Beast and Man in India

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Beast and Man in India m ?NW'^t... *%, -;& ?> } > ! ! , : i j y"i :' QL 301 G/C BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA A POPULAR SKETCH OF INDIAN ANIMALS IN THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE PEOPLE BY JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING, C.I.E. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1904 A II rights reserved I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things." WALT WHITMAN. ; Second, 1892, 1904 TO THE OTHER THREE CONTENTS CHAP. i. INTRODUCTORY . 2. OF BIRDS . .16 3. OF MONKEYS . 5^ 4. OF ASSES . 75 5. OF GOATS AND SHEEP . 87 6. OF Cows AND OXEN . 103 7. OF BUFFALOES AND PIGS . 154 8. OF HORSES AND MULES 164 2 9. OF ELEPHANTS . 7 10. OF CAMELS . 244 261 11. OF DOGS, FOXES, AND JACKALS .282 12. OF CATS . 288 13. OF ANIMAL CALLS . 14. OF ANIMAL TRAINING . 292 15. OF REPTILES . 33 16. OF ANIMALS IN INDIAN ART . 320 17. OF BEAST FIGHTS . 344 . 2 18. OF ANIMALS AND THE SUPERNATURAL . 35 ILLUSTRATIONS CALIGRAPHIC TIGER . Milnshi Sher Muhammad . Dedication PAGE BIRD SCARING ". J. L. Kipling . 15 INITIAL (A PUNJAB WINDOW) . Amir Bakhsh . 16 THE PARROT'S CAGE . /. L. Kipling . 18 A PERFORMING PARROT . do. .21 A BIRD-SINGING MATCH (DELHI ARTISANS) do . 23 THE FAMILIAR CROW . do. .28 CALF AND CROWS . do. 29 TERRA -COTTA SEED AND WATER TROUGH (FROM A PUNJAB VILLAGE MOSQUE) . .48 UNHOODED F. H. Andrews . .... 51. MONKEY GOD (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH) . 56 LANGURS AT HOME . J. L. Kipling . 58 YOUNG MONKEYS AT PLAY . do. 69 INITIAL LETTER (ASSES IN A CITY ALLEY) do. 76 THE POTTER AND HIS DONKEY . do. So A HINDU SACRIFICIAL KNIFE . Mnnshi Sher Muhammad . 87 A DOMESTIC SACRIFICE (MUHAMMADAN) . J. L. Kipling . 89 ON THE DUSTY HIGHWAY . do. 92 " MILCH GOATS ". do. 94 do. A GUILTY GOAT . 95 ILLUSTRATIONS ILLUSTRATIONS A RAJA'S HORSE (\VAZIRI BREED) . J. L. Kipling . 181 A MONEY-LENDER ON A DECCAN POXY . do. 183 BOMBAY TRAM-HORSE WEARING HORSE-CAP J. Griffiths . 185 PUNJAB FARMER ON A BRANDED MARE . /. L. Kipling . 187 THE EKKA, NORTHERN INDIA . do. 191 AN INDIAN FARRIER . do. 195 A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK (HINDU DEVOTEE) do. 203 THE WHEELS OF A MOUNTAIN BATTERY do. 205 FROM THE SANCHI TOPE ... do. 207 GANESHA (FROM AN ANCIENT HINDU SCULPTURE) do. 209 SHIV OR MAHADEO, WITH THE INFANT GANESH (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH) . .210 IF GANESHA STOOD . J. L. Kipling . 212 AN ELEPHANT GOAD (ANKUS) . Milnshi Sher Muhammad . 227 UNDRESS _ . J- L. Kipling . 229 A PAINTED ELEPHANT . Milnshi Sher Muhammad . 231 WAITING FOR THE RAJA . J. L. Kipling . 234 IN ROYAL STATE .... do. 236 ELEPHANT PILING TIMBER (BURMAH) . do. 240 ELEPHANT LIFTING TEAK LOGS (BURMAH) do. 241 BILOCH FAMILY ON THE MARCH . do. 244 IN A SERAI (REST-HOUSE) ... do. 248 RAJPUT CAMEL-RIDER'S BELT . Miinshi Sher Mtihammad . 249 RAJPUT CAMEL GUNS . J. L. Kipling . 255 THE LEADING CAMEL OF A KAFILA (AFGHANISTAN) do. 259 A SUBALTERN'S DOG-BOY ... do. 261 OUTCASTES (A BEGGING LEPER AND PARIAH DOGS) do. 265 PLAYFELLOWS . do. 268 IN FLOODTIME do. 280 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A HUNTING CHEETAH J. L. Kipling . 294 A RESTLESS BEDFELLOW ... do. 296 A BEAR LEADER .... do. 298 PERFORMING MONKEYS AND GOAT . do. 299 A PERFORMING BULL (MADRAS) . do. 301 VISHNU RECLINING ON THE SERPENT (FROM AN INDIAN LITHO- GRAPH) . ..... 303 A SNAKE-CHARMER . J. L. Kipling . 316 INITIAL LETTER (DECORATIVE PARROTS) . do. 320 MODERN ELEPHANT SCULPTURE, FROM THE TOMB OF SOWAI JAI SINGH, MAHARAJA OF JEYPORE . /. L. Kipling . 324 BORAK. CALIGRAPHIC PICTURE COMPOSED OF PRAYERS Miinshi Sher Muhammad . 325 IN . /.. SMALL WARES METAL /. Kipling . 330 BIRDS BY AN INDIAN DRAUGHTSMAN .... 332 A PERI ON A CAMEL . Bhai Isur Singh . 333 KRISHNA ON AN . ELEPHANT do. 334 KRISHNA ON A HORSE . do. 335 NANDI OR SACRED BULL J. L. Kipling . 336 CATTLE BY AN UNKNOWN INDIAN . ARTIST . 338 A HEROINE AN INDIAN . PUNJAB (FROM LITHOGRAPH) . 342 ANTELOPES. AN INDIAN ARTIST'S . FANTASY . 34-. BUFFALO . BULLS . FIGHTING . /. L. Kipling . 344 A DYING . BULLOCK . (FiNis). do. 360 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY WHEN, on the 2ist March 1890, under the auspices of the Hon. Sir Andrew Scoble, the Legislative Council of India passed an Act (XL of 1890) for the pre- vention of cruelty to animals, some surprise was expressed in England that legislation should be necessary for a people who have long been quoted as an example of mercy. It was hinted that Orientals must have learned cruelty, as they have learned drunkenness, from brutal Britons. Those who know India need not be told that this insinuation is groundless, since both vices have for ages been rooted in the life of Eastern as of all the nations under heaven. The general conclusion of cultivated Europe as to the temper of Orientals towards animals is expressed by Mr. Lecky, in a clause of the sentence with which he concludes a survey of a growth of consideration for animals as an element of public morals, in his History of European Morals from Constantinc to Charlemagne, and runs thus: " The Muhammadans and the Brahmans have in this sphere considerably surpassed the Christians." There is enough truth in this statement to give B BEAST AND MAN interest to an examination of it. The gulf that must exist between religious prescriptions that have earned a world -wide reputation for mercy and a practice which has led a Government, strongly adverse to unnecessary legislation, to frame an enactment for the prevention of cruelty, deserves looking into. We ought, perhaps, to distrust most of the compendious phrases which presume to label our complex and para- doxical humanity with qualities and virtues, like drugs in a drawer. At all events, it is better not to try to make another rule but to offer a few general consider- ations and details of actual fact, leaving the Christian to frame his summary for himself. The wholesale ascription of tender mercy to India may not unfairly be held to be part of a wide and general misconception of Indian life and character, of which the administrator, the schoolmaster, and the missionary have reason to complain. They find on closer acquaintance that both Hindus and Muham- madans are more human and more like the rest of the world than the conventional pictures of Scholars, working from a dead and done -with literature, had led them to expect. Some of the most authoritative of these writers have never ventured to disturb their dreams by contact with the living India of to-day, and their gushing periods have, in consequence, as much actuality as Gulliver's Travels. For nearly all, the last few centuries of this era do not exist. To judge from their writings, the English power in India might have succeeded that of the Gupta kings. No mention is made of the horrible hole of the pit from which the was and the events that country digged ; really shaped the character and habits of the people are ignored INTRODUCTORY in favour of ancient lawgivers and forgotten Vedas. Nothing could be more scholarly, amiable, sentimental, or mistaken, and the plain result is a falsification of history which has more ill effects than are visible on the narrow horizon of an English study. It is not a pleasant subject to dwell upon, but there " " is no more fitting adjective than cruel for the India of the late Mogul and the Pindari. We may allow that through centuries of trouble the Hindu system availed to preserve Brahmanical ordinances, but these only affected a limited portion of the community. The masses of the people, who really have to do with animals, could not but be demoralised. So general precepts of mercy for the many shrank into ritual observances for the few. Moreover, such precepts as exist have been exaggerated in report. Strictly speaking, the Parsee religious code alone, among those of Oriental races, directly enjoins a humane and considerate treatment of all animals during their life, as may be fully learned from the Book of Ardha Viraf, the Dante of the Zoroastrian Inferno. The Hindu worships the cow, and as a rule is reluctant to take the life of any animal except in sacrifice. But that does not preserve the ox, the horse, and the ass from being unmercifully beaten, over-driven, over-laden, under-fed, and worked with sores under their harness ; nor does it save them from abandonment to starvation when unfit for work, and to a lingering death which is made a long torture by birds of prey, whose beaks, powerless to kill outright, inflict undeserved torment. And the same code which exalts the Brahman and the cow, thrusts the dog, the ass, the buffalo, the pig, and the low-caste man beyond the pale of merciful regard. The loving-kindness of which we hear is, in modern BEAST AND MAN fact and deed, a vague reluctance to take life by a for a ex- positive sudden act, except sacrifice, large ception, and a ceremonial reverence for the cow, which does not avail to secure even for her such good treatment as the milch cows of Europe receive. There are some castes who hold it wrong even to accidentally destroy an insect, who keep a cloth before their mouths to prevent swallowing them, and who brush the ground before they seat themselves, so that they may not crush out some minute life.
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