India and daily life in Bengal

Preface

I AM issuing- this third edition because the second edition is exhausted, and there seems to be a demand for such a book. There are more pages in this edition than in the second. I have given the latest reports on the revenue of the country, and also the constitution of the new Legislative Council of the viceroy, and the latest revised Protestant missionary statistics.

I have briefly discussed British rule in India as I have seen it and know it During our last term of service the unrest was at its height, and we were in the very storm-center of the cyclone. This is referred to from the standpoint from which I have viewed it. I have tried to present the facts and conditions in a plain, simple manner, so that any one can understand the situation as far as possible without actually being on the ground.

The book was issued in the first place to answer questions regarding that great country, which every writer consulted took for granted that the people knew, but which, as a matter of fact, in general they very little understood. Simple questions about their buildings, occupations, mode of farming, productions, character of the natives, religions, methods of mission

Preface

work, obstacles, etc., are answered in a concise but clear way.

I am indebted to Benjamin Aitken, Esq., of Poonah, India, for the facts concerning the new legislative council of the viceroy, and to Rev. Geo. Henderson, of Calcutta, for the revised missionary statistics. My historical facts were gathered from Hunter, Murray, Grant, Sherring, and others.

The cuts, with two or three exceptions, are from my own neeratives.

Z. F. GRIFFIN.

Keuka Park, N. Y., January i, 1912.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Historical Outline 9

III. Political Divisions 34

Chapter I

An Outline of the History from the Time of the Rig- Veda to the Beginning of the Reign of Queen Victoria as Empress of India

THE early home of the Aryans was no doubt somewhere in central Asia. In course of time the country in which they lived became too small for their numerous offspring, and adventurous bands left their homes in quest of food or plunder or pastures new. These marauding bands went in different directions, farther and farther from the old home land. Some of them settled in Persia; some of them founded the Greek and Italic nations; some the Celtic and Teutonic races; and others the Slavs of Europe. Others traveled more eastward and southward, and making their way through mountain passes, settled in India. Here they found rich pastures for their flocks and herds, and fertile land which they began to cultivate. But they also found that their right to these lands and pastures was disputed; for others had possession of them, and had occupied them for centuries before the Aryans entered the Punjab. Those who had possession were the aborigines of the country, who were by no means ready to relinquish their claim. For the Aryans to gain possession, therefore, meant war and conquest ; but, little by little, territory was acquired, and step by step the conquerors came farther south and east.

It was while they were watching their flocks and cultivating their land in the Punjab, that they began the composition of the Rig-Veda. This contains the most ancient records of the Aryan family, and is the source of most of our information of this remote period, extending as it does from 2000 B. C. to 1400 B. C. This is called by historians the Vedic period. This book is really hymns addressed to nature, which the Aryans worshiped; but in the hymns there are so many allusions to domestic and social life, wars, etc., that they form a history of the times in which they were composed. We must bear in mind that the hymns were only composed and sung at this remote period, but not written. They were sung, and handed down from father to son. probably as Homer was by the Greek rhapsodists. It was not until the following age, or what some historians style the Epic age, that these were arranged and compiled.

In the Vedic age the Hindus had very few of the customs and characteristics which they have at the present time. This was a patriarchal age. In their simple devotions the head of the family was also the priest of the family, and his home was his temple. The head of the family was also a warrior as well as a cultivator and herdsman. Caste had not yet made its appearance; girls had some choice in the selection of their husbands ; the cruel custom of burning the widows on the funeral pyre of the dead husband was unknown ; and wife and husband worked together in social equality. The flesh of animals, together with barley and wheat, milk and butter, seems to have constituted their simple diet. There can be no time fixed upon which we can put our finger and say, " At this date things began to change." The change was gradual but sure; for after six hundred years we find that the people had settled in the valleys of the Ganges and Jamna rivers, and were performing pompous and solemn religious rites, which sometimes, in the case of royal sacrifices, lasted for years. This period is called by historians the Epic age. Now we find professional priests have come on the stage, who give discourses on the texts of the Vedas, and who attempt to explain their hidden meaning. The writings of the Hindus, called the Brahmanas, are speculations and explanations concerning the Vedas by generations of priests.

As these kingdoms increased in territory and population, they also made advancement in education and in the administration of their government. Men duly appointed collected taxes, administered justice, and led armies to battle either against the aborigines or against neighboring kingdoms of the Aryan family. Members of kings' households learned the art of shooting with bow and arrow, and riding in war chariots, while priests multiplied religious rites and observances. It was during this period that the great Hindu epic, Mahabharata, was begun. It was not written as we have it now, for portions of it have been lost, and later writers have attempted to supply the deficiency, or alter or distort the text, or add mere myth, until, as a historical record of the war it pretends to describe, it is considered of but little value. This is a record of a great war between two powerful races, or tribes, called the Kurus and the Panchalas. There are evidences that other neighboring tribes were also drawn into the great conflict. Though advancement had been made in arts and sciences, they were none less warlike than their forefathers. Though much of the Mahabharata is allegorical, it throws a great deal of light on the customs of the people of that age. It teaches us that caste was beginning to assert itself, but had not formed those insurmountable barriers which later ages witnessed. It shows that the seclusion of women was not practised, but that the highest in rank of these went to witness the public feats in archery and other sports, and that maidens selected their own husbands. It also teaches us that vice was not unknown; for Yudhesthera, the oldest of the Pandavas, who is the most righteous character in the epic, and was w^ell versed in religious knowledge, after he came into possession of the kingdom, not only gambled it away, but also staked and lost himself, his brothers, and his beautiful wife, Draupadi.

From 1 200 B. C. to 1000 B. C, we find the Videhas, Kosalas, and Kasis branches of the Aryan family inhabiting what is now known as North Behar, Oude, and the country about the present city of Benares. These bold races had pushed through the jungles, crossed rivers, subdued aboriginal tribes, and founded strong and powerful kingdoms. The writing preserved, which throws some Hght on Indian history of this period, is the Ramayana. Like the Mahabharata, scholars claim that it is utterly valueless as a history of any war ; but the side-lights it throws out are valuable in showing the progress made in conquest, as also the elevation to power of the priestly class.

The Ramayana teaches plainly that no longer do the Kshatriya, or warrior caste, assert their opinions and their rights to any great extent; but even Rama, the hero of the epic, " though he encounters and defeats a Brahmin warrior, Parasa-rama, does so with many apologies and due submission." Sita, the heroine of the poem and wife of Rama, though purely a mythological character, begins to tell the early tale of woman's complete and uncomplaining subjugation. Though caste lines have been made, there are examples where women have passed from one caste into another, and even married into a different caste. Moreover, during this time, and up to the close of the Epic period, only three castes were recognized; namely, the Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaysya ; and these associated together and ate together, and felt that they were a united people.

Though they had extended their territory far down the Ganges Valley during the many preceding centuries, they were not essentially a warlike people. They seem to have inherited the devotional instincts of the family as the European portion did the warlike propensities. They had made considerable advance in education, but their schools and colleges were more for religious instruction than anything else. They had discovered the lunar zodiac in astronomy, but their knowledge in this was used more for regulating the sacrifices than for any scientific purpose. Considerable progress was made also in developing a code of laws for the government of the people.

From the year looo B. C. to 242 B. C, historians call the Rationalistic period. During these years the Aryans conquered many aboriginal tribes, and expended their kingdom into central India and to the Arabian Sea on the west, and to the Bay of Bengal on the east. This period seems to have been a practical period, and all their writings and teachings in religion and science were reduced to the most concise expressions. The literature of this period is called Sutra literature, and the object was to replace the voluminous writings of the previous age by aphorisms. This style of literature rapidly spread, and schools sprang up in many places to teach it. These Sutras reduced the extended ceremonials of religious rites of the Vedas to mere manuals. In law we have the code of Manu, defining the duties of citizens, and in social life the Grihya Sutra, defining the domestic duties.

Grammars also were written, and rules for pronunciation. In this they were in advance of the Greeks or the Romans. The grammar of Panini, in the Sanskrit, compiled 350 B. C., is still the foundation of the study of the language. The science of geometry was discovered and somewhat developed, and the philosophy of Kapila is comparable to that of Aristotle in its reasonings.

No one can read the literature of this period, or any portion of it, without seeing that caste prejudices had taken a terrible hold, and that the Brahmins exercised their privileges to the great humiliation and detriment of the common people. The oppressions prepared the way for Buddhism. The people were anxious to be freed from the galling yoke of the Brahmins, so that when Prince Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, announced his principles with regard to the brotherhood of man, they were hailed with joy. Though the Brahmins had prepared the way for the spread of Buddhism, and though the people seemed to flock around the standard of Buddha, it was three centuries after his death, which occurred 447 B. C, before Asoka, the greatest of India's emperors, declared it to be the religion of the State. Such was the hold that Hinduism had upon the people. If it took Buddhism, which had much in common with Hinduism, three centuries to convert the people, where is the ground for discouragement in Christian missions?

Hitherto all the light that has been thrown on Indian history is gathered from the writings of the Hindus, which are mostly of a religious nature ; but toward the close of this period, India began to come in contact with portions of the family which had, many centuries before, drifted westward. Herodotus, the Greek historian who lived in the fourth century B. C., speaks of the Hindus as the greatest nation of the ages.

The same writer tells us that Darius the Persian subjugated a portion of India, and that his ships sailed down the Indus to the sea. Later, Magasthenes, a

Greek, in the fourth century B. C, came to India and lived with one of the kings, and wrote of its civiHzation and conquests. These writings show that all of India, except some of the deserts and some of the mountain fastnesses, had been conquered, and the aboriginal tribes either subjugated and Hinduized, or else driven back into these barren places and mountain retreats.

Toward the close of this period other important events were taking place, among which was the invasion of the country by Alexander the Great. He entered India 327 B, C., and had it not been for the intense heat of the summer and the southwest monsoon, he might have marched his conquering armies through the whole length of the land. It was not because there were no native armies to oppose him, but because the native kings were jealous of each other, and often would rather espouse the cause of Alexander, if a local enemy could thereby be humbled, than unitedly to oppose him and save their country. But the heat was a more powerful enemy than the Indian armies, and Alexander resolved to withdraw from the country. He constructed a fleet upon which part of the army sailed down the Indus, and thence up the Persian Gulf; and part went overland, through Beluchistan and Persia. He founded some cities during his brief stay, of which the present city of Haidarabad is one. Later, other marauding Greek bands came into the country, and as far south as Oude, but established no kingdoms.

Internal dissensions were rife in this period, and there were frequent changes of dynasties. This condition made the inhabitants an easy prey to any strong, warhke, and united people. From the west such a host was coming in upon them. In the year 126 B. C, the Scythian, or Tartar, tribe came down through the mountain passes of the northwest, and estabhshed a foothold in the Punjab. They came to stay and to extend their territory, and it is recorded of one of their kings, Kanishka, that he extended his kingdom as far south as Agra.

Valiant kings arose in India to repel and expel these northern hordes, and the struggles were long and the results various. In the year A. D. 515, the great Hindu king, Vikramaditya, arose and regained possession of the greater part of India, and established peace, which lasted for two centuries. This was also the period in which the Puranas, one of the sacred books of the Hindus, was written, and it also witnessed the rapid decline of Buddhism. In the eighth century A. D., the Rajput, who had hitherto scarcely been reckoned to be within the pale of the Aryan Hindus, rose to power.

The founder of this dynasty was a brave general in Gujarat, Senapati Bhalarka by name, who declared his Independence, and, carrying the banner of Puranic Hinduism, established Brahmin supremacy everywhere in India. In the twelfth century A. D., India was ruled by three Rajput kings — Prothu Rai Chohan, at Delhi and Ajmir ; Jaya Chandra Rathore was king of Kanauj, Allahabad, Oude, and Benares; and Bhima Deva was ruler of Gujarat and central India.

t8 India and Daily Life in Bengal

But the (lays of the brave Rajputs, who had ruled India for nearly four centuries, were numbered. Shahabuddin Ghori, a Mohammedan conqueror, entered India A. D. 1191, and led his victorious armies through the country. The Rajputs, after making a brave but unsuccessful attempt to save their kingdom, returned to Rajputana, leaving the Mohammedans the undisputed possessors of the country. Shahabuddin Ghori was a practical ruler, and at once set about the task of thoroughly organizing his kingdom. The name of Ghori's Indian viceroy was Kutub-ud-din, who upon the death of his sovereign established a new dynasty called the Slave dynasty, from the fact that Kutub-uddin was once a Turkish slave. The great minaret twelve miles from Delhi, which is one of the wonders of the world, was erected in memory of Kutub-ud-din.

Other Mohammedan dynasties followed, as they could by intrigue or power gain the ascendency. In 1398 the great Tartar general, Tamerlane, swept over the country, devastating cities and murdering the people; but when satiated with blood he retired toward central Asia.

In A. D. 1526, Baber entered the country and established the Mogul dynasty. The country was divided into many petty kingdoms, ruled both by Hindu princes and Mohammedan kings. Baber was a lineal descendant of Tamerlane, and, like him, was fierce and warlike, and took delight in the task before him. As Shahabuddin had done centuries before, so he now went from one victory to another, until at his death, which occurred A. D. 1530, he held possession of India as far as Behar in the eastern valley of the Ganges. His son, who succeeded him, was not able fully to hold together the kingdom on account of family dissensions; but his grandson, Akbar the Great, who began to reign A. D. 1556, thoroughly established the Mogul Empire.

Of the work of Akbar and his successors we have no time to speak. Suffice it to say that the finest architecture of India belongs to this period. The palace of Delhi, with the peacock throne, was built by one of these kings, and also the Taj Mahal at Agra. This latter is the achitectural gem of the world, and was built by Shah Jehan in honor of his wife, Mumtazi Mahal, whose tomb it is. Aurangzeb was the last of the Mogul kings who ruled with any force or independence of character, and the empire began gradually to crumble after his death.

The rising of the Sikhs and Mahrattas among the Hindus, and the appalling depredations of the Afghans, as they made six successive invasions, were the direct causes which contributed to the fall of the Mogul Empire. It may be said to have disappeared, so far as exerting any influence on the country, in 1765 ; though for nearly another century they kept up an appearance of sovereignty. Mohammed Bahadur Shah, the seventeenth Mogul emperor, and last of the race of Timur, for his complicity in the mutiny of 1857 was banished to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.

In the meantime Great Britain appeared on the field, and taking advantage of, or pity on, the utter chaotic condition of the country, began to establish a foothold there with a view of becoming a nation in India. The

English had long been in India under the name of the East India Company. This company was organized in A. D. 1600, with a capital of seventy thousand pounds, and had purchased some possessions in the vicinity of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, and had opened up many trading points here and there. The whole of Calcutta, with the surrounding country, was purchased from the viceroy of Bengal. He sold his valuable territory in order to get money to carry out his scheme for the succession of the Mogul Empire. The present Fort William, one of the largest forts in the world, was begun in 1707. Fort Saint David, on the Coromandel coast, had also been erected. With money, a few strong forts, and a few brave soldiers, the English were in a position to take advantage of the conditions as above described.

It is not the object of this brief narrative to give a detailed account of the history of the rise of the English in India. There are many well-written histories on this subject, and they may be found in almost any bookstore. A few leading facts will, however, be in place. The French had in some places, and the Portuguese in others, established themselves. The Mahrattas and the Sikhs were at war with the Moguls, and other internal wars also prevailed.

During part of this time France and England were fighting, which necessarily involved their India possessions. It soon became known that English soldiers were good fighters, so the East India Company was often appealed to for help by one or the other of the many contending parties. At the close of nearly all these contentions and battles, favorable treaties for the English were entered into and new territory was acquired. After the company had secured a strong foothold, the settled policy was to acquire new territory as fast as possible. The history of the conquest of Bengal, and the achievements of Lord Clive; of Warren Hastings and his operations; the first Mahratta war, and the war with Mysore; Lord Cornwallis, and the second Mysore war ; the Marquis of Wellesley, and his settled policy of making the English the one paramount power in India, and his third Mysore war and second Mahratta war; and the great acquisitions of territory under these administrations — these make very interesting reading, and may be found fully treated in Hugh Murray's history of India, or in that of James Grant, or in any other standard work. The further conquests of Lord Minto, and his consolidation of the conquests of Wellesley; Lord Moira, and his war with Nepaul, by which the hill stations of Naini Tal, Mussourie, and Simla were acquired from the brave and warlike Gurkhas; the war in central India with the Pendaris; and the last Mahratta war — form interesting chapters.

Following these eventful times was the first Burmese war, 1 824- 1 826, by which Assam and other portions of the northeast came into the possession of the English. During the time of Lord Bentinck, suttee, or the burning of the live widow on the funeral pyre with the dead body of her husband, was prohibited and done away with. In connection with this we may see the elasticity of the conscience of the Hindu. When the order was passed prohibiting this most inhuman practice, a deputation of Brahmins waited on the viceroy, and told him that their consciences told them that suttee was the right thing for them to practise. Lord Bentinck replied : " Very well, follow the dictates of your conscience; but the Englishman's conscience tells him that whoever aids or abets in murder shall be hanged. You burn your widows according to your conscience and we will hang you according to ours." Suffice it to say, no Brahmins were hanged for conscience' sake.

Soon after the acquisition of Assam came the Afghan war, which resulted in the utter defeat of the English, and in which four thousand fighting men and twelve thousand camp followers perished either in the snowy defiles of Kurd Kabul, or from the knives and guns of the treacherous Afghans. The first Sikh war gave Lahore to the British, and under the administration of Lord Dalhousie, Oude, Nagpore, and parts of the Punjab and Burma, and other possessions were annexed. Lord Dalhousie turned the sod for the first railroad, and established in certain parts of the country telegraphic communication.

The next important event in the history of India is the terrible mutiny of 1857. The causes of this widespread disaffection have been discussed time and again. Whatever may have been the cause or causes, the direct occasion was the introduction of the Enfield rifles and the greased cartridges to be used with them. It was rumored among the sepoys (native soldiers), who were both Hindus and Mohammedans, that the grease used in these cartridges was made from the tallow of the cow and the fat of the hog. The hog is unclean to the Mohammedan, and the cow is sacred to the Hindu, so that report was a sharp two-edged sword which cut both ways. It is probable that the real cause of the disaffection lay in the fact that the people saw that Western ideas and ways were creeping into the country, and that in time, unless something was done to check it, their ancient customs and religion would be overthrown.

The first overt mutinous act occurred February 25, at Berhampore, one hundred and sixteen miles north of Calcutta. This act was the Nineteenth Bengal Native Infantry's refusing to accept the cartridges. Soon the blood of an English officer w^as shed, which was the signal for the lighting, so to speak, of the fires of war on every hilltop. By May this spirit of rebellion had become so widespread and so rampant, that every Englishman in India felt prepared for any news. It came from Merut and told of the burning of the English quarters, and the massacring of men, women, and children by the sepoys. From Merut they went to Delhi, only twelve miles away.

But why attempt to tell of the terrible carnage of that year? Delhi, Lucknow, and Cawnpore are almost synonyms for all that is brave, and true, and suffering on the part of the English — men, women, and children; and all that is cowardly, treacherous, and savage on the part of the sepoys. Taking into account the character of the combatants and those connected with them, and the terrible odds against the English, there has probably been no event in the history of any nation of more thrilHng interest than the sepoy mutiny of 1857. Though Delhi fell, it was retaken; though sixty thousand sepoys surrounded the residency at Lucknow, it was relieved by five thousand British soldiers ; though Cawnpore had witnessed the most terrible butchery of innocent women and children ever recorded, and had come fully into the hands of the rebels, it was not long held. Town after town was reoccupied which had been taken by the mutineers, and fort after fort was stormed, until in January, 1859, the echo of the last gun died away, and the last fugitive was chased across the frontier.

On the first of November, 1858, at a grand durbar held in Allahabad, Lord Canning, the viceroy of India, sent forth the royal proclamation that the Queen of England had assumed the government of India. Thus was brought to a close the history and existence of the East India Company, the greatest commercial and military company that ever existed; and thus began the reign of Queen Victoria as Empress of India. Religious neutrality and justice were the guiding principles of the queen, and in no time since the age of the Rig- Veda, have the people of India been so secure in the possession of their property and their civil rights and religious privileges as to-day.

In these pages I have tried to give a bird's-eye view of the events of the centuries, the knowledge of which will, I trust, give us a better idea of the people, the country, and the problems before us as Christian workers.

CHAPTER II British Rule in India

IN the previous chapter I gave a summary of the leading events of the nation, and referred to the occupancy of the country by the East India Company, and the refusal of Parliament to continue the charter of this company, and Queen Victoria becoming Empress of India. Let us now see how the Indian government is carrying out the pledge which Queen Victoria made to the India people when she became empress in 1858. Broadly speaking, the pledge vv^as this: in matters of religion the government was to remain neutral, but in matters of justice it was to take a firm stand.

There are times when these two fundamental principles conflict. In the mind of the Hindu custom becomes a religious act. For centuries it was the custom of the Hindu to marry his daughter at a not later age than ten years. Medical missionaries in particular, and in fact the whole missionary body, saw the cruel wrong inflicted on these poor, innocent little girls, and they raised their voices so loud that the government heard and placed the legal age at twelve years. But unless some such wrong is practised the people may worship as they desire.

Let us briefly glance at some of the benefits conferred on the people by British rule.

1. Justice. In courts of law even-handed justice is meted out as far as possible. Now, I do not mean to say that all the people secure justice in the courts. If they did, many a man who is at liberty now would be behind prison-bars. I heard the superintendent of jails in Midnapore say that " the people of India were divided into two classes — those who were in jails and those who ought to be." Of course he was a pessimist; for all the people of India ought not to be in jail. Some should be there who are not, and some are there who ought never to have gone there. The great trouble is to get at the truth in a case, but when truth can be ascertained by an English judge or magistrate, he judges according to the principles of justice, let it hit whom it will. This the Indian people well know, and this is what the higher class of people do not like. This is something which has never been in their land before. They say, " How is it possible that I, a Brahmin, should be subjected to the same laws as a Sudra?" It is this equality in the eyes of the law that the high-caste people would gladly change.

The same thing is true on the railways. If a Brahmin and Sudra pay the same fare they go into the same compartment. The Brahmin's head is high, and the poor Sudra begs many pardons for being forced into the same compartment, but objections are useless on the part of either. And each is finding that no great harm comes to them.