Continuity

A shrine at the Teknaf Buddhist Temple.

When the garden’s silence meets the quiet of dawn, U Nanda Loka, 50, begins his prayer of meditation and whispers. At 5.30 a.m. for half an hour he will seek blessings for all the people of the world, just as he has done every day for the past twelve months since he first took up the post of sole monk at the roughly 200-year-old Teknaf Buddhist temple.

While the temple grounds are largish the congregation is small. There are only 14 Rakhine families remaining in Teknaf town, joined by the handful of other Buddhists who have moved there for work.

“There should be at least one monk,” says 19-year-old Mong Swui Thing, a Marma teenager from Ramu sent by his father, a farmer, to take advantage of the temple’s tranquillity in preparing for school exams. He aspires to a government job eventually.

Buddha's footprint at the Teknaf temple.

Due to the small size of the community adjustments have been made. Where in a larger location it is customary for monks to walk through morning markets carrying pots into which people place food, all that the monks will eat for that day, in Teknaf the fourteen families organise to supply the provisions for the monk and temple staff on a rotation basis.

“The issue is continuity,” says temple visitor Aung Kyaw Tha, “Temple goers are few but it doesn’t matter; we want our religion to stay.”

Gautama Buddha said if there is a quiet place it has its own happiness, explains Tha. “Alone or with people, in town or village, no matter where, one has to keep Buddha’s teachings in mind in order to live peacefully.”

A smaller temple in the garden complex. Note the distinctive Rakhine style roof.

The temple complex which consists of a main building raised on stilts in Rakhine tradition, together with a smaller temple to one side and a golden stupa featuring a footprint of Buddha towards the back, is tucked away from the road, barely visible.

Once its grounds were larger still but roadside portions were progressively sold as many of Teknaf’s Rakhines moved to Myanmar in the 1990s.

Tea shop talk says the then-majority Rakhine community was favoured in the British era. There are tales of how the few Bengalis in earlier times used to take off their sandals to carry them underarm while passing a Rakhine shop in the bazaar, as a sign of respect. It was considered improper for a Bengali to wear a wristwatch or open an umbrella in front of a Rakhine house, people say.

The temple was undoubtedly busier then.

U Nanda Loka, the sole monk at the Teknaf temple.

Such talk of political history stands in contrast to the views of the monk. When asked to speak of other religious communities he says, “Of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam I have no knowledge. I don’t understand. I only do what Buddhism says.”

Mong Swui Thing, a Marma youth sent to the temple by his father to study.

Central to his beliefs is the importance of avoiding any form of envy or jealousy; one reason why it cannot be fruitful to consider how others practice religion. This tenet does not mean, however, neglecting concern for non-Buddhists. “Everyone in the world I will bless,” says the monk.

Similarly when I was foolish enough to ask the monk his favourite food he struggled to answer. When the goal is to seek enlightenment away from one’s physical being and the physical world, the question makes no sense. “What is given, I like,” he says, “My preference is nothing.”

By tradition monks eat only one plate of rice, without looking up to see what others are eating while they complete a meal. A second serving is to risk gluttony; to see what others eat risks envy. Moreover at Teknaf Buddhist temple the monk will eat nothing after lunch at midday, until the next morning’s breakfast.

The stupa at Teknaf Buddhist Temple complex.

U Nanda Loka says he first became a monk after his parents died when he was 16 years old. “I didn’t like regular life anymore,” he says. With his two sisters married he moved to the temple.

Secondary temple at Teknaf complex.

Being a monk is not inherently a permanent position but one that lasts “as many days as it makes you happy,” though most commonly it is for life.

In describing Buddhism, the monk refers to five principal tenets: don’t kill because life is sacred; don’t take what isn’t yours; treat women respectfully; don’t lie and; don’t use alcohol or drugs, including stimulants such as betel leaf. “To explain more than these basic beliefs,” says the monk, “is to embark upon an ocean of knowledge.”

The latter part of each morning is spent reading texts, completing bath and lunch and retiring for half an hour’s rest. In the afternoon is more prayer while it is common in the evenings for people to arrive at the temple to seek the monk’s advice.

The pattern of each day is simplicity repeated right up until it meets once more the quiet of dawn. These are traditions followed in temples around the world, right back to the 4^th – 6^th century BCE, the time of Gautama Buddha. The Teknaf Buddhist temple is but a footnote in a far greater story of continuity.

Teknaf Buddhist temple, said to be over two hundred years old. The main building.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: A Prayer for Continuity

Many Words for Water

Across the Naf River is Myanmar.

Bank of the Naf.

North of Teknaf town, afternoon has reached sleepy Hnila’s Old Bazar, a few hundred metres west of the Naf River. There’s not much activity: most people are probably taking a rest after completing lunch.

Sitting at the temple.

We’re sitting in a perennial building site that’s half-flooded. It has planks of wood to balance across to venture inside. It’s here the local Hindu community worship and a good number of them are gathered in the front of the building just beyond the gate. They’ve arranged plastic stools from somewhere to sit on. A fruit platter is being passed around.

“This is the southernmost Kali temple in Bangladesh,” says community leader Bipul Pal. “It’s the only Kali temple south of Cox’s Bazar.”

Hnila countryside.

The Naf River is narrower in Hnila. On its far bank the periodic watchtowers of Myanmar are clearly visible, about the only evidence of habitation along an otherwise wild bank. The common view of Myanmar to be heard in Teknaf’s tea shops seems to ring true here: “Myanmar has lots of land,” people say, “but little development.”

The southernmost Kali Temple in Bangladesh, Hnila, Teknaf.

Touring Hnila with local Hindu leaders.

The river wasn’t always the border it is today. In the British period then Burma was like Bengal under British administration; and the Teknaf Peninsula was primarily inhabited by Buddhist Rakhines. Bengalis by all accounts were rare. Hindus were rarer.

Canal. Looking towards the Teknaf Range.

“We are fifteen families,” concludes Pal after a moment’s mental count. “Hindu families in Hnila run simple businesses like dairies and tailoring shops.” At least one fulfils an administrative role with an NGO. “None of us is rich.”

The Kali protima in Hnila Old Bazar.

The financial condition of the small community means that completing the refurbishment of the temple, in brick and on a grander scale than the original structure founded in 1833, will take time. Progress is slow.

Altar at the Radha-Krishna Temple.

Proud of their town, before evening there will be a tour of  a handful of other temples, tin shed and dilapidated village constructions dedicated to other incarnations of God. At the Krishna temple there lives a solitary monk who teaches meditation and yoga. The temple keeps a cow and he offers fresh milk to visitors.

Hindu monk. 'There are many words for water.'

“What is important is what is in the heart,” he says, “Islam says ‘don’t steal,’ Buddhism says ‘don’t steal’ and Hinduism says the same. If there is love for mankind in the heart it doesn’t matter if you go to a temple, a church or a mosque. Some say paani, some say jol… There are many words for water.”

As can be anticipated Hnila’s Hindus revere all of the local temples but the historic Kali Temple is the community’s focal point. “We don’t know when we’ll be able to finish its reconstruction,” says Pal.

Members of the small Hnila Hindu community at the forever ongoing reconstruction site of the historic Kali Temple.

Where Santhal Wisdom Shelters

Suddenly in the forest there are faces...

A sal tree in Nawabganj National Park.

Perhaps it’s generally true that shade follows sunshine. Beyond Sitakot in Dinajpur’s Nawabganj the sal trees gather. Though geographically unlikely locals believe Nawabganj National Park might be the last remnants of the forest where Sita of the Hindu epic Ramayana lived in exile.

From field and farmhouse, the cycle van winds along the track into this darker but not-less-beautiful world. Beyond is Ashurer Beel, a picturesque waterhole favoured for picnics and famed for migratory birds.

Into the forest...

And suddenly in the forest are faces… not the middle-class motorcycle-riding ones of picnickers but curious, distinctly non-Bengali faces…

The national park keeps another history. Under its canopy, at its edges, the culture and wisdom of the Santhals finds shelter.

Alekutia village is home to 40 Santhal families.

Peeling jungle potatoes.

In Gabriel Hemrom’s leafy yard a little beyond the park boundary, in Alekuti village along the same track, women sit on the ground preparing date leaves for weaving. Another is busy with jungle potatoes, which are soaked in water for several days and eaten with molasses-like jaggery, known in Bangla as ‘gur’.

A well-constructed mud brick Santhal home.

Alekuti is home to forty Santhal families, Hemrom estimates. “Our ancestors are from a place called Dumka,” says the forty-year-old father of three sons. “But we were all born here.”

House detail.

As in Bangladesh, Santhals are one of the most populous minority peoples in India. Mainly they live in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Jharkhand. Dumka is a district in the last of these states. There are also a small number in Nepal.

Nearby Ashurer Beel with boat and fish traps.

By tradition Santhals engage in hunting, forest clearing and farming.

The village’s forested location reflects the Santhali tradition of forest clearing and subsistence farming. They are also famed hunters, with bow and arrow. But in Alekuti, along with some small-scale farming, most earn as they can through cycle-van riding or day labour. It isn’t much of a living.

House painting. Santhals capture their history and daily lives in design.

“For the poor, food is always a problem,” says Hemrom.

In contrast to the dire economic reality of Alekuti, in India it’s not uncommon for Santhals to be living in cities and working in areas as diverse as medicine, engineering and the public service.

In Alekuti meanwhile, are traces of the well-developed, unique culture of which any Santhal can be proud. Most visibly it’s in the painted designs on the walls of their well-constructed mud-brick homes. By tradition Santhals present history and daily life in wall paintings, although the Alekuti examples are modest.

“Those who can paint do so,” says Hemrom.

Painting around an internal doorway. 50 - 70% of the villagers in Alekuti are Christian these days.

The forest nearby.

The Austroasiatic Santhali language, of the Munda languages and distantly related to Khasi, Khmer and Vietnamese, is sophisticated and well-studied. Its unique script, called Ol Chiki and invented in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in response to deficiencies in representing the range of Santhali sounds in Roman or other Indic alphabets, has thirty letters.

Santhals are famed hunters with bow and arrow.

In general, the Santhals have preserved their language well; but in Alekuti it’s facing difficulties. “Our children used to study Santhali at the mission schools in Dhanjuri and Patarghat,” says Hemrom, “but now they only learn at home. We use our own alphabet but it’s explained in English.” Including Bangla, Alekuti relies on three languages.

The church in Alekuti.

Hemrom estimates that like his family, 50 – 70% of the families in Alekuti converted to Christianity some thirty years ago. The village features a small church attended by visiting clergy.

The remainder observe the old religion, which worships Marang buru or Bonga as supreme deity. It features a court of spirits to regulate aspects of the world, from whom blessings are sought through prayer and offering. There are also evil spirits to be protected from.

An old mango tree on the forest road.

Traditionally, Santhal villages feature a sacred grove on the edge of the settlement where spirits live and sacred festivals occur. In Alekuti neighbours participate in the rituals of both religions.

“We dance and sing in Santhali and in Bangla,” says Hemrom, “The children enjoy the festivals the most.”

In their political history Santhals can also take some pride. In response to land grabbing and enslavement, on 30 June 1855 leaders Sidhu Murmu and Kanu Murmu mobilised 30,000 Santhals to fight the British.

Sal tree trunk.

Caught by surprise, initially the Santhal Rebellion met with some success, but ultimately bows and arrows proved no match for British guns. Battles were akin to massacres. Many Santhals, including the two celebrated leaders, were killed; and subsequently the Nawab of Murshidabad used elephants to trample Santhal huts.

More recently, the Santhal community was instrumental in successfully advocating the creation of Jharkhand state in India, which was carved from southern Bihar in 2000. It was hoped that statehood for Jharkhand would allow better representation for the various minority peoples who account for about 28% of the state population. Santhals are the largest group.

Yet Gabriel Hemrom speaks of his heritage humbly. “Everybody likes his own culture,” he says.

Despite the current hardships of life in Alekuti, it’s not possible to be entirely pessimistic. Santhali culture has survived great hardship before. And, as when leaving the forest, perhaps it’s generally true that sunshine will inevitably come to replace the shade.

Gabriel Hemrom, 40, with his son Remechus Hemrom, 10.

Sree Jamlal's Book

Sree Jamlal's book is treasured by him and his family.

Village police officer and secretary of the local indigenous association in Dinajpur’s Ghoraghat, Sree Jamlal Robidas, 60, is proud to show a copy of a manuscript he has. The simple book which is not grander than a basic exercise book, has well-decorated but worn and faded pages. Nonetheless, in his modest family home, it’s treasured. It’s a religious text.

He says the Robidas community in Bangladesh, whose ancestors inhabited a stretch of territory from Bhojpur in India’s Bihar to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, speak Nagri language. “We Robidas can be found in many districts. Around 200 families live in Ghoraghat.”

Nagri or Nagari is a term used to describe an ancient writing script of northern India and collectively its descendant languages and scripts, which include Bengali. The historical script of Sylheti is called Syloti-Nagri.

But the term Nagri is also a commonly used synonym for the Devanagari script of Hindi; and it is Hindi or perhaps Bhojpuri, another Devanagari-script-based language native to the region of Sree Jamlal’s ancestors, which would appear to adorn the tired pages. He suggests both Hindi and Bhojpuri are alternative names for their language.

While the Devanagari script may be common in South Asia, the religion that is the subject of Sree Jamlal’s book is more unique. 

Sree Jamlal with his family at their home in Ghoraghat.

“We are not Hindu,” says Baduram Robidas, the 47-year-old religious secretary of the national Robidas Development Association. “We don’t believe in protima (the religious statues common to Hindu temples) and we don’t observe their pujas. We have two gurus, Sheo Narayan Swami and Ravidas.”

Baduram similarly estimates that about 200 Robidas families, whose men by custom take the name Robidas while the title Robi is included in many women’s names, live in his home town of Gaibandha.

Their principle guru Ravidas was a radical mystic of the fourteenth (or fifteenth) century who challenged the caste system and idea of untouchability. Born into the dalit Chamar caste in a village near Varanasi, Ravidas taught that one is not distinguished by caste but personal action.

“If you have an honest heart you have no need to go to the holy Ganges,” Baduram quotes of Ravidas, “The water in your little pot: that will be your Ganges water.”

“If you are born a Brahmin but don’t have the true spirit or knowledge then Ravidas says you are not Brahmin,” he explains. “If you are born a Robidas and your heart is good it does not matter.”

Ravidas believed everybody had a right to read sacred texts and worship God, in contrast to traditional Brahminical belief. He also emphasised the value of honest labour – another challenge to the established hierarchy. He was something of a rebel theologian.

According to Baduram, the motto of Ravidas’s teachings is shohong sotho nomo, which means “To live with truth.”

Early morning in Ghoraghat.

Ravidas is also followed by Sikhs, with 41 verses of his poetry included in the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. “Even Guru Nanak studied Ravidas,” says Baduram with pride.

However, theological differences in Punjab over whether Ravidas was a guru, although he was born before the first Sikh guru, or merely a holy man, brought about a schism resulting in the Ravidassia religion. Punjab’s Ravidassias call their house of worship a bhawan or gurughar.

Though in essence the same religion, how much this subsequent Punjabi history is reflected in the localised traditions of the Robidas in Bangladesh is uncertain, especially given Baduram’s inclusion of the second guru, Sheo Narayan Swami.

More commonly known as Swaminarayan, this later guru born in 1781 founded the Swaminarayan Hindu sect in Gujarat – but he was born in Chhapaiya village near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, about 170 kilometres from Gorakhpur. The proximity of his birthplace to the ancestral home of the Robidas may explain, in part, his influence.

However, according to Baduram there is another reason for venerating Swaminarayan, a guru who had followers from several religions. “Sheo Narayan Swami observed the position of dalits and how Brahmins mistreated them. He saw how easily a Chamar could be killed and that their bodies were left in the street to be eaten by dogs and foxes,” Baduram says, “Sheo Narayan Swami named the religion of Ravidas as the true religion.”

Swaminarayan is indeed famous for considering and helping the poor and vulnerable, but while some say he worked towards ending the caste system he was not entirely against it like Ravidas. A bigger difference might be that while Swaminarayan protested animal sacrifice and preached lacto vegetarianism, Ravidas’s family were tanners, an occupation often associated with Chamars.

The Robidas of Bangladesh, like the family of their guru Ravidas, traditionally work with leather. “Leather and shoe-making are our custom,” says Sree Jamlal, whose yard features a pile of drying goatskins. “But most Robidas are poor, living hand-to-mouth, and they take day labour or rickshaw driving jobs.” He estimates only 2% of Ghoraghat’s Robidas families are solvent and that the literacy rate is “almost zero.”

His own son studied up to class 8. “It’s difficult for our children to complete their education,” says Sree Jamlal, “due to our financial condition.”

Goatskins in Sree Jamlal's yard.

Similarly, Baduram’s father was a cobbler, and from adolescence he used to help with the family trade. But Baduram was more fortunate, being able to complete his BA. Subsequently, he landed a job with famous footwear manufacturer Bata, where he still works as the Lab and Quality Assurance Officer at their Savar factory.

In his spare time Baduram hopes to contribute to his community, which is not officially recognised as either an ethnic or religious minority in Bangladesh. Baduram’s primary concern, however, is that knowledge of their unique religious traditions is being lost.

“The new generation has mostly been converted to Hinduism,” he laments, “because they can’t read the script of Nagri.” Baduram is writing a book to address the issue. His book, “Guru Grontha” – “The Book of the Guru” – written in Bangla, aims to make accessible to a Bangla-reading Robidas youth their true religious heritage.

It can be that before too many days have gone by there’ll be a volume of new pages at Sree Jamlal’s house – a new book that is equally treasured but this time written in everyday, familiar, Bangla letters. 





This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Sree Jamlal's Book

A Poet's Aside

The entangled branches of Tangail's tamal tree.

(Photos courtesy of Mohammed Shafiqul Islam).

Hurry! Hurry! Delay is waste, to tarry, distraction: so says the modern world. It’s probably why intercity buses stop only once, at some kind of wannabe-grand roadside eatery with a fluorescent name along the lines of “Food Village” or “Leisure Spot.” The conductor says we’ll be stopping for twenty minutes. It means half an hour.

Lord Krishna's tamal tree. Can you hear his flute song?

But the village flute doesn’t run like an intercity bus. For one thing, everybody knows a flute song never need cram extra passengers in. For another, flute songs don’t travel at death-defying speed. No – the meandering, the tugging of the soul along detours and improvised paths is what any flute song is about.

…which is why, though time is of the essence and we should be hurtling non-stop towards Dinajpur by now, it can happen that the flute leads us momentarily elsewhere, to a different kind of leisure spot. 

Like the flute, this place was favoured by Lord Krishna. It’s to be found in Tangail.

A journey by flute meanders, tugs the soul.

Moreover, well, let me be clear… It’s not a physical journey that I write of this time – I’ve never been there. It’s a journey heard about, a place that might be hoping to be known. Who am I to refuse the wishes of such a place? And instead of leisure – we are, after all, talking of Lord Krishna, we might say pleasure.

The hearing of the place came about when Shahjalal University of Science and Technology English lecturer and poet Mohammad Shafiqul Islam contacted me recently. Our conversation worked its way towards villages as conversations often do with me. The Tangail native was keen to speak of a village three kilometres east of Ghatail Upazila’s Sagardighi – the village called Gupta Brindaban in reference to Lord Krishna’s childhood home. Our poet wanted to tell about an old tamal tree.

The tamal tree collects the threads of people's prayers.

The last time he reached there, he says, with friends he sat beneath that tree and took comfort from its shade. It offered coolness and peace on a day of particularly scorching heat. “We were showered with the grace of life,” is how our poet described it.

Sridan, Sudan, Basudam, Subal, Madhumangal, Subahu, Arjun, Gandharba, Daam, Stokkrishna, Mahabal and Mahabahu: when Lord Krishna reached the place many moons earlier he brought with him twelve friends, according to our poet – others say there were sixteen. He came for leela, for secret pleasure.

It’s believed Krishna used to sit in the tree and play his flute. To its melody Radha would be entranced, Krishna absorbed in the duality of music and love. At other times his friends would be with him and Lord Krishna would take pleasure of a more platonic kind. Either way, Krishna is said to have stayed by that tamal tree for a long time.

As his forefathers did, Sree Prafulla Chandra Baishnaba cares for the tree.

 

“Sree Prafulla Chandra Baishnaba welcomed us with a smiling face when we arrived,” says our poet. Like his father and forefathers before him, he has taken on the duty of looking after the tree. There’s a temple nearby, the Bigraha Mandir, where people every day offer puja.

Krishna devotees fasten threads around the tamal tree’s branches, believing their ailments can be cured and wishes fulfilled by God’s grace. Muslims and Christians are also known to revere that place. 

Hundreds of years: the root of the tamal tree.

“The tree,” says our poet, “now hundreds of years old with its skin dried up, may seem weak with the weight of age but from the tranquillity of shade it grants devotees – with the nurturing of secret wishes and the drawing of feelings of sacredness from hearts, it surely measures great strength.” As Krishna once played his flute people now spend long hours absorbed in meditation.

“Their faces seem to glow with heavenly colours,” says our poet. “They begin to feel light, both physically and mentally as God is sure to grant life to their hopes.”

The tree itself is said to have died many years ago – but people did not stop their worship when it was lifeless – and then, after twelve years its branches mysteriously donned once more the decoration of new green leaves.

“Sree Prafulla showed us other aspects of the tree that are unusual,” says our poet. “It has an opening in the root and trees should not survive in a condition like that. And the shade it provides is extraordinary.” 

Through the twisted, turning years of this world...

Two branches of the tree are unusually entangled around one leafless, small branch – it is believed that was the branch upon which flute playing Lord Krishna sat.

In Chaitra month on occasion of Madhukrishna Troyodoshi a festival is held. Thousands of people congregate – of many faiths and from as far as India.

But of course one can’t anticipate taking comfort from the shade of a tamal tree forever. The devotees take their spiritual fill from the Radha-Krishna pleasure grove and eventually leave. Poets must understand too, of course, that once a poem is done there’s a need to move on. Even Lord Krishna, though he may have stayed for many days knew he had more to do elsewhere. 

Krishna the flautist, with Radha, at the nearby temple.

 

Our poet with his wife.

“As we left,” says our poet, “We carried with us a distinct celestial feeling of solemnity and sanctity.”

And so, like the devotees, like our poet and Lord Krishna, we are also bound to move forward. The village flute cannot give pause to the song for long. 

And so, like the intercity bus the mind with body must re-embark… One stop is sufficient, surely, for the trip to Dinajpur. Don’t worry it’ll only take twenty minutes, which really means half an hour. Don’t be late in getting, once more, on board.

With thanks to Mohammad Shafiqul Islam for sharing his experience.

The tamal tree from the south.