There are several extremely elegant customs connected with some of the
Indian Festivals, at which flowers are used in great profusion. The
surface of the "sacred river" is often thickly strewn with them. In Mrs.
Carshore's pleasing volume of Songs of the East[053] there is a long
poem (too long to quote entire) in which the Beara Festival is
described. I must give the introductory passage.
"THE BEARA FESTIVAL.
"Upon the Ganges' overflowing banks,
Where palm trees lined the shore in graceful ranks,
I stood one night amidst a merry throng
Of British youths and maidens, to behold
A witching Indian scene of light and song,
Crowds of veiled native loveliness untold,
Each streaming path poured duskily along.
The air was filled with the sweet breath of flowers,
And music that awoke the silent hours,
It was the BEARA FESTIVAL and feast
When proud and lowly, loftiest and least,
Matron and Moslem maiden pay their vows,
With impetratory and votive gift,
And to the Moslem Jonas bent their brows.
Each brought her floating lamp of flowers, and swift
A thousand lights along the current drift,
Till the vast bosom of the swollen stream,
Glittering and gliding onward like a dream,
Seems a wide mirror of the starry sphere
Or more as if the stars had dropt from air,
And in an earthly heaven were shining here,
And far above were, but reflected there
Still group on group, advancing to the brink,
As group on group retired link by link;
For one pale lamp that floated out of view
Five brighter ones they quickly placed anew;
At length the slackening multitudes grew less,
And the lamps floated scattered and apart.
As stars grow few when morning's footsteps press
When a slight girl, shy as the timid halt,
Not far from where we stood, her offering brought.
Singing a low sweet strain, with lips untaught.
Her song proclaimed, that 'twas not many hours
Since she had left her childhood's innocent home;
And now with Beara lamp, and wreathed flowers,
To propitiate heaven, for wedded bliss had come"
To these lines Mrs. Carshore (who has been in this country, I believe,
from her birth, and who ought to know something of Indian customs)
appends the following notes.
"It was the Beara festival." Much has been said about the Beara or
floating lamp, but I have never yet seen a correct description. Moore
mentions that Lalla Rookh saw a solitary Hindoo girl bring her lamp to
the river. D.L.R. says the same, whereas the Beara festival is a Moslem
feast that takes place once a year in the monsoons, when thousands of
females offer their vows to the patron of rivers.
"Moslem Jonas" Khauj Khoddir is the Jonas of the Mussulman; he, like
the prophet of Nineveh, was for three days inside a fish, and for that
reason is called the patron of rivers."
I suppose Mrs. Carshore alludes, in the first of these notes, to the
following passage in the prose part of Lalla Rookh:--
"As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset, they saw a young
Hindoo girl upon the bank whose employment seemed to them so strange
that they stopped their palanquins to observe her. She had lighted a
small lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it in an earthern
dish, adorned with a wreath of flowers, had committed it with a
trembling hand to the stream: and was now anxiously watching its
progress down the current, heedless of the gay cavalcade which had drawn
up beside her. Lalla Rookh was all curiosity;--when one of her
attendants, who had lived upon the banks of the Ganges, (where this
ceremony is so frequent that often, in the dusk of evening, the river is
seen glittering all over with lights, like the Oton-Jala or Sea of
Stars,) informed the Princess that it was the usual way, in which the
friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages offered up vows for
their safe return. If the lamp sunk immediately, the omen was
disastrous; but if it went shining down the stream, and continued to
burn till entirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was
considered as certain.
Lalla Rookh, as they moved on, more than once looked back, to observe
how the young Hindoo's lamp proceeded: and while she saw with pleasure
that it was unextinguished, she could not help fearing that all the hopes
of this life were no better than that feeble light upon the river."
Moore prepared himself for the writing of Lalla Rookh by "long and
laborious reading." He himself narrates that Sir James Mackintosh was
asked by Colonel Wilks, the Historian of British India, whether it was
true that the poet had never been in the East. Sir James replied,
"Never." "Well, that shows me," said Colonel Wilks, "that reading over
D'Herbelot is as good as riding on the back of a camel." Sir John
Malcolm, Sir William Ouseley and other high authorities have testified
to the accuracy of Moore's descriptions of Eastern scenes and customs.
The following lines were composed on the banks of the Hooghly at
Cossipore, (many long years ago) just after beholding the river one
evening almost covered with floating lamps.[054]
A HINDU FESTIVAL.
Seated on a bank of green,
Gazing on an Indian scene,
I have dreams the mind to cheer,
And a feast for eye and ear.
At my feet a river flows,
And its broad face richly glows
With the glory of the sun,
Whose proud race is nearly run
Ne'er before did sea or stream
Kindle thus beneath his beam,
Ne'er did miser's eye behold
Such a glittering mass of gold
'Gainst the gorgeous radiance float
Darkly, many a sloop and boat,
While in each the figures seem
Like the shadows of a dream
Swiftly, passively, they glide
As sliders on a frozen tide.
Sinks the sun--the sudden night
Falls, yet still the scene is bright
Now the fire-fly's living spark
Glances through the foliage dark,
And along the dusky stream
Myriad lamps with ruddy gleam
On the small waves float and quiver,
As if upon the favored river,
And to mark the sacred hour,
Stars had fallen in a shower.
For many a mile is either shore
Illumined with a countless store
Of lustres ranged in glittering rows,
Each a golden column throws
To light the dim depths of the tide,
And the moon in all her pride
Though beauteously her regions glow,
Views a scene as fair below
D.L.R.
Mrs. Carshore alludes, I suppose to the above lines, or the following
sonnet, or both perhaps, when she speaks of my erroneous Orientalism--
SCENE ON THE GANGES.
The shades of evening veil the lofty spires
Of proud Benares' fanes! A thickening haze
Hangs o'er the stream. The weary boatmen raise
Along the dusky shore their crimson fires
That tinge the circling groups. Now hope inspires
Yon Hindu maid, whose heart true passion sways,
To launch on Gungas flood the glimmering rays
Of Love's frail lamp,--but, lo the light expires!
Alas! what sudden sorrow fills her breast!
No charm of life remains. Her tears deplore
A lover lost and never, never more
Shall hope's sweet vision yield her spirit rest!
The cold wave quenched the flame--an omen dread
That telleth of the faithless--or the dead!
D.L.R.
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