A Testimony of Our Inexhaustible Treasure

My father was a native of Mangalore district, but he chose a place in a dense forest on the top of a peak of the Western Ghats, on the borders of Mysore State, where he built a home for himself. This was done in order that he might be away from the hubbub of the world, carry on his educational work, and engage in devotion to the gods in a quiet place where he would not be constantly worried by curious visitors.

He used to get his support from the rice fields and cocoanut plantations which he owned. The place he had selected for his home happened to be a sacred place of pilgrimage, where pilgrims came all the year round. He thought it was his duty to entertain them at his expense, as hospitality was a part of his religion. For thirteen years he stayed there and did his work quietly, but lost all his property because of the great expense he incurred in performing what he thought was his duty.

So he was obliged to leave his home and lead a pilgrim's life. My mother told me that I was only about six months old when they left their home. She placed me in a big box made of cane, and a man carried it on his head from the mountain top to the valley. Thus my pilgrim life began when I was a little baby. I was the youngest member of the family.

My father, though a very orthodox Hindu and strictly adhering to caste and other religious rules, was yet a reformer in his own way. He could not see why women and people of Shudra caste should not learn to read and write the Sanskrit language and learn sacred literature other than the Vedas. So he, at the risk of being excommunicated by the Brahmins, made up his mind to teach Sanskrit to his wife.

He thought it better to try the experiment at home instead of preaching to others. He found an apt pupil in my mother, who fell in line with his plan and became an excellent Sanskrit scholar. She performed all her home duties, cooked, washed, and did all household work, took care of her children, attended to guests, and did all that was required of a good religious wife and mother. She devoted many hours of her time in the night to the regular study of the sacred Puranic literature, and was able to store up a great deal of knowledge in her mind.

The Brahmin pundits* living in the Mangalore district round about my father's native village tried to dissuade him from the heretical course he was following in teaching his wife the sacred language of the gods. He had fully prepared himself to meet their objections. His extensive studies in the Hindu sacred literature enabled him to quote chapter and verse of each sacred book which gives authority to teach women and Shudras. His misdeeds were reported to the head priest of the sect to which he belonged, and the learned Brahmins induced the guru to call this heretic to appear before him and before the august assemblage of the pundits to give his reasons for taking this course or be excommunicated.

My father appeared before the guru, the head priest, and the assembly of pundits, and gave his reasons. He quoted ancient authorities and succeeded in convincing the guru and the chief pundits that it was not wrong for women and Shudras to learn Sanskrit Puranic literature. So they did not put him out of caste, nor was he molested by any one after this. He became known as an orthodox reformer. Some people honoured him for what he was doing and some despised him. He cared little for what people said, and did what he thought was right. He taught and educated my mother, brother, sister, and others.

When I was about eight years old my mother began to teach me, and continued to do so until I was about fifteen years of age. During these years she succeeded in training my mind so that I might be able to carry on my own education with very little aid from others. T did not know of any schools for girls and women existing then where higher education was to be obtained.

Moreover, my parents did not like us children to come in contact with the outside world. They wanted us to be strictly religious and adhere to their old faith. Learning any other language except Sanskrit was out of the question. Secular education of any kind was looked upon as leading people to worldliness, which would prevent them from getting into the way of Moksha or liberation from everlasting trouble of reincarnation in millions and millions of animal species, and undergoing the pains of suffering countless millions of diseases and deaths. To learn the English language and to come in contact with the

Mlechchhas, as the non-Hindus are called, was forbidden on pain of losing caste and all hope of future happiness. So all that we could or did learn was the Sanskrit grammar and dictionaries, with the Puranic and modern poetical literature in that language. Most of this, including the grammar and dictionaries, which are written in verse form, had to be committed to memory.

Ever since I remember anything my father and mother were always travelling from one sacred place to another, staying in each place for some months, bathing in the sacred river or tank, visiting temples, worshipping household gods and the images of gods in the temples, and reading Puranas in temples or in some convenient place.

The reading of the Puranas served a double purpose. The first and the foremost was that of getting rid of sin and of earning merit in order to obtain Moksha. The other purpose was to earn an honest living without begging.

The readers of Puranas — Puranikas, as they are called — are the popular and public preachers of religion among the Hindus. They sit in some prominent place, in temple halls, or under the trees, or on the banks of rivers and tanks, with their manuscript books in their hands and read the Puranas in a loud voice with intonation so that the passers-by or visitors of the temple may hear. The text, being in the Sanskrit language, is not understood by the hearers. The Puranikas are not obliged to explain it to them. They may or may not explain it as they choose. And sometimes when it is translated and explained the Puranika takes great pains to make his speech as popular as he can by telling greatly exaggerated or untrue stories. This is not considered sin, since it is done to attract common people's attention, that they may hear the sacred sound, the names of the gods, and some of their deeds, and be purified by this means. When the Puranika reads Puranas the hearers, who are sure to come and sit around him for a few moments at least, generally give him presents. The Puranika continues to read, paying no attention to what the hearers do or say. They come and go at their choice.

When they come the religious ones among them prostrate themselves before him and worship him and the book., offering flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, garments, money, and other things. It is supposed that this act brings a great deal of merit to the giver, and the person who receives does not incur any sin. If a hearer does not give presents to the Puranika he loses all the merit which he may have earned by good acts. The presents need not be very expensive ones; a handful of rice or other grains, a pice, or even a few cowries, which are used as an exchange of pice (sixtyfour cowrie shells are equal to one pice) are quite acceptable. A flower, or even a petal of a flower, or a leaf of any good sacred tree is acceptable to the gods. But the offerer knows well that his store of merit will be according to what he gives, and he tries to be as generous as he can. So the Puranika gets all that he needs by reading Puranas in public places.

My parents followed this vocation. We all read Puranas in public places, but did not translate or explain them in the vernacular. The reading and hearing of the sacred literature is in itself believed to be productive of great merit — "Punya," as it is called by the Hindus. We never had to beg or work to earn our livelihood. We used to get all the money and food we needed, and more; what remained over after meeting all necessary expenses was spent in performing pilgi'images and giving alms to the Brahmins.

This sort of life went on until my father became too feeble to stand the exertion, when he was no longer able to direct the reading of the Puranas by us. We were not fit to do any other work to earn our livelihood, as we had grown up in perfect ignorance of anything outside the sacred literature of the Hindus.

We could do no menial work, nor could we beg to get the necessities of life. Our parents had some money in hand. If it had been used to advance our secular education we might have been able to earn our living in some way. But this was out of the question. Our parents had unbounded faith in what the sacred books said. They encouraged us to >, look to the gods to get our support. The sacred [ books declared that if people worshipped the gods in particular ways, gave alms to the Brahmins, repeated the names of certain gods and also some hymns in their honour, with fasting and performance of penance, the gods and goddesses would appear and talk to the worshippers and give them whatever they n desired. We decided to take this course of meeting/ our temporal wants. For three years we did nothing but perform these religious acts. At last all the money which we had was spent, but the gods did not ' help us. -"^

We suffered from famine, which we had brought upon ourselves. The country, too, i.e., the Madras Presidency, where we lived at that particular time had begun to feel the effects of famine. There was scarcity of food and water. People were starving all around, and we, like the rest of the poor people, wandered from place to place. My father, mother, and sister all died of starvation within a few months of each other.

I cannot describe all the sufferings of this terrible time. My brother and I survived and wandered about, still visiting sacred places, bathing in rivers, and worshipping the gods and goddesses in order to get our desire. We had fulfilled all the conditions laid down in the sacred books and kept all the rules as far as our knowledge went, but the gods were not pleased with us and did not appear to us. After years of fruitless service we began to lose our faith in them and in the books which prescribed this course and held out the hope of a great reward to the worshippers of the gods. We still continued to keep caste rules, and worshipped gods and studied sacred literature as usual. ^- But as our faith in our religion had grown cold we / were not quite so strict with regard to obtaining ^secular education and finding some means of earning an honest livelihood. We wandered from place to place, visiting many temples, bathing in many rivers, fasting and performing penances, worshipping gods, trees, animals, Brahmins, etc., for more than three years after the death of our parents and elder sister. We had walked more than four thousand miles on foot without any sort of comfort, sometimes eating what kind people gave us and sometimes going without food, with poor coarse clothing, and finding but little shelter except in dhartna shalas {i.e., free lodging places for the poor), which are common to all pilgrims and travellers of all sorts except the low caste people. We wandered from the south to the north, as far as Cashmere, and then to the east, and went to Calcutta in 1878.

We stayed in Calcutta for about a year and became acquainted with the learned Brahmins. Here my brother and I, for the first time, came in contact with Christians. We were invited to attend a Christian social gathering.

We looked upon the proceedings of the assembly with curiosity, but did not understand what they were about. After a little while one of them opened a book and read something out of it, and then they all knelt down before their chairs and some said something with closed eyes. We were told that was the way they prayed to God. We did not see any image to which they paid their homage, but it seemed as though they were paying homage to the chairs before which they knelt. Such was the crude idea of Christian worship that impressed itself on my mind.

The kind Christians gave me a copy of the Holy Bible in Sanskrit, and some other nice things with it. Two of those people were the translators of the Bible. They were grand old men. I do not remember their names, but they must have prayed for my conversion through the reading of the Bible. I liked the outward appearance of the book and tried to read it, but did not understand. The language was so different from the Sanskrit literature of the Hindus, the teaching so different, that I thought it quite a waste of time to read that Book; but I have never parted with it since then.

While staying in Calcutta we became acquainted with many learned pundits. Some of them requested me to lecture to the Pardah women on the duties of women according to the Shastras. I had to study the subject well before I could lecture on it, so I bought the books of the Hindu law, published in Calcutta. Besides reading them I read other books ^wjhich would help me in my work. While reading f the Dharma Shastras I came to know many things ^which I never knew before. There were contradictory statements about almost everything. What (jne book said was most righteous, the other book declared as being unrighteous. While reading the Mahabharata I found the following: "The Vedas differ from each other; Smrities {i.e., books of sacred laws) do not agree with one another; the secret of religion is in some hidden place, the only way is that which is followed by great men."

This I found true about everything, but there were two things on which all these books — the Dharma Shastras, the sacred epics, the Puranas and modern poets, the popular preachers of the present day, and orthodox high caste men, all were agreed — that women of high and low caste, as a class, were bad, very bad, worse than demons, as unholy as untruth. and that they could not get Moksha as men. The only hope of their getting this much-desired liberation from Karma and its results, viz., countless millions of births and deaths and untold suffering was the worship of their husbands. The husband is said to be the women 's god; there is no other god for her. This god may be the worst sinner and a great criminal, still he is her god and she must worship him. She can have no hope of getting admission into Svarga, the abode of the gods, without his pleasure, and if she pleases him in all things she will have the privilege of going to Svarga as his slave.

there to serve him and be one of his wives among the thousands of the Svarga harlots who are presented to him by the gods in exchange for his or his wife's merit.

The woman is allowed to go into higher existence thus far, but to attain Moksha or liberation she must perform such great religious acts as will obtain for her the merit by which she will be reincarnated as a high caste man in order to study the Vedas and the Vedanta, and thereby get the knowledge of the true Brahma and be amalgamated in it. The extraordinary religious acts which help a woman to get into the way of getting Moksha are utter abandonment of her will to that of her husband. She is to worship him with whole-hearted devotion as the only god, to know and see no other pleasure in life except in the most degraded slavery to him. The woman has no right to study the Vedas and Vedanta, and without knowing them no one can know the Brahma; without knowing Brahma no one can get liberation, therefore no woman, as a woman, can get liberation (i.e., Moksha).

The same rules are applicable to the Shudras The Shudras must not study the Veda, and must not perform the same religious act which a Brahmin has a right to perform. The Shudra, hearing the Veda repeated, must be punished by having his ears filled with liquified lead. The Shudra who dares to learn a verse or verses of the Veda must be punished by having intensely hot liquor poured down his throat. This would no doubt be done to the Shudra violating the sacred law if he were left to the tender mercies of the Brahmin.

As for the low caste people, the poor things have no hope of any sort. They are looked upon as being very like the lower species of animals, such as pigs;

their very shadow and the sound of their voices are defiling; they have no place in the abode of the gods, and no hope of getting liberation, except that they might perchance be born among the higher castes after having gone through millions of reincarnations.

The things which are necessary to make it possible for them to be born in higher castes are that they should be contented to live in a very degraded condition, serving the high caste people as their bondservants, eating the leavings of their food in dirty, broken earthen vessels, wearing filthy rags and clothes thrown away from the dead bodies of the high caste people. They may sometimes get the benefit of coming in contact with the shadow of a Brahmin, and have a few drops of water from his hand or wet clothes thrown at them, and feel the air which has passed over the sacred persons of Brahmins. These things are beneficial to the low caste people, but the Brahmins lose much of their own hardly earned merit by letting the low caste people get these benefits!

The low caste people are never allowed to enter the temples where high caste men worship gods. So the poor, degraded people find shapeless stones, broken pots, etc., smear them with red paint, set them up under trees and on roadsides, or in small temples which they build themselves — where Brahmins do not go for fear of losing their caste — and worship in order to satisfy the cravings of their spiritual nature. Poor, poor people! How very sad their condition is, no one who has not seen can realise. Their quarters are found outside every village or town where the sacred feet of the pious Brahmins do not walk.

These are the two things upon which all Shastras, etc., are agreed. I had a vague idea of these doctrines of the Hind a religion from my childhood, but while studying the Dharma Shasiras they presented themselves to my mind with great force. My eyes^ were being gradually opened; I was waking up to my / own hopeless condition as a woman, and it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that I had no place anywhere as far as religious consolation was concerned. I became quite dissatisfied with myself. / I wanted something more than the Shastras could give me, but I did not know what it was that I wanted.

One day my brother and I were invited by Keshab Chandra Sen to his house. He received us very kindly; took me into the inner part of the house and introduced me to his wife and daughters. He and his family showed great kindness to me, and when parting he gave me a copy of one of the Vedas. He asked if I had studied the Vedas. I answered in the negative, and said that women were not fit to read the Vedas, and they were not allowed to do so. I would be breaking the rules of religion if I were to study the Vedas. He could not but imile at my declaration of this Hindu doctrine. He said nothing in answer, but advised me to study the Vedas and Upanishads.

New thoughts were awakening in my heart. 1 1 questioned myself why I should not study the Vedas and Vendanta. Soon I persuaded myself into the belief that it was not wrong for a woman to read the Vedas. So I began first to read the Upanishads, then the Vedanta, and the Veda.

In the meanwhile my brother died. As my father \ wanted me to be well versed in our religion, he did \ not give me in marriage when a little child. He \ had married my older sister to a boy of her own age, but he did not want to study or to lead a good religious life with my sister. Her life was made miserable by being unequally yoked, and my father did not want the same thing to happen to me. This was of course against the caste rules, so he had to suffer being practically put out of Brahmin society. But he stood the persecution with his characteristic manliness, and did what he thought was right, to give me a chance to study and be happy by leading a religious life. So I had remained unmarried till I was twenty-two years old.

Having lost all faith in the religion of my ancestors I married a Bengali gentleman of the Shudra caste. My husband died of cholera within two years of our marriage, and I was left alone to face the world with one baby in my arms.

I stayed in Bengal and Assam for four years in all, and studied the Bengali language. While living with my husband at Silchar, Assam, I had found a little pamphlet in my library. I do not know how it came there, but I picked it up and began to read it with great interest. It was Luke's Gospel in the Bengali language.

There lived a Baptist missionary, Mr. Allen, at Silchar. He occasionally paid visits to me and preached the Gospel. He explained the first chapter of the Book of Genesis to me. The story of the creation of the world was so very unlike all the stories which I read in the Puranas and Shastras that I became greatly interested in it. It struck me as being a true story, but, I could not give any reason for thinking so or believing in it.

As I had lost all faith in my former religion, and my heart was hungering after something better, I eagerly learnt everything which I could about the Christian religion, and declared my intention to become a Christian if I were perfectly satisfied with this new religion My husband, who had studied in a mission school, was pretty well acquainted with the Bible, but did not like to be called a Christian. Much less did he like the idea of his wife being publicly baptised and joining the despised Christian community. He was very angry, and said he would tell Mr. Allen not to come to our house any more. I do not know just what would have happened had \he lived.