The greatest good women missionaries have done in India, I think,
is in bringing modern medical science into the homes of the natives.
No man is ever admitted to the zenanas, no matter what may happen,
and thousands upon thousands, yes, millions upon millions, of poor
creatures have suffered and died for lack of ordinary medical
attention because of the etiquette of caste. American women brought
the first relief, graduates from medical schools in Philadelphia,
New York and Chicago, and now there are women physicians attached to
all of the missions, and many of them are practicing independently
in the larger cities. They are highly respected and exert a great
influence.
Nizam-u-Din, one of the holiest of the Hindu saints, lies in a
tomb of marble lace work and embroidery near Delhi; as exquisite
a bit of architecture as you can imagine, so dainty in all its
details that it ought to be the sepulcher of a fairy queen instead
of that of the founder of the Thugs, the secret religious society
of assassins which was suppressed and practically exterminated by
the British authorities in the '60's and '70's. He died in 1652.
He was a fanatic who worshiped the goddess Kali; the black wife of
Siva, and believed that the removal of unbelievers from the earth
was what we call a Christian duty. As Kali prohibited the shedding
of blood, he trained his devotees to strangle their fellow beings
without violating that prohibition or leaving any traces of their
work, and sent out hundreds of professional murderers over India
to diminish the number of heretics for the good and glory of the
faith. No saint in the Hindu calendar is more generally worshiped
or more profoundly revered unto the present day. His tomb is
attended by groups of Brahmins who place fresh flowers upon the
cenotaph every morning and cover it reverently with Cashmere
shawls of the finest texture and pieces of rare embroidery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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