Miracles and Monasteries

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 251, 20 November 1903, Page 4

Miracles and Monasteries

Pej-baps when the project which is on foot—or in the clouds—for the establishing in London of a Hindu temple with full complement of idols and performance of mystic rites, the popular mind will get a clearer conception of the strange practiees obtaining in our great Eastern Dependency. Meanwhile the average British imagination still boggles at the inoiion of fakirs and professional contortionists as leaders of public and religious native opinion in India. Mr John Campbell Oman's new volume, "The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India," leaves a vivid impression of the strange life of these, our fellow-citizens of the Empire. It is the belief of the religious enthusiast to-day that if he desire any special boon he must submit himself to the most terrible austerities, in this- direction Orientals give proof of determination and endurance almost miraculous. The Hindu of this type is a far more interesting study than the professional miracle-workers. Mr Oman devotes a chapter to the "wonders" worked by these latter, but it must be said that the matter is rather thin.

The most remarkable story is that told concerning one Hassan Khan, who, friends of the author averred, gave displays of his peculiar powers to a small circle of acquaintances without fee or reward. At a dinner table he would request his guests to demand any dish that appealed to their fancy, and lo ! no sooner had they mentioned it than the desiderated item appeared. Upon one occasion, after he had called from his verandah for champagne, a bottle came hurling through the air, struck liiiu upon the breast, and smashed to atoms. More mystifying still was «n experience of Hassan Khan which •a friend of the author had when travelling in a railway carriage. Being asked to furnish liquid refreshment, Hassan bade his petitioner put his arm outside the carriage window. This was done, and a bottle of wine was immediately thrust into his outstretched hand. Curious stories of the transmutation of metals are extant, and Mr Oman cites two in which silver from copper and gold from silver were said to appear. There is a strong narrative, too, of a quantity of solder having been converted by an accidental tiro into silver by mixing with some unknown acids. But the evidence is not conclusive. Neither are all the instances cited in self-immurement, fasting, and posturing convincing. But evidences in abundance, illustrated bjr photographs, are given snowing the revolting self-torture to which fanatics, no less than money-grabbing fakirs, submit themselves. Ono sian hangs head downward loaded with chains ; another sits fe what seems an almost impossible position, with legs crossed, feet twisted the wrong way about, and resting with the soles on the abdomen. Yet a third udopts a similar pose, but, instead of resting on his haunches, balances himself, with his legs horribly contorted, upon his knee-joints. With the sight of the fakir who sits with uplifted hands until his arms grow rigid, and the man who chooses the sharp ends of spikes for his couch, photographs have long made us familiar. In many cases the object of these tortures is profit ; in others, religious fervour is the impelling motive. One man endures martyrdom that he may collect funds sufficient to feed a hundred thousand Brahmins ; a second seeks to propitiate his god in order that he may win the power to crush a rival creed.

Monasteries, temples, and religious college alxjund in India. A prosperous Hindu spends bis surplus money nor. in company shares, but in erecting these buildings, prompted not less by pecuniary than religious consrderations. A set tariff governs the spiritual benefits derivable ; inherent commercial prudence does the rest. The table of advantages accruing to the pious builder is interesting. Here are some extracts :—Of those persons who are ever contemplating the construction of a temple for llari, the sins oi a previous hundred births are destroyed. The establisher of a tvmple for Yis-lmu procures the salvation of himself and ol" eight generations above his grandfather. The man who causes a temple to be built to Hari carried to the mansion 01 Vishnu ten thousand past and future generations. On beginning the construction of a temple for Krishma. the sins of seven births are annihilated, and the ancestors rescue! from hell.

As time runs on, suppliaats.grate/ul to the local deity for favourable answers to their petitions, ' make thank-offerings to the temple, or endow it with funds.and lands for general purposes. The offerings of timorous souls to avert calamity also add to the temple chest. Thus, under the stimulus of religious zeal, cupidity, charity, superstition, and a love of indolence, spring iip temples and monasteries, their multiplication tending powerfully to increase the army of mendicants. The hereditary principle plays an important part in the management of the monasteries and 'their revenues. In some instances these establishments have grown so wealthy that their proper management has been of sufficient importance to claim the attention of the British Government. As a. rule they are respectable, innoeuous establishments, but robberies and murders have been tisaccd' to some. Women are received into' the monasteries of India as well as men, a fact in striding contrast with the custom prevailing in the Levant, for instance, where "no female animal of any sort is admitted on any part of the peninsula of Mount Athos." »nc of the monks there, who had been in the monastery since •wibyhood, did not remember ever •having seen a woman, and at thirty years of age usked a visitor from the outer world if thw opposite sex were really like the stiff, expressionless medieval pictures of the Virgin adorning the walls of his little world.