This is a Blavatsky’s letter wrote to Alexander Wilder from India where she recounted the trips she had been making in that country in 1879.
Preliminary Dr. Wilder explanation
The little company of emigrants from New York [Blavatsky, Olcott and Wimbridge] became
established at Bombay and began the promulgation of their doctrines. At this
period they were en rapport with the Swami Dayananda, and allied their movement
with the Arya Samaj; a step which they were compelled later to retrace.
Whatever the merits of either, it could not be accordant with the nature of things,
that two enterprises, begun with individuals of different social and
educational experiences should affiliate and interflow harmoniously. Hence the
two leaders failed to unite permanently, and their associates drifted apart.
The aim of the Swami was evidently to restore the proper understanding of the
Vedas, and it would be no marvel that he, should regard himself as the superior
to all others and require deference accordingly. The Theosophical movement was
more catholic and assumed to permit a broad latitude in personal opinions, as well
as freedom from everything like the yoke of a religious autocrat. ''Not that we
have dominion over your faith,'' wrote the Christian Apostle, ''but are helpers
of your joy."
It was in April, while this alliance was still in operation and the
Theosophical party had got at work, that Madame Blavatsky and her companions
set out on a succession of visits to various shrines and consecrated places, in
western Hindustan. They journeyed first to the cave-temple of Karli, and
afterward, returning to Bombay, made a second tour northerly into the country of
the Rajpoots.
Some particulars of these jaunts were given me, in private
letters, of which I regret to say only the first appears to have remained. I
notice that she has given a more elaborate account in Letters to a Russian
periodical; perhaps restricting me to what I could bear. It cannot be disputed
that her descriptive powers were most excellent. She has embellished the
Russian letters to a degree quite beyond what she did to me. But for this there
were good reasons. She was writing in a more familiar language to a larger audience
where her effort would be appreciated.
The following was the first letter that I received directly from her after
her arrival in India from New York. I have taken the liberty to annotate it in several
places, to enable it to be better understood.
VISITS TO SACRED PLACES
« Agra, April 28, 1879.
My dear Doctor, my very dear friend:
How I do regret that you are not
with us I How often I think of you, and .wonder whether the whole of your archeological
and poetical soul would not jump out in fits of rapture were you but to travel
with us now, instead of squatting with your legs upon the ceiling, no doubt, — in
your cold room of Orange street I Here we are travelling for this last month by
rail, bullock-cart, elephant, camel and bunder boat, stopping from one to three
days in every town, village and port; seeing subterranean India, not the upper one, and-part and parcel in the
archaic ages of Manu, Kapilas and Aryanism.
True, ever since the beginning of
March we are being toasted, baked and roasted. The sun is fierce, and the
slightest breeze sends waves of red hot air, puffs like from a baking furnace,
full into your face and throat, and suffocates you at every step. But oh! for
the ineffable coolness and glory of the mornings and after sunset here. The
moon of America, is at best, when compared with that of India, like a smoky
olive-oil lamp.
We get up at four and go to bed at
nine. We travel more by night and in the morning and afternoons. But I want to
tell you something of our travelling. I will skip the landscape parts of it,
and stop only at the ruins of old cities and spots, deemed ancient already,
during the Macedonian invasion —if there ever was one— by the historians in
Alexander's suite.
First of all, we went to Randallat
(Dekkan Plateau) to the Karli caves; cut in the heart of the living rock on the
brow of the mountain, and, as the English archeologists generally concede-the chief
cave-the largest as well as the most complete hitherto discovered in India ''was
excavated at a time when the style was in its greatest purity.'' The English want
us to believe that it was excavated not earlier than the era of Salivahana,
about A.D. 75; and the Brahmans tell us that it was the first temple dedicated
to Devaki; the Virgin in India. (1)
It is hewn upon the face of the
precipice, about eight hundred feet above the plain on which are scattered the
most ancient Buddhist temples (of the first period of Buddhism about the age of
Asoka). This alone would prove that the Karli temple is more ancient than 75 A.D.;
for in their hatred toward the Buddhists, the Brahmans would have never
selected for their Temple a spot in such close proximity to those of their enemies.
"Never," says one of their Purans, "never build a holy shrine without
first ascertaining that for twenty kosses (two miles) around, there is no place
belonging to the Nosties (atheists).” (2)
The first temple, after having
passed a large entrance-portico, fifty-two feet wide with sculptured figures
and three colossal elephants barring the way, is dedicated to Siva, and must be
of later date. It is of oblong form and reminds strikingly of a Catholic
cathedral. (3)
It is one hundred and twenty-six
feet long and forty-six broad, with a circular apse. The roof, dome-like, rests
on forty-one gigantic pillars with rich and magnificent sculptured figures. As
you can see in Fergusson's Cave-Temples, the linga is a dome surmounted by a
wooden chattar or umbrella, under which used to sit the Maharaj-Hierophant, and
judge his people. The linga is evidently empty inside, and used to be
illuminated from within during the initiation mysteries (this is esoteric, not historical),
and must have presented an imposing sight.
I know that it has a secret passage inside leading to immense
subterranean chambers, but no one as yet has been able to find out the outward
entrance. Tradition says that the Mussulmans, looking out for the pagoda-treasures,
had once upon a time destroyed some masonry around the linga in order to penetrate
into it. But lo! there began creeping out of it gigantic ants and snakes by the
million, who attacked the invaders, and, having killed many of them, who died
in fearful tortures, the Mussulmans hurried to repair the damage done and retired.
A SHRINE OF THE SAKTI
Right above this temple are two
stories more of temples to which one has to climb acrobat-like, or be dragged
upward. All the face of the ghaut (4) (mountain) is excavated, and the
neigh- boring temple is dedicated to Devaki. Passing on: after having passed a
subterranean tank full of water, and mounted four dilapidated steps to a
balcony with interior rock benches and four pillars, one enters into a large
room full of echoes because surrounded by eleven small cells, all sculptured.
In this first hall is the cut-out
image of Devaki. The goddess sits with legs apart and very indecently,
according to profane persons, who are unable to understand the symbol. A thin
stream of water from the rock threads down from between the legs of the lady, —
representing the female principle. (5)
The water dropping down into a
small crevice in the stone floor, is held sacred. Pilgrims —I have watched them
for hours, for we passed two days and slept in this temple— came, and with
folded hands having prostrated themselves before the Devaki, plunge their
fingers into this water, and then touch with it their forehead, eyes, mouth and
breast. Tell me what difference can we perceive between this and the R. Catholic
worshipping their Virgin and crossing themselves with holy water.
I cannot say that we felt very
secure while sleeping on that balcony, without windows or doors, with nothing
between us and the tigers who roam there at night. Fortunately, we were visited
that night only by a wild cat which climbed the steep rock to have a look at us,
or rather at our chickens, perhaps.
NORTHWARD TO ALLAHABAD
Returning through Bombay, we went
to Allahabad, eight hundred and forty-five miles from Bombay the ancient Pragayana
of the Hindus, and held sacred by them, as it is built at the confluence of the
Ganges and Jumna rivers. One of Asoka's columns is yet in the centre of Akbar's
Fort. (6) But it was so hot —one hundred and forty-four degrees in the sun— that we
ran away to Benares, five hours distant from there.
BENARES, THE HOLY CITY
There's much to see in ancient
Kasika, the sacred. It is the Rome of Hindu pilgrims, as you know. According to
the latest statistics there are five thousand temples and shrines in it.
Conspicuous among all is the great Durga Temple, with its celebrated tanks.
Amid temples and palaces and private buildings, all the roofs and walls and
cornices are strung round and covered with sacred monkeys. Thousands of them
infest the city. They grin at one from the roofs, jump through one's legs,
upset passers-by, throw dirt at one's face, carry away your hats and umbrellas,
and make one's life miserable. They are enough to make you strike your grandmother.
Olcott's spectacles were snatched from his nose and carried away into a
precinct which was too sacred for a European to get into. And so, good-bye eye-glasses.
CAWNPUR AND THE MASSACRE
From thence to Cawnpur, the city of
Nana Sahib, the place where seventy-eight English people were murdered during
the Mutiny, and thrown by him into a well. Now a magnificent marble monument, a
winged angel, presumably a female, stands over it; and no Hindu is allowed inside!!
The garden around is lovely, and
the inscription on the tombs of the slaughtered ones admirable. ''Thou will
not, O Lord,'' says one of them from Joel (I don't remember verbatim) "allow
the heathen to prevail over thy people,"
— or something to that effect. (7) The heathen are termed ''criminal
rebels'' on every tomb!
Had the "heathen" got rid
of their brutal invaders in 1857, I wonder how they would have termed them. The
sweet Christians, the followers of the "meek and lowly Jesus" made at
that time Hindus innocent of this particular Cawnpur murder, to wash the
blood-soaked floors of the barracks by licking the blood with their tongues, (historical).
But people insolent enough to prefer freedom to slavery will be always treated as
rebels by their captors. O vile humanity, and still viler civilization!
I will not stop to tell you of the
beautiful avenues of centenarian trees full of monkeys above and fakirs below,
neither of the Ganges with its blue waters and crocodiles. But I remind you of the
ancient city mentioned in the Mahabarata
near which took place all the fights between the Solar race and the Lunar. (8)
The ruins of that city are four
miles from Cawnpur, whole miles of fortresses and temples and palaces with virgin
forests growing out of the room's, and monkeys again on the top of every stone.
We went there on a she-elephant called ''active Peri'' (Tchamchoala Pari). Can't
say that the ride on its back gives you any foretaste of the joys of heaven.
There was no howda on it, and I for one,
sitting on her tail, which she lovingly twirled around my legs, felt every moment
a sensation something between sea-sickness and a fall during a nightmare.
Olcott was perched on her left ear; Scott, a fell ow of ours, a new convert, on
the other; and Moolja Thecheray on her back. But the elephant was the securest
vehicle and guide in such a journey. With her trunk she broke all the boughs
before us, drove away the monkeys, and supported us when one of us was going to
fall.
We were half smashed, yet arrived
safely to the ruins and landed near the cave of a holy sannyasi, called Lucky
Brema, an astrologer, theurgist, thaumaturgist, etc., etc., another fakir just exhumed
and resuscitated after a few months' sojourn in his grave, where he hibernated
for lack of anything better to do. I suppose he prophesied all manner of evils
to us for not believing in his idols, and so we departed. But the ruins must be
five thousand years old, and they are pretty well historical.
THE TAJ MAHAL
At Agra we saw Taj Mahal, that "poem
in marble," as this tomb is called; and really it is the wonder of the
age. The builder of it boasted that there was not one inch of either stone,
wood or metal in this construction, which is truly gigantic-all pure marble and
carved into an open fret-work like a piece of lace. It is enormous in size;
sublime as an architectural conception grand and appalling. In Agra, this
dirtiest of all towns, with its half-ruined huts of dried cow-dung, it looks
like a magnificent pearl on a heap of manure.
HONORS BESTOWED BY MAHARAJAS
We visited in Rajpootana, Bhurtpur
and Jeypur, two independent States. The Maharajas sent us their carriages,
runners, horsemen with banners, and elephants. I imagined myself the Empress of
Delhi. We went to Deeg, near Bhurtpur-something like the garden of Semiramis, (9) with six
hundred and sixty-three fountains and jets, and the marble palace, four halls,
pavilions, temples, etc., the palace, covering an area of two square miles, and
with the garden, four. It was built by Suraj Mull Sing, three hundred and fifty
years ago. But the old palace is two hundred years old. It is the place where a
Rani (queen), seeing the Mussulmans ready to enter the fortress, assembled ten
thousand women and children, and all her treasures, and burned herself and the rest
in the sight of the invading army.
JEYPUB, THE PARIS OF INDIA – THE BHUTS
From there we went to Jeypur, the
"Paris of India" it is called. It is indeed a Paris, as to the beauty
and magnificent symmetry of its squares and streets, but it looks like a Paris of
red sugar candy. Every house and building is of a dark pink color with white
marble cornices and ornaments. All is built in the Eastern style of architecture.
It was built by Jey Sing, the adept and astrologer; and his observatory,
occupying an enormous palace with immense court-yards and towers, is full of
machinery, the name and use of which is entirely forgotten.
People are afraid to approach the
building. They say it is the abode of Bhuts,
or spirits, and that they descend every night from Bhutisvara (a temple of Siva,
called the ''Lord of the Bhuts" or "spirits" or demons, as the
Christians translate overlooks the town from the top of a mountain thirty-eight
hundred feet high), and play at astronomers there.
A magnificent collection of over
forty tigers is right on a square, a public thoroughfare in the middle of the
town. Their roaring is heard miles off.
AMBAIR AND ARCHAIC RUINS
We went on the Raja’s elephants
to Ambair, the ancient city and fortress taken by the Rajpoots from the Minas,
500 years, B.C. The first view of Ambair brings the traveller into a new world.
Nothing can surpass its gloomy grandeur, solidity, the seeming impregnability of
the Fort circumscribing the town for twelve miles round and extending over
seven hills. It is deserted now for over twelve generations; centenarian trees
grow in its streets and squares; its tanks and lees are full of alligators. But
there is an indescribable charm about the beautiful, forsaken town, alone, like
a forgotten sentry in the midst of wilderness, high above the picturesque valley
below. Hills covered with thick brushwood, the abode of tigers, are crowned
with ramparts, and towers and castles all around the ruined city.
The ruined heap of Kuntalgart is
considered to be three thousand years old. Higher still is the shrine and
temple of Bhutisvara (of "unknown age," as the English prudently say).
Read Bishop Heber's enthusiastic narrative of Ambair or Amberi.
The palace of Dilaram Bagh is
another miracle in marble, preserved because kept restored. Its innumerable
halls, private apartments, terraces, towers, etc., are all built of marble.
Some rooms have ceilings and walls inlaid with mosaic work, and lots of looking-glasses
and vari-colored marbles. Some walls are completely carved lace-work-like again
through and through; and the beauty of the design is unparalleled. Long
passages, three and four hundred yards long, descend and ascend sloping without
steps, and are marble also, though entirely dark. The bathhalls, inlaid with
colored marble, remind one of the best baths of Old Rome, but are vaster and higher.
There are curious nooks and corners and secret passages and old armor and old furniture,
which can set crazy an antiquarian.
THE RAJPOOTS
Remember, Todd (10) assures us that
the Rajpoots trace their lineage backward without one single break for over two
thousand and eighty years; that they knew the use of fire-arms in the third century,
if I mistake not. (11) It is a grand people, Doctor; and their history is one of the most
sublime poems of humanity; nay, by its virtues and heroic deeds it is one of the
few redeeming ones in this world of dirt. The Rajpoots (12) are the only
Indian race whom the English have not yet disarmed: they dare not.
When you see a Rajpoot nobleman,
he reminds you of the Italian, or rather the Provencal medieval Barons or troubadours.
With his long hair, whiskers and mustaches brushed upward, his little white or colored
toga, long white garments, and his array of pistols, guns, bow and arrows, long
pike, and two or three swords and daggers, and especially the shield of rhinoceros
skin on which their forefather, the Sun, shines adorned with all his rays, he
does look picturesque, though he does look at the same time as a perambulating
store of arms of every epoch and age. No foreigner is allowed to live in Jeypur.
The few that are settled there live out of town but permission is obtained to
pass whole days in examining the curiosities of the town, We have several "Fellows"
of the Theosophical Society among Rajpoots, and they do take seriously to
Theosophy. They make a religion of it. Your signature on the diplomas is now
scattered all over Rajpootana.
_ _ _
And now I guess you have enough of
my letter. I must have wearied you to death. Do write and address Bombay, 108
Girgam Back Road. I hope this letter will find you in good health. Give my
cordial salutations to Bouton and ask him whether he would publish a small
pamphlet or book — ''Voyage'' or ''Bird's Eye View of India,'' or something to
this effect. I could publish curious facts about some religious sects here.
Missionaries do nothing here. In order
to obtain converts they are obliged to offer premiums and salaries for the
lifetime of one who would accept the "great truths of Christianity."
They are nuisances and off color
here. My love to Mrs. Thompson if you see her. Olcott 's love to you.
Yours ever sincerely,
H.P. BLAVATSKY.
We are going Northward to Lahore
and Amritsir. The next place of destination was Lahore. »
I received a letter as interesting
and unique as this. Mme. B. next became engaged in the publication of The Theosophist and her-letters took a
different turn. They have not been preserved.
Notes
1. The "authorities" are not altogether clear, and the matter is
by no means beyond controversy. One legend describes the Emperor of India, Vikramaditya,
as having learned of the infant Salivahana, born of a virgin, simultaneously with
Jesus at Bethlehem, and as being slain by him when on an expedition to destroy the
young child, then in his fifth year. Salivabana was immediately crowned at Oujein.
This was at the time of the beginning of the present era; and Salivabana is said
to have left the earth in the year 79. Major Wilford explains that this name signifies
"borne upon a tree."
The account generally accepted relates that when Kali was about to destroy
the world, Vishnu made an avatar or descent for its salvation. He became the son
or Vasudeva and Devaki. The king, Kansa, having commanded to destroy all male
infants born at that time, be was carried away and placed with a foster-mother in
another country. Hence Devaki is revered as Mother of the God. (A. Wilder)
2. The government of Magadha or Northern India had fallen into the possession
of the Maurya monarchs, belonging to the Sudra caste. King Chandragupta was allied
to seleukos, and his successor Piyadarsi was the prince known to us as Asoka. Having
embraced Buddhism, this prince labored zealously to disseminate the doctrines, not
only over India, but to other countries, clear to Asia Minor and Egypt. The
cave- temples, however, were constructed by older sovereigns, but the Brahmans often
seized the sanctuaries of other worships and made them their own. (A. Wilder)
3. Fergusson agrees with this description. In his treatise on "Architecture"
he remarks: "The building resembles to a very great extent an early Christian
Church in its arrangements, consisting of a nave and side aisles terminating in
an apse or side-dome round which the aisle is carried; its arrangements and dimensions
are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich cathedral."
General Furlong, while accepting the theory of the later origin of the structure,
considers the temples at Karli as at first Buddhistic, adding the significant fact
that Buddhism Itself appropriated the shrines and symbology of earlier worships.
In confirmation of this the Rev. Dr. Stevenson, writing for the "Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society," Insists that the worship of Siva was "an aboriginal
superstition," which Brahmanism had adopted, but imperfectly assimilated. The
rock-temples appear to have belonged to this worship, but there is no account or
tradition of their construction, and Mr. J.D. Baldwin ascribes them to an earlier
population. (A. Wilder)
4. A ghaut is a "bluff" near a body of water, rather than a mountain.
(A. Wilder)
5. This description indicates that, not Devaki, the mother of Krishna, but Uma,
Maya or Prakriti, the Sakti or consort of Siva, was the divinity here honored. It
may be that the Brahmans, appropriating an archaic sanctuary to their own religion,
named the divinity anew, but It was the Sakti plainly enough. It is stated by Mr.
Keane that a similar figure, known as the Sheelah-na-gig is found in the Tara cemetery,
and other sacred places in Ireland.
6. Akbar was a Mogul monarch who came to the throne of Mahommedan India, about
three centuries ago. Disgusted with the cruelties and arbitrary requirements of
the Koran, he made himself familiar with other beliefs, finally adopting a mystic
theism. His long reign was peaceful and prosperous, and he is gratefully
remembered.
7. Probably Joel, ii, 19: "I will no more make you a reproach among the
heathen."
8. The Solar and Lunar races were Aryan alike. The Lunar peoples repudiated
the Solar divinities or relegated them to a subordinate rank.
9. Probably the hanging gardens of the Median queen of Nebuchadnezzar.
10. In his great work on Rajasthan.
11 This statement is confirmed by several ancient classic writers.
12. The term Rajpoot signifies man of royal descent. The other designations of
this caste are Kshathriya, Rajauya and Rajbausi, all denoting royal association.
After the Aryan invaders of India bad begun to devote themselves to husbandry and
the arts of civilized life, the military class remained apart and became a distinct
caste and people. Like the princes of Assyria they are altogether kings and kingly.
Facsimile
We intended to reproduce in facsimile the first and last pages of Madame
Blavatsky’s letter from Agra and printed in this number. But the reproduction was made
impossible because the letter is written with violet ink on green paper and could
therefore, not be photographed. — Editor.
(The Word, July 1908, p.203-213)
No comments:
Post a Comment