*
*
*
Comparatively free, I now lived with and moved
bout
er in
ālī’s
ot
‐
d a
drink with complete abandon until quite
d
mous, wanted to make me happy also with a young and
beautiful bhajadere. But when I, with my heart full of
Vāsitthī, spurned the maiden, and she, overwhelmed by
the slight put upon her, burst into tears, Angulimāla flew
into a frightful rage, seized and would have strangled me
then and there, had not the bald, smooth‐faced robber
a
among those dangerous characters, awaiting the
arrival of the ransom which had to come within two
months.
As we were at that time in the dark half of the
month, thefts and robberies followed upon one anoth
rapid succession. This season, which stands under the
auspices of the terrible Goddess Kālī, was devoted almost
exclusively to regular business, so that no night passed
without a surprise attack being carried out, or a house
being broken into. Several times whole villages were
plundered.
On the fifteenth night of the waning moon, Mother
K
festival was celebrated with ghastly solemnity. N
only were bulls and countless black goats slaughtered
before her image but several unhappy prisoners as well,
the victim being placed before the altar and having an
artery so opened that the blood spouted directly into the
mouth of the terrifying figure hung round with Her neck
laces and pendants of human skulls. Thereafter followe
frantic orgy, in the course of which the robbers swilled
intoxicating
senseless. During the course of this bacchanalian the ban
amused themselves with some of the sacred dancers,
known as bhajaderes who, with unparalleled audacity,
had been carried off from a great temple nearby.
Angulimāla, who in his cups became magnani‐
68
come to my help. A few words from him sufficed to make
the iron grip of the chief relax, and sent him away grow‐
ling like a scarcely tamed animal.
This remarkable man — who thus for the second
time had become my rescuer, although his hands were still
bloody from the hideous Kālī sacrifice he had just con‐
ducted — was the son of a brahmin. But because he had
been born under the Constellation of the Robbers he had
taken to that same trade. At first he had belonged to the
Thugs, but went over for spiritual reasons to the Senders.
From his father’s family he had inherited, so he told me, a
leaning towards religious practices. So, on the one hand,
he conducted the sacrificial services as a priest — and
people ascribed the unusual luck of the band nearly as
much to his priestly knowledge as to Angulimāla’s able
leadership — and, on the other hand, he lectured on the
metaphysics of the robber‐nature, in systematic form. And
not only on the technical side of it but on its ethical side
also; for I observed, to my amazement, that the robbers
did have a morality of their own and by no means consid‐
ered themselves worse than other men.
These lectures were delivered chiefly at night,
during the bright half of the month, at which time — apart
from chance occurrences — business was quiet. In a forest
clearing the hearers arranged themselves in several semi‐
circular rows about the praiseworthy Vājashravas, who sat
with his legs crossed under him. His powerful head,
barren of all hair, shone in the moonlight and his whole
appearance was not unlike that of a Vedic teacher who, in
the quiet of a starlit night, imparts the Esoteric or Secret
Doctrine to the inmates of a forest hermitage. But, on the
other hand, many an unholy and bestial face, and in truth
that of many a gallows‐bird, was to be seen there in that
circle. It seems to me, brother, as though I see them still at
this moment — as though I hear again the seething of the
69
sounds in that gigantic forest, now swelling to the long
rumblings of the far‐off storm, now sinking to the gentle
sigh of the night wind as it goes t rest amid the lonely
tree‐tops — at intervals, th
growl of a tiger or the
hoarser bellow
panther — and above it all, clear,
penetrating, m
jashravas
— a deep, full
ce of
tless generations of udgātars, the sacrificial singers of
use Vājashra‐
went so far as
under the
ay join myself to the
instincts
e
r
egin
o
e distant
of a
arvellously quiet, the voice of Vā
‐toned bass, the priceless inheritan
coun
the Vedas.
To these lectures I was admitted beca
n
vas had conceived a liking for me. He eve
assert that I, like himself, had been born
to
Robbers’ star and that I would one d
ervants of Mother Kālī.
s
It was also for this reason that he claimed it would
e for me to listen to his discourses, as they
be of valu
would unquestionably waken to active life the
slumbering within me. On such occasions I thus heard
Sects
truly remarkable lectures from him on the different
of Kālī — usually called thieves and robbers — and on the
activities which distinguish them from each other.
No less instructive than entertaining were his other
descriptive remarks on themes like — “The value of
courtesans in hoodwinking the police,” or — “Character‐
istics of officials of the upper and lower ranks open to
e‐
bribery, with reliable notes as to each man’s price.” Irr
proachable testimony was borne to his particularly keen
n nature, as well as to his severe
observation of huma
logicality in drawing conclusions, by his treatment of th
question — “How and why rascals recognise one another
at first glance, while honest men do not, and what advan‐
tages accrue to the former from this circumstance”; not to
ity of
speak of his brilliant remarks on — “The stupid
ight
n
‐watchmen in general, a stimulating reflection fo
ners.” The sleeping forest would ring again and
b
70
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