The Jewel in the Crown

 Rudyard Kipling - Kim


‘Yonder is the Sahib.’ said Kim, and dodged sideways among
the cases of the arts and manufacturers wing. A white-bearded
Englishman was looking at the lama, who gravely turned and saluted
him and after some fumbling drew forth a note-book and a
scrap of paper.
‘Yes, that is my name,’ smiling at the clumsy, childish print.
‘One of us who had made pilgrimage to the Holy Places—he
is now Abbot of the Lung-Cho Monastery—gave it me,’ stammered
the lama. ‘He spoke of these.’ His lean hand moved
tremulously round.
‘Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I
am here’—he glanced at the lama’s face—’to gather knowledge.
Come to my office awhile.’ The old man was trembling with excitement.
The office was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from
the sculpture-lined gallery. Kim laid himself down, his ear
against a crack in the heat-split cedar door, and, following his instinct,
stretched out to listen and watch.
A Ria Press Edition of Kipling’s Kim. Page 3 of 85.
Most of the talk was altogether above his head. The lama, haltingly
at first, spoke to the Curator of his own lamassery, the
Such-zen, opposite the Painted Rocks, four months’ march away.
The Curator brought out a huge book of photos and showed him
that very place, perched on its crag, overlooking the gigantic valley
of many-hued strata.
‘Ay, ay!’ The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles
of Chinese work. ‘Here is the little door through which we bring
wood before winter. And thou—the English know of these
things? He who is now Abbot of Lung-Cho told me, but I did not
believe. The Lord—the Excellent One—He has honour here too?
And His life is known?’
‘It is all carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art
rested.’
Out shuffled the lama to the main hall, and, the Curator beside
him, went through the collection with the reverence of a devotee
and the appreciative instinct of a craftsman.
Incident by incident in the beautiful story he identified on the
blurred stone, puzzled here and there by the unfamiliar Greek
convention, but delighted as a child at each new trove. Where the
sequence failed, as in the Annunciation, the Curator supplied it
from his mound of books—French and German, with photographs
and reproductions.
Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the
Christian story, holding the Holy Child on his knee while mother
and father listened; and here were incidents in the legend of the
cousin Devadatta. Here was the wicked woman who accused the
Master of impurity, all confounded; here was the teaching in the
Deer-park; the miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here
was the Bodhisat in royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth;
the death at Kusinagara, where the weak disciple fainted; while
there were almost countless repetitions of the meditation under
the Bodhi tree; and the adoration of the alms-bowl was everywhere.
In a few minutes the Curator saw that his guest was no
mere bead- telling mendicant, but a scholar of parts. And they
went at it all over again, the lama taking snuff, wiping his spectacles,
and talking at railway speed in a bewildering mixture of
Urdu and Tibetan. He had heard of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims,
Fu- Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if
there was any translation of their record. He drew in his breath as
he turned helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas Julien.
“Tis all here. A treasure locked.’ Then he composed himself reverently
to listen to fragments hastily rendered into Urdu. For the
first time he heard of the labours of European scholars, who by
the help of these and a hundred other documents have identified
the Holy Places of Buddhism. Then he was shown a mighty map,
spotted and traced with yellow. The brown finger followed the
Curator’s pencil from point to point. Here was Kapilavastu, here
the Middle Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca of Buddhism;
and here was Kusinagara, sad place of the Holy One’s
death. The old man bowed his head over the sheets in silence for
a while, and the Curator lit another pipe. Kim had fallen asleep.
When he waked, the talk, still in spate, was more within his
comprehension.
‘And thus it was, O Fountain of Wisdom, that I decided to go
to the Holy Places which His foot had trod—to the Birthplace,
even to Kapila; then to Mahabodhi, which is Buddh Gaya—to
the Monastery—to the Deer-park -to the place of His death.’
The lama lowered his voice. ‘And I come here alone. For
five—seven—eighteen—forty years it was in my mind that the
Old Law was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest,
with devildom, charms, and idolatry. Even as the child outside
said but now. Ay, even as the child said, with but-parasti.’
‘So it comes with all faiths.’
‘Thinkest thou? The books of my lamassery I read, and they
were dried pith; and the later ritual with which we of the Reformed
Law have cumbered ourselves—that, too, had no worth
to these old eyes. Even the followers of the Excellent One are at
feud on feud with one another. It is all illusion. Ay, maya, illusion.
But I have another desire’—the seamed yellow face drew
within three inches of the Curator, and the long forefinger-nail
tapped on the table. ‘Your scholars, by these books, have followed
the Blessed Feet in all their wanderings; but there are
things which they have not sought out. I know nothing—nothing
do I know—but I go to free myself from the Wheel of Things by
a broad and open road.’ He smiled with most simple triumph.
‘As a pilgrim to the Holy Places I acquire merit. But there is
more. Listen to a true thing. When our gracious Lord, being as
yet a youth, sought a mate, men said, in His father’s Court, that
He was too tender for marriage. Thou knowest?’
The Curator nodded, wondering what would come next.
‘So they made the triple trial of strength against all comers.
And at the test of the Bow, our Lord first breaking that which
they gave Him, called for such a bow as none might bend. Thou
knowest?’
‘It is written. I have read.’
‘And, overshooting all other marks, the arrow passed far and
far beyond sight. At the last it fell; and, where it touched earth,
there broke out a stream which presently became a River, whose
nature, by our Lord’s beneficence, and that merit He acquired ere
He freed himself, is that whoso bathes in it washes away all taint
and speckle of sin.’
‘So it is written,’ said the Curator sadly.
The lama drew a long breath. “Where is that River? Fountain
of Wisdom, where fell the arrow?”
‘Alas, my brother, I do not know,’ said the Curator.
‘Nay, if it please thee to forget—the one thing only that thou
hast not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am an old man! I
ask with my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom. We
know He drew the bow! We know the arrow fell! We know the
stream gushed! Where, then, is the River? My dream told me to
find it. So I came. I am here. But where is the River?’
‘If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?’
‘By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,’ the
lama went on, unheeding. ‘The River of the Arrow! Think again!
Some little stream, maybe—dried in the heats? But the Holy One
would never so cheat an old man.’
‘I do not know. I do not know.’
The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a
handsbreadth from the Englishman’s. ‘I see thou dost not know.
Not being of the Law, the matter is hid from thee.’
‘Ay—hidden—hidden.’
‘We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I’—he rose
with a sweep of the soft thick drapery—’I go to cut myself free.
Come also!’
‘I am bound,’ said the Curator. ‘But whither goest thou?’
‘First to Kashi [Benares]: where else? There I shall meet one
of the pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He also is a Seeker
in secret, and from him haply I may learn. Maybe he will go with
me to Buddh Gaya. Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and
there will I seek for the River. Nay, I will seek everywhere as I
go—for the place is not known where the arrow fell.’
A Ria Press Edition of Kipling’s Kim. Page 4 of 85.
‘And how wilt thou go? It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther to
Benares.’
‘By road and the trains. From Pathankot, having left the Hills,
I came hither in a te-rain. It goes swiftly. At first I was amazed to
see those tall poles by the side of the road snatching up and
snatching up their threads,’—he illustrated the stoop and whirl of
a telegraph-pole flashing past the train. ‘But later, I was cramped
and desired to walk, as I am used.’
‘And thou art sure of thy road?’ said the Curator.
‘Oh, for that one but asks a question and pays money, and the
appointed persons despatch all to the appointed place. That much
I knew in my lamassery from sure report,’ said the lama proudly.
‘And when dost thou go?’ The Curator smiled at the mixture
of old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India
today.
‘As soon as may be. I follow the places of His life till I come
to the River of the Arrow. There is, moreover, a written paper of
the hours of the trains that go south.’
‘And for food?’ Lamas, as a rule, have good store of money
somewhere about them, but the Curator wished to make sure.
‘For the journey, I take up the Master’s begging-bowl. Yes.
Even as He went so go I, forsaking the ease of my monastery.
There was with me when I left the hills a chela [disciple] who
begged for me as the Rule demands, but halting in Kulu awhile a
fever took him and he died. I have now no chela, but I will take
the alms- bowl and thus enable the charitable to acquire merit.’
He nodded his head valiantly. Learned doctors of a lamassery do
not beg, but the lama was an enthusiast in this quest.
‘Be it so,’ said the Curator, smiling. ‘Suffer me now to acquire
merit. We be craftsmen together, thou and I. Here is a new book
of white English paper: here be sharpened pencils two and
three—thick and thin, all good for a scribe. Now lend me thy
spectacles.’
The Curator looked through them. They were heavily
scratched, but the power was almost exactly that of his own pair,
which he slid into the lama’s hand, saying: ‘Try these.’
‘A feather! A very feather upon the face.’ The old man turned
his head delightedly and wrinkled up his nose. ‘How scarcely do
I feel them! How clearly do I see!’
‘They be bilaur—crystal—and will never scratch. May they
help thee to thy River, for they are thine.’
‘I will take them and the pencils and the white note-book,’
said the lama, ‘as a sign of friendship between priest and priest—
and now -’ He fumbled at his belt, detached the open-work iron
pincers, and laid it on the Curator’s table. ‘That is for a memory
between thee and me—my pencase. It is something old—even as
I am.’
It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is not
smelted these days; and the collector’s heart in the Curator’s
bosom had gone out to it from the first. For no persuasion would
the lama resume his gift.
‘When I return, having found the River, I will bring thee a
written picture of the Padma Samthora such as I used to make on
silk at the lamassery. Yes—and of the Wheel of Life,’ he chuckled,
‘for we be craftsmen together, thou and I.’
The Curator would have detained him: they are few in the
world who still have the secret of the conventional brush-pen
Buddhist pictures which are, as it were, half written and half
drawn. But the lama strode out, head high in air, and pausing an
instant before the great statue of a Bodhisat in meditation,
brushed through the turnstiles.
Kim followed like a shadow. What he had overheard excited
him wildly. This man was entirely new to all his experience, and
he meant to investigate further, precisely as he would have investigated
a new building or a strange festival in Lahore city. The
lama was his trove, and he purposed to take possession. Kim’s
mother had been Irish, too.
The old man halted by Zam-Zammah and looked round till his
eye fell on Kim. The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him
for awhile, and he felt old, forlorn, and very empty.
‘Do not sit under that gun,’ said the policeman loftily.
‘Huh! Owl!’ was Kim’s retort on the lama’s behalf. ‘Sit under
that gun if it please thee. When didst thou steal the milkwoman’s
slippers, Dunnoo?’
That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of
the moment, but it silenced Dunnoo, who knew that Kim’s clear
yell could call up legions of bad bazaar boys if need arose.
‘And whom didst thou worship within?’ said Kim affably,
squatting in the shade beside the lama.
‘I worshipped none, child. I bowed before the Excellent Law.’
Kim accepted this new God without emotion. He knew already
a few score.
‘And what dost thou do?’
‘I beg. I remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk.
What is the custom of charity in this town? In silence, as we do
of Tibet, or speaking aloud?’
‘Those who beg in silence starve in silence,’ said Kim, quoting
a native proverb. The lama tried to rise, but sank back again,
sighing for his disciple, dead in far-away Kulu. Kim watched
head to one side, considering and interested.
‘Give me the bowl. I know the people of this city—all who are
charitable. Give, and I will bring it back filled.’
Simply as a child the old man handed him the bowl.
‘Rest, thou. I know the people.’
He trotted off to the open shop of a kunjri, a low-caste vegetable-
seller, which lay opposite the belt-tramway line down the
Motee Bazar. She knew Kim of old.
‘Oho, hast thou turned yogi with thy begging-bowl?’ she
cried.
‘Nay.’ said Kim proudly. ‘There is a new priest in the city—a
man such as I have never seen.’
‘Old priest—young tiger,’ said the woman angrily. ‘I am tired
of new priests! They settle on our wares like flies. Is the father of
my son a well of charity to give to all who ask?’
‘No,’ said Kim. ‘Thy man is rather yagi [bad-tempered] than
yogi [a holy man]. But this priest is new. The Sahib in the Wonder
House has talked to him like a brother. O my mother, fill me
this bowl. He waits.’
‘That bowl indeed! That cow-bellied basket! Thou hast as
much grace as the holy bull of Shiv. He has taken the best of a
basket of onions already, this morn; and forsooth, I must fill thy
bowl. He comes here again.’
The huge, mouse-coloured Brahmini bull of the ward was
shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen
plantain hanging out of his mouth. He headed straight for the
shop, well knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his
head, and puffed heavily along the line of baskets ere making his
choice. Up flew Kim’s hard little heel and caught him on his
moist blue nose. He snorted indignantly, and walked away across
the tram-rails, his hump quivering with rage.
‘See! I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over.
Now, mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop—yes, and
some vegetable curry.’