HINDUISM: Shri Ram saved the English collector: II

There was a sudden flash of lightning and a deafening thunder. Suddenly, the frightened collector fell on his knees, lifted his hands and shouted, “Oh Lord of the Universe, O Lord Ram, please save the lake, the people and the countryside, the fields, the cattle; the fury of the rains is of your making and you alone can check it.

What can we poor mortals do? O Lord, bestow thy grace upon us and save us. I vow to build an Abode here in Madurantakam for thy consort Seeta. I shall deem it my sacred duty. Great God of mankind, please contain the lake.”
His assistants were shocked. Suddenly he looked across the lake and shouted feverishly, “O there, there I see Him… there… yes …it is He, and He only…. don’t you see?” And then he fainted and fell down. He was brought home in a drenched, shivering and feverish condition. On regaining consciousness he asked “what happened?”

When he was assured that all was safe and that Lord Ram had heard his prayers and saved the lake from breaking its bounds, thereby saving them all, he heaved a sigh of relief. During his tenure in Maduranthakam he got a temple built for Seetaji.

This story is inscribed at the shrine even today. His prayer was answered, and his faith in Shri Ram was reinforced. Here was an Englishman who believed that “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of”. This temple is also called “Eri-katha Raman” (Ram, who saved the Lake).

Shri Ramakrishna Paramhansa said: “You see many stars in the sky at night but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man, because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.”
(Courtesy Bhavan’s Journal dated 19-3-1972)