QUAINT INDIAN CEREMONY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 127, 21 July 1911, Page 8

QUAINT INDIAN CEREMONY.

WEIGHING THE KING. Some people in India are promoting a petition to the King praying that he and the Queen consent to perform the ceremony of Tuladhan during their visit to India. This ceremony consists of weighing the ruler against gold and other valuables.. Afterwards the gold, etc., is given away as largesse to the poor. In this case a certain amount would he set aside for a permanent memorial of the Royal visit. From the earliest times potentates in India have gone through the ceremony, in benevolent zeal for the welfare of their subjects or to please the priests. It is stated that at the annual pilgrimage to the sacred lake of Poshkur, the Rajahs of Marwar and Amber made it a regular custom. Once the wealthy ruler of Amber scoffed at his less prosperous rival for putting so much cheap material into the scale. The Rajah of Marwar thereupon challenged the other to a competition in charity; and, this sporting offer being accepted, began by proclaiming rentfree tenure for all lands held by Brahmins within his dominion. The Amber Rajah was about to follow suit, when ho was reminded by his Minister that for every landholding Brahmin in Marwar there were ten in Amber, and that such munificence would ruin him. It is oven now customary for Hindus to weigh their idols in gold and distribute the gold amongst the poor. The groat objection to the ceremony being performed in the present case is that it is a Hindu affair and involves religious rites winch would give offence to the Mohammedans. Their Majesties would put on Hindu dress, and while they were being weighed Brahmin priests would recite passages from the Hindu scriptures and invoke the blessing of their gods on the King and Queen. It is pointed out, however, that the ceremony lias not boon confined to Hindu rulers, Akhar, the great Moghul, whose policy it was to adapt himself to the ways of the conquered, is said to have been weighed twice a year against gold, mercury, raw silk, musk, and other precious commodities, and some of his successors followed his example to the extout of being weighed on the first day of the Mohammedan year. Perhaps the ceremony can he arranged so that it will hurt no one’s feelings.