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In the Indian context, the cultural and the spiritual are cohabitants of the same enclave. There are emotional crossovers between culture, religion, faith and spirituality. Our thoughts and practices belong to more than one of these categories. Spirituality, though described as a way to ‘realise the self’, is always stuck between belief, ritual and purity. More often than not, societal condescension and disregard of certain cultures is a judgement of their spiritual status.
For long I have refrained from using this word to describe my musical experience. I was afraid that it would be highjacked by the religious and filed in the Religion rack. Clouded by that fear, I forgot that it could be the open door needed for the conservative faithful to join in a larger, catholic conversation. My musical experiences are spiritual; they are deeply moving philosophical dives that cannot be explained in words. But they are not otherworldly, nor are they transcendent or inaccessible to everyone else. And they most definitely do not place me at a higher level of consciousness.
They are moments of reflection, when I am able to observe all the sensory inputs I receive sans pre-conceived judgement. This also means I am able to offer music without blocks or suspicion. Music breaks down the walls that isolate me. I stand before you with no protective gear. But there is one question that remains with me once I return from these enlightening musical voyages: Why am I not such a human being in my everyday life?
For believers, perhaps this experience might arise when they stand before their lord—a state in which the disturbing voices of oppressors don’t haunt the oppressed. If that fleeting moment of uncluttered solitude exists for someone, no one has the right to snatch it away from them.
I am reminded of an old woman I met when a few of us were trekking up Parvathamalai, a hill near the town of Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu. It is a three-hour trek that includes a few tough stretches, a series of cement steps and finally, a precarious climb on and over a rock face. Waiting for us on the other side was lord Siva in the form of a linga. The weather in the month of May was blistering and dehydrating. As we neared the steps section, I noticed an old lady panting and scrambling over the steps. Every move was a herculean task. I was concerned for her well-being. Her son kept providing her water to drink as she stumbled along. Every few moments, she called out the name of the lord with whatever energy she had, pushing herself ever closer to the top. As she neared the temple, her voice got louder, she raised her arms in obeisance to Siva and her body suddenly moved with greater ease. It was as though god had given her new strength. On reaching the top, she stood up and walked towards the temple with an evident sense of expectation, like a lover would rush towards her beloved. She entered the temple in a state of thrall. She did not look around for validation, neither did she act as though the trek was an achievement. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her eyes remained transfixed on him, her god!
The legend of Kannappa Nayanar is an evocative reminder that the relationship between god and devotee needs to be unhindered. Kannappan, a hunter, fed his Siva the meat from his hunts. He collected water in his mouth and spat it on the linga to bathe his Siva. Siva was decorated with the flowers that Kannappan plucked and carried in his own hair. Kannapan did not know that his every action threw brahminical rules of ritual to the wind. This was his offering, his personal relationship with his lord. The lord had no right to refuse. One day, Kannappan found that his Siva was bleeding from one eye. Unable to stop the bleeding, Kannappan gouged out his own eye and placed it on the lord’s. Soon, the linga’s other eye began to bleed. The only way to remove his own remaining eye and offer it to Siva was to use his foot as a place-marker on the linga as he gouged his eye out with an arrow. In the tale, Siva is testing the devotee. An elucidation of bhakti, this is also a story about being free, free from the fear of judgement. Kannappan decided how he would pray; that right was not just freedom, it was dignity. This dignity was born from devotion. Every religion has stories of society shunning people who surrender to god in the manner of their choosing. And one need not be a saint to have this right.
The Sabarimala temple case, dealing with the denial of worshiping rights to women who menstruate, is about the dignity of the bhakta. When a specific class of women are systemically refused the right to experience the joy of meeting their god, it is a humiliation.
Ritualistic traditions and mythological explanations are no defence for such discrimination. According to Hindu ritualistic practice, when the ‘eyes’ of a sculpted idol are opened, the deity comes alive. Once we attribute this quality to the idol, we can use scriptures related to the temple (sthala puranas) to argue that the deity has made certain demands or issued regulations. In India, such a deity is a juristic person, and lawyers have argued that the ban is justified because the deity enjoys fundamental rights, just as other citizens do. In the Sabarimala case, Indira Jaising argued against such an equalisation: ‘[T]here is difference between juristic person, and citizens … deity being juristic person is nothing but right to sue and be sued. Deity has no other rights … conscience doesn’t reside in institutions, but in living beings.’
It is said that the eternally celibate Ayyappa wishes to maintain a fair distance from fertile women. Even if we are to accept that these are the wishes of the deity himself and they need to be respected, one question still needs addressing: do his wishes supersede the yearning of a devotee?
The power equation between Ayyappa and his devotees is skewed in his favour. But if he is the benevolent and loving god I sing about, then he does not dominate. He comes to the rescue of the weak. In a poem, Perumal Murugan asks Siva whether it is right that he closes his eyes and the doors of his abode, the sanctum sanctorum, while the ignorant and malicious attack his devotee. I ask Ayyappa the same question. Why does he not respond? Has Ayyappa placed his personal principle above the bhakti of a devotee? Is not the burden of enduring the presence of the bhakta the god’s rather than the women’s? For the Sabarimala Ayyappa to refuse darshan on the basis of gender to a devotee who, in order to worship him, is willing to perform the required rituals and follow the mandated abstentions, is discriminative.
Theologically, the only test that a woman devotee can be put through is the test that gauges her bhakti, even if that’s a test we don’t ask of male devotees. Importantly, if mythology is to be believed, Ayyappa will find his own way of assessing each devotee. It is not something for us to be concerned about. But then, the problem is not the god’s, is it? The problem is the male-constructed notion of purity.
Privacy, or the right to the private conduct of affairs—though I cannot see how it applies to Ayyappa—cannot be used as an excuse for practising a form of untouchability. As Jaising stated in her written submission to the Supreme Court:
‘[T]he practice of considering women impure between the ages of 10-50, must thus be considered the practice of ‘untouchability’. The word ‘untouchability’ has not been defined and there can be multiple forms of ‘untouchability’ which are not based on caste but based on notions of impurity. The present case is one of this kind …
It is submitted that untouchables and menstruating women are similarly situated in relation to temple entry. Therefore, the ban on entry of women from age group of 10 to 50 amounts to ‘untouchability’.’
The argument that there are so many other Ayyappa temples that allow all women does not take away the unfairness of the exclusionary rule at Sabarimala. Neither does the whataboutery that there are other temples where some other group is denied permission justify this rule. No god can be kept beyond the reach of a devotee. This is both a religious and constitutional right.
Belief in its truest sense is an inner luminescence born from unabashedly believing in oneself or something higher. And doing so without being trapped within a belief system or ideology. Its partner expression ‘faith’ lies very close by, yet distinct, imbued as it is with fragility and doubt. One could say ‘faith’ yearns for ‘belief’. Bhakti is a confluence of these sensibilities and much more. Bhakti transforms the fragility in faith into a vulnerability to despair and even disappointment. When the doubt that faith embodies confluences with the freedom that belief offers, it can lead to critical thought.
Uncritically accepting the primacy of practices in any shrine is where we must draw the line. If discriminatory practices can be justified by scriptural tradition and further explained as the wish of the deity, what stops someone from saying that a specific dalit community belonging to one village cannot enter a designated temple? Theoretically, there could be scriptures that tell a legend in which the lord fought a battle against these specific people and hence took a vow to never set eyes on them.
Excerpted from TM Krishna’s ‘We, the People of India: Decoding a Nation’s Symbols’, Context/Westland, 2026.