Sacrifices.

 

I am not equipped to answer a deep a question as this, nor is this a discourse. This is a feeble attempt from a fellow human trying to make sense of this universe and our place in it, if there is one. However, this does not absolve me of a responsibility, a standard I hold for myself very strictly, to be chucked out of the window just because I couldn’t think of a better argument in favour for or against this particular tangle. Nevertheless let’s begin.

There is a ritual, which I am sure all Hindus you know of do it. If you are a Hindu yourself, you might have done it yourself. After a Pooja of any kind is done, a coconut is broken, with a single blow to the ground, and the liquid is thrown over everyone present. This is a very auspicious thing to do and, if the coconut is broken in a single blow, it is applauded as it is frankly a difficult thing to get right. Anyway, I sat to wonder what the purpose behind it was. Soon I realised that this line of inquiry led me to answers like, “It has been this way for generations.” or “Because it is a very ‘shubh’ thing to do.” without explaining why it was ‘shubh’. The thought left my brain just as suddenly it had entered.

Many years later, recently I was browsing the images from Himachal Pradesh, for my study. A memory of a time when I visited there many years ago popped into my head. It was a school trip and we visited the Hidimba Mandir as part of our trip to the northern states. It was past seven in the evening so I could not get a good look of the structure of the temple from the outside, made out of black stone or wood, I could not grasp. But just above the entrance to the Garbhagriha of the temple, outside there were scores of skulls of animals. It ranged from gigantic yaks, to buffaloes, to goats, even smaller ones of chicken, and it was scary for the 14 year olds. The entire atmosphere around the temple was of solemnity and quiet. Not one made loud noises, no one was laughing loudly, and everyone went inside to pray then exited quickly and quietly. There were close to two hundred people there but it felt closer to twenty. The night wasn’t helping either, giving the entire area a sense of not belonging to this world. When I was in the line of students to enter the temple, I was still scanning the ceiling outside, enthralled by the skulls. There was something numinous about it, I could not see them directly out of fear, nor could I snatch my gaze away from it. I was secretly hoping and also dreading to find a human’s there too. I entered the temple through a small hole like entryway, which was the only entry and exit point in the whole structure. I squished my way inside and it was surprisingly roomy. My gaze flew upwards to find the roof of the temple and I saw the hook with a long rope on the ceiling. The line was very eager to get out of the temple, and so within hardly a few minutes, I was again on the outside, with the empty eye sockets of the skulls gazing back at me. I returned from my memory trip just in time to find an old picture of the Hidimba Temple from the 1860s. A big white bull stood at the entrance of the temple, and scores of people stood around it, all the way up the cliff where it is situated. The place was cleared off trees, and it was daytime, and a sort of fair was arranged there, with Ferris wheels. I learned more about the surroundings of that temple from that old image than from the actual visit to that place. When I was there, there was no light around, and it looked just dark in all directions except the lighted path from where we came. Here I got a better picture, literally, of how that place was. In the caption of that image it was written, “Sacrifice of a bull to Maa Hidimba” then there was a post script which explained that, humans were sacrificed here and strung up inside the temple for visitors to move them against the rock as a ritual. Since those times the size of the animals got smaller, then plants in time, they sacrificed pumpkins, then eventually coconuts.

In the far eastern part of India, the Shaktism or Shakt Parampara is very strongly followed. In fact, the highest or strongest of the Shakti Peeth of Maa Sati is in Assam, in the temple of Kamakhya Devi Mandir. As the story goes different parts of her body were scattered all over India, and the Yoni of Maa Sati fell in that place. And the Sat(truth) of that place is so strong that the Yoni bleeds during its monthly menstrual cycles, and during those days the temple is kept closed. Also, this Sat has enlightened the people there, who are far more comfortable to talk on these subjects which are considered rather sensitive in other parts of the country. It is less of desensitizing the people to disgust of it, but rather acknowledgement that this facet of life is natural and inevitable, and ignoring or shunning it, is mere running headfirst into brick walls. In this temple weekly and monthly sacrifices of goats and other animals is done. The technical word for it is Bali. And it is the case for so many of temples in India, which have a history of Bali going back centuries, or even longer. Blood and gore is not the aspect which is in focus, rather the entire focus is serving Maa a sacrifice. The concept is, a sacrifice given to Maa will better the future. It is more of a transactional ritual, than something that you have to take at face value. It is not just dedicated to Maa Kali, even though she is the main deity to whom sacrifices are made to, nor Maa Hidimba, who is more of a GramDevi of Himachal Pradesh for more than a thousand years, and the temple itself is around five centuries old, it is a basic tenet of praying to any goddess, which necessitates a sacrifice.

Even in Jain influenced Gujarat and Rajasthan, where animal life is even more valued, the temples regularly see sacrifices by Rajputs, who still have Kshatriya blood in them. Here goats are sacrificed on Dusshera after Navratri. The concept of sacrifice is also prevalent at village levels here. There are legends, that whenever a drought or famine comes, or the baodi(well) is rendered empty, a young couple walks into it, and the problem is solved. There is something tribal and primitive in this, but the couple itself doesn’t feel forced, nor are they actually forced. In fact if a forced couple is sacrificed, then the transaction backfires. And all villages in India are attuned to this fact, so a great care is taken when this is done, and mostly as a last resort too. But whenever this is done, the people do it willingly. Now, if I say that Human sacrifice has always been a prevalent ritual in the Indian Subcontinent, I would be wrong. Ahimsa is a virtue long held very highly, by thinkers ancient, contemporary, and everyone in between. Even Ashokan edicts provide proofs of that. But a sacrifice is still a very real phenomena. We can safely eliminate Human Sacrifices or Purushamedha from being literal, but not for animal sacrifices.

The psychology of a sacrifice is very visceral, it feels very real and consequential, and is probably necessary for the society. Ranging from mere delayed satisfaction, to all the way to human sacrifices, Balidan is a very core part of the psyche of the people. One of the many reasons that the people of this subcontinent have a saving mind-set rather than a spending mind-set is Bali. Sacrifice of the present for a better future is ingrained in the culture. For that to happen though, a deal must be made with the future, which is imagined in the roop of Maa Kali, but it could be anything. A student wasting his youth in studies for a better future for himself and family is not so different than any other type of sacrifice, a sacrifice of self.

Let me explain. The roop of Maa Kali is ferocious, she is unapologetically vile. She embodies the crueller aspects of nature, like being surrounded by a ring of fire. Fire is another numinous thing, just like a skull is. It is not very pleasant to look at, but the gaze ends up there anyway, as it is the source of light and warmth and it is constantly moving. That is embodied in her. She wears a garland of skulls, or heads, which means that she is not unaware of death. She causes death to others. She is Death. She is washed by blood of her enemies, which is peculiar, because the red colour in clothes is usually very pleasing to look at, but the direct image of blood, reminds us of our own mortality, to which women are acutely made aware of every month, and so they handle it much more efficiently. She is without clothes, which symbolises the wildness of nature itself, the only clothes she has are covers made from limbs of evil enemies who stood no chance in front of her. She holds every weapon imaginable in multiple arms, symbolising the different ways that you can die. She symbolises everything bad that Nature can do to you. And what is the solution to that? Sacrifices. And if you are lucky, and she accepts your sacrifice, then you get to see the benevolent side of Nature, in Maa Durga. She is smiling, rather than the angry face of Kali. She is beautiful, just like nature is beautiful. She cares for you, gives you nutrition, just like nature. She gives birth to things, just like nature does. She embodies the good side of the feminine. The Kali-Durga duality aspect of every feminine is placated by sacrifice. And it is not limited to Maa Shakti, but also extends to Maa Laxmi, who comes with her own negative side called Alaxmi. She brings poverty and misery wherever she goes, as a stark contrast to Maa Laxmi. In fact the lemon and chilly hanging done on doors and vehicles of Hindu homes is a prayer to Maa Alaxmi done unknowingly.

This does not mean that there is hierarchy in divinity for these feminine roops. In fact, this is embracing of all aspects of a human life. Nature can be cruel and unyielding, but if you give enough sacrifices, nature can provide you with things no one else can. This means that both the sides of nature must be prayed to, or in other words, be reminded of. Because if we forget about the horrible side of nature, and we forget the way to come out of its talons, if we forget to sacrifice, then Maa Durga will not incarnate, and nature will devour us.

Very close to the ‘Sunk Cost fallacy’, sacrifices once made also embolden the faith of a person. Once you have sacrificed for something or someone, it may be anything, you will have put effort and time, or basically value into that thing, thus increasing its value for yourself. This is another reason that religions that have sacrifices in them, sustain longer due to the faith of the people who protect it. They have sacrificed so much for it that they will fight more fiercely, to protect it, while those who don’t, wont. And it is not limited to religions only, any aspect of your life that you have sacrificed for, will automatically become of high value. A student who has sacrificed his playtime will study harder, and hence get better grade. Now you may argue that there was no direct causation, but there was, just not an obvious one.

That ritual I spoke of in the beginning, is a representation of animal sacrifice at the most rudimentary level. The coconut water sprayed on everyone around, represents exactly what you think it represents. And this jarring shift in my world view was aided by Maa Hidimba. I don’t intend to bring back animal sacrifices into the mainstream of Hinduism, if there is such a thing. I just wanted to share a different side, a rather hidden side of a thing I love dearly. I used to be a vocal opponent of the mass sacrifice done during the Gadhimai Festival, but now I am not so loud. It still icks me to see a creature die, but now when the people, who have been following that festival, that ritual for millennia, are told not to do so, by the state, it too feels wrong. Would I be able to do an animal sacrifice myself? Probably yes. But would I do it? Probably no. I do sacrifices all the time without realising its psychology every single time. Sometimes, my sacrifices work, sometimes they go nowhere. But after learning all this my internal conflict is now at least a bit realised. What about you?