For reasons best known to the ‘feminist’ in me, I have been closely and almost fanatically following the entire Sabarimala Temple issue since the topic became a dining-table topic. I must confess that I am neither a very religious Hindu nor am I a female with extremely polarized opinion on ‘Venus-Mars equality’. It had become an obsession of sorts to my ignorant psyche to see a female (within the menstruating age range) enter the imposing and forbidden premises of the shrine devoted to Lord Ayyappa. I also confess that till I did an exhaustive search on Google for who exactly Ayyappa is and why the mighty Lord really shuns female attention, my knowledge about his lordship was as meager as greenery in Greenland.
After burning the midnight oil for a couple of days I knew that Ayyappa/Ayyappan is the Hindu god of growth, particularly popular in Kerala and the rest of South India. He is the son of Shiva and Mohini – the female avatar of Vishnu. This deity is also honored by some Muslims in Kerala, with legends wherein Ayyappa defeats and gains worship of the Muslim brigand Vavar. He was born with the powers of Shiva and Vishnu to confront and defeat the shape shifting evil Buffalo demonessMahishasuri. He was raised by a childless royal couple, and grows up as a warrior yogi champion of ethical and dharmic living. While Lord Ayyappa was still a minor, lady-demonMahishasuri had created havoc in the down south. She had got a boon from gods that she could only be defeated by the son born out of the union of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. As it happened, Lord Ayyappa defeated her in a battle. Upon her defeat, it was revealed that the demon was actually a beautiful young woman who had been cursed to live the life of a demon. The defeat set the woman free who, in turn, proposed to Lord Ayyappa. He refused, saying that he had been ordained to go to forest and answer the prayers of devotees. But, the young woman was persistent. So, Lord Ayyappa promised to marry her the day kanni-swamis (new devotees) stop visiting him with their prayers at Sabarimala. The woman agreed to wait for him at a neighbouring temple. The woman is also worshipped today as Malikapurathamma at a neighbouring temple. The legend goes further saying that in honour of Malikapurathamma, Lord Ayyappa does not receive any menstruating woman. Also, the women chose not to visit Lord Ayyappa for it would be an insult toMalikapurathamma's love and sacrifice.
While it is not clear why Lord Ayyappa decided to leave Mahishasuri and remain aloof in a temple which is basically a male bastion, I do realize that the aftermath that followed (and which is still ongoing) is ugly, meaningless and totally futile.
Yes, despite being a woman who has a respectable career and sometimes endorses hardcore feminist views I do not see any reason to pass a judgment by the highest legal authority of the country to let women devotees enter the shrine.
I would rather have been more welcoming to a ruling which could have declared shoot-on-sight orders for pedophiles and rapists. Sometimes I feel that challenging tradition has become an empty fad to grab attention and shift the focus from relevant matters to practically meaningless ones. Or is it just that we have acquired this habit of questioning and wrestling everything that goes beyond the realms of an inquisitive scientific mind??
We learn about traditions when we are young, and when we grow older we naturally want to protect what our elders taught us. There is an inherent tendency to protect our traditions. And I feel that this trait is necessary to preserve our past. Entire communities bond around traditions and rituals, and that is a powerful uniting force, but it simultaneously creates great social pressure not to challenge them. The longevity of a custom passed from one generation to the next can have many reasons, some good and some bad. I agree that persistence alone cannot provide moral or social justification. And I also feel that better questions need to be asked about traditions before we judge their value. For example, in my part of the country, it has always been the son who does the after-death rituals for the father, even if the son had never bothered to take care of his parents during the latter’s lifetime. But it is a refreshing change these days to see daughters performing the same rite for the parents too.
So, I wonder, should we not make any attempt to challenge or change whatever has been handed over to us from our grandmother’s times? Well, to be very honest, it is a foolish endeavor to resist change. The danger is that in resisting change both regress and progress are prevented. It keeps the status quo strongly in place. If a society wishes to help the next generation have better lives than the previous, than it demands a periodic retrospection of what those traditions were meant to do, and to compare them with the effect they have now. But I doubt the veracity of certain changes. I need mammoth self-control to suppress the urge to stop the ‘processions’ onDashami evenings when drunk devotees take out their mandatory loud playlist of double-meaning laced loud film songs and make a mockery of the Goddess for whom we wait an entire year. I see no rhyme or reason for the policemen in Kerala to escort helmet-clad glorified female activist and journalist for offering prayers to Lord Ayyappa who, according to history and mythology, is not interested in taking offerings from them.
What we need today is a confident mass, an educated (and I do not mean high-sounding degrees here) youth and an empathic and compassionate psyche. Armed with a wisdom (if I may dare say this) that comes only with experience and age, I miss the compassion among the people today, I sort-of fear the self-obsession that fills up our lives these days and I want to run away from the mentality where I am deemed correct because I am into money. It’s the confident community, and the empathic community, who can recognize and appreciate a strong idea, handed down the generations, which can withstand being questioned, which can retain its logic despite being twisted and mutated over eras. And a truly strong community will recognize a problem, or accept that things have changed, and work to incorporate it, rather than hide behind the defense of longevity.
What we do today will be someone else’s history. All traditions are dynamic, shifting and changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but they are all in motion, just at a pace we rarely notice. It was this small pace that brought about the change in our thought processes that divided our country in 1947; it was this snail pace that allowed internet to decide how and with whom we should forge relationships; it was this slight motion which metamorphosed the art of journalism to this loud cacophony that we call ‘talk-shows’ these days; it was this slow pace that made us intolerant to other religious faiths and cemented the thoughts of fundamental views in our minds.
Traditions are just one of the many forces that tie us together. They do not make us demolish mosques and burn temples. Traditions do not teach up to brandish helmets and make a run to touch reclusive idols who doesn’t want our prayers. Traditions do not make us rape five year old girls and make vulgar videos of unsuspecting people and leak them online.
And maybe it is tradition only that tells my medieval mind that Lord Ayyappa wishes to be allowed his privacy, that he intends to keep his feelings for Mahishasuri intact…..
