The third of these wonderful people sat crossing his legs under him;
but how he could sit was more than we could understand, because
the thing on which he sat was a stone lingam, not higher than an
ordinary street post and little wider than the "stone of Shiva,"
that is to say, hardly more than five or seven inches in diameter.
His arms were crossed behind his back, and his nails had grown
into the flesh of his shoulders.
"This one never changes his position," said one of our companions.
"At least, he has not changed for the last seven years."
His usual food, or rather drink, is milk, which is brought to him
once in every forty-eight hours and poured into his throat with
the aid of a bamboo. Every ascetic has willing servants, who are
also future fakirs, whose duty it is to attend on them; and so
the disciples of this living mummy take him off his pedestal, wash
him in the tank, and put him back like an inanimate object, because
he can no longer stretch his limbs.
"And what if I were to push one of these fakirs?" asked I. "I
daresay the least touch would upset them."
"Try!" laughingly advised the Takur. "In this state of religious
trance it is easier to break a man to pieces than to remove him
from his place."
To touch an ascetic in the state of trance is a sacrilege in the
eyes of the Hindus; but evidently the Takur was well aware that,
under certain circumstances, there may be exceptions to every
Brahmanical rule. He had another aside with the chief Brahman,
who followed us, darker than a thundercloud; the consultation
did not last long, and after it was over Gulab-Sing declared to
us that none of us was allowed to touch the fakirs, but that he
personally had obtained this permission, and so was going to show
us something still more astonishing.
He approached the fakir on the little stone, and, carefully holding
him by his protruding ribs, he lifted him and put him on the ground.
The ascetic remained as statuesque as before. Then Gulab-Sing took
the stone in his hands and showed it to us, asking us, however,
not to touch it for fear of offending the crowd. The stone was
round, flattish, with rather an uneven surface. When laid on the
ground it shook at the least touch.
"Now, you see that this pedestal is far from being steady. And
also you have seen that, under the weight of the fakir, it is as
immovable as if it were planted in the ground."
When the fakir was put back on the stone, he and it at once resumed
their appearance, as of one single body, solidly joined to the ground,
and not a line of the fakir's body had changed.
