Kavanagh of Lucknow

Mr. Kavanagh, a clerk, volunteered last night to go out to Alum Bagh with plans and despatches from Sir James Outram; he disguised himself as a native, and reached the place safely. It was a splendid feat of gallantry and a most invaluable service. All the garrison were much delighted to hear that a flag had been hoisted at Alum Bagh, the signal of his having arrived.

- from The Seige of Lucknow, the diaries of Lady Julia Inglis

There were many instances of gallantry and heroics during the siege of Lucknow in 1857. The context, as is well-known, was the mutiny of Indian – largely Mahometan, but also Hindoo – troops against the Britishers, which led to a widespread uprising during which a compound of British citizens – soldiers, their wives and children - in the so-called ‘Residency’ in Lucknow were stranded and held under siege by a murderous mob for over eighteen months. Their situation was harrowing. Large numbers were killed, either by gunfire and artillery or by hunger and disease. They were surrounded on all sides and their enemy was literally tunneling underneath them. If the walls of the compound had been breached, everyone would certainly have been slaughtered. During this terrible ordeal many of the British, but also those Indian troops (Sepoys) who had remained staunch, and especially the Sikhs who stayed loyal throughout, displayed extraordinary bravery, as did those who endeavored to rescue them.

There are numerous accounts of the siege – it is one of the great dramas of British India. The best account by far is found in the diaries of Lady Julia Inglis, the wife of the officer Brigadier Inglis. She was present in the Residency compound, survived the ordeal and lived to publish her story in England many years later. The present writer was in Lucknow recently and visited the ruins of the Residency and read the diaries of Lady Inglis – vivid and detailed – during his visit. 

Modern Indian mythology knows the mutiny as the ‘First War of Independence’, but it was hardly that. The mutineers were unorganized. The rebellion descended into chaos. Mobs ransacked and looted throughout Lucknow and other cities, and there was no nationalist element to the violence – the rebels in Delhi were intent on re-establishing the Mughul Sultanate, not founding an independent Indian state. Certainly, the uprising was provoked by the gross mismanagement of the East India Company – although the spark that ignited it, as Lady Inglis notes, was a rumor that the British had laced the artillery of the new Enfield rifles with pig fat in order to deliberately offend and violate the Mahometans. 

It is clear, though, that the heroes of the day were the stoic British who displayed remarkable courage, nobility and chivalry in the face of swarming barbarity. The siege and the relief of Lucknow are great moments of British civilization. The British, let it be said (contrary to the popular post-colonial narratives of our benighted times), were one of the last people to maintain a cultivated chivalry, and the siege and relief of Lucknow represent compelling instances of it. If anyone doubts this, they should read the diaries of Lady Inglis, which can be found here. Dignity, nobility, courage, honesty, magnanimity, honour, integrity, virtue, decency, fearlessness, patience, valour, hardihood, strength, good humour - in the most appallingly dire and hopeless circumstances. 

The Relief of Lucknow

* * * 

The most unlikely hero of the siege was a wild Irishman by the name of Thomas Kavanagh. His exact origins are uncertain. He was possibly born in India, but in any case he certainly grew up there and so was fluent in Hindi and well-acquainted with local customs. He was one of that wayward class of British citizens who were not connected to the East India Company or the British government and so had no legitimate place in India – “uncovenented” as such people were called. He was a malcontent with a dull job in a clerical office and, by his own account, a wife and family that gave him no satisfaction in life. He was, in truth, an undistinguished character, a ratbag. When the Mutiny broke out in early 1857 he made his way to the Residency compound for shelter, as did other British citizens in fear of their lives (it being unclear what fate befell his family.) It was during the most desperate days of the siege, however, that he rose to the occasion and won himself a place in history.

At a certain point during the darkest days of the siege information reached the Residency that a relief force had managed to force its way to the outskirts of Lucknow, but there was no way to confirm this. Kavanagh then approached Major Outram, the officer in charge, and volunteered to attempt to reach the relief party, if indeed there was one. His proposal was that he disguise himself as a native and, along with his fluency in Hindi and knowledge of Hindoo and Mahometan ways, pass through the enemy lines. It was a mad plan. But it was the only plan they had. In a famous scene, therefore, Major Outram himself – much to the mirth of the other officers present - applied black boot polish to Mr. Kavanagh and helped him wrap a turban about his head. Kavanagh, readers must appreciate, was over six foot tall and had a shock of ginger Irish hair. He made a very unconvincing Indian. 

Nevertheless, he set off in the middle of the night, accompanied by a loyal Sepoy, and armed only with a pistol and two bullets. His journey that night is the stuff of legend. He was stopped several times by hostile forces and even, at one juncture, taken captive and interrogated. Remarkably, he convinced his captors that he was a Hindoo man returning to Lucknow from far away. Then, he became lost, had to swim across the Goomptee River holding his clothes above his head, ended in a swamp where he nearly drowned, until finally, by sheer accident, he stumbled into a camp of British soldiers under the leadership of Sir Colin Campbell at a place called Alum Bagh. This was the relief party of which Major Outram had received unconfirmed information. Kavanagh had managed to get through. It was a decisive moment. He carried dispatches from Major Outram and with these the relief party was able to assess the situation and plan a rescue for those stranded in the Residency. Kavanagh saved the day. 

Kavanagh of Lucknow

Later, Thomas Kavanagh was given a Victoria Cross for bravery – the first non-military person to ever receive that honor. But this honor aside, in the years that followed he returned to his clerical job and undistinguished life, finally leaving India and travelling to Gibraltar where he died and is buried.

* * * 

The author had the good fortune to spend a long warm morning exploring the ruins of the Residency in Lucknow recently. As Indian historical ruins are concerned, they are very well preserved - haunted by the ghosts of those who died during or endured the horrors of the Mutiny. Indeed, it should be said that the Residency is very tastefully presented with due respect to those who died there and without the imposition of Indian nationalist sentiment upon events. The Residency covers many acres and includes numerous buildings, most of them exactly as they were after the Mutiny. The church of St. Mary has been reduced to its foundations, but the cemetery at its side is well cared for. The mosque which was on the grounds of the Residency and which the British respected throughout the seige is not only still standing but is still occupied and in use. Some photographs follow:

Yours truly,

Harper McAlpine Black

Gyanvapi - The Centre of the Centre of the Centre

The centre of the centre of the centre of Shaivite Hindooism is a small, unremarkable well in the courtyard of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple – the “Golden” Temple – popularly called ‘Gyanvapi’ (or Gyan Bajee) - ‘The Well of Knowledge’. Benares – or, to give the city its ancient name, Kashi – is as a whole the spiritual centre of the Hindoo world. All roads lead to Kashi, if only because it is here that Hindoos of all stripes come to die and be cremated and have their ashes committed to the Ganges. To die of natural causes in a certain area of the old city is considered to be so fortunate that the soul that meets this end is liberated from the cycle of birth and death. 

Within Kashi – the old city – there are literally hundreds of temples, but the most sacred of them is the Vishwanath, which is marked atop by golden domes. Within Vishwanath, there is the great lingam of Shiva over which hundreds of gallons of milk are poured every day by a priesthood and an unending stream of pilgrims. But the lingam is not, in fact, the most sacred place in the temple compound. That honour is given to a well nearby – Gyanvapi. There are many deep wells along the west bank of the Ganges, obviously fed underground by the river.

For pious Hindoos, the water of the well, Gyanvapi, is more holy than that of the Ganges. They understand that the location of the well marks the place where the world began and the place that will remain when the world ends. That is, Gyanvapi is the Hindoo axis mundi, the world-axis, the very centre of Hindooism’s extensive and madly complex sacred geography. 

Benares in itself is a microcosm with its own sacred geography. For example there are a network of Ganesh (Elephant) Temples around the Vishwanath Temple that are acting as protectors of the Well of Knowledge. There are also five pilgrim routes around to various places within the city - usually to sacred linga - and each route has the well of Knowledge at its centre. 

It is a location steeped in controversy. The Vishwanath Temple that accompanies the sacred well has been sacked and destroyed at several times in its history. The survival of the well in spite of this history is part of its sanctity. It is said that at one sacking the god Shiva himself retired into the well, ‘hiding’ from the invaders. Thus, his ‘presence’ is in the well itself.

The most recent desecration was at the hands of the Mughuls under Orangzeb who tore down the temple and used its stone to construct parts of the Gyanvapi mosque. The mosque is still standing on what (we think) was the original location of the Temple. The current Temple is more recent and sits very un comfortably next to the intruding mosque.

This had made it a flashpoint at several times for Hindoo partisans who seek to correct the historical impositions of the Mahometans. Some have proposed that the mosque should be reclaimed for the Hindoos. This is, after all, the single most sacred area in the cosmos for the Shaivite Hindoo, whereas for the Mahometans it is an undistinguished mosque built by a tyrant as a deliberate affront to the Hindoo faith. 

(The political expression of these Hindoos, let us note, is the BJP party. The official policy of the party is that Hindoos should be able to reclaim any mosque the Mahometans are no longer using. But as the Mahometans insist on keeping the Gyanvapi as an active mosque, the Vishwanath Temple compound is not in that category. Therein is the on-going but low-level friction.)

At the present time, as this author can report, the Vishwanath Temple – and the Gyanpavi Mosque – are under very tight security. There are walls of soldiers and checkpoints. This is India’s version of the ‘Temple Mount’ issue in Jerusalem – a Mahometan building has been constructed on top of someone’s most sacred temple creating a weeping sore of tension and disputes ever after.

The author is renting a room (for $8 a night) literally fifty yards from the Vishwanath Temple (and the Annapoona Temple which is part of the same complex.) He has been watching the pilgrims coming and going, and all the sundry paraphernalia connected with the temple, for three weeks. Every morning he steps out into the laneway to be greeted by long lines of eager pilgrims from all over India – whole familes of them - holding little cups of milk and garlands of flowers. On the corner are half a dozen soldiers with high-powered weapons. In amongst everyone are porters and wallahs and sadhus and beggars and cows.

There are areas of the Temple compound that are officially closed to foreigners, although many people seem to ignore the injunction. There is, all the same, a white marble marker on the side wall of one section saying, ‘GENTLEMEN NOT OF THE HINDOO FAITH ARE REQUESTED NOT TO ENTER’. The author, being a gentleman, and not of the Hindoo faith, respected the request. 

It is remarkable how much one can read about Shaivism – even by scholars who lived and worked in Benares – and yet never read an account of the utterly central importance of this place in Shaivite piety. The act of centring is fundamental to Shaivite piety. The lingham – the sacred icon of this mode of Hindooism – is in itself an emblem of (and functionally a marker for) the axis mundi – this is why the linga of Benares are aligned to the north pole. These dimensions of Shaivite piety are Hyperborean. The essential religious gesture of this piety is to turn to the centre, turn to the axis, turn to the source. Centre–axis–source is symbolized by the Gyanvapi well, the very Font of Knowledge. Shaivism is axial - and here in Benares is the axis.

The photos of this page are historical. Photography is absolutely point-a-machinegun-in-your-face forbidden anywhere near the Well of Knowledge today.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Why Benares is sacred

Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend – and it looks twice as old as all of them put together.

- Mark Twain

The sanctity of Benares extends back into the historical past and well beyond. Human occupation at this location – on the west bank of the Ganges river between the Varang River in the north and the Asi River at the south (hence Varan-asi = between the Varang and the Asi) has been continuous for over 3000 years at least, and throughout that time it has always been regarded as a sacred place. Hindoos regard it as the most sacred city in India, the city that is itself a prayer, the city of Shiva.

What, though, makes it sacred? Why is this particular location especially holy? The entire Ganges River – Mother Ganga - is sacred, of course, but this particular area of the river is regarded as most sacred of all. Why?

One can read many explanations, most of them mythological, and most of them unhelpful. It was not until the present author actually came to the city and looked at its location – its topography – and experienced it as a place, that the answer to this question became obvious. And simple. There is a simple reason why Benares is a sacred place, and it is immediately plain to anyone who goes there and views the landscape. 

The reason is this: it is at this point in the Ganga valley – and only at this point – that the river changes direction and flows northward. At Benares the Ganges turns around and flows directly south to north with the city on the western bank. That is, it aligns itself to the celestial axis and its course suddenly conforms to the north/south/east/west alignments. Moreover – and this is the key point – by turning to flow northward the river seems to turn back to her source. This only happens here. It is the conspicuous feature of the landscape. One expects the river to be flowing south towards the sea, but at Benares it flows the other way, towards the Himalayas. One stands on the ghat watching the river. It flows the opposite way to what one expects. The Ganges – as it were – turns back upon itself, turns from its inevitable downhill south-eastwards flow, and goes briefly northwards, back towards the mountains from which she came.

The key idea is: returning to the source. The Ganges turning back northwards is a geographical expression of the idea – inherently spiritual in its implications - of returning to the source. The source is the mountains of the north, the Himalayas. But by extension the northern mountains point to, or imply, the northern pole. The mountains of the north are axial. They represent the celestial pole and the Ganga, then, correlates to its Milky Way. Such is the most fundamental (Hyperborean) symbolism at the heart of Hindoo spirituality. 

This order of symbolism is, it happens, especially Shaivite. The Lord Shiva is identified with the northern pole. Thus it is said that wherever Shiva looks, he looks south. The Shiva lingham, accordingly, is aligned northwards. This is easily observed in a place like Benares – a city hosting countless Shiva linghams. The shaft of the lingham is axial and so represents the pole (and the mountain). The yoni which supports it, and which collects and drains the offerings of milk poured over the lingham, represents the Milky Way/Ganga. The neck of the yoni is aligned northwards. The guardian bull, Nandi, usually stands in the same alignment. Every Shiva lingham refers to the celestial north, and the entire symbol refers to the basic correspondences between the stars and the earthly terrain. On the basis of this symbolism, the city of Benares – on the northward flowing turn of the Ganges – is sacred to Shiva.

There is a secondary reason that explains why the location should be sacred to Shiva, of all gods. This is a conspicuous feature of the riverscape as well. It is this: the valley that extends from the Sarang River to the Asi River is naturally crescent shaped. This can be seen very clearly from any highpoint in the present city and it must have been very apparent from on top the rocky rises on the west bank of the river before the city was ever there. In the hazy distance the river winds in a perfect steady curve. Its course has not changed for thousands of years because it here meets and is guided by a solid bedrock of hard sedimentary stone – the same stone from which the temples and steps and laneways of the city have been constructed. Where the river flows northwards – making the gesture of returning to the source – and flows against a long, perfect crescent of bedrock stone – there is the city of Shiva, Shiva who wears a crescent on his forehead. It is here that the riverscape forms an almost perfect crescent of Shiva. 

Above. The author's photograph of the northern cremation ghat in Benares where the cremation workers perform over 300 cremations per day. Hindoos are cremated here and their ashes are strewn in the Ganges. It is as a place signifying return to the source that Benares has served as a cremation ground for thousands of years. In Benares the river seems to be flowing back to its source - it is therefore a place for the dead and dying. 

* * * 

There are two truly worthy guides to Benares in print that the author strongly recommends. The first is the ultimate study of the city by Mdm. Mireille-Josephine Guezennee which at this time is only available in French. Madam Guezennee, a French academic also known by her Hindoo initiatory named Himabindu, has visited Benares for over twenty years and made a profound study of the city. The present author first met her Calcutta several months ago and discussed aspects of her work, and her deep love for Benares, at some length. She was kind enough to give the author tips on what to see and who to meet there. Her book, published with the assistance of UNESCO, subtitled An Initiatory Voyage to the Spiritual Capital of India, extends to over 500 pages and includes hundreds of Himabindu's own photographs. 

The second book is a 'Spiritual & Cultural Guide' to the Benares region by Rana P. B. Singh and Pravin S. Rana. This is the essential text for any visitor to the city who has more than a passing interest in the spiritual and religious character of Benares and the extended region thereabout. It is an excellent practical guide that includes intelligent, detailed, informative descriptions of the cosmogonic and religious landscape. It gives an account of all the major temples, and many of the minor ones, along with their history, significance and symbolism.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Kabir the Weaver

There is, it is estimated, some 20,000+ Hindoo temples and shrine in Benares. This is not to mention the mosques and other Mahometan holy places. There is more religion per square inch in Benares than any other city on earth. The city has survived on the religion business for thousands of years. That, and weaving. Specifically the weaving of silk. For many hundreds of years Benares has been the silk weaving centre of India and one of the silk capitals of the world. Benares produces exquisite silks. Every Indian you meet in Benares is either in the religion business, or he wants to sell you a silk scarf.

These two industries - religion and weaving - come together in the figure of Kabir, the city's favorite son. It is uncertain in exactly what year he was born, and the whole matter is mired in legend to the extent that we cannot be sure about anything about him, but every tradition asserts that he was born in Benares, and most traditions assert, furthermore, that he was the son of a Mahometan weaver. Accordingly, by tradition, and on the evidence of the images and metaphors in his poems, he was a weaver. He wove silk throughout his long life.

There is no need to rehearse his full biography here. It is very well known. He is the most quoted poet in India - outside of the sacred canon - and he enjoys an enthusiastic readership in the West as well. He is counted as one of the major figures in the Bhakti (devotional) movement in early modern Hindooism and is widely revered as one of the great mystics of the world. He was persecuted and condemned for his irreverent attacks upon official religion and advocated a devotional non-dualism rooted in Advaita Vedanta.

The context of his opposition to religious formalism is to be found in Benares. The city is filled with pilgrims and devotees, and they busy themselves with temple attending and ritual observances. It is easy to imagine that a certain temperament of the spirit – such as we find in an especially pure and natural form in Kabir – could rebel against the cults of external practice and insist that the real temple is within. He links this to the non-dualist doctrine that identifies the self with the Self, atman with Brahman. His poetry explores the paradoxes that follow from this truth. He advocates a path of love.

The modern enthusiasm for Kabir, however, is responding to a different context altogether. The present author views it with suspicion. There is no question that the “real” Temple is within, and that external observances are empty without the participation of the heart – all religion, finally, is internal – but what would modern people know about any observances anymore? It is strange to find people who have never been to a church or a temple or a mosque in their numb secular lives reading Kabir and cheering every time he slags off the Brahmins and the Imams. Kabir was criticizing an age of excessive ritual; why he is so popular in an age of no ritual at all? When he sings “you will not find God in cathedrals, or masses, or synagogues…” why do modern readers thrill with approval and agreement? What would they know about a stultifying ritual formalism? 

In Benares, where the author presently resides, though, Kabir’s critique has an obvious and legitimate relevance. One sees sadhus who are devoted to severe austerities as a means to salvation. One sees Brahmin priests muttering long incantations of Sanskrit before images of the Monkey God. There are statues and idols and icons at every turn. One does not need to be occupied with it all for very long before one needs to be reminded that, in the end, all that is really required is a simple movement of the heart. Men go to extraordinary lengths in search of God, but in reality God is always present and easily accessed – no contortions and austerities required.

That is not a modern man’s predicament. Modern man is senseless with comfort and ease and remote from any real religious feeling. He has never experienced austerities or tied himself into contortions. He doesn’t go on pilgrimage. He doesn’t fast at Lent or go to Mass on his knees. He reads a poet like Kabir through the lens of his ego, seeking approval and endorsement for his spiritual indolence. Kabir, today, is just a baby boomer’s excuse not to go to Church anymore and to indulge in the thought that he will be saved just for being nice.

* * * 

The author has collected together lines from various Kabir poems on the theme of the inner path in the City of Temples, and has strung them together as follows:


WHEREVER YOU ARE IS THE ENTRY POINT

Wherever you are is the entry point.
Throw away all thoughts of imaginary things
and stand firm in that which you are.

Whether you are in the temple or in the balcony,
in the camp or the flower garden,
every moment your Lord is taking His delight in you.

If God is within the mosque, 

then to whom does the rest of the world belong?
If Ram is within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage,
then who is there to know what happens outside?
Hari is in the East, Allah is in the West.
Look within your heart,
There you will find both Karim and Ram;
All the men and women of the world are His living forms.
Kabir is the child of Allah and of Ram:
God is my Guru, God is my Pir.

You don't grasp the fact that 

what is most alive of all is inside your own house;
and you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

Kabir will tell you the truth: 

go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet;
if you can't find where your soul is hidden,
the world will never be real to you!

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

The home is the abiding place;
in the home is reality;
the home helps to attain Him Who is real.
So stay where you are,
All things shall come to you in time.

If a mirror ever makes you sad
you should know that it does not know you.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Cow Protection

We have searched the Turk's religion, 

These teachers throw many thunderbolts,

Recklessly they display boundless pride, 

while explaining their own aims, they kill cows.

How can they kill the mother, 

whose milk they drink like that of a wet nurse?

The young and the old drink milk pudding, 

but these fools eat the cow's body.

These morons know nothing, they wander about in ignorance,

Without looking into one's heart, 

how can one reach paradise?

— Kabir

Although it hosts a number of minority religious communities, notably the Mahometans – about a fifth of the population -, Benares is the quintessentially Hindoo city. Accordingly – as the author's photographs on this page illustrate - its laneways and streets and river steps (ghats) abound with cows, sacred to the Hindoo. The author currently resides in Benares; the sight of cows wandering by as he sits in cafes and lassi houses and strolls the streets is one of the most conspicuous features of the experience. 

The cow is protected under Hindoo religious codes and in some places under civil law, although this is a matter of contemporary controversy. The sanctity of the cow in India is ancient, but in the Middle Ages, corresponding with the invasions of the beef-eating Mughuls, cow protection came to prominence as a touchstone of Hindoo religiosity. Then, during British rule, the Cow Protection Movement, started in 1892 by Swami Dayananda, famously agitated for an end to the slaughter and eating of cows, bringing the issue to the very forefront of Hindoo identity. Today, Hindoo nationalists are again vocal on the matter, and some state jurisdictions have recently banned the consumption of beef. Modern India is a nation where McDonald’s stores assure customers that their burgers are ‘100% Beef Free’. 

Cow protection, however, is, and always has been, perceived as an attack upon the rights of the Mahometans who have often responded angrily to restrictions on beef eating. When the British, conceding to Hindoo demands to some degree and seeking to regulate the matter, ordered that Mahometans would need to register for permission to slaughter cows, riots broke out all over northern India. Beef is explicitly mentioned in the Koran as a permitted food, and for Mahometans in Hindoostan beef-eating is an emblem of freedom from what they deem as Hindoo idolatry. Any restrictions on eating beef is seen as a direct assault upon the Mahometan faith. In a modern context, moreover, it is seen as an attack upon the rights of a minority religion in an ostensibly secular and multi-faith polity. 

This is a particularly volatile issue under the strongly Hindoo Prime Ministership of Mr. Modi (who, incidentally, the present author saw in person during his visit to the Ganges several days ago.) There has been renewed agitation for cow protection in recent times, to which Mr. Modi has given his tacit (unspoken) approval. This has outraged secular Leftists who are – as they are in the West - siding with and speaking for the Mahometans and the complaint of “Islamophobia”. The conservative Mr. Modi represents a resurgent Hindoo identity – but given the religious demographics of India this is necessarily at the expense of the Mahometans. It is said that Mr. Modi is the first truly Hindoo leader of this land in 500 years. First there were the Moghuls, then the British, and since independence the secular Leftists of the Congress Party have dominated. Mr. Modi is an advocate for a more Hindoo India and champions the nation’s Hindoo heritage. He is loved and loathed for the same. In any case, once again cow protection has become a symbolic issue, a dividing line in the struggle for India’s soul. 

While there are no doubt complexities to the issue, the present author is generally but cautiously sympathetic to the cause of the Hindoos in this case – or at least he resists the excesses of the relativism that now defines (and distorts) the (ever-outraged) political Left. The immutable fact is that Mother India is, if not officially a Hindoo nation, then most definitely a Hindoo majority one, and this – by the very nature of things - demands some recognition. Reality trumps ideology.

The Hindooness of India – ancient, primordial, autochthonous - is an inescapable reality and it is an impossible absurdity for India not to have a Hindoo identity. Hindooism is in the soil. Secular India is a contrivance. The principle involved here is that the rights of minority groups, though important, cannot be allowed to dissolve the identity of the dominant culture, or else – as we see in the cringing cultural sickness that besets the West today - a society descends very quickly into the churning quicksand of relativism. 

By all means, the ever-present shadow of overbearing chauvinism is to be avoided, but minorities are still minorities, and to suppose that they are ‘equals’ in a total sense is a dangerous abstraction. The necessary protection of minorities under law should not be at the expense of a strong and vibrant dominant culture. No society should indulge in self-harm in order to accommodate diversity. You do not shoot your foot off to make the lame equals. Diversity – religious, ethnic, linguistic – is always a negotiated balance of factors, but there is no sense in pretending that there is not, and should not be, a dominant player in the arrangement. Of course there is. And in multi-faith India, it is Hindooism. The Mahometans, the Sikhs, others, are minorities, and it is proper that they admit this and understand it is a fact of life. They remain partners in modern India, but by the sheer force of numbers – not to mention history – they can never be ‘equals’ in the total sense. 

Arguably, in any case, modern India has already conceded too much. This is the argument of the Hindoo advocates. As any Hindoo will remind you, independence surrendered a good third of India – the whole Indus valley and the Ganges delta, no less! – to the Mahometans by way of the east and west Pakistans. The entire rationale of those Muslim-only nations was that the Mahometans – like a peculiar species that needs its own special habitat - could not bear a shared identity. India, in contrast, settled on a multi-faith modernity, and very deliberately chose not to be ‘Hindoo’ in any official sense. Pakistan – an appalling mess from the beginning, to be frank - is an ‘Islamic Republic’ (of which there is not a single successful example anywhere in the world), but India, let us note, is not a ‘Hindoo Republic’. And nor – so this writer believes, insofar it is any of his business - should it be. But, for all of that, it remains a Hindoo majority nation, and this fact must mean something. 

The sanctity of the cow is the issue at hand. Is it too much to ask of the Mahometans that they eat mutton? Religious tensions rise whenever a cow wanders into the Muslim quarter of the city and duly disappears into the butcher shops. The present author has seen actual cases of this in Calcutta and elsewhere. Slaughtered cows, herded from the streets, are strung up in butcher’s shops in the laneways around the mosque. The Hindoos rightly see this as provocation and sacrilege. The Mahometan, in response, holds up his Koran and cries “Halal! Halal!” – beef is permitted by Allah! Maybe so, but it ignores the fact that, whatever the ideals of the secular nation might be, Islam is a minority faith living under the ecumenical umbrella of Hindoo hospitality. And where, in any case, does Allah say that beef-eating is required? Mahometans choose to eat beef. They need not. It is surely a matter of respect to their Hindoo compatriots and neighbours that they refrain from doing so. Would it hurt for Mahomatens to say, "The cow is sacred to you. Okay, we'll eat chicken."? No one is asking the Mahometans to become vegetarians, as good Hindoos are. The Hindoos understand that they are meat eaters. But the cow is sacred. 

The present author eats beef too – but not when he is in India. He is in a Hindoo majority nation. He modifies his behavior according to this fact. He doesn’t march into a McDonald’s and demand a quarter pounder as one of his inalienable human rights. Respect.Not to mention prudence. 

True, the author is a visitor to India, whereas Mahometan Indians are full citizens, which implies equality, but – once again – this “equality” is an abstraction that is, at best, an ideal rather than a reality, and it does not apply to all things or prevail in all domains, except as an approximation. Any member of any minority in any polity knows this as a fact of existence, which is merely to say we do not and cannot ever live in an ideal world. All the mischief of life consists in refusing to acknowledge this. The most dangerous people in the world are those who want to force abstractions upon the gritty facts of life. The rights of a minority do not negate the right of a majority to maintain a living culture. Whatever ideals of “equality” and other abstractions we entertain, minorities must always adjust to the legitimate dominance of a majority, if not in theory, certainly in practice.

Mahometans deserve to be equal partners in modern India, but they need to appreciate that Hindooism was here long before the arrival of Islam and that Hindoo spirituality - to which the sanctity of the cow is emblematic - is the very essence of the land. This is nowhere more apparent than in the sacred city of Benares. Is the Ganga sacred to Islam? We have reached an impasse in Indian history at which a responsibility falls upon the Mahometans to recognise the reality of Hindoo India and to accommodate it to the potentially (but tragically unfulfilled) universalism of the Islamic spiritual perspective. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Alice Boner of Benares

Alice Boner 1889-1981

There are many wonderful treasures in the extensive and well-curated collection of the museum at Benares Hindu University, the Bharat Kala Bhavan, including a superb display of original paintings by the ‘Master of Mountains’ Nicholas Roerich, but a surprise treasure is the exhibition dedicated to the life and work of the Swiss artist Alice Boner. Miss Boner made Benares her home for several decades, living in a small house at Assi Ghat in the south of the city, and immersed herself in the spiritual and artistic culture of both the city and, by extension, India as a whole. Few Europeans of her generation had such a deep and profound acquaintance with India and with Hindooism. The exhibition celebrates her own work – sculpture and painting – as well as her intellectual engagement with traditional India art.

Her time in Benares, and her struggle to synthesize her European identity with her deep feelings for Hindoo spirituality, is recorded in her extensive dairies (written in part in German, but mainly in English) which have now been published thus:

Much of her intellectual work was devoted to translating and publishing a long forgotten Hindoo text, the Vastusutra Upanishad, which she regarded as a key to traditional Hindoo aesthetics and image making:

Miss Boner spent years studying Hindoo temple architecture and traditional sculpture in an attempt to ascertain their geometrical underpinnings. Most of her published writings are on this topic. She believed she had identified the geometric principles that form the basis for the traditional Hindoo plastic arts.

Although she was herself trained as a sculptor, and there are many fine examples of her work on display at the exhibition at the Bharat Kala Bhavan, she explains in her diaries that sculpture proved too slow as a medium for her rapid assimilation of Hindoo aesthetic principles. Accordingly, she turned to drawing and to painting. The feature of the exhibition in Benares today is her masterwork, a triptych on metaphysical and mythological themes entitled Prakriti-Visvarupa-Kali. A picture of the triptych in situ can be seen below. Unfortunately, no detailed digital images of this substantial and very powerful work is available at this time, and the Bharat Kala Bhavan is most meticulous in the ‘No photography’ policy. The beauty and depth of the painting must therefore remain a mystery to readers online, until they can see it for themselves. 

A quotation by Miss Boner displayed with the work says that traditional aesthetics appeal first and foremost to transcendental principles and metaphysical realities, and that if a work of art is also beautiful it is so because it is true. Beauty is truth and truth beauty, as Keats wrote. The Alice Boner triptych exemplifies this fact. She devoted over a decade to its completion. An exploration of the three metaphysical principles of Hindooism – creation, consolidation, destruction - its unquestionable beauty is incidental to its penetrating truth. 

It is surprising that Alice Boner's work - both her visual work and her intellectual studies - are not more widely appreciated, especially among those with an interest in sacred art and sacred geometry, fields to which she dedicated her life and made a profound and enduring contribution. The permanent exhibition at Bharat Kala Bhavan is a very fine monument to her work and celebrates her as one of the most important European denizens of Benares in the twentieth century.


Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Benares of James Prinsep

British India produced many genius orientalists, but few with such innate talent and breadth as Mr. James Prinsep. He showed great aptitude for drawing and draughtsmanship at an early age but had weak eyesight and so was directed away from the visual arts to a career as a metallurgist and assayist. It was as an assayist working for the British Mint that he ventured to India and took a position in Benares. There he became deeply interested in early Indian coins which led him to decipher the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts, the feat of scholarship for which he is most renowned. 

But, in Benares, he also made extensive drawings and engravings of the sacred city and accomplished much else in both the humanities and the sciences. His drawings and lithographs are some of the finest ever made by an orientalist artist, a sublime record of British Benares. In an age where our intellectual elites are poisoned with post-colonial resentment, however, his genius and achievements have been forgotten. Few remember James Prinsep now, though he would have been an extraordinary character in any age. His contribution to the Benares and to its people was profound. More generally, he made a substantial contribution to a wide range of disciplines - a polymath of great imagination and talent. 

The life and times of this unsung hero - and the life and times of Benares, the most sacred city of the Hindoos - is presented in a charming documentary entitled The Benares of James Princep, thus:

The description of the movie:

James Prinsep landed in india in 1819.

He came to work in the mint as an essay master for the East India Company but destiny had bigger plans.

Truly a man for all seasons, his genius blossomed as an artist,linguist,architect,translator,wri­ter,engineer and scientist.

He died at the age of 40.

His brilliance has been ignored by the world.

May this documentary shed light on him and the holy city that he loved.

Readers can find a trailer and instalment of the movie here. 

* * * 

The present writer, having moved along from a week-long sojourn in Boodh Gaya, is now residing for a while in mystical Benares and is privileged to spend his days - especially his mornings - strolling along the ghats on the banks of the Ganges. He is pleased to report that, although less treed, spotted with graffiti and advertising, and suffering the usual cement degradations of Indian modernity, little of substance has changed on the riverfront since the time of James Prinsep. The city is thousands of years old, one of the oldest continually occupied cities in the world. The old city sections with its narrow streets - as opposed to modern commercial extensions - have remained more or less intact since the time of the British Raj. Some things, such as the open-air cremation grounds on the river banks, have remained unchanged since Vedic times. 

The following are some of Mr. Prinsep's engravings of the ghats and other features of Benares. Readers should click on the image for a larger version of each...

* * * 

The Prinsep Monument in Calcutta which, regrettably, is now dwarfed by the new bridge across the Hoogley.

James Prinsep became ill in India and returned to Britain to recover. Alas, he  died a young and untimely death in 1840. News of his demise was greeted with consternation throughout British India, and a beautiful monument was built in his honour beside the Hoogley River in Calcutta. The present author has spent time there too, and along the Prinsep Ghat which is, without question, one of the loveliest parts of Calcutta today. It is now gratifying to be in Benares to see first hand the faithfulness of Prinsep's renderings of the architecture of this ancient and most extraordinary of cities. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

The Decline of the Mahant of Boodh Gaya

Herein is the problem. At the Mahant's College these feet are presented as the sacred imprint of Vishnoo. Across the road at the Mahbodhi Temple the Boodhists present the same relics as the footprints of Lord Boodha.

There is another story to be told concerning the revitalization of the great Mahabodhi Temple in Boodh Gaya. The British, as related in a previous post, created the archaeological and administrative circumstances that allowed the Boodhists of the world to reclaim the long neglected temple complex – location of the revered Peepel Tree under which Sakyamooni Boodha attained enlightenment – but this, it must be related, was at the expense of the local Hindoos. The temple had long been under the ownership of the local Mahant (priest) and had been loosely and somewhat incongruously incorporated into the region’s network of Shiva temples and Math (Hindoo monasteries). 

Generally, the Mahant had neglected the Mahabodhi complex although, as Sir Arthur Cunningham who conducted the authoritative archaeological survey of the site relates, he seems to have sometimes used it as a source of stone, statuary and other building materials. Certainly, the Mahant had no need of it for explicitly Hindoo purposes – except that Lord Boodha, much like Krishma, is regarded by Hindoos as an incarnation of Vishnoo – and there were, until the late 19th C., no local Boodhists or pilgrims in any substantial number needing to use it. The movement to restore the temple noted this fact and sought ways to arrest control of the place from the Mahant who was, at the time, the most powerful man in the district. This proved a more difficult task than had been hoped. In the end it took over a century of difficult legal proceedings before the temple was finally taken from the Mahant’s sole jurisdiction and put in the hands of a governing committee. 

It must be said that the Mahant did not play his cards well. There were many points at which he could have sold the complex to Boodhist interests at a very substantial price. This, for a time, was the solution preferred by the British. But he had no interest in selling and instead squandered his resources and store of good will on court cases that ultimately went against him. Even then, in the 1950s, he wanted to challenge the rulings in the Supreme Court of India. This won him the ire of Prime Minister Nehru who, losing patience, intervened and threatened to investigate the legality of the Mahant’s other land holdings if he did not desist and leave the site to the Boodhists. 

The Mahant in question.

The impasse required a compromise. It was determined that the complex would be administered by a committee of equal numbers of Boodhists and Hindoos, of which the Mahant would only be one. The Mahant was aggrieved by this solution but so too were the Boodhists who had hoped for exclusive control without Hindoo involvement. This remains so to this day. They argue that the Hindoos have no real claim to the sacred site and that it belongs to the Boodhist sanga. They would like Hindoo oversight ended altogether. The Mahant, on the contrary, claims an historical right as well as some religious justifications.

The politics of this controversy is complicated but, essentially, leftist intellectuals in India – insufferably self-righteous and verbose at the best of times – side with the Boodhists, while Hindoo nationalists - pig-headed chauvanists in the main - side with the Mahant. He feels that his property has been confiscated by force, that he has been elbowed out by over-bearing Boodhist peaceniks, and most recently by UNESCO who have claimed the site for World Heritage listing.

It need not have been this way. The Japanese sage, Tenshen – mentioned in earlier posts on this web log – proposed, in the early 1900s, that the site ought to be a joint Shiva/Boodha temple shared by Hindoos and Boodhists with the claims of both faiths given due recognition. This pan-Asian view did not prevail. Instead, the Hindoos and Boodhists, Brahmins and Lamas, went their separate ways, or at least settled on an uncomfortable and awkward detente.

In this, though, the Mahant in fact lost out. Over the course of the entire affair his position has been much diminished and a once thriving centre of Shiva spirituality adjoining the actual Mahabodhi site has been displaced and overshadowed by the sprawling  majesty of the new Boodhist pilgrim theme park. The triumphant restorationism of the Boodhists has, in fact, been at the Hindoos expense. Very much so, as the present author has witnessed for himself. Not only has the booming Boodhist pilgrim trade in Boodh Gaya left the local Hindoo population impoverished – as this author related a few posts ago – but the former glory of the Mahant now lies in ruins. 

Leaving the Mahabodhi complex, following the pathways through the market and then the back streets behind the high walls – areas the pilgrims rarely venture – the author chanced upon a fortress-like building with wide, heavy gates that clearly was once somewhere important. Inside, he has shown around – for a few hundred rupees - by a cheerful but mute Indian man who managed to communicate that the building – quite vast – was the ‘college’ of the Mahant and the remains of an old Math and Shiva Temples. It is in considerable disarray. History books tell us that there was once a time when the Mahant was greeted in the streets outside by merchants and wallahs and shoppers and pedestrians stopping, standing and bowing in his honour. The College – along the banks of the river - was a thriving complex with over 300 students at a time and the Math was an important way station for wandering Shaivite sadhoos. Now the Mahant collects rent but has no real power and the college is almost deserted. The Math is entirely in ruins and the vast ‘Cobra Garden’ - which was clearly once magnificent - is a jungle, except for areas being used as a market garden.

Photographs of the Mahant's college follow. They can be compared with pictures of the beautiful restoration of the Boodhist's Mahabodhi complex just a stone's throw away. The wheel has turned. The Boodhist's fortunes have been reversed, but so have those of the local Hindoos who were clearly the losers. It is a great pity that the prosperity of one party meant the decline of the other. While it is a matter of some wonderment that the Boodhist world has had its omphalos restored after many long centuries, it is a great pity that the Mahant's college and the Shiva Temples of Boodh Gaya are now rotting in poverty and neglect. 

The compound of the Mahant's religious college.

The college in relation to the Mahabodhi Temple at the rear.

The Mahant's throne today. (That is a real tiger's skin.)

In a second floor area there is a gallery of old photographs that tell the history of the building and also the Mahant and his relationship with the Mahabodhi complex.

Shiva shrines

All that is left of the Math (Monastery)

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black