From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan

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[[Transcribed by M.R.J.]]

FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN
Translated From The Russian Of
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY

Translator's Preface

"You must remember," said Mme. Blavatsky, "that I never
meant this for a scientific work. My letters to the Russian
Messenger, under the general title: 'From the Caves and Jungles
of Hindostan,' were written in leisure moments, more for amusement
than with any serious design.

"Broadly speaking, the facts and incidents are true; but
I have freely availed myself of an author's privilege to group,
colour, and dramatize them, whenever this seemed necessary to the
full artistic effect; though, as I say, much of the book is exactly
true, l would rather claim kindly judgment for it, as a romance
of travel, than incur the critical risks that haunt an avowedly
serious work."

To this caution of the author's, the translator must add
another; these letters, as Mme Blavatsky says, were written in
leisure moments, during 1879 and 1880, for the pages of the Russki
Vyestnik, then edited by M. Katkoff. Mme. Blavatsky's manuscript
was often incorrect; often obscure. The Russian compositors,
though they did their best to render faithfully the Indian names
and places, often produced, through their ignorance of Oriental
tongues, forms which are strange, and sometimes unrecognizable.
The proof-sheets were never corrected by the author, who was then
in India; and, in consequence, it has been impossible to restore
all the local and personal names to their proper form.

A similar difficulty has arisen with reference to quotations
and cited authorities, all of which have gone through a double
process of refraction: first into Russian, then into English.
The translator, also a Russian, and far from perfectly acquainted
with English, cannot claim to possess the erudition necessary to
verify and restore the many quotations to verbal accuracy; all
that is hoped is that, by a careful rendering, the correct sense
has been preserved.

The translator begs the indulgence of English readers for
all imperfections of style and language; in the words of the
Sanskrit proverb: "Who is to be blamed, if success be not reached
after due effort?"

The translator's best thanks are due to Mr. John C. Staples,
for valuable help in the early chapters.

--London, July, 1892

Contents

In Bombay
On the Way to Karli
In the Karli Caves
Vanished Glories
A City of the Dead
Brahmanic Hospitalities
A Witch's Den
God's Warrior
The Banns of Marriage
The Caves of Bagh
An Isle of Mystery
Jubblepore

FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN
By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

In Bombay

Late in the evening of the sixteenth of February, 1879,
after a rough voyage which lasted thirty-two days, joyful exclamations
were heard everywhere on deck. "Have you seen the lighthouse?"
"There it is at last, the Bombay lighthouse."

Cards, books, music, everything was forgotten. Everyone
rushed on deck. The moon had not risen as yet, and, in spite of
the starry tropical sky, it was quite dark. The stars were so
bright that, at first, it seemed hardly possible to distinguish,
far away amongst them, a small fiery point lit by earthly hands.
The stars winked at us like so many huge eyes in the black sky,
on one side of which shone the Southern Cross. At last we
distinguished the lighthouse on the distant horizon. It was
nothing but a tiny fiery point diving in the phosphorescent waves.
The tired travellers greeted it warmly. The rejoicing was general.

What a glorious daybreak followed this dark night! The sea no
longer tossed our ship. Under the skilled guidance of the pilot,
who had just arrived, and whose bronze form was so sharply defined
against the pale sky, our steamer, breathing heavily with its
broken machinery, slipped over the quiet, transparent waters of
the Indian Ocean straight to the harbour. We were only four miles
from Bombay, and, to us, who had trembled with cold only a few
weeks ago in the Bay of Biscay, which has been so glorified by
many poets and so heartily cursed by all sailors, our surroundings
simply seemed a magical dream.

After the tropical nights of the Red Sea and the scorching hot
days that had tortured us since Aden, we, people of the distant
North, now experienced something strange and unwonted, as if the
very fresh soft air had cast its spell over us. There was not a
cloud in the sky, thickly strewn with dying stars. Even the moonlight,
which till then had covered the sky with its silvery garb, was
gradually vanishing; and the brighter grew the rosiness of dawn
over the small island that lay before us in the East, the paler
in the West grew the scattered rays of the moon that sprinkled with
bright flakes of light the dark wake our ship left behind her, as
if the glory of the West was bidding good-bye to us, while the
light of the East welcomed the newcomers from far-off lands.
Brighter and bluer grew the sky, swiftly absorbing the remaining
pale stars one after the other, and we felt something touching
in the sweet dignity with which the Queen of Night resigned her
rights to the powerful usurper. At last, descending lower and
lower, she disappeared completely.

And suddenly, almost without interval between darkness and light,
the red-hot globe, emerging on the opposite side from under the
cape, leant his golden chin on the lower rocks of the island and
seemed to stop for a while, as if examining us. Then, with one
powerful effort, the torch of day rose high over the sea and
gloriously proceeded on its path, including in one mighty fiery
embrace the blue waters of the bay, the shore and the islands with
their rocks and cocoanut forests. His golden rays fell upon a
crowd of Parsees, his rightful worshippers, who stood on shore
raising their arms towards the mighty "Eye of Ormuzd." The sight
was so impressive that everyone on deck became silent for a moment,
even a red-nosed old sailor, who was busy quite close to us over
the cable, stopped working, and, clearing his throat, nodded at the sun.

Moving slowly and cautiously along the charming but
treacherous bay, we had plenty of time to admire the picture
around us. On the right was a group of islands with Gharipuri or
Elephanta, with its ancient temple, at their head. Gharipuri
translated means "the town of caves" according to the Orientalists,
and "the town of purification" according to the native Sanskrit
scholars. This temple, cut out by an unknown hand in the very
heart of a rock resembling porphyry, is a true apple of discord
amongst the archaeologists, of whom none can as yet fix, even
approximately, its antiquity. Elephanta raises high its rocky brow,
all overgrown with secular cactus, and right under it, at the foot
of the rock, are hollowed out the chief temple and the two lateral
ones. Like the serpent of our Russian fairy tales, it seems to be
opening its fierce black mouth to swallow the daring mortal who
comes to take possession of the secret mystery of Titan. Its two
remaining teeth, dark with time, are formed by two huge pillars
t the entrance, sustaining the palate of the monster.

How many generations of Hindus, how many races, have knelt
in the dust before the Trimurti, your threefold deity, O Elephanta?
How many centuries were spent by weak man in digging out in your
stone bosom this town of temples and carving your gigantic idols?
Who can say? Many years have elapsed since I saw you last, ancient,
mysterious temple, and still the same restless thoughts, the same
recurrent questions vex me snow as they did then, and still remain
unanswered. In a few days we shall see each other again. Once more
I shall gaze upon your stern image, upon your three huge granite faces,
and shall feel as hopeless as ever of piercing the mystery of your
being. This secret fell into safe hands three centuries before ours.
It is not in vain that the old Portuguese historian Don Diego de Cuta
boasts that "the big square stone fastened over the arch of the
pagoda with a distinct inscription, having been torn out and sent
as a present to the King Dom Juan III, disappeared mysteriously
in the course of time....," and adds, further, "Close to this big
pagoda there stood another, and farther on even a third one, the
most wonderful of all in beauty, incredible size, and richness of
material. All those pagodas and caves have been built by the Kings
of Kanada, (?) the most important of whom was Bonazur, and these
buildings of Satan our (Portuguese) soldiers attacked with such
vehemence that in a few years one stone was not left upon another...."
And, worst of all, they left no inscriptions that might have given
a clue to so much. Thanks to the fanaticism of Portuguese soldiers,
the chronology of the Indian cave temples must remain for ever an
enigma to the archaeological world, beginning with the Brah-mans,
who say Elephanta is 374,000 years old, and ending with Fergusson,
who tries to prove that it was carved only in the twelfth century
of our era. Whenever one turns one's eyes to history, there is
nothing to be found but hypotheses and darkness. And yet Gharipuri
is mentioned in the epic Mahabharata, which was written, according
to Colebrooke and Wilson, a good while before the reign of Cyrus.
In another ancient legend it is said that the temple of Trimurti
was built on Elephanta by the sons of Pandu, who took part in the
war between the dynasties of the Sun and the Moon, and, belonging
to the latter, were expelled at the end of the war. The Rajputs,
who are the descendants of the first, still sing of this victory;
but even in their popular songs there is nothing positive. Centuries
have passed and will pass, and the ancient secret will die in the
rocky bosom of the cave still unrecorded.

On the left side of the bay, exactly opposite Elephanta,
and as if in contrast with all its antiquity and greatness, spreads
the Malabar Hill, the residence of the modern Europeans and rich
natives. Their brightly painted bungalows are bathed in the greenery
of banyan, Indian fig, and various other trees, and the tall and
straight trunks of cocoanut palms cover with the fringe of their
leaves the whole ridge of the hilly headland. There, on the south-
western end of the rock, you see the almost transparent, lace-like
Government House surrounded on three sides by the ocean. This is
the coolest and the most comfortable part of Bombay, fanned by
three different sea breezes.

The island of Bombay, designated by the natives "Mambai,"
received its name from the goddess Mamba, in Mahrati Mahima, or Amba,
Mama, and Amma, according to the dialect, a word meaning, literally,
the Great Mother. Hardly one hundred years ago, on the site of
the modern esplanade, there stood a temple consecrated to Mamba-Devi.
With great difficulty and expense they carried it nearer to the shore,
close to the fort, and erected it in front of Baleshwara the "Lord
of the Innocent"--one of the names of the god Shiva. Bombay is
part of a considerable group of islands, the most remarkable of
which are Salsetta, joined to Bombay by a mole, Elephanta, so named
by the Portuguese because of a huge rock cut in the shape of an
elephant thirty-five feet long, and Trombay, whose lovely rock rises
nine hundred feet above the surface of the sea. Bombay looks, on
the maps, like an enormous crayfish, and is at the head of the
rest of the islands. Spreading far out into the sea its two claws,
Bombay island stands like a sleepless guardian watching over his
younger brothers. Between it and the Continent there is a narrow
arm of a river, which gets gradually broader and then again narrower,
deeply indenting the sides of both shores, and so forming a haven
that has no equal in the world. It was not without reason that
the Portuguese, expelled in the course of time by the English, used
to call it "Buona Bahia."

In a fit of tourist exaltation some travellers have compared it
to the Bay of Naples; but, as a matter of fact, the one is as
much like the other as a lazzaroni is like a Kuli. The whole
resemblance between the former consists in the fact that there
is water in both. In Bombay, as well as in its harbour, everything
is original and does not in the least remind one of Southern Europe.
Look at those coasting vessels and native boats; both are built
in the likeness of the sea bird "sat," a kind of kingfisher. When
in motion these boats are the personi-fication of grace, with their
long prows and rounded poops. They look as if they were gliding
backwards, and one might mistake for wings the strangely shaped,
long lateen sails, their narrow angles fastened upwards to a yard.
Filling these two wings with the wind, and careening, so as almost
to touch the surface of the water, these boats will fly along with
astonishing swiftness. Unlike our European boats, they do not
cut the waves, but glide over them like a sea-gull.

The surroundings of the bay transported us to some fairy land of
the Arabian Nights. The ridge of the Western Ghats, cut through
here and there by some separate hills almost as high as themselves,
stretched all along the Eastern shore. From the base to their
fantastic, rocky tops, they are all overgrown with impenetrable
forests and jungles inhabited by wild animals. Every rock has been
enriched by the popular imagination with an independent legend.
All over the slope of the mountain are scattered the pagodas,
mosques, and temples of numberless sects. Here and there the hot
rays of the sun strike upon an old fortress, once dreadful and
inaccessible, now half ruined and covered with prickly cactus.
At every step some memorial of sanctity. Here a deep vihara, a
cave cell of a Buddhist bhikshu saint, there a rock protected by
the symbol of Shiva, further on a Jaina temple, or a holy tank,
all covered with sedge and filled with water, once blessed by a
Brahman and able to purify every sin, all indispensable attribute
of all pagodas. All the surroundings are covered with symbols of
gods and goddesses. Each of the three hundred and thirty millions
of deities of the Hindu Pantheon has its representative in something
consecrated to it, a stone, a flower, a tree, or a bird. On the
West side of the Malabar Hill peeps through the trees Valakeshvara,
the temple of the "Lord of Sand." A long stream of Hindus moves
towards this celebrated temple; men and women, shining with rings
on their fingers and toes, with bracelets from their wrists up
to their elbows, clad in bright turbans and snow white muslins,
with foreheads freshly painted with red, yellow, and white, holy
sectarian signs.

The legend says that Rama spent here a night on his way from Ayodhya
(Oudh) to Lanka (Ceylon) to fetch his wife Sita who had been stolen
by the wicked King Ravana. Rama's brother Lakshman, whose duty
it was to send him daily a new lingam from Benares, was late in
doing so one evening. Losing patience, Rama erected for himself
a lingam of sand. When, at last, the symbol arrived from Benares,
it was put in a temple, and the lingam erected by Rama was left
on the shore. There it stayed during long centuries, but, at the
arrival of the Portuguese, the "Lord of Sand" felt so disgusted
with the feringhi (foreigners) that he jumped into the sea never
to return. A little farther on there is a charming tank, called
Vanattirtha, or the "point of the arrow." Here Rama, the much
worshipped hero of the Hindus, felt thirsty and, not finding any
water, shot an arrow and immediately there was created a pond. Its
crystal waters were surrounded by a high wall, steps were built
leading down to it, and a circle of white marble dwellings was
filled with dwija (twice born) Brahmans.

India is the land of legends and of mysterious nooks and corners.
There is not a ruin, not a monument, not a thicket, that has no
story attached to it. Yet, however they may be entangled in the
cobweb of popular imagination, which becomes thicker with every
generation, it is difficult to point out a single one that is not
founded on fact. With patience and, still more, with the help
of the learned Brahmans you can always get at the truth, when once
you have secured their trust and friendship.

The same road leads to the temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers.
At its altar burns an unquenchable fire, which daily consumes
hundredweights of sandal wood and aromatic herbs. Lit three
hundred years ago, the sacred fire has never been extinguished,
notwithstanding many disorders, sectarian discords, and even wars.
The Parsees are very proud of this temple of Zaratushta, as they
call Zoroaster. Compared with it the Hindu pagodas look like
brightly painted Easter eggs. Generally they are consecrated to
Hanuman, the monkey-god and the faithful ally of Rama, or to the
elephant headed Ganesha, the god of the occult wisdom, or to one
of the Devis. You meet with these temples in every street. Before
each there is a row of pipals (Ficus religiosa) centuries old,
which no temple can dispense with, because these trees are the
abode of the elementals and the sinful souls.

All this is entangled, mixed, and scattered, appearing to one's
eyes like a picture in a dream. Thirty centuries have left their
traces here. The innate laziness and the strong conservative
tendencies of the Hindus, even before the European invasion,
preserved all kinds of monuments from the ruinous vengeance of the
fanatics, whether those memorials were Buddhist, or belonged to
some other unpopular sect. The Hindus are not naturally given
to senseless vandalism, and a phrenologist would vainly look for
a bump of destructiveness on their skulls. If you meet with
antiquities that, having been spared by time, are, nowadays, either
destroyed or disfigured, it is not they who are to blame, but
either Mussulmans, or the Portuguese under the guidance of the Jesuits.

At last we were anchored and, in a moment, were besieged, ourselves
as well as our luggage, by numbers of naked skeleton-like Hindus,
Parsees, Moguls, and various other tribes. All this crowd emerged,
as if from the bottom of the sea, and began to shout, to chatter,
and to yell, as only the tribes of Asia can. To get rid of this
Babel confusion of tongues as soon as possible, we took refuge
in the first bunder boat and made for the shore.

Once settled in the bungalow awaiting us, the first thing we were
struck with in Bombay was the millions of crows and vultures. The
first are, so to speak, the County Council of the town, whose duty
it is to clean the streets, and to kill one of them is not only
forbidden by the police, but would be very dangerous. By killing
one you would rouse the vengeance of every Hindu, who is always
ready to offer his own life in exchange for a crow's. The souls
of the sinful forefathers transmigrate into crows and to kill one
is to interfere with the law of Karma and to expose the poor
ancestor to something still worse. Such is the firm belief, not
only of Hindus, but of Parsees, even the most enlightened amongst
them. The strange behaviour of the Indian crows explains, to a
certain extent, this superstition. The vultures are, in a way,
the grave-diggers of the Parsees and are under the personal protection
of the Farvardania, the angel of death, who soars over the Tower
of Silence, watching the occupations of the feathered workmen.

The deafening caw of the crows strikes every new comer as uncanny,
but, after a while, is explained very simply. Every tree of the
numerous cocoa-nut forests round Bombay is provided with a hollow
pumpkin. The sap of the tree drops into it and, after fermenting,
becomes a most intoxicating beverage, known in Bombay under the
name of toddy. The naked toddy wallahs, generally half-caste
Portuguese, modestly adorned with a single coral necklace, fetch
this beverage twice a day, climbing the hundred and fifty feet
high trunks like squirrels. The crows mostly build their nests
on the tops of the cocoa-nut palms and drink incessantly out of
the open pumpkins. The result of this is the chronic intoxication
of the birds. As soon as we went out in the garden of our new
habitation, flocks of crows came down heavily from every tree.
The noise they make whilst jumping about everywhere is indescribable.
There seemed to be something positively human in the positions
of the slyly bent heads of the drunken birds, and a fiendish light
shone in their eyes while they were examining us from foot to head.
----------

We occupied three small bungalows, lost, like nests, in the garden,
their roofs literally smothered in roses blossoming on bushes
twenty feet high, and their windows covered only with muslin,
instead of the usual panes of glass. The bungalows were situated
in the native part of the town, so that we were transported, all
at once, into the real India. We were living in India, unlike
English people, who are only surrounded by India at a certain distance.
We were enabled to study her character and customs, her religion,
superstitions and rites, to learn her legends, in fact, to live
among Hindus.

Everything in India, this land of the elephant and the poisonous
cobra, of the tiger and the unsuccessful English missionary, is
original and strange. Everything seems unusual, unexpected, and
striking, even to one who has travelled in Turkey, Egypt, Damascus,
and Palestine. In these tropical regions the conditions of nature
are so various that all the forms of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms must radically differ from what we are used to in Europe.
Look, for instance, at those women on their way to a well through
a garden, which is private and at the same time open to anyone,
because somebody's cows are grazing in it. To whom does it not
happen to meet with women, to see cows, and admire a garden?
Doubtless these are among the commonest of all things. But a
single attentive glance will suffice to show you the difference
that exists between the same objects in Europe and in India. Nowhere
more than in India does a human being feel his weakness and
insignificance. The majesty of the tropical growth is such that
our highest trees would look dwarfed compared with banyans and
especially with palms. A European cow, mistaking, at first sight,
her Indian sister for a calf, would deny the existence of any
kinship between them, as neither the mouse-coloured wool, nor the
straight goat-like horns, nor the humped back of the latter would
permit her to make such an error. As to the women, each of them
would make any artist feel enthusiastic about the gracefulness
of her movements and drapery, but still, no pink and white, stout
Anna Ivanovna would condescend to greet her. "Such a shame, God
forgive me, the woman is entirely naked!"

This opinion of the modern Russian woman is nothing but the echo
of what was said in 1470 by a distinguished Russian traveler, "the
sinful slave of God, Athanasius son of Nikita from Tver," as he
styles himself. He describes India as follows: "This is the land
of India. Its people are naked, never cover their heads, and wear
their hair braided. Women have babies every year. Men and women
are black. Their prince wears a veil round his head and wraps
another veil round his legs. The noblemen wear a veil on one
shoulder, and the noblewomen on the shoulders and round the loins,
but everyone is barefooted. The women walk about with their hair
spread and their breasts naked. The children, boys and girls,
never cover their shame until they are seven years old. . . ."
This description is quite correct, but Athanasius Nikita's son is
right only concerning the lowest and poorest classes. These really
do "walk about" covered only with a veil, which often is so poor
that, in fact, it is nothing but a rag. But still, even the poorest
woman is clad in a piece of muslin at least ten yards long. One
end serves as a sort of short petticoat, and the other covers
the head and shoulders when out in the street, though the faces
are always uncovered. The hair is erected into a kind of Greek
chignon. The legs up to the knees, the arms, and the waist are
never covered. There is not a single respectable woman who would
consent to put on a pair of shoes. Shoes are the attribute and
the prerogative of disreputable women. When, some time ago, the
wife of the Madras governor thought of passing a law that should
induce native women to cover their breasts, the place was actually
threatened with a revolution. A kind of jacket is worn only by
dancing girls. The Government recognized that it would be
unreasonable to irritate women, who, very often, are more dangerous
than their husbands and brothers, and the custom, based on the
law of Manu, and sanctified by three thousand years' observance,
remained unchanged.
----------

For more than two years before we left America we were in constant
correspondence with a certain learned Brahman, whose glory is great
at present (1879) all over India. We came to India to study, under
his guidance, the ancient country of Aryas, the Vedas, and their
difficult language. His name is Dayanand Saraswati Swami. Swami
is the name of the learned anchorites who are initiated into many
mysteries unattainable by common mortals. They are monks who never
marry, but are quite different from other mendicant brotherhoods,
the so-called Sannyasi and Hossein. This Pandit is considered
the greatest Sanskritist of modern India and is an absolute enigma
to everyone. It is only five years since he appeared on the arena
of great reforms, but till then, he lived, entirely secluded, in
a jungle, like the ancient gymnosophists mentioned by the Greek
and Latin authors. At this time he was studying the chief
philosophical systems of the "Aryavartta" and the occult meaning
of the Vedas with the help of mystics and anchorites. All Hindus
believe that on the Bhadrinath Mountains (22,000 feet above the
level of the sea) there exist spacious caves, inhabited, now for
many thousand years, by these anchorites. Bhadrinath is situated
in the north of Hindustan on the river Bishegunj, and is celebrated
for its temple of Vishnu right in the heart of the town. Inside
the temple there are hot mineral springs, visited yearly by about
fifty thousand pilgrims, who come to be purified by them.

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