Women, Gender & Power in Bheel Mahabharata 1

Part of a paper presented by the author at the national seminar on Mahabharata organized by National Manuscripts Mission and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of India at India International Centre, New Delhi in February 2007.

An epic of one culture incarnated in another is at once the same as the original and yet very different from it. It is not that its soul is the same and body is different. No, it becomes a different entity altogether, with a different identity, a different flavour, a different feel, perhaps even a different heart and a different soul, and yet it retains its original being. That is why such an incarnation is a kind of miracle.

The Bheel Bharath, the incarnation of Vyasa’s Mahabharata in the tribal world of the Bheels, is a miracle for its marvellous beauty, its unbelievable simplicity and elemental quality, and the ineffable charm of its rusticity. It is a miracle for the way it so perfectly reflects the world in which the Bheel lives: a world that is still shrouded in primordial mystery, where things are possible because you can imagine them, where everything appears clothed in a dream-like quality, where men and women walk on the earth without masks on their faces, where each hunger of the body and thirst of the heart appears naked, where the dark fears in our depths stalk us in the open.

The many transmutations the story and characters of the Mahabharata undergo in their Bheel incarnation and what these transmutations reveal to us about the world of the tribal Bheel are fascinating. It is intriguing, and entrancing, to see how the Mahabharata looks when it leaves its traditional world and incarnates in an entirely different world – in the world down under, as it were; in the world of those who live on the fringes of Indian society, in the world of those whom our society has always kept either at its lowest rung, or perhaps even outside its boundaries.

This paper, however, focuses only on two aspects of the endlessly fascinating different facets of the Bheel Bharath. The dynamics of male-female relationship in terms of equality, dominance and submissiveness in the epic [in this part]; and attitudes towards sexuality in general and female sexuality in particular in the Bheel Bharath [in the second part of the paper].

This study is based on the text of the Bheel Bharath by Dr Bhagavandas Patel, who spent four years among the Doongri Bheels studying the epic that is an oral tradition among them and recording the narrations of the epic on four hundred and fifty audio cassettes, thus making an invaluable contribution to literature in general and folk literature and Mahabharata study in particular. The book has been published by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi with an excellent Hindi translation of its prose by Dr Mridula Parik.

Created in the Image of the Goddess

The dynamics of the male-female relationship in the Bheel Bharath differs from that in mainstream India and in the Sanskrit Mahabharata. We see that gender, the socially constructed differences between the male and the female, is portrayed here in tones that are very distinct. The women we encounter in the Bheel epic are not exactly creations of a lesser God, lacking in wisdom and created with great imperfections, incapable of acting without male assistance, whose every decision has to be taken for them by their men. They are not women abjectly dependent for their protection on their fathers in their childhood and adolescence, on their husbands in their youth and middle age, and on their sons in their old age. In the Bheel Bharath, the traditional gender construct of men being dominant and women being submissive or passive in relation to them is frequently absent.

In the mainstream Indian culture, power, prestige and an unyielding personality are usually associated with men and in the Bheel Bharath, we often find female characters possessing these qualities. If, as Gerda Lerner puts it, “gender is a costume, a mask, a straitjacket in which men and women dance their unequal dance,” these costumes, masks and straitjackets are different in the Bheel Bharath. And, at least in part for these reasons, we find the leading women in the Bheel Bharath, unlike the leading women in Vyasa’s epic, do not have shades of neurosis to them. They are, unlike in the Mahabharata, quite comfortable with themselves, at peace with their social and psychological selves.

Anais Nin refers to Lawrence Van der Post, the Jungian psychologist and poet, in her A Woman Speaks and says “there is a beautiful part in one of his books where he says the Africans never suffered from loneliness as we have; they never suffered from the feeling of the meaninglessness of their life, as we occasionally have.” Reading the Mahabharata, we have the perpetual feeling that the women there are very lonely – be it the young fishermaid Kali wedded to the old emperor Shantanu and later the widowed Empress Satyavati, or the bright and bold Gandhari wedded to the blind, cowardly Dhritarashtra, or Kunti and Madri wedded to their impotent husband, or Draupadi wedded to her five husbands. Kunti on one occasion specifically speaks of her loneliness when she refers to her life at Kuntibhoja’s place after her father gave her away to him. Draupadi is nathavati anathavat – like an orphan, though she ‘belongs’ – all through her life, and she ends her life in utter, unspeakable loneliness on the Himalayas where she falls down towards the end of the pilgrimage and her five husbands walk away without a word to her, without a backward glance at her, without slowing down their steps. We do not find such loneliness in the lives of the women of the Bheel Bharath, nor do we find any of the women here suffering from meaninglessness in their lives, which too is the lot of practically all the women in the Mahabharata.

Let us begin with the first major female character we encounter in the Bheel Bharath, Ganga, who is perhaps closest to her self in the Sanskrit epic. When we first meet her in the tribal epic, she is taking a bath in the river Ganga, for which she has come up from the thirteenth Patala, the thirteenth netherworld. Subsequently, she marries Shantanu after rejecting his attempts to woo her in two lifetimes. The Bheel Bharath builds on the unequal relationship the two have in the Mahabharata and while Ganga is a river goddess with supernatural powers in Vyasa’s epic too, in the Bheel epic she is awesome.

As per her conditions Shantanu had agreed to prior to their marriage, Ganga asks Shantanu to drown one by one the children born to them. Three children are born to them, Gagivar [Gangeya, Bheeshma], Setar [Chittar, Chitra, Chitrangada] and Vihag [Vichitra, Vichitravirya], and Shantanu, against the desires of his heart, kills them all by dashing them against rocks in the Ganga. His heart does not allow him to kill the fourth child, a girl, though, and he saves her by giving her away to his guru. Interestingly, it is a girl he tries to save, not a boy, and part of the reason for this is given as the hope that the girl would look after him in his old age.

We find Ganga walking to the sea to find out if Shantanu has followed her wishes about killing the girl even as Shantanu returns from his secret trip to give away his daughter. In a breathtakingly beautiful scene filled with thrilling folk magic we are shown Ganga going to the sea and bowing down before it. She plants two rows of barley and standing on one foot , prays to God to reveal the truth to her, calling upon him by the power of her truth. As she looks at the barley again, she finds some of them have dried up. Ganga now knows the truth: Shantanu has broken his word to her. She returns to the palace.

Back at her cloud palace she dresses up in all the sixteen shringaras. She prepares an elaborate dinner for Shantanu and serves it to him by herself. During the dinner, she asks him: “Raja, tell me the truth. How many children have you killed?” Shantanu says four. A shiver passes through Ganga at Shantanu’s lie. She asks him again and again, giving him chances to come out with the truth, her words and voice telling him their relation has come to an end but Shantanu still persists with his lie. In the end Ganga claps her hands and at each clap a child appears before her – Gangeya, Chitra and Vichitra, the three children whom Shantanu had killed. The girl child, whom Shantanu had saved, fails to appear. Ganga now calls him a liar and informs him their relation has ended. She disappears giving Shantanu a gold bangle through which she would be able to recognize him in her next birth and leaving in his hands five strands of her hair that break off as he tries to hold her back by her tresses.

One interesting aspect of the relation between Ganga and Shantanu is that it is Ganga, the woman, who is dominant throughout. It is she that takes initiative in the sex act between them and not Shantanu, the man. At each step of the elaborate ritual of their mating, lovingly described by the tribal narrator, Ganga has the upper hand[for details see Female Sexuality in Bheel Mahabharata by the author]. Shantanu, almost puppet-like, follows her suggestions, which are really her orders to him. Her pregnancies are results of her deliberate decisions to conceive, and not accidents, nor results of her submitting herself to her man. Shantanu is in awe of her, dreads her, though he loves her dearly; and her upper hand in their relation remains till the end, though in spite of this she is never unkind to him, even when she leaves him. It is with a promise to be his wife again in her next life that she abandons him finally.

The Ganga we find in the Bheel Bharath is comfortable with herself, comfortable with her body and her sexuality, with her social and psychological selves. Within the dynamics of their male-female relationship, she wields the power. Though she is dominant, she is never domineering. She is assertive, she is unwilling to demean herself by compromising where she should not compromise. Every single time she speaks, her words have finality, without ever being rude.

Tryambakayajvan, beginning his classic Sanskrit treatise on the duties of women, Stridharmapaddhati, says: the most important duty of a woman as enjoined by the scriptures is service to her husband. Subsequently concluding the book he says again: since a woman should serve her husband even ignoring her life, since she should accept even her husband’s selling her, since she should fulfil his wishes even when they are in conflict with her other prescribed duties, it is clear that the ultimate dharma of a woman is obedient service to her husband. The central thrust in all scriptures dealing with women’s duties is that women should find their fulfilment in serving their husbands and that on its own their existence has no meaning to them. To underscore the view that the focus of their life should be the obedient, humble service of their husbands and nothing else matters, women are told again and again that there is no need for them to perform any religious ritual – since service to their husbands alone will take them to heaven.

Through Ganga, the Bheel Bharath gives us a different dynamics of power between the male and the female. And this different dynamics of power continues in the case of other leading women as well.

Kunti, for instance, is another awe-inspiring woman in the Bheel Bharath. She is born of Shakti, of the blood and flesh of Shakti in the form of a bird that dies on a sage’s trident. In a powerful scene that happens at midnight, her awesome power and her true nature are revealed to Bhima, her son.

Bhima once requests Draupadi to reveal the secret of her immense power to him, and she asks him to go and hide on an ancient banyan tree in the open ground outside the city at night and observe whatever happens underneath the tree. He does so and sees Indra, the lord of the gods, arriving there at midnight and cleaning the grounds. Thrones descend from the heavens and arrange themselves on the cleaned ground. Soon a great commotion is heard and all the nine hundred thousand gods come down to the earth and occupy their seats according to their status. God himself comes down from Vaikuntha and occupies a silver throne. It is only after God has taken his seat that Kunti arrives.

Her arrival is preceded by the sound of deep bellows. Soon Kunti is seen approaching riding a young buffalo. She alights sprightly from the buffalo and, in contrast to God who occupies a silver throne, occupies a golden throne.

Later, in the morning, after the meeting of the gods is over and they have departed, after Kunti has gone back to the palace, Bhima rushes to her and falls at her feet in obeisance and addresses her as jagajjanani, the mother of the universe.

If Kunti is thus awesome, still greater is the glory of Draupadi in the Bheel Bharath. Like Kunti, she too is a dain, a witch, but unlike Kunti who is brought into existence by yogic powers from the flesh and blood of Shakti as a bird, she is unborn. The Pandavas find her in a banana plantation and she is a full-grown woman then.

Since all of them found her together, she couldn’t be any one brother’s wife, so all five of them marry her and install her in her seven-storeyed ‘cloud palace’. Except Yudhishthira, the other four brothers are soon trapped in Draupadi’s magic [maya]. Yudhishthira is more cautious; he fears her nature and instead of sleeping with his wife, offers her ritual worship. Hearing the sound of the conch and bells ringing from her room one morning Bhima peeps in through the window and sees Yudhishthira lying in prostration at Draupadi’s feet. He sees him getting up after the prostrations and offering her an arati accompanied by all the rites of ritual worship to a goddess. Subsequently, questioned by Bhima, Draupadi asks him to watch her from the banyan tree at night if he wants to learn the truth about her. That is how Bhima hides on the banyan tree and witnesses his mother’s immense power that awes even the gods.

The occasion is the festival of Draupadi. If it is on a bellowing buffalo that Kunti arrives at the assembly of the gods, it is on a roaring lion that Draupadi comes sometime after Kunti has arrived. She holds a lit lamp in one hand and has a drawn sword in the other. Seeing her approaching, God gets up from his silver throne and receives her. Her own throne is of pure gold, like that of Kunti.

Numerous other occasions prove the great status of Kunti and Draupadi in the tribal epic. No important decision, be it of a wedding or of war, is ever taken in the Bheel Bharath without their involvement.

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Continued.... Part 2

Radha and the Flow of Consciousness

The Upanishads are incredible, unsurpassed. In wisdom, in beauty and in clarity. When it comes to understanding the nature of the human being, they have never been surpassed. Speaking of them, C Rajagopalachari said, “The spacious imagination, the majestic sweep of thought, and the almost reckless spirit of exploration with which, urged by the compelling thirst for truth, the Upanishad teachers and pupils dig into the ‘open secret’ of the universe, make this most ancient of the world’s holy books still the most modern and the most satisfying.”

Kathopanishad is one of the most poetic of Upanishads. It is the Upanishad on which so much of the Bhagavad Gita is based, including its frame image of Krishna and Arjuna in the chariot. Several verses of the Gita have been borrowed from the Katha Upanishad, or adapted. Speaking of human consciousness, the teacher of the Katha Upanishad says:

parānchi khāni vyatrnat svayambhūh
tasmād parāng paśyati nāntarātman.
kaścid dhīrah pratyagātmānam aikshad
āvrttacakshur amrtatvam icchan. Kathopanishad 2.1

“The self-born one created the senses turned outward. For that reason, man looks outward, and sees not the self that is within. Rare is the brave one who, longing for immortality, shuts his eyes to what is without and sees the self within.”

We see only what is without, because that is how we are made. Seeing what is without is fine, because the world created by that same self-born one is so enchantingly beautiful. The sounds, the touches, the colours, the shapes, the tastes, they are all so beautiful, as are love, passion, ambition, the thrill of achieving, sharing and the million other things that form what we call life. And yet in the process of seeing what is without, we should not forget what is within. When we forget the within in our fascination with the without, we get entrapped in the without. And this the Upanishads call maya – delusion. Maya is not the world outside, but being trapped in it.

It is like, say the ancient masters in their exquisite language, the bee getting trapped in the lotus flower at sunset. It is fine to enjoy the honey within the lotus, and it is the bee’s enjoyment of the honey within it that makes the life of the lotus meaningful, but the bee does not belong to the lotus. Its world is not the small world defined by the petals of the lotus that close at sunset, but the vast, boundless world outside.

We do not belong to the small world we live in, but to the bhooma, the vast. The world of the sun and the moon, of thunder and lightning, of winds and rains, of mountains and rivers, of birth and death and what is beyond all this. When we surrender to this world, and limit ourselves, that’s maya.

For the Upanishad says, we are not the limited self we take ourselves to be, the power that runs the universe.

As the Taittiriya Upanishad puts it:

bhīshāsmād vātah pavate
bhīshodeti sūryah
bhīshāsmād agniścendraśca
mrtyur dhāvati pancama iti.

“I am the power fearing which the wind blows, the power fearing which the sun rises in the east, fire burns, and Indra rules over the gods. I am that power fearing which death, as the fifth, stalks the world.”

We have been trapped within the lotus, and, tragically, forgotten the vastness outside.

And the way to reclaim our real heritage, the vast, the boundless, is to turn our attention to the within. Turn our consciousness inward. Make our awareness flow not outward, but inward.

Radha is the name for consciousness that flows inward, for the river that flows towards its own source.

The word radha is the word dhara turned around. Dhara means a current, like a stream, like a brook, or a river. Radha means the consciousness that flows outward has now begun to flow inward.

Parānchi khāni vyatrnat svayambhūh – the self-born created the senses turned outward and our consciousness flows out into the world through them. But now it flows inward: toward the self within, toward the pratyagātmā, towards its own source.

Radha is the longing for Krishna, Krishna standing for consciousness, our inner self. Radha is the name for the most intense meditation which makes samadhi possible. Samadhi means merger with the inner self, merger with Krishna. Which is also what we mean when we use the word yoga in its original sense.

Yoga is not asanas. Asanas are practically the first step in yoga, the lowest, and samadhi its culmination, the highest stage.

In India we worship rivers. It is not because rivers are useful. India has never worshipped what is useful. Worshipping what is useful is the commercial attitude and that has nothing to do with religion. To us religion has never been a commercial thing. We worship what inspires awe, what helps us open our eyes and wake up into light.

The first river India worshipped was the Saraswati. The Saraswati was the river on the banks of which the Vedas were born, the Upanishads were born. When we worshipped the Saraswati, we were worshipping knowledge – knowledge of the highest kind, which in Sanskrit is called prajñā. Prajñā means consciousness. We called her Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom, of learning, of arts, of music, of the thousand forms of light.

And when the Saraswati dried up, the Ganga became the river on the banks of which the culture of light, the Vedic civilization, continued. To India, the Ganga then became the most sacred of rivers. Goddess Ganga. A dip in the Ganga washes away all our sins, said our culture. That is because the Ganga stood for knowledge and as the seers said, na hi jñānena sadrsham pavitram iha vidyate: there is nothing as sacred as knowledge in this world.

All the most sacred teerthas on the Ganga are where the Ganga takes a turn and flows northward. North is the direction from which the Ganga comes down. When she flows northward, she is flowing towards her own source.

Then Ganga becomes Radha, consciousness flowing towards its own source.

Those who study consciousness in the west, particularly those who study altered states of consciousness, say that man’s oldest adventure is this search. This search for his source. They say all religion is that search for the original consciousness, consciousness turned inward.

And they say that there is no culture in the world that does not seek consciousness turned inward. When the tribal dancers dance around the night fire to the beat of drums, they say they are seeking this altered state of consciousness – consciousness turned inward. When they use drugs and cacti and mushrooms that alter consciousness, they say they are seeking this inward turned consciousness. When people climb mountains and face death, they say they are seeking the same altered states of consciousness through danger and fear. And when man engages in sex, they say, they are seeking to turn their consciousness inward. The moment of orgasm provides to man the most easily accessible state in which his consciousness is no more flowing outward through his senses.

Every culture in the world has been worshipping Radha, though it may not know it. Worshipping her through drumbeats, through dance and music, through prayer, through fasting, through meditation, through fire-walking, through danger, through fear, through wonder, through drugs, through sex, through pain and self-torture.

Radha as a Goddess is new even to India. There is no Radha associated with Krishna in the Mahabharata, for instance. She is a later goddess.

But we have been worshipping her from the beginning of time.

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Nandanam: Malayalam Movie

It is at meal times that the TV is usually switched on. When I did that during lunch today, they were just starting the Malayalam movie Nandanam on Asianet. I had seen the later part of the movie earlier, on some similar occasion. Today the movie had just begun and since I had liked what I saw of it earlier, I decided to watch it.

The movie has the beauty of a naadan penkidaav and the female lead looked every bit a naaadan pendikaav. [The word Naadan Penkidaav brings to mind memories of a book I had read as a schoolboy – Oru Naadan Penkidaavinte London Yaatra.] I really loved the movie, as much for its lyrical beauty as for several other things. I loved its realism as well its romanticism. And the two aspects go so well, it is difficult to separate the two. Like everyone else who watches the movie, I was touched by the ending.

Faith can be a powerful source of strength. And that was the only strength of the little girl Balamani there. Faith in human goodness and faith of the other kind – the religious kind, which fills life with magic and mystery. I loved the intimacy Balamani felt with her God. I felt that is exactly how God should be. A friend you can complain to, be angry with, play with, dance with. Jo tumhen manane ayega jab tum roothoge. I do not like the God you have to fear. Never liked him.

Sometime back I was invited to give a series of talks on the Gita. This was in a Krishna temple. While the organizers and I were sitting and talking just before the inaugural talk, one of them told me I must talk about bhayabhakti – devotion based on fear. I told him I did not know what it was. I told him so far I knew there was nothing called bhayabhakti. If there is something like that, that will be the devotion of a slave. Of a slave who has accepted his slavery and does not protest, does not revolt against it, not even in his heart. A slave who has been broken forever, the way you break a wild horse. [Disney’s wild horse Spirit refuses to be broken.] Fear can create only one thing – gulami, slavery. And I don’t believe that we were meant to be slaves. Slavery is an insult to God. And I mean this as much from the standpoint of the slave as from the standpoint of the slaveholder. I believe God would want us to fight every form of slavery others try to impose on us. I believe God would detest the love of a person who has surrendered his pride. God loves proud love – love that holds its head high.

I like the relation between Draupadi and Krishna in the Mahabharata. She can become a manini and reject Krishna when necessary because of her pride. She is not afraid of Krishna. There is no fear.

And I like the relation between Radha and Krishna in the Gita Govindam. There is no fear there either. Gita Govindam’s Radha can get furious with Krishna. She too can reject him for his betrayals, for his inconstancies. Out of her pride. And she can ask him to do anything for her because he is hers and she is his.

I love the scene in the Gita Govindam where Radha asks Krishna to do again her make up that has been spoiled by their lovemaking. kuru yadu-nandana chandana-ziziratareNa kareNa payodhare… ghaTaya jaghane kA~nchiM mugdha-srajA kabarI-bhAraM.kalaya valaya-shreNIM pANau pade maNi-nUpurAu.

[Please get hold of a good translation of the Gita Govindam for meaning.]

I love the scene in the Mahabharata where Draupadi comes before Krishna just as he is getting ready to go to Hastinapura on his peace mission. Weeping, after speaking of her pain at length, she asks him:

katham nu bhAryA pArthAnAm tava krshna sakhI vibho
dhrshtadyumnasya bhaginI sabhAm krshyeta madrzee

“How can I –– wife of the sons of Kunti; your friend, O Krishna, O lord; and Dhrishtadyumna’s sister –– how can I be dragged into a court?”

And a little later she denounces Krishna:

naiva me patayah santi na putrAh na ca bAndhavAh
na bhrAtaro na ca pitA naiva tvam madhusUdana.

“I have no husbands, nor sons, or friends or relatives. I have no brothers, no father, nor you either, Krishna.”

It is not Draupadi’s despair I see here. It is her faith that I see here. Faith that he is bound to protect her. Faith and unshakeable conviction. And she makes it clear next, when she says:

caturbhih kAranaih krshna tvayA rakshyAsmi nityazah
sambandhAt gauravAt sakhyAt prabhutyenaiva kezava.

“For four reasons, Krishna, you owe it to me to protect me: because you are related to me, because of my standing [i.e., eminence, dignity], because we are friends and because you are capable of protecting.”

She does not cringe before him. She does not beg protection from Krishna. She claims it. She demands it. And in claiming and demanding, she never treats herself any less than him.

It is not because she weeps before him that Krishna gives her the assurance he gives. No. It is because she claims it as her right. She asks from him no more than what is hers by right. And that is enough for her.

Narada in the Bhakti Sutras defines bhakti as parama-prema-rūpa – as the highest love. Where there is fear, there can be no love. You cannot love him before whom you cower. Or her before whom you cower.

Bhayabhakti, devotion based on fear, is a carry over from feudalism. Feudalism is not only a social reality, but also a psychological one. Though the first kind of feudalism has mostly ended, feudalism of the mind continues to be alive. Some of us love to be fiefs.

I loved the final song Balamani sings. I do not think there was anyone who watched that scene and heard that song whose eyes were not wet.

Later this evening I happened to see Navya in another programme – Idea Star Singer. I switched on the TV and there she was, as was Chitra, who had sung the song for the movie. Chitra was asked to sing the song again and she complied, happily. And even before she began, I could see the change in the atmosphere. Everybody had become solemn. And as Chitra finished the song, I saw several people present there wiping their eyes. Among the first ones to do so was Navya, who had become possessed by the song right from the beginning. I watched her shivering with emotions. I had a feeling Chitra too lost herself for a few moments in the middle of the song – as she sang out Krishna, Krishna…

The compere commented when the song ended: the power of music! Yes, the power of music. But also the power of love. Love for a God who can be your friend – sakha. Who can be your lover. Who can your son. And your brother. And sister. And mother. And daughter. And beloved. And whom you do not have to fear.

Yes, the power of music. But also the power of bhakti which is parama-prema, boundless love.

Boundless love that melts boundaries and makes mergers possible. The word yoga means merger. Union.

What the yogi achieves through lifetimes of practice the bhakta achieves in a trice through bhāva.

Watching the movie today was like taking a sacred bath in a tirtha. In the Ganga. In Gauri Kund. And so was listening to Chitra singing that song this evening, with Navya standing beside her and struggling not to lose herself in bhāva.

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