Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/95

1858.] garland the neck of the happy cow that is to lead him safely beyond the fiery river, and the rings shall be golden wherewith her horns are tipped. A mighty concourse of clients shall follow him to the place of burning,—to "Rudra, the place of tears,"—whither ten Kooleen Brahmins will bear him; and as often as they set down the bier to feed the dead with a morsel of moistened rice, other Brahmins shall sing his wisdom and his virtues, and celebrate his meritorious deeds. When his funeral pyre is lighted, his sons, and his sons' sons, and his daughters' husbands, and his nephews, shall beat their breasts and rend the air with lamentations; and when his body has been consumed, his ashes shall be given to the Ganges,—all save a certain portion, which shall be made into a paste with milk, and moulded into an image; and the image shall be set up in his house, that the Brahmins and all his people may offer sacrifices before it.

On the tenth day, his wife shall adorn her forehead with a scarlet emblem, blacken the edges of her eyelids with soorma, deck her hair with scarlet flowers, her neck and bosom with sandal, stain her face, arms, and legs with turmeric, and array her in her choicest robes and all her jewels, and follow her eldest son, in full procession, to the tank hard by the "land of Rudra." And the heir shall take three little stones, that were planted there in a row by the Purohitas, and, going down into the water as deep as his neck, shall turn his face to the sun and say, "Until this day these three stones have stood for my father, that is dead. Henceforth let him cease to be a carcass; let him enter into the joys of Swarga, the paradise of Devendra, to be blessed with all conceivable blessings so long as the waters of Ganges shall continue to flow;—so shall the dead Brahmin not prowl through the universe, afflicting with evil tricks stars, men, and trees; so shall he be laid."

But who shall lay the quick Asirvadam, than whom there walks not a sprite more cunning, more malign?

Ever since the Solitaries, odious by their black arts to princes and people, were slain or driven out,—fifteen centuries and more,—Asirvadam the Brahmin has been selfish, wicked, and mischievously busy,—corrupting the hearts, bewildering the minds, betraying the hopes, exhausting the moral and physical strength of the Hindoos. He has taught them the foolish tumult of the Hooly, the fanatical ferocities of the Yajna, the unwhisperable obscenities of the Saktis, the fierce and ruinous extravagances of the Doorga Pooja, the mutilating monstrosities of the Churruck, the enslaving sorceries of the Atharvana Veda, the raving mad revivals of Juggernath, the pious debaucheries of Nanjanagud, the strange and sorrowful delusions of Suttee, the impudent ravishments of Vengata Ramana,—all the fancies and frenzies, all the delusions and passions and moral epilepsies that go to make up a Meerut or a Cawnpore.

Of the outrageous insolence of the Seven Penitents he omits nothing but their sincerity; of the enlightened simplicity of the anchoret philosophers he retains nothing but their selfishness; of the intellectual influence of the Gooroo pontiffs he covets nothing but their dissimulation. He has taught his gaping disciples that a skilfully compounded and plausibly administered lie is a goodly thing,—except it be told against the cause of a Brahmin, in which case no oxyhydrogeneralities of earthly combustion can afford an idea of the particular hotness of the hell devised for such a liar. He has solemnly impressed them with the mysterious sacredness of the Ganges, and its manifold virtues of a supernatural order; to swear falsely by its waters, he says, is a crime for which Indra the Dreadful has provided an eternity of excruciations,—except the false oath be taken in the interest of a Brahmin, in which case the perjurer may confidently expect a posthumous good time. For the rich to extort money from the poor, says Asirvadam, is an affront to the Gooroos and the Gods, which must be