Having single-handedly ferried his parents to 40 spots of pilgrimage on a DIY bamboo palanquin, the mythological Shravan Kumar has always been a bit of an impossible ideal. Yet, when Arvind Kejriwal was re-elected chief minister recently, his deputy Manish Sisodia said, “Delhi has again voted for its favourite son, its Shravan Kumar”. For the cover of his new book, Pilgrim Nation: The Making of Bharatvarsh, Devdutt Pattanaik, too, decided to illustrate Shravan. The word Bharatvarsh, too, almost seems borrowed from a politician’s vocabulary. “You now have politicians who are chauvinistic about these words, but there was a time when they were embarrassed by them. Politicians come and go, but I keep writing my books,” says Pattanaik.
Hindutva, one might think, appropriates any narrative similar to itself, but in all his years of writing on Hindu mythology, Pattanaik has ensured he remains independent of affiliation. Pilgrim Nation, for instance, doesn’t just include Varanasi, Dwarka and Badrinath, but also Lucknow’s Bada Imambara, Amritsar’s Golden Temple and even the Taj Mahal. The book’s 32 chapters betray one truth — no religion is immune to influence. “If you talk about Christianity, you have to mention Judaism. Ideas keep mixing, matching and merging,” he says.
According to Pattanaik, the act of pilgrimage first gained popularity in India some 1,500 years ago. Travel then was not circumscribed by the boundaries of nationhood. “Monks and scholars were already doing it, but for common people, the idea of karma –– a break from the life and death cycle — became a motivation.” Maybe, one kind of journey came to offer relief from another. “Also, common people believe in doing more thinking, so pilgrimage was an escape from humdrum life.”
But more than the history of pilgrimage spots, in Pilgrim Nation, Pattanaik seems interested in the legends, myths and fables that inspire faith in those who decide to travel there. When writing about how Vishnu came to make Tirupati his earthly abode, Pattanaik’s lucid narration almost imitates that of a grandparent who loves telling stories: “He was following his beloved Lakshmi, who left Vaikuntha in a huff, following a disagreement.” Vishnu, he later explains, is still trapped on earth.
Pattanaik also makes mention of bulava, a concept in Hinduism which suggests that a pilgrim has been invited by the deity she is about to visit. Suddenly, goddesses and gods seem more like fond aunts and uncles. “Gods, in Hinduism, are not faraway creatures. They are thought of as people who inhabit the earth. The deity is as much dependent on the devotee as the devotee is on the deity. The devotee takes offerings, and the deity gives blessings. So, there is a constant give and take,” he says. Unlike Christianity which offers forgiveness, and Buddhism which rejects desire, Hinduism, he adds, uses desire as a base. “That’s why you hear the word mela. It’s a market.”
As a mythologist and a historian, Pattanaik never turns a blind eye to narratives of gender. When writing about the Tantric age temples, he seems enthused by their subversion, but later in his chapter on Sabarimala, he refuses to disguise his wish for social progress. “The fact is that most societies — Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Hindu-are patriarchal and misogynist,” he says. “Think of it this way. Only one question matters — ‘Do you have a happy life?’ Your spiritual index is first linked to your capacity to spread happiness. As far as rituals go, they can be good, but they all have boundaries.”
Every year, Pattanaik aims to publish at least four books and has enough material to keep him busy for the next six years. The world of faith, for him, is quite obviously a reservoir, but he doesn’t ever want his writing to be considered a prescription. Speaking about how crowded pilgrimage centres have now become, he says, “We’re not obliged to visit these places, but people want to. It’s a case of demand and supply. God, though, is everywhere.”
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