by Fanny Parkes
Methodism is gaining ground very fast in Cawnpore; young ladies sometimes profess to believe it highly incorrect to go to balls, plays, races, or to any party where it is possible there may be a quadrille. A number of the officers also profess these opinions, and set themselves up as New Lights.
October 9th – I was remarking to an officer today I thought it very unlikely anyone would attempt the life of the Governor-General. He replied: ‘The danger is to be feared from the discharged sipahīs, who are in a most turbulent and discontented state. Squadrons of them are gone over to Runjeet Singh who is most happy to receive well-disciplined troops into his service.’
I have just learned how to tell the age of a stud-bred horse. All stud horses are marked on the flank, when they are one year old, with the first letter of the stud and the last figure of the year. Our little mare, Lakshmī, is marked K O, therefore she was foaled at Kharuntadee in 1819, and marked in 1820 – making her age now eleven years.
October 10th – I see in the papers – ‘A member in the House of Commons expressed his satisfaction that so abominable a practice as that of sati should have been abolished without convulsion or bloodshed. Great credit was due to the noble lord at the head of the Government there and to the missionaries, to whom much of the credit was owing.’
How very absurd all this is was proved to me by what came to my knowledge at the time of the sati at Allahabad. If Government at that time had issued the order to forbid sati, not one word would have been said. The missionaries had nothing to do with it; the rite might have been abolished long before without danger.
Women in all countries are considered such dust in the balance, when their interests are pitted against those of the men, that I rejoice no more widows are to be grilled to ensure the whole of the property passing to the sons of the deceased.
The Government interferes with native superstition where rupees are in question – witness the tax they levy on pilgrims at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna. Every man, even the veriest beggar, is obliged to give one rupee for liberty to bathe at the holy spot; and if you consider that one rupee is sufficient to keep that man in comfort for one month, the tax is severe.
The Dewālī
October 16th – This is the great day of the Dewālī, celebrated by the Hindus in honour of Kālī, also called Kālī-pooja. This evening, happening to go down to the river just below the verandah to look at a large toon-wood tree lying in a boat which some people had brought in hopes we should purchase it, my attention was attracted to a vast quantity of lamps burning on Sirsya Ghāt, and I desired the boatmen to row to the place; I had never been on the river before, nor had I seen this ghāt, although only a stone’s throw from our bungalow, it being hidden by a point of land.
On reaching the ghāt, I was quite delighted with the beauty of a scene resembling fairyland. Along the side of the Ganges, for the distance of a quarter of a mile are, I should think, about fifty small ghāts built with steps low down into the river which flows over the lower portion of them. Above these ghāts are, I should imagine, fifteen small Hindu temples, mixed with native houses; and some beautifully picturesque trees overshadow the whole.
The spot must be particularly interesting by daylight – but imagine its beauty at the time I saw it, at the Festival of Lights.
On every temple, on every ghāt, and on the steps down to the river’s side, thousands of small lamps were placed, from the foundation to the highest pinnacle, tracing the architecture in lines of light.
The evening was very dark and the whole scene was reflected in the Ganges. Hundreds of Hindus were worshipping before the images of Māhadeo and Ganésha: some men on the ghāts standing within circles of light were prostrating themselves on the pavement; others doing pooja standing in the river; others bathing. The Brahmans before the idols were tolling their bells, whilst the worshippers poured Ganges water, rice, oil, and flowers over the images of the gods.
Numbers of people were sending off little paper boats, each containing a lamp, which, floating down the river, added to the beauty of the scene. I saw some women sending off these little firefly boats in which they had adventured their happiness, earnestly watching them as they floated down the stream: if at the moment the paper boat disappeared in the distance the lamp was still burning, the wish of the votary would be crowned with success; but if the lamp was extinguished, the hope for which the offering was made was doomed to disappointment. With what eagerness did many a mother watch the little light to know if her child would or would not recover from sickness! The river was covered with fleets of these little lamps, hurried along by the rapid stream.
The stone ghāts are of all shapes and sizes, built by the Cawnpore merchants according to their wealth. Some are large and handsome – some not a yard in diameter. A good one, with arches facing the water, is put aside for the sole use of the women; and all were most brilliantly lighted. The houses in the city were also gaily illuminated. But to see the Dewālī in perfection, you must float past the temples during the dark hours on Ganga-ji. I was greatly pleased: so Eastern, so fairylike a scene I had not witnessed since my arrival in India; nor could I have imagined that the dreary-looking station of Cawnpore contained so much of beauty.
The goddess Kālee, to whom this festival is dedicated, is the black goddess to whom human sacrifices are offered. This evening beholding the pretty and fanciful adorations of the Hindus, offering rice and flowers and sending off their floating lamps upon the river, I could scarcely believe the worship could be in honour of Kālee.
I have seen no temples dedicated to her up the country. Her celebrated shrine is at Kālee Ghāt, near Calcutta. A Hindu often makes a vow, generally to Kālee, that if she will grant his prayer he will not cut off a particular lock of his hair for so many years; at the end of that time he goes to the shrine, makes pooja, and shaves the lock: at particular times of the year, they say, piles of hair are shaved off at Kālee Ghāt.
When we were residing in Chowringhee, we heard of the body of a man who had been sacrificed to the goddess having been found before the image at Kālee Ghāt. It was supposed he was some poor wanderer or devotee, possessing no friends to make inquiries concerning his fate. When a victim is sacrificed it is considered necessary to cut off the head at one blow with a broad heavy axe.
At Benares I purchased thirty-two paintings of the Hindu deities for one rupee and amongst them was a sketch of the goddess Kālee.
Phŭlŭ-Hurēē
A figure of Kālee, exactly similar to the one purchased at Benares, and attired in the same manner, I saw worshipped at Prāg under the name of Phŭlŭ-hŭrēē (she who receives much fruit). She is worshipped at the total wane of the moon, in the month Jaystha – or any other month, at the pleasure of the worshipper. Her offerings are fruits especially. Animals are sacrificed in her honour, and Jack-fruit and mangoes are presented to her in that particular month.
The day after the worship the people carried the goddess in state down to the river Jumna, and sank her in its deep waters: the procession was accompanied by the discordant music of tom-toms, etc., and all the rabble of Kydganj. The image, about three feet in height, dressed and painted, was borne on a sort of platform.
The goddess is represented as a black female with four arms standing on the breast of Shiva. In one hand she carries a scimitar; in two others the heads of giants, which she holds by the hair; and the fourth hand supports giants’ heads.
‘She wears two dead bodies for earrings, and a necklace of skulls. Her tongue hangs down to her chin. The heads of giants are hung as a girdle around her loins, and her jet black hair falls to her heels. Having drunk the blood of the giants she slew, her eyebrows are bloody, and the blood is falling in a stream down her breast. Her eyes are red, like those of a drunkard. She stands with one leg on the breast of her husband Shiva, and rests the other on his thigh.’
Men are pointed out amongst other animals as a proper sacrifice to Kālee: the blood of a tiger pleases her for one hundred years
; the blood of a lion, a reindeer, or a man, for one thousand years. By the sacrifice of three men she is pleased for one hundred thousand years.
Kālee had a contest with the giant Ravana, which lasted ten years; having conquered him, she became mad with joy and her dancing shook the earth to its centre. To restore the peace of the world Shiva, her husband, threw himself amongst the dead bodies at her feet. She continued her dancing and trampled upon him. When she discovered her husband she stood still, horror-struck and ashamed, and threw out her tongue to an uncommon length. By this means Shiva stopped her frantic dancing and saved the universe. When the Hindu women are shocked or ashamed at anything, they put out their tongues as a mode of expressing their feelings. Nor is this practice confined to the women of the East alone, it is common amongst the lower orders of the English.
October 18th – Aghā Meer, the ex-minister of Oude, has come over. His train consisted of fifty-six elephants covered with crimson clothing deeply embroidered with gold, and forty garees (carts) filled with gold mohurs and rupees.
His zenāna came over some days ago, consisting of nearly four hundred palanquins; how much I should like to pay the ladies a visit and see if there are any remarkably handsome women amongst them!
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October 20th – In the evening I went with Mr A— to Sirsya Ghāt; whilst we were sketching the mut’hs (Hindu temples), about fifty women came down, two by two, to the ghāt. After having burnt the corpse of a Hindu by the side of the Ganges, they came in procession, to lament, bathe and put on clean garments; one woman walked in front, reciting a monotonous chant in which the others every now and then joined in chorus, beating their breasts and foreheads in time to the monotonous singing.
They assembled on the steps of the ghāt. Each woman wore a white chador (in shape like a sheet), which was wrapped so closely around her that it covered her body and head entirely, the eyes alone being visible. Standing on the steps of the ghāt, they renewed their lament, beating their breasts, foreheads, and limbs and chanting their lament all the time; then they all sat down, and beat their knees with their hands in time to the dirge; afterwards, they descended into the river to bathe and change their clothes; such an assortment of ugly limbs I never beheld! A native woman thinks no more of displaying her form as high as the knee, or some inches above it, than we do of showing our faces. This being rather too great an exhibition, I proposed to my companion to proceed a little further that the lovely damsels might bathe undisturbed.
October 25th – I have been more disgusted today than I can express: the cause is too truly Indian not to have a place in my journal. I fancied I saw the corpse of a European floating down the Ganges just now, but, on looking through the telescope, I beheld the most disgusting object imaginable.
When a rich Hindu dies, his body is burned, and the ashes are thrown into the Ganges; when a poor man is burned, they will not go to the expense of wood sufficient to consume the body. The corpse I saw floating down had been put on a pile, covered with ghee (clarified butter) and fire enough had been allowed just to take off all the skin from the body and head, giving it a white appearance; anything so ghastly and horrible as the limbs from the effect of the fire was never beheld, and it floated almost entirely out of the water, whilst the crows that were perched upon it tore the eyes out. In some parts, where the stream forms a little bay, numbers of these dreadful objects are collected together by the eddy, and render the air pestiferous until a strong current carries them onwards. The poorer Hindus think they have paid all due honour to their relatives when they have thus skinned them on the funeral pile and thrown them, like dead dogs, into the Ganges.
The Musulmāns bury their dead – generally under the shade of trees – and erect tombs to their memory, which they keep in repair; they burn lights upon the graves every Thursday (Jumarāt) and adorn the tomb with flowers.
October 27th – As we floated down the stream this evening, I observed the first ghāt was lighted up, and looked very brilliant, with hundreds of little lamps; the dāndis said it was not on account of any particular festival, but merely the merchant, to whom the ghāt and temple belonged, offering lamps to Ganga-ji.
November 8th – My husband received an order to return to Allahabad; this gave us much satisfaction.
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November 18th – Today, our Mug cook died suddenly after a short illness; the corpse will be burned, and the ashes thrown into the Ganges; the man came from Ava. The Mugs are reckoned better cooks than the Musulmāns. He was an excellent artiste and a good servant; we shall replace him with difficulty. He professed himself a Hindu, and during their festivals would give money and worship according to their fashion.
During the Muharram he called himself a follower of the prophet; he gave forty rupees to assist in building a taziya, performed all the ceremonies peculiar to the faithful, and was allowed to be considered a Musulmān for the time; at the conclusion, when the taziya was thrown into the river, he became a Mug again.
November 22nd – With a westerly wind, and the thermometer at 65°, we Indians find it very cold, the contrast to the hot winds is so great. I have worn a shawl all the morning and tonight, for the first time this year, we have begun fires; and have had the horseshoe table placed in front of the fireplace, that we may enjoy the warmth during dinner-time. The room looks so cheerful, it puts me into good humour and good spirits; I feel so English, without lassitude, so strong and well. My husband has just sallied out in his great coat to take a very long walk; and the little terrier is lying under the table, watching a musk rat which has taken refuge in a hole under the grate.
November 26th – I have just heard of an occurrence at Lucknow which is in true native style. The Nawāb Hakīm Menhdi Ali Khān, the present minister, poisoned the King of Oude’s ear against one of his people by declaring that the man betrayed some state secrets and intrigues; the king accordingly, without judge or jury, ordered the man’s head to be fixed and a heavy weight to be fastened on his tongue until the tongue should be so wrenched from the roots that it should ever after hang out of his mouth. This brutal punishment was inflicted some two or three months ago and the poor creature’s life has been preserved by pouring liquids down his throat as, of course, he is unable to eat at present. They have now discovered the man is innocent! But what does it avail him? His accuser, the Nawāb Hukīm Menhdi, is rich; money is power. The king is displeased with the minister, I understand, for his misrepresentations; he is also on bad terms with the resident – they do not speak.
Any lady having a horror of the plagues of Egypt would not admire what is going on at this moment; several lizards are peering about, as they hang on the window frames with their bright round eyes; a great fat frog or toad, I know not which, is jumping across the floor under the dinner table; and a wild cat from the jungles, having come in, has made her exit through the window, breaking a pane of glass; a muskrat is squeaking in the next room, I must go and prevent the little terrier from catching it: I do not like to see the dog foam at the mouth, which she always does after killing this sort of rat.
December 1st – A marriage has taken place this day, between the widow of the Mug cook, a low caste Hindu, old and ugly, and one of our khidmātgars, a Mahommedan. On account of her caste the man cannot eat with her without pollution; therefore, having taken her to a mosque, and the Qur’an having been read before her, she declares herself a convert. The Musulmān servants have dined with her; she is now a follower of the prophet. They are very fond of making converts, but the Hindus never attempt to convert anyone; in fact, they will not admit converts to their faith, nor will they embrace any other religion; here and there a woman becomes a Musulmān on her marriage with a man of that faith.
December 5th – Today’s news is that the Governor-General met the 3rd cavalry at Allahabad, on their march from Cawnpore to Benares. His lordship reviewed the regiment and asked the officers to dinner an invitation they all refused. This annoyed his lordship very much, being the first display
of resentment manifested towards him on his march by the army, and he ordered them to dine with him on pain of forfeiting their rank, pay, and allowances, pending a reference to the Court of Directors. Of course the officers obeyed the order; they were obliged to do so. What an agreeable party the Governor-General must have had, with guests whom he had forced to partake of the feast!
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December 13th – I accompanied some ladies to the riding-school of the 11th dragoons and, being much pleased, requested to be allowed to take lessons with them; afterwards, riding there during those hours that the school was unoccupied by the dragoons formed one of our greatest amusements. As for the corporal, the rough rider of the 11th dragoons who attends in the riding-school, his affections are quite divided between my horse Trelawny and myself; I heard him say the other day, speaking of the former, ‘I like that little chap, he looks so innicent.’
My sā’is cannot accomplish putting me on my horse after the English fashion; therefore, he kneels down on one knee, holding the horse in his left hand, and the stirrup in the right; I step from his knee to the stirrup, and take my seat on the saddle; rather a good method, and one of his own invention.
Christmas Day – The house is gaily decorated with plantain trees, roses, and chaplets of gaudy flowers, but no holly; we miss the holly and mistletoe of an English Christmas. The servants are all coming in with their offerings – trays of apples, grapes, kishmish, walnuts, sugar, almonds in the shell, oranges, etc. The saddler, who is also a servant, has brought five trays in honour of kissmiss (Christmas); these presents are rather expensive to the receiver, who returns kissmiss bakhshish (Christmas boxes) in rupees; the apples au naturel, brought down at this time of the year by the Arab merchants [Pathans] from Kabul, are rather insipid, yet the sight is very grateful to the eye; they are large, fine, and of a roseate hue. The grapes, which are in small round boxes, are picked off the bunch, and placed in layers of cotton. The dates are excellent. Kishmish are small raisins without stones, which have an agreeable acidity; they are known in England as sultana raisins. These Arab merchants bring pattu, pashmina, cashmere gloves and socks, curiously illuminated old Persian books, swords and daggers, sāleb misree and Persian cats, saffron, and various other incongruous articles which are all laden on camels, which they bring in strings in large numbers. The men are fine, hardy, picturesque-looking personages, independent in their bearing; and some of the younger ones have a colour on their cheeks like the bright red on their apples. Their complexions are much fairer than any I have seen in India.