The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Part 19

The Udasis are a cla.s.s of ascetics of the Nanakpanthi or Sikh faith, whose order was founded by Sri Chand, the younger son of Nanak. They are recruited from all castes and will eat food from any Hindu. They are almost all celibates, and pay special reverence to the Adi-Granth of Nanak, but also respect the Granth of Govind Singh and attend the same shrines as the Sikhs generally. Their service consists of a ringing of bells and blare of instruments, and they chant hymns and wave lights before the Adi-Granth and the picture of Baba Nanak. In the Central Provinces members of several orders which have branched off from the main Nanakpanthi community are known as Udasi. Thus some of them say they do not go to any temples and worship Nirankal or the deity without shape or form, a name given to the supreme G.o.d by Nanak. In the Punjab the Nirankaris const.i.tute a separate order from the Udasis. [345] These Udasis wear a long rope of sheep's wool round the neck and iron chains round the wrist and waist. They carry half a cocoanut sh.e.l.l as a begging-bowl and have the _chameta_ or iron tongs, which can also be closed and used as a poker. Their form of salutation is '_Matha Tek_,' or 'I put my head at your feet.' They never cut their hair and have a long string of wool attached to the _choti_ or scalp-lock, which is coiled up under a little cap. They say that they worship Nirankal without going to temples, and when they sit down to pray they make a little fire and place _ghi_ or sweetmeats upon it as an offering. When begging they say 'Alakh,'

and they accept any kind of uncooked and cooked food from Brahmans.

4. Suthra Shahis.

Another mendicant Nanakpanthi order, whose members visit the Central Provinces, is that of the Suthra Shahis. Here, however, they often drop the special name, and call themselves simply Nanakshahi. The origin of the order is uncertain, and Sir E. Maclagan gives various accounts. Here they say that their founder was a disciple of Nanak, who visited Mecca and brought back the Seli and Syahi which are their distinctive badges. The Seli is a rope of black wool which they tie round their heads like a turban, and Syahi the ink with which they draw a black line on their foreheads, though this is in fact usually made with charcoal. They carry a wallet in which these articles are kept, and also the two small ebony sticks which they strike against each other as an accompaniment to their begging-songs. The larger stick is dedicated to Nanak and the smaller to the G.o.ddess Kali. They are most importunate beggars, and say that the privilege of levying a pice (farthing) was given to them by Aurangzeb. They were accustomed in former times to burn their clothes and stand naked at the door of any person who refused to give them alms. They also have a _bahi_ or account-book in which the gifts they receive, especially from Banias, are recorded. Mr. Crooke states that "They indulge freely in intoxicants and seldom cease from smoking. Their profligacy is notorious, and they are said to be composed mainly of spendthrifts who have lost their wealth in gambling. They are recruited from all castes and always add the t.i.tle Shah to their names. A proverb says in allusion to their rapacity:

Kehu mare, Kehu jiye, Suthra gur batasa piye;

or, 'Others may live or die, but the Suthra Shahi must have his drink of sugar and water.' [346]

Parmarthi Sect

_Parmarthi Sect_.--A Vishnuite sect of which 26,000 persons were returned as members in the census of 1901. Nearly all of these belonged to the Uriya State of Kalahandi, since transferred to Bihar and Orissa. The following account of the sect has been furnished by Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath, formerly Diwan of Kalahandi State.

This sect penetrated the State from the Orissa side, and seems to belong to Bengal. In the beginning it consisted only in pure devotion to the worship of Krishna, but later it has been degraded by s.e.xual indulgence and immorality, and this appears to be the main basis of its ritual at present. Outwardly its followers recite the Bhagavad Gita and pretend to be persons of very high morals. Their secret practices were obtained from one of his officials who had entered the sect in the lowest grade. On the day of initiation there is a great meeting of members at the cost of the neophyte. A text is taught to him, and the initiation is completed by all the members partaking together of a feast without distinction of caste. The food eaten at this is considered to be Mahaprasad, or as if offered to Vishnu in his form of Jagannath at Puri, and to be therefore incapable of defilement. The _mantra_ or text taught to the disciple is as follows:

O Hari, O Krishna, O Hari, O Krishna, O Krishna, O Krishna, O Hari, O Hari, O Hari, O Ramo, O Hari, O Ramo, O Ramo, O Ramo, O Hari, O Hari.

The disciple is enjoined to repeat this text a prescribed number of times, 108 or more, every day. To those pupils who show their devotional ardour by continual repet.i.tion of the first text others are taught.

The next step is that the disciple should a.s.sociate himself or herself with some other Parmarthi of the opposite s.e.x and tend and serve them. This relation, which is known as _Asra-patro_, cannot exist between husband and wife, some other person having to be chosen in each case, and it results of course in an immoral connection. Following this is the further rite of _Almo-Samarpana_ or offering of oneself, in which the disciple is required to give his wife to the Guru or preceptor as the acme of self-sacrifice. The _guru_ calls the disciple by a female name of one of the milkmaids of Brindaban to indicate that the disciple regards Krishna with the same devotion as they did. Sometimes the _guru_ and a woman personate Krishna and Radha, but reverse the names, the _guru_ calling himself Radha and the woman Krishna. The other disciples wait upon and serve them, and they perform an immoral act in public. Parmarthi women sometimes have the _mantra_ or text, 'O Hari, O Krishna,' tattooed on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The Parmarthis often deny the accusation of immorality, and the above statements may not be true of all of them; but they are believed to be true as regards a considerable part of the sect at any rate. "With all his cleanliness, vegetarianism and teetotalism," one writer remarks, "the Vaishnava is perhaps the most dangerous in the whole list of Hindu sects. He has done very good service in civilising the lower cla.s.ses to some extent and in suppressing the horrors of the Tantric worship. But the moral laxity which the Vaishnava encourages by the stories of the illicit loves between the G.o.d and G.o.ddess, and by the strong tendency to imitate them which his teachings generate, outweigh the good done by him." This statement applies, however, princ.i.p.ally to one or two sects devoted to Krishna, and by no means to all nor to the majority of the Vaishnava sects.

Parsi or Zoroastrian Religion

[_Bibliography of works quoted_: Dr. Martin Haug's _Essays on the Parsis_, Trubner's Oriental Series; _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. ix. part ii., _Parsis of Gujarat_. by the late Mr. Kha.r.s.edji Nasarvanji Seervai, J.P., and Khan Bahadur Bamanji Behramji Patel; M. Salomon Reinach's _Orpheus_; Rev. J. Murray Mitch.e.l.l's _Great Religions of India_. The whole account of the customs and social life of the Parsis is taken from the excellent description in the _Bombay Gazetteer_.]

List of Paragraphs

1. _Introductory_.

2. _The Zoroastrian religion_.

3. _The Zend-Avesta._ 4. _The Zend-Avesta and the Vedas_.

5. _Reasons for the schism between the Persian and Indian Aryans_.

6. _The dual principle and the conflict between good and evil_.

7. _The dual principle derived from the antagonism of light and darkness_.

8. _The Zoroastrians in Persia_.

9. _Their migration to India and settlement there_.

10. _Their wealth and prosperity_.

11. _Marriage customs_.

12. _Religion_. _Worship of fire_.

13. _The Homa liquor_.

14. _Parsi priests_.

15. _The sacred shirt and cord_.

16. _Disposal of the dead_.

17. _Previous exposure of the dead, and migration of souls_.

18. _Clothes, food and ceremonial observances_.

1. Introductory.

The number of Parsis in the Central Provinces in 1911 was about 1800. They are immigrants from Bombay, and usually reside in large towns, where they are engaged in different branches of trade, especially in the manufacture and vend of liquor and the management of cotton mills and factories. [347] The word Parsi means a resident of the province of Fars or Pars in Persia, from which the name of the country is also derived.

2. The Zoroastrian religion.

Also known as Mazdaism, the Zoroastrian religion was that of the ancient Magi or fire-worshippers of Persia, mentioned in Scripture. It is supposed that Zoroaster or Spitama Zarathustra, if he was a historical personage, effected a reformation of this religion and placed it on a new basis at some time about 1100 B.C. It is suggested by Haug [348] that Zarathustra was the designation of the high priests of the cult, and Spitama the proper name of that high priest who carried out its distinctive reformation, and perhaps separated the religion of the Persian from the Indian Aryans. This would account for the fact that the sacred writings, which, according to the testimony of Greek and Roman authors, were of great extent, their compilation probably extending over several centuries, were subsequently all ascribed to one man, or to Zarathustra alone. The Zend-Avesta or sacred book of the Parsis does not mention the fire priests under the name of Magi, but calls them Athravan, the same word as the Sanskrit Atharva-Veda. The reason for this, M. Reinach suggests, is that the Magi had rebelled against Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, in the sixth century B.C., during his absence in Egypt, and placed a rival creature of their own on the throne. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, overthrew him and re-established the Persian kingdom in 523 B.C., and this may have discredited the Magian priests and caused those of the reformed religion to adopt a new name. [349]

It is certain that Cyrus conformed to the precept of the Avesta against the pollution of the sacred element water, when he diverted the course of the river Gyndanes in order to recover the body of a horse which had been drowned in it, and that Darius I. invokes in his inscriptions Ormazd or Ahura Mazda, the deity of the Avesta. [350]

On the subversion of the Persian empire by Alexander, and the subsequent conquest of Persia by the Arsacid Parthian dynasty, the religion of the fire-worshippers fell into neglect, but was revived on the establishment of the Sa.s.sanian dynasty of Ardeshir Babegan or Artaxerxes in A.D. 226, and became the state religion, warmly supported by its rulers, until the Arab conquest in A.D. 652. It was at the beginning of this second period of prosperity that the Zend-Avesta as it still exists was collected and reduced to writing, but it is thought that the greater part of the remains of the ancient texts recovered at the time were again lost during the Arab invasion, as the original literature is believed to have been very extensive.

3. The Zend-Avesta.

The language of the Zend-Avesta is the ancient east Iranian or Bactrian dialect, which probably died out finally in the third century B.C., modern Persian being descended from the west Iranian or Median tongue. The Bactrian language of the Zend-Avesta is, Haug states, a genuine sister of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Gothic. "The relationship of the Avesta language to the most ancient Sanskrit, the so-called Vedic dialect, is as close as that of the different dialects of the Greek language, Aeolic, Ionic, Doric or Attic, to each other. The languages of the sacred hymns of the Brahmans, and of those of the Parsis, are only the two dialects of two separate tribes of one and the same nation. As the Ionians, Dorians, Aetolians, etc., were different tribes of the Greek nation whose general name was h.e.l.lenes, so the ancient Brahmans and Parsis were two tribes of the nation which is called Aryas both in the Veda and Zend-Avesta." [351]

The sections of the Zend-Avesta which remain are about equal in size to the Bible. They consist of sacrificial hymns, prayers and accounts of the making of the world, in the form of conversations between Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster. The whole arrangement is, however, very fragmentary and chaotic, and much of the matter is of a trivial character. It cannot be compared in merit with the Old Testament.

4. The Zend Avesta and the Vedas.

A cuneiform inscription discovered in the centre of Asia Minor at Ptorium proves that about 1400 B.C. certain tribes who had relations with the Hitt.i.te empire had for their deities Mitra, Indra, Varuna and the Nasatyas. The first two names are common to the Persian and Indian Aryans, while the last two are found only in India. It appears then that at this time the ancestors of the Hindus and Iranians were not yet separated. [352] Certain important contrasts between the ancient Zoroastrian and Vedic religions have led to the theory that the separation was the result of a religious and political schism. The words Deva and Asura have an exactly opposite significance in the two religions. Deva [353] is the term invariably used for the G.o.ds of the Hindus in the whole Vedic and Brahmanical literature. In the Zend-Avesta, on the other hand, Deva (Pers. _div_) is the general name of an evil spirit, a fiend, demon or devil, who is inimical to all that is good and comes from G.o.d. The part of the Avesta called the Vendidad, consisting of a collection of spells and incantations, means _vi-daevo-data_ or given against the Devas or demons. The Devas, Dr. Haug states, are the originators of all that is bad, of every impurity, of death; and are constantly thinking of causing the destruction of the fields and trees, and of the houses of religious men. "Asura, occurring as Ahura in the first part of Ahura-Mazda (Hormazd), is the name of G.o.d among the Parsis; and the Zoroastrian religion is distinctly called the Ahura religion, in strict opposition to the Deva religion. But among the Hindus Asura has a.s.sumed a bad meaning, and is applied to the bitterest enemies of their Devas (G.o.ds), with whom the Asuras are constantly waging war. This is the case throughout the whole Puranic literature and as far back as the later parts of the Vedas; but in the older parts of the Rig-Veda Sanhita we find the word Asura used in as good and elevated a sense as in the Zend-Avesta. The chief G.o.ds, such as Indra, Varuna, Agni, Savitri, Rudra or Siva, are honoured with the epithet 'Asura,' which means 'living, spiritual,' and signifies the divine in its opposition to human nature.

"In a bad sense we find Asura only twice in the older parts of the Rig-Veda, in which pa.s.sages the defeat of the 'sons or men of the Asura' is ordered or spoken of; but we find the word more frequently in this sense in the last book of the Rig-Veda (which is only an appendix to the whole made in later times), and in the Atharva-Veda, where the Rishis are said to have frustrated the tricks of the Asuras and to have the power of putting them down. In the Brahmanas or sacrificial books belonging to each of the Vedas we find the Devas always fighting with the Asuras. The latter are the constant enemies of the Hindu G.o.ds, and always make attacks upon the sacrifices offered by devotees. To defeat them, all the craft and cunning of the Devas were required; and the means of checking them was generally found in a new sacrificial rite." [354]