THE SKETCHER HOW THE HINDUS DISPOSE OF THEIR DEAD.

Otago Witness, Issue 1906, 21 August 1890, Page 35

THE SKETCHER HOW THE HINDUS DISPOSE OF THEIR DEAD.

THE SOLEMNITIES OF AN ORIENTAL CEMETERY. 1 went the other night to the Burning Ghat, or Cremation Grounds, situated on the beautiful drive known as the " Queen's Road." Here are grounds for the dead of Christians, Mohammedans, and Hindus. The grounds of the two former, who bury their bodies, are now closed, and those of the Hinduß ought to be, but the people say that the municipality dare not interfere for fear of offending the people; It is a delightful sensation to come iv contact with a oloud of smoke at this part of Bombay, for you aie sure that it does not contain the particles of a dead body. : .The crematory is a long, narrow enolosttre, separated by a high wall from the street. Above the gateway is an inscription, to the effect that the grounds were purchased and dedicated, to their present use by a certain 'Hindu gentleman in memory of his -father, j From the opposite direotion is an approach along a winding, uneven path, through a ■cemetery for- the poorer Mohammedans, where the graves, of all shapes and sizes, and set at any any angle, are enclosed in walls of stone about 3ft high, producing a peculiar effect in the half-light of the evening. , Here and there are pyramidal-shaped gravestones. Over the narrow*, dusty path, here formed, pass the great majority of Hindus of all •classes, bearing their dead, whose face is uncovered, and for whom they are chanting the 'lamentations, whioh have been written in the j sacred Sanscrit verse. - Passing beneath. the great entrance, wa, iwere met by the Sepoy, or guardian,, of the place, who was disposed to. act towards us as ; Charon acted towards Dante and his companion, waving his hands and trying to drive us away, almost' saying by gesture, if ■not by voice, 44 Withdraw thee from .'these people who are dead." . ■ ' But when he saw that. we did:. not withdraw he took our card of admission, and we passed beneath a. second portal into what !we had supposed would' be a ■'-'■ place of' horrors." "- ' ; '■f'"'' "» •-"' ''• . But behold I It wasia garden; with founy tains and trees, flowers and grass,* <witb- beats' placed in" shaded spots/ and 'Arches covered with blossoming vinas.i 'extending over" a winding ;path'i that 1 led mysterious Beyond, where wp cotild^Bee r -several fires dying' downr.iiribo tash^s.'iApritwoiStoteyed building' was in ; this garden, n whicK ; we..were' told was a 1 library fiUed'witn religious books of the -Hindu*/ "■••/• j! ■ •"' ; ' Pasling on, ye fpundj ourselves at the end <)Hne pathway,.and as', far ,a», we could see in, tn'e dim Jieht was a desolate place, though along onVside ..were^rpws 'u,pon rows of, seats.. Here.w£repiies*of , wood a^on'g tlj^ opposite wall, giepA iron stakesand rusty^iron grates, 44 Look" there," whispered niy companion. ; I turned,, and At .the, edgetf the. paph. was .the dead body , of a child, near, itcrouchea two half -naked men, dimly. see.R An.jihe half ■ lights their bodies doubled up in the peculiar way. the Hindus have, which makjes them look like immense ftogi t! and .'their faces hidden behind their knees. • They seemed ; greatly .disturbed lew bur dresses 'should touch the little corpse. ,Wh^,» gain- it was : tb the httle sou], .being a girl, that ifc was deadl We watched them build, the funeral pyre, saw the little body placed thereon, and then pawed on. V Will no others comt to-night? " I asked the Sepoy. „- > 44 They come every hour. They are, brought; here as soon as possible after death, j A dead body pollutes the house, and, the law , requires removal within 21 hours after death." . "Do you know when to expect them V 1 asked. •• ' „! 44 No," he repeated, €4 they come at air times. We are always ready and need no warning. They come," pointing reverently upward, " whenever.it is the will of God." . He had scarcely ceased speaking, before he pointed to the garden through which we ( had come, where among the shrubbery we, could see a waving torch, and in an instant there came out into the light produced by the burning child, a fnneral cortege, consist-; ing of the torch-bearer, the four men who 1 -carried the dead, borne upon their shoulders, and the male relatives of the deceased. Almost at a running pace, as is the manner' I when carrying burdens, they approached an open space near which we Btood, and carefully deposited their litter on the ground. We could see that the one lying thereon was a woman, a woman of the lower castes, but with a plump, rounded form and good features, and the air became fragrant with the odour of tube-roseß, of which her pall was composed. She lay there almost forgotten, while the men gathered in a circle upon the ground and proceeded to prepare the sacred fire of sandal-wood, oils, spices, and ghee or clarified butter, meantime oarrying on an animated conversation. BUILDING A FUMBKAIi PTBB. Then the funeral pyre began to be built, log upon log was placed upon it, and finally the body, the flowers and coverings being removed, was lifted gently up and placed thereon. It was a wierd scene, Rembrantesque in its lights and shadows, Dantesque in its suggestions of the terrible. Far away in the space we had left, the child's fire beginning to die down, groups of men were seen moving about in the lurid light, their dark bodies and limbs seemingly of grotesque shapes and suggestive of the demons in some old painting of "The Last, Judgment," as wrought by a thirteenth century painter. A crow lighted on a tree near by and began his dismal croaking, while incessantly we could hear the low, mournful monotone of the sea as the high tide brought its waters against the wall of the Back Bay. Near us strange rites began to be performed. " Call

upon RSm," exclaimed a young man in white j robes, to which the others responded in chorus, " Brother 1 Rfiml" R&mis one of the incarnations of Vishnu, and is the representative of victory over evil. Sometimes, however, the bereaved call upon Siva or some other god. Then they all gathered around the funeral pile whereon lay the dead woman. The chief monrner, ,who happened to be a son-in-law — the woman having come from Poona on a visit and died in her daughter's house, there had been no time to summon her husband — walked slowly three times around the body, and with an ear them water jug in his hands, paused finally at the head of the' dead, When all present drank of the water and gave to her also to drink. Offerings were also placed upon the body, which was covered with wood, and then the son-in-law, with two torches taken from the sacred fire, holding them be- \ hind him, knelt at the feet and ignited the pile; others followed, and soon the whole was in flames. Supplies of oil and ghee and cocoanuts, the emblems of happiness, were afterwards thrown into the flames, and for three hours the friends kept watch, and the ashes were then allowed to mingle with the common earth or were taken away and cast into the holy sea. BETBOGKESSION Of THE BBAHMINS. Aft the men came from the burning pyre to their places of watching, One said* " She wa« ! a true woman." ," Yes.'N resppnded another, ."she has died before her husband." : We turned away in sadness.: There was, ! here none of the sweet solemnity whioh we ,are accustomed to associate with death, and whioh even our ; lower classes regard jwith extreme awe and veneration. Still there are no people who feel the nearness of the spiritual life more strongly than these -Hindus, or believe more fully in the continuance of life after death. Yet there is a strange lack of beauty and consistency in all their religious ceremonies. I told a Brahmin the other day, who was showing me, his , " aacred thread," the investiture of the " twice born,!' that the incongruities and grotesque- . ness in their religious ceremonies and religioui art ; were alone sufficient, to prove the I retrogressive character of Brahminism. ■ „ "But/? he replied, i "all these rites and representations so unmeaning and hideous to you have a meaning to us, and we consider our representations beautiful." "I .understand your symbolism," I said, "and have no quarrel with that. I know that your four«armed divinities and your ele-phant-headed Ganesh are symbolic of strength on the. one hand and wisdom on the other. Bat consider their absurdity 1 ■If you were to meet these forms on the street I you would run away from them as monsters. , The Greeki wdre wiser than you. They idealised the human form* and made of it those representations which have uplifted tha'sbuls 6f men in all the ages since their creation. 1 - ißut what can you, an educated man.tsay for your religious art, your statdes, your temples, ; or. your poetry as they .'are to- j day ? Onc6-they.may.have been better, but yoa musb-fcdmit 'that, the representations bf your religion have' nothing commendable' in them." "'..- ■ . •j. .■ .? r.. : . 4 <Yes, but how can we help it J" was all the reply I received. ' r - ■ „•■ -j From the great pile whereon; the woman lay -burning; we returned to" the j garden, pansir/g'the 'smouldering remain's of others, atid'glanoing upon the lowered pyre bf the child. Never had the night' air seemed so soothiagj ' the i night skids -so *■ calm, or the flowers sd fragrant' ad when 1 we came out upon 'the' Queen's JRoad.n Those "whom we left behind Beemed blotted outi, of 'existence, a¥d .with- feet to : the flotftb,i they had surely entered the abodes of peace, to rest awhile Ifi the long process 6f metempsychosis. — Sabah O. Hamlin, in the San' Francisco Bulletin. ' ' "THE CITY 0? DREADFUL DELIGHT." r 1 This is what Mr- Henry James, the famous novelist, calls London; But' though London is so dreadfully; delightful she is yet, con-tinues-Mr James, "so olumsy and brutal, and has gathered together so many of the ■darkest sides of life, that it is almost ridiculous, to talk of her as al6ver talks of his sweetheart, aud almost frivolous to appear tb ignore her disfigurements and cruelties. i She is like the mighty ogress who devours human flesh." : The ugliness, the "rookeries," the brutalities, the night aspeot of many of the streets, the gin shops, and tbe hour when they are cleared out before closing— there" ar« many elements of this kind which have to be counted out before a genial picture oan be painted. At' any rate, the impression of suffering is a feature of the general view ; it is one of the things that mingle with all the others to make the sound that is supremely dear to the consistent London lover — the rumble of the tremendous human mill. This is the note which, in all its modulations, haunts and fascinates him. And whether or no he may succeed in keeping "the misery out of the picture, he will freely confess that the latter is not spoiled for him by some of its duskiest shades. We do not like London well enough till we like its defects ; the dense darkness of much of its winter, the soot in the chimney pots— and everywhere else— the early lamplight, the brown blur of the houses, the splashing of hansoms in Oxford street or the Strand on December afternoons. Excess is London's highest reproach, and it is her incurable misfortnne that there is really too much of her. She overwhelms you by quantity and number— she ends by making human life, by making civilisation, appear cheap to you. Wherever you go— to parties, exhibitions, concerts, " private views," meetings, solitudes — there are already more people than enough in the field. How it makes you understand the high walls with which so much of English life is surrounded, and the priceless blessing of a park in the country, where there is nothing animated but rabbits and pheasants, and, for the worst, the importunate nightingales 1 And as the monster grows and grows for ever, she departs more and more — it must be acknowledged — from the ideal of a convenient society, a society in which intimacy is possible, in which the components meet often, and scund and measure and elect and inspire each other, and relations and combinations have time to form themselves. The substitute for this, in London, is the

momentary; ttmoiwjdpa o$ a, mflDon of atoms. ' ; FAMILY LIFE IN ISciEtfl! BOME. Family life in ancient Rome was, at first, merely a slavery, of certain honours and privileges^ When a matron was seen in tho street, for instance, everyone, even the lictors, stepped aside to let her pass. If she met a condemned criminal on Mb way to execution, she had the privilege of saving his life. She conld not be forced into a court of justice, and she was so much respected that insults to her house caused the fall of the first Roman Kingdom, and of the Decemvirate, These , outer signs of respect to women had several reasons, the principal one being the purity of customs during the earliest period of Roman history. Unfortunately, the moral and social condition of Roman women, did not correspond to the homage they received in publio ; and family life suffered greatly on account of the long struggles between the patricians and plebeians, which imbued women more with warlike and masculine attributes than witb the more gentle virtues of their sex. There were four kinds of marriages in old Rome, the " confarreatio," the " usns," the " cceraptio," and the " libero." Neither of these, however, satisfied women's ideal of genial companionship, or married love. Tbe "confarreatio" marriage was reserved to patricians; In this, a woman merely left her father's roof to enter her husband's house. It was but a passage from one slavery to another. She judicially died to her own family, to become the daughter of her husband's family, and was compelled to obey her husband's father, as she had been compelled to obey her own. She was called by the pretty title of filice loco, but that did not compensate for the disadvantages of her position. Whatever she possessed became her husband's exclusive property. She was not allowed to give or receive gifts; she could not leave the house, or receive visitors, without her husband's permisaion. Even her speech was regulated for her, her very life was unprotected against her husband. When Macennius killed his wife, because he saw her drinking wine — which' was not allowed to women— he remained unpunished. A husband could inflict any punishment on his wife, even death if he wished. A wife had to submit to her husband like a daughter. Woman was a minor all her life. At her husband's death the widow passed into a tutor's hands, and he often treated herso ( harshly that it gave rise to the saying " Do not' treat me like a tutor." ' The flowers whioh decked a bride on her wedding day were emblematical of a victim being led to the altar to be sacrificed. On | the eve of the wedding a hog was sacrificed, as in Greece. After the' contract was signed gifts were presented, to the young couple, and were placed in a rioh chiselled casket ; made for that purpose. j ■ The bride's dress was generally white, and a large 'knot,; called modus Herouleus, w*va tied at her Wai3t to signify the 'strength of the marriage tie. 1 When the bride pronounced' the fatal' "yes" s the bridegroom touohed heri forehead with the point of an iron weapon, I i n 1 sign of his unlimited authority over her. The ' bridal procession was always accompanied by music and singing- ' , ! ' When on the threshold of his house, the bridegroom pretended not to know the ' bride,- and asked ' her who she was, t,q ' which she had to reply, %l Übi ti Gkius ; ibi ego Gaja," meaning that she was his property. Tbe bride ' then hung a long ribbon on the door-post, arid annotated tbr •dp,6r r iijself i: witb. the fat of wolves or pigs. f The ib'ridewas then oarried over the threshold, d: I 'the Rape of the Sabines. .This done,' the" bride and bridegroom touched ..together a torch,' and drank water out of the Bame oup (purification by fire and water). "Gajo" then gave " Gaja "a key, symbolical of the household duties which she would hava to fulfil, and'then the bridegroom threw nuts to the children without;, while the wedding guests sang the hymn " Sparges nuces." The wife added heir husband's name to her own, in sign of her new bondage. , If a .husband discovered his wife to be faithless to him he could kill her on the ,spot, , If a wife discovered her husband to be .unfaithful she could not move a finger!. The 'husband could ill-treat his wife as he pleased ,and she was not allowed to protect herself in I any way. He could take the household keys from her and bid her "begone," and he could divest her of her marital robes and turn h.er out of doors without giving any reasons for it. Thus Seneca divorced his wife to marry a richer woman to pay hfs debts, and Sylla divorced his wife on_ her deathbed in order not to be disturbed,during a festivity, and she was therefore, carried elsewhere to die, with the shame of, being divorced added to her dying agonies. , ..The plebeian marriage was quite a different thing. It was no marriage at all, for it was not blessed by the gods. Here the wife was not even considered to be a member of her new family, but continued to remain under her own father's roof and authority. The consent of both parties constituted a marriage, and the mere wish to be separated constituted a divorce. Divorces, therefore, were very frequent. If patrician husbands had too much authority over their wives, plebeian hußbands had too little. Plebeian houses also had too many entrances and exits to control the goings arid comings of the wife, and the domestic hearth had no sacred character. Marriages between patricians and plebeians were forbidden, or if they took place they were not recognised. If a patrician married a plebeian woman, the wife did not share her husband's position, and her children were considered plebeians. The' plebeians felt humbled and irritated at the patricians 1 superiority, which crushed tbem in every way, and a desperate struggle for equal right* and privileges began, which finally ended In the plebeians' victory. It was during this struprejle that the " usu» * form of marriage was introduced. Here, if * woman lived a whole year with a husban4 witnout even three days' interrnption, rhit 41 temporanno " state became a " rigoroso * marriage, and the plebeian hnsvincha&qtme* the same right- 1 ; over hiR wif> nn fch* potrichr had. But thisi wa* no aflv;itotn>?f. frr toa wife — on the (/.>z><tajj. Mtrriu^yz b«tw<sr«v patricians an£ plcbc^^s v.— r* v*'O aiin T v ledged after a titnp. Thin c«w* the "coemptio" or "corapera" marriage; a«*4. finally2came the "libero" marriage, wbisft

was one ot the principal oaiises of the ultimate fall of Rome. After having been slaves so long, Roman women found themselves suddenly free by the ' liberty granted them by the " libero " marriage, and they abu3ed this newly granted liberty in such a way that they became a shame to their sex. They grew aa inordinately passionate, vicious, and cruel as the worst of men. They tried indeed to be as much like men as they could. It was an emancipation which, instead of elevating woman, brutalised and degraded her and led into every kind of licentiousness. She took pleasure only in the lowest and vilest company, and delighted in the sooiety of gladiators and men of the lowest passions ; in fact, she was more like a wild beast suddenly let loose from a barred cage than a woman. She abused her freedom as the emperors abused their power. She counted the years of her age by the number of husbandß she had. During this period of Roman history, all that a woman thought of was dress and painting her face. She spent the whole day before her mirror, and her dressing table was as fnll of phials and cosmetics as a perfumer'B shop. She besmeared her face with bread and milk poultices at' night, and in the morning besmeared it again with other messes and put white chalk and rouge on her cheeks, and blackened her eyes and dyed her hair yellow just as unmentionable ladies still do. She was so cruel that she scratched her slaves, dug pins into them for the slightest blunder, or would scourge them almost to death and then hang them up by the hair of their heads. She wore robesfringed with pearls and cdvered with gold braidings. She covered herself with jewellery also, and wore it by day and night, yiie even decked the fish in her aquarium with pearls and precious stones. Absurdity and extravagance could not be driven further. Meanwhile, family life was unknown to these free women, as it had been unknown to their predecessors. In a word, Ancient Rome women were first slaves, then courtesans. The beautiful word " wife," as we un^ dcretand it, was not known to them; nor did they know the meaning of family life as we mean it. It was, indeed, this absence of a real family life in Ancient Rome which made Roman society become one of the potent means in destroying the greatest known power in ancient times. TALES OP SACRED TREES. The palm, the oak, ahd the ash are, according to a timely and interesting article in the June number of the Deutsche Rundschau, the three trees which, since times immemorial, were held to be sacred trees. The first among them, whioh figures on the oldest monuments and pictures of the Egyptians and Assyrians, is the date palm (Phoenix dactilifera), which was the symbol of the world and of creation, and the fruit of which filled the faithful with divine strength, and prepared them for the pleasures of immortality. "Honour," said Mohammed, " thy paternal aunt, the date palm, for in Paradise it was created out of the same dust of the ground." -Another Mohammedan tradition of a later period says that when Adam left Paradise he was allowed to take with him three things— a myrtle, because it was the most lovely and the most scented fl-jwer of theearth ; a wheat ear, because it had most nourishment ; and a date, because it, is the most glorious fruit of the earth. This date from Paradise was, in some marvellous way, brought to th<» Hejaz ; from it have come all the date-palms in the world, and Allah destined it to be the food of all tbe true believers, who shall oonquer every country where the date-palm grows. The. Jews and the Arabs, again, looked upon the same tree as a mystical allegory of human beings, for, like them, ib dies when its. h -ad (the summit) is cut p£f, and when a limb, (branch) is , once cut off, it does not grow again. Those who know,, can understand the mysterious language of the branches on days when there is no wind,, when whispers of present and future events are communicated by the tree. Abraham of old, so the rabbis say, understood the language of the palm. . ' - The oak was always considered a " holy " tree by our own ancestors, and, above all, by the nations of the North. of Europe. When Winifred of Devonshire (680-754 A.D.) went forth on his wanderings through Germany to preach the Gospel, one of his first actions was to cut down the giant oak in Saxony, which was dedicated to Thor and worshipped by tho people from far and near. But when he had nearly felled the oak, and while the people were cursing and threatening the saint, a supernatural storm swept over it, seized the summit, broke every branch, and dashed it, "quasi superni motus solatio," with a tremendous crash to the ground. The heathens acknowledged the marvel, and many of them were converted there and then. But the saint built a chapel of tbe ■wood of this very oak, and dedicated it to St. Petjr. But the sacred oaks do not seem to have always done their duty. Thus, for instance, a famous oak in Ireland was dedicated to the Irish Saint Oolumban, one of the peculiarities of the tree being that whoever carried a piece of its wood in his mouth would never be hanged. After a time, however, the holy oak of Kenmare was destroyed in a storm, Nobody dared gather the wood, except a gardener, who tanned some shoe leather with the bark-; but when he wore the shoes made of this leather for the first time he became a leper, and was never cured. In the abbey of Vetrou, in Brittany, stood an old oak tree which had grown out of the staff of St. Martin, the first abbot of the monastery, and in the shade of which tbe princes of Brittany prayed whenever they went into the abbey. Nobody dared to pick even a leaf from this tree, and not even the birds dared to peck at it. Not so the Norman pirates, two of whom climbed the tree of St. Martin to cut wood for their bows. Both of them fell down and broke their necks. The Oeltß and Germans and Scandinavians, again, worshipped the mountain ash (Fraxinus), and it is especially in the religious myths of the latter that the " Asfer Yggdrasil" plays a prominent part. To them it was the holiest among trees, the "world .tree," which, eternally young and dewy, represented heaven, earth, and hell.

Acoording to the Edda, the "ash yggdrasil was an evergreen tr6e. A specimen of it (says Adam of Bremen) grew at Upsala, in front of the great temple, and another in Dithmarschen, carefully guarded by a railing, for it was, in a mystical way, connected with the fate of the country. When Dithraarschen lost its liberty the tree withered, bul a magpie, one of the best prophesying birds of the north, came and built itß nest on the withered tree and hatched five little ones, all perfectly white, as a sign that at some future time the country would regain its former liberty.