THE SILENCE OF RAMASWAMI
As the Madigas of Yerrapallem came home from the fields at noon one day, they noticed some one sitting at a little distance from the village, as if taking rest from a journey. They said among themselves: “Who is this? Let us enquire his errand.” One of them called the stranger to come under the large trees near their houses.
As he approached the group of men, he said: “My name is Bandaru Pulliah. I have come from Ongole, and have a way of salvation to make known to you. Will you hear it?” It was the noon hour, and the shade of the trees was pleasant. Why should they not hear something that was new and that excited curiosity?
There was a shrine of Ramaswami under one of the trees, where the Madigas of the village offered puja at stated intervals. Those who were ready to listen had grouped themselves in various attitudes, suggestive of ease and rest, but all at respectful distance from the shrine of the swami. Pulliah, to the astonishment of all, seated himself under the projecting roof of the shrine, and placed his feet, still covered with his sandals, against the wall of the shrine. They were a peaceful people before whom he thus displayed his contempt for the god, Ramaswami; they showed no sign of anger, but they feared for Pulliah. They had never dared go near the shrine with their sandals on their feet, lest the god smite them in wrath; but Pulliah smiled at their ejaculations of astonishment and fear. “Is the holy God in this shrine? Don’t fear; no harm will come to me.”
They watched him all that afternoon, and as they listened to this fearless man, who talked freely of Jesus Christ, his sandalled feet meantime boldly defiling the Ramaswami shrine, their respect for their god ebbed low, and they began to regard Pulliah in the light of an honoured guest.
When evening came, a little hesitation was felt with regard to asking him to eat with them; for he had told them frankly that Christians considered the practice of eating carrion both injurious and disgusting; yet they intended to care for his wants. The Madiga headman of the village asked him, therefore, whether he would come and eat with them of boiled rice and a little pepper sauce, or whether they should ask a Sudra to prepare his food for him. The latter course had to be taken whenever a Hindu Guru came to instruct them; but Pulliah declined this. He said, “Never mind; I’ll eat with you.”
They took him right in with them as one of themselves. The wife of the headman gave him to eat on a plate made of dried leaves sewn together, while she laid the food before her husband and sons in little earthenware bowls. The plate of leaves had never been used, and would be thrown away when Pulliah had ended his meal. This was considered a very genteel way of respecting the stranger’s ideas of cleanliness.
That night the villagers sat in the white moonlight for hours listening to the stories of the divine life and death of the Christ, and to the explanations concerning the precepts of the new religion which Pulliah gave to them. They agreed that all he had told them seemed like a bright light as compared to the darkness in which they had thus far been living.
Pulliah was urged to remain with these kindly people for two days, and it happened while he was with them that their Guru came to look after the spiritual welfare of his followers, and at the same time after his own material interests. He generally sat down and said: “Cut a fowl! Make rice and curry! Bring sarai!” The lads of the family would press his limbs, saying, “The Guru is tired,” and hope in this way to receive divine reward.
Image: A HINDU GURU.
But this time the reception given to the Guru lacked that element of devout reverence for his person to which he was accustomed. The villagers poured water and washed his feet, but they omitted to catch it again in bowls, and to drink it in the hope of eternal reward. The Guru met with a quiet air of resistance when, as usual, he demanded fowls and intoxicating drink for his meal. As he sat under the tree no one asked for his mantras, but, instead, he heard how Pulliah told the villagers that, if they wanted to become Christians, they must have their juttus cut off, for no Christian could have a lock of hair growing on his head to afford a dwelling-place for a swami. Pulliah carried a pair of scissors ever in his pocket; for hundreds of juttus was he called upon to cut off in his wanderings. The men of the village bent their heads and said, “Cut them off.” While all were thus engaged, and even the young boys came and asked to be shorn of their top-knots, the Guru arose. He looked neither to the right nor to the left; he made salaam to no one; he went away and never returned.
It was decidedly in Pulliah’s favour as he went about, gaining access to many a Madiga household, that he was generally considered well-connected by family relationship. The Madigas manifest their clannish spirit by seeking to establish new relationships by intermarriage of families, and such connections, though often remote, are cherished. Many a door was opened to Pulliah because his family had had an interest in a marriage that had at some time been celebrated between a man of one family and a girl of another.
Another circumstance in his favour was the fact that he had been much with the Rajayogi people in his boyhood. He was familiar with their phraseology, their customs and beliefs; in short, he spoke their language, and was, therefore, recognised as one of them wherever he went. Pulliah was related to Bangarapu Thatiah and other men who for a time took an interest in the Rajayogi sect. In his wanderings he sought, therefore, first of all for Rajayogi people; for they had gone beyond the swamis of the Madiga village, and had at least the desire to know and see the one God, whom they had been taught to worship. It was a joyful mission to tell such seekers that God had become incarnate in the man Jesus Christ.
When Pulliah left Yerrapallem, the heads of the several leading families of the village assured him that idol-worship would from henceforth be stopped, that Sunday should be a day of rest, and that no carrion should be brought into the village. They promised to pray to Jesus Christ, on their knees, as they had seen him do. Some months passed; Pulliah came often. Two of the older men began to ask, “Why should we not be baptized?” Pulliah offered to take them with him to Ongole at the time of the monthly meeting, and with a staff in their hands and a little bundle of cooked rice on their shoulders they began their journey of forty miles.
There were others who were journeying on the same road. Here and there they were joined by fellow-travellers. If the little company stopped at some Madiga hamlet by the road, to ask for water to drink, they had to give an account of their motives for undertaking this journey. They met Yettis on the way, who carried the news far and near that more Madigas were on the way to Ongole. Toward evening of the third day they entered the mission compound. Groups of men and women were sitting around the little fires kindled under pots of rice, waiting till the women should announce that it had cooked enough. There was much talking, much questioning, much interchange of experience. There was a hospitable, brotherly spirit, too, as they cared for each other’s wants.
The preachers took an interest in the experience of the two men from Yerrapallem. The Missionary talked with them. They felt some hesitation when they saw his white face, for they had never before seen a Dora. He spread mats on the floor and asked them to sit down, since they were unaccustomed to chairs. And then the Dorasani came and put plantains into the hands of her little children to take to these visitors, and she talked with them. Their fears soon went.
One of them was received for baptism; concerning the second, Papiah, a serious obstacle arose in the way. He had two wives, and was, therefore, put off. The men were astonished, for it had not entered their minds that this might be an objection. They said to themselves: “We did not know that this was sin. We Hindus do such things. But if it is not God’s will, then it must be stopped.”
It was an arrangement which had been made by Papiah’s mother. Her niece, whose husband had deserted her, was destitute, and the old mother saw no reason why she should not be brought into Papiah’s house as a second wife, for thus she would be provided with a home. The first wife was made unhappy by this arrangement; but she had only a daughter, no son, and, therefore, was not given a voice in the matter. She was deeply angry with her husband, and refused to be on friendly terms with the new wife; but there was no help for her: she had to bear the ills of her new position in silence, lest she should be harshly treated, or even beaten.
When the travellers returned from Ongole, the matter was thoroughly discussed in the village. The old mother was angry, and wanted to know who had ever heard that a man should not have two wives. The preachers came and went during the weeks that followed, and tried to explain matters to those who enquired for the reason why Papiah should have been refused baptism. They spoke of Adam and Eve, that God gave to Adam only one wife; they insisted that, according to the teachings of the New Testament, the man and both the women would lose the salvation of their souls. The preachers were themselves men who until recently had not been aware of the religious and ethical transgression involved in the practice of polygamy. The Madigas, among whom the standard of social morality is, in some of its aspects, very low, were thus suddenly brought face to face with the purer conceptions of married life as upheld by Christian civilization.
After the matter had been thoroughly discussed by all the family, and those who objected to the introduction of ideas contrary to the customs of Indian village life had been silenced, a way was found out of the difficulty. The second wife had relatives in the village, who offered her a home with them. She had a child, but it was a girl; had it been a boy, her fate might have been different. There had been no marriage ceremony; she, therefore, went as she had come. Her child died soon after, and she went to live with another man, again without ceremony. The first and only legitimate wife of Papiah now had peace once more.
There was a social as well as a religious upheaval wherever Christianity entered the Madiga community. The pure precepts of the new religion were taken up by one family after another. The juttu was cut off as the outward sign of a religious change. But when a man sat apart at meal-time because carrion was boiling in the pot, it was regarded as the signal of a change of a social nature. “Do you see him? He will not eat! He, too, is going to that Ongole religion!” Sometimes persecution within the family circle followed, and there were sad and weary days and months for the heretic.
When Christian families had visitors who still continued the old customs, they gave them to eat as much as they wanted, but refused to let them touch the earthen plates of the family. Their food was put on old plates that could be thrown away when they had finished. They gave them to drink from the brass cup, because it could afterwards be scoured with sand. They said: “We turn sick when you touch our food. You are unclean.” Instead of being ostracized, they were the ones who ostracized the others.
Many a man and a woman who was deaf to spiritual advice first leant an ear because he was despised by the family on account of his noisome food. Legends and traditions spoke of the curse pronounced over the Madigas, that they should be carrion-eaters. Nothing had had power to lift the curse until now it was fought in Christian family-centres. Argument was unnecessary. Did not many among them succumb to disease, the direct consequence of their loathsome food? Did not the suffering of the children in the villages bear evidence of the filthy habits of their parents?
A new day had dawned. The gospel of cleanliness had entered in. When filth departs, ignorance must go with it. Only a few years after the day when Pulliah had fearlessly placed his sandalled feet upon the shrine of Ramaswami, a teacher came from Ongole to settle in the village Yerrapallem. Willing hands offered to raise the mud walls of the little school-house. Each household contributed to the thatch for the roof. The beam, too, was finally paid for, and made ready by the village carpenter.
As for the site of the school-house, it was decided that the shrine of Ramaswami must yield its place. The Sudras shook their heads in doubt, but when several preachers came to help make room for the school-house, the courage of the Christians rose high. They took the pick-axe and shovel. The walls of the shrine fell. A little snake that lay in a crevice was disturbed. It raised its head and hissed but once before the death-blow fell. But Ramaswami must have been afar off. He gave no sign of wrath.