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Reflections of India

~ by facing my shadows

Reflections of India

Category Archives: Indian Festivals

Rann of Kutch: right out of a fairytale

17 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by opus125 in Indian Art, Indian Clothing, Indian Festivals

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Gulf of Kutch, India, Rann of Kutch, Rannustav Fstival, Thar desert

monsoon-lake

The beauty of the white desert shimmers in the moonlight.  By day, a “desolate area of unrelieved, sun-baked saline clay desert, shimmering with the images of a perpetual mirage.”[1] Equally, there is also a darker side, of salt cured labourers lugging sacks of salt for merchants and vibrant embroidered colour.

During monsoon, the region is covered in water, and over winter, the water evaporates leaving a salty crust that must be seen to be believed.
The salt crunched beneath our feet as we walked on it, and some of the earth gave way beneath us where the water had still not entirely dissipated after monsoon.  Before us we could see nothing but pure white land that melted into the horizon.  There were no people or buildings in sight, it was like we had reached the end of the earth.
In what is one of the most inhospitable places on earth, you can even stay in a tent overnight and wake up to this beautiful sight.

Rakhee Ghelani

walkingsaltplains

One of the world’s largest seasonal marsh lands, once shallows of the Arabian Sea, turn into desert during the dry season. Crossing Gujuruat and Sindh Pakistan, 30,000 square km of encrusted salt between the Gulf of Kutch and the Indus River, it is the only large flooded grasslands zone in the Indo-Malayan region.

Flamingo-City

Perhaps the bleakest, dustiest, and hottest region in India, sitting along the Tropic of Cancer at the end of the at the end of the Luni River, draining the the Aravalli Hills, the Great Rann of Kutch is refuge for the last population of the endangered Asiatic wild ass (Equus hermionus) and supports the one of the world’s largest breeding colonies of the greater and lesser flamingos.

A lake since the Mesozoic, when geological uplift created a vast lake still navigable when Alexander the Great invaded it has since silted into a a vast, saline mudflat.

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Yet, during the full moon in winter, the festival of Rann utsav draws tourists to dazzling white salt encrusted desert plains.  At Dhorodo in the Banni grasslands, a tent village rises from the sand for the festival. Fringing the Great Rann of Kutch, camel carts take tourists to the salt flats. Food is served in the desert wilderness accompanied by Sindhi Bhajans and Sufi songs.

Many seek the deserts of Rajasthan, but comparatively few cross  the Thar desert to witness the magical sunset over salt white sands. Gujrurat’s promotion of Rannustav seeks to change that. Close to the Pakistan order, you will pass several security checks on your visit.

ranofkutchsunset

Stay for sunset – it’s magical.

The silence of salt white sand is almost a spiritual experience. You almost need to pick up a handful of sand o remind yourself its salt. The blinding white desert looks like snow but the weather is hot.

As the sun starts to set, the mountain slowly changes from red to grey to black and you will witness the salt reflecting these changing colours of the sun.  In some parts, the monsoon water can still be seen, creating a little island in the middle of the salt desert. The sun reflected on the edge of the water, in a ring of bright blue.

I have never seen a landscape like this before. Where the Bolivian salt desert looks like a lunar landscape, Kutch looked like it came straight out of a fairytale, the salt flats glistened steely blue, they felt like you could ice skate on them ever so gracefully. As eagles soared above, the view was both spectacular and peaceful. As the sun came down in a brilliant blaze of orange, I reflected on just how large the world was, and perhaps how I had finally seen a part of the world that felt like it was right on the edge, where past the horizon you could almost fall right off.

– Rakhee Ghelani

Kutch_2

oulookIndia.com

 

Near Dhorodo the Dattatray Temple sits in the Kala Dungar, or Black Hills, only 462 metres it is one of the Kutch districts  highest points, but easily climbed. Desolate and bouldered, below is the panorama of salt, you can trek scrub among bulbuls and larks or watch the dramatic feeding of golden jackals at the temple.  As the priests call out “Lo-Aang, Lo-Aang”, packs of jackal come to feast from the temple offerings of rice and jaggary.

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The pastoral villages of the Banni grasslands also produce some of India’s finest hand embroidery.

Loneyplanet.in

Loneyplanet.in

“Suf embroidery is counted on the warp and weft of the cloth in a surface satin stitch worked from the back. Motifs are never drawn. Each artisan imagines her design, then counts it out in reverse, thus requiring much detailing. The craftswomen fill symmetrical patterns with tiny triangles, and accent stitches. Khaarek is a geometric style also counted and precise. Paako is a tight square chain and double buttonhole stitch embroidery, often with black slanted satin stitch outlining. The motifs of paako, sketched in mud with needles, are primarily floral and generally arranged in Riding these decorated camels on the white sands of the Kutch is an unequalled experience With a steady hand, a plain piece of wood quickly turns into a vibrant art before your eyes .

aditirindani.wordpress.com

aditirindani.wordpress.com

The mesmerising  rainbow of colour adorns women exquisitely dressed in embroidery made in their  homes of picturesque mud-plastered round houses called bhungas lovingly decorated with hand-paintings and mirror inlays.

Each village has its own style of embroidery, the colours of culture glisten heavily embroidered attire. Kutch is one of the most colourful regions of India and offers a glimpse of Gujarat at her exotic best.  A rich repertoire of woodcarving, leather crafts and pottery also thrive in the Banni villages.

Bhuj, Indiamike.com

From the walled city of Bhuj, Medieval forts to the the modern city of Gandhidham, majestic palaces, historic ports, temples, monasteries and pretty beach of Mandvi are close by.

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Or visit the sacred lake of Narayan Sarovar, the shore temple of Koteshwar, the Ashapura Mata-no-Madh temple, a number of Jain Derasars, the Gurdvara at Lakhpat and Sufi shrines.

Lakhpat once a port on the Arabian sea at the junction of Kori creek and Rann of Kutch. It was abandoned after the 1819 AD strong earthquake which changed the flow of  Sindhu (Indus) River

Lakhpat once a port on the Arabian sea at the junction of Kori creek and Rann of Kutch. It was abandoned after the 1819 AD strong earthquake which changed the flow of Sindhu (Indus) River

[1] Cubitt and Mountfort 1991

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The Mahabharata and Me

25 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Indian Festivals

≈ 1 Comment

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Indian ethics, karma on modern life, Mahabharata, Ramayana

Kurukshetra

“Alas, having vanquished the foe, we have ourselves been vanquished in the end! The course of events is difficult to be ascertained even by persons endued with spiritual sight. The foes, who were vanquished have become victorious! Ourselves, again, while victorious, are vanquished!” Mahabharata Sauptika Parva Section 10

In the grand itihas (all that is, a history of ideas) that this epic embodies, no individual – however noble their deeds might be, and no idea, despite its seeming idealism, is perfect and pure. This grand text of Indian civilization, even as it appears to be out measuring space and outlasting time, invites every generation living within the confines of its culture and facing the forces of history, to the semantic field of uncertainties and ambiguities.

That Kurukushetra is being fought now in the mind of every man, woman and child in psychological war is, as Rohin Mehta[1] reminds us, the lesson of the Gita’s first discourse. Bllind Dhritarshtra could see the battle in his mind as told objectively by Sanjaya. But the designs of Duryodhana meant he could not detach from them so war ensued.

The Gita helps us find an inner Sanjaya to avoid own inner psychological war.

If the Gita is a gospel of life then the Mahabharata is a panoramic epic of it. Like the great texts of the Bible and Quran, it addresses life’s joys and uncertainties with a vast breadth greater than its more concise brethren.

The Mahabharata is an honest mirror but its reflection will not please everyone. We readers live in different times and each of us will read the accounts differently.  For this reason, some people do not like the Mahabharata.  They prefer their scriptures to be sanitised, devoid of human frailties, as if past saints and devotees were  faultless.

The Mahabharata covers every aspect of human life.  It is brutally honest and yet not fuzzy in its idealism. There are the ideals of forgiveness and fraternity, as well as their absence in the real world.

“That which occurs here occurs elsewhere, that which does not occur here, occurs nowhere else.” (Swargarohanika Parva , Section V )

India is complicated.

Britain had a narrow view of nationhood, and dismissed the idea of India as united country. Their  ideas of nationality were shaped by the French Revolution, and a feudal Europe that merged under competing overlords. In India, before Bollywood and the internet, people a few hundred kilometers down the road diverged more in custom and dress, than say an Englishman did from a Spaniard or a Russian.

To the British mind it made sense to say, as did Gandhi that “India was many Indias.“ They seemed to miss that India was more a civilization  with an overarching broad cohesiveness that that held together differences by social negotiation.

India is complicated.

No wonder Gandhiji said the Ramayana and Mahabharata are a “must study” for all Hindu to understand the human psyche..

After all, a true patriot will examines the quality of his country, promoting the common good and seeking to change by orderly means what does not support it. Flag waving that ignores problems helps nobody.

True love of country prepares for a very positive spiritual benefit.

Now, I know some of you may dislike my being “Western” (whatever that means). So to support my thesis I call upon two points. When I left India I was more precisely  able to see the faults of my Australian roots, just as India’s Diaspora can see Bharat with a fresh perspective. Secondly, I will call on the principles of the great Sanskrit grammarian Bhartrihari.

bazaarart3

Mahabharata as mirror

Reading the Mahabharata is a dynamic interaction between the individual and cultural  heritage. So we expect tension between how we read the Mahabarata’s meta language and its past cultural history.

The barriers we put up between past and present are similar to the barriers we pace between east and west.

“It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly” wrote the linguist Bakhtin.  Travel to another country and what seems self evident at home may be seen a fallacy elsewhere. The cultural matrices of our life are complex. What we call everyday commonsense is many layered. Cultural materials shape  identities and cultural histories shape character.

Mahabharata 949 Bhismadevasml (1)

I ask you, like Arjuna, to place the chariot between the two opposing world views, as conch shells call your mind to battle.

As the Gita begins, battle seems suddenly detached – as a morose soldier talks to his mentor, god and charioteer. The great complexity of the occasion was greater than his mind, like life’s complexity exceeding our own facilities.

It is as if the blowing of conch shell before the battle disturbs Arjuna’s mind. He places the chariot between two armies like a mind caught between two opposites. Fear based decisions are not good. When we cannot decide on freedom we fall into dejection and depression. Arjuna seeks to escape decision,  asking Krishna to tell him outright.  But we cannot truly remain action less says the Gita.  After all life is a series of relationships with all their karma.

Abstain from activity and act when necessary in detachment without rude displays of virtue.

“The return to ones true nature is designated as devotion” Sankaracharya wrote in Viveka-Chudamani.

The Mahabharata and the Gita, of which it is part, are for spiritual transformation and not just moral reform . Therefore transcend the call for independence but include it. The path way is finding our identity on the pathway between personal and cosmic will. If we trod this path we can be free from tensions.

For the battle is between the armies are Sri Krishna’s cosmic will versus and Arjunas individual will.  Arjuna is the mind in its active alert condition, not aware of its limitations. Arjuna is like Jesus asking “may this cup pass from me”, says Dr Radhakrishnana in his commentary, but then uttering “Thy will be done.”

So many of us prefer ritual than reflection. We see solutions but are not prepared to any the price. We are like a monk robed in renunciation, but concealing deep fears and self destructiveness.

Hindus would rather “worship” rather than study the great epics. The Ramayana and Mahabharata on sit on a  pedestal, but are rarely read, analysed or critiqued. They are long texts. It is easier to listen to a guru’s summary, watch a television series than read them. It is easier to bow, garland, offer incense and wave arti in front of these great epics, than  to read them and learn their lessons.

Perhaps that is why we get defensive of Western science attempt to place the epics in time. We like it when a discovery gives us ancient credibility, but dismiss any critique as colonialism, or claim they don’t understand our cultural history (meaning ‘you guys invaded us’) . It is easier to look at the invader than our self.

That is the point. The Mahabharata is a mirror to force us to look! Illustrations_from_the_Barddhaman_edition_of_Mahabharata_in_Bangla,_which_were_printed_in_wood_engraving_technique_(7)

How  a Grammarian shaped my views of the Mahabharata

Bhartrihari, who probably lived in the fifth century, developed theories of space-time and language-cognition we would call poststructural and Einsteinian. Bhartrihari2  examines how language, thought and reality relate that  reflect contemporary questions of  language use, and communication asked by Chomsky, Wittgenstein, Grice, and Austin.

Bhartrihari asserts that cognition and language at an ultimate level are ontologically identical concepts that refer to one supreme reality, Brahman.

In his first verse Bhartrihari wrote:

The Brahman is without beginning and end, whose essence is the Word, who is the cause of the manifested phonemes, who appears as the objects, from whom the creation of the world proceeds.

The cyclical creation and dissolution  described in the Vedas, leaves a seed or trace (samskâra) from which the next cycle arises. This seed is  called a “Divine Word” (Daivi Vâk). If language is of divine origin, says Bhartrihari , then it Brahman expressing and embodying itself in the plurality of creation. The shabda tattva, “word principle,” is part of unity of all existence with Brahman.

Although Brahmin is “without beginning and end” (anâdi nidhânam), and not subject to the attributes of temporal sequence, we recognize the manifestations of Brahmin through the power of Kala (time) and dik (space). The universe is not sequential, but the action of kala makes it appear so. The past is a form of darkness and the past can only be experienced from the present. Being and world are inseparable but are interpreted by their own histories.

Bhartrihari  concludes that knowledge is constructed by language and meaning is made by the words that interpret it.  This differs from Buddhist belief that pre-conceptual cognition or pure perception (nirvikalpa-pratyaksha) is distorted by language created constructed perception (savikalpa-pratyakasha). It also differs with the Nyaiyayikas who agreed word and thing correspond, but distinguished between language and its object-referents. Perception is a two-step process, argue the  Nyâyas,  involving  initial apprehension of an object and then awareness that results in mental and syntactic/linguistic representations of the first moment of awareness.

“Bhartrihari argues that the word makes the thing an individual. As one moves further and further along the refined categories of what is conventionally known as denotation, the word makes the thing what it is. .. [it] make meanings of all kinds, mundane ones and religious ones, contingent on the circumstances and speaker…. if perception is innately verbal, no perilous bridge need be suspended over some supposed abyss between vision and truth, both in our mundane lives and for the rishis who pronounced the Vedas. The word then makes the thing, and Brahman makes the world, and so it is entirely proper to speak of words as the creator of all things (shabda–Brahman).” – Lakshmi Bandamudi[2]

Similarly, Heidegger wrote that the relationship of self to the other is  shapes what we cell knowledge by phenomenological intuition. He rejects Kant’s idea of utopia of transcendent logic.

In the same way, as we read the Mahabarata we meet our “multiple histories, those of the individual, the recent cultural and the ancient. During the interpretive encounter, the boundaries between here and now and what lies beyond in time and space, shift. As Bandamudi 2 suggests, some “read the Mahabharata to discover dimensions about self, text and history, while others evade the flow to make sense of the text in a detached manner.”

These are cultural parameters of meaning: The Mahabharata  is not about purity, since it captures the pathos of human existence in its most sordid form and seems to assert that it is one of the most insoluble disharmonies of existence.  The Mahabharata  is not about hopelessness and despair, but it directs our attention to the unfinalizability of ideas and ideals.

Indeed the text itself continued t evolve and is called a chakra and each generation a cognitive spoke in the wheel, we see synergistic evolution of self and the text.

“All roles are reversed at some point – the valorous warrior Arjun becomes despondent and turns into a pacifist, and the godhead Krishna resorts to human tactics and counsels on warfare. Even the most profound treatise on salvation is not Utopian in nature and does not necessarily rescue the individual from the abysmal world …; instead, they are instruments for shaping and reshaping individual and social consciousness … by repeatedly directing our attention to the complexity and multiplicity of truth.”

If we look into the Mahabharata as a mirror, like the characters of the epic, we must also face our shadow eventually or we will face karma later on.

 

Why it matters

Everyday behaviour can become codes of identity when society grapples with its identity. As India  grapples with identity in the rush of progress, dress codes are given meaning that otherwise would have passed unnoticed. An Indian of the diaspora, more often a woman than a man,  may be more “Indian” abroad than at home.

I think religion offers a language, a vocabulary, for self exploration. All too often its symbols become blocks in the politics of ego.

Some see the Mahabharata  as Scripture, but it calls itself an itihas – history – and not a scripture.  The Gita implies that it is a message is a “scripture”. It has its own agenda – to deliver a spiritual message, explain the philosophy of a particular “darshan” and affirm the reader’s faith in a particular deity.  An “itihas”, on the other hand, has to lay out the facts of historical events for all to see – without judgement or prejudice. Some Hindu scholars, such as Swami Dayananda,  argue the epic is corrupted. Making Krishna God, or  physical avatar is inconsistent with the formless Brahman of the Vedas.

How people remember the epic, retold is the village or recast for the screen, distorts, and repeats distortions. Untruth becomes facts with no foundation. Truths become legends – guide posts to a past – not quite accurate either.  They are fractals of the past, but not a hologram.  Our personal life, a microcosm of the macrocosm, repeats the same distortions. The same karma.

But the eternal truth – the culminating   focused in the Gita itself remains transcendental and untouched.

The Gita (18:66) asks us to “abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.”We must accept communion with the unborn and  unmanifest the whisper of the soul can be heard.

As Dr Radakrishnan says ”the spiritual is not an extension of the ethical, but is a new dimension all together, dealing with things eternal.”

In a democracy like India this point is even more important.

A democratic consciousness operates in the synecdochic mode” writes Bandamudi “and therefore conflicts in the epic are framed not between the powerful and the weak, but between justice and injustice. In the ironic mode, the interpreter recognizes the fine line between justice and injustice. As the boundaries between right and wrong dissolve, the interpreters recognize multiple dimensions to truth and justice and therefore, are capable of saying things about themselves and the text in alternate ways and reflecting on why they choose these alternatives.”

I find myself  by finding the i for myself, finding the I or others other and then, being willing to let the other find me.

The Mahabharata is a carnival ride of raunchy and ribald characters  “where distinctions of high and low culture, self and other, sacred and profane are erased” : of split, fragmented multiple subjects and identities and collectivities.

If we seek to understand a people, we have to try to put ourselves, as far as we can, in that particular historical and cultural background…It is not easy for a person of one country to enter into the background of another country. So there is great irritation, because one fact that seems obvious to us is not immediately accepted by the other party or does not seem obvious to him at all…But that extreme irritation will go when we think … that he is just differently conditioned and simply can’t get out of that condition. One has to recognize that whatever the future may hold, countries and people differ…in their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. In order to understand them, we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language as far as we can, not language in the narrow sense of the word, but the language of the mind. That is one necessity. Something that goes even much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of other people
– Jawaharlal Nehru, Visit to America)

Consider an Indian who moves to the USA. In India he may see the Mahabharata as the text of India, but by moving the text is also a way of engaging with his past.

Just as a child grows up and sees things differently, a change takes place in individual and cultural history.

So when re look into the mirror of the Mahabharata, we see through the lens of our own experience. It remains for us to see our self in part of our society, karma and history, so we can reassess our society, and inevitably lead to a change in mans consciousness and behavior.

However, the Mahabharata also reveals that for every social force there is simultaneously its opposite. The  serious purva-paksha analysis of the past died with the birth of neo-Hinduism. Hindu philosophy declined from serious and systematic critiquing of differing systems to then merely serving as a pseudo-intellectual tool and a political agenda. It is easier to blame (at times rightly) former colonial masters than look at our self.

Others debate important issues but are so stuck in the minutiae that they forget the large more important picture.

Notice how you feel when you read a book. Now read the same text from behind a computer screen or kindle. Do you feel differently?

Similarly, the domination of one group (Hindu, Muslim, White, Black, Brown, Straight or gay) shapes how we react to what we hear or see.

kurukshetra-war

Living in the past will not do. Bhakti saints have even argued that the traditions of the past, are of no use in the age of Kali.

For example, Bhakti saints like Lord Chatanya[3] argued that in the age of Kali there is no longer a justification for caste. “In the age of Kali the varnasrama-dharma is so degraded that any attempt to restore it to its original position will be hopeless. He also rejected varnasrama-dharma because it has no value in relation to pure devotional service.

The second, more important consideration is that even if the varnasrama system is observed strictly, it still cannot help one to rise to the highest plane of transcendental service to Godhead. The virat-purusa is a material conception of the Personality of Godhead and is just the beginning of spiritual realization.” Any tradition, is not an end in itself.

True, India also has a tradition of freedom and equality that supposed Greeks for its equality. Unfortunately, it was forgotten and distorted.

The heroism of the past must be reignited, by reconciling the  “monumental culture” of legend, with democratic principles of the modern world. If I may borrow from Emerson, “there is properly no history, only biography.” The epics of history are what we make of them when they inspire a passionate self reliance to service, dispassionate of the outcome, between cosmic love and human apathy.

Facing modernity, we should remember we do not enculturate mechanically. How we respond to another culture reveals the depth of our own cultural history, mannerisms, and myths which we then internalize.

To read the epic is to inherit, transform and transmit a tradition. A lesson the Mahabharata lays bare for us to see.

If Indians lived by the “Laws of Karma”, we would remember that even the victors at Kurukushetra paid bad karma for their violence.. If we had internalised its message they would realise the consequences of hate anger and unforgiveness. If we understood the enormity of our karmic actions, there would be no bribery or corruption.  We have not learned from our itihas.

People don’t like the Mahabharata because it tells it like it is.   Most of us don’t like to see ourselves as we really are.

The “Mahabharata is a must read because it is a mirror for us to evaluate ourselves and see where we are being reflected in its myriad characters.  If we don’t like what we see in the mirror, there is no point in blaming the mirror or throwing it away, that is not a credible solution.  Ideally, we should change ourselves to make and reflect those values and characteristics we do like in the Mahabharata. “

Issues between science and scripture, or East and West would be irrelevant. We would understand the complexity of relationships, why and how people play subtle mind games, understand the bigger picture so you can rise above such pettiness, understand human society, ourselves and our purpose in life.

In that sense, spirituality is like art, Its outer form comes from within.

“Art and life are not one, but they must become united in myself – in the unity of my unanswerability”– wrote Mikhail Bhaktin. Art he argues must not just inspire, but also reach the prosaic in life. Or as scholar Lakshmi Bandamudi suggests that Bhaktin’s observations of shared answerabiity and mutual blame in art applies to the vast relationships of karma that are mirrored back to us in the Mahabharata.

Meanwhile, in my own  life I try and remember Kalidasa’s words “they whose minds are not disturbed when the sources of disturbance are present, are the truly brave.”

”We must accept communion with the unborn and unmanifest the whisper of the soul can be heard.”

 

[1] Rohin Mehta Mind to Supermind- A commentary on the Bhagavad gita, T C Manaktalaand Sons, Bombay,,1966.

[2] Lakshmi Bandamudi, Logistics of Self: The Mahabharata and Culture.

[3] Sri Ramananda Samvada, In Search of the Ultimate Goal of Life, By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

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More vital than a carnival

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals

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Tags

bazaar; indian bazaar;, India, Stanley Wolpert

tulsibaug41a

“The average Indian bazaar is more crowded and colorful than most museums the world over. A modern Indian city street is filled with more vitality, color, sound, and smells than any theater or carnival on earth. India pulsates, vibrates, scintillates with such a plethora of human, animal, botanical, insect, and divine life that no camera or recording device, no canvas, pen, or cassette can fully capture the rich design of daily, ordinary existence. Each of her hundreds of thousands of urban and millions of village dramas is enacted free of charge before audiences that never pause to note the beauty or poignant tragedy unfolding itself every day on countless stages under India’s tear-filled sky.”

– Stanley Wolpert

 

 

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Injured during Raahgiri Day!!

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals

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Tags

India, Raahgiri, Raahgiri Day, ReclaimYourStreets

raahgiri2Injured during Raahgiri Day!! A frisbie thrown with all the power of youth connected with the bridge of my nose at close range.  Just a minor cut – but t was funny. The poor little grill looked a little uncertian, the father quickly smiled reassuringly as did I . But boy it hurt!

Never mind, festivals should be fun. They are great for sponsors, educational and even an inspiration.

Good festivals rise from the community and express the scale depth and gravity of shared experience: from artists and communities mainstream and minority.

India loves it’s vast community spirit. A vibrant spirit, which occasionally can suffocate individual expression. In the close of parks we can sing nd dance together, while simultaneously expressing our uniqueness.

Raahgiri Day reminds us that cities are more than structures. They are living , breathing organisms of whole communities working and playing together.

Raahgiri day promotes good health in a uniquely Indian way. It groves up the music and engages the senses with dance, meditation, yoga, storytelling friends old and new jostling and friction of bodies  It  offer us alternative food experiences.

raah giri bhopal (82res)The ideas behind the festival – celebration, identity, community – usually remain free-floating concepts given life by the shard but different perspectives of different groups. Festivals can be the bridges through which we connect to each other. Again and again, and in ever-evolving ways.

But sometimes a festival is not about connecting or reaching out, but turning inward in some sense. For example, worldwide Diwali attracts people neither Indian or Asian. Yet the festival provides a public face for a community as well as a focal point for organizing community resources and energies. This in itself builds community; even if it is based away from its Indic home.

When I first I first saw street poster I neither knew what to expect or that it was a weekly event. I  saw another dated a week earlier, guessed I must have made a mistake.

I soon discovered that Bhopal, like Gurgeon before it, is determined to get people out of cars and evxercising on the streets. Delightfully, the whole atmosphere charged the city blessed with so much greenery.

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Cauldering off a section of road for a No Vehicle Sunday to promote exercise and eco-friendly living gives fellow pedestrians (raahgir) somewhere safe to walk.  But not a sedentary walk, Vishal fitness Plant turned the street into an outdoor gym, writhing to the crowd to Bollywood rhythms,

stuntbhopal

Source: raahgiridays.com

When I first visited Raahgiri Day in Bhopal, in October the theme was Clean India-Green India. Saplings were offered to plant and people could donate old clothes and toys as Diwali gifts for the under privileged. The local government promoted new projects and environmentally friendly cab pooling, or safety messages.

The name ‘Raahgiri Day’ has been coined using two words, ‘Raah’  and ‘Giri.’ ‘Raah’  means a path to reach a goal, and ‘Giri’ comes from ‘Gandhigiri,’ which is a colloquial expression popularised by the 2006 Hindi film, Lage Raho Munna Bhai,   to refer to the tenets of Gandhism.

The idea started in 1976, Bogata Columbia. Ciclovia or closing specific streets to automobiles exclusively for cyclists and pedestrians changed the lives residents of 2 million residents then spread internationally.

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First the very Indian Raahgiri Day took off from Gurgeon. Every Sunday, for a fixed time period, a street or road is kept closed for all motor transport then opened exclusively for walking, jogging, cycling, skating, and exercising. In Bhopal a 2 kilometer stretch is closed off from the Van Vihar National Park (Bhopal zoo) past the the Boat Club to the Bharat Bhavan.

raahbhol

Source: raahgiridays.com

More than just exercise, Rahgiri Day showcases conservation and innovation. It was awarded the Parivartan Sustainability Leadership Awards 2014 by Sustainability Outlook. In Bhopal I know many who hurt by the Bhopal disaster proudly support organic alternatives.  It also allows local government to ensure community messages are seen by the public.

Raahgiri day reveals our need for a vibrant life that dances in good health, community and individuality.

raahgiribho

Source: raahgiridays.com

Aussie doc gets Raahgiri therapy, is how the newspaper described me.

Yes I made The Times of India, but I’m not a doctor.

“He read about it and took a morning BRTS bus to reach location. Brain Sullivan is a Bowen therapist (a hands-on therapy to heal pains, where a practitioner uses thumbs and fingers to gently move muscles and tissues). “It is quite an experience. Hustle bustle of chaotic traffic often gets to me. This is fun and a joy altogether,” he said.”

(Hustle and bustle? I never use those words: I did say I was surprised by the level of obesity in Bhopal compared to other paces I had lived in, so exercise was good. I did lament the traffic, however I came by bus, but not the BRTS bus route). I simply enjoyed the local art student’s work as they explored a typical Raahgiri Sunday.

raah giri bhopal (65)

Raahgiri Day is a wonderful relief.

I love cycling and walking but my first bike ride after arriving in India saw y back wheel bent by an impatient driver.

Every year 1.5 lakh die in Indian traffic accidents:, 20% in towns and cities of which 70% are cyclists and pedestrians. About 6 lac people die annually on account of air pollution and transportation accounts for 1/4th of these pollutants  Another 4 lakh die o lifestyle diseases caused by a sedentary lifestyle.

The founders of Raahgiri day realized 5000 Gurgoan people, primarily cyclists and pedestrians die. Rather than hope to peruade the authorities to act, they made a change themselves. Beginning on Novemeber 17, 2013, over 300,000 people joined in forcing the original 4.5 kilometre route to expand to 22 kilometres in 22 weeks.

raah giri bhopal (61)res
I admit I am sceptical of India’s Bourgeoisie  Environmentalism:  It may see charity in helping the poor, but screeches to stop when you are asked to quit your car and use a bus: Buses are seen for the  common folk. Money still means wasteful and polluting entitlement for the rising middle class.

However, a study of 185 people revealed that after enjoying a car free morning in Gurgeon 28% said that they had bought cycles after experiencing cycling on Raahgiri day, and a significant 87% people said that they now cycle/walk to cover shorter distances. 2) At the Raahgiri loop, there were 5 road fatalities from Jan-Oct, 2013. But from Nov 2013 onwards (since Raahgiri started), there have been 0. Also 2500 reflective tapes have been installed on cycles of LIG people like maids & labourers, & on cycle rickshaws, to make them visible & safe at night. 3) Impact on environment: The noise pollution level on Raahgiri Day is 18% lesser than on weekdays and 2% lesser than on non-Raahgiri Sundays. . While the air pollution level on Raahgiri day is 49% lesser than on weekdays and 24% lesser than on non-Raahgiri Sundays.

The lesson? Give people the infra structure and people will walk or cycle.

Hopefully, the same good results can spread across a new Clean and Green India.

safetyindia

About time! Finally the government agrees passengers should wear a seat belt.

 

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Walking Chitrakoot, home of divine exile

27 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals, Madhya Pradesh

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Tags

chitrakoot, Lord Rama, Mandakini River, Ramacharitramanas, ramghat, Sita, Sita Devi, Sital Lord Rama, Tulsidas

ramghat3

The allure of Chitrakoot is both the beauty of the city and its ancient legacy. Called the a town of ‘holy wonders’ , Chitrakoot is edges the Vindhya ranges and the bank of the Mandakini river.

For me, the town is full of fascination. It is here Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshman spent eleven of their fourteen year exile. Inspired by the local serenity and holy legacy, Tulsidas wrote his epic poem of Ramas life, the Ramacharitramanas.

According to surveys Sita Devi is the most popular divine heroine, yet NGO’s paint her a model of the oppressed female. For me, she exemplifies the power of quiet female resistance. She was Gandhi’s symbol of passive resistance and non violent struggle.

I see Rama as the divine loving, but disempowered, husband under the absolute authority of a father king submissive until he can assume the throne.

Turn to Rajasthan or distant villagers, and women do not moan of oppression but sing of a quiet but protesting Sita, with lyrics at times directed to remind themselves of their own female strength within the home.

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At Ramghat devotees dip in the Mandakini at sunrise to invoke divine blessing, constantly Rama bhaktas meditaté on the Ramas life in Rama-lila. In the evening Each evening, sadhus line the ghats offering arotika, while devotees bathe.

Above the ghat steps leap to the Matha Gajendranath Shiva Temple where Brahma performed penance and offered a shivaling considered a kshetrapal or proector of the area.

Like Varnasi, long stretches of steps line the Mandakini River. South of the main bathing area at the Raghav-prayag ghat is a confluence of the Mandakini, Payaswini, and Gayatra (or Savitri) Rivers, not visible to the eye. This is why the Mandakini is sometimes called the Payaswini.

It is here that Rama performed pitra tarpan, or offerings to his father, King Dasarath, who departed after Rama went into exile.

Gorge from where the Mandakini flows

Gorge from where the Mandakini flows

The Mandakini River originates from an ancient gorge 50 kilometres to the south.

Beside the Raghava-prayag ghat, but to the north of the Ramghat, is Bharat Ghat, where Sri Bharat bathed.

Ramaghat is also famous for the poet Tulsidas who it is claimed kindly applied sandal paste to the foreheads of Rama and who had appeared as children. With Hunuman’s help he hen recognised Rama’s identity.

After bathing in the Mandakini, devotees perform parikrama around Chitrakoot dhama, which begins with darshan of Lord Kamtanath. Devotees perform parikrama around the complex of tirthas, collectively known as Puri.

Be sure to visit the Mattgajendreshwar Swami mandir, Parna Kuti, and Yagya Vedi. The King of Panna, Raja Aman Singh, built the Mattagajendreshwar Temple where, the Puranas claim, Brahma offered penance during the Satya yuga, and installed a Shiva-linga, known as Mattgajendreshwar Swami, as Kshetrapal, or the protector of this tirtha. Later, Rama performed Rudra abhisheka here.

But don’t just stay in Ramaghat, A boat ride upstream is the Janaki Kund where Sita bathed

Barat Milap Sthal where foot prints are engraved  inside

Janaki Kund where Sita bathed

A wooded hill five kilometres away is a white fortress shine approached by approximately 360 steps before seeing the five faced panchmukhi idol of Hunaman cooling water gushing from under a rock named Hanuman Dhara.

Kamadgiri, the hill that fulfils all desires is said to embody rama. Pilgrims circumambulate the hill , or perform parikrama. The path passes numerous shrines and temples including the Bharat Milap Temple where Rama’s younger brother met Rama to try and convince him to return to Ayodhya.

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A boat ride upstream from Ramghat leads to Janaki Kund where Sita is said to bathe during their exile, decorated by her footprints. Further on, a boulder called Shaatik Shila is a footprint impression claimed to be of Lord Rama.

Sixteen kilometres from Chitrakoo set in forest is Atri Anasuya Ashram dedicated to the sage Atri and his wife Anusuya.

Gupt-Godavari has two caves with two natural throne like rocks which locals believe were where Rama and Lzakshman held court. In one is a a shallow tank fed by a stream called Sita Kund.

sitas footprints

Sita’s footprints?

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Can I see myself in the mirror of Kali?

27 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals, Religion & Spiritualty

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Tags

Balan Nambiar, Kali, kali mirror, Kannati Bimbam, mirror goddess, mother goddess

Mirror Idol of Mother Goddess by Balan Nambiar

Mirror Idol of Mother Goddess by Balan Nambiar

Even as a mirror stained by dust, Shines brilliantly when it has been cleansed, So the embodied one, on seeing the nature of the Self, Becomes unitary, his end attained, from sorrow, free
– Svetasvatara Upanishad

“The Mother Goddess is worshipped in the form of a polished mirror in certain shrines of Kerala. The mirror can be used to examine the soul, not only the physical body. “ states artist Pushpamala N.

Those words have haunted me for months. But what does it mean for me?

Consider this scene:

Passing storefronts as we walk down the street, we glance sideways to catch our reflection in the glass.  The urge to reconcile self-awareness and self-deception comes naturally to us, and we respond innately to the lure of the mirror.  While there is undoubtedly a measure of vanity in gazing at one’s own reflection, we look more to become oriented with the elements of our countenance.  We look to see the physical matter of our face and body and assess how we appear to the world, to confirm that our form and distribution of features are as we believe them to be in our minds, and to ensure all is as it was the last time we looked.  We look for signs of our hidden carnal nature and to see if the wicked secrets and sinful desires we harbor have emerged from deep within to belie our observable moral surface.  Subconsciously, perhaps, we look for assurance of our continuity and existence.

Artist Balan Nambiar has a tribute to the mirror symbolism in Devi worship. It is a cross cultural symbol, especially in Kerala and West Bengal where a mirror is placed behind Kali or Durga. For Bengalese looking at the goddess directly is inauspicious.  Even in Japanese Shintoism the mirror symbolises the Mother goddess.

However in Kerala, in consecration rituals for the goddess Bhagavati the kannati – bimbam , or mirror image, and the idol are identical.

Called Kannati Bimbam, Malayalam for mirror-image, Nambiar’s image of surgical grade, stainless steel explores the mother goddess rituals of Kerala.

The val-kannati or mirror with long handle is auspicious in the rituals that are part of Vishu, the day when farmers sow the first paddy of the season or when the auspicious mirror is held by girls during the coming-of-age ceremony, weddings, pregnancy, and the naming ceremony of girls.
Traditionally, cast in bronze alloy, a val-kannati is about 15 to 20 cm in diameter, with a long handle of equal length, round-edged, and a flat polished surface with mirror finish.

The most important event in Vishu is the Vishukkani, meaning “the first thing seen on the day of Vishu after waking up”. This ritual includes an arrangement of auspicious articles such as rice grains, lemon, cucumber, betel leaves, arecanut, metal mirrors, the yellow konna flowers, and a holy text and coins in a flat vessel called uruli.

Nambiar discovered that in Kerala’s ritual art — Theyyam, Bhuta, Patayani, Nagamandala and Titambu Nrittam — it is one among eight auspicious objects used in pujas. The other seven are the kuthuvilakku, ritual lamp; kindi, vessel with spout; changala vatta, oil lamp with handle; thalika, plate; dhupathattu, incense-holder; uruli and nira-para, the paddy measure.

With the passing of Diwali, again the concept of Goddess as mirror, of seeing divinity mirrored within ourselves, has become a very personal quest me. I am fascinated by the self sacrificing yet scary image of Chinamastra.

The Mother Goddess  has always been a cross cultural symbolic place where opposites could meet.  A symbol of nature she gives birth to the opposites of male and female, of birth and death, violence and protection, order and disorder, dark and light.

A symbol can be defined as something that connects any given reality to its constant representation within a certain culture.

Intimate relationships are a mirror of our shadow, or unexpressed selves. A woman finding in her man a masculinity for her own developing actualisation; a man must learn the art of surrender of his inflated need to conquest that offers sovereignty to the woman whose life he shares.

Are we to see divinity in a mirror, as if some Jungian sense that reflect back our hidden shadow, can we learn to see the God within? Relationships often mirror our shadow and religions claim sacred texts force us to see face our unpleasant truths.

 

Artist Kali-Maa gets ready as Lord Shiva showing her mirror during the Shri Ram

Artist Kali-Maa gets ready as Lord Shiva showing her mirror during the Shri Ram

Is the Hindu pantheon is a psychic mirror?

“The mirror allows us to see our own facial features and to apprehend its own body’s unity in a way which is different from  that which is available from interoceptive, proprioceptive and exteroceptive sources. The subject  becomes a spectator when it recognizes its mirrored image: seeing itself in the mirror is seeing itself as  others see it. Therefore, mirror self-recognition exemplifies a troubled form of self-knowledge, since the mirror facilitates the subject’s alienation into its double. The decisive and unsettling impact of mirror self-recognition is the realization that the subject exists in an intersubjective space”
– Giovanni B. Caputo  Archetypal-Imaging and Mirror-Gazing, [1]

Hinduism beautifully expresses the range of experience, even taboos, in its pantheon.

Mirrors also reveal much of our own psychic distortion.

Look at your face in a mirror at low light. After a few minutes the dysmorphic illusions may appear  explains researcher  Giovanni  Caputo.

The meaning we give these shadowy distortions  is “psychodynamic projection of the subject’s unconscious archetypal content”.

“Healthy observers usually describe huge distortions of their own faces,  monstrous beings,  prototypical faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and faces of animals.  Schizophrenics show a dramatic increase in their number, including the “perception of multiple-others that fill the mirror surface surrounding their “strange-face”. Schizophrenics are usually convinced that strange-face illusions are truly real and identify themselves with strange-face illusions.” Healthy people do not.   “Patients with major depression do not perceive strange-face illusions, or they perceive very  faint changes of their immobile faces in the mirror, like death statues.”

So, as I gaze into the face of a Kali, I experience a whole range of questioning associations.

When I first passed Bhopal, it was Diwali, and moving here I realise that we give life meaning based on our past. I was travelling by train,and new nothing of the city other than the Union Carbide disaster. My whole experience off the beautiful diyas on Bhopals train station was immediately spoiled. I realised, that from birth, perhaps a past life. Rarely do we see life as it is.

Life is always a tension between self and other, mainstream and marginal. I would suggest that the pantheon is also a mirror projection – a healthy one that allows believers to admit the taboos they hide within their shadows with harmless psychic release.

To discover themselves in the pursuit of purification.

As Nambiar. Stated of his divine art.:

“Venerating the kannati-bimbam is one of the highest forms of worship in northern Kerala. It is the visible symbol of ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ — ‘I am Brahmn’ — and this state of realisation is achieved through dedication and intense contemplation. The seeker looks at the kannati-bimbam, observes his own image reflected in the mirror, and meditates upon it.”

The artist quotes from the Svetasvatara Upanishad:

‘Even as a mirror stained by dust, Shines brilliantly when it has been cleansed, So the embodied one, on seeing the nature of the Self, Becomes unitary, his end attained, from sorrow, free’

“The Sri Chakra, for example, combines mathematical principles and symbolism, and I find it fascinating. Its meaning has universal appeal, as it is beyond religion, even. I try to recreate the symbolism associated with ritual performances of Kerala and Tulu Nadu.”

“While I was working on a 3.5 metre sculpture of the mother goddess as depicted in Theyyam, I instinctively started chanting the Devi Mahatmya stotram. It was as though I was in a trance.”

 

[1] Giovanni B. Caputo , 2014, Archetypal-Imaging and Mirror-Gazing, , DIPSUM, University of Urbino, via Saffi 15, 61029 Urbino, Italy; Behav. Sci. 2014, 4, 1-13; doi:10.3390/bs4010001, behavioral  sciences <www.mdpi.com/journal/behavsci/ >

 

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The Myth of Dumadev

20 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Art, Indian Festivals, Religion & Spiritualty, Tribal India

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Dokridev, Dorkradev, myth of Dumadev, Pendravandin Mai

dumadev

Mural, by artists Shri Sahadev Rana and Shri Tulsi Rana showing the sad Adivasi girl sitting on the steps surrounded by plants and animals.

In the village of Pendravand it is said there was a love so pure between a young man and a girl that it permeated all men, women, plants and animals of the region of Bastar, Chhattisgarh.
But one day something happened between them that the girl sat weeping on the steps. He people tried to cheer her without success. Even the animals of the forest tried and failed.
Finally, she jumped into a pond and died.
Then, so distraught, the boy, the girls parents and even the animlas of the jungle gave their lives to the pond.
The spot is called the Shrine of Dumadev, or ‘Deity of the drowned’.
To this day the Adivasi girl is worshipped as Dokridev or Pendravandin Mai and the boy as Dorkradev.
A votov terracotta of Bendri, the pensive she monkey, holding her face in her hands, is offered at the shrine at the time of the Pola festival.

This mural, by artists Shri Sahadev Rana and Shri Tulsi Rana showing the sad Adivasi girl sitting on the steps surrounded by plants and animals. It is part of the Mythological Trail of Manav Sangrahalaya in Bhopals IGRMS, Museum.

dumadev2 IGRMS

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Could Holika Dahan damage the environment?

08 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals, Tribal India

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Holika Dahan, kapokk tree, Rajasthan, semal tree

Holika Dahan-II (Burning of Holika) By: Sonali De

Holika Dahan-II (Burning of Holika)
By: Sonali De

At a bus stop across from the Nashik shrine Sai Baba of Shirdi, a fire tree reminded me of Australia. The deciduous Red Silk Silk cotton tree, bombax ceiba, is commonly called Semal, or the Indian Kapok tree, or shalmali in Sanskrit.  Mentioned in the Mahabharata  mixed into old myths and traditions, it is also found in Africa.

In Ayurveda it is admired for its healing properties, and for the strength and elasticity of its wood, the Semal is essential for the ecology and Tribal culture.  Called Holi-Danda by tribals, it’ is the thorny tree of Yama, and is burned as Wicked aunt Holika during Holika-dahan in numbers that threaten the trees existence in Rajasthan

In Ayurveda almost every part of the plant is used.

However, in medicine mostly the roots and flowers are used as a stimulant, astringent, haemostatic, aphrodisiac, antidiarrheal, cardiotonic, emetic demulcent, anti-dysenteric, alterative, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, analgesic, hepato-protective, antioxidant, and hypoglycaemic.

It is also used in agro-forestry for livestock feed. The wood is strong, elastic and durable for ship building. The Kathodi tribe of Rajasthan uses wood for musical instruments such as the Dholak and Tambura. The Bhil use it to make kitchen spoons.

The edible oil is also a substitute for cottonseed for soap making and illumination. The fibres isolated from the fruits are used to make padded surgical dressings.

In myth bombax ceiba is the tree of the infernal imposition.

With its thorny appearance (kantakdruma), it is the tree of Yama , or Yamadruma. It is believed if the person dreams it, he will become ill and will soon die. In the Dungarpur district bombax ceiba  is considered inauspicious because the hooting owl nest in it. The Bhil of Udaipur believe the silk cotton from its fruit is not to be used in bedding because its plumed seeds are said to cause paralysis.

Also the ancient Brahamavaivarta Purana prohibits using it to clean teeth.

From Vedic times it was the Nakshatra tree of people in Jvestha constellation. It has been considered the home of the yakshis and was worshipped by women for the gift of children. For the semilia clan of the Bhil in Rajasthan it is a totem tree. The Garasia tribe in Bosa village near Sirobi district Rajasthan protect a tree in a sacred grove called Maad Bavasi and it is praised in song. They identify the tree with themselves.

Holika Dahann

Holika Dahann

 

Religious ritual and overuse

However, in Rajasthan the tree is under threat because of overuse, especially in tribal religious tradition.
The Kopak tree is popular among Tribals ritual, especially in Holika-dahan has caused a loss of trees loss of trees in Udaipur and Rajasthan.
Many know that during holika –dahan the flowers to develop eco-friendly colour. How ever in north India, especially Rajasthan , Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, there is a tradition – believed essential – of burning the tree.
The ritual of burning is considered as virtuous Prahlad . Poles are planted a month before the festival and an effigy of Prahlad and Holika are tied over the prepared Holi.
The whole silk cotton tree or a large branch is tied with sacred thread, coconut or vermillion and dry grass and fixed to the ground on Magha Purnima (the full moon day preceding the month of Holika-dahan) after the cleansing and worshipping of the land.
Among the Bhils, before cutting a pole, a coconut is tied on a bough. Liquor is trickled and vermillion applied. The tree is cut to have head and two arms and the pole is removed from the burning pile. The traditional two armed Holi is still prepared and planted.
In the Bhil villages of the Banswara district bamboo is also painted with red cloth tied to it representing Prahlad whereas the Bombax ceiba tree considered is the wicked aunt Holika. Amongst the Kathodi tribes five poles of five different species.
Whatever the tradition the focal point is the fall and destruction of the semal tree.

Need for sustainable use

A community in Manipur conserve it and Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have conservation strategies to ensure the plant collected for medicine. However, those determined to perform the ritual have used songs to warn of upcoming forest guards.
In Udaipur city 1500-2000 trees were cut in 2007. The gravity of the situation listed 2351 villages in Udaipur district with an average 2300 young semal trees or twigs sacrificed.
Tree population has declined to the extent that other trees have been sold to a younger customer largely ignorant of the correct species.
The loss of the Kopak tree is damaging the environment, ecosystem and potentially loss of a very useful medicine and I wonder if the loss of the tree could have profound social implications. The Garasia tribe identify the tree with themselves in song. The moon and clouds are sung as father and mother, the village chief and his wife, brother and sister as the tree is praised as a relative.
Sadly, this same song is sung to warn the tree cutters of approaching forestry workers. As the Nakshatra tree of people in Jvestha constellation, a plantation of combex ceiba is something people expect. But if the tree is to continue to be honoured, then communities must be involved with in situ and ex situ conservation of the semal tree to preserve both the environment and this ancient tradition for future generations.

For further information:

Vartika Jain, S. K. Vernia, S. S.  Katewa,  Myths, traditions and fate of the multipurpose Combax ceiba L. – An appraisal  in the 2009 Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge Vol 8(4), Oct 2009, pp636-644

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How the basin of a sacred river teaches us

02 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals

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Tags

nashik, rivers, sacral life

[http://holydham.com/kumbha-mela-nashik]

[http://holydham.com/kumbha-mela-nashik]

Just as the course of a river depends on the nature of its basin, so the course of knowledge depends on the condition of the society of the seeker.

I was reminded of this when seeing an advertisement. In a little over a year, the Kumbh Mela will gather Hindus at the sacred Gandhara at Nashik. already Hindu’s are preparing too attend. I have seen pilgrims immerse themselves both at Nashik and the nearby sacred temple of Trimbakeshwar, both men and women immersed and emerging, kin  freshly wrapped in clean cloth. So, I wonder if the Hindu veneration of sacred sites such as the Ganges teach us this.

Western truth is a cellular and compartmentalised and Eastern truths are viewed merely as a frame of reference. To an Easterner science is like trying to see the world from a heliocentric world view you must transcend. Indian truth is an inner discovery that allows you to take the next step.

In Classical myth, Jupiter wanted control of the divine light, or fire, and punished Prometheus for taking knowledge out of the realm of archetypal purity and extending it to earth. It is as if by compassion the purity if the circle had been extended, drawn down to earth to form a spiral. The light of science may reached down to earth, but now corporation patents hold onto discovery with the inertia of the rings of Saturn.

Go to sacred sites like Sanchi, and the earth organism, like a cosmic egg, or temples like sacred mountains – magnetic sacred centres – draw our attention.  However, all nature has hierarchies, like the hierarchy of chakras, each revealing one aspect of truths experience, so any religious truth is in fact only a part and never a whole.

Now, especially since world War II, people seek a Gestalt of integration. Where Western science is atomistic, society is seeking holism.

As Pierre Chardin reminds us, man has a “reflective consciousness” that can stand outside of data and consider his place in it.

However, in this dualistic world of opposites, many neglect the earth in pursuit of heaven, o since the physical dissolves like a body in cremation, care little of rubbish cast besides a temple. Ironically it is economic benefit that drives keeping tourist sites clean.

On an individual level, it has been said we change every seven years. The life of youth, power, psychological, social growth then individuality flower halfway through our 70 years. Then slowly fall our efforts dissolve, our society shrinks, all the psychic worth of work and family shrivel, and our power declines as we face death.

In the second half of life, personal truth requires we break through the constraints of our personal theories .

Sometimes it seems that in those – sadly it is all too few – who are truly moved by India’s implant their knowledge into the earth organism. As if some travelling gurus ritual symbols may implant the unclear impulse, and with the regularity of ritual exteriorize a vision embodied like a leaf. Would we with life allow the flower of revolution to descend, like Prometheus’ fire, its fruitage in mind, sacrifice the past, and our spirit be a seed for the future?

In India, people experience intense social pressure to conform. Yet it is the few who have defied that pressure that are honoured as gurus and saints.

We need to see the world not just in our heads, or through the lens of social pressure or reflexive conditioning, but as a holistic living experience both felt and thought. We live in a world needing planetary experience.

Be it by the kavannah of a heart offered to heaven Jew before a meal, the sacred altar in the corner of a Hindu home, one in prostrations to Mecca, in every moment we need to make life a sacred experience.

Maybe , these will be for some mere words with ancient, archetypal echoes and for others a connection to a deeper inner self. At least it will encourage us to pause and see beyond the social and personal layers to find our real truth.

Perhaps a guru can transcend the physical to experience the divine. For most of us, we  need to experience the sacred through life’s foibles, like the river shaped by its basin, that turns challenge into a sacred gift.

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Riding the Bulls Indian Style

26 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals

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Alanganallur Jallikattu, Alanganallur Tamil Nadu, Around Madurai

By Iamkarna' (Own work') [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Iamkarna’ (Own work’) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

As Ihear of more idiots have been rushed to hospital for running with the bulls in Spain, I was surprised to learn that India has her own mad bull riding extravaganza at Alanganullu, near Madurai in Tamil Nadu.

I understand you may may disapprove of my lack of sympathy. I do understand the rush of testosterone of men hoping to be heroes. My Tamil friends are now probably angry and you are welcome to write and tell me off. But if you visit the traditional bull taming festival of  Jallikattu in mid January stay on your upstairs balcony if you don’t want to be run over.

Normally this panchayat town of irrigated sugar cane, rice, coconut and plantains sits quietly 16 kilometres from Madurai. But during the  Pongal festival the town now draws international tourists.

Pongal is a Tamil Harvest festival from  the last day of the Tamil month Maagazhi to the third of next moth Thai.

Once a trial for prospective bride grooms, now there is little reward now except your pride. For centuries, youths have attempted to tame specially bred Jalicut bulls as they make an entry into the Jallikattu ground.

Catching the bull by the shoulders they try to hang on while the bull, totally disoriented, tries to escape through a wall of adrenaline hyped men, slapping the bulls hide. You win if you can hang on for 50 metres and win a T-shirt.

I really can appreciate a young man seeking to win a maidens heart by bravery. But for a T-shirt? That’s stupidity, not manliness.

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Bull  holding is a Tamil tradition, that was popular with Tamil warriors during classical period. An Indus Valley seal may even  suggest a similar more ancient sport. The ancient Mycenaean’s of Greece also jumped bulls.

Legend claims women chose husbands from successful bull tamers.   The term Jallikaṭṭu comes from the term Calli Kācu (coins) and kaṭṭu (meaning a package) tied to the bulls horns  as prize money. However, the present festival seems to have developed in Colonial times.

In 2014 it was reported  there were 29 injured Tamers and a few hurt spectators.

According to The Hindu a total of 447 bulls and 475 tamers participated in the 2014 event, and the number of injuries was much less this year in comparison to the previous year.

1700 police were on hand and the whole event video recorded, apparently at the order of the supreme court.

Perhaps locals wished they had’nt. On May 8, 2014 the Supreme Court banned the sport to the dismay of locals and the delight of animal rights campaigners.

 

 

 

alanganallur Jallikattu map

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