Notes of some wanderings with the Swami Vivekananda

""""NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSWITH THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDAMY _SISTER NIVEDITA OFRAMKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA.Author of The IVcb of Indian LifeThe Civic and National Ideals" ;Cradle- Tales of"Hinduism"T/ie Master as I saw Him" &*c.;;AUTHORISED EDITION,1913.EDITED BY THE SWAMI SARADANANDAITBLISHKI) liV THE BRAILMACI1ARI GONENDRA NATH :UDBODHAN OFFICE :BAGHBA/AR, CALCUTTAAll rights reserved

Printed by K. C. Ghose at the Lakshmi Printing WorJ64-1, 64-2, Sukea Street, Calcutta.

PREFACE.In presenting this little book of the late SisterNivedita to the public, the Editor has taken care tocorrect only a few minor inaccuracies as regardsfacts that crept into it, when itappeared as aseries of articles in the Brahmavadin of Madras,The Chapter headings and a short Synopsis of thecontents of each chapter are also his and the;letter has been joined to the book, to make it convenient for the reader to find out things dealtwith in it, whenever he feels so disposed. Inconclusion he hopes that the book, which offersbright glimpses of the yet undiscovered nooks ofthe private life of the great Swami Vivekananda,and the period of training through which the muchlamented Sister Nivedita had to pass in the handsbf her Master, ere she came out before thepublic gaze as the wonderful champion of truthand justice and righteousness and of the cause ofIndia will meet with the warm reception at thehands of the public, that it fully deserves.SARADANANDA.

CONTENTS.FOREWORD.Foreword written at the year s end : Howthe Ideal becamethe Real during the year 1898 at Belur, at Nainital and Almora,.and lastly at different places in Kashmir : The privilege of seeingthe world through the eyes of a great personality listening to all,feeling with all and refusing none : The unique personality ofthe Swami Vivekananda as itappeared to his western desciples andothers at the time and the back ground which set it in strongrelief : Effects of studying him thus at close quarters. Pages 1-5CHAPTER ITHE HOME ON THE GANGES.A running description of the Home and itssurroundings :Visits of the monks : The Master (Vivekananda) and his methodsof education and rousing a new religious consciousness in theminds of his western pupils never trying to soften things Indianrepellant at first sight and conversation on any subject always endingin the infinite Adwaita : On nation-building, and Siva and Uma :Glimpses of God-Intoxication : A visit to Sarada Devi : Inftiationof Miss M. E. Noble into the life of a Brahmachdrini : TheMaster s going to Darjeeling and return after the first Plague declarations at Calcutta : The signs of the times. ...*Pages 6-17CHAPTER IIAT NAINI TAL AND ALMORA.The two parties leaving Howrah and the first sightof theHimalayas Nainital Our introduction to the : : Maharaja ofKhetri : The incident of the Dancing girls A mahamedan:

11gentleman s feeling about the Swami : The dominant notes ofRaja Ram Mohan Roy s message to India Their : acceptance bythe Swami : How the dancing girls came to pay their respectsto the Master : The incident of the nautch girl at Khetri : Thejourney to Almora The morning talks of the Swami The: :strange new element that crept in at this time in Miss Noble srelation with the Master, of bitterness and distrust on one side,and irritation and defiance on the other : How itbegan andhow it ended : The form adopted in these mornfng-talkscomparative review of East and West and assaults on deep-rootedpre-conceptions.... ... ...Pages 18-28-CHAPTER IIIMORNING TALKS AT ALMORA.The first morning talk on The central ideals of civilisationsin the West, Truth ,in the East, Chastity: The fourkinds of national functions performed by different nations Talks:on Indian history? On the Moghuls The Master sepigram des:cribing the Taj Opinion about Shah Jehan and Akbar : : On Chinaand Oriental untruthfulness : OnItaly, Sivaji and the Aryans :Author s remarks on the fascination of Indian scholars forquestions 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 thevision of the Swami regarding him : On Amba Pali, the courtesan : On Bhakti : On the Babists of Persia : On the high potentiality 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 Christianity on the Swami s life Funny stories on : spirit-seance andthe American Engineer: The Swami s longing for quiet Blessing:the Sister Nivedita : End of the sprained relationship: Death

IVgood and evil effects of religion: TheDak Bangalow at Uri :The legend of the vale of Kashmir. ... ...Pages 70-83CHAPTER VITHE VALE OF KASHMIR.Meeting an old Mohamedan lady Meeting Bengali officials : :On the evolution of different ideals by different nations to whicheach must hold itself true in its future existence. ...Pages 84-90CHAPTER VIILIFE AT SRINAGAR.The Swami, on what Buddhism attempted to bring out in thepast Federalisation of religions: Talk on Chenghiz Khan : Composition of the Ode to The Awakened India 3 :Visiting the templesof Kshir Bhawani and Takt-i-Suliman : The beautiful view fromthe latter place Fragments of talks on Tulsidas Sayings and the::Upanishads On Why Ravana could not tempt Sita by taking theform of Rama : On Thomas a :Kempis Kalidas s Kumar-Sambhabamand the privilege given to women and Sudras to read theScriptures The celebration of the 4th of :July, the American Dayof Independence in the house-boat : The Swami s Ode to the 4thof July The great difference between a house-holder and a Sannya-:sin : Visit to Dahl Lake, Shalimar Bag, etc. : The Swami sattempt to visit Amarnath by the Sonamarg route and failure onaccount of the break of glaciers: His realisations on return.CHAPTER VIIITHE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN.Pages 91-109Sailing down the Jhellum with the Swami :Fragments of songsof Ram Prasad, on the Divine Mother : Talk on Bhakti Radha-1Krishna : On the way to Islamabad the old old Temple of Pan-

drenthan a relic of Buddhism : Its architectural importance acritical examination of its interior and exterior : The four periodsin which the Swami divided the History of Kashmir, placingthe 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 Buddhisticand the latter from the Vedic :Christianity has no common prayerlike Hinduism :Mohamedanism, the only religion that brokedown the idea of Priesthood : The Swami s doubts about the existence of Christ and his dream off Crete : The probable origin ofChristianity by the meeting of Indian and Egyptian ideas withJndaism and Hellenism at Alexandria in old times : S. Paulcapable of Jesuitry Buddha and Mahomed, the only historical:figures in old religious records : A critical examination ofChristianity : Buddha surely was the greatest man who everlived. ... ... ... ...Pages 110-125CHAPTER IXWALKS AND TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUM.The view up the Jhellum calling up memories of Kalidas s pictureof the Himalayas, Siva and Uma : Across the fields on the bankswith 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 VedicAnger-God and Satan of Christianity:Zoroaster, a reformer ofsome old Vedic religion: Ormuzd and Ahriman are but manifestations of the :Supreme Righteousness and Sin becoming laterthe Vidyd and AvidyA of the Upanishads The talk on guiding the:future of India and the Indian people: On National life as a question of organic forces ; re-inforce.the current of that life, then leaveit to do the rest : Onthe Ideas of renunciation and mukti as thesources of Indian National fife : The temple of Bij-Behara and the

viIslamabad : The Swami s coolness in the face of danger and deaththe story of his encountering a bull in England : Fragments ofreminiscences of his life as a wandering friar: The Ruins of thetemple of Marttand Its architectural significance The talk: :\vith the Sister Nivedita about Women s Educational Work atCalcutta : Atentative plan for the same : His advice to dependon her own inspiration mainly for the work : His view of thegreat responsibilityof the same : Achhabal and the Swami sinvitation to Sister Nivedita to accompany him on a pilgrimageto the Shrine of Amarnath. ... ...Pages 126-142CHAPTER XTHE SHRINE OF AMARNATH.The Swami s meeting the pilgrim Sddhus at Bawan : Theopposition to admitting Sister Nivedita among the pilgrims The:removal of the Pilgrim Camp to Chandanawara 18,000 feet abovesea-level : Arrival at the Pantajharni, the place of five streams andthe Swami s fulfilling the Laws : The study of a glacier at close:quarters Arrival at the cave of Amarnath : The Swami s realisations in the cave : The return :Evening at :Pahlgam Back toIslamabad and Srinagar.... ... Pages 143-153CHAPTER XIAT SRINAGAR ON THE RETURN JOURNEY.The Swhmi slongingfor freedom and the touch of the commonpeople : His talk with Nivedita about his conception of India,making Hinduism an agressive missionary faith, deep spiritualityamong many orthodox Hmdus, the association of Spirituality withorthodoxy being accidental and not essential, Sri Ramakrishna asthe embodiment of the highest inner life in the Soul with perfectactivity on the outer plane The Swami s worship of Sri Rama:krishna leaving others free to decide for themselves which person-

Vllalities 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 : Personal wish for special quiet of one of the ladies of the party and theencampment on the land by the river-side, which the Maharajahof Kashmir was anxious for a time to offer to the Swami formaking a centre of his organisation. ...Pages 154-159CHAPTER XIITHE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS.The Swami s meeting an European guest at the temporaryencampment under the Chennaars His talk about Meera : Bai,the queen who would not be queen for love of God : About a songof Tana Sena : About Rana Pratap Sing of Cheetore : AboutKrishna Kumari :Leaving for Ganderbal. ... Pages 160-166CONCLUDING WORDS OF THE EDITOR.

FOREWORDPersons : The Swami Vivekananda ;Gurubhais ; andPlace :disciples.A party of European guests and disciples, amongstwhom were Dhira Mata, the Steady Mother ; Onewhose name was Jaya ;and Nivedita.Different parts of India.Time /The year 1898.year.Beautiful have been the daysof thisIn them the Ideal has become theReal. First in our river-side cottage atBelur then in the ;Himalayas, at Naini-Tal and Almora afterwards ;wanderinghere and there through Kashmir ;everywhere have come hours never tobe forgotten, words that will echo throughour lives for ever, and once at least, aglimpse ofthe Beatific Vision.It has been all play.We have seen a love thatwould beone with the humblest and most igno-

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSrant, seeing the world for the momentthrough his eyes, as if criticism werenot ;we have laughed over the colossalcaprice of genius we have warmed;ourselves at heroic fires ;and we havebeen present, as it were, at the awakening of the Holy child.But there has been nothingserious about any of these things.grim orPainhas come close to all of us. Solemnanniversaries have been and gone.Butsorrow was lifted into a golden light,where it was made radiant, and did notdestroy.Fain, if I could, would I describeour journeys. Even as I write I seethe irises in bloom at Baramulla ;theyoung rice beneath the poplars at Islamabad ;starlight scenes in Himalayanforests ;and the royal beauties of Delhiand the Taj. One longs to attemptsome memorial of these. It would beworse than useless.Not, then, in words,but in the light of memory, they are

FOREWORDenshrined for ever, togetherwith thekindly and gentle folk who dwell amongthem, and whom we trust always to haveleft the gladder for our coming.We have learnt something of themood in which new faiths are born, andof the Persons who inspire suchfaiths.For we have been with one who drewall men to him, listening to all, feelingwith all, and refusing none. We haveknown a humility that wiped out alllittleness, a renunciation that would diefor scorn of oppression and pity of theoppressed,a love that wouldbless eventhe oncoming feet of torture and ofdeath. We have joined hands with thatwoman who washed the feet of the Lordwith her tears, and wiped them with thehairs of her head. We have lacked, notthe occasion, but her passionatesciousnessof self.unconSeated under a tree in the gardenof dead emperors there came to us%avision of all the rich and splendid things

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSof Earth, offering themselves as a shrinefor the great of soul. The storied windows of cathedrals, and the jewelledthrones of kings, the banners of greatcaptains and the vestments of the priests,the pageants of cities, and the retreatsof the proud,all came, and all wererejected.In the garmentsof the beggar,despised by the alien, worshipped by thepeople, we have seen him and; onlythe bread of toil, the shelter of cottageroofs,and the common road across thecornfields seem real enoughfor the background to this life Amongsthis own, the ignorant loved him asmuch as scholars and statesmen. Theboatmen watched the river, in his absence, for his return, and servants disputed with Quests to do him service.And throughit all, the veil of playfulness was never dropped. "They playedwith the Lord," and instinctively theycknew it., 4

FOREWORDTo those who have known suchhours, life is richer and sweeter, and inthe long nights even the wind in thepalm-trees seems to cry"Mahadeva !Mahuldeva!Mahadeva!"5

CHAPTER ITHE HOUSE ON THE GANGES.Place : A cottage at Belur, besides the Ganges.Time: March to May nth.Of the home by the Ganges, theMaster had said to one "You will findthat little house of Dhira Ma,t& likeheaven, for it is all love, from beginningto end."It was so indeed. Within, anunbroken harmony, and without, everything alike beautiful, the green stretchof grass, the tall cocoanut palms, thelittle brown villagesin the jungle, andthe nilkantha that built her nest in a treetopbeside us, on purpose to bring usthe blessings of Siva. In the morningthe shadows lay behind the house : butin the afternoons we could sit in front,worshipping the Ganges herself,leonine mother ! andDakshineswar.greatin sight oi

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGESThere came one and another withtraditions of the past;andwe learntof the Master s eight year s wanderings ;of the name changed from village tovillage ; of the Nirvikalpa Sam&dhi ;and of that sacred sorrow, too deep forwords, or for common sight, that onewho loved had alone seen. And there,too, came the Master Himself, with hisstories of Um& and Siva, of Radha andKrishna, and his fragments of song andpoetry.It seemed as if he knew that thefirst material of a new consciousnessmust be a succession of vivid, but isolated experiences, pouredout withoutproper sequence, so as to provoke themind of the learner to work for its ownconception of order and relation. Atany rate, whether he knew it or not,this was the canon of educational sciencethat he unconsciously fulfilled.For themost part,it was the Indian religionsthat he portrayed for us, to-day dealing

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSwith one, and to-morrow with another,his choice guided, seemingly, by thewhim of the moment. But it was notreligion only that he poured out uponus. Sometimes it would be history.Again,it would be folk-lore. On stillanother occasion, it would be the manifold anomalies and inconsistencies ofrace, caste, and custom. In fact Indiaherself became, as heard inhim, as thelast and noblest of the Pfirdnas, uttering itself through his lips.Another point in which he hadcaught a great psychological secret wasthat of never trying to soften for us thatwhich would at first sight be difficult orrepellent. In matters Indian he wouldrather put forward, in its extreme form,at the beginning of our experience, allthat itmight seem impossible forEuropean minds to enjoy. Thus hewould quote, for instance, some verseabout Gouri and Sankar in a singleform8

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES"Onone side grows the hair in longblack curls,And on the other, corded like rope.On one side are seen the beautifulgarlands,On the other, bone earrings andsnake-like coils.One side is white with ashes, likethe snow mountains,The other, golden as the light ofdawn.For He, the Lord, took a form,And that was a divided form,Half- woman and half-man."And carried by his burning enthusiasm itwas possible to enter into thesethings, and dimly, even then, to apprehend their meaning.Whatever might be the subject of .the conversation, it ended always onthe note of the Infinite. Indeed I donot know that our Master s realisationof the Adwaita Philosophy has beeninanything more convincingthan in

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSthis matter of his interpretation of theworld. He might appear to take upany subject, literary, ethnological, orscientific, but he always made us feelit as an illustration of the UltimateVision. There was, for him, nothingsecular. He had a loathing for bondage, and a horror of those who "coverchains with flowers," but he never failedto make the true critic s distinction between this and the highest forms of art.One day we were receiving Europeanguests, and he entered into a long talkab6ut Persian poetry. Then suddenly,finding himself quoting the poem thatsays, one mole on "For the face of myBeloved, I would giveall the wealth ofSamarcand !" he turned and said energetically"I wouldnot give a straw,you know, for the man who was incapable of appreciating a love song!"Hista[k, too teemed with epigrams.It wasthat same afternoon, in the course ofa long political argument, that he said10

"THE HOUSE ON THE GANGES"In order to become a nation, itappearsthat we need a common hate as well asa common love."Several months later he remarkedthat before one who had a mission henever talked of any of the gods saveUma and Siva. For Siva and theMother made the great workers. YetI have sometimes wondered if he knewat this time how the end of every themewas bhakti. Much as he dreaded theluxury of spiritual emotion for thosewho might be enervated by he couldit,not help giving glimpses of what itmeant to be consumed with theintoxication of God. And so he wouldchantfor us such peoms asThey have made Rjidha queen,the beautiful groves ofBrindaban.inAt her gate stands Krishna,on guard.His flute is singing all the time,:Radha is about to distribute infinitewealth of love.1 1

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSThough am I guard,all the worldmay enter.Come all ye who thirst !SayGlory unto Radha !onlyEnter the region of love !"Or he would give us the great antiphonalChorus of the Cowherds, writtenbyhis friend :*Men. Thou art the Soul of souls,Thou yellow garbed,With thy blue eyes.Women. Thou dark One ! ThouShepherd of Brind^ban !KneelingSheperdesses.at the feet of theMen. My soul sing the praise ofthe glory of the Lord,Who took the human form.Women. Thy beauty for us, theGopis.Men. Thou Lord of Sacrifice.Saviour of the weak.* The late Bengali dramatist, Babu Girish Chandra Ghose.12

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGESWomen. Who lovest R&dh, and thybody floats on its owntears.One such day (May.g)we can neverforget.We had been sitting talking underthe trees, when suddenly a storm cameon. We moved to the terrace, overhangand then to the verandah.ing the river,Not a moment too soon. Within tenminutes, the opposite bank of theGangeswas hidden from our view,andin the blackness before us we could hearthe rain fallingin torrents, and thethunder crashing, while every now andthen there was a lurid flash of lightning.And yet,amidst all the turmoil ofthe elements, we sat on, in our littleverandah, absorbed in a drama far moreintense. One form passed back andforth across our tiny stage;one voicecompassed all the players; and the playthat was acted before us was the love ofthe soul for God! Till we, toocaught the kindling, and loved for the

17.NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSmoment with a fire that the rushing rivercould not put out nor the hurricanedisturb. Shall many, waters quenchLove, or the floods overwhelm it ?"And before Prometheus left us, we kneltbefore him together and he blest us all.One day, early in the cottage-life,the Swami took the Dhinl M4t^, andher whose name was Jay4, to be received for the first time by S^rada Devi,who had come from her village home, toCalcutta, at his call. Thence theybrought back with them for a few hours,a guest to whom the memory of thatday makes one of life s great festivals.Never can she forget the fragrance ofthe Ganges, nor the long talk with theMaster, nor the service Jaya had donethat morning by winning the mostorthodox of Hindu woman to eat with(her foreign disciples nor ;any one ofthe many happy ties that that daybroyght into existence and consecrated.March, 26. A week later the same guest was

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGESthere again, coming late on Wednesday,and going away on Saturday evening.At this time, the Swami kept the customof coming to the cottage early, andspending the morning-hours there,andagain returning in the late afternoon.On the second morning of this visit,however, Friday,the Christian feastof the Annunciation, he took us allthree back to the Math, and there, in theworship-room, was held a little serviceof initiation, where one was made aBrahmacharini.That was the happiestof mornings. After the service, wewere taken upstairs. The Swami *puton the ashes and bone-earrings andmatted locks of a Siva-yogi, and sangand played to us Indian music onIndian instruments, for an hour.And in the evening, in our boat onthe Ganges, he opened his heart to us,and told us much of his questions andanxieties regarding the trust that ,heheld from his own Master.

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSMay, 3.Another week, and he was gone toDarjeeling, and till the day that theplague declaration brought him back wesaw him again no more.Then two of us met him in the houseof our Holy Mother. The political skyIt seemed as if a storm werewas black.about to burst. The moon of thoseevenings had the brown haze about itthat is said to betoken civil disturbanceand already plague, panic, and riotwere doing their fell work. And theMaster turned to the two and said,"There are some who scoff at theexistence of Kali. Yet to-day She is outthere amongst the people. They arefrantic with fear, and the soldiery havebeen called to deal out death. Whocan say that God does not manifestHimself as Evil as well as Good ? Butonly the Hindu dares to worship Himin the evil."He had come back, and the old life(was resumed once more, as far as could

THE HOUSE ON THE GANGESbe, seeing that an epidemic was in prospect,and that measures were on handto give the people confidence. As longas this possibility darkened the horizon,he would not leave Calcutta. But itpassed away, and those happy dayswith it, and the time came that weshould go.

CHAPTER IIAT NAINI TAL AND ALMORAfersons: The Swami Vivekananda ; Guru-bhais*, ancPlace :disciples.A party of Europeans, amongst whom were DhiraMM, the Steady Mother ; One whose namewas Jaya ;and Nivedita.The Himalayas.Time /May II to May 25, 1898.We were a large party, or, indeed,two parties, that left Howrah station onWednesday evening, and on Fridaymorning came in sight of the Himalayas. They seemed to rise suddenlyout of the plains, a few hundred yardsaway.Naini Tal was made beautiful bythree things, the Master spleasure inintroducing to us his disciple,of Khetri ;the Rajathe dancing girls who met usand asked us where to find him, and* Spiritual brethren ; disciples of one and th<same Master are so called.18

!"NAINI TAL AND ALMORAwere received by him, inspire of theremonstrances of others ;andby theMohammedan gentleman who said"Swamiji,if in after-times any claimyou as an avatar, an especial incarnation of the Deity remember that I, aMohammedan, am the firstIt was here, too, that we heard along talk on Ram Mohun Roy,in whichhe pointed out three things as thedominant notes of this teacher s message, his acceptance of the Vedanta, hispreaching of patriotism, and the lovethat embraced the Mussulman equallywith the Hindu. In all these things,he claimed himself to have taken upthe task that the breadth and foresightof Ram Mohun Roy had mapped out.The incident of the dancing girlsoccurred in consequenceof our visit tothe two temples at the head of thetarn,which from time immemorial havebeen places of pilgrimage, making thebeautiful little "Eye Lake" holy. Here,

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSoffering worship,When they had finished, theywe found two nautchwomen.came up to us, and we in broken languentered into conversation withage,them. We took them for respectableladies of the town, and were muchastonished, later, at the storm whichhad evidently passed over the Swami saudience at his refusal to have themturned away. Am I mistaken in thinkingthat it was in connection with thesedancing-womenof Naini Tal that hefirst told us the story, many timesrepeated, of the nautch-girl of Khetri ?He had been angry at the invitation tosee her, but being prevailed upon tocome, shesang"O Lord, look not upon my evil qualities !Thy name, O Lord, isSame-Sightedness,Make us both the same Brahman !One piece of iron is20the knife in thehand of the butcher

NAINI TAL AND ALMORAAnd another piece of iron isthe imageBut when they touch thein the temple.philosopher sstone,Both alike turn to gold!Onedrop ofwater is in the sacred Jumna,And one is foul in a ditch by the roadside.But when theyfall into -the Ganges,Both alike become holy!So, Lord, look not upon my evil qualities !Thy name, O Lord, isSame-Sightedness.Make us both the same Brahman !"And then, said the Master of himself, thescales fell from his eyes, and seeingthat all are indeed one, he condemnedno more. [And she whose name is Java,heard from another of this same visit,when to the assembled women he spokewords of powerthat moved all hearts,full of love and tenderness, without separation and without reproach.]It was late inthe afternoon when we21

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSleft Naini Tal for Almora, and nightovertook us while still travelling throughthe forest.On and on we went, following the road into deep gullies,and outagain, round the shoulders of projectinghill sides, always under the shadow ofgreat trees, and always preceded by torches and lanterns to keep off bears andtigers.While day lasted we had seenthe "rose-forests" and the maiden-hairfern by the spring sides, and the scarletblossoms on the wild pomegranatebushes ;but with nightfall, only the fragrance of these and the honeysuckleswas left to us, and we journeyed on, content to know nothing, save silence andstarlight,and the grandeur of the mountains till we reached a quaintly placeddak-bungalow, on the mountain side,the midst of trees. There after sometime, Swamiji arrived with his party,fiJl of fun, and keen in his appreciationof everything that concerned the comfortof his guests, but full before all, of the22in

NAINI TAL AND ALMORApoetry of the weird "night scenes"without, the coolies by their fires, and theneighing horses, the Poor Man s Shelternear, and the whisperingsolemn blackness of the forest.trees andFrom the day that we arrived atAlmora the Swami renewed his habit ofcoming over to us at our early breakfast,and spending some hours in talk. Thenand always, he was an exceedingly lightsleeper, and I imaginethat his visit tous, early as the hour might be, was oftenpaid during the course of his return withhis monks from a still earlier walk.Sometimes, but rarely, we saw him againin the evening, either meeting him whenout for a walk, or going ourselves toCapt. Sevier s where he and his partywere staying, and seeing him there.And once he came at that time to callon us.Into these morning talks at Almora,a strange new element, painful but salutary to remember, had crept. There

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSappeared to be, on one side, a curiousbitterness and distrust, and, on the other,irritation and defiance. The youngestof the Swami s disciples at this time, itmust be remembered, was an Englishwoman, and of how much this fact meantintellectually, what a strongimplied, and always does imply,bias itin thereading of India, what an idealism ofthe English race and all their deeds andhistory,conception tillthe Swami himself had had nothe dayafter her initiationat the monastery. Then he had asked hersome exultant question, as to which nationshe now belonged to, and had been startled to find with what a passion of loyaltyand worship she regarded the Englishflag,giving to much it of the feelingthat an Indian woman would give to herThakoor. His surprise and disappointment at the moment were scarcely perceptible. A startled look, no more. Nordid his discovery of the superficial wayin which this disciple had joined herself

NA1NI TAL AND ALMORAwith his people in any degree affectconfidence and courtesy during the rehismaining weeks spent in the plains. Butwith Almora, it seemed as if a going-toschool,had commenced, and just asschooling is often disagreeableto thetaught, so here, itthough cost infinitepain, the blindness of a half-view mustbe done away. A mind must be broughtto change its centre of gravity. It wasnever more than this; never the dictatingof opinion or creed ;never more thanemancipation from partiality. Even atthe end of the terrible experience, whenthis method, as regarded race and country, was renounced, never to be takenup systematically again, the Swami didnot call for any confession of faith, anydeclaration of new opinion. He droppedthe whole question. His listener wentfree. But he had revealed a differentstandpoint in thoughtand feeling, so completely and so stronglyas to make itimpossible for her to rest, until later, by

AnotherNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSher own labours, she had arrived at aview in which both these partial presentments stood rationalised and accountedfor"Really, patriotism like yours issin!" he exclaimed once, many weekslater, when the process of obtaining anuncoloured judgment onsome incidenthad been more than commonly exasperating."All that I want you to see isthat most peoples actions are the expression of self-interest, and you constantlyoppose to this the idea that a certain raceare all angels. Ignorance so determinedis Wickedness !"question onwhich this same disciple showed a mostbitter obstinacy was that of the currentwestern estimate of woman. Both theselimitations of her sympathy look pettyand vulgar enough to her now, as compared with the openand disinterestedattitude of the mind that welcomes truth.R>utat the time they were a veritable lion,in the path,and remained so until she hadgrasped the folly of allowing anything26

NAINI TAL AND ALMORAwhatever to obscure to her the personalitself. Onceity that was here revealinghaving seen this, it was easy to bepassive to those thingsthat could not beaccepted, or could not be understood, andto leave to time the formation of ultimatejudgments regarding them. In everycase it had been some ideal of the pastthat had raised a barrier to the movement of her sympathy, and surelyit isalways so. It is the worships of one erawhich forge the fetters of the next.These morning talks at Almora then,took the form of assaults upon deep-rbotedpreconceptions, social, literary, andartistic,or of long comparisons of Indianand European history and sentiments,often containing extended observationsof very great value.One characteristic tof the Swami was the habit of attackingthe abuses of a country or society openlyand vigorously when he was in its midst,whereas after he had left it, it would oftenseem as ifnothing but its virtues were27

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSremembered by him. He was alwaystesting his disciples,and the manner ofthese particular discourses was probablyadopted in order to put to the proof thecourage and sincerity of one who wasboth woman and European.28

CHAPTER IIIMORNING TALKS AT ALMORAPlaceAlmora.Time May and June 1898.The first morning, the talk was that ofthe central ideals of civilization, in theWest, truth, in the East, chastity. Hejustified Hindu marriage-customs, asspringing from the pursuitof this ideal,and from the woman s need of protection,in combination. And he traced out therelation of the whole subject to the Philosophy of the Absolute.Another morning he began by observing that as there were four maincastes, Brahman, Kshattriya, Bunea,Sudra, so there were four great nationalfunctions, the religious or priestly, fulfilledby the Hindus, the military, by theRoman Empire the; mercantile byEngland today and the democratic, by;America in the future. And here he29

,feelingNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSlaunched off into a glowing propheticforecast of how America would yet solvethe problems of the Sudra, the problems of freedom and co-operation, andturned to relate to a non-American listener, the generosity of the arrangementswhich that people had attempted to makefor theiraborigines.Again it would be an eager rdsumJof the history of India or of the Mogulswhose greatness never wearied him.Every now and then, throughout thesummer, he would break out into descriptions of Delhi and Agra. Oncehe described the Taj as "adimness, andagain a dimness, and there a !"graveAnother time, he spoke of Shah Jehan,and then, with a burst of enthusiasm,"Ah ! He was the glory of his line ! Afor, and discrimination of beautythat are unparalled in history. And anartist himself ! I have seen a manuscriptilluminated by him, which is one of theart-treasures of India. What a genius!"

MORNING TALKS A T ALMORAOftener still, it was Akbar of whom hewould tell, almost with tears in his voice,and a passion easierto understand, beside that undomed tomb, open to sun andwind, the grave of Secundra at Agra.But all the more universal forms ofhuman feeling were open to the Master.In one mood he talked of China as ifshe were the treasure-house of the world,and told us of the thrill with which hesaw inscriptions in old Bengali (Kutil ?)characters, over the doors of Chinesetemples. Few things could be moreeloquent of the vagueness of Westernideas regarding Oriental peoples thanthe fact that one of his listeners allegeduntruthfulness as a notorious quality ofthat race. As a matter of fact theChinese are famous in the United States,where they are known asbusiness-men,for their remarkable commercial integrity, developed to a point far beyondthat of the Western requirement of thewritten word. So the objection was an

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSinstance of misrepresentation, which,though disgraceful, is nevertheless toocommon. But in any case the Swamiwould have none of it. Untruthfulness !Social rigidity! What were these, exceptrelative terms ? And as tovery, veryuntruthfulness in particular, could commercial life, or social life, or any otherform of co-operation go on for a day, ifmen did not trust men ? Untruthfulnessas a necessity of etiquette? And howwas that different from the Westernidea ? Is the Englishman always gladand always sorry at the proper place ?But there is still a difference of degree ?Perhaps but only of degree!Or he might wander as farItaly, that greatestafield asof the countries ofalikeEurope, land of religion and of art ;of imperial organization and ofMazzini ;mother of ideas, of culture,and of freedom !"rOne dayit was Sivaji and theMahrattas and the year s wandering as a32

Saunydsi,MOKN/Ni; TALKS AT ALMORAthat won him home to Rai-"Andgarh. to this said theday,"S \vami, in India"authoritydreads theSannytisi, lest he conceal beneath hisyellow garb another Siv&ji."Often the enquiry, Who and what aretin*Aryans ? absorbed his attention ;and, holding- that their origin was complex,he would tell us how in Switzerlandhe had felt himself to be in China, solike were the types. He believed toothat the same was true of some parts ofNorway. Then there were scraps ofinformation about countries and physiognomies, an impassioned tale of the Hungarian scholar, who traced the Huns toTibet, and lies buried inso on.Darjeeling andIt was very interesting throughoutthis summer, to watch, not only in theSwami s case, but in that of allpersonswho might be regarded as representativeof the old Indian culture, how strongwasthe fascination exerted by enquiries33

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSof this nature. It seemed as if in theintellectual life of theEast, questions ofrace and custom and ethnological originsand potentialities took the place thatthe observation of international politicsmighthold in the West. The ideasuggesteditself that Oriental scholarsand statesmen could never ignore thiselement in their peculiar problems,andwould be likely at the same time tobring a very valuable powermination to bear upon it.of discriSometimes the Swami would dealwith the rift between Brahmins andKshattriyas, paintingof India as a struggleand showing that the latterthe whole historybetween the two,had alwaysembodied the rising, fetter-destroyingimpulses of the nation. He could giveexcellent reason too for the faith thatwas in him that the Kayasthasof modernBengal represented the pre-MauryarKshattriyas. He would portray th(two opposing types of culture, the on<34

WORKING TALKS AT ALMORAclassical, intensive, and saturated withan ever-deepening sense of tradition andcustom;theother, defiant, impulsive,and liberal in its out-look. It was partof a deep-lying law of the historic development that Rama, Krishna, andBuddha had all arisen in the kingly, andnot in the priestly caste. And in thisparadoxical moment, Buddhism was reduced to a caste-smashing formula "areligion invented by the Kshattriyas"asa crushing rejoinder to Brahminism !That was a great hour indeed, whenhe spoke of Buddha; for, catching aword that seemed to identify him withits anti-Brahminical spirit,an uncomprehending listener said, "Why Swami, Idid not know that you were a Buddhist !""Madam," he said rounding on her, hiswhole face aglow with the inspiration of ,that "Iname, am the servant of theservants of the servants of Buddha.Who was there ever like Him ? iheLord who never performed one action35

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSfor Himself with a heart that embraced the whole world !Sofull of pitythat He prince and monk would giveHis life to save a littlegoat!Solovingthat He sacrificed himself to the hungerof a tigress! to the hospitality of apariah and blessed him \And He cameinto my room when I was a boy and Ifell at His feet ! ForLord Himself !"I knew it was theMany times he spoke of Buddha inthis fashion, sometimes at Belur andsometimes afterwards. And once hetold us the story of Amb,pftli, thebeautiful courtesan who feasted Him,in words that re-called the revolt ofRossetti s great half-sonnet of MaryMagdalene:"Oh loose me !Seest thou not myThat draws me to him ?Bridegroom s face,For his feetmy kiss,My hair, my tears, He cravesoh !to-day : And36

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAWhat words can tellwhat other dayand placeShall see me clasp those bloodstained feet of His ?He needs me, calls me, loves me, letme go!"But national feeling did not have itall its own way. For one morning whenthe chasm seemed to be widest, therewas a long talk on bhakti that perfect identity with the Beloved that thedevotion of Rilya Ramananda theBengali nobleman before Chaitanya sobeautifully illustrates"Foureyes met. There were changesin two souls.And now 1 cannot rememberwhether he is a manAnd I a woman, or he a woman andI a man !All I know is, there were two, Lovecame, and there isone !"It was that same morning that hetalked of the Babists of Persia, in37

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGStheir era of martyrdom of the womanwho inspired and the man who worshipped and worked. And doubtlessthen he expatiated on that theory ofhissomewhat quaint and surprising tounaccustomed minds, not so much forthe matter of the statement, as for theexplicitness of the expression, of thegreatness and goodness of the young,who can love without seeking personalexpression for their love, and their highpotentiality.Another day coming at sunrise whenthe snows could be seen, dawn-lighted,from the garden,it was Siva and Umaon whom he dwelt,and that was Siva,up there, the white snow-peaks, and thelight that fell upon Him was the Motherof the World ! For a thought on whichat this time he was dwelling much wasthat God is the Universe, not withinit,<;or outside it, and not the universeGod or the image of God but He it,and the All.

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORASometimes allthroughthe summerhe would sit for hours telling us stories,those cradle-tales of Hinduism, whosefunction is not at all that of our nurseryfictions, but much more, like the manmakingmyths of the old Hellenic world.Best of all these Ithought was thestory of Suka, and we looked on theSiva-mountains and the bleak sceneryof Almora the evening we heard it forthe first time.Suka, the typical Paramahamsa,refused to be born for fifteen years,because he knew that his birth wpuldmean his mother s death.* Then hisfather appealed to Um^, the Divinemother. She was perpetually tearing*The reader may question this version of the story ofSuka. But the Sister Nivedita, as far as we can judge hasput the facts here thus, intentionally, either to make itappear*more natural or to suggest the great love that Suka had inhis heart ; for he (Suka) knew he would leave father, mother,kindred, home and all for the love of God, as soon as he wasborn, causing death-like pangs to them, especially *to hismother s heart. The reader should remember this also,whi e reading the last part of the story.39

wasNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSdown the veil of Ma,y& before the hiddenSaint, and Vy&sa pleaded that She shouldcease this, or his sou would never cometo birth. UniTi consented, for onemoment only and that moment the childwas born. He came forth a youngman sixteen years of age, unclothed,and went straight forward, knowingneither his father nor his mother,straight on, followed by Vyasa. Then,coming round a mountain-pass hisbody melted away from him, becauseit was no different from the universe,and his father following and crying,"Ohmy son ! Oh my son !" answered only by the echo, Om Om "Om !amonged his body,!!"-the rocks. Then Suka resumand came to his father toget knowledge from him. But Vyasafound that he had none for him, andsent him to Janaka, king of MithiU, thefather of Sitsi, ifperchance he mighthave some to give.Three days he satoutside the royal gates, unheeded, with-40

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAout a change of expression or of look.The fourth day he was suddenly admitted to the king s presence with tclat.Still there was no change.Then as a test, the powerful sagewho was the king s prime minister,translated himself into a beautifulwoman, so beautiful that every onepresent had to turn away from the sightof her, and none dared speak. ButSuka went up to her and drew her tosit beside him on his mat, while hetalked to her of God.Then the minister turned to Jandkasaying, "Know, oh King,ifyou seekhe !"the greatest man on earth, this isThere is little more told of the lifeof Suka. He is the ideal Paramahamsa.To him alone amongst men wasitgiven to drink a handful of the watersof that one undivided Ocean of Sat-Chit-Ananda existence, knowledge andbliss absolute ! Most saints die, havingheard only the thunder of Its waves

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSupon the shore. A few gain the visionand still fewer, taste of It. But hedrank of the Sea of Bliss !"Suka was indeed the Swami ssaint. He was the type, to him, ofthat highest realisation to which life andthe world are merely play.Long after,we learned how Sri Ramakrishna hadspoken of him in his boyhood as, "MySuka." And never can Iforget thelook, as of one gazing far into depthsof joy, with which he once stood andquoted the words of Siva, in praiseo:the deep spiritual significance of theBhagavad-Gita, and of the greatness o:Suka "Iknow,the realmeaning othe teachings of the Bhagavad-Gitaand Suka knows, and perhaps Vyascknows a little !Another dayin Alrnora the Swamtalked of the great humanisinglive,that had arisen in Bengal, at the lon|inrollingwash of the first wave omodern conciousness on the ancien

"The"MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAshores of Hindu culture. Of RamMohun Roy we had already heard fromhim at Nani Tal. And now of thePundit Vidy^sjigar he exclaimed "Thereis not a man of my agein NorthernIndia, on whom his shadow has notfallenl"It was a great joy to him toremember that these men and SriR4makrishna had all been born withina few miles of each other.The Svvami introduced Vidy&siigarto us now asthe hero of widow remarriage, and of the aboliton of polygamy."But his favourite story abouthim was of that day when he went homefrom the Legislative Council, ponderingover the question of whether or not toadopt Englishdress on such occasions.Suddenly some one came up to a fatMogul who was proceeding homewardsin leisurely and pompous fashion, infront of him, with the newsSir, yourhouse is on fire !"Mogul wentneither faster nor slower for this infor-43

NOTES OF SO.\fEWANDERINGSmation, and presently the messengeicontrived to express a discreet astonishment. Whereupon his master turnedon him angrily,"Wretch!" he said, "amI to abandon the gait of my ancestors,because a few sticks happen to beAnd Vidy^s^gar, walkingburning?"behind, determined to stick to thechudder, dhoti and sandals, not evenadopting coat and slippers.,The picture of Vidysgar going intoretreat for a month for the study of thewhen his motherSh^stras, (Scriptures),had suggested to him the re-marriage ofchild-widows, was very forcible. "Hecame out of his retirement of opinion thatthey were not against such re-marriage,and he obtained the signatures of thepundits that they agreed in this opinion.Then the action of certain native princesled the pundits to abandon their own signatures, so that, had the Government notdetermined to assist the movement, itcould not have been carried44and now,"

".MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAadded the Swami,the difficulty hasan economic rather than a social basis."We could believe that a man who\vas able to discredit polygamy by moralforce alone, was "intensely spiritual."And it was wonderful indeed to realisethe Indian indifference to a formal creed,when we heard how this giant was drivenby the famine of 1864, when 140000people died of hunger and disease, tohave nothing more to do with God, andbecome entirely agnostic in thought.With this man, as one of theeducators of Bengal, the Swami coupledthe name of David Hare, the old Scotsman and atheist to whom the clergy ofCalcutta refused Christian burial. Hehad died of nursing an old pupilthrough cholera. So his own boyscarried his dead body and buried it ina swamp, and made the grave a place ofpilgrimage. That place has nowbecome College Square, the educationalcentre and his school is now within the45

cried">NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSUniversity. And to this day, Calcuttastudents make pilgrimage to the tomb.On this day we took advantage ofthe natural turn of the conversation tocross-question the Swami as to thepossible influence that Christianitymight have exerted over himself. Hiwas much amused to hear that such ;istatement had been hazarded, andtoldus with much pride of his only contac:with missionary influences, in the persoi.of his old Scotch master, Mr. HastieThis hot-headed old man lived 01nothing, and regardedhis room as hiboys home as much as his own. Iwas he who had first sent the Swami t<Sri Ramakrishna, and towards the emof his stay in India he used to say "Yemy boy, you were right, you werright!It is true that all is God !"am proud of him !"the Swami"but I don t think you could saythat h-had Christianised me much!" It appealed, indeed, that he had only been hi46

theMORNING TALKS AT ALMORApupilfor some six months, havingattended college so irregularly that thePresidency Collegeup forhis degree, thoughrefused to send himhe undertookto pass!We heard charming stories, too, onless serious subjects. There was thelodging-house in an American city forinstance, where he had had to cook hisown food, and where he would meet, inthe course of operations,"an actresswho ate roast turkey everyday, and ahusband and wife who lived by makingAnd when the Swami remonsghosts".trated with the husband, and tried topersuade him to give up deceivingpeople, saying "You ought not to dothis !" wife would come up behind,and say eagerly"Yes Sir ! that s justwhat I tell him for he makes;all the,ghosts,and Mrs. Williams takes all themoney!"He told us also of a young engineer,an educated man, who, at a spiritualistic47-

!"NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSgathering,appeared"when the fat Mrs. Williamsfrom behind the screen as histhin mother, exclaimed Mother dear,how you have grown in the spiritworldliAt this," said the Swami, "myheartbroke, for Ithought there could be nohope for the man." But never at a loss, hetold the story of a Russian painter, whowas ordered to paint the picture of apeasant s dead father, the only description given being,"Man ! donyou?"he had a wart on his noset I tellWhenat last, therefore, the painter had madea p6rtrait of some stray peasant, andaffixed a large wart to the nose, thepicture was declared to be ready, andthe son was told to come and see it.He stood in front of it, greatly overcome, and said "Father ! Father ! howchanged you are since I saw you last !"After this, the young engineer wouldnever speak to the Swami again, whichshowed at least that he could see the4 s

>oaloneMORNING TALKS A T ALMORApoint of a story. But at this, theHindu monk was genuinely astonished.In spite of such general interests,however, the inner strifegrew high,and the thought pressed on the mind ofone of the older members of our partythat the Master himself needed serviceand peace. Many times he spoke withwonder of the torture of life, and whoofcan say how many signs there were,bitter need ? A word or two wasspoken little, but enough and he,after many hours, came back and toldus that he longed for quiet, and wouldto the forests and findsoothing.And then, looking up, he .saw theyoung moon shining above us, and hesaid "The Mohammedans think much ofthe new moon. Let us also, with thenew moon, begin a new life !"blessed hisAnd hedaughter with a great blessing, so that she, thinkingthat her oldrelationship was broken, nor dreaming49

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSthat a new and deeperlife was beinggiven to it, knew only that the hour wasstrange and passing sweet.And so that strife was ended, andfor allviews and opinions of the Swami,there was room made thenceforth, thatthey might be held and examined, anddetermined on at leisure, however impossible or unpleasing they mightat the first.seemHe went. It was WednesdayAnd on Saturday he came back. H(had been in the silence of the forest?ten hours each day,but on returning tohis tent in the evenings, he had beersurrounded with so much eager attendance as to break the mood, and hehad fled. Yes, he was radiant. He hacdiscovered in himself the old-timesannyasi, able to go barefoot, ancendure heat, cold, and scanty fareunspoilt by the West. This, and whaelse he had got,was enough for th<present, and \ve left him, under th<50

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAeucalyptus trees, and amongst the tearoses,in Mr. Sevier s garden,full ofgratitude and peace.The following Monday he went Ma v 30>away, with his host an-d hostess, on aweek s visit, and we were left in Almorato read, and draw, and botanise. Oneevening in that week, we sat talkingafter dinner. Our thoughts werecuriously with the In Memoriam and,one of us read aloud"Yet in these ears, tillhearing dies,June 2nd,One set slow bell will seem to tollThe passing of the sweetest soulThat 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, inthe distant south, one soul of our owncircle was passing out of this littlevisiblechurchof ours, into some finer radianceand more triumphant manifestation,

<NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSperhaps, in the closer presence possiblebeyond. But we did not know it yet.Still another day the dark shadow of, weknew not what hung over us. Andthen, as we sat working on Fridaymorning, the telegram came, a day latethat 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 thawith his last breath he had spoken o *the Swami, and longed for hisbyhis side.presenceJune 5th. On Sunday evening, the Swamcame home. Through our gate ancover the terrace his way brought himand there we sat and talked with himmoment. He did not know our newsbut a great darkness hungover hinalready, and presently he broke th<silence to remind us of that saint wh(had called the cobra s bite "messengefrom the Beloved," one whom he hac

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAloved, second only to Sri Ramakrishnahimself. "I have just,"he said, "receiveda letter that says: Paohari Baba hascompletedall his sacrifices with thesacrifice of his own body. He has burnthimself in his sacrificial fire." "Swami !exclaimed someone from amongst hislisteners, "wasn t that very wrong?""How can I tell ?" said the Swami,speaking in "Hegreat agitation. wastoo great a man for me to judge. Heknew himself what he was doing."Very little was said after this, andthe party of monks passed on.had the other news been broken.Not yetNext morning he came early, in a j une 6th.great mood. He had been up, he saidafterwards, since four. And one wentout to meet him, and told him, of Mr. .Goodwin s death. The blow fell quietly.Some days later, he refused to stay inthe place where he had received it, andcomplained of the weakness that broughtthe image of his most faithful disciple53

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSconstantly into his mind. It was ncmore manly, he protested, to be thusridden by one smemory, than toretain the characteristics of the fish orthe dog. Man must conquer thisillusion, and know that the dead arehere beside us and with us, as muchas ever. It is their absence and separation that are a myth. And then hewould break out again with some bitterutterance against the follyPersonal Will to guide"As if,"he exclaimed,of imaginingthe universe."it would not beone s right and duty to fight such aGod and slay Him, forkillingGoodwin ! And Goodwin, if he hadlived, could have done so much !"And in India one was free to recognisethis as the most religious, because themost unflinchingly truthful, mood of all !And while Ispeak of this utterance,Imay perhaps put beside it another,that I heard a year later, spoken out olthe same fierce wonder at the dreams54

MORNING TALKS A T ALMORAwith which we comfort ourselves."Why !" hemagistratesaid, then, "Every pettyand officer is allowed hisperiod of retirement and rest. OnlyGod, The Eternal Magistrate, mustsitjudging for ever, and never gofree !"But in these first hours, the Swamiwas calm about his loss, and sat downand chatted quietly with us. He wasfull that morning of bhakti passing intoasceticism, the divine passion thatcarries the soul on itshigh tides, far outof reach of persons, yet leaves it again,struggling to avoid those sweet snaresof personality.What he said that morning of renunciation proved a hard gospel to one ofthose who listened, and when he camea^ain she putit to him as her convictionthat to love without attachmentinvolved no pain,and was in itself ideal.He turned on her with a suddensolemnity."What is this idea of bhakti55

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSwithout renunciation?" he said. "It ismost pernicious!"and standing therefor an hour or more, he talked of theawful self-discipline that one must imposeon oneself, if one would indeed beunattached, of the requisite nakednessof selfish motives, and of the dangerthat at any moment the most flowerlikesoul might have its petals soiledwith the grosser stains of life.He toldthe story of an Indian nun who wasasked when a man could be certain ofsafetyon this road, and who sent back,of ashes. Forfor answer, a little platethe fight against passion was long andfierce, and at any moment the conquerormight become the conquered.And as he talked, it seemed thatthis banner of renunciation was the flagof a great victory, that poverty and selfmasterywere the fitonly raiment forthe soul that would wed the EternalBridegroom, and that life was a longopportunity for giving, and the thing not

MORNING TALKS AT ALMGRAtaken away from us was to be mournedas lost. Weeks afterwards, in Kashmir,when he was again talking in somekindred fashion, one of us ventured toask him if the feeling he thus rousedwere not that worship of pain thatEurope abhors as morbid.the "Isworship of pleasure, then, sonoble ?"was his immediate answer."But indeed," he added, after a pause,"weworship neither pain nor pleasure.We seek through either to come atthatwhich transcends them both."This Thursday morning there was a June 9th.talk on Krishna. It was characteristicof the Swami s mind, and characteristicalso of the Hindu culture from which hehad sprung, that he could lend himselfto the enjoyment and portrayal of anidea one day, that the next would seesubmitted to a pitiless analysis and leftslain upon the field. He was a sharer tothe full in the belief of his people that,provided an idea was spiritually true57

NOTES OF SO.WE WANDERINGSand consistent, it mattered verylittleabout its objective actuality. And thismode of thought had first been suggestedhis ownto him, in his boyhood, byMaster. He had mentioned some doubtas to the authenticity of a certain"What !"religious history. said SriRamakrishna, "do you not then thinkthat those who could conceive suchideas must have been the thingitself?"The existence of Krishna, then, likethat of Christ, he often told us in thegeneral wayhe doubted. Buddha andMahommed alone, amongst religiousteachers,had been fortunate enough tohave enemies as well as friends ,so thattheir historical careers were beyonddispute. As for Krishna, he was themost shadowy of all. A poet, a cowherd,a great ruler, a warrior, and a sage hadall perhaps been mergedin one beautifulfigure, holding the Gita in his hand.But to-day, Krishna was "the mostperfect of the avatars." And a wonderful58

MORNIXG TALKS AT ALMORApicture followed, of the charioteer whoreined in his horses, while he surveyedthe field of battle and in one brief glancenoted the disposition of the forces, atthe same moment that he commencedto utter to his royal pupil the deepspiritualtruths of the Gita.And indeed as we went through thecountrysides of northern India thissummer, we had many chances of notinghow deep this Krishna-myth had set itsmark upon the people. The songs thatdancers chanted as they danced, in theroadside hamlets, were allof Radha -andKrishna. And the Swami was fond of,istatement, as to which we, of course,could have no opinion, that the Krishnaworshippersof India had exhausted thepossibilities of the romantic motive inlyric poetry.Is that curious old story of the Gopis,then, really a fragment of some pastoralworship, absorbed bya more modernsystem, and persistently living on,in all59

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSits dramatic tenderness and mirth, intothe glare of the nineteenth century?But throughout these days, theSwami was fretting to be away andalone. The place where he had heardof Mr. Goodwin s loss was intolerableto him, and letters to be written andreceived constantly renewed the wound.He said one day that Sri Ramakrishna,while seeming to be all bhaktiwithin, alljndna;was really,but he himself,apparently all jndna, was full of bhakti,and that thereby he was apt to be asweak as any woman.One day he carried off a few faultylines of some one s writing, and broughtback a littlepoem, which was sent tothe widowed mother, as his memorial ofher son.Requiescat in Pace !Speed forth, O soul !upon thystar-strewn path,Speed, blissful one, where thought60isever free,

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAWhere time and sense no longermist the view,Eternal peace and blessings be onthee!Thyservice true, complete thyThy home the heart of lovesacrifice,transcendent find,Remembrance sweet, that tellsallLike altar-roses, fillspace and time,thy place behind.Thy bonds are broke, thy questin bliss is found.Andone with that which comesas Death and Life,Thou helpful one !unselfish e erAhead, stillon earth,aid with love this worldof strife.And then, because there was nothingleft of the original, and he feared thatshe who was corrected (becauseher lines61

1NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGShad been "in three metres") might behurt, he expatiated, long and earnestlyupongreaterthe theme that it was so muchto feel poetically than merely tostring syllables together in rhyme andmetre ! He might be very severe on asympathy or an opinion that seemed inhis eyes sentimental or false. But aneffort that failed found alwaysin theMaster its warmest advocate and tenderestdefence.And how happy was that acknowledgment of the bereaved mother to himwhen, in the midst of her sorrow sh(wrote and thanked him for the characteof 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 fataillnessofSriRamakrishna. Dr. MohendrLall Sirkar had been called in, and ha*pronouncedthe disease to be cancer c fthe throat, leaving the young disciple ;with many warnings as to its infectiou >62

MORNING TALKS AT ALMORAiture. Half an hour later, "Noren",as he then was, came in and found themhuddled together, discussing the dangersof the case. He listened to what theyhad been told, and then, looking down,saw at his feet the cup of gruel that hadbeen partly taken by Sri Ramakrishnaand which must have contained in it,the germs of the fatal discharges ofmucous and pus, as it came out in hisbaffled attempts to swallow the thing,on account of the stricture of the foodpassagein the throat. He picked it up,and drank from it, before them all.Never was the infection of cancermentioned amongst the disciples again.

CHAPTER IV.ON THE WAY TOKATHGODAM.On Saturday morning we left Almora.It took us two days and a half to reachKathgodam. How beautiful the journeywas !Dim, almost tropical, forests, troopsof monkeys, and the ever-wondrousIndian night.Somewhere en route near acuriousold water-mill and deserted forge, theSwami told D/itr& Mdtd of a legend thatspoke of this hillside as haunted by arace of centaur-like phantoms, and of anexperience known to him, by which onehad first seen forms there, and onlyafterwards heard the folk-tale.The roses were gone by this time,but a flower was in bloom that crumbledat a touch, and he pointed this out,because of its wealth of associations iiIndian poetry.64

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAMOn Sunday afternoon we rested, near j u ne i2th.the Plains, in what we took to be anout-of-the-way hotel, above a lake andfall, and there he translated for us theRudra-prayer."Fromthe Unreal lead us to theReal.From darkness lead us unto light.From death lead us to immortality.Reach us through and throughour self.And evermore protect us OhThou Terrible !From ignorance, by Thy sweetcompassionate Face."He hesitated a long time over thefourth line, thinking of rendering it,"Embrace us in the heart of ourheart".But at last he put his perplexity to us, say-.ing shyly, "The real meaningis "Reachourself." Heus through and throughhad evidently feared that this sentence,with itsextraordinary intensity, might65

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSnot make good sense in English. Butour unhesitating choice of that afternoonhas received a deep confirmation in myown eyes, since I have understood thata more literal rendering would be,"OThou who art manifest only unto Thyself, manifest Thyself also unto us !" Inow regard his translation as a rapid anddirect transcript of the experience ofSamadki itself.It tears the living heartout of the Sanskrit, as it were, andrenders itagain in an English form.It was indeed an afternoon of translations, and he gave us fragmentsolthe great benediction after mourning,which isone of the most beautiful of theHindu sacraments ;"Theblissful winds are sweet to us.The seas are showeringbliss on us.May the corn in our fields bringbliss to usMay the plants and herbs bringbliss to usMay the cattle giveus bliss.66

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAMO Father inHeaven be Thou blissful unto us !The very dust of the earth isfullof bliss.(And then, the voice dying downintomeditation),It is all bliss all bliss all bliss."And again we had Soor Das Songwhich the Swami heard from the Nautchgirlat Khetri :O Lord, look not upon my evilThy name, O Lord, isqualities!Samesightedness.Make of us both the same Brahman !One drop of water is in the sacredAnd another isJumna,foul in the ditch bythe roadside,But, when theyfallinto the Ganges,both alike become holy.So Lord, look not upon my evilqualities,

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSThy name, O Lord, isMake of us both the same Brahman !One piece of iron is the image inAnd another isthe templethe knife in thehand of the butcherBut when they touch the philosopher*stone, both alike turn to goldSo Lord, look not upon my evilThy name, O Lord, isqualitiesSamesightedness,SamesightednessMake of us both the same BrahmanWas it that same day, or some otherthat 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, "Alwaysface th ;brute !"?Those journeys were delightful.W ;were always sorry to reach a destinatioi .-At this time, it took us a whole afteinoon to cross the Terai by rail, th; t68

ON THE WAY TO KATHGODAMstrip of malarial country, on which, ashe reminded us, Buddha had beenborn. As we had come down themountain-roads, we had met parties ofcountry-folk, fleeing to the upper hills,with their families and all their goods,to escape the fever which would be uponthem with the rains. And now, in thetrain, there was the gradual change ofvegetation to watch, and the Master spleasure, greater than that of anyproprietor, inshowing us the wild peacocks, or here and there an elephant, ora train of camels.Quickly enough, we came back tothe palm-zone. Already we had reachedthe yuccas and cactus the day before,and deodar-cedars we should not seeagain, tilldistant Acchabal.69

Then,CHAPTER VON THE WAY TOBARAMULLAPersons : The Swami Vivekananda ; Gurubhais, amdisciples.A party of Europeans, amongst whom wer<Dhiri Mata, the Steady Mother ;On.whose name was Jaya ;and Nivediti.Place rFrom Bareilly to Baramulla, Kashmir.Time :June I4th to 2oth, 1898.June 14th. We entered the Punjaub next day,and great was the Swami s excitementat the fact. It almost seemed as if hehad been born there, so close and specialwas his love for this province. He talkedof the girls at their spinning wheels,listening to the "Sohum ! SohumHe ! I am He !"by!I ama swift transition he turned to the far past, and unrollddfor us the great historic panorama olthe advance of the Greeks on the Indus,the rise of Chandragupta, and the70

ON THE WA Y TO BARAMULLAdevelopment of the Buddhistic empire.He was determined this summer to findhis way to Attock, and see with his owneyes the spot at which Alexander wasturned back. He described to us theGandhara sculptures, which he musthave seen in the Lahore Museum theyear before, and lost himself in indignantrepudiation of the absurd Europeanclaim that India had ever sat at the feetof Greece in things artistic.Then there were flying glimpses oflong expected cities, Ludhiana, wherecertain trusty English disciples had livedas children ; Lahore, where his Indianlectures had ended; and so on. We came,too, upon the dry gravel beds of manyrivers and learnt that the space betweenone pair was called the Doab and thearea containing them all, the Punjaub.It was at twilight, crossing one of thesestony tracts, that he told us of that greatvision which came to him years ago,while he was still new to the ways of the71

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSlife of a monk, giving back to him,as he always afterwards believed, theancient mode of Sanskrit chanting."It was evening,"he said,"in thatage when the Aryans had only reachedthe Indus. I saw an old man seated onthe bank of the greatriver. Waveupon wave of darkness was rolling inupon him, and he was chanting from theRik Veda. Then I awoke, and wenton chanting.Theywere the tones thatwe used long ago."Many months later, one of thosewho listened, heard the story ot thisvision once more from the Swami;andit seemed to her then, with her gatheredinsight into his method of thought, thatit had been an experience of immenseitsubjective importance. Perhaps was atoken to him of a transcendent continuityin the spiritual experience, forbiddingitto be baffled even by the lapseofmillenniums and the breaking of manylife-threads.If so, one could not expect72

ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLAhim to be explicit on the point.Thosewho were constantly preoccupied withimagination regarding their own past,always aroused his contempt. But onthis second occasion of telling the story,he gave a glimpse of it, from a verydifferent point of view."Sankaracharya,"he was saying,"hadcaught the rhythm of the Vedas,the national cadence. Indeed I always imagine",he went on suddenly,with dreamy voice and far away look,always imagine that he had some"Ivision such as mine when he wasyoung, and recovered the ancientmusic that way. Anyway,his wholelife s work isnothing but that, thethrobbing of the beautyand Upanishads."of the VedasSpeeches like this were of coursepurely speculative, and he himself couldnever bear to be reminded of thetheories to which he thus in moments ofemotion and impulse, gave chance birth.73

andNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSTo others however they would oftenseem not valueless."Vivekananda isnothing"exclaimedone of his admirers in the distant West,a"if not a breaker of bondage!"trifling incident of this day s journeyrecalls the words. At a station enteringhe called to him a Mahom-the Punjaub,medan vendor of food, and bought fromhis hand, and ate.From Rawalpindi to Murree, wewent by tonga, and there we spent somedays before settingout for Kashmir.Here the Swami came to the conclusionthat any effort which he might make toinduce the orthodox to accept a European as a fellow-disciple, or in the direction of woman s education, had betterbe made in Bengal.The distrust of theforeigner was too strong in Punjaub, toadmit of work succeeding there. Hewass much occupied by this question,from time to time, and would sometimesremark on the paradox presented by the74

ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLABengali combination of political antagonism to the English, and readiness tolove and trust.We had reached Murree on Wednesday afternoon, June the i5th. Itwas again Saturday, June the i8th,when we set out for Kashmir.One of our party was ill, and that June 18th,firstday we went but a short distance,and stopped at Dulai, the first dak bungalow across the border. It was a curious moment, leaving British India behind, with the crossing of a dusty, sunbaked bridge. We were soon to havea vivid realisation of just how much andjust how little this demarcation meant.We were now in the valley of theJhelum. Our whole journey, fromKohala to Baramulla, was to runthrough a narrow, twisting, mountainpass,the rapidly-risingravine of thisriver. Here, at Dulai, the speed of thecurrent was terrific, and huge watersmoothedpebbles formed a great shingle.75

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSMost of the afternoon, we were compelled by a storm to spend indoors, anda new chapter was opened at Dulai, in ourknowledge of Hinduism, for the Swamitold us, gravely and frankly, of its modernabuses, and spoke of his own uncompromising hostility to those evil practiceswhich pass under the name of Vdmdckdra.When we asked how Sri Ramakrishna,who never could bear to condemn the hope of any man, had lookedat these things, he told us that the oldman had said "Well, well ! but everyhouse may have a scavengers entrance!"And he pointed out that all sects ofdiabolism, inany country, belongedto this class. It was a terrible butnecessary revelation, that never requiredto be repeated, and it has been relatedhere, in its true place, in order thatnone may be able to say that he deceivedthose who trusted him, as to the worstthings that might be urged againstof his people or their creeds.any76

ON 7HE WAY TO BARAMULLAWe took it in turns to drive with the June 19thSwami in his tonga, and this next dayseemed full of reminiscence.He talked of Brakmavufyd, thevision of the One, the Alone- Real,andtold how love was the only cure forevil. He had had a school-fellow, whogrew up and became rich, but lost hishealth.It was an obscure disease, sapping his energy and vitality daily, yetaltogether baffling the skill of thedoctors. At last, because he knew thatthe Swami had always been religious,and men turn to religion when all elsefails,he sent to beg him to come to "him.When the Master reached him, acurious thing happened. There cameto his mind a text "Him the Brahminconquers,who thinks that he isseparatefrom the Brahmin. Him the Kshatriya ,conquers, who thinks that he is separatefrom the Kshatriya. And him theUniverse conquers who thinks that heis separatefrom the Universe." And the77

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSsick man grasped this, and recovered."And so,-"said the Swami, "thoughIoften say strange things and angrythings, yet remember that in my heartI never seriously mean to preach anything but love ! All these things willcome right, only when we realise that welove each other.Was it then, or the day before, that,talking of the Great God, he told ushow when he was a child, his motherwould sigh over his naughtiness, and say"somany prayers and austerities, andinstead of a good soul, Siva has sentme you!" till he was hypnotised intoa belief that he was really one of Siva sdemons, He thought that for a punishment, he had been banished for awhilefrom Siva s heaven, and that his oneeffort in life must be to go back there.His first act of sacrilege, he told us once,had been committed at the age Jofwhen he embarked on a stormy argument with his mother, to the effectfive,that

andON THE IVA Y TO BARAMULLA.when his right hand was soiled withiteating, would be cleaner to lift histumbler of water with the left. For thisor similar perversities, her most drasticremedy was to puthim under the watertap,and while cold water was pouringoverhis head, to say "Siva Siva ! !"This, he said, never failed of its effect.The prayer would remind him of hisexile,and he would say to himself "No,no, not this time again!"so returnto quiet and obedience.He had a surpassing love for Mahadev,and once he said of the Indianwomen of the future that if,iamidst theirnew tasks they would only remembernow and then to say "Siva ! Siva!"itwould be worship enough. The veryair of the Himalayas was charged, forhim, with the imagemeditation"of that "eternalthat no thought of pleasurecould break. And he understood, hesaid, for the first time this summer,the meaning of the nature-story that79

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSmade the fallGanges on the head of theGreat God, and wander in and outamongst His matted locks, before shefound an outlet on the plains below. Hehad searched long, he said, for the wordsthat the rivers and waterfalls uttered,amongst the mountains, before he hadrealised thatit was the eternal cry"Bom !Bom !Hara!Hara!""Yes !" hesaid ofSiva one day,"He is the Great God,calm, beautiful, and silent ! and I am Hisgreat worshipper."Again his subject was marriage, asthe type of the soul s relation to God."This is why,"he exclaimed, "thoughthe love of a mother is in some waysgreater, yetthe whole world takes thelove of man and woman as the type.No other has siich tremendous idealisingpower. The beloved actually becomeswhat he isimagined to be. This lovetransforms its object."Then the talk strayed to nationaltypes, and he spoke of the joy with whichSo

ON THE IVA Y TO BARAMULLAthe returning traveller greets once morethe sight of the men and women of hisown country. The whole of life has beena sub-conscious education to enable oneto understand in these every faintestripple of expressionin face and form.And again we passed a group ofsannyasins going on foot, and he brokeout into fierce invective against asceticism as "savagery."It is a peculiarityof India that only the religiouslife isperfectly conscious and fully developed.In other lands, a man will undergo asmany hardships,in order to win successin business, or enterprise, or even insport, as these men were probably enduring. But the sight of wayfarers doingslow miles on foot in the name of theirideals, seemed to rouse in his mind atrain of painful associations, and hegrew impatient on behalf of humanity,at "the torture of religion."Then againthe mood passed, as suddenly as it hadarisen, and gave place to the equally81

strongNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSstatement of the conviction thaiwere it not for this "savagery," luxurywould have robbed man of all his manliness.We stopped that evening at Uri dakbungalow, and in the twilight, we alwalked in the meadows and the bazarHow beautiful the place was ! A littlemud fortress exactly of the Europeaifeudal pattern overhung the footwa>as itswept into a great open theatre ofield and hill.Along the road, abov<the river, lay theto -thebungalow by a pathbazar, and we returneeacross thefields, past cottages in whose garden:the roses were in bloom. As we cametoo, it would happen that here and theresome child, more venturesome thaiothers, would play with us.The next day, driving throughth<most beautiful part of the Pass,ingand seecathedral rocks and an old ruine<temple of the Sun, we reached Baramulla. The legendis that the Vale o82

ON THE WAY TO BARAMULLAKashmir was once a lake, and that atthis point the Divine Boar pierced themountains with his tusks, and let theJhelum go free. Another piece ofgeography in the form of myth. Or isit also prehistoric history?

CHAPTER VI.THE VALE OFKASHMIR.Persons : The Swami Vivekananda and a party oTime.Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira Matathe *Steady Mother, One whose name waJaya,and Nivedita.June 2Oth to June 22nd.Place. The River Jhelum Baramulla to Srinagar."It is said that the Lord Himself isthe weighton the side of the fortunate !cried the Swami in high glee, returningto pur room at the dakbungalow, andsitting down, with his umbrella on hisknees. As he had brought no companion, he had himself to perform allthe ordinarylittle masculine offices, andhe had gone out to hire dungas, and dcwhat was necessary. But he had immediatelyfallen in with aman, who, onhearing his name, had undertaken thewhole business, and sent him back, freeof responsibility.

THE VALE OF KASHMIR.So we enjoyed the day. We drankKashmiri tea out of a Sdmdvdr and atethe jam of the country,and at aboutfour o clock we entered into possessionof a flotilla of dungas, three in number,on which presently we set forth forSrinagar. The firstevening, howeverwe were moored by the garden of theSwami s friend, and there we playedwith the children, and gathered forgetme-nots,and watched a circle of peasants, singing, at some harvest-game inthe freshly-cut cornfields. The Swami,returning to his boat about eleven, couldstill as he passed us in the dark, hearthe end of our warm discussion aboutthe effect of the introduction of moneyon rural peoples.We found ourselves, next day, in themidst of a beautiful valley,ringed roundwith snow-mountains. This is knownas the Vale of Kashmir, but itmight bemore accurately described, perhaps, asthe Vale of Srinagar.The city of Isla-35

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSmabad had its own valley, higher upthe river, and to reach it we had to windin and out amongst the mountains. Thesky above was of the bluest of the blueand the water-road along which weSometravelled, was also, perforce, blue.times our way lay through great greertangles of lotus-leaves, with a rosydower or two, and on each side stretched the fields, in some of which, as wcame, they were reaping. The wholwas a symphony in blue and green anwhite, so exquisitely pure and vivid thfor* a while the response of the soul toits beauty was almost pain !That firstmorning, taking a longwalk across the fields, we came upon animmense chennaar tree, standing inmidst of a wide pasture.theIt really looked as if the passage through it mightshelter the proverbial twenty cows !The Swami fell to architectural visionsof how itmight be fitted uping-placefor a hermit. A86as a dwellsmall cottage

THE VALE OF KASHMIRmight in fact have been built in thehollow of this living tree. And thenhe talked of meditation, in a way toconsecrate everychennaar we shouldever see.We turned, with him, into the neighbouring farm-yard. There we found,seated under a tree, a singularly handsome elderly woman. She wore thecrimson coronet and white veil of theKashmiri wife, and sat spinning wool,while round her, helping her, werehertwo daughters-in-law and their children.The Swami had called at this farm oncebefore, in the previous autumn, andoften spoken, since, of the faith andpride of this very woman. He hadbegged for water, which she had at oncegiven him. Then, before going, he hadasked her quietly,"And what, Mother,God, Sir !"is ?" "Iyour religion thankhad rung out the old voice, in pride andtriumph, "by the mercy of the Lord, Iam a Mussalm^n!" The whole family

"NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSreceived him now, as an old friend, andwere ready to show every courtesy tothe friends he had brought.The journey to Srinagar took two to three days,and one evening, as we walked in thefields before supper, one who hadseenthe K&lighat, complained to the Masterof the abandonment of feeling there,which had jarred on her."Whydothey kiss the ground before the Image?"she exclaimed. The Swami had beenpointing to the crop of til, which hethought to have been the original of theEnglish dill, and callingit "the oldestoil-bearing seed of the AryansButthe littleat this question, he droppedblue flower from his hands, and a greathush came over his voice, as he stoodstill and said. "Is it not the samething to kiss the groundbefore thatImage, as to kiss the ground beforethe,se mountains?"Our Master had promised that beforethe end of the summer he would

THE VALE OF KASHMIRtake us into retreat, and teach us tomeditate. We had now to goto Srinagarfor a long-accumulating mail, andthe question rose as to the arrangementof the holiday. It was decided that weshould first see the country, and afterwards make the retreat.The firstevening in Srinagar wedined out, with some Bengali officials,and in the course of conversation, oneof the western guests maintained thatthe history of everyand evolved certain ideals,nation illustratedto which thepeople of that nation should hold themselves true. It was very curious to seehow the Hindus present objected to this.To them it was clearly a bondage, towhich the mind of man could not permanently submit itself. Indeed,in theirrevolt against the fetters of the doctrine,they appeared to be unable to do justiceto the idea itself. At last the Swamiintervened. "I think you must admit,"he said, "that the ultimate unit ispsycho-

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSlogical. This is much more permanentthan the geographical."And then hespoke of cases known to us all, of oneof whom he always thought as the mosttypical"Christian" he had ever seen,yet she was a Bengali woman, and ofanother, born in the West, who wasbetter Hindu than himself. And wasnot this, after all, the ideal state ofthings, that each should be born in theother s country to spread the given idealas far as it could be carried ?a

HeCHAPTER VII.LIFE AT SRINAGAR.Place :Srinagar.Time :June 22nd to July 1 5th, 1898.In the mornings, we still had longtalks, as before sometimes it would bethe different religious periods throughwhich Kashmir had passed, or the morality of Buddhism, or the history, ofSiva-worship, or perhaps the positionof Srinagar under Kanishka.Once he was talkingwith one of usabout Buddhism, and he suddenlysaid"the fact is, Buddhism tried to do,in the time of Asoka, what the worldnever was ready for till now !" referred to the federalisation of religictas.It was a wonderful picture, this, of thereligious imperialism of Asoka, broken

AndNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSdown, time and again, by successivewaves of Christianity and Mohammedanism, each claiming exclusive rights overthe conscience of mankind, and finallyto seem to have a possibility, withinmeasurable distance of time, to-day!Another time, the talk was of Genghisor Chenghiz Khan, the conqueror fromCentral Asia. "You hear people talk ofhim as a vulgar aggressor,"he criedpassionately, that "but is not true! Theyare never greedy or vulgar, these greatsouls ! He was inspired with the thoughtof unity, and he wanted to unify hisworld. Yes, Napoleon was cast in thesame mould. And another, Alexander.Only those three, or perhaps one soul,manifestingitself in three different conthen he passed on toquests!"speakof that one soul whom he believedto have come again and again in religion, charged with the divine impulse tobring about the unity of man in God.At this time, the transfer of the92

LIFE AT SRINAGARPrabuddha Bharata, from Madras to thenewly established Ashrama at Mayavatiwas much in all our thoughts. TheSwami had always had a special love forthis paper,as the beautiful name he hadgiven it indicated. He had always beeneager, too, for the establishment oforgansof his own. The value of thejournal, in the education of Modernwas perfectly evident to him, andIndia,he felt that his Master smessage andmode of thought required to be spreadby this means, as well as by preachingand by work. Day after day, thereforehe would dream about thefuture of hispapers, as about the work in its variouscentres. Day after day he would talkof the forthcomingfirst number, underthe new editorship of Swami Swarupananda.And one afternoon hebrought to us, as we sat together, apaper on which, he said, he had "triedto write a letter, but it would come thisway!"93

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSTo The Awakened India.Once more awake !For sleepit was, not death, tobring thee life anew, and rest to lotuseyes,for visions daring yet. Theworld, in need, awaits, Oh Truth,no death for thee !Resume thy march,With gentle feet that would notbreak the peaceful pose, even oftheroad-side dust that lies so low, yetstrong, and steady, blissful, bold,and free. Awakener, ever forward !Speak thy rousing words !Thy home is gone,Where loving hearts had broughtthee up, and watched thy growth.But fate is strong, and this the law,All things go back to the sourcethey sprang, their strength to renew.Thien start afreshFrom the land of thy birth, wheregreatcloud-belted snows do bless94

LIFE AT SRINAGARand put their strength in thee, forworking wonders new. The heavenlyriver tune thy voice to her owneternal song ; deodar shades oivethee ne er-dying peace,And allabove,Himalaya s daughter Uma, gentle,pure, the Mother who resides in allas power and life, who works allworks, and makes of One the world ;whose mercy opens the gate to Truth,and shows the One in all, give theeunending strength which is InfiniteLove.They bless thee, allThe seers great, whom age nor climecan claim their own, the fathers ofthe race, who felt the heart of truththe same, and bravely taught to man,ill-voiced or well. Their servant,thou hast caught their secret, tisbut One.95

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSThen speak, Oh Love !Before thy gentle voice so sweet,behold how visions melt, and foldon fold of dreams departsto void,till Truth, bare Truth, in all its gloryshines.And tell the world Awake !Arise ! anddream no more !This is the land of dreams, wherekarma weaves unthreaded garlands,with our thoughts, of flowers sweetor noxious, and none has root orstem, being born in nothing, whichthe softest breath of Truth drivesback to primal nothingness. Be boldand face, the Truth. Be one with it !Let visions cease,or, if you cannotdream but truer dreams, which areEternal Love and Service Free.The Master was longing to leaveus^all, and go away into some place ofBut we not knowing this,quiet, alone.insisted on accompanying him to the96

LIFE AT SRINAGARColoured Springs, called "KshirBhavani", or Milk of the Mother, itwas said to be the first time thatChristian or Mohammedan had everlanded there, and we can never bethankful enough for the glimpse we hadof it, since afterwards it was to becomethe most sacred of all names to us. Anamusing incident was that our Mussalmanboat-men would not allow us to landwith shoes on; so thoroughly Hinduisticis the Mohammedanism of Kashmir,with its forty rishis, and pilgrimagesmade fasting, to their shrines.Another day we went ofTquietfy byJune 29th -ourselves, and visited theTakt-i-Suleiman,a littletemple very massively built,on the summit of a small mountain twoor three thousand feet high. It waspeaceful and beautiful, and the famousFloating Gardens could be seen belowus, for miles around. The Tak^-i-Suleiman was one of the great illustrations of the Swami s argument, when he97

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSwould take up the subjectof the Hindulove of nature as shown in the choiceof sites for templesand architecturalmonuments. As he had declared, inLondon, that the saints lived on thehill-tops, in order to enjoy the scenery,so now he pointed out, citing oneexample after another,that our Indianpeople always consecrated places ofpeculiar beauty and importance, by making there their altars of worship. Andthere was no denying that the little Takt,crowningthe hill that dominated thewhole valley, was a case in point.Many lovely fragments of those dayscome into mind, as"Therefore,Tulsi, take thou care tolive with all, for who can tell where, orin what garb, the Lord Himself maynext come to thee?""One God is hidden in all these, theTorturer of all, the Awakener of all, theReservoir of allbeing,bereft of all qualities."the One Who is98

LIFE AT SRINAGAR"Therethe sun does not shine, northe moon, nor the stars."There was the story of how Ravanawas advised to take the form of Rama,in order to cheat Sita. He answered,"Have I not thought of it? But inorder to take a man s form you mustmeditate on him;andRama is theLord Himself; so, when I meditate onhim, even the position of Brahma becomes a mere straw. How then, couldIthink of a woman ?""And so",commented the Swami,"even in the commonest or mostcriminal life, there are these glimpses."It was ever thus. He was constantlyinterpreting human life as the expressionof God, never insisting on the heinousnessor wickedness of an act or acharacter."In that which is dark night to therest of the world, therethe man of selfcontrolis awake. That which is lifeto the rest of the world is99sleepto him."

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSSpeaking of Thomas a Kempis oneand of how he himself used today,wander as a sannyasin, with the Gitaand the Imitation as his whole library,one word, he said, came back to him,inseparably associated with the nameof the western monk."Silence !yeAgainsilence !yeteachers of the world, and!prophets Speakthoualone, O Lord, unto my sou! !""The soft shirisha flower can bearthe weight of humming bees,but not of birdsSo Uma, don tyou go and maketapasy&f come, Uma, come!delight and idol of my soul !Be seated, Mother on the lotus ofmy heart,rAnd let me take ayou.long long look at100

LIFE AT SRINAGARFrom my birth up,I am gazing,Mother, at your face-Know you suffering what trouble,and pain?Be seated, therefore, Blessed Oneon the lotus of my heart,And dwell there for evermore."Every now and then there would bewonderlong talks about the Gita, "thatfulpoem, without one note in it, ofweakness or unmanliness." He said oneday that it was absurd to complain thatknowledge was not given towomen orto sudras. For the whole gist of theUpanishads was contained in the GitaWithout it, indeed, they could hardlybe understood;castes could read theandwomen and all,Mahabharata.With great fun and secrecy the Ju| v 4th -Swami and his one non-American disciple prepared to celebrate The Fourthof July. A regret had been expressed101

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSin his hearing, that we had no AmericanFlag, with which to welcome the othermember of the party to breakfast, ontheir National Festival ;andlate onthe afternoon of the third, he brought apundit durzey in great excitement, explaining that this man would be glad toimitate it, if he were told how. Thestars and stripes were very crudely represented, I fear, on the piece of cottonthat was nailed, with branches of evergreens, to the head of the dining-roomboat,when the Americans stepped onboard for early tea, on Independence!Day But the Swami had postponed ajourney, in order to be present at thelittle festival, and he himself contributeda poem to the addresses that were nowread aloud, by way of greeting.To THE FOURTH OFJULY.Behold, the dark clouds melt away,That gathered thick at night,andhung102

LIFE AT SR1NAGARSo like a gloomy pall,above theearth !Before thy magic touch, the worldAwakes. The birds in chorus sing.The flowers raise their star-likecrowns,Dew-set and wave thee welcomefair.The lakes are opening wide in love,Their hundred-thousand lotus-eyes,To welcome thee, with all theirdepth.All hail to thee, Thou Lord of Light \A welcome new to thee, to-day,Oh Sun !To-daythou sheddestLiberty !Bethink thee how the world did wait,And search for thee, through time*and clime*Some gave up home and love offriends,ClimeClimate.103

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSAnd went in quest of thee, selfbanished,Through dreary oceans, throughprimeval forest,Each step a struggle for life ordeath !Then came the day when work boreAnd worship, love andsacrifice,fruit,Fulfilled, accepted, and complete.And then thou, propitious, rose toshedThe light of Freedom on mankind !Move on, Oh Lord, in thy resistlesspath!Till thy high noon o erspreads theworld ;Till every land reflects thy light ;Till men and women, with upliftedhead,Behold their shackles broken, andKnow in springing joy, their liferenewed !104

heLIFE AT SRINAGARThat evening someone pained him July 5th.by counting the cherry-stonesleft onher plate,to see when she would bemarried. He, somehow, took the playin earnest, and came, the followingmorning, surcharged with passion forthe ideal renunciation."These shadows of home and July 6th.marriage cross even my mind now andcried, with that tender desirethen !"to make himself one with the sinnerthat he so often showed. But it wasacross oceans of scorn for those whowould glorify the householder, that *hesought, on this occasion, to preach thereligious life. "Is it so easy,"he exclaimed, be Janaka "to ? To sit on athrone absolutely unattached ?Caringnothing for wealth or fame, for wife orchild ? One after another in the westhas told me that he had reached this.But I could only say such great menare not born in India !And then he turned to the other side.105

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGS"Never forget,"he said to one ofhis hearers, "to say to yourself, and toteach to your children,"as the differencebetween a fireflyand the blazing sun,between the infinite ocean and a littlepond, between a mustard-seed and themountain of Meru, such is the differencebetween the householder and theSannyasin!""Everything is fraught with fear :Renunciation alone isfearless.""Blessed be even the fraudulentsddhus, and those who have failed tocarry out their vows, in as much as theyalso have witnessed to the ideal, andso are in some degree the cause of thesuccess of others !"Let us never, never, forget ourideal !"At such moments, he would identifytiimself entirely with the thought hesought to demonstrate, and in the samesense in which a law of nature might bedeemed cruel or arrogant,his expositior1 06

LIFE AT SRINAGARmight have those qualities.Sitting andlistening, we felt ourselves brought faceto face with the invisible and absolute.All this was on our return to Srinagar,from the real Fourth of July-Celebration, which had been a visit tothe Dahl Lake. There we had seenthe Shalimar Bagh of Nur Mahal, andthe Nishat Bagh, or Garden of Gladness, and had spent the hour of sunsetquietly, amongst the greenof the irises,at the foot of giant chennaar trees.That same day, Dhirft, Mdtd and shewhose name wasjayd,left for Gulmarg,on some personal business, and theSwami went with them, part of the way.At nine o clock on the evening ofthe following Sunday, July the loth,the first two came back unexpectedly,and presently, from many differentsources, we gathered the news that tfyeMaster had gone to Amarnath by theSonamarg route, and would returnanother way. He had started out penni-107

NOl^ES OF SOME WANDERINGSless, but that could give no concern tohis friends, in a Hindu Native state.A disagreeable incident occurred, aday 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 unwarrantable intrusion on thatprivacywhich hehad gone to seek, but as the requestwas persistent,it was granted, and lifeflowed in accustomed channels for a dayor two.What were we setting out for ? Wewere justmoving to go down the river,on Friday and it was close on five in theafternoon, when the servants recognisedsome of their friends in the distance,and word was brought thatthe Swami sboat was coming towards us.An hour later, he was with us,saying how pleasant itwas to be back.l*ne summer had been unusually hotand certain glaciershad given way,rendering the Sonamarg Route to1 08

LIFE AT SRINAGARAmarnath impracticable.caused his return.firstThis fact hadBut from this moment dated theof three great increments of joy andrealisation that we saw in him, duringour months in Kashmir. It was almostas if we could verify for ourselves thetruth of that saying"Thereof his Guruis indeed a certain ignorance.It has been placed there by my HolyMother 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 OFPANDRENTHAN.Persons : The Swami Vivekananda and a party of Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira Matathe Steady Mother ; One whose name was Jay;and Nivedita.Time. July i6th to igth.Place. Kashmir.It fell to the lot of one of theSwami s disciples, next day, to go downthe river with him in a small boat.As itwent, he chanted one song after anotherof "Ram Prasad, and now and again, hewould translate a verse."Icalluponthee Mother.For thoughhis 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/ANand then with the haughty dignity ofan offended child, something that ended"I amwomannot the son to callany otherMother|"It must have been next day, that he JuiyiTth.came into Dhtrd Mdtd s dunga, andtalked of Bhakti. First it was thatcurious Hindu thought of Siva andUma in one. It iseasy to give thewords, but without theparatively dead they seem !voice, how comAndthenthere were the wonderful surroundingspicturesque Srinagar, tall Lombardypoplars, and distant snows. There, inthat river-valley, some space from thefoot of the great mountains,he chantedto us how "The Lord took a form andthat 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 thejhair black, beautiful, and in curls onthe other, twisted like rope."And thenin

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSpassing immediately into the other forof the same thought, he quoted"God became Krishna and RadhslLove flows in thousands of coils.Whoso wants, takes it.Love flows in thousands of coilsThe tide of love and loving past,And fills the soul with bliss and joy!"So absorbed was he that his breakfast stood unheeded long after it wasready,and when at last he went reluctantly, saying When one has all thisbhakti what does one want with food ?ly,itwas only to come back again quickand resume the subject.But, either now or at some othertime, he said that he did not talk ofRadha and Krishna, where he lookedfor deeds. It was Siva who made sternand earnest workers, and to Him theLabourer must be dedicated.The next day, he gave us a quainisaying of Sri Ramakrishna, comparing1 12

THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTIfANthe critics of others to bees or flies, according as they chose honey or wounds.And then we were off to Islamabad,to Amarnath.The first afternoon, in a wood by July tothand really, as itproved,the side of the Jhelum, we discoveredthe long-sought Temple of Pandrenthan(Pandresthan, place of the Pandavas ? )It was sunk in a pond, and this wasthicklycovered with scum, out of whichit rose, a tiny cathedral of the long ago,built of heavy grey limestone. Thetemple consisted of a small cell, withfour doorways, openingto the cardinalpoints. Externally, it was a taperingpyramid, with itstop truncated, togivefoothold to a bush supportedon afour-pierced pedestal. In its architecture, trefoil and triangular arches werecombined, in an unusual fashion, witheach other, and with the straight-linedlintel. It was built with marvelloussolidity, and the necessary lines weresomewhat obscured by heavy ornament.8

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSWe were all much distressed, onarriving at the edge of the pondin thewood, to be unable to go inside the littletemple, and examine the interior decorations, which a number of guide-booksdeclared to be "quite classical," that is tosay, Greek or Roman, in form and finish !Our griefwas turned into joy, however, when our hajjis,or boatmen,brought up a countryman, who undertook to provide a boat for us. This hebrought out, from under the scum, andplacing a chain on it, he proceeded tous each in turn about the lake,draghimself wading almost waist-deep in thewater. So we were able, as we haddesired, to go inside.For all but the Swami himself, this\sas our firstpeepat Indian Archaeology.So when he had been throughit,he taught us how to observe the interior.In the centre of the ceilingwas alarge sun-medallion, set in a squarewhose points were the points of the114

THE TEMPLE OF PAXDRENTHANcompass. This left four equal triangles,at the corners of the ceiling,which werefilled with sculpture in low relief, maleand female figures intertwined with serpents, beautifully done. On the wallwere empty spaces, where seemed tohave been a band of topes.Outside, carvings were similarly distributed. In one of the trefoil archesover, I think, the eastern door, was afine image of the Teaching Buddha,standing, with His hand uplifted.Running round the buttresses was a muchdefacedfrieze of a seated woman, with atree, evidently Maya Devi, the Motherof Buddha. The three other door-nicheswere empty, but a slab by the pond-sideseemed to have fallen from one, and thiscontained a bad figure of a king, said bythe country-people to represent the sun.The masonry of this littletemple wassuperb, and probably accounted foritslong preservation. A single blockof stone would be so cut as to correspond,

.VOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSnot to one brick in a wall, but to a section of the architect s plan. It wouldturn a corner and formpart of two distinct walls, or sometimes even ofthree.This fact made one take the building asvery, very old, possibly even earlier thanMarttand. The theory of the workmenseemed so much more that of carpentering than of building!The water aboulit, was probably an overflow, into thetemple-court, from the sacred spring thaithe chapel itself may have been placedas the Swami thought, to enshrine.To him, the place was delightfullysuggestive. It was a direct memoriaof Buddhism, representing one of thefour religious periods into which hehad already divided the History oKashmir :i. Tree and Snake-worship,frorr\\hich dated all the names of the spring;ending in Ng, as Vernag, and so on2. Buddhism; 3. Hinduism,in th<form of Sun-worship ; and 4. Moham116

>THE TEMPLE OF FANDRENTHANmedanism. Sculpture, he told us, wasthe characteristic art of Buddhism, andthe sun-medallion, or lotus, one of itscommonest ornaments. The figureswith the serpents referred to pre-Buddhism.But sculpture had greatly deteriorated under Sun-worship, hence thecrudity of the Surya figure.And then we left the littletemple inWhat had it held, that menthe woods.might worship, nearly eighteen centuriesago,* when the world was big, withthe births of mighty things ?We couldnot tell. We could only guess. Meanwhile, to one thing we could bow theknee, the Teaching Buddha. Onepicture we could conjure up the greatwood-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 ofKaniksha s time, 150 A. D. I am not sure that it is reallyso old. N.117

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSwended our way back through the trees,to the river-sideIt was the time of sunest, such asunset ! The mountains in the westwere all a shimmering purple. Furthernorth, theywere blue with snow andcloud. The sky was green and yellowand touched with red, bright flameand daffodil colours, against a blueand opal background. We stood andlooked, and then the Master, catchingsightof the throne of Solomon thatlittle Takt which we already loved exclaimed "whatgenius the Hindu showsin placing his temples He ! alwaysSee! Thechooses a grand scenic effect!Takt commands the whole of Kashmir.The rock of Hari Parbat rises redout of blue water, like a lion couchant,crowned.of MarttandAnd the Templehas the valley at itsfeet !"Our boats were moored near theedge of the wood, and we could seethat the presence of the silent chapel, ol118

heTHE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHANthe Buddha, which we had just explored,moved the Swami deeply. That evening we allforegathered mDhird Mdtd shouseboat, and a little of the conversation has been noted down.Our Master had been talking ofChristian ritual as derived fromBuddhist, but one of the party wouldhave none of the theory."Where did Buddhist ritual itselfcome from ?"She asked."From Vedic," answered theSwami briefly."Oras it was present also in southernEurope, is it not better to suppose acommon origin for it, and the Christian,and the Vedic rituals ?""No!No!"replied."You forget that Buddhism was entirely withinHinduism ! Even caste was notattacked it was not yet crystallised, ofcourse ! and Buddha merely tried torestore the ideal. He who attains toGod in this life, says Mann, is the119

"Why"""NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSBrahmin. Buddha would have had itso,if he could.""But how are Vedic and Christianritual connected ?persisted hisopponent. "How could they be the same ?You have nothing even corresponding tothe central rite of our worship!!yes said the Swami,"Vedic ritual has its Mass, the offeringof food to God, your Blessed Sacrament,our pras&dam. Onlyit is offeredsitting, not kneeling,hot countries. Theyas is common inkneel in Thibet.Then, too, Vedic ritual has its lights,incen-se,music.""But,"was the somewhat ungraciousargument, "has it any common prayer?"Objections urged in this way alwayselicited some bold paradox whichcontained a new and unthought-ofgeneralisation.He flashed down on the question."N*o ! andneither had Christianity!That ispure protestantism and protes-120

"THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHANtantism took itfrom the Mohammedans,perhaps through Moorish influence !"Mohammedanism is the only religionthat has completely broken down theidea of the priest. The leader of prayerstands with his back to the people, andonly the reading of the Koran may takeplace from the pulpit. Protestantismis an approach to this.Even the tonsure existed in India,in the shaven head. I have seen apicture of Justinian receiving the Lawfrom two monks, in which the monksheads are entirely shaven. The monkand nun both existed, in pre-BuddhisticHinduism. Europe gets her ordersfrom the Thebaid."At that rate, then, you acceptCatholic 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, that121

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSdream off Crete!# Indian and Egyptianideas met at Alexandria, and went forthto the world, tinctured with Judaismand Hellenism, as Christianity."The Acts and Epistles, you know,are older than the Gospels, and S. Johnis spurious. The only figurewe can besure of is S. Paul, and he was not aneye-witness, and accordingto his ownshowing was capable of Jesuitry "byall means save souls" isn t it ?*In travelling from Naples to Port Said, on his way backto India, in Januaay 1897, the Swami had a dream of an oldand bearded man, who appeared before him, saying "Thisis th island of Crete," and showing him a place in theisland, that he might afterwards identify. The vision wentto say that the religion of Christianity had originated in theisland of Crete and in connection with this gave him twoEuropean words, one of which was Therapeufae which itdeclared, were derived from Sanskrit. Therapeutae meantsons (from the Sanskrit putrci) of the Theras, or Buddhistmonks. From this the Swami was to understand thatChristianity had originated in a Buddhist mission. The oldman added * The proofs are all here," pointing to the ground."Digand you will see !"As he awoke, feeling that this was no common dream,the Swami rose, and tumbled out on deck. Here he metan officer, turning in from his watch. "What o clock is it !122

heTHE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHAN11No !Buddhaand Mahommed,alone amongst religious teachers,standout with historic distinctness, havingbeen fortunate enough to have, whilethey were living, enemies as well asfriends. Krishna I doubt ;a yogi,and a shepherd,and a great king, havein one beautifulall been amalgamatedfigure, holding the Gitft in his hand."Kenan s life of Jesusis mere froth.It does not touch Strauss, the realantiquarian. Two things stand out assaid the Swami. "Mid-night!" wasare we ?"the answer. "Wherethen said ; when, to his astonishment, theanswer came back"fifty miles off Crete ! "Our Master used to laugh at himself for the strength ofthe impression that this dream had made en him. But hecould never shake it off. The fact that the second of thetwo 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 personalityof Christ was strictly historic. We must remember, however,that according to Hindu philosopy, it is the completeness of an idea that isimportant, and not the question of itshistorical authenticity. The Swami once asked Sri RiVnakrishna,when he was a boy, about this very matter.you think !""Don tanswered his Guru, "that those who could inventsuch things were themselves that ?"I2 3

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSpersonal livingChrist,touches in the life ofthe woman taken in adultery,the most beautiful story inliterature,and the woman at the well. Howstrangely true is this last, to Indianlife ! A woman, coming to draw water,finds, seated at the well-side, a yellowcladmonk. He asks her for water.Then He teaches her, and does a littlein anmind-reading and so on. OnlyIndian story, when she went to call thevillagers, to look and listen, the monkwould have taken his chance, and fledto the forest !"On the whole,I think old Rabbi1Hillel is responsible for the teachingsof Jesus,and an obscure Jewish sect ofNazarenes a sect of great antiquitysuddenly galvanised by S. Paul,furnished the mythic personality, asa centre of worship.v"The Resurrection, of course, issimply spring-cremation. Only the richGreeks and Romans had had cremation124

"THE TEMPLE OF PANDRENTHANany way, and the new sun-mythonly stop it amongstBut Buddha ! Buddhathe few.!wouldSurelyhe was the greatest man who everlived. He never drew a breath forhimself. Above all, he never claimedworship. He said, "Buddha is not aman, but a state. I have found thedoor. 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, andsent a message to his host on his deathbed, thanking him for the great deljverance.Full of love and pity for a littlegoat,truth ! Youeven before he had attained theremember how he offeredhis own head, that of prince and monk,ifonly the king would spare the kid thathe was about to sacrifice and how theking was struck by his compassion, thathe saved its life ? Such a mixture r>frationalism 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 ofPlace :Europeans, amongst whom were Dhira Mata,the Steady Mother ; One whose namewas Jaya ;and Nivedita.Kashmir.Time :July 2Oth to July 29th, 1898.Next day, we came to the ruins ofthe two great temples of Avantipur.Each hour, as we went deeper and deeperinto the interior, the river and the mountains grew more lovely. And amidst theimmediate attractions of fields and trees,and people with whom we felt thoroughlyat home, how difficult it was to remember that we were exploring a stream inCentral Asia ! To those who haveseen Kashmir in any season, a wealthof memory is called up, by Kalidaspicture of the spring-forest,in all its126

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLUMbeauty of wild cherry-blossom, andalmond and apple, that forest, in whichSiva sits beneath a dheodhar, whenUma, princess of the Himalaya, enterswith her offering of a lotus-seed garland,while close at hand stands the beautifulyoung god with his quiverand bow offlowers. All that is divine in an Englishspring, or lovely in the woods ofNormandy, at Eastertide, is gathered upand multiplied, in the charms of thevale of Kashmir.That morning, the river was broadand shallow and clear, and two of uswalked with the Swami, across the fieldsand 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 quicklypasses out. The Devil is recognisedthere, as the Lord of Anger. Then,with the Buddhists, he became M&ra,the Lord of Lust, and one of the mostloved of the Lord Buddha s titles was127

NOTES OP SOME WANDERINGS"conqueror of Mara", vide the Sanskritlexicon(Amarkosha)to patter, as a child of four !that Swami learntBut whileSatan is the Hamlet of the Bible, in theHindu scriptures, the Lord of Angernever divides creation. He alwaysrepresents defilement, never duality.Zoroaster was a reformer of someold religion. Even Ormuzd and Ahriman,with him, were not :supreme theywere only manifestations of the Supreme.That older religion must have beenVedantic. So the Egyptians and Semitescling to the theory of sin, while theAryans, as Indians and Greeks, quicklylose it. In India, righteousness and sinbecome vidyd,and avidyd, both to betranscended. Amongst the Aryans, Persians and Europeans become Semitised,by religious ideas, hence the sense of sin. ** One of those who listened to this talk, had a wonderfulopportunity, later, of appreciating the accuracy, as well asthe breadth of the Swami sknowledge, when she saw twoParsis glad to sit at his feet, and learn from him the historyof their own religious ideas N.128

>ctheWALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUMAnd then the talk drifted, as it wasalways so apt to do, to questions oftheand the future. What ideacountrymust be urged on a people, to givethem strength? The line of their ownMustdevelopment runs in one way, A.- the new accession of forcebe a compensating one, B ?This would producea development midway betweentwo, C, a geometricalalteration, merely. But it was not so.National life was a question of organicforces. We must reinforce the currentof that life itself, and leave it to do therest. Buddha preached renunciation,and India heard.Yet within a thousandyears, she had reached her highest pointof national prosperity. The national lifein India has renunciation as its source.Its highest ideals are service and mukti.The Hindu mother eats last.Marriageis not for individual happiness, but for thewelfare of the nation and the caste.129

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSCertain individuals of the modernreform, having embarked on an experiment which could not solve the problem,4are the sacrifices, over which the racehas to walk."And then the trend of conversationchanged again, and became all fun andmerriment, jokes and stories. And as welaughed and listened, the boats came up,and talk was over for the day.The whole of that afternoon andnight, the Swami lay in his boat, ill.But next day, when we landed at theterpple of Bijbehara already throngedwith Amarnath pilgrims he was ableto join us for a little while. "Quickly up-and quickly down," as he said of himselfwas always his characteristic. After that,he was with us most of the day, and irthe afternoon, we reached Islamabad.The dungas were moored beside ardown to th(apple-orchard. Grass grewwater s edge, and dotted over the lawistood the apple and pear and even plun130

WALKS <SnTALKS BESIDE THE JHELL UMtrees, that a Hindu state used to thinkitnecessary to plant, outside eachvillage. In spring-time,it seemed to us,this spot must be that very Island-Valleyof Avilion."Where falls not hail, or rain, orNor ever wind blows loudly;Deep-meadowed, happy,any snow.but itfair withlies,orchard-lawns,And bowery hollows, crowned withsummer sea."The houseboat, in which two of uslived, could not be taken so far, so itcame to rest in a very deep and rapidportion of the stream, between highhedges, and how beautiful was thewalk, from the one point to the other,under the avenue of poplars, with thewonderful green of youngrice on eitherhand !In the dusk that evening, onecameinto the littlegroup amongst the apple

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGStrees, and found the Master engagedinthe rarest of rare happenings, a personaltalk with DhirQ, Mdtd, and her whosename was Jaya. He had taken twopebbles into his hand, and was sayinghow, when he was well, his mind mightdirect itself to this and that, or his willmight seem less firm, but let the leasttouch of pain or illness come, let himlook death in the face for a while, and"I am as hard as that (knocking thestones together), for I have touched thefeet of God." And one remembered,apropos of this coolness, the story of awalk across the fields, inEngland,where he and an Englishman andwoman had been pursued by an angrybull. The Englishman frankly ran, andreached the other side of the hill irsafety. The woman ran as far as shecould, and then sank to the groundincapable of further effort.Seeing thisand unable to aid her, the Swami,thinking"So this is the end, after all -132

WALKS fr TALKS RESIDE THEJHELLUMtook up his stand in front of her, withfolded arms. He told afterwards howhis mind was occupied with amathematical calculation, as to how farthe bull would be able to throw. Butthe animal suddenly stopped, a fewpaces off, and then, raisinghis head,retreated sullenly.A like courage though he himselfwas far from thinking of theseincidents had shown itself, in his earlyyouth, when he quietly stepped up toa runaway horse, and caught it, in thestreets of Calcutta, thus saving the lifeof the woman, who occupied thecarriage behind.The talk drifted on, as we sat on thegrass beneath the trees, and became,for an hour or two, half grave, half gay.We heard much of the tricks themonkeys could play, in Brindaban. Andwe elicited stories of two separateoccasions in his wandering whenlife,he had had clear previsions of help,33

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSwhich had been fulfilled. One of theseI remember. It may possibly haveoccurred at the time when he was underthe vow to ask for nothing,been several days (perhapsfood.and he hadfive) withoutSuddenly, as he lay, almost dyingof exhaustion, in a railway-station,itflashed into his mind that he must riseup, and go out along a certain road,and that there he would meet a man,bringing him help. He obeyed, andmet one, carrying a tray of food. "Areyou?"he to whom I was sentsaidthismari, coming up to him, and lookingat him closely.Then a child was brought to us, withits hand badly cut, and the Swamiapplied an old wives cure. He bathedthe wound with water, and then laid onit, to stop the bleeding,the ashes of apiece of calico. The villagers weresoothed and consoled, and our gossipwas over for the evening,duly 23rd The next morning, a motley gather-134

WALKSfr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLUMingof coolies assembled beneath theapple-trees and waited some hours, totake us to the ruins of Marttand. Ithad been a wonderful old buildingevidently more abbey than temple, in awonderful position, and its great interestlay in the obvious agglomeration of stylesand periods in which it had grown up.Never can Iforget the deep blackshadows under the series of arches thatconfronted us, as we entered in midafternoon,with the sun directly behindus, in the west. There were threearches, one straight behind the ojher,and just within the farthest of them, attwo-thirds of its height, a heavy straight-The arches were alllined window top.trefoil, but only the first and secondshowed this, as we saw them at themoment of entering. The place hadevidently originated as three smallrectangular temples, built, with heaVyblocks of stone, round sacred springs.The style of these three chambers was135

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSall straight-lined, severe.Taking themiddle and furthest East of the three,some later king had built round it anenclosing wall, placing a trefoil archoutside each low lintel-formed doorway,without interfering with the original inany way, and then had added to it infront, a larger nave, with a tall trefoilarch as entrance. Each building hadbeen so perfect,and the motive of thetwo epochs of construction was so clearthat the plan of the temple was puredelight, and until one had drawn it, onecoulfi not stop. The dharmsdld orcloister, round the central building, wasextraordinarily Gothic in shape, and toone who has seen this, and the royalnorthtombs of Mohammedanism in theof India, it is at once suggested that thecloister is, ideally, the whole of amonastery, and though, in our coldclimates, it can not be so retained, itspresence is a perpetual reminder thatthe East was the original home of136

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLUMmonasticism. The Swami was hard atwork, in an instant, on observations andtheories, pointingout the cornice thatran along the nave from the entrance tothe sanctuary, to the west, surmountedby the high trefoils of the two archesand also by a frieze or ;showing us thepanels containing cherubs and before;we had done, had picked up a of couplecoins. The ride back, through the sunset light,was charming. From all thesehours, the day beforefragmentsand the day after,of talk come back to me."No nation, not Greek or another,has ever carriedpatriotism so far as theJapanese. They don t talk, they actgive up all for country. There arenoblemen now living inJapan aspeasants, having given up their princedoms without a word to create the unityof the empire.* And not one traitor*This is, I think a mistake. It was their politicalprivileges, not their estates, that the Japanese samuraisrenounced.137

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGScould be found in the Japanese war.Think of that !"Again, talking of the inability ofsome to express feeling, "Shyandreserved people,I have noticed, arealwaysthe most brutal when roused."Again, evidently talking of theascetic life, and giving the rules ofbrahmackarya."Thesannyasin whothinks of gold, to desire it, commitsand so on.The darkness of night and thesuicide,"forest, a great pinefire under the trees,1two or three tents standingout whitein the blackness, the forms and voicesof manyservants at their fires in thedistance, and the Master with threedisciples, such is the next picture. Ofthe road to Vernag, under the appleorchardsand along the common-sides,of the pouring rain, and the luncheon inthe hard-won sunshine, of that grandold palace of Jehangir, with its octagonaltank at the foot of the pine-wooded hills,138

WALKS fr TALKS BESIDE THE JHELLUMmuch might be said. But the crown ofthe day came in the hours after dinner,when we were, at long last, alone, andthe constant file of visitors and worshippers, with their gifts,had ceased.Suddenly the Master turned to onemember of the party and said "Younever mention your schoolnow, do yousometimes forgetit ? You see," hewent on,"I have much to think of. Oneday I turn to Madras, and think of thework there. Another day Igive all myattention to America or England orCeylonor Calcutta. Now I am thinking about yours."At that moment the Master wascalled away to dine, and not till he cameback could the confidence he had invited, be given.He listened to it all, the deliberatewish for a tentative plan, for smallnessof beginnings, and the final inclinationto turn away from the idea of inclusivenessand breadth, and to base the whole139

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSof an educational effort on thereligiouslife, and on the worship of SriRamakrishna."Becauseyoumust be sectarian toget that enthusiasm, must you not ?"he said. "You will make a sect inorder to rise above all sects. Yes Iunderstand."There would beobvious difficulties.The thing sounded, on this scale, almost impossible, for many reasons.Butfor the moment the only care need beto will rightly, and if the plan was sound,waysand means would be found tohand, that was sure.He waited a little when he hadheard it all, and then he said, "Youask me to criticise, but that I cannotdo. For Iregard you as inspired, quiteas much inspired as I am. You knowthat s the differencebetween other reliigions and us. Other people believe theirfounder was inspired, and so do we.But so am I, also, just140as much so as

andWALKSfr TALKS BESIDE THEJHELLVMhe, and you as I, and after you, your girlsand their disciples will be. So I shallthink best."help you to do what youThen he turned to Dhira Mata andto Java, and spoke of the greatness of thetrust that he would leave in the handsof that disciple who should represent theinterests of women, when he shouldgo west, of how it would exceedthe responsibility of work for men. Andhe added, turningparty, "Yes,to the worker of theyou have faith, but you havenot that burning enthusiasm that youneed. You want to be consumed energy.Siva ! Siva !"so, invoking theblessing of Mahadeva, he said goodnightand left us, and we, presently, went to bed.The next morning, we breakfasted Ju| v 25thearly, in one of the tents, and went onto Achhabal. One of us had had adream of old jewels lost and restored,all bright and new. But the Swami,smiling, stopped the tale,saying "Nevertalk of a dream as good as that !"141

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSAt Achhabal, we found moregardens of Jehangir. Was it here, or atVernag, that had been his favouriteresting-place ?We roamed about the gardens, andbathed in a stillpool oppositethe PathanKhan s Zenana, and then we lunchedin the first garden,and rode down inthe afternoon to Islamabad.As we sat at lunch, the Swamiinvited his daughter to go to the Caveof Amarnath with him, and be dedicatedto Siva.Dhira Mata smiled permission,and the next half-hour was given topleasure and congratulations. It hadalready been arranged that we were allto go to Pahlgam and wait there forthe Swami s return from the pilgrimage.So we reached the boats that evening,packed, and wrote letters, and next dayin the afternoon, started for Bawan.142

CHAPTER XTHE SHRINE OF AMARNATH.Time. July 2Qth to August 8th 1898.Place.Kashmir.From this time we saw very little Ju| v 29thof the Swami. He was full ofenthusiasm about the pilgrimage andlived mostly on one meal a day, seekingno company much,save that of sddhus.which was like a village fair, allmodifiedby a religious tendency, centering in thesacred springs. Afterwards, with DhiraMata it was possible to go and *listen, ,at the tent door, to the crowd ofSometimes he would come to a campingground,beads in hand. To-night two ofthe party went roaming about Bawan,Hindispeakingsddhus who were plying tjieSwami with questions.On Thursday, we reached Pahlgam.

,aNOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSand camped down at the lower end of thevalley. We found that the Swami hadto encounter high opposition over thequestion of our admission at all. Hewas supported by the Naked Swamis,one of whom said,"It is true youhave this strength, Swamiji, but youought not to manifest it !" He yielded atthe word. That afternoon however, hetook his daughterround the campto beblessed, which really meant to distributealms, and whether because he waslooked upon as rich, or because he wasrecognised as strong the next day ourtents were moved up to a lovely knoll,at the head of the camp, where wehad the rushing Lidar in front of us,and pine-covered mountains opposite,with a glacier distinctly visible, beyondcleft high up. We stayed a whole day,at this village, of the shepherds, tok^ep ek&dasi, and early next morningthe pilgrimsleft.July 30th. At six in the morningwe had break-144

THE SHRINE OF AMARNA THtasted and were off. What time thecamp had moved, it seemed impossibleto guess, for even at our early meal-timevery few pilgrims or tents were left.The ashes of dead fires were all thatmarked the place where yesterday hadbeen a thousand people and theircanvas homes.How beautiful was the route to thenext halt, Chandanawara ! There wecamped on the edge of a ravine. Itrained all afternoon, and I was visited bythe Swami only for a five-minute s chat.But I received endless touchinglittlekindnesses from the servants and otherpilgrims. In the interval between twoshowers I went out botanising, and foundseven or eight species of Mycsotis, two ofwhich were new to me. Then I wentback to the shadow of my drippinghr-tree.The second stage was much harderthan anyof the others. It seemedendless. Close to Chandanawara, the1045

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSSwami insisted on my doing my firstglacier on foot, and took care to pointout every detail of intrest. A tremendous climb of some thousands of feet,was the next experience. Then a longwalk along a narrow path that twistedround mountain after mountain, andfinally another steep climb. At the topof the first mountain, the ground wassimply carpeted with edelwiess. Thenthe road passed five hundred feet aboveShisharnag, with its sulky water, andat last we campedin a cold damp placeamongst the snow-peaks, 1 8000 feet high.The firs were far below, and all afternoon and evening the coolies had toforage for juniperin all directions. Theown tentsTahsildar s, Swami s and mywere all close together, and in the evening a large fire was lightedin front.But it did not burn well, and many feetbelow lay the glacier.I did not see theSwami after we camped.Pantajharni the place of the five146

THE SHRINE OF AMARNA THstreams was not nearly such a longmarch. Moreover, it was lower thanShisharnag, and the cold was dry andexhilarating. In front of the camp wasa dry river-bed, all gravel, and throughthis ran five streams, in all which itwas the duty of the pilgrim to bathe,walkingfrom one to the other in wetgarments. Contrivingto elude observation completely, Swamiji neverthelessfulfilled the law to the last letter in thisrespect.How lovely were the flowers !Thenight before, or was it this night ? largeblue and white anemones grewinmytent, beneath my bed ! And here,wandering off, in the afternoon, to seta glacier at closer quarters,I foundgentian, sedums, saxifrages, and a newforget-me-not with littlehairy silverleaves, thick like velvet pile. Even ofjxmiper at this place there was verylittle.At these heights we often found

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSourselves in great circles of snow-peaks,those mute giants that have suggested tothe Hindu mind the idea of the AshencoveredGod.August 2nd. On Tuesday. August the 2nd, thegreat day of Amarnath, the first batchof pilgrims must have left the camp attwo !Weleftby the lightof the fullmoon. The sun rose as we went downthe narrow valley. It was not too safe,at this part of the journey. But whenwe left our ddndies and began to climb,the real danger began. A sort of goatpathin almost vertical o hill-sides, becoming in the descent on the other side, atiny staircase in the turf. Every hereand there, delicate columbines, Michaelmas daisies, and wild roses, temptedone to risk life and limb in theiracquistion. Then, havingat lastreached the bottom of the farther slope,we had to toil along the glacier, mileafter mile, to the Cave. About a milebefore our destination, the ice ceased,148

THE SHRINE OF AMARNATHand in the flowing water the pilgrimshad to bathe. Even when we seemed tohave arrived, there was still quite a stiffascent over the rocks to be made.The Swami, exhausted, had by thistime, fallen behind, but I, not remembering that he might be ill, waited,below the banks of gravel for hisappearence. He came at last, and,with a word, sent me on, he wasto bathe.goingHalf an hour later he enteredthe cave. With a smile he knelt, firstat one end of the semi-circle, then atthe other. The place was vast, largeenough to hold a cathedral, and thegreat ice-Siva, in a niche of deepestshadow, seemed as if throned on its ownbase. A few minutes passed, and thenhe turned to leave the cave.To him, the heavens had opened.He had touched the feet of Siva. Hehad had to hold himself tight,he saidafterwards, lest he should swoon away/But so great was his physical exhaustion,149

"""NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSthat a doctor said afterwards that hisheart ought to have stopped beating,and had undergone a permanent enlargement instead. How strangely nearfulfilment had been those words of hisMaster, "when he realises who andwhat he is he will give up this "!bodyI have enjoyedit so much !hesaid half an hour afterwards, as he saton a rock above the stream-side, eatinglunch with the kind Naked Swami andmyself."Ithoughtthe ice-lingam wasSiva Himself. And there were nothievish Brahmins, no trade, nothingwrong.It was all worship.I never1enjoyed any religious place so much !Afterwards he would often tell of theoverwhelming vision that had seemedto draw him almost into its vertex. Hewould talk of the poetry of the whiteice-pillar, and it was he who suggestedthat the first discovery of the place hactbeen by a party of shepherds, who hadwandered far in search of their flocks

THE SHRINE OF AMARNATHone summer day, and had entered thecave to find themselves, before the unmeltingice, in the presence of the LordHimself. He always said too that thegrace of Amarnath had been granted tohim there, not to die till he himselfshould give consent.And to me he said"You do not now understand. But youhave made the pilgrimage, and it willgo on working. Causes must bringtheir effects. You will understand betterafterwards. The effects will come."How beautiful was the road by whichwe returned next morning to Pahlgam ;\Ve struck tents that nightimmediatelyon our return to them, and camped laterfor the night in a snowy pass a wholestage further on. We paid a coolie a fewannas here, to push on with a letter, butwhen we actually arrived next after-noonwe found that this had been quite un-*necessary, for allmorning long, relaysof pilgrims had been passing the tents,and dropping in, in the most friendly

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSmanner, to give the others news of us,and our impending arrival. In themorning, we were up and on the waylongbefore dawn. As the sun rosebefore us, while the moon went downbehind, we passed above the Lake ofDeath, into which about forty pilgrimshad been hurried one year, by an avalanche which their hymnshad started.After this we came to the tiny goat-pathdown the face of a steep cliff, by whichwe were able to shorten the returnjourney so much. This was little betterthan a scramble, and everyone had perforce to do it on foot. At the bottom,the villagershad somethinglikefast ready.breakFires were burning, chapattiesbaking, and tea ready to oe served out.From this time on, parties of pilgrimswould leave the main body at eachparting of the ways, and the feeling ofsolidarity that had grown up amongst usallduallythroughout the journey became graless and less.152

THE SHRINE Or AMARNAT1IThat evening on the knoll abovePahlgam, when a great fire of pinc-iwas lighted, and dhurries spread we allsat and talked. Our friend, the NakedSwami, joined us and we had plenty offun and nonsense, but presently, whenall had gone save our own little party, wesat on, with the great moon overhead,and the towering snows, and rushingriver, and the mountain-pines. Andthe Swami talked of Siva, and the Caveand the great verge of vision.We started for Islamabad next day, August 8thand on Monday morning as we sat- atbreakfast, we were towed safely intoSrinagar.II153

"CHAPTER XIAT SRINAGAR OH THE RETURN JOURNEY.Persons : The Swami Vivekananda, and a p^rty cEuropeans, amongst whom were Dhira Matathe Steady Mother." *One whose name waJaya and Nivedita.Place : Kashmir Srinagar.Time :August Qth to August I3th.August 9th. At this time the Master was alwaystalking of leavingus. And when Ifind the entry"The River ispure thatflows, the monk ispure that goes,"I know exactly what it means thepassionateoutcryI am alwaysscmuch better when I have to undergo4hardships and beg my bread," the longingfor freedom and the touch of thecommon people, the picture of himselfaaking a long circuit of the country orfoot, and meeting us again at Baramulhfor the journey home.154

A T SR/NA GA R ON THE RE TURN JO URNE Ywhom heHis family of boat-people,had staunchly befriended through twoseasons, left us to-day. Afterwards hewould refer to the whole incident oftheir connection with him as proof thateven charity and patience could go toofar.It was evening, and we all went out August iothto pay some visit. On the return hecalled his disciple Nivedita to walkwith him across the fields. His talkwas all about the work and his intentions in it. He spoke of the inclusivenessof his conception of the countryand its religions of his own distinction;as being solely in his desire to makeHinduism active, aggressive, a missionary faith of * ;dont-touch-ism as theonly thing he repudiated. Then hetalked with depth of feeling of thegigantic spirituality of many of those\vTio were most orthodox. India wanted practicality, but she must never letef> herhold on the old meditative life155

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSfor that. "To be as deep as the oceanand as broad as the Sky Sri Ramakrishnahas said, was the ideal. Butthis profound inner life in the soulencased within orthodoxy,is the resultof an accidental not an essential association. "And if we set ourselves right here,the world willone ?"be right, for are we not all"Rctmakrishna Paramahamsa wasalive to the depths of his being, yeton the outer plane he was perfectlyactive and capable."And then of that critical questionof the worship of his own Master,"Myown life isguided bythe enthusiasm, of that great personality, butothers will decide for themselves how farthis is true for them. Inspiration isnot filtered out to the world throughone man.for theThere was occasion thisAugust nth daySwami to rebuke a member of th isparty for practising palmistry. It wasa thing he said that everyone desired,156

A T SRINAGAR ON THE RETURN JOURNE Yyet all India despised and hated. Yes,he said, in reply to a little special pleading, even of character-reading- he dis"Toapproved.tellyou the truth Ishould have thought even your Incarnation more honest if He and His disciples had not performed miracles.Buddha unfrocked a monk for doing it."Later, talking on the subjectto whichhe had now transferred his attention, hespoke with horror of the display of theleast of it as sure to bring a terrible reflex.The Swami had now taken a Brah- August i2tKmin cook. Very touching had beenthe arguments of the Amarnath sAd/insagainst his willingness to let even aMussalm&n cook for him. "Not inthe land of Sikhs, at least Swamiji:"they had said, and he had at last consented. But for the present he was worshippinghis little Mohammedan boatchildas Uma. Her whole idea of lovfcwas service, and the dayhe left Kashmir, she, tiny one, was fain to carry aand 13th.157

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGStray of applesfor him all thewayto thetonga herself. He never forgot her,though he seemed quite indifferent atthe time. In Kashmir itself he wasfond of recalling the timewhen she sawa blue flower on the towing path andsitting down before it, and strikingitthis way and that,flower for twenty minutes.""was alone with thaThere was a piece of land by theriver-side on which grew three chennaars,towards which our thoughts turnedwith peculiar love at this time. Forthe Maharajah was anxious to give itto Swamiji, and we all picturedcentre of work in the future-workit as awhich should realise the great idea of4<by the people, for the people, asto worker and to served."a joyIn view of Indian feeling about ahomestead blessed by women,it hadbeen suggested that we should go aivdannex the site, by camping there for awhile. One of our party moreover had158

A T SRINAGAR ON THE RETURN JOURNE Ya personal wish for special quiet at thistime. So it was decided that we shouldestablish a women s math ,as it were,before the Maharajah should requirethe land, to confer it on the Swami.And this was possible because the spotwas one of the minor campingused by Europeans.grounds159

CHAPTER XIITHE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARS.Persons: The Swami Vivekananda, and a party of Europeans, amongst whom were Dhirfi Matathe Steady Mother ; One whose name waJay ta ; and Niveditu.Place : Kashmir Srinagar.Time /August 1 4th to September 2Oth.August 14th It was Sunday morningand nextSept. 3rd. afternoon the Swami was prevailed onto come up to tea with us, in order tomeet a European guest, who seemed tobe interested in the subject of Vedanta.He had been little inclined to concernhimself with the matter, and I thinkhis real motive in accepting, was probably to afford his too-eager disciplesan opportunity of convincing themselves of the utter futility of all suchattempts as this. Certainly he tobkinfinite pains with the enquirer andas certainly his trouble was wasted.1 60

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARSI remember his saying, amongst otherthings,"How I wish a law couldbe broken. If we were really ableto break a law we should be free.What you call breaking the law, is really only another way of keeping it."Then he tried to explain a little of thelife.super-conscious But his wordsfell on ears that could not hear.On Tuesday he came once more to Septemberour littlecamp to the mid-day meal.Towards the end, it beganto rain heavily enough to prevent his return,and hetook up Tod s "Historyof Rajasthan"which was lying near, and drifted intotalk of Meenl Bai."Two-thirds of thenational ideas now in Bengal,"he said,have been gathered from this book."But the episode of Meenl B3,i, the queenwho would not be queen, but wouldwander the world with the lovers of.>Krishna, was always his favourite, evenin Tod.He talked of how she preachedand service tosubmission, prayerfulness,1611 1

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSall in contrast to Chaitanya, who preached love to the Name of God, andmercy to all. Meer& B&i was alwaysone of his great patronesses. He wouldput into her story many threads withwhich one is now familiar in other connections, such as the conversion oftwo great robbers, and the end byan image of Krishna opening and swallowing herIup. heard him on oneoccasion recite and translate oneof her songsto a woman. I wishI could remember the whole, but ittegan, in his rendering, with the words,Cling to it, cling to it, cling to it,Brother," and ended with "If Aunkaand Bunkathe robber brothers, Sujanathe fell butcher, and the courtesan, whoplayfully taught her parrot to repeat thename of the Lord Krishna weresaved, there ishope for Again all." ^1have heard him tell that marvellous taleof Meera B&i, in which on reachingBrind^van, she sent for a certain famous162

THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARSs&dhu.* He refused to go, on the groundthat woman might not see men in Brinddvan.When this had happened threetimes, Meer3, Bai went to him herself saying that she had not known that therewere such beings as men there, she hadsupposed that Krishna alone existed.And when she saw the astonished sddkushe unveiled herself completely, withthe words "Fool, do you call yourself aAnd as he fell prostrate beforeMan ?"her with a cry of awe, she blessed himas a mother blesses her child.Today the Swami passed on to thetalk of Akbar, and sang us a song ofTana Sena, the poet-laureate of theEmperor"Seated on the throne, a god amongstmen,Thou the Emperor of Delhi :Blessed was the hour the minute,the second,*Sanatana, the famous Sannyasin disciple of Sri Chaitanyaof Bengal, who gave up his office of minister to the NawabofBeng^ to become a religious devotee.1 6.?

hero"NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGSWhen 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 awakenedalways,O son of Humayoon,Joy of the sun, God amongst men,Thou, the Emperor of Delhi !"Then the talk passed to national"ourProt^p Singh, who never couldOnce indeedbe brought to submission.he was temptedto give in, at thatmoment when, having fled from Cheetore,and the queen herself having cookedthe scanty evening meal, a hungry catswooped down on that cake of breadwhich was the children s portion, andth*3 Kingof Mewar heard his babiescry for food. Then, indeed, the strongheart of the man failed him. The pros-164

"THE CAMP UNDER THE CHENNAARSpect of ease and relief tempted him.And for a moment he thought of ceasingfrom the unequal conflict, and sendinghis alliance to Akbar, only for an instant.The Eternal Will protectsits own. Evenas the picture passed before his mind,there appeared a messenger, withdespatches from a famous Rajputthosechief,that said There is but one leftamongstus who has kept his blood free fromadmixture with the alien. Let it neverbe said that his head has touched thedust. And the soul of Protap drewin the loner breath of courage andrenewed faith, and he arose and sweptthe country of its foes, and made hisown way back to Oodeypore.Then there was the wonderful taleof the virgin princess Krishna Kumari,whose hand was sought by various royalsuitors at once.And when three armieswere at the gate, her father couldthinkof nothing better than to give her poison.The task was entrusted to her uncle,and165

NOTES OF SOME WANDERINGShe entered her room as she lay asleepSept, 20th.to do it. *But at the sight of her beautyand youth, remembering her too as ababy, the soldier s heart failed him, andhe could not perform his task. But shewas awakened by some sound, and beingtold what was proposed, stretched outher hand for the cup, and drank thepoison with a smile. And so on, and soon. For the stories of Rajput heroes inthis kind are endless.On Saturday, the Swami and he whosename was Soong, went to the Dahl Lake,to be the guests of theAmerican consuland his wife for a couple of days.Theyreturned on Monday, and on Tuesday,the Swami came up to the new Math,as we called it, and had his boat movedclose by ours, so that he could be withus for a few days, before leaving forGanderbal.1 66

CONCLUDING WORDS OF THE EDITOR.From Ganderbal the Swami returned bythe firstweek of October and announced his intention of leavingfor the plains in a few days for urgent reasons. TheEuropean party had already made plans to visit theprincipal cities of Northern India e.g. Lahore, Delhi,Agra etc., as soon as the winter set in. So both parties decided to return together and came to Lahore.From here the Swami and his party returned toCalcutta leaving the rest to carry out their plans forsight-seeingin Northern India.

BIND::5GCSCT.SEP29t975PLEASE DO NOT REMOVECARDS OR SLIPSFROM THIS POCKETUNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARYBL Noblo, Margaret Elizabeth1270 Notes of some wanderingsV5N6 with the Swai Vivekanada1913