A THOUGHTFUL Englishman, who, I know, has the true interests of India at heart, once observed to me that the greatest stumbling- block to the regeneration of India is caste. Opinions are divided amongst earnest thinkers with regard to this peculiar system which has for ages existed in this country. But whatever may be the opinions held either in favour of, or against, caste, it cannot be doubted for a moment that this great social system has played a most prominent part in the history of India and has had a strong hold upon the minds of the people. The four castes, namely, the Brahmin, the Kshathriya, the Vysia, and the Sudra, are said to have come from the head, arms, loins, and feet of Brahma, and each has for generations performed its allotted work. While the Kshathriya, with the strength of his arms, conquered new dominions and shed his blood in securing peace to the country from foreign aggression, while the Vysia toiled hard and amassed wealth by tending cattle, by tilling the soil and by trading, and while the Sudra performed menial service, the Brahmin always carried the palm for intellectual greatness and held the others under his magic influence. By the strength of his intellect he has moulded the thoughts and guided the feelings of the people to such an extent that a foreign observer may well stand amazed at the result.
" He waved the sceptre o’er his kind, By nature’s first great title mind."
So in Kélambakam, the Brahmin Ramanuja Charriar, the Purohita, is the friend, guide, and philosopher of the village. His influence over the villagers is very great. He is a venerable old gentleman of three score and ten years, well versed in the Hindu Shastras. He knows a little of Sanskrit and has read many books on astrology. He could repeat by heart all the four thousand stanzas of the sacred Prabhantham, usually called the Tamil Vedas. He is considered by every villager as part and parcel of his family, and the simple villager dare not do anything without consulting him.
Ramanuja Charriar owns a house near the temple of the village. It has a decent appear- ance. On the floor near the entrance are quaint figures drawn with rice powder, and on the wall facing the street are to be seen re- presentations of the coronation of Rama, of Krishna tending cattle and playing on the flute, of Narasimha killing the giant king, and many other figures which at once convince the stranger that the occupant of the house must be a person steeped in religion.
The old gentleman rises very early in the morning, bathes in the tank, puts on the usual marks on his forehead and other parts of his body, performs the Pujah and returns home.
He then sets out with a cadjan (palmyra leaf) book, which is the calendar for the year, and first goes to the house of the village munsiff Kothundarama Mudelly. The munsiff, as soon as he sees the Brahmin, rises and salutes him, and asks him to take a seat. The Purohita opens his book and reads from it in a loud voice the particulars of the day—the year, the month, and the date, the portions that are auspicious and those that are not, &c. While this recital goes on, the munsiff is all attention. Soon after, an old woman, the mother of Kothundarama Mudelly, steps in and asks the astrologer on what day the new moon falls, and when the anniversary of the death of her husband should be celebrated. The munsiff perhaps asks him if, according to his horoscope, the year will on the whole be a prosperous one for him and if his lands will bring forth abun- dance of grain. To such questions, the Puro- hita answers according to the rules of astrology. He goes in like manner to the house of every villager, and various are the questions put to him. One villager asks him to appoint an auspicious day for buying bullocks to plough his fields; another asks him to name a pro- pitious hour for commencing the building of a house; a third asks him to select a day for the marriage of his aged daughter and shows him the horoscope of his would-be son-in-law ; a fourth asks him to fix a day on which to go to the neighbouring village to bring his daughter-in- law home; a fifth asks him when such and such a feast comes ; a sixth puts into his hands the horoscope of his sick son and asks him if he will recover ; a seventh requests him to prepare the horoscope of his newly-born child and furnishes him with the exact time when the child first saw the light of day ; the next person complains to him about the loss of a jewel, and asks him to name the person who stole it, to describe the place where it is hidden, and so on. To all these questions, the Purohita, opening his book, gives suitable answers, and, to illus- trate his statements, he even quotes Sanskrit slokas, stanzas from the Ramayana, the Mahabharatha and the sacred Prabhantham, and verses from works on astrology. These quotations create very strong impressions, “for, in the East,” as Sir Walter Scott says, “wisdom is held to consist, less in a display of the sage’s own inventive talents, than in his ready memory, and happy application of, and reference to, ’ that which is written.’ " Any instructions given by him are obeyed to the very letter. The ryots will not begin to cultivate, to sow their lands, or to reap their harvest without first consulting him as to the auspicious time. The Brahmin also officiates as priest on marriage and funeral occasions, and is the principal actor during feasts, which are of almost daily occurrence in a Hindu family. There is a Tamil proverb which says that “The Vydian or the doctor will not leave the patient till he dies, but that the Brahmin will not leave him even after his death.” Even during the last moments of the patient the doctor says that if he is given a handsome fee, he will effect an immediate cure by administering a valuable medicine which is in his possession, and which was prepared by his great-grand- father after a great deal of labour and expense. He thus imposes upon the credulity of the people till death snatches the patient from them: the Brahmin’s connection does not cease with the death of the patient. He must perform the first day’s ceremonies, as also those of the second, eighth, and sixteenth days. Then come the monthly and yearly ceremonies, at which the Brahmin plays an important part.
Such is a brief description of the old sage of Kélambakam, whose influence even in the neighbouring villages is very great, and whom the villagers regard with feelings of deep veneration.
There are, besides the house of the Purohita, two other houses near the temple belonging to Brahmins who do work in the temple. In one lives Varadayyangar and in the other his brother Appalacharri. They perform the Pujah of the temple by turns, and lead a very easy life. Persons who go to the temple to worship the idol take with them offerings in the shape of money, fruit, coconúts, betel and nut, &c. These are appropriated by the brothers. There are about seven acres of land in the village set apart for the temple, and the income derived therefrom goes towards the expenses incurred for the lighting of the temple, the daily rice offerings, and the salaries of the servants; and, as the brothers are the principal servants of the temple, they come in for a good share of the income. Besides these, they get extra income on festival occasions, when the idol is decked with jewels and flowers and carried in procession. Appalacharri is of a quarrelsome disposition, and numerous have been the disputes between the brothers with regard to the temple income. Kothundarama Mudelly, the Dhurmakurta, has often a good deal of difficulty in settling their differences ; and he it was who decided that they should do their work by turns, and that each should receive the income derived during his term of office. Appalacharri, not content with quarrelling with his own brother, has often employed his spare time in fomenting quarrels among the villagers, and were it not for the tact and good sense of the village munsiff and the quiet nature of the people of the village, Kelambakam would be a different place from what it now is. Such a mischievous disposition is that of Appalacharri that a complete enumeration of his doings would occupy a whole paper.
There are at the present moment scattered throughout the length and breadth of Southern India thousands of educated natives performing honourable work with distinction both to them- selves and to their country. Most of these sat at the feet of such distinguished educationists as Dr. Miller and Messrs. Porter, Powell, and Thompson, and their veneration for their former masters is as deep and sincere as that held for the great master of Rugby by his students. And if it is asked, why it is that, in this country, hero-worship in the case of the schoolmaster is carried to such an extent, !
would reply that it is a characteristic of the Hindu to honour and respect his intellectual guide. In India, the pial schoolmasters are an honourable body of men who do their work in an unassuming manner and enjoy the esteem, and good will of the people.
Nalla Pillai is the schoolmaster of Kélam- bakam, and he is next in importance to the Purohita. He is a great-great-grandson of Nalla Pillai, the reputed author of the Mahab- haratha in Tamil verse. Our village school- master was named after him, and he knows by heart all the fourteen thousand stanzas of the book. He preserves with pride and pleasure the style with which his illustrious ancestor wrote his great work, and the style is worshipped in his house every year on the Ayuthapuja day. Nalla Pillai’s school is located in the pial of his house. The attendance is between twenty and thirty, and even boys from the neighbouring villages come here to be instructed. The boys are seated in two rows on a raised basement in the outer part of the house, and the master is seated at one end of the pial. There is a radical difference between the system of in- struction imparted in English schools and that in vogue in these village seats of learning. In the former a great deal of time and labour is saved by having a number of boys conveniently arranged into classes so that they may be all taught at the same time. In the latter the teacher goes through the lessons with each boy separately. In the school of the village before us, three or four youngsters, between five and seven years of age, are seated in a row learning the letters of the alphabet by uttering them aloud and writing them on sand strewn on the floor. One or two are writing the letters on cadjan leaves. One boy is reading in a loud voice words from a cadjan book, while another reads short sentences. A third is working sums in arithmetic. A fourth is reciting poeti- cal stanzas in a drawling tone, and a fifth is reading verses from Nalia Pillai’s Mahabharatha before the master, who, after the reading is over, explains their meaning to the boy. A boy is said to have completed his education if he is able to read and write accurately anything on a cadjan leaf and know the simple and com- pound rules of arithmetic and simple interest, and such proficiency may be attained after four or five years’ study in the village school.
The boys go to school before six in the morning, return home for breakfast at nine, go back to school at ten, and remain there till two, when they are allowed to go for their midday meal. They then return to school at three, and remain there till it gets dark. Thus it will be seen that the schoolmaster is at work from early morn till eve, going through the lessons of each individual boy. The school is closed for four days in the month, namely on the day of new moon and the day after, and on the day of full moon and the day after. The boys are also allowed leave on festival days.
The teacher, besides the remuneration paid to him by the parents, not infrequently gets extra income in the shape of money, new clothes, vegetables, &c., when boys are newly sent to school and when marriages and festivals take place. The schoolmaster is expected to look after the children of the villagers and to take an interest in their welfare not only in the school but in their homes. If it is reported that a boy is ill and that he refuses to take medicine, the master is expected to go to his house and see that the medicine is administered. If a boy has an aversion to taking meals, or if he becomes mischievous and troublesome out of school hours, his parents at once invoke the assistance of the teacher, who must go to the house of the erring youth and see that such things do not recur. The village master is thus constantly sought after by the villagers, and he is their most useful friend.
I must not fail to notice that the village teacher makes it a special part of his duty to give religious instruction. The work of the school commences and closes every day with a prayer to Saraswati, the goddess of learning, or Vigneswara, a Hindu deity supposed to preside over the destinies of men. All the boys are expected to get these prayers by heart and repeat them aloud. The youths are also made to get by heart during holidays some poetical stanzas containing moral maxims on cadjan leaves, at the top of which there always appears some religious symbol or saying such as the following :- Victory be to Rama ; Siva is every- where. The boys are always taught to fear God, to be honest and truthful, to venerate their parents and superiors, and so on. It will thus be seen that religious teaching forms a part and a very important part in the work of a vil- lage schoolmaster.
Regarding the punishment inflicted on the boys, I must say that Nalla Pillai is an honourable exception to those teachers who often have recourse to the most barbarous modes of chastising youths. I shall therefore not detain my readers with an explanation of those modes of punishment.
Besides the work that Nalla Pillai has in the school, he is often engaged in the evening reciting verses from the Mahabharatha and explaining their meaning to the villagers.
” And oft at night when ended was their toil, The villagers with souls enraptured heard him In fiery accents speak of Krishna’s deeds And Rama’s warlike skill, and wondered that He knew so well the deities they adored."
From the above short description of the village schoolmaster we see that he is a very important element in the village constitution. He is honoured and respected by the people, and regarded by them as a friend and counsellor. Recourse is constantly had to his assistance in reading and writing letters and in the settling of disputes. He is freely admitted to their homes and invited on festival days. Nalla
Pillai does his work, day after day, month after month, year after year, in an unostentatious and quiet way, enjoying the esteem and good will of all the villagers and the love of his pupils.