By Harihar Swarup
Recently, two large boulders, believed to be 60 million years old, were dispatched to Ayodhya. These stones were found along the Gandaki river at a site in Muktinath valley in Nepal. The region is thought to be part of erstwhile kingdom of Mithila, ruled by Ram’s father-in-law, Raja Janak. According to the Puranas, these stones, called Shaligrams, are considered representations of Lord Vishnu. They are worshipped only by males, as per Vaishnabite beliefs. The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Ksheita Trust has chosen these Shaligrams as from Nepal as Ram is considered as the incarnation of Vishnu. The Trust is calling two Shaligrams from Nepal “Dev Shila” (sacred rocks) and most likely, these sacred rocks from Mithla will be used to carve out the Ram-Sita idol for the grand temple at Ayodhya to be made ready next year.
The Trust’s decision is deeply sacred and reinforces the narrative of eternal conjugality of Ram and Sita, and weaves their inseparability into modern Indian statecraft and the emerging socio—culture order. Interpreting this imagery in juxtaposition to the western tradition of binaries a la Cartesian dualism, is fallacious.
In Indian textual and oral traditions—for example in the Upanishadic understanding –“Purusha” and “Prakriti”, as creators of the universe, are in cosmic union and divine conjugation. The traditional and folk understanding of “siyaram” is emphatically reinforced by the thoughtfulness behind the choice of stones. This will allow the philosophical ideas of non-binary unity to seep into public consciousness.
Sita will emerge as a heroine /icon globally. This, in turn, underlines an eastern aesthetic that has the transcendent capacity to approach a blissful experience of harmony. In the Indian tradition, Sita is often seen as the uniting force, the idea and keeper of dharma and human love. The imagination of Sita is so vast and deep in the sub-continent that people and groups have their own Sitas, each a layered idea and figure in her own right. In her Vaidehi avatar, Sita encapsulates being daughter of Vaidehi and simultaneously escapes the expanse of the body to a higher realm brimming with metaphysical possibilities. Her birth from mother earth shatters all kinds of regional, caste and class narratives. Her decision to choose Ram as her consort and then participate in his banishment is testimony to their deep spiritual connection.
In Indian folklore, songs, oral traditions and practices, the popular worship of Ram and Sita as one entity has existed from time immemorial. Right from the common greetings to expressing shock/ grief and chanting in the morning of Sitaram / Siyaram—these common words and gestures have a deeper association with the idea that two figures are a singularity, each incomplete without the other. The decision by trust is a powerful affirmation of this idea.
Why it is critical and historically relevant, to view Ram and Sita together in public consciousness? From the time of Ramayana, Ram and Sita preserved in the spiritual consciousness an idea that has potential to initiate a discourse on the idea of a just world order (Ram Rajya) based on idea of duty, community service, placing others before the self and sacrifice for supreme order.
The current strategy of carving the deities/ idols from the same stone will authenticate their inseparable existence, invoking the highest notion of conjugality, which is otherwise ascribed Radha-Krishna. Also “Sree Shakti”, or woman’s full potential being realized, is being fore-grounded at Ayodhya. Doing so establishes that since the time of Smritis, the wife has full rights over husband’s physical and spirituality property.
The Ramayan, then, provides an icon who can help to restate the essentiality of woman in both public and private spaces. This points to possibility of an Indic alternative to woman’s discourses centred around the notions that ignore sacredness. The idea of an open dialogic nation with adequate space for its neighbours in its sacred inclusive statecrafts hold the possibility of creating a new paradigm where the cultural icons of two sovereign nations are woven into one.
The sacredness of this new statecraft also has a strong potential in the strategic realm as it brings togetherness two sovereigns, neighbouring nations closely tied together through (marriage and commensuality) relationships. It’s important to map practices and places and set new narratives to invoke an Indian telling its own sacred statecraft and let the charismatic sacred culture icons give new civilisational goals to the world. (IPA Service)
