Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/160

sun, the sun in eclipse, the image of the sun in a pool of water; that be should not point at the stars with fingers of irreverence; that he should not sleep with his head turned toward the north or west; that he should abstain from cutting his nails with his teeth, from using the same toothstick more than once, from eating off plates used by others, and from wearing sandals worn by strangers—and a thousand such foolish injunctions.

The assembly was politely bored, but the Swami enjoyed himself hugely. For it gave him an opportunity to show his great learning and his wonderful memory, and then, like most holy men, he loved to lay stress on the outward emblems of his faith. lie illustrated his sermon by relating several horrid examples, chiefly that of a wicked barber who had shaved a Brahmin with a razor which had been polluted by the shadow of a low-caste falling on it. Finally, be commented on the advent of modernity and expounded with more lengthy and tiresome quotations how the devils of progress, skepticism, irreverence, and anarchy were making headway amongst the twice-born, how the young Brahmins were making their names a name of scorn in the present world and spoiling their chances for the future world.

"Then he whispered a word to the pleader, who called up the case of Chaganti Samashiva Rao, a young Brahmin accused of having sullied his caste by marrying an infidel.

There was a commotion at the door, and then Rao appeared, struggling furiously in the arms of half a dozen muscular youngsters. The pleader explained that Rao had studied in Boston and that he had brought home with him a girl, a native of the land of the