Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Part 4

As we cel­e­brate the ar­rival of our fore­fa­thers to the shores of our coun­try on May 30, 1845, we al­so cel­e­brate their way of life, their rit­u­als and tra­di­tions with which we are now rich­ly en­dowed and prac­tise in our every­day lives. From May 18 to May 28, 2015, Hin­dus across the world will be en­gaged in cel­e­brat­ing the ar­rival of De­vi Gan­ga (Riv­er Ganges) up­on plan­et Earth.

The De­vi's in­car­na­tion up­on Earth is be­lieved to have re­sult­ed in the flow­ing of the sa­cred Gan­ga Riv­er in In­dia. She emerges from the serene at­mos­phere deep in the Him­layas and flows over 2500 kilo­me­ters to join the Bay of Ben­gal. Her wa­ters are be­lieved to hold mag­i­cal prop­er­ties.West­ern re­searchers have con­firmed that the wa­ter from the Gan­ga has health pro­mot­ing qual­i­ties and does not de­te­ri­o­rate on stor­age. Hin­dus be­lieve that these wa­ters can pu­ri­fy them both spir­i­tu­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, hence its per­va­sive use in every­day poo­jas and rit­u­als.

At the time of death, the Gan­ga wa­ter is ad­min­is­tered to the dy­ing per­son with full faith and be­lief that he or she will achieve the high­est of re­gions in the here­after. In Trinidad, Hin­dus in­voke the pres­ence of De­vi Gan­ga by chant­i­ng mantras in praise of the De­vi. Wa­ter from the sa­cred Gan­ga Riv­er is al­so now im­port­ed from In­dia in a high­ly com­mer­cialised man­ner.

Hin­dus al­so re­vere the oceans. Lord Varun, who is the God of the Ocean, is al­so wor­shipped in poo­jas and rit­u­als. One of the ear­li­est Hin­du Scrip­tures brought by our fore­fa­thers aboard the Fa­tel Raza­ck was the Ra­mayan. This tells us that Sri Ram (In­car­na­tion of Lord Vish­nu, one of the Hin­du Holy Trin­i­ty) pro­pi­ti­at­ed the God of the oceans be­fore build­ing a bridge be­tween In­dia and Lan­ka. Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­mains of this bridge have been con­firmed by NASA and oth­er west­ern sci­en­tists.

An­oth­er Hin­du Scrip­ture is the Manu Sm­ri­ti (Or­di­nances of Manu). This is a code by which Hin­dus reg­u­late their dai­ly lives. Though the rigid­i­ty of ob­ser­vance of this scrip­ture has whit­tled away, our fore­fa­thers from In­dia up­held rules which for­bade pol­lut­ing of wa­ter­cours­es.

Hin­dus in Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ue to fol­low these teach­ings of our an­ces­tors and to up­hold their tra­di­tions. Every year, thou­sands of Hin­dus per­form poo­jas at the sea­side dur­ing the Hin­du month of Kar­tik. Last year, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha alone had a con­gre­ga­tion of over 35,000 peo­ple on the shores of Man­zanil­la Beach.

Lord Vish­nu, who is re­ferred to as "the Sus­tain­er," or­dained that an in­di­vid­ual who takes a bath in the oceans dur­ing the month of Kar­tik will re­ceive the bless­ings of the en­tire pan­theon of Hin­du Gods as well as the equiv­a­lent ben­e­fit of read­ing the Vedas (First Hin­du Scrip­ture). Af­ter wor­ship­ping, "jhan­dis" or bam­boos with flags are plant­ed on the beach as a sym­bol of vic­to­ry.

Hin­dus plant "jhan­dis" when­ev­er they have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed an un­der­tak­ing. Jhan­dis are now seen plant­ed around tem­ples and mandirs as well as every Hin­du home. This, by it­self, is a sign of vic­to­ry of our fore­fa­thers' tra­di­tions.

Mov­ing away from the rit­u­als, one can eas­i­ly see that in­her­ent in our fore­fa­thers' tra­di­tions was an in­vi­o­lable ap­pre­ci­a­tion of na­ture and the ecosys­tem. Since in­den­ture­ship, Hin­dus have shown great rev­er­ence for Na­ture. Their places of pil­grim­age in­clude rivers, lakes or places near the sea.

They pray to the sun and all of the oth­er plan­ets as they be­lieve that the move­ments and in­flu­ences of the plan­ets is not just an or­di­nary nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non but the wills of the Gods. In the past cen­tu­ry, sci­en­tists have de­vel­oped a new ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the sun. The In­den­tured In­di­ans aboard the Fa­tel Raza­ck nev­er lost faith that the sun was their very own Hin­du God, "Surya De­v­ta," re­spon­si­ble for sus­tain­ing life and cre­ation on this plan­et.

Hin­duism and our fore­fa­thers' de­vo­tion to God led to the In­di­an ap­pre­ci­a­tion and sus­te­nance of the en­vi­ron­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Even the jhan­dis are biodegrad­able and eco friend­ly. It is the hand of God that sus­tains na­ture and our wa­ter­cours­es and it is the hand of God that sus­tained our fore­fa­thers. Iron­i­cal­ly, our fore­fa­ther had to cross the "Kala Pani" (the Black Wa­ters), just as Lord Ram had to cross the ocean to Lan­ka. It has been a tremen­dous strug­gle.

At this junc­ture in our na­tion's his­to­ry, it is in­deed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on the sig­nif­i­cance of Moth­er Gan­ga and her life-sus­tain­ing prop­er­ties.It is in­struc­tive that Lord Ram wor­shipped the Ocean on the eve of his ul­ti­mate bat­tle with Ra­van (evil per­son­i­fied) to re­store his king­dom to its ac­cus­tomed dig­ni­ty.

As we make po­lit­i­cal choic­es, we must re­mem­ber to reded­i­cate our­selves to those val­ues that our fore­fa­thers have fought for: the abil­i­ty to pre­serve our com­mit­ment to the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment, as well as our dig­ni­ty to freely wor­ship those as­pects of na­ture as our scrip­tures pre­scribe.The Ma­ha Sab­ha wish­es to in­vite Hin­dus through­out this land to re­flect on the God­dess Gan­ga and im­plore her to bless us all with her grace.