating throughout the universe, "Wah
Guru Ki Fateh" - victory to the Guru!
Our ship is now in the Bay of Bengal, which is reported to be very
deep. The little of it that was shallow has been silted up by the
Ganga crumbling the Himalayas and washing down the North-Western
Provinces (U.P.). That alluvial region is our Bengal. There is no
indication of Bengal extending further beyond the Sunderbans. Some
say that the Sunderbans were formerly the site of many villages
and towns and were an elevated region. But many do not admit this
now. However, the Sunderbans and the northern part of the Bay of
Bengal have been the scene of many historic events. These were the
rendezvous of the Portuguese pirates; the king of Arakan made
repeated attempts to occupy this region, and here also the
representative of the Mogul Emperor tried his best to punish the
Portuguese pirates headed by Gonzalez; and this has frequently
been the scene of many fights between the Christians, Moguls,
Mugs, and Bengalis.
The Bay of Bengal is naturally rough, and to add to this, it is
the monsoon season, so our ship is rolling heavily. But then, this
is only the beginning and there is no knowing what is to follow,
as we are going to Madras. The greater part of Southern India
belongs now to the Madras Presidency. What is there in mere extent
of land? Even a desert turns into heaven when it falls to the care
of a fortunate owner. The unknown petty village of Madras,
formerly called Chinnapattanam or Madraspattanam, was sold by the
Raja of Chandragiri to a company of merchants. Then the English
had their principal trade in Java, and Bantam was the centre of
England's Asiatic trade. Madras and other English trade
settlements in India were under the control of Bantam. Where is
that Bantam now? And what development that Madras has made! It is
not whole truth to say that fortune favours the enterprising man;
behind there must be the strength that comes of the Divine Mother.
But I also admit that it is the enterprising men unto whom Mother
gives strength.
Madras reminds one of a typical South Indian province; though even
at the Jagannath Ghat of Calcutta, one can get a glimpse of the
South by seeing the Orissa Brahmin with his border-shaven head and
tufted hair, his variously painted forehead, the involuted
slippers, in which only the toes may enter; that nose irritated
with snuff and with that habit of covering the bodies of their
children with sandalpaste prints. The Gujarati Brahmin, the
jet-black Maharashtra Brahmin, and the exceptionally fair,
cat-eyed square-headed Brahmin of Konkan - though all of them
dress in the same way, and are all known as Deccanis, yet the
typical southern Brahmin is to be found in Madras. That forehead
covered over with the ample caste-mark of the Ramanuja sect -
which to the uninitiated looks anything but sublime, (and whose
imitation - the caste-mark of the Ramananda sect of Northern India
- is hailed with many a facetious rhyme - and which completely
throws into the shade the custom prevailing in Bengal among
leaders of the Vaishnavite sect, of frightfully imprinting their
whole body); that Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam speech of which you
won't understand a single syllable even if you hear it spoken for
six years and in which there is a play of all possible varieties
of 'I' and 'd' sounds; that eating of rice with 'black-peppered
dal soup' - each morsel of which sends a shiver through the heart
(so pungent and so acid!); that addition of margosa leaves, oats,
etc., by way of flavour, that taking of "rice-and-curd" etc., that
bath with gingili oil rubbed over the body, and the frying of fish
in the same oil - without these how can one conceive the southern
country?
Again, the South has Hinduism alive during the Mohammedan rule and
even for some time previous to it. It was in the South that
Shankaracharya was born, among that caste who wear a tuft on the
front of the head and eat food prepared with cocoanut oil: this
was the country that produced Ramanuja: it was also the birthplace
of Madhva Muni. Modern Hinduism owes its allegiance to these
alone. The Vaishnavas of the Chaitanya sect form merely a
recension of the Madhva sect; the religious reformers of the North
such as Kabir, Dadu, Nanak, and Ramsanehi are all an echo of
Shankaracharya; there you find the disciples of Ramanuja occupying
Ayodhya and other places. These Brahmins of the South do not
recognise those of the North as true Brahmins, nor accept them as
disciples, and even to the other day would not admit them to
Sannyasa. The people of Madras even now occupy the principal seats
of religion. It was in the South that when people of North India
were hiding themselves in woods and forests, giving up their
treasures, their household deities, and wives and children, before
the triumphant war-cry of Mohammedan invaders - the suzerainty of
the King of Vidyânagar was established firm as ever. In the South,
again, was born the wonderful Sâyanâchârya - the strength of whose
arms, vanquishing the Mohammedans, kept King Bukka on his throne,
whose wise counsels gave stability to the Vidyanagar Kingdom,
whose state-policy established lasting peace and prosperity in the
Deccan, whose superhuman genius and extraordinary industry
produced the commentaries on the whole Vedas - and the product of
whose wonderful sacrifice, renunciation, and researches was the
Vedanta treatise named Panchadashi - that Sannyasin Vidyâranya
Muni or Sayana (According to some, Sayana, the commentator of the
Vedas, was the brother of Vidyaranya Muni.) was born in this land.
The Madras Presidency is the habitat of that Tamil race whose
civilisation was the most ancient, and a branch of whom, called
the Sumerians, spread a vast civilisation on the banks of the
Euphrates in very ancient times; whose astrology, religious lore,
morals, rites, etc., furnished the foundation for the Assyrian and
Babylonian civilisations; and whose mythology was the source of
the Christian Bible. Another branch of these Tamils spread from
the Malabar coast and gave rise to the wonderful Egyptian
civilisation, and the Aryans also are indebted to this race in
many respects. Their colossal temples in the South proclaim the
triumph of the Veera Shaiva and Veera Vaishnava sects. The great
Vaishnava religion of India has also sprung from a Tamil Pariah -
Shathakopa - "who was a dealer in winnowing-fans but was a Yogin
all the while". And the Tamil Alwars or devotees still command the
respect of the whole Vaishnava sect. Even now the study of the
Dvaita, Vishishtâdvaita and Advaita systems of Vedanta is
cultivated more in South India than anywhere else. Even now the
thirst for religion is stronger here than in any other place.
In the night of the 24th June, our ship reached Madras. Getting up
from bed in the morning, I found that we were within the enclosed
space of the Madras harbour. Within the harbour the water was
still, but without, towering waves were roaring, which
occasionally dashing against the harbour-wall were shooting up
fifteen or twenty feet high into the air and breaking in a mass of
foam. In front lay the well-known Strand Road of Madras. Two
European Police Inspectors, a Jamadar of Madras and a dozen
Constables boarded our ship and told me with great courtesy that
"natives" were not allowed to land on the shore, but the Europeans
were. A "native", whoever he might be, was of such dirty habits
that there was every chance of his carrying plague germs about;
but the Madrasis had asked for a special permit for me, which they
might obtain. By degrees the friends of Madras began to come near
our vessel on boats in small groups. As all contact was strictly
forbidden, we could only speak from the ship, keeping some space
between. I found all my friends - Alasinga, Biligiri,
Narasimachary, Dr. Nanjunda Rao, Kidi, and others on the boats.
Basketfuls of mangoes, plantains, cocoanuts, cooked rice-and-curd,
and heaps of sweet and salt delicacies, etc. began to come in.
Gradually the crowd thickened - men, women, and children in boats
everywhere. I found also Mr. Chamier, my English friend who had
come out to Madras as a barrister-at-law. Ramakrishnananda and
Nirbhayananda made some trips near to the ship. They insisted on
staying on the boat the whole day in the hot sun, and I had to
remonstrate with them, when they gave up the idea. And as the news
of my not being permitted to land got abroad, the crowd of boats
began to increase still more. I, too, began to feel exhaustion
from leaning against the railings too long. Then I bade farewell
to my Madrasi friends and entered my cabin. Alasinga got no
opportunity to consult me about the Brahmavadin and the Madras
work; so he was going to accompany me to Colombo. The ship left
the harbour in the evening, when I heard a great shout, and
peeping through the cabin-window, I found that about a thousand
men, women, and children of Madras who had been sitting on the
harbour-walls, gave this farewell shout when the ship started. On
a joyous occasion the people of Madras also, like the Bengalis,
make the peculiar sound with the tongue known as the Hulu.
It took us four days to go from Madras to Ceylon. That rising and
heaving of waves which had commenced from the mouth of the Ganga
began to increase as we advanced, and after we had left Madras it
increased still more. The ship began to roll heavily, and the
passengers felt terribly sea-sick, and so did the two Bengali
boys. One of them was certain he was going to die, and we had to
console him with great difficulty, assuring him that there was
nothing to be afraid of, as it was quite a common experience and
nobody ever died of it. The second class, again, was right over
the screw of the ship. The two Bengali lads, being natives, were
put into a cabin almost like a black-hole, where neither air nor
light had any access. So the boys could not remain in the room,
and on the deck the rolling was terrible. Again, when the prow of
the ship settled into the hollow of a wave and the stern was
pitched up, the screw rose clear out of the water and continued to
wheel in the air, giving a tremendous jolting to the whole vessel.
And the second class then shook as when a rat is seized by a cat
and shaken.
However, this was the monsoon season. The more the ship would
proceed westwards, the more gale and wind she would have to
encounter. The people of Madras had given plenty of fruits, the
greater part of which, and the sweets, and rice-and-curd, etc., I
gave to the boys. Alasinga had hurriedly bought a ticket and
boarded the ship barefooted. He says he wears shoes now and then.
Ways and manners differ in different countries. In Europe it is a
great shame on the part of ladies to show their feet, but they
feel no delicacy in exposing half their bust. In our country, the
head must be covered by all means, no matter if the rest of the
body is well covered or not. Alasinga, the editor of the
Brahmavadin, who is a Mysore Brahmin of the Ramanuja sect, having
a fondness for Rasam (Pungent and sour dal soup.) with shaven head
and forehead overspread with the caste-mark of the Tengale sect,
has brought with him with great care, as his provision for the
voyage, two small bundles, in one of which there is fried
flattened rice, and in another popped rice and fried peas! His
idea is to live upon these during the voyage to Ceylon, so that
his caste may remain intact. Alasinga had been to Ceylon once
before, at which his caste-people tried to put him into some
trouble, without success. That is a saving feature in the
caste-system of India - if one's caste-people do not object, no
one else has any right to say anything against him. And as for the
South India castes - some consist of five hundred souls in all,
some even hundred, or at most a thousand, and so circumscribed is
their limit that for want of any other likely bride, one marries
one's sister's daughter! When railways were first introduced in
Mysore, the Brahmins who went from a distance to see the trains
were outcasted! However, one rarely finds men like our Alasinga in
this world - one so unselfish, so hard-working and devoted to his
Guru, and such an obedient disciple is indeed very rare on earth.
A South Indian by birth, with his head shaven so as to leave a
tuft in the centre, bare-footed, and wearing the Dhoti, he got
into the first class; he was strolling now and then on the deck
and when hungry, was chewing some of the popped rice and peas! The
ship's servants generally take all South Indians to be Chettis
(merchants) and say that they have lots of money, but will not
spend a bit of it on either dress or food! But the servants are of
opinion that in our company Alasinga's purity as a Brahmin is
getting contaminated. And it is true - for the South Indians lose
much of their caste-rigours through contact with us.
Alasinga did not feel sea-sick. Brother T__ felt a little trouble
at the beginning but is now all right. So the four days passed in
various pleasant talks and gossip. In front of us is Colombo. Here
we have Sinhal - Lanka. Shri Ramachandra crossed over to Lanka by
building a bridge across and conquered Ravana, her King. Well, I
have seen the bridge, and also, in the palace of the Setupati
Maharaja of Ramnad, the stone slab on which Bhagavan Ramachandra
installed his ancestor as Setupati for the first time. But the
Buddhist Ceylonese of these sophisticated times will not admit
this. They say that in their country there is not even a tradition
to indicate it. But what matters their denial? Are not our "old
books" authorities enough? Then again, they call their country
Sinhal and will not term it Lanka (Means also "Chillies" in
Bengal.) - and how should they? There is no piquancy either in
their words, or in their work, or in their nature, or in their
appearance! Wearing gowns, with plaited hair, and in that a big
comb - quite a feminine appearance! Again, they have slim, short,
and tender womanlike bodies. These - the descendants of Ravana and
Kumbhakarna! Not a bit of it! Tradition says they have migrated
from Bengal - and it was well done. That new type of people who
are springing in Bengal - dressed like women, speaking in soft and
delicate accents, walking with a timid, faltering gait, unable to
look any one in the face and from their very birth given to
writing love poems and suffering the pangs of separation from
their beloved - well, why do they not go to Ceylon, where they
will find their fellows! Are the Government asleep? The other day
they created a great row trying to capture some people in Puri.
Why, in the metropolis itself are many worth seizing and packing
off!
There was a very naughty Bengali Prince, named Vijaya Sinha, who
quarrelled with his father, and getting together a few more
fellows like him set sail in a ship, and finally came upon the
Island of Ceylon. That country was then inhabited by an aboriginal
tribe whose descendants are now known as the Bedouins. The
aboriginal king received him very cordially and gave him his
daughter in marriage. There he remained quietly for some time,
when one night, conspiring with his wife, with a number of
fellows, he took the king and his nobles by surprise and massacred
them. Then Vijaya Sinha ascended the throne of Ceylon. But his
wickedness did not end here. After a time he got tired of his
aboriginal queen, and got more men and more girls from India and
himself married a girl named Anurâdhâ, discarding his first
aboriginal wife. Then he began to extirpate the whole race of the
aborigines, almost all of whom were killed, leaving only a small
remnant who are still to be met with in the forests and jungles.
In this way Lanka came to be called Sinhal and became, to start
with, colony of Bengali ruffians!
In course of time, under the regime of Emperor Asoka, his son
Mahinda and his daughter Sanghamittâ, who had taken the vow of
Sannyasa, came to the Island of Ceylon as religious missionaries.
Reaching there, they found the people had grown quite barbarous,
and, devoting their whole lives, they brought them back to
civilisation as far as possible; they framed good moral laws for
them and converted them to Buddhism. Soon the Ceylonese grew very
staunch Buddhists, and built a great city in the centre of the
island and called it Anuradhapuram. The sight of the remains of
this city strikes one dumb even today - huge stupas, and
dilapidated stone building extending for miles and miles are
standing to this day; and a great part of it is overgrown with
jungles which have not yet been cleared. Shaven-headed monks and
nuns, with the begging bowl in hand and clothed in yellow robes,
spread all over Ceylon. In places colossal temples were reared
containing huge figure of Buddha in meditation, of Buddha
preaching the Law, and of Buddha in a reclining posture - entering
into Nirvana. And the Ceylonese, out of mischief, painted on the
walls of the temples the supposed state of things in Purgatory -
some are being thrashed by ghosts, some are being sawed, some
burnt, some fried in hot oil, and some being flayed - altogether a
hideous spectacle! Who could know that in this religion, which
preached "noninjury as the highest virtue", there would be room
for such things! Such is the case in China, too, so also in Japan.
While preaching non-killing so much in theory, they provide for
such an array of punishments as curdles up one's blood to see.
Once a thief broke into the house of a man of this non-killing
type. The boys of the house caught hold of the thief and were
giving him a sound beating. The master hearing a great row came
out on the upper balcony and after making inquiries shouted out,
"Cease from beating, my boys. Don't beat him. Non-injury is the
highest virtue." The fraternity of junior non-killers stopped
beating and asked the master what they were to do with the thief.
The master ordered, "Put him in a bag, and throw him into water."
The thief, much obliged at this humane dispensation, with folded
hands said, "Oh! How great is the master's compassion!" I had
heard that the Buddhists were very quiet people and equally
tolerant of all religions. Buddhist preachers come to Calcutta and
abuse us with choice epithets, although we offer them enough
respect. Once I was preaching at Anuradhapuram among the Hindus -
not Buddhists - and that in an open maidan, not on anybody's
property - when a whole host of Buddhist monks and laymen, men and
women, came out beating drums and cymbals and set up an awful
uproar. The lecture had to stop, of course, and there was the
imminent risk of bloodshed. With great difficulty I had to
persuade the Hindus that we at any rate might practise a bit of
non-injury, if they did not. Then the matter ended peacefully.
Gradually Tamilian Hindus from the north began slowly to migrate
into Ceylon. The Buddhists, finding themselves in untoward
circumstances, left their capital to establish a hill-station
called Kandy, which, too, the Tamilians wrested from them in a
short time and placed a Hindu king on the throne. Then came hordes
of Europeans - the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Dutch.
Lastly the English have made themselves kings. The royal family of
Kandy have been sent to Tanjore, where they are living on pension
and Mulagutanni Rasam.
In northern Ceylon there is a great majority of Hindus, while in
the southern part, Buddhists and hybrid Eurasians of different
types preponderate. The principal seat of the Buddhists is
Colombo, the present capital, and that of the Hindus is Jaffna.
The restrictions of caste are here much less than in India; the
Buddhists have a few in marriage affairs, but none in matters of
food, in which respect the Hindus observe some restrictions. All
the butchers of Ceylon were formerly Buddhists; now the number is
decreasing owing to the revival of Buddhism. Most of the Buddhists
are now changing their anglicised titles for native ones. All the
Hindu castes have mixed together and formed a single Hindu caste,
in which, like the Punjabi Jats, one can marry a girl of any caste
- even a European girl at that. The son goes into a temple, puts
the sacred trilinear mark on the forehead, utters "Shiva, Shiva",
and becomes a Hindu. The husband may be a Hindu, while the wife is
a Christian. The Christian rubs some sacred ash on the forehead,
utters "Namah Pârvatipatayé" (salutation to Shiva), and she
straightway becomes a Hindu. This is what has made the Christian
missionaries so cross with you. Since your coming into Ceylon,
many Christians, putting sacred ash on their head and repeating
"Salutation to Shiva", have become Hindus and gone back to their
caste. Advaitavâda and Vira-Shaivavâda are the prevailing
religions here. In place of the word "Hindu" one has to say
"Shiva". The religious dance and Sankirtana which Shri Chaitanya
introduced into Bengal had their origin in the South, among the
Tamil race. The Tamil of Ceylon is pure Tamil and the religion of
Ceylon is equally pure Tamil religion. That ecstatic chant of a
hundred thousand men, and their singing of devotional hymns to
Shiva, the noise of a thousand Mridangas (A kind of Indian drum.)
with the metallic sound of big cymbals, and the frenzied dance of
these ash-covered, red-eyed athletic Tamilians with stout rosaries
of Rudrâksha beads on their neck, looking just like the great
devotee, Hanuman - you can form no idea of these, unless you
personally see the phenomenon.
Our Colombo friends had procured a permit for our landing, so we
landed and met our friends there. Sir Coomara Swami is the
foremost man among the Hindus: his wife is an English lady, and
his son is barefooted and wears the sacred ashes on his forehead.
Mr. Arunachalam and other friends came to meet me. After a long
time I partook of Mulagutanni and the king-cocoanut. They put some
green cocoanuts into my cabin. I met Mrs. Higgins and visited her
boarding school for Buddhist girls. I also visited the monastery
and school of our old acquaintance, the Countess of Canovara. The
Countess' house is more spacious and furnished than Mrs.
Higgins's. The Countess has invested her own money, whereas Mrs.
Higgins has collected the money by begging. The Countess herself
wears a Gerua cloth after the mode of the Bengali Sari. The
Ceylonese Buddhists have taken a great fancy to this fashion, I
found. I noticed carriage after carriage of women, all wearing the
same Bengali Sari.
The principal place of pilgrimage for the Buddhists is the Dalada
Maligawa or Tooth-temple at Kandy, which contains a tooth of Lord
Buddha. The Ceylonese say it was at first in the Jagannath Temple
at Puri and after many vicissitudes reached Ceylon, where also
there was no little trouble over it. Now it is lying safe. The
Ceylonese have kept good historical records of themselves, not
like those of ours - merely cock and bull stories. And the
Buddhist scriptures also are well preserved here in the ancient
Magadhi dialect. From here the Buddhist religion spread to Burma,
Siam, and other countries. The Ceylonese Buddhists recognise only
Shâkyamuni mentioned in their scriptures and try to follow his
precepts. They do not, like the people of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan,
Ladak, China, and Japan, worship Shiva and do not know the worship
with mystical Mantras of such goddesses as Târâ Devi and so forth.
But they believe in possession by spirits and things of that sort.
The Buddhists have now split into two schools, the Northern and
the Southern; the Northern school calls itself the Mahâyâna, and
the Southern school, comprising the Ceylonese, Burmese, Siamese,
etc., Hinayâna. The Mahâyâna branch worships Buddha in name only;
their real worship is of Tara Devi and of Avalokiteshwara (whom
the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans call Wanyin); and there is much
use of various cryptic rites and Mantras. The Tibetans are the
real demons of Shiva. They all worship Hindu gods, play the
Damaru, (A tabor shaped like an hour-glass.) keep human skulls,
blow horns made of the bones of dead monks, are much given to wine
and meat, and are always exorcising evil spirits and curing
diseases by means of mystical incantations. In China and Japan, on
the walls of all the temples I have observed various monosyllabic
Mantras written in big gilt letters, which approach the Bengali
characters so much that you can easily make out the resemblance.
Alasinga returned to Madras from Colombo, and we also got on board
our ship, with presents of some lemons from the orchard of Coomara
Swami, some king-cocoanuts, and two bottles of syrup, etc. (The
god Kârtikeya has various names, such as Subrahmanya, Kamâra Swâmi
etc. In the South the worship of this god is much in vogue; they
call Kartikeya an incarnation of the sacred formula "Om".)
The ship left Colombo on the morning of 25th June. Now we have to
encounter full monsoon conditions. The more our ship is advancing,
the more is the storm increasing and the louder is the wind
howling - there is incessant rain, and enveloping darkness; huge
waves are dashing on the ship's deck with a terrible noise, so
that it is impossible to stay on the deck. The dining table has
been divided into small squares by means of wood partitions,
placed lengthwise and breadthwise, called fiddle, out of which the
food articles are jumping up. The ship is creaking, as if it were
going to break to pieces. The Captain says, "Well, this year's
monsoon seems to be unusually rough". The Captain is a very
interesting person who spent many years in the Chinese Sea and
Indian Ocean; a very entertaining fellow, very clever in telling
cock and bull stories. Numerous stories of pirates - how Chinese
coolies used to kill ship's officers, loot the whole ship and
escape - and other stories of that ilk he is narrating. And there
is nothing else to do, for reading or writing is out of the
question in such heavy rolling. It is extremely difficult to sit
inside the cabin; the window has been shut for fear of the waves
getting in. One day Brother T__ kept it slightly ajar and a
fragment of a wave entered and flooded the whole cabin! And who
can describe the heaving and tossing on the deck! Amid such
conditions, you must remember, the work for your Udbodhan is going
on to a certain extent.
There are two Christian missionary passengers on our ship, one of
whom is an American, with a family - a very good man, named
Bogesh. He has been married seven years, and his children number
half-a-dozen. The servants call it God's special grace - though
the children perhaps, feel differently. Spreading a shabby bed on
the deck, Mrs. Bogesh makes all the children lie on it and goes
away. They make themselves dirty and roll on the deck, crying
aloud. The passengers on the deck are always nervous and cannot
walk about on the deck, lest they might tread on any of Bogesh's
children. Making the youngest baby lie in a square basket with
high sides, Mr. and Mrs. Bogesh sit in a corner for four hours,
huddled together. One finds it hard to appreciate your European
civilisation. If we rinse our mouth or wash our teeth in public -
they say it is barbarous, these things ought to be done in
private. All right, but I put it to you, if it is not also decent
to avoid such acts as the one above referred to, in public. And
you run after this civilisation! However you cannot understand
what good Protestantism has done to North Europe, unless you see
the Protestant clergy. If then ten crores of English people die,
and only the priests survive, in twenty years another ten crores
will be raised!
Owing to the rolling of the ship most of the passengers are
suffering from headache. A little girl named Tootle is
accompanying her father; she has lost her mother. Our Nivedita has
become a mother to Tootle and Bogesh's children. Tootle has been
brought up in Mysore with her father who is a planter. I asked
her, "Tootle, how are you?" She replied, "This Bungalow is not
good and rolls very much, which makes me sick." To her every house
is a bungalow. One sickly child of Bogesh suffers specially from
want of care; the poor thing is rolling on the wooden deck the
whole day. The old Captain now and then comes out of his cabin and
feeds him with some soup with a spoon, and pointing to his slender
legs says, "What a sickly child - how sadly neglected!"
Many desire eternal happiness. But if happiness were eternal,
misery also would be eternal, just think of that. Could we in that
case have ever reached Aden! Fortunately neither happiness nor
misery is eternal; therefore in spite of our six days' journey
being prolonged into fourteen days, and our buffeting terrible
wind and rain night and day, we at last did reach Aden. The more
we were ahead of Colombo, the more the storm and rain increased,
the sky became a lake, and the wind and the waves grew fierce; and
it was almost impossible for the ship to proceed, breasting such
wind and wave, and her speed was halved. Near the island of
Socotra, the monsoon was at its worst. The Captain remarked that
this was the centre of the monsoon, and that if we could pass
this, we should gradually reach calmer waters. And so we did. And
this nightmare also ended.
On the evening of the 8th, we reached Aden. No one, white or
black, is allowed to land, neither is any cargo allowed into the
ship. And there are not many things worth seeing here. You have
only barren stretches of sand, bearing some resemblance to
Rajputana, and treeless, verdureless hills. In between the hills
there are forts and on the top are the soldiers' barracks. In
front are the hotels and shops arranged in the form of a crescent,
which are discernible from the ship. Many ships are lying in
anchor. One English, and one German man-of-war came in; the rest
are either cargo or passenger ships. I had visited the town last
time. Behind the hills are the native barracks and the bazar. A
few miles from there, there are big pits dug into the sides of the
hills, where the rain-water accumulates. Formerly that was the
only source of water. Now by means of an apparatus they distil the
sea water and get good fresh water, which, however, is very dear.
Aden is just like an Indian town - with its large percentage of
Indian civil and military population. There are a good many Parsee
shopkeepers and Sindhi merchants. Aden is a very ancient place -
the Roman Emperor Constantius sent a batch of missionaries here to
preach Christianity. Then the Arabs rose and killed these
Christians, whereupon the Roman Emperor asked the King of
Abyssinia - long a Christian country - to punish them. The
Abyssinian King sent an army and severely punished the Arabs of
Aden. Afterwards Aden passed into the hands of the Samanidi Kings
of Persia. It is they who are reputed to have first excavated
those caves for the accumulation of water. Then, after the rise of
Mohammedanism, Aden passed into the hands of the Arabs. After a
certain time, a Portuguese general made ineffectual attempts to
capture the place. Then the Sultan of Turkey made the place a
naval base with the object of expelling the Portuguese from the
Indian Ocean.
Again it passed into the possession of the neighbouring Arabian
ruler. Afterwards, the English purchased it and they built the
present town. Now the warships of all the powerful nations are
cruising all over the world, and everyone wants to have a voice in
every trouble that arises in any part of it. Every nation wants to
safeguard its supremacy, political interest, and commerce. Hence
they are in need of coal every now and then. As it would not be
possible to get a supply of coal from an enemy country in times of
war, every Power wants to have a coaling station of its own. The
best sites have been already occupied by the English; the French
have come in for the next best; and after them the other Powers of
Europe have secured, and are securing, sites for themselves either
by force or by purchase, or by friendly overture. The Suez Canal
is now the link between Europe and Asia, and it is under the
control of the French. Consequently the English have made their
position very strong at Aden, and the other Powers also have each
made a base for themselves along the Red Sea. Sometimes this rage
for land brings disastrous consequences. Italy, trodden under
foreign feet for seven centuries, stood on her legs after enormous
difficulties. But immediately after doing this, she began to think
a lot of herself and became ambitious of foreign conquest. In
Europe no nation can seize a bit of land belonging to another; for
all the Powers would unite to crush the usurper. In Asia also, the
big Powers - the English, Russians, French, and Dutch - have left
little space unoccupied. Now there remained only a few bits of
Africa, and thither Italy directed her attention. First she tried
in North Africa, where she met with opposition from the French and
desisted. Then the English gave her a piece of land on the Red
Sea, with the ulterior object that from that centre Italy might
absorb the Abyssinian territory. Italy, too, came on with an army.
But the Abyssinian King, Manalik, gave her such a beating that
Italy found it difficult to save herself by fleeing from Africa.
Besides, Russian and Abyssinian Christianity being, as is alleged,
very much alike, the Russian Czar is an ally of the Abyssinians at
bottom.
Well, our ship is now passing through the Red Sea. The missionary
said, "This is the Red Sea, which the Jewish leader Moses crossed
on foot with his followers. And the army which the Egyptian King
Pharaoh sent for their capture was drowned in the sea, the wheels
of their war-chariots having stuck in the mud" - like Karna's in
the Mahâbhârata story. He further said that this could now be
proved by modern scientific reasons. Nowadays in every country it
has become a fashion to support the miracles of religion by
scientific argument. My friend, if these phenomena were the
outcome of natural forces, where then is there room for their
intervention of your god "Yave"? A great dilemma! - If they are
opposed to science, those miracles are mere myths, and your
religion is false. And even if they are borne out by science, the
glory of your god is superfluous, and they are just like any other
natural phenomena. To this, Priest Bogesh replied, "I do not know
all the issues involved in it, I simply believe." This is all
right - one can tolerate that. But then there is a party of men,
who are very clear in criticising others' views and bringing
forward arguments against them, but where they themselves are
concerned, they simply say, "I only believe, my mind testifies to
their veracity." These are simply unbearable. Pooh! What weight
has their intellect? Absolutely nothing! They are very quick to
label the religious beliefs of others as superstitious, especially
those which have been condemned by the Europeans, while in their
own case they concoct some fantastic notions of Godhead and are
beside themselves with emotions over them.
The ship is steadily sailing north. The borders of this Red Sea
were a great centre of ancient civilisation. There, on the other
side, are the deserts of Arabia, and on this - Egypt. This is that
ancient Egypt. Thousands of years ago, these Egyptians starting
from Punt (probably Malabar) crossed the Red Sea, and steadily
extended their kingdom till they reached Egypt. Wonderful was the
expansion of their power, their territory, and their civilisation.
The Greeks were the disciples of these. The wonderful mausoleums
of their kings, the Pyramids, with figures of the Sphinx, and even
their dead bodies are preserved to this day. Here lived the
ancient Egyptian peoples, with curling hair and ear-rings, and
wearing snow-white dhotis without one end being tucked up behind.
This is Egypt - the memorable stage where the Hyksos, the
Pharaohs, the Persian Emperors, Alexander the Great, and the
Ptolemies, and the Roman and Arab conquerors played their part. So
many centuries ago, they left their history inscribed in great
detail in hieroglyphic characters on papyrus paper, on stone
slabs, and on the sides of earthen vessels.
This is the land where Isis was worshipped and Horus flourished.
According to these ancient Egyptians, when a man dies, his subtle
body moves about; but any injury done to the dead body affects the
subtle body, and the destruction of the former means the total
annihilation of the latter. Hence they took so much pains to
preserve the corpse. Hence the pyramids of the kings and emperors.
What devices, how much labour - alas, all in vain! Lured by the
treasures, robbers have dug into the pyramids, and penetrating the
mysteries of the labyrinths, have stolen the royal bodies. Not now
- it was the work of the ancient Egyptians themselves. Some five
or six centuries ago, these desiccated mummies the Jewish and Arab
physicians looked upon as possessing great medicinal virtues and
prescribed them for patients all over Europe. To this day,
perhaps, it is the genuine "Mumia" of Unani and Hakimi methods of
treatment!
Emperor Asoka sent preachers to this Egypt during the reign of the
Ptolemy dynasty. They used to preach religion, cure diseases, live
on vegetable food, lead celibate lives, and make Sannyasin
disciples. They came to found many sects - the Therapeutae,
Essenes, Manichaeans, and the like; from which modern Christianity
has sprung. It was Egypt that became, during the Ptolemaic rule,
the nursery of all learning. Here was that city of Alexandria,
famous all over the world for its university, its library, and its
literati - that Alexandria which, falling into the hands of
illiterate, bigoted, and vulgar Christians suffered destruction,
with its library burnt to ashes and learning stamped out! Finally,
the Christians killed the lady servant, Hypatia, subjected her
dead body to all sorts of abominable insult, and dragged it
through the streets, till every bit of flesh was removed from the
bones!
And to the south lie the deserts of Arabia - the mother of heroes.
Have you ever seen a Bedouin Arab, with a cloak on, and a big
kerchief tied on his head with a bunch of woollen strings? - That
gait, that pose of standing, and that look, you will find in no
other country. From head to foot emanates the freedom of open
unconfined desert air - there you have the Arab. When the bigotry
of the Christians and the barbarity of the Goths extinguished the
ancient Greek and Roman civilisation, when Persia was trying to
hide her internal putrefaction by adding layer after layer of
gold-leaf upon it, when, in India, the sun of splendour of
Pataliputra and Ujjain had set, leaving some illiterate, tyrant
kings to rule over her, and the corruptions of dreadful
obscenities and the worship of lust festering within - when such
was the state of the world, this insignificant, semi-brutal Arab
race spread like lightning over its surface.
There you see a steamer coming from Mecca, with a cargo of
pilgrims; behold - the Turk in European dress, the Egyptian in
half-European costume, the Syrian Mussalman in Iranian attire, and
the real Arab wearing a cloth reaching down the knee. Before the
time of Mohammed, it was the custom to circumambulate round the
Cabba temple in a state of nudity; since his time they have to
wrap round a cloth. It is for this reason, that our Mohammedans
unloose the strings of their trousers, and let their cloth hang
down to the feet. Gone are those days for the Arabs. A continual
influx of Kaffir, Sidi, and Abyssinian blood has changed their
physique, energy, and all - the Arab of the desert is completely
shorn of his former glory. Those that live in the north are
peaceful citizens of the Turkish State. But the Christian subjects
of the Sultan hate the Turks and love the Arabs. They say that the
Arabs are amenable to education, become gentlemen, and are not so
troublesome, while the real Turks oppress the Christians very
much.
Though the desert is very hot, that heat is not enervating. There
is no further trouble if you cover your body and head against it.
Dry heat is not only not enervating, on the contrary it has a
marked toning effect. The people of Rajputana, Arabia, and Africa
are illustrations of this. In certain districts of Marwar, men,
cattle, horses, and all are strong and of great stature. It is a
joy to look at the Arabs and Sidis. Where the heat is moist, as in
Bengal, the body is very much enervated, and every animal is weak.
The very name of the Red Sea strikes terror into the hearts of the
passengers - it is so dreadfully hot, specially in summer, as it
is now. Everyone is seated on the deck and recounts a story of
some terrible accident, according to his knowledge. The Captain
has outbidden them all. He says that a few days ago a Chinese
man-of-war was passing through the Red Sea, and her Captain and
eight sailors who worked in the coal-room died of heat.
Indeed, those who work in the coal-room have in the first place to
stand in a pit of fire, and then there is the terrible heat of the
Red Sea. Sometimes they run mad, rush up to the deck, plunge into
the sea, and are drowned; or sometimes they die of heat in the
engine-room itself.
These stories were enough to throw us out of our wits, nearly. But
fortunately we did not experience so much heat. The breeze,
instead of being a south-wind, continued to blow from the north,
and it was the cool breeze of the Mediterranean.
On the 14th of July the steamer cleared the Red Sea and reached
Suez. In front is the Suez Canal. The steamer has cargo for Suez.
Well, Egypt is now under a visitation of plague, and possibly we
are also carrying its germs. So there is the risk of contagion on
both sides. Compared with the precautions taken here against
mutual contact, well, those of our country are as nothing. The
goods have to be unloaded, but the coolie of Suez must not touch
the ship. It meant a good deal of extra trouble for the ship's
sailors. They have to serve as coolies, lift up the cargo by means
of cranes and drop it, without touching, on the Suez boats which
carry it ashore. The agent of the Company has come near the ship
in a small launch, but he is not allowed to board her. From the
launch he is talking with the Captain who is in his ship. You must
know this is not India, where the white man is beyond the plague
regulations and all - here is the beginning of Europe. And all
this precaution is taken lest the rat-borne plague finds an
entrance into this heaven. The incubation period of plague-germs
is ten days; hence the quarantine for ten days. We have however
passed that period, so the disaster has been averted for us. But
we shall be quarantined for ten days more if we but touch any
Egyptian. In that case no passengers will be landed either at
Naples or at Marseilles. Therefore every kind of work is being
done from a distance, free from contact. Consequently it will take
them the whole day to unload the cargo in this slow process. The
ship can easily cross the Canal in the night, if she be provided
with a searchlight; but if that is to be fitted, the Suez people
will have to touch the ship - there, you have ten days'
quarantine. She is therefore not to start in the night, and we
must remain as we are in this Suez harbour for twenty-four hours!
This is a very beautiful natural harbour, surrounded almost on
three sides by sandy mounds and hillocks, and the water also is
very deep. There are innumerable fish and sharks swimming in it.
Nowhere else on earth are sharks in such plenty as in this port
and in the port of Sydney, in Australia - they are ready to
swallow men at the slightest opportunity! Nobody dares to descend
into the water. Men, too, on their part are dead against the
snakes and sharks and never let slip an opportunity to kill them.
In the morning, even before breakfast, we came to learn that big
sharks were moving about behind the ship. I had never before an
opportunity to see live sharks - the last time I came, the ship
called at Suez for only a very short time, and that too, close to
the town. As soon as we heard of the sharks, we hastened to the
spot. The second class was at the stern of the ship, and from its
deck, crowds of men, women and children were leaning over the
railings to see the sharks. But our friends, the sharks, had moved
off a little when we appeared on the spot, which damped our spirit
very much. But we noticed that shoals of a kind of fish with
bill-like heads were swimming in the water, and there was a
species of very tiny fish in great abundance. Now and then a big
fish, greatly resembling the hilsa, was flitting like an arrow
hither and thither. I thought, he might be a young shark, but on
inquiry I found it was not. Bonito was his name. Of course I had
formerly read of him, and this also I had read that he was
imported into Bengal from the Maldives as dried fish, on big-sized
boats. It was also a matter of report that his meat was red and
very tasteful. And we were now glad to see his energy and speed.
Such a large fish was flitting through the water like an arrow,
and in that glassy sea-water every movement of his body was
noticeable. We were thus watching the bonito's circuits and the
restless movements of the tiny fish for twenty minutes of half an
hour. Half an hour - three quarters - we were almost tired of it,
when somebody announced - there he was. About a dozen people
shouted, "There he is coming!" Casting my eyes I found that at
some distance a huge black thing was moving towards us, six or
seven inches below the surface of the water. Gradually the thing
approached nearer and nearer. The huge flat head was visible; now
massive his movement, there was nothing of the bonito's flitting
in it. But once he turned his head, a big circuit was made. A
gigantic fish; on he comes in a solemn gait, while in front of him
are one or two small fish, and a number of tiny ones are playing
on his back and all about his body. Some of them are holding fast
on to his neck. He is your shark with retinue and followers. The
fish which are preceding him are called the pilot fish. Their duty
is to show the shark his prey, and perhaps be favoured with crumbs
of his meal. But as one looks at the terrible gaping jaws of the
shark, one doubts whether they succeed much in this latter
respect. The fish which are moving about the shark and climbing on
his back, are the "suckers". About their chest there is a flat,
round portion, nearly four by two inches, which is furrowed and
grooved, like the rubber soles of many English shoes. That portion
the fish applies to the shark's body and sticks to it; that makes
them appear as if riding on the shark's body and back. They are
supposed to live on the worms etc. that grow on the shark's body.
The shark must always have his retinue of these two classes of
fish. And he never injures them, considering them perhaps as his
followers and companions. One of these fish was caught with a
small hook and line. Someone slightly pressed the sole of his shoe
against its chest and when he raised his foot, it too was found to
adhere to it. In the same way it sticks to the body of the shark.
The second class passengers have got their mettle highly roused.
One of them is a military man and his enthusiasm knows no bounds.
Rummaging the ship they found out a terrible hook - it outvied the
hooks that are used in Bengal for recovering water-pots that have
accidentally dropped into wells. To this they tightly fastened
about two pounds of meat with a strong cord, and a stout cable was
tied to it. About six feet from it, a big piece of wood was
attached to act as a float. Then the hook with the float was
dropped in the water. Below the ship a police boat was keeping
guard ever since we came, lest there might be any contact between
us and the people ashore. On this boat there were two men
comfortably asleep, which made them much despised in the eyes of
the passengers. At this moment they turned out to be great
friends. Roused by the tremendous shouts, our friend, the Arab,
rubbed his eyes and stood up. He was preparing to tuck up his
dress, imagining some trouble was at hand, when he came to
understand that so much shouting was nothing more than a request
to him to remove the beam that was meant as a float to catch the
shark, along with the hook, to a short distance. Then he breathed
a sigh of relief, and grinning from ear to ear he managed to push
the float to some distance by means of a pole. While we in
eagerness stood on tiptoe, leaning over the railing, and anxiously
waited for the shark - " watching his advent with restless eyes";
(From Jayadeva, the famous Sanskrit Poet of Bengal.) and as is
always the case with those for whom somebody may be waiting with
suspense, we suffered a similar fate - in other words, "the
Beloved did not turn up". But all miseries have an end, and
suddenly about a hundred yards from the ship, something of the
shape of a water-carrier's leather bag, but much larger, appeared
above the surface of the water, and immediately there was the hue
and cry, "There is the shark!" "Silence, you boys and girls! - the
shark may run off". - "Hallo, you people there, why don't you doff
your white hats for a while? - the shark may shy". - While shouts
like these were reaching the ear, the shark, denizen of the salt
sea, rushed close by, like a boat under canvas, with a view to
doing justice to the lump of pork attached to the hook. Seven or
eight feet more and the shark's jaws would touch the bait. But
that massive tail moved a little, and the straight course was
transformed into a curve. Alas, the shark has made off! Again the
tail slightly moved, and the gigantic body turned and faced the
hook. Again he is rushing on - gaping, there, he is about to snap
at the bait! Again the cursed tail moved, and the shark wheeled
his body off to a distance. Again he is taking a circuit and
coming on, he is gaping again; look now, he has put the bait into
his jaws, there, he is tilting on his side; yes, he has swallowed
the bait - pull, pull, forty or fifty pull together, pull on with
all your might! What tremendous strength the fish has, what
struggles he makes, how widely he gapes! Pull, pull! He is about
to come above the surface, there he is turning in the water, and
again turning on his side, pull, pull! Alas, he has extricated
himself from the bait! The shark has fled. Indeed, what fussy
people you all are! You could not wait to give him some time to
swallow the bait! And you were impatient enough to pull so soon as
he turned on his side! However, it is no use crying over spilt
milk. The shark was rid of the hook and made a clean run ahead.
Whether he taught the pilot fish a good lesson, we have got no
information, but the fact was that the shark was clean off. And he
was tiger-like, having black stripes over his body like a tiger.
However, the "Tiger", with a view to avoiding the dangerous
vicinity of the hook, disappeared, with his retinue of pilots and
suckers.
But there is no need of giving up hopes altogether, for there,
just by the side of the retreating "Tiger" is coming on another, a
huge flat-headed creature! Alas, sharks have no language!
Otherwise "Tiger" would surely have made an open breast of his
secret to the newcomer and thus warned him. He would certainly
have said, "Hallo, my friend, beware there is a new creature come
over there, whose flesh is very tasteful and savoury, but what
hard bones! Well, I have been born and brought up as a shark these
many years and have devoured lots of animals - living, dead, and
half-dead, and filled my stomach with lots of bones, bricks, and
stones, and wooden stuff; but compared with these bones they are
as butter, I tell you. Look, what has become of my teeth and
jaws". And along with this he would certainly have shown to the
new-comer those gaping jaws reaching almost to half his body. And
the other too, with characteristic experience of maturer years,
would have prescribed for him one or other of such infallible
marine remedies as the bile of one fish, the spleen of another,
the cooling broth of oysters, and so forth. But since nothing of
the kind took place, we must conclude that either the sharks are
sadly in want of a language, or that they may have one, but it is
impossible to talk under water; therefore until some characters
fit for the sharks are discovered, it is impossible to use that
language. Or it may be that "Tiger", mixing too much in human
company, has imbibed a bit of human disposition too, and
therefore, instead of giving out the real truth, asked
"Flat-head", with a smile, if he was doing well, and bade him
good-bye: "Shall I alone be befooled?"
Then Bengali poem has it, "First goes Bhagiratha blowing his
conch, then comes Ganga bringing up the rear" etc. Well, of
course, no blowing of the conch is heard, but first are going the
pilot fish, and behind them comes "Flat-head", moving his massive
body, while round about him dance the suckers. Ah, who can resist
such a tempting bait? For a space of five yards on all sides, the
surface of the sea is glossy with a film of fat, and it is for
"Flat-head" himself to say how far the fragrance thereof has
spread. Besides, what a spectacle it is! White, and red, and
yellow - all in one place! It was real English pork, tied round a
huge black hook, heaving under water most temptingly!
Silence now, every one - don't move about, and see that you don't
be too hasty. But take care to keep close to the cable. There, he
is moving near the hook, and examining the bait, putting it in his
jaws! Let him do so. Hush - now he has turned on his side - look,
he is swallowing it whole, silence - give him time to do it. Then,
as "Flat-head", turning on his side, had leisurely swallowed the
bait, and was about to depart, immediately there was the pull
behind! " Flat-head", astonished, jerked his head and wanted to
throw the bait off, but it made matters worse! The hook pierced
him, and from above, men, young and old, began to pull violently
at the cable. Look, the head of the shark is above water - pull,
brothers, pull! There, about half the shark's body is above water!
Oh, what jaws! It is all jaws and throat, it seems! Pull on! Ah,
the whole of it is clear of water. There, the hook has pierced his
jaws through and through - pull on! Wait, wait! - Hallo, you Arab
Police boatman, will you tie a string round his tail? - He is such
a huge monster that it is difficult to haul him up otherwise. Take
care, brother, a blow from that tail is enough to fracture a
horse's leg! Pull on - Oh, how very heavy! Good God, what have we
here! Indeed, what is it that hangs down from under the shark's
belly? Are they not the entrails! His own weight has forced them
out! All right, cut them off, and let them drop into the sea, that
will make the weight lighter. Pull on, brothers! Oh, it is a
fountain of blood! No, there is no use trying to save the clothes.
Pull, he is almost within reach. Now, set him on the deck; take
care, brother, be very careful, if he but charges on anybody, he
will bite off a whole arm! And beware of that tail! Now, slacken
the rope - thud! Lord! What a big shark! And with what a thud he
fell on board the ship! Well, one cannot be too careful - strike
his head with that beam - hallo, military man, you are a soldier,
you are the man to do it. - "Quite so". The military passenger,
with body and clothes splashed with blood, raised the beam and
began to land heavy blows on the shark's head. And the women went
on shrieking, "Oh dear! How cruel! Don't kill him!" and so forth,
but never stopped seeing the spectacle. Let that gruesome scene
end here. How the shark's belly was ripped open, how a torrent of
blood flowed, how the monster continued to shake and move for a
long time even after his entrails and heart had been taken off and
his body dismembered, how from his stomach a heap of bones, skin,
flesh, and wood, etc. came out - let all these topics go. Suffice
it to say, that I had my meal almost spoilt that day - everything
smelt of that shark.
This Suez Canal is a triumph of canal engineering. It was dug by a
French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps. By connecting the
Mediterranean with the Red Sea, it has greatly facilitated the
commerce between Europe and India.
Of all the causes which have worked for the present state of human
civilisation from the ancient times, the commerce of India is
perhaps the most important. From time immemorial India has beaten
all other countries in point of fertility and commercial
industries. Up till a century ago, the whole of the world's demand
for cotton cloth, cotton, jute, indigo, lac, rice, diamonds, and
pearls, etc. used to be supplied from India. Moreover, no other
country could produce such excellent silk and woollen fabrics,
like the kincob etc. as India. Again, India has been the land of
various spices such as cloves, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, and mace.
Naturally, therefore, from very ancient times, whatever country
became civilised at any particular epoch, depended upon India for
those commodities. This trade used to follow two main routes - one
was through land, via Afghanistan and Persia, and the other was by
sea - through the Red Sea. After his conquest of Persia, Alexander
the Great despatched a general named Niarchus to explore a
sea-route, passing by the mouth of the Indus, across the ocean,
and through the Red Sea. Most people are ignorant of the extent to
which the opulence of ancient countries like Babylon, Persia,
Greece, and Rome depended on Indian commerce. After the downfall
of Rome, Baghdad in Mohammedan territory, and Venice and Genoa in
Italy, became the chief Western marts of Indian commerce. And when
the Turks made themselves masters of the Roman Empire and closed
the trade-route to India for the Italians, then Christopher
Columbus (Christobal Colon), a Spaniard or Genoese, tried to
explore a new route to India across the Atlantic, which resulted
in the discovery of the American continent. Even after reaching
America, Columbus could not get rid of the delusion that it was
India. It is therefore that the aborigines of America are to this
day designated as Indians. In the Vedas we find both names,
"Sindhu" and "Indu", for the Indus; the Persians transformed them
into "Hindu", and the Greeks into "Indus", whence we derived the
words "India" and "Indian". With the rise of Mohammedanism the
word "Hindu" became degraded and meant "a dark-skinned fellow", as
is the case with the word "native" now.
The Portuguese, in the meantime, discovered a new route to India,
doubling Africa. The fortune of India smiled on Portugal - then
came the turn of the French, the Dutch, the Danes, and the
English. Indian commerce, Indian revenue and all are now in the
possession of the English; it is therefore that they are the
foremost of all nations now. But now, Indian products are being
grown in countries like America and elsewhere, even better than in
India, and she has therefore lost something of her prestige. This
the Europeans are unwilling to admit. That India, the India of
"natives", is the chief means and resources of their wealth and
civilisation, is a fact which they refuse to admit, or even
understand. We too, on our part, must not cease to bring it home
to them.
Just weigh the matter in your mind. Those uncared-for lower
classes of India - the peasants and weavers and the rest, who have
been conquered by foreigners and are looked down upon by their own
people - it is they who from time immemorial have been working
silently, without even getting the remuneration of their labours!
But what great changes are taking place slowly, all over the
world, in pursuance of nature's law! Countries, civilisations, and
supremacy are undergoing revolutions. Ye labouring classes of
India, as a result of your silent, constant labours Babylon,
Persia, Alexandria, Greece, Rome, Venice, Genoa, Baghdad,
Samarqand, Spain, Portugal, France, Denmark, Holland, and England
have successively attained supremacy and eminence! And you? -
Well, who cares to think of you! My dear Swami, your ancestors
wrote a few philosophical works, penned a dozen or so epics, or
built a number of temples - that is all, and you rend the skies
with triumphal shouts; while those whose heart's blood has
contributed to all the progress that has been made in the world -
well, who cares to praise them? The world-conquering heroes of
spirituality, war, and poetry are in the eyes of all, and they
have received the homage of mankind. But where nobody looks, no
one gives a word of encouragement, where everybody hates - that
living amid such circumstances and displaying boundless patience,
infinite love, and dauntless practicality, our proletariat are
doing their duty in their homes day and night, without the
slightest murmur - well, is there no heroism in this? Many turn
out to be heroes when they have got some great task to perform.
Even a coward easily gives up his life, and the most selfish man
behaves disinterestedly, when there is a multitude to cheer them
on; but blessed indeed is he who manifests the same unselfishness
and devotion to duty in the smallest of acts, unnoticed by all -
and it is you who are actually doing this ye ever-trampled
labouring classes of India! I bow to you.
This Suez Canal is also a thing of remote antiquity. During the
reign of the Pharaohs in Egypt, a number of lagoons were connected
with one another by a channel and formed a canal touching both
seas. During the rule of the Roman Empire in Egypt also, attempts
were made now and then to keep that channel open. Then the
Mohammedan General Amru, after his conquest of Egypt, dug out the
sand and changed certain features of it, so that it became almost
transformed.
After that nobody paid much attention to it. The present canal was
excavated by Khedive Ismail of Egypt, the Viceroy of the Sultan of
Turkey, according to the advice of the French, and mostly through
French capital. The difficulty with this canal is that owing to
its running through a desert, it again and again becomes filled
with sand. Only one good-sized merchant-ship can pass through it
at a time, and it is said that very big men-of-war or merchantmen
can never pass through it. Now, with a view to preventing incoming
and outgoing ships from colliding against each other, the whole
canal has been divided into a number of sections, and at both ends
of each section there are open spaces broad enough for two or
three ships to lie at anchor together. The Head Office is at the
entrance to the Mediterranean, and there are stations in every
section like railway stations. As soon as a ship enters the canal,
messages are continually wired to this Head Office, where reports
of how many ships are coming in and how many are going out, with
their position at particular moments are telegraphed, and are
marked on a big map. To prevent one ship confronting another, no
ship is allowed to leave any station without a line-clear.
The Suez Canal is in the hands of the French. Though the majority
of shares of the Canal Company are now owned by the English, yet,
by a political agreement, the entire management rests with the
French.
Now comes the Mediterranean. There is no more memorable region
than this, outside India. It marks the end of Asia, Africa, and of
ancient civilisation. One type of manners and customs and modes of
living ends here and another type of features and temperament,
food and dress, customs and habits begins - we enter Europe. Not
only this, but here also is the great centre of that historical
admixture of colours, races, civilisations, culture, and customs,
which extending over many centuries has led to the birth of modern
civilisation. That religion, and culture, and civilisation, and
extraordinary prowess which today have encircled the globe were
born here in the regions surrounding the Mediterranean. There, on
the south, is the very, very ancient Egypt, the birthplace of
sculpture - overflowing in wealth and food-stuffs; on the east is
Asia Minor, the ancient arena of the Phoenician, Philistine,
Jewish, valiant Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian civilisations;
and on the north, the land where the Greeks - wonders of the world
- flourished in ancient times.
Well, Swami, you have had enough of countries, and rivers, and
mountains, and seas - now listen to a little of ancient history.
Most wonderful are these annals of ancient days; not fiction, but
truth - the true history of the human race. These ancient
countries were almost buried in oblivion for eternity - the little
that people knew of them consisted almost exclusively of the
curiously fictitious compositions of the ancient Greek historians,
or the miraculous descriptions of the Jewish mythology called the
Bible. Now the inscriptions on ancient stones, buildings, rooms,
and tiles, and linguistic analysis are voluble in their narration
of the history of those countries. This recounting has but just
commenced, but even now it has unearthed most wonderful tales, and
who knows what more it will do in future? Great scholars of all
countries are puzzling their heads day and night over a bit of
rock inscription or a broken utensil, a building or a tile, and
discovering the tales of ancient days sunk in oblivion.
When the Mohammedan leader Osman occupied Constantinople, and the
banner of Islam began to flutter triumphantly over the whole of
Eastern Europe, then those books and that learning and culture of
the ancient Greeks which were kept hidden with their powerless
descendants spread over western Europe in the wake of the
retreating Greeks. Though subjected for a long time to the Roman
rule, the Greeks were the teachers of the Romans in point of
learning and culture. So much so that owing to the Greeks
embracing Christianity and the Christian Bible being written in
the Greek tongue, Christianity got a hold over the whole Roman
Empire. But the ancient Greeks, whom we call the Yavanas, and who
were the first teachers of European civilisation, attained the
zenith of their culture long before the Christians. Ever since
they became Christians, all their learning and culture was
extinguished. But as some part of the culture of their ancestors
is still preserved in the Hindu homes, so it was with the
Christian Greeks; these books found their way all over Europe.
This it was that gave the first impetus to civilisation among the
English, German, French, and other nations. There was a craze for
learning the Greek language and Greek arts. First of all, they
swallowed everything that was in those books. Then, as their own
intelligence began to brighten up, and sciences began to develop,
they commenced researches as to the date, author, subject, and
authenticity, etc. of those books. There was no restriction
whatever in passing free opinions on all books of the
non-Christian Greeks, barring only the scriptures of the
Christians, and consequently there cropped up a new science - that
of external and internal criticism.
Suppose, for instance, that it is written in a book that such and
such an incident took place on such and such a date. But must a
thing be accepted as authentic, simply because some one has been
pleased to write something about it in a book? It was customary
with people, specially of those times, to write many things from
imagination; moreover, they had very scanty knowledge about
nature, and even of this earth we live in. All these raised grave
doubts as to the authenticity of the subject-matter of a book.
Suppose, for instance, that a Greek historian has written that on
such and such a date there was a king in India called
Chandragupta. If now, the books of India, too, mention that king
under that particular date, the matter is certainly proved to a
great extent. If a few coins of Chandragupta's reign be found, or
a building of his time which contains references to him, the
veracity of the matter is then assured.
Suppose another book records a particular incident as taking place
in the reign of Alexander the Great, but there is mention of one
or two Roman Emperors in such a way that they cannot be taken as
interpolations - then that book is proved not to belong to
Alexander's time.
Or again, language. Every language undergoes some change through
the lapse of time, and authors have also their own peculiar style.
If in any book there is suddenly introduced a description which
has no bearing on the subject, and is in a style quite different
from the author's, it will readily be suspected as an
interpolation. Thus a new science of ascertaining the truth about
a book, by means of doubting and testing and proving in various
ways, was discovered.
To add to this, modern science began, with rapid strides, to throw
new light on things from all sides, with the results that any book
that contained a reference to supernatural incidents came to be
wholly disbelieved.
To crown all, there were the entrance of the tidal wave of
Sanskrit into Europe and the deciphering of ancient lapidary
inscriptions found in India, on the banks of the Euphrates, and in
Egypt, as well as the discovery of temples etc., hidden for ages
under the earth or on hill-sides, and the correct reading of their
history.
I have already said that this new science of research set the
Bible or the New Testament books quite apart. Now there are no
longer the tortures of the Inquisition, there is only the fear of
social obloquy; disregarding that, many scholars have subjected
those books also to a stringent analysis. Let us hope that as they
mercilessly hack the Hindu and other scriptures to pieces, they
will in time show the same moral courage towards the Jewish and
Christian scriptures also. Let me give an illustration to explain
why I say this. Maspero, a great savant and a highly reputed
author on Egyptology, has written a voluminous history of the
Egyptians and Babylonians entitled Histoire Ancienne Orientale. A
few years ago I read an English translation of the book by an
English archaeologist. This time, on my asking a Librarian of the
British Museum about certain books on Egypt and Babylon, Maspero's
book was mentioned. And when he learnt that I had with me an
English translation of the book, he said that it would not do, for
the translator was a rather bigoted Christian, and wherever
Maspero's researches hit Christianity in any way, he (the
translator) had managed to twist and torture those passages! He
recommended me to read the book in original French. And on reading
I found it was just as he had said - a terrible problem indeed!
You know very well what a queer thing religious bigotry is; it
makes a mess of truth and untruth. Thenceforth my faith in the
translations of those research works has been greatly shaken.
Another new science has developed - ethnology, that is, the
classification of men from an examination of their colour, hair,
physique, shape of the head, language, and so forth.
The Germans, though masters in all sciences, are specially expert
in Sanskrit and ancient Assyrian culture; Benfey and other German
scholars are illustrations of this. The French are skilled in
Egyptology - scholars like Maspero are French. The Dutch are
famous for their analysis of Jewish and ancient Christian
religions - writers like Kuenen have attained a world-celebrity.
The English inaugurate many sciences and then leave off.
Let me now tell you some of the opinions of these scholars. If you
do not like their views, you may fight them; but pray, do not lay
the blame on me. According to the Hindus, Jews, ancient
Babylonians, Egyptians, and other ancient races, all mankind have
descended from the same primaeval parents. People do not much
believe in this now.
Have you ever seen jet-black, flat-nosed, thick-lipped,
curly-haired Kaffirs with receding foreheads? And have you seen
the Santals, and Andamanese, and Bhils with about the same
features, but of shorter stature, and with hair less curly? The
first class are called Negroes; these live in Africa. The second
class are called Negritos (little Negroes); in ancient times these
used to inhabit certain parts of Arabia, portions of the banks of
the Euphrates, the southern part of Persia, the whole of India,
the Andamans, and other islands, even as far as Australia. In
modern times they are to be met with in certain forests and
jungles of India, in the Andamans, and in Australia.
Have you seen the Lepchas, Bhutias, and Chinese - white or yellow
in colour, and with straight black hair? They have dark eyes - but
these are set so as to form an angle - scanty beard and moustache,
a flat face, and very prominent malar bones. Have you seen the
Nepalese, Burmese, Siamese, Malays, and Japanese? They have the
same shape, but have shorter stature.
The two species of this type are called Mongols and Mongoloids
(little Mongols). The Mongolians have now occupied the greater
part of Asia. It is they who, divided into many branches such as
the Mongols, Kalmucks, Huns, Chinese, Tartars, Turks, Manchus,
Kirghiz, etc. lead a nomadic life, carrying tents, and tending
sheep, goats, cattle, and horses, and whenever an opportunity
occurs, sweep like a swarm of locusts and unhinge the world. These
Chinese and Tibetans alone are an exception to this. They are also
known by the name of Turanians. It is the Turan which you find in
the popular phrase, "Iran and Turan."
A race of a dark colour but with straight hair, straight nose and
straight dark eyes, used to inhabit ancient Egypt and ancient
Babylonia and now live all over India, specially in the southern
portion; in Europe also one finds traces of them in rare places.
They form one race, and have the technical name of Dravidians.
Another race has white colour, straight eyes, but ears and noses
curved and thick towards the tip, receding foreheads, and thick
lips - as, for instance, the people of north Arabia, the modern
Jews and the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, etc.;
their languages also have a common stock; these are called the
Semitic race.
And those who speak a language allied to Sanskrit, who have
straight noses, mouths, and eyes, a white complexion, black or
brown hair, dark or blue eyes, are called Aryans.
All the modern races have sprung from an admixture of these races.
A country which has a preponderance of one or other of these
races, has also its language and physiognomy mostly like those of
that particular race.
It is not a generally accepted theory in the West that a warm
country produces dark complexion and a cold country white
complexion. Many are of opinion that the existing shades between
black and white have been the outcome of a fusion of races.
According to scholars, the civilisations of Egypt and ancient
Babylonia are the oldest. Houses and remains of buildings are to
be met with in these countries dating 6,000 B.C. or even earlier.
In India the oldest building that may have been discovered date
back to Chandragupta's time at the most; that is, only 300 B.C.
Houses of greater antiquity have not yet been discovered. (The
ancient remains at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro etc., in the Indus Valley
in North-west India, which prove the existence of an advanced city
civilisation in India dating back to more than 3000 B.C., were not
dug out before 1922. - Ed.) But there are books, etc., of a far
earlier date, which one cannot find in any other country. Pandit
Bal Gangadhar Tilak has brought evidence to show that the Vedas of
the Hindus existed in the present form at least five thousand
years before the Christian era.
The borders of this Mediterranean were the birthplace of that
European civilisation which has now conquered the world. On these
shores the Semitic races such as the Egyptians, Babylonians,
Phoenicians, and Jews, and the Aryan races such as the Persians,
Greeks, and Romans, fused together - to form the modern European
civilisation.
A big stone slab with inscriptions on it, called the Rosetta
Stone, was discovered in Egypt. On this there are inscriptions in
hieroglyphics, below which there is another kind of writing, and
below them all there are inscriptions resembling Greek characters.
A scholar conjectured that those three sets of inscriptions
presented the same thing, and he deciphered these ancient Egyptian
inscriptions with the help of Coptic characters - the Copts being
the Christian race who yet inhabit Egypt and who are known as the
descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Similarly the cuneiform
characters inscribed on the bricks and tiles of the Babylonians
were also gradually deciphered. Meanwhile certain Indian
inscriptions in plough-shaped characters were discovered as
belonging to the time of Emperor Asoka. No earlier inscriptions
than these have been discovered in India. (The Indus script is now
known to be contemporary with Sumerian and Egyptian. - Ed.) The
hieroglyphics inscribed on various kinds of temples, columns, and
sarcophagi all over Egypt are being gradually deciphered and
making Egyptian antiquity more lucid.
The Egyptians entered into Egypt from a southern country called
Punt, across the seas. Some say that that Punt is the modern
Malabar, and that the Egyptians and Dravidians belong to the same
race. Their first king was named Menes, and their ancient religion
too resembles in some parts our mythological tales. The god Shibu
was enveloped by the goddess Nui; later on another god Shu came
and forcibly removed Nui. Nui's body became the sky, and her two
hands and two legs became the four pillars of that sky. And Shibu
became the earth. Osiris and Isis, the son and daughter of Nui,
are the chief god and goddess in Egypt, and their son Horus is the
object of universal worship. These three used to be worshipped in
a group. Isis, again, is worshipped in the form of the cow.
Like the Nile on earth there is another Nile in the sky, of which
the terrestrial Nile is only a part. According to the Egyptians,
the Sun travels round the earth in a boat; now and then a serpent
called Ahi devours him, then an eclipse takes place. The Moon is
periodically attacked by a boar and torn to pieces, from which he
takes fifteen days to recover. The deities of Egypt are some of
them jackal-faced, some hawk-faced, others cow-faced, and so on.
Simultaneously with this, another civilisation had its rise on the
banks of the Euphrates. Baal, Moloch, Istarte, and Damuzi were the
chief of deities here. Istarte fell in love with a shepherd named
Damuzi. A boar killed the latter and Istarte went to Hades, below
the earth, in search of him. There she was subjected to various
tortures by the terrible goddess Alat. At last Istarte declared
that she would no more return to earth unless she got Damuzi back.
This was a great difficulty; she was the goddess of sex-impulse,
and unless she went back, neither men, nor animals, nor vegetables
would multiply. Then the gods made a compromise that every year
Damuzi was to reside in Hades for four months and live on earth
during the remaining eight months. Then Istarte returned, there
was the advent of spring and a good harvest followed.
Thus Damuzi again is known under the name of Adunoi or Adonis! The
religion of all the Semitic races, with slight minor variations,
was almost the same. The Babylonians, Jews, Phoenicians, and Arabs
of a later date used the same form of worship. Almost every god
was called Moloch - the word which persists to this day in the
Bengali language as Mâlik (ruler), Mulluk (kingdom) and so forth -
or Baal; but of course there were minor differences. According to
some, the god called Alat afterwards turned into Allah of the
Arab.
The worship of these gods also included certain terrible and
abominable rites. Before Moloch or Baal children used to be burnt
alive. In the temple of Istarte the natural and unnatural
satisfaction of lust was the principal feature.
The history of the Jewish race is much more recent than that of
Babylon. According to scholars the scripture known as the Bible
was composed from 500 B.C. to several years after the Christian
era. Many portions of the Bible which are generally supposed to be
of earlier origin belong to a much later date. The main topics of
the Bible concern the Babylonians. The Babylonian cosmology and
description of the Deluge have in many parts been incorporated
wholesale into the Bible. Over and above this, during the rule of
the Persian Emperors in Asia Minor, many Persian doctrines found
acceptance among the Jews. According to the Old Testament, this
world is all; there is neither soul nor an after-life. In the New
Testament there is mention of the Parsee doctrines of an
after-life and resurrection of the dead, while the theory of Satan
exclusively belongs to the Parsis.
The principal feature of the Jewish religion is the worship of
Yave-Moloch. But this name does not belong to the Jewish language;
according to some it is an Egyptian word. But nobody knows whence
it came. There are descriptions in the Bible that the Israelites
lived confined in Egypt for a long time, but all this is seldom
accepted now, and the patriarchs such as Abraham, and Isaac, and
Joseph are proved to be mere allegories.
The Jews would not utter the name "Yave", in place of which they
used to say "Adunoi". When the Jews became divided into two
branches, Israel and Ephraim, two principal temples were
constructed in the two countries. In the temple that was built by
the Israelites in Jerusalem, an image of Yave, consisting of a
male and female figure united, was preserved in a coffer (ark),
and there was a big phallic column at the door. In Ephraim, Yave
used to be worshipped in the form of a gold-covered Bull.
In both places it was the practice to consign the eldest son alive
to the flames before the god, and a band of women used to live in
both the temples, within the very precincts of which they used to
lead most immoral lives and their earnings were utilised for
temple expenditure.
In course of time there appeared among the Jews a class of men who
used to invoke the presence of deities in their person by means of
music or dance. They were called Prophets. Many of these, through
association with the Persians, set themselves against
image-worship, sacrifice of sons, immorality, prostitution, and
such other practices. By degrees, circumcision took the place of
human sacrifice; and prostitution and image-worship etc. gradually
disappeared. In course of time from among these Prophets
Christianity had its rise.
There is a great dispute as to whether there ever was born a man
with the name of Jesus. Of the four books comprising the New
Testament, the Book of St. John has been rejected by some as
spurious. As to the remaining three, the verdict is that they have
been copied from some ancient book; and that, too, long after the
date ascribed to Jesus Christ.
Moreover, about the time that Jesus is believed to have been born
among the Jews themselves, there were born two historians,
Josephus and Philo. They have mentioned even petty sects among the
Jews, but not made the least reference to Jesus or the Christians,
or that the Roman Judge sentenced him to death on the cross.
Josephus' book had a single line about it, which has now been
proved to be an interpolation. The Romans used to rule over the
Jews at that time, and the Greeks taught all sciences and arts.
They have all written a good many things about the Jews, but made
no mention of either Jesus or the Christians.
Another difficulty is that the sayings, precepts, or doctrines
which the New Testament preaches were already in existence among
the Jews before the Christian era, having come from different
quarters, and were being preached by Rabbis like Hillel and
others. These are what scholars say; but they cannot, with safety
to their reputation, give oracular verdicts off-hand on their own
religion, as they are wont to do with regard to alien religions.
So they proceed slowly. This is what is called Higher Criticism.
The Western scholars are thus studying the religions, customs,
races, etc., of different and far-off countries. But we have
nothing of the kind in Bengali! And how is it possible? If a man
after ten years of hard labour translates a book of this kind,
well, what will he himself live upon, and where will he get the
funds to publish his book?
In the first place, our country is very poor, and in the second
place, there is practically no cultivation of learning. Shall such
a day dawn for our country when we shall be cultivating various
kinds of arts and sciences? - "She whose grace makes the dumb
eloquent and the lame to scale mountains" - She, the Divine
Mother, only knows!
The ship touched Naples - we reached Italy. The capital of Italy
is Rome - Rome, the capital of that ancient, most powerful Roman
Empire, whose politics, military science, art of colonisation, and
foreign conquest are to this day the model for the whole world!
After leaving Naples the ship called at Marseilles, and thence
straight at London.
You have already heard a good deal about Europe - what they eat,
how they dress, what are their manners and customs, and so forth -
so I need not write on this. But about European civilisation, its
origin, its relation to us, and the extent to which we should
adopt it - about such things I shall have much to say in future.
The body is no respecter of persons, dear brother, so I shall try
to speak about them some other time. Or what is the use? Well, who
on earth can vie with us (specially the Bengalis) as regards
talking and discussing? Show it in action if you can. Let your
work proclaim, and let the tongue rest. But let me mention one
thing in passing, viz. that Europe began to advance from the date
that learning and power began to flow in among the poor lower
classes. Lots of suffering poor people of other countries, cast
off like refuse as it were, find a house and shelter in America,
and these are the very backbone of America! It matters little
whether rich men and scholars listen to you, understand you, and
praise or blame you - they are merely the ornaments, the
decorations of the country! - It is the millions of poor lower
class people who are its life. Numbers do not count, nor does
wealth or poverty; a handful of men can throw the world off its
hinges, provided they are united in thought, word, and deed -
never forget this conviction. The more opposition there is, the
better. Does a river acquire velocity unless there is resistence?
The newer and better a thing is, the more opposition it will meet
with at the outset. It is opposition which foretells success.
Where there is no opposition there is no success either. Good-bye!