Gujarát and the Gujarátis/Native Mendicants
NATIVE MENDICANTS:
Including the Aghori.
One of the most prominent sights, though none of the pleasantest, that the visitor encounters, is the professional beggar. No people had ever before them higher ideals of charity than the Hindus. As in the new, so in the old world, charity has been the corner-stone of the edifice of Faith. But nowhere, not even in Christian Europe, have the subtler and more potent forms of charity been so fully realised as in the land of the Aryas. It was only in the recent degenerate days that ideas of charity grew vague and puerile till, since the advent of the present century, the spirit of charity has steadily deteriorated. Charity at present signifies the giving away of superfluous wealth to the worthy or the unworthy, for certain objects, especially what they call "personal distinction."
It is wise of the Government to recognise public spirit by the grant of titles; but the indiscriminate showering of these empty honours is perverting our instinct of charity. No one in these days can indulge the luxury of giving away a few thousand rupees, however earned, without being overtaken for his folly by the inevitable Khan Báhádurship or some such "mark of His Excellency's favour."
The grand old doctrine of THINKING WELL, SPEAKING WELL, AND ACTING well—the triple badge of Oriental charity, is becoming forgotten day by day, and in its stead we have a grosser, an unreal substitute, the giving to others that which may not be of particular use to oneself. It is hard to convince some people that there is not the least flavour of charity in the miser leaving his millions to a charitable institution. There is no merit in it. The wretch leaves his hoardings behind simply because he cannot take them with him to where both the miser and his money are equally unwelcome.
The Mendicant Class.
One of the best means, perhaps, to obtain an insight into the principle and working of charity in this country—thus far materialised—is by a study of its mendicant class, a numerous and potential factor of the great Indian population. A study of their habits and modes of life would be highly interesting. But what I can here do is to briefly characterise each division, and leave the reader to take the cue for further investigation and comparison.
Street Pensioners.
First among native mendicants we shall take the street pensioners—a numerous body of men, women, and children, partly diseased but wholly indolent, who infest the streets by day and night, and are content with a morsel of rice for a meal. They are Hindus as well as Mahomedans, and are patronised indiscriminately, though not to an equal extent. The Hindus reserve their favours more or less for their own people; and so do the Mahomedans for their people. The former generally give their pensioners what remains of the food after the household have partaken of it. The Mahomedans often do more. They cook a huge quantity of rice and dal[1] on particular holidays, and it is a sight to see the lazy fellows falling to the godsend, licking their fingers and smacking their lips at short intervals.
White Mendicants.
Hebrew mendicants are not a rare sight in our streets. They are generally females with a troop of children, their own or borrowed for the occasion. It is not an offensive sight, this group of quietly-clamorous "white" beggars. But it is not a credit to the rich and influential class to which the beggars belong. In this respect, as also in another wherein the insensibility of the elders is much more reprehensible, our Hebrew brethren might easily imitate the Parsis. A sort of arrangement was, I believe, attempted some years ago, but the people break loose from it. It also seems that they cannot do without begging and the other vice. In the former avocation, if not in the latter, they have Europeans and Parsis mostly for their patrons.
Private and Professional Mendicants.
But let us return to the mendicant proper to India—the indigenous growth. He appears in various guises—the Táin, the Mowlá, the Fakir, the Sádhu, the Bhátu, the Chárana, the Gosáin, the Jogi, the Gora—and their females. Some of these are public beggars, the rest being professional. They are gentle or violent in their clamours as circumstances warrant. They go from house to house and shop to shop, and adopt various expedients to obtain their "due." They sing, dance, philosophise, they cry, curse, and raise a storm, in order to move the hard-hearted Banian. They are more powerful than the police, and certainly more numerous. The respectable ones are also professional. For instance, there is the poetic mendicant, with his harp, his veno,[2] or other ricketty instrument. There is the historical mendicant, with his rag of a Sanskrit or Persian reference book; there are the astronomical, the medical, the moral mendicants, all with their peculiar hobbies and peculiar twangs, always amiable and often instructive. Then there is the friendly mendicant, generally a Mahomedan, who will button-hole you in the streets, discuss with you a variety of subjects, from polite literature to the rates of salt fish, and then, just before parting, startle you with the whispered query, "By the bye, do you, Sir, happen to have a loose pie[3] in your pocket?"
Domestic Mendicants.
But the most influential of all is the religious order of mendicants. It begins with the domestic priest, the Guru, and ends with that destroyer of all virtues, the Vallabhacháryan Máháráj. The Guru is as meek as he is sleek, and generally a worthy, jovial fellow, who is much, too much, trusted by the "ladies of the house." Then there is the temple priest who keeps the idol, and is, in return, kept in the best style by the worshippers. The moorlis[4] of Máháráshtra and their sisters of Bengálá are also subjects of great interest. They are fair devotees who profess to have consecrated their virginity to the favourite god. But they are very obliging creatures, very frolicsome; and as their highest merit consists in earning most for the temple, they are all anxiety to earn. Several daring youths, who once crossed the threshold of the Kali temple near Calcutta, have come out of it with recollections of their one night's adventures which are likely to last them their whole life.
The Aghori.
We now come to the Aghori mendicant. The Aghori, as his name implies, is an atrocity. It is a human being who, by a series of exercises, has achieved the highest pitch of his ambition—the feelings, habits, the very nature of a beast. The Aghori is insensible to all bodily discomforts; in fact, he courts them. He is a very rare animal, but by no means altogether extinct. One has only to see him to realise the loathsome object. Dark, muddy, hirsute, with eyes on fire, the nostrils wide distended, the nails grown to the length of an inch, diseased in various parts of the body, which is actually being worm-eaten, with vermin in the hair of his head, vermin on his body, and generally stark-naked. Such is the Aghori. His look is that of a mad idiot. There are the insane leer, the protruding tongue, the filthy teeth. The Aghori never washes, never dresses. He takes only carrion or putrid food, and drinks foul water. In one hand he carries a human skull, in another some hideous instrument of torture and death. These are his insignia. To complete the picture of this horrible process of brutalisation, it is only to be added that the Aghori besmears himself with human ordure. He does not hold human life in the least account. Nothing is too sacred for him. He can enter any house and ask for anything. The least hesitation makes him cut himself or others frightfully. He delights in the infliction of wanton pain. He is particularly fond of human flesh and blood, and the larger the number of his victims, the higher his merit in this life and the other. With the advent of the British the Aghori has almost completely disappeared. But he still haunts remote villages, and the havoc he works by his mere appearance is incredible. His sight throws women and children into convulsions, and there are instances of premature and painful births induced by the sight of this atrocious monster.