Part 5
Now, Naroo was more
interested in what happened to that woman at the temple and so Naroo
called Sumitra out of the inner room and asked her, "please,
tell us what happened to that woman at the temple”? Sumitra, after
hearing her father-in-law’s comments, had lost her confidence for
that day and told Naroo, “I do not know anything more than that.”
Saying this she went inside the room.
Naroo was sitting next
to his revered father and Duttaprasad was telling him about what
happens to our soul when we die.
Naroo knew that his
father is a very knowledgeable personality. Duttprasad had learned
many shastras and interesting enough he had also studied those
branches of shastras which usually Brahmins avoid learning. That is
Shakta ceremonies. Shaktas are different from Brahmins and there
teachings were in many ways contrary to the teachings of Brahmanism.
Brahmins indulged in matters related with good spirits or to say God
while Shakta practitioners indulged in both Gods and mainly matters related to dead
people or spirits of dead people. Shakta called their shastras tantra
meaning technology. In this tantra main stress is on one important
principal, dead spirits are similar to living beings excepting for
the absence of body. These spirits of dead people think like living
beings and behave like living beings but for not having a body they
are always in difficulty. It is this difficulty that is resolved by
using the tantra practice and that way a mantrik (wizard) can help pacify
them. Quite often these dead spirits can enter the body of some
individuals and haunt them this they do to take advantage of the body
of the possessed human. This is called in modern science
parapsychology paranoia or split personality. Tantriks can treat this
better than any modern psychologist but unfortunately true Tantrik is
seldom available. Duttprasad was one truly knowledgeable Tantrik.
Even though he seldom used his knowledge for the purpose he was well
accepted by the Tantriks in that town.
A branch of Brahmins had
to perform rite for dead people prior to putting the corpse on a pyre
to be consumed by the fire. Duttprasad was teaching those rites to
those Brahmins who wanted to specialize in those rituals.
Naroo was not a dump
person. he had studied everything under his own father as well as
other knowledgeable Brahmins from that town. He asked his father,
“how our virtues or vices influence our after death life”? before
he could complete his query they heard a tap on the door. Vedprakash
got up and opened the door. There was standing a good friend of
Duttprasad. This man was a mullah in a mosque in the town and was
known for his learning of the Koran. Everybody graciously welcomed
him and requested to sit along with them. Duttprasad told him about
the difference of opinion between Naroo and him. Importance of
correct pronunciation of the hymns while doing the ritual was the
age-old issue of difference between the father and the son. Mullah
smiled and made himself sit properly and then suggested that on this
point he would like to remember an incidence that had occurred in a
famous Dargaa (place of mausoleum of a Muslim saint). That was the
time when the mullah was doing his apprenticeship under one learned Sufi mullah. He was following that older mullah everywhere he went. In one
famous Dargaa called Haji Malang at Kalyan a stranger visited the
place and was loitering around the place looking around to find
something. Older mullah approached him and offered to help. Holding
Koran in his hands he requested that stranger to say some hymns
(faatyaa) but that person could not say any. The person was not a
Muslim. The mullah insisted that he should utter at least one hymn
out of Koran. That person looked to him and uttered some blabber not
making any sense at all. The mullah closed the book of Koran and
said, “alright, you have said the hymn”, and allowed that person
to do his prayers on the Dargaa. Seeing this younger mullah said to
Duttprasad, he was annoyed just like Naroo. He asked his senior
mullah how he allowed that man to proceed when he had actually
uttered blabber that means it was an insult to Koran and Islam. He
told the gathering that on that his teacher smiled and said what
Duttprasad had been telling Naroo all this years.
Story continues in
this next post
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