Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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'While little Krishna was frisking about among the milkmaids of
Govardhan,' continued my old friend, 'stealing their milk, cream, and
butter, Brahma, the creator of the universe, who had heard of his
being an incarnation of Vishnu, the great preserver of the universe,
visited the place, and had some misgivings, from his size and
employment, as to his real character. To try him, he took off through
the sky a herd of cattle, on which some of his favourite playmates
were attending, old and young, boys and all. Krishna, knowing how
much the parents of the boys and owners of the cattle would be
distressed, created, in a moment, another herd and other attendants
so exactly like those that Brahma had taken, that the owners of the
one, and the parents of the other, remained ignorant of the change.
Even the new creations themselves remained equally ignorant; and the
cattle walked into their stalls, and the boys into their houses,
where they recognized and were recognized by their parents, as if
nothing had happened.

'Brahma was now satisfied that Krishna was a true incarnation of
Vishnu, and restored to him the real herd and attendants. The others
were removed out of the way by Krishna, as soon as he saw the real
ones coming back.'

'But,' said I to the good old man, who told me this with a grave
face, 'must they not have suffered in passing from the life given to
death; and why create them merely to destroy them again?'

'Was he not God the Creator himself?' said the old man; 'does he not
send one generation into the world after another to fulfil their
destiny, and then to return to the earth from which they came, just
as he spreads over the land the grass and corn? All is gathered in
its season, or withers as that passes away and dies.' The old
gentleman might have quoted Wordsworth:

We die, my friend,
Nor we alone, but that which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon,
Even of the good is no memorial left.[9]

I was one day out shooting with my friend, the Raja of Maihar,[10]
under the Vindhya range, which rises five or six hundred feet, almost
perpendicularly. He was an excellent shot with an English double-
barrel, and had with him six men just as good. I asked him whether we
were likely to fall in with any hares, using the term 'khargosh', or
'ass-eared'.

'Certainly not,' said the Raja, 'if you begin by abusing them with
such a name; call them "lambkanas", sir, "long-eared", and we shall
get plenty.'

He shot one, and attributed my bad luck to the opprobrious name I had
used. While he was reloading, I took occasion to ask him how this
range of hills had grown up where it was.

'No one can say,' replied the Raja, 'but we believe that when Rama
went to recover his wife Sita from the demon king of Ceylon, Ravan,
he wanted to throw a bridge across from the continent to the island,
and sent some of his followers up to the Himalaya mountains for
stones. He had completed his bridge before they all returned, and a
messenger was sent to tell those who had not yet come to throw down
their burdens, and rejoin him in all haste. Two long lines of these
people had got thus far on their return when the messenger met them.
They threw down their loads here, and here they have remained ever
since, one forming the Vindhya range to the north of this valley, and
the other the Kaimur range to the south.'

The Vindhya range extends from Mirzapore, on the Ganges, nearly to
the Gulf of Cambay, some six or seven hundred miles, so that my
sporting friend's faith was as capacious as any priest could well
wish it; and those who have it are likely never to die, or suffer
much, from an over stretch of the reasoning faculties in a hot
climate.

The town stands upon the belt of rocks, about two miles from its
north-eastern extremity; and in the midst is the handsome tomb of
Ranjit Singh, who defended Bharatpur so bravely against Lord Lake's
army.[11] The tomb has on one side a tank filled with water, and, on
the other, another much deeper than the first, but without any water
at all. We were surprised at this, and asked what the cause could be.
The people told us, with the air of men who had never known what it
was to feel the uneasy sensation of doubt, that 'Krishna, one hot
day, after skying with the milkmaids, had drunk it all dry; and that
no water would ever stay in it, lest it might be quaffed by less
noble lips'. No orthodox Hindoo would ever for a moment doubt that
this was the real cause of the phenomenon. Happy people! How much do
they escape of that pain which in hot climates wears us all down in
our efforts to trace moral and physical phenomena to their real
causes and sources! Mind! mind! mind! without any of it, those
Europeans who eat and drink moderately might get on very well in this
climate. Much of it weighs them down.

Oh, sir, the good die first, and those whose hearts (_brains_)
Are dry as summer dust burn to the socket.[12]

One is apt sometimes to think that Muhammad, Manu, and Confucius
would have been great benefactors in saving so many millions of their
species from the pain of thinking too much in hot climates, if they
had only written their books in languages less difficult of
acquirement. Their works are at once 'the bane and antidote' of
despotism--the source whence it comes, and the shield which defends
the people from its consuming fire.

The tomb of Suraj Mall, the great founder of the Jat power at
Bharatpur, stands on the north-east extremity of this belt of rocks,
about two miles from the town, and is an extremely handsome building,
conceived in the very best taste, and executed in the very best
style.[13] With its appendages of temples and smaller tombs, it
occupies the whole of one side of a magnificent tank full of clear
water; and on the other side it looks into a large and beautiful
garden. All the buildings and pavements are formed of the fine white
sandstone of Rupbas, scarcely inferior either in quality or
appearance to white marble. The stone is carved in relief with
flowers in good taste. In the centre of the tomb is the small marble
slab covering the grave, with the two feet of Krishna carved in the
centre, and around them the emblems of the god, the discus, the
skull, the sword, the rosary. These emblems of the god are put on
that people may have something godly to fix their thoughts upon. It
is by degrees, and with fear and trembling, that the Hindoos imitate
the Muhammadans in the magnificence of their tombs. The object is
ostensibly to keep the ground on which the bodies have been burned
from being defiled; and generally Hindoos have been content to raise
small open terraces of brick and stucco work over the spot, with some
image or emblem of the god upon it. The Jats here, like the princes
and Gosains in Bundelkhand, have gone a stage beyond this, and raised
tombs equal in costliness and beauty to those over Muhammadans of the
highest rank; still they do not venture to leave it without a divine
image or emblem, lest the gods might become jealous, and revenge
themselves upon the souls of the deceased and the bodies of the
living. On one side of Suraj Mall's tomb is that of his wife, or some
other female member of his family; and upon the slab over her grave,
that is, over the precise spot where she was burned, are the same
emblems, except the sword, for which a necklace is substituted. At
each end of this range of tombs stands a temple dedicated to Baldeo,
the brother of Krishna; and in one of them I found his image, with
large eyes, a jet black complexion, and an _African countenance_. Why
is this that Baldeo should be always represented of this countenance
and colour, and his brother Krishna, either white, or of an azure
colour, and the _Caucasian countenance_?[14] The inside of the tomb
is covered with beautiful snow-white stucco work that resembles the
finest marble; but this is disfigured by wretched paintings,
representing, on one side of the dome, Suraj Mall in 'darbar',
smoking his hookah, and giving orders to his ministers; in another,
he is at his devotions; on the third, at his sports, shooting hogs
and deer; and on the fourth, at war, with some French officers of
distinction figuring before him. He is distinguished by his portly
person in all, and by his favourite light-brown dress in three
places. At his devotions he is standing all in white before the
tutelary god of his house, Hardeo.[15] In various parts, Krishna is
represented at his sports with the milkmaids. The colours are gaudy,
and apparently as fresh as when first put on eighty years ago; but
the paintings are all in the worst possible taste and style.[16]
Inside the dome of Ranjit Singh's tomb the siege of Bharatpur is
represented in the same rude taste and style. Lord Lake is
dismounted, and standing before his white horse giving orders to his
soldiers. On the opposite side of the dome, Ranjit Singh, in a plain
white dress, is standing erect before his idol at his devotions, with
his ministers behind him. On the other two sides he is at his
favourite field sports. What strikes one most in all this is the
entire absence of priestcraft. He wanted all his revenue for his
soldiers; and his tutelary god seems, in consequence, to have been
well pleased to dispense with the mediatory services of priests.[17]
There are few temples anywhere to be seen in the territories of these
Jat chiefs; and, as few of their subjects have yet ventured to follow
them in this innovation upon the old Hindoo usages of building
tombs,[18] the countries under their dominion are less richly
ornamented than those of their neighbours. Those who build tombs or
temples generally surround them with groves of mango and other fine
fruit-trees, with good wells to supply water for them, and, if they
have the means, they add tanks, so that every religions edifice, or
work of ornament, leads to one or more of utility. So it was in
Europe; often the Northern hordes swept away all that had grown up
under the institution of the Romans and the Saracens; for almost all
the great works of ornament and utility, by which these countries
became first adorned and enriched, had their origin in church
establishments. That portion of India, where the greater part of the
revenue goes to the priesthood, will generally be much more studded
with works of ornament and utility than that in which the greater
part goes to the soldiery. I once asked a Hindoo gentleman, who had
travelled all over India, what part of it he thought most happy and
beautiful. He mentioned some part of Southern India, about Tanjore, I
think, where you could hardly go a mile without meeting some happy
procession, or coming to a temple full of priests, or find an acre of
land uncultivated.

The countries under the Maratha Government improved much in
appearance, and in happiness, I believe, after the mayors of the
palace, who were Brahmans, assumed the Government, and put aside the
Satara Rajas, the descendants of the great Sivaji.[19] Wherever they
could, they conferred the Government of their distant territories
upon Brahmans, who filled all the high offices under them with men of
the same caste, who spent the greater part of their incomes in tombs,
temples, groves, and tanks, that embellished and enriched the face of
the country, and thereby diffused a taste for such works generally
among the people they governed. The appearance of those parts of the
Maratha dominion so governed is infinitely superior to that of the
countries governed by the leaders of the military class, such as
Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla, whose capitals are still mere
standing camps--a collection of hovels, and whose countries are
almost entirely devoid of all those works of ornament and utility
that enrich and adorn those of their neighbours.[20] They destroyed
all they found in those countries when they conquered them; and they
have had neither the wisdom nor the taste to raise others to supply
their places. The Sikh Government is of exactly the same character;
and the countries they governed have, I believe, the same wretched
appearance--they are swarms of human locusts, who prey upon all that
is calculated to enrich and embellish the face of the land they
infest, and all that can tend to improve men in their social
relations, and to link their affection to their soil and their
government.[21] A Hindoo prince is always running to the extreme; he
can never take and keep a middle course. He is either ambitious, and
therefore appropriates all his revenues to the maintenance of
soldiers, to pour out in inroads upon his neighbours; or he is
superstitions, and devotes all his revenue to his priesthood, who
embellish his country at the same time that they weaken it, and
invite invasion, as their prince becomes less and less able to repel
it.

The more popular belief regarding this range of sandstone hills at
Govardhan is that Lachhman, the brother of Rama, having been wounded
by Ravan, the demon king of Ceylon, his surgeon declared that his
wound could be cured only by a decoction of the leaves of a certain
tree, to be found in a certain hill in the Himalaya mountains.
Hanuman volunteered to go for it, but on reaching the place he found
that he had entirely forgotten the description of the tree required;
and, to prevent mistake, he took up the whole mountain upon his back,
and walked off with it to the plains. As he passed Govardhan, where
Bharat and Charat, the third and fourth brothers of Rama, then
reigned, he was seen by them.[22] It was night; and, thinking him a
strange sort of fish, Bharat let fly one of his arrows at him. It hit
him in the leg, and the sudden jerk caused this small fragment of his
huge burden to fall off. He called out in his agony, 'Ram, Ram', from
which they learned that he belonged to the army of their brother, and
let him pass on; but he remained lame for life from the wound. This
accounts very satisfactorily, according to popular belief, for the
halting gait of all the monkeys of that species;[23] those who are
descended lineally from the general inherit it, of course; and those
who are not, adopt it out of respect for his memory, as all the
soldiers of Alexander contrived to make one shoulder higher than the
other, because one of his happened to be so. When he passed,
thousands and tens of thousands of lamps were burning upon his
mountain, as the people remained entirely unconscious of the change,
and at their usual occupations. Hanuman reached Ceylon with his
mountain, the tree was found upon it, and Lachhman's wound cured.[24]

Govardhan is now within the boundary of our territory, and a native
collector resides here from Agra.[25]

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. See note on Govardhan, _ante_, chapter 53, note 1.

3. _Ante_, chapter 9, note 8.

4. _Ante_, beginning of chapter 53.

5. This Hindoo version of the Massacre of the Innocents necessarily
recalls to mind the story in St. Matthew's Gospel. Numerous incidents
of the Gospel narrative, including the birth among the cattle, the
stable, the manger, and the imperial census, are repeated in the
Indian legends of Krishna. The exact channel of communication is not
known, but the intercourse between Alexandria and India is, in
general terms, the explanation of the coincidences (Weber, _Die
Griechen in Indien_, 1890, and _Abh. ueber Krishna's Geburtfest_,
1868).

6. This story may be an adaptation of the similar Buddhist tale.

7. Uj is the Og, King of Bashan, of the Hebrew version of the legend.
The extravagant stories quoted in the text are not in the Koran, but
are the inventions of the commentators. Sale gives references in his
notes to chap. 5 of the Koran.

8. The kingdom included the modern Oudh (Awadh). The capital was the
ancient city, also named Ajodhya, adjoining Fyzabad, which is still a
very sacred place of pilgrimage.

9. It is, I think, absolutely impossible for the most sympathetic
European to understand, or enter into, the mental position of the
learned and devout Hindoo who implicitly believes the wild myth
related in the text, and sees no incongruity in the congeries of
inconsistent ideas which are involved in the story. We may dimly
apprehend that Brahma is conceived as a [Greek text], or Architect of
the Universe, working in subordination to an impersonal higher power,
and not as the infinite, omniscient, omnipotent Creator whom the
Hebrews reverenced, but we shall still be a long way from attaining
the Hindoo point of view. The relations of Krishna, Vishnu, Brahma,
Rama, Siva, and all the other deities, with one another and with
mankind, seem to be conceived by the Hindoo in a manner so confused
and contradictory that every attempt at elucidation or explanation
must necessarily fail. A Hindoo is born, not made, and the
'inwardness' of Hinduism is not to be penetrated, even by the most
learned of 'barbarian' pundits.

10. _Ante_, chapter 20, note 6.

11. Raja of Bharatpur, not to be confounded with the Lion of the
Panjab.

12. Wordsworth, _Excursion_, Book I.

13. The original edition gives a coloured plate of this tomb, which
is not noticed by Fergusson. That author's remarks on the palace at
Dig would apply to this tomb also; the style is good, but not quite
the best. Suraj Mall was killed in a skirmish in 1763.

14. Baldeo, or in Sanskrit Baladeva, Balabhadra, or Balarama, was the
elder brother of Krishna. His myth in some respects resembles that of
Herakles, as that of Krishna is related to the myths of Apollo. The
editor is not able to solve the queries propounded by the author.

15. i.e. Hari deva, a form of Vishnu. The temple of Hari deva at
Govardhan was built about A.D. 1560. (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed.,
vol. viii, p. 94.)

16. Modern India shows little appreciation of good art, and the
paintings ordinarily executed for decorative purposes are as crude as
those described by the author. A school of clever artists in Bengal
is doing something to raise the public taste. The high merit of the
ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta and elsewhere is now fully
recognized. A great revival of pictorial art took place about A.D.
1570 in the reign of Akbar. From that date the Indo-Persian and
Indian schools of painting maintained a high standard of excellence,
especially in portraiture, for a century approximately. During the
eighteenth century marked deterioration may be observed. See _A
History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon_, Oxford, 1911.

17. The Jats detest Brahmans. The members of a Jat deputation
complained one day to the editor when in the Muzaffarnagar district
that they suffered many evils by reason of the Brahmans.

18. The author's meaning seems to be that building tombs is not an
old Hindoo usage.

19. Sivaji, the indomitable opponent of Aurangzeb in the Deccan,
belonged to the agricultural Kunbi caste. He was born in May A.D.
1627, and died in April 1680. The Brahman ministers of the Rajas of
Satara were known by the title of Peshwa. Baji Rao I, who died in
1740, the second Peshwa, was the first who superseded in actual power
his nominal master. The last of the Peshwas was Baji Rao II, who
abdicated in 1818, after the termination of the great Maratha war,
and retired to Bithur near Cawnpore. His adopted son was the
notorious Nana Sahib. The Marquis of Hastings, in 1818, drew the Raja
of Satara from captivity, and re-established his dignity and power.
In 1839 the Raja's treachery compelled the Government of India to
depose him. His territory is now a district of the Bombay Presidency.
See Mankar, _The Life and Exploits of Shivaji_, 2nd ed., Bombay,
Nirnayasagar Press, 1886.

20. The Raja of Berar, also known as the Raja of Nagpur, was called
the Bhonsla. The misrule of Gwalior has been described _ante_, in
chapters 36 and 49. The condition of Gwalior and Indore, the capitals
of Sindhia and Holkar respectively, is now very different. The
Bhonsla has vanished.

21. Since the annexation of the Panjab in 1849, the Sikhs have justly
earned so much praise as loyal and gallant soldiers, the flower of
the Indian army, that their earlier less honourable reputation has
been effaced, Captain Francklin, writing in 1803, and apparently
expressing the opinion of George Thomas, declares that 'the Seiks are
false, sanguinary, and faithless; they are addicted to plunder and
the acquirement of wealth by any means, however nefarious'.
(_Military Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas, London reprint_, p. 112.)
The Sikh states of the Panjab are now sufficiently well governed.

22. I know of no authority for the name Charat (Churut), which seems
to be a blunder for Satrughna. The sons of Dasaratha were Rama, by
the chief queen; Bharat, by a second; and Lachhman (Lakshmana), and
Satrughna by a third consort.

23. The species referred to is the long-tailed monkey called
'Hanuman', and 'langur' in Hindi, the _Presbytis entellus_ of Jerdon
(=_P. anchises_, Elliot; = _Semnopithecus_, Cuvier).

24. The author seems to have forgotten that he has already told this
story, _ante_, this chapter following [8] in the text.

25. It is in the Mathura district. The town of Mathura (Muttra)
became the head-quarters of a separate District in 1832. The official
at Govardhan in 1836 must, therefore, have been subordinate to
Mathura, not to Agra.

CHAPTER 57

Veracity.

The people of Britain are described by Diodorus Siculus (Book V,
chap. 2) as in a very simple and rude state, subsisting almost
entirely on the produce of the land, but as being 'a people of much
integrity and sincerity, far from the craft and knavery of men among
us, contented with plain and homely fare, and strangers to the
luxuries and excesses of the rich'. In India we find strict veracity
most prevalent among the wildest and half-savage tribes of the hills
and jungles in Central India, or the chain of the Himalaya mountains;
and among those where we find it prevail most, we find cattle-
stealing most common; the men of one tribe not deeming it to be any
disgrace to _lift_, or steal, the cattle of another. I have known the
man among the Gonds of the woods of Central India, whom nothing could
induce to tell a lie, join a party of robbers to lift a herd of
cattle from the neighbouring plains for nothing more than as much
spirits as he could enjoy at one bout. I asked a native gentleman of
the plains, in the valley of the Nerbudda, one day, what made the
people of the woods to the north and south more disposed to speak the
truth than those more civilized of the valley itself. 'They have not
yet learned the value of a lie,' said he, with the greatest
simplicity and sincerity, for he was a very honest and plain-spoken
man.

Veracity is found to prevail most where there is least to tempt to
falsehood, and most to be feared from it. In a very rude state of
society, like that of which I have been speaking, the only shape in
which property is accumulated is in cattle; things are bartered for
each other without the use of a circulating medium, and one member of
a community has no means of concealing from the other the articles of
property he has. If they were to steal from each other, they would
not be able to conceal what they stole--to steal, therefore, would be
no advantage. In such societies every little community is left to
govern itself; to secure the rights, and enforce the duties, of all
its several members in their relations with each other; they are too
poor to pay taxes to keep up expensive establishments, and their
Governments seldom maintain among them any for the administration of
justice, or the protection of life, property, or character. All the
members of all such little communities will often unite in robbing
the members of another community of their flocks and herds, the only
kind of property they have, or in applauding those who most
distinguish themselves in such enterprises; but the well-being of the
community demands that each member should respect the property of the
others, and be punished by the odium of all if he does not.[1]

It is equally necessary to the well-being of the community that every
member should be able to rely upon the veracity of the other upon the
very few points where their rights, duties, and interests clash. In
the very rudest state of society, among the woods and hills of India,
the people have some deity whose power they dread, and whose name
they invoke when much is supposed to depend upon the truth of what
one man is about to declare. The 'pipal' tree (_Ficus religiosa_) is
everywhere sacred to the gods, who are supposed to sit among its
leaves and listen to the music of their rustling. The deponent takes
one of these leaves in his hand, and invokes the god who sits above
him to crush him, or those dear to him, as he crushes the leaf in his
hand, if he speak anything but the truth; he then plucks and crushes
the leaf, and states what he has to say.[2]

The large cotton-tree is, among the wild tribes of India, the
favourite seat of gods still more terrible,[3] because their
superintendence is confined exclusively to the neighbourhood; and
having their attention less occupied, they can venture to make a more
minute scrutiny into the conduct of the people immediately around
them. The 'pipal' is occupied by one or other of the Hindoo triad,
the god of creation, preservation, or destruction, who have the
affairs of the universe to look after;[4] but the cotton and other
trees are occupied by some minor deities, who are vested with a local
superintendence over the affairs of a district, or perhaps, of a
single village.[5] These are always in the view of the people, and
every man knows that he is every moment liable to be taken to their
court, and to be made to invoke their vengeance upon himself, or
those dear to him, if he has told a falsehood in what he has stated,
or tells one in what he is about to state. Men so situated adhere
habitually, and I may say religiously, to the truth; and I have had
before me hundreds of cases in which a man's property, liberty, or
life has depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell
it to save either; as my friend told me, 'they had not learned the
value of a lie', or rather, they had not learned with how much
impunity a lie could be told in the tribunals of civilized society.
In their own tribunals, under the pipal-tree or cotton-tree,
imagination commonly did what the deities, who were supposed to
preside, had the credit of doing; if the deponent told a lie, he
believed that the deity who sat on the sylvan throne above him, and
searched the heart of man, must know it; and from that moment he knew
no rest--he was always in dread of his vengeance; if any accident
happened to him, or to those dear to him, it was attributed to this
offended deity; and if no accident happened, some evil was brought
about by his own disordered imagination.[6]