Theyyam: When Gods Descend on earth

India has many rich religious traditions during which the Gods are supposed to come down to the earth and express themselves through some persons. Examples of similar traditions can be found in different parts of India.

This post focuses on one such tradition called Theyyam, which is celebrated in northern Kerala in south India.

Gods Speaking Through Humans

Hindus believe that the Divine is present in each living being as universal consciousness. At the same time, they have a pantheon of a huge number of Gods and Goddesses, one for each of life’s different forms. The Gods, animals and plants are all inter-linked through the sacred stories and myths.

The religious ceremonies in which Gods speak through humans has 2 main functions – (i) as a part of celebration of specific religious and social events; and, (ii) to answer questions and to give blessings to people.

 

All over India, especially in small towns and villages, there are persons who are known in the communities as “carriers of God”, who can go into a trance, and invoke a God spirit to come and speak through them. In north India this process is called “Devi ka aana” (arrival of the Goddess). Usually they do it by sitting down in meditation with their eyes closed and then go into trance. The arrival of the God in their bodies is marked by signs like convulsive shaking while their voices turn rough. After that others can ask questions or ask for blessings and make an offering. This role can be played by both men and women.

In many parts of India, there are also elaborate make-up, costumes and rituals linked with this tradition. For example, in North Dinajpur district of West Bengal, persons manifesting the Gods wear colourful wooden masks during the sowing of fields – this tradition is known as Gomira. In East Burdwan district of West Bengal, the men invoking the Gods, paint their bodies with blue colour and transform into Shiva – this tradition is known as Shiva Gajan. Satyajit Ray's film Devi can be seen as one representation and exploration of similar ideas.

While God-manifestation roles are mostly enacted only by men, usually they are about Goddesses, the different forms of Shakti. In some places, persons of other religions, especially Muslims & Christians, are given specific roles to play during these ceremonies image below with Muslim characters in a Theyyam), which could be linked with specific historical events and indicate processes of religious inclusion.

Theyyam Tradition in North Kerala

The word “Theyyam” probably comes from “Devam” (God). This religious tradition is common in villages of northern Kerala, especially around the district of Kannur and surrounding areas of Kerala and Karnataka. Between October to March, every village holds one annual Theyyam at the village temple. In each temple, there can be different Gods/Theyyams, depending upon the presiding deity and his consorts. Bhagwati is one of the principle deities of the Theyyam.

The persons playing Theyyams usually belong to specific lower castes in villages. The responsibility belongs to specific families and is hereditary, so that male children watch and learn from their fathers and uncles putting on the make-up, making specific ritualistic dance movements and conducting specific rituals in the temple. For the duration of the Theyyam, persons of all castes, bow in front of Theyyams.

The ceremonies continue day and night for 3-4 days and are usually carried out in the open courtyards around the temple. During the celebration, sometimes there can be an occasional animal sacrifice, especially a hen. After their rituals and dances, each Theyyam receives devotees who pay obeisance, and ask questions or their blessings.

Visiting Theyyam ceremonies

I had seen a few Theyyam dancers in a cultural festival in Guwahati some years ago and had been struck by their elaborate make-up and costumes. Then, a few years ago, in a museum near Fort Kochi, I had seen the masks showing specific make-up face-patterns for different Theyyams, which had greatly intrigued me.

It is easier to see Theyyam performances as part of cultural shows, but I was interested in seeing them as a part of a living religious tradition of a village.

In February 2018, during a visit in Kerala, I had gone to Kunnur, where I had hired a local Theyyam guide. You can find online the calendar of Theyyam celebrations in different villages. However, more specific information is available only in Malayalam. Finding and reaching specific villages where the celebrations are being held is not very easy unless you know the local areas. Thus, a local guide can make things easier.

With my guide Chandran, I had visited Theyyam ceremonies in 2 different villages and seen different Theyyams, each with their special make-up and costume. As you can see from the pictures, both were colourful ceremonies filled with beautiful rituals, dances and faithful. Even elderly persons touched their feet and asked for their blessings.

 

 

In my opinion, they are not just a rich and colourful tradition, they are an expression of people’s faith. I found the ceremonies emotionally moving. Unfortunately, with changing times, some young persons feel that these are just old superstitions and are dismissive towards them. Though the Government is supporting some of the families engaged in Theyyam by making them a part of cultural festivals, I feel that to see them as part of people’s living traditions and faith, is a completely different experience.

Conclusions

In one of the villages I visited, I watched a young man patiently lying on the ground for a couple of hours, while the make-up of God Narsimha was being put on his face. While he was getting ready, his uncle, Mr. Narayan, who was one of the drummers and had come home from Delhi, especially for this ceremony, had explained to me the significance of different steps of his preparation.

The most beautiful moment for me had come when after getting ready, the young man had moved away from the group and walked up to a small hill (image above). There he had bent down to touch the ground and then stood there with his eyes closed in a silent prayer. When he had opened his eyes and turned towards people, there was a subtle difference in him – he had transformed into Theyyam. Moving with a feline grace, he had walked to the courtyard of the temple, a God descended on earth.

That transformation had touched me deeply. Gods and humans, together and separate, are bound together in the sacred stories of human imagination - Theyyam is an illustration of this bond.

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Note: Post originally written in 2018, updated in 2023

Reforming Hindu Traditions

In 2018, I had spent a few days in Rishikesh where a chance meeting with a young Swami ji (ascetic) had led to some interesting discussions about how to bring reforms in Hinduism.

In terms of discussions around Hinduism, it is strange how a new aggressive narrative of Hinduism is being pushed in some traditional and social media (especially in English). Hinduism (along with Buddhism and Jainism) is predominently seen as a religion of peace which accepts people of different religions and creeds, as shown by the millennium-long Indian traditions of accepting people persecuted in their own lands including Parsi, Jews, Armenians, etc. International image of Hinduism is also associated with spirituality and Mahatma Gandhi including elements such as Yoga, meditation, non-violence and vegetarianism. However today, there are many persons in India and outside, who talk of Hinduism exclusively in terms of hate, violence and discrimination.

This post is about a discussion with a Swami ji from Rishikesh about how to reform Hinduism, it does not go into the new narratives being built around it.

Rishikesh

Rishikesh is the last mountain town where the river Ganges passes before reaching the plains in Haridwar. I had been to Rishikesh a few times as a child. My most memorable visit was in early 1968 with my maternal uncle. At that time, the Beatles had just visited the ashram of the Guru Mahesh Yogi and this had brought international spotlight on this obscure town. Last year when I went to Rishikesh, I had vague memories of those old journeys. I went to look for the old ashram of Mahesh Yogi but it was closed and covered with overgrown vegetation. This part of Rishikesh has now many new ashrams and there is a new huge white statue of Shiva built in the middle of the river.

As the river Ganges comes down, the old town of Rishikesh is located along its left bank, near the area of Triveni Ghat. All the new ashrams and yoga centres of Rishikesh are located to the north of the old town, along the opposite side of the river.

I was staying near Triveni Ghat and spent a great deal of time sitting along the river bank, with my feet in the ice-cold river waters, talking to old men and women who had come here on pilgrimage from different parts of India. Every afternoon, underneath the trees of Triveni Ghat, persons gathered in small groups and discussed. These discussions were usually very down-to-earth and mixed an earthy humour and occasional obscenity with the spirituality.

Meeting the Swami

The Swami ji was much younger to me, probably around 40 years and was clean shaven. He wore the saffron cloth of renunciation and seemed well educated. I met him near Bharat temple, which is one of the oldest and most beautiful temples in Rishikesh. He was from West Bengal and I talked to him about my experience of living in Assam. I was curious to ask him what had brought him to the path of renunciation, but felt a bit embarassed, it seemed like a very personal question to ask to an occasional acquaintance.

We started talking about Upanishads and I explained to him my fascination with Katho-Upanishad, which tells the story of Nachiketa's visit to Yama, the God of death and their discussions about the meanings of life and death. He was very knowledgable and recited different shlokas from that book, explaining his understanding of it.

Then he asked me if I had been to the Ganga-aarti? During this aarti a group of young Brahmins do a choreographed dancing prayer holding metal lamp-stands full of burning lamps, which has a great visual impact. I explained to him that for me, the teachings of Upanishads held the real meaning of Hinduism and I did not have much faith in rituals like aarti. I had found aesthetic pleasure in the choreography of the burning lamps and prayers sung by the faithful, but not any spiritual connection to it.

 

My comments about the aarti provoked a discussion during which Swami ji explained to me his understanding of Hinduism. He said, Hinduism is like Ganges, a river made of a lot of different streams. There is the Spiritual stream of Hinduism with an abstract view of God, and this stream finds a value in the sacred books of Veda and Upanishad. There are many other streams. Like the Vaishnav stream of belief which is practiced in Assam by the followers of Shrimanta Shankar Dev, which focuses on Bhagwat Puran and does not have any idols. However, according to him the biggest stream of Hinduism is that of simple persons who believe in the different Gods, in the different avatars of Vishnu and in the stories of Ramayan and Mahabharat. For them, the stories of Ram, Krishen and Shiva are the bedrock of their faith, these are felt as true in a material sense.

Swami ji felt that many of the present problems of Hinduism were caused by the disconnect between persons believing in different streams of the religion. According to him, most of the highly educated Hindus among the thinkers, writers, academics and other influential groups are like me, who appreciate the higher teachings of Gita, Veda and Upanishad but do not have the simple faith of common persons in their Gods.

"Persons like you, they dominate the society and what they say is taken up by TV and newspapers. You do not believe in Gods and Goddesses but you give your advice on what should be done about Hinduism. How to celebrate our festivals, where to make our temple, how big should be the statue, how to reform our traditions, you know everything and you want to take all the decisions for all the Hindus. The simple people for whom Ram, Sita, Krishna and Shiva are real, their opinions are considered as inferior and unimportant. This is creating problems in our society because they are the majority but they do not have a voice and people like you are a minority but you have a big influence", he said.

My point was that if a festival like Diwali creates pollution because of crackers or if we use Plaster of Paris statues covered with chemical paints at Ganesh Chaturthi and Durga Puja and after the festivals, throw them into rivers & create pollution, then something has to be done. Why can't we find another way to celebrate these festivals without feeling that others are persecuting us? Our religions need to change with the changed reality of the world.

He said that reforms in Hinduism must come from within, they can't be imposed by others. According to him we need persons like Mahatma Gandhi, or a Guru who understand the bigger picture and who share the faith of common Hindu - they can bring a change from the grassroots.

Conclusions

The words of that Swami ji have remained with me and I have reflected on them. I can see that I have a certain intellectual way of being a Hindu, I do not really believe in temple-rituals or Gods. I like visiting temples, just like I like visiting churches, museums and art exhibitions, for an aesthetic pleasure.

There is a lot about Hinduism in India, as it is lived by millions of persons, which I don't really understand - from Kanwariyas who walk for hundreds of kilometres to collect water from Ganges for their temples, to the pilgrims who spend weeks on the road for festivals like Ambubashi or Kumbha Mela - I understand all of it in an intellectual way but I can't understand the simple faith which moves these people.

The question is how can we promote a grass-root change in them? According to the Swami, the reformist movement has to come from them, and from their gurus and other persons in whom they have faith. These can't be forced by laws. In a way I understand this point, I had written about it in relation to the Sabarimala judgement.

But I am not convinced about the role of persons like me, who believe in Hindu spirituality but do not have the simple faith in rituals and prayers, do we have any role in promoting reforms related to that way of faith in following Hinduism? What do you think? Please do share your point of view in the comments below.

(Originally written in 2019 and updated in 2023)

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The Angry Indians

There are some persons on the Social Media, whom I call the "Angry Indians". They can be broadly divided into 2 main groups. One group is of persons who claim that they are trying to safeguard Indian culture and Hinduism. Often they have furious fights amongst themselves and some of them are full of hate. They often act in ways contrary to the beliefs they claim to defend.

The other group of that of persons who define themselves as progressives or liberals. They claim that they are trying to safeguard India's plurality and diversity. However, their main aim seems to be to counter BJP-Modi, and they are not really concerned about anything else. Like the first group, often they also act in ways contrary to the beliefs they claim to defend.

I call these 2 groups, the Hindu Cultural Warriors and the Progressive Cultural warriors. They are also co-dependent on each other, creating spaces for their fights and constantly, feeding-off each-other. Here are some recent examples of issues around which they fight.

India Versus South Asia

Recently the American vice-president Kamala Harris greeted the "South Asians" on the Holi festival and the Hindu Warriors erupted in protests. Don't you know that Holi is a festival only of Hindus of India, they asked. They don't like to be grouped together with India's neighbours, especially with Pakistan. On the other hand, Prograssive Warriors love using the term South Asia, I think mostly because Western progressives like it and even more, because they know that the other group hates it.

I need to confess that I am partial to Kamala Harris, since she has my mother's name, but my defense of the term "South Asian" has nothing to do with her name. I feel that the term "South Asian" acknowledges the common cultural identity of what was once known as Indian subcontinent. It is an identity which is shaped mostly by Indian culture, by its tradition of creating and accepting, even encouraging, blurred boundaries between the religions and its basic idea of "all the different paths lead to the same God".

All countries of South Asia have some Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists - in India and Nepal as majorities and in other countries as minorities. So wishing "Happy Holi" to all the people of these countries, did not seem like a bad thing to me and I can't understand why the Hindu Warriors don't like the term South Asians.

I can understand if conservative persons of other religions in "South Asia" resent Harris' greetings, because that is happening in some parts of the world. For example, there are many persons in Europe who get offended if you wish them for festivals which do not belong to their religions (for example, some Muslims get offended by the widespread Christian symbols in public spaces around Christmas and Easter times. So they are coming out with ideas like hiding Christmas trees in private spaces and saying "Season's greetings" instead of "Happy Christmas").

However, in India, festivals of all the religions are holidays for everyone and I have grown up in an environment where we wished everyone for all the festivals. For example, we always said "Happy Eid" or "Happy Gurupurab" and not "Happy Eid to Muslims" and "Happy Gurupurab for the Sikhs". So, if Harris is treating all South Asians as "people who celebrate Holi", why should the Hindu Warriors get offended? They should be jumping with joy!

Indian Festivals

Another issue which often leaves me confused is when Hindu Warriors get offended if someone dares to say anything about an Indian festival. I can understand the irritation about the extreme positions of some Progressives, who may be motivated by virtue-signalling - for example, their calls for "water saving" at Holi or for not making bonfires on Lohri and Holi. I can also understand the irritation because Progressives seem to focus only on Hindu festivals. However, I don't see the need to feel offended if someone says that Deewali can be hazardous for environmental pollution or the Durga and Ganesh statues pollute our rivers and lakes - I think that we need to look at these seriously and search for solutions.

Compared to other religions, Hinduism is not bound by any one book or any one tradition, so it is easier for us to question our old cultural practices and start new ones. For example, over past decade, I have seen different variations about the way we celebrate Rakhi, the festival in which sisters tie a rakhi on their brothers' wrists. Now, for promoting greater inclusion, some of our family celebrates it by sisters tying rakhis on the wrists of both, their brothers and their wives; and, at Karvachauth, both husbands and wives together keep fast. If we can change our rituals and practices according to the changing times, it is good for us as a community, and is certainly better than to remain with outdated practices and ideas.

Therefore, if the fire-crackers of Deewali cause horrendous increases in pollution and problems for people with breathing difficulties, especially in the big cities, and there are calls to limit their use, why should that be seen as an attack on Hinduism? IMO, it does not matter that traffic or industry or crop-burning are more polluting. On Deewali evenings, even 30-40 years ago, when traffic and other kinds of pollution were much less than today, the doctors' clinics used to be full of people with asthma attacks and breathing difficulties. I can vouch for it because I practiced medicine in Delhi in the 1980s and saw it every year. So why can't we use this opportunity to find alternative joyful and fun ways to celebrate Deewali? BTW, even Europe has campaigns around Christmas and New Year to limit the use of fire-crackers.

If chemical-based colours used in Holi can cause skin allergies or dermatitis, they also end up in our sewage waters and rivers. Our rivers and lakes are usually in terrible shape at festival-times. Use of chemical colours painted on the Durga and Ganesh statues, are bad for our environment in the same way. The answer for Hindu Warriors should not be to shout about these as "attacks on Hinduism" but to think of how to promote a wider use of plant-based natural colours. If we can promote our local artisans and organic colours' and dyes' industries by doing that, it will be even better. It can become an economic opportunity and also in line with our scriptures, which ask for the respect of nature.

BTW, the fun of Holi and the joy of covering people's faces and clothes with colours is increasingly finding emulators in Europe. Vicenza, the provincial town near which I live, has been organising "Holi celebrations" during summers, where it is an opportunity for people to drink, dance and play with colours.

Hinduism - Hinduttva

Many of the Hindu Warriors are promoting a version of Hinduttva which seems to be inspired by the ultra-conservatives of Christianity and Islam. Progressive Warriors are their partners in this, they also agree that Hinduttva means only that and nothing else. In fact for Progressives, the word Hinduttva belongs only to BJP, so they are fighting against it (they also think that the colour saffron belongs only to BJP and it should not be used).

I personally think that the word "Hinduttva" or the "essence of Hinduism" can not be reduced to only one meaning. Hinduism has developed along thousands of streams of ideas and practices across different parts of India, which have a lot in common and at the same time, an incredible amount of variations. Thus, if our ideas about Hinduism are infinite, the meanings of Hinduttva should also be infinite. So, why do we accept to let the idea of Hinduttva be hijacked by these 2 groups?

IMO, a wide public debate on the meaning of Hinduttva would be beneficial to India. It might help us to understand which cultural values are shared by the majority of Hindus and by majority of Indians. Though I don't think that we shall ever reach a consensus, this discussion would be useful. Probably, this commonly shared idea of Hinduttva would be closer to the results of the PEW survey in 2021 on the Religions of India. This survey report had shown that in spite of different religions, most Indians hold similar common beliefs. The "common shared cultural values of India" should be valued and safeguarded. Such an understanding of Hinduttva will be forged by the encounters of different religions of India and it will acknowledge the blurred boundaries between the religions, as one of its key characteristics.

The more conservatives among the Hindu Warriors do not accept anything except their ideas about traditions of Hinduism. At the same time, the ideas of blurred religious boundaries and common traditions shared across religious diversities are increasingly non-acceptable also to Progressives. They often talk about India's past and how it gave a home to persecuted minorities of the world, to cry about the lost Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and the lost traditions of accepting religious diversities in ancient India. However, for today's world they do not want to look at the norms and processes governing the acceptance of other religions in India's past. Instead, they would like to follow the ideas of secularism developed in the west, which are based on separation of religious identities. In India, the Progressive Warriors seem most concerned about how to safeguard the more conservative ideas of minority religions. I personally feel that the ideas of identity-politics developed in the west are problematic for a harmonious multi-cultural living in India because they destroy the blurred religious boundaries which has been a fundamental characteristics of Indian cultural world. For the same reason, Progressives defend maintaining separate specific laws for minority religions and fight the idea of common civil code.

Insulting Religions

Some of the Hindu Warriors are always looking for people insulting Hinduism, to fight with them. If you use a Sanskrit verse from a Veda in a rock-song or if you print the picture of a Hindu God on a bag or god-forbid, a pair of shoes or underwear, they are waiting to rise up and start a campaign to destroy you. The Progressive Warriors are willing to overlook all insults to Hinduism but are very careful in making sure that you do not insult the minority religions.

I think that the idea of "insulting God" is stupid because it does not fit in with the basic ideas of Hinduism, which include the belief that God is within each of us. "Aham Brahm asmi", "Aham Shivam asmi", "So Hum" - all mean "I am" or that "God is inside me". In Shrimad Bhagvad Geeta, Krishna shows his Virat Roopa to Arjuna to explain that he is there in every particle of this universe. These fundamental ideas should guide Hindus to the respect of nature and respect of every human being.

So, how can anyone justify killings in the name of Gods or religion if one believes in this teaching? If one believes that God is inside every being, how can anyone justify discrimination towards any person because of his caste or his religion? And, once you accept that God is there in every particle of the universe, how can anyone offend God?

Recently, I had read about people being killed in Punjab for "offending" the Sikh sacred book Guru Granth Sahib. I wondered if they had forgotten the story of Guru Nanak's travel to Mecca? The story says that some men complained that Guru Nanak was sleeping with his feet pointing towards Mecca and thus offending God. So, Guru Nanak told them, shift my feet towards another direction where there is no God. The story says that in which ever direction they shifted Guru Nanak's feet, Mecca appeared on that side. Therefore, the idea of Sikhs who get offended because someone disrespects their holy book and kill those persons, seems incomprehensible to me.

It is a pity that such messages of "offending God" are also spoken by people wearing saffron, who talk of beheadings and killings. Their saffron clothes should signify spirituality and learning. Yet, they can refuse the temple drinking water to a thirsty boy, because he belongs to another religion and say that they are defending Hinduism. How can they defend Hinduism if they do not believe in the ideas contained in the Veda and Upanishads?

IMO, Progressives have facilitated this rise in the Hindu chauvinism by closing their eyes to similar ideas and practices of conservatives of minority religions by suggesting that only the majority bigotry matters. Every time, there is violence or aggression involving persons of different religions, it seems that the Progressive speak out only if victims are from the minority religions.

In The End

The Hindu cultural warriors are convinced that if they don't save Hinduism then it is in great danger. The progressive cultural warriors believe that the problems lies only with the Hindu chauvinists and they are blameless. The thinking of both the groups is a problem.

Fortunately, in spite of everything, life goes on. I have great faith in common Indians, as shown by the findings of the PEW survey. I think that in spite of all the mutual hate expressed by the two groups, common Indians will find the right balance and a way to go forward.

Day before yesterday was 23rd March, the birthday of Doctor Saheb (Dr Ram Manohar Lohia), the iconic socialist leader, whose ideas had so much impact on me as a child. Today it is 25 March, the day on which papa had died 47 years ago at the age of 47. He was an associate of Doctor Saheb. If he was alive today, he would have been 94. Even after so many years, I miss him. I think that I would have loved to talk about the subject of this post to him and to Doctor Saheb - though I am not sure if they would have agreed with me!

God, Consciousness and Mathematics

In the 2 May 2020 issue of New Scientist there was an article about a new mathematical theory of consciousness. According to this theory "all kinds of inanimate matter could be conscious". To me this mathematical understanding of consciousness sounded very similar to the explanation of Brahman, the universal consciousness, in the Indian texts of Upanishads.

In 2018, I had written about different ways of understanding God in different religions and how the Upanishads define God in many ways, including as Brahman, the all pervading universal consciousness. This post can be seen as a continuation of that same argument and focuses on the article from New Scientist and its similarities with the ideas in Upanishads.

Here. There. Everywhere?

Michael Brooks' article is titled "Here. There. Everywhere?" He starts with the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) proposed by American neuroscientist Giulio Tononi in 2004. Then he explains the ideas of Johannes Kleiner in Munich and Sean Tull in Oxford, which start from Tononi's ideas and refine them. Tononi had proposed that consciousness was a characteristic of information-exchange and if we could measure that, then we could also measure consciousness. Kleiner and Tull have attempted "to identify the necessary mathematical ingredients of IIT, splitting them into three parts. First is the set of physical systems that encode the information. Next is the various manifestations or “spaces” of conscious experience. Finally, there are basic building blocks that relate these two: the “repertoires” of cause and effect." According to Brooks, the significance of this work is the following:

One consequence of this stimulus might be a reckoning for the notion, raised by IIT’s application to grid-shaped circuits, that inanimate matter can be conscious. Such a claim is typically dismissed out of hand, because it appears to be tantamount to “panpsychism”, a philosophical viewpoint that suggests consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter. But what if there is something in it?To be clear, no one is saying that fundamental particles have feelings. But panpsychists do argue that they may have some semblance of consciousness, however fragmentary, that could combine to generate the various levels of consciousness experienced by birds or chimpanzees or us. “Particles or other basic physical entities might have simple forms of consciousness that are fundamental, but complex human and animal consciousness would be constituted by or emergent from this" ...The idea that electrons could have some form of consciousness might be hard to swallow, but panpsychists argue that it provides the only plausible approach to solving the hard problem. They reason that, rather than trying to account for consciousness in terms of non-conscious elements, we should instead ask how rudimentary forms of consciousness might come together to give rise to the complex experiences we have.

Consciousness in Upanishads

Upanishads are ancient Hindu texts written in Sanskrit that often touch on the nature of reality. "Ishavasya" is one of the first Upanishads, dating back to different centuries before Christ. Its name - "Isha" (God) and Vasya (Lives in) - comes from its first line:

It means that God pervades everything, both animate and inanimate. It is similar to the hypothesis of the mathematical theory proposed by Kleiner and Tull, as the text equates 'God' with 'Consciousness'.

The Upanishads define different levels of consciousness including Turiya or absolute consciousness. Turiya is the state of pure being in which awareness is present but the experiences are not accompanied by any thoughts, and it can't be described in words. This philosophy of non-dualness, the unity of our personal consciousness with that of the universal consciousness is known as Advaita philosophy. To me these ideas sound remarkably similar to the considerations of Kleiner and Tull.

Some Hindu texts differentiate between Parmatma or the universal consciousness and Jeevatma, the individual consciousness, where Parmatma is the ocean while Jeevatma are the rivers. There are other explanations about different levels of individual consciousness inside animate and inanimate world, which can be seen as "rudimentary consciousness" in Brooks' article.

The concept of Brahman or the universal consciousness is deeply rooted in Hinduism. It is expressed in words like Brahmand or the universe and Brahmin, the one who has spiritual knowledge. It is also used in the Beej Mantra to be chanted or meditated upon during Yoga and meditation, such as Swam Ho (I am), Aham Brahma (I am the life force), Aham Shivam (I am the eternal truth). Thus, if Kleiner and Tull's theory is about universal consciousness, then according to the ideas of Upanishad, it is also a theory of God.

If we think of God as universal consciousness pervading every object and being of this universe, perhaps we will learn to respect the environment, the rivers and the mountains, the trees, insects, birds and animals, and all the human beings.

Conclusions

I think that with greater scientific and technological understandings of the world, the role of religions will change in our lives. Today, for many persons religion continues to have a fundamental role in differentiating and defining right and wrong, good and bad, permissible and prohibited. However, for many others, religion only has a spiritual significance because it allows us to give a deeper meaning to our lives, but it does not have a prescriptive role.

Questioning and refusing parts of our religious beliefs is essential for many of us. At the same time, our ideas about right and wrong are shaped more by concepts of human rights, equality of all human beings, and, love and respect for the nature. We can pick and choose aspects from different religions, which speak to our heart, but we are not bound by the walls separating them.

I think that this kind of questioning approach to our religions will become dominant in the coming decades and centuries. It is how I look at Hinduism. The phase of human culture dominated by prescriptive religions with rigid boundaries and commands is coming to an end. As humanity will become more self-aware and self-confident, it will focus on spiritual dimensions of religions, allowing each of us to have our own ideas of right and wrong. There may be inspirations to understand the world in our ancient texts and religious books, while there may be other parts that may not appeal to us. And, there need not be a gulf separating the ideas of God from those of mathematical theories.

Note: The images used in this post are from an exhibition of Indian artists held in Delhi in January 2020 and are by Rashmi Malhotra (a mathematician and an artist) and Prince Chand.

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Surgery in Ancient India & Ganesha

Ganesha, the anthropomorphic divinity with the elephant's head, is one of the most loved God-figures in Hinduism. Some persons have claimed that the Ganesha story is a sign of knowledge about advanced surgical skills in ancient India and that those ancient surgeons knew how to transplant an animal head on a human body. While such claims are laughable, I do believe that there can be some links between the myth of Ganesha and the knowledge of surgery in ancient India.

This post is about surgery in ancient India and how it could have given birth to the Ganesha myth.

The Ganesha Story

I love the figure of Ganesha. For me, it symbolises the omnipresent links between humans and different aspects of nature, which permeate different aspects of Hinduism. They teach us to look with respect at every aspect of nature - from the microscopic bacteria and ants to animals and plants, and even the snow covered mountains. If you have seen individuals in India offering flour or grains to ants and snakes and monks going around with a mask for their mouths, you can understand the vitality of this link between Indic religions and nature.

In the Indian mythology, Ganesha is the son of Shiva and Parvati, born while his father is away. Many years later, one day Shiva comes back home and is stopped by Ganesha, who does not know him and is guarding the door because his mother is taking bath. Angry, Shiva cuts his head. Later when he realises his mistake, it is too late, some animal has eaten his son's head. So Shiva sends his men to look for another head, and his men bring back the head of a baby elephant which is put on the boy's torso. This is how Ganesha's elephant head is explained in the mythology.

Transplanting An Animal Head

Some persons take the Ganesha story literally and believe that ancient Indians knew how to transplant an animal head on that of a human being. Even if it was possible to sew and transplant an animal head on a human body, and even if it was possible to avoid the inter-species transplant rejection, no real elephant's head, not even a baby elephant head, can fit the human body, unless we are talking of elephant-sized giant men from Gulliver's Travels. Thus, this story is only a story.

However, ancient Indians did develop surgical skills almost 2000 years ago, which were probably unique in the world at that time. Some of those techniques are still used in modern surgery. I wonder if the story of one such surgical operation could have given birth to the Ganesha myth. Let me explain.

Surgery in Ancient India

Mentions of surgery are found from Rigveda onwards in different texts of Hinduism and some of the well known ancient surgeons mentioned in these texts include Ashwini Kumaras, Chavana, Dhanvantari, Atereya Agnivesh and Sushruta. Sushruta from 600 BCE is called the father of Indian surgery, and his book known as Sushruta Samhita contains indications regarding cosmetic, plastic, and dental surgery ("Sandhan Karma").

Dr. Vibha Singh in an article published in the Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery in 2017 had written about it:

The ancient surgical science was known as Shalya Tantra. Shalya means broken arrow or a sharp part of a weapon and Tantra means maneuver. Shalya Tantra embraces all processes, aiming at the removal of factors responsible for producing pain or misery to the body or mind. Since warfare was common then, the injuries sustained led to the development of surgery as refined scientific skill ...Complicated surgeries such as cesarean, cataract, artificial limb, fractures, urinary stones plastic surgery, and procedures including per- and post-operative treatment along with complications written in Sushrutaa Samhita, which is considered to be a part of Atharva Veda, are surprisingly applicable even in the present time ...Even today, rhinoplasty described by Shushruta in 600 BC is referred to as the Indian flap and he is known as the originator of plastic surgery. Besides trauma involving general surgery, Sushruta gives an in-depth account and a description of the treatment of 12 varieties of fracture and six types of dislocation. This continues to spellbind orthopedic surgeons even today. He mentions the principles of traction, manipulation, apposition, stabilization, and postoperative physiotherapy ...

Knowledge about surgery travelled from India to the Arab World in the 8th CE and then to Europe. Prof. Thamburaj in his book Textbook of Contemporary Neurosurgery wrote that Sushruta Samhita was translated into Arabic as 'Kitab Shah Shun al–Hindi' and 'Kitab–I–Susurud'. There were Latin and German translations of this text in early 19th century but I think that there must have other translations of this text in the past and the knowledge about the Indian techniques had reached Europe much earlier.

Dr Frank McDowell in his 1977 book on Plastic Surgery had written: "Through all of Sushruta's flowery language, incantations and irrelevancies, there shines the unmistakable picture of a great surgeon. Undaunted by his failures and unimpressed by his successes, he sought the truth unceasingly and passed it on to those who followed. He attacked diseases and deformities definatively, with reasoned and logical methods. When the path did not exist, he made one."

The Skin Grafting Technique from India

Skin grafts are needed when the skin is destroyed, such as in burn and crush injuries. Broadly, there are two kinds of skin grafts - a partial skin graft and a full skin graft. The full skin grafts were described in Sushruta Samhita.

When wounds are big or deeper, and a thin strip of skin is not enough, we need a graft with the full depth of the skin and underlying tissues including blood vessels and nerves. For this, the surgeons cut a piece of full skin tissue from three sides, usually from abdomen, arms or thighs, while making sure that it remains attached on the 4th side to the original part of the body, from where it can continue to receive blood. This skin flap is used to cover the wound. This means, the surgeon needs to bring together the wound to the body part which is going to donate the skin, and they need to stay together for some weeks, till the grafted skin starts getting blood from the underlying tissues. Once the grafted skin is well fixed to the new area, the flap can be cut at the base and two parts can be separated.

The Origins of Ganesha Myth

Is it possible that the Ganesha myth started from a surgery in ancient India? Lets suppose that there was a young boy who was a priest at a Shiva or Shakti temple and he was attacked by someone who wanted to loot the temple. He was able to protect the temple but his nose was cut during the fight. He was operated by a surgeon who took a full skin flap from his upper arm and used it to construct a nose for him. After the operation, he was forced to keep his arm close to his face with his forearm hanging in front of his face like an elephant's trunk for a few weeks or months. Suppose, someone called him the boy with the elephant's head and over time, it gave rise to the Ganesha story?

Hinudism has a strong traditions of an oral culture, where old stories are made into songs, adapted to the local context and passed across generations. Over centuries, such a story could have become the Ganesha's mythical story and the sages incorporated that story in a sacred book, explaining him to be Shiva and Parvati's son.

Conclusions

Hinduism is a living tradition that has roots going back to antiquity. This living tradition is incredibly complex, where each story has innumerable versions, and some of them can be contradictory. Over centuries, stories which can have deep metaphorical meanings become widespread and find a place in one of its sacred texts.

My considerations about the origins of the Ganesha story are just speculations and can't be taken as truth. They build a story around the surgical skills about skin-grafting in ancient India. There is no way to prove this story and any way, that is not the purpose of this post.

Additional notes about this surgery in India are given below:  I think that this additional information is important because it shows that Ayurvedic operations based on the ancient techniques described in old books of Sushruta Samhita and Charaka Samhita, were being practiced in India in 18th century and were taken to west much more recently than has been claimed.

Additional Notes, 11 August 2020 (From @trueindologyorg on Instagram):

The above is the picture of world's first known modern plastic surgery. It is also the picture of world's first known modern nose job. It was performed by a traditional Indian surgeon named Kumar. The person in this picture was known as Cowasji. He was a Maratha bullock driver. He had been imprisoned by Tipu Sultan and his nose was cut off in prison. His nose was later restored by a traditional Surgeon named Kumar using "ancient Indian methods" in 1794 CE.

A Britisher named Lucas observed in action the traditional Indian surgery of Cowasji and documented every detail of this operation. This picture was a British portrait of Cowasji AFTER Rhinoplasty (c. 1795 CE). At that time, the Europeans lacked the scientific knowledge and expertise needed to perform plastic surgery. They were greatly intrigued by this method and found it was commonly performed in India. They also noted how Susruta Samhita described this procedure of Rhinoplasty in detail. These details were then accessed by a scientist named Joseph Constantine Carpue. Using these techniques, he performed world's "first" modern Rhinoplasty 20 years later.

Joseph Constantine Carpue is widely known as the father of Plastic Surgery. But in his book "An account of two successful operations" , he acknowledges that it was performed by "Indians from time immemorial". He learnt it through his friends who "copied from Hindoo practitioners" in his own words. Nasal reconstructions had been practiced as a relatively routine procedure in India for centuries. The procedures are described in two well-known early Indian medical works like the Suśruta Samhitā. By the nineteenth century, the technique had been handed down through families.

Traditional Indian sources recommend that Kumbhakaras (potters) perform the surgery owing to their skill. They performed it till 18th century. Source: "An account of two successful operations " by Joseph Constantine Carpue. Image source: https://blogs.bl.uk/science/2016/10/britains- first-nose-job.html

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#surgery #medicine #ayurveda #ancientindia #ganesha #hinduism

Our Black Gods

Some of the most popular deities of Hinduism are dark-skinned. Considering the Indian obsession with fair skins, I had often wondered, how did that come about and why did ancient Hindus imagined their Gods to be dark-skinned? I have thought a lot about it and I have not yet found any convincing explanation about it.

Over the past couple of centuries, it seems that we have started a whitening process of our dark-skinned Gods, much like our craze for the whitening creams. If not fair, they are shown as light blue or green coloured figures, as the figure of lord Ram in the picture above. In plays and films, light-skinned actors are taken to play their roles.

For the past 10 days we are closed in our homes because of the Corona virus epidemic. Schio, the tiny town at the foothills of Alps mountains in the north-east of Italy where we live, has been largely spared from this epidemic so far. Thus, I have a lot of time to think and write for my blog! This was how I started to think about the popular Gods of Hinduism and ask myself, why are they shown as dark-skinned?

Dominant Narratives

For the past couple of centuries, the dominant narrative about ancient Indians and Hindus in India has been that of lighter-skinned Aryans, who had come from central or west Asia, and who pushed the darker skinned original inhabitants of India to the south or in the forests. Some believe that they were invaders, who had destroyed the Indus Valley civilisation. However, that invasion theory is not considered now because no evidence had been found of widespread violence and war in the archaeological explorations in the Indus Valley. 

It sounds like a linear and clear explanation, and seems quite plausible. However, I find it difficult to place the black-skinned Gods of Hinduism in this narrative.

Why Did Aryans Choose Black Gods?

The question which I ask is this - if Vedic Hinduism was brought by light-skinned Aryans, who had come to dominate India and had pushed many indigenous groups to the margins of the societies, why did they choose so many dark-skinned Gods as their principle deities?

Two of the most popular deities of Hinduism - Ram and Krishna, both known as incarnations of Vishnu, are described as dark-skinned. Krishna's name, itself means black/dark. On the other hand, most of their consorts, the female deities, are described as fair skinned, except for Kali, one of the female deities associated with Shiva.

Possible Explanations

According to a Hindi article I found on the internet, the black colour of Hindu deities was a philosophical choice because the black colour is formed by mixing of all the colours and thus it has all shades of the Prakriti (nature) in itself. However, I find it difficult to accept this explanation, because it seems like a more cerebral answer and does not say anything about the ideas and attitudes of the common persons, who needed to pray to those deities.

Vedic culture has been characterised as a Patriarchal Society - why did a Patriarchal Society choose low-in-hierarchy black-skinned figures as their male deities? One explanation can be that ancient Indians who believed in Vedic culture were themselves dark-skinned persons (or were a mixed group, somewhat like today's Indians, and dark-skinned persons among them had high-prestige roles) and that is why they preferred dark-skinned deities. If we accept this idea, what does that mean for the Aryan-Dravidian theories, as well as, for the caste theories?

Another explanation can be that the ancient Vedic Indians believed in the mother-goddess and female deities, while the dark-skinned male deities belonged to Indus Valley people and indigenous people of the forests. When Aryans arrived and gradually assimilated with pre-existing Indian groups, they took over the pre-existing male deities. Thus, the dark-skinned deities came to Hinduism from the indigenous people of India, as the two groups assimilated and inter-mixed their deities.

Yet, another explanation can be that the principle deities of Hinduism arose as representations of the natural forces, and thus deities representing dark forces such as clouds and thunder, took on dark colours. But this logic does not seem to apply to the figures of Ram and Krishna.

Or, perhaps, there are different explanations for each of them and it is by coincidence that we ended up with many dark-skinned deities? It is also possible that when Aryans imagined their Gods in anthropomorphic forms, they did not imagine them to be similar to themselves, but as dark-skinned "others"? Or, can it be that the Aryan-Dravidian narrative is not so linear as has been implied?

Can you think of any other explanation about the dark-skinned deities of Hinduism?

Whitening of the Dark Gods

I am not sure when exactly did we start whitening our deities. One way can be to look at the Hindu deities in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam. Hinduism is supposed to have travelled to places like Bali in Indonesia and Champa in Vietnam in first-second century CE. Do they have any dark-skinned Hindu deities in these countries discovered in the archaeological excavations? If yes, that will help us in dating the choice of dark-skinned deities.

We can also look at the probable dates when our epics like Ramayan were written, because Ramayan describes Ram and his youngest brother Shatrughan as dark-skinned, while the two other brothers, Laxman and Bharat, are described as fair-skinned. However, the claims about probable dating of Ramayan are very variable.

According to David Kinsley, "The Vamana Purana has a different version of Kali's relationship with Parvati. When Shiva addresses Parvati as Kali, "the dark blue one," she is greatly offended. Parvati performs austerities to lose her dark complexion and becomes Gauri, the golden one. Her dark sheath becomes Kausiki, who while enraged, creates Kali."

Vamana Purana is a late text, it has been dated to 9-11th century. Thus, this could mean that by 9-11th centuries, Hindus had started whitening its deities or at least to make them seem less dark? Or perhaps the Kali-Parvati story has other origins and looking for explanations based on a predilection for fair skins is misplaced and over-simplification of this issue.

In the second half of 19th century, Raja Ravi Varma popularised the Indian deities through his calendar art, where all the dark-skinned deities were shown either in light blue or fair-skinned. Those calendars had a huge influence and continue to affect how we imagine our Gods even today.

Devdutt Pattnaik in his article - Black Gods and White Gods, had written about this Indian fascination for the fair skins, with the following words:

And so we had gods who were always pink, demons who were always brown and dark gods who were always blue. Indra, Brahma and Durga were pink, Asuras and Rakshasas were brown. Vishnu, Ram and Krishna were blue. Somehow, an unnaturally blue Krishna was preferred over a naturally dark Krishna. ‘Because blue is the color of the sky, of ether, of divinity,’ we were told. No one dared point out that Krishna and Shyam were both proper nouns and common nouns which referred to gods as well as the color black. We forgot to refer to traditional Patta chitras in Orissa where Krishna and Vishnu are always shown using black paint while Balarama and Shiva are always shown using white. When making Krishna blue, we forgot all folk songs, even Hindi film songs, where there is constant reference to Krishna’s dark complexion.

Shiva is the only one, who is described as Neelkanth, the one with the blue throat, because he had drunk the poison threatening to destroy the humanity. Thus, he has been imagined as a blue coloured God. In the past few years, while thinking of increasing pollution and the climate crisis, I have often thought of the blue-throated Shiva as a metaphor and the need for finding a way of "collecting" all the pollution-poison and saving the earth. At the same time, I have wondered, what kind of poisons could have been there in the environment in the antiquity which had necessitated Shiva's intervention, and the origins of this story? Can this mythological story be linked to a big volcano eruption or a meteorite impact which had covered the skies with dust or ash for months or years?

In the 20th century, the process of whitening of the dark skins of our Gods became even more prevalent. Now, Krishna and Ram are usually shown as light blue or green coloured, or sometimes even fair-skinned. In films and TV serials, often light-skinned persons are chosen to play the role of these deities. This has been coupled with an obsessive search for lightening the skin colour through different skin creams among the general population. India is one of the biggest markets in the world for such creams and its TV and magazines are full of advertisements for selling such products.

In 2017-18, Bhardwaj Sundar and Naresh Nil had launched a campaign to create awareness about this change by using dark skinned models to portray Indian gods and goddesses to recreate the paintings of Raja Ravi Roy. The series of images was named ‘Dark Is Divine’ and they had created 7 portraits, each featuring a different deity. The image above shows a dark-skinned Laxmi from this campaign. I don't know if this image makes you feel strange like it does to me - I think that it forces us to reflect on our colour-biases.

Conclusions

For a long time, I have wondered about the origin of dark-skinned deities of Hinduism, because they do not seem to fit in with the Indian fascination for the fair-skins. In fact, black-skin is seen almost as a synonym of ugly and inferior by many persons.

The dark-skinned deities also seem illogical in the context of dominant narratives of fair-skinned Aryans who came to India and brought the seeds of Vedic Hinduism with them. They also seem illogical in the context of caste sub-divisions, which were supposed to place dark-skinned persons in the lowest groups of the hierarchy.

Perhaps, the understanding of logic and rationale is not good for understanding Hinduism - because the roots of ancient Indian philosophy and its ways of understanding and interpreting the world are very different from the Western systems of logic. Thus, perhaps my questions about the dark-skinned Gods of Hinduism are wrong and need to be rephrased?

If you have some other ideas about this theme, do let me know!

*****

The Metaphorical Ganesh

Among all the Hindu deities, my favourite is Ganesh, with his pot-belly and the face of an elephant. In this post I want to talk about my fascination with Ganesh ji and how I understand his metaphorical meanings, as well as, about a book called “Ginger and Ganesh” which I read recently.

The above image of Ganesh is from Guwahati in the north-east of India, where I lived for a couple of years. I love the 3 baby monkeys playing on the statue of Ganesh ji. It expresses perfectly how I see Ganesh as a deity. However, let me start this post with the book.

The Book: Ginger and Ganesh

Nani Power’s quirky book “Ginger and Ganesh – An Adventure in Indian Cooking, Culture and Love” (2019, Counterpoint, Berkeley) is a personal memoir of her love story with an Indian student and an exploration of Indian homes in North Virginia (USA) in search of traditional Indian recipes.

The book is dedicated to the Ganesh, “O elephant-faced God, Ganesha, you are served by the attendants of Shiva and you eat forest apples and blackberries. You are Uma’s son, the destroyer of sorrows. I bow to the lotus feet of the remover of obstacles”.

In the book, she explains her fascination with the figure of Ganesh: “On this path I met Sri Ganesh. You may be familiar with him: he is the ever-popular elephant-headed deity, accompanied by a tiny mouse. He has a large jovial belly, and holds a conch shell. I’m not sure why he in particular ignited my passion for this culture and beyond, but perhaps it was the fact that his statue was present the first time I tasted the incendiary potions of India I came to love. Or maybe, the wisdom and calm that he emanates soothed my world-weary soul, and he seemed to be a constant reminder—at the doorway of most houses, or in their altars—that I was on a spiritual path as well as physical.”

In the book, stories of encounters with Indian families alternate with vegetarian recipes and brief reflections about Ganesh ji, after she had placed a simple advertisement in the Craiglist about wishing to learn traditional Indian recipes. The book chronicles her experiences over a period of one year, summarised in the following words:

Almost imperceptibly, the culture of this rich and varied country slithered into my life like a sinuous cobra, combining the modern ways of the United States with the Technicolor of India, while I ate some damn good food. I wanted to understand the Indian culture and people; and what seemed so enchanting was that I was constantly being surprised and challenged by how complex—and contradictory—it can be. While at one time thousands of years old, in another time it seems jauntily modern, yet where this occurs bewilders me. I have learned to keep an open mind. Now, after this year of cooking real Indian food, I realize that the only real way to learn to cook is through the senses and heart. It turns out that it is the only real way to live and to love, as well …This simple year long cooking lesson—innocently started as a little two-line ad on Craigslist because I was frustrated with my lame attempts at Palak Paneer—taught me a lot more than how to make a killer spinach and cheese curry. It smashed open my heart, in so many ways. The kindness of the women, the beauty of the culture, the explosion of flavors, and, curiously, the very physical act of cooking led me to examine what is beyond all this: the spiritual realm.

Ganesh, the People’s God

The word Ganesh is made of Gan (people) and Ish (God) and he is one of the most popular deities in Hinduism.

Hinduism has different and sometimes contradictory ways of defining and understanding God. There are Hindu hymns which talk of God as a formless, beginning-less, ending-less, eternal consciousness which pervades all atoms and molecules. God is also present in each of us, humans, animals and plants, as part of our consciousness, as part of our soul. Then there are Hindu hymns which identify God through human and animal avatars – the pantheon of 33 million major and minor Gods.

Each Hindu deity is known by different names in different parts of India and Ganesh ji is no exception. Some of his other names are – Ganapati (people’s leader), Adidev (ancient God), Gajanan (elephant face), Gaurinandan (son of Gauri), Lambodara (big belly), Prathameesh (first God) and Vidyadhar (one who holds knowledge).

Mythology About Ganesh

The Hindu Gods can be seen as statues of deities, some of them in strange shapes and forms linked with mythologies. They can also be seen as symbols of different aspects of the human reality with deeper meanings.

The mythological stories about Ganesh ji, present him as the creation of Parvati (the daughter of the Himalaya mountain), the consort of Shiva. While Shiva is away on a long journey, Parvati creates Ganesh out of her own body. When Shiva comes back, Ganesha is a child, who does not recognise him. Since his mother is taking a bath, he blocks Shiva’s path, refusing to let him enter their home. An angry Shiva cuts his head. When Parvati finds this out, she is grief-stricken so, Shiva sends his men to look for a substitute head, and those men bring the head of an elephant. Thus, Ganesh ends up with an elephant's head.

Metaphorical Understandings of Ganesh

I am sure that Freud would have a theory about meanings and significance of Ganesh linking him with sex or sexuality. However, I think that Ganesha is a metaphorical representation of human brain and the different functions of mind in Hinduism.

The story of the replacement of Ganesh’s head with that of an elephant can be seen as a metaphor for human evolution, the arrival of Homo sapiens, those with the memory and intelligence. Elephants are known for their memory and their intelligence, and thus Ganesh can be seen as a representation of the human brain and therefore, of the emotions and instincts, as well as of the rational mind.

Different names of Ganesh point towards the different functions of the brain. As Vighnakarta and Vinayak, he is the one who creates obstacles; and as Avighna, Siddhivinayak and Vighnaharan, he is also the one who overcomes obstacles. As Vidyadhar, he holds all the knowledge. As Yogadeep, he is the one who does yoga and meditation. As Uddanda, he is the wild one, the one difficult to control. As Sarvasiddhanta he controls different skills. As Harsha and Pramod, he signifies happiness. As Kaveesha, he inspires our poetry and creativity. As Ekadrishta, he controls our mind’s focus and attention.

Thus, for me Ganesh is the guide to the path of meditation and reflection for controlling the mind and the senses, for focusing our attention and building our strengths. He reminds us that we create our own obstacles and teaches us to empower ourselves for overcoming those obstacles.

Conclusions

I like the figure of Ganesh ji because I think that the combination of his human and animal forms, is an important reminder to humanity to respect the earth, the environment and the nature. His vehicle, the tiny mouse, is another reminder that every life on our planet, even that of the smallest creature, is important for our biodiversity and for the future of humanity.

Hinduism has different human-animal mixed figures including those of Hanuman and Narsimha. It also has some animal and bird forms as deities, such as those of Varaha and Garuda. All the different Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism are linked to an animal and to a plant. Thus, every life form and every component of nature is seen as sacred. As we move recklessly towards destruction of nature and of biodiversity, it reminds us to be responsible for the way we use technology and safeguard the nature for the future of humanity.

Finally I also like that our Gods can have deeper metaphorical meanings, like the significance of Ganesh as a representation of Brain and mind. This way of understanding religion is more complex and non-linear, it does not have the God as a saviour or as someone who punishes you for your sins or tells you what to do or not do, instead, it is guide to the reality and complexity of life.

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#ganeshji #hinduism #religion #philisophy #nanipower #bookreview #recipes #indiancooking

Sabarimala and Religious Reforms

An Italian journalist friend had asked for my opinion on the on-going Sabarimala controversy in India. It became an opportunity for me to reflect on the issue of religious reforms. This article is a slightly modified English translation of my Italian article. In it, I explain why I do not agree with the Sabarimala decision of Indian Supreme Court and why I see that decision to be similar to the Hindu fundamentalist discourse which favours a narrow understanding of Hinduism.

Apart from the Sabarimala temple controversy, in this post I also touch on the difficulties of promoting religious reforms in Hinduism and among religious minorities, not just in India but across different countries.

Promoting Religious Reforms

For centuries, social costumes often sanctioned by religious norms had determined the acceptable behaviours in society. The adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948, gave a new way to measure our social costoms. In many countries, the increasing understanding of human rights violations led to adoption of new laws that undermined the control of the religious authorities on the societies.

I feel that reforming the religions through new laws and court judgements is particularly important in two kinds of situations:

(a) When there is a risk to the physical integrity or the life of persons: For example, the old Indian practice of Sati in which widows were forced to be cremated along with their dead husbands, would be seen as one such situation. In fact, the practice was made a criminal offence in 1829 under the British colonial rule.

Today, the female genital mutilation practiced in some parts of the world and among the Bohra community in India, would be another example of a religiously sanctioned practice that must be stopped because it damages of physical integrity of girls and women.

On the other hand, there is considerable debate about the practice of male circumcision, compulsory among Muslim and Jewish communities according to the religious-social norms. Many persons believe that even this is a violation of human rights of children and should be stopped.

(b) When there is a systematic discrimination or violation of human rights: Discrimination against some group of persons based on their gender or other characteristics such as caste, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic affiliation are examples of systematic violation of human rights and need to be challenged though appropriate laws and court judgements.

Some examples of such discriminations come from countries where orthodox religious groups are the majority and control the decision-making. For example, in different Islamic countries, women, homosexuals and persons belonging to other religions face discriminations. In countries like Uganda, dominance of some orthodox evangelical groups has resulted in laws that foresee jails or even death penalty for homosexuals.

Sabarimala Temple

I am personally not very conversant with the Hindu deities in south India, so I am not familiar with the myths of lord Ayappa to whom Sabarimala temple is dedicated. From what I have read, it seems that there are many Ayappa temples and only the temple in Sabarimala prohibits the entry of women in the fertile age group because here Ayappa is seen as a Brahamchari (celibate).

Thus, I don’t see the Ayappa cult as a systematic exclusion of women, it is only in Sabarimala and is justified by a specific myth. I am not a follower of Ayappa but if his followers see him as a celibate god, it is not up to me or to anyone else to judge their faith.

Hinduism is full of diverse ways of interpreting and practicing the religion, all of which are considered equally valid. They vary from belief in nature worship to a universal formless infinite consciousness (Parmatma) to faith in some or all of millions of gods and goddesses. There is no common sacred book or a supreme authority who can judge and say if one way of Hinduism is better than another. Many fundamentalist Hindu groups see this a weakness, and they want to impose a restricted view of Hinduism, deciding which gods to pray to and how to pray.

I feel that forcing Sabarimala to accept women of child-bearing age and to forego its ideas of a celibate god, is another way to obliterate diversity of Hinduism, a kind of Macdonaldization of religious diversity and pluralism. Though motivated by a different goal, that of promoting gender equality, it violates the basic idea of that temple and forces it in to a narrower definition of Hinduism, just like the ideas of conservative fundamentalists.

Reforming Hinduism in India

After the independence of India in 1947, Government of India has enacted different laws for reforming Hinduism including those related to caste-based discriminations and equality of women. Probably there are still many other aspects of Hinduism that require changes in laws. However, in my opinion, the bigger challenge is how to promote the social transformation in the society, especially in rural areas and smaller towns, so that the laws do not remain aspirational documents but are translated into reality.

The social transformation needed in India, for example for removing caste-based discriminations and promoting equality of women, require decades of patient work in the communities, helping our traditional and religious leaders to change. In comparison, advocacy campaigns and organising protests in the cities for changing the laws is much easier, while making those laws work for everyone is a long and hard struggle. Campaigns and protests also provide more opportunities for image-building and creating star activists, while working in communities to change them is ignored by most and can even be life-threatening.

Reforming other religions in India

Reforming the religious and social costumes of minorities is not easy in any part of the world. The biggest challenge is how to not be manipulated by the racists and fundamentalist groups from other religions. Thus, often persons who are active in promoting reforms among the majority groups, prefer to keep silent or look the other way when similar concerns are raised with regards to the minority groups.

For years, Afro-American feminists have lamented the difficulty of talking about the violence faced by Afro-American women because the progressives and activists are afraid that these debates will be hijacked by white supremacists and right-wing fundamentalists to reinforce negative stereotypes about Afro-American men. In the same way, LGBT Muslims in Europe get very little support from the liberals and activists, who do not wish to strengthen the Islamophobia.

It may be because of similar reasons that gender-based inequalities among the minority religions in India do not get much attention from activists and mainstream media. For example, I have read some progressives writing against the Modi government’s attempts to ban the practice of “triple talaq” among Muslims because they see it as minority-bashing by a nationalist government, though it violates women's rights. In the same way, the story of the Catholic nun who had charged the bishop of Patiala with repeated rapes has received limited attention from the mainstream media and activists in India while a report detailing the widespread sexual abuse of nuns has been written by Tim Sullivan, a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press.

Fortunately, blogs and social media are giving new opportunities for persons from different communities to raise their voices and be heard, even if "official" activists and mainstream medias do not wish to talk about their issues for ideological or political reasons.

Conclusions

I believe that it is fundamental to change and reform all the religious practices which violate the human rights. Making appropriate laws and court judgements should be seen only as a first step in the reformation process since the social changes require decades if not centuries to change. For example, the Sati practice outlawed by the British in 1829 was still occurring, fortunately not very frequently, even after India’s independence. I still remember the story of Roop Kanwar being cremated with her husband in 1987 and that some persons were still defending this practice.

However, preventing human rights violations and promoting equality should not be confused with the promotion of monocultures and loss of the rich cultural diversity of India. In this sense, I do not agree with the Sabarimala verdict of the supreme court of India because I do not see the practice of one temple as a systematic gender-based exclusion of women.

All the images used in this post are from the annual Ambubashi festival at Kamakhaya temple in Guwahati, Assam in India, which celebrates the mensturation of the Goddess, and represents one of the diversities of Hinduism. Only fundamentalists and misguided activists would try to cancel all such diversities of Hinduism in the name of "equal rights".

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