HPB-Caves-10: Difference between revisions

Benares<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi Varanasi] (Uttar Pradesh state) since 1947. It is a central place in pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world – Ed.</ref>, Prayaga (now Allahabad<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allahabad Prayagraj] since October 2018. – Ed.</ref>), Nashik, Haridwar, Badrinath<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badrinath Badrinath] (Chamoli district, Uttarakhand state) is a Hindu holy town. It is one of the four sites in India's Char Dham pilgrimage, other three are: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarka Dwarka], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rameswaram Rameswaram], and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puri Puri]. – Ed.</ref>, Matura<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathura Mathura] (Mathura district, Uttar Pradesh state) is a birthplace of Krishna and is one of the Sapta Puri ("seven cities"), which are the seven holy pilgrimage centres in India, which bless the pilgrims with ''moksha'' (liberation from the cycle of birth and death). – Ed.</ref> – these were the sacred places of prehistoric India which we were to visit one after the other; but to visit them, not after the usual manner of tourists, ''a vol d'oiseau<ref>Bird's eye view (Fr.). – Ed.</ref>'', with a cheap ''guide-book'' in our hands and a cicerone to weary our brains, and wear out our legs. We were well aware that all these ancient places are thronged with traditions and overgrown with the weeds of popular fancy, like ruins of ancient castles covered with ivy; that the original shape of the building is destroyed by the cold embrace of these parasitic plants, and that it is as difficult for the archaeologist to form an idea of the architecture of the once perfect edifice, judging only by the heaps of disfigured rubbish that cover the country, as for us to select from out the thick mass of legends good wheat from weeds. No guides and no cicerone could be of any use whatever to us. The only thing they could do would be to point out to us places where once there stood a fortress, a castle, a temple, a sacred grove, or a celebrated town, and then to repeat legends which came into existence only lately, under the Mussulman rule. As to the undisguised truth, the original history of every interesting spot, we should have had to search for these by ourselves, assisted only by our own conjectures.

The history of India has long since faded from the memories of her sons, and is an absolute mystery to her conquerors, but doubtless it still exists, though, perchance, only partly, in manuscripts that are jealously concealed from every European eye. This has been shown by some pregnant words, spoken by Brahmins on their rare occasions of friendly expansiveness. Thus, Colonel Tod, whom I have already quoted several times, is said to have been told by a ''mahant'' (abbot) of an ancient pagoda-monastery: “Sahib, you lose your time in vain researches. India of ''bellati'' (foreigners) is before you, but you will never see the ''gupta'' (i.&nbsp;e. secret) India (secret). We are the guardians of her mysteries, and would rather cut out each other's tongues than speak.”

Yet, nevertheless, Tod succeeded in learning a good deal. It must be borne in mind that no Englishman has ever been loved so well by the natives as this old and courageous friend of the Maharana of Udaipur, who, in his turn, was so friendly towards the natives that the humblest of them never saw a trace of contempt in his demeanour. He wrote before ethnology had reached its present stage of development, but his book is still an authority on everything concerning Rajasthan. Though the author's opinion of his work was not very high, though he stated that “it is nothing but a conscientious collection of materials for a future historian,” but in this book there is, in addition, a lot of things that no one of British officials could reach, and will ever reach.

Therefore, when describing the caves and other monuments of the archaic era, I restrict myself to a simple indication of the most common ideas and generally accepted opinions with archaeologists regarding these places. In any case, I demand privileges to point out the discord between the venerable scholars, their contradictory testimonies and theories, proving certain as two and two make four how little rights they still have, in spite of all their authority, to demand some super attention to their above said theories. I hope to prove with incontrovertible facts how little Mrs archaeologists have come to any plausible conclusion regarding at least the cave temples of Nashik.

Having our heads fulfilled of such thoughts, we, that is to say, one American, three Europeans, and three natives, occupied a whole carriage of the ''Great Indian Peninsular Railroad'' on our way to Nashik, one of the oldest towns in India, as I have already mentioned, and the most sacred of all in the eyes of the inhabitants of the Western Presidency. Nashik borrowed its name from the Sanskrit word ''nasika'', which means ''nose''. An epic legend assures us that on this very spot Lakshman, the eldest brother of the deified King Rama, cut off the nose of the giantess Sarpnaka, sister of King Ravana, who stole Sita (the “Helen of Troy” of the Hindus).

The railroad train stops six miles [9,66&nbsp;km] from the town and we have arrived at night, so we had to finish our journey in six two-wheeled, gilded chariots, called ''ekka'', and drawn by bullocks. It was one o'clock A.M., but, in spite of the darkness of the hour, the horns of the animals were gilded and adorned with flowers, and brass bangles tinkled on their legs. Our waylay through ravines overgrown with jungle, where, as our drivers hastened to please us, tigers and other four-footed misanthropes of the forest played hide-and-seek. However, we had no opportunity of making the acquaintance of the tigers, but enjoyed instead a concert of a whole community of jackals. They followed us step by step, piercing our ears with shrieks, wild laughter and barking. These animals are annoying, but so cowardly that, though numerous enough to devour, not only all of us, but our gold-horned bullocks too, none of them dared to come nearer than the distance of a few steps. Every time the long whip, our weapon against snakes, alighted on the back of one of them, the whole horde disappeared with unimaginable noise. Nevertheless, the drivers did not dispense with a single one of their superstitious precautions against tigers. They chanted incantation prayers –  “mantrams” in unison, spread betel over the road as a token of their respect to the “Raja” of the forest, and, after every couplet, made the bullocks kneel and bow their heads in honor of the great gods. Needless to say, the ''ekka'', as light as a nutshell, threatened each time to fall with its passenger over the horns of the bullocks. We had to endure this agreeable way of traveling for five hours under a very dark sky. We reached the “Inn of the Pilgrims” in the morning at six o'clock.

The real cause of Nashik's sacredness, as we have learnt, is not the mutilated trunk of the giantess, but the situation of the town on the banks of the Godavari, quite close to the sources of this river which, for some reason or other, are called by the natives ''Ganga'' (Ganges). It is to this magic name, probably, that the town owes its numerous magnificent temples, and the selectness of the Brahmins who inhabit the banks of the river. Twice a year pilgrims flock here to pray, and on these solemn occasions the number of the visitors exceeds that of the inhabitants of Nashik (35,000). Very picturesque, but equally dirty, are the houses of the rich Brahmins built from the center of the town to the Godavari banks. A whole forest of narrow pyramidal temples spreads on both sides of the river. All these new pagodas are built on the ruins of those destroyed by the fanaticism of the Mussulmans. A legend informs us that most of them rose from atoms of the ashes of the tail of the monkey god Hanuman. Retreating from Lanka, where the wicked Ravana, having anointed the brave hero's tail with some combustible stuff set it on fire, Hanuman, with a single leap through the air, reached Nashik, his matherland. And here the noble adornment of the monkey's back, burned almost entirely during the voyage, crumbled into ashes, and from every sacred atom of these ashes, fallen to the ground, there rose a temple... And, indeed, when seen from the mountain, these numberless pagodas, scattered in a most curious anti-architectural disorderly way, look as if they had really been thrown down by handfuls from the sky. Not only the river banks and the surrounding country, but every little island, every rock peeping from the water is covered with temples... And every temple has a legend that every Brahmin from the mass of these hereditary cheats tells in his own way, hoping, of course, for a proper reward.

Rama's bathing place is shown in Nashik. The ashes of pious Hindus are brought hither from distant parts to be thrown into the sacred waters of Godavari, and so to mingle forever with Ganges. In an ancient MS. there is a statement of one of Rama's generals, who, somehow or other, is not mentioned in the ''Ramayana''. This statement points to the river Godavari as the frontier between the kingdoms of Rama, King of Ayodya (Oudh)<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awadh Awadh], also known as Avadh or Oudh, is a region in north India in the modern state of Uttar Pradesh. – Ed.</ref>, and of Ravana, King of Lanka [Ceylon]. Legends and the poem of ''Ramayana'' state that this was the spot where Rama, while hunting, saw a beautiful antelope, and, intending to make a present to his beloved Sita of its skin, entered the regions of his unknown neighbor. No doubt Rama, Ravana, and even Hanuman, promoted, for some reason, to the rank of a monkey, are historical personages who once had a real existence. About 50 years ago it was vaguely suspected that the Brahmins possessed many extremely valuable manuscripts. It was reported that one of them treats of the prehistoric epoch when the Aryans first invaded the country, and began an endless war with the dark aborigines of southern India. These rumours forced one of the "collectors", a sort of county chiefs (as far as I understand), to advise the government "to force Brahmins to issue all such manuscripts; search thoroughly every corner of the pagodas, break into their hiding places and, despite the protests of superstitious fanatics, to prove to them that the British are masters, and they are ''slaves''. Fortunately to ''rulers'' and, perhaps, unfortunately, to ''slaves'', they did not do such a folly. Fanaticism in the matter of religion is the only strong link connecting all these warring sects and castes. The British are well aware of this and therefore will never offend their ''slaves'' in matters purely religious. If not the Brahmins themselves, then their temples and altars are certainly ''inviolable''.

Our native friends, accustomed from infancy to this way of riding, were not long in getting on the back of their elephant. They covered him like flies, with no predilection for this or that spot of his vast back. They held on by all kinds of strings and ropes, more with their toes than their fingers, and, on the whole, presented a picture of contentment and comfort. We Europeans had to use the lady elephant, as being the tamer of the two. On her back there were two little benches with sloping seats on both sides, and not the slightest prop for our backs. We looked incredulously at this “improved” seat, but there was nothing to do. Our driver (the mahut) sat between the ears of a huge animal (about the growth of which the unfortunate elephant-teenagers shown in the traveling circuses of Europe give a very weak idea), and we, with a shameful feeling giving us the creeps, somehow climbed the ladder onto the back of the she-elephant, who got on her knees by the ''mahut’s'' order. She had the poetical name of “Chanchuli Peri” (the “active peri” in translation) and really was the most obedient and the merriest of all the representatives of her tribe that I have ever seen. Clinging to each other we at last gave the signal for departure, and the ''mahout'' goaded the right ear of the animal with an iron rod. First the elephant raised herself on her fore-legs, which movement tilted us all back, then she heavily rose on her hind ones, too, and we rolled forwards, threatening to upset the ''mahout''. But this was not the end of our trial. At the very first steps of Peri we slipped about in all directions, like quivering fragments of blancmange...

The journey came to a sudden pause. We were picked up in a hasty way, replaced on our respective seats, during which proceeding Peri's trunk proved very active, and the journey continued. The very thought of the five miles before us filled us with horror, but we would not give up the excursion, and indignantly refused to be tied to our seats, as was suggested by our companions, who could not suppress their merry laughter... However, I bitterly repented almost this display of vanity. This unusual mode of locomotion was something incredibly fantastical, and, at the same time, ridiculous. A horse carrying our luggage trotted by Peri's side, and looked, from our vast elevation, no bigger than a donkey. Peri's every step made us acrobats, forcing us to do the most unexpected tricks. She steps with her right foot – and we lean forward; with the left – we fall back like a sheaf, and moreover all the time rolling from one side of her to the other. This experience, under the scorching sun, unavoidably induced a state of body and mind something between sea-sickness and a delirious nightmare. As a crown to our pleasures, when we began to ascend a tortuous little path over the stony slope of a deep ravine, our Peri heavily stumbled. This sudden shock caused me to lose my balance altogether. I sat on the hinder part of the elephant's back, in the place of ''honor'', as it is esteemed, and, once thoroughly shaken, rolled down like a log. No doubt, next moment I should have found myself at the bottom of the ravine, with some more or less sad loss to my bodily constitution, if it had not been for the wonderful dexterity and instinct of the clever animal. Having felt that something was wrong she twisted her ''tail'' round me, stopped instantaneously and began to kneel down carefully. But my natural weight was too much for the thin tail of this kind animal. Peri did not lose hold of me, but, having at last knelt down, she moaned plaintively, though discreetly, thinking probably that she had nearly lost her tail through being so generous. So at least said the mahut that jumped off her head in an instant, rushed to help me and began to inspect the supposedly "damaged" elephant tail. We now witnessed a scene that clearly showed us the coarse cunning, greediness and cowardice of a low-class Hindu, of an ''outcast'', as they are denominated here.

Yells and bitter tears were his only answer to all remonstrances of our companions. In vain we tried to persuade him that the “proud Airavati” did not show the slightest disposition to be so cruel, in vain we pointed out to him that all this time both elephants stood quietly together, Airavati even at this critical moment rubbing his trunk affectionately against Peri's side, and Peri’s tail was safe and at its place. All this was of no avail! Our friend Narayan lost his patience at last. He was a man of extraordinary muscular strength and took recourse to a last original means. With one hand he threw down a silver rupee, with the other he seized the mahout's ''dhoti<ref>''Dhoti'' is a long piece of cloth that Hindus wrap around their upper part of the legs and lower back. For the common people, this is the only clothing, for except for the same rag on one’s head.</ref>'' and hurled him after the coin. Without giving a thought to his bleeding nose, the mahout jumped at the rupee with the greediness of a wild beast springing upon its prey. He prostrated himself in the dust before us repeatedly, with endless “salaams,” instantly changing his deep sorrow into mad joy. He gave another pull at the unfortunate tail and gladly declared that, thanks to the “prayers of the sahib,” it really was safe; to demonstrate which he hung on to it, till he was torn away and put back on his seat.