Appraisal of Sacred Objects

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APPRAISAL OF SACRED OBJECTS

About two generations back, there was a Professor of Geology, an Englishman, in

the Presidency College, Chennai. He went out on his study of geology and

anthropology in the mofussil with his usual small mallet in hand and came to a

hamlet where there were a number of pottery works in the shape of horses in

front of a temple. To study their composition, the professor knocked off the

nose of one of the horses. The villagers were aghast, but soon gathered in a

crowd and hunted the professor out who run for his life. Similarly, if one

should go to the sacred shrine of Tirupati and look at Srinivasa’s image,

which fills so many devotees with the holiest of feelings, thankfulness for

blessings already received and with hope for the grant of further relief prayed

for; and if one should take up one’s mallet and chip off a portion of

sacred image, he might discover the actual composition of the material-whether

it is of the Tertiary age, or whether it is a drop rock. But from the point of

common-sense anyone would declare that the geological test and appraisal of the

sacred image is absurd and may prove ruinous to any man who attempts it.

The sastras repeatedly declare that in the case of images, saints, etcetra, the

physical aspect should not be considered. In them, matter and spirit are

intertwined and closely combined, as in the living body, and when a holy person

is approached, it is a sad lack of wisdom for one to be thinking of the material

body and its short-comings. Baba himself expressed this view on a famous

occasion. In 1910 or 1911, his fame was widespread in the Bombay State. The

wife of the Revenue Commissioner, Mr. Curtis, wanted to go to Baba with a view

to get his blessing for an issue as she was barren, and the Revenue

Commissioner accompanied her. The Collector, the Deputy Collector and a host of

people were coming to Shirdi, and the chief of them, Sir George Seymour Curtis,

was without faith and was only desirous of ‘doing’ Baba, that is,

seeing him so as to be able to say that he had been to Shirdi and had the

opportunity of seeing the much talked of fakir. Knowing his mentality, long

before the crowd could be seen, Baba was saying at the Dwarakamayee,

‘Rascal! Coming to see me! What have I got? I am a naked fakir with human

organs’. People could not make out whom Baba was referring to. But soon

the full official procession headed by Mrs. and Mr. Curtis, and followed by the

Collector, the Assistant Commissioner, and others passed in front of the

Dwarakamayee. Then they went on to the chavadi and from there wished to send

word to Baba. That was however impossible as no one would convey orders to

Baba. Then Baba himself passed in front of the chavadi, and Mrs. Curtis wished

to have a talk. Baba said, ‘Wait for half an hour’. But Baba

returned within ten minutes, and she again said she wished to have a talk. Baba

said, ‘Wait for one hour’. The officers were impatient. Mr. Curtis

had done Baba and done Shirdi and they went off. Of course Mrs. Curtis’s

object, namely, to get a child by Baba’s blessings, was not achieved.

Written by: HH Pujyasri B. V. Narasimha Swamiji

(Vasuki Mahal Shri Shirdi Sai Baba Trust, Coimbatore-641025, India)