Sunday, March 15, 2009

Hindu Gods and Untouchability-Part 1

Introduction
In this series ,I will try to clarify the misconception about Hinduism and Hindu Gods regarding one of the black mark of Hinduism...Untouchability..

The self proclaimed rationalists of Tamilnadu have always held Hindu Gods responsible for formation of varna system and thus imposing the cruel Untouchability on the lowest sect of Varna system. I would like to put forth many incidents as a proof against their wrong accusations..and atlast will conclude that it is we Hindus ,who practice our religion without knowing about it thoroughly are to be blamed for this atrocious practice and not Hinduism and our Gods.

Udupi Krishna and Kanakadasa
Saint KanakaDasa was born as Thimmappa Nayaka in Kuruba community in kaginele in Haveri district.Kuruba community was not considered as Upper class of the varna system even though it was a community of chieftains of tribes.Kanakadasa took to the path of devotion and resorted to the feet of God when he was defeated in a battle..He was a great warrior but inspite of that he was defeated and while recovering fom severe wounds ,he heard the spiritual call , abandoned his chieftainship and became an ardent devotee of Mahavishnu.

The deity he worshipped was Adikeshava (Mahavishnu 's form) in Kaginele ,hence all his compositions have a mudra (signature) 'Kaginele Adikeshava'..Kanakadasa became the follower of Shri Vyasaraja of Madhvacharya's Dwaita cult.Dwaitha siddhantha's influence still made him rock hard vaishnav devotee and he started touring many vaishnav sacred places.
He reached Udupi ,the holy place where Lord Krishna's temple is located.This was the time when untouchability and discrimination were at its full peak and the brahmin priests who were obsessed with the false pride of their caste refused to allow him inside the temple to have darshan of his beloved God,as kanakadasa belonged to lower class and in those days lower class people were forbidden from entering temples.




Udupi Krishna


Kanakadasa who was sad on this denial sang heartrending songs on Krishna ,and was completely drowned in the devotion of God ..He could have the vision of The Supreme with his inner eyes ,but physically he was prevented from having the darshan..Naturally he was pained ,he held his tambura in his hand and continued his pradakshinas of the temple because that was the only service he could do to his Lord.

Not withstanding this cruel separation from God once he started singing" bagilanu teredu seveyanu kodo hariya" meaning "Oh Lord open the doors and let me serve you"..On hearing his ardent devotee's plea Lord Krishna miraculously created a crack on the westside wall and the statue turned around to grant the wonderful devotee's wish..Now Kanakadasa could have the darshan of his magnificient God in his lovely little form..When the brahmin priest entered the sanctum sanctorium he was shocked to see the statue which had turned to bless his devotee.After coming to know the reason ,the stunned priests realised the greatness of this devotee and allowed him into the shrine..

Later this crack was made as a small window through which devotees can have a darshan..and this window is known as kanakana kindi and even today devotees have darshan of the supreme God through this window..

This wonderful and amazing incident remains a testimony for proving that Lord Krishna is beyond all this ruthless practice of Untouchability and values only the loving devotion..and serve as a remainder to us to treat everyone with equality and justice...

CU in Next post..
If interested,Can visit Part 2 of this series.

Reference :Shri Raghavendra mahimai by Amman Sathyanathan.

2 comments:

RAMKI said...

ragvendra,ramanujar allwere against untouchability.but who worship these gurus read these stories and admire.but when it comes to them they dont follow.it is still in our blood.when we are bed ridden we take food whoever feeds to us.when we are normal we dont even allow them to touch.we say abattukku paavam illay.

Prasanna's Pen Speaks ... said...

Padma.. really nice post...In our religon Gqd is common to all of us...casteism shd not play arole in devotion.. for this we can quote many egs frm periya puranam and thirvilayadal puranam.Even in Thiruppavai Andal mention krishna as''pettram meyithunnum kulathil piranda unnai kuutravel engalai kozhalmal pogadu'' in that she mentions krishna as ''Edayian'' which is considered to be the most backward community in our ''mooda athma ''society..caste is the dress for the brain only... it is not the dress for our soul..
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