Wading through villages, towns, plains and wastelands of the Gangetic plain, Guru Nanak and Mardana reached Jagannath Puri. While on the sea bank, they saw a brahmin sitting in samadhi (trance). They were told that the brahmin had the reputation of being able to see the past, present and future all at once in his trance state.
The Guru joined the crowd that had gathered there. He saw that a gourd-shell lying in front of the brahmin contained all the offerings that visitors there had made. Guru Nanak asked Mardana to quietly lift that gourd-shell and place that behind the brahmin. After a while, the brahmin opened his eyes. He noticed his gourd-shell was not there. He shouted “Where has my gourd-shell gone?” The Guru said, “Revered Sir, you are known as trikal-darshi, one who can see the past, present and future all at once. You should know where your gourd-shell is. Why are you asking others?”
The message went home to the congregation. Soon the news spread over the whole town that a stranger has come who has exposed the guile of the brahmin who pretended to be omniscient. People soon gathered at a place and decided that the strange holy man be brought to the town in a chariot with great fanfare and taken to a temple where all should assemble to see him. They went to the place where they had left the Guru, but he was not there. Dismayed, they returned; but when they passed by the temple, they found him there and singing praises of Jagannath, the Master of the world. They joined him making a choir.
Brahmins of the temple thought, if they could persuade this holy man to come and join the aarti — the lamp-lit worship — large crowds would gather and swell offerings, which would benefit them. So they invited the Guru to participate in the aarti of Jagannath in the evening. The Guru gladly gave his consent.
The aarti started with a jewel-studded gold platter in which lay a lamp with four flames, one in each direction. Around it were flowers, various kinds of incense, a silver platter with sandal-dust on which a camphor pellet was lit. This platter was waved in circles before the idol of Jagannath, behind which stood an attendant waving a fly-whisk over the idol without a pause.
The Guru and Mardana quietly slipped out of the temple and decided to sit under the open sky studded with the moon and the stars wondering at the bejewelled expanse above. The Guru went into deep samadhi of amazement and his face began to glow with a halo.
By then, the aarti in the temple had concluded and the crowd, led by their raja, started coming out. When the raja noticed Guru Nanak sitting outside the temple, he said, “You had been invited to join us in the aarti of Jagannath, but you chose to stay out of the temple. Why did you not join us?”
Guru Nanak replied, “I came out to say the real aarti of the Master of the world. The Master of the world is above all His creation, He cannot be confined to the nook of a temple. I came out to join the real aarti being performed by the entire universe”, and then he began to sing:
The sky is the salver, sun and moons the lamps,
Shining stars are jewels and pearls,
Sandalwood breeze provides incense.
Rambling winds, they swing the fly-whisk,
Blossoming greens, their flowers lend.
O my fear-annulling Lord,
How wonderful is this, your aarti.
Mystical music is playing the orchestra.
The raja asked: “Does your Jagannath have eyes to see, nose to smell, feet to walk?”
Guru Nanak sang:
Thousands your eyes, and yet no eye;
Thousands your forms, and yet no form;
Thousands your holy feet, yet not one;
Thousands your noses, none to scent;
You have thus intrigued me, Lord!...
Centuries later, when Rabindranath Tagore heard this aarti of Guru Nanak being sung in Golden Temple, Amritsar, he exclaimed, “This, indeed, is a universal anthem”.
— J.S. Neki, a psychiatrist of international repute, was director of PGIMER, Chandigarh. He also received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his contribution to Punjabi verse. Currently he is Professor of Eminence in Religious Studies at Punjabi University, Patiala.
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