In Kali's Country: Tales from Sunny India

by Emily Churchill Thompson Sheets

"Yes, Priest of Kali," he said, dropping his eyes and poking the little fire before him with his sacred tongs.

"Perhaps you of the holy priesthood can answer a question for me," he added slowly after a moment, without looking up.

The fat, half-naked priest, not loath to take advantage of any opportunity to do nothing, especially when at the same time he was being religious by talking with a holy man, dropped lazily to the pavement beside the fakir's rude shelter of a bit of thatch on four poles and, waving for a hookah from the rest-house across the narrow street, settled himself to listen in comfort.

But before the holy man propounded his question, for a few minutes he seemed to have forgotten about it. His keen, dark eyes, after turning thoughtfully from one side to the other of the small paved square in front of him, looked across the sluggish brown stream at the foot of the steps to the opposite bank where a few people were bathing in the water, and beyond to where were crowded close together the small mud houses of the native section of a great Indian city. While he gazed thus, the young priest took several puffs at the long pipe, leering lazily the while at two pretty girls who had come from the street into the square and, pausing before the fakir, timidly had placed a few pice on the dirty cloth spread out before him, but, seeing the leer of the priest, hastened to pull their saris over their faces and pass hurriedly down the steps to the sacred Ganges.

The holy man had not noticed the girls, nor did he seem to see the rest of the crowd of people who walked back and forth through the little square, having come to throw flowers upon the river or to bathe in its waters or, having bathed, to lie down and rest in Indian fashion in the roofed verandas charitably provided by rich and merit-seeking Hindus. He did not seem to see any of them, although so many of them brought their offerings of fruit and pice to him that his begging cloth was almost overflowing. Nor did he notice the presence of an American tourist who had stepped into the square and who, with a Murray under one arm and an umbrella under the other, was endeavouring to keep an immense sola, topi, from falling over on his nose while he took a picture of the "freak"; for how else could a globe-trotting American classify a man who, naked all but for a small loin cloth, sat cross-legged upon a deer's skin, his long hair, matted with filth into ropes, wound in a scraggy knot upon his head and his body smeared with ashes from the small fire that burned before him, the marks of white upon his forehead, intelligible only to the Hindu, making his bearded face almost frightful.

Nor did the fakir heed the naked children who trotted across the pavement at the heels of their mothers, going to perform the sacred rites at the river and to secure their children from all harm by a dip in its holy waters. The old woman, too, who, scarcely able to hobble along, had placed a little brass bowl of the dirty, foul water beside him (for the piece of water near Kali's temple is only a slip of the Ganges itself and is, therefore, particularly filthy) received not her usual blessing in return and sank down near by to wait until the holy man should notice her.

"Yes, Priest of Kali," the holy one turned from his gazing, "I have a question that waits an answer. Listen to my story. I was once a wealthy man, trained in all the learning of Brahminism. I did only what our religion allowed; I did all that it required, in sacrifices to the gods, in presents to their priests, and even in pilgrimages. But I was wretched within. I had no peace." As he spoke he laid his hand upon his heart and his eyes were heavy. "On the day of the great feast five years ago, on this very spot, after having made my offering to Jaganauth and to Haunamon and the other gods there," and he indicated with his dirty hand a little stone building at his left which contained a shrine to the legless, armless, hideous god, Jaganauth, and to the red, shapeless figure known as Haunamon, "I came to this spot to present my offering to the old man who had sat here ever since I could remember. But he was not here. He was gone. They told me that they had found him that morning lying dead on the steps there with his feet in the Ganges and that already his body had been burnt in the burning-ghat near by. 'What a reward!' I thought, 'to have died by the side of Mother Gunga. Surely he must have found peace.'

"'Can I not find peace by following his example?' The thought came to me suddenly as I stood here gazing upon his empty shelter and his neglected fire. I determined at least to try, for, at any cost, I must find peace! In my zeal and eagerness at once I stripped off my clothing and smeared myself with ashes from the fire which the holy man had kindled but the day before. Leaving my clothes on the ground underneath this little roof near the heap of ashes, as a sign that the dead man's place had been taken, to warn off other possible devotees from the spot, immediately I passed down the little street there between the stalls where are sold the articles needed in the worship of your goddess. At one I bought the little lamp; at another, garlands; at another, oil and a brass bowl; and at the street there I turned aside to buy, with my last annas, a black kid as a sacrifice for Kali.

"Through the narrow passage between the houses that surround the temple of Kali I went in haste, drawing the bleating kid behind me by a rope. When I reached the little paved courtyard before that small but most sacred shrine where dwells the goddess herself I gave the animal over to the priest. Then I watched eagerly as he put the little creature's neck between the posts so that he could not get away, and, with but one blow of the knife, severed the head from the body, letting the blood pour forth. I hastened to catch the precious blood in my brass bowl. I daubed it upon my forehead. I touched the sacred slaughter posts with it. I gladly stepped where it had flowed upon the pavement and reddened my feet in the sacred flood. Then, as the priest carried the carcass away and other sacrificers thronged in, I took my bowl and, mounting the steps of the holy place where no unclean foot has ever trod, I saw the door of the shrine open and before me stood the Goddess Kali in her black majesty, with human skulls for a necklace and human arms for a girdle, her protruding tongue thirsting for blood. I poured my offering of blood upon her and with prayers and presentation of flowers and incense, I invoked her blessing upon me and declared to her a vow that for five years I would sit at the ghat day and night; that I would follow all the customs of the holy men:—wear no clothes but ashes, eat no food but fruit, drink no water but that of the sacred Ganges, and pray without ceasing; and that every anna that I received as alms I would give to her.

"Now, Priest of this most revered goddess, all this have I done. I have never left this spot since returning from offering my vow to her five years ago; I did not even go home to tell my family, who after several days traced me here; but I was so changed that they did not recognize me. Now they mourn me as dead. Here I have sat for five years upon this skin. See my legs, how withered they are! See my body; there is not a clean spot on it! See, I have drunk nothing but this water," and he held up the jar of muddy liquid which the old woman had set down at his side. "I eat nothing but fruit; I think of nothing but my beads and my sacred book; I give every pice to your temple. I have kept my vow. But I am not satisfied. I have not found peace. What shall I do? Priest of Kali! What can I do to find peace?"