# Life in India/Vantha-vasi

Vantha-vasi.
In the midst of a wide-spread and fertile plain, dotted over with villages, stands the town of Vantha-vasi, commonly called, by the English, Wandiwash. It is known to history as the scene of a battle between the French and the English, in which the latter were victorious, and in which the native troops on both sides abstained from fighting. With remarkable wisdom, they concluded that it was not worth while for them to shed their blood in a contest to decide whether they should have Englishmen or Frenchmen for their masters. By us it is remembered as the place of a few days' delightful sojourn, while making known the truth to polite and intelligent companies of Hindus.
If it was satisfactory to us to get within the walls of a bungalow, and to be able to turn aside to read a chapter in the Bible, and pray in a private room, it seemed equally satisfactory to ​the bungalow servants to enjoy the rare privilege, in this secluded spot, of having some one to wait upon. Our arrival threw them into a state of immense excitement, and our few wants were supplied with great speed; one of them especially, running to bring us the oriental luxury of a jar of water for bathing, as if it were to save his life.
The old fort is now in ruins, but bears evidence of having been built with great expenditure of Hindu labour. The view of the villages around, from the ramparts, was very pleasing, and in our walks about Wandiwash our favourable impressions were confirmed. It is composed of a collection of clusters of houses, each cluster mostly inhabited by one caste; and is surrounded with fields of rice, Indian grains, and indigo. In a pleasant grove, with its indispensable tank, the monkeys were skipping from branch to branch among the trees, quite at home in their undisturbed quarters, while minas and other birds flitted about or chattered and quarrelled on the ground. We were reminded in one of our walks of the command to Moses, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” (Ex. iii. 5,) by the respectful behaviour ​of the taliari, (watchman.) On seeing us approach, he drew off to one side of the road; and slipped off his sandals, stood reverently shoeless until we had passed, when he resumed his sandals and went on his way. The putting off of the shoes is universally practised in India as a mark of respect. Should a Hindu enter your house with them on, it would be an evident attempt to treat you disrespectfully, or to presume upon your ignorance of Eastern manners.
Farmers fanning and beating rice. p. 264
​against the floor, (a mode which I have not seen practiced,) while another fans it by pouring it from a basket in the open air. Two women on the right are busily pounding the grain in a mortar, to separate the chaff from the rice.
On nearing Wandiwash, the attention of travellers is arrested by a tall and rugged granite mountain, rising abruptly from the plain some two miles from the bungalow. We learned, upon inquiry, that it was a place of note, and at a certain festival the resort of a great multitude of pilgrims, who ascended and worshipped on its summit. The Hindus, like most idolaters in ancient and modern times, deem themselves nearer to heaven on the mountain-top than in the plain. They reverence mountains and high hills as dwelling-places of the gods, and consider it a work of much merit to perform a pilgrimage to the temples which they build upon their summits. In some cases, they go farther, and consider the mountain itself to be a god.
Although we were not encouraged to do so by the Brahmins, who do not wish the shrine to be visited by Europeans, we resolved to go to the mountain-top, and get a view of the country around.
At three and a half o'clock in the morning, ​we arose, and went by moonlight to the foot of the mountain; then, as the moon set, commenced the ascent by starlight, with a guide. The way, which at first was not difficult, was soon made plain by the approaching dawn. Passing a small temple of Krishna, a favourite but vile incarnation of Vishnu, we ascended for some distance along an inclined plane made with slabs of stone. Beside this stone-paved way, was a watercourse of granite, bringing down water into a granite reservoir twelve feet in diameter and six feet deep. In the rainy season, this reservoir is filled; and here pilgrims to the summit stop and bathe. Following the stone walk upward, we came to a saddle between two hills, which ended the first stage of the ascent. On the level space thus furnished, were shade-trees for the weary, a tank for refreshment, a mundapam for rest, and a small temple for religious worship; and what was the object of worship in this high place? It was an image of one god ferociously ripping open the bowels of another!
Turning here to the right, we ascended the higher of the summits by steps, formed sometimes with slabs of stone, sometimes cut from the solid rock. The whole hill is a mass of ​granite, with a little shrubbery here and there in spots where the crumbled granite has made a little soil. Passing several tanks—some of which were natural cavities, others artificially cut in the side of the mountain—we gained the end of the second stage of the ascent.
Now a perpendicular column of granite towered above us, in some places split and cracked, and resembling a huge castellated fortress. Here we found a winding footpath, in some parts cut into fair, safe steps, but in others so smooth that we passed them on our hands and feet, lest we should slip and be precipitated below. The danger, however, is small, as the pathway has been made with much skill and labour. At last, passing a now-deserted tiger's lair, and stooping beneath a cleft rock, under which we must go, emerging, and then ascending a few narrow granite steps, we were at the summit, and in the portico of a small temple. This, with six other shrines, crowns the mountain. All are very small, and have been built with much ingenuity, resting, at different elevations, partly on pillars, and partly on levelled portions of the peak; and all are dedicated to the same god—the elephant-headed Ganesha. Thus is this contemptible idol honoured and ​adored, while God, the creator of mountains, worlds, and systems, is neglected and unknown by the creatures of his own hand.
Every morning, a Brahmin ascends to perform pujah, or worship, at these shrines with offerings of rice, flowers, and cocoanuts; and in the evening, a pandarum (religious ascetic) goes up and lights a lamp before it. In the rock are cut large cavities to hold the oil and ghee (prepared butter) offered by the pilgrims who annually flock in thousands to the festival of this sacred place; these offerings are carried off by the Brahmins.
We reached the summit before sunrise, (having started thus early to avoid the fierce heat of the sun,) and had a fine view of the plain, spreading like a lake around us, broken here and there with a craggy granite hill, and with towns and tree-embowered villages scattered among its checkered fields. To the north, we could see the great temples of Conjeveram, thirty miles distant; to the south, the mountains of Salem and Ginjee; and to the east, a hill from which we might have looked upon our Madras homes.
We made a map of the villages, with the help of our guide; and having plucked some little ​flowrets as a memento of Wandiwash Mountain, with a heartfelt prayer that God would confound these idols, and cast them to the ground, we began the descent.
By half-after seven, we had reached the base of the mountain; but even at this hour, the sun was oppressively hot, making the shelter of a roof very agreeable.
We had fine audiences in the tent, which we had pitched in front of the bungalow. The people listened with attention, were intelligent, and very many of them could read. Their questions were so proper, and their behaviour so agreeable a contrast to that of our Brahmin friends at Perumanaloor, that we felt greatly pleased with the place and people. To each one that could read, we gave a copy of one of the Gospels, printed separately for distribution, and a small tract containing the substance of the Gospel in poetry and prose.
Of poetry and singing, the Hindus are extremely fond. No matter how noisy a crowd may be, the singing of a stanza will, at all times, command complete silence. When the preacher finds his audience inclined to invert the proper order, by making him listen, while ten or a dozen of them address him at the same time, he ​can get a hearing, almost without fail, by introducing quotations from their poets, sung in the Hindu style. Should some troublesome fellow interrupt him, the others will silence the interrupter, that they may not lose the poetry. This fact is a valuable one to the missionary. Among the Tamil classic poets, there are some who have written satires so keen and sarcasms so biting against the follies of idolatry and of Hinduism in all its shapes, that the missionary is ready furnished with the materials of war in a most telling shape. It may not be out of place to give a rude translation of an example or two, though the force of the original, lying much in the words and expressions, will not appear in a translation. Thus, on the subject of the worship of idols, one of their poets says—
“Nartta kalley devam-endru nalu purtpam sattiyey
Sutti vanthu mirnu-mirn endru sollu-manthiram etharda," &c.
Which may be rendered—
The lifeless stone a god you call, and flowers in offering bring;
Around and round, with muttering sound, fool! many a prayer you sing;
But will the lifeless stone speak out? Will God within it go?
Yes! when the pot in which 'tis cooked the curry's taste shall know.
The ringing stone you cut and cleave, and from it gods you make;
The threshold-stone until 'tis gone with your base heels you scrape; Flowers, and sacred ashes too, the god-stone gets each day;
Yet neither stone to the great God can any joy convey.
Another of their poets, speaking of the worthlessness of rubbing holy ashes on the forehead, of ablutions in sacred rivers, of unintelligible prayers, as a means of purifying the soul, or finding the true way to the heavenly shores, says—
“Neetei-punein-thenna neer-ardap-poyenna nee-manamey," &c.
That is—
Why ashes on thy forehead rub? In sacred streams why bathe?
Thou knowest not the second birth, the way thou knowest not—knave!
Seven times ten million senseless prayers, oh what do they avail?
The stream to cross—the ford to find—your wandering footsteps fail.
Generally, they take strictures upon their religion with a very good grace. There is one point, however, where our teaching becomes very offensive: it is when we get them clearly to see and feel that our meaning is, that our's ​is the only true religion. We preach to them “No salvation out of Christ;” and that unless they receive him and his commandments they are lost. To them this seems in the highest degree illiberal; but we can have no liberality here. For any man to embrace a new religion they deem most sinful; for them to do so, absurd. One Brahmin remarked, “You may preach as much as you please, but none of us will join the Christian church.” They were much interested in the answer, that in God's Word it was foretold that all lands should submit to Jesus Christ; that in ancient times our own ancestors in Europe were idolaters, stupidly bowing down to gods of wood and stone, but that the preachers of the gospel had gone and made known to them the sinfulness of their ways; and that though they rejected it at first, as the Hindus now do, that still it prevailed and filled the land; and, moreover, that in India multitudes were already throwing away their idols in Tinnevelly, Madura, and other districts. This to them was all new; more especially were they astonished at the story of savage and idolatrous Saxons and Britons being the ancestors of the present Christian rulers of India.
​During the few days of our stay at Wandiwash, we had a constant succession of visitors, some of whom came from villages at a distance, having heard of the arrival of “padrés” with books and medicines. Some came to converse, some to get a book, some for medical advice, and all to have a look at the strangers. We also visited a few of the neighbouring hamlets.
In one of these villages, visited toward the close of a sultry day, I was interested by the people saying that they had never seen a white man there before; for the name of Jesus had probably never there been uttered. It was a town of some two hundred houses, of which half where of the Jaina sect; and, like most Hindu towns, beautifully shaded by trees planted about the houses. Entering the place on foot, I addressed some of the older men who were seated on the narrow verandahs of their houses. They suggested that we should go to the place where the people were accustomed to meet, near the house of the head-man of the village. We accordingly moved off to a spot where a great and widespreading tree had a square platform of stone built around its root. Here we found the head-man, with a number of others, sitting to talk over the events of the ​day. They immediately rose, and with much politeness requested me to be seated on the elevated platform, while they took their places in a semicircle on the ground before it.
It was truly a high and holy privilege, not so much a duty as a luxury, thus to sit beneath the shade of the noble tree, and for the first time to tell a group of interested hearers of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. They listened most attentively, understood what was said, and behaved with a kind simplicity that delighted me. Deceitful, dishonest, and degraded though they are, the villagers of Southern India present a most pleasing contrast to the far more corrupt inhabitants of the great cities: to mingle with them is a pleasing duty to one accustomed to labour in the great city.
One man only attempted to be troublesome, and he was immediately told by the others to hold his tongue, and not interrupt the gentleman with his impertinent questions. They appeared anxious to hear all that I had to say. Like the shastiri of the Jainas at Perumanaloor, they had a difficulty to propose about the propriety of killing any living creature. When told of the multitudes of living creatures unavoidably slain even by water-drinkers, and ​asked why, if it were wrong, God had thus made it unavoidable, they were puzzled for an answer.
After giving them tracts, I left them, pleased and cheered, and yet not without the painful consciousness that when they more clearly understood the claims of God, their hearts would rise up in rebellion against them.
It was evening, and the little square rice-fields, separated by slight earth ridges, with their starting grain, the trees concealing the villages, and all nature around, seemed charming. The mountain, surmounted by its temples, stood out boldly against the sky, and the air though hot, was balmy and soft as the sun hid himself below the horizon. I could not but feel that even torrid, sultry, and now idolatrous India might, if blessed by the gospel, be a happy and a joyous land.
Reaching the bungalow, quite exhausted with constant throat-work, my heart misgave me on finding the verandah full of people. But they must be talked to before they went away. At last they left us. It was now quite dark, and the Hindu devotee, who every evening climbs the mountain, had lit his fire before the idol upon its summit. Like a lurid star, it ​twinkled in the sky, a daring insult to God, a homage paid to a senseless stone in the very sight of his visible heavens. Blessed be God that he will vindicate his high and holy name; that he hath given to his Son the heathen for an inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for a possession!
Nowhere had I seen India in so pleasing an aspect, and never had I felt more anxious that preachers of the gospel should be scattered through the land. There are in this region hundreds and thousands of villages entirely open to the missionary, with none to let or make him afraid. The constant succession of large companies of hearers probably would not continue, but in all respects the field would be completely open and ready for the Christian labourer; not to reap the harvest at his entrance upon the field, but to sow and water the seed, with the expectation of soon rejoicing in sheaves gathered into the garner of the Lord.
Not the Sudras only, but some of the Brahmins also, seemed to relish the keen exposures of heathenism which they heard from Mr. S. They listened in the best possible humour; and when a difficulty raised was parried, or the light of truth disclosed the absurdity of their ​ways of salvation, seemed as much delighted as though the system exposed was not that which they had been taught to hold sacred from their earliest years. Nor was it all negative work. Said one man, “You show us the folly of Hinduism; now give us books to prove your own religion to be true;" thus of himself inviting the commendation of the gospel to his conscience as the way of salvation. “Since you have been here,” they told us, “nothing has been talked of but religion.”
May these transient efforts soon be followed by the permanent labours of some who shall give themselves to the work of the Lord among the heathen of this region.