REFLECTIONS
Legend for all
|
In the past, it was a place which kings made a pilgrimage to till it was ravaged after the 1857 uprising. Today, it seems necessary to prove the holiness of Bithur, says ILIJA TROJANOW.
|
BITHUR, one of the centres of the universe, has fallen into oblivion. Between the dilapidated houses with walls of thin brick, old myths slumber. After the destruction of the world and its re-creation, Brahma chose this place as his home. He made Shiva out of the sand of the Ganga and he held a yagna for 99 years. Then he moved on — nobody is as restless as the gods. It is said that Dhruv meditated in Bithur, for five, eight or 36,000 years, before he was promoted to the North Star. Not many people from outside the region are aware of these localisations — legends are dressed in native costume, the hearth becomes home to spiritual role models.
SUBIR ROY
A stretch of history ... the Ganga at Varanasi.
In Bithur, Valmiki founded an ashram and wrote the Ramayana. He was not only the author, but also his own literary character. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish who acts and who comments. The prototypical author Vyasa, as a stinking hermit, cohabits with two queens and a maid — true to the metaphor of artistic creation — and thus himself begets a substantial number of his characters. Did the gods foresee, that the author they had commissioned to reduce their marvellous deeds to a humanly digestible measure, would act as destiny with his ink and his sperm?
Sitting with our guide in a sprightly boat, we skimmed past 52 ghats. On the opposite side of the Ganga there were only reeds and rushes. A few isolated people inhabited the ghats, a woman beating clothes, two boys splashing water, an old man pulling his tongue out of his mouth. A plastic Bata sole floated in the river. The mandir that is traditionally filled up with water when there is dire need for rain had gathered patina, but was not damaged. The domes of some of the other mandirs had collapsed, mud had crept into them and swallowed the abdomens of the relief figures. Fifty-two ghats for 52 rajas, that was once the simple symmetry. But the kings had ceased their pilgrimage to Bithur after the British ravaged the ghats in answer to the Great Indian Uprising of 1857.
Today it seems to be necessary to prove the holiness of the location. Near the ghats sat a sadhu behind a bucket of water, showing off a floating stone on which "Ram" was spelt in large saffron letters. The sadhu defused rational objections even before they were voiced. He pressed the stone into my hand: it was hard, heavy and not a bit porous. He threw a Ram-less stone into the water and it sank immediately. He looked at me with an expression of great expectation, as if I was to authenticate the wonder.
Did you know, the guide continued, that the two sons of Rama were born in Bithur? Why not, I thought. If Valmiki lived here, what should have hindered him from settling his figures in Bithur? But the guide had already galloped ahead; he narrated a story that was new to me: Luv, a single child, disappeared one day. Valmiki formed a replica of him from Kusha grass and breathed life into the second son, Kush. Later on, they found Luv.
In India, someone once said, every legend is an apocryphon, and therefore, every apocryphon must be true. As scenes and plots change from place to place, from mouth to mouth, the moral and political direction of the myths also changes. Besides the classical, brahmanical epic of Valmiki, there are many other versions of the Ramayana — one drama, one hundred authors. One of the alternate accounts introduces Rama as a Buddhist, and Sita is his wife as well as his sister. In a Jain version Rama proves to be a staunch believer in ahimsa, and Ravana is not presented as a villain, but as an enlightened being, devoted to the search for truth and wisdom. In Telugu there exists a "feminist" retelling, in which Sita is not subjugated to Rama and Shurpanakha takes revenge on him. A Dalit version implies that the killing of King Bali was part of a larger plan to oppress the lower castes, Rama's task being to defend the strict hierarchy of caste and gender. According to several South Indian versions, Ravana leads the Dravidian resistance against the Aryan conquest.
Because of its flexibility the Ramayana story even travelled outside of India, all the way to Indonesia and Cambodia. In Thailand, King Rama I commissioned a group of poets to compose a national version that would enhance the sacred legitimacy of the kingdom. The result, the Ramakien, was to become the central foundation myth of the country, inspiring a multitude of other texts and dramas. Later kings of Thailand wrapped themselves in a painted version that runs along the inner side of the palace wall in Bangkok.
The stone on which "Ram" is written will not sink, and the story of Rama is sacred to all, because it can be narrated to suit everybody's interests.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
