Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1898-11-02
VISIT TO A MAHATMA.
Lives In . Cave and ehows Himself
but Once q Year.

-
but Once a Year.
81 was told off on urgent famine in
spection to get q disorder straight In q
village, the name Of which signifies
sea of cobras.' Famine and cObras, o
double enemy-hard luck, thought.
Famine battled bravely and success
fully, but there was no sight or trace
of the other, and the sea was no
better than a name. The village was
perhaps never known for cobras, or
|. they are now extinct, or, the belief lin
gers still, the cobra played truant from
the time the Mahatma Kathirappa be-
gan to work miracles. A shepherd
youth, grazing cattle with his compan-
ions, by verbal command created a
spring, in the early twenties. from a
rock; 1t Is perennial to this day, proof
against the worst drouth. He would
secure the village from famine and pes
thence, or give timely warning Of their
apparanceof course the last two or
three famines excepted. He lives in
a cave over a hillock $50 feet high,
known after him for miles around. and
even in the village survey map. The
hillock attracts the distant wayfarer
by what appears to him turrets, after
the manner Of the Jain architecture,
but which really are rudely carved
monolithic domelike rocks. His name
is on every lip, but nobody knows his
history.
The oldest man in the village, about
three score and ten. tells me that the
Mahatma should now almost be a cen
tenarian. Preferring solitude, renounc-
ing his home and hearth, he sought the
cave, round which a clOister stands,
furnishing abode for about a dozen
members Of either sex, and their clOis-
ter Is closed against the public except
for one day in the year, the full moon
day Of the first month of the Telugu
cycle year, when the Mahatma presents
himself to all seated on a slab at the
entrance to the cave, his body covered
with his mass Of tangled hair. deaf,
mutelike, and retires unperceived to re-
appear again the next year. The pill
grim offers presents, vows are cele
brated, car runs around the hillOck,
and the whole day is spent in sight
seeing and Jubilation. BY the miracles
of his youth. and probably the career
Of his later life, Kathirappa has become
a popular god within a radius of some
fifty miles. But the Mahatma Is in
need Of no earthly gift, and the contri-
buttons of the devout 60 to support the
inmates Of the cloister, who neither
seek nor refuse. who accept and give
charity.
These strange beings are provision
ed by disciples living In huts at the
entrance to the cloister or at the foot
Of the hill. The disciples are ready with
strange and fantastic stories Of their
demigod. WHO'D in flesh and in spirit
claim to be connected with the Mahat-
ma, and who pass from the cradle to
the grave in their little cloister, beyond
the pale Of law or public gaze. The
Mahatma is evidently inscrutable to
the layman. How much longer his NOR
tai frame will show itself and the fate
after Its disappearance Of the little hull
colony dependent on him are puzzles
which cannot pretend to solve. Every
thing connected with the Mahatma is
held in veneration, but Ramappa, his
grandson, drove me to the next famine
station in a cart drawn by the Mahat-
mas animals. This is sacrilege, they
say; but cannot the liberal hire, and
the present Of two silver bits that
made Mt the cloister save me?'-Madras
Mail.