The generic name for this whole class of ascetic warriors was ‘Naga’, from the Sanskrit word nagna, meaning ‘naked’.3 The Nagas were so called from their custom of going into battle naked, or with only a strip of cloth bound round the loins. They wore their beards parted in the middle and brushed up over the cheeks, to add to the fierceness of their appearance. Their bodies were smeared with ashes, and their foreheads and limbs painted with their respective sect-marks. Their weapons were the bow and arrow (later replaced by the matchlock), the shield, the spear and the murderous ‘discus’ – the last worn, one above the other, like a ruff round the neck. Other weapons were a short sword or dagger; the ‘rocket’, a kind of glorified jumping cracker composed of a strong metal cylinder to which knives were attached; and the ‘umbrella’, consisting of a circle of iron balls suspended from a central rod, like a maypole, which when skilfully handled was said to be as impenetrable as a coat of mail, in addition to being a deadly weapon of of fence ... The Nagas ... made free use of bhang, opium, and intoxicating liquors ... In addition to being excellent swordsmen, the Nagas were also skilled wrestlers, always eager to get to hand-to-hand grips with their antagonists. Their bodies were kept hard by severe physical exercises.
(Orr 1940:16–17)
The Nāgas numbers and activities declined drastically during British rule, especially from the 1800s onwards. The British regarded them with distrust and disdain, for their lifestyle did not conform to the British idea of sanctity (see Singleton 2008: Chapters 2 and 3), and their belligerent manner and predatory behaviour were seen as a threat to British dominance and the gathering and passage of revenue among the general populace. But the image of the militant ascetic was transmuted to a certain extent in the popular imagination, especially in Bengal, after an important literary event. The year 1882 saw the publication of the famous Bengali novel, Anandamath (see Chapter 3), a stirring tale of a group of middle-class men who became Hindu armed sannyāsīs or renouncers – very different in appearance from the Nāgas described earlier and with a strict disciplinary code, but with martial aims of ridding the land (viz. greater Bengal) of its oppressive yoke of non-Hindu rulers. The allusion to British rule, with its capital in Calcutta in Bengal (as the city was then called), is obvious. The novel created a stir in India and was translated into numerous vernaculars. The story popularized a stirring Sanskrit hymn entitled Vande Mātaram, ‘I revere the Mother’, viz. Mother Bengal/India (see Chapter 3);this expression soon became a watchword for Hindu nationalists, and unfortunately, a slogan for anti-Muslim sentiment (Lipner 2005: Introduction). Part of this hymn is – not without continuing controversy – India's National Song (Lipner 2008).
This novel and its song, together with a long Hindu tradition of regarding the land as female,4 made it natural for most (Hindu) Indians to address the nation as the ‘Motherland’, rather than ‘Fatherland’. This made it possible in 1957, a decade after Independence, to produce a famous re-make of a classic (pre-Independence Indian) film, called Mother India, further embedding this appellation in the minds of most Indians. Again, in Benares (Varanasi):
there is a modern temple called Bhārat Mātā, ‘Mother India’, containing no ordinary image in its sanctum, but rather a large relief map of India, with its mountains, rivers, and sacred tīrthas carefully marked. It is a popular temple with today's pilgrims, who circumambulate the whole map and then climb to the second-floor balcony for the darshana of the whole.
(Eck 1983:38–9)
It was common for Bengalis and others during the nationalist movement, especially from the beginning of the twentieth century, to rouse themselves patriotically – sometimes to the point of violence – by using the Mother Goddess in her terrible form, usually as Kālī or Durgā, as a symbol of the oppressed nation.5
The Nāgas or naked warrior-ascetics are by no means a phenomenon of the past. Almost magically, they materialize in their hundreds during the great gatherings of certain religious festivals in various parts, especially in the northern half, of India. The ‘full’ Kumbha Melā (or ‘festive gathering’ – ‘full’ because it is celebrated every twelve years in Prayāga or modern Allahabad, the holiest of various possible sites; see Chapter 15) is a case in point. Nāgas of different stripes turn up in large squads (ākhaḍās), most of them completely naked, bodies rubbed with ash. The weaponry is much reduced nowadays, though stout staves, swords, and tridents, are still in evidence. The ancient rivalries of various ākhaḍās can still be strong, and members are not above cracking a skull or two when they see fit. One still reads of violent clashes between squads over disagreements about precedence in the various processions that take place at the festival, e.g. to bathe in the sacred waters at the auspicious time. Policing these occasions continues to be a sensitive issue. So much, then, for an ‘ascetic view’ of ahiṃsā. In Hinduism, expect the improbable, and don't rule out the impossible.
During the nineteenth century, in the theoretical constructs of Ram Mohan Roy and others, the concept of sādhāraṇa dharma, mainly among Westernized Hindus, was endorsed in terms of a universal, more or less egalitarian ethic, embracing women and Untouchables: ‘more or less’ egalitarian because women were still expected to act as helpmates of their men-folk, especially their husbands (Walsh 2004), and because class-hierarchy was still regarded as the norm in society (which included Untouchables, of course). In this scheme, svadharma meant implementing this universal ethic in and through the circumstances of one's own life. This was yet another form of dharma functioning as an expression of polycentrism.
For some, sensitized by emerging sociological and moral insights to the continuing violence of caste and gender discrimination in Indian society, the precept of ahiṃsā became an important feature of this new universal ethic. The most notable of such moralists was Gandhi. Gandhi made his own exacting understanding of ahiṃsā in various spheres of private and public life a central tenet of his philosophy, and this had an appreciable impact both nationally and internationally. So, it is important to contextualize the role of ahiṃsā in Hindu life historically. Ahiṃsa in the Hindu body politic has always lived uneasily and ambivalently in close proximity with hiṃsā.
It was the rational possibilities of articulating dharma which the tradition had always recognized that enabled creative minds like Ram Mohan Roy, Dayananda Sarasvati, Aurobindo Ghose, Bhimrao Ambedkar and Gandhi to come up with new understandings of the concept so as to cope with the changes of modernity. For their followers, such luminaries have become the new ‘wise’ and ‘virtuous’ of a reconstructed ethic that is susceptible to recognition ‘by means of the heart’, viz. a trained intuition, ‘trained’, that is, by the habit of reasoned thinking. Thus at its best, recognition ‘by means of the heart’ implies a role for deliberation. This is quite in keeping with Manu's use of the phrase, for as Matilal points out in the article cited earlier, for Manu dharma’s authority is multi-rooted, so that consequential dharmic decisions required a council of deliberators to arrive at a conclusion.
‘The entire Veda is the root of dharma’, declares Manu, ‘as are (i) the traditional wisdom and moral practice of those who know [the Veda], (ii) the conduct of the good, and (iii) one's own satisfaction’ (2.6). He says later, ‘A council of ten, or at least of three, consisting of respected persons, should deliberate the dharma in question, and that decision should not be rejected’ (12.110).6
Such deliberations would have taken into account the local customs and conventions (deśācāra) of the community concerned, a practice that plays an important part even today in the working out of social and personal dharma.
Following dharma, therefore, requires rationality, responsibility, and free will. But what of forces that we cannot control, such as ‘fate’ or destiny or other superior powers (daiva)? From very early times, Hindus have struggled to grasp the role of such higher powers in their lives. We have noted the opening verses of the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad before: ‘Those who speak of Brahman say, “What is the cause? B
rahman? Whence are we born? By what do we live? On what are we founded? .... Time, inherent nature, destiny, free will, the elements, the [mother's] womb, [some cosmic] Person, these are thought to be [the cause]”’ (1.1–2). This theistic Upaniṣad goes on to say that it is the Supreme Lord (īśvara) who rules over all these secondary causes. This is a philosophy of fatalism at bay, not of fatalism rampant.
Time, nature, necessity, chance, the womb, the individual, God: this list contains the ingredients of what is a central belief for most Hindus, namely that of karma and rebirth. It would be appropriate to inquire into this belief now.
The belief in karma and rebirth
This is a very old teaching, but one, apparently, not part of the original tradition of the Vedic Indians. There is no clear reference to it in the earliest portions of the Veda, the Saṃhitās.7 The Saṃhitās speak of a belief in eschatological existences, viz. final existences – good and bad – from which there is no return, merited by certain actions performed in this life (see Krishan 1988). This is a first step to a belief in karma and rebirth. Generally in the Saṃhitās, one lives on (metaphorically) in this world through one's progeny (see e.g. RV. 5.4.10, 8.27.16). Glimpses of a germinating belief in this-worldly rebirth may perhaps be seen in occasional reference to ‘repeated death’ (punar-mṛtyu) in the Brāhmaṇas.
It is in the Upaniṣads, however, that we have clear evidence of a developing belief in karma and rebirth, though there is indication that, in its earliest phases, the belief was regarded as of mysterious origin. This is exemplified in the famous conversation between the sage Yājñavalkya and the scholar Ārtabhāga (see the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up. 3.2.13). The occasion is the great debate between Yājñavalkya and other pandits, sponsored by King Janaka of Videha and mentioned earlier in this book. During his round with Yājñavalkya, Ārtabhāga is not doing too well and he eventually challenges the sage to tell the assembly what happens to the individual after bodily dissolution at death. ‘What finally becomes of this person?’ he asks.
Yājñavalkya replied, ‘Ārtabhāga, take my hand, friend, only we two shall know of this. This is not for us to make known in front of others’. The two went apart and conversed. What they spoke of and celebrated was action (karma). One becomes worthy (puṇya) by meritorious (puṇya) action and bad (pāpa) by bad action. Then Jāratkārava Ārtabhāga held his peace.
Explicit mention is made here of some view of karma, but a belief in rebirth seems to be only implied. However, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad speaks clearly of both aspects of the doctrine. Under 5.10, three post-mortem paths for the soul are mentioned. Enlightened souls move along the ‘path of the gods’ and eventually reach the plane of ‘brahman’, the precise meaning of which is not clear. However, these souls have transcended the cycle of rebirth. But there are others who live morally mixed lives, on the one hand seeking by good works to build up merit for themselves rather than trying to dissolve the ego, on the other hand failing to avoid demerit through various transgressions. These travel the ‘way of the fathers’ after death, eventually returning by a staged process to rebirth in various forms of life in this world, including, apparently, edible vegetation. The text is not clear, but it seems that residual merit or karmic residue determines the kind of birth awaiting one in this case. Where non-vegetative life is concerned, those of pleasing conduct in this world attain a pleasing womb (ramaṇīyāṃ yonim), e.g. that of a Brahmin, Kṣatriya or Vaiśyas, but those who have been of bad conduct attain a bad womb such as that of a dog, pig or Caṇḍāla (5.10.7).
There is still a third post-mortem path, reserved seemingly for the entirely lawless. These are reborn as tiny creatures, living and dying with apparently no chance of breaking the cycle. Unlike the second group, who seem to have a chance of moving up the chain of existence towards eventual liberation even in the case of those who take on vegetative embodiments (in so far as they assume the nature of the eater of these forms), these last seem to be trapped in an endless round of rebirth.
As this account illustrates, early forms of belief in transmigration encompassed non-human forms of existence. This is a common feature of the belief in karma and rebirth even today. I have often heard Hindus from all walks of life say that one may be reborn as animals and even insects. Some then go on to draw various conclusions from this, e.g. that one should respect all life, or that one should eat only vegetarian food (here the belief that one can be reborn as vegetative life may be absent). But there are others who reject the idea that one can return in sub-human life-forms, and they interpret texts like that of the Chāndogya Up. symbolically, viz. being reborn, say, as a tiger, insect or hog means being reborn as humans with rapacious or backbiting or impure tendencies.
From its early origins, the belief in karma and rebirth then developed and spread in various forms, and there seems to have been no single dominant version. This situation continues to the present day. One could say glibly that there are almost as many versions of the belief as there are believers;let us now review some of the chief features of this belief.
The teaching about karma indicates that belief in rebirth developed in an attempt to understand the relationship between moral striving and the goal of human existence. The ideal with respect to the latter, certainly by the time of the early Upaniṣadss, is freedom from and sovereignty over the conditioned nature of worldly existence. Only those unattached to worldly ends – the non-egoistic – could attain this state. However, we have seen that the performance of action in the general economy of dharma is typically conditioned and self-referential. This certainly did not exclude the most typical of such actions, the Vedic sacrificial ritual, which was conditioned and self-referential par excellence, for the purpose of the elaborate ritual in its several parts was to enjoy its particular ‘fruits’ or benefits. For enlightenment, the individual had to be weaned from this self-centred mentality. Both the Upaniṣads and the Gītā in their own way teach the supremacy of selfless action.
It was thought that, in general, one life could hardly be enough to attain this goal. Since it is characteristically Hindu not to reject outright previous teaching if one can help it, but rather to assimilate this teaching in a new synthesis – we have seen how this works with reference to Hindu attitudes to truth, dealt with in an earlier chapter – it was believed that the sacrificial or ‘karmic’ mentality was acceptable only if one's goal in life was no more than experiencing enjoyable post-mortem existences. One could continue to perform meritorious but still self-centred actions to attain this. Thus far, the sacrificial mentality could be retained. But here, after one had enjoyed the fruit merited by the performance of ritual or similar self-centred action, one had to return to worldly existence, for there was nowhere else to go. Unconditioned, limitless immortality, that is, the transcending of the calculating ‘karmic’ ethic, had still not been achieved.
On the other hand, those who lived an un-Vedic, lawless existence, despising even the meritocratic if limited ethic of the ritualist mentality – an ethic which maintained, nevertheless, basic socio-religious order (dharma) in the world – would equally have to return, this time to expiate the demerit incurred by their contempt for the acceptable and useful meritocracy. Better an ethic of meritocracy, rooted in the recommended practices of the past, than no such ethic. Best, however, a dharma of selfless morality, based on such basic virtues as renunciation, non-injury, liberality, general benevolence, control of the senses, etc., for this would lead to mukti/Mokṣa – ultimate liberation from all forms of conditioned existence, e.g. the limiting conditions of the body such as confinement to one place and time, sickness, loss of vigour and death, and limiting conditions of the mind such as doubt, ignorance, error, fear, anxiety, mental derangement, and so on. This ethic of non-attachment and altruism is a distinctive feature of the Upaniṣads, which are keen to emphasize a moral reaction to the mentality of the earlier sacrificial cult. It is no accident, I think, that the belief in karma and rebirth begins to assert itself in the Upaniṣads, or ind
eed that the Bhagavad Gītā, which is contemporaneous with the latest Upaniṣads and which also recommends selfless action as the ideal, makes much of karma and rebirth as encapsulating only a lower-order ethic.
With the passage of time, the teaching of karma and rebirth became a general belief, that is, it became a belief espoused by most ‘Hindus’ irrespective of whether one followed Vedic dharma or not, and governed an individual's personal morality. According to this general belief, every self-centred intentional act (including mental acts) incurs some recompense which must be experienced by its doer. This recompense was called ‘karma’ (hence karma had two meanings in this context: (i) the action itself, and (ii) the metaphysical ‘residue’ the self-centred action generated). In other words, ‘karma’ in the second sense is the ‘merit’ (puṇya) or ‘demerit’ (pāpa) stored up as a result of self-centred moral action. This karma cannot hang void;if it is not destroyed in some way, it must be experienced by its agent. Just as the fruit of the sacrifice was often experienced in a post-mortem existence, so one's accumulated karma, it was believed, could be experienced in some after-life or lives. Thus the belief in rebirth became a corollary of the belief in karma.
Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) Page 46