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Black South African Hindu priest breaks a few myths

Black South African Hindu priest breaks a few myths

Author: Fakir Hassen
Publication: The Times of India
Date: March 21, 2002

He used to be a devout Christian until curiosity took him to a Hindu temple in Lenasia town, 40 km south of this South African city.

Four years later Meshack Jantjies, 35, is South Africa's first black African Hindu priest.

Not only does the deputy resident priest at the Sivan Gnana Sabay temple have a large following but with tremendous effort he is also mastering the Tamil language.

It all started when, after losing his job at a bakery in the small rural town of Makwassi, Jantjies began doing odd jobs such as garden cleaning in Lenasia.

"I passed the temple several times, always wondering what went on inside and eventually decided to enquire about it," Jantjies told IANS.

"After getting explanations from the resident priest I decided to join the congregation. My wife initially resisted the idea because she said the prayers were conducted in a strange language, but I decided that I would try."

Initially Jantjies joined activities at the temple while working as a cleaner there. When his family joined him to live on the premises, he found more time available to engage in deeper studies.

"The resident priest then made me a tape which I listened to over and over and I learnt to recite prayers from the Thevaram (Tamil scriptures) by doing that. I also joined the adult Tamil classes that were being offered by the temple until they were stopped because a new school was being built on the premises."

Two years ago Jantjies. was appointed the deputy resident priest after intensive coaching by priest Marie Pillay and deciding to become a Saivite. He has been fully accepted by the devotees, many of who have moved out of Lenasia but still return there on Sundays for services. "When I stand before the people here and lead the prayers, I feel that I am with my own family."

His immediate family, wife Johanna, 32, and children Ishmael, 12, Eunice, 10, and Monica, 7, are all now also learning to read and write Tamil at the local school and are especially interested in learning Bharatanatyam dance.

"My family and friends back in the village in Makwassi refuse to believe that I have been accepted by and lead the followers here in service, until they actually come here and see for themselves.

"I was like a wild animal before joining the temple and now I have found peace with myself I find people walking past people here who see me wearing this traditional Indian dress asking me: 'What kind of church is this?' I tell them that it is a church just like yours because we all believe in one god. They argue that these are people who worship cows and horses, like the statues displayed in the front of the temple.

"But I say to them: 'No, look, why don't you come here one Sunday to see for yourself and then decide? I also 'used to think the same when I first passed the temple, until I discovered that they do not worship animals but one god, just as I did in the Christian church that I attended previously."

Jantjies goes to great pains to emphasise that he was not recruited or converted by anyone. He now plans to make it his mission to break myths among other communities about temple worship and the languages used in them. "I can't say that I know Tamil well yet, but I am convinced that it is not a difficult language to learn. I want to be able to read and write the prayers that I recite."

"Just as other Indian South Africans who do not know an African language assume that is difficult to learn and that the people speaking it are just babbling away, so too many of my people think that Indian languages are hard to follow and the prayers in the temples consist of a lot of mumbo jumbo. Only when I begin to explain to them what it involves do they begin to see it differently. (IANS)
 


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