TAKE ACTION AND SAVE SRI JAGANNATH FROM SHOWY RITUALS

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

A showy ritual has taken a toll of four lives in the Temple of Sri Jagannath at Puri when 60 others including 25 in serious conditions are injured while trying to witness the Alati (waving of light before the image of Sri Jagannath) at 6.40 in the morning of November 4.

As usual, palm greasing of the bereft families has started with Rs.1 lakh each from Orissa Government and the Temple Administration to make them accept that their losses are compensated.

No action has been taken against any functionary for the killer lapses in spite of eye witnesses pointing out accurately accusing fingers at the Secretary of Law Department Sri Dillip Sahu, who, being the highest administrative authority on the Temple, had tried to exploit his position with the help of the Temple Staff for forcing the devotees to make a way for himself and in the process precipitated a stampede leading to the casualties.

Judicial Inquiry: Device to Divert

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik may not want to antagonize judicial officers as his administration is full of punishable malfeasances and hence, Sahu, an officer of District Judge grade, has not been touched as yet notwithstanding being spotted as the basic factor behind the sordid deed. In stead, the age old tactics of pushing official crimes into oblivion has been adopted through a request to the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court for allocation of a Judge to conduct a judicial inquiry into the incident.

Navin seems to have inherited this tactics from his father Biju Patnaik. When Biju was the Chief Minister and the State was drowned under misrule and chaos and in dire despondancy the helpless people were madly seeking mercy of the God, a similar stampede had occurred in the same place of the temple of Jagannatha on November 26, 1993 killing as many as six persons on the spot and injuring hundreds. Biju had appointed a single-judge Judicial Commission of enquiry under Sri Bhubana Mohan Mohapatra to determine as to who was responsible for the mishap and to suggest remedies against future such possibilities. People of Orissa ousted Biju from office on 15 March 1995. Till then he had not taken any action on the Commission’s report nor had he ever bothered to take any action. His only intention in appointing the Judicial Commission of enquiry was to immediately divert public attention from his maladministration and then to burry the issue under his carpet sine die. No body has been notified as yet on what action has ever been taken on the findings of the said Commission, not even the State Assembly. Against this background, appointment of another Judicial Commission on the same sort of mishap on the same spot of the same Temple, when by coincidence, Biju’s son is in office, is a seer farce and nothing else.

The Law Secretary being the highest boss in the temple administration had used temple staff to force his way into the inner chamber of Sri Jagannath to witness the Alati with comfort. And the temple staff, eager to please their boss, used force to organize the thronging devotees into giving him the way. This precipitated the stampede and caused the casualties. This is eye witness account. So, in stead of taking action against the Law Secretary, why the Government wants a Judicial Commission of enquiry to find out the truth? What truth is truer than the eyewitness accounts? Is the Government running by brains that are unable to understand what the eyewitnesses say?

Let Navin make this point clear.

More essential than judicial inquiry

But let him take a step that is more essential than appointing a Judicial Commission of enquiry into the deaths that have occurred. This essential need is restoration of Jagannath philosophy buried under Brahminic rituals.

The first step needed in this respect must be meant to free Sri Jagannath from legends created by vested interest agents of Brahminsm and their patrons in Orissa, the Gajapati kings. In my book SRI JAYADEVANKA BAISI PAHACHA published by Bharata Bharati of Cuttack, I have shown how the female torso worshiped by Tribal people of Orissa as Jaganta-tha as the source of creation and protection of life eventually evolved into an embodiment of Gurudev Buddha because of his role as protector of Tribal Democracies that were primarily matriarch and subsequently became known as Sri Jagannath through Gnyanasiddhi of Indrabhuti. In order to suppress this truth, after non-Oriya invaders occupied Orissa, with the help of the Brahmins imported entirely from outside Orissa, Vedic rituals were promulgated in Sri Mandira to enforce transformation of Sri Jagannatha from Buddha of Orissa to Krushna of Dwaraka. This now needs State intervention.

Buddha was against religious rituals as well as divide of society on caste line advanced by the Vedic system. Therefore the Brahmins, thriving on caste-apartheid, hand-in-glove with their patron Gajapati kings, in order to extingush Sri Jagannatha’s Buddhaness, formulated and promulgated these rituals in Sri Mandira. In order to restore Sri Jagannath to his real position, these rituals must stop.

Orissa’s culture is Buddhism

Gurudev Buddha was born in the Tosala region of Orissa. He had developed the Tosala culture of unperturbed ‘TOSA'(complacence) into a philosophy that eventually became famous as Buddhism. This philosophy being a philosophy of complacence was naturally a philosophy of universal brotherhood.

Universal brotherhood was anathema to Vediv imperialism, which was spreading caste-apartheid in order to reduce Indian Tribes to a state of slavery so that their subjugation would look like philosophically proper.

The philosophical necessity was felt as there were also some people amongst the Aryans who were not willing to be blind followers of the Brahminic hegemony. Sukracharya, Lopamudra and Viswamitra etc are examples.

Philosophy of Imperialism

But Vedic imperialism had invaded India not to leave this splendid place. They tried their ruthless best to annihilate and subjugate the indigenous people, the Tribes, who had built up their matriarch civilization in India prior to the Aryan invasion. They declared them as demons and created scriptures to justify killing of the demons.

But a great Brahmin Sukracharya opposed them and Brahmins like Ravana sided with matriarch tribal communities.

Ravana was shown as killed by Rama of Ayodhya of the Aryavarta and Rama was shown as having undergone a purifying penance to get rid of the sin he committed by killing Ravan, the Brahmin.

Similarly Brutra, another great Brahmin also opposed the oppression let loose by Vedic imperialists on the indigenous tribes. He was shown as killed by Indra, the king of Gods. But because Indra killed a Brahmin like Brutra he was also shown as punished through penance. These episodes were coined in order only to show that a Brahmin, in spite of being an offender, was above punishment and whosoever punishes them must undergo penance.

Origin of caste-supremacism

Notwithstanding such punishment of death, there are many instances of Brahmins in the Vedic society who were revolutionaries and against annihilation or subjugation of indigenous tribes of India. They were considered to be demons despite being born to Brahmins. Evolution of the epithet Brahma Raksasa (demonized Brahmin) suggest that there were many such people amongst the Aryans who were progressive in outlook and therefore were held as demons in the aggressive Vedic system. And they were making friends with the indigenous Indians, the non-Aryans.

So when subjugation of Indian community could not be possible on the line of Aryans versus non-Aryans, Vedic orthodoxy developed the caste system in the guise of systematizing the work order in society, though their hidden agenda was promulgation of Brahminic hegemony through caste-apartheid. The tribal unity was the next obstacle on their way. So they were trying to destroy tribal unity.

Buddha’s Solution

Buddha had meditated deeply on this problem and found out the solution. The solution was building up of class consciousness amongst the tribes and strengthening of Tribal Democracies.

He provided the Tribal people with a pattern that he called as Samgha. The Samgha was being managed by democratic participation of adult members through votes, known as Chanda in stark contradiction to the autocratic system propounded by the Vedic class in whose sriptures, the autocrat king was the incarnation of Vishnu, the all powerful God, whose personal orders were invincible and final in shaping of the society. So with emergence of Buddha, emerged a battle between ‘Chanda’ of the people and ‘Order’ of the autocrat kings.

According to Limca Book of World Records, Chanda is the first system of vote in whole of the world. The birthplace of Buddha, i.e. the Tosala region of Orissa is still known as Chandaka because the Chanda system of societal management was conceived and created here only.

Buddha was proud of this unique system already in vogue in his birthplace Orissa and used this system as the solution to autocratic exploitation let loose by Vedic imperialism.

Buddha’s Political Success

In order to save the Tribal democracies of his motherland Tosala, i.e. Orissa, he developed a strategy to obstruct possible invasion from the Vedic autocracy that had by then spread up to Magadh in North India and therefore he rushed into that part of the country and organized the tribals there in his Samgha pattern.

Ajatasattu, emperor of Magadha, had tried to gain over Buddha through his Brahmin minister Bassakara and failed and as long as Buddha was alive, it was not at all possible for Vedic autocrats to subjugate the tribal communities; and hence Orissa was saved.

The Real Reason behind Kalinga War

After the demise of Buddha, Orissa, his beloved birthplace, particularly the Tosala region, known by then as Kalinga, had remained the only fountainhead of mass obstruction to Vedic imperialism.

This is why Asoka, the notorious autocrat of Magadha, had attacked Kalinga.

Despite a catastrophic mayhem that his pursuit precipitated, he could not destroy the Buddhist spirit of Orissa. Then strategically he adopted Buddhism and like Gorbacheov – the agent of imperialism – destroyed the USSR by posing as a true communist, Asoka destroyed Buddhism posing as a Buddhist, through tactful induction of theism in Buddhist system. He projected himself as beloved of the God (Devanam piya) and thus clandestinely induced a climate that glorified the supremacy of God. Before the true Buddhists could understand the game plan of Asoka, he was recognized as the great patron of Buddhism and that eventually eliminated Buddhism from India where agents of Vedic imperialism, the Brahmins, grabbed Buddhism as a part of their system in view of the presence of God having had its recognition in the Asokan network.

Evolution of Sri Buddha Jagannath

This network having its overbearing impact on psyche of common people, the true followers of Gurudev Buddha in Orissa, the Chaurasi Siddhas and social philosophers like Indrabhuti amalgamated Buddhist tenets with imagery compatible to circumstances dominated by Vedic imperialism and transformed the tribal image Jaganta-tha to Gurudev Buddha to Gurudev Jagannatha. History of Jagannatha is a history of philosophical battle between Vedic imperialism and Buddhism. And, the later had, till our independence from the British, won.

Post-Independence Mischief

After independence, taking advantage of loss of societal strength of local people under overbearing impact of the Indian Constitution, the people in power have succeeded to promulgate Brahminic hegemony in Sri Mandira. For illustration, an officer belonging to Brahmin caste has always been chosen for the post of Temple Administrator and the Government of Orissa being the appointing authority there is no respite in this at any point of time.

Compare this with earlier times. An instance:

After Orissa remained under the reign of non-Oriyas for centuries, who had subjected our people to the exploitative system of Vedic imperialism by bringing in at least ten thousand Brahmins from Kanyakubja, destroying the utility of our mother-tongue by promulgation of Sanskrit as official language, a genuine Oriya, Kapilendra Rautray raised a linguistic revolution demanding for use of the peoples’ language as official language of the State and proceeded for elimination of official influence of the Brahmins who were non-Oriyas, He got total support of the genuine Oriyas and occupied the Throne. After becoming the Gajapati King, he declared himself as belonging to Sun Clan because Gurudev Buddha was of this Clan. He dedicated his State to Gurudev Sri Buddha Jagannatha and declared that he himself would work as the Rauta or representative of this sovereign Lord and ordained that all his successor- by blood or occupation- will have to honor this order. He extinguished caste hegemony in the Army and obliterated caste preference in the matter of taking Mahaprasad of Sri Jagannath. Disadvantaged and enraged, the Brahmins hibernated till Kapilendra Dev became too old to retain reign and then instigated Mangula Rai, a son born to Emperor through a Brahmin concubine, to usurp power by putting his father under house arrest. The Brahmins enthroned Mangula far away from the headquarters in the bank of river Krishna and gave him the name Purusottam Dev. This new agent of Brahminism did everything to destroy Buddhaness of Sri Jagannath. He replaced Jaya Dev’s lyrics with a work captioned Abhinav Geeta Govinda composed in his name by a Brahmin Dibakar Mishra wherein attempts were made to replace Buddha with Sri Krushna in the Dasavatara Stutee. People rose so ferociously against this ruler that he had to withdraw his mischievous work and restore Jaya Dev’s lyrics to daily ritual as before. His position as the Emperor had of course helped him and his intimate Brahmins to cause interpolations in the transit as I have shown in my aforesaid work; but it is clear that the people of Orissa had revolted against the Brahminic conspiracy to transform Sri Jagannath from Buddha to Krushna.

It was possible because there was no written legal apparatus like the Indian Constitution at that time.

Promulgation of Indian Constitution has obliterated this scope of showing collective strength of Oriyas to stop projection of Sri Jagannath as Vishnu in stead of Buddha.

So, the State should restore
Jagannath to his original position

So, it is the Government, contextually the Government run by Navin Patnaik at the moment, who only can restore Sri Jagannath to his original position of Buddha. This is necessary to get rid of the showy rituals that are not necessary in paying respect to Buddha. In Jagannath’s life these showy rituals have no place; because Buddha was against all such rituals.

These rituals are practices, as I have said supra, in order only to show Jagannath as Vishnu, which he never is.

Pt. Chakradhar Mohapatra has established in his epoch making book Real Birthplace of Buddha that Tosala of Orissa was the place where Buddha was born. I have supplemented Pt Mohapatra through newer and research-based arguments in my aforesaid book and notes in these pages.

The Government can also take advantage of the notes of Mr. Ajit Kumar Tripathy,IAS and Superintendent of Sri jaya Dev State Museum Mr. C. Patel besides comments of eminent international scholars coming frequently forward to express inclination to accept Orissa as the birthplace of Buddha.

Scriptures like Gnyanasiddhi are proof of the fact that Sri Jagannatha is Buddha.

Ancient Oriya literature like Sarala Mahabharata, Daru Brahma Gita, Sunya Samhita, Sasi Sena, Deula Tola etc provide the evidence that Sri Jagannath is the deity form of Budha.

Sri Jaya Dev stands as irrefutable evidence in this respect.

So there is no scriptural problem in restoring the Sri jagannatha to his original Buddha form.

If his original form is revived, the showy rituals shall stop and human lives will be saved from future such stampedes.

Difficult Task

But it will not be easy for the Government to do this instantly.

Religious revivalism has engulfed the Country.

Vested interest hooligans have gained ground in politics in the name of religion and they thrive in politics only by intoxicating people with erroneous interpretations of scriptures and by blocking the progressive aspects of culture from public gaze.

The antagonists of progress. comprising the exploiter class, are in control of economy as the Country has been reduced to a plutocracy with their agents in power in post-British India.

They are safe as long as the exploited is down with blind faith fueled by rituals like Alati and religious fundamentalists, contextually the fundamentalists of religious genre that reigns over the majority, continue as a commanding force.

Hence the antagonists of progress, who because of being that, have amassed wealth in post-British India taking advantage of the wrongful fundamental right on personal wealth, have ensured through the avaricious media managers that people hear only the fundamentalistic jargons.

And fueled by and in hope of advertisements controlled by black money that the antagonists of progress command, the audio-visual media is so vociferous in projecting Sri Jagannath as Vishnu of Hindu religion that common man is no more in a position to think freely.

When Prime Ministers like Narasimha Rao and Atala Behari Vajpayee were seen lying prostrate at the feet of so-called god-men oblivious of the fact that thereby they were making India’s Prime Minister prostrate, what to say of free thinking of a common man?

Under such circumstances it needs patriotic guts to stop the nuisance that is going on in the Temple of Sri Jagannatha and to restore him to his original Buddha form. I don’t believe that Navin Patnaik has the guts. It is for him a real difficult task.

Time need not be lost

No doubt, the people will rise in revolt one day against caste-apartheid and the unavoidable modern education will make them able to understand what is desirable and what is disposable in our collective socio-religious life. Then there shall be no such killer rush for seeing the Alati.

But we cannot wait for that. We shall have to find out an effective remedy.

The Remedy

To me it occurs, we should, for the time being, at least till it is finally decided as to whether Sri Jagannatha is Buddha or Vishnu, allow the rituals like the Alati to continue. But let be a secret ritual with a ban on its public performance.

It will not be non-spiritual in tenor. The Alati under public gaze is nothing but a showy ritual. The person who conducts the Alati under public gaze can never maintain his spiritual concentration. Any ritualistic performance without concentration of mind cannot be anything but showy and hence that makes a farce of that ritual. So this farce should stop.

Let the so-called pujapandas perform the Alati rituals in an environment of total peace and tranquility with full concentration, without any disturbance from any gathering of devotees.

I know, scriptures have been created to say that whosoever sees the Alati gets liberated from sins. Such provisions were deliberately scripted to attract maximum numbers of devotees, conscious of their sins, so that the Brahmins earn profusely from money collected in shape of Dana (cash offering) and the Rajah earns heavy revenue in shape of pilgrimage tax.

So the showy Alatis have no spiritual role. They can easily be stopped without any threat to spiritual entailment.

If any Panda wants to perform Alati let him do it behind closed doors if that is necessary for the Deity. After such closed door Alati, the devotees can be allowed entry into the space before Sri Jagannatha as and when they find time during designated hours and perform Alati personally near the Garuda pillar as per facility in vogue even now. So there shall be no rush for Alati and no stampede will occur at any time.

This will not hamper the rituals. On the other hand this will allow the rituals peaceful environment.

It may hamper the clandestine, unauthorized, illegal income of the Pandas. But helping Pandas in their illegal income is never important than saving human lives.

Dear Chief Minister, please apply your mind to the points discussed, take action and save Sri Jagannatha from showy rituals.

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