By All Appearance,
His Bending Body And His Head Thrown Backward Sought To Bring Him
Down; But For This Fakir There Was Evidently No Such Thing As The
Law Of Gravity.
What I have described is a fact, but I do not take upon myself to
explain it.
At the gates of the pagoda we found our shoes, which
we had been told to take off before going in. We put them on again,
and left this "holy of holies" of the secular mysteries, with our
minds still more perplexed than before. In the Fakirs' Avenue we
found Narayan, Mulji and the Babu, who were waiting for us. The
chief Brahman would not hear of their entering the pagoda. All
the three had long before released themselves from the iron claws
of caste; they openly ate and drank with us, and for this offence
they were regarded as excommunicated, and despised by their
compatriots much more than the Europeans themselves. Their
presence in the pagoda would have polluted it for ever, whereas
the pollution brought by us was only temporary; it would evaporate
in the smoke of cow-dung - the usual Brahmanical incense of
purification - like a drop of muddy water in the rays of the sun.
India is the country for originalities and everything unexpected
and unconventional. From the point of view of an ordinary European
observer every feature of Indian life is contrary to what could
be expected. Shaking the head from one shoulder to another means
no in every other country, but in India it means an emphatic yes.
If you ask a Hindu how his wife is, even if you are well acquainted
with her, or how many children he has, or whether he has any sisters,
he will feel offended in nine cases out of ten. So long as the
host does not point to the door, having previously sprinkled the
guest with rose-water, the latter would not think of leaving. He
would stay the whole day without tasting any food, and lose his
time, rather than offend his host by an unauthorized departure.
Everything contradicts our Western ideas. The Hindus are strange
and original, but their religion is still more original. It has
its dark points, of course. The rites of some sects are truly
repulsive; the officiating Brahmans are far from being without
reproach. But these are only superficialities. In spite of them
the Hindu religion possesses something so deeply and mysteriously
irresistible that it attracts and subdues even unimaginative Englishmen.
The following incident is a curious instance of this fascination:
N.C. Paul, G.B.M.C., wrote a small, but very interesting and very
scientific pamphlet. He was only a regimental surgeon in Benares,
but his name was well known amongst his compatriots as a very learned
specialist in physiology. The pamphlet was called A Treatise on the
Yoga Philosophy, and produced a sensation amongst the representatives
of medicine in India, and a lively polemic between the Anglo-Indian
and native journalists.
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