Part 10 (1/2)

R. K.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM THE SANCHI TOPE]

The Elephant has always been one of the wonders of the world, amazing in his aspect and full of delightful and surprising qualities. Nor does familiarity lessen his hold upon the imagination of mankind. Next after the cow he seems to be of all the beasts the Hindu favourite. At the present moment the most carefully-kept studs of Elephants are in the hands of Hindu Rajas, and the Muhammadan Nawab prefers the horse. This is an ancient predilection on the part of the Hindu. While other animals represented in Hindu Art are merely decorative and conventional, or awkward and ill-understood, there is invariably a strong feeling for nature in Hindu elephant sculptures and paintings. The contrast may be noticed in most old temples, but especially in the sculptured gates or tori of the Sanchi tope in Central India, where all kinds of animals are shown, but the elephant alone is carved with complete knowledge, and unvarying truth of action.

The grave beast is as great a favourite of the poet as of the artist. The back view of the elephant as he shuffles along, is like nothing so much as that of the stout and elderly ”long-sh.o.r.e” fisherman and sailor of our English watering-places, whose capacious nether garments, alone among human habiliments, have the horizontally creased bagginess peculiar to the elephant. d.i.c.kens said long ago that the elephant employs the worst tailor in all the world. But these wrinkled columns suggest feminine grace to the Oriental poet, and ”elephant-gaited” is the supreme and also the invariable expression for the voluptuous movements of women: ”A voice as sweet as that of the Koil, and a gait as voluptuous as that of the elephant: An eye like the antelope's, a waist like the lion's, and a gait like the elephant's,”

are specimens of an endless series of descriptions of female beauty. Nor are these expressions confined to ancient poetry, for they are as current to-day as ever they were. Walking behind elephants and women, I have occasionally seen a hint of the poet's meaning, but only a hint; and one is driven to the conclusion that the simile, like many more in Oriental verse, is mainly conventional. The beast gets along so quietly he might almost be said to glide, but his movements have little of the fine rhythmic swing and poise one sees in the n.o.ble gait of a well-formed Hindu woman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GANeSHA (FROM AN ANCIENT HINDU SCULPTURE)]

As furnis.h.i.+ng a head to Ganesa, Ganesh, or Ganpati, the wise and humorous G.o.d who is invoked at the beginning of all enterprises, whose auspicious image is placed over most Hindu doorways, and whose mystic sign (familiarly spoken of as a Ganesh) stands on the first page of Hindu ledgers and day-books, the elephant has an immense hold on the affections of the people. His sign ? is the _svastika_, the cross fylfot of our Western heraldry and the hermetic cross of Freemasonry, traceable from Troy town to China. The traveller and the pilgrim look to Ganesha for protection, the merchant for fortune, the student for advancement, and the housewife for luck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: s.h.i.+V OR MAHADEO, WITH THE INFANT GANeSH (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH)]

The popular version of the origin of Ganesha is that during one of the absences of the great Lord s.h.i.+va, Parbati his wife, taking a bath, rubbed some tiny pellets off her skin and amused herself by moulding them into the form of a child, till at last she breathed life into it. s.h.i.+va returned and was outraged to find a baby where no baby should be, so he promptly cut off its head with his sharp war-quoit. Then Parbati explained and s.h.i.+va said in effect: ”Dear me! this is very sad, why did not you speak sooner?” Then, catching sight of an elephant standing near, he cut off its head and clapped it on the decapitated baby. ”Now, it's all right!” said he, ”I was always rather hasty.” And, to make amends, he ordained that in every enterprise Ganesa's name should be the first called upon. So the elephant's head grew on the G.o.d-like body, that is to say, on the corpulent body of a well-fed Baniya, who in his four hands bears suitable emblems,--a disc or war-quoit, sometimes interpreted as a cake, an elephant goad, a sacrificial sh.e.l.l, and a lotus. His seat is a lotus, and his steed or vahan a rat. In this state he sits over thousands of Hindu doors. His effigy is modelled in clay and gaily painted for most Hindu households in Western India, and on his great feast-day, after four days' wors.h.i.+p, thousands of such effigies are borne with shouting and rejoicing to be thrown into the sea or the nearest water. If Ganesha stood he would be the very image of many fat, rupee-wors.h.i.+pping Baniyas, to be seen all over India,--even as--with some irreverence--I have ventured to draw him. But he never stands, though a fat man is often spoken of as a ”cow-dung Ganesh.”

Although at first sight merely monstrous to Western eyes, this quaint personage grows in interest as one learns his attributes and becomes familiar with his character and person. He seems, as he sits meditatively poising his heavy head, to be the Nick Bottom of the Hindu Pantheon, with a touch of the jovial humour immemorially a.s.sociated with fat men. Like Falstaff, he appears to chuckle over his bulk and to say, ”I cannot tell whether it is the weight of my head or of my belly (in Southern India he is familiarly known as the belly G.o.d) that prevents my rising, but here I sit and survey mankind with cheery geniality.” Campbell in his ”Pleasures of Hope” speaks of ”Ganesa sublime,” which to those who know him for what he is,--the sagacious and respectable ”G.o.d of getting on”--is a deliciously incongruous epithet and a false quant.i.ty besides.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IF GANeSHA STOOD]

He is mixed up in countryside stories with mere human creatures in a friendly fas.h.i.+on which shows that he is a popular favourite. Thus, once upon a time s.h.i.+va and Parbati were strolling about on the earth, and they visited a temple of s.h.i.+va, in the precincts of which sat a poor beggar-man asking for alms. Parbati said to her awful husband, ”It is really too bad that this man, who has been begging here for years in your name, should not be better provided for. I call it discreditable.” They pa.s.sed, wrangling, into the court of the temple till s.h.i.+va impatiently cried: ”Ho! Ganesha.”

The voice of Ganesha came from the inside--”Ho!” ”Let something be done for the tiresome beggar-man your mother has been bothering me about!” ”Very good; I will see that he has a lakh of rupees within the next three days.”

”That will do,” said the great Mahadeo, and he pa.s.sed away with his quarrelsome wife. Now, while they were talking, a Hindu Baniya (dealer and money-lender) was standing hidden behind the pillars, and though nearly frightened to death, he cast about in his greedy mind how to secure that lakh of rupees. So he went to the unconscious beggar, sitting in the outer court, and asked about his earnings. ”My earnings are nothing,” said the beggar, ”sometimes a copper or two, sometimes only cowries, sometimes a handful of rice or pulse;--nothing.” Pretending to be interested in the matter from mere curiosity, the usurer offered five rupees for all the beggar earned during the next three days. Startled by this large sum, the beggar held back, protesting the Baniya would be a loser, whereupon more were offered. The talk went on in the dawdling inconclusive way that only those who have tried to strike a bargain in India can understand, till finally the beggar insisted on consulting his wife. As frequently happens in Indian stories, as in Indian life, she was a very clever woman: ”Depend upon it that usurer is after no good; offered you fifty rupees, did he?

Then it's worth more than fifty times as much. G.o.d knows how, but that's not our affair. Go back and don't give over bargaining even if you go as high as half a lakh of rupees.”

The beggar went back and the bargain began again, and was finally closed at half a lakh of rupees, which were duly brought to the wondering mendicant.

The usurer hung round the temple, anxious to see how Ganesha would bestow the lakh of rupees on the beggar-man. At last he heard the approach of the G.o.ds, and as they pa.s.sed the beggar, the mother of Death and Life asked s.h.i.+va if anything had been done for him. Again Ganesha was summoned, and as s.h.i.+va spoke, the great stone threshold of the temple rose from its place and jammed the trembling usurer's leg against the wall. Said Ganesha--”It is all right! the beggar has received half of the promised lakh of rupees, and I've got the man who owes him the other half fast by the leg here, and he will not be released till he has paid the uttermost farthing.”

Then that covetous one's liver was turned to water, for he knew that he who owes to the G.o.ds must pay.

When a native storyteller repeats a triviality of this kind, one seems to see the belly-G.o.d asleep in the dusk of the temple and to hear the rustle of his dry trunk uncoiling as he awakes, the jovial carelessness of his voice echoing in the carved vaults and roof, and his chuckle of satisfaction as the usurer is caught.

There is no trace of the humorous and friendly vulgarity by which Ganesha the elephant-headed and Hanuman, the monkey G.o.d, are distinguished among the G.o.ds of the Vedas, where the clouds sail high; while the comparative rarity of their sculptures in the older temples shows that they had at first but a small share in official mythology.

Here it may be worth while to say of the popular impression that the Vedas are text-books of Hinduism, that it is incorrect. Most educated Hindus talk of the Vedas, and modern Hindu reformers, like Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chandra Sen, and Dayanand Saraswati, insisted that the Vedas contain the elements of all the religion the world can want; but to whip a dead horse with deep emotion and lively faith does not necessarily bring it to life again, and the Vedas have been dead for centuries. Their literary resurrection is part of the revival of Oriental Scholars.h.i.+p brought about by European Scholars such as Colebrooke and his many successors. It has been said by a competent authority that nine hundred and ninety-nine of every thousand Hindus know nothing about them, and that they are not Hindu in any real sense.

In the earliest myths the elephant is said to take the place of thunder and lightning, and is one of the steeds of Indra, but while horses and cows are perpetually referred to, mentions of the elephant are comparatively rare. The Solar Garuda still survives--(the Brahminy kite is called a garuda in Southern India),--and he carries an elephant in his beak as in the Hindu epics. The ancient fantasy that four elephants support the four corners of the earth is still alive, and they are thus represented in mystic diagrams printed and painted on calico for Hindu Jogis. Pictures and sculptures of the G.o.ddess Lakshmi show her seated while elephants pour water over her head from vases upheld in their trunks. It seems fair to conclude that though the elephant was a favourite of the earlier poets, he came late to his present high place in the celestial company through the side door of popular liking. It is also possible that he was admitted late because he was unknown to the earliest writers.

Buddhism, now dead and done with as far as India proper is concerned,--and so overgrown with fungous growth of idolatry and demonolatry in other lands as to be almost unrecognisable,--has its elephant legends. The elephant takes the place of the dove in the Annunciation to Maya Devi of the coming of the Bodisat. She lies asleep and the creature appears to her in many sculptures at Amravati and Southern India, but, hitherto, only once in the extensive series from the North-West frontier where the Buddhist legend is told with more than a mere touch of the cla.s.sic Art of Europe. Another incident of the legend is the miracle of the subjugation of the elephant, made _mast_ or frenzied by Devaditta, the envious schismatic, and sent to meet and murder the Lord Buddha. They met as the conspirator hoped, but instead of trampling the master underfoot, the creature stood still and wors.h.i.+pped as Buddha touched its forehead. Later stories tell of an elephant's body hurled an immense distance by the Lord Buddha, but they belong to a cycle of incrustations of dead matter.

An ancient use of the elephant has come to light in the copperplate and other inscriptions which are all that is left to record early Hindu dynasties. Grants of land, wells, and buildings made for religious purposes were set forth in poetical terms in inscriptions which are often of great length. Frequently, in fixing a boundary an elephant was turned loose and the course the wise beast took was accepted as the limit of the grant. How he went north by such and such a stream, then turned north-east towards a clump of mango trees and so forth, is elaborately described; the notion evidently being that the elephant was heaven-directed. But one can see the astute attendant Brahmans from here, skilled in directing the heavenly intuitions of both men and beasts to their own profit. The praises of kings as rehea.r.s.ed on these doc.u.ments are monuments of hyperbole. Rutting elephants, fighting elephants, thousands of elephants, millions of elephants, billions of elephants frenzied with blood and irresistible in strength, are as naught to these monarchs of the prime, who also are represented as miracles of benevolence and virtue. No superlative is too strong for these absurd rigmaroles, among which antiquarians grope in search of a fact, a name, or a date. There are many lies in history, but Hindu writers are remarkable for having deliberately and of set principle ignored all the facts of life. All is done, however, with such an air of conviction and pious purpose that we must use Dr. Johnson's kindly discrimination and say they are not inexcusable, but consecrated liars.

I know a Jemadar of Mahouts, _i.e._ a head elephant keeper, who says there is a tradition among men of his craft that elephants first came to India from the farthest East,--”from China and beyond.” This notion was supported by quotations from elephant words of command, some of which ”are not Indian talk and must be Chinese” (or Burmese). An elephant driver's philology may not command much respect, but the notion is worth mentioning. The Sanscrit word _hathi_, the ”handed” one (Lord Tennyson, following Lucretius, says, ”serpent handed”), in popular use is less used by mahouts than the Pali, _gaj_, frequently compounded with weapons, flowers, etc., to make a name, as _Katar-gaj_--dagger elephant; _Moti-gaj_--pearl elephant. The Persian word _pil_ is also used,--the chess bishop is a _pilah_ or elephant, and an elephant stable is a _pil-khana_. No beast has so many pretty names; Pearl, Diamond, Necklace of Beauty, Lightning, Lily, Rose, Jasmine, Lotus, Silver Star, Garland of Flowers, Golden One, Black Snake, are a few, and the heroes and heroines of poetry also lend their names to my lord the elephant, and testify to the esteem in which he is held. For female elephants the word _piyari_, love or darling, is frequently added to some pretty female name, as _Radha piyari_; (Radha is Krishna's wife). Mahouts also claim that he is the only animal in man's service who is told in so many words to eat and sleep. As a matter of fact, although there may be a word of command for sleep, it can be of little use, for no creature sleeps so little or so lightly,--seldom for more than four hours out of the twenty-four.

A popular and ancient name for a king is _Gajpati_, Elephant Lord. The beast is a pageant in himself, and when arrayed as only the Oriental knows how, he is splendid in colour and majestic in ma.s.s. The finest part of the ceremonial at the Delhi Imperial a.s.semblage, was the great fleet of elephants riding at anchor, so to speak, among the serried waves of troops and people. When the tremendous _feu-de-joie_ that followed the proclamation was fired, there was a movement of alarm among these mighty creatures. ”That startled them,” we said, but did not guess the truth, that several people were killed in the crush that followed the slight stir we saw in the distant host as when a breeze stirs the growing corn. Kings are not now the only lords of elephants, for a significant sign of the prosperity of the country is the possession of elephants by men whose fathers never owned them, and whose rank would be better represented by the word Squire than Lord. Many merchants and traders can now better afford the glory of elephants than real kings. There is a Raja in the hills,--a very small Raja,--with a very small income, exactly four-fifths of which are spent in maintaining an elephant, the awe and admiration of his little handful of subjects. They all spend much of their large staple of leisure over the elephant, and rightly too, for he is a more imposing symbol than a crown and sceptre or a diamond plume, and when their Raja rides forth, they follow him with pride and shouting.

Though essentially amiable, the elephant was often made to serve as public executioner by native princes in the ante-British days. Sometimes the victim was bound hand and foot, then the living log was chained with a fathom long chain to the hind foot of an elephant which was swiftly hurried through the city for all to see the battering out of his life. It is only a year or two since the executioner elephant of a Hill State, which was known to have killed a large number of persons in his official capacity, died from cold while crossing a mountain pa.s.s. The Raja to whom he belonged towards the close of his career was more than half mad and led his little court a terrible life. He used to appear in durbar saying: ”I have been dreaming of such an one, let him be slain.” A respectable old gentleman whose forehead was disfigured by a scar, told a friend of mine how it was once his fate to be dreamed of and ordered for execution, and how he was only saved at the last moment by a friendly Wazir or Minister suggesting to the Raja that if the poor man paid a fine of a thousand rupees and was branded on the brow, he would probably take care in the future not to interfere with His Highness's dreams, whereas if he were killed outright his ghost would surely reappear. This argument prevailed for once. It was the Raja's pleasure to officiate as mahout on these occasions. The bound victim was handed to the elephant, who at the word of command seized him with his trunk and whirled him right and left against his fore-legs with the familiar action, peculiar to elephants, of swis.h.i.+ng the dust from each wisp of provender before putting it into the mouth. Then he was thrown on the ground and kicked from fore to hind feet to and fro, then his arms were wrenched from his body. Then the great feet came down upon him in turn, and at a final word he was knelt upon; the now lifeless body being crushed to a shapeless ma.s.s. And all was done with a slow deliberation of ordered movement that must have been terrible to see. Dr. Wolff describes another hill Raja as a most stupid and ignorant man, and ”the most horrid brute that ever lived. His great delight was to ride upon an elephant, which was made to tread upon a little child, so as to crush it to death.”

Yet cruelty ought not to be a tradition of the Himalaya, for the only Oriental I have seen shed a tear for an animal was a Wazir or Minister of that same Hill State, which need not be named here. Once at a halting-place far in the hills, leaning on a rail with a friend, we watched the sunset. At a little distance a pony was grazing on a tiny green meadow terrace above the road. As we looked we saw with amazement that the pony was disappearing, hind-quarters first, until it sank completely out of sight; nor, from our point of view, was there any apparent solution of continuity in the green carpet on which but now it stood. One of those absurd occurrences that incline you to pinch yourself to feel if you are awake,--it was in reality quite simple. The meadow was the roof of some long disused huts, and the rotten timbers supporting the soil had given way, letting the surprised pony down into a sort of cellar. The beast was the property of a Wazir returning with his retinue from a visit to Simla, and his grief was quaintly demonstrative. Weeping hard, he laid alongside the chasm trying to embrace his steed, nearly tumbling in himself, and while we were busy with ropes and timbers hauling the creature up and contriving that he should emerge on the side towards the hill, the good Wazir distractedly hovered round, wringing his hands, and doing less than nothing in the work of rescue. The pony was never in danger, was no whit the worse, but its master's tears were real and his words of sympathy were sincere.