ubna Mariam, best known as a classical dancer and founder of Shadhona dance company, is also a serious scholar of Sanskrit and regional spirituality.
You have said the Bangla language is very philosophical.
The philosophy is rooted in this subcontinent and so it uses words that we use regularly. “Chmothokaar” and “ologeek,” are regular words, but for so many years, these words have been extensively debated by philosophers and Tantrics. But for Bangladesh, the most important word is “shohoj” (ease).
Shohoj? Why is that so important?
Shohoj is supposed to have the characteristics of ultimate reality. Shohoj is something that comes innate, which is within everyone. We use it differently now.
Lalon, the Sufi mystic, said: “Try to understand a shohoj man” – a moner manush (man of the heart).” It has thousands of years of history behind it. He uses it many times. A shohoj person means the person in my heart, the man within me. Or the creative principle within you, whatever it is. But the use of “sahajat” starts from Buddhist Tantric texts, from 6-7th century AD. That’s around the time Atish Depanker used to live in Dhaka city. Nearby, just 15 miles away.
Atish Dipankar, the Buddhist monk?
Yes. Atish Dipankar is revered in the Buddhist world. He’s one of our greatest philosophers. But the land in which he was born has forgotten him. He went to Nepal, where he established a monastery called Bikram Sheila Brihad. He reorganised Buddhism there. He’s the founder of the yellow hats.
Around that time, you had Buddhists rulers in Bengal. There was a vast Buddhist culture. Some Buddhist texts were discovered in the Nepali Royal Archive of “charyapad,” a collection of Buddhist chants and poetry, which uses “twilight language,” double-edged language, to talk about very esoteric philosophical topics – but using the metaphors of daily life. So who else uses that here? The Bauls. So the Bauls are keeping that alive.
Yes. Doubled-edged words have an inner meaning and an outer meaning. Because the Buddhist used to practice some esoteric sexo-yogic rituals which they did not want to discuss – they were Tanrics. There were a lot of rituals through which you could actually attain enlightenment. So they had this double-edged language to talk about these things.
Was ‘shohoj’ one of their words?
Shohoj is actually a combination of two words: saha (together) and jatham (born). What are these two things? The Vajayanis say these are: free will and wisdom. When free will and wisdom emerge together, then you realise shohoj.
Free will is actually the characteristic of Shiva, the male principle, and wisdom is the characteristic of Shakti, the female principle. So the Tantrics believed that you had to have a union of the male and female principle, and the joy and the bliss that you get is sahajat.
Everyone has free will within themselves. But we are born into a structured society, which takes away your freedom – what is innate to you, your “shobhab” (nature). But innate to every human being is free will.
And who are the people, the radicals, who fight this structure? The Bauls.
Our kobigaan (lyrical poetry) is constantly telling us, after more than thousand years of meditation, that this is not you. You have something beautiful inside.
Look for it, search for it. Bauls do it. But also, in village after village, they listen to kobigaan. This is a wonderful heritage that we carry with us.
