Postscript.-Since the foregoing article has been in type an official paper from the Government of Bengal to that of India has been published, in which Sir Ashley Eden effectively reviews the schemes of Archdeacon Baly and the proposals of the Government of India. The substance of his Lordship's conclusions are, that so far as Bengal is concerned, no additional school accommodation either on the Hills or plains is needful, except in the case of the Calcutta Free School, the Murgihatta Boy's School and the Entally Loretto Girl's School. The already existing Hill schools have accommodation for nearly double the number at present in attendance; and the fees and charges are considerably less than schools of a similar kind on the plains. In the case of the charity schools above mentioned, the Governor of Bengal is prepared to double the already existing grant on condition that accommodation can be provided for double the number at present in attendance from private sources; the increase space to be largely or entirely set apart for poor children from the Mufassil who have no opportunity of obtaining education nearer home. Sir Ashley Eden believes that teachers can be effectually trained by undergoing an apprenticeship with masters of schools; and that after passing the Entrance Examination of the Calcutta University those candidates selected could be placed under the Headmasters of higher class schools for two years, at the end of which time an examining board would grant certificates; and the Inspector of the Division certify to their fitness for teaching. This proposal for training teachers, if worked efficiently, we believe would produce a race of teachers at little cost to the State, who would be thoroughly up to their work in all its details; and in every respect be as efficient as those turned out by the most expensive State-aided Training College. The theory of teaching may be learned from books and lectures; but its practice can be attained only by daily contact with pupils, and by taking part in the work of a school under the direction and supervision of a skilled teacher. Some doubts have been thrown on the accuracy of Archdeacon Baly's figures; and the statement made to Lord Lytton about a year ago, regarding the large number of children of European extraction, some twelve to thirteen thousand, probably requires to be sifted. It seems to us that the Census offers a good opportunity to set the whole question regarding the point at rest; and it might be advisable for the Government to take steps to secure accurate returns regarding the number of Eurasians all over India, their occupations, the number of their children, and the proportion who are not being suitably educated. Till this has been accomplished and unimpeachable data are in the hands of Government, it might be judicious to delay action beyond what the Government of Bengal has declared itself ready to effect. THOMAS EDWARDS. ART. III. THE RISE OF AMRITSAR, AND THE ALTERATIONS OF THE SIKH RELIGION.* A MAR DAS, the third guru or Sikh Apostle, in his retreat at Goindwal on the margin of the River Biás, deplored the perversity of human nature which refused to acknowledge the divine origin of the Sikh religion, and to hasten to its standard. After the lapse of some thirty years since the death of Nának, the number of surviving converts was still discouragingly small. In the midst of his labouring tribulation it was revealed to him in a vision, that there was a holy land to the west, containing every thing that was bright and perfect upon earth, a land which God himself had chosen as the seat of the Sikh religion, and to which millions would throng to receive the new evangel. || Amar Dás accordingly directed his son-in-law and successor, Ram Das, to go in quest of the promised land. Whether, however, Ram Das had misunderstood his instructions, or the vision had not been definite in its indications, the sacred spot was not discovered without some difficulty. Ram Das directed his steps towards the west, and after several days' travel took up his abode in an open plain, beneath a solitary tree, which afforded grateful shade. In due time he set about constructing a tauk for his followers and himself. While conducting the excavation, he unearthed a large jar of ancient manufacture. His curiosity led him to open it, when forth there issued a jogi, who, from a period long anterior to all profane history, had remained in a religious double that number of disciples. As, however, the number eighty-four, which expresses the lakhs of forms of existence in creation, is of some sanctity and of frequent use among both Sikhs and Hindus, it is doubtful whether Cunningham has been justified in literally accepting Bhái Kahn Singh's expression regarding Amar Dás," He held converse with eighty-four Sikhs." But, at any rate, there seems no reason to doubt that at the time of Amar Dás, the number of Sikhs fell far short of what had been anticipated by his predecessors. In this narrative of the rise of Amritsar I follow tradition. trance in that circumscribed and apparently inconvenient tenement.* The jogi told the guru, that he was in error as regards the spot indicated in the vision. It would be found a little further to the south. The guru at once abandoned his unavailing labor, and accepted the miraculous indication of the jogi. It may be mentioned, that the tank thus begun and abandoned by the guru was subsequently completed by the piety and munificence of his disciples. It is now known as Santokhsar or the Lake of Patience, and is situated in the outskirts of Amritsar. Nothing daunted, Ram Das set out with his mattock on his further explorations. In these again divine interposition was not wanting. He discovered not far distant some stagnant water in the forest. He was told that this water possessed such healing virtue, as to have actually cured a leper who had bathed in it. The holy Guru on enquiring into the circumstance is said to have obtained the following particulars : In those days there lived a woman, poor in worldly wealth but of exemplary devotion, aud possessing in reality such beauty as poets have imaged only in their fancy. This woman took com passion on a poor crippled leper who had lost his fingers and toes, and she consented to be his wife and faithful nurse. She maintained herself and him by begging. Whatever alms she obtained, she shared with him; and wherever she went, she tenderly bore him in a basket on her shoulders. One day she wandered with her afflicted husband to the stagnant water which the guru had now discovered; and the loving wife, foot-sore and weary, laid down her burden. She and her husband were soon seized with an imperious desire for their mid-day meal, and bethought themselves how it was to be obtained. After much discussion, during which the wife expressed her reluctance to leave her husband, it was decided that he was to recline under a tree in the cool and grateful proximity of the water, while she departed to the nearest village to beg their daily bread. The leper's powers of observation had been developed by leisure and travel. As he sat in his basket, he observed a black crow swoop down into the water, and emerge a dove of singular whiteness from its tiny wavelets. The leper saw that the water possessed marvellous cleansing properties, and he at once determined to test its efficacy on himself. Crawling from his basket to the margin of the water, he immersed his hand, when, lo! new fingers sprouted from it, and * See Dr. Hönigberger's "Thirty- of suspension of animation attributed nine years in the East" for some to jogis until quite recent times. explanation of the pretended power the limb was instantaneously made whole! Much deliberation was not required to induce the leper to bathe his whole body. He emerged from the pool restored to health and the splendour of manly beauty, and he calmly awaited the return of his darling and faithful spouse from her mendicant excursion. On arriving, her consternation knew no bounds. In the perfect proportions of the man who stood before her, she could not discover her husband, the recent crippled and maimed leper, and she shrank from his embrace with all the indignation of outraged virtue. In vain did he essay to explain to her the cause of his metamorphosis. She interrupted his narrative with tears and imprecations. Her belief was, that the stranger before her had killed her husband, and now presented himself as an unholy lover in her helplessness and bereavement. The quarrel waxed hot between husband and wife. She refused to accept his statements, and he felt mortified at the incredulity of his hitherto peerless spouse. Remonstrance and argument had no effect on her, and feminine obstinacy temporarily triumphed. With ceaseless objurgations and monitions of divine vengeance she hastened from the presence of the man she believed guilty of such great enormity, to mourn her darling leper, in some remote and forlorn solitude. Such was the position of domestic affairs when Ram Das, a deus ex machind, appeared upon the scene. He assured the wife, that the man whom she had been spurning was in reality no other than her husband; and he craved the husband's pardon from his too faithful wife. Ram Das appears to have been much more successful in his negotiations than most interposers in domestic quarrels. Through his kind offices the faithful couple were reconciled, they embraced his religion, and the quondam leper assisted him in enlarging the pool, building to it flights of discending steps, and rearing on its margin, buildings for divine praise and prayer, worthy of the miraculous discovery of the water, and its still more miraculous virtue. The tank was called Amritsar or the Lake of Immortality. Akbar, the liberal and tolerant emperor of the period, made a grant of the land to Ram Das, and it became known as Guruchak or the guru's estate. The town which arose in the vicinity received the name of Ramdaspur from its founder.* There are other versions of the story of the leper. Some say the circumstance described occurred in the time of Arjan while the tank was being excavated. A painting and a brazen tablet on the spot represent the wife and the restored leper appearing before Arjan for the pur pose of adjusting their quarrel. Malcolm states that Amritsar was "a very ancient town, known formerly under the name of Chák;" but of this I find no proof. The neighbouring village to which the leper's wife went to beg, was called Túng. The year 1576 A.D. is given as the date of the foundation of the sacred reservoir. The particular spot where the leper was cured was, and is still, known as Dukh-bhanjani, or the destroyer of grief, the place which removes all sorrow from the heart Guru Arjan, the son of Ram Das, added to the city of his father's foundation, and to the sacred edifices round the Lake of Immortality. The spiritual Peisistratus of his age, he collected the rhap sodies of his predecessors, and adding to them some prayers and exhortations of his own, compiled the Granth or Sikh Bible, for the edification of the faithful. Such treasure needed fitting tenement, and opposite the Dukh-bhanjani was reared the Harmandar, or house of God, the Sikh Holy of Holies, to receive the divine compilation. The Har Mandar, known to European travellers as the Golden Temple, stands in the centre of the lake, and is connected with the land by a spacious viaduct. The roof of the building is of copper gilt with gold. The floor and the outer portions of the walls are of marble, it is said, torn during Sikh supremacy from the tomb of the far-famed Empress Núr Jahan at Shahdera near Lahore. The temple, though in shape like a truncated coffin, is an imposing structure. To form it, three storeys of building rise gracefully over the lake. The roof is ornamented with tiny cupolas and Moresque decorations. The holy volume of the Sikhs clothed with silken coverlets is watched over by a priest who receives the homage and offerings of his co-religionists. And Musulman musicians all day long chant to accompaniment of sitár and sarangi the secular or profane songs of their religion and calling, to unlock the hearts and sympathies of the Sikh visitors of the holy temple. Arjan not only acquired great fame as a religious teacher and boly man, but great wealth as a horse-merchant and secular administrator of the Khalsa. He reduced to a fixed scale the previously irregular and unsystematic offerings of his followers, and despatched his agents far and wide to receive their forced or voluntary contributions. In imitation of the great Hindu fair at Hardwar in the beginning of Baisakh, the first month of the Hindu year, he established the Baisakhi fair at Amritsar. The Hindu Díwálí festival at the close of summer he also utilized, and converted into a great secular and religious gathering of the Sikhs. The seasons when both festivals were held he deemed most convenient for his followers of both sexes to assemble at his sacred city. Apart from his commercial interests, he, the first guru to give full effect to the precepts of Nának, saw the necessity, Har Maudar is, literally, the temple of Hart, a name applied to Vishnu, and in the "Prem Sagar", to |