‘“Shankar-Abharanam” means the “Ornament of Shiva”. The Brahmanda Purana tells an old tale called the “Bhadragiri Mahatmyam”, of how Narada, the wandering sage, once stopped by that place. He found a temple there to Shiva as “Chandrachudesvara”, the “Moon-bearer”. So Narada sat down and played sweet music on Mahathe, his divine veena, as an offering to Shiva.’
‘Suddenly, an iridescent green iguana or giant lizard flashed by. Narada could tell with just that one glimpse that it was Mahadev who had teased him in that disguise. But he could make no sense of it. Baffled, Narada went off to Satyaloka, the abode of Brahma, to beg for an explanation.’
‘Brahma laughed and informed Narada that he had been rewarded with a glimpse of a lila between Shiva and Parvati.’
‘“Which lila was that?” said Narada.’
‘“Shiva happened to visit Bhadragiri one day. It was so green and pleasant that he wanted to lure Parvati there. He took the form of a jewel-like iguana and frisked about in the sunshine. Parvati spotted the dancing gleam from faraway Kailash and went to investigate. She was charmed to see the beautiful iguana.”’
‘“Chasing the entrancing creature, Parvati managed to touch the tip of its green tail. At once, she found her own body gleaming with an emerald hue. That is how she got the name ‘Maragathavalli’, meaning ‘the green-hued-goddess’. The name commemorates this particular lila. It was played by Shiva because he liked Bhadragiri and wanted to bless it that it should stay evergreen. So he got Parvati to come there and play with him. This game was their blessing on Bhadragiri.”’
‘“Bhadragiri was indeed very beautiful,” said Narada. “That is why I was inspired to sit down and play my veena for Shiva when I found a temple to him there as Chandrachudesvara.”’
‘“You must have pleased him very much, which is why he rewarded you with a look at his lila,” said Brahma. “Which raga did you play?”’
‘“Shankarabharanam,” said Narada.’
‘“No wonder he was pleased,” said Brahma. “You know that Mahadev is also Vaidishvar, the god of healers. Shankarabharanam is a healing raga. The power of this raga to cure emotional disturbance and pain is beyond words. Many people on earth say that they feel lifted to great heights of devotion after listening to Shankarabharanam. They claim that they feel fearless and empowered, as if they can sense Shiva’s hand on their head.”’
‘“Thank you for shedding this light on my mysterious experience,” said Narada and wandered off, delighted to have pleased Mahadev . . .’
‘Can we hear this raga nowadays?’ said the grandmother.
‘Oh yes, most certainly. It resembles Raag Bilaval in Hindustani music. “Bilaval” is said to have come from “Velavulli”, a tribe that migrated from the plains of the north to the hills of the south. Just look on YouTube for it,’ said the guru. ‘You can hear this raga as both Shankarabharanam and Bilaval. They’re both out there for all to hear. They’re the same thing, just expressed differently—“unity in diversity”.’
‘I like Bilaval very much,’ said the mother, the singer, eyes sparkling, ‘I want to share this story with my colleagues’. But then, her face fell. ‘Not everyone likes classical music. Some people find it boring. And me with it,’ she said.
‘Classical music is a cultivated taste,’ said the guru soothingly. ‘You should not feel defensive because you like it. We are free to like everything—classical music, film music, folk music, world music. Ragas run through almost everything. As you know, film music has a lot of ragas in it and some outstanding songs. My own favourite is Raag Kedar. There are wonderful old film songs set in it. And I love Kanha re Nandanandan in Kedar by Ustad Rashid Khan.’
‘So which song in Bilaval or Shankarabharanam should I share with my colleagues?’ said the mother.
‘If you want a spiritual song, I like Rab so neha lagao re manva, “Make friends with God, my mind and heart”. It’s a variation sung by Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty and his daughter Kaushiki. If you want a film song, there’s a national favourite in Bilaval that I think everyone must have heard—Dil hai chhota sa from Roja. You listen a bit and choose the one that you think they would like,’ said the guru. His eyes shone with a sudden glint of fun. ‘Mind you, there’s another song, just a note away from “pure” Shankarabharanam. I think almost everyone would like that, too.’
‘Now which song is that?’ said the grandfather, leaning forward. He had watched the guru’s face closely and spotted the gleam in his eye.
‘It begins with the words “Jana gana mana”,’ said the guru and put his tongue firmly in his cheek.
A burst of appreciative laughter greeted this disclosure.
‘Unbelievable!’ said the father. ‘God works in mysterious ways.’
‘It’s almost spooky,’ laughed the mother. ‘The gods pop up just everywhere in our lives.’
‘Like in “Name, Place, Animal, Thing”?’ said the child.
‘Yes,’ said the mother, ‘In everything.’
‘Every stone,’ smiled the father.
‘Every tree and plant,’ said the grandfather, looking at the guru.
‘Wait, there’s more. The national anthem of Pakistan is also set in Shankarabharanam, that is to say, in Raag Bilaval,’ said the guru. ‘You know that Bangladesh and India share a poet in their national anthems—Rabindranath Tagore wrote both songs. Meanwhile, you could say that Pakistan and India share a raga in their national anthems.’
‘Good Lord!’ said the father.
‘Yes, Pak Sarzameen is musically akin to Jana Gana Mana. It must be one of the least noticed things in the world since the media only reports how this group or that in India quarrels about our anthem,’ said the guru.
‘This goes deep, like Malai Mandir—an old pattern in the soil of the subcontinent that asserts itself,’ said the father.
‘Yes, it’s bigger than all of us. It’s an earth song that won’t be silenced.’
‘Wherever you go, you find Mahadev,’ murmured the grandfather to himself.
‘I love the thought that we mark ourselves with earth and water by applying vibhuti and chandan,’ said the grandmother. ‘Won’t you talk to us about the Ganga, Teacher? We all know the story of how Bhagirath got the Ganga to come down to earth. We know about Mahadev taking the force of her fall on his own head. We know that she flows from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. We know about the important towns on her banks. But there’s so much we don’t know about her, considering that so many people in the furthest corners of our country keep Ganga water in their homes and temples.’
‘The Ganga is definitely a “she”, unlike her mighty brother to the north-east, the Brahmaputra,’ said the guru. ‘You can find the hand of sacred geography in the waters, too. First of all, take the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east. These are recent names. The old Indian names for these two great seas are beautiful—“Ratnakara” for the western sea and “Mahodadhi” for the eastern sea.’
‘Now take the rivers. Most Indian rivers flow eastwards. They are called “nadi”. A few rivers flow west like the Sharavati in Karnataka of Jog Falls fame, the Narmada and the Tapti. Technically, they should be called “nada”, not “nadi”. However, since most of our rivers flow east, the common word for river is “nadi”.’
‘By the way, it’s not a long “aa” at the end of “nada”. It’s “uh”, the way I said it, “naduh”. It’s the same for Shiva, Rama, Krishna, Lakshmana and so on. Shivuh, Ramuh, Krishnuh, Lakshmanuh. But spelling it like that in English would create more confusion and take us even further away. Meanwhile what happened is that the north cut off the “uh” at the end and simply says “Ram” while the south stretched that ‘uh’ into “aa” and says “Raamaa”. These regional styles are here to stay. But it’s interesting how we all automatically switch to “uh”, north, south, east and west, when we pray in Sanskrit.’
‘I’ll give you an example that I like very much; it’s something that I say every day. Here’s h
ow it came to be. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma, lying on his bed of arrows, answers Yudhishtira’s six questions to him about God—who is “God”, whom should we worship, and so on. Bhishma answers with the Vishnu Sahasra Namam, the thousand names of Vishnu. Vishnu has many thousands of names but this particular set from Bhishma contains the names given by the ancient rishis. Names like “Vishvam Vishnur-Vashatkaro . . .’
‘Up on Kailash, Shiva and Parvati hear Bhishma’s recitation. Parvati, the universal Mother, immediately wants to share it with her children on earth. For our sake, she asks Shiva how this long prayer may be recited easily by all. That’s when Adi Guru Shiva tells Parvati the Ram Mantra. It has all three pillars of our faith in it. Shakti is the asker, Shiva is the teller, and Vishnu is the subject. Shiva tells Parvati, “Beloved, just that one enchanting name ‘Rama’ has the value of a thousand names.”’
‘Will you say that in Sanskrit, Guruji?’ asked the grandfather. The family sat up straight and put its hands together in respect to receive the Ram Mantra.
‘After I recite the Ram Mantra, I would like to softly say “Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama” for one minute, with my eyes closed. Will you join me?’
‘We will.’
‘Good,’ said the guru and recited what Shiva told Parvati:
‘Sri Rama Rama Rameti Rame Raame Manorame
Sahasra Nama tattulyam Rama Nama varaanane
Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama . . .’
After that brief, spontaneous meditation, they opened their eyes and smiled at each other.
The guru looked at the mother. ‘I wonder if you know the song Kanakambara kamalasana jagadakhila dhama about Sri Rama? It’s the whole Ramayana in just fourteen lines in Sanskrit . . . a very melodious twentieth-century bhajan. It’s a Ramakrishna Mission favourite.’
‘I know it!’ said the child. ‘Ma has sung it to me since I was a baby.’
‘I was going to play it for us from my phone if you didn’t know it,’ said the guru. ‘It’s a good song to begin or end a meditation with. Won’t you both sing it to us?’
‘We will!’ said the mother and after humming the opening notes to fix the pitch, she nodded at the child and they began to sing. Barely into the first line, they found that the father had joined in. The delighted elders clapped heartily when they finished.
‘When did you learn that?’ said the mother to the father.
‘You often sing it to the child. I think I learnt it by just being around,’ said the father.
‘Such songs please Mahadev,’ said the guru, thinking of his own childhood when his mother had sung it to him.
‘Now please tell us about the Ganga. I know you have travelled a lot along her banks and spent time in the holy towns,’ said the grandmother.
‘Where do I begin?’ said the guru. ‘Can a mere mortal do justice to the Ganga without being carried off by a flood of cliché? She has six headstreams and five sacred confluences. She’s the life-giver to the northern plains of the subcontinent. She brims with the soul waters of ancient belief. She’s the play course of adventure-seekers.’
‘She’s a divine being. She’s the hard-won fruit of steadfast human penance. She’s an ecosystem that has degenerated into the great gutter of modern India—you see the problem? How do we begin to talk about this river of rivers?’
‘But I can tell you some astonishing things about her. The Ganga Basin is spread over 1.1 million sq. km. It is home to a quarter of India’s population, imagine that. It’s an intricate web of tributaries and distributaries, of canals, waterways and run-offs.’
‘An American architect and Fulbright Scholar called Anthony Acciavatti spent a decade mapping the Ganga Basin. He called it “the world’s most engineered river basin” and a “water machine” closely interconnected with the monsoon.’
‘If you take a long boat ride on the Ganga, the journey will seem, in some places, like the delicious river idyll described by Rabindranath Tagore in his novel The Wreck. You almost expect to encounter some little twenty-first century Kamala, like Tagore’s charming heroine, exclaiming eagerly over a fine head of carp or a basket of purple eggplants, orange pumpkins, cluster beans and other garden bounty that is never allowed to wither on the vine but is quickly plucked and cooked at its dewiest and freshest.’
‘Is that the book that was made into the film Noukadubi?’ said the mother.
‘Yes, Noukadubi is the original name of Tagore’s book. I read the English translation long ago. It’s my favourite novel by Tagore,’ said the guru.
‘Not Gora or Chokher Bali?’ said the grandfather, interested.
‘There’s something special about Noukadubi for me,’ said the guru.
‘I love the short story Kabuliwala,’ said the mother.
‘Tagore’s stories touch the heart,’ said the grandmother.
‘It ends sadly, but I’ll read you Kabuliwala,’ said the mother to the child.
‘You’ll like it, I think,’ said the grandfather, ‘and you’ve heard a few sad stories by now.’
‘The saddest story today is probably the Ganga’s,’ said the guru. ‘At its dirtiest, the holy river resembles a sewage pipe with the top off. Nobody could possibly want to drink its waters now at places where factories and people pour an endless stream of filth into the river.’
‘Let’s hope the big clean-up succeeds,’ said the father.
‘Did you know that the Ganga has another great river named after her? It’s the Mekong in South-East Asia. Mekong means “Ma Ganga”.’
‘Wow, like Parvati and Phnom Penh!’ said the father.
‘Yes, amazing, is it not? Of all the towns on Ganga’s banks, it is Kashi or Varanasi which made Ganga great. And Kashi itself was made great by Mahadev. He is worshipped in Kashi as Vishwanath, Lord of the World. As you know, every believing Hindu is supposed to make a pilgrimage to Kashi at least once. There are lots of boys in places very far away named “Kashi Vishwanath” because they were born after a momentous family pilgrimage to Kashi.’
‘In fact, in the old days, when people from other parts of India set out to Kashi, they said their final goodbyes at home because it was so far away and the journey to and fro was so dangerous and difficult. But go they did. Everyone was so emotionally invested in Kashi that they risked their lives for millennia to get there. So, in actual fact, what makes Kashi great is the living river of believers who come to see Mahadev. They could have a dip anywhere along the Ganga, you know, or in a local river, since all rivers are holy. So more than Ganga, it is really Mahadev who draws us all to Kashi.’
‘Nearly thirty years ago I wondered if I, too, would find a personal connection with Kashi.’
‘I took a boat to the other bank to see the panorama of ghats along the river. I saw tough-looking men with big muscles and moustaches who could only be wrestlers. They were the spiritual descendants of the malla of Krishna’s days, like Chanura.’
‘The ancient akhara or wrestling belt stretches across the doaba of the Ganga and Yamuna. It covers many old kingdoms and republics of the Upper Gangetic Basin. In epic times, the little kingdom of Kashi was ringed by Kosala to its north, Magadha to its east and Vatsa to its west. Wrestling is a historic local passion at Varanasi and across these old lands.’
‘Looking at that long line of ghats slung across the riverfront, I was overwhelmed by the intense continuity of Kashi. All the people who lived in my head had come here or lived here—Shiva, Shakti, Nandi and Raja Harishchandra.’
‘Adi Sankara came to Varanasi arguably between the fifth and the eighth century ce and they say he was taught a lesson in spiritual humility by none other than Mahadev himself.’
‘Varanasi was Sant Kabir’s hometown in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth century, Goswami Tulsidas composed the Ramcharitmanas and the Hanuman Chalisa here.’
‘The Sikh Gurus greatly cherished Varanasi. Guru Nanak came here in 1506, went to the then Kashi Vishwanath temple, met with the pandits of Kashi to discuss his views and co
llected the verses of Kabir and other local saint-poets.’
‘The sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind, sent an important emissary to Kashi to spread his teachings and the ninth Guru, Chadar-e-Hind Guru Tegh Bahadur, visited Kashi twice.’
‘His son, Gobind Rai, when barely six, came by with his mother while on a journey across north India, and as Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru, sent five followers to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit.’
‘In 1839, Maharaja Ranjit Singh covered the spires of the new Kashi Vishwanath temple with gold. This is the temple we see today, which was rebuilt in 1780 by Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar.’
‘Swami Dayanand Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda showed up, too, on Kashi’s ghats.’
‘Almost every community and religious sect in India is represented in Kashi by its own temple, rest house and community hall. Kashi is also headquarters for a number of sanyasi sects.’
‘There are those who came to Kashi to die a “holy death” with the surety of salvation, so death itself is known as “Kashi Labh”, the “Profit of Kashi”.’
‘For at least three millennia, Hindu pilgrims have carried away a sealed pot of Ganga water to their corner of the continent, to keep in their prayer room.’.’
‘Every time there is a death in the family, the seal is broken and a few precious drops of Gangajal are poured into the dying person’s mouth for his or her salvation. As somebody always goes on pilgrimage to Kashi, the pots have been steadily replaced by each generation. So Ganga is literally found in every Hindu home across India and wherever Hindus go.’
‘The modern satirical poet “Bedhab” Banarasi joked, “Bedhab kabhon na chhodiyo aisi Kashi dham/Marne pe Ganga miley, jeete langra aam—Never leave a place like Kashi, Bedhab, where dying, you have the benefit of the Ganga, and alive you may feast on langra mangoes”.’
‘The snack stalls of Kashi sell hot puris, potato curry and chutney. You could wash it down with cold, creamy lassi and top it with a Benarasi paan.’
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