Grieve, Lucia C. G.

OpenSIUC

THE MUHARRAM IN WESTERN INDIA.BY LUCIA C. G. GRIEVE.INDIA is the land of festivals. There is no day which is not sacredto some god or saint ; and many of these celebrations overlap orcoalesce. Amid this welter of festivity, half a dozen great festivalsstand out by themselves.The Muharram* is the high festival of the Muslims in India.It falls on the first ten days of the first month of the Muslim year,called Muharram, or "sacred" ; and by this name it is usually known.The historical basis of the festival is found in the tragic death ofAH, who married the daughter of Muhammad, and of his two sons;but of that we shall speak later.For many days before the festival begins, the village carpenteris busy erecting mimic tombs of bamboo, to be covered finally withtinsel and colored paper. These tazias. as they are called in thenorth, or tabuts, in Western India, are intended as effigies of thetomb of the martyrs ; and a fine turban and costly armor are laidat the back to represent the state and consequence of Husayn, Ali'sson, slain on the bloody plain of Karbala. In the wealthy Muham-madan states of the north, these tazias are magnificent and costlycreations ; some of which are held over from year to year, and ex-hibited to the wondering eyes of the tourist. Large or small, they are* The following table shows some common variants in the spelling ofMuhammadan names. The spelling preferred by the author is followed in thisarticle.PREFERRED FORM OLDER FORMMuharram MohurrumMuslim MoslemMuhammad Mohammad, etc.Hasan HassanHusayn HoseinQasim CassimQuran KoranKarbala KerbelaSunnis SunnitesShiahs ShiitesShiva (better, Shiwa) Siva, CivaShaivites Sivites, CivitesHimalyas Himalayas470 THE OPEN COURT.fairly faithful copies of the domed Muslim tombs which lend pic-turesqueness to every scene. In the Maratha country, as WesternIndia is more properly called, originality is sought after. AlthoughIslam acknowledges no caste, the guilds of the various trades bandtogether to erect tabuts. Thus, in Satara where I was living, thebeef-butchers built one four stories high ; the vegetable venders hadone on which, appropriately, they induced rice or some other quick-growing grain to sprout, so that it was covered with a velvety coatof living green ; one guild of mutton-butchers displayed the figureof a horseman attacked by a tiger; while a fourth had an athletestanding between two women. In the north there is much bitterfeeling between the Muhammadans and the Hindus; but in WesternIndia, owing to the Muslims being in a weak minority, a generalfriendliness prevails, so that each tabut is supported not only by themen of its own guild and quarter but by subscriptions from Hindusas well.The Ashura Khana,- or Ten-Day House, is erected. Here everyevening during the festival, crowds of people assemble for themajlises, or mourning meetings, a band of singers chant the Mar-siya, a poem in honor of Husayn ; and the Waqia Khan narratesin graphic style the story of the tragic and pathetic death of thehero, while the audience sway their bodies and beat their breasts,wailing, "AH! Ali ! Husayn! Husayn!"While the festival is in progress, bands of boys, and sometimesgirls, wander about the streets, blowing raucous blasts on hollowbamboos ; others, preceded by drummers, and arrayed fantastically,demand subscriptions from shop-keepers and householders. Nearthe tabut, an Arab mummer makes nerve-racking cracks with asplit bamboo. Some see in this man a scapegoat or guardian, whofrightens homeless spirits from the mimic tombs in which theywould like to dwell. Sabils, or little refreshment stands, are setup in many places to supply sherbet to thirsty devotees.On the tenth day comes the Tazion ka Mela, or real "feast ofmourning." On this day the great procession assembles. All thetabuts from the surrounding villages press into the nearest town,and, packed in the mouths of the narrow streets giving on the mainroute of march, await their turn to fall into line. The scene is oneof the greatest confusion. Throngs of gaily dressed natives of everycreed and caste mass themselves on the narrow sidewalks, and,overflowing walls and roofs, fill windows and doorways. In thecountry towns in Western India, it is usually a good-natured crowd,out for a holiday, eating fruit and sweets, chaffing each other, andTHE MUHARRAM IN WESTERN INDIA. 471having- a good time generally. Above the noise a greater din arises,strengthened by kettle-drums and all manner of unmusical instru-ments, and the cry goes round that the procession is coming! Atthe head of this motley rout is led the white duldul horse, two inSatara, typical of the steeds of the martyrs. Other emblems carriedon poles crowd close on these. On nez sahibs, imitation spears,since the government has prohibited real ones, limes are borne, typicalof the carrying of Husayn's head at Karbala, and of much else inIndia. Horse-shoes, recalling Husayn's swift steed, serve also asa trap for wandering spirits. The paiija, or hand, is popularlysupposed to represent the five members of the Prophet's family,Muhammad, Fatima, AH and his two sons;probably its originalsignification was merely that of a tomb, for it is well known that thehand takes the place of the skull and cross-bones on Semitic tomb-stones*. Bunches of black hair figure among the standards and maytypify Husayn's horse (which was white) ; but more probably isthe hair which takes the place of a victim in a funeral sacrifice.Western Indian Muhammadanism is thoroughly saturated with Hin-duism as well as with its own original heathenism. The most re-markable adjunct of the Muharram is seen in the tiger-men. Theyare in evidence throughout the ten days and swarm in the finalprocession. In the recent celebration in Mysore, a touch of realismwas given by carrying one about in a cage. But of these more anon.With Oriental dilatoriness, it is generally late in the afternoonwhen the thronging ill-regulated procession gets fairly under way.With many halts and turns and twists, it moves slowly through thecrowded streets. Night falls, and a myriad swinging lights springinto being. Torches flaming at both ends are whirled, making-double circles of fire. The music, the shouting, the wailing, thehysteria, increase ; the procession becomes a mad rabble ; and in thesmall hours of the deepening night, the devotees, fevered, exhausted,smitten by the chill wind, creep back to their homes for a brieftroubled sleep or a continuation of the orgy..Next day, the procession forms anew, generally in the morning.The enthusiasm of the night evaporates under the sunshine. Thetabuts are taken to the seaside, or to the bank of a tank or river.Here the ornaments and everything of value are stripped off ; and thebamboo skeleton, often broken and bedraggled, is takkcd, that is,thrown with ceremony into the water, in a frank following of Hinducustom. In Bombay City, the two rival factions, Sunnis as well asShiahs, observe the Muharram with processions of tabuts, immer-sion, and the rest. When a friendly spirit prevails, as was the case472 THE OPEN COURT.two years ago, the processions march at different hours, and every-thing' passes off quietly. But when the two processions collide, asthey did last year, there is trouble, often resulting in loss of life.The Shiahs are generally the aggressors, keeping a pious silenceas they pass their own mosques, but giving vent to much noisymusic as they pass those of their rivals. Just before the recentMuharram, the leaders of both factions were brought together ata great dinner, and peace and friendship were declared ; but the onlyoutcome was a sullen foregoing of the processions and final rites.Back of this feast of mourning, or the Muharram, to use itspopular name, is a chapter of history. When Muhammad under-took his great work of reforming society and promulgating a newreligion, he found the Arab tribes engaged in perpetual fights andbitter feuds. So fierce and deadly was this intertribal warfare, thatIslam might have failed at the beginning for lack of a man to acceptit, had not some early Arab Solon induced his fellows to set asidefour months in the year, the first seventh, eleventh and twelfth, asmonths of peace, to allow of the practice of religion. We observea similar tabu on fighting during the Olympic Games in ancientGreece ; and in the curious institution of the Treve dc Dicu inFrance in the Middle Ages, which is paralleled to-day in the KhaiberPass. The Prophet found this arrangement so beneficial that heincorporated it into his religion ; and the Muslim Muharram, literallythe "sacred" first month of the year, began as a month of peace,wherein pilgrims might safely perform their return journey fromMecca.Had Muhammad been equally careful to appoint his successor,the Muharram might still have remained a time of truce. On hisdeath, many thought that Ali, his cousin and son-in-law and firstdisciple, should succeed him; but to others the more gifted Omarseemed the right person. This caused a faction, which came to ahead when Ali, after becoming the fourth Caliph, was murderedin 661. His son Hasan succeeded him; but being a weak youth,more given to piety and uxoriousness than to war and government,he abdicated the office within a year and retired into private life.His end is uncertain ; some claim that he was killed by a tiger ; others,that after divorcing seventy wives (some say only fifty) the nextone poisoned him. Husayn, meanwhile, grew up noble, brave andbeautiful, the hero of many a song and tale, skilled in all manlyaccomplishments, and beloved of all. Like many a similar leaderof a lost cause, bad advice and treachery were his undoing, and hisnoble and pathetic death at Karbala gave him the crown of martyr-THE MUHARRAM IN WESTERN INDIA. 473dom and the aureole of a saintly champion. With his death endedthe struggle of the Fatimid family for the Khalifat. But the Muslimworld was hopelessly split into the factions of the Sunnis andShiahs.The Sunnis are the orthodox party, following the Sunnat, or"tradition," and rejecting the claims of Ali and his descendants.'They observe Muharram as a month of fasting, as originally insti-tuted ; but keep the tenth day as a festival, saying that on that dayGod created Adam. The Muslims of Hyderabad, the largest nativestate in India, observe, instead of the tenth, the seventh, LangarDay, telling a local legend about a boy prince rescued from an ele-phant. But with that we have nothing to do.The Shiahs. of whom are most of the Muslims of Persia andIndia, hold that Ali was the Vicar of God, little, if any, inferior toMuhammad, and that Omar, in making up the canon of the Quran,left out many important passages proving this. They revere Ali,his two sons, and their seven successors as the ten Imams ; and holdin high regard their descendants, of whom many are still living.Their principal tenet is hatred of the Sunnis ; and their greatestholiday the first ten days of Muharram as a feast of mourning,which we have just described.Back of the history, which is genuine enough, lies the mytho-logical matrix. Here we have one of the many instances in whicha historical person serves as a nucleus for the crystallization ofbrilliant and beloved myths. Muhammad made the sacred yearrigidly lunar, rejecting the intercalation of an extra month onceevery two or three years, as impious. As a result, the Muharram,during a period of thirty-three years, swings through every season.Originally, Muharram was really the beginning of the solar as wellas of the lunar year ; and our Indian "festival of grief" links upwith the tabued Tammuz festival, prototype of the Adonis festivalof Asiatic Greece and the Easter of pagan Europe. Wherever winterfollows summer, and is followed in turn by spring, there we find theweird myths of death and resurrection, whether of Kore or of Ishtar,of Baldnr the Beautiful or of Shiva the Destroyer.The Muharram festival, like the Baldur story, lacks the essentialfeature of the resurrection, probably because the mythical hero hasbeen replaced by an historical one ; perhaps, too, because Islam, inits break with Christianity, did not care to have any resurrectionmotif made prominent. But the resurrection idea comes forwardin an unexpected manner, namely, in the presence of the tiger-men.Their presence is accounted for in many ways. On one of the floats474 THE OPEN COURT.at the festival in Satara, a tiger attacks a horseman, and the storyis told that thus Hasan came to his death ; but this story has not awide credence. Another explanation is that the tiger is a greatspirit house for attracting and quieting spirits disturbed by a funeralprocession. Neither seems sufficient to account for the number andprominence of the tiger-men.Tiger-men are found in Persia; but there they are generallyboys disporting themselves harmlessly. In India, especially WesternIndia, they are for the most part Hindus, usually of low caste.Dressed only in a scanty loin-cloth, their bodies striped black andyellow, a long tiger-tail switching behind, and a sharp antelopehorn in each hand, these men, drunk with bhang, during the wholeof the Muharram festival roam the country in imitation of tigers,dancing, raging, even killing. It is a remarkable fact that the vic-tims are generally persons against whom the tiger-man, before as-suming the character, had some grudge. It is impossible to convictsuch a man of murder ; for the people believe that the tiger-menare inspired by God (Parameshwar= 0eo?), and therefore that thegod claimed a sacrifice and not that the man committed a murder.The tiger is the most mystical animal in India. This reverencefor him, increased by the belief that no man or beast once mauledby a tiger ever recovers, probably accounts for the great number ofpeople who annually fall victims to his claws. In some provincesthese victims are not allowed to be buried or burned lest evil, espe-cially drought, befall the land.The tiger is closely connected with Shiva ; and in the Lingaworship, the tiger skin, according to the Linga Parana, plays animportant part. Most of the Hindus of Western India are Shaivites.especially of the subdivision called Lingaits ; and the fact that arespectable Hindu woman will not look at a tiger-man goes to con-firm the conjecture that the tiger-man is an incarnation of Shiva.Shiva's position as third of the Hindu Trinity has nearly ob-literated his earlier charcter. He was not a Yedic deity ; and muchingenuity has been required to identify him with Rudra. That hewas a frequenter of graveyards, a companion of ghosts, a drunkard,a reveler, a mad man and a wanderer, insulted and cursed by godsand demigods, shows that he was a foreigner ; and many of theseattributes point to some form of Dionysus brought in from thenorth, over the Himalyas. The Greek Dionysus, under the name ofIacchos, was of that dread circle who had chthonian attributes, agod of decaying and returning vegetation. It would be interestingto follow out the parallel between Shiva and this divinity, both ofTHE MUHARRAM IN WESTERN INDIA. 475Semitic origin, both gods of the dead, outcasts and despised, yetrising to the highest rank in their respective pantheons. It is sig-nificant also that as the panther was sacred to Bacchus, so thetiger belongs to Shiva. In the Hindu philosophy, with its over-whelming belief in rebirth and continued existence after death, thisaspect of Shiva as a god of resurrection, loses its force, or, rather,is transformed into that of the destroyer and re-creator, which prac-tically amounts to the same thing. It may seem far-fetched to seein the tiger-men in the Muharram festival the missing resurrectionmotif; but such things are not uncommon in religious observances.A few days before Husayn's murder, to go back to the historicnarrative, he gave his favorite daughter in marriage to Qasim, sonof Hasan. This event is commemorated on the seventh day of theMuharram, called the Mahdi, when the Alam i Qasim, or standard,is carried in procession, and fine garments are borne on the backsof horses and camels, as at a wedding. When this standard isbrought back to the Ashura Khana, as Qasim's representative, it islaid down, covered over, and treated as a corpse.In Bombay a more realistic "bridegroom" is found. The Dula.as he is called, sits, in fulfilment of a vow, with his head greencapped, over an urn of frankincense. At intervals he is raised, apole bearing the funeral panja, or hand, is bound to his chest, anda bunch of peacock feathers is given him. Thus encumbered, andintoxicated with the fumes of the incense, he is led through thestreets ; and people supposed to be afflicted with evil spirits or witch-craft appeal to him for relief.Here we have a marriage interjected into the very midst offuneral wailing ; nor does it require much ingenuity to see in this,even more than in the tiger-men of Shiva, a hint of the resurrection.To the Hindu mind, the father lives in the son ; Husayn, about to die,gives his daughter in marriage to his dead brother's son, and thusprovides for the continuity of the race. In mythology, moreover,marriage is closely connected with death, that death which is but theante-chamber of a new life. This idea is especially emphasized inGreece, where Kore, the bride of Hades, is typical of the soul ; andthis mystic marriage is set forth in a whole series of fine amphorae.In conclusion, we may see in the wild orgy of grief of theMuharram, not merely a sectarian celebration of the glorious deathof a martyr, but a new mingling of the palm and the willow, areiteration of the oldest beliefs and fears and hopes of the race, thesorrow for the untimely end of the noble and the beautiful ; thehope, dim, timid, yet real and fervent, of a life to come.

The Muharram in Western India.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2454&context=ocj

The Muharram in Western India.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

OpenSIUC