Prayer Meeting
It was Tuesday, 6.30 pm,
several cars, motor-cycles and scooters were parked along the road in front of
the house No. 552 of HMT colony of RT Nagar in Bangalore. The owner of the house, Vijaya Kumar is a
retired employee of Hindustan Machine Tools
factory and his wife Padmavati, a home maker. Their only son is mentally
retarded. The couple is quite pietistic and dedicated rest of their life for
social and religious activity. They regularly host weekly prayer meeting on
Tuesday in their house on behalf of Vishwa Veerashaiva Association.
On the right side of their
house, there is 15 feet wide open courtyard along the entire length of the
house. At the inner end of the courtyard, there is a car garage. By opening the gates, the garage can be fully
opened to the courtyard. The walls of the garage are nicely color-distempered.
The floor of the garage is lined with marble stones. The floor of the entire
courtyard is lined with mosaic tiles. On a small podium in the garage, photos
of Basavanna and Akka Mahadevi are arranged which are adorned with flickering
light series. The floor in front of the podium is covered with carpet. About
200 plastic armed-chairs are arranged in rows in the courtyard till the front
gate.
Gate was opened. Just inside the compound, there is a water
tap. In-coming members remove their footwear and wash hands and face. A big
Vibhuti Ghatti (block of sacred cow-dung ash) is placed on a stool. After
washing the face, members apply bhasma on their forehead and proceed inside to
occupy their seat. Ladies sit on the carpet in front of podium. Jasmine
garlands on the photos were emitting fragrance.
Burning sandal sticks were throwing smoke of sweet smell. Three parallel
stripes of Bhasma on the faces of the ladies added grace to them; they were
looking like Akka Mahadevi sitting in Anubhava Mantapa of 12th century.
Their appearance was creating sisterly feeling and devotion to the lookers
Time was nearing 7.00 pm. Ninety percent seats ware
full. A lady distributed prayer book to the members. Vijaya Kumar lifted
speaker and welcomed all and requested to start the prayer. Prayer started and
two ladies were singing the devotional songs selected from the prayer book. All
the members were singing following them. The prayer started with the Basava
Vachana, ‘Vacanadalli nimma namamruta tumbi (my words Thy ambrosial name be
sprung) and ended with Lingastaka, ‘Brahma murari surarchita lingam’. For about
one hour, all were absorbed in devotion forgetting sweet-sour memories of
hectic daily life. Two minute silence was observed, Mahamangala was sung.
Aarati was brought to each to feel the warmth. Members put Rs ten, five, two or
one as per their will to Aarat plate and sat down.
Vijaya Kumar announced the start
of question-answer session.
Question-Answer session was started. It is
a platform for exchange of ideas among the members. They evince much interest
to participate in the session. A member put a question before all;
‘All of us taking part in the
prayer-meeting regularly are senior citizens. Why our youths and school children
do not take part the meeting?’
‘We are all retired people having no
specific job to do. We come here to spend time. Our youth have several problems
in their professional life, they feel shortage of time. They have no time for
prayer, or they may not be interested in prayer, religion etc. They may not
believe in God’ reply from another member.
‘It appears, this problem exists only for
our religion. You see our Muslim brethren; they have their own religious book
‘KURAN’, own religious week-day, Friday, and they have only one religious Guru,
Mohamed Paigamber. Their religion is disciplined. Seniors, youths and children
run to Masjid for prayer wherever they are. They never miss prayer on Friday.
They reserve a portion of their income for charity. HAJ Pilgrimage, at least
once in their life, is their religious aim’ a member gave explanation.
‘Our religion is unhealthy mixture of
several castes and sub-castes. There are three-four Gods for each caste, eight-ten
temples of different Gods in each place. One who follows one God dislikes other
Gods and never visits temple of other God. The society is polluted. Mutual
distrust, jealousy, hatredneess are rampant. Basava teachings which are the
base of our religion have receded and stupid rituals, blind beliefs have
proliferated. Such dirty atmosphere made
our younger generation to loose faith in religion and God. They do not
participate prayer meetings.’ A middle-aged member opined.
‘You see, our religion is old and religious
rituals suit to those olden days. Now, population has increased, life has
become very fast, social and professional life and food habits have altogether
changed. We should also change with time, our religion should also change. We should
accept with open mind, the good practices of other religion’ the discussion
continued.
‘Our religion is hundreds of years old,
religious traditions suit to only those days. Can you see any body wearing the
dresses of those days like dhoti, bagalucoat (wing coat) etc now? Pant, shirt,
suit, tie, safari suit, T-shirt etc are the common dresses of the boys, now.
Thick cotton and silk sarees of ladies have disappeared. Transferent nylon sarees for ladies and jeans
pant, T-shirt, Salwar-kameej, short skirt of girls are manuli (very common)
now. Grinding-stone, Varalu, Vanake etc have gone and paddy huller, floor-mill,
mixy, hot-oven, refrigerator, washing machine etc are in use. How can we expect
that our old religion should remain unchanged?’
‘We should make changes in our religion also
to attract our younger generation. Do they like to travel by bullock-cart and
horse-tanga leaving aside motor-cycle, scooter, car, train, aero plane etc? Our
school going children also demand scooter and motor-cycle to go to school.
Present jamana is of T.V, mobile, broad-band etc. We all know that all these changes
are for our facility and we enjoy them. We seniors should adjust to the
changes.’
‘Yes, I agree with my friend; as we have
adjusted to all modern facilities, we should implement reforms in our religion. By opposing the reforms in
our religion, we are deceiving ourselves. We should learn to swim along with
the current and should not get desperate by trying to swim opposite the current
and get tired. Our religion should be like flowing water and should not be like
stagnant water which stinks.’ The discussions continued.
‘Our religion should be reorganized. Our all
mutts (monasteries) should be brought under one central controlling authority
like SGPC (Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandaka Committee). The Authority may be
christened as FLM (Federation of Lingayat Mutts). This authority should decide
clauses of reform. Its decision should be final and binding.’
‘Our religion should have an accepted ‘Dharma
Grantha’ (Religious Book). All the 1400 Vachanas of Basava should be properly
edited and compiled to form our Religious book which will be similar to ‘Koran’
of Muslims or ‘Bible’ of Christians or Grantha Sahib of Sikhs.’
‘Sunday is the weekly religious day for
Christians and so is Friday for Muslims. Our community also should have our own
weekly religious day. We should accept Monday as our week day. This day should
be the day of weekly prayer. All our social, religious and domestic functions
should be held on Monday without bothering for Rahu kala, Guli kalala, thithi
or nakshatra’
‘Christians go to churches, Muslims to
Masjids and Sikhs to Gurudwaras for prayer. Our community should construct
Basava Mandir in each village, two or three or more depending upon the size of
the place.’
‘Haj’ pilgrimage, at least once in life is
the ardent desire of every Muslim. Why should we not have such a desire to
undertake a pilgrimage to Kudala Sangama at least once in life?
‘We should reserve 5% of our income for
religious purpose and charity.’
‘Basava Jayanti should be our religious
festival’
“These are only a few suggestions to
modernize our religion. There are several other aspects for consideration of
FLM.’
‘Strength if we are united and Shame if we
are divided’ should be our motto. We unite if we forget our internal divisions.
This is only possible if inter-sub castes marriages take place.’
A senior citizen member expressed his
anguish, “My grandson asked me, ‘ Tata, who is Basavanna? Is he your brother or
a relative?’ What should I answer? I simply laughed and kept quiet.”
‘There is a solution to your problem. We
should bring our school-going children to the prayer meeting. We should sow our
‘Sharana Principles’ in younger minds. Our children of today are the citizens
of our community in future. We seniors should absorb these principles
thoroughly and follow them truly up to our conscience before we preach to
others to follow. Your grandson will find the answer to his question by
himself.’
‘Sharana Principles’ in concise-form are
written of the board on the wall there. English translation of the principles
is also written on the adjacent board, please read.’
Sharana Principles
·
Work is worship.
·
Kindness is the base of all religions.
·
Names many, God is but ONE.
·
Talking truth leads to heaven,
Talking
lies leads to hell.
·
He who wishes well-being of all human beings
belongs to sacred caste.
·
Woman or Wealth or Property is not Maya.
Greed of your mind for them is Maya.
·
Consort your utterances with your mind and
your tongue with your acts.
·
Befriend with righteous, friendship with
the wicked is deadly poisonous.
·
Keep off those who are mad of their
richness.
·
Counter not anger with anger, for what
merit?
The
fire in your house brings ruin on yours before it enflames your neighbour.
·
When woes betide, world forsakes you. Thou
ever is the friend of the friendless,
Oh,
Lord Kudala Sangama!
‘Hard copy of ‘Sharana Principles’ is available
with Vijaya Kumar. We may frame and hang the same in our house so that the
contents are brought to our sight every day. Every Lingayat family should
display ‘Sharana Principles’ in a prominent place in their house.
During discussion, one of the members felt, “Our
Basavanna did a mistake. Instead of surrendering the post of Prime Minister-Ship
and accepting the order of deportation, he should have revolted against king
Bijjala and challenged him. He had the support of the public and of army. Certainly,
Bijjala would have been tamed down forcing him to snub a few hypocrites asking
them to mend their behavior. By this Basavanna could complete his mission to
reform the society to eradicate the evil of castism totally. This is similar to
a doctor undertaking surgery mercilessly on a patient to cure him from ailment
of disease.”
Time was nearing 8.45 pm and Vijaya Kumar announced the end of
the session. Prasad was distributed. He bid goodbye to all saying ‘Good Night’
**********
Somanath S.Salimath,
B.E., D.F.E. (Germany
Mobile: 94483 88678.
E-mail:
somanathsalimath @ gmail.com