Modi persecution of Hindus on Diwali

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The Hindutva Judgements: The Distance That Remains — Arun Shourie

In holding that not all references to religion in election speeches necessarily amount to corrupt electoral practices; that it is the soliciting of votes on the ground of the religion of the candidate or that of his opponent which is a corrupt electoral practice; that statements made by others do not have the same effect as those made by a candidate himself — in all this, as we saw, the Supreme Court has merely reiterated what the the law itself says and what the Supreme Court has itself held on previous occasions. What then accounted for the fury of the secularists?

The first feature which offended them was precisely that the Court had treated candidates at par! On the reasoning of secularists, when a Muslim candidate says, or when a candidate from among the forces of social-change says, Islam is in danger, get together, there is nothing wrong as it is but natural for a minority to feel insecure; but when a Hindu candidate says, Get together, Hinduism is in danger, why that is terrible, he is being communal, he is indulging in a corrupt electoral practice, his election ought to be struck down. When a Muslim candidate says, Get together and bend this government to concede X,Y,Z, in the reckoning of secularists he is just asking for amelioration; but when a Hindu candidate says, “Get together so that governments do not bend to these communalists and concede X,Y,Z, he is being communal and fomenting religious bigotry. The Supreme Court put the two at par: as asking for something — say, a Rs 500 crore bank only for non-Hindus of the kind the Prime Minister announced he was setting up — is not a corrupt electoral practice, opposing it is not a corrupt electoral practice either; as saying that Islam (or Urdu, or Tamil) is in danger is not a corrupt practice, saying Hinduism (or Sanskrit) is in danger is not a corrupt practice. That seems obvious enough. But just as obviously the secularists are not able to stomach it : for a fundamental premise of their verbal assault has been that their has to be an imbalance in favour of non-Hindus, of Muslims in particular.

The second sin of the judgment for them arose from the fact that the Court accepted, indeed adopted in toto the definition of Hindu, of Hindutva which the RSS and the BJP have been maintaining is what they have meant whenever they have used these expressions. There are two different reasons on account of which this caused such offense among secularists. One is of course that the Court had seen fit to endorse the construction which the RSS and BJP have put on the words, that was anathema in itself. But as repugnant if not more so was the fact that in doing so the Court had adopted a description which is complimentary to Hinduism : Hindutva, Hindu, these words signify a culture of tolerance, a universalism, the Court had held. The Court had seen fit to treat the words as a compendium of virtues, complained the Marxist intellectual in Hyderabad. Now, that is of course unpardonable. For the secularist Hindu, Hindutva etc. signify the dustbin, the compendium of all that is shameful, and much that is positively evil. In this the secularist combines in himself two streams — the Macaulay-missionary stream and the Marxist one. And here was the Court affirming the opposite ! The very Court whose verdicts the secularists were accusing the RSS- BJP combine of not heeding ! Naturally the poor fellows were fuming.

And that is precisely why the RSS and BJP proclaimed vindication. Of course they were right in that their description of these words had been accepted by the Supreme Court. But I confess to feeling just about half satisfied. The Court held that the words Hindu, Hindutva etc. Refer to a culture, to a territorial region — the one around and beyond the Sindhu, the Indus that is. It declared that the words are not to be taken to refer to religion in the conventional sense. The words are cultural, geographical, historical — in a word everything except words that refer to the religion you and I, the vast majority of our countrymen practice. In the Court’s view what we practice and have faith in is not a religion at all. It is so diverse. It does not have one book, it does not have one prophet, nor one over-arching Church as a religion has. Therefore it is not a religion.

The first point of course is that this is a circular way of proceeding. First religion is defined as that thing which has one book, one prophet, one Church etc., and then, as Hinduism does not have these, it is declared not to be a religion at all. But why should religion be defined in this restrictive way? Why should a system of beliefs and practices which does not have one book, one prophet, one Church, a system which has as one of its central features plurality, a system in which the ultimate referent is not a book or an intermediary like the Church but one’s inner, direct experience not be regarded as a species of religion too?

The other point is that this way of defining Hindu etc. is to define the thing out of existence. The Court quotes with approval what an earlier Bench of the Supreme Court had held. In the Commissioner of Wealth Tax, Madras and others Vs Late R. Sridharan, 1976, the Court, starting from the position that it is difficult to define the term ‘Hindu’ with precision, had declared that Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu. That declaration must have provided succor to some tax-payer or claimant to an estate, it may have provided an acceptable defence to some election petitioners in the cases at hand. But I find that sort of a formulation deeply flawed. It calls to mind the sort of thing that missionaries and their allies among Indologists used to say — ‘O what you people have is not a religion at all; here, let us give you a real religion.’ The formulation is also evidence of our state — namely, that the only way in which references to Hinduism in election speeches, say, can be defended is by defining Hinduism out of existence.

The RSS, BJP etc. of course have reason to feel gratified that their description of Hindu, Hindutva etc. has been accepted. But that way of describing our religion and traditions — even by them — has itself been a reaction. It has been a reaction to the allegations that the religion is narrow-minded, bigoted, iniquitous etc., a reaction to the allegations, that is, which were put out by missionaries and their allies in the 19th century and which have been so assiduously regurgitated by secularists over the last few decades. That formulation was also a reaction to the way our electoral laws were being interpreted by the courts. That sort of interpretation in turn was a result of the temper of the times, a temper in which propriety consisted in internalising every calumny about Hinduism. It can be small satisfaction that a formulation which came to be put out as a defensive reaction is now to be the official definition of the faith — a definition of the faith, that is, by which it is not a faith at all.

I certainly do not want to belittle the advance. That the highest Court in the land has at last put references in election speeches to Hinduism at par with those to other religions is a major advance. It is also an index of the extent to which the very air is changing. As I mentioned, these two judgements are the seventh and eighth judgements respectively in an entire series. All of them separately and together vindicate the critique of pseudo-secularism which the RSS and others have been advancing. Apart from the facts which were before the Court, apart from the cogency of the arguments which must have been put forward, it is the realisation that if the Hindus continue to be pushed to the wall they will react which has made all the difference. These are in a deep sense post-Ayodhya judgements.

But the Hindutva judgements also show that there is a good deal of distance to travel as yet. The Court itself did not seem to be fully reconciled to the definition of Hindu, Hindutva etc. which it endorsed. Recall what it said in its judgement in the Manohar Joshi case. In urging that the election of Joshi should be set aside as he had used religion to solicit votes, his opponent had cited his statement, Maharashtra shall be the first Hindu state in the country. The Court rejected the submission, and held, In our opinion a mere statement that the first Hindu state shall be established in Maharashtra is by itself not an appeal for votes on the ground of his religion but the expression, at best, of such a hope — that conclusion, as I said, is the index of the changed circumstance, for a change the benefit of doubt was being given to the person who expressed that sort of a hope; it also shows how tenuous such things are — for another set of judges could just as well have latched on to this very statement as proof that the candidate was appealing to the voters to help him establish Hindu Rashtra and what not. But it is what the Court proceeded to say which shows the distance that has to be traveled.

However despicable be such a statement, the Court says, it cannot be said to amount to an appeal for votes on the ground of his religion. Assuming that the making of such a statement in the speech of the appelant at that meeting is proved, we cannot hold that it constitutes the corrupt practice either under sub- section (3) or sub-section (3A) of Section 123, even though we would express our disdain at the entertaining of such a thought or such a stance in a political leader of any shade in the country.

As the word Hindu is not to be understood in terms of narrow-minded religion, as Hindutva, Hinduism are just cultural, territorial, historical concepts referring to a broad-minded, tolerant, catholic, inclusive tradition, as Hinduism is merely that compendium of virtues” , to recall the words from Hyderabad, how come it became despicable to say that Maharashtra shall be the first Hindu state, by what reasoning did the expression merit the disdain of the Supreme Court?

Nor is this just a matter of a little inconsistency. For there is the other side to saying that Hindu, Hinduism etc. refer to compendia of virtues. In our discourse, even in earlier judgements of the Supreme Court itself only the Hindus are told to abide by these excellent norms. The homilies about being tolerant, broad-minded are addressed only to them — one need go no further for ready examples of this than the pronouncements of the Supreme Court in response to the Presidential Reference on Ayodhya. This way of looking at things equates the arsonist with the structure he is out to set on fire.

It is Hinduism as conventionally understood, as the set of beliefs and practices, as the way of life of the vast majority of the people of this land which is under threat. It has been the butt of secularist scorn and scheming, it is threatened by the way the State is being made to bend before the controllers of Muslim votes, by the way it is being rendered impotent before terrorists etc. — the condition of the refugees in Jammu is a vivid illustration of the threat and its consequences. Secularism itself has been converted into an instrument of assault against the way of life which the Court lauds so eloquently. In his excellent little book, Secularism, (Voice Of India, 1995) Navratna Rajaram shows how the concept has been stood on its head, and what consequences it now spells for us and our society.

In Europe the Church had asserted and secured the right to lay down the law for all aspects of life. To liberate themselves from this suffocating stranglehold intellectuals and some rulers in Europe constructed the concept of secularism. They argued that while the Church may regulate what was “God’s”, it ought not to interfere with what was Ceaser’s. As Rajaram shows the concept was a device to carve out a sphere of autonomy for the individual in the face of the totalitarian and exclusivist claims of the Church. But in India during the last fifty years the word has become an umbrella to shield totalitarian and exclusivist ideologies, indeed it has become a weapon by which the evangelists of such ideologies have been pushing to the wall the plural tradition of our country, the tradition founded in the basic world-view of Hinduism. These new judgements of the Supreme Court do recognize that Hinduism has from time immemorial been instilling those principles of plurality and tolerance and compassion. But they do not reverse the standard habit of hurling these principles at the Hindus only.

Thereby on the one hand the judgements leave the assaulters free to continue pushing that tradition further to the wall and on the other they thereby leave open the prospect of the reaction among Hindus taking an even stronger form than it already has. But perhaps one should not expect the courts to go all the way all of a sudden. The change in the atmosphere has brought us this far — that instead of the calumnies which have been stuck on to it by secularists, the Court is associating lofty ideals with Hinduism. Further change in the atmosphere will take us the rest of the way.

What the Prime Minister and his colleagues have been doing in the run-up to the elections shows both — the distance we have to travel, and also how difficult it is, in the light of the judgements, to regulate misuse merely by law. The Court held — and necessarily so — that the speeches, documents, videos etc. which may be made the bases for challenging the election of a candidate must be shown to record or depict something the candidate etc. has said during the election campaign — that is, from the date the election was notified to the close of polling. That is as it has to be, no doubt. But there is also no doubt that it leaves the person or his party free to use the appeals of caste, religion, language etc. up to the day elections are notified, and then rely on the associations which he has already formed in the minds of the voters to deliver the votes. Just see what the Prime Minister and his colleagues have been doing in the last few months. They have been going around genuflecting at every dargah, they have been going about promising salaries to Imams of mosques, Sitaram Kesari has been promising reservations to Muslims. The Prime Minister has been holding meetings with Ulema and the rest as the representatives of Muslims as a religious group, and he has been giving assurances to them as representatives of a religious community. There can be no doubt that each of these steps has been an attempt to garner votes of Muslims via religion.

The first point is about the nature of public comment on these attempts. How many secularists can you recall who denounced this blatant recourse to religion to garner votes? The second point is about the law. As technically the elections had not been announced, the Prime Minister and his colleagues were free to deploy the device to the hilt.

Moreover, on one thing it does seem that the Court exercised an option which may cost us dear. The matter arose as follows. As is well known, Article 19 (1)(a) guarantees us the fundamental right to free speech. Article 19 (2) specifies the grounds on which reasonable restrictions may be put on this right. Ram Jethmalani argued that from among the grounds which had been enumerated the only one on which the freedom to speak about religion etc. during elections could be restricted was public order: and the courts have held time and again that the threat to public order which can be used to restrict fundamental rights is not just the apprehension that there will be some breach of peace; there must be the definite and imminent prospect of a general breakdown of order. The provision in an electoral law which sought to restrict the freedom to an extent greater than this, Jethmalani argued, was itself unconstitutional.

The Court did not accept this argument. In its judgement it held that in fact restrictions on the use of religion, caste etc. for soliciting votes can be justified under another ground which is mentioned in Article 19(2), namely decency and morality. There is no reason to restrict decency and morality to sexual morality alone, the Court declared. It quoted with approval what the Supreme Court had held in an earlier case : in Khuller etc. Vs Director of Public Prosecutions, 1972, the Court had said, indecency is not confined to sexual indecency; indeed it is difficult to find any limit short of saying that it includes anything which an ordinary decent man or woman would find to be shocking, disgusting and revolting.

It isn’t just that this again is a circular way of defining the ground. It isn’t just that given the way things are, while that sort of an approach is not liable to be used to curb vulgarity where it manifestly needs to be curbed — those heavy women being made to shake their thick bodies in our films — and that it might well be used to curb speech where it ought to be untrammeled. The fact is that all reform shocks and offends in the beginning, those who are accustomed to the present ways, those who are the beneficiaries of the present arrangements are revolted by it. The definition of decency and morality which the Court adopted to get over Ram Jethmalani’s googly is thus too wide, and in determined hands can be handy for imposing restrictions which the Court itself would not want to ever countenance.

That matter should therefore be reconsidered. And when the occasion to do so arises I would urge two further things. Sub-sections 3 and 3A which were the subject matter of these judgements enumerate caste also among the grounds on which candidates must not solicit votes, on which they must not seek to spread hatred among classes of citizens. I do hope that one of these days the Court will have the opportunity to examine the sort of poison which is being spread on this basis, be it camouflaged in the name of social justice. Second, how come that, while it is an offence under our laws to spread hatred or solicit votes on the basis of religion, caste, language, race etc. , it is perfectly all right to spread hatred and enmity, and to solicit votes on the basis of class? Isn’t it high time that the laws were amended to rope in that ground also?

If You Let Facts Interfere You Lack Party Spirit

The first thing that strikes one upon reading the books of these eminent historians, of course, is the double standard. Recall how, without an iota of evidence, our eminent historians advanced the most far-reaching assertions about ancient India — about its having been a period riddled with tensions, inequity and oppression. And how, in cases such as Aurangzeb and the Sultanate, these very historians shut their eyes to what stares them in the face. In a word, their approach is set to a formula : pre-Islamic India must be presented as a land of discord, a land in the grip of a social and political system marked by injustice, extreme inequities and oppression; and the Islamic period must be presented as a period in which “the composite culture” flowered, a period in which the norm was a policy of “broad toleration”, and such departures from it as took place were just the aberrations of individuals, aberrations which themselves can be tracked down to wholly secular causes.

The second point is the brazenness with which our historians suppress the evidence and, having done so, slip in falsehoods. To take just one example, recall how Satish Chandra concludes the account of Aurangzeb’s deeds vis-a-vis temples : The order for destroying temples was not a new one; the order was limited to new temples and not to existing structures; the order let a great deal of latitude to local officials; Aurangzeb adopted “a new stance” only when he encountered political hostility and when he came to conclude that the temples had become centres from which “subversive ideas” were being spread; that the destruction of temples was more or less confined to periods of hostilities. And finally that “it seems that Aurangzeb’s zeal for the destruction of temples abated after 1679, for we do not hear of any large scale destruction of temples in the South between 1681 and his death in 1707.”

How does this assertion compare with what the Akhbarat of Aurangzeb themselves state, as well as other accounts recorded at the time? Here are some of the entries:


25 May 1679 : “Khan-i-Jahan Bahadur returned from Jodhpur after demolishing its temples, and bringing with himself several cart-loads of idols. The Emperor ordered that the idols, which were mostly of gold, silver, brass, copper or stone and adorned with jewels, should be cast in the quadrangle of the Court and under the steps of the Jama Mosque for being trodden upon.”

January 1680 : “The grand temple in front of the Maharana’s mansion (at Udaipur) – one of the wonderful buildings of the age, which had cost the infidels much money – was destroyed and its images broken.” “On 24 January the Emperor went to view the lake Udaisagar and ordered all the three temples on its banks to be pulled down.” “On 29 January Hasan Ali Khan reported that 172 other temples in the environs of Udaipur had been demolished.”

“On 22 February the Emperor went to look at Chitor, and by his order the 63 temples of the place were destroyed.”

2 August 1680 : Temple of Someshwar in western Mewar ordered to be destroyed. 10 August 1680 : “Abu Turab returned to Court and reported that he had pulled down 66 temples in Amber.”

September 1687: “On the capture of Golkonda, the Emperor appointed Abdur Rahim Khan as Censor of the city of Haidarabad with orders to put down infidel practices and (heretical) innovations and destroy the temples and build mosques on their sites.” Circa 1690 : Instances of Aurangzeb’s temple destruction at Ellora, Trimbaakeshwar, Narsinghpur (foiled by snakes, scorpions and other poisonous insects), Pandharpur, Jejuri (foiled by the deity) and Yavat (Bhuleshwar) are given by K.N. Sane in Varshik Iribritta for Shaka 1838, pp. 133-135.

1693 : “The Emperor ordered the destruction of the Hateshwar temple at Vadnagar, the special guardian of the Nagar Brahmans.”

3rd April 1694 : “The Emperor learnt from a secret news-writer of Delhi that in Jaisinghpura Bairagis used to worship idols, and that the Censor on hearing of it had gone there, arrested Sri Krishna Bairagi and taken him with 15 idols away to his house; then the Rajputs had assembled, flocked to the Censor’s house, wounded three footmen of the Censor and tried to seize the Censor himself; so that the latter set the Bairagi free and sent the copper idols to the local subahdar.”

Middle of 1698 : “Hamid-ud-din Khan Bahadur who had been deputed to destroy the temple of Bijapur and build a mosque (there), returned to Court after carrying the order out and was praised by the Emperor.” “The demolition of a temple is possible at any time, as it cannot walk away from its place.” — Aurangzeb to Zullfiqar Khan and Mughal Khan. “The houses of this country (Maharashtra) are exceedingly strong and built solely of stone and iron. The hatchet-men of the Government in the course of my marching do not get sufficient strength and power (i.e., time) to destroy and raze the temples of the infidels that meet the eye on the way. You should appoint an orthodox inspector (darogha) who may afterwards destroy them at leisure and dig up their foundations” — Aurangzeb to Ruhullah Khan in Kalimat-i-Aurangzib.

January 1705 : “The Emperor, summoning Muhammad Khalil and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchet-men… , ordered them to demolish the temple of Pandharpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple …. It was done.”

The eminent historian did not need to trouble himself by going to the primary sources. He could have found these and other entries in a single compact Appendix in Volume III of Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s well known History of Aurangzeb. That history has been in circulation since 1928! Our writer, writing in 1996, is conveniently oblivious of the evidence which even an elementary student of Aurangzeb’s period would have come across!

However, there is little mystery. For there are two pillars to progressive history-writing in India : first, one must fabricate evidence which will establish Hindus to be intolerant; second, one must respect and show an empathetic understanding of Islamic communalism. And the litmus test is : are you prepared to stand up for Aurangzeb ?!

The third thing that strikes one in the tortured explanations our historians dole out is how closely they parrot the volumes of a person like Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi. As is well known, Qureshi taught History at the Delhi University. He migrated to Pakistan. There he became one of the early and ardent proponents of Islamisation : he is credited with having been one of the principal drafters of the “Objectives Resolution” which was passed by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1949, and became the fount of Islamization; he became a Minister in the Government of Liaqat Ali Khan and later the President of the Pakistan Historical Society. He was eventually decorated with the high honour, Sitara-i-Pakistan.

In his volume The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent, Qureshi remarks about the reimposition of jizyah by Aurangzeb as follows:

“When Alamgir I reimposed jizyah after a lapse of 115 years, no sudden spurt in the number of conversions is recorded. Without the availability of statistics a definite conclusion is difficult to reach; but even in the epistles of such an ardent advocate of the reimposition of jizyah as the Mujaddid-i-alf-i-Thani, the argument that the abolition of jizyah had in any way affected the propagation of Islam was not advanced; nor does Bada’uni, who bewailed Akbar’s lapse from orthodoxy and disapproved not only of the abolition of jizyah but also of the growth of Hindu influence in the affairs of the Empire, say that the abolition of jizyah had hampered the spread of Islam. There is no record of any significant difference in the rate of conversion either as the result of the abolition of jizyah or of its reimposition….
“If jizyah had been a crushing burden upon the non-Muslims, it could have led to conversions, but it was not too heavy a burden. It was levied only on able-bodied male adults who had a surplus of income after meeting the necessary expenses of maintaining themselves and their families. The religious classes like priests and monks were exempt…. The assessment seems to have been lenient because at no time did jizyah form an important source of revenue, and a very large percentage of the non-Muslim population was exempt for one reason or another. Even if a tax is heavy but bearable, people are averse to changing their religion to escape it; but when it is not heavy, there is little inducement for conversion. Therefore, it does not seem likely that jizyah helped, in any significant manner, conversion to Islam.”

And our eminent historian says :

“We are told that after accession to the throne, Aurangzeb contemplated revival of the jizyah on a number of occasions but did not do so for fear of political opposition. Ultimately, in 1679, in the twenty-second year of his reign, he finally re-imposed it. There has been a considerable discussion among historians regarding Aurangzeb’s motives for the step. Let us first see what it was not. It was not meant to be an economic pressure for forcing the Hindus to convert to Islam for its incidence was too light — women, children, the disabled and the indigent, that is those whose income was less than the means of subsistence were exempted, as were those in government service. Nor, in fact, did any significant section of Hindus change their religion due to this tax. Secondly, it was not a means of meeting a difficult financial situation. Although the income from jizyah is said to have been considerable, Aurangzeb sacrificed a considerable sum of money by giving up a large number of cesses called abwabs which were not sanctioned by the shara and were hence considered illegal.

“The re-imposition of jizyah was, in fact, both political and ideological in nature. It was meant to rally the Muslims for the defence of the state against the Marathas and the Rajputs who were up in arms, and possibly against the Muslim states of the Deccan, especially Golconda which was in alliance with the infidels. Secondly, jizyah was to be collected by honest, God-fearing Muslims, who were especially appointed for the purpose, and its proceeds were reserved for the ulama. It was thus a big bribe for the theologians among whom there was a lot of unemployment.”

The historian then notes the infirmities in implementing the tax but his final verdict remains as considerate as that of Qureshi :

“Some modern writers are of the opinion that Aurangzeb’s measures were designed to convert India from a dar-ul-harb, or a land of infidels, into dar-ul-Islam, or a land inhabited by Muslims. Although Aurangzeb considered it legitimate to encourage conversion to Islam, evidence of systematic or large-scale attempts at forced conversion is lacking. Nor were Hindu nobles discriminated against….”

Similarly Qureshi emphasizes in the same volume that Aurangzeb had no option but to wage his campaigns against Golconda and Bijapur. He remarks :

“The Sultanates were incapable of even keeping peace within their territories. The Marathas got their sinews of war by plundering them. Besides, the sultanates, in spite of the growth of Maratha power at their expense, were secretly in alliance with them and helped them with money and supplies. The situation in Golconda was even worse because the real power was in the hands of two Brahmin officials, Madanna and Akanna, whose obnoxious rule was resented by the Muslim population of the sultanate and who were even more enthusiastic supporters of the Marathas. Under such circumstances it would have been foolish to leave the sultanates alone.”

In his volume Ulema in Politics, Qureshi reverts to the same matter and remarks :

“The Sultanates of the Deccan had been so weakened by the Marathas that they were fast sinking into a state of anarchy. They, because of this weakness, became almost the storehouse of Maratha resources who grabbed whatever they needed from their territories. Besides they were in alliance with the Marathas, because they perversely thought that after the threat from the Mughuls had been averted, the Marathas could be dealt with more easily. This was a gross underestimate of the potentialities of the Maratha activities. So far as Alamgir was concerned, he had no choice. The Marathas and the Sultanates constituted a single problem and could not be detached from each other. Those who suggest that the Sultanates could be persuaded to act against the Marathas or could become a bulwark against Maratha expansion ignore the realities of the situation.”

The verdict of our eminent historian is identical. He says :

“Aurangzeb has been criticised for having failed to unite with the Deccani states against the Marathas, or for having conquered them thereby making the empire ‘so large that it collapsed under its own weight.’ A unity of hearts between Aurangzeb and the Deccani states was ‘a psychological impossibility’ once the treaty of 1636 was abandoned, a development which took place during the reign of Shah Jahan himself. After his accession, Aurangzeb desisted from pursuing a vigorous forward policy in the Deccan. In fact, he postponed as long as possible the decision to conquer and annex the Deccani states. Aurangzeb’s hand was virtually forced by the growing Maratha power, the support extended to Shivaji by Madanna and Akhanna from Golconda, and fear that Bijapur might fall under the domination of Shivaji and the Maratha-dominated Golconda. Later, by giving shelter to the rebel prince Akbar, Sambhaji virtually threw a challenge to Aurangzeb who quickly realized that the Marathas could not be dealt with without first subduing Bijapur and possibly Golconda.”

And though Satish Chandra is inclined to concede, “perhaps Aurangzeb might have been better advised to accept the suggestion apparently put forward by his eldest son, Shah Alam, for a settlement with Bijapur and Golconda to annex only a part of the territories and let them rule the South Karnataka which was far away and difficult to monitor,” his understanding of Aurangzeb’s compulsions is no less than that of Qureshi!

Qureshi is at pains to emphasize that Aurangzeb did not institute new laws, that, therefore, the collapse of the Empire after him cannot be attributed to his religious policies. As he puts it :

“The Muslim Empire had endured in the subcontinent for several centuries. The orthodox laws of Islam had been imposed with varying degrees of thoroughness. Alamgir I did not bring into existence a new set of laws. In the course of these centuries the jizyah had remained in abeyance only for a period of one hundred and fifteen years. The order for the demolition of unauthorized temples had been given under Shah Jahan and Alamgir did not enforce it for the first time. If the Empire collapsed like a house of cards after the death of Alamgir I, the main causes must be sought elsewhere than in the religious policies of that emperor, though these also played some role in its disintegration.”

Our eminent historian emphasizes the same point in almost the same words in context after context : “Aurangzeb’s order regarding temples was not a new one. It reaffirmed the position which had existed during the Sultanate period and which had been reiterated by Shah Jahan early in his reign… ” And of course, jizyah was not being imposed for the first time, — it was being re-imposed after a gap of 115 years !

And so on. Thus the “explanations” for Aurangzeb’s policies are identical, all that is missing is the adoration that Qureshi holds for Aurangzeb. Either the string of similar explanations are instances of great minds thinking alike, or of the fact that in the mind of one the test of intellectual daring and secularism is whether one can internalize and repeat the assertions of the one who went away!

To undo the falsehood, you have to undo the control — Arun Shourie

“There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans,” writes the author. “Islam came out as the enemy of the ‘But’. The word ‘But,’ as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word ‘But’ is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia….”

A communal historian of the RSS-school?

But Islam struck at Hinduism also. How is it that it was able to fell Buddhism in India but not Hinduism? Hinduism had State-patronage, says the author. The Buddhists were so persecuted by the “Brahmanic rulers”, he writes, that, when Islam came, they converted to Islam: this welled the ranks of Muslims but in the same stroke drained those of Buddhism. But the far more important cause was that while the Muslim invaders butchered both — Brahmins as well as Buddhist monks — the nature of the priesthood in the case of the two religions was different — “and the difference is so great that it contains the whole reason why Brahmanism survived the attack of Islam and why Buddhism did not.”

For the Hindus, every Brahmin was a potential priest. No ordination was mandated. Neither anything else. Every household carried on rituals — oblations, recitation of particular mantras, pilgrimages, each Brahmin family made memorizing some Veda its very purpose…. By contrast, Buddhism had instituted ordination, particular training etc. for its priestly class. Thus, when the invaders massacred Brahmins, Hinduism continued. But when they massacred the Buddhist monks, the religion itself was killed.

Describing the massacres of the latter and the destruction of their vihars, universities, places of worship, the author writes, “The Musalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few. They raised to the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside India. A very large number were killed outright by the Muslim commanders. How the Buddhist priesthood perished by the sword of the Muslim invaders has been recorded by the Muslim historians themselves. Summarizing the evidence relating to the slaughter of the Buddhist Monks perpetrated by the Musalman General in the course of his invasion of Bihar in 1197 AD, Mr. Vincent Smith says, “….Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the ‘shaven headed Brahmans’, that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. ‘It was discovered,’ we are told, ‘that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar.’ “Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India….”

The writer? B. R. Ambedkar.

But today the fashion is to ascribe the extinction of Buddhism to the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus, to the destruction of their temples by the Hindus. One point is that the Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction. In one typical instance, three inscriptions were cited. The indefatigable Sita Ram Goel looked them up. Two of the inscriptions had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. And the third told a story which had the opposite import than the one which the Marxist historian had insinuated: a Jain king had himself taken the temple from Jain priests and given it to the Shaivites because the former had failed to live up to their promise. Goel repeatedly asked the historian to point to any additional evidence or to elucidate how the latter had suppressed the import that the inscription in its entirety conveyed. He waited in vain. The revealing exchange is set out in Goel’s monograph, “Stalinist ‘Historians’ Spread the Big Lie.”

Marxists cite only two other instances of Hindus having destroyed Buddhist temples. These too it turns out yield to completely contrary explanations. Again Marxists have been asked repeatedly to explain the construction they have been circulating — to no avail. Equally important, Sita Ram Goel invited them to cite any Hindu text which orders Hindus to break the places of worship of other religions — as the Bible does, as a pile of Islamic manuals does. He has asked them to name a single person who has been honoured by the Hindus because he broke such places -� the way Islamic historians and lore have glorified every Muslim ruler and invader who did so. A snooty silence has been the only response.

But I am on the other point. Once they occupied academic bodies, once they captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these “historians” came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan, but insist on reproducing his denunciations of “Brahmanism,” and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.

Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they raise a shriek: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream.

But they are the ones who had distorted it in the first place — by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods. And these “theses” of their’s are recent concoctions. Recall the question of the disappearance of Buddhist monasteries. How did the grand-father, so to say, of present Marxist historians, D. D. Kosambhi explain that extinguishing? The original doctrine of the Buddha had degenerated into Lamaism, Kosambhi wrote. And the monasteries had “remained tied to the specialized and concentrated long-distance ‘luxury’ trade of which we read in the Periplus. This trade died out to be replaced by general and simpler local barter with settled villages. The monasteries, having fulfilled their economic as well as religious function, disappeared too.” And the people lapsed!

“The people whom they had helped lead out of savagery (though plenty of aborigines survive in the Western Ghats to this day), to whom they had given their first common script and common language, use of iron, and of the plough,” Kosambhi wrote, “had never forgotten their primeval cults.”

The standard Marxist “explanation” — the economic cause, the fulfilling of historical functions and thereafter disappearing, right to the remorse at the lapsing into “primeval cults”. But today, these “theses” won’t do. For today the need is to make people believe that Hindus too were intolerant, that Hindus also destroyed temples of others….

Or take another figure — one saturated with our history, culture, religion. He also wrote of that region — Afghanistan and beyond. The people of those areas did not destroy either Buddhism or the structures associated with it, he wrote, till one particular thing happened. What was this? He recounted, “In very ancient times this Turkish race repeatedly conquered the western provinces of India and founded extensive kingdoms. They were Buddhists, or would turn Buddhists after occupying Indian territory. In the ancient history of Kashmir there is mention of these famous Turkish emperors — Hushka, Yushka, and Kanishka. It was this Kanishka who founded the Northern School of Buddhism called Mahayana. Long after, the majority of them took to Mohammedanism and completely devastated the chief Buddhistic seats of Central Asia such as Kandhar and Kabul. Before their conversion to Mohammedanism they used to imbibe the learning and culture of the countries they conquered, and by assimilating the culture of other countries would try to propagate civilization. But ever since they became Mohammedans, they have only the instinct of war left in them; they have not got the least vestige of learning and culture; on the contrary, the countries that come under their sway gradually have their civilization extinguished. In many places of modern Afghanistan and Kandhar etc., there yet exist wonderful Stupas, monasteries, temples and gigantic statues built by their Buddhist ancestors. As a result of Turkish admixture and their conversion to Mohammedanism, those temples etc. are almost in ruins, and the present Afghans and allied races have grown so uncivilized and illiterate that, far from imitating those ancient works of architecture, they believe them to be the creation of super-natural spirits like the Jinn etc. …”.

The author? The very one the secularists tried to appropriate three-four years ago — Swami Vivekananda.

And look at the finesse of these historians. They maintain that such facts and narratives must be swept under the carpet in the interest of national integration: recalling them will offend Muslims, they say, doing so will sow rancour against Muslims in the minds of Hindus, they say. Simultaneously they insist on concocting the myth of Hindus destroying Buddhist temples. Will that concoction not distance Buddhists from Hindus? Will that narrative, specially when it does not have the slightest basis in fact, not embitter Hindus?

Swamiji focussed on another factor about which we hear little today: internal decay. The Buddha — like Gandhiji in our times — taught us first and last to alter our conduct, to realise through practice the insights he had attained. But that is the last thing the people want to do, they want soporifics: a mantra, a pilgrimage, an idol which may deliver them from the consequences of what they have done. The people walked out on the Buddha’s austere teaching � for it sternly ruled out props. No external suppression etc., were needed to wean them away: people are deserting Gandhiji for the same reason today — is any violence or conspiracy at work ?

The religion became monk and monastery-centric. And these decayed as closed groups and institutions invariably do. Ambedkar himself alludes to this factor — though he puts even this aspect of the decay to the ravages of Islam. After the decimation of monks by Muslim invaders, all sorts of persons — married clergy, artisan priests — had to be roped in to take their place. Hence the inevitable result, Ambedkar writes: “It is obvious that this new Buddhist priesthood had neither dignity nor learning and were a poor match for the rival, the Brahmins whose cunning was not unequal to their learning.”

Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and others who had reflected deeply on the course of religious evolution of our people, focussed on the condition to which Buddhist monasteries had been reduced by themselves. The people had already departed from the pristine teaching of the Buddha, Swamiji pointed out: the Buddha had taught no God, no Ruler of the Universe, but the people, being ignorant and in need of sedatives, “brought their gods, and devils, and hobgoblins out again, and a tremendous hotchpotch was made of Buddhism in India.” Buddhism itself took on these characters: and the growth that we ascribe to the marvelous personality of the Buddha and to the excellence of his teaching, Swami Vivekananda said, was due in fact “to the temples which were built, the idols that were erected, and the gorgeous ceremonials that were put before the nation.” Soon the “wonderful moral strength” of the original message was lost “and what remained of it became full of superstitions and ceremonials, a hundred times cruder than those it intended to suppress,” of practices which were “equally bad, unclean, and immoral….”

Swami Vivekananda regarded the Buddha as “the living embodiment of Vedanta”, he always spoke of the Buddha in superlatives. For that very reason, Vivekananda raged all the more at what Buddhism became: “It became a mass of corruption of which I cannot speak before this audience…;” “I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism”….

With reform as his life’s mission, Swami Vivekananda reflected deeply on the flaws which enfeebled Buddhism, and his insights hold lessons for us to this day. Every reform movement, he said, necessarily stresses negative elements. But if it goes on stressing only the negative, it soon peters out. After the Buddha, his followers kept emphasising the negative, when the people wanted the positive that would help lift them.

“Every movement triumphs,” he wrote, “by dint of some unusual characteristic, and when it falls, that point of pride becomes its chief element of weakness.” And in the case of Buddhism, he said, it was the monastic order. This gave it an organizational impetus, but soon consequences of the opposite kind took over. Instituting the monastic order, he said, had “the evil effect of making the very robe of the monk honoured,” instead of making reverence contingent on conduct. “Then these monasteries became rich,” he recalled, “the real cause of the downfall is here… some containing a hundred thousand monks, sometimes twenty thousand monks in one building — huge, gigantic buildings….” On the one hand this fomented corruption within, it encoiled the movement in organizational problems. On the other it drained society of the best persons.

From its very inception, the monastic order had institutionalized inequality of men and women even in sanyasa, Vivekananda pointed out. “Then gradually,” he recalled, “the corruption known as Vamachara (unrestrained mixing with women in the name of religion) crept in and ruined Buddhism. Such diabolical rites are not to be met with in any modern Tantra…”

Whereas the Buddha had counseled that we shun metaphysical speculations and philosophical conundrums � as these would only pull us away from practice — Buddhist monks and scholars lost themselves in arcane debates about these very questions. [Hence a truth in Kosambhi’s observation, but in the sense opposite to the one he intended: Shankara’s refutations show that Shankara knew nothing of Buddha’s original doctrine, Kosambhi asserted; Shankara was refuting the doctrines which were being put forth by the Buddhists in his time, and these had nothing to do with the original teaching of the Buddha.] The consequence was immediate: “By becoming too philosophic,” Vivekananda explained, “they lost much of their breadth of heart.”

Sri Aurobindo alludes to another factor, an inherent incompatibility. He writes of “the exclusive trenchancy of its intellectual, ethical and spiritual positions,” and of how “its trenchant affirmations and still more exclusive negations could not be made sufficiently compatible with the native flexibility, many-sided susceptibility and rich synthetic turn of the Indian religious consciousness; it was a high creed but not plastic enough to hold the heart of the people…”

We find in such factors a complete explanation for the evaporation of Buddhism. But we will find few of them in the secularist discourse today. Because their purpose is served by one “thesis” alone: Hindus crushed Buddhists, Hindus demolished their temples… In regard to matter after critical matter — the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of Islamic invasions, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of the Freedom Struggle — we find this trait — suppresso veri, suggesto falsi. This is the real scandal of history-writing in the last thirty years. And it has been possible for these “eminent historians” to perpetrate it because they acquired control of institutions like the ICHR. To undo the falsehood, you have to undo the control.

The Manu of Our Times?Arun Shourie

The Manu of Our Times?Arun Shourie
“Now, Sir,” the member said, “we have inherited a tradition. People always keep saying to me : ‘Oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.’ “My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will.”He ridiculed the “notions of democracy” the country had acquired because of its hatred of the British, like the notion that to leave any discretionary powers with the Governor is undemocratic. “We have inherited the idea that the Governor must have no power at all, that he must be a rubber-stamp,” the member explained. “If a minister, however scoundrelly he may be, if he puts up a proposal before the Governor, he has to ditto it. That is the kind of conception about democracy which we have developed in this country,” he continued.”But you defended it,” interjected a member from Rajasthan.”We lawyers defend many things….,” said the member. Several members were on their feet protesting.He proceeded to ask the Home Minister : were our Constitution to give discretionary powers to Governors on the lines of the Canadian Constitution, how would it become undemocratic ? The Home Minister said his answer was that the member had been responsible for drafting the Constitution. The member shot back, “You want to accuse me of your blemishes?”He returned to the point a little later in his speech : “Sir,” he said, “my friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody….”The member ? B.R. Ambedkar, of course. The occasion? The debate in the Council of States, as the Rajya Sabha was then known, on 2 September, 1953, regarding the Bill for establishing the state of Andhra.Was Ambedkar just palming off responsibility? Or was he being truthful in describing what his role really had been in regard to the drafting of the Constitution ? That the remarks were not just an off-the-cuff burst is evident from the fact that he repeated the description to the political scientist and biographer, Michael Brecher during an interview three years later, a few months before his death [ Michael Brecher, Nehru, A Political Biography, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 423 ]Or take another instance. The Article relating to the right to property went through several rounds, and was the subject of earnest discussion. The draft of the Article as it was sent up by the Drafting Committee closely followed Section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. It provided that no property would be acquired except for a public purpose, and that it would not be acquired without compensation and unless either the amount of compensation was fixed or the principles on which it was to be fixed were set out. When the draft came up for consideration in the Constituent Assembly, Pandit Nehru himself moved an amendment to replace the text wholesale. He told the Assembly that the new text was “the result of a great deal of consultation”, that it reflected a compromise between various approaches.Two years later, in 1952, the Supreme Court handed down judgements in which it held that the existence of a public purpose was a prerequisite for the exercise of the power of compulsory acquisition. The Government then brought in an amendment to the Constitution which provided, among other things, that “no such law [ aimed at acquiring property ] shall be called in question in any court on the ground that the compensation provided by that law is not adequate.” The amendment also provided that where the law did not transfer the property to the State or a Corporation owned or controlled by the State “it shall not be deemed to provide for the compulsory acquisition or requisitioning of property, notwithstanding that it deprives any person of his property.” In a word, there was no longer any need in such cases for either of the two conditions — the existence of a public purpose, or the payment of just compensation. This part of the matter was thus put beyond the reach of courts. Government asserted that the new text was in accord with what the Drafting Committee had intended.Ambedkar refuted the suggestion. Here is what he told the Rajya Sabha on 19 March, 1955 : “Article 31 with which we are dealing now in this Bill is an Article for which I, and the Drafting Committee, can take no responsibility whatsoever. We do not take any responsibility for that. That is not our draft.” He said that at the time this Article was being considered “the Congress Party… was so divided within itself that we did not know what to do, what to put and what not to put.” Ambedkar said that there had been three points of view within the Congress on the question : a section led by Sardar Patel had wanted that the Constitution provide for compensation on the lines of the existing Land Acquisition Act, namely market price plus 15 per cent; Pandit Nehru wanted that no compensation should be provided for at all; Pandit Pant, who was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh at the time, had been concerned mainly to safeguard the zamindari-abolition legislation he had got through. “There was thus this tripartite struggle,” Ambedkar told the House, “and we left it to them to decide in any way they liked. And they merely embodied what their decision was in Article 31. This Article 31, in my judgement, is a very ugly thing, something which I do not like to look at…”A volume can be filled at short notice with examples of this kind. The point however will be obvious : in saying what he did about this particular Article, was Ambedkar again just passing off responsibility? Or was he giving us a truthful glimpse into the way the Constitution was actually framed — by an iterative, collective effort, by the contribution of numerous persons, by adjustments of many, many points of view?”But was he not the Chairman of the Drafting Committee? And did this Committee not draft the Constitution?”How mere designations father myths ! Yes, Ambedkar was elected Chairman of the Drafting Committee [and the why and how of that is itself a delicious story], but what was this “Drafting Committee” set up to do?The Constituent Assembly had been functioning since December 1946. Committees to draft substantive sections of the Constitution began work in January 1947. The “Drafting Committee” did not come into being till 29 August, 1947.The Constituent Assembly’s resolution setting up the Committee declared that it was being set up to “Scrutinise the Draft of the text of the Constitution prepared by the Constitutional Adviser giving effect to the decisions taken already in the Assembly and including all matters ancillary thereto or which have to be provided in such a Constitution, and to submit to the Assembly for consideration the text of the Draft Constitution as revised by the Committee.” At the very least these terms of reference should alert us to the fact that there already was a Draft in existence when this Committee was set up!The Draft in question had been prepared by Sir B. N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly, with the assistance of the Joint Secretary and Draftsman, S.N. Mukerjee. It consisted of 240 draft Articles and 13 Schedules. Nor was this document itself something that had sprung from the head of one or two individuals. In fact, in the marginal note to each draft Article Sir B N Rau indicated the original source or basis of the provision — the Government of India Act, 1935, the Constitution of Ireland, that of Canada, that of Australia, the Danzig Constitution, that of the USSR, of the USA and so on, in each instance with the relevant Article listed. It was this Draft which constituted the basic working document in all subsequent deliberations. And it was this Draft which the Drafting Committee began adding to and deleting from so as to incorporate the decisions which the Assembly had already arrived at, and to incorporate the reports and recommendations of the various Committees which had been set up to draft particular sections of the Constitution. Sir B N Rau’s Draft, the minutes and drafts of the Committees are all published documents which are easily accessible to anyone who would care to look.But even that sort of account suggests a greater degree of latitude and role for the Drafting Committee than was the case. For everything was in practice decided in meetings of the Congress Party before it was formally taken up by the Constituent Assembly. Ambedkar himself was to acknowledge later that it was possible to get the Constitution through so smoothly precisely because of the discipline and cohesion of the Congress. Another member of the Assembly was even more candid : in his speech at the conclusion of the Assembly’s labours he said that the meetings of the Congress Party became the real meetings of the Constituent Assembly, and that the decisions taken in them — after vigourous and free debate, and much contention — were in a sense “registered” by the Assembly in its formal meetings.The Draft was the result of collective labours of many persons. Several parts of it went through many versions. Several Articles were adopted, only to be overturned at the next stage. The Assembly itself reopened and revised, and sometimes completely overhauled several provisions — many of them key provisions on which the very nature of the system of governance turned.Not only did Ambedkar himself not claim authorship of the Draft. He did not even claim any great degree of originality for the Draft which emerged from these iterations and which he formally tabled. Quite the contrary, he scoffed at those who were looking for originality in the document. Addressing the Assembly on 4 November, 1948, while placing the Draft Constitution in the Assembly for its consideration, Ambedkar said : “It is said that there is nothing new in the Draft Constitution, that about half of it has been copied from the Government of India Act of 1935 and that the rest of it has been borrowed from the Constitutions of other countries. Very little of it can claim originality. One likes to ask whether there can be anything new in a Constitution framed at this hour in the history of the world. More than a hundred years have rolled over when the first written Constitution was drafted. It has been followed by many countries reducing their Constitutions to writing. What the scope of a Constitution should be has long been settled. Similarly what should be the fundamentals of a Constitution are recognized all over the world. Given these facts, all Constitutions in their main provisions must look similar. The only new things, if there can be any, in a Constitution framed so late in the day are the variations made to remove the faults and to accommodate it to the needs of the country…””As to the accusation that the Draft Constitution has [re]produced a good part of the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935,” Ambedkar continued, “I make no apologies. There is nothing to be ashamed of in borrowing. It involves no plagiarism. Nobody holds any patent rights in the fundamental ideas of a Constitution….”That this was the position was known to one and all. As I mentioned, in the margin of each Draft Article Sir B N Rau had indicated the provisions of other Constitutions on which it was based. The overwhelming proportion of provisions were based on the Government of India Act of 1935 — and that too was natural : that Act itself built on successive laws under which India had been governed for a hundred years; the administrative structure of the country had grown around these laws, even in combating those laws and provisions it is that structure which our leaders had grown accustomed to, which they had in a sense mastered.Ambedkar, who had all along been with the British while the rest were fighting to free the country from them, actually felt a sense of vindication in the fact that, all said and done, the nationalist leaders, who used to rail against the British, had in the end had to adopt more or less the system which the British had devised. Recall that Ambedkar formally presented the Draft to the Assembly on 21 February, 1948. On 28 April that year Ambedkar was the chief guest at a dinner at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. In a starry-eyed account, Alan Campbell-Johnson, the Press Attache of Lord Mountbatten, recorded in his diary for that day : “Fay and I dined tonight amid fairy-lights on the lawn of the Delhi Gymkhana Club…. The principal guest was Dr. Ambedkar, the Minister of Law, the leader of the untouchables, and a colourful personality in Indian politics over the past twenty years. He is now one of the principal figures associated with the preparation of India’s new Constitution, which finally removes the stigma of untouchability from the statute book. As part of his emancipation, Ambedkar, himself an untouchable, has only recently married a lady doctor who is a Brahmin… Ambedkar himself was in an expansive vein, and gave us a revealing analysis of some of the new features of the new Constitution… As evidence of the enduring quality of the 1935 Act, he said that some two hundred and fifty of its clauses had been embodied as they stood into the new Constitution.” [ Mission With Mountbatten, 1951, Hamish Hamilton, 1985, p.319 ] On that count, not half but almost four-fifths of the Constitution was from the 1935 Act — for the Draft as submitted by the Drafting Committee had 315 Articles.And this position was freely acknowledged by our courts also. Rejecting a construction which was being urged before it, the Supreme Court, for instance, observed in Sundaramier and Co. Vs State of Andhra Pradesh in 1958, “It [ the construction which was being urged ] overlooks that our Constitution was not written on a tabula-rasa, that a federal Constitution had been established under the Government of India Act, 1935, and though that has undergone considerable changes by way of repeal, modification and addition, it still remains the framework on which the present Constitution is built…” For that reason the Court held that “the provisions of the Constitution must accordingly be read in the light of the provisions of the Government of India Act.”But now suddenly the Constitution is presented as something that sprung — whole and complete, pristine and virginal — from the mind and genius of Ambedkar. So much so that the Draft Constitution is included by the Maharashtra Government in its volumes Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches as if it were one of the things he had authored!Even so there is a silver lining. The very ones who hail Ambedkar as the Manu of our times revile Manu as the fount of all evil! The very ones who hail the Constitution as the Ambedkar-smriti denounce the same Constitution as being nothing but an alien graft wholly unsuited to our country!

To Undo the Scandal, Undo the Control Arun Shourie

To Undo the Scandal, Undo the Control

“There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans,” writes the author. “Islam came out as the enemy of the ‘But’. The word ‘But,’ as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word ‘But’ is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia….”

A communal historian of the RSS-school?

But Islam struck at Hinduism also. How is it that it was able to fell Buddhism in India but not Hinduism? Hinduism had State-patronage, says the author. The Buddhists were so persecuted by the “Brahmanic rulers”, he writes, that, when Islam came, they converted to Islam: this welled the ranks of Muslims but in the same stroke drained those of Buddhism. But the far more important cause was that while the Muslim invaders butchered both — Brahmins as well as Buddhist monks — the nature of the priesthood in the case of the two religions was different — “and the difference is so great that it contains the whole reason why Brahmanism survived the attack of Islam and why Buddhism did not.”

For the Hindus, every Brahmin was a potential priest. No ordination was mandated. Neither anything else. Every household carried on rituals — oblations, recitation of particular mantras, pilgrimages, each Brahmin family made memorizing some Veda its very purpose…. By contrast, Buddhism had instituted ordination, particular training etc. for its priestly class. Thus, when the invaders massacred Brahmins, Hinduism continued. But when they massacred the Buddhist monks, the religion itself was killed.

Describing the massacres of the latter and the destruction of their vihars, universities, places of worship, the author writes, “The Musalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few. They raised to the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside India. A very large number were killed outright by the Muslim commanders. How the Buddhist priesthood perished by the sword of the Muslim invaders has been recorded by the Muslim historians themselves. Summarizing the evidence relating to the slaughter of the Buddhist Monks perpetrated by the Musalman General in the course of his invasion of Bihar in 1197 AD, Mr. Vincent Smith says, “….Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the ‘shaven headed Brahmans’, that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. ‘It was discovered,’ we are told, ‘that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar.’ “Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India….”

The writer? B. R. Ambedkar.

But today the fashion is to ascribe the extinction of Buddhism to the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus, to the destruction of their temples by the Hindus. One point is that the Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction. In one typical instance, three inscriptions were cited. The indefatigable Sita Ram Goel looked them up. Two of the inscriptions had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. And the third told a story which had the opposite import than the one which the Marxist historian had insinuated: a Jain king had himself taken the temple from Jain priests and given it to the Shaivites because the former had failed to live up to their promise. Goel repeatedly asked the historian to point to any additional evidence or to elucidate how the latter had suppressed the import that the inscription in its entirety conveyed. He waited in vain. The revealing exchange is set out in Goel’s monograph, “Stalinist ‘Historians’ Spread the Big Lie.”

Marxists cite only two other instances of Hindus having destroyed Buddhist temples. These too it turns out yield to completely contrary explanations. Again Marxists have been asked repeatedly to explain the construction they have been circulating — to no avail. Equally important, Sita Ram Goel invited them to cite any Hindu text which orders Hindus to break the places of worship of other religions — as the Bible does, as a pile of Islamic manuals does. He has asked them to name a single person who has been honoured by the Hindus because he broke such places -� the way Islamic historians and lore have glorified every Muslim ruler and invader who did so. A snooty silence has been the only response.

But I am on the other point. Once they occupied academic bodies, once they captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these “historians” came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan, but insist on reproducing his denunciations of “Brahmanism,” and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.

Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they raise a shriek: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream.

But they are the ones who had distorted it in the first place — by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods. And these “theses” of their’s are recent concoctions. Recall the question of the disappearance of Buddhist monasteries. How did the grand-father, so to say, of present Marxist historians, D. D. Kosambhi explain that extinguishing? The original doctrine of the Buddha had degenerated into Lamaism, Kosambhi wrote. And the monasteries had “remained tied to the specialized and concentrated long-distance ‘luxury’ trade of which we read in the Periplus. This trade died out to be replaced by general and simpler local barter with settled villages. The monasteries, having fulfilled their economic as well as religious function, disappeared too.” And the people lapsed!

“The people whom they had helped lead out of savagery (though plenty of aborigines survive in the Western Ghats to this day), to whom they had given their first common script and common language, use of iron, and of the plough,” Kosambhi wrote, “had never forgotten their primeval cults.”

The standard Marxist “explanation” — the economic cause, the fulfilling of historical functions and thereafter disappearing, right to the remorse at the lapsing into “primeval cults”. But today, these “theses” won’t do. For today the need is to make people believe that Hindus too were intolerant, that Hindus also destroyed temples of others….

Or take another figure — one saturated with our history, culture, religion. He also wrote of that region — Afghanistan and beyond. The people of those areas did not destroy either Buddhism or the structures associated with it, he wrote, till one particular thing happened. What was this? He recounted, “In very ancient times this Turkish race repeatedly conquered the western provinces of India and founded extensive kingdoms. They were Buddhists, or would turn Buddhists after occupying Indian territory. In the ancient history of Kashmir there is mention of these famous Turkish emperors — Hushka, Yushka, and Kanishka. It was this Kanishka who founded the Northern School of Buddhism called Mahayana. Long after, the majority of them took to Mohammedanism and completely devastated the chief Buddhistic seats of Central Asia such as Kandhar and Kabul. Before their conversion to Mohammedanism they used to imbibe the learning and culture of the countries they conquered, and by assimilating the culture of other countries would try to propagate civilization. But ever since they became Mohammedans, they have only the instinct of war left in them; they have not got the least vestige of learning and culture; on the contrary, the countries that come under their sway gradually have their civilization extinguished. In many places of modern Afghanistan and Kandhar etc., there yet exist wonderful Stupas, monasteries, temples and gigantic statues built by their Buddhist ancestors. As a result of Turkish admixture and their conversion to Mohammedanism, those temples etc. are almost in ruins, and the present Afghans and allied races have grown so uncivilized and illiterate that, far from imitating those ancient works of architecture, they believe them to be the creation of super-natural spirits like the Jinn etc. …”.

The author? The very one the secularists tried to appropriate three-four years ago — Swami Vivekananda.

And look at the finesse of these historians. They maintain that such facts and narratives must be swept under the carpet in the interest of national integration: recalling them will offend Muslims, they say, doing so will sow rancour against Muslims in the minds of Hindus, they say. Simultaneously they insist on concocting the myth of Hindus destroying Buddhist temples. Will that concoction not distance Buddhists from Hindus? Will that narrative, specially when it does not have the slightest basis in fact, not embitter Hindus?

Swamiji focussed on another factor about which we hear little today: internal decay. The Buddha — like Gandhiji in our times — taught us first and last to alter our conduct, to realise through practice the insights he had attained. But that is the last thing the people want to do, they want soporifics: a mantra, a pilgrimage, an idol which may deliver them from the consequences of what they have done. The people walked out on the Buddha’s austere teaching � for it sternly ruled out props. No external suppression etc., were needed to wean them away: people are deserting Gandhiji for the same reason today — is any violence or conspiracy at work ?

The religion became monk and monastery-centric. And these decayed as closed groups and institutions invariably do. Ambedkar himself alludes to this factor — though he puts even this aspect of the decay to the ravages of Islam. After the decimation of monks by Muslim invaders, all sorts of persons — married clergy, artisan priests — had to be roped in to take their place. Hence the inevitable result, Ambedkar writes: “It is obvious that this new Buddhist priesthood had neither dignity nor learning and were a poor match for the rival, the Brahmins whose cunning was not unequal to their learning.”

Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and others who had reflected deeply on the course of religious evolution of our people, focussed on the condition to which Buddhist monasteries had been reduced by themselves. The people had already departed from the pristine teaching of the Buddha, Swamiji pointed out: the Buddha had taught no God, no Ruler of the Universe, but the people, being ignorant and in need of sedatives, “brought their gods, and devils, and hobgoblins out again, and a tremendous hotchpotch was made of Buddhism in India.” Buddhism itself took on these characters: and the growth that we ascribe to the marvelous personality of the Buddha and to the excellence of his teaching, Swami Vivekananda said, was due in fact “to the temples which were built, the idols that were erected, and the gorgeous ceremonials that were put before the nation.” Soon the “wonderful moral strength” of the original message was lost “and what remained of it became full of superstitions and ceremonials, a hundred times cruder than those it intended to suppress,” of practices which were “equally bad, unclean, and immoral….”

Swami Vivekananda regarded the Buddha as “the living embodiment of Vedanta”, he always spoke of the Buddha in superlatives. For that very reason, Vivekananda raged all the more at what Buddhism became: “It became a mass of corruption of which I cannot speak before this audience…;” “I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism”….

With reform as his life’s mission, Swami Vivekananda reflected deeply on the flaws which enfeebled Buddhism, and his insights hold lessons for us to this day. Every reform movement, he said, necessarily stresses negative elements. But if it goes on stressing only the negative, it soon peters out. After the Buddha, his followers kept emphasising the negative, when the people wanted the positive that would help lift them.

“Every movement triumphs,” he wrote, “by dint of some unusual characteristic, and when it falls, that point of pride becomes its chief element of weakness.” And in the case of Buddhism, he said, it was the monastic order. This gave it an organizational impetus, but soon consequences of the opposite kind took over. Instituting the monastic order, he said, had “the evil effect of making the very robe of the monk honoured,” instead of making reverence contingent on conduct. “Then these monasteries became rich,” he recalled, “the real cause of the downfall is here… some containing a hundred thousand monks, sometimes twenty thousand monks in one building — huge, gigantic buildings….” On the one hand this fomented corruption within, it encoiled the movement in organizational problems. On the other it drained society of the best persons.

From its very inception, the monastic order had institutionalized inequality of men and women even in sanyasa, Vivekananda pointed out. “Then gradually,” he recalled, “the corruption known as Vamachara (unrestrained mixing with women in the name of religion) crept in and ruined Buddhism. Such diabolical rites are not to be met with in any modern Tantra…”

Whereas the Buddha had counseled that we shun metaphysical speculations and philosophical conundrums � as these would only pull us away from practice — Buddhist monks and scholars lost themselves in arcane debates about these very questions. [Hence a truth in Kosambhi’s observation, but in the sense opposite to the one he intended: Shankara’s refutations show that Shankara knew nothing of Buddha’s original doctrine, Kosambhi asserted; Shankara was refuting the doctrines which were being put forth by the Buddhists in his time, and these had nothing to do with the original teaching of the Buddha.] The consequence was immediate: “By becoming too philosophic,” Vivekananda explained, “they lost much of their breadth of heart.”

Sri Aurobindo alludes to another factor, an inherent incompatibility. He writes of “the exclusive trenchancy of its intellectual, ethical and spiritual positions,” and of how “its trenchant affirmations and still more exclusive negations could not be made sufficiently compatible with the native flexibility, many-sided susceptibility and rich synthetic turn of the Indian religious consciousness; it was a high creed but not plastic enough to hold the heart of the people…”

We find in such factors a complete explanation for the evaporation of Buddhism. But we will find few of them in the secularist discourse today. Because their purpose is served by one “thesis” alone: Hindus crushed Buddhists, Hindus demolished their temples… In regard to matter after critical matter — the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of Islamic invasions, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of the Freedom Struggle — we find this trait — suppresso veri, suggesto falsi. This is the real scandal of history-writing in the last thirty years. And it has been possible for these “eminent historians” to perpetrate it because they acquired control of institutions like the ICHR. To undo the falsehood, you have to undo the control.

Candide by Voltaire

(3) Voltaire, Candide.
a. Text. Translation in the pubic domain.

VOLTAIRE
Candide; or Optimism
translated from the German of DoctorRalph
with the additions which were found in the Doctor=s pocket
when he died at Minden1 in the Year of our Lord 1759
[An anonymous translation, edited and adapted by A.C. Kibel]
Chapter 1 – How Candide Was Brought Up in a Magnificent Castle and How He Was Driven Out of It
In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a
youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his mind.
He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity; and hence, I presume, he had his name
of Candide. The old servants of the house suspected him to have been the son of the Baron’s sister, by a
very good sort of a gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady refused to marry, because he
could produce no more than seventy-one quarterings2 in his arms; the rest of the genealogical tree
belonging to the family having been lost through the injuries of time.
The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but
even windows, and his great hall was hung with tapestry. He used to hunt with his mastiffs and spaniels
instead of greyhounds; his groom served him for huntsman; and the parson of the parish officiated as his
grand almoner. He was called AMy Lord@ by all his people, who laughed at all his jokes.
My Lady Baroness, who weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, consequently was a person of no
small consideration; and then she did the honors of the house with a dignity that commanded universal
respect. Her daughter was about seventeen years of age, fresh-colored, comely, plump, and desirable. The
Baron’s son, her brother, seemed to be a youth in every respect worthy of the father he sprung from.
Pangloss, the tutor, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide listened to his instructions with all the
simplicity natural to his age and disposition.
Master Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologico-cosmolooneyology. He could prove to admiration
that there is no effect without a cause; and, that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron’s castle was
the most magnificent of all castles, and My Lady the best of all possible baronesses.
AIt is demonstrable,@ said he, Athat things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things
have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance,
the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for trousers,
accordingly we wear trousers. It is the nature of stones made to be hewn and made into castles, therefore
My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Pigs
1Candide appeared anonymously through two editions. ADr Ralph@, the imaginary author,
evidently died at a battle occuring during the campaign of Westphalia, in the course of which
Cunégonde was raped and the castle of Candide=s protector, the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh,
was sacked and destroyed. The Aadditions@ refer to a long passage in chapter 22 added to the
second edition and omitted here.
2A measure of the length of one=s geneological treeBan uninterupted line of aristocratic
ancestors, in this case, stretching back more than two thousand years.
were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who assert that everything is
right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.@
Candide listened attentively and believed implicitly, for he thought Miss Cunégonde excessively
handsome, though he never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that next to the happiness of being
Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the next was that of being Miss Cunégonde, the next that of seeing her
every day, and the last that of hearing the doctrine of Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the
whole province, and consequently of the whole world.
One day when Cunégonde went to take a walk in a little neighboring wood which was called a
park, she saw, through the bushes, the sage Doctor Pangloss giving a lecture in experimental philosophy to
her mother’s chambermaid, a pretty brunette, and very obedient. As Cunégonde had a great disposition for
the sciences, she observed with the utmost attention the experiments which were repeated before her eyes;
she perfectly well understood the doctor=s sufficient reason and the force of causes and effects. She retired
greatly flurried, quite pensive and filled with the desire of knowledge, imagining that she might be a
sufficient reason for young Candide, and he for her.
On her way back she happened to meet the young man; she blushed, he blushed also; she wished
him a good morning in a faltering tone, he returned the salute, without knowing what he said. The next
day, as they were rising from dinner, Cunégonde and Candide slipped behind the screen. The miss dropped
her handkerchief, the young man picked it up. She innocently took hold of his hand, and he as innocently
kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace-all very particular; their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their
knees trembled; their hands strayed. The Baron chanced to come by; he beheld the cause and effect, and,
without hesitation, saluted Candide with some notable kicks on his backside and drove him out of doors.
The lovely Cunégonde fainted away, and, as soon as she came to herself, the Baroness boxed her ears.
Thus a general consternation was spread over this most magnificent and most agreeable of all possible
castles.
Chapter 2 – What Befell Candide among the Bulgarians
Candide, thus driven out of this terrestrial paradise, rambled a long time without knowing where he
went; sometimes he raised his eyes, all bedewed with tears, towards heaven, and sometimes he cast a
melancholy look towards the magnificent castle, where dwelt the fairest of young baronesses. He laid
himself down to sleep in a furrow, heartbroken, and supperless. The snow fell in great flakes, and, in the
morning when he awoke, he was almost frozen to death; however, he made shift to crawl to the next town,
which was called Wald-berghoff-trarbkdikdorff, without a penny in his pocket, and half dead with hunger
and fatigue. He took up his stand at the door of an inn. He had not been long there before two men dressed
in blue3 fixed their eyes steadfastly upon him.
ALook,@ said one of them to the other, Athere=s a well-made young man of the right size.@ Upon
which they came up to Candide and with the greatest civility and politeness invited him to dine with them.
AGentlemen,@ replied Candide, with a most engaging modesty, you do me much honor, but upon
my word I have no money.@
AMoney, sir!@ said one of the blues to him, Ayoung persons of your appearance and merit never pay
anything; why, are not you five feet five inches high?@
3Candide is about to be recruited into the Prussian army and do his bit in the Seven Years
War (1756-63) between the Prussians and the French, a conflict which had the usual effects of
warfare upon the countysides of central Europe. The recruiting officers of Frederick the Great
wore blue uniforms and were feared in villages everywhere they showed up. As for the remark
about Candide=s size: Frederick reputedly tried to have units of his armyBcompanies and
regimentsBcomposed of soldiers of roughly the same size in order to produce an impression of
uniformity when they were on parade.
AYes, gentlemen, that is indeed my size,@ replied he, with a low bow.
ACome then, sir, sit down along with us; we will not only pay your reckoning, but will never suffer
such a clever young fellow as you to want money. Men were born to assist one another.@
AYou are perfectly right, gentlemen,@ said Candide, Athis is precisely the doctrine of Master
Pangloss; and I am convinced that everything is for the best.@
His generous companions next entreated him to accept of two crowns4, which he readily complied
with, at the same time offering them his note for the payment, which they refused, and sat down to table.
AHave you not a great affection forCA
@O yes! I have a great affection for the lovely Cunégonde.@
AMaybe so,@ replied one of the blues, Abut that is not the question! We were going to ask you
whether you have a great affection for the King of the Bulgarians@
AFor the King of the Bulgarians?@ said Candide. AOh, Lord! not at all, why I never saw him in my
life.@
AIs it possible? Oh, he is a most charming king! Come, we must drink his health.@
AWith all my heart, gentlemen,@ said Candide, and off he tossed his glass.
ABravo!@ cried the blues; Ayou are now the support, the defender, the hero of the Bulgarians; your
fortune is made; you are in the high road to glory.@
So saying, they handcuffed him, and carried him away to the regiment. There he was made to
wheel about to the right, to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire, to march,
and they gave him thirty blows with a cane; the next day he performed his exercise a little better, and they
gave him but twenty; the day following he came off with ten, and was looked upon as a young fellow of
surprising genius by all his comrades.
Candide was struck with amazement, and could not for the soul of him conceive how he came to
be a hero. One fine spring morning, he took it into his head to take a walk, and he marched straight
forward, conceiving it to be a privilege of the human species, as well as of the brute creation, to make use
of their legs how and when they pleased. He had not gone above two leagues when he was overtaken by
four other heroes, six feet high, who bound him neck and heels, and carried him to a dungeon. A courtmartial
sat upon him, and he was asked which he liked better, to run the gauntlet six and thirty times
through the whole regiment, or to have his brains blown out with a dozen musket-balls? In vain did he
remonstrate to them that the human will is free, and that he chose neither; they obliged him to make a
choice, and he determined, in virtue of that divine gift called free will, to run the gauntlet six and thirty
times.
He had gone through his discipline twice, and the regiment being composed of 2,000 men, they
composed for him exactly 4,000 strokes, which laid bare all his muscles and nerves from the nape of his
neck to his stern. As they were preparing to make him set out the third time our young hero, unable to
support it any longer, begged as a favor that they would be so obliging as to shoot him through the head;
his request being granted, a bandage was tied over his eyes, and he was made to kneel down.
At that very instant, His Bulgarian Majesty happening to pass by made a stop, and inquired into the
delinquent’s crime, and being a prince of great penetration, he found, from what he heard of Candide, that
he was a young metaphysician, entirely ignorant of the physical world; and therefore, out of his great
clemency, he condescended to pardon him, for which his name will be celebrated in every newspaper in
every age. A skillful surgeon made a cure of the flagellated Candide in three weeks by means of emollient
4Presumably the fee paid to new recruits in compensation for enlisting.
unguents prescribed by Dioscorides5. His sores were now scabbed over and he was able to march, when the
King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abares6.
Chapter 3 – How Candide Escaped from the Bulgarians and What Befell Him Afterward
Never was anything so gallant, so well accoutered, so brilliant, and so finely disposed as the two
armies. The trumpets, fifes, oboes, drums, and cannon made such harmony as never was heard in Hell
itself. The entertainment began by a discharge of cannon, which, in the twinkling of an eye, laid flat about
6,000 men on each side. The musket bullets swept away, out of the best of all possible worlds, nine or ten
thousand scoundrels that were cluttering its surface. The bayonet was next the sufficient reason of the
deaths of several thousands. The sum of casualites might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide
trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.
At length, while the two kings were causing Te Deums7 to be sung in their camps, Candide took a
resolution to go and reason somewhere else upon causes and effects. After passing over heaps of dead or
dying men, the first place he came to was a neighboring village, in the Abarian territories, which had been
burned to the ground by the Bulgarians, agreeably to the laws of war. Here lay a number of old men
covered with wounds, who beheld their wives dying with their throats cut and hugging their children to
their breasts, all stained with blood. There several young virgins, whose bodies had been ripped open after
they had satisfied the natural necessities of the Bulgarian heroes, breathed their last; while others,
half-burned in the flames, begged to be dispatched out of the world. The ground about them was covered
with the brains, arms, and legs of the dead.
Candide made all the haste he could to another village, which belonged to the Bulgarians, and
there he found the heroic Abares had enacted the same tragedy. Thence continuing to walk over twitching
limbs or through ruined buildings, at length he got beyond the theater of war, with a little food in his
backpack and Cunégonde’s image in his heart. When he arrived in Holland his food ran out, but having
heard that the inhabitants of that country were all rich and Christians, he was sure that he would be treated
by them as he had been at the Baron’s castle before he had been driven thence through the power of
Cunégonde’s bright eyes.
He asked charity of several grave-looking people, who one and all answered him that if he
continued to follow this trade they would have him sent to the house of correction, where he should be
taught to get his bread. He next addressed himself to a person who had just come from haranguing a
numerous assembly for a whole hour on the subject of charity. The orator, squinting at him under his
broad-brimmed hat, asked him sternly, what brought him thither and whether he was for the good old
cause?
ASir,@ said Candide, in a submissive manner, AI conceive there can be no effect without a cause;
everything is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best. It was necessary that I should be banished
from the presence of Cunégonde; that I should afterwards run the gauntlet; and it is necessary I should beg
my bread, till I am able to get it. All this could not have been otherwise.@
ATell me, friend,@ said the orator, Ado you hold the Pope to be Antichrist?@
ATruly, I never thought about it,@ said Candide, Abut whether he is or not, I am in want of
something to eat.@
5A treatise on medical remedies dating from the first centuryBnot exactly the most up-todate
in Voltaire=s day. A hit in the spirit of the Enlightenment upon veneration for antiquated
texts.
6The Abares, as opponents of the Prussians, represent the French.
7A prayer of thanksgiving for victory, here sung by both sides.
AYou deserve neither food nor drink,@ replied the orator, Apervert, monster! hence! avoid my sight,
never come near me again while you live.@
The orator’s wife happened to put her head out of the window at that instant, and seeing a man who
doubted whether the Pope was Antichrist, she discharged upon his head a full pisspot of golden liquid.
Good heavens, to what excess does religious zeal transport womankind!
A man who had never been christened, an honest Anabaptist named Jacques, was witness to the
cruel and ignominious treatment showed to one of his brethren, to a rational featherless biped8. Moved
with pity he carried him to his house, caused him to be cleaned, gave him meat and drink, and made him a
present of two florins, at the same time proposing to instruct him in his own trade of weaving Persian silks,
which are fabricated in Holland.
Candide, faced with so much goodness, threw himself at his feet, crying, ANow I am convinced
that my Master Pangloss told me truth when he said that everything was for the best in this world; for I am
infinitely more affected with your extraordinary generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman in
the black cloak and his wife.@
Chapter 4 – How Candide Found His Old Master Pangloss Again and What Happened to Him
The next day, as Candide was walking out, he met a beggar all covered with scabs, his eyes sunk
in his head, the end of his nose eaten off, his mouth drawn on one side, his teeth as black as a cloak,
snuffling and coughing most violently, and every time he attempted to spit out dropped a tooth.
Candide, divided between compassion and horror, but giving way to the former, bestowed on this
shocking figure the two florins which the honest Anabaptist Jacques, had just before given to him. The
specter looked at him very earnestly, shed tears and threw his arms about his neck. Candide started back
aghast.
AAlas!@ said the one wretch to the other, Adon’t you know dear Pangloss?@
AWhat do I hear? Is it you, my dear master! you I behold in this piteous plight? What dreadful
misfortune has befallen you? What has made you leave the most magnificent and delightful of all castles?
What has become of Miss Cunégonde, the mirror of young ladies, and Nature’s masterpiece?@
AI am dying@ said Pangloss, upon which Candide instantly led him to the Anabaptist’s stable, and
procured him something to eat. As soon as Pangloss tasted a morsel, Candide began to repeat his inquiries
concerning Cunégonde.
ADead,@ replied the other.
ADead!@ cried Candide, and immediately fainted; his friend restored him by the help of a little bad
vinegar, which he found by chance in the stable.
Candide opened his eyes, and again repeated: ADead! is Cunégonde dead? Ah, where is the best of
worlds now? But of what illness did she die? Was it of grief on seeing her father kick me out of his
magnificent castle?@
ANo,@ replied Pangloss, Aher body was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers, after they had raped
her as many times as a girl could survive; they knocked out the brains of the Baron, her father, for
attempting to defend her; My Lady, her mother, was cut in pieces; my poor pupil was served just in the
same manner as his sister9; and as for the castle, they have not left one stone upon another; they have
destroyed all the ducks, and sheep, the barns, and the trees; but we have had our satisfaction, for the Abares
have done the very same thing in a neighboring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord.@
8Plato=s definition of a human being.
9Voltaire apparently accepted the baseless calumny about Bulgarians common in his day,
that they practiced Abuggery@Ba word deriving ultimately from the word Bulgar.
At hearing this, Candide fainted away a second time, but, not withstanding, having come to
himself again, he said all that it became him to say; he inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the
sufficient reason that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a condition.
AAlas,@ replied the tutor, Ait was love; love, the comfort of the human species; love, the preserver of
the universe; the soul of all sensible beings; love! tender love!@
AAlas,@ cried Candide, AI have had some knowledge of love myself, this sovereign of hearts, this
soul of souls. It never caused any more effect on me than one kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How
could this beautiful cause produce in you so hideous an effect?@
Pangloss made answer in these terms:
AO my dear Candide, you must remember Daisy, that pretty wench, who waited on our noble
Baroness; in her arms I tasted the pleasures of Paradise, which produced these Hellish torments with which
you see me devoured. She was infected with an ailment, and perhaps has since died of it; she received this
present of a learned Franciscan, who troubled to derive its source and learned that he was indebted for it to
an old countess, who had it of a captain of horse, who had it of a marquise, who had it of a page, the page
had it of a Jesuit, who, during his novitiate, had it in a direct line from one of the fellow adventurers of
Christopher Columbus; for my part I shall give it to nobody, I am a dying man.@
AO sage Pangloss,@ cried Candide, Awhat a strange genealogy is this! Is not the devil the root of it?@
ANot at all,@ replied the great man, Ait was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of
worlds; for if Columbus, on an island in America, had not caught this disease, which contaminates the
source of generation, frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of
nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal dyes. We may observe that, even to the present
time, in this continent of ours, this malady, like our religious controversies, is peculiar to ourselves, and
that the Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, and the Japanese are entirely
unacquainted with it; but there is a sufficient reason for them to know it in a few centuries. In the
meantime, it is making prodigious havoc among us, especially in those armies composed of well
disciplined hirelings who determine the fate of nations; for we may safely affirm, that, when an army of
thirty thousand men engages another equal in size, there are about twenty thousand infected with syphilis
on each side.@
AVery surprising, indeed,@ said Candide, Abut you must get cured.@
ALord help me, how can I?@ said Pangloss. AMy dear friend, I have not a penny in the world; and
you cannot be bled or get an enema without money.@
This last speech had its effect on Candide; he flew to the charitable Anabaptist, Jacques; he flung
himself at his feet, and gave him so striking a picture of the miserable condition of his friend that the good
man without any further hesitation agreed to take Dr. Pangloss into his house, and to pay for his cure. The
cure was effected with only the loss of one eye and an ear. As Pangloss wrote a good hand and understood
accounts tolerably well, the Anabaptist made him his bookkeeper. At the expiration of two months, being
obliged by some mercantile affairs to go to Lisbon he took the two philosophers with him in the same ship;
Pangloss, during the course of the voyage, explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could
not be better. Jacques did not quite agree with him on this point.
AIn some things,@ he said, Amen must have deviated from their original innocence; for they were
not born wolves and yet they worry one another like beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty-four
pounders nor bayonets and yet they have made both to destroy one another. To this account I might add not
only bankruptcies but also the law, which seizes on the effects of bankrupts to cheat the creditors.@
AAll this was indispensably necessary,@ replied the one-eyed doctor, Afor private misfortunes make
for public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good.@
While he was arguing in this manner, the sky was overcast, the winds blew from the four quarters
of the compass, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest, within sight of the port of Lisbon.
Chapter 5 – A Tempest, a Shipwreck, an Earthquake, and What Else Befell Dr. Pangloss, Candide, and
Jacques, the Anabaptist
One half of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with the inconceivable anxiety and sickness
which the rolling of a vessel at sea occasions through the whole human frame, were lost to all sense of the
danger that surrounded them. The others made loud outcries or betook themselves to their prayers; the sails
were blown into shreds and the masts were brought by the board. The vessel was a total wreck. Everyone
was busily employed, but nobody could be either heard or obeyed. The Anabaptist, being upon deck, lent a
helping hand as well as the rest, when a frantic sailor knocked him down speechless; but, not withstanding,
with the violence of the blow the tar himself tumbled headfirst overboard and fell upon a piece of the
broken mast, which he immediately grasped.
Honest Jacques, forgetting the injury he had so lately received from him, flew to his assistance,
and, with great difficulty, hauled him in again, but, not withstanding, in the attempt, was, by a sudden jerk
of the ship, thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had risked his life to save and
who took not the least notice of him in this distress. Candide, who beheld all that passed and saw his
benefactor one moment rising above water and the next swallowed up by the merciless waves, was
preparing to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that
the roadstead of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned there. While he was
proving his argument a priori10, the ship foundered, and the whole crew perished, except Pangloss,
Candide, and the sailor who had been the means of drowning the good Anabaptist. The villain swam
ashore; but Pangloss and Candide reached the land upon a plank.
As soon as they had recovered from their surprise and fatigue they walked towards Lisbon; with
what little money they had left they thought to save themselves from starving after having escaped
drowning.
Scarcely had they ceased to lament the loss of their benefactor and set foot in the city when they
perceived that the earth trembled under their feet, and the sea, swelling and foaming in the harbor, began
dashing in pieces the vessels that were riding at anchor there. Large sheets of flames and cinders covered
the streets and public places; the houses tottered, and were tumbled topsy-turvy even to their foundations,
which were themselves destroyed, and thirty thousand inhabitants of both sexes, young and old, were
buried beneath the ruins.
The sailor, whistling and swearing, cried, AFBk it, there’s something to be got here.@
AWhat can be the sufficient reason of this phenomenon?@ said Pangloss.
AIt must be the Day of Judgment,@ said Candide.
The sailor, defying death in the pursuit of plunder, rushed into the midst of the ruin, where he
found some money, with which he got drunk, and, after he had slept himself sober he purchased the favors
of the first good-natured wench that came in his way, amidst the ruins of demolished houses and the groans
of half-buried and expiring persons.
Pangloss pulled him by the sleeve. AFriend,@ said he, Athis is not right, you trespass against the
universal reason, and have mistaken your time.@
ADeath and God=s wounds!@ answered the other, AI am a sailor and was born at Batavia, and have
trampled four times upon the crucifix in as many voyages to Japan; you have come to the wrong person
with your universal reason.@
In the meantime, Candide, who had been wounded by some pieces of stone that fell from the
houses, lay stretched in the street, almost covered with rubbish.
AFor God’s sake,@ said he to Pangloss, Aget me a little wine and oil! I am dying.@
10An a priori truth is a truth that is not established on the basis of experience but is
logically prior to experience, because it is the kind of truth that must be assumed (like rules of
logic) if we are to be coherent in speaking about anything at all. Truths arising from experience
are termed a posteriori truths.
AThis concussion of the earth is no new thing,@ said Pangloss, Athe city of Lima in South America
experienced the same last year; the same cause, the same effects; there is certainly a train of sulphur all the
way underground from Lima to Lisbon.@
ANothing is more probable,@ said Candide; Abut for the love of God a little oil and wine.@
AProbable!@ replied the philosopher, AI maintain that the thing is demonstrable.@
Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a neighboring spring. The next
day, in searching among the ruins, they found some food with which they repaired their exhausted strength.
After this they assisted the inhabitants in relieving the distressed and wounded. Some, whom they had
humanely assisted, gave them as good a dinner as could be expected under such terrible circumstances.
The repast, indeed, was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with their tears; but Pangloss
endeavored to comfort them under this affliction by affirming that things could not be otherwise that they
were.
AAll this,@ he said, Ais for the best end, for if there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere;
and it is impossible but things should be as they are, for everything is for the best.@
By the side of the tutor sat a little man dressed in black, who was one of the familiars11 of the
Inquisition. This person, provoking him with great politeness, said, APossibly, my good sir, you do not
believe in original sin; for, if everything is best, there could have been no such thing as the Fall or
punishment of man.@
Your Excellency will pardon me,@ answered Pangloss, still more politely; Afor the Fall of man and
the curse consequent thereupon necessarily entered into the system of the best of worlds.@
AThat is as much as to say, sir,@ rejoined the familiar, Ayou do not believe in free will.@
AYour Excellency will be so good as to excuse me,@ said Pangloss, Afree will is consistent with
absolute necessity; for it was necessary we should be free, for in that the willB@
Pangloss was in the midst of his proposition, when the familiar beckoned to his attendant to help
him to a glass of port wine.
Chapter 6 – How the Portuguese Made a Superb Auto-Da-Fé to Prevent Any Future Earthquakes, and How
Candide Underwent Public Flagellation
After the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths of the city of Lisbon, the sages of that
country could think of no means more effectual to preserve the kingdom from utter ruin than to entertain
the people with an auto-da-fé12, it having been decided by the University of Coimbra, that the burning of a
few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible preventive of earthquakes.
In consequence thereof they had seized on a Biscayan for marrying his godmother, and on two
Portuguese for taking out the bacon of a fried chicken they were eating13; after dinner they came and
secured Dr. Pangloss, and his pupil Candide, the one for speaking his mind, and the other for seeming to
approve what he had said. They were conducted to separate cool apartments, remote from the glare of the
sun. Eight days afterwards they were each dressed in a san-benito, and their heads were adorned with paper
miters. The miter and san-benito worn by Candide were painted with flames reversed and with devils that
had neither tails nor claws; but Dr. Pangloss’s devils had both tails and claws, and his flames were upright.
11Undercover agents engaged in ferreting out heretics; Pangloss is the victim of a
spiritual Asting@ operation.
12Literally an Aact of faith@, involving public confession, foregiveness, and often
immolation by fire.
13Removing the bacon raised the suspicion that they were Jews.
In these habits they marched in procession and heard a very pathetic sermon, which was followed by an
anthem accompanied by bagpipes. Candide was flogged to some tune while the anthem was being sung;
the Biscayan and the two men who would not eat bacon were burned, and Pangloss was hanged, which is
not a common custom at these solemnities. The same day there was another earthquake, which made most
dreadful havoc.
Candide, amazed, terrified, confounded, astonished, all bloody, and trembling from head to foot,
said to himself, AIf this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like? If I had only been
whipped, I could have put up with it, as I did among the Bulgarians; but, not withstanding, oh my dear
Pangloss! my beloved master! oh greatest of philosophers! was it necessary that I should live to see you
hanged, without knowing the reason? O my dear Anabaptist, best of men, was it necessary that you should
be drowned in the harbor? O Cunégonde, you mirror of young ladies! was it ncessary that you should have
your belly ripped open?@
He was making the best of his way from the place where he had been preached to, whipped,
absolved and blessed, when he was accosted by an old woman, who said to him, ATake courage, child, and
follow me.@
Chapter 7 – How the Old Woman Took Care Of Candide, and How He Found the Object of His Love
Candide followed the old woman, though without taking courage, to a decayed house, where she
gave him a pot of pomatum to anoint his sores, showed him a very neat bed with a suit of clothes hanging
by it; and set food and drink before him.
AThere,@ said she, Aeat, drink, and sleep, and may Our Lady of Atocha, and the great St. Anthony of
Padua, and the illustrious St. James of Compostella, take you under their protection. I shall be back
tomorrow.@
Candide, struck with amazement at what he had seen, at what he had suffered, and still more at the
charity of the old woman, would have shown his acknowledgment by kissing her hand.
AIt is not my hand you ought to kiss,@ said the old woman. AI shall be back tomorrow. Anoint your
back, eat, and take your rest.@
Candide, notwithstanding so many disasters, ate and slept. The next morning, the old woman
brought him his breakfast; examined his back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment. She returned at
the proper time, and brought him his dinner; and at night, she visited him again with his supper. The next
day she observed the same ceremonies.
AWho are you?@ said Candide to her. AWho has inspired you with so much goodness? What return
can I make you for this charitable assistance?@
The good old beldame kept a profound silence. In the evening she returned, but without his supper.
ACome along with me,@ said she, Abut do not speak a word.@
She took him by the arm, and walked with him about a quarter of a mile into the country, till they
came to a lonely house surrounded with moats and gardens. The old conductress knocked at a little door,
which was immediately opened, and she showed him up a pair of back stairs, into a small, but richly
furnished apartment. There she made him sit down on a brocaded sofa, shut the door upon him, and left
him. Candide thought himself in a trance; he looked upon his whole life, hitherto, as a frightful dream, and
the present moment as a very agreeable one.
The old woman soon returned, supporting, with great difficulty, a young lady, who appeared
scarce able to stand. She was of a majestic appearance and stature, her dress was rich, and glittering with
diamonds, and her face was covered with a veil.
ATake off that veil,@ said the old woman to Candide.
The young man approached, and, with a trembling hand, took off her veil. What a happy moment!
What surprise! He thought he beheld Cunégonde; he did behold herBit was she herself. His strength failed
him, he could not utter a word, he fell at her feet. Cunégonde fainted upon the sofa. The old woman
bedewed them with spirits; they recovered; they began to speak. At first they could express themselves
only in broken accents; their questions and answers were alternately interrupted with sighs, tears, and
exclamations. The old woman desired them to make less noise, and after this prudent admonition left them
together.
AGood heavens!@ cried Candide, Ais it you? Is it Cunégonde I behold, and alive? Do I find you
again in Portugal? then you have not been raped? they did not rip open your body, as the philosopher
Pangloss informed me?@
AIndeed but they did,@ replied Cunégonde; Abut these two accidents do not always prove mortal.@
ABut were your father and mother killed?@
AAlas!@ answered she, Ait is but too true!@ and she wept.
AAnd your brother?@
AAnd my brother also.@
AAnd how came you into Portugal? And how did you know of my being here? And by what
strange adventure did you contrive to have me brought into this house? And howB@
@I will tell you all,@ replied the lady, Abut first you must acquaint me with all that has befallen you
since the innocent kiss you gave me, and the rude kicking you received in consequence of it.@
Candide, with the greatest submission, prepared to obey the commands of his fair mistress; and
though he was still filled with amazement, though his voice was low and tremulous, though his back
pained him, yet he gave her a simple account of everything that had befallen him since the moment of their
separation. Cunégonde, with her eyes uplifted to heaven, shed tears when he related the death of the good
Anabaptist, Jacques, and of Pangloss; after which she related her adventures to Candide, who lost not one
syllable she uttered, and seemed to devour her with his eyes all the time she was speaking.
Chapter 8 – Cunégonde’s Story
I was in bed, and fast asleep, when it pleased Heaven to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle
of Thunder-ten-tronckh, where they murdered my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall
Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, attempted to rape me; the
operation brought me to my senses. I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn the tall
Bulgarian’s eyes out, not knowing that what was happening at my father’s castle was nothing out of the
ordinary. The brutal soldier, enraged at my resistance, gave me a wound in my left leg with his hanger, the
mark of which I still carry.@
AI would really like to see it,@ said Candide, with all imaginable simplicity.
AYou shall,@ said Cunégonde, Abut let me proceed.@
APray do,@ replied Candide.
She continued. AA Bulgarian captain came in, and saw me weltering in my blood, and the soldier
still as busy as if no one had been present. The officer, enraged that the fellow did not come to attention,
killed him with one stroke of his saber as he lay upon me. This captain took care of me, had me cured, and
carried me as a prisoner of war to his quarters. I washed what little linen he possessed, and cooked his
food: he was very fond of me, that was certain; neither can I deny that he was well made, and had a soft
white skin, but he was very stupid and knew nothing of philosophy: it might plainly be perceived that he
had not been educated under Dr. Pangloss. In three months, having gambled away all his money, and
having grown tired of me, he sold me to a Jew, named Don Issachar, who traded in Holland and Portugal,
and was passionately fond of women. This Jew showed me great kindness, in hopes of gaining my favors;
but he never could prevail on me to yield. A modest woman may have been raped; but her virtue is only
greatly strengthened by the experience. In order to make sure of me, he brought me to this country house
you now see. I had hitherto believed that nothing could equal the beauty of the castle of
Thunder-ten-tronckh; but I found I was mistaken.
AThe Grand Inquisitor saw me one day at Mass, ogled me all the time of service, and when it was
over, sent a messenger to let me know he wanted to speak with me about some private business. I was
conducted to his palace, where I told him all my story; he represented to me how much it was beneath a
person of my birth to belong to someone who was circumcised. He caused a proposal to be made to Don
Issachar, that he should resign me to His Lordship. Don Issachar, being the court banker and a man of
credit, was not easy to be prevailed upon. His Lordship threatened him with an auto-da-fé and my Jew was
frightened into a compromise; it was agreed between them, that the house and myself should belong to
both in common; that the Jew should have Monday, Wednesday, and the Sabbath to himself; and the
Inquisitor the other four days of the week. This agreement has subsisted almost six months; but not without
several debates about whether the space from Saturday night to Sunday morning belonged to the old or the
new law. For my part, I have hitherto withstood them both, and truly I believe this is the very reason why
they are both so fond of me.
AAt length to turn aside the scourge of earthquakes and to intimidate Don Issachar, My Lord
Inquisitor was pleased to celebrate an auto-da-fé. He did me the honor to invite me to the ceremony. I had
a very good seat; and refreshments of all kinds were offered the ladies between Mass and the execution. I
was dreadfully shocked at the burning of the two Jews, and the honest Biscayan who married his
godmother; but how great was my surprise, my consternation, and concern, when I beheld a figure so like
Pangloss, dressed in a san-benito and miter! I rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively. I saw him
hanged and I fainted away: scarce had I recovered my senses, when I saw you stripped of clothing; this
was the height of horror, grief, and despair. I must confess to you for a truth, that your skin is whiter and
more blooming than that of the Bulgarian captain. This spectacle worked me up to a pitch of distraction. I
screamed out and would have said, >Hold, barbarians!= but my voice failed me; and indeed my cries would
have signified nothing. After you had been severely whipped, I said to myself, >How is it possible that the
lovely Candide and the wise Pangloss should be at Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes, and the
other to be hanged by order of My Lord Inquisitor, of whom I am so great a favorite? Pangloss deceived
me most cruelly, in saying that everything is for the best.=
AThus agitated and perplexed, now distracted and lost, now half dead with grief, I turned over in
my mind the murder of my father, mother, and brother, committed before my eyes; the insolence of the
rascally Bulgarian soldier; the wound he gave me in the groin; my servitude; my being a cook-wench to
my Bulgarian captain; my subjection to Don Issachar, and my cruel Inquisitor; the hanging of Doctor
Pangloss; the miserere sung while you were being whipped; and particularly the kiss I gave you behind the
screen, the last day I ever beheld you. I returned thanks to God for having brought you to the place where I
was, after so many trials. I charged the old woman who attends me to bring you here as soon as was
convenient. She has punctually executed my orders, and I now enjoy the inexpressible satisfaction of
seeing you, hearing you, and speaking to you. But you must certainly be half-dead with hunger; I myself
have a great inclination to eat. Let us sit down to supper.@
Upon this the two lovers immediately placed themselves at table, and, after having supped, they
returned to seat themselves again on the magnificent sofa already mentioned, where they were in amorous
dalliance, when Senor Don Issachar, one of the masters of the house, entered unexpectedly; it was the
Sabbath day, and he came to enjoy his privilege and sigh forth his passion at the feet of the fair
Cunégonde.
Chapter 9 – What Happened to Cunégonde, Candide, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Jew
This same Issachar was the most choleric little Hebrew that had ever been in Israel since the
captivity of Babylon.
AWhat,@ said he, Ayou Galilean slut? The Inquisitor was not enough for you, but this rascal must
also come in for a share?@
In uttering these words, he drew out a long dagger, which he always carried about him, and never
dreaming that his adversary had any arms, he attacked him most furiously; but our honest Westphalian had
received from the old woman a handsome sword with the suit of clothes. Candide drew his rapier, and
though he was very gentle and sweet-tempered, he laid the Israelite dead on the floor at the fair
Cunégonde’s feet.
AHoly Virgin!@ cried she, Awhat will become of us? A man killed in my apartment! If the
peace-officers come, we are undone.@
AHad not Pangloss been hanged,@ replied Candide, Ahe would have given us most excellent advice,
in this emergency; for he was a profound philosopher. But, since he is not here, let us consult the old
woman.@
She was very sensible, and was beginning to give her advice, when another door opened on a
sudden. It was now one o’clock in the morning, and of course the beginning of Sunday, which, by
agreement, fell to My Lord Inquisitor. Entering he discovered the whipped Candide with his drawn sword
in his hand, a dead body stretched on the floor, Cunégonde frightened out of her wits, and the old woman
giving advice.
At that very moment, a sudden thought came into Candide’s head. AIf this holy man,@ thought he,
Ashould call assistance, I shall most undoubtedly be consigned to the flames, and Cunégonde may perhaps
meet with no better treatment: besides, he was the cause of my being so cruelly whipped; he is my rival;
and as I have now begun to dip my hands in blood, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate.@
This whole train of reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so that, without giving time to the
Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he ran him through the body, and laid him by the side of the Jew.
AYou=ve done it again!@ cried Cunégonde. ANow there can be no mercy for us, we are
excommunicated; our last hour is come. But how could you, who are of so mild a temper, despatch a Jew
and an Inquisitor in two minutes’ time?@
ABeautiful maiden,@ answered Candide, Awhen a man is in love, is jealous, and has been flogged by
the Inquisition, he is not himself.@
The old woman then put in her word:
AThere are three Andalusian horses in the stable, with as many bridles and saddles; let the brave
Candide get them ready. Madam has a parcel of moidores and jewels, let us mount immediately, though I
have lost one buttock; let us set out for Cadiz; it is the finest weather in the world, and there is great
pleasure in traveling in the cool of the night.@
Candide, without any further hesitation, saddled the three horses; and Cunégonde, the old woman,
and he, set out, and traveled thirty miles without once halting. While they were making the best of their
way, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house. My Lord, the Inquisitor, was interred in a magnificent
manner, and Master Issachar was thrown upon a dunghill.
Candide, Cunégonde, and the old woman, had by this time reached the little town of Avacena in
the midst of the mountains of Sierra Morena and were engaged in the following conversation in an inn,
where they had taken up their quarters.
Chapter 10 – In What Distress Candide, Cunégonde, and the Old Woman Arrive at Cadiz, and Of Their
Embarkation
AWho could it be that has robbed me of my gold and jewels?@ exclaimed Cunégonde, all bathed in
tears. AHow shall we live? What shall we do? Where shall I find Inquisitors and Jews who can give me
more?@
AAlas!@ said the old woman, AI have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend Franciscan father, who lay
last night in the same inn with us at Badajoz. God forbid I should condemn any one wrongfully, but he
came into our room twice, and he set off in the morning long before us.@
AAlas!@ said Candide, APangloss has often demonstrated to me that the goods of this world are
common to all men, and that everyone has an equal right to the enjoyment of them; but, not withstanding,
according to these principles, the Franciscan ought to have left us enough to carry us to the end of our
journey. Have you nothing at all left, my dear Cunégonde?@
ANot a maravedi,@ replied she.
AWhat is to be done then?@ said Candide.
ASell one of the horses,@ replied the old woman. AI will get up behind Miss Cunégonde, though I
have only one buttock to ride on, and we shall reach Cadiz.@
In the same inn there was a Benedictine friar, who bought the horse very cheap. Candide,
Cunégonde, and the old woman, after passing through Lucina, Chellas, and Letrixa, arrived at length at
Cadiz. A fleet was then getting ready, and troops were assembling in order to reason with the reverend
fathers, Jesuits of Paraguay, who were accused of having excited one of the Indian tribes in the
neighborhood of the town of the Holy Sacrament, to revolt against the Kings of Spain and Portugal14.
Candide, having been in the Bulgarian service, performed the military exercise of that nation
before the general of this little army with so intrepid an air, and with such agility and expedition, that he
received the command of an infantry company. Being now made a captain, he embarked with Cunégonde,
the old woman, two valets, and the two Andalusian horses, which had belonged to the Grand Inquisitor of
Portugal.
During their voyage they occupied themselves with many profound reasonings on poor Pangloss’s
philosophy.
AWe are now going into another world, and surely it must be there that everything is for the best;
for I must confess that we have had some reason to complain of what passes in ours, both in the physical
and the moral part. Though I have a sincere love for you,@ said Cunégonde, Ayet I still shudder at the
reflection of what I have seen and experienced.@
AAll will be well,@ replied Candide, Athe sea of this new world is already better than our European
seas: it is smoother, and the winds blow more regularly.@
AGod grant it,@ said Cunégonde, Abut I have met with such terrible treatment in this world that I
have almost lost all hopes of a better one.@
AWhat murmuring and complaining is here indeed!@ cried the old woman. AIf you had suffered half
what I have, there might be some reason for it.@
Cunégonde could scarce refrain from laughing at the good old woman, and thought it droll enough
to pretend to a greater share of misfortunes than her own.
AAlas! my dear madam,@ said she, Aunless you had been raped by two Bulgarians, received two
deep wounds in your belly, seen two of your own castles demolished, lost two fathers and two mothers,
seen both of them barbarously murdered before your eyes, and had two lovers whipped at an auto-da-fé, I
cannot see how you could be more unfortunate than I. Add to this, though born a baroness and bearing
seventy-two quarterings, I have been reduced to the station of a scullery-maid.@
AMiss,@ replied the old woman, Ayou do not know my family as yet; but if I were to show you my
behind, you would not talk in this manner but suspend your judgment.@ This speech raised a high curiosity
in Candide and Cunégonde; and the old woman continued as follows.
Chapter 11 – The History of the Old Woman
I have not always been blear-eyed. My nose did not always touch my chin; nor was I always a
servant. You must know that I am the daughter of Pope Urban X and of the Princess of Palestrina. Until the
age of fourteen I was brought up in a castle, compared with which all the castles of the German barons
would not have been fit for stabling, and one of my robes would have bought half the province of
Westphalia. I grew up, and improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful accomplishment; and in the midst
of pleasures, homage, and the highest expectations. I already began to inspire men with love. My breasts
began to take form, and what breasts! white, firm, and shaped like the boobs of the Venus de Medici; my
eyebrows were as black as jet, and as for my eyes, they darted flames and eclipsed the luster of the stars, as
I was told by the poets of our part of the world. My maids, when they dressed and undressed me, used to
fall into an ecstasy in viewing me before and behind; and all the men longed to be in their places.
AI was contracted in marriage to a sovereign prince of Massa Carrara. Such a prince! as handsome
as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, witty, and head over heels in love with me. I loved him, too, as our
14Voltaire has shifted dates and locations about but the resistance of the Jesuits, like the
two Lisbon earthquakes, were matters of recent history.
sex generally love for the first time, with rapture, transport, and idolatry. The nuptials were prepared with
pomp and magnificence; the ceremony was attended with feasts, carousals, and burlesques: all Italy
composed sonnets in my praise, though not one of them was tolerable. I was on the point of reaching the
summit of bliss, when an old marquise, who had been mistress to the Prince, my husband, invited him to
drink chocolate. In less than two hours after he returned from the visit, he died of most terrible
convulsions. But this is a mere trifle. My mother, distracted to the highest degree, and yet less afflicted
than I, determined to absent herself for some time from so fatal a place. As she had a very fine estate in the
neighborhood of Gaeta, we embarked on board a galley, which was gilded like the high altar of St. Peter’s,
at Rome. In our passage we were boarded by a Moroccan rover. Our men defended themselves like true
soldiers of the Pope; they flung themselves upon their knees, laid down their arms, and begged the corsair
to give them absolution at the point of death. The Moors soon stripped us as bare as we were born. My
mother, my maids of honor, and myself, were served all in the same manner. It is amazing how quick these
gentry are at undressing people. But what surprised me most was, that they made a rude sort of surgical
examination of parts of the body which are sacred to the functions of nature. I thought it a very strange
kind of ceremony; for thus we are generally apt to judge of things when we have not seen the world. I
afterwards learned that it was to discover if we had any diamonds concealed. This practice had been
established since time immemorial among those civilized nations that scour the seas. I was informed that
the religious Knights of Malta never fail to make this search whenever any Moors of either sex fall into
their hands. It is a part of the law of nations, from which they never deviate.
AI need not tell you how great a hardship it was for a young princess and her mother to be made
slaves and carried to Morocco. You may easily imagine what we must have suffered on board a corsair.
My mother was still extremely handsome, our maids of honor, and even our common waiting-women, had
more charms than were to be found in all Africa. As to myself, I was enchanting; I was beauty itself, and
then I had my virginity. But, alas! I did not retain it long; this precious flower, which was to have been
reserved for the beautiful Prince of Massa Carrara, was cropped by the captain of the Moorish vessel, a
hideous black man who thought he was doing me a great favor. Indeed, both the Princess of Palestrina and
myself must have had very strong constitutions to undergo all the hardships and violences we suffered
before our arrival at Morocco. But I will not detain you any longer with such common things; they are
hardly worth mentioning.
AUpon our arrival at Morocco we found that kingdom deluged with blood. Fifty sons of the
Emperor Muley Ishmael were each at the head of a party. This produced fifty civil wars of blacks against
blacks, of browns against browns, of mulattoes against mulattoes and of all the permutations in between. In
short, the whole empire was one continued scene of carnage. No sooner were we landed than a party of
blacks, of a faction opposed to that of my captain, came to rob him of his booty. Next to the money and
jewels, we were the most valuable things he had. I witnessed on this occasion such a battle as you never
beheld in your cold European climates. The northern nations have not that fermentation in their blood nor
that raging lust for women that is so common in Africa. The natives of Europe seem to have their veins
filled with milk only; but fire and vitriol circulate in those of the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the
neighboring provinces. They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of their country to
decide who should have us. A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my captain’s lieutenant held
her by the left; another Moor laid hold of her by the right leg, and one of our corsairs held her by the other.
In this manner almost all of our women were dragged by four soldiers.
AMy captain kept me behind him and with his drawn scimitar cut down everyone who opposed
him; at length I saw all our Italian women and my mother mangled and torn in pieces by the monsters who
contended for them. The captives, my companions, the Moors who took us, the soldiers, the sailors, the
blacks, the whites, the mulattoes, and lastly, my captain himself, were all slain, and I remained alone
expiring upon a heap of dead bodies. Similar barbarous scenes were transacted every day over the whole
country, which is of three hundred leagues in extent, and yet they never missed the five stated times of
prayer enjoined by their prophet Mahomet. I disengaged myself with great difficulty from the heap of
corpses and managed to crawl to a large orange tree that stood on the bank of a neighboring rivulet, where
I fell down exhausted with fatigue and overwhelmed with horror, despair, and hunger. My senses being
overpowered, I fell asleep, or rather in a trance. Thus I lay in a state of weakness and insensibility between
life and death, when I felt myself pressed by something that moved up and down upon my body.
Chapter 12 – The Adventures of the Old Woman Continued
This brought me to myself. I opened my eyes, and saw a pretty fair-faced man, who sighed and
muttered these words between his teeth, O che sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!15@ Astonished and
delighted to hear my native language, and no less surprised at the young man’s words, I told him that there
were far greater misfortunes in the world than what he complained of. And to convince him of it, I gave
him a short history of the horrible disasters that had befallen me; and as soon as I had finished, fell into a
swoon again. He carried me in his arms to a neighboring cottage, where he had me put to bed, procured me
something to eat, waited on me with the greatest attention, comforted me, caressed me, told me that he had
never seen anything so perfectly beautiful as myself, and that he had never so much regretted the loss of
what no one could restore to him. >I was born at Naples,= said he, >where they make eunuchs of thousands
of children every year; some die of the operation; some acquire voices far beyond the most tuneful of your
ladies; and others are sent to govern states and empires. I underwent this operation very successfully, and
was one of the singers in the Princess of Palestrina’s chapel.= >But,= cried I, >that is my mother’s chapel!=

The Princess of Palestrina, your mother!= cried he, bursting into a flood of tears. >Is it possible you should
be the beautiful young princess whom I had the care of bringing up till she was six years old, and who at
that tender age promised to be as fair as I now behold you?= >I am the same,= I replied. >My mother lies
about a hundred yards from here cut in pieces and buried under a heap of dead bodies.=
AI then related to him all that had befallen me, and he in return acquainted me with all his
adventures, and how he had been sent to the court of the King of Morocco by a Christian prince to
conclude a treaty with that monarch; in consequence of which he was to be furnished with military stores,
and ships to destroy the commerce of other Christian governments. >I have completed my mission,= said
the eunuch; ‘I am going to take ship at Ceuta, and I’ll take you along with me to Italy. Ma che sciagura
d’essere senza coglioni!= I thanked him with tears of joy, but, not withstanding, instead of taking me with
him to Italy, he carried me to Algiers, and sold me to the Dey of that province. I had not been long a slave
when the plague, which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out at Algiers with redoubled
fury. You have seen an earthquake; but tell me, miss, have you ever had the plague?@
ANever,@ answered the young Baroness.
AIf you had ever had it,@ continued the old woman, Ayou would own an earthquake was a trifle to it.
It is very common in Africa; I was seized with it. Imagine the distressed condition of the daughter of a
Pope, only fifteen years old, who in less than three months had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery; had
been debauched almost every day; had beheld her mother cut into four quarters; had experienced the
scourges of famine and war; and was now dying of the plague at Algiers. I did not, however, die of it; but
my eunuch, and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers, were swept off.
AAs soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey’s slaves.
I was purchased by a merchant who carried me to Tunis. This man sold me to another merchant, who sold
me again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, and
from Smyrna to Constantinople. After many changes, I at length became the property of an Aga of the
Janissaries, who, soon after I came into his possession, was ordered away to the defense of Azov, then
besieged by the Russians. The Aga, being very fond of women, took his whole seraglio with him, and
lodged us in a small fort, with two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers for our guard. Our army made a great
slaughter among the Russians; but they soon returned us the compliment. Azov was taken by storm, and
the enemy spared neither age, sex, nor condition, but put all to the sword, and laid the city in ashes. Our
little fort alone held out; they resolved to reduce us by famine. The twenty janissaries, who were left to
15What a misfortune to lose one=s testicles!
defend it, had bound themselves by an oath never to surrender the place. Being reduced to the extremity of
famine, they found themselves obliged to kill our two eunuchs, and eat them rather than violate their oath.
But this horrible repast soon failing them, they next determined to devour the women.
AWe had a very pious and humane man, who gave them a most excellent sermon on this occasion,
exhorting them not to kill us all at once. >Cut off only one of the buttocks of each of those ladies,= said he,
and you will fare extremely well; if you are under the necessity of having recourse to the same expedient
again, you will find the like supply a few days hence. Heaven will approve of so charitable an action, and
work your deliverance.= By the force of this eloquence he easily persuaded them, and all of us underwent
the operation. The man applied the same balsam as they do to children after circumcision. We were all
ready to give up the ghost. The Janissaries had scarcely time to finish the repast with which we had
supplied them, when the Russians attacked the place by means of flat-bottomed boats and not a single
Janissary was spared. The Russians paid no regard to the condition we were in; but there are French
surgeons in all parts of the world, and one of them took us under his care, and cured us. I shall never
forget, while I live, that as soon as my wounds were perfectly healed he propositioned me. In general, he
desired us all to be of a good cheer, assuring us that the like had happened in many sieges and that it was
commonplace in the conduct of war.
AAs soon as my companions were in a condition to walk, they were sent to Moscow. As for me, I
fell to the lot of a Boyar, who put me to work in his garden and gave me twenty lashes a day. But this
nobleman having about two years afterwards been broken alive upon the wheel with about thirty others, for
some court intrigues, I took advantage of the event, and made my escape. I traveled over a great part of
Russia. I was a long time an innkeeper’s servant at Riga, then at Rostock, Wismar, Leipzig, Cassel,
Utrecht, Leyden, The Hague, and Rotterdam. I have grown old in misery and disgrace, living with only one
buttock while remembering that I am the daughter of a Pope. I have been a hundred times upon the point of
killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous
principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of
which we wish to be eased? to detest and yet strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the
serpent that devours us and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?
AIn the different countries which it has been my fate to traverse, and at the many inns where I have
been a servant, I have observed a prodigious number of people who held their existence in abhorrence, and
yet I never knew more than twelve who voluntarily put an end to their miseryBthree blacks, four
Englishmen, four citizens of Geneva, and a German professor named Robeck16. My last place was with the
Jew, Don Issachar, who put me in your service, my fair lady; to your fortunes I have attached myself and
have been more concerned with your adventures than with my own. I should never have so much as
mentioned the latter to you had you not a little piqued me on the head of sufferings and if it were not
customary to tell stories on board a ship in order to pass away the time.
AIn short, my dear miss, I have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the world, therefore
take my advice: divert yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of
them all that has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was
the most wretched of mortals, I give you permission to throw me headfirst into the sea.@
Chapter 13 – How Candide Was Obliged to Leave the Fair Cunégonde and the Old Woman
The fair Cunégonde, being thus made acquainted with the history of the old woman’s life and
adventures, paid her all the respect and civility due to a person of her rank and merit. She very readily
acceded to her proposal of engaging the passengers to relate their adventures in their turns, and she and
Candide were compelled to acknowledge that the old woman was in the right.
16Johann Robeck, author of a treatise advocating suicide, who acted on his principles in
1739.
AIt is a thousand pities,@ said Candide, Athat the wise Pangloss should have been hanged contrary to
the custom of an auto-da-fé, for he would have given us a most admirable lecture on the moral and
physical evil which overspreads the earth and sea; and I think I would have had courage enough to
presume to offer (with all due respect) some few objections.@
While everyone was reciting his adventures, the ship continued on her way, and at length arrived at
Buenos Aires, where Cunégonde, Captain Candide, and the old woman landed and went to wait upon the
governor, Don Fernando d=Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza. This nobleman carried
himself with a haughtiness suitable to a person who bore so many names. He spoke with the most noble
disdain to everyone, carried his nose so high, strained his voice to such a pitch, assumed so imperious an
air, and stalked about with so much loftiness and pride, that everyone who had the honor of conversing
with him was violently tempted to kick him. He was immoderately fond of women, and Cunégonde
appeared in his eyes a paragon of beauty. The first thing he did was to ask her if she was not the Captain’s
wife. The air with which he made this demand alarmed Candide, who did not dare to say he was married to
her, because indeed he was not; neither did he venture to say she was his sister, because she was not; and
though a lie of this nature proved of great service to one of the ancients, and might possibly be useful to
some of the moderns, yet the purity of his heart would not permit him to violate the truth.
AMiss Cunégonde,@ replied he, Ais to do me the honor to marry me, and we humbly beseech Your
Excellency to condescend to grace the ceremony with your presence.@
Don Fernando d=Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, twirling his mustache
and putting on a sarcastic smile, ordered Captain Candide to go and review his company. The gentle
Candide obeyed, and the Governor was left with Cunégonde. He made her a strong declaration of love,
protesting that he was ready to give her his hand in the face of the Church, or otherwise, as should appear
most agreeable to a young lady of her prodigious beauty. Cunégonde desired leave to retire a quarter of an
hour to consult the old woman, and determine how she should proceed.
The old woman gave her the following counsel:
AMiss, you have seventy-two quarterings in your arms, it is true, but you have not a penny to bless
yourself with. It is your own fault if you do not become the wife of one of the greatest noblemen in South
America, the owner of an exceeding fine mustache. What business have you to pride yourself upon an
unshaken constancy? You have been outraged by a Bulgarian soldier; a Jew and an Inquisitor have both
tasted of your favors. People take advantage of misfortunes. I must confess, were I in your place, I should
give my hand to the Governor without the least scruple and thereby make the fortune of the brave Captain
Candide.@
While the old woman was thus haranguing, with all the prudence that old age and experience
furnish, a small ship entered the harbor, in which was a royal official and some police officers. Matters had
fallen out as follows.
The old woman rightly guessed that the Franciscan with the long sleeves was the person who had
taken Cunégonde’s money and jewels while they and Candide were at Badajoz in their flight from Lisbon.
This same friar attempted to sell some of the diamonds to a jeweler, who recognized that they belonged to
the Grand Inquisitor, and confiscated them. The Franciscan, before he was hanged, acknowledged that he
had stolen them and described his victims and the road they had taken. The flight of Cunégonde and
Candide was already the talk of the town. A party was sent in pursuit of them to Cadiz; and the vessel had
now reached the port of Buenos Aires. A report was spread that an official was going to land, and that he
was seeking the murderers of My Lord, the Inquisitor. The wise old woman immediately saw what was to
be done.
AYou cannot run away,@ said she to Cunégonde, Abut you have nothing to fear; it was not you who
killed My Lord Inquisitor: besides, as the Governor is in love with you, he will not suffer you to be
ill-treated; therefore stand your ground.@
Then hurrying away to Candide, she said, ABe gone hence this instant, or you will be burned alive.@
Candide found there was no time to be lost; but how could he part from Cunégonde, and whither
must he fly for shelter?
14 – The Reception Candide and Cacambo Met with among the Jesuits in Paraguay
Candide had brought with him from Cadiz such a valet as one often meets with on the coasts of
Spain and in the colonies. He was the fourth part of a Spaniard, of a mongrel breed, and born in Tucuman.
He had successively gone through the profession of a singing boy, sexton, sailor, monk, peddler, soldier,
and servant. His name was Cacambo; he had a great affection for his master, because his master was a very
good man. He immediately saddled the two Andalusian horses.
ACome, my good master, let us follow the old woman’s advice, and make all the haste we can from
this place without staying to look behind us.@
Candide burst into a flood of tears, AO my dear Cunégonde, must I then be compelled to quit you
just as the Governor was going to honor us with his presence at our wedding! Cunégonde, so long lost and
only just found again, what will now become of you?@
ALord!@ said Cacambo, ‘she must do as well as she can; women are never at a loss. God takes care
of them, and so let us make the best of our way.@
ABut where will you carry me? where can we go? what can we do without Cunégonde?@ cried the
disconsolate Candide.
ABy St. James of Compostella,@ said Cacambo, Ayou were going to fight against the Jesuits of
Paraguay; now let us go and fight for them; I know the road perfectly well; I’ll conduct you to their
kingdom; they will be delighted with a captain that understands the Bulgarian drill; you will certainly make
a prodigious fortune. If we cannot succeed in this world we may in another. It is a great pleasure to see new
objects and perform new exploits.@
AThen you have been in Paraguay?@ asked Candide.
AAy, truly, I have,@ replied Cacambo. AI was a scout in the College of the Assumption, and am as
well acquainted with the new government of the Los Padres as I am with the streets of Cadiz. Oh, it is an
admirable government, that is most certain! The kingdom is at present upwards of three hundred leagues in
diameter, and divided into thirty provinces; the fathers there are masters of everything, and the people have
no money at all; this you must allow is the masterpiece of justice and reason. For my part, I see nothing so
divine as the good fathers, who wage war in this part of the world against the troops of Spain and Portugal
while hearing the confessions of those very princes in Europe; they kill Spaniards in America and send
them to Heaven at Madrid. This pleases me exceedingly, but let us push forward; you are going to see the
happiest and most fortunate of all mortals. How charmed will those fathers be to hear that a captain who
understands the Bulgarian military drill is coming to them.@
As soon as they reached the first barrier, Cacambo called to the advance guard, and told them that
a captain wanted to speak to My Lord, the General. Notice was given to the main guard, and immediately a
Paraguayan officer ran to throw himself at the feet of the Commandant to impart this news to him. Candide
and Cacambo were immediately disarmed and their two Andalusian horses were seized. The two strangers
were conducted between two files of musketeers; the Commandant was at the further end with a
three-cornered cap on his head, his gown tucked up, a sword by his side, and a half-pike in his hand; he
made a sign, and instantly four and twenty soldiers drew up round the newcomers. A sergeant told them
that they must wait, the Commandant could not speak to them; and that the Reverend Father Provincial did
not suffer any Spaniard to open his mouth but in his presence, or to stay above three hours in the province.
AAnd where is the Reverend Father Provincial?@ said Cacambo.
AHe has just come from Mass and is at the parade,@ replied the sergeant, Aand in about three hours
time you may possibly have the honor to kiss his spurs.@
ABut,@ said Cacambo, Amy Captain here, who, as well as myself, is perishing of hunger, is no
Spaniard, but a German; therefore, pray, might we not be permitted to break our fast while waiting to be
introduced to His Reverence?@
The sergeant immediately went and acquainted the Commandant with what he heard.
AGod be praised,@ said the Reverend Commandant, Asince he is a German I will hear what he has to
say; let him be brought to my arbor.@
Immediately they conducted Candide to a beautiful pavilion adorned with a colonnade of green
marble, spotted with yellow, and with an intertexture of vines, which served as a kind of cage for parrots,
humming birds, guinea hens, and all other curious kinds of birds. An excellent breakfast was provided in
vessels of gold; and while the Paraguayans were eating coarse Indian corn out of wooden dishes in the
open air, and exposed to the burning heat of the sun, the Reverend Father Commandant retired to his cool
arbor.
He was a very handsome young man, round-faced, fair, and fresh-colored, his eyebrows were
finely arched, he had a piercing eye, the tips of his ears were red, his lips vermilion, and he had a bold and
commanding air; but such a boldness as neither resembled that of a Spaniard nor of a Jesuit. He ordered
Candide and Cacambo to have their arms restored to them, together with their two Andalusian horses.
Cacambo gave the poor beasts some oats to eat close by the arbor, keeping a strict eye upon them all the
while for fear of surprise.
Candide kissed the hem of the Commandant’s robe, and they sat down to table.
AIt seems you are a German,@ said the Jesuit to him in that language.
AYes, Reverend Father,@ answered Candide.
As they pronounced these words they looked at each other with great amazement and with an
emotion that neither could conceal.
AFrom what part of Germany do you come?@ said the Jesuit.
AFrom the dirty province of Westphalia,@ answered Candide. AI was born in the castle of
Thunder-ten-tronckh.@
AOh heavens! is it possible?@ said the Commandant.
AWhat a miracle!@ cried Candide.
ACan it be you?@ said the Commandant.
On this they both drew a few steps backwards, then running into each other’s arms, embraced, and
wept profusely.
AIs it you then, Reverend Father? You are the brother of the fair Cunégonde? You that was slain by
the Bulgarians! You the Baron’s son! You a Jesuit in Paraguay! I must confess this is a strange world we
live in. O Pangloss! what joy would this have given you if you had not been hanged.@
The Commandant dismissed his slaves, and the Paraguayans who presented them with liquor in
crystal goblets. He returned thanks to God and St. Ignatius a thousand times; he clasped Candide in his
arms, and both their faces were bathed in tears.
AYou will be more surprised, more affected, more transported,@ said Candide, Awhen I tell you that
Cunégonde, your sister, whose belly was supposed to have been ripped open, is in perfect health. She is
not far from here, with the Governor of Buenos Aires; and I myself was going to fight against you.@
Every word they uttered during this long conversation was productive of some new matter of
astonishment. Their souls fluttered on their tongues, listened in their ears, and sparkled in their eyes. Like
true Germans, they continued a long while at table, waiting for the Reverend Father; and the Commandant
spoke to his dear Candide as follows.
15 – How Candide Killed the Brother of His Dear Cunégonde
ANever while I live shall I lose the remembrance of that horrible day on which I saw my father and
mother barbarously butchered before my eyes, and my sister raped. When the Bulgarians retired we
searched in vain for my dear sister. She was nowhere to be found; but the bodies of my father, mother, and
myself, with two servant maids and three little boys, all of whom had been murdered by the remorseless
enemy, were thrown into a cart to be buried in a Jesuit chapel two leagues from our family seat. A Jesuit
sprinkled us with some holy water, which was confounded salty and a few drops of it went into my eyes;
the father perceived that my eyelids stirred a little; he put his hand upon my breast and felt my heartbeat;
upon which he gave me proper assistance, and at the end of three weeks I was perfectly recovered. You
know, my dear Candide, I was very handsome; I became still more so, and the Reverend Father Croust,
superior of that house, took a great fancy to me; he gave me the habit of the order, and some years
afterwards I was sent to Rome. Our General stood in need of new recruits of young German Jesuits. The
sovereigns of Paraguay admit as few Spanish Jesuits as possible; they prefer those of other nations, as
being more obedient to command. The Reverend Father General looked upon me as a proper person to
work in that vineyard. I set out in company with a Pole and a Tyrolese. Upon my arrival I was honored
with a subdeaconship and a lieutenancy. Now I am colonel and priest. We shall give a warm reception to
the King of Spain’s troops; I can assure you they will be well excommunicated and beaten. Providence has
sent you hither to assist us. But is it true that my dear sister Cunégonde is with the Governor of Buenos
Aires?@
Candide swore that nothing could be more true; and the tears began again to trickle down their
cheeks. The Baron knew no end of embracing Candide, be called him his brother, his deliverer.
APerhaps,@ said he, Amy dear Candide, we shall be fortunate enough to enter the town, sword in
hand, and recover my sister Cunégonde.@
AAh! that would crown my wishes,@ replied Candide; Afor I intended to marry her; and I hope I
shall still be able to effect it.@
AYou insolent dog!@ cried the Baron. AYou have the impudence to marry my sister, who bears
seventy-two quarterings! Really, I think you are insufferably arrogant to dare so much as to mention such
an idea to me.@
Candide, terrified by this speech, answered:
AReverend Father, all the quarterings in the world are of no significance. I have delivered your
sister from a Jew and an Inquisitor; she is under many obligations to me, and she is resolved to give me her
hand. My master, Pangloss, always told me that mankind are by nature equal. Therefore, you may depend
upon it that I will marry your sister.@
AWe shall see to that, villain!@ said the Jesuit, Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, and struck him across
the face with the flat side of his sword. Candide in an instant drew his rapier and plunged it up to the hilt in
the Jesuit’s body; but in pulling it out reeking hot, he burst into tears.
AGood God!@ cried he, AI have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law. I am the best
man in the world, and yet I have already killed three men, and of these three, two were priests.@
Cacambo, who was standing sentry near the door of the arbor, instantly ran up.
ANothing remains,@ said his master, Abut to sell our lives as dearly as possible; they will look into
the arbor sooner or later; we must die sword in hand.@
Cacambo, who had seen many adventures, was not discouraged. He stripped the Baron of his
Jesuit’s habit and put it upon Candide, then gave him the dead man’s three-cornered cap and made him
mount on horseback. All this was done as quick as thought.
AGallop, master,@ cried Cacambo; Aeverybody will take you for a Jesuit going to give orders; and
we shall have passed the frontiers before they will be able to overtake us.@
He flew as he spoke these words, crying out aloud in Spanish, AMake way; make way for the
Reverend Father Colonel.@
Chapter 16 – What Happened to Our Two Travelers with Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages
Called Oreillons
Candide and his valet had already passed the frontier before it was known that the German Jesuit
was dead. The wary Cacambo had taken care to fill his knapsack with bread, chocolate, some ham, some
fruit, and a few bottles of wine. They penetrated with their Andalusian horses into a strange country, where
they could discover no beaten path. At length a beautiful meadow, intersected by purling streams, opened
to their view. Cacambo proposed to his master to take some nourishment, and set him an example.
AHow can you desire me to feast upon ham, when I have killed the Baron’s son and am doomed
never more to see the beautiful Cunégonde? What will it avail me to prolong a wretched life that must be
spent far from her in remorse and despair? And then what will the Journal of Trevoux17 say?@ was
Candide’s reply.
While he was making these reflections he found himself eating. The sun was now on the point of
setting when the ears of our two wanderers were assailed with cries which seemed to be uttered by a
female voice. They could not tell whether these were cries of grief or of joy; however, they instantly
started up, full of the fears that a strange place inspires. The cries, it turned out, proceeded from two young
women who were tripping naked along the meadow, while two monkeys followed close at their heels
biting at their behinds. Candide was moved by compassion; he had learned to shoot while he was among
the Bulgarians, and he could hit a filbert-nut in a hedge without touching a leaf. Accordingly he took up his
double-barreled Spanish gun, pulled the trigger, and laid the monkeys lifeless on the ground.
AGod be praised, my dear Cacambo, I have rescued two poor girls from a most perilous situation; if
I have committed a sin in killing an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives
of these two distressed damsels. Who knows but they may be young ladies of a good family and that the
assistance I have been so happy to give them may procure us great advantage in this country?@
He was about to continue when he felt himself struck speechless at seeing the two girls embracing
the dead bodies of the monkeys in grief, bathing their wounds with their tears, and rending the air with the
most doleful lamentations.
AReally,@ said he to Cacambo, AI should not have expected to see such a prodigious display of
forgiveness.@
AMaster,@ replied the knowing valet, Ayou have made a precious piece of work of it; do you know
that you have killed the lovers of these two ladies?@
ATheir lovers! Cacambo, you are jesting! It cannot be! I can never believe it.@
ADear sir,@ replied Cacambo, Ayou are surprised at everything. Why should you think it so strange
that there should be a country where monkeys earn themselves the good graces of ladies? They are onefourth
man as I am quarter-part Spaniard.@
AAlas!@ replied Candide, AI remember to have heard my master Pangloss say that such
misadventures as these frequently came to pass in former times, and that such comminglings produced
centaurs, fauns, and satyrs; and that many of the ancients had seen such monsters; but I looked upon all
that as mythology.@
ANow you ee,@ said Cacambo, Athat it is very true, and you see what use is made of those creatures
by persons who have not been properly educated; all I am afraid of is that these same ladies may make
things difficult for us.@
These judicious reflections operated so far on Candide as to make him quit the meadow and strike
into a thicket. There he and Cacambo supped, and after heartily cursing the Grand Inquisitor, the Governor
of Buenos Aires, and the Baron, they fell asleep on the ground. When they awoke they were surprised to
find that they could not move; the reason was that the Oreillons, the inhabitants of that country, to whom
the ladies had complained, had bound them with cords made of tree-bark. They saw themselves surrounded
by fifty Oreillons, all naked and armed with bows and arrows, clubs, and hatchets of flint; some were
making a fire under a large cauldron; and others were preparing spits, crying out one and all, AA Jesuit! a
Jesuit! we shall be revenged and also have an excellent meal; let us eat Jesuit; let us dine on Jesuit.@
AI told you, master,@ cried Cacambo, mournfully, Athat those two wenches would play us some
scurvy trick.@
Candide, seeing the cauldron and the spits, cried out, AI suppose they are going either to boil or
roast us. Ah! what would Pangloss say if he were to see what a completely natural man is really like?
Everything is for the best; it may be so; but I must confess it is something hard to be bereft of dear
Cunégonde, and to be spitted like a rabbit by these barbarous Oreillons.@
17A journal of the Jesuit order, hostile to Voltaire=s enlightenment philosophy.
Cacambo, who never lost his presence of mind in distress, said to the disconsolate Candide, ADo
not despair; I understand a little of the jargon of these people; I will speak to them.@
AAy, pray do,@ said Candide, Aand be sure you make them sensible of the horrid barbarity of
boiling and roasting human creatures and how little Christianity there is in such practices.@
AGentlemen,@ said Cacambo, Ayou think perhaps you are going to feast upon a Jesuit; if so, it is
mighty well; nothing can be more agreeable to justice or the palate than thus to treat your enemies. Indeed
the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor as well as our enemies, a practice obsereved all over the
world; and if we do not indulge ourselves in eating human flesh, as you do, it is because we have much
better fare; but for your parts, who have not such resources as we, it is certainly much better judged to feast
upon your enemies than to throw their bodies to the fowls of the air; and thus lose all the fruits of your
victory.
ABut surely, gentlemen, you would not choose to eat your friends. You imagine you are going to
roast a Jesuit, whereas my master is your friend, your defender, and you are going to spit the very man who
has been destroying your enemies; as to myself, I am your countryman; this gentleman is my master, and
so far from being a Jesuit, give me leave to tell you he has very lately killed one of that order, whose
garments he now wears and which have probably occasioned your mistake. To convince you of the truth of
what I say, take the habit he has on and carry it to the frontier of the Jesuits’ kingdom and inquire whether
my master did not kill one of their officers. There will be little or no time lost by this, and you may still
reserve our bodies in your power to feast on if you should find what we have told you to be false. But, on
the contrary, if you find it to be true, I am persuaded you are too well acquainted with the principles of the
laws of society, humanity, and justice, not to use us courteously, and suffer us to depart unhurt.@
This speech appeared very reasonable to the Oreillons; they deputed two of their people with all
expedition to inquire into the truth of this affair, who acquitted themselves of their commission like men of
sense and soon returned with good tidings for our distressed adventurers. Upon this they were set free, and
those who were so lately going to roast and boil them now showed them all sorts of civilities, offered them
girls, gave them refreshments, and reconducted them to the confines of their country, crying before them
all the way, in token of joy, AHe is no Jesuit! he is no Jesuit!@
Candide could not help admiring the cause of his deliverance. AWhat barbarous men! what
barbarous manners!@ cried he. AIf I had not fortunately run my sword up to the hilt in the body of
Cunégonde’s brother, I should have certainly been eaten alive. But it seems that after all, natural man is an
excellent thing; since these people, instead of eating me, showed me a thousand civilities as soon as they
knew I was not a Jesuit.@
Chapter 17 – Candide and His Valet Arrive in the Country of El Dorado-What They Saw There
When they reached the frontier of Oreillon-country, Cacambo said to Candide, AYou see, this
hemisphere is not better than the other; now take my advice and let us return to Europe by the shortest way
possible.@
ABut how can we get back?@ said Candide; Aand where shall we go to? My own country? The
Bulgarians and the Abares are laying that waste with fire and sword. Or shall we go to Portugal? There I
shall be burned; and if we abide here we are every moment in danger of being cooked. But how can I bring
myself to quit that part of the world where my dear Cunégonde lives?@
ALet us turn towards Cayenne,@ said Cacambo. AThere we shall meet with some Frenchmen, for
you know those gentry ramble all over the world. Perhaps they will assist us, and God will look with pity
on our distress.@
It was not so easy to get to Cayenne. They knew pretty nearly whereabouts it lay; but the
mountains, rivers, precipices, robbers, savages, were dreadful obstacles in the way. Their horses died with
fatigue and their provisions were at an end. They subsisted a whole month on wild fruit, till at length they
came to a little river bordered with cocoa trees; the sight of which at once revived their drooping spirits and
furnished nourishment for their enfeebled bodies.
Cacambo, who was always giving as advice as good as the old woman herself, said to Candide,
AYou see there is no holding out any longer; we have traveled enough on foot. I spy an empty canoe near
the river side; let us fill it with cocoanuts, get into it, and go down with the stream; a river always leads to
some inhabited place. If we do not meet with agreeable things, we shall at least meet with something new.@
AAgreed,@ replied Candide; Alet us recommend ourselves to Providence.@
They rowed a few leagues down the river, the banks of which were in some places covered with
flowers; in others barren; in some parts smooth and level, and in others steep and rugged. The stream
widened as they went further on and they eventually came to a spot where it passed into a great hole at the
base of frightful rocks, whose summits seemed to reach the clouds. Our two travelers had the courage to
commit themselves to this underground torrent, which, contracting in this part, hurried them along with a
dreadful noise and rapidity.
At the end of four and twenty hours they saw daylight again; but their canoe was dashed to pieces
against the rocks. They were obliged to creep along, from rock to rock, for the space of a league, till at
length a spacious plain presented itself to their sight. This place was bounded by a chain of inaccessible
mountains. The country appeared cultivated as much for pleasure as to produce the necessities of life. The
useful and agreeable were here equally blended. The roads were filled, or rather adorned, with carriages
formed of glittering materials, in which sat men and women of a surprising beauty; they were drawn with
great rapidity by red sheep of a very large size18; which far surpassed the finest horses of Andalusia,
Tetuan, or Mecquinez.
ANow this is a country,@ said Candide, Apreferable to Westphalia.@
He and Cacambo landed near the first village they saw, at the entrance of which they perceived
some children covered with tattered garments of the richest brocade and playing at quoits. Our two
inhabitants of the other hemisphere amused themselves greatly with what they saw. The quoits were large,
round pieces, yellow, red, and green, which cast a most glorious luster. Our travelers picked some of them
up, and they proved to be gold, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds; the least of which would have been the
greatest ornament to the superb throne of the Great Mogul.
AWithout doubt,@ said Cacambo, Athose children must be the King’s sons that are playing at quoits.@
As he was uttering these words the schoolmaster of the village appeared, who came to call the
children to school.
AThat,@ said Candide, Amust be the tutor of the royal family.@
The little ragamuffins immediately quitted their diversion, leaving the quoits on the ground with all
their other playthings. Candide gathered them up, ran to the schoolmaster, and, with a most respectful bow,
presented them to him, giving him to understand by signs that their Royal Highnesses had forgot their gold
and precious stones. The schoolmaster, with a smile, flung them upon the ground, then, examining Candide
from head to foot with an air of astonishment, he turned his back and went his way.
Our travelers took care, however, to gather up the gold, the rubies, and the emeralds.
AWhere are we?@ cried Candide. AThe King’s children in this country must have an excellent
education, since they are taught to show such a contempt for gold and precious stones.@
Cacambo was as much surprised as his master. They then drew near the first house in the village,
which was built after the manner of a European palace. There was a crowd of people about the door, and a
still greater number in the house. The sound of the most delightful instruments of music was heard, and the
most agreeable smell came from the kitchen. Cacambo went up to the door and heard those within talking
in the Peruvian language, which was his mother tongue; for the read should know that Cacambo was born
in a village of Tucuman, where no other language is spoken.19
18Voltaire borrowed his red sheep from traveller=s tales; they were actually llamas and
alpacas.
19Everyone does not know this, since Peru at the time had a number of native dialects, but
the language spoken at large was Spanish. The APeruvian language@ was Voltaire=s invention.
AI will be your interpreter here,@ said he to Candide. ALet us go in; this is a roadside tavern.@
Immediately two waiters and two servant-girls, dressed in cloth of gold, and their hair braided with
ribbons of tissue, accosted the strangers and invited them to sit down. Their dinner consisted of four dishes
of different soups, each garnished with two young parakeets, a large dish of condor that weighed two
hundred weight, two roasted monkeys of a delicious flavor, three hundred hummingbirds in one dish, and
six hundred in another; some excellent ragouts, and delicate tarts, the whole served up in dishes of
rock-crystal. Several sorts of liquors, extracted from the sugarcane, were handed about by the servants who
attended.
Most of the company were traveling salesmen and wagon-drivers, all extremely polite; they asked
Cacambo a few questions with the utmost discretion and circumspection; and replied to his in a most
obliging and satisfactory manner.
As soon as dinner was over, both Candide and Cacambo thought they might easily pay very
handsomely for their entertainment, laying down two of those large gold pieces which they had picked off
the ground; but at the sight of this, the landlord and landlady burst into a fit of laughing and held their sides
for some time.
When the fit was over, the landlord said, AGentlemen, I plainly perceive you are strangers, and
such we are not accustomed to meet; pardon us, therefore, for laughing when you offered us the common
pebbles of our highways as payment for your meal. To be sure, you have none of the coin of this kingdom;
but there is no necessity of having any money at all to dine in this house. All the inns, which are
established for the convenience of those who carry on the trade of this nation, are maintained by the
government. You have found but very indifferent entertainment here, because this is only a poor village;
but in almost every other of these public houses you will meet with a reception worthy of persons of your
merit.@
Cacambo explained the whole of this speech of the landlord to Candide, who listened to it with the
same astonishment with which his friend communicated it.
AWhat sort of a country is this,@ he said to the other, Athat is unknown to all the world and in which
Nature has everywhere so different an appearance to what she has in ours? Possibly this is that part of the
globe where everything is for the best, for it is necessary that there must be some such place. And, for all
that Master Pangloss could say, I often perceived that things went very ill in Westphalia.@
Chapter 18 – What They Saw in the Country of El Dorado
Cacambo vented all his curiosity upon his landlord by a thousand different questions; the honest
man answered him thus, AI am very ignorant, sir, and content in my ignorance; however, we have in this
neighborhood an old man retired from court, who is the most learned and communicative person in the
whole kingdom.@ He then conducted Cacambo to the old man; Candide acted now the secondary role and
played servant to his valet. They entered a very plain house, for the door was merely silver and the ceiling
was only of beaten gold, but they were wrought in such elegant taste as to vie with the richest. The
antechamber as well was only incrusted with rubies and emeralds; but here too the order in which
everything was disposed made amends for this great simplicity. The old man received the strangers on his
sofa, which was stuffed with hummingbirds’ feathers, and ordered his servants to serve them liquors in
golden goblets, after which he satisfied their curiosity in the following terms.
AI am now one hundred and seventy-two years old, and I learned of my late father, who drove the
King=s carriage, the amazing revolutions of Peru, to which he had been an eyewitness. This kingdom is the
ancient patrimony of the Incas, who very imprudently quitted it to conquer another part of the world, and
were at length conquered and destroyed themselves by the Spaniards. Those princes of their family who
remained in their native country acted more wisely. They ordained, with the consent of their whole nation,
that none of the inhabitants of our little kingdom should ever quit it; and to this wise ordinance we owe the
preservation of our innocence and happiness. The Spaniards had some confused notion of this country, to
which they gave the name of El Dorado; and Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman, actually came very near it
about three hundred years ago; but the inaccessible rocks and precipices with which our country is
surrounded on all sides has hitherto secured us from the rapacious fury of the people of Europe, who have
an unaccountable fondness for the pebbles and dirt of our land and for the sake of which they would
murder us all to the very last man.@
The conversation lasted some time and turned chiefly on the form of government, their manners,
their women, their public diversions, and the arts. At length, Candide, who had always had a taste for
philosophy, asked whether the people of that country had any religion.
The old man reddened a little at this question.
ACan you doubt it?@ said he; Ado you take us for wretches lost to all sense of gratitude?@
Cacambo asked in a respectful manner what was the established religion of El Dorado. The old
man blushed again and said, ACan there be two religions, then? Ours, I apprehend, is the religion of the
whole world; we worship God from morning till night.@
ADo you worship but one God?@ said Cacambo, who still acted as the interpreter of Candide’s
doubts.
ACertainly,@ said the old man; Athere are not two, nor three, nor four Gods. I must confess the
people of your world ask extraordinary questions.@
However, Candide could not refrain from making many more inquiries of the old man; he wanted
to know in what manner they prayed to God in El Dorado.
AWe do not pray to Him at all,@ said the reverend sage; Awe have nothing to ask of Him, He has
given us all we want, and we give Him thanks incessantly.@
Candide had a curiosity to see some of their priests, and desired Cacambo to ask the old man
where they were. At which he smiling said, AMy friends, we are all of us priests; the King and all the heads
of families sing solemn hymns of thanksgiving every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand
musicians.@
AWhat!@ said Cacambo, Ahave you no monks among you to dispute, to govern, to intrigue, and to
burn people who are not of the same opinion with themselves?@
ADo you take us for fools?@ said the old man. AHere we are all of one opinion, and know not what
you mean by your monks.@
During the whole of this discourse Candide was in raptures, and he said to himself, AWhat a
prodigious difference is there between this place and Westphalia; and this house and the Baron’s castle. Ah,
Master Pangloss! had you ever seen El Dorado, you would no longer have maintained that the castle of
Thunder-ten-tronckh was the finest of all possible edifices; there is nothing like seeing the world, that’s
certain.@
This long conversation being ended, the old man ordered six sheep to be harnessed and put to the
coach, and sent twelve of his servants to escort the travelers to court.
AExcuse me,@ said he, Afor not waiting on you in person, my age deprives me of that honor. The
King will receive you in such a manner that you will have no reason to complain; and doubtless you will
make a proper allowance for the customs of the country if they should not happen altogether to please
you.@
Candide and Cacambo got into the coach, the six sheep flew, and, in less than a quarter of an hour,
they arrived at the King’s palace, which was situated at the further end of the capital. At the entrance was a
portal two hundred and twenty feet high and one hundred wide; but it is impossible for words to express
the materials of which it was built. The reader, however, will readily conceive that they must have a
prodigious superiority over those bits of pebbles and sand which we call gold and precious stones.
Twenty beautiful young virgins in waiting received Candide and Cacambo on their alighting from
the coach, conducted them to the bath and clad them in robes woven of the down of hummingbirds; after
which they were introduced by the great officers of the crown of both sexes to the King’s apartment,
between two files of musicians, each file consisting of a thousand, agreeable to the custom of the country.
When they drew near to the presence-chamber, Cacambo asked one of the officers in what manner
they were to greet His Majesty; whether it was the custom to fall upon their knees, or to prostrate
themselves upon the ground; whether they were to put their hands upon their heads, or behind their backs;
whether they were to lick the dust off the floor; in short, what was the ceremony usual on such occasions.
AThe custom,@ said the great officer, Ais to embrace the King and kiss him on each cheek.@
Candide and Cacambo accordingly threw their arms round His Majesty’s neck, who received them
in the most gracious manner imaginable, and very politely asked them to sup with him.
While supper was preparing, orders were given to show them the city, where they saw public
structures that reared their lofty heads to the clouds; the marketplaces decorated with a thousand columns;
fountains of spring water, besides others of rose water, and of liquors drawn from the sugarcane,
incessantly flowing in the great squares, which were paved with a kind of precious stones that emitted an
odor like that of cloves and cinnamon.
Candide asked to see the High Court of justice, the Parliament; but was answered that they had
none in that country, being utter strangers to lawsuits. He then inquired if they had any prisons; they
replied none. But what gave him at once the greatest surprise and pleasure was the Palace of Sciences,
where he saw a gallery two thousand feet long, filled with various apparatus for doing mathematics and
conducting experiments in natural philosophy.
After having spent the whole afternoon in seeing only about the thousandth part of the city, they
were brought back to the King’s palace. Candide sat down at the table with His Majesty, his valet
Cacambo, and several ladies of the court. Never was entertainment more elegant, nor could any one
possibly show more wit than His Majesty displayed while they were at supper. Cacambo explained all the
King’s clever turns of phrase to Candide, and, although they had to be translated, they still appeared to be
clever turns of phrase. Of all the things that surprised Candide, this was not the least.
They spent a whole month in this hospitable place, during which time Candide was continually
saying to Cacambo, AI own, my friend, once more, that the castle where I was born is a mere nothing in
comparison to the place where we now are; but still Cunégonde is not here, and you yourself have
doubtless some fair one in Europe for whom you sigh. If we remain here we shall only be as others are;
whereas if we return to our own world with only a dozen of El Dorado sheep, loaded with the pebbles of
this country, we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe; we shall have nothing to fear from Inquisitors;
and we may easily recover Cunégonde.@
This speech was perfectly agreeable to Cacambo. A fondness for roving, for making a figure in
their own country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their travels, was so powerful in our two
wanderers that they resolved to be no longer happy and demanded permission of the King to quit the
country.
AYou are about to do something rash and silly,@ said the King. AI am sensible my kingdom is just
an ordinary place; but when people are tolerably at their ease anywhere I should think it would be in their
interest to remain there. Most assuredly, I have no right to detain you or any strangers against your wills;
this would be a tyranny repugnant to which our manners and our laws. All men are by nature free; you
have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but you will have many and great
difficulties to encounter in passing our borders. It is impossible to return against the current on that rapid
river by which you were conveyed hither by a kind of miracle, and the mountains by which my kingdom
are hemmed in on all sides are ten thousand feet high and perfectly perpendicular; they are above ten
leagues across, and the drop from them is one continued precipice.
AHowever, since you are determined to leave us, I will immediately give orders to the
superintendent of my carriages to have one made that will convey you very safely. When we have
conducted you to the back of the mountains, nobody can attend you farther; for my subjects have made a
vow never to quit the kingdom, and they are too prudent to break it. Ask me whatever else you please.@
AAll we shall ask of Your Majesty,@ said Cacambo, Ais only a few sheep laden with provisions,
pebbles, and the clay of your country.@
The King smiled at the request and said, AI cannot imagine what pleasure you Europeans find in
our yellow clay; but take away as much of it as you will, and much good may it do you.@
He immediately gave orders to his engineers to make a machine to hoist these two extraordinary
men out of the kingdom. Three thousand good machinists went to work and finished it in about fifteen
days, and it did not cost more than twenty millions sterling of that country’s money. Candide and Cacambo
were placed on this machine, and they took with them two large red sheep, bridled and saddled, to ride
upon, when they got on the other side of the mountains; twenty others to serve as pack-horses for carrying
provisions; thirty laden with presents of whatever was most curious in the country, and fifty with gold,
diamonds, and other precious stones. The King, at parting with our two adventurers, embraced them with
the greatest cordiality.
It was a curious sight to behold the manner of their setting off, and the ingenious method by which
they and their sheep were hoisted to the top of the mountains. The machinists and engineers took leave of
them as soon as they had conveyed them to a place of safety, and Candide was wholly occupied with the
thoughts of presenting his sheep to Cunégonde.
ANow,@ cried he, Athanks to Heaven, we have more than sufficient to pay the Governor of Buenos
Aires for Cunégonde, if she is redeemable. Let us make the best of our way to Cayenne, where we will take
shipping and then we may at leisure think which kingdom to purchase with our riches.@
Chapter 19 – What Happened to Them at Surinam, and How Candide Became Acquainted with Martin
Our travelers’ first day’s journey was very pleasant; they were elated with the prospect of
possessing more riches than were to be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa together. Candide, in amorous
transports, cut the name of Cunégonde on almost every tree he came to. On the second day, however, two
of their sheep sunk in a morass and were swallowed up with all they carried; two more died of fatigue;
some few days afterwards seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert, and others, at different times,
tumbled down precipices or were otherwise lost, so that, after traveling about a hundred days they had only
two sheep left of the hundred and two they brought with them from El Dorado.
Said Candide to Cacambo, AYou see, my dear friend, how perishable the riches of this world are;
there is nothing solid but virtue.@
AVery true,@ said Cacambo, Abut we have still two sheep remaining, with more treasure than ever
the King of Spain will be possessed of; and I spy a town at a distance, which I take to be Surinam, a town
belonging to the Dutch. We are now at the end of our troubles and at the beginning of our happiness.@
As they drew near the town they saw a black man stretched on the ground with only one half of
what he wore, which was a kind of linen frock; for the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand.
AGood God,@ said Candide in Dutch, Awhat are you doing here, friend, in this deplorable
condition?@
AI am waiting for my master, Mynheer Vanderdendur, the famous trader,@ answered the black man.
AWas it Mynheer Vanderdendur that used you in this cruel manner?@
AYes, sir,@ said the black man; Ait is the custom here. They give a linen garment twice a year, and
that is all our covering. When we labor in the sugar works, and the mill happens to snatch hold of a finger,
they instantly chop off our hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off a leg. Both these things
have happened to me, and it is at this expense that you eat sugar in Europe. And yet when my mother sold
me for ten Patagonian dollars on the coast of Guinea, she said to me, >My dear child, bless our priests;
adore them forever; they will make you live happy; you have the honor to be a slave to our lords the
whites, by which you will make the fortune of us, your parents.=
AAlas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; but they have not made mine; dogs,
monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch priests who converted me tell
me every Sunday that blacks and whites are all children of one father, whom they call Adam. As for me, I
do not understand anything of genealogies; but if what these preachers say is true, we are all second
cousins; and you must allow that it is impossible to be worse treated by our relations than we are.@
AO Pangloss!@ cried out Candide, Asuch horrid doings never entered thy imagination. Here is the
end of the matter. I find myself, after all, obliged to renounce your optimism.@
AOptimism,@ said Cacambo, Awhat is that?@
AAlas!@ replied Candide, Ait is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is
worst.@
And so saying he turned his eyes towards the poor black and shed a flood of tears; and in this
weeping mood he entered the town of Surinam.
Immediately upon their arrival, our travelers inquired if there was any vessel in the harbor which
they might send to Buenos Aires. The person they addressed themselves to happened to be the master of a
Spanish bark, who offered to agree with them on moderate terms, and appointed them a meeting at a public
house. There Candide and his faithful Cacambo went to wait for him, taking with them their two sheep.
Candide, who was all frankness and sincerity, made an ingenuous recital of his adventures to the
Spaniard, declaring to him at the same time his resolution of carrying off Cunégonde from the Governor of
Buenos Aires.
AOh, ho!@ said the shipmaster, Aif that is the case, get whom you please to carry you to Buenos
Aires; for my part, I wash my hands of the affair. It would prove a hanging matter to us all. The fair
Cunégonde is the Governor’s favorite mistress.@
These words were like a clap of thunder to Candide; he wept bitterly for a long time, and, taking
Cacambo aside, he said to him, AI’ll tell you, my dear friend, what you must do. We have each of us in our
pockets to the value of five or six millions in diamonds; you are cleverer at these matters than I; you must
go to Buenos Aires and bring off Cunégonde. If the Governor makes any difficulty give him a million; if
he holds out, give him two; as you have not killed an Inquisitor, they will have no suspicion of you. I’ll fit
out another ship and go to Venice, where I will wait for you. Venice is a free country, where we shall have
nothing to fear from Bulgarians, Abares, Jews or Inquisitors.@
Cacambo greatly applauded this wise resolution. He was inconsolable at the thoughts of parting
with so good a master, who treated him more like an intimate friend than a servant; but the pleasure of
being able to do him a service soon got the better of his sorrow. They embraced each other with a flood of
tears. Candide charged him not to forget the old woman. Cacambo set out the same day. This Cacambo
was a very honest fellow.
Candide continued some days longer at Surinam, waiting for any captain to carry him and his two
remaining sheep to Italy. He hired domestic servants and purchased many things necessary for a long
voyage; at length Mynheer Vanderdendur, skipper of a large Dutch vessel, came and offered his service.
AWhat will you have,@ said Candide, Ato carry me, my servants, my baggage, and these two sheep
you see here, directly to Venice?@
The skipper asked ten thousand piastres, and Candide agreed to his demand without hestitation.
AHo, ho!@ said the cunning Vanderdendur to himself, Athis stranger must be very rich; he agrees to
give me ten thousand piastres without hesitation.@
Returning a little while after, he told Candide that upon second consideration he could not
undertake the voyage for less than twenty thousand.
AVery well; you shall have them,@ said Candide.
AZounds!@ said the skipper to himself, Athis man agrees to pay twenty thousand piastres with as
much ease as ten.@
Accordingly he went back again, and told him roundly that he would not carry him to Venice for
less than thirty thousand piastres.
AThen you shall have thirty thousand,@ said Candide.
AOh so!@ said the Dutchman once more to himself, Athirty thousand piastres seem a trifle to this
man. Those sheep must certainly be laden with an immense treasure. I’ll stop here and ask no more; but
make him pay down the thirty thousand piastres, and then we may see what is to be done farther.@
Candide sold two small diamonds, the least of which was worth more than all the skipper asked.
He paid him beforehand, the two sheep were put on board, and Candide followed in a small boat to join the
vessel where it was anchored. The skipper took advantage of his opportunity, hoisted sail, and put out to
sea with a favorable wind. Candide, confounded and amazed, soon lost sight of the ship.
AAlas!@ said he, Athis is a trick like those in our old world!@
He returned back to the shore overwhelmed with grief; and, indeed, he had lost what would have
made the fortune of twenty monarchs.
Straightway upon his landing he applied to the Dutch magistrate; being transported with passion he
pounded at the door, which being opened, he went in, told his case, and talked louder than necessary. The
magistrate began with fining him ten thousand piastres for petulance and then listened very patiently to
what he had to say, promised to examine into the affair on the skipper’s return, and ordered him to pay ten
thousand piastres more for the fees of the court.
This treatment put Candide out of all patience; it is true, he had suffered misfortunes a thousand
times more grievous, but the cool insolence of the judge, and the villainy of the skipper raised his choler
and threw him into a deep melancholy. The villainy of mankind presented itself to his mind in all its
deformity, and his soul was a prey to the most gloomy ideas. After some time, hearing that the captain of a
French ship was ready to set sail for Bordeaux, as he had no more sheep loaded with diamonds to put on
board, he hired the cabin at the usual price; and made it known in the town that he would pay the passage
and board of any honest man who would give him his company during the voyage, besides making him a
present of ten thousand piastres. There was one condition: that the person be the most dissatisfied with his
condition and the most unfortunate in the whole province.
Upon this there appeared such a crowd of candidates that a large fleet could not have contained
them. Candide, willing to choose from among those who appeared most likely to answer his intention,
selected twenty, who seemed to him the most sociable, and who all pretended to be more worthy of choice
than the others. He invited them to his inn, and promised to treat them with a supper, on condition that
every man should bind himself by an oath to relate his own history; declaring at the same time, that he
would make choice of that person who should appear to him the most deserving of compassion and the
most justly dissatisfied with his condition in life; and that he would make a present to the rest.
This extraordinary assembly continued sitting till four in the morning. Candide, while he was
listening to their adventures, called to mind what the old woman had said to him in their voyage to Buenos
Aires, and the wager she had laid that there was not a person on board the ship but had met with great
misfortunes. Every story he heard put him in mind of Pangloss.
AMy old master,@ said he, Awould be confoundedly put to it to demonstrate his favorite system.
Would he were here! Certainly if everything is for the best, it is in El Dorado and not in the other parts of
the world.@
At length he determined in favor of a poor scholar, who had labored ten years for the booksellers at
Amsterdam: being of opinion that no employment could be more detestable.
This scholar, who was in fact a very honest man, had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son,
and forsaken by his daughter, who had run away with a Portuguese. He had been likewise deprived of a
small employment on which he subsisted, and he was persecuted by the clergy of Surinam, who took him
for a Socinian20. It must be acknowledged that the other competitors were, at least, as wretched as he; but
Candide was in hopes that the company of a man of letters would relieve the tediousness of the voyage. All
the other candidates complained that Candide had done them great injustice, but he stopped their mouths
by a present of a hundred piastres to each.
Chapter 20 – What Befell Candide and Martin on Their Passage
The old philosopher, whose name was Martin, took shipping with Candide for Bordeaux. Both had
seen and suffered a great deal and had the ship been going from Surinam to Japan round the Cape of Good
Hope, they could have found sufficient entertainment for each other during the whole voyage in
discoursing upon moral and natural evil.
Candide, however, had one advantage over Martin: he lived in the pleasing hopes of seeing
Cunégonde once more; whereas, the poor philosopher had nothing to hope for. Besides, Candide had
money and jewels, and, not withstanding he had lost a hundred red sheep laden with the greatest treasure
outside of El Dorado, and though he still smarted from the reflection of the Dutch skipper’s knavery, yet
20Historically, the Socinians tried to reduce the reliance of Christianity upon mysteries,
such as the doctrine of the trinity. In Voltaire=s day, Socinian was a general term of disregard for
people who were not heretics but were unconventional in their theology.
when he considered what he had still left, and repeated the name of Cunégonde, especially after meal
times, he inclined to Pangloss’s doctrine.
AAnd pray,@ said he to Martin, Awhat is your opinion of the whole of this system? What notion
have you of moral and natural evil?@
ASir,@ replied Martin, Aour priest accused me of being a Socinian; but the real truth is, I am a
Manichaean.21@
ANay, now you are jesting,@ said Candide; Athere are no Manichaeans existing at present in the
world.@
AAnd yet I am one,@ said Martin; Abut I cannot help it. I cannot for the soul of me think otherwise.@
ASurely the Devil must be in you,@ said Candide.
AHe concerns himself so much,@ replied Martin, Ain the affairs of this world that it is very probable
he may be in me as well as everywhere else; but I must confess, when I cast my eye on this globe, or rather
globule, I cannot help thinking that God has abandoned it to some malignant being. I always except El
Dorado. I scarce ever knew a city that did not wish the destruction of its neighboring city; nor a family that
did not desire to exterminate some other family. The poor in all parts of the world bear an inveterate hatred
to the rich even while they creep and cringe to them; and the rich treat the poor like sheep, whose wool and
flesh they barter for money; a million of regimented assassins traverse Europe from one end to the other to
get their bread by murder and pillage, because it is the most gentlemanlike profession. Even in those cities
which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured with
envy, care, and anxiety, which are greater plagues than any experienced in a town besieged. Private
sorrows are still more dreadful than public calamities. In a word,@ concluded the philosopher, AI have seen
and suffered so much that I am a Manichaean.@
AAnd yet there is some good in the world,@ replied Candide.
AMaybe so,@ said Martin, Abut it has escaped my knowledge.@
While they were deeply engaged in this dispute they heard the report of cannon, which redoubled
every moment. Each took out his pocket telescope, and they spied two ships warmly engaged at the
distance of about three miles. The wind brought them both so near the French ship that those on board her
had the pleasure of seeing the fight with great ease. After several smart broadsides the one gave the other a
shot between wind and water which sunk her outright. Then could Candide and Martin plainly perceive a
hundred men on the deck of the vessel which was sinking, who, with hands uplifted to Heaven, sent forth
piercing cries, and were in a moment swallowed up by the waves.
AWell,@ said Martin, Ayou now see in what manner mankind treat one another.@
AIt is certain,@ said Candide, Athat there is something diabolical in this affair.@ As he was speaking
thus he spied something of a shining red hue, which swam close to the vessel. The boat was hoisted out to
see what it might be, when it proved to be one of his sheep. Candide felt more joy at the recovery of this
one animal than he did grief when he lost the other hundred, though they had been laden with the large
diamonds of El Dorado. The French captain quickly perceived that the victorious ship belonged to the
crown of Spain; that the other was a Dutch pirate and belonged to the very same captain who had robbed
Candide. The immense riches which this villain had amassed were buried with him in the deep and only
this one sheep saved out of the whole.
AYou see,@ said Candide to Martin, Athat vice is sometimes punished. This villain, the Dutch
skipper, has met with the fate he deserved.@
AVery true,@ said Martin, Abut why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction? God has
punished the knave, and the Devil has drowned the rest.@
21The Manichees believed that the earth was a battleground between the forces of light
and the forces of darkness, each with an independent existence; its most famous opponent was
St Augustine, who argued that evil was the absence of good and not something in its own right.
The French and Spanish ships continued their cruise, and Candide and Martin their conversation.
They disputed fourteen days successively, at the end of which they were just as far advanced as the first
moment they began. However, they had the satisfaction of disputing, of communicating their ideas, and of
mutually comforting each other. Candide embraced his sheep with transport.
ASince I have found you again,@ said he, AI may possibly find my Cunégonde once more.@
Chapter 21 – Candide and Martin, While Thus Reasoning with Each Other, Draw Near the Coast of France
At length they descried the coast of France. Candide asked Martin, APray Monsieur Martin, were
you ever in France?@
AYes, sir,@ said Martin, AI have been in several provinces of that kingdom. In some, one half of the
people are fools and madmen; in some, one half are crafty and sly; in others, again, one half are crude and
good-natured, while in others, one half try to be witty. In all provinces, the first passion is love, the second
is slander, and the third is talking nonsense.@
ABut, pray, Monsieur Martin, were you ever in Paris?@
AYes, sir, I have been in that city, and it is a place that contains the several species just described; it
is a chaos, a confused multitude, where everyone seeks for pleasure without being able to find it; at least,
as far as I could observe during my short stay. At my arrival I was robbed of all I had in the world by
pickpockets and sharpers, at the fair of Saint-Germain. I was arrested myself for a robber, and confined in
prison a whole week, after which I hired myself as proof-reader to a press in order to get a little money
towards defraying expenses while getting back to Holland on foot. I knew the whole tribe of scribblers,
malcontents, and fanatics. It is said the people of that city are very polite; it well may be.@
AFor my part, I have no curiosity to see France,@ said Candide. AYou may easily conceive, my
friend, that after spending a month in El Dorado, I can desire to behold nothing upon earth but Cunégonde.
I am going to wait for her at Venice. I intend to pass straight through France on my way to Italy. Will you
not bear me company?@
AWith all my heart,@ said Martin. AThey say Venice is agreeable to none but noble Venetians, but
that, nevertheless, strangers are well received there when they have plenty of money. Now I have none, but
you have; therefore I will attend you wherever you please.@
ANow we are upon the subject of Venice,@ said Candide, Ado you think that the earth was originally
all water, as we read in that great book which belongs to the captain of the ship?@
AI believe nothing of it,@ replied Martin, Aany more than I do of the many other chimeras which
have been related to us for some time past.@
ABut then, to what end,@ said Candide, Awas the world formed?@
ATo make us mad,@ said Martin.
AAre you not surprised,@ continued Candide, Aat the love which the two girls in the country of the
Oreillons had for those two monkeys? You knowBI have told you the story.@
ASurprised?@ replied Martin, Anot in the least. I see nothing strange in this passion. I have seen so
many extraordinary things that nothing is extraordinary to me now.@
ADo you think,@ said Candide, Athat mankind always massacred one another? Were they always
guilty of lies, fraud, treachery, ingratitude, inconstancy, envy, ambition, and cruelty? Were they always
thieves, fools, cowards, backbiters, gluttons, drunkards, misers, vilifiers, debauchees, fanatics, and
hypocrites?@
ADo you believe,@ said Martin, Athat hawks have always been accustomed to eat pigeons when they
came in their way?@
ADoubtless,@ said Candide.
AWell then,@ replied Martin, Aif hawks have always had the same nature, why should you suppose
that mankind have changed theirs?@
AOh,@ said Candide, Athere is a great deal of difference; for, after all, free will . . . @ and reasoning
on in this manner they arrived at Bordeaux.
Chapter 22 – What Happened to Candide and Martin in France
Candide stayed no longer at Bordeaux than was necessary to dispose of a few of the pebbles he
had brought from El Dorado, and to provide himself with a post-chaise for two persons, for he could no
longer stir a step without his philosopher Martin. The only thing that give him concern was being obliged
to leave his sheep behind him, which he intrusted to the care of the Academy of Sciences at Bordeaux, who
proposed, as a prize subject for the year, to prove why the wool of this sheep was red; and the prize was
awarded to a northern sage, who demonstrated by A plus B, minus C, divided by Z, that the sheep must
necessarily be red and must die of the mange. In the meantime, all travelers whom Candide met with in the
inns, or on the road told him that they were going to Paris. This general eagerness gave him likewise a
great desire to see this capital; and it was not much out of his way to Venice.
He entered the city by the Faubourg Saint-Marceau22 and thought himself in one of the vilest
hamlets in all Westphalia. Candide had not been long at his inn, before he was seized with a slight
disorder, owing to the fatigue he had undergone. As he wore a diamond of an enormous size on his finger
and had among the rest of his equipage a strong box that seemed very weighty, he soon found himself
between two physicians whom he had not sent for, a number of intimate friends whom he had never seen,
and who would not quit his bedside, and two women devotees who were very careful in providing him hot
broths.
AI remember,@ said Martin to him, Athat the first time I came to Paris I was likewise taken ill. I was
very poor, and accordingly I had neither friends, nurses, nor physicians, and yet I did very well.@
However, by dint of purging and bleeding, Candide=s disorder became very serious. The priest of
the parish came with all imaginable politeness to give him a note to be delivered at the gate to the next
world23. Candide refused to accept this commission; but the women devotees assured him that it was a new
fashion. Candide replied, that he was not one that followed the fashion. Martin was for throwing the priest
out of the window. The priest swore that Candide should not have Christian burial. Martin swore in his
turn that he would bury the priest alive if he continued to plague them any longer. The dispute grew warm;
Martin took the priest by the shoulders and turned him out of the room, which gave great scandal, and
developed into a case at law.
Candide recovered, and till he was in a condition to go abroad had a great deal of company to pass
the evenings with him in his chamber. They gambled at cards. Candide was surprised to find he could
never win a trick; Martin was not surprised at all.
Among those who did him the honors of the place was a little spruce abbé of Perigord, one of
those insinuating, busy, fawning, impudent, necessary fellows, that lay wait for strangers on their arrival,
tell them all the scandal of the town, and offer to minister to their pleasures at various prices. This man
conducted Candide and Martin to the playhouse; they were acting a new tragedy. Candide found himself
placed near a cluster of wits: this, however, did not prevent him from shedding tears at some parts of the
piece which were most affecting, and best acted. One of these talkers said to him between acts, AYou are
greatly to blame to shed tears; that actress plays horribly, and the man that plays with her still worse, and
the piece itself is still more execrable than the representation. The author does not understand a word of
22In Voltaire=s day, one of the worst slums on the outskirts of Paris.
23A reference to billets de confession, without which one could not be given last rites.
Arabic, and yet he has laid his scene in Arabia, and what is more, he is a fellow who does not believe in
innate ideas. Tomorrow I will bring you a score of pamphlets that have been written against him.@24
ASir,@ said the abbé from Perigord, Ado you see that young woman with the lovely face and figure?
Well, she would cost only ten thousand francs a month, and for fifty thousand . . . @
AI could spare her only a day or two,@ said Candide. AI have an appointment to keep in Venice.@
The next night the abbé took up the subject again: ASo, sir, you have an engagement in Venice?@
AYes, Monsieur l’Abbé,@ answered Candide, AI must absolutely wait upon Cunégonde@; and then
the pleasure he took in talking about the object he loved, led him insensibly to relate, according to habit,
part of his adventures with that illustrious Westphalian beauty.
AI fancy,@ said the abbé, AMiss Cunégonde has a great deal of wit, and that her letters must be very
entertaining.@
AI never received any from her,@ said Candide; Afor you must consider that, being expelled from the
castle upon her account, I could not write to her, especially as soon after my departure I heard she was
dead; but thank God I found afterwards she was living. I left her again after this, and now I have sent a
messenger to her near two thousand leagues from here, and wait here for his return with an answer from
her.@ The artful abbé let not a word of all this escape him, though he seemed to be musing upon something
else. He soon took his leave of the two adventurers, after having embraced them with the greatest
cordiality.
The next morning, almost as soon as his eyes were open, Candide received the following billet:
AMy Dearest Lover: I have been ill in this city these eight days. I have heard of your arrival, and should fly
to your arms were I able to stir. I was informed of your being on the way hither at Bordeaux, where I left
the faithful Cacambo, and the old woman, who will soon follow me. The Governor of Buenos Aires has
taken everything from me but your heart, which I still retain. Come to me immediately on the receipt of
this. Your presence will either give me new life or kill me with the pleasure.@
At the receipt of this charming, this unexpected letter, Candide felt the utmost transports of joy;
though, on the other hand, the indisposition of his beloved Cunégonde overwhelmed him with grief.
Distracted between these two passions he took his gold and his diamonds, and procured a person to
conduct him and Martin to the house where Cunégonde lodged. Upon entering the room he felt his limbs
tremble, his heart flutter, his tongue falter; he attempted to undraw the curtain, and called for a light to the
bedside.
ALord sir,@ cried a maidservant, who was waiting in the room, Atake care what you do, Miss cannot
bear the least light,@ and so saying she pulled the curtain close again.
ACunégonde! my dear cried Candide, bathed in tears, Ahow do you do? If you cannot bear the light,
speak to me at least.@
AAlas! she cannot speak,@ said the maid.
The sick lady then put a plump hand out of the bed and Candide first bathed it with tears, then
filled it with diamonds, leaving a purse of gold upon the easy chair.
In the midst of his transports an officer came into the room, followed by the abbé and a file of
musketeers. AThere,@ said he, Aare the two suspected foreigners.@ At the same time he ordered them to be
seized and carried to prison.
ATravelers are not treated in this manner in the country of El Dorado,@ said Candide.
AI am more of a Manichaean now than ever,@ said Martin.
ABut pray, good sir, where are you going to carry us?@ said Candide.
ATo a dungeon, my dear sir,@ replied the officer.
24At this point in the book=s second edition (1761), Voltaire interpolated several pages of
satire directed at some of his literary contemporaries. These pages are omitted here and a brief
passage from the first edition is retained in their place.
When Martin had recovered himself enough to form a cool judgment of what had passed, he
plainly perceived that the person who had acted the part of Cunégonde was a cheat, that the abbé of
Perigord was a sharper who had imposed upon the honest simplicity of Candide, and that the officer was a
knave, whom they might easily get rid of. Candide following the advice of his friend Martin and burning
with impatience to see the real Cunégonde rather than appear at a court of justice, offered the officer a
present of three small diamonds, each of them worth three thousand pistoles.
AAh, sir,@ said the minion of justice, Aeven if you had you committed horrible crimes, this would
render you the most honest man living, in my eyes. Three diamonds worth three thousand pistoles! Why,
my dear sir, so far from carrying you to jail, I would lose my life to serve you. There are orders for
stopping all strangers; but leave it to me, I have a brother at Dieppe, in Normandy. I myself will conduct
you thither, and if you have a diamond left to give him he will take as much care of you as I myself
should.@25
So saying, he declared the arrest a mistake, ordered Candide’s irons to be struck off, and sent his
followers about their business, after which he conducted Candide and Martin to Dieppe, and left them to
the care of his brother.
There happened just then to be a small Dutch ship in the harbor. The Norman, whom the other
three diamonds had converted into the most obliging, serviceable being that ever breathed, took care to see
Candide and his attendants safe on board this vessel, that was just ready to sail for Portsmouth in England.
This was not the nearest way to Venice, indeed, but Candide thought himself escaped out of Hell, and did
not, in the least, doubt but he should quickly find an opportunity of resuming his voyage to Venice.
Chapter 23 – Candide and Martin Touch upon the English Coast-What They See There
Ah Pangloss! Pangloss! ah Martin! ah my dear Cunégonde! What sort of a world is this?@ Thus
exclaimed Candide as soon as he got on board the Dutch ship.
AWhy, something very foolish, and very abominable,@ said Martin.
AYou are acquainted with England,@ said Candide; Aare they as great fools in that country as in
France?@
AYes, but in a different manner,@ answered Martin. AYou know that these two nations are at war
about a few acres of barren land in the neighborhood of Canada and that they have expended much greater
sums in the contest than all Canada is worth? To say exactly whether there are a greater number fit to be
inhabitants of a madhouse in the one country than the other, exceeds the limits of my imperfect capacity; I
know in general that the people we are going to visit are of a very dark and gloomy disposition.@
As they were chatting thus together they arrived at Portsmouth. The shore on each side the harbor
was lined with a multitude of people, whose eyes were steadfastly fixed on a well-set man who was
kneeling down on the deck of one of the men-of-war, with something tied before his eyes. Opposite to this
personage stood four soldiers, each of whom shot three bullets into his skull with all the composure
imaginable, and when it was done, the whole company went away perfectly well satisfied.
AWhat the devil is all this for?@ said Candide, Aand what demon, or foe of mankind, lords it thus
tyrannically over the world?@
He then asked who was that lusty man who had been sent out of the world with so much
ceremony. When he received for answer, that it was an admiral.
AAnd pray why do you put your admiral to death?@
ABecause he did not put a sufficient number of his fellow creatures to death. You must know, he
had an engagement with a French admiral, and it has been proved against him that he was not near enough
to his antagonist.@
ABut,@ replied Candide, Athe French admiral must have been just as far from him.@
25A brief, enigmatic passage is omitted at this point.
AThere is no doubt of that; but in this country his distance is the one that counts; they put an
admiral to death, now and then, to encourage the others to fight.@26
Candide was so shocked at what he saw and heard, that he would not set foot on shore, but made a
bargain with the Dutch skipper (were he even to rob him like the captain of Surinam) to carry him directly
to Venice.
The skipper was ready in two days. They sailed along the coast of France, and passed within sight
of Lisbon, at which Candide trembled. From thence they proceeded to the Straits, entered the
Mediterranean, and at length arrived at Venice.
AGod be praised,@ said Candide, embracing Martin, Athis is the place where I am to behold my
beloved Cunégonde once again. I can have confidence in Cacambo, like another self. All is well, all is very
well, all is well as possible.@
Chapter 24 – Of Daisy and Friar Gillyflower
Upon their arrival at Venice Candide went in search of Cacambo at every inn and coffee-house,
and among all the ladies of pleasure, but could hear nothing of him. He sent every day to inquire what
ships were in, still no news of Cacambo.
AIt is strange,@ said he to Martin, Avery strange that I should have time to sail from Surinam to
Bordeaux; to travel thence to Paris, to Dieppe, to Portsmouth; to sail along the coast of Portugal and Spain,
and up the Mediterranean to spend some months at Venice; and that my lovely Cunégonde should not have
arrived. Instead of her, I met only with a Parisian impostor and a rascally abbé of Perigord. Cunégonde is
actually dead, and I have nothing to do but follow her. Alas! how much better would it have been for me to
have remained in the paradise of El Dorado than to have returned to this cursed Europe! You are in the
right, my dear Martin; you are certainly in the right; all is misery and deceit.@
He fell into a deep melancholy, and neither went to the opera then in vogue nor partook of any of
the diversions of the Carnival; nay, Candide even slighted the fair sex.
Martin said to him, AUpon my word, I think you are very simple to imagine that a rascally valet,
with five or six millions in his pocket, would go in search of your mistress to the further of the world, and
bring her to Venice to meet you. If he finds her he will take her for himself; if he does not, he will take
another. Let me advise you to forget your valet Cacambo, and your mistress Cunégonde.@
Martin’s speech was not the most consolatory to the dejected Candide. His melancholy increased,
and Martin never ceased trying to prove to him that there is very little virtue or happiness in this world;
except, perhaps, in El Dorado, where hardly anybody can gain admittance.
While they were disputing on this important subject, and still expecting Cunégonde, Candide
perceived a young Theatine friar friar in the Piazza San Marco, with a girl on his arm. The Theatine friar
looked fresh-colored, plump, and vigorous; his eyes sparkled; his air and gait were bold and lofty. The girl
was pretty, and was singing a song; and every now and then gave her Theatine friar an amorous glance and
wantonly pinched his ruddy cheeks.
AYou will at least allow,@ said Candide to Martin, Athat these two are happy. Hitherto I have met
with none but unfortunate people in the whole habitable globe, except in El Dorado; but as to this couple, I
would venture to bet that they are happy.@
ADone!@ said Martin, Athey are not what you imagine.@
AWell, we have only to ask them to dine with us,@ said Candide, Aand you will see whether I am
mistaken or not.@
26Admiral John Bying was executed by firing squad on March 14, 1757 after his defeat
by the French at Minorca during the French-Canadian war.
Thereupon he accosted them and with great politeness invited them to his inn to eat macaroni with
Lombard partridges and caviar and to drink a bottle of Montepulciano, Lacryma Christi, Cyprus, and
Samos wine. The girl blushed; the Theatine friar accepted the invitation and she followed him, eyeing
Candide every now and then with a mixture of surprise and confusion, while the tears stole down her
cheeks. No sooner did she enter his apartment than she cried out, AHow, Monsieur Candide, have you quite
forgot your Daisy? do you not know her again?@
Candide had not regarded her with any degree of attention before, being wholly occupied with the
thoughts of his dear Cunégonde.
AAh! is it you, child? was it you that reduced Dr. Pangloss to that fine condition I saw him in?@
AAlas! sir,@ answered Daisy, Ait was I, indeed. I find you are acquainted with everything; and I have
been informed of all the misfortunes that happened to the whole family of My Lady Baroness and the fair
Cunégonde. But I can safely swear to you that my lot was no less deplorable; I was innocence itself when
you saw me last. A Franciscan, who was my confessor, easily seduced me; the consequences proved
terrible. I was obliged to leave the castle some time after the Baron kicked you out by the backside from
there; and if a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me, I had been a dead woman. Gratitude
obliged me to live with him some time as his mistress; his wife, who was a very devil for jealousy, beat me
unmercifully every day. Oh! she was a perfect fury. The doctor himself was the most ugly of all mortals
and I the most wretched creature existing, to be continually beaten for a man whom I did not love. You are
sensible, sir, how dangerous it was for an ill-natured woman to be married to a physician. Incensed at the
behavior of his wife, he one day gave her so affectionate a remedy for a slight cold she had caught that she
died in less than two hours in most dreadful convulsions. Her relations prosecuted the husband, who was
obliged to fly, and I was sent to prison. My innocence would not have saved me, if I had not been tolerably
handsome. The judge gave me my liberty on condition he should succeed the doctor. However, I was soon
supplanted by a rival, turned off without a farthing, and obliged to continue the abominable trade which
you men think so pleasing, but which to us unhappy creatures is the most dreadful of all sufferings. At
length I came to follow the business at Venice. Ah! sir, did you but know what it is to be obliged to receive
every visitor; old tradesmen, counselors, monks, watermen, and abbés; to be exposed to all their insolence
and abuse; to be often necessitated to borrow a petticoat, only that it may be taken up by some disagreeable
wretch; to be robbed by one customer of what we get from another; to be subject to the extortions of civil
magistrates; and to have forever before one’s eyes the prospect of old age, a hospital, or a dunghill, you
would conclude that I am one of the most unhappy wretches breathing.@
Thus did Daisy unbosom herself to honest Candide in his room, in the presence of Martin, who
took occasion to say to him, AYou see I have half won the wager already.@ Friar Gillyflower was all this
time in the parlor refreshing himself with a glass or two of wine before dinner..
ABut,@ said Candide to Daisy, Ayou looked so gay and contented, when I met you, you sang and
caressed the friar with so much fondness, that I absolutely thought you as happy as you say you are now
miserable.@
AAh! dear sir,@ said Daisy, Athis is one of the miseries of the trade; yesterday I was stripped and
beaten by an officer; yet today I must appear good humored and gay to please a friar.@ Candide was
convinced and acknowledged that Martin was in the right. They sat down to table with Daisy and the
Theatine friar; the entertainment was agreeable, and towards the end they began to converse together with
some freedom.
AFather,@ said Candide to the friar, Ayou seem to me to enjoy a state of happiness that even kings
might envy; joy and health are painted in your countenance. You have a pretty wench to divert you; and
you seem to be perfectly well contented with your condition as a Theatine friar.@
AFaith, sir,@ said Friar Gillyflower, AI wish with all my soul the Theatines were every one of them
at the bottom of the sea. I have been tempted a thousand times to set fire to the monastery and go and turn
Turk. My parents obliged me, at the age of fifteen, to put on this detestable habit only to increase the
fortune of an elder brother of mine, whom God confound! Jealousy, discord, and fury reside in our
monastery. It is true I often preach sermons, by which I get some money, part of which the prior robs me
of, and the remainder helps to pay my girls; but, not withstanding, at night, when I go hence to my
monastery, I am ready to dash my brains against the walls of the dormitory; and this is the case with all the
rest of our fraternity.@
Martin, turning towards Candide, with his usual indifference, said, AWell, what think you now?
have I won the bet entirely?@
Candide gave two thousand piastres to Daisy, and a thousand to Friar Gillyflower, saying, AI will
answer that this will make them happy.@
AI am not of your opinion,@ said Martin, Aperhaps this money will only make them wretched.@
ABe that as it may,@ said Candide, Aone thing comforts me; I see that one often meets with those
whom one never expected to see again; so that, perhaps, as I have found my red sheep and Daisy, I may be
lucky enough to find Cunégonde also.@
AI wish,@ said Martin, Ashe one day may make you happy; but I doubt it much.@
AYou lack faith,@ said Candide.
AIt is because,@ said Martin, AI have seen the world.@
AObserve the gondoliers,@ said Candide, Aare they not perpetually singing?@
AYou do not see them,@ answered Martin, Aat home with their wives and brats. The Doge has his
sorrows, the gondoliers have theirs. In the main, I look upon the gondolier’s life as preferable to that of the
Doge; but the difference is so trifling that it is not worth the trouble of examining into.@
AI have heard great talk,@ said Candide, Aof the Senator Pococurante, who lives in that fine house at
the Brenta, where, they say, he entertains foreigners in the most polite manner.@
AThey pretend this man is a perfect stranger to sorrow. I should be glad to see so extraordinary a
being,@ said Martin. Candide thereupon sent a messenger to Seignor Pococurante, desiring permission to
wait on him the next day.
Chapter 25 – Candide and Martin Pay a Visit to Seignor Pococurante, a Noble Venetian
Candide and his friend Martin took a gondola on the Brenta and arrived at the palace of the noble
Pococurante. The gardens were laid out in elegant taste and adorned with fine marble statues; his palace
was built after the most approved rules of architecture. The master of the house, who was a man of affairs
and very rich, received our two travelers with great politeness but without much ceremony, which
somewhat disconcerted Candide but was not at all displeasing to Martin. As soon as they were seated, two
very pretty girls, neatly dressed, brought in drinking chocolate, which was extremely well prepared.
Candide could not help praising their beauty and graceful carriage.
AThe creatures are all right,@ said the senator; AI amuse myself with them sometimes, for I am
heartily tired of the women of the town, their coquetry, their jealousy, their quarrels, their humors, their
meannesses, their pride, and their folly; I am weary of making sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be made
on them; but after all, these two girls are beginning to bore me, too.@
After having refreshed himself, Candide walked into a large gallery, where he was struck with the
sight of a fine collection of paintings.
APray,@ said Candide, Aby what master are the two first of these?@
AThey are by Raphael,@ answered the senator. AI gave a great deal of money for them seven years
ago, purely out of curiosity, as they were said to be the finest pieces in Italy; but I cannot say they please
me: the coloring is dark and heavy; the figures are badly modeled; and the drapery isn=t realistic. In short,
notwithstanding the praises lavished upon them, they are not in my opinion a true representation of nature.
I approve of no paintings save those wherein I think I behold nature itself; and there are few if any of that
kind to be met with. I have what is called a fine collection, but I take no manner of delight in it.@
While dinner was being prepared Pococurante ordered a concert. Candide praised the music to the
skies.
AThis noise,@ said the noble Venetian, Amay amuse one for a little time, but if it were to last above
half an hour, it would grow tiresome to everybody, though perhaps no one would care to admit it. Music
has become the art of executing what is difficult; now, whatever is difficult cannot be long pleasing. I
believe I might take more pleasure in an opera, but they have made a monster of that species of dramatic
entertainment and it perfectly shocks me; and I am amazed how people can bear to see wretched tragedies
set to music, in which the scenes are contrived only to pull in by the ears three or four ridiculous songs and
give some actress a chance to show off her pipes. Let who wills it to die in raptures at the trills of a eunuch
quavering the majestic part of Caesar or Cato and strutting in a foolish manner upon the stage, but for my
part I have long ago renounced these paltry entertainments, which constitute the glory of modern Italy, and
are so dearly purchased by crowned heads.@
Candide opposed these sentiments; but he did it in a discreet manner; as for Martin, he was entirely
of the old senator’s opinion. Dinner being served they sat down to table, and, after a hearty repast, returned
to the library. Candide, observing Homer richly bound, commended the noble Venetian’s taste. This,@ said
he, Ais a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany.@
AHomer is no favorite of mine,@ answered Pococurante, coolly, AI managed to believe once that I
took pleasure in reading him; but his continual repetitions of battles are all alike; his gods are forever in
haste and bustle, without ever doing anything; his Helen is the cause of the war and yet hardly acts in the
whole performance; his Troy holds out forever, without being taken: in short, all these things together
make the poem very insipid to me. I have asked some learned men, whether they are not in reality as much
tired as myself with reading this poet: those who spoke frankly assured me that he had made them fall
asleep, although they could not well avoid giving him a place in their libraries; but that it was merely as
they would do an antique, or those rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no manner of
use in commerce.@
ABut your excellency does not surely form the same opinion of Virgil?@ said Candide.
AWhy, I grant,@ replied Pococurante, Athat the second, third, fourth, and sixth books of his Aeneid
are excellent; but as for his pious Aeneas, his strong Cloanthes, his friendly Achates, his boy Ascanius, his
silly king Latinus, his ill-bred Amata, his insipid Lavinia, and all the other characters much in the same
strain, I think there cannot in nature be anything more flat and disagreeable. I must confess I prefer Tasso
far beyond him; nay, even that sleepy taleteller Ariosto.@
AMay I take the liberty to ask if you do not experience great pleasure from reading Horace?@ said
Candide.
AThere are maxims in this writer,@ replied Pococurante, Afrom which a man of the world might reap
some benefit and the short measure of the verse makes them more easily to be retained in the memory. But
I see nothing extraordinary in his journey to Brundusium, and his account of his had dinner; nor in his
dirty, low quarrel between someone named Rupillius, whose words, as he expresses it, were full of
poisonous filth; and another, whose language was dipped in vinegar. His indelicate verses against old
women and witches have frequently given me great offense: nor can I discover the great merit of his telling
his friend Maecenas, that if Maecenas wants to judge his rank among poets, he would have to say that his
lofty head touches the stars. Ignorant readers are apt to judge a writer by his reputation. For my part, I read
only to please myself. I like nothing but what makes for my purpose.@
Candide, who had been brought up with a notion of never making use of his own judgment, was
astonished at what he heard; but Martin found there was a good deal of reason in the senator’s remarks.
AOh! here is Cicero,@ said Candide; Athis great man, I fancy, you are never tired of reading?@
AIndeed I never read him at all,@ replied Pococurante. AWhat is it to me whether he pleads for
Rabirius or Cluentius? I try causes enough myself. I had once some liking for his philosophical works; but
when I found he doubted everything, I thought I knew as much as he did and had no need of a guide to
learn ignorance.@
AHa!@ cried Martin, Ahere are eighty volumes of the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences; perhaps
there may be something curious and valuable in this collection.@
AYes,@ answered Pococurante, Aso there might if any of the compilers of this rubbish had only
invented the art of pin-making; but all these volumes are filled with mere fanciful systems, without one
single article conductive to real utility.@
AI see a prodigious number of plays,@ said Candide, Ain Italian, Spanish, and French.@
AYes,@ replied the Venetian, Athere are I think three thousand, and not three dozen of them good for
anything. As to those huge volumes of divinity, and those enormous collections of sermons, they are not all
together worth one single page in Seneca; and I fancy you will readily believe that neither myself, nor
anyone else, ever looks into them.@
Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, said to the senator, AI fancy that a
republican must be highly delighted with those books, which are most of them written with a noble spirit of
freedom.@
AIt is noble to write as we think,@ said Pococurante; Ait is the privilege of humanity. Throughout
Italy we write only what we do not think; and the present inhabitants of the country of the Caesars and
Antonines dare not acquire a single idea without the permission of a Dominican father. I should be
enamored of the spirit of the English nation did it not utterly frustrate the good effects it would produce by
passion and partisan spirit.@
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not think that author a great man.
AWho?@ said Pococurante sharply; Athat barbarian who writes a tedious commentary in ten books
of rumbling verse on the first chapter of Genesis? that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who disfigures the
creation by making the Messiah take a pair of compasses from Heaven’s armory to plan the world, where
Genesis represents the Diety producing the whole universe by the spoken word? Can I have any esteem for
a writer who has spoiled Tasso’s Hell and the Devil; who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad, and at
others into a pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over again a hundred times; who metamorphoses
him into a school-divine; and who, by an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto’s comic invention of
firearms represents the devils and angels cannonading each other in Heaven? Neither I nor any other Italian
can possibly take pleasure in such melancholy reveries; the marriage of Death and Sin, from whose womb
snakes are issuing, is enough to make any person sick that is not lost to all sense of delicacy. This obscene,
whimsical, and disagreeable poem met with the neglect it deserved at its first publication; and I only treat
the author now as he was treated in his own country by his contemporaries.@
Candide was sensibly grieved at this speech, for he had a great respect for Homer and was fond of
Milton. AAlas!@ said he softly to Martin, AI am afraid this man holds our German poets in great contempt.@
AThere would be no such great harm in that,@ said Martin.
AO what a surprising man!@ said Candide, still to himself; Awhat a prodigious genius is this
Pococurante! nothing can please him.@
After finishing their survey of the library, they went down into the garden, when Candide
commended the several beauties that offered themselves to his view.
AI know nothing upon earth laid out in such had taste,@ said Pococurante; Aeverything about it is
childish and trifling, but I shall have another laid out tomorrow upon a nobler plan.@
As soon as our two travelers had taken leave of His Excellency, Candide said to Martin, AWell, I
hope you will own that this man is the happiest of all mortals, for he is above everything he possesses.@
ABut do not you see,@ answered Martin, Athat he likewise dislikes everything he possesses? As
Plato observed long ago, a poor stomach rejects all food without distinction.@
ATrue,@ said Candide, Abut still there must certainly be a pleasure in criticizing everything, and in
perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.@
AThat is as much as to say,@ replied Martin, Athat there is pleasure in having no pleasure.@
AWell, well,@ said Candide, AI find that I shall be the only happy man at last, when I am blessed
with the sight of my dear Cunégonde.@
AIt is good to hope,@ said Martin.
In the meanwhile, days and weeks passed away, and no news of Cacambo. Candide was so
overwhelmed with grief, that he did not reflect on the behavior of Daisy and Friar Gillyflower, who never
stayed to return him thanks for the presents he had so generously made them.
Chapter 26 – Candide and Martin Sup with Six Strangers and Who They Were
One evening as Candide, with his attendant Martin, was going to sit down to supper with some
foreigners who lodged in the same inn where they had taken up their quarters, a man with a face the color
of soot came behind him, and taking him by the arm, said, AHold yourself in readiness to go along with us;
be sure you do not fail.@
Upon this, turning about to see from whom these words came, he beheld Cacambo. Nothing but
the sight of Cunégonde could have given him greater joy and surprise. He was almost beside himself, and
embraced this dear friend.
ACunégonde!@ said he, ACunégonde is come with you doubtless! Where, where is she? Carry me to
her this instant, that I may die with joy in her presence.@
AMiss Cunégonde is not here,@ answered Cacambo; Ashe is in Constantinople.@
AGood heavens! in Constantinople! but no matter if she were in China, I would fly there. Quick,
quick, dear Cacambo, let us be gone.@
ASoft and fair,@ said Cacambo, Astay till you have supped. I cannot at present stay to say anything
more to you; I am a slave and my master waits for me; I must go and attend him at table: but mum! say not
a word, only get your supper, and hold yourself in readiness.@
Candide was divided between joy and grief, charmed to have thus met with his faithful servant
again and surprised to hear he was a slave; his heart palpitating, his senses confused, but full of the hopes
of recovering his dear Cunégonde, he sat down to table with Martin, who beheld all these scenes with great
unconcern, and with six strangers, who had come to spend the Carnival at Venice.
Cacambo waited at table upon one of those strangers. When supper was nearly over, he drew near
to his master, and whispered in his ear:
ASire, Your Majesty may go when you please; the ship is ready@; and so saying he left the room.
The guests, surprised, were looking at each other speechless when another servant, drawing near to
his master, in like manner said, ASire, Your Majesty’s post-chaise is at Padua, and the bark is ready.@ The
master made him a sign, and he instantly withdrew.
The company all stared at each other again, and the general astonishment was increased. A third
servant then approached another of the strangers, and said, ASire, if Your Majesty will be advised by me,
you will not make any longer stay in this place; I will go and get everything ready@; and instantly
disappeared.
Candide and Martin then took it for granted that this was some of the diversions of the Carnival,
and that these were characters in masquerade. Then a fourth domestic said to the fourth stranger, AYour
Majesty may set off when you please@; saying which, he went away like the rest. A fifth valet said the same
to a fifth master. But the sixth domestic spoke in a different style to the person on whom he waited, and
who sat near to Candide.
ATruly, sir,@ said he, Athey will advance no more credit to Your Majesty, nor to me either; and we
may both of us be sent to jail this very night; I shall take care of myself, and so goodbye.@
The servants being all gone, the six strangers, with Candide and Martin, remained in a profound
silence. At length Candide broke it by saying:
AGentlemen, this is a very singular joke upon my word; how came you all to be kings27? For my
part I own frankly that neither my friend Martin here, nor myself, have any claim to royalty.@
Cacambo’s master then began, with great gravity, to deliver himself thus in Italian:
AI am not joking in the least, my name is Achmet III. I was Grand Sultan for many years; I
dethroned my brother, my nephew dethroned me, my viziers lost their heads, and I am condemned to end
my days in the old seraglio. My nephew, the Grand Sultan Mahomet, gives me permission to travel
sometimes for my health, and I am come to spend the Carnival at Venice.@
A young man who sat by Achmet, spoke next, and said:
27Voltaire has taken some liberties with his dates in crowding all these high personages
into an inn on the same evening, for they were not exactly contemporaries but his readers would
recognize who they were and would acknowledge their histories.
AMy name is Ivan. I was once Emperor of all the Russians, but was dethroned in my cradle. My
parents were confined, and I was brought up in a prison, yet I am sometimes allowed to travel, though
always with persons to keep a guard over me, and I come to spend the Carnival at Venice.@
The third said:
AI am Charles Edward, King of England; my father has renounced his right to the throne in my
favor. I have fought in defense of my rights, and near a thousand of my friends have had their hearts taken
out of their bodies alive and thrown in their faces. I have myself been confined in a prison. I am going to
Rome to visit the King, my father, who was dethroned as well as myself; and my grandfather and I have
come to spend the Carnival at Venice.@
The fourth spoke thus:
AI am the King of Poland; the fortune of war has stripped me of my hereditary dominions. My
father experienced the same vicissitudes of fate. I resign myself to the will of Providence, in the same
manner as Sultan Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward, whom God long preserve; and I
have come to spend the Carnival at Venice.@
The fifth said:
AI am King of Poland also. I have twice lost my kingdom; but Providence has given me other
dominions, where I have done more good than all the Sarmatian kings put together were ever able to do on
the banks of the Vistula; I resign myself likewise to Providence; and have come to spend the Carnival at
Venice.@
It now came to the sixth monarch’s turn to speak. AGentlemen,@ said he, AI am not so great a prince
as the rest of you, it is true, but I am, however, a crowned head. I am Theodore, elected King of Corsica. I
have had the title of Majesty, and am now hardly treated with common civility. I have had my image on
money and am not now worth a single penny. I have had two secretaries, and I am now without a valet. I
was once seated on a throne, and since then have lain upon a truss of straw, in a common jail in London,
and I very much fear I shall meet with the same fate here in Venice, where I came, like Your Majesties, to
divert myself at the Carnival.@
The other five Kings listened to this speech with great attention; it excited their compassion; each
of them made the unhappy Theodore a present of twenty sequins, and Candide gave him a diamond, worth
just a hundred times that sum.
AWho can this private person be,@ said the five Kings to one another, Awho is able to give, and has
actually given, a hundred times as much as any of us?@
Just as they rose from table, in came four more Serene Highnesses, who had also been stripped of
their territories by the fortune of war and had come to spend the remainder of the Carnival at Venice. But
Candide took no manner of notice of them; for his thoughts were wholly employed on his voyage to
Constantinople, where he intended to go in search of his lovely Cunégonde.
Chapter 27 – Candide’s Voyage to Constantinople
The trusty Cacambo had already engaged the captain of the Turkish ship that was to carry Sultan
Achmet back to Constantinople to take Candide and Martin on board. Accordingly they both embarked,
after paying their obeisance to his miserable Highness. As they were going on board, Candide said to
Martin:
AYou see we supped in company with six dethroned Kings, and to one of them I gave charity.
Perhaps there may be a great many other princes still more unfortunate. For my part I have lost only a
hundred sheep, and am now going to fly to the arms of my charming Cunégonde. My dear Martin, I must
insist on it, that Pangloss was in the right. All is for the best.@
AI wish it may be,@ said Martin.
ABut this was an odd adventure we met with at Venice. I do not think there ever was an instance
before of six dethroned monarchs supping together at a public inn.@
AThis is not more extraordinary,@ said Martin, Athan most of what has happened to us. It is a very
common thing for kings to be dethroned; and as for our having the honor to sup with six of them, it is a
mere accident, not deserving our attention.@
As soon as Candide set his foot on board the vessel, he flew to his old friend and valet Cacambo
and, throwing his arms about his neck, embraced him with transports of joy.
AWell,@ said he, Awhat news of Cunégonde? Does she still continue the paragon of beauty? Does
she love me still? Is she well? You have, doubtless, purchased a superb palace for her at Constantinople.@
AMy dear master,@ replied Cacambo, AMiss Cunégonde washes dishes on the banks of the
Propontis, in the house of a prince who has very few to wash. She is at present a slave in the family of a
onetime king named Ragotsky, whom the Grand Turk now allows three crowns a day to maintain him in
his exile; but the saddest thing of all is that she is turned horribly ugly.@
AUgly or handsome,@ said Candide, AI am a man of honor and, as such, am obliged to love her still.
But how could she possibly have been reduced to so abject a condition, when I sent five or six millions to
her by you?@
ALord bless me,@ said Cacambo, Awas not I obliged to give two millions to Seignor Don Fernando
d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, the Governor of Buenos Aires, for liberty to take
Miss Cunégonde away with me? And then did not a brave fellow of a pirate gallantly strip us of all the
rest? And then did not this same pirate carry us with him to Cape Matapan, to Milo, to Nicaria, to Samos,
to Petra, to the Dardanelles, to Marmora, to Scutari? Miss Cunégonde and the old woman are now servants
to the prince I have told you of; and I myself am slave to the dethroned Sultan.@
AWhat a chain of shocking accidents!@ exclaimed Candide. ABut after all, I have still some
diamonds left, with which I can easily procure Cunégonde’s liberty. It is a pity though she is grown so
ugly.@
Then turning to Martin, AWhat think you, friend,@ said he, Awhose condition is most to be pitied,
the Emperor Achmet’s, the Emperor Ivan’s, King Charles Edward’s, or mine?@
AFaith, I cannot resolve your question,@ said Martin, Awithout being able to enter your hearts.@
AAh!@ cried Candide, Awas Pangloss here now, he would know and satisfy me at once.@
AI know not,@ said Martin, Ain what balance your Pangloss could have weighed the misfortunes of
mankind and have set a just estimation on their sufferings. All that I pretend to know of the matter is that
there are millions of men on the earth, whose conditions are a hundred times more pitiable than those of
King Charles Edward, the Emperor Ivan, or Sultan Achmet.@
AWhy, that may be,@ answered Candide.
In a few days they reached the Bosphorus; and the first thing Candide did was to pay a high
ransom for Cacambo; then, without losing time, he and his companions went on board a galley, in order to
search for his Cunégonde on the banks of the Propontis, notwithstanding she had grown so ugly.
There were two slaves among the crew of the galley, who rowed very ill, and to whose bare backs
the master of the vessel frequently applied a lash. Candide, from natural sympathy, looked at these two
slaves more attentively than at any of the rest and drew near them with an eye of pity. Their features,
though greatly disfigured, appeared to him to bear a strong resemblance with those of Pangloss and the
unhappy Baron Jesuit, Cunégonde’s brother. This idea affected him with grief and compassion: he
examined them more attentively than before.
AIn truth,@ said he, turning to Martin, Aif I had not seen my master Pangloss fairly hanged, and had
not myself been unlucky enough to run the Baron through the body, I should absolutely think those two
rowers were the men.@
No sooner had Candide uttered the names of the Baron and Pangloss, than the two slaves gave a
great cry, ceased rowing, and let fall their oars.. The master of the vessel, seeing this, ran up to them, and
redoubled the discipline of the lash.
AHold, hold,@ cried Candide, AI will give you what money you shall ask for these two persons.@
AGood heavens! it is Candide,@ said one of the men.
ACandide!@ cried the other.
ADo I dream,@ said Candide, Aor am I awake? Am I actually on board this galley? Is this My Lord
the Baron, whom I killed? and that my master Pangloss, whom I saw hanged before my face?@
AIt is I! it is I!@ cried they both together.
AWhat! is this your great philosopher?@ said Martin.
AMy dear sir,@ said Candide to the master of the galley, Ahow much do you ask for the ransom of
the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, who is one of the first barons of the empire, and of Monsieur Pangloss,
the most profound metaphysician in Germany?@
AWhy, then, Christian cur,@ replied the Turkish captain, Asince these two dogs of Christian slaves
are barons and metaphysicians, who no doubt are of high rank in their own country, you will give me fifty
thousand sequins.@
AYou shall have them, sir; carry me back as quick as thought to Constantinople, and you shall
receive the money immediatelyBBut no! carry me first to Cunégonde.@
The captain, upon Candide’s first proposal, had already tacked about, and he made the crew ply
their oars so effectually, that the vessel flew through the water, quicker than a bird cleaves the air.
Candide bestowed a thousand embraces on the Baron and Pangloss. AAnd so then, my dear Baron,
I did not kill you? and you, my dear Pangloss, are you come to life again after your hanging? But how
came you slaves on board a Turkish galley?@
AAnd is it true that my dear sister is in this country?@ said the Baron.
AYes,@ said Cacambo.
AAnd do I once again behold my dear Candide?@ said Pangloss.
Candide presented Martin and Cacambo to them; they embraced each other, and all spoke together.
The galley flew like lightning, and soon they were got back to port. Candide instantly sent for a Jew, to
whom he sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond richly worth one hundred thousand, though the fellow
swore to him all the time by Father Abraham that he gave him the most he could possibly afford. He no
sooner got the money into his hands, than he paid it down for the ransom of the Baron and Pangloss. The
latter flung himself at the feet of his deliverer and bathed him with his tears; the former thanked him with a
nod and promised to return him the money the first opportunity.
ABut is it possible,@ said he, Athat my sister should be in Turkey?@
ANothing is more possible,@ answered Cacambo, Afor she scours the dishes in the house of a
Transylvanian prince.@
Candide sent directly for two Jews and sold more diamonds to them; and then he set out with his
companions in another galley, to deliver Cunégonde from slavery.
Chapter 28 – What Befell Candide, Cunégonde, Pangloss, Martin, etc.
APardon,@ said Candide to the Baron; Aonce more let me entreat your pardon, Reverend Father, for
running you through the body.@
ASay no more about it,@ replied the Baron. AI was a little too hasty I must own; but as you seem to
be desirous to know by what accident I came to be a slave on board the galley where you saw me, I will
inform you. After I had been cured of the wound you gave me, I was attacked and carried off by a party of
Spanish troops, who clapped me in prison in Buenos Aires at the very time my sister was setting out from
there. I asked leave to return to Rome, to the general of my Order, who appointed me chaplain to the
French Ambassador at Constantinople. I had not been a week in my new office, when I happened to meet
one evening a young page to the Sultan, extremely handsome and well-made. The weather was very hot;
the young man had an inclination to bathe. I took the opportunity to bathe likewise. I did not know it was a
crime for a Christian to be found naked in company with a young Turk. A cadi ordered me to receive a
hundred blows on the soles of my feet, and sent me to the galleys. I do not believe that there was ever an
act of more flagrant injustice. But I would like to know how my sister came to be a scullion to a
Transylvanian prince who has taken refuge among the Turks?@
ABut how happens it that I behold you again, my dear Pangloss?@ said Candide.
AIt is true,@ answered Pangloss, Ayou saw me hanged, though I ought properly to have been burned;
but you may remember, that it rained extremely hard when they were going to roast me. The storm was so
violent that they found it impossible to light the fire, and so they hanged me because they could do no
better. A surgeon purchased my body, carried it home, and prepared to dissect me. He began by making a
crucial incision from my navel to the clavicle. It is impossible for anyone to have been more lamely hanged
than I had been. The executioner was a subdeacon and knew how to burn people very well, but as for
hanging, he was a novice at it, being quite out of practice; the cord being wet, and not slipping properly,
the noose did not tighten properly. In short, I still continued to breathe; the surgeon=s incision made me
scream to such a degree, that he fell flat upon his back; imagining it was the Devil he was dissecting, he
ran away, and in his fright tumbled down stairs. His wife hearing the noise, flew from the next room, and
seeing me stretched upon the table with my incision, was still more terrified than her husband, and fell over
him. When they had a little recovered themselves, I heard her say to her husband, ‘My dear, how could you
think of dissecting a heretic? Don’t you know that the Devil is always in them? I’ll run directly to a priest to
come and drive the evil spirit out.’ I trembled from head to foot at hearing her talk in this manner and
exerted what little strength I had left to cry out, ‘Have mercy on me!’ At length the surgeon took courage,
sewed up my wound, and his wife nursed me; and I was upon my legs in two weeks. The barber got me a
place as a lackey to a Knight of Malta, who was going to Venice; but finding my master had no money to
pay me my wages, I entered into the service of a Venetian merchant and went with him to Constantinople.
AOne day I happened to enter a mosque, where I saw no one but an old man and a very pretty
young female devotee, who was saying her prayers; her neck was quite bare, and between her breasts she
had a beautiful nosegay of tulips, roses, anemones, ranunculuses, hyacinths, and auriculas. She let fall her
nosegay. I ran immediately to take it up and presented it to her with a most respectful bow. I was so long in
replacing it that the man began to be angry; and, perceiving I was a Christian, he cried out for help; they
carried me before the cadi, who ordered me to receive one hundred bastinadoes, and sent me to the galleys.
I was chained in the very galley and to the very same bench with the Baron. On board this galley there
were four young men belonging to Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and two monks of Corfu, who told
us that these sorts of thing happened every day. The Baron pretended that he had been worse used than
myself; and I insisted that there was far less harm in taking up a nosegay and putting it between a woman’s
breasts than to be found stark naked with a page to a Sultan. We were continually whipped, and received
twenty lashes a day with a heavy thong, when the concatenation of events in the universe brought you on
board our galley to ransom us from slavery.@
AWell, my dear Pangloss,@ said Candide to him, Awhen you were hanged, dissected, whipped, and
tugging at the oar, did you continue to think that everything in this world happens for the best?@
AI have always abided by my first opinion,@ answered Pangloss; Afor, after all, I am a philosopher,
and it would not become me to retract my sentiments; especially as Leibnitz could not be in the wrong: and
anyway, the idea of a pre-established harmony is the finest thing in the world, as well as the idea of a
plenum and of the submolecular order of all things.@
Chapter 29 – What Manner Candide Found Cunégonde and the Old Woman Again
While Candide, the Baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo, were relating their several
adventures, and reasoning on the contingent or noncontingent events of this world; on causes and
effects; on moral and physical evil; on free will and necessity; and on the consolations that may
be felt by a person when a slave and chained to an oar in a Turkish galley, they arrived at the
house of the Transylvanian prince on the shores of the Propontis. The first objects they beheld
there, were Cunégonde and the old woman, who were hanging some tablecloths on a line to dry.
The Baron turned pale at the sight. Even the tender Candide, that affectionate lover, upon
seeing his fair Cunégonde all sunburned, with bleary eyes, a withered neck, wrinkled face and
arms, all covered with a red scurf, started back with horror; but, not withstanding, recovering
himself, he advanced towards her out of good manners. She embraced Candide and her brother;
they embraced the old woman, and Candide ransomed them both.
There was a small farm in the neighborhood which the old woman proposed that Candide
should buy, as something that would do for them till the company should meet with a more
favorable destiny. Cunégonde, not knowing that she had grown ugly, as no one had told her about
it, reminded Candide of his promise in so peremptory a manner, that the simple lad did not dare to
refuse her; he then acquainted the Baron that he was going to marry his sister.
AI will never suffer,@ said the Baron, Amy sister to be guilty of an action so derogatory to
her birth and family; nor will I bear this insolence on your part. No, I never will be reproached
that my nephews are not qualified for the first ecclesiastical dignities in Germany; nor shall a
sister of mine ever be the wife of any person below the rank of Baron of the Empire.@
Cunégonde flung herself at her brother’s feet, and bedewed them with her tears; but he
still continued inflexible.
AYou stupid fellow, said Candide, Ahave I not delivered you from the galleys, paid your
ransom, and your sister’s, too, who was a scullion, and is very ugly, and yet condescended to
marry her? and will you pretend to oppose the match? If I were to listen only to my anger, I
would kill you a second time.@
AYou mayest kill me once more,@ said the Baron; Abut you will not marry my sister while
I am living.@
Chapter 30 – Conclusion
Candide had, in truth, no great inclination to marry Cunégonde; but the extreme
impertinence of the Baron determined him to conclude the match; and Cunégonde pressed him so
warmly, that he could not recant. He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful Cacambo.
Pangloss composed an extensive book, by which he proved that the Baron had no right over his
sister; and that she might, according to all the laws of the Empire, marry Candide, providing no
title to the barony accrued to Candide or his children. Martin argued for throwing the Baron into
the sea; Cacambo decided that he must be delivered to the Turkish captain and sent to the galleys;
after which he should be conveyed by the first ship to the Father General at Rome. This advice
was found to be good; the old woman approved of it, and not a syllable was said to his sister; the
business was executed for a little money; and they had the pleasure of tricking a Jesuit, and
punishing the pride of a German baron.
It was altogether natural to imagine, that after undergoing so many disasters, Candide,
married to his mistress and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the
prudent Cacambo, and the old woman, having besides brought home so many diamonds from the
country of the ancient Incas, would lead the most agreeable life in the world. But he had been so
robbed by the Jews, that he had nothing left but his little farm; his wife, every day growing more
and more ugly, became headstrong and insupportable; the old woman was infirm, and more
ill-natured yet than Cunégonde. Cacambo, who worked in the garden, and carried the produce of
it to sell in Constantinople, was above his labor, and cursed his fate. Pangloss despaired of
making a figure in any of the German universities. As for Martin, he was firmly persuaded that a
person is equally ill-situated everywhere, and he took things with patience.
Candide, Martin, and Pangloss disputed sometimes about metaphysics and morality.
Boats were often seen passing under the windows of the farm laden with effendis, pashas, and
cadis, that were going into banishment to Lemnos, Mytilene and Erzerum. And other cadis,
pashas, and effendis were seen coming back to replace of the exiles and then be driven out in
their turns. They saw several heads curiously stuck upon poles, and carried as presents to the
Sublime Porte. Such sights gave occasion to frequent dissertations; and when no disputes were in
progress, the boredom was so excessive that the old woman ventured one day to tell them:
AI would be glad to know which is worst, to be raped a hundred times by pirates, to have
one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an
auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the
miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?@
AThis,@ said Candide, Ais a difficult question.@
This discourse gave birth to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man
was born to live in the convulsions of disquiet, or in the lethargy of idleness. Though Candide did
not absolutely agree to this, yet he did not determine anything on that head. Pangloss avowed that
he had undergone dreadful sufferings; but having once maintained that everything went on as
well as possible, he still maintained it, and at the same time believed nothing of it.
One thing more than ever confirmed Martin in his detestable principles, made Candide
hesitate, and embarrassed Pangloss. This was the arrival of Daisy and Brother Gillyflower one
day at their farm. The couple had been in the utmost distress; they had very speedily made away
with their three thousand piastres; they had parted, been reconciled; quarreled again, been thrown
into prison; had made their escape, and at last Brother Gillyflower had turned Turk. Daisy still
continued to follow her trade; but she got little or nothing by it.
AI foresaw very well,@ said Martin to Candide Athat your presents would soon be
squandered, and only make them more miserable. You and Cacambo have spent millions of
piastres, and yet you are not more happy than Brother Gillyflower and Daisy.@
AAh!@ said Pangloss to Daisy, Ait is Heaven that has brought you here among us, my poor
child! Do you know that you have cost me the tip of my nose, one eye, and one ear? What a
handsome shape is here! what a world this is!@
This new adventure engaged them more deeply than ever in philosophical disputations.
In the neighborhood lived a famous dervish who passed for the best philosopher in
Turkey; they went to consult him: Pangloss, who was their spokesman, addressed him thus:
AMaster, we come to entreat you to tell us why so strange an animal as man has been
formed?@
AWhy do you trouble your head about it?@ said the dervish; Ais it any business of yours?@
ABut, Reverend Father,@ said Candide, Athere is a horrible deal of evil on the earth.@
AWhat does it matter,@ said the dervish, Awhether there is evil or good? When His
Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble his head whether the rats in the vessel are at their
ease or not?@
AWhat must then be done?@ said Pangloss.
ABe silent,@ answered the dervish.
AI was hoping,@ replied Pangloss, Ato have reasoned a little with you on the causes and
effects, on the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and a
pre-established harmony.@
At these words the dervish shut the door in their faces.
During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers of the bench and the
mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of their friends impaled. This
catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were
returning to the little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was taking the air at his door,
under an alcove formed of the boughs of orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was
disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately strangled.
AI cannot tell,@ answered the good old man; AI never knew the name of any mufti, or
vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event you speak of; I presume that in general such
as are concerned in public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they deserve it:
but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I am contented with sending thither the
produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands.@
After saying these words, he invited the strangers to come into his house. His two
daughters and two sons presented them with sherbet of their own making; besides caymac,
heightened with the peels of candied citrons, oranges, lemons, pineapples, pistachio nuts, and
Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or the American islands. After which
the two daughters of this good Mussulman perfumed the beards of Candide, Pangloss, and
Martin.
AYou must certainly have a vast estate,@ said Candide to the Turk.
AI have no more than twenty acres of ground,@ he replied, Athe whole of which I cultivate
myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps us from three great evilsBidleness, vice,
and poverty.@
Candide, as he was returning home, made profound reflections on the Turk’s discourse.
AThis good old man,@ said he to Pangloss and Martin, Aappears to me to have chosen for
himself a lot much preferable to that of the six Kings with whom we had the honor to sup.@
AHuman grandeur,@ said Pangloss, Ais very dangerous, if we believe the testimonies of
almost all philosophers; for we find Eglon, King of Moab, was assassinated by Aod; Absalom
was hanged by the hair of his head, and run through with three darts; King Nadab, son of
Jeroboam, was slain by Baaza; King Ela by Zimri; Okosias by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the
Kings Jehooiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity: I need not tell you what was
the fate of Croesus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal,
Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England,
Edward II, Henry VI, Richard Ill, Mary Stuart, Charles I, the three Henrys of France, and the
Emperor Henry IV.@
ANeither need you tell me,@ said Candide, Athat we must cultivate our garden.@
AYou are in the right,@ said Pangloss; Afor when man was put into the garden of Eden, it
was with an intent to dress it; and this proves that man was not born to be idle.@
AWork then without disputing,@ said Martin; Ait is the only way to render life
supportable.@
The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to
exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunégonde
indeed was very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at making pastries: Daisy embroidered;
the old woman had the care of the linen. There was none, down to Brother Gillyflower, but did
some service; he was a very good carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and
then to say to Candide:
AThere is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had
you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunégonde; had you not been put
into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron
through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country
of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat marmalade and pistachio nuts.@
AGood speech,@ answered Candide; Abut let us cultivate our garden.@

Weak to the Strong, Strong to the Weak — Arun Shourie

Weak to the Strong, Strong to the Weak — Arun Shourie
In painting Goddess Saraswati naked M.F. Hussein, his secularist advocates argue, is merely exercising his Fundamental Right to freedom of expression, he is merely giving form to his artistic, creative urge. The first question is: How come the freedom and creative urge of the thousands and thousands of artists our country has have never led even one of them to ever paint or draw a picture of Prophet Muhammad in which his face is manifest? I am not on the point of dress or undress, the features could have been made as celestial and handsome as our artists could have imagined — why is it that they never got the urge to draw or sculpt even the handsomest representation of the Prophet?The rationalization is that doing so would have hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims, the Prophet himself having forbidden all representations. The reason, as distinct from the rationalization, is different: were an artist to make such a representation Muslims would be ignited by their controllers to riot, they would not let that artist live in peace thereafter.Notice first that in the lexicon of those who are shouting for Hussein the point about not hurting religious sentiments manifestly does not apply to the Hindus: in their case the alternate principle of the right of the artist to paint as he pleases takes precedence. The Hindus notice this duality more and more.Indeed they notice the length to which some are prepared to exercise their right to give full rein to their creative urge, disregarding what Hindus might feel as a consequence. As recently as August last year, the art gallery of the INDIA TODAY group, ART TODAY held an exhibition of “modern Indian miniatures”. Prominent among the paintings on display was one that showed a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Radha astride a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Lord Krishna — the two fornicating in a garden. Posters with this painting prominently featured were put up inviting viewers to the gallery. The August, 1995 issue of the magazine, INDIA TODAY carried an advertisement — urging readers to purchase prints of paintings which were on display at the gallery, the advertisement too featured prominently the same painting of Radha laying Lord Krishna in a garden. Some persons protested. No one heeded them. A demonstration was then held outside the gallery, the demonstrators entered the gallery. The painting was taken down. Friends who heard of the incident denounced the demonstrators: “Hindu bigots”, “The saffron brigade on the look-out for issues,” “Fascist goons who want to impose their constipated brand of Hinduism on everyone.” To establish the principle, and even more to demonstrate the scorn in which they held “these goons” another publication, ‘The India Magazine’, as demonstrative about its secular credentials, put that very painting on its cover. That this was done with full knowledge that doing so was likely to offend others is evident from the fact that, simultaneously with putting the painting on the cover, the person most prominently associated with ‘The India Magazine’ applied for anticipatory bail.Now, the collections of hadis contain scores and scores of descriptions of the Prophet, as they contain accounts — accounts in the words and on the testimony of the Prophet’s wives themselves — about his relations with his wives; how is it that none of our artists have ever felt the creative urge to portray even accurately any of those descriptions, to say nothing of these magazines ever inviting their readers to purchase colorful reproductions of the paintings or putting the paintings on their covers and posters. Indeed I have not the least doubt that if they received even an article — which, after all, can never be as tantalizing as a Hussein painting — an article which did no more than reproduce verbatim those accounts, they would refuse to print it: all the great principles about not hurting the religious sentiments of others, all the provisions of law — sections 153A, 295A, 298 — will be invoked in justification. But when it comes to a painting of a naked Radha astride a naked Lord Krishna fornicating in a garden, carrying it in advertisements, putting that on the cover is a Fundamental Right, to object to it is to throttle an artist’s right to give expression to his creative urge.It is not the freedom of expression these worthies are committed to. They are committed to their having freedom alone: can you recall a single liberal protesting against the ban on Ram Swarup’s Understanding Islam Through Hadis — a book so scrupulously academic that it was but a paraphrase of the Sahih Muslim, one of the canonical compilations of hadis — to say nothing of any one of them deigning to put in a word against goondas — claiming to represent the Muslims — who tried to get at me in Hyderabad or the goondas — claiming to speak for the other lot these worthies champion, the “Dalits” — who did get at me in Pune? Not one deigned to do so. They are not the champions and practitioners of free speech, they are the practitioners of a very special brand of the dialectic: Strong to the weak, Weak to the strong. And that is what the Hindus are noticing: neither the gallery nor the magazine spared a thought for the religious sentiments it might offend till the “goons” marched into the gallery, but they had but to march in and the painting was immediately taken down; Hussein was all defiance one day, but the moment some paintings of his were burnt, he was suddenly sorry….”But nude representations are a part of our tradition. Look at Konark, look at Khajuraho,” the advocates have been shouting. But what has the figure of a woman being had by a dog in Konark have to do with worship ? What basis is there for declaring the women portrayed there are Saraswati or Sita or Lakshmi ? And then, as a reader points out, there is the other consideration : depicting women completely naked has for centuries been very much a part of European painting and sculpture tradition; but do the artists not stop at using this tradition for portraying Virgin Mary naked?And as for Saraswati being depicted naked, her image is set out in our iconography, in the mantras by which we invoke her; in all these she is referred to as “….yaa shubhra vastraavritaa….”, as one “draped in white”. That white dress draping her is one of the four distinguishing marks of representations of Goddess Saraswati — the other three being that she holds beads in one hand, a book in another and the vina in a third.”But I have every right to portray her as I will,” a secular friend protested when I repeated to him this iconographic description to which one of the best known and sagacious authorities on our art had drawn my attention. Assume you do, but then you can’t simultaneously claim that what you are doing is in accord with that tradition. Second, if painting Goddess Saraswati naked is an intrinsic part of our tradition because sundry women have been depicted naked and fornicating in Khajuraho and Konark, then, my dear friend, what about the Dasham Granth of Guru Govind Singh and its 300 treyi chitra? How come not one of you has ever been stirred by his creative urge to put on canvas any of those — most vivid and vigourous — pen-portraits? Is the work of Guru Govind Singh any less a part of the Sikh tradition than the Gita Govind? What about the scores and scores of hadis I mentioned earlier ? Alongside the Quran, they are not just any old element of Islam, they are the very foundation. Let us see you affirm the right of artists to depict images — not imagined ones, not ones that depart from the mantras as the painting in question does, just the most scrupulously faithful and exact images — of what is described therein.The next argument of our artists and intellectuals is just as much a manufacture of convenience: “All our religions, everything about our past is the common heritage of all of us, it belongs to each of us equally,” they have been saying. This presumably has been done to preempt those who would say that Hussein is particularly in the wrong to have painted Hindu goddesses naked because he is a Muslim. Fine. But how come so many of you are up in arms when I write on Islamic law? In particular, how come you work up such a fury even though, unlike a painter, I am not conjuring up an image and am instead documenting every single sentence and paragraph with the exact text of the sacred works of Islam? What happens at that time to this principle of all our religions and everything in our past being the common heritage that belongs to each one of us equally? Then these very magazines and intellectuals are full of sanctimonious sermons: If members of one religion start commenting on the practices and beliefs of other religions, there will be hell to pay, they proclaim.It is this double-standard which outrages the Hindus more and more, it is this which these inchoate outbursts are revolts against.Many Hindus also notice the other thing — the one I mentioned as the reason as against the rationalization for no artist ever being galvanized by the creative urge when it comes to painting the features of the Prophet. They notice that the artists do not do so, not because these masters cannot do so, nor because their muse never goads them in this direction, but because they know that, were they to do so, they would be set upon. And that the State — which is weak, and which also has internalized the same double-standards to rationalize its weakness — will not come to their rescue. Therefore, more and more Hindus are concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to become Islamic: the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus become a little Islamic.The secularists’ shout, “But these things destroy the very basis of our culture.” The Hindus see that argument as being no better than the Devil quoting the Scripture, or, to put it in words the secularists would find more persuasive, than my quoting the Quran: for they know that these are the very persons who have been deriding them for living a life rooted in that culture, they are the ones who have been denouncing that culture and every thing associated with it — the idols, the beliefs, the rituals — as being nothing but devices which the Brahmins have forged to perpetuate inequity, to perpetuate exploitation of the poor masses.The arguments of the secularists therefore are mere pretense. Yet I believe that it was plain wrong to break the window-panes and burn the paintings. Free speech is vital for our country. If it is curbed, what will be killed is not a painting but reform — for all reform offends as it is a voice against the way things are at that moment. I believe that even if one’s singular concern is Hinduism and its rehabilitation, free speech is the best guarantee: the more Eastern religions — Hinduism, Buddhism and others — are subjected to critical inquiry the more their luminescent essence shines forth; by contrast the Semitic religions — down to Marxism-Leninism — wither at the first exposure to exegesis and inquiry: and the controllers of these religions have been very conscious of this, that is why they have for centuries together put inquiry down with a lethal hand. The twin principles which the champions of Hussein’s right to paint as he will have been proclaiming are the exact pincer which will work — the principle that there must be freedom of speech and that every religion, and the principle that every aspect of our past is the common heritage of each of us equally. All we should ensure is that these principles hold good for all equally. And when someone paints like Hussein did in this instance, instead of burning his paintings we should use them to document the double-standards which mar current policies and discourse, and demand that either the standard apply to all or to none. Thus : education, not burning; parity, not suppression.In Hussein’s case in particular, I feel that the youngsters who took offence missed a very vital point — not just about his painting but about his life. He is and has continued to be a Muslim. Now, as anyone who has read anything about the Prophet knows, the Prophet cursed and detested those who made representations of things. He put pictures at par with dogs, and, remember, he had all dogs killed. “The angels do not enter a house,” he declared on the authority of the angel, Gabriel, “which contains a dog or pictures.” Abu Huraira, the source of a large proportion of the hadis, states that God’s Messenger narrated that Gabriel had promised to visit him one day but didn’t turn up, and so, when he came the next day, the Prophet inquired as to what had happened. Gabriel, the Prophet narrated, said, “I came to you last night and was prevented from entering simply by the fact that there were images at the door, for there was a figured curtain with images on it and there was a dog in the house. So, order that the head of the image which is at the door of the house be cut off so that it may become like the form of a tree; order that the curtain be cut up and made into two cushions spread out on which people may tread; and order that the dog be put out.” “God’s Messenger,” the hadis concludes, “then did so.” His wife, Aisha tells us, “The Prophet never left in his house anything containing figures of a cross without destroying it.” She recalls how the Prophet reprimanded her for two cushions she had made because they contained pictures. The Prophet declared that those who made representations of things “will receive the severest punishment on the day of resurrection,” that “Everyone who makes representations of things will go to hell.” He declared them to be “the worst of God’s creatures.” He put them at par with “the one who kills a prophet, or who is killed by a prophet, or kills one of his parents.” [ Several other hadis, and of course several instances can be cited; for the few which have been quoted see, Mishkat Al-Masabih, Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, Volume II, Book XXI, Chapter V, pp. 940-44. ]Hussein on the contrary has made painting images his very life. Therefore, in a very deep sense, his entire life is an endeavour to open an aperture in that wall of prohibitions. It has been a banner for liberalism, indeed for liberation.In sum, I am for Hussein, not for his champions;The position which Hussein’s champions have taken up is just the one which our society needs;We should hold them to their word, and have them stick by it in the case of one and all;And we should await the day when their muse will lead them to exercise their creative urge, “that one talent which is death to hide,” paint as freely and with as much abandon themes from all our religions and traditions.Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards, the more Islamic will the Hindus become.

Silence Dogood, No. 8, 9 July 1722 — Benjamin Franklin

To the Author of the New-England Courant.

[No. VIII.

Sir,

I prefer the following Abstract from the London Journal to any Thing of my own, and therefore shall present it to your Readers this week without any further Preface.5

“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.

“This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a Thing terrible to Publick Traytors.

“This Secret was so well known to the Court of King Charles the First, that his wicked Ministry procured a Proclamation, to forbid the People to talk of Parliaments, which those Traytors had laid aside. To assert the undoubted Right of the Subject, and defend his Majesty’s legal Prerogative, was called Disaffection, and punished as Sedition. Nay, People were forbid to talk of Religion in their Families: For the Priests had combined with the Ministers to cook up Tyranny, and suppress Truth and the Law, while the late King James, when Duke of York, went avowedly to Mass, Men were fined, imprisoned and undone, for saying he was a Papist: And that King Charles the Second might live more securely a Papist, there was an Act of Parliament made, declaring it Treason to say that he was one.

“That Men ought to speak well of their Governours is true, while their Governours deserve to be well spoken of; but to do publick Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny: A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their Freedom of Speech.

“The Administration of Government, is nothing else but the Attendance of the Trustees of the People upon the Interest and Affairs of the People: And as it is the Part and Business of the People, for whose Sake alone all publick Matters are, or ought to be transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the Interest, and ought to be the Ambition, of all honest Magistrates, to have their Deeds openly examined, and publickly scann’d: Only the wicked Governours of Men dread what is said of them; Audivit Tiberius probra queis lacerabitur, atque perculsus est.6 The publick Censure was true, else he had not felt it bitter.

“Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptom, as well as the Effect of a good Government. In old Rome, all was left to the Judgment and Pleasure of the People, who examined the publick Proceedings with such Discretion, and censured those who administred them with such Equity and Mildness, that in the space of Three Hundred Years, not five publick Ministers suffered unjustly. Indeed whenever the Commons proceeded to Violence, the great Ones had been the Agressors.

“Guilt only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it out of its lurking Holes, and exposes its Deformity and Horrour to Daylight. Horatius, Valerius, Cincinnatus, and other vertuous and undesigning Magistrates of the Roman Commonwealth, had nothing to fear from Liberty of Speech. Their virtuous Administration, the more it was examin’d, the more it brightned and gain’d by Enquiry. When Valerius in particular, was accused upon some slight grounds of affecting the Diadem; he, who was the first Minister of Rome, does not accuse the People for examining his Conduct, but approved his Innocence in a Speech to them; and gave such Satisfaction to them, and gained such Popularity to himself, that they gave him a new Name; inde cognomenfactum Publicolae est; to denote that he was their Favourite and their Friend. Latae deinde leges—Ante omnes de provocatione Adversus Magistratus Ad Populum, Livii, lib. 2. Cap. 8.

“But Things afterwards took another Turn. Rome, with the Loss of its Liberty, lost also its Freedom of Speech; then Mens Words began to be feared and watched; and then first began the poysonous Race of Informers, banished indeed under the righteous Administration of Titus, Narva, Trajan, Aurelius, &c. but encouraged and enriched under the vile Ministry of Sejanus, Tigillinus, Pallas, and Cleander: Queri libet, quod in secreta nostra non inquirant principes, nisi quos Odimus, says Pliny to Trajan.7

“The best Princes have ever encouraged and promoted Freedom of Speech; they know that upright Measures would defend themselves, and that all upright Men would defend them. Tacitus, speaking of the Reign of some of the Princes abovemention’d, says with Extasy, Rara Temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, & quae sentias dicere licet:8 A blessed Time when you might think what you would, and speak what you thought.

“I doubt not but old Spencer and his Son,9 who were the Chief Ministers and Betrayers of Edward the Second, would have been very glad to have stopped the Mouths of all the honest Men in England. They dreaded to be called Traytors, because they were Traytors. And I dare say, Queen Elizabeth’s Walsingham, who deserved no Reproaches, feared none. Misrepresentation of publick Measures is easily overthrown, by representing publick Measures truly; when they are honest, they ought to be publickly known, that they may be publickly commended; but if they are knavish or pernicious, they ought to be publickly exposed, in order to be publickly detested.” Yours, &c.,

Silence Dogood

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0015

What the invaders really did — Rizwan Salim

Originally published in the Hindustan Times

On the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition (December 6, 1992), it is important for Hindus (and Muslims) to understand the importance of the event in the context of Hindustan’s history, past and recent, present and the future.
Savages at a very low level of civilisation and no culture worth the name, from Arabia and west Asia, began entering India from the early century onwards. Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples, shattered uncountable sculpture and idols, plundered innumerable palaces and forts of Hindu kings, killed vast numbers of Hindu men and carried off Hindu women. This story, the educated-and a lot of even the illiterate Indians-know very well. History books tell it in remarkable detail. But many Indians do not seem to recognise that the alien Muslim marauders destroyed the historical evolution of the earth’s most mentally advanced civilisation, the most richly imaginative culture, and the most vigorously creative society.
It is clear that India at the time when Muslim invaders turned towards it (8 to 11th century) was the earth’s richest region for its wealth in precious and semi-precious stones, gold and silver, religion and culture, and its fine arts and letters. Tenth century Hindustan was also too far advanced than its contemporaries in the East
and the West for its achievements in the realms of speculative philosophy and scientific theorising, mathematics and knowledge of nature’s workings. Hindus of the early medieval period were unquestionably superior in more things than the Chinese, the Persians (including the Sassanians), the Romans and the Byzantines of the immediate proceeding centuries. The followers of Siva and Vishnu on this subcontinent had
created for themselves a society more mentally evolved-joyous and prosperous too-than had been realised by the Jews, Christians, and Muslim monotheists of the time.

Medieval India, until the Islamic invaders destroyed
it, was history’s most richly imaginative culture and one of the five most advanced civilisations of all times.
Look at the Hindu art that Muslim iconoclasts severely damaged or destroyed. Ancient Hindu sculpture is
vigorous and sensual in the highest degree-more fascinating than human figural art created anywhere else on earth. (Only statues created by classical Greek artists are in the same class as Hindu temple sculpture). Ancient Hindu temple architecture is the most awe-inspiring, ornate and spell-binding architectural style found anywhere in the world. (The Gothic art of cathedrals in France is the only other religious architecture that is
comparable with the intricate architecture of Hindu temples). No artist of any historical civilisation have ever revealed the same genius as ancient Hindustan’s artists and artisans.
Their minds filled with venom against the idol-worshippers of Hindustan, the Muslims destroyed a large number of ancient Hindu temples. This is a historical fact, mentioned by Muslim chroniclers and others of the time. A number of temples were merely damaged and remained standing. But a large number – not hundreds
but many thousands – of the ancient temples were broken into shreds of cracked stone. In the ancient cities of Varanasi and Mathura, Ujjain and Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi and Dwarka, not one temple survives whole and
intact from the ancient times.

The wrecking of Hindu temples went on from the early years of the 8th century to well past 1700 AD a period
of almost 1000 years. Every Muslim ruler in Delhi (or Governor of Provinces) spent most of his time warring
against Hindu kings in the north and the south, the east and the west, and almost every Muslim Sultan and his
army commanders indulged in large scale destructions of Hindu temples and idols. They also slaughtered a lot
of Hindus. It is easy to conclude that virtually every Hindu temple built in the ancient times is a perfect work
of art. The evidence of the ferocity with which the Muslim invaders must have struck at the sculptures of gods
and goddesses, demons and apsaras, kings and queens, dancers and musicians is frightful. At so many ancient
temples of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, for example, shattered portions of stone images still lie scattered in
the temple courtyards. Considering the fury used on the idols and sculptures, the stone-breaking axe must
have been applied to thousands upon thousands of images of hypnotic beauty.
Giving proof of the resentment that men belonging to an inferior civilisation feel upon encountering a
superior civilisation of individuals with a more refined culture, Islamic invaders from Arabia and western Asia
broke and burned everything beautiful they came across in Hindustan. So morally degenerate were the Muslim
Sultans that, rather than attract Hindu “infidels” to Islam through force of personal example and exhortation,
they just built a number of mosques at the sites of torn down temples-and foolishly pretended they had
triumphed over the minds and culture of the Hindus. I have seen stones and columns of Hindu temples
incorporated into the architecture of several mosques, including the Jama Masjid and Ahmed Shah Masjid in Ahmedabad; the mosque in the Uparkot fort of Junagadh (Gujarat) and in Vidisha (near Bhopal); the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra right next to the famous dargah in Ajmer-and the currently controversial Bhojshala “mosque”
in Dhar (near Indore). Hindu culture was at its imaginative best and vigorously creative when the severely allergic-to-images Muslims entered Hindustan. Islamic invaders did not just destroy countless temples and
constructions but also suppressed cultural and religious practices; damaged the pristine vigour of Hindu
religion, prevented the intensification of Hindu culture, debilitating it permanently, stopped the development
of Hindu arts ended the creative impulse in all realms of thought and action, damaged the people’s cultural
pride, disrupted the transmission of values and wisdom, cultural practices and tradition from one generation to
the next; destroyed the proper historical evolution of Hindu kingdoms and society, affected severely the
acquisition of knowledge, research and reflection and violated the moral basis of Hindu society. The Hindus
suffered immense psychic damage. The Muslims also plundered the wealth of the Hindu kingdoms,
impoverished the Hindu populace, and destroyed the prosperity of Hindustan.
Gaze in wonder at the Kailas Mandir in the Ellora caves and remember that it is carved out of a solid stone
hill, an effort that (inscriptions say) took nearly 200 years. This is art as devotion. The temple built by the
Rashtrakuta kings (who also built the colossal sculpture in the Elephanta caves off Mumbai harbour) gives proof of the ancient Hindus’ religious fervor.
But the Kailas temple also indicated a will power, a creative imagination, and an intellect eager to take on the greatest of artistic challenges.
The descendants of those who built the magnificent temples of Bhojpur and Thanjavur, Konark and Kailas,
invented mathematics and brain surgery, created mindbody disciplines (yoga) of astonishing power, and built
mighty empires would almost certainly have attained technological superiority over Europe.
It is not just for “political reasons” that Hindus want to build grand temples at the sites of the (wrecked) Babri
Masjid in Ayodhya, the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, and the Mathura idgah. The efforts of religion intoxicated and politically active Hindus to rebuild the Ram Mandir, the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir, and the Krishna Mandir are just three episodes m a one-thousand year long Hindu struggle to reclaim their culture and
religion from alien invaders.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 was just one episode in the millennial
struggle of the Hindus to repossess their religion-centered culture and nation. Meanwhile, hundreds of ancient Hindu temples forsaken all over Hindustan await the reawakening of Hindu cultural pride to be repaired or
rebuilt and restored to their original, ancient glory.