Rameshchandra Mukhopadhyaya
Let us first dwell on what is sutra. The Sanskrit word sutra literally means a thread. The Gita speaks of gems woven with threads in the phrase Sutre manigna iva. The English word “suture” seems to have been derived from Sanskrit sutra.
In the ancient Sanskrit lore, sutra is a distinct type of literary composition or genre where the statements are aphoristic. It uses various technical terms and brevity and precision are its life
The Vayu purana defines sutra as alpaksaram asandigdhan/ saravad viswasto mukham/ astobhyam anavadyam/ ca sutram sutravidoviduh.
The sutra employs minimum syllables. Its meaning should be unambiguous. It should be the essence of what one wants to say. It should be reliable. It should be nonredundant , unique and flawless. One who knows what sutra is knows it to be thus.
But as Monier Williams observes, with the Buddhists and Pasupatas etc the term sutra is applied to original text books as opposed to explanatory works. With the Jainas, they form the part of Dristivada.
Let us probe into the connotation of the word ‘sutra’ with a little more attention. The Tripitaka /Tipitaka or the three baskets of wisdom has in it the Sutrapitaka/Suttapitaka which is a treasure house of wonderful tales told by the lord Buddha himself. They have sutras in the Sanskrit sense in them hiding that could unravel the deeper mysteries of life. But they are not sutras in the sense the Srauta sutra, Kalpa sutra, Brahma sutra or the sutras in Panini grammar are. The sutras in the latter are explanatory. That is their only objective. They are not texts in that sense. They do not have a literary merit on the surface. On the other hand the sutras in the sutrapitaka are texts. They are something like the dialogues of Plato or parables told by Jesus The suttas of Pali are spoken by the Lord Buddha and they are suktas or well said as well.. Buddhist suttas are in the main suktas or oral teachings of the Lord Buddha. When the Lord passed into nibbana, his teaching remained to fill the void by the absence of the lord’s nirmanakaya or the illusory self in the world of ours.
Sutras in the Buddhist context are Buddhavacana a literal record of what lord Buddha said in the form of discourses in the large.
These sutras could be long one like the mahaparinbbanasutta or the Brahmajala sutra The majjhima nikaya has medium length sutras or discourses. Samyutta nikaya has 2800 sutras. They are short ones. But they make a pattern being connected with one another (Samyutta) . And then there are 2300 sutras in Anguttara Nikaya which is ekottara agama. That is the chapter or nipatas in this agama are The Book of ones, The Book of Twos and so on.
The Mahayana sutras are apparently of later date. But the followers of the Mahayana believe that they are authentic –that is they enshrine the direct teachings of Lord Buddha. For example in the Diamond Sutta there is a discourse where Lord Buddha and Subhuti are the protagonists. The followers of the Mahayana, believe that the conversation between the Lord Buddha and Subhuti as enshrined in Diamond sutra did really take place.
Why were the sutras then revealed at the later stage long after the Lord’s demise? The Mahayanas say that the sutras were kept in hiding for five hundred years and were jealously guarded by the nagas. Because till then competent readers were not found. The Mahayanas acknowledge the earlier sutras of the Tripitaka as authentic. But with them the Mahayana Sutras are of deeper import and hence they do not pay much attention to much of the Tripitaka.
Ananta Nirdesha Suttra, Lankavatara sutra, Lotus sutra, Prajnaparamita sutras are some of the Mahayana sutras.
The sandhimocana sutra, a Mahayana one divides the teaching of Lord Buddha in terms of the turnings. of the dharmachakra The Tripitaka is the first turning. The Prajnaparamita and likely other sutras are the second turning of Lord Buddha’s teaching whereas the sandhimocana sutra claims itself as the third and final turning of the Dharmachakra.
But sutras are not always spoken by Buddha himself. Chinese and Japanese Zen Budddhists have great veneration for the Platform Sutra which embodies the teachings of the sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism.
Platform Sutra clearly points out that thoughtlessness does not mean suppression of thoughts. Rather one should let one’s thought come and go as they list. The sutra further observes that a lay man, cultivating the thought of Buddha is superior to a monk who does not practice the teachings of the Buddha.
Hui Neng also comments on the Pure Land of the West, The pure land sects are very popular in Eastern Asia. They almost form a sub-set of Mahayanas Buddhism. The Pure Land doctrine points that these days dharma is on the wane. And it is impossible now a days to attain nibbana. The only alternative left for us therefore is to chant the name of Amida or Amitabha Buddha. If anyone chants the name of Amida only ten times he will surely be reborn in the Pure Land of the West. And there from he might be elevated to the state of nibbana.
Hui neng observes in the Platform Sutra in the context of the notion of the Pure land of the West that physical location of one’s self does not matter; what matters is his mental state.
Hui Neng recounts the story of Bodhidharma.
The Platform Sutra however opens with an autobiographical narration. He dwells on how he was drawn to the teachings of Buddha.
Hui Neng was but a lad when his father died. He used to gather firewood and sell them in the market. He provided for his mother and himself this way. One day while at the market, he heard a line “let your mind flow freely without dwelling on anything.” His mind was at once alight with the quest of Truth. He arranged some money for his widow mother to survive. He gave up his business activity and set out in search of his teacher in the North China. It was a long trek, which compassed 500 miles.
The line that suddenly struck Hui Neng and effected a great change in his career was a quote from Diamond Cutter sutra or Vajra- chhedika Prajnaparomita Sutra.
The Diamond Sutra opens with Lord Buddha sitting in his retreat surrounded by the Bhikkhus and Bodhisattvas. There the Shubhuti a venerable follower of the Lord asks how one could seek incomparable enlightenment.
Well the Buddha observes that a Bodhisattva must take a vow of liberating every speck of life and yet when everyone is liberated no one will be liberated
That is a paradox. But Buddha posits---who will liberate another.? That needs an a priori notion of self. Is there any self at all? The answer is simply -No. What we call self is a flow and fire ignited by tanha or desire which is illusory. If there are no self and the other ,who liberates whom?
The Bodhisattvas must have compassion and charity. But he must practice charity without attachments. The merits of charity without attachment.-- The merits of charity and compassion are incalculable. And yet no such merit is accrued.
Convention says that the Tathagata is always accompanied with 32 marks of greatness. True and not true. The Tathagatas can not be recognized by any material characteristic. Because the knower and the object of knowledge are illusory. One who knows that Tathagatas can not be recognized knows Tathagatas.
Who is a Tathagata? One who has gone to suchness or reality as it is or arrived at suchness is a Tathagata.
Subhuti asks the Lord whether there will be always men who will truly believe after coming to hear these teachings. The Lord replies that there will be such men always and they will be nourished by countless Buddhas. Still the belief is never absolute. The teaching of Buddhas are merely a raft that reaches one across the ever changing and illusory samsara or the world. Once one crosses the vast ocean of illusion, the raft will become of no use. Every faith is relative. To have faith means to have ego. It is the ego that has faith. So to lift up one self one must not believe in the teachings of the Buddhas even.
Being asked by the Buddha whether there is any enlightenment at all and whether Tathagata has a teaching to enunciate, Subhuti answers that there could be no perfect enlightenment and Tathagata has nothing to teach. Because Truth is not limited and truth baffles expression. Truth is neither is nor is not.
Hence we could infer, despite the fact that there are countless sutras told by Tathagatas . a Tathagata did not utter a single word.
Buddha points out that meritorious deeds in the contingent world are very good. And still merits are no merits.
Subhuti observes that merit always partakes of the character of no merits.
This puts in ours mind the notions put by the Post Moderns. Any word in the language has its antonym. For example, light implies darkness. Truth implies falsehood.
Derrida the French philosopher observes-- the western thought since Plato has been logo centric. It has emphasized certain notions as light, truth etc as the centre. But since light could not be there with-out darkness, the centre of light must be darkness. Again Darkness could not be there without light. If there were no periphery there could be no centre. So the periphery is the centre of the centre. Again the periphery has a centre. Hence the Truth is neither light nor darkness. Neither not light nor not darkness. Neither not not light nor not not darkness.
This is why Hui neng exhorts to his disciples “ whenever a question is put to you, answer it in the negative. if it is an affirmative one and vice versa. If you are asked about an ordinary man tell the question of a sage and vice versa. From the correlation and the interdependence of the two opposites, the doctrine of the Middle way may be grasped.”
Indeed the doctrine of the Middle Way of the Buddhism does not ask one to walk along the middle of a street so that one is over run by the vehicles. The middle way implies an understanding of the fact that there is neither truth nor untruth, neither not truth, nor not untruth, neither not not truth, nor not not untruth. Truth is beyond grasp. One who knows it knows.
Thus in the context of the Lord Buddha’s teachings as embodied in the Diamond sutra one might argue that the notion of Post modernism though emergent in the West are as old as Lord Buddha and Buddhism has played a large role in changing the gamut of thought of the world today. It dissipates fundamentalism and dissolves essentialism. If any four lines of the Diamond Sutra were realized by the world our world would be different from what it is today. Why do people fight amongst themselves? Why do nations war among themselves. Because of their fundamentalist approach. But the most fundamental truth about the existence is that there is nothing fundamental.
The Nasadiya sukta—the 129th hymn of the 10th mandala of the Rig Veda opens in the self same note when it says
Na asat asit na u sat asit tadanim
That which exists is sat. That which does not exist is asat.
The sukta says
In the beginning neither there was existence
Nor there was non-existence.
The first six sections of the Diamond cutter sutta, thus unravel the suchness of the existence. They seem to strike the keynote of the Post-modern thought that rocks the world today and shows the path to serenity.
The eighth section of the Diamond Sutra vouchsafes that the recitation of the only four lines of the sutra has great merits . It outdoes the merit of the highest merit of compassion and charity. Because the understanding the Lord, points out is the fountain head where from the Buddhas emerged. May we hence take the liberty to call the philosophy enshrined in the Diamond Sutra as Tathagata garbha or the womb wherefrom Tathagatas turn up?The Tathagata Garbha doctrine of the Mahayana Philosophy points that everyone has Buddha nature in him. I do not use the Tathagata garbha in that sense. Still, however much narrow minded we are, do we not all of us sometimes realise that there is no absolute truth in the existence and every assertion is as good as every other kind of assertion?
Lord Buddha asks whether there is anything called stream entrant or srot apanna once-to- be - reborn or sakridagami or never to be born or anagami. Besides is there anything called perfect Enlightenment. The answer is always No.The stream entrant is only a name. The stream entrant never enters any stream be it that of touch or smell or sound etc. Since there is no going away and no coming to existence, there can be no one to be born once or to be never born. Perfect Enlightenment is a myth. Because if anyone says he is perfectly enlightened he assumes the existence of his self and the other and hence he is not enlightened. And there can be no Buddhaland set up by any Bodhisattva. Indeed there can not be the categories of the sacred and profane. Because the sacred partakes of the profane and vice versa. If there is anything called the Buddha land, be it the pure land of the West or of the pure land of the East tjere must be profane land or the world. And Buddha land must partake of it.But Buddha land would not be Buddha land then. Because by definition Buddha land should have nothing profane in it. Buddha observes that if any four lines of this discourse is repeated or taught anywhere it become the holiest of the holy places /even venerated by gods.
Shubhuti asks what should be the name of the present discourse?
Buddha replies that the name should be Vajra Chheddika Prajna Paramita sutra.
The word Vajra implies the diamond with which gems are bored. Compare Kalidasa
Kritte Vajra-samutkirne
Sutrasyevasti me gati
Or else Vajra could be lightning or thunderbolt. With the diamond cutter or the lightning what could be pierced or probed into? Well the inscrutable existence that baffles all interpretation should be pierced or decoded with this sutra.
The Vajra-chheddika is prajna paramita or the metaphor of perfection in transcendental wisdom.
But the Lord at once adds that there could be no perfection of wisdom. Thus prajna paramita is a name only. It has no meaning. Buddha further adds that the molecules are not molecules. They are only called molecules. The world is not world. it is called only world.
Thus the Lord knows that the names are not things. There is no organic relation between the signifier and the signified. And the world we perceive is a vast ocean of signifiers. And signifiers are there as signifiers and they signify nothing.
Subhuti understands the import of the Lord’s saying. He is in tears. He exclaims that he did not ever hear such a discourse and one who hears the discourse will learn the fundamental reality even though fundamental reality is not any distinctive idea. And fundamental reality is only a name.
Since any signifier is a signifier only without a signified, the distinctions with the aid of which we separate one person from another, one individual from another, are hollow sham. Shubhuti acknowledges this and further asserts that those who have left phenomenal distinction behind are Buddhas all.
Buddha adds that the perfection or paramitas are mere names only. The first perfection is the perfection in charity or Dana Paramita. But that is only a name. The perfection in patience is also only a name.
Buddha falls back upon his earlier birth. He remembers how he patiently stood the mutilation of his body by the king of Kalinga. This seems to be referred to in Khantibadi Jataka. But he points out that it is not an exercise in patience. Because the Bodhisattva knew that he had no self. Buddha notes that if he were bound by the notion of the self and the other, he would be ignited with such emotions as hatred and anger. Buddha says that he went through numerous lives and deaths exercising in patience. But a Bodhisattva does not distinguish the self from the other and no questions of tolerating others arise.
Bodhisattvas practise charity in this way. They take the vow of liberating every living being. But with them living beings are not living beings.
Buddha observes that the truth in which Tathagatas are plunged is neither real nor unreal.
The Buddha further points out that this is the supreme Way or the tao for the benefit of the initiate. Those who hold on to limited doctrines that involve a notion of an ego entity. And a personality and like can not comprehend the present sutra.
Thus the Lord clearly discards reductionism where one expression is replaced by finitely stable definitions whereby the indefinitely possible realizations of the previously mentioned expression are shut out. The Lord clearly discards essentialism. Essentialism is a metaphysical theory that objects have essences and there is a distinction between its essence and accidental attribute. But lord But the Lord Buddha will not admit of any distinction between this or that and the fundamentalists, reductionists and essentialists can not comprehend the present sutra which has indefinite possibilities of meaning. No limit could be set to its meaning. As we have already posited that since signifiers and signified are not organically connected signifiers have no real meaning. But when the signifier has infinite possible meanings or none, the case is different. That is what the Lord is about. Buddha however reminds Subhuti that those who receive the present discourse might be hounded by misfortunes. But they are but the fruitions of action performed in the past and they will be worked out paving the way to consummation of peerless Enlightenment.
And Buddha asserts that there is no perfect enlightenment. No one attains perfect transcendental wisdom. And there is no formula for the attainment of enlightenment.
When Dipankar Buddha foresaw the Buddha of the present discourse the Sakyasinha would attain enlightenment, he foresaw it only because there is no formula that can reach one to enlightenment. True that Bodhisattvas must take the vow to liberate all the living creatures and yet Bodhisattva can not take such vows because Bodhisattvas are sans egos.
And Buddha asserts that the Tathagata can see into every mind though there are different kinds of mind.
This is because all modes of mind are in fact Only Mind.
Nothing is like charity. The greatest possible charity is however merit less. Or else Tathagata does not have merit. In other words achievements do not count. Or else Tathgata does not have merit. Tathgata’s merit does not have any foundation. Because the phenomenal distinctions are unreal.
Thus the Lord’s utterances out-rightly denies foundationalism .
Foundationalism views that knowledge and epistemic justification have a two tier structure. Some instances of knowledge and justification are based on experience and foundational. Others are derived from inference and non- foundational. The Lord denies their distinction .
The Lord affirms that language can not express truth and Tathagatas have not therefore thought anything. Consummation of Knowledge does not attain any knowledge and hence it is consummation of knowledge. The Buddha says that through his attainment he has not acquired anything.
There can not be knowledge and ignorance perfection and imperfection . So the Lord says that if Consummation of enlightenment is at all there then it is everywhere. Thus, the theory of Tathgatagarbha that posits that the Tathagata is in every being and thing is upheld. The Buddha says that true that one should cultivate goodness to attain this state and yet there is nothing called good.
No one should say that Tathagata liberates living beings. Tathagata does not. Because he has no individual self or ego. There is no difference between ego and non-ego. There is no difference between a Tathagata and the common man. The common man is not common.
Thus, the Lord affirms love and regards for all things both great and small. Ours is the society where hierarchies rule and differences dominate. Tathagata gives us a vision of a world where functional hierarchies and differences could exist; but they will be always known as functional and not real.
The Tathagata they say have marks that distinguishes him from the common run of men. Yet these distinguishing marks does not refer to Tathagata and hence whoever sees Tathagata in form, whoever hears his words does not see him or hear him. A seeker of this kind is far away from the road or tao.
Tathagata further observes that though it is said that everything is impermanent, the reality is neither permanence nor impermanence; neither not permanence nor not impermanence. Consequently nibbana does not mean extinction of the awareness of things. It is neither awareness nor non- awareness; neither not awareness nor not non- awareness.---naivasanjna naasanjna.
And when they say that Tathagata is thus gone or thus come, they are in the wrong, because Tathagata has nowhere to go whence he comes.
Neither the cosmos nor the minutest particle is what it seems. That is the suchness of the things. People with ego view the reality in different ways. Because everybody reads his or her own mind in the text of the reality. And the reality is in the hiding, its different aspects are only manifest. To know the suchness of things one must be sans ego.
The Diamond Sutra thus does make the in road into delusions of appearance and unravels the suchness.
The appearance will then look like
a star at dawn
a dew—a bubble
a lightening or dream
Or else a cloud.
Subhuti , the Bodhisattva and the gods who surrounded the Lord were full of delight when the conversation came to its omega; they dispersed and went their way. Did they go their way to liberation although the way is not the way and liberation is not liberation?
Friday, 11 September 2009
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Heart Sutra Reconsidered
Rameshchandra Mukhopadhyaya
We propose hereby to read the Heart Sutra from fresh standpoint. Let us at the outset explain why we are drawn to a study of the Heart Sutra. To answer that, we shall refer to Edward Conze who avows that the judgement of thirty generations of Buddhists in China, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia have singled out the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra as the holiest of holy; both perhaps of the fourth century of our era , as Conze observes. In view of the fact that the Heart Sutra which has been deemed as one of the holiest of holy for thirty generations by Buddhists of different nations , we had better read it once again to see what wealth the Sutra brings to us. Why say that the Heart Sutra could be read from fresh standpoint? Well, there are commentaries of the same by such masterminds like Asanga, Vasuvandhu and Kamalasila and no less a scholar than Edward Conze have composed commentary of high watermark of the same sutra. Still, just as anyone must find out or make his own road to enlightenment, similarly everyone must read a text in his own way to find the Tao or the road. A text cannot have one and only one meaning. Or else why should there be so many interpretations of the text? The very text of the Heart Sutra avows that form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form. On one level at least every form has emptiness in it. Emptiness speaks of something which is beyond the ken of perceptions trammelled by time and space. And surely interpretations through words which are bound by time and space cannot exhaust the meaning of a text, albeit no interpretation of a text could be wide off the mark of the meaning of a text. Since words cannot exhaust the meaning of emptiness, emptiness could have meaning on numerous levels. Modern linguistics and philosophy of language point out that language cannot have one definite meaning. Any text whatever is, capable of meaning on more than one level. This is very much true of a text which is being read through the generations and is a classic. Every generation has its own unique point of view and aspirations. The text which satisfies the different aspirations of different generations must be capable of meaning on different levels. Where is the text? There could be no text without its reader apprehending some meaning. And surely there are as many texts embedded as there are readers. Because every reader decodes the text from his own standpoint. Hence the proposal to read the Heart Sutra afresh. And we propose to read the Heart Sutra on more than one level. And to that end we invoke the skill of close reading and explicatio de texte. Beardsley recommends that explicatio be used as a name for the critic’s effort to disclose implicit meanings at the lexical level of a poem such as the connotations of a word, the implications of a complex or ambiguous syntax, or possible meaning of a metaphor or other tropes (Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetics, pg 395, Princeton University Press, Princeton). Close reading method is very akin to explication. It focuses on the text itself and does not give importance to any extra- textual context. The title of the Sutra is known as the Heart Sutra. Does the Sutra reach us to the heart of the things or to the heart of the scriptures? Or did the Sutra itself spring from the heart? Or else the Sutra though explicit in the text is implicit in every heart? The Sutra opens with the invocation:
Om namo bhagavatya
Aarya- prajnaa paramitayai Prajna means wisdom. Prajnaparamita means perfection of wisdom or else it might mean wisdom and its beyond. Since gender in Sanskrit is grammatical and not natural, Bhagavati Prajnaparamita might mean the deity of the spirit of wisdom. It is not necessary to attribute any natural gender to it. Paramita might be a god or goddess or both or none. Be that as it may the addresser in the poem pays his / her
homage to Arya Prajnaparamita. Conze tells us that Arya stands for both noble and holy.
Wisdom has been deified and hence to distinguish it/ him/ her, in the contingent world the addresser attributes it / him/ her as noble and holy. Why does the addresser pay his or her homage to Wisdom? Perhaps because s/he seeks to disclose some truth hidden from the eye and which needs wisdom to encode. Aarya Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva Gambhiram prajnapaaramitaacharyaam charamaano
Vyvalokayati sma panchaskandhaascha
Svabhaavasunyaat pasyati sma
The word Arya could be derived from verb Ri and could mean moving or dynamic as well. So the Arya Avalokitesvara is one who moves from falsehood to truth. Iswara is Lord. Avalokitesvara is the Lord of Avalokana or seeing; he sees into the life of things. At the same time he is also being seen. He is Bodhisattva. In other words his essence
is awareness or enlightenment. Be that as it may, according to Buddhist mythology a Bodhisattva is one who strives to become a Buddha or the Enlightened one. This is not all. According to the Mahayana school of Buddhism, Bodhisattva is one who does not seek his own emancipation. On the contrary, a Bodhisattva seeks to emancipate everything of the world. According to Buddhist mythology, Avalokitesvara is an ideal Bodhisattva, because he refused enlightenment or emancipation. As long as the smallest particle of the existence is not emancipated, Avalokitesvara will not embrace eternal bliss or nirvana. This Arya Avalokiteswara Bodhisattva was seriously plunged in the practice of wisdom that takes one beyond the perceived and the non-perceived. In this state he looked about and found the pancaskandhas. And he found that pancaskandhas were by nature or svabhava empty. The wide wonderful world with such abundant variety was looked upon by the seer Bodhisattva as merely made of five constituents and by nature they are empty or svabhava – sunya. On the surface whatever Avalokitesvara sees is empty by nature. If everything were empty then the speaker alone pervades the existence. But the self is also made of pancaskandha and empty. So Avalokitesvara is not there and nothing is there. When neither the object nor the subject is there, there is neither the speaker nor the listener nor the speech. Here is the aesthetics of silence eloquent about suchness. This is why it has been said that despite the Tripitaka Buddha did not utter a single word. In the light of Avalokitesvara whatever is not – Avalokitesvara can see into the thingness of things, finds that all things and beings are mere appearances before a myopic eye. They exist and yet by nature they do not exist. They are like castles in the air. The word ‘sunya’ however has its antonym in purna. A thing or being could be really empty when they appear otherwise. Or else emptiness or sunya would have no meaning. ‘As a technical meaning it denotes in Buddhism the absence of self’ (Conze). The next section explicates his proposition:
Iha Saariputra rupam sunyataa
Sunyataiva rupam rupanna prithak sunyataa
Sunyataayaa na prithag rupam
Evam eva vedanna- sanjnaa-samskaara vijnam
On the surface it implies that one’s own- being and marks of the skandhas, elements and sense- fields are imagined. Since they are devoid of self – a mere agglomeration or heaps closely tied to their root cause, ignorance, karma and craving , proceeding from mutual conditioning inactive- therefore the Skandhas are also without the special and general marks. The variety of such marks is the result of fancy and they are distinguished from one another by fools and not by saints. But, no. What Avalokiteswara says does not point that all appearance is illusion. He does not claim that all appearance vanish like bubbles in the air before a discerning eye. On the contrary he posits that appearance and emptiness are identical. Appearance means emptiness and emptiness means appearance. In other words, the world of appearance neither is, nor is not. And existence is at bottom unreal. And yet it is not unreal. Avalokiteswara observes that emptiness does not differ from form. But we mortals are never focussed on the opposites simultaneously. Heisenberg’s Theory of Indeterminacy has proved that we cannot have total knowledge in this contingent world. Because if we want to measure the speed of an electron, we shall not know its location. Again if we want the location of an electron, we shall not know its speed. But Avalokitesvara’s eye can know both at the same time. He can be focussed on the opposites at the same time. Form is one of the five skandhas or five constituents that create all things in the multiverse. The other four are feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness. Earlier Avalokitesvara saw everything and every being of the existence made up of these five constituents. Now Avalokitesvara points that forms as well as other constituents are identical with emptiness and emptiness is identical with form. In other words, both appearance and reality are taken into account. The addressee of this Heart Sutra, as it has been revealed here is Sari Putta. This is very significant because this distinguishes the Heart Sutra from any other sutra. Any speech is determined by its addressee.Sari Putta as we know was predestined to be a Buddha. Hence his perceptions of the world and things are quite different from that of the ordinary run of men. As Conze observes, Sari Putta mastered Abhidhamma pitaka. And one wonders whether Avalokitesvara teaches him some thing which beyonds the Abhidhamma. Avalokitesvara affirms that emptiness is form and form is emptiness. This puts in one’s mind the benediction of the Isopanisada :
Purnamadah Purnamidam Purnaat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya Purnamaadaaya
Purnamevaavasishyate
This is full, that is full.
Full springs from the full
If you take away the full from the full
Fullness alone persists
In the contingent world we do not find the truth of it. If a cup spills its tea, there is no more tea in it. And yet the risi asserts that emptiness in the cup is not real. There cannot be emptiness. But fullness is a word which has its antonym in emptiness. The very notion of fullness stands in relation to emptiness; then fullness and emptiness are the same. And hence the rejoinder of Buddhism is that everything is full and yet everything is empty. What is form but a combination of our material elements in earth, water, fire and air, five sense organs, and five sense objects. Feelings are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Perception is made through six senses. Samskara is difficult to translate into English. It could be described as the a priori impulse of every man with which s/he is born. And finally there is vijnana. What is vijnana but awareness of difference. Thee world of eye and ear which we half perceive and half create exists through differences alone. The tree is different from the stone and the stone is different from the running waters. The Heart Sutra asserts that these differences do exist and yet do not exist. Impulses do exist and yet they do not exist. Perceptions do exist and do not exist. Feelings do exist and do not exist.
What could such arguments mean? The Heart Sutra does not discard the world of appearance. And yet the Heart Sutra does not deny that appearance is hollow and empty.
Such deliberations might sound strange to us locked up in the world of eye and ear. We distinguish a piece of diamond from a pale of water. We distinguish an engineer from an ayah that looks after the presently born baby. This is not all. We value the engineer more and do not pause to see how much the ayah is paid for her job. This valorization and such hierarchy is hollow sham. Who is more important, an ayah or an engineer? Surely an ayah is more important because she saves the human child from death. Men are born helpless. A child left alone in a secluded place unlike a newly born calf or kitten cannot survive even a day. So an ayah gives us life. Why is she ill- paid then, while an engineer is paid enough so that s/he can live a comfortable life? The economist will say, to produce an engineer, we have to spend a lot. So he is highly paid. Well which is more important- a pale of water or a piece of diamond ? The utility of water cannot be overemphasised. We could not live without water. Still why is diamond so costly and water is sometimes available free of cost? The economist will answer that to produce another pale of water incurs no cost whereas to produce another piece of diamond one has to spend a fortune. Fine. But who said that diamond is precious? A woman who has not learnt the value - judgement laid down by the civilization might find diamonds littered on her way to gathering mango fruits. But she will not touch a single diamond. Mangoes will cater to her taste and satisfy her hunger. It is the civilization, therefore, that has created the hierarchy where diamond is more precious and water cheap. The Heart Sutra points out that such hierarchies are hollow sham. This is not all. To a sheer all things all things are at bottom the same made of pancaskandha. It is something like the vision of a physicist who finds both a mountain and a man as made of the same fund of energy. Matter has vanished in the light of modern physicist. Well, if energy is non- metal it is non – physical also. So, reductionism does not help unless we say that difference pervades this existence or difference through which this existence is revealed is true and yet not true. The Heart Sutra or Buddhism embraces, being and non- being, self and non- self as the same. Presence and absence, momentariness and eternity, and all such dichotomies of existence dissolve at the magic touch of Buddhism. Every assertion is therefore as true as any other assertion in such a world. Hence Buddhism asserts that the existence is what it is and suchness is the truth. It cannot be analysed or described with the help of vijnana. The Heart Sutra further observes:
Iha Sariputra Sarvadharmaah
Sunyata- laksmanaa, anutpannaa
Aniruddhaa amalaa avimalaa
Anuunaa aparipurnaa
O Sariputra! All the Dharmas are characterized by emptiness. Dharma is a word, which could mean on many levels. It could mean physical laws of science. In that light we could say that the dharma of water is liquidity or the dharma of wind is to move to and fro. Again dharma might mean those values which hold the mankind together. It might refer to different religions as well. Avalokitesvara asserts that these dharmas do exist. And yet they are marked by emptiness. The law
of dharmas were never created. They were never repressed. They were never defiled. They were never immaculate. They were never incomplete. They were never complete. This clearly states that Buddhism does not pin its faith on fundamentalism and foundationalism. There are myriads of human communities under the sun. Each of them has its own culture or dharma which holds its followers in a system. If Heart Sutra is properly understood, it points out that no culture is superior and no culture is inferior. No culture has any root into timelessness. So no culture is to be believed. But one must treat a different culture from the standpoint of cultural relativism. Once Buddha while living at Kosambi (near Allahabad) addressed the monks and told them- This is suffering- this I have declared This is generation of suffering- this have I declared This is the path leading to suffering – this I have declared. On the surface these declarations announce the possibility of our transportation to the world of bliss from the sphere of arrow. Buddha speaks of three types of sorrow in dukkha- dukkhata, sankhara-dukkha dukkhata, and viparinama dukkhata.
Dukkha dukkhata is our everyday sorrow. We look before and after and pine for what is not. This is dukkha dukkhata. Association with unloved ones and separation from loved ones, old age, disease and death constitute dukkha- dukkhata. Sankhara dukkhata has philosophical import. Sankhara could be interpreted as an innate mode of perception with which one is born. It is because of this sankhara one cannot realize that anything under the sun that one perceives is an aggregate of five skandhas in matter, sensations, perceptions and mental formations and consciousness. They are known briefly as nama-rupa – the psycho-physical entity. They constitute a sentient being or a person. This pancaskandha are hollow in essence. But one does not perceive that viparinama dukkha results from the transitory nature of the world. Nothing is stable here. Happiness, if it comes at all, soon vanishes like snow flakes in the sun, pushing one to despair. Even the happiness attained through mediation or jhana is also annicca or transitory. And whatever is transitory causes sorrow, Yadaniccam tam dukkham And did not Buddha announce that he had shown the way out from the sphere of sorrow?
The Heart Sutra observes that when one gets at the heart of things one knows that the world of appearance is true and yet not true. Avalokiteswara observes:
Tasmaad Saariputra Sunyatayaam na rupam
Na vedanna na sanjna na samskaaraah
Na vijnanam, na chatuprotra ghraana jihvaa
Kaaya manaamsi . Na rupa sabolagandha rasa- sprastavye
Dharmah, Na chadyurdhaaturyaavan na mano
Vijnanadhaatu na avidyaa na avidyaaksayo
Yavan na jaraa- maranam , na jaraa maranaksayo
Na duhkha- samudayo- nirodha- marga na jnaanam
Na praptirnaapraaptih
Therefore O Sariputra in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind. No sight- organ element and so forth until we come to ‘No mind- conscious element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth until we come to.’ There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and deaths. There is no way out from the sufferings. There is no cognition, no attainment, and non- attainment.’ (cp. Conze’s translation) The famous French philosopher Jaques Derrida discarded the whole of western philosophy as logo centric where a particular word such as light, soul, God or consciousness is deemed as the centre. But a centre cannot have a centre. If light were the centre of a discourse, one must not forget that darkness is at the centre of light. Once we are focused on darkness we are decentred again being aware of the fact that light is at the centre of darkness. Life and existence is the text of Avalokitesvara. He interprets the same without being logo centric. Buddha promised cessation of suffering. How is that? Avalokitesvara observes that there is no suffering and no cessation of suffering. There is no attainment and no non- attainment. Commonly we understand that cessation of suffering implies the attainment of nirvana. But Avalokitesvara explicates the same as the attainment of the fact that there is no attainment and no non- attainment. What is Nirvana then? It is naiva- sanjna nasanga . It is neither consciousness nor not – consciousness. It is neither not consciousness- nor not- not- consciousness. The awareness of such a stage baffles description in truth, as Avalokitesvara points out that there is neither ignorance nor wearing out of ignorance. In common parley we posit the dichotomies like Bondage and freedom Ignorance and knowledge Sorrow and happiness We value the motifs in the right side as desirable and the motifs in the left column as undesirable. But this is logo centric and false. One cannot exist without the other. And yet if the antonyms are brought together we do not get the truth. Ignorance depends upon knowledge or cessation of ignorance. Hence neither ignorance could be real nor cessation of ignorance could be real. Once again, neither absence of ignorance is real. Thus the Heart Sutra is free from logo centrism in its legitimation and could be called Post – modern in essence. Post- modernism is a cover–term for those avant- garde ideas that discard fundamentalism, foundationalism, essentialism and reductionism. They claim that there is no absolute foundation of truth and hence there is nothing called absolute truth or universal truth. The post- moderns claim that we are in a virtual world, which is neither real, nor not – real.
But Avalokitesvara and the Heart Sutra seem to go further.
Tasmaachhariputra apraaptitvaad bodhisattvasya
Prajnaapaaramitaam aapritya viharati
Achitavaranah Chittaavarana- nasti
Tvaad atrasto viparyaas- atikraanto nistah
Nirvaana- praaptah
“Therefore O Sariputra, it is because of his non- attainment ness that a Bodhisatta though having relied on perfection of wisdom dwells without thought–coverings. In the absence of thought- covering he has not been made to tremble he has overcome what can upset and in the end he attains Nirvana” (translation Conze)
If one seeks the path he misses it. If one seeks knowledge, he loses it. In other word, since nothing could be affirmed or negated in the existence, one’s thoughts vanish. Once, thoughts vanish, the mind is not there. Patanjali posited that yogascittavritti- nirodha. Yoga implies the wearing out of thought. Avalokitesvara reaches our mind to a thoughtless or no mind state. In fact thought always perceives half- truths. It cannot see the world steadily and as a whole. Thought reads the world in fragments and it fragments the world. Truly speaking the world or existence is neither complete nor incomplete. Since a Bodhisattva gets rid of thought- coverings, he has no fear. He has overcome what could upset him. And thereby he attains nirvana. The phrase acittavaranam might also mean devoid of coverings that shroud the citta or awareness when karma-avarana. Klesa-avarana and jneya- avarana are peeled off, there is awareness withal and the world turns into awareness of Bodhisattva or else Bodhicitta is all pervasive. This attendant of Bodhicitta is nirvana. If there were nothing else than Bodhicitta, Bodhicitta wouldn’t be there. And hence nirvana does not mean any attainment of any kind. Thus nirvana does not necessarily mean a journey to a different sphere. Bodhisatta may tread on the very earth where we move about. But he looks upon the earth from a different perspective that language fails to describe and thus Bodhisatta attains nirvana. An ontological change in the existence takes place. The next sentence reads
Tryadhvaavyavsthitah Sarva- buddhah Prajnaapaaramitaam asritye
Anuttaram Samyate Sambodhim abhi- sambuddha
‘All those who appear as Buddha in the three periods of time, fully awake to the utmost right and perfect enlightenment because they have relied on the perfection of wisdom.’ (Tr. Conze). So what Bodhisattvas learn and attain nirvana is also learnt by Buddhas. What do they learn? They learnt that nothing is to be learnt. That is the perfection of wisdom. The last sentence clinches the sutra eulogising Prajnaparomita mantra or a mantra embodying highest wisdom. The sutra ends with the chant of that mantra Gate Gate Paaram gate Paarasam gate Bodhi svaaha Conze translates the mantra as Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. O what an awakening, all hail! Who is gone? The self is gone and the non- self is gone. Beyond what have they gone? They have gone beyond the world lorn with dichotomies. Language belongs to the made up of the stuff of difference. Language pervades the world made up of the stuff of difference. The world made up of the stuff of difference is the vast chasm to cross. That which has crossed the chasm cannot be described. The realm beyond the chasm cannot be described. So one must avail oneself of the mantra which surpasses language. Chanting of the mantra will rescue us from thought- covering. Those who cross the chasm of dichotomy–lorn contingent world attain the right understanding which is no understanding at all. Since like Buddhism, Post- Modernism also does not pin its faith on anything as fundamental or essential in the existence, the critics of Postmodernism often posit that such philosophies cannot have any ethics and the human society cannot run on such nihilistic legitimations.
One asks whether it is possible
That without serious pleasures life could be endurable That without faith in immortality man could be moral That without any help from an external agency man could march towards righteousness
That without rites and rituals man could remain religious
That without beliefs and emotion man could be religious
That without having any fear in the mind man could be virtuous
Heart Sutra seems to be a fitting reply to such queries
We propose hereby to read the Heart Sutra from fresh standpoint. Let us at the outset explain why we are drawn to a study of the Heart Sutra. To answer that, we shall refer to Edward Conze who avows that the judgement of thirty generations of Buddhists in China, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia have singled out the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra as the holiest of holy; both perhaps of the fourth century of our era , as Conze observes. In view of the fact that the Heart Sutra which has been deemed as one of the holiest of holy for thirty generations by Buddhists of different nations , we had better read it once again to see what wealth the Sutra brings to us. Why say that the Heart Sutra could be read from fresh standpoint? Well, there are commentaries of the same by such masterminds like Asanga, Vasuvandhu and Kamalasila and no less a scholar than Edward Conze have composed commentary of high watermark of the same sutra. Still, just as anyone must find out or make his own road to enlightenment, similarly everyone must read a text in his own way to find the Tao or the road. A text cannot have one and only one meaning. Or else why should there be so many interpretations of the text? The very text of the Heart Sutra avows that form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form. On one level at least every form has emptiness in it. Emptiness speaks of something which is beyond the ken of perceptions trammelled by time and space. And surely interpretations through words which are bound by time and space cannot exhaust the meaning of a text, albeit no interpretation of a text could be wide off the mark of the meaning of a text. Since words cannot exhaust the meaning of emptiness, emptiness could have meaning on numerous levels. Modern linguistics and philosophy of language point out that language cannot have one definite meaning. Any text whatever is, capable of meaning on more than one level. This is very much true of a text which is being read through the generations and is a classic. Every generation has its own unique point of view and aspirations. The text which satisfies the different aspirations of different generations must be capable of meaning on different levels. Where is the text? There could be no text without its reader apprehending some meaning. And surely there are as many texts embedded as there are readers. Because every reader decodes the text from his own standpoint. Hence the proposal to read the Heart Sutra afresh. And we propose to read the Heart Sutra on more than one level. And to that end we invoke the skill of close reading and explicatio de texte. Beardsley recommends that explicatio be used as a name for the critic’s effort to disclose implicit meanings at the lexical level of a poem such as the connotations of a word, the implications of a complex or ambiguous syntax, or possible meaning of a metaphor or other tropes (Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetics, pg 395, Princeton University Press, Princeton). Close reading method is very akin to explication. It focuses on the text itself and does not give importance to any extra- textual context. The title of the Sutra is known as the Heart Sutra. Does the Sutra reach us to the heart of the things or to the heart of the scriptures? Or did the Sutra itself spring from the heart? Or else the Sutra though explicit in the text is implicit in every heart? The Sutra opens with the invocation:
Om namo bhagavatya
Aarya- prajnaa paramitayai Prajna means wisdom. Prajnaparamita means perfection of wisdom or else it might mean wisdom and its beyond. Since gender in Sanskrit is grammatical and not natural, Bhagavati Prajnaparamita might mean the deity of the spirit of wisdom. It is not necessary to attribute any natural gender to it. Paramita might be a god or goddess or both or none. Be that as it may the addresser in the poem pays his / her
homage to Arya Prajnaparamita. Conze tells us that Arya stands for both noble and holy.
Wisdom has been deified and hence to distinguish it/ him/ her, in the contingent world the addresser attributes it / him/ her as noble and holy. Why does the addresser pay his or her homage to Wisdom? Perhaps because s/he seeks to disclose some truth hidden from the eye and which needs wisdom to encode. Aarya Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva Gambhiram prajnapaaramitaacharyaam charamaano
Vyvalokayati sma panchaskandhaascha
Svabhaavasunyaat pasyati sma
The word Arya could be derived from verb Ri and could mean moving or dynamic as well. So the Arya Avalokitesvara is one who moves from falsehood to truth. Iswara is Lord. Avalokitesvara is the Lord of Avalokana or seeing; he sees into the life of things. At the same time he is also being seen. He is Bodhisattva. In other words his essence
is awareness or enlightenment. Be that as it may, according to Buddhist mythology a Bodhisattva is one who strives to become a Buddha or the Enlightened one. This is not all. According to the Mahayana school of Buddhism, Bodhisattva is one who does not seek his own emancipation. On the contrary, a Bodhisattva seeks to emancipate everything of the world. According to Buddhist mythology, Avalokitesvara is an ideal Bodhisattva, because he refused enlightenment or emancipation. As long as the smallest particle of the existence is not emancipated, Avalokitesvara will not embrace eternal bliss or nirvana. This Arya Avalokiteswara Bodhisattva was seriously plunged in the practice of wisdom that takes one beyond the perceived and the non-perceived. In this state he looked about and found the pancaskandhas. And he found that pancaskandhas were by nature or svabhava empty. The wide wonderful world with such abundant variety was looked upon by the seer Bodhisattva as merely made of five constituents and by nature they are empty or svabhava – sunya. On the surface whatever Avalokitesvara sees is empty by nature. If everything were empty then the speaker alone pervades the existence. But the self is also made of pancaskandha and empty. So Avalokitesvara is not there and nothing is there. When neither the object nor the subject is there, there is neither the speaker nor the listener nor the speech. Here is the aesthetics of silence eloquent about suchness. This is why it has been said that despite the Tripitaka Buddha did not utter a single word. In the light of Avalokitesvara whatever is not – Avalokitesvara can see into the thingness of things, finds that all things and beings are mere appearances before a myopic eye. They exist and yet by nature they do not exist. They are like castles in the air. The word ‘sunya’ however has its antonym in purna. A thing or being could be really empty when they appear otherwise. Or else emptiness or sunya would have no meaning. ‘As a technical meaning it denotes in Buddhism the absence of self’ (Conze). The next section explicates his proposition:
Iha Saariputra rupam sunyataa
Sunyataiva rupam rupanna prithak sunyataa
Sunyataayaa na prithag rupam
Evam eva vedanna- sanjnaa-samskaara vijnam
On the surface it implies that one’s own- being and marks of the skandhas, elements and sense- fields are imagined. Since they are devoid of self – a mere agglomeration or heaps closely tied to their root cause, ignorance, karma and craving , proceeding from mutual conditioning inactive- therefore the Skandhas are also without the special and general marks. The variety of such marks is the result of fancy and they are distinguished from one another by fools and not by saints. But, no. What Avalokiteswara says does not point that all appearance is illusion. He does not claim that all appearance vanish like bubbles in the air before a discerning eye. On the contrary he posits that appearance and emptiness are identical. Appearance means emptiness and emptiness means appearance. In other words, the world of appearance neither is, nor is not. And existence is at bottom unreal. And yet it is not unreal. Avalokiteswara observes that emptiness does not differ from form. But we mortals are never focussed on the opposites simultaneously. Heisenberg’s Theory of Indeterminacy has proved that we cannot have total knowledge in this contingent world. Because if we want to measure the speed of an electron, we shall not know its location. Again if we want the location of an electron, we shall not know its speed. But Avalokitesvara’s eye can know both at the same time. He can be focussed on the opposites at the same time. Form is one of the five skandhas or five constituents that create all things in the multiverse. The other four are feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness. Earlier Avalokitesvara saw everything and every being of the existence made up of these five constituents. Now Avalokitesvara points that forms as well as other constituents are identical with emptiness and emptiness is identical with form. In other words, both appearance and reality are taken into account. The addressee of this Heart Sutra, as it has been revealed here is Sari Putta. This is very significant because this distinguishes the Heart Sutra from any other sutra. Any speech is determined by its addressee.Sari Putta as we know was predestined to be a Buddha. Hence his perceptions of the world and things are quite different from that of the ordinary run of men. As Conze observes, Sari Putta mastered Abhidhamma pitaka. And one wonders whether Avalokitesvara teaches him some thing which beyonds the Abhidhamma. Avalokitesvara affirms that emptiness is form and form is emptiness. This puts in one’s mind the benediction of the Isopanisada :
Purnamadah Purnamidam Purnaat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya Purnamaadaaya
Purnamevaavasishyate
This is full, that is full.
Full springs from the full
If you take away the full from the full
Fullness alone persists
In the contingent world we do not find the truth of it. If a cup spills its tea, there is no more tea in it. And yet the risi asserts that emptiness in the cup is not real. There cannot be emptiness. But fullness is a word which has its antonym in emptiness. The very notion of fullness stands in relation to emptiness; then fullness and emptiness are the same. And hence the rejoinder of Buddhism is that everything is full and yet everything is empty. What is form but a combination of our material elements in earth, water, fire and air, five sense organs, and five sense objects. Feelings are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Perception is made through six senses. Samskara is difficult to translate into English. It could be described as the a priori impulse of every man with which s/he is born. And finally there is vijnana. What is vijnana but awareness of difference. Thee world of eye and ear which we half perceive and half create exists through differences alone. The tree is different from the stone and the stone is different from the running waters. The Heart Sutra asserts that these differences do exist and yet do not exist. Impulses do exist and yet they do not exist. Perceptions do exist and do not exist. Feelings do exist and do not exist.
What could such arguments mean? The Heart Sutra does not discard the world of appearance. And yet the Heart Sutra does not deny that appearance is hollow and empty.
Such deliberations might sound strange to us locked up in the world of eye and ear. We distinguish a piece of diamond from a pale of water. We distinguish an engineer from an ayah that looks after the presently born baby. This is not all. We value the engineer more and do not pause to see how much the ayah is paid for her job. This valorization and such hierarchy is hollow sham. Who is more important, an ayah or an engineer? Surely an ayah is more important because she saves the human child from death. Men are born helpless. A child left alone in a secluded place unlike a newly born calf or kitten cannot survive even a day. So an ayah gives us life. Why is she ill- paid then, while an engineer is paid enough so that s/he can live a comfortable life? The economist will say, to produce an engineer, we have to spend a lot. So he is highly paid. Well which is more important- a pale of water or a piece of diamond ? The utility of water cannot be overemphasised. We could not live without water. Still why is diamond so costly and water is sometimes available free of cost? The economist will answer that to produce another pale of water incurs no cost whereas to produce another piece of diamond one has to spend a fortune. Fine. But who said that diamond is precious? A woman who has not learnt the value - judgement laid down by the civilization might find diamonds littered on her way to gathering mango fruits. But she will not touch a single diamond. Mangoes will cater to her taste and satisfy her hunger. It is the civilization, therefore, that has created the hierarchy where diamond is more precious and water cheap. The Heart Sutra points out that such hierarchies are hollow sham. This is not all. To a sheer all things all things are at bottom the same made of pancaskandha. It is something like the vision of a physicist who finds both a mountain and a man as made of the same fund of energy. Matter has vanished in the light of modern physicist. Well, if energy is non- metal it is non – physical also. So, reductionism does not help unless we say that difference pervades this existence or difference through which this existence is revealed is true and yet not true. The Heart Sutra or Buddhism embraces, being and non- being, self and non- self as the same. Presence and absence, momentariness and eternity, and all such dichotomies of existence dissolve at the magic touch of Buddhism. Every assertion is therefore as true as any other assertion in such a world. Hence Buddhism asserts that the existence is what it is and suchness is the truth. It cannot be analysed or described with the help of vijnana. The Heart Sutra further observes:
Iha Sariputra Sarvadharmaah
Sunyata- laksmanaa, anutpannaa
Aniruddhaa amalaa avimalaa
Anuunaa aparipurnaa
O Sariputra! All the Dharmas are characterized by emptiness. Dharma is a word, which could mean on many levels. It could mean physical laws of science. In that light we could say that the dharma of water is liquidity or the dharma of wind is to move to and fro. Again dharma might mean those values which hold the mankind together. It might refer to different religions as well. Avalokitesvara asserts that these dharmas do exist. And yet they are marked by emptiness. The law
of dharmas were never created. They were never repressed. They were never defiled. They were never immaculate. They were never incomplete. They were never complete. This clearly states that Buddhism does not pin its faith on fundamentalism and foundationalism. There are myriads of human communities under the sun. Each of them has its own culture or dharma which holds its followers in a system. If Heart Sutra is properly understood, it points out that no culture is superior and no culture is inferior. No culture has any root into timelessness. So no culture is to be believed. But one must treat a different culture from the standpoint of cultural relativism. Once Buddha while living at Kosambi (near Allahabad) addressed the monks and told them- This is suffering- this I have declared This is generation of suffering- this have I declared This is the path leading to suffering – this I have declared. On the surface these declarations announce the possibility of our transportation to the world of bliss from the sphere of arrow. Buddha speaks of three types of sorrow in dukkha- dukkhata, sankhara-dukkha dukkhata, and viparinama dukkhata.
Dukkha dukkhata is our everyday sorrow. We look before and after and pine for what is not. This is dukkha dukkhata. Association with unloved ones and separation from loved ones, old age, disease and death constitute dukkha- dukkhata. Sankhara dukkhata has philosophical import. Sankhara could be interpreted as an innate mode of perception with which one is born. It is because of this sankhara one cannot realize that anything under the sun that one perceives is an aggregate of five skandhas in matter, sensations, perceptions and mental formations and consciousness. They are known briefly as nama-rupa – the psycho-physical entity. They constitute a sentient being or a person. This pancaskandha are hollow in essence. But one does not perceive that viparinama dukkha results from the transitory nature of the world. Nothing is stable here. Happiness, if it comes at all, soon vanishes like snow flakes in the sun, pushing one to despair. Even the happiness attained through mediation or jhana is also annicca or transitory. And whatever is transitory causes sorrow, Yadaniccam tam dukkham And did not Buddha announce that he had shown the way out from the sphere of sorrow?
The Heart Sutra observes that when one gets at the heart of things one knows that the world of appearance is true and yet not true. Avalokiteswara observes:
Tasmaad Saariputra Sunyatayaam na rupam
Na vedanna na sanjna na samskaaraah
Na vijnanam, na chatuprotra ghraana jihvaa
Kaaya manaamsi . Na rupa sabolagandha rasa- sprastavye
Dharmah, Na chadyurdhaaturyaavan na mano
Vijnanadhaatu na avidyaa na avidyaaksayo
Yavan na jaraa- maranam , na jaraa maranaksayo
Na duhkha- samudayo- nirodha- marga na jnaanam
Na praptirnaapraaptih
Therefore O Sariputra in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind. No sight- organ element and so forth until we come to ‘No mind- conscious element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth until we come to.’ There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and deaths. There is no way out from the sufferings. There is no cognition, no attainment, and non- attainment.’ (cp. Conze’s translation) The famous French philosopher Jaques Derrida discarded the whole of western philosophy as logo centric where a particular word such as light, soul, God or consciousness is deemed as the centre. But a centre cannot have a centre. If light were the centre of a discourse, one must not forget that darkness is at the centre of light. Once we are focused on darkness we are decentred again being aware of the fact that light is at the centre of darkness. Life and existence is the text of Avalokitesvara. He interprets the same without being logo centric. Buddha promised cessation of suffering. How is that? Avalokitesvara observes that there is no suffering and no cessation of suffering. There is no attainment and no non- attainment. Commonly we understand that cessation of suffering implies the attainment of nirvana. But Avalokitesvara explicates the same as the attainment of the fact that there is no attainment and no non- attainment. What is Nirvana then? It is naiva- sanjna nasanga . It is neither consciousness nor not – consciousness. It is neither not consciousness- nor not- not- consciousness. The awareness of such a stage baffles description in truth, as Avalokitesvara points out that there is neither ignorance nor wearing out of ignorance. In common parley we posit the dichotomies like Bondage and freedom Ignorance and knowledge Sorrow and happiness We value the motifs in the right side as desirable and the motifs in the left column as undesirable. But this is logo centric and false. One cannot exist without the other. And yet if the antonyms are brought together we do not get the truth. Ignorance depends upon knowledge or cessation of ignorance. Hence neither ignorance could be real nor cessation of ignorance could be real. Once again, neither absence of ignorance is real. Thus the Heart Sutra is free from logo centrism in its legitimation and could be called Post – modern in essence. Post- modernism is a cover–term for those avant- garde ideas that discard fundamentalism, foundationalism, essentialism and reductionism. They claim that there is no absolute foundation of truth and hence there is nothing called absolute truth or universal truth. The post- moderns claim that we are in a virtual world, which is neither real, nor not – real.
But Avalokitesvara and the Heart Sutra seem to go further.
Tasmaachhariputra apraaptitvaad bodhisattvasya
Prajnaapaaramitaam aapritya viharati
Achitavaranah Chittaavarana- nasti
Tvaad atrasto viparyaas- atikraanto nistah
Nirvaana- praaptah
“Therefore O Sariputra, it is because of his non- attainment ness that a Bodhisatta though having relied on perfection of wisdom dwells without thought–coverings. In the absence of thought- covering he has not been made to tremble he has overcome what can upset and in the end he attains Nirvana” (translation Conze)
If one seeks the path he misses it. If one seeks knowledge, he loses it. In other word, since nothing could be affirmed or negated in the existence, one’s thoughts vanish. Once, thoughts vanish, the mind is not there. Patanjali posited that yogascittavritti- nirodha. Yoga implies the wearing out of thought. Avalokitesvara reaches our mind to a thoughtless or no mind state. In fact thought always perceives half- truths. It cannot see the world steadily and as a whole. Thought reads the world in fragments and it fragments the world. Truly speaking the world or existence is neither complete nor incomplete. Since a Bodhisattva gets rid of thought- coverings, he has no fear. He has overcome what could upset him. And thereby he attains nirvana. The phrase acittavaranam might also mean devoid of coverings that shroud the citta or awareness when karma-avarana. Klesa-avarana and jneya- avarana are peeled off, there is awareness withal and the world turns into awareness of Bodhisattva or else Bodhicitta is all pervasive. This attendant of Bodhicitta is nirvana. If there were nothing else than Bodhicitta, Bodhicitta wouldn’t be there. And hence nirvana does not mean any attainment of any kind. Thus nirvana does not necessarily mean a journey to a different sphere. Bodhisatta may tread on the very earth where we move about. But he looks upon the earth from a different perspective that language fails to describe and thus Bodhisatta attains nirvana. An ontological change in the existence takes place. The next sentence reads
Tryadhvaavyavsthitah Sarva- buddhah Prajnaapaaramitaam asritye
Anuttaram Samyate Sambodhim abhi- sambuddha
‘All those who appear as Buddha in the three periods of time, fully awake to the utmost right and perfect enlightenment because they have relied on the perfection of wisdom.’ (Tr. Conze). So what Bodhisattvas learn and attain nirvana is also learnt by Buddhas. What do they learn? They learnt that nothing is to be learnt. That is the perfection of wisdom. The last sentence clinches the sutra eulogising Prajnaparomita mantra or a mantra embodying highest wisdom. The sutra ends with the chant of that mantra Gate Gate Paaram gate Paarasam gate Bodhi svaaha Conze translates the mantra as Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. O what an awakening, all hail! Who is gone? The self is gone and the non- self is gone. Beyond what have they gone? They have gone beyond the world lorn with dichotomies. Language belongs to the made up of the stuff of difference. Language pervades the world made up of the stuff of difference. The world made up of the stuff of difference is the vast chasm to cross. That which has crossed the chasm cannot be described. The realm beyond the chasm cannot be described. So one must avail oneself of the mantra which surpasses language. Chanting of the mantra will rescue us from thought- covering. Those who cross the chasm of dichotomy–lorn contingent world attain the right understanding which is no understanding at all. Since like Buddhism, Post- Modernism also does not pin its faith on anything as fundamental or essential in the existence, the critics of Postmodernism often posit that such philosophies cannot have any ethics and the human society cannot run on such nihilistic legitimations.
One asks whether it is possible
That without serious pleasures life could be endurable That without faith in immortality man could be moral That without any help from an external agency man could march towards righteousness
That without rites and rituals man could remain religious
That without beliefs and emotion man could be religious
That without having any fear in the mind man could be virtuous
Heart Sutra seems to be a fitting reply to such queries
GANGA
Pritha
You started from the mountains of Himalays,
Where it is the abode of Lord Shiva.
Your water washes all sins of men;
Your water washes God's feet in heaven.
Your water is must in every festival.
Whether the source is Saraswati or Yamuna.
Civilizations grew on your bank and changed.
But you remained the essence and never changed.
"Mother Ganga, is holy" is an accepted idea.
Your water is life to the people of India.
You started from the mountains of Himalays,
Where it is the abode of Lord Shiva.
Your water washes all sins of men;
Your water washes God's feet in heaven.
Your water is must in every festival.
Whether the source is Saraswati or Yamuna.
Civilizations grew on your bank and changed.
But you remained the essence and never changed.
"Mother Ganga, is holy" is an accepted idea.
Your water is life to the people of India.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
A Witch's day out (mini story.)
Mukta Vasudeva
Purely out of dejection, I unscrewed the coat hanger. Just one was enough really, these walls can't take much these plywoody, plasterous ,nonconcretenous interruptions to space. The coat hanger is already stuffed with three of her overcoats, it would hardly take one more to do the trick... cRaSh! "What the Fu... Steve, your like ,breaking things in my house dude. The landlord is going to charge me for that!!" Ha ha I can barely stifle my laughter; she is going all red in the face trying to act docile, trying to make nice to a guest who just caused two blaring holes in the wall. Heheheeeeeeeeee.
I am bored now. These jerks have had a good time despite my attempts to spoil the party. First I kazaakkd out the lights, thought they would groan in disappointment. Thought she would cry. She just mumbled apologetically, such a cow, actually thinks she is important enough to be in charge; feels responsible just because she lives here; made fumbling excuses about how it never happened before blab la blab laaa baltidatida.. They all started singing songs in the candle light. Then I opened the kitchen door. Even conjured up a little storm just for her backyard. Fun for a bit. Danced with the hose pipe, with its insides gushing out. The stray cat rushed into the kitchen with its muddy paws and jumped into the dishes on the table. Almost a party, then those wet blankets came rushing with their candles and started helping her clean the kitchen. Someone even started rapping about the cat. Bozos. Look at them laughing.
Anyways... my shrink might say that I am seeking attention, my mom just says that I'm a bad witch always looking to make not so nice. They ruined my invisibility spell, it lasts only for some hundred calinks which is about twenty minutes for them, and they wasted it, morons. I could have booed someone else. Now I have to wait till next week for uncle Schechang to recharge my spell bars. Stupid adults think they can keep me from 'doing' too much by limiting my powers.
Purely out of dejection, I unscrewed the coat hanger. Just one was enough really, these walls can't take much these plywoody, plasterous ,nonconcretenous interruptions to space. The coat hanger is already stuffed with three of her overcoats, it would hardly take one more to do the trick... cRaSh! "What the Fu... Steve, your like ,breaking things in my house dude. The landlord is going to charge me for that!!" Ha ha I can barely stifle my laughter; she is going all red in the face trying to act docile, trying to make nice to a guest who just caused two blaring holes in the wall. Heheheeeeeeeeee.
I am bored now. These jerks have had a good time despite my attempts to spoil the party. First I kazaakkd out the lights, thought they would groan in disappointment. Thought she would cry. She just mumbled apologetically, such a cow, actually thinks she is important enough to be in charge; feels responsible just because she lives here; made fumbling excuses about how it never happened before blab la blab laaa baltidatida.. They all started singing songs in the candle light. Then I opened the kitchen door. Even conjured up a little storm just for her backyard. Fun for a bit. Danced with the hose pipe, with its insides gushing out. The stray cat rushed into the kitchen with its muddy paws and jumped into the dishes on the table. Almost a party, then those wet blankets came rushing with their candles and started helping her clean the kitchen. Someone even started rapping about the cat. Bozos. Look at them laughing.
Anyways... my shrink might say that I am seeking attention, my mom just says that I'm a bad witch always looking to make not so nice. They ruined my invisibility spell, it lasts only for some hundred calinks which is about twenty minutes for them, and they wasted it, morons. I could have booed someone else. Now I have to wait till next week for uncle Schechang to recharge my spell bars. Stupid adults think they can keep me from 'doing' too much by limiting my powers.
Kleptomania
Kleptomania
Mayukh Ghosh
There emerged a peculiar problem in our section. Someone was stealing
our school accessories and other things. Everyone became mere
spectators of such works of theft. Our class teacher could only warn
us about the incident but was unable to solve the problem.
We were four best friends – Deep, Joy, Abhi and me, Suvo. We all loved
to read detective stories and hence decided to solve this case. But
unlike our game plans, our investigation plans failed. We blamed Abhi
for such failures but forgot everything as time progressed and
examinations came nearer.
It was my birthday and I was craving for a big treasure as gift from
God. My school bag had little space for books as it got flooded with
gifts. Joy gifted me a brand new watch which I wore all day long. I
decided to leave it in my bag before the P.T. class, to keep it
intact.
“You carry on Suvo, We’ll join you”, Abhi and Deep said and left.
Halfway down the stairs, I realized that I have forgotten my specs and
hurriedly ran up. In front of the class, I saw both of them looking
inside.
“Abhi! Deep! What are you doing there?” I asked. They turned towards
me with astonishment and I saw tears rolling down their cheek.
“What happened?” I asked and to my utmost surprise I saw Joy opening
my bag and trying to steal things from there.
“Why are you standing here? He’s the thief, let’s catch him” I said as
I started marching towards Joy. But Abhi pulled my hands and stopped
me.
“He’s a Kleptomaniac.”Abhi said wiping his spectacles. “What does that mean?” I questioned without any clue. “He is a mental patient. It is a mental disease compelling him to steal. The patient is in his sub-conscious mind while stealing, so
he’s not aware of it.” Deep explained as I slowly sat down on the
floor.
“I never wanted anyone to get hold of him and that’s why all our plans
failed. I came to knew about the culprit even before we started off.
Deep found out that it was a disease and not intentional. His parents
are not aware of the fact.” Abhi said with his voice getting dim every
second.
“My uncle had the same disease so I knew the symptoms of it.” Deep
informed.
“What are his chances of curing?” I asked curiously.
“We took him to my friend’s father who’s a psychologist. He prescribed
him a medicine known as selective serotonin besides mental rest. We
used to buy the medicine every month from our puja savings, pocket
money and the money I earned from band.” Deep explained.
“We kept informing him about his disease and spent as much time with
him as possible.” Abhi informed. “I will also help you Abhi, Deep. I can’t believe that I have such
great friends. Today I’m proud of them.” Tears filled my eyes as I
said this.
“Hey! let’s go, we’re getting late.” Joy standing in front of us with
an astonished face not realizing his past moment.
And we had to stand on the ground for the whole period for joining
late. But from that day, I had the respect for my friends in the
deepest depths of my heart and could recognize the treasures that God
gifted me on my birthday.
Abhi is absolutely perfect nowadays and is a regular ranker of our
class. But in the midst of all things, I lost my real treasures in a
car accident yesterday.
Mayukh Ghosh
There emerged a peculiar problem in our section. Someone was stealing
our school accessories and other things. Everyone became mere
spectators of such works of theft. Our class teacher could only warn
us about the incident but was unable to solve the problem.
We were four best friends – Deep, Joy, Abhi and me, Suvo. We all loved
to read detective stories and hence decided to solve this case. But
unlike our game plans, our investigation plans failed. We blamed Abhi
for such failures but forgot everything as time progressed and
examinations came nearer.
It was my birthday and I was craving for a big treasure as gift from
God. My school bag had little space for books as it got flooded with
gifts. Joy gifted me a brand new watch which I wore all day long. I
decided to leave it in my bag before the P.T. class, to keep it
intact.
“You carry on Suvo, We’ll join you”, Abhi and Deep said and left.
Halfway down the stairs, I realized that I have forgotten my specs and
hurriedly ran up. In front of the class, I saw both of them looking
inside.
“Abhi! Deep! What are you doing there?” I asked. They turned towards
me with astonishment and I saw tears rolling down their cheek.
“What happened?” I asked and to my utmost surprise I saw Joy opening
my bag and trying to steal things from there.
“Why are you standing here? He’s the thief, let’s catch him” I said as
I started marching towards Joy. But Abhi pulled my hands and stopped
me.
“He’s a Kleptomaniac.”Abhi said wiping his spectacles. “What does that mean?” I questioned without any clue. “He is a mental patient. It is a mental disease compelling him to steal. The patient is in his sub-conscious mind while stealing, so
he’s not aware of it.” Deep explained as I slowly sat down on the
floor.
“I never wanted anyone to get hold of him and that’s why all our plans
failed. I came to knew about the culprit even before we started off.
Deep found out that it was a disease and not intentional. His parents
are not aware of the fact.” Abhi said with his voice getting dim every
second.
“My uncle had the same disease so I knew the symptoms of it.” Deep
informed.
“What are his chances of curing?” I asked curiously.
“We took him to my friend’s father who’s a psychologist. He prescribed
him a medicine known as selective serotonin besides mental rest. We
used to buy the medicine every month from our puja savings, pocket
money and the money I earned from band.” Deep explained.
“We kept informing him about his disease and spent as much time with
him as possible.” Abhi informed. “I will also help you Abhi, Deep. I can’t believe that I have such
great friends. Today I’m proud of them.” Tears filled my eyes as I
said this.
“Hey! let’s go, we’re getting late.” Joy standing in front of us with
an astonished face not realizing his past moment.
And we had to stand on the ground for the whole period for joining
late. But from that day, I had the respect for my friends in the
deepest depths of my heart and could recognize the treasures that God
gifted me on my birthday.
Abhi is absolutely perfect nowadays and is a regular ranker of our
class. But in the midst of all things, I lost my real treasures in a
car accident yesterday.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Lalgarh---a distant habitation from Calcutta and West Bengal State Government
Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
1.
The communists rather the CPI(M) has been ruling West Bengal for last
three decades. This is singularly unique Even in Kerala where the
communists are strong they could not rule continuously for decades
together In every state whatever in India there has been change in
the govt . But men may come men may go the communists ruled us for at
least one generation How could the communists do that. Well they
forged a front govt just as MaoTse Tung had forged a front govt in
Red China The front partners other than the CPI(M) have been in fact
the yesmen of their Big Brother CPI(M).Why did they linger in the
Front Govt despite being humiliated . The answer is simple As long as
yoiu are in the front govt you enjoy a ministry at least Thereby you
enjoy some power If you are not in the govt you dont get the power
When the Big Brother CPI(M) puts up a front with these yesmen of small
parties the outlook is as it were that there is no one party rule But
just as the Chairman had destroyed all opposition in Red China so the
CPI(M) abolished every trace of opposition in West Bengal Well there
was Indian National Congress And of course they won a few seats in the
assembly But they were few very few And it seems that it were the CPI
(M) that condescended to the opposition a few seats to show that they
were ruling us democratically In fact the CPI(M) was the monarch of
all that it surveyed Our question is--How could the CPI(M) do so .
How did Auranngzeb or Alauddin rule India? Well CPI(M) , they say saw
to that most of the industries come to a halt in last 30 years .Fine .
We must acknowledge that CPI(M) itself was the largest employer in
the state.. There is no account of it available. But I think that at
least 1 lakfh people were appointed as the wholetimers of the party.
With this great army of paid cadres the CPI(M) used to look after
every household Communists they exclaimed know how to run an
organisation . It is disciplined like an army It is so unlike the
Congress which seems to be an assembly of rowdies True. Suppose you
are paid Rs 200/;- only for lookin g after fifty households in
Raikatpara ,Murshidabad Everyone knows you as a representative of the
ruling party. So when a new tenant occupies a house to be let out the
tenant must give a nazrana to you The owner of the house must also pay
an honararium due to you Because it is you who looks after the peace
of the locality Quarrel if any between the husband and wife our
comrade interferes and if necessary summons the husbsnd to the party
office and our comrade occupies the judgement seat So although the
party pays you a paltry sum of Rs 200 only you can have a palatial
house to live in and your children read in the costliest schools and
so on Fine But wherefrom could the party get so much money to pay the
salary of say one lakh whole timers? The answer is simple Whatever
employment one gets in private firm or public sector one gets only
because of the reccomendation of the party . Thus if you want to be
the principal of a govt sponsored college---all the colleges teaching
B.A , B.Sc etc are govt sponsored till date methinks-- you must get
reccomendation from the chief of the Local Committee of the ruiling
party and when you become the principal you pay the party levy from
your salary So yopu guess how the income and the expenditure of the
party flowed But you cannot audit it it Because the political parties
need not pay any income tax in India
So this is how the cadreraj continued in West Bengal with great
efficiency.And Lalgarh a peaceful hamlet lived there unknown and
unsung
2
Lalgarh remained unknown and unsung for decades together. It first
found its place in the media approximately in 2007 when we heard that
the Maoists took law intheir hands and assassinated a few CPI(M)
leaders Yes Maoists have figured in West Bengal politics for last
four or five years Who are the Maoists ? I donot know. Yes I knew
the Naxalites. It was in the sixties that the Naxalites shot up in
West Bengal as an emergent force . At the outset they didnot believe
in the parlianentary process They beleved that the guns were the
fountainhead of power and with the aid of guns they would hasten a
peasants revolution in India Fine West Bengal passed through a decade
long blood bath and then yielded to CPI(M) The Naxaltes were
eliminated from Bengal in a sense though they now and then raised
their voice here and there . But the Naxalites found room in the
jungle areas of Jharkhand Andhra and the like They showed up in
Midnapur West and Purulia in last ten years The Naxalite is now a days
an umbrella term which denotes thirty different Maoist outfits And
most of them pin their faith on gettiong at power and distribution of
wealth through violent struggle And to repeat a Maoist outfit showed
up in Purulia and West Midnapore inthe main in West Bengal How dids
they figure Well suppose they publish posters asking thIs or that CPI
(M) leader of the locality to give up the party. Often one who
ignores the poster is assassinated Incidents like that has been
taking place at Lalgarh during last 2 or 3 years and Lalgarh slowly
made its way to prominence
3
Lalgarh is ropughly 150 kilometres away from Calcutta and some 40
kilometres away from Midnapore the District toiwn Midnapore by the by
is 130 kilometres away from Calcutta Lalgarh and Ramgarh and the like
are not towns They coulde be3 better called hamlets The people
inhabiting here are not tribes Despite that about 70% people here
are below poverty line There are n umerous villages in the
neioghbourhood of Lalgah Ramgarh and the like and the total
populatuiopn of the area is approximately 10 lakhs And mind you 80% of
them are below below-poverty line. Poverty itself itrself shudders at
their sight These people live on the eggs of ants Rarely do they get
rice to eat The moment they are born they have hunger and they live
with hunger. Suppose you are their guest and they offer you rice if
you ask them with what curry or soup should you take the rice they
will ask you to take the rice with the sauce known as hunger. Their
means of living is to collect some leaves of trees from the
neighbouring jungles
These people backed up a political outfit known as Jharkhand Naren
group in the ninetees. It was on the surface run by the leaders of the
backward class and its soile object was to rescue the backward people
from starvation.Here it will not be out of place to point out that the
recent legislation in our country has simply sent total unemployment
to exile. Because the govt assures 100 days employment to one and all
a year And one should get the employment presently after one lodges
an application . Besides ration at a cheap rate is distributed among
those who are there below poverty line. But it is a pity that the
tribal leaders were no better than the CPI(M) leaders. Both saw to
that tyhe poor are not benefitted The poor didnot get the ration card
due to them The rice bought with their ration cards are sold in the
black market .The money due for hundred days work scheme are
distributed among ghost workers and pocketed by the leaders The poor
rural people there fore shifted their support to TrinamulBJP combine
when they were strong enough to ask for the support of the people
there It is clkaimed that the CPI(M) leaders at this hour made a deal
with the Maoists and the latter got a footing here. They were supposed
to drive away Trinamul and BJP from this area Well if this story is
true then the Maoists were invoked by the ruling party
4
Every reoport is a recollection and narration . There was a thane
named Macduff .His wife and the little child in her arms were
assassinated by murderes sent by Macbeth Lady Macbeth recunts the
story while waking in sleep and turns into a ballad----The thane of
Fife had a wife and where is she now? Lalgarh when recalled and
recounted could be as real and unreal as tHe ballad. Indeed we are all
walking in sleep Our life is a sleep and forgetting Despite that
there is a school of thinkers who posit that dreams and ballads are
some times more true than the everyday waking truth God knows Are we
awake or asleep Ipresume that me the speaker is asleep Or when
assassinators came and unsheathed their sabres to starve our poor
fellowmen at Lalgarh and its neighbourhood I couldnot cry halt to
their heinous act The Naren Group and the CPI{M} were for a time
routed by Trinamul and BJP in the area And it is said that it was at
that time the CPI{M} like a witch conjured the Naxalites so they
might drive away the Trinamul and BJP The trick worked But CPI{M}
henceforth was always scared of Naxalite killing of the CPI{m]
leaders... This story might not be true But it is a good story Because
such passage of events is possible Think of America During the cold
war they fanned Muslim fundsamentalism in Afganisthan and Iran Though
the Shah of Persia was a faithful friend of America and though as a
ruler he was very good still America let Khomeini to show up Because
if fundamentalists ruleD the border states of Russia the
communist Russia would not be able to expand This is why the Talibans
came to power iin Afganisthan Once the Soviet Russia fell the
Americans have been restive regarding Muslim fundamentalism The
ruling party of the state conjured the Naxalites to drive away
Trinamul and BJP later the naxalites became the enemy of the ruling
party And the govt claims that the Naxalites have undermining the
sovereignty of the state that is India. But may be the story of
conjuring the naxalites in the eighties in West Midnapore Purulia or
Bankura could be a myth And there are a few Gandhiites still even in
England (a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, I read in the newspaper is going
to be raised in England presently}
5
True there are Gandhiites there But was not Robin Hood right Could
Gandhi himself throw away a ballad enshrining the heroics of Robin
Hood Although all of us know who Robin Hood is it is a pity that the
history of English Literature doesnot take cognizance of him The
Middle Age English Literature abounds with Romances They have been
composed by the nobility and their theme is war and love The hero
there goes of f to death in an attitude leaving the lovely heroine
looking upon him from the castle verandah in tearful rapture .And if
you want to step aside from the mall of Middle Age English Literature
you come across Wycliffe who transgressed the church and dared
translating the Bible and who was one of the chief figures of the
peasant revolution in the then England and you meet Robin Hood They
are the response of the down trodden to the mainstream of English
Literature Now who was Robin Hood He and his followers were outlaws
and they lived in the jungle in great merriment Even kings and dukes
were jealous of their merry life in the woods That is why the usurped
duke of As you like it lived life reminiscent of Robin Hood and his
merry band in the forest of Arden Robin Hood and his merry band lived
in the forests Now and then they visited the locality and brought
those of the nobility to books who tortured the poor and the
destitute The Maoists could be compared with the Robin Hoods True
that the name Mao is Mongoloid they havenot come from Beijing or from
the skies They were the creation of the Communists in two ways
Yesterday only the Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddhadeb described
the Maoists as those who donot honour the sovereignty of India If you
want to read what a doubledealer is like read the communists
wherever you find them be it in France or Mexico It was Joseph Stalin
who said that India was not a free country even after she got her
freedom on the 15th August 1947 Russia was the fatherland of the
Indian Communists And since the voice from the fattherland said
that India was not a free country even after 1947 the communists
didnot raise the tricolour in India as long as Stalin was alive in
Moscow So is there any right of Buddhadeb to debunk the Naxalites as
anti Indians when he himself has been groomed in the lap of the
traitors to the nation who were great communists and
internatiuonalists beyond all question though.
6.
The Communists are the progenitors of the Maoists in two ways
Firstly the communists earlier used the slogan of revolution as a
tool to come to power in the parliamentary system. Some peiople
believed in their slogan and started revolution before the ripe time
for revolution --- to speak the Marxist way----was really there These
people suicceeded to throw the ancien regime or Congress regime of
West Bengal into doldrums It helped theCPI(M) to come to power in
West Bengal But the communist govt as it was it knew how to keep
itself away from left adventurism and right extremism So it were they
who saw to these revolutionaries are shorn off their poison The
avowed revolutrionaries were known at that time as Naxalites and they
claimed that they followed the ideas as put forward by Mao Tse Tung
West Bengal saw the Naxalite Tsunami die down But the name Naxalite
and Maoist continued to have significance Whenever you do some
violence against establishment you are either lionised or debunked as
Naxalite In the western districts of West Bengal such as Bankura
Purulia and patrts of West Midnapore even you donot have water to
bathe every day The cruelty of the CPI(M) satraps sent a few of them
to the jungles And may be these outlaws came upon these CPI(m)
nobility like tigers or panthers whose primordial homes have been
shattered These outlaws donot know anything of Chairman Mao But the
Maoist brand adds to their actions animage of political significance
The communist govt also can use it to divert the attention of the
people they rule So Lalgarh and its neighbourhood now and then saw
Naxalite attack just as Nayagram and its neighbourhood witness a band
of elephants destroying their crops
7
But Lalgarh captured the headline of the newspapers if I can rightly
remember in the month of November last year The Chief minister
Buddhadeb of West Bengal went past Lalgarh along with the then Central
Govt. minister Paswan and the big capitalist Jindal West Bengal
Govt. is committed to industrialisation of the state and to that end
it was ready to give away whole landscapes laden with untold treasure
of rich crops at Singur and Nandigram The forests of Salboni the WB
Govt pledged to give away to the Jindals And in the context of this
long march of the communist raj in West Bengal the Chief minister
accompanied Jindal and Paswan to Salboni if I rightly remember When
the convoy of the VIPs were passing a landmine exploded This raised a
hue and cry God Save the king God saved all the three VIPs Now who
planted the mine? The ready answer on behalf of the Govt was that it
were the Maoists who planted the mine to kill Buddhadev That
naturally added an aura to Buddhadev in the light of some But no
narrative goes uncontested There is a counter narrative that points
out that the mine exploded in an area where CPI(M) had undisputed sway
So it were the cadres of Buddhadev who planted the mine and that is
why the mine didnot hurt any oner of the VIPs This was done to add
aura to great CM committed to industrialise WB The Govt claimed that
it was an act of the Maoists But it is said that whenever the Maoists
act they i proudly announce that presently after their action is
accomplished But this time there was no immediate respose from the
Maoists Three days after media showed the Maoist leader Kishenji from
the back acknowledging that attempt at violence on the aforesaid
violence was the doing of the Maoists Kishenji was photographed from
the back and no one had the opportunity of seeing the face of
Kishenji Who is this Kishenji?
8
Who is Kishenji We have never heard of him as a Maoist activist And
why should Kishenji show his back only ?There have been interviews
of the outlaws in the jungle , but they never showed you their back
Is this Kishenji manufactured by the Govt and the media Well nothing
is impossible in the real world Is there anybody called Laden? When
President Clinton skidded into the Lewinsky scandal he at once saw to
that a particular state of Africa , I forget the name as well as
Afganisthan were bombed in search of Laden Who is this Laden? No one
heard of him earlier But the media and America have created a larger
than life portrait of Laden The world must live in fear of something
perhaps
Whether the landmine was masterminded by the ruling party itself or
the Maoists doesnot matter The ritual activities followed the
incident The police pounced upon the locality Lalgarh and its
neighbourhood like a pack of leopards They fell upon the poor Santals
who were clad in loin cloths The police injured the eyes of a woman
and wounded others May be they arrested some on suspicion Every time
the humiliation of the poor does not put them afire But this time it
did At the outset a few villages They summoned one Chhatradhar Mahato
to lead them against police atrocities Chhatradhars brother they knew
was a Naxalite But Chhatradhar seemed to be an ordinary gentleman with
head and heart Soon Chhatradhar got support from all the neighbouring
villages and Chhatradhar saw to that the police left the thanas
presently. Chhatradhar asked the administration to come to their
locality and apologise for the wrongs they have done to the poor
through the years The police earlier behaved in such a fashion with
these poor men that every one of these poor people was a Maoist as it
were. The police authority was not agreed to go to the villages and
apologise So Lalgarh and the neighbouring villages became virtually a
liberated zone where no police could be found The people of Lalgarh
started ruling themselves Rejoice
Rejoice if you love democracy and freedom
7
So Lalgarh and its neighbouring villages remained on their own The
bureaucracy and the police of the state could not execute their writ
S in those localities Are you scandalised When justice and freedom
are banished from the court or the Writers Building of Calcutta the
seat of the CM they take refuge in jungles and villages i am here
misquoting Shakespeare Do you get me? On another level the lawyers
live on the potential criminality of men and the priests live on the
potwential sinfulness of men If there were no lawyers there would be
no criminals and if there were no priests there would be no sinner Do
you see that I am an anarchist with Prince Kropotkin Such state of
affair continued for months The state Govt seemed to overlook it till
the date of election for parliamentary seats turned up . The
Election Commission said that the elections could not be conducted
unless police force were allowed in that area Chhatradhar Mahato was
invited to a meeting with the Election Commissioner at Calcutta
Mahato said that there was no need odf police personnel The people
themselves would look after the election process True. Democracy
becomes mature only when there are no police personnel to look after
the execution of uiits processes But the Election Commissioner would
not agree State police and paramilitary reached there in time The
number of booths where people would cast their votes was reduced to
four and govt transport moved about to bring the voters from the
remote villages to the booths so that the villagers could use their
franchise Few voters turned At the booth where Chhatrapati himself
voted only six votes were polled . On the surface Chhatrapati seemed
to be a revolutionary par excel;lence who stoutly stood against the
intimidations of the ruling party of WB viz. CPI{M} But mind you
if votes were polled none would go in favour of the CPI(M) And the 6
votews that were polled at the booth where Chhatrapati voted went to
CPI(m) Naturally the CPI(m) won the Lok Sabha seat to which Lalgarh
and its neighbourhood belong at a time when a tsunami overthrew the
rulin g CPI(m) in the rest of Bengal One wonders whether Chhatradhar
acted in the interest of the ruling party in a different way
8
The election results came upon the ruling coalition as a bolt from
the blue Mamata and her allies bagged most of the seats of the
Parliament in Bengal This is not all Mamata and her comrades earned
coveted berths in the ministry Hence the people who opposed the govt
but remained dumb earlier in the face of the brute majority of
the communists now started speaking . And misfortunes never come
singly Aila --- a storm from the sea came from nowhere and made
thousands homeless Dont shriek at this The count of the homeless in
Calcutta who donot have roofs on their head is 67000 only Despite
that the devastation caused by the storm was quite significant Do you
know how significant? I give you a sample Some 500 big trees were
uprooted in Calcutta Corporation It made Calcutta Corporation bald
Dont blame urbanisation for this Blame the management of the
corporation Be that as it may life stood still for days together in
Calcutta because iof the fall of the trees But this was no headache
for the corporation i have read somewhere that if there is any jam
in London the govt has to pay the buses for that I donot know
whether i am right or not But in West Bengal the more the people
suffer the more the govt rejoices When Rome burns Nero fiddles That
is the adage Here Nero has been maligned Nero was in fact a good man
and a god intoxicated man But he was not a christian So the
Christians forged the adage at the cost of Nero. But you could
legitimatelyt say When Calcutta and West Bengal weep the communists
dance And their parents and grand parents throng to see that
dance in the air Those forefathers I mean Com Muzaffar Ahmed S
A Dange V T Randive and others see them being unseen The
communists have ev er been fond of natural calamities And they have
been the architects of the annual flood taking place inb West Bengal
Floods in West Bengal and in most of the places are always man-made in
a sense Why do they do that? When there is a calamity they can ask
for funds from the Central Govt And the communists have a style of
giving relief.
9.
When there is a flood or storm in West Bengal the hearts iof the
communists dance like peacocks Oh like peacocks Where fore? Because
the cpommunists have style of their own in giving reliefs Those who
donot vote them are damned They donot deserve help Because the
communist philosophy believes in class struggle Atime will be there
will be the armageddon between the haves and have nots Read haves
for non communists and havenots for the communists Now a part of the
money earmarked for relief will be distributed among the afflicted of
the party The rest will go to feather the nests of the party leaders
and cadres But this time the Trinamul is a partner in the Govt aty
the centre They have also right as MPs and ministers to go wherever
they will and distribute relief That will put CPI(M) and its time
honoured practice to shame Right at this moment the state Govt took
thre vow of wiping the Maoists from the face of West Bengal
10
If you were to write a drama loaded with type characters who strut and
fret around our Chief Minister and if you want to sum up Buddha in a
word put only one phrase in Buddhas lips----Do it now Let - Do it
now ---- be a recurrent motif in Buddhas speech So once Buddha
decides to drive away the Maoists he acts He dashed to the Home
Minister and asked for special police force from the Centre the teach
the Maoists a lesson The communists in this state are always wont
go to centre for help whenever they are in crisis Failure if any on
the part of the Communists the Communists will say---Well that has
been due to the fault of the Central Govt Now law and order is a
state problem So Centre cannot take it in its hand So the Home
Minister at the Centre asked the Chief Minister to send the state
police in the front The force from the Centre will march in the aft
of the force Besides if Maoists are really to be flushed out from the
state then the Maoists should be officially banned in the state But
Buddhadeb will not declare that the Maoists are unlawful and despite
that Buddhadeb will fight the Maoists to finish If you want to meet a
double dealer come hither come hither and shake hand with our Chief
Minister Be that as it may after getting things ready a force of
police people para military personnels along with army men and so on
in full battle array set out foir Lalgarh and its neighbourhood With
whom will they fight? They will fight with those men and women who
never had a full meal in their life time and who are clad in loin
cloths Whose only weapon are bows and arrows Sending a trained army
against men who wield bows and arrows
But can you put up with their arrogance? They are poor people in rags
What arrogance do you find in them?
Do you know that these impudent halffed people demolished the
palatial building of Anuj Pandey As a CPI(m} whole timer his monthly
income should be 1500 Rupees only But see his house It costs 40 lakh
Rupees if estimated moderately.
11
Do you know how impudent these poor people were? When the Chief
Mimister and Jindal and the Central Minister were on their way back
from Salbani in the month of November a landmine exploded at Dalilpur
near Lalgarh . It destroyed a vehicle of the security The police
enquiry started in no time, There is a village named Kantapahari
flanked between Lalgarh and Ramgarh The police there arrested one
Sitamani Soren The poor women were so impudent that they opposed the
arrest of our lady Sitamani The police notonly hurt ones eyes but also
hit a few others on their head Of course The devil surely
entered their head. The poor villagers wondered whether they were
Maoists only because they are tribals The news spread from one
village to another the way the word of mouth spread from one village
to another during the Hool or Santali upsurge against the British Raj
And they chose Chhatradhar Mahaato of Bara pelia village as the chief
of the committee that was meant to resist police atrocities Sibu Soren
has become its another office bearer Lalmohan Tudu is its cashier
They started raising committees in different villages such as
Kantapahari Ramgarh Dharampur Goaltore And their member strength is
at the moment 10000 strong Should the govt remain inactive whewn these
poor people are getting organised? And do you know what did they ask
for? They said that the administration must go to them and apologise
The Suprintendant of police must rub his nose on the floor in front of
them and promise that the police will no more harass the poor and the
tribal Or else police wont be allowed to enter into that area The
police thanas they said would be coverted into health centres
Indeed if police thanas were turned into health centres
And if doctors were appointed as police men
the country would be different
Because what is crime but a kind of mental disease
12
And do you know how impudent these poor people under the leadership of
Chhatradhar Ours is a democratic country We elect our representatives
to parliament ordinarily every five years . Parliament is a lawmaking
body And it is the police force that sees to that the election is held
peacefully But these poor people boycotted the election because there
were police personnel There used to be 28 or 30 polling booths in
the Binpur Block Now the govt reduced the booths into four only. One
of them was at Pirakata High School Another was at Bhimpur High
School A third one was at Ramgarh High School and so on The
administration employed a bus so that voters from distant villages
could be transported to the booths But few voted The impudent poor
men boycotted the vote because they would not tolerate polibe
personnel
This was not all The committee of the people against police
atrocities organised procession to undermine the administration Why
should the police tolerate such insults When the procession was
passing through the forest just one kilometre away from Ramgarh the
police [people fired on them The angry mob retaliated by burning three
Maruti cars
Mamata Banerjee rushed to the neighbourhood The police wouldnot give
her any protection She went on her own and tyold the masses that she
is with them
The administration would not apologize The people insisted that they
must apologize The Peoples Committee published and distributed a
leaflet Its language was very powerful It touched the hearts of the
educated of the village It declared that the administration is there
to serve the people The administration is not doing its job Do you
see how impudent these unlettered people are If you do not see that
well our Chief minister saw that and went through the meeting of the
polit bureau of his party and asked for help from the Centre
The Chhatradhar Committee cut off all communication with the world
by damaging roads so that police vans couldnot enter They learnt
this tactics from the peasant movement at Nandigram They set up
committees in every village following the pattern of Nandigram Since
the communication there was electricity for one month No bus plied for
one month This surely irrtated the middle class who need contact with
the towns But the poor people donot need that May be many of them have
not seen the town in theire life time May be many of them have not
seen the rail in their lifetime How foolish and impudent these people
are
13
The Chief Minister asked for five companies of CRPF from the Centre
After some ifs and buts the Centre granted the prayer Besides there
came Cobra to help the Bengal Police These Cobra personnel are very
brave They donot have any uniform They come in plain dress When
there is a jungle or the like it is the Cobra men who enter the jungle
first and check whether there is any mine laid or whether there are
people lying in ambush When they give the green signal the other
security forces march
So Bengal Police accompanied with 5 companies of CRPF and Cobra made
their blure print at Midnapur Police Line Then they set out at 11 AM
for Lalgarh in buses and Tata Sumos They went till pirakata The
road there was damaged So buses would not ply there They alighted
from the buses and started marching It was then 1. 30 PM They
marched stealthily and cautiously lest they become a prey to a
landmine burst They marched past Koimaa Maalidaa.... they stopped
at Bhimpur It was then 4. 30 in the afternoon
Next day morning they set out from Bhimpur High School at 9 or so in
the morning They were fired from the back The police returned fire
in self defence There was gun battle for 2 hours The bullets were
coming from a house The police arrested five men or so there Then
they went foreward They marched through the villages It became
evening before they reached the jungles No they would not dare the
jungles inthe night So they retreated to Bhimpur and rested for the
night at Bhimpur School On the third day they went past the jungle It
was four kilometres long
The West Bengal Govt distributed leaflets from helicopter It warned
that the Maoists were in hiding in the villages The people must not be
misguided by them . The Maoists were using women and children as their
shield it was alleged
The Chhatradhar Committee was not a silent spectator as well They were
trying their hard to resist the police
The police also was ready to leave no stone unturned There are roughly
three routes to Lalgarh 1--via Goaltor 2- via Sarenga in Bankura
District and 3 via Bhimpur The police men were divided into three
divisions Each route was pursued by one of the divisions You can go
to Lalgarh via Jhargram also A few Calcutta police were going that
way There was a wooden bridge on that way and it was put to fire
14
The police entered Lalgarh and established its power over there On the
way also the police people reclaimed the thanas from where they were
banished So they no doubt rejoice But the joys of theCPI(M)
supporters know no bound They see in the restoration of the police
the restoration of law and order Their movable and immovable
properties will be hence protected They staged a motor cycle rally to
tell the illiterate and poor fools that tyheir power is impeccable
They are not back to fully as yet Many of the CPI{m) leaders are
still away from their native village Some of them have taken shelter
in Midnapore From Lalgarh the police party would march to Ramgarh
The Chhatradhar Committee had already put ther Ramgarh thana to
flames
In the meantime the intellectuals made a terrific hue and cry Whom do
yopu call intellectuals? Well you cannot be an intellectual in Bengal
unless the govt. calls you an intellectual But intellectuals can
easily change their direction just as halcyon birds do And the
intellectuals changed their ndirection They now cried-- Let us go to
Lalgarh They reached Lalgarh with police protection . Thereafter they
went to the village and had a chat with Chhatradhar Chhatradhar
claims that he has no link with the Maoists But the govt. insists that
he has link with the Maoist Chhatradhar asks for the development of
the locality What matters if he is a Maoist Rather the Govt should
thank the Maoists because they have drawn attention of the govt to
the needs of the locality Be that as it may it seems that spontaneous
up rise of the people also needs patronage of some political party
India is such a big country that the groans odf say 30 lakh people
even donot make any dent on the collective mind I told you floods in
our state is man made The river Keleghai is flooded every year
affecting lakhs of people But the govt doesnot wake up to the need of
the people living in the valley of Keleghai The copmmon people of
the Lalgarh rose against maladministration The repeated chanting by
the govt that they are Maoists seems to have conjured the Maoists
from thin air They now claim that the organisation of Mahato was
secretly run by them only God knows what awaits those impudent poor
people in future What is in store for us also
By the by do you know how the people arte reacting to the police
conquests? The police people have occupied the schools and schools
are closed to the students for indeterminate period The day before
yesterday the students of Binpur put locks on the doors and the gates
of the school They announced that the police must not tresspass into
their school premises 2400 students read in that school The students
and their guardians put oout a procession in protest against the
police occupying their school Do you know how the administration
reacted? They said that there was 144 in vogue So the the guardiands
and the children should be arrested presently Don Quixote charging
the windmills was perhaps less dull What do you think? The govt will
not allowany visitor to Lalgarh You cannot have any first hand
experience of what is really happening there
Lalgarh concluded The author must acknowledge his indebtedness to a
young man named Prithviraj from Lalgarh who equipped the author with
his first hand experiences Prithvirajs forefathers by the by
were the rajahs of the place 100 years back.
1.
The communists rather the CPI(M) has been ruling West Bengal for last
three decades. This is singularly unique Even in Kerala where the
communists are strong they could not rule continuously for decades
together In every state whatever in India there has been change in
the govt . But men may come men may go the communists ruled us for at
least one generation How could the communists do that. Well they
forged a front govt just as MaoTse Tung had forged a front govt in
Red China The front partners other than the CPI(M) have been in fact
the yesmen of their Big Brother CPI(M).Why did they linger in the
Front Govt despite being humiliated . The answer is simple As long as
yoiu are in the front govt you enjoy a ministry at least Thereby you
enjoy some power If you are not in the govt you dont get the power
When the Big Brother CPI(M) puts up a front with these yesmen of small
parties the outlook is as it were that there is no one party rule But
just as the Chairman had destroyed all opposition in Red China so the
CPI(M) abolished every trace of opposition in West Bengal Well there
was Indian National Congress And of course they won a few seats in the
assembly But they were few very few And it seems that it were the CPI
(M) that condescended to the opposition a few seats to show that they
were ruling us democratically In fact the CPI(M) was the monarch of
all that it surveyed Our question is--How could the CPI(M) do so .
How did Auranngzeb or Alauddin rule India? Well CPI(M) , they say saw
to that most of the industries come to a halt in last 30 years .Fine .
We must acknowledge that CPI(M) itself was the largest employer in
the state.. There is no account of it available. But I think that at
least 1 lakfh people were appointed as the wholetimers of the party.
With this great army of paid cadres the CPI(M) used to look after
every household Communists they exclaimed know how to run an
organisation . It is disciplined like an army It is so unlike the
Congress which seems to be an assembly of rowdies True. Suppose you
are paid Rs 200/;- only for lookin g after fifty households in
Raikatpara ,Murshidabad Everyone knows you as a representative of the
ruling party. So when a new tenant occupies a house to be let out the
tenant must give a nazrana to you The owner of the house must also pay
an honararium due to you Because it is you who looks after the peace
of the locality Quarrel if any between the husband and wife our
comrade interferes and if necessary summons the husbsnd to the party
office and our comrade occupies the judgement seat So although the
party pays you a paltry sum of Rs 200 only you can have a palatial
house to live in and your children read in the costliest schools and
so on Fine But wherefrom could the party get so much money to pay the
salary of say one lakh whole timers? The answer is simple Whatever
employment one gets in private firm or public sector one gets only
because of the reccomendation of the party . Thus if you want to be
the principal of a govt sponsored college---all the colleges teaching
B.A , B.Sc etc are govt sponsored till date methinks-- you must get
reccomendation from the chief of the Local Committee of the ruiling
party and when you become the principal you pay the party levy from
your salary So yopu guess how the income and the expenditure of the
party flowed But you cannot audit it it Because the political parties
need not pay any income tax in India
So this is how the cadreraj continued in West Bengal with great
efficiency.And Lalgarh a peaceful hamlet lived there unknown and
unsung
2
Lalgarh remained unknown and unsung for decades together. It first
found its place in the media approximately in 2007 when we heard that
the Maoists took law intheir hands and assassinated a few CPI(M)
leaders Yes Maoists have figured in West Bengal politics for last
four or five years Who are the Maoists ? I donot know. Yes I knew
the Naxalites. It was in the sixties that the Naxalites shot up in
West Bengal as an emergent force . At the outset they didnot believe
in the parlianentary process They beleved that the guns were the
fountainhead of power and with the aid of guns they would hasten a
peasants revolution in India Fine West Bengal passed through a decade
long blood bath and then yielded to CPI(M) The Naxaltes were
eliminated from Bengal in a sense though they now and then raised
their voice here and there . But the Naxalites found room in the
jungle areas of Jharkhand Andhra and the like They showed up in
Midnapur West and Purulia in last ten years The Naxalite is now a days
an umbrella term which denotes thirty different Maoist outfits And
most of them pin their faith on gettiong at power and distribution of
wealth through violent struggle And to repeat a Maoist outfit showed
up in Purulia and West Midnapore inthe main in West Bengal How dids
they figure Well suppose they publish posters asking thIs or that CPI
(M) leader of the locality to give up the party. Often one who
ignores the poster is assassinated Incidents like that has been
taking place at Lalgarh during last 2 or 3 years and Lalgarh slowly
made its way to prominence
3
Lalgarh is ropughly 150 kilometres away from Calcutta and some 40
kilometres away from Midnapore the District toiwn Midnapore by the by
is 130 kilometres away from Calcutta Lalgarh and Ramgarh and the like
are not towns They coulde be3 better called hamlets The people
inhabiting here are not tribes Despite that about 70% people here
are below poverty line There are n umerous villages in the
neioghbourhood of Lalgah Ramgarh and the like and the total
populatuiopn of the area is approximately 10 lakhs And mind you 80% of
them are below below-poverty line. Poverty itself itrself shudders at
their sight These people live on the eggs of ants Rarely do they get
rice to eat The moment they are born they have hunger and they live
with hunger. Suppose you are their guest and they offer you rice if
you ask them with what curry or soup should you take the rice they
will ask you to take the rice with the sauce known as hunger. Their
means of living is to collect some leaves of trees from the
neighbouring jungles
These people backed up a political outfit known as Jharkhand Naren
group in the ninetees. It was on the surface run by the leaders of the
backward class and its soile object was to rescue the backward people
from starvation.Here it will not be out of place to point out that the
recent legislation in our country has simply sent total unemployment
to exile. Because the govt assures 100 days employment to one and all
a year And one should get the employment presently after one lodges
an application . Besides ration at a cheap rate is distributed among
those who are there below poverty line. But it is a pity that the
tribal leaders were no better than the CPI(M) leaders. Both saw to
that tyhe poor are not benefitted The poor didnot get the ration card
due to them The rice bought with their ration cards are sold in the
black market .The money due for hundred days work scheme are
distributed among ghost workers and pocketed by the leaders The poor
rural people there fore shifted their support to TrinamulBJP combine
when they were strong enough to ask for the support of the people
there It is clkaimed that the CPI(M) leaders at this hour made a deal
with the Maoists and the latter got a footing here. They were supposed
to drive away Trinamul and BJP from this area Well if this story is
true then the Maoists were invoked by the ruling party
4
Every reoport is a recollection and narration . There was a thane
named Macduff .His wife and the little child in her arms were
assassinated by murderes sent by Macbeth Lady Macbeth recunts the
story while waking in sleep and turns into a ballad----The thane of
Fife had a wife and where is she now? Lalgarh when recalled and
recounted could be as real and unreal as tHe ballad. Indeed we are all
walking in sleep Our life is a sleep and forgetting Despite that
there is a school of thinkers who posit that dreams and ballads are
some times more true than the everyday waking truth God knows Are we
awake or asleep Ipresume that me the speaker is asleep Or when
assassinators came and unsheathed their sabres to starve our poor
fellowmen at Lalgarh and its neighbourhood I couldnot cry halt to
their heinous act The Naren Group and the CPI{M} were for a time
routed by Trinamul and BJP in the area And it is said that it was at
that time the CPI{M} like a witch conjured the Naxalites so they
might drive away the Trinamul and BJP The trick worked But CPI{M}
henceforth was always scared of Naxalite killing of the CPI{m]
leaders... This story might not be true But it is a good story Because
such passage of events is possible Think of America During the cold
war they fanned Muslim fundsamentalism in Afganisthan and Iran Though
the Shah of Persia was a faithful friend of America and though as a
ruler he was very good still America let Khomeini to show up Because
if fundamentalists ruleD the border states of Russia the
communist Russia would not be able to expand This is why the Talibans
came to power iin Afganisthan Once the Soviet Russia fell the
Americans have been restive regarding Muslim fundamentalism The
ruling party of the state conjured the Naxalites to drive away
Trinamul and BJP later the naxalites became the enemy of the ruling
party And the govt claims that the Naxalites have undermining the
sovereignty of the state that is India. But may be the story of
conjuring the naxalites in the eighties in West Midnapore Purulia or
Bankura could be a myth And there are a few Gandhiites still even in
England (a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, I read in the newspaper is going
to be raised in England presently}
5
True there are Gandhiites there But was not Robin Hood right Could
Gandhi himself throw away a ballad enshrining the heroics of Robin
Hood Although all of us know who Robin Hood is it is a pity that the
history of English Literature doesnot take cognizance of him The
Middle Age English Literature abounds with Romances They have been
composed by the nobility and their theme is war and love The hero
there goes of f to death in an attitude leaving the lovely heroine
looking upon him from the castle verandah in tearful rapture .And if
you want to step aside from the mall of Middle Age English Literature
you come across Wycliffe who transgressed the church and dared
translating the Bible and who was one of the chief figures of the
peasant revolution in the then England and you meet Robin Hood They
are the response of the down trodden to the mainstream of English
Literature Now who was Robin Hood He and his followers were outlaws
and they lived in the jungle in great merriment Even kings and dukes
were jealous of their merry life in the woods That is why the usurped
duke of As you like it lived life reminiscent of Robin Hood and his
merry band in the forest of Arden Robin Hood and his merry band lived
in the forests Now and then they visited the locality and brought
those of the nobility to books who tortured the poor and the
destitute The Maoists could be compared with the Robin Hoods True
that the name Mao is Mongoloid they havenot come from Beijing or from
the skies They were the creation of the Communists in two ways
Yesterday only the Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddhadeb described
the Maoists as those who donot honour the sovereignty of India If you
want to read what a doubledealer is like read the communists
wherever you find them be it in France or Mexico It was Joseph Stalin
who said that India was not a free country even after she got her
freedom on the 15th August 1947 Russia was the fatherland of the
Indian Communists And since the voice from the fattherland said
that India was not a free country even after 1947 the communists
didnot raise the tricolour in India as long as Stalin was alive in
Moscow So is there any right of Buddhadeb to debunk the Naxalites as
anti Indians when he himself has been groomed in the lap of the
traitors to the nation who were great communists and
internatiuonalists beyond all question though.
6.
The Communists are the progenitors of the Maoists in two ways
Firstly the communists earlier used the slogan of revolution as a
tool to come to power in the parliamentary system. Some peiople
believed in their slogan and started revolution before the ripe time
for revolution --- to speak the Marxist way----was really there These
people suicceeded to throw the ancien regime or Congress regime of
West Bengal into doldrums It helped theCPI(M) to come to power in
West Bengal But the communist govt as it was it knew how to keep
itself away from left adventurism and right extremism So it were they
who saw to these revolutionaries are shorn off their poison The
avowed revolutrionaries were known at that time as Naxalites and they
claimed that they followed the ideas as put forward by Mao Tse Tung
West Bengal saw the Naxalite Tsunami die down But the name Naxalite
and Maoist continued to have significance Whenever you do some
violence against establishment you are either lionised or debunked as
Naxalite In the western districts of West Bengal such as Bankura
Purulia and patrts of West Midnapore even you donot have water to
bathe every day The cruelty of the CPI(M) satraps sent a few of them
to the jungles And may be these outlaws came upon these CPI(m)
nobility like tigers or panthers whose primordial homes have been
shattered These outlaws donot know anything of Chairman Mao But the
Maoist brand adds to their actions animage of political significance
The communist govt also can use it to divert the attention of the
people they rule So Lalgarh and its neighbourhood now and then saw
Naxalite attack just as Nayagram and its neighbourhood witness a band
of elephants destroying their crops
7
But Lalgarh captured the headline of the newspapers if I can rightly
remember in the month of November last year The Chief minister
Buddhadeb of West Bengal went past Lalgarh along with the then Central
Govt. minister Paswan and the big capitalist Jindal West Bengal
Govt. is committed to industrialisation of the state and to that end
it was ready to give away whole landscapes laden with untold treasure
of rich crops at Singur and Nandigram The forests of Salboni the WB
Govt pledged to give away to the Jindals And in the context of this
long march of the communist raj in West Bengal the Chief minister
accompanied Jindal and Paswan to Salboni if I rightly remember When
the convoy of the VIPs were passing a landmine exploded This raised a
hue and cry God Save the king God saved all the three VIPs Now who
planted the mine? The ready answer on behalf of the Govt was that it
were the Maoists who planted the mine to kill Buddhadev That
naturally added an aura to Buddhadev in the light of some But no
narrative goes uncontested There is a counter narrative that points
out that the mine exploded in an area where CPI(M) had undisputed sway
So it were the cadres of Buddhadev who planted the mine and that is
why the mine didnot hurt any oner of the VIPs This was done to add
aura to great CM committed to industrialise WB The Govt claimed that
it was an act of the Maoists But it is said that whenever the Maoists
act they i proudly announce that presently after their action is
accomplished But this time there was no immediate respose from the
Maoists Three days after media showed the Maoist leader Kishenji from
the back acknowledging that attempt at violence on the aforesaid
violence was the doing of the Maoists Kishenji was photographed from
the back and no one had the opportunity of seeing the face of
Kishenji Who is this Kishenji?
8
Who is Kishenji We have never heard of him as a Maoist activist And
why should Kishenji show his back only ?There have been interviews
of the outlaws in the jungle , but they never showed you their back
Is this Kishenji manufactured by the Govt and the media Well nothing
is impossible in the real world Is there anybody called Laden? When
President Clinton skidded into the Lewinsky scandal he at once saw to
that a particular state of Africa , I forget the name as well as
Afganisthan were bombed in search of Laden Who is this Laden? No one
heard of him earlier But the media and America have created a larger
than life portrait of Laden The world must live in fear of something
perhaps
Whether the landmine was masterminded by the ruling party itself or
the Maoists doesnot matter The ritual activities followed the
incident The police pounced upon the locality Lalgarh and its
neighbourhood like a pack of leopards They fell upon the poor Santals
who were clad in loin cloths The police injured the eyes of a woman
and wounded others May be they arrested some on suspicion Every time
the humiliation of the poor does not put them afire But this time it
did At the outset a few villages They summoned one Chhatradhar Mahato
to lead them against police atrocities Chhatradhars brother they knew
was a Naxalite But Chhatradhar seemed to be an ordinary gentleman with
head and heart Soon Chhatradhar got support from all the neighbouring
villages and Chhatradhar saw to that the police left the thanas
presently. Chhatradhar asked the administration to come to their
locality and apologise for the wrongs they have done to the poor
through the years The police earlier behaved in such a fashion with
these poor men that every one of these poor people was a Maoist as it
were. The police authority was not agreed to go to the villages and
apologise So Lalgarh and the neighbouring villages became virtually a
liberated zone where no police could be found The people of Lalgarh
started ruling themselves Rejoice
Rejoice if you love democracy and freedom
7
So Lalgarh and its neighbouring villages remained on their own The
bureaucracy and the police of the state could not execute their writ
S in those localities Are you scandalised When justice and freedom
are banished from the court or the Writers Building of Calcutta the
seat of the CM they take refuge in jungles and villages i am here
misquoting Shakespeare Do you get me? On another level the lawyers
live on the potential criminality of men and the priests live on the
potwential sinfulness of men If there were no lawyers there would be
no criminals and if there were no priests there would be no sinner Do
you see that I am an anarchist with Prince Kropotkin Such state of
affair continued for months The state Govt seemed to overlook it till
the date of election for parliamentary seats turned up . The
Election Commission said that the elections could not be conducted
unless police force were allowed in that area Chhatradhar Mahato was
invited to a meeting with the Election Commissioner at Calcutta
Mahato said that there was no need odf police personnel The people
themselves would look after the election process True. Democracy
becomes mature only when there are no police personnel to look after
the execution of uiits processes But the Election Commissioner would
not agree State police and paramilitary reached there in time The
number of booths where people would cast their votes was reduced to
four and govt transport moved about to bring the voters from the
remote villages to the booths so that the villagers could use their
franchise Few voters turned At the booth where Chhatrapati himself
voted only six votes were polled . On the surface Chhatrapati seemed
to be a revolutionary par excel;lence who stoutly stood against the
intimidations of the ruling party of WB viz. CPI{M} But mind you
if votes were polled none would go in favour of the CPI(M) And the 6
votews that were polled at the booth where Chhatrapati voted went to
CPI(m) Naturally the CPI(m) won the Lok Sabha seat to which Lalgarh
and its neighbourhood belong at a time when a tsunami overthrew the
rulin g CPI(m) in the rest of Bengal One wonders whether Chhatradhar
acted in the interest of the ruling party in a different way
8
The election results came upon the ruling coalition as a bolt from
the blue Mamata and her allies bagged most of the seats of the
Parliament in Bengal This is not all Mamata and her comrades earned
coveted berths in the ministry Hence the people who opposed the govt
but remained dumb earlier in the face of the brute majority of
the communists now started speaking . And misfortunes never come
singly Aila --- a storm from the sea came from nowhere and made
thousands homeless Dont shriek at this The count of the homeless in
Calcutta who donot have roofs on their head is 67000 only Despite
that the devastation caused by the storm was quite significant Do you
know how significant? I give you a sample Some 500 big trees were
uprooted in Calcutta Corporation It made Calcutta Corporation bald
Dont blame urbanisation for this Blame the management of the
corporation Be that as it may life stood still for days together in
Calcutta because iof the fall of the trees But this was no headache
for the corporation i have read somewhere that if there is any jam
in London the govt has to pay the buses for that I donot know
whether i am right or not But in West Bengal the more the people
suffer the more the govt rejoices When Rome burns Nero fiddles That
is the adage Here Nero has been maligned Nero was in fact a good man
and a god intoxicated man But he was not a christian So the
Christians forged the adage at the cost of Nero. But you could
legitimatelyt say When Calcutta and West Bengal weep the communists
dance And their parents and grand parents throng to see that
dance in the air Those forefathers I mean Com Muzaffar Ahmed S
A Dange V T Randive and others see them being unseen The
communists have ev er been fond of natural calamities And they have
been the architects of the annual flood taking place inb West Bengal
Floods in West Bengal and in most of the places are always man-made in
a sense Why do they do that? When there is a calamity they can ask
for funds from the Central Govt And the communists have a style of
giving relief.
9.
When there is a flood or storm in West Bengal the hearts iof the
communists dance like peacocks Oh like peacocks Where fore? Because
the cpommunists have style of their own in giving reliefs Those who
donot vote them are damned They donot deserve help Because the
communist philosophy believes in class struggle Atime will be there
will be the armageddon between the haves and have nots Read haves
for non communists and havenots for the communists Now a part of the
money earmarked for relief will be distributed among the afflicted of
the party The rest will go to feather the nests of the party leaders
and cadres But this time the Trinamul is a partner in the Govt aty
the centre They have also right as MPs and ministers to go wherever
they will and distribute relief That will put CPI(M) and its time
honoured practice to shame Right at this moment the state Govt took
thre vow of wiping the Maoists from the face of West Bengal
10
If you were to write a drama loaded with type characters who strut and
fret around our Chief Minister and if you want to sum up Buddha in a
word put only one phrase in Buddhas lips----Do it now Let - Do it
now ---- be a recurrent motif in Buddhas speech So once Buddha
decides to drive away the Maoists he acts He dashed to the Home
Minister and asked for special police force from the Centre the teach
the Maoists a lesson The communists in this state are always wont
go to centre for help whenever they are in crisis Failure if any on
the part of the Communists the Communists will say---Well that has
been due to the fault of the Central Govt Now law and order is a
state problem So Centre cannot take it in its hand So the Home
Minister at the Centre asked the Chief Minister to send the state
police in the front The force from the Centre will march in the aft
of the force Besides if Maoists are really to be flushed out from the
state then the Maoists should be officially banned in the state But
Buddhadeb will not declare that the Maoists are unlawful and despite
that Buddhadeb will fight the Maoists to finish If you want to meet a
double dealer come hither come hither and shake hand with our Chief
Minister Be that as it may after getting things ready a force of
police people para military personnels along with army men and so on
in full battle array set out foir Lalgarh and its neighbourhood With
whom will they fight? They will fight with those men and women who
never had a full meal in their life time and who are clad in loin
cloths Whose only weapon are bows and arrows Sending a trained army
against men who wield bows and arrows
But can you put up with their arrogance? They are poor people in rags
What arrogance do you find in them?
Do you know that these impudent halffed people demolished the
palatial building of Anuj Pandey As a CPI(m} whole timer his monthly
income should be 1500 Rupees only But see his house It costs 40 lakh
Rupees if estimated moderately.
11
Do you know how impudent these poor people were? When the Chief
Mimister and Jindal and the Central Minister were on their way back
from Salbani in the month of November a landmine exploded at Dalilpur
near Lalgarh . It destroyed a vehicle of the security The police
enquiry started in no time, There is a village named Kantapahari
flanked between Lalgarh and Ramgarh The police there arrested one
Sitamani Soren The poor women were so impudent that they opposed the
arrest of our lady Sitamani The police notonly hurt ones eyes but also
hit a few others on their head Of course The devil surely
entered their head. The poor villagers wondered whether they were
Maoists only because they are tribals The news spread from one
village to another the way the word of mouth spread from one village
to another during the Hool or Santali upsurge against the British Raj
And they chose Chhatradhar Mahaato of Bara pelia village as the chief
of the committee that was meant to resist police atrocities Sibu Soren
has become its another office bearer Lalmohan Tudu is its cashier
They started raising committees in different villages such as
Kantapahari Ramgarh Dharampur Goaltore And their member strength is
at the moment 10000 strong Should the govt remain inactive whewn these
poor people are getting organised? And do you know what did they ask
for? They said that the administration must go to them and apologise
The Suprintendant of police must rub his nose on the floor in front of
them and promise that the police will no more harass the poor and the
tribal Or else police wont be allowed to enter into that area The
police thanas they said would be coverted into health centres
Indeed if police thanas were turned into health centres
And if doctors were appointed as police men
the country would be different
Because what is crime but a kind of mental disease
12
And do you know how impudent these poor people under the leadership of
Chhatradhar Ours is a democratic country We elect our representatives
to parliament ordinarily every five years . Parliament is a lawmaking
body And it is the police force that sees to that the election is held
peacefully But these poor people boycotted the election because there
were police personnel There used to be 28 or 30 polling booths in
the Binpur Block Now the govt reduced the booths into four only. One
of them was at Pirakata High School Another was at Bhimpur High
School A third one was at Ramgarh High School and so on The
administration employed a bus so that voters from distant villages
could be transported to the booths But few voted The impudent poor
men boycotted the vote because they would not tolerate polibe
personnel
This was not all The committee of the people against police
atrocities organised procession to undermine the administration Why
should the police tolerate such insults When the procession was
passing through the forest just one kilometre away from Ramgarh the
police [people fired on them The angry mob retaliated by burning three
Maruti cars
Mamata Banerjee rushed to the neighbourhood The police wouldnot give
her any protection She went on her own and tyold the masses that she
is with them
The administration would not apologize The people insisted that they
must apologize The Peoples Committee published and distributed a
leaflet Its language was very powerful It touched the hearts of the
educated of the village It declared that the administration is there
to serve the people The administration is not doing its job Do you
see how impudent these unlettered people are If you do not see that
well our Chief minister saw that and went through the meeting of the
polit bureau of his party and asked for help from the Centre
The Chhatradhar Committee cut off all communication with the world
by damaging roads so that police vans couldnot enter They learnt
this tactics from the peasant movement at Nandigram They set up
committees in every village following the pattern of Nandigram Since
the communication there was electricity for one month No bus plied for
one month This surely irrtated the middle class who need contact with
the towns But the poor people donot need that May be many of them have
not seen the town in theire life time May be many of them have not
seen the rail in their lifetime How foolish and impudent these people
are
13
The Chief Minister asked for five companies of CRPF from the Centre
After some ifs and buts the Centre granted the prayer Besides there
came Cobra to help the Bengal Police These Cobra personnel are very
brave They donot have any uniform They come in plain dress When
there is a jungle or the like it is the Cobra men who enter the jungle
first and check whether there is any mine laid or whether there are
people lying in ambush When they give the green signal the other
security forces march
So Bengal Police accompanied with 5 companies of CRPF and Cobra made
their blure print at Midnapur Police Line Then they set out at 11 AM
for Lalgarh in buses and Tata Sumos They went till pirakata The
road there was damaged So buses would not ply there They alighted
from the buses and started marching It was then 1. 30 PM They
marched stealthily and cautiously lest they become a prey to a
landmine burst They marched past Koimaa Maalidaa.... they stopped
at Bhimpur It was then 4. 30 in the afternoon
Next day morning they set out from Bhimpur High School at 9 or so in
the morning They were fired from the back The police returned fire
in self defence There was gun battle for 2 hours The bullets were
coming from a house The police arrested five men or so there Then
they went foreward They marched through the villages It became
evening before they reached the jungles No they would not dare the
jungles inthe night So they retreated to Bhimpur and rested for the
night at Bhimpur School On the third day they went past the jungle It
was four kilometres long
The West Bengal Govt distributed leaflets from helicopter It warned
that the Maoists were in hiding in the villages The people must not be
misguided by them . The Maoists were using women and children as their
shield it was alleged
The Chhatradhar Committee was not a silent spectator as well They were
trying their hard to resist the police
The police also was ready to leave no stone unturned There are roughly
three routes to Lalgarh 1--via Goaltor 2- via Sarenga in Bankura
District and 3 via Bhimpur The police men were divided into three
divisions Each route was pursued by one of the divisions You can go
to Lalgarh via Jhargram also A few Calcutta police were going that
way There was a wooden bridge on that way and it was put to fire
14
The police entered Lalgarh and established its power over there On the
way also the police people reclaimed the thanas from where they were
banished So they no doubt rejoice But the joys of theCPI(M)
supporters know no bound They see in the restoration of the police
the restoration of law and order Their movable and immovable
properties will be hence protected They staged a motor cycle rally to
tell the illiterate and poor fools that tyheir power is impeccable
They are not back to fully as yet Many of the CPI{m) leaders are
still away from their native village Some of them have taken shelter
in Midnapore From Lalgarh the police party would march to Ramgarh
The Chhatradhar Committee had already put ther Ramgarh thana to
flames
In the meantime the intellectuals made a terrific hue and cry Whom do
yopu call intellectuals? Well you cannot be an intellectual in Bengal
unless the govt. calls you an intellectual But intellectuals can
easily change their direction just as halcyon birds do And the
intellectuals changed their ndirection They now cried-- Let us go to
Lalgarh They reached Lalgarh with police protection . Thereafter they
went to the village and had a chat with Chhatradhar Chhatradhar
claims that he has no link with the Maoists But the govt. insists that
he has link with the Maoist Chhatradhar asks for the development of
the locality What matters if he is a Maoist Rather the Govt should
thank the Maoists because they have drawn attention of the govt to
the needs of the locality Be that as it may it seems that spontaneous
up rise of the people also needs patronage of some political party
India is such a big country that the groans odf say 30 lakh people
even donot make any dent on the collective mind I told you floods in
our state is man made The river Keleghai is flooded every year
affecting lakhs of people But the govt doesnot wake up to the need of
the people living in the valley of Keleghai The copmmon people of
the Lalgarh rose against maladministration The repeated chanting by
the govt that they are Maoists seems to have conjured the Maoists
from thin air They now claim that the organisation of Mahato was
secretly run by them only God knows what awaits those impudent poor
people in future What is in store for us also
By the by do you know how the people arte reacting to the police
conquests? The police people have occupied the schools and schools
are closed to the students for indeterminate period The day before
yesterday the students of Binpur put locks on the doors and the gates
of the school They announced that the police must not tresspass into
their school premises 2400 students read in that school The students
and their guardians put oout a procession in protest against the
police occupying their school Do you know how the administration
reacted? They said that there was 144 in vogue So the the guardiands
and the children should be arrested presently Don Quixote charging
the windmills was perhaps less dull What do you think? The govt will
not allowany visitor to Lalgarh You cannot have any first hand
experience of what is really happening there
Lalgarh concluded The author must acknowledge his indebtedness to a
young man named Prithviraj from Lalgarh who equipped the author with
his first hand experiences Prithvirajs forefathers by the by
were the rajahs of the place 100 years back.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
SONG OF RADHA, THE MILKMAID ---text and critical study by Mandira Chattopadhyaya
I carried my curds to the Mathura fair…
How softly the heifers were lowing…
I wanted to cry, “Who will buy
The curds that is white as the clouds in the sky
When the breezes of Shravan are blowing?”
But my heart was so full of your beauty, Beloved,
They laughed as I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How softly the river was flowing!
I carried the pots to the Mathura tide…
How gaily the rowers were rowing!
My comrades called, “Ho! Let us dance, let us sing
And wear saffron garments to welcome the spring.
And pluck the new buds that are blowing.”
But my heart was so full of your music, Beloved,
They mocked when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How gaily the river was flowing!
I carried my gifts to the Mathura shrine…
How brightly the torches were glowing!
I folded my hands at the altars to pray
“O shining ones guard us by night and by day”-
And loudly the conch shells were blowing.
But my heart was so lost in your worship, Beloved,
They were wroth when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How bright the river was flowing!
Substance of the poem
Radha, the milkmaid is carrying curds to Mathura (Krishna’s
birthplace) where the spring festival is going on. Cows are lowing
softly in the fields. Radha, wishing to give out her trade cry to sell
her curds that is as white as the autumn clouds, instead, calls out My
Lord! My Lord! Everybody laughs. The river Jamuna flows on softly, as
if appreciating her chant.
Radha reaches the bank of the river to cross by the ferry boat. Her
female companions want to wear the saffron garments, the color of
spring, and want to sing and dance and pluck the new buds. Radha’s
heart swells with the music of her Beloved Lord Krishna. She cries in
ecstasy when others humor her. The river Jamuna flows on joyfully
regardless.
Radha reaches, with her gifts of curds, the temple, where the torches
are brightly burning. She folds her hands to pray to the deity,
encircled by snakes, and prays for protection while the conch shells
are blown. Her heart is lost to the vision of her Beloved Lord and she
calls out the name involuntarily. Others become angry. But the river
Jamuna flows on while her water dazzles in the light of the torches.
A critical estimate of the poem
The title of the poem transports us to another world, to an
environment of fertility and abundance. Mother Nature abounds the
earth with the flow of her liquid. This white liquid symbolizes
affection and nurturing of life. Radha, the daughter of Mother Nature
carries the liquid of life and growth to all living beings. Mathura is
her destination where Krishna, the Divine Musician holds everybody
mesmerized with his mystic presence. The heifers herald her arrival to
Mathura where she will pour into the pots the liquid which she has
brought- energy and power from the mother Earth. It is worth noticing
that Sita, the other daughter of mother Earth also represents all that
stand for productivity.
Mathura is here the center of life and abundance. While the cow is the
species, that represents the flow of life and abundance. Radha feeds
and nurtures life. Even the clouds in the sky, white and creamy, are
part of the resources of life. The clouds and breeze together produce
rain to awash the earth with the energy and moisture that coaxes the
dormant vitality into life energy. The time of the year should also be
noted. It is the time of incessant rain, the month of Shravan (August-
September), when the life- giving moisture bursts forth.
Radha’s heart wavers from her task in hand. She yearns for her union
with Divine Musician, a presence that encompasses every soul of
Mathura. She is absorbed, heart and mind, in his mystic presence and
the trade cry she is supposed give out does not come to her lips- only
the name of Govinda, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient and the
Omnipotent, coming spontaneously from her heart, reverberates. The
poet, here, juxtaposes the two conceptions, the flowing of the river
and Radha’s yearning for a communion with Krishna.
Radha is presented in the poem in the first person. In the first
stanza she refers to the commodity she is carrying. Her mind is
somewhat attached to the earthly duties and nature of her work. Even
in her surroundings she hears the cry of the heifers, an animal she
connects with her trade. In the second stanza, her mind is drawn
towards the joy and gaiety of nature. She feels the abundance in her
heart Life is flowing everywhere.
Dear Mantu
We are nown drawn to Indian English literature and your
attempt at decoding Sarojini is a wonderful effort to that end Yes
Indian English literature could be successful only when India
breathes through the language of the Teutonic school and here is an
instance of success Ihave read your substance and critical comments
with great interest and I have a few reflections on the poem that I
submit before you
Firstly Idont think that there is any clue in the text wherefrom we
could infer that Krishna is at Mathura when Radha comes there
Secondly though Vrindavan has not been mentoioned here it is clear
that Radha comes from elsewhere to Mathura to sell her milk product
She comes from the other side of Jamuna
She comes from her village Mathura is a trade centre and town The poem
on the surface dwells on a maid who comes to the town for selling milk
product But her head is full of Govinda So instead of paying attention
to her getting and spending and instead of giving her trade cry with
gusto she unaware of herself cries aloud the name Govinda her
sweetheart A wonderful portrait of a loveladen heart of a village girl
Methinks the the heifers donot low at the place fair at Mathura They
lowed whhen she was carrying her milk product and setting out for
Mathura Then the Jamuna and the boat journey with her comrades and
finally at Mathura at the fair and at the temple Thus four vignettes
one after another pass by before our minds eye The prayer at the
temple is very touching Because it is for achieving nothing great May
all the gods protect us That is all Just as the naive boatman when
encounters the godhead incarnated as goddess Annapurna in
Bharatchandra only prays that her should remain well fed That is all
These simple folks are very much unlike us They dont want to be a
scholar or a scientist or a president Bush Me thinks that the truly
Indian attitude towards life along with the breeze of the month of
Shravan blows through the poem Mind you the poem has some riddles in
it to ponder over The curds are as white as the clouds in the clear
sky But the time when Radha crosses the Jamuna is Shravan when there
no white clouds But Radha fails to announce the good quality of her
curds Because the blue clouds of the month of Shravan seem to engross
her Again it is Shravan to Radha when her comrades want to don
saffron robes in harmony with the spring time So many seasons at the
same time draws my attention Thuis all the seasons are subjective
Jamuna flows between the place where Radha stays and the place where
Radha works for money Jamuna is a chasm between the two worlds ----one
where love reigns and the other where exchange reigns
The way you have interpreted milk is quite convincing Indeed it is
from the villages that energy flows to rejuvenate the life in the
cities
On another level Go vinda might mean the centre of the earth or
universe or the source of all light Of course Radha is the symbol of
the earth Her heart is full of the longing for the skies There you
read the myth of Gaia and Ourania Dyaus and Prithivi And you have
legitimately brought Sita and Radha together.
Regards
Ramesh
Dear Mandira,
The beautiful poem -Songs of Radha the Milkmaid that you have
selected from Sarojini Naidu's book of poems incites me to share something.
I, myself am very much fond of *Kirtana *-the art form that sings basically
the lila of Radha and Krishna,particularly the *Biraha *portion when Krishna
left Radha in Brindavan and himself went to Mathura to perform another duty
and activities.Radha remained ever engrossed in the thoughts of Krishna and
waited for his return. Whenever any cart etc. came from Mathura she rushed
there in the hope that her beloved must have come back .But in vain. The
love-lorn Radha became more sad. I am giving below a song that portrays this
in a poignant manner;
Piya tora kaisa abhiman
Saghana sawan laye kadama bahar
Mathura se doli laye charo kahar
Nahi aye nahi aye Kesaria balma hamar
Angana bara sunsan
Apne nayan se neer bahaye
Apne Yamuna khud aphi banaye
Lakh bar usme nahaya
Pura na hoi asnan
Phir pura na hoi asnan
Sukhe kesh rukhe besh Manua bejaan
In this backdrop I would like to give my interpretation.Radha had not
actually gone to Mathura .Rather in her inner mind flashed what would happen
had she gone to Mathura fair, Mathura tide,Mathura shrine respectively. In
the Mathura fair she would sell her curd.As Radha did not have any idea
about the life style of Mathura -the capital city,hence she imagined that
heifers would be there and they were lowing softly in the hope of the union
of Radha and Krishna as they had done in Brindavan. Radha would not sell
milk;in its stead curd. Why? Because her love for Krishna that hand turned
from milk to curd in the absence of Krishna/Gobinda .But it remained as pure
and white as the white cloud of the sky.But mind that though Shravan breeze were
blowing yet the cloud was white. How is it possible? As because Krishna was
not with Radha hence there was Shravan breezes blowing in her mind/sky
.Radha would sell her product only to Krishna Her mind was full of pure love
for Krishna;( i.e.. the white cloud). After shower the sky becomes clear. So
happened in case of Radha's mind. Unaware she uttered Gobinda! Gobinda. And
even when her friends might laugh at her her pent up thoughts were released
and her mind got a relief.Her conscious mind /the river started flowing
softly.
The other two stanzas may be similarly explicated. I resist myself to do
that.
Does it seem to be too far fetched .With love and with the hope to hear more
from you. Dipika
Dear Dipikadi,
Thank you very much for your own interpretation of the poem. You are
wonderfully lyrical and your point of view has added dimensions to the
simple village girl's vision of her divine Beloved. Please write your
point of view on the other two stanzas too.
best wishes
Mondira
In the second stanza, Radha imagined that she went to Mathura with her
pot. Within the pot Radha might have taken her love ,her longing for Krishna
The imagery of pot at once reminds us of the individual body that separates
us/here Radha from the union of our own god /Krishna. As soon as the earthen
pot breaks there will be the eternal union. In this context, the
word Mathura tide has a special import. Just as due to the attraction of the
Moon there comes the high tide in the river,similarly Radha's mind and body-
her heart and breast swelled up being attracted to Mathura where her beloved
resides. But as high tide and ebb tide come and go in alternate
manner,similarly Radha's emotion, feelings and demeanour changed- now elated
and the next moment depressed. While she thought of her union with Krishna
there came the high tide. And there was all mirth and merriment. Merrily merrily
the rowers, that is, her sweet memories were passing. There was abundance
and abandon .At once spring came forth. Radha Krishna's union is always
associated with her *sakhis *-the comrades like the asto sakhis-Lolita
,Bisakha etc. Hence there appeared the comrades in colourful dresses .
They were dancing, singing,plucking new buds to make garlands to greet the
two beloved ones- Radha and Krishna.The new buds were blowing.How? There air
blew gently. With this the flower plants also moved. As if the whole Nature
took part and was happy with the union of Radha and Krishna. The entire
stage bacame colouful and moving with coloufully clad comrades
dancing,singing along with ever blowing new buds on the plants as well as on
the hands of the sakhis. The sakhis wanted to wear saffron coloured dress.
Why? Because Krihna was not there. At once the colour reminds us the Hindu
sanyasi/nies who used to wear saffron coloured dress. This is the colour of
mensturation of the holy mother. This colour means detachment from the hurly
burly of the mundane world. And so Radha could not take part in any paltry
day to day activity and not in any mirth and merry. At once we can hear the
unheard sound -Krihna se to nei nei re. The ebb tide- the depressed mood of
Radha prevailed .Her ears always heard Krishna's music-Yeno nishi din murali
dhani suni /Ujan bohe prem Yamunari bari /Nupuro hoye yano he
Bonochari/Chorono jaraye dhore kandite pari/ Mamo madhuro minati sono
Ganashyama Giridhari….And Radha could not but cry out and utter
Gobinda! Gobinda! The pent up emotion at once got released .And Radha's mind
became relaxed .And so did the river flow gaily.The high tide came
instantly.
In the third stanza we find Radha in a different mood. All passion being
spent there was calm in mind.and in such a state on mind Radha imagined to
visit the Mathura shrine.Rather now Radha was in a position to visit the
Mathura shrine. If in the 1st stanza Radha 's conscious thoughts were
described , it was on the surface level because the heifar used to gaze on
the surface. and Radha's thoughts were moving softly like the soft lowing of
the cows. But as soon as Radha uttered the word Gobinda her thoughts could
delve deeper Her stream of consciousness started to flow softly . Thus then
at once the setting changed from the land to river. In the 2nd stanza
her thoughts went deeper. May be it touched the pre-conscious level
.Because there in the 2nd stanza in the dream like situation Radha could
face her carnal desire towards Krishna. The imagery of pot, the buds , the
dancing ,singing river water with high tide and ebb tide etc. all are
suggetive to something associated with sexual acts. See, Inthe first
stanza Radha 's mind was full of Krishna's beauty. Here she was con cerned
of her beloved's physical charm. But then the rowers came and rowed gaily
and they were all mirth and mery ( may be Physical /sexual enjoyment were
imaginatively faced.) To face a desire four square means to become free
of it. That is why in the second stanza Radha's Mind became free from
Physical desire rather she was concerned about Krishna's sound.But the
river i.e. the stream of conscous now moved gaily. The charm of sight and
sound cannot last long. Hence shorn of carnal desires Radha's love now can
have the power to submit herself totally to her Beloved. Now neither her
mind nor her body was disturbed . They had been burnt up and thereby
emitting light and thus acting as torches. Radha's was now fit to meditate.
Hence Radha in her mind went to the shrine. There she could find those
bright lamps of pure love that gathered their brightness through penance.
She with folded hands prayed not for herself but for us-the humanity as a
whole; may be for all sentient and insentient odjects under the Sun. She
asked not the union of Krishna but the well being of all and sundry by day
and night.When those pure lights protect, who could dare to do any harm?
Such catholicity of mind was at once applauded by gods also and the sound
of conch-shell was heard as a sign of it..( May be this was the sound of
Panchajanya -the conch shell that Krishna blew in the Kurukshetra at the
begining of the battle). But now it was blown to declare that Radha had
successfully over come her mean self-centred desires and she became
victorious.But the desires, which were termed as Mara in the Buddhist
literature, may be here personified .So they( the personified
desires) were wroth just after the sound of the conch-shell odviouly they
were annoyed as because they were defeated in their schemes to ensnare
Radha. And unknowingly Radha uttered Govinda! Govinda! And her stream of
consciosness shorn of all impurities became a river of bright light.T his
imagery of brightness reminds me the story of Ahalya who became bright
through her penance when Ram visited her ( in Valmiki)/touched his feet ( in
Krittivasa) on the place where Ahalya stayed and observed penance . Hard
Penance made Ahalya a woman to be remembered every morning as per Hindu
Sastra. Similarly Radha the eternal consort of Krisna is being worshipped
through out Northen India for her selfless pure love for Krishna. Because
now onwards ,we may easily guess thatRadha's heart will ever remain lost in
Krishna's worship in contrast of her earlier heart full of krishna's beauty,
then her full of his music in the 1st two stanzas. We may easily imagine
that now she can sit years after years in a meditative mood with her heart
lost in Krishna's worship . It is said that even today also Radha is waiting
in Brindavan for her Beloved Krishna.
Dear Dipikadi,
Your interpretation of the poem is absolutely wonderful. Your
consciousness plays on a level which is impossible to reach without
deep study and imbibing the process for years and years. I'm very
happy that you are helping me to think correctly.
Thank you and pranam
Thank you Mandira for such compliment. This is nothing but psychological
paradigm that I used to explicate the poem.
This poem itself is wonderful and very much thought provoking. It can be
interpreted in various ways if we little bit ponder over it. Last night
(after finishing and sending it to you all) Mandira I thought that this may
be interpreted as the three stages of sadhan bhajan. At the first stage
one is concerned about the demeanour of one's *istadevata*. So one
washes oneself , wears clean dress and follows rituals in puja in some
cases *phota kate, tilak kate*. Being listless of fellowmen/women s/he utters /sings *istanam
*. But in the second stage one's heart is full of the the sound of
one's god. Hence one also utters the name always like Ratnakar, Mirabai,
etc. In the third stage one is so much engrossed in the god that one can
visualise one's *istadevata*. His /her heart is full of the prayer-(call it
ajapa jop )And in this stage the sadhak/sadhikas write/sing for us the
common rung for our betterment. Hence the blind Surdasa composed , Mirabai sang
,Valmiki depicted what would happen in future and god himself finished
the couplet for Jaydev.
This is my own feelings. Seem to be too far off the mark?
With love
Dipika
Dipikadi,
Your beautiful thoughts are treasure to us.
Mondira
Dipikadi and Mondiradi,
The beautiful poems of Sarojini Naidu and their interpretations are
splendid. Your write ups created a soothing effect to their readers. I am
feeling that I am in Mathura observing Radha in eternal ecstasy. Similarly,
the discussions on the Goddess of wealth are real wealth of Sefirah.
Best Wishes
Mousumi
How softly the heifers were lowing…
I wanted to cry, “Who will buy
The curds that is white as the clouds in the sky
When the breezes of Shravan are blowing?”
But my heart was so full of your beauty, Beloved,
They laughed as I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How softly the river was flowing!
I carried the pots to the Mathura tide…
How gaily the rowers were rowing!
My comrades called, “Ho! Let us dance, let us sing
And wear saffron garments to welcome the spring.
And pluck the new buds that are blowing.”
But my heart was so full of your music, Beloved,
They mocked when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How gaily the river was flowing!
I carried my gifts to the Mathura shrine…
How brightly the torches were glowing!
I folded my hands at the altars to pray
“O shining ones guard us by night and by day”-
And loudly the conch shells were blowing.
But my heart was so lost in your worship, Beloved,
They were wroth when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How bright the river was flowing!
Substance of the poem
Radha, the milkmaid is carrying curds to Mathura (Krishna’s
birthplace) where the spring festival is going on. Cows are lowing
softly in the fields. Radha, wishing to give out her trade cry to sell
her curds that is as white as the autumn clouds, instead, calls out My
Lord! My Lord! Everybody laughs. The river Jamuna flows on softly, as
if appreciating her chant.
Radha reaches the bank of the river to cross by the ferry boat. Her
female companions want to wear the saffron garments, the color of
spring, and want to sing and dance and pluck the new buds. Radha’s
heart swells with the music of her Beloved Lord Krishna. She cries in
ecstasy when others humor her. The river Jamuna flows on joyfully
regardless.
Radha reaches, with her gifts of curds, the temple, where the torches
are brightly burning. She folds her hands to pray to the deity,
encircled by snakes, and prays for protection while the conch shells
are blown. Her heart is lost to the vision of her Beloved Lord and she
calls out the name involuntarily. Others become angry. But the river
Jamuna flows on while her water dazzles in the light of the torches.
A critical estimate of the poem
The title of the poem transports us to another world, to an
environment of fertility and abundance. Mother Nature abounds the
earth with the flow of her liquid. This white liquid symbolizes
affection and nurturing of life. Radha, the daughter of Mother Nature
carries the liquid of life and growth to all living beings. Mathura is
her destination where Krishna, the Divine Musician holds everybody
mesmerized with his mystic presence. The heifers herald her arrival to
Mathura where she will pour into the pots the liquid which she has
brought- energy and power from the mother Earth. It is worth noticing
that Sita, the other daughter of mother Earth also represents all that
stand for productivity.
Mathura is here the center of life and abundance. While the cow is the
species, that represents the flow of life and abundance. Radha feeds
and nurtures life. Even the clouds in the sky, white and creamy, are
part of the resources of life. The clouds and breeze together produce
rain to awash the earth with the energy and moisture that coaxes the
dormant vitality into life energy. The time of the year should also be
noted. It is the time of incessant rain, the month of Shravan (August-
September), when the life- giving moisture bursts forth.
Radha’s heart wavers from her task in hand. She yearns for her union
with Divine Musician, a presence that encompasses every soul of
Mathura. She is absorbed, heart and mind, in his mystic presence and
the trade cry she is supposed give out does not come to her lips- only
the name of Govinda, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient and the
Omnipotent, coming spontaneously from her heart, reverberates. The
poet, here, juxtaposes the two conceptions, the flowing of the river
and Radha’s yearning for a communion with Krishna.
Radha is presented in the poem in the first person. In the first
stanza she refers to the commodity she is carrying. Her mind is
somewhat attached to the earthly duties and nature of her work. Even
in her surroundings she hears the cry of the heifers, an animal she
connects with her trade. In the second stanza, her mind is drawn
towards the joy and gaiety of nature. She feels the abundance in her
heart Life is flowing everywhere.
Dear Mantu
We are nown drawn to Indian English literature and your
attempt at decoding Sarojini is a wonderful effort to that end Yes
Indian English literature could be successful only when India
breathes through the language of the Teutonic school and here is an
instance of success Ihave read your substance and critical comments
with great interest and I have a few reflections on the poem that I
submit before you
Firstly Idont think that there is any clue in the text wherefrom we
could infer that Krishna is at Mathura when Radha comes there
Secondly though Vrindavan has not been mentoioned here it is clear
that Radha comes from elsewhere to Mathura to sell her milk product
She comes from the other side of Jamuna
She comes from her village Mathura is a trade centre and town The poem
on the surface dwells on a maid who comes to the town for selling milk
product But her head is full of Govinda So instead of paying attention
to her getting and spending and instead of giving her trade cry with
gusto she unaware of herself cries aloud the name Govinda her
sweetheart A wonderful portrait of a loveladen heart of a village girl
Methinks the the heifers donot low at the place fair at Mathura They
lowed whhen she was carrying her milk product and setting out for
Mathura Then the Jamuna and the boat journey with her comrades and
finally at Mathura at the fair and at the temple Thus four vignettes
one after another pass by before our minds eye The prayer at the
temple is very touching Because it is for achieving nothing great May
all the gods protect us That is all Just as the naive boatman when
encounters the godhead incarnated as goddess Annapurna in
Bharatchandra only prays that her should remain well fed That is all
These simple folks are very much unlike us They dont want to be a
scholar or a scientist or a president Bush Me thinks that the truly
Indian attitude towards life along with the breeze of the month of
Shravan blows through the poem Mind you the poem has some riddles in
it to ponder over The curds are as white as the clouds in the clear
sky But the time when Radha crosses the Jamuna is Shravan when there
no white clouds But Radha fails to announce the good quality of her
curds Because the blue clouds of the month of Shravan seem to engross
her Again it is Shravan to Radha when her comrades want to don
saffron robes in harmony with the spring time So many seasons at the
same time draws my attention Thuis all the seasons are subjective
Jamuna flows between the place where Radha stays and the place where
Radha works for money Jamuna is a chasm between the two worlds ----one
where love reigns and the other where exchange reigns
The way you have interpreted milk is quite convincing Indeed it is
from the villages that energy flows to rejuvenate the life in the
cities
On another level Go vinda might mean the centre of the earth or
universe or the source of all light Of course Radha is the symbol of
the earth Her heart is full of the longing for the skies There you
read the myth of Gaia and Ourania Dyaus and Prithivi And you have
legitimately brought Sita and Radha together.
Regards
Ramesh
Dear Mandira,
The beautiful poem -Songs of Radha the Milkmaid that you have
selected from Sarojini Naidu's book of poems incites me to share something.
I, myself am very much fond of *Kirtana *-the art form that sings basically
the lila of Radha and Krishna,particularly the *Biraha *portion when Krishna
left Radha in Brindavan and himself went to Mathura to perform another duty
and activities.Radha remained ever engrossed in the thoughts of Krishna and
waited for his return. Whenever any cart etc. came from Mathura she rushed
there in the hope that her beloved must have come back .But in vain. The
love-lorn Radha became more sad. I am giving below a song that portrays this
in a poignant manner;
Piya tora kaisa abhiman
Saghana sawan laye kadama bahar
Mathura se doli laye charo kahar
Nahi aye nahi aye Kesaria balma hamar
Angana bara sunsan
Apne nayan se neer bahaye
Apne Yamuna khud aphi banaye
Lakh bar usme nahaya
Pura na hoi asnan
Phir pura na hoi asnan
Sukhe kesh rukhe besh Manua bejaan
In this backdrop I would like to give my interpretation.Radha had not
actually gone to Mathura .Rather in her inner mind flashed what would happen
had she gone to Mathura fair, Mathura tide,Mathura shrine respectively. In
the Mathura fair she would sell her curd.As Radha did not have any idea
about the life style of Mathura -the capital city,hence she imagined that
heifers would be there and they were lowing softly in the hope of the union
of Radha and Krishna as they had done in Brindavan. Radha would not sell
milk;in its stead curd. Why? Because her love for Krishna that hand turned
from milk to curd in the absence of Krishna/Gobinda .But it remained as pure
and white as the white cloud of the sky.But mind that though Shravan breeze were
blowing yet the cloud was white. How is it possible? As because Krishna was
not with Radha hence there was Shravan breezes blowing in her mind/sky
.Radha would sell her product only to Krishna Her mind was full of pure love
for Krishna;( i.e.. the white cloud). After shower the sky becomes clear. So
happened in case of Radha's mind. Unaware she uttered Gobinda! Gobinda. And
even when her friends might laugh at her her pent up thoughts were released
and her mind got a relief.Her conscious mind /the river started flowing
softly.
The other two stanzas may be similarly explicated. I resist myself to do
that.
Does it seem to be too far fetched .With love and with the hope to hear more
from you. Dipika
Dear Dipikadi,
Thank you very much for your own interpretation of the poem. You are
wonderfully lyrical and your point of view has added dimensions to the
simple village girl's vision of her divine Beloved. Please write your
point of view on the other two stanzas too.
best wishes
Mondira
In the second stanza, Radha imagined that she went to Mathura with her
pot. Within the pot Radha might have taken her love ,her longing for Krishna
The imagery of pot at once reminds us of the individual body that separates
us/here Radha from the union of our own god /Krishna. As soon as the earthen
pot breaks there will be the eternal union. In this context, the
word Mathura tide has a special import. Just as due to the attraction of the
Moon there comes the high tide in the river,similarly Radha's mind and body-
her heart and breast swelled up being attracted to Mathura where her beloved
resides. But as high tide and ebb tide come and go in alternate
manner,similarly Radha's emotion, feelings and demeanour changed- now elated
and the next moment depressed. While she thought of her union with Krishna
there came the high tide. And there was all mirth and merriment. Merrily merrily
the rowers, that is, her sweet memories were passing. There was abundance
and abandon .At once spring came forth. Radha Krishna's union is always
associated with her *sakhis *-the comrades like the asto sakhis-Lolita
,Bisakha etc. Hence there appeared the comrades in colourful dresses .
They were dancing, singing,plucking new buds to make garlands to greet the
two beloved ones- Radha and Krishna.The new buds were blowing.How? There air
blew gently. With this the flower plants also moved. As if the whole Nature
took part and was happy with the union of Radha and Krishna. The entire
stage bacame colouful and moving with coloufully clad comrades
dancing,singing along with ever blowing new buds on the plants as well as on
the hands of the sakhis. The sakhis wanted to wear saffron coloured dress.
Why? Because Krihna was not there. At once the colour reminds us the Hindu
sanyasi/nies who used to wear saffron coloured dress. This is the colour of
mensturation of the holy mother. This colour means detachment from the hurly
burly of the mundane world. And so Radha could not take part in any paltry
day to day activity and not in any mirth and merry. At once we can hear the
unheard sound -Krihna se to nei nei re. The ebb tide- the depressed mood of
Radha prevailed .Her ears always heard Krishna's music-Yeno nishi din murali
dhani suni /Ujan bohe prem Yamunari bari /Nupuro hoye yano he
Bonochari/Chorono jaraye dhore kandite pari/ Mamo madhuro minati sono
Ganashyama Giridhari….And Radha could not but cry out and utter
Gobinda! Gobinda! The pent up emotion at once got released .And Radha's mind
became relaxed .And so did the river flow gaily.The high tide came
instantly.
In the third stanza we find Radha in a different mood. All passion being
spent there was calm in mind.and in such a state on mind Radha imagined to
visit the Mathura shrine.Rather now Radha was in a position to visit the
Mathura shrine. If in the 1st stanza Radha 's conscious thoughts were
described , it was on the surface level because the heifar used to gaze on
the surface. and Radha's thoughts were moving softly like the soft lowing of
the cows. But as soon as Radha uttered the word Gobinda her thoughts could
delve deeper Her stream of consciousness started to flow softly . Thus then
at once the setting changed from the land to river. In the 2nd stanza
her thoughts went deeper. May be it touched the pre-conscious level
.Because there in the 2nd stanza in the dream like situation Radha could
face her carnal desire towards Krishna. The imagery of pot, the buds , the
dancing ,singing river water with high tide and ebb tide etc. all are
suggetive to something associated with sexual acts. See, Inthe first
stanza Radha 's mind was full of Krishna's beauty. Here she was con cerned
of her beloved's physical charm. But then the rowers came and rowed gaily
and they were all mirth and mery ( may be Physical /sexual enjoyment were
imaginatively faced.) To face a desire four square means to become free
of it. That is why in the second stanza Radha's Mind became free from
Physical desire rather she was concerned about Krishna's sound.But the
river i.e. the stream of conscous now moved gaily. The charm of sight and
sound cannot last long. Hence shorn of carnal desires Radha's love now can
have the power to submit herself totally to her Beloved. Now neither her
mind nor her body was disturbed . They had been burnt up and thereby
emitting light and thus acting as torches. Radha's was now fit to meditate.
Hence Radha in her mind went to the shrine. There she could find those
bright lamps of pure love that gathered their brightness through penance.
She with folded hands prayed not for herself but for us-the humanity as a
whole; may be for all sentient and insentient odjects under the Sun. She
asked not the union of Krishna but the well being of all and sundry by day
and night.When those pure lights protect, who could dare to do any harm?
Such catholicity of mind was at once applauded by gods also and the sound
of conch-shell was heard as a sign of it..( May be this was the sound of
Panchajanya -the conch shell that Krishna blew in the Kurukshetra at the
begining of the battle). But now it was blown to declare that Radha had
successfully over come her mean self-centred desires and she became
victorious.But the desires, which were termed as Mara in the Buddhist
literature, may be here personified .So they( the personified
desires) were wroth just after the sound of the conch-shell odviouly they
were annoyed as because they were defeated in their schemes to ensnare
Radha. And unknowingly Radha uttered Govinda! Govinda! And her stream of
consciosness shorn of all impurities became a river of bright light.T his
imagery of brightness reminds me the story of Ahalya who became bright
through her penance when Ram visited her ( in Valmiki)/touched his feet ( in
Krittivasa) on the place where Ahalya stayed and observed penance . Hard
Penance made Ahalya a woman to be remembered every morning as per Hindu
Sastra. Similarly Radha the eternal consort of Krisna is being worshipped
through out Northen India for her selfless pure love for Krishna. Because
now onwards ,we may easily guess thatRadha's heart will ever remain lost in
Krishna's worship in contrast of her earlier heart full of krishna's beauty,
then her full of his music in the 1st two stanzas. We may easily imagine
that now she can sit years after years in a meditative mood with her heart
lost in Krishna's worship . It is said that even today also Radha is waiting
in Brindavan for her Beloved Krishna.
Dear Dipikadi,
Your interpretation of the poem is absolutely wonderful. Your
consciousness plays on a level which is impossible to reach without
deep study and imbibing the process for years and years. I'm very
happy that you are helping me to think correctly.
Thank you and pranam
Thank you Mandira for such compliment. This is nothing but psychological
paradigm that I used to explicate the poem.
This poem itself is wonderful and very much thought provoking. It can be
interpreted in various ways if we little bit ponder over it. Last night
(after finishing and sending it to you all) Mandira I thought that this may
be interpreted as the three stages of sadhan bhajan. At the first stage
one is concerned about the demeanour of one's *istadevata*. So one
washes oneself , wears clean dress and follows rituals in puja in some
cases *phota kate, tilak kate*. Being listless of fellowmen/women s/he utters /sings *istanam
*. But in the second stage one's heart is full of the the sound of
one's god. Hence one also utters the name always like Ratnakar, Mirabai,
etc. In the third stage one is so much engrossed in the god that one can
visualise one's *istadevata*. His /her heart is full of the prayer-(call it
ajapa jop )And in this stage the sadhak/sadhikas write/sing for us the
common rung for our betterment. Hence the blind Surdasa composed , Mirabai sang
,Valmiki depicted what would happen in future and god himself finished
the couplet for Jaydev.
This is my own feelings. Seem to be too far off the mark?
With love
Dipika
Dipikadi,
Your beautiful thoughts are treasure to us.
Mondira
Dipikadi and Mondiradi,
The beautiful poems of Sarojini Naidu and their interpretations are
splendid. Your write ups created a soothing effect to their readers. I am
feeling that I am in Mathura observing Radha in eternal ecstasy. Similarly,
the discussions on the Goddess of wealth are real wealth of Sefirah.
Best Wishes
Mousumi
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