Tag: Tradition

Yesterday I went to two very old temples in Kerala. First to the Navamukunda temple at Tirunavaya and then to the Triprangode temple a few kilometers from Thirunavaya. At Triprangode I discovered, to my surprise, that these two old temples are connected together by an old story. You may know the story but not its connection to the two temples. This is how it goes:

Long ago, there lived a sage called Mrikandu with his wife Marudvati. Both were devotees of Shiva. The childless couple performed tapasya to be blessed with a child. In time, Shiva appeared before them and asked them if they desired an ordinary and mentally disabled son who would live a long life or an exceptional son who would live a short life up until the age of sixteen. The couple chose the short-lived exceptional son. In due course, Marudvati gave birth to a boy and the child was named Markandeya. Markandeya was an exceptionally gifted child, especially devoted to Shiva, and became an accomplished sage early in his childhood. As the boy was nearing his sixteenth year, Rishi Mrikandu and his wife became sad. On noticing this and asking the reason, Markandeya was told that his life would end at the age of sixteen. When Yama came to take his life, the boy ran to Lord Mahavishnu at the Navamukunda temple at Thirunavaya. Vishnu was helpless and he directed the boy to the Siva temple at Triprangode. On the way to Triprangode temple there was a huge banyan tree that separated into two parts to delay the pursuit of Markandeya by Yama. Markandeya hugged the Shiva Lingam at Triprangode and requested Lord Shiva to protect him. When Yama threw his noose around the boy-sage it also encircled the Shiva Lingam. Lord Shiva appeared in a fiery, angry form, took three steps (each of these steps has a separate small temple in the Triprangode temple complex today) and struck down Yama with his Trishul. There is an enclosed pond in the temple complex with a board saying – ‘This is where Shiva washed his Trishul’. Shiva blessed Markandeya with eternal life and proclaimed that he would remain forever as a sixteen-year-old sage. The assembly of Devas begged Shiva to revive Yama and he did it with the declaration that his devotees would always be spared from the noose of Yama.

Hope you all liked the story. I narrated it in detail to show how the itihaasa of the two temples close to each other is linked together. I was left wondering how these stories connected to the stories of other old temples nearby and also how every old temple would have stories exactly like this, with many Markandeya’s being saved by many Shivas in temples all over India.

Links:
Triprangode Shiva Temple
Tirunavaya Navamukunda Temple

भारत में न्याय और सत्य की समझ और पश्चिम से आई आधुनिकता में न्याय और सत्य की समझ में बड़ा भेद है। और चूंकि हम सभी पढ़े-लिखों पर आधुनिक शिक्षा का चश्मा कमोबेश चढ़ा हुआ है इसलिए यह भेद जब तब हम भूल से जाते हैं। चश्मा ही नहीं यह तो अब हमारे DNA का हिस्सा है। और यही आज की सबसे बड़ी चुनौती है। समस्या जहां (समझ) से उत्पन्न होती है और जहां (समझ में) उसका समाधान है, वहीं गड़बड़ी भी है। Our mind is an amazing instrument. It sees, perceives, and interprets, analyses, plans – all in one. If there is fault in seeing/perceiving then the rest is only a consequence though our (stupid) arrogance tells us (actually assumes) otherwise. Modern education trains us to ignore the functioning of the mind, only focusing on a very minute quality of it called ‘intelligence’ (which is mostly a given (by the divine?) and no one has ‘done’ anything to enhance it). People strut around assuming they are ‘intelligent’, others hide behind ‘attitude’ to show they are ‘intelligent’, and majority harbours a grudge that they are not. This dis-ease is mostly a modern disease.

But I want to discuss the major difference between ‘Truth’ (सनातन) and ‘nyaya’ as understood in our civilization and as understood in the modernity imposed upon us. First of all there is a difference between ‘speaking truth’ (सच बोलना) and ‘Truth’ (सत्य)। सत्य और सत्य बोलने में फर्क है। “मैं झूठ बोलता हूँ” यह सत्य बोलना हो सकता है पर यह सनातन नहीं। “मनुष्य कभी कभी झूठ बोलते हैं” यह सनातन का वक्तव्य हो सकता है। सनातन सार्वभौमिक और सार्वजनिन होगा। Universal। सत्य बोलना या झूठ बोलना सामयिक घटना या सामयिक क्रिया है। क्रिया गतिशील है, बदलती रहती है। इसमे सनातन जैसा कुछ भी नहीं। यहाँ ‘होने’ और ‘करने’ का और ‘होने’ और ‘दिखने/दिखाने’ का फर्क महत्वपूर्ण हो जाता है। सनातन ‘होने’ में है। ‘करना’ और ‘दिखना/दिखाना’ सामयिक होता है – स्थिति/परिस्थिति के अनुसार बदलता रहता है। भारतीयता में सनातन और सामयिक के बीच संबंध या यूं कहें ‘होने’ और ‘करने’/’दिखने’/’दिखाने’ में एक संबंध स्थापित किया गया लगता है जिसे कभी कर्तव्य, कभी मर्यादा, कभी परंपरा का नाम दिया गया होगा। करने/दिखने/दिखाने वाली दुनिया को सनातन के खूँटे से बांधा गया। इसे ‘स्वास्थ’ और ‘स्वाद’ इन दो पहलुओं से समझ सकते हैं। स्वास्थ – सनातन। ‘स्वाद’ – सामयिक। स्वाद को नकारा नहीं गया पर स्वास्थ के खूँटे से बांध कर स्वास्थ। आज की आधुनिकता में खूंटा गायब हो गया है। इसलिए करना और दिखना जो सामयिक है वह बेलगाम हो गया है।

भारतीयता में इसलिए ‘न्याय’, जो अक्सर ‘करने’ में हैं को सनातन के खूँटे से बांध कर और स्थिति/परिस्थिति को ध्यान में रख कर किया जाता रहा है। इसलिए कभी कभी झूठ बोल कर या जानते हुए भी चुप रह कर भी ‘न्याय’ किया जाता है। न्याय करने में हैं इसलिए संदर्भ यानि स्थिति परिस्थिति महत्वपूर्ण हो जाती हैं। एक ही क्रिया अलग अलग संदर्भों में न्यायोचित हो भी सकती हैं, नहीं भी। सामयिकता बदलती रहती है। सनातन नहीं। न्याय का आधार सनातन पर न्याय का करना संदर्भ के मुताबिक। आधुनिकता में यह बारीक समझ है ही नहीं। यह लचिलापन, यह नृत्य वहाँ नदारद है। आज की कानून व्यवस्था वैसी ही है।

आज का पुरुष-स्त्री के संबंध में भी यह बात आती है। आज की woke संस्कृति और हमारे यहाँ के अर्धनारीश्वर वाली बात में बड़ा फर्क है। woke पूरी तरह भावना (feeling या संवेदना) आधारित है। इसका कोई खूंटा नहीं। यह unbridled है – बेलगाम। परंतु भाव हमारे ‘देखने’, हमारी दृष्टि हमारे perception पर निर्भर करता है। जैसे हम देखते हैं या हमे दिखाई देता है वैसे ही हमारे भाव उठते हैं। feelings are dependent on perception। यह हम भूल जाते हैं। आधुनिकता में इसकी कोई समझ नहीं। हमारे यहाँ feelings की नहीं ‘त्व’ की बात है। ‘त्व’ यानि जो ‘है’ । potentiality है। पुरुष (शरीर) में स्त्रीत्व है। और स्त्री (शरीर) में पुरुषत्व है। यह सनातन है। इसको पहचाना गया है। और जिस प्रकार न्याय किया जाता है पर वह सनातन के खूँटे से बंधा हो कर स्थिति/परिस्थिति (सामयिकता) को ध्यान में रख किया जाता है, वही बात यहाँ भी लागू होती है। पुरुष पूरी तरह स्त्री के गुणों मे सराबोर हो सकता है यदि सामयिक स्थिति परिस्थिति वैसी हो – नाटक करते वक्त, नृत्य करते वक्त (कुछ उदाहरण), या कृष्ण भक्ति में लीन होते वक्त, और स्त्री विकराल रूप धरण कर सकती है (रण चंडी)। सामयिकता manifested को निर्धारित करेगी पर सनातन के खूँटे से बंधे हो कर। बेलगाम नहीं। और न ही सभी को “एक ही तराजू में तोलने” वाले सिद्धान्त में तोला जाएगा।

यह जो भी लिख रहा हूँ जो अपनी समझ में आया। कोई दावा नहीं है।

A friend who lives in the US and grew up in Andhra is a great food-lover. His mother was a very good cook and he grew up eating the large variety of food that makes up coastal Andhra cuisine. As he started travelling the world for work, he explored the local cuisines of all the places he visited. He says that it took him a long time to come to his great realisation about world food but he thinks that, at age 50+, he is on the right track now. He tells the story about travelling to a town in Italy and searching and reaching the restaurant claiming to serve the best pizza in the world. He sat on the table on the street outside the restaurant and had a truly memorable meal. When he asked to compliment the chef, out walked the smiling Oriya chef. 🙂

My friend says that the shock set him thinking about the food that he had tried over the years and he felt that the scales had fallen from his eyes. For example, he realized that the French do not make the best food in the world, they are just very good at loudly marketing whatever unappetizing, bland food they eat (My friend’s opinion not mine). He says that, for the first time in his life, he was able to dispassionately evaluate the Andhra cuisine he grew up with. With its vast storehouse of curries, podis, chutneys, pickles, sweets etc. he is now convinced that it is the BEST cuisine in the world. 🙂

I will add a personal story here before I lay out the point I want to make with this post. When the Covid lock-downs started, I was caught alone at home in Bangalore for five months. My wife had gone to visit some relatives and was unable to get back home till the lock-downs lifted. Now, my job in the kitchen till then had been mostly limited to cutting vegetables and I had to quickly learn to extrapolate that to cooked food. The photos of the alu paratha, poori, masala dosa etc. I made look good and I was accused by many friends of making the photos in Photoshop and not the food on the gas stove. When the five months were up and I again started eating good food made by my wife, I realised something. There are what appears to be hundreds of tiny bottles in our kitchen and most of them have contents that I cannot identify. When I was taking the nice-looking photos of the food I was cooking, I was using the contents of only four or five of the tiny bottles. The realisation I had was about the vast storehouse of knowledge hidden inside the heads of people who make Indian food.

The process of education and socialization we go through draws our attention away from the richness of life that we become part of just by being born in this country. I talked about food above. How many other vast and valuable storehouses of knowledge we still have access to have we learned to under-evaluate? I can think of our languages, our literature, our worldviews, our sciences, our customs, our handloom and other arts and crafts, our festivals, our calendars…

I think it is time to evaluate our rich heritage and stand tall again. What do you think?

I was talking to a young man yesterday and we got talking about tradition and modernity. He is a sensitive young man who has got a book of poetry published and his work is in the area of product design. I was telling him about the rootlessness that is at the heart of modernity and he said something like – We should be able to take the best from the West and East and weave together a good way of life for ourselves.

I countered this with the idea that probably all long-lasting social systems come with an invisible background context that allows them to function. In India this context may be that our traditional samaaj was/is based on eternal, sanaatan principles that are aligned with the way things ARE. What this means is that we cannot pick and choose from social systems to create something workable for us as individuals. That project in essence is not an individual project but a saamaajik project in which individuals either fit in or don’t.

My young friend told me that he was reading about the callous mistreatment of some captive elephants in India. His heart was moved by the story and he asked me if we should continue this type of practice just because it was ‘traditional’. He explained that this type of problem with traditional rituals was the reason he was thinking of using a mixed West+East approach.

He had not heard it before and I interrupted him with the Akbar-Birbal elephant story:

Once Akbar said that he was a powerful emperor who could fulfill any wish. Birbal said that he could prove this was not always possible and had Akbar’s young grandson summoned. Birbal told the little boy that Akbar would do whatever the boy wanted. The boy first wanted a golden Kurta with a big golden pocket. This was easily arranged. Then the boy wanted an elephant. Because of Akbar’s greatness this was also easily arranged. The boy next wanted the elephant inside the big pocket of his golden shirt.

I suggested to my young friend that when he talked about West+East he was perhaps asking what Akbar’s grandson wanted – An impossible fantasy. The elephant that suffers and moves the hearts of people is a problem, but I told my young friend that I thought that the big elephant in the room that he was missing was different. We are Indians with roots that go very deep who have been brainwashed/educated into trying to become pale copies of Westerners. I told my young friend that when he and I and many others like us are able to see this painful reality, we would have moved in the direction of becoming comfortable in our own skins. This would acknowledge and engage the big elephant in the room and the problems with the elephant on the road outside would then probably work itself out on its own.

Dr Harsh Satya talks about India’s traditional Jajmani system and its linkages with jatis and castes. The word Jajmani comes from Yajman which is linked to the practice of Yajnya.

This video is recorded at the SIDH campus, Kempty, during the workshop in December 2021 by Amit of ‘Des Ki Baat‘ and will be uploaded on his channel also.