How Buddhist Records Helped Recreate The History of India

How Buddhist Records Helped Recreate The History of India

By Jawhar Sircar

(Published in 'The Edition', 8th February, 2019)

       

           I thank the India Bhutan Foundation for having invited me to deliver a talk on a subject that is so close to my heart. For the last two decades I chose a rather unusual combination of subjects for my research, namely, History and Religion, and it feels satisfying to see some positive results emanating out of this combination. This is not the first occasion when I have expressed India’s indebtedness to Buddhist records for reconstructing Indian history in the last two centuries. Those who are familiar with this issue would be aware of the basic problem of deciphering history as an empirical discipline from materials that were never meant to serve as historical records or documents. I refer to Indian texts, more specifically the genre of sacred texts. We must remember that in ancient India which covers the period from 3500 BC to 1200 AD, i.e, more than four-fifth of India’s recorded history, the chronicling of events was primarily the task of what we call the Brahmanical intelligentsia that was also the keeper of religious traditions.

               For various reasons, history was not their focus and though we get large volumes of literature, primarily sacred, from the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Sutras, the Puranas and numerous commentaries thereof, we hardly get any historical narratives. The Puranas do recite genealogies and some parts are substantiated by facts, but they mix up a lot of fiction and religion and cannot, therefore, qualify as historical texts. They have, of course, been treated as source materials of history, but with a lot of caution and very selectively. Where India’s secular side is concerned, India was not known to have produced histories except rare ones like Kalhana’s Rajatangini in the 12^th century that chronicles the dynasties of Kashmir and some others. With the arrival of Muslim rulers, the emphasis changed and political records were kept quite rigorously and it is needless to say that during the colonial period, this was obsessive but one needs to be extremely careful about imperial bias and other failings.

              While it is not difficult to produce the history of India from the 12^th century onwards, there were considerable problems in delineating a linear history of India from the earliest historical period. India had completely forgotten even the grandeur of Harappan civilisation and its large cities on the Indus and its tributaries and distributaries like Mohenjo Daro, Harappa, Lothal that were built as early as 3500 BC and flourished for almost two millennia. The Vedic period has left behind almost no such direct material civilisation but archeology has been able to retrieve remains of pottery, metals, small towns and other evidence. The next major phase, that is personified by the great Gangetic kingdoms, the Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas have considerable material artefacts and architecture but much of the Buddhist glory was sadly forgotten in the land of its birth. In fact, the first two major discoveries of British archeology, i.e, the Amravati stupa, that Col. Colin Mackenzie had stumbled upon first in 1798, and the Ajanta caves that were discovered accidentally by a team of soldiers in 1819 are two of the grandest evidence of the efflorescence of Buddhist art and culture that had lapsed from human memory. Mackenzie returned to Amravati in 1816 as the Surveyor General of India as he knew that his earlier visit was quite superficial and spent four years in documenting the find and sketching the ruins. He made a presentation on Amravati before the Asiatic Society in Kolkata in 1819 with 85 illustrations, but he made the mistake of mistaking the site to be one of Deccan Jainism rather than of Buddhism. Ever after it was discovered, it took both the British and Indians several decades to understand the uniqueness of the art of Ajanta and hence, it was not incorporated into India’s historical timeline till the end of the 19^th century. That journey is another interesting story in itself.

         Both Ajanta’s discovery and Amaravati’s presentation were in the year 1819. This means that even two hundred years ago, 1817, there was no proper linearity in Indian history and there was, for instance, no idea of the glory of the Mauryas, the greatness of Ashoka and the magnificence of the Buddhist phase. Almost all the architectural grandeur of pre-Islamic India is represented by the mighty stupas at Sarnath and Sanchi and the ancient universities of Taxila and Nalanda. In 1817, their existence was not known or visible as they had been lying in ruins from centuries of neglect. They had become highly avoidable ruins that were dreaded because of snakes and ghosts. Buddhism had survived and prospered outside its homeland, but in its cradle and nursery its existence was forgotten. Today, we shall briefly touch upon the fascinating process though which India rediscovered her past in the next hundred years, bit by bit, and how Buddhist memory helped the process.

Let us quickly recapitulate some of the other major Buddhist monuments that were discovered during this exciting phase. The next significant discovery after Amaravati and Ajanta was in 1830, General Ventura uncovered the Manikyala Stupa at Taxila. This very ancient city, was said to be the capital of Parikshit, the grand-son of Arjuna of Mahabharata, and it had been an important Buddhist centre that the Jataka tales describe in great details.  Taxila had seen Darius of Persia and Alexander the Great. Taxila carried valuable evidence of several periods, pre-Mauryan, Indo-Greek and Kushan. This ancient centre of India’s first university had been destroyed by the Huns in the 5^th century AD and it lay in ruins for 1400 years. But how did the British find out what Indians had forgotten? One was their boundless curiosity and the other was their scorn for Indian concepts of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’, as well as for ghosts and evil spirits that prohibited Indians from venturing into ruins. Cobras, and other dangerous creatures that inhabited these ruins did not deter them either.

  More interesting is the fact that British scholars and archaeologists utilised Indian or Chinese texts, mainly Buddhist, to provide them with valuable clues to many historical sites. After all, James Rennell had used the writings of foreigners, i.e, classical European geographers like Pliny and Ptolemy to identify Pataliputra with modern Patna in his 1783 Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan. But, Alexander Cunningham, who later became the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India depended a lot on the testimony of Chinese pilgrims and their travel accounts of the Buddhist sacred places in India. By using the bearings and distances mentioned by travellers like Fa Xian and Xuan Zang, Cunningham succeeded in fixing the locations of many of the famous sites mentioned in ancient Indian texts and thus rediscovering them. These records, of course, had their own limitations which resulted in all kinds of controversies as, for instance, the identification of Kapilavastu. Here, for instance, the field of speculation was very wide because the bearings in the accounts of Chinese pilgrims were not consistent. While Nepal has claimed Tilaurakot as ancient Kapilavastu, we in India have identified it with Piprahwa-Ganwaria in Uttar Pradesh. And while it is true that freely occurring monastic seals of the first-second centuries CE which mention the Kapilavastu Sangha have been found at Piprahwah-Ganwaria, at Tailaurakot too, a terracotta sealing with 'Sa-ka-na-sya' ('of the Sakyas') in the Brahmi script has been reported. So, where exactly was Kapilavastu located is a question that neither archaeology nor literature can still answer to everyone’s satisfaction.

Cunningham unravelled the mighty Dhameka Stupa at Sarnath in 1835, which was cylindrical and quite unlike other hemi-spherical stupas. It marked the spot of the ‘Deer Park’, where Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining his enlightenment. The holiest of Buddhist sacred texts like the Vinaya Sutras and the Dhamma-Chakka-Pavattana Sutta contain the Lord’s message of the four noble truths that were delivered at this very spot. But it was James Prinsep’s remarkable decipherment of the Brahmi script two years later in 1837 that really shook history. The earliest messages of the Buddha and Buddhism were transmitted orally but when they were first recorded the script used to convey the Pali language was ancient or archaic Brahmi that was completely forgotten. For centuries, Indians had come across strange epigraphs or carvings on rocks and metal that none understood. What is more regrettable is that even the Maurya, the first emperors of India and Ashoka the great were almost gone and existed more in fables and legends rather that in written texts.

  The mystery was unraveled by epigraphist and scholar of numismatics, James Prinsep of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata.  As editor of the Society’s journal, he received all types of coins and copies of inscriptions from all over India for decipherment, translation and publication. He was intrigued by the strange unknown alphabets on the rock engravings of Allahabad and Delhi that lay in front of him. From the middle of the 1830s, he embarked on a serious mission to make sense of them. With extreme patience and his extraordinary command over other foreign scripts, he managed finally to decipher the words ‘Devanampiya Piyadasi’. This was the term by which Ashoka was addressed in the sacred texts and translated as “Beloved of the Gods of Gracious Mein”. Prinsep managed thereafter to decipher the Brahmi script in which most Ashokan rock edicts were inscribed and he produced the most solid form of historical evidence to establish that emperor Ashoka was truly a historical character. He had been mentioned in the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka by the same epithet, but he could now be fixed with historical accuracy: after a few hiccups. Prinsep assumed first that this Ashoka was a Sri Lankan king who used the same epithet. It was only when George Turnour, who had considerable knowledge of Lankan Buddhism, sent him correct evidence from Pali sacred literature did Prinsep  rectify his error and declare this monarch as Ashoka the great of Indian legends. 

After so many years of speculation, Ashoka Maurya was finally demystified and firmly established on the throne of Buddhism and India. This helped in joining the dots of the missing grandeur of India’s real heritage, for none personifies the plural soul of India more than him. If the Buddhist texts had not been there as a back up there are grave doubts as to how well we would have succeeded in establishing a credible history of ancient India. Cunningham’s subsequent discovery of Sanchi Stupa in 1851 that had been lost in our memory was the most educative of all our stupa sites. The restored stupa brings out the characters from the Jataka Tales that embellish the gateways. In 1854, Cunningham published the Bhilsa Topes which attempted to establish the history of Buddhism based on whatever architecture and archaeology evidence was available. Himanshu Prabha Ray mentions Sanchi with special emphasis in her significant work ‘The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation’.

Cunningham’s doggedness led him to rediscover and re-excavate Bodh Gaya in 1861 that Hamilton Buchanan had reported half a century ago as a place covered by a thick forest.Cunningham’s further discoveries in 1862-63 were as important in the treatment of historical amnesia. He, identified Ramnagar as the ancient ‘Ahich-chatra’; Kosam as the great ‘Kausambi’ and Sahet Mahet as the historic ‘Sravasti’.  British archaeologists could retrieve these jewels from our past mainly on the basis of Buddhist textual evidence.  The indefatigable Cunningham then moved to the Bharhut Stupa and physically uprooted large number of stone carvings from this site, in true imperial style, and transported them to Calcutta’s Indian Museum. They served there as a ‘classroom’ and exhibition of the excellence of Buddhist art and architecture. Succeeding generations of art historians, archaeologists, museologists and connoisseurs derived their education from these eloquent stones in Kolkata. Thus, within just eight decades, Buddhist architecture was suddenly brought back into our memory and served to stoke a strong sense of pride among Indians who were throughly demoralised by the systematic campaign of British rulers to belittle their past. These structures and sculptures of Buddhism compensated somewhat for the apparent lack of outstanding tangible cultural heritage that stared  at us where ancient Indian history was concerned, except the few temples like those of the Pallavas and Cholas, Vijayanagar and Jagannath.

Before concluding, we need also to appreciate that though Buddhism disappeared from large parts of India by the middle of the first millennium,  the Buddhist Pala dynasty of Bengal established their kingdom as late as the 8^th century and ruled till the 11^thcentury. It created the ‘Pala School of Sculptural Art’ and constructed massive architectural structures at Vikramshila Odantapuri and elsewhere. In fact, the Buddhist Vihara of Somapura in Paharpur, Bangladesh, that the Palas erected is considered to be the largest such structure in the Indian sub-continent and is now a “World Heritage Site”. What is interesting is that once Buddhism was rediscovered, however, several Indians of all religions came forward to celebrate its glory. In fact, Buddhism was proudly declared as an inseparable part of India and the Hindu cultural sphere, forgetting the centuries of persecution that Brahmanism had unleashed upon that religion — that managed to wipe off its grandeur and memory so effectively that they had to be rediscovered with tremendous effort.

The revival of Buddhism in the 20^th century was also due to great social reformers like Jyotiba Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar. Even Rabindranath Tagore’s creative genius drew inspiration from Buddha’s teachings on social equality and to him Buddha was the greatest human being. The poet laureate chose to prostrate himself before the image of the Buddha at Bodh Gaya which is the only time in his life that he ever did so. Tagore made a profound observation on the 8^th May, 1935, the Buddha Purnima Day: “Materials of different shades of Indian thought and culture are confined in Buddhist literature and due to the lack of intimacy with them, the entire history of India remains unfulfilled. Being convinced of it, cannot a few youths of our country dedicate themselves for the restoration of the Buddhist heritage and make it a mission in life?” Since then, a lot of research into the greatness of Indian Buddhism has been undertaken and the departments of Archelology, Numismatics, Ancient Indian History, Pali, Buddhist Studies and the like of many universities and both the central and state governments have re-discovered a lot. But we are yet to come up and declare in broad terms the debt that the discipline of Ancient Indian history and India as a nation owes to Buddhism in enriching our legacy with magnificent architecture, especially when Hinduism has so little of it between the third century BCE and the twelfth century in the Current Era. One cannot imagine India without Ashoka and had it not been for Buddhist records, he would have remained lost for ever.

(Please Click Here to Read on "The Edition" Website)

Modi’s surgical strikes bear resemblance to a game of Kabaddi--watch out for the next ‘raid’ by the PM

Modi’s surgical strikes bear resemblance to a game of Kabaddi--watch out for the next ‘raid’ by the PM

By Jawhar Sircar

(National Herald, 5 Apr 2019)

Narendra Modi’s record in office being quite pathetic and people having neither forgotten nor forgiven him for the economic mess that he created with his ‘demonetisation’ that caused havoc in the economy and destroyed livelihoods, it is hardly surprising that he has fallen back on faux nationalism as the cornerstone of his poll campaign.

Modi has been pining from ‘day one’ for a hallowed pedestal in India’s history and the single puerile act of Demonetisation ensured that he gets a slot, next to the reckless Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. His hastily implemented GST that he announced at midnight in Parliament in cheap imitation of Pandit Nehru’s Tryst with Destiny speech harassed an entire nation for months and years. This half-baked GST and the mindless Demonetisation caused growth to nosedive to such abysmally low levels that he had to let loose his ever-obliging coterie of economists and crafty mandarins to invent new and extremely doubtful new rules of growth measurement.

Job creation has hit the lowest level ever in 45 years and the spate of crude fudging and inventive apologia have failed to cover up the disaster. He is, therefore, pining to display his questionable machismo to deviate public attention from this messed-up reality and we have not even mentioned his failures to deal with agriculture, education, scientific research and many other spheres. In this crisis, the tragic attack at a convoy of para-military forces at Pulwama on the 14th of February that killed close to 50 CRPF jawans was a ‘gift’ to him from Jaish, as former RA&W chief AS Dulat has said, and the Indian Kashmiri suicide bomber was unbelievably ‘made-to-order’ for Modi.

As it shook the shocked nation, Modi resorted to his theatrical call to war — “we shall avenge!” and calculated hysterical outbursts like #EndPakistan and #IndiaWantsRevenge rent the air. No discussion took place on who was responsible for this terrible security lapse and hysteria was just synchronised on the media, fed obviously by a Machiavellian establishment. It almost coaxed the great leader to strike back, which he did on the 26th of February at Balakot in Pakistan — a 1.5 days’ war that is in keeping up with India’a great indigenous sport called Kabaddi.

Everything was over in a flash as the genuflecting media announced that an important target within Pakistan had been hit by the Indian Air Force and that 250 or even 300 Pakistanis had been killed. The government smirked in silence and the Air Force refused to give any number, even on repeated questioning.

It was clear that Modi’s regime had outsourced the whipping up of frenzy to a new breed of ever-obliging media. It accused everyone else of not being patriotic enough and branding these who raised common sense questions as anti-nationals. This was most surely the first private public partnership (PPP) of propaganda. The idea was to stun a disturbed nation with calculated overdoses of Goebbelsian fake news and freshly-brewed series of blood-curling hatred.

A game of Kabaddi

A word about Kabaddi — as the hit and run, zip-zap-boom ‘war’ at Balakot is best described. This sole-surviving indigenous game of India and Pakistan, Kabaddi, incidentally, outlasted the domineering colonial sports like football, cricket, hockey, tennis and the lot. Indians and Pakistanis love this very exciting game for the surge of blood that it pumps up and drops, both rather dramatically.

Under the rules, a lone attacker sneaks into ‘enemy territory’ with some aggressive choo-choo sounds and his mission is to simply touch any one of the players on that side — which then knocks the ‘hit’ person off from the game. The defending side is equally alert and its objective is to entice the attacker deeper into their territory and then grab the raider and pin him down.

It is all over in a flicker, with a lot of sound and fury on both sides, just as the Balakot skirmish was, where an Indian Air Force officer landed in Pakistan and was pinned down. Both sides enjoy that feverish excitement but, unlike Kabaddi, no one could really make out who won at Balakot — as both sides screamed that victory was theirs.

We need to understand that the extreme fundamentalists and the army who monopolise Pakistani politics and dominate society are indeed most benefitted by Modi’s regime. Its pronounced anti-Muslim acts and its calculated ambivalence to the recurring lynching of Muslims heats up a larger section of the Pakistani people, that then supports both terrorism and an anti-democratic polity.

The Pakistani Military-Mullah establishment just love every excess that the India regime indulge in and its uncontrollable paroxysms of anti-Kashmiri detestation, as these provoke reciprocal hatred for India, which strengthens the Pakistani establishment.

The poison that Zia-ul-Haq injected into the body of Pakistan in the 1970s was deeply regretted by secular and democracy-loving Indians until the present Indian government arrived, to match villainy with villainy.

Bitterness, hatred and war help only demented megalomaniacs on both sides and jumping the gun after Pulwama is exactly what the international conspirators desired. Modi appeared just too glad to oblige. It helped him foment dangerous ultra-nationalism on which he feeds, and gave him an opportunity to indulge in demagoguery, the only thing he has mastered.

The war option, however, ran out of steam obviously because it was much too dangerous for the world to permit two nuclear nations to slug it out. Modi soon realised that he would not be permitted to escalate his ‘war’ beyond a 1.5 day Kabaddi match as China would just not permit its ally, Pakistan, to be hit, beyond this token gesture. Russia was certainly not willing to have either America or China gaining from a war in its backyard. Even Trump must have displayed rare bouts of sense and must have conveyed that he would surely intervene, most forcefully.

Let us remember that Indira Gandhi had to convince every important world leader over several months to obtain their ‘no objection’ before she sent the Indian army into East Pakistan in 1971. Even so, the US Seventh Fleet came perilously close to intervention but she won the game of nerves.

Modi’s constant anti-minority terror techniques and his crackdown on Kashmiri Muslims have worried every important foreign leader, his embarrassing bear-hugs notwithstanding. All, except Israel’s Netanyahu — who, anyway, has blood on his hands and is charged for taking bribes. War was soon realised as a non-option and even imagined machismo that followed in lieu has its own limitations.

We need to remember that, under the circumstances, one more option always exists and this is communal riot — that invariably polarise voters.

It must not be allowed to happen suddenly, as it did in Gujarat in 2002 or in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. Well over a thousand people were killed in 2002 but till now no big leader could be fixed for inciting pogroms or for abetting the killers. This frightening option of communal riots is never closed in India and we need to remain on alert.

 (Please Click Here to read the article on National Herald's Website)

Maha Shivratri: Bengal has two Shiva traditions – of the potbellied peasant and the King of Kailash

Maha Shivratri: Bengal has two Shiva traditions – of the potbellied peasant and the King of Kailash

By Jawhar Sircar

(The Scroll.in, 4^th March,2019)

On the occasion of Maha Shivratri millions of Shiva devotees keep a fast all day and pray through the night. The festival, which falls on March 4 this year, is one of the holiest days in the Hindu calendar and the most important among the 12 Shivratris celebrated throughout the year. Some say this was the day when Shiva manifested himself in the form of a linga, and the Puranas mention that Shiva wed Parvati on this day. But why do Hindus celebrate this birthday or even the marriage, which was as tempestuous and interesting as most human marriages?

It is said that the planetary positions in the northern hemisphere are in such a conjunction on the day of Maha Shivratri that it is a potent catalyst, which can help a person improve their spiritual and other energies. Shiva himself is said to have declared to his wife Uma that if this date is observed, it could destroy the consequences of all sins and confer final liberation. Some actually believe that Sanskrit mantras like Maha-Mrityunjaya enhance their powers on this very night.

The rituals of Shivratri – literally Shiva’s night – have also been documented in several Kalpadrumas (hymns or incantations usually of Tantric origin) and Tithi Tattwas (Smriti texts the most famous ones ascribed to Raghunandan Bhattacharya of Bengal), and some appear quite Tantric in character.

In this small piece, however, we will not focus on rites, rituals or mantras of Shivratri but try to understand when this festival assumed importance among the masses of Bengal. The wedding of Shiva and Parvati is mentioned in the Puranas and in Sanskrit literature as in the writings of Kalidasa, but our concern is to trace when Shiva’s night began to be observed in Bengal at the level of the common man, not just the thin layer that represented the Brahmanical elite.

Shiva’s secure seat

Shiva remains a fascinating Hindu deity as he combines several contradictions –love and war; affection and vengeance; monogamy and sexual deviation; generosity and vindictiveness. Even the English educated urban youth, who usually keep a safe distance from what they view as “native” culture and religion, have now become his ardent fans thanks to authors like Amish Tripathi, who is famous for his Shiva Trilogy.

Let us also remember that Brahma lost his position in the original Hindu triumvirate – Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar (Shiva) – and manages with just one temple at Pushkar dedicated to him, among the millions of temples that dot the country.

Vishnu formed a grand alliance by absorbing nine deities through his Dashavatara (ten avatars) legend. But Shiva had no such problems as his seat in the great triad is quite secure. Shiva outlived even Indra, who exists now only as a suffix in names like Narendra and Dharmendra, and actually expanded his kingdom rather extensively. It stretches all the way from Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet to the tip of southern India, in Kanyakumari. There are a dozen jyotirlingas across India – from Kedarnath in Uttarakhand to Somnath in Gujarat; from Baidyanath in Jharkhand to Kashi Vishwanath in Uttar Pradesh, and in Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

Shiva was not originally a great Vedic deity like Varuna or Indra, though he did appropriate some of the qualities of Rudra, a Rigvedic deity. Yet Shivratri is said to have been worshipped for ages. The story of Raja Chitrabhanu of the Ikshvaku dynasty, who observed Shivratri, and the Ishana Samhita are quoted to prove its antiquity. Puranas, like the Shiva, Padma, Skanda, Matsya and Vayu are also cited. But they refer to Shiva’s mahatmya in general, not necessarily to this ratri or night.

Shiva in Bengal

Then Bengal has its special problems and Shiva had to go through major humiliation in the medieval period. Bengal’s Mangal Kavyas – a group of Bengali Hindu religious texts, composed more or less between the 13th century and 18th century – celebrated the defeat of the great Puranic deities of North India such as Shiva of Kailash and even Durga at the hands of the gods and goddesses of the lowest strata like Chandi, Dharma and Manasa. For instance, in the texts, Shiva, the king of Kailash, was defeated repeatedly by the local snake goddess Manasa.

We also need to recall a story of Kalketu, the hunter, who came out of the forests in the Middle Ages to set up a kingdom, where agriculture would be the mainstay not hunting.

In simple terms, Bengal crafted its own narrative between the 15th century and 17th century, when more and more persons moved from their earlier professions of hunting, gathering, fishing and herding cattle to agriculture and settled life.

The Shiva model that finally succeeded in Bengal was actually the humble peasant of Shivayana literature. He is a potbellied peasant, who smokes ganja and goes around dancing with his ganas or companions, and is chased around the village by an angry Parvati, broom in hand. The peasant Shiva became an instant hit among the newly-emerging farmers of medieval Bengal. It is this democratisation of worship that distinguishes Bengal from other provinces.

But the pre-agricultural past of Bengal was not forgotten. The primary tale of Shivratri still focuses on a hunter, who climbed the branch of a bael tree on Shivratri. He happened to throw leaves throughout the night, quite inadvertently, upon a Shiv linga that was at the foot of the tree. When he died, Shiva’s hordes fought with Yama’s messengers for the body, which was taken directly to heaven, as Shiva wanted to reward him for his act of piety on the night of Shivratri.

It was later in the 18th century that Shiva cults from North India managed to establish the pan Indian Shiva in Bengal once again. Among them were the Naths such as Gorakshanath and Minanath, and Dashnamis, who set up the Tarakeshwar temple in West Bengal along with other temples. Rajas and zamindars like the Punjabi family of Burdwan Raj patronised Shiva and established many temples in Bengal too.

Shivratri celebrations

Then how old is the celebration of Shivratri in Bengal? The fact is that while many of our deities are quite ancient, many of their present festivals like Shivratri, could be fairly recent. We found that the worship of both Saraswati and Vishwakarma can be traced to just a century-and-a-half, once all classes of Bengalis realised that education ensured a decent livelihood and that the factory system brought jobs and economic prosperity. The problem is that Indians use the word pracheen or ancient quite vaguely. A hundred-year-old temple is ancient and so is Harappa of 5,000 years ago.

But we can still safely presume that in Bengal Shivratri must have been celebrated as a mass-level festival for more than 200 years. This is fairly old when we compare it to many others such as the community worship of Durga or Ganesh Chaturthi that were begun to be celebrated only a little more than a century ago.

John Murdoch, who complied the earliest serious and detailed studies of Indian festivals wrote in 1904 that “notwithstanding its reputed sanctity, it is evidently quite modern”. In Bengal, Shivratri seems to have been adopted only in the late 18th or early 19th centuries when Bengali well-educated gentlefolk started reinforcing male patriarchy as soon as they became prosperous under British rule.

This is the age when Sati increased and widows were treated cruelly or banished to Kashi Vrindavan. Jamai Sasthi – a festival dedicated to the son-in-law – was the rage and all socio-religious energies were directed at husbands – praying for a good one was just part of this trend.

Thus we have two Shiva traditions that run parallel to each other in Bengal – one that loves the poor but jolly peasant Shiva or Bholanath, and the other that prays to the King of Kailash.

One more issue is that Bengalis often wonder how this God of the cold Himalayas could manage to survive with just a single piece of tiger skin around his waist. As is well known, Bengalis are terrified of the cold and they quickly put on mufflers and monkey caps as soon as the temperature drops below 25 degrees Celsius.

(Please Click Here to read thearticle on The Scroll.in Website)

An Old Game of Thrones

An Old Game of Thrones

Narendra Modi has only two diversionary options before him

By Jawhar Sircar

(Published in The Telegraph, 25.03.19)

Those who are wondering what happened on February 26 at Balakot and how an Indian air force pilot fell captive soon after may recall the game of kabaddi. It is the only indigenous game of India and Pakistan that remained alive in spite of the takeover by colonial sports like cricket, football, hockey, tennis or badminton. Not only did it survive, but it also staged a remarkable comeback. Both Indians and Pakistanis enjoy that surge of adrenaline every time ‘their raider’ sneaks into enemy territory and ‘tags’ or knocks out one or more targets — even as the entire opposing team tries its best to grab the raider and pin him down. Unintelligible sounds mark the lightning-fast game, much like the din that was raised by several Indian television channels — the Pakistanis must have gone through similar excitement. But the striking difference between kabaddi and the air raid at Balakot is that in the latter nobody could make out who knocked out whom.

Patriotism invariably rises to abnormal levels every time the home side goes to war or is attacked, and the nation state invariably capitalizes on this social psyche to consolidate its grip over the populace. But the depths to which ‘patriotic television anchors’ took the discourse — posturing belligerently, demanding immediate retribution, accusing people of being ‘anti-national’ — were unprecedented. They declared that 250 or even 300 Pakistanis had been killed, although the Indian regime was shrewd enough not to mention any number. Narendra Modi and his men seemed to have outsourced the whipping up of frenzy to a new breed of obliging media. The idea was to stun a disturbed nation with overdoses of fake news that would breed hatred. The social media pumped in suspicious footage of mass burials to prove that India’s greatest leader had indeed killed so many.

And that is precisely the point. The leader needs to face his people before the polls with some awe-inspiring message — his record is rather pathetic. People have not forgotten the economic devastation that resulted from Modi’s Tughlaq-style demonetization and the hastily implemented goods and services tax. Together they managed to drag employment down to the lowest level in 45 years, and so miserably is the regime faring where gross domestic product growth is concerned that new rules had to be declared to establish the leader as infallible. There are other failures, as in agriculture. Even Modi knows that these post-truths may not be gulped down easily by voters and, therefore, there are only two diversionary options to retain Delhi.

The first is to go in for a full-fledged war with Pakistan, which, anyway, is being fought in daily instalments along the border for years. The second option is to ensure that riots take place, for they would be likely to incline the majority community towards the leader and the Hindutva brand. As if on cue, the Pakistani establishment — which is certainly not coterminous with the Pakistani people — presented the Indian regime with the perfect alibi — at Pulwama, on February 14. An Indian Kashmiri suicide bomber killed 40 members of the paramilitary forces. No responsibility was fixed for the gravest security lapses and no heads rolled. Fundamentalists who dominate Pakistani politics and the army need the belligerence of religious zealots in India to sustain their own hegemony. There has been no looking back since Zia-ul-Haq demonstrated in the late 1970s that the hate-India campaign could be effective in invoking Islamic extremism and terror. The purveyors of this attitude must have been delighted when India ushered in its first Hindu Right government in 2014, for it could represent similar principles of religious intolerance. The lynching of Muslims or the situation in Kashmir could provoke hatred for India, which strengthened the establishment. Tragically, increasingly larger sections of otherwise peace-loving citizens moved closer to the extremists.

Returning to the war option, Modi knows that he cannot pull it off: China would flash the red card, Russia the yellow card and even Trump would intervene. The Modi government’s anti-minority stance and its policy in Kashmir have alienated him from every international leader. The hatred for minorities that the Hindu Right has injected into the Kashmir debate and the army’s high-handedness in quelling civil unrest have shocked sane people everywhere, including in India.

The possibility of communal riots looms over us.

(PleaseClick Here to read the article on The Telegraph’s Website)

Modi’s Unheroic Nationalist Idol

Modi’s Unheroic Nationalist Idol

By Jawhar Sircar

(16 Feb 2019, National Herald)

(Modified English version of  Bengali article published in Ananda Bazar Patrika on 5th Feb 2019)

      On December 30, last year, we were treated to the most unusual spectacle of the Prime Minister of India sitting on the floor or a cell of a jail, his legs crossed over each other, and his palms joined in prayer. He was, however, not praying to God — he was actually worshipping his guru, Veer Damodar Savarkar, who had once been imprisoned in this cell and his eyes were transfixed on his portrait that was propped up a few feet away. Savarkar, who coined the term ‘Hindutva’, is regarded as the father of this ideology and it was he who led generations to dream of and to agitate for a Hindu Bharat.

        The prison that Narendra Modi was visiting was the Cellular Jail of the Andamans, the dreaded Kala Pani that India can never forget. It was here that hundreds of freedom fighters were incarcerated, the cream of India’s youth, and except one, none of them is known to have ever begged the British for mercy. And the only one who pleaded with the Viceroy, repeatedly and fervently, to please release him from jail was Savarkar, Modi’s hero.

        The Government of India’s 1975 publication entitled Penal Settlement in Andamans records on page 213 VD Savarkar’s mercy petition of 14th November 1913, addressed to the British government. Savarkar’s fervent plea was “if the government in their manifold benevolence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government.”

Without mentioning this abject surrender to the British, Modi tweeted “I visited the cell where the indomitable Veer Savarkar was lodged. Rigorous imprisonment did not dampen Veer Savarkar’s spirits and he continued to speak and write about a free India from jail too.” Incidentally, the BJP government has already named the main airport of Port Blair in the Andamans after Savarkar and much of the ‘sound and light’ show at the Cellular Jail focusses on him — not on the countless freedom fighters who underwent the trauma of the toughest form of imprisonment without ever breaking down. Many, in fact, died within these premises.

          What we need to recall on the 68th anniversary of the promulgation of the India’s Constitution, is that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS, that formed the Bharatiya Janata Party that rules India today, was opposed to the national flag and the Indian secular polity. It had not even participated in the most important stage of India’s freedom struggle, the Quit India movement, and KB Hedgewar, the founder and chief of the RSS, had issued clear orders to his cadre not to cooperate with Gandhi. CP Bishikar, the biographer of Hedgewar, quotes him as having said, “Patriotism is not only going to prison. It is not correct to be carried away by such superficial patriotism.” In fact, records preserved in India’s National Archives mentions that certain sections of the British police considered the RSS as friends who were loyal to them.

        In August 1947, just before the day when India finally attained Independence, the RSS’s mouthpiece, Organiser, declared that the Indian Tricolour “will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.” If three is evil, is the Hindu Trimurti also evil? Two earlier issues of the Organiser, of 17th and 22nd July 1947, had also mentioned the RSS’s opposition to the national Tricolour flag. The second RSS supremo, MS Golwalkar, who was the undisputed leader, had been quite vociferous in his opposition.

In his book, Bunch of Thoughts. Golwakar had stated quite clearly: “Our leaders have set up a new flag for the country. Why did they do so? It just is a case of drifting and imitating...Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly, we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds.” Guru Golwakar was perhaps referring to the saffron ‘split flag’ of the RSS, known as the Bhagwa Dhwaj, that it wanted to foist as the national flag in lieu of the nation’s culturally-composite tricolour.

          Had Sardar Patel not banned the RSS for 18 months in 1948-49 after Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu Mahasabha fanatic (the RSS, incidentally, celebrated the heinous murder), the RSS may never had changed its stand.

It was only when Sardar Patel arrested RSS cadre in their hundreds that Golwalkar was finally compelled to profess “loyalty to the Constitution of India and the national flag” in July 1949.

It is tragic to witness how the RSS and the BJP now terrorise those who, they feel, are not honouring the same Tricolour that they had opposed. Obviously, the BJP-RSS has no national heroes of its own, as this combine played such a dubious role in the national movement.

       It has, therefore, made icon-poaching a national phenomena and desperately tries to unscrew leaders like Sardar Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose from the pantheon of mainstream nationalism. For over seventy years, the RSS has taken active part in Indian politics, first through the Jan Sangh and then through the Janata Party and finally as the BJP. Democracy needs a rightist option as much as it needs the left, but all shades of politics have to accept the plural polity and the secularism promised and guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

          This, unfortunately, is not being adhered to and a reign of terror has been unleashed on minorities and Dalits as well as on secular and liberal forces. The only phase of independent India’s history when the RSS’s political wing played a somewhat positive role was during the Emergency of 1975-77, but then its supporters could fill the jails as the organisation had the financial clout of traders and businessmen to provide support to the affected families. The Hindu right that betrayed Gandhiji’s national struggle may celebrate the Mahatma’s 150th birth anniversary on a grand scale this year, by way of atonement, but the questionable roles played by Savarkar and Golwalkar will remain etched forever in our historical records. From time to time, elements within the Hindu right family show their true colours when they publicly glorify Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse — not once, but repeatedly.

         So, when we see a Hindu fanatic shooting at Gandhi’s statue and garlanding Godse’s, as actually happened in Aligarh on Gandhiji’s death anniversary a few days ago, this subterranean streak comes to the fore. Their hatred for Gandhi and his unshakable belief in secularism will never die.

         But, even history cannot decide whether to laugh or cry when the RSS dominated government now turns around and chargesheets Kanhaiya Kumar and his fellow students of Jawaharlal Nehru University under the colonial law of ‘sedition’ for being ‘anti-national’.

         And even when there are now more relevant laws to tackle terrorism and anti-Indian activities, this regime has openly declared in Parliament on the 5th of this month that this legacy of British imperialism shall continue to rule. After all, it evokes a dash of nationalist romanticism for those whose political ancestors took no part in the national struggle. Now, they can freely hound and punish those who dare to raise their voices too loud.

(Please Click Here to read thearticle on National Herald’s Website)

Saraswati Puja and Basanta Panchami

Saraswati Puja and Basanta Panchami

By Jawhar Sircar

(15^th February 2016, Ananda Bazar Patrika)

        For the last two centuries, succeeding generations of students in Bengal have been praying hard to Ma Saraswati — to help them with their studies and their imminent exams. This was more before the internet and Professor Google rained free wisdom on them, but students continue to pray to the goddess, nevertheless, especially before their examinations. 

        This particularly beautiful goddess wears sparkling white and yellow — and as we know, the latter is the preferred colour for Basanta, spring. She is one of the very few deities who have survived from the Vedic period, but not without her many lows. We notice that he is hardly worshipped in other parts of India — we rarely see any temples dedicated to her anywhere. Yet, this same devi is revered in far away Bali and Japan. 

            In fact, the fifth day of month of Magh (January-February) when she is worshipped in Bengal is better known as Basant Panchami or the ‘spring festival’ in most parts of India. It is, incidentally, the first of the two spring celebrations, the other being Holi that always comes 40 days later. Spring festivals are not uncommon: Catholics, for instance, observe a festival called Candlemas in early February. Even China has its mammoth new year celebrations around this time. 

        The fields are all yellow with mustard and bright yellow is meant to drive away the grey winters, heralding the season of joy. In fact, people bring dholaks out and perform merry dances but Bihar leads the way by playing with colours in anticipation of Holi. In many parts of north India, it is mandatory to wear yellow clothes or turbans and some put on a haldi tilak as well. In Punjab, Haryana and Kashmir saffron is used a lot to colour rice and flavour or colour sweet halwa in UP and boondi in Bihar. 

         Brajbhumi deserves special mention here, because it is the favourite season of Radha-Krishna and this is a special day when the countdown to Holi begins, with very colourful and lively celebrations. All temples are decorated with yellow flowers and even rice, milk and burfis are all very yellow. 

               In Punjab, both Hindus and Sikhs celebrate Basant Panchami with gusto and pray to Ma Ganga, placing their books, pens and musical instruments before this river, not Saraswati. One washes away all sins by taking a bath at the Sangam on this day and pilgrims get triple benefits from the Ganga,Yamuna and the mysterious Saraswati. Kashmiri pandits are different, as on this day, they worship neither Saraswati nor Ganga, but a Tantric goddess named Tiky Tsoram. To add to variety, we also find Jagaddhatri puja in some places of the north India — this was recorded by Major CH Buck in 1917. 

          Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and adjoining belts actually invoke Siva on this day with mango flowers and the ears of wheat. Even Kamadeva, who was reduced to ashes by Siva’s laser glance for disturbing his Tapasya, is also worshipped during these 40 days, along with his wife Rati of course. Very few know that many Sufis have actually been celebrating Basanta from the 12th century, ever since the legendary poet Amir Khusrau wore yellow just to brighten the mood of  the sad Chisti saint, Nizamuddin Aulia. 

           When Vishu’s influence increased, the Puranas glorified his role over other deities on this day. Murdoch noted in 1910 that “the designation of ‘Sri’ before Sri Panchami indicates that Lakshmi is to be worshipped and the day was originally dedicated to her. The same text, however, also directs the honour of Saraswati and hence  ‘Sri’ also meant  Saraswati”. To add more confusion, we see how in the Brahma Purana even Bharakali is invoked along with Saraswati, which just illustrates the wide choice that Hinduism, offers. 

              A century ago, Pandit Madanmohan Malaviya introduced Saraswati pujas in the new Benaras Hindu University but except for Uttarakhand, Assam and Bengal, we hardly find her worshipped anywhere else on this date. In the south, they celebrate her on the last day of Navaratri in Ashwin, so what explains Bengal’s obsession for this goddess? The modern version of worshipping Saraswati started in educational institutions of Bengal is a post colonial improvisation that the aspirational class from humbler backgrounds started in the 19th century. To them, education was god — as their life depended on studies and exams. Without these they could hardly get their coveted jobs aa clerks under the Company or the Crown or in mercantile institutions. 

             Saraswati’s Vedic origins are quite controversial. Brahma was originally regarded her father, but the Matsya Purana and the Brahma Purana have salacious stories of how he was enamoured by her and how the poor daughter tried to avoid all his heads, but failed. Since our task here is neither to gossip nor to do any Freudian analysis, let us accept the standard position that as Gayatri, she was his wife which is why her Gayatri-mantra is repeated every day as a powerful invocation.

              We must also remember that Saraswati is equally important as a river, a very holy one. Throughout history, Hindus have worshipped not only rivers, but also their original sources, their confluences or sangams and their sagar-jatra, where they meet the sea. Indologist, HD Griswold noted in 1897, in his ‘Religion of the Rig Veda’ that “Saraswati is the region where the five Aryan tribes tarried the longest and it was doubtless the centre of gravity of the Rig Vedic world. Its banks would be hallowed by the composition of hymns and the performance of sacrificial rites”. 

           Vedic civilisation was thus nourished by the Saraswati, just as ancient Egypt was by the Nile and Babylon by Tigris-Euphrates. Volumes have been written on how this river once flowed from the Himalayas to the sea, parallel to the Indus, and how the Shatadru or Sutlej was its main tributary while Yamuna was the other. The defining moment of Indian civilisation came when the Aryans finally crossed the Saraswati, as the ‘real India’ of both Aryans and non-Aryans was really born after that. It is fascinating to note how the missing Saraswati is still worshipped with more devotion than the live Sapta-sindhu rivers because millions firmly believe that she still flows underground and joins the Ganga. She finds repeated mention in Vedic literature and the Puranas, that were composed after Saraswati dried up, preserved and enhanced her status. 

                From the 5th century, Vedic-Puranic deities were one of India’s most popular exports to many Asia-Pacific countries and their values found deep favour, as much as Buddhist ones. We forgot, however, to patent them or charge any royalty for these Intellectual Properties. Mahayana Buddhism also adopted and transformed many Hindu deities and thus our peaceful Saraswati became Vajra in Tibet, where she is portrayed holding a dangerous thunder-bolt.. In neighbouring Myanmar, we find her in the Lakshman Sen-period Mon inscriptions near the ancient capital of Pagan and Saraswati is honoured as Thurathadi, the protector of Buddhist scriptures. 

            From the 7th century onwards, we find Brahma and Saraswati in Cambodian epigraphy and she is praised by the Khmer poets as Vageeswari, the goddess of eloquence, writing and music. In Thailand, she is known as Suratswadi or Pra Surasawadi, the goddess of speech and learning and one comes across several old icons at old Thai temples. 

               Let us now check on Bali, one of the few places outside India where her worship is still important. Unlike Indians, Balinese considered her to be a major deity. Balinese Hindus invoke her as water and consider it holy to bathe in rivers or in the sea or at sacred waterfalls on this day. Very large images of Saraswati adorn schools, colleges and universities, where she is revered for learning, music and wisdom. 

           Moving to Japan, we find that she had arrived there in the 6th century, with many other Vedic and Puranic deities, and that she was  worshipped there till the 8th century.  She is called Benzaiten, from her Chinese name  Bian-Chaiten, and she is still quite visible in many temples like Kamakura, Nagoya and even Tokyo. She is seen playing a Biwa, a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument and she was actually promoted as one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. Saraswati is primarily the goddess of flowing water and everything else that flows, like words, speech, music etc, but she is also associated with snakes and is actually married to a sea dragon. 

                 After such hectic travels, it is now time for us to return to our own Ma Saraswati and her clean white swan, for some cool comfort and for her blessings. What is clear, however, is that Saraswati is a metaphor for stupefying variety and that the strength of Brahmanism lay not in uniformity, but in its superb management of contradictions.

The History of Valentine’s Day

The History of Valentine’s Day

 By Jawhar Sircar

As Valentine Day arrives on the 14th of February, the question arises : who or what is this Valentine? Is Valentine just a heart and a symbol of love that purists are so bothered about, or is it a ‘western pollution’ of our culture? Maybe, it is just a marketing strategy of greeting card producers.

The original Valentine’s Day was in the middle of February as Rome’s Lupercalia, a festival of sexual license. It was a pagan, pre-Christian practice of young men choosing women partners for erotic games through a system of ‘billets’ or slips”. It was denounced by the Christian Church which tried to substitute and insert the names of saints to appropriate and sanitize popular festivals: as most religions in the world have historically done.

The month of February was actually sacred to Roman Goddess Juno Februata, the ‘fever of love’, but the Church replaced her with a range of martyrs, all of who were named Saint Valentine. They came in with tales of heroism and sacrifice and even the sterilized version was still rooted to pagan practices.

Yet, a millennium later, we find that St. Valentine was regularly invoked in love charms and potions: and during the Middle Ages, he was treated as a sketchily Christianized version of pagan love-gods like Eros, Cupid, Priapus, or even Pan. The central origin story recalls a Saint Valentine of Rome who was said to have been imprisoned because he performed weddings for soldiers who were prohibited from marrying during service. He was also reportedly persecuted by the Romans for ministering to the members of the banned Christian sect and killed. Hence, he qualified as a full-fledged saint. The interesting part of the tale is that when Valentine was taken away for execution he left an impassioned note to the daughter of his own jailor signed as “Your Valentine”, as a sign of love and farewell.

The present practitioners of such feelings use the occasion for intensifying their endearment rather than say good-bye. They would be quite horrified at the very preposterous thought of going to the gallows. Christianity also practiced unity in diversity and this is manifest when the Anglican and Lutheran churches celebrate it on the 14th February, while the Eastern and Orthodox churches commemorate two valentines in July, one on the 6th July and the second on the 30th. Latin American countries like Brazil, Valentine Day is celebrated aa ‘Lovers’ Day’ on the 12th of July.

The ‘physical remains’ of the ‘mainstream’ Valentine, whose exact year of martyrdom was fixed at AD 496, were interred in the Church and the Catacombs of St. Valentino in Rome. It became an important pilgrimage throughout the medieval period. There is even a flower-crowned skull exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in another part of Rome while other ‘relics’ are found as far away as Dublin and Winchester. This reminds us of how Emperor Ashoka dispersed the Holy Buddha’s relics all over India in so many stupas all over. The ‘Catholic Encyclopedia’ actually speaks of three Valentine saints who are all connected with the 14th of February: and the third of them was martyred in remote Africa. This is not unusual at all as most organized religions all over the world either subjugate or subsume ‘primitive’ and folk traditions that appeal to the masses or appear repugnant to purists.

Valentine’s association with the arrival of Spring, fertility and rejuvenation are evident from some enduring festivities. In some countries of Eastern Europe like Slovenia, flowers and plants are revered and the first work of cultivation starts in vineyard and the fields on this day. Poetry, verses and songs have always been the most popular currency among love-struck youngsters and these come out in full bloom on this occasion. Even Shakespeare’s Ophelia rued in ‘Hamlet’, more than four centuries ago: “And I a maid at your windows, To be your Valentine”. The nursery rhyme in ‘Grammar Gurton’s Galands’ of 1784 mentions “The rose is red, the violet’s blue” that goes to jingle with “I love you”.

The 14th century English chronicler of the famous ‘Canterbury Tales’, Geoffrey Chaucer, played a role in popularizing this day with “romantic love” in the Middle Ages when the courtly traditions of England picked up this craze. Many popular traditions survive in England through odd celebrations, like the character of Norfolk called Jack Valentine. He knocks at rear doors of houses and leaves presents and sweets for children.

By the 18th century, lovers, both males and females, started expressing their profuse love for each other on the 14th of February by presenting flowers and sweets and little cards inscribing ‘Valentine’. In the 19th and later in the 20th centuries, the western card industry simply took over this profitable venture with countless exciting variations. Flowers and candy became compulsory. The American industry association estimates that a billion cards are circulated each year on this day. But somewhere down the line the two-way traffic of presents gave way to single “male to female” acts of gifting. Not bad! The heart symbol, which looks so pleasant actually differs a lot from the actual complex human organ that it represents. It came to acquire greater popularity in the love department, trouncing other medieval symbols, like the dove and the cupid.

But now, let us return home: India, where Hindu extremists have been on the rampage for the past several years, condemning this western show of immortality— and thrashing up love couples. They forget that is also the land that celebrates the open love of Radha and Krishna. India actually has an ancient manual called the Kama Sutra. Conservatives who feel rather strongly that India’s moral traditions are now threatened by indecent, western-inspired depravity need to visit the holy temples of Khajuraho — that are as much a part of our tradition that Manu is.