By Kollengode S Venkataraman, (written in 2001)
Indian mystical poets have used imageries of religious conflicts of their time to stress the unity in man’s spiritual yearnings for liberating us from the shackles of religious bigotry.
In the middle of 18th century (1680 – 1758), near Bahavalpur-Multan area in the northwest part of the Indian subcontinent (in today’s Paki-stan) lived Bulleh Shah, the Sufi mystic. Puri and Sharang have translated Bulleh Shah’s mystical Punjabi lyrics (Bulleh Shah, Radha Soam Satsang Beas, Amritsar, Punjab, India, 494 pp). In Bullah’s time the strife in Northern India was between Hindus and Muslims, which survives to this day. Here is an example of Bullah’s outpourings:
I’m neither a Hindu nor a Mussalman;
I’m neither a Sunni, nor a Shia; I take to the path of amity for all.
I’m neither hungry nor satiated; neither naked nor clothed
I don’t cry, I don’t laugh; I’m not settled nor am I homeless;
I’m neither a sinner nor a saint… …
O Bullah, if in the heart lives the Infinite One,
one would renounce both Hindu and Muslim.
I’m neither a Hindu nor a Mussalman.
Around the 10th century(?), nearly two thousand miles away from A Bulleh Shah’s Bahawalpur, lived Shivavakkiyar in the Tamil country. Shivavakkiyar, a Siddha mystic, rebelled against the religious bigotry of his time. In his time in Tamil Nadu, the strife was not yet between Islam and Hinduism, but within Hinduism itself, the strife that lingers even today among the bigoted.
His Tamil works, all 4-line verses that rhyme and alliterate brilliantly, are easy to memorize and understand. Shivavakkiyar rises above the undercurrents of religious exclusiveness of his time camouflaging as spirituality. Here is a loosely translated example:
It is not Hari (Vishnu) nor is It Hara (Siva) because
It is beyond the black, and the white, and also the red;
It is not large nor is It small; Grasp It, and grasp It tightly
That Which is beyond all descriptions.
Nature has counterbalanced man’s tribal instinct to overpower, others militarily, economically, culturally, and even religiously, with his innate yearnings for spiritual freedom, as we see in Shivavakkiyar and Bulleh Shah speaking against the exclusiveness of organized religions.
Their idioms and vocabulary reflect the conflicts of their times — 10th(? century Shivavakkiyar transcending the Saivite-Vaishnavite hair-splitting in dogma in Tamil Nadu; and 18th century Bulleh Shah, transcending the Hindu-Muslim conflicts in northwest India.
Yet, their message is the same. It is probably because the similarity in these and other mystics’ expressions comes from the identity in their spiritual experiences. END