The body is an excellent tree: Parvathy Baul sings the ancient Bengali mystic Buddhist songs of the Charyapada

The year 1916 was an important one for the Bengali language. The Bangiya Sahitya Parishat published a volume of poetry and songs called Hajar Bacharer Purana Bangla Bhasay Bauddho Gaan o Doha (One Thousand Year Old Buddhist Songs and Couplets in the Bengali Language). Translated and edited by the scholar and president of the Asiatic Society, Haraprasad Shastri, based on palm-leaf manuscripts he had obtained in Nepal, the publication effectively deepened the history of literature in the Bengali language from around the 15th-16th centuries to 12th century CE.

110 years later, the Baul preacher, singer and performer Parvathy Baul is seeking to do something equally historic—reclaim for the Baul community it’s historical roots in the Buddhist tantric “Sahajiya” tradition of medieval Bengal, by performing some of the songs collected in Shastri’s book. “I wanted to find the historical antecedents of Baul gaan (song). These songs establish the fact that Baul didn’t just start from the 17th or 18th or 19th centuries. There were Baul a thousand years ago. And if we make these songs a part of our repertoire, then the Baul themselves will be able to claim their history,” says Parvathy.

She will be performing 15 of the 50 songs of the Charyapada (as the collection is called, pronounced “charja-pada”) in public for the first time on 12 March at the GD Birla Sabhaghar in Kolkata. For these, she will be collaborating with the dhrupad exponent Ustad Bahauddin Dagar, who will be accompanying her on the rudra veena.

For Parvathy, collaborating with Bahauddin was a very conscious choice, and the two have been working together on and off on composing the charyagiti (as the type of songs in the Charyapada are called) for the past 10 years. The original melodies of the songs are now lost, so Parvathy had to rely on her intuition, and the songs’ structural similarity to the long Bengali tradition of “sadhu-gaan”—songs of spiritual realisation sung by adepts. But she felt she needed something more.

“Over time, I started to believe that the charyagiti’s music would bear some similarity to at least some established Indian musical tradition. And the only tradition that fit the bill for me was dhrupad, since it was present a thousand years ago, and remains an unbroken, living tradition.” Parvathy’s attempt to piece together the missing music of the Charyapada received another clue from surviving artworks from Bengal, that often depicted travelling singers carrying primitive versions of the modern veena. “These used to be called heruk veenas, basically a light one-stringed instrument made up of two hollow gourds on two ends with a bamboo neck connecting the two, which singers could carry on one arm or on one shoulder.”

These clues led her to seek out Bahauddin, who not only agreed with her hypothesis, but has also crafted a simple version of the rudra veena for the performance, with the neck made from bamboo instead of wood, which can be played standing up.

“Bahauddinji is a great artist. I would say that he has the ability to musically manifest the sublime spiritual state of listening to the charyapadas, without the need of a formal structure, form or words. He can do so purely by using the raga. I feel that his playing is like listening to a flowing river, with its own moods and currents” Parvathy says.

She adds that their performance is a complimentary effort, where, through her singing (while playing the ektara and dubki), and his playing, the artists would attempt to create a meditative experience for the audience. “As a Baul and a charyagiti-singer, my work is primarily based on words. But the structure and feel of the words of the padas, enmesh very well with the non-verbal melody of dhrupad. And at the centre of this connection is the fact that both the words and the melodies are based on the depth and power of these ancient sounds.”

This attempt to create a meditative space seems entirely appropriate, because of the very nature of the Charyapada songs. These 50 songs were composed between c. 8th and 11th centuries CE, by eastern Indian Buddhist mahasiddhas (the ‘great realised ones’), and were performed as the folk music of the day. While the songs provide a rich and varied window into the cultural and social life of eastern India around 1000 CE, they were also meant to be a means to understanding the true nature of nirvana, which in tantric Buddhist terms is called mahasukha (the great bliss) and sahajananda (the easy joy).

The idea of sahaja made its first appearance as a yogic term in the Buddhist tantras around the 8th century CE. At one level sahaja means “easy” or “spontaneous”. At another, it means the “innate”. At yet another level, it means the “being born together”, from the union of Upaya (Buddhist “skill in means”) and Pragya (transcendental knowledge).

Sahaja is fuelled by desire, a positive emotion, and through its realisation, the sadhak (adept) seeks to transcend all dualities—of male and female, pure and impure, even the sun and the moon—and achieve the state of mahasukha. Such was the cultural power of sahaja, that even after the institutional eclipse of Buddhism in mainstream eastern India, its meaning and philosophy passed wholesale into every major Indian mystical movement—from the Hindu tantras to Sahajiya Vaishnava literature, from the dohas of Kabir and poems of Chandidas to the songs of the Baul. The only things that changed in each case were the outer metaphors (e.g. the union of Krishna and Radha instead of Upaya and Pragya).

To Parvathy Baul, the charyagiti are unique because instead of instructing the listener on the means to reach this advanced spiritual state, they instead show you what it looks like. “If the Baul songs provide you with the keys to the doors of realisation, the charyagiti tells you what you can see and experience when you open those doors. They show the complete visualization of that high yogic state. A gigantic view, as huge as the open sky, and in great detail,” she says. The sahajananda of the charyapada is to her the ultimate depiction of the bairagya or dispassion of the yogi.

Parvathy speaks about one of the songs she will perform from the Charyapada. The first two lines go like this:

Kaa nahari khandi mana keruala

Sadhguru bane dhara patabala

“My body is like a little boat, my mind is the oar,

Hold firmly to the helm of the Sadhguru’s teaching”

This song is written by the renowned Indian Buddhist siddha Sarahapada, and through the use of sandhyabhasa (twilight language of multiple meanings), it seeks to lay out the true path of the yogi who wants to achieve the great bliss of sahaja. What is striking is the use of the metaphor of navigating the boat of the self on the correct channel of the river, and how with the guidance of the guru who has realized sahaja, the adept too can reach the “great sky” of spiritual attainment.

Parvathy sings some couplets from modern Baul songs that use the same metaphor for the same meaning. “Amader dehotori dilam chariya guru tomaro namey” (we float the boats of our bodies go on the questing river in your name, o Guru), or “Mono majhey bhai sriguru kandari kori tori te boshao” (set the Guru in the midst of your mind as the boatman and sail your boat). If you consider these Baul songs, it’s basically the same,” she says.

In Newar and Tibetan Buddhism, the two traditions that trace themselves directly to the Mahayana-Vajrayana of eastern India, new charyagiti are still written. I put it to Parvathy that in a way, new charyagiti are also written in Bengal: they are Baul songs. “Yes! These charyapada songs were written down a thousand years ago, but does that mean they were suddenly composed one day? The songs would have evolved over a further few centuries. That’s how old this tradition is!”