pq UDUPI RAJAGOPALACHARYA ANANTHAMURTHY(1932-2014) was born in the…

Question Answered step-by-step pq UDUPI RAJAGOPALACHARYA ANANTHAMURTHY(1932-2014) was born in the… pq UDUPI RAJAGOPALACHARYA ANANTHAMURTHY (1932-2014) was born in the Shimoga district in Karnataka,d cried. Dasacharya lived entirely on the meals that brahmins get at death-rites and anniversaries. He would walk ten miles for such a meal any day. He complained:”As you all know, we let him stay in our agrahara, so for two whole years we didn’t get calls for any meal or banquet. If we do the rites for him now or anything rash like that, no one will ever invite us for a brahmin meal. But then we can’t keep his dead body uncremated here in the agrahara either, and fast forever. This is a terrible dilemma. Praneshacharya should tell us precisely what’s right and what’s wrong. Who in our sect can dispute his word?” For Durgabhatta, this was an internal issue. He sat unconcerned in his place, ogling Chandri. For the first time hisDasacharya put in his last word. He was upset he’d had to get up from his meal before he’d a chance to taste one morsel of his mango-rice. He was hungry. “After his father’s death, no brahmin here got a taste of that jackfruit in his backyard—and it used to taste like honey.” The women kept staring at the heap of gold and they were disappointed by their husbands’ words. Garuda’s wife, Sita, was outraged by the way Lakshmana had shot his mouth off about her son joining the army. What right did he have to talk about her son? Lakshmana’s wife, Anasuya, was outraged by Garuda talking about her son-in-law being corrupted—what right did he have? Thinking what an ordeal this whole affair was getting to be, Praneshacharya said almost in soliloquy: “What’s the way out now? Can we just fold our arms and stare at a dead body laid out in the agrahara? According to ancient custom, until the body is properly removed there can be no worship, no bathing, no prayers, no food, nothing. And, because he was not excommunicated, no one but a brahmin can touch his body.” “Not excommunicating him at the right time—that’s the cause of all this mess,” said Garuda, who for years had screamed for an excommunication. He got his chance now to say, “I-told-you-so, you-didn’t-listen-to-me.” The brahmins countered him as one man: “Yes, yes, if he had actually become a Muslim, we’d have had to leave the polluted agrahara; there’d have been no two ways about it.” Dasa, who had meanwhile been imagining the hardship of a whole day without food, suddenly came out with an idea. He stood up alertly and said:”I have heard that Naranappa was very friendly with the brahmins of Parijatapura. They ate and hobnobbed together. Why don’t we ask them? Their orthodoxy is not as strict as ours, anyway.” Parijatapura’s brahmins were Smartas, not quite out of the upper set, their lines being a little mixed. Once upon a time some lecher got one of their widows pregnant and their agrahara tried to hush it up. The rumour was that the guru at Shringeri heard of it and excommunicated the whole colony. On the whole the brahmins of Parijatapura were pleasure-lovers, not so crazy about orthodoxy and strict rules; they were experts at running betelnut farms, and rich too. So, Durgabhatta had a soft spot for the whole clan; furthermore, he was a Smarta himself. He had secretly eaten their flat-rice and uppittu and drunk their coffee. He was not brazen enough to eat a whole meal with them, that’s all. Furthermore, he was fascinated by their widows who didn’t shave their heads and grew their hair long, who even chewed betel leaf and reddened their mouths. He got into quite a rage at Dasacharya— “Look at this Madhva’s gall, though he can’t afford a morning meal.” He stood up and said: “Look, that’s a foul thing to say. You may think them low hybrid brahmins, but they don’t think so themselves. If your sect will be polluted by laying hands on your own dead man, wouldn’t it pollute them worse? Go ahead, be cheeky and ask them—you’ll get an earful. Do you know that Manjayya of Parijatapura has enough money to buy up every man’s son here?” Praneshacharya tried to pacify Durgabhatta’s anger. “You’re quite right. It’s not truly brahminical to get someone else to do what you self. But friendship is as strong a bond as blood, isn’t it? If they and Naranappa were friends, don’t you think they should be told of their good friend’s death?” Durgabhatta said, “Agreed, Acharya. The brahminism of your entire sect is in your hands. Your burden is great. Who can go against what you decide?” He had spoken all he felt. He didn’t speak again. The question of the gold ornaments came up again. If the Parijatapura people chose to perform the rites, shouldn’t the gold go to them? Lakshmana’s wife, Anasuya, could not bear the thought of her sister’s rightful jewels falling into the hands of some hybrid brahmin in the next village. Unable to contain herself any more, she blurted out: “Who does she think she is? If things were straight, they should be around my sister’s neck.” Then she broke into sobs. Lakshmana felt the tightness of his wife’s words, but he didn’t want his status as a husband to be lowered in public. So he snarled, “You shut up now. Why are you prating in an assembly of menfolk?” Garuda, angry now, thundered: “What kind of talk is this? According to thedecree of the Dharmasthala guru, this gold belongs to me.” Wearily Praneshacharya consoled them. “Be patient. What’s before us is a dead body waiting to be cremated. About the gold—leave the decision to me. First send someone to Parijatapura with the news. If they decide by themselves to perform the rites, let them.” Then he stood up and said, “You may go now. I’ll look into Manu and other texts. I’ll see if there’s a way out of this dilemma.” Chandri pulled her sari-end over her head respectfully, and looked imploringly at the Acharya. II There were cockroaches in the buttermilk shelves, fat rats in the store-room. In the middle room, ritually washed saris and clothes hung out on a rope stretched for a clothes-line. Fresh pappadams, fries, and marinated red peppers spread out to dry on the verandah mat. Sacred balsam plants in the backyard. These were common to all the houses in the agrahara. The differences were only in the flowering trees in the backyards: Bhimacharya had parijata, Padmanabhacharya had a jasmine bush, Lakshmana had the ember-champak, Garuda had red ranja, Dasa had white mandara. Durgabhatta had the conch-flower and the bilva leaf for Shiva-worship. The brahmins went to each other’s yards each morning to get flowers for worship and to ask after each other’s welfare. But the flowers that bloomed in Naranappa’s yard were reserved solely for Chandri’s hair and for a vase in the bedroom. As if that wasn’t provocative enough, right in his front yard grew a bush, a favourite of snakes, with flowers unfit for any god’s crown—the night-queen bush. In the darkness of night, the bush was thickly clustered with flowers, invading the night like some raging lust, pouring forth its nocturnal fragrance. The agrahara writhed in its hold as in the grip of a magic serpent binding spell. People with delicate nostrils complained of headaches, walked about with their dhotis held to their noses. Some clever fellows even said Naranappa had grown the bush to guard with snakes the gold he had gathered. While the auspicious brahmin wives, with their dwarfish braids and withered faces, wore mandara and jasmine, Chandri wore her black-snake hair coiled in a knot and wore the flowers of the ember-champak and the heady fragrant screw pine. All day the smells were gentle and tranquil, the sandalpaste on the brahmins’ bodies and the soft fragrance of parijata and other such flowers. But when it grew dark, the night-queen reigned over the agrahara. The jackfruit and mango in the backyard of each house tasted different fromall the others. The fruit and flower were distributed, according to the saying: “Share fruit and eat it, share flowers and wear them.” Only Lakshmana was sneaky, he moved out half the yield of his trees and sold it to the Konkani shopkeepers. His was a niggard’s spirit. Whenever his wife’s people came visiting, he watched his wife’s hands with the eyes of a hawk—never sure when or what she was passing on to her mother’s house. In the hot months every house put out kosumbari-salads and sweet fruit-drinks; in the eighth month they invited each other for lamp-offerings. Naranappa was the only exception to all these exchanges. A total of ten houses stood on either side of the agrahara street. Naranappa’s house, bigger than the others, stood at one end. The Tunga river flowed close to the backyards of the houses on one side of the street, with steps to get down to the water, steps built by some pious soul long ago. In the rainy month the river would rise, roar for three or four days, making as if she was going to rush into the agrahara; offer a carnival of swirls and water-noises for the eyes and ears of children, and then subside. By mid-summer she would dry to a mere rustle, a trickle of three strands of water. Then the brahmins raised green and yellow cucumber or watermelon in the sand-bank as vegetables for rainy days. All twelve months of the year colourful cucumbers hung from the ceiling, wrapped in banana-fibre. In the rainy season, they used cucumber for everything, curry, mash, or soup made with the seeds; and like pregnant women, the brahmins longed for the soups of sour mango-mash. All twelve months of the year, they had vows to keep; they had calls for ritual meals occasioned by deaths, weddings, young boys’ initiations. On big festival days, like the day of the annual temple celebrations or the death-anniversary of the Great Commentator, there would be a feast in the monastery thirty miles away. The brahmins’ lives ran smoothly in this annual cycle of appointments. The name of the agrahara was Durvasapura. There was a place-legend about it. Right in the middle of the flowing Tunga river stood an island-like hillock, overgrown with a knot of trees. They believed Sage Durvasa still performed his penance on it. In the Second Aeon of the cycle of time, for a short while, the five Pandava brothers had lived ten miles from here, in a place called Kaimara. Once their wife Draupadi had wanted to go for a swim in the water. Bhima, a husband who fulfilled every whim of his wife, had dammed up the Tunga river for her. When Sage Durvasa woke up in the morning and looked for water for his bath and prayers, there wasn’t any in his part of the Tunga. He got angry. But Dharmaraja, the eldest, with his divine vision, could see what was happening, and advised his rash brother Bhima to do something about it. Bhima, Son of the Wind-god, forever obedient to this elder brother’s words, broke the dam in three places and let the water flow. That’s why even today from the Kaimara dam on,the river flows in three strands. The brahmins of Durvasapura often say to their neighbouring agraharas: on the twelfth day of the moon, early in the morning, any truly pious man could hear the conch of Sage Durvasa from his clump of trees. But the brahmins of the agrahara never made any crude claims that they themselves had ever heard the sound of that conch. So, the agrahara had become famous in all ten directions—because of its legends, and also because of Praneshacharya, the great ascetic, “Crest-Jewel of Vedic Learning,” who had settled down there, and certainly because of that scoundrel Naranappa. On special occasions like the birth-anniversary of Lord Rama, people mobbed the place from the neighbouring agraharas to hear Praneshacharya’s ancient holy tales. Though Naranappa was a problem, the Acharya nursed his invalid wife to uphold the great mercy of god, bore up with Naranappa’s misdeeds, dispersed little by little the darkness in the brahmins’ heads filled with chants they did not understand. His duties in this world grew lighter and more fragrant like sandalwood rubbed daily on stone. • The agrahara street was hot, so hot you could pop corn on it. The brahmins walked through it, weak with hunger, their heads covered with their upper cloth; they crossed the three-pronged river and entered the cool forest to reach Parijatapura after an hour’s trudging. The green of the betelnut grove lifted the earth’s coolness to the heat of the sky. In the airless atmosphere the trees were still. Hot dust burned the brahmins’ feet. Invoking Lord Narayana’s name, they entered Manjayya’s house in which they had never set foot before. Manjayya, a rich man shrewd in worldly affairs, was writing accounts. He spoke loudly and offered right and proper courtesies. “Oh oh oh, the entire brahmin clan seems to have found its way here. Please come in, please be good enough to sit down. Wouldn’t you like to relax a bit, maybe wash your feet? . . . Look here, bring some plantains for the guests, will you?” His wife brought ripe plantains on a platter, and said, “Please come in.” They thanked her politely, and went in, Garuda made a hissing sound as he sat down and mentioned Naranappa’s death. “O God! What happened to him? He was here eight or nine days ago on some business. Said he was going to Shivamogge. Asked me if I wanted anything done. I asked him to find out if the markets had sold any arecanuts. Shiva, Shiva. . . . He had said he’d be back by Thursday. What, was he sick? With what?”Dasacharya said, “Just four days of fever—he also had a swelling.” “Shiva, Shiva,” exclaimed Manjayya, as he closed his eyes and fanned himself. Knowing Shivamogge town as he did, he suddenly remembered the one-syllable name of the dread epidemic; and not daring to utter it even to himself, merely said, “Shiva, Shiva.” In the blink of an eye, all the lower-caste brahmins of Parijatapura gathered on the bund. “You know—” began Garuda, shrewd man of the world, “we agrahara people had a bad fight with Naranappa, we didn’t exchange even water and rice. But you here were all his friends, what do you say, now he’s dead, his rites have to be done, what do you say? . . .” The Parijatapura folks were unhappy over their friend’s death, but quite happy they were getting a chance to cremate a highcaste brahmin. They were partly pleased because Naranappa ate in their houses with no show of caste pride. Shankarayya, priest of Parijatapura, intervened. “According to brahmin thinking, ‘a snake is also a twice-born’; if you happen to see a dead snake, you’ve to perform the proper rites for it; you shouldn’t eat till you’ve done so. As that’s the case, it’s absolutely wrong to sit back with folded arms when a brahmin has passed on to the bosom of God. Don’t you think so?” He said this really to display his knowledge of the texts, to tell those Madhvas “we here are no less than you,” and to bring down their pride. Durgabhatta was very agitated by this man’s words. “Look at this stupid brahmin, rashly opening his stupid mouth. He’ll bring a bad name to the whole Smarta clan,” he thought, and spoke in his own crooked way. “Yes yes yes, we understand all that. That’s exactly what Praneshacharya also says. But our dilemma is something else: is Naranappa, who drank liquor and ate meat, who threw the holy stone into the river, is he a brahmin or is he not? Tell me, which of us is willing to lose his brahminhood here? Yet it’s not at all right, I agree, to keep a dead brahmin’s body waiting, uncremated.” Shankarayya’s heart panicked and missed a beat. His clan had already been classed low, and he didn’t like them to fall lower by doing something unbrahminical. So he said: “If that’s so, wait, we can’t do nything rash. You, of course, have in Praneshacharya a man known all over the South. Let him look into it and tell us what’s right in this crisis. He can untangle the delicate strands of right and wrong.” But Manjayya didn’t hesitate to say, “Don’t worry about the expenses. Wasn’t he my friend? I’ll personally see to it that all the necessary charities etcetera aredone,” meaning really to jibe at the niggardly Madhva crowd. III When the brahmins left for Parijatapura, Praneshacharya asked Chandri to sit down, came into the dining-room where his wife lay, and proceeded to tell her how pure Chandri’s heart was, how she’d laid down all her gold and what new complications arose from that generous act. Then he sat down among his palm leaf texts, riffling them for the right and lawful answer. As far back as he could remember Naranappa had always been a problem. The real challenge was to test which would finally win the agrahara: his own penance and faith in ancient ways, or Naranappa’s demoniac ways. He wondered by what evil influence Naranappa had got this way, and prayed that god’s grace should bring him redemption. The Acharya fasted two nights in the week for him. His painful concern and compassion for Naranappa had stemmed also from a promise he had made to the dead man’s mother. He had consoled the dying woman: “I’ll take care of your son’s welfare, and bring him to the right path. Don’t worry about him.” But Naranappa hadn’t walked the path, he had turned a deaf ear to all counsel. By sheer power of example, he’d even stolen Praneshacharya’s own wards and Sanskrit pupils—Garuda’s son Shyama, Lakshmana’s son-in-law Shripati. Naranappa had incited Shyama to run away from home and join the army. The Acharya, wearied by complaints, had gone to see Naranappa one day. He was lolling on a soft mattress, and showed some courtesy by getting up. He didn’t take counsel well, and talked his head off; sneered at the Acharya and brahmin ways. “Your texts and rites don’t work any more. The Congress Party is coming to power, you’ll have to open up the temples to all outcastes,” and so on irreverently. The Acharya had even said, “Stop it, it isn’t good for you. Don’t separate Shripati from his wife.” A guffaw was the answer. “O Acharya, who in the world can live with a girl who gives no pleasure—except of course some barren brahmins!” “You fellows —you brahmins—you want to tie me down to a hysterical female, just because she is some relative, right? Just keep your dharma to yourself—we’ve but one life—I belong to the ‘Hedonist School’ which says—borrow, if you must, but drink your ghee.” The Acharya pleaded, “Do whatever you want to doself. Please, pleasedon’t corrupt these boys.” He just laughed. “Your Garuda, he robs shaven widows, he plots evil with black magic men, and he is one of your brahmins, isn’t he? . . . All right, let’s see who wins, Acharya. You or me? Let’s see how long all this brahmin business will last. All your brahmin respectability. I’ll roll it up and throw it all ways for a little bit of pleasure with one female. You better leave now—I don’t really want to talk and hurt you either,” he said finally. Why had he, the Acharya, objected to excommunicating such a creature? Was it fear, or compassion? Or the obstinate thought he could win some day? Anyway, here is Naranappa testing out his brahminhood in death, as he did in life. The last time he saw Naranappa was three months ago, one evening on the fourteenth day of the moon. Garuda had brought in a complaint. Naranappa had taken Muslims with him that morning to the Ganapati temple stream, and before everyone’s eyes he’d caught and carried away the sacred fish. Those free swimming man-length fish, they came to the banks and ate rice from the hand— if any man caught them he would cough up blood and die. At least that’s what everyone believed. Naranappa had broken the taboo. The Acharya was afraid of the bad example. With this kind of rebellious example, how will fair play and righteousness prevail? Won’t the lower castes get out of hand? In this decadent age, common men follow the right paths out of fear—if that were destroyed, where could we find the strength to uphold the world? He had to speak out. So he had walked quickly to Naranappa’s place and confronted him on the verandah. Naranappa was probably drunk; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was dishevelled. And yet, didn’t he, as soon as he saw the Acharya, put a cloth to his mouth? The Acharya felt a dawning of hope when he saw this gesture of respect and fear. He sometimes felt that Naranappa’s nature was a tricky maze he had no way of entering. But here in this gesture, he saw a crack, a chink in the man’s demoniac pride, and felt his forces of virtue rush towards him. He knew that words were useless. He knew, unless his goodness flowed like the Ganges silently into Naranappa, he would not become open. Yet, a desire welled up in the Acharya, a lust, to swoop on Naranappa like a sacred eagle, to shake him up, tear open the inward springs of ambrosia till they really flowed. He looked at Naranappa cruelly. Any ordinary sinner would have been terror struck and fallen to the ground under that gaze. Just two repentant drops from this sinner’s eyes, and that would be enough: he’d hug him as a brother—and he looked at Naranappa with desire.Naranappa bowed his head. He looked as if the sacred bird of prey had swooped and held him in its talons, as if he’d been turned to a worm that minute, bewildered as when a closed door suddenly opens. Yet, no; he put aside the cloth that covered his mouth, threw it on the chair, and laughed out aloud: “Chandri! Where’s the bottle? Let’s give the Acharya a little of this holy water!” “Shut up!” Praneshacharya was shaking from head to foot. He was angered at the way the man slipped from under his influence, and felt he had missed a step on the stairs he was descending. “Aha! The Acharya too can get angry! Lust and anger, I thought, were only for the likes of us. But then anger plays on the nose-tips of people who try to hold down lust. That’s what they say. Durvasa, Parashara, Bhrigu, Brihaspati, Kashyapa, all the sages were given to anger. Chandri, where’s the bottle? Look, Acharya—those are the great sages who set the tradition, right? Quite a lusty lot, those sages. What was the name of the fellow who ravished the fisherwoman smelling of fish, right in the boat and gave her body a permanent perfume? And now, look at these poor brahmins, descended from such sages!” “Naranappa, shut your mouth.” Naranappa, now angry that Chandri didn’t bring the liquor to him, ran upstairs making a big noise, brought the bottle down and filled his cup. Chandri tried to stop him, but he pushed her aside. Praneshacharya closed his eyes and tried to leave. “Acharya, stop, stay a while,” said Naranappa. Praneshacharya stayed, mechanically; if he left now he would seem to be afraid. The stench of liquor disgusted him. “Listen,” said Naranappa in a voice of authority. Taking a draught from his cup, he laughed wickedly. “Let’s see who wins in the end—you or me. I’ll destroy brahminism, I certainly will. My only sorrow is that there’s     Arts & Humanities Writing Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)