Bakthi, the Prayer

Bakthi, the Prayer

This was posted on now defunct www.writeclick.net October, 2007.

Long time ago

One of my Indian friends

Expressed the view that

There are 800 millions

In India

And equally

There are eight hundred million

Gods to warship

What am I to do?

My prompt

And curt response was

Don’t warship any

Like me,

A simple Buddhist

But my dear friend

The problem in Ceylon is

That there are eight millions

Looking for a god of some sort,

In spite majority,

Of the beings are

Of Non-abiding Buddhists

Going back in history,

Five thousand and more years,

In India,

The seat of divine incarnations

And godly origin,

There were Rama, Ravana and Sita

Who are still revered as Gods

And the Hanuman who made

The Hanuman Way

The Rama-Sita Bridge,

The Satu Sunderum of new age,

To recapture,

Sita from Ravana (Was a celebrity)

And gods from,

Hindu to Judaism need

Bakthi as a nutritive element

Or an animal 

Or some other sacrifice

For the survival

Of the conceptual

God Wisdom

The Christ objected to

Animal sacrifice

The Roman Democrats

Crucified him

On Majority Vote

If the rule is applied

In the modern day

There won’t be any democrats

Or Meritocrats

Left in this World

The sacrifice of Christ

Was the first misadventure,

In the history of gods

And their counterparts

In the name of democracy

In this modern world

With so many adherents

Of its merits

How come the democracy still surviving?

In the midst of mayhem in Myannar

To autocracy in Russia and China

With so many

Not god abiding

Majority can be right

Majority can be wrong

Who is the best Judge of All?

Certainly it cannot be the god,

Since god made Man

With, so many impurities

The gods hands

Cannot be clean

At the barest of level

The love of god

Or the Bakthi associated with

The Brotherhood of All,

Is in fact,

The exclusion of the Rest

Of all other faiths

Of dissimilar gods

And the breeding ground for

Hate and ill will

The Bakthi is like

The two sides of the coin

One side with love and faith

The other side,

With Hate and Enmity

If all the god loving men and women

Stop propagating

The human and animal sacrifices

Many of the gods

Would die of starvation

Or the lack of nutritive sustenance

And we can let,

Gods fight their Own Wars

In heaven

Then, this planet would be

A nicer place to live,

To Live and Let Live

The energy saved

Then would be enough

To concentrate on preventing

Pollutants of all kinds

Including Noise (and the Web)

Chanting Music and Recitals

Chanting Music and Recitals

It was strange coincidence, I did some soul searching during the Perehara what relevance the dance and music has Buddhism and its practice.

To my surprise nothing at all. 

Buddha was never a musician.

One and only reason for the musical tone, if any when chanting stanzas was to enhance the memory power of the reciter, the colossal volume of Dhamma in the three baskets was prohibitive.

It is said devoted monks use it even during the Baminitiya Saya, the 11 year period of famine in our history.

That was the devotion. 
 
In actual fact, even the Gatha or the Stanza should not be recited in a musical tone, lest the actual meaning that they convey would be distorted out of context and practical use.

All these musical activities of the Vihara, Devala and Kovil are a corruption and should be considered a sub-religion.

In the entire Theravada Tradition and history there are no musical notes.

The musical sub-culture was entirely of Indian (they should be proud of it) Origin.

Of course India is the seat and origin of music in Asian subcontinent and civilization.

The Tibetan and Chinese drum beating associated with Mahayana tradition is entirely a different preposition.

They were probably developed to gather masses.

Whether it is Bali, Thovil or Kohomba Kankariya or any other derivative of music or Thalas and dances or the Vannamas have no relationship to Buddhist outlook but a local sub-culture of quality.

If at all, they are hindrances to the devoted meditator who chooses to retire to the jungle for solace.

With domestication of monks (they are supposed to walk bare foot in all directions, spreading Dhamma) in temples or Viharas with the help of the late kings of this ancient Kingdom, the musical traditions were perpetuated and the dancing took a root in the sub-culture.

However, in Hindu tradition music was a vehicle and Bajjan is a rule not an exception.

It says how much Hindus contributed to the variegated sub-culture.

In spite of all this dancing and chanting were limited to the males of the species.

Buddhist ladies never took part (in my time) in these practices.
I now observe that Girls are too parading, dancing and reciting (I believe that is emancipation, in practice).
Ladies were paraded in Ran Dholis carried by the lowest of the caste.
I hate this caste tradition and they  are not allowed to wear footwear under the hot sun on "Day Perehara". 
When (ladies taking part) it was practiced in the palaces they were for the entertainment of the King (and Queens) and the entourages were brought from South India.
However, there is a difference in practice in Devalas and Kovils.
In the Kovil it is the practice by the Bahamian and it is caste oriented but not so in Devalas.

The Kapuva was a Buddhist but he could be of any caste.
The language was never Pali but was Sanskrit in verse and were handed down by family trait for many centuries.
There are even few well known politicians who have descended from these family traits.
In today's context they are part and parcel of the organized ingrained traditions and a religion of their own and have no relationship to Buddhism.

So enjoy, the dance and music at Perehara but sooner it is over retire to the jungle (if there is any left in this blessed country) for meditation which is practiced in style in the jungles of Burma and Thailand.