When faith works wonders

 NINES LIVES: IN SEARCH OF THE SACRED IN MODERN INDIA

By William Dalrymple

Alfred A. Knopf, New York 275 pages

Just beyond the megacities and boom towns of today’s India are places untouched by progress, where ancient religious practices and centuries-old customs live on. How do

they coexist alongside the realities of modern life?

William Dalyrmple takes us to the small towns and villages of India to reveal moving tales of faith and devotion in his recent book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. Dalrymple has spent 25 years traveling in India and is the author of six books of history and travel that have earned him more than his fair share of prestigious awards and wide critical acclaim. Here, he shares the remarkable stories of nine people and the power of faith to transform their life experiences. Some are marginalized because of their caste or low economic status, others live outside the fringes of conventional society, yet all are sustained by their unswerving beliefs — be they Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim, or whether they are followers of Jainism or Sufism. Dalrymple weaves into each narrative the details of landscape and local life, the age-old religious rituals that are associated with a particular place, but allows each character to tell their story. As their stories unfold, we learn that spirituality in India is deep-rooted, unchanging and likely to remain a defining aspect of life beneath the trappings of a contemporary society. Here we find that believers regardless of persuasion or circumstance are rewarded by their faith. 

Although the men and women of these stories come from the poorer sectors of society, there are well-off individuals who have similarly chosen to leave the material world behind to take up the arduous path of spirituality. As Dalrymple explains: “The sort of world where a committed naked naga sadhu (a Hindu holy man) could also be an MBA was something I was to become used to in the course of my travels for this book.” On a pilgrim’s path in the Himalayan mountains Dalrymple meets Ajay Kumar Jha, an MBA and former sales manager from Bombay turned wandering holy man. Recounting his story, Ajay tells Dalyrymple he simply could not spend the rest of his life “marketing fans and fridges” for the Kelvinator company. So he gave away all his worldly goods, took the train to Benares, found a monastery and became one of India’s wandering holy men or sadhus. He has not looked back since. “When you walk in the hills your mind becomes clear… all your worries disappear. Look! I only carry a blanket and a water bottle. I have no possessions so I have no worries.” He adds: “Once you learn to restrain your desires, anything becomes possible.”

 Can a prison ward and manual laborer by day become one of the most celebrated possession dancers of northern Kerala by night as he takes on the spirit of the Hindu god Vishnu? For the Theyyam dancing season from January to March each year, Hari Das is worshipped as a god, but when the season is over, he must go back to life as a prison warden. How does he transition between life as a worshipped deity and life as a lowly mortal? The Tibetan Buddhist monk Tashi Passang gives up his vows and takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet and defend his faith. Forty years later, can he return to the fold and atone for acts of violence by hand-printing the finest prayer flags in the Indian Himalayas? How does Mohan Bhopa, an illiterate goat herder from Rajasthan, master a 4000-line sacred epic, and thereby keep alive the oral traditions of India? These are among the stories of ordinary men who held fast to their faith to find hope and redemption.

Dalrymple conveys the deeply held values and thoughts of his subjects but steers clear from making value judgments. Instead he builds a context from which we can appreciate their circumstances. It is through their lives and stories that we see India, and India emerges as a crossroads of belief systems, colorful folk traditions that remain alive and well even as the cares and concerns of modern life occupy mainstream thought and media.

Still there are signs that the demands of modern life are impinging on precious traditions and may threaten their existence. In Tamil Nadu in the south of India, Srikanda Stpathy is 23rd in a long line of bronze casters dating back to the Chola dynasty who ruled over most of the these parts until the end of the 13th century. In their workshop, Srikanda and his brothers make the images of gods and goddesses in the same manner as their ancestors have done, as prescribed in the ancient Hindu texts known as Shilpa Shastras. Srikanda has a growing business that has gone beyond the bounds of the local Kaveri Delta to New Jersey and the Hari Krishna headquarters in California. But how can he carry on the tradition when his son hopes to become a computer engineer in Bangalore? The bronze deities of the Chola style are said to be the finest works of art ever produced in India — serene and yet expressive in their gestures. As Srikanda explains, “We are the inheritors of an unbroken tradition, generation after generation, father to son, for over 700 years. That’s part of what makes a difference in our sculptures. I do feel that there is something special in the blood. At some level this is not a skill that can be taught.” Still, for one who regards himself as a simple man and feels blessed to create the images of the gods there is little that can be done to turn the tide. “It’s all part of the world opening — after all, as my son says, this is the age of computers. And as much as I might want otherwise, I can hardly tell him this is age of the bronze caster.”

 Further north in a village in Rajasthan lives the shaman, Mohan Bhopa who is one of the last two singers of the 600-year-old Rajasthani medieval poem known as the “ the Epic of Pabuji.” The 4,000-line poem speaks of life’s monumental virtues and themes. From beginning to end, it is said to take as long as five full nights to perform the entire work. Yet this is not just a form of entertainment but a religious ritual when devotees seek the protection of the local god, Pabuji, against misfortune. The devotees are Rajasthan’s nomadic people and those who hail from its warrior classes. The epic is performed in front of a phad, a long cloth that depicts the highlights of the story, and serves as a portable temple of Pabuji. Since the devotees are semi-nomadic herders, the mobile temple is brought to them. Dalrymple tells us that Rajasthan is one of India’s most conservative states where many facets of Indian medieval society still survive, particularly the orally transmitted epic poems which is unique to these parts. Dalrymple describes how stories and myths evolve over time to become a part of local sacred traditions: “Memorial stones became shrines, and over the centuries the legends grew into epics, the heroes into gods, so that the different warriors at the center of each epic became the particular deity of a different caste community.” The village shaman or bhopa travels around villages to stage these performances. It is believed that these shamans are messengers of the gods. Once the spirit of the gods enters them during a performance they have the power to heal and cure the sick. As Mohan recounts: “It would be impossible to recite the epic without some special blessing by Pabuji. Once he comes, he forces us on to recite more, and to dance more… there is no trance — it is not possession. But whenever we invoke him and perform, we feel him. And so do all the demons and evil spirits — they just run away. No ghost or spirits can withstand the power of this story.” Upon consulting Milman Parry, a Harvard-trained scholar on oral poetry, Dalyrmple learns that one of the conditions for preserving the oral epic is that the singers of these epics must be illiterate. It appears that the illiterate have the capacity to remember in the way that the literate do not. These days, however, few can spare the time for such drawn-out performances. A study by the Cambridge academic, John D. Smith, reveals that many of the bhopas themselves have given up performing and have taken on other jobs as their audiences are dwindling — even their main audience, the traditional nomads have begun selling their flocks and moving into the cities. Still, there is the widening reach of cable television and their channels featuring popular Sanskrit epics that play to growing audiences. Despite these challenges, Mohan Bhopa was confident that the “Epic of Pabuji” would survive. He once told Dalrymple, “For all that has changed, it is still at the center of our life, and our faith, and our dharma.” After his death, his wife and son still continue the tradition.   

That centuries-old traditions and sacred art forms survive to this day is not surprising given the intimate connection between religion and life in India. As this book demonstrates, it is difficult to tell when one ends and the other begins. The most powerful stories here are of those who live outside the norms of society, those outside the radar screen whose lives could not be more remote from ours. William Dalyrmple brings clarity to these stories and imbues each with rich historical detail. These men and women are themselves wonderful storytellers who each in their way tell us much about being human.

Manisha ma Bhairavi abandons middle class life in Bombay for life as a tantric, living above a cremation ground where animal sacrifices are offered to appease the fierce goddess, Tara. In this eerie atmosphere she finds a sense of community and love among fellow practitioners that have eluded her in conventional society. Kanai Das Baul, a blind minstrel from Bengal, finds purpose and kinship among wandering minstrels far away from the tragedy and pain of family life. For such men, God is found not in rituals but along the unknown roads that they travel. God is everywhere and the truth lies in the body and the heart. For these reasons, they have preserved esoteric spiritual practices outside the conventions of Bengali society. Described here as “subversive and seductive, wild and abandoned,” for Kanai, nonetheless, the Bauls and their songs are a source of love and knowledge, and a way to discover God. That such men and women have found a spark of the divine in strange and improbable circumstances may befuddle the reader yet at a human level, we can understand their struggles despite our biases or religious inclinations. In India, it seems, life and faith cannot be seen in black and white but in multiple colors and hues. It appears that there are many paths to God and each one has a particular spiritual journey to take.

William Dalrymple takes us to an older and more distant India, full of insights on the human condition and wisdom for believers and non-believers alike.

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