Rajeev Kumar Nagotra
Name of Book: Mountain Goddeses
Gender dynamics consume considerable energy and attention of teenagers. When left unattended and unaddressed, the harmonal changes occurring in their bodies may potentially cause psychological turbulence and behavioural aberrations. Manu Khajuria Singh, like most of us who hit their adolescence around the end of the last millennium, had the advantage of growing up in a traditional Sanatani family. When she hit her teenage and began to wade through the gendered world around her, she found support and strength in the unique traditions of Dogra society which despite being patriarchic is remarkably influenced by Shakti, the Feminine Divine. The Dogras’ reverence of Mata Rani, the deity that is both Mother and Queen, and that reigns over every family, every clan, every village, every hill across the plains and mountains of Jammu, is the treatment every daughter expects and the guidance every son needs growing up in a society.
Manu Khajuria Singh’s book “Mountain Goddesses” published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House Delhi, meets multiple ends between its 122 pages. It serves as an ode to the life and value system of a quintessential Dogra family. It straightens out many a myth, both historical and cultural, about Jammu and its people. It carries a diligently prepared account of the numerous Shakti shrines spread across the region and their impact on the life and collective conscience of its people, the Dogras. It also offers a much needed documentation of the popular as well as forgotten folklore of the region with reference to the ordinary women who were deified by the society for their extraordinary traits of courage, sacrifice and wisdom. One common thread that stitches all these distinct themes together is the author’s advocacy of the Shakt philosophy as an effective substitute for the contemporary feminism as conceptualized by western academia. The author’s pen glides smoothly over the planes of geography, history, and culture of Jammu in 7 chapters and offers valuable perspectives.
A reader can recognize three distinct sections in this book. The first section spans over the first three chapters. It presents the Shakti traditions of the Dogra society as an ideal foundation for a social order free of gender conflicts. In Dharmic view, the Supreme Divine is the sum total of all that exists and all that does not. Logically, then, neither masculine nor feminine is bereft of divinity. Indeed, Adishakti holds everything that a being has ever sought – power, wealth and wisdom. In Manu’s words “If power, wealth and wisdom were corporations, the Hindu deities of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati have been the CEOs since time immemorial.” Blessed by these three manifestations of the Feminine Divine, the Dogra women have always upheld Dharma while helming household finances, mothering great warriors and leading social transformations. The book provides evidences of how male Dogra icons such as Baba Jitto, Gen Zorawar Singh and Miyan Dido too were anchored to the Feminine Divine in their legendary conduct and actions. Shiva draws His strength from Shakti – a society devoted to this philosophy since the birth of human intellect does not require the multiple waves of western feminism to liberate and empower its women. Manu underlines that the equality between genders does not mean constant similarity but complementarity and writes “There is no war but harmonious and vital co-existence between the feminine and masculine. An aberration from this is a fault with the practice and not the philosophy”. To ensure that a perfect alignment exists between the practice and the philosophy, the book offers a parenting tip namely Sanskar Sinchan. The parents and the grandparents must maintain an atmosphere of tangible traditions and intangible values that they wish to hand over to their young ones. She writes “I have a distinct memory of dozing in my Dadi’s lap as she sat with other women from the village listening to stories of different Devi-Devta……These stories are tucked in some recess of my subconscious mind and keep resurfacing from time to time.” To someone nourished with Dharmic values from their formative years, gender based competitiveness seems illogical and the western constructs of feminism unsustainable.
The second section, comprising chapters 4 and 5 of the book, showcases author’s comprehensive research on the shrines dedicated to Shakti in the Shivalik hills and the Jammu region. She has done a great job in describing the historicity and evolution of these places and made this section equally enjoyable for both the research scholars and general readers, even those who hail from this region and are already familiar with many aspects of the subject matter. Books have been published in the past on the various religious shrines of Jammu and Kashmir including the ones covered in Mountain Goddesses. It is easy to see that merely presenting a list of the shrines (Bawe wali Mata, Vaishno Devi, Kol Kandoli Mata, Sukrala Mata, Mahamaya, Pingla Mata, Chauntra Mata, Machail Mata, Sarthal Mata, Mangla Mata, seetla Mata, Chanchlo Mata, Huddh Mata, Nagani Mata, Kalika Mata of Reasi and Poonch) with their locations etc could have easily become a disappointing task for the author and a drudgery for the reader. Manu’s craft of storytelling and her style and approach, which is a fine mix of historical and social developments with a palpable undercurrent of contemporary gender contexts, have succeeded in making this exercise absolutely refreshing.
The last section of the book, chapters 6 and 7, is dedicated to the reflection of Shakti in the ordinary women of Dogra society, its acknowledgement by the male gender and its inter-generational perpetuation through folklore and local legends. There are details of Daati/Devi worship, “a living heritage of Jammu”, and the legends of its warrior queens. This piece of writing is actually a unique contribution of the author to the literature that exists on the femme extraordinaire of the Dogra society who sacrificed their lives protecting their territories and subject or fighting societal evils, injustice, treachery and grieving the loss of their loved ones. The modern generation is largely ignorant about the strong characters of these women even though they go as a family and pay obeisance to their shrines for all things considered auspicious, such as, a good harvest, a healthy child, a blissful marriage, a good job, a good house, or even a pilgrimage. The author writes “The positive impact of these folklores needs to be recovered at a popular level. They have the potential to become instruments of change in community cohesion and more importantly in how women are viewed”.
Shrinking morality, feeble characters and dwarf standards are the chief traits of our society today. A book like Mountain Goddesses was long due. It is a window through which a reader can see and appreciate the historical Dogra female protagonists. The book showcases the culture of Jammu that recognizes the divinity in all women and maintains sufficient tolerance for both the genders to coexist and function harmoniously for the larger good of the society. The book is as much a record of the shrines as a commentary on the pitfalls of western feminism and its potential antidote. It is certainly a book that informs as well as inspires.
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