A Journey with Jagannath, Relived

The thrill on my son's face, the enjoyment of a new world... Nothing could beat this smile that brought back past memories.

While we spend most of our lives robotically leading it, there are some things that don't die.... They stay dormant in the crevices of the mind only to surprise us when a connect with the past is made.

Jagannathpur Ranchi, Jagannath Mandir

The innocence of childhood, the enjoyment of climbing the rocky steps to the temple, the peace  and tranquility at the main shrine... The connect with the divine, the mesmerising look of deep devotion in the face of Garuda, the vahan of Jagannath who looks up to him in adoration... All of this added up to my visit to this small temple on a hillock. The silent wilderness of Ranchi has given way to a noisy order and yet, the depth of a past enbedded in my head appeared to beat this very noise.

I had heard of a place called Puri, where the main shrine of Jagannath was, and in my many trips to Jagannathpur, I never knew when I would make it there. This trip to visit lord Jagannath again, was to introduce him to my son who till now, has seen him as a small idol in our puja Ghar. I had traveled 30+ years in time in discovering this journey in my head, my son would do the same journey in 2 days... And the excitement in my mind was immense. While, a part of me said this wouldn't stick in his mind for too long, my mind was determined to have it fed into his memory at this point. He needs to see the real Jagannath at Puri, at Ranchi, at home and hopefully some day, within his mind's eye.

The temple of Jagannathpur has been renovated a few times. What stands today is an architectural piece in Nagara style of Orissa architecture, but what sits in my mind is a silent, walled interior, away from the world, cutting away the winds, an echoing interior... A place I have been to in past lives, a place that has made several appearances in my dreams, a place I am visiting again... And it's mesmerising connect with me in my real world, dream state, in a spiritual plane, in a timeless plane across lives...

Jagannath Mandir, Puri

The temple of Puri Jagannath brings haunting familiarity, a flavour of having lived here and experienced it before, though in reality it appears fresh and new.. but the vibe, I have felt this vibe before. I remember carving pieces of chalk when I was kid. I carved temples, with a scalpel and black board chalk, and arranged them in an order that looked nice. Three shrines placed together two shorter shikaras and one taller in the center. For what ever reason, I made this arrangement and I liked it as a kid (though it didn't follow any rules of architecture). But what really got me was the recollection of the same arrangement of shrines when I stood in front of three Shiva Linga small shrines, exactly the same way within the premises of Jagannath Puri, under the shade of a silent tree, that has seen time roll by for centuries. Shrines (walls, shikara, with embedded garbha griha deep down within) stand next to each other, be it Lingaraj, Mukteshwar or Jagannath, but they don't stick to each other as in the case of this peculiar set within the walled world of Puri. What I didn't comprehend was how I made the temples look like Jagannath in pieces of chalk and arrange them in peculiar order, given I had no idea of this science at that age and neither had I visited any place that early. 

My extremely strange inclination to architectural rules, logic of sacred sciences and immense love for the Lord has led me down, not just memory lane of this life... It has been connecting a lot more dots in my head that I didn't know even existed. This journey has made me question the presence of time, it's nature, it's influence and it's mesmerising presence to baffle my mind. If I just had to remove all the gaps, across lives, I would know just how many times I have been at this place, and that may not even have been dependent on real geography... It may have been something else altogether.

Jagannath has been in my life from when I started to think and remember things. He has never left my side, though I have left his several times. This journey across time, has made me revisit elements of existence I took for granted, the tremendous potential of my mind to detect differences from established route, the impermanence of time and it's presence as a stage of events in sequential order, and of course the order of the universe that banks on my "nature" to be what I am...

And while I live now, while I am here I look at my son, the smile on his face when he says "Jagannath is very very big" makes me want to relive that innocence and sacred bewilderment that I have been blessed with, for what ever good deed in the past.

The Unexplored world of Surasundaris, their Personality, their Potential

She twirls around the branch of a tree

As she pull a thorn off her delicate feet

Her graceful curves entwine a branch 

As she holds onto it like a fragile creeper

She calls the green parrot, plays with its red beak

The sign of sensuality, the pleasures of love

She gently smells the fragrance of the lotus

As she tucks it into her thick plaits of hair

Tying the anklets in her feet

She plays the rhythm of her heart with the drum 

She dances her love dance with grace

Twisting the chauri along her naked back

She holds the mirror to her face

Completes the shringar with a dash of red

She lazily picks up the Ketaki flower

Delicate fingers imbibe its scent

This sensuous being is out to seek

Make no mistake with what you see

The partial nudity, the full breasts unique

She is not to be amorously felt

She is the power, splendid and divine

She is the connect to the supreme above. 

Surasundaris have been misunderstood to be just sensuous beings. Studies indicate that they adorn the walls of sacred temples and took to being more popular during the rise of the tantrik cults. But to ascertain that they were only sensuous beings to attract men into the walls of the sacred shrine for a tantrik ritual with no other objective to their existence would be foolhardy of us. Apsaras, Kanyas, yakshis are other names that these celestial beings have been identified as… but somehow … my belief is that they were way more superior than what they have been documented to being. 

My journey to understand these mystical women starts from the temple walls. On one side they ooze sensuality, on the other they appear extremely shy. They may be great exponents of kamasutra and yet they have the anxiety of union with the one of their choice, with whom they will lose their “virginity”. The signs of the thorn, the pose of the creeper, the sensuous conversation with the parrot are indicators of sensuality. They are also great dancers and they dedicate their existence to the lord himself. They are knowledgable and their wisdom shines through their Tejas. They are the epitome of beauty, but they are also mysterious celestials who can transcend the planes of existence, move from one to the other with ease. They cannot be owned, they cannot be touched until they want to, and they do fall in love against all rules, with gods, with devas, with men. And yet they roam all the worlds, on celestial missions, the knowledge of which only they have. They can come to us, if we call them through intense sadhana, they can help us or destroy us, they are powerful beings that we wouldn’t like to mess with…

And yet they are mysteriously more talented than mortals, their capabilities shine beyond human potential. When a Surasundari dances or sings we stay mesmerised, its like a spell they cast on us, a spell hard to get out of. They can hold a conversation with you, keep your grey cells churning, speak on the making of the universe, excite the nerves out of you and yet, we will not be able to tell whether this happened for real. They touch an intense world within us, they touch the psychological weakness we hardly knew we had. They transform the way we see the world, make us question exactly who we are and why are we going through this state of mind. 

The laws of Indian sculpture and their presence on architecture has tried to its limits capacity to bring the heavens down on earth. The temple being the centre of existence depicts the universe, the stages of divine evolution, from animals to daily life, to court scenes, to mystical celestial being flying across the sky, which could include ganas or gandharvas, kinnaras and the sacred tree of life. But as we progress above, reach the zone of the Gods, we find Surasundaris amongst them. They occupy a position of importance on temple walls, next to the gods, closer to the ceiling, be it the outer wall, a pillar or inner door jamb. Surasundharis have a presence of importance, which has not been explored in entirety. They occupy a space that is above human life, but below the shikara. They are the door to the heavens, but don’t really get there (within the limitations of the stone temple … who knows where this silent world leads… )

Indian art depicts mythology, the culmination of an act, of a great exploit of a God to depict their capability. They alternatively depict the nature of a being, in this case Surasundaris, explicitly depicting their sensuality. What they don’t depict is the capability of these beings, their potential which can be accessed only through ritual, sacred sadhana which is performed within the temple. The walls depict who they are, but the sacred ritual within the walls gives the way to find out what they are capable of, why they are there and where they can take us. 

Indian ritual worship is far more superior to modern science, and cannot be measured by that yardstick. They are so different that it would foolhardy to ask for proof for the limitations of our mind. So if we dismiss this sacred science, and measure it against the plague that has set in from the west, we do it at our own peril of losing sacred wisdom, that once was truly our very own. 

This elixir of divinity is hard to come by, and when it does, it even harder to brush away. Lets set our egos aside (move the focal point of existence away from ourselves) and ask the question - Are we blessed enough to receive it? 

* * * 

Indian lifestyle on the other hand created a role for them among women. They were married to the deity within the shrine but with time, they were exclusively called Devadasis, but yet again, the perversion of educated men (both ancient sciences and modern) reduced them to prostitution and the same men now look down upon them... How fair is the mind of mortal men, how biased are they that they give the position of honour and they reduce it to dishonour by their own lack of self restraint?! And therefore I ask, are they seriously capable of higher wisdom?