Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/906

 816 MISCELLANEOUS

touched Uka I was asked do perform the ablutions,, and though I naturally obeyed, id was nob without smilingly protesting that unfeouohubility wasuot sanction- ed by religion, fchab it was impossible thab it should ba ao. I was a very dutiful and obedient child : and ao far as iti waa consistent with respect; for parents. I often bad tussles wibh thetn oo bbis matter. I told my mother thai; she was entirely wrong in considering physical con- tact with Uka as sinful.

While at; school, I would ofoea happen to touch the " untouchables ", and as I never would conceal one fact from my parents, my mother would tell me that the shortest out to purification afcer the unholy touch was to cancel the touch by touching any Mussulman passing by, And simply out of reverence and regard for oay mother, I often did so, bub never did so believing it to be a religious obligation. After some time we shifted to Porebander, where I made my first acquaint- ance wibh Sanskrit- I was not yet pub to an English school) and my brother and I were placed in charge of a Brahman, who taughb us Ram Baksha and Vishnu Pun- jar. Toe texts " Jale Vishnuh " " Sthale Vishnuh " (there is the Lord (present) in water, there is the Lord (present;) in earth) have never gone oub of my memory- A motherly old dame used to live olose by, Now it happened that I was very timid then, and would oonjure up ghosts and goblins whenever the lights went out, and it was dark. The old mother, bo dfsabuse me of (ears, suggested that I should mutber the Bamaraksha texbs whenever I was afraid, and all evil spirits would fly away- This J did and, as I thought, wibh good effect;, I oould never believe then that there was any texo in the Bamaraksha pointing to the contact of bhe>

�� �