By Apoorvanand
It was the morning of Ram Navami. I was engaged in an exchange with a colleague, attempting to parse the dense layers of Ram ki Shakti Puja. This iconic long poem by Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ is a work that refuses to exhaust itself; no matter how frequently one returns to its verses, it yields new tremors of meaning.
Our conversation centred on the poem’s final stanza: that moment of sublime resolution where Durga, moved by Rama’s gruelling tapasya, reveals herself in her pūrṇa rūpa, her complete form.
We were specifically struck by a singular, enigmatic detail in Nirala’s description of this Mahashakti: what does it signify that, in this ultimate manifestation, she bears “Shankar upon her head” (mastak par Shankar)?
In the universe of this poem, Durga is not merely a deity; she is Bhagwati,or, Shakti. The narrative breathes within the familiar architecture of the Ramayana – the climactic battle against Ravana. But, for Nirala, as another keen reader of Nirala, Nandkishore Nawal, insisted, this endeavour of Nirala’s Ram is to rescue Sita, his beloved wife.
Yet, Ram himself is god but here he is a mortal being Ravana, who is not just a formidable adversary; he appears invincible because Ram realises, which disables him, that Shakti herself has moved to his side. He sees her cradling Ravana in her lap, a celestial endorsement of the unjust. How does one wage a war when the very source of cosmic power stands guard over the oppressor?
Despondent, Rama confesses to his comrades that this is an unequal battle. How is he expected to fight Shakti? The aged, wise Jambavana consoles the despairing Ram and tries to break the impasse that Ram is in. He counsels Rama to withdraw from the heat of the fray and undertake a tapasya of a different order. This is no ordinary religious ritual. Jambavana presents a radical challenge: Rama must arrive at his own original conception of Shakti. It must not be a borrowed image, a received tradition, or a scripted dogma; it must be a power realised through the labour of his own spirit. Rama accepts. He must imagine power anew.
As the rite nears its end, Rama prepares to offer the last of one hundred and eight blue lotuses. But Durga, playing a divine and testing game, steals the final flower. Faced with the prospect of an incomplete sacrifice and certain defeat, Rama sinks into a final dark night of the soul. Then, a memory flickers: his mother once called him ‘rajīva-nayana’ – the lotus-eyed one. If the flower is missing, he will offer his own eye.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
