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Sankaradeva
was a good painter, a moving poet, a musician of very high calibre, a
pioneer in the field of drama and dramatic performance, and above
all, a great social reformer and religious preacher.
Time
and again, India has re-newed its energies with the visions of
spiritual seers. One such who revitalised society in the
north-eastern state of Assam was Sankaradeva.
Assam
is a beautiful expansive state lying to the north-eastern corner of
India. Till recently Assam, also called Pragjyotisha and
Kamarupa, had a much larger area. Today, as it has broken up
into many smaller states, and the plain areas along the banks of the
Brahmaputra river now form the state of Assam. Constantly wearing a
washed look in its fresh green fields and forests, Assam is a
traveller’s delight for its people are gentle, its weather
salubrious and its vast expanses of green totally stress-reducing.
Here if you pause to hear about one of the major influences in the
lives of the people, they would talk, sing and dance to you about
Sankaradeva.
Sankaradeva
came at a time when Saktism, Saivism and a pagan kind of Vaishnavism
was prevalent in Assam. Tantra dominated the form of worship. The
Kalika Purana written in Kamarupa, the ancient name of Assam,
says the mode of worship was vamabhava or worship with blood
and liquor. It is also equally true that in certain parts of the
state, there lived staunch and deeply religious Brahmins who
practised Hinduism, rather Vaishnavism, but would not let the masses
partake because of the class divide. Under such conditions,
Sankaradeva, brought back order where ritual and exploitation had
come to rule. He looked for the system of religion that would cut
across class barriers.
Sankaradeva
was born in the mid -fifteenth century in a village called
Alipukhuri, in the district of Agaon, in Assam. While there is some
controversy about his date of birth, most historians feel, it was
1449 A.D. The controversy exists because he died only in 1568. There
are many who swear he lived as long as that while others feel there
must be a mistake in his date of birth.
Sankaradeva
was the fifth generation of migrants from Bengal who had made Assam
their home. His father, Kusumvara, was a chief with considerable
power and affluence.
Sankaradeva
was a handsome, bright, tall young man who was religious and upright.
Life went on normally for him till, at the age of thirty, he lost his
wife. Then he decided to go on a tour of all holy places across India
and for twelve long years moved on foot from one place to another. He
came back with a lot of knowledge and a copy of the Bhagvata
Purana. He gave up the office his father left behind for him and
took to preaching Vaishnavism in a more palatable form.
The
greatness of Sankaradeva lay not only in his ideas but also in his
talents. He was a good painter, a moving poet, a musician of very
high calibre, a pioneer in the field of drama and dramatic
performance, and above all, a great social reformer and religious
preacher. Therefore, he was able to draw millions of people into his
fold within a short time.
One
of the first techniques adopted by Sankaradeva to bring back the
beauty in people’s life was through cinhayatra. This
production meant that Sankaradeva himself painted the background
scenery and against it, people acted religious plays. The dramas had
a strong element of dance and an equally strong element of music.
The drama was supported by elaborate costumes and so people thronged
to see them. The plays were written in a language called Brajavulli
which was a combination of the ancient language of Sanskrit and
locally-spoken Assamese.
Sankaradeva
preached Vaishna-vism and surrender to the divine. God, he said, was
eternal and the individual soul a part of it. All the rest was matter
and therefore subject to change. He drew from already existing texts
and wrote in easy Assamese for local readership. He composed new
works and one called Bhakti Ratnakara is very popular and
famous. In addition, he has written many mythological stories in
Assamese which form the basis of Assamese literature even today.
The
Naam Ghars which are found all over Assam are also a legacy of
Sankaradeva. These are worship houses where there are no deities or
sanctum sanctorum. They are long rectangular spaces, covered with
thatched roof where people assemble and sing and pray to the divine.
They are found within every furlong in Assam.
In
music, Sankaradeva composed a few scores of lyrics set to classical
melodies which are known as bargeet or songs sublime and
great. Bar means great. According to the Vaishnavite
tradition, Sankaradeva composed 240 songs. Today, however, only 34
are available. Later followers of Sankaradeva have, however,
continued to compose more bargeets. The themes of his bargeets
are futility of worldly desires, transitoriness of human life, and
desirability of surrender to the Lord. There is overcharged passion
for the Lord in the lyrics of bargeet.
Sankaradeva
also laid the foundation for the Sattra institution which has
been functioning as an organ for propagation of religious ideas for
the past five hundred years. There are monastic and semi-monastic
Sattras spread all over the Brahmaputra valley. When he faced
hostility from the Ahom rulers in Assam, Sankaradeva went to Majuli
islands where even now Sattras function as before. Majuli
islands are very beautiful, located in the Bay of Bengal. They become
inaccessible during high tide. In this island are many Sattras
which preserve Sankaradeva’s legacy almost in its original form.
Only recently have they started interacting with the world outside
and presenting their arts to the rest of the country.
The
element of dance in Sankaradeva’s dramas flourished to become a
form by itself. It was called Sattriya dance and generally
performed only by men. It is very similar to Bharatnatyam, the south
Indian classical dance form, based as it is on the same Natyasastra.
It has, however, elements of local movements and body stances.
Thus
Sankaradeva made unparalleled contribution in the resurgence of art,
poetry, dance and music in the north-eastern state of Assam which is
today also famous for its tea gardens.
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