KENDULI WAS NOT THE BIRTHPLACE OF JAYADEV

ORISSA GOVT. MAKES A MISTAKE BY ADOPTING A COMMUNAL FESTIVAL

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Orissa State Government has made a mistake by adopting a festival that the Jayadev Foundation Trust and Jayadev Sanskrutika Parisad, twin private bodies, run mostly by Brahmins under leadership of Orissa’s Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary Mr.A.K.Tripathy, to keep buried forever Sri Jaya Dev’s Buddhist identity.

Birthday festival of Sri Jaya Dev has been celebrated this year from May 11 to 13 under the State government banner with total funding by the State without any provision in the Budget for the purpose. The aforesaid private combine was conducting ‘Sankirtan Yatra’ from Bhubaneswar to an adjacent Brahmin village named Kenduli for the last 13 years wrongfully projecting Sri Jaya Dev as a Hindu Vaishnav saint. This writer had shown the poet as a Buddhist who had composed his lyrics as a supportive literature to Kamavajrayana vide Orissa’s popular newspaper ‘Sambad’ (dated 11th May 1997), to which the above combine had resented through its founder-functionary P.C.Tripathy (Sambad, 25th May, 1997, but did not dare to counter academically after this writer established the Kamavajrayani tenets of the lyrics of Sri Jaya Dev (Sambad, 8th June, 1997). Since then the combine has never come forward to academically establish that Sri Jaya Dev’s writing did not connote to Buddhism in Sahajayan sector; but has tried to mislead the people through the ‘Sankirtan Yatra’. It now transpires that the Directorate of Culture and the Directorate of Information & P.R. were also being used to organize this communal ‘Yatra’ “with adequate assistance from the District Administration, District Police, Engineering Departments and local Public Relation Officers”. (Minutes of meeting taken for celebration of Jaya Dev Jayanti and sankirtan yatra, 2005, dated, 8th April, 05) When an IAS officer has a stake in a matter who in the State administration can deny the cooperation sought for?

The private combine succeeded this year in legalizing every illegality committed so far. A cursory look into the matter reveals that Orissa’s Minister of Culture, I & P.R. was prevailed upon to take a meeting with the above two organization which he did on 8th April 05. It was decided that, “henceforth the primary responsibility for organizing these celebrations should be taken over by the Culture and Information & P.R. departments together” whereas the above two organizations “will extend necessary cooperation”. A sum of Rs.1,22,000/- was announced as grant that included Rs.20,000/- for Jaya Dev Sanskrutika Parisad. The avowed aim of this new arrangement was a ‘sankirtan yatra’ from Anantavasudev Temple of Bhubaneswar to Srimandir of Puri via Kenduli village which is being projected as the village of Sri Jaya Dev. Officers like the Executive Engineer of Prachi Irrigation Division and B.D.O.s of the concerned Blocs were asked to look after the comfort of Sankirtan Yatries whereas Executive Officers of Local Bodies were to organize reception for the troupe. The Collectors of Khurda and Puri were asked to personally see that the venture was a grand success. S.P.s of both the districts were asked to ensure that adequate police escort was pressed into action. The State machinery was massively used to convince the people that Sri Jaya Dev was a Hindu saint and that he was born in the village Kenduli near Bhubaneswar.

It is a Brahminic conspiracy to wipe out forever Sri Jaya Dev’s Buddhist identity by use of the State machinery. It is a shame that a minister, without consent of the cabinet, has prompted the administrative machinery of the ‘secular’ state to work for a communal cause to the extent of strangulating history.

After the agents of Brahminism succeeded in eliminating Buddhism in the birth land of Sri Buddha Dev, i.e. Tosala or the coastal belt of Orissa, attempts have been made to misguide the rest of the world about Jaya Dev’s birthplace and philosophy too. His world famous love-lyrics, which were composed to spread the tenets of Kama-vajrayana or Sahajayana School of Buddhism, (Subhas Ch. Pattanayak: Sambad, 11th May 1997 and 8th June 1997) were edited by antagonists of Buddhism with profuse interpolations with a motive to usurp him for Brahminism and in course of time the edited compilation was given the title of “Geeta Govinda”, given his works a permanent Vaishnav colour.

Gajapati Purusottam Dev, who was a blind patron of Brahminism, had tried to stop recitation of Jaya Dev’s love-lyrics in the temple of Sri Buddha Dev christened as Sri Jagannath by King Indrabhuti , the founder of Vajrayan school of Buddhism. By that time Brahminism had succeeded in projecting Sri Jagannath as Bishnu in place of Buddha and Sri Mandira as a Hindu temple. But the general public of Orissa being more attuned to Buddhism, and therefore determined to see that the Kama-Vajrayani lyrics of Jaya Dev are not discarded from Sri Buddha-Jagannath’s abode, the evil design of Purusottam Dev did not succeed. Then attempts were made to project Sri Jaya Dev as a Hindu saint in order only to eliminate his public image as a Buddhist.

When thus his philosophical tenets were under an eclipse, visitors to Puri from outside Orissa were getting acquainted with the peculiarities of the Sri Mandira system wherein recitation of Jaya Dev’s libidinous lyrics was a must in the Deity’s daily worship. That the people of Orissa had compelled their king Emperor Purusottam Dev to withdraw recitation of another book styled as ‘Abhinav Gita Govinda’, the authorship of which was attributed to the emperor himself and which he had promulgated in place of Jaya Dev’s, was a matter of public knowledge that had lifted the poet to a legendary position in their estimation. Naturally, therefore, they were interested in collecting as much information as possible on Sri Jaya Dev. All of them, who had mentioned of him in their respective books during the period when Orissa was under Hindu Monarchs, have recorded that he belonged to a place near Puri, which was known for the shrine of Sri Jagannath. (Chandra Datta in Bhaktamala, or Mahipati in Bhakta Vijay for instance). It is remarkable that these two authors have described Sri Jaya Dev’s birthplace as “Vinduvilwa” and “Tinduvilwa” respectively. But both of them have made it abundantly clear that this village was adjacent to the town of Puri.

Therefore, history does not agree with the propaganda that Sri Jaya Dev was born in village ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar. Even Sri Jaya Dev himself has not said that he was born in village ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar. According to him, the name of his village was ‘Kinduvilwa’, if interpretation of the ‘Sarvangasundari Tika’ is accepted. This word Kinduvilwa, of course, is interpreted as the name of his family or clan in the ‘Shrutimanjari Tika’. If this interpretation is accepted then there is no reason to say that Kinduvilwa was his village. In that case, his village was either Binduvilwa or Tinduvilwa near the town of Puri. While editing ‘Sri Gitagovindamahakavyam’, in a footnote to the stanza where the poet has given a hint on his birthplace under the 3rd ‘Sargah’ at page 132, Dr.Bhagaban Panda has also said that in some of the manuscripts, the word has not been shown as ‘Kinduvilwa’, but has been shown as ‘Tinduvilwa’. Hence the village of Sri Jaya Dev can either be Tinduvilwa or Vinduvilwa or Kinduvilwa near Puri, but by no chance it can be the village of ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar.

Moreover, use of the word ‘Samudra’ in this verse by the poet himself suggests that the he was very much in harmony with the sea as he was composing his verses. Earlier I have shown how the sea was the vital source of philosophy that he depicted in his writing. A popular legend that attributes the writing of the words “dehi padapallavamudarm” to Sri Jagannath, narrates that the poet could not dare to write these words, even though they were contextually most appropriate, because his devoted mind refused to place the Lord in so humble a position. Undecided and perplexed, he left for a bath in the sea. It was, by his time, widely believed that a sea bath at Puri was enough to purify the mind. (A tenth century inscription vide Inscription from Maihar, E I Vol. XXXV part IV edited by Dr.D.C.Sircar and V.S.Subrahmanyam) As the saintly Jaya Dev should have been full of remorse for having conceived the words “dehi padapallavamudaram” which were to show the Lord in sub normality, he was correctly claimed in the legend to have gone for the sea bath. But the Lord was not going to be offended by these words. So, in full approval of what Jaya Dev had conceived, the Lord, before return of the poet, had come himself in his guise and taking the manuscript from his wife, completed the incomplete verse with these very words. This side of the legend may or may not be accepted, but it cannot be ignored that it has emphasized that Sri Jaya Dev was leaving in a place that was so near to the seashore of Puri that he was able to take a bath in the sea as and when he was wishing.

‘Bhaktamala’ of Chandra Datta narrates that Gita Govinda (as is the edited title) was composed by Sri Jaya Dev in the sacred city of Puri and the author was feeling himself accomplished by dedicating the same to the Lord. Neither in this book of reference nor in any other relevant works of the era, the village Kenduli which is adjacent to Bhubaneswar has been shown as the village of Sri Jaya Dev. The famous poet of Maharastra, Mahipati, in his work ‘Bhaktavijaya’ has told that Jaya Dev’s village was Tinduvilwa, which was adjacent to the town of Puri. “Jagannath kshetra samipa jana/Tinduvilwa grama namavidhana”. This is what he has said. In ‘Sri Sri Bhaktamala’ authored by Vishnav poet Krishna Das of Bengal in Bengali language, it is unambiguously told that Jaya Dev’s birthplace was near the sea at Puri.”Kenduvilwa name grama sagar haite/Sriman Jaya Dev dwija haila bidite” is his version.

So, there is no historical reason to take Kenduli village that lies near Bhubaneswar as Sri Jaya Deva’s birthplace. His birthplace must be somewhere near the town of Puri. Where then should it be?

There is a Temple of Bilweshwar, which is not only adjacent to Puri, but also is within the Shankhakshetra zone of the sacred city. The place is on the seashore. The village where Sri Jaya Dev was born should have been there. Agents of aggressive Brahminism like the Pashupata Shaivas who were killing Buddhist monks and their followers in order to extinguish Buddhism from Orissa, and taking gold coins from Orissa Monarch as reward for that, might have destroyed the birthplace of Sri Jaya Dev, who, in his love-lyrics, had contributed the most popular supportive literature to the Kamavajrayan school of Buddhism.

There is a Lingaraj-Temple inscription that informs us that Sadhupradhan Jaya Dev of Kurmapatakapur had visited Bhubaneswar as a guide of Kommi Nayaka (Inscriptions of Orissa, S.N.Rajguru, Orissa Historical Research Journal, Vol.V, No.4, p.179-182). The wrong notion that Jaya Dev was a Vaishnav Saint has prompted Dr. Bhagawan Panda to suggest that this Kurmapatakapur was ‘Sri Kurmam’ of Andhra Country. As Vaishnav Guru Nimbarka belonged to Andhra, Sri Jaya Dev, being his disciple, might have stayed in Sri Kurmam for some time and from there he might have come to Bhubaneswar accompanying Kommi Nayaka, a high-ranking officer of Kalinga at that time, he speculates.(Orissan Oriental Text Series {Sanskrit}-20, Directorate of Culture, Orissa, 1985, pp.41-42).

But ‘Sri Kurmam’ is not the Kurmapataka to which Sri Jaya Dev belonged. Kurmapatakapur is the area of non-Brahmin population on the banks of Prachi spanning up to Puri via Konarka and Sri Jaya Dev, as admitted in the Lingaraj Temple inscription, belonged to this area.

The place, where the Vilweshwar Temple still stands, falls within the limits of this Kurmapatakapur. This was a great place of Kamavajrayana, the philosophy that had given birth to the Konarka Temple.

Agents of Brahminism had destroyed the Konark Temple and removed the image of Buddha Dev, which was being worshiped here as the Deity, from the spot. But people of Orissa did not allow Brahminism to succeed. The King was compelled to bring the image of Sri Buddha Dev to Puri and to consecrate a temple to him within the Srimandira complex. It was done.

Sri Buddha Dev belonged to the Surya Clan and hence was regarded as incarnation of the light giver Surya Dev. So the Konark Temple was known as the Surjya Mandir or Sun Temple and his image being placed in the Temple to be known as Surya Mandir inside the main Temple of Sri Jagannath was acceptable to the people. But the image of that great son of the soil of Orissa, again under Brahminical conspiracy, was kept hidden inside this Temple behind an image of Surya even as an iron barricade debarred the visitors to have a real glimpse of Buddha Dev who was being worshiped in the Konark Temple.

A single image of Sri Jagannath, which was brought from the Kanark Temple along with Buddha Dev’s, was kept in the ‘Surya Mandira’ for public darshan. This had satisfied the people to some extent, as Buddha himself was also Sri Jagannath.

Daily recitation of Sri Jaya Dev’s Kamavajrayani poems in the inner chamber of Srimandira before Sri Jahannatha-Buddha, and the inner campus of Srimandira being named as ‘Kurma Bedha’ in due honor to the poet’s Kurmapataka connection, must have convinced the people of Orissa at that time that notwithstanding the king siding with the Brahmins, Buddhism as practiced by the Kamavajrayan school in Kurmapatak is well settled in Srimandira.

That, Kurmapatak was a great center of Buddhism is slowly but steadily coming to light. Discovery of Buddhist antiquities from a place called Kuruma, around 8 kms to the southeast of the Konark Temple, makes the scenario clear. Kuruma stands for Kurmapatakapur and the Kurmapatak was a landmass that had spread from Konark area to Puri. The entire stretch was associated with Bouddha Tantra in which the Temple of Sri Jagannath-Buddha at Puri had its roots. Therefore, Mangala of Kakatapur in the Konark zone has so much part to play in the life of Sri Jagannath.

Sri Jaya Dev, according to the Lingaraj Temple inscription noted supra, belonged to the Kurmapataka area and his village was within the geographical limits of this Kurmapataka, be it Tinduvilwa or Vinduvilwa or Kinduvilwa.

It is to be noted that authors are confused in grasping and writing the correct name of Sri Jaya Dev’s village due to deference in pronunciation as a result of which different words like ‘Tindu’, ‘Vindu’ and ‘Kindu’ has taken shape; but none has made any mistake in respect to ‘Vilwa’. Be it ‘Tindu’, ‘Vindu’ or ‘Kindu’, Jaya Dev’s village had definitely had the suffix ‘vilwa’. Hence it may probably be the place on the seashore near Puri where still stands a temple of Vilweswhar.

To say that the village ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar was the birthplace of Sri Jaya Dev is therefore absolutely wrong.

Scholars like Pandit Kedarnath Mohapatra, Pandit Nilamani Mishra, Dr.Bhagaban Panda have erred in accepting this village as the birthplace of the poet. They have fallen in the trap laid by agents of Brahminism who, having failed to thwart Sri Jaya Dev’s lyrics from the Srimandira by using emperor Purusottam Dev, had tried to show the Sahajayani poet as a Hindu vaishnav.

Therefore it is clear that the State Government of Orissa, by patronizing the ‘Sankirtana Yatra’, which is designed to bury for ever Sri Jaya Dev’s Buddhist identity and his contribution to Bouddha Vajrayana under the carpet of time, has contributed to cultural dishonesty besides having gone against the appeal of history.