Social reformers like
Gandhi and the members of very numerous societies in India today
are making slow but sure progress in restoring the ancient values
of caste, based solely on natural qualification and not on birth.
Every nation on earth has its own distinctive misery-producing
karma to deal with and remove; India, too, with her versatile
and invulnerable spirit, shall prove herself equal to the task of
caste-reformation.
So entrancing is southern India that Mr. Wright and I yearned to
prolong our idyl. But time, in its immemorial rudeness, dealt us no
courteous extensions. I was scheduled soon to address the concluding
session of the Indian Philosophical Congress at Calcutta University.
At the end of the visit to Mysore, I enjoyed a talk with Sir C. V.
Raman, president of the Indian Academy of Sciences. This brilliant
Hindu physicist was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930 for his important
discovery in the diffusion of light-the "Raman Effect" now known
to every schoolboy.
Waving a reluctant farewell to a crowd of Madras students and
friends, Mr. Wright and I set out for the north. On the way we
stopped before a little shrine sacred to the memory of Sadasiva
Brahman, {FN41-10} in whose eighteenth-century life story miracles
cluster thickly. A larger Sadasiva shrine at Nerur, erected by
the Raja of Pudukkottai, is a pilgrimage spot which has witnessed
numerous divine healings.
Many quaint stories of Sadasiva, a lovable and fully-illumined
master, are still current among the South Indian villagers.
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