Dr.Jamanadas's lies regarding Holi

Dr. Jamanadas(here after referred as ‘J’), involves in mere mud slinging without any valid proof. He claims that Holi originated from the practice of abusing and burning Buddhist monks. We certainly do not understand why these people are writing things which are both baseless and false. The Dalit (Harijan) community cannot be made to progress by indulging in Brahmin-bashing. People like J, following Phule, simply blame the Brahmins for everything suffered by the Dalits. Can’t they see that the Brahmins are a minority and that most of them do not engage in violence? Perhaps they knew it and that is why they are attacking this community. These Brahmins will not kill the people who insult their religion, community etc because they are simply coward due to the fact that they do not engage in violence. A Brahmin will face a thousand people in a debate but he cannot face a single person in combat. That is exactly why people like J indulge in Brahmin bashing. In Tamil Nadu, Periyar never thought of abusing the Thevar community despite the fact that many people of that community physically abused the Dalits. The reason is that Thevars are a fierce people who will not hesitate to kill anyone slandering them. That is why he spent his life happily attacking the Brahmins (who never abused the Dalits physically) instead of speaking against the Thevar community.

Now, turning back to J’s essay on ‘Holi’, we find that J is simply repeating his practice of citing some secondary works. He claims that Puranas were written to usurp the Buddhist shrines. This very claim is ridiculous. If the Brahmins wanted to rejoice over their usurpation of Buddhist shrines, they could have done so by openly speaking about it just as the Muslims and Christians have done. If J tries to argue that the Brahmins were not in a position to boast about it, then they would not have been in a position to usurp them either. Finally, it must be understood that Sthala Puranas were written to increase the prestige of the temples and they had nothing to do with Buddhist shrines.

Being in Tamil Nadu, I do not know much about the customs of Holi. J claims that fire for the bonfire is brought from untouchable’s house and that the festival ends with touching an untouchable. But I don’t find anything wrong in this. Holi is a spring festival. Colours denote this. Spring denotes fertility and hence, using obscene words (which J claims to happen) is also not wrong.

His claims about Buddhism being an anti-caste movement are completely baseless. While Buddhism did not have castes, it was not an anti-caste movement. Its main offensive against Hinduism was philosophical. The characteristics of soul, way to attain moksha, how to consider this world etc were the major points of debate. According to Buddhism, if anyone is born as a slave, it is due to his karma. Chandalas were condemned to untouchability under Buddhism (see Fa-Hien’s writings). Therefore, the claim that Buddhism is an anti-caste movement is completely wrong. Any opposition to caste system was merely a supplementary point of debate and it can be seen that it was never the major point of contention.





Finally, J claims that Sant Tukaram was also an anti-Brahminist. Nowhere in his biography is it stated that he opposed the superior status of Brahmins. His Abhangas do not contain any anti-Brahminist views. In the ‘Maha Bhakta Vijayam’, we read that many Brahmins revered Sant Tukaram when they saw that Gods came to dine with him. Therefore, no one can say that all Brahmins were opposed to Sant Tukaram. Only a few Brahmin individuals who were much steeped in the belief that only Sanskrit scriptures can reveal about Gods criticized Sant Tukaram. (Even Brahmin poets like Sri Poonthanam who wrote Bhakti literature in local languages were ridiculed by a few people. Many such instances mentioned in the ‘Maha Bhakta Vijayam’ are full of miracles and visions of Sri Panduranga. They are similar to many other hagiographies written in different parts of India. These were written simply to stress the point that Bhakti does not have any barriers and the writers of many such hagiographies were Brahmins (e.g.) the Guru Parampara Prabhavam of the Sri Vaishnavas. But the caste system as such was never condemned by these hagiographies nor did those Bhaktas condemn the system either.)

Finally, J claims that Sant Tukaram was murdered by the Brahmins and the belief that he was raised bodily to Vaikuntha ‘shows’ that not even his body was made available. But this ‘imagination’ of J is clearly stupid. Sri Poonthanam, Sri Narayana Bhattathri, Srimati Andal, Sri Paanazhwar, Sri Nandanaar etc also reached the Holy Abode with their mortal body. Of the above, the first three were Brahmins while the last two were untouchables. Moreover, the story about Sant Tukaram’s ‘Vaikuntaarohana’ mentions that he attained Vaikuntha before the eyes of a large number of people. Either one must consider the claim as mere hagiographical imagination or as some miracle. It cannot be, in any manner, conceived as a case of murder. People like J must shed the coloured glasses which obscure their vision before writing any piece of literature. Else, their ‘masterpieces’ will consist of nothing but anti-Brahminist venom with a lot of baseless imaginations and false claims.