Expiating for historical sins

“It’s not your hard work. It’s all because your great grandparents had done a lot for you.” An uncle from my village eulogizes my ancestors. He often tells me that my success or whatever I have become today should be credited to my ancestors’ noble deeds few of whom I have heard of. My great grandfather had a temple of Goddess Devi built in a village. He is believed to have been a devout follower of Shaivism. He would tender oblations to Shiva and to please other gods in heaven, he would organize grand yajna and offer sacraments of ghee and rice in the burning flames at least twice a year. The village elder tells me that I am the product of these righteous, religious and noble conducts implying that if they were unrighteous, I’d probably be a lout, an addict, a pauper, or a criminal and earn notoriety.

In a traditional Hindu belief system, call it a superstition of modern time if you please, one of the reasons why a person should eternally struggle with suffering, privations and hardships is the wrongdoings of his father and forefathers. Ancestors’ wrongdoings have pernicious influence in the lives of the posterity and are capable of turning their lives into a Sisyphusian ordeal where there is a series of eternal struggles for better but it only continues yet another series of eternal struggles. According to this line of reasoning, sins or virtues are transferable. One’s virtue in his lifetime can work for at least three generations after him. So, they say, if you prosper and gain happiness in this life, it is because of your purkhako dharma (ancestors’ virtue). And when you suffer, it is because of the ancestors’ vices. Modern Nepali society is slowly preparing to disburden itself from this defeatist conviction but for me it is a comfortable digression to interpret the political fate of this generation.

In a way, Nepali people are expiating for, sometimes unknown, historical sins and wrongs. For the blunders they never made, for the decisions they are never aware of and for the transgressions they never committed, Nepali people have been bearing the brunt of anarchy and suffering. Their social, political and economic life is crippled because whoever they trust in turns out to be inept, inefficient, immature and, at worst, a swindler or a cheat. Or he may make himself a part of that tradition of evils. He may turn himself to be one of the sinners leaving his wrongdoings for atonement for the coming generations. Every trust and respect pays back in treachery, disillusionment and a variety of shocks. People then are left to regret.

Some ascribe this state to an old maxim of satile sarapeko desh (the land cursed by sati – a recently widowed woman who would either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre). I do not allow myself into the temptation of this interpretation. But I feel that the historical sins, which were great many and which were of unimaginable degree of brutality, are having direct bearing on people’s lives. Call it a naive understanding if you may but this is one of the recurring themes of Nepali political interpretation deeply-rooted in people’s psyche.

In Nepal’s political history, only Lichchhavi and Malla periods, which saw their last heritage in 1769, are featured as golden eras. With the beginning of greater or unified Nepal had begun the culture of sins. In fact, Nepali history is so replete with killings coupled with treachery and intrigues that it almost renders the whole of Nepal a graveyard. Kathmandu in particular is a historical graveyard. The ghosts of the nobles, kings, courtiers, and innocent public from as early as royal massacre of 2001 to as late as 18th century who were killed and maimed must be haunting this country.

In a traditional Hindu belief system, call it a superstition of modern time if you please, one of the reasons why a person should eternally struggle with suffering, privations and hardships is the wrongdoings of his father and forefathers.

Here are a few gory historical events for reference. Prince Bahadur Shah had Sarbajit Rana, who was a close aide of and also rumored to be the flame of Queen Rajendra Laxmi the wife of King Pratap Singh Shah, slaughtered in the ground floor of the Hanuman Dhoka Palace on Sept 1, 1778. This barbaric killing began the culture of butchery in the Nepali courts. Bahadur Shah himself was possibly hanged in a fort in the southwest corner of Kathmandu valley in 1797. Kaji Damodar Pandey, who fought bravely with British India and who is the icon of Nepali valor, was killed on behest of Rana Bahadur Shah on March 13, 1860. All his sons were slaughtered. One Taksari Bhim Khabas, an aide of Pandey, is said to have been hanged headlong for three days and when this did not kill him, he was drowned in Taudaha. The fault of Pandey was that he was against the idea of reinstating Rana Bhahadur as monarch as the latter had already relinquished power and lived in Benaras as mendicant.

No killing in Nepali history may have been as gruesome and inhuman as that of Bhimsen Thapa, the first prime minister of Nepal. For his stand against British and his loyalty to national integrity, Bhimsen was falsely told that his wife was paraded naked in a Kathmandu street. Unable to bear this trauma, he attempted to slay himself in the prison but could only manage to do damage to half his neck. His body was left to lie in a pool of blood before he was dumped on the bank of Bishnumati River. It is said that he struggled for death for nine days before he died on July 30, 1839. His dead body was fed to vultures, jackals, and dogs. As he had only daughters, there was no one to execute his after-death rituals. Bhimmukteswhar Temple of Bishnumati River is the reminder of this gory end.

Likewise, the Kot Massacre of Sept 14 1846, in which hundreds were killed and hundreds others were exiled and jailed, and the Bhandarkhal Massacre in which 23 were killed and many others exiled, have brushed the canvas of Nepali history with blood. The noble-minded people whose lives were nipped in the bud in such horrific incidents must be haunting this land and will possibly not leave us in peace until we do something for the liberation of their souls in purgatory.

Hindu scriptures suggest some way out from such impasse. Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita says this bondage of sin can be overcome by God’s grace. One can repose faith in the efficacy of chanting the lord’s name or mediate on the lord. This will not only help the suffering souls for salvation but also bring peace and happiness for the living. But in this debatedly secularized nation, all such recommendations will be deconstructed as myths, won’t they?

mbpoudyal@yahoo.com