Tuesday, December 30, 2008

IS VEDANTA THE FUTURE RELIGION

By Swami Vivekananda
[Delivered in San Francisco on April 8, 1900]
Those of you who have been attending my lectures for the last month or so must, by this time, be familiar with the ideas contained in the Vedanta philosophy.
Vedanta is the most ancient religion of the world; but it can never be said to have become popular. Therefore the question "Is it going to be the religion of the future?" is very difficult to answer.At the start, I may tell you that I do not know whether it will ever be the religion of the vast majority of men.
Will it ever be able to take hold of one whole nation such as the United States of America? Possibly it may. However, that is the question we want to discuss this afternoon.I shall begin by telling you what Vedanta is not, and then I shall tell you what it is. But you must remember that, with all its emphasis on impersonal principles, Vedanta is not antagonistic to anything, though it does not compromise or give up the truths which it considers fundamental.
You all know that certain things are necessary to make a religion. First of all, there is the book. The power of the book is simply marvellous! Whatever it be, the book is the centre round which human allegiance gathers. Not one religion is living today but has a book. With all its rationalism and tall talk, humanity still clings to the books.
In your country every attempt to start a religion without a book has failed.
In India sects rise with great success, but within a few years they die down, because there is no book behind them. So in every other country.Study the rise and fall of the Unitarian movement. It represents the best thought of your nation. Why should it not have spread like the Methodist, Baptist, and other Christian denominations? Because there was no book.
On the other hand, think of the Jews. A handful of men, driven from one country to another, still hold together, because they have a book. Think of the Parsees - only a hundred thousand in the world. About a million are all that remain of the Jains in India. And do you know that these handfuls of Parsees and Jains still keep on just because of their books?
The religions that are living at the present day - every one of them has a book.The second requisite, to make a religion, is veneration for some person. He is worshipped either as the Lord of the world or as the great Teacher.
Men must worship some embodied man! They must have the Incarnation or the prophet or the great leader.
You find it in every religion today. Hindus and Christians - they have Incarnations: Buddhists, Mohammedans, and Jews have prophets. But it is all about the same - all their veneration twines round some person or persons.
The third requisite seems to be that a religion, to be strong and sure of itself, must believe that it alone is the truth; otherwise it cannot influence people.
Liberalism dies because it is dry, because it cannot rouse fanaticism in the human mind, because it cannot bring out hatred for everything except itself. That is why liberalism is bound to go down again and again. It can influence only small numbers of people. The reason is not hard to see.
Liberalism tries to make us unselfish. But we do not want to be unselfish - we see no immediate gain in unselfishness; we gain more by being selfish. We accept liberalism as long as we are poor, have nothing. The moment we acquire money and power, we turn very conservative. The poor man is a democrat. When he becomes rich, he becomes an aristocrat.
In religion, too, human nature acts in the same way.
A prophet arises, promises all kinds of rewards to those who will follow him and eternal doom to those who will not. Thus he makes his ideas spread.
All existent religions that are spreading are tremendously fanatic. The more a sect hates other sects, the greater is its success and the more people it draws into its fold. My conclusion, after travelling over a good part of the world and living with many races, and in view of the conditions prevailing in the world, is that the present state of things is going to continue, in spite of much talk of universal brotherhood.
Vedanta does not believe in any of these teachings.
First, it does not believe in a book - that is the difficulty to start with. It denies the authority of any book over any other book. It denies emphatically that any one book can contain all the truths about God, soul, the ultimate reality.
Those of you who have read the Upanishads remember that they say again and again, "Not by the reading of books can we realise the Self."
Second, it finds veneration for some particular person still more difficult to uphold. Those of you who are students of Vedanta - by Vedanta is always meant the Upanishads - know that this is the only religion that does not cling to any person.
Not one man or woman has ever become the object of worship among the Vedantins. It cannot be.
A man is no more worthy of worship than any bird, any worm. We are all brothers. The difference is only in degree. I am exactly the same as the lowest worm. You see how very little room there is in Vedanta for any man to stand ahead of us and for us to go and worship him - he dragging us on and we being saved by him. Vedanta does not give you that. No book, no man to worship, nothing.
A still greater difficulty is about God. You want to be democratic in this country. It is the democratic God that Vedanta teaches.You have a government, but the government is impersonal. Yours is not an autocratic government, and yet it is more powerful than any monarchy in the world. Nobody seems to understand that the real power, the real life, the real strength is in the unseen, the impersonal, the nobody. As a mere person separated from others, you are nothing, but as an impersonal unit of the nation that rules itself, you are tremendous.
You are all one in the government - you are a tremendous power. But where exactly is the power? Each man is the power. There is no king. I see everybody equally the same. I have not to take off my hat and bow low to anyone. Yet there is a tremendous power in each man.Vedanta is just that.
Its God is not the monarch sitting on a throne, entirely apart. There are those who like their God that way - a God to be feared and propitiated. They burn candles and crawl in the dust before Him. They want a king to rule them - they believe in a king in heaven to rule them all. The king is gone from this country at least. Where is the king of heaven now? Just where the earthly king is.
In this country the king has entered every one of you. You are all kings in this country. So with the religion of Vedanta. You are all Gods. One God is not sufficient. You are all Gods, says the Vedanta.This makes Vedanta very difficult. It does not teach the old idea of God at all. In place of that God who sat above the clouds and managed the affairs of the world without asking our permission, who created us out of nothing just because He liked it and made us undergo all this misery just because He liked it, Vedanta teaches the God that is in everyone, has become everyone and everything.
His majesty the king has gone from this country; the Kingdom of Heaven went from Vedanta hundreds of years ago.India cannot give up his majesty the king of the earth - that is why Vedanta cannot become the religion of India. There is a chance of Vedanta becoming the religion of your country because of democracy.
But it can become so only if you can and do clearly understand it, if you become real men and women, not people with vague ideas and superstitions in your brains, and if you want to be truly spiritual, since Vedanta is concerned only with spirituality.
What is the idea of God in heaven? Materialism.
The Vedantic idea is the infinite principle of God embodied in every one of us. God sitting up on a cloud! Think of the utter blasphemy of it! It is materialism - downright materialism. When babies think this way, it may be all right, but when grown-up men try to teach such things, it is downright disgusting - that is what it is. It is all matter, all body idea, the gross idea, the sense idea. Every bit of it is clay and nothing but clay. Is that religion? It is no more religion than is the Mumbo Jumbo "religion" of Africa.
God is spirit and He should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Does spirit live only in heaven? What is spirit? We are all spirit. Why is it we do not realise it? What makes you different from me? Body and nothing else. Forget the body, and all is spirit.These are what Vedanta has not to give. No book. No man to be singled out from the rest of mankind - "You are worms, and we are the Lord God!" - none of that. If you are the Lord God, I also am the Lord God.
So Vedanta knows no sin. There are mistakes but no sin; and in the long run everything is going to be all right. No Satan - none of this nonsense. Vedanta believes in only one sin, only one in the world, and it is this: the moment you think you are a sinner or anybody is a sinner, that is sin.
From that follows every other mistake or what is usually called sin. There have been many mistakes in our lives. But we are going on. Glory be unto us that we have made mistakes! Take a long look at your past life. If your present condition is good, it has been caused by all the past mistakes as well as successes. Glory be unto success! Glory be unto mistakes! Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!
You see, Vedanta proposes no sin nor sinner. No God to be afraid of. He is the one being of whom we shall never be afraid, because He is our own Self. There is only one being of whom you cannot possibly be afraid; He is that. Then is not he really the most superstitious person who has fear of God? There may be someone who is afraid of his shadow; but even he is not afraid of himself. God is man's very Self. He is that one being whom you can never possibly fear. What is all this nonsense, the fear of the Lord entering into a man, making him tremble and so on? Lord bless us that we are not all in the lunatic asylum! But if most of us are not lunatics, why should we invent such ideas as fear of God?
Lord Buddha said that the whole human race is lunatic, more or less. It is perfectly true, it seems.No book, no person, no Personal God. All these must go. Again, the senses must go. We cannot be bound to the senses. At present we are tied down - like persons dying of cold in the glaciers. They feel such a strong desire to sleep, and when their friends try to wake them, warning them of death, they say, "Let me die, I want to sleep." We all cling to the little things of the senses, even if we are ruined thereby: we forget there are much greater things.
There is a Hindu legend that the Lord was once incarnated on earth as a pig. He had a pig mate and in course of time several little pigs were born to Him. He was very happy with His family, living in the mire, squealing with joy, forgetting His divine glory and lordship. The gods became exceedingly concerned and came to the earth to beg Him to give up the pig body and return to heaven. But the Lord would have none of that; He drove them away. He said He was very happy and did not want to be disturbed. Seeing no other course, the gods destroyed the pig body of the Lord. At once He regained His divine majesty and was astonished that He could have found any joy in being a pig.
People behave in the same way. Whenever they hear of the Impersonal God, they say, "What will become of my individuality? - my individuality will go!" Next time that thought comes, remember the pig, and then think what an infinite mine of happiness you have, each one of you. How pleased you are with your present condition! But when you realise what you truly are, you will be astonished that you were unwilling to give up your sense-life. What is there in your personality? It is any better than that pig life? And this you do not want to give up! Lord bless us all!
What does Vedanta teach us? In the first place, it teaches that you need not even go out of yourself to know the truth. All the past and all the future are here in the present. No man ever saw the past. Did any one of you see the past? When you think you are knowing the past, you only imagine the past in the present moment.
To see the future, you would have to bring it down to the present, which is the only reality - the rest is imagination. This present is all that is. There is only the One. All is here right now. One moment in infinite time is quite as complete and all-inclusive as every other moment. All that is and was and will be is here in the present. Let anybody try to imagine anything outside of it - he will not succeed.
What religion can paint a heaven which is not like this earth? And it is all art, only this art is being made known to us gradually. We, with five senses, look upon this world and find it gross, having colour, form, sound, and the like. Suppose I develop an electric sense - all will change. Suppose my senses grow finer - you will all appear changed. If I change, you change.
If I go beyond the power of the senses, you will appear as spirit and God. Things are not what they seem.We shall understand this by and by, and then see it: all the heavens - everything - are here, now, and they really are nothing but appearances on the Divine Presence. This Presence is much greater than all the earths and heavens.
People think that this world is bad and imagine that heaven is somewhere else. This world is not bad. It is God Himself if you know it. It is a hard thing even to understand, harder than to believe. The murderer who is going to be hanged tomorrow is all God, perfect God. It is very hard to understand, surely; but it can be understood.
Therefore Vedanta formulates, not universal brotherhood, but universal oneness. I am the same as any other man, as any animal - good, bad, anything. It is one body, one mind, one soul throughout. Spirit never dies. There is no death anywhere, not even for the body. Not even the mind dies. How can even the body die? One leaf may fall - does the tree die? The universe is my body. See how it continues. All minds are mine. With all feet I walk. Through all mouths I speak. In everybody I reside.Why can I not feel it? Because of that individuality, that piggishness. You have become bound up with this mind and can only be here, not there.
What is immortality? How few reply, "It is this very existence of ours!" Most people think this is all mortal and dead - that God is not here, that they will become immortal by going to heaven. They imagine that they will see God after death. But if they do not see Him here and now, they will not see Him after death.
Though they all believe in immortality, they do not know that immortality is not gained by dying and going to heaven, but by giving up this piggish individuality, by not tying ourselves down to one little body. Immortality is knowing ourselves as one with all, living in all bodies, perceiving through all minds. We are bound to feel in other bodies than this one. We are bound to feel in other bodies. What is sympathy? Is there any limit to this sympathy, this feeling in our bodies? It is quite possible that the time will come when I shall feel through the whole universe.What is the gain? The pig body is hard to give up; we are sorry to lose the enjoyment of our one little pig body!
Vedanta does not say, "Give it up": it says, "Transcend it". No need of asceticism - better would be the enjoyment of two bodies, better three, living in more bodies than one! When I can enjoy through the whole universe, the whole universe is my body.There are many who feel horrified when they hear these teachings. They do not like to be told that they are not just little pig bodies, created by a tyrant God. I tell them, "Come up!" They say they are born in sin - they cannot come up except through someone's grace.
I say, "You are Divine! They answer, "You blasphemer, how dare you speak so? How can a miserable creature be God? We are sinners!" I get very much discouraged at times, you know. Hundreds of men and women tell me, "If there is no hell, how can there be any religion?" If these people go to hell of their own will, who can prevent them?Whatever you dream and think of, you create. If it is hell, you die and see hell. If it is evil and Satan, you get a Satan. If ghosts, you get ghosts. Whatever you think, that you become.
If you have to think, think good thoughts, great thoughts. This taking for granted that you are weak little worms! By declaring we are weak, we become weak, we do not become better. Suppose we put out the light, close the windows, and call the room dark. Think of the nonsense! What good does it do me to say I am a sinner? If I am in the dark, let me light a lamp. The whole thing is gone.
Yet how curious is the nature of men! Though always conscious that the universal mind is behind their life, they think more of Satan, of darkness and lies. You tell them the truth - they do not see it; they like darkness better.
This forms the one great question asked by Vedanta: Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything for ourselves. We want a Personal God, a saviour or a prophet to do everything for us.
The very rich man never walks, always goes in the carriage; but in the course of years, he wakes up one day paralysed all over. Then he begins to feel that the way he had lived was not good after all. No man can walk for me. Every time one did, it was to my injury. If everything is done for a man by another, he will lose the use of his own limbs.
Anything we do ourselves, that is the only thing we do. Anything that is done for us by another never can be ours. You cannot learn spiritual truths from my lectures. If you have learnt anything, I was only the spark that brought it out, made it flash.
That is all the prophets and teachers can do. All this running after help is foolishness.You know, there are bullock carts in India. Usually two bulls are harnessed to a cart, and sometimes a sheaf of straw is dangled at the tip of the pole, a little in front of the animals but beyond their reach. The bulls try continually to feed upon the straw, but never succeed.
This is exactly how we are helped! We think we are going to get security, strength, wisdom, happiness from the outside. We always hope but never realise our hope. Never does any help come from the outside.There is no help for man.
None ever was, none is, and none will be. Why should there be? Are you not men and women? Are the lords of the earth to be helped by others? Are you not ashamed? You will be helped when you are reduced to dust. But you are spirit. Pull yourself out of difficulties by yourself! Save yourself by yourself! There is none to help you - never was. To think that there is, is sweet delusion. It comes to no good.
There came a Christian to me once and said, "You are a terrible sinner." I answered, "Yes, I am. Go on." He was a Christian missionary. That man would not give me any rest. When I see him, I fly. He said, "I have very good things for you. You are a sinner and you are going to hell." I replied, "Very good, what else?" I asked him, "Where are you going?" "I am going to heaven", he answered. I said, "I will go to hell." That day he gave me up.
Here comes a Christian man and he says, "You are all doomed; but if you believe in this doctrine, Christ will help you out." If this were true - but of course it is nothing but superstition - there would be no wickedness in the Christian countries.
Let us believe in it - believing costs nothing - but why is there no result? If I ask, "Why is it that there are so many wicked people?" they say, "We have to work more." Trust in God, but keep your powder dry! Pray to God, and let God come and help you out!
But it is I who struggle, pray, and worship; it is I who work out my problems - and God takes the credit. This is not good. I never do it.Once I was invited to a dinner. The hostess asked me to say grace. I said, "I will say grace to you, madam. My grace and thanks are to you."
When I work, I say grace to myself. Praise be unto me that I worked hard and acquired what I have!All the time you work hard and bless somebody else, because you are superstitious, you are afraid. No more of these superstitions bred through thousands of years!
It takes a little hard work to become spiritual. Superstitions are all materialism, because they are all based on the consciousness of body, body, body. No spirit there. Spirit has no superstitions - it is beyond the vain desires of the body.But here and there these vain desires are being projected even into the realm of the spirit.
I have attended several spiritualistic meetings. In one, the leader was a woman. She said to me, "Your mother and grandfather came to me" She said that they greeted her and talked to her. But my mother is living yet! People like to think that even after death their relatives continue to exist in the same bodies, and the spiritualists play on their superstitions.
I would be very sorry to know that my dead father is still wearing his filthy body. People get consolation from this, that their fathers are all encased in matter. In another place they brought me Jesus Christ. I said, "Lord, how do you do?" It makes me feel hopeless. If that great saintly man is still wearing the body, what is to become of us poor creatures? The spiritualists did not allow me to touch any of those gentlemen. Even if these were real, I would not want them. I think, "Mother, Mother! aethists - that is what people really are! Just the desire for these five senses! Not satisfied with what they have here, they want more of the same when they die!"
What is the God of Vedanta? He is principle, not person. You and I are all Personal Gods. The absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle. You and I, the cat, rat, devil, and ghost, all these are Its persons - all are Personal Gods.
You want to worship Personal Gods. It is the worship of your own self. If you take my advice, you will never enter any church. Come out and go and wash off. Wash yourself again and again until you are cleansed of all the superstitions that have clung to you through the ages. Or, perhaps, you do not like to do so, since you do not wash yourself so often in this country - frequent washing is an Indian custom, not a custom of your society.
I have been asked many times, "Why do you laugh so much and make so many jokes?" I become serious sometimes - when I have stomach - ache! The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists, He is the goodness, the truth in everything. You are His incarnations. That is what is glorious. The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from Him, the more will long faces come.
The more we know of Him, the more misery vanishes. If one who lives in the Lord becomes miserable, what is the use of living in Him? What is the use of such a God? Throw Him overboard into the Pacific Ocean! We do not want Him!
But God is the infinite, impersonal being - ever existent, unchanging, immortal, fearless; and you are all His incarnations, His embodiments. This is the God of Vedanta, and His heaven is everywhere. In this heaven dwell all the Personal Gods there are-you yourselves. Exit praying and laying flowers in the temples!
What do you pray for? To go to heaven, to get something, and let somebody else not have it. "Lord, I want more food! Let somebody else starve!"
What an idea of God who is the reality, the infinite, ever blessed existence in which there is neither part nor flaw, who is ever free, ever pure, ever perfect!
We attribute to Him all our human characteristics, functions, and limitations. He must bring us food and give us clothes. As a matter of fact we have to do all these things ourselves and nobody else ever did them for us. That is the plain truth.But you rarely think of this.
You imagine there is God of whom you are special favourites, who does things for you when you ask Him; and you do not ask of Him favours for all men, all beings, but only for yourself, your own family, your own people.
When the Hindu is starving, you do not care; at that time you do not think that the God of the Christians is also the God of the Hindus. Our whole idea of God, our praying, our worshipping, all are vitiated by our ignorance, our foolish idea of ourselves as body.
You may not like what I am saying. You may curse me today, but tomorrow you will bless me.We must become thinkers. Every birth is painful. We must get out of materialism. My Mother would not let us get out of Her clutches; nevertheless we must try. This struggle is all the worship there is; all the rest is mere shadow. You are the Personal God. Just now I am worshipping you. This is the greatest prayer.
Worship the whole world in that sense - by serving it. This standing on a high platform, I know, does not appear like worship. But if it is service, it is worship.The infinite truth is never to be acquired. It is here all the time, undying and unborn. He, the Lord of the universe, is in every one. There is but one temple - the body.
It is the only temple that ever existed. In this body, He resides, the Lord of souls and the King of kings. We do not see that, so we make stone images of Him and build temples over them. Vedanta has been in India always, but India is full of these temples - and not only temples, but also caves containing carved images.
"The fool, dwelling on the bank of the Ganga, digs a well for water!" Such are we! Living in the midst of God - we must go and make images. We project Him in the form of the image, while all the time He exists in the temple of our body. We are lunatics, and this is the great delusion.
Worship everything as God - every form is His temple. All else is delusion. Always look within, never without. Such is the God that Vedanta preaches, and such is His worship. Naturally there is no sect, no creed, no caste in Vedanta.
How can this religion be the national religion of India?Hundreds of castes! If one man touches another man's food, he cries out, "Lord help me, I am polluted!" When I returned to India after my visit to the West, several orthodox Hindus raised a howl against my association with the Western people and my breaking the rules of orthodoxy. They did not like me to teach the truths of the Vedas to the people of the West.But how can there be these distinctions and differences? How can the rich man turn up his nose at the poor man, and the learned at the ignorant, if we are all spirit and all the same?
Unless society changes, how can such a religion as Vedanta prevail? It will take thousands of years to have large numbers of truly rational human beings. It is very hard to show men new things, to give them great ideas. It is harder still to knock off old superstitions, very hard; they do not die easily.
With all his education, even the learned man becomes frightened in the dark - the nursery tales come into his mind, and he see ghosts.The meaning of the word "Veda", from which the word "Vedanta" comes, is knowledge. All knowledge is Veda, infinite as God is infinite.
Nobody ever creates knowledge. Did you ever see knowledge created? It is only discovered - what was covered is uncovered. It is always here, because it is God Himself. Past, present, and future knowledge, all exist in all of us. We discover it, that is all. All this knowledge is God Himself.
The Vedas are a great Sanskrit book. In our country we go down on our knees before the man who reads the Vedas, and we do not care for the man who is studying physics. That is superstition; it is not Vedanta at all. It is utter materialism.
With God every knowledge is sacred. Knowledge is God. Infinite knowledge abides within every one in the fullest measure. You are not really ignorant, though you may appear to be so. You are incarnations of God, all of you. You are incarnations of the Almighty, Omnipresent, Divine Principle.
You may laugh at me now, but the time will come when you will understand. You must. Nobody will be left behind.What is the goal? This that I have spoken of - Vedanta - is not a new religion. So old - as old as God Himself. It is not confined to any time and place, it is everywhere. Everybody knows this truth. We are all working it out. The goal of the whole universe is that.
This applies even to external nature - every atom is rushing towards that goal. And do you think that any of the infinite pure souls are left without knowledge of the supreme truth? All have it, all are going to the same goal - the discovery of the innate Divinity.
The maniac, the murderer, the superstitious man, the man who is lynched in this country - all are travelling to the same goal. Only that which we do ignorantly we ought to do knowingly, and better.The unity of all existence - you all have it already within yourselves. None was ever born without it. However you may deny it, it continually asserts itself. What is human love? It is more or less an affirmation of that unity: "I am one with thee, my wife, my child, my friend!"
Only you are affirming the unity ignorantly. "None ever loved the husband for the husband's sake, but for the sake of the Self that is in the husband." The wife finds unity there. The husband sees himself in the wife - instinctively he does it, but he cannot do it knowingly, consciously.The whole universe is one existence. There cannot be anything else. Out of diversities we are all going towards this universal existence. Families into tribes, tribes into races, races into nations, nations into humanity-how many wills going to the One! It is all knowledge, all science - the realisation of this unity.
Unity is knowledge, diversity is ignorance. This knowledge is your birthright. I have not to teach it to you. There never were different religions in the world. We are all destined to have salvation, whether we will it or not. You have to attain it in the long run and become free, because it is your nature to be free.
We are already free, only we do not know it, and we do not know what we have been doing. Throughout all religious systems and ideals is the same morality; one thing only is preached: "Be unselfish, love others."
One says, "Because Jehovah commanded." "Allah," shouted Mohammed. Another cries, "Jesus". If it was only the command of Jehovah, how could it come to those who never knew Jehovah? If it was Jesus alone who gave this command, how could any one who never knew Jesus get it? If only Vishnu, how could the Jews get it, who never were acquainted with that gentleman? There is another source, greater than all of them. Where is it? In the eternal temple of God, in the souls of all beings from the lowest to the highest. It is there - that infinite unselfishness, infinite sacrifice, infinite compulsion to go back to unity.
We have seemingly been divided, limited, because of our ignorance; and we have become as it were the little Mrs. so-and-so and Mr. so-and-so. But all nature is giving this delusion the lie every moment. I am not that little man or little woman cut off from all else; I am the one universal existence. The soul in its own majesty is rising up every moment and declaring its own intrinsic Divinity.
This Vedanta is everywhere, only you must become conscious of it. These masses of foolish beliefs and superstitions hinder us in our progress. If we can, let us throw them off and understand that God is spirit to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Try to be materialists no more! Throw away all matter!
The conception of God must be truly spiritual. All the different ideas of God, which are more or less materialistic, must go. As man becomes more and more spiritual, he has to throw off all these ideas and leave them behind. As a matter of fact, in every country there have always been a few who have been strong enough to throw away all matter and stand out in the shining light, worshipping the spirit by the spirit.
If Vedanta - this conscious knowledge that all is one spirit - spreads, the whole of humanity will become spiritual. But is it possible? I do not know. Not within thousands of years. The old superstitions must run out. You are all interested in how to perpetuate all your superstitions. Then there are the ideas of the family brother, the caste brother, the national brother. All these are barriers to the realisation of Vedanta.
Religion has been religion to very few.Most of those who have worked in the field of religion all over the world have really been political workers. That has been the history of human beings. They have rarely tried to live up uncompromisingly to the truth. They have always worshipped the god called society; they have been mostly concerned with upholding what the masses believe - their superstitions, their weakness. They do not try to conquer nature but to fit into nature, nothing else.
Go to India and preach a new creed - they will not listen to it. But if you tell them it is from the Vedas - "That is good!" they will say. Here I can preach this doctrine, and you - how many of you take me seriously? But the truth is all here, and I must tell you the truth.There is another side to the question.
Everyone says that the highest, the pure, truth cannot be realised all at once by all, that men have to be led to it gradually through worship, prayer, and other kinds of prevalent religious practices.
I am not sure whether that is the right method or not. In India I work both ways.In Calcutta, I have all these images and temples - in the name of God and the Vedas, of the Bible and Christ and Buddha. Let it be tried. But on the heights of the Himalayas I have a place where I am determined nothing shall enter except pure truth. There I want to work out this idea about which I have spoken to you today.
There are an Englishman and an Englishwoman in charge of the place. The purpose is to train seekers of truth and to bring up children without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus - none of these. They shall learn, from the start, to stand upon their own feet. They shall learn from their childhood that God is the spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Everyone must be looked upon as spirit. That is the ideal. I do not know what success will come of it. Today I am preaching the thing I like. I wish I had been brought up entirely on that, without all the dualistic superstitions.Sometimes I agree that there is some good in the dualistic method: it helps many who are weak. If a man wants you to show him the polar star, you first point out to him a bright star near it, then a less bright star, then a dim star, and then the polar star. This process makes it easy for him to see it. All the various practices and trainings, Bibles and Gods, are but the rudiments of religion, the kindergartens of religion.
But then I think of the other side. How long will the world have to wait to reach the truth if it follows this slow, gradual process? How long? And where is the surety that it will ever succeed to any appreciable degree? It has not so far. After all, gradual or not gradual, easy or not easy to the weak, is not the dualistic method based on falsehood?
Are not all the prevalent religious practices often weakening and therefore wrong? They are based on a wrong idea, a wrong view of man. Would two wrong make one right? Would the lie become truth? Would darkness become light?I am the servant of a man who has passed away. I am only the messenger. I want to make the experiment. The teachings of Vedanta I have told you about were never really experimented with before.
Although Vedanta is the oldest philosophy in the world, it has always become mixed up with superstitions and everything else.Christ said, "I and my father are one", and you repeat it. Yet it has not helped mankind. For nineteen hundred years men have not understood that saying. They make Christ the saviour of men. He is God and we are worms!
Similarly in India. In every country, this sort of belief is the backbone of every sect. For thousands of years millions and millions all over the world have been taught to worship the Lord of the world, the Incarnations, the saviours, the prophets.
They have been taught to consider themselves helpless, miserable creatures and to depend upon the mercy of some person or persons for salvation. There are no doubt many marvellous things in such beliefs. But even at their best, they are but kindergartens of religion, and they have helped but little. Men are still hypnotised into abject degradation.
However, there are some strong souls who get over that illusion. The hour comes when great men shall arise and cast off these kindergartens of religion and shall make vivid and powerful the true religion, the worship of the spirit by the spirit.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

KATARAGAMA'S ROLE IN HISTORY


Writers of history come in two varieties: those who fashion history by making it, and those who describe the process later. Here, as is so often the case, metaphor clothes the spirit or higher sense, while the literal sense serves only to fix the particulars. In this, we maintain, lies the key not only to the meaningful interpretation of traditional epic histories, but also to the faithful rendition of raw events into popular history.
For historiography -- the telling of history -- is also in a sense the source of history itself. Guiding principles operate at all times.
It is well known to historians, common people, and physicists alike that one and the same event may validly conform to radically different descriptions or explanations, e.g. a 'particle' may also be viewed as a wave.
Descriptions, conforming to different perspectives, may serve different purposes more or less effectively. Seen as microcosmic examples of macrocosmic principles, even 'ordinary' incidents acquire epic grandeur, and find a place in the heart and mind of ordinary people. Exhibiting levels of meaning that go deeper than the literal or 'factual' alone, truly epic accounts not only relate traditional histories, but touch the hearts of millions as well, thereby becoming a part of the historical process itself: the dialects of history.

Clothed in language, a product of the human mind, history reflects the invisible patterns of thought and language, for which modern linguists have invented the concept of a 'deep structure' underlying the surface patterns. It is prudent for historians and others to avail themselves of advances made in related fields, however obscure the connection might at first appear.
Bereft of higher – or – deeper – principles, history remains a pseudo- science, battleground for contending ideologies, and a fertile source of hatred and violence. Resting upon universal principles, unaffected by passing fashions in thought, epic accounts weave people and events together in a unity transcending particular interests.
Insular Sri Lanka, long home to a veritable rainbow of cultures, is a unique microcosm representing all of Asia in its crosscurrents of east and west, tradition and modernity. As such, Sri Lanka may serve historians admirably as a looking glass of Asian history, ancient and modern.
However for the historian whose perspective, assumptions, and methods are essentially foreign to a traditional culture, the long history of Sri Lanka remains a sealed book. Modern history let us remember, is a modern invention, whereas human intelligence is not. Every culture gives a full account of itself, one that is true to the conditions and ideals of that culture, whether it conforms to European notions of history, or not.
All too often, these moving accounts, records of great antiquity in their own rights, are dismissed by western-trained scholars as the fantasies of simple-minded people and as gross distortions of 'the facts'.
There is certain arrogance in a mentality that allocates truth to itself and superstition only to others: more, perhaps, than European thinkers would generally care to admit. It has had a souring effect upon East-West relations from the tine of the very first European imperialists right up to the present day. This deep-seated bias may be seen to have an ill defined but pervasive influence upon every aspect of relations between East and West, from the purely material sphere of trade, finance, and military affairs to the common intellectual sphere fashions are supposed to count for nothing. Even the writing of history has not escaped distortion.
This subtle - and often not so subtle - antagonism on the part of what may be called the modern mentality towards the normal or traditional mentality goes back a long way, and has assumed many guises over the centuries. But it is everywhere marked by an instinctive faith in material solutions to problems of whatever sort, and a corresponding implicit denial of the principles, which are the support of the phenomena they so cherish and worship. The net result is a striking predisposition to quantify human affairs, as witnessed by the preponderant role that money and brute force play in the modern scheme of things.
When a culture's own account of itself, oral or written, is not accorded its full and rightful place in that people's history as told to them by historians, then one may justifiably surmise that this 'history' contains motives foreign to the culture it presumes to describe. What is more, it may be deduced that only the literal or inferior elements of the indigenous account have been accessible to the historian, all the rest escaping his attention. A mentality dedicated to quantitative solutions cannot even aspire to the faithful interpretation of the factual – symbolic accounts of cultures still operating according to qualitative principles. Since only in the orient does the traditional view still hold out against the uninvited incursions of the modern mentality, it is legitimate to speak of distinction of east from west, as of tradition from modernity. There is no greater challenge in history then this titanic struggle of mentalities.
The Story of Kataragama in the History of Sri Lanka
If Sri Lanka may be seen as a paradigm of the rest of Asia, then the legend of Kataragama may be said to fairly encapsulate the story of all Sri Lanka, even up to the present day. Such is the esteem that Sri Lankans of all backgrounds hold for Kataragama – the symbolic capital of Ruhunu as well as the spirit or protector of the place—that even the noted historian P.E. Pieris was moved to write of Kataragama that:

…Here from remote ages was worshipped the six headed twelve-armed Kanda Kumaraya, otherwise Mahasena Divyaraja, Adhipati (Lord) of the Ruhunu Rata, the hero-god…Kataragama, say the Hindus, is his favorite adobe; in this age – the Kali Yuga – his authority extends over the entire world.1
What Kataragama represents to millions of Sri Lankans is already well documented by social scientists and others. It is sufficient to remark that, from prehistoric times, Kataragama has commanded the utmost respect – even approaching fear – across lines of race and religion, such that even Christians, not to mention Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, routinely visit remote Kataragama in large numbers. Their rites of vow fulfillment by the deity, which one may see performed en masse at festival times, stand as mute testimony to Kataragama's silent influence.2
This power that Kataragama exerts over the imagination of so many has been adequately explained, but patterns do exits at a number of levels, suggesting that Kataragama represents more than just a fabulously successful jungle shrine. For the legend of Kataragama is primarily and throughout a symbolic story which adapts itself to a remarkably broad range of interpretations. Not only may Kataragama be described faithfully in mythological or purely symbolic terms, provided that one adheres to the body of symbolic correspondences.
Reduced to its basics framework, the Kataragama story centers around the repeated descent and exploits on earth of the solar hero: his battles with the forces of darkness; eventual triumph in the name of truth; his love for the terrestrial princes – the human soul – and dalliance with her on earth; and final consumption in a sacrificial act that fulfills his vow to return once again, as
in principio. Upon this symbolic framework may be woven any number of thematic variations, each depending upon the particular perspective taken.
Thus, for example, the Kataragama hero is variously described as the first Ancestor of humanity, the servant – or even the son – of god, bodhisattva or Buddha to be, an eternal youth, or general of the divine forces in their battle against the satanic forces of darkness.
One of Kataragama's unique features is that multifaceted story is not only related at the time of annual Esala festival, but performed as well on a majestic scale. This magnificent performance, as we have endeavored to establish represents an initiatic tradition of mystery plays, one which has gracefully accommodated social change since well before the Common Era. Amidst the ravages of time, Kataragama preserve its timeless message.
Kataragama and the Framing of History
The fact that the cote myth of Kataragama may be framed in a variety of ways is of particular relevance to historian, for this is precisely the dilemma of historians of every age: how to interpret the histories that have already been told, and how to share with others the understanding acquired.
And the issue of exceptional relevance when one considers it in the context of the aforesaid dichotomy visible in Sri Lanka and all over Asia as a European-inspired struggle to overcome tradition and modernize national economies, all in accordance with modes of thought originating in Europe.
Clearly, what is suggested is not a sort of historical relativism elevated into a general theory, for relativism would imply a reciprocity, which is singularly absent in the present context. Rather, it has from the beginning been an unequal struggle in which, broadly speaking, the west has brought to bear against the east the full force of what has been called its “proselytizing fury”, all for its own purely pragmatic purposes. Nowhere has the Western or modern mentality had to undergo the degree of change that it has sought to impose upon traditional cultures everywhere. The time for redress is opportune.

How the accounts of modern and traditional historians may diverge is the subject for which the following historical examples have been drawn. All center on the myth of Kataragama. Each in its own fashion demonstrates the contention of this article. Regarded in their totality, they tell a story on a scale befitting the many-faced myth of Kataragama.
Myth as History and History as Myth
Historically, Kataragama has always maintained a low profile. While this may strike some as a rationalization fir the near-absence of Kataragama from history books, it should also be borne in mind that, in principle, the hero or god-king of Kataragama is one who achieves his aim through subterfuge, disguise, and stratagem. To wit, he is a god of wits, humanly accessible to those who apprehend his modus operandi. This should tell something about where he is to be found, and how.
Historical suggestions of the Kataragama myth appear in the Sri Lankan history as early as the late centuries of the pre-common Era, leaving little room for doubt about Kataragama's antiquity which, according to oral tradition still preserved in Kataragama, predates the appearance of either Sinhalese or Tamil culture in Sri Lanka. The most notable historical example from this period is the epic struggle between two popular Sri Lankan kings, Elara and Dutugemunu.
Modern historians, and Sinhalese chauvinists in their turn, have sought to emphasize the ethnic dimension of this episode, portraying it as the patriotic struggle of Sinhalese nationalists to expel or exterminate the Tamil inhabitants. In doing so, they have performed a great disservice to Sri Lanka; but that is not the point here.
Criticism has been leveled against these same people for conveniently overlooking the fact that king Elara, whether he was a Tamil speaker or not, was also one of Sri Lanka's most respected monarch's, serving a reign of forty-four years that was noted for its impartial justice and patronage of various faiths, including Buddhism.
In fact, it was Elara's unswerving dedication to justice that settled his end, for he found himself duty-bound to order the execution of his own son and their heir-apparent, who had recklessly caused the death of a cow, a capital offense in those days. Unable to abdicate without a successor, Elara's utmost concern at his age would have been not to maintain himself on the throne at any price, but to heal this disruption in the natural order by allowing for a just and natural succession, at the cost of his own life.
Considered in this context, the events that followed acquire added significance. In Ruhunu, young prince Duttugemunu vowed to Kataragama to fight for the justice and the cultural integrity of Sri Lanka. Symbolically, this act set in motion the epic events that were to follow. Duttugemunu was then able to raise a large army and march successfully, battle lance in hand, against the petty chieftains who stood between him and Elara.
By the time Young prince and the old king faced each other on the field of battle, the overtones of their symbolic encounter would have been fully evident to both of them, if not to others as well. Duttugemunu had to come out victorious, just as Elara would have welcomed this opportunity to end his life in battle. Never was the outcome in doubt, as far as they were concerned.
In a sense, Elara's sacrifice was Dutugemunu's triumph, and together they restored the ancient symbolic order in a spectacle that was as mysterious as it was dramatic. Undoubtedly, the whole affair left a deep impressions upon Duttugemunu, not to mention Sri Lankan consciousness ever since. Out of gratitude to Kataragama, and in fulfillment of his vow, Duttugemunu decreed that hence forth and in perpetuity a vast grant of populated and rich land in Ruhunu would be given over to the sovereign authority of god Kataragama himself. Further, to insure that the traditional rites would also be carried forth on behalf of all posterity, he stipulated that they be partitioned into 505 ritual assignments, or roles, to be annually performed in accordance with the tradition of 'royal service', or rajakariya, and passed on from one generation to another in property.
Time, encroaching jungles, and successive governments have cheated Dutugemunu's intentions, but through an ingenuous redundancy of tasks, the overall performance still survives today, even if scaled down by centuries of attrition, misunderstanding, and official neglect. In a sense, the king-less kingdom of Kataragama is yet extant, alive in the hearts of his subjects. What can be more low-profiled than that?

To understanding the interplay of abstract concepts and the unfolding of history, it is essential that grasp the role of what is called Mahasammata, or 'common agreement'. Because it was common to all, it was the called maha, 'great'. The agreement, or a sammata, was not a public scheme or policy, but the articulation of the common interest: it was the 'common sense' of those days.
Truly effective policy, or what our contemporaries call 'power', was understood to devolve from higher principles, or Dharma. The analogue in the human domain was the king – or sometimes queen – whose authority to reign depended upon adherence to dharma. Principles reigned, rather than individual interests, so unanimity of opinion was natural.

One example of this mahasammata in Sri Lankan history is as follows. The island largely consists of what has been called a hydraulic culture, where seasonal rains must be supplemented by irrigation to assure adequate crops of rice. Large-scale irrigation requires the construction and maintenance of wewas, bunds for the purpose of gathering the seasonal rains for distribution as needed. These enormous irrigation works, many if which are still functional today, were built and maintained through the institution of rajakariya, whereby each household agreed implicitly to give manual service to the king in return for an allotment of life-giving water.
The reign most famous for the creation of these great bunds was that of King Mahasena, whom historians assign to the third century C.E. It is noteworthy that this king should bear the name Mahasena (literally, 'who has a great army'), as it is not for military exploits that he is remembered. Rather, Mahasena was a king whose inspired leadership served not only to insure the nourishment of his people, but to help forge their sense of common identity as well.
In other words, the 'great army' he raised consisted of every man, woman and child in the kingdom, armed with a common consensus. Whatever Mahasena's personal peculiarities, he remained the living symbol of his people's Mahasammata. This is close association of King Mahasena with the concepts of Rajakariya and Mahasammata is crucial to a genuine understanding of the traditional perspective: Rajakariya was Mahasammata in practice, the performance of which embodied timeless principles.
Ptolemy of Alexandria
The earlier reliable description from western sources of Sri Lanka, or Taprobane as it was then called, comes down to us from Ptolemy of Alexandria, famous astronomer and geographer of the second century C.E. Ptolemy is credited with such a remarkable extent and accuracy of information about Taprobane that, in one historian's words, “it has given rise to surmises as to the sources whence it could possibly been derived.”3
Ptolemy's description of Taprobane “proves that the island had been thoroughly circumnavigated and examined by the mariners who were his informants.”4

That Kataragama is nowhere directly mentioned by Ptolemy is no indication that he was unaware of its existence and character. As an initiate into the traditional mysteries of the Mediterranean world, Ptolemy would have not only clearly recognized the signs of a mystery performance elsewhere, but out if respect for its sanctity would have refrained from making any direct mention of the place, cf. 'Sacred is secret'. However, in keeping with the universal character of initiatic knowledge, he would have left ample hints or clues which would pass unnoticed and uncomprehended except by observers similarly acquainted with initiatic lore.
If Ptolemy was riddling, then the traces of his riddle might be expected to survive in his records for posterity. Indeed, many have been puzzled by at least one feature of Ptolemy's map of Taprobane, which unaccountably labels the then heavily populated Ruhunu area adjacent to Kataragama as “the elephants' feeding grounds”. However, when one considers this anomaly in the context of Kataragama's close association in myth with elephants – for Kataragama is also Gajaragama, 'the home of the elephants'- Ptolemy's apparent error begins to make sense. Here 'elephant may also be understood to bear reference to the elephant's reputation as the wisest and gentlest member of the jungle family. 'Feeding grounds' imply sanctuary and available nourishment- but for whom? Ruhunu may have also protected its four –footed elephants, but un metaphorical terms reference is understand to the itinerant 'elephants' of society, the homeless custodian of tradition.
Even more revealing is Ptolemy's curious naming of the ocean waters just off Kataragama as the 'Sea of Dionysus'. Astute observers, like Bharati (1973), have already surmised that the god of Kataragama is a Dionysian deity.
5
Ptolemy, who was certainly well-informed about the worship of Dionysus, would not have employed hid name randomly, as certain of our contemporaries are inclined to believe. Geography, for Ptolemy as well as for traditional people s everywhere, also entailed an element of higher or initiatic knowledge.
Most pointed out all of Ptolemy's oblique references to Kataragama, however, is his naming of a large rocky proturbence into the sea of Dionysus as the dionysii promontorium, or promontory of Dionysus. Here again, what the promontorium 'stands for' (pro-) is the mount of Dionysus, i.e., Kataragama peak, which in all likelihood was the center of Kataragama's worshiping those days. Thus, Ptolemy's intended reference was to something higher than the physical phenomenon he named.
This may appear to some as a digression from the discussion of historiography and the sources of history. But it does serve to highlight the difference between histories traditional and modern. For the former, possibilities of meaning of a higher or metaphorical order are not merely entertained as another order of reality, but as the principle or determining factor in the story of humanity, whether considered in sensible or symbolic terms. For the later, histories of a modern or western perspective, the import or message is felt to abide in the literal sense alone, disqualifying every possible interpretation of an order higher than that which can be gleaned from a systematization of facts into 'theories of history'.
European colonial powers were incessantly at war with each other and every culture they contacted. Lankan villagers fought bravely with simple weapons against the superior firepower of the British during the Great Rebellion of 1817-18
The Modern conquest of Kataragama
With the landing of European forces in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, this contrast of east and west began to play itself out in dramatic fashion. As the most unabashed of western conquers, the Portuguese had come to the east for the professed intention of saving the souls of the heathen and relieving them of excess wealth. These early European imperialists kept hearing stories of Kataragama's fabulous wealth, and by the mid-seventeenth century could contain their greed and avarice no longer. What has prevented them in part for so long from satisfying their curiosity were disturbing reports that Kataragama maintained a standing army of 500 men for its defense.6
So, in early 1642, one hundred and fifty intrepid Portuguese commandos, under the command of Gasper Figueroa de Cerpe, marched on Kataragama, accompanied by two thousand native marines, or Lascarins. Captain Juan Riberio was among them, and his account of what followed merits our full attention:
'When we came near the spot where they said the pagoda stood, we took a native resident close to that spot and our commander inquired from him if he knew where the pagoda was. He replied that he did, and that it was close by; he acted as our guide and led us through a hill covered with forest which was the only one in the district, and this we wandered round re-crossed many times. it was certain that the pagoda was at the top of it but I do not know what magic it possessed for out of the five guides whom we took, the first three were put to death because we thought that they were deceiving us, for they acted as if they were mad and spoke all kinds of nonsense, each one in his turn without the one knowing of the others. The last two deceived us and did exactly the same, and we were forced to turn back without even seeing the pagoda which is called catergao. '
7
Captain Roberio may be excused for not realizing it, but his oversized looking party had fallen victim to the very kind of puzzling embarrassment that is Kataragama's hallmark. The fabulous wealth they coveted was fabulous indeed, but still it proved to be enough to fire their ingrained cupidity. For the god of Kataragama, a center of riddles and mysteries, is described in myth and legend as being not only the divine strategician Skanda, but also the eternal divine child, kumara, who is forever engaged in mysterious pranks and games like hide and seek.
The spirit of Kataragama was well known and alive in the heart of every inhabitant of that region. It was this 'standing army', represented as the 505 symbolic rajakariya tasks, that the literal-minded European imperialists, and modern historians in their wake, so totally failed to find. As to what the 'nonsense' was that all five native 'guides' provided to the invaders, we shall probably never know what it was. But, somehow or other, the Europeans and their allies had been tricked by the myth that is Kataragama.
The Great Rebellion of 1817orThe Misadventures of Rump King Vilbave
By the early nineteenth century, the Kandyan Kingdom had been under stage by hostile European powers for three hundred years, and was ready to topple. In 1814, with a view to obtaining help in replacing an unpopular monarch, the Kandyan nobility invited the intervention of British forces. The predictable result, that the English refused to leave and undertook to subvert – with the very best of intentions – every major Kandyan tradition, was soon to prove unbearable to nobility and common people alike.
Most irksome of all, from the indigenous standpoint, was the eradication of the institution of kingship along with the king himself. As one contemporary Sri Lankans than a mere wielder of state power, but “as amply illustrated by the elaborate ritual and ceremonial that surrounded his person, was the sacred symbol that was believed to hold society together.”
8 Or in even more graphic terms, as John Davy was to write in 1821. “They say that a king is so essential that without him there would be no order nor harmony, only confusion and dissension that would soon prove fatal to society”.9
In other words, within a few short years the citizenry was cast into a mood of general oppression, anxiety, and a creeping fear that Sri Lanka, Dhamma Deepa, had entered the long slide onto conflict act and chaos. Caught in the grip of their own convictions, the English were unable to see that they were setting the stage for eventual counter-actions.
They did not have long to wait. The Kandyan population, long accustomed to freedom in the matters that meant the most to it, lacked only the leadership to undertake a war of independence. They did not have long to wait, either. A fresh lesson in history – Kataragama-style – was about to unfold.
Apart from the fact that the rebellion ended in apparent failure – for the outcome was never military in doubt – the plot that unfolded contained all the elements of a classic Kataragama performance, whether one chooses to disregard the metaphorical dimension, or not. To begin with, the Great Rebellion of 1817-18 was neither planned nor expected by anyone living in Ceylon at the time, and took the Kandyan nobility as well as the British by complete surprise, a typical feature of the Kataragama legend.
Exactly what happened is difficult, if it is not impossible, to determine all its subtleties. What is known is that one Vilbave, ex-bhikkhu and unreformed rogue from the low country, suddenly appeared in Kataragama at the conclusion of the great festival in July, 1817, and announced that he had been chosen by the god of Kataragama to be King of Ceylon.
10 Again, we are reminded that, not only is the Kataragama of legend a god of ploy who acts through surrogates or by default altogether, but the site of Kataragama is also an ancient stage for the enactment of mysteries that nobody has claimed to comprehend. Dare we presume that there was no more to it than what met the eye? Modern historians have done just that.
That such a tale-teller and underhanded character as the mythical hero of Kataragama should appear in the guise of a mendicant rogue claiming royal lineage – saying he was Doraisami, Nayakkar prince of the deposed royal family – also comes as no surprise whatsoever to connoisseurs, for Kataragama, they tell us, is the original pretender, partitioning himself out to all for the sheer joy of it all while showing himself nowhere. Pilling subterfuge upon subterfuge and surfacing in the most unlikely of roles, the creative process at work in Kataragama proves time and again that truth has many faces.
To make a long story short, rump king Doraisami, alias Vilbave, acquired in no time a great following and set off toward the Kandyan hill country, awarding grandiose appointments along the way even before his coronation ceremony several months later at Wellawaya.11 The combination of melodrama and slapstick is familiar enough to students of Kataragama. Needless to say, however, it has never found its way in to history books.
On the initiative of Vilbave, or whoever he was, the people of Uva Province – old Ruhunu – rose in revolt against the British occupation force in September 1817. The timing of it all, in a sense the very distinguishing mark of Kataragama, could hardly have been worse, at least from the European standpoint. Not only was it the beginning of the rainy season, when communication and supplies were hampered by swollen rivers, but the Great Rebellion came at a time when British forces in Ceylon were depleted and native auxiliaries in short supply.
12 'King' Vilbave could not have planned it this way, and could not have planned it better, either. True to the principles of Kataragama, is just happened to turn out that way, to the embarrassment of the English this time.
As long as the apparently inept pretender Vilbave was at the head of operations, things went ill for the British, and rebellion spread like wildfire. But coincidentally, as soon as the influential chief of Uva found out about Vilbave's shady background and began to loose steam. Without a common consensus at the top, rivalries and suspicion broke out among the nobility and soon everyone sensed that the rebellion would and soon in failure. Symbolic confirmation came in 1828 with the 'accidental' recovery by the British of the sacred tooth relic, which had been spirited away early by sympathetic Buddhist monks. The end was not far off: Vilbave soon faded into history, and the long slide into the modernity that Kandyan loathed was ready to begin earnest.
Vilbave entered history as “the first of series of pretenders” whose deeds “set a pattern for future pretenders”.13 In view of insight such as this, it is remarkable that historians have not devoted greater attention to the pattern under discussion, which may be called the 'deep structure' of Kataragama. The connection between the unfolding of history and the grand enactment of principles into myth is something that has never been properly understood.
Kataragama: Then and Now
The English, unaware of the nature of the struggle they were engaged in, undertook a deliberate policy of scorched earth tactics-especially in hard-hit Uva province – and state-sponsored terrorism directed against the village population who supported the guerillas. The hardship and further resentment that followed the armed struggle to evict the foreigners can only be imagined today. Such was the desolation of the countryside right up to Kataragama following the uprising that years later Davy could with obvious pride report that:

'Before we had possession of the country, kataragam (sic) was greatly frequented. The number of pilgrims is now annually diminishing, and the buildings are going to decay. In a very few years, probably they will be level with the ground, and the traveler such, we must hope will be their fate, and the fate of every building consecrated to superstition of this very degrading and mischievous kind'
Co-opting the ancient tradition of rajakariya into a system of unpaid forced labor to construct the roads that their military and commercial interests required, and approaching enormous tracts of village common lands to hand over to speculators later, the British did everything they could to dismantle the indigenous culture and replace it with something more acceptable to them. The fact that modern histories paint the British period as one of enlightenment and national resurgence only further suggests that history-writing itself was serving as the hand-maiden of European interests and perspectives.
In the context of what has been discussed thus fat, it is most revealing to note that the worship of Kataragama in recent times has burgeoned in popularity to a remarkable extent, co-extensive with the period since 1948 of independent nationhood. It need hardly be added that the name period has been marked by a steady erosion of the social fiber of Sri Lankan society.
New historical theories are being invented all the time to explain the course events have taken and to suggest what might follow. Indeed, as many would readily agree, there is a certain pattern to events, but it seems to defy all attempts at systematization in theory.
The principal reason for this unsatisfactory state of affairs, we suggest, is the one-sided approach that sees importance only in consideration of the sort that matter to western-influenced historians, namely the expressions of forces pertaining to the lowest order of reality, the
quantitative realm, denying to themselves the insights that maintained traditional civilizations in a state of homeostasis or balance in the midst of relentless change, historians must take upon themselves the responsibility for the conflict and confusion that has for so long characterized their field.
No one is suggesting that a return is possible to a simpler age, or that conflict is entirely avoidable. But it is entirely possible that historians could perform a great service to Sri Lanka, if not to humanity at large, by conceding that there are also other ways of reading and writing history than the so-called modern approaches.
The lessons of Kataragama serve as a useful starting point for those having the humility and breadth of vision that such for those having the humility and breadth of vision that such an endeavor requires. Just how high the stakes may by is difficult to ascertain, but it should be self-evident by now that, as the expression goes: Time is short, and the work is vast.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

TAJ MAHAL - A HINDU TEMPLE OR PALACE OF YORE

The muslim rule started over India in 712 A.D. with the invasion of Mohammed Qasem. During their rule, Historians say that they looted and destroyed hundereds of thousands of Hindu temples. Aurangzeb himself destroyed 10,000 Hindu temples during his reign! Some of the larger temples were converted into mosques or other Islamic structures. Ram Janmbhoomi(at Ayodhya) and Krishna Temple(at Mathura) are just two examples. Many others exist!
The most evident of such structures is Taj Mahal--a structure supposedly devoted to carnal love by the "great" moghul king Shah Jahan to his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal.
Please keep in my mind that this is the same Shah Jahan who had a harem of 5,000 women and the same Shah Jahan who had a incestuous relationship with his daughter justifing it by saying, 'a gardner has every right to taste the fruit he has planted'! Is such a person even capable of imagning such a wondrous structure as the Taj Mahal let alone be the architect of it?
The answer is no. It cannot be. And it isn't as has been proven. The Taj Mahal is as much a Islamic structure as is mathematics a muslim discovery! The famous historian Shri P.N. Oak has proven that Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahalaya-- a shiv temple-palace. His work was published in 1965 in the book, Taj Mahal - The True Story.
The most valuable evidence of all that Tejo Mahalaya is not an Islamic building is in the Badshahnama which contains the history of the first twenty years of Shah Jahan's reign. The writer Abdul Hamid has stated that Taj Mahal is a temple-palace taken from Jaipur's Maharaja Jaisigh and the building was known as Raja Mansingh's palace. This by itself is enough proof to state that Tejo Mahalaya is a Hindu structure captured, plundered and converted to a mausoleum by Shah Jahan and his henchmen.
But I have taken the liberty to provide you with 109 other proofs and logical points which tell us that the structure known as the Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahalaya. There is a similar story behind Every Islamic structure in Bharat. They are all converted Hindu structures. As I mentioned above, hundereds of thousands of temples in Bharat have been destroyed by the muslim invaders and I shall dedicate several articles to these destroyed temples.
However, the scope of this article is to prove to you beyond the shadow of any doubt that Taj Mahal is Tejo Mahalaya and should be recognized as such! Not as a monument to the dead Mumtaz Mahal--an insignificant sex object in the incestous Shah Jahan's harem of 5,000.
Another very important proof that Taj Mahal is a Hindu structure is shown by figure 1 below. It depicts Aurangzeb's letter to Shah Jahan in Persian in which he has unintentionally revealed the true identity of the Taj Mahal as a Hindu Temple-Palace.

Proofs follow below:
Name 1.The term Tajmahal itself never occurs in any mogul court paper or chronicle even in Aurangzeb's time. The attempt to explain it away as Taj-i-mahal is therefore, ridiculous.
2.The ending "Mahal" is never muslim because in none of the muslim countries around the world from Afghanistan to Algeria is there a building known as "Mahal".
3.The unusual explanation of the term Tajmahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in it, is illogical in at least two respects viz., firstly her name was never Mumtaj Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and secondly one cannot omit the first three letters "Mum" from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name of the building.
4.Since the lady's name was Mumtaz (ending with 'Z') the name of the building derived from her should have been Taz Mahal, if at all, and not Taj (spelled with a 'J').
5.Several European visitors of Shahjahan's time allude to the building as Taj-e-Mahal is almost the correct tradition, age old Sanskrit name Tej-o-Mahalaya, signifying a Shiva temple. Contrarily Shahjahan and Aurangzeb scrupulously avoid using the Sanskrit term and call it just a holy grave.
6.The tomb should be understood to signify Not A Building but only the grave or centotaph inside it. This would help people to realize that all dead muslim courtiers and royalty including Humayun, Akbar, Mumtaz, Etmad-ud-Daula and Safdarjang have been buried in capture Hindu mansions and temples.
7.Moreover, if the Taj is believed to be a burial place, how can the term Mahal, i.e., mansion apply to it?
8.Since the term Taj Mahal does not occur in mogul courts it is absurd to search for any mogul explanation for it. Both its components namely, 'Taj' and' Mahal' are of Sanskrit origin.
Temple Tradition
9. The term Taj Mahal is a corrupt form of the sanskrit term Tejo Mahalay signifying a Shiva Temple. Agreshwar Mahadev i.e., The Lord of Agra was consecrated in it.
10.The tradition of removing the shoes before climbing the marble platform originates from pre Shahjahan times when the Taj was a Shiva Temple. Had the Taj originated as a tomb, shoes need not have to be removed because shoes are a necessity in a cemetery.
11.Visitors may notice that the base slab of the centotaph is the marble basement in plain white while its superstructure and the other three centotaphs on the two floors are covered with inlaid creeper designs. This indicates that the marble pedestal of the Shiva idol is still in place and Mumtaz's centotaphs are fake.
12.The pitchers carved inside the upper border of the marble lattice plus those mounted on it number 108-a number sacred in Hindu Temple tradition.
13.There are persons who are connected with the repair and the maintainance of the Taj who have seen the ancient sacred Shiva Linga and other idols sealed in the thick walls and in chambers in the secret, sealed red stone stories below the marble basement. The Archaeological Survey of India is keeping discretely, politely and diplomatically silent about it to the point of dereliction of its own duty to probe into hidden historical evidence.
14.In India there are 12 Jyotirlingas i.e., the outstanding Shiva Temples. The Tejomahalaya alias The Tajmahal appears to be one of them known as Nagnatheshwar since its parapet is girdled with Naga, i.e., Cobra figures. Ever since Shahjahan's capture of it the sacred temple has lost its Hindudom.
15.The famous Hindu treatise on architecture titled Vishwakarma Vastushastra mentions the Tej-Linga amongst the Shivalingas i.e., the stone emblems of Lord Shiva, the Hindu deity. Such a Tej Linga was consecrated in the Taj Mahal, hence the term Taj Mahal alias Tejo Mahalaya.
16.Agra city, in which the Taj Mahal is located, is an ancient centre of Shiva worship. Its orthodox residents have through ages continued the tradition of worshipping at five Shiva shrines before taking the last meal every night especially during the month of Shravan. During the last few centuries the residents of Agra had to be content with worshipping at only four prominent Shiva temples viz., Balkeshwar, Prithvinath, Manakameshwar and Rajarajeshwar. They had lost track of the fifth Shiva deity which their forefathers worshipped. Apparently the fifth was Agreshwar Mahadev Nagnatheshwar i.e., The Lord Great God of Agra, The Deity of the King of Cobras, consecrated in the Tejomahalay alias Tajmahal.
17.The people who dominate the Agra region are Jats. Their name of Shiva is Tejaji. The Jat special issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India (June 28,1971) mentions that the Jats have the Teja Mandirs i.e., Teja Temples. This is because Teja-Linga is among the several names of the Shiva Lingas. From this it is apparent that the Taj-Mahal is Tejo-Mahalaya, The Great Abode of Tej.
Documentary Evidence
18.Shahjahan's own court chronicle, the Badshahnama, admits (page 403, vol 1) that a grand mansion of unique splendor, capped with a dome (Imaarat-a-Alishan wa Gumbaze) was taken from the Jaipur Maharaja Jaisigh for Mumtaz's burial, and the building was known as Raja Mansingh's palace.
19. The plaque put the archealogy department outside the Tajmahal describes the edifice as a mausoleum built by Shahjahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, over 22 years from 1631 to 1653 That plaque is a specimen of historical bungling. Firstly, the plaque sites no authority for its claim. Secondly the lady's name was Mumtaz-ulZamani and not Mumtazmahal. Thirdly, the period of 22 years is taken from some mumbo jumbo noting by an unreliable French visitor Tavernier, to the exclusion of all muslim versions, which is an absurdity.
20. Prince Aurangzeb's letter to his father, emperor Shahjahan, is recorded in atleast three chronicles titled Aadaab-e-Alamgiri, Yadgarnama, and the Muruqqa-i-Akbarabadi. In that letter Aurangzeb records in 1652 A.D itself that the several buildings in the fancied burial place of Mumtaz were seven storeyed and were so old that they were all leaking, while the dome had developed a crack on the northern side. Aurangzeb, therefore, ordered immediate repairs to the buildings at his own expense while recommending to the emperor that more elaborate repairs be carried out later. This is the proof that during Shahjahan's reign itself that the Taj complex was so old as to need immediate repairs.
21. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur retains in his secret personal KapadDwara collection two orders from Shahjahan dated Dec 18, 1633 (bearing modern nos. R.176 and 177) requestioning the Taj building complex. That was so blatant a usurpation that the then ruler of Jaipur was ashamed to make the document public.
22. The Rajasthan State archives at Bikaner preserve three other firmans addressed by Shahjahan to the Jaipur's ruler Jaisingh ordering the latter to supply marble (for Mumtaz's grave and koranic grafts) from his Makranna quarris, and stone cutters.
Jaisingh was apparently so enraged at the blatant seizure of the Tajmahal that he refused to oblige Shahjahan by providing marble for grafting koranic engravings and fake centotaphs for further desecration of the Tajmahal. Jaisingh looked at Shahjahan's demand for marble and stone cutters, as an insult added to injury. Therefore, he refused to send any marble and instead detained the stone cutters in his protective custody.
23. The three firmans demanding marble were sent to Jaisingh within about two years of Mumtaz's death. Had Shahjahan really built the Tajmahal over a period of 22 years, the marble would have been needed only after 15 or 20 years not immediately after Mumtaz's death.
24. Moreover, the three mention neither the Tajmahal, nor Mumtaz, nor the burial. The cost and the quantity of the stone also are not mentioned. This proves that an insignificant quantity of marble was needed just for some supercial tinkering and tampering with the Tajmahal. Even otherwise Shahjahan could never hope to build a fabulous Tajmahal by abject dependence for marble on a non cooperative Jaisingh.
European Visitor's Accounts
25. Tavernier, a French jeweller has recorded in his travel memoirs that Shahjahan purposely buried Mumtaz near the Taz-i-Makan (i.e.,`The Taj building') where foriegners used to come as they do even today so that the world may admire. He also adds that the cost of the scaffolding was more than that of the entire work.
The work that Shahjahan commissioned in the Tejomahalaya Shiva temple was plundering at the costly fixtures inside it, uprooting the Shiva idols, planting the centotaphs in their place on two stories, inscribing the koran along the arches and walling up six of the seven stories of the Taj. It was this plunder, desecrating and plunderring of the rooms which took 22 years.
26. Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra recorded in 1632 (within only a year of Mumtaz's death) that `the places of note in and around Agra, included Taj-e-Mahal's tomb, gardens and bazaars'. He, therefore, confirms that that the Tajmahal had been a noteworthy building even before Shahjahan.
27. De Laet, a Dutch official has listed Mansingh's palace about a mile from Agra fort, as an outstanding building of pre shahjahan's time. Shahjahan's court chronicle, the Badshahnama records, Mumtaz's burial in the same Mansingh's palace.
28. Bernier, a contemporary French visitor has noted that non muslim's were barred entry into the basement (at the time when Shahjahan requisitioned Mansingh's palace) which contained a dazzling light. Obviously, he reffered to the silver doors, gold railing, the gem studded lattice and strings of pearl hanging over Shiva's idol. Shahjahan comandeered the building to grab all the wealth, making Mumtaz's death a convineant pretext.
29. Johan Albert Mandelslo, who describes life in agra in 1638 (only 7 years after mumtaz's death) in detail (in his Voyages and Travels to West-Indies, published by John Starkey and John Basset, London), makes no mention of the Tajmahal being under constuction though it is commonly erringly asserted or assumed that the Taj was being built from 1631 to 1653.
Sanskrit Inscription
30. A Sanskrit inscription too supports the conclusion that the Taj originated as a Shiva temple. Wrongly termed as the Bateshwar inscription (currently preserved on the top floor of the Lucknow museum), it refers to the raising of a "crystal white Shiva temple so alluring that Lord Shiva once enshrined in it decided never to return to Mount Kailash his usual abode".
That inscription dated 1155 A.D. was removed from the Tajmahal garden at Shahjahan's orders. Historicians and Archeaologists have blundered in terming the insription the Bateshwar inscription when the record doesn't say that it was found by Bateshwar. It ought, in fact, to be called The Tejomahalaya inscription because it was originally installed in the Taj garden before it was uprooted and cast away at Shahjahan's command. A clue to the tampering by Shahjahan is found on pages 216-217, vol. 4, of Archealogiical Survey of India Reports (published 1874) stating that a "great square black balistic pillar which, with the base and capital of another pillar....now in the grounds of Agra, ...it is well known, once stood in the garden of Tajmahal".
Missing Elephants
31. Far from the building of the Taj, Shahjahan disfigured it with black koranic lettering and heavily robbed it of its Sanskrit inscription, several idols and two huge stone elephants extending their trunks in a welcome arch over the gateway where visitors these days buy entry tickets.
An Englishman, Thomas Twinning, records (pg.191 of his book "Travels in India A Hundred Years ago") that in November 1794 "I arrived at the high walls which enclose the Taj-e-Mahal and its circumjacent buildings. I here got out of the palanquine and.....mounted a short flight of steps leading to a beautiful portal which formed the centre of this side of the Court Of Elephants as the great area was called."
Koranic Patches
32. The Taj Mahal is scrawled over with 14 chapters of the Koran but nowhere is there even the slightest or the remotest allusion in that Islamic overwriting to Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj. Had Shahjahan been the builder he would have said so in so many words before beginning to quote Koran.
33. That Shahjahan, far from building the marble Taj, only disfigured it with black lettering is mentioned by the inscriber Amanat Khan Shirazi himself in an inscription on the building. A close scrutiny of the Koranic lettering reveals that they are grafts patched up with bits of variegated stone on an ancient Shiva temple.
Carbon 14 Test
34. A wooden piece from the riverside doorway of the Taj subjected to the carbon 14 test by an American Laboratory and initiated by Professors at Pratt School of Architecture, New York, has revealed that the door to be 300 years older than Shahjahan,since the doors of the Taj, broken open by Muslim invaders repeatedly from the 11th century onwards, had to b replaced from time to time.
The Taj edifice is much more older. It belongs to 1155 A.D, i.e., almost 500 years anterior to Shahjahan.
Architectural Evidence
35. Well known Western authorities on architechture like E.B.Havell, Mrs.Kenoyer and Sir W.W.Hunterhave gone on record to say that the TajMahal is built in the Hindu temple style.
Havell points out the ground plan of the ancient Hindu Chandi Seva Temple in Java is identical with that of the Taj.
36. A central dome with cupolas at its four corners is a universal feature of Hindu temples.
37. The four marble pillars at the plinth corners are of the Hindu style. They are used as lamp towers during night and watch towers during the day. Such towers serve to demarcate the holy precincts. Hindu wedding altars and the altar set up for God Satyanarayan worship have pillars raised at the four corners.
38. The octagonal shape of the Tajmahal has a special Hindu significance because Hindus alone have special names for the eight directions, and celestial guards assigned to them.
The pinnacle points to the heaven while the foundation signifies to the nether world. Hindu forts, cities, palaces and temples genrally have an octagonal layout or some octagonal features so that together with the pinnacle and the foundation they cover all the ten directions in which the king or God holds sway, according to Hindu belief.
39. The Tajmahal has a trident pinncle over the dome. A full scale of the trident pinnacle is inlaid in the red stone courtyard to the east of the Taj.
The central shaft of the trident depicts a Kalash (sacred pot) holding two bent mango leaves and a coconut. This is a sacred Hindu motif. Identical pinnacles have been seen over Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Himalayan region.
Tridents are also depicted against a red lotus background at the apex of the stately marble arched entrances on all four sides of the Taj. People fondly but mistakenly believed all these centuries that the Taj pinnacle depicts a Islamic cresent and star was a lighting conductor installed by the British rulers in India.
Contrarily, the pinnacle is a marvel of Hindu metallurgy since the pinnacle made of non rusting alloy, is also perhaps a lightning deflector. That the pinnacle of the replica is drawn in the eastern courtyard is significant because the east is of special importance to the Hindus, as the direction in which the sun rises. The pinnacle on the dome has the word `Allah' on it after capture.
The pinnacle figure on the ground does not have the word Allah.
Inconsistencies
40. The two buildings which face the marble Taj from the east and west are identical in design, size and shape and yet the eastern building is explained away by Islamic tradition, as a community hall while the western building is claimed to be a mosque. How could buildings meant for radically different purposes be identical? This proves that the western building was put to use as a mosque after seizure of the Taj property by Shahjahan.
Curiously enough the building being explained away as a mosque has no minaret. They form a pair af reception pavilions of the Tejomahalaya temple palace.
41. A few yards away from the same flank is the Nakkar Khana alias DrumHouse which is a intolerable incongruity for Islam. The proximity of the Drum House indicates that the western annex was not originally a mosque.
Contrarily a drum house is a neccesity in a Hindu temple or palace because Hindu chores,in the morning and evening, begin to the sweet strains of music.
42. The embossed patterns on the marble exterior of the centotaph chamber wall are foilage of the conch shell design and the Hindu letter OM. The octagonally laid marble lattices inside the centotaph chamber depict pink lotuses on their top railing. The Lotus, the conch and the OM are the sacred motifs associated with the Hindu deities and temples.
43. The spot occupied by Mumtaz's centotaph was formerly occupied by the Hindu Teja Linga a lithic representation of Lord Shiva. Around it are five perambulatory passages. Perambulation could be done around the marble lattice or through the spacious marble chambers surrounding the centotaph chamber, and in the open over the marble platform. It is also customary for the Hindus to have apertures along the perambulatory passage, overlooking the deity. Such apertures exist in the perambulatories in the Tajmahal.
44. The sanctom sanctorum in the Taj has silver doors and gold railings as Hindu temples have. It also had nets of pearl and gems stuffed in the marble lattices. It was the lure of this wealth which made Shahjahan commandeer the Taj from a helpless vassal Jaisingh, the then ruler of Jaipur.
45. Peter Mundy, a Englishman records (in 1632, within a year of Mumtaz's death) having seen a gem studded gold railing around her tomb. Had the Taj been under construction for 22 years, a costly gold railing would not have been noticed by Peter mundy within a year of Mumtaz's death. Such costl fixtures are installed in a building only after it is ready for use. This indicates that Mumtaz's centotaph was grafted in place of the Shivalinga in the centre of the gold railings.
Subsequently the gold railings, silver doors, nets of pearls, gem fillings etc. were all carried away to Shahjahan's treasury. The seizure of the Taj thus constituted an act of highhanded Moghul robbery causing a big row between Shahjahan and Jaisingh.
46. In the marble flooring around Mumtaz's centotaph may be seen tiny mosaic patches. Those patches indicate the spots where the support for the gold railings were embedded in the floor. They indicate a rectangular fencing.
47. Above Mumtaz's centotaph hangs a chain by which now hangs a lamp. Before capture by Shahjahan the chain used to hold a water pitcher from which water used to drip on the Shivalinga.
48. It is this earlier Hindu tradition in the Tajmahal which gave the Islamic myth of Shahjahan's love tear dropping on Mumtaz's tomb on the full moon day of the winter eve.
Treasury Well
49. Between the so-called mosque and the drum house is a multistoried octagonal well with a flight of stairs reaching down to the water level. This is a traditional treasury well in Hindu temple palaces. Treasure chests used to be kept in the lower apartments while treasury personnel had their offices in the upper chambers.
The circular stairs made it difficult for intruders to reach down to the treasury or to escape with it undetected or unpursued. In case the premises had to be surrendered to a besieging enemy the treasure could be pushed into the well to remain hidden from the conquerer and remain safe for salvaging if the place was reconquered. Such an elaborate multistoried well is superflous for a mere mausoleum. Such a grand, gigantic well is unneccesary for a tomb.
Burial Date Unknown
50. Had Shahjahan really built the Taj Mahal as a wonder mausoleum, history would have recorded a specific date on which she was ceremoniously buried in the Taj Mahal. No such date is ever mentioned. This important missing detail decisively exposes the falsity of the Tajmahal legend.
51. Even the year of Mumtaz's death is unknown. It is variously speculated to be 1629, 1630, 1631 or 1632. Had she deserved a fabulous burial, as is claimed, the date of her death had not been a matter of much speculation.
In an harem teeming with 5000 women it was difficult to keep track of dates of death. Apparently the date of Mumtaz's death was so insignificant an event, as not to merit any special notice. Who would then build a Taj for her burial?
Baseless Love Stories
52. Stories of Shahjahan's exclusive infatuation for Mumtaz's are concoctions. They have no basis in history nor has any book ever written on their fancied love affairs. Those stories have been invented as an afterthought to make Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj look plausible.
Cost
53. The cost of the Taj is nowhere recorded in Shahjahan's court papers because Shahjahan never built the Tajmahal. That is why wild estimates of the cost by gullible writers have ranged from 4 million to 91.7 million rupees.
Period Of Construction
54. Likewise the period of construction has been guessed to be anywhere between 10 years and 22 years. There would have not been any scope for guesswork had the building construction been on record in the court papers.
Architects
55. The designer of the Tajmahal is also variously mentioned as Essa Effendy, a Persian or Turk, or Ahmed Mehendis or a Frenchman, Austin deBordeaux, or Geronimo Veroneo, an Italian, or Shahjahan himself.
Records Don't Exist
56. Twenty thousand labourers are supposed to have worked for 22 years during Shahjahan's reign in building the Tajmahal. Had this been true, there should have been available in Shahjahan's court papers design drawings, heaps of labour muster rolls, daily expenditure sheets, bills and receipts of material ordered, and commisioning orders. There is not even a scrap of paper of this kind.
57. It is, therefore, court flatterers, blundering historians, somnolent archeologists, fiction writers, senile poets, careless tourists officials and erring guides who are responsible for hustling the world into believing in Shahjahan's mythical authorship of the Taj.
58. Description of the gardens around the Taj of Shahjahan's time mention Ketaki, Jai, Jui, Champa, Maulashree, Harshringar and Bel. All these are plants whose flowers or leaves are used in the worship of Hindu deities. Bel leaves are exclusively used in Lord Shiva's worship. A graveyard is planted only with shady trees because the idea of using fruit and flower from plants in a cemetary is abhorrent to human conscience.
The presence of Bel and other flower plants in the Taj garden is proof of its having been a Shiva temple before seizure by Shahjahan.
59. Hindu temples are often built on river banks and sea beaches. The Taj is one such built on the bank of the Yamuna river an ideal location for a Shiva temple.
60. Prophet Mohammad has ordained that the burial spot of a muslim should be inconspicous and must not be marked by even a single tombstone. In flagrant violation of this, the Tajamhal has one grave in the basement and another in the first floor chamber both ascribed to Mumtaz.
Those two centotaphs were infact erected by Shahjahan to bury the two tier Shivalingas that were consecrated in the Taj. It is customary for Hindus to install two Shivalingas one over the other in two stories as may be seen in the Mahankaleshwar temple in Ujjain and the Somnath temple raised by Ahilyabai in Somnath Pattan.
61. The Tajmahal has identical entrance arches on all four sides. This is a typical Hindu building style known as Chaturmukhi, i.e.,four faced.
The Hindu Dome
62. The Tajmahal has a reverberating dome. Such a dome is an absurdity for a tomb which must ensure peace and silence.
Contrarily reverberating domes are a neccesity in Hindu temples because they create an ecstatic dinmultiplying and magnifying the sound of bells, drums and pipes accompanying the worship of Hindu deities.
63. The Tajmahal dome bears a lotus cap. Original Islamic domes have a bald top as is exemplified by the Pakistan Embassy in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and the domes in the Pakistan's newly built capital Islamabad.
64. The Tajmahal entrance faces south. Had the Taj been an Islamic building it should have faced the west.
Tomb is the Grave, not the Building
65. A widespread misunderstanding has resulted in mistaking the building for the grave.Invading Islam raised graves in captured buildings in every country it overran. Therefore, hereafter people must learn not to confound the building with the grave mounds which are grafts in conquered buildings. This is true of the Tajmahal too. One may therefore admit (for arguments sake) that Mumtaz lies buried inside the Taj. But that should not be construed to mean that the Taj was raised over Mumtaz's grave.
66. The Taj is a seven storied building. Prince Aurangzeb also mentions this in his letter to Shahjahan The marble edifice comprises four stories including the lone, tall circular hall inside the top, and the lone chamber in the basement. In between are two floors each containing 12 to 15 palatial rooms.
Below the marble plinth reaching down to the river at the rear are two more stories in red stone. They may be seen from the river bank. The seventh storey must be below the ground (river) level since every ancient Hindu building had a subterranian storey.
67. Immediately bellow the marble plinth on the river flank are 22 rooms in red stone with their ventilators all walled up by Shahjahan. Those rooms, made uninhibitably by Shahjahan, are kept locked by Archealogy Department of India. The lay visitor is kept in the dark about them. Those 22 rooms still bear ancient Hindu paint on their walls and ceilings. On their side is a nearly 33 feet long corridor. There are two door frames one at either end ofthe corridor. But those doors are intriguingly sealed with brick and lime.
68. Apparently those doorways originally sealed by Shahjahan have been since unsealed and again walled up several times. In 1934 a resident of Delhi took a peep inside from an opening in the upper part of the doorway. To his dismay he saw huge hall inside.
It contained many statues huddled around a central beheaded image of Lord Shiva. It could be that, in there, are Sanskrit inscriptions too. All the seven stories of the Tajmahal need to be unsealed and scoured to ascertain what evidence they may be hiding in the form of Hindu images, Sanskrit inscriptions, scriptures, coins and utensils.
69. Apart from Hindu images hidden in the sealed stories it is also learnt that Hindu images are also stored in the massive walls of the Taj. Between 1959 and 1962 when Mr. S.R. Rao was the Archealogical Superintendent in Agra, he happened to notice a deep and wide crack in the wall of the central octagonal chamber of the Taj. When a part of the wall was dismantled to study the crack out popped two or three marble images. The matter was hushed up and the images were reburied where they had been embedded at Shahjahan's behest. Confirmation of this has been obtained from several sources. It was only when I began my investigation into the antecedents of the Taj I came across the above information which had remained a forgotten secret. What better proof is needed of the Temple origin of the Tajmahal? Its walls and sealed chambers still hide in Hindu idols that were consecrated in it before Shahjahan's seizure of the Taj.
Pre-Shahjahan References to the Taj
70. Apparently the Taj as a central palace seems to have an chequered history. The Taj was perhaps desecrated and looted by every Muslim invader from Mohammad Ghazni onwards but passing into Hindu hands off and on, the sanctity of the Taj as a Shiva temple continued to be revived after every muslim onslaught. Shahjahan was the last muslim to desecrate the Tajmahal alias Tejomahalay.
71. Vincent Smith records in his book titled `Akbar the Great Moghul' that `Babur's turbulent life came to an end in his garden palace in Agra in 1630'. That palace was none other than the Tajmahal.
72. Babur's daughter Gulbadan Begum in her chronicle titled Humayun Nama refers to the Taj as the Mystic House.
73. Babur himself refers to the Taj in his memoirs as the palace captured by Ibrahim Lodi containing a central octagonal chamber and having pillars on the four sides. All these historical references allude to the Taj 100 years before Shahjahan.
74. The Tajmahal precincts extend to several hundred yards in all directions. Across the river are ruins of the annexes of the Taj, the bathing ghats and a jetty for the ferry boat. In the Victoria gardens outside covered with creepers is the long spur of the ancient outer wall ending in a octagonal red stone tower. Such extensive grounds all magnificently done up, are a superfluity for a grave.
75. Had the Taj been specially built to bury Mumtaz, it should not have been cluttered with other graves. But the Taj premises contain several graves at least in its eastern and southern pavilions.
76. In the southern flank, on the other side of the Tajganj gate are buried in identical pavilions queens Sarhandi Begum, and Fatehpuri Begum and a maid Satunnisa Khanum. Such parity burial can be justified only if the queens had been demoted or the maid promoted.
But since Shahjahan had commandeered (not built) the Taj, he reduced it general to a muslim cemetary as was the habit of all his Islamic predeccssors, and buried a queen in a vacant pavillion and a maid in another idenitcal pavilion.
77. Shahjahan was married to several other women before and after Mumtaz. She, therefore, deserved no special consideration in having a wonder mausoleum built for her.
78. Mumtaz was a commoner by birth and so she did not qualify for a fairyland burial.
79. Mumtaz died in Burhanpur which is about 600 miles from Agra. Her grave there is intact. Therefore, the centotaphs raised in stories of the Taj in her name seem to be fakes hiding in Hindu Shiva emblems.
80. Shahjahan seems to have simulated Mumtaz's burial in Agra to find a pretext to surround the temple palace with his fierce and fanatic troops and remove all the costly fixtures in his treasury. This finds confirmation in the vague noting in the Badshahnama which says that the Mumtaz's (exhumed) body was brought to Agra from Burhanpur and buried `next year'. An official term would not use a nebulous term unless it is to hide some thing.
81. A pertinent consideration is that a Shahjahan who did not build any palaces for Mumtaz while she was alive, would not build a fabulous mausoleum for a corpse which was no longer kicking or clicking.
82. Another factor is that Mumtaz died within two or three years of Shahjahan becoming an emperor. Could he amass so much superflous wealth in that short span as to squander it on a wonder mausoleum?
83. While Shahjahan's special attachment to Mumtaz is nowhere recorded in history his amorous affairs with many other ladies from maids to mannequins including his own daughter Jahanara, find special attention in accounts of Shahjahan's reign. Would Shahjahan shower his hard earned wealth on Mumtaz's corpse?
84. Shahjahan was a stingy, usurious monarch. He came to throne murdering all his rivals. He was not therefore, the doting spendthrift that he is made out to be.
85. A Shahjahan disconsolate on Mumtaz's death is suddenly credited with a resolve to build the Taj. This is a psychological incongruity. Grief is a disabling, incapacitating emotion.
86. A infatuated Shahjahan is supposed to have raised the Taj over the dead Mumtaz, but carnal, physical sexual love is again a incapacitating emotion. A womaniser is ipso facto incapable of any constructive activity. When carnal love becomes uncontrollable the person either murders somebody or commits suicide. He cannot raise a Tajmahal. A building like the Taj invariably originates in an ennobling emotion like devotion to God, to one's mother and mother country or power and glory.
87. Early in the year 1973, chance digging in the garden in front of the Taj revealed another set of fountains about six feet below the present fountains. This proved two things. Firstly, the subterranean fountains were there before Shahjahan laid the surface fountains. And secondly that those fountains are aligned to the Taj that edifice too is of pre Shahjahan origin. Apparently the garden and its fountains had sunk from annual monsoon flooding and lack of maintenance for centuries during the Islamic rule.
88. The stately rooms on the upper floor of the Tajmahal have been striped of their marble mosaic by Shahjahan to obtain matching marble for raising fake tomb stones inside the Taj premises at several places. Contrasting with the rich finished marble ground floor rooms the striping of the marble mosaic covering the lower half of the walls and flooring of the upper storey have given those rooms a naked, robbed look.
Since no visitors are allowed entry to the upper storey this despoilation by Shahjahan has remained a well guarded secret. There is no reason why Shahjahan's loot of the upper floor marble should continue to be hidden from the public even after 200 years of termination of Moghul rule.
89. Bernier, the French traveller has recorded that no non muslim was allowed entry into the secret nether chambers of the Taj because there are some dazzling fixtures there. Had those been installed by Shahjahan they should have been shown the public as a matter of pride.
But since it was commandeered Hindu wealth which Shahjahan wanted to remove to his treasury, he didn't want the public to know about it.
90. The approach to Taj is dotted with hillocks raised with earth dugout from foundation trenches. The hillocks served as outer defences of the Taj building complex. Raising such hillocks from foundation earth, is a common Hindu device of hoary origin. Nearby Bharatpur provides a graphic parallel. Peter Mundy has recorded that Shahjahan employed thousands of labourers to level some of those hillocks. This is a graphic proof of the Tajmahal existing before Shahjahan.
91. At the back of the river bank is a Hindu crematorium, several palaces, Shiva temples and bathings of ancient origin. Had Shahjahan built the Tajmahal, he would have destroyed the Hindu features.
92. The story that Shahjahan wanted to build a Black marble Taj across the river, is another motivated myth. The ruins dotting the other side of the river are those of Hindu structures demolished during muslim invasions and not the plinth of another Tajmahal.
Shahjahan who did not even build the white Tajmahal would hardly ever think of building a black marble Taj. He was so miserly that he forced labourers to work gratis even in the superficial tampering neccesary to make a Hindu temple serve as a Muslim tomb.
93. The marble that Shahjahan used for grafting Koranic lettering in the Taj is of a pale white shade while the rest of the Taj is built of a marble with rich yellow tint. This disparity is proof of the Koranic extracts being a superimposition.
94. Though imaginative attempts have been made by some historians to foist some fictitious name on history as the designer of the Taj others more imaginative have credited Shajahan himself with superb architechtural proficiency and artistic talent which could easily concieve and plan the Taj even in acute bereavment. Such people betray gross ignorance of history in as much as Shajahan was a cruel tyrant ,a great womaniser and a drug and drink addict.
95. Fanciful accounts about Shahjahan commisioning the Taj are all confused. Some asserted that Shahjahan ordered building drawing from all over the world and chose one from among them. Others assert that a man at hand was ordered to design a mausoleum amd his design was approved.
Had any of those versions been true Shahjahan's court papers should have had thousands of drawings concerning the Taj. But there is not even a single drawing. This is yet another clinching proof that Shahjahan did not commision the Taj.
96. The Tajmahal is surrounded by huge mansions which indicate that several battles have been waged around the Taj several times.
97. At the south east corner of the Taj is an ancient royal cattle house. Cows attached to the Tejomahalay temple used to reared there. A cowshed is an incongruity in an Islamic tomb.
98. Over the western flank of the Taj are several stately red stone annexes. These are superflous for a mausoleum.
99. The entire Taj complex comprises of 400 to 500 rooms. Residential accomodation on such a stupendous scale is unthinkable in a mausoleum.
100. The neighbouring Tajganj township's massive protective wall also encloses the Tajmahal temple palace complex. This is a clear indication that the Tejomahalay temple palace was part and parcel of the township. A street of that township leads straight into the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate is aligned in a perfect straight line to the octagonal red stone garden gate and the stately entrance arch of the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate besides being central to the Taj temple complex, is also put on a pedestal. The western gate by which the visitors enter the Taj complex is a camparatively minor gateway. It has become the entry gate for most visitors today because the railway station and the bus station are on that side.
101. The Tajmahal has pleasure pavillions which a tomb would never have.
102. A tiny mirror glass in a gallery of the Red Fort in Agra reflects the Taj mahal. Shahjahan is said to have spent his last eight years of life as a prisoner in that gallery peering at the reflected Tajmahal and sighing in the name of Mumtaz.
This myth is a blend of many falsehoods. Firstly, old Shajahan was held prisoner by his son Aurangzeb in the basement storey in the Fort and not in an open, fashionable upper storey. Secondly, the glass piece was fixed in the 1930's by Insha Allah Khan, a peon of the archaelogy dept.just to illustrate to the visitors how in ancient times the entire apartment used to scintillate with tiny mirror pieces reflecting the Tejomahalay temple a thousand fold. Thirdly, a old decrepit Shahjahan with pain in his joints and cataract in his eyes, would not spend his day craning his neck at an awkward angle to peer into a tiny glass piece with bedimmed eyesight when he could as well his face around and have full, direct view of the Tjamahal itself.
But the general public is so gullible as to gulp all such prattle of wily, unscrupulous guides.
103. That the Tajmahal dome has hundreds of iron rings sticking out of its exterior is a feature rarely noticed. These are made to hold Hindu earthen oil lamps for temple illumination.
104. Those putting implicit faith in Shahjahan authorship of the Taj have been imagining Shahjahan-Mumtaz to be a soft hearted romantic pair like Romeo and Juliet. But contemporary accounts speak of Shahjahan as a hard hearted ruler who was constantly egged on to acts of tyranny and cruelty, by Mumtaz.
105. School and College history carry the myth that Shahjahan reign was a golden period in which there was peace and plenty and that Shahjahan commisioned many buildings and patronized literature. This is pure fabrication. Shahjahan did not commision even a single building as we have illustrated by a detailed analysis of the Tajmahal legend. Shahjahn had to enrage in 48 military campaigns during a reign of nearly 30 years which proves that his was not a era of peace and plenty.
106. The interior of the dome rising over Mumtaz's centotaph has a representation of Sun and cobras drawn in gold. Hindu warriors trace their origin to the Sun. For an Islamic mausoleum the Sun is redundant. Cobras are always associated with Lord Shiva.
Forged Documents
107. The muslim caretakers of the tomb in the Tajmahal used to possess a document which they styled as Tarikh-i-Tajmahal. Historian H.G. Keene has branded it as a document of doubtful authenticity. Keene was uncannily right since we have seen that Shahjahan not being the creator of the Tajmahal any document which credits Shahjahn with the Tajmahal, must be an outright forgery. Even that forged document is reported to have been smuggled out of Pakistan. Besides such forged documents there are whole chronicles on the Taj which are pure concoctions.
108. There is lot of sophistry and casuistry or atleast confused thinking associated with the Taj even in the minds of proffesional historians, archaelogists and architects. At the outset they assert that the Taj is entirely Muslim in design.
But when it is pointed out that its lotus capped dome and the four corner pillars etc. are all entirely Hindu those worthies shift ground and argue that that was probably because the workmen were Hindu and were to introduce their own patterns. Both these arguments are wrong because Muslim accounts claim the designers to be Muslim, and the workers invariably carry out the employer's dictates. The Taj is only a typical illustration of how all historic buildings and townships from Kashmir to Cape Comorin though of Hindu origin have been ascribed to this or that Muslim ruler or courtier.
It is hoped that people the world over who study Indian history will awaken to this new finding and revise their erstwhile beliefs.
(Note: This article is reproduced from the Internet)