Bhakti and
Worship in Scriptures in Kashmir Shaivism and
Lal Ded Vakh
By Prof. M.L.
Koul
Bhakti
as per the traditional mould can be defined as
motiveless service to God. It has close
linkages with actions (karman) that human
beings routinely perform during the span of
their life. It is axiomatic that the world
depends on actions (loko ayam karma bandanah).
Actionless-ness is a marker of death and
decay. In the dynamics of life action is what
integrates a man in a bond of cohesion with
other members of a social group. Renunciation
has come to occupy a dominant position in the
trajectory of Indian spirituality. But
renunciation never stipulates giving up of
action. But what is to be renounced is desire,
attachment or fruit accruing from a particular
action that is performed. In the words of Prof.
Hiriyanna, ‘The Gita-teaching stands not for
renunciation of action, but for renunciation in
action’. Human beings within the bounds of this
world have to act to live, exist and carry on
the material activities, but what is desired is
that any action of any form or hue should not
have the motivations of desire, attachment or
fruit. A motiveless action has a close nexus
with knowledge too. A true Jnani, a
knower, alone can surrender himself to God who
has assured him of protection (na me
bhaktah pranashyati). Bhakti, therefore,
features total surrender to God.
The main locus
of bhakti is Maheshvar, call Him
Shiva, Ram or Krishna. The bhakta reposes
full and unflinching faith in Him and totally
depends on Him for grace (shakhtipat).
Absolute dependence and unflinching faith
formulate the two critical ingredients of bhakti.
A sinless bhakta in the embrace of a
virtuous life has full faith in his Maheshvar
that He will liberate him from the rotating
wheel of life and death. A bhakta even if mired
in sinful life can also depend on Him to ferry
him across the ocean of samsar. A bhakta
can serve his Maheshvar as a servant (dasa)
serves his master. He can cultivate a
relation of friendship with Him and worship and
adore Him for spiritual gains. This type of
relationship has generated an enchanting
treasure of aesthetics in the domain of art and
poetry. There can be a bhakta who defies all
constraints and starts loving his Maheshvar.
But, in such a relationship of love, he rises
above the trivial form of love in mundane life.
The loving relationship with Maheshvar elevates
him to such a state of heightened consciousness
where margins between him and his Maheshwar
fade away and the two become
indistinguishably as one.
The rishis
and munis have written tracts on
bhakti which delineate their experiences in
their varied relationships with Maheshvar either
as servants, friends or lovers. What one gets
from these expositions is that Bhakti is all
through experiential, not a subject for
theorisation. The fact remains that bhakti as an
emotional expression of a bhakta can be
portrayed in concordance with the world-view
that he harbours. The great poets like Tulsidas,
Surdas, Vidyapati, Jaidev et al have delineated
their forms of bhakti as moulded by their views
on man, world and Maheshvar. Despite
philosophisation of bhakti, a bhakta is and has
to be completely involved in his service,
friendship or courtship unto his Maheshvar. The
suffering (arta), the searcher (Jijnasu)
and the self-interested (artharthi)
are on the peripheries of bhakti as they in
their forms of bhakti are not totally involved
in the relationship that they forge with their
Maheshvar. It is only the wise (Jnani)
who is the true bhakta because of his total
involvement in his object of service or love,
that is Maheshvar.
Gleaning through
the pages of the Indian scriptures of yore it
becomes evident that bhakti, its contents, forms
and contours have evolved through ages in
consonance with the philosophical-cum-religious
consciousness in India. The 'Nasidiya Sukhta'
of the Rig Veda typifies the vedic
rishi's mind that is intensely curious to
probe and know the origins of universe. Riddled
with doubt and indecision, the rishi
oscillates between sat (being) and asat
(non-being). The whole sukhta vividly
reflects his amazement at 'the prospect of
universe' (vishva). He is completely lost
in the perennial problem of knowing the origins
of cosmos, how and wherefore of it. The Vedic
rishi is equally beset with a sense of fear
in face of awful forces of nature. That is why
vedic gods symbolise powers of nature. Observes
Max Mullar, 'These gods were the first
philosophy, the first attempt at explaining the
wonders of nature'.
The mammoth
corpus of Vedic literature throws up the
Vedic Rishis bearing a mind beset with
'wonder' and 'fear'. The two, singularly or in
combination had not the potential to generate an
impulse of 'bhakti' and 'worship'. In absence of
a motivating impulse there could be no
relationship, personal or impersonal, between
the rishis and the plethora of gods. Yet, we
glimpse the first germinations of 'bhakti'
and 'worship' in the hymns (richa)
sung by the vedic rishis. Sacrifices were
offered to gods through yajnas only to
propitiate them for bestowal of prosperity in
life, abundance of crops and protection of
cattle-wealth. They were also propitiated as not
to wreak havoc on them through earth-quakes,
floods and other natural disasters. The Vedic
hymns in general are purely formalistic
deficient in the basic sentiments that pave way
for ‘bhakti and ‘worship’.
The
Upanishads are an important milestone in
the development of philosophical and religious
consciousness in India. The first seeds that
were sown in the Vedic hymns burgeoned forth in
the upanishadic tracts as the crux of
human excellence. Deflecting away from the
formalities of sacrifices and ‘complexus of
ceremonies’ upanishads pointer to a ‘deepening
inwardness’ by focusing on ‘Atman’, the
Self, a region of new quest, vaster than the
objective world’. Philosophical ruminations and
over-all religious consciousness morphed into a
genre that marked a departure from what we had
in the Vedas. The upanishadic formulations and
conceptualisations proved trend-setting and
determined the future course of Indian
philosophy and dharma.
Swami Ranganath
Nanda puts, ‘The upanishads not only gave a
permanent orientation to the Indian culture and
thought, but also blazed a trail for all
subsequent philosophy in East and West'.
Upanishads in
their essence are knowledge-oriented and also
the path that they blazed is based on knowledge
(Jnan). The knowledge-path (Jnan marg)
poses insurmountable difficulties for a
bhakta with an intent to tread upon it. It has
been characterised as 'ksurasya dhara nishita
duratya durgam pathah'. The high-brow
upanishadic formulations like 'aham brahmosmi',
'tat tvam asi' and 'soham', though
replete with path-breaking philosophical
content, could not attract the popular sentiment
because of the lack of elements in them that
form the sheet-anchor for 'bhakti' and
'worship'.
With the passage
of time the knowledge-oriented spiritual goals
suffered a dilution and space thus created was
occupied by 'bhakti' and 'worship' that
allowed a free play to aesthetics and human
emotions. The emerging trend got crystallised in
the Narayan upanishad, Krishna upanishad
and Ramtapni upanishad that focussed on
bhakti and worship of Narayan, Krishan and Ram
as gods in human form. The three gods were
presented as manifest forms of Brahman, as the
ultimate Reality and got merged in the same
ultimate principle. Though 'bhakti' and
'worship' were the main focus, the trend as such
could not materialise as an independent path to
God-realisation.
Buddhism debated
philosophical and religious issues from ascetic
and regressive points of view. 'Sarvam
dukham and Sarvam mithya'
were sympbols of the Buddhist philosophy of
pessimism and rejectionism. At the philosophical
level the non-soul doctrine of the Buddhists
coupled with momentariness of everything failed
to find resonance in the Indian mind. Kashmir as
the pivotal centre of Buddhist thought
and dharma stemmed the negationist trend when
the Kashmiri Pandit thinkers as masters of the
Buddhist philosophy gave it a positive and
affirmative orientation. Mahayana Buddhism in a
new mould blazed the trail for 'bhakti'
and 'worship' of Buddha as a divine incarnation.
Shankaracharya
as a colossus striding the domain of Indian
philosophy and dharma gave a new orientation to
the vedantic philosophy and dharma. He
systematised it in a manner that Max Mullar in
awe appraises him as 'the finest flower of
Indian wisdom'. Shankar's philosophy is
monistic in approach and logic. Brahman, to
Shankar, is the absolute reality and phenomenal
world is only illusory and false (branti
and mithyaa). He has distrust for the
role of action for it has 'a reference to the
world which is dual and false'. He emphatically
stresses the path of knowledge (Jnan marg)
as it leads a seeker ‘out of the dualist eddies
of the world’. Like kierkegaard, the
existentialist, Shankar has pointed out the
limitations of reason and intellect in self-realisation
as it is an ‘intuitively lived and felt
experience’.
It was a rude
shock to the Shankarites when
Shankaracharya authored a work like 'Saundariya-lahiri'
and stotras like the
Dakshinamurti Stotra'. In the said-works
he appreared to impair his own essential
position as a non-dual philosopher and the
knowledge path he had advocated as a means to
self-realisation (moksa) . The very
change in the philosophical position of
Shankaracharya confirms his visit to Kashmir as
described in 'shankar Digvijay'. His
contact with the Kashmiri Pandit Shaivites left
him convinced of the Shaivite philosophy of
non-dualism. The switch over to the path of 'bhakti'
and 'worship' opened new vistas for the seekers
keen to realise their spiritual goals and
aspirations.
Ramanujacharya,
vaishnavite
to the core,
made a judicious mix of non-dual thesis of
absolutism with personal theism (belief in
Mahashvam). He was not the innovator. In
fact, such an attempt was already made in the
Bhagvatgita, Mahabharata and the
Vishnu Puran and Bhagvatam.
It is apt to put that Ramanujacharya
was mainly inspired by the Alvar
saint-poets who had marked a trail of powerful
tradition which a philosopher of the calibre of
Ramanujacharya furthered and perpetuated.
The non-dual thesis of Shankaracharya set
in a frame of philosophical rigour was
controverted by a plethora of Indian thinkers of
repute. The critical treatment that they gave to
the Shankaran non-dual thesis gave rise to the
philosophical schools of qualified monism, pure
monism, non-dualism and dual-cum-non-dualism.
The new schools of thought with their own
specific approach to the issues of philosophy
were tagged with the label of Viahsnaivism
which made a significant contribution to the
dissemination of 'bhakti' and 'worship'
at popular level.
The Alvar saint
poets from Tamil-land fully cyrstallised the
new trend of 'bhakti' and 'worship'
through their enchanting hymns brimming with
intense love of Vishnu. Instinctive
knowledge of God and His contemplation are the
dominant themes of their
hymns. The
saint-poets are the ardent devotees who have
completely resigned themselves to the mercy of
Vishnu and have expressed their total
dependence on Him for deliverance. The deep
impact of Rigveda on the Alvar saint-poets can
be realised when they conceptualise the world as
the body of Vishnu and feel transported to
dizzying levels of ananda by dedicating
themselves to His Service. The alvars in
the tone and essence are extremely passionate in
their yearning which is divergent from coarse
and worldy passion. The philosophical frame to
the Alvars was provided by the Acaryas
like Nathmuni who had made their own
insightful forays in the realms of philosophy.
The
trend-setting wave of 'bhakti' and
'worship' travelled all the way from south of
India to the North where an eminent sage, Rama
Nand, found it significant for impulsing a new
movement of 'bhakti' and 'worship'. To
his numerous disciples he imparted the mantra
of ‘Ramayanamah’ which unleashed a
momentous movement of bhakti creating a
heightened consciousness at grass-root level to
stem the tide of Muslim invasion on the very
civilisation and culture of India. Kabir,
Gurunanak, Tulsi Das, Sur Das and other literary
luminaries forming vanguard of the movement
played their part as bhaktas with an
amazing sense of history.
Bhakti and
worship in Kashmir Shaivishm
Shankaracharya
as an immaculate philosopher of non-dual
absolutism considered 'bhakti' & 'worship as
antithetical to the rope-snake metaphor that
establishes the primacy of knowledge (Jnan) in
matters of release from the shackles of 'bandan'
(bondage). Philosophically speaking, he made
no attempt to explore a possibility of
developing a concordance between bhakti and
worship and his principal thesis of knowledge (Jnan).
He thought that any type of reconciliation
between bhakti and worship and his thesis of
non-dual absolutism would fracture his total
fabric of thought.
Kashmir Shaivism,
though a philosophy of non-dual absolutism, does
not contribute to the Shankaran thesis of
exclusion of bhakti and worship from the
realms of non-dual philosophy. The Shaivites of
Kashmir are essentially integrati-onists who
have dialectically maintained the integrity of
their non-dual thesis by giving legitimacy to
the precepts and practices of bhakti and
worship. Kashmir Shaivism has been appraised as
'more monistic than monism itself'. Bhakti and
worship as per it do not in any way impair the
tone, essence and unity of its thesis. A
concordance has been established between
bhakti and worship and knowledge (Jnan)
by re-naming 'bhakti' as 'atma
bhakti' and puja (worship) as 'atma puja'
(self-worship.
A bhakta
conforming to the Shaiva thought cannot perform
worship or devote himself to the service of
Shiva in a manner that smacks of dualism. He
sees his own intrinsic-essence as Shiva when he
worships Shiva or sets up a warm relation of
friendship and intimacy with Him. Shiva as per
the theoretical asumptions of Kashmir Shaivism
has prominent attributes of omniscience,
omni-presence, eternity et al. A bhakta
while devoting himself to Shiva super-imposes
the same attributes of Shiva on himself. So does
the worshipper. This is how the Shaivite
thinkers have resolved the conflict between
bhakti and worship and knowledge of Shiva
(Shiva-Jnan).
The Shaiva
bhakti is superior to any form of Jnan
(knowledge). Successes in the domain of
Shaiva yoga do not crystallise without
bhakti. Bhakti is both means to an end and
an end in itself. The highest knowledge of
non-dual philosophy is featured as the highest
form of bhakti. Says utapaldev-
Jnanasya
parma bhumi yog asya parma dasha
tvad
bhakti tya vibho karhi purna syat arthita
Bhakti is
considered spiritual knowledge (adhyatam
vidhya). 'Shivo bhutva shivam yajet' is
replaced by 'bhakto bhutva shivam yajet'.
The state of identity with Shiva is not
acceptable if its medium is not bhakti.
Utpaldev sings--
bhavat
bhakti amrit asvadat bodhyasya syat para api
dasha sa
mam preti swamin asvasyeva shukhtah
Bhakti
is the
distilled essence of worship (puja) . It
is more efficacious and helpful in recognising
one's essence as Shiva than yoga and its
allied practices. yogis strictly practise
yam, niyam and pretyahar to come
to the state of samadhi, but bhaktas
ascend to the same state through bhakti
(devotion) and maintain the state even in
active consciousness (vyuthan).
Bhakti
has been
defined as samavesh which means direct
entrance into the supreme consciousness of
Shiva, 'milan' is named as sukhi' and
'virah' is named as 'dukha'. Sukha is
perpetual unity with Shiva and dukha is
separateness from Shiva. In the lexicon of
love-poetry they are usually phrased as 'samyog'
& 'viyog'. To go to the shelter of
Shiva (sharan) is to have unity with
Shiva in normal active life. A true bhakta wears
the same temper and attitude of equipoise when
he is in unity with Shiva or when he is in a
state of duality.
The Kashmiri
Shaivites as celebrated aesthetes have
classified bhakti as rasa. It is a
continuous and perpetual source of joy,
happiness and ecstasy. A bhakta when in
union with Shiva finds himself in the same state
of 'anand' which a lover of wine is
immersed in. Bhatta Nayak and utpaldev apexing
an uninterrupted tradition of 'bhakti'
and 'worship' as was prevalent in Kashmir have
often used wine as a metaphor. Both are poets of
bhakti which, to them, is a rasa that not
only intoxicates but also transports to partake
of Shiva's consciousness that exudes the nectar
of anand.
A bhakta
establishes a personal relationship with Shiva
as his Ishta Deva. He serves Him devoutly
as a servant serves his master. The Shaivas
consider the relation of a servant with his
master based on 'dasta bhava' as superior
to any other relationship with Shiva. He can be
His friend. He can even establish a relation of
courtship with Shiva. These are the manifold
forms of personal relationships that a bhakta
can forge with Shiva.
Shiva has a
transcendental aspect as well. He is
consiciousness Supreme, something that is not
tangible. Shiva in His manifest form of
Shakti is the subject for Shaiva bhakti.
It is the being of Shiva who is chidanand,
that forms the subject and theme of the
Shaiva bhakti. Neglegible examples of
impersonal form of bhakti are certainly
available.But, the dominant relationship that
bhaktas form with their Ishta-deva,
Shiva, is warmly personal.
The Hindu
history of Kashmir buttresses the view that
Kashmir has been a seat of Shaivism through
ages. The plethora of gods and goddesses in the
Shaiva pantheon have been adored and worshipped.
Temples have been built and consecrated to
Shiva, Shakti, Kumar, Ganesha and other
bhairavs. People throng to Shaktipeethas for
worship. The devotees firm in faith and
conviction melodiously sing vedic mantras and
Shiva-stotras. The way they worship establishes
that there is a fusion of vedas and
agamas in the methodology. The worship of
Ishta devas and Ishta devis is resorted to
‘deepen the gaze within’.
The worship of a
god in a temple has been a standard practice of
the Shaivas. Classified as external worship (bahya
puja) it has been doctrinally recognised as
beneficial to the initiates on the Shaiva path.
To develop a mood of concentration and revert
the gaze within, an initiate takes to external
worship of any form. Such a worship is
categorised as 'anavopaya'. By gradual
stages he learns the highest form of bhakti
and worship which is atmabhakti and
'atma puja'.
Bhakti in Lalla
Ded Vakh
No right
thinking person can dispute the status of Lalla
Ded as Shaiva yogini . She took
the Shaiva-praxis to recognise her essential
worth as Shiva. Lalla Ded was a bhaktin
too, who is consensually ranked with great
bhaktas like guru Nanak, Sant Kabir, Meera
Bhai, Raidass, Tulsi Dass et all. Prof. B.N.
Parimu in his monumental studies on Lalla Ded
uneqivocally calls her the fore-runner of the
Bhakti. Movement in India. As yoga and
bhakti are not mutually contradictory to
each other, Lalla meticulously practised
bhakti yoga. Her self-image as a 'bhaktin'
had fortified her against the zig zags and
adversities of life and world, and had invested
her person with absolute equipoise and
equanimity of temper and deportment.
Says she--
bo yod
shankar bakhach asa
makris
sasa mal kya peye
Lalla Ded had
been an ardent devotee of Shiva. When she was a
child, she would foot her way to the Shiva
temple at Harsheshwar for worship. She continued
with the practice after she got married at
Padmapur (Pampore). Chanting of mantras
and the name of Shiva at the Shiva temples
assisted her to gain calmness of mind and
concentration too. She took to a plethora of
practices till she deepened her spiritual
awareness.
As a restless
worshipper she joined a guru who put her on a
path that could not help her in realising her
spiritual yearnings. It is in pain and agony she
cries 'abakh chyan pyom yath razdane'.
She gained confidence as a bhakta only
after she got a sat guru, a perfect soul,
who awakened her into a new consciousness of a
true bhakta of Shaiva extraction.
As a conscious
shaivite, well-groomed in the theory and praxis
of Shaivism, Lalla Ded had marched far on the
high road of bhakti and worship. Under
the insightful guidance and initiation of her
sat-guru she realised that real bhakti
was 'atma bhakti' and real worship
was 'atma worship'. As shiva is the only
subject and we are His emanations, not outside
Him, but in Him only, He, therefore, cannot be
accessed on the plank of a separate polarity.
Bhakti and worship based on a premise that is
separate from Him, are not a source to the
spiritual recognition of one's essence as Shiva.
Lalla Ded came
to a stage in her spiritual journey where she
rose above the formalities of formal worship.
That is why she stressed the unity of vital-airs
with that of pran as pranna as
essence of Shiva in life.
Resonates Lalla--
deva vata
divar vata
pyatha bon
chuya ekvat
kas puzi
karak hoola bata
kar pranas
to pavanas sanghat
Bhakti in
Kashmir Shaivism cannot climax until a bhakta
surrenders himself to the grace (shaktipat)
of Shiva. This view of Shaivas is buttressed
even by Bhagvatgita. Lalla Ded as a
Shaiva-Bhaktin burnt away the dirts (malas)
and killed her petty desires to arouse the
divine volition (Iccha) and surrendered
herself to Shiva for grace. Says she--
dali travamus
tati
Lalla Ded had
Shiva as her personal god. She had forged a
variety of relationships with Shiva. She served
Him as a servant, made friends with Him and
loved Him intensely.
Intense moments
of love she sang out her love-lorn song to
awaken her beloved within her frame for unity
and absolute purity. Sings Lalla--
pota zooni
vathith mot bolnovum
dag
lalanavam dayi sanzi prahe
lali lali
karan lal vozanovum
meelith
tas man shrochyom deh
Lalla Ded was a proud Shaiva-bhaktin who
as a self-recognised soul harboured a
consciousness of unity with Shiva even when she
engaged herself in normal chores and
responsibilities of world and life.
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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