Part 30

There is little mountain climbing in India compared with the Alps, because the distances and the difficulties are so great. A Boston gentleman and his wife made the ascent of Mount Everest in 1904, and it is claimed that they went higher than anyone had ever gone before.

Darjeeling is not a large town, but it is filled with interesting people, and on Sunday a market is held in the principal bazaar which is declared to be the most picturesque and fascinating in all India. Throngs of natives in quaint costumes come from all parts of the country around, representatives of tribes which do not often stray so far away from their homes. They come from Nepaul, Thibet, Sikkim and the surrounding countries, and bring articles of home manufacture to exchange for "store goods." The features of the people are unmistakable testimony of their Mongolian origin. They are short of stature, with broad, flat faces, high cheek bones and bright, smiling eyes wide apart. The men grow no beards, but have long pigtails of coarse coal-black hair. The women are sturdy, good-natured and unembarrassed; they are adorned with a great quantity of jewelry, chiefly of silver, but often of gold. They wear circlets around their heads made of coral, turquoise, amber, agate, jade or other precious stones, with five or six necklaces and enormous girdles of the same material. Huge ear rings, four or five inches long, pull down the lobes of their ears. Their wrists are heavy with bracelets, their limbs with anklets, and their fingers are half hidden with rings. The entire fortune of a family is usually invested in personal adornments for the women members. They find this much safer than savings banks.

The attention of the world has recently been attracted in that direction because of an unusual and very significant movement of the Indian government, which, in the winter of 1904, took advantage of the embarrassments of Russia in the farther East, and sent a military expedition over the northern border on the pretext of escorting a diplomatic mission. Colonel Younghusband was sent as an envoy extraordinary--very extraordinary--for, with 2,500 British soldiers, he was instructed to make a treaty of commerce and good will with the Grand Lama of Thibet, and his orders were to stay at Lhassa until the treaty was negotiated and as much longer as was necessary to compel the Thibetans to respect its terms and carry out its stipulations. That means the permanent occupation of Lhassa by a British army and the opening of an unknown and mysterious region to trade.

Thibet is the unknown, mysterious country of the world, a land of desert and mountains inhabited by a primitive and bigoted people, who have for many years been under the protection of China, and paid tribute to the emperor until the late war with Japan in 1895. After the result of that conflict became known they seemed to lose their respect for and confidence in their protectors and have sent no envoys or money to Peking since. We know very little about Thibet. Foreigners are not permitted to enter the country, and only a few venturesome explorers have endured the hardships and faced the dangers of a visit to that forbidden land. Indeed, it is so perilous an undertaking that a skeptical public frequently takes the liberty to doubt the statements of the men who have gone there. But all agree that it is the hermit of nations, and its people are under the control of cruel and ignorant Buddhist priests, who endeavor to prevent them from acquiring any modern customs or ideas. One of the objects of Colonel Younghusband's expedition is to change this situation and persuade the ignorant and bigoted ecclesiastics who govern Thibet to open their gates and admit foreign merchants and foreign merchandise into that benighted country. There is considerable commerce, however. Parties of Thibetan traders are continually coming across the frontier into Darjeeling with all sorts of native products and may be seen in the market that is held every Sunday morning and during the weekdays in the bazaars of the city. After selling their goods they buy cottons, drugs, groceries, hardware and other European goods and take them back into their own country; but foreigners are not allowed to pass the line, and practically all of the trade of Thibet is monopolized by the Chinese, who sell the natives large quantities of cotton fabrics and other imported merchandise as well as tea, silk and other Chinese goods. This trade is supposed to be worth many millions of dollars, and the ability of India to furnish the tea and of England to furnish the manufactured goods that the inhabitants of Thibet may need is considered ample reason for sending the Younghusband expedition into that country. But there are other reasons quite as important.

Lying between Thibet and India is the independent state of Nepal, or Nepaul, the home of the Gurkhas, one of the finest fighting races in the world, and there are eighteen full regiments of them in the Indian army. The Gurkhas are a mountain people, industrious, temperate, hardy, brave, loyal, honest, and without sense of fear. They are the main dependence of the Indian government among the native troops. Nepal has its own government and the people are proud of their independence. While they are entirely friendly to Great Britain and have treaties with India under which the latter extends a protectorate over the province and enters into an offensive and defensive alliance, the Maharaja permits no British adviser to take part in his government and receives a representative of the viceroy only in the capacity of envoy or minister plenipotentiary. The latter dare not interfere with the administration of the government and never presumes to tender his advice to the native rulers unless it is asked. His duties are chiefly to keep the viceroy at Calcutta informed as to what is going on in the Nepal province and to cultivate the good will of the officials and the people.

There has never been a census of Nepal and the population has been variously estimated from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000. It is probably near the latter figure. The people are mostly engaged in raising cattle, sheep and goats and growing wheat, barley and other grains in the valleys. The principal exports, which amount to about $8,000,000 a year, are wool, hides and grain, and the imports, which amount to about $5,000,000, are cotton goods and other wearing apparel, iron and steel, cutlery and other manufactured merchandise.

The people of Nepal profess the Hindu faith and have close relations with the Brahmins at Benares, which is the Rome, or the Mecca, of Brahminism. They sometimes in the past have beep bold enough to defy British authority, and, for example, protected Nana Sahib, the leader of the mutiny of 1857, and gave him an asylum when he fled from British vengeance. However amicable the relations between Nepal and the British government, the latter is scrupulously careful not to furnish any excuse for complaint or controversy, because a collision with this powerful people would not only result in the loss of the finest corps in the Indian army, but would make it extremely unpleasant for the people of Assam, Bengal, Oudh and the Punjab, which provinces lie next on the south.

One hundred years ago an army from Nepal invaded Thibet and sacked an important town. The Thibetans appealed to China, which had not yet lost its military vigor, and sent an army to invade Nepal. It came within eighteen miles of Gurkha, the capital, when the Nepals proposed a parley, paid a heavy indemnity and entered into a treaty of permanent peace, promising never to invade Thibet again. That was the last heroic act of the Chinese government, and then, in compliance with the terms of the treaty, all the passes through the Himalaya Mountains between the two countries were permanently closed by common consent, and in many cases were walled up with masonry, adding an artificial barrier to the natural wall. It was also agreed that there should be no communication across the border and that the inhabitants of both provinces would remain upon their own sides. This prohibition has been enforced until to-day, and has not been violated except by Buddhist priests and monks and a few venturesome explorers. No Englishman may even now enter Nepal or pass from Nepal into Thibet without permission from the authorities of both governments.

Mindful of the aggressive policy of Russia, which controls Turkestan, the country north of Thibet, the British government some years ago sent an envoy named McCauley to Lhassa, with the permission of the Chinese government, to open commercial relations with Thibet and find another market for the tea of Assam and the manufactured merchandise of India. But he was unable to do anything. He could not induce the priests, or lamas, who control the government, to negotiate with him. They would not respond to his advances and gave him plainly to understand that they did not care to improve their relations with India. Immediately after his departure the Thibetans began to fortify the passes over the mountains, and invaded the little province of Sikkim, which also adjoins Thibet. The British sent up troops and forbade the continuance of the work. The Thibetans withdrew to the interior and agreed to make a commercial treaty and open their market to Indian goods, promising to send a plenipotentiary to Calcutta for that purpose within six months; but he has never appeared, and frequent reminders from the British have passed without notice.

When Lord Curzon came to India he determined to reverse the policy of indifference which had been pursued by Lord Elgin, his predecessor. The opening of Thibet to Indian trade has been one of the principal features of his administrative programme. In 1900 he sent to Lhassa an ambassador in the person of Colonel Younghusband, a distinguished Asiatic traveler, who speaks the language of Thibet, to talk things over and persuade the Dailai Lama, as the chief ruler of Thibet is called, to carry out his promise about the treaties. The Grand Lama refused to receive Colonel Younghusband, and would have nothing whatever to do with him, rejecting his overtures without explanation and treating his messages with contempt.

While England was suffering the worst of the disasters of the recent war in South Africa the Russian government sent a secret embassy to Lhassa, carrying rich presents and large sums of money to the Grand Lamal for the ostensible purpose of securing permission to construct a branch from its Siberian Railway to Lhassa across Chinese Turkestan. The Grand Lama afterward sent an embassy to return the visit at St. Petersburg, which was received with great honors and presented with rich gifts. The Grand Lama, in recognition of these attentions, conferred upon the czar the title of "Lord and Guardian of the Gifts of Faith." It is the supreme Buddhist honor, and while the title is empty, it is particularly significant in this case, because it implies protection. It is believed that a secret treaty was made under which Russia promised to guarantee the independence of Thibet and protect that government against invasion in exchange for the privilege of constructing a railway line through its territory. The Thibetans are supposed to have accepted these terms because of their fear of China. Until 1895 Thibet was a province of the Chinese Empire, and paid tribute to the emperor every year, but since the war with Japan the Grand Lama has sent no messenger to Peking, has paid no tribute and has ignored the Chinese representative at Lhassa. The priests postponed negotiations on the pretext that it was necessary to consult Peking, and promised to send a mission to Calcutta within six months, but never have done so. In the meantime there has been continual friction on the border; the Indian authorities have repeatedly reminded the Grand Lama of his promise and its postponement, but he has stubbornly refused to communicate with them, and has even returned their communications unopened.

When the secret relations between Russia and Thibet were discovered the Chinese authorities were naturally indignant and the Indian authorities were alarmed. After a conference China granted permission for England to use whatever methods it thought best to bring the Grand Lama to terms. Thereupon Colonel Younghusband was sent to Lhassa again. The Grand Lama again refused to see him, declined to appoint an official to confer with him and returned his credentials unopened, and used other means to show his indifference and contempt for India and England.

When Younghusband returned to Calcutta and reported the failure of his mission and the insults offered him Lord Curzon decided that the time had come to act, and as soon as preparations could be made Colonel Younghusband started back to Lhassa escorted by 2,500 armed men and carrying provisions for two years. He was instructed to avoid collisions, to make friends with the people, to establish permanent posts on the line of march wherever he thought necessary and to remain at Lhassa until he secured a treaty opening the markets of Thibet to British merchants. The treaty is made, and by its terms the Thibetans are to pay England an indemnity of $3,750,000 to cover the cost of the expedition. Until the indemnity is paid the Indian troops will continue to occupy the Churubi Valley which leads to Lhassa.

Lord Curzon did not dispatch this expedition and undertake this strategic movement without considering the present situation of Russia. The czar took occasion to engage in negotiations not only with Thibet, but with Afghanistan also, at the very moment when England was suffering her most serious disasters and embarrassments of recent history, and is getting tit for tat. Before Colonel Younghusband's expedition was dispatched the British ambassador at St. Petersburg was instructed to inquire if the Russian government had any relations with Thibet or any interests there, and was officially informed that it had not, and hence the etiquette of the situation had been complied with and Lord Curzon was perfectly free to act.

XXVII

BENARES, THE SACRED CITY

No one can realize what an awful religion Brahminism is until he visits Benares, the most sacred city of India, upon the banks of the Ganges, the most sacred river, more holy to more millions of human souls than Mecca to the Moslem, Rome to the Catholic or Jerusalem to the Jew. This marvelous city it so holy that death upon its soil is equivalent to life eternal. It is the gate to paradise, the abundant entrance to everlasting happiness, and its blessings are comprehensive enough to include all races, all religions and all castes. It is not necessary to be a Brahmin or to worship Siva or Krishna or any other of the Hindu gods, nor even to believe in them. Their grace is sufficient to carry unbelievers to the Hindu heavens provided they die within the area inclosed by a boulevard encircling this city.

There are in Benares 2,000 temples and innumerable shrines, 25,000 Brahmin priests, monks, fakirs and ascetics, and it is visited annually by more than half a million pilgrims--a larger number than may be counted at Mecca or Jerusalem, or at any other of the sacred cities of the world. There are more than 500,000 idols established in permanent places for worship in Benares, representing every variety of god in the Hindu pantheon, so that all the pilgrims who go there may find consolation and some object of worship. There are twenty-eight sacred cows at the central temples, and perhaps 500 more at other places of worship throughout the city; the trees around the temple gardens swarm with sacred monkeys and apes; there are twenty-two places where the dead are burned, and the air of the city is always darkened during the daytime by columns of smoke that rise from the funeral pyres. No other city, not even London, has so many beggars, religious and otherwise; nowhere can so many pitiful spectacles of deformity and distress be seen; nowhere is such gross and repulsive obscenity and sensuality practiced--and all in the name of religion; nowhere are such sordid deceptions imposed upon superstitious believers, and nowhere such gloomy, absurd and preposterous methods used for consoling sinners and escaping the results of sin. Although Benares in these respects is the most interesting city in India, and one of the most interesting in the world, it is also the most filthy, repulsive and forbidding. Few people care to remain there more than a day or two, although to the ethnologist and other students, to artists and people in search of the picturesque, it has more to offer than can be found elsewhere in the Indian Empire.

Benares is as old as Egypt. It is one of the oldest cities in existence. It was already famous when Rome was founded; even when Joshua and his trumpeters were surrounding the walls of Jericho. It is the hope of every believer in Brahminism to visit Benares and wash away his sins in the water of the sacred Ganges; the greatest blessing he can enjoy is to die there; hence, the palaces, temples, and lodging-houses which line the river banks are filled with the aged relatives and friends of their owners and with pilgrims who have come from all parts of India to wait with ecstatic patience the summons of the angel of death in order to go straight to heaven.

Nothing in all their religion is so dear to devout Hindus as the Ganges. The mysterious cavern in the Himalayas which is supposed to be the source of the river is the most sacred place on earth. It is the fifth head of Siva, and for 1,600 miles to its delta every inch of the banks is haunted with gods and demons, and has been the scene of events bearing upon the faith of two-thirds of the people of India. The most pious act, and one that counts more than any other to the credit of a human soul on the great books above, is to make a pilgrimage from the source to the mouth of the Ganges. If you have read Kipling's story of "Kim," you will remember the anxiety of the old lama to find this holy stream, and to follow its banks. Pilgrims to Benares and other cities upon the Ganges secure bottles of the precious water for themselves and send them to friends and kindred in foreign lands. No river in all the world is so worshiped, and to die upon its sacred banks and to have one's body burned and his ashes borne away into oblivion upon its tawny current is the highest aspiration of hundreds of millions of people.

The Ganges is equally sacred to the Buddhist, and Benares is associated more closely with the career of Buddha than any other city. Twenty-five hundred years ago Buddha preached his first sermon there, and for ten centuries or more it was the headquarters of Buddhism. Buddha selected it as the center of his missionary work. He secured the support of its scholars, teachers and philosophers, and from there sent forth missionaries to China, Japan, Burmah, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, Siam, Thibet, and other countries until half the human race accepted him as divine, his teachings as the law of God, and Benares as the fountain of that faith. It is a tradition that one of the wise men who followed the Star of Bethlehem to the Child that was cradled in a manger was a learned pundit from Benares, and it is certainly true that the doctors of theology who have lived and taught in the temples and monasteries there have exercised a greater influence upon a larger number of men than those of any other city that ever existed. But in these modern days Benares is wholly given over to ignorance, superstition, vice, filth and idolatry. The pure and lofty doctrines of Buddha are no longer taught. The "Well of Knowledge" is a filthy, putrid hole filled with slime and rotting vegetation. Buddhism has been swept out of India altogether, and Brahminism is taught and practiced there in its most repulsive and depraved forms.

Occasionally some reformer appears who endeavors to rebuke the depravity and appeals to the thinking members of the Brahmin sect to restore the ancient philosophy and morality of their fathers. I saw such an one at Benares. He lives in a bare and comfortless temple surrounded by a garden; is entirely dependent upon charity; every mouthful of food that he eats is brought to him by his disciples. He spends his entire time, day and night, in contemplation; he sleeps when he is exhausted; he eats when food is handed him, and if he is neglected he starves until some thoughtful person brings him a bowl of rice or curry. He wears nothing but a single shirt of cotton; he owns nothing in all the world except a brass bowl, which is used for both food and drink, and a few relics of his predecessor and teacher whom he lived with and served and whose mantle fell upon him. To those who come to his temple with serious minds and anxious to know the truth, he talks freely, and his pride is gratified by having his visitors inscribe their names in a large book which is kept for that purpose. And contributions of money are very acceptable because they enable his disciples to circulate his thoughts and discourses in printed form. I noticed that most of the names in the visitors' book were those of Americans, and it occurred to me that his contemplations must be seriously disturbed by having so many of them intrude upon him. But he assured me that he was delighted to see every stranger who called; that it gratified him to be able to explain to American travelers the true principles of Brahminism and the correct doctrines of that sect. This was the more important, he said, because nearly every foreigner formed his impressions of Brahminism by what he saw and heard among the pilgrims about the temples.

It is only by contact with the crowds of eager pilgrims and devotees which throng the streets and temples of Benares that one may realize the vital force which Brahminism exercises in India. Next to Mohammedanism it is the livest and most influential and practical of all religions. The devotee lives and breathes and feels his faith. It enters every experience of his career, it governs every act, and compared with Brahminism, Christianity is perfunctory and exercises practically little control over its believers. Yet Christianity has come here, as it has entered all the other sacred cities of India, and under the very shadow of the Hindu holy of holies, within the circle that bounds the favored gate of heaven, it has set up and maintained several of the most prosperous and well attended schools in India. The government has established a college of high standard in a handsome gothic building, which many consider the best in India. And all agree that it is an admirable institution. It has about seven hundred students and teaches modern sciences which contradict every principle that the Brahmins propose. There is also a school there for the higher education of women with about 600 students, maintained by the Maharaja of Vizianagram, a learned and progressive Hindu prince, who has large estates in the neighborhood, and there are several other distinctly modern institutions in whose light Brahminism cannot live. They are growing and it is slowly decaying. The number of devotees and pilgrims who come there is still enormous, but those who have the best means of knowing declare that it is smaller every year. But while the decrease is comparatively small, its significance is great, and so great that prominent Brahmins have recently held a conference to consider what shall be done to protect the faith and defend it against the vigorous assaults of the school teachers, the missionaries and the materialists.

It does not take Hindus long to learn that the teachings of their priests do not conform to the conditions of modern civilization, and that their practices are not approved by those who believe in modern standards of morals. It is difficult for an educated man to adhere to or accept the teachings of the Hindu priests while their practices are absolutely repugnant to him. The church, therefore, if it may be called a church, must be reformed, and its practices must be revised, if the decay which is now going on is ever arrested.

Several religions have been born and bred and have died in Benares. Vedic, Moslem, Buddhist, Brahmin have been nursed and flourished and have decayed within the same walls. It is impossible to ascertain when the Ganges was first worshiped, or when people began to build temples upon its banks, or when Benares first became sacred. Water was one of the first objects worshiped; the fertilizing and life giving influence of a stream was one of the first phenomena of nature recognized. Ganga, the beautiful heroine of a Hindu legend, is supposed to have lived at the source of the water to which her name is given, and the river is often represented as flowing from the head of Siva, the chief deity of the Brahmins, the most repulsive, the most cruel, the most vicious of all the gods.

Siva is at once the generator and the destroyer. He represents time, the sun, water, fire and practically all the mysteries of nature, and Benares is the center of his influence and worship. The temple which attracts the most pilgrims is dedicated to him. The "Well of Knowledge," which is in the courtyard of the Golden Temple, is his chosen residence, and is resorted to by every pilgrim who drinks the putrid water from a ladle with which it is dipped up by the attendant priest. All around the Golden Temple are other temples and shrines dedicated to other gods, but Siva is supreme, and before his image is the kneeling bull, the common symbol of Phallic worship as represented in the legend of Europe. Siva's hair is a bunch of snakes, serpents wind around his neck, arms, waist and legs; a crescent is stamped upon his forehead, which was the chief symbol of the ancient cult of Arabia destroyed by Mohamet Aurangzeb, one of the Mogul emperors, who was a Mohammedan fanatic. He came here in the middle of his reign, destroyed half the Hindu temples and upon the ruins of the oldest and the finest shrine of Siva erected a mosque which still stands and its slender minarets almost pierce the sky. This mosque was thrust into the most sacred place of Hindu worship as an insult to the Brahmins, but the latter are more tolerant, and though they are very largely in the majority and control everything there, they permit it to stand untouched, but the worshipers of Islam are compelled to enter it through a side door. This, however, is due more to a desire to preserve the peace and prevent collisions between fanatics and fakirs than for any other reason.

The great temple of Siva, the Golden Temple, is not imposing. It is a small building with a low dome in the center and a smaller dome at each corner, above which rises an artistic tower. These and the roof are covered with beaten gold; hence the name of the temple. None but Hindus are permitted to cross the threshold, but strangers are permitted to block up the entrance and see everything that is going on inside. It is crowded with priests, pilgrims and sacred bulls and cows. The floor is covered with filth, the air is fetid and the atmosphere all around it reeks with offensive odors, suggesting all kinds of disease. There is always a policeman to protect strangers from injury or insult, and if you give the priests a little backsheesh they will look out for you.

Benares is the seventh city in size in India. Ten years ago it was fifth, but between the years 1891 and 1901 the population was reduced 10,000 inhabitants by cholera, famine and plague, and it dropped down two pegs in the list. It is a miracle that the entire population does not perish, because, notwithstanding the cautions and efforts of the government, every sanitary law is violated by thousands of people daily. The temples and other places frequented by pilgrims are filthy hotbeds of disease, and the water they drink from the holy wells is absolutely putrid, so that the odor can be detected a considerable distance. And yet half a million devotees from every part of India come here annually, and not only drink the poisonous stuff, but bathe in the polluted river and carry back to their homes bottles of it carefully corked and labeled, which the doctors tell us is an absolutely certain method of distributing disease. While almost all the large cities of India increased in population during the the last decade, Bombay and Benares fell off, the former from plagues and famine and the latter from all kinds of contagious and other diseases.