Noted religion scholar and author Dr. Madhu Khanna was in Chennai recently for the launch of Saktapramodah, which she edited and had published. The book articulates practice of the Sakta tradition, which is a primary school of devotional Hinduism that focuses worship on the Divine mother. Excerpts from an interview:
You’ve just completed a long journey to get the Saktapramodah compiled, edited and published. Tell us about this journey, and why this particular work?
Saktapramodah is a huge compendium in Sanskrit, compiled and edited by Raja Deva Nandan Singh, an aristocratic zamindar, and a practitioner of the Sakta tradition. A member of his family came to see me in Delhi a few years ago with an old copy published in 1860. Another copy was lying in the British Museum. When the family asked if I could do a new edition, I was very excited because this gave me an opportunity to broad base my work across a larger spectrum of the Sakta tradition. I discovered later that this wonderful work was considered to be the most authoritative source of Tantric goddesses, particularly in North India.
I agreed, but faced some hurdles. One, the text itself is huge and had many errors. Second, it was a compilation from various authorities and sources, such as the Agamas, the Puranas, Vedas, Ramayana and other texts, and a few of the sources were not available easily. Everything has to be re-organised, re-fashioned and reedited, and I was fortunate to have the help of experts in Vedic Sanskrit when faced with bottlenecks. Then of course came the hassles with a publisher, but finally the hurdles were cleared and the book suddenly manifested itself in its current form.
Can you share with us your thought on the work’s relevance?
There are a lot of radical elements in the text. There is an entire section on Kumari tantra — worship and respect of young unmarried women — which is so relevant in our social context today. The work speaks of 10 goddesses — the Dasha Maha Vidya, each representing one energy — an eclectic circle of goddesses from Buddhism, from Vedic sources, some who have their own cults, some with incredible persona, and some whose offerings comprise of what today’s society would call “polluted” substances. Questioning the traditions and perceptions of beauty, you have a combination of dark and fair, proportioned and disproportionate, married and widowed — a diverse and wonderful amalgamation and a celebration of the female form and psyche. Also, more research on this work and its history can throw up a lot about our society 200 years ago; the kind of social reconstruction that inspired this kind of amalgamation of goddesses… I personally feel that this text can be looked upon as literature of protest — combining a few goddesses of a Vedic and ancient pedigree with a few who have emerged from tribes and once thought to be “outcaste” groups, and integrating them with the mainstream.
We have seen the effects of partial revelation and understanding and the danger of being incorrectly interpreted, for example, the interpretation of the Tantra from the West?
Some people have used the term Tantra so incorrectly that I firmly believe that India should claim a copyright on the term and prevent its misuse. These terms are heavily loaded concepts and when people misuse them, they are distorting the tradition and the image. It will take us years of scholarship to claim back the true meaning and correct public perception. The popular understanding of Tantras is linked only to sexuality.
Also, very few young people are interested in traditions of the past but everybody wants to read the Kamasutra. There is little interest in our culture, philosophy and heritage. If we have to become a large global state and we want to build a new India, we cannot just build it on infrastructure and quantitative aspects.
How do we then start to bring cultural elements into our mainstream and increase awareness?
India needs to create institutions where we can actually rediscover religion and culture, and study the large landscapes of our past. We have some fantastic institutions, but there is not much training. For example, if you want to understand some rituals in English, I can name 10 authors in the west who can explain their significance correctly. I cannot name more than two in the country who can do that in English. Another issue is that we have given in to colonisation of knowledge. All our sources, history and philosophies have been reinterpreted by the west. While a lot of the work done by Western scholars is excellent, much of it is not true reinterpretation. We have so many world religions, cultures, arts and traditions in India but lack the institutional expertise that requires preservation and spreading of such knowledge.
Have you thought of exploring Tantra traditions in the south and its practitioners and leaders such as Bhaskara Raya?
There is a treasure trove of culture, philosophy, religion and thought that I would love to explore. Bhaskara Raya is one of the greatest finds of South India. He brought in the great synthesis between agamas and Vedas. He was radical in his own way, very modern in his outlook, yet thrived on history and culture and re-interpeting and documenting them for the benefit of the people. My next work is going to be on Bhaskara Raya.
Saktapramodah: Of Deva Nandan Singh. Madhu Khanna (Editor). D.K. Print World Ltd. Rs. 1,275.
