During the night the gods and the offerings were
covered by a huge bell glass. On the walls there were many sacred
images representing the chief episodes in the biographies of the
higher gods.
Sham Rao filled his left hand with ashes, murmuring prayers all
the while, covered it for a second with the right one, then put
some matter to the ashes, and mixing the two by rubbing his hands
together, he traced a line on his face with this mixture by moving
the thumb of his right hand from his nose upwards, then from the
middle of the forehead to the right temple, then back again to
the left temple. Having done with his face he proceeded to cover
with wet ashes his throat, arms, shoulders, his back, head and ears.
In one corner of the room stood a huge bronze font filled with water.
Sham Rao made straight to it and plunged into it three times, dhuti,
head, and all, after which he came out looking exactly like a
well-favored dripping wet Triton. He twisted the only lock of
hair on the top of his shaved head and sprinkled it with water.
This operation concluded the first act.
The second act began with religious meditations and with mantrams,
which, by really pious people, must be repeated three times a day -
at sunrise, at noon and at sunset. Sham Rao loudly pronounced the
names of twenty-four gods, and each name was accompanied by a stroke
of the bell. Having finished he first shut his eyes and stuffed
his ears with cotton, then pressed his left nostril with two fingers
of his left hand, and having filled his lungs with air through the
right nostril, pressed the latter also. Then he tightly closed
his lips, so that breathing became impossible. In this position
every pious Hindu must mentally repeat a certain verse, which is
called the Gayatri. These are sacred words which no Hindu will
dare to pronounce aloud. Even in repeating them mentally he must
take every precaution not to inhale anything impure.
I am bound by my word of honor never to repeat the whole of this
prayer, but I may quote a few unconnected sentences:
"Om... Earth... Heaven.... Let the adored light of.... [here follows
a name which must not be pronounced] shelter me. Let thy Sun, O
thou only One, shelter me, the unworthy... I shut my eyes, I shut
my ears, I do not breathe ... in order to see, hear and breathe
thee alone. Throw light upon our thoughts [again the secret name]... "
It is curious to compare this Hindu prayer with the celebrated
prayer of Descartes' "Meditation III" in his L'Existence de Dieu.
It runs as follows, if I remember rightly:
"Now I shut my eyes, cover my ears, and dismiss all my five senses,
I will dwell on the thought of God alone, I will meditate on His
quality and look on the beauty of this wondrous radiancy."
After this prayer Sham Rao read many other prayers, holding with
two fingers his sacred Brahmanical thread. After a while began
the ceremony of "the washing of the gods." Taking them down from
the altar, one after the other, according to their rank, Sham Rao
first plunged them in the big font, in which he had just bathed
himself, and then bathed them in milk in a smaller bronze font
by the altar. The milk was mixed up with curds, butter, honey,
and sugar, and so it cannot be said that this cleansing served
its purpose. No wonder we were glad to see that the gods underwent
a second bathing in the first font and then were dried with a
clean towel.
When the gods were arranged in their respective places, the Hindu
traced on them the sectarian signs with a ring from his left hand.
He used white sandal paint for the lingam and red for Gunpati and
Surya. Then he sprinkled them with aromatic oils and covered them
with fresh flowers. The long ceremony was finished by "the
awakening of the gods." A small bell was repeatedly rung under
the noses of the idols, who, as the Brahman probably supposed,
all went to sleep during this tedious ceremony.
Having noticed, or fancied, which often amounts to the same thing,
that they were wide awake, he began offering them his daily sacrifices,
lighting the incense and the lamps, and, to our great astonishment,
snapping his fingers from time to time, as if warning the idols to
"look out." Having filled the room with clouds of incense and fumes
of burning camphor, he scattered some more flowers over the altar
and sat on the small stool for a while, murmuring the last prayers.
He repeatedly held the palms of his hands over the flame of the
tapers and rubbed his face with them. Then he walked round the
altar three times, and, having knelt three times, retreated backwards
to the door.
A little while before our host had finished his morning prayers
the ladies of the house came into the room. They brought each a
small stool and sat in a row murmuring prayers and telling the
beads of their rosaries.
The part played by the rosaries in India is as important as in
all Buddhist countries. Every god has his favorite flower and
his favorite material for a rosary. The fakirs are simply covered
with rosaries. The rosary is called mala and consists of one
hundred and eight beads. Very pious Hindus are not content to
tell the beads when praying; they must hide their hands during
this ceremony in a bag called gomukha, which means the cow's mouth.
We left the women to their prayers and followed our host to the
cow house. The cow symbolizes the "fostering earth," or Nature,
and is worshipped accordingly.
