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He was sixty years old when I saw him. He is called Sri 108 Swami
Bhaskarananda Saraswati. That is one form of it. I think that that is
what you would call him in speaking to him--because it is short. But you
would use more of his name in addressing a letter to him; courtesy would
require this. Even then you would not have to use all of it, but only
this much:
Sri 108 Matparamahansrzpairivrajakacharyaswamibhaskaranandasaraswati.
You do not put "Esq." after it, for that is not necessary. The word
which opens the volley is itself a title of honor "Sri." The "108"
stands for the rest of his names, I believe. Vishnu has 108 names which
he does not use in business, and no doubt it is a custom of gods and a
privilege sacred to their order to keep 108 extra ones in stock. Just
the restricted name set down above is a handsome property, without the
108. By my count it has 58 letters in it. This removes the long German
words from competition; they are permanently out of the race.
Sri 108 S. B. Saraswati has attained to what among the Hindoos is called
the "state of perfection." It is a state which other Hindoos reach by
being born again and again, and over and over again into this world,
through one re-incarnation after another--a tiresome long job covering
centuries and decades of centuries, and one that is full of risks, too,
like the accident of dying on the wrong side of the Ganges some time or
other and waking up in the form of an ass, with a fresh start necessary
and the numerous trips to be made all over again. But in reaching
perfection, Sri 108 S. B. S. has escaped all that. He is no longer a
part or a feature of this world; his substance has changed, all
earthiness has departed out of it; he is utterly holy, utterly pure;
nothing can desecrate this holiness or stain this purity; he is no longer
of the earth, its concerns are matters foreign to him, its pains and
griefs and troubles cannot reach him. When he dies, Nirvana is his; he
will be absorbed into the substance of the Supreme Deity and be at peace
forever.
The Hindoo Scriptures point out how this state is to be reached, but it
is only once in a thousand years, perhaps, that candidate accomplishes
it. This one has traversed the course required, stage by stage, from the
beginning to the end, and now has nothing left to do but wait for the
call which shall release him from a world in which he has now no part nor
lot. First, he passed through the student stage, and became learned in
the holy books. Next he became citizen, householder, husband, and
father. That was the required second stage. Then--like John Bunyan's
Christian he bade perpetual good-bye to his family, as required, and went
wandering away. He went far into the desert and served a term as hermit.
Next, he became a beggar, "in accordance with the rites laid down in the
Scriptures," and wandered about India eating the bread of mendicancy. A
quarter of a century ago he reached the stage of purity. This needs no
garment; its symbol is nudity; he discarded the waist-cloth which he had
previously worn. He could resume it now if he chose, for neither that
nor any other contact can defile him; but he does not choose.
There are several other stages, I believe, but I do not remember what
they are. But he has been through them. Throughout the long course he
was perfecting himself in holy learning, and writing commentaries upon
the sacred books. He was also meditating upon Brahma, and he does that
now.
White marble relief-portraits of him are sold all about India. He lives
in a good house in a noble great garden in Benares, all meet and proper
to his stupendous rank. Necessarily he does not go abroad in the
streets. Deities would never be able to move about handily in any
country. If one whom we recognized and adored as a god should go abroad
in our streets, and the day it was to happen were known, all traffic
would be blocked and business would come to a standstill.
This god is comfortably housed, and yet modestly, all things considered,
for if he wanted to live in a palace he would only need to speak and his
worshipers would gladly build it. Sometimes he sees devotees for a
moment, and comforts them and blesses them, and they kiss his feet and go
away happy. Rank is nothing to him, he being a god. To him all men are
alike. He sees whom he pleases and denies himself to whom he pleases.
Sometimes he sees a prince and denies himself to a pauper; at other times
he receives the pauper and turns the prince away. However, he does not
receive many of either class. He has to husband his time for his
meditations. I think he would receive Rev. Mr. Parker at any time. I
think he is sorry for Mr. Parker, and I think Mr. Parker is sorry for
him; and no doubt this compassion is good for both of them.
When we arrived we had to stand around in the garden a little while and
wait, and the outlook was not good, for he had been turning away
Maharajas that day and receiving only the riff-raff, and we belonged in
between, somewhere. But presently, a servant came out saying it was all
right, he was coming.
And sure enough, he came, and I saw him--that object of the worship of
millions. It was a strange sensation, and thrilling. I wish I could
feel it stream through my veins again. And yet, to me he was not a god,
he was only a Taj. The thrill was not my thrill, but had come to me
secondhand from those invisible millions of believers. By a hand-shake
with their god I had ground-circuited their wire and got their monster
battery's whole charge.
He was tall and slender, indeed emaciated. He had a clean cut and
conspicuously intellectual face, and a deep and kindly eye. He looked
many years older than he really was, but much study and meditation and
fasting and prayer, with the arid life he had led as hermit and beggar,
could account for that. He is wholly nude when he receives natives, of
whatever rank they may be, but he had white cloth around his loins now, a
concession to Mr. Parker's European prejudices, no doubt.
As soon as I had sobered down a little we got along very well together,
and I found him a most pleasant and friendly deity. He had heard a deal
about Chicago, and showed a quite remarkable interest in it, for a god.
It all came of the World's Fair and the Congress of Religions. If India
knows about nothing else American, she knows about those, and will keep
them in mind one while.
He proposed an exchange of autographs, a delicate attention which made me
believe in him, but I had been having my doubts before. He wrote his in
his book, and I have a reverent regard for that book, though the words
run from right to left, and so I can't read it. It was a mistake to
print in that way. It contains his voluminous comments on the Hindoo
holy writings, and if I could make them out I would try for perfection
myself. I gave him a copy of Huckleberry Finn. I thought it might rest
him up a little to mix it in along with his meditations on Brahma, for he
looked tired, and I knew that if it didn't do him any good it wouldn't do
him any harm.
...Mark Twain in Following the Equator
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