The hermit and the woodpigeon
By Tissa Devendra
After his four older sons had left home to earn their own living in the early 1920s, my grandfather impulsively decided to leave for good the village of Kalegana, near Galle, where his family had lived for many decades. With his wife and four younger children he embarked on an odyssey which lasted many years and took them to many villages and towns.
Their first home away from Kalegana was in the picturesque Kandyan village of Alakolange not far from Pilima Talawe. They rented a pleasant tiled cottage whose porch was topped with an ornamental wooden spike. The garden was full of fruit trees and a little streamlet burbled along on one side. Beyond it ran the railroad and, whenever the Kandy train hooted past, the children wading in the stream enthusiastically waved as the train chugged along.
In search of truth
Grandfather spent his time visiting the village temples in the countryside and renewing his friendships with the monks he had got to know during his working life. His abiding interest, almost an obsession, was with the Buddha Dhamma. He carried around with him a pile of well-thumbed books on the Dhamma and poured over them at night in the dim lamplight. Most unusually for that day and age, he had imbued grandmother too with the self-same interest and the children often fell asleep to the murmurs of their religious discussions and quiet chanting.
The village monks, he soon found to his great disappointment, were often not as learned in the Dhamma as he himself was. They saw their role as being village elders, astrologers and ayurvedic physicians while also performing the religious rituals so interwoven into rural life. Grandfather's attempts to discuss esoteric aspects of the Dhamma were regarded as a minor irritant from a well-meaning layman, who wasn't even of the village. One of the older monks, who wanted to help, suggested that grandfather meet a most learned 'thapasa' (hermit) who lived on the outskirts of the village.
Long discussions
Guided by an obliging acolyte loaned by the monk, grandfather went in search of the hermit. He was led to a humble mud hut on whose doorstep was seated a blind old man quietly chanting Buddhist slokas. "O thapasa," said the acolyte " our Chief Monk has sent you this person who wishes to discuss the Buddha Dhamma with you. He comes from a village in faraway Galle, but now lives in our own village with his family." The hermit smiled in my grandfather's direction and patted a vacant space on the doorstep inviting him to sit down. They embarked on a long and deep discussion of the Dhamma that went on for so long that they lost all sense of time, and grandmother had to send her son to locate his father and bring him to have his lunch - at dinnertime! Thus began a true linking of minds and temperaments that lasted as long as the many months the family lived in Alakolange.
The garden was heaven for the children. Trees to climb and a stream to wade in. Above all, it was a paradise for birds. Flocks of green parrots arrowed across the sky after their squawking feast on mango trees, 'korawakkas' waded among the reeds along the stream, woodpeckers pecked away at dead trees, paddy birds and softly cooing wood pigeons competed to get at the paddy drying on mats while the children kept shooing them away.
Divine providence
The family lived a very frugal life. They had come from the South where fresh fish was aplenty. Now there was only 'karola' to flavour their otherwise vegetarian meals. Grandfather often forgot to replenish the larder and his wife had a tough job feeding a young family. One day, while grandfather had wandered away as usual, the children heard a loud thump on the roof as a cloud of woodpigeons took flight. The birds fly at speed on a straight path. One bird had missed its bearings and crashed into the ornamental wooden spike on the roof.
The children ran to pick up the bundle of feathers that had fallen from the sky. But the bird was dead. Ever the resourceful housewife, grandmother decided that she now had a bonus for the pot. Before long she had plucked, quartered and curried the woodpigeon.
Meanwhile grandfather walked back home leading the blind hermit along. He seated his guest on the verandah and went to give his wife an unwelcome surprise - a guest for lunch. Flustered, she explained the frugality of the food available. And she mentioned the unexpected curry of pigeon, wondering whether the hermit would consider eating flesh. Ever the man for a doctrinal discussion, grandfather told the hermit of the woodpigeon who had immolated itself on the wooden spike and ended up being cooked. "Would such a dish be acceptable to a Buddhist hermit," he wondered aloud.
The blind hermit put his mind at rest. "As Buddhist sages of ancient times have explained - there is no loss of merit or virtue in eating meat, provided it has not been specifically killed for your food. That woodpigeon has, clearly, done a deed of great merit by sacrificing itself for your sustenance. Let us, therefore partake of this meal together and offer merit to this noble bird."
I have been moved and fascinated by this story from the time I first heard it from my uncle Edward, now in his late eighties, who was the boy in the story. Who was this mysterious blind hermit, I yet wonder, who could inspire a little woodpigeon to offer its body, at so appropriate a moment, for his sustenance?
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