SAROJ MY MA: ONWARD JOURNEY INTO SPIRITUALITY

SAROJ MY MA: ONWARD JOURNEY INTO SPIRITUALITY

Nestled on the banks of Holy River Yamuna, surrounded by dense Mango orchards with ponds here and there, sprawling temples of different deities spread all over, simple culturally oriented residents, huge renowned exhibition ground holding an annual grand fair was Etawah the city of my mom and my land of my DREAM childhood. Saroj my mom and my dad were very spiritually elevated and their quest for a presiding deity in their life was always on. She was greatly influenced by regular visits of her mother and herself with me and dad in tow to KAREVAHAN. This was the name of the huge,beautiful, ancient, medieval  era Kali temple on the outskirts of the city on the banks of river Yamuna. So the visit was always preceded by Holy Dip in Yamuna. Wow what an outing for me as a child and spiritual satisfaction of Saroj. I distinctly remember her singinging a song in front of the Kali deity in her melodious voice:

Devi tumhare kayi upasak kayi dhang se aate hain: Seva mein bahumulya vastuain lakar tumhe chadate hain

(Oh Devi Mother you have so many devotees coming to you in different ways and bringing all sorts of precious offerings to you)

Dhoom Dham Se Saj Baaj Se who mandir mein aate hain (They come to you with great pomp and show and in great grandeur)

Main hi hoon gharib prabhu aisee jo kuch saath nahin laaye: Phir bhi saahas kar mandir mein puja karne ko aayee

(I am the only poor person oh my lord who has not brought anything for you. Even then I gathered courage to come to you)

Puja aur pujapa prabhuji isi pujaran ko samjho: Daan Dakshina aur nyochawar isee bhikharan ko samjho

(Worship,offering whatever you want is this devotee of yours, charity etc whatever you want is this beggar woman only)

Do boond ashru yeh mere chaho to sweekar karo: yeh to vastu tumhari hi hai thukra do ya pyar karo

 (Pl accept the offering of tears in my eyes, they belong to you, love them or shun them) 

Much later I realized that Saroj had taken Ma Kali as her 'Ishta' (deity of individual) when she as a great soul influenced by the Ideals, Virtues and Intellect of the Greatest King Vikramaditya of India showed me a painting which I present to my readers with a bit of a background as this will greatly interest you I am sure. 

A masterpiece with great distinction by Kailash Raj, the most distinguished contemporary artist in the timeless Indian miniature tradition, a descendant of a family of painters across many generations, represents goddess Kali with the legendary king Vikramaditya paying her homage by prostrating at her feet, and the goddess, blessing him. A four-armed figure with black body colour, awful wrinkled face with loathsome teeth and repulsive look, an anatomy with just a skin-mounted skeleton, loose downwards hung breasts, dishevelled hair, ‘tri-netra’ – third eye, large fearful eyes … define, as in this painting, the form of Kali. 

The illustrious king Vikramaditya, the ruler of Malwa with Ujjain its capital, whose territories extended trans-Himalayan hills and beyond Indian and Arab oceans, was born 57 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. He was responsible for initiating a new Era in his name known as Vikrama Samvat, still the basis of India’s national calendar that majority of Indians follow and the basis of all astrological-astronomical calculations and all records of past. It was him who initiated the courtly tradition of honouring the distinguished nine person as ‘nine jewels’ : nine most talented persons in the court. The two among his nine jewels were the timeless Sanskrit poet Kalidasa and the great astrologer Varahmihir. Some historians claim that before it was transformed into an Islamic tower the Delhi’s Qutb-minar was an astrological observatory built by king Vikramaditya for Varahmihir.

The legendary Vikramaditya had spiritual communion with goddess Kali and had interaction with mystic powers.As the painting seems to represent, one day when loitering all alone around an uninhabited tract along river Kshipra king Vikramaditya, humbly submitting to the goddess Kali putting off his sword, crown and costume : his regalia and kingly authority, meditates on her. The goddess appears in his vision as holding a huge bowl in one of her hands, churning it with the other for exploring pieces of flesh, putting with the third a piece into her mouth and cooling with water in a jug, held in the fourth, the human bones just removed from some burning pyre. She has killed a lion and has laid its skin along its figure around her waist. Rendered in illustrative style the painting portrays this vision of the goddess on the left. Close to her lies Vikramaditya’s sword and around there, his crown and costumes. In her other vision she has been represented as carrying a large multi-spiked comb made of the human bones the goddess had collected from the burning pyre and had cooled, and king Vikramaditya, as bowing at her feet.

Through a panoramic view of a hilly terrain,with a river streaming along a Shiva shrine in its midst the background might also be denotative of the artist’s vision of Ujjain, the ruling seat of king Vikramaditya and one of the seats of twelve Jyotirlingas – Shaivite shrines that Shiva’s aniconic ‘lings’ enshrine. As the legend has it, king Vikramaditya had built the Jyotirlinga shrine and installed the ‘ling’ icon in it. For denoting Vikramaditya’s capital the artist seems to have used two of the Ujjain’s most significant features, the holy river Kshipra, and a Shiva-shrine symbolic of Jyotirlinga seat, both endowing the city with its rare significance. It will be relevant to mention here that Saroj in her course of life completed her journey to all the Twelve Jyotirlingas criss crossing the country from NORTH TO SOUTH TO EAST TO WEST. I am fortunate to have done so too!