Timely collection of sage voices from Valley
M.L. Raina

Saints and Sages of Kashmir
edited by T. N. Dhar ‘Kundan’. A. P .H. Publishing Corporation, New Delhi. Pages 345. Rs 895.

In spite of my antipathy to rooted religiosity, I have never been able to overcome my awe of saints and sages whose life-stories filled my coming-of-age years in an orthodox Kashmiri Brahmin household. They lurked in my unconscious like smuggled contraband wrapped in layers of esoteric lore, and exercised a curious fascination. Their austere unworldly lives (rishibhav) were held as models to be emulated and their teachings sought to be integrated into my upbringing. But throughout childhood and youth they actually stood at the furthest remove from my mundane preoccupations.

Kundan’s anthology is, in a sense, timely and serves two purposes. It recalls the religious and philosophical traditions of Kashmiri Pandits, at present exiled in their own homeland, and offers the much-needed spiritual balm to the distraught community. It also fortifies their distinct Hindu identity and becomes a political handle in their efforts to have their legitimate rights recognised. To that extent the anthology has a therapeutic function inasmuch as it keeps alive their sense of cultural inheritance under conditions of prolonged uprootedness.

As a scholarly enterprise, however, the book leaves much to be desired. With too many stylistic and grammatical blemishes assailing you on almost every other page, the editorial labours seem to have been largely evaded, resulting in an asymmetrical quality of the articles. Barring two essays on Abhinavgupta, two on Lal Ded and a well-researched survey of the Buddhist scholars of Kashmir by Advaitavadini Kaul, most contributions are flat-footed exercises in hagiography and adulation.

Considering that many of these pieces have been reproduced from a Delhi-based publication, Koshur Samachar, we are expected to regard their contents as homage to the individuals concerned and as a sign of our taken-for-granted faith in their para-normal powers. Spurred on more by acolyte enthusiasm than genuine intellectual promptings to evaluate the spiritual attainments of their subjects, the writers often fall short of critical finesse. An example: "He was both microcosmic and macrocosmic spiritual personality perfectly harmonized...He was a solemn embodiment of the combination of the all-embracing knowledge supreme`85"

Though unexceptionable in themselves, sentiments of this kind are ultimately self-defeating and put as it were an electrified fence around the subject of discussion. Meant for the already converted, they do not persuade the first-time reader to make sense of the saint’s epiphanic moments.

There is an over-indulgence of the ‘miracle-making ’ powers of our men and women of God, with little concern for the psychological, existential and truly philosophical dimensions of their experiences. Many accounts of their extra-perceptual experiences read like special pleading on their behalf, which they certainly would not need as they hardly craved material rewards.

Surely, these men and women deserve respect, and one can justify the rectitude of the authors on that score. But they also call for reasoned appraisals of their world-views in a larger pan-Indian context of Bakhti, Shaivism and other religious-philosophical concepts. Some of them, Laxman Joo for one, attracted disciples from home and abroad. We are entitled to know what particular doctrinal principles brought them here and why. Unfortunately, blind veneration alone cannot explain these factors, nor can mere exertions of faith substitute for the timidity in analysing the philosophical rationality of their beliefs.

As I pointed out earlier, the essays on Lal Ded and Abhinavgupta partly redeem this collection. They are good examples of clear thinking and assiduous application. S.S.Toshakhani and K.N.Dhar on Abhinavgupta and Kundan and S.N Pandita on Lal Ded deserve our thanks for their lucid expositions. Based on considerable reading, these essays enter into a two-way dialogue with earlier scholars and exegetes to highlight the achievements of their subjects.

Lal Ded’s mystical Vaks and Krishan Joo Razdan’s Leela hymns live through their assimilation into everyday human concerns and because the poets themselves kept their ears close to the ground. Precisely the reason why even the doubting Thomases among us would briefly let down our guard while chanting the hymn Chhuma Ishanas Posh Pooza during family celebrations of Shivratri — incidentally, the most carnivaleseque of occasions in the Pandits’ calendar.

The Shaivite doctrines of Abhinavgupta are central to Sanskrit poetics and no history of ancient Indian aesthetic theory can afford to ignore them. Both Dhar and Toshakhani offer comprehensive evaluations of these theories and relate them to the concepts of Dhvanyaloka and to different versions of Kashmir’s Shaivite creed. These essays should help new learners shed their inhibitions in approaching Kashmir’s composite metaphysical and poetic-aesthetic lineage with an open mind.

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