Notes of some wanderings with the Swami Vivekananda

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

WITH THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
MY _SISTER NIVEDITA OF
RAMKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA.

Author of " The IVcb of Indian Life " ;

" The Civic and National Ideals" ;

" Cradle- Tales of Hinduism " ;

"T/ie Master as I saw Him" &*c.

AUTHORISED EDITION,
1913.

EDITED BY THE SWAMI SARADANANDA

ITBLISHKI) liV THE BRAILMACI1ARI GONENDRA NATH :
UDBODHAN OFFICE : BAGHBA/AR, CALCUTTA

All rights reserved

Printed by K. C. Ghose at the Lakshmi Printing WorJ
64-1, 64-2, Sukea Street, Calcutta.

PREFACE.

In presenting this little book of the late Sister
Nivedita to the public, the Editor has taken care to
correct only a few minor inaccuracies as regards
facts that crept into it, when it appeared as a
series of articles in the Brahmavadin of Madras,
The Chapter headings and a short Synopsis of the
contents of each chapter are also his ; and the
letter has been joined to the book, to make it con
venient for the reader to find out things dealt
with in it, whenever' he feels so disposed. In
conclusion he hopes that the book, which offers
bright glimpses of the yet undiscovered nooks of
the private life of the great Swami Vivekananda,
and the period of training through which the much
lamented Sister Nivedita had to pass in the hands
bf her Master, ere she came out before the
public gaze as the wonderful champion of truth
and justice and righteousness and of the cause of
India— will meet with the warm reception at the
hands of the public, that it fully deserves.

SARA DAN AN DA.

•,

CONTENTS.

FOREWORD.

Foreword written at the year's end : How the Ideal became
the Real during the year 1898 at Belur, at Nainital and Almora,
.and lastly at different places in Kashmir : The privilege of seeing
the world through the eyes of a great personality 'listening to all,
feeling with all and refusing none' : The unique personality of
the Swami Vivekananda as it appeared to his western desciples and
others at the time and the back ground which set it in strong
relief : Effects of studying him thus at close quarters. Pages 1-5

CHAPTER I

THE HOME ON THE GANGES.

A running description of the Home and its surroundings :
Visits of the monks : The Master (Vivekananda) and his methods
of education and rousing a new religious consciousness in the
minds of his western pupils— never trying to soften things Indian
repellant at first sight and conversation on any subject always ending
in the infinite Adwaita : On nation-building, and Siva and Uma :
Glimpses of God-Intoxication : A visit to Sarada Devi : Inftia-
tion of Miss M. E. Noble into the life of a Brahmachdrini : The
Master's going to Darjeeling and return after the first Plague de
clarations at Calcutta : The signs of the times. ... *Pages 6-17

CHAPTER II

AT NAINI TAL AND ALMORA.

•

The two parties leaving Howrah and the first sight of the
Himalayas : Nainital : Our introduction to the Maharaja of
Khetri : The incident of the Dancing girls : A mahamedan

11

gentleman's feeling about the Swami : The dominant notes of
Raja Ram Mohan Roy's message to India : Their acceptance by
the Swami : How the dancing girls came to pay their respects
to the Master : The incident of the nautch girl at Khetri : The
journey to Almora : The morning talks of the Swami : The
strange new element that crept in at this time in Miss Noble's
relation with the Master, of bitterness and distrust on one side,
and irritation and defiance on the other : How it began and
how it ended : The form adopted in these mornfng-talks —
comparative review of East and West and assaults on deep-rooted
pre-conceptions. ... ... ... Pages 18-28-

CHAPTER III
MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA.

The first morning talk on 'The central ideals of civilisations' —
in the West, 'Truth', in the East, 'Chastity' : The four
kinds of national functions performed by different nations : Talks
on Indian history ? On the Moghuls : The Master's epigram des
cribing the Taj : Opinion about Shah Jehan and Akbar : On China
and Oriental untruthfulness : On Italy, Sivaji and the Aryans :
Author's remarks on the fascination of Indian scholars for
questions of Ethnology : The Master's treatment of old Indian
History as a struggle between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas :
On the Kyasthas of Bengal and Buddhism : On Buddha, and the
vision of the Swami regarding him : On Amba Pali, the courte
san : On Bhakti : On the Babists of Persia : On the high poten
tiality of love that seeks no personal expression : On God as the
Universe ; Siva and Uma : Stories from the Puranas — Suka Deva :
On Pundit Vidyisagar and David Hare : Influence of Christi
anity on the Swami's life : Funny stories — on spirit-seance and
the American Engineer : The Swami's longing for quiet : Blessing
the Sister Nivedita : End of the sprained relationship : Death

. • •

111

of Mr. J. J. Goodwin : The Swami's return after a week's retire
ment : On the death of Pavahari Baba : On the folly of imagin
ing a Personal Will guiding the universe : On God as the Eter
nal Magistrate, having no rest : On Bhakti without renunciation
as pernicious : On proverty and Self-mastery for the soul that
would wed the Eternal Bride-groom : Renunciation is not akin
to the morbid idea of worshipping pain : The Hindu Ideal of
transcending both pleasure and pain : On the peculiar character
istic of the Hindu Culture in having devotion to a spiritually con
sistent idea even if it has no objective actuality : On Krishna, the
most perfect of Avatars : The deep impression of the Krishna-
myth on India : Memorial to Mr. J, J. Goodwin— Requiescat in
pace : The last after-noon at Almora and the story of the fatal
illness of Sri Ramakrishna. ... ... Pages 29-63

CHAPTER IV

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAM.

Hill-side haunted by centaurs : Sunday after-noon talk — The,
Rudra prayer of the Vedas, the Benidiction after mourning
Suradas' Song : 'Always face the brute' : The Terai and change of
vegetation. ... ... ... ... Pages 64-69

CHAPTER V
ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLA.

The Punjab — love of the Swami for and reminiscences of the
province : The vision of the old Brahmin chanting the Vedas and
its deep impression on the Swami : Vivekananda, 'a breaker of
bondage' : Talk at Dulai : A new chapter of Hinduism — Vama-
chara ' Love, the only cure for evil : Fragments of talks on the
way : The Swami's naughtiness in childhood and remedy for the
same : His love for Siva : On marriage as the type of the soul's
relation to God : Meeting a*party of Sannyasi pilgrims : Qn the

IV

good and evil effects of religion : The Dak Bangalow at Uri :
The legend of the vale of Kashmir. ... ... Pages 70-83

CHAPTER VI

THE VALE OF KASHMIR.

Meeting an old Mohamedan lady : Meeting Bengali officials :
On the evolution of different ideals by different nations to which
each must hold itself true in its future existence. ... Pages 84-90

CHAPTER VII

LIFE AT SRINAGAR.

The Swami, on what Buddhism attempted to bring out in the
past — Federalisation of religions : Talk on Chenghiz Khan : Com
position of the 'Ode to The Awakened India3 : Visiting the temples
of Kshir Bhawani and Takt-i-Suliman : The beautiful view from
the latter place : Fragments of talks on Tulsidas' Sayings and the
Upanishads : On 'Why Ravana could not tempt Sita by taking the
form of Rama : On Thomas a Kempis : Kalidas's Kumar-Sam-
bhabam and the privilege given to women and Sudras to read the
Scriptures : The celebration of the 4th of July, the American Day
of Independence in the house-boat : The Swami's 'Ode to the 4th
of July' : The great difference between a house-holder and a Sannya-
sin : Visit to Dahl Lake, Shalimar Bag, etc. : The Swami's
attempt to visit Amarnath by the Sonamarg route and failure on
account of the break of glaciers : His realisations on return.

Pages 91-109

CHAPTER VIII
THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN.

Sailing down the Jhellum with the Swami : Fragments of songs
of Ram Prasad, on the Divine Mother : Talk on Bhakti — Radha-
Krishna : On the way to Islamabad1 — the old old Temple of Pan-

drenthan — a relic of Buddhism : Its architectural importance — a
critical examination of its interior and exterior : The four periods
in which the Swami divided the History of Kashmir, placing
the building of Pandrentham on the second period : The magni
ficent view from the Temple : Notes from the evening talk at
Pandrentham : The Christian rituals derived from the Buddhistic
and the latter from the Vedic : Christianity has no common prayer
like Hinduism : Mohamedanism, the only religion that broke
down the idea of Priesthood : The Swami's doubts about the exist
ence of Christ and his dream off Crete : The probable origin of
Christianity by the meeting of Indian and Egyptian ideas with
Jndaism and Hellenism at Alexandria in old times : S. Paul
capable of Jesuitry : Buddha and Mahomed, the only historical
figures in old religious records : A critical examination of
Christianity : 'Buddha surely was the greatest man who ever
lived.' ... ... ... ... Pages 110-125

CHAPTER IX

•

WALKS AND TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUM.

The view up the Jhellum calling up memories of Kalidas's picture
of the Himalayas, Siva and Uma : Across the fields on the banks
with the Swami : His talk on 'The Sense of Sin', — Egyptian,
Semitic and Aryan : The Vedic God of anger becoming Mara,
the Lord of Lust in Buddhism : The difference between th'e Vedic
Anger-God and Satan of Christianity : Zoroaster, a reformer of
some old Vedic religion : Ormuzd and Ahriman are but manifes
tations of the Supreme : Righteousness and Sin becoming later
the Vidyd and AvidyA of the Upanishads : The talk on guiding the
future of India and the Indian people : On National life as a ques
tion of organic forces ; re-inforce.the current of that life, then leave
it to do the rest : On the Ideas of renunciation and mukti as the
sources of Indian National fife : The temple of Bij-Behara and the

vi

Islamabad : The Swami's coolness in the face of danger and death
— the story of his encountering a bull in England : Fragments of
reminiscences of his life as a wandering friar: The Ruins of the
temple of Marttand : Its architectural significance : The talk
\vith the Sister Nivedita about Women's Educational Work at
Calcutta : A tentative plan for the same : His advice to depend
on her own inspiration mainly for the work : His view of the
great responsibility of the same : Achhabal and the Swami's
invitation to Sister Nivedita to accompany him on a pilgrimage
to the Shrine of Amarnath. ... ... Pages 126-142

CHAPTER X

THE SHRINE OF AMARNATH.

The Swami's meeting the pilgrim Sddhus at Bawan : The
opposition to admitting Sister Nivedita among the pilgrims : The
removal of the Pilgrim Camp to Chandanawara 18,000 feet above
sea-level : Arrival at the Pantajharni, the place of five streams and
the Swami's fulfilling the 'Laws' : The study of a glacier at close
quarters : Arrival at the cave of Amarnath : The Swami's realisa
tions in the cave : The return : Evening at Pahlgam : Back to
Islamabad and Srinagar. ... ... Pages 143-153

CHAPTER XI

AT SRINAGAR ON THE RETURN JOURNEY.

The Swhmi's longing for freedom and the touch of the common
people : His talk with Nivedita about his conception of India,
making Hinduism an agressive missionary faith, deep spirituality
among many orthodox Hmdus, the association of Spirituality with
orthodoxy being accidental and not essential, Sri Ramakrishna as
the embodiment of the highest inner life in the Soul with perfect
activity on the outer plane : The Swami's worship of Sri Rama
krishna leaving others free to decide for themselves which person-

Vll

alities they would worship : The Swami's repudiation of palmistry,
character-reading, preaching of religion by displaying miracles :
His worshipping the little Mohammedan boat-child as Uma : Per
sonal wish for special quiet of one of the ladies of the party and the
encampment on the land by the river-side, which the Maharajah
of Kashmir was anxious for a time to offer to the Swami for
making a centre of his organisation. ... Pages 154-159

CHAPTER XII

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS.

The Swami's meeting an European guest at the temporary
encampment under the Chennaars : His talk about Meera Bai,
'the queen who would not be queen' for love of God : About a song
of Tana Sena : About Rana Pratap Sing of Cheetore : About
Krishna Kumari : Leaving for Ganderbal. ... Pages 160-166

CONCLUDING WORDS OF THE EDITOR.

BLESSINGS TQ NIVEDITH,

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FOREWORD

Persons : — The Swami Vivekananda ; Gurubhais ; and
disciples.

A party of European guests and disciples, amongst
whom were Dhira Mata, the Steady Mother ; One
whose name was Jaya ; and Nivedita.

Place :— Different parts of India.

Time /—The year 1898.

Beautiful have been the days of this
year. In them the Ideal has become the
Real. First in our river-side cottage at
Belur ; then in the Himalayas, at Naini-
Tal and Almora ; afterwards wandering
here and there through Kashmir ;—
everywhere have come hours never to
be forgotten, words that will echo through
our lives for ever, and once at least, a
glimpse of the Beatific Vision.

It has been all play.

We have seen a love that would be
one with the humblest and most igno-

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

rant, seeing the world for the moment
through his eyes, as if criticism were
not ; we have laughed over the colossal
caprice of genius ; we have warmed
ourselves at heroic fires ; and we have
been present, as it were, at the awaken
ing of the Holy child.

But there has been nothing grim or
serious about any of these things. Pain
has come close to all of us. Solemn
anniversaries have been and gone. But
sorrow was lifted into a golden light,
where it was made radiant, and did not
destroy.

Fain, if I could, would I describe
our journeys. Even as I write I see
the irises in bloom at Baramulla ; the
young rice beneath the poplars at Is
lamabad ; starlight scenes in Himalayan
forests ; and the royal beauties of Delhi
and the Taj. One longs to attempt
some memorial of these. It would be
worse than useless. Not, then, in words,
but in the light of memory, they are

FOREWORD

enshrined for ever, together with the
kindly and gentle folk who dwell among
them, and whom we trust always to have
left the gladder for our coming.

We have learnt something of the
mood in which new faiths are born, and
of the Persons who inspire such faiths.
For we have been with one who drew
all men to him, — listening to all, feeling
with all, and refusing none. We have
known a humility that wiped out all
littleness, a renunciation that would die
for scorn of oppression and pity of the
oppressed, a love that would bless even
the oncoming feet of torture and 'of
death. We have joined hands with that
woman who washed the feet of the Lord
with her tears, and wiped them with the
hairs of her head. We have lacked, not
the occasion, but her passionate uncon
sciousness of self.

Seated under a tree in the garden
of dead emperors there came to us%a
vision of all the rich and splendid things

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

of Earth, offering themselves as a shrine
for the great of soul. The storied win
dows of cathedrals, and the jewelled
thrones of kings, the banners of great
captains and the vestments of the priests,
the pageants of cities, and the retreats
of the proud, — all came, and all were
rejected.

In the garments of the beggar, des
pised by the alien, worshipped by the
people, we have seen him ; and only
the bread of toil, the shelter of cottage-
roofs, and the common road across the
cornfields seem real enough for the back

ground to this life Amongst

his own, the ignorant loved him as
much as scholars and statesmen. The
boatmen watched the river, in his ab
sence, for his return, and servants dis
puted with Quests to do him service.
And through it all, the veil of playful
ness was never dropped. "They played
with the Lord," and instinctively they

c

knew it.

, 4

FOREWORD

To those who have known such

hours, life is richer and sweeter, and in

the long nights even the wind in the

palm-trees seems to cry —

"Mahadeva ! Mahuldeva ! Mahadeva !"

•
5

CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES.

Place : — A cottage at Belur, besides the Ganges.
Time: — March to May nth.

Of the home by the Ganges, the
Master had said to one "You will find
that little house of Dhira Ma,t& like
heaven, for it is all love, from beginning
to end."

It was so indeed. Within, an
unbroken harmony, and without, every
thing alike beautiful, — the green stretch
of grass, the tall cocoanut palms, the
little brown villages in the jungle, and
the nilkantha that built her nest in a tree-
top beside us, on purpose to bring us
the blessings of Siva. In the morning
the shadows lay behind the house : but
in the afternoons we could sit in front,
worshipping the Ganges herself, — great
leonine mother ! — and in sight oi
Dakshineswar.

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES

There came one and another with
traditions of the past ; and we learnt
of the Master's eight year's wanderings ;
of the name changed from village to
village ; of the Nirvikalpa Sam&dhi ;
and of that sacred sorrow, too deep for
words, or for common sight, that one
who loved had alone seen. And there,
too, came the Master Himself, with his
stories of Um& and Siva, of Radha and
Krishna, and his fragments of song and
poetry.

It seemed as if he knew that the
first material of a new consciousness
must be a succession of vivid, but iso
lated experiences, poured out without
proper sequence, so as to provoke the
mind of the learner to work for its own
conception of order and relation. At
any rate, whether he knew it or not,
this was the canon of educational science
that he unconsciously fulfilled. For the
most part, it was the Indian religions
that he portrayed for us, to-day dealing

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

with one, and to-morrow with another,
his choice guided, seemingly, by the
whim of the moment. But it was not
religion only that he poured out upon
us. Sometimes it would be history.
Again, it would be folk-lore. On still
another occasion, it would be the mani
fold anomalies and inconsistencies of
race, caste, and custom. In fact India
herself became, as heard in him, as the
last and noblest of the Pfirdnas, utter
ing itself through his lips.

Another point in which he had
caught a great psychological secret was
that of never trying to soften for us that
which would at first sight be difficult or
repellent. In matters Indian he would
rather put forward, in its extreme form,
at the beginning of our experience, all
that it might seem impossible for
European minds to enjoy. Thus he
would quote, for instance, some verse
about Gouri and Sankar in a single
form —

8

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES

"On one side grows the hair in long

black curls,

And on the other, corded like rope.
On one side are seen the beautiful

garlands,
On the other, bone earrings and

snake-like coils.
One side is white with ashes, like

the snow mountains,
The other, golden as the light of

dawn.

For He, the Lord, took a form,
And that was a divided form,
Half- woman and half-man."
And carried by his burning enthu
siasm it was possible to enter into these
things, and dimly, even then, to appre
hend their meaning.

Whatever might be the subject of .
the conversation, it ended always on
the note of the Infinite. Indeed I do
not know that our Master's realisation
of the Adwaita Philosophy has been
in anything more convincing than in

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

this matter of his interpretation of the
world. He might appear to take up
any subject, literary, ethnological, or
scientific, but he always made us feel
it as an illustration of the Ultimate
Vision. There was, for him, nothing
secular. He had a loathing for bond
age, and a horror of those who "cover
chains with flowers," but he never failed
to make the true critic's distinction be
tween this and the highest forms of art.
One day we were receiving European
guests, and he entered into a long talk
ab6ut Persian poetry. Then suddenly,
finding himself quoting the poem that
says, "For one mole on the face of my
Beloved, I would give all the wealth of
Samarcand !" he turned and said ener
getically "I would not give a straw,
you know, for the man who was incap
able of appreciating a love song!" His
ta[k, too teemed with epigrams. It was
that same afternoon, in the course of
a long political argument, that he said

10

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES

"In order to become a nation, it appears
that we need a common hate as well as
a common love."

Several months later he remarked
that before one who had a mission he
never talked of any of the gods save
Uma and Siva. For Siva and the
Mother made the great workers. Yet
I have sometimes wondered if he knew
at this time how the end of every theme
was bhakti. Much as he dreaded the
luxury of spiritual emotion for those
who might be enervated by it, he could
not help giving glimpses of what it
meant to be consumed with the
intoxication of God. And so he would
chant for us such peoms as—

" They have made Rjidha queen, in
the beautiful groves of Brinda-
ban.

At her gate stands Krishna,on guard.
His flute is singing all the time,:
' Radha is about to distribute infinite
wealth of love.

1 1

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Though I am guard, all the world

may enter.
Come all ye who thirst ! Say only

'Glory unto Radha !'
Enter the region of love !"'
Or he would give us the great anti-
phonal Chorus of the Cowherds, written
by his friend :*

Men. ' Thou art the Soul of souls,
Thou yellow garbed,
With thy blue eyes.
Women. Thou dark One ! Thou
Shepherd of Brind^ban !
Kneeling at the feet of the

Sheperdesses.
Men. My soul sing the praise of

the glory of the Lord,
Who took the human form.

Women. Thy beauty for us, the

Gopis.
Men. Thou Lord of Sacrifice.

Saviour of the weak.

* The late Bengali dramatist, Babu Girish Chandra Ghose.
12

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES

Women. Who lovest R&dh£, and thy
body floats on its own
tears.'

One such day (May.g) we can never
forget. We had been sitting talking under
the trees, when suddenly a storm came
on. We moved to the terrace, overhang
ing the river, and then to the verandah.
Not a moment too soon. Within ten
minutes, the opposite bank of the
Ganges was hidden from our view, and
in the blackness before us we could hear
the rain falling in torrents, and the
thunder crashing, while every now and
then there was a lurid flash of lightning.

And yet, amidst all the turmoil of
the elements, we sat on, in our little
verandah, absorbed in a drama far more
intense. One form passed back and
forth across our tiny stage ; one voice
compassed all the players; and the play
that was acted before us was the love of

the soul for God! Till we, too

caught the kindling, and loved for the

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

moment with a fire that the rushing river
could not put out nor the hurricane
disturb. ''Shall many, waters quench
Love, or the floods overwhelm it ?"
And before Prometheus left us, we knelt
before him together and he blest us all.
One day, early in the cottage-life,

17.

the Swami took the Dhinl M4t^, and

her whose name was Jay4, to be re
ceived for the first time by S^rada Devi,
who had come from her village home, to
Calcutta, at his call. Thence they
brought back with them for a few hours,
a guest to whom the memory of that
day makes one of life's great festivals.
Never can she forget the fragrance of
the Ganges, nor the long talk with the
Master, nor the service Jaya had done
that morning by winning the most
( orthodox of Hindu woman to eat with
her foreign disciples ; nor any one of
the many happy ties that that day
broyght into existence and consecrated.
March, 26. A week later the same guest was

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES

there again, coming late on Wednesday,
and going away on Saturday evening.
At this time, the Swami kept the custom
of coming to the cottage early, and
spending the morning-hours there, and
again returning in the late afternoon.
On the second morning of this visit,
however, — Friday, the Christian feast
of the Annunciation, — he took us all
three back to the Math, and there, in the
worship-room, was held a little service
of initiation, where one was made a
Brahmacharini. That was the happiest
of mornings. After the service, we
were taken upstairs. The Swami *put
on the ashes and bone-earrings and
matted locks of a Siva-yogi, and sang
and played to us — Indian music on
Indian instruments, — for an hour.

And in the evening, in our boat on
the Ganges, he opened his heart to us,
and told us much of his questions and
anxieties regarding the trust that ,he
held from his own Master.

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Another week, and he was gone to
Darjeeling, and till the day that the
plague declaration brought him back we
saw him again no more.

May, 3. Then two of us met him in the house

of our Holy Mother. The political sky
was black. It seemed as if a storm were
about to burst. The moon of those
evenings had the brown haze about it
that is said to betoken civil disturbance
— and already plague, panic, and riot
were doing their fell work. And the
Master turned to the two and said,
"There are some who scoff at the
existence of Kali. Yet to-day She is out
there amongst the people. They are
frantic with fear, and the soldiery have
been called to deal out death. Who
can say that God does not manifest
Himself as Evil as well as Good ? But
only the Hindu dares to worship Him
in the evil."

He had come back, and the old life

( •

was resumed once more, as far as could

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES

be, seeing that an epidemic was in pros
pect, and that measures were on hand
to give the people confidence. As long
as this possibility darkened the horizon,
he would not leave Calcutta. But it
passed away, and those happy days
with it, and the time came that we
should go.

CHAPTER II

AT NAINI TAL AND ALMORA

fersons: — The Swami Vivekananda ; Guru-bhais*, anc

disciples.

A party of Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira

MM, the 'Steady Mother ;' 'One whose name

was Jaya' ; and Nivedita.
Place : — The Himalayas.
Time /—May II to May 25, 1898.

We were a large party, or, indeed,
two parties, that left Howrah station on
Wednesday evening, and on Friday
morning came in sight of the Hima
layas. They seemed to rise suddenly
out of the plains, a few hundred yards
away.

Naini Tal was made beautiful by
three things, — the Master's pleasure in
introducing to us his disciple, the Raja
of Khetri ; the dancing girls who met us
and asked us where to find him, and

* Spiritual brethren ; disciples of one and th<
same Master are so called.

18

NAINI TAL AND ALMORA

were received by him, inspire of the
remonstrances of others ; and by the
Mohammedan gentleman who said
"Swamiji, if in after-times any claim
you as an avatar, an especial incarna
tion of the Deity — remember that I, a
Mohammedan, am the first !"

It was here, too, that we heard a
long talk on Ram Mohun Roy, in which
he pointed out three things as the
dominant notes of this teacher's mes
sage, his acceptance of the Vedanta, his
preaching of patriotism, and the love
that embraced the Mussulman equally
with the Hindu. In all these things,
he claimed himself to have taken up
the task that the breadth and foresight
of Ram Mohun Roy had mapped out.

The incident of the dancing girls
occurred in consequence of our visit to
the two temples at the head of the
tarn, which from time immemorial have
been places of pilgrimage, making the
beautiful little "Eye Lake" holy. Here,

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

offering worship, we found two nautch-
women. When they had finished, they
came up to us, and we in broken langu
age, entered into conversation with
them. We took them for respectable
ladies of the town, and were much
astonished, later, at the storm which
had evidently passed over the Swami's
audience at his refusal to have them
turned away. Am I mistaken in think
ing that it was in connection with these
dancing-women of Naini Tal that he
first told us the story, many times
repeated, of the nautch-girl of Khetri ?
He had been angry at the invitation to
see her, but being prevailed upon to
come, she sang —

"O Lord, look not upon my evil qualities !
Thy name, O Lord, isSame-Sightedness,
Make us both the same Brahman !

One piece of iron is the knife in the

hand of the butcher

20

NAINI TAL AND ALMORA

And another piece of iron is the image

in the temple.

But when they touch the philosopher's

stone,
Both alike turn to gold !

Onedrop of water is in the sacred Jumna,
And one is foul in a ditch by the roadside.
But when they fall into -the Ganges,
Both alike become holy !

So, Lord, look not upon my evil qualities !
Thy name, O Lord, is Same-Sightedness.
Make us both the same Brahman !"

And then, said the Master of himself, the
scales fell from his eyes, and seeing
that all are indeed one, he condemned
no more. [And she whose name is Java,
heard from another of this same visit,
when to the assembled women he spoke
words of power that moved all hearts, —
full of love and tenderness, without se
paration and without reproach.]

It was late in the afternoon when we

21

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

left Naini Tal for Almora, and night
overtook us while still travelling through
the forest. On and on we went, follow
ing the road into deep gullies, and out
again, round the shoulders of projecting
hill sides, always under the shadow of
great trees, and always preceded by tor
ches and lanterns to keep off bears and
tigers. While day lasted we had seen
the "rose-forests" and the maiden-hair
fern by the spring sides, and the scarlet
blossoms on the wild pomegranate
bushes ; but with nightfall, only the fra
grance of these and the honeysuckles
was left to us, and we journeyed on, con
tent to know nothing, save silence and
starlight, and the grandeur of the moun
tains — till we reached a quaintly placed
dak-bungalow, on the mountain side, in
the midst of trees. There after some
time, Swamiji arrived with his party,
fiJl of fun, and keen in his appreciation
of everything that concerned the comfort
of his guests, but full before all, of the

22

NAINI TAL AND ALMORA

poetry of the weird "night scenes" with
out, the coolies by their fires, and the
neighing horses, the Poor Man's Shelter
near, and the whispering trees and
solemn blackness of the forest.

From the day that we arrived at
Almora the Swami renewed his habit of
coming over to us at our early breakfast,
and spending some hours in talk. Then
and always, he was an exceedingly light
sleeper, and I imagine that his visit to
us, early as the hour might be, was often
paid during the course of his return with
his monks from a still earlier walk.
Sometimes, but rarely, we saw him again
in the evening, either meeting him when
out for a walk, or going ourselves to
Capt. Sevier's where he and his party
were staying, and seeing him there.
And once he came at that time to call
on us.

Into these morning talks at Almora,
a strange new element, painful but salu
tary to remember, had crept. There

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

appeared to be, on one side, a curious
bitterness and distrust, and, on the other,
irritation and defiance. The youngest
of the Swami's disciples at this time, it
must be remembered, was an English
woman, and of how much this fact meant
intellectually, — what a strong bias it
implied, and always does imply, in the
reading of India, what an idealism of
the English race and all their deeds and
history, — the Swami himself had had no
conception till the day after her initiation
at the monastery. Then he had asked her
some exultant question, as to which nation
she now belonged to, and had been startl
ed to find with what a passion of loyalty
and worship she regarded the English-
flag, giving to it much of the feeling
that an Indian woman would give to her
Thakoor. His surprise and disappoint
ment at the moment were scarcely per
ceptible. A startled look, no more. Nor
did his discovery of the superficial way
in which this disciple had joined herself

NA1NI TAL AND ALMORA

with his people in any degree affect his
confidence and courtesy during the re
maining weeks spent in the plains. But
with Almora, it seemed as if a going-to-
school, had commenced, and just as
schooling is often disagreeable to the
taught, so here, though it cost infinite
pain, the blindness of a half-view must
be done away. A mind must be brought
to change its centre of gravity. It was
never more than this; never the dictating
of opinion or creed ; never more than
emancipation from partiality. Even at
the end of the terrible experience, when
this method, as regarded race and coun
try, was renounced, never to be taken
up systematically again, the Swami did
not call for any confession of faith, any
declaration of new opinion. He dropped
the whole question. His listener went
free. But he had revealed a different
standpoint in thoughtand feeling, so com
pletely and so strongly as to make it
impossible for her to rest, until later, by

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

her own labours, she had arrived at a
view in which both these partial present
ments stood rationalised and accounted
for "Really, patriotism like yours is
sin!" he exclaimed once, many weeks
later, when the process of obtaining an
uncoloured judgment on some incident
had been more than commonly exasper
ating. "All that I want you to see is
that most people's actions are the expres
sion of self-interest, and you constantly
oppose to this the idea that a certain race
are all angels. Ignorance so determined
is Wickedness !" Another question on
which this same disciple showed a most
bitter obstinacy was that of the current
western estimate of woman. Both these
limitations of her sympathy look petty
and vulgar enough to her now, as com
pared with the open and disinterested
attitude of the mind that welcomes truth.
R>ut at the time they were a veritable lion,
in the path, and remained so until she had
grasped the folly of allowing anything

26

NAINI TAL AND ALMORA

whatever to obscure to her the personal
ity that was here revealing itself. Once
having seen this, it was easy to be
passive to those things that could not be
accepted, or could not be understood, and
to leave to time the formation of ultimate
judgments regarding them. In every
case it had been some ideal of the past
that had raised a barrier to the move
ment of her sympathy, and surely it is
always so. It is the worships of one era
which forge the fetters of the next.

These morning talks at Almora then,
took the form of assaults upon deep-rboted
preconceptions, social, literary, and
artistic, or of long comparisons of Indian
and European history and sentiments,
often containing extended observations
of very great value. One characteristic t
of the Swami was the habit of attacking
the abuses of a country or society openly
and vigorously when he was in its midst,
whereas after he had left it, it would often
seem as if nothing but its virtues were

27

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

remembered by him. He was always
testing his disciples, and the manner of
these particular discourses was probably
adopted in order to put to the proof the
courage and sincerity of one who was
both woman and European.

28

CHAPTER III

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

Place — Almora.

Time — May and June 1898.

The first morning, the talk was that of
the central ideals of civilization, — in the
West, truth, in the East, chastity. He
justified Hindu marriage-customs, as
springing from the pursuit of this ideal,
and from the woman's need of protection,
in combination. And he traced out the
relation of the whole subject to the Phi
losophy of the Absolute.

Another morning he began by obser
ving that as there were four main
castes, — Brahman, Kshattriya, Bunea,
Sudra, — so there were four great national
functions, the religious or priestly, ful
filled by the Hindus, the military, by the
Roman Empire ; the mercantile by
England today ; and the democratic, by
America in the future. And here he

29

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

launched off into a glowing prophetic
forecast of how America would yet solve
the problems of the Sudra, — the prob
lems of freedom and co-operation, — and
turned to relate to a non-American list
ener, the generosity of the arrangements
which that people had attempted to make
for their aborigines.

Again it would be an eager rdsumJ
of the history of India or of the Moguls
whose greatness never wearied him.
Every now and then, throughout the
summer, he would break out into des
criptions of Delhi and Agra. Once
he described the Taj as "a dimness, and
again a dimness, and there — a grave !"
Another time, he spoke of Shah Jehan,
and then, with a burst of enthusiasm, —
"Ah ! He was the glory of his line ! A
, feeling for, and discrimination of beauty
that are unparalled in history. And an
artist himself ! I have seen a manuscript
illuminated by him, which is one of the
art-treasures of India. What a genius !"

MORNING TALKS A T ALMORA

Oftener still, it was Akbar of whom he
would tell, almost with tears in his voice,
and a passion easier to understand, be
side that undomed tomb, open to sun and
wind, the grave of Secundra at Agra.

But all the more universal forms of
human feeling were open to the Master.
In one mood he talked of China as if
she were the treasure-house of the world,
and told us of the thrill with which he
saw inscriptions in old Bengali (Kutil ?)
characters, over the doors of Chinese
temples. Few things could be more
eloquent of the vagueness of Western
ideas regarding Oriental peoples than
the fact that one of his listeners alleged
untruthfulness as a notorious quality of
that race. As a matter of fact the
Chinese are famous in the United States,
where they are known as business-men,
for their remarkable commercial inte
grity, developed to a point far beyond
that of the Western requirement of the
written word. So the objection was an

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

instance of misrepresentation, which,
though disgraceful, is nevertheless too
common. But in any case the Swami
would have none of it. Untruthfulness !
Social rigidity ! What were these, except
very, very relative terms ? And as to
untruthfulness in particular, could com
mercial life, or social life, or any other
form of co-operation go on for a day, if
men did not trust men ? Untruthfulness
as a necessity of etiquette ? And how
was that different from the Western
idea ? Is the Englishman always glad
and always sorry at the proper place ?
But there is still a difference of degree ?
Perhaps — but only of degree !

Or he might wander as far afield as
Italy, that ''greatest of the countries of
Europe, land of religion and of art ; alike
of imperial organization and of
Mazzini ; — mother of ideas, of culture,
and of freedom !"

r One day it was Sivaji and the
Mahrattas and the year's wandering as a

' 32

MOKN/Ni; TALKS AT ALMORA

Saunydsi, that won him home to Rai-
garh. "And to this day," said the
S \vami, "authority in India dreads the
Sannytisi, lest he conceal beneath his
yellow garb another Siv&ji."

Often the enquiry, Who and what are
tin* Aryans ? — absorbed his attention ;
and, holding- that their origin was com
plex, he would tell us how in Switzerland
he had felt himself to be in China, so
like were the types. He believed too
that the same was true of some parts of
Norway. Then there were scraps of
information about countries and physiog
nomies, an impassioned tale of the Hun
garian scholar, who traced the Huns to
Tibet, and lies buried in Darjeeling and
so on.

It was very interesting throughout
this summer, to watch, — not only in the
Swami's case, but in that of all persons
who might be regarded as representative
of the old Indian culture, — how strong-
was the fascination exerted by enquiries

33

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

of this nature. It seemed as if in the
intellectual life of the East, questions of
race and custom and ethnological origins
and potentialities took the place that
the observation of international politics
might hold in the West. The idea
suggested itself that Oriental scholars
and statesmen could never ignore this
element in their peculiar problems, and
would be likely at the same time to
bring a very valuable power of discri
mination to bear upon it.

Sometimes the Swami would deal
with the rift between Brahmins and
Kshattriyas, painting the whole history
of India as a struggle between the two,
and showing that the latter had always
embodied the rising, fetter-destroying
impulses of the nation. He could give
excellent reason too for the faith that
was in him that the Kayasthas of modern
Bengal represented the pre-Mauryar
Kshattriyas. He would portray th(
two opposing types of culture, the on<

34

WORKING TALKS AT ALMORA

classical, intensive, and saturated with
an ever-deepening sense of tradition and
custom ; the other, defiant, impulsive,
and liberal in its out-look. It was part
of a deep-lying law of the historic deve
lopment that Rama, Krishna, and
Buddha had all arisen in the kingly, and
not in the priestly caste. And in this
paradoxical moment, Buddhism was re
duced to a caste-smashing formula — "a
religion invented by the Kshattriyas" as
a crushing rejoinder to Brahminism !

That was a great hour indeed, when
he spoke of Buddha ; for, catching a
word that seemed to identify him with
its anti-Brahminical spirit, an uncompre
hending listener said, "Why Swami, I
did not know that you were a Buddhist !"
"Madam," he said rounding on her, his
whole face aglow with the inspiration of ,
that name, "I am the servant of the
servants of the servants of Buddha.
Who was there ever like Him ? — ihe
Lord — who never performed one action

35'

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

for Himself — with a heart that embra
ced the whole world ! So full of pity
that He — prince and monk — would give
His life to save a little goat ! So loving
that He sacrificed himself to the hunger
of a tigress ! — to the hospitality of a
pariah and blessed him \ And He came
into my room when I was a boy and I
fell at His feet ! For I knew it was the
Lord Himself !"

Many times he spoke of Buddha in
this fashion, sometimes at Belur and
sometimes afterwards. And once he
told us the story of Amb£,pftli, the
beautiful courtesan who feasted Him,
in words that re-called the revolt of
Rossetti's great half-sonnet of Mary
Magdalene :—

"Oh loose me ! Seest thou not my
Bridegroom's face,

That draws me to him ? For his feet

my kiss,
«• My hair, my tears, He craves

to-day : — And oh !

• 36

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

What words can tell what other day

and place

Shall see me clasp those blood
stained feet of His ?
He needs me, calls me, loves me, let

me go !"

But national feeling did not have it
all its own way. For one morning when
the chasm seemed to be widest, there
was a long talk on bhakti — that per
fect identity with the Beloved that the
devotion of Rilya Ramananda the
Bengali nobleman before Chaitanya so
beautifully illustrates—

"Four eyes met. There were changes

in two souls.
And now 1 cannot remember

whether he is a man
And I a woman, or he a woman and

I a man !

All I know is, there were two, Love

came, and there is one !"

It was that same morning that he

talked of the Babists of Persia, — in

37

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

their era of martyrdom — of the woman
who inspired and the man who wor
shipped and worked. And doubtless
then he expatiated on that theory of
his — somewhat quaint and surprising to
unaccustomed minds, not so much for
the matter of the statement, as for the
explicitness of the expression, — of the
greatness and goodness of the young,
who can love without seeking personal
expression for their love, and their high
potentiality.

Another day coming at sunrise when
the snows could be seen, dawn-lighted,
from the garden, it was Siva and Uma
on whom he dwelt, — and that was Siva,
up there, the white snow-peaks, and the
light that fell upon Him was the Mother
of the World ! For a thought on which
at this time he was dwelling much was
that God is the Universe, — not within
it, <;or outside it, and not the universe
God or the image of God — but He it,
and the All.

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

Sometimes all through the summer
he would sit for hours telling us stories,
those cradle-tales of Hinduism, whose
function is not at all that of our nursery
fictions, but much more, like the man-
making myths of the old Hellenic world.
Best of all these I thought was the
story of Suka, and we looked on the
Siva-mountains and the bleak scenery
of Almora the evening we heard it for
the first time.

Suka, the typical Paramahamsa,
refused to be born for fifteen years,
because he knew that his birth wpuld
mean his mother's death.* Then his
father appealed to Um^, the Divine
mother. She was perpetually tearing

* The reader may question this version of the story of
Suka. But the Sister Nivedita, as far as we can judge has
put the facts here thus, intentionally, either to make it appear*
more natural or to suggest the great love that Suka had in
his heart ; for he (Suka) knew he would leave father, mother,
kindred, home and all for the love of God, as soon as he was
born, causing death-like pangs to them, especially *to his
mother's heart. The reader should remember this also,
whi'e reading the last part of the story.

39

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

down the veil of Ma,y& before the hidden
Saint, and Vy&sa pleaded that She should
cease this, or his sou would never come
to birth. UniTi consented, for one
moment only and that moment the child
was born. He came forth a young
man sixteen years of age, unclothed,
and went straight forward, knowing
neither his father nor his mother,
straight on, followed by Vyasa. Then,
coming round a mountain-pass his
body melted away from him, because
it was no different from the universe,
and his father following and crying,
"Oh my son ! Oh my son !" was answer
ed only by the echo, "Om ! Om ! Om !"-
among the rocks. Then Suka resum
ed his body, and came to his father to
get knowledge from him. But Vyasa
found that he had none for him, and
sent him to Janaka, king of MithiU, the
father of Sitsi, if perchance he might
have some to give. Three days he sat
outside the royal gates, unheeded, with-

40

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

out a change of expression or of look.
The fourth day he was suddenly admit
ted to the king's presence with tclat.
Still there was no change.

Then as a test, the powerful sage
who was the king's prime minister,
translated himself into a beautiful
woman, so beautiful that every one
present had to turn away from the sight
of her, and none dared speak. But
Suka went up to her and drew her to
sit beside him on his mat, while he
talked to her of God.

Then the minister turned to Jandka
saying, "Know, oh King, if you seek
the greatest man on earth, this is he !"

'There is little more told of the life
of Suka. He is the ideal Parama-
hamsa. To him alone amongst men was
it given to drink a handful of the waters
of that one undivided Ocean of Sat-Chit-
Ananda — existence, knowledge and
bliss absolute ! Most saints die, having
heard only the thunder of Its waves

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

upon the shore. A few gain the vision —
and still fewer, taste of It. But he
drank of the Sea of Bliss !"

Suka was indeed the Swami's
saint. He was the type, to him, of
that highest realisation to which life and
the world are merely play. Long after,
we learned how Sri Ramakrishna had
spoken of him in his boyhood as, "My
Suka." And never can I forget the
look, as of one gazing far into depths
of joy, with which he once stood and
quoted the words of Siva, in praise o:
the deep spiritual significance of the
Bhagavad-Gita, and of the greatness o:
Suka — "I know, the real meaning o
the teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita
and Suka knows, and perhaps Vyasc
knows — a little !'

Another day in Alrnora the Swam
talked of the great humanising live,
that had arisen in Bengal, at the lon|
inrolling wash of the first wave o
modern conciousness on the ancien

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

shores of Hindu culture. Of Ram
Mohun Roy we had already heard from
him at Nani Tal. And now of the
Pundit Vidy^sjigar he exclaimed "There
is not a man of my age in Northern
India, on whom his shadow has not
fallen l" It was a great joy to him to
remember that these men and Sri
R4makrishna had all been born within
a few miles of each other.

The Svvami introduced Vidy&siigar
to us now as " the hero of widow re
marriage, and of the aboliton of poly
gamy." But his favourite story ab'out
him was of that day when he went home
from the Legislative Council, pondering
over the question of whether or not to
adopt English dress on such occasions.
Suddenly some one came up to a fat
Mogul who was proceeding homewards
in leisurely and pompous fashion, in
front of him, with the news " Sir, your
house is on fire !" The Mogul went
neither faster nor slower for this infor-

43

NOTES OF SO.\fE WANDERINGS

mation, and presently the messengei
contrived to express a discreet astonish
ment. Whereupon his master turned
on him angrily, "Wretch!" he said, "am
I to abandon the gait of my ancestors,
because a few sticks happen to be
burning ?" And Vidy^s^gar, walking
behind, determined to stick to the
chudder, dhoti and sandals, not even
adopting coat and slippers. ,

The picture of Vidy£s£gar going into
retreat for a month for the study of the
Sh^stras, (Scriptures), when his mother
had suggested to him the re-marriage of
child-widows, was very forcible. "He
came out of his retirement of opinion that
they were not against such re-marriage,
and he obtained the signatures of the
pundits that they agreed in this opinion.
Then the action of certain native princes
led the pundits to abandon their own sig
natures, so that, had the Government not
determined to assist the movement, it
could not have been carried — and now,"

44

.MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

added the Swami, " the difficulty has
an economic rather than a social basis."

We could believe that a man who
\vas able to discredit polygamy by moral
force alone, was "intensely spiritual."
And it was wonderful indeed to realise
the Indian indifference to a formal creed,
when we heard how this giant was driven
by the famine of 1864,— when 140000
people died of hunger and disease, — to
have nothing more to do with God, and
become entirely agnostic in thought.

With this man, as one of the
educators of Bengal, the Swami coupled
the name of David Hare, the old Scots
man and atheist to whom the clergy of
Calcutta refused Christian burial. He
had died of nursing an old pupil
through cholera. So his own boys
carried his dead body and buried it in
a swamp, and made the grave a place of
pilgrimage. That place has now
become College Square, the educational
centre and his school is now within the

45

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

University. And to this day, Calcutta
students make pilgrimage to the tomb.

On this day we took advantage of
the natural turn of the conversation to
cross-question the Swami as to the
possible influence that Christianity
might have exerted over himself. H«i
was much amused to hear that such ;i
statement had been hazarded, and told
us with much pride of his only contac:
with missionary influences, in the persoi.
of his old Scotch master, Mr. Hastie
This hot-headed old man lived 01
nothing, and regarded his room as hi
boy's home as much as his own. I
was he who had first sent the Swami t< >
Sri Ramakrishna, and towards the em
of his stay in India he used to say "Ye
my boy, you were right, you wer-
right! — It is true that all is God !" "
am proud of him !" — cried the Swami
"but I don't think you could say that h-
had Christianised me much!" It appeal
ed, indeed, that he had only been hi

46

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

pupil for some six months, having
attended college so irregularly that the
Presidency College refused to send him
up for his degree, though he undertook
to pass !

We heard charming stories, too, on
less serious subjects. There was the
lodging-house in an American city for
instance, where he had had to cook his
own food, and where he would meet, in
the course of operations, "an actress
who ate roast turkey everyday, and a
husband and wife who lived by making
ghosts". And when the Swami remons
trated with the husband, and tried to
persuade him to give up deceiving
people, saying "You ought not to do
this !" the wife would come up behind,
and say eagerly "Yes Sir ! that's just
what I tell him ; for he makes all the ,

ghosts, and Mrs. Williams takes all the
money!"

He told us also of a young engineer,
an educated man, who, at a spiritualistic

47-

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

gathering, "when the fat Mrs. Williams
appeared from behind the screen as his
thin mother, exclaimed 'Mother dear,
how you have grown in the spirit-
world !"

li At this," said the Swami, "my heart
broke, for I thought there could be no
hope for the man." But never at a loss, he
told the story of a Russian painter, who
was ordered to paint the picture of a
peasant's dead father, the only descrip
tion given being, "Man ! don't I tell
you he had a wart on his nose ?" When
at last, therefore, the painter had made
a p6rtrait of some stray peasant, and
affixed a large wart to the nose, the
picture was declared to be ready, and
the son was told to come and see it.
He stood in front of it, greatly over
come, and said "Father ! Father ! how
changed you are since I saw you last !"
After this, the young engineer would
never speak to the Swami again, which
showed at least that he could see the

4s

MORNING TALKS A T ALMORA

point of a story. But at this, the
Hindu monk was genuinely astonished.
In spite of such general interests,
however, the inner strife grew high,
and the thought pressed on the mind of
one of the older members of our party
that the Master himself needed service
and peace. Many times he spoke with
wonder of the torture of life, and who
can say how many signs there were, of
bitter need ? A word or two was
spoken — little, but enough — and he,
after many hours, came back and told
us that he longed for quiet, and would
>o alone to the forests and find

soothing.

And then, looking up, he .saw the
young moon shining above us, and he
said "The Mohammedans think much of
the new moon. Let us also, with the
new moon, begin a new life !" And he
blessed his daughter with a great bless
ing, so that she, thinking that her old
relationship was broken, nor dreaming

49

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

that a new and deeper life was being
given to it, knew only that the hour was
strange and passing sweet.

And so that strife was ended, and
for all views and opinions of the Swami,
there was room made thenceforth, that
they might be held and examined, and
determined on at leisure, however im
possible or unpleasing they might seem
at the first.

He went. It was Wednesday
And on Saturday he came back. H(
had been in the silence of the forest?
ten hours each day, but on returning to
his tent in the evenings, he had beer
surrounded with so much eager atten
dance as to break the mood, and he
had fled. Yes, he was radiant. He hac
discovered in himself the old-time
sannyasi, able to go barefoot, anc
endure heat, cold, and scanty fare
unspoilt by the West. This, and wha
else he had got, was enough for th<
present, and \ve left him, under th<

50

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

eucalyptus trees, and amongst the tea-
roses, in Mr. Sevier's garden, full of
gratitude and peace.

The following Monday he went Mav 30>
away, with his host an-d hostess, on a
week's visit, and we were left in Almora
to read, and draw, and botanise. One
evening in that week, we sat talking
after dinner. Our thoughts were
curiously with the 'In Memoriam', and
one of us read aloud —

"Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, June 2nd,

One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever looked with human eyes.
I hear it now, and o'er and o'er,
Eternal greetings to the dead ;
And 'Ave, Ave, Ave,' said,
'Adieu, Adieu,' for evermore."

It was the very hour at which, in •
the distant south, one soul of our own
circle was passing out of this little church
visible of ours, into some finer radiance
and more triumphant manifestation,

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

perhaps, in the closer presence possible
beyond. But we did not know it yet.
Still another day the dark shadow of, we
knew not what hung over us. And
then, as we sat working on Friday
morning, the telegram came, a day late
that said — "Goodwin died last night a:
Ootacamund." Our poor friend had, i :
appeared, been one of the first victim:;
of what was to prove an epidemic o*
typhoid fever. And it seemed tha
with his last breath he had spoken o *
the Swami, and longed for his presence
by his side.

June 5th. On Sunday evening, the Swam

came home. Through our gate anc
over the terrace his way brought him
and there we sat and talked with him <
moment. He did not know our news
but a great darkness hung over hin
already, and presently he broke th<
silence to remind us of that saint wh(
had called the cobra's bite "messenge
from the Beloved," one whom he hac

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

loved, second only to Sri Ramakrishna
himself. "I have just," he said, "received
a letter that says : Paohari Baba has
completed all his sacrifices with the
sacrifice of his own body. He has burnt
himself in his sacrificial fire." "Swami !'
exclaimed someone from amongst his
listeners, "wasn't that very wrong?"

"How can I tell ?" said the Swami,
speaking in great agitation. "He was
too great a man for me to judge. He
knew himself what he was doing."

Very little was said after this, and
the party of monks passed on. Not yet
had the other news been broken.

Next morning he came early, in a june6th.
great mood. He had been up, he said
afterwards, since four. And one went
out to meet him, and told him, of Mr. .

Goodwin's death. The blow fell quietly.
Some days later, he refused to stay in
the place where he had received it, and
complained of the weakness that brought
the image of his most faithful disciple

53

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

constantly into his mind. It was nc
more manly, he protested, to be thus
ridden by one's memory, than to
retain the characteristics of the fish or
the dog. Man must conquer this
illusion, and know that the dead are
here beside us and with us, as much
as ever. It is their absence and separa
tion that are a myth. And then he
would break out again with some bitter
utterance against the folly of imagining
Personal Will to guide the universe.
"As if," he exclaimed, "it would not be
one's right and duty to fight such a
God and slay Him, for killing
Goodwin ! — And Goodwin, if he had
lived, could have done so much !"
And in India one was free to recognise
this as the most religious, because the
most unflinchingly truthful, mood of all !
And while I speak of this utterance,
I may perhaps put beside it another,
that I heard a year later, spoken out ol
the same fierce wonder at the dreams

54

MORNING TALKS A T ALMORA

with which we comfort ourselves.
"Why !" he said, then, "Every petty
magistrate and officer is allowed his
period of retirement and rest. Only
God, The Eternal Magistrate, must
sit judging for ever, and never go
free !"

But in these first hours, the Swami
was calm about his loss, and sat down
and chatted quietly with us. He was
full that morning of bhakti passing into
asceticism, the divine passion that
carries the soul on its high tides, far out
of reach of persons, yet leaves it again,
struggling to avoid those sweet snares
of personality.

What he said that morning of renun
ciation proved a hard gospel to one of
those who listened, and when he came
a^ain she put it to him as her convic- '
tion that to love without attachment
involved no pain, and was in itself ideal.

He turned on her with a sudden
solemnity. "What is this idea of bhakti

55

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

without renunciation?" he said. "It is
most pernicious!" and standing there
for an hour or more, he talked of the
awful self-discipline that one must impose
on oneself, if one would indeed be
unattached, of the requisite nakedness
of selfish motives, and of the danger
that at any moment the most flower-
like soul might have its petals soiled
with the grosser stains of life. He told
the story of an Indian nun who was
asked when a man could be certain of
safety on this road, and who sent back,
for answer, a little plate of ashes. For
the fight against passion was long and
fierce, and at any moment the conqueror
might become the conquered.

And as he talked, it seemed that
this banner of renunciation was the flag
of a great victory, that poverty and self-
mastery were the only fit raiment for
the soul that would wed the Eternal
Bridegroom, and that life was a long
opportunity for giving, and the thing not

MORNING TALKS AT ALMGRA

taken away from us was to be mourned
as lost. Weeks afterwards, in Kashmir,
when he was again talking in some
kindred fashion, one of us ventured to
ask him if the feeling he thus roused
were not that worship of pain that
Europe abhors as morbid.

"Is the worship of pleasure, then, so
noble ?" was his immediate answer.
"But indeed," he added, after a pause,
"we worship neither pain nor pleasure.
We seek through either to come at that
which transcends them both."

This Thursday morning there was a June 9th.
talk on Krishna. It was characteristic
of the Swami's mind, and characteristic
also of the Hindu culture from which he
had sprung, that he could lend himself
to the enjoyment and portrayal of an
idea one day, that the next would see '
submitted to a pitiless analysis and left
slain upon the field. He was a sharer to
the full in the belief of his people that,
provided an idea was spiritually true

57

NOTES OF SO. WE WANDERINGS

and consistent, it mattered very little
about its objective actuality. And this
mode of thought had first been suggested
to him, in his boyhood, by his own
Master. He had mentioned some doubt
as to the authenticity of a certain
religious history. "What !" said Sri
Ramakrishna, "do you not then think
that those who could conceive such
ideas must have been the thing itself?"

The existence of Krishna, then, like
that of Christ, he often told us 'in the
general way' he doubted. Buddha and
Mahommed alone, amongst religious
teachers, had been fortunate enough to
have 'enemies as well as friends', so that
their historical careers were beyond
dispute. As for Krishna, he was the
most shadowy of all. A poet, a cowherd,
a great ruler, a warrior, and a sage had
all perhaps been merged in one beautiful
figure, holding the Gita in his hand.

But to-day, Krishna was "the most
perfect of the avatars." And a wonderful

58

MORNIXG TALKS AT ALMORA

picture followed, of the charioteer who
reined in his horses, while he surveyed
the field of battle and in one brief glance
noted the disposition of the forces, at
the same moment that he commenced
to utter to his royal pupil the deep
spiritual truths of the Gita.

And indeed as we went through the
countrysides of northern India this
summer, we had many chances of noting
how deep this Krishna-myth had set its
mark upon the people. The songs that
dancers chanted as they danced, in the
roadside hamlets, were all of Radha -and
Krishna. And the Swami was fond of
,i statement, as to which we, of course,
could have no opinion, that the Krishna-
worshippers of India had exhausted the
possibilities of the romantic motive in
lyric poetry.

Is that curious old story of the Gopis,
then, really a fragment of some pastoral
worship, absorbed by a more modern
system, and persistently living on, in all

59

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

its dramatic tenderness and mirth, into
the glare of the nineteenth century ?

But throughout these days, the
Swami was fretting to be away and
alone. The place where he had heard
of Mr. Goodwin's loss was intolerable
to him, and letters to be written and
received constantly renewed the wound.
He said one day that Sri Ramakrishna,
while seeming to be all bhakti was really,
within, all jndna ; but he himself,
apparently all jndna, was full of bhakti,
and that thereby he was apt to be as
weak as any woman.

One day he carried off a few faulty
lines of some one's writing, and brought
back a little poem, which was sent to
the widowed mother, as his memorial of
her son.

Requiescat in Pace !

Speed forth, O soul ! upon thy

star-strewn path,

Speed, blissful one, where thought

is ever free,

60

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

Where time and sense no longer

mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be on

thee!

Thy service true, complete thy

sacrifice,
Thy home the heart of love

transcendent find,
Remembrance sweet, that tells all

space and time,
Like altar-roses, fill thy place behind.

Thy bonds are broke, thy quest •

in bliss is found.
And — one with that which comes

as Death and Life,—
Thou helpful one ! unselfish e'er

on earth,

Ahead, still aid with love this world

of strife.

And then, because there was nothing
left of the original, and he feared that
she who was corrected (because her lines

61 '

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

had been "in three metres") might be
hurt, he expatiated, long and earnestly
upon the theme that it was so much
greater to feel poetically than merely to
string syllables together in rhyme and
metre ! He might be very severe on a
sympathy or an opinion that seemed in
his eyes sentimental or false. But an
effort that failed found always in the
Master its warmest advocate and tender-
est defence.

And how happy was that acknowledg
ment of the bereaved mother to him
when, in the midst of her sorrow sh(
wrote and thanked him for the characte
of his influence over the son who ha(
died so far away !

June loth. It was our last afternoon at Almor;

that we heard the story of the fata
1 illnessofSriRamakrishna. Dr. Mohendr
Lall Sirkar had been called in, and ha*
pronounced the disease to be cancer c f
the throat, leaving the young disciple ;
with many warnings as to its infectiou >

62

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORA

iture. Half an hour later, "Noren",
as he then was, came in and found them
huddled together, discussing the dangers
of the case. He listened to what they
had been told, and then, looking down,
saw at his feet the cup of gruel that had
been partly taken by Sri Ramakrishna
and which must have contained in it,
the germs of the fatal discharges of
mucous and pus, as it came out in his
baffled attempts to swallow the thing,
on account of the stricture of the food-
passage in the throat. He picked it up,
and drank from it, before them all.
Never was the infection of cancer
mentioned amongst the disciples again.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAM.

On Saturday morning we left Almora.
It took us two days and a half to reach
Kathgodam. How beautiful the journey
was ! Dim, almost tropical, forests, troops
of monkeys, and the ever-wondrous
Indian night.

Somewhere en route near a curious
old water-mill and deserted forge, the
Swami told D/itr& Mdtd of a legend that
spoke of this hillside as haunted by a
race of centaur-like phantoms, and of an
experience known to him, by which one
had first seen forms there, and only
afterwards heard the folk-tale.

The roses were gone by this time,
but a flower was in bloom that crumbled
at a touch, and he pointed this out,
because of its wealth of associations ii
Indian poetry.

64

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAM

On Sunday afternoon we rested, near june i2th.
the Plains, in what we took to be an
out-of-the-way hotel, above a lake and
fall, and there he translated for us the
Rudra-prayer.

"From the Unreal lead us to the

Real.

From darkness lead us unto light.
From death lead us to immortality.
Reach us through and through

our self.
And evermore protect us — Oh

Thou Terrible ! —
From ignorance, by Thy sweet •

compassionate Face."

He hesitated a long time over the
fourth line, thinking of rendering it,
"Embrace us in the heart of our heart".
But at last he put his perplexity to us, say- .
ing shyly, "The real meaning is "Reach
us through and through ourself." He
had evidently feared that this sentence,
with its extraordinary intensity, might

65 '

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

not make good sense in English. But
our unhesitating choice of that afternoon
has received a deep confirmation in my
own eyes, since I have understood that
a more literal rendering would be, "O
Thou who art manifest only unto Thy
self, manifest Thyself also unto us !" I
now regard his translation as a rapid and
direct transcript of the experience of
Samadki itself. It tears the living heart
out of the Sanskrit, as it were, and
renders it again in an English form.

It was indeed an afternoon of trans
lations, and he gave us fragments ol
the great benediction after mourning,
which is one of the most beautiful of the
Hindu sacraments ;

"The blissful winds are sweet to us.

The seas are showering bliss on us.

May the corn in our fields bring

bliss to us

May the plants and herbs bring

bliss to us

May the cattle give us bliss.

66

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAM

O Father in Heaven be Thou bliss
ful unto us !
The very dust of the earth is full

of bliss.

(And then, the voice dying down
into meditation),—
It is all bliss— all bliss— all bliss."

And again we had Soor Das' Song
which the Swami heard from the Nautch-
girl at Khetri :

O Lord, look not upon my evil

qualities !
Thy name, O Lord, is Same-

sightedness.

Make of us both the same Brahman !
One drop of water is in the sacred

Jumna,
And another is foul in the ditch by

the roadside,

But, when they fall into the Ganges,
both alike become holy.
So Lord, look not upon my evil

qualities,

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Thy name, O Lord, is Same-

sightedness,

Make of us both the same Brahman !
One piece of iron is the image in

the temple
And another is the knife in the

hand of the butcher
But when they touch the philosopher'*
stone, both alike turn to gold
So Lord, look not upon my evil

qualities
Thy name, O Lord, is Same-

sightedness

Make of us both the same Brahman
Was it that same day, or some other
that he told us of the old Sannyasin ii ,
Benares, who saw him annoyed by troop >
of monkeys, and, afraid that he migh :
turn and run, shouted, "Always face th ;
brute !" ?

Those journeys were delightful. W ;
were always sorry to reach a destinatioi .
At this time, it took us a whole aftei -
noon to cross the Terai by rail, — th; t

68

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAM

strip of malarial country, on which, as
he reminded us, Buddha had been
born. As we had come down the
mountain-roads, we had met parties of
country-folk, fleeing to the upper hills,
with their families and all their goods,
to escape the fever which would be upon
them with the rains. And now, in the
train, there was the gradual change of
vegetation to watch, and the Master's
pleasure, greater than that of any
proprietor, in showing us the wild pea
cocks, or here and there an elephant, or
a train of camels.

Quickly enough, we came back to
the palm-zone. Already we had reached
the yuccas and cactus the day before,
and deodar-cedars we should not see
again, till distant Acchabal.

69

CHAPTER V

ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLA

Persons : — The Swami Vivekananda ; Gurubhais, am

disciples.

A party of Europeans, amongst whom wer<

Dhiri Mata, the 'Steady Mother' ; 'On.

whose name was Jaya' ; and Nivediti.
Place r—From Bareilly to Baramulla, Kashmir.
Time : — June I4th to 2oth, 1898.

June 14th. We entered the Punjaub next day,

and great was the Swami's excitement
at the fact. It almost seemed as if he
had been born there, so close and special
was his love for this province. He talked
of the girls at their spinning wheels,
listening to the "Sohum ! Sohum ! — I am
He ! I am He !" Then, by a swift transi
tion he turned to the far past, and unroll-
dd for us the great historic panorama ol
the advance of the Greeks on the Indus,
the rise of Chandragupta, and the

70

ON THE WA Y TO BARAMULLA

development of the Buddhistic empire.
He was determined this summer to find
his way to Attock, and see with his own
eyes the spot at which Alexander was
turned back. He described to us the
Gandhara sculptures, which he must
have seen in the Lahore Museum the
year before, and lost himself in indignant
repudiation of the absurd European
claim that India had ever sat at the feet
of Greece in things artistic.

Then there were flying glimpses of
long expected cities, — Ludhiana, where
certain trusty English disciples had lived
as children ; Lahore, where his Indian
lectures had ended; and so on. We came,
too, upon the dry gravel beds of many
rivers and learnt that the space between
one pair was called the Doab and the
area containing them all, the Punjaub.
It was at twilight, crossing one of these
stony tracts, that he told us of that great
vision which came to him years ago,
while he was still new to the ways of the

71

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

life of a monk, giving back to him,
as he always afterwards believed, the
ancient mode of Sanskrit chanting.

"It was evening," he said, "in that
age when the Aryans had only reached
the Indus. I saw an old man seated on
the bank of the great river. Wave
upon wave of darkness was rolling in
upon him, and he was chanting from the
Rik Veda. Then I awoke, and went
on chanting. They were the tones that
we used long ago."

Many months later, one of those
who listened, heard the story ot this
vision once more from the Swami ; and
it seemed to her then, with her gathered
insight into his method of thought, that
it had been an experience of immense
subjective importance. Perhaps it was a
token to him of a transcendent continuity
in the spiritual experience, forbidding-
it to be baffled even by the lapse of
millenniums and the breaking of many
life-threads. If so, one could not expect

72

ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLA

him to be explicit on the point. Those
who were constantly preoccupied with
imagination regarding their own past,
always aroused his contempt. But on
this second occasion of telling the story,
he gave a glimpse of it, from a very
different point of view.

"Sankaracharya," he was saying,
"had caught the rhythm of the Vedas,
the national cadence. Indeed I al
ways imagine", he went on suddenly,
with dreamy voice and far away look,
"I always imagine that he had some
vision such as mine when he »was
young, and recovered the ancient
music that way. Anyway, his whole
life's work is nothing but that, the
throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas
and Upanishads."

Speeches like this were of course
purely speculative, and he himself could
never bear to be reminded of the
theories to which he thus in moments of
emotion and impulse, gave chance birth.

73

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

To others however they would often
seem not valueless.

"Vivekananda is nothing" exclaimed
one of his admirers in the distant West,
"if not a breaker of bondage !" — and a
trifling incident of this day's journey
recalls the words. At a station entering
the Punjaub, he called to him a Mahom-
medan vendor of food, and bought from
his hand, and ate.

From Rawalpindi to Murree, we
went by tonga, and there we spent some
days before setting out for Kashmir.
Here the Swami came to the conclusion
that any effort which he might make to
induce the orthodox to accept a Euro
pean as a fellow-disciple, or in the direc
tion of woman's education, had better
be made in Bengal. The distrust of the
foreigner was too strong in Punjaub, to
admit of work succeeding there. He
wass much occupied by this question,
from time to time, and would sometimes
remark on the paradox presented by the

74

ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLA

Bengali combination of political anta
gonism to the English, and readiness to
love and trust.

We had reached Murree on Wed
nesday afternoon, June the i5th. It
was again Saturday, June the i8th,
when we set out for Kashmir.

One of our party was ill, and that June 18th,
first day we went but a short distance,
and stopped at Dulai, the first dak bun
galow across the border. It was a curi
ous moment, leaving British India be
hind, with the crossing of a dusty, sun
baked bridge. We were soon to have
a vivid realisation of just how much and
just how little this demarcation meant.

We were now in the valley of the
Jhelum. Our whole journey, from

Kohala to Baramulla, was to run '

»

through a narrow, twisting, mountain-
pass, the rapidly-rising ravine of this
river. Here, at Dulai, the speed of'the
current was terrific, and huge water-
smoothed pebbles formed a great shingle.

75

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Most of the afternoon, we were com
pelled by a storm to spend indoors, and
a new chapter was opened at Dulai, in our
knowledge of Hinduism, for the Swami
told us, gravely and frankly, of its modern
abuses, and spoke of his own uncompro
mising hostility to those evil practices
which pass under the name of Vdmdckdra.

When we asked how Sri Rama-
krishna, — who never could bear to con
demn the hope of any man, — had looked
at these things, he told us that 'the old
man' had said "Well, well ! but every
house may have a scavengers' entrance!"
And he pointed out that all sects of
diabolism, in any country, belonged
to this class. It was a terrible but
necessary revelation, that never required
to be repeated, and it has been related
here, in its true place, in order that
none may be able to say that he deceived
those who trusted him, as to the worst
things that might be urged against any
of his people or their creeds.

76

ON 7 HE WAY TO BARAMULLA

We took it in turns to drive with the June 19th
Swami in his tonga, and this next day
seemed full of reminiscence.

He talked of Brakmavufyd, the
vision of the One, the Alone- Real, and
told how love was the only cure for
evil. He had had a school-fellow, who
grew up and became rich, but lost his
health. It was an obscure disease, sap
ping his energy and vitality daily, yet
altogether baffling the skill of the
doctors. At last, because he knew that
the Swami had always been religious,
and men turn to religion when all else
fails, he sent to beg him to come to "him.
When the Master reached him, a
curious thing happened. There came
to his mind a text — "Him the Brahmin
conquers, who thinks that he is separate
from the Brahmin. Him the Kshatriya ,
conquers, who thinks that he is separate
from the Kshatriya. And him the
Universe conquers who thinks that' he
is separate from the Universe." And the

77

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

sick man grasped this, and recovered.
"And so,-" said the Swami, "though I
often say strange things and angry
things, yet remember that in my heart
I never seriously mean to preach any
thing but love ! All these things will
come right, only when we realise that we
love each other.''

Was it then, or the day before, that,
talking of the Great God, he told us
how when he was a child, his mother
would sigh over his naughtiness, and say
"so many prayers and austerities, and
instead of a good soul, Siva has sent
me you !" till he was hypnotised into
a belief that he was really one of Siva's
demons, He thought that for a punish
ment, he had been banished for awhile
from Siva's heaven, and that his one
effort in life must be to go back there.
His first act of sacrilege, he told us once,
had been committed at the age Jof five,
when he embarked on a stormy argu
ment with his mother, to the effect that

ON THE IVA Y TO BARAMULLA.

when his right hand was soiled with
eating, it would be cleaner to lift his
tumbler of water with the left. For this
or similar perversities, her most drastic
remedy was to put him under the water-
tap, and while cold water was pouring-
over his head, to say "Siva ! Siva !"
This, he said, never failed of its effect.
The prayer would remind him of his
exile, and he would say to himself "No,
no, not this time again !" and so return
to quiet and obedience.

He had a surpassing love for Maha-

dev, and once he said of the Indian

i

women of the future that if, amidst their
new tasks they would only remember
now and then to say "Siva ! Siva !" it
would be worship enough. The very
air of the Himalayas was charged, for
him, with the image of that "eternal
meditation" that no thought of pleasure
could break. And he understood, he
said, for the first time this summer,
the meaning of the nature-story that

79

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

made the Ganges fall on the head of the
Great God, and wander in and out
amongst His matted locks, before she
found an outlet on the plains below. He
had searched long, he said, for the words
that the rivers and waterfalls uttered,
amongst the mountains, before he had
realised thatit was the eternal cry "Bom !
Bom ! Hara ! Hara !" "Yes !" he said of
Siva one day, "He is the Great God,
calm, beautiful, and silent ! and I am His
great worshipper."

Again his subject was marriage, as
the type of the soul's relation to God. —
"This is why," he exclaimed, "though
the love of a mother is in some ways
greater, yet the whole world takes the
love of man and woman as the type.
No other has siich tremendous idealising
power. The beloved actually becomes
what he is imagined to be. This love
transforms its object."

Then the talk strayed to national
types, and he spoke of the joy with which

So

ON THE IVA Y TO BARAMULLA

the returning traveller greets once more
the sight of the men and women of his
own country. The whole of life has been
a sub-conscious education to enable one
to understand in these every faintest
ripple of expression in face and form.

And again we passed a group of
sannyasins going on foot, and he broke
out into fierce invective against asceti
cism as "savagery." It is a peculiarity
of India that only the religious life is
perfectly conscious and fully developed.
In other lands, a man will undergo as
many hardships, in order to win success
in business, or enterprise, or even in
sport, as these men were probably endur
ing. But the sight of wayfarers doing
slow miles on foot in the name of their
ideals, seemed to rouse in his mind a
train of painful associations, and he
grew impatient on behalf of humanity,
at "the torture of religion." Then again
the mood passed, as suddenly as it had
arisen, and gave place to the equally

81

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

strong statement of the conviction thai
were it not for this "savagery," luxury
would have robbed man of all his man
liness.

We stopped that evening at Uri dak
bungalow, and in the twilight, we al
walked in the meadows and the bazar
How beautiful the place was ! A little
mud fortress — exactly of the Europeai
feudal pattern — overhung the footwa>
as it swept into a great open theatre o
field and hill. Along the road, abov<
the river, lay the bazar, and we returnee
to -the bungalow by a path across the
fields, past cottages in whose garden:
the roses were in bloom. As we came
too, it would happen that here and there
some child, more venturesome thai
others, would play with us.

The next day, driving through th<
most beautiful part of the Pass, and see
ing cathedral rocks and an old ruine<
temple of the Sun, we reached Bara
mulla. The legend is that the Vale o

82

ON THE WAY TO BAR A MULL A

Kashmir was once a lake, and that at
this point the Divine Boar pierced the
mountains with his tusks, and let the
Jhelum go free. Another piece of
geography in the form of myth. Or is
it also prehistoric history ?

CHAPTER VI.

THE VALE OF KASHMIR.

Persons : — The Swami Vivekananda and a party o
Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira Mata—
the *Steady Mother,' 'One whose name wa
Jaya,' and Nivedita.
Time. — June 2Oth to June 22nd.

Place. — The River Jhelum — Baramulla to Srinagar.

"It is said that the Lord Himself is
the weight on the side of the fortunate !'
cried the Swami in high glee, returning
to pur room at the dakbungalow, and
sitting down, with his umbrella on his
knees. As he had brought no com
panion, he had himself to perform all
the ordinary little masculine offices, and
he had gone out to hire dungas, and dc
what was necessary. But he had im
mediately fallen in with a man, who, on
hearing his name, had undertaken the
whole business, and sent him back, free
of responsibility.

THE VALE OF KASHMIR.

So we enjoyed the day. We drank
Kashmiri tea out of a Sdmdvdr and ate
the jam of the country, and at about
four o'clock we entered into possession
of a flotilla of dungas, three in number,
on which presently we set forth for
Srinagar. The first evening, however
we were moored by the garden of the
Swami's friend, and there we played
with the children, and gathered forget-
me-nots, and watched a circle of pea
sants, singing, at some harvest-game in
the freshly-cut cornfields. The Swami,
returning to his boat about eleven, could
still as he passed us in the dark, hear
the end of our warm discussion about
the effect of the introduction of money
on rural peoples.

We found ourselves, next day, in the
midst of a beautiful valley, ringed round
with snow-mountains. This is known
as the Vale of Kashmir, but it might b'e
more accurately described, perhaps, as
the Vale of Srinagar. The city of Isla-

35

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

mabad had its own valley, higher up
the river, and to reach it we had to wind
in and out amongst the mountains. The
sky above was of the bluest of the blue
and the water-road along which we
travelled, was also, perforce, blue. Some
times our way lay through great greer
tangles of lotus-leaves, with a rosy
dower or two, and on each side stretch
ed the fields, in some of which, as w
came, they were reaping. The whol
was a symphony in blue and green an
white, so exquisitely pure and vivid th
for* a while the response of the soul to
its beauty was almost pain !

That first morning, taking a long
walk across the fields, we came upon an
immense chennaar tree, standing in the
midst of a wide pasture. It really look
ed as if the passage through it might
shelter the proverbial twenty cows !
The Swami fell to architectural visions
of how it might be fitted up as a dwell
ing-place for a hermit. A small cottage

86

THE VALE OF KASHMIR

might in fact have been built in the
hollow of this living tree. And then
he talked of meditation, in a way to
consecrate every chennaar we should
ever see.

We turned, with him, into the neigh
bouring farm-yard. There we found,
seated under a tree, a singularly hand
some elderly woman. She wore the
crimson coronet and white veil of the
Kashmiri wife, and sat spinning wool,
while round her, helping her, were her
two daughters-in-law and their children.

The Swami had called at this farm once

•

before, in the previous autumn, and
often spoken, since, of the faith and
pride of this very woman. He had
begged for water, which she had at once
given him. Then, before going, he had
asked her quietly, "And what, Mother,
is your religion ?" "I thank God, Sir !"
had rung out the old voice, in pride and
triumph, "by the mercy of the Lord, I
am a Mussalm^n!" The whole family

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

received him now, as an old friend, and
were ready to show every courtesy to
the friends he had brought. The jour
ney to Srinagar took two to three days,
and one evening, as we walked in the
fields before supper, one who had seen
the K&lighat, complained to the Master
of the abandonment of feeling there,
which had jarred on her. "Why do
they kiss the ground before the Image ?"
she exclaimed. The Swami had been
pointing to the crop of til, — which he
thought to have been the original of the
English dill, — and calling it "the oldest
oil-bearing seed of the Aryans " But
at this question, he dropped the little
blue flower from his hands, and a great
hush came over his voice, as he stood
still and said. "Is it not the same
thing to kiss the ground before that
Image, as to kiss the ground before
the,se mountains?"

Our Master had promised that before
the end of the summer he would

THE VALE OF KASHMIR

take us into retreat, and teach us to
meditate. We had now to go to Sri-
nagar for a long-accumulating mail, and
the question rose as to the arrangement
of the holiday. It was decided that we
should first see the country, and after
wards make the retreat.

The first evening in Srinagar we
dined out, with some Bengali officials,
and in the course of conversation, one
of the western guests maintained that
the history of every nation illustrated
and evolved certain ideals, to which the
people of that nation should hold them
selves true. It was very curious to see
how the Hindus present objected to this.
To them it was clearly a bondage, to
which the mind of man could not per
manently submit itself. Indeed, in their
revolt against the fetters of the doctrine,
they appeared to be unable to do justice
to the idea itself. At last the Swami
intervened. "I think you must admit,"
he said, "that the ultimate unit is psycho-

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

logical. This is much more permanent
than the geographical." And then he
spoke of cases known to us all, of one
of whom he always thought as the most
typical "Christian" he had ever seen,
yet she was a Bengali woman, and of
another, born in the West, who was 'a
better Hindu than himself.' And was
not this, after all, the ideal state of
things, that each should be born in the
other's country to spread the given ideal
as far as it could be carried ?

CHAPTER VII.
LIFE AT SRINAGAR.

Place :— Srinagar.

Time :— June 22nd to July 1 5th, 1898.

In the mornings, we still had long
talks, as before — sometimes it would be
the different religious periods through
which Kashmir had passed, or the mora
lity of Buddhism, or the history, of
Siva-worship, or perhaps the position
of Srinagar under Kanishka.

Once he was talking with one of us
about Buddhism, and he suddenly said
"the fact is, Buddhism tried to do,
in the time of Asoka, what the world
never was ready for till now !" He re
ferred to the federalisation of religictas.
It was a wonderful picture, this, of the
religious imperialism of Asoka, broken

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

down, time and again, by successive
waves of Christianity and Mohammedan
ism, each claiming exclusive rights over
the conscience of mankind, and finally
to seem to have a possibility, within
measurable distance of time, to-day !

Another time, the talk was of Genghis
or Chenghiz Khan, the conqueror from
Central Asia. "You hear people talk of
him as a vulgar aggressor," he cried
passionately, "but that is not true! They
are never greedy or vulgar, these great
souls ! He was inspired with the thought
of unity, and he wanted to unify his
world. Yes, Napoleon was cast in the
same mould. And another, Alexander.
Only those three, or perhaps one soul,
manifesting itself in three different con
quests !" And then he passed on to
speak of that one soul whom he believed
to have come again and again in reli
gion, charged with the divine impulse to
bring about the unity of man in God.
At this time, the transfer of the

92

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

Prabuddha Bharata, from Madras to the
newly established Ashrama at Mayavati
was much in all our thoughts. The
Swami had always had a special love for
this paper, as the beautiful name he had
given it indicated. He had always been
eager, too, for the establishment of
organs of his own. The value of the
journal, in the education of Modern
India, was perfectly evident to him, and
he felt that his Master's message and
mode of thought required to be spread
by this means, as well as by preaching
and by work. Day after day, therefore
he would dream about the future of his
papers, as about the work in its various
centres. Day after day he would talk
of the forthcoming first number, under
the new editorship of Swami Swaru-
pananda. And one afternoon he
brought to us, as we sat together, a
paper on which, he said, he had "tried
to write a letter, but it would come this

way !" —

93

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

To The Awakened India.
Once more awake !

For sleep it was, — not death, — to
bring thee life anew, and rest to lotus-
eyes, for visions daring yet. The
world, in need, awaits, Oh Truth,
no death for thee !

Resume thy march,

With gentle feet that would not
break the peaceful pose, even of the
road-side dust that lies so low, — yet
strong, and steady, blissful, bold,
and free. Awakener, ever forward !
Speak thy rousing words !

Thy home is gone,

Where loving hearts had brought
thee up, and watched thy growth.
But fate is strong, and this the law,
—All things go back to the source
they sprang, their strength to renew.

Thien start afresh

From the land of thy birth, where
great cloud-belted snows do bless

94

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

and put their strength in thee, for
working wonders new. The heavenly
river tune thy voice to her own
eternal song ; deodar shades oive
thee ne'er-dying peace,

And all above,

Himalaya's daughter Uma, gentle,
pure, the Mother who resides in all
as power and life, — who works all
works, and makes of One the world ;
whose mercy opens the gate to Truth,
and shows the One in all, — give thee
unending strength which is Infinite
Love.

They bless thee, all

The seers great, whom age nor clime
can claim their own, the fathers of
the race, who felt the heart of truth
the same, and bravely taught to man,
ill-voiced or well. Their servant,
thou hast caught their secret, — 'tis
but One.

95

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Then speak, Oh Love !

Before thy gentle voice so sweet,
behold how visions melt, and fold
on fold of dreams departs to void, —
till Truth, bare Truth, in all its glory
shines.

And tell the world — Awake ! Arise ! and

dream no more !

This is the land of dreams, where
karma weaves unthreaded garlands,
with our thoughts, of flowers sweet
or noxious, — and none has root or
stem, being born in nothing, which
the softest breath of Truth drives
back to primal nothingness. Be bold
and face, the Truth. Be one with it !
Let visions cease, — or, if you cannot
dream but truer dreams, which are
Eternal Love and Service Free.

The Master was longing to leave
us^all, and go away into some place of
quiet, alone. But we not knowing this,
insisted on accompanying him to the

96

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

Coloured Springs, called "Kshir
Bhavani", or Milk of the Mother, it
was said to be the first time that
Christian or Mohammedan had ever
landed there, and we can never be
thankful enough for the glimpse we had
of it, since afterwards it was to become
the most sacred of all names to us. An
amusing incident was that our Mussal-
man boat-men would not allow us to land
with shoes on; so thoroughly Hinduistic
is the Mohammedanism of Kashmir,
with its forty rishis, and pilgrimages
made fasting, to their shrines.

Another day we went ofTquietfy by June 29th-
ourselves, and visited the Takt-i-Sulei-
man, a little temple very massively built,
on the summit of a small mountain two
or three thousand feet high. It was
peaceful and beautiful, and the famous •
Floating Gardens could be seen below
us, for miles around. The Tak^-i-
Suleiman was one of the great illustra
tions of the Swami's argument, when he

97

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

would take up the subject of the Hindu
love of nature as shown in the choice
of sites for temples and architectural
monuments. As he had declared, in
London, that the saints lived on the
hill-tops, in order to enjoy the scenery,
so now he pointed out, — citing one
example after another, — that our Indian
people always consecrated places of
peculiar beauty and importance, by mak
ing there their altars of worship. And
there was no denying that the little Takt,
crowning the hill that dominated the
whole valley, was a case in point.

Many lovely fragments of those days
come into mind, as —

"Therefore, Tulsi, take thou care to
live with all, for who can tell where, or
in what garb, the Lord Himself may
next come to thee?"

"One God is hidden in all these, the
Torturer of all, the Awakener of all, the
Reservoir of all being, the One Who is
bereft of all qualities."

98

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

"There the sun does not shine, nor
the moon, nor the stars."

There was the story of how Ravana
was advised to take the form of Rama,
in order to cheat Sita. He answered,
"Have I not thought of it? But in
order to take a man's form you must
meditate on him ; and Rama is the
Lord Himself; so, when I meditate on
him, even the position of Brahma be
comes a mere straw. How then, could
I think of a woman ?"

"And so", commented the Swami,
"even in the commonest or most
criminal life, there are these glimpses."
It was ever thus. He was constantly
interpreting human life as the expression
of God, never insisting on the heinous-
ness or wickedness of an act or a
character.

"In that which is dark night to the
rest of the world, there the man of self-
control is awake. That which is life
to the rest of the world is sleep to him."

99

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Speaking of Thomas a Kempis one
day, and of how he himself used to
wander as a sannyasin, with the Gita
and the Imitation as his whole library,
one word, he said, came back to him,
inseparably associated with the name
of the western monk.

"Silence ! ye teachers of the world, and
silence ! ye prophets ! Speak thou
alone, O Lord, unto my sou! !"

Again—

"The soft shirisha flower can bear
the weight of humming bees,
but not of birds—

So Uma, don't you go and make
tapasy&f come, Uma, come!
delight and idol of my soul !

Be seated, Mother on the lotus of
my heart,

r

And let me take a long long look at
you.

100

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

From my birth up, I am gazing,

Mother, at your face-
Know you suffering what trouble,

and pain ?

Be seated, therefore, Blessed One
on the lotus of my heart,

And dwell there for evermore."

Every now and then there would be
long talks about the Gita, "that wonder
ful poem, without one note in it, of
weakness or unmanliness." He said one
day that it was absurd to complain 'that
knowledge was not given to women or
to sudras. For the whole gist of the
Upanishads was contained in the Gita
Without it, indeed, they could hardly
be understood ; and women and all , '
castes could read the Mahabharata.

With great fun and secrecy the Ju|v 4th-
Swami and his one non- American dis
ciple prepared to celebrate The Fourth
of July. A regret had been expressed

101

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

in his hearing, that we had no American
Flag, with which to welcome the other
member of the party to breakfast, on
their National Festival ; and late on
the afternoon of the third, he brought a
pundit durzey in great excitement, ex
plaining that this man would be glad to
imitate it, if he were told how. The
stars and stripes were very crudely re
presented, I fear, on the piece of cotton
that was nailed, with branches of ever
greens, to the head of the dining-room-
boat, when the Americans stepped on
board for early tea, on Independence
Day ! But the Swami had postponed a
journey, in order to be present at the
little festival, and he himself contributed
a poem to the addresses that were now
read aloud, by way of greeting.

To THE FOURTH OF JULY.

Behold, the dark clouds melt away,
That gathered thick at night, and

hung

102

LIFE AT SR1NAGAR

So like a gloomy pall, above the

earth !

Before thy magic touch, the world
Awakes. The birds in chorus sing.
The flowers raise their star-like

crowns,

Dew-set and wave thee welcome

fair.

The lakes are opening wide in love,
Their hundred-thousand lotus-eyes,
To welcome thee, with all their

depth.

All hail to thee, Thou Lord of Light \
A welcome new to thee, to-day,

Oh Sun ! To-day thou sheddest

Liberty !

Bethink thee how the world did wait,
And search for thee, through time*

and clime — *

Some gave up home and love of

friends,

Clime — Climate.

103

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

And went in quest of thee, self-
banished,

Through dreary oceans, through

primeval forest,

Each step a struggle for life or

death !

Then came the day when work bore

fruit,

And worship, love and sacrifice,
Fulfilled, accepted, and complete.

And then thou, propitious, rose to

shed

The light of Freedom on mankind !
Move on, Oh Lord, in thy resistless

path !

Till thy high noon o'erspreads the

world ;

Till every land reflects thy light ;
Till men and women, with uplifted

head,

Behold their shackles broken, and
Know in springing joy, their life

renewed !

104

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

That evening someone pained him July 5th.
by counting the cherry-stones left on
her plate, to see when she would be
married. He, somehow, took the play
in earnest, and came, the following
morning, surcharged with passion for
the ideal renunciation.

"These shadows of home and July 6th.
marriage cross even my mind now and
then !" he cried, with that tender desire
to make himself one with the sinner
that he so often showed. But it was
across oceans of scorn for those who
would glorify the householder, that *he
sought, on this occasion, to preach the
religious life. "Is it so easy," he ex
claimed, "to be Janaka ? To sit on a
throne absolutely unattached ? Caring
nothing for wealth or fame, for wife or
child ? One after another in the west
has told me that he had reached this.
But I could only say — 'such great men
are not born in India !' '

And then he turned to the other side.

105

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

"Never forget," he said to one of
his hearers, "to say to yourself, and to
teach to your children, "as the difference
between a firefly and the blazing sun,
between the infinite ocean and a little
pond, between a mustard-seed and the
mountain of Meru, such is the difference
between the householder and the
Sannyasin !"

"Everything is fraught with fear :
Renunciation alone is fearless."

"Blessed be even the fraudulent
sddhus, and those who have failed to
carry out their vows, in as much as they
also have witnessed to the ideal, and
so are in some degree the cause of the
success of others !

"Let us never, never, forget our
ideal !"

At such moments, he would identify
tiimself entirely with the thought he
sought to demonstrate, and in the same
sense in which a law of nature might be
deemed cruel or arrogant, his expositior

1 06

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

might have those qualities. Sitting and
listening, we felt ourselves brought face
to face with the invisible and absolute.

All this was on our return to Sri-
nagar, from the real Fourth of July-
Celebration, which had been a visit to
the Dahl Lake. There we had seen
the Shalimar Bagh of Nur Mahal, and
the Nishat Bagh, or Garden of Glad
ness, and had spent the hour of sunset
quietly, amongst the green of the irises,
at the foot of giant chennaar trees.

That same day, Dhirft, Mdtd and she
whose name wasjayd, left for Gulmarg,
on some personal business, and the
Swami went with them, part of the way.

At nine o'clock on the evening of
the following Sunday, July the loth,
the first two came back unexpectedly,
and presently, from many different
sources, we gathered the news that tfye
Master had gone to Amarnath by the
Sonamarg route, and would return
another way. He had started out penni-

107

NOl^ES OF SOME WANDERINGS

less, but that could give no concern to
his friends, in a Hindu Native state.

A disagreeable incident occurred, a
day or two later, when a young man,
eager to become a disciple, turned up,
and insisted on being sent on to him.
It was felt that this was an unwarrant
able intrusion on that privacy which he
had gone to seek, but as the request
was persistent, it was granted, and life
flowed in accustomed channels for a day
or two.

What were we setting out for ? We
were just moving to go down the river,
on Friday and it was close on five in the
afternoon, when the servants recognised
some of their friends in the distance,
and word was brought that the Swami's
boat was coming towards us.

An hour later, he was with us,
saying how pleasant it was to be back.
l*ne summer had been unusually hot
and certain glaciers had given way,
rendering the Sonamarg Route to

1 08

LIFE AT SRINAGAR

Amarnath impracticable. This fact had
caused his return.

But from this moment dated the
first of three great increments of joy and
realisation that we saw in him, during
our months in Kashmir. It was almost
as if we could verify for ourselves the
truth of that saying of his Guru —

"There is indeed a certain ignorance.
It has been placed there by my Holy
Mother that her work may be done.
But it is only like a film of tissue paper.
It might be rent at any moment."

109

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN.

Persons : — The Swami Vivekananda and a party of Eu
ropeans, amongst whom were Dhira Mata
the 'Steady Mother' ; One whose name was Jay;
and Nivedita.

Time. — July i6th to igth.

Place. — Kashmir.

It fell to the lot of one of the
Swami's disciples, next day, to go down
the river with him in a small boat. As it
went, he chanted one song after another
of "Ram Prasad, and now and again, he
would translate a verse.

"I call upon thee Mother.

For though his mother strike him,

The child cries "Mother! Oh Mother.'

^ * * *

"Though I cannot see Thee,
„ I am not a lost child !

I still cry 'Mother! Mother !"'-

no

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTf/AN

and then with the haughty dignity of
an offended child, something that ended
— "I am not the son to call any other
woman 'Mother' |"

It must have been next day, that he JuiyiTth.
came into Dhtrd Mdtd's dunga, and
talked of Bhakti. First it was that
curious Hindu thought of Siva and
Uma in one. It is easy to give the
words, but without the voice, how com
paratively dead they seem ! And then
there were the wonderful surroundings
— picturesque Srinagar, tall Lombardy
poplars, and distant snows. There, 'in
that river-valley, some space from the
foot of the great mountains, he chanted
to us how "The Lord took a form and
that was a divided form, half woman,
and half man. On one side, beautiful ,
garlands : on the other, bone ear-rings,

and coils of snakes. On one side the

j

hair black, beautiful, and in curls — on
the other, twisted like rope." And then

in

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

passing immediately into the other for
of the same thought, he quoted—
"God became Krishna and Radhsl —
Love flows in thousands of coils.
Whoso wants, takes it.
Love flows in thousands of coils —
The tide of love and loving past,
And fills the soul with bliss and joy !"

So absorbed was he that his break
fast stood unheeded long after it was
ready, and when at last he went reluc
tantly, — saying 'When one has all this
bhakti what does one want with food ?'
—it was only to come back again quick
ly, and resume the subject.

But, either now or at some other
time, he said that he did not talk of
Radha and Krishna, where he looked
for deeds. It was Siva who made stern
and earnest workers, and to Him the
Labourer must be dedicated.

The next day, he gave us a quaini
saying of Sri Ramakrishna, comparing

1 12

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTIfAN

the critics of others to bees or flies, ac
cording as they chose honey or wounds.

And then we were off to Islamabad,
and really, as it proved, to Amarnath.

The first afternoon, in a wood by July toth
the side of the Jhelum, we discovered
the long-sought Temple of Pandrenthan
(Pandresthan, place of the Pandavas ? )

It was sunk in a pond, and this was
thickly covered with scum, out of which
it rose, a tiny cathedral of the long ago,
built of heavy grey limestone. The
temple consisted of a small cell, with
four doorways, opening to the cardinal
points. Externally, it was a tapering
pyramid, — with its top truncated, to
give foothold to a bush — supported on a
four-pierced pedestal. In its architec
ture, trefoil and triangular arches were
combined, in an unusual fashion, with
each other, and with the straight-lined
lintel. It was built with marvellous
solidity, and the necessary lines were
somewhat obscured by heavy ornament.

8

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

We were all much distressed, on
arriving at the edge of the pond in the
wood, to be unable to go inside the little
temple, and examine the interior deco
rations, which a number of guide-books
declared to be "quite classical," that is to
say, Greek or Roman, in form and finish !

Our grief was turned into joy, how
ever, when our hajjis, or boatmen,
brought up a countryman, who under
took to provide a boat for us. This he
brought out, from under the scum, and
placing a chain on it, he proceeded to
drag us each in turn about the lake,
himself wading almost waist-deep in the
water. So we were able, as we had
desired, to go inside.

For all but the Swami himself, this
\sas our first peep at Indian Archaeo
logy. So when he had been through it,
he taught us how to observe the interior.

In the centre of the ceiling was a
large sun-medallion, set in a square
whose points were the points of the

114

THE TEMPLE OF PAXDRENTHAN

compass. This left four equal triangles,
at the corners of the ceiling, which were
filled with sculpture in low relief, male
and female figures intertwined with ser
pents, beautifully done. On the wall
were empty spaces, where seemed to
have been a band of topes.

Outside, carvings were similarly dis
tributed. In one of the trefoil arches —
over, I think, the eastern door, — was a
fine image of the Teaching Buddha,
standing, with His hand uplifted. Run
ning round the buttresses was a much-
defaced frieze of a seated woman, with a
tree, — evidently Maya Devi, the Mother
of Buddha. The three other door-niches
were empty, but a slab by the pond-side
seemed to have fallen from one, and this
contained a bad figure of a king, said by
the country-people to represent the sun.
The masonry of this little temple was
superb, and probably accounted for
its long preservation. A single block
of stone would be so cut as to correspond,

.VOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

not to one brick in a wall, but to a sec
tion of the architect's plan. It would
turn a corner and form part of two dis
tinct walls, or sometimes even of three.
This fact made one take the building as
very, very old, possibly even earlier than
Marttand. The theory of the workmen
seemed so much more that of carpenter
ing than of building ! The water aboul
it, was probably an overflow, into the
temple-court, from the sacred spring thai
the chapel itself may have been placed
as the Swami thought, to enshrine.

To him, the place was delightfully
suggestive. It was a direct memoria
of Buddhism, representing one of the
four religious periods into which he
had already divided the History o
Kashmir :

i. Tree and Snake-worship, frorr

\\hich dated all the names of the spring;

'ending in N£g, as Vernag, and so on

2. Buddhism ; 3. Hinduism, in th<

form of Sun-worship ; and 4. Moham

116

THE TEMPLE OF FANDRENTHAN

medanism. Sculpture, he told us, was
the characteristic art of Buddhism, and
the sun-medallion, or lotus, one of its
commonest ornaments. The figures
with the serpents referred to pre- Bud
dhism. But sculpture had greatly dete
riorated under Sun-worship, hence the
crudity of the Surya figure.

And then we left the little temple in
the woods. What had it held, that men
might worship, nearly eighteen centuries
ago,* when the world was big, with
the births of mighty things ? We could
not tell. We could only guess. Mean
while, to one thing we could bow the
knee, — the Teaching Buddha. One
picture we could conjure up — the great
wood-built city, with this at its heart,
long years afterwards destroyed by fire,
and now moved some five miles away.

And so, with a dream and a sigh, we

_^__________ >

* We assumed Pandrenthan, when we saw it, to be of
Kaniksha's time, 150 A. D.— I am not sure that it is really
so old.— N.

117

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

wended our way back through the trees,
to the river-side

It was the time of sunest, — such a
sunset ! The mountains in the west
were all a shimmering purple. Further
north, they were blue with snow and
cloud. The sky was green and yellow
and touched with red, — bright flame
and daffodil colours, against a blue
and opal background. We stood and
looked, and then the Master, catching
sight of the throne of Solomon — that
little Takt which we already loved — ex
claimed "what genius the Hindu shows
in placing his temples ! He always
chooses a grand scenic effect! See! The
Takt commands the whole of Kashmir.
The rock of Hari Parbat rises red
out of blue water, like a lion couchant,
crowned. And the Temple of Marttand
has the valley at its feet !"
• Our boats were moored near the
edge of the wood, and we could see
that the presence of the silent chapel, ol

118

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN

the Buddha, which we had just explored,
moved the Swami deeply. That even
ing we all foregathered mDhird Mdtd's
houseboat, and a little of the conver
sation has been noted down.

Our Master had been talking of
Christian ritual as derived from
Buddhist, but one of the party would
have none of the theory.

"Where did Buddhist ritual itself
come from ?" She asked.

"From Vedic," answered the
Swami briefly.

"Or as it was present also in southern
Europe, is it not better to suppose a
common origin for it, and the Christian,
and the Vedic rituals ?"

"No ! No !" he replied. "You for
get that Buddhism was entirely within
Hinduism ! Even caste was not
attacked — it was not yet crystallised, of
course ! — and Buddha merely tried to
restore the ideal. He who attains ' to
God in this life, says Mann, is the

119

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Brahmin. Buddha would have had it
so, if he could."

"But how are Vedic and Christian
ritual connected ? " persisted his oppo
nent. "How could they be the same ?
You have nothing even corresponding to
the central rite of our worship ! "

" Why yes ! " said the Swami,
"Vedic ritual has its Mass, the offering
of food to God, your Blessed Sacrament,
our pras&dam. Only it is offered
sitting, not kneeling, as is common in
hot countries. They kneel in Thibet.
Then, too, Vedic ritual has its lights,
incen-se, music."

"But," was the somewhat ungracious
argument, "has it any common prayer?"
Objections urged in this way always
elicited some bold paradox which
contained a new and unthought-of
generalisation.

He flashed down on the question.
"N*o ! and neither had Christianity !
That is pure protestantism and protes-

120

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN

tantism took it from the Mohammedans,
perhaps through Moorish influence !

"Mohammedanism is the only religion
that has completely broken down the
idea of the priest. The leader of prayer
stands with his back to the people, and
only the reading of the Koran may take
place from the pulpit. Protestantism
is an approach to this.

''Even the tonsure existed in India,
in the shaven head. I have seen a
picture of Justinian receiving the Law
from two monks, in which the monks'
heads are entirely shaven. The monk
and nun both existed, in pre-Buddhistic
Hinduism. Europe gets her orders
from the Thebaid."

" At that rate, then, you accept
Catholic ritual as Aryan !''

"Yes almost all Christianity is Aryan,
I believe. I am inclined to think Christ,
never existed. I have doubted that,
ever since I had my dream, — that

121

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

dream off Crete! # Indian and Egyptian
ideas met at Alexandria, and went forth
to the world, tinctured with Judaism
and Hellenism, as Christianity.

"The Acts and Epistles, you know,
are older than the Gospels, and S. John
is spurious. The only figure we can be
sure of is S. Paul, and he was not an
eye-witness, and according to his own
showing was capable of Jesuitry — "by
all means save souls" — isn't it ?

*In travelling from Naples to Port Said, on his way back
to India, in Januaay 1897, the Swami had a dream of an old
and bearded man, who appeared before him, saying "This
is th£ island of Crete," and showing him a place in the
island, that he might afterwards identify. The vision went
to say that the religion of Christianity had originated in the
island of Crete and in connection with this gave him two
European words, — one of which was Therapeufae — which it
declared, were derived from Sanskrit. Therapeutae meant
sons (from the Sanskrit putrci) of the Theras, or Buddhist
monks. From this the Swami was to understand that
Christianity had originated in a Buddhist mission. The old
man added *'The proofs are all here," pointing to the ground.
"Dig and you will see !"

As he awoke, feeling that this was no common dream,
the Swami rose, and tumbled out on deck. Here he met
an officer, turning in from his watch. "What o'clock is it !

122

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN

11 No ! Buddha and Mahommed,
alone amongst religious teachers, stand
out with historic distinctness, — having
been fortunate enough to have, while
they were living, enemies as well as
friends. Krishna — I doubt ; a yogi,
and a shepherd, and a great king, have
all been amalgamated in one beautiful
figure, holding the Gitft in his hand.

"Kenan's life of Jesus is mere froth.
It does not touch Strauss, the real
antiquarian. Two things stand out as

—said the Swami. "Mid-night !" — was the answer. "Where
are we ?"— he then said ; when, to his astonishment, the
answer came back — "fifty miles off Crete ! "

Our Master used to laugh at himself for the strength of
the impression that this dream had made en him. But he
could never shake it off. The fact that the second of the
two etymologies has been lost, is deeply to be regretted.
The Swami had to say that before he had had this dream,
it had never occurred to him to doubt that the personality
of Christ was strictly historic. We must remember, how- »
ever, that according to Hindu philosopy, it is the complete
ness of an idea that is important, and not the question of its
historical authenticity. The Swami once asked Sri RiVna-
krishna, when he was a boy, about this very matter. "Don't
you think !" answered his Guru, "that those who could invent
such things were themselves that ?"

I23

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

personal living touches in the life of
Christ, — the woman taken in adultery, —
the most beautiful story in literature, —
and the woman at the well. How
strangely true is this last, to Indian
life ! A woman, coming to draw water,
finds, seated at the well-side, a yellow-
clad monk. He asks her for water.
Then He teaches her, and does a little
mind-reading and so on. Only in an
Indian story, when she went to call the
villagers, to look and listen, the monk
would have taken his chance, and fled
to the forest !

"On the whole, I think old Rabbi
Hillel is responsible for the teachings
of Jesus, and an obscure Jewish sect of
Nazarenes — a sect of great antiquity
— suddenly galvanised by S. Paul,
1 furnished the mythic personality, as
a centre of worship.

v"The Resurrection, of course, is
simply spring-cremation. Only the rich
Greeks and Romans had had cremation

124

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN

any way, and the new sun-myth would
only stop it amongst the few.

" But Buddha ! Buddha ! Surely
he was the greatest man who ever
lived. He never drew a breath for
himself. Above all, he never claimed
worship. He said, "Buddha is not a
man, but a state. I have found the
door. Enter, all of you !"

"He went to the feast of Ambapjlli,
'the sinner.' He dined with the pariah,
though he knew it would kill him, and
sent a message to his host on his death
bed, thanking him for the great deljver-
ance. Full of love and pity for a little
goat, even before he had attained the
truth ! You remember how he offered
his own head, that of prince and monk,
if only the king would spare the kid that
he was about to sacrifice and how the '
king was struck by his compassion, that
he saved its life ? Such a mixture r>f
rationalism and feeling was never seen !
Surely, surely, there was none like him !"

125

CHAPTER IX.

WALKS AND TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUM.

Persons : — The Swami Vivekananda, and a party of
Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira Mata,
the ' Steady Mother ' ; ' One whose name
was Jaya' ; and Nivedita.

Place : — Kashmir.

Time :— July 2Oth to July 29th, 1898.

Next day, we came to the ruins of
the two great temples of Avantipur.
Each hour, as we went deeper and deeper
into the interior, the river and the moun
tains grew more lovely. And amidst the
immediate attractions of fields and trees,
and people with whom we felt thoroughly
at home, how difficult it was to remem
ber that we were exploring a stream in
Central Asia ! To those who have
seen Kashmir in any season, a wealth
of memory is called up, by Kalidas
picture of the spring-forest, in all its

126

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLUM

beauty of wild cherry-blossom, and
almond and apple, — that forest, in which
Siva sits beneath a dheodhar, when
Uma, princess of the Himalaya, enters
with her offering of a lotus-seed garland,
while close at hand stands the beautiful
young god with his quiver and bow of
flowers. All that is divine in an English
spring, or lovely in the woods of
Normandy, at Eastertide, is gathered up
and multiplied, in the charms of the
vale of Kashmir.

That morning, the river was broad
and shallow and clear, and two of us
walked with the Swami, across the fields
and along the banks, about three miles.
He began by talking of the sense of sin,
how it was Egyptian, Semitic and Aryan.
It appears in the Vedas, but quickly
passes out. The Devil is recognised
there, as the Lord of Anger. Then,
with the Buddhists, he became M&ra,
the Lord of Lust, and one of the most
loved of the Lord Buddha's titles was

127

NOTES OP SOME WANDERINGS

"conqueror of Mara", vide the Sanskrit
lexicon (Amarkosha) that Swami learnt
to patter, as a child of four ! But while
Satan is the Hamlet of the Bible, in the
Hindu scriptures, the Lord of Anger
never divides creation. He always
represents defilement, never duality.

Zoroaster was a reformer of some
old religion. Even Ormuzd and Ahri-
man, with him, were not supreme : they
were only manifestations of the Supreme.
That older religion must have been
Vedantic. So the Egyptians and Semites
cling to the theory of sin, while the
Aryans, as Indians and Greeks, quickly
lose it. In India, righteousness and sin
become vidyd, and avidyd, — both to be
transcended. Amongst the Aryans, Per
sians and Europeans become Semitised,
by religious ideas, hence the sense of sin. *

* One of those who listened to this talk, had a wonderful
opportunity, later, of appreciating the accuracy, as well as
the breadth of the Swami's knowledge, when she saw two
Parsis glad to sit at his feet, and learn from him the history
of their own religious ideas — N.

128

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUM

And then the talk drifted, as it was
always so apt to do, to questions of the
country and the future. What idea
must be urged on a people, to give
them strength ? The line of their own
development runs in one way, A. Must
- the new accession of force
be a compensating one, B ?
This would producea deve
lopment midway between
>c the two, C, a geometrical
alteration, merely. But it was not so.
National life was a question of organic
forces. We must reinforce the current
of that life itself, and leave it to do the
rest. Buddha preached renunciation,
and India heard. Yet within a thousand
years, she had reached her highest point
of national prosperity. The national life
in India has renunciation as its source.
Its highest ideals are service and mukti.
The Hindu mother eats last. Marriage
is not for individual happiness, but for the
welfare of the nation and the caste.

129

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Certain individuals of the modern
reform, having embarked on an experi
ment which could not solve the problem,
4 'are the sacrifices, over which the race
has to walk."

And then the trend of conversation
changed again, and became all fun and
merriment, jokes and stories. And as we
laughed and listened, the boats came up,
and talk was over for the day.

The whole of that afternoon and
night, the Swami lay in his boat, ill.
But next day, when we landed at the
terpple of Bijbehara — already thronged
with Amarnath pilgrims — he was able
to join us for a little while. "Quickly up
-and quickly down," as he said of himself
was always his characteristic. After that,
he was with us most of the day, and ir
the afternoon, we reached Islamabad.

The dungas were moored beside ar
apple-orchard. Grass grew down to th(
water's edge, and dotted over the lawi
stood the apple and pear and even plun

130

WALKS <Sn TALKS BESIDE THE JHELL UM

trees, that a Hindu state used to think
it necessary to plant, outside each
village. In spring-time, it seemed to us,
this spot must be that very Island-
Valley of Avilion.

"Where falls not hail, or rain, or

any snow.

Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it

lies,

Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with

orchard-lawns,

And bowery hollows, crowned with

summer sea."

The houseboat, in which two of us
lived, could not be taken so far, so it
came to rest in a very deep and rapid
portion of the stream, between high
hedges, and how beautiful was the
walk, from the one point to the other,
under the avenue of poplars, with the
wonderful green of young rice on either
hand !

In the dusk that evening, one came
into the little group amongst the apple

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

trees, and found the Master engaged in
the rarest of rare happenings, a personal
talk with DhirQ, Mdtd, and her whose
name was Jaya. He had taken two
pebbles into his hand, and was saying
how, when he was well, his mind might
direct itself to this and that, or his will
might seem less firm, but let the least
touch of pain or illness come, let him
look death in the face for a while, and
"I am as hard as that (knocking the
stones together), for I have touched the
feet of God." And one remembered,
apropos of this coolness, the story of a
walk across the fields, in England,
where he and an Englishman and
woman had been pursued by an angry
bull. The Englishman frankly ran, and
reached the other side of the hill ir
safety. The woman ran as far as she
could, and then sank to the ground
incapable of further effort. Seeing this
and unable to aid her, the Swami,—
thinking "So this is the end, after all'-

132

WALKS fr TALKS RESIDE THEJHELLUM

took up his stand in front of her, with
folded arms. He told afterwards how
his mind was occupied with a
mathematical calculation, as to how far
the bull would be able to throw. But
the animal suddenly stopped, a few
paces off, and then, raising his head,
retreated sullenly.

A like courage — though he himself
was far from thinking of these
incidents — had shown itself, in his early
youth, when he quietly stepped up to
a runaway horse, and caught it, in the
streets of Calcutta, thus saving the 'life
of the woman, who occupied the
carriage behind.

The talk drifted on, as we sat on the
grass beneath the trees, and became,
for an hour or two, half grave, half gay.
We heard much of the tricks the
monkeys could play, in Brindaban. And
we elicited stories of two separate
occasions in his wandering life, when
he had had clear previsions of help,

'33

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

which had been fulfilled. One of these
I remember. It may possibly have
occurred at the time when he was under
the vow to ask for nothing, and he had
been several days (perhaps five) without
food. Suddenly, as he lay, almost dying
of exhaustion, in a railway-station, it
flashed into his mind that he must rise
up, and go out along a certain road,
and that there he would meet a man,
bringing him help. He obeyed, and
met one, carrying a tray of food. "Are
you he to whom I was sent ?" said this
mari, coming up to him, and looking
at him closely.

Then a child was brought to us, with
its hand badly cut, and the Swami
applied an old wives' cure. He bathed
the wound with water, and then laid on
it, to stop the bleeding, the ashes of a
piece of calico. The villagers were
soothed and consoled, and our gossip
was over for the evening,
duly 23rd The next morning, a motley gather-

134

WALKSfr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLUM

ing of coolies assembled beneath the
apple-trees and waited some hours, to
take us to the ruins of Marttand. It
had been a wonderful old building —
evidently more abbey than temple, — in a
wonderful position, and its great interest
lay in the obvious agglomeration of styles
and periods in which it had grown up.
Never can I forget the deep black
shadows under the series of arches that
confronted us, as we entered in mid-
afternoon, with the sun directly behind
us, in the west. There were three
arches, one straight behind the ojher,
and just within the farthest of them, at
two-thirds of its height, a heavy straight-
lined window top. The arches were all
trefoil, but only the first and second
showed this, as we saw them at the
moment of entering. The place had
evidently originated as three small
rectangular temples, built, with heaVy
blocks of stone, round sacred springs.
The style of these three chambers was

135

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

all straight-lined, severe. Taking the
middle and furthest East of the three,
some later king had built round it an
enclosing wall, placing a trefoil arch
outside each low lintel-formed doorway,
without interfering with the original in
any way, and then had added to it in
front, a larger nave, with a tall trefoil
arch as entrance. Each building had
been so perfect, and the motive of the
two epochs of construction was so clear
that the plan of the temple was pure
delight, and until one had drawn it, one
coulfi not stop. The dharmsdld or
cloister, round the central building, was
extraordinarily Gothic in shape, and to
one who has seen this, and the royal
tombs of Mohammedanism in the north
of India, it is at once suggested that the
cloister is, ideally, the whole of a
monastery, and though, in our cold
climates, it can not be so retained, its
presence is a perpetual reminder that
the East was the original home of

136

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLUM

monasticism. The Swami was hard at
work, in an instant, on observations and
theories, pointing out the cornice that
ran along the nave from the entrance to
the sanctuary, to the west, surmounted
by the high trefoils of the two arches
and also by a frieze ; or showing us the
panels containing cherubs ; and before
we had done, had picked up a of couple
coins. The ride back, through the sun
set light, was charming. From all these
hours, the day before and the day after,
fragments of talk come back to me.

"No nation, not Greek or another,
has ever carried patriotism so far as the
Japanese. They don't talk, they act —
give up all for country. There are
noblemen now living in Japan as
peasants, having given up their prince
doms without a word to create the unity
of the empire.* And not one traitor

* This is, I think a mistake. It was their political
privileges, not their estates, that the Japanese samurais
renounced.

137

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

could be found in the Japanese war.
Think of that !"

Again, talking of the inability of
some to express feeling, "Shy and
reserved people, I have noticed, are
always the most brutal when roused."

Again, evidently talking of the
ascetic life, and giving the rules of
brahmackarya. — "The sannyasin who
thinks of gold, to desire it, commits
suicide," and so on.

The darkness of night and the
forest, a great pinefire under the trees,
two1 or three tents standing out white
in the blackness, the forms and voices
of many servants at their fires in the
distance, and the Master with three
disciples, such is the next picture. Of
the road to Vernag, under the apple-
orchards and along the common-sides,
of the pouring rain, and the luncheon in
the hard-won sunshine, of that grand
old palace of Jehangir, with its octagonal
tank at the foot of the pine-wooded hills,

138

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUM

much might be said. But the crown of
the day came in the hours after dinner,
when we were, at long last, alone, and
the constant file of visitors and wor
shippers, with their gifts, had ceased.
Suddenly the Master turned to one
member of the party and said "You
never mention your school now, do you
sometimes forget it ? You see," he
went on, "I have much to think of. One
day I turn to Madras, and think of the
work there. Another day I give all my
attention to America or England or
Ceylon or Calcutta. Now I am think
ing about yours."

At that moment the Master was
called away to dine, and not till he came
back could the confidence he had in
vited, be given.

He listened to it all, the deliberate
wish for a tentative plan, for smallness
of beginnings, and the final inclination
to turn away from the idea of inclusive-
ness and breadth, and to base the whole

139

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

of an educational effort on the religious
life, and on the worship of Sri
Ramakrishna.

"Because you must be sectarian to
get that enthusiasm, must you not ?"
he said. "You will make a sect in
order to rise above all sects. Yes I
understand."

There would be obvious difficulties.
The thing sounded, on this scale, al
most impossible, for many reasons. But
for the moment the only care need be
to will rightly, and if the plan was sound,
ways and means would be found to
hand, that was sure.

He waited a little when he had
heard it all, and then he said, "You
ask me to criticise, but that I cannot
do. For I regard you as inspired, quite
as much inspired as I am. You know

that's the difference between other reli-
i

gions and us. Other people believe their
founder was inspired, and so do we.
But so am I, also, just as much so as

140

WALKSfr TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLVM

he, and you as I, and after you, your girls
and their disciples will be. So I shall
help you to do what you think best."

Then he turned to Dhira Mata and
to Java, and spoke of the greatness of the
trust that he would leave in the hands
of that disciple who should represent the
interests of women, when he should
go west, of how it would exceed
the responsibility of work for men. And
he added, turning to the worker of the
party, "Yes, you have faith, but you have
not that burning enthusiasm that you
need. You want to be consumed energy.
Siva ! Siva !" — and so, invoking the
blessing of Mahadeva, he said goodnight
and left us, and we, presently, went to bed.

The next morning, we breakfasted Ju|v 25th
early, in one of the tents, and went on
to Achhabal. One of us had had a •
dream of old jewels lost and restored,
all bright and new. But the Swami,
smiling, stopped the tale, saying "Never
talk of a dream as good as that !"

141

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

At Achhabal, we found more
gardens of Jehangir. Was it here, or at
Vernag, that had been his favourite
resting-place ?

We roamed about the gardens, and
bathed in a still pool opposite the Pathan
Khan's Zenana, and then we lunched
in the first garden, and rode down in
the afternoon to Islamabad.

As we sat at lunch, the Swami
invited his daughter to go to the Cave
of Amarnath with him, and be dedicated
to Siva. Dhira Mata smiled permission,
and the next half-hour was given to
pleasure and congratulations. It had
already been arranged that we were all
to go to Pahlgam and wait there for
the Swami's return from the pilgrimage.
So we reached the boats that evening,
packed, and wrote letters, and next day
in the afternoon, started for Bawan.

142

CHAPTER X
THE SHRINE OF AMARNATH.

Time.— July 2Qth to August 8th 1898.
Place. — Kashmir.

From this time we saw very little Ju|v 29th
of the Swami. He was full of
enthusiasm about the pilgrimage and
lived mostly on one meal a day, seeking
no company much, save that of sddhus.
Sometimes he would come to a camping-
ground, beads in hand. To-night two of
the party went roaming about Bawan,
which was like a village fair, all modified
by a religious tendency, centering in the
sacred springs. Afterwards, with Dhira
Mata it was possible to go and listen, , *
at the tent door, to the crowd of Hindi-
speaking sddhus who were plying tjie
Swami with questions.

On Thursday, we reached Pahlgam.

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

and camped down at the lower end of the
valley. We found that the Swami had
to encounter high opposition over the
question of our admission at all. He
was supported by the Naked Swamis,
one of whom said, "It is true you
have this strength, Swamiji, but you
ought not to manifest it !" He yielded at
the word. That afternoon however, he
took his daughter round the camp to be
blessed, which really meant to distribute
alms, — and whether because he was
looked upon as rich, or because he was
recognised as strong the next day our
tents were moved up to a lovely knoll,
at the head of the camp, where we
had the rushing Lidar in front of us,
and pine-covered mountains opposite,
with a glacier distinctly visible, beyond
' , a cleft high up. We stayed a whole day,
at this village, of the shepherds, to
k^ep ek&dasi, and early next morning
the pilgrims left.
July 30th. At six in the morning we had break-

144

THE SHRINE OF AMARNA TH

tasted and were off. What time the
camp had moved, it seemed impossible
to guess, for even at our early meal-time
very few pilgrims or tents were left.
The ashes of dead fires were all that
marked the place where yesterday had
been a thousand people and their
canvas homes.

How beautiful was the route to the
next halt, Chandanawara ! There we
camped on the edge of a ravine. It
rained all afternoon, and I was visited by
the Swami only for a five-minute's chat.
But I received endless touching little
kindnesses from the servants and other
pilgrims. In the interval between two
showers I went out botanising, and found
seven or eight species of Mycsotis, two of
which were new to me. Then I went
back to the shadow of my dripping

hr-tree.

•

The second stage was much harder
than any of the others. It seemed
endless. Close to Chandanawara, the

'45
10

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

Swami insisted on my doing my first
glacier on foot, and took care to point
out every detail of intrest. A tremen
dous climb of some thousands of feet,
was the next experience. Then a long
walk along a narrow path that twisted
round mountain after mountain, and
finally another steep climb. At the top
of the first mountain, the ground was
simply carpeted with edelwiess. Then
the road passed five hundred feet above
Shisharnag, with its sulky water, and
at last we camped in a cold damp place
amongst the snow-peaks, 1 8000 feet high.
The firs were far below, and all after
noon and evening the coolies had to
forage for juniper in all directions. The
Tahsildar's, Swami's and my own tents
were all close together, and in the even
ing a large fire was lighted in front.
But it did not burn well, and many feet
below lay the glacier. I did not see the
Swami after we camped.

Pantajharni — the place of the five

146

THE SHRINE OF AMARNA TH

streams — was not nearly such a long
march. Moreover, it was lower than
Shisharnag, and the cold was dry and
exhilarating. In front of the camp was
a dry river-bed, all gravel, and through
this ran five streams, in all which it
was the duty of the pilgrim to bathe,
walking from one to the other in wet
garments. Contriving to elude observa
tion completely, Swamiji nevertheless
fulfilled the law to the last letter in this
respect.

How lovely were the flowers ! The
night before, or was it this night ? large
blue and white anemones grew in my
tent, beneath my bed ! And here,
wandering off, in the afternoon, to set
a glacier at closer quarters, I found
gentian, sedums, saxifrages, and a new
forget-me-not with little hairy silver '
leaves, thick like velvet pile. Even of
jxmiper at this place there was very
little.

At these heights we often found

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

ourselves in great circles of snow-peaks,
those mute giants that have suggested to
the Hindu mind the idea of the Ash-
encovered God.

August 2nd. On Tuesday. August the 2nd, the

great day of Amarnath, the first batch
of pilgrims must have left the camp at
two ! We left by the light of the full
moon. The sun rose as we went down
the narrow valley. It was not too safe,
at this part of the journey. But when
we left our ddndies and began to climb,
the real danger began. A sort of goat-
pathoin almost vertical hill-sides, becom
ing in the descent on the other side, a
tiny staircase in the turf. Every here
and there, delicate columbines, Mich
aelmas daisies, and wild roses, tempted
one to risk life and limb in their
' acquistion. Then, having at last
reached the bottom of the farther slope,
we had to toil along the glacier, mile
after mile, to the Cave. About a mile
before our destination, the ice ceased,

148

THE SHRINE OF AMARNATH

and in the flowing water the pilgrims
had to bathe. Even when we seemed to
have arrived, there was still quite a stiff
ascent over the rocks to be made.

The Swami, exhausted, had by this
time, fallen behind, but I, not remem
bering that he might be ill, waited,
below the banks of gravel for his
appearence. He came at last, and,
with a word, sent me on, he was going
to bathe. Half an hour later he entered
the cave. With a smile he knelt, first
at one end of the semi-circle, then at
the other. The place was vast, large
enough to hold a cathedral, and the
great ice-Siva, in a niche of deepest
shadow, seemed as if throned on its own
base. A few minutes passed, and then
he turned to leave the cave.

To him, the heavens had opened.
He had touched the feet of Siva. He
had had to hold himself tight, he said
afterwards, lest he 'should swoon away/
But so great was his physical exhaustion,

149

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

that a doctor said afterwards that his
heart ought to have stopped beating,
and had undergone a permanent enlarge
ment instead. How strangely near
fulfilment had been those words of his
Master, "when he realises who and
what he is he will give up this body ! "

" I have enjoyed it so much ! " he
said half an hour afterwards, as he sat
on a rock above the stream-side, eating
lunch with the kind Naked Swami and
myself. "I thought the ice-lingam was
Siva Himself. And there were no
thievish Brahmins, no trade, nothing
wrong. It was all worship. I never
enjoyed any religious place so much ! "

Afterwards he would often tell of the
overwhelming vision that had seemed
to draw him almost into its vertex. He
1 would talk of the poetry of the white
ice-pillar, and it was he who suggested
that the first discovery of the place hact
been by a party of shepherds, who had
wandered far in search of their flocks

THE SHRINE OF AMARNATH

one summer day, and had entered the
cave to find themselves, before the un-
melting ice, in the presence of the Lord
Himself. He always said too that the
grace of Amarnath had been granted to
him there, not to die till he himself
should give consent. And to me he said
"You do not now understand. But you
have made the pilgrimage, and it will
go on working. Causes must bring
their effects. You will understand better
afterwards. The effects will come."

How beautiful was the road by which
we returned next morning to Pahlgam ;
\Ve struck tents that night immediately
on our return to them, and camped later
for the night in a snowy pass a whole
stage further on. We paid a coolie a few
annas here, to push on with a letter, but
when we actually arrived next after-noon
we found that this had been quite un-
* necessary, for all morning long, relays
of pilgrims had been passing the tents,
and dropping in, in the most friendly

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

manner, to give the others news of us,
and our impending arrival. In the
morning, we were up and on the way
long before dawn. As the sun rose
before us, while the moon went down
behind, we passed above the Lake of
Death, into which about forty pilgrims
had been hurried one year, by an ava
lanche which their hymns had started.
After this we came to the tiny goat-path
down the face of a steep cliff, by which
we were able to shorten the return
journey so much. This was little better
than a scramble, and everyone had per
force to do it on foot. At the bottom,
the villagers had something like break
fast ready. Fires were burning, chapatties
baking, and tea ready to oe served out.
From this time on, parties of pilgrims
would leave the main body at each
parting of the ways, and the feeling of
solidarity that had grown up amongst us
all throughout the journey became gra
dually less and less.

152

THE SHRINE Or AMARNAT1I

That evening on the knoll above
Pahlgam, when a great fire of pinc-i
was lighted, and dhurries spread we all
sat and talked. Our friend, the Naked
Swami, joined us and we had plenty of
fun and nonsense, but presently, when
all had gone save our own little party, we
sat on, with the great moon overhead,
and the towering snows, and rushing
river, and the mountain-pines. And
the Swami talked of Siva, and the Cave
and the great verge of vision.

We started for Islamabad next day, August 8th
and on Monday morning as we sat- at
breakfast, we were towed safely into
Srinagar.

I

I

153

CHAPTER XI

AT SRINAGAR OH THE RETURN JOURNEY.

Persons : — The Swami Vivekananda, and a p^rty c
Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira Mata
the 'Steady Mother." * One whose name wa
Jaya' and Nivedita.

Place : — Kashmir — Srinagar.

Time : — August Qth to August I3th.

August 9th. At this time the Master was always
talking of leaving us. And when I
find the entry "The River is pure that
flows, the monk is pure that goes,"
I know exactly what it means — the
passionate outcry " I am always sc
much better when I have to undergo
hardships and beg my bread," the long-
4 ing for freedom and the touch of the
common people, the picture of himsel
faaking a long circuit of the country or
foot, and meeting us again at Baramulh
for the journey home.

154

A T SR/NA GA R ON THE RE TURN JO URNE Y

His family of boat-people, whom he
had staunchly befriended through two
seasons, left us to-day. Afterwards he
would refer to the whole incident of
their connection with him as proof that
even charity and patience could go too
far.

It was evening, and we all went out August ioth
to pay some visit. On the return he
called his disciple Nivedita to walk
with him across the fields. His talk
was all about the work and his inten
tions in it. He spoke of the inclusive-
ness of his conception of the country
and its religions ; of his own distinction
as being solely in his desire to make
Hinduism active, aggressive, a mission
ary faith ; of * dont-touch-ism ' as the
only thing he repudiated. Then he
talked with depth of feeling of the
gigantic spirituality of many of those
\vTio were most orthodox. India wan
ted practicality, but she must never let
ef> her hold on the old meditative life

155

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

for that. "To be as deep as the ocean
and as broad as the Sky' — Sri Rama-
krishna has said, was the ideal. But
this profound inner life in the soul
encased within orthodoxy, is the result
of an accidental not an essential associa
tion. "And if we set ourselves right here,
the world will be right, for are we not all
one ?" "Rctmakrishna Paramahamsa was
alive to the depths of his being, yet
on the outer plane he was perfectly
active and capable."

And then of that critical question
of the worship of his own Master,
"My own life is guided by the enthu
siasm, of that great personality, but
others will decide for themselves how far
this is true for them. Inspiration is
not filtered out to the world through

one man. '

August nth There was occasion this day for the

Swami to rebuke a member of th'is
party for practising palmistry. It was
a thing he said that everyone desired,

156

A T SRINAGAR ON THE RETURN JOURNE Y

yet all India despised and hated. Yes,
he said, in reply to a little special plead
ing, even of character-reading- he dis
approved. "To tell you the truth I
should have thought even your Incar
nation more honest if He and His dis
ciples had not performed miracles.
Buddha unfrocked a monk for doing it."
Later, talking on the subject to which
he had now transferred his attention, he
spoke with horror of the display of the
least of it as sure to bring a terrible reflex.

The Swami had now taken a Brah- August i2tK

and 13th.

min cook. Very touching had been
the arguments of the Amarnath sAd/ins
against his willingness to let even a
Mussalm&n cook for him. "Not in
the land of Sikhs, at least Swamiji :"
they had said, and he had at last con
sented. But for the present he was wor
shipping his little Mohammedan boat-
child as Uma. Her whole idea of lovfc
was service, and the day he left Kash
mir, she, tiny one, was fain to carry a

157

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

tray of apples for him all the way to the
tonga herself. He never forgot her,
though he seemed quite indifferent at
the time. In Kashmir itself he was
fond of recalling the time when she saw
a blue flower on the towing path and
sitting down before it, and striking it
this way and that, "was alone with tha
flower for twenty minutes."

There was a piece of land by the
river-side on which grew three chennaars,
towards which our thoughts turned
with peculiar love at this time. For
the Maharajah was anxious to give it
to Swamiji, and we all pictured it as a
centre of work in the future-work
which should realise the great idea of
4<by the people, for the people, as a joy
to worker and to served."

In view of Indian feeling about a
homestead blessed by women, it had
been suggested that we should go aivd
annex the site, by camping there for a
while. One of our party moreover had

158

A T SRINAGAR ON THE RETURN JOURNE Y

a personal wish for special quiet at this
time. So it was decided that 'we should
establish 'a women's math', as it were,
before the Maharajah should require
the land, to confer it on the Swami.
And this was possible because the spot
was one of the minor camping grounds
used by Europeans.

159

CHAPTER XII

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS.

Persons: — The Swami Vivekananda, and a party of Eu
ropeans, amongst whom were Dhirfi Mata
the 'Steady Mother ;' 'One whose name wa
Jayta ; and Niveditu.

Place : — Kashmir — Srinagar.

Time /—August 1 4th to September 2Oth.

August 14th It was Sunday morning and next

Sept. 3rd. afternoon the Swami was prevailed on
to come up to tea with us, in order to
meet a European guest, who seemed to
be interested in the subject of Vedanta.
He had been little inclined to concern
himself with the matter, and I think
his real motive in accepting, was pro
bably to afford his too-eager disciples
• an opportunity of convincing them
selves of the utter futility of all such
attempts as this. Certainly he tobk
infinite pains with the enquirer and
as certainly his trouble was wasted.

1 60

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS

I remember his saying, amongst other
things, "How I wish a law could
be broken. If we were really able
to break a law we should be free.
What you call breaking the law, is real
ly only another way of keeping it."
Then he tried to explain a little of the
super-conscious life. But his words
fell on ears that could not hear.

On Tuesday he came once more to September
our little camp to the mid-day meal.
Towards the end, it began to rain heavi
ly enough to prevent his return, and he
took up Tod's "History of Rajasthan"
which was lying near, and drifted into
talk of Meenl Bai. "Two-thirds of the
national ideas now in Bengal," he said,
''have been gathered from this book."
But the episode of Meenl B3,i, the queen
who would not be queen, but would

wander the world with the lovers of

> .

Krishna, was always his favourite, even
in Tod. He talked of how she preached
submission, prayerfulness, and service to

161
1 1

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

all in contrast to Chaitanya, who prea
ched love to the Name of God, and
mercy to all. Meer& B&i was always
one of his great patronesses. He would
put into her story many threads with
which one is now familiar in other con
nections, such as the conversion of
two great robbers, and the end by
an image of Krishna opening and swal
lowing her up. I heard him on one
occasion recite and translate one
of her songs to a woman. I wish
I could remember the whole, but it
tegan, in his rendering, with the words,
''Cling to it, cling to it, cling to it,
Brother," and ended with "If Aunka
and Bunka — the robber brothers, Sujana

the fell butcher, and the courtesan, who

playfully taught her parrot to repeat the
name of the Lord Krishna were
saved, there is hope for all." Again ^1
have heard him tell that marvellous tale
of Meera B&i, in which on reaching
Brind^van, she sent for a certain famous

162

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS

s&dhu.* He refused to go, on the ground
that woman might not see men in Brin-
ddvan. When this had happened three
times, Meer3, Bai went to him herself say
ing that she had not known that there
were such beings as men there, she had
supposed that Krishna alone existed.
And when she saw the astonished sddku
she unveiled herself completely, with
the words "Fool, do you call yourself a
Man ?" And as he fell prostrate before
her with a cry of awe, she blessed him
as a mother blesses her child.

Today the Swami passed on to the
talk of Akbar, and sang us a song of
Tana Sena, the poet-laureate of the
Emperor—

"Seated on the throne, a god amongst
men,

Thou the Emperor of Delhi :
Blessed was the hour the minute,
the second,

*Sanatana, the famous Sannyasin disciple of Sri Chaitanya
of Bengal, who gave up his office of minister to the Nawab
of Beng^ to become a religious devotee.

1 6.?

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

When thou ascendest the throne,

O God 'amongst men,

Thou the Lord of Delhi.

Long- live thy crown, thy sceptre,
thy throne,

O God amongst men,

Thou Emperor of Delhi :

Live long, and remain awakened
always,

O son of Humayoon,

Joy of the sun, God amongst men,

Thou, the Emperor of Delhi !"

Then the talk passed to "our national
hero" Prot^p Singh, who never could
be brought to submission. Once indeed
he was tempted to give in, at that
moment when, having fled from Cheetore,
and the queen herself having cooked
the scanty evening meal, a hungry cat
swooped down on that cake of bread
which was the children's portion, and
th*3 King of Mewar heard his babies
cry for food. Then, indeed, the strong
heart of the man failed him. The pros-

164

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS

pect of ease and relief tempted him.
And for a moment he thought of ceasing
from the unequal conflict, and sending
his alliance to Akbar, only for an instant.
The Eternal Will protects its own. Even
as the picture passed before his mind,
there appeared a messenger, with those
despatches from a famous Rajput chief,
that said 'There is but one left amongst
us who has kept his blood free from
admixture with the alien. Let it never
be said that his head has touched the
dust. " And the soul of Protap drew
in the loner breath of courage and
renewed faith, and he arose and swept
the country of its foes, and made his
own way back to Oodeypore.

Then there was the wonderful tale
of the virgin princess Krishna Kumari,
whose hand was sought by various royal
suitors at once. And when three armies
were at the gate, her father could think
of nothing better than to give her poison.
The task was entrusted to her uncle,and

165

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS

he entered her room as she lay asleep
to do it. *But at the sight of her beauty
and youth, remembering her too as a
baby, the soldier's heart failed him, and
he could not perform his task. But she
was awakened by some sound, and being
told what was proposed, stretched out
her hand for the cup, and drank the
poison with a smile. And so on, and so
on. For the stories of Rajput heroes in
this kind are endless.

Sept, 20th. On Saturday, the Swami and he whose
name was Soong, went to the Dahl Lake,
to be the guests of the American consul
and his wife for a couple of days. They
returned on Monday, and on Tuesday,
the Swami came up to the new Math,
as we called it, and had his boat moved
close by ours, so that he could be with
«• us for a few days, before leaving for
Ganderbal.

1 66

CONCLUDING WORDS OF THE EDITOR.

From Ganderbal the Swami returned by the first
week of October and announced his intention of leaving
for the plains in a few days for urgent reasons. The
European party had already made plans to visit the
principal cities of Northern India e.g. Lahore, Delhi,
Agra etc., as soon as the winter set in. So both par
ties decided to return together and came to Lahore.
From here the Swami and his party returned to
Calcutta leaving the rest to carry out their plans for
sight-seeing in Northern India.

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1913