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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s8.t3: Rāmdās’s Utopia of Ānanda-vana-bhūvana

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s8.t3

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Rāmdās’s Utopia of Ānanda-vana-bhūvana

c14.s8.t3.1

It is possible to detect an utopistic futurism in Rāmdās's writings. That futurism took shape in his conception of *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* (the bower and world of bliss) such as he is said to have seen in a dream.⁷ The contents of this dream introduce us to the kind of miseries which he saw removed from his people and the kind of relief, joy or happiness that he found brought or restored to the community. The hindrances to *svadharma* were, we are told, things of the past. The emergence of the *sureśa* (the hero) and the *sura-senā* (the army of the hero), on the one hand, and the discomfiture of the *Mlechchha daitya* (the barbarian devil), on the other, constituted two important features of the *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* (the happy world) as envisaged in the dream. The *pāpīs* (sinners and criminals) of all sorts as well as the *abhaktas* (faithless) disappeared or diminished in number. The expansion of *dharma* was consummated. The *pāpī* (sinner) Aurāngyā's (Aurangzeb's) “sinking” or decline was distinctly seen (*buḍālā aurāngyā pāpī*). On the positive side were noticed, again, the assured facilities for *snāna* (bath) and *sandhyā* (evening prayers), *japa tapa* (sacrifices) etc., ceremonial items such as affected the Hindus of those days as of today. Then, again, love, fellow-feeling and sympathy were on the increase (*chaḍhatā bāḍhatā premā*).

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⁷ V. L. Bhave: *Mahārāṣṭra-Sārasvat* (Poona 1921), p. 224.

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In Rāmdās's doctrine of *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* which has been exquisitely put in as the fourth hemistich in every verse we are indeed getting a seventeenth century (?) paraphrase, adaptation or application of the celebrated *Gītā* doctrine of *yugāntara*. The great transformation, transvaluation of values, or remaking of epochs is initiated by God Kriṣṇa, as declared to Arjuna, whenever corruption creeps in into *dharma* (law, order and justice) and ascendancy is enjoyed by *adharma* (disorder, vile practices, negation of law, justice and morals). Kriṣṇa takes shape in human form under those calamitous conditions in order to protect the *sādhu* (the good, the just and the honest) and to annihilate the *duṣkrita* (the culprits, the evil-doers and the ruffians) as well as to re-establish *dharma*, i.e., law, order, justice, morality, virtue and allied desirables.

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Rāmdās's dream saw *kalpānta*, the end of a *kalpa*, i.e., the close of an era of *pāpī*, *Mlechchha*, *Chaṇḍāla*, *abhakta* and others of the kind. And at the same time the establishment of *svadharma*, *premā*, *ānanda*, etc., was an item in the consummation achieved by the hero dreamt of. It is interesting that the *Gītā* doctrine of God's *sambhavāmi yuge yuge* (I appear age by age) was serviceable to the Maratha poet-saint of the seventeenth century in the formulation of his professedly futuristic politics.

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In Rāmdās's ideology there is no vagueness about the particular *pāpī* who was responsible for the miseries and calamities and against whom it was necessary to raise the *surasenā* in order that *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* (the Kingdom of God, so to say) might flourish on earth. Aurangzeb has been singled out in the verses as the butt of Rāmdās’s wrath, and naturally the *sureśa*, the hero, who is responsible for the break-up of the old conditions and the inauguration of the new era is none other than Śivāji.

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Evidently all this jubilation over the annihilation of the *pāpī* and the restoration of *dharma* and expansion of *premā* is to be attributed to a date after the *dharma-rājya* of Śivāji has become a *fait accompli* (1674-80). We encounter here perhaps a “pious wish,” the expression of patriotic idealism on the part of Rāmdās. The material, as we have it, is of course regarded as a part of something dreamt of by Rāmdās in a period of national calamity, i.e., previous to Śivāji’s exploits and successes. The dream is narrated in the form of a prophecy and as something that is to happen at some future date. This futuristic forecasting of Maratha glories is in keeping with the prophetic form of the *Bhaviṣya-Purāṇa*’s dynastic history. One may often suspect as to whether the verses on *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* are to be ascribed to Rāmdās at all. Besides, one cannot be positive about their being composed even in the life-time of Śivāji himself. Whatever be the actual history of the composition, sociologically there can be no harm in believing that some Maratha author of the eighteenth century, while studying the glorious origins of the *dharmarājya* which had been established by the veritable *yugāvatāra* Śivāji and which maintained its career of *digvijaya* for quite a long time afterwards, should have been inspired by holy imagination to father such prophetic verses on the greatest patriot-poet of Śivāji’s times, Rāmdās. In any case, we understand from almost contemporary sources how powerfully the imagination of the young Maratha was inspired by the epoch-making and *kalpānta*-consummating achievement of Śivāji, the Indian Frederick the Great, perhaps the greatest Hindu of all ages, and one of the profoundest remakers of mankind. The fine lyrical verses on *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* constitute a valuable document of Maratha history as much as a text of Maratha *nītiśāstra* or political philosophy. Such texts, be it observed *en passant*, are very rare in Indian literature.

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