CHAPTER IIOMAN THE CHILD
It was thus that the child of the head-man and high priest of Bul-Ruknu entered the world and found his place there. But his subsequent baby days did not bear out the dreary omens of the first. The whole town, and a throng of farmers from the rice-fields to the north, were present at the ceremony of the public christening of the child, who was named Oman, and was thenceforward regarded by the village as their prospective head and ruler. As such he became at once an important little person, both in the community and in his father’s house.
Having been born a Brahman, Oman’s first year was punctuated with ceremonies prescribed for every minutest change in his little existence. In his sixth month, at the first feeding with solid food, upon which the character of his future career was supposed to depend, he was given, not rice, to bring him splendor; nor beef, to bring him power; nor fish, to bring him swiftness; nor goat’s flesh, for a fine physique; but a bit of white partridge breast, which is said to confer upon a child the gift of mental purity. And from this time on, every step in his education was for the purposeof making him a worthy successor to his ascetic father. From his earliest babyhood he was trained in rigorous ways of propriety and grave conduct. Much speech, inarticulate or otherwise, was not sanctioned in Gokarna’s presence; nor did the father sympathetically regard the manufacture of mud-pies, or even the jingling of Kota’s ankle-bells and bracelets. The delights of babyhood were indulged in secret, at times when Kota’s warm-hearted motherhood overcame the unceasing dread of her husband; and she and the baby found amusements that delighted them equally.
During the first three years of his life, Oman certainly gave no evidence of unusual characteristics. When he was two, and his mother nineteen, a girl was born into the family of the high priest, which fact, however, in no way diminished Oman’s importance. He was now at a delightful age; and even Gokarna sometimes fell from dignity and allowed his son to drag himself to his feet by aid of the paternal leg, and then, by means of the same member, permitted himself to be urged out to witness the antics of some badgered kitten, or peep into the first home of half a dozen tumbling puppies; which creatures the child never molested, but would watch by the hour with solemn delight.
In his third year, little Oman underwent the ceremony of theKudakarman, or tonsure, by which his rough and tumbly black hair was clipped close to his head, and thenceforth kept so:—a very comfortable bit of religion, considering the climate of Bul-Ruknu. This concluded the ceremonies of babyhood, and was the last heshould have to undergo till the day of the great initiation, or second birth, when he would become a true Brahman, a student of the Vedas.
This period, from his third to his eighth year, was the happiest and freest of his life. He was now emancipated from the close supervision of his mother, and allowed to go forth alone to explore the wonders and the glories of the town. All the simple and unfathomable joys of childhood were there, awaiting his pleasure. First of all were the children; for Bul-Ruknu swarmed with them; and, boy and girl, Brahman or Sudra, they were turned out to live in the streets till it came time for them to take up the duties of life:—the boys, from seven to twelve, to begin their Vedic studies or their slavery; the girls, from ten to fourteen, to marry. Little Oman, so far brought up to the most rigid solitude, now entered the world, and found hordes of his own kind awaiting him. Forthwith he offered himself to them. They accepted him readily into their numbers, and let him find his own place there. They ranked him nowhere, for their spirit was entirely democratic. They were the only species of Indian humanity that did not, openly or secretly, recognize caste. With them, it was not a Brahman who must lead, but the boy who could fight best; it was not the girl of wealthiest parents that was most popular, but she that had greatest talent for making dolls out of straw and rags.
Among his kind Oman did not make astonishing progress. He proved gentle and quiet, and made friends, in a mute sort of way, with those of his own age or alittle younger. He never attempted leadership. As a matter of fact, such an idea did not occur to him. But he was thoroughly intolerant of any sort of ruling. The boy that tried to command his occupations, he regarded with astonished disapproval, immediately renouncing the acquaintance of the would-be general. He never fought,—had, indeed, been known to run away from the scene of a struggle, and hide himself till it was over. Yet his spirit was not generally considered cowardly. The result of this course was that, gradually, Oman gathered around him a handful of little folk like himself, among whom he always felt at liberty to do what he liked. They were an odd little band. Among them were no concerted plans of action, no organized raids, hardly even general games. Each child, occupied with some pursuit of his or her own, would simply carry it on in the proximity of others, because the feeling of companionship was pleasant. Oman, indeed, after the first novelty of it had worn off, did not always remain with his fellows. There were many things that he found it eminently pleasant to do alone. For him the town held ever fresh delights. He knew every donkey that came to the weekly bazaar. He was also on friendly terms with the troops of dogs, the cats, and the chickens of his immediate neighborhood. Animals liked him, and he returned their affection with warm appreciation. Nor was he ever known to harm, or even so much as startle, any living thing. And this extreme gentleness was perhaps his most distinguishing characteristic.
In due time this child of high future approached his eighth birthday, and, at that early age, entered upon the rigorous life of the Snataka, or student of the Vedas. The ceremony of second birth, investiture with the sacred cord of the Brahman, was the most important event of his life, since he was universally looked upon as the successor of his father, the future high priest of the village. The girdle of Menga grass was fastened round his waist and the cord knotted over his left shoulder. Into his hand they put a staff made of the polished bilva wood prescribed for the Brahman student. Aside from these things, and the single cotton garment that he wore, all the possessions that had been his in the world were supposed to belong to his teacher, who was a priest under Gokarna, a man named Asvarman, who had taken four pupils, of whom Oman was the youngest.
It was at this time of the first separation from her oldest child that Kota brought into the world a new son, who, for the time being, took up all her thoughts. And from the hour of this boy’s birth, Oman’s prospects, though he was unaware of the fact, assumed a different aspect. His career depended now upon his own abilities; for he was no longer indispensable to the ambitions of his father.
When a Hindoo boy begins his studentship, which lasts for an indeterminate number of years, he is no longer regarded as an inmate of his father’s house, but is wholly under the supervision of his instructor, and is supposed to beg his food and lodging from personscharitably inclined. As a general rule, the boy still eats at home; but his meals are given him not in the name of relationship, but as a charity asked for the sake of the gods. Beside this quasi-exile, Oman found his life a very different matter from the former free and comfortable existence. No longer could he call a single hour of the day his own. His initiation as a student had taken place in the early spring of the year 1215, and was immediately followed by the greatSravanafestival for the planting of crops and theAdhya-Yopa-Karman, or opening of the course of study. His part in the religious ceremonies lasted for a week, during which time there was much fasting and little sleep. Then, on the new-moon day of the month of March, began the routine that was to last, almost unbroken, for five years.
Every morning, between dawn and sunrise, Oman and his three fellow-students assembled in the broad, sandy square near the apology of a temple to Siva, and there replenished the sacrificial fires, which were never extinguished. When the blaze was high and the sun had reached the horizon, Asvarman would make his appearance, and, seating himself before a fire with his face to the east, his pupils opposite him on the other side of the blaze, would begin the morning recitation of prayers—a dozen verses of the Rig-Veda, already familiar to the boys. After this, the students were instructed in Pâli texts, generally committing to heart each sentence as it was read. At noon they were dismissed to beg a meal in the village; and, early in theafternoon, they returned to continue their study, which lasted till sunset, when the evening Agnihotra was performed and they were dismissed for the night, burdened with an endless list of rules which they must not break on pain of penance. The only relief from this monotonous existence came on Uposatha days:—days of sacrifice to the new or the full moon; and certain sacred festival days, when ceremonial took the place of the usual study.
In a year, by means of this persistent application, the boys were able to read with tolerable fluency, both in Pâli and in Sanscrit. But the rigor of their labors was not lessened thereby. Rather, instruction now took a severer turn; for, young as they were, the little students were of Brahman birth, and, therefore, entitled to the highest education. According to the law, Asvarman now began to expound to these pathetic children the doctrines of the three mystic philosophies:—the Sankhya, the Vedanta, and the Yoga—speculations of such profound abstraction and such absolute intellectuality, that their effect on these childish minds would have been amusing had it not been pitiable. Solemnly, with his wide, unfathomable eyes fixed on the dull orbs of the priest, Oman, now at the age of nine, informed his master that Nature was created in order that the world-soul might become united with itself; that contemplation is the soul’s highest duty till its time of liberation from material fetters; and that only essence is infinite.
Just how much of this found some sort of home inthe boy’s young mind, to reappear long years afterward with new meaning attached to it, it were difficult to say. Probably it was at this time, and through the agency of those vast philosophisms, that Oman’s double self began dimly to be shadowed forth. By the time he was eleven, and had been for three years a Snataka, he commenced in his own fashion to meditate, and, also in his own fashion, to suffer. Much that had hitherto lain dormant within him began to stir. He realized that he could scarcely fathom his own state. There seemed to lie within him two distinct natures: the one strong, non-combative, but self-rebellious; the other gentle, and weak, and shrinking. Until now he had had no clear idea of this. He had been all things at once. But the elements were beginning to resolve themselves. He had moods, of longer or shorter duration, during which one set of characteristics or the other seemed to dominate him. Half the time he wondered at himself angrily for his indecisiveness. The other half he shrank from self-analysis, and from any effort at study as well.
Immersed as he was in a self-conflict which he believed to be part of everybody’s ordinary life, his attempts at understanding himself tinctured all his thoughts, and his questions as to the philosophies and their significance always bore a personal relation to himself and his needs. Here he found not a little assistance. But with the Vedas it was different. There was nothing there to apply in any way to the inner life. The formal ritual, the Sutras, the Mantras,were all mere objective texts. And, gradually, as he strove in vain to find in them something personal, their meaningless intricacy impressed itself more and more upon him.
His life, at this time, was far from happy. He was closely bound, even as to his thoughts; and he had really no freedom. His state was almost constantly one of melancholy; but he was subject to violently changeable points of view; and, in his continual secret analysis and meditation, he endured the first pangs of loneliness. How strongly he felt all this, it would be difficult to say. At the time, his existence seemed to him overwhelming. Later on, he could remember it with yearning, as holding a peace and a contentment that would never come for him again.
The years passed over the head of the boy, slowly for him, swiftly for many around him; and when he was thirteen years old, and had been for five years a Snataka, a heavy sickness came, and he was taken to the home of his father, to be cared for there. He alone knew how, for many days, his body and his mind were torn with strangest anguish. Dimly he understood that the souls imprisoned in him were struggling mightily to burst the bonds of flesh, and free themselves. Finally came the evening that was always most vivid in his memory.
Toward sunset he was carried out into the vine-walled veranda of the house; and he felt that people—two, three, four—stood around him, looking upon him. He heard murmurings and exclamations, which graduallymelted away; and then only his father and mother were there, standing on either side of him; and he felt afraid, and wept, in misery.
There, indeed, through the whole night, the man and the woman who had brought him into the world stood over him in the agony of the crisis, Kota shaken with sobs of affliction, Gokarna stiff and straight, hands clenched, skin damp with sweat. There the father gave up his son, the priest renounced his hope and his ambition. Lifting up his voice he prayed Siva to take the life of Ramasarman; and this prayer the child, and the mother of the child, dumbly echoed in their hearts. Yet, in the clear, red light of dawn, the agony left Oman’s body, and his mind, exhausted with a weight too terrible to bear, grew gradually quieter. Kota and Gokarna, knowing nothing more to do, spent with weariness and emotion, returned together in silence into the house, leaving Oman alone in the half-light of early day.
The child’s first sensation was one of extreme peace. Pain had left him; and the eyes, half curious, half horrified, that had watched him through the night, were gone. The early air came fresh and sweet to his dry lips; and it seemed to act on him as a powerful narcotic. He grew languorous and drowsy. The spirit within him was still; yet, somewhere, there was a tension. He could not quite give himself up to insensibility. Was it habit:—the old sense of rising at this hour to prepare the sacrifice? Not that. The Vedic ritual, and all its infinite detail, lay quite outside hispath just now. No; it was rather a curious sense of expectation, of waiting for something to come—what, he neither knew nor asked. But the waiting was not long. From out of that clear, vermilion dawn-light, came flying a tiny, gray bird,—Spirit-bird, Hindoos call it,—slender-necked, clean-winged. This, hovering for an instant about the entrance to the veranda, darted suddenly in and plunged, quivering, into Oman’s breast.
The boy gave a faint cry—expressive of unutterable things—and laid his two hands with greatest gentleness upon the soft feathers, caressing the creature, and uttering to it little, inarticulate sounds. With the coming of this bird it was as if his being was suddenly complete. Now, for the moment, happy with a happiness that is beyond mortals, still clasping to his breast the feathered thing, which, under his touch, lay perfectly still, he closed his hot and aching eyes and slept.