Indian Antiquary Vol 49

SR No.: 032541
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 252
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 199

OCTOBER, 1920)
BOOK-NOTICE
195
orthodox and was imbued with outside influences, mystic formule of apparently neaningless sounds European and Asiatic, and even Indian thought in this can difficult to dissect and more than He tended to identify himself with God, like the probably actually meaningless, but no doubt in early Hindu, and to lose his individuality after the minds of the users all the more holy and efti. death in eternal companionship with God. His cacious on that account. The idea of the equality object in this life was to escape from individuality, of all in religion would, however, sink readily and in order to realize that God is the only reality." deeply into human beings situated as are the His practice to this end came very near to the Mehtars. Hindu Yoga, and to him all religious systems tended to become unreal and of equal value.
dof equal value Lal Ded enforced her doctrines by wandering It is not difficult to understand that a yôgint of about singing and dancing in a nudo or nearly. the fourteenth century, in contact with Muham. nude condition. This was nothing new in Saiva, madanism, should quickly absorb such a line of or indeed in other forms of Hinduism, or in thought. And the interesting point in Lal Ded's Judaism or Islam. In Verse 94 she defends the life and popular teaching is that we here seem to practice :get a glimpse into the trend of the Hindu mind
“My teacher spake to me but one precept. that gave Ramananda, and more largely his great
He said unto me 'from without enter thou pupil Kabir, the enormous sway they have wielded
the inmost part.' over the religion of India of their own and even
That to me became a rule and a precept, the present day.
And therefore naked began I to dance." How deeply the general idea conveyed in Lal Ded's verse above quoted has struck its roots
The authors' gloss on this is : into the every-day Indian mind is shown in a coup. "The Guru or spiritual preceptor, confides to let taught to my own children when very small by his disciple the mysteries of religion. Lalla's their nurse, though long completely lost by them. nccount is that he taught her to recognise the She was an Outcaste, & Mehtarani
external world as naught but an illusion, and to Ram nam ladda; Gopdh ndm ghe;
restrict her thoughts to meditation on her inner Har kd ndm miert ; ghól ghol pi.
Self. When she had grasped the identity of her
Self with the Supreme Self, she learnt to appre. The name of Ram is the sweet; Gopal's name
ciate all externals at their true value. So she is the butter;
abandoned even her dress and took to going Har's name is the sugar: mix up well and take.
about naked .... Here she says that she danced The form of the couplet is purely Hindu, Ram in this state. Filled with supremo rapture, she nâm, Gopal nAm, Har nåm, referring back to the behaved like a madwoman. The dance, called age-old doctrine" of the eternity of sound and the tandava, of the naked devotee is supposed to be a indefeasible connexion between the sound of a copy of the dance of Siva, typifying the course word and its meaning," and thence between the
of the cosmos under the god's rule. It implics attributes of a god and his name: but the senti. that the devotee has wholly surrendered the world, mant in medieval Hindu, like Lal Ded's. In fact, and become united with siva." if we take Ram and Gopal (Krishna) to represent the Vaishnava hero-gods and Har to represent Lal Ded was essentially nothing more than the siva, we got very near to Lal Ded's teaching. If product of her race and time and incapable of found.
ing we take the couplet to be of Ramaite origin and Sect or organised following, and it is quite to mean that Gopal And Hari (Krishna) are sub. possible that her popularity was founded on her ordinate to and absorbed in Râm, the vorse'is reputation M dancing ascetic coupled with her Vaishnava but non-sectarian. In the Mohtarani's capacity for stating in fascinating verde the doc. mind, however, I feel sure it conveyed the equality
trines taught her. The emotional dancing would of the Supreme by whatsoever name He was called,
draw the necessary attention to her and the quality because she was the wife of the chief priest (as one of her verse would remain in the public memory.' may say) of the LAlbêgi Mehters of Ambala. This A century after her time we have a strong instance man had a M8. keurindma or Genealogy' of his of this in a very different Hindu personage, teachSect, of which I got the loan about 1880 and pub. ing dootrine in some aspects as poles part lished it verbatim in the Legends of the Punjab, from hors-the Bengali Brahman Visvembhara which, in its turn, led to the subsequent publice. Miéra (14861833), known to fame as Chaitanya tion in the Indian Antiquary of a somewhat ex. A Vaishnave of the general Bhagavate community, tensive Lalbêgi Literature. The Genealogy' he practised the passionate variety of devoturned out to be hagiolatry pure and simple antional faith (bhakti), con contrating in his case on eclectic worship of anything doomed to be holy, the story of the love of Krishna and Radha in whatever its source Sectarian Hindu, Muham. hymns, and enforcing his doctrina by the publio madan or Christian-in the form of mantras, i.e. I dancing of himself and his followers with extra