Bharati for Kali Yuga
Yesterday, I went to the Rajarajeshwari temple near Shanti theatre (close South End circle) in Bangalore. It is an old temple. There is usually a terrible rush during Rahu Kala, when women come and light lamps in inverted lemon peels serving as a diya/deepa, asking favours of the Goddess for the husbands and children.
Yesterday was a Monday, so no such rush. Almost alone in the temple, apart from the poojaris, I got to read the ashtottara naamavali of the goddess (the 108 names). These 108 names are found for almost all gods; they sometimes contain in them the stories of the deities and praise them with a long list of adjectives. They also tell what the deities give us, like for example, sukha pradayini, giver of happiness and/or dushta dhvamsini, destroyer of the evil and so on.
But yesterday's discovery was this; the ashtottara said, treta yuge seetayaay namah, dvapara yuge draupadyaay namah, kali yuge bharatyaay namah, one after another amidst the 108 names. Which means, we bow down to she who is Seeta in the Treta Yuga, to she who is Draupadi in the Dvapra Yuga and to she who is Bharati in the Kali Yuga.
To all those scholars who tell us that the Goddess Bharati came to represent the nation because it was the whim of some freedom fighter, herein, in this temple lies a small challenge, I think. Often the making of the Bharati tradition is presented to us, as a made tradition and therefore as also reversible. No, made or not, its quite old, so reversibility is not going to come easy, not even by quoting the constitution, because such a thing as tradition exists. The idea that Rajarajeshwari is the ruler queen of Kingdoms and regions has always existed and it is only a extension of this that has led to the understanding of Bharati as the mother of the motherland during the freedom movement.
Yesterday was a Monday, so no such rush. Almost alone in the temple, apart from the poojaris, I got to read the ashtottara naamavali of the goddess (the 108 names). These 108 names are found for almost all gods; they sometimes contain in them the stories of the deities and praise them with a long list of adjectives. They also tell what the deities give us, like for example, sukha pradayini, giver of happiness and/or dushta dhvamsini, destroyer of the evil and so on.
But yesterday's discovery was this; the ashtottara said, treta yuge seetayaay namah, dvapara yuge draupadyaay namah, kali yuge bharatyaay namah, one after another amidst the 108 names. Which means, we bow down to she who is Seeta in the Treta Yuga, to she who is Draupadi in the Dvapra Yuga and to she who is Bharati in the Kali Yuga.
To all those scholars who tell us that the Goddess Bharati came to represent the nation because it was the whim of some freedom fighter, herein, in this temple lies a small challenge, I think. Often the making of the Bharati tradition is presented to us, as a made tradition and therefore as also reversible. No, made or not, its quite old, so reversibility is not going to come easy, not even by quoting the constitution, because such a thing as tradition exists. The idea that Rajarajeshwari is the ruler queen of Kingdoms and regions has always existed and it is only a extension of this that has led to the understanding of Bharati as the mother of the motherland during the freedom movement.
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