2 August 2019
It is ironic that one needs to borrow this word to express a notion of ‘Aram’ or even Dharma. ‘Karpu’ is a pristine meaning quite incapable of being divvied, but my morning tryst with keys is to decode this somehow for the reader. Why must one muse over the word that is quite defining of Tamil culture is because for the sake of one’s ‘Karpu’ one could die. There was a mythical bird called Annaparavai/Annakizhi which was perhaps like a swan or parrot, but which could drink only the milk when milk was mixed with water! In Tamil liturgy, this bird is quoted wherever one needed to place discerning quality, install the example of trying to seek goodness in the gross, of ‘Aram’ in ‘Arivuiyal’ ( Ideal notional living is Aram, where the notion is to live and lead as one would accept being lived off and led by!The abilities flowing from and being directed by one’s cognitive capabilities is Arivu+iyal)
Over time, the original expression and what highest spiritual state it reflected is lost to us. Largely scholars view Karpu is one needing four pillars of Accham- Fear of offending others/ fear of wrongdoing , Naanam- Coyness/reticence, Maudam- Innocence of a child/ all trusting manner, Payirpu- Aversion of Abhorrence of company of men not related to/ abhorrence of others who are not of one’s nature. The words italicised are my interpretations, which you can readily see is more gender neutral and not circumscribed by sexual context to which Karpu has been reduced unfortunately now.
So in a non gender specific way, this quality with its code of four perspectives, offers us it’s adherents a natural elevation in the communion of humans, for other folk are automatically drawn to us or are despised or repulsed by us. We can never be left alone, try however we might. Our state of mind is such that simplicity is impregnated in thought and translated into action. One need not be a Tamil, one need not belong to ‘Aram’ or uphold it in a sense of ritual passage, but unknowingly if you review the lives of great people, chosen for their ability to inspire, improvise and imagine, you will find clues that offer them this sanctuary of Karpu.
The other day, I was drawn into an argument with an eminent writer, through my Twitter handle, on what philosophical tome motivates individuals into liberalism. In an economic sense, Adam Smith, Malthus and philosophically Voltaire, Rolland, Thomas Hardy and even Charles Dickens are viewed as ‘fonts of liberal thought’ in a European context. For me the simple chant of Sri Rudram which appears in Taittreya Samhita as part of Krishna Yajurveda. Today people indulge in metaphysical jousts to try and undermine the lucid verse, create complex rhetorical arguments in the name of ‘Hinduism’! But for one who grew up simply hearing the verse at home as a recitation, specials for Thursdays and Mondays in the repertoire of hymnal prayers, it is a catalogue of robbers, brigands, waylayers and killers! So who is being hunted down? Who is the hunter? From the poem and the consecrated mantra at the heart of the chant is ‘Shivaya Ca, Shivatharaya Ca’. I transcribe from William-Monier this once, so that we don’t destroy the context over correctness. Shiva- Auspicious one, Shivathara- the one fortunate or complacent. So in a world of uncertainty, where one’s voyage is actually a trespass to the jungle of disorder, violence, where every shadow, every bush could reveal inimical forces seeking to overwhelm and take us hostage, the grace of one who can reveal the self as a brigand, bandit or killer, can descend on us to make us ‘auspicious’, allow us to be carefree in Grace and Good Fortune!
Just how difficult it is to be an adherent is clear from the vivid description of the lurking dangers and evil forces arrayed, and how trusting and implicit as well as explicit goodness must as a constant outpouring smoothen our paths and guide us as we navigate this wilderness is what always romanticises every stage of one’s life!
What powers that be did in those eons gone by, was to uphold these virtues by royal edicts, barring Asoka the Great who put up pillars or Hammurabi who gave a code in cuneiform, and the mythical slab bearing the ten commandments of God given to Moses known as the Ark of the Covenant, across cultures and ages, human examples of goodness bordering on Karpu were made toast of their societies, and sometimes roasted too by overwhelming evil forces when alive only to be canonised or deified after their deaths.
One of the deeper beliefs was the benevolence of Nature, of famine averting rains, of rivers and lakes with fresh water, good crops without pestilence afflicting them, cattle breeding copiously and well limbed, was attendant on larger society and it’s upholding these good men and women in great esteem. It was through honouring them, regarding them, through expressing pride in their presence, that humans thought the mystical forces that brought upon seasonality in Nature and their general good fortune ( understood now as good ‘karma’) abided them.
Materialism particularly with advance of science and technology in Industrial Age, commoditisation of goods and services and above all the role of political movements that led to a modern system of governance that lays store on impersonal application of rule, while continuing to empower the bureaucrat with discretion to apply and to what extent in the name of sovereign governance has eroded the link to Karpu and Karma.
Today few countries are thinking about Wellness as distinct from Wealth, delinking material prosperity from happiness. It is not failure or fear of failure as Ms Sitaraman says of Mr VG Sidhartha’s suicide that it was connected to a fear of failure and the taboo that society has enforced on failure. (https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/business-failures-should-not-be-a-taboo-sitharaman-on-v-g-siddhartha-s-death-1564668732065.html) She can hold her view, but folks like late Sidhartha are not buoyed or booed by the prospects of success or failure. To take up entrepreneurial risks in a uncertain terrain like India’s, to navigate it, and even emerge half as successful, one needs ‘Grace’. One needs people who know them, who have seen them professionally and personally, to believe in them, to trust them! What made and will make people like Sidhartha take drastic reviews and dump their Karma is a deep sense of ‘betrayal’! It is like disrobing of one’s Karpu (akin to chastity), this chastising of chastity, that is the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back! People confuse this with Ayn Rand’s John Galt moment, where industrious entrepreneurs are driven to self imposed exile by a capricious state. This is at a deeper level, this loss of sliver of hope, this most unedifying dumping of a soul that has striven in every moment of its bodily existence to live up to a higher ideal, to hold itself to account of higher standards, which are beyond the arc of common denominators civilisation has coded as covenant. The advance of civilisation and societies has occurred not because of incremental steps of timid men and women, but because of the giant leaps of faith taken by men and women who are mystics inspiring themselves to a higher plane, holding on to their innate sense of Karpu!
Ancient Tamils took oaths to never forsake Karpu, guarded Karpu with zealous sanctity! As we seek a World of Wellness, we can borrow a leaf from their Sangam literature, and guard this abstract, difficult to define, sense of Karpu, a distinctive nobility that brings out the best in chosen men and women!
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