Sunday, March 24, 2002		Article

TRADITION avers that when Saint Kabir passed away, his Hindus and Muslim followers began to quarrel as to who should have the right to perform his last rites. As the quarrel over cremation versus burial began to ruffle tempers; it is said that one of the elders asked the parties to cover the saint’s body with a cloth and await the next dawn. The next morning as the disciples removed the cloth, they found that the mortal remains had become two heaps, one of jasmine, precious to the Muslims and another of tulsi sacred to the Hindus. The spirit behind this legend survives in many parts of India. All over the subcontinent there are a number of sacred places where both communities worship with equal fervour.

Indeed the famous mosque at Nagore, (near Nagapattinam in South India) the tomb of Miran Sahib, which has its own tank like in a Hindu temple, is visited by thousands of Hindu pilgrims who come to fulfil their vows to the Saint, who is credited with miraculous powers. Similarly at the great Hindu temple of Palni near Kerala border, together with the millions of Hindu pilgrims, we can see many Muslims who come to pay obeisance to the deity, whom they refer to as Palani Andavar, or the God of Palni. The fact that the deity is Lord Subrahmanya of the Hindu pantheon, makes the shrine no less sacred to the Muslim pilgrims, who customarily offer joss sticks as their gifts to the shrines.

To the millions who trek to the famous Ayyappa temple in the Sabari hills in central Kerala every year, the shrine of Vavuruswami (a Muslim saint) on way to the temple is a sacred landmark. The dargah is worshipped by pilgrims who climb the hills singing hymns in praise of Lord Ayyappa and the Muslim saint. Vavuruswami is considered to be one of the trusted followers of God Ayyappa. It is the prerogative of the Muslim custodians of the shrine to await the pilgrims and guide them to the hill temple above during the pilgrim season.

The Baba Budan Hills in Karnataka State is a pilgrimage centre sacred to Hindus and Muslims alike and is known to the pious as Peta. Muslims revere the shrine as the tomb of a saint, while Hindus associate it with Lord Dattarreya. The sacred place is managed by a Muslim. But at the famous Haji Malang shrine of the Muslims near Mumbai, the shrine on the hill is managed by Hindus, the descendants of the early disciples of Saint Malang. This dargah, sacred to millions in Maharashtra, is under Hindu management although Muslim maulvis assist in its upkeep. At the well known Sai Baba shrine at Shirdi, one positively invites angry stares if the pilgrims are referred to as Hindus or Muslims. For, the great saint, to quote the disciples, "lived in a dilapidated mosque in the village. He uttered the words Allah Malik (God is Lord) as fervently as he sang bhajans". Under his great influence the village people agreed to celebrate the Muslim fair and Ramanavami festival on the same day. When his disciples collected money to repair the old mosque in which he lived, the saint refused to permit the renovation till all the temples in the area were repaired first. A sacred fire kindled by the saint (who passed away in 1918) at the mosque is still kept burning and the ceremonies on Thursday nights include a colourful palanquin procession of the saint’s picture from the village temple to the local mosque.

Records at many South Indian temples show that Tipu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali had great respect for Hindu shrines. In their capital of Seringapatnam, the centuries old temple of Sriranganatha was well cared for the famous Nanjundeswara deity at the historic temple at Nanjangud in Karnataka is known as ‘Hyder Ali Lingam’ as the idol was gifted to the temple by Hyder Ali. Another great shrine, famous in south India, is the temple dedicated to Thuluka Nachiar or Turkish Goddess in the temple of Srirangam. The deity is actually a Muslim princess, whose father had taken away the Vishnu image from a Hindu shrine. The princess had fallen in love with the image and when the Hindu priests guided by a supernatural dream came to take away the idol, she refused to part with it. Finally, ordered by her father to give away the image, the heartbroken girl followed the deity to the temple of Srirangam. There she ‘disappeared’ into the sanctum sanctorum, as happened in the case of Meerabai in North India. In honour of her great devotion to God Vishnu, she is worshipped as his consort in the historic temple of Srirangam, and strangely enough, the ceremonial Naivdya everyday at her shrine is ‘bread and butter’ normally taboo in orthodox Hindu temples.

The famous dargah at Chettinad in Madras state is another shrine endowed with gifts from the Hindu rajahs of Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram. Bava Fakhruddin Auliya was a Muslim fakir from Arabia and during his wanderings came to south India. Near the Vaishnava shrine of Tirukoshtiyur, he came across some Brahmin girls, who were hesitating to pass through a dense forest en route the shrine. The saint escorted them through the forest and through his miraculous powers is said to have blinded a gang of dacoits, who tried to molest the party. Further, the saint is said to have created a tank with his divine powers to enable the Brahmin girls to quench their thirst. His tomb, known as Kattu Bava Dargah, is sacred to both Hindus and Muslims.

In North India, the tomb of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer attracts thousands of pilgrims from all over the world and often there are more non-Muslim worshippers at the shrine than Muslims Hindu shopkeepers near the tomb place their shop keys at the steps to the dargah before commencing their daily business and the sandalwood paste for the dargah is prepared every day by a Brahmin, whose family has been devotees at the dargah for centuries. While music before mosques had sparked many communal riots in other parts of India, at the dargah in Ajmer a shehnai is played everyday as in a temple and the distribution of the alms is the same as the prasad in countless shrines of Hinduism.

In Delhi itself the annual festival of flower sellers or Phulwalon-ki-sair at the Muslim shrine at Mehrauli is an intercommunal affair. These sacred places, distributed all over India symbolise the fact that communal harmony is a national heritage handed down through the centuries. (MF)