Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/202

192 as absolutely in their power as the female penitents of the Romish Church are in that of their priesthood, and even more so.

This state of things has lasted for long ages past. Alexander the Great, in his invasion of India, 326 B. C., found these very men as we see them there to-day. The historians of his expedition give us accurate descriptions of them. The Greeks were evidently amused and astonished at the sight of these ascetics, and, having no word in their language to describe them, they invented a new term, and called them Gymnosophists, (from gumnos, naked, and sophos, wise.) The patient endurance of pain and privation, the complete abstraction of some, the free quotations of the Shaster Slokes and maxims of their philosophy by the others, led the amazed Alexander and his troops to designate them as “Naked Philosophers,” more literally so than the pictures here presented, for, though in my possession, I did not dare to have those engraved whose nudity would have more fully justified the Greek designation; but they are still there, and of that class of the Fakirs a few words farther on will be in place.

The word “Fakir” (pronounced Fa-keer, with the a broad) is an Arabic term signifying “poor,” or a “poor man,” because they profess to have taken the vow of poverty, and, in theory, hold themselves above the necessity of home, property, or money, realizing their living as a religious right from the people wherever they come.

Some wander from place to place, some go on pilgrimages, and others locate themselves under a great banyan tree, or in the depths of a forest in some ruinous shrine or tomb, or on the bank of a river, and there receive the homage and offerings of their votaries.

I have often stood and looked at them in the wild jungle, miles away from a human habitation, filthy, naked, daubed with ashes and paint, and thought how like they seemed to those wretched creatures whom a merciful Saviour released from the power of evil spirits, and so compassionately restored to decency, to friends, and to their right minds.