Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.4
Travels in the Mogul Empire (Constable) 6.4
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- English
6.4.1
Some again carry a sick person, when at the point of death, to the river-side; place his feet in the water, let him sink gradually to the neck; and when it is supposed that he is about to expire, they immerse his whole body into the river, where they leave him, after violently clapping their hands, and crying out with great vehemence. The object of this ceremony (at which I have been present) is that the soul may be washed, on taking its flight, from all impurities which it may have contracted during its abode in the body. This absurd notion is not confined to the vulgar; I have heard it seriously defended by men of the highest reputation for learning. Among the vast number, and endless variety of Fakires, or Derviches, and Holy Men, or Gentile hypocrites of the Indies, many live in a sort of convent, governed by superiors, where vows of chastity, poverty, and submission are made. So strange is the life led by these votaries that I doubt whether my description of it will be credited. I allude particularly to the people called Jaugis, a name which signifies 'united to God.' Numbers are seen, day and night, seated or lying on ashes, entirely naked; frequently under the large trees near talabs, or tanks of water, or in the galleries round the Deuras, or idol temples. Some have hair hanging down to the calf of the leg, twisted and entangled into knots, like the coat of our shaggy dogs, or rather like the hair of those afflicted with that Polish disease, which we call la Plic.
6.4.2
I have seen several who hold one, and some who hold both arms, perpetually lifted up above the head; the nails of their hands being twisted, and longer than half my little finger, with which I measured them. Their arms are as small and thin as the arms of persons who die in a decline, because in so forced and unnatural a position they receive not sufficient nourishment; nor can they be lowered so as to supply the mouth with food, the muscles having become contracted, and the articulations dry and stiff. Novices wait upon these fanatics, and pay them the utmost respect, as persons endowed with extraordinary sanctity. No Fury in the infernal regions can be conceived more horrible than the Jaugis, with their naked and black skin, long hair, spindle arms, long twisted nails, and fixed in the posture which I have mentioned.
6.4.3
I have often met, generally in the territory of some Raja, bands of these naked Fakires, hideous to behold. Some had their arms lifted up in the manner just described; the frightful hair of others either hung loosely or was tied and twisted round their heads; some carried a club like to Hercules; others had a dry and rough tiger skin thrown over their shoulders. In this trim I have seen them shamelessly walk, stark naked, through a large town, men, women, and girls looking at them without any more emotion than may be created when a hermit passes through our streets. Females would often bring them alms with much devotion, doubtless believing that they were holy personages, more chaste and discreet than other men. I was for a long time disgusted with a celebrated Fakire, named Sarmet, who paraded the streets of Dehli as naked as when he came into the world. He despised equally the promises and the threats of Aureng-Zebe, and underwent at length the punishment of decapitation from his obstinate refusal to put on wearing apparel.
6.4.4
Several of these Fakires undertake long pilgrimages, not only naked, but laden with heavy iron chains, such as are put about the legs of elephants. I have seen others who in consequence of a particular vow stood upright, during seven or eight days, without once sitting or lying down, and without any other support than might be afforded by leaning forward against a cord for a few hours in the night; their legs in the meantime were swollen to the size of their thighs. Others again I have observed standing steadily, whole hours together, upon their hands, the head down, and the feet in the air. I might proceed to enumerate various other positions in which these unhappy men place their body, many of them so difficult and painful that they could not be imitated by our tumblers; and all this, let it be recollected, is performed from an assumed feeling of piety, of which there is not so much as the shadow in any part of the Indies.
6.4.5
I confess that this gross superstition filled me, on my first arrival in Hindoustan, with amazement. I knew not what to think of it. Sometimes I should have been disposed to consider the Fakires as remnants, if not as the founders, of the ancient and infamous sect of Cynics, could I have discovered anything in them but brutality and ignorance, and if they had not appeared to me vegetative rather than rational beings. At another time, I thought they might be honest though deluded enthusiasts, until I found that, in fact, they were, in the widest sense of the word, destitute of piety. Again, I reflected that a life of vagrancy, idleness, and independence may have a powerful and attractive charm; or that the vanity which intermingles itself with every motive of human action, and which may be discovered as clearly through the tattered mantle of a Diogenes as under the comely garb of a Plato, was probably the secret spring that set so many strange engines in motion.
6.4.6
The Fakires, it is said, exercise painful austerities in the confident hope that they will be Rajas in their renascent state; or, if they do not become Rajas, that they shall be placed in a condition of life capable of more exquisite enjoyment than is experienced by those sovereign princes: but, as I have frequently observed to them, how can it be believed that men submit to a life of so much misery for the sake of a second state of existence, as short and uncertain as the first, and which cannot be expected to yield a much greater degree of happiness even to him who may be invested with the high dignity of Raja, or who may resemble Jesseingue or Jessomseingue, the two most powerful Rajas of the Indies? I am not to be so easily deceived, said I to them; either you are egregious fools, or you are actuated by some sinister views which you carefully hide from the world. Some of the Fakires enjoy the reputation of being peculiarly enlightened saints, perfect Jaugis, and really united to God. These are supposed to have entirely renounced the world; and like our hermits they live a secluded life in a remote garden, without ever visiting a town. When food is brought to them, they receive it: if none be offered to them it is concluded that the holy men can live without food, that they subsist by the favour of God, vouchsafed on account of previous long fasts and other religious mortifications. Frequently these pious Jaugis are absorbed in profound meditation.
6.4.7
It is pretended, and one of the favoured saints himself assured me, that their souls are often rapt in an ecstasy of several hours' duration; that their external senses lose their functions; that the Jauguis are blessed with a sight of God, who appears as a light ineffably white and vivid, and that they experience transports of holy joy, and a contempt of temporal concerns which defy every power of description. My saintly informant added that he could at pleasure fall into such a trance as he described, and not one of the individuals who are in the habit of visiting the Jauguis doubts the reality of these vaunted ecstasies. It is possible that the imagination, distempered by continued fasts and uninterrupted solitude, may be brought into these illusions, or that the rapturous dreams of the Fakires may resemble the natural ecstasies into which Cardan tells us he could fall whenever he pleased, especially as the Fakires practise some art in what they do, prescribing to themselves certain rules for the binding up of their senses by slow degrees. For example, they say that after having fasted several days upon bread and water, it is necessary to be alone in a sequestered spot, to fix the eyes most steadily toward heaven, and when they have been so riveted for some time, to lower them gradually, and then point them both in such a manner that they shall look at one and the same time upon the tip of the nose, both sides of that feature being equally seen;
6.4.8
and in this posture the saint must continue firm, the two sides of the nose in even proportions remaining constantly within sight until the bright luminary makes its appearance. The trance, and the means of enjoying it, form the grand Mysticism of the sect of the Jaugis, as well as that of the Soufys. I call it Mysticism [Mystere], because they keep these things secret among themselves, and I should not have made so many discoveries had it not been for the aid of the Pendet, or Indou Doctor whom Danechmend-kan kept in his pay, and who dared not conceal anything from his patron; my Agah, moreover, was already acquainted with the doctrines of the Soufys.