Beast and Man in India Part 16

The native of India is but now beginning to learn to care for accurate statements of fact, whether in a literary, scientific, or artistic sense.

The Education Department, which, after all, is only the stress of the time brought to a point, and represents the will of the upper cla.s.ses of the people as much as that of their British fellow-subjects, is determined that this reproach shall be removed, and imports the ill.u.s.trated lesson-books and wall-pictures of Western schools. In all that concerns the well-being of animals and people, improved knowledge cannot but do good, but the extinction of the pictured horses of romance, the pursy steeds of Sohrab and Rustom, of the legendary Raja Rasalu and the fat chargers of many a Hindu Maharaja and Muhammadan Nawab will not be accomplished without regrets. With them will perish the Persian winged horses which have become naturalised among Indian draughtsmen, and there will be no place for the Yalis and other fantastic creations in which horse forms are traceable.

Surya, the sun-G.o.d, is always represented in a chariot drawn by horses, invariably in profile: one horse being completely drawn and a long row indicated behind with a few repeating lines. Very admirable design is possible under these conditions, but few modern pictures of the Indian Phbus are admirable either in suggestion or accomplishment.

On a very humble level are the little animals made in clay by the women of a household and often by potters for certain Hindu anniversaries. I write "humble" mechanically, but it must be said in fairness that the rustic cla.s.ses in Europe do not produce for their amus.e.m.e.nt anything so good. We once had an elderly servant of serious demeanour, respectable appearance, first-rate testimonials as to character, and hopeless incapacity for his work. One evening, with all the shyness of a youthful artist, he invited me to see a little "picture" he had prepared in the court of the servants'

quarters. I was delighted by a charming model of a fort with walls and bastions complete, in which there were camel-riders, dragoons, generals, colonels, and Rajas, all modelled in clay and painted; little lamps were lighted round the mimic scene, the children sat gazing in rapt admiration, and from the dark background of the yard sympathetic murmurs echoed my words of praise. The "bearer's" triumph was complete when his mistresses came to see and admire, but if he had been very wise he would have been content with the master's approval. For during the rest of the time he afflicted us I was often reminded that he had missed his vocation, and would be better employed in modelling soldiers, elephants, and camels, which he did well, than in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g lamps, making beds, dusting furniture, and blacking boots in a half-hearted and wholly inartistic manner.

Figures of horses and cattle like the gingerbread "gee-gees" of country fairs in Europe, are all that are strictly required for these rustic celebrations, which are probably of great antiquity, representing the worship of domestic animals as part of the family prosperity in a pristine age, or the setting forth of the army of Rama, with an interweaving of obscure legends. But when the artist is clever the subject is naturally expanded and embroidered upon. When you see Mr. H. M. Stanley paraded as Guy Fawkes in London streets it is easy to understand how, with themes of a far more vague and shadowy character, Oriental fancy has free play.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SMALL WARES IN METAL]

A regular part of the potter's business in many regions is the fashioning of toy animals in terra-cotta, gaily painted by his women folk for fairs and festival days. At Delhi, by way of compliment to the chief civil authority, the potters there have at times made small statuettes of the Commissioner and Deputy-Commissioner. These portraits were often amusingly like the originals. There is a legend indeed, that one distinguished officer was so much more than flattered by his clay images that he bought up the whole baking to be broken up. Fantail pigeons, peac.o.c.ks, parrots, and the generic bird of Indian domestic decoration, akin to the "d.i.c.ky-bird" of the British child's slate, are made as toys in great numbers. Crows and poultry seldom appear.

Birds and animals are often fashioned in metal, and always with purely decorative intent. The resolute conventionalism of the Indian artisan is shown in the silver mouse from Muttra here sketched with half a dozen small wares, and in the bra.s.s owl from Bengal. The parrot and the peac.o.c.k are old and constant types, but the bra.s.s bison is the work of a jungle artist, who from direct observation has learned that a bison's horns meet and join over its brow. And there his lesson ended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRDS BY AN INDIAN DRAUGHTSMAN]

A Muhammadan artist who is skilful in Hindu mythology and produces many lithographs and ill.u.s.trations, has been kind enough to sketch for me half a dozen birds as they are rendered to-day--a peac.o.c.k, a pigeon, a heron, a partridge, a parrot, and a bird which he describes by the word we use for wild duck, but which is evidently a water-fowl of another kind. In coloured work the forms would be carefully filled up and finished, but the outline would remain the same, and speaks here for itself. All are _yek chashm_,--one-eyed,--the Persian draughtsman's idiom for in profile. A full face picture is _do chashm_, two-eyed; but birds are never shown full front. In illuminations for poems and romances the yellow mango bird, the hoopoe, and the maina are occasionally shown, but the distinctive differences lie more in the colouring than in the form. A pair of cranes stands as in Chinese and j.a.panese pictures (_e.g._ the willow pattern plate) for an emblem of the souls of lovers. A pair of Brahminy ducks sporting in the water, or a pair of pigeons, serves the same purpose. The bird of ancient myth, _Garuda_, whose name in Southern India is given to the common kite, is a Hindu conventionalisation of aquiline forms from which eagle character is usually omitted. In bazaar prints he carries three or four elephants as he flies or serves as a steed to Vishnu in one of his forms, and sometimes he appears as half man half bird. He is borne in the arms of the Maharaja of Mysore, with whom in heraldic guise is a.s.sociated the Yali, the strange, horse-like beast that is carved as a ramping corbel or truss on some of the Hindu temples in Southern India.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PERI ON A CAMEL]

The name Shikargah (hunting pattern) is given to a diaper or border of antelopes, tigers, and hors.e.m.e.n often combined with foliage. In old work the designs are often beautiful, as on the margins and backs of Persian MSS., in embroidery, carpets, metal-chasing, and decorative painting.

Modern commerce does not encourage this kind of art, but there are still artists capable of good work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KRISHNA ON AN ELEPHANT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: KRISHNA ON A HORSE]

A fantastic but very popular device is to fill up the outline of an animal with a jumble of various creatures. Three examples are here given from the brush of Bhai Isur Singh, a Sikh designer. Trivialities of this nature scarcely bear description, and, like many more Oriental fancies, are safe from serious criticism. In one a peri rides on a camel compounded of men and beasts. In another, Krishna playing his pipe, is borne on an elephant made up of adoring Gopis in the guise of modern dancing women. In the third the G.o.d holds a lotus flower, and his adorers are arranged as a horse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NANDI OR SACRED BULL]

When one considers the sacred character of the cow and bull, and the estimation in which they are held, it is wonderful that cattle forms are usually so vaguely seen by Hindu artists. There are thousands of carved stone bulls in the courts of the temples of Mahadeo, and hundreds of thousands of brazen bulls in domestic shrines, and all might own direct descent from the golden calf of Moses (which must have been a piece of half-learned Egyptian conventionalism), so fixed and negligent of nature is the type. That Hindu artists can see nature clearly at times, is proved by those who practise the modern new craft of modelling figurines in terra-cotta for sale to Europeans. At Lucknow in Oudh, and at Kishnagar in Bengal, cattle are often skilfully rendered in clay. But draughtsmen and painters as a rule keep faithfully to the hieratic type of the stone-cutters, who never make preliminary models. The Jeypore marble-workers, who turn out a large quant.i.ty of animal statuettes, excel in buffaloes in black marble, but since the main of their practice is the supply of images for temples, they adhere to the conventional form for Brahminy cows and bulls.

Sir George C. M. Birdwood has kindly lent me from his collection a coloured picture of Krishna and other personages attended, as usual, by cows. A group of cattle from the foreground of this composition is here engraved, and shows an unusual feeling for nature. The popular ideal, which is the hieratic, is shown more truly in the picture broadsides ill.u.s.trating country romances, and sold at fairs for a pice each. The muzzle is clumsy and bulbous, the brow is round, the shortness of the body is exaggerated, the dewlap is almost ignored or shown by conventional flutings, the clean, thoroughbred legs are made thick and shapeless, while the form of the hump is seldom truly seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATTLE BY AN INDIAN ARTIST]

It is curious that a cow's head, carved separately as an ornament, is seldom seen in old Indian work and never in that of to-day. Much as he loves the cow, a Hindu of the old rock would prefer not to drink from a fountain where the water issued from a carved cow's head,--the first idea to strike an English sculptor as "neat and appropriate." The head of the elephant is frequently used in ornament, that of the horse is a favourite old Rajput dagger pommel in jade and silver, and tigers' and lions' heads are plentiful, but never that of the cow. A steel _garz_ or mace with a horned head, occasionally seen in collections of Indian arms, is really Persian, and represents one of their many fabulous beasts. The reason of this exclusion is that technically the cow's mouth is impure. A horse may drink from a vessel and, after the usual sacramental scrub with earth, it is no worse for family use, but a cow defiles anything it touches with its mouth.

Outcastes seldom find their way into pictures, so one of the most important subjects of the Western animal painter is lost to the Oriental limner, for dogs are not respectable enough to be drawn. The story of Yudhishtira and his dog, already mentioned, offers a good subject for ill.u.s.tration, but though the legend is known to educated Hindus, its hero has for centuries ceased to be popular and there are no pictures of him to be found. In ill.u.s.trations to the popular romance of Leila and Majnun a dog accompanies the lady, while a parrot perches on the gaunt shoulder of the pa.s.sion-worn Majnun. A dog, a staff, and a bottle are the attributes of the black Bhairon, most popular of Hindu divinities. Perhaps the science of dog-breeding or appreciation of the variety of canine races has been developed since St. Roch was canonised. At all events, the same casteless mongrel that waits on this holy man in Continental churches attends on Bhairon and runs after antelopes and tigers in such popular Indian romances as Raja Rasalu. The Greeks knew more and better, for they loved and cla.s.sified their dogs, and sculptured them with discrimination of breed.

The _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ and the _Graphic_ are foremost in an educational movement unnoted by many observers. In quite out-of-the-way places as well as in the large towns you may see the narrow wall s.p.a.ces of the shops covered with their pictures, among coloured German lithographs and native prints. Portraits of the Queen and the Royal Family, pictures of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, of winners of the Derby, of prize cattle, of the buxom British infant and types of Western beauty, are stuck side by side with the blue Krishna and the black Kali, and n.o.body sees any incongruity. Some say that European picture papers are fraught with peril for the Indian artist. There is, however, no possibility of keeping them out of the country, so we must be content to wait for a generation or two before we can judge of their evil effects. Meanwhile, it is only fair to say in antic.i.p.ation that races who for centuries have known how to accept and a.s.similate a long series of foreign importations and yet to maintain their own individuality of character may be trusted to deal even with the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ and the _Graphic_.

The boar in art occurs only in a form so highly conventionalised as to be almost unrecognisable, in representations of the Boar _avatar_. There is a superb boar of colossal size at Khajuraho, carved in stone and completely covered over with row upon row of human figures in relief. It has never occurred to a Hindu to draw a pig for its own sake, while a Muhammadan would scorn to look at a pig picture.

In consequence of the popularity of the Monkey-G.o.d, Hanuman, the whole tribe has fared well at the hands of the Indian painter. He scarcely ever occurs in ancient carved work, and the sculptures of to-day are horribly rude, but in many pictures there is a first-rate appreciation of monkey character. In a MS. Ramayana in the Lah.o.r.e Museum a pair of monkeys are shown drinking from a stream, and drawn with wonderful delicacy and naturalness. In the Ajanta frescoes there are some well-painted monkeys.

Even in the much conventionalised representations of Hanuman, drawn for the poorest cla.s.ses, there is often a quaint humour and observation, surprising to those who accept the common fallacy that the people of India are dest.i.tute of humour. That representations of the Monkey-G.o.d have long been admired is clear from the mention of his picture on Arjuna's banner in the ancient Hindu Epic. Rajput chivalry still bears a red Hanuman on the "five coloured" flags peculiar to the race.

One of the futile works of patience which so often take rank as works of Indian Art is a picture of Hanuman, composed of thousands of repet.i.tions of the sacred name Ram. You draw the Monkey-G.o.d in pencil and then write Ram all along the lines in minute Hindi characters. Ram, ram, is a common salutation among Hindus, and mere repet.i.tion of the word is a sacrament.

All sacraments mean more than meets the eye or ear, so we need not find anything absurd in the case of a Hindu personage who, by a curse of the G.o.ds, was condemned to forego the use of the life-giving word. But he was permitted to say Mra, mra. This relieved his despairing soul, for, saying it quickly for an hour at a time, the most vindictive G.o.d or demon alive could hear only Ram, ram.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PUNJAB HEROINE (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH)]

Bears took part in the wars of the G.o.ds, and in consequence are sketched with some freedom. A heroine of Punjab romance in more recent times is credited with marvellous exploits in hunting, and a bazaar print, reproduced here in little, gives a favourable idea both of the state of popular art in its humblest form and of the kind of legend in which the ma.s.ses still delight. Whatever may be thought of the tigers in the upper panel, there is good bear character in the lower, and, as a large sheet bearing four such pictures is sold for a halfpenny, criticism ought to be disarmed. The gains of the artists employed on this kind of work are not large. I remember a friend of mine criticising with some asperity the careless drawing in a full-page cartoon of a vernacular comic paper. The draughtsman took it in good part and listened humbly, but when some of the laborious triumphs of Persian art were brandished before him, he mildly remarked that it was not easy to produce masterpieces at the rate of fivepence per picture, which was all that his Editor allowed.

In Indian Art, as in Indian talk, the only use made of the a.s.s is to point a curse withal. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark," said the Jews, but the Hindus inscribed their commination, a nameless, shameless horror, on the stone landmark itself. Several of these grotesque abominations now lie in Bombay Town Hall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANTELOPES. AN INDIAN ARTIST'S FANTASY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUFFALO BULLS]

CHAPTER XVII

OF BEAST FIGHTS

All nature fights. We are nowadays familiar with false phrases such as "unnatural strife" and the like, used in denunciation of one of the central instincts of life, but at heart we acknowledge that war is always natural to man and beast. The next best thing to fighting is to see others fight, says the experience of the world, and India has travelled a well-worn track in its enjoyment of fighting as a spectacle. English readers are already familiar with accounts of the gladiatorial displays and beast fights of the Emperor Akbar and of the Nawab Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib. There are many allusions in popular sayings and legends, and in the chronicles of native states, to wager fights between man and man, man and beast, and beast and beast, which show how popular and widespread the practice was. In a comparison between the arenas of old Rome and those of India the latter would come poorly off by reason of the inferiority of Orientals in the faculty of organisation, but in spite of details left to chance and an imperfect _mise en scene_, the Indian shows had much in common with the Roman displays, and the spirit and intention were the same. Wild animals are easily obtained here, and both Princes and people are greedy of sensations, so that it is natural that an arena for beast fights should become a regular appanage of a princely court. Lut'f'ullah in his interesting autobiography describes the populace of Baroda regularly spending its large leisure in the well-known animal yard there, and its wondering interest in the rhinoceros, familiarly known as the "_janwar_,"

_the_ beast _par excellence_. These arenas are still haunted by the people, and will probably change gradually into Zoological gardens, but there can be no doubt that the beast fight is popular to-day. You may call it brutal if you please, and organise a brand new society for its suppression, but it should be remembered that only yesterday the populations of whole towns (like Birmingham) swarmed to the British bull-ring, and that nature herself set the fashion.

There are indeed beast fights, promoted by men, which are simply developments of the beneficent principle described by modern science as the survival of the fittest. Of these are the spring-time buffalo bull fights treated as solemnities by Indian herdsmen. Once diversions of the pastoral prime, these conflicts are still annually brought off, even in Bombay, within sight of railways and telegraph posts. The men say--and doubtless with truth--that they are useful in showing decisively which animal is best fitted to be a sire. Such fights are not always brought about by the herdsmen. One of the most impressive pictures of defeat I ever saw was one evening on a lonely road in the Western Ghauts, when a buffalo bull suddenly appeared against the sunset in labouring flight, rolling as he staggered along like a rudderless ship, his mouth and nostrils foaming, a horn broken, and his black flanks stained with blood. A long way behind him came the conqueror, bearing marks of the fight, but lumbering easily forward, half minded to stop; content that his foe was beaten and flying.

Sportsmen in pursuit of the black-buck antelope have occasionally seen a pair of these beautiful creatures so fiercely engaged in fighting as to take no notice of the intruder with a gun, and the skulls of deer with horns firmly interlocked have often been found as proofs of a fatal struggle.

Whether it is wrong to pit men against beasts, or to employ the natural, n.o.ble rage of male animals for conquest to make a holiday for a populace, are questions that may be easily answered, but the reprobation to be meted for the offence depends in some measure upon one's standpoint. From that of civilised Europe nothing could be more reprehensible, but it is not the populace of Europe that gives this answer; else why does the Midland or Northern mechanic lose a day's wage for a dog-fight, why are there bull fights in Spain, imitations of them in Paris, and everywhere an inclination to enjoy similar spectacles which breaks through the illusory crust we describe as civilisation and progress? In India, also, you may find thousands who would agree with the humanitarians of the West, but they keep their moral teaching for their own caste-fellows, and do not incline to d.a.m.n the sins they have no mind to. In other words, though the natives of India are, as a ma.s.s, indifferent to the sufferings of creatures, it is doubtful whether they are intrinsically worse in this respect than the rest of the world. At the same time the age-long popularity of beast-fights shows that they are no better, and that the religious prescriptions of mercy to animals are, like most Levitical ordinances, merely local and ritual in their effect, taking no deep hold on the mind and life.

If it were desirable to pile up horrors, nothing is easier than to tell authentic stories of the cruelties formerly wrought for the pleasure of Indian Princes and their subjects in the arenas where beasts were made to fight. The accessories and accompaniments of these performances are more abhorrent than the fights themselves, for they show a loathsome and cold-blooded persistence in cruelty on the part of the men employed which told in any detail would be revolting. Bishop Heber in his admirable Indian journals has, however, given a description that may be quoted without offence: "We were shown five or six elephants in training for a fight. Each was separately kept in a small paved court, with a little litter, but very dirty. They were all what is called _must_, that is, fed on stimulating substances to make them furious, and all showed in their eyes, their gaping mouths, and the constant motion of their trunks, signs of fever and restlessness. Their mahouts seemed to approach them with great caution, and, on hearing a step, they turned round as far as their chains would allow, and lashed fiercely with their trunks. I was moved and disgusted at the sight of so n.o.ble creatures, thus maddened and diseased by the absurd cruelty of man, in order that they might, for his diversion, inflict fresh pain and injuries on each other."

This is an ancient practice; the manner of it is still a part of the mahouts' science, and full of mysteries and absurdities. Among other things they firmly believe that the wax of the human ear is an infallible agent when duly combined with other nasty messes. But it is unnecessary to rake very deeply in this unpleasing subject. Moreover, the worst features of the old fights are now seldom presented. The lives of men are not now lightly risked to please a populace. The elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, horse, a.s.s, tiger, leopard, camel, dog, wolf, and ram have all been made to fight to death in their time, but even this is seldom now permitted. The encounters between elephants, indeed, are often of a half friendly nature, like those of American boxers; for it is not easy, without setting up a functional disturbance, to get an elephant into a rage. At the word of command he will drub another elephant, much as he would roll a log or lift a cart-wheel, but he has too sweet and amiable a nature to make a real fighter.

In order to give an accurate picture of what takes place at an Indian beast fight to-day, of the slip-shod arrangements and the quaint way in which folk and animals are mingled together, I quote a description of one of these entertainments given at the installation of His Highness the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, done from the life by my son for the Lah.o.r.e paper in 1886:--

"Two huge water-buffaloes with ropes on their feet and a dozen men at each rope were introduced to each other; the crowd closing round them to within a few feet. Neither animal required any urging, but put his head down at once and b.u.t.ted. The shock of the opposing skulls rang like the sound of a hatchet on wood across the arena. Then both brutes laid head to head, and pushed and grunted and pawed and sweated for five minutes; the crowd yelling madly meanwhile. The lighter weight was forced back into the crowd, recovered himself, b.u.t.ted again, turned sideways, and was again forced back. After a few minutes more, when each animal was setting down to his work with whole-hearted earnestness, the order was given to separate them; and very reluctantly the gigantic creatures were hauled in opposite directions. Then a curious thing happened. A little child ran forward out of the press, and standing on tip-toe, reached up and embraced with both arms the hairy jowl of the beast who had borne himself the most savagely in the fray.

It was a pretty little picture--spoilt by the other buffalo suddenly breaking loose and charging down anew. A second shock and yet another struggle followed, and both beasts were eventually led off snorting and capering in uncouth fashion to express their disgust at not being allowed to go on. Two fresh bulls advanced gravely into the middle of the arena, gazed at each other politely, and as politely retired. They must have shared the same wallow together, for fight they would not.

"Next came the fighting rams, spotted and shaven beasts, with Roman noses and rowdy visages straining away from their owners and all apparently 'spoiling for a fight.' Two or three couples were let go together, ran back to gather way, came on and met, ran back, charged again, and repeated the performance till the sound of their foolish colliding heads was almost continuous.

"After the first few minutes, when you begin to realise that neither animal is likely to fall down dead, ram fighting is monotonous. Sometimes a ram runs back for his charge valiantly enough, but midway in his onset loses heart, turns a fat tail to his antagonist, and flees to his master. The adversary, being a beast of honour, immediately pulls up and trots back to _his_ master. One light-limbed _dumba_ (the fat-tailed variety) with red spots seems to be the champion of Jummu. His charge generally upsets his antagonist at once, and few care to stand a second.

"As soon as all the rams had been disposed of, certain vicious shrieks and squeals gave evidence that the horses were being got ready, and the police set about widening the ring. Presently a bay galloway and a black pony danced out, dragging their attendants after them at the end of a long rope. The instant they were let go, they ran open-mouthed at each other, then turned tail to tail and kicked savagely for five minutes; the black suffering most. Then, after the manner of horses all the world over, they turned round and closed, each striking with his fore-feet and striving to fix his teeth in the other's crest. They squealed shrilly as they boxed, and finally rose on end, a magnificent sight, locked in each other's arms. The bay loosening his hold on the black's poll, made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the black's near fore-leg, which was at once withdrawn. Both horses then dropped to the ground together and kicked and bit at close quarters till the bay fled, with the black after him, through the crowd. The men at the end of the drag ropes were knocked over, scrambled up, and caught at the ropes again, while the two maddened brutes plunged and struggled among the people. About half a dozen were knocked over and shaken, but no one was seriously hurt; and after wild clamour and much running hither and thither both bay and black were caught, blindfolded, and led away to reappear no more.

Buffaloes fight like men, and rams like fools; but horses fight like demons, with keen enjoyment and much skill.

"And now twilight had fallen; the wrestlers, who tumbled about regardless of the excitement round them, had all put their man down or had their own shoulders mired. The mob on the double tiers of the amphitheatre dropped down into the arena and flooded the centre till the elephants could scarcely wade through the press.