The Shape Of Faith

By Amit Radha Krishna Nigam

Inspired by the divine potency of the Land of Vrindavan, the stories in the book celebrate the unflinching faith and devotion of the people of the town towards Krishna.
Vibrant with the message of bhakti, wisdom and Love, they will take readers to a spiritual journey via the narrow streets and temples of Vrindavan, a journey’s whose charm will continue to be felt for the rest of their life.
So smile, if you find some of these stories already been narrated to you by your grandmother, father or mother during the festivals of ‘Poornima’, ‘Sakath’, ‘Basant Panchami’, ‘Ekadasi’, ‘Satya Narayan Katha’, ‘Guru Poornima’ or ‘Akshay Tritiya’ festivals. Smile also, if you find them amusing and smile also if you can feel the divinity of Lord Krishna within them, for it exists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9789389759150

Amit Radha Krishna Nigam

Rahul, an MBA and banking professional by work, is a total business freak. However, with the publication of this book, his reputation might as well receive a blow. When his fingers are not doing banking transactions, or operations, they are mostly typing. Rahul’s love for Vrindavan & Spirituality in uncommon. A devoted son, a handsome brother, a truly spiritual person, he loves to see places, browse internet and read as much as he can. He can be reached personally at [e-mail], is an author of three widely read English poetry books, Pilgrims, Musings of Desire and Sixty years from now. He currently lives in Canada with his wife Lucky.

Book preview

PART 1

THE SHAPE OF FAITH

~

Today is the annual Brahmotsava festival in the Lord Ranganatha temple at Vrindavan, a town situated along the banks of the river Yamuna and a few miles north of the historical city of Mathura, the birthplace of God Krishna. Vrindavana is also known as the heart of the entire ‘Braj bhoomi’ due to its deep historical and divine significance.

One of the most important events of this festival, and in what is supposed to be the rarest of the rare public display, is that the main idol of the Ranganatha temple will be taken out from its inner sacred abode for common worshipping. Such a deity 'darshan' will last only for about two hours and thirty minutes.

During this time the deity would be worshiped with milk, honey, curd, water from the river Ganga and sacred holy basil leaves: all in a pre-ordained traditional grandeur. This is known far and wide as the ‘Abhishekam' ceremony.

It will then be followed by a grand cart ride of Ranganatha around the temple’s kilometer-long premise along with numerous other deities mounted on the top of their own special chariots and adorned with marigold and rose flowers. The festival will continue for ten days and will be witnessed by thousands of Ranganatha devotees from across the nation.

Lord Ranganatha is a resting form of Lord Vishnu who is lying in a sleeping posture over the Adisesha – the thousand-hooded serpent God. The idol is five feet long and it is decorated with a gold-studded crown that sits grandly on his head. His body is wrapped in garlands made up of freshly plucked white and red roses, marigolds and sunflowers. A long Peacock feather is stationed midway in the crown and is tied using knots of ‘Rudraksha Ratnas’. This complete flowery arrangement on the lord looks exquisite beyond words.

Not only the festival is one of the most important in the whole of the ‘Brij’ but the temple itself is one of the largest in North India. With a height of about 30 meters and a periphery of about a kilometer, it is certainly the biggest in Vrindavana. It has three main gopurams (gates) at its western side and a total of eight gopurams, all built into a carving style that closely resembles the Ranganathaswamy Temple (famously known as the Rameshawaram temple) in Tamil Nadu.

In fact, there are temples spread all across India and the globe that are majestic beyond any parallel in their architectures and designs and carry a deep cultural, scientific and historical significance that predates any known human civilization. Countless excavations of temples and idols all over the world stand evidence to that.

At the Ranganatha temple in Vrindavan, a golden tower half as tall as the temple itself adds to its beauty. On the eastern side of the temple precinct is another huge 30 meters high and 130 meters wide wall, and in between the two walls is a freshwater lake or a ‘kund (Pond)’. Behind these walls is a large lush green garden forbidden for common people entry.

To attend the ‘Abhishekam’ ceremony and seek Ranganatha’s blessings, devotees from far and wide have queued up the venue since 3 AM in the morning. Legend has it that one who would see the complete festive ritual from the beginning to the end would be granted one definite wish for life. There are plenty of people who have penned down their wishes in papers, or smeared them like mathematical formulae, or shared with their friends and families and – call it the best or the worst of the faith – some have even written down their wishes on the stone-carved walls of the temple with charcoal. People who are here since 3 AM are the ones who secretly scribble their wishes on walls despite ample warning signs from the temple management that say Please don't damage our heritage. Lord Ranganatha can read your wishes even without writing them.

After the 'Abhishekam', the complete ritual will unfold for hours to be concluded with a ceremonial ‘aarti’ in the end.

Like Vedanta-Sutra or Upanishads at the end of the Vedas attempt to describe and reveal the true glory of God thus spoken of earlier in Vedas, similarly, an ‘aarti’ is performed at the end of every ritual to mark its end by offering a final obeisance to God and receive blessings. To perform the 'aarti', long smokeless incense and cotton wicks bedecked in pure ghee are kept on a silver lampstand that loosely resembles spikes of the chakra in Tricolor. Then, the whole arrangement would be lit – in fact so well-lit that it shines clearly even during the brightest hour of the day. The wick would smolder with a square shaped camphor placed in the middle of the lamp over a single, rare and a highly scenting red rose specially grown in Vrindavana and qualified only for today’s auspiciousness. The rose is used only for this tradition, which is practiced since the temple was built in the early 1850s. The vapors from the burning ghee that rise up from the ‘aarti’ plate would be mixed with the decaying rose to feast upon the pleasantly pungent and sublimating camphor in the backdrop of the Chants of Sanskrit Shlokas.

Sanskrit Shlokas are chanted by priests in the open area so that people who know the words of the shlokas (and can pronounce them well) are able to recite them coherently with the temple priests and Brahmins who preside the whole sacrament. When joined in by the people, the chants would resonate so loud that it doesn’t require a loudspeaker and the people could listen to the shlokas clearly and distinctly even while sitting in the verandas in their homes miles away – aloof from Ranganatha’s blessings. Those who can’t chant along can enjoy the easy fruit of merely listening to them.

~

Bhupad, 48, a ‘Brijwasi’ and an ardent cowherd of the town also has plans to see the ceremonious event today. But to do that, he must service his cows early in the morning today.

Daily, he wakes up at 6 AM in the morning, takes a ginger tea with sugar biscuits and goes out to wash his cows. It takes him 3 hours to bathe all of them from head to tail using a huge homemade soft cow-brush and some Ayurvedic cleaners. Some of his cows have huge sharp horns like buffaloes that sometimes scare off his neighbors. He treats every cow like his own child and in turn, they obey him with true devotedness and treat him like their father. After washing them, he cleans and sanitizes the complete ‘goshala’ with cow dung cakes. He cleans off all the extra dung from his hand and keeps some as stove fuel for cooking in the night, and some to paste on the floor which works as a powerful insect repellent.

The small water tank at the ‘goshala’ is refilled every morning with fresh water. Fodder baskets kept in front of each of the cows are renewed, as and when needed, with essentials nutrients mixed in them. The cows that are pregnant get his most attention and affection. They are evaded periodically from milking. Instead, they are made to sit all day, relax and ruminate ceaselessly. However, they also can’t completely remain unmilked for a long time. Bhupad knows that the milk inside cows if kept for unusually long time would become poison. It is of utmost importance to milk cows at regular scientific intervals. They are made for that. He knows that cows that refuse to eat are to be milked first, for it’s a sign that they are the healthiest and are ready to be milked. He is doing all this every day, without breaking his schedule since last ten years. A Vaishnavite by birth, he is believed to have seen his own version of God in them.

At the temple, it'll soon be crowded near the main gate and if you are late for the event, you have to settle for a less-classy place which is far off from the main gate and from where you cannot get a proper glimpse of the deity but only get to hear the sounds of the chanting of the mantras. And hence to be at the main gate in the first queue, you have to be very early in the morning.

As the time of the observance approaches, the temple prepares for the ritual, and at any time they would start bringing the Lord’s idol out in the open. It will begin with a loud resonating sound of a huge bell mounted on the top of the temple that goes off once every day in the morning during the ‘Mangla Aarti’ or early morning Aarti.

After the ritual is over, people will take a customary holy plunge in the lake. The lake is surrounded by stone stairs shaped like a giant 'hawankund' and merges with the brown waters that, some say, has no bottom. This, the holy dip in the lake, will complete the ceremony after the ‘aarti’ and is considered mandatory for those who were able to see the full ritual as a mark to thank God for letting me see you being worshiped today.

But children and young people, who even though would not have seen the complete ritual, as well would take a plunge. This would be less of a thanksgiving and more of a fun. The pond will grow into just as crowded and chaotic as the temple place itself, without any queue or order.

Besides devotees who are in hundreds of numbers, hawkers and vendors also throw themselves in great numbers at the scene. They keep devotees, especially children busy with all kinds of sweets, plastic toys, ice creams, candies etc. while the ritual prepares for itself. Most children take a seat on the top of their father’s or mother’s shoulders, or in case if none have managed to come, on their grandparents or uncle’s shoulders who raise them to the cloud like colorful kites. It gives the elderly more pleasure and satisfaction to make their children see the event, rather than them.

Bhupad too has done the servicing of his cows and has left for the temple. It’s an hour before the ceremony will begin but he has already lost the spot of the first queue. While standing in the queue, he is recollecting and making sure that he has not left his cows in hurry and that proper bathing and milking of all of them has been done.

And amid the disarray of the old, the restlessness of the young, the sweet cacophony of the loud children and louder women, the temple bell rang.

The crowd began to gather up front. Men and women started pushing each other as far off from the front queue as possible to claim their places. Even those who have already taken the first queue hurdles to come closer to have a clear view of the God inside the temple from where the idol is going to be lifted. Children started panicking and crying as if they are going to fall. Women fight and argue, even in the middle of a hundred men with no space to breath, to give them space. No one listens. Old people keep themselves away from the commotion.

The oldest priest of the temple is a ‘Brahma Rishi’– a sage who possesses the 'complete knowledge' of the Brahm and supposedly, is a descendent of the Brahma – the third face of the Hindu Trinity. As the idol moves out from the main gate, the rush began to climb. Bhupad has lost the sight of the temple and has been pushed even further back.

Move ahead, let everyone see for a short while people started shouting into each other ears.

Are hai gaye darshan to oran koon bhi karan deyo (If you have seen the deity, let more people see) a loud voice broke free to the front.

Keep vacating the place once you have seen the Lord. Let people from the back come to the front, the local temple security is announcing regularly on hand-held speakers, but only to be heard by the people scoring the first queue. The ones with children on their back are more cautious about pickpocketing.

Don’t stare for long. get the darshan and move on. Let your brothers and sisters watch it too announce the continuously ignored loudspeakers.

People in the front do not move from their places, instead, they oscillate like a pendulum to make an impression on the security as if they are trying to shift to let people from the back come forward. This trick always works.

The idol has now been lifted completely. The bells now ring harder and the enthusiasm and the cacophony would grow manifold at once. When the lord is about to come out from the main gate of the temple, even the police and the guards, who are as well ‘Brijwasi's’ mostly, take a temporarily retire from their job of keeping the crowd under control and fix their sight on the Lord’s majestic face.

Within minutes, the idol has reached at the Gate and more people can see it clearly. The chant of the mantra and ‘Jai Lord Ranganatha’ beat the speakers now. The chanting is so coherent that it resonates the entire periphery of the temple as if a child who's lost in a lonely street shouts to call his mother making the whole street vibrate with his innocent cries. There are none or a very few hawkers selling ice-creams, ‘Jalebis’ and Vrindavana guidebooks at this time now. These hawkers are also the only ones besides grandparents, who have honestly moved out to the back after they have seen the Lord’s face, and some are now waiting only for the plunge.

But as the priests try to take the idol of Ranganatha out of the temple, it seemed to be stuck at the main gate.

~

The beauty of the idol is divinely absorbing. One could hardly resist to not looking at it again and again, and again and a million times after that. The idol is big and is well covered with yellow clothes and garlands. The opportunity to be face to face with the Lord's exists only for a tiny but precious moment of time that one would wish to last forever.

But why it would refuse to come out today?

No one, however noticed it in the beginning. The priests tried harder, all of them together, hard enough to bring it out, but soft so as to not give the idol any damage. The main gate of the temple is big enough for the idol to come out, and it does that every year smoothly, but, for some unknown reason, it has refused to come out today. Some of the priests and saints are called from far off places weeks before to carry out the ritual as properly as it’s guided in the scriptures. But at this moment, as if all their knowledge and wisdom has been put to test against their faith.

After a while, a few of the people began noticing the jam at the main gate where the idol is unreasonably stuck. They even try to help the saints and the temple management, but they are kept completely unrelated and unused. It will never happen that someone from outside can touch the Lord’s idol. But as more people began noticing it, chaos grew and so as the chanting of ‘Jai Lord Ranganatha’. Most of them now believe that God is coming alive and is playing some kind of tricks with his devotees. Old women started crying. The oscillation of the people in the front have slowly damped now and they are giving people standing at the back a little chance to see the miracle happening. As a result, Bhupad, as well, is pushed a little ahead in the row.

Saints begin to lose hope. Some of them started discussing to move the idol back inside the temple but others instantaneously disagreed. This would mean ‘ashubh (ominous)’, an absolute 'ashubh'.

After thinking for a while, Bhupad attempted to make his way to the front row. It is too difficult to occupy the clear view from his place but somehow he managed to make his way to the very front row from where he can notice what’s happening. The idol is stuck at the gate which is twice as wide as the idol itself. After taking a moment of pause, he shouted at one of the saints who was holding it "tilt the idol".

No one heard Bhupad's call in the crowd. He shouted again looking at one of the priests who was struggling to get it out "tilt the idol".

What do you mean tilt the idol? a saint who heard him asked him back from his place.

And Bhupad shouted harder tilt the idol away from you he continued tilt the idol away from your side. It’s the horns of the God that are causing the idol to get stuck at the gate. It’s their horns. And the conversation between him and the priest, even amid such a babbling world, became one to one.

What a fool. Where he sees horns? What is he talking about? one of the priest mumbles to his community after listening to him. The saint for whom this message from Bhupad was intended to was startled, but in all his despaired-ness, he asked him back.

What do you mean by tilt the idol?

It’s their horns that are stuck at the gate. If you tilt the Lord’s idol away from you at forty-five degrees, the idol would come out easily. Bhupad replied.

The hours and minutes of the ritual-timing were already giving up and no solution could be foreseen. Hence the priest did what Bhupad suggested. He tilted the idol and tried to move it out from the main gate. Only a few people who stood back saw this happening on Bhupad’s call. As the priest did what Bhupad said, the Lord Ranganath’s idol – miraculously as it occurred to them – came out easily from the gate, undamaged, smooth as it had always been through all the previous years.

Bhupad smiled from his place, hands folded, and head bowed. But most of them, who had left early for the plunge, missed it. People at the back, who came late, missed it. The priest did not grasped what just happened, but he had no time to spare a thought. The ceremony proceeded under the supervision of the Brahma Rishi. The ritual began as expected, ended as expected, only took a little different and unexpected course midway.

~

When everything settled, the priest who took Bhupad's suggestion gathered everyone in the temple and approached him. He asked him as to what made him think that the tilting of the idol would work. What made him think that it’s the horns when none were there? It’s an idol and not a cow or a buffalo. What made him think that? What did he saw in there?

Hearing this Bhupad replied I see my cows as my lord whom I worship, whom I service and in turn, they give me everything I need to carry on with my life happily. They give me milk and food to live and money to sustain my family. I never saw the idol of Lord Ranganath at the gate. All I saw was only a cow coming out of the gate and it is their horns that were stuck at the gate. Tilting the idol made way for the horns to come out easily. And my cows have huge thorns. You are welcome to see them anytime at my ‘goshala’

The priest – who had been talking his whole life of God's miracles, of how faith could turn mountains upside down at your feet, stories of God's manifestations in millions of forms, now could tell it with more truth than ever before. He now knew that the god he worshiped unknowingly for decades has no shape but takes the shape that pleases his devotees the most. He realized to have met a man whose faith has given his God a shape of his own likeliness, the shape of cows. The Priest and the Brahma Rishi stood there, hand-folded and gave Bhupad the first distribute of the ‘Prasadam’ of the ritual that until today, was reserved only for the Brahma Rishi.

Bhupad had tears in his eyes. He thanked God to manifest