He Was Rich
And Independent, And Rumour Did Not Dare To Suspect Him Of Deception,
The More So Because, Though Quite Full Of These Sciences, He Never
Uttered A Word About Them In Public, And Carefully Concealed His
Knowledge From All Except A Few Friends.
He was an independent Takur from Rajistan, a province the name
of which means the land of kings.
Takurs are, almost without
exception, descended from the Surya (sun), and are accordingly
called Suryavansa. They are prouder than any other nation in the
world. They have a proverb, "The dirt of the earth cannot stick
to the rays of the sun." They do not despise any sect, except
the Brahmans, and honor only the bards who sing their military
achievements. Of the latter Colonel Tod writes somewhat as follows,*
"The magnificence and luxury of the Rajput courts in the early periods
of history were truly wonderful, even when due allowance is made for
the poetical license of the bards. From the earliest times Northern
India was a wealthy country, and it was precisely here that was
situated the richest satrapy of Darius. At all events, this country
abounded in those most striking events which furnish history with
her richest materials. In Rajistan every small kingdom had its
Thermopylae, and every little town has produced its Leonidas.
But the veil of the centuries hides from posterity events that
the pen of the historian might have bequeathed to the everlasting
admiration of the nations. Somnath might have appeared as a
rival of Delphi, the treasures of Hind might outweigh the riches
of the King of Lydia, while compared with the army of the brothers
Pandu, that of Xerxes would seem an inconsiderable handful of men,
worthy only to rank in the second place."
- - - - - -
* In nearly every instance the passages quoted from various
authorities have been retranslated from the Russian. As the
time and labor needful for verification would he too great, the
sense only of these passages is given here. They do not pretend
to be textual. - Translator
- - - - -
England did not disarm the Rajputs, as she did the rest of the
Indian nations, so Gulab-Sing came accompanied by vassals and
shield-bearers.
Possessing an inexhaustible knowledge of legends, and being
evidently well acquainted with the antiquities of his country,
Gulab-Sing proved to be the most interesting of our companions.
"There, against the blue sky," said Gulab-Lal-Sing, "you behold
the majestic Bhao Mallin. That deserted spot was once the abode
of a holy hermit; now it is visited yearly by crowds of pilgrims.
According to popular belief the most wonderful things happen there -
miracles. At the top of the mountain, two thousand feet above
the level of the sea, is the platform of a fortress. Behind it
rises another rock two hundred and seventy feet in height, and
at the very summit of this peak are to be found the ruins of a
still more ancient fortress, which for seventy-five years served
as a shelter for this hermit. Whence he obtained his food will
for ever remain a mystery. Some think he ate the roots of
wild plants, but upon this barren rock there is no vegetation.
The only mode of ascent of this perpendicular mountain consists
of a rope, and holes, just big enough to receive the toes of a man,
cut out of the living rock. One would think such a pathway
accessible only to acrobats and monkeys. Surely fanaticism must
provide wings for the Hindus, for no accident has ever happened
to any of them. Unfortunately, about forty years ago, a party of
Englishmen conceived the unhappy thought of exploring the ruins,
but a strong gust of wind arose and carried them over the precipice.
After this, General Dickinson gave orders for the destruction of
all means of communication with the upper fortress, and the lower
one, once the cause of so many losses and so much bloodshed, is
now entirely deserted, and serves only as a shelter for eagles
and tigers."
Listening to these tales of olden times, I could not help comparing
the past with the present. What a difference!
"Kali-Yug!" cry old Hindus with grim despair. "Who can strive
against the Age of Darkness?"
This fatalism, the certainty that nothing good can be expected now,
the conviction that even the powerful god Shiva himself can neither
appear nor help them are all deeply rooted in the minds of the old
generation. As for the younger men, they receive their education
in high schools and universities, learn by heart Herbert Spencer,
John Stuart Mill, Darwin and the German philosophers, and entirely
lose all respect, not only for their own religion, but for every
other in the world.
The young "educated" Hindus are materialists almost without exception,
and often achieve the last limits of Atheism. They seldom hope to
attain to anything better than a situation as "chief mate of the
junior clerk," as we say in Russia, and either become sycophants,
disgusting flatterers of their present lords, or, which is still
worse, or at any rate sillier, begin to edit a newspaper full of
cheap liberalism, which gradually develops into a revolutionary organ.
But all this is only en passant. Compared with the mysterious
and grandiose past of India, the ancient Aryavarta, her present
is a natural Indian ink background, the black shadow of a bright
picture, the inevitable evil in the cycle of every nation. India
has become decrepit and has fallen down, like a huge memorial of
antiquity, prostrate and broken to pieces. But the most
insignificant of these fragments will for ever remain a treasure
for the archeologist and the artist, and, in the course of time,
may even afford a clue to the philosopher and the psychologist.
"Ancient Hindus built like giants and finished their work like
goldsmiths," says Archbishop Heber, describing his travel in India.
In his description of the Taj-Mahal of Agra, that veritable eighth
wonder of the world, he calls it "a poem in marble." He might
have added that it is difficult to find in India a ruin, in the
least state of preservation, that cannot speak, more eloquently
than whole volumes, of the past of India, her religious aspirations,
her beliefs and hopes.
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