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7 - Vernacular Hinduism in Rajasthan

from Part II - Contemporary Hinduism in north India

By
Antoinette E. DeNapoli
Edited by
P. Pratap Kumar
Antoinette E. DeNapoli
Affiliation:
University of Wyoming
P. Pratap Kumar
Affiliation:
University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa
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Summary

This world is like a carnival. Love brings us here. If there is love, we will meet again.

(Ganga Giri Maharaj, 28 March 2005)

It is difficult to meet [God].

How will I meet my beloved?

We cannot climb the land

Where it is impossible to climb.

The many alleyways leading to the bathing pools are wet.

We cannot stand where it is slippery.

It is difficult to meet God.

How will I meet my beloved?

I am stepping carefully on the ground.

I cannot stand still, lest I fall down.

The path to God is narrow,

Like sand that you cannot grasp.

It is difficult to meet God.

How will I meet my beloved?

I met my real guru who showed me the path to God.

So, make a guru.

Lord Kabīr has said that God, the giver of liberation, will embrace you.

It is difficult to meet God.

How will I meet my beloved?

(Kabīr, c.15th century)

This chapter introduces the reader to a female expression of vernacular asceticism as it is lived, interpreted, practised and performed by the ascetics (sādhus) of Rajasthan with whom I worked. Ganga Giri, whose words I quoted in the epigraph to this chapter, sang this devotional song (bhajan) in a religious group (satsang) consisting of Hindu householders (women and men of various ages and socio-economic backgrounds), me (an American anthropologist) and my unmarried adult “sister” Shamta of the Brāhmin family with whom I lived between 2004 and 2006 in the north Indian state of Rajasthan.

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Information
Contemporary Hinduism , pp. 97 - 113
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2013

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