The people appeared to improve as we advanced farther into Bundelkhand in appearance, manners, and intelligence. There is a bold bearing about the Bundelas, which at first one is apt to take for rudeness or impudence, but which in time he finds not to be so.
The employes of the Raja were everywhere attentive, frank, and polite; and the peasantry seemed no longer inferior to those of our Sagar and Nerbudda territories. The females of almost all the villages through which we pa.s.sed came out with their _Kalas_ in procession to meet us--one of the most affecting marks of respect from the peasantry for their superiors that I know. One woman carries on her head a bra.s.s jug, brightly polished, full of water; while all the other families of the village crowd around her, and sing in chorus some rural song, that lasts from the time the respected visitor comes in sight till he disappears. He usually puts into the Kalas a rupee to purchase "gur" (coa.r.s.e sugar), of which all the females partake, as a sacred offering to the s.e.x. No member of the other s.e.x presumes to partake of it, and during the chorus all the men stand aloof in respectful silence. This custom prevails all over India, or over all parts of it that I have seen; and yet I have witnessed a Governor-General of India, with all his suite, pa.s.sing by this interesting group, without knowing or asking what it was. I lingered behind, and quietly put my silver into the jug, as if from the Governor-General.[20]
The man who administers the government over these seven villages in all its branches, civil, criminal, and fiscal, receives a salary of only two hundred rupees a year. He collects the revenues on the part of Government; and, with the a.s.sistance of the heads and the elders of the villages, adjusts all petty matters of dispute among the people, both civil and criminal. Disputes of a more serious character are sent to be adjusted at the capital by the Raja and his ministers.
The person who reigns over the seven villages of the lake is about thirty years of age, of the Rajput caste, and, I think, one of the finest young men I have ever seen. His ancestors have served the Orchha State in the same station for seven generations; and he tells me that he hopes his posterity will serve them [_sic_] for as many more, provided they do not forfeit their claims to do so by their infidelity or incapacity. This young man seemed to have the respect and affection of every member of the little communities of the villages through which we pa.s.sed, and it was evident that he deserved their attachment. I have rarely seen any similar signs of attachment to one of our own native officers. This arises chiefly from the circ.u.mstance of their being less frequently placed in authority among those upon whose good feelings and opinions their welfare and comfort, as those of their children, are likely permanently to depend. In India, under native rule, office became hereditary, because officers expended the whole of their incomes in religious ceremonies, or works of ornament and utility, and left their families in hopeless dependence upon the chief in whose service they had laboured all their lives, while they had been educating their sons exclusively with the view of serving that chief in the same capacity that their fathers had served him before them. It is in this case, and this alone, that the law of primogeniture is in force in India.[21] Among Muhammadans, as well as Hindoos, all property, real and personal, is divided equally among the children;[22] but the duties of an office will not admit of the same subdivision; and this, therefore, when hereditary, as it often is, descends to the eldest son with the obligation of providing for the rest of the family. The family consists of all the members who remain united to the parent stock, including the widows and orphans of the sons or brothers who were so up to the time of their death.[23]
The old "chobdar", or silver-stick bearer, who came with us from the Raja, gets fifteen rupees a month, and his ancestors have served the Raja for several generations. The Diwan, who has charge of the treasury, receives only one thousand rupees a year, and the Bakshi, or paymaster of the army, who seems at present to rule the state as the prime favourite, the same. These latter are at present the only two great officers of state; and, though they are, no doubt, realizing handsome incomes by indirect means, they dare not make any display, lest signs of wealth might induce the Raja or his successors to treat them as their predecessors in office were treated for some time past.[24] The Jagirdars, or feudal chiefs, as I have before stated, are almost all of the same family or cla.s.s as the Raja, and they spend all the revenues of their estates in the maintenance of military retainers, upon whose courage and fidelity they can generally rely. These Jagirdars are bound to attend the prince on all great occasions, and at certain intervals; and are made to contribute something to his exchequer in tribute. Almost all live beyond their legitimate means, and make up the deficiency by maintaining upon their estates gangs of thieves, robbers, and murderers, who extend their depredations into the country around, and share the prey with these chiefs, and their officers and under-tenants. They keep them as _poachers_ keep their _dogs_; and the paramount power, whose subjects they plunder, might as well ask them for the best horse in the stable as for the best thief that lives under their protection.[25]
I should mention an incident that occurred during the Raja"s visit to me at Tehri. Lieutenant Thomas was sitting next to the little Sarimant, and during the interview he asked him to allow him to look at his beautiful little gold-hilted sword. The Sarimant held it fast, and told him that he should do himself the honour of waiting upon him in his tent in the course of the day, when he would show him the sword and tell him its history. After the Raja, left me, Thomas mentioned this, and said he felt very much hurt at the incivility of my little friend; but I told him that he was in everything he did and said so perfectly the gentleman, that I felt quite sure he would explain all to his satisfaction when he called upon him. During his visit to Thomas he apologized for not having given over his sword to him, and said, "You European gentlemen have such perfect confidence in each other, that you can, at all times, and in all situations, venture to gratify your curiosity in these matters, and draw your swords in a crowd just as well as when alone; but, had you drawn mine from the scabbard in such a situation, with the tent full of the Raja"s personal attendants, and surrounded by a devoted and not very orderly soldiery, it might have been attended by very serious consequences. Any man outside might have seen the blade gloaming, and, not observing distinctly why it had been drawn, might have suspected treachery, and called out "_To the rescue_", when we should all have been cut down--the lady, child, and all." Thomas was not only satisfied with the Sarimant"s apology, but was so much delighted with him, that he has ever since been longing to get his portrait; for he says it was really his intention to draw the sword had the Sarimant given it to him. As I have said, his face is extremely beautiful, quite a model for a painter or a statuary, and his figure, though small, is handsome. He dresses with great elegance, mostly in azure-coloured satin, surmounted by a rose-coloured turban and a waistband of the same colour. All his motions are graceful, and his manners have an exquisite polish. A greater master of all the _convenances_ I have never seen, though he is of slender capacity, and, as I have said, in stature less than five feet high.
A poor, half-naked man, reduced to beggary by the late famine, ran along by my horse to show me the road, and, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of my attendants, exclaimed that he felt exactly as if he were always falling down a well, meaning as if he were immersed in cold water. He said that the cold season was suited only to gentlemen who could afford to be well clothed; but, to a poor man like himself, and the great ma.s.s of people, in Bundelkhand at least, the hot season was much better. He told me that "the late Raja, though a harsh, was thought to be a just man;[26] and that his good sense, and, above all, his _good fortune_ (ikbal) had preserved the princ.i.p.ality entire; but that G.o.d only, and the forbearance of the Honourable Company, could now serve it under such an imbecile as the present chief". He seemed quite melancholy at the thought of living to see this princ.i.p.ality, the oldest in Bundelkhand, lose its independence.
Even this poor, unclothed, and starving wretch had a feeling of patriotism, a pride of country, though that country had been so wretchedly governed, and was now desolated by a famine.
Just such a feeling had the impressed seamen who fought our battles in the great struggle. No nation has ever had a more disgraceful inst.i.tution than that of the press-gang of England. This inst.i.tution, if so it can be called, must be an eternal stain upon her glory-- posterity will never be able to read the history of her naval victories without a blush--without reproaching her lawgivers who could allow them to be purchased with the blood of such men as those who fought for us the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. "_England expected every man to do his duty_" on that day, but had England done her duty to every man who was on that day to fight for her? Was not every English gentleman of the Lords and Commons a David sending his Uriah to battle?[27]
The intellectual stock which we require in good seamen for our navy, and which is acquired in scenes of peril "upon the high and giddy mast", is as much their property as that which other men acquire in schools and colleges; and we had no more right to seize and employ these seamen in our battles upon the wages of common, uninstructed labour, than we should have had to seize and employ as many clergymen, barristers, and physicians. When I have stood on the quarter-deck of a ship in a storm, and seen the seamen covering the yards in taking in sail, with the thunder rolling, and the lightning flashing fearfully around them--the sea covered with foam, and each succeeding billow, as it rushed by, seeming ready to sweep them all from their frail footing into the fathomless abyss below--I have asked myself, "Are men like these to be seized like common felons, torn from their wives and children as soon as they reach their native land, subject every day to the lash, and put in front of those battles on which the wealth, the honour, and the independence of the nation depend, merely because British legislators know that when there, a regard for their own personal character among their companions in danger will make them fight like Englishmen?"
This feeling of nationality which exists in the little states of Bundelkhand, arises from the circ.u.mstance that the ma.s.s of the landholders are of the same cla.s.s as the chief Bundelas; and that the public establishments of the state are recruited almost exclusively from that ma.s.s. The states of Jhansi[28] and Jalaun[29] are the only exceptions. There the rulers are Brahmans and not Rajputs, and they recruit their public establishments from all cla.s.ses and all countries. The landed aristocracy, however, there, as elsewhere, are Rajputs-either Pawars, Chandels, or Bundelas.
The Rajput landholders of Bundelkhand are linked to the soil in all their grades, from the prince to the peasant, as the Highlanders of Scotland were not long ago; and the holder of a hundred acres is as proud as the holder of a million.[30] He boasts the same descent, and the same exclusive possession of arms and agriculture, to which unhappily the industry of their little territories is almost exclusively confined, for no other branch can grow up among so turbulent a set, whose quarrels with their chiefs, or among each other, are constantly involving them in civil wars, which render life and property exceedingly insecure. Besides, as I have stated, their propensity to keep bands of thieves, robbers, and murderers in their baronial castles, as poachers keep their dogs, has scared away the wealthy and respectable capitalist and peaceful and industrious manufacturer.
All the landholders are uneducated, and unfit to serve in any of our civil establishments, or in those of any very civilized Governments; and they are just as unfitted to serve in our military establishments, where strict discipline is required. The lands they occupy are cultivated because they depend almost entirely upon the rents they get from them for subsistence; and because every petty chief and his family hold their lands rent-free, or at a trifling quit-rent, on the tenure of military service, and their residue forms all the market for land produce which the cultivators require. They dread the transfer of the rule to our Government, because they now form almost exclusively all the establishments of their domestic chief, civil as well as military; and know that, were our rule to be subst.i.tuted, they would be almost entirely excluded from these, at least for a generation or two. In our regiments, horse or foot, there is hardly a man from Bundelkhand, for the reasons above stated; nor are there any in the Gwalior regiments and contingents which are stationed in the neighbourhood; though the land among them is become minutely subdivided, and they are obliged to seek service or starve.
They are all too proud for manual labour, even at the plough. No Bundelkhand Rajput will, I believe, condescend to put his hand to one.
Among the Maratha states, Sikhs, and Muhammadans, there is no bond of union of this kind. The establishments, military as well as civil, are everywhere among them composed for the most part of foreigners; and the landed interests under such Governments would dread nothing from the prospect of a transfer to our rule; on the contrary, they and the ma.s.s of the people would almost everywhere hail it as a blessing.
There are two reasons why we should leave these small native states under their own chiefs, even when the claim to the succession is feeble or defective; first, because it tends to relieve the minds of other native chiefs from the apprehension, already too prevalent among them, that we desire by degrees to absorb them all, because we think our government would do better for the people; and secondly, because, by leaving them as a contrast, we afford to the people of India the opportunity of observing the superior advantages of our rule.
"Tis distance lends enchantment to the view," in governments as well as in landscapes; and if the people of India, instead of the living proofs of what perilous things native governments, whether Hindoo or Muhammadan, are in reality, were acquainted with nothing but such pictures of them as are to be found in their histories and in the imaginations of their priests and learned men (who lose much of their influence and importance under our rule), they would certainly, with p.r.o.neness like theirs to delight in the marvellous, be far from satisfied, as they now are, that they never had a government so good as ours, and that they never could hope for another so good, were ours removed.[31]
For the advantages which we derive from leaving them independent, we are, no doubt, obliged to pay a heavy penalty in the plunder of our wealthy native subjects by the gangs of robbers of all descriptions whom they foster; but this evil may be greatly diminished by a judicious interposition of our authority to put down such bands.[32]
In Bundelkhand, at present, the government and the lands of the native chiefs are in the hands of three of the Hindoo military cla.s.ses, Bundelas, Dhandelas, and Pawars. The princ.i.p.al chiefs are of the first, and their feudatories are chiefly of the other two. A Bundela cannot marry the daughter of a Bundela; he must take his wife from one or other of the other two tribes; nor can a member of either of the other two take his wife from his own tribe; he must take her from the Bundelas, or the other tribe. The wives of the greatest chiefs are commonly from the poorest families of their va.s.sals; nor does the proud family from which she has been taken feel itself exalted by the alliance; neither does the poorest va.s.sal among the Pawars and Dhandels feel that the daughter of his prince has condescended in becoming his wife. All they expect is a service for a few more yeomen of the family among the retainers of the sovereign.
The people are in this manner, from the prince to the peasant, indissolubly linked to each other, and to the soil they occupy; for, where industry is confined almost exclusively to agriculture, the proprietors of the soil and the officers of Government, who are maintained out of its rents, const.i.tute nearly the whole of the middle and higher cla.s.ses. About one-half of the lands of every state are held on service tenure by va.s.sals of the same family or clan as the chief; and there is hardly one of them who is not connected with that chief by marriage. The revenue derived from the other half is spent in the maintenance of establishments formed almost exclusively of the members of these families.
They are none of them educated for civil offices under any other rule, nor could they, for a generation or two, be induced to submit to wear military uniform, or learn the drill of regular soldiers.
They are mere militia, brave as men can be, but unsusceptible of discipline. They have, therefore, a natural horror at the thought of their states coming under any other than a domestic rule, for they could have no chance of employment in the civil or military establishments of a foreign power; and their lands would, they fear, be resumed, since the service for which they had been given would be no longer available to the rulers. It is said that, in the long interval from the commencement of the reign of Alexander the third to the end of that of David the second,[33] not a single baron could be found in Scotland able to sign his own name. The Bundelkhand barons have never, I believe, been quite so bad as this, though they have never yet learned enough to fit them for civil offices under us. Many of them can write and read their own language, which is that common to the other countries around them.[34]
Bundelkhand was formerly possessed by another tribe of Rajputs, the proud Chandels, who have now disappeared altogether from this province. If one of that tribe can still be found, it is in the humblest rank of the peasant or the soldier; but its former strength is indicated by the magnificent artificial lakes and ruined castles which are traced to them; and by the reverence which is still felt by the present dominant cla.s.ses of [_sic_] their old capital of Mahoba.
Within a certain distance around that ruined city no one now dares to beat the "nakkara", or great drum used in festivals or processions, lest the spirits of the old Chandel chiefs who there repose should be roused to vengeance;[35] and a kingdom could not tempt one of the Bundelas, Pawars, or Chandels to accept the government of the parish ["mauza"] in which it is situated. They will take subordinate offices there under others with fear and trembling, but nothing could induce one of them to meet the governor. When the deadly struggle between these two tribes took place cannot now be discovered.[36]
In the time of Akbar, the Chandels were powerful in Mahoba, as the celebrated Durgavati, the queen of Garha Mandla, whose reign extended over the Sagar and Nerbudda territories and the greater part of Berar, was a daughter of the reigning Chandel prince of Mahoba. He condescended to give his daughter only on condition that the Gond prince who demanded her should, to save his character, come with an army of fifty thousand men to take her. He did so, and "nothing loth", Durgavati departed to reign over a country where her name is now more revered than that of any other sovereign it has ever had.
She was killed above two hundred and fifty years ago, about twelve miles from Jubbulpore, while gallantly leading on her troops in their third and last attempt to stem the torrent of Muhammadan invasion.
Her tomb is still to be seen where she fell, in a narrow defile between two hills; and a pair of large rounded stones which stand near are, according to popular belief, her royal drums turned into stone, which, in the dead of night, are still heard resounding through the woods, and calling the spirits of her warriors from their thousand graves around her. The travellers who pa.s.s this solitary spot respectfully place upon the tomb the prettiest specimen they can find of the crystals which abound in the neighbourhood; and, with so much of kindly feeling had the history of Durgavati inspired me, that I could not resist the temptation of adding one to the number when I visited her tomb some sixteen years ago.[37]
I should mention that the Raja of Samthar in Bundelkhand.[38] is by caste a Gujar;[39] and he has not yet any landed aristocracy like that of the Bundelas about him. One of his ancestors, not long ago, seized upon a fine open plain, and built a fort upon it, and the family has ever since, by means of this fort, kept possession of the country around, and drawn part of their revenues from depredations upon their neighbours and travellers. The Jhansi and Jalaun chiefs are Brahmans of the same family as the Peshwa.
In the states governed by chiefs of the military cla.s.ses, nearly the whole produce of the land goes to maintain soldiers, or military retainers, who are always ready to fight or rob for their chief. In those governed by the Brahmanical cla.s.s, nearly the whole produce goes to maintain priests; and the other chiefs would soon devour them, as the black ants devour the white, were not the paramount power to interpose and save them. While the Peshwa lived, he interposed; but all his dominions were _running into priesthood_, like those in Sagar and Bundelkhand, and must soon have been swallowed up by the military chiefs around him, had we not taken his place. Jalaun and Jhansi are preserved only by us, for, with all their religious, it is impossible for them to maintain efficient military establishments; and the Bundela chiefs have always a strong desire to eat them up, since these states were all sliced out of their princ.i.p.alities when the Peshwa was all-powerful in Hindustan.
The Chhatarpur Raja is a Pawar. His father had been in the service of the Bundela Raja; but, when we entered upon our duties as the paramount power in Bundelkhand, the son had succeeded to the little princ.i.p.ality seized upon by his father; and, on the principle of respecting actual possession, he was recognized by us as the sovereign.[40] The Bundela Rajas, east of the Dasan river, are descended from Raja Chhatarsal, and are looked down upon by the Bundela Rajas of Orchha, Chanderi, and Datiya, west of the Dasan, as Chhatarsal was in the service of one of their ancestors, from whom he wrested the estates which his descendants now enjoy. Chhatarsal, in his will, gave one-third of the dominion he had thus acquired to the strongest power then in India, the Peshwa, in order to secure the other two-thirds to his two sons Hardi Sa and Jagatraj, in the same manner as princes of the Roman empire used to bequeath a portion of theirs to the emperor.[41] Of the Peshwa"s share we have now got all, except Jalaun. Jhansi was subsequently acquired by the Peshwa, or rather by his subordinates, with his sanction and a.s.sistance.[42]
Notes:
1. December, 1835.
2. In the Orchha State. This seems to be the same town which the author had already visited on his way to Tehri on the 7th December.
_Ante_, Chapter 19 note [15].
3. _Ante_, Chapter 12 following note [9].
4. Sodora in the author"s text; see _ante_, Chapter 19, note 11.
5. "Bow-sacrifice."
6. The tradition is that a prince of this military cla.s.s was sporting in a river with his thousand wives, when Renuka, the wife of Jamadagni, went to bring water. He offended her, and her husband cursed the prince, but was put to death by him. His son Parasram was no less a person than the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, who had a.s.sumed the human shape merely to destroy these tyrants. He vowed, now that his mother had been insulted, and his father killed, not to leave one on the face of the earth. He destroyed them all twenty-one times, the women with child producing a new race each time. [W. H.
S.] The legend is not narrated quite correctly.
7. Rama Chandra, son of Dasaratha.
8. When Ram set out with his army for Ceylon, he is supposed to have worshipped the little tree called "cheonkul", which stood near his capital of Ajodhya. It is a wretched little thing, between a shrub and a tree; but I have seen a procession of more than seventy thousand persons attend their prince to the worship of it on the festival of the Dasahara, which is held in celebration of this expedition to Ceylon. [W. H. S.] "As Arjuna and his brothers worshipped the shumee-tree, the _Acacia suma_, and hung up their arms upon it, so the Hindus go forth to worship that tree on the festival of the Dasahara. They address the tree under the name of Aparajita, the invincible G.o.ddess, sprinkle it with five ambrosial liquids, the "panchamrit", a mixture of milk, curds, sugar, clarified b.u.t.ter, and honey, wash it with water, and hang garments upon it. They light lamps and burn incense before the symbol of Aparajita, make "chandlos" upon the tree, sprinkle it with rose-coloured water, and set offerings of food before it" (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. "Dasahara"). The "cheonkul" is the _chhonkar_ or _chhaunkar (Prosopis spicigera_, Linn.), described by Growse as follows:--
"Very common throughout the district; occasionally grows to quite a large tree, as in the Dohani Kund at Chaksauli. It is used for religious worship at the festival of the Dasahara, and considered sacred to Siva. The pods (called _sangri_) are much used for fodder.
Probably _chhonkar_ and _sangri_, which latter is in some parts of India the name of the tree as well as of the pod, are both dialectical corruptions of the Sanskrit _sankara_, a name of Siva; for the palatal and sibilant are frequently interchangeable" ("List of Indigenous Trees" in _Mathura, A. District Memoir_, 3rd ed., Allahabad, 1883, p. 422). Sundry leguminous trees are used in Dasahara ceremonies in the different parts of India, under varying local names.
9. _Credo quia impossibile_.
10. This comparison is not a happy one. The elements in some of the Hindoo myths specially repulsive to European taste are their monstrosity, their inartistic and hideous exaggeration, their acc.u.mulation of sanguinary horrors, and their childish triviality.
Few of the cla.s.sical myths exhibit these characteristics. The vanity or policy of Tiberius and Alexander in believing themselves to be, or wishing to be believed, divine, has nothing in common with the grotesque imagination of Puranic Hinduism.
11. The roots of Hinduism are so deeply fixed in a thick soil of custom and inherited sentiment, the growth of thousands of years, that English education has less effect than might be expected in loosening the bonds of beliefs which seem to every one but a Hindoo the merest superst.i.tion. Hindoos who can read English with fluency, and write it with accuracy, are often extremely devout, and Hindoo devoutness must ever appear to an outsider, even to a European as sympathetic as the author, to be no better than superst.i.tion. A Hindoo able to read English with ease has at his command all the rich stores of the knowledge of the West, but very often does not care to taste them. Enmeshed in a web of ritual and belief inseparable from himself, he remains as much as ever a Hindoo, and uses his skill in English merely as an article of professional equipment. "Good works of history and fiction" do not interest him, and he usually fails to digest and a.s.similate the physical or biological science administered to him at school or college. In fact, he does not believe it. The monstrous legends of the Puranas continue to be for his mind the realities; while the truths of science are to him phantoms, shadowy and unsubstantial, the outlandish notions of alien and casteless unbelievers. These observations, of course, are not universally true, and a few Hindoos, growing in number, are able to heartily accept and thoroughly a.s.similate the facts of history and the results of inductive science. But such Hindoos are few, and it may well be doubted if it is possible for a man really to believe the amount of history and science known to an ordinary English schoolboy, and still be a devout Hindoo. The old bottles cannot contain the new wine. The Hindoo scriptures do not treat of history and science in a merely incidental way; they teach, after their fashion, both history and science formally and systematically; grammar, logic, medicine, astronomy, the history of G.o.ds and men, are all taught in books which form part of the sacred canon. Inductive science and matter-of-fact history are absolutely destructive of, and irreconcilable with, veneration for the Hindoo scriptures as authoritative and infallible guides. It is impossible, within the narrow limits of a note, to discuss the problems suggested by the author"s remarks. Enough, perhaps, has been said to show that the many-rooted banyan tree of Hinduism is in little danger of overthrow from the attacks either of history or of science, not to speak of "good works of fiction".
12. A "dug-out" canoe is rather a shaky craft. When two or three are lashed together, and a native cot (_charpai_) is stretched across, the pa.s.senger can make himself very comfortable. The boats are poled by men standing in the stern.
13. _Ante_, Chapter 24, note 1.
14. This prince is not included in the authentic dynastic lists given in the Chandel inscriptions. He was probably a younger son, who never reigned. The princ.i.p.al authorities for the history of the Chandel dynasty are _A.S.R._, vol. ii, pp. 439-51; vol. xxi, pp. 77-90, and V. A. Smith, "Contributions to the History of Bundelkhand", in _J.A.S.B._ vol. 1 (1881), Part I, p. 1; and "The History and Coinage of the Chandel (Chandella) Dynasty" in _Ind. Ant._, 1908, pp. 114-48.
A brief summary will be found in _Early History of India_, 3rd ed.
(1914), pp. 390-4. Most of the great works of the dynasty date from the period A.D. 950-1200.
15. The long ridges of quartz traversing the gneiss are marked features in the scenery of Bundelkhand.
16. The author always uses the phrase Central India as a vague geographical expression. The phrase is now generally used to mean an administrative division, namely, the group of Native States under the Central India Agency at Indore, which deals with about 148 chiefs and rulers of various rank. Central India in this official sense must not be confounded with the Central Provinces, of which the capital is Nagpur.
17. On this lake theory, see _ante_, Chapter 14, note 13.