Vikramshila: A Long Poem

Vikramshila: A Long Poem Preface Vikramshila is one of the older topics which I sought to dwell upon earlier, but the lack of records could not permit me to do it earlier, as liked I to visit the place before jotting it down, so the poem could not materialize and my images too could not take wings. I too had been struggling for my poetry and really had been in trouble. Even I had left the hope of living, as I continued to be sick and ailing, disturbed and exhausted completely. Nothing seemed to bail me out. Serious studies seemed to be baffling in the lack of resources available to me. Poverty in the midst of plenty had been the case of our family. People too were not there to support me. Even without any grant and aid, I went on studying and laboring, pursuing my serious studies at the risk of living. Whatever be that, the small book of verse is before you to see and peruse as the fulfillment of my long-cherished dream coming to a standstill. The word ‘Vikramshila' itself is just like the toll of a bell as I am so much drawn towards as it so closer to my heart. A Buddhist vihara, one of the citadels of ancient learning, it is still resplendent in our hearts as the spirit of it invincible, indomitable whoever tries to wipe out the relics and memoirs of its legacy and standing will feel befooled ultimately. Vikramshila is Vikramshila, was it so in the past, will remain in future too, however be the nomadic tribe barbaric and brutal in attacking and raiding it. But the pleasure is mine that I have finally turned out successful in giving poetic touches to my long-cherished, ever nourished dream of putting the idea into a poetical reality and the aftermath of it is this that the long poem is before you to go through and browse in the form of a historical poem. But my efforts will be rewarding only then when the readers will like it. I am just putting it before them to adjudge and assess it as a work of literature based on history. - - - Author Vikramshila Vikramshila the Buddhist monastery, Mahavihara Talk I, dream I In my poesy, Vikramshila its heyday Full of hectic activity, Vikramshila in the ruins Telling of the raids And the plight thereafter And of an age bygone Of splendor and excellence. The two-terraced stupa, the gate, The fort-like projections, The cells, the housing complex Residential, The walls with the murals, The terracotta plates, Sculptures and figurines, Carvings beautiful and decorating, Surrounded by innumerable temples, But the main stupa aloft And the mandapa to reach. I see the monastery in ruins And think about the builders, The masons at work, The planners and the architects, Kingly orders and their presence, Who had been he, How the people of his, What the faith, How the teachers and pupils, Indian and foreigner? People would have seen the students Coming from Tibet, China, Mongolia, Siam, Farmosa, Cambodia, Myanmar, The North-east, The Indo-Chinese, the Tibeto-Chinese From the Himalayan kingdoms And across the ranges When darkness would not have set in To grip in. Introduction Vikramshila as a long poem is the outcome of my sittings based on my readings of history, Indian history, art and culture, my comprehension of it and its assimilation into the poetic spirit culminating which I have striven to give touches to and to put down while imagining about, dreaming and culling facts to hinge upon. Rightly said, the child is father of man, and the images and habits formed in childhood haunt a being till manhood still holds true in this context of delving and deliberation. I shall feel happy if the destroyed and devastated varsities of India are refurbished and refurnished in the same architectural get-up and maintenance, a replicating of the replicas as to turn into the places of museum studies and historical researches. Medieval Indian history you accept it or not is the darkest period of Indian history when the lamp of light extinguished it, leaving us to grope in darkness, when the purdah system uprooted it all that was good in our society. Religious fanaticism and blindness seconded by bigotry, orthodoxy and conservatism wreaked havoc and we failed to distinguish light from darkness. Without thinking about scansion and prosody, I have structured it as they came to the stanzas of verse, floating and flowing in their own way, with the dreamy glides and launches of mine fed up with historical facts and truths. The small text is into the hands to see with what angle the book has been written, what the perspective and dimension it, the spectrum and assimilation doing the rounds herein. I never could imagine that I would be able to do a booklet of verse on it. But the Almighty wished it otherwise, choosing me to dispense the job and I did it rightly. It is not at all acceptable to us if the invaders invade India to have their sway, mind and mentality over the populace who could have driven them so easily had they been united, but never did we do as it is not in our blood. - - - Author Vikramshila The ancient seat of learning, The mahavihara Of monistic Buddhism, Mahayana concept With the strupa Two-terraced In a cruciform And the square complex Surrounded by The temples With the terracotta plaques And the entry gates With the gate scholars To be laid in To be taught. Vikramshila, The Buddhist varsity, The ancient of learning, Historical and antique Founded during the time of The Pala King Dharmapal Now lying in ruins As for medievaistic raids And destruction. I think How they would have raided The complex, Would have toppled, How the scholars would have Fled and taken refuge Or subjugated, Absconding and deserting Or giving life. How the barbarians, The fanatics and blind bigots As the foreigner barbaric hordes Would have damaged and destroyed it Vikramshila, The ancient seat of learning, The centre of Buddhist studies, Vajrayana Buddhism. 1 Were they not educated, Not civilized and cultured, Isn't it, Isn't it, say you, Were they barbaric, brutal and bloody That destroyed they, Destroyed they, Vikramshila, A central university Which drew students from far, Unheard places even then When darkness persisted in? Were, were they not educated, Cultured, cultured And civilized, I mean uncivilized and uncultured, Were, were they barbarians, Just barbarians, Bloody, brutal and bestial, Were, were they medieval And superstitious? Whose sons had they been, Whose, whose, Why, why so dark and desolate Seeing not the light, The light of hope and education, Whose lineage, heritage Was it in them? How, how had it been the hordes, The nomadic tribes With the horses galloping, Galloping with the hooves, Warring and destroying, Raiding and raiding And destroying, How, how the nomadic tribes Medievalistic and dark? I just think, think, Dream, dream about The time of the raid, I think, think, Just think about The plight of the scholars and students, The hordes looting, plundering and destroying. 2 The organization orderly From the dwarpapala interviewers To bhikus To punditas To mahapunditas To upadhyayas or acharyas To the adhyaksha. A red-shaped, Saffron or ochre-coloured complex Sprawling over a wider landscape Into the midst of nature And natural surroundings, Hilly and by the banks of the river Ganges A Buddhist centre. The teachers taught it Subjects like philosophy, grammar, Metaphysics, Indian logic, In addition to Tantrism Whose seat was it really, They taught it Buddhist studies, The forms and trends of it. A seat of Tantric Buddhism It was stupendous, A centre of the learning of yore With the supposed to be A huge temple, adorned with A life-size copy of the Mahabodhi tree And approximately 108 temples constructed around it, Out of which, almost 53 temples dedicated To the study of the Guhyasamaja Tantra. As it is said With the statues of Nagarjuna and Atisa Dipankara At the entrances of the main temple. I see the mahavihara and its ruins And think about The dome and the square, The building complex And the use of small bricks, red soil, Plastering and painting, Fittings with the murals, Sculptures and figurines, The terracotta plates Telling of an age gone by. 3 The ruins of the Vikramshila Mahavihara Dug out and excavated, The ancient seat of learning, A Buddhist university emerging out From the mound of good earth Lying unattended and unknown, Hidden from the pages of history. I see the university and think about The square, The temple and the housing complex For both The acharyas and the bhikkus Housing them circularly, Adjacent to And opening up and unfolding to The hall of prayer With their meditational cells Private and personal sometimes. Vikramshila, The shisyas going to, On their way to the mahavihara From far-flung parts, Tibet and its beyond, Just imagine you, Think you When the motorable ways Were not, When the roads too were not Many. How had been it, How, The seat of learning, The ancient varsity Stood it Offering Education and knowledge, How, How did it! 4 Vikramshila the Buddhist vihara Think I, Imagine I, The ancient seat of learning, Flourishing at a time, Imparting education to, Knowledge and light Just as a citadel, A light house. The main stupa at the centre of the monastery Built for the purpose of worship Is a brick structure Laid in mud mortar Lies it two-terraced In a cruciform, 15 metres high from the ground level. The lower terrace about 2.25 metres high From the ground And the upper too the same From the lower level With the path Cutting across To reach the topmost Through a flight of stairs. One among Nalanda, Odantapuri, Somapura, Jagaddala universities, Vikramshila flourished at a time When we could not have imagined The worth and excellence, People forgot it The history and tradition For fear of raids and incursions. But finally it fell into the hands Of the barbaric invaders, Plunderers, Into the uncouth hands Of the medievalist raiders, Intruders intruding upon, Pouncing upon to destroy And finish it all What good it was in civilization. 5 The barbaric hordes came in, Raided and plundered And looted they The treasure, Tarnishing and ravishing it all, Throwing and destroying What it was good in them, Killing and murdering the priests And the disciples, The bloody barbarians Uncivilized and uncultured. Vikramshila, The Buddhist monastery, The mahavihara, The ancient varsity of learning, I see the ruins And think of its heyday, The people coming from Far off places, Wanting to learn Buddha and Buddhism. They coming from far off, Traversing the impregnable domain and terrains, The acharyas and bhikkus In search of knowledge and wisdom Learning, Reaching Vikramshila To get light And to give light To others. Had the Tibetan scholar Taranath not Written about, Had it not been in Tibetan And other texts, What we would we have about Our history and culture, Art and tradition? In search of Buddhist texts and references, The readings and writings Of the Buddhists, Where to move to, Where to search for, How to know the languages Not known? 6 How did they remain cut out And unknown From the circuit of ours, Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh And Sikkim And Tibet? How did the bhikkhus kept Coming and going, Passing through valleys wild, Hilly terrains, Densely forested, I think, Think, The shisyas of Buddha From China, Tibet? And all through the medieval times, The dark age Of superstitions and purdah, The lamp of light extinguished it And languished we in darkness, Believing blindly, Unreasonably As lost we reasoning power, The logical faculty. Buddha, Buddha And his Buddhism, What could we know about, What, what could we feel about Buddha, Buddha And his Buddhism! Leave the disruptive things, The fissiparous tendencies, What drew the daggers drawn In bad blood and animosity As we too tried to impose one's thoughts Upon another Rather secularly. 7 India is India, The land of Rama and Krishna, Buddha and Mahavira, Sufis and missionaries, The sadhus and sadhakas, Leave you not its legacy And heritage, Sidetrack you not! Had there been someone Who would have enlightened upon The topic, Had there been some about The times full of the activity Of the acharyas and the bhikkus, Has someone come from, But alas, there is none! Holding the hand, I would have asked him About Vikramshila, Had there been some guest from, I would have, Would have All about Vikramshila, The great centre of learning. How had it been the routes of then, Wherefrom they used to come And go by, Crossing over the rivers and the hills, Returning back to the Northeast Or through it to Tibet And the territories beyond Leading to China, Myanmar, Mongolia, Siberia? O Bakhtiyar, destroying the varsities, What did, Did you get, Slaying the monks, The disciples Running for cover Helter-skelter, You rascal, Tomnoddy! 8 Murdering the bhikkus, Acharyas, Burning books and manuscripts, Texts, What did you, Did you, Balkhtiyar, Burning the library, Destroying the varsity? The acharyas running for cover, Running helter-skelter, The disciples too, The acharyas and bhikkus, How painful would it have been, How pathetic, A bigot, zealot driving them away, How idiot was he! The forces in attack, The nomadic people, The medieval tribe With swords and spears And lances, Slaying acharyas, Punditas And bhikkus And the blood spilling Would have drenched The vihara! Bakhtiyar, history will not pardon, Pardon you, Bakhtiyar, Bloody bastard, You, Bakhtiyar, History will not pardon you, Bakhtiyar, As a fanatic stand you, An illiterate and uncivilized fellow! Karma is dharma, What you do so will reap you, You would have definitely got What you did Which but the people it not, Bakhtiyar, a sinner will to sin, But to heaven. 9 Bakhtiyar, your cruel and callous people Will remain cruel, The bloody bloody, Can never be good Samaritans, Charitable and philanthropic, Merciful and kind, The bigotic bigotic. The history of earth will not remain static, It keeps changing, Where it is golden statues Earthed into the foundation Of the mouldering heaps Of the fallen temples, Who can but say it, Where is it diamond Lying? History, Medieval history, Is it of plunderers, Looters, Nomadic tribes and ruffians, The bloody people Raiding, intruding upon, Killing mercilessly, Even not sparing the universities? But wait, wait for, They will, They will be punished, Will get retribution, Wait, wait you for, Their doom is pertinent, Imminent, Their Judgement Day yet to. Mark it, mark, The victory of the sword Last it not, The victory of The sword dangling, Clashing, clinking with, The bloody will remain bloody, The bastard bastard, Those who nurture it not love For art and craft. 10 Those who are not civilized, Those who are not cultured, Illiterate and uneducated, Underdeveloped, Nomadic and medievalistic, What, what to say about them, Those, those people Filled not with the milk of human kindness, Those, those who? They are not men, men Who kill it mercilessly, Slay it, Believing in the victory of the sword, The might of strength, The strength of the muscle power, All those ruffians And illiterate people Believing in prowess Those are not men, men. They are not at all men, Men, Who spare it not the varsities The centres of excellence, Learning, The varsities extraordinary Attracting students from far, Overseas, They are not men, men, But animals, animals. The invaders from Central Asia, The nomadic tribes, They could never know, Know The spirit of culture, Art and philosophy The nomadic races, The ethnic tribes Callous and hardhearted, Bloody and brutal. 11 The people of deserts and barren lands Know it not What it is in culture, What it in civilization And refinement, The people of the deserts, The rough and tough people, The invaders invading, Destroying culture. The intruders intruding upon, The looters looting, The plunderers plundering, The sinners sinful, The culprits guilty, Those of guilty conscience, The criminals bloody, Even failing animals In brutality, bestiality. Vikramshila as I saw you, As see I The university, The ancient varsity Attracting students from far, The Northeast, Skkim, Tibet, China, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, Korea. Vikramshila, Vikramshila, How the history of it, How the time When stood it As a structure, A specimen of architectural, Sculptural specimen, Vikramshila, Vikramshila With the history and tradition of its own! 12 A centre for Vajrayana Tantric preceptors engaged the space, Buddhajñānapād to be followed In succession one by one Or to be taken together collectively, Dīpaṁkarabhadra, Jayabadhra, Śrīdhara, Bhavabhaṭṭa, Bhavyakīrti, Līlavājra, Durjaychandra, Samayavajra, Tathāgatarakhhit, Bodhibhadra, Kamalrakhhit. Vikramshila The ruins of it show The flaunting campus of it, 100 acres in its radius and circumference, A university with The main stupa, Two terraces, The side cells And ante-chambers, The terraces sculpted with Opening to the hall To the main stupa With the stuccos of Buddha. Vikrmasjhila, Vikramshila, The idea, The image, The reflection, The dream, The aspiration, Hiding them Going, But where, Ask you not, As don't know, Where am I really, I can't say them As I myself know it not? 13 Well, if they have broken, Broken and destroyed, Ravaged and ravished, Let it be, Let it As there is nothing that lasts it here, There nothing is permanent. If things have been destroyed, Destroyed and deserted, Let it be, Let it As they have been, Can never be reverted back, Restored and renovated As it was. The history of the earth is so, As it was, As it will remain, The history of earth, The history of time And history of nature And man, Strange is it, The history of the earth. Iconoclasm, Iconoclasm, The university razed to the ground, The university which it held its sway over, National not, Of international fame Was razed to the ground, Vikramshila, Vikramshila Lay hidden in earth For ages and ages. But it too was made from the good earth, Cutting the boulders Or from brick laying, Bricks baked, Hills overran And the making took a toll upon Mother Nature, Good Earth, Nature and its surroundings. 14 So let it be, Let it be, Let us forget all that it happened, As it happens, happens, Here we have to live, Here to die, Where to go, When man dies everything detaches it, Degenerates and disintegrates. Creation and destruction are two sides, Aspects of nature, Which will go Turn by turn, The creative process too continue And the destructive too will Keep following, Creation and destruction side by side. One day I too shall not be In this world, Shall go away And it is also side by side correct What I have That is in others too, This is just I have got to flourish and flower But their genius has not, I am not only talented But they too are. One day if I shall not What to say, What to say about it, Leaving it all I myself shall go away Then What to talk of, My things will remain they here, My things mundane. Closing the eyes, I shall bid goodbye forever, Allowing me to go, Asking you to pray for God-speed, I shall be heavenwards Leaving it all here my mundane things. 15 Becoming a child again I shall go to Vikramshila To read, Get education from Sleeping in my cell Of the square Housing the bhikkus, Shall rise to the upper terrace To reach the main stupa. As a child I shall go to Vikramshila As do go the rural boys and girls To schools In torn and stitched frocks and shorts Running under a tree With the knapsacks and slates And lime stick pencils To read and write. So wide campus Built from red bricks and mud mortar, With the paintings decorating The walls, The two-terraced square With the flight of stairs To reach the mandapa And the main stupa To pray. I shall start for In the simple shorts and shirt Of mine Bare-footed With the jute knapsack To sit upon And the broken slate And the lime pencil To reach Vikramshila To study. Living at Vikramshila, I shall see the varsity complex, The design and planning of it, Who the planners were, How was it, Who the artisans and artistes At work, How the king supervising or ordering? 16 With Vikramshila in mind and heart And the images hidden, Keep I gliding, Taking imaginary flights, The canvas taking the photo Of the site, The landscape of the ancient varsity That was Vikramshila. The photo of the square Engaging and befitting, The stupa, the votive stupas around, The mandapa, the murals, The terracotta art, The small brick work, The red painting really extraordinary With the images of bhikkus and acharyas Conjuring upon. The walls of both the terraces are decorated With sculptures and figurines Denoting motifs, The terracotta art, The plaques depicting Buddha, Avalokiteshwara, Manjusri, Maitreya, Jambala, Marichi, Tara And the Nath deities, Adinath, Vishnu, Paddabati, Parvati, Ardhanarisvara. The human and animal figures Of ascetics, devotees, preachers, Drummers, warriors, archers, Charmers, Monkeys, elephants, panthers, Horses, deer, boars, Lions, wolves and birds Can be seen over them. Apart from Buddhist studies, Buddha and Buddhism, The curriculum included it the study of Vedic texts, ritual And Vedangas, Linguistics, reasoning, law, Astronomy and city-planning. 17 An Afterthought After having written Vikramshila, I want to work upon the rest universities of ancient India lying in ruins, imagining about their heyday and relevance. This is the first of its kind which I dreamt so long ago, but the idea could not materialize as for different reasons. Actually, I wanted to have a vis-à-vis with the relics and ruins of the historical structure, but it was not in my lot. I went nearer to that place, but could not to the site. Takshila had been the first choice of mine, but far, far away from. Again thought I of Nalanda standing at a distance from my place of birth and posting too. The historical poems have a beauty of their own which but the people with interest in heritage and culture will like it. The commoners may not as these vary from man to man and his taste. Vikramshila here is my love of history and culture, heritage and legacy, tradition and temperament. Though one may call Vikramshila a poem based on history, but in reality it is my assimilation of classicism and the classical elements have been endowed upon no doubt. When I take the imaginary flights those hinge upon the element of romanticism, but when detail I in the light of scholarship, study and rumination that is but the whiff of classicism just like the golden wheat ears glistening in the sunlight. Admonishing Vedanto-Upanishadism, I am here in search of the excavated things to view in wonder and astonishment rather than taking it otherwise. Let the world know that a university was there named Vikramshila just like Nalanda. Taxila too had been grand, but it is now a lost tradition. But poetic justice will not excuse the barbarians, mediaevalists who ravished and razed them to the ground. History will never forgive those bloody people and they will remain in the pages of history not as the makers, but as the destroyers, not as the civilized and cultured people but as the uncouth and dirty people. The nomadic tribes which looted, plundered, devastated and ravished the wealth and treasure had no love in their heart for the rich glory of India and the centres of learning they never feel about. They were in reality looters, plunderers, invaders, raiders, not at all the lovers of art and literature. The mediaevalist people were devilish and satanic from their within and were fanatical, dead to logic and reasoning. Had they hammered at our social evils and the superstitious beliefs, it would have been their great contribution. But they did not do it. They just tried to impose their thought and idea upon the vanquished people, but had the divided Indians fought, they would have driven them out. The destruction of Takshila, the burning and loot of the varsity is a black spot on the forehead of the man who did it. Should a university be destroyed? , is the thing to be felt. How would they have raided? How would the devils and satanic people have planned for the loot and plunder? The ruins tell the plight of the imagery lying buried in the bed of earth. Had it been not earthed, they would not have left it too. My question is, were they barbarians, those from the nomadic races, the desert lands or bivouac people living under tents or in camps? Who were they? Were they not civilized, not at all cultured that burnt they books, desecrated faith, murdered and plundered it to miseries beyond? The Art & Craft Without opting for any structural rhyme or length, prosodic and rhetorical, the poem which is before you has been jotted down in an extempore style of writing. There is not a manual copy of it too as the poem has been typed directly on the computer keyboard. As a poet, I am not of any binding and the same liberative spirit has been used in to denote the things under deliberation. The verse-stanzas naturally tumble down one after another and the flow continues it till the matter exhausts it not, the ideas used in. Some of the stanzas are longer, some shorter and some of a medium standard whereas some have been just adjusted with to fill in the gaps it therein. It is a meaningful poem and there is nothing as terse and tedious if one knows the history of India. Actually, the work hinges on archaeological explorations and excavations, historical facts and findings which but form the crux and thematic substance of it, but in reality the imaginative side has played a part in making it successful. Writing it, I feel it quite satisfied, as it has fulfilled my long-cherished dream of taking to Vikramshila which I promised to give long back in the eighties, but something ordained me otherwise and I felt sick and ailing seriously and had even left the hope of living. But something saved me magically and I yearned for. Actually, when I started the poem, I had no wish of lengthening it. I thought it to be a poem, but the inspiration seemed it not to be exhausting and I went on this particular Vikramshila poem to develop into a book format rather than keeping it small and so the turns and shifts in the thought-content will itself tell how the poem has been taken to a height dramatically, full of conflicts and coming to terms with the upheavals seen in terms thoughts, ideas and reflections oscillating on the graph chart of emotion and feeling. There are several poems titled as Vikramshila written in different moods and recollections of mine which may be termed stray poems encircling the topic or the main poems wherein lay the kernels of thought and idea which I could not lengthen it for want of time and materials available. Vikramshila University which came into existence in the late 8th or early 9th century by the Pala king Dharmapal. This is just what we know rather than anything else biographically or historically. The world recorded what we left and forgot, we mean the Buddhist scholars and travellers. Still now we know it not the value of Buddha and Buddhism, the Buddhist studies. Had it been we would have Tibetan, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese, Cham, Khmer, Japanese, Malay, Mongolian, Korean, Dzongkha, Ladakhi, Sikkimese, Mizo, Burmese, Balinese, Indonesian, Chinese and others to transact and transmit through, but failed we to move beyond, restricting ourselves to our coteries. Whatever be that, my small book of verse Vikramshila is before you to see what it is in it, what not, which matter borrowed from where. I cannot say that it is an original work of mine. What I can assure you is this that I have tried my utmost best to catch the spirit of the poem. What more do I know of Buddha and Buddhism?