No Wonder That Legend Supposes In Them Something Between The Abode
And The Incarnation Of Kali, The Fiercest Of All The Goddesses Of
The Hindu Pantheon.
For many Yugas this goddess has been engaged in a desperate contest
with her lawful husband Shiva, who, in his shape of Trikutishvara,
a three-headed lingam, has dishonestly claimed the rocks and the
river for his own - the very rocks and the very river over which
Kali presides in person.
And this is why people hear dreadful
moaning, coming from under the ground, every time that the hand
of an irresponsible coolie, working by Government orders in
Government quarries, breaks a stone from the white bosom of the
goddess. The unhappy stone-breaker hears the cry and trembles,
and his heart is torn between the expectations of a dreadful
punishment from the bloodthirsty goddess and the fear of his
implacably exacting inspector in case he disobeys his orders.
Kali is the owner of the Marble Rocks, but she is the patroness
of the ex-Thugs as well. Many a lonely traveler has shuddered on
hearing this name; many a bloodless sacrifice has been offered
on the marble altar of Kali. The country is full of horrible tales
about the achievements of the Thugs, accomplished in the honor of
this goddess. These tales are too recent and too fresh in the
popular memory to become as yet mere highly-colored legends.
They are mostly true, and many of them are proved by official
documents of the law courts and inquest commissions.
If England ever leaves India, the perfect suppression of Thugism
will be one of the good memories that will linger in the country
long after her departure. Under this name was practised in India
during two long centuries the craftiest and the worst kind of
homicide. Only after 1840 was it discovered that its aim was
simply robbery and brigandage. The falsely interpreted symbolical
meaning of Kali was nothing but a pretext, otherwise there would
not have been so many Mussulmans amongst her devotees. When they
were caught at last, and had to answer before justice, most of
these knights of the rumal - the handkerchief with which the operation
of strangling was performed - proved to be Mussulmans. The most
illustrious of their leaders were not Hindus, but followers of
the Prophet, the celebrated Ahmed, for instance. Out of thirty-seven
Thugs caught by the police there were twenty-two Mahometans. This
proves perfectly clearly that their religion, having nothing in
common with the Hindu gods, had nothing to do with their cruel
profession; the reason and cause was robbery.
It is true though that the final initiation rite was performed in
some deserted forest before an idol of Bhavani, or Kali, wearing a
necklace of human skulls. Before this final initiation the
candidates had to undergo a course of schooling, the most difficult
part of which was a certain trick of throwing the rumal on the neck
of the unsuspecting victim and strangling him, so that death might
be instantaneous. In the initiation the part of the goddess was
made manifest in the use of certain symbols, which are in common
use amongst the Freemasons - for instance, an unsheathed dagger,
a human skull, and the corpse of Hiram-Abiff, "son of the widow,"
brought back to life by the Grand Master of the lodge. Kali was
nothing but the pretext for an imposing scenarium. Freemasonry
and Thugism had many points of resemblance. The members of both
recognized each other by certain signs, both had a pass-word and
a jargon that no outsider could understand. The Freemason lodges
receive among their members both Christians and Atheists; the
Thugs used to receive the thieves and robbers of every nation
without any distinction; and it is reported that amongst them
there were some Portuguese and even Englishmen. The difference
between the two is that the Thugs certainly were a criminal
organization, whereas the Freemasons of our days do no harm,
except to their own pockets.
Poor Shiva, wretched Bhavani! What a mean interpretation popular
ignorance has invented for these two poetical types, so deeply
philosophical and so full of knowledge of the laws of nature.
Shiva, in his primi-tive meaning is "Happy God"; then the
all-destroying, as well as the all-regenerating force of nature.
The Hindu trinity is, amongst other things, an allegorical
representation of the three chief elements: fire, earth and water.
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva all represent these elements by turns,
in their different phases; but Shiva is much more the god of the
fire than either Brahma or Vishnu: he burns and purifies; at
the same time creating out of the ashes new forms, full of fresh
life. Shiva-Sankarin is the destroyer or rather the scatterer;
Shiva-Rakshaka is the preserver, the regenerator. He is represented
with flames on his left palm, and with the wand of death and
resurrection in his right hand. His worshippers wear on their
foreheads his sign traced with wet ashes, the ashes being called
vibhuti, or purified substance, and the sign consisting of three
horizontal parallel lines between the eyebrows. The color of Shiva's
skin is rosy-yellow, gradually changing into a flaming red. His neck,
head and arms are covered with snakes, emblems of eternity and
eternal regeneration. "As a serpent, abandoning his old slough,
reappears in new skin, so man after death reappears in a younger
and a purer body," say the Puranas.
In her turn, Shiva's wife Kali is the allegory of earth, fructified
by the flames of the sun. Her educated worshippers say they allow
themselves to believe their goddess is fond of human sacrifices,
only on the strength of the fact that earth is fond of organical
decomposition, which fertilizes her, and helps her to call forth
new forces from the ashes of the dead. The Shivaites, when burning
their dead, put an idol of Shiva at the head of the corpse; but
when beginning to scatter the ashes in the elements, they invoke
Bhavani, in order that the goddess may receive the purified remains,
and develop in them germs of new life.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 90 of 95
Words from 90450 to 91475
of 96531
