In Lakshmi Purana, considered
to be a revolutionary work for its position on caste, that was composed in the
sixteenth century by Balaram Das, the great poet, the Moral code, following
which one lives a virtuous life, is mainly about what the woman, especially the
married woman, must do and must not do on Thursdays, amavasyas, and sankrantis,
and what both men and women must not do on any day. The Code mentions the “don’ts”, and the
“do’s” have to be inferred from the “don’ts”, which is an economical way of listing
the latter. A list of constraints would always be shorter than the list of the
allowable. For instance, if someone has to specify what food to take on a
particular day, it would be more economical to say what foods to avoid than to
list what to eat: “eat everything except these.”
Despite the term “purana” in the
title, Lakshmi Purana does not really belong to the category of
“purana”, lacking the scope, complexity and depth of a purana. It is more akin to a brata katha (these are minor Puranic narratives associated with ritual fasts and observances).
It celebrates the mahima, the power and the glory of goddess Lakshmi. In
terms of the popularity of Odia Puranic works, it is only next, “distant next”
of course, to Srimad Bhagabata, which is a highly sacred text, composed
in the sixteenth century. If Lakshmi Purana is called a “purana”, it may
be because it is also considered sacred, as it tells the story of the goddess
Lakshmi and Lord Jagannath. It would not be incorrect to observe that many know
Balarama Das today for Lakshmi Purana, rather than Jagamohan Ramayana,
a great retelling of Valmiki Ramayana. He is the first to compose Ramayana
in Odia.
The Moral Code in Lakshmi
Purana is concerned with physical and mental well-being. It is about food, its
wastage, and food-related pollution, orderliness, cleanliness, family duties,
and respect for culture and tradition. The Code forbids women from eating
non-vegetarian food, meat cooked in bottle gourd, roasted food, leftover food,
or burnt food on Thursdays, the day of the goddess Lakshmi. On this day, they
must not fry raw rice to make lia.
They must not beat children. Now, children have to be disciplined, raw rice has
to be fried, and spoiled and burnt food cannot always be thrown away, but these
things must be done on other days. Both men and women are forbidden to eat rice
with curd at night, and on Thursday, amavasya and sankranti
nights, one must not take food at all. One must not eat facing the south or the
west, nor must one eat sitting on the floor without something to sit on. This
emphasis on food may be due to the traditional belief that food determines states
of mind. Certain foods are believed to cause undesirable inclinations and
passions. Incidentally, some vegetables and green leaves were considered to be
like non-vegetarian food in this respect.
Today, we do not live by the belief systems from which these derive, and
these prohibitions are no longer part of our common knowledge. Generally
speaking, whatever of the past is unintelligible to us, we consider it superstition
today. This is not to say that the old belief systems were reasonable or
unreasonable. After all, belief systems are only belief systems.
Not washing one’s face in the
morning, not washing one’s face after eating, taking food without washing one’s
feet, and applying oil to the body after bathing are among the forbidden. A
woman must have a head bath on Thursdays. Combing hair and tying it in the
evening is forbidden. Sleeping on a crumpled bed, making a clumsy bed to sleep
on and sleeping naked are among the forbidden. Sexual discipline is an
important part of the code; sex is forbidden outside of wedlock and on certain
days for a married couple. Women must treat guests with respect and light the
sacred lamp in the evening, etc.; in short, they must respect tradition and
observe traditional rituals and practices. And a woman who wants to live a
virtuous life must not be quarrelsome, lazy, unpleasant and bold.
The most important part of the Code
mentions the way the woman must treat her husband. For her, nothing is more
important than serving her husband. No matter what religious acts she does – go
on pilgrimage, observe bratas, perform tapas, worship gods and goddesses
- she acquires no religious merit if her husband is displeased with her. She
must make her husband’s joys and sorrows her own, must always obey her husband,
be pleasant in her dealings with him, and never get irritated with him.
In Lakshmi Purana, goddess
Lakshmi, in the guise of a brahmin woman, said all these to a trader’s wife. Thus,
the poet Balarama Dasa legitimizes the code by attributing it to the goddess
herself. What is interesting is that in the second part of the Lakshmi
Purana, which is the goddess’s story, she flouts the same moral code. In
terms of the then social system, she was guilty of polluting herself and
entering the sacred space of the kitchen without having a bath, and cooking for
her family, thereby polluting the family. She asked for a divorce when her
spouse, Lord Jagannath, asked her to leave Shree Mandira, their home, where
they lived with her elder brother-in-law, Lord Balabhadra, and sister-in-law
Lord Subhadra. It could be viewed as an act of boldness on her part. A woman
must not be sahasi (bold), says Lakshmi Puran. She was guilty of cursing
her husband and ensuring that her husband and her elder brother-in-law suffered
hunger and humiliation while looking for food for twelve long years. She did
not hesitate to resort to manipulations to achieve this objective. Granted that
she had been grievously wronged by her husband, but avenging herself the way
she did is not in conformity with the moral code she herself had communicated
to the trader’s wife. When they reconciled, her husband requested that she
return home, but she put some conditions that caste-based pollution must not
apply to mahaprasad. What she asked for was justified, but would she
qualify to be a virtuous wife, according to the Lakshmi Puran moral Code?
I am not so sure. Her strategy was forcing, not pleading.
But there is not even a mild censoring
of the goddess in the text. No one charged her with being a disobedient wife or
of violating the code. However, it would not be correct to observe that the
message of the story is that she, being a goddess, was not bound by the code for
humans. The discourse of Lakshmi and Jagannath on the matter of her dismissal
from the Great Temple is in human terms. When Lakshmi wanted a divorce, her
spouse refused because it would bring disrepute to his family. This is human
social discourse, as is her laying down conditions before her husband to return
home. The story, in our opinion, should not be taken to suggest that power
legitimizes flouting of the Code.
The narrative is about something
else. It highlights a drawback of the code, sanctioned by tradition, that
specifies the duties and the responsibilities of the woman, but not her rights.
Let alone specifying the rights, it doesn’t even say whether she had any
rights. A woman’s marginalization in society was a mere reflection of her
marginalization in her own home. The goddess’s protest added a corrective to
the moral code. The family must understand that the woman member must have her
own space, and her identity and individuality must be accepted and respected.
The narrative supports the wife’s resistance against maltreatment in the
family; in a way, it does more – it elevates the wife’s protest to the level of
almost a moral duty. This is nothing
short of a revolutionary idea when viewed in the context of the ethical
thoughts and practices in sixteenth- century Odisha.
As for Balarama Das’s position on
the caste system in this work, he certainly does not support it, but neither does
he reject it, like Jainism, Buddhism, and Vaishnavism. Here, what he rejects is
caste-based pollution. Lord Balabhadra was concerned that goddess Lakshmi would
enter the kitchen and cook without having the purifying bath. Let alone going
inside a low-caste person’s home, even touching them, even by accident, was
considered defiling in those days. One needed a bath to purify oneself. It is
this practice that the poet condemns.
Now, articulating this idea in a
puranic composition was indeed a bold act against a crucial aspect of the caste
system in the sixteenth century.
Note: The non-use of the definite article before the name of the works (Lakshmi Purana, Srimad Bhagabata, etc.) is deliberate. A name is a proper noun. As for the uniqueness factor, every book is unique in some sense.
