24 Dec Shiva’s Scorpions
Some places have a peculiar influence about them. Mysterious things which happen there pass our understanding and interpretation. They confound and astound us.
For the last thirteen years I have been annually visitingGalatga, for atleast a fortnight’s stay there. It is a village near Nipani, a prominent marketing center for tobacco, in Belgaum district, Mysore state.
Little away from the village proper is a Sidheshwar temple of Lord Shiva. Lord Sidheshwar is the personal deity of the Saivite devotees of Karnatak, they are known also as ‘Virasaivas’ Clusters of bilva trees near and around the temple adds to its sanctity, serenity and seclusion.
Unfortunately, like other places of worship, all over the country, located away from habitation, this temple also happened to be very much neglected and in the hands of notorious persons who used the holyplace for illicit distillation of liquor, gambling and nautch parties. In order that their unlawful activities are not hindered or disrupted, the anti-social elements usually resort to spreading false stories of ghosts etc., andcolour the place of their activities as dangerous for visits after sun-set.
The bad, base and brutal people switch on to theirblack business after the sunswitches off. During the stillhours of the night, the sober spiritualseekers strive to still their minds and to wipe out the darkness of the soul. The sinners on the other hand, engage themselves in self-debasing and destructive acts and thereby drive away the light of their souls.What a sad contrast !
When I first visited Galatga in 1952, the local people there dissuaded me from camping at the Sidheshwar temple, since, they said Lord Shiva didn’t like human presence at nights, around Him there Having grown wiser by freely wandering allover the country and spending the nights at lonesome places.I couldnt’ and didn’t believe whatthe simple peasants said. So, against theirwill and warning, I went to the temple to stay there for some days. My surmise was correct. The human ghosts were there. They began their sly harassment to scare me away. It didn’t work. I stuck on. People in the villages still don’t believe that graduates also take to sanyas. As such, particularly theEnglish-knowing monks are very often mistaken for persons in the service of the Criminal Investigation Department and are hence feared by bad characters. Because many high placed government officers who had heard about me, used to come to meet me in Galatga, the criminal elements’ suspicion about my being a government man was all the more strengthened and sensing possible trouble, they abandoned the backyard of the temple where they daily met for cheap fun and frolick. From then on, people have begun going to that temple of arresting peace.
In and around the fortified stone-built temple with a spacious compound, there abound lots of scorpions and number of snakes. The village folks have recounted to me many interesting stories of how the scorpions there sting only those who attempt to do any wrong within the temple area.
Herebelow I give some of my personal experiences of that mysterious place :-
( 1 ) One day, on my return to the temple after my bath from outside, I found a young man on the threshold of the main gate shrieking with pain. Lying near him was an aluminum pot that belonged to the temple. When he told me that a scorpion had stung him, I pressed him to tell me as to what he had done there. He didn’t reply me directly. Instead, he told me that a scorpion from that aluminum pot had stung him. Later, however, he admitted to have come there for stealing that pot. He was incapacitated before he could take it out of the temple premises.
( 2 ) Late one evening, a young pair visited the temple to take advantage of its seclusion and to misuse and pollute the place. Their frantic cries took me to the lone corner where they were. I recognized them both as out-station guests. Their heads hung in shame. The scorpions punished them before they could misbehave in that holy place.
( 3) Once, a gentleman brought me food. As I was then engaged conversing with some visitors, he placed the covered plate inside the temple and joined us. A little lad who was there then, no sooner he tried to take some fried stuff from the plate, scorpion sting was the immediate result. Hearing his wailings, we went in. There we found the spilled stuff which fell off’ the boy’s stung hand.
(4) A carpenter boy once killed a big scorpion, instantly, two scorpions stung him on both of his big toes.
(5 ) One morning, at about 3-30 a man came into the temple. No one generally came at that hour. The man went straight inside the sanctum sanctorum. I thought, may be, he has gone in to light the incense sticks for placing before Lord Shiva. Within moments, he gave out cries of pain. I went up to him and asked him as to what had happened. He told me that he had come from the nearby tobacco field to soak a piece of doth in the oil container of the lamp in the temple and that he needed it to light the wet fire-wood to warm himself on that cold morn. That was a clear case of stealing and as such, Shiva’s scorpions stung him at once.
( 6 ) Three shepherd boys tried to disturb the bees which had their hive on a bilva tree. The scorpions there punished them with a sting on each of them.
I have seen scores of scorpions in various crevices of the stone work in the temple and elsewhere within the temple compound. They appear to be everywhere there, on the watch, to see that no wrong takes place in the temple area. My painful experiments have revealed that they don’t work outside their jurisdiction.
Dattu the mad man of the village was the sole exception. He has very often given urinal bath to the deity and committed other nuisance there. I had also a taste of his mad treats. Many a time he spat and applied sandal paste on my head. Sometimes he used to cap the ritual by placing his nauseous and muddy leg on my head for a few minutes. Of late, he is very seldom violent. Like the judicial courts which don’t take cognisance of the breaches of laws committed by insane people who know not what they do. Shiva’s scorpions also don’t punish Dattu’s mad deeds,
How these little insects sense the intentions of people who attempt to do any wrong there is an enigma. Perhaps, it will remain so for ever. The performance of these scorpions decidedly excel the possibilities of the Police dogs we hear of. The Police dogs, we are told, only help the police to trace the absconding culprits for being dealt with according to the law, long after the harm and losses perpetrated by them. Maintenance and training of the dogs is very expensive and arduous. Whereas, these scorpions incapacitate the persons who intend to wrong and expose them to redicule.
How secure will all of us feel if the omniscient Lord Shiva considered posting a requisite number of such scorpions at each and every place where large scale crime is rampant! This will curb the colossal national expenditure that is annually incurred to maintain law and order and to detect and depose the defaulters. Let’s hope, dear reader, that at a time when all are doing something or the other to strengthen the country during the current emergency. Lord Shiva, our Supreme Protector, who has given our country enough and more, will not fail us at the present moment of our helplessness. All that we want of Him is that, as an interim relief, he should donate just 10,000 scorpions with a guaranteed opportunities to multiply rapidly, for special assignments to nip in the very bud all anti – national activities that are let loose to plunder the national wealth without danger.
Scorpion stings can be very painful and, if not treated, its effects may last as long as 24 to 48 hours.
The most effective way to neutralise the poisonous sting is to make the scorpion, if it can be sighted, to sting again, anywhere around the original stung part. Pain will vanish at once.
Herebelow i gave a yantra which I learnt while moving about in Manipur. It instantly cures all scorpion stings. I have tried this tested technique very successfully, hundreds of times by now. This mode of cure is second only to the former.
During my very recent seven months’ stay in a scorpion infested Maharashtrian village, I used this relieving method on as many as 20 persons on an average per day and also taught it to 100 personsthere.
The process is very simple and anyone can learn and useit on oneself or others beneficially.
Take a pen and draw the following yantra at one stretch on the point upto which the pain has travelled and rests. Then, repeat drawing once or twice at all receding points of pain till you come to the stung spot.
There, do it three or four times in quick strokes. The pain and soreness willtotally subside.
When stung in any part of the hand, the poison travels upto thearm-pit and sometimes down the back also. If any part of the leg is involved, the pain shoots up to the groin.
High – blood – pressure patients don’t respond to thistreatment all at once, nor do hot – tempered persons. In their case, a handful of firewood ashes briskly rubbed downwards from the point of extreme pain, several times, would usher in relief.
If you keep your place clean, free from moist and marsh, you can do away with the scorpions.
Scorpions around the tobacco grown area can be dangerous and their stings claim life. They are blackish in colour and crab-like in shape and size. Beware of them. Should anyone be so unfortunate as to be stung by such a scorpion, take about 3 pounds of water and sweeten it with Ib of jaggery and drain the whole lotof this water into the stomach of the patient without any loss of time. This will save the individual.
You can always catch the scorpions by their heads without coming to any harm and leave them around the fields. DON’T KILL THEM. They are harmless little things. They sting only in self-defense when apprehending danger.
After you are convinced of the efficacy of this yantra, don’t keep the knowledge to yourself. Please pass it on to your friends in the villages where scorpions are in plenty.
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