This is our sacred land, Bharat, a land whose glories are
sung by the gods-
(The men born in the land of Bharat, the gateway to heavens
and salvation, are more blessed than the gods themselves-so
sing the gods.)
-a land visualised by Mahayogi Aurobindo as the living
manifestation of the Divine Mother of the universe, the
Jaganmata, the Adishakti, the Mahamaya and the Mahadurga,
Who has assumed concrete form to enable us to see Her and
worship Her,
-a land eulogised by our philosopher-poet Rabindranath
Tagore as:
(The enchanting Goddess of the world………….. Her feet washed
by the blue waters of the oceans),
-a land saluted by the inspired poet of freedom, Bankim
Chandra, in his immortal song Vande Mataram, which spurred
thousands of young hearts to cheerfully ascend the gallows
in the cause of her liberty, as
(Thou art the Great Destroyer armed with ten weapons),
-a land worshipped by all our seers and sages as Matrubhoomi,
Dharmabhoomi, Karmabhoomi and punyabhoomi, a veritable
Devabhoomi and Mokshabhoomi,
-a land which has been to us since hoary times the beloved
and sacred Bharat Mata whose very name floods our hearts
with waves of pure and sublime devotion to her,
-well, this is the mother of us all, our glorious motherland.
Motherland-Ancient Concept
In fact, the very name ‘Bharat’ denotes that this is our
mother. In our cultural tradition, the respectful way of
calling a woman is by her child’s name. To call a lady as
the wife of Mr. so-and-so or as Mrs. so-and-so is the
Western way. We say, "She is Ramu’s mother". So also is the
case with the name ‘Bharat’ for our motherland. Bharata is
an elder brother of ours, born long long before us. He was
a noble, virtuous and victorious king and a shining model
of Hindu manhood. When a woman has more than one child, we
call her by the name of her eldest or the most well known
among her children. Bharata was well known and this land was
called as his mother, Bharat, the mother of all Hindus.
But there are persons who say that Hindus did not know what
motherland was, that they were all divided into various
warring clans, that patriotism, i.e., devotion to one
single motherland, was unknown to them and if at all they
were to a certain extent devoted, it was only to certain
fragments of the land and not to the country as a whole
from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, as we obtain it at
present. Even leading persons of the day often declare that
ours is a ‘continent’ or a ‘ sub-continent’ having various
climates and various kinds of soil with a conglomeration of
nations and therefore unfit to be called a single country.
How did these queer notions creep into our national mind?
It was the wily foreigner, the Britisher, who to achieve
his ulterior imperialistic motives, set afloat all such
mischievous notions among our people so that the sense of
patriotism and duty towards the integrated personality of
our motherland was corroded. He carried on an insidious
propaganda that we were never one nation, that we were never
the children of the soil, but mere upstarts having no better
claims than the foreign hordes of the Muslims or the British
over this country. The misfortune is that the so-called
educated of this land were taken in by this ruse.
But the fact is, long before the West had learnt to eat
roast meat instead of raw, we were one nation, with one
motherland.
(Over all the land up to the oceans, one nation)
is the trumpet cry of the Vedas. Asetu-Himachal – from the Setu
to the Himalayas-has had been our clear concept down these
ages. Long ago our forefathers sang:
(The land to the north of the oceans and south of the
Himalayas is called Bharatavarsha, and Bharatis are her
children.)
The Great Himalayas
The entire Himalayas with all their branches and sub-branches
extending to the North, South, East and West, with the
territories included in these great branches, have been
ours-not merely the Southern lap of the mountains. It is
sheer practical common sense-apart from religious or other
sentiments-that no powerful and wise nation would make the
top of the mountains its boundary. That would be suicidal.
Our ancestors had instituted some of our places of pilgrimage
on the northern side of the Himalayas making those regions
our live boundary. Tibet, i.e., Trivishtap-now called ‘a
Chinese province’ by our leaders!-was the land of gods and
Kailas , the abode of Parameshwara, the Supreme Lord.
Manasarovar was another holy centre of pilgrimage
looked upon as the source of our sacred rivers like Ganga,
Sindhu and Brahmaputra.
Kalidasa, our great national poet, has described the
Himalayas as:
(At the North is the divine Himalayas, the King of
mountains, stretching its arms to the ocean on the
east and west and standing as the measuring rod of the earth.)
Chanakya, who has been held an authority on our
political science, has stated:
(To the north of the oceans up to the Himalayas, the
country is 1000 yojanas in length.)
That only means, the poet Kalidasa’s description tallies
with the statesman Chanakya’s statement in giving us a
fairly correct picture of the vastness of our motherland.
The Grand picture
Our epics and our puranas also present us with the same
expansive image of our motherland. Afghanistan was our
ancient Upaganasthan. Shalya of the Mahabharata came from
there. The modern Kabul and Kandahar were Gandhar from where
Kaurava’s mother Gandhari came. Even Iran was originally
Aryan. Its previous king Reza Shah Pehlavi was guided more
by Aryan values than by Islam. Zend Avesta, the holy
scripture of Parsis, is mostly Atharva Veda. Coming
to the east, Burma is our ancient Brahmadesha. The
Mahabharata refers to Iraavat, the modern Irrawady valley,
as being involved in that great war. It also refers to Assam
as Pragjyotisha since the sun first rises there. In the South,
Lanka has had the closest links and was never considered as
anything different from the mainland.
It was this picture of our motherland with the Himalayas
dipping its arms in the two seas, at Aryan (Iran) in the
West and at Sringapur (Singapore) in the East, with
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) as a lotus petal offered at her
sacred feet by the Southern Ocean, that was constantly kept
radiant in people’s mind for so many thousands of years.
Even to this day a Hindu while taking his daily bath invokes
the sacred rivers right from Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari,
Saraswati, Narmada and Sindhu to Cauvery.
This is also a lesson in devotion, because we are made to
feel that even a drop of water from these holy rivers has
the potency of wiping out all our sins.
One of the greatest personalities who have left an
indelible stamp upon character and culture of our people
is Sri Ramachandra. His great qualities like tranquillity,
catholicity, depth of knowledge and feelings are held
comparable to the immeasurable depth and serenity of the
ocean, and his indomitable valour and fortitude are compared
to the great and invincible Himalayas-
Do we not know that our motherland is bounded on one side
by the Himalayas and the rest of the three sides by the
ocean ? The entire motherland has been thus visualised in
its fullness in the ideal personality of Sri Rama. Various
are the ways in which this motherland of ours has been set
forth as an object of worship, whole and integrated. Any
idea of fragmentation has been intolerable to us.
The Chosen Land
The entire land to us is tapobhoomi. There is an
illuminating incident in our ancient literature.
A question was once raised as to which land was pure and
holy for practising tapas and performing sacrifices so as
to bear proper fruit, and which was the ideal place for
the realisation of the Ultimate Reality. The answer
given there is, the land where Krishnasara-mriga is
found is the only suitable land for that purpose. Any
student of zoology can tell you that this particular type
of deer is to be found only in our country and nowhere else
in the world. What does it show? Our forefathers were of the
conviction that throughout the world this is the holiest of
the lands where the least merit will bear fruit a hundred or
thousand-fold. Swami Vivekananda has said, "If there is any
land on this earth that can lay claim to be the blessed
Punyabhoomi, to be the land to which every soul that is
wending its way Godward must come to attain its last home,
it is Bharat."
This is verily the chosen land of God Realisation.
This is not mere sentimental effusion, but our deep-rooted
conviction. Some years ago our newspapers had flashed
the story of a German who came to our land as a spiritual
aspirant. He embraced sanyas and underwent the stern
austerities of an all-renouncing ascetic. But even after
prolonged penance he could not realise God. On a searching
self-enquiry he was convinced that his body, born and bred
in the passionate climate of the West, was unfit for God
Realisation. He therefore went to Haridwar and gave up
his body in the holy Ganga. He left a note stating,
"I am
giving up the body of my own accord. May the offering of
my body in the sacred waters of Ganga merit me with a
rebirth in Bharat and with that new chaste body I may be
able to realise God."
We come to the same conclusion regarding this special
feature of our motherland if we study the lives of the
founders of the various other faiths and sects in the world.
Even in the case of the great saint, Jesus Christ, nowhere
is there any reference that he had actually seen God. He
had only come across angels and once Satan. When put on the
Cross, he was even tormented for a moment by a doubt regarding
the mercy of God and he exclaimed, "My God, why hast thou
forsaken me?"
The founder of Islam, too, was a powerful man.
He could unite those people, torn asunder by feuds and
factions, and roused in them the urge and the organised
power to build empires. But even he met only Gabriel and
felt he heard some divine voices, that is all. He did not
see God face to face.
It was given to the great sons of this soil to see and
realise God in His full effulgence. At a time when other
races had not yet emerged from their caves and forests,
the Vedic Rishis addressed mankind as the children of
Immortal Bliss-
and declared in thundering tones:
(I have seen that Great One, Iustrous and beyond all
darkness. Having known Him, man is emancipated from the
cycle of birth and death, there is no other way to final
salvation.)
There is no parallel in the rest of the world literature
to these expressions for their supreme self-confidence and
self-realisations. Again nowhere else can you find the
parallel of a Sri Krishna who speaks in the first person
‘I’ as God Himself in His immortal soul-stirring call to
mankind-the Bhagavad-Gita.
Tradition Continues
Nor is this unique feature of our land confined to ancient
tradition only. Even in modern times there is the instance of
Narendra’s (later, Swami Vivekananda) historic meeting with Sri
Ramkrishna. As a young and brilliant college student, he had
already dived deep into the philosophies of the East and the
West. But his questioning spirit was not satisfied. He met
various learned and pious men of his time. Even they could not
quench his spiritual thirst. He came to know that there was a
paramahamsa (liberated soul) in the temple of Dakshineswar. He
went to him and bluntly posed him the question that had haunted
him for years: "Sir’ have you seen God?" Sri Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa replied without a moment’s hesitation: " Yes,
I see Him just as I see you here, only in a much more intense
degree. And I can show Him to you also." And Sri Ramakrishna
fulfilled his promise to Narendra.
As we know, Narendra was a modern young man with a towering
intellect and tremendous will-power. He was not the type to be
mesmerised or hypnotised into blindly believing things. But
he could not help being convinced about the reality of God
when brought face to face with God Himself. Such is the living
tradition of men of God, who have continuously held aloft the
name of our land as the land of God Realisation, as
Dharmabhoomi, as Mokshabhoomi.
No wonder that such a land with divinity ingrained in every
speck of its dust, has been to us the holiest of the holy,
the centre of our utmost devotion. And this devotion is felt
for the whole of the land and not for any fraction of it.
The worshipper of Shiva goes from Kashi to Rameshwaram, and
the devotee of Vishnu in His various forms and Incarnations
travels the whole length and breadth of this country. If he
is an advaiti, the four ashrams of Shankaracharya standing as
sentinels beckon him to the four corners of the country. If
he is a Shakta, the worshipper of Shakti-the Divine Mother of
the Universe-fifty-two are the places of his pilgrimage
spreading from Hingula in Baluchistan to Kamakhya in Assam
and Jwalamukhi in Himachal Pradesh to Kanyakumari in the
South. It only means that this land is the divine
manifestation of the Mother of the Universe.
The Divine Mother
Nothing can be holier to us than this land.
Every particle of dust, everything living or non-living,
every stock and stone, tree and rivulet of this land is
holy to us. To keep this intense devotion ever alive in the
heart of every child of this soil, so many procedures and
conventions were established here in the past. The various
religious rites invariably included a description of the spot
in relation to the entire expanse of Bharatavarsha-
All our important religious ceremonies start with
bhoomi-poojan-worship of earth. There is a custom that
as soon as a Hindu wakes up in the morning, he begs
forgiveness of the Mother Earth because he cannot help
touching Her with his feet throughout the day.
(O Mother, the Divine Consort of Almighty, with ocean as
Thy embroidery and mountains as Thy breasts, forgive me
for touching Thee with my feet.)
A simple act indeed, but it brings home to our minds every
morning the idea of devotion for this motherland as the
sublimated devotion to the Divine Mother. This training
has gone so deep that even in ordinary day-to-day affairs
we often come across a flash of that realisation. When a
child at play tramples on the ground, the mother says,
"Do not kick the Mother Earth, dear child." Or if a nail
is driven into the earth wantonly, she says, "Oh, no! Dear
child, Mother will be pained. " An ordinary farmer, too,
before applying the plough to the soil, prays for a pardon.
Such is our living tradition.
Never, never has our land been dead inanimate matter, but
always the living divine mother to all her children-the
lowliest and the greatest.
Swami Vivekananda, when about to leave England for Bharat,
was asked what he thought of his motherland after having
visited the luxuriant countries of the West like America
and England. He said, "Bharat, I loved before. But now every
particle of dust in Bharat is extremely holy. It has become a
place of pilgrimage for me."
There is one more touching instance of Swamiji when he
returned to our motherland after his triumphant tour of the
West. A vast assembly of our countrymen eagerly awaited to
offer a hero’s welcome to him. When the Swamiji alighted from
the ship and stepped on the Southern shores, a thunderous
ovation greeted him. However, the people were amazed to see
Swamiji prostrating on the ground and showering his body with the dust of the soil. To the surprised query of some one, Swamiji explained: "My body has been so long in the materialistic countries of the West and hence has become contaminated. I am therefore purifying myself with the dust of this holy soil."
And his guru Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa once severely
admonished a person who was going to Ganga to wash himself
after answering nature’s call. He said, "How unbecoming of you
to pollute the divine waters of Ganga-Gangavari
brahmavari-with your dirt!"
Such has been the living realisation of the glorious
motherhood of our land inculcated by her great sons, which
has permeated into all strata of our people.
She has been, in fact, the central theme of our national
life all through. She has nourished us as the mother with
her soil, air and water and all the various necessary objects
for our sustenance and happiness. Like a father she has
arranged protection to us through impregnable Himalayas
in the north, and mountain ranges like Aravali, Vindhya
and Sahyadri interspersed all over the country that
afforded our freedom-fighters protection and shelter
in the past. And she has acted as our spiritual preceptor
too in her capacity as Dharmabhoomi and Mokshabhoomi.
Verily, our motherland has been a mother, a father
and a teacher-mata, pita and guru – all rolled in to one.
