Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/338

 done at Prāg, it now rarely occurs. If the infant's life is preserved, the mother cannot take it again.

RELIGIOUS MENDICANTS.

The most remarkable people at this Melā are the religious mendicants; they assemble by hundreds, and live within inclosures fenced off by sticks, a little distance from the booths. These people are the monks of the East; there are two orders of them; the Gosāins, or followers of Shiv[)u], and the Byragies, disciples of Vishnoo. Any Mahomedan may become a fakīr, and a Hindoo of any caste, a religious mendicant. The ashes of cow-dung are considered purifying: these people are often rubbed over from head to foot with an ashen mixture, and have a strange dirty white, or rather blue appearance. Ganges mud, cow-dung, and ashes of cow-dung, form, I believe, the delectable mixture.

The sectarial marks or symbols are painted on their faces according to their caste, with a red, yellow, white, or brown pigment, also on their breasts and arms. Their only covering is a bit of rag passed between the legs and tied round the waist by a cord or rope.

One man whom I saw this day at the Melā was remarkably picturesque, and attracted my admiration. He was a religious mendicant, a disciple of Shiv[)u]. In stature he was short, and dreadfully lean, almost a skeleton. His long black hair, matted with cow-dung, was twisted like a turban round his head,—a filthy j[)u]ta ! On his forehead three horizontal lines were drawn with ashes, and a circlet beneath them marked in red sanders—his sectarial mark. If possible, they obtain the ashes from the hearth on which a consecrated fire has been lighted. His left arm he had held erect so long that the skin and flesh had withered, and clung round the bones most frightfully; the nails of the hand which had been kept immoveably clenched, had pierced through the palm, and grew out at the back of the hand like the long claws of a bird of prey. His horrible