A Fallen Idol

Front matter

BY F. ANSTEY AUTHOR OF 'VICE -VERSA' 'THE GIANT'S ROBE' &c. LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1886 [All rights reserved] TO MRS. PANTON THIS BOOK WHICH OWES ITS EXISTENCE TO HER SUGGESTION IS GRATEFULLY AND CORDIALLY INSCRIBED BY HER VERY SINCERE FRIEND THE AUTHOR CONTENTS. PAGE The Prologue 1 THE STORY. CH.U'TEst I. Self-restraint 34 II. A Remonstrance 51 III. From a Pedestal 66 IV. Last Touches 89 V. Explanations 101 VI. The Private View 121 VII. A Painful Interview 140 VIIL Reopened Wounds 156 IX. Put to the Test 174 X. Conviction 189 XI. Mystifications 202 XII. For Old Sake's Sake 219 XIII. In which the Luck Turns more than Once . . 241 XIV. Antæus the Second 261 XV. The Day After 280 XVI. Braved ! 302 XVII. BRUTUM Fulmen THE

Prologue

. Scene, India. Time, Eighteenth Century. In the cool of an early morning, more than a hundred years ago, an elderly priest was sitting under the pilastered portico of a little temple, just outside the village of Chandra-gurry, in Southern Mysore. It was the ordinary village of the place and period, fortified by a low mud wall, and consisting of lines of two-storied houses, gay with broad vertical stripes of red and white, and roofed with tile or ragged Palmyra leaves. On three sides it was surrounded by peepul and tamarind groves, and level plantations of rice, cotton, and millet, intersected by gleaming water-channels ; on the other, the ground rose, by gradual slopes and plateaux, with stretches of velvety grass and stately trees, towards the rugged heights beyond. The temple stood on a knoll at the head of the first of these slopes — a graceful building, with its cluster of snow-white domes arranged in pyramid form, crowned by B an elaborately carved pinnacle, upon which rose a pole, ending in a gilded ball.

It was not an orthodox Hindu temple — that was down below, a great staring structure of red granite dominating the humble roofs of the village — it was the place of worship for such portion of the population as belonged to the sect of Jains. The Jains profess a perverted form of Buddhism, under which reverence is claimed for no less than seventy-two earthly Buddhas — namely, twenty-four of a past era, twenty-four of the present, and twenty-four who are still to come. These Buddhas they call ' Jinas,' ' Arhats,' or ' Tirthankars ; ' they are saints who have lived on earth as mere mortals, but who have vanquished vice and virtue, and obtained nirvana, or emancipation from further existence on earth. The last saint of the present era was Mahavira, who was translated more than two thousand years ago.

To him this particular temple had been dedicated, and his image consequently was the largest and the most luxu riously installed in the idol chamber, where each of the twenty-four was represented in effigy. The temple was the private property of the old priest, Acharya Chick, who, though subject to the supervision and control of the head guru of the Jains, was free in most respects to conduct his ministrations as he pleased. Chick, however, being a good and earnest old man, with the simplicity of a child, was strictly conscientious in the performance of his duties, took an honest pride in the appointments of his temple, and derived no more than a modest livelihood from his priestly calling. As he sat outside on the stone bench, where he was accustomed to collect his thoughts for the service which began the working day, he was troubled by doubts and perplexities which had only of late begun to assail his tranquil faith.

Quite recently he had been called upon to include a new saint in his Pantheon, and to one of his conserva tive instincts, this was disturbing. It came about in this wise. Some twenty years or so before, a lad had run wild about the village bazaar ; he was of unknown parentage, and adopted by one of the workers in brass who formed a section of the inhabitants and were Jains to a man. There was nothing, to an uninitiated eye, to distin guish him from other naked children, unless it was the superior force of will and ingenuity which procured him the leadership in all mischievous enterprises, until one day, when the guru from the Jain head-quarters at Belligola came over on his periodical visit of inspection and made a startling discovery. It was two thousand years, as has been said, since the last tirthankar of the present era had passed away, and the first of the succeeding one was already considerably overdue.

Now the guru had perceived that this expected tir thankar had actually taken up his mortal habitation in the body of this lad ! There could be no possible mis take on this point, for the body bore every one of the mystic signs and marks which denoted his high mission. This revelation, as might be expected .made all the p difference in the world to the youth's prospects. For he could not be left to develop unaided — since he might conceivably fail, and then all the business of incarnating a tirthankar would have to be gone through over again ; he must be trained, and trained carefully. So they put him under fit teachers, and the mystic name of Chalanka was conferred upon him, and he studied natural magic, in which he soon became a proficient, at the feet of an eminent yogi of great sanctity and un cleanliness.

It was said, indeed, that Chalanka did not invariably make the highest use of his occult knowledge, and that his miracles, to the end of his days, rather resembled the more ill-natured kind of practical joke ; but these miracles will have that tendency when the saint is enthusiastic and young. Chalanka grew up strong, bold, by no means uncomely, and in time he passed his novitiate, becoming a yati or ascetic of the first class ; he cut off his hair, wore robes of a tawny hue — which became much tawnier — and con fined his personal luggage to a bundle of peacock's feathers and an earthen pot. He devoted his energies to contemplating the abstract, which he did with perseverance and entire success; he overcame all human passions and infirmities — for that was expected from him — and he trained himself to regard his body as a bubble, though it need hardly be said it was a bubble which had no connection whatever with soap.

And from time to time he stalked through the Jain quarter of the village, blowing a chank shell to attract attention, and soliciting the alms of the charitable, and occasionally his wanderings led him unconsciously around the compound of the big Brahman temple, much to the annoyance of the priests and the amusement of the dancing girls. Years went on, and his wisdom was pronounced ripe for gathering ; he had his remaining hairs plucked out by the roots ; he unrobed at his simple meals, and disciples were told off to attend upon him, to hearken to his dis courses and store them up for future transmission. Unfortunately no records have been preserved of his doctrines, which seem to have been found too complicated or too advanced to be divulged at present. All that is known of him at this stage is that he inspired his disciples with a salutary fear.

Another period elapsed, and Chalanka dismissed his grateful disciples, and established himself in a sort of hermitage up amongst the rocks, where he was to remain for years, silent, in self-centred contemplation. He was not often to be seen there by the curious, for he possessed the power of making himself invisible. Sometimes at night iu the thicket near the Brahman temple a shadowy form was seen gliding and prowling, the projection from the holy hermit who sat like stone in the cell far above among the heights ; sometimes, a fierce wild laugh rang out over the crags and cliffs, and those who heard knew then that Chalanka was in one of his holy frenzies, and would not have disturbed him for their lives. And then,inthe most unforeseen wayhe died. They found his corpse lying stiff and swollen at the foot of a precipice, which, had he been an ordinary person, it would have been said he had fallen over.

Now nobody had expected him to die for years to come, still less to cease from existence with such an entire absence of parade ; but he was the first of the new era, and consequently entitled to make his own precedents. He was obviously dead, and the only thing to be done was to burn his body and cast the ashes into water. Chalanka's untimely end brought to the surface a question which many had secretly entertained in his lifetime. Was he, in sober truth, a tirthankar at all ? Compared with his predecessors, he did not show to great advantage ; his fame was limited, his supernatural feats were of a low and even pettifogging order, and he had enriched the faith with no fresh precepts of any value. And those, too, who had had opportunities of observing him (amongst whom was Acharya Chick himself) could not but see certain shortcomings — a disposition to arro gance, for instance, a hankering after admiration, traces of greed, unscrupulousness, cruelty, which, without being serious in themselves, were slightly inconsistent with a complete conquest of the flesh.

Upon the whole, a dead man has perhaps a better chance of being canonised if the matter is postponed for a hundred years, as in the Roman Catholic faith, than when, as here, his claims must be settled at his decease ; but none of Chalanka's co-religionists chose to play the advocatus diaboli in this case, feeling that his admission amongst the Jain divinities would reflect distinction upon the village and temple, and not improbably have a stimu lating effect upon the brass-founding trade, in which they were all largely interested. And the head guru, to whom the point was referred, not unnaturally backed his original opinion ; Chalanka was a genuine arhat, the first of a new order, and, as such, he was entitled to the reverence of all devout Jains, and an image must consequently be set up in his honour, and assigned a niche in the temple of his native village.

The guru's decision was of course final, the idol-carver was set to work, and soon produced a small seated image, which was as faithful a representation of the real Chalanka as could be expected or desired. The new idol had only spent one night under the temple roof on the morning which witnessed Acharya Chick's perplexity beneath the portico — a perplexity of which it was the unconscious cause. For the worthy Jain, though too humble-minded to think of questioning, even to himself, the wisdom of his superior, could not consider his latest deity an acquisition. His little Pantheon had been quite large enough before ; he was too old to relish having a new object of veneration thrust upon him in this way. And so, in apportioning the day's offerings on the previous evening, he had, without perhaps any conscious intention, reserved the least tempting fruits and the more faded flowers as the share of the new comer; and now he was not quite certain whether he felt more self-reproach or repugnance as the time drew near when he must again enter the inner shrine.

However, these unpleasant meditations of his were to receive as unpleasant an interruption. From his seat he could command a view of the winding path which led up the knoll from the village gates, and now he saw advanc ing a tall and stately figure, in which his eyes were keen enough to recognise his bitterest enemy, Ram Chunga, the Brahman who presided over the massive temple where Brahma, and Siva and Parvati, and Geneswara, their son, were worshipped. He was evidently coming to the Jains' temple ; he was almost at the palisade already, and Chick felt a certain flutter at the prospect of such a visitor, much as might a Dissenting minister of the old school on seeing a shovel hat and a pair of gaiters coming down his garden path. The minister feels he has as good a right to the title of ' reverend ' as the bishop ; but then, he is only too well aware that the bishop is of a different opinion.

So Acharya Chick claimed to be of the Brahman caste, and had an uncomfortable suspicion all the time that Ram Chunga would probably deny his right to any caste worth belonging to. He thought he could guess the other's errand. It had come to Ram Chunga's ears that the Jain temple contained, as such buildings frequently did, an exceedingly handsome image of Siva, and on one or two occasions when the rival priests had met in the bazaar the Brahman had made offers to purchase an idol which, as he urged, could be but out of place in an alien sanctuary. That Ram Chunga had any real wish to acquire the Siva was more than the Jain could believe ; he was pro bably acting out of pure aggravation, or with a tyrannical desire to dictate and domineer, which Chick was determined to withstand, even while his mild and gentle nature shrank from the impending wrangle.

As the Brahman came in with a general and highly offensive air of precaution against moral and physical con tamination, the Jain rose and saluted him as courteously as he could bring himself to do. Ram Chunga declined the seat which the other indicated on the stone bench, and, remaining at some distance, began by saying that the errand which alone could bring him to such a place would probably be guessed. If, said the Jain, his visitor had come to renew his offer to purchase the Siva, he must, with every respect, make the same answer as before. The Brahman replied that he no longer proposed to purchase the image ; he now demanded that it should be surrendered to him without a price. That, said Acharya Chick, was obviously unjust. The Siva was his own, he had brought it at his own expense from one of the Jain temples at Padan-guddy, how then could the Brahman claim it from him ?

As the ministrant of Siva, the azure-throated, Ram Chunga replied, it was intolerable to him to know that the image of that mighty one was forced to share the offerings and suffer the companionship of such a herd of insignificant little demigods as he understood were venerated in the temple of the Jain. To which Acharya Chick answered peaceably that his brother was mistaken. It was true indeed that many of the Vedantic emblems were to be found in Jain temples, and he instanced Brahma, Indra, Indrani, and the bull Nandi, as well as Siva ; but they were not at any time considered as more than devatas or attendants upon the various tirthankars, and this particular image of Siva was a mere ornament, and never received offerings or adora tion. His reply did not improve matters, for the Brahman retorted that this only increased the impiety.

Why should Siva go unhonoured while these tawdry little tirthankars were loaded with gifts ? Which were more powerful, a handful of deified men or a god who was before all things began ? ' You mistake, Ram Chunga, you do not grasp the spirit of our creed ' (the Brahman's thin lips curled con temptuously) ; ' we lay our humble tributes of fruit and flowers before the emblems of these our arhats, the pure existences, the sages, the teachers, but with no purpose to please or propitiate. They themselves are infinitely beyond ompoor homage ; but to honour what is pure and good is beneficial in itself, and acts of devotion purify the heart, though there is no other reward.' 8 And this newest god of yours,' said the Brahman, ' who and what was he ? ' The Jain gave an embarrassed cough. ' You speak of Chalanka, who was but yesterday amongst us and now has passed away ?

He, too, is worthy of our worship ; he had overcome the eight great crimes, fasting in silence (even as did the blessed Mahavir, who for months kept his eyes fixed upon the tip of his nose) ; he had vanquished all human passion and infirmity, and now therefore that he has crossed the ocean of existence, his life remains to us for an example.' The Brahman made a guttural sound of intense con tempt. ' An example truly ! ' he exclaimed ; and then coming nearer and lowering his voice as he bent his cold keen eyes upon the other's face, he asked, ' Know you how he died — and why ? Hear then ! ' It was a wild story that was poured into the Jain's unwilling ears, a story of stolen joys, of detection, hideous punishment and fierce despair ; it was small wonder that Acharya Chick utterly refused to believe it. ' Where is this perjured dancing girl of yours ? ' he said. ' I would fain question her.' ' The girl ? ' said the Brahman drily. ' Where not you, Acharya Chick, nor any man will see her more.

And this man, forsooth, is to take his place amongst your divinities — his shrine is to be decked whilst the idol of sacred Siva craves garlands in vain ! Nay, this shall not be. I, his unworthy priest, protest against this last outrage. Let this image depart, which you know not how to honour — let it depart, I say ! ' Mild as the Jain was, he was not going to be bullied in his own temple ; the attack on Chalanka had roused his flagging enthusiasm ; besides, the Brahman's demand was too unconscionable to be treated seriously. ' I have spoken, 0 Ram Chunga,' he said ; ' leave me to administer my own temple and go in peace.' ' You refuse ? ' said Ram Chunga, and his brows grew black. ' I refuse ! ' said Acharya Chick. ' Then hear my warning. Not long can such obstinacy go unpunished. Our gods at least have not dreamed themselves to eternal apathy.

They can reward, and, what is more, they can punish. Quick are they to feel a slight — yea, and to revenge it. Have you never heard of the bag of insufficient peas, and the insulted idol of Mahadeva, which is Iswara, which is Siva ? ' And, as the Jain made no reply, Ram Chunga told him the story : how a pious but parsimonious worshipper repaired to the village of Tady Malingy, where are many temples to Mahadeva ; how, being desirous to pay each shrine the compliment of an offering if he could do so with prudence, he solved the problem by procuring a bag of peas, a single one of which he laid before each idol. How, unhappily for him, there were not enough peas to go round, and one idol was left out in the cold, at which he was highly offended, and mortified into the bargain by the insolent boasting of the other gods, who seem, by the way, to have been somewhat easily elated.

How, in his anger, the incensed idol transported itself miraculously across the river in chase of the unsuspecting worshipper, who was trudging home in calm satisfaction with his own economical genius. And how something too dreadful to describe befell the pilgrim, and how the idol evermore refused to return, and all its former com panions and their temples lie fathoms deep under the sand to this day. This marvellous tale Ram Chunga repeated with impressive solemnity. ' Such is Siva, the glorious, the conqueror of death, in whose sacred name I now speak.' He concluded, ' Think once, aye and twice, ere you thwart him!' Acharya Chick rose with a mild dignity. 'I must leave you, 0 Ram Chunga,' he said ; ' it is the hour at which I begin my ministrations.' The Brahman shrugged his shoulders. ' Upon your own head be the consequences,' he said. ' You are warned, and I say to you, Acharya Chick, that this image will yet be mine ! ' He turned and strode down the path with his aquiline nose high in the air, while the Jain stood in the portico for a few moments, watching the Brahman's scarlet cap as it burned in the sun every time he passed out of the shade, before he went into his temple with a new reason for disquietude.

He could not, he would not, believe so terrible a slander, and yet he wished more than ever that the head guru had not been so positive about tbe new idol. He was more determined than before to observe a marked mo deration in the offerings he laid before it. Thus resolved, he shook off his slippers on the marble pavement of the vestibule under the central dome, and unfastened the heavy and richly inlaid doors which com municated with the idol-chamber, a large, cool, and dimly lighted place, where the air was charged with the accu mulated fragrance of constantly renewed blossoms of the champak and a kind of oleander. The whole of one wall was elaborately carved and divided into two tiers of highly ornamented niches. In the centre of the upper tier, supported by two other arhats, sat Mahavira, the presiding deity of the temple, whose image was painted yellow and bathed in a flood of mysterious glory from an unseen opening above, through which came the only light that was admitted.

In the lower tier were the other tirthankars, each idol painted its characteristic colour, and in a separate com partment ; its sacred cognizance carved below, and the mystic triple umbrella forming a kind of finial over its head. The attitude was the same in every case : all the idols squatted cross-legged, their hands being laid, one on the other, over the feet, whose soles turned up wards ; most of the images had been hung with earrings and necklaces of more or less value, and before each niche was a kind of slab or altar for the reception of offerings. In the corner, by the doors, stood the image of Siva, which the Brahman coveted for his own temple ; a large and imposing figure, pot-bellied, painted a sickly blue, with a superfluous eye in the middle of its forehead, and more arms than even a deity could manage with either comfort or dexterity.

It had not been found possible to accommodate Chalanka in the tier of niches, but they had contrived a very com fortable little recess and a temporary altar for him in the opposite wall. His image, it may be said, was in its general character of the same pattern as the rest, though — owing to a hint which Acharya had given the idol-carver — considerably smaller ; his cognizance was the hunting-leopard, or cheetah. The gloom when the priest entered made it difficult to distinguish objects very clearly for a time, but, as his eyes became more accustomed to it, he made a startling discovery. Some impious person had entered during the night and stripped the idols of their jewellery ! The robber had even dared to carry off the freshly dedicated flowers and fruit, for the altars which Acharya himself had seen heaped the night before were bared.

But the next moment brought a certain relief. It was not sacrilege after all ; neither jewellery, fruit, nor flowers had been actually removed ! The earrings and necklaces loaded the idol of the new tirthankar, before which the whole of the previous day's offerings were heaped in profusion. The sight made Acharya extremely angry notwithstanding ; the temple ministrant (for Acharya himself merely superintended the ceremonies) was youthful and fervid, but still it was ill-judged of him to give this invidious welcome to the idol of a local celebrity. He sent for his too zealous subordinate and censured him severely ; but unfortunately a vow of silence for that day prevented the offender from making any attempt at self-defence beyond shaking his head with much vehemence. That evening, as Acharya presided over the distribution of the day's offerings, he was even more careful than before to restrict Chalanka's portion both in quantity and quality.

It was vain to tell himself that the Brahman's story had had no influence upon him — a slandered saint is like a damaged plum, something is gone from him that can never be restored — and then, too, the Jain had had his doubts from the beginning. But the very next morning revealed an outrage of the grossest irreverence. Every one of the tirthankars had been turned upside-down in his niche, except Chalanka, who was almost hidden under a mass of flowers ! Acharya well knew that no Jain would be guilty of such impiety ; he saw in it the hand of his unscrupulous adversary, Ram Chunga, and was struck with mingled consternation and wrath. He got the idols replaced in a normal position be fore the worshippers arrived, and as soon as the morning's rites were ended he went down to the village and had an interview with the headman, Fattekhan Gul, to whom he disclosed what had happened.

The headman sent him a Mussulman guard, who, having a splendid contempt for Jains and Brahmans alike, might be trusted to remain impartial, and who were posted around the temple in such a manner that none could approach unchallenged. And then the idols were all carefully oiled and bathed with sandal water, and left for the night with a strong conviction on Acharya's part that their tranquillity was not likely to be again invaded. But when he entered the idol-chamber at dawn next day it was to find it in a condition at the sight of which he staggered back confounded and appalled. All that had gone before was child's play to this. Every niche on the lower tier was bare, and in the centre of the pavement was a pile of images, each one of which proved to have been mutilated — its nose, its ears (which were dispro portionately large, and stuck out like the African elephant's), and the triple umbrella above its head had all been chipped off, and upon each altar a nose, an umbrella, and a pair of ears were laid out with derisive neatness !

Acharya almost lost his senses at the sight, for he had spent the whole night in watching, in going from post to post, and he knew that for this second outrage the Brah man could not by any possibility be responsible. Yet a complete and valuable set of images had been ruthlessly defaced by someone, and the pious Jains would soon be at the gates to perform their morning's devotions. What would they think — what explanation could he give them ? To his more enlightened mind the images were but emblems ; but this was a doctrine wholly beyond his flock, and he trembled to think of the view they might take of such a wholesale destruction. The reader, who was quick of resources, proposed to restore the idols to their niches, and trust to the semi darkness to conceal their imperfect condition, but Acharya was too dejected, and, be it added, too conscientious, to resort to any such evasion.

And so, when the earliest braziers and coppersmiths, after depositing their offerings in the porch, came into the idol-chamber, to walk round three times and make obeisances to the images as usual, they found their priest c I standing with bent head and his white robes torn, behind a heap of mutilated divinities, and they stood aghast. Gradually the chamber filled, and a buzz of dismayed curiosity rose from the various groups. If their gods were cast from their shrines, what was left for them to worship ? and while some of the less devotionally-minded were rather relieved to have a legitimate excuse for non-attendance in future, the majority felt a pious regret for their gods — their bland, sleepy, smiling gods, who never gave any trouble, and whose faces had become as the faces of old friends. ' My children,5 faltered the priest, perceiving they were waiting for some explanation, 'the destroyer has been at work in the darkness.

I know no more than ye why this has come upon us, to humble me and perplex your hearts.' ' It is the evil spirits ! ' whispered Murli Dass, the coppersmith, and the congregation took it up and cried, ' Yes, it is the evil spirits — it is the saktis ! ' And they fell on their knees, and struck the floor with their fore heads ; and Acharya, whatever his private opinions might be, did not contradict them now. But there was a sudden stir in the crowd ; several rose to their feet, and made way, as if for some personage of distinction, and Acharya, with an agony of mortification saw his rival Ram Chunga approach — the very last person he wished to witness his embarrassment. A village in any part of the world is not the place for a secret. The Jain's suspicions and request for a guard had not been long in reaching the Brahman's ears ; he had come up to repudiate the charge indignantly, when he gathered from the stir outside the temple that something extraordi nary was going on within, and, with his habitual contempt for all prejudices but his own, strode in to discover what the matter might be for himself.