Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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This little _pebble_ is every year married to this little _shrub_;
and the high priest told me that on the present occasion the
procession consisted of eight elephants, twelve hundred camels, four
thousand horses, all mounted and elegantly caparisoned. On the
leading elephant of this _cortege_, and the most sumptuously
decorated, was carried the _pebble god_, who was taken to pay his
bridal visit (barat) to the little _shrub goddess_. All the
ceremonies of a regular marriage are gone through; and, when
completed, the bride and bridegroom are left to repose together in
the temple of Ludhaura[11] till the next season. 'Above a hundred
thousand people', the priest said, 'were present at the ceremony this
year at the Raja's invitation, and feasted upon his bounty.'[12]

The old man and I got into a conversation upon the characters of
different governments, and their effects upon the people; and he said
that bad governments would sooner or later be always put down by the
deity; and quoted this verse, which I took down with my pencil:

Tulasi, gharib na satae,
Buri gharib ki hai;
Mari khal ke phunk se
Loha bhasm ho jae.

'Oh, Raja Tulasi! oppress not the poor; for the groans of the
wretched bring retribution from heaven. The contemptible skin (in the
smith's bellows) in time melts away the hardest iron.'[13]

On leaving our tents in the morning, we found the ground all round
white with hoar frost, as we had found it for several mornings
before;[14] and a little canary bird, one of the two which travelled
in my wife's palankeen, having, by the carelessness of the servants
been put upon the top without any covering to the cage, was killed by
the cold, to her great affliction. All attempts to restore it to life
by the warmth of her bosom were fruitless.

On the 7th[15] we came nine miles to Bamhauri over a soil still
basaltic, though less rich, reposing upon syenite, which frequently
rises and protrudes its head above the surface, which is partially
and badly cultivated, and scantily peopled. The silent signs of bad
government could not be more manifest. All the extensive plains,
covered with fine long grass, which is rotting in the ground from
want of domestic cattle or distant markets. Here, as in every other
part of Central India, the people have a great variety of good
spontaneous, but few cultivated, grasses. They understand the
character and qualities of these grasses extremely well. They find
some thrive best in dry, and some in wet seasons; and that of
inferior quality is often prized most because it thrives best when
other kinds cannot thrive at all, from an excess or a deficiency of
rain. When cut green they all make good hay, and have the common
denomination of 'sahia'. The finest of these grasses are two which
are generally found growing spontaneously together, and are often
cultivated together-'kel' and 'musel'; the third 'parwana'; fourth
'bhawar', or 'guniar'; fifth 'saina'.[16]

Notes:

1. Spelled Siedpore in the author's text.

2. More correctly Brindaban (Vrindavana). The name originally belongs
to one of the most sacred spots in India, situated near Mathura
(Muttra) on the Jumna, and the reputed scene of the dalliance between
Krishna and the milkmaids (Gopis); also associated with the legend
Rama.

3. Twenty-seven miles north-west of Tehri in the Orchha State.

4. The Tulasi plant, or basil, _Ocymum sanctum_, is 'not merely
sacred to Vishnu or to his wife Lakshmi; it is pervaded by the
essence of these deities, and itself worshipped as a deity and prayed
to accordingly. . . . The Tulasi is the object of more adoration than
any other plant at present worshipped in India. . . .It is to be
found in almost every respectable household throughout India. It is a
small shrub, not too big to be cultivated in a good-sized flower-pot,
and often placed in rooms. Generally, however, it is planted in the
courtyard of a well-to-do man's house, with a space round it for
reverential circumambulation. In real fact the Tulasi is _par
excellence_ a domestic divinity, or rather, perhaps, a woman's
divinity' (M. Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p.
333).

5. The fossil ammonites found in India include at least fifteen
species. They occur between Trichinopoly and Pondicherry as well as
in the Himalayan rocks. They are particularly abundant in the river
Gandak, which rises near Dhaulagiri in Nepal, and falls into the
Ganges near Patna. The upper course of this river is consequently
called Salagrami. Various forms of the fossils are supposed to
represent various _avatars_ of Vishnu (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd
ed., s.v. 'Ammonite', 'Gandak', 'Salagrama'; M. Williams, _Religious
Thought and Life in India_, pp. 69, 349). A good account of the
reverence paid to both _salagrams_ and the _tulasi_ plant will be
found in Dubois, _Hindu Manners_, &c., 3rd ed. (1906), pp. 648-51.

6. The author writes 'Himmalah'. The current spelling Himalaya is
correct, but the word should be pronounced Himalaya. It means 'abode
of snow'.

7. The north-eastern corner of the Punjab, an elevated valley along
the course of the Spiti or the Li river, a tributary of the Satlaj.

8. Fossils of the genus Belemnites and related genera are common,
like the ammonites, near Trichinopoly, as well as in the Himalaya.

9. This statement is not quite correct. The pebbles representing the
Linga of Siva, called Bana-linga, or Vana-linga, and apparently of
white quartz, which are found in the Nerbudda river, enjoy the same
distinction. 'Both are held to be of their own nature pervaded by the
special presence of the deity, and need no consecration. Offerings
made to these pebbles--such, for instance, as Bilwa leaves laid on
the white stone of Vishnu--are believed to confer extraordinary
merit' (M. Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 69).

10. In 1814-16.

11. 'Sadora' in author's text, which seems to be a misprint for
Ludora or Ludhaura.

12. The Tulasi shrub is sometimes married to an image of Krishna,
instead of to the salagrama, in Western India (M. Williams,
_Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 334). Compare the account
of the marriage between the mango-tree and the jasmine, _ante_,
Chapter 5, Note [3].

13. These Hindi verses are incorrectly printed, and loosely rendered
by the author. The translation of the text, after necessary
emendation, is: 'Tulasi, oppress not the poor; evil is the lot of the
poor. From the blast of the dead hide iron becomes ashes.' Mr. W.
Crooke informs me that the verses are found in the Kabirki Sakhi, and
are attributable to Kabir Das, rather than to Tulasi Das. But the
authorship of such verses is very uncertain. Mr. Crooke further
observes that the lines as given in the text do not scan, and that
the better version is:

Durbal ko na sataiye,
Jaki mati hai;
Mue khal ke sans se
Sar bhasm ho jae.

_Sar_ means iron. The author was, of course, mistaken in supposing
the poet Tulasi Das to be a Raja. As usual in Hindi verse, the poet
addresses himself by name.

14. Such slight frosts are common in Bundelkhand, especially near the
rivers, in January, but only last for a few mornings. They often
cause great damage to the more delicate crops. The weather becomes
hot in February.

15. December, 1835.

16. 'Musel' is a very sweet-scented grass, highly esteemed as fodder.
It belongs to the genus _Anthistiria_; the species is either
_cimicina_ or _prostrata_. 'Bhawar' is probably the 'bhaunr' of
Edgeworth's list, _Anthistiria scandens_. I cannot identify the other
grasses named in the text. The haycocks in Bundelkhand are a pleasant
sight to English eyes. Edgeworth's list of plants found in the Banda
district, as revised by Messrs. Waterfield and Atkinson, is given in
_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, pp. 78-86.

CHAPTER 20

The Men-Tigers.

Ram Chand Rao, commonly called the Sarimant, chief of Deori,[1] here
overtook me. He came out from Sagar to visit me at Dhamoni[2] and,
not reaching that place in time, came on after me. He held Deori
under the Peshwa, as the Sagar chief held Sagar, for the payment of
the public establishments kept up by the local administration. It
yielded him about ten thousand a year, and, when we took possession
of the country, he got an estate in the Sagar district, in rent-free
tenure, estimated at fifteen hundred a year. This is equal to about
six thousand pounds a year in England. The tastes of native gentlemen
lead them always to expend the greater part of their incomes in the
wages of trains of followers of all descriptions, and in horses,
elephants, &c.; and labour and the subsistence of labour are about
four times cheaper in India than in England. By the breaking up of
public establishments, and consequent diminution of the local demand
for agricultural produce, the value of land throughout all Central
India, after the termination of the Mahratha War in 1817, fell by
degrees thirty per cent.; and, among the rest, that of my poor friend
the Sarimant. While I had the civil charge of the Sagar district in
1831 I represented this case of hardship; and Government, in the
spirit of liberality which has generally characterized their measures
in this part of India, made up to him the difference between what he
actually received and what they had intended to give him; and he has
ever since felt grateful to me.[3] He is a very small man, not more
than five feet high, but he has the handsomest face I have almost
ever seen, and his manners are those of the most perfect native
gentleman. He came to call upon me after breakfast, and the
conversation turned upon the number of people that had of late been
killed by tigers between Sagar and Deori, his ancient capital, which
lies about midway between Sagar and the Nerbudda river.

One of his followers, who stood beside his chair, said[4] that 'when
a tiger had killed one man he was safe, for the spirit of the man
rode upon his head, and guided him from all danger. The spirit knew
very well that the tiger would be watched for many days at the place
where he had committed the homicide, and always guided him off to
some other more secure place, when he killed other men without any
risk to himself. He did not exactly know why the spirit of the man
should thus befriend the beast that had killed him; but', added he,
'there is a mischief inherent in spirits; and the better the man the
more mischievous is his ghost, if means are not taken to put him to
rest.' This is the popular and general belief throughout India; and
it is supposed that the only sure mode of destroying a tiger who has
killed many people is to begin by making offerings to the spirits of
his victims, and thereby depriving him of their valuable services.[5]
The belief that men are turned into tigers by eating of a root is no
less general throughout India.

The Sarimant, on being asked by me what he thought of the matter,
observed 'there was no doubt much truth in what the man said: but he
was himself of opinion that the tigers which now infest the wood from
Sagar to Deori were of a different kind--in fact, that they were
neither more nor less than men turned into tigers--a thing which took
place in the woods of Central India much more often than people were
aware of. The only visible difference between the two', added the
Sarimant, 'is that the metamorphosed tiger has _no tail_, while the
_bora_, or ordinary tiger, has a very long one. In the jungle about
Deori', continued he, 'there is a root, which, if a man eat of, he is
converted into a tiger on the spot; and if, in this state, he can eat
of another, he becomes a man again--a melancholy instance of the
former of which', said he, 'occurred, I am told, in my own father's
family when I was an infant. His washerman, Raghu, was, like all
washermen, a great drunkard; and, being seized with a violent desire
to ascertain what a man felt in the state of a tiger, he went one day
to the jungle and brought home two of these roots, and desired his
wife to stand by with one of them, and the instant she saw him assume
the tiger shape, to thrust it into his mouth. She consented, the
washerman ate his root, and became instantly a tiger; but his wife
was so terrified at the sight of her husband in this shape that she
ran off with the antidote in her hand. Poor old Raghu took to the
woods, and there ate a good many of his old friends from neighbouring
villages; but he was at last shot, and recognized from the
circumstance of his _having no tail_. You may be quite sure,'
concluded Sarimant, 'when you hear of a tiger without a tail, that it
is some unfortunate man who has eaten of that root, and of all the
tigers he will be found the most mischievous.'

How my friend had satisfied himself of the truth of this story I know
not, but he religiously believes it, and so do all his attendants and
mine; and, out of a population of thirty thousand people in the town
of Sagar, not one would doubt the story of the washerman if he heard
it.

I was one day talking with my friend the Raja of Maihar.[6] on the
road between Jubbulpore and Mirzapore, on the subject of the number
of men who had been lately killed by tigers at the Katra Pass on that
road,[7] and the best means of removing the danger. 'Nothing', said
the Raja, 'could be more easy or more cheap than the destruction of
these tigers, if they were of the ordinary sort; but the tigers that
kill men by wholesale, as these do, are, you may be sure, men
themselves converted into tigers by the force of their science, and
such animals are of all the most unmanageable.'

'And how is it. Raja Sahib, that these men convert themselves into
tigers?'

'Nothing', said he, 'is more easy than this to persons who have once
acquired the science; but how they learn it, or what it is, we
unlettered men know not.'

'There was once a high priest of a large temple, in this very valley
of Maihar, who was in the habit of getting himself converted into a
tiger by the force of this science, which he had thoroughly acquired.
He had a necklace, which one of his disciples used to throw over his
neck the moment the tiger's form became fully developed. He had,
however, long given up the practice, and all his old disciples had
gone off on their pilgrimages to distant shrines, when he was one day
seized with a violent desire to take his old form of the tiger. He
expressed the wish to one of his new disciples, and demanded whether
he thought he might rely on his courage to stand by and put on the
necklace. 'Assuredly you may', said the disciple; 'such is my faith
in you, and in the God we serve, that I fear nothing.' The high
priest upon this put the necklace into his hand with the requisite
instructions, and forthwith began to change his form. The disciple
stood trembling in every limb, till he heard him give a roar that
shook the whole edifice, when he fell flat upon his face, and dropped
the necklace on the floor. The tiger bounded over him, and out of the
door, and infested all the roads leading to the temple for many years
afterwards.'

'Do you think, Raja Sahib, that the old high priest is one of the
tigers at the Katra Pass?'

'No, I do not; but I think they may be all men who have become imbued
with a little too much of the high priest's _science_--when men once
acquire this science they can't help exercising it, though it be to
their own ruin, and that of others.'

'But, supposing them to be ordinary tigers, what is the simple plan
you propose to put a stop to their depredations, Raja Sahib?'

'I propose', said he, 'to have the spirits that guide them
propitiated by proper prayers and offerings; for the spirit of every
man or woman who has been killed by a tiger rides upon his head, or
runs before him, and tells him where to go to get prey, and to avoid
danger. Get some of the Gonds, or wild people from the jungles, who
are well skilled in these matters--give them ten or twenty rupees,
and bid them go and raise a small shrine, and there sacrifice to
these spirits. The Gonds will tell them that they shall on this
shrine have regular worship, and good sacrifices of fowls, goats, and
pigs, every year at least, if they will but relinquish their offices
with the tigers and be quiet. If this is done, I pledge myself', said
the Raja, 'that the tigers will soon get killed themselves, or cease
from killing men. If they do not, you may be quite sure that they are
not ordinary tigers, but men turned into tigers, or that the Gonds
have appropriated all you gave them to their own use, instead of
applying it to conciliate the spirits of the unfortunate people.'[8]

Notes:

1. Deori, in the Sagar district, about forty miles south-east of
Sagar. In 1767, the town and attached tract called the Panj Mahal
were bestowed by the Peshwa, rent-free, on Dhondo Dattatraya, a
Maratha pundit, ancestor of the author's friend. The Panj Mahal was
finally made part of British territory by the treaty with Sindhia in
1860, and constitutes the District called Panch Mahals in the
Northern Division of the Bombay Presidency. The vernacular word
_panch_ like the Persian _panj_, means 'five'. The title Sarimant
appears to be a popular pronunciation of the Sanskrit _srimant_ or
_sriman_, 'fortunate', and is still used by Maratha nobles.

2. _Ante_, Chapter 16, note 6. The name is here erroneously printed
'Dhamoree' in the author's text.

3. He had good reason for his gratitude, inasmuch as the depression
in rents was merely temporary.

4. An Indian chief is generally accompanied into the room by a
confidential follower, who frequently relieves his master of the
trouble of talking, and answers on his behalf all questions.

5. When Agrippina, in her rage with her son Nero, threatens to take
her stepson, Britannicus, to the camp of the Legion, and there assert
his right to the throne, she invokes the spirit of his father, whom
she had poisoned, and the manes of the Silani, whom she had murdered.
'Simul attendere manus, aggerere probra; consecratum Claudium,
infernos Silanorum manes invocare, et tot invita fari nova.'-
(Tacitus, lib, xviii, sec. 14.) [W. H. S.] The quotation is from the
_Annals_. Another reading of the concluding words is 'et tot irrita
facinora', which gives much better sense. In the author's text
'aggerere' is printed 'aggere'.

6. A small principality, detached from the Panna State. Its chief
town is about one hundred miles north-east of Jubbulpore, on the
route from Allahabad to Jubbulpore. The state is now traversed by the
East Indian Railway. It is under the superintendence of the Political
Agent of Baghelkhand, resident at Riwa.

7. This pass is sixty-three miles south-east of Allahabad, on the
road from that city to Riwa.

8. These myths are based on the well-known facts that man-eating
tigers are few, and exceptionally wary and cunning. The conditions
which predispose a tiger to man-eating have been much discussed. It
seems to be established that the animals which seek human prey are
generally, though not invariably, those which, owing to old wounds or
other physical defects, are unable to attack with confidence the
stronger animals. The conversations given in the text are excellent
illustrations of the mode of formation of modern myths, and of the
kind of reasoning which satisfies the mind of the unconscious myth-
maker.

The text may be compared with the following passage from the _Journey
through the Kingdom of Oudh_ (vol. i, p. 124): 'I asked him (the Raja
of Balrampur), whether the people in the Tarai forest were still
afraid to point out tigers to sportsmen. "I was lately out with a
party after a tiger", he said, "which had killed a cowherd, but his
companions refused to point out any trace of him, saying that their
relative's spirit must be now riding upon his head, to guide him from
all danger, and we should have no chance of shooting him. We did
shoot him, however", said the Raja exultingly, "and they were all
afterwards very glad of it. The tigers in the Tarai do not often kill
men, sir, for they find plenty of deer and cattle to eat,"'

CHAPTER 21

Burning of Deori by a Freebooter--A Suttee.

Sarimant had been one of the few who escaped from the flames which
consumed his capital of Deori in the month of April 1813, and were
supposed to have destroyed thirty thousand souls. I asked him to tell
me how this happened, and he referred me to his attendant, a learned
old pundit, Ram Chand, who stood by his side, as he was himself, he
said, then only five years of age, and could recollect nothing of it.

'Mardan Singh,' said the pundit, 'the father of Raja Arpan Singh,
whom you saw at Seori, was then our neighbour, reigning over Garha
Kota;[1] and he had a worthless nephew, Zalim Singh, who had
collected together an army of five thousand men, in the hope of
getting a little principality for himself in the general scramble for
dominion incident on the rise of the Pindharis and Amir Khan,[2] and
the destruction of all balance of power among the great sovereigns of
Central India. He came to attack our capital, which was an emporium
of considerable trade and the seat of many useful manufactures, in
the expectation of being able to squeeze out of us a good sum to aid
him in his enterprise. While his troops blocked up every gate, fire
was, by accident, set to the fence of some man's garden within. There
had been no rain for six months; and everything was so much dried up
that the flames spread rapidly; and, though there was no wind when
they began, it soon blew a gale. The Sarimant was then a little boy
with his mother in the fortress, where she lived with his father[3]
and nine other relations. The flames soon extended to the fortress,
and the powder-magazine blew up. The house in which they lived was
burned down, and every soul, except the lieutenant [_sic_] himself,
perished in it. His mother tried to bear him off in her arms, but
fell down in her struggle to get out with him and died. His nurse,
Tulsi Kurmin,[4] snatched him up, and ran with him outside of the
fortress to the bank of the river, where she made him over unhurt to
Hariram, the Marwari merchant.[5] He was mounted on a good horse,
and, making off across the river, he carried him safely to his
friends at Gaurjhamar; but poor Tulsi the Kurmin fell down exhausted
when she saw her charge safe, and died.

'The wind appeared to blow in upon the poor devoted city from every
side; and the troops of Zalim Singh, who at first prevented the
people from rushing out at the gates, made off in a panic at the
horrors before them. All our establishments had been driven into the
city at the approach of Zalim Singh's troops; and scores of
elephants, hundreds of camels, and thousands of horses and ponies
perished in the flames, besides twenty-five thousand souls. Only
about five thousand persons escaped out of thirty thousand, and these
were reduced to beggary and wretchedness by the loss of their dearest
relations and their property. At the time the flames first began to
spread, an immense crowd of people had assembled under the fortress
on the bank of the Sonar river to see the widow of a soldier burn
herself. Her husband had been shot by one of Zalim Singh's soldiers
in the morning; and before midday she was by the side of his body on
the funeral pile. People, as usual, begged her to tell them what
would happen, and she replied, "The city will know in less than four
hours"; in less than four hours the whole city had been reduced to
ashes; and we all concluded that, since the event was so clearly
foretold, it must have been decreed by God.'[6]

'No doubt it was,' said Sarimant; 'how could it otherwise happen? Do
not all events depend upon His will? Had it not been His will to save
me, how could poor Tulsi the Kurmin have carried me upon her
shoulders through such a scene as this, when every other member of
our family perished?'

'No doubt', said Ram Chand, 'all these things are brought about by
the will of God, and it is not for us to ask why.'[7]

I have heard this event described by many other people, and I believe
the account of the old pundit to be a very fair one.

One day, in October 1833, the horse of the district surgeon, Doctor
Spry, as he was mounting him, reared, fell back with his head upon a
stone, and died upon the spot. The doctor was not much hurt, and the
little Sarimant called a few days after, and offered his
congratulations upon his narrow escape. The cause of so quiet a horse
rearing at this time, when he had never been known to do so before,
was discussed; and he said that there could be no doubt that the
horse, or the doctor himself, must have seen some unlucky face before
he mounted that morning--that he had been in many places in his life,
but in none where a man was liable to see so many ugly or unfortunate
faces; and, for his part, he never left his house till an hour after
sunrise, lest he should encounter them.[8]

Many natives were present, and every one seemed to consider the
Sarimant's explanation of the cause quite satisfactory and
philosophical. Some days after, Spry was going down to sleep in the
bungalow where the accident happened. His native assistant and all
his servants came and prayed that he would not attempt to sleep in
the bungalow, as they were sure the horse must have been frightened
by a ghost, and quoted several instances of ghosts appearing to
people there. He, however, slept in the bungalow, and, to their great
astonishment, saw no ghost and suffered no evil.[9]