Not Yajna, but Sankirtan

One of the nicest things about doing this column is the interesting stories that people tell me from various traditions. This week I heard...

One of the nicest things about doing this column is the interesting stories that people tell me from various traditions. This week I heard from dancer Geeta Chandran that a cultured audience at the home of Dr Geeta Athreya listened to an interpretation of Karna8217;s character by a lady from Chennai, Jaya Srinivasan. Karna, the lady said, was apparently not a bad character but a great hero, greater than the Pancha Pandava. He fell into bad company 8212; but what choice did he have, when the good8217; people insulted him and it was the bad8217; who gave him back his self-respect?

Knowing his might, taking advantage of his reputation as a daanveer8217;, Krishna saw to it that one by one, his special powers and weapons were taken away or severely restricted. Right at the end, even his good karma is demanded of him when he lies mortally wounded. But now Karna wants something in exchange for his life8217;s accumulated merit. He wants to die on Krishna8217;s lap. And so Parthasarathy holds Kaunteya in his arms, cradling the lonely, dying soldier of misfortune. And even Krishna, having done the most to destroy Karna, is finally unable to hold back his tears and sheds them on Karna8217;s upturned, trusting face in terrible grief that it had to be this way.

By this time it seems that several people in the audience were weeping openly. Like one does, at this tale of Ravana from an old Bengali text, discovered by writer Subhadhra Sen Gupta. Dashanan, as we know, was such an ardent Shiva bhakt that he once tried to uproot and bear away Kailash itself, while Shiva and Parvati were sporting on its peak. This tradition goes that when Shri Ramachandra wanted to propitiate Shiva at Rameshwaram before his Lanka campaign, he was unable to find a Brahmin who knew the correct rituals for this elaborate and difficult yagna. Lankeshwar, hearing of this, could not bear the thought that Mahadeva8217;s worship should be impeded in anyway. Since he was an accomplished Brahmin himself, he laid aside his crown and royal emblems and offered his services in disguise. He conducted the yagna for his own destruction, impelled by his greater love for God.

Just hark at the world of ambiguity in our old ways. These shades of non-absolutes are the good things in our tradition, long obscured now by two tragic developments. One, the inferiority complex that progressive8217; Hindus since the 19th century have suffered from about their own faith, apropos their imperial masters. Tragedy number two, the inevitable political swingback, overcompensating for history with an aggression that is, frankly, more un-Hindu than Hindu. In the midst of all this uproar, the triumphant beauty of the Mother Faith as we experience it in our hearts is overlooked. Or there is a return to excessive ritualism. For instance, this expensive yagna trip, that8217;s so much in vogue. No one can quarrel with the transformative powers of mantras. But the priesthood has lapsed since the days of rishi-munis. The Vedic metres need careful and correct enunciation, otherwise they won8217;t generate the right heat8217;. But we don8217;t know if the priests are accurate any more, do we? They might cause more harm thangood.

Instead, let8217;s hold on to the sophistication of complex ideas, like these stories about Karna and Ravana. And particularly, it won8217;t hurt to think of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It was his belief that in Kaliyuga, it is Naamkirtan, not Yagna, that gets results. With the amount of well-recorded religious music available today, might it not be pleasanter and more spiritually useful to set up half an hour of regular family listening/story-telling time than splurging on yagnas?