Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/907

 UNTOUOHABILITY 8lf

' untouohablea ' aa a sin. I did nod understand ita meaning then, or understood ib very imperfectly, But I waa confident that Ramaraksha, whioh could destroy all fear of ghoete* oould not be countenancing any euoh thing aa fear of oonfcaoh with the " untouohablea."

The Ramayana used to be regularly read in our family, A Brahmin called Ladha Maharaja used bo read ib. He was stricken with leprosy, and he waa confident! tbab a regular reading of the Ramayana would cure him of leprosy ; and, indeed, he was cured of ib. ' How can the Ramayana,' I thought to myself, in whioh one who is regarded now-a-days as an untouchable took Kama across tha G*ngea in his boat, countenance the idea of any human bainga being * untouchables' on the ground that they were ' p Luted ooula ?' The faot that we addressed God aa the " purifier of the polluted " and by aimilar appellations, shows that it ia a sin to regard any one born in Hinduism as polluted or untouchable thab it is satanio to do no. I have henna been never tired of repeating that in is a great ain. I do not pretend that thia thing bad crystallised as a conviction in me at the age of twelve, but I do say that) I did then regard uotouohability aa a ain. I narrate thia story for the information of the Vaiahnavaa and Orthodox Hindus.

I hava atwaya claimed to ba a Sanatani Hindu. It) is not that I am quite innocent of the scriptures. I am not a profound scholar of Saobkrit, I hava read tbe Vedas an'd the Upaniskads only in translation?. Naturally therefore mine is not a scholarly study of them. My knowledge of them ia in no way profound, bat I have atudied them aa I should do aa a Hindu, and I claim to have grasped their true spirit. By tha time I had reached the age of 21, I had studied other

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