The Noblemen Wear A Veil On One
Shoulder, And The Noblewomen On The Shoulders And Round The Loins,
But Everyone Is Barefooted.
The women walk about with their hair
spread and their breasts naked.
The children, boys and girls,
never cover their shame until they are seven years old. . . ."
This description is quite correct, but Athanasius Nikita's son is
right only concerning the lowest and poorest classes. These really
do "walk about" covered only with a veil, which often is so poor
that, in fact, it is nothing but a rag. But still, even the poorest
woman is clad in a piece of muslin at least ten yards long. One
end serves as a sort of short petticoat, and the other covers
the head and shoulders when out in the street, though the faces
are always uncovered. The hair is erected into a kind of Greek
chignon. The legs up to the knees, the arms, and the waist are
never covered. There is not a single respectable woman who would
consent to put on a pair of shoes. Shoes are the attribute and
the prerogative of disreputable women. When, some time ago, the
wife of the Madras governor thought of passing a law that should
induce native women to cover their breasts, the place was actually
threatened with a revolution. A kind of jacket is worn only by
dancing girls. The Government recognized that it would be
unreasonable to irritate women, who, very often, are more dangerous
than their husbands and brothers, and the custom, based on the
law of Manu, and sanctified by three thousand years' observance,
remained unchanged.
- - - - -
For more than two years before we left America we were in constant
correspondence with a certain learned Brahman, whose glory is great
at present (1879) all over India. We came to India to study, under
his guidance, the ancient country of Aryas, the Vedas, and their
difficult language. His name is Dayanand Saraswati Swami. Swami
is the name of the learned anchorites who are initiated into many
mysteries unattainable by common mortals. They are monks who never
marry, but are quite different from other mendicant brotherhoods,
the so-called Sannyasi and Hossein. This Pandit is considered
the greatest Sanskritist of modern India and is an absolute enigma
to everyone. It is only five years since he appeared on the arena
of great reforms, but till then, he lived, entirely secluded, in
a jungle, like the ancient gymnosophists mentioned by the Greek
and Latin authors. At this time he was studying the chief
philosophical systems of the "Aryavartta" and the occult meaning
of the Vedas with the help of mystics and anchorites. All Hindus
believe that on the Bhadrinath Mountains (22,000 feet above the
level of the sea) there exist spacious caves, inhabited, now for
many thousand years, by these anchorites. Bhadrinath is situated
in the north of Hindustan on the river Bishegunj, and is celebrated
for its temple of Vishnu right in the heart of the town. Inside
the temple there are hot mineral springs, visited yearly by about
fifty thousand pilgrims, who come to be purified by them.
From the first day of his appearance Dayanand Saraswati produced
an immense impression and got the surname of the "Luther of India."
Wandering from one town to another, today in the South, tomorrow
in the North, and transporting himself from one end of the country
to another with incredible quickness, he has visited every part
of India, from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, and from Calcutta
to Bombay. He preaches the One Deity and, "Vedas in hand," proves
that in the ancient writings there was not a word that could justify
polytheism. Thundering against idol worship, the great orator
fights with all his might against caste, infant marriages, and
superstitions. Chastising all the evils grafted on India by
centuries of casuistry and false interpretation of the Vedas,
he blames for them the Brahmans, who, as he openly says before
masses of people, are alone guilty of the humiliation of their
country, once great and independent, now fallen and enslaved.
And yet Great Britain has in him not an enemy, but rather an ally.
He says openly - "If you expel the English, then, no later than
tomorrow, you and I and everyone who rises against idol worship
will have our throats cut like mere sheep. The Mussulmans are
stronger than the idol worshippers; but these last are stronger
than we." The Pandit held many a warm dispute with the Brah-mans,
those treacherous enemies of the people, and has almost always
been victorious. In Benares secret assassins were hired to slay
him, but the attempt did not succeed. In a small town of Bengal,
where he treated fetishism with more than his usual severity,
some fanatic threw on his naked feet a huge cobra. There are two
snakes deified by the Brahman mythology: the one which surrounds
the neck of Shiva on his idols is called Vasuki; the other, Ananta,
forms the couch of Vishnu. So the worshipper of Shiva, feeling
sure that his cobra, trained purposely for the mysteries of a
Shivaite pagoda, would at once make an end of the offender's life,
triumphantly exclaimed, "Let the god Vasuki himself show which of
us is right!"
Dayanand jerked off the cobra twirling round his leg, and with a
single vigorous movement, crushed the reptile's head. "Let him
do so," he quietly assented. "Your god has been too slow. It
is I who have decided the dispute, Now go," added he, addressing
the crowd, "and tell everyone how easily perish the false gods."
Thanks to his excellent knowledge of Sanskrit the Pandit does a
great service, not only to the masses, clearing their ignorance
about the monotheism of the Vedas, but to science too, showing who,
exactly, are the Brahmans, the only caste in India which, during
centuries, had the right to study Sanskrit literature and comment
on the Vedas, and which used this right solely for its own advantage.
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