This week I would like to recall instances I have observed or heard of about how love and peace can be expressed through cultural gestures—love for God, for Nature, for each other as Earth’s children. One April, I got to witness the Brahmotsavam or 10-day annual festival of the grand temple in Mylapore, an ancient inland pocket of Chennai, in a heritage walk led by Carnatic historian Sriram V Mylapore is an anglicised form of Mayurapuram, meaning ‘the place of peacocks’.
Mylapore is built around the temple to Shiva-Parvati where they are worshipped as Kapalishwarar and Karpagambal. I’m told that Karpagambal refers to the celestial tree karpagam. Parvati is also known as ‘Goddess of the wish-yielding tree’ that grants everything sincerely asked for. There was a Kartikeya temple, it seems, on the present site.
The original Shiva-Parvati temple was by the ocean, but was destroyed in the early colonial period. It shifted to its present location thereafter, which, joked Sriram V, amounts to the parents moving into the son’s house. The link with the old site is maintained even now, through an annual ritual by the sea.
An old Nawab of Arcot donated land to the present Kapalishwarar temple to build its temple tank. The sthala vriksham or sacred tree of the Kapalishwarar temple is the punnai, also known as nagchampa in Sanskrit, and ‘Alexandrian laurel’. It is believed to be one of the oldest trees in Chennai. Legend says that Karpagambal worshipped Shiva under a punnai tree. In history, the punnai was used by ancient Chola ship-builders to make ships for their blue-water navy and is still used for boat-building.
I was greatly struck by reading in a book on sacred trees that in India, “trees are considered like human beings, as if blessed with a soul and a heart that weeps with grief and laughs with joy. It is believed they have feelings and aspirations like mankind.” Just so, Parvati, the mother goddess, embodies unconditional love in Indian tradition, and I recalled a story about one of her famous devotees, the Kanchi Mahaswami, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (1894–1994).
He often toured the country meeting people from all walks of life. On one such occasion, sometime in the 1960s, he was camped by the river Kaveri. An old, blind Muslim gentleman of the region sent word that he wished to meet the sage, who sent word back inviting him to the evening sadas or gathering. When the old gentleman arrived, devotees on duty escorted him to the sage and seated him close by.
A debate was going on between invited Sanskrit pandits on the nature and attributes of Brahman, the Supersoul or God. The discussion was highly learned and intense, since each participant was a tarka simham or ‘lion of debate’.
The sage and the old gentleman listened with great interest to fascinating theories and beautiful quotations. The Muslim gentleman appeared to follow everything as though he too was well-versed in Sanskrit. This attracted many curious glances from the gathering. But the sage appeared impervious to their glances and whispers.
When the scholars were done, the sage invited the old gentleman to speak about God according to the view of his religion. The old gentleman demurred. “I’m afraid to speak, I’m not usually asked to give my views,” he said. But the sage insisted. “I know that you know Sanskrit and followed every point made. Now do tell them about God as you were taught,” he invited cordially.
The old gentleman could not say no to the sage. He stood up and said, “My religion does not ascribe a form to God. But it speaks of God’s love. Today I have sensed that love, anbey swarupam (the embodiment of love),” and pointed to the sage. The pandits and onlookers found themselves in tears. Such mutual love and respect are also ‘us’ if we choose to co-exist pleasantly.
As to which, Sriram V also told us of an unusual foreign contribution to the Mylapore Brahmotsavam. We had gathered at 6 am at Kapalishwarar’s door to see the day’s magnificent, orderly Adhikara Nandi procession. I cannot properly describe the joy of witnessing that beautiful living tradition, or the mannerly, gentle crowd, or the good energy of local residents who drew kolams and did harati in welcome along the route, or the melodious singing of Thevaram, the ancient Shaiva litanies, inside the temple. A family that lived by the temple tank was known to have performed annadanam or ‘food seva’ for pilgrims during Brahmotsavam since the mid-19th century.
But why were temple ropes and pandal poles along the procession’s route wrapped in red and white cloth, the colours of the Union Jack? Sriram V told us that for centuries, the temple chariot used to be pulled by ‘left’ and ‘right’ groups during Brahmotsavam. The left group wrapped its ropes in white cloth and the right group used cloth of many colours. However, they quarrelled so violently in the 19th century that the East India Company, which ruled the land then, had to intervene. Colours from the Union Jack were accepted for good, and Kapalishwarar’s chariot did the rounds under British rule with the flag of St George and the dragon flying above in protection. The choice of red and white cloths remains.
Surely the moral, if any, of this extraordinary story is that every so-called spiritual conflict has a practical solution. After all, the enigmatic smiles of the deities are meant to be a reminder that eternal God transcends petty human conflicts and quarrels.
Renuka Narayanan
Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)