Editor’s Note
Both as a word and as an unbroken cultural practice, Mādhukarī has a profound resonance. Its literal meaning is “the bee-like act of gathering nectar from different flowers.” Mādhukarī was mandatory for only two Āśramas - Brahmacharya and Sanyasa; for the Brahmachāri or student, taking alms from various houses was the sole way of earning his food. The philosophical significance of this practice is evident - this voluntary surrender of the ego is the primary prerequisite which precedes the actual learning. Obliteration of the ego cleanses the mind, making it an empty receptacle into which knowledge can be filled without hindrance.
The ubiquitous drumbeat of Mādhukarī is a phrase that once echoed throughout Bharatavarsha: Bhavati bhikṣāṃ dehi!
Both the ideal and its uninterrupted practice became extinct roughly by the early 1970s.
For those like me who love nostalgia, here is a heartwarming scene of Mādhukarī that writer and scholar Sri K.K. Athavale witnessed in Poona in 1911.
Happy reading, happier reminiscing!
THE MADHUKARI
Om! Bhavati bhiksham dehi (my lady! give me alms), called aloud the boy in correct Sanskrit; but the mistress of the house, to whom the request is invariably addressed, answered back in homely Marathi bidding him wait a moment while she got his bhiksha (alms) ready. The boy is a typical Madhukari of Poona and he waits patiently as he is told till his pittance is forthcoming.
The housewife presently appears at the kitchen door. The boy hurries up to her, carefully places on the ground the small copper or brass cup with which his left hand is encumbered, and with both hands holds up his zoli or alms-satchel wide open before the lady, who carefully drops into it the alms she has made up for him — generally a tiny piece of unleavened bread-scone made of bajra or jowar flour, and occasionally wheaten, charged with a morsel of boiled rice and crowned by a drop of dhall [dal], the whole being flanked by a pinch of dressed vegetable.
If the mistress of the house (for such eleemosynary gifts in kind come strictly within the purview of her own functions in the domestic economy) be in a specially gracious mood, she adds a thimbleful of vegetable soup or gravy, or perhaps a cupful of simple or curried whey to the customary alms noted above. The boy takes these in a small brass mug, tinned inside, which he usually carries expressly for such windfalls in his right hand along with the zoli.
By the way, this zoli or alms-satchel is simply a square piece of cloth, the four corners of which are tied together in two knots, and in the pocket thus formed a medium-sized brass dinner plate is placed to hold the food.
Thus armed, and after taking his morning ablutions and saying his Sandhya, the boy sallies forth on his round in quest of food, going from house to house and visiting some thirty householders before he is able to get together sufficient victuals to give him a good breakfast and a more or less satisfactory evening meal. In going over this beat of his he has to lose at least an hour and a half of his time.
Captain Molesworth, in his monumental Marathi-English Lexicon, defines the word Madhukari as being, literally, “the business of a bee, i.e., collecting from flower to flower; so these beggars from door to door. Hence dressed food given in alms to Brahmins. One that subsists on victuals obtained by begging from door to door.”
As a matter of fact, the institution of Madhukari is very old, its origin being lost in the hoary antiquity of the Vedic times. In fact it might be said to be co-existent with Brahmanism itself, for every Brahmin boy, be he rich or poor, has to beg once in his life and that at the very beginning of his career, immediately after his initiation into the order of Dvija (the twice-born) and after wearing the sacred triple thread for the first time.
A part of the elaborate ritual of initiation consists in the novitiate taking the vows of celibacy and poverty during a stated period. Formerly every such novitiate had to conform literally and strictly to these vows by repairing to the house of his Guru and living there as a Brahmachari for twelve years, imbibing learning and a knowledge of the Vedic word and lore, and maintaining himself during the period on the alms-sanctified victuals of Madhukari, obtained by begging cooked food from the surrounding householders.
The old Gurugriha (preceptor’s house) has virtually disappeared long since, but the practice of Madhukari survives and even flourishes to this day in Maratha-land. The reason is not far to seek: it furnishes a convenient way of maintaining himself to a Brahmin boy who is anxious to learn, but who has either lost his parents and has no one to fall back upon and to pay for his schooling.
Such a boy, soon after his thread ceremony, betakes himself to the nearest urban centre, obtains shelter in the house of a friend or acquaintance of his parents, and with Madhukari and occasional pecuniary assistance from charitable members of his community, contrives to struggle through the vernacular and the primary English courses. In this way, at the present moment, there are more than a hundred Brahmin boys in Poona, attending one or the other of the several educational institutions in the City, who rely on Madhukari as the mainstay of their living.
The subject of our illustration is a Brahmin boy of thirteen reading in the third Anglo-Vernacular Standard, who maintains himself by Madhukari. He is a bright, clever youngster who lost his father by Plague in 1902. His mother, who is in domestic service, helps him with all necessaries except food — as for instance books, paper, clothes, etc. —from her scanty wages.
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