HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES 115 



most pilgrims Hardwar, where the Ganges emerges from 

 the mountains and enters on the plain. Three weeks' 

 journey uphill from the railway was needed, with mules 

 carrying all necessities of life, Bose riding or walking, 

 Mrs. Bose sometimes walking, sometimes carried on light 

 stretchers. On this journey, more fully than ever 

 before, they felt themselves as in and of the pilgrim 

 throng from all parts from Ceylon and Comorin, Bengal 

 and Orissa, in fact every part of India. Never had 

 they seen such intensive influence of religion at once 

 traditional and natural ; for all the pilgrims were attuned 

 and in accord, and greeting each other as friends without 

 thought of caste. Every face was glowing with fervour 

 as the great snows appeared ; and the cry of ' Jai 

 Kedarnath ! ' (Glory to the God of Snows !) passed from lip 

 to lip. Men and women alike were transfigured in trances 

 of prayer and its reward of ecstasy. A blind man groping 

 his way up a narrow and dangerous path, a mere cliff edge, 

 when told, ' Friend, take care ! ' answers, ' Why need I be 

 afraid when He is leading me by the hand ? ' 



No wonder then that Bose, after recalling these memories, 

 should say, ' With all these experiences, India has made 

 me and kept me as her son. I feel her life and unity deep 

 below all.' 



This essential unity of India, which lives most deeply 

 in the spirit of religion and in the soul of woman, is also 

 clear in old-world statesmanship ; a vivid illustration of this 

 was given as recently as the late eighteenth century by Queen 

 Ahilyabai, the gentlest, but not the least effective, ruler 

 of the notable and warlike dynasty of the Holkars. From 

 her beautiful little capital of Maheswar on the Nerbudda 

 itself a place of pilgrimage, some forty miles or so south 

 of the present State capital of Indore, and hence a 

 representative spot for Central India she sent the funds 

 and chose the builders to erect four new temples at the 

 extreme points of India north, south, east and west ; and 

 thus encouraged further pilgrimage. 



