It is to be hoped that by the time the Shankaracharya of Kanchi next visits Nepal, His Majesty, King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, would be in a position to cock a snook at rootless modernists and perform the aswamedha and vajpeya yagnas. More power to his throne.
The tragic circumstances in which the late King Birendra and almost the entire royal family were massacred last year, and the bloody Maoist unrest that has kept Nepal on the boil ever since, are hardly secret. It is therefore understandable that the new monarch should seek the power of faith to heal his unhappy land and provide stability to his own throne, which is increasingly being perceived as his country’s only hope if its fledgling democracy crumbles under armed insurrection and myriad other problems.
In the foreseeable future, the monarchy will not be able to play a purely ceremonial role in Nepalese political life, even if party democracy survives. Given the personal and national crises he is struggling to cope with, it is reasonable that King Gyanendra should come for spiritual succour to India, mother lode of Vedic dharma and seat of the gurus of the Nepalese royal family. In fairness, he should have been allowed to pay his respects and perform his religious rituals in peace. Unfortunately, he was subjected to the misdemeanours of groups that lack respect for the Hindu civilizational ethos.
I found it distasteful to read headlines such as “Nepal King leaves bloody trail behind,” and “Nepal King does Kamakhya repeat in Kalighat Temple,” in the media (not The Pioneer). The reports conveyed the impression that the writers were prejudiced foreigners, not Indians, which is a sad commentary about the extent to which journalists have become alienated from Indian culture. Prima facie, the media was only reporting the picketing activity of a group called People for Animals, but the conduct of both the said organization and the media was reprehensible.
The underlying theme of the agitation, and the press coverage, was that a meticulous adherence to traditional Hindu rites was intolerable for some reason. It was claimed that royal participation in an ancient ritual ‘soaked in blood’ was ‘out of sync’ (whatever that means). Thus, a value judgment was passed about Hindu dharma, which the agitators would not dare extend elsewhere. For instance, would Maneka Gandhi dare picket the Nirankari Hola Mohalla, where goats are sacrificed annually? The agitators also betrayed poor understanding of the role of the king as custodian of dharma; this is a dynamic and complex process and cannot be tailored to the ideological predilections of critical outsiders.
When the late King Birendra introduced party-based democracy twelve years ago, he was fulfilling his dharma (duty) of meeting the aspirations of his people for greater political freedom. He thus stood for change, not status quo. Today, when the royalty pays obeisance to the Living Devi (girl incarnation of Kali), a unique Nepalese institution, it is affirming popular faith in dharma as a living tradition, not an accretion of rituals. The King must also represent the continuity of tradition, not its abrupt curtailment out of deference to the world-view of non-Hindus.
Some points are in order, in view of the brouhaha over the Panch Bali offered on behalf of the King at Kamakhya Temple. First, sacrifice is an intrinsic aspect of Vedic dharma. It is essential for individual and societal welfare, and even nation building. As such, it is the ruler’s sacred duty to preserve the ancient ways of worshiping God and protecting the people.
In the Vedic scheme of things, the notion of sacrifice has an intimate association with the quest to understand the nature and origins of the creation itself. Unlike other cultures, the Rig Veda does not posit a single creation story. Mirroring the vast multiplicity of Hindu thought, it refers to the existence of several myths. The hymns to Indra show creation as the consequence of a cosmic battle; another hymn suggests it resulted from the separation of heaven and earth. At the same time, the Vedic rishis struggled with such complex notions as the origin(s) of the existence of existence itself, as also of the creator.
There was also the notion of sacrifice as the origin of the earth and its people. The Purusa Sukta states that the gods created the world by dismembering the cosmic giant, Purusa, in a Vedic sacrifice – a myth that finds resonance in many parts of the ancient world. Then there is the story of Aditi, and another fable about the creation of the universe out of water and the rescue of the sun from the primordial ocean. At the end of the day, creation remains mysterious and elusive. The origins of sacrifice remain equally obscure, though it can safely be said that the concept of sacrifice is central to several theories of creation, particularly those linked to sacrificial gods.
What is more, those who know the meaning of the sacrifice, and the linkage between the internal landscape and the external ritual, do not share this sacred knowledge with those who have not attained that level of consciousness. They are even less likely to explain its deeper significance to those who are out to profane it. In such a scenario, the high priests of Kamakhya and Kalighat did well to go about their business nonchalantly, giving only matter-of-fact statements to press queries.
Tantricism is the most mysterious of India’s spiritual traditions, and has for this reason been maligned by Hindu-baiters of various persuasions. They should be treated with the contempt they deserve. The King did well to maintain equanimity in the face of aggressive ignorance. In needs to be understood that while Indian traditions like Jainism equate non-violence with superior consciousness, Hindu dharma upholds ahimsa as a superior moral norm, but does negate the necessity of violence in the service of dharma. This idea is intimately linked with the ritual of sacrifice.
Coming to the mundane level at which we live, the so-called animal rights activists who shamed the country by harassing a visiting dignitary should kindly inform us if they make a distinction between rare occasions of animal sacrifice and the routine slaughter of animals for culinary purposes. I am interested to know on what basis they exempt non-vegetarians from their picketing activities. Having drawn the attention of international funding agencies to themselves, will they now deign to tell us what they intend to do about the licensed and unlicensed slaughter-houses in the capital alone? Will they shut them down?
What is more, will their genteel horror at the sacrifice of animals in public places (sic) dare extend itself to the annual religious practices of other groups, or is this an honour reserved for Hindu dharma alone? When People for Animals takes the matter to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), will it also take the agitation into the kitchens of political leaders of the western world? Finally, if the agitation was not about Hindu-baiting, will the group be so kind as to adopt the movement for a ban on cow slaughter – after all, the cow is India’s most revered symbol of dharma.
The Pioneer, 2 July 2002