The meaning of Sri Rama

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>The meaning of Sri Rama

>By Sandhya Jain

>The Pioneer

>15th July 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 Rama 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 God 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 Rama'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 legitimizing 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 or 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 Rama 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 Sri Rama in the

>life of the nation and the Hindu community?

>

>Scholars have generally traced the worship and popularity of Sri Rama to

>the efforts of the ascetic, Acharya Ramananda, probably born around 1300

>AD. 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 empathize with him. But his

>really outstanding contribution was to supplant and surpass the hitherto

>personalized devotion to Radha and Krishna by the worship of Rama 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.

>

>Sri Rama found His next most powerful proponent in the Maharashtrian

>saint-poet Namdev (died approx. 1350 AD). Namdev's teacher, Visoba

>Khechara, was a Shaivite saint. Scholars believe that being a great

>pilgrim and wanderer, Namdev may have encountered Rama 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

>Rama (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.

>Rama was also central to the teachings of the weaver-poet Kabir, though

>Kabir's Rama was formless as he shunned the worship of God through images.

>There do not seem to be any charismatic Rama bhaktas in the long years

>between 1400 AD and 1560 AD, 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

>sixteenth century (approx. 1577 AD), Tulsidas' outstanding epic,

>Ramacharitamanas, made its' presence felt and settled once and for all the

>status and supremacy of Rama in northern India. Read and sung by millions,

>it determined the moral and religious frontiers of believers for several

>centuries. Just as the Mahabharata and Harivamsa had secured the status of

>Krishna, so Rama's eminence as Maryada Purushottom was ensconced with the

>Ramayana of Tulsidas.

>

>Tulsidas' 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, Rama's devotee and assistant par excellence, who

>was directed to remain eternally on earth and answer the needs of Rama's

>devotees. Around this time, Tulsidas' contemporary, the ascetic

>Madhusudana Sarasvati, began to organize believers in northern India. And

>by the inimitable Hindu process of osmosis, these developments

>simultaneously percolated the south. The grand but incomplete Rama temple

>begun by the Vijayanagar king Krishnadeva Raya in the early sixteenth

>century is testimony to this powerful spiritual ingress.

>Sri Rama'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-spiritualize 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...

>

>End of matter

>

>

 

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