“The Chains of Tradition: Death, Caste and the Question of Dharma.”

# The Chains of Tradition: Death, Caste and the Question of Dharma

*Diary Entry — 2017*

Death will come surely. The only challenge lies in dying with the assurance that life was not meaningless.

At the end of the journey within yourself, you know how good or bad you have been. You feel contentment as you reach the final destination if you look back and see your contribution to others' happiness.

In the last twenty years, there have been a few instances of honour killings in the surrounding villages for crimes as small as a little fun a boy enjoys hundreds and hundreds of times a day.

There are seven thousand villages in Haryana. Hardly any of them goes without an honour killing now and then. But it is just hushed up.

It makes thousands of girls martyrs in the name of patriarchy.

The girls and women of Haryana have sacrificed their lives to claim freedom, like wearing jeans and enjoying a little fun in life.

Buddha said that the meat of a dead animal can be consumed. The cobblers, the people belonging to leather-working communities, used to eat the meat of dead animals. So no wonder they were a historically very disadvantaged and unprivileged section of society, and they were assimilated into Buddhism right from the beginning.

Another point is the Brahmanical acceptance of Buddha but rejection of his ideology.

There is a story about God sending Buddha to Earth to spread heresy so that hell, where there was nobody, while heaven was full, could get its population of evildoers.

So that was the story spread by some zealot in Brahmanism.

Then there is the Brahmanical acceptance of Ravidas as a saint.

The fable goes like this: He was a disciple of Ramananda in a previous birth, and a Brahmin.

He got prasad for Thakurji from a Baniya who traded with the cobblers. So he was punished.

And after his death, he took birth in a cobbler's house.

But as a Brahmin soul, he refused his cobbler mother's milk.

Ramananda recognised him and blessed him.

So that shows the caste rigidities followed by Brahmanism: that to attain liberation, you have to have a Brahmin soul, predominantly.

Because they had accepted Ravidas as an enlightened soul, but still they attributed it to the fact that he was previously a Brahmin who had been penalised for breaking the injunctions.

And in this birth, he was born in a cobbler's house, but he refused to feed on his mother's milk.

The commerce and caste system of Brahmanical Hinduism have been smartly maintained through myths, fables, rituals and the stoking of fears.

Osho Rajneesh often rubbed shoulders with Brahmanical Hinduism. He was a big critic of hardcore, ritual-based religion.

He tried to puncture the myth of a golden Brahmanical past.

A few points that he raised in his preachings are as follows:

1. **Racism:** The practice of keeping women whom you purchase as brides or wives, but whose children cannot inherit the property.

2. **The Ramayana:** Lord Ram ordered molten lead to be poured into the ears of a Shudra who had committed the sin of listening to the Vedas.

3. **Dharmaraj Yudhishthira:** Yudhishthira, whom we take to be the beacon of righteousness, plays poker and puts his wife at stake. So somebody who claims to be an epitome of dharma pawns away his wife.

4. **Arjuna and Draupadi:** Arjuna shares his wife with his brothers, which Osho says was most probably not as per the consent of the woman, who had only one husband in mind.

5. **Kanyadaan:** You offer your daughter as *daan*, charity, in marriage.

6. **Brahmagyani Bhishma:** Bhishma lowers his head while a woman is being disrobed in full assembly.

7. **Dronacharya and Eklavya:** Drona thought Arjuna would be the world's best archer, and it would fetch him glory. So, in order to accomplish that, he got Eklavya's right-hand thumb cut off. Later, when he saw that all factors were indicative of a Kaurava win, he fought for them.

8. **Ram and Sita:** Ram banished the pregnant mother Sita. He also asked her to undergo Agni Pariksha.

9. **Parashuram:** Parashuram slaying Rajputs and beheading his mother.