IMioto by Hands and Son 



AT IIOMK ON AN ASH HKAl' 



Here we see an ascetic putting into actual practice the old Hindu saying: "It is not exer- 

 tion, but inertion (vairagya) , which is the path to liberation." This man hopes to obtain 

 freedom by incessant meditation on the attributes of divinity while lying motionless upon 

 his ash heap. 



had its St. Simon Stylites, the Syrian 

 saint who spent 37 years sitting for the 

 most part on the top of a high pillar set 

 up in the ground, enduring the scorching 

 heat by day and the biting frost by night, 

 that he might overcome evil passions and 

 be nearer heaven. 



While penance is found in other coun- 

 tries, there is no country in the world 

 where it has become so universal or is 

 carried to such a degree of intense suffer- 

 ing as in India. Every form of self- 

 mortification is practiced. An arm is held 

 upright for years, until the tissues wither 

 and it becomes impossible ever again to 

 bring the arm down to a normal position 

 (see pages 1290 and 1306) ;long journeys 

 are taken walking on sharp spikes ; or 

 one will for years sit by day and sleep 

 by night on a bed of thorns (see pages 

 1268 and 1269), or roll hundreds of miles 



in sun and storm, through dust and mud, 

 from the eastern seas to the holy Benares 

 (see page 1284). 



Others will hang for half an hour at 

 a time by the feet, head down, over a 

 smouldering fire (see ])age 1295), or sit, 

 surrounded by five fires, through the blis- 

 tering heat of an Indian summer day (see 

 page 1286) ; others load the body with 

 heavy chains until flesh and blood sink 

 under the heavy load, or swing on poles 

 at religious festivals by a flesh-hook fas- 

 tened into the muscles at the back, though 

 this last has now been forbidden by the 

 British government (see pages 13 10 and 



13T1). 



What lies back of all this suffering, 

 and why will men voluntarily torture 

 themselves with a torture equaling in in- 

 genuity and cruelty any prescribed by 

 Inquisition or by primitive savage? 



1267 



