SANCTITY SUCCUMBED TO SUPREME

SANCTITY SUCCUMBED TO SUPREME

OPPRESSION is a word synonymous to our sanathana dharma in Bharat, I mean the country called by foreigners as INDIA which we too embraced the same name with all the flair and fervour on par with any tradition, custom or any commodity that we embrace when imported from West and especially from United States. Being the legitimate owners of this great country with rich human values, traditions, culture, and knowledge empowered intelligentsia and above all the abundant perennial ocean called VEDAS we are deprived of our legitimate right of being number one but rated as number three after the two foreign religions. What I mean the following incident will explain in detail.

On the Sabarimala temple issue, the Supreme Court of India observed on April 13, 2016: “In Hindu dharma there is no denomination of a male or female. A Hindu is a Hindu.”

And just like that a constitutional body has, probably for the first time anywhere in the world, become the interpreter of religious texts. In this it is protected by Article 25 (2) that deals with the right to religious freedom but allows the courts to intervene on social welfare and reform, but only on Hinduism. This inability to separate faith and state is now the definition of Indian secularism.

What this becomes is not just a ruling on access to a temple, but a reorder of the entire Hindu faith itself. The source of Hinduism is its Vedas. The Vedas contain entire texts devoted to women. While much is made of that favorite of the book-burners—the Manusmriti, which is not even a Vedic text but a second century code now overwritten by 18 centuries of lawmaking that left much of it behind, much like amendments to the current Constitution leave regressive laws behind—this ruling impacts the core texts of Hinduism, the ones that its philosophies are actually composed of. To say Hindus have no gender and are but Hindus, makes a mockery of much great philosophy

Within Hinduism, the issue of gender is complex and nuanced. Rites and rituals are defined in various parts of the Vedas. The principle of Shakti, the feminine principle of energy, is integral to understanding Vedic lore and, at once empowered with creation itself as well as destruction, is a very distinct energy from male avatars. Lord Ayyappa, at the Centre of the Sabarimala debate, is born of Hara and Hari—Vishnu in the form of Mohini, both male principles.

As far as any Hindu knows, principles of male and female are not as distinct as the Honorable Judge would make them out to be. Neither is male or female a physical only form, nor is its energy restricted by the gender of the worshipper. Shiva lies in the sahasrara chakra and Shakti in the muladhara chakra, so all Hindus are in fact composites of both energies. These are nuanced positions most Hindus understand easily and are intrinsic to our religious ethos.

As the issue is related to Lord Ayyappa's Temple, it is felt appropriate to explain the legend related to him. Ayappa is the god of discipline. Mahishi symbolises the ego. It is in him that Hari and Hara, creation and destruction, come to harmony. The rigorous vows of celibacy, the 40 days penance, ironically, are a tribute to womanhood: they symbolise one day of penance for each week spent in a mother’s womb. Woman, the symbolic prakriti energy, or vehicle of creation is not available to man for these 40 days. Man must pull himself back from his function as procreator and the procreated. The black symbolises the nullifying of the colour spectrum, absorbing all differentiation into one.

For Muslim Countries Islam is main religion and every subject of the other religion has to respect without deviation. Christian Countries envisage the other religions of the same country to acknowledge the sentiments of the majority. Ours is the only country where ours is the major religion but should place ourselves beneath the two minor religions and remain as silent spectators watching all the privileges accorded to them by the respective State Governments or the Central Government.