Atheist Miscellany

The Conference of Gods (Miss Gnanam)

The chief Gods and the prophets of the world meet in conference at the Atmosphere Hall in Vacancy. After much discussion, Mr. Christ is voted to the chair. There is a large gathering of Rishis, prophets, avatars, Nayanars, Alwars and other deities of both sexes. The conference begins exactly at no time, and amidst loud cheers that Christ rises to deliver his presidential address:

Goddesses, Gods, avatars and prophets,

I feel it my duty of being the youngest of avatars and prophets, the gods present here to express my gratefulness to you for electing me as the president of the conference, though after much opposition. I think it is not necessary to point out to you the importance of this gathering. We have been watching the awful spread of atheism, not only among my people, but also among yours. I hope you will not misunderstand me when I refer to the fact that every one of us should put our heads together to remove this cursed atheism root and branch from the face of the earth. We the creators of the world should no longer allow the cowardly mortals to be constantly abusing us, and to be indulging in undesirable discussions about the very existence of us. Nor should we permit anyone of the human race to forget us entirely, as some are doing among my own people. The reason for this state of affairs lies entirely in the want of unity among us. Unity among Gods is more essential than unity among men. There is no use of quarrelling amongst us, as to who is great and who is small. Whether one belongs to this country or that, it matters very little. Our chief object should be to wipe off the feelings of godlessness from the minds of humanity. Sorry to say this disease has spread, recently in India also. My friend Mr. Shiva should be ashamed of this.

(Mr. Shiva, interrupting, “Withdraw the word, please. Is not the president aware of the recent developments in his own country, Russia?)]

Let not my friend take umbrage at what I said. I am indeed conscious of the predominance of anti-god movements in Russia. I don’t deny also that it is the foremost country in the world which preaches downright atheism. But, I ask you, who is responsible for the existence of this curse? I dare say everyone will join me in proclaiming, it is India.

[Messrs. Shiva, Vishnu and other Hindu Gods interrupting, “Not at all, Mr. President. Our land is the most godly of all other countries in the world. It is your wretched country, the West so to say that has spread this evil”.]

That may be I don’t deny. My point is, which country is responsible for the very idea of atheism? In this very same assembly is sitting that devilish individual who was the sole cause of this curse. You have not only foolishly given him a place in our midst, but you are all unanimous in acclaiming him as our avatar or incarnation. I refer to our enemy, Buddha, who…

Mr. Buddha (rising up in a corner): Let the president go on with his speech and not indulge in vituperations. I confess I am your enemy, I preached agnosticism to the people just because I realized that it would be a waste to spend the precious life of man in quest of such a big army of gods. I know as a matter of fact, that there cannot be any union among you. For example, the president is disliked by most of the gods assembled here especially those who are said to belong to my country. The president is not unaware of the fact that his movements in India are being watched with suspicion and his growing strength is being condemned by the followers of the gods of India. Not merely that My friend, Mr. Muhammed the prophet, who is sitting in front of me” –

(Mr. Muhammad interrupting, “No personal references please”)

He is also aware of the frequent quarrels and deaths that happen between his followers and those of the Hindu gods. The president himself should recollect the amount of blood that was shed as a result of the difference of opinions between the Catholics and Protestants of Mr. President’s religion. The fate of the Hindus under Aurangzeb, will not be a pleasing idea to mention before the gods of my country. I foresaw these things even before and that was why I advised the people to leave all of you to yourselves. I told them point blank that it is not worth while to wrangle with one another, for the silly reason of god or religion. I told them that if at all humanity should be brought together, it could be done only by forgetting everything about god or gods.

(The Assembly, interrupting, “No, No, Sit down! Send him out! The Blasphemer!!”)

Dear Sir, let me be allowed to have my say. I convinced humanity of the futility of discussing about your existence and of the more important things they have to do in the world. My mission, though discouraged by the Brahmin element, its now bearing is fruits in the far-off Russia, America, Turkey and England. My people, I mean those of India, may be a little dull in recognizing the importance of my teachings, but I am sure other countries of the world have taken my task in right earnest.”

The President, continuing, “Do you now see, who is responsible for the spread of Atheism? That is why I hate the Hindu gods – much more so my neighbour Mr. Muhammed”.

[Mr. Muhammed starts up in fury and rushes to the President. Messrs. Shiva, Vishnu and others also attack the President. The President uses guns and bombs, while others use bows and knives. There is a fierce fight between all the gods, one attacking the other indiscriminately. The Atmosphere Hall is filled with terrible noises and pitiful groans and the whole town of Vacancy is full of bloodshed. Amidst which Mr. Buddha with a glowing smile descends to the ground to mix with humanity.)

Revolt, 21 July 1929

God Subramanya and King George V

“Pandit Swami .S. Srinivasa Iyengar of Egmore is performing at a high cost Laksharchana, Maha Karpura Homa Puja, Ekadesi Rudrabhishekam and other Huge religious performances and yagams to God Subramanya both as a thanks giving services for the recovery of His Majesty King George V (according to his prediction) and also invoking for his long life. Two things are clear from this. One that he is good at prediction, and the other he is the most loyal of His Majesty’s subjects. While doubting how far he will be responsible, as he ought to be, for any future illness of His Majesty, which we do not wish at all, but which all the same is not improbable, as he is also a mortal, we wish to ask one thing. Will the people take note of his powers of prediction? And will the Government remember his name, on the occasion of the next birth day Honours of His Majesty? We expect the answer from God Subramanya himself.

Revolt, 24 November 1929

An Appeal (By Sri Ranganatha of Srirangam)

To all my humble devotees:

In as much as there is a prospect of a sudden and immediate invasion of my ancient possessions by the iconoclastic Self-respectors, in as much as I fear the capture of my abode and those of my brethren to be utilized for public purposes and as I am afraid that all properties will be cashiered and spent for the commonweal, I issue this appeal on behalf of myself and my numerous relations, to the devoted and humble worshippers to organize a large and the last lottery and gather enough money so that I and my family many leave Srirangam and escape the attack of the army of Self-respecters which is gathering strength with fearful rapidity. We shall seek shelter under the protecting wings of the British Government and shall for ever live happily in the enjoyment of the wealth got through the Lottery. I expect my “face born “sons in Railway and Government services to spare no pains to make the lottery a success.

I am for ever,

Your Lord Creator and Protector

RANGANATHA THE ALMIGHTY

Srirangam

Revolt, 13 February 1929

Beggar Problem

The beggar problem is not peculiar to Ootacamund alone as reported in a previous issue, but throughout India. Perhaps along with an influx of visitors the beggars also have their exodus to the hill for the season. Whether in Ooty or anywhere in India if the beggar problem is to be solved, we should have a Raja of Panagal to take up the question boldly. It is a great pity that any reform which we wish to take up is somehow or other connected with religion.

There are three kinds of beggars, those who are disabled through old age or physically unfit to work, those idle beggars who take to this profession to escape hard work and those able bodied idlers with yellow or kavi cloth.

It is the duty of the state and society at large to supply the bare needs of the first variety of beggars in workhouses. But efforts in this direction will be a failure unless there is a law prohibiting beggary. At the same time something ought to be done with the beggars with kavi cloth before beggary is prohibited by law. Now the trouble arises when we deal with the beggars in the name of religion and any reform in this direction will meet with the usual cry of “religion in danger”. A move in this direction is urgent and in course of time the obstacle of religion will give way.

Among the religious beggars, most artful is the temple pujari who trade on the ignorance of the masses and it will indeed take a long time to educate the people to do away the middlemen. Then comes the wandering beggar otherwise called a byragi with all his jugglery and he must bear a license i.e. he may be allowed to roam about with a permission from the temple or mutt to which he belongs and his expenses must be met from that mutt or temple and he should not be allowed to beg. This process of licensing religious mendicants will eliminate a great number of pretenders, who if not willing to work, and lead a decent life should be sent to workhouses. Let them work in these places for their livelihood and in spare hours let them meditate or sing in praise of their gods.

Along with the law prohibiting beggary there must be some action taken to punish another set of daylight robbers who exploit the ignorance and superstition of the masses, those who deal with witchcraft. The latter class of people are the worst offenders since they rob the poor. They pretend to cure disease, and enslave God himself within a talisman so that the God may serve the individual and grant him whatever he wants. It is interesting to note how the Soviet Russia deals with religion and their adherents in a new law. By this law, “all existing religious communities must register with the Government within one year; otherwise they will be suppressed.”

All churches and organized religious bodies must restrict their activities to the holding of religious services and prayer meetings. They are forbidden to form mutual aid societies, establish libraries, to organize church socials, lecturers, excursions or sewing circles. These methods which have been used by missionaries, especially those of the Baptist church, to win adherents are now placed outside the law.

Ministers and priests, by the new decrees, are tied down to one centre, and must only conduct services in one church or room, at which they must be registered. Thus itinerant evangelism will be wiped out.

The Roman Catholics are especially affected by the new measures, as they have hitherto persistently refused to register. Registration involves a pledge to obey the laws governing religion.

Revolt, 29 May 1929

One Thousand Names (M.V.V.K. Rangachari, B.A)

What does the curious word ‘alias’ signify? A touch of criminology suggests that it is the refuge of the scoundrel to evade the law. The ordinary offender of the state changes his habit, grows an unwanted beard and assumes a different name. If the arm of the law is able to reach him, he comes out with the explanation of the conjunctive “alias” to outwit the detection of his imposture. Indeed, crime and a double-personality do so often go hand in hand that “alias” is the property of a high percentage of thieves and old-offenders.

There is however, a more honest application of the word than the dishonest elusive character usually associated with an “alias”. This is more peculiarly apparent among communities that are acquainted with the process of altered parentation, commonly known as adoption. The adoptee assumes in the family of his affiliation a name different to that which the parents that brought him into being assigned to him. And, provided the date of adoption is postponed to a late enough age of the adoptee, there is every chance of his being known by both his name; convenience, nothing more, would suggest the intervention of the divine particle “alias”. One uses the adjective divine advisedly, for the whole earth oscillates between scoundrellism and divinity.

Cases are further possible not only of human beings transferred from one family into another, but even the gods that once ruled the destinies of a particular tribe were adopting themselves by force of circumstances to a new and different tribe. The romance of the gods is no mere fiction, as the assimilation of cults is a matter of historical importance, giving the clue to the varied phases of civilization. Our wars, conquests, invasions, and ultimate unions are best reflected in the stories told with marvelous power in the epics the puranas, and other sacred books the world over. The victor tribe forced its beliefs on the subdued one, and the deity of the latter as a rule occupied a subordinate position after the onslaught. The snake-worshipper kneeled down before a god that rode an eagle (Garuda). The moon, which doubtless was at one time an object of worship, later was relegated to the ornamental position on the forehead of Siva. Even the river Ganges, whose fertilizing powers would have captured the admiration of the early Aryan immigrant into worshipping her as an independent goddess acquired a husband in the mountaineer who was not otherwise unprovided with a spouse of his own kin, Parvati, the mountain’s daughter. The bull-god latterly dwindled into the sacred animal that carried Iswer on its back. The earth that once must have claimed attention as a goddess per se was latterly mated with Vishnu, who was already linked to that mysterious elusive force that mankind names as chance, luck, fortune or LAKSHMI. The very hills become the abode of the gods. Man worshipped animals, rivers, the earth, the moon, the mountain, indeed everything that captured his early imagination and every succeeding epoch of his civilization transformed the object of his worship. The very ornaments and weapons that were put into the hands of his gods and goddesses stand for the age in which humanity had successively lived. The trident spear of the mountaineer, the wheel, of a later period, the mace, the bow, the axe, the plough, on these the march of time is imprinted unmistakably.

Father Himalaya, Goddess Parvati, Ganga, and mendicant Siva typify the early Aryan life of hardihood, in the vicinity of the northern plateau. The Ramayana is the epitome of Aryan excursion into the southernmost point of the peninsula. The clash of two civilizations, Aryan and Dravidian is the main theme of its warfare. The axe of Parasurama stood for the forest-felling age. The bow of Shrirama vanquished what must have been in that age a less successful form of culture. And later Balaram, plough in hand, revealed the power of the soil and brother Krishna is associated with pasturage of cattle, milk and butter in a peaceable age, which however ran into the later Mahabharata. Thousands of years, myriads of generations, of humanity, age dawning upon age, god ruling over god, peace and war, destruction, production, assimilation, this, in substance, marks our conception of the past.

Where does the idea of giving a name begin? What was the first thing that was ever given any name? It is wonder, it is mystery, in other words, it is god. Man did not first name the thing that he knew anything about. For it needed no Namakaranam (naming ceremony – editors) at his hand. And he did not stand in need of naming it either, for, name or no name, he knew it already. What he was at pains to name was the nameless. The ununderstood, that with reference to which he was ignorant. To name any particular thing would first require a definition, and that involved abstract thought and imagination. To surmount ignorance, therefore, man began inventing names, and with them he, labeled and docketed. The first name he ever could have coined in wonder ever eludes his grasp, his power of definition, his desire to understand, in other words, a single object by a single name. Time and the march of events add to his difficulty. With every brain, that first is renewed. And each new wonder alters the content of the primary idea. If our knowledge is expanding, with it our difficulties too are on the increase. To seek to name the nameless is a fruitless task. Let the thousand names that time wrought into its texture remain intact. Let the Sahasra Nama roll for ever. The shades of illusion increase with the number of lights that come into being on this diversified globe. When all the lights unite in reason, then is this earth properly lit. Until then, adding up the cults, multiplying names, the pile of history goes on a thousand –fold into the one thousand names.

Revolt, 25 August 1929

On the ‘Pilgrim Line’

The Railway Companies in India are busy with the task of the priests in the propagation of religion. They take advantage of the religious scruples of the people and want to derive as much benefit out of it as they could. They know for certain that the people of India can be made to dance at the will of the priestly class. They know that the religious drug has been so strongly administered to the people that they cannot easily shake themselves out of it. They are therefore bent upon exacting as much as they could from the people, before they come to the realization of the deceit played upon them.

The Railway authorities seem to have a greater care for our religion than even the priests. We see glaring advertisements in all stations, exhorting the people to have either a religious trip to Benares, or a pious pilgrimage to Rameswaram. “Visit the Palni Hills”, they piteously appeal; “Have a trip to Srirangam”, they sincerely declare; “Perform Sraddh at Rameswaram”, they cautiously announce; “Have you seen Kandri (a ritual associated with Nagore’s sufi shrine – editors) at Nagore?” they anxiously ask. Big wall posters with illustrations of “A City of Festivals”, which ought to be seen before we die, or “The Holy Beacon”, which must be missed on no account, are seen in battle-array as if challenging the intellect of the people. Cheap return tickets are promised, and excellent means of conveyance are ensured. A list of places where people are fed for nothing is also given. And to crown all, a “pilgrim car” will be run very cheap.

Some of these centres of “pilgrimage” need some explanation to our foreign readers, as it will give a rough idea of the mentality of the people who flock to these places in the name of religion. Srirangam comes foremost in the list of the holy places of pilgrimage. A small town, which may be more properly called a village, is reputed to be the dwelling place of Sri Ranganatha, (God Vishnu).

The prominent appearance of the ditches coupled with the concomitant music of the million numbered mosquitoes resulting in the production of a large number of living monuments of elephantiasis and its co-partners are the age-long features of the “holy” place of Sri Ranganatha. Once in every year, on the occasion of the god’s receiving the people en bloc to his abode in Vaikundam, there is such an over crowd for a week that all the Health Inspectors of the vicinity have to direct their attention to the “holy pilgrims”, to concert preventive measures from ailments due to an over dose of piety. The week elapses and the “abode of Vishnu” is left in the condition of what the mythology depicts the opposite of Heaven, while others lead a life that is never envied by the non-pilgrims. The Railway Companies get a few crores and there is an end on it.

There is another of the “holy” places, which has a periodical influx of people. The “Palni Hill,” for which the South Indian Railway Company has recently invested a large sum to conduct its “religious” business, is the place where queer things take place in the name of religion. People rush to the place full haired and return bald-headed. That is a God which has a singular fascination for the human hair. The “pilgrims,” even women included (no Brahmins, mind that!) have a clean shave, and return home after giving the hair offerings to the “God of the Hills.” Not merely that. The pilgrims take with them pots of milk which is poured on the idol of the “God” either to run in streams and join the main ditches (which the pilgrims rarely leave unused) or to be resold to the coffee hotels with a harmonious mixture of oil and other dirts forming part of the image. The worst part of the affair is the circus feats of the “pilgrims.” They pierce their tongues, cheeks, hands and body with hooks, needles and pins and dance about with Kavadi on the shoulders. Religion was termed by Col. Ingersoll as an intoxicating drink, which often keeps its possessor out of his senses. The truth cannot be illustrated better than from the dance of the pilgrims at Palni. A toddy shop in an Indian Village is no worse that this habitation of God Subramanya. The Saravana Poigai, in which the pilgrims bathe, is a dirty little pool the like of which cannot be imagined even by the writer of “Mother India”. A pious, deep plunge into this thirtham (holy water) which forms an important part of the pilgrimage gives a finishing touch to the barbarity of the worship. The pilgrims return loaded with the benedictions of disease and become eternal patrons to the briefless doctors. Lord Subramanya affects an increase of a few lakhs in the monthly income of the Railway Companies.

These are only some of the numerous instances of how the Railway authorities do their business at the expense of the people’s ignorance. It is indeed a pity that the people do not weigh the material advantages and disadvantages that accrue from their “pious pilgrimages.” They do not realize the naked fact that the Railway authorities are as much interested in our spiritual welfare as the priests are. The priests composed songs and wrote Shastra’s and Puranas in praise of the “holy places” just as Railway authorities vex eloquent on “the City of Eternal Cheer,” or “Dashing Kais” or the “Royal City” or the “Eternal city of Salvation”. The Railway guides, Time-tables and illustrated posters are the puranas of the Railway authorities. Both the priests and the Railway Companies are equally interested in the salvation of the people. If the priests tempt you by the assurance of Moksha, the Railway authorities also try the same weapon. They invite you to go to Mayavaram for the Thula Snanam (a sacred bath – editors) as if they do not wish you to lose the chance of Moksha. That is the way how they start the business; and they can keep the pot boiling if some at least fall into their trap.

We don’t mean to blame the Railway authorities. For, as long as there is gullibility in the people, it is no wonder there will be some to make use of it. At least there should be a sense of shame in our people that foreigners will laugh at our preserve-at-a-high-cost-religion a manifestation of which is advertised on the platforms of all Railway Stations. When will the people feel it?

Revolt, 10 November 1929