Abodes of peace

There is something elevating about ashramas, the mere mention of which transports
one to an atmosphere of calm and serenity, writes B. N. Goswamy

HAVING travelled to many churches and abbeys in Europe and acquainted myself with the history of some of them, my mind came to rest for some time on the concept of sanctuary. The legal or dictionary definition of the word apart, it is the right associated with this name, so widely known in medieval Europe, that interested me specially.

To put it briefly, the right of sanctuary (Lat. sanctuarium, holy place) was the right of a person to protection or asylum within consecrated ground, founded on an ancient belief that one entering the sanctuary assumes part of the holiness of a place.

It would be committing sacrilege to remove the person from the sacred place, so the right of sanctuary was considered inviolable. The right, one knows, was constantly used, abused, violated and so on. Long histories of cases are available, and they make a fascinating reading.

But while on this theme, my mind veered almost naturally to sanctuaries of a different kind in our own tradition: ashramas, in other words. No legal rights, as different from moral ones, I imagine were associated with them. One thought of them essentially as retreats: places for peace, solitude and contemplation. Texts are filled with names of great sages, each living in his own ashrama: Markandeya, Gautama, Bharadwaj, Vasishtha, Jamadagni, Valmiki, for example. Descriptions of ashramas abound, and merely reading about them, one is transported to an atmosphere of serenity: cut off and insulated from the cares of the world. It is to them that men with troubled minds would resort to, seeking guidance, asking the sages questions to which they themselves had no answers, at the very least finding some rest and quietude. There is something elevating about it all.

Long and complex stories in ancient texts begin with dialogues between seekers and gurus in ashramas. Like the wonderfully rich and layered ‘story’ told in that celebrated text: the Durga Saptashati or Devi Mahatmya as it is popularly called.

"In the former times", the text begins, "there was a king named Suratha, born of the Chitra dynasty, ruling over the whole world in the period of Svarocisha." This king, having fallen upon bad days and divested of his very kingdom, wandered about in search of solace, and entered a dense forest.

There he saw "the hermitage of the Medhas — the supreme among the twice-born — inhabited by wild animals, which were peaceful, and graced by the disciples of the sage."

By some chance, there also came at the same time a merchant, the vaishya Samadhi by name, who had also lost his possessions and been done out of his home. The two together — the king and the merchant — approached the sage, and "after observing the etiquette worthy of him", as the text says, they sat down and conversed with him, telling him of their afflictions.

"Revered sage", the king says, "I wish to ask you some questions. Be pleased to answer them. Without the control of my intellect, my mind is afflicted with sorrow. Though I have lost the kingdom, like an ignorant man, I continue to have an attachment to all the paraphernalia of my kingdom. How is this, O best of sages? And this merchant has been disowned by his children, wife and servants, and forsaken by his own people; still he is inordinately affectionate towards them. Thus, both he and I are still drawn by attachments."

Obviously, he says, "a delusion besets me as well as this vaishya", the king said humbly: "blinded as we are. Is there a way of understanding it all?"

This leads the great sage then to tell the two of the nature of delusion, the curtain of ignorance that the great goddess, Mahamaya, throws over the minds of beings. And it is she who can remove this curtain, take people out of the pit of attachment.

For "she is the supreme knowledge, the cause of liberation, and eternal..." And then he proceeds to narrate them the stirring story of the past deeds of the great goddess: the killing of countless demons who represent ignorance, Mahishasura and Chanda and Munda, among them. There are wonderful passages in the text: how all the gods bestow upon the goddess their weapons and powers upon the goddess for arming her to destroy the forces of evil, how their Shaktis take the field against the demon hordes, how Kali comes into being, with what intensity the battles are fought, and so on. But within the story — the various charitas — are also woven in great stutis of the goddess and philosophical statements, for they form essentially the core of the text. When all is ended, and the world resumes its normal course of quiet — "the rivers begin to flow peacefully again and the winds begin favourably to blow" — everyone knows that all delusion had been caused by the great goddess and all comes to an end with her grace. It is she, in short — the text is 700 verses long, hence the name Durga Saptashati — whose refuge you should seek and to whom you should resort and pray, the sage tells the two.

The long text, embedded into the Markandeya Purana, then ends. But, one remembers that the entire story begins in an ashrama. Peace is what reigned there, the text says, and solace is what was eventually found.

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