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Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

W >> William Sleeman >> Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official




On descending into the valley of the Nerbudda over the Vindhya range
of hills from Bhopal, one may see by the side of the road, upon a
spur of the hill, a singular pillar of sandstone rising in two
spires, one turning above and rising over the other, to the height of
from twenty to thirty feet. On a spur of a hill half a mile distant
is another sandstone pillar not quite so high. The tradition is that
the smaller pillar was the affianced bride of the taller one, who was
a youth of a family of great eminence in these parts. Coming with his
uncle to pay his first visit to his bride in the procession they call
the 'barat', he grew more and more impatient as he approached nearer
and nearer, and she shared the feeling. At last, unable to restrain
himself, he jumped upon his uncle's shoulder, and looked with all his
might towards the spot where his bride was said to be seated.
Unhappily she felt no less impatient than he did, and raised 'the
fringed curtains of her eye', as he raised his, [and] they saw each
other at the same moment. In that moment the bride, bridegroom, and
uncle were all converted into stone pillars; and there they stand to
this day a monument, in the estimation of the people, to warn men and
womankind against too strong an inclination to indulge curiosity. It
is a singular fact that in one of the most extensive tribes of the
Gond population of Central India, to which this couple is said to
have belonged, the bride always goes to the bridegroom in the
procession of the 'barat', to prevent a recurrence of this calamity.
It is the bridegroom who goes to the bride among every other class of
the people of India, as well Muhammadans as Hindoos. Whether the
usage grew out of the tradition, or the tradition out of the usage,
is a question that will admit of much being said on both sides. I can
only vouch for the existence of both. I have seen the pillars, heard
the tradition from the people, and ascertained the usage; as in the
case of that of the Sagar lake.

The Mahadeo sandstone hills, which in the Satpura range overlook the
Nerbudda to the south, rise to between four and five thousand feet
above the level of the sea;[4] and in one of the highest parts a fair
was formerly, and is, perhaps, still held[5] for the enjoyment of
those who assemble to witness the self devotion of a few young men,
who offer themselves as a sacrifice to fulfil the vows of their
mothers. When a woman is without children she makes votive offerings
to all the gods, who can, she thinks, assist her, and promises of
still greater in case they should grant what she wants. Smaller
promises being found of no avail, she at last promises her first-
born, if a male, to the god of destruction, Mahadeo. If she gets a
son, she conceals from him her vows till he has attained the age of
puberty; she then communicates it [_sic_] to him, and enjoins him to
fulfil it. He believes it to be his paramount duty to obey his
mother's call; and from that moment he considers himself as devoted
to the god. Without breathing to any living soul a syllable of what
she has told him, he puts on the habit of a pilgrim or religious
mendicant, visits all the celebrated temples dedicated to this god in
different parts of India;[6] and, at the annual fair on the Mahadeo
hills, throws himself from a perpendicular height of four or five
hundred feet, and is dashed to pieces upon the rocks below.[7] If the
youth does not feel himself quite prepared for the sacrifice on the
first visit, he spends another year in pilgrimages, and returns to
fulfil his mother's vow at the next fair. Some have, I believe, been
known to postpone the sacrifice to a third fair; but the interval is
always spent in painful pilgrimages to the celebrated temples of the
god. When Sir R. Jenkins was the Governor-General's representative at
the court of Nagpur,[8] great efforts were made by him and all the
European officers under him to put a stop to these horrors by doing
away with the fair; and their efforts were assisted by the _cholera
morbus_, which broke out among the multitude one season while they
were so employed, and carried off the greater part of them. This
seasonable visitation was, I believe, considered as an intimation on
the part of the god that the people ought to have been more attentive
to the wishes of the white men, for it so happens that Mahadeo is the
only one of the Hindoo gods who is represented with a white face.[9]
He figures among the _dramatis personae_ of the great pantomime of
the Ramlila[10] or fight for the recovery of Sita from the demon king
of Ceylon; and is the only one with a white face. I know not whether
the fair has ever been revived, but [I] think not.

In 1829 the wheat and other spring crops in this and the surrounding
villages were destroyed by a severe hail-storm; in 1830 they were
deficient from the want of seasonable rains; and in 1831 they were
destroyed by blight. During these three years the 'teori', or what in
other parts of India is called 'kesari' (the _Lathyrus sativus_ of
botanists), a kind of wild vetch, which, though not sown itself, is
left carelessly to grow among the wheat and other grain, and given in
the green and dry state to cattle, remained uninjured, and thrived
with great luxuriance.[11] In 1831 they reaped a rich crop of it from
the blighted wheat-fields, and subsisted upon its grain during that
and the following years, giving the stalks and leaves only to their
cattle. In 1833 the sad effects of this food began to manifest
themselves. The younger part of the population of this and the
surrounding villages, from the age of thirty downwards, began to be
deprived of the use of their limbs below the waist by paralytic
strokes, in all cases sudden, but in some cases more severe than in
others. About half the youth of this village of both sexes became
affected during the years 1833 and 1834, and many of them have lost
the use of their lower limbs entirely, and are unable to move. The
youth of the surrounding villages, in which the 'teori' from the same
causes formed the chief article of food during the years 1831 and
1832, have suffered to an equal degree. Since the year 1834 no new
case has occurred; but no person once attacked had been found to
recover the use of the limbs affected; and my tent was surrounded by
great numbers of the youth in different stages of the disease,
imploring my advice and assistance under this dreadful visitation.
Some of them were very fine-looking young men of good caste and
respectable families; and all stated that their pains and infirmities
were confined entirely to the parts below the waist. They described
the attack as coming on suddenly, often while the person was asleep,
and without any warning symptoms whatever; and stated that a greater
portion of the young men were attacked than of the young women. It is
the prevailing opinion of the natives throughout the country that
both horses and bullocks, which have been much fed upon 'teori', are
liable to lose the use of their limbs; but, if the poisonous
qualities abound more in the grain than in the stalk or leaves, man,
who eats nothing but the grain, must be more liable to suffer from
the use of this food than beasts, which eat it merely as they eat
grass or hay.

I sent the son of the head man of the village and another, who were
among the young people least affected, into Sagar with a letter to my
friend Dr. Foley, with a request that he would try what he could do
for them; and if he had any fair prospect of being able to restore
these people to the use of their limbs, that measures might be
adopted through the civil authorities to provide them with
accommodation and the means of subsistence, either by private
subscription, or by application to Government. The civil authorities,
however, could find neither accommodation nor funds to maintain these
people while under Dr. Foley's care; and several seasons of calamity
had deprived them of the means of maintaining themselves at a
distance from their families. Nor is a medical man in India provided
with the means found most effectual in removing such affections, such
as baths, galvanic batteries, &c. It is lamentable to think how very
little we have as yet done for the country in the healing art, that
art which, above all others, a benevolent and enlightened Government
should encourage among the people of India.

All we have as yet done has been to provide medical attendants for
our European officers; regiments, and jails. It must not, however, be
supposed that the people of India are without medical advice, for
there is not a town or considerable village in India without its
practitioners, the Hindoos following the Egyptian (Misrani), and the
Musalmans the Grecian (Yunani) practice. The first prescribe little
physic and much fasting; and the second follow the good old rules of
Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, with which they are all tolerably
well acquainted. As far as the office of physician goes, the natives
of India of all classes, high and low, have much more confidence in
their own practitioners than in ours, whom they consider too reckless
and better adapted to treat diseases in a cold than a hot climate.
They cannot afford to give the only fees which European physicians
would accept; and they see them, in their hospital practice, trust
much to their native assistants, who are very few of them able to
read any book, much less to study the profound doctrines of the great
masters of the science of medicine.[12] No native ventures to offer
an opinion upon this abstruse subject in any circle where he is not
known to be profoundly read in either Arabic or Sanskrit lore; nor
would he venture to give a prescription without first consulting,
'spectacles on nose', a book as large as a church Bible. The educated
class, as indeed all classes, say that they do not want our
physicians, but stand much in need of our surgeons. Here they feel
that they are helpless, and we are strong; and they seek our aid
whenever they see any chance of obtaining it, as in the present
case.[13] Considering that every European gentleman they meet is more
or less a surgeon, or hoping to find him so, people who are
afflicted, or have children afflicted, with any kind of malformation,
or malorganization, flock round them [_sic_] wherever they go, and
implore their aid; but implore in vain, for, when they do happen to
fall in with a surgeon, he is a mere passer-by, without the means or
the time to afford relief. In travelling over India there is nothing
which distresses a benevolent man so much as the necessity he is
daily under of telling poor parents, who, with aching hearts and
tearful eyes, approach him with their suffering children in their
arms, that to relieve them requires time and means which are not at a
traveller's command, or a species of knowledge which he does not
possess; it is bitter thus to dash to the ground the cup of hope
which our approach has raised to the lip of mother, father, and
child; but he consoles himself with the prospect, that at no distant
period a benevolent and enlightened Government will distribute over
the land those from whom the afflicted will not seek relief in
vain.[14]


Notes:

1. The garrison is stated in the _Gazetteer_ (1870) to consist of a
European regiment of infantry, two batteries of European artillery,
one native cavalry and one native infantry regiment. In 1893 it
consisted of one battery of Royal Artillery, a detachment of British
Infantry, a regiment of Bengal Cavalry, and a detachment of Bengal
Infantry. According to the census of 1911, the population of Sagar
was 45,908.

2. The Banjaras, or Brinjaras, are a wandering tribe, principally
employed as carriers of grain and salt on bullocks and cows. They
used to form the transport service of the Moghal armies, and of the
Company's forces at least as late as 1819. Their organization and
customs are in many ways peculiar. The development of roads and
railways has much diminished the importance of the tribe. A good
account of it will be found in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd
ed., 1885, s. v. 'Banjara'. Dubois (_Hindu Manners, &c._, 3rd ed.
(1906), p. 70) states that 'of all the castes of the Hindus, this
particular one is acknowledged to be the most brutal'.

3. See note on human sacrifice, _ante_, Chapter 8, note 8.

4. In the Hoshangabad district of the Central Provinces. The
sandstone formation here attains its highest development, and is
known to geologists as the 'Mahadeo sandstones'. The new sanitarium
of Pachmarhi is situated in these hills.

5. It has been long since suppressed.

6. Benares is the principal seat of the worship of Mahadeo (Siva),
but his shrines are found everywhere throughout India. One hundred
and eight of these are reckoned as important. In Southern India the
most notable, perhaps, is the great temple at Tanjore (see chap. 17
of Monier Williams's _Religious Thought and Life in India_).

7. 'This mode of suicide is called Bhrigu-pata, "throwing one's self
from a precipice". It was once equally common at the rock of Girnar
[in Kathiawar], and has only recently been prohibited' (ibid. p.
349).

8. Nagpore (Nagpur) was governed by Maratha rulers, with the title of
Bhonsla, also known as the Rajas of Berar. The last Raja, Raghoji,
died without heirs in 1853. His dominions were then annexed as lapsed
territory by Lord Dalhousie. Sir Richard Jenkins was Resident at
Nagpur from 1810 to 1827. Nagpur is now the head-quarters of the
Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces.

9. 'There is a legend that Siva appeared in the Kali age, for the
good of the Brahmans, as "Sveta", "the white one", and that he had
four disciples, to all of whom the epithet "Sveta" is applied'
(Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 80, note
2). Various explanations of the legend have been offered. Professor
A. Weber is inclined to think that the various references to white
teachers in Indian legends allude to Christian missionaries. The
Mahabharata mentions the travels of Narada and others across the sea
to 'Sveta-dwipa', the 'Island of the White Men', in order to learn
the doctrine of the unity of God. This tradition appears to be
intelligible only if understood to commemorate the journeys of pious
Indians to Alexandria, and their study of Christianity there (_Die
Griechen in Indien_, 1890, p. 34).

10. The Ramlila, a performance corresponding to the mediaeval
European 'miracle-play', is celebrated in Northern India in the month
of Kuar (or Asvin, September-October), at the same time as the Durga
Puja is solemnized in Bengal. Rama and his brother Lachhman are
impersonated by boys, who are seated on thrones in state. The
performance concludes by the burning of a wicker image of Ravana, the
demon king of Lanka (Ceylon), who had carried off Rama's queen, Sita.
The story is the leading subject of the great epic called the
Ramayana.

11. The _Lathyrus sativus_ is cultivated in the Punjab and in Tibet.
Its poisonous qualities are attributed to its excessive proportion of
nitrogenous matter, which requires dilution. Another species of the
genus, _L. cicer_, grown in Spain, has similar properties. The
distressing effects described in the text have been witnessed by
other observers (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, s.v.
'Lathyrus').

12. One of the tent-pitchers one morning, after pitching our tent,
asked the loan of a small extra one for the use of his wife, who was
about to be confined. The basket-maker's wife of the village near
which we were encamped was called; and the poor woman, before we had
finished our breakfast, gave birth to a daughter. The charge is half
a rupee, or one shilling for a boy, and a quarter, or sixpence, for a
girl. The tent-pitcher gave her ninepence, which the poor midwife
thought very handsome, The mother had come fourteen miles upon a
loaded cart over rough roads the night before; and went the same
distance with her child the night after, upon the same cart. The
first midwife in Europe could not have done her duty better than this
poor basket-maker's wife did hers. [W. H. S.]

13. The 'present case' was of a medical, not a surgical, nature.

14. The Hindoo practitioners are called 'baid' (Sanskrit 'vaidya',
followers of the Veda, that is to say, the Ayur Veda). The Musalman
practitioners are generally called 'hakim'. The Egyptian school
(Misrani, Misri, or Suryani, that is, Syrian) never practise
bleeding, and are partial to the use of metallic oxides. The Yunani
physicians approve of bleeding, and prefer vegetable drugs. The older
writers on India fancied that the Hindoo system of medicine was of
enormous antiquity, and that the principles of Galenical medical
science were ultimately derived from India. Modern investigation has
proved that Hindoo medicine, like Hindoo astronomy, is largely of
Greek origin. This conclusion has been expressed in an exaggerated
form by some writers, but its general truth appears to be
established. The Hindoo books treating of medicine are certainly
older than Wilson supposed, for the Bower manuscript, written in the
second half of the fourth century of our era, contains three Sanskrit
medical treatises. The writers had, however, plenty of time to borrow
from Galen, who lived in the second century. The Indian aversion to
European medicine, as distinguished from surgery, still exists,
though in a degree somewhat less than in the author's time. Many
municipal boards have insisted on employing 'baids' and 'hakims' in
addition to the practitioners trained in European methods. Well-to-do
patients often delay resort to the English physician until they have
exhausted all resources of the 'hakim' and have been nearly killed by
his drastic treatment. One medical innovation, the use of quinine as
a febrifuge, has secured universal approbation. I never heard of an
Indian who disbelieved in quinine. Chlorodyne also is fully
appreciated, but most of the European medicines are regarded with
little faith.

Since the author wrote, great progress has been made in providing
hospital and dispensary accommodation. Each 'district', or unit of
civil administration, has a fairly well equipped combined hospital
and dispensary at head-quarters, and branch dispensaries exist in
almost every district. An Inspector-General of Dispensaries
supervises the medical administration of each province, and medical
schools have been organized at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, and
Agra. During Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty and afterwards, energetic
steps were taken to improve the system of medical relief for females.
Pandit Madhusadan Gupta, on January 10, 1836, was the first Hindoo
who ventured to dissect a human body and teach anatomy. India can now
boast of a considerable number of Hindoo and Musalman practitioners,
trained in European methods, and skilful in their profession. Much
has been done, infinitely more remains to be done. Details will be
found in _I.G._ (1907), vol. iv, chap. 14, 'Medical Administration',
The article 'Medicine' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, on
which I have drawn for some of the facts above stated, gives a good
summary of the earlier history of medicine in India, but greatly
exaggerates the antiquity of the Hindoo books. On this question
Weber's paper, 'Die Griechen in Indien' (Berlin, 1890, p. 28), and
Dr. Hoernle's remarks on the Bower manuscript (in _J.A.S.B._, vol. lx
(1891), Part I, p. 145) may be consulted. Dr. Hoernle's annotated
edition and translation of the Bower MS. were completed in 1912. Part
of the work is reprinted with additions in the _Ind. Ant._ for 1913
and 1914.




CHAPTER 16


Suttee Tombs--Insalubrity of deserted Fortresses.

On the 3rd we came to Bahrol,[1] where I had encamped with Lord
William Bentinck on the last day of December, 1832, when the
quicksilver in the thermometer at sunrise, outside our tents, was
down to twenty-six degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. The village
stands upon a gentle swelling hill of decomposed basalt, and is
surrounded by hills of the same formation. The Dasan river flows
close under the village, and has two beautiful reaches, one above,
the other below, separated by the dyke of basalt, over which lies the
ford of the river.[2]

There are beautiful reaches of the kind in all the rivers in this
part of India, and they are almost everywhere formed in the same
manner. At Bahrol there is a very unusual number of tombs built over
the ashes of women who have burnt themselves with the remains of
their husbands. Upon each tomb stands erect a tablet of freestone,
with the sun, the new moon, and a rose engraved upon it in bas-relief
in one field;[3] and the man and woman, hand in hand, in the other.
On one stone of this kind I saw a third field below these two, with
the figure of a horse in bas-relief, and I asked one of the gentlemen
farmers, who was riding with me, what it meant. He told me that he
thought it indicated that the woman rode on horseback to bathe before
she ascended the pile.[4] I asked him whether he thought the measure
prohibiting the practice of burning good or bad.

'It is', said he, 'in some respects good, and in others bad. Widows
cannot marry among us, and those who had no prospect of a comfortable
provision among their husband's relations, or who dreaded the
possibility of going astray, and thereby sinking into contempt and
misery, were enabled in this way to relieve their minds, and follow
their husbands, under the full assurance of being happily united to
them in the next world.'

When I passed this place on horseback with Lord William Bentinck, he
asked me what these tombs were, for he had never seen any of the kind
before. When I told him what they were, he said not a word; but he
must have felt a proud consciousness of the debt of gratitude which
India owes to the statesman who had the courage to put a stop to this
great evil, in spite of all the fearful obstacles which bigotry and
prejudice opposed to the measure. The seven European functionaries in
charge of the seven districts of the newly-acquired territories were
requested, during the administration of Lord Amherst in 1826, to
state whether the burning of widows could or should be prohibited;
and I believe every one of them declared that it should not. And yet,
when it was put a stop to only a few years after by Lord William, not
a complaint or murmur was heard. The replies to the Governor-
General's inquiries were, I believe, throughout India, for the most
part, opposed to the measure.[5]

On the 4th we came to Dhamoni, ten miles. The only thing remarkable
here is the magnificent fortress, which is built upon a small
projection of the Vindhya range, looking down on each side into two
enormously deep glens, through which the two branches of the Dasan
river descend over the tableland into the plains of Bundelkhand.[6]
The rays of the sun seldom penetrate to the bottom of these glens,
and things are, in consequence, grown there that could not be grown
in parts more exposed.

Every inch of the level ground in the bed of the streams below seems
to be cultivated with care. This fortress is said to have cost more
than a million of money, and to have been only one of fifty-two great
works, of which a former Raja of Bundelkhand, Birsingh Deo, laid the
foundation in the same _happy hour_ which had been pointed out to him
by his astrologers.[7] The works form an acute triangle, with the
base towards the tableland, and the two sides hanging perpendicularly
over the glens, while the apex points to the course of the streams as
they again unite, and pass out through a deep chasm into the plains
of Bundelkhand.

The fortress is now entirely deserted, and the town, which the
garrison supported, is occupied by only a small police-guard,
stationed here to see that robbers do not take up their abode among
the ruins. There is no fear of this. All old deserted fortresses in
India become filled by a dense stream of carbonic acid gas, which is
found so inimical to animal life that those who attempt to occupy
them become ill, and, sooner or later, almost all die of the
consequences. This gas, being specifically much heavier than common
air, descends into the bottom of such unoccupied fortresses, and
remains stagnant like water in old reservoirs. The current of pure
air continually passes over, without being able to carry off the mass
of stagnant air below; and the only way to render such places
habitable is to make large openings in the walls on all sides, from
the top to the bottom, so that the foul air may be driven out by the
current of pure atmospheric air, which will then be continually
rushing in. When these fortresses are thickly peopled, the continual
motion within tends, I think, to mix up this gas with the air above;
while the numerous fires lighted within, by rarefying that below,
tend to draw down a regular supply of the atmospheric air from above
for the benefit of the inhabitants. When natives enter upon the
occupation of an old fortress of this kind, that has remained long
unoccupied, they always make a solemn religions ceremony of it; and,
having fed the priests, the troops, and a crowd of followers, all
rush in at once with beat of drums, and as much noise as they can
make. By this rush, and the fires that follow, the bad air is,
perhaps, driven off, and never suffered to collect again while the
fortress remains fully occupied. Whatever may be the cause, the fact
is certain that these fortresses become deadly places of abode for
small detachments of troops, or small parties of any kind. They all
get ill, and few recover from the diseases they contract in them.

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