– Dr. Jagadindra Raychoudhury
Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva was a great reformer of religion and he introduced a religion called Ek Saran Naam Dharma (devoting to only single God) where without performing any ritual one can pay respect to God only with Naam Kirtana. He also prohibited the sacrifice of animals for sake of pleasing any idols of God. In Kaliyug, we could easily reach our respective God with only Naam Prasanga and this Bhakti Andolan not only spread across greater Assam (entire North East India) but also other parts of India. Apart from this, Sankardeva was indeed a great saint-scholar, poet, playwrighter, dancer, actor, musician, artist, and a figure of importance in the cultural and religious history of Assam, India of 15th century. Just after learning alphabets (without any sign) at Gurukul he composed a beautiful poem which meaning was not easily understandable. The poem was like this—
aratal kamal Kamal Dala Nayana
Bhabadaba Dahan Gahana Bana Sayana……….K
That was the sign of his scholarly approach where his guru Mahendra Kandali was surprised to perceive the beautiful as well as in depth meaning of that poem. During his stay in Gurugriha, apart from knowledge gathering progression, Sankardeva had a great interest to know the technique for preparation of Sashipat (used to write medium of modern paper) and Mohi (Ink) because in his student life he conceived an idea to write something for the betterment of mass people. He imbibed the detailed knowledge for preparation of Sashipat and Mohi.
After completion of his student life at Gurukul, people who were in and around him unanimously selected him as their Siromoni (leader) of Bhuyan community. They used to call him as Dekagiri due to his young age. Sankardeva ritual ceremony was performed as Siromoni in presence of his guru Mahendra Kandali. He could able to tackle the entire tangle in and around him within a short span of time but continued his study in between them. Sankardeva compelled to compose his verses, ‘Gopi Udhava Sanbad’ and ‘Hari Chandra Upakhan’ from Tenth Sakndha of Bhagabata to satisfy a group of Brahmin who came to him for Saran (to be his disciple) At gurukul, Sankardeva studied most of his sastra in Sanskrit language, so he started to translate those verses in a simplified language called Brajawali which was easily understandable by masses. This language was a mixture of words of Hindi, Parsi, Arabic, and Sanskrit along with some indigenous words.
At the age of thirty-two Sankardeva conceived a plan to tour various religious places in India. It required twelve years to complete the entire tour. When sankardeva reached Brindavan, his joy reached no bound and immediately he started to compose a beautiful song which was based on raga ‘Dhanshri’ The song was —
Maan Meri Ram Charanahi Lagu
Toi Dekha Na Antaka Aagu………..
Besides composing the song, he sang the same one before the pilgrim audience and made them spell bound till the end of the song.
The great experiences which were gathered by Sankardeva across India during the long twelve years tour was expressed before his own community and for this purpose he had to write drama. To make it lively he prepared some musical instruments and some mask for the performance before spectators. Sankardeva named the drama as Ankia Bhaona where a combination of art and craft assimilated. Really it was a great contribution of Sankardeva towards art and culture during 15th century.
After a vivid study on Veda, Purana, Upanishad and Bhagwabat, Sankardeva conceived a best conception on Sri Krishna, so he tried to compose songs along with dance performances. Sankardeva was pioneer of composing Borgeet (religious song) which were all based on different ragas, hence became very popular amongst devotees as well as common people. Later on, Sankardeva requested his best disciple Mahapurush Madhabdeva to compose Borgeet because a good number of Borgeet were burnt down by one of his devotees.
Besides Borgeet, Sankardeva made a beautiful planning to compose his great as well as best composition i.e. Kirtan Ghosa . This composition was a amalgamation of different chapters where he wrote on early life of Sri Krishna (he used to call Krishna Lila), life sketch of Prahlada, Ras festival of Sri Krishna, killing of Kangsa(maternal uncle of Sri Krishna) etc. sankardeva extended most of his composition through some Bhaona with songs and music to attract the mass people and those were performed in Naam Ghar (Prayer place) where all sections of people could gather easily.
Another very important composition was Gunamala which is a scripture written by Sankardeva within one night at the request of Koch Kong Narnarayan in 1552. This book is an abridged version (hand book) of Bhagavate Purana capturing in racy, rhyming and sonorous verses. The poet, Sankardeva recounts many incidents from Lord Krishna’s life making them easy to remember.
Srimanta Sankardeva was a versatile genius who immensely contributed in various field of art, culture and literature to enrich the mass people’s all-round development. He introduced a very easy path to all sections of the people in our society to gather knowledge in each and every field. He translated Bhagawat where his scholarly approach became more prominent and its understandable capacity attracted the entire mass people for which he was a very popular figure during that time. Sankardeva created revolutionary changes not only in social life but also literary pursuit by composing his great composition like Borgeet, Kirtan Ghosa and Gunamala etc. for which he remembered as a versatile scholar even in present day perspective.
(Author is Litterature and columnist of North East Region and Secretary of Vidya Bharati Poorvottor Kshetra.)
Read More : सामाजिक चेतना के अग्रदूत श्रीमंत शंकरदेव
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