The Nine-Day Ram Katha of Pujya Morari Bapu
Junagadh, Gujarat, India · 7–15 October 2017
In the lap of *Girnar*, in the town where *Bhagwan Guru Datta* and the *Daatar* sit upon the peak and where — six hundred years ago — the *Adya-Kavi* of Gujarati, *Naagar-Narsih Mehta*, sang his god awake, Morari Bapu opens Ram Katha 819 with a single luminous *chaupai*: *"Guna sagar naagar balbeera | Sundar syamala gaur sareera || Binaya seel karuna guna sagar | Jayati bachan Rachna ati naagar ||"* — the two brothers who are oceans of virtue and yet *naagar*, one dark, one fair, gracious in speech and bearing. On this verse the whole nine days turn. *Manas-Naagar* is a play on a word: *nagar* is the town, but *naagar* is the refined, urbane, gracious one — the master of any art, the soul that can pour a whole ocean into a small pot. Junagadh is the *nagar*; Narsinh Mehta is its *naagar*; and Bapu seats not a clan but a *thought* at the centre of the Vyaspeeth. This, he says, is a *Naagari-Sabha* — no *Vidhan-Sabha*, no election rally — where "we are creating the thought and its conduct." He comes here to hold a grand *Bhandaara* for Mehta: let all Junagadh come and eat.
Bapu confesses the pull of five *Ga*: the *Ga* of Guru Datta, seated on the peak; the *Ga* of *Gagan*, the sky he so loves; the *Ga* of *Naagar* itself, its letter sitting dead-centre; the *Ga* of Junagadh; and the *Ga* of Raga *Kedar*, which Mehta sang until it turned into a Vaishnavi raga, compelling Hari to appear. In twenty months his Vyaspeeth has climbed two peaks — *Rookhadd* (the wanderer, the ascetic) and *Naagar* (the settled, cultured one). One follows the *Margi* path, the other *Gargi*; but by experience, he says, a *Rookhadd* can become a *Naagar* and a *Naagar* a *Rookhadd*. "The one who is prepared to undergo the travails of both should venture onto the spiritual path." His own lineage, he notes, runs from *Jeevandas Mehta*, a *Naagar* of Konjanni whom Dhyana Swami Bapa initiated only on the condition that he remain a householder — so through seven generations the family was liberated, and Morari Bapu carries both bloods: *Margi* and *Gargi*, *Rookhadd* and *Naagar*.
Though he is proud of the *Naagar* community and does its *Vandana*, Bapu refuses to shrink the word to a caste. Reading the many meanings gathered in the *Bhagwadgomandala* — competent, skilful, well-versed, urbane, the dweller of the town, the wise and prudent — he lifts it into ideology: "a very bright and radiant thinking is *naagar*." Any inherent art, honed to mastery, is a *naagari* trait: the sister adept at cooking, the singer who commands every nuance, the poet who writes with classical grace, the painter whose brush flows like water, the farmer who tills with devotion. He even parses the syllables — *Na* the navel, *Ga* to sing, *Ra* light rising and falling sweetly — so that the *naagar* is "the one who sings from the navel and gives pleasure to one and all." *Tulsi*, he reminds, has used *naagar* thirteen times in the Manas, seven of them yoked to *sagar*, the ocean; all the ocean's traits live in the *naagar*, and none of them lie beyond our reach — unless "we are fond of being a pygmy."
For a full day the metaphor is a water-pot. The *Gaagar* is *naagar* by five signs: it is pure copper (the only *naagar* among metals, in which even ordinary water becomes *Jal*); it sits atop the great *Handa* and keeps the brimming pot from spilling; it has a large belly and a small mouth — full within, yet never boastful; it is placed with discipline and purity; and its beauty grows day by day, mango-leaf and coconut upon it. Radha and the *Gopis*, he notes, are addressed as *Naagari* — the ones who keep the pot of *Braja* from overflowing. Set beside the *Gaagar* is the *Sagar*: deep, vast, ever-renewing wave upon wave, roaring at the rising moon, storing jewels but never poison. The *naagar* has this fathomless depth. And so the *Naagars* of Saurashtra sat as *Deewans* and *Kavis* atop the pots of princely states — a *Prabhashankar Pattani* not letting a *Bhaavsinghji* spill over — filled from within, holding others from running to waste.
Mehta is the *Acharya* of the Vaishnava *Bhakti-Peetha*, and Bapu measures him tenderly: an *Advaitin*, yet touched by *Vishishtha-Advaita* and *Dvait-Advaita*, until finally he is best called a *Premadvaitin* — his duality is real, but *rasaal*, soaked in *rasa*. His *Naagaratva* rests on five *Ka*: Krishna the *Kartar* at the root, the Kartaal in the hand, the raga Kedar, pride in his Kula, and the ceaseless Karuna that carried him into the *Harijan* hamlet to sing *kirtan* and take upon himself the very word "untouchable." Outcast by his own clan — as Gandhi was, as the great so often are — he only sang the more freely: *"Aewa rey ammey aewa rey, tammey kaho chho valli teva rey"* ("Such am I, such — you may call me whatever you will"). When there was not even sugar-candy to offer *Damodar*, only a *Tulsi* leaf, still *Dwarikadheesha* honoured his *Hundi* — and out of that emptiness rose the song of trust, *"Mhaari hundi sweekaro Maharaj rey, Shyamala Giridhari."* Bapu recalls his own *bhiksha* in a Dalit home near Shringaverpur, the little daughter's tears "purifying the Ganga-Jal" as she made him a *roti*: *"Annam Brahmeti"* — where fire, water, grain and tears are all pure, who is untouchable? And Mehta's great sentence, *"Sakal lokma sahuney vandey,"* he holds above even Tulsi: until we stop seeing another as lower, "our mind is still polluted."
Under the leadership of *Narsayya-Naagar*, Bapu gathers seven *naagars* from the *Ramcharitmanas* — figures at whose feet one may weep or laugh or seek counsel. Lord Shankar comes first: the *Shiva-Sindhu*, the ocean that holds moon and *amrit* and poison alike, the *Janeudhari-Naagar-Brahmin* whose sacred thread is a serpent, *"Sakal Kala Guna dhaam."* Maharaja Janaka, the *Videharaj* who "hid his yoga within his *bhoga*," is a *naagar* both because he sat among *Ashtavakra*, *Shukadeva* and *Yagyavalka*, and because he ploughed his field so that from the furrow rose Sita herself. Rama and Lakhan, taken as one, are *naagar* in *sheel* and speech — it is *Parashuram*, coming in *tamas* to kill, who is disarmed by Rama's grace and himself pronounces Him *naagar*; and on the battlefield Rama's courtesy toward a wounded Ravana kills the *Ravanatva* before the arrow ever kills Ravana. The others are Nala and Neil, the bridge-builders; the Nagar-jan, the very townsfolk of Rama's *Puri*; the Natt-kala, the mastery of any performing art; and clever Angad. Hanuman too — *"Jai Hanuman Gyan Guna Sagar"* — and *Kumbhaja*-Agastya, born of a pot who drank a whole ocean, belong among them. And beyond the Manas, Bapu ranges the *naagar* through creation: among trees the Banyan, among Devas Mahadeva, among beasts the lion, among birds the swan that sifts virtue from fault, among planets the moon, among mountains *Girnar*, among rivers *Yamuna*, among grains wheat.
Wherever Tulsi calls Rama *naagar*, Bapu shows, he sets *sagar* beside it — seven times, for the seven oceans — and reads in it seven marks of Rama's *Naagaratva*. Rama is the refuge of countless *jeevas*, taking *Shabari*, *Ahallya*, *Kewat*, stone and *gannika* alike into His Name as the sea takes every river. He is salt turned to sweet rain: what endures the fiercest *tappan* and still rises to shower *"Rama-Dhan"* upon the earth is *naagar*. In Him *Lakshmi-Narayana* rest upon the ocean of milk; He alone can sleep in *Yoga-Nidra* amid the choppy waves with *Kala* hovering overhead. He alone survives the *Pralaya* — *"Raha Ek… Rama."* He invites both *sur* and *asur* to churn Him and spills no bitterness. And He roars in joy at another's full moon — the very opposite of the *Rahu*-nature that swallows others' light. "If you are senior," Bapu warns the elders, "encourage your juniors; do not hoist a *Rahu* to block the small rising artist's path."
A *naagar* is born from a mother's womb — but *Naagaratva*, the quality itself, is born only at a *Sangam*, a confluence. It is born in the mountain cave, out of deep meditation; at the foot of an unmoving *achala*; under some weathered *Rookhadda* untouched by the seasons; and above all in the one who, however high he climbs, never forgets the *Talhetti*, the foothill — as Mehta each dawn took up his *Kartaal* and walked down to the *Damodar-Kunda*. It is the movement of *Ramatva* toward *Kewatatva* and back: the Crown Prince who walks barefoot to the ferryman's rickety boat, and the returning Lord who lifts the *Kewat* into His *Vimana* — the river-crossing repaid by a sky-crossing. That union is *Naagaratva*. Bapu finds it in *Shabari* the *Bheel* woman confessing *"Mo sama kaun kutila khal kaami,"* in *Kaushallya* who cannot fold her hands to praise the Infinite, in *Jattayu* the vulture who dies whispering Rama. Pain and honour, praise and abuse — the one whom "not a single season affects" gives it birth.
"Bandha setu Neal Nala Naagar | Rama kripa jasu bhayahu ujaagar ||"* — Tulsi calls two monkeys *naagar*, and where, asks Bapu, is caste in that? Not by birth but because they built the *Setu* are Nala and Neil *naagar*; "the one who builds bridges to unite the society is a *naagar*," and the one who thinks another lowly is himself the lowliest of all. Rama Himself becomes *naagar* by raising the bridge — its stones inscribed *Rama-Rama* — and installs *Rameshwara* upon it: the vast, low, slanting "temple" of the *Setu* that shelters everyone, dearer to Bapu than any high, violently-swaying flag. From this the katha's social teaching flows: the *Varna-Ashram* order is *sva-dharma*, not division — feet that walk toward the distressed, hands that protect the weak, the seeker of *Brahman*, the generous giver. What the world lacks, he says, is not reformers or redeemers but *acceptors* — a Rama who would ask Gautama, "Are you able to take her back? Else I will accept *Ahallya* as she is."
Around these themes the story itself runs its course: the *Shiva-vivaha* and the marriage of *Shraddha* and *Vishwas* from which Ram-Katha is born; the *Ram-Janma* at Ayodhya, where the mother of Bapu's land teaches the four-armed Lord how to become human and cry like a newborn; Vishwamitra's begging of the "Brahman playing in the courtyard"; *Taadaka*, the redemption of *Ahallya*, the breaking of Shiva's bow after Janaki's quiet, radical questioning; the exile, the *Kewat*, *Chitrakut* and the *Paduka* enthroned at *Nandigram*; the forest sages, *Kumbhaja*, *Panchwati* and *Shoorpanakha*; the shadow-Sita's abduction and the martyrdom of *Jattayu*; *Shabari's* *Navadha-Bhakti*, the friendship with *Sugreeva*, Hanuman's leap and the burning of Lanka; the *Setu*, the fall of Ravana pierced through his *Mooladhara*, and the *Ram-Rajya* — the *Prema-Rajya* — that Gandhi dreamed for India. Threaded through are Mehta's own *padas* and the great Krishna *prasangs*: the *Param-Naagar* of Dwarika begging green grass and *Yamuna-Jal* of Vrindavan for His own pyre; the black *Kali-Kamli* Bapu's grandmother *Amrit Ma* wrapped him in, worn in memory of Krishna; *Lakshmanna* who never once returned to her father's house; *Sudama* longing to wash the hundred-year-old Lord's feet.
At the close, Bapu names the *Naagar's* address: his *Kshetra* is *Girnar*, his *Dham* is *Dwarika*, his *Dharamshala* is *Akhanda-Sankirtana* — unbroken singing — his *Veda* is *Nirveda*, and his *Gotra* is *Achyut*, that which never falls. He asks Junagadh for five things in Mehta's name — a *pathashala*, a *gaushala*, a *vyayamshala*, a *bhojanshala* and a *dharmshala* — and begs that nothing ever be raised in *his own* name: no temple, no statue, no road, no *sampradaya*, for "my group is *Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam*." Narsih, he reflects, performed three renunciations — *Grihatyaga*, *Grahatyaga* (washing away fate itself, for *bhajan* rewrites destiny), and *Girityaga*, the hardest, turning his back on his beloved *Giri* because *"majja chhey duur rahavaama."* The nine days were a *Raas* danced around the *Kartaalwala* at the centre. And so the Katha rests on the verses that carried it: *"Guna sagar naagar balbeera…"*; *"Ramcharitmanas aehi naama | Sunat Shravan paaiya bishrama"* — hearing brings not heaven but *vishram*, tranquillity, and the sharing of *prema*; *"Sakal lokma sahuney vandey"*; and Mehta's own definition of the awakened life that every *naagar*, child to elder, should carry — *"Vaishnava jana toh tenney kahiye rey, jey peeda paraai jaanney rey."* All has been said, Bapu murmurs, and everything remains unsaid: the completeness that lives inside a total void.