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THOUGHT
FOR REFLECTION SERIES 003.
THE FESTIVAL OF KUMBHA-MELA
(by Swami
Sadasiva Giri)
PILGRIMAGES PROMOTE BHAKTI GREATLY
Proceeding on a
pilgrimage is considered to be an act of great merit in Sanatana Dharma. In
olden days when there were no easy and comfortable modes of conveyances as
available today, pilgrimages used to be acts of great penance, mortification,
bravery and rare adventures. The mind
gets purified by covering great distances by foot, by leading a life of penance
somewhat similar to that of detached recluses and by doing various acts of
charity to the deserving needy. A
pilgrimage would not come to its proper close as one would desire, without
unreservedly surrendering to God and without receiving His invisible protection
by a devotee. So many risks are involved
in a pilgrimage. To overcome selfishness
and narrow-mindedness the act of pilgrimage helps a lot. The level of Satva-Guna in a person would be very high at the
completion of a pilgrimage. One could
meet many Mahatmas during such
an outing. The blessings of these Mahatmas could bring a perceptible change in the normal
course of a person's destiny and mental outlook. Considering all these benefits, our Shastra-Kara-Rishis suggest pilgrimages as the effective
means to develop Bhakti and Sarvaatma-Bhaava (universal love and oneness) to attain Moksha (final liberation from transmigration). To promote pilgrimages
in great measure, different Melas in other
words, large community festivals used to be
arranged in different parts of India from very ancient times. One of such Melas is the traditional Kumbha-Mela Festival, the great
congregation of devotees belonging to all walks of life without any
discrimination from all over India. The
spirit of Kumbha-Mela and its
visible and invisible benefits in the social, religious and spiritual life of
India are inexplicable. The festival of Kumbha-Mela with its details and its objectives are
presented here for the benefit of the
Hindu community, after elaborate studies.
Kumbha-Mela used to be
considered as one of the foremost festivals in India's social, cultural and
religious life. It remained, till
India's independence in 1947, as a rejuvenating and transforming religious
exercise, at the socio-cultural levels of Indian life with its untraceably
ancient origin. As democracy promotes rationalism evidently, where religion has
only a very small role to play, the spirit of Kumbha-Mela has become extremely weak and thin reducing it
to a state of near irrelevance today.
Its origin cannot be traced back easily to any particular period of time
in the long history of India as it has been celebrated for the past many
millenniums without a break. Originally there were six traditional pilgrim
centres in India which were conducting this festival, at the interval of every
twelve years, in that particular centre.
As such, Kumbha-Mela's venue got
shifted every two years to a different pilgrim centre existing within this
small group of six centres.
One of those six
pilgrim centres has become extinct today.
The existing five centres of Kumbha-Mela are as
follows. Haridwar and Allahabad in
Northern India; Nashik and Ujjain in
Central India and Kumbakonam in Southern part of India, in Tamil Nadu. (In South
India, Kumbha-Mela remains to
be known as Maha-Makham or in
colloquial terms as Maamaankam in
Tamil) The extinct pilgrim centre was in
Kerala on the banks of the Bhaaratappuzha, the river
flowing down from the Malampuzha mountain
ranges situated in the Western Ghats, in Palakkad District. When Palakkad District, presently a part of
Kerala State and originally a part of the erstwhile British Malabar, remained
in Madras State, a newly-modeled (In those days during the early nineteen
fifties, probably it was the first of its kind in India) hollow dam with a
spacious in-built tunnel (intended to reduce the construction cost of the dam
significantly, without reducing the strength of the dam) throughout the core of
the dam and a vast reservoir intended simultaneously to generate hydro-electric
power and to irrigate a vast area of agricultural land was constructed in
Malampuzha valley when Shri. K. Kamaraj was at the helm of affairs in Madras
State which is presently called Tamil Nadu.
The name of the extinct
centre of Kumbha-Mela is called Tirunaavaaya, where an ancient Vishnu Temple of Naavaa-Mukundan exists
today, which is situated on the banks of the Bhaaratappuzha,
down-stream of Shoranur and Pattambi and upstream of Ponnaani, the place of its
confluence with the Arabian Sea. (This
is one of the 108 Divya-Desams in Vaishnava Faith, 85th in the order of list of Divya-Desams.) This
historic pilgrim centre conducted the Kumbha-Mela in a grand
style till the Chera dynasty ruled over those parts of Kerala. Many references are available with regard to
the celebration of the Maamaankam Festival
(the local version for Kumbha-Mela in the
Tamil-speaking ancient Kerala. Kerala
was also a Tamil-speaking state in those times.
The Malayalam language, the spoken language of Kerala presently, would
be around 800 years old) being conducted during the extensive rein of the Chera Kings whose central headquarters thrived for many
centuries (very close to the sea-coast town of Kodungallur) by the ancient name
of Mahodayapuram, in the
present Trissur District of Kerala. The
Vaishnava Saint,
Kulashekhara-Aazhvaar, one of the twelve important Aazhvaars belonging to the Vaishnava Faith and Cheramaan
Perumaal Nayanaar, a contemporary of Saint Sundaramurti Swamigal belonging to the elite
group of the 63 immortalised Naayanmaars belonging
to the Shaiva Faith (who adorn
a part of the Siva-Temples in the form of idols today) hail from the princely
family of Cheras. (The
words, such as Kulashekhara or Cheramaan Perumaal are title-names given to the monarchs
of this dynasty and not any individual's personal name.) Unfortunately this dynasty became extinct
during the reign of one of those later Cheramaan
Perumaals who got brain washed and embraced Buddhism initially and
later converted to Islam and thereafter went to Mecca in Saudi Arabia on a Hajj-Mission. After
returning from Saudi Arabia he moved away from Mahodayapuram and settled
in a distant place called Kilirur, situated in Kottayam Taluk and also District
with weakened prestige and political power and diminished influence and good
will among the people. Logically, we
have to conclude that this Kumbha-Mela
pilgrim-centre became extinct ever since that time. Anyone is welcome to refer the ancient history
of Kerala and throw more light in this matter.
The Shaastra-Kaara-Rishis of yore, endowed with
wisdom and farsightedness instituted this celebration of Kumbha-Mela with a specific hidden agenda. There is a statement in the Vedas that the Devata-community are very
much fond of symbolism and are in the habit of stating anything in a symbolic
language. (परोक्षेण
परोक्ष-प्रिया इव हि देवाः) This
is because the symbolic language is very much more effective in achieving its
purpose than the easily perceptible explicit language. The general tendency of humanity is to
interpret any statement through logic, agreeable to reason. As such, anything stated explicitly will lose
its importance and purpose to a considerable extent without achieving its
goal. Symbolic statements would not
easily come under the purview of logic as it remains out of the grasp of
ordinary people who constitute the very vast majority. Actually, symbolic statements neither fall in
the category of facts nor in the category of fictions as there is a valid and
hidden meaning in those symbolic statements.
It is like putting a medicinal powder in a capsule and administering it
to the patient. The patient need not
know what is concealed in the
capsule. To get cured of the disease, he
is required to swallow the capsule with full faith; that is all. The faith would be yielding the desired
result in a greater measure than the concealed medicinal powder in the capsule,
to regain good health.
Ravana having ten heads is a symbolic
statement. Ravana is the symbol or
embodiment of materialism and rationalism.
His ten heads are symbolic of the sensory organs of Gyaana and Karma, five in each
category. Idol worship of God is based
on symbolism. The performance of Shraaddha in Sanatana
Dharma
is based on symbolism. In a Shraaddha ceremony, generally,
two Brahmanas are seated as symbols of one's fore-fathers
by invoking the proper Mantras.
Feeding them sumptuously and pleasing them by offering Dakshina (cash), clothes,
umbrella, etc. earn the grace of the individual's fore-fathers. If it is done with total faith it definitely
serves its purpose as faith transcends reason.
Faith takes one to such heights and distances which are totally unknown
to reason. Sanatana
Dharma
is full of symbolism. As it is fully
based on faith there is no place for reason, whatsoever, in Sanatana
Dharma. Shaastras act as beacon
lights in the midst of total darkness
(i.e. ignorance of one's own real nature, prevailing now in Kali-Yuga) providing sufficient
light to move forward to evolve. If we
never took recourse to these beacon lights of Shaastras provided by the
all-knowing Rishis like Aapastamba and Bodhayana, we would definitely get
lost in the wilderness of ignorance. There is no use of repenting after getting
lost completely, if we didn't take recourse to the beacon lights of Shaastras provided to us by these
selfless guides before it becomes too late.
Kumbha-Mela celebrations in a
particular pilgrim centre (one among the six centres) would extend from its
commencement date to a few months till it came to its formal close. Many mendicant Sanyasins belonging to different Akhaadas or sects assemble there
during the festival. It is believed that
all the spirits representing all the Teerthas (holy rivers) and the Devataas belonging to the astral
realm would assemble there on certain days during the Mela. As such, it becomes an easy means of
atonement for ordinary mortals to purify themselves and to regain the
luminosity of their astral body through ablutions in the holy waters, darshan
of the saintly community, listening to their nectarine discourses, engaging in
charitable deeds of Daana (gifts) in cash and kind to the poor and
needy people, engaging in sanitary activities at the spot of the Mela and through all these
noble deeds becoming eligible to receive the infallible blessings of the
saintly community and Devataas assembled there. The mortals could get themselves extricated
easily from the ill-effects of all their past sinful acts done inadvertently or
through volition. These are the perceptible benefits assured to the devotees
assembling in a Kumbha-Mela by exerting themselves
to go there in person and take part in the grand festival. In olden days when there were no easy modes
of conveyance, it would amount to an act of great penance and mortification
even to reach the spot of a Mela. Taking part in the Mela and receiving the
blessings of the saintly community would definitely amount to a bonanza of rare
gifts. From the seemingly smaller inputs if we can derive greater outputs, that
is to be desired by all means. This is
how participation in a Kumbha-Mela is to be looked at. The
normal course of atonement is more strenuous and time-consuming, probably
extending to many life times. As such,
voluntary and active participation in Kumbha-Melas is to be preferred by
all means to the conventional style of atonement which would be comparatively
more strenuous and time consuming.
During ancient days it was mandatory for the
religious leaders representing the four Aamnaaya-Peethas (established by Aadi-Shankaracharya),
Maha-Mandalis, Mandalis and further down to the local level of
leaders belonging to the priestly class of people, to take part in the Mela without fail. Actually the implied and real purpose of Kumbha-Mela was to maintain Sanatana
Dharma
in an ever vibrant state according to the exact requirement of any particular
period. If anyone happened to miss the
assemblage in one particular centre due to any unavoidable reason he could
definitely go to the next centre after two years. For the convenience of common
people, the Mela-centres remained well spread
out in different parts of India. As
such, at least once or twice during a twelve-year period a faithful Hindu could gain access to a Kumbha-Mela centre. All the reforms to be introduced in Sanatana
Dharma
from time to time were charted, discussed, debated and deliberated threadbare;
(during the assemblage with the feed-back provided by the priestly class from
each and every nook and corner of our vast country) and they were put into
execution subsequently, throughout the entire length and breadth of our vast
land, the Bhaaratavarsha, in a uniform manner. This is the secret of the spiritual unity and
identity prevailing in India in a uniform perceptible manner. To grasp this matter in its entirety this
writer has travelled extensively throughout India and has found great
similarity in conducting rituals from the starting point of Sankalpa to its final act of
formal completion. In those areas predominantly administered by rulers
belonging to faiths other than Hinduism, the erosion in
conventions and values are markedly perceptible now. But in spite of all these disturbing factors,
if we have a strong will we can definitely build a new India again, vibrant
with its spiritual unity and integrity, conducive for spiritual advancement and
the ultimate perfection. Whatever is
stated till now is the ideal behind the phenomenon of Kumbha-Mela. The spirit of Kumbha-Mela was maintained in a
high and vibrant order, almost till the commencement of the twentieth century.
Presently Kumbha-Melas have lost their real meaning and are conducted purely to promote business
interests which would reflect in high income for the tourism department. Today no one would be able to explain the
real importance and purpose of a Kumbha-Mela as it has become a skeleton
without its spirit. Some of the
mendicants who come to the Mela-centre these days, would
discard their clothes completely as they touch the border limits of the pilgrim
centres. They call themselves Naga Sanyasins, the corrupt version of Nagna (नंगा) or nude Sanyasins. The Digambaras or nude Sanyasins are supposed to be the highest class of mendicants as their Vairaagya or aversion to worldly life is to be of the highest order. So, in the assemblage, they would claim the
highest respect and would walk ahead of the rest in all
matters from taking ablutions in the holy waters to sitting for Bhandaara i.e. sumptuous feast.
Presently, no proposal for any
discussion or debate to bring in reforms in Sanatana Dharma is taking place during the
assemblage. As the congregation of these mendicants doesn't have a common
supreme leader with a clear objective, who could command the respect of all the
splinter groups through his unique spiritual greatness, this phenomenon of Kumbha-Mela has become like a rudderless ship incapable of berthing with any point of
shore. With the manifestation of Bhagavaan Kalki, (the invincible redeemer
possessing all the super human powers in the dark age of Kali-Yuga) in the near future, we can regain everything and can remain a matchless
nation, spiritually, culturally and politically in the comity of nations again.
OM.
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