Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has endangered Sri Jagannath in his shrewd design to rope in the deity’s caste-supremacist servitors against the people who demand demolition of his father’s tomb erected illegally on the ground of Swargadwar crematorium.
He has announced creation of a model public school in Puri town exclusively for the children of servitors for free education that would be of the highest standard to equip them to compete with the best. This exclusivity, besides being detrimental to equal right of child for education in public school, will ruin the cult of Jagannath, specifically as the students therein shall be given Vedic education which would destroy Jagannath culture.
Jagannath is basically the deity of Bouddha Tantra.
When Bouddha concept of transformation of Buddha into Gagana (Omnipresence) after his demise did not properly click, to save Buddhism from Vedic chauvinists, Siddha Indrabhuti had prevailed upon tribal Buddhists of Orissa to convert the tribal deity ‘Jaganta – tha’ to Jagannath in consonance with the tribal matriarch tradition in order to stop the spread of caste and king factored anarchy (Subhas Chandra Pattanayak in Sri Jaya Devanka Baisi Pahacha [2005], Bharat Bharati, Cuttack, pp. 122-196).
The ancient political economy was based on process of creation. Male was projected as the factor of creation in Vedic system whereas in non-Vedic system female was the creator. Buddhism had grown on the non-Vedic system. Tribal life-style, matriarch in concept and conduct, was non-Vedic. So, it was natural for Indrabhuti to incorporate the tribal life-style in applied Buddhism that gave birth to Vajrayan. His sister Laxminkara had supplemented Vajrayan with glory to copulation as the medium of understanding life and generating life. This being practical, Buddhism was the religion of the masses of Orissa.
Buddha being Jagannath, female centricity evolved as the cult of Jagannath. Therefore, Sri Jagannath is worshiped as Kalika, attired as a female. (NILADROU SRI JAGANNATHA SAKHSAT DAKSHINA KALIKA). And, hence, in his system, Tantra is predominant. On the basis of fundamental difference between Vedic and Bouddha-Tantric views on creation, society was divided into two distinctly different segments: Vija Pradhan and Kshetra Pradhan. Puri is SriKshetra on this basis. Vedic chauvinists have constantly tried to demolish the Kshetra Pradanya of Puri.
Opponents of matriarch philosophy had used all their heinous tactics to convert Buddha Jagannath to Vishnu Jagannath in order only to impose Veda on the people of Orissa. The antagonists of Kshetra Pradhanya are practitioners of Brahminism. Brahminism is a political practice of inequality. Whosoever of the Brahmins oppose inequality oppose Brahminism.
Orissa’s history of culture is a history of people’s fight against Brahminism, as also a history of annihilation of Bouddha Siddhas by royal patrons of Brahminism.
As for example, 668 Siddhas of Chaurashi monastery on banks of Prachi were annihilated by ‘Keshari king’, probably Yajati Keshari, who had imported 10,000 Brahmins to non- Orissa to destroy the Buddhist society and monuments (Iswara Das in Chaitanya Bhagavat).
Another description in Ekamra Purana tells us of how goons called Pasupat Saiva were being rewarded with gold coins and properties when any Buddhist monk was beheaded by any of them.
Vedic chauvinists like Adi Sankaracharya were camping in Puri to extinguish the practice of Bouddha Tantra in Srimandira, which was the only obstacle to spread of their Vija Pradhan philosophy. Even Adi Sankara had managed to plant his own statue on the podium of Sri Jagannath to be worshipped along with the deity, so that victory of Vija Pradhanya over Kshetra Pradanya could be exhibited. But the people of Orissa fought a long battle even against their own emperor and ultimately removed the Sankaracharya statue from the Lord’s podium and threw it out to the street (Kedarnath Mohapatra, Khurudha Itihas, p.288), as a result of which, SriKshetra has retained its glory.
However, because of the royal support to the Vedic chauvinists, a compromise was arrived at that allowed Vedic system of worship along with Tantrik worship of Sri Jagannath, as is expressed in, “Amnayagamavedaya shuddha Buddhayate Namah”. Agents of Brahminism had been trying to remove every trace of Buddhism from the Jagannath system wherein the present Gajapati, the Shankaracharya of Puri, and the officers in charge of Srimandira who were invariably of Brahmin caste had been trying since long to thwart Srimandira into the fold of Vedic system. But they were facing conscious resentment and opposition. Their all out attempt to subject Sri Jagannath to dictates of Sankarachaya had failed, as was seen in the time of the last car festival.
But the Chief Minister has now posed a danger to the centuries old uniqueness of the Oriya culture and its object of pride epitomized in predominance of Tantra in the Jagannath system. His chief ministerial steps to promulgate only the Vedic education in the exclusive school for children of servitors’ families without any provision of study of Buddhist Tantra at par therewith, would eventually ruin the uniqueness of Lord Jagannath.
When, thus, he has put the cult of Jagannath in jeopardy, he has declared heavy financial aid in shape of scholarship to servitors’ children if any of them pursues techno education after free and scholarship supported education up to the qualifying stage.
The chief minister’s announcement is vitiated with motive. It is a design of bribing the servitors to cultivate their support to browbeat people who would take up soon the demolition of his father’s illegal tomb erected on the ground of Swargadwara.
Behind back of the Cabinet, on the table of review of preparedness for Nabakalebara, the CM’s sudden announcement of official investment of Rs. 60 lakhs as premium of insurance policies of as many as 8900 members of 1930 servitor families, whereby up to seven members of every family would be covered for Rs.2 lakhs each and provision of low cost houses and homestead land parcels speaks volumes of the mischief.
This makes it clear that, the chief minister has all on a sudden become very pro-active in support of the servitors, even though, thereby, the identity of Jagannath as deity of Buddhist Tantra is threatened.
He is acting thus, to our perception, only to cultivate the muscle support of the servitors to obstruct demolition of his father’s illegal tomb.
His followers’ reactions on possible demolition of the illegal tomb are noteworthy.
Even as his Rasputin Prasanna Patsani has threatened to annihilate whosoever dares to demolish the controversial tomb of Chief Minister’s father Biju Patnaik, a cabinet minister Damodar Raut has put his assertion on records that the Biju tomb can only be removed when the Swargadwar would be removed from the location.
These dangerous outbursts were in reaction to an order of a Puri Civil Court for demolition of the tomb of Biju Patnaik erected illegally on the most important public crematorium of Orissa.
While showing why the illegal tomb of Biju Patnaik must be demolished, the historic socio-cultural uniqueness of Swargadwara was discussed in these pages under the caption:
SWARGADWARA MUST FIRST BE FREED FROM BIJU PATNAIK’S POSTHUMOUS ENCROACHMENT
A click on it would also lead to a link to an earlier discussion on why Biju’s posthumous deification is undesirable.
In fact, when he died, he was in political trash into which the people of Orissa had thrown him.
It was, therefore, held as an affront to democracy as well as to political wisdom of the people who had finally ejected him from power, to have his tomb on the soil of the Swargadwara.
Now the concerned Court of Law has come out with the most appropriate judicial decision to free the Swargadwara from this illegal encroachment.
The Court has ordered for demolition of the illegal tomb within three months.
The right thinking people are eager to see the illegal tomb created for nefarious political purpose demolished.
The ruling party named after Biju would lose a great propaganda point if the tomb is demolished. Therefore, Naveen Patnaik is trying to cultivate a law and order situation under the cover of which the court order could be foiled. And, to create this situation, he may need the physical support of the Jagannath servitors. Hence this violation of norms of public school and vitiation thereof with Vedic education and exclusive arrangement of Insurance for servitors and provision of houses/homestead land parcels.
Orissa is clearly in a predicament.
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