Danielou's Shiva & the Primordial Tradition

Often counted as a “soft” Traditionalist after he became a sympathetic reader of some of the works Rene Guenon in the 1940s, the French musician and teacher Alain Danielou spent most of his adult life living in the Asi Ghat area of Shiva’s sacred city, Benares, where he adopted Shaivite religion and lived as a Shaivite Hindoo. The present author has just spent over a month in the same city trying his best to come to terms with Shaivism and towards that end purchased and read a copy of Monseiur Danielou’s Shiva & the Primordial Tradition from the Asi Ghat bookstore hoping that it might shed light upon the key aspects of Shaivism and, as the title promises, its place in the ‘Primordial Tradition’ of integral religions. Regrettably, the book does neither to any depth. It is a strange and disappointing work. Danielou presents Shaivism as a type of Dionysian phallicism and by the ‘Primordial Tradition’ he largely means the doctrine of the Four Yugas. The book does not go much further than that but is padded out with chapters, not always entirely relevant, on diverse topics such as dream interpretation, poetics, music theory and homosexuality. It offers, that is, a view of Shaivism very much through the prism of Danielou’s own personal preoccupations. At its core, though, is his account of Hindooism in a broad sweep, its origins and its history, and this, at least, is worth considering, even if one suspects it is highly stylized and warped in favor of his particular preferences. Certainly, there are very different accounts available; Danielou presents a French convert’s partisan Shaivite version of the roots of the Hindoo faith.

By his account, there are two ancient indigenous traditions in the Indian sub-continent: Tantric Shiva worship, which he presents as an animistic and “shamanic” nature religion, and Jainism, which he presents as an atheistic ethical system. According to Danielou, these two streams represent the authentic genius of India, but they have, he asserts, been distorted and befouled throughout the centuries by overlays of intruding traditions, most notably Vedic religion and then, more recently, Mahometism and British/Western culture. In this sweeping history he presents Buddhism as a mutation of the Jainist stream which was then re-Hindooized in its Mayahana forms and proceeded to colonize the souls and minds of Asia, all the way to Japan. Back in the sub-continent he portrays Vedic religion as an alien, authoritarian creed that secured, he asserts, only a nominal place in the evolving Hindoo mix; in fact, he says, a resurgent Shaivism reconquered India and left Vedism as a fake veneer. Shaivism – and its Samkya cosmology, which includes yoga – is, he insists, the real Hindooism, even when it is dressed up in Vedic forms. Vedic religion invaded, caused its mischief, but was re-Shaivized in subsequent revivals of the underlying indigenous cultus. He is equally dismissive of the manifestations of Vishnu worship, the cults of Krishna and Rama, which take the form of bhakti spirituality, a sentimental and exoteric form of religion which, he says, misrepresents Hindooism in the modern West.

All well and good. It is an intriguing if contentious overview. Its effect is to make ancient Dravidean Shiva culture the original India and the Vedic Aryans hostile intruders. For Danielou, Shaivite Tantra is a means to return to the authentic and autochthonous layers of Hindoo spirituality – and anything that ever went wrong in India was, by his account, imposed by outsiders. This includes traditional Indian aversion to homosexuality, a subject obviously close to his heart because he was himself a homosexual and it was with his partner Raymond Burnier, that he first travelled to Benares and decided to make home there. Although he mentions in passing that Jainism (which, remember, was one of the two ancient, original streams of Hindooism) has a strong taboo against homosexuality, and he also notes that all forms of oral sex are regarded as unclean in India, he says that homopobia is a trait of the “anglicized upper class” and spends a whole chapter setting out Lord Shiva’s homo- and bi- tolerant credentials. One gets the impression, in fact, that this is in large measure a reason for his embrace of the Shaivite creed, just as it is a reason for his undisguised disdain for the Catholicism into which he had been born. It is obviously important – crucial – for Danielou that Shaivism is, in his experience, pro-sexual while Catholicism (and European culture generally) is not.

This general bias goes further. Not only does Danielou characterize Shaivism as Dionysean – a cult of ecstasy – but his homoerotic interests are to be seen in his particular focus upon Shaivism’s phallic nature. The present author spent weeks in Benares being assured by priests and devotees alike that Shaivism is not “phallic worship” and that this is a shameful misconception entertained by sex-obsessed Westerners, and yet upon opening Monsieur Danielou’s account he reads that the Shaivic creed is phallic worship pure and undisguised. “The symbol of Shiva, the Creator of the world, the image worshipped in his temples, is the erect phallus,” he writes. And elsewhere, “The phallus is the emblem, the sign of the person of Shiva, of whom it is the image." This is no doubt true on an immediate level, but Danielou gives no thorough account of the further symbolism of the lingam and the many filters of piety through which the vast majority of resoundingly conservative Hindoos view it. The present author wrote about this in a recent post. Danielou’s Shaivism, certainly, is a long way from what this writer witnessed in the temples of Benares. Although he dresses it up as an esoteric “primordialism” Danielou presents a sexo-yogic version of Shaivism that is much nearer to the doctrines of Rajneesh and the neo-tantric New Agers than anything one is likely to see in the actual religious life of Benares as it is practiced today. One wonders what the decent pious Hindoo families that line up outside the Golden Temple in Benares – the very centre of the Shaivite world – would make of Danielou’s assertion that "It is in the region of the sexual organs that one attains pure knowledge,” or “The godhead can only be perceived through… its linga.”

It is all somewhat twentieth century. One can hear prefigurings of contemporary neo-tantra in such assertions as:

Tantric rites and practices, open to all without any restriction of caste, gender, or nature, are meant to permit anyone to draw closer to the divine through these three passages - on the levels of existence, consciousness, and sensual pleasure.

The book is further marred by quite unnecessary and inflammatory tirades against what Monsieur Danielou calls “monotheism”; there is an entire chapter in which his contempt and lack of feeling for the whole Abrahamic tradition is on display. The idea of the personal god, he writes, is nothing more than the cosmic inflation of human egoism, the poison of egoism writ large. “The notion of a god,” he writes, “a divine personage, is a projection of the notion of individuality, of a being that says "I." Monotheism is merely the deification of the notion of individuality.” He sets this ego-worship against the true religion of phallic worship. “Worshipping the linga means acknowledging the presence of the divine in what is human,” he writes. “It is the opposite of anthropomorphic monotheism that projects human individualism on to the divine world.” Once again, one feels that Monsieur Danielou’s own homoerotic obsessions and his own revolt against his Christian upbringing have been cast as an esotericism that he discovered in mystic India. “Associating the demoniac with the sexual,” he says, “is peculiar to the Christian world.” And therefore “Churches,” he declares, “are conservative and not liberating.” He projects this view back as a conspiracy theory that may have been daring once but which is today drearily commonplace:

The history of the Christian world is sadly filled with witchhunts that have served as a pretext for attacking initiatic organizations.

By “initiatic organizations” he means those that understand and maintain the worship of the sacred phallus. This is the cornerstone of his account of Western spiritual history:

Numerous sects did their utmost to maintain a Dionysian type initiatic tradition in the Christian world but were ferociously persecuted for political reasons, which have nothing to do with truly religious values. Organisms whose aims are purely spiritual are thus persecuted when civil and ecclesiastical authorities seek to establish their total hegemony over souls. The Catholic Church has played this sinister role throughout the ages…

But what of the good elements in Christianity and other religions? He is only able to reconcile himself to certain aspects of other religious traditions by proposing a general thesis that attributes all good things to Shiva worship. “In the final analysis,” he writes, “all initiation is ultimately connected with Shaivism, or with its kindred Dionysian or Sufi forms. Traces of such an origin can be detected in authentic initiatic groups in the Christian, Vedic, Taoist, Buddhist, and Islamic worlds.”

In many places these arguments become nothing less than outlandish. At one point he speaks of a mysterious and unnamed political cohort of “… India persons clothed in the monastic dress, of astonishing intelligence and culture, who, [have]… set up a traditionalist party… against Gandhi, Nehru, and the Indian Congress Party… which, at the right time, will take power and reestablish the traditional order…” Worse than this fantasy, in the chapter on music – an art to which he devoted his life - he argues that the Shaivite esotericism – his “primordial tradition” - is today found in the decadent fervor of discos and rock concerts! He writes:

… in the modern West, music with certain features close to those of ecstatic music is no longer found in places of worship, but in quite different places like discos, where dancers experience the kind of hypnotic isolation that is needed for mystical experience... The gods are much closer in the exaltation of rock concerts than in the faded canticles of the churches… just as vagabond hippies are much closer to the mystical wanderers… than frustrated monks snug in their… monasteries.

Vagabond hippies as the new Traditionalists? By this stage the present author had realized that Shiva & the Primordial Tradition was not going to offer the sort of penetrating and insightful introduction to Shaivite spirituality he had hoped. Rather, this was a tome that instead explained a great deal about the disaffected, resentful, unkempt, lazy, ill-educated and bedraggled feral youths from Germany and France - with their Om tee shirts, dreadlocks and degrees in Queer Studies - who laze about in the cafes of the backstreets of Benares smoking pot, torturing a sitar and taking yoga classes – these, apparently, are Danielou’s cherished inheritors of Shaivite primordiality, by his account the great indigenous treasure of India.

Needless to say this has nothing to do with the ‘primordial tradition’ of Rene Guenon. Nor does it have much to do with the Shaivism one can witness as a living tradition in the temples of Benares and on the ghats of the River Ganges. Alain Danielou and his boyfriend spent forty years living in the sacred city. He taught at the Benares Hindu University, and in the schools established by Rabindranath Tagore, and was decorated by the government of India for his services to music. On the evidence of this work, though, his Shaivism was a very personal avant-gard creation – largely a construction of his own prejudices and demons - the shortcomings of which has been badly exposed by the passage of time. The title promised so much more. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Views of Benares, 1905

An earlier post featured the superb drawings and engravings of colonial Benares by James Prinsep. There are also many photographs from the late 19th C. and early 20th in existence, such as those on the page below, taken in 1905. In a few cases readers will find contemporary photographs made by the present author - taken from a row boat floating down the Ganges - and worked into a suitably sepia format, so that the present shoreline can be compared to the photographic record. 

For those not familiar with Benares, the city stretches along the west bank of the Ganges, and each set a constructed steps (ghats) function, more or less, like suburbs, very much like a beach front. It is from the ghats (steps) that Hindoos access the river, most particularly for ritual bathing. 

MUNSHI GHAT

Munshi Ghat, 1905

Munshi Ghat, 2015

PANCHAGHAT

Panchaghat, 1905

Panchaghat, 2015

Note that the minarets of the mosque, built by James Prinsep in the early 1800s, were dismantled in the 20th C. after they were deemed in danger of falling. 

MANARKARNIKA

Manarkarnika Ghat, 1905

Manarkarnika Ghat, 2015

GHOSLA

Ghosla Ghat, 1905

Ghosla Ghat, 2015

* * * 

Assi Ghat

Baji Rao's Ghat

Batsaraj Ghat

Burning Ghat

Gai Ghat

Kedar Ghat

RanaMahal Ghat

Shivala Ghat

Yours from Benares

Harper McAlpine Black

Gyanvapi - The Centre of the Centre of the Centre

The centre of the centre of the centre of Shaivite Hindooism is a small, unremarkable well in the courtyard of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple – the “Golden” Temple – popularly called ‘Gyanvapi’ (or Gyan Bajee) - ‘The Well of Knowledge’. Benares – or, to give the city its ancient name, Kashi – is as a whole the spiritual centre of the Hindoo world. All roads lead to Kashi, if only because it is here that Hindoos of all stripes come to die and be cremated and have their ashes committed to the Ganges. To die of natural causes in a certain area of the old city is considered to be so fortunate that the soul that meets this end is liberated from the cycle of birth and death. 

Within Kashi – the old city – there are literally hundreds of temples, but the most sacred of them is the Vishwanath, which is marked atop by golden domes. Within Vishwanath, there is the great lingam of Shiva over which hundreds of gallons of milk are poured every day by a priesthood and an unending stream of pilgrims. But the lingam is not, in fact, the most sacred place in the temple compound. That honour is given to a well nearby – Gyanvapi. There are many deep wells along the west bank of the Ganges, obviously fed underground by the river.

For pious Hindoos, the water of the well, Gyanvapi, is more holy than that of the Ganges. They understand that the location of the well marks the place where the world began and the place that will remain when the world ends. That is, Gyanvapi is the Hindoo axis mundi, the world-axis, the very centre of Hindooism’s extensive and madly complex sacred geography. 

Benares in itself is a microcosm with its own sacred geography. For example there are a network of Ganesh (Elephant) Temples around the Vishwanath Temple that are acting as protectors of the Well of Knowledge. There are also five pilgrim routes around to various places within the city - usually to sacred linga - and each route has the well of Knowledge at its centre. 

It is a location steeped in controversy. The Vishwanath Temple that accompanies the sacred well has been sacked and destroyed at several times in its history. The survival of the well in spite of this history is part of its sanctity. It is said that at one sacking the god Shiva himself retired into the well, ‘hiding’ from the invaders. Thus, his ‘presence’ is in the well itself.

The most recent desecration was at the hands of the Mughuls under Orangzeb who tore down the temple and used its stone to construct parts of the Gyanvapi mosque. The mosque is still standing on what (we think) was the original location of the Temple. The current Temple is more recent and sits very un comfortably next to the intruding mosque.

This had made it a flashpoint at several times for Hindoo partisans who seek to correct the historical impositions of the Mahometans. Some have proposed that the mosque should be reclaimed for the Hindoos. This is, after all, the single most sacred area in the cosmos for the Shaivite Hindoo, whereas for the Mahometans it is an undistinguished mosque built by a tyrant as a deliberate affront to the Hindoo faith. 

(The political expression of these Hindoos, let us note, is the BJP party. The official policy of the party is that Hindoos should be able to reclaim any mosque the Mahometans are no longer using. But as the Mahometans insist on keeping the Gyanvapi as an active mosque, the Vishwanath Temple compound is not in that category. Therein is the on-going but low-level friction.)

At the present time, as this author can report, the Vishwanath Temple – and the Gyanpavi Mosque – are under very tight security. There are walls of soldiers and checkpoints. This is India’s version of the ‘Temple Mount’ issue in Jerusalem – a Mahometan building has been constructed on top of someone’s most sacred temple creating a weeping sore of tension and disputes ever after.

The author is renting a room (for $8 a night) literally fifty yards from the Vishwanath Temple (and the Annapoona Temple which is part of the same complex.) He has been watching the pilgrims coming and going, and all the sundry paraphernalia connected with the temple, for three weeks. Every morning he steps out into the laneway to be greeted by long lines of eager pilgrims from all over India – whole familes of them - holding little cups of milk and garlands of flowers. On the corner are half a dozen soldiers with high-powered weapons. In amongst everyone are porters and wallahs and sadhus and beggars and cows.

There are areas of the Temple compound that are officially closed to foreigners, although many people seem to ignore the injunction. There is, all the same, a white marble marker on the side wall of one section saying, ‘GENTLEMEN NOT OF THE HINDOO FAITH ARE REQUESTED NOT TO ENTER’. The author, being a gentleman, and not of the Hindoo faith, respected the request. 

It is remarkable how much one can read about Shaivism – even by scholars who lived and worked in Benares – and yet never read an account of the utterly central importance of this place in Shaivite piety. The act of centring is fundamental to Shaivite piety. The lingham – the sacred icon of this mode of Hindooism – is in itself an emblem of (and functionally a marker for) the axis mundi – this is why the linga of Benares are aligned to the north pole. These dimensions of Shaivite piety are Hyperborean. The essential religious gesture of this piety is to turn to the centre, turn to the axis, turn to the source. Centre–axis–source is symbolized by the Gyanvapi well, the very Font of Knowledge. Shaivism is axial - and here in Benares is the axis.

The photos of this page are historical. Photography is absolutely point-a-machinegun-in-your-face forbidden anywhere near the Well of Knowledge today.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Why Benares is sacred

Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend – and it looks twice as old as all of them put together.

- Mark Twain

The sanctity of Benares extends back into the historical past and well beyond. Human occupation at this location – on the west bank of the Ganges river between the Varang River in the north and the Asi River at the south (hence Varan-asi = between the Varang and the Asi) has been continuous for over 3000 years at least, and throughout that time it has always been regarded as a sacred place. Hindoos regard it as the most sacred city in India, the city that is itself a prayer, the city of Shiva.

What, though, makes it sacred? Why is this particular location especially holy? The entire Ganges River – Mother Ganga - is sacred, of course, but this particular area of the river is regarded as most sacred of all. Why?

One can read many explanations, most of them mythological, and most of them unhelpful. It was not until the present author actually came to the city and looked at its location – its topography – and experienced it as a place, that the answer to this question became obvious. And simple. There is a simple reason why Benares is a sacred place, and it is immediately plain to anyone who goes there and views the landscape. 

The reason is this: it is at this point in the Ganga valley – and only at this point – that the river changes direction and flows northward. At Benares the Ganges turns around and flows directly south to north with the city on the western bank. That is, it aligns itself to the celestial axis and its course suddenly conforms to the north/south/east/west alignments. Moreover – and this is the key point – by turning to flow northward the river seems to turn back to her source. This only happens here. It is the conspicuous feature of the landscape. One expects the river to be flowing south towards the sea, but at Benares it flows the other way, towards the Himalayas. One stands on the ghat watching the river. It flows the opposite way to what one expects. The Ganges – as it were – turns back upon itself, turns from its inevitable downhill south-eastwards flow, and goes briefly northwards, back towards the mountains from which she came.

The key idea is: returning to the source. The Ganges turning back northwards is a geographical expression of the idea – inherently spiritual in its implications - of returning to the source. The source is the mountains of the north, the Himalayas. But by extension the northern mountains point to, or imply, the northern pole. The mountains of the north are axial. They represent the celestial pole and the Ganga, then, correlates to its Milky Way. Such is the most fundamental (Hyperborean) symbolism at the heart of Hindoo spirituality. 

This order of symbolism is, it happens, especially Shaivite. The Lord Shiva is identified with the northern pole. Thus it is said that wherever Shiva looks, he looks south. The Shiva lingham, accordingly, is aligned northwards. This is easily observed in a place like Benares – a city hosting countless Shiva linghams. The shaft of the lingham is axial and so represents the pole (and the mountain). The yoni which supports it, and which collects and drains the offerings of milk poured over the lingham, represents the Milky Way/Ganga. The neck of the yoni is aligned northwards. The guardian bull, Nandi, usually stands in the same alignment. Every Shiva lingham refers to the celestial north, and the entire symbol refers to the basic correspondences between the stars and the earthly terrain. On the basis of this symbolism, the city of Benares – on the northward flowing turn of the Ganges – is sacred to Shiva.

There is a secondary reason that explains why the location should be sacred to Shiva, of all gods. This is a conspicuous feature of the riverscape as well. It is this: the valley that extends from the Sarang River to the Asi River is naturally crescent shaped. This can be seen very clearly from any highpoint in the present city and it must have been very apparent from on top the rocky rises on the west bank of the river before the city was ever there. In the hazy distance the river winds in a perfect steady curve. Its course has not changed for thousands of years because it here meets and is guided by a solid bedrock of hard sedimentary stone – the same stone from which the temples and steps and laneways of the city have been constructed. Where the river flows northwards – making the gesture of returning to the source – and flows against a long, perfect crescent of bedrock stone – there is the city of Shiva, Shiva who wears a crescent on his forehead. It is here that the riverscape forms an almost perfect crescent of Shiva. 

Above. The author's photograph of the northern cremation ghat in Benares where the cremation workers perform over 300 cremations per day. Hindoos are cremated here and their ashes are strewn in the Ganges. It is as a place signifying return to the source that Benares has served as a cremation ground for thousands of years. In Benares the river seems to be flowing back to its source - it is therefore a place for the dead and dying. 

* * * 

There are two truly worthy guides to Benares in print that the author strongly recommends. The first is the ultimate study of the city by Mdm. Mireille-Josephine Guezennee which at this time is only available in French. Madam Guezennee, a French academic also known by her Hindoo initiatory named Himabindu, has visited Benares for over twenty years and made a profound study of the city. The present author first met her Calcutta several months ago and discussed aspects of her work, and her deep love for Benares, at some length. She was kind enough to give the author tips on what to see and who to meet there. Her book, published with the assistance of UNESCO, subtitled An Initiatory Voyage to the Spiritual Capital of India, extends to over 500 pages and includes hundreds of Himabindu's own photographs. 

The second book is a 'Spiritual & Cultural Guide' to the Benares region by Rana P. B. Singh and Pravin S. Rana. This is the essential text for any visitor to the city who has more than a passing interest in the spiritual and religious character of Benares and the extended region thereabout. It is an excellent practical guide that includes intelligent, detailed, informative descriptions of the cosmogonic and religious landscape. It gives an account of all the major temples, and many of the minor ones, along with their history, significance and symbolism.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Kabir the Weaver

There is, it is estimated, some 20,000+ Hindoo temples and shrine in Benares. This is not to mention the mosques and other Mahometan holy places. There is more religion per square inch in Benares than any other city on earth. The city has survived on the religion business for thousands of years. That, and weaving. Specifically the weaving of silk. For many hundreds of years Benares has been the silk weaving centre of India and one of the silk capitals of the world. Benares produces exquisite silks. Every Indian you meet in Benares is either in the religion business, or he wants to sell you a silk scarf.

These two industries - religion and weaving - come together in the figure of Kabir, the city's favorite son. It is uncertain in exactly what year he was born, and the whole matter is mired in legend to the extent that we cannot be sure about anything about him, but every tradition asserts that he was born in Benares, and most traditions assert, furthermore, that he was the son of a Mahometan weaver. Accordingly, by tradition, and on the evidence of the images and metaphors in his poems, he was a weaver. He wove silk throughout his long life.

There is no need to rehearse his full biography here. It is very well known. He is the most quoted poet in India - outside of the sacred canon - and he enjoys an enthusiastic readership in the West as well. He is counted as one of the major figures in the Bhakti (devotional) movement in early modern Hindooism and is widely revered as one of the great mystics of the world. He was persecuted and condemned for his irreverent attacks upon official religion and advocated a devotional non-dualism rooted in Advaita Vedanta.

The context of his opposition to religious formalism is to be found in Benares. The city is filled with pilgrims and devotees, and they busy themselves with temple attending and ritual observances. It is easy to imagine that a certain temperament of the spirit – such as we find in an especially pure and natural form in Kabir – could rebel against the cults of external practice and insist that the real temple is within. He links this to the non-dualist doctrine that identifies the self with the Self, atman with Brahman. His poetry explores the paradoxes that follow from this truth. He advocates a path of love.

The modern enthusiasm for Kabir, however, is responding to a different context altogether. The present author views it with suspicion. There is no question that the “real” Temple is within, and that external observances are empty without the participation of the heart – all religion, finally, is internal – but what would modern people know about any observances anymore? It is strange to find people who have never been to a church or a temple or a mosque in their numb secular lives reading Kabir and cheering every time he slags off the Brahmins and the Imams. Kabir was criticizing an age of excessive ritual; why he is so popular in an age of no ritual at all? When he sings “you will not find God in cathedrals, or masses, or synagogues…” why do modern readers thrill with approval and agreement? What would they know about a stultifying ritual formalism? 

In Benares, where the author presently resides, though, Kabir’s critique has an obvious and legitimate relevance. One sees sadhus who are devoted to severe austerities as a means to salvation. One sees Brahmin priests muttering long incantations of Sanskrit before images of the Monkey God. There are statues and idols and icons at every turn. One does not need to be occupied with it all for very long before one needs to be reminded that, in the end, all that is really required is a simple movement of the heart. Men go to extraordinary lengths in search of God, but in reality God is always present and easily accessed – no contortions and austerities required.

That is not a modern man’s predicament. Modern man is senseless with comfort and ease and remote from any real religious feeling. He has never experienced austerities or tied himself into contortions. He doesn’t go on pilgrimage. He doesn’t fast at Lent or go to Mass on his knees. He reads a poet like Kabir through the lens of his ego, seeking approval and endorsement for his spiritual indolence. Kabir, today, is just a baby boomer’s excuse not to go to Church anymore and to indulge in the thought that he will be saved just for being nice.

* * * 

The author has collected together lines from various Kabir poems on the theme of the inner path in the City of Temples, and has strung them together as follows:


WHEREVER YOU ARE IS THE ENTRY POINT

Wherever you are is the entry point.
Throw away all thoughts of imaginary things
and stand firm in that which you are.

Whether you are in the temple or in the balcony,
in the camp or the flower garden,
every moment your Lord is taking His delight in you.

If God is within the mosque, 

then to whom does the rest of the world belong?
If Ram is within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage,
then who is there to know what happens outside?
Hari is in the East, Allah is in the West.
Look within your heart,
There you will find both Karim and Ram;
All the men and women of the world are His living forms.
Kabir is the child of Allah and of Ram:
God is my Guru, God is my Pir.

You don't grasp the fact that 

what is most alive of all is inside your own house;
and you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

Kabir will tell you the truth: 

go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet;
if you can't find where your soul is hidden,
the world will never be real to you!

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

The home is the abiding place;
in the home is reality;
the home helps to attain Him Who is real.
So stay where you are,
All things shall come to you in time.

If a mirror ever makes you sad
you should know that it does not know you.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Alice Boner of Benares

Alice Boner 1889-1981

There are many wonderful treasures in the extensive and well-curated collection of the museum at Benares Hindu University, the Bharat Kala Bhavan, including a superb display of original paintings by the ‘Master of Mountains’ Nicholas Roerich, but a surprise treasure is the exhibition dedicated to the life and work of the Swiss artist Alice Boner. Miss Boner made Benares her home for several decades, living in a small house at Assi Ghat in the south of the city, and immersed herself in the spiritual and artistic culture of both the city and, by extension, India as a whole. Few Europeans of her generation had such a deep and profound acquaintance with India and with Hindooism. The exhibition celebrates her own work – sculpture and painting – as well as her intellectual engagement with traditional India art.

Her time in Benares, and her struggle to synthesize her European identity with her deep feelings for Hindoo spirituality, is recorded in her extensive dairies (written in part in German, but mainly in English) which have now been published thus:

Much of her intellectual work was devoted to translating and publishing a long forgotten Hindoo text, the Vastusutra Upanishad, which she regarded as a key to traditional Hindoo aesthetics and image making:

Miss Boner spent years studying Hindoo temple architecture and traditional sculpture in an attempt to ascertain their geometrical underpinnings. Most of her published writings are on this topic. She believed she had identified the geometric principles that form the basis for the traditional Hindoo plastic arts.

Although she was herself trained as a sculptor, and there are many fine examples of her work on display at the exhibition at the Bharat Kala Bhavan, she explains in her diaries that sculpture proved too slow as a medium for her rapid assimilation of Hindoo aesthetic principles. Accordingly, she turned to drawing and to painting. The feature of the exhibition in Benares today is her masterwork, a triptych on metaphysical and mythological themes entitled Prakriti-Visvarupa-Kali. A picture of the triptych in situ can be seen below. Unfortunately, no detailed digital images of this substantial and very powerful work is available at this time, and the Bharat Kala Bhavan is most meticulous in the ‘No photography’ policy. The beauty and depth of the painting must therefore remain a mystery to readers online, until they can see it for themselves. 

A quotation by Miss Boner displayed with the work says that traditional aesthetics appeal first and foremost to transcendental principles and metaphysical realities, and that if a work of art is also beautiful it is so because it is true. Beauty is truth and truth beauty, as Keats wrote. The Alice Boner triptych exemplifies this fact. She devoted over a decade to its completion. An exploration of the three metaphysical principles of Hindooism – creation, consolidation, destruction - its unquestionable beauty is incidental to its penetrating truth. 

It is surprising that Alice Boner's work - both her visual work and her intellectual studies - are not more widely appreciated, especially among those with an interest in sacred art and sacred geometry, fields to which she dedicated her life and made a profound and enduring contribution. The permanent exhibition at Bharat Kala Bhavan is a very fine monument to her work and celebrates her as one of the most important European denizens of Benares in the twentieth century.


Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Benares of James Prinsep

British India produced many genius orientalists, but few with such innate talent and breadth as Mr. James Prinsep. He showed great aptitude for drawing and draughtsmanship at an early age but had weak eyesight and so was directed away from the visual arts to a career as a metallurgist and assayist. It was as an assayist working for the British Mint that he ventured to India and took a position in Benares. There he became deeply interested in early Indian coins which led him to decipher the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts, the feat of scholarship for which he is most renowned. 

But, in Benares, he also made extensive drawings and engravings of the sacred city and accomplished much else in both the humanities and the sciences. His drawings and lithographs are some of the finest ever made by an orientalist artist, a sublime record of British Benares. In an age where our intellectual elites are poisoned with post-colonial resentment, however, his genius and achievements have been forgotten. Few remember James Prinsep now, though he would have been an extraordinary character in any age. His contribution to the Benares and to its people was profound. More generally, he made a substantial contribution to a wide range of disciplines - a polymath of great imagination and talent. 

The life and times of this unsung hero - and the life and times of Benares, the most sacred city of the Hindoos - is presented in a charming documentary entitled The Benares of James Princep, thus:

The description of the movie:

James Prinsep landed in india in 1819.

He came to work in the mint as an essay master for the East India Company but destiny had bigger plans.

Truly a man for all seasons, his genius blossomed as an artist,linguist,architect,translator,wri­ter,engineer and scientist.

He died at the age of 40.

His brilliance has been ignored by the world.

May this documentary shed light on him and the holy city that he loved.

Readers can find a trailer and instalment of the movie here. 

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The present writer, having moved along from a week-long sojourn in Boodh Gaya, is now residing for a while in mystical Benares and is privileged to spend his days - especially his mornings - strolling along the ghats on the banks of the Ganges. He is pleased to report that, although less treed, spotted with graffiti and advertising, and suffering the usual cement degradations of Indian modernity, little of substance has changed on the riverfront since the time of James Prinsep. The city is thousands of years old, one of the oldest continually occupied cities in the world. The old city sections with its narrow streets - as opposed to modern commercial extensions - have remained more or less intact since the time of the British Raj. Some things, such as the open-air cremation grounds on the river banks, have remained unchanged since Vedic times. 

The following are some of Mr. Prinsep's engravings of the ghats and other features of Benares. Readers should click on the image for a larger version of each...

* * * 

The Prinsep Monument in Calcutta which, regrettably, is now dwarfed by the new bridge across the Hoogley.

James Prinsep became ill in India and returned to Britain to recover. Alas, he  died a young and untimely death in 1840. News of his demise was greeted with consternation throughout British India, and a beautiful monument was built in his honour beside the Hoogley River in Calcutta. The present author has spent time there too, and along the Prinsep Ghat which is, without question, one of the loveliest parts of Calcutta today. It is now gratifying to be in Benares to see first hand the faithfulness of Prinsep's renderings of the architecture of this ancient and most extraordinary of cities. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black