anoma'skanyapage2

Anoma's Kanya contd...

Author: Santanu Kumar Acharya

Ramakishore couldn’t believe his ears. “ To the drains? You threw that invaluable document of human history away to the gutters? Oh wretched woman… what have you done! Now…” He raised his fist as if he was about to strike his mother a deadly blow. But Dibyakishore caught hold of it in time and after a brief struggle overpowered his son. He pushed Ramakishore on to the floor. Then he sat down and held his head in his hands. Rama lay on the floor, his body heaving. Surely it was not the few blows and slaps he had rained on him. This was the first time Deba babu had hit his son.

Dibyakishore lifted his son and made him sit. Ramakishore turned his face away. Dibyakishore knew what was going through his son’s mind: He will never look at his father’s face for the rest of his life. The father in him understood it instinctively. But it was a long, long while before a strange question escaped his throat reluctantly, “ Leave it! Now tell me what have I to do for the atonement of this crime?” Ramakishore looked away. What could he say? The knowledge that Chitu had been right in her accusation did not hurt as much as seeing his father shorn off his dignity.

Meanwhile Nalini was emptying out the contents of the safe onto a turkish towel. She pulled the four corners and knotted them. She dropped the bundle before Ramakishore. “Take this. Give it back to its rightful owner.”

Seeing the bewildered look in his son’s eyes, Dibyakishore laughed harshly and said, “ Yes, it’s Raghunath Kalama’s property. Return it to his family. The dacoits had recovered all these buried goods from under their house. That dacoit was of course no other person than this!” He pointed his slender fore finger at his own chest and quipped, “ It was I myself. They have merely carried out my directions. Take them.”

Ramakishore shot up as if stung. Kicking the bundle away, he said, “Compared to what you’ve thrown away as a dead man’s hair this is nothing!”

-12-

Three years had passed since Raghunath and Kajyoyoda started out from the Kapileswar temple, near Bhubaneswar in Orissa. They were following the route that the Buddha was said to have taken thousands of years ago. While travelling they had used an old revenue map. In Orissa they had passed through Lumbini pargana or modern day Lumbei, Debadaha or Govindpur, crossed the river Devi known in Buddhist times as Debadaha. On the otherside of the river was Kodanda

Shown in the revenue map of today as the pragnna of Kodinda, on the eastern edge of Cuttack. Then they reached the river Chitrotpala, a branch of the Mahanadi. There the twosome party entered the village Keshsanagar, the birthplace of Raghunath. To their surprise and glee none recognised the duo, the shabbily dressed itinerant monks, in that village of Keshanagar! Raghunath didn’t pay a single look at his paternal home he calmly passed by. They crossed the river Chitrotpala and went along the landmarks guiding them in the map Monk Kajuoyoda carried in his hand. They trekked miles and miles on foot faithfully following the ancient route to the north, the prince Siddhartha took, some two thousand and five hundred years back.

Passing through Dharmasala on way to Anandapur and Kendujhar they reached Champua and crossed into Bihar. They had spent some weeks in Rajgir and Gaya and so had reached Kushinara where Tathagata had attained parinirvana. They spent six months in Kushinara.

Drawing upon his extensive knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures and history of ancient India Kajyoyoda gave a comprehensive picture and account of the times for the benefit of his disciple Raghunath. In their northbound long journey they moved on and on, pitching and shifting camps, as itinerant monks, tracing the footsteps of their Lord Goutama Buddha. After three years of movement in this way the scholarly duo had reached the place Kushinara, where they halted for a while.

One full moon evening Kajyoyoda, sitting on the bank of the river Hiranyavati, sang to himself:

Chitram Jambudwipam Manoramam Jivitam Manushyanam

Raghunath was busy cooking a meal for the night near their tent. He heard the sweet melodious tune of his guru and came out to see what gave so much bliss to the monk.

The moon was rising in the east and the sun was yet to set. The whole valley of Kushinara was a sylvan splendour of beauty wherever Raghunath’s eyes spanned around. He looked down the bank at the river Hiranyavati and asked his guru to explain the context of the song Kajyoyoda was singing.

“ This is the last message of Tathagata for you Indians”, he explained. Then the Japanese winked at Raghunath and said, “ You Indians are really the most fortunate people of the whole earth. Hear to what the Great one spoke of you- in one such full moon evening, while sitting here on this river bank, he announced to his chief disciple Ananada, ‘ Ananda Aja Kho Basesta Ratiya Paschime Jame Tathagatasya Parinirvana Bhabishyati’, meaning O Ananda! Towards the end of this night Tathagata will attain Parinirvana. But never mind -that moment is still some hours away to arrive. Now look at this panorama down there. This Jambudwipa Bharat Varsha is a picturesque country of natural beauty. People born in this blessed land are virtuous by their innate nature.

“Tathagata, at the time, was eighty years old when he announced his parinirvana to the world. That day he had accepted bhiksha from the blacksmith Chunda’s house. The bhiksha had been contaminated with some kind of local liquor and pork. And Bhagwan fell ill. Seeing the full moon of the Baisakha rising in the sky he moved away from the river bank into the forest. He called Ananda to his side and shared with him the premonition.

“ Ananda asked in a choked voice, ‘My lord! What shall we do? Let us go away from here to a city near by. We may go to Champa, Rajagriha, Sravasti, Saketa, Kosambi or Varanasi.

“ But the great soul wasn’t deterred. He reassured Ananda and other disciples who by then have come rushing after the message of painirvana spread around. ‘This Kushinara is haloed by the memory of Maharaja Kusha, son of Ramachandra, the king of Ayodhya. This is the ancient capital city of Maharaja Kusha who ruled here. This is my chosen place for the Parinirvana Never you worry about my last moments of life. My last wish and testament is this’

“ Then he spoke out clearly, ‘ Go down the hill. Inform the local Mallas who are living there about my last wish. It is they who will perform the religious rites of the Khyatriyas after the cremation of my mortal remains. And they will take the ashes of my body to my native land Kapilavastu where it will be finally interned.”

Raghunath was puzzled. “ The Mallas? Who are these Mallas?” He enquired.

“ Mallas?” Kayuoyoda laughed at the ignorance of Raghunath and looking quizzically at him counter questioned, “ Well, who are the Mallias of your Kapileswar Shiva temple in Bhubaneswar? Have ever tried to know the history of them? They are a clan of Khyatriyas living in that village Kapileswar for thousands of years. Yet they refuse to lose their special identity as a caste of Khyatriyas by themselves. They marry in their own small community- never outside of it. Why? Ask them. Even they don’t know the answer. But it is a fact that they are the Mallas of Kushinagra who carried the relics and ashes of their master to Kapilavstu, in obedience to the last testament of Bhagawan Buddha. Both the Mallas here and the Mallias there have their common gotra- Bashishtha! The Mallas never returned to Kushinagra again. Till today they serve their Master faithfully by guarding the vessel in which the sacred ashes were carried by them”

Kajyoyoda turned around from the river. Pointed at a hill top and whispered, “ There was in a dense sal forest on the hill top looking down the river Hiranyavati. There inside that sal grove Tathagata chose the final resting place between two tall slender sal trees. There his bed was made and he slept on his side with his head pointing the north. The mahaparinirvana came exactly towards the end of the full moon night of the month of Vaishakh, as he predicted to Ananda that evening on the bank of Hiranyavati River.”

Raghunatha pondered over the meaning of the song, Kayuoyoda was singing again. The line Chitram Jambudwipam had appealed to his heart deeply. Pertaining to the purport of the message Raghunath asked the monk to explain:

“But O Vikshyu! Where are those virtuous people now in India about whom Tathagata spoke? The people of today kill a great mahatma like Gandhiji. To use those words- Chitram jambudwipam- to describe the amoral and ignorant society of this country is a joke isn’t it?”

Kajyoyoda smiled. He understood the dilemma of his companion. “But, Raghunath, please do not forget Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Your Mahatma attained nirvana with the words He Ram! In Japan, lakhs vaporized within the twinkling of an eye with the atom bomb.

Not even a word of grief could they utter. Your country certainly is more fortunate.”

“Bhikshu,” Raghunath said, “Bhagawan Buddha said to his disciples that if the principles were consistently observed, Buddha dharma may last a thousand years. But how many years will Gandhi dharma last? Do you think Gandhi dharma has any relevance in this country of mine?”

The scriptures prescribe that bhikshus and sanyasis should not stay in one place for too long. In a world where change is the only constant it creates an illusion of permanency that prevents the soul striving for nirvana from continuing its journey. After a pause he said, “Raghunath, you are not able to forget your earlier life. Do you want to return to that family life? If you like, we can return. Shall we? As for me, I’m homeless forever. I will keep travelling till the end.”

“No,” said Raghunath firmly.

-13-

Asti Uttarasyam Dishi Devatama

Himalayo Namah Nagadhirajah

Purbaparotwayo nidhibagahya

Sthitah Prithibyaiba Manadanda

As Raghunath had his first glimpse of the Himalayas, his excitement became intense. The stanza he would recite so often was a Sanskrit poem from a school text. It was a passage from the epic Kumarasmabhava, written by Mahakavi Kalidas. Unable to contain his joy, Raghunath said to his companion, “Do you know why I feel so happy? With each step I take, I can feel the heartbeat of Shiva, in my blood.”

“I understand,” Kajyoyoda, said, “ This is your inherited tradition. The people of this land rejected Buddhism because the tradition of Shiva consciousness is so strong. That’s just the way it is.”

Though Kajyoyoda was just as pleased with the natural beauty, he was looking for the route to Rumindei or modern day Lumbini. And then they were at a pillar standing at the edge of a thick forest. “That is the Rumindei pillar. It is here that the stone inscription was found which the historians say represents the proof of Buddha’s birthplace. Come. Let us go and examine it.”

In the sixth century BC all this must have been part of the Sakya kingdom. Shuddhodhana was the king and Kapilavastu the capital. Raghunath recalled having read that every year on Akshaya Tritiya, King Shuddhodhana would go to the fields and sow the first paddy seeds himself. That would mean that paddy was grown in this area all those many centuries ago. He looked around and saw that the forest had been cut down. New human settlements had come up and tractors were clearing the land. Kajyoyoda was looking at Raghunath, smiling, with a question that seemed to take off from Raghu’s own thoughts.

“Do you know the meaning of the word Shuddhodana? It means pure rice. But rice was planted in this area only after India became independent. The refugees from Punjab started paddy cultivation here after they settled here following the partition of the country. You won’t find Shuddhodana’s paddy fields here, my friend. You have left them far behind near the village of Kapileswar in Orissa!”

And then Kajyoyoda spoke of the famous German archaeologist, Dr Feuhrer, who had come across the stone inscription proclaiming that four stupas and a stone pillar had been constructed on the orders of Emperor Ashoka in 249 BC. That was the year Ashoka had paid a royal visit to the garden of Lumbini where the Sakyamuni was born …

“Now read this map. What is the name of this place?”

Raghunath leaned over and looked at the map. “Padariya.”

He looked at Kajyoyoda with bewildered eyes. The monk explained, “Yes, it was in Padariya, this village, that Dr Fuehrer found that stone inscription in 1896, that was, two thousand, three hundred and eighty five years after the parinirvana of Bhagawan Buddha. This discovery got worldwide publicity. Suddenly everyone knew of Rumindei.” Kajyoyoda burst out laughing. “Rumindei is the modern day name of Lumbini. At least that was what the German guessed. He coined it thinking that the local people couldn’t possibly pronounce the difficult word Lumbini! So he coined the corrupt version Rumindei!”

“It is indeed strange!” Raghunath said. “If Padariya could be Rumindei and so it meant Lumbini, then why not Lumbei? Did you not say that in 1928, another similar stone edict was discovered from the village Kapileswar and is now in the Ashutosh museum at Kalikata?”

Kajyoyoda said, “From the day I have set foot in India I have been consumed by this question: Was Tathagata one person or more than one? How can one man take birth at two different places at the same time?”

They reached the Ashoka Stambha, the world famous Terai Pillar. Raghunath stared at it. He had only a limited knowledge of the Ashokan pillars but this one seemed different. He said, in a voice full of doubt, “Ashoka pillars are broad at the base and taper towards the top, don’t they? This one is of uniform girth. Besides, where is the bell shaped top with the signatory four lions?”

“I have wondered about it as well. Ten years ago when I visited this place, I was as disappointed as you are right now. I could not accept that this was once the garden of Lumbini. I have studied this stone inscription and compared it to a similar one in Kapileswar, Bhubaneswar. That inscription says more or less the same thing as this one, except for one vitally important additional line that gives the year of its installation in Buddhist era 240, that is after two hundred and forty years after the demise or Buddha in the year 489 B.C. The second vital information is the signature of the scribe. Now my question is which of the stone inscriptions should we accept as prima facie evidence of Bhagwan Buddha’s birthplace? This Tarai one or that Kapileswar one?”

It was the Japanese monk who finally broke the silence. He shook Raghunath and asked with a smile, “Let us now move ahead. I would like to go further north from here. Would mind accompanying me to Kailash, the abode of Shiva?”

Raghunath looked up curiously. “Why do you wish to go to Kailash and Manasarovar? Just for a visit? As a follower of your dharma do you endorse Shiva’s abode Kailash as a teertha, Bhikshyu?”

Kajyoyoda looked at him through the slit of his smiling eyes. “ Why not? Why do Hindus go to North?”

Raghunath replied, “It is an old tradition. The path of renunciation brings us to the north.”

Kajyoyoda listened with keen attention. But all the while there was a hint of smile in his eyes. Suddenly he opened them wide and burst out laughing. “Well? Then why did Siddhartha Gautama who was born in Padariya village in the Himalayan foothills go south for tapasya and then right in to the capital city of Bimbisara the King of Baisali! Was that the way and order to renounce the world? Wasn’t Gautama Buddha born a Hindu?”

Raghunath was flabbergasted at this simple question over which he never pondered. He looked for a place to sit and meditate. Then he sat down on a rock near by. In a moment he passed into a trance called ‘savikalpa samadhi.’

A flash of his earlier life came back to Raghunath. He saw clearly his ancestral house on the banks of the Chitrotpala. He saw himself digging at the foundations of that house in an effort to trace his lineage. What madness was that? At the end of it, what did he achieve? Raghunath felt sad. His trance broke. Opening the eyes he saw Kajyoyoda had suddenly become immobile. Both his eyes were closed. After sometime he raised one of his hands in a mudra that Raghunath had never before seen Kajyoyoda making. He was reminded of a unique, mysterious form. Though seen as a picture he always experienced the living source of that picture in his body. The monk seemed to appear like Paramahansa Ramakrishna at first. In another instant he transformed himself to Gautama Buddha, his object of worship and then he saw with eyes wide open Buddha taking very many forms one after another. But one picture overwhelmed him. That of prince Gautama mercilessly cutting his hair. He looked on and on fully forgetful of himself.

The monk Kajyoyoda noticed it. He touched tenderly on the Agyanchakra, a spot in between the brows to break Raghunath’s wakeful meditative trance.

Raghunath came back to mundane realities. He smiled and nodding his clean shaved head muttered, “ O Bhikshyu Let us resume our journey to the north. I am ready to go to Kailash and Mansarovar.”

“Vatsa,” his co-traveller of many years said. “ No not now. Your time has not yet come Raghunath.” Then as if commanding he said, “Prepare yourself! The sansar is in need of you. They are coming! I could see them coming towards us clearly in my dhyana – the entire party of them is coming. They will arrive shortly and ask you to return.”

Raghunath was puzzled. “ Who are coming?” He asked in amazement and in total ignorance of what was coming in the immediate future.

“ They- your wife, daughter and then your friend Dibyakishore with his wife and son Ramakishore. Who else would you like to meet? Now its time you forgive and forget. Give another chance to sansara to prove its worth, Raghunatha.” The saint patted him tenderly and whispered,

“ The primary quality of the Agnyachakra is forgiveness. Time has not yet come for you to go to the Himalayas. You will go back again to lead a worldly life. A lot of your duties remain incomplete there. Do not resist the demands of your destiny and the karma.”

And as Raghunath waited calmly to take in Kajyoyoda’s words fully, the party had indeed arrived. The leader of the party was none other than his erstwhile schoolmate Dibyakishore! He was leading the team at the head of it. Following him were Padmavati and who else? She was Nalini of course! Trailing behind were the couple- Chitu and a fine smart young man holding her hand! Was he then that boy Ramakishore, Deba’s son? Was he dreaming? Was he in a trance?” Raghunath rubbed his eyes to have a clearer look.

“Bapa!” it was Chitu who overwhelmed Raghunatha in her arms and began sobbing like a baby.

“ Where is Ramu?” asked Raghunath who missed his son in that assembly of people.

“He is preparing for his exams” Chitu managed the words between gasps of breath.

Dibyakishore was standing at a distance, not sure of himself.

Raghunath got up from the stone he was sitting upon and with open arms moved over to embrace Dibyakishore.

Monk Kajyoyoda looked on at the family reunion from a distance. He seemed to be enjoying the works of the incorrigible ‘Mara’, with compassion. For a moment a passing reflection of his own family life flashed in his mind. A long forgotten event of his life triggered his memory to work. His long dead mother’s pale and withered face seemed to be visible for a moment. He saw her last years back in the monastery where she left him as a child dedicated to become a monk. As per Buddhist custom prevalent in Japan a child born to a mother aged over and above forty had to be dedicated to the local monastery for monkhood. He was a child born to her mother at her forty-second year. Often his mother and father visited him in the local monastery where he was being groomed as a lay bhikshyu. Then mother became a widow and as per custom she herself took shelter in another monastery as a bhkshyuni. Kajyoyoda met her mother for the last time before he left Japan for India years back. In India he received the news of her death. Till now he never met his mother in dreams. But her face, all of a sudden, appeared to have been etched in the air in front of him at that instant!

Chitu prostrated herself on the ground at the feet of the Buddhist sannyasi that she was seeing after long years since that shocking event of his arrest at their Keshnagar home.

Kajyoyoda’s hand touched Chitu’s head and he blessed her, “ O Anoma’s daughter! Soubhagyabati Bhaba!” and tears rolled down the monk’s eyes, as never before.

-x-x-x-

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