An example from Karnataka
This paper intends to examine the case
of 12th century Karnataka Bhakthi movement as an illustration
of the way in which Bhakti tradition contributes to social justice. In
the following, I shall elaborate the meaning and implications of the concept of
social justice and present a brief account of the Vachana version of the Bhakti movement.
While in some form or other, social justice
has been at the heart of modern sociological theory or politics. We need not go
into the complex historical developments which together pushed the concept in
to the center of sociological attention and focus. Suffice it here to note that
the historical fact of systematic decolonization of most of the non-western
world- leading to its political independence raised the issue of social justice
as a central issue in politics, literature and indeed in the social
science as a whole. Theoretical discussions and formulations reflected the
concern for the practical problems of social justice in modern societies. As a
consequence, the concept came to be mixed up with political realities of our
time complicated by the near end of political imperialism in the non-western
world.
One important consequence of this
situation was that social justice became historically tied to the process of
development which had brought the modern west into existence over a period of
centuries since Renaissance. We may name this as the ethnocentric phase in the
development of the concept of social justice. In this early phase, much
theoretical energy was spent in constructing patterns, sequences and structural
functional models of social justice, all equating uncritically western historical
development as the only pattern of social justice. In terms of theory,
this exclusive concentration on a narrow historical experience led to a
dichotomous frame in which traditional judiciary system and modern system were
cast in polar roles. The traditional judiciary was conceptualized simply in
negative relation to what was a modern judiciary. The model presumed in this
frame work was that of a highly urbanized, industrial society run economically
on the lines of a capitalistic system of competitive free enterprise,
characterized sociologically by increasing individualism leading to dissolution
of traditional structures and characterized politically by the nation state. In
this conception of justice it was clear that the country like India was doomed
never to catch up with the west, since there remained an eternal gap between
the west and east. Therefore we have to work with the concept of justice as a
process by which any society at any time transforms itself structurally and
functionally to realize the values of Individual freedom, equality,
rationality, and community. Further we must hold that social justice can
not take place unless all the four values are co-present in some proportion.
Bhakti movements in India:
Before considering the vachana movement
in some detail, it is better to have a brief general account of Bhakti
movements in India. A careful consideration of the Bhakti movements in
general shows that they tend to get organized and function with in the existing
socio-cultural order. In the Tamil linguistic region it emerged as far back as
the sixth century, and continued for the next three and half centuries. It was
carried on in the Shaiva represented by the Nayanar saints.
Their modality of action was temple building and Sanskritization, and
among their positive achievements was the creation of a Tamil linguistic
cultural consciousness cutting across political divisions. But such popular consciousness was neutralized and comprised since the
movement was essentially geared not to eliminating the Hindu Brahminical
system but to making it more workable and acceptable to the discontented
masses. The movement was also mystifying in the sense that it diverted ordinary
people’s actions and consciousness from their mundane lives and problems
through emotional outbursts of personal devotion to God. These movements
therefore could be integrated easily into the mainstream elitist Sanskritic,
Brahminical Hinduism. These comments apply equally to the Vaishnava
bhakti movement and to the Dasa in Karnataka, who also attempted to
renovate, and streamline Brahminical Hinduism to make it acceptable to
the masses who were groaning under the inequalities of the caste order. The
saint poets of Maharashtra in the period from the thirteenth to the
sixteenth centuries, while more vocally universalistic and egalitarian were not
ready for any organized confrontation with the establishment. The much
discussed Warkari saints were more socially oriented, but this
orientation had the objectives of making religion easier to practice socially.
In the north the outstanding case of Kabir shows that the movement as in
the south and in Maharashtra had egalitarian and humanistic aspirations.
This frame work was continued in Nanak, Dadu Dayal and others. The
examples of poets like Surdas and Tulasidas is very significant
because it illustrates the unresolved contradiction in the Bhakthi
movement in general between a rejection of caste inequality at the level
of an intensified bhakti mode of religious action and the acceptance of
the hierarchy in other secular contexts.
The vachana and Dasa Movements:
While there is some controversy about
whether Basavanna and Purandara dasa were was the founders of Vachana and
Dasa movements, or whether they merely
revitalized a pre-existing traditions, there can be no controversy whatever
about the fact that they were the persons who forged it into a well organized
ideologically articulated and mass-based movements in the 12th and 14th
century Karnataka. They all challenged the existing social order and
worked for the new order with more social justice to the lower strata of the
society. Thus the Bhakthi movements were therefore born as a movement that
aimed not at reforming the existing order but at overthrowing it and replacing
it with a new order based on Shaiva bhakthi and Vaishana Bhakti visions of human freedom,
equality, rationality and brotherhood. Most of the writers acted
in the name of a universalistic and humanistic ideology.
Bhakthi model of social justice:
Through an examination of the ideas of vachana
writers and Dasa writers , we can evolve a Bhakthi model of Social justice.
Both ideologically and in its subsequent efforts at institutionalization of its
value, this is very close to our formulation of the concept of modern Judiciary
system. As I said in the beginning of my paper the process of social justice
may be conceptualized best as a process of realizing the values of respecting individuality,
equality rationality and community in any given setting.
Caste:
The society in which the movement was
active was based on the caste-system. This system implied two things- a) there
was a hierarchy of castes in the sense that each caste had its own gradation in
the social structure, b) each caste had its own occupation to pursue and a person
born in to one caste was expected to pursue its particular occupation. In the
social hierarchy the Brahmins were at the top and the untouchables were
at the bottom. Between these came other castes like merchants, agriculturists’,
weavers, potters, and others. The Dalits were not only untouchables but also
invisibles.
It is possible, as we shall show, to
relate Shiva Sharanas ideas, objectives, aspirations and vision to the
modernistic social values. From a sociological point of view, Sharanas rejected a major principle
of social organization underlying the Brahmanical Hindu tradition-the
caste hierarchy. Basavanna, by birth was a Brahmin, asserts-
- The son of the slave in
Cannayya’s house
(Channayya
was an untouchable man)
The
daughter of the maid in Kakkayya’s house
Those
two went to the fields for dung and fell together.
I
am the son born of these two.
Kudalasangama
deva is my witness.
- Our untouchable Chennayya is
father
Drummer
Kakkayya is grand father
Look,
Chikkayya is our father
Kinnari
Bommayya is brother
How
can they not know me?.
She
is a water carrier
My
father is Cannayya
He
carries the king’s weaponry
You
say I have no kin
My
sister cooks at Kanchi
You
say I have no kin
Out
of your hand I received
Kudalasangamadeva
The
devotion my ancestors
Have
generated.
Basavanna demystified Brahmanism by
giving his own examples. He clearly stated- “the birth less has no caste
distinctions, no ritual pollution”. In another place he states that true self
knowledge would dissolve the ignorance that gives to caste distinctions. He
says- “To him who has self understanding, there is but one caste”.
Rooting his rejection of caste in a humanistic ideal of equality, Basavanna
exclaims- “The murderer is an untouchable, the eater of filth is untouchable”.
The equality of man is associated with
his equal right to have access to god. Thus man’s belief in god becomes the
basis of Basavanna’s equalitarianism. Further, the assumption of equality is
related to individuality, since a man should be judged not by the ascriptive
criterion of who he is, but rather by the achievement criterion of what he has
done. Due to this strong commitment for the casteless society, Basavanna was
able to arrange a marriage between an untouchable boy and a Brahamin Girl,
which was termed as viloma Vivaha, completely rejected by the
traditional Hinduism even today, sparkled the fire at 12th century
and burnt few people. How ever Sharans concept of casteless society is
still remained as dream.
Religion:
Sharans rationality based on
there faith in the power of human reason, led them to reject Hindu Brahminical
ritualism and its uncritical adherence to sacred texts such as Vedas. Bsavanna
states-
- ‘Shall I call Shastra great?
It
glorifies Karma
Shall
I call Veda great?
It
enjoys animal sacrifices’
Basavanna some time moves close to a
position which may be termed divine humanism. At other times he moves closer to
what appears to be a different position-naturalistic humanism. In Basavnna’s
thinking, however the two positions stem from the same assumption-that god
creates man but he also creates nature as man’s context.
Basava’s humanistic rationality results
in his outright rejection of supernatural sanction, traditionally formulated in
the concepts of heaven and hell. He advances his position as follows-
- There is no other heaven and
hell
Truth
speaking is heaven, lying hell
Performance
of right conduct, heaven,
Its
non performance hell
In these lines Basavanna maintains that
the natural human world of experience is the only context in which human life
must be lived. It does not need any supernatural point of reference.
Anthropologists like Robert Redfield
and Milton Singer speak of Great and little traditions in Indian civilization,
other pair of terms have been proposed popular/learned, folk/classical,
low/high, parochial/universal, peasant/aristocratic etc. The native Indian
tradition speaks of Marga (classical), and Desi (Folk). The Sharanas
reject not only the great traditions of Vedic religion but the little
traditions as well. They not only scorn the effectiveness of the Vedas as
scripture they reject the little legends of the local gods and goddesses.
Following are two examples which mocks the orthodox rituals and recitations-
- ‘See-saw watermills bow
their heads
So
what?
Do
they get to be devotees?
Or
the master?
The
tongs join hands
So
what?
Can
they be humble in service?
To
the lord
Parrots
recite
So
what
Can
they read lord?
- The sacrificial lamb brought
for the festival
Are up the green leaf
brought for the decorations
Not knowing a thing
about the kill
It wants only to fill
the belly
Born that day to die
that day
But tell me
Did the killers
survive?
O
lord of the meeting rivers
Religions
set apart certain
The general belief is that if you die
in Varanasi, which is an epicenter of Hinduism you will go
straight to heaven. The following vacana represents the contempt of the
saint for all sacred space and sacred times-
No
new moon
No
noonday
Nor equinoxes
Nor full moons
His front yard
Is the true Varanasi
O Ramanatha’
The Sharanas do not believe that
religion is something one is born with or into. An orthodox Hindu believes that
a Hindu is born not made. With such belief there is no place for conversion in
Hinduism. A man born to his caste or faith cannot choose and change, nor can
others change him. But if he believes in acquiring merit only by living and
believing certain things, then there is room for choosing and changing his
beliefs. He can then convert and be converted. If as these Sharanas
believed he also believes that his god is the true god, the only true god, it
becomes imperative to convert the misguided and bring light to the benighted.
Their monotheism lashes out in an atmosphere of animism and polytheism-
About a God who eats
up lacquer and melts
Who wilts when he
sees fire?
How can I feel right?
About Gods you sell
in your need
And Gods you bury for
fear of thieves
Kudalasangamadeva
Self born one with
himself
He alone true god.
The winnowing fan is
a God
The stone in the street
is a God
The comb is a God
The bowstring is also
a God
The bushel is a God
and the
Spouted cup is a God.
Gods Gods there are
so many
There is no place
left for a foot
There is only one god
He is our lord
Kudalasangamadeva
Basava’s rejection of polytheism and
his acceptance of one God should not be seen as inconsistent with his rejection
of the supernatural. The position is a great deal more complicated. What
Basavanna does is to use the doctrine of one god as the basis of human equality
and the bonds of community. Basavanna rejects the Brahmanical Hindu
notion of Karma and rebirth as being outside his frame work of
naturalistic or divine humanism. He holds for instance that the activists
committed to the Sharana movement, the Sharanas, were not bound
to Karma because they had negated it. Basava’s ideology recommends a rigorous
commitment to empirical reality, the here and the now, blocking any escapist
route towards a non existent past or the future. He clearly says-
- Let what is supposed to come
tomorrow,
Come to us today itself
What is supposed to
come today?
Come to us this
moment
Who is afraid of
this? Who is upset by this?
Basavanna’s rejection of the
supernatural order, ritualism and the sacred texts implied a rejection of
priestly class. Following is an excellent vachana-
- The rich will make temples
for Shiva
What
shall I a poor man do?
My
legs are pillars
The
body the shrine
The
head a Kalasha of gold
Listen,
Kudalasangamadeva
Things
standing shall fall
But
the moving ever shall stay.
He emphasizes an active life commitment
to this world and its problems. All the social problems could be solved by this
type of world commitment. His statement -‘The world of empirical reality,
Samsara is our salvation’ really sums up epigrammatically his whole
ideology and philosophy. ‘Kayaka is Kailasa’- which means ‘doing work is
heaven’, is the final manifesto of the Sharanas.
This type of arguments constitutes a
system of ideas in which the individual, his freedom and his rationality are
defined with in a communitarian and egalitarian context. This ideological
structure became a basis of the first major effort in Karnataka to establish a
society based on what may be characterized as socialist society.
Basavanna was no mere philosopher but
great institutional innovator. His efforts to build an ideal community with the
help of his devoted colleagues, remains the first monumental effort in Karnataka
to establish a community based on social justice. The Sharanas
established Anubhava Mantapa or a House of experience, a forum where the
Sharana leaders developed a critical and progressive consciousness as
necessary preparation for the challenging task of building a universal,
egalitarian community of free rational and equal individuals who had broken
through the fetters of the prevailing Brahmanical Hindu structures. The
Institution of Dasoha also tended to generate a sense of sharing between
free and rational individuals. Unlike Buddha or Mahavira, the Virashiva
saints do not appear alone; they seem to appear in droves, in interacting
groups of three or four in these early times. They often form a composite Sharana
each taking on a different face of the religious experience. Basavanna is the
struggling reformer, Allama Prabhu is extraordinarily metaphysical, imperious,
the master, Akka Mahadevi, the women saint is in love with God, and God to her
is a sensual and aesthetic experience, Jedara Dasimayya is fierce, even crude
at times and hates those who do not sees, Chennabasavanna is a theologian
aptly the son in law of Basavanna. Each saint has a different signature line,
expressive of his/her special identity – Kudalasangama deva (lord of the
meeting rivers), is the signature for Basava, who yearns for social unity and
equality. Guheshwara (Lord of caves) for Allama Prabhu, obsessed with
knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, given too dark sayings and twilight
language. Chennamallikarjuna (My lord white as jasmine) for
Mahadeviyakka, who is all eyes for the beauty of her lord, and Ramanatha, the
Shiva who was worshipped even by God Rama, for Jedara Dasimayya .Each saint
chooses an aspect, an epithetic, for his God that suits his own temperament and
career. Thus the Virashiva movement was not made by any one of the
saints, but by this composite. They thought of as one, singular yet plural in
writings, an excellent image for contemporary India.
Woman:
Many of the male saints like Basavanna
and Dasimayya have families; they do not reject family life as most of the
female saints do before they pursue their careers as saints. Whereas men may
retain their families and in some instances direct their poetry toward social
reform, women continue to choose love as the subject of their poetry, despite
the enormity of the social protest implicit in their lives as they reject
parents, husband, children, house hold, and shelter even cloths. However Sharanas
made it clear that there is no difference between men and women. Jedara
Dasimayya writes-
Breasts
and long hair coming
They
call it woman,
If
beard and whiskers
They
call it man,
But,
look the self that hovers
In
between
Is
neither man
Nor
woman,
O,
Ramnatha
However the crusading militancy at the
heart of Bhakthi makes it double edged bisexual as expressed in poems
like the following-
I
wear these men’s clothes
Only
for you
Only
for you
Sometimes
I am woman
O
Kudalasangama Deva
I
will make war for you
But
I will be your devotee’s bride
Manu says in a notorious passage-‘in
childhood woman should be protected by her father, in youth by her husband, in
old age her son, verily a woman does not deserve freedom’. It means woman
should live always under man. But Sharane or saint like Mahadevi found it
difficult and ultimately impossible to settle their traditional marriage with
her inherent urge to love the lord. In fact this symbolizes the tension between
Bhakti and Dharma. God is their first love. Unlike upper caste male
saints they need not undergo conversion. They challenge their parents, by
escaping marriage in one of several ways. They attain God by single minded love
as Andal does, or win him by extreme forms of worship and sacrifice, and
as does Rekavve, who use a piece of her own flesh to complete the Lords
garland because she can not find a flower. Or they may obtain their divine
lover as a courtesan; this is how Virasangavva manages to win Shiva.
Another possibility to become transformed into an unmarriageable old woman,
like Avvai, or into a male God’s grace, as Tilakavve does.
Finally the woman may simply renounce marriage. Goggavve is so stubborn
that she refuses to marry the disguised Shiva; even when he threatens to kill
her she does not yield. The woman saint like Akkamahadevi however is not
typically bound to a man. Instead she is dedicated at an early age to
god-
He has no death
No decay or form
No place or side
No end or birthmarks
I love him O Mother Listen
I love the beautiful one
With no bond nor fear
No clan no land
No landmarks
For his beauty
So my lord,
Channamallikarjuna
Is my husband
- Take these husbands who die
Decay, and feed them
To your kitchens fires
She does not care for the living as she
has full faith on what she does-
There
is the town’s rice in the begging bowl
For
thirst there are tanks, streams, wells
For
sleep there are ruins of temples
For
soul’s company I have you O lord
Channamallikarjuna
- Make me go from house to
house
With hands stretched for alms
If I beg make them give nothing
If they give make it fall to the ground
If it falls before I pick up
Make a dog to take it
Channamallikarjuna
It is very significant that Mahadevi is
called ‘Akka’ i.e. elder sister, which separates her from marital roles.
Her devotion was no mere mental discipline which enabled her to achieve
liberation while performing traditional roles. It was an all-consuming,
disruptive emotion which turned the normal world of social roles upside down.
In the next phase the woman saints
further defies social norms and taboos. For instance they rebuke men for the
sexual advances, and teach them a lesson when they treat them as a sex object.
In Tamilnadu, Karaikalammai turns into a skeleton before a lust obsessed male.
Akka Mahadevi boldly throws away her clothes and with them the investment in
society that the division between male and female that differential clothing
signifies, abandoning modesty, she walks naked, covered only by her hair. Some
of Akka’s most touching poems are in defense of her nudity. This is the most
excellent type of protest I ever heard, perhaps only one in human history.
In this phase, like the untouchable and low caste saint, the woman often
defies caste hierarchy. She usually teaches a lesson to an upper caste man, a
priest, an elder, or even a senior saint, by some miracle or piece of wisdom.
Feminists may have to get inspiration from these types of protests and
philosophy.
Conclusion:
It is said that Mahatma Gandhi while
presiding over the Indian National congress in Belgaum, Karnataka, remarked
that what he was trying to do in India had in a way been done by Basava in the
12th century. Sharanas
tried to integrate their radical and revolutionary ideology into a strategy of
radical and revolutionary re-structuring of society in Karnataka along lines
which challenged the ruling system on every crucial issue.
