18 SADHUS AND FAQIRS

Chapter 18 SADHUS AND FAQIRS

THERE were, however, some bright spots even in Rishikes, gems among the rubble, lumps of gold concealed among the mass of baser metals minds earnestly seeking a higher spiritual life, losing themselves, wearying themselves in the quest after truth, intensely conscious of the vanity of this world and its pursuits and pleasures, and striving to obtain in a contemplation of the One only Pure, the only Unchangeable, the only True, that peace of mind which they instinctively felt and experimentally found was not to be realized in the pursuit of material objects. The painful mistake which made their quest so hopeless was the endeavor to divest themselves of the bonds of their bodily material tabernacle, which, if subjugated to the spirit, forms the basis on which that spirit can work healthily and naturally to its divinest development, but which, if altogether ignored and contemned, reduces that same spirit to a morbid fantasy. With regard to the learning of many of the Sanyasis there is not a shadow of doubt. There are men there fit to be Sanskrit professors in the Universities, and who are deep in the lore of the ancient and voluminous literature of Hinduism. Yet who benefits by all their learning? They may transmit it to a few disciples, or it may live and die with them; they make no attempt to methodize it, to draw conclusions, to contrast the old order with the new, to summarize or to classify, but cultivate it purely as a mental exercise or religious duty, without apparently even the desire to benefit the world at large thereby. This self-centered individualism, each mind self-satisfied, self-contained, with the springs of sympathy and altruism hard frozen, ever revolving on itself, and evolving a maze of mysticism, at length becomes so entangled in its own introspection that other minds and the world outside cease to have any practical existence for it. This is at once the most salient and the saddest feature of the learned and meditative Sadhu. But there they are men who might have shone academically, who might have enriched the world with thought, research, and criticism, but who have chosen to live for and within themselves, careless whether others live or die, are instructed or remain ignorant. Though they have categorically rejected altruism, and denied that they have a duty towards their neighbor, and done their best to shut up the doors of sympathy, yet even with them human nature refuses to be utterly crushed, and will assert itself. One can often discern a suppressed, yet insuppressible, hunger after sympathy, and one has no doubt but that the sympathy which finds its highest expression in the love of Christ, whether acted or recounted, will penetrate their hearts, and find a response. Unused, any organ will atrophy, and so their capacity for sympathy may be latent and not easily roused. Let someone, however, go to them as a fellow-creature, full of love and sympathy not to despise and to fault-find, but to take hand in hand and bring soul to soul and he will find that the Sadhus of Rishikes are human, very human, with the same spiritual hungerings and thirstings, and able to realize and rejoice in the same salvation.

It is a pity that more missionaries have not devoted themselves to working among these people. They would need to be men of great devotion and self-abnegation, but there have been many such in other spheres. They would be repelled and disappointed by the callousness and fraud of the majority, but there are the gems to be sought out, and how much hard granite is the miner willing laboriously to crush when he is sure of finding nuggets of gold here and there! And among these Sadhus are men who, converted to Christianity, would be apostolic in their zeal and devotion, and might, by travelingup and down India, not now in the vain accumulation of merit, but as heralds of the Gospel of goodwill, become the Wesleys and Whitefields of a mighty mass movement of the people towards Christ. As an example of such a one and the way in which he was converted from the life of a Sadhu to that of a Christian preacher, I will quote here the account that Rev. B. B. Roy gives of his conversion. It shows how strong a hold the ascetic Sadhu idea has on a religiously-minded Hindu, and how spontaneously his heart seeks in austerity and retirement for the peace which a growing sense of sin and of the evil of the world has taken away. At the same time it shows that, as in the case of Buddha, asceticism fails to afford any lasting comfort or peace to the weary storm tossed soul. He says: "Constant starvation and exposure to all sorts of weather reduced my body to a living skeleton.

"After a few months’ travel I came to Hardwar, and then proceeded to a place called Rishikes, celebrated for its Sadhus and Sanyasis. My intention was to stay there and practice yoga [a kind of meditative asceticism], to attain to final beatitude; but a strange event took place, which entirely changed my purpose. The rainy season had already set in; the jungle path was muddy, and at places full of water, so when I reached Rishikes I was almost covered with mud. Leaving my things in a dharmsala, I was going to bring water from the Ganges when I smelt a very bad odor. As I turned round I saw a dead body in the street, rotting in the mud. Around the corpse were the huts of the Sanyasis, who were performing tap-jap almost the whole day ; but none of them had even enough of compassion to dispose of the body of the poor man who had died helpless on the street. I thought that if this was religion, then what was irreligion? My spirit revolted against these Sadhus.

" I perceived in my heart of hearts that yog-sadhan cannot create that love in man which makes a man feel for a fellow-man. Where there is no such love there can be no religion from God." And then he goes on to relate how, leaving Rishikes, he fell in with a Christian preacher, and eventually found in Christ that peace which all his voluntary hardship had failed to afford, and how he had been led on and on in his pilgrim walk, till he had now the blessed and responsible work of teaching others of his fellow-countrymen how best to bring the good news of the eternal love to all the hungry and thirsty souls around. (He was then Principal of a theological seminary.)

There have already been many such cases of Sadhus and faqirs converted to Christianity, and these men and women have, as might be expected, exerted an immense influence on their fellow-countrymen. They have presented them with a Christianity in an Eastern dress which they can recognize as congenial to the sentiments of their country, and exemplified in their own self-denying lives, full of the spirit of that austerity which the Indian has long believed to be inseparable from religious zeal.

Devotion, austerity, and asceticism in the cause of religion have been characteristic of India as far back as history records. Life has always been precarious for the majority of the population in the East, and plagues, famines and wars have familiarized them with the tragic spectacles of multitudes of young and old being suddenly carried off in the midst of business or enjoyment. Consequently, their sages dwelt much on the uncertainty of life, and developed the doctrine that the world and its gay shows were only an illusion of the senses, and the goal of the spirit was to divest itself of this illusion and rise superior to the limitations of matter. By the practice of austerities, the grossness of the flesh, the demands of the body, and the storms of the passions, would be subdued, and the spirit gain freedom from the endless round of reincarnation, and ultimately join the illimitable sea whence it came, as the drop on the lotus-leaf falls back into the water and is lost therein.

Then, it is universally believed that by these austerities the ascetic gains power with the gods, and can bring down blessings from above for himself and his votaries. He can, in fact, extort favors from the unwilling gods if he only carry his self-torture and privations to the requisite extreme.

We find much the same idea in the ascetic saints of the early Christian era. Thus Tennyson, in his poem " St. Simeon Stylites," puts the following words into the mouth of the saint. He is addressing a crowd of people who have come to worship him, and who believe that, owing to his great austerities, he has the power of granting their requests.

"Speak ! is there any of you halt or maim’d ?

I think you know J have some power with Heaven From my long penance ; let him speak his wish." The idea of merit is ever present to the Hindu. By practicing austerity himself, or by paying another to practice it for him, he can accumulate merit, which will render each succeeding birth more propitious, and bring him nearer his ideal of bliss, when his soul will be finally freed from the endless chain of reincarnations. It must, sad to say, be admitted that with the great majority of the Sadhus of the present day the motives which actuate them are much more mundane and sordid than what I have described above. Lazy good-for-nothings, too indolent to work, find that in the garb of a Sadhu they can be assured of a living which, though it may not be a luxurious one, is yet one free from anxiety and toil. Fraudulent scamps enrich themselves on the credulity of the people by counterfeiting austerities and miraculous powers, which successfully deceive the simpleminded, who, without even a desire to examine their claims and reputed performances too critically, freely bestow gifts of money and kind on them, in the hopes of gaining their favour for the attainment of some benefit or cure, or other object.

Then, there are the political faqirs, who use their position to disseminate political propaganda, usually of a seditious nature. From their habit of traveling all over the country they have special opportunities of becoming the channels for the transmission of news, and before the days of telegraph and post-office the people would get most of their news of the rest of the country through these pilgrims and ascetics ; and even at the present day they are able to disseminate secret intelligence and transmit the orders of the organizing authorities in such a way as to be very difficult of detection. When I traveled as a faqir I was frequently shadowed by the police, and sometimes a talkative and inquisitive companion would join me who eventually proved to be a detective in his disguise. As examples of the superior Sadhu the man who from high aspirations has voluntarily given up position, honour, and wealth in the world for the life of a recluse I will give the two following instances.

I met a man at Rishikes who had been the Prime Minister of a Native State. While in that capacity he had to deal with bands of robbers who infested the highways, and had committed some cold-blooded murders for the sake of the money and goods of the travelers. When a number of these men had been caught and participation in murders proved against them, he found it his duty to condemn them to death by hanging. The sentence was duly executed, but from that day he got no rest at nights. Visions of the culprits would rise before him as soon as he lay down on his couch, and they would appear to be pointing their fingers at him as the cause of their death. This so unnerved him that he could not get a night’s rest, and dreaded going to sleep. Want of rest and nervous perturbation prevented him from duly carrying on the work of the State, and he asked for leave, nominally to attend the funeral of his mother, but really to expiate his sin, and gain repose of mind by a pilgrimage to a noted holy place. But he failed to get ease of mind there, and had it impressed on him that only by leaving the world and spending the rest of his days in seclusion, meditating on God, would he find rest from the blood-guiltiness that was tormenting him. He forthwith resigned his position in the State, divided his property amongst his family, put on the garb of a Sanyasi, and was spending the rest of his days in contemplation and religious exercises The other case I met in a village on the Pir Panjal Range, where he had built himself a cottage with a garden, in which he spent his days in religious studies and contemplation, and receiving the many people who used to come to him for advice, or to derive advantage from contact with his superior sanctity and wisdom. He had been Risaldar-Major in one of the regiments of Bengal Cavalry, and had fought under the British flag in several campaigns, and won wounds and medals. On retirement he forsook his home and relations and all worldly pursuits, and spent his time in the contemplation of the Deity and such works of charity as came in his way.

Both these men were truly devout, unostentatious spirits, who had found that the delights of Divine communion exceeded the pleasures of this transitory world.

Some Sadhus are set aside from birth for this life by their parents, and as a good example of such a one I will tell the story of a man who joined company with me on the road near Ludhiana. I will relate it in his own words :

"My father is a small Hindu farmer in the State of Patiala, and when three sons had been born to him, he made a vow that he would consecrate the fourth to the service of God. When I was born he allowed me to stop with my mother only till I was four years old, and then he took me to a certain large city, where there is a famous shrine, and a very holy man who is renowned for his piety and deep learning. At first I wept much at being taken away from my brothers and sisters, but the Swami treated me kindly and gave me sweetmeats, and I used to fetch his mat and books and put oil in his lamp and do other little services for him. Then, as I got older, he taught me to read, first in Bhasha and then in Sanskrit, and he taught me all the laws of worship and guides to bhagti (devotion). When I became a lusty young man, he told me to make pilgrimages to various sacred places and to visit other sages and holy men, and I went forth on my first journey, taking with me only a staff, a gourd for drinking-water, a blanket, and a couple of shasters (holy books) .

"I had never been out in the world before, and at first I was very timid of asking people for food in new places that I had never hitherto seen; but people were nearly always kind to me and gave me food to eat and shelter at night, and so I got bolder, and I would recite to them verses out of the holy books in return for their kindness, for I had no money or anything else to give them. In this way I have traveled many hundreds of miles on foot, and seen many sacred places and holy men. After each journey I return to my preceptor, and tell him my experiences, receive fresh counsel and instruction from him, and now I am just starting on a fresh journey to Dwarka."

Looking down at my bicycle, I felt quite a luxurious traveler compared with this brave fellow, starting off with no hesitation and no misgivings on a journey of hundreds of miles, with not a pice in his wallet, and a kit even more slender than my own.

He had little idea as to where Dwarka was, but was content to ask his way day by day, and trust to God and the hospitality of his co-religionists on the way for sustenance.

" Yes," he said, " sometimes I do want to see my family. My brothers are all gi-yasihas (married householders) now, and I sometimes take a few days’ leave from my master to visit them and my parents. I am quite happy in this life, and do not desire money or service or children ; for when my heart is lonely I read in my copy of the Bhagvad Gita and get consolation, and I like that better than any other book because it makes my heart glad. No, I have never met anyone who has spoken to me of Christ, and I do not know anything about Him; but I am quite happy because I am sure that if I continue a life of penury and celibacy and pilgrimage I shall attain salvation." To resume my own experiences at Rishikes. When night came on I was given shelter in one of the monasteries, and though the floor was stone, and a chill wind blew through the cloisters, I should have slept soundly had not my next bed-fellow or rather floor-fellow, for there were no beds thought it incumbent on him to spend the night shouting out in varying cadence, " Ram, Ram, Jai Sita Ram, Ram, Ram !" I suggested that keeping a weary fellow-pilgrim awake all night would detract from the merit he was acquiring, but only received the consolation that if he kept me awake I was thereby sharing, though in a minor degree, in that merit ; so it perforce went on till, in the early morning hours, my ears grew duller to the " Ham, Ram, and my mind gradually shaped itself into an uneasy dream of ash-covered faqirs, chapattis, cows, and squatting Sadhus. Next day, in the forest road near Rishikes, I came across a string of hillmen bowed down under heavy loads of firewood, which they had been cutting in the hills near to sell for a few pice in the bazaar. This was their daily lot, earning just sufficient by continuous hard labour to find for themselves and their families sufficient coarse food for a meager sustenance. The question rose in my mind. Who approached nearer the ideal ? the idle Sadhu, who makes religion an excuse for living in greasy plenty on the hard-won earnings of others, while doing next to nothing himself, or these woodmen of the forest, and all the dusty toilers in the ranks of honest labour? And an answer came, clear and sure :

" Honest toil is holy service ; faithful work is praise and prayer. They who tread the path of labour follow where My feet have trod ; They that work without complaining do the holy will of God. Where the many toil together, there am I among My own ; Where the tired laborer sleepeth, there am I with him alone." The ascetics of Afghanistan are almost all Muhammadans, and I shall therefore speak of them as faqirs, that being the counterpart of the Hindu Sadhu. These faqirs have started from an entirely different religious standpoint, and traveled along a very different experimental road to those of their Hindu brethren; but the ultimate result is strikingly similar in many salient features, and Hindu asceticism and pantheistic thought have deeply colored their ideas and habits.

There are endless different orders of Muhammadan faqirs, most of which had their origin in Central Asia, Bukhara and Baghdad having contributed perhaps the largest share. Each of these orders has its own method of initiation, its own habit of dress, set phrases and formula, and other characteristics.

Except in a few cases in India, none of these orders of faqirs or dervishes adopt the ochre garments of the Sadhus. The most characteristic garment of the faqir is known as the dilaq, which is a patchwork, particoloured cloak. The owner goes on adding patches of pieces of colored cloth which take his fancy, but I have never seen him washing it, and as it gets old he stitches and patches it till very little of the original is left. The older and more patched it is, the greater is the pride he takes in it, and he would not part with it for love or money. The order which is most commonly seen in Afghanistan is that known as Malang, or wandering dervish. These men have a dilaq, a staff, and a begging-bowl, and travel all about the country begging. They are nearly all illiterate, and their knowledge of their own religion does not usually extend beyond certain chapters from the Qur’an and stock formula. But they have a wonderful vocabulary of words of abuse and curses, and the people are in great fear of being visited by some calamity if they offend one of them and incur his wrath, as they believe in their being able to blast the life of a child or the offspring of a pregnant woman, or to bring other calamities down from heaven on the heads of those with whom they are wroth. Once while I was stopping in a village on the border one of these gentlemen came to say his prayers in the mosque, and had left his shoes at the entrance, as is the custom. After he had said his prayers with great sanctimoniousness he went to resume his foot-gear, but found, to his dismay, that some thief had gone off with them. Then followed a torrent of curses on whoever the thief might be, in which all imaginable calamities and diseases were invoked on him and his relations, accompanied by every epithet of abuse in the Pashtu vocabulary, and that is pretty rich in them ! The very volubility and eloquence of his anathemas would have dismayed any ordinary thief had he been within earshot, but whether he ever got back his shoes or not I cannot say.

Women who are childless will visit various faqirs, whose prayers have a reputation for being efficacious for the removal of sterility. They write charms, and dictate elaborate instructions for the behavior of the woman till her wish be fulfilled, and they take the gifts which the suppliant has brought with her. Were this nothing more than a fraud dictated by avarice, it would be reprehensible, but worse things happen ; and when a child is born after due time, the husband of the woman cannot always claim paternity. It is a strange thing that in a country where husbands so jealously guard their women from strangers they allow them so much freedom in their dealings with faqirs, whom they know to be morally corrupt. It recalls the Hindu Sadhu and divinity, who is popularly supposed to have attained an elevation where ethics are no longer taken account of. In a religion such as Islam it is scarcely possible for an order of dervishes to be orthodox, and, as a matter of fact, most of them are extremely unorthodox, and there is often considerable disputing between them and the priesthood on this account. But the faqirs have such a hold over the people at large, and in many ways are so useful to the propagation of Islam, that the Mullahs find it more politic to overlook their heresies and use them in the promotion of religious zeal and fanaticism.

It will be found that the underlying current of religious thought in nearly all these orders is that of Sufism, and Sufism is the product of the aspiration of the Mussalman soul, wearied with the endless repetition of forms and ceremonies, after something more spiritual ; and in its search after this spirituality it has drawn most on the pantheistic philosophies of Hinduism.

Pantheism is, of course, the antithesis of the Judaic theocracy of Islam, and we read of a faqir who went about calling out, " Ana hu, ana el haqq " (" I am He, I am the Truth "), being put to death for blasphemy ; but all the same, these Muhammadans, who feel most the aspirations of the soul for Divine communion, find it in a greater or less assimilation of pantheistic doctrine.

Most of the faqirs one meets with in Afghanistan are lazy fellows, who abhor hard work, and find they can make an easy living by begging, and acquire at the same time, what is so dear to many natures, the homage and respect of the credulous and superstitious. When one does meet with one who is willing and able to converse on spiritual topics, one usually finds that he is a disciple of Hafiz, the great Sufi poet of the Persians. Like the Hindu Sadhus, they are much addicted to the use of intoxicants (though rarely alcohol), and charras and bhang (Indian hemp) are constantly smoked with tobacco in their chilams. When thus intoxicated they are known as mast, and are believed by the populace to be possessed by divinity, and to have miraculous powers of gaining favors from heaven for those who propitiate them. When such a faqir dies he is buried in some prominent place, often at the crossing of roads, and his tomb has even greater efficacy than he himself had when living ; and those who wish to obtain his intercession with the Almighty for themselves bring little earthen cups full of oil, with little cotton wicks, which they burn at his grave, as a Roman Catholic burns candles at the shrine of a saint. The most propitious time for doing this is on Thursday night, and at such times one can see the tombs of most renowned sanctity a veritable illumination with the numbers of little lamps burning far into the night. At the same time offerings are given to the custodian of the shrine, who is himself a faqir, by preference a disciple of the one whose grave he tends. In one such shrine that I visited there were the remains of what must once have been a fine sycamore-tree, but which was then, with the exception of one branch, a mere withered shell, which had to be propped up to prevent its falling to the ground. The one green branch was said to be miraculously kept alive by the shadow of the tomb falling on it ; and if any childless pilgrim would take home a few leaves and give a decoction of them to his wife, he would assuredly before long be the happy father of a son ; while for the relief of the other ills to which flesh is heir there was a masonry tank outside, in which the sick, the halt, and the blind bathed, and were said to receive the healing they came for. Many of our hospital patients have already been to this and similar faith-healing establishments, so they are not always efficacious.