musings 293

we Hindus believe that the diseases afflict the body as the result of Karma..

If any short circuiting is applied our weight of papam will remain and will have to be expiated by deferred suffering..

In fact the great philosopher and scholar Appayya Deekshitar has demonstrated this in his own life as recorded by himself..

In fact he was having some serious body ailment, and instead of finding cure he was trying to suffer it away..

He was minister in the court of a king, and as is usual some jealous colleagues carried tale to the ruler.. it was reported that that the scholar minister was having some serious and communicable disease which he was concealing..

To test him, the ruler visited the residence of Deekshitar without prior notice, and that was a period which the minister had allotted for suffering the disease..

Seeing the King, the ailing scholar just threw away his uttareeyam (after transferring the ailment to it through his own tapas), and greeted the king as if nothing has happened.. He was talking to the king in the normal manner but there was no sign of the illness. But at the same time the uthareeyam was just vibrating and throwing itself on the air as if it were shivering from the malady..

Later the fact was explained to t

he king too..

I found this recorded in a biography of the scholar in Sanskrit.. I have the book with me..

This is just an instance.. Transferring of Karmic effect and illnesses to another medium and getting relief was an established practice in India..

They say Humayun was afflicted by fatal fever and Babur just prayed the Almighty to spare his son, took the fever on Himself and gave up his life in place of his son..