Lotus Buds Part 15

We, too, have had the same difficulty, and the evidence we now submit is doubly valuable because of its source. It is very rarely that we have found it possible to get behind the scenes sufficiently to obtain reliable information from those most concerned in this traffic.

The head priest of one of our Temples admitted to a friend who was watching for opportunities to get information for us that the "marriage to the G.o.d is effected privately by the Temple priest at the Temple woman's house, with the usual marriage-symbol ceremony. To avoid the Penal Code (which forbids the marriage of children to G.o.ds) a nominal bridegroom is sometimes brought for the wedding day to become the nominal husband. This Caste is recruited by secret adoption."

A Temple woman's son, now living the ordinary life apart from his clan, explains the very early marriage thus: "If not married, they will not be considered worthy of honour. Before the children reach the age of ten they must be married. . . . They become the property of the Temple priests and worshippers who go to the Temple to chant the sacred songs."

A Temple woman herself told a friend of ours: "The child is dressed like a bride, and taken with another girl of the same community, dressed like a boy in the garb of a bridegroom. They both go to the Temple and worship the idol. This ceremony is common, and performed openly in the streets." In a later letter from the same friend further details are given: "The child, who should be about eight or nine years old, goes as if to worship the idol in the Temple. There the marriage symbol is hidden in a garland, and the garland is put over the idol, after which it is taken to the child's home and put round her neck." After this she is considered married to the G.o.d.

A young Temple woman in a town near Dohnavur told us she had been given to the Temple when she was five years old. Her home was in the north country, but she did not remember it. She had, of course, understood nothing of the meaning of the ceremony of marriage. She only remembered the pretty flowers and general rejoicing and pleasure. Afterwards, when she began to understand, she was not happy, but she gradually got accustomed to it. Her adopted relations were all the friends she had.

She was fond of them and they of her. Her "husband" was one of the Temple priests.

A Hindu woman known to us left home with her little daughter and wandered about as an ascetic. She went to a famous Temple, where it is the custom for such as desire to become ascetics to enter the life by conforming to certain ceremonies ordained by the priests. She shaved her head, took off her jewels, wore a Saivite necklet of berries, and was known as a devotee. She had little knowledge of the life before she entered it, and only gradually became aware of the character borne by most of her fellow-devotees. When she knew, she fled from them and returned to her own village and the secular life, finding it better than the religious.

In telling us about it she said: "I expected whiteness, I found blackness." She told us that she constantly came into contact with Temple women, none of whom had chosen the life as she and her fellow-ascetics had chosen theirs. "Always the one who is to dance before the G.o.ds is given to the life when she is very young. Otherwise she could not be properly trained. Many babies are brought by their parents and given to Temple women for the sake of merit. It is very meritorious to give a child to the G.o.ds. Often the parents are poor but of good Caste. Always suitable compensation and a 'joy gift' is given by the Temple women to the parents. It is an understood custom, and ensures that the child is a gift, not a loan. The amount depends upon the age and beauty of the child. If the child is old enough to miss her mother, she is very carefully watched until she has forgotten her. Sometimes she is shut up in the back part of the house, and punished if she runs out into the street. The punishment is severe enough to frighten the child.

Sometimes it is branding with a hot iron upon a place which does not show, as under the arm; sometimes nipping with the nail till the skin breaks; sometimes a whipping. After the child is reconciled to her new life, occasionally her people are allowed to come if they wish; and in special circ.u.mstances she pays a visit to her old home. But this is rare. If she has been adopted as an infant, she knows nothing of her own relations, but thinks of her adopted mother as her own mother. As soon as she can understand she is taught all evil and trained to think it is good."

As to her education, the movements of the dance are taught very early, and the flexible little limbs are rendered more flexible by a system of ma.s.sage. In all ways the natural grace of the child is cultivated and developed, but always along lines which lead far away from the freedom and innocence of childhood. As it is important she should learn a great deal of poetry, she is taught to read (and with this object in view she is sometimes sent to the mission school, if there is one near her home).

The poetry is almost entirely of a debased character; and so most insidiously, by story and allusion, the child's mind is familiarised with sin; and before she knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the instinct which would have been her guide is tampered with and perverted, till the poor little mind, thus bewildered and deceived, is incapable of choice.

CHAPTER XXIX

"Very Common in those Parts"

"The dark enigma of permitted wrong."--F. R. H.

THE mixture of secrecy and openness described by the Temple woman is confirmed by Hindus well acquainted with Temple affairs. "All the Temple women are married to the G.o.ds. In former times the marriages were conducted upon a grand scale, but now they are clandestinely performed in the Temple, with the connivance of the priest, and with freedom to deny it if questioned. Some ceremonies are performed in the Temple, the rest at home. Sometimes the marriage symbol is blessed by the priest, and taken home to the child to be worn by her. In all these cases the priest himself has to tie it round her neck. The previous arrangements for the marriage are made by the priests with the guardians of the child who is to be initiated into the order of Temple women.

"The ceremony of tying on the marriage symbol is never in our district performed in public. None but intimate friends know about it. There is a secret understanding between the priests and the Temple women concerned.

When the time arrives for the marriage symbol to be tied on, after the usual ceremonies the priest hands over the symbol hidden in a garland of flowers.

"Of course, there is music on the occasion. When outsiders ask what all the noise is about, the people who know do not say the real thing. They say it is a birthday or other festival day. The symbol is tied on when the child is between five and eleven, after which it is considered unholy to perform the marriage ceremony. The symbol is at first hidden from the gaze of the public. Later it is shown publicly, but not while the girl is still young."

This tallies exactly with our own experience. More than once an eager child in her simplicity has shown me the marriage symbol, a small gold ornament tied round her neck, or hanging on a fine gold chain; but the Temple woman in whose charge she was has always reproved her sharply, and made her cover it up under her other jewels, or under the folds of her dress.

The reason for this secrecy, which, however, is not universal, is, as is inferred in the evidence of the head priest, because it is known to the Temple authorities that what they are doing is illegal; though, as a matter of fact, as will be seen later, prosecutions are rare, and convictions rarer still.

The Caste is recruited, as the Blue Book states, by "admissions and even purchases from other cla.s.ses." On this point a Brahman says: "When the Temple woman has no child, she adopts a girl or girls, and the children become servants of the G.o.ds. Sometimes children are found who, on account of a vow made by their parents, become devotees of the G.o.ds."

Another Brahman, an orthodox Hindu, writes: "In some districts people vow that they will dedicate one of their children to the Temple if they are blessed with a family. Temple women often adopt orphans, to whom they bequeath their possessions. In most cases the orphans are bought."

The position of the Temple woman has been a perplexity to many. The Census Report touches the question: "It is one of the many inconsistencies of the Hindu religion, that though their profession is repeatedly vehemently condemned in the Shastras (sacred books), it has always received the countenance of the Church." Their duties are all religious. A well-informed Hindu correspondent thus enumerates them: "First they are to be one of the twenty-one persons who are in charge of the key of the outer door of the Temple; second, to open the outer door daily; third, to burn camphor, and go round the idol when worship is being performed; fourth, to honour public meetings with their presence; fifth, to mount the car and stand near the G.o.d during car-festivals."

The orthodox Hindu quoted before remarks on the "high honour," as the Temple child is taught to consider it, the marriage to the G.o.d confers upon her.

We have purposely confined ourselves almost entirely to official and Hindu evidence so far, but cannot forbear to add to this last word the confirmatory experience of our own Temple children worker: "When I try to persuade the Hindus to let us have their little ones instead of giving them to the Temples they say: 'But to give them to Temples is honour and glory and merit to us for ever; to give them to you is dishonour and shame and demerit. So why should we give them to you?'"

We have said that convictions are rare. This is because of the great difficulty in obtaining such evidence as is required by the law as it stands at present. One case may be quoted as typical. A few years ago, in one of our country towns, a father gave his child in marriage to the idol "with some pomp," as the report before us says. He was prosecuted, but the prosecution failed, for the priest and the parents united in denying the fact of the marriage; and the evidence for the defence was so skilfully cooked that it was found impossible to prove an offence against the Penal Code.

Once, deeply stirred over the case of a little girl of six who was about to be married to a G.o.d as her elder sisters had been a few months previously, we wrote to a magistrate of wide experience and proved sympathy with the work. His letter speaks for itself:--

"I have been waiting some little time before answering your letter, because I wanted time to think over your problem. As far as I can make out, there is no way in the world of preventing a woman marrying her own daughter to the G.o.ds at any age; but you can prosecute her if she does.

If you could get her into prison for marrying the elder girls, the younger might be safe; but I don't think you can do anything directly for her. She is not being 'unlawfully detained'; and even if she were, all you could do would be to get her returned to her parents and guardians, which would be worse than useless.

"The question is whether you can hope to get a conviction in the other case.

"I don't see how you can. You can say in court that you saw the little girls with their marriage symbol on, and that they said they had been married to the G.o.d. The little girls will deny it all, and say they never set eyes on you before. Moreover, I don't think the ordinary Court would be satisfied without some other evidence of the fact of dedication; and considering how everyone would work against you, I think you would find it extraordinarily hard. The local police would be worse than useless."

To every man his work: it appears to us that expert knowledge is required, and ample means and leisure, if the expenditure involved is to result in anything worth while; and a careful study of all available information regarding prosecutions, convictions, and, I may add, sentences, has convinced us, at least, of the futility of such attempts from a missionary point of view: for even if convictions were certain, _as long as the law hands the child back to its guardians after their unfitness to guard it from the worst that can befall it has been proved_, so long do we feel unable to rejoice exceedingly over even the six months' rigorous imprisonment, which in more than one case has been the legal interpretation of the phrase "up to a term of ten years,"

which is the penalty attached to this offence in the Indian Penal Code.

In this connection it may be well to quote a paragraph from the _Indian Social Reformer_:--

"The Public Prosecutor at Madras applied for admission of a revision pet.i.tion against the order of the Sessions Judge, made in the following circ.u.mstances:--

"One, S., a priest, was convicted by the first-cla.s.s subdivisional magistrate of having performed the ceremony of dedicating a young girl in the Temple of N., and thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 372 of the Penal Code. He accordingly sentenced him to six months' rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, the Sessions Judge reduced the sentence to two months, on the ground that the rite complained against was a very common one in those parts. The Public Prosecutor based his pet.i.tion on the ground that it had been held in a previous case 'that such a dedication was an offence, and that it was highly desirable that the interests of minors should be properly protected.' This protection, it was submitted, could only be vouchsafed by making offending people understand that they would render themselves liable to heavy punishment.

The present sentence would not have a deterrent effect, and he accordingly applied for an enhancement of the same. His lordship admitted the pet.i.tion, and directed notice to the accused."

It is something to know the six months' sentence was confirmed. But is not the fact that a Sessions Judge should commute such a sentence, on the ground that the offence was "very common," enough to suggest a doubt as to the deterrent effect of even this punishment?

NOTE

During the last few months the Secretary of State for India has addressed official inquiries to the Government of India regarding the dedication of children to Hindu G.o.ds, and the measures necessary for the protection of such children.

If the antic.i.p.ated change in the law is to result in more than a Bill on paper--a blind, behind which things will go on as before only more out of sight--it is, we believe, needful to ensure:

1st. Protection for all children found to be in moral danger, whether or not they are or may be dedicated to G.o.ds.

2nd. That, irrespective of nationality or religion, whoever has worked for and won the deliverance of the child should be allowed to act as guardian to it.

3rd. That such a Bill shall be most thoroughly enforced.

_February, 1912._

To face p. 268.

CHAPTER x.x.x

On the Side of the Oppressors there was Power

I HAVE been looking over my note-book, in which there are some hundreds of letters, clippings from newspapers, and records of conversations bearing upon the Temple children. It is difficult to know which to choose to complete the picture already outlined in the preceding chapters. A mere case record would be wearisome; and indeed the very word "case" sounds curiously inappropriate when one thinks of the nurseries and their little inhabitants; or looks up to see mischievous eyes watching a chance to stop the uninteresting writing; or feels, suddenly, soft arms round one's neck, as a baby, strayed from her own domain, climbs unexpectedly up from behind and makes dashes at the typewriter keyboard. Such little living interruptions are too frequent to allow of these chapters being anything but human.