if you pour rice, it will only fill this much. It will not fill completely.24 Don’t you worry. I am having a person make preparations. They will come and build this temple. Don’t you feel sad. I am going to do good for everybody. Therefore I will make a group of people come, I will build and give you a temple.” Thus that mother spoke.
[Where will the new temple be?]
This same one! This here! This here! It looks like we are building something of stone, doesn’t it? Everyone bought cement and gave it. A few people, five, then, a hundred, two hundred, everybody put some. We are keeping it all in one place. But how to build a temple? Can I build it? I am living with eight children. Only one person is earning. I give them food, I buy clothes and things for the children, I have given three daughters in marriage, I have to see to that. How can I alone build a house? My husband gets a hundred, two hundred rupees salary. Can we eat on two hundred rupees? A group of people I have made better and done good for. For that, if everything is built and given, okay. If there is power [śakti], anything will happen. If there is power, it will happen by itself.
[What is power?]
She asks what is power. An illness comes … Now what have you come here for? You have come for research. If you go thinking of that mother, you will complete all your research perfectly. “O Mother, you must make everything happen. When I go, whatever you want me to do I will do.” If you pray like this, whatever you need, she will do and give. Then you, following your wish, give me a gift. If I make everything better for you, you give what makes you happy. Then how, that gift, that is that mother’s power.25 It is the power given by that mother. I could do nothing. I have Māriamman herself. Karumāriamman. All power is one female only. Mothers have many names. For every town, a deity. For every deity, a name. For every name, a power. Some deities will not speak when they come into someone’s person. They will not open their mouths and speak. When they come into the person of other people they will speak. When Māriamman comes into someone else’s person, they will bite and eat a chicken. They will take camphor and put it in their mouth. She will not do all that in my person. That is a different power. But in my person, the power of that mother, whoever has a need, whatever is on your mind, she will say exactly. She will bring it about. There are different powers, but as long as she has been in my place, what has happened to me is just this.
[You said once before that you don’t eat meat?]
Yes, I must not eat it. The reason … I have suffered much trouble. In the year seventy, marrying off the eldest daughter, we suffered much difficulty.26 There was no food, there was no clothing, there was no comfort in the house, there was nothing. When I was suffering much difficulty, crying and crying and crying and crying, and I had to protect eight children, in this town there was no one of my heart.27 I was in a separate house. He had his religion; I had a separate religion. And so many children, three girls had come of age, the whole group of children had to eat, all were school children, I had to buy books for school, I had to educate them, didn’t I?28 Then, with all those children, how to survive? At that time, from your country, from Germany, that woman came. Through her help, Vasanti was educated. But that woman went back to Germany.29 After that, only Vasanti was educated. She came to the front in her studies. But she only studied to the ninth grade. We did not have the means to educate her further. Thus having all these troubles, I was crying. We married off the eldest daughter and stayed in her husband’s house. He earned a salary, and for the sake of the children, eating only one meal a day, somehow we remained. Then my relatives all saw me and would not speak to me at all. “She has no money” [they said]. And with all these children, I was filthy; no relatives would come to my house. They would not even ask how I was doing. So much trouble I have suffered. I was alone with the children. Then Vasanti, Mallikā, Selvi [three of her daughters], and I went to work as construction laborers.30
Even before that, the mother was in my person. If someone’s body is unable, she will come and protect them, everyone. If someone has a trouble, she will make it better. One Friday I wept, “If you are like this, why are you sending me to such labor?” I bought some poison. I was going to give it to all the children and we would die. I would give it. We could not stay in that town. There was no one to help us. No one came forward to protect us. So instead of this slavery, we all must die, I thought. So I bought bedbug poison and was going to mix it in their coffee. Thus one day I carefully bought it, and put it away, and lay down to sleep. All three or four children, without even coffee, silently lay down to sleep. Then weeping I lay down.
Then a snake came by way of the rafter. There was a stick there—now we have a bigger house, then we had a small house—it came by way of the stick, it went to the place where that mother was, and circled her picture. Māriamman herself. First it was seen as a snake coming, then that disappeared, then like a little child, wearing a sari and a jacket, she came running pitter patter like a little child, wearing a necklace, with her hair all braided, and flowers, saying, “Don’t you cry. Tomorrow I will protect you, don’t you cry. Tomorrow a woman will come to you, she will give you a hundred rupees. You cook and eat well and fill your stomach. That woman’s husband has suffered much and has separated and gone away. I will give him protection, from then on I will keep you well.”
Thus that child came and spoke. “Don’t you cry, don’t you cry.” Wiping my eyes. “Don’t you cry, I will come and protect you.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Don’t you know who I am? Look at me well,” was all she said.
When I looked again, a woman of your height. In her hand a spear, a red sari, a red jacket, in her hand a fire trident.31 Wearing a red sari with a yellow border, running to me she said, “Don’t you cry, I will protect you, I have come, you will be happy. All those people who don’t come to your house, who don’t speak well of you, who don’t give you comfort, they will all come to your house seeking you. I will keep you well; I will give you your own house; I will find good husbands for your three children; I will give you much money; I will give you cattle. Whatever you want, you believe in me, I will bring it about.” Thus speaking, that mother disappeared.
From that day on—on Friday I had lain down crying, that night I saw the dream—the next Sunday a woman came, her husband had left her sixteen years before. In Alwarpet. Then that woman had gone everywhere to the temples, her husband had not come back to her house.
I knew the servant girl who worked in her house. She told her, “If you go to this place, that mother will tell you what happened to your husband, and will make him come home. But she has many children. Māriamman comes only in that woman’s person. In the house there is no god [statue] at all. That woman has been there for three years. Before that there was no god or anything.”
That woman came. She brought good money, much money. As soon as she came, I asked. She said, “I want to ask Māriamman. That mother Māriamman must give me some answer.”
So I said okay, and bathed and returned and asked Māriamman. She answered, “In three days I will make your husband return. A prostitute has got your husband. A girl, a Malayāḷi girl has got him, has performed sorcery on you, and has separated him even from your language. I will heal that sorcery, and will bring your husband and join him with you.” Thus that mother spoke.
As soon as she said this, that woman became very happy. She took out a hundred rupees and put it in my hand. As soon as she gave the hundred rupees, Māriamman was gone. After that I went and cooked meals for the children for two or three days, and it was that way. On the third day, her husband came. That woman’s husband returned.
As soon as he returned, one of their children, a big boy, went crazy. His intelligence was not well. He would not brush his teeth. If he went to defecate, he would not clean himself. A boy who had finished high school. It was as though a madness had seized
