Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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Differences of political opinion, which agitate society so much in
England and other countries where every man believes that his own
personal interests must always be more or less affected by the
predominance of one party over another, are no doubt a source of much
interest to people in India, but they scarcely ever excite any angry
passions among them. The tempests by which the political atmosphere
of the world is cleared and purged of all its morbid influences burst
not upon us--we see them at a distance--we know that they are working
for all mankind; and we feel for those who boldly expose themselves
to their 'pitiless peltings' as men feel for the sailors whom they
suppose to be exposed on the ocean to the storm, while they listen to
it from their beds or winter firesides.[12] We discuss all political
opinions, and all the great questions which they affect, with the
calmness of philosophers; not without emotion certainly, but without
passion; we have no share in returning members to parliament--we feel
no dread of those injuries, indignities, and calumnies to which those
who have are too often exposed; and we are free from the bitterness
of feelings which always attend them.[13]

How exalted, how glorious, has been the destiny of England, to spread
over so vast a portion of the globe her literature, her language, and
her free institutions! How ought the sense of this high destiny to
animate her sons in their efforts to perfect their institutions which
they have formed by slow degrees from feudal barbarism; to make them
in reality as perfect as they would have them appear to the world to
be in theory, that rising nations may love and honour the source
whence they derive theirs, and continue to look to it for
improvement.

We return to the society of our wives and children after the labours
of the day are over, with tempers unruffled by collision with
political and religious antagonists, by unfavourable changes in the
season and the markets, and the other circumstances which affect so
much the incomes and prospects of our friends at home. We must look
to them for the chief pleasures of our lives, and know that they must
look to us for theirs; and if anything has crossed us we try to
conceal it from them. There is in India a strong feeling of mutual
dependence which prevents little domestic misunderstandings between
man and wife from growing into quarrels so often as in other
countries, where this is less prevalent. Men have not here their
clubs, nor their wives their little coteries to fly to when disposed
to make serious matters out of trifles, and both are in consequence
much inclined to bear and forbear. There are, of course, on the other
hand, evils in India that people have not to contend with at home;
but, on the whole, those who are disposed to look on the fair, as
well as on the dark side of all around them, can enjoy life in India
very much, as long as they and those dear to them are free from
physical pain.[14] We everywhere find too many disposed to look upon
the dark side of all that is present, and the bright side of all that
is distant in time and place--always miserable themselves, be they
where they will, and making all around them miserable; this commonly
arises from indigestion, and the habit of eating and drinking in a
hot, as in a cold, climate; and giving their stomachs too much to do,
as if they were the only parts of the human frame whose energies were
unrelaxed by the temperature of tropical climates.

There is, however, one great defect in Anglo-Indian society; it is
composed too exclusively of the servants of government, civil,
military, and ecclesiastic, and wants much of the freshness, variety,
and intelligence of cultivated societies otherwise constituted. In
societies where capital is concentrated for employment in large
agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing establishments, those who
possess and employ it form a large portion of the middle and higher
classes. They require the application of the higher branches of
science to the efficient employment of their capital in almost every
purpose to which it can be applied; and they require, at the same
time, to show that they are not deficient in that conventional
learning of the schools and drawing-rooms to which the circles they
live and move in attach importance. In such societies we are,
therefore, always coming in contact with men whose scientific
knowledge is necessarily very precise, and at the same time very
extensive, while their manners and conversation are of the highest
polish. There is, perhaps, nothing which strikes a gentleman from
India so much on his entering a society differently constituted, as
the superior precision of men's information upon scientific subjects;
and more especially upon that of the sciences more immediately
applicable to the arts by which the physical enjoyments of men are
produced, prepared, and distributed all over the world. Almost all
men in India feel that too much of their time before they left
England was devoted to the acquisition of the dead languages; and too
little to the study of the elements of science. The time lost can
never be regained--at least they think so, which is much the same
thing. Had they been well grounded in the elements of physics,
physiology, and chemistry before they left their native land, they
would have gladly devoted their leisure to the improvement of their
knowledge; but to go back to elements, where elements can be learnt
only from books, is, unhappily, what so few can bring themselves to,
that no man feels ashamed of acknowledging that he has never studied
them at all till he returns to England, or enters a society
differently constituted, and finds that he has lost the support of
the great majority that always surrounded him in India.[15] It will,
perhaps, be said that the members of the official aristocracy of all
countries have more or less of the same defects, for certain it is
that they everywhere attach paramount or undue importance to the
conventional learning of the grammar-school and the drawing-room, and
the ignorant and the indolent have everywhere the support of a great
majority. Johnson has, however, observed:

'But the truth is that the knowledge of external nature and the
sciences, which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the
great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide
for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing,
the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and
wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and
with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by
events the reasonableness of opinions.[16] Prudence and justice are
virtues and excellences of all times, and of all places--we are
perpetually moralists; but we are geometricians only by chance. Our
intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations
upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is
of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life,
without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or
astromony; but his moral and prudential character immediately
appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that
supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and
most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served
by poets, orators, and historians' (_Life of Milton_).

Notes:

1. In India officers have much better opportunities in time of peace
to learn how to handle troops than in England, from having them more
concentrated in large stations, with fine open plains to exercise
upon. During the whole of the cold season, from the beginning of
November to the end of February, the troops are at large stations
exercised in brigades, and the artillery, cavalry, and infantry
together. [W. H. S.] The normal garrison of Meerut in recent years
has consisted of one British cavalry regiment, one battalion of
British infantry, one native cavalry regiment, and one battalion of
native infantry, with two batteries of horse and two of field
artillery. The cantonment was established in 1806, from which date
the town grew rapidly in size and population. The civil staff has
been largely increased since Sleeman's time by the addition of
numerous officers belonging to irrigation and other departmental
services which did not exist in his day. The offices of District
Magistrate and Collector have been united as a single person for many
years.

2. The cantonments suffered severely from typhoid fever for several
years in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

3. Few Anglo-Indians will dispute the truth of this dictum.

4. The late Earl of Liverpool, then Mr. Jenkinson, married this old
lady's daughter. He was always very attentive to her, and she used
with feelings of great pride and pleasure to display the contents of
the boxes of millinery which he used every year to send out to her.
[W. H. 8.] The author came out to India in 1809. Mr. Charles
Jenkinson was created Baron Hawkesbury in 1786, and Earl of Liverpool
in 1796. His first wife, who died in 1770, was Amelia, daughter of
Mr. William Watts, Governor of Fort William, and of the lady
described by the author. Their only son succeeded to the earldom in
1808, and died in 1828. The peerage became extinct on the death of
the third earl in 1851. (Burke's _Peerage_.) It was revived in 1905.

5. Lord Liverpool, the second earl, became Prime Minister in 1812,
after the murder of Perceval. Mrs. Johnson (not Johnstone) was not
'the widow of a Governor-General of India'. Her history is told in
detail on her tombstone in St. John's churchyard, Calcutta, and is
summarized in Buckland, _Dictionary of Indian Biography_ (1906). She
was born in 1725, and died in 1812. She had four husbands, namely (l)
Parry Purple Temple, whom she married when she was only thirteen
years of age; (2) James Altham, who died of smallpox a few days after
his marriage; (3) William Watts, Senior Member of Council, and for a
short time Governor or President of Fort William in 1758; (4) in 1774
Rev. William Johnson, who became principal chaplain of Fort William
in 1784, and left India in 1788. She was known as 'the old Begum ',
and her epitaph asserts that she was when she died 'the oldest
British resident in Bengal, universally beloved, respected, and
revered'. Mr. A. L. Paul kindly communicated the full text of the
inscription on her tomb, with some additional notes. The author met
her in 1810, when she was about eighty-five years of age.

6. The tragedy of the Black Hole occurred in June, 1756.

7. Of late years the rigour of the custom exacting midday calls has
been relaxed in some places.

8. Moat people would require some training before they could find
this very abstemious regimen 'the most agreeable'.

9. It will, I hope, be admitted that this observation still holds
good.

10. When the author wrote the rupee was worth more than two
shillings, the members of the Indian services were few in number, and
mostly well paid, while living was cheap. Now all is changed. The
rupee has an artificial value of 1_s_. 4_d_., the members of the
services are numerous and often ill paid, while living is dear. The
sharp fall in the value of silver, and consequently in the gold
equivalent of the rupee, began in 1874. 'Corroding cares and
anxieties' are now the lot of most people who serve in India. They
now have the privilege of paying taxes.

11. This perfect religious freedom, still generally characteristic of
Anglo-Indian society, is one of its greatest charms; and the charms
of the country do not increase.

12. The author probably had in his mind the famous lines of
Lucretius:-

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
Non quia vexari quemquam 'st jucunda voluptas,
Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave 'st.
(Book II, line 1.)

13. This delightful philosophic calm is no longer an Anglo-Indian
possession; nor can the modern Indian official congratulate himself
on his immunity from 'injuries, indignities, and calumnies'.

14. There are now clubs everywhere, and coteries are said to be not
unknown. Few Anglo-Indians of the present day are able to share the
author's cheery optimism.

15. In this matter also time has wrought great changes. The
scientific branches of the Indian services, the medical, engineering,
forestry, geological survey, and others, have greatly developed, and
many officials, in India, whether of European or Indian race, now
occupy high places in the world of science.

16. Compare Bolingbroke's observation, already quoted, that 'history
is philosophy teaching by example'.

CHAPTER 74

Pilgrims of India.

There is nothing which strikes a European more in travelling over the
great roads in India than the vast number of pilgrims of all kinds
which he falls in with, particularly between the end of November
[_sic_], when all the autumn harvest has been gathered, and the seed
of the spring crops has been in the ground. They consist for the most
part of persons, male and female, carrying Ganges water from the
point at Hardwar, where the sacred stream emerges from the hills, to
the different temples in all parts of India, dedicated to the gods
Vishnu and Siva. There the water is thrown upon the stones which
represent the gods, and when it falls upon these stones it is called
'Chandamirt', or holy water, and is frequently collected and reserved
to be drunk as a remedy 'for a mind diseased'[1]

This water is carried in small bottles, bearing the seals of the
presiding priest at the holy place whence it was brought. The bottles
are contained in covered baskets, fixed to the ends of a pole, which
is carried across the shoulder. The people who carry it are of three
kinds--those who carry it for themselves as a votive offering to some
shrine; those who are hired for the purpose by others as salaried
servants; and, thirdly, those who carry it for sale. In the interval
between the sowing and reaping of the spring crops, that is, between
November and March, a very large portion of the Hindoo landholders
and cultivators of India devote their leisure to this pious duty.
They take their baskets and poles with them from home, or purchase
them on the road; and having poured their libations on the head of
the god, and made him acquainted with their wants and wishes, return
home. From November to March three-fourths of the number of these
people one meets consist of this class. At other seasons more than
three-fourths consist of the other two classes--of persons hired for
the purpose as servants, and those who carry the water for sale.

One morning the old Jemadar, the marriage of whose mango-grove with
the jasmine I have already described,[2] brought his two sons and a
nephew to pay their respects to me on their return to Jubbulpore from
a pilgrimage to Jagannath.[3] The sickness of the youngest, a nice
boy of about six years of age, had caused this pilgrimage. The eldest
son was about twenty years of age, and the nephew about eighteen.

After the usual compliments, I addressed the eldest son: 'And so your
brother was really very ill when you set out?'

'Very ill, sir; hardly able to stand without assistance.'

'What was the matter with him?'

'It was what we call a drying-up, or withering of the System.'

'What were the symptoms?'

'Dysentery.'

'Good; and what cured him, as he now seems quite well?'

'Our mother and father vowed five pair of baskets of Ganges water to
Gajadhar, an incarnation of the god Siva, at the temple of Baijnath,
and a visit to the temple of Jagannath.'

'And having fulfilled these vows, your brother recovered?'

'He had quite recovered, sir, before we had set out on our return
from Jagannath.'

'And who carried the baskets?'

'My mother, wife, cousin, myself, and little brother, all carried one
pair each.'

'This little boy could not surely carry a pair of baskets all the
way?'

'No, sir, we had a pair of small baskets made especially for him; and
when within about three miles of the temple he got down from his
little pony, took up his baskets, and carried them to the god. Up to
within three miles of the temple the baskets were carried by a
Brahman servant, whom we had taken with us to cook our food. We had
with us another Brahman, to whom we had to pay only a trifle, as his
principal wages were made up of fees from families in the town of
Jubbulpore, who had made similar vows, and gave him so much a bottle
for the water he carried in their several names to the god.'

'Did you give all your water to the Baijnath temple, or carry some
with you to Jagannath?'

'No water is ever offered to Jagannath, sir; he is an incarnation of
Vishnu.'[4]

'And does Vishnu never drink?'

'He drinks, sir, no doubt; but he gets nothing but offerings of food
and money.'

'From this to Bindachal on the Ganges, two hundred and thirty miles;
thence to Baijnath, a hundred and fifty miles; and thence to
Jagannath, some four or five hundred miles more.'[5]

'And your mother and wife walked all the way with their baskets?'

'All the way, sir, except when either of them got sick, when she
mounted the pony with my little brother till she felt well again.'

Here were four members of a respectable family walking a pilgrimage
of between twelve and fourteen hundred miles, going and coming, and
carrying burthens on their shoulders for the recovery of the poor
sick boy; and millions of families are every year doing the same from
all parts of India. The change of air, and exercise, cured the boy,
and no doubt did them all a great deal of good; but no physician in
the world but a religions one could have persuaded them to undertake
such a journey for the same purpose.

The rest of the pilgrims we meet are for the most part of the two
monastic orders of Gosains, or the followers of Siva, and Bairagis,
or followers of Vishnu, and Muhammadan Fakirs. A Hindoo of any caste
may become a member of these monastic orders. They are all disciples
of the high priests of the temples of their respective gods; and in
their name they wander all over India, visiting the celebrated
temples which are dedicated to them. A part of the revenues of these
temples is devoted to subsisting these disciples as they pass; and
every one of them claims the right of a day's food and lodging, or
more, according to the rules of the temple. They make collections
along the roads; and when they return, commonly bring back some
surplus as an offering to their apostle, the high priest who has
adopted them. Almost every high priest has a good many such
disciples, as they are not costly; and from their returning
occasionally, and from the disciples of others passing, these high
priests learn everything of importance that is going on over India,
and are well acquainted with the state of feeling and opinion.

What these disciples get from secular people is given not only from
feelings of charity and compassion, but as a religions or
propitiatory offering: for they are all considered to be armed by
their apostle with a vicarious power of blessing or cursing; and as
being in themselves men of God whom it might be dangerous to
displease. They never condescend to feign disease or misery in order
to excite feelings of compassion, but demand what they want with a
bold front, as holy men who have a right to share liberally in the
superfluities which God has given to the rest of the Hindoo
community. They are in general exceedingly intelligent men of the
world, and very communicative. Among them will be found members of
all classes of Hindoo society, and of the most wealthy and
respectable families.[6] While I had charge of the Narsinghpur
district in 1822 a Bairagi, or follower of Vishnu, came and settled
himself down on the border of a village near my residence. His mild
and paternal deportment pleased all the little community so much that
they carried him every day more food than he required. At last, the
proprietor of the village, a very respectable old gentleman, to whom
I was much attached, went out with all his family to ask a blessing
of the holy man. As they sat down before him, the tears were seen
stealing down his cheeks as he looked upon the old man's younger sons
and daughters. At last, the old man's wife burst into tears, ran up,
and fell upon the holy man's neck, exclaiming, 'My lost son, my lost
son!' He was indeed her eldest son. He had disappeared suddenly
twelve years before, became a disciple of the high priest of a
distant temple, and visited almost every celebrated temple in India,
from Kedarnath in the eternal snows to Sita Baldi Ramesar, opposite
the island of Ceylon.[7] He remained with the family for nearly a
year, delighting them and all the country around with his narratives.
At last, he seemed to lose his spirits, his usual rest and appetite;
and one night he again disappeared. He had been absent for some years
when I last saw the family, and I know not whether he ever returned.

The real members of these monastic orders are not generally bad men;
but there are a great many men of all kinds who put on their
disguises, and under their cloak commit all kinds of atrocities.[8]
The security and convenience which the real pilgrims enjoy upon our
roads, and the entire freedom from all taxation, both upon these
roads and at the different temples they visit, tend greatly to attach
them to our rule, and through that attachment, a tone of good feeling
towards it is generally disseminated over all India. They come from
the native states, and become acquainted with the superior advantages
the people under us enjoy, in the greater security of property, the
greater freedom with which it is enjoyed and displayed; the greater
exemption from taxation, and the odious right of search which it
involves, the greater facilities for travelling in good roads and
bridges; the greater respectability and integrity of public servants,
arising from the greater security in their tenure of office and more
adequate rate of avowed salaries; the entire freedom of the
navigation of our great rivers, on which thousands and tens of
thousands of laden vessels now pass from one end to the other without
any one to question whence they come or whither they go. These are
tangible proofs of good government, which all can appreciate; and as
the European gentleman, in his rambles along the great roads, passes
the lines of pilgrims with which the roads are crowded during the
cold season, he is sure to hear himself hailed with grateful shouts,
as one of those who secured for them and the people generally all the
blessings they now enjoy.[9]

One day my sporting friend, the Raja of Maihar, told me that he had
been purchasing some water from the Ganges at its source, to wash the
image of Vishnu which stood in one of his temples.[10] I asked him
whether he ever drank the water after the image had been washed in
it. 'Yes,' said he, 'we all occasionally drink the "chandamirt".'
'And do you in the same manner drink the water in which the god Siva
has been washed?' 'Never,' said the Raja. 'And why not?' 'Because his
wife, Devi, one day in a domestic quarrel cursed him and said, "The
water which falls from thy head shall no man henceforward drink."
From that day', said the Raja, 'no man has ever drunk of the water
that washes his image, lest Devi should punish him.' 'And how is it,
then, Raja Sahib, that mankind continue to drink the water of the
Ganges, which is supposed to flow from her husband Siva's top-knot?'
'Because', replied the Raja, 'this sacred river first flows from the
right foot of the god Vishnu, and thence passes over the head of
Siva. The three gods', continued the Raja, 'govern the world turn and
turn about, twenty years at a time. While Vishnu reigns, all goes on
well; rain descends in good season, the harvests are abundant, and
the cattle thrive. When Brahma reigns, there is little falling off in
these matters; but during the twenty years that Siva reigns, nothing
goes on well--we are all at cross purposes, our crops fail, our
cattle get the murrain, and mankind suffer from epidemic diseases.'
The Raja was a follower of Vishnu, as may be guessed.

Notes:

1. Tavernier notes that Ganges water is often given at weddings,
'each guest receiving a cup or two, according to the liberality of
the host'. 'There is sometimes', he says, '2,000 or 3,000 rupees'
worth of it consumed at a wedding.' (Tavernier, _Travels_, ed. Ball,
vol. ii, pp. 231, 254.)

2. _Ante_, Chapter 5, [3].

3. Jagannath (corruptly Juggernaut, &c.), or Puri, on the coast of
Orissa, probably is the most venerated shrine in India. The principal
deity there worshipped is a form of Vishnu.

4. Water may not be offered to Jagannath, but the facts stated in
this chapter show that it is offered in other temples of Vishnu.

5. Bindachal is in the Mirzapur district of the United Provinces.
Baijnath is in the Santal Parganas District of the Bhagalpur Division
in the province of Bihar and Orissa. The group of temples at Deogarh
dedicated to Siva is visited by pilgrims from all parts of India. The
principal temple is called Baijnath or Baidyanath. Deogarh is a small
town in the Santal Parganas (_I.G._, 1908, s.v. Deogarh; _A.S.R._,
vol. viii (1878), pp. 137-45, Pl. ix, x; vol. xix (1885), pp. 29-35
(crude notes), Pl. x, xi).