"The Ramayana in Global Perspective"

Yesterday, my Sanskrit class attended a wonderful (and by wonderful, I mean both educational and totally laughable) conference hosted by the "Aikyabharati Research Institute." The topic: The Ramayana in Global Perspective. Needless to say, all but three of the participants were Indian. My class got to witness the final speech, delivered by the revered "Swami-ji" to a gray-haired crowd of older and middle-aged Indian scholars sitting in plastic chairs.

So we showed up to this flourescently lit room, outfitted with a table and a podium raised on a platform. Below it were the plastic chairs, in which the scholars (most of them women, though the presenters were almost all men) chatted to each other and drank from tiny paper cups filled with sweet chai. Several swamis dotted the audience with their saffron robes, sacred threads, and foreheads (frankly) face-painted with exacting patterns of white, red, and yellow. Two swamis sat at the table on the platform; both wearing white and orange robes, one’s forehead and eyes completely covered in white with a streak of red up the middle, his head bald except for a long crop of matted black hair in the back; the other’s wrinkled face barely visible underneath gigantic bifocals and a white beared tinged gold with henna. A series of men stepped up to the podium, alternately delivering addresses and introductions in Hindi and Sanskrit. One swami announced that he had just published a book – “The Cosmic Energy of Vijnana” – in Marathi, and clarified (with a great amount of humor, for a swami of his stature) that if anyone was short on sleep, he or she should read it. Swamiji with the painted forehead blessed the first twenty copies of the book. Then he blessed several boxes of sweets, which – to everyone’s great pleasure – were passed around the audience, along with more mini-cups of chai.

Everyone’s sugar rush was just turning into a sugar crash when Swamiji began to speak. He delivered an address in extremely Sanskritized English – in fact, wouldn’t have been surprised if he had written his speech in Sanskrit and then translated it into English— involving hugely complicated sentences, words about the School of Justice and the School of Mercy and the Rule of Cosmic Discipline and how “Rama suffered for our sins” (sound familiar?), all ostensibly prescribing how the Ramayana should be read across the globe. Lots of Shree Ram this and that. Reading the Ramayana as literature is only useful if it ends in spiritual gain. (I might agree with him on that point, but with a different logic.) More of Rama suffering for our sins; we must repent so that his suffering his not in vain. Dharma, karma, samsara, chakra, dosha, guna: fire-and-brimstone Hinduism!

Swamiji yelled and spitted into the microphone, his consonants as harsh as if he were reciting Vedic Sanskrit – which was something he did often, judging from the grainy quality of his voice, the breakneck pace at which he spoke, and the fact that he had the entirity of his hour-long speech memorized.

It would make a hilarious counterpoint to your average American academic conference. The American Academy of Religion party favors—canvas bags—are great, but when all is said and done, wouldn’t everyone be happier with some sweets?