Latest update December 21st, 2024 1:52 AM
Nov 18, 2012 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev
Last Sunday, after I mentioned the nexus between Divali with the Hindu exhortation to gain wealth, I got some raised eyebrows from individuals who’d only been fed the ‘light overcoming darkness’ line. So Holi and Divali are the same? Asked to give a talk the following day on Divali at a wonderfully organised program by Pandit Somnath Sharma at Vreed-en-hoop, I expanded on the theme.
“Divali began as a harvest festival. Our foreparents, primarily from North India, would have reaped the crops they had laboured over for so long. It was a time of joy and merriment. The nights would also have lengthened at this time of the year, as it has here in Guyana, even though we’re not expecting the winter they would have to cater for after their harvest. The lights kindled would have brightened up the celebrations.
And they gave thanks to the Goddess Maha Lakshmi: the lights now welcome her into our homes. The question is “Why, of the thousands of gods and goddesses, Lakshmi??” Who is Lakshmi? This is a crucial question. The word ‘Lakshmi’ is derived from the Sanskrit word “Laksya”, meaning ‘aim’ or ‘goal’. Her iconography explains. She is represented with four arms: symbolising the Purusharthas or four aims of human life. The two raised upwards with two lotuses are ‘dharma’ (righteous living) and ‘moksha’ (ultimate liberation) and the right lower in a gesture of giving…with gold coins flowing – artha (wealth of all types) and the left lower, kaama or sensuous desires.
But Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity: Artha. And this is what I want to emphasise tonight. The Hindu view of wealth. Lakshmi is the consort and shakti/power of Vishnu, the Creator: what is created must be sustained by wealth. You see the British who conquered Bharath, and dumped us here, convinced us that we came from a poverty-stricken place that didn’t produce wealth. In fact that Hinduism was “other worldly”: that we ought to scorn and reject wealth. Even our own people started to believe this. And today, this is why we shy away from the real significance of Mother Lakshmi. But what is the truth?
Hinduism talks of two paths: pravritti (social action) and nivritti (inward contemplation). If everybody gave up action and retired to contemplation from youth what would become of society? The institution of the sanyasin or monk who ‘renounced’ wealth of all sorts, came in rather late into Hinduism and in fact was adopted from Buddhism by Shankara, after 900 AD.
For the rest of us, it’s the path of pravrittti as a householder: wealth must be sought by dharmic means and should then be used for the individual’s and society’s upliftment. When we reach the fourth stage of life in our seventies or so, we should then proceed on the path of nivritti, to seek moksha/liberation. Our prior life where we subjected the acquisition of wealth and the enjoyment of sensuous desires to the injunctions of dharma, would have facilitated this move.
Before the Moghul Conquest in 1192 CE, India produced 29% of the world’s wealth – through individual effort. Even though that dropped to about 25% under that rule, it was still enough to make India a place of fabled wealth. Who do you think produced all those fabrics and other goods that Europeans wanted to import from India and China back in their Dark Ages? And eventually had Columbus risking life and limb to find a new way to India? By the time the British left India in 1947, her share had fallen to 4.2%. Why??
The wealth hadn’t come by magic: it came from hard work and intelligence. Lakshmi is always shown dressed in a red sari with a golden border. Red is the colour of Rajas or creative activity. The golden embroidery indicates plenty. Hindus were exhorted to work very hard to acquire wealth, for dharma: every text affirms this. The Mahabharat, for instance, teaches that the “growth of Dharma depends on Artha (Dhanat Dharmah Pravardhate) and that “poverty is full of sorrow” (Natah Papiyasi Kanchid avastham).
We know that society and our families cannot be sustained without wealth. But the iconography of Mother Lakshmi also reminds us that we can’t allow wealth to control us. As many are the exhortations to earn wealth, they are matched by warnings not to be carried away with the wealth. The Owl is a Vahana or vehicle of Lakshmi: The owl, a nocturnal bird, sitting on the left side of Lakshmi, where gold coins are falling, represents darkness. It is very clever but yet can’t see clearly in the daytime. It represents the potential perversion of attitudes by material prosperity that must be countered: it is essential to your survival but it can dull your vision.
Undue attachment to wealth shows ignorance (darkness) and disturbs the economic balance in society. Mother Lakshmi sits on a lotus, that originates in mud but always rises above and is untouched by it. We must serve society with our wealth.”
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