Ascetic Games

by Dhirendra K Jha

  Once Nithyananda was officially given the title, a major crisis seemed to be afoot. But Ravindra Puri, justifying Mahanirvani’s decision, said, ‘There had been a long-standing complaint that we were not honouring the saints of south India. So we decided to give him the highest honour.’22 He also said that in the event of Nithyananda being convicted, this title would be withdrawn. It was widely reported in the media that, in return for the title of mahamandaleshwar, Nithyananda, one of the richest swamis in the world, had given Mahanirvani akhara ‘secret donations’ as guru dakshina.23

  The controversy continued for some time amidst criticism from other Dasanami akharas. Niranjani akhara, which had in fact been negotiating with Swami Nithyananda before the latter settled with Mahanirvani akhara, now organised an open meeting of sadhus and devotees to denounce the decision.

  At no stage, however, did it become unmanageable for Mahanirvani. Unlike in the case of Radhe Maa, on which Juna akhara itself was divided, there was no opposition from within Mahanirvani. Also, the office-bearers of Atal akhara, which is attached to Mahanirvani for bathing and other rituals at the Kumbh Melas, had been taken into confidence well ahead of time. The head of Atal akhara, Mahamandaleshwar Shukhdevan, was present at the time of the consecration.

  The examples of Martand Puri and Nithyananda demonstrate how easy it is for anyone, ascetic or non-ascetic, to obtain this title provided one has the right contacts in the akharas and is ready to loosen one’s purse strings. Even Radhe Maa might not have faced any issues—especially as her managers had exhibited both the required abilities—had it not been for the differences within Juna akhara.

  It is no surprise, then, that the ranks of mahamandaleshwar continues to swell.

  IV

  One consequence of the mushrooming of mahamandaleshwars was visible in the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh, where a section of them, emboldened by their sheer numbers, tried to bring together all the title-holders on one platform. At the behest of Juna akhara’s Yatindranand Giri, midway through the Kumbh on 5 February, nearly 100 mahamandaleshwars attached to various Dasanami akharas gathered at the camp of Mahamandaleshwar Balkanand Giri of Juna akhara and declared the formation of Mahamandaleshwar Parishad.24 While Mahamandaleshwar Arjun Giri of Juna akhara became its president, Balkanand Giri was made its general secretary and Yatindranand Giri its organisational secretary. Senior mahamandaleshwars of Dasanami akharas like Pilot Baba, Dati Maharaj, Atma Prakash Yati and Ved Bharati were declared vice presidents of the new body. Partly to placate the Dasanami akharas, their acharya mahamandaleshwars were declared patrons of the organisation. In the meeting, a team of five mahamandaleshwars was also formed to draft the constitution of the body.

  Talking to the media later that day, Yatindranand Giri said that, apart from the 100 mahamandaleshwars already associated with the newly formed body, talks were on with over 250 other mahamandaleshwars. He, however, remained cautious about revealing the organisation’s objective. Yatindranand Giri had attempted to launch something similar at the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh too, but the akharas had not been on board. Though he asserted that ‘there should not be politics in religion though there must be religion in politics’, his repeated efforts to organise the mahamandaleshwars under one umbrella hinted at his desire to introduce politics in religion. He told me, ‘There are thirteen akharas and they have formed an All India Akhara Parishad. Today, there is a large number of mahamandaleshwars, who should be grouped together to form a single body, which can contemplate and reflect on religious, national and social issues. There may be some exceptions, but the akharas have by and large done a commendable job of giving this title mostly to highly learned and spiritual persons. A Mahamandaleshwar Parishad will serve the nation as well as the religion.’

  The Mahamandaleshwar Parishad remained a talking point at the Allahabad Kumbh for at least two days. But after that, it vanished into thin air. Dasanami akharas collectively decided to not let the mahamandaleshwars unite under a single umbrella. Akharas treat their respective group of mahamandaleshwars as their fiefdoms. The Mahamandaleshwar Parishad, which consisted of all mahamandaleshwars attached to various akharas, had the potential to grow into a body over and above the akharas. This could have deprived the akharas of their regular source of income.

  It is not surprising, therefore, that no sooner had the Parishad been formed than Dasanami akharas swung into action and questioned the rationale of the newly formed body. Akharas sought reasons from their respective mahamandaleshwars for taking part in the meeting at which the Parishad was announced.25 Juna akhara’s powerful secretary Hari Giri said that there was no change in his akhara’s opinion on the uselessness of this body and that the office-bearers of Juna would take a decision on the issue soon. Mahanirvani’s Ravindra Puri declared that it was not proper on the part of the mahamandaleshwars to form a collective body. Other akharas, too, expressed anger over the development.

  The most striking aspect of the akharas’ clampdown on the Mahamandaleshwar Parishad was that it was instant and unanimous; the akharas were determined to guard their position as the focal point of the Kumbh. Mahamandaleshwars, as compared to akharas, are in direct touch with lay devotees—they hold satsangs and deliver religious and spiritual discourses, which helps them wield influence over devout Hindus. Akharas encourage such activities by mahamandaleshwars; in fact, it is the main, publicly acknowledged basis on which this title is granted. The akharas don’t feel threatened as long as the mahamandaleshwars stay well inside the lakshaman rekha, confining themselves to preaching and holding satsangs. But if they act collectively—with mahamandaleshwars attached to all the different akharas joining forces and passing resolutions on various religious, social and political issues—there is a good chance that at some point the club of mahamandaleshwars would outweigh the exotic appeal of Dasanami akharas, affecting the power balance between the two.

  Once the akharas cracked their whip, mahamandaleshwars retraced their steps. Mahamandaleshwar Arjun Puri, the president of the new body, sent out a written statement the very next day that he was resigning from the post in the interest of the akhara and his responsibility as mahamandaleshwar.26 Others, too, fell silent.

  V

  For all the controversy surrounding the titles given out by the akharas, never before had a sadhu switched from one sect to another for the sake of a title, till Swami Hans Das came along. He gave up his title as mahamandaleshwar of Bada Udasin akhara, and severed all ties with his parent institution during the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh.

  Udasin sanyasis are a special class of Shaiva ascetics who revere the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, as much as they worship the dhooni and adhere to Shankaracharya’s philosophy of advait or absolute non-dualism. They resemble Dasanami sanyasis: they are usually dressed in red or black, smear ash on their bodies and have long, matted hair. Though the practice of granting the title of mahamandaleshwar was started by Dasanami akharas, which award the most number of Shaiva titles, other akharas of Shaiva persuasion—Bada Udasin in particular—have also joined the race in the last two decades.

  Immediately after renouncing the title, Hans Das claimed that he had been a Vaishnava all his life and was awarded a new title by the Digambar akhara, that of jagat guru ramanandacharya. It soon became apparent, to sadhus of both Bada Udasin and Digambar akharas, that Hans Das’s spiritual switchover had been planned in advance, and was probably motivated by the fact that, despite all his efforts, he was unable to expand his following—and his income base—like the other mahamandaleshwars had been able to.

  ‘The sanyasis of Bada Udasin akhara objected to Hans Das becoming Hansdevacharya and obtaining the title of jagat guru ramanandacharya after joining Ramanandi Digambar akhara,’ said Baba Hathayogi, the Uttarakhand secretary of Digambar akhara and national spokesperson of the All India Akhara Parishad as well as the All India Sant Samiti. ‘The relations between the two akharas remained strained for some time, but the wound healed eventually.’

  Baba Hathayogi had
been a catalyst in Hans Das’s conversion. ‘When Hans Das showed interest in obtaining the title of jagat guru ramanandacharya, I talked to all the prominent vairagis and nagas of the Ramanandi akharas, and it happened within a few days,’ he said.

  There were also rumours of the VHP facilitating Hans Das’s transformation. In any case, the unswerving loyalty he showed the VHP after switching over to Digambar akhara—the Vaishanva akhara considered closest to the Sangh Parivar—was as striking as his meteoric rise from a nondescript mahamandaleshwar to a prominent ramanandacharya in the country. In the years following the conversion, he frequently participated in its programmes and worked hard to promote the politics of Hindutva until he died in a road accident in February 2019.

  The history of the jagat guru ramanandacharya title is similar to that of the mahamandaleshwar title—both became available in the spiritual market for sale during the last quarter of the twentieth century, coinciding with the VHP’s massive push to mobilise sadhus. The first person to be titled jagat guru ramanandacharya in 1977 was Bhagavadacharya, a scholarly ascetic who was known for settling a major conflict among the sadhus of the Ramanandi lineage. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, a serious conflict erupted in the Ramanandi order over whether the fountainhead of the Ramanandi order was Ramananda or Ramanujacharya, with the Ramanandi varigais divided into two camps—Ramanandis and Ramanujis, respectively. This divide was especially heightened in Ayodhya, where Ramanujis openly showed disrespect for the Ramanandis.27 In their sermons, for example, Ramanujis often declared the Ramanandi belief system to be inferior to that of their own. Peter van der Veer also refers to instances when Ramanujis did not show respect for the titular deity of Ramanandis.28

  A young Bhagavad Das, who later came to be known as Bhagavadacharya, played a central role in settling this issue in favour of the Ramanandis. Born in 1880, Bhagavad Das was brought up in an Arya Samaj orphanage at Danapur near Patna in Bihar. He later studied Sanskrit and English as well as Dayananda Saraswati’s commentary on the Vedas in Calcutta before shifting to Ayodhya, where he became a Ramanandi vairagi.

  In order to counter the Ramanujis, he called a meeting of the Ramanandis of Hanumangarhi. Here, he formed an umbrella organisation of Ramanandis, called the Shri Ramanandi Vaishnava Mahamandal. Since the Ramanujis’ argument was based on their claim that Ramananda had been a disciple of Ramanuja, Bhagavad Das set out to find a new genealogy for Ramananda. He presented a forged document, which he claimed was written by Agardas, said to be the direct disciple of Ramananda.29 The document, titled ‘Shri Ramamantraraj Parampara’, listed a genealogy of Ramananda with no mention of Ramanujacharya.30

  In the 1921 Ujjain Kumbh Mela, Bhagavad Das invited Ramanujis for a shastrartha—a debate to settle differences in religious interpretations. In the discussion that followed, he was declared victorious, the forged document was unanimously acknowledged as a ‘historic’ document, and the Ramanandis were declared independent of Ramanujis.31 This changed the tradition of Kumbh processions as well. Until then, in every Kumbh, Ramanandi sadhus belonging to the Brahmin caste used to carry Ramanuji preceptors on palanquins. Following Bhagavad Das’s victory, Ramanandis dropped this custom and disallowed the Ramanujis to walk with them for the shahi snan at the Ujjain Kumbh. The breach thus created continued and Bhagavad Das devoted the rest of his life to restoring pride to the Ramanandis.

  In 1958, Bhagavad Das openly acknowledged in his autobiography that he had forged the document to win his case and defended his action as it had contributed to a ‘good cause’.32 Van der Veer believes that this revelation, which came nearly four decades later, illustrated his confidence in having settled this debate forever.33

  Towards the end of Bhagavad Das’s life, the Ramanandi akharas decided to honour him for his ‘contribution’ to the order. At the 1977 Allahabad Kumbh Mela, he was recognised as the supreme preceptor of the order and elevated to the level of Ramananda with the title of jagat guru ramanandacharya.

  Bhagavadacharya died six months after receiving the title, but he had recommended in his will that the title be passed on to his disciple Shivaramacharya. His last wish was honoured and Shivaramacharya remained the sole holder of this title until his death on 4 November 1988. After him, a dispute emerged between two Ramanandis—Shivaramacharya’s disciple Ramanareshacharya and Hanumangarhi-backed vairagi Haryacharya—and both claimed this title for themselves. Thereafter, the holders of this title proliferated. Two prominent Ramanandi vairagis of Ayodhya—Ramchandra Das Paramhansa, the chief abbot of Digambar akhara and representative of the VHP, and Gyan Das, the anti-VHP strongman of Hanumangarhi—started taking a keen interest in the distribution of this title, which became a great source of earning. In the mid-1990s, new title-holders emerged at Chitrakut, Varanasi, Haridwar, Vrindavan, and at several places in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. At present, the number of jagat guru ramanandacharyas stands at an estimated fifty.

  VI

  The jagat guru ramanandacharya title is now a business just like the mahamandaleshar title.

  At the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh, Ramdineshacharya—who till then had only three years’ experience of being jagat guru ramanandacharya—hadn’t paid the amount demanded by the Nirvani akhara in lieu of the site it had given him for setting up his camp. As a result, a group of nagas ransacked his camp. He has not crossed the nagas of Hanumangarhi since, and has, in fact, become quite a vocal apologist for the akharas’ need for dakshina.

  Ramdineshacharya, who succeeded Haryacharya after his death in 2007, defended the exchange of money involved in the distribution of this title: ‘Don’t call it bribe; it is dakshina. After all, no one asks you to become jagat guru. You go to akharas on your own and tell them: take fifty lakh rupees from me and make me jagat guru. So, how can you blame the akharas for taking a bribe? Also, when you get this title, your position enhances in the eyes of ordinary people. They invite you and worship you and give you a lot of donations and offerings. What will akharas get? You expect them to keep looking at you? Can’t they even ask you to pay dakshina?’

  He is the only ramanandacharya in Ayodhya till date, and is, therefore, grateful to the akharas. Ramdineshacharya, in his late forties, began his conversation with me by reciting a sloka in Sanskrit: ‘Ramanandah Swayam Ramah, Pradurbhuto Mahitale.’ He then went on to explain the meaning, too: ‘Lord Ram himself manifests in the form of a ramanandacharya to remove all the evils from Vaishnavism.’ Yatindranand Giri had told me something similar: ‘When someone is made mahamandaleshwar, he becomes the god incarnate on earth.’ He, however, didn’t recite any Sanskrit sloka to back his point.

  The akharas, however, do not take ramanandacharyas very seriously, putting them on a pedestal one day, casting them aside just as easily on another. The attack on Ramdineshacharya’s camp is one such example. The other is that of Rambhadracharya of Chitrakut—a VHP-backed, visually challenged Ramanandi preacher. When he published an English translation of Ramcharitmanas in 2005, Ramanandi nagas accused him of blasphemy for having changed the wording of several verses of the text they consider to be the most sacred. In 2009, the nagas asked Rambhadracharya to withdraw the text, but he refused. On the eve of the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh, the nagas lost their patience.

  ‘Ramcharitmanas is like mantra for us,’ said Ramdev Das, a naga of Hanumangarhi. ‘How could anybody dare to play around with it?’

  Rambhadracharya defended his translation even in 2015 when I interviewed him. ‘I have only edited Ramcharitmanas. Nothing in it has been altered. Sadhus of Ayodhya are fools. They want to malign me so that they can extort money from me,’ he said.

  In January 2010, while Rambhadracharya was preaching to his followers in the Kumbh area, a group of Ramanandi nagas barged into his camp and beat him up, and then undid his tent and threw out all his belongings. They also debarred him from the Ramanandi order. ‘Later, he acknowledged his mistake and apologised to the akharas,’ said Baba Hathayogi, who was part of the group that had gone to teach the
VHP-backed preacher an ‘appropriate lesson’. ‘But we didn’t allow him to return to the Ramanandi order till he gave us a bhandara worth five lakh rupees.’

  After the Kumbh, Rambhadracharya started giving spiritual speeches based on what Ramanandi nagas believed was the edited version of the Ramcharitmanas. The Ramanandi sadhus of Ayodhya announced his expulsion for a second time. Fearing fresh attacks, he became discreet in his movements, going out only to participate in meetings organised by the VHP and abstaining from Kumbh Melas. The animosity could have died there, but the old wound was opened again in early 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Padma Vibhushan award for Rambhadracharya. ‘Don’t ask me about any such person. Is he a sadhu?’ responded Hanumangarhi’s heavyweight Gyan Das, when I asked him whether Rambhadracharya deserved the award. Rambhadracharya was attached to Nirvani akhara before he was expelled. Ramdev Das, another naga resident of Hanumangarhi, was even more bitter. ‘If he really thinks he is right, he should come to the Kumbh,’ he said, adding after a brief pause, ‘Then we will show him how Ramcharitmanas is edited. He is the stupidest ramanandacharya ever.’

  A large number of ramanandacharyas, mahamandaleshwars and shankaracharyas owe their success to the VHP. But there are also, curiously, some ramanandacharyas who, unable to come up with the constant stream of money needed to maintain the title, simply run away.

  Take the case of Chaitanyacharya of Cuttack in Orissa. In 2005, he expressed his desire to obtain the title of ramanandacharya to Yugal Kishore Shastri, the mahant of Sarayu Kunj temple and a known Ramanandi sadhu of Ayodhya. ‘I told him that it can be arranged, but it would cost him over five lakh rupees because he would have to organise a bhandara and give dakshina to the naga sadhus who would be participating in the consecration ceremony,’ said Yugal Kishore Shastri. Chaitanyacharya agreed, and Yugal Kishore Shastri began the preparation. After planning the proposed ceremony, Yugal Kishore Shastri invited naga sadhus of various akharas. On the due date, Ramanandi sadhus, carrying the emblems of their respective akharas, reached Cuttack from Ayodhya, Vrindavan, Haridwar and several places in Rajasthan and Gujarat. ‘Chaitanyacharya organised an exceptionally lavish bhandara, which he thought would raise his profile in the eyes of the ascetics as well as locals. All the sadhus signed the declaration elevating Chaitanyacharya to jagat guru ramanandacharya, and all of them were given adequate dakshina before they returned,’ Yugal Kishore Shastri recounted. ‘But since Chaitanyacharya’s financial resources couldn’t match his spending, he had to take loans from local moneylenders, and he could never come out of debt.’