‘I marked the holy sites and then he drew and coloured the symbols—Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta, Kaumara and Ganapatya,’ said the mother.
‘And what did you do?’ asked the guru to the child.
‘Dadi and I made the list of place names. I checked all the spellings and Papa and Dadu wrote them,’ said the child, unaware that she had been pleasantly set up, in the age-old way of mothers and fathers, to get some education from the exercise.
‘It’s come off very well. You should frame it,’ said the guru. ‘But before you frame it, I should like to have a scanned colour copy—perhaps an A4 sized one that I can take around to show my friends. You must all sign it for me.’
‘Of course, we’ll make copies for you. I’ll do it before you leave. It’s great that you like it, Teacher,’ said the father.
‘Do you plan to travel, Teacher?’ said the mother.
‘Yes, I do. And it’s thanks to our katha sessions. The land calls me! I want to wander the pilgrim trails by foot, bus and train, wherever I feel called. I may be away for six months, if not more, so this will be our last session for a while,’ said the guru.
‘For that long? I’ll miss you, Teacher!’ cried the
child.
‘We’ll miss you, too,’ said the grandfather while the grandmother, father and mother looked at the guru in open dismay.
‘I’ll be back in no time,’ said the guru. He looked at the mother.
‘When I come back, may I teach the child Sanskrit myself? It’s my “thank you” to her and to you all for starting me off on this journey. I feel strangely territorial about it. But no fee, that’s my condition.’
‘Guruji, would you, really? That would be so perfect. What a blessing,’ said the mother, with a distinct wobble to her voice.
‘I want to learn from you, Teacher,’ said the child, jumping up. ‘I don’t want anyone else. Ma said we couldn’t dare ask you to teach me. But I prayed for it secretly to Ganapati.’
‘He certainly heard you,’ said the grandfather, visibly moved.
‘You’ll tell us stories again, won’t you?’ said the father. ‘I miss you already’.
‘You have spoilt me, all of you,’ said the guru. ‘You know that I’ve been a monk for decades and that I spend my time between social work and study. But speaking of Shiva has made me feel more attached, not detached. Isn’t that odd?’
‘It’s Ishakripa on us,’ said the grandmother, her eyes moist.
‘It’s not odd at all,’ said the grandfather. ‘Like your beloved Acharya says, “Matacha Parvati Devi, Pitadevo Maheshvaraha, Bandhava Shivabhaktascha, Svadesho Bhuvanatrayam”.’
‘What does that mean?’ said the child.
‘My mother is Parvati, my father is Shiva, his worshippers are my friends and the three worlds are my country,’ supplied the father.
‘That is Acharya’s way of saying that “everybody is my friend and everywhere I go is home”,’ said the guru to the child. ‘That’s how you’re supposed to think if you sincerely salute Parvati and Shiva as the mother and father of the universe.’
‘What about your room at the ashram? Will you be able to retain it while you’re away? You have so many books,’ said the grandfather.
‘Not a problem. The Head Monk has been most kind. In fact, the ashram will even give me a small travel stipend since the Head Monk has some visits and discussions that he wants me to make on his behalf around the country,’ said the guru.
‘What about food and places to stay?’ said the mother.
‘The least of my problems,’ said the guru. ‘Almost any dharamshala, ashram or temple quarters will do. There are so many, all over India. Also, my ashram has branches and affiliations everywhere, more than even the State Bank of India, I should think.’
‘What if you find yourself in a small, remote village?’ said the grandmother.
‘It’s highly unlikely that the village panchayat will refuse me a meal or a place to sleep. I have restrictions about what I eat, not whose food I eat. I never had, even before I became a monk. And you know how hospitable our people are, in every community. What do I eat, anyway, as my daily fare? A piece of fruit, a glass of milk or chaas, a bit of khichri—or a roti and a small bowl of vegetables, that’s more than plenty. The romance of the road and rail is alive even today if your needs are simple and you meet and greet people with respect. My only luxury will be a visit to local cyber cafés, where I find them, since my travel phone is very basic. I’ll leave my smartphone behind for safety with the ashram office. Oh, and my other luxury will be a tube of Odomos, since no amount of meditation has made me immune to mosquitos,’ laughed the guru.
‘Indeed, I don’t know how Acharya or anyone else stood it, or Rama, Sita and Lakshmana out in the jungle, back in the Dvapara Yuga. Perhaps there were no mosquitos then? As a boy, I always wondered about the point of having mosquitos and cockroaches as part of creation, until I read a wonderful story about the English scientist, J.B.S. Haldane. He became an Indian citizen, you know, and died in Bhubaneswar in 1964. When he was asked what we could conclude about the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate fondness for beetles”. It made me laugh so much that I developed a tolerance for most insects. That reminds me, I must pay my respects to Mahadev as Lingaraj at Bhubaneshwar.’
‘Please keep in touch by email and call us now and then to let us know where you are,’ said the grandfather.
‘It sounds very exciting. I envy your freedom as a man and as a monk, to come and go as you please,’ said the mother.
‘I wish very much that our society would make it comfortable for women, too,’ said the guru apologetically. ‘It’s had plenty of time to change and learn how to be decent and respectful. It’s disgusting how badly some men behave. They harass and torture our women, and give our religion and culture a bad name. We cannot be proud of a culture if its living context is cruel or depraved.’
‘That’s one of the things I’m supposed to motivate various ashram heads and religious speakers to own and operate. We want them to update their discourses to teach society to be respectful of the rights and aspirations of all women, not only married women with sons . . . respect the rights and aspiration of every person, as our tradition wants us to in theory. I had a long talk with the Head Monk about our katha sessions and when I told him that I yearned to go on a yatra because of the katha, he tasked me with a mission. No Hindu can issue diktats since we all own the religion. Shiva tells us so, Acharya tells us so. But ashram heads and kathakars in the mother tongues are persons of great influence across society. They could do a lot to change the old mindset in a positive way. The Head Monk thinks that a steady, one-to-one campaign of persuasion to update our interpretations and nuance our stories has a good chance. He wants to test the waters with me as his emissary.’
‘Good God! I had no idea that there were such wheels within wheels,’ said the grandfather. ‘It’s amazing to think that our little family story sessions contain the seeds of revolution. I wish your mission success and luck, Guruji. Rather, I wish us luck—everyone in society, I mean. I absolutely dread to think of the child growing up in a hostile, predatory world.’
‘I think it is well worth a try to talk to Hindus, not at them like so many do,’ said the grandmother, her eyes kindling.
‘I would really love to be able to freely travel around like Teacher,’ said the mother dreamily.
‘And I would go with you, if we could both get away from work,’ said the father. ‘We must plan a family holiday to somewhere meaningful when Guruji is away. But where should we go first?’
‘What do you say to Ujjain?’ said the grandfather. ‘It’s not all that far and the Malwa Plateau is worth a look.’
‘Revisit with the child, you mean, and refresh our own memories? That’s a good idea.’
‘I should love to go, I’ve never been there,’ said the grandmother. ‘How do we go, by train or plane?’
&nbs
p; ‘There are flights from Delhi to Indore and then we have to go 50 km by road to Ujjain,’ put in the mother, looking up from her phone.
‘Good, we can begin to plan,’ said the father.
‘Guruji, let’s have tea first, shall we?’ said the grandmother. ‘And after that, please will you tell us about Mahadev’s lila at Ujjain? I would like to go there knowing that we have first visited it with you in spirit.’
‘A most excellent plan,’ said the guru. ‘It is one of my favourite places for several reasons.’
The father excused himself to go to the study to scan the map, leaving the guru and the grandfather to chat. The mother and grandmother went away with the child to hurriedly put together a special tea as a small send-off to the guru. The grandmother had discovered some of his modest tastes over the years and it was with great affection that she made a fluffy poha with peanuts, peas and coconut, and crisp, hot, fried potato wedges to serve with coriander-mint chutney. Meanwhile, the child carefully arranged bowls of raisins and almonds as directed by her mother, who mixed apples, oranges, bananas, grapes and pomegranates into a fruit salad and poured thick, sweetened cream over it. The father and grandfather came to take the trays from them and over tea, which he thoroughly appreciated, the guru told them about some of the places he intended to visit.
After the tea things were cleared away, the family quietly arranged itself to face the guru. As he led them through the dear, familiar call and response, they felt a sharp pang to think that this would be their last story session for a long while. Afraid to cry, the child put out her hand to hold her mother’s and the mother squeezed her hand, wanting very much to cry herself. The father, who sat between his parents, found himself holding a hand each and wished that he could cry, too. A great sense of loss gripped them all and they tried hard to blink back their tears.
The guru affected not to notice. Instead, he said, ‘Before I begin to tell you about Mahadev’s lila, will you join me in chanting the Ram Mantra that Parvati obtained for us from Shiva?’
The family managed to nod.
The guru led with ‘Sri Rama Rama Rameti Rame Rame Manorame; Sahasranama Tattulyam Rama Nama Varanane, the Ram Mantra from the Mahabharata in which Shiva told Parvati, “Beloved, just that one enchanting name Rama has the value of a thousand names.”’ The family repeated it after the guru and followed his cue to softly chant ‘Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama . . .’ instinctively closing their eyes. When the chanting was done and they looked up, they found that they felt restored and stable.
Satisfied that they had recovered emotionally, the guru began his story.
‘Everyone knows of the importance of Kashi. But the story of Ujjain is even older. It takes us back to the very dawn of creation.’
‘The oldest hymns say that out of nothing came nothing at all. Everything was complete already. So Creation was a whim of the gods, their lila. Their energies were unlimited and unending. Within them, they sensed life’s longing for itself and let it happen. But with life was born the longing for liberation from it, in the hearts of many souls on earth. That is why Shiva, the Timeless Lord, came down from Mount Kailash to Ujjain. He wanted to stay with people and help them cross over to timelessness.’
‘Ujjain was first called “Avantika” for it contained the vana or forests of healing herbs gifted to earth.’
‘But then there came the ambitious asura, Tripur.’
‘He performed the most terrible austerities and wrenched a boon from Brahma.’
‘The boon was that he and his two brothers should have a floating city each in the sky, one made of gold, one of silver and one of iron. Nobody could destroy these cities except by one arrow when the three were in perfect alignment in the sky. Brahma was forced to grant his wish.’
‘Secure in his supernatural power, Tripur unleashed great cruelty on the world. He took anything he fancied, tortured people and animals for sport, killed right and left, set fire to crops and forests for fun and dried up rivers and ponds, making daily life extremely dangerous and difficult for all three worlds, especially the earth. It was easier than he thought because the people on earth, particularly in rich, green Avantika, had become lazy and indifferent to the bounty of Nature around them. They failed to appreciate their blessings of sunshine, rain, rivers, trees, herbs and rich soil. Shiva and Parvati had given them everything, but instead of appreciating it, they were petty, quarrelsome and lacking in unity. They were easily invaded and destroyed by Tripur and his brothers.’
‘Somehow, a few sincere and god-loving earthlings made their way to Mount Kailash in great secrecy and stealth, to fall at Lord Shiva’s feet.“Save us from Tripur, Mahadev! We seek refuge in you,” they begged piteously.’
‘Shiva assured them that Tripur’s end was close at hand.’
‘Barely had they got back home when a strange, terrifying thing happened.’
‘The sky took on an unnatural glow.’
‘The earth became as a chariot drawn by war horses, with Brahma as the charioteer.’
‘The sun and moon seemed to become its wheels.’
‘The mighty Himalayas seemed to become a bow.’
‘And on this bow, Lord Vishnu himself appeared as the arrow.’
‘From this magical chariot, Lord Shiva rode across the sky and in that brief moment when the three cities were in alignment as they floated around the earth, he destroyed the three with that one arrow and with that, he destroyed Tripur. This feat was celebrated for evermore as “Tripurardhan”, the “Destruction of Tripur”.’
‘Now, Tripur was less than a straw for Mahadev’s might. Nevertheless, to refresh Creation with a sense of purpose, he had let this cosmic drama take place.’
‘He bestowed on mankind a great sense of moral victory.’
‘This outstanding victory or “Uchhitam Vijay” is remembered forever in the name “Ujjain”.’
‘There was peace for some time after that. But Ujjain’s innate lustre, its rich land and ripe crops, made it a coveted prize for looters.’
‘The next assault on this holy city was by an asura called Dushan.’
‘However, when Shiva saw Dushan advancing as Kaal or Death on his devotees, he turned at once into Maha Kaal, the “Death of death”. He destroyed Dushan with just one fiery breath.’
‘“Maha Kaal” means both “the Death of death” and “Time”. It is a richly layered word, also meaning “Eternity”, “Immortality” and “Infinity”.’
‘The people of Ujjain begged Mahadev to stay in their midst always.’
‘“Just knowing that you are here will give us courage forever to live and last through whatever may befall us,” they prayed.’
‘Shiva answered the prayers of his grateful devotees to abide forever in Ujjain as Mahakaleshwar, the Lord of Eternity.’
‘He became a marvellous pillar of light, a Jyotirling, and the people of Ujjain fell to their knees in awe. The heavenly light faded, leaving behind a stone shivling. This represents Shiva as Mahakaleshwar in Ujjain even today.’
‘There are twelve such Jyotirlings across India that mark the places where Shiva appeared in a crisis, blazed in glory as a pillar of light and left behind a symbol of himself.’
‘Mahakaleshwar, as you know, is by the river Kshipra at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. It is the only svayambhu lingam or self-manifested marker of Shiva. The others were made holy by mantra shakti. They are:
Somnath by the western sea in Gujarat,
Mallikarjuna by the river Krishna at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh,
Omkareshwar by the river Narmada, also in Madhya Pradesh,
Vaidyanath at Deogarh in the Santhal Parganas of Jharkhand,
Bhimashankar by the river Bhima in the Sahyadri hills near Pune in Maharashtra,
Rameshwaram at Ram Setu by the eastern sea in Tamil Nadu from where the bridge to Lanka was made to rescue Sita from Ravana,
Nageshwar, near the site of Dwaraka, Sri Krishna’s city on the coast of Saurashtra in Gujarat,
Trimbakeshwar by the source of the river Godavari near Nashik in Maharashtra,
Kedarnath, 12,000 feet high on the mountain Kedar in the Rudra Himalaya range in Uttarakhand, which is one of the holiest sites in India,
and Grishneshwar at Ellora in Maharashtra.’
‘The twelve Jyotirlingas hold up the sacred geography of India from Kedarnath in the high Himalayas to Rameshwaram on the farthest coast of India. They have held us up emotionally from ancient times.’
‘Of the twelve, the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirling is considered the centre point of earth from which time is reckoned. Ujjain was the Prime Meridian millennia before Greenwich. The ancient Romans knew it as “Ozene”, a former royal capital, and imported “agate and carnelian, Indian muslins and mallow cloth” from Ujjain, “mallow” being an old word for jute. The Roman ships docked at “Barygaza” or Bharuch on the coast of Gujarat. We know this from The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, an ancient Greco-Roman work from perhaps the mid-first century bce.’
‘In the old universe of discourse, it was said that a shivling in heaven and a shivling in the netherworld were in alignment with the Mahakaleshwar shivling, making Ujjain the axis mundi or “pillar of the earth” connecting the three worlds. That is why the central panchang or lunar calendar, which we still follow, is calculated even today from Ujjain. This is where we believe that Time began.’
‘I had no idea that Ujjain was so very special,’ said the mother.
‘Yes, it has a unique and highly influential place in our lives even today, whether we know it or not. The shivling and the site are ancient but the structure of the temple has changed. We don’t know what it may have looked like once. Iltutmish, the Sultan of Delhi, plundered the city and destroyed its temples in the thirteenth century, in 1235. But Ujjain remained important as a trade centre. Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar gave it a new lease of life in the eighteenth century. She was a brave, good queen who was widowed early but took charge when she had to, very competently and sincerely. She even led her troops until she acquired a military commander. She was the best Indian queen of all and one of the best rulers we ever had.’
Mahadev Page 16