Thursday, April 9, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Deva Prayag
We yesterday went by bus to Chandrabadni temple and then Deva Prayag. It was one of those bus rides where you seem to be constantly coming within inches of a thousand foot drop. The first leg of the journey followed the Ganga from Rishikesh to Deva Prayag where the Bhagirathi and Alakananda meet. The road is being repaired in that piecemeal fashion that seems favored by Indian engineers--a half-finished culvert to snake around here, a torn and deserted piece of primitive dirt road sprinkled with avalanche remnants there. But the places where the road has been widened and refinished are obviously a huge improvement.
This segment of the road is through a fairly well-preserved forest, though the valley walls are quite sheer and probably do not permit much inhabitation. There are some rafting and kayaking campsites along the river, and occasionally hotels or ashrams on the hilltops, but generally Nature seems to be protected here.
As you approach Deva Prayag, the forest starts to thin and look a little more desertlike. Cactus and aloe-type plants are common, the earth looks yellowish and rocky, the trees seem to be predominantly on the upper parts of the hills. There is more and more terracing, and as you pass from Deva Prayag towards Chandrabadni (Wikimap), you keep climbing and the terraced sections descend down both steep and sloping hills to thousands of feet below, where you can occasionally catch glimpses of the Alakanandi River.
Deva Prayag is a small town, very picturesque, though this does not seem to be its high season. There are two suspension bridges and its main advantage, it seems to me, is that there are no cars anywhere. You just can't get them in there. So there are staircases up and down the steep inclines on all three sides, but the roads have to go around.
The Omkarananda people have built a school right at the confluence and a nice new ghat has been constructed there. The Alakanandi comes in gently, but the Bhagirathi is lathering and frothing madly. I was a bit tired and rather foolishly did not bathe, though most of the students did. I sat down on and talked to some local children. Taught them to chant raso'ham apsu.
The old temple you can see in the picture is of Ramachandra. It contains a single blackstone murti that looks more than 500 years old. The priests say it is 2000 years old.
As usual, it was difficult not to become irritated at the neglect of cleanliness. It seems that people would understand that some other solution besides throwing the garbage out of your windows or over the side of the fence needs to be found. So the natural scenic beauty of both the gorges and the village at Deva Prayag are marred.
The same is apparent at Chandrabadni. Because Chandrabadni is so highly placed and is comparatively easily accessible, it was a naturally attractive spot for the telephone companies to put up their towers. Now the temple is wrapped tightly in cables, tubing and satellite dishes of various shapes. Does no one think of the aesthetics? Would that really be too much progress?
Even so, neither place is so badly damaged that it could not be saved. Hopefully someone will see the light before it is too late and "progress" completely destroys everything.
Chandra-badni
This is the top of the mountain.
We walked the last kilometer, and there were stairs,
so no alpinist heroics, but the air is thin
enough to make our heads all spin.
We look down on freewheeling falcons
flying far above the terraced slopes.
Wisps of cloud cling to neighbor peaks
like Kalidas's doot, resting weary from his trip,
waiting maybe for another word to bring
the beloved, who wanes within the snowy summits
that trim the not-too-remote horizon.
Devi mantras, dhaks and dhols,
sussurating Sapta-shati, bellows and bells.
I buy my coconut and bring it to you,
Devi Chandravadani.
Pierre and Meena.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Snow on the mountains
I noticed the following picture on Vikash's blog from Feb. 11 just before I left for Kathmandu. It was the first time I saw snow here, though it was from a considerable distance. In Rishikesh the day before we had a big rain storm, but that was obviously snow higher up and further north.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Back on the blogit
I just got back from Kathmandu with a three month visa. It is a bit of cold water dashing my long term plans to stay in India. So it is really back to the drawing board. It takes two to write this story--one is Thou, the other is That.
So for this morning, in which I have gloriously slept in until past 7.30, I have decided to walk through the park to Svargashram and bathe in the Ganga.
So for this morning, in which I have gloriously slept in until past 7.30, I have decided to walk through the park to Svargashram and bathe in the Ganga.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Monday and Tuesday in Calcutta
Monday
The day started out with a very pleasant walk with B.R. Sharma, whom I quite like. We walked up Gariahat Road to the Birla temple, about a 15 minute walk. They have nice Radha-Krishna deities in the main garbha mandir, Durga and Shiva in the two flanking temples.
Sharma came into my room afterwards, just before leaving, and sang a Shiva bhajan for me. He has a very sweet voice besides his other talents. He says that he taught Sanskrit at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Mumbai before going to Lonavla, where he is only paid 20K Rs a month, which seems astonishingly low for a person with his credentials and responsibilities. Nevertheless, his two children are both going through university and doing well.
After breakfast I walked to Kalighat towards the Metro, but made a detour to the Kali temple, which I had never visited before. The actual area around the temple has all the characteristics of a traditional tirtha sthan, with hundreds of stalls selling souvenirs like beads, pictures, pint size Shiva lingas and other sacred mementos. I could feel a kind of spiritual tingle as I approached the temple, and there is no doubt that this is Calcutta’s spiritual center.
Kalighat is one of the 52(?) Siddha Piths, where if I remember correctly, part of Sati’s foot fell. I was shown around by a stuttering young panda and ended up giving generously to both Ma Kali and the panda, all for the welfare of my family members—ex-wife, son, daughter, grandchildren. I guess Ma Kali wanted to bless them. I more or less went through it as if in a dream, with no attachment to any part of it.
The temple itself was built by Man Singh, who built half the Hindu temples in North India, it seems. It is covered in what looks like bathroom tile. The deity itself is nothing more than a decorated black stone, much like a Shiva linga. It has the trademark huge silver tongue and four arms—a sword in the upper left, the lower left for holding severed heads, the other two in vara (blessing) and abhaya (bestowing fearlessness).
From there I visited two Gaudiya Maths that are nearby—Chaitanya Gaudiya Math and Chaitanya Research Institute. I was given a friendly reception in the latter; I passed unnoticed in the former. Neither was particularly impressive as an institution. It is clear that the Ramakrishna Mission has gained greatly by remaining solidly dedicated to Vivekananda’s mission without excessive political infighting—at least not to the point of a significant schism. They certainly have benefited from the single successor acharya system they adopted. The last eight or ten “presidents” have all been aged men in their 80’s and 90’s, most of them with very high scholarly credentials, like Ranganathananda and Gambhirananda.
From there I went to the Bangla Sahitya Parishad to pick up a copy of Sri Krishna Kirtan by Boru Chandidas. They have published a new edition with an expanded introduction, so that will be well worth perusing. I also picked up a copy of Bankim’s Ananda Math, which was probably the first “secular” Bengali novel that I ever read.
From there I walked to Vidhan Sarani along Sahitya Parishad Street. Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar has reprinted Haridas Das’s BRS, UN and Madhava-mahotsava. They have made the margins a little bigger and the quality is even better than the original editions. I forgot to pick up a copy of Vivarta-vilasa, though. Completely slipped my mind for some reason. Sanskrit Book Depot has reprinted Caitanya Caritera Upadana, also in a nicely done edition.
Across from the Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar is Vivekananda’s “ancestral home,” which has been done up in great style by the RKM. It is all full of marble, glass and light and is a cultural center, offering courses, etc. This is really the historical part of Calcutta. Scottish Church College, which is celebrating 150 years of existence is a bit north of there, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj just south. Jora Sanko, where Rabindranath lived, is a bit west of there. A little further south is Calcutta University. Not as many book stalls as there used to be. Vidhan Sarani was more like Delhi’s Daryaganj-Naya Sarak when I was here last. No longer.
Got on the metro at Mahatma Gandhi Road and just headed straight back to RKIC.
Tuesday.
I was waiting for the internet place to open—Calcutta in general seems to open around between 10.30-11. No change there from the old days.
Went to the Asiatic Society on the corner of Park Street and Chowringhee. The highlight, I guess, was meeting Ramakanta Chakravarti. I asked some qeustions about the Kheturi date. So his opinion is after 1600 because Rasikananda’s name is there and Rasikananda’s birthdate is known to have been from the 1580’s or so. He said something about him being at least 19 at the time. Dinesh Chandra Sen says 1602 to 1606. But that does not clear up the mystery too much. Even so, I really do have to revise my dates up, as the 1570’s does seem way to early. Whatever the case, some information has to be rejected, particularly where Srinivasa Acharya is concerned. He clearly could not have been in Puri and met Gadadhar Pandit and still have attended Kheturi in 16-hundred whatever. And what about Kavi Karnapur. There is no chance he could have been there. There were other Chaitanya parshads present, and even if you say that the youngest parshad was, say, seven years old, i.e, born in 1527, that makes early 1600’s possible.
The problem is that Prema Vilasa, if written in 1612, would likely not have recounted a so recent event in such a past tense. This question really needs to be looked at again in depth.
I also asked RKC about the Rasaraja philosophy, which he says had taken on characteristics of the Sahajiya doctrine. I pressed him on this, and all I could get was that the idea of svakiya rasa was what he considered sahajiya! I said that would make the Radhavallabhis sahajiyas and he said no, they were deviants but not sahajiya. Then I asked whether any sexual practices were there in Vamshi-siksha and he said, no, no “orgiastic practices” in the Baghnapara line. “Otherwise, how would Bhaktivinoda Thakur have accepted the Rasaraja concept?” And he quoted the exact line from Sajjanatoshani.
I checked the ASB manuscript catalogue, which I understand from Bibek Bannerjee is being upgraded. And it certainly needs to be—it attributes Gopala Champu to someone called Jivaraja and assigns Govinda-lilamrita to Raghunatha Das, even while quoting the colophon which clearly says that GLA arises from the blessings of Raghunath Das (raghunAtha-varaje). They have two MSS of Danakelikaumudi, none of Mukta-charita, and two of Gopala-tapani, but I did not have time to check the details. Besides these, they seem to have a number of still unpublished works— I noticed a couple of commentaries on the Sruti-stuti, and Bhagavata shloka collections, some Nimbarki works I have never seen before, etc.
Since I knew that the Iskcon temple is not too far from there, I walked down Park Street, asking for directions until I got there, just in time for arati. Mayapur may have grown exponentially in the last two decades, but Calcutta Iskcon is pretty much in a time warp. Probably something to do with ritvik politics. Quite a few people came to arati, however, including a large number of young Bengali men, who danced through the kirtan from beginning to end. I left before the end of the kirtan, but was quite happy at the chance to chant in front of the deities. Iskcon is in a well-to-do and hip area of town—lots of American franchises like Pizza Hut and their knockoffs.
On my return, I was paid a visit by a gentleman named Pravir Kumar Hui, a former professor of English with whom I talked a bit about rasa philosophy. He gave me a gif of a book about Gopinath Kaviraja written by Paritosh Das, who has written three rather (I am sorry to say) unsatisfying books about Sahajiyaism. Gopinath Kaviraj’s commentaries about
The day started out with a very pleasant walk with B.R. Sharma, whom I quite like. We walked up Gariahat Road to the Birla temple, about a 15 minute walk. They have nice Radha-Krishna deities in the main garbha mandir, Durga and Shiva in the two flanking temples.
Sharma came into my room afterwards, just before leaving, and sang a Shiva bhajan for me. He has a very sweet voice besides his other talents. He says that he taught Sanskrit at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Mumbai before going to Lonavla, where he is only paid 20K Rs a month, which seems astonishingly low for a person with his credentials and responsibilities. Nevertheless, his two children are both going through university and doing well.
After breakfast I walked to Kalighat towards the Metro, but made a detour to the Kali temple, which I had never visited before. The actual area around the temple has all the characteristics of a traditional tirtha sthan, with hundreds of stalls selling souvenirs like beads, pictures, pint size Shiva lingas and other sacred mementos. I could feel a kind of spiritual tingle as I approached the temple, and there is no doubt that this is Calcutta’s spiritual center.
Kalighat is one of the 52(?) Siddha Piths, where if I remember correctly, part of Sati’s foot fell. I was shown around by a stuttering young panda and ended up giving generously to both Ma Kali and the panda, all for the welfare of my family members—ex-wife, son, daughter, grandchildren. I guess Ma Kali wanted to bless them. I more or less went through it as if in a dream, with no attachment to any part of it.
The temple itself was built by Man Singh, who built half the Hindu temples in North India, it seems. It is covered in what looks like bathroom tile. The deity itself is nothing more than a decorated black stone, much like a Shiva linga. It has the trademark huge silver tongue and four arms—a sword in the upper left, the lower left for holding severed heads, the other two in vara (blessing) and abhaya (bestowing fearlessness).
From there I visited two Gaudiya Maths that are nearby—Chaitanya Gaudiya Math and Chaitanya Research Institute. I was given a friendly reception in the latter; I passed unnoticed in the former. Neither was particularly impressive as an institution. It is clear that the Ramakrishna Mission has gained greatly by remaining solidly dedicated to Vivekananda’s mission without excessive political infighting—at least not to the point of a significant schism. They certainly have benefited from the single successor acharya system they adopted. The last eight or ten “presidents” have all been aged men in their 80’s and 90’s, most of them with very high scholarly credentials, like Ranganathananda and Gambhirananda.
From there I went to the Bangla Sahitya Parishad to pick up a copy of Sri Krishna Kirtan by Boru Chandidas. They have published a new edition with an expanded introduction, so that will be well worth perusing. I also picked up a copy of Bankim’s Ananda Math, which was probably the first “secular” Bengali novel that I ever read.
From there I walked to Vidhan Sarani along Sahitya Parishad Street. Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar has reprinted Haridas Das’s BRS, UN and Madhava-mahotsava. They have made the margins a little bigger and the quality is even better than the original editions. I forgot to pick up a copy of Vivarta-vilasa, though. Completely slipped my mind for some reason. Sanskrit Book Depot has reprinted Caitanya Caritera Upadana, also in a nicely done edition.
Across from the Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar is Vivekananda’s “ancestral home,” which has been done up in great style by the RKM. It is all full of marble, glass and light and is a cultural center, offering courses, etc. This is really the historical part of Calcutta. Scottish Church College, which is celebrating 150 years of existence is a bit north of there, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj just south. Jora Sanko, where Rabindranath lived, is a bit west of there. A little further south is Calcutta University. Not as many book stalls as there used to be. Vidhan Sarani was more like Delhi’s Daryaganj-Naya Sarak when I was here last. No longer.
Got on the metro at Mahatma Gandhi Road and just headed straight back to RKIC.
Tuesday.
I was waiting for the internet place to open—Calcutta in general seems to open around between 10.30-11. No change there from the old days.
Went to the Asiatic Society on the corner of Park Street and Chowringhee. The highlight, I guess, was meeting Ramakanta Chakravarti. I asked some qeustions about the Kheturi date. So his opinion is after 1600 because Rasikananda’s name is there and Rasikananda’s birthdate is known to have been from the 1580’s or so. He said something about him being at least 19 at the time. Dinesh Chandra Sen says 1602 to 1606. But that does not clear up the mystery too much. Even so, I really do have to revise my dates up, as the 1570’s does seem way to early. Whatever the case, some information has to be rejected, particularly where Srinivasa Acharya is concerned. He clearly could not have been in Puri and met Gadadhar Pandit and still have attended Kheturi in 16-hundred whatever. And what about Kavi Karnapur. There is no chance he could have been there. There were other Chaitanya parshads present, and even if you say that the youngest parshad was, say, seven years old, i.e, born in 1527, that makes early 1600’s possible.
The problem is that Prema Vilasa, if written in 1612, would likely not have recounted a so recent event in such a past tense. This question really needs to be looked at again in depth.
I also asked RKC about the Rasaraja philosophy, which he says had taken on characteristics of the Sahajiya doctrine. I pressed him on this, and all I could get was that the idea of svakiya rasa was what he considered sahajiya! I said that would make the Radhavallabhis sahajiyas and he said no, they were deviants but not sahajiya. Then I asked whether any sexual practices were there in Vamshi-siksha and he said, no, no “orgiastic practices” in the Baghnapara line. “Otherwise, how would Bhaktivinoda Thakur have accepted the Rasaraja concept?” And he quoted the exact line from Sajjanatoshani.
I checked the ASB manuscript catalogue, which I understand from Bibek Bannerjee is being upgraded. And it certainly needs to be—it attributes Gopala Champu to someone called Jivaraja and assigns Govinda-lilamrita to Raghunatha Das, even while quoting the colophon which clearly says that GLA arises from the blessings of Raghunath Das (raghunAtha-varaje). They have two MSS of Danakelikaumudi, none of Mukta-charita, and two of Gopala-tapani, but I did not have time to check the details. Besides these, they seem to have a number of still unpublished works— I noticed a couple of commentaries on the Sruti-stuti, and Bhagavata shloka collections, some Nimbarki works I have never seen before, etc.
Since I knew that the Iskcon temple is not too far from there, I walked down Park Street, asking for directions until I got there, just in time for arati. Mayapur may have grown exponentially in the last two decades, but Calcutta Iskcon is pretty much in a time warp. Probably something to do with ritvik politics. Quite a few people came to arati, however, including a large number of young Bengali men, who danced through the kirtan from beginning to end. I left before the end of the kirtan, but was quite happy at the chance to chant in front of the deities. Iskcon is in a well-to-do and hip area of town—lots of American franchises like Pizza Hut and their knockoffs.
On my return, I was paid a visit by a gentleman named Pravir Kumar Hui, a former professor of English with whom I talked a bit about rasa philosophy. He gave me a gif of a book about Gopinath Kaviraja written by Paritosh Das, who has written three rather (I am sorry to say) unsatisfying books about Sahajiyaism. Gopinath Kaviraj’s commentaries about
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