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BANARAS.

TO SEE WHAT THE EYE DOES NOT SEE.

Winand M. Callewaert

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Preface

1. Starting our pilgrimage to antiquity 4

2. Walking around Banaras: macrocosmic order 9

3. You are lucky if you die here 16

4. In death Hindus are not equal 20

5. Shiva the Great Lord 25

6. “Worship me as lingam”, says Shiva. Why? 31

7. Bhairav, or Shiva as ‘police chief’ of Banaras 35

8. Weavers of Banaras 42

9. Ganesh, ‘son’ of Shiva 48

10. Pandā-s or pilgrims’ priests 56

11. The River Front 60

12. I lived in Banaras (Isabelle Bermijn) 65

13. Shiva. ‘A model devotee of Rām’ 69

14. ‘Banarsiness’ (Philip Lutgendorf) 72

15. Shiva and the monkey god Hanuman (Philip Lutgendorf) 76

16. Banaras. ‘Abode of thieves’ 80

17. Architecture in Banaras 84

18. Kabīr. Who created his verses? 88

19. Raidās. Low-caste and Bhakta 94

Books quoted 130

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PREFACE

To a first-time visitor Banaras may appear to be a city of noisy machines

generating electricity for individual houses and shops at any time of day

or night, of rustling bare feet on the dusty sandstone pavement on the

riverfront, of blaring loudspeakers, of countless rickshaws and kamikaze

scooters, of intense peace in the compound of the Krishnamurti

foundation north of the bridge to Ramnagar, of bells at 6 pm in the

countless temples, of fighting dogs, of the peaceful movements of a lady

pouring water on a Shiva lingam on Asi ghāt, of a shopkeeper on the

pavement humming (in Hindi) without interruption ‘siyārām siyārām, come and buy my sweets’, of the echoes of the woodcutting and the

crackling fire on the cremation ground, and of so many more sounds that

are part of the daily cacophony of a thriving but unique metropolis.

The sounds and sights deceive the casual visitor. A popular saying

about Banaras,

rānda sānda sīrhī sanyāsī, inse bace tab seve kāshī, or

“Widows, bulls, steps and ascetics.

Avoid them and you can live in Kāshī”

is only half the truth. What is there in Banaras that, though repulsive in

many ways, attracts thousands of tourists, and hundreds of thousands of

Hindu pilgrims? It cannot be only the splendid river front in the early

morning sun, or the colourful alleys, or the devotion of brave women and

men, young and old, taking a purifying bath in the (often) cold and not too

clean Ganges 1, or the perennial sermons of the priests on the wooden

platforms near the river, or just the air near the river. What is it? The

answer can be found only in the heart of each individual reader, because

Banaras bares your soul. I too found some answers, and these I want to

share.

At times Banaras truly becomes the City of Light, bringing light to

the visitor’s heart, illuminating his real self, caught in the shell of material

concerns. Is that contrast, between the material and the spiritual the first

attraction and repulsion of Banaras? With apparent disrespect for the

1 Ganges is the English spelling for the Sanskrit word Gangā.

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material, bodies are discarded or burnt in Banaras, emphasizing that only

the ‘self’ is important. This is a sight that may at first freeze your heart,

but may then slowly bring light, a light that never disappears if you have

spent some time in Banaras.

Banaras is not only the city of Shiva. Very prominent also in

shrines and festivals is Vishnu and his incarnations as Rām or as Varāh

(the Boar). Ganesh is found everywhere and no pilgrim will forget to

honour him, or Hanumān the monkey-devotee of Rām, or the ‘mother’

Annapurnā, or Shītalā Devī, the goddess of smallpox, and many more

curtains that can be opened to reveal the sacred. It is also the city of

Bhairav and of Durgā. It is a Hindu city, with [in the year 2000 ] a 38%

Moslem population and, according to Rana Singh, 2400 Moslem shrines.

In 1996 the population of greater Vārānasī was estimated to be about 1.5

million.

Banaras is not the holy city. It is a very human city, perhaps not

paralleled by any other place of pilgrimage anywhere in the world, but

very human. Having lived and studied in Banaras for two years and after

many returns, I owe it to the city to write this book, because in Banaras

my life took a new turn.

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1. Starting our pilgrimage to antiquity

The pilgrims got up at four in the morning to catch the bus leaving at five.

Several ladies who joined the pilgrimage for the first time —in fact also

for the last time— in their lives, could not decide what not to take. They

came late. Then the chaprāsī who has to clean the bus and open the door,

went home and did not turn up again. The pilgrims left at 2 pm. What

matters half a day if you are on the pilgrimage of your life? Starting in

Pushkar in Rajasthan they were heading for Puri on the east coast. A

pilgrimage of one month. The lost time was made up by travelling at

night, an enterprise that most bus drivers in India hate, and fear. So do I.

As a result of the delay they also spent a few hours less in the sacred

waters on the route.

Starting in Pushkar was highly auspicious. In the oldest accounts

—found in the Mahābhārat epic (ca. 200 BC?)— describing the route one

should follow when going from one place of pilgrimage to another,

Pushkar in Rajasthan is the starting place. Why not Banaras, which clearly

was a celebrated holy place in those days too? In the Mahābhārat epic

Pushkar is highly praised, possibly because Brahmā was worshipped there

(there is still a Brahmā temple there today, though this deity has hardly

any devotees!). This leads one to the supposition that in epic times

Brahmā was a far more important deity than Shiva. The epic clearly

mentions that a visit to Pushkar equals the merit gained from organizing

ten horse-sacrifices. In contrast, a visit to Banaras merely equals the merit

gained from organizing a royal coronation-sacrifice! In the Mahābhārat epic ‘Shiva’ is not even mentioned or associated with any place. The

name is Rudra, as in Vedic times, or, interestingly, the ‘husband of Umā’.

However, let no Shiva devotee be discouraged. None of the sacred places

in the epic has been associated with Vishnu or Krishna either, who

became prominent deities later.

Within twelve days after the death of their relative, several

pilgrims from Rajasthan disposed of the ‘flowers’ (bone remains or ashes

of the cremation) as soon as they could. That was in Hardwar, where the

Ganges comes out of the Himalayas, not in Banaras! In Hardwar all the

required rituals were taken care of. When the burden of that obligation

(see chapter 4) was removed the pilgrims travelled in a much more

relaxed way. Allahabad, also on the Ganges, was the place to have their

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heads shaved, and Gaya was the place to ritually offer a pinda (rice-ball)

for the deceased.

On the road again, to Banaras, all the pilgrims knew they were

going to an ancient city, ‘ancient’ not in terms of centuries, but in terms of

the respect that comes from hearsay. Everybody had always said that

Banaras was the oldest city in India. Such hearsay is not based on the

archaeological evidence that scholars now produce when they state that

“there are traces of a settlement of 800 BC”, nor even on the notion that

by 500 BC Banaras was the pole of attraction par excellence for anyone

who had an idea to promote: the Buddha gave his first historical speech in

Sarnath, near Banaras. It is a hearsay that allows no denial or refutation,

and it is spread by the local priests functioning in Banaras. Pilgrims of

course know. Be it Kanchipuram or Vrindaban, Hardwar or

Rameshwaram or Puri, each local priest will solemnly declare that the

pilgrim is now in the centre of the universe, deriving benefits from his

worship that he will not obtain anywhere else. The hearsay about Banaras

has that slight touch of superiority that has its roots in really ancient

sources. Even if the pilgrim never sees them, he is in awe of the ancient

texts the priest quotes Sanskrit.

Scholars guess that the most ancient lengthy work eulogising the

greatness of Banaras is the Kāshī Khānda, probably completed before

1200 AD. It is a huge work that, everyone agrees, took shape in the minds

and the memories of its compilers, not on paper. It consists of more than

11,000 verses and so is about half the size of the Rāmāyan epic. Its

redaction must have been a process of several centuries, with different

persons adding stories and myths to it. From that treasure-trove later

authors drew their matter and their inspiration, and so do the priests of the

present-day. The mythology in the Kāshī Khānda is both local and all-

Indian in character. Even if the praises of Banaras are sung, the pilgrim is

always reminded of the fact that Banaras is just one step in a long walk,

all over the subcontinent. At the same time, nearly every lingam, every

site in Banaras is described with some mythic account of its ancient

origin.

Each pandā will have his favourite myth. Pilgrims are attentive

listeners, but the bus driver is nervous and the schedule is tight. If the

pandā wants his money for the day, his story has to be good. He can tell

about the fiery appearance of the lingam (phallic symbol of Shiva) of

light, or of the decapitation of Brahmā by Shiva, or the penance of the

wandering Shiva, or the fire-sacrifice of Shiva’s father-in-law Daksha, or

the bloody battle of Durgā with the buffalo-demon Mahīsh, and so on.

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Dozens of works in Sanskrit were produced from 1000 CE

onwards. One especially interesting text is the Kāshī Rahasya, in which,

amazingly, Vishnu is given as much attention as Shiva. Was a need felt, at

a particular time in history, to establish Banaras as the sacred ground of

both of the principal male deities? Many Hindus primarily worship

Vishnu. Did they avoid ‘the city of Shiva’, till it was established in stories

that Vishnu too is mystically present in Banaras? In the Kāshī Rahasya

text, Banaras is also seen as a geographical manifestation of the Supreme

Brahmā. It transcends the sectarian disputes between followers of Shiva

and devotees of Vishnu. In Banaras, everyone is welcome to seek a vision

of what cannot be seen.

The reading of these Sanskrit texts can make one nostalgic for the

times when Banaras was just a paradisiacal forest grove, giving shade and

peace to ascetics who meditated there after their early morning bath in the

Ganges. Later, when teashops and small hotels —initially only shacks of

bamboo mats, we can imagine— proliferated, Banaras lost its pristine

environment. How will it look fifty years into the 21st century?

When studying the antiquity of a place like Banaras the historian

should of course rely on historical sources: inscriptions, coins and

travellers’ reports. At the same time one should not ignore the oldest

mythological or semi-mythological sources. The oldest such source

mentioning Banaras is found in the Atharva Veda (ca. 1,000 BC?), with

the name Kāshī. A few centuries later, Kāshī is a kingdom of which

Vārānasī is the capital. The Varanā river, an affluent of the Ganges, is in

ancient sources also called Vārānasī and that may be the most sensible

etymology of the name of the city. (Or is it the city between the Varanā

and Asi rivers flowing into the Ganges?). The British said and wrote

‘Banaras’, people now generally call it ‘Banaras’, or Vārānasī. Banaras

has been given several names, each name having a specific meaning and

expressing a specific quality or power: Kāshī, ‘the city of light’,

Rudravāsa or ‘the dwelling-place of Shiva’, Avimukta or ‘the city never

forsaken by Shiva’, Ānand-van or ‘the forest of bliss’.

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Upon reaching Banaras make your peace with death

for life is just beginning.

Should you die here, consider yourself lucky:

the pilgrim wins countless lives.

Tadeus Pfeifer

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2. Walking around Banaras: macrocosmic order

I try to understand it, but I cannot interiorize it. Honestly, it does not

give a meaning to my life on this earth. But it did, very much so, for

Indians in ancient India, and it is meaningful even today for the residents

of Banaras and for the pilgrims going there. It is the vision of the

macrocosmic order. The seers in ancient India conceived of a macrocosm

of which each individual, and the environment in which he or she lives, is

or can be, a mirrored likeness. Do we enter the world of ideas of Plato

here, or is it something else? There is more to be seen than the eye can

see!

How can an individual achieve harmony in his personal life, or

how can a society function properly? By trying to bring the order that

governs the unseen macrocosm down to the level of the microcosm in

which we live and which we are. A very complex symbolism developed

from this view, and a site like Banaras —and so many other sites and

temples in India— rises like a bright sun before our eyes if we understand

this view, if we see the traces of this symbolism in the alleys and temple-

structures.

The sacred cosmos is a construction of the intellect that gives a

secure framework in which we can situate our own social and individual

existence. In our own personal and in the social chaos we look for order in

a cosmic construction, and we bring that order down to our own level.

There may be a comparable notion in the Christian tradition, namely the

view that we are made in the image of God and that we can achieve our

personal harmony and final destination only if we conform to that divine

model. But in the Indian context, the macrocosmic view is only partly

connected with God.

What is this view and how does it pertain to Banaras?

Ideally the individual should travel around the cosmos and imbibe

the spirit, the vibrations of the cosmic order. But who can do that? Who

even in his most daring dreams, or with the most powerful imagination or

spiritual powers can make such a journey?

Nobody?

The answer is: everyone!

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Because in the structure of a temple, and especially in the geography of a

sacred place like Banaras, the macrocosm is symbolically present. Walk

around Banaras on specific routes, and you walk around the cosmos. This

walk can bring about in you a sense of cosmic harmony. Look for the

signposts of this cosmic walk and you will find your way. As all the

Divine may be present before you in one image, the whole universe lies

under your feet if you walk the dusty paths or paved roads on the

prescribed routes of the cosmic walk in and around Banaras.

1. If you really want to tour all around the cosmos, you can do that

walking 300 km around Banaras. Very few people do it nowadays,

possibly because the path is disappearing in the urban sprawl and

overpopulation of modern India. The route is described in ancient Sanskrit

texts, which identify all the deities and sacred places you meet on the

road, and tell you what each place symbolically stands for. As in the

smaller tours, this journey too starts and ends at the centre of the universe,

the foot of the pillar supporting all: the ‘Golden Temple’ or Vishvanāth

temple. Its name emphasizes its function: ‘temple of the Lord of the

Universe’. How great a villager must feel having made this tour, his

belongings on his head, his children and his wife trailing behind him.

2. For most pilgrims, a shorter walk around the cosmos will do. “Walk the

nearly 90 km of the Panchakroshī tour, and you will definitely reach

liberation from this world”, we are advised in a 12th century text. I am not

sure whether liberation is to be obtained within this life, but the

prescription of it is easy enough: the tour will take you five to six days.

You will meet exactly 108 —a sacred number in Hindu tradition—

sacred sites on this shortened cosmic pilgrimage. Of course, do not forget

to carry coins and Rupee notes on this tour, because at many of these sites

a priest will expect some donation. It is not accidental that the tour is a

clockwise circumambulation: you always keep the sacred places along the

road, and the very centre of the sacred area, on your right, which is the

auspicious side of your body. Tens of thousands of people follow this

route at the peak time, which is during the 13th month added to the Hindu

calendar every third year.

Acquiring merit is not the only reason why a pilgrim walks and

walks in and around Banaras. Doing the Panchakroshī tour is also very

efficient if you want to start with a clean slate and have all your sins

forgiven. Even the monstrous crime of killing a cow may be expiated on

this route. The pandā will tell you that you should not be discouraged by

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the greatness of your sins. There are glorious examples before you.

Remember the story of Shiva who in a dispute cut off the fifth head of

Brahmā? He did that with the nail of his little finger, but Brahmā’s skull

just stuck to that finger and wouldn’t go away: a very visible result of past

actions. What did Shiva do? He went to Banaras and in a place we can

still visit today he was able to shed that skull, and be released of his sin.

The place is called Kāpāl-vimochan, ‘release of the skull’. Would your sin

be as hideous? And didn’t also Rām and his brothers walk the

Panchakroshī tour to expiate the killing of Rāvan? Just walk then, and

you will be purified of your sins.

This quotation in Sanskrit is an eulogy of Banaras, attributed to

the Brahmavaivarta Purān.

If you have sinned elsewhere, your sin is destroyed in the sacred area (of Banaras). If you sin in the sacred area, your sin is destroyed on the bank of the Gangā.

If you sin on the bank of the Gangā, your sin is destroyed in Kāshī. If you sin in Kāshī, your sin is destroyed in Vārānasī. If you sin in Vārānasī, your sin is destroyed in the Avimukta zone. If you sin in the Avimukta zone, your sin is destroyed ‘inside the house’ 2 If you sin ‘inside the house’, your sin becomes hard like plaster. You can crack this plaster only by going on the Panchakroshī tour. Therefore, by all means try to do the Panchakroshī tour.

(K.N. Vyas, p. 39).

But be aware. Do not sin on the Panchakroshī route! That is really a sin.

At all cost avoid the merest hint of lust, anger and envy when walking

there, or even the unintentional destruction of insects beneath your feet.

This is a nearly impossible task, some will argue, and therefore they

refrain from venturing on that route of expiation. You must in any case

make this journey, even if only symbolically, by walking at least around

the Panchakroshī temple in the heart of the city. Banaras has facilities for

all kinds of stamina and devotion. The greater is always present in the

smaller, till you have the whole cosmos in your own heart. Once you have

achieved that, there is no more need to go on pilgrimage. On the walls of

the sanctum of this Panchakroshī temple you will see the 108 stations of

2 ‘Inside the house’ refers to the Golden temple (Vishvanāth temple) where Shiva

dwells.

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the Panchakroshī road depicted. Stop at each of them and you have gone

around the cosmos.

3. Walking only around the Panchakroshī temple is really a very short cut

of a short cut, and you will be wise to do at least the one-day city tour of

25 km (the Nagar pradakshinā). Try to do that on the full moon of

November-December and you will get the maximum cosmic merit, if, of

course, you first have a bath in the Ganges! That will be early in the

morning if you have to walk all day and it can be pretty chilly at that time

of the year. You must take your bath near the cremation grounds of Mani-

karnikā ghāt and then pay a visit to the Lord of the universe in the

Vishvanāth temple. After you have completed the tour and you have

visited the 72 sacred places and sites on the way —another auspicious

number!— you perform the closing ritual at the Jnāna Vāpī pavilion.

There you have to recite all the 72 names of the shrines and deities, and

ask for forgiveness if at any site you have been distracted, or did not

donate enough! You can make up for these sins in the Jnāna Vāpī

pavilion. The Brahman there readily accepts your plea for forgiveness and

your donation. Thus you achieve total purification in one day’s walk.

4. You are very fortunate if you do not die on that city-tour, because it has

taken you outside the most sacred circle of Banaras (the Avimukta Zone),

even if only for a few hours. That circle is avimukta or ‘never forsaken by

Shiva’ and within that circle is the area in which one should die, to be

forever with Shiva. Glorious is the description of that place of places in

the Sanskrit texts, but there is one problem: it is not really very accurately

defined. Where does it really end? You may of course try to solve this

problem by staying as close as you can to the centre of the circle, but what

to do if your house, or your hotel is in the shady area? And if the bank of

the Ganges is the border, what happens if you die while taking a bath in

the river? Some will therefore claim that the border is actually the middle

the river!

If you must die in Banaras, you must at least try to be within the

circle. Why then did they build the university hospital outside the circle?

Certainly not to attract people who feel the end is coming! An irony of

modern times, ignoring the basic imperative of an ancient city.

The all-pervasive power of Shiva is manifest in every stone of this

sacred circle. Knowledge and wisdom are acquired here without effort.

Only good deeds from previous births can give you the privilege of living

—and dying— here. Whatever happens, do not leave this circle, ever.

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Circumambulating the Avimukta Zone (about 12 km) should be

done preferably on the darkest day in January-February, just before the

thin crescent of the new moon appears. Worship this sacred circle, we are

advised in the Mahābhārat epic (2nd century BC) or even earlier and you

will be relieved even from the sin of killing a Brahmin. On this walk too

you will encounter not less than 72 sacred sites.

5. The antargrih yātrā or ‘walk inside the house’ of the Golden Temple is

an experience of the macrocosm in the microcosm, the universal in the

most intimate. One day I asked a priest in Banaras: “What advice can you

give me when I go back to the west?”. He said: “Whatever I can tell you,

you will find it in your own heart”. The central focus of the macrocosmic

order is found in the heart of the city of Banaras, then in the heart of the

Vishvanāth temple (called the ‘womb’) where Shiva resides in the lingam,

and finally in the heart of the individual. Standing in the inner sanctum of

the temple —only Hindus are allowed to go in!— you can feel the most

intense vibrations of the universe. Here Shiva is present in the most

concentrated way. Again, you not only stand there, ‘inside the house’, you

must walk around it, as if a mortal cannot continually reside in the peak

experience of mystical ecstasy. Walking around ‘the inside’ can be done

in just an hour or two.

It is an irony of the tourist business that tourists do this

circumambulation only halfway. They are led down to the

Dashashvamedh ghāt and into a boat, then downstream to the cremation

ghāt where they go ashore and then make their way through the alleys and

past the colourful shops till they arrive at the Golden temple, where they

are allowed to climb on a rooftop to take the classical picture of its golden

spire! Many do not realize that they do actually pass the Lord of the

universe in the golden temple on their right hand, —as it should be

done—, but when they come out unto the main street, they fail to continue

the walk around the temple. No share in the merit!

“You must have the privilege of a body born in India to participate

in the merits of a visit to Banaras”, a pandā one day told me. The mini-

route around the Golden Temple is very crowded, not only with houses

and people, but even more with symbolic numbers and symbolic layers.

Worshipping at the different sites on this route you touch on all the vital

parts of Shiva’s body. Remember, this area is called Avimukta. ‘Shiva

never leaves this area’, because this area is Shiva himself. Imagine an

immense supply of energy, like a bubble of air deep down in the ocean.

The little energy that moves through your brains is a part of that bubble.

Walking on the ‘route of the inside’ in Banaras you touch on seven

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centres, cakra-s, of that immense energy as you worship the seven deities

here.

A vision is to see more than is to be seen.

What you can definitely see is the hesitation of the pilgrims

hovering around their bus when they have arrived in Banaras for the first

time in their life, early in the morning. What to do first? Drink tea or have

a bath in the river? The decision is usually taken by the Banarasi pandā-s

who spot their victims and will guide them through the city to the sacred

places. But if aspiring tea drinkers are in the majority, even the sacred

language of the pandā-s is silenced.

For readers interested in numerology I may add here that sacred

numbers are important in the Indian tradition. They reflect a reality that is

in continuous interaction with its parts. These sacred numbers 3 are

associated with the quantity of sites one encounters on the five different

routes: 144, 108, 72, 72 and 72: a total of 468.

This number, 468, is exactly the sum-total of the 9 planets x the 13

months (including a month which the Hindu calendar adds every third

year!) x the 4 directions.

The number 144 suggests that the 12 macrocosmic zodiacs meet the 12

solar months.

The number 108 refers to the 12 solar months x the 9 planets of Hindu

mythology; or the 27 constellations x the 4 parts of the day (or the 4

directions).

The number 72 is sacred because it is the product of the 12 signs of the

zodiac (or the 12 months) x the 2 hemispheric routes of the sun x the 3

mythical realms of earth, heaven and underworld. And so on, and so on.

No need to panic. At the end of your walk, you can ask for

forgiveness if you lost count of all the deities and layers and numbers.

Remember, you can make up by making a final donation to the

Brahmin in the Jnāna Vāpī pavilion.

3 Based on Rana P.B. Singh:1993, pp. 59ff.

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To the utterly at-one with Shiva

there’s no dawn

no new moon

no noonday

no equinoxes

no sunsets

nor full moons.

His front yard

is the true Banaras,

O Rāmanātha.

Dasimayya, Speaking of Shiva, p. 105

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3. You are lucky if you die here

“He is my uncle and he has no sons. I had to collect the money to have

him cremated here”, says the young man. I sit at his side on the sand,

watching the cremation of his uncle against the backdrop of a pitch dark

night across the Ganges.”It is too much money for us, but he has to be

cremated here”, he says as the remains of the body collapse and a leg

swings up in the air.

To me the smell on a cremation ground is not inviting. The (male)

members of the family —women don’t go— are apathetic or seem to be

busy with something else than the cremation. One knows of course that

India is the centre of the universe, and Banaras the centre of India, and

this cremation ground the navel of Banaras, but I am not impressed or

overwhelmed with emotions. Perhaps I am temporarily more concerned

with the forests that are cut in northern India to make cremations possible

in Banaras (or anywhere else for that matter). Very thick tree-trunks are

piled up here and with axes and human sweat they are cut to pieces.

Environmental or other material considerations are out of place here.

What happens here is of a different order.

It was not in the Garden of Eden but on this very spot that the

present universe was created. Creation is emanation of energy and energy

is heat and heat is sweat. If you have lived through a summer in Banaras

you know one can sweat there, profusely. Vishnu too shed gallons of

sweat when he emanated energy to create the universe from here. No one

in Banaras will ever sweat as He did in those days. It happened millions of

years ago, in fact long before the Ganges river descended to these parts. A

tank was filled with Vishnu’s sweat and in that tank —every pilgrim

knows and the local pandā will remind you—, the ‘jewelled-earring’

(Mani-karnikā) of Shiva fell. Shiva was so elated with the devotion and

commitment of Vishnu that He trembled and lost His earring. It is still

there, some say, and that may be one of the reasons why after every rainy-

season so many volunteers turn up to clean the tank.

Just below the Mani-karnikā tank, on the sandy banks of the

Ganges, the uncle was burning to ashes. Were the relatives thinking of

Vishnu and His sweat —and of a new creation— or of Shiva present in

every atom here, or of their own cremation? It is an unforgettable sight.

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The only sound you hear is the burning of the wood. Sparks rise high in

the windless air as the Dom attendant rakes up the remaining fire. This is

the place where the origin of the universe took place at the beginning of

time. It is also the spot where the corpse of creation will burn at the end of

time. In the perspective of such a distance in time, what does one corpse

matter, one existence in the ever returning cycle of rebirth? One grieves

for a dead beloved, but Banaras takes you to a different level. Banaras

itself will rise above the total destruction of this universe. It will not be

destroyed when the final cataclysm occurs. Each individual cremation

reminds one of the final universal cremation, the macrocosm symbolically

present in the microcosm.

At the same time a cremation in Banaras reminds you of the final

survival. A cremation is not only a destruction, it is also an act of creation.

What deep layer of our human existence do we touch here? Cremation and

creation. In the Christian tradition it is said:” If the grain does not fall on

the ground and die, it cannot yield results”, or “If you lose your life you

will gain it”. Such paradoxes are present in the oldest history of ancient

India: a sacrifice is a cosmogonic act, a creative act.

I am not sure that every person sitting on the riverbank at Mani-

karnikā ghāt is aware of this deep symbolism, but I know that this

undercurrent of thought and symbolism is 3,000 years old. It must be a

wisdom that is not reserved for Brahmins and books only. In Vedic

mythology didn’t Prajāpati produce creation by the sacrificial

dismemberment of his own body? That story is known to many people in

one way or another. Each sacrifice is a re-creation and thus the world

continues and endures.

“It is”, Jonathan Parry argues, “no coincidence that the most

celebrated cremation ground in India is located on the very site of

Vishnu’s cosmogony, for by entering the pyre here the deceased

revitalises, as it were, the creative heat of Vishnu’s ascetic austerities by

which he engendered the universe. Since cremation is a sacrifice, since

sacrifice regenerates the cosmos, and since the funeral pyres burn without

interruption throughout day and night at Mani-karnikā ghāt, creation is

continually replayed. Here it is always the beginning of time when the

world was new” (In: Rana P.B. Singh, ed., Banaras. Cosmic order, sacred city, Hindu traditions, 1993, p. 105).

You cannot imagine a transport that is not used for bringing a

corpse to the centre of the universe, the cremation ground at Mani-karnikā

ghāt: the shoulders of men, rickshaws, the roof racks of taxis, the tops of

18

buses, horse-carts, even a cycle pushed by the cyclist. Tied between two

bamboos and wrapped in saffron cloth, the visible remains of a human

existence are brought here for cremation, to be disposed of. Whatever is

not burnt, the turtles in the river and the vultures downstream will be

happy to take care of.

19

As a mother runs

close behind her child

with his hand on a cobra

or a fire,

the lord of the meeting rivers

stays with me

every step of the way

and looks after me.

Basavanna, Speaking of Shiva, p. 71

20

4. In death Hindus are not equal

The relatives of the dead are poorer when they leave the cremation

ground. The untouchable Dom-s running and dominating the place get

richer in various ways. They are paid for the wood, they may levy a tax on

each corpse, and they rake the ashes after each cremation to look for

valuables, perhaps a gold tooth or a golden bracelet. In death Hindus are

not equal. The very poor who cannot afford a cremation along the Ganges

‘in the centre of the universe’, are taken to the other side of the Ganges.

That is bad. It is said that there you are denied salvation and you will

come back in the form of an ass. It is my guess that there are many more

poor people in Banaras than asses. No ritual specialist who helps people

on the cremation grounds in Banaras will go to the other side of the

Ganges to officiate there.

Among those who can afford cremation on Mani-karnikā or on

Harischandra ghāt —the other site used for cremations, upstream— there

are again several categories, with different officiating ritualists and

different rites. Four kinds of people give assistance: the untouchable

Dom-s, the low-caste barbers, the low-caste boatmen and the Mahāpātra-s

who are a sub-caste of the Brahmin community in Banaras. These

Mahāpātra-s are the funeral priests, from the moment of death till the

tenth day ceremony, for the three upper castes. The low-caste barber is the

officiating priest for the Dom-s and other untouchable communities. At

the same time, however, this barber plays an important part in the death

rituals of all castes: he prepares the chief mourner (preferably a son) to

light the pyre by shaving his head and paring his nails. The barber

likewise shaves all the male relatives. The Dom-s tend the perennial fire

from which all pyres are lit.

The underlying philosophy about ‘soul’ and transmigration is of

course the same for everyone. For ten days the ‘soul’ is transitory and is

called a pret. After the rituals of the tenth day are completed the pret becomes a pitra (ancestor), and can start its journey that eventually will

end in a new body, a new incarnation, or in liberation if the person died in

Banaras —liberation from the misfortune of having to be reborn in a

material form. On the two burnings ghāt-s in Banaras there may be five or

21

more cremations going on at the same time, sometimes more than one

hundred in one day.

Let me start with the rituals for the untouchables.

Is it an old ritual that connects man to Earth, or is there another reason?

Ancient texts prescribe that a person should not die on his bed; as he is

dying his sons should place him or her on a bed of grass on the ground.

When the person has died, he is placed with his head facing south, outside

the house. If there is a widow, her bangles are broken and her nose-ring

removed. That nose ring and the sindūr powder in the parting of the hair

on the forehead are the auspicious signs of the married status of a woman.

No married woman will touch the widow for ten days. A deceased married

man is wrapped in a white cloth, a married woman in a red cloth, a

deceased widow in white. A virgin is dressed in any colour, but is adorned

as if she were a bride. Gangā water and tulsī leaf (basil) are placed in the

mouth. Loud drums accompany the body to the Ganges, a custom unique

to the Dom caste. After a final immersion in the river water the corpse is

placed on the pyre and the fire is lit by the eldest son, if there is a son. He

has also to crack the skull with a stick at a particular moment of the

cremation, in order to allow the pret to leave the body. No Vedic hymns

are recited in a Dom funeral!

Mourning and wailing are said to be bad luck for the deceased and

that gives an impression of casual disinterest. Women leave half way into

the burning, which may last several hours. When the cremation is

finished, the barber marks the spot and gives a piece of iron to the chief

mourner to protect him from the pret of the deceased. The chief mourner

also throws water over his left shoulder and walks away, not looking

back. Elsewhere in India the mourners come back after three days to

collect the ‘flowers’ (the bones or ashes). In Banaras the remains are

immersed on the same day.

At death the soul becomes a disembodied ghost or pret. That is a

marginal state dangerous both to itself and to the survivors. For ten days

the ‘soul’ (pret) is very thirsty and eager to come back to its human

existence. Nobody wants that pret to return, people are very scared of it.

For ten days the name of the deceased will not be pronounced, and great

care will be taken to perform the daily rituals. The purpose of those rituals

(called shrāddha or pinda-dān) is to ‘construct’ a body for the deceased

person’s ‘soul’. If no son is present to perform that ritual the deceased can

be badly off. (Thus population control in India has religious

complications!). On the first day of the ritual, the head is ‘made’, then the

22

arms, and so on. In an identical way, when a baby is born, the body is

‘created’, in a ten-day ritual.

A similar link between death and birth, between destruction and

creation is often seen in the food that is ritually offered for the deceased

on this occasion: the pinda or food offering (rice, sesame, milk, honey and

butter) is explicitly said to be symbolic of human sperm and the milk is

said to be a symbol of the female sexual power. The Dom-s in Banaras fill

a pot with milk, water and honey. They make a tiny hole in the pot and

hang it from a tree to feed the pret. This ‘soul’ is loaded with all the guilt

and reward of the last and previous births, and the quality of the next birth

will depend on that karma, but also on the care the survivors take to

perform all the required rituals. The Dom-s of Banaras give all ten food-

offerings in one day, on the tenth day. Before that day, the chief mourner

has to sleep on the floor and eat only one meal a day. He should not take a

bath or shave. When the ritual of the food-offerings is completed, the pret becomes a pitra or ancestor. Every Hindu knows, however, that even an

ancestor may remain dangerous for his survivors. He is to be offered

oblations, so that he may grant progeny and prosperity.

A Hindu friend told me one day that he does not bother about the

raised eyebrows of his Western friends when they see the photographs of

his deceased grandparents on the family altar in the house, among the

images of Krishna, Ganesh and so on. If friends ask whether the gods

aren’t higher than one’s family, he retorts: “To me my ancestors are very

important too”.

After the tenth day the survivors can relax, especially the chief

mourner. He was the most vulnerable person with regard to the risk of

possession. He and the widow had to be extremely careful, during the ten

days after the cremation, not to call back the pret of the deceased. A

communal meal is now organized and the chief mourner can be

reintegrated into society. The formal mourning is over and women can

now come and see the widow. Henceforth, the widow will only wear

white sarees. In some conservative Hindu families and often in villages

the death of a young son is attributed to the bad karma of his wife. As a

result, the fate of a widow in India is often worse than in other societies.

In the Dom community of Banaras, however, the widow is encouraged to

remarry. Red bangles are symbolically given to her. (Among the high

castes widow remarriages are rare).

Contrary to the Dom ritual, Vedic hymns are frequently quoted by

the (Brahmin) officiating priest for the funeral rites of caste-Hindus.

23

The period of pollution —mainly for the chief mourner— varies

according to the caste: ten days for the Brahmins (and untouchables),

twelve days for the second caste (Kshatriya), fifteen days for the business

community (Vaishya) and one month for the Shudra-s. Brahmins are

supposed to make ‘ten’ donations, which are often symbolically reduced

to a sum of money paid to the officiating Mahāpātra. He will take care, it

is believed, of the black cow who should lead the dead man across the

river of the dead. Among caste Hindus the corpse is often prepared for the

‘journey’ by blocking all the natural openings of the body with butter. A

dramatic moment in the procedure is also when the widow has to break

her bangles, symbols of her married status, on the corpse. Conservative

Brahmins will bring their own fire in a clay pot from the sacred fire at

home. Of course, in that case, they pay a token sum of money to the Dom.

After the breaking of the skull the chief mourner recites a hymn

from the Rigveda. That prayer may well be more than 3,000 years old.

“These living turn back, separated from the dead. This day our invocation of the gods became auspicious.

We went forward for dancing, for laughter, firmly establishing our long life”.

The chief mourner then pours water over his left shoulder and without

looking back he walks away. Back to life! ‘Feeding’ the pret is not

enough! The survivors have also to feed the Brahmins, a minimum of

three, and at least one unknown person. In a way both the chief mourner

and the Brahmins are identified with the deceased person.

It is interesting to note the ‘opposites’ that rule the death rituals

and have their symbolic connections with life and death: right and left

sides of the body, north-south, inside-outside, cooked food and raw.

South is associated with death, and the four cardinal directions

remind one of the four categories of existence: gods (N., E.), ancestors

(W.), men and demons (S.). Ancestors enter the world of the living from

the west or south. Depending on the region in India there is always a

particular day of the month in which one cannot travel in a particular

direction. (It used to be useful to inquire about this if you want to make

sure you have a seat on a train or an airline). And never sleep with your

face turned south: that is how corpses are placed in India. At the time of

marriage it is also imperative to know where the auspicious directions,

north and east, are situated. Practically every temple in India has the main

entrance towards the east.

24

Death is an event outside human existence. The corpse is placed

outside the house or symbolically on the ground. The survivors do not

enter the house after cremation till the moon is up and after touching cow

dung and iron. Raw food is offered to the pret, in order to cool down his

heat and anger. Once they have become ancestors (pitra), they are given

cooked food (pinda). Every year after the cremation this ritual food is

given, on the rooftop, preferably by the son, while the women watch and

hope that very soon crows will come and consume the food. If no crows

come —that rarely happens, for there are many crows!— it is considered

inauspicious.

In the Kāshī Lābh Mukti Bhavan or ‘Hospice where one obtains

the Benefit of Kāshī’ near Godulia crossing, those persons are brought

who expect to die within a day or two 4. There is a daily routine that

follows the principle: Dying a good death is as important as living a good

life.

(The translation from Hindi is mine).

1. Instead of a bath in the Ganges, the sick person will be wiped with

Ganges water.

2. Leaves of the tulsī plant (basil) and flowers are kept closeby.

3. The sick person will be reminded that worshipping the sun is very

auspicious.

4. The sick person will try to offer water to the tulsī plant.

5. The sick person will all the time be reminded that repeating the

name Rām is very auspicious.

6. The person will be reminded that the Lord is really with him or

her.

7. It should be possible to burn incense close to the sick person.

8. While the 12th chapter of the Bhagavadgītā is read, the sick person

will be invited to drink Ganges water.

9. In the presence of the sick person the Lord will be worshipped all

day.

10. In the vicinity of the sick person there will be a continuous

reading from the Bhagavadgītā. 11. For 24 hours a day there will be recitation of the name of God.

12. Repeatedly the sick person will be given Ganges water and tulsī

leaves.

4 See the excellent work by C. Justice, Dying the good death. The pilgrimage to die in

India’s holy city.

25

13. Care will be taken to keep the clothes and the floor under the sick

person clean.

14. Near the head of the sick person a copy of the Bhagavadgītā and

pictures of the Lord will be kept.

26

5. Shiva the Great Lord

Merely visiting the great city of Banaras is not really very worthwhile:

you must stay and live (and die) there. Then you ‘become’ Shiva because

Banaras is his city. Bhuvaneshvar, in Orissa, is another city of Shiva, as

there are many other cities especially associated with the mighty Lord of

the Himalaya.

Most scholars agree that the origin of Shiva should be sought in

the pre-Aryan cult flourishing in India for many centuries before the

arrival of the Aryans, with their Vedic rituals and military supremacy.

Only during the last centuries BC was Shiva given a prominent place in

worship, mythology and temple architecture. But he had always been

present in popular belief, even in the Vedic hymns, with the name Rudra

or ‘the howler’. In contrast with his fierce nature he is later called Shiva,

‘the auspicious one’. As Rudra, in Vedic literature, he punished Brahmā

(the Creator) for incest with his daughter, or some other crime, depending

on the tradition.

If we look at Shiva’s ‘biography’, we see that he was first an

ascetic, meditating on the icy peak of Mount Kailash in the Himalaya

(6,714 m. high, in Tibet). Since time immemorial Mount Kailash has been

a goal for hardy pilgrims of the Bön religion, for Jains, Buddhists and

Hindus. [For an account of my trek around Mount Kailash in 1996, see

‘On the Way to Kailās’, in : Winand M. Callewaert, From Chant to Script, D.K. Printworld, New Delhi, 2013, pp. 159-169]. On many popular

representations today Shiva appears as the Lord of yogis, with long

matted hair, holding a small drum (symbol of his creative power) and a

trident (symbol of his destructive power).

As a result of Tantric influences Shiva is also represented as the

Lord of cremation grounds, wearing a garland of skulls and smeared with

ashes. This should suggest his double nature: terrifying and friendly. His

name is ‘the Friendly One’, but he can be fierce and wild when fighting

evil and demons: Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinens. Is it because of

this double character of Shiva that his worshippers —or theologians?—

managed to incorporate in the person of Shiva many autochthonal

religious elements?

27

The fact is, Shiva cannot be described. His most adequate

representation is the lingam. For those who worship him as a lingam, they

say, he does appear in a human form. Perhaps because of the competitive

development and popularity of Buddhism in the last centuries BC we see

that the myths and representations of Vishnu and his Descents (avtār), and

also of Shiva, take on a more human form, closer to the understanding and

level of the common man. The original cylindrical form of the phallus

makes way for a human representation.

There is no certainty about the period when Shiva was for the first

time represented as a lingam or phallus. It most probably occurred before

he was sculpted as a human figure. You find the lingam all over India, in

temples, in homes or under a tree: hundreds of thousands of

representations, in all sizes. One can see Shiva as a lingam in Indonesia

too, in temples more than 1,000 years old. Even the first human

representations of Shiva are still associated with the lingam, when he is

represented as appearing in the lingam (lingodbhava).

Shiva is also called Mahādev or the Great God. He transcends any

notion we could form of the divine. He wields dangerous weapons and he

blesses at the same time, for he has many hands. He lives outside human

imagination, on the fringe of society, high up in the mountains. He does

not care about ritual purity, he walks around naked or clad in a tiger-skin.

Snakes and skulls hang around his neck and when he comes down from

his mountain, he prefers to hang around on cremation-grounds. He rides a

bull (Nandi) and carries a trident. He has no royal lineage or possessions

like Vishnu and his avtār-s.

But then it happened. The beautiful Pārvatī falls in love with the

strange ascetic. In order to win his favour Pārvatī starts the most severe

penance. And she has to pass tests: sages come and tell her that in fact

Shiva is too ugly for her, he has no clothes, no proper family, no noble

company. She should marry Vishnu, he is the proper bridegroom for her.

Pārvatī knows better and she replies that Shiva does not care for all these

things, precisely because he is the supreme Brahmā himself. His inner

being is much more gracious and attractive than we can imagine.

In the myths and stories (2000 years old?) we hear that one day

Shiva came down from his icy spot on Mount Kailash in the Himalaya and

married the pretty ‘daughter of the mountains’, Pārvatī. (In the meantime

Sati had committed suicide). For long nights over many centuries the

bards narrated how the love story developed and how the ascetic Shiva

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became a householder, a man with a family and with human feelings.

Sculptors did not know what to carve first and early cave temples give us

many representations of idyllic scenes of the domestic life of Shiva and

his bride: Shiva the Terrifying had come close to the worshipper.

Where could he find a home for his wife and children? He looked

all over the world and the most suitable place was selected: Banaras ‘with

its beautiful gardens and woods’. Shiva the mountain-god, god of ascetics

and yogis became not only a husband in love, he also became a city-

dweller. Of course, Banaras was only a village then, but a most splendid

place because... Here the local priest takes over and paints a picture of the

greatness of the paradisiacal Banaras in those days, when there was no river Ganges yet!, and then proceeds to tell the pilgrims why and how the

river Gangā came down on earth.

King Sāgar had by his first wife a son, called Asamanjas, and by his second wife he had 60.000 sons, each one of them a vicious scoundrel. All these sons terrorized the gods.

This is a perpetual theme in Indian mythology: tension between good and

evil, symbolized in gods and demons.

One day king Sāgar decides to organize a Horse-Sacrifice (ashva-medha 5). For this a ritual horse is let loose for one year. At the end of the year it is sacrificed. The territory covered by the horse in that one year becomes the property of the king who has organized the Sacrifice. The Vedic god Indra, however, thought he should spoil the fun and he hides the horse in the underworld. All the vicious sons of the king try to track down the horse and eventually

end up at the hermitage of the ascetic Kapil. Suspecting him of hiding the horse they try to kill him, but with his yogic powers the ascetic turns them all into ashes. This is a great tragedy because they are cremated without the proper ancestor-ritual, and cannot be saved.

Fortunately, after a few generations, one of the descendants of those vicious sons becomes a very powerful ascetic. His name is Bhagīrath. He obtains the boon that the goddess Gangā herself is ready to take the form of a river, and to flow over the ashes and thus to perform the ritual oblations required at a cremation. She would thus quench the thirst of all the ghosts of the 60,000 deceased scoundrels. But there is a

big problem! The form which the goddess Gangā takes is so gigantic that the impact of her descent on the earth —on the way to the underworld—

5 In Banaras Brahmā performed ten horse-sacrifices, after which the main ghāt is

called dash-ashvamedha ghāt.

29

will destroy the earth! Lord Shiva, in his great mercy, is found ready to spread his hair over the earth so that Gangā can pass over it without destroying it.

And that is the origin of the holy Ganges, with its numerous sacred sites

in Banaras and elsewhere. Often, in the bronze (and other) representations

of Shiva as ‘King of the Dance’ (nat-rāj), we see the sweet goddess

Ganges sitting in his locks. That is a symbol of his mercy and a

mythological explanation for the descent of the river onto the earth. The

pandā in Banaras will remind us that the history of Banaras began long

before the river Ganges started to flow here, in days long past when

ascetics like Bhagīrath practised severe penance. What then are a mere

3,000 years of human history?

In a later development another insight will develop. Shiva cannot

even be described in human categories: he is half-man half-woman. Shiva

is also the Teacher of yoga, music, knowledge and of the Sacred Books.

And most important: he is the god of the dance. In Sanskrit literature we

find beautiful descriptions of Shiva dancing. All the gods are then said to

be watching in ecstasy, clapping their hands. He dances at dusk, when the

only shining light is the crescent moon on his forehead. He turns so

quickly and whirls his arms around with such speed that the sighs of the

wind are echoed by all mountains and valleys. Shiva dances on every

important occasion in his life or in the evolution of the cosmos. On earth,

every human dancer participates in that cosmic dance of Shiva and makes

it visible to us.

In the friezes and sculptures of the ancient temples we often see

Shiva in a human form, illustrating a particular myth, emphasizing his

superiority over the demons and over the other gods. The power to destroy

demons and evil is an important characteristic of Shiva, but it is not his

only quality or his monopoly. It is not correct to associate only one

specific quality with each of the gods in the triad, like creation with

Brahmā, preservation with Vishnu and destruction with Shiva. For the

worshipper Shiva is, perhaps mainly, the destroyer of evil, but he also

creates and protects.

30

Like

treasure hidden in the ground

taste in the fruit

gold in the rock

oil in the seed

the Absolute hidden away

in the heart

no one can know

the ways of our lord

white as jasmine.

Mahadeviyakka, Speaking of Shiva, p. 115.

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6. “Worship me as lingam”, says Shiva. Why?

The best known image of Shiva —apart from the dancing Shiva in a circle

of fire— is the lingam or phallus stone. There is perhaps no place on earth

where the worship of the phallus has been so widespread and so

influential in religious development as in India. Each village has its

lingam-s, and in cities like Banaras or Bhuvaneshvar there are thousands

of them. There are twelve special lingam-s, on the remotest borders of the

subcontinent. One is in Somnath, in western Gujarat, in a magnificent

temple which was partly destroyed in 1024 by Muhammad of Ghazni. The

lingam was removed to serve as a pillar in a new building. On the other

border of India, in Bhuvaneshvar (Orissa), a Buddhist Ashoka pillar was

installed in a temple as a huge lingam. Most lingam-s have been installed

by worshippers, but some have originated by themselves, when ‘Shiva

himself appeared in the form of a stone and demanded worship’. These are

the rare svayambhū (‘self-born’) lingam-s.

The female energy or Shakti of Shiva is also part of the lingam, in

the form of a yoni (vulva) on which the lingam rests. The water that in

worship drips on the top of the lingam comes down and goes along the

yoni into a channel as amrit or elixir. Devotees cherish it as holy water.

British chronicles of the 18th century refer to a Hindu belief that the black

stone in the Kaaba, Mecca, was in fact a lingam carried off by the

Moslems. Hilltops (near Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu) and mountain

peaks (Kailash) attract many pilgrims who worship them as lingam-s.

It may well be that the origin of the worship of the phallus stone

has to be sought in pre-Vedic times, but the earliest lingam-s are

apparently of the 2nd century BC. Possibly also the myths explaining the

worship of the lingam have to be dated to that period. These myths may

have been an effort of orthodox Brahmanism to incorporate non-Vedic

worship. In the Purān literature (6th century BC and later) we learn why

Shiva is worshipped in the lingam. There is first the myth of the self-

castration of Shiva:

A long period of existence has passed and the cosmos is destroyed. Everything falls asleep. One day, Brahmā, Vishnu and Shiva emerge quietly from the cosmic waters and decide that a new creation has to start. Who will do that job of creation? A long fruitless discussion

32

follows. Shiva is appointed to create and he goes down into the cosmic water, but does not appear again for countless ages. Brahmā’s patience runs out and he requests Vishnu to start a new creation. Heavens, planets, gods and demons, the earth, and so on are created by Vishnu. When all is complete Shiva appears again. He is so frustrated with the beautiful creation brought about by Vishnu that he spits out a gigantic fire destroying everything. Convinced also that his penis, symbol of his male creative power, is useless, he cuts it off and hurls it at the earth.

The penis penetrates the earth and rises very high in the heavens. Vishnu descends into the earth to find the beginning of the penis and

Brahmā flies up into the skies to find the end, but neither can find it. Shiva then proclaims: “Whoever shall worship my lingam, will have all his desires fulfilled”. Instantly, Brahmā and Vishnu kneel down to worship Shiva. There is also a slightly different version for the second part of the story:

The lingam took the form of a gigantic column of fire that afflicted the earth. Brahmā realized that the column could only be removed if all the

gods gathered to worship Pārvatī (Shiva’s wife), with the request to take the column into her yoni (vulva). Pārvatī agreed to extinguish the fire in that way and therefore, everywhere, the lingam is represented on top of the yoni. The same myth is also given in the context of a rivalry between Brahmā

and Vishnu, and explains the Lingodbhav sculptures of ‘Shiva appearing

as a person in the lingam’.

One day Brahmā comes to Vishnu who is sleeping on the cosmic snake

Shesh and asks him why he is (still) sleeping. Vishnu replies calmly: “Welcome, my son Brahmā”. Brahmā goes into a rage because Vishnu calls him ‘my son’. He reminds him of his titles: supreme god, creator, omnipresent, eternal and so on. Vishnu is quite awake by now and says that these titles are also his own. The discussion turns into a fierce argument and the whole cosmos trembles. Then Shiva appears, with the brilliance of a thousand suns. He says that whoever is first to find the end of his lingam shall be proclaimed the supreme god. Shiva takes the form of a gigantic lingam. It is agreed that Vishnu will go down to look for the end of the lingam and that Brahmā will search in the heavens. Neither

succeeds in finding the end of the lingam. They fall on their knees before Shiva, who emerges ‘as a person’ from the lingam.

33

Other bards, possibly more than two thousand years ago, offer another

vivid version of the castration of Shiva:

Imagine the slopes of the Himalaya, where the forests are green and the water clean. A group of ascetics have found a fine place there to meditate in seclusion and to practice penance. Some eat only grass, others stand for one year on one toe or sit down squatting forever. Others walk around naked or live like wild animals. One day a funny person appears, looking horrible and talking nonsense. The wives of the sages fall in love with Shiva, who makes wild sexual overtures. This disturbs the peace of mind

of the ascetics, who fail to recognize Shiva in him. With the magical power acquired through asceticism, they curse him: “You will never have any offspring. May your penis just drop off!”. This happens, but only after Shiva announces that he agrees that his lingam should fall off.

The lingam penetrates the earth and rises high up into the heavens. All the earth trembles. Brahmā rushes to Vishnu for an explanation. Vishnu has already been informed that the fall of Shiva’s penis is the cause of the commotion and they go and look at the place of the accident. Vishnu descends into the underworld and Brahmā mounts

his swan to fly into the heavens but they cannot find the end of the lingam. Finally Shiva appears and promises to stop the earthquakes if the gods and men vow to worship him in the form of a phallus. Vishnu and Brahmā agree and guarantee that the gods and men will follow suit. In yet another story Pārvatī is part of the tragedy, as a woman with a

husband without a penis. She is as badly off as the universe without the

male creative power of Shiva. Gods and men join hands to find Shiva and

he agrees to appear again if his lingam will be worshipped. Bards in the

tradition of Vishnu worshippers have the following version, in which the

superiority of Vishnu is emphasized: .

All the great ascetics of the world have gathered in a conference, with only one point on the agenda: Which god (Brahmā, Shiva or Vishnu) can grant the ultimate realization? After long debates and arguments of all kinds, no agreement can be reached. Finally, they appoint the senior-most ascetic, called Bhrigu, to go and visit the three gods and to decide who is the superior god. When he arrives in the Himalayas, at the gate of Shiva’s residence, Bhrigu is rudely stopped by the security guards, because Shiva and Pārvatī are making love and cannot be disturbed. Bhrigu has to wait

for ages. He loses his patience and curses Shiva: “On earth you will only be worshipped as a lingam on a yoni, and your ritual water will not be touched by Brahmans”. When Shiva hears the curse he rises to attack the

34

mighty ascetic Bhrigu, but Pārvatī is able to stop him to avoid greater disaster.

In this way the lingam of Shiva became an object of worship on earth.

For hunger,

there is the town’s rice in the begging bowl.

For thirst,

there are tanks, streams and wells.

For sleep,

there are the ruins of the temples.

For soul’s company,

I have you, O lord

white as jasmine

Mahadeviyakka, Speaking of Shiva, p. 132.

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7. Bhairav, or Shiva as ‘police chief’ of Banaras.

After a five hour drive from Kathmandu you arrive at the ‘Bridge of

Friendship’ at Zhangmu and you enter Tibet (now occupied by China).

You leave a half Hindu, half Buddhist land and driving up the steep

muddy road through an unusually beautiful canyon, you are in Buddhist

Tibet. After another four hours, at an altitude of 3,900 meters, you find on

the right side of the road the Cave of Milarepa. This mystic, magician and

prolific ‘writer’ (ca. 1400 AD) won a contest on top of Mount Kailash in

western Tibet and thus contributed to the supremacy of Buddhism over

the Bön religion. The temple associated with the legendary cave has

survived the onslaught of the Chinese cultural revolution and is only one

example of a remarkable phenomenon all over Tibet: among the Buddhist

deities venerated in the temple, Mahākāl Bhairav (the ‘Black Terror’, or

Vajra Bhairav in the Gelugpa sect) is very prominent! (Kāl means both

Death and Fate or Time, in addition to meaning Black). Drive another four

days to lake Mānsarovar ‘at the foot’ of Mount Kailash and visit the Chiu

temple, or go to Lhasa, or anywhere in Tibet: Bhairav is worshipped as

protector.

But isn’t he a Hindu god?

Four thousand meters lower, in the desert of Rajasthan, you can

visit the exquisite jewel of the temple in Ranakpur. A Jain temple

dedicated to the Jain Tirthānkara-s. When you look at the main shrine,

you see on the right side a frightening sculpture, covered with thin layers

of silver(paper). No Jain pilgrim will omit to worship this deity. It is

Bhairav! Bhairav, the ‘guardian-police chief’ (kotwāl) of Banaras! Many

Hindu villagers in Rajasthan worship him as Bhairu. Who is this god, who

craves and receives offerings of home-brewed liquor and who acts as the

possessing power in priests who function as ritualists in temples devoted

to Vishnu? They call him the ‘Kāshī-dweller’.

And there is more. Bhairav enjoys a cult among tribals (in

Maharasthra) who are outside the Hindu cultural limits, thus becoming an

instrument of Hinduization of tribal deities. In Nepal, and in Bali, Bhairav

is identified with Bhīm, the hero of the Mahābhārat epic, and in Indian

history he has been associated with the terrifying deities who were

worshipped with tantric practices, including even human sacrifices. In

36

Nepal Bhairav is practically the national god, very prominently present in

festivals that include possession and bloody rites.

But who is Bhairav who is so popular, even outside the Indian

subcontinent? And is it sheer coincidence that tradition associates him

very strongly with Banaras? For me, he is one of the many approaches to

understanding Banaras, and Hinduism in general. Omit to visit one of the

(or preferably all eight) temples of Bhairav in Banaras, and you are really

in for trouble. In the small Kāl-Bhairav temple near the Town Hall, only

the silver face of Bhairav, garlanded with flowers, is visible, but that is

sufficient to ask for his help in warding off all evil! You cannot fail to

note that the vehicle of Bhairav is a (despicable) dog. In most temples

Bhairav’s face is hidden behind a silver mask, but occasionally you can

see a sculpture where he is seen in full size, with a moustache, a club (of

peacock feathers) and a garland of skulls.

His origin is explained in a myth, that means in a (hi)story that has

value for all times and all places. A myth is both an experience and a

message that go beyond the hic et nunc description of the story. Myths are

the backbone of the greatness of Banaras, and of Hinduism in general.

Neglect to read the myths or to listen to them while you are in Banaras,

and your experience will be very limited, say the pandā-s in Banaras who

make a living telling myths to the pilgrims.

The myth of Bhairav is about a god of transgression, a god who

goes one step too far, and who suffers the consequences. The Semitic

tradition worships One God, with many different aspects. The Hindu

tradition makes a god, a person of each of these aspects. The result of the

vivid imagery of the Hindu tradition is the densely populated Hindu

pantheon.

Let us now listen to the myth of Bhairav, which also extols the

greatness of the shrine at Kāpāl-vimochan in Banaras, where the skull of

Brahmā finally fell off Shiva’s finger. It should be remembered that

‘cutting off one of Brahmā’s heads’ is equal to the murder of a Brahmin!

“One day Brahmā and Vishnu were arguing, each saying that he was the supreme god. All of a sudden a great light appeared between them, illuminating the earth and the heavens —a fiery lingam according to

some accounts—, and a man appeared within it, three-eyed and adorned with snakes. Brahmā’s fifth head said to the man:

37

‘I know who you are. You are Rudra [a Vedic name for Shiva], whom I created from my forehead. Take refuge with me and I will protect you, my son.’

When Shiva heard this proud speech he blazed with anger, and his anger engendered a man, Bhairav, whom Shiva commanded: ‘Punish this lotus-born god named Brahmā’.

Bhairav cut off Brahmā’s [fifth] head with the tip of the nail of his left thumb, for whatever limb offends must be punished. Then Brahmā and Vishnu were terrified, and they praised Shiva, who was pleased and said

to Bhairav: ‘You must honour Vishnu and Brahmā, and carry Brahmā’s skull.’ Then Shiva created a maiden named ‘Brahminicide’ [‘Brahmin-murder’!] and said to her:

‘Follow Bhairav until he arrives at the holy city of Banaras, after wandering about, begging for alms with this skull and teaching the world the vow that removes the sin of Brahmin-slaying. You cannot enter Banaras, so leave him there’.

Shiva vanished and Bhairav wandered over the earth, pursued by

Brahminicide. He went to Vishnu, who gave him alms and said to Brahminicide: ‘Release Bhairav’, but she said: ‘By serving him constantly under this pretext [of haunting him for his sin], I will purify myself so that I will not be reborn.’ Then Bhairav entered Banaras with her still at his left side, and she cried out and went to hell. The skull of Brahmā fell from Bhairav’s hand and became the shrine at Kāpālavimochan [‘Liberation of the skull’] at Banaras.

There are very vivid representations of this episode in Hindu iconography.

In one bloody image Shiva grasps by its hair the severed head of Brahmā

whose dripping blood is greedily swallowed by Bhairav’s dog. Bhairav is

also represented naked, or wearing a tiger or an elephant skin, with a

garland of human skulls and snakes around his neck and arms, and

dragging a corpse or skeleton on his shoulders. In a milder form, he is

depicted as a roaming mendicant, as we can hear in the continuation of the

story.

The story of Shiva Bhīkshātan (Mendicant) is a fine example of

sectarian competition between the followers of Shiva and the devotees of

Brahmā or of Vishnu. I only give a summary here but depending on the

time you have, the local pandā can make this story very spicy! In this

version it is Vishnu who plays an important role.

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After Shiva had committed the hideous crime of cutting off one of Brahmā’s heads Brahmā recommended as a penance that Shiva should become a wandering ascetic and beg for food in the top of a skull, till the day when Vishnu would appear and tell him how exactly Shiva could atone for his sin. Shiva wandered around and all the women on the way fell in love with him. He went to Vishnu’s heaven but was not allowed to enter. So he killed the security guard, thus adding another sin to the previous one. With the guard impaled on his trident Shiva entered the residence of Vishnu, who told him that he should go to Banaras to be

purified of his sins by a ritual bath in the Ganges. In this way we enter the glorious city of Banaras, centre of the Hindu

universe, where Bhairav is worshipped as the ‘guardian of territorial

limits’. In most temples on the subcontinent where Bhairav is

conspicuously present, his ritual has become purely brahmanical, but in

the festivals of Bhairav the dynamics of the myth of Brahminicide is very

prominent.

Scholars have pointed out that in Banaras the origin of Bhairav

has to be sought among the very early deities of Hindu folk tradition,

called gana-s: potbellied, frightful deities who became the servants of

Shiva and acted as guardians to scare away demons and evil spirits. In the

myth of Brahminicide it is Shiva who created Bhairav out of his anger.

There, Bhairav is a manifestation of Shiva’s terrible aspect.

Sometimes Bhairav is (like Ganesh) called a son of Shiva, and in

Banaras he is occasionally also called an avtār (‘descent’ or incarnation)

of Shiva. Although he is worshipped as a distinct deity all over South and

Southeast Asia, Bhairav is generally said to be an aspect of Shiva. To the

western mind it may seem amazing of course that Bhairav, an aspect of

Shiva, has to go on pilgrimage to Banaras, the city of Shiva, to atone for

his sin of Brahminicide! Already in the first century AD it is suggested

that the only way to get rid of the worst of sins —killing a Brahman— is

‘to go around begging, with a skull as begging bowl, for twelve years’.

Shiva himself appointed Bhairav to be the chief officer of justice

within the sacred city. Diana Eck aptly summarizes his function:

“First, he is said to devour sins, thus earning the name “Sin-Eater”. He is

vividly described as stationed by the bank of the Kāpāl-vimochan Tīrtha,

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consuming the sins that people shed there. The one freed from the worst

sin now devours the sins of others.

Second, Kala Bhairav is the one who keeps the record of people’s deeds

in Kāshī. Those who dwell elsewhere on earth are watched by

Chitragupta, the mythical scribe who takes notes on their doings. But

Chitragupta keeps no records on those who dwell in Kāshī. Kāl Bhairav

takes care of that. Therefore it is of great importance to keep in Kala

Bhairav’s favor. According to tradition, he should be honored by all who

visit Vārānasī: “Even devotees of Vishvanāth, who are not devotees of

Bhairav, encounter a multitude of obstacles in Kāshī at every single step”.

It is said that whoever lives in Vārānasī and does not worship Bhairav

accumulates a heap of sins that grows like the waxing moon.

Finally, Bhairav not only scrutinizes the activities of the living, he also

administers justice to those who have died. Here Bhairav assumes the

duties of Yama, the God of Death, who is not allowed to enter Kāshī to

fetch and punish souls. While all who die in Kāshī are promised

liberation, they must first experience, in an intensified time frame, all the

results —good and bad— of their accumulated karma. This is called the

“punishment of Bhairav”, and its dispensation is an important part of

Bhairav’s function in the city. This punishment given by Bhairav is said

to last but a split second and to be a kind of time machine in which one

experiences all the rewards and punishments that might otherwise be lived

out over the course of many lifetimes. It is the experience of purgatory,

run through in an instant, and Kāla Bhairav is in charge of it”

(Banaras. City of Light, pp. 192-193).

Worship of the ‘divine’ in the form of the terrible Bhairav may

have its origin in the awareness that God destroys all evil, evil in society

and evil in each individual. This worship, however, has led to practices of

the kind that inspired the scriptwriter of ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of

Doom’: disgusting ‘ritual’ food and human sacrifices. In documents

dating back more than a thousand years we find descriptions of such

practices and rituals. Sects like the Kālamukha-s, the Kāpālika-s (‘Skull

bearers)’ —and more recently and in a milder way the Aghorī-s who have

a temple in Banaras— taught that the means of obtaining all desired

results in this world as well as in the next are constituted by certain

practices: using a skull as a drinking vessel, smearing oneself with the

ashes of a dead body, eating the flesh of such a body, eating meat,

drinking liquor and even offering human sacrifices in order to obtain

magic powers.

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Through initiation in the sect of Skull bearers, men of different

castes could become Brahmans at once. Such ascetics, worshippers of

Bhairav, were reported to be walking around naked, smeared with funeral

ashes, armed with a trident or a sword, carrying a hollow skull for a cup or

begging bowl. They were said to be half-intoxicated with the liquor they

drink from the hollow skull.

The purpose of such asceticism may have been only partly in order

to expiate sins committed in this or previous births. The main purpose was

to acquire spiritual powers, by ritual identification with the asceticism of

Shiva. People used to be scared of such ascetics because sometimes they

would commit acts of violence and even harass young women. Such

behaviour definitely existed but remained a rare phenomenon in the forest

of Hindu asceticism.

It has no doubt been the basis for all kinds of extravagant and

spicy reports and stories.

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Monkey on monkey man’s stick

puppet at the end of a string

I’ve played as you’ve played

I’ve spoken as you’ve told me

I’ve been as you’ve let me be

O engineer of the world

lord white as jasmine

I’ve run

till you cried halt.

Mahadeviyakka, Speaking of Shiva, p. 117.

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8. Weavers of Banaras

Not all Banaras is about Shiva and liberation. There is more than meets

the eye. There are for instance the thousands of weavers, many of whom

have to live on an unbelievably small monthly income. They usually have

large families, are usually Moslem and live in narrow alleys and

overcrowded houses. According to the 1872 Census there were 1,185

‘silk-weavers’ and 3,670 ‘weavers’ in Banaras. A study made in 1981

revealed that there were 150,000 ‘silk-weavers’ and 500,000 ‘people

engaged in the silk industry’ directly or indirectly.

Nita Kumar noted in the early 1980s:

“At a typical wedding in a poor weaver’s family that I witnessed, the

total expenditure was under Rs. 100. The only spatial preparation

was the hanging up of a used sheet to divide the largest room in the

house for the separate use of ladies and gentlemen. The only

refreshments served were pan and tea -with additional milk and

cream for honoured guests, such as the sardar, the mauvli, and, as

happened, the researcher. The dowry consisted of an aluminium pot,

pan, dish, and cup, and a little token cash. the whole public ceremony

was over in half an hour” 6.

And yet, adds the researcher,

the hospitality in most families is amazing. Their basic food is lentils

and rice and bread, with occasionally a vegetable, which means a

potato! Yet, the silk weaving in Banaras has for centuries been the

backbone of the local economy, rivalled only perhaps by the income

from pilgrims to the Hindu sites. With a threefold increase of the

population of Banaras over the last 100 years, there may have been at

least a tenfold increase of the number of people engaged in the

weaving industry.

6 Much interesting information about weavers in Banaras may be found in Nita Kumar,

The Artisans of Banaras: Popular culture and identity, 1880-1986, Princeton

University press, New Jersey, 1988. Quotation from p. 15.

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One Moslem weaver from Banaras is known all over India. He lived

around 1450. His religious songs and terse sayings have been translated

into many languages. Even many south Indians not too familiar with

Hindi will know some of his verses. His name is Kabīr. I doubt whether

all the verses attributed to him in even critical editions are all by Kabīr,

but one thing is certain. What he saw he said, and what he said he said

strongly. He was often abusive, at times deeply mystical, always

impressive. I quote from an ancient collection of Kabīr’s sayings, called

the Bījak, superbly rendered into English by Linda Hess. (Linda Hess and

Shukdev Singh, The Bijak of Kabīr, North Point Press, San Francisco,

1983, p. 42.)

Is this description of Banaras appropriate only for 1450-1500, the time of

Kabīr?

Saints, I see the world is mad.

If I tell the truth they rush to beat me,

if I lie they trust me.

I've seen the pious Hindus, rule-followers,

early morning bath-takers --

killing souls, they worship rocks.

They know nothing.

I've seen plenty of Moslem teachers, holy men

reading their holy books

and teaching their pupils techniques.

They know just as much.

And posturing yogis, hypocrites,

hearts crammed with pride,

praying to brass, to stones, reeling

with pride in their pilgrimage,

fixing their caps and their prayer-beads,

painting their brow-marks and arm-marks,

braying their hymns and their couplets,

reeling. They never heard of soul.

The Hindu says Ram is the Beloved,

the Turk says Rahim.

They kill each other.

No one knows the secret.

They buzz their mantras from house to house,

puffed with pride.

The pupils drown along with their gurus.

In the end they're sorry.

Kabīr says, listen saints:

44

they're all deluded!

Whatever I say, nobody gets it.

It's too simple.

The simple message of Kabīr, then and now, is clearly formulated in the

song I quote from Hawley's fine rendering of a few selected songs (p. 50):

Go naked if you want,

Put on animal skins,

What does it matter till you see the inward Ram?

If the union yogis seek

came from roaming about in the buff,

every deer in the forest would be saved.

If shaving your head

Spelled spiritual success,

heaven would be filled with sheep.

And brother, if holding back your seed

Earned you a place in paradise,

eunuchs would be the first to arrive.

Kabīr says: Listen brother,

Without the name of Ram

who has ever won the spirit's prize?

Kabīr called himself, 500 years ago, a julāhā and in 17th century

biographies too he is called a julāhā or weaver. The vast majority of the

weavers of Banaras today are Moslems, but they no longer call themselves

julāhā. They call themselves and their companions Ansari-s. This name,

Ansari, resembles a Hindu caste name in that it refers to an endogamous

group traditionally associated with an occupation. In most Indian villages

there are of course the Hindu julāhā-s, who are termed ‘backward’ and are

at the bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy. But there appear to be no

remnants of such a Hindu caste among the weavers of Banaras.

The 15 odd% ‘Hindu’ weavers now working in the city come from

the villages and usually live there as well. The (silk) weaving industry is

generally a Moslem, Ansari, monopoly. Why this should be is not clear to

researchers. Were they all converts from a Hindu weaving caste, centuries

ago? Or did the Moslem ‘invaders’ bring the technology of (silk) weaving

as a jealously guarded secret?

In any case the weaving ancestors of the contemporary Ansaris

produced silk fabrics somewhere in India from 500 BC onward. As is the

case for so many items, for silk too we have in Sanskrit several names.

45

Some of these words (like kausheya) definitely refer to the cocoon of the

silkworm (Panini’s grammar, ca. 400 BC). In the Mahābhārat and the

Rāmāyan silk fabrics ‘as soft as the lotus’ are referred to on several

occasions, and the lawgiver Manu (ca. 200 BC?) warns you: if you steal

silk cloth you will be reborn as a partridge. One wonders how he knew!

There are ancient enough testimonies, but they do not compare in

antiquity with the references found in Chinese history, going back to

3,000 BC. The Chinese, it is reported, jealously guarded their secret with

death by torture for the traitor who revealed the technology (especially of

the cocoon breeding) to outsiders. If the technology was in turn not

invented in India, it may be one of the earliest cases of successful business

spying. According to one story, cocoons were smuggled from China to

India in the bouffant hair of a bride married abroad! From the 15th century

onward, we read in inventories and accounts that the Mughal emperors

ordered thousands of silk dresses and robes to be made for their imperial

household or to be given to foreign visitors.

Like diamonds, silk has a special place in the imagination of

people all over the world. Different qualities are ascribed to it, from

protection against skin diseases to being a non-conductor during

thunderstorms. Concerned with cleanliness, Hindus have declared silk to

be free of pollution. It is ‘washed by the air’ and can be worn a number of

times. Its cooling effect in a hot climate is well known. In several Hindu

communities silk must be worn during a wedding-ceremony (never wear a

black coat if you are invited!).

The pure and auspicious silk sought by Hindus for their gods and

their rituals is all woven by Moslems! Why Banaras of all places? The

Banaras climate is not favourable to silkworm breeding. Do we find here

an exceptional interaction between the religious and commercial? Banaras

has been an important religious centre for more than two millennia.

Although its modern importance is mainly due to a nationalist form of

Hinduism renascent over the last three centuries, it has always been a very

important centre for pilgrims. As the slogan ‘die in Banaras and ensure

immediate liberation’ was subtly spread all over India, it became the

second home for princes, nobility and intellectuals from all over India,

spending their last years in Banaras. Thus, commercial activity was

stimulated in a place already conveniently located on trade routes.

There was an infrastructure of banking and money lending. Like any

important religious place anywhere in the world, Banaras attracted money.

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Money is business and it was spent on the sheer craftsmanship required

for the production of the now famous Banarasi sari.

In many back alleys of the inner city you can see the precursor of

the computer, the Jacquard loom, which is a set of perforated cards that

direct the weaving of complicated patterns.

It is known that the labour-intensive silk production involves some

twenty-nine different specialised jobs to be performed by different

workers before the finished sari dazzles the eyes of the customer. There is

the dyer, the designer, the polisher and the weavers. But also the loom

maker, the bobbin winder, and the pattern picker who is the woman who

cuts off connecting threads at the back of the sari to make the jacquard

design stand out more sharply. All these manual contributions are

included in the price of the sari, and often the weaver’s salary is in inverse

proportion to the fabulous prices asked for a sari in the shop. Even the

tour guide gets his cut if he brings in customers, especially foreigners.

Technological change in the work and the lives of the Banarasi

weavers has been minimal. They are a tight social community in which

trends toward liberalisation are less important than the maintenance of

traditional values. Women and girls are kept strictly in ‘pardā’ (lit. ‘veil’)

or seclusion, and there are many, often too many, children for the month’s

salary. The back alleys they live and work in are narrow, often filthy and

unhygienic.

But the promotion of the Banarasi sari elegantly hides this when

the glittering brocade of a sari is displayed before you.

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Like a silkworm weaving

her house with love

from her marrow,

and dying

in her body’s threads

winding tight, round

and round

I burn

desiring what the heart desires.

Cut through, O lord,

my heart’s greed,

and show me

your way out,

O lord white as jasmine.

Mahadeviyakka, Speaking of Shiva, p. 116.

I love the Handsome One:

he has no death

decay nor form

no place or side

no end nor birthmarks.

I love him O mother. Listen.

I love the Beautiful One

with no bond nor fear

no clan no land

no landmarks

for his beauty.

So my lord, white as jasmine, is my husband.

Take these husbands who die,

decay, and feed them

to your kitchen fires!

Speaking of Shiva, p. 105.

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9. Ganesh, ‘son’ of Shiva

Ganesh places obstacles and removes them. He is the most popular deity

in Maharashtra, where he is called Ganpati. He is invoked by students

before their exams and every merchant will start his new account-book

with a prayer to him. Ganesh likes sweets and he dances on one leg; he

has the head of an elephant and a fat stomach. His cunning eyes look at

you from either side of his trunk and although he does not appear very

attractive he is a deity who softens the heart of many. More than his head

is bizarre; his arms are too short, his stomach is out of proportion, hanging

above his plump legs. He reminds one of the numerous semi-demon

figures in ancient temples, or the dwarfs supporting beams in the Buddhist

stupa at Sanchi. His corpulence is a real handicap and with his elephant’s

head he cannot manage to hide his real origin. He has suffered a lot, like

us humans.

It is his job, everywhere, to protect the entry and the exit of a

space, and of life-cycles. He does that in the merchant’s house, for the bus

driver, and also in Banaras. Here he is the protector of the sacred space.

Around the centre of the universe in the centre of Banaras, there

are seven sacred circles. The smallest circle encompasses the highest

sanctity, the ‘golden’ temple of Vishvanāth. The pilgrim in Banaras passes

through seven protective circles before entering the inner sanctum. On

each of the seven circles there are 8 shrines of Ganesh: a total of 56. Here

too we find a cosmic symbolism, because the cosmos too has 7 layers and

the mythical mountain Meru is surrounded by seven oceans. Doesn’t also

yoga teach that the energy of the disciple has to pass through 7 nerve-

centres (chakra-s) before giving the yogic ecstasy?

Ganesh takes us back to the earliest layers of religiosity in ancient

India. There have always been —in ancient Greece, Egypt and

Mesopotamia— gods with the head of an animal or a bird. In most cases,

however, those gods —in their religious evolution— tried to get rid of the

animal part of their body and usually the animal head was the last part to

be ‘humanized’. Ganesh keeps his elephant head and reminds us of the

presence of the elephant in ancient Indian mythological narratives, and in

ancient worship.

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The elephant has always been a symbol of both violence and

friendliness, of wild power and protection, of mad destruction and

support. This is reflected in the character of Ganesh, who both places

obstacles and removes them. Most probably he was an elephant when he

entered the Hindu pantheon. But that is of course speculation. There is no

literary evidence in the sources associating Ganesh with the cult of the

white elephant in Southeast Asia, or with the striking presence of the

elephant in the stories about the Buddha in his earlier lives. We should

also not associate Ganesh with the elephant Airāvata, the mount of Indra

who is the mighty Vedic god of thunder and rain. Yet, the absence of early

sources about Ganesh should not suggest that there was no worship of

him before the moment he was for the first time mentioned in literary or

archaeological sources.

For some researchers Ganesh was originally a Dravidian (South

Indian) god, worshipped in a society that venerated the Sun. Isn’t his

mount the rat, the animal that symbolizes the night? As symbol of the Sun

God, the elephant overcomes the night. Other scholars point to the

association with animal worship in ancient societies.

It is not unlikely that Ganesh was a popular deity in rural India.

We read in the Manu-Shastra (2nd century BC?):

“Shiva is the god of the Brahmans and

Ganesh is the god of the pariahs”.

He eventually became so important that he became the son of

Shiva! And the next step —’explaining’ how he got his elephant’s head—

is a fine example of mythological explanation post factum. We may

perhaps assume that Ganesh was originally an animal deity or a totem god

entering the Hindu pantheon as an elephant, but the narratives make us

believe that he was the son of Shiva who by accident was given the head

of an elephant.

If it is correct that Ganesh was at first a god of the lower classes

(till perhaps the 6th century CE) we can understand why he starts

appearing only around that period in the literary sources. Of course, we do

find the name ‘Ganesh’ in the Mahābhārat epic (from 2nd century

onward). There the word ‘ganesha’ refers to his mighty father Shiva, ‘the

Lord of the gana-s or smaller gods’ living close to Shiva in the

Himalayas. We also find another Ganesh in the same epic. The ‘author’ of

this voluminous epic, Vyās, is said to have recited all the verses and

dictated them to his secretary called Ganesh.

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However, the association of this secretary with our friendly deity

possessing the head of an elephant was made only centuries later. But the

fame of Ganesh remains, also as the patron of writers, even if originally

he was a rural deity in days long past.

His popularity as ‘giver of success’ is not due to his later

promotion as patron of writers alone. In the 10th century CE we see the

origin of the important, mystical sect of the Ganpatya-s, who had

followers all over India and pushed aside even the worship of Shiva in

some areas. Temples dedicated to Ganesh alone were built, with the

mount in the place where usually Nandi the bull is seated before Shiva.

Ganesh was placed higher than Brahmā, Shiva and Vishnu.

Hindus pray to Ganesh at the beginning of every important work.

This custom is so deeply rooted that in Hindi shrī ganesh karnā or ‘to do

Lord Ganesh’ means ‘to begin’. In an old Tantric text it is said that one

has to pray to Ganesh before digging a well or at the consecration of a

temple. The devotee, it is said, has to concentrate on Ganesh and imagine

him “in red colour, with three eyes, a fat stomach, holding in his hands a

conch, a rope and a goad, and giving a blessing. The new moon is shining

on his forehead.” In many Hindu houses you can see this image of

Ganesh. In South India he has the name Pillaiyar or ‘the son’.

Why does Ganesh have the head of an elephant? There is a great

variety in the narratives, depending on the specific version, on the region

where the story was circulating among local, often rival sects, and on the

bards going from village to village. In each version of a story it is equally

important to read between the lines. For there is more here than the

‘historical’ truth. Each story is full of metaphors found in other stories,

linking one story to the other, one ‘divine’ reality with another. Each

metaphor throws some light on the divine mystery. The importance of the

story does not lie in factual history but in a feeling about how the cosmic

reality functions and how man is related to it. In this way each story

comes down to the reality of every individual: each story has a meaning

for every individual now.

1. In the beautiful temple of Somnath (Gujarat) Shiva has organised a special ritual for himself. In order to attract many people to the ritual

Shiva announces that whoever attends will be guaranteed a place in heaven. That message has immediate results. Heaven is flooded with newcomers, all Shiva’s devotees, like “women, barbarians, pariahs and other sinners”. They do not have the manners expected of worthy visitors

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to heaven; in fact they had all been predestined to go to hell. Of course there is an uproar. All the lesser gods, under the leadership of the (Vedic) god Indra go to the Himalayas, where Shiva resides on mount Kailash. They protest and point out that there is hardly any place left for them in the heavens. The immigrants are pushing them aside! Almighty Shiva should find a solution to this, and soon. The story continues in two slightly different versions:

1a. Shiva understands the anger of his divine neighbours and enters into a

deep trance. On his forehead appears a bright light and a beautiful boy is born. Shiva’s wife, Pārvatī, is jealous because Shiva’s son is born without her cooperation, and she curses the baby: “Your head will be that of an elephant and you will have a fat stomach”. Almighty Shiva cannot undo the curse of his wife, but he gives a special blessing: “Success and disappointment will proceed from you. You will always be worshipped before the other gods. If people do not first worship you, their prayer will have no effect”. And Shiva gives him, his ‘son’, the names Ganesh, and Vināyak, Vighna-eshvar or Vighna-rāj (Lord of obstacles).

In another version it is Shiva who is not associated with the birth. Is this a

sectarian version in an environment where devotion to Pārvatī prevailed?

1b. After the Somnath celebration and the uproar in heaven, the gods come to Pārvatī and beg her to do something about the nuisance. They fall on their knees before her and she is deeply moved. She rubs her belly and gives birth to a pretty baby with four arms and ... the head of an elephant.

This version too has some variant readings. In some stories Ganesh is

born from the scum on Pārvatī’s (and Shiva’s) bathwater, or from the

mingling of their perspiration, or from a drop of blood. And the main

story goes on:

Pārvatī tells her son to go and find a spot on the path that leads to the Somnathpur temple. There he is to sit down and discourage all pilgrims making their way to the temple (and to heaven). He has to approach especially wives and children, drawing them away from the pilgrimage with a promise of wealth and riches. For that job Ganesh is given a

commission: anyone praying to him, with the following formula, will all the same reach the temple:

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“I praise you, Ganesh, Lord of difficulties and obstacles, you who grant victory”.

The gods are satisfied with the compromise and withdraw to their heaven.

And Ganesh has his place in the worship of the Hindu pantheon! In yet

another story Ganesh is neither engendered by Shiva nor born from

Pārvatī. He is a manifestation of Krishna, the ‘incarnation’ of Vishnu. The

cult of Krishna-Ganesh has given rise to fervent devotion. In that tradition

the name ‘Krishna’ in the Bhagavadgītā was everywhere replaced by

‘ganesh’!

2. In another story about the birth of Ganesh, it is Shiva himself who

speaks through the mouth of a travelling bard:

One day Pārvatī and myself walked down to the forests on the foothills of the Himalayas for a picnic, just the two of us. There, near a scenic lake, we saw an elephant flirting with its mate. This excited us so much that we

decided to take the form of an elephant and make love. We changed our bodies and the result of that afternoon was a son, with the head of an elephant.

Another bard has yet another story:

For years Shiva was lost in deep meditation on a lofty peak of the Himalaya mountains. One day he decides to go back home. When he gets there he does not even recognize his own little son. Ganesh is standing at the front door because his mother is taking a bath and had instructed him

to stop all strangers. Ganesh does not allow the stranger, his own father, to enter the house. In a rage Shiva cuts off his son’s head and goes to look for his wife. When he realizes what has happened he promises to restore his son to life and to give him the head of the first living being he comes across. Shiva goes out of the house and just then an elephant is passing by...

How can we interpret the personality of Ganesh? He is conceived

against the will of his father. He is wounded by his father and brought

back to life. He is the protector of his mother. One reason for the

popularity of Ganesh, all over India, may be that in his life there are many

situations and experiences which have a parallel in our human existence.

His is a story of family relationships. It reflects the unconsciously present

ambivalent situations of our own childhood. Without falling in the trap of

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an exaggerated Freudian analysis, we may perhaps state that in the life of

Ganesh there are psycho-analytical elements in his relationship with his

father. The myth of Ganesh has therefore a universal character: it touches

sensibilities in our human relationships which transcend the Indian

context.

His life story starts in fact before he is born (so does ours!). There

is tension between his father Shiva and his mother Pārvatī about the

question of whether they should have a child. Pārvatī has a strong desire,

Shiva hesitates. Even the gods are involved: they too prefer not to see a

son of that strong couple and all the time they connive to frustrate their

love play. Wouldn’t a son disturb the balance in the cosmos and threaten

their own position?

After the birth we see how a special relationship develops between

Ganesh and his mother, while his father has retired to his meditation in the

mountains. But the moment does come when the son has to leave his

mother, when he has to stand up against his father in a fight for

superiority, in a process of identification with the father. He has to give up

his mother, because he has no chance in the fight against a father laying

claim on her. The father, however, does not want a complete surrender: he

only wounds, he does not kill. All these elements are unconsciously, in

one way or the other, present in a person’s own growth. In myths

emotions are allowed to run freely, without inhibition.

In the strong desire of Pārvatī to have a son, we see clearly the

requirements of the Indian tradition. The son is said to be the ultimate

fulfilment of a woman’s creativity, he gives her a status in the family. It is

understandable that she insists on having a son by Shiva. Later on, a son

should be present for the ritual at the time of cremation of the father. But

in that ritual Shiva has no interest. He is an ascetic who has a sexual

relation with his wife only for the pleasure of it, he does not want an

offspring disturbing his peace. And, Shiva has no need of a funeral ritual,

he is beyond the cycle of death and rebirth.

One may find some similarity between the conflict of Shiva and

Ganesh, and the story of Oedipus in ancient Greece. In that story Freud

and others saw a symbolism allowing them to understand better the

psychological dynamics of the human psyche.

The story of Oedipus starts when Laios abandons his baby son because the oracle of Delphi had foretold that his son would kill him. As a young man Oedipus goes to search for his father, and by sheer coincidence, at a

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crossing of paths, he has a quarrel with another traveller, and kills the man who is his own father. He arrives in Thebes and unwittingly marries his own mother. When the plague decimates the population of Thebes, the oracle proclaims that the plague will only subside if the murderer of Laios is found. Oedipus realizes what has happened; he blinds himself and goes into exile.

In this conflict Freud saw a dramatic expression of the universal, inhibited

desire of a male child —in the process of growth— to exclude the father

and ally himself with the mother. The story of Oedipus is horrendous, but

purifying: in a normal development a young man should find an identity

with his father and thus be able to associate with another woman. Then

the mother is lost for the son, but a relation with another woman is made

possible.

No doubt, there are some similarities with the story of Ganesh, but

there are also differences. Ganesh does not kill his father, he is killed by

his father and brought back to life. The parents of Ganesh are reconciled,

while those of Oedipus end up tragically.

In many sculptures in temples we can see Ganesh in the cosy

environment of a happy family. He is presented also as the ideal devotee

of his divine parents. He has suffered all that one can suffer and he is

purified. But he has to go on living with the head of an elephant. Even

that, though, is not accidental. His trunk is a caricature of the penis of his

mighty father, who is beyond the slightest form of sexual competition.

Ganesh is the passive celibate, Shiva is the erotic, powerful Lord.

It is not clear where we should situate the historical origin of

Ganesh. He appears to have come from several corners at the same time.

In old texts he is seen in the entourage of Shiva himself or of the Vedic

god Indra. His elephant’s head associates him with the mounts of the gods

(especially with Indra and his mount the elephant Airāvata), with the

elephants in ancient Indian myths, or with the guardians at the entrance of

temples. Because of his duty to place and to remove obstacles, he may

perhaps also be associated with the demons who have to be pacified with

offerings of sweets. All these elements come together in Ganesh and give

him his universal character. He is very Indian and yet universally human,

he stands between the gods and the human individual.

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Maker of happiness, remover of miseries,

whose grace extends love to us,

and does not leave a trace of obstacle remaining,

you have a layer of red lead around your whole body

and a necklace of pearls shines brightly around your neck.

O son of Gauri,

you have a jewel-studded ornament,

ointment of sandalwood paste,

red powder and saffron,

and a diamond inlaid crown.

They all look beautiful on you.

Anklets with tinkling bells make a jingling sound

around your feet.

You have a large belly,

you wear a yellow silk garment.

Your trunk is straight,

your tusk bent,

O three-eyed one.

This devotee of Rām

waits for you in his home.

O god who is revered by all the great gods,

be gracious to us in times of difficulty

and protect us in times of calamity.

Victory to you,

victory to you,

O god of auspicious form.

At your sight all desires of the mind are fulfilled.

May Ganesh

as he dances his tumultuous dance

in the advancing night

with his trunk raised up

and making a whistling sound

and spraying forth light

and nourishment to the stars

protect you.

Paul B. Courtright, Ganesh, Lord of obstacles, Lord of beginnings,

p. 164

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10. Pandā-s or pilgrims’ priests

Yes, I lost my temper as I rarely did after so many years in India. Was it

only fatigue, or what we thought was a sacred moment in our lives, or just

the fact that I fell on the wrong pandā? My wife and myself had taken off

our shoes and for her first time, we were standing in the Ganges on the

ghāt of Hardvar, the ‘gateway to God’, a few hundred miles upstream

from Banaras. The water is colder there and cleaner, and the current is

stronger. The leaf-with-candle and the flowers we offer float away

quickly, in the direction of Banaras. Confident that all humans understand

Hindi, a local pandā had won the argument with his colleagues and

chosen us as quarry.

He stood right in front of us, between our prayer for our children

and the splendid view of the Ganges. In elementary Sanskrit he prayed for

our peace of soul and the forgiveness of our sins, and in clear Hindi he

said that the fee for his intervention was 15 Rupees. It was when I could

no longer pretend that I did not understand Hindi that I lost my temper. I

chased him away in very unkind Hindi. But he did not let go, convinced

that we were real sinners and needed him. Our sacred moment was spoiled

and we walked away.

Hindu pilgrims cannot chase or walk away. Pandā-s are

Brahmans. They live in pilgrimage centres and as an inherited family

tradition they hold the right to perform rituals. Against payment. Each

major centre of pilgrimage has its pandā-s. Some are highly specialised,

others are more go-betweens who guide the naive villagers from one site

to another. Most of them have a fabulous memory for faces and figures. It

is not difficult to identify a bus coming from Rajasthan, even the turbans

of the farmers betray them. In many places the pandā-s will within

minutes know from what village the party of pilgrims comes, and refer to

the fathers and grandfathers of particular persons who also came to the

holy place. They will quote the exact date and the exact amount the

forefathers donated. Much of that information, —especially about large

amounts donated— is carefully written down in registers. No, a Hindu

pilgrim cannot walk away!

Avoiding the pandā’s services is not only impolite. It can be

disastrous if the main reason of your visit to Banaras —or any site along

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the Ganges— is to immerse the bones of your father’s cremation. These

‘flowers’ (phūl) as they are often euphemistically called in Hindi, are

carried in a red pouch around the neck and can be immersed only after the

pandā has performed the ritual, in ‘Sanskrit’. Who would dare to

jeopardize the peace of soul of a relative by antagonizing a pandā? Every

pilgrim from the villages remembers that the pandā knows the formulas,

and that he is a Brahman! More than two millennia old are the stories and

threats about the punishments one incurs in the next births for offending a

Brahman. Even an educated villager will sit in awe when the pandā

performs the ritual over the ‘flowers’. He asks the pilgrim to give his

name, the place he comes from, the time of the year and of the day, and to

explicitly state that he came for the ritual of the bones. The pilgrim has

then also to ask aloud that his father may go to heaven or at least have an

easy passage to a next birth. And that all his sins may be destroyed.

Like the voice of a BBC journalist commenting on a race-horse the

pandā raises his voice when describing the duty the bearer of the bones

has: “For the satisfaction of the deceased you will donate grains, a cow,

clothing, utensils, you will organize a feast for Brahmans, and you will

make a donation to the pandā”. Even if the first gifts may symbolical and

optional, the last one definitely is not. All the other donations may be

given at some later date. The gift to the pandā has to come immediately,

in cash. But even on this sacred occasion haggling is in place. On both

sides!

That is not the only service rendered by the pandā. He first gets on

the bus when the pilgrims arrive at the place of pilgrimage. He suggests

what lodge they should stay in, if no arrangements have been made

beforehand. He will advise the pilgrims on what to do first: take a bath, or

have tea, visit such or such a temple, and depending on the time the

pilgrims want to spend in Banaras he will plan their stay with a one-day or

four-day walk around Banaras. There is more. He will suggest the best

and cheapest place to acquire a brass pot to take home a supply of Ganges

water. If during a ritual your brass pot seems to have disappeared, it will

return at the right moment, filled with holy water by an associate pandā.

The pot will be properly waxed, ready for the journey.

Even if pilgrims are often genuinely glad they are guided by

pandā-s, they also have ambivalent feelings about their services and

machinations. Even if the behaviour of some pandā in some place may be

downright obnoxious, the pilgrim will still feel that the nature of the priest

who performed the ritual and received the offerings cannot spoil the

meritorious effect of the ritual.

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If a pilgrim’s visit is not associated with the ritual for the dead, it

can be really a pleasure trip, especially if a dip in the ocean (Puri, Orissa)

can be included. The local pandā will very quickly size you up and know

whether you are in for a cheap package of worship, or for a more

elaborate visit. In Vrindaban, where Krishna sported, you can participate

in a really divine meal served only to rich pilgrims: chappan bhog or a

meal consisting of 56 dishes. When I was treated to such a meal in 1996 I

was fit only to go and lie down for a long, divine sleep. So were the

pandā-s who had organized and participated in the the expensive meal.

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Riding the blue sapphire mountains

wearing moonstone for slippers

blowing long horns

O Shiva

when shall I crush you on my pitcher breasts?

O lord white as jasmine

when do I join you

stripped of body’s shame

and heart’s modesty?

Mahadeviyakka, Speaking of Shiva, p. 136.

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11. The River Front

“Do you see it? Of course not. You cannot see it”. I did not know whether

the old man was pulling my leg, or had been sitting in the sun for too

many years. But he was very convinced, although he admitted that he too

sometimes did not see it.

“Banaras is not attached to the ground as you think you see it. It hangs

in the air, separate from the earth. It hangs above the air, balanced on

the trident of Shivjā. Right underneath the Vishvanāth temple, the

shaft of the trident is firmly fixed. In fact the temple itself stands on

the middle prong of Shivji’s trident. The Kedar temple to the south is

supported by the southern prong, and the Omkāreshvara temple in the

north is standing on the other prong. I see it very clearly now, all gold

is this city, high in the air”.

No doubt, the early morning sight of Banaras, seen from the river is

splendid, even in winter when most tourists come and often have their

first view through the early morning mist. The palaces and temples on the

river bank are indeed golden early in the morning. If the eye tries to see

what is not seen, and imagines this place to be the final stop before

liberation, one could imagine the city somewhere up in the sky.

The river front has ‘84’ named steps or ghāt-s to the Ganges. More

than eight kilometres long, these ghāt-s were built in stone at the end of

the 18th century or later. The most recently constructed is the Raj ghāt, near the Raidās temple just before the northern Ramnagar bridge. This

was financed by the Uttar Pradesh Government and private donations. It is

not yet complete and the mud that settles on the steps during every rainy

season is not cleared regularly. Each of the ghāt-s has its own story and its

own myth placing its origin in very ancient times. Some ghāt-s are

associated with moving stories. I mention only a few of them.

Tourists should not forget that Banaras remains a very important

place for pilgrims. They come and bathe in order to get rid of their sins.

Five ghāt-s have special powers to bestow merits. For greater merit the

pilgrim will visit them in the following order: Asi, Dashashvamedha, Adi

Keshava, Panchaganga and Mani-karnikā. If a person bathes in these five

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places, he will never again be born in a body that consists of the five gross

elements. He will become the five-faced Shiva himself.

With great regret Prof. Rana Singh told me in 1996 that the idyllic

Asi ghāt is losing much of its charm because of stupid planning in

construction and renovation. Not only has an ‘easy toilet facility’ been

constructed nearby and the river front spoiled by the sight of cafés built

for tourists, but the Asi confluence was shifted in 1981 and the result is a

enormous silt deposition. Thousands of dollars would be required every

year to clean the Asi ghāt.

Yet, this area is still my favourite spot, possibly also because the

neighbouring ghāt is associated with Tulsīdās (see chapter 13), possibly

the most famous mediaeval poet in northern India. He became my

favourite poet since I had the chance, in the spring of 1996, to read and

sing his complete Rām Carit Mānas (500 pages) in the sweet Avadhi

language in which he composed it. What is in a name, what is in a place?

But when I sit under the tree on Tulsī ghāt (next to Asi ghāt) and close

my eyes, I can see the greatest of poets sitting there in the early morning

light, writing down verses as fluently as Mozart composed his operas. Did

Tulsīdās first sing his verses, as one could imagine since the rhythm is so

strong? Even a training centre for wrestlers close by is associated with

Tulsī, although it is hard to imagine that he would have been engaged in

that strenuous exercise. Every year in October a play around the life of

Krishna is performed here. From a huge branch planted near the river a

boy jumps in the river and ‘subdues’ the snake Kalīya, exactly in the way

Krishna saved the environment in Vrindaban from the pollution caused by

the snake. I was told that this event clearly teaches us that only surrender

to God can now save the planet threatened by pollution.

As we follow the river to the north, downstream, we come to the

Jain ghāt. There the Jain community is concentrated. A little further, at

Mahanirvān ghāt, legend tells us, the Buddha took a bath, when he

resided in the neighbourhood (Sarnath) to deliver his first sermon, two

and half millennia ago. These ghāt-s are witness to the continuity of the

ancient religiosity of India.

Harischandra ghāt. Dozens of sites in Banaras are associated

with the moving story of the (legendary) righteous king Harischandra. All

that he owned he had given as a ritual gift to a Brahman. Giving (mainly

to Brahmans) is not only one of the foundation stones of Hindu tradition,

it has always been one of the main occupations in Banaras. When finally

the Brahman insisted on an additional gift for his coronation, king

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Harischandra had no resources left. Rather than to ignore his obligation to

the Brahmans he decided to come to Banaras. He sold his wife and his son

into slavery and took up a job as bonded labourer on the cremation

grounds. That fee of servitude was accepted by the Brahman!

One day, Harischandra’s wife came to the cremation grounds,

carrying their dead son who had been bitten by a snake. (The pandā in

Banaras will readily show you the spot where the snake took the boy by

surprise.) After this ultimate test of truthfulness, the king was eventually

rewarded by the gods and all ended well. Partly because of the story of

king Harischandra many people will prefer to be cremated on the

Harischandra ghāt and not on the more popular Mani-karnikā ghāt downstream. That Mani-karnikā (cremation) ghāt is of course of great

significance because of the close association with the act of creation by

Vishnu (see chapter 3). Near Harischandra ghāt also an electrical

crematorium was opened in 1986.

Most first time visitors to Banaras arrive at the river near

Dashashvamedha ghāt. Just to the right of it is the small, but important

Shītalā ghāt, with the very popular temple dedicated to Shītalā, the

goddess of smallpox. The stone construction of this ghāt is more than 250

years old. Also newlywed couples like to take a bath at this ghāt, before

going to the Shītalā temple to worship. I have never seen this temple

without visitors, but especially on the eighth day of the waxing moon,

many pilgrims throng to this temple and ghāt.

The oldest and busiest place to take a bath in the Ganges is the

Dashashvamedha ghāt. None less than Brahmā himself, according to

mythology, performed here a ‘Ten Horse sacrifice’. Historically, this

sacrifice was probably organized by some Hindu king in the 2nd century

AD. Even more important is that here the pilgrim is told that Brahmā, the

‘creator’ of the universe, established two lingam-s at this site in honour of

Shiva. He then liked the place so much that he decided to stay in Banaras

for ever.

I have said it before: the whole universe, all the Hindu gods are

present in Banaras. A ‘horse sacrifice’ in ancient India was a very

meritorious ritual and could be organized only by powerful kings. A horse

was let loose for one year and the territory through which the horse passed

came under the jurisdiction of the king. At the end of the year the horse

was ritually sacrificed. At Dash-ashva-medha ghāt in Banaras ten such

rituals are said to have been organized. All the merits of those rituals are

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the share of the pilgrim taking a bath here! This is supposed to be the first

ghāt that was built in stone, in 1302 CE.

But even here there is more than the eye can see. First, the road

leading into the ghāt area was earlier the course of a stream (till about

1850), that served as a drainage for a lake, especially during the rainy

season. That stream was called Godaulia stream, and that was interpreted

as ‘Godavari’, which is a sacred river in Central India. If you take a bath

at this spot, you actually bathe in the confluence of the Ganges and the

Godavari. No need to go to the actual Godavari, although a bath there too

is said to be very meritorious.

And there is more. In bright letters you can read ‘Prayāg ghāt’ on

the spire of the temple a little downstream from the Dashashvamedha

ghāt. Prayag is an ancient name for Allahabad, about 120 kms upstream,

towards the Himalayas. It is called the ‘King of Sacred Places’, being at

the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamunā and the (mythical) Sarasvatī

river. Even that place —and all the merits derived from a bath there— is

actually present in Dashashvamedha ghāt! The whole cosmos in a

nutshell, that is what you find in Banaras.

It is important to look at a lunar calendar before visiting Banaras. Huge

crowds come to Dashashvamedha ghāt on the 10th day of the bright moon

in May-June.

About the significance of the Mani-karnikā ghāt, the famous

cremation ground, I have written in chapter 3. Shiva himself is said to

whisper the tārak-mantra or ‘prayer that makes you cross’ in the ear of

the deceased persons cremated here. ‘Crossing the ocean of rebirths’ is the

endeavour of all religious Hindus. Mani-karnikā is the last ghāt most

tourists and many pilgrims visit.

Only those that are obsessed with the idea of ‘visiting the five

ghāt-s’ will continue to the north, downstream. They walk for nearly one

kilometre, passing 14 named ghāt-s, some clay-banked (where Moslems

live) till they reach the Panchagangā ghāt, ‘where the five Ganges meet’.

At this ghāt pilgrims especially honour the river Ganges and its

(imaginary) confluents that are symbolical for the sacred rivers all over

India. On the full moon of October-November hundreds of lights are lit

and placed in the sockets of a pillar on the ghāt. At any time of the year,

however, this is a magnificent ghāt. On this place a huge temple stood,

dedicated to Vishnu. It was destroyed several times between the 12th and

the 16th century.

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The Moghul emperor Aurangzeb demolished it in the 17th century

and constructed what is now known as the Alamgiri Mosque. Till some

time during the 19th century it had four very tall minarets. The view from

the river is impressive. Only the outer facing of the mosque is of highly

decorative red sandstone; the basic structure is made of brick. A Moslem

structure dominating the skyline of the riverfront in Hindu Banaras, one

could not dream of a better symbol of integration of different religions,

if...

Another three kilometres downstream, walking partly on the river

bank and partly on the road through the Krishnamurti Foundation

compound to the north of the bridge at Kāshī station, the very devoted

pilgrims reach the rural setting of the 84th , the Ādi-Keshav ghāt. It is

perhaps the oldest site in Banaras, but today not many people even know

it. Early in 1996, staying in the Krishnamurti compound, I made my entry

into the city from here, by boat, and it is a soothing experience. Banaras is

a peaceful place if you arrive from here. No cars, no horns, no

overcrowded streets. Just the quiet river, the sound of the oars and the

slow motion activity of people awakening on the banks of the river. It is

on this spot —the confluence of the Gangā and the Varanā rivers— that

the ‘original Vishnu’ (ādi-keshav) first placed His feet when He arrived in

the city of Shiva. If He took a bath at this place, then it must be very

auspicious for pilgrims, too, to have a bath here.

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12. I lived in Banaras

Isabelle Bermijn, December 1992

When I came to Banaras for the first time I was a KULeuven alumna and

a student in Delhi university. It was love at first sight. One year later, in

October, I jumped off the train in Vārānasī eager to be submerged for one

year in the holiest city on earth. All my Indian friends, who never had

been to Banaras, had warned me: “Do not go there. It is awful...and dirty”.

They were wrong. So far it has been the best year in my life, a year in

which I lived so intensely that it is hard to describe to people who have

never had the Banaras experience. The link with the city is also the basis

for a unique friendship among the foreigners living in Banaras. Even after

two years, when we meet or write, wo do little else than talk about

Banaras. Even to people who have studied Hinduism for years, Banaras is

difficult to understand. A city so full of paradoxes and contrasts does not

permit itself to be classified in one category.

I love Banaras for the openness and frankness of the people living

there. This may sound contradictory, because holy cities tend to have a

coat of conservatism covering them. People in Banaras are very realistic.

Banaras may be the only city in India where the taboo about death is so

conspicuously absent. No doubt, dying in Banaras is very special. No

wonder you see so many old people here. Many of them stay here for

years before they die. Life in Banaras knows no stress of any kind, and it

is my impression that many of these old people are happier here than in

their home towns where they were made to feel unproductive, annoying.

Some of them go mad, waiting for death. In Kachauri Gali I used to meet

an old man who insisted on blessing me every time he saw me. Each time

he asked me for an anna (one sixteenth of a rupee, long out of use). Mad

or not, old people are accepted as part of society.

In Banaras death is seen as a continuation of life. Why then should

one be sad? Westerners are often shocked here when they see a funeral. It

is so public, without taboos. The body is wrapped in a flashy shroud and

seems to be hopping up and down on the bamboo stretcher. Just stand on

the side if a corpse passes you in one of the narrow alleys! A body tied on

top of a jeep is an even stranger sight; the shroud is flapping in the wind.

The ‘mourning’ party squatting in the jeep, trying to fit in, look more like

a gang of thieves who have stolen a mummy.

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Sometimes there is nobody to mourn, nobody to carry the body.

Then it is tied to a cycle rickshaw. The rickshaw-wālā will take the body

to the electric crematorium on Harischandra ghāt. Once in a blue moon

you can see a (half burnt) corpse floating on the river. Not a single

worshipper taking a bath in the morning seems to be bothered by this.

They go on splashing in the water, drinking it. The Ganges is like a

mother to them. The holiest river on earth. What does one corpse in it

matter?

The strangest experience I had along the river was the cremation

of a sādhu, a holy man. Sādhu-s are considered to be completely pure. The

body is put in an open coffin and thrown into the Ganges. When it sinks

there is so much noise and music that it looks rather like the ritual

immersion of a Durgā idol on the occasion of Dashera.

Some find all this rude, even cruel. It is an everyday reality in the

city of life and death. I could cope with it. For me it was a refreshing

approach to life. What I could not deal with was the cruelty to animals. I

found the same attitude elsewhere in India, but in Banaras I had expected

something different. It was not different. The cow and the crow are the

happiest creatures. All the other four-footers are miserable. Dogs are

miserable. They are kicked by everyone. They have all kinds of awful

diseases; some have only patches of fur, others have open wounds and

nearly all are limping. Why? Is it the result of their bad karma that they

should lead such a miserable life? Equally miserable are the donkeys. And

the horses pulling the horse carts. The drivers do not seem to realize that

there is a relation between care for the animal and its productivity.

Shouting ‘there is place for all’ they load the tonga with just double the

amount of people that the poor horse can stand. Isn’t it strange that I

always saw the older people squatting on the floor of the tonga, while the

younger generation fights for the seats? The children hang somewhere

around the vehicle.

Banaras is the city where the cow triumphs. She has her definite

place in society. Cows are not only holy in Banaras, they are in great

numbers as well. A cow in Banaras is very different from her colleagues

in the west. Here she is a personality. A cow belonging to a particular

house has her own territory. Near the hostel where I stayed, ‘our’ cow was

a beautiful, long legged animal always sniffing through the garbage

thrown across the wall into the street. She would start in the morning with

a short round, and get her quota of chappātī-s. Usually people did not

even mind if she gently came into the house for that. When she blocked

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our way we had to talk to her gently. Hard words or violence would not

make her move.

The contrast that kept amazing me in Banaras was the subtle but

striking combination of sacredness and purity, and the omnipresent dirt.

One can love the city, but you can never ignore the dirt. How can so much

dirt in public be reconciled with the strong notion of purity? Seeing all the

piles of garbage, the cow dung thrown all over the alleys, the marks of

betel nut all over the place, a westerner has to leave behind his or her

notion of dirt. Or be disgusted. In the west showing your dirt, your

garbage in public is taboo. In Banaras it is a part of reality, exactly in the

way a corpse makes its way to the funeral pyre on a cycle, or mad people

can roam around freely.

Every morning you throw the garbage across the wall on the street.

The cows come first and select what they like. Then the crows go through

it, followed by the rag pickers. When they have all gone, the sweeper

comes and takes away the rest. Purity and holiness do not seem to belong

to public life.

Banaras is a fascinating city if you have enough time to lose. Do

not judge it if you stay only for a couple of nights. Just one single boat

trip leaves a memorable impression on any westerner’s mind. Imagine

what it can be like if you stay here for one year, or more. Living in the

most sacred Hindu city has definitely changed me. Life in Europe looks

dull after the hustle and bustle of Banaras. Even during peak hours streets

in the west can never be as chaotic as in Banaras. A melting pot of

everything that moves, with or without an engine.

Why do I dare to say that I learned savoir vivre after one year in

the holiest and dirtiest city of India?

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Four parts of the day

I grieve for you.

Four parts of the night

I’m mad for you.

I lie lost

sick for you, night and day,

O lord white as jasmine.

Since your love

was planted,

I’ve forgotten hunger,

thirst, and sleep.

Mahadeviyakka, Speaking of Shiva, p. 124.

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13. Shiva. ‘A model devotee of Rām’

No, it is not a typing error. You read correctly. The Great Lord of the

lingam and of the Dance is presented as the model devotee of Rām, the

incarnation of Vishnu. This is a statement of a devotee-poet who, in the

16th century, created one of the most influential religious works in India of

the last 500 years. His name is Tulsīdās (ca. 1532-1623). He created his

masterpiece, the Rām Carit Mānas, in 1574, when the Mughal emperor

Akbar reigned in Fatehpur Sikri. Among the millions of North-India,

whether literate or not, he enjoys a popularity unequalled anywhere else.

The causes of his popularity are found in his own genius and in the roots

of ancient India.

In Avadhi, the language current in the Banaras region in his day,

Tulsīdās recreated the great story of Rām first told in beautiful Sanskrit by

Vālmīki (around 200 BC?). Similar to the miracle worked by Homer in

ancient Greece, Vālmīki composed a long epic telling the stories of Rām.

Itinerant singers had sung this Rāmāyan or the ‘Adventures of Rām’ for

centuries and after Vālmīki spread the story again, all over India and later

to Indochina and Indonesia. The extraordinary influence of Vālmīki on

both Indian and Asian literature is due partly to the charm of the Rām

story itself, as it existed before him. This story can be summarized as

follows:

“Once upon a time, there was a prince of Ayodhya and his name was

Rām. He was the eldest and most popular son of the king Dashrath. Due to the cunning of his stepmother Kaikeyī who wanted the throne for her son Bharat, Rām was banished for fourteen years to the forests. He went into exile, accompanied by his wife Sītā, and his brother Lakshman. While they were living in the forest, a chieftain called Rāvan kidnapped Sītā. Rām eventually rescued his faithful Sītā, but only after many adventures and with the help of friendly tribes. He killed Rāvan and, when the time of his exile came to an end, he returned to Ayodhya, where Bharat gladly handed over the kingdom to him. He was crowned and reigned for many years. His rule was famous for peace and prosperity and became known

by the name of Rām-rājya”. The main reason for Vālmīki’s lasting popularity is, however, not the Rām

story itself, but the artistic merit of his poetry and the vivid portrayal of

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high moral values. The Rāmāyan of Vālmīki conquered the heart of

religious-minded India, chiefly because of the importance it attaches to

things of the spirit, because of its noble conception of the sanctity of

marriage and the sacredness of a pledge, its high ideals of duty,

truthfulness and self-control, its living examples of domestic and social

virtues, its deep faith in the ultimate meaning of life as a struggle between

good and evil.

In short, Rām was a living ideal of the correct dharma.

That may also be one of the reasons while eventually the prince

Rām developed into an avtār of Vishnu (an idea not found in the Vālmīki

Rāmāyan). People listen to the story or read it ‘to become a better person’.

Tulsīdās, centuries later, not only re-created an immortal poem: he

also proclaimed devotion as the only way to God, as the only way to

salvation. Tulsīdās saw that in his days the common people were very

much impressed by yogic practices, which they admired but could not

imitate, that they were misled by various esoteric doctrines and confused

by many sects, each with its own ritual and philosophical doctrine. He

realised that real religion is far less complicated. Although Tulsīdās wrote

‘I am no poet, nor am I skilled in speech’, dozens and dozens of his verses

have become proverbs.

It was in the ‘city of Shiva’ that Tulsīdās sang of the greatness of

Rām, an incarnation of Vishnu. “Worship Shiva as the Lord of the

universe, while he is the archetypal devotee of Rām!”. This inconsistent

theology disappears in the devotional floods of the poem, like salt in

water. That poem, the Rām Carit Mānas, is about 500 pages long in

printed form. If Banaras was the bastion of devotion for Shiva, how do

you sell the story of Rām? Easy enough, Tulsīdās said. “It was Shiva

himself who first told this story, and through several intermediaries, I

heard it too. Now I am singing it for you”, says Tulsīdās at the beginning

of the first chapter of the Rām Carit Mānas. That is the way in Hinduism

to reconcile different theological thoughts, different notions about the

divine, different views on life. That is also the way many autochthonous

gods and different traditions of devotion entered the Hindu pantheon.

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The poem of Tulsīdās is also concluded with Shiva’s final remark to his

wife Pārvatī, giving the epitome of all the great values of the Rāmāyan:

“Blessed is the land where flows the Gangā, blessed the woman faithful to her lord, blessed the king who clings to proper conduct, blessed the twice-born who strays not from his code, blessed the wealth given in charity, blessed intelligence grounded in virtue, blessed the hour of companionship with the holy,

blessed a life of service to the twice-born. O Pārvatī, blessed and holy is that family, revered in all the world, in which is born a humble man firmly devoted to Rām”.

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14. ‘Banarsiness’

With gracious permission quoted from Philip Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text. Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas, University of California

Press, 1991, p. 43-46, passim. The interesting footnotes in his book have

here been left out.

“During the two decades prior to the period of my field research (1982-

1984), Banaras grew from a city of some five hundred thousand people to

an urban complex of more than one million. Little substantial

modification was made to the physical layout of the older sections of the

city to accommodate this increased population, and although new suburbs

sprang up on three sides, their growth was largely unplanned and placed a

further strain on the city’s already-overburdened road network, as well as

on its water, electricity, and waste disposal systems. A particularly serious

crisis developed because of the discharge of enormous quantities of

sewage into the Gangā, which is the source of the city’s water supply, its

principal bathing place, and the embodiment of its special sanctity. In

earlier times, lower population and traditional methods of waste disposal

(involving the daily transport of night soil to outlying fields) had kept

river pollution at lower levels; the advent of flush toilets and sewage

mains precipitated an ecological crisis, reflected in a high incidence of

gastrointestinal problems and a high infant mortality rate in the region.

Banaras is certainly not unique in its pollution problems, although

its inhabitants’ intimate relationship with the river that is their city’s most

powerful symbol makes the problem particularly visible. The

overcrowding of the central city in recent years and the resultant trafic

problems (it is sometimes literally impossible to move, even on foot, in

the downtown area at peak periods), as well as increasing levels of air and

noise pollution, are all common to much of urban India —indeed to urban

centers throughout the world. The fact that, despite such problems,

Banaras retains its magnetic appeal for Hindu India and continues to

evoke the fervent pride of its own citizens invites us to consider just what

it is that is so special about this city.

Most residents would probably sum it up with the word

Banarasipan —”Banarsiness”— an allusion to the city’s characteristic

ethos, which is thought to combine spirituality and worldly pleasure,

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sanctity and satisfaction. Banarsipan is held to manifest itself in a carefree

life-style characterized by such qualities as “passion”, “intoxication” and

“joy” and in the cultivation of “passionate engagement”, especially in

religious or cultural activities. Educated Hindu Banarsis often allude to

the city’s unique “culture” or civilization (samskriti) —a term that, to

Western readers, may suggest universities, museums, libraries, and

concert halls. All these institutions exist in Banaras —most in varying

degrees of dilapidation— but the culture-specific sense of “culture” here

may be better understood in terms of smaller and less centralized units:

neighbourhood temples that stage oratorical and singing programs;

merchants’ associations that sponsor neighborhood fairs; ethnic social

clubs that mount elaborate puja rites, accompanied by processions and

musical performances; families that sponsor annual poetic competitions or

music recitals in honor of a revered ancestor’s death-anniversary; aged

pandits who live in tiny rooms off dingy alleys but carry whole libraries of

Sanskrit and Hindi texts in their heads; household-oriented schools of

music and dance under the tutelage of renowned gurus; groups of migrant

laborers from the hinterland who gather on street corners to sing their

village folksongs for hours.

The city’s annual festival cycle is complex; its cultural

performance cycle is beyond cataloging. On one particularly busy

weekend in October 1983, for example, there were some forty Ramlila pageants running concurrently in various neigborhoods, along with thirty

(Moslem) Muharram processions and more than a hundred elaborate

Durgā Puja tableaux mounted by Bengali cultural associations, not to

mention the usual assortment of folk plays, all-night concerts, annual

temple festivals, wrestling competitions, and semi-public functions such

as marriage celebrations with their bands, processions, and fireworks.

For the visiting student of cultural performance no less than for a

resident Banarsi, such events help to compensate for the inconveniences

of everyday life in the City of Light —for the fact that shops, schools, and

offices are rarely open on time, function indifferently, and occasionally

close without warning; for the fact that water and electricity supplies

sometimes fail and telephones are dead more often than they are alive. But

if cultural programs are what help to make Banarsi life worthwhile, they

may also contribute to making it difficult. If the bureaucrat one needs to

see is not at work yet at 11:00 A.M. (or is present but not functioning), it

is possibly because he was up all night at a Ramlila performance, a temple

festival or a folk play. Where else in the world could thousands of people

routinely take a month’s leave from work each year to attend the all-

engrossing ramlila cycle at Ramnagar? It happens in Banaras.

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The word Banarsipan suggests music and ceremony, dance and

decoration. It also evokes a range of atmospheric associations: temples,

Brahmans, and even cows are part of ‘culture’ here, and so are

cacophonous gongs, bells, and conch-trumpets at 4:00 A.M., awakening

the deities to the accompaniment of loud cries of “Har Har Mahādev!”

(two names of Shiva, uttered in his praise).

The Banarsi ethos manifests itself too in a certain plucky cynicism,

an urbanity that is at once worldly-wise and otherworldly, and a

simultaneous local self-deprecation and intense pride. One frequently

hears complaints of ‘our wretched eastern U.P., where everyone is poor,

the authorities are corrupt, and nothing functions as it should. Then one is

reminded, “Look here, brother, this is Kāshī!”, —the Center of the World,

or rather, not in the world at all, since it is balanced atop the trident of

Lord Shiva, and all who live and die here, whether religious or not,

Hindus, Moslems, Christians, even (as someone told me) ‘flies and

mosquitoes,’ are guaranteed liberation from further rebirth by the grace of

Shiva and the power of the name of Rām.

This embarrassment of spiritual riches becomes itself a source of

verbal humour, as when cycle-rickshaw drivers teasingly hail one another:

‘He guru-ji! He mahatmaji!’ —’O Master! Great-souled One!’.

It is well known that Banaras is the City of Shiva, who is adored

here in many forms and under many names: as Rudra and Bhairav,

awesome lords of ghosts and spirits; as the transcendent and resplendent

Mahādev of the Puranas, husband of Pārvatī and father of Ganesh, with

his trident, serpent necklace, and long matted locks from which the River

Gangā pours forth —a slayer of world-threatening demons and a dancer

who beats out the rhythm of the aeons on his double-headed drum.

He is also the Bhola Nath of folklore —the ‘mad’ or ‘simple’

god— intoxicated both with divine wisdom and with bhang (a cannabis

preparation much consumed in Banaras), a wandering ascetic who is also

a storehouse of erotic energy and fertility. For Banarsis Shiva is especially

Vishvanāth —the Lord of the World— who is all these things and also a

smooth, dark stone, roughly the size and shape of an ostrich egg, set

upright in a gold-plated recess in the inner sanctum of the city’s most

famous temple, which lies at the heart of a maze of narrow, congested

lanes near the riverfront. In everyday speech this deity is affectionately

known as ‘Baba Vishvanāth’ —Papa Vishvanāth— the city’s benign and

paternalistic ruler as well as its supreme preceptor, who imparts the

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liberation-granting mahamantra to all who leave their bodies within his

special jurisdiction. This ‘great mystic utterance’ is widely held to be the

name “Rām”, which is inscribed on countless walls and doorways in the

city. Shiva Vishvanāth is thus a special patron of the Rām bhakti tradition

as well as the original narrator of its great epic.”

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15. Shiva and the monkey-god Hanumān

With gracious permission quoted from Philip Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text. Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsīdās, University of California

Press, 1991, p. 47-51, passim. The interesting footnotes in his book have

here been left out.

Hanumān: monkey, hero of the Rāmāyan story, is the most faithful

devotee of Rām, and a god.

“His vermillion daubed images are among the most ubiquitous of

Banarsi icons. A divinity who surely rose out of the ‘little’ or folk

tradition, Hanumān is a dispenser of power and potency. As a marital hero

and Rām’s victorious general, he is the patron deity of wrestlers —young

men who practice body-building and martial arts in gymnasiums or

clubhouses situated along the ghāt-s, most of which incorporate his

shrines. Hanumān is also the patron of grammarians and students,

fervently invoked before annual school exams and in the face of problems

in general; the deity to repair to on ‘dangerous’ days like Tuesday and

Saturday, associated with malefic planetary influences. In this capacity he

is primarily an intercessor figure, a middleman.

In the influence-conscious society of eastern Uttar Pradesh, such

connections can make all the difference. I have heard oral expounders

exclaim jokingly that there are more temples to Hanumān in Banaras than

to Rām himself; this may well be true, and on a little reflection, it seems

only appropriate. For as every U.P. politician knows, the key to getting

the Great Man’s ear is knowing the right person in his entourage. If Rām,

in his endless perfection, seems distant and unattainable at times, his

monkey servant is earthy and accessible. The fact that Hanumān is divine

and can, like divinities, be invoked in the most exalted terms (as the

‘ocean of wisdom and virtue’ and ‘illuminator of the three worlds’) never

entirely obscures the fact that he is also a monkey, or rather a god in

monkey form. Accounts of Hanumān’s deeds often feature comic episodes

arising out of his simian simplicity, crude strength, and occasional

destructiveness. To laugh at these things is, for Hindus, in no way

incongruent with reverence.

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A further point needs to be made concerning Hanumān. A major

theme of Tulsīdās’s epic is the compatibility of the worship of

Rām/Vishnu with that of Shiva. In this sphere too, Hanumān plays the

role of intermediary and ‘bridges’ the two traditions, even as, in the

narrative, he leaps the sea separating the mainland from Lanka (where

Rāvan and his cohorts, like most Puranic demons, are devotees of Shiva).

It is said in the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsīdās (written in Banaras, we

should remember) that at the time when Rām was born in Ayodhya, ‘all

the gods’ took the form of monkeys and went into the forests to wait for

him, to assist him in the war against the demon Rāvan who had kidnapped

Sītā.

A popular tradition, widely current in the Banaras region, holds

that Shiva became Hanumān and thus that Hanumān himself is none other

than a special avtār of the Great Lord Shiva himself: Shiva, the primal

knower of Rām’s adventures, does not merely enter the story as its

original narrator but also becomes one of its best-loved characters.

One shrine needs special mention here. The Sankat Mochan

(Liberator from Distress) Hanumān Temple is located in the southern

section of the city and outside the traditional limits of the sacred area.

Although far less ancient than the Visvanath (‘golden’) Temple, it can be

said today to complement it in popularity, drawing worshipers form

throughout the city and its environs. Most of the structures in the Sankat

Mochan complex have been built within the past few decades, but the

main shrine encloses a stone image of Hanumān —now barely discernible

as such beneath heavy layers of vermillion— believed to date to

Tulsīdās’s time and linked to an important episode in the poet’s legend.

Hanumān possesses physical immortality, for Rām is thought to

have granted him the boon that he might retain his body ‘as long as my

story is current in the world’. The circumstances of the boon suggest the

special association of Hanumān with the Rām-narrative tradition, for he is

said never to tire of hearing the creative retelling of the deeds of his lord

and thus is the special patron of oral expounders; it is still widely believed

that Hanumān is present (albeit usually disguised) at every performance of

the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsīdās. A well-known legend concerns

Tulsīdās’s own encounter with the god Hanumān.

It is said that Tulsīdās was in the habit of retiring for his morning

ablutions to a spot in the woods outside Banaras, taking with him a water

pot with which to cleanse himself. On his return to the city, he would pour

the small amount of water that remained in the pot at the foot of a certain

tree. As it happened, this tree was the abode of a ghost, who was greatly

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pleased with the daily water-offering —for ghosts are always tormented

by thirst and are happy to receive even impure water. One day the ghost

appeared to the poet, thanked him for his long time service, and offered

him a boon. Tulsīdās replied that his life’s desire was to obtain a glimpse

of Lord Rām. “That’s out of my league”, said the ghost, “but why don’t

you ask Hanumān to arrange it? He comes every day when you recite the

story of Rām. He is disguised, but you may know him by the fact that he is

always first to arrive and last to leave.”

That evening when Tulsīdās took his seat on a ghāt along

the Gangā to recite and expound his epic of Rām, he observed that the

first listener to arrive was an aged leper, who positioned himself

unobtrusively in the rear of the enclosure. When the recitation was over,

Tulsīdās quietly followed this old man, who led him out of the city and

into a thickly wooded area —to the very spot where Sankat Mochan

Temple stands today. There Tulsī fell at the leper’s feet, lauding him as

Hanumān and imploring his grace. “I know who you are. Help me! I want

to see Rām!” At first the old man pretended annoyed incomprehension:

“Go away, you’re mad! Why are you tormenting an old, sick man?” But

the poet held firmly to the leper’s feet and at last great monkey-god

Hanumān revealed his glorious form—

With golden-coloured body shining with splendor,

like another Sumeru, the world-mountain.

Hanumān blessed Tulsīdās and instructed him to go to Chitrakut, the place

of Rām’s forest exile; there he would have his desired vision of Rām.

Tulsīdās showed his gratitude by causing an image of Hanumān to be

erected at the spot where the god appeared to him. That is exactly where

today we find the Sankat Mochan Temple, in a mass of bamboo thickets

and towering trees, appropriately infested with troops of chattering

monkeys.

One other shrine may be mentioned here; even though it is more a

museum than a temple, it has become one of Banaras’s biggest attractions

and is revealing in its own way of the status of Tulsīdās’s epic in Banaras.

Tulsī Mānas temple, an enormous marble-faced edifice that stands in an

ornate garden on the main road linking the city with the university, was

built by a wealthy Calcutta merchant and opened by the president of India

in the mid-1960s. The fact that the two levels of its inner walls bear the

entire text of the Ramcharitmanas inscribed in white marble is but one of

its curiosities. It also contains a life-sized mechanical image of Tulsīdās,

perpetually reciting his epic via an extremely scratchy recording; a library

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of Rāmāyan-related literature; and a sort of religious penny arcade where,

for fifty paise, one may view a series of electrified dioramas of

mythological scenes. This Disneyesque approach to the beloved Hindi

epic —in an architectural setting that causes art historians to shudder —

has scored a great popular success, and today hardly a pilgrim leaves

Banaras without a visit to the Manas Temple.”

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16. Banaras. ‘Abode of thieves’.

All the superlative descriptions about Banaras will mislead the reader and

the visitor if I do not also write about the ‘other Banaras’. The title of this

chapter is borrowed from a 12th century text by Hemchandra, Kumāra charita. In his interesting book, Where cultural symbols meet, Dr. Rana

P.B. Singh analyses literature of the past five centuries, in which different

aspects of Banaras are described. Relying on that study, I am selectively

quoting only those passages which highlight the ‘other Banaras’.

In the play Premjoginī (in Hindi), by Harischandra Bharatendu

(1850-1885), an outsider comes on the stage and speaks to the people of

Banaras. This is Banaras about one hundred and fifty years ago, in the

view of Bharatendu. The translation from Hindi is by me.

Look at your Kāshī, friends,

look at your Kāshī.

City of the Lord of the universe,

the Indestructible Lord.

Half of Kāshī is an abode of bards,

of fortune-tellers, Brahmans and ascetics.

The other half is occupied by prostitutes,

widows and courtesans.

Full of idle loafers and cannabis addicts,

scoundrels, sweepers and thieves.

Greedy liars and notorious rogues,

having no concern for anything.

They never do their duty,

only ridiculing others.

They abuse you if you work

ruining your reputation.

Rich people are liars, always offensive,

worshippers of treachery.

Cowards living on recommendation,

flatterers preaching high morality.

Kāshī, filthy alleys full of garbage and

rotting waste of leatherworkers.

The foul smell from drains like

eighty-four hells making you vomit.

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Kāshī, aggressively barking dogs,

roaming bullocks destroying roads.

Monkeys leaping from balconies,

like men jumping from on high.

On the ghāt-s pandā-s exploit you,

strangling you with garlands.

With false pretences ritual priests, real

cheats, liberate you of your clothes.

Beggars trailing behind you cheat,

speaking like big givers.

In the temple the priests cheat,

making a joke of religious acts.

If you dare to shop the salesman

cheats, snaring you to deceive.

Shopkeepers sell their goods and

rob you at the same time.

After a theft even the police cheat,

making friendly talk with you.

In the court both lawyers and judges

cheat, stripping you naked.

Roaming pickpockets push you

and snatch your valuables.

Like a naked dancing-girl without shame

people go to jail without remorse.

Calling on officers and giving them bribes,

it’s a daily routine.

If you have fever and go to a temple

you will be ruined.

With hungry children at home

the housewife is a slave.

Erotic stories are devoured,

swallowed like divine nectar.

Look at your Kāshī, friends,

look at your Kāshī.

The same author Bharatendu writes in 1871:

“Lanes are never cleaned. They are full of mud; fermented

mangoes give an intolerable smell. Anyone constructing or

repairing his house throws the waste materials in the galleys...

‘Giving shelter’ to cows and buffaloes people block the streets...

Prostitutes are slowly capturing the streets of households, wine

shops are increasing.”

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From Rana P.B. Singh, Where cultural symbols meet, p. 110.

In another play by Bharatendu, Andher Nagarī (or ‘the dark city’, as

opposed to Kāshī, the ‘city of light’) a Brahman in Banaras says:

“Give me a rupee, I will give you my caste. For a rupee I will

convert a laundryman into a Brahman, and a Brahman into a

laundryman. For a rupee I can arrange anything you ask for. For a

rupee I make true what is false, for a rupee I declare a Brahman a

Moslem, for a rupee I make a Hindu a butcher. For a rupee I can

sell dharma and prestige. For a rupee I can witness in favour of

falsehood, for a rupee I recognize sin as merit. For a rupee I accept

bastards as ancestors. All —the Vedas, dharma, ancestry,

morality, truthfulness, prestige—, all are on sale for a rupee.”

From Rana P.B. Singh, Where cultural symbols meet, p. 112.

“Widows, bulls, steps and ascetics. Avoid them and only then you can live

in Kāshī”, we read in Shiv Prasad Singh, Galū āge murati hai, [in Hindi],

1974, p. 145. The author further points out that Banaras has an ancient

history of manipulation and trickery, even in mythological stories. I have

referred (in chapter 11) to the famous story of king Harischandra who

underwent torturing punishments in order to be faithful to his vow.

Tradition holds that he left for heaven with all his truthful followers,

leaving only liars and scoundrels behind in Banaras.

Shiv Prasad Singh also mentions the debate of Dayanand

Sarasvati, founder of the Arya Samaj. In 1856 he was defeated in a public

debate about the Upanishads. He was asked about a sacred metre in those

texts and had to admit he did not know. This confused him so much that

he lost in the debate, and then found out that the particular metre did not

even exist! Such and many more instances have not failed to give the city

of Banaras the notorious honour of cultivating the art of transforming

anything into its opposite, the unreal into real, the false into true.

Even if one takes into account that western travellers to India

often had an exaggerated bias, it is interesting to see what François

Bernier, Travels in the Mogul empire (pp. 334-335), writes after his visit

to Banaras in 1667:

“The town of Banaras, seated on the Ganges, in a beautiful

situation, and in the midst of an extremely fine and rich country,

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may be considered the general school of the Gentiles. It is the

Athens of India, whither resort the Brahmens and other devotees,

who apply their minds to study. The town contains no colleges or

regular classes, as in our universities, but resembles rather the

schools of the ancients; the masters being dispersed over different

parts of the town in private houses, and principally in the gardens

of the suburbs, which the rich merchants permit them to occupy.

Some of these masters have four disciples, others six or seven, and

the most eminent may have twelve or fifteen; but this is the largest

number. It is usual for the pupils to remain ten or twelve years

under their respective preceptors, during which time the work of

instruction proceeds but slowly; for the generality of them are of

an indolent disposition, owing, in a great measure, to their diet and

the heat of the country. Feeling no spirit of emulation, and

entertaining no hope that honours or emolument may be the

reward of extraordinary attainments, as with us, the scholars

pursue the studies slowly, and without much to distract their

attention”.

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17. Architecture in Banaras

If there is one area where a casual visitor to Banaras has to be careful not

to be deceived, then it is in the field of architecture. With its narrow alleys

winding through tall buildings the layout of the ancient city looks very

erratic. It is definitely not. There is a strict pattern in the way the streets

are laid out and the houses are constructed, going back to a period when

the architect of a civil construction was aware of the very close relation

between the plan of a building and the macrocosmic order I wrote about in

chapter 2:

“How can an individual achieve harmony in his personal life, or

how can a society function properly? By trying to bring the order

that governs the unseen macrocosm down to the level of the

microcosm in which we live and which we are”.

Scholars studying these ancient rules for civil architecture (Vāstu-śāstra)

have tried to convince me that the way you situate your house according

to the cardinal directions, or build the entrance to your house, or plan the

layout of the rooms in your house, should be done in accordance with

cosmic laws. They should be universally valid, even outside India.

I disagree, especially if they tell me that my house in Belgium has

a perfect design: our living area has the main window to the north, and is

cold for most of the year. In India the northern section of a building is

especially auspicious according to the cosmic prescriptions... and less hot

in summer! It may well be that many ‘cosmic prescriptions’ have their

basis in a very intelligent and systematic analysis of climatological

requirements in India. What of course does not amaze us is the fact that

many of these ancient architectural designs allot the best parts of a site or

of a building to the higher castes. That too increases my doubt about the

macrocosmic origin of the design.

Traditional architecture should express in the design of a building

that the battle between gods and demons (of mythological times), between

good and evil forces, continues to be fought. The ground plan of a

construction is basically square. In that square a demon is lying down and

he has to be kept down by putting walls, pillars and windows on the right

spots. At the same time delicate points in the body of the demon (of the

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ground plan) should not be hurt by pillars, walls or windows. It is

essential also that the direction of his head, or legs, is taken into account,

and that explains the positioning of a house in a site.

As a result, a house or a temple is not only built as a shelter for

humans or gods: it is also a continuous control of evil forces. Evil is

subdued in stone, order has victory over chaos. For those (few) who have

this insight, a house is like so many other things in India an occasion to

meditate, to make the day sacred. For, evil is not only a force outside me,

it is also trying to dominate my inner self.

The insight is great, but also leads to the wildest superstitions. At

the same time, it is the underlying force that has given cohesion to the

different communities living in Banaras. I am not the only person fearing

that with the modern urbanization not taking this insight into account, the

inner harmony of the individuals living in Banaras may partly be in

danger.

Houses are constructed in units, divided by the famous Banaras

alleys. Often such a unit has small shops on the street side, but the living

quarters surround an inner courtyard, to which one has access through a

gate which may be closed at night. Each such unit may house a different

community, Moslem or Hindu, or depending on the region in India where

people hail from. To the non-specialist this division in units is visible

because of the concentration of similar trades in particular areas: silk,

brass, books, cloth and so on.

Finally, let us look at a typical house in Banaras. Without going

into details I can point out a few elements which can easily be observed.

A front door opening onto the alley is usually marked on the floor by a

stone step. One has to step over the doorstep, symbolically entering a new

(sacred) space. This may of course have a practical origin, as it is

observed also in e.g. tribal dwellings, but in the context of the Vāstu-śāstra it has a very strong symbolic meaning. As the door lintel is low, a

grownup person has to (symbolically) bend his or her head. (The ideal

height of a door is twice the breadth). There may be a resting place in the

entrance hall, so that a visitor may sit down without actually entering the

house. It is a place of ‘transition’.

Even if the size of a house or palace in Banaras is different, the

layout is basically the same. Around the central courtyard one observes

staircases and service rooms. Ideally the kitchen should be in the

southeast corner of the house, the toilets in the southwest, living quarters

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to the north. Often the cooking is done in one of the verandas —especially

if a joint family occupies a complete building— if the central courtyard

has enough space for verandas.

Typical for Banaras —in fact for many old cities in India— is the

question to a stranger: “from where do you come?”. Locally that means

that each person belongs to a particular extended unit of houses (called

mohallā), associated not only with a geographical location but also, and

especially, with a certain group, a profession and a specific social level.

The residents of Banaras are conscious of belonging to a city. They show

certain characteristics that are associated with the city. In practice,

however, they prefer to associate themselves with their neighbourhood.

This may in some way be true anywhere in the world, but like so many

situations in the Hindu view of life, architectural geography has a

religious sanction, a sacred and symbolic meaning. The mohallā you

belong to also tells something about your caste and the region in India you

come from. Some neighbourhoods are also called after the person who,

several centuries ago, founded the settlement, often by building a big

house. These first settlers may have been Hindu or Moslem. Even if most

modern inhabitants may know little or nothing about the settler after

whom their neighbourhood is named, they will in many cases be very

conscious about the typical characteristics and attitudes of their mohallā.

Studying the neighbourhoods is studying the history of Banaras

and its expansion during the last centuries. If the core of the ancient city

was around the Chauk and Dashashvamedha ghāt, each new settler cut

down the forest surrounding that core, and put up his house or palace, or

temple. One of the most recent such expansions is near the Ramnagar

bridge (Kāshī station), where the Krishnamurti Foundation acquired a

huge property around 1960 and built a school and meditation centre.

There most of the trees were not cut down. On the other side, south of the

city, Banaras Hindu university built its beautiful campus.

There may be more than 500 mohallā-s in inner-Banaras. The

average population of a mohallā may be about 1,000, each one having a

predominant caste or professional characteristic. Information about each

neighbourhood —the population, the number of houses, chief castes and

their populations— may be obtained from the police station that has

jurisdiction in the area.

In each of the hundreds of mohallā-s, there may be a central

temple, a shrine or mosque, a pond or a well. Before Banaras knew its real

expansion early in the previous century, lakes and waterholes were very

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important, and several mohallā-s are named after these places of water

supply. Typical for Banaras also are the mohallā events, organized by the

neighbourhood on the occasion of a religious festival. Open spaces and

streets are transformed into open air auditoria, with banners, canopies and

lights. Everyone is welcome, but the organization of a cultural event is not

without competition with other neighbourhoods. Nita Kumar comments:

“The number of celebrations multiplies over the years as a result

of the incentive of competition. More and more little shrines

have large scale public anniversaries, marked with all night

music, fairs, and decoration, most of all to show off the

efficiency and enthusiasm of the organisers of the mohalla. It is

a matter of regret, undoubtedly, that activists are uninterested in

directing their energies to ‘instrumental’ and ‘developmental’

ends: the building of roads, repairs of ghāt and cleaning of

public spaces.

At the less dramatic level of everyday life, too, it is the mohalla

which is the locus of activity. Women do not go out much

further afield than in their own neighbourhoods or the

immediate bordering ones. Among Moslems, marriages are

arranged within families preferably in the same mohalla.... Men

have a sense of freedom in moving around the whole city, for

purposes of business or pleasure. Yet every person, man or

woman, speaks with superlative affection and respect for his or

her own mohalla and in somewhat derogatory terms of others”.

In Couté & Léger, Bénarès, p. 36f.

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18. Kabīr. Who created his verses?

This chapter may shatter an illusion!

In chapter 8, I referred to Kabīr, known all over India, who lived

in the Banaras area around 1450. But who created the now so famous

verses with the name ‘Kabīr’? In my Millennium edition of the devotional

songs (pad-s) of Kabīr, I give a total of 593 songs with his name in the

last line. If not all were created by him, which of these are actually of

Kabīr?

There may be several reasons why one has interest in the mystics-

reformers (Bhaktas or Bhakti poets) of the 14-17th centuries in northern

India. Besides the scholarly interest, I have been attracted by their

inspiring and very modern message. Finding such a message in another

culture (too) is not a threat to one’s own tradition. On the contrary. It is a

gift —in this period of increased communication, and of growing

openness in the west— that reveals other aspects of the Divine, or puts

renewed accents.

But, do we enjoy the songs as they were created by the particular

poet, or were they created by the later tradition?

The songs of the mystics-reformers were first sung. Only around

1600 they were written down. Hence, since we have no recordings of the

period, our only way to the original ‘sung’ version is through a

comparison of manuscripts now scattered all over the region, often in

remote villages.

For the last 40 years I have travelled extensively all over

Rajasthan, as well as to Delhi, Banaras, Punjab, Pune and even Thanjavur

in search of manuscripts. Every year I discovered new —often private—

collections with ancient manuscript material, and along with my

increasing databank of bhakti literature on film grew also the conviction

that preservation of manuscripts and critical text-editions are a first

priority for a student of Indian culture. The economic situation in India is

such that the preservation of manuscripts is not the highest priority,

although serious efforts are being made. Yet, thousands of manuscripts

disappear every year, either through decay or lack of care, or because they

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are sold to tourists. Steps have to be taken to avert the catastrophe already

underway as the result of the neglect of the vast collections of

manuscripts. If these collections are allowed to rot away and are not even

microfilmed, there will be little left with which to study Indian

contributions to the world or to draw inspiration from.

In fact the greater part of India’s literature survives only in

manuscripts, and the part that has been edited has been edited uncritically

in many cases, and on the basis of only a small number of available

manuscripts. We should remember that classical Indology, of Sanskrit and

Buddhist texts, started in the 19th century, and the only material available

was what the British had brought from India and preserved in the India

Office Library, London. Of course, we have walked a long way since

then, but there are still hundreds of miles ahead of us, for the next 25

rebirths.

Let us imagine we are travelling through Northwest India in 1550,

on bumpy roads after the rainy season or on sandy tracks in Rajasthan. We

spend the nights on the floor in temples and watch the audiences drawn by

travelling singers singing songs of Bhakti. These singers, like the Puranic

bards, received extended hospitality depending on the quality and depth of

their performance and they sang what appealed most to the local feelings.

We are on the way to Rajasthan after a visit to Banaras, where a few years

before Raidās had died, and where the oldest member in the singers’

family had heard a person called Kabīr. The repertoire of this family of

travelling musicians went on expanding and eventually some of them

started to feel the need to write down songs.

The singers sang the songs which were most in demand, such as

those of Kabīr, which they had learned from their fathers. The singers

themselves too were poets and often very religious. Inspired by a

particular environment they added new, sometimes their own songs, to the

repertoire of Kabīr.

Memory was their only way of recording, but as the repertoires

grew bigger, some musicians started to keep little (or big) notebooks as an

aid to their memory. The earliest manuscripts seem to have had these

notebooks as their basis. The manuscripts of the 17th century that have

been preserved are copies of these early notes now lost. Scholars of the

21st century have to rely on 17th century manuscripts to reconstruct the

version of the repertoires of the singers.

I do not say: “to reconstruct what Kabīr was singing!”.

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Travelling singers knew no borders. They easily walked from the

kingdoms in and around Banaras through the Mughal territories to the

princely States in Rajasthan, or from the Maratha country to the Punjab.

With an amazing ease also they moved from one language to another,

using a supra-regional medium, while at the same time picking up local

idioms and words in an effort to adjust to local audiences. This effort is

responsible for the linguistic chaos we find in the manuscripts.

As a result, the text-critic cannot reconstruct a scribal archetype,

that is the original manuscript in which Kabīr’s songs were written down.

There never was a scribal archetype.

When around 1500 the Moslem weaver Kabīr sang his songs in

Banaras, nobody could have imagined that at the beginning of the 21st

century he would be —along with Tulsīdās— the most frequently quoted

poet-saint in North-India. But at the same time he is probably also one of

the most wrongly quoted saints. Rabindranath Tagore, who in 1913 was

the first Asian to win the Nobel price, translated 100 of Kabīr’s songs and

made Kabīr known all over the world.

But, having now prepared a critical edition of the songs of Kabīr, I

do not hesitate to propose that hardly any of the Tagore songs was created

by Kabīr. I can understand that a translator of Kabīr or a devotee finding

inspiration in Kabīr’s beautiful sayings may look for a nice song without

bothering about its authenticity. But let us not start writing commentaries

on Kabīr and on 16th century Banaras quoting those songs.

In the Banaras region these days, Kabīr is associated with newly

married couples or young couples going to be married. Long lists of

songs, supposedly of Kabīr, are sung on the evenings preceding the

wedding. The association of Kabīr and weddings is so strong in that

region that in colloquial language the expression “āj kabīr hai kyā?”,

means: “Isn’t tonight your honeymoon night?”

In 1556 Akbar ascended the Moghul throne in Agra, two

generations after Kabīr may have died in Banaras. The dates of Kabīr

(traditionally he is said to have lived for 120 years, till 1519) are not

certain. I am inclined to accept the dates ca. 1450-1518 (proposed by

David Lorenzen). Even these 68 years may have been a relatively long life

for a (poor) weaver in Banaras in those days. The first attested written

document with his sayings/songs are dated 1572, written no doubt

alongside with the ongoing oral tradition.

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When everything is said and done, one question remains: how

could Kabīr become so charismatic that many devotees, possibly during

his lifetime and definitely after his death, were happy to insert his name as

‘identity-card’ (bhanitā) in their own compositions and let those songs

circulate with his name, not their own name? What was his genius that

eventually was changed into a social consciousness strongly influencing

later generations? If singers in India did perhaps not even know who the

original Kabīr was, why were they happy to include their own good,

sometimes excellent compositions in the repertoires that are performed in

Kabīr’s name?

What we have here is a social strategy by which certain ideas are

promoted using the charismatic name of a person who as such ceased to

exist long ago, who may not even have supported the very ideas that are

now spread in his name. If today the singers in Rajasthan are sponsored

by Brahmins, as they are, their songs will not be as outspoken in their

criticism of Brahmins as Kabīr was in Banaras in 1500.

One more observation: my exercise may perhaps not only shed

some light on the real Kabīr. It also reveals an essential Indian attitude

which is very different from the Western way of thinking. It has to do

with ‘belonging to a tradition’ as opposed to ‘individual authorship’.

I argue that Kabīr very soon was ‘appropriated’ by interested parties, from

the Gorakhnāthī-s and the Rāmānandī-s in the 17th century to the Brahmin

scholar Hazari P. Dvivedi and even Mahatma Gandhi in the 20th century.

Kabīr was appropriated for their own ideological purpose or benefit. And

thus, as time passed, the corpus of songs with Kabīr’s name kept

increasing.

Let me explain my argument “Kabīr very soon was ‘appropriated’

by interested parties”. The first such an interested party, as I can see, were

the Gorakhnāthī-s, who used Kabīr’s popularity and the few yogic

references in his songs, to promote their own ideas. In the Nāth

manuscripts of the early 17th century in Rajasthan, Kabīr is very

abundantly quoted, as if he were a Nāth a yogi himself.

The next interested party were the Rāmānandī-s around 1600, who

even adjusted the earliest biography (by Anantadās) to make Kabīr a

disciple of Rāmānanda. This is an example avant la lettre of a

promotional stunt, in the way our politicians now use sports heroes or pop

song idols to promote their own cause.

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Another fine example of appropriation is the Brahmin scholar

Hazari Prasad Dvivedi and many of his peers in the second half of the 20th

century. In his milestone publication called Kabīr, in 1942, Dvivedi

clearly emphasizes one dominant theme: the image of Kabīr as an ideal

man for the 20th century, and his rootedness in the Indian tradition. The

issue is of finding roots for the growing national awareness of new India.

That exemplar is Kabīr and through the pen of Dvivedi, Kabīr becomes

the exemplar of a person committed to a task, which is to create an ideal

man serving mankind. This idea may of course be somewhere in Kabīr’s

earliest songs, but you need a strong magnifying glass to find it. For

Dvivedi the commitment to a task becomes Kabīr’s main idea. In this way

Dvivedi arrives at a biography that runs from imperfection through crisis

to perfection. And that is the ideal for modern man in a new India. That

image is rooted in a glorious past and thus the circle is round.

I may add here that it fits perfectly in Dvivedi’s scheme that the

low caste and Moslem weaver Kabīr was initiated by the orthodox

Brahmin Rāmānanda —the first appropriation, one may remember.

“They were happy to include their own good, sometimes excellent

compositions in the repertoires that are performed in Kabīr’s name”.

In the west this would be called, I suppose, inverted plagiarism

and I do not know how the copyright laws can deal with this. Let us

imagine: a good scholar produces a wonderful piece of research and

publishes it in an outstanding journal under the name of another famous

author! The original author gladly gives up the honour of publishing in his

or her own name because —and this is one explanation for the

phenomenon I have discussed—, because it is more important for him/her

to belong to the tradition of the famous author. This would give the

original author more satisfaction than if he published under his own name.

Something like this definitely happened in the 16-17th centuries, when

good poet-mystics created good songs and circulated them in the singing

tradition with the name of Kabīr; giving up their own authorship. In this

respect the mediaeval Indian psyche is different from our modern western

attitude. It is essential for an Indian to have a grounding in an

authoritative past, to be part of a living memory, to be inscribed in an

ongoing social consciousness, to be linked to what Indians call a

paramparā, an authoritative tradition. A similar phenomenon is noticed in

the guru-disciple relationship, or in the gotra awareness in the caste

system.

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This need to be linked to a glorious past may help to explain why

individual authorship became less relevant.

I argue that not all the songs and verses attributed to Kabīr in even

critical editions are created by him, but one thing is certain: what he

thought he said, and what he said he said strongly; he was often abusive,

or at times deeply mystical, but always impressive.

The following line cannot have endeared him to the slickly robed, nicely

perfumed Moslem qāzī-s,

If God had wanted to make me a Moslem,

why didn’t He make the incision?

or have earned him the affection of the argumentative Brahmin pandits

with whom he lived,

Vedas, Puranas --why read them?

It's like loading an ass with sandalwood!,

but his testy aphorisms did ensure that the common people still take in

what he said —storekeepers, fishermen, housewives, and rickshaw

drivers— and his words are on their tongues to this day.

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19. Raidās. Low-caste and Bhakta

Can I claim I have averted an ecological disaster in Banaras?

My friend and very respected Kabīr scholar professor Sukhdev

Singh of Banaras Hindu university (co-author of the Linda Hess English

translation of Kabīr’s Bījak), introduced me in 1989 to the Raidās temple

along the Gangā, near the bridge to Ramnagar. The temple was not yet

complete, but the plans were great. “This is going to become a very

important temple”, said the professor, “and we plan to construct a road

right along the Gangā, up to the Dashashvamedh ghāt several kilometres

upstream. “What?”, I exclaimed, “please do not do that.” “Oh well, if you

say so, we will not”, the professor replied and seemed convinced. And the

matter was closed (for ever). When Raidās sang his songs of surrender in

Banaras around 1500 and invited the scorn of the Brahmins, he would not

have imagined that in his honour, in 1965 land would be bought along the

Gangā to the North of the main ghāts and a temple be built in 1972.

Now, the temple is famous no doubt and since I was there,

politicians have been invading the site.

In Nov 2011, as part of his mass contact programme, Rahul

Gandhi (Congress), without any notice or information, arrived in Banaras

and visited the Sant Ravidās Mandir and offered prayers in the temple.

The decision of Rahul Gandhi to visit the temple was considered very

strategic and timely. UP Chief Minister Mayawati had skipped to visit

Ravi Das Mandir earlier due to ‘security reasons’ and instead offered a

golden 'pālakī' (litter) to the temple. In February 2016 Prime Minister

Modi attended the Jayantī (birthday anniversary) celebrations at the

temple and addressed a gathering of Dalits. BJP leaders polished the shoes

of the followers (‘Raidāsī-s’) on their way to the temple. The message

was: ‘the BJP believes in the ideology of Ravidās, who belonged to a

family of cobblers’. The political activity is quite understandable,

especially in the state Uttar Pradesh, where in 1994 a ‘low-caste’ coalition

ruled. It should not amaze us: parties of different kinds have heavily

sponsored the building of the Raidās temple!

As with most Bhakti saints of the 16th century very little is

historically known about Raidās, but present day ‘biographies’ (google

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‘Sant Ravidas’) give all kinds of details, including the exact day of his

birth and death (1377-1540, or163 years!), the name of his father,

grandfather, grandmother and so on. Even the name of his school is given,

but most probably he was illiterate (see below, Parcaī, 10.9). All these

details were either passed on in an oral tradition of more than 300 years,

or invented after 1700. There is no shame if the biographical data were

‘invented’ centuries later: this happened to all the great saints!

I cannot do justice to the very enriching accents we find in the

songs of Raidās, but one point I should definitely emphasize, because it

stands in contrast with what people in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim

religions are generally used to: the idea of a ‘God up there, in heaven’. Raidās, and other Bhakti saints, do not cease to describe the experience of

‘God within oneself’.

How can there be a difference

between ‘You’ and ‘I’,

‘I’ and ‘You’,

between gold and bracelet,

water and wave?

In You there are several men,

Oh Indweller.

Through the master,

the servant is known,

through the servant,

the master.

You are in everything and

everything is in You.

Your servant Raidās says in confusion:

where are You? 7

Brahmins in Banaras were certainly shocked when the low-caste cobbler

attracted huge crowds away from their rituals(see below, Parcaī). His

message was simple and clear, without arrogance and self-interest and he

still is, in the 21st century, a catalyst for all who yearn after the ‘the Master

of the meek’. Humble is his origin and humble also is human existence,

and the voice of Raidās sounds for all, then and now, who identify with

that status.

In Rajasthan, his fame earned him a place of honour in the

prestigious Panca-vānī (‘Five Voices’) manuscript compilations of

7 Winand M. Callewaert and Peter Friedlander, The life and works of Raidās, Manohar,

Delhi, 1992, p. 125.

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around 1600. In that collection, several performers of Bhakti songs at the

same time brought together in one repertoire the songs and verses of the

Bhaktas who were then at the top of the list in each performance of Bhakti

devotion: Dādū, Kabīr, Nāmdev, Raidās and Hardās. In Panjab too, when

the Sikh Guru Arjan, in 1605, compiled the Ādi-Granth, Raidās was

quoted (40 pad-s) as a precursor and as an inspirer, along with other

famous Bhaktas.

When we study the earliest written sources and try to reconstruct

his biography, very little emerges as ‘historical’. Even if the data are few,

one fact stands for certain; the chamār Raidās was very popular in

Banaras and he excelled in all controversies with the local Brahmins (this

aspect is totally missing in today’s Google account!).

For the ‘biography’ of Raidās, I should like to examine the

following items: Raidās or Ravidās, his guru, dates of birth and death,

Mīrā, and the interaction with the Brahmins. I found two kinds of early

manuscript sources mentioning Raidās. I refer here only to a few; for more

details, see Bib1 (pp. 11-21)8.

One, the Punjabi sources:

the Ādi-Granth (1604), the vār collection of Bhāī Gurdās (the ‘scribe’ of the Ādi-Granth;

1551-1629),

Pothīpremambodha (1693, i.e. nearly two centuries after Raidās).

Two, the Hindi sources:

the Anantadās Raidās Parcaī (before 1600?),

the Nābhadās Bhaktamāl (ca. 1600),

the Priyādās Bhaktirasabodhinī (1712),

In the Ādi-Granth of the Sikhs, that unique compilation of Bhakti

literature in North-India, Raidās of Banaras is quoted as Ravidās. He is

quoted first in the collection of the fourth Guru, Rāmdās, who died in

1581:

Ravidās the chamār praised God,

and every moment sang the praises of the One God.

Though of a fallen jāti he became exalted,

8 For well documented and updated research, I refer to the publications of Peter

Friedlander, in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (forthcoming, 2016); also his article

on the Ganga, Ravidas and Appropriation in (forthcoming) Conceiving the Goddess,

Editors Jayant Bapat and Ian Mabbett, Monash University Press, Melbourne.

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and all four castes came and fell at his feet (Ādi-Granth, p. 733).

(also Ādi-Granth, p. 835).

and,

Ravidās who regularly carted cattle carcasses,

Renounced māyā. He entered the company of the pure

and obtained a vision of Hari (Ādi-Granth, p. 487).

Ravidās or Raidās? This is an interesting case of one manuscript

tradition against another, of one regional pronunciation against another.

He is known as Ravidās in Panjab and now generally also in the Banaras

region, but in the early (Rajasthani) manuscripts we generally find Raidās

(with the minor variants Rayadās, Redās, Raudās and Remdās; the forms

Rohidās in Gujarati and Marathi, and Ruidās in Bengali are not found in

the early manuscripts).

I dare to argue that the original name was Raidās, and that the

more Sanskritized (tatsam) form in the Ādi-Granth, and in later texts, may

have to do with the appropriation of the cobbler Raidās on to the Brahmin

level. Isn’t also the effort, in the Raidās Parcaī of Anantadās, to make the

Brahmin Rāmānanda his guru to be seen in that perspective? No shame.

Kabīr too was later said to be initiated by the same Brahmin Rāmānanda

and the Muslim Dādū in Rajasthan became (in later ‘biographies’) a

foundling raised by a childless Brahmin couple. No wonder that the

genius and popular mystic Raidās was raised to a higher status.

But there is no doubt, Raidās was ‘of a fallen jāti’ and he

‘regularly carted cattle carcasses’. Bhāī Gurdās confirms that “there was a

poor chamār [Ravidās]; he mended shoes in the middle of the road. His

family duty was to gather and cart carcasses” 9.

In the Pothīpremambodha, the earliest known Panjabi

hagiography of Ravidās, of 1693, we find five accounts: how Ravidās had

a vision of God in a dream, the episodes of ‘the coin and the bracelet’ and

‘the test of the śāligrām-s’, his final vision of the Lord and his entering

into samādhi.

The Anantadās Raidās Parcaī is the earliest ‘Hindi’ account about Raidās

(I published a text edition and English translation in Winand M.

Callewaert, The Hagiographies of Anantadās. The Bhakti Poets of North India, Curzon, 2000, 414pp.).

9 See J.S. Sabar, Bhagat Ravidās srodha pustak, GNDU Press, Amritsar, 1984, pp. 53-

54.

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Sometime before or around 1600 AD Anantadās, an ascetic of the

Rāmānandī order in Rajasthan, felt inspired to bring together in a poetic

composition the different legends he had heard about the great Bhaktas.

He most probably did not use ink or paper, but sang and composed as he

recited, convinced that he earned great merit doing that. It is not unlikely

that the story he himself sang a couple of years later was slightly different,

because of a particular need or bias in an audience or because he had

learnt something more in the meantime. But the purpose was always the

same: to sing the praises of the saint and proclaim the supremacy of

devotion (bhakti) to God (called Hari, or Rām).

He sang about Nāmdev, Kabīr, Raidās, Dhanā, Aṅgad, Trilochan

and Pīpā. More famous Bhaktas he could not have chosen and four of

them (Kabīr, Dhanā, Pīpā and Raidās), he says, were initiated by

Rāmānanda. The others, Nāmdev, Aṅgad and Trilochan were too far away

in the past, even for his sense of history to call them disciples of

Rāmānanda. This association with Rāmānanda was repeated by Nābhā

and Rāghavdās in their Bhaktamāl-s, and by later tradition, but doubted

by the great Hindi scholar Parśurām Chaturvedī (1964) and modern

scholarship. In fact, it may have been Anantadās who was responsible for

this association, possibly along with the growing tradition of fashioning

Rāmānanda, in the 17th century, as the founder of the Rāmānandī sect.

Many legends about the saints must have been at the disposal of

Anantadās. Already in his days dozens of legends about the famed Kabīr

and Raidās of Banaras of more than 100 years before, were circulating in

Rajasthan. For the other Bhaktas he had to be satisfied with just a couple

of legends.

These parcaī-s composed by Anantadās became very popular

matter for travelling singers and Bhaktas, who drew great inspiration from

the miracles, the encounters of the saints with Brahmins and Qazis and

their unfaltering trust in God never deserting them. The travelling singers

who memorized the parcaī-s of Anantadās were themselves also poets,

capable of adding or changing a line or two. The result of their genius and

creativity is a headache and a challenge for the text critic who looks at

manuscripts and tries to restore what Anantadās originally may have

recited.

A study of the parcaī-s of Anantadās gives not only an insight in a

very creative period of oral transmission. These parcaī-s are also like a

video of late 16th century social and religious thinking. When around

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1600, a Rajasthani writes or sings about Banaras, what stereotypes does

he have about the city and what does he emphasize? I cannot help

thinking that in the parcaī of Raidās (and of Kabīr) the focus seems to be

on the interaction with the Brahmins. Most incidents are in fact

confrontations between the Bhaktas of Hari and the ritualistic Brahmins.

Of course, the lives of other saints too were not spared from such

confrontations. Interestingly, today’s google account only a friendship

with a Brahmin boy is described!

In Appendix I give the translation of the complete Raidās Parcaī

by Anantadās, because of the interesting details:

Raidās was punished to be born as a Shudra because in a previous

birth he was a Brahmin who ate meat (1.3) or “did not know Hari”

(12.6). He will all his life confront the Brahmins as a Shudra.

Because of his excellent preaching and singing, the Brahmins were

angry (4.11) and advise him that he “should remain content

remembering Hari's name,

but never must you worship the śāligrām”. (4.15)

The Brahmins even ignored the king's decree (4.17). All of chapter 5

is devoted to this confrontation. As in a traditional debate, the

Brahmins produce arguments quoted from the scriptures to prove

that low caste people should stay away from rituals (5.14ff.), but

Raidās gives equally compelling examples to prove his point. This

reaches a climax when eventually the śāligrām comes to Raidās, and

not to the Brahmins (6.16).

Five years later comes the episode with the queen of Chittaur. There

again the Brahmins propose themselves as sole initiators (7.8), eager

to get a free ride to Banaras. The queen even has to play hide-and-

seek with them. The Brahmins are especially furious because she

received initiation from a low caste person (8.2). Verses 8.3ff. are a

pathetic litany of hysterical Brahmanical behaviour. Another low

caste man, Kabīr is called upon to settle the dispute. After this

tumultuous confrontation the parcaī continues smoothly, until the

queen arrives back home and there has to confront her family’s

Brahmins “who died of jealousy” (11.8). The queen does not hesitate

to tell them, and everyone in Rajasthan:

One is mean if one’s actions are mean,

one is excellent if one performs meritorious deeds.

Excellence and meanness are in one’s actions,

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in the human body alone there is no excellence at all.

Desire, anger, greed and the nine gates,

through these all are chamārs.

One who conquers these becomes excellent -

who speaks there of Brahmins or of famous Vālmīki-s?

Caste and family have no importance —

one who sings of Rām is dear to Rām. (11.9-11)

However, Raidās advises her “to make them happy, ..., and

grudgingly she decided to feed the Brahmins” (11.14), who

eventually are converted and admit that Raidās is a saint and “we are

sinners” (11.22). Does one often hear such a statement from the

mouth of a Brahmin? At the end of the parcaī they even throw away

their sacred threads and become the disciples of Raidās (12. 9).

In 1993 the Banarasi scholar Shukdeo Singh published his Raidās paricaī, (Vishvavidyālay prakāśan, Vārāṇasī, 88p.), in which he gives the raidās kī paricaī (Hindi) on pp. 19-38 and the English translation on pp. 57-86, but

it appears that not all his selected readings are attested by the manuscripts.

Because of the devotional and political importance of Raidās, Singh’s text

of the Raidās parcaī has been inscribed on the inner walls of the Raidās

temple along the Ganges in Banaras.

Again, probably copying the Anantadās Parcaī, ca. 1600 or 80

years after Raidās’s death, Nābhadās, another Rāmānandī, lists in his

Bhaktamāl, Raidās as one of the 12 disciples of Rāmānanda, and “the

words he spoke were in accord with Shruti-s, Shāstra-s and right

conduct”. In the even later Commentary (1712) on this Bhaktamāl, the

Priyādās Bhaktirasabodhinī, we find seven episodes about Raidās: his

past life, his birth and childhood, the test of the philosopher’s stone, the

gift of the gold coins, the initiation of queen Jhālī of Chittaur, the feast at

Chittaur and the revelation of the golden sacred thread within his chest.

In the recent google account we read that “in his childhood he

went to the Pathshala of his Guru, [the Brahmin] Pt. Sharda Nand”, “and

became the friend of the son” of the Pandit. There has been considerable

dispute over the issue of who, if anyone, was the guru of Raidās.

Rāmānandī sources, such as Anantadās, Nābhadās, and Priyādās describe

Raidās as a disciple of Rāmānanda. The non-Rāmānandī sources, such as

the Panjabi Pothīpremambodha of 1693, do not mention any guru at all.

And, any claim about the guru of Raidās must account for the fact that in

his own songs he does himself not refer to a guru.

101

It is not clear who was the first Rāmānandī to claim that Kabīr and

Raidās were disciples of Rāmānanda, but it is very likely that the

motivation for such a claim might have been the desire to increase the

mahimā or greatness of Rāmānanda, adding such illustrious Sants to the

list of his disciples. Modern scholarship has doubted the authenticity of

this guru-disciple relation (see Bib1, p. 25). It is more obvious that Sants

such as Kabīr and Raidās did not accept the authority of mortal gurus, as

they derived their own spiritual awareness, not from a particular human

guru, but from direct experience. This would be in accord with an account

in the Pothīpremambodha, which attributes Raidās’s spiritual awakening

to the direct experience of God.

What about Mīrābāī?

As late as 1693, in the Pothīpremambodha, it is recorded that

Mīrābāī came to Banaras to take initiation from Ravidās. This enraged the

Brahmins and caused them to challenge his rights to worship the

śāligrām.

In the Anantadās Parcaī of ca. 1600 or 80 years after Raidās’s

death, we read that queen Jhālī had heard about the renown of Kabīr and

Raidās and decided to come to Banaras to take initiation. She visited

Kabīr’s abode (his tentative dates: are 1450-1518) where she saw ascetic

devotees absorbed in samādhi; they practised austerity and worshipped

neither gods nor goddesses. This did not appeal to her and she then visited

Raidās’s abode, where she saw God enthroned in a temple and great

companies of devotees making music and praising God. This pleased her

and she asked Raidās to be her guru. Raidās initiated her as his disciple.

However, when her family’s Brahmins heard that she had taken Raidās as

her guru, they demanded that she give him up.

The Google account states that “Sant Guru Ravidas Ji is

considered as the spiritual Guru of Meera Bai, who was the queen of

Chittoor”, and continues giving details about the encounter with Raidās

and about Mīrā’s later life and development.

I accept the dates 1503-1546 for Mīrā’s life-time, because there is

no evidence to support these dates or other dates (for more details, see

Bib2, pp. 104-119). The Google account further quotes the line

traditionally attributed to Mīrā, “Guru milya Ravidas ji dini gyan ki

gutki…”. We do not know where such lines “of Mīrā” come from, as no

manuscript sources for them are available. For forty years I have been a

manuscript fanatic, with the conviction: “What is in the manuscript at a

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particular date, was known at that date. What is not in the manuscript at a

particular date, may have been known, may be not”. There is no

manuscript dated before 1800 with the songs of Mīrā (the early ‘Dakor

manuscripts’ remain suspicious to me) and therefore these references to

songs of Mīrā referring to Raidās are suspect. We should not forget that in

Rajasthan thousands and thousands of manuscripts have been scribed

from before 1600 onwards.

If Mīrā died at the age of 43, it is remarkable that at the end of the

20th century we find published as many as 5,197 songs with her name (see

Bib2, p.104, n. 3). Of these, 3,797 songs are supposed to be in Hindī, 817

in Gujarātī and 583 by Indirā Devī. During his Ph.D. research (1950-

1962) P.N. Tivari supposedly studied 4,614 songs attributed to Mīrā.

It has become a boring expression in studies about Mīrā that it is

very difficult, if not impossible to decide which and how many songs are

most probably by Mīrā. And yet, ever expanding collections go on ap-

pearing. In some editions the question of authenticity is solved on the

basis of content, in others on the basis of language. Rarely do authors

bother to look at the written material.

Of course, it remains a mystery why the written tradition, in the

case of Mīrā, seems to have started so late (c. 1800), if we compare it with

the spate of manuscripts with nirguṇa material in Rajasthan, or saguṇa

material in the Braj area from 1600 onwards. Why? Several reasons have

been brought forward. The songs of Mīrā very soon became the

(exclusive?) property of women in the home. Women did not scribe, as

sadhus or (male) singers did. Or, the songs of Mīrā were scorned, to such

an extent that they never became part of the standard repertoires of

singers. We read in a letter of M. L. Menaria (Udaipur, 1 July, 1938) to

Purohit H. Sharma, Jaipur (the translation from Hindi is mine):

“People here are not interested in Mira Bai as you and I are. Even the

Maharana Sahib believes that Mira has been a black blot on the fair

page of the Mewar history and musicians are not allowed to sing the

pads of Mira Bai in the Palace. But this is only for your private

information. Please do not make a mention of this anywhere in your

book”.

With due respect for the oral traditions, my approach to the problem of

authenticity has always been through the first manuscripts. Even if that

approach, in the case of Mīrā, will not add much certainty about authentic

songs, at least it can question the claims made in the numerous editions

103

current now. One final consideration: without exaggerating the divide

between the nirguna and the saguna traditions, Mīrā was a (saguṇa)

Krishna Bhakta, while Raidās was more into nirguṇa devotion.

Conclusion: it looks like a very attractive proposition to say that queen

Jhālī of Chittaur was indeed Mīrā, but there is no historical evidence to

support this. On the contrary.

Let me repeat the (tentative) dates:

Kabīr 1450-1518

Raidās 1450-1520

Mīrā 1503-1546

If Mīrā travelled to Banaras, on a bullock cart or in a palanquin, during

the year before Kabīr died, she was supposedly 14-15 years old. No doubt,

young Rajasthani princesses were tough in those days.

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Appendix

THE PARCAĪ OF RAIDĀS 10

— One —

1. In Banaras, that best of cities,

no evil ever visits men.

No one who dies ever goes to hell:

Shankar himself comes with the Name of Rām 11.

Birth of Raidās 2. Where Śruti and Smriti have authority

there Raidās was reborn,

in the home of a low-caste Shākta -

his father and mother were both chamārs.

3. In his previous birth he was a Brahmin;

all the time listening to religious recitation, he did not give up meat.

For this sin he was born into a low caste family,

but he remembered his previous birth.

4. He did not drink milk, but only cried and cried,

causing great anxiety in his family.

“In great pain our son has been born.

Has in pain the unique child of a great house been born here?”

5. The women did not sing auspicious songs and

in their anxiety they did not dare to play any instruments.

They summoned many sorcerers and healers

to work magic and give potions.

6. “Whoever saves this dying child’, (they said),

will be hailed as Dhanvantari 12.

10 Lines are indented if they are not found in all the manuscripts collated for my edition of

the Raidās parcaī. The Hindi text of the Raidās parcaī is given on pp. 336-356 in

Winand M. Callewaert, The Hagiographies of Anantadās. The Bhakti Poets of North

India, Curzon, 2000.

11 In Banaras the dying take the name of Rām to facilitate their passage to the next life.

Anantadās says that Shankar himself visits the dying with the Name of Rām as

tārak-mantra on his lips.

12 Dhanvantari is the mythological divine physician.

105

We will do whatever he says

and heap things in front of him”.

7. Four days passed,

while the mother despaired

and the father grieved with the rest of the family.

Only Raidās found pleasure in dying.

8. Dying is better than living,

for life without Hari is tasteless.

The man who lives but has forgotten Hari,

is like one who drinks poison and is punished by the god Death.

9. Whether poor or wealthy, powerless or powerful,

a fool or a wise man, a king or a beggar,

nobody can cross the ocean of rebirths

without the grace of Hari.

10. As Raidās lay thinking of death,

Hari the compassionate one had mercy on his follower.

Raidās and Rāmānanda In the night a heavenly voice was heard,

which in his heart Rāmānanda understood:

11. “The son born in a chamār’s house

is my devotee born again” and

Hari told Rāmānanda the story

of what had happened in the past.

12. “With great compassion, give him initiation -

you must by all means save this dying child.”

Rāmānanda decided

to enlighten the family:

13. “If you become devotees, brothers,

Hari will revive your child.”

The chamār touched Rāmānanda’s feet, and said:

“Do what you like, Gosvāmī.”

14. Without further ado, Rāmānanda

put his hand on the chamār’s forehead.

He gave them understanding and had the child shaven,

removing and rubbing away his past.

15. And everyone’s heart was gladdened when

Raidās started to suckle at his mother’s breast.

People congratulated them, while drums were beaten

and in every home the sacred pitchers were decorated.

16. In telling the birth story of Raidās

even the Lord finds pleasure.

The bonds of karma are severed:

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so sings the devotee, Ananta.

— Two —

1. In this manner, Hari is the benevolent master.

In every age he has removed the misfortunes of his people.

Day by day Raidās grew bigger and

with every new day his love for Hari grew stronger.

2. By the time he was seven

he could practise the nine forms of bhakti.

He served the Lord 13 with all his heart

and never strayed from the path shown by the Satguru.

3. Seven more years passed

and his love for the Lord grew.

The narration of his childhood may be pleasing,

but the family soon grew weary of his devotion.

4. Eventually he was forsaken by the others.

They shared the family’s wealth among themselves,

and sent poor Raidās to the back of the house;

but he never uttered a word of protest.

5. He bought leather from the market

To make fine shoes from it.

He mended broken and torn old shoes as well,

never asking anyone for anything while he toiled.

6. Easily he made money,

not considering any work inferior.

He offered food to the deity in a separate temple,

where only devotees came.

7. He performed the rituals with extreme care

and he knew all the types of worship.

Another seven years thus passed,

while Raidās had to endure many privations.

Raidās and Hari 8. Until finally Hari came in the guise of a devotee,

much to the delight of Raidās.

With all due respect, he seated him

and spoke humble words and washed his feet.

9. For a while he narrated the stories of Hari,

while food was prepared for him.

After the Lord had eaten and sat back,

the conversation turned towards the joys and sorrows of life.

13 ‘The devotees’ in other manuscripts.

107

10. “Tell me your secret, Raidās” the Lord said.

“How do you keep your dharma?

My eyes see no signs of wealth here,

how do you keep your body and soul satisfied?”

11. Raidās explained:

“My wealth is the Lord,

at His feet a thousand Lakshmī-s bow down.

Taking shelter with Him, I know no sorrow or want.”

12. Raidās spoke in such a way,

that it filled the Lord’s heart with joy.

The pāras stone “Listen to me, Raidās,” he said,

“your poverty will vanish at once.

13. I have been an ascetic from childhood,

having obtained knowledge, I abandoned māyā

and my wanderings have brought me to your home.

I found this philosophers’ stone lying on the road yesterday.

14. It is of no use to me,

I want to give it to you, for I feel so much compassion.

Look, if iron touches this stone,

it will become gold and no one can destroy it.

15. You can produce as much gold as you want,

and distribute it as you like.

It will in no way harm you,

in fact it will increase your bhakti twofold.”

16. Hearing the Lord speak thus,

Raidās remained silent. [He thought:]

“Has the Lord appeared to shake my faith

or to destroy my devotion?”.

— Three —

1. Raidās did not speak for a while.

Hari untied the pāras stone from a knot in his dhotī and said, “Just so that you don’t think I have cheated you,

let me prove it for you.

2. Here, see the test of the pāras.

It has turned this needle into gold,

It will always work like this,

there is no mystery in it.”

3. Raidās replied:

“May my eyes never see such a sight.

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Gold and women are a disgrace for an ascetic,

their very touch causes offence.

4. If gold could bring everything,

why would a king renounce his kingdom 14?

If a person begs for food and can live on that,

he fears women and gold.

5. If you fear and yet keep going for food and clothing,

you will go on suffering in your body.

How can one go on collecting these things?

If one gives up truth, how long can one live?”

You look like a real ascetic,

who has given up māyā since childhood.

How should I touch this māyā?

Your suggestions are really bizarre!”

6. Then Hari spoke with great sincerity:

“Gold itself is not to be blamed!

Golden is the temple in the heavenly Vaikuntha

and gold adorns the neck of God.

7. The city of Dvaraka is resplendent with gold 15

and gold shines on every deity.

Gold is no obstacle to the service of gods.

The Lord himself gave gold to Sudāmā.

8. Rām happily accepts gold offered to him,

with gold coins one can sponsor a festival.

With the help of gold you can go to Vaikuntha,

if you know the proper use of it.

9. If by spending gold, one commits sin,

gold is not to be blamed for it.

If you give gold to a whore,

you send yourself down to hell.

10. If you use gold to gamble,

you risk a life in hell.

He who takes gold to buy liquor,

drinks the liquor and goes straight to hell.

11. He who spends gold to buy meat,

transports himself quite easily to hell.

He who spends gold to have another man killed,

will never find liberation from the cycle of life and death.

12. He who gives gold to enjoy another man’s wife,

arms will strike him down, no one can save him.

14 This may be a reference to king Pīpā in another parcaī by Anantadās.

15 This may be another reference to king Pīpā.

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He who accepts gold as a bribe,

shows respect for a sinner.

If seeing the glitter of gold you commit a sin,

you will for ever remain in suffering.

13. If you leave gold hidden in the earth,

without giving it to others or enjoying it yourself,

If all your life you do not spend your gold,

you will become a snake that will coil itself around it.

If you cannot spend it even on good works,

then that’s not the gold’s fault.

how can gold become a means of salvation?

In full knowledge you lose the opportunity of this birth.”

14. When the Lord had finished speaking in this way,

Raidās replied immediately:

“Why do you want to give gold to me?

Why do you not use it yourself to sponsor a festival?”

15. (Hari replied:) “I have great love for you, Raidās,

do not allow your mind to be distracted.”

He took the pāras and placed it at Raidās’s feet,

but Raidās moved away.

16. Even if you refuse you cannot escape,

for the Lord has affection for you.

The protection of Hari is an ocean of happiness -

thus sings Anantadās.

— Four —

1. When the pāras was put at his feet,

Raidās stepped back.

After a moment’s thought, the visitor told him:

“I will respect your sense of honour.

2. Since you are absolutely determined, I will wrap the stone

in this piece of cloth and hide it under the thatch of your roof.

One day it mayhelp a naked or hungry person, -

retrieve it then from the thatch without hesitation.”

3. Then the Lord tied the pāras

to a pole inside the hut, and thought:

‘Because I’m watching now he feels shy,

but soon he will spend the gold to eat’.

4. With this thought the Lord departed.

A year passed and all the time the pāras remained in place.

Not once did Raidās even look at it.

On the thirteenth month Hari returned.

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5. “Why didn’t you take it out?,” asked the Lord.

“Why do you still find fault with the pāras?”

With folded hands Raidās answered:

“I have forsaken the illusion of the stone.

6. My pāras stone is Hari’s name.

I have no use for a stone.

Dear Hari, the pāras may bring a pile of gold

but it also brings the snare of māyā with it.”

7. Seeing that Raidās would not accept it,

Hari took the pāras away.

As Murārī walked out with it,

a new thought occurred to Him.

8. He appeared in a dream to make a request:

“I have kept five gold coins in a casket.

Take the gold without bad feeling.

With devotion, use it to sponsor worship among the devotees.”

9. When he heard this, Raidās was very happy and

he decided to accept the words spoken by Murārī.

At dawn he went to see (and wondered):

‘When did I ask for all this wealth?’

10. Every day he received five gold coins,

which he then spent to organize a festival.

The temple was decorated like a palace

and there were crowds of devotees.

11. There was excellent preaching and singing,

and all conversations focused on bhakti. People came from everywhere to watch,

and that made the Brahmins very angry.

Raidās and the Brahmins 12. “From where is this low caste man getting that money?

This stupid villager does not even know how to spend it!

He is making a fool out of people -

when has a Shudra ever done pūjā himself?

13. With no one here to teach him a lesson,

much has now gone wrong in this town.

A man from a mean family and home,

how can he be allowed to worship the śāligrām?

14. Mean himself, he has a mean job,

he is from a mean family and from a mean house.

The Vedas and Puranas have explicitly proclaimed,

o brothers, that a Shudra shall not touch the sacred stone.”

15. After the Brahmins had thus vent their ire,

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they went to stop Raidās:

“You should remain happy just remembering Hari’s name,

but never must you worship the śāligrām.

16. If you want to live in this town,

you must not deceive anyone.”

The king tried to stop the Brahmins,

but they did not obey him.

Raidās told them: “Listen, friends,

it is not important what I am or what you are.

High or low is just your invention,

only love and devotion please the lord”.

17. The Brahmins ignored the king’s decree

and were only concerned with themselves.

They refused to accept the king’s order,

and threatened to kill themselves in the court.

— Five —

Then the king called Raidās,

who went to see him along with his companions.

The king said: “Listen, Raidās;

the Brahmins are disturbed and make a lot of noise.” (Ms. 26)

1. The Dubey-s, Tivari-s and Chaubey-s came running,

the Vyasa-s, Acharya-s and Pathak-s too came.

Young and old, all gathered there,

leaving Raidās alone to argue.

2. They sat with the Baghelā king,

on the place where royal decrees were issued.

The whole town gathered to witness the spectacle,

as there was no charge for this entertainment.

The Brahmins gathered in large numbers,

while Raidās was all alone.

3. Five landlords came and tried to protect him,

but the Brahmins ignored them and roared in anger.

Then Raidās came forward,

and the king and the people were pleased to see him.

4. He placed a rug on the ground to sit down,

like the moon that glows

in the midst of stars and looks so attractive -

nothing is as great as the glory of devotion (bhajan).

5. Raidās spoke soft, calm words:

“For what fault do you bother me?”

The Brahmins said: “Listen, Shudra,

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why do you disgrace our religion?

6. We are the teachers to be revered by all,

but now people listen to what you say.

We organize donations and worship.”

Raidās replied: “Listen to me, Brahmins.

You deceive the king and the people;

you leave the right path and take them on the wrong path.

Your teachings bring confusion,

without the name of Rām nobody can be saved.

Look in all the sacred scriptures, and see

if there is salvation without the Name!

Would a king ever give up his kingdom?”

Then the Brahmins replied to Raidās: (Ms. 26)

“If you do not listen to our instructions,

you will load a heavy burden of sin on your shoulders.

7. When you lay hands on the śāligrām,

Śrī Jagannāth, the Lord of the universe, trembles.

When you bathe the image in holy water,

it is as if you pour vile liquor over it.

8. When you offer tulsī, chandan and flowers,

there is no sin equal to that.

If you serve him breakfast (bāl bhog), it is like shedding tears on him.

A rājbhog organized by you is like offering meat.

9. If you offer incense, a lamp or a light,

no one will believe that any good will come of it.

Respect the rules laid down in the Śruti and Smriti -

for righteous people there is neither victory nor defeat.”

(Raidās replied:)

1. “I do not care for victory or defeat,

I only speak about the Supreme God (pūran brahman).

2. Hari does not care for high or low,

He is pleased only with true service.

3. Whatever my guru told me to do,

that way of worship (dharma) I respect.

4. I will not give up the worship of the śāligrām;

even death I shall accept for true service. (Ms. 26)

10. What will you do with such a dharma,

that will surely cast you into the pit of hell?

Your dharma simply tells you that

food should be given to everyone.

11. Remember Hari in your heart, do not delay;

even if it hurts, control your five senses.

Do not speak ill of others.

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happily, happily sing Hari’s praise.“ (The Brahmins replied:)

12. “Listen to what we are saying,

if you know what is good for you.

In a low caste you were born,

you have no right to perform rituals.” (Ms. 26)

Raidās replied:

“Brothers, true devotion is far from you.

You are caught up in the discussion about high and low,

and the path of Hari is far from you. (Ms. 26)

13. The Bhil woman 16 offered half-eaten fruit,

knowing that she had love for Hari in her heart.

Therefore, I am not afraid of your threat of sin

and I sing of Nārāyan with great love.”

14. The Brahmins said: “Listen, Raidās.

Have no illusion about liberation.

In the tretā yug, a Shudra performed ascetic penances, and for this

transgression a Brahmin had to die 17.

15. But then the Lord shot an arrow,

that revived the Brahmin and killed the Shudra.

Since the earliest times Brahmins have been respected,

and even more so in this Kaliyug.” (Ms. 26)

“I do not desire to perform asceticism or go on pilgrimage,

my refuge is Rām alone,” Raidās replied.

“Nobody will touch an untouchable,

How can he become like a Dahmā Brahmin?”

(Ms. 26)

16. “I make no distinction between high and low,

for Hari himself eats the food left by cowherds.

Even when Brahmā came to eat food that had been left behind,

he did not get any because Krishna deceived him.

17. Through the mercy of the saints

and the grace of God I can talk like this”.

As is clearly said in the Veda and the Bhāgavata,

so has Anantadās given his story.

18. Devotion is pleasing to Rām -

No one knows the reason why.

He who knows, finds liberation,

and then caste has no importance anymore.

— Six —

16 Shabari in the Rāmāyan.

17 Shambhu in the Rāmāyan.

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1. The Brahmins said, full of confidence,

“Keśava will uphold our righteousness.

The seer Bhrigu struck the Lord with his foot, and

Hari’s body became even more glorious.

2. Parashurām killed all the Kshatriya-s,

and gave us the right to rule on twenty-one occasions.

Nor did we disappear from the hearts of the Pāndava-s,

who offered food for eighty-six thousand of us.”

3. Raidās said: “Listen, Panda-s.

Kicking the Lord does not make one become great.

You do not know anything about ruling and

therefore things kept turning against you.

1. With eighty-six thousand food offerings the sacrifice was not complete,

as Krishna’s conch was blown only because of a true Shudra 18.

There is only one result for those who honour you:

their service takes them straight to hell.

2. You sent king Nriga to hell by pronouncing a curse on him,

but Krishna freed him 19.

Truly, Durvāsas was your teacher, but

Hari is the refuge and rescuer of his devotees 20.”

6. When they heard this the Brahmins were furious,

as if ghee had been poured on a blazing fire.

“How can a cow and a sow be the same?

Everyone checks on her milk before drinking.

7. A fish from the Ganges does not lose its stench,

can you produce a calf by bathing a dog?

How can a swan and a crow become equal,

and aren’t glass and gold distinguished carefully?

8. There is a difference between camphor and oilcake 21,

everyone knows this for sure 22.

Even if a Shudra masters his senses,

nobody will worship his feet!

18 This refers to the account in the Mahābhārat where Yudhisthir could perform a

sacrifice successfully only when Krishna’s conch would be blown by itself,

indicating that all important people had been fed.

19 In the Bhāgvat, book 10, Nriga is mentioned as a generous donor to Brahmans. One

day, by mistake, he donated the cow of another Brahman and for that sin he was

sent to live in a well as a lizard, but Krishna liberated him.

20 This refers to the episode in the Mahābhārat, in which Durvāsas was ‘used’ to

destroy the Pāndava-s, whom Krishna protected.

21 The cake that is left after pressing mustard-oil is only good to feed the cattle.

22 Lit.: ‘the Vedas and the entire world know this’.

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9. Even if a Brahmin is very corrupt,

the king and the queen will honour him.”

When he heard this, Raidās too got angry and said:

“Hari can even abandon kings and queens.

10. He abandoned Duryodhan,

and preferred to eat the simple food of the house of Vidur.

Rām is not your private property 23,

anyone giving all can have Him.

Raidās and the śāligrām

11. Bring a śāligrām 24 and put it here.

Whoever can summon it will be the true devotee.

It will go to the person it truly loves.”

This was the strategy Raidās used.

12. The Brahmins agreed: “Bring it here,

if this is what you really want!”

Raidās was overwhelmed with shyness,

as it was brought on its throne. (He prayed:)

13. “If you are truly the Lord of the triple world,

then come and sit in the lap of your devotee.”

The Brahmins said: “Come here, my Lord,

we are yours, supreme Brahman.”

14. They recited the Vedas with steady voices,

but Keśava didn’t pay any attention to them.

They repeated the Gāyatrī mantra with concentrated mind,

and invoked all the other gods (dharma).

15. Raidās kept repeating only one verse,

as the whole day passed without offering any food.

A full three and half pahar-s had gone by,

but no one had won or lost.

16. Raidās kept offering the verse as food,

all excited with love and tears filling his eyes.

When Hari saw this act of compassion,

the śāligrām leapt up into Raidās’s lap.

17. The devotee Raidās kept holding it to his chest,

while the king and the people were greatly pleased.

Everyone shouted ‘well done’, and

the defeated Brahmins went away, hiding their faces.

18. They did not show their faces, hiding,

as if for six months they had been suffering from fever.

23 Lit.: ‘Rām did not come to your side’.

24 In the Bhaktamāl, it is the king who is said to organize the contest.

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Although Raidās had won, he did not become proud,

seeing the Brahmins melting away like water from sweets.

19. In every age the Lord pats his devotees on the back.

the glory of devotion is described as endless.

Hari himself sings the praise of the greatness of devotees,

who can be equal to them?

20. Ananta, the devotee, worships the Lord,

ignoring all ideas of caste.

Hari takes no account of high or low,

real devotion gives influence over Him.

— Seven —

Raidās and queen Jhālī 1. An interval of five years passed

and now I come to the stories of Chittor.

Queen Jhālī was a very intelligent woman,

a perfect example of charity, religious duty and good company.

2. All enjoyments were available to her

but she had no mālā, mantra or guru.

One day the desire came to her mind,

that she would be happy to find initiation.

3. She called a devotee and asked him,

from whom she should receive initiation.

The devotee told her:

“In my mind I have searched everywhere

4. There are so many devotees, what can I say?

Let me tell you about one, your majesty.

Go quickly to the city of Kashi,

if you have any trust in my words.

5. There is a julāhā named Kabīr,

whom you can consider as Shukdev embodied.

He truly recognizes the nirguṇ Brahman,

you should ask him for initiation, Majesty.

6. There is also Raidās the chamār,

who is like an incarnation of Nārad.

I feel shy but I should call him a Shūdra,

but even kings are eager to come and see him.

7. Brahmins do not understand this mystery,

but both Kabīr and Raidās are avatār-s of Vishnu.”

When she heard this, the queen was very pleased,

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and arrangements were made for her journey 25 to Banaras.

8. Brahmins wanted to go with her, in the conviction

that the queen would receive initiation from them.

Jhālī tried to stop them, but they insisted on going,

for the initiation and for a bath in the Ganges.

9. They came to Kashi after twenty days

and the queen secretly sent two messengers:

“Go and tell the respected Kabīr,

that Jhālī wants to receive initiation from him.”

10. But Kabīr was very hesitant:

“I don’t have any business with kings or queens.”

He was dressed in a torn blanket

when the queen arrived to see him.

11. She saw all the dispassionate nirguṇ devotees,

who were seated devoid of all attachment.

She saw the hut made from grass

and covered with torn patched robes.

12. There was no worship, no offering, no gods or goddesses,

contemplation of God was their service.

This service the Lord knows

and some rare ascetics understand it.

There was no plate, pitcher, money or cloth,

and not even water for a second day.

But this nirguṇ devotion concentrating only on the Name

could not appeal to the queen.

13. When the queen saw the austere lifestyle,

she felt a hesitation in her heart.,

and she went to the home of Raidās, the chamār,

to see how he did things there.

14. She went there quickly,

and saw an enclosure with a high gate.

When she saw the temple she was very happy,

because Gobinda was always seated there.

15. More than sixty canopies were spread out, and

the queen had never before seen such happiness.

There were golden pots and silken cloths

and plenty of small pots filled with perfume.

16. Cymbals were ringing and drums beating,

and there were all sorts of flower garlands.

There she saw the master, Raidās,

sitting surrounded by many heads of monasteries.

25 Verse 7.7.: ḍerā denā, lit., ‘to arrange for the camping...’.

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17. He was wearing fine clothes and had a radiant body,

while from his lips came sweet speech.

At that moment all pride left the queen,

and she prostrated herself in front of the devotees.

18. She grasped the feet of Raidās,

and he placed his hands on her forehead.

The queen was very happy,

participating in the fellowship of the devotees.

— Eight —

1. None of the Brahmins knew this secret,

the queen did not reveal that she had received this initiation.

Jhālī donated much money

to cover the expenses and returned home.

“Take this money

and spend it in beautiful celebrations.”

Then Raidās sponsored some more festivals

and fed all the devotees.

2. When they had gone five kos out of the city,

her Brahmins started to grumble.

The priests had heard that she had accepted a mālā, and they turned black in anger.

“You have accepted initiation from a low caste man,

you did not bother about caste and tradition,

accepting the mantra and the garland.”

The Brahmins became like the god of death.

3. Their anger flamed up like fire,

they picked up stones and gashed their heads.

But the queen grasped the reins, she turned back

and arrived in Banaras.

4. The angry Brahmins cursed her, saying:

“Your jap will be fruitless.”

Some of them threw down their almanacs in anger,

others threw off their sacred threads.

5. Some burnt themselves with a piece of iron,

while Keśava Pande cut his wrist.

Some sat in the burning sun,

while others threw themselves on the ground.

6. Some of them bit their tongues,

some of them tore their clothes to pieces.

Some of them swallowed lumps of poison,

some of them ran off to the court.

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7. Some of them sliced open their bellies with daggers,

some of them threatened they would kill themselves in the king’s house.

Some gave their blood as offering

and some refused to drink water.

8. They arrived at the chamār’s house to kill themselves.

At this tumult the Baghelā king came out running,

While the queen arrived, hiding in a shawl and

regretting what she had done.

9. “Only the Lord can protect me in this crisis,”

Jhālī said, again and again.

If one does good which turns out badly,

the doer has no power over this.

10. The whole city of Kashi turned up,

and people were relating what had happened before.

How the śāligrām came into the lap of Raidās,

and how both the king and the people saw this miracle. (Ms. 26)

Saying “killing and beating’ won’t complete your work”,

the king tried to stop the quarrel.

The great Raidās is a saint;

it is a great sin to hurt him.

If you want to enjoy greater respect,

then you must immerse your body in love.”

(Ms. 26)

11. A close devotee of Hari, the barber Sen

came from the Bādhau fort.

The Brahmins did not accept his intervention,

but he insisted and was ready to die.

With great efforts he made them understand,

but they refused to listen to him.

All the saints and ascetics confirm this

and even the great Kabīr has spoken like this.

But the furious Brahmins went on hurting themselves,

and no religious argument could convince them.

Then Raidās had an idea

and he told the saints what to do.

If people do not listen to true words,

they can never find success in life. (Ms. 26)

12. He dispatched one of his devotees,

to go and ask Kabīr for advice.

“The Brahmins have come to kill themselves -

give me advice, what should I do!”

13. Kabīr said: “They will not listen to what you say,

as they have been eating from the hands of kings.

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Even if Brahmā were to teach them they would not listen.

You and me are beneath their notice.”

Very humbly the devotees replied:

“You are like Brahmā for us.

All good advice always comes from you,

for those who carefully listen to you.”

Then Kabīr spoke in this way,

removing all their doubts:

“Do not be afraid, Hari will take care of everything,

the Brahmins will get tired and give up.”

(Ms. 26)

14. Leave it to the śāligrām to decide,

if you want to be freed from this problem.

From age to age the devotees can testify:

‘Do not be afraid! Take Hari as your protector’.

15. Kabīr gave them this instruction

and Raidās gratefully accepted.

The Brahmins remained intent upon killing themselves

and did not listen to anything about knowledge and meditation.

16. Raidās instructed them:

“Listen, whatever the Lord says you must do,”

and the śāligrām was brought.

Everyone was pleased with this.

17. Suddenly the quarrels disappeared,

and the devotees resumed their meditation.

They accepted as true,

what God himself had said.

— Nine —

1. After causing that first incident,

the Brahmins came to do the same thing again.

Reciting the Vedas, sacred formulas and the Gāyatrī,

they created a loud noise for a long time.

2. The devotees Raidās and Sen kept

singing of Hari’s qualities, shedding tears.

In their chariots the gods descended,

accompanied by their attendant deities and celestial beings.

3. The śāligrām spoke after deep reflection

while all men and women listened:

“Raidās is my genuine devotee,

false are the Brahmins who pester him.”

4. Hari spoke thus three times,

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and everyone’s worry disappeared.

‘Long live Raidās’ was shouted all over and

all the spectators went to their homes.

5. In every age victory goes to the devotees.

With a shower of flowers the celestials returned to heaven.

The Brahmins too left as if defeated in gambling,

knowing their high status had been insulted.

6. They went away abashed, twice defeated,

as if they had begged for a favour for their sister or mother.

At the auspicious dev-uṭṭhān festival 26

the queen received initiation.

7. The conflict had taken place on a full moon day

and after that Jhālī went back to her own country.

She tried to concentrate fully on the Lord

and set her mind on serving the devotees. (Ms. 26)

Raidās and Kabīr In the evening Sen and Raidās

went to see Kabīr.

Kabīr, Sen and Raidās met

and they were in great ecstasy, as with endless sunlight. (Ms. 26)

8. Kabīr paid them homage and gave them a seat, saying:

“I have heard the news about you.”

They sincerely praised one another,

and all the other devotees touched their feet.

9. Hari is true, true are Hari’s devotees,

meditation on Hari destroys all distress.

After that they sang religious songs

and in ecstasy they feared nothing.

10. They stayed awake in meditation for half the night,

and after that the ascetics went to sleep.

But the three devotees remained sitting there,

And Vishnu appeared to them in His four-armed form.

11. Raidās got up and fell at Hari’s feet,

while Sen said: “Here I am, in your protection.”

Kabīr had the vision while seated,

and the four-armed Lord entered his heart.

12. Kabīr’s mind was set on the nirguṇa God,

The opinion of others appeared useless to him.

“I know that birth and death are God’s arrangement,

and I do not pay attention to them.” (Ms. 26)

26 The eleventh day of the bright half in November is very auspicious; then the gods

are roused from their slumber (and marriages begin to be organized).

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Raidās started the discussion:

“We should realize that nirguṇa and saguṇa are the same.

We must think of saguṇa as of butter

and of nirguṇa as of heated ghee. (Ms. 26)

13. Sen and Raidās confirmed their faith in the saguṇa form,

while Kabīr believed in the nirguṇa Brahman.

They debated the matter for several hours

and Kabīr’s concentration was focused on the centre of his forehead 27.

Kabīr radiated his experience of the nirguṇa Brahman,

who entered into the heart of Raidās and Sen.

(Ms. 26)

14. The experience of the nirguṇa made their minds firm

and they confirmed their faith in Kabīr as their guru.

Sen and Raidās paid homage to Kabīr,

and returned to their homes.

The nirguṇa holds the whole creation,

saguṇa devotion is only part of the nirguṇa:

if one understands this, all doubts disappear.

Anantadās speaks through the grace of Hari:

"Devotion and grace are my protection.

In a dream I was instructed

to tell the stories of the devotees.

Three times a voice came to me

and so I understood the lives of the devotees.

There is not one letter wrong

and I am telling all that happened afterwards.

Even if I have endless speech,

the stories of the saints can never be told.

Even if every day I go on singing,

I shall never reach the end of the Supreme Brahman. (Ms. 26)

15. This is special about nirguṇa and saguṇa:

one should not have dogmatic views about them.

The nirguṇa does not waver or change,

while the saguṇa Hari protects his devotees.

16. It is as if saguṇa has the form of butter,

and nirguṇa is the heated ghee.

— Ten —

1. From that day Raidās began meditation on the nirguṇa,

and the bonds of the kohl of illusion disappeared.

He applied the kohl of kathā and kīrtan

27 Lit. ‘on the ṭīkā’ (in the centre of his forehead?).

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and the Indweller awoke in him.

2. In the way Shankara and Śeṣa taught,

so did Kabīr give his instruction.

When the mind climbs on the upward path,

one does not bother to look down anymore

3. After that he meditated in that manner.

In those days also a strong feeling came to Jhālī’s heart:

“If my gurudev would come to my house,

I could serve him in a proper way.”

4. If your guru never comes to your house,

your human birth remains useless.

Raidās and queen Jhālī Jhālī consulted the devotees.

She said what she thought and asked for their opinion.

5. The devotees said it was a very good idea:

“If you instruct us, we shall invite him.”

Jhālī said: “Speak to him with great humility.

Let him remember how close I am and let him come here.

6. A gardener waters plants and flowers,

and remains attached to what he has planted.

The clouds quench the thirst of numberless plants and flowers,

but the mother-of-pearl is thirsty only for the raindrops of Svāti.

7. As a mother nourishes her infant,

so the sadguru satisfies souls.”

She wrote her request in a letter

and gave instructions to the devotees.

8. The devotees departed without delay and

soon they arrived in the city of Kashī.

With great respect they greeted Raidās,

While looking at the gathering of saints around him.

9. They delivered the letter.

Raidās had it read out for him and accepted the invitation.

The devotees heard what was in the letter

and understood that the queen was very eager to see him.

10. The matter of the journey was discussed

and this news was brought to all the saints.

They said: “This is the way in which

the Lord himself gives an order”.

11. Considering the matter Raidās thought that

his big brother, Kabīr was like a guru.

Early in the morning he went to ask his advice.

Kabīr honoured him and asked him to sit down.

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12. Raidās told Kabīr about

the letter that was sent from Chittor.

“As you order me I will do:

Shall I go or just send a letter?”

13. When Kabīr gave his opinion,

Raidās agreed with him fully.

“It is Keśava’s order that you should go,

but remember to preserve your saintly attitude.”

14. When Raidās stood up and asked permission to depart,

Kabīr told him to start on the journey.

With Kabīr’s permission to go, Hari also gave permission.

15. In this way the devotee Raidās decided to go to Chittor.

— Eleven —

1. In the morning they started to walk,

the whole company concentrating on Hari.

Well behaved and absorbed in meditation,

many joined and followed the group.

2. With nirguṇa knowledge and concentration firm in their heart,

they meditated on the unproduced sound.

One should always take pleasure in the company of such people -

not only men, but also gods are attracted.

3. Wherever Hari’s devotees travel,

seeing them everyone finds happiness.

When Hari’s devotees lovingly sing songs of devotion,

everyone’s mind is ecstatic in love.

4. If devotees cross someone’s threshold,

then his evil deeds are destroyed and he finds liberation.

Showing great enthusiasm they make their love greater;

Whom can they not please?

5. Travelling like this many days passed,

while Jhālī was impatient to see him.

When they finally arrived near Chittor,

Raidās sent two of the devotees.

6. The devotees gave the message of Raidās,

and the queen was very thrilled:

“Blessed is this day and blessed is this hour,

when you came and gave me this message.”

7. Then also Raidās came near

and at first he made his camp in a garden.

The queen summoned all of her ministers,

and sent the entire capital to see him.

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8. Both simple and important people went to see him,

but the Brahmins were very resentful.

While everyone was happy,

the Brahmins died of jealousy.

The ‘additional’ lines 1-20 are

found only in manuscripts 25 and 27.

1. The queen came with all necessary provisions and sweets:

betel, perfume and coloured powder.

The chant of ‘hari bol’ resounded,

and the garden was transformed into the heaven Vaikuntha.

2. All sorts of kathā and kīrtan were performed,

and prasād was distributed to all.

Later it was decided to camp within the city,

that became the talk of the town.

3. The streets were decorated with silken sheets,

on which the guru would step while walking.

In this manner arrangements were made

and queen Jhālī congratulated the people.

4. Everything falls short of their greatness

when praising the guru and Gobinda.

Even giving your life does not make you free of debt,

anything else is of little importance.

5. The queen showed great enthusiasm

and arranged for food.

The Brahmins joined in to look for an opportunity

to disturb this happiness.

6. “This Shudra has been invited to be honoured,

and now the queen neglects her family Brahmins.”

But how can anyone spoil a work

that is in the hands of Rām?

7. The Brahmins came to the palace,

angry and full of frustration.

The queen said: “Why are the Brahmins behaving like this,

as if someone snatched away their fields and farms?”

8. They said: “You spoilt everyone,

creating division in the rājadharma.

All kings have always honoured Brahmins,

not caring for anyone else.

9. If you had to do something to earn merit,

you should first have come to us.

For a ritual, go to a Brahmin.

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all other people come after the Brahmins.

10. For matters where Brahmins are in charge,

you have now brought in an outcast as guru.”

The queen said: “Look here, brothers,

This is the way I prefer to do it.

9. One is mean if one’s actions are mean,

one is excellent if one performs meritorious deeds.

Excellence and meanness are in one’s actions,

in the human body alone there is no status at all.

10. Desire, anger, greed and the nine gates,

through these all humans are chamārs.

One who conquers these becomes excellent

and there who can speak of Brahmins or of famous Vālmīki-s?

11. Caste and family have no importance -

one who sings of Rām is dear to Rām.

You can achieve nothing, Brahmins,

get up and go home.”

12. The Brahmins had at first been frustrated,

now they became very angry and even frightened the queen.

“First give us our food,

and then we will agree with whatever you want.”

13. The queen said: “I do not like this,

why should I feed you before I feed my guru?”

At this, such a sharp dispute broke out

that Raidās had to send a devotee.

14. “For me there is neither loss nor victory,

just do whatever will make them happy.”

The queen understood and followed his advice.

Grudgingly she decided to feed the Brahmins.

15. Without enthusiasm she called the Brahmins,

and all that were in the city came running.

The Brahmins came running in order to get food,

all together there were more than seven hundred of

them.

16. They were very pleased at this,

eager to cook their food all day.

Excited they prepared the cooking ground 28,

ordering big earthen pots to be brought.

17. They took their bath leisurely,

while the devotees continued to sing the praises of Hari.

When the food was ready they started to eat,

28 Cleaning an area, as for cooking or worship, by smearing it with earth and cow

dung.

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removing their turbans and leaving their heads bare.

18. Raidās kept his mind concentrated in meditation,

and in contemplation he transcended his body.

Raidās seen everywhere

As in many mirrors you see the same body,

his transcending body was seen everywhere 29.

19. He sat down to eat with everyone and

Everywhere he could be seen.

All people were struck seeing this marvel,

for there were as many Raidās-es as there were Brahmins.

20. Somebody decided to run to the place where Raidās was camping

and there he found Raidās also.

Everyone shouted, ‘he is great, he is great’,

but the Brahmins hid their faces.

21. Embarrassment overwhelmed them all,

as they knew they had harrassed a real saint.

“If he should be angry at us,” they thought,

“he will reduce us to ashes.

22. We are sinners, he is a model devotee,

and his Lord is always present.

He is a saint, we are sinners,

we started a quarrel with a saint.

Hari is true, true are Hari’s devotees” -

in this manner the Brahmins expressed their regret.

23. ‘Hail hail, the Lord is great,

and so are his servants.

Caste and family are nothing’.

Thus the Brahmins were humiliated.

— Twelve —

1. Then everyone agreed that

they should go and touch Raidās’s feet.

They left immediately, in all humility,

and asked the queen Jhālī to come with them.

2. They thought: “How can we touch his feet?

We have committed so many sins.”

From their houses to his hut they performed full prostration.

29 For the appearance in many bodies, see Pīpā parcaī, p. 180.

128

In this way they arrived, with fear in their heart.

3. Raidās said: “You wretched ones!

You are exalted and I come from a low caste.

how is it that you are prostrating yourselves before me?

You Brahmins, you will die of shame.”

1. The Brahmins just stood there, no words came out of their mouths,

while the Giver of happiness gives happiness to all.

The king and the people had all come,

eager to criticize the Brahmins.

5. The Brahmins made this humble request:

“What can we do to become free from this?”

Raidās spoke to them,

and told them the story of his previous birth.

6. “I too was a Brahmin, but I did not know Hari,

And because of that I was born in a Shudra’s house.”

He pulled out the sacred thread that was on his body.

Seeing this everyone came to him for protection.

7. “Devotion has made me pure in this world,

without devotion the entire world is a Shudra.

Caste and family have no importance.

It is by devotion that one crosses the sea of rebirth.

8. The Vedas and Puranas all proclaim that Vishnu himself

is in the power of bhakti. Hari himself proclaims the greatness of his devotees,

by the glory of their worship they have been placed above all.”

9. The devotee Raidās spoke in this way

and everybody agreed with him.

The Brahmins said: “You are our guru,”

they took out their sacred threads and threw them away.

10. “Put your hand on our forehead, Master,

we are your servants, you are the indwelling Lord.”

Then Raidās made them his disciples.

Showing compassion, he placed his hands on their foreheads.

11. The king and the people were very delighted,

shouting ‘bravo, bravo’, they felt their love grow.

People are nothing without love for the Lord,

those who flirt with other things go to the city of Death.

12. Those who see the saints and the Lord as one,

they reach the far shore.

Anantadās has told the true story,

in which the mystery of bhakti is expressed.

13. “Many times Hari has given witness

and therefore I composed these parcai-s of the saints.

129

There is not one letter wrong:

good people know this, while ignorant people are irritated.

14. Even if you have endless human lives

and numberless tongues

and sing every day of the new glories of Hari,

you cannot understand the ways of the Lord.

15. God is like the ocean and I am the drop,

and yet nobody is able to find Him.

Who can sing the praises of Hari, if even

gods, men, Śeṣnāg and devotees are exhausted doing it?"

16. Anantadās has considered all this,

gaining great fortune by surrendering to His feet.

Look at the affection of

those who love others on this earth.

Sandal, betel and malāgari colour:

they forget themselves and make others beautiful.

Saints only think of others,

when they live among the people.

They enjoy and distribute the nectar of Rām,

there is no selfishness in them. (Ms. 25)

Thus is completed the parcaī of the devotee Śrī Raidās.

130

Books quoted

François Bernier, Travels in the Mogul empire, AD 1656-1668, (tr. by Irving

Brock), (1891), 3rd ed. 1972, Oxford University Press, London.

Winand M. Callewaert and Peter Friedlander, The life and works of Raidās,

Manohar, Delhi, 1992.

Winand M. Callewaert (in collaboration with Swapna Sharma and Dieter

Taillieu), The Millennium Kabīr Vāṇī. A Collection of Pad-s, Manohar

Publications, New Delhi, 2000, 629pp.

[Bib1] Winand M. Callewaert, The Hagiographies of Anantadās. The Bhakti Poets of North India, Curzon, 2000, 414pp.

[Bib2] The “Earliest” Pad of Mīrā (1503-1546), in: Winand M. Callewaert,

From Chant to Script, D.K. Printworld, New Delhi, 2013, pp. 104-

119.Bib1

Pierre-Daniel Couté & Jean-Michel Léger, Bénarès. Un voyage d’architecture, an architectural voyage, ed. Creaphis, Paris, 1989.

Paul B. Courtright, Ganesh, Lord of obstacles, Lord of beginnings, Oxford

University Press, 1985.

Diana Eck, Banaras. City of light, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.

John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer, Songs of the Saints of India,

OUP, 1988.

Christopher Justice, Dying the good death. The pilgrimage to die in India’s holy city, Suny Press, New York, 1997.

Philip Lutgendorf, The life of a text. Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas, University of California Press, 1991.

J. Parry & M. Bloch, Eds, Money & the morality of exchange, Cambridge

university press, 1989.

Pothīpremambodha (1693, i.e. nearly two centuries after Raidās); a critical

edition of this work and a discussion of its date and origins can be found

in Bhagat Ravidās srodha pustak, GNDU Press, Amritsar, 1984.

131

Tadeus Pfeifer, Im Grass gruscht freundlich der Affe, 1989, von Loeper

Verlag, Karlsruhe, 1989 (translated into English by Suzanne Leu).

A.K. Ramanujan, Speaking of Shiva, Penguin classics, (1973), 1985 (the saints

quoted are from the 10th to 12th centuries).

A.K. Ramanujan, Hymns for the Drowning, Princeton Library of Asian

translations, 1981.

Rana P.B. Singh, Where cultural symbols meet. Literary images of Varanasi, Tara Book Agency, Varanasi, 1989.

Rana P.B. Singh, Ed., Banaras (Varanasi). Cosmic order, sacred city, Hindu traditions, Tara Book Agency, Varanasi, 1993.

Kedar Nath Vyas, Panchakroshātmak jyotirlinga kāshīmahātmya, (Hindi),

Gyanvapi, Varanasi, 1987.