Every sovereign in India did it in the old days; every chief in India does it now; and the community of interest between the sovereign and his people, to which such a function testifies and which it serves to keep alive, is most vital and most important."
And the durbar demonstrated the wisdom of those who planned it. The expense was quite large. The total disburs.e.m.e.nts by the government were about $880,000, and it is probable that an equal amount was expended by the princes and other people who partic.i.p.ated.
That has been the subject of severe criticism also, because the people were only slowly recovering from the effect of an awful famine. But there is another point of view. Every farthing of those funds was spent in India and represented wages paid to workmen employed in making the preparations and carrying them into effect. No money went out of the country. It all came out of the pockets of the rich and was paid into the hands of the poor.
What the government and the native princes and n.o.bles expended in their splendid displays was paid to working people who needed it, and by throwing this large amount into circulation the entire country was benefited.
The extravagance of the Viceroy and Lady Curzon in their own personal arrangements has also been criticised, and people complain that they might have done great good with the immense sums expended in dress and entertainment and display, but it is easy to construe these criticisms into compliments, for everyone testifies that both the viceroy and his beautiful American wife performed their parts to perfection, and that no one could have appeared with greater dignity and grace. Every detail of the affair was appropriate and every item upon the programme was carried out precisely as intended and desired. Lord and Lady Curzon have the personal presence, the manners and all the other qualities required for such occasions.
Dr. Francois Bernier, the French physician who visited the Mogul court in 1658, and gives us a graphic description of the durbar and Emperor Aurangzeb, who reigned at that time, writes: "The king appeared upon his throne splendidly appareled. His vest was of white satin, flowered and raised with a very fine embroidery of gold and silk. His turban was of cloth of gold, having a fowl wrought upon it like a heron, whose foot was covered with diamonds of an ordinary bigness and price, with a great oriental topaz which may be said to be matchless, shining like a little sun. A collar of long pearls hung about his neck down to his stomach, after the manner that some heathens wear their beads. His throne was supported by six pillars of ma.s.sive gold set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. Beneath the throne there appeared the great n.o.bles, in splendid apparel, standing upon a raised ground covered with a canopy of purple with great golden fringes, and inclosed by a silver bal.u.s.trade. The pillars of the hall were hung with tapestries of purple having the ground of gold, and for the roof of the hall there was nothing but canopies of flowered satin fastened with red silken cords that had big tufts of silk mixed with the threads of gold hanging on them. Below there was nothing to be seen but silken tapestries, very rich and of extraordinary length and breadth."
XVII
THE TEMPLES AND TOMBS OF DELHI
Seven ancient ruined cities, representing successive periods and dynasties from 2500 B. C. to 1600 A. D., enc.u.mber the plains immediately surrounding the city of Delhi, within a radius of eighteen or twenty miles; and you cannot go in any direction without pa.s.sing through the ruins of stupendous walls, ancient fortifications and crumbling palaces, temples, mosques and tombs.
Tradition makes the original Delhi the political and commercial rival of Babylon, Nineveh, Memphis and Thebes, but the modern town dates from 1638, the commencement of the reign of the famous Mogul Shah Jehan, of whom I have written so much in previous chapters. About eleven miles from the city is a group of splendid ruins, some of the most remarkable in the world, and a celebrated tower known as the Kutab-Minar, one of the most important architectural monuments in India. You reach it by the Great Trunk Road of India, the most notable thoroughfare in the empire, which has been the highway from the mountains and northern provinces to the sacred River Ganges from the beginning of time, and, notwithstanding the construction of railroads, is to-day the great thoroughfare of Asia. If followed it will lead you through Turkestan and Persia to Constantinople and Moscow. Over this road came Tamerlane, the Tartar Napoleon, with his victorious army, and Alexander the Great, and it has been trodden by the feet of successive invaders for twenty or thirty centuries. To-day it leads to the Khyber Pa.s.s, the only gateway between India and Afghanistan, where the frontier is guarded by a tremendous force, and no human being is allowed to go either way without permits from the authorities of both governments. Long caravans still cross the desert of middle Asia, enter and leave India through this pa.s.s and follow the Grand Trunk Road to the cities of the Ganges. It is always thronged with pilgrims and commerce; with trains of bullock carts, caravans of camels and elephants, and thousands of pedestrians pa.s.s every milestone daily. Kipling describes them and the road in "Kim" in more graphic language than flows through my typewriter. In the neighborhood of Delhi the Grand Trunk Road is like the Appian Way of Rome, both sides being lined with the mausoleums of kings, warriors and saints in various stages of decay and dilapidation. And scattered among them are the ruins of the palaces of supplanted dynasties which appeared and vanished, arose and fell, one after another, in smoke and blood; with the clash of steel, the cries of victory and shrieks of despair.
In the center of the court of the ancient mosque of Kutbul Islam, which was originally built for a Hindu temple in the tenth century, stands a wrought-iron column, one of the most curious things in India. It rises 23 feet 8 inches above the ground, and its base, which is bulbous, is riveted to two stone slabs two feet below the surface. Its diameter at the base is 16 feet 4 inches and at the capital is 12 inches. It is a malleable forging of pure iron, without alloy, and 7.66 specific gravity. According to the estimates of engineers, it weighs about six tons, and it is remarkable that the Hindus at that age could forge a bar of iron larger and heavier than was ever forged in Europe until a very recent date. Its history is deeply cut upon its surface in Sanskrit letters. The inscription tells us that it is "The Arm of Fame of Raja Dhava," who subdued a nation named the Vahlikas, "and obtained, with his own arm, undivided sovereignty upon the earth for a long period." No date is given, but the historians fix its erection about the year 319 or 320 A. D. This is the oldest and the most unique of all the many memorials in India, and has been allowed to stand about 1,700 years undisturbed.
An old prophecy declared that Hindu sovereigns would rule as long as the column stood, and when the empire was invaded in 1200 and Delhi became the capital of a Mohammedan empire, its conqueror, Kutb-ud-Din (the Pole Star of the Faith), originally a Turkish slave, defied it by allowing the pillar to remain, but he converted the beautiful Hindu temple which surrounded it into a Moslem mosque and ordered his muezzins to proclaim the name of G.o.d and His prophet from its roof, and to call the faithful to pray within its walls.
This Hindu temple, which was converted into a mosque, is still unrivaled for its gigantic arches and for the graceful beauty of the tracery which decorated its walls. Even in ruins it is a magnificent structure, and Lord Curzon is to be thanked for directing its partial restoration at government expense. The architectural treasures of India are many, but there are none to spare, and it is gratifying to find officials in authority who appreciate the value of preserving those that remain for the benefit of architectural and historical students. It it a pity that the original Hindu carvings upon the columns cannot be restored. There were originally not less than 1,200 columns, and each was richly ornamented with peculiar Hindu decorative designs.
Some of them, in shadowy corners, are still almost perfect, but unfortunately those which are most conspicuous were shamefully defaced by the Mohammedan conquerors, and we must rely upon our imaginations to picture them as they were in their original beauty.
The walls of the building are of purplish red standstone, of very fine grain, almost as fine as marble, and age and exposure seem to have hardened it.
In one corner of the court of this great mosque rises the Kutab Minar, a monument and tower of victory. It is supposed to have been originally started by the Hindus and completed by their Mohammedan conquerors. Another tower, called the Alai-Minar, about 500 feet distant, remains unfinished, and rises only eighty-seven feet from the ground. Had it been finished as intended, it would have been 500 feet high, or nearly as lofty as the Washington monument. According to the inscription, it was erected by Ala-din Khiji, who reigned from 1296 to 1316, and remains as it stood at his death. For some reason his successor never tried to complete it.
The Kutab Minar, the completed tower, is not only a notable structure and one of the most perfect in the world, second only in height to the Washington monument, but it is particularly notable for its geometrical proportions. Its height, 238 feet, is exactly five times the diameter of its base. It is divided into five stories each tapering in perfect proportions and being divided by projecting balconies or galleries. The first story, 95 feet in height, consists of twenty-four faces in the form of convex flutings, alternately semicircular and rectangular, built of alternate courses of marble and red sandstone. The second story is 51 feet high and the projections are all semicircular; the third story is 41 feet and the projections are all rectangular; the fourth, 26 feet high, is a plain cylinder, and the fifth or top story, 25 feet high, is partly fluted and partly plain. The mean diameter of each story is exactly one-fifth of its height, and the material is alternate courses of marble and red sandstone, the entire exterior surface being incrusted with inscriptions from the Koran, sculptured in sharp relief. It has been compared for beauty of design and perfection of proportions to the Campanile at Florence, but that is conventional in every respect, while the Kutab Minar is unique. The sculptures that cover its surface have been compared to those upon the column of Trajan in Rome and the Column Vendome in Paris, but they are intended to relate the military triumphs of the men in whose honor they were erected, while the inscription upon the Kutab Minar is a continuous recognition of the power and glory of G.o.d and the virtues of Mahomet, His prophet.
Whichever way you look, whichever way you drive, in that extraordinary place, you find artistic taste, the religious devotion, the love of conquest and the military genius of the Mohammedans combined and perpetuated in n.o.ble forms. The camel driver of Mecca, like the founder of Christianity, was a teacher of peace and an example of humility, but his followers have been famous for their pride, their brilliant achievements, their audacity and their martial violence and success. The fortresses scattered over the plain bear testimony to their fighting qualities, and are an expression of their authority and power; their gilded palaces and jeweled thrones testify to their luxurious taste and artistic sentiment, while the ma.s.sive mausoleums which arise in every direction testify to their pride and their determination that posterity shall not forget their names. I have told you in a previous chapter about the tomb of Humayun, the son of Baber (the Lion of the Faith), who transmitted to a long line of Moguls the blood of conquerors. But it is only one of several n.o.ble examples of architecture and pretensions, and as evidence of the human sympathies of the man who built it, the tomb of his barber is near by.
About a mile across the plain is another group of still more remarkable sepulchers, about seven or eight miles from Delhi.
They are surrounded by a grove of mighty trees, whose boughs overhang a crumbling wall intended to protect them. As we pa.s.sed the portal we found ourselves looking upon a large reservoir, or tank, as they call them here, which long ago was blessed by Nizamu-Din, one of the holiest and most renowned of the Brahmin saints, so that none who swims in it is ever drowned. A group of wan and hungry-looking priests were standing there to receive us; they live on backsheesh and sleep on the cold marble floors of the tombs. No dinner bell ever rings for them. They depend entirely upon charity, and send out their chelas, or disciples, every morning to skirmish for food among the market men and people in the neighborhood. While we stood talking to them a group of six naked young men standing upon the cornice of a temple attracted our attention by their violent gesticulations, and then, one after another, plunged headlong, fifty or sixty feet, into the waters of the pool. As they reappeared upon the surface they swam to the marble steps of the pavilion, shook themselves dry like dogs and extended their hands for backsheesh. It was an entirely new and rather startling form of entertainment, but we learned that it was their way of making a living, and that they are the descendants of the famous men and women who occupy the wonderful tombs, and are permitted to live among them and collect backsheesh from visitors as they did from us. Several women were hanging around, and half a dozen fierce-looking mullahs, or Mohammedan priests, with their beards dyed a deep scarlet because the prophet had red hair.
The most notable of the tombs, the "Hall of Sixty-four Pillars,"
is an exquisite structure of white marble, where rests Azizah Kokal Tash, foster brother of the great Mogul Akbar. He was buried here in 1623, and around him are the graves of his mother and eight of his brothers and sisters. Another tomb of singular purity and beauty is that of Muhammud Shah, who was Mogul from 1719 to 1748--the man whom Nadir Shah, the Persian, conquered and despoiled. By his side lie two of his wives and several of his children.
The tomb of Jehanara, daughter of the great Emperor Shah Jehan, is a gem of architecture, a dainty bungalow of pure white marble.
The roof is a low dome with broad eaves, and the walls are slabs of thin marble perforated in geometric designs like the finest lace. The inscription calls her "Heavenly Minded," and reminds us that "G.o.d is the Resurrection and the Life;" that it was her wish that nothing but gra.s.s might cover her dust, because "Such a pall alone was fit for the lowly dead," and closes with a prayer for the soul of her father. Notwithstanding her wishes, so expressed, the tomb cost $300,000, but such sentiments, which appear upon nearly all of the Mogul tombs, are not to be taken literally. The inscription over the entrance to one of the grandest in India, where lies "The Piercer of Battle Ranks," admits that "However great and powerful man may be in the presence of his fellow creatures; however wide his power and influence, and however large his wealth, he is as humble and as worthless as the smallest insect in the sight of G.o.d." Human nature was the same among the Moguls as it is to-day, and the men who were able to spend a million or half a million dollars upon their sepulchers could afford to throw in a few expressions of humility.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF AMIR KHUSRAN--PERSIAN POET--DELHI. _With panels of perforated marble_]
The most beautiful of the tombs is that of Amir Khusrau, a poet who died at Delhi in 1315, the author of ninety-eight poems, many of which are still in popular use. He was known as "the Parrot of Hindustan," and enjoyed the confidence and patronage of seven successive Moguls. His fame is immortal. Lines he wrote are still recited nightly in the coffee-houses and sung in the harems of India, and women and girls and sentimental young men come daily to lay fresh flowers upon his tomb.
In the center of Delhi and on the highest eminence of the city stands the Jumma Musjid, almost unrivaled among mosques. There is nothing elsewhere outside of Constantinople that can compare with it, either in size or splendor, and we are told that 10,000 workmen were employed upon it daily for six years. It was built by Shah Jehan of red sandstone inlaid with white marble; is crowned with three splendid domes of white marble striped with black, and at each angle of the courtyard stands a gigantic minaret composed of alternate stripes of marble and red sandstone. There are three stately portals approached by flights of forty steps, the lowest of which is 140 feet long. Through stately arches you are led into a courtyard 450 feet square, inclosed by splendid arcaded cloisters. In the center of the court is the usual fountain basin, at which the worshipers perform their ablutions, and at the eastern side, facing toward Mecca, at the summit of a flight of marble steps, is the mosque, 260 feet long and 120 feet wide.
The central archway is eighty feet high.
Over in one corner of the cloisters is a reliquary guarded by a squad of fierce-looking priests, which contains some of the most precious relics of the prophet in existence. They have a hair from his mustache, which is red; one of his slippers, the print of his foot in a stone, two copies of portions of the Koran--one of them written by his son-in-law, Imam Husain, very clear and well preserved, and the other by his grandson, Imam Hasan. Both are very beautiful specimens of chirography, and would have a high value for that reason alone, but obtained especial sanct.i.ty because of the tradition that both were written at the dictation of the Prophet himself, and are among the oldest copies of the Koran in existence.
XVIII
THUGS, FAKIRS, AND NAUTCH DANCERS
The most interesting cla.s.ses among the many kinds of priests, monks and other people, who make religion a profession in India, are the thugs, fakirs and nautch girls, who are supposed to devote their lives and talents to the service of the G.o.ds. There are several kinds of fakirs and other religious mendicants in India, about five thousand in number, most of them being nomads, wandering from city to city and temple to temple, dependent entirely upon the charity of the faithful. They reward those who serve them with various forms of blessings; give them advice concerning all the affairs of life from the planting of their crops to the training of their children. They claim supernatural powers to confer good and invoke evil, and the curse of a fakir is the last misfortune that an honest Hindu cares to bring upon himself, for it means a failure of his harvests, the death of his cattle by disease, sickness in his family and bad luck in everything that he undertakes. Hence these holy men, who are familiars of the G.o.ds, and are believed to spend most of their time communicating with them in some mysterious way about the affairs of the world, are able to command anything the people have to give, and n.o.body would willingly cross their shadows or incur their displeasure.
The name is p.r.o.nounced as if it were spelled "fah-keer."
These religious mendicants go almost naked, usually with nothing but the smallest possible breech clout around their loins, which the police require them to wear; they plaster their bodies with mud, ashes and filth; they rub clay, gum and other substances into their hair to give it an uncouth appearance. Sometimes they wear their hair in long braids hanging down their backs like the queue of a Chinaman; sometimes in short braids sticking out in every direction like the wool of the pickaninnies down South.
Some of them have strings of beads around their necks, others coils of rope round them. They never wear hats and usually carry nothing but a small bra.s.s bowl, in imitation of Buddha, which is the only property they possess on earth. They are usually accompanied by a youthful disciple, called a "chela," a boy of from 10 to 15 years of age, who will become a fakir himself unless something occurs to change his career.
Many of the fakirs endeavor to make themselves look as hideous as possible. They sometimes whitewash their faces like clowns in circuses; paint lines upon their cheeks and draw marks under their eyes to give them an inhuman appearance. At certain seasons of the year they may clothe themselves in filthy rags for the time being as an evidence of humility. Most of them are very thin and spare of flesh, which is due to their long pilgrimages and insufficient nourishment. They sleep wherever they happen to be. They lie down on the roadside or beneath a column of a temple, or under a cart, or in a stable. Sometimes kindly disposed people give them beds, but they have no regular habits; they sleep when they are sleepy, rest when they are tired and continue their wanderings when they are refreshed.
About the time the people of the country are breakfasting in the morning the chela starts out with the bra.s.s bowl and begs from house to house until the bowl is filled with food, when he returns to wherever his master is waiting for him and they share its contents between them. Again at noon and again at night the chela goes out on similar foraging expeditions and conducts the commissary department in that way. The fakir himself is supposed never to beg; the G.o.ds he worships are expected to take care of him, and if they do not send him food he goes without it. It is a popular delusion that fakirs will not accept alms from anyone for any purpose, for I have considerable personal experience to the contrary. I have offered money to hundreds of them and have never yet had it refused. A fakir will s.n.a.t.c.h a penny as eagerly as any beggar you ever saw, and if the coin you offer is smaller than he expects or desires he will show his disapproval in an unmistakable manner.
The larger number of fakirs are merely religious tramps, worthless, useless impostors, living upon the fears and superst.i.tions of the people and doing more harm than good. Others are without doubt earnest and sincere ascetics, who believe that they are promoting the welfare and happiness of their fellow men by depriving themselves of everything that is necessary to happiness, purifying their souls by privation and hardship and obtaining spiritual inspiration and light by continuous meditation and prayer. Many of these are fanatics, some are epileptics, some are insane. They undergo self-torture of the most horrible kinds and frequently prove their sincerity by causing themselves to be buried alive, by starving to death, or by posing themselves in unnatural att.i.tudes with their faces or their arms raised to heaven until the sinews and muscles are benumbed or paralyzed and they fall unconscious from exhaustion. These are tests of purity and piety. Zealots frequently enter temples and perform such feats for the admiration of pilgrims and by-standers. Many are clairvoyants and have the power of second sight. They hypnotize subjects and go into trances themselves, in which condition the soul is supposed to leave the body and visit the G.o.ds. Some of the metaphysical phenomena are remarkable and even startling. They cannot be explained.
You have doubtless read of the wonderful fakir, Ram Lal, who appears in F. Marion Crawford"s story of "Mr. Isaacs," and there is a good deal concerning this cla.s.s of people in Rudyard Kipling"s "Kim." Those two, by the way, are universally considered the best stories of Indian life ever written. You will perhaps remember also reading of the astonishing performances of Mme. Blavatsky, who visited the United States some years ago as the high priestess of Theosophy. Her supernatural manifestations attracted a great deal of attention at one time, but she was finally exposed and denounced as a charlatan.
Among the higher cla.s.s of fakirs are many extraordinary men, profound scholars, accomplished linguists and others whose knowledge of both the natural and the occult sciences is amazing. I was told by one of the highest officials of the Indian Empire of an extraordinary feat performed for his benefit by one of these fakirs, who in some mysterious way transferred himself several hundred miles in a single night over a country where there were no railroads, and never took the trouble to explain how his journey was accomplished.
The best conjurers, magicians and palmists in India are fakirs.
Many of them tell fortunes from the lines of the hand and from other signs with extraordinary accuracy. Old residents who have come in contact with this cla.s.s relate astounding tales. While at Calcutta a young lady at our hotel was incidentally informed by a fortune-telling fakir she met accidentally in a Brahmin temple that she would soon receive news that would change all her plans and alter the course of her life, and the next morning she received a cablegram from England announcing the death of her father. If you get an old resident started on such stories he will keep telling them all night.
Of course you have read of the incredible and seemingly impossible feats performed by Hindu magicians, of whom the best and most skillful belong to the fakir cla.s.s. I have seen the "box trick,"
or "basket trick," as they call it, in which a young man is tied up in a gunny sack and locked up in a box, then at a signal a few moments after appears smiling at the entrance to your house, but I have never found anyone who could explain how he escaped from his prison. This was performed daily on the Midway Plaisance at the World"s Fair at Chicago and was witnessed by thousands of people. And it is simple compared with some of the doings of these fakirs. They will take a mango, open it before you, remove the seeds, plant them in a tub of earth, and a tree will grow and bear fruit before your eyes within half an hour. Or, what is even more wonderful, they will climb an invisible rope in the open air as high as a house, vanish into s.p.a.ce, and then, a few minutes after, will come smiling around the nearest street corner. Or, if that is not wonderful enough, they will take an ordinary rope, whirl it around their head, toss it into the air, and it will stand upright, as if fastened to some invisible bar, so taut and firm that a heavy man can climb it.
These are a few of the wonderful things fakirs perform about the temples, and n.o.body has ever been able to discover how they do it. People who begin an inquiry usually abandon it and declare that the tricks are not done at all, that the spectators are simply hypnotized and imagine that they have seen what they afterward describe. This explanation is entirely plausible. It is the only safe one that can be given, and it is confirmed by other manifestations of hypnotic power that you would not believe if I should describe them. Fakirs have hypnotized people I know and have made them witness events and spectacles which they afterward learned were transpiring, at the very moment, five and six thousand miles away. For example, a young gentleman, relating his experience, declared that under the power of one of these men he attended his brother"s wedding in a London church and wrote home an account of it that was so accurate in its details that his family were convinced that he had come all the way from India without letting them know and had attended it secretly.
Many of the snake charmers to whom I referred in a previous chapter are fakirs, devoted to G.o.ds whose specialties are snakes, and pious Hindus believe that the deities they worship protect them from the venom of the reptiles. Sometimes you can see one of them at a temple deliberately permit his pets to sting him on the arm, and he will show you the blood flowing. Taking a little black stone from his pocket he will rub it over the wound and then rub it upon the head of the snake. Then he will rub the wound again, and again the head of the snake, all the time muttering prayers, making pa.s.ses with his hands, bowing his body to the ground, and going through other forms of worship, and when he has concluded he will a.s.sure you that the bite of the snake has been made harmless by the incantation.
I have never seen more remarkable contortionists than the fakirs who can be always found about temples in Benares, and frequently elsewhere. They are usually very lean men, almost skeletons. As they wear no clothing, one can count their bones through the skin, but their muscles and sinews are remarkably strong and supple. They twist themselves into the most extraordinary shapes.
No professional contortionist upon the vaudeville stage can compare with these religious mendicants, who give exhibitions in the open air, or in the porticos of the temples in honor of some G.o.d and call it worship. They acquire the faculty of doing their feats by long and tedious training under the instruction of older fakirs, who are equally accomplished, and the performances are actually considered worship, just as much as an organ voluntary, the singing of a hymn, or a display of pulpit eloquence in one of our churches. The more wonderful their feats, the more acceptable to their G.o.ds, and they go from city to city through all India, and from temple to temple, twisting their bodies into unnatural shapes and postures under the impression that they will thereby attain a higher degree of holiness and exalt themselves in the favor of heaven. They do not give exhibitions for money. They cannot be hired for any price to appear upon a public stage.
Theatrical agents in London and elsewhere have frequently tempted them with fortunes, but they cannot be persuaded to display their gifts for gain, or violate their caste and the traditions of their profession.
There is a fearful sect of fakirs devoted to Siva and to Bhairava, the G.o.d of lunacy, who a.s.sociate with evil spirits, ghouls and vampires, and practice hideous rites of blood, l.u.s.t and gluttony.
They tear their flesh with their finger-nails, slash themselves with knives, and occasionally engage in a frantic dance from which they die of exhaustion.
The nautches of India have received considerable attention from many sources. They are the object of the most earnest admonitions from missionaries and moralists, and no doubt are a very bad lot, although they do not look it, and are a recognized and respected profession among the Hindus. They are consecrated to certain G.o.ds soon after their birth; they are the brides of the impure and obscene deities of the Hindu pantheon, and are attached to their temples, receiving their support from the collections of the priests or the permanent endowments, often living under the temple roof and almost always within the sacred premises. The amount of their incomes varies according to the wealth and the revenues of the idol to which they were attached. They dance before him daily and sing hymns in his honor. The ranks of the nautch girls are sometimes recruited by the purchase of children from poor parents, and by the dedication of the daughters of pious Hindu families to that vocation, just as in Christian countries daughters are consecrated to the vocation of religion from the cradle and sons are dedicated to the priesthood and ministry.
Indeed it is considered a high honor for the daughter of a Hindu family to be received into a temple as a nautch.
They never marry and never retire. When they become too old to dance they devote themselves to the training of their successors.
They are taught to read and write, to sing and dance, to embroider and play upon various musical instruments. They are better educated than any other cla.s.s of Hindu women, and that largely accounts for their attractions and their influence over men. They have their own peculiar customs and rules, similar to those of the geishas of j.a.pan, and if a nautch is so fortunate as to inherit property it goes to the temple to which she belongs. This custom has become law by the confirmation of the courts. No nautch can retain any article of value without the consent of the priest in charge of the temple to which she is attached, and those who have received valuable gifts of jewels from their admirers and lovers are often compelled to surrender them. On the other hand, they are furnished comfortable homes, clothing and food, and are taken care of all of their lives, just the same as religious devotees belonging to any other sect. Notwithstanding their notorious unchast.i.ty and immorality, no discredit attaches to the profession, and the very vices for which they are condemned are considered acts of duty, faith and worship, although it seems almost incredible that a religious sect will encourage gross immorality in its own temples. Yet Hinduism has done worse things than that, and other of its practices are even more censurable.
Bands of nautches are considered necessary appurtenances of the courts of native Hindu princes, although they are never found in the palaces of Mohammedans. They are brought forward upon all occasions of ceremony, religious, official and convivial.
If the viceroy visits the capital of one of the native states he is entertained by their best performances. They have a place on the programme at all celebrations of feast days; they appear at weddings and birthday anniversaries, and are quite as important as an orchestra at one of our social occasions at home. They are invited to the homes of native gentlemen on all great occasions and are treated with the utmost deference and generosity. They are permitted liberties and are accorded honors that would not be granted to the wives and daughters of those who entertain them, and stand on the same level as the Brahmin priests, yet they are what we would call women of the town, and receive visitors indiscriminately in the temples and other sacred places, according to their pleasure and whims.
A stranger in India finds it difficult to reconcile these facts, but any resident will a.s.sure you of the truth. The priests are said to encourage the attentions of rich young Hindus because of the gifts of money and jewels they are in the habit of showering upon nautches they admire, but each girl is supposed to have a "steady" lover, upon whom she bestows her affections for the time being. He may be old or young, married or unmarried, rich or poor, for as a rule it is to these women that a Hindu gentleman turns for the companionship which his own home does not supply.