The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 18

But as _Berdurani_ is a geographical, or political, rather than a tribual designation; as it is the name by which the _north_-eastern Afghans were known to the Moghuls; and as it is equivalent to such an expression as _Western_ or _Eastern Highlander_, rather than to names so specific as _Campbell_ or _MacDonald_, it may be excluded from the true Afghan affiliations.

With this deduction, however, the cla.s.sification is sufficiently complex; besides which, it is, probably, much more systematic on paper than in reality. This, however, can only be indicated.

The valley of Peshawar is the valley of the _Guggiani_, and _Mahomed-zye_ Afghans.

The parts round it belong to the _Eusof-zye_, the _Otman-khail_, the _Turcolani_, the _Momunds_, and the _Khyberi_ of the Khyber Range and Pa.s.s. These last fall into the _Afridi_, the _Shainwari_, and the _Uruk-zye_. Their country is chiefly to the north of the Salt Range.

The river Kurum gives us the two valleys of Dowr and Bunnu[50]--the _Bunnuchi_ being as pre-eminently a mixed, as the mountaineers around them--the _Vizeri_--are a pure branch. These, and others, appear to belong to the great _Khuttuk_ division.

The _south_-eastern Afghans are called _Lohani_; and, as a proof of this designation being of the same geographico-political character as _Berdurani_, the Khuttuk Afghans are divided between the two sections; at least the particular Khuttuks called _Murwuti_ are mentioned as Lohani, though the Khuttuk cla.s.s in general is placed in the Berdurani branch. The chief Lohani Afghans are the _Shirani_ near the Tukt-i-Soliman mountain, and the _Storiani_ (_Storeeanees_, _Oosteraunees_) conterminous with the most northern of the Biluch.

Of these the Bugti and Murri are the chief populations of the frontier; whilst the _Nutkani_, _Kusrani_, _Lund_, _Lughari_, _Gurkhari_, _Mudari_, and others, help to fill up the Muckelwand (or the parts immediately along the course of the Indus), and the Biluch portions of Multan.

_The Brahui._--The Brahui, with whom it has been stated that the Biluch are intermixed, are pastoral tribes, with a coa.r.s.er physiognomy, and a stouter make than their neighbours. Their language also is different. A specimen of it may be found amongst the well-known and important vocabularies of Lieutenant Leach; and this forms the subject of a memoir of no less a scholar than La.s.sen. Without placing it, he remarks that the numerals are _South_-Indian (or Tamulian) rather than aught else. He might have said more. The Brahui is a remarkable and unexplained branch of the Tamul; but whether it be of late introduction or indigenous origin in the parts where it now occurs is uncertain. The mountains between Kutch Gundava and Mekran seem to form the area of the Brahui; some eastern branches of which population I presume to be British, mixed with Biluch.[51]

_Ceylon._--The inhabitants of the northern part of Ceylon speak the Tamul language, and are Brahminists in creed. They are not, however, the true natives of the island. These latter use a Hindu tongue, called the _Singhalese_. Its philological relations are exactly those of the Mahratta, Bengali, and Udiya,--neither better nor worse defined, more or less unequivocal. Some make it out to be of Sanskrit, others of Tamulian origin. All that is certain is, that it is more Sanskritic than the proper Tamul, and more Tamul than the Bengali. It is _written_; and embodies a copious, but worthless literature, its alphabet being derived from that of the Pali language.

This introduces a new characteristic. The Pali has the same relation to Buddhism, that the Sanskrit has to Brahminism. It is the language of the Scriptures, the priest, and the scholar, and, although, at the present moment, it is as little recognized as a holy tongue on the continent of India, as the Greek of the New Testament is at Rome, it divides with the Arabic and Latin, the honour of being the most widely-spread literary language of the world. All the forms of Buddhism in the transgangetic peninsula are embodied in Pali writings. So are those of the Mongols; and so, to a great extent, those of the Tibetans as well. This makes the language and the creed nearly co-extensive. In China, however, and j.a.pan, where great changes have taken place, and where either the development, or the deterioration of Buddhism has gone far enough to abolish the more palpable characteristics of the original Indian doctrine, the Pali language is no longer the medium. It _is_ so, however, for the vast area already indicated.

In Buddhism, as opposed to Brahminism, there is a greater tenderness of animal life in general, whilst less respect is paid to the ox-tribe in particular. There is less also of the system of caste; and, in consequence of this, fewer of those elements of priestly influence, which originate in the ideas of the hereditary transmission of sacro-sanct.i.tude. Buddhism, too, has the credit of running further in the dream-land of subjective metaphysics than Brahminism,--though this, as far as my own very imperfect means of judging go, is doubtful. Into practical pantheism, and into the deification of human reason it _does_ run.

When self-contemplation has reached its highest degree of abstraction, the state of _Nirwana_ is induced. This seems to mean the absorption of the spirit within itself; a condition which at once suggests adjectives like _impa.s.sive_, _subjective_, _exalted_, and _supra-sensual_, or substantives like _transcendentalism_, _egoism_, &c., and the like; in some cases with definite ideas to correspond with the term; oftener as mere meaningless words. Such, however, is the nomenclature which is requisite; a nomenclature to which I have recourse, not for the sake of ill.u.s.trating my subject, but with the view of giving a practical notion of its indistinctness.

Buddha himself is a specimen and model of self-absorption, consummation, perfection, or exaltation rather than a deity, or even a prophet. He shows what purity can effect, rather than teaches what purity consists in. He may even have become what he was, by his own unaided powers of supra-sensual abstraction.

All this is but a series of negations, at least in the way of theology.

But his spirit, after the departure of his body from the earth,[52]

became incarnate in the body of some successor--and so on _ad infinitum_. This connects Buddhism with the doctrine of metempsychosis; a doctrine which the incarnations of Brahminism also suggest.

Such are some of the speculative points of Buddhism. Its morality has been greatly, and, perhaps, unduly extolled. So much contemplation can scarcely exist without the condemnation of the more palpable sins of _commission_. Hence, those vices which are the offspring of pa.s.sion and ignorance are condemned; as is but natural. The suspension of exertion precludes active vice. Of the active virtues, however, the recognition is as slight as may be; so slight as to make it doubtful whether Buddhism be a better rule for the formation of good citizens than Brahminism. Which has been the most resistant to the influences of Christianity is doubtful.[53]

Just as the Anglo-Saxon language, although it originated in Germany, has survived and developed itself in Britain only, the Buddhist creed, once indigenous to the continent of Hindostan, is now found nowhere between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin; whilst beyond the pale of India, it is as widely extended as the English language is beyond the limits of Germany. The rival religion of the Brahmins expelled it. Which of the two was the older is uncertain. Still more difficult is it to determine how far each is a separate substantive mythological growth, or merely a modification of the rival creed.

I lay but little stress upon the internal evidence derivable from the character of the religions themselves. Both are complicated and artificial--both, perhaps, equally so. In contrast, however, to the more speculative and transcendental points, suggestive of recent development, there are others indicative of great antiquity. Nevertheless, it is as difficult to affirm that the primitive parts of the one creed are older than the most primitive parts of the other, as it is to affirm that the highest transcendentalisms are more recent.

The fact of the oldest inscriptions being in the Pali dialect, is favourable to the greater antiquity of Buddhism, but it is not conclusive. The notion that Sanskrit itself is comparatively recent, of course subtracts from that of Brahminism. But this is far from being admitted. Besides which, it by no means follows, that because Brahminism is, comparatively speaking, recent, Buddhism must be ancient.

The best clue in this labyrinth of conflicting opinions is the study of the superst.i.tions of the ruder tribes of the hill-ranges of India itself, of the sub-Himalayas, and of the Indo-Chinese peninsula; the result of which investigation will be that that creed which has most points in common with the primitive and unmodified mythologies of the Tamulian stock, and of those branches of the monosyllabic populations nearest akin thereto, has also the best claim to be considered as the older.

In my own mind, I believe that the _Bedo_ of the Rajmahali mountaineers, is the _Batho_ of the Bodo, the _Pennu_ of the Khonds, and the _Potteang_ of the Kukis,[54]--name for name. I believe this without doubt or hesitation. But if I ask myself the import of this ident.i.ty, the answer is unsatisfactory. There is doubt and hesitation in abundance. _Bedo_, _Batho_, _Petto_, and _Potteang_, _may_ represent the germ of what afterwards became _Buddh-ism_. They may exhibit the Indian creed in its _rudiments_. True. But they may also represent it in its _fragments_, so that _Bedo_ and _Batho_ may be but _Buddh_, distorted in form, and but imperfectly comprehended in import. In our own Gospel, the name for the place of punishment, which the Greeks called _Hades_, and the Hebrews typified by _Gehenna_, is the name of a Saxon G.o.ddess _Hela_; and, in this particular instance, a point of our original paganism has been taken up into our present Christianity. The same is the case with the Finnic nation, where _Yumala_ signifies _G.o.d_; Yumala being as truly heathen as _Jupiter_. On the other hand we find amongst the genuine pagan Gallas of Africa, an object of respect or worship called _Miriam_. What is this? No true piece of heathendom at all. Dr.

Beke has given good reasons for believing that it means the Virgin Mother of the Saviour, the only extant member of the Christian Revelation now known to that once imperfectly Christianized community.

Buddhism, then, may claim a higher antiquity than Brahminism under the two following conditions.

1. That the names _Batho_, &c., be really a form of _Buddh_.

2. That they have belonged to superst.i.tions in which they occur from the beginning; and are not in the same category with the _Miriam_ of the Gallas, _i.e._, recent introductions from a wholly different religion--grafts rather than embryos.

How far this latter is the case must be ascertained by a wide and minute inquiry, foreign to the present work.

It is no wonder that, side by side with a semi-philosophical creed like Buddhism, we should have such a phenomenon as Devil-worship. When the spirit falls short of its due degree of self-sustained hardihood, fear finds its way to the heart. The evil powers are then propitiated; sometimes in a manner savouring of dignity, sometimes with groveling and grotesque cowardice. The Yezid of Mesopotamia, whose belief in the power of an evil spirit is derived from the Manicheism of old, shows his fear of the arch-enemy by simple and not unreasonable acts of negation. He does nothing that may offend; never mentions his name; and dwells on his attributes as little as possible. The devil-worshipper of Ceylon uses such invocations as the following:--

I.

Come, thou _sanguinary Devil_, at the sixth hour. Come, thou _fierce Devil_, upon this stage, and accept the offerings made to thee!

The _ferocious Devil_ seems to be coming measuring the ground by the length of his feet, and giving warnings of his approach by throwing stones and sand round about. He looks upon the meat-offering which is kneaded with blood and boiled rice.

He stands there and plays in the shade of the tree called _Demby_.

He removes the sickness of the person which he caused. He will accept the offerings prepared with blood, odour, and reddish boiled rice. Prepare these offerings in the shade of the _Demby_ tree.

Make a female figure of the _planets_ with a monkey's face, and its body the colour of gold. Offer four offerings in the four corners.

In the left corner, place some blood, and for victims a fowl and a goat. In the evening, place the scene representing the planets on the high ground.

The face resembles a monkey's face, and the head is the colour of gold. The head is reddish, and the bunch of hair is black and tied.

He holds blood in the left-hand, and rides on a bullock. After this manner make the sanguinary figure of the planets.

II.

O thou great devil _Maha-Sohon_, preserve these sick persons without delay!

On the way, as he was going, by supernatural power he made a great noise. He fought with the form of _Wessamoony_, and wounded his head. The planet _Saturn_ saw a wolf in the midst of the forest, and broke his neck. The _Wessamoony_ gave permission to the great devil called _Maha-Sohon_.

O thou great devil _Maha-Sohon_, take away these sicknesses by accepting the offerings made frequently to thee.--The qualities of this devil are these: he stretches his long chin, and opens wide his mouth like a cavern: he bears a spear in his right-hand, and grasps a great and strong elephant with his left-hand. He is watching and expecting to drink the blood of the elephant in the place where the two and three roads meet together.

Influenced by supernatural power, he entered the body of the princess called _G.o.dimbera_. He caused her to be sick with severe trembling sickness. Come thou poor and powerless devil _Maha-Sohon_ to fight with me, and leave the princess, if thou hast sufficient strength.

On hearing these sayings, he left her, and made himself like a blue cloud, and violently covered his whole body with flames of fire.

Furiously staring with his eyes, he said, "Art thou come, blockhead, to fight with me who was born in the world of men? I will take you by the legs, and dash you upon the great rock _Maha-meru_, and quickly bring you to nothing."

Thou wast born on Sunday, the first day of the month, and didst receive permission from the _King of Death_, and didst brandish a sword like a plantain-leaf. Thou comest down at half-past seven, to accept the offerings made to thee.

If the devil _Maha-Sohon_ cause the chin-cough, leanness of the body, thirst, madness, and mad babblings, he will come down at half-past seven, and accept the offerings made to him.

These are the marks of the devil _Maha-Sohon_: three marks on the head, one mark on the eye-brow and on the temple; three marks on the belly, a shining moon on the thigh, a lighted torch on the head, an offering and a flower on the breast. The chief G.o.d of the burying-place will say, May you live long!

Make the figure of the _planets_ called the emblem of the _great burying-place_, as follows: a spear grasped by the right-hand, an elephant's figure in the left-hand, and in the act of drinking the blood of the elephant by bruising its proboscis.

Tip the point of the spear in the hand with blood, pointed towards the elephant's face in the left-hand. These effigies and offerings take and offer in the burying-place,--discerning well the sickness by means of the devil-dancer.

Make a figure of the _wolf_ with a large breast, full of hairs on the body, and with long teeth separated from each other. The effigy of the _Maha-Sohon_ was made formerly so.

These are the sicknesses which the great devil causes by living among the tombs: chin-cough, itching of the body, disorders in the bowels; windy complaints, dropsy, leanness of the body, weakness and consumptions.

He walks on high upon the lofty stones. He walks on the ground where three ways meet. Therefore go not in the roads by night: if you do so, you must not expect to escape with your life.