Across India; Or, Live Boys in the Far East, Oliver Optic [read along books TXT] 📗

crushed to death, immolating themselves as an offering to the god. But these statements have been strictly investigated, and branded as the calumnies of English writers. Two distinguished savants have declared that self-immolation is utterly contrary to the worship of Juggernaut, the very unusual deaths at the car-festival being almost invariably accidental."

"It is a great pity that these horrible stories were ever poured into the minds of children, and I am thankful that the libraries contain nothing of the kind now," added Uncle Moses.

The company breakfasted with excellent appetites after the exercises of the morning; and then Lord Tremlyn conducted them to the large saloon where the Nautch had been given, and they were astonished to find that one end of it was occupied by no less than fourteen men, not one of whom was more than half clothed, though the tom-tom player had on a pair of short trousers. This fellow began to beat his instrument with frantic energy, moaning and howling at the same time as though he was in great agony.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Belgrave, putting her fingers into her ears. "Can't you stop that hideous noise, Sir Modava?"

"No more howling!" protested he in Hindu.

The chief juggler declared that they could not go on, and Uncle Moses suggested that they had to overwhelm the senses of the audience to enable the jugglers to deceive them. Their Hindu guide talked with them, and then ordered them to leave the hotel. The performers were not willing to forego the rich reward expected; and a compromise was effected by which the tom-tom was to be used, but the howling was to cease. Lord Tremlyn had announced the nature of the entertainment as they entered the apartment, and most of the tourists had heard of the wonderful skill of Indian jugglers.

A couple of the performers produced two swords twenty-six inches long, and pushed them down their throats to the hilt, and then asked Dr. Hawkes to feel the point in their stomachs. Another put a stone in his mouth, and then began to blow out smoke and a cloud of sparks from his nose as well as his mouth. Turning a somerset, he cast the stone on the floor. One took an iron hoop from a pile of them, and set it to spinning on a pole in the air. He continued to add others, one at a time, till he had eighteen of them whirling above his head.

Another set a lot of small swords circling in the air, till he had ten of them buzzing about his head. At the same time a sleight-of-hand man was doing a variety of tricks very skilfully, and acrobats were mounting on each other's shoulders, and pitching themselves about very promiscuously. While the party were wondering at the skill of the performers, though many of them had seen most of the tricks at home, a boy about eight years old came into the room with a good-sized basket in his hands, which he placed on the floor as the men spread out into a semicircle. The child stepped into the basket, which did not seem to be big enough to hold him, even when reduced to his smallest dimensions.

The drummer played a new tune, and sang in a low tone. The boy seemed to have a fit, and writhed as though he were in convulsions, finally dropping down into the basket very slowly. Mrs. Blossom was sure the basket was not big enough to contain him, and wondered what had become of him. Then the performers threw themselves on the basket, closed the lid, and began to punch it in every direction with long and wicked-looking knives. The ladies were appalled at the sight; but they were assured that it was all right.

The Hindus finally crushed down the basket till it was almost flat, and it did not look as though there was any space in it for a kitten, much less an eight-year-old boy. Then the men formed a circle around the basket, and began a sort of chant. Something like a voice seemed to be sounding in at the open windows. It continued to come nearer, and at last appeared to proceed from the basket, which began to be distended, till it was restored to its full size. Then the lid was removed, and the child sprang out, to the great relief of Mrs. Blossom.

Then one of the jugglers set a top to whirling, placed the point on the end of a stick, and balanced it on his nose. So far it was no new thing; but one of the spectators was asked to say stop at any time he pleased. Captain Ringgold gave this command; and when he did so, the top ceased to whirl, though, upsetting the bicycle theory, it kept its place on the stick. "Go!" added the commander, prompted by Sir Modava; and the plaything began to whirl again, as though its gyrations had not been interrupted. It was stopped and started again several times, till the spectators were satisfied.

The stick and the top were critically examined by the whole party, but not one of them could suggest an explanation of the trick. The last two acts were the most surprising; and the rest of the performance, though skilfully done, did not amount to much. His lordship gave the chief juggler a handful of silver, and they left the hotel with a profusion of salaams; for they did not often make in a month what they got for an hour, the Hindu gentleman said.

CHAPTER XXII A MERE STATEMENT ABOUT BUDDHISM

"I looked into a Hindu temple this morning while I was walking about," said Louis Belgrave, after the jugglers had been discussed a while. "I saw some very ugly-looking idols; and I should like to ask if they really represent individuals, or are creatures of the imagination."

"Both," replied Sir Modava with a smile; "there are, as you have been told before, a great many different sects, and a system of mythology. About all the gods and goddesses known to the Greeks and Romans have an existence in the Indian mythology more or less similar to them. Indra, the counterpart of Apollo in some of his functions, drives the chariot of fire that lights the day.

"Rhemba was born of the sea, and is the Indian Venus; Cama is Cupid; Parvati, whose image you saw at Elephanta, is Ceres; and so on to the end of the chapter. These divinities are represented in the temples, but they are without form or comeliness."

"They are not much like the beautiful statues of the Greeks," added Louis.

"The most prominent Indian sects are the Sa�vas, or worshippers of Siva; the Va�shnavas, who bow down to Vishnu under his several incarnations, like Krishna, whom you could not greatly respect; and the Ja�ns, allied to the Buddhists, found mostly in the northern sections of India. They occupy important positions, and possess wealth and influence. There are subdivisions into sects among them, and it would be quite impossible to follow them through the mazes of belief to which they adhere. There is a great deal of philosophy among many of the sects."

"But what are the Buddhists?" inquired Dr. Hawkes.

"Buddhism is quite as much a philosophy as a religion. It is not as prevalent in India proper as formerly; though it is still dominant in Ceylon, Napaul, Burma, and in the more northern countries of Asia. Its history is somewhat indefinite. Gautama, of whom a great many pretty stories are told, is sometimes regarded as the founder; though some who have studied the history of the sect, or order, do not believe that the Buddha was a real person, but an allegorical figure.

"Those who give a personal origin to the system, now said to be the religion of one-third of the human race, begin with Prince Siddhartha, a young man disposed to be an ascetic, and inclined to retire from the world. In order to wean him from his meditative tendency, his father, in order to cure him, and prevent him from forsaking his caste, married him to a beautiful princess, and introduced him to the splendid dissipation of a luxurious court. A dozen years of this life convinced him that 'all was vanity and vexation of spirit,' and he became a sort of hermit, a religious beggar, and spent his time in dwelling upon the miseries of human life.

"He used up years in this manner, and after much reasoning, came to the conclusion that ignorance was misery. He gave himself up to study, and at last came to believe that he had reached the perfection of wisdom. The tree under which he sat when he reached this result was then called Bodhidruma, or the tree of intelligence; and the Buddhists believe the spot where it grew to be the centre of the earth. A tree that passes for this one was discovered by a Chinese, still standing twelve hundred years after the death of the Buddha; and the bo-tree of Ceylon is regarded as its legitimate descendant. You have been told something about it.

"In Benares, having ascertained the cause of human misery, and learned the remedy for it, the Buddha began to preach his peculiar salvation. In the phrase of his religion he 'turned the wheel of the law.' One of his titles is Chakravartin, which means 'the turner of a wheel.' The doctrines of the Buddha are written out on a wheel, which is set in motion with a crank, though it is sometimes operated by horse-power; and such machines are sometimes seen in front of religious houses in Thibet, and the monks have portable ones."

"I thought the religion of Thibet was the worship of the Grand Lama," suggested Louis.

"That is a form of Buddhism. The most important of the converts of the Buddha was the Rajah of Magadha, or Behar, on the Ganges, which gave him a good start, and it has since made almost incredible progress. It would take too long to state the doctrines in detail of this sect, and you get an idea of what it must be from what I said of its founder. Its leading doctrine is the transmigration of souls, also called by that tough word, metempsychosis, though other Hindu systems adopt this belief. It seems to include the recognition of the immortality of the soul, which at the death of the body passes into another form of existence,--a man, a woman, a lower animal, or even a tree or other plant. The Buddha claims to have been born five hundred and fifty times,--a hermit, a slave, a king, a monkey, an elephant, a fish, a frog, a tree, etc. When he reached his highest condition of perfection, he could recall all these different states of being; and he has written them out.

"Some of the negroes of Africa have this belief, and when a child is born they decide upon the ancestor whose soul has returned to the flesh in this world. There are one hundred and thirty-six Buddhist hells, regularly graded in the degree of suffering experienced and the length of time it endures, the shortest term being ten million years. A good life secures an elevated and happy life on earth, or as a blessed spirit in one of the many heavens, where existence is continued for a bagatelle of ten billion years. When the karma is exhausted"--

"What in the world is that?" asked Mrs. Blossom, who was struggling to understand the subject.

"It is the allotted term of existence, including the manner of living, whether in bliss or misery. The person must be born again, and then become a god, or the vilest creature that crawls the earth, according as he has behaved himself. The Buddhists do not appear to have any idea of a personal God; and they are practically atheists, though there are many good things in their system. They recognize no omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful Supreme Being, who presides over the universe and all that is in it. They are pessimists, and believe that life, on the whole, is misery, a curse rather than a blessing. I have given you only a faint outline of what Buddhism is. It has points in which it resembles Christianity. Buddha is dead and gone; but his followers put up petitions to him, though there is no one to hear and answer their prayers. But I must stop for the want of time rather than because there is nothing more to be said; and I have done no more than touch the subject."

"But it is not very different from Brahminism," suggested Professor Giroud.

"You are quite right, Professor," replied Sir Modava. "Brahma means the universal spirit; but it