| Username |
Post |
| Biswo |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 10:47 AM
There are some bridges in the world construction of which were hailed as the major event. The bridge over Yang-tze river in Nanjing, China is one famous example. The bridge connected southern China with the northern China.When its construction was completed in 1968, it was the first double decker bridge made by Chinese themselves.Similarly, when the bridge over Narayani river was completed in the early 80s, it was hailed as the major event in Nepal. Nepal, it was proclaimed, was then connected. The famous East-West highway, aka Mahendra Rajmarg, was now a connected entity rather than a fragmented entity.
A big undertaking also spawns many tiny rumors that float with amazing celerity. We were kids then, living in the eastern Chitwan. The major rumor we heard was that Jogis were rounding up kids to provide for human sacrifice. Though it now seems so ludicrous to believe in such rumors, it was not that far fetching for locals at the time. The longevity of the bridge was sought after by everybody, and human sacrifice, though no one had really seen with their own eyes, had been alive in our myth since long. the 'tradition' of human sacrifice , so, at once seemed both distant and near. Everybody believed that human were less important than the mighty, imposing bridge, and to sacrifice some human to seek its longevity was not something they thought to be an unlikely tradeoff.
In Hindu scriptures, Varun, the god of water, has a special place in this context. Varun Puja used to involve sacrifice of kids. In Madhavi, an epic written by Madan Mani Dixit that depicts the Vedic era, Gaalab first sees Madhavi in Ahichchhatra when the state of Ahichchhatra was having a carnival that would culminate with the Varun Puja and a sacrifice of a child. Similarly, Maharaja Harishchandra, the man who suffered proverbially because of his insistence on truth and duty, had to offer a child to Varun. The god had insisted that it be Harischandra's own son. Harishchandra on the other hand managed to buy a kid, Shunashepa, for that purpose. Shunashepa was later rescued from the stake by Maharishi Vishwamitra.However, it is noteworthy that in the same story the father of Shunashepa, Ajigarta, was also widely booed by his compatriots for selling his son, and later being ready to kill his own son at the stake if he was given enough money.
Devi Bhagabata, a scripture detailing the exploits of Durga and other Devi, portrays different mighty Devis. Devis are not shown to have eaten human flesh, but they, particularly Chandali and Durga, were proud to collect human skulls and wear around their neck. However, Mahabharata has some of the man-eaters. Monster Hidimbasura had a penchant for human flesh, and another monster Bakaasura also demanded human
fleshes from the villagers he was terrorizing. Bhimsen killed both of them.However, Bhimsen himself had the cannibalistic habit. He drank blood of the sons of Dhritarashtra after killing them.
Vishwamitra has a special place in our history. He was a crusader against slavery and human sacrifice. For his principle, he waged a long fight with Bashishtha, who was favored Guru of those who wanted to keep slavery. May or may not be thanks due to Vishwamitra,It seems that we in Nepal never really had slaves who worked for the whole life for others. Bonded Kamaiyaas of west were probably all we had who could be called slave or something like slave, the only difference being they could change the workplace every year. While Chandra Shamsher once declared manumission with great fanfare, it was not clear who he emancipated, because it increasingly seemed that there were no slaves in the kingdom at the time, and no one has yet found such 'emancipated slaves' in their designated place,Amalekhganja.Unlike in the United States, where slaveowners used to own even the dead bodies of the slaves, in Nepal slavery was either nonexist or was in a very crude form where it didn't exist as a system, and differed from place to place and 'owners' to 'owners'.
Going back to the rumormills of Chitwan, the similar rumors were floated again when a temple was built in the accident prone Jalbire, between Narayanghat and Mugling. The irony was that before these two monuments, Narayani bridge and Jalbire temple, were built, people used to die, en masse, in the accidents that were so frequent there and those monuments were made exactly to save lives. In my childhood, most of the Tij
songs I heard were about the ferry accidents of Narayanghat. Similarly, there was such a turn in Mugling-Narayanghat road near Jalbire that the drivers could be forgiven for their mistake of driving straight to the river below the mountain rather than taking a turn where there was a road. We were also told that the Jogis were looking for a sacrifice kid for Jalbire temple. I remember running into the house if I saw any Jogi walking in our village in the evening.
We don't really know a lot of things about our own country and that makes our country and our culture so enigmatic, so mystic even for our own people. We used to have people of Kaapaalik sect in Vedic era, who lived mostly near rivers/ghats. They were known to eat half-cooked meat of dead human. Kaapaaliks were also very well read people. I don't think they exist anymore. Similarly,in this era of Kali (btw, this year is Kali sambat 5102) we also know the rumor that in Naradevi temple in KTM, pujaris used to offer Nara-Dhupa (human-incense) to the goddess Naradevi. Now we don't know if that was true, but it was a part of our culture. May be the rumors about human sacrifices became so intense that it became a part of our culture. We have also seen Aghori-baabaa, those who belong to Nath sect, in carnivals in Devighat in Maaghe Sakraanti or in Pashupati during Shiva Raatri. Aghori indicates those people who eat everything, including human meat. But whether these baabaa also consume human meat, we don't know. Similarly, when kings die, we have a tradition of asking a Brahmin to eat Kaatto, a
combination of food that also consists of a part of meat from the king's brain. I understand if some of us are reluctant to believe that kings also do have brains, or are reluctant to believe that kaatto do consists of any human meat at all. However, we all know Kaatto eating tradition exists.
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| LamjungKunchha |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 07:52 PM
Biswoji
First of all let me tell you, I admire your facts filed postings. Most of them usually are very though provoking.
As far as the slavery in Nepal goes, I believe there were some genuine slaves in Nepal until the Chandra Shamsher's Emancipation. There were some people in my village who were supposedly born in slavery and later emancipated by the declaration. I have heard some of them telling the story. One of them even used to blame his mother because she was not forth coming about who his real father was. According to the popular gossip in our village , his mother's owner had illicit relationship with her and since he was the owner, he had some one else claim to be the real father.My grandfather and he were of the same age. He used to joke about it all the time. They were mostly Ghartis. Their layalty, though emancipated, was still with their formal owners.
If you look at Madhab Ghimire's Malati-Mangale, albeit it being a fictional story has some truth to it.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 08:08 PM
LKji,
Before I wrote this posting, I talked to a friend of mine regarding the slavery in Nepal. He suggested to me that those with surnames 'Gharti' and 'Bhujel' used to be slave. But I couldn't find any other source to corroborate this. Proverbs like 'Arti bhaneko Gharti kaa pani linu parchha' exist, though. I appreciate the extra information you provided regarding this.
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| SITARA |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 08:22 PM
Biswo, very entertaining piece.
A question: What about the Deuki (Dewaki) kumaris given to temples as temple daasi in order to fulfil some bhaakal; I had read it was a form of sexual slavery.
As for the cannibalistic tradition among Babas, only those who dabble in Tantric Arts/Magic and Practices fall into such Baba-groups; Tantrism was/is one way to "Siddha Prapti".
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 08:40 PM
Sitara:
I considered Slavery as a 'system of social economy where human are traded, entailing some kind of monetary exchange between the buyer and seller, to perform some kind of involuntary drudgery for the buyer, and in which the buyer has right to do further trading of the slave he/she bought'. By all account, slavery was a backbone of agrarian life in Vedic era, farmers living in shreni actively supported this system, and most of the states, except those where the kings were of Kaushiki gotra or who followed Vishwamitra's principle, sought to enforce strict rules that would make it almost impossible for a slave to live as a free citizen without the consent of the owner.
Deuki are 'offered' to the temple(?), doesn't entail monetary trading either. Chandra shamsher's decision too didn't reach to them. [Why didn't the decision reach to kamaiyas of these days? May be because Chandra Shamsher wasn't sincere in implementing those decisions, or may be it was just a gimmick. ] They are , by all account, more unfairly treated than other 'slaves'.
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 09:20 PM
Very interesting piece indeed. Just a quick note on the slavery in Nepal, although I too haven't have a chance to read any published study/account , I have heard a lot about it from my elders. We indeed had a slavery system. Kamara-kamari could be bought, sold, given in dowry and even used as bet in gambles. My grandfather used to tell us the story of kamara-kamari his father used to have until their amalekh by Maharaj Chandra Samsher.
One story my grandfather used to tell might shed light on the status of the slaves. In our ancestral village, Sunthan, was a wealthy Kami. He was wealthy because he used to make and supply guns to the army. And he used to own some kamaras too. My grandfather used to tell us a story how my great grandfather won one of the kamaras from him. One day my great grandfather (his name was Tilbikram Kadka and was a high official, probably 'Shardar' or something like that) passed by the home of the Kami and commented jockingly on his freshly finished bandook saying it does not look strong enough. That ended in a bet between them. If my great grandfather could break the bandook with his bare hands he would receive a new bandook and one of his kamaras- which he did after breaking the bandook with his bare hands.
I also have heard a story of giving away a kamara in dowry.
So, Biswo ji, there indeed was a slavery pratha in Nepal. There must be some literature on this. Any student of history ?
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| nsshrestha |
Posted
on 17-Feb-04 08:38 AM
chiya guff contd...The emancipation was paid from Pashupati Nath Guthi but not the Rastra Kosh, thats why the free slaves were called siva bhakti. I have yet to see one. And this is what some one had to say out in the thickets of google -
Those who remember their history text books may object that Chandra Shumsher did give land to freed slaves after abolition. College courses in Nepal still teach that the government resettled people in Amalekhgunj, literally Emancipation place. I would encourage students to go to the highway town and ask the locals themselves. Few people there have heard this story. The occasional old people who remember, say that only about sixty families settled in what was then a railway town in the middle of the Tarai jungle. All of them had died from malaria or moved away within ten years. So what happened to Nepal’s 50,000 freed slaves? Many stayed on with their previous owners, working more or less like they had done before. Some moved on poor quality land on the outskirts of villages. A few families managed to work their way on to irrigated land of their own. For the most part, however, the freed slaves remained poor and marginalised. It is likely that among the bonded laborers “freed” last month in the hills, there are quite a few descendants of slaves freed under Chandra Shumsher.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Feb-04 11:22 AM
Nepeji,
Thanks for the first-hand account. It definitely means there was something like slavery. So, your great-grandfather was a strong person,huh!
nsshresthaji,
Tks for the input. There are very few instances when Pashupati's guthi has been used in our history. I think they used it during the (first?) mahaa-bhukampa. I wonder if they still 'don't touch' the guthi, or whether they 'touch' the guthi frequently these days.
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| dazzling ko keti |
Posted
on 17-Feb-04 11:26 AM
Funny how you mention the Aghoris of India. I just watched a very disturbing documentary on them. From it, I've learnt that the Aghoris believe in human sacrifice and actually exhume dead bodies to appease the spirits they worship. More than anything else, those sadhus looked like they were engulfed in a drunken frenzy and performed rituals straight after drinking themselves to insanity and doping to a point where they are in some kind of suspended animation. It was anything BUT spiritual.
For more details on the Aghoris, please visit the national geographic page.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Feb-04 02:28 PM
exhumed dead bodies?
I would assume then that they exhume the dead bodies of jogis [the community which doesn't incinerate dead bodies like other Hindus, but inters them].
I don't understand them. They live in their own world. We may consider that frenzied or demented world, but they seem to regard their world as a spiritual one. I am yet to find the contribution of some of these cults regarding the advancement of our civilization. Most likely, they probably blocked it by acting as an obstructionist. I also think they are on the wane.
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| SITARA |
Posted
on 17-Feb-04 06:52 PM
Biswo, my concept of slavery in the case of Deuki was/is those who are forced into providing services to benefit or satisfy the consumer's/offerer's desire/s. The word "offered" is ambiguous as the questions arise: "Offered by whom?"; "Offered with or without permission of the offering (in this case the Deuki woman)?"; "Offered to benefit whom, the offerer, the offering or the temple?". One may not see a tangible monetary exchange but can definitely notice "payment in kind". Usually, in such cases, the Deuki woman is powerless to stop the transaction, offering if you please, simply because she becomes a commodity owned by someone else.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Feb-04 09:40 PM
Sitara:
I see your point.
Btw, I am not very knowledgeable about Deuki issue. What I understand is the stereotyped things about them being 'offered' and later being physically abused. I don't know if it still exists today, and whether anything has been done to avoid that. But I recognize that they are(were?) forced to live a life that in many ways is(was?) worse than that of 'regular' slaves.
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| spark |
Posted
on 18-Feb-04 04:25 AM
shivaratri ko oopalakchhe ma sajha ko ganjadi ko bakamfuse gaff jasto lagyo
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| GoberGanesh |
Posted
on 18-Feb-04 10:11 PM
Spark,
Two Nari and few Brahmachhari ko gaja party bhai ra chha yaha..Wanna join?
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| GoberGanesh |
Posted
on 18-Feb-04 10:16 PM
Spark,
And Oh! Ouch, we will go on flesh eating contest too...you will enjoy. Cannibalism in its humanest form.
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| dumdum |
Posted
on 19-Feb-04 07:24 AM
Biswo ji, your post was very compelling. thanks for such erudite posts.keep them coming.
dummy
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| lll_lll |
Posted
on 19-Feb-04 11:37 AM
The text was really enlightning. Keep it comming Bishow ji.
I agree with Nepe ji in the case of women given as dowry. It might not exist now-a-days but about a generation ago it did. I used to know a woman who was given as dowry though she no longer lives now. I also think that the "Kaapaalik" you talked about also do exist these day who are known as "Kapalis" associated with Newar society.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 19-Feb-04 06:35 PM
III_III:
Thanks for the input. I had talked to a few people about the relationship between Kapalik sect of Vedic era, and Kapalis. I don't think they are same. For several reasons. I haven't heard of anyone talking about Kathmandu before ,say, 3000 years. And most of the Newar sirnames were also product of Jayasthiti Malla's class/caste division much later. But any observations on the contrary are very welcome.
As for woman given as dowry, I agree that it existed. In fact, some years ago, a son of a jamindaar of our village married in Dang. The father of the bride, a jamindaar in Dang, seemed to have sent a few girls to work in her new house. I was surprised to hear that though I never saw those 'dowry' girls. I think the girls later went back to Dang. Were they slaves? Depends on how much right they have on themselves. The prevalent idea was that the girls wanted to company the daughter of jamindaar wherever she went.
Dumdum:
Tks for your comment.
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| GoberGanesh |
Posted
on 19-Feb-04 08:55 PM
There is no authority better than Bhattarai Baje to tell weather the Kapalis are cannibles. :)
Kapalik sect of Vedic era(?) belonged to the Bengali followers of Vajrayana. Since it is later than the adventof Gotama Budhha, should it not be called Epic Age?
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| lll_lll |
Posted
on 20-Feb-04 04:53 PM
I might not be the authority in it but as far as I know the traditional occupation of the Kapalis is to work in the "ghats". I am not trying to be biased against them but they were considered to be one of the lowest casts in the newar society. I have heard a grandmother of my friend tell us that they do eat human meat. It was a long time ago though and I might have misintrepreted it. This is as far as I can tell you.
Let us know if you find more about it though.
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| nsshrestha |
Posted
on 23-Feb-04 03:21 PM
Yea, Bhattarai Bajes know very well about Sunita(?) Kapali. Had he been eaten? Still a question, at least to me :).
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 23-Feb-04 05:08 PM
Amita Kapali, I think.
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