by Ruskin Bond
But Sri Ramakrishna used to disparage these supernatural powers; his teaching was that one cannot attain the supreme truth if the mind is diverted to the manifestation of these powers. The human mind, however, is so weak that, not to speak of householders, even 90 percent of the sadhus happen to be votaries of these powers. In the West, men are lost in wonderment if they come across such miracles. It is only because Sri Ramakrishna has mercifully made us understand the evil of these powers as being hindrances to real spirituality that we are able to take them at their proper value.
Once when I was putting up at Manmatha Babu’s place, I dreamt one night that my mother had died. My mind became much distracted. Not to speak of corresponding with anybody at home, I used to send no letters in those days even to our Math. The dream being disclosed to Manmatha, he sent a wire to Calcutta to ascertain facts about the matter. For the dream had made my mind uneasy on the one hand, and on the other, our Madras friends, with all arrangements ready, were insisting on my departing for America immediately, and I felt rather unwilling to leave before getting any news of my mother. So Manmatha, who discerned this state of my mind, suggested our repairing to a man living some way off from town who, having acquired mystic powers over spirits, could tell fortunes and read the past and the future of a man’s life. So at Manmatha’s request and to get rid of my mental suspense, I agreed to go to this man. Covering the distance partly by railway and partly on foot, we four of us—Manmatha, Alasinga, myself, and another—managed to reach the place, and what met our eyes was a man with a ghoulish, haggard, soot-black appearance, sitting close to a cremation ground. His attendants used some jargon of south Indian dialect to explain to us that this was the man with perfect power over the ghosts. At first the man took absolutely no notice of us; and then, when we were about to retire from the place, he made a request for us to wait.
Our Alasinga was acting as the interpreter, and he explained the requests to us. Next, the man commenced drawing some figures with a pencil, and presently I found him getting perfectly still in mental concentration. Then he began to give out my name, my genealogy, the history of my long line of forefathers, and said that Sri Ramakrishna was keeping close to me all through my wanderings, intimating also to me good news about my mother. He also foretold that I would have to go very soon to far-off lands for preaching religion. Getting good news thus about my mother, we all traveled back to town, and after arrival received by wire from Calcutta the assurance of my mother’s doing well…Everything that the man had foretold came to be fulfilled to the letter, call it some fortuitous concurrence or anything you will…
Well, I am not a fool to believe anything and everything without direct proof. And coming into this realm of Mahamaya, oh, the many magic mysteries I have come across alongside this bigger magic conjuration of a universe! Maya, it is all Maya!…
I used to beg my food from door to door in the Himalayas. Most of the time I spent in spiritual practices which were rigorous; and the food that was available was very coarse, and often that too was insufficient to appease the hunger. One day I thought that my life was useless. These hill people are very poor themselves. They cannot feed their own children and family properly. Yet they try to save a little for me. Then what is the use of such a life? I stopped going out for food. Two days thus passed without any food. Whenever I was thirsty I drank the water of the streams using my palms as a cup. Then I entered a deep jungle. There I meditated sitting on a piece of stone. My eyes were open, and suddenly I was aware of the presence of a striped tiger of a large size. It looked at me with its shining eyes. I thought, “At long last I shall find peace and this animal its food. It is enough that this body will be of some service to this creature.” I shut eyes and waited for it, but a few seconds passed and I was not attacked. So, I opened my eyes and saw it receding into the forest. I was sorry for it and then smiled, for I knew it was the Master who was saving me till his work be done.
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THE TRAVELS OF SWAMI HARIDAS*3
Rahul Sankrityayan
SEEKING YOGIS FROM RISHIKESH TO GANGOTRI
Haridas accompanied Vaishnavdas to Rishikesh. At that time, Rishikesh was not a city; nor could it be called a town or even a large village. All it had were a dozen shops, small and big. Baba Kali Kamliwale had a presence in the area but that, too, was limited. The Punjab-Sindh Kshetra had just been initiated. There was plenty of unclaimed forest and fallow land—mark out a boundary and that land was yours. This is why half the land in Rishikesh now belongs to either the followers of the Baba Kali Kamliwale sect or to the Punjab-Sindh Kshetra. How could Haridas, or this writer who visited that area three years later, have imagined that buildings would stand where once only a couple of thatched roofs marked civilization? Or that Rishikesh would become the town of sadhus, lit up by electric lamps at night, with markets that would shame even those of Haridwar. If these two institutions own half the land and the shops in Rishikesh today, it has not been an unfair deal for society at large because these organizations do not work for personal gain but for the betterment of society. They are of much help to travelers to Rishikesh and other parts of Uttarakhand. The ones proficient in Sanskrit like to call it Hrishikesh—Hrishikesh being the name of Krishna—but this does not give us any insight into the history of the place. Idols from the Gupta period have also been discovered in Hrishikesh. The time to which we refer did not recognize this name; then it was only Ayodhya which was the town of sadhus. Now Rishikesh is home to thousands of sadhus. The two friends went to Bharatji’s temple and stayed there. There were not many sadhus around so it was not difficult to locate the yogis whom they were seeking. The writer of these lines was almost influenced by yoga and siddhi at that stage of his life. Then, it was wanderlust accompanied by the desire to learn Sanskrit which brought him to the banks of Ganga at Haridwar from its banks at Kashi. This move was compelled by the fact that people at home would have obstructed the course of his study in many ways. In the same way as this writer had decided to travel through Uttarakhand, disappointed with his learning at Rishikesh and Haridwar, Haridas consulted Vaishnavdas and decided to travel up to Jamunotri, Gangotri, and Kedarnath and Badrinath. Vaishnavdas had been to these places before, but thinking of “more fruit with more labor,” he agreed to accompany Haridas.
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Another motivating factor in this decision was Haridas’s hope that he could meet yogis deep in the forests of the Himalaya. They traveled from Rishikesh to Laxmanjhula and stayed there for a week. They visited many sadhus living in Tapovan and Kajlivan but could not find anyone practicing yoga. The four feet traveled onward. This was Haridas’s first actual travel in the mountains; first, because the Chitrakoot hills he had been on earlier couldn’t be called mountains. He had heard of bears and other dangerous residents of the dense and unknown forests and his heart wasn’t free of fear. In the tourist season one could expect to meet fellow travelers on the roads to the four pilgrimages, but now was not the time for pilgrims, nor were there any local or organized places of rest. This is the reason he had requested Vaishnavdas to accompany him. There were dharmshalas and sadaarwat—charities which served travelers on an ongoing basis—spread across the routes. These services provided by the Kali Kamli sect could be found every ten to fifteen miles. One could rest there and receive pulses, flour, rice, salt, oil, and wood fuel for free. The two travel mates could not avail of these facilities because they would have had to return to Rishikesh to obtain a letter for these services. This was done to ensure that the same person would not avail of the supplies again and again. Therefore, after one ration one would be given a letter that would certify him for the next and so on. Who would have bothered walking thirty miles down mountain and up mountain for this? They also did not bother because Vaishnavdas was in a mind to travel through the villages and not over main roads. This showed how strong his wanderlust was. He took Haridas along the narrow paths through the villages. Those were not the days when grains were sc
arce, nor were goods expensive. Therefore visiting eight or ten houses would get them enough to eat. They reached Devaprayag. From here emerged two paths; one went up the left bank of the Alaknanada to bifurcate into two paths—one leading to Kedarnath, the other to Badrinath. The other went up the left bank of the Bhagirathi to split further into two paths—one leading to Gangotri, the other to Jamunotri. They decided: now that they had set forth, they would visit all the four holy places of pilgrimage. They walked toward Tehri and found steep inclines on this route. They were not adept at climbing in the mountains and found it difficult going. Even one familiar with the mountains takes time to ease himself into the terrain. After one ascent came a descent. That was followed by other ascents which were not as difficult. They reached Tehri on the fourth day.
Perhaps no one had informed them about the popular belief that one’s pilgrimage is not complete until one has paid one’s respects to the king of those lands. The lands on which the four holy pilgrimages were situated belonged to the descendants of the king of Tehri. Srinagar used to be the capital then. The Gorkhas had defeated the king and taken over his lands. The king of Garhwal helped the British defeat the Gorkhas. After this, the British merged the well-populated lands (including Srinagar) into their domain and left the highlands and jungles to the descendants of the Kumaon dynasty. The king chose Tehri for his capital. Even after his defeat, the lands were believed to belong to the Tehri dynasty. In Tehri, there was a sadaarwat which supplied them with flour, pulses, jaggery, salt, turmeric, and chillies. Because of the expertise of Vaishnavdas, they had no need to take alms from there. They rested along the banks of Bhagirathi for a couple of days and set out upward from its right bank. In two or three days, they reached Dharasu.
By now, Haridas was adept at walking in the mountains. Every now and then, some incline would test them, but he wouldn’t be out of breath, nor would his feet resist. If they had wanted, they could have walked all day with a little rest in the afternoon and would have reached Dharasu the same evening. But they were in no hurry. They walked and paused as they pleased. In the villages, they would get milk in addition to pulses and flour. Grain was much easier to access fifty years ago than it is now when things have become more expensive. But wanderlust is not captive to time and place; it finds its own ways for itself.
At Dharasu, the ways parted for Gangotri and Jamunotri. They had heard much about the difficult terrain of Jamunotri. Today, one can drive up to Dharasu from Rishikesh over a proper road. Perhaps by the time this book comes off the press, cars will travel right up to Uttarkashi, too; even today, jeeps make their way there with ease. It is difficult to tell by when vehicles can travel on the road up to Jamunotri. Many people choose Gangotri over Jamunotri because of the latter’s difficult terrain. Haridas and Vaishnavdas were not among them.
At Dharasu, they met a group of sadhus on their way to Jamunotri whose spirits, too, were not to be dampened by the terrain. They were now going to leave the Ganga river system behind and proceed toward that of the Jamuna. The point of separation of the two river systems lies high on a mountaintop which requires much effort to reach. They moved on. At night, they took shelter in a nearby village. The seven sadhus woke early and began their expedition. The climb began after half a mile. It was too early for the new rays of the rising sun to reflect off the sky-kissing snow peaks but the woods flanking the path were visible. The footpath climbed upward alongside a rivulet about eight feet wide. The rivulet did not carry much water but it sped down with such force, no one dared cross it. The sadhus rested their alms bowls and climbing poles on the bank of the rivulet and built a fire to light their chillums. They smoked their tobacco and dispersed for their ablutions. One of the sadhus walked a little distance, rounded a bend, and squatted to ease himself. He cast an eye at the jungle across the rivulet and saw a bear digging for roots. The sadhu thought, “It’s close, but across the water; what harm can it do me?” If he had come away quietly nothing would have come of the encounter, but the sadhu tossed a stone at the bear. It saw him. The bear quit its scrabbling and leapt toward the sadhu. The sadhu tossed one more stone at the animal. By then, the bear had reached the edge of the rivulet and started to lower itself into the water. The sadhu panicked and, shouting “Bear attack! Bear attack!” scampered down to the other sadhus and fled uphill, carrying his alms bowl and climbing pole. Haridas and the rest of the sadhus also saw that the bear was trying to swim across. Now, they weren’t mountain folk that they would know what to expect of wild animals. They too were all fear-struck and, carrying their respective alms bowls and climbing poles, fled uphill. The bear did not swim across but regained the bank and began tracking them. On uphill climbs one’s breath becomes labored every four steps and the heart seems to leap into the throat, and at that moment all the sadhus felt themselves to be still as statues. Yamaraj was coming at them, his arms outstretched. All of them soon gained the strength of elephants. Panting and out of breath, they kept running uphill. They were drenched in sweat but unwilling to give even the tiniest quarter to their legs which were begging for mercy. Fortunately, a little ahead, the rivulet described a large curve and the path diverged from it. In this way both the rivulet and the bear passed out of their line of sight. They kept running for a while, looking back fearfully. But now they were reasonably assured that the bear wouldn’t follow them. The sun was up and they could see for miles around. Yet they couldn’t feel completely at ease until they met a few villagers. Almost everyone had the Hanuman Chalisa by heart: all believed that “ghosts and demons come not near, when the name of Mahavir is on one’s lips.” But, at that time, no one remembered the Hanuman Chalisa or the name of Mahavirji. They could depend only on their legs.
They soon reached the shores of the Jamuna via the villages of Dadal and Gangani. They had witnessed the Ganga as a foamy white river even in Dharasu and low-lying Rishikesh and Haridwar. But the Jamuna, even at this height, was a deep blue. Gazing at the river with its Krishna-like hue, its waters the color of the dark god’s skin, they thought, “Is it because of Him that the river gains this color?” It was an arresting sight. She picked her way along the level but boulder-strewn valley, hemmed in on two sides by towering mountains covered over with trees and greenery among which birds flitted, chittering raucously.
They traversed the left bank of the Jamuna—which stopped, pooled, and flowed again—stopping to gaze at and refresh themselves in numerous small rivulets and falls joining the river until they reached the village of priests, Kharsali. Had they been walking in the plains, they would have come across any number of mendicants or mutths; there would be no need to seek the charity of the sadaarwat. But even without sadaarwat, the sadhus managed to find food readily. They had come far into the Himalaya but Haridas did not come across a single yogi even in these deserted climes. But he wasn’t disheartened. He was beginning to enjoy the journey.
He had met the priests of Badrinath in Devaprayag. He had seen that they were extremely well versed in Sanskrit. Haridas believed all the priests of Uttarakhand to be the same. But the priests of Yamunotri, living in Kharsali, were different. They had no education worth the name; their outfits, made out of woolen blankets, were exceedingly filthy. The young men and women were all fair and good-looking, but were covered with filth and grime from head to toe. It was perfectly justified, for Haridas as well as for other travelers, to wonder why everyone was so dirty. They might have thought that it was in the nature of these people to remain filthy because of the cold climate. How could he know that with education and money, one can maintain cleanliness in the coldest wilderness; and of the sort one will not find among even the most elite men and women in the largest of Indian cities? Haridas was also astonished that come evening, these high priests, elite Brahmins all, would bring out their dhols and beat out rhythms on them. What’s more, their women would join in freely. Many people find it difficult to believe that three thousand years earlier, when our Vedic ancestors made their home in the Saptsind
hu (Punjab) region, their society was as free as that of the priests of Kharsali. They would organize similar gatherings, play instruments, and the Aryan men and women would dance to their hearts’ content.
Yamunotri is merely four miles from Kharsali but is at such height that it receives a great deal of snowfall and is exceedingly cold. The residents of Kharsali built houses there to live all year round, anticipating the place to be less cold than Yamunotri.
Our travelers went some distance and had to ford the Yamuna. They then took a path upward from the right bank of the river. It was a steep climb but by now they were well practiced. Their climb ended at an immensely tall rock face down which the Yamuna plunged in multiple streams, as if dropping down from the sky itself. This wondrous avatar of the Yamuna did not attract Haridas as much as the hot spring close by did, into which he intended to dip a measure of rice wrapped in muslin. The water was so hot, it could cook not only rice but also potatoes; actually, anything which could be wrapped in muslin and dipped. He believed this to be one of the miracles wrought by Mother Yamuna. How could Haridas know that a sulfurous fire burns underground, heats groundwater, and sends it bubbling up to the surface? Such hot springs are to be found not only here, or at Manikaran in Kullus but in other parts of the world, too. People even take baths in springs where the heat can be easily borne. Haridas and his friends took a dip in a pool where scalding water from the hot spring had been mixed with cold river water and made bearable.