Note 72 — CHAPTER 19

Pallas gives an admirable and evidently faithful account of the worship of Krishna and other Hindu divinities in the city of Astrakhan, where a Hindu mercantile colony is established. They are termed Multani, from the place whence they migrated—Multan, near the Indus. This class of merchants of the Hindu faith is disseminated over all the countries, from the Indus to the Caspian: and it would have been interesting had the professor given us any account of their period of settlement on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. In costume and feature, as represented in the plate given by that author, they have nothing to denote their origin; though their divinities might be seated on any altar on the Ganges. The Multanis of Indeskoi Dvor, or ‘Indian court,’ at Astrakhan, have erected a pantheon, in which Krishna, the god of all Vaishnava merchants, is seated in front of Jagannath, Rama, and his brothers, who stand in the background; while Siva and his consort Ashtabhuja ‘the eight-armed,’ form an intermediate line, in which is also placed a statue which Pallas denominates Murali; but Pallas mistook the flute (murali) of the divine Krishna for a rod. The principal figure we shall describe in his own words. “In the middle was placed a small idol with a very high bonnet, called Gupaledshi. At its right there was a large black stone, and on the left two smaller ones of the same colour, brought from the Ganges, and regarded by the Hindus as sacred. These fossils were of the species called Sankara, and appeared to be an impression of a bivalve muscle.” Minute as is the description, our judgment is further aided by the plate. Gupaledshi is evidently Gopalji, the pastoral deity of Vraj (from gao, a cow, and pala, a herdsman). The head-dress worn by him and all the others is precisely that still worn by Krishna, in the sacred dance at Mathura: and so minute is the delineation that even the pera or sugar-ball is represented, although the professor appears to have been ignorant of its use, as he does not name it. He has likewise omitted to notice the representation of the sacred mount of Govardhana, which separates him from the Hindu Jove and the turreted Cybele (Durga), his consort. The black stones are the Salagramas, worshipped by all Vaishnavas. In the names of ‘Nhandigana and Gori,’ though the first is called a lion saddled, and the other a male divinity, we easily recognise Nandi, the bull-attendant (Gana) of Siva and his consort Gauri. Were all travellers to describe what they see with the same accuracy as Pallas, they would confer important obligations on society, and might defy criticism. It is with heartfelt satisfaction I have to record, from the authority of a gentleman who has dwelt amongst the Hindkis of Astrakhan, that distance from their ancient abodes has not deteriorated their character for uprightness. Mr. Mitchell, from whose knowledge of Oriental languages the Royal Asiatic Society will some day derive benefit, says that the reputation of these Hindu colonists, of whom there are about five hundred families, stands very high, and that they bear a preference over all the merchants of other nations settled in this great commercial city.