Elavoor Thookkam 2004

 

by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

5.	VIVEKODAYA YATRA   q Stirring Vivekodaya Yatra q Imparting Right Perspective q    Importance and Sublimity of Temples q    Instant Repentance q    In Putthankavu Temple Front q    Blowing Vivekodaya Conch

 

q     Stirring Vivekodaya Yatra

In 1987 Elavoorians had not seen or heard us.  This time they should, I felt.  Purushothama Swamiji agreed.  Days were flying, the PDS at last in short notice arranged for our Vivekodaya Yatra on 19th April.  Starting at 3.30 from Moozhikkulam Lakshmana Swami Temple, after addressing the people at least in two places the Yatra was to reach Elavoor Kurukshetra at about 5 p.m. 

Vyasa Tapovanam Team, with more Sanyasins, Narayanshrama Tapovanam team with more householders from Trichur left the Ashrams to join in Palakkal at 2 p.m. to reach Moozhikkulam at 3.30, 60 Km away. Our caravan of five vehicles moved fast via Irinjalakkuda.  And 5 minutes before 3.30 p.m. we were on the spot. 

As usual, a letter had been sent to District Authorities in time, but only the same day, previous day being Sunday.  Madhu from Ankamaly came to the Ashram, took the letters and handed them to the Ernakulam Collector, Ernakulam (Rural) SP as their office opened on Monday.  He rushed back to deliver the one to Ankamaly Circle Inspector at 11 a.m.  The letter cited the volatile situation, adding:

“Needless to say, we look to the Authorities to see that the proposed Yatra takes place in all propriety, peace and effectiveness and the intended enlightenment results.”

Meanwhile, Police and the Intelligence Wing must have smelt all that would come to pass, but we had no hidden agenda. Moozhikkulam Temple lawn was already laden with Police jeeps, a cluster of Mass Media persons and photographers. And there we were more than 12 austere Sanyasin-Sanyasinees together with a group of householder men and women. 

Tahsildar apologetically came to me to convey RDO’s message: “Swamiji, we beseech that no tension be caused”. “Tension from us? Be consoled… We redress tension, never cause it. Be calm and confident” I assured. Where was the question of any tension from us? Our stated intention was to visit the Temple for darshan and worship Devi at the end of the Yatra. Did this forebode anything? 

Prabhakaran, PDS Secretary, spoke first introducing the Yatra.  VP Janardanan, Chief Organizer of HNP also spoke.  It was then my turn.  I gave a fiery inauguration to the Vivekodaya Yatra, spelling confidence, strength, unassailability and utter goodness and fraternity.  A loner murmured dissuading me and letting the Thookkam notoriety be.  But he did not persist after the talk began. Such expressions exemplified the intolerance of Thookkam proponents.

I said:

“Hindu Dharma is founded on freedom of thought and opinion.  Welcoming the opposite view, showing where it is wrong, it establishes itself.

 

“The same is the case here.  What is there to fear?  If the opponents are right, they will be heard, if we are, we would be.  The days to come would witness the Truth and Propriety.  Be consoled and calm.”

To greet our inauguration, some black flags, though not prominent, were visible, denoting how sealed were the black hearts of those who put them there.

We moved on to Vattapparambu Junction, with police piloting and following us.  At the junction, on chairs placed on footpath, some in our group sat, the rest standing with the onlookers numbering hundreds. At Moozhikkulam the great Temple’s vicinity gave a holy background for many householders to stand conveniently at distances around.  Hundreds heard the talk. The startling silence clearly reflected the mood and fervour of those that thronged.

Vattapparambu was a full contrast.  A junction of four busy roads, with full traffic on, with shops strung on both sides. Buyers moving up and down, pedestrians, also those assembled coming to know of the Vivekodaya Yatra fairly in time.  This is why Paura Dharma Samity chose Monday for the Yatra, as Prabhakaran put it. I did not pause to look around well.  In such a Yatra where was the time or mood to see all around! 

Police had got down and kept the bystanders in disciplined attention.  Buses plied up and down.  People around stopped, with ears sharper and eyes focussed on what would follow. 

 

q     Imparting Right Perspective

“Who gave sanction to a handful of Elavoorians to re-commence the evil, a criminal, barbaric act, a vestige of human sacrifice, a taamasic notoriety, stopped ceremonially as well as democratically, by Dharmic Protest in 1987? Is a Temple in a branch of a village disconnected from the Trunk of the Hindu Society, the country and nation?  Can the nail in your little toe be disconnected from your main body, consisting of head, chest and stomach? The cry of localism, the pride of parochialism, cannot be allowed to reach this dangerous level.

“Every one of you should think: I am not a mere villager.  I am an Indian, one with all others throughout the country.  None has a right to divide people and places with counter-national spirit and purpose.  Let us be together and united.

“Misconduct is misconduct.  A transgression is transgression.  An affront, a fraud is so, no doubt.  Give it any name you like.

“Hindu society may be uncontrolled religiously. Others may consider it disorganized. As long as we Sanyasins live, it cannot, it will not and it does not become so.

“We are Sanyasins given to the lokasangraha-nishta. It means sensing the transgressions and misconduct of the society and striving with zeal to set them right, restoring the society to its own righteous safeguards and moorings.  To take up and pursue this mission, we need no external call.

“Elavoorians are misguided.  Some amongst you, happily, still think the right way.  We bless them. The others too we bless, but with a correction to their thought and conduct.  If they are receptive, it is well and good.  If they insist on being rebellious, we still embrace them in an endeavour to make them respond to the voice of Dharma, Propriety and Peace.

“Here is a cancer in the body of the Hindu Society.  It has to be removed, redressed.”

 

q     Importance and Sublimity of Temples

Narrating briefly how the Advisory Committee had lost its authority and status, how it paid no heed to the High Court’s voice and Uranma Devasvam Board’s instructions, I emphasized: 

“Instead of admitting their follies and the order of suspension and prostrating before their beloved Goddess in good faith and surrender and walk off the Temple, how and why do they stick to their position?  Is it not a travesty? Sheer untruthfulness, infidelity, a deplorable step of ignorance, delusion and disobedience?

“Think of what did they do latest?  They asked devotees to assemble in the Temple for a community expiation ceremony (crying out in expiation).  But what they asked them to do was to destroy the Sanctity Wall and Trees within it.  The Committee and their aids are gloating over this achievement, in having successfully masterminded the colossal destruction.

“Alas, my heart bleeds.  Yours also should bleed likewise. What a colossal religious crime has been perpetrated? How will its effects be redressed, healed?

“They ill know what a Temple installation represents.  It is not a plaything on a playground. Our Tantra Shastras are as old as Vedas themselves.  While revealing the Impersonal Truth, Vedic thinkers also felt impelled to lead the narrow and constricted mind from the Personal to the Impersonal, from the Transient to the Transcendent.  Like the many Vedic Devatas, they also gave shape to plural Deities with distinct features and histories. All these were depicted on stones, to facilitate ceremonious installation.

“Externally you see the Temple, but internally it is one’s own heart, mind, brain, stomach, thighs, feet and the rest of the body.  Thus any Temple is the full body of the Deity.  It extends to the outer perimeter of the outer wall. Sanctum Sanctorum represents the Deities’ heart, the chest.

“Elavoor Putthankavu Devi thus has Her body extended to the Temple perimeter.  By demolishing the Sanctity Wall and destroying trees, the perpetrators have in fact trampled over Her thighs, waist, abdomen, and navel.  This villainous dance of destruction has verily meant a collective assault on their own Goddess’ central trunk. Can there be a more heinous sin, cruelty, appalling aggression?

“Where and how will they redress this sacrilege?  For innumerable births its effects will linger unobliterably in the families of those concerned.  They feel they have triumphed, obstinacy has won, cruelty was successful. But what has transpired is just the reverse indeed!

“Mind you, we are Hindus. Our religious awareness is very pragmatic, empirical. It links worship with every aspect of life, behaviour, thoughts, attitudes and aims.  It permits no stealth between profession and practice.  In the urge of devotion, no transgression or neglect, enjoins Hindu Dharma, should be incurred any time.

“A devotee has to be harmless.  He must be so good as to be honoured by his enemies too.  He must love, but not hate.  He must be firm but not destructively.  He should be strong but not to hurt others.  He has to be pious, but embrace one and all. 

“Here in Elavoor the exact opposites have been displayed.  We are hurt, deeply, our hearts are bleeding. That is why we have come here in this manner.  We are given to talking to patient and well-seated audience, tuned to listen to the dharmic exposition in a Hall or open place.  Here we are on the public road.  You can sense the emergency implied.

“None in Elavoor or elsewhere has any right to re-commence a misdirected Temple practice, which was stopped in 1987 and substituted with Poomootal.  It will not be started again.  Even the Govt. will not recommence it, because our Government is sensible and responsible, not like the Elavoor Temple Advisory Committee.  I want you to heed this call of Dharma and ensure that it is stuck to and fulfilled.”

 

q     Instant Repentance

In the end, one, not so young, started saying in low voice: “Please pardon me, please pardon me....”  I did not hear him well.  He asked of Lalu, one in our team, why Swamiji did not nod.  On inquiry the stranger said:  “I was also a party to the Temple demolition and destruction.  I want to be pardoned...”

Will not even stones melt on hearing Truth!

 

q     In Putthankavu Temple Front

We were led to the junction ahead, where the Yatra ended. The Jeep with the loudspeakers took time to be positioned.  Aravindan continued to recite melodiously the Goddess Namavali over our megaphone to fill the gap.

Audience queued up along our left and right, in front and back, also at right angles.  Police in large numbers took their position on the left, where stood the Temple. The Temple mike, blaring the Namakeertan, almost posed a disturbance.  I asked our people to tell Police to check the disturbance and enable our function.

How to talk to such a huge audience standing on the ground? Suddenly appeared a wooden stool on which my feet could hardly stand. Two persons held its legs firmly. I got upon it.  Skandaswami, Aravidan and others held the microphone in turns straining their arms. 

I first told the crowd that none of them should be tense.  They should put on a smiling look.  “We have come here to share good and noble thoughts with you all so that the power of discrimination in you will enhance.  To do this, we have every right.  None need give it to us.  We are Sanyasins involved in Lokasangraha.” 

 

q     Blowing Vivekodaya Conch

After prayers and congregational OM, the speech began. It was very fiery – inspiring, challenging, subduing and overwhelming, alternately.  The audience heard the whole Thookkam story, its stoppage 16 years back and now the threatened revival.  On the legends of Thookkam, I said that these were Elavoorians’ own narration to the Press and others. 

“How could any one of you disclaim or be heedless to them?

“The stopped Thookkam is a commemorative remnant of human sacrifice instituted by an ancient King, which had lost all relevance to our democratic times. Why should such a criminal wish be enacted or commemorated in a Temple, calling it a hoary offering?  Is not the Temple land under the country’s criminal laws?  Not an inch of land belongs to any king now. Why should the human killing inaugurated by an ancient king, using his unquestionable power of those days, be honoured or commemorated ceremonially now in any form?

“How law-defying, abusing, unscriptural, undevotional and barbaric would such an act be? Can an act instantly punishable anywhere, be adorable within the Temple?

“In 1987 your sentiments were turbulent and they blinded your thought and rational responses.  You were deluded to think that Sannyasins were against you and Temple practices.  But the reverse is the truth.  We have grown through the Temple Institution and we love Temple practices far more than most of you do.  The purity, piety and refinement that we want Temples to preserve and display are far more than you can imagine.

“That apart, the matter is glaringly different now.  The question before us is why should the stopped practice be restarted? Many in Elavoor itself have questioned this renewal attempt, finding it unnecessary, ill-directed and a product of vested interests.  Whatever the Proponents have said, done and perpetrated in connection with the proposed revival is a trail of moral, religious and civic crimes.  If so much of aggression, transgression and assault was inflicted already, what would be the extent of calamity to follow, if the revival were allowed!

“The subject cannot be left to the whims and fancies of a group.  Putthankavu Temple is only geographically in Elavoor.  It verily exists in Kerala, in Bharat and upon this wide earth.  Any land portion anywhere belongs to the earth. 

“A Temple may be managed by a local body or nominated manager. Quite all right.  But to think that the Deity is under the proprietary right of some, and hence none else has any right or purpose to speak anything in the matter is a sheer Scriptural affront amounting to religious anarchy.  Such a view is the produce of ignorance, delusion.  Can Dharmic thinkers ever keep quiet over the matter?

“From 1987 this Temple has become quite famous.  Many improvements have been made.  An Ornamental Gopuram has been erected.  Daily Pooja is going on.  Poomootal has been booked till 2017. When everything is thus peaceful, prosperous and sublime, why has the Thookkam revival idea suddenly sprung in some misguided minds?

“They have already done colossal damage violating Tantra Shastras, disregarding Astrological and Devotional Sublimity. They have adulterated practically everything in and around the Temple Institution.  To mastermind and shield their sabotage, they have inducted people from other religions, making us thinkers wonder whether Hindus are under slavery or weak and ignorant for conducting our matters.”

 

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