Chapter Twenty Three

When the evening rites were completed, Satyananda summoned Mahendra and said unto him, "Thy daughter liveth."

Mahendra. Where, O great one?

Satyananda. Wherefore dost thou call me great one?

Mahendra. All do so name thee, and therefore I likewise. The masters of the math must be addressed as kings. Where then is my daughter, O great one?

Satyananda. Ere thou shalt hear, answer one matter truly. Wilt thou take upon thee the vow of the Children?

Mahendra. So have I resolved within mine own mind.

Satyananda. Then ask not after thy daughter.

Mahendra. Wherefore, O master?

Satyananda. He who taketh up this vow may have no commerce with wife, son, daughter, or kinsman of any sort. Even to look upon the face of wife, or son, or daughter is an offence requiring expiation. Until the desire of the Children be accomplished, thou shalt not behold thy daughter's face. If, therefore, it be fixed in thee to take the vow, what profit hast thou in learning where thy daughter is? Behold her thou shalt not.

Mahendra. Why so hard a rule, O lord?

Satyananda. The reason I shall expound to thee.

Mahendra. Wherefore must I receive a new mantra?

Satyananda. The Children are Vaishnavas.

Mahendra. This I cannot apprehend. How are the Children Vaishnavas? With the Vaishnava, non-violence is the supreme religion.

Satyananda. That is the Vaishnava-faith of Chaitanyadeva. A counterfeit Vaishnavism, sprung up in imitation of the atheistic Buddhist creed -- such is its mark. The mark of the true Vaishnava religion is the chastisement of the wicked and the deliverance of the Earth. For Vishnu is the Preserver of the world. Ten times and twelve hath He assumed a body and uplifted the earth. He it was who slew in battle the demons Keshi, Hiranyakashipu, Madhu and Kaitabha, Mura, Naraka and the rest, the Rakshasas such as Ravana, the kings such as Kamsa and Shishupala.

He is the Conqueror, the Giver of victory, the Deliverer of the earth, and the chosen Deity of the Children. The Vaishnavism of Chaitanyadeva is not the true Vaishnavism -- it is but half a religion. Chaitanya's Vishnu is all love -- but the Lord is not all love alone; He is also of infinite power. Chaitanyadeva's Vishnu is only love -- the Children's Vishnu is only power. We are both Vaishnavas -- yet each of us is but half a Vaishnava. Dost thou understand the matter?

Mahendra. Nay. These are strange new doctrines I hear. At Kasimbazar I once fell in with a padre who spake words of this very kind -- to wit, that God is all love, that thou shouldst love Jesus -- this seemeth to be of that same fashion.

Satyananda. The fashion in which our fourteen forefathers have understood the truth -- in that fashion I expound it unto thee. God is of three qualities -- hast thou heard so much?

Mahendra. Yea. Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas -- these are the three qualities.

Satyananda. Well. To each of these three qualities pertaineth a several worship. From the Sattva quality spring His mercy, His grace, and the rest; that aspect one shall worship through devotion. The sect of Chaitanya doth so. From the Rajas quality springeth His power; this aspect is worshipped through war -- through the slaughter of the haters of the Gods -- and this we perform. And from the Tamas quality the Lord becometh embodied -- He hath at His pleasure assumed the four-armed and other forms. With garlands and sandal-paste and like offerings must that quality be worshipped -- and this the common folk perform. Dost thou understand now?

Mahendra. I understand. The Children, then, are but a sect of worshippers?

Satyananda. Even so. We seek no kingdom -- only because the Mussulmans are haters of God, we seek to root out their whole stock.

Satyananda. The work of the Children is most arduous. Save the wholly renounced, none other is fit for it. He whose mind is bound in the cords of illusion can no more leave the earth and ascend to heaven than a kite fastened to a string.

Mahendra. O great one, I cannot well grasp thy meaning. Is he who looketh upon the face of wife and son not fit for any weighty work?

Satyananda. Once we see the face of wife and child, we forget the work of the Gods. The rule of the Children's faith is this: that on the day when need ariseth, the Child must lay down his life. If thy daughter's face be ever in thy memory, canst thou leave her behind and go to thy death?

Mahendra. If I see her not, shall I therefore forget my daughter?

Satyananda. If forget her thou canst not, then take not this vow.

Mahendra. Have all the Children taken the vow forgetting wife and child in this manner? If so, the Children must be very few in number.

Satyananda. The Children are of two kinds, the initiated and the uninitiated. They that are uninitiated are householders or mendicants. They come only in the hour of war, and depart with a share of the spoil or some other reward. They that are initiated are wholly renounced. They are the masters of the order. Thee I do not ask to become an uninitiated Child; lathi-bearers and spearmen for the battle there are many. Without initiation thou shalt not be fit for any grave office of the order.

Mahendra. What is initiation? Wherefore must I be initiated? I have already taken a mantra ere this.

Satyananda. That mantra must thou cast off. Once again must thou take the mantra from me.

Mahendra. How shall I cast off a mantra?

Jibananda. In what manner shall I procure these things? Pray, command me.

Satyananda. For their procurement I shall this very night set forth upon pilgrimage. So long as I return not, lay ye not your hands upon any weighty enterprise. Yet preserve the unity of the Children. Provide them with food and raiment, and fill the treasury for the Mother's victory in war. This burden lieth upon you twain.

Bhabananda said, "Going on pilgrimage, how wilt thou procure these things? To buy bullets, muskets, and cannon, and to despatch them, were a great trouble. And whence wilt thou obtain so great a store, who shall sell it, who shall bring it?"

Satyananda. We cannot accomplish our work by purchase and importation. I shall send artisans hither, and the work must be wrought in this very place.

Jibananda. How sayest thou? Here, within Anandamath?

Satyananda. Can that be? The means thereof have I pondered many days. God hath this day provided the occasion. Ye said the Lord was adverse. I see Him favourable.

Bhabananda. Where, then, shall the workshop be?

Satyananda. At Padachihna.

Jibananda. How sayest thou? In what wise shall it be done there?

Satyananda. Wherefore else have I taken such pains to bring Mahendra Singh to undertake this great vow?

Bhabananda. Hath Mahendra then taken the vow?

Satyananda. He hath not taken it, but he shall. This very night shall I initiate him.

Jibananda. We did not perceive what pains have been taken to make Mahendra Singh undertake the vow. What hath befallen his wife and daughter, where hath he placed them? I myself found a little girl by the river-side this day, and have left her in the care of my sister. By her side lay a fair woman dead. Was she not perchance Mahendra's wife, and the child his? So it seemed to me.

Shanti made no reply. She remained silent. Nimai saw that Shanti would not utter what was in her heart. Shanti loved not to speak the secret things of her mind, this Nimai knew. So Nimai, making shift, turned the talk another way and said, "See, sister, what a sweet little maid!"

Shanti said, "Whence hadst thou the child -- when didst thou ever get a daughter of thine own?"

Nimai. Plague upon thee -- to the house of Yama with thee -- this is thy brother's child.

Nimai had not spoken thus to vex Shanti. By "brother's child" she meant the child she had gotten from her brother. Shanti did not so apprehend it; she thought Nimai sought to prick her with a needle. Therefore Shanti made answer, "I asked not about the child's father -- I asked of the mother."

Nimai, having received her due chastisement, was abashed, and said, "Whose child she is, I know not, sister; my brother hath picked her up somewhere or other -- I have had no leisure to ask of it! These be days of famine, when many folk are leaving their little ones in the highways and the fields; many indeed brought their boys and girls to us for sale, and who would take a stranger's child?" (Again the same tears came into her eyes -- wiping them away, Nimi continued) "The child is wondrous fair, a plump, moon-faced little thing, and so I begged her of my brother."

Thereafter Shanti talked at length with Nimai of many matters. Then, perceiving that Nimai's husband had returned home, Shanti rose and went away to her own hut. Entering the hut, she barred the door, and drew forth from the hearth a quantity of ashes which she laid aside. Upon the ashes that remained she cast away the rice that had been cooked for her own meal. Then standing a long while in thought, she said to herself: "What for so many days I have purposed, this very day shall I perform. The hope wherefor I have held back so long is now fulfilled. Fulfilled, or unfulfilled -- unfulfilled! This very life is fruitless! What I have resolved, that shall I do. The expiation that serveth once, serveth a hundred times also."

So thinking, Shanti cast the rice into the hearth. She went into the wood and brought fruits from the trees, and these in place of rice she ate. Then she drew forth that fine Dhakai sari upon which Nimaimani had laid her stain, and tore off its border. The remainder of the cloth she dyed well with red ochre. To dye and to dry the cloth, the evening came on. When evening was come, she barred her door and addressed herself to a most marvellous business. Of the rough hair that fell about her ankles she cut away a portion with shears and laid it apart.

The rest she braided and wrought into matted locks. The rough hair became a burden of matted tresses of exquisite arrangement. Then, tearing the ochre cloth in half, she made a loincloth of one half and bound it about her fair limbs. With the other half she covered her breast. There was a little mirror within the chamber, and Shanti, after many days, drew it forth; drawing it forth, she beheld her own attire in the glass. So beholding, she said, "Alas! how have I done, what have I done!" Then casting the mirror aside, she took the locks she had shorn and fashioned therewith a beard and moustache.

But put them on she could not. She thought, "Fie! fie! fie! how could such a thing be! Are these the days for that! Yet, to confound the old fellow, it were well to keep these by." So thinking, Shanti bound them up in a cloth and laid them away.

Thereafter she drew from within the chamber a great deerskin, and knotting it about her throat, she covered her body from neck to knee. Thus arrayed, the newly-made ascetic looked slowly about every quarter of the chamber. When the second watch of the night was come, Shanti in that ascetic's habit unbarred her door and, alone in the darkness, entered into the depths of the forest. The forest-goddesses heard upon that midnight in the wood a wondrous song.