Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 15, 2003
Its apparent failure notwithstanding,
the Kanchi Shankaracharya's mediation in the Ayodhya impasse marks a definite
step forward in the movement for the recovery of the birthplace of a God
intimately linked with resistance to the molestation of Hindu society in
the medieval period. Many Indians today are unaware that Lord Ram began
to dominate the dharmic spectrum in northern India in an era when it was
virtually reeling under incessant assault from invading iconoclasts. A
warrior par excellence, the divinity has still a long way to go before
his conquest of anti- spiritual forces is successful, and he receives his
due coronation.
Disappointed devotees who pinned
their hopes on the Shankaracharya's initiative would do well to be patient.
They may recall that even with Rishi Vashisht in charge of preparations
for Lord Ram's abhishek as Crown Prince, the God found himself exiled to
the forests without much ado, and nonchalantly quit Ayodhya. In the Valmiki
story, it was a long route back to Ayodhya; today it is an incomplete return
in a makeshift tent. Yet bhaktas can take comfort in the fact that the
God cannot be dislodged again from the re-possessed site. What is in dispute,
therefore, is only the timing of the grand new temple.
Thus, there is much to be satisfied
about. Swami Jayendra Saraswati has performed a sterling service by legitimising
the honourable return of Ayodhya to the Hindu community, and he has done
so in a manner difficult to negate or reverse. Swamiji is highly esteemed
and political parties like the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Left
parties cannot dare take liberties with him. Even the Muslim Personal Law
Board has conceded his status.
Hence, despite the Board's defiance,
the gains have been tangible. The most important to my mind is the fact
that the Shankaracharya has, once and for all, closed the (largely perceived)
gap between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the formal Hindu spiritual leadership
on Ayodhya. This means that, regardless of panthic loyalties (Shaiva, Vaishnava
and so on), all Hindu groups are officially committed to recovery (whatever
the timeframe) of the three holy sites demanded by the VHP.
This is not a small development
in the uneven history of Hindu self-affirmation, and only a Shankaracharya
as bold and confident as the present one could have moved so rapidly in
this direction.
In my view, what is far more relevant
for the Hindu community is the fact that the Ram Janmabhoomi issue offers
an ideal opportunity to introspect over the meaning and larger goals of
the movement, and to affirm these in our own lives. What, for instance,
is the significance of Lord Ram in the life of the nation and the Hindu
community?
Scholars have generally traced the
worship and popularity of Lord Ram to the efforts of the ascetic, Acharya
Ramananda, probably born around AD 1300. Ramananda's importance lies in
his pioneering religious and social reforms. He declared that any true
devotee of Vishnu could join his panth and that caste was no barrier.
Hence, even those at the bottom
of the social ladder were admitted as equals in the eyes of God in Ramananda's
sampradaya. For, as he is reported to have averred: "Jati pati puchai nahi
koi, Hariko bhajai so Harika hoi (nobody asks about anyone's caste, anyone
who worships Hari becomes Hari's own)".
This was certainly a revolutionary
statement then; it remains amazingly relevant and contemporary even today.
When we hear of instances of Dalits being denied entry to village temples,
or being beaten or punished for attempting entry or for trying to share
water sources, we would do well to remember that our spiritual preceptors
did not acquiesce in such inhuman practices.
Ramananda used the vernacular idiom
to disseminate his views and thus reached out to ordinary folk who could
easily empathise with him. But his really outstanding contribution was
to supplant and surpass the hitherto personalised devotion to Radha and
Krishna by the worship of Ram and Sita, who better exemplified the collective
aspirations of the Hindu community. Ramananda's disciples furthered the
masters' work by instituting orders of ascetics who were willing to fight
to defend Hindu temples and dharma from the harassment and molestation
they suffered in the medieval era.
Lord Ram found his next most powerful
proponent in the Maharashtrian saint-poet Namdev (died approximately AD
1350). Namdev's teacher, Visoba Khechara, was a Shaivite saint. Scholars
believe that, being a great pilgrim and wanderer, Namdev may have encountered
Ram devotees in the course of his ceaseless wanderings in Prayag and other
places in north India. It was Namdev who launched the practice of repeating
the name of Ram (Ram naam) as a form of worship (jaap) that would lead
to salvation. It is interesting to note, however, that Namdev remained
throughout passionately devoted to Vithoba (Krishna) of Pandharpur, who
was his kula-deva (family deity).
The discerning reader would have
gauged how ephemeral sectarian affiliations proved to be in the practice
of dharma by exalted saints. Ram was also central to the teachings of the
weaver-poet Kabir, though Kabir's Ram was formless, as he shunned the worship
of God through images. There do not seem to be any charismatic Ram bhakts
in the long years between AD 1400 and 1560, a period which saw the rise
of great Krishna devotees like Vallabhacharya, Mirabai and Surdas.
Yet there can be little doubt that
the followers of Ramananda worked assiduously to keep the masters' legacy
alive. By the third quarter of the 16th century (approx 1577), Tulsidas'
outstanding epic, Ramacharitamanas, made its presence felt and settled
once and for all the status and supremacy of Ram in northern India. Read
and sung by millions, it determined the moral and religious frontiers of
believers for several centuries. Just as the Mahabharat and Harivamsa had
secured the status of Krishna, so Ram's eminence as Maryada Purushottom
was ensconced with the Ramayan of Tulsidas.
Tulsidas's equally enduring legacy
is the popular Hindu prayer, Hanuman Chalisa, which daily reverberates
in Hindu homes across the country. Written in the popular vernacular of
his times, it permanently elevates the status of Hanuman, Ram's devotee
and assistant par excellence, who was directed to remain eternally on Earth
and answer the needs of Ram's devotees.
Around this time, Tulsidas's contemporary,
the ascetic Madhusudana Sarasvati, began to organise believers in northern
India. And by the inimitable Hindu process of osmosis, these developments
simultaneously percolated to the south. The grand but incomplete Ram temple
begun by the Vijayanagar king, Krishnadeva Raya, in the early 16th century
is testimony to this powerful spiritual ingress.
Lord Ram's most outspoken devotee
was the Maharashtrian saint, Ramdas, who resented the oppression of his
times and advocated resistance to it. He exhorted men to establish religious
order as incarnations of God, and hinted that Shivaji, who worshipped Goddess
Bhavani of Tuljapur, was such an avatar.
Today, the Indian state, fearful
as it is of the rootless but noisy intellectual class, is far removed from
the purposefulness that guided the actions of Shivaji. Yet, by tacitly
supporting the Shankaracharya's mediation, it has endorsed the move to
re- spiritualise the political realm. In a fundamental sense, the space
in which the state could pretend to function as impartial arbiter between
two communities is fast shrinking.
