在印度賈瓦伊 人與豹子達成的和解能否延續
JUST BEFORE DAWN, on the whitewashed steps leading up to the Shiva temple on Perwa Hill, we find four leopards. A mother and three cubs, they loll about, rubbing against each other like oversize domestic cats. The guide is shining a powerful flashlight, and when it catches their eyes, the glint is a startling yellow-green. Languorously stretching, occasionally changing position, they seem unconcerned by the humans watching them from a jeep at the foot of the hill. As the sun nears the horizon, the sky turns pale and the contours of the hill appear, an ancient granite dome whorled and pocked by erosion, full of caves and fissures. Dawn breaks, bathing the rock in a peachy glow, and the cats slink out of sight.
佩爾瓦山(Perwa Hill)上有座溼婆廟，天亮前，在通往寺廟的那條被刷成白色的階梯上，我們發現了四隻豹子。一隻母豹和三隻幼豹悠哉遊哉地倚在一處，相互摩擦着身體，彷彿特大號的家貓。嚮導打着一把非常亮的手電，它們的眼睛被光線照到時，閃耀着懾人的黃綠色光芒。懶懶地舒展身形，偶爾變換一下姿勢，它們似乎並不在意我們這些從山腳下的一輛吉普車裏注視着它們的人類。當太陽靠近地平線的時候，天際泛出魚肚白，佩爾瓦山的輪廓逐漸顯現，古老的圓形花崗岩山頂歷經歲月的侵蝕，佈滿巖洞和裂隙。破曉時分，橙紅色的陽光灑在岩石上；“大貓”從我們的視線裏消失了。
Up at the top, an elderly priest begins to move around the sanctuary, a bearded figure wrapped in a shawl against the morning cold. I watch through binoculars as he begins the long, slow descent of the steps, perhaps two hundred of them, steadying himself with a stick. According to local legend, as a young man the priest committed a murder and sought sanctuary here, whereupon he was filled with the wild glory of God. Seeing his devotion, his pursuers relented, and he has spent his life in this remote place, serving Lord Shiva. On an outcrop directly above the steps, about halfway down the steep hillside, the oldest of the cubs has reappeared and is watching the frail old man pass below. Almost full-grown, it is a formidable creature, with muscular forelegs and a powerful jaw. It looks poised to pounce. Yet as the priest picks his way down, it makes no move, and he reaches the bottom safely, puttering off to run his morning errands in the village.
山頂上，一位年長的祭司開始在寺廟周遭活動。他留着一副大鬍子，以一件披肩抵禦清晨的寒氣。我透過雙筒望遠鏡看到，他藉助一根柺杖保持穩定，順着長長的階梯慢慢走下來，走了或許兩百級臺階。當地有傳說稱，這位祭司年輕時殺了人，來此尋求庇護，結果讓自己全身心地沉浸在了神的偉大榮耀之中。追捕者見他極爲虔誠，便放了他一馬。後來他一直待在這個偏遠的地方，侍奉溼婆神。山坡很陡，祭司行至中途，個頭最大的幼豹在階梯上方一塊凸出的岩石上再次現身，看着衰弱的老人從下方經過。那隻幾乎完全發育成熟的幼豹絕對是頭猛獸，有着肌肉發達的前腿和強有力的下顎。看起來，它隨時準備撲將下去。可是，當祭司拄着柺杖往下走的時候，它一動不動；祭司安然無恙地來到山腳下，慢條斯理地走向村子，去辦早上的差事。
Jawai, in the Pali district of Western Rajasthan, is a remarkable place. In a country that has been changed almost beyond recognition by two decades of explosive economic growth, electrification here is patchy, the crops of mustard and wheat painstakingly harvested by hand. In 1946, Maharajah Umaid Singh of Jodhpur broke ground on a dam on the river Jawai, the most significant incursion of modernity into the landscape. The land around the dam is known informally by the river’s name. The rich river-bottom soil, which for millennia has supported clans of Rajput farmers, is broken by dramatic solitary hills, stark uninhabited granite peaks, almost all of which are marked by a shrine or temple. Some, like the one at Perwa Hill, are lived in by the priests who tend them. Many are passed down from father to son. Through this country wander semi-nomadic herders of the Rabari tribe following ancient routes that take them south into Gujarat and east into Madhya Pradesh. And in the hills live dozens of leopards, predators who by day watch the humans go about their business, and by night come down to hunt, stalking the streets of their villages and killing their livestock.
位於拉賈斯坦邦西部帕裏地區的賈瓦伊，是一個令人難忘的地方。過去20年裏，由於經濟的井噴式增長，印度的面貌發生了翻天覆地的變化，但在賈瓦伊，電氣化的進程並不順暢，芥末和小麥等作物仍需以手工方式辛苦收割。久德布王公烏麥·辛格(Umaid Singh)1946年命人在賈瓦伊河上修築的一道水壩，是現代化爲當地景觀留下的最顯著印記。水壩周邊的地界，被人頗爲隨意地以賈瓦伊河的名字命名。千百年來，河水流經的這片沃土，一直是拉傑普特族(Rajput)農民賴以生存的根本。一座座突然隆起的孤山將土地分割開來，花崗岩山坡荒涼至極。幾乎每座山丘上都有一座神祠或者寺廟。有些廟宇，比如佩爾瓦山的這座，裏面住着打理它們的祭司。還有許多則是父子世代相傳。過着半遊牧生活的拉巴里(Rabari)部落的牧民，沿着南至古吉拉特邦、東至中央邦的古老路線在這個國家跋涉遷徙。這裏的山中有很多豹子， 這些肉食動物在白天看着人類爲生活而忙碌着，晚上則下山捕獵，出沒於村莊的街道上，殺死人們飼養的牲畜。
Around the world, from the savannas of Kenya to Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, when big cats pose a threat to poor communities, the same sad story prevails: Cats kill valuable animals. Occasionally they kill people, often children, who are small enough to be carried away. And then people kill the cats. In the first three months of this year, leopard attacks across India left at least nine dead and 38 wounded. Yet in Jawai no one has been taken by a leopard for over 150 years. In 2013, a young naturalist called Adam Bannister came to Jawai to work for Anjali and Jaisal Singh, a New Delhi-based couple who wanted to set up a high-end safari operation. Bannister, a sandy-haired South African who had worked with leopards in South Africa and jaguars in Brazil, walked and drove around the region, talking to local people to find out the patterns of leopard movement. He quickly realized that Jawai was unique. Perhaps nowhere else in the world do humans and big cats live in such proximity with so little friction.
在世界各地，從肯尼亞的大草原到巴西的潘塔納爾(Pantanal)溼地，提起“大貓”對貧困社區構成的威脅，人們都在講述相同版本的令人遺憾的故事：“大貓”殺死了寶貴的牲畜，有時還會殺人——常常是小到足以被叼走的兒童。人類隨後則會把它們殺掉。今年頭三個月，印度的豹子襲人事件至少造成9人死亡，38人受傷。但在賈瓦伊，愈150年以來，還沒有人被豹子奪去性命。2013年，年輕的博物學家亞當·班尼斯特(Adam Bannister)因爲工作需要來到賈瓦伊，他的僱主是住在新德里的Anjali和Jaisal Singh夫婦，他們想在這兒創辦一家高端觀獸旅行機構。班尼斯特是個有着沙色頭髮的南非人，曾在工作中和南非的豹子、巴西的美洲虎打過交道。爲了弄清豹子出沒的規律，他有時步行、有時駕車，走遍了這一地區，跟當地人交談。他很快意識到，賈瓦伊是獨一無二的。人和豹子極爲近距離地生活在一起，卻甚少發生摩擦，這在其他任何地方都不可想象。
The result of Bannister’s research and the Singhs’ experience (their company, Sujan, runs successful tiger and elephant safaris elsewhere in India and in Kenya) is a luxurious tented camp designed to have a low environmental impact. Its 11 tents, located in a field bought from a local farmer, can house 22 people at full capacity, and staff are recruited, as much as possible, from the community. The permanent structures — a garage for jeeps, staff accommodation and offices — are hidden behind a high bamboo fence, giving guests like me the illusion that they are living a little closer to nature than is in fact the case. Every day, just before dawn and again at dusk, Bannister and his team treat the tourists — often serial safarigoers, equipped with expensive long lenses and wardrobes of khaki clothing — to a bouncy and sometimes hair-raising jeep ride through the countryside, past antelope, porcupine, crocodiles and all manner of bird-life, to look for leopards.
基於班尼斯特的研究和辛格夫婦的經驗（他們開了家名爲Sujan的公司，在印度其他地方以及肯尼亞經營以老虎和大象爲賣點的觀獸旅行業務，頗爲成功），一個旨在儘量少給環境造成影響的奢華帳篷營地誕生了。營地的11頂帳篷都支在從當地一個農民手中買來的空地上，最多可以容納22人；招募工作人員時，儘可能實行當地人優先的原則。永久性建築物——一個存放吉普車的車庫，以及員工的宿舍和辦公室——則隱藏在一道高高的竹籬笆後面，會讓我這樣的客人產生錯覺，以爲自己住在一個更爲貼近自然的環境裏。每天天亮前和黃昏時，班尼斯特及其團隊會帶領那些通常是配備昂貴的長焦鏡頭、穿着卡其布服裝的觀獸旅行者坐上一輛有時顛簸得令人心驚膽戰的吉普車，穿行於鄉野之間，經過羚羊、豪豬、鱷魚以及各種鳥類身旁，去尋找豹子的蹤跡。
I first visited the camp last October, looking for a place to unwind after a family wedding in Delhi. On that visit, Bannister took me to watch a mother and her cubs prowl about outside a cave partway up a hill called Nag Bawasi, which lies right on the outskirts of the nearby Sena (“Army”) village, founded, according to tradition, by demobbed Rajput soldiers. The mother, Bannister explained, had earlier that day killed a goat on the Sena cricket pitch and dragged the carcass up the hill to eat. By the time we came upon them in Bannister’s jeep, the leopard family was satiated, relaxed. As dawn broke, the sounds of the village waking up brought home how startlingly close they were to human habitation. Barking dogs, a transistor radio, the coughing of a generator. Though the elevation creates a natural boundary between the two worlds — the cats above and the humans below — there was no illusion that we were in an uninhabited place, some game reserve or national park. The morning light revealed sleepy men and women walking along paths, each one carrying a container of water, a can or a steel lota, on their way to defecate among the scrub and the drifts of plastic waste.
我初次到訪該營地是在去年11月，當時剛在德里參加完家人的婚禮，想找個地方放鬆一下身心。那一次，班尼斯特帶我觀看了一隻母豹和她的幼崽在那格巴瓦斯山(Nag Bawas)山腰的一個山洞外遊蕩的情形。那格巴瓦斯山就位於附近的塞納村(Sena)的邊緣地帶，“Sena”意爲軍隊，據傳該村莊是由解甲還鄉的拉傑普特族士兵修建的。班尼斯特解釋說，那隻母豹當天早些時候在板球場上殺死了一隻山羊，隨後將其拖至山上享用。我們乘坐班尼斯特的吉普車抵達時，豹子一家已吃飽喝足，一副放鬆的樣子。破曉時分，村莊逐漸甦醒的聲音讓我們意識到，它們竟然如此靠近人類的棲息地。狗在吠叫，晶體管收音機在播音，發電機發出咔咔的響動，各種聲音不覺於耳。儘管以海拔高度爲天然界限，存在兩個不同的世界，豹子在上，人類在下，但毫無疑問，我們待的地方並不荒涼，不是野生動物保護區或者國家公園。清晨的陽光下，睡眼惺忪的男男女女走在小徑上，每人都拿着罐子或者鋼製圓水壺之類裝了水的容器，前往灌木叢中或者一堆堆塑料垃圾之間解手。
In parts of Africa where leopards’ prey is more scarce, their territories can be huge, on the order of several hundred square miles for an adult male. Females will have territories within that of a dominant male, staying close to places where they can raise their young. If a cub is female, a mother will cede territory to her. If it’s male, it will usually be pushed out, forced to roam more widely. In Jawai, where territories consist of a network of hills connected by corridors of farmland, leopards needn’t travel far for food and do not feel threatened by the humans around them. It is generally in places where humans have made attempts to kill or expel leopards, such as in Uttarakhand, that attacks are more common. Over a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs at the camp, Bannister explains his own theory, that the big cats that become “man eaters” are old or weak, too slow to catch other game or too toothless to fight. In Jawai, strong young males are always coming into conflict with their elders, who may well be taken care of before they become a problem. Though leopards can live for 20 years here, Bannister has never sighted one older than 10.
在獵物較爲稀少的非洲部分地區，豹子的領地十分遼闊，成年雄豹的領地面積可高達數百平方英里。一隻雄豹所轄疆域內，會有若干雌豹各踞一隅，這些雌豹通常出沒於它們可以撫育幼崽的地方附近。雌性幼崽可以從母親那裏分得一塊地盤，雄性幼崽則會被掃地出門，只能去更廣闊的天地裏闖蕩。在賈瓦伊，豹子的領地由一座座以農田爲連裰的山岡構成，它們不必爲了獵食而跑很遠的路，也不會因爲周遭生活着人類而感受到威脅。一般是在人類想方設法殺死或者驅逐豹子的地方，比如北安恰爾邦，豹子襲人事件才較爲常見。在營地裏，班尼斯特邊享用包含培根和雞蛋的豐盛早餐，邊解釋他自己的理論：成爲“食人族”的“大貓”通常是年齡偏長或身體虛弱者，有的速度太慢，難以逮到其他獵物，有的攻擊力所剩無幾，無法進行搏鬥。在賈瓦伊，強壯的青年雄豹常和比它們年長的豹子發生衝突，後者在成爲問題之前就已經被解決掉了。儘管這裏的豹子可以活到20歲，但班尼斯特從未見過10歲以上者。
When he’s not out driving or chatting to the guests, Bannister holes up in a little office next to the camp’s kitchen garden and updates the database he keeps of every leopard sighting, creating entries not unlike Facebook profiles for individual cats. In 2014, he sighted one female leopard — he named her Naina — 75 times. In a month when he tracked her with particular attention, he discovered that she had killed at least three goats, three dogs, two buffalo calves and a young cow, all from a single village. For a poor community, this is a significant economic loss. Yet across Jawai, the leopards seem to be viewed as a blessing. People stand on their roofs to watch them. They take pleasure in their presence.
在不用開車，也不必跟客人聊天的時候，班尼斯特會蟄伏在緊挨營地菜園的一間小辦公室裏，更新一個把每次觀看豹子的情形都記錄在案的數據庫，他爲單個豹子創建的條目，跟 Facebook上的個人資料頁沒什麼兩樣。2014年，他跟一隻被他喚作Naina的雌豹碰了75次面。有那麼一個月，他特別留意它的行蹤，發現它殺死了至少三隻山羊、三條狗、兩頭水牛犢、一頭年輕的母牛，獵物都來自同一個村莊。對一個貧窮的社區而言，這是相當大的經濟損失。但在賈瓦伊各處，豹子似乎被視爲祥瑞的象徵。它們現身時，人們會站在自家屋頂上觀看。大家看到它們都很高興。
SPRING IN JAWAI is a time to watch flights of waterbirds land on the lake and eat raw chickpeas out of the pod. The vivid green wheat fields look enhanced, postproduced, as if Shah Rukh Khan might suddenly burst out and sing a sentimental movie song. It is the time of Holi, the festival celebrated across India in a riotous carnival of water jets and colored dye, a time in which differences are resolved by water fights and the senses of hardworking people are pleasantly deranged by opium and the cannabis preparation bhang. On the night of Holika Dahan, the eve of the festival, villagers light bonfires to reenact the destruction of the evil demoness. Climb a hill and you can see them all across the district, beacons in the darkness.
賈瓦伊的春天，是觀看一羣羣水鳥落在湖面上，啄開豆莢吃新鮮鷹嘴豆的季節。鬱鬱蔥蔥的麥田彷彿經過濃墨重彩的修飾和後期製作，讓人覺得沙魯克·汗(Shah Rukh Khan)或許會突然從哪裏冒出來，唱一首傷感的電影歌曲。春天也是霍利節(Holi)所在的季節，人們會在這個舉國同慶的節日裏縱情狂歡，潑灑彩水和彩粉，種種差異和分歧在打水仗之際消弭於無形，含有鴉片和大麻成分的飲料和食品讓終日辛苦勞作者處於狂喜狀態。在節日前夜的火燒霍利卡儀式(Holika Dahan)上，村民點燃篝火，重新演繹邪惡的女妖被燒死的情形。爬上一座山岡，你可以看到整個地區到處是篝火在黑暗中熊熊燃燒。
On top of Nag Bawasi, rowdy Sena boys chant and sing, their fire (made of truck tires) sending flames up into the sky. Down in the village, others compete to pull a 20-foot pole out of the flames, carrying it around like a giant torch. Sparks fly, and I have to duck out of the way of the Bacchanalian procession. Tonight, with all the smoke and noise, there are no leopards in sight, but the religious significance that attaches to the hill and to the other high places in Jawai is part of the reason that they form a sanctuary for the cats. People do not like to kill living things near a temple, and locals do not have reason to climb these hills, except to worship.
那格巴瓦斯山頂上，調皮的塞納村男孩在吟誦歌唱，他們那燒着卡車輪胎的篝火直衝天際。山下的村莊裏，其他人爭搶着從火焰中抽出一根6米長的杆子，像舉着大型火炬一樣到處轉悠。火星飛濺，我不得不避開狂歡隊伍行進的路線。今夜，在煙熏火燎和嘈雜喧鬧之中，沒有出現豹子的身影，但在某種程度上，這座山岡以及賈瓦伊其他高地所具有的宗教意義，正是它們成爲豹子庇護所的原因所在。人們一般不願在寺廟附近殺生；而且除了祭拜神明，當地人也沒有理由上山。
The next morning I watch Bannister chase village children around with a mineral water bottle full of dubious colored liquid. The kids give as good as they get, drenching him and squealing with laughter. Someone sprays my shirt pink, someone else dumps blue and green powder on my head and a raffish village elder offers me a shot of syrupy lime-green moonshine, which, lightweight that I am, I really can’t face so early in the day. Others have no such qualms. Around me there are bloodshot eyes, woozy grins. A musical ensemble consisting of a couple of large double-headed dhol drums and a tal pan sets up a clattering rhythm, and men dance the gair, clacking long sticks together as they circle a shrine. Through this chaos, Bannister genially shepherds a small group of tourists, including an elderly English couple celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. He is a man performing a balancing act, fiercely committed to the leopards yet aware that the very presence of tourists is a sign that faster times are coming to this place, in the form of Internet access and cellphones and members of a younger generation who know what things cost and are not sentimental about the old ways.
第二天早上，我看到班尼斯特手持礦泉水瓶追着村裏的孩子跑，瓶子裏裝着成分不明的彩色液體。孩子們以牙還牙，邊往他身上淋水，邊興奮地尖叫。有人把我的襯衫噴成了粉色；還有人把藍色和綠色的粉末倒在我頭上。村裏一位不修邊幅的長者給了我一杯濃稠的、檸檬綠色的私酒，我是個酒量很淺的人，一大早就開喝真有點招架不住。但其他人並沒有這樣的顧慮。到處都是佈滿血絲的眼睛和昏昏然的笑容。一個樂團以兩面雙頭多喝爾大鼓和一面鑔製造出鏗鏘的節奏，男人們跳起了蓋爾舞(Gair)，邊繞着聖壇轉圈，邊讓手中的長棍相互觸碰。在嘈雜聲中，班尼斯特態度親切地照看着一小羣遊客，其中包括一對來自英國、正在慶祝金婚的老夫婦。班尼斯特是一個善於把握平衡的人，他極爲關注有關豹子的一切，同時也知道，遊客的出現意味着節奏更快的時代正侵入這個地方：人們開始上網，用智能手機，年輕一代明白要爲新事物付出怎樣的代價，毫不感懷舊有的生活方式。
One of the guides at the camp is Varun Kutty, a dapper young man who grew up far from here in the Himalayan foothills of Himachal Pradesh. He has made it his business to understand the local culture, much as Bannister has made it his business to get to know the wildlife. On the evening of Holi, after I send my paint-spattered clothes to the camp laundry, he arranges for me to visit a manor house in Falna, to meet Thakur Abhimanyu Singh, the village’s leader. Here, the thakurs are the apex of the human system, just as the leopards are the apex of the wild one. Though Jawai is by no means a timeless place, it is overwhelmingly Hindu and the caste system retains real power. Modern forms of authority like the Indian Forest Service operate here, and modern politics too, but in practice, feudal lords like the thakur are the ones who settle disputes and receive fealty, much as their forefathers did hundreds of years ago.
營地上的一個嚮導瓦倫·庫帝(Varun Kutty)是個衣冠楚楚的小夥子，自小生長在離賈瓦伊很遠的喜馬偕爾邦境內的喜馬拉雅山麓。他把了解當地文化當成自己的職責所在，就像班尼斯特把了解野生動物當成其職責所在一樣。霍利節那天傍晚，我把被潑得色彩斑駁的衣服送到營地的洗衣房後，他安排我前往法爾納村(Falna)的一座莊園，拜會被尊稱爲塔庫爾(Thakur)的村長Abhimanyu Singh。在這裏，擁有塔庫爾頭銜的人是人類社會的至高無上者，正如豹子是荒野世界的至高無上者。賈瓦伊絕非一個時間凝滯的地方，但其人口以印度教徒爲主，種姓制度依然頗具影響力。印度林業局(Indian Forest Service)等現代權力機構和現代政治制度都在這裏運轉着。但從實踐來看，塔庫爾這樣的封建領主纔是解決爭議、得到效忠的人，與幾百年前的祖先相比，他們所扮演的角色沒有太大不同。
We arrive as a huge gair dance is circling through the courtyard. The thakur, a friendly, mustachioed man with the placid good manners of one accustomed to being obeyed, sits cross-legged on a platform near the main gate, heavy rings on his fingers and a pair of mobile phones on the sheet in front of him. Stick-carrying men file in and greet him before heading into the dance. Women congregate in a corner, forming a densely packed crowd. In between namastes, the thakur points out various local worthies who are part of the line — a bank manager, a railway official. Some dancers have immense panache, clacking sticks with the man in front and the man behind in swoops and stylized sword-fighting moves. Others lollop along like drunks doing the conga at a wedding. In front of us, a line of old men are watching the proceedings. They are, to my eye, almost identically dressed, in clean white cotton. Most have mustaches and all wear pagaris, turbans of various colors and designs that allow the thakur to name the caste of each one: “This man in pink is an ironsmith, this man is a farmer. This pink is for a mali, a gardener, the red spots are Meghwal, the ones with the dark red are Rabari, the ones with many colors, those are Rajput men….”
我們抵達目的地時，一大羣人正在庭院裏繞着圈子跳蓋爾舞。塔庫爾是一個留着八字鬍的友善男人，舉手投足間透露出慣於領導他人者的波瀾不驚、溫和有禮。他盤腿坐在靠近正門的一個平臺上，手上戴着大大的戒指，面前的單子上放着兩部手機。手持長棍的男人魚貫而入，先跟他打過招呼，才加入跳舞的人羣。女人們聚集在一個角落裏，密密匝匝地擠作一團。塔庫爾一邊行着合十禮， 一邊給我指出舞者中的當地知名人士——有一位銀行經理，還有一位鐵路官員。一些舞者架勢十足，掄起自己手中的長棍，去碰觸身前或者身後的男人手中的長棍，其動作猶如擊劍，頗爲有型。其他人則搖搖晃晃，彷彿婚禮上跳着康佳舞的醉漢。我們前面有一排充當看客的老年男子。在我眼裏，他們的打扮幾乎一模一樣，都穿着乾淨的白色棉布衣衫。大多數人留着八字鬍，所有人都包着樣式各異的彩色印度頭巾，塔庫爾卻可以據此說出每個人所屬的種姓羣體：“這個包粉色頭巾的男人是鐵匠，這個男人是農民。戴這種粉色頭巾的是園丁，頭巾上有紅點兒的是梅格瓦爾人(Meghwal)，頭巾爲暗紅色的是拉巴里人，頭巾五顏六色的那些是拉傑普特人……”
It is something to be a Rajput man. The thakur is a Rajput. The princely dynasties in Jodhpur and Udaipur are Rajputs. The cardinal Rajput virtue is bravery, not forgiveness or humility. Ordinary Rajputs are arable farmers. As Bannister puts it, “If leopards ate wheat or mustard, you can bet they wouldn’t last long.” The herders whose livestock are threatened are Rabari, not Rajput. The Rabari are semi-settled nomads, with a different view of the world. Women conduct business affairs (and hold a lot of the family wealth in the portable form of jewelry) while the men roam with the animals. Whether it is pressure from their land-owning Rajput neighbors or some aspect of their culture (perhaps stemming from their veneration of Mata Devi, the mother goddess) that leads them to accept the leopards, they are the ones who are called on to exercise forbearance. Fatalism has its limits. They raise high barriers of thorns round their animal pens at night.
身爲拉傑普特人是件值得驕傲的事情。這位塔庫爾本人就是拉傑普特人。焦特布爾和烏代普爾的王族均爲拉傑普特人。拉傑普特人最爲重要特質是勇敢，而不是寬容或謙遜。普通的拉傑普特人通常是從事農耕的農民。正如班尼斯特所言，“如果豹子以小麥或者芥末爲食，可以想見，它們根本活不了多久。”受到豹子威脅的牲畜是牧民的財產，牧民爲拉巴里人，而非拉傑普特人。拉巴里人這個過着半定居生活的遊牧民族有着迥然不同的世界觀。商業事務由女人打理(家庭財富通常是便於攜帶的珠寶，也由女人掌管)，男人則趕着牲畜四處遊蕩。不知道是因爲受到了來自擁有土地的拉傑普特族鄰居的壓力，還是因爲本民族文化中的某些元素髮揮了作用（或許是出於對母神Mata Devi的尊崇），拉巴里人接受了豹子的存在。他們是被要求剋制忍讓的一方。但對宿命論的信奉是有限度的。晚上，他們會在牲畜圈周圍豎起高高的荊棘屏障。
How long can Jawai’s fragile entente between humans and leopards persist? For the moment, the tourist footprint is very light. Jawai camp is small, exclusive and maintains good relations with the community. But more cars and jeeps are arriving, bringing people to look at the wondrous cats. Bannister believes that, unless some kind of regulation is put in place, the leopards could migrate east into the high Aravalli Mountains. Creating a national park and displacing the farmers and herders would destroy the lifeworld of Jawai’s people and remove the leopards’ main source of food. Such a park would have to be stocked with wild game to make up for the vanished livestock.
賈瓦伊的人類和豹子達成了諒解，但這種基礎並不牢靠的諒解能存續多久？目前，遊客數量還很少。賈瓦伊的營地很小，只接受少量遊客，並且和社區保持着良好關係。但更多汽車和吉普車正載着想要瞧個稀奇、一睹豹子風采的人趕往這裏。班尼斯特認爲，除非當地出臺某種監管措施，否則豹子可能會向東遷徙，躲進高高的阿拉瓦利山(Aravalli Mountains)。建一座國家公園，並把農民和牧民遷走，會摧毀賈瓦伊人的生計，同時讓豹子失去主要的食物來源。這樣一個公園必須配備其他野生動物，以彌補消失的家畜留下的缺口。
On my last day at Jawai, I visit a temple not far from Sena village, on a hill called Dev Giri. On the way up, at its base, are monuments to two jeeva samadhis, yogis who had themselves buried alive, leaving behind their material bodies and the cycle of death and rebirth. On the peak is a temple to a dark goddess, Kalka Devi, a vengeful aspect of the Mother Goddess who is worshiped here in a natural cave that reaches way back into the hill. Outside, rotting scraps of clothing hang on a tree, votive offerings from the parents of sick children. Inside, a flight of steps leads up to a stone bearing a relief image of the goddess alongside her vehicle, a black dog. High on the rock above her head, black bees swarm over a huge lobelike hive. I walk up toward her. She has staring eyes. She carries a severed head and is garlanded in skulls. After a few paces, I look down. Beside my bare feet are a set of oily paw prints, the tracks of the leopard who walked here before me.
在賈瓦伊度過的最後一天，我拜訪了離塞納村不太遠、建在代夫吉里山(Dev Giri)上的一座寺廟。爬山時，我在底下看到了爲兩位涅槃者設立的紀念碑，那兩位瑜珈修行者讓人把自己給活埋了，從而脫離了肉身，也脫離了死亡和重生的循環。山頂的寺廟屬於黑暗女神Kalka Devi，她代表着母神(Mother Goddess)報復心極強的一面。她也被供奉在通往山體內部的一處天然洞穴中。外面，一棵樹上掛着逐漸風化的來自病童衣衫的碎片，那是父母們奉上的貢品。裏面，一段向上的階梯盡頭佇立着一塊岩石，上邊刻着女神的浮雕，身畔的黑狗是她的坐騎。岩石上還掛着一個擠滿了黑蜜蜂的橢圓形蜂巢，就在女神頭部上方。我朝着女神向上走去。她怒目圓睜，拿着一顆被砍下來的頭顱，身上則掛着着一圈骷髏頭。走了幾步後，我低下頭，看到自己的赤腳旁有些油膩的爪印，那是比我先到的豹子留下的痕跡。
