Navaratri and Vidyarambham: Gerontocracy, Rites de Passage and the Collective Conscience of Learning

                It is that time of the year again when books and instruments as symbols of learning are placed before the sacred in search of blessings before the devotee starts on her journey of enlightenment. The days of Navaratri, the rituals, the symbolism and marriage of divinity and music can be understood through the prism of famous sociological teachings.

                The very act of revering the books through days of worship resonates with Emile Durkheim’s famous idea of how religion becomes a tool to forge collective conscience and acts as a moral force on the individuals. Here, it is the value of learning that is created, resonated and reinforced through the practice of Vidyarambham. The days of Puja that are spent worshipping the Goddess Saraswati is thus an indirect worshipping of learning itself as Vidyalakshmi becomes personification and embodiment of the enlightened.

            The fact that it is a Goddess and not a God is a far cry from the dominant narrative that all religions of the world are patriarchal. Whether it be the enlightened, elegant Saraswati or the fierce and assertive Ma Durga, Navaratri also symbolizes the reverence of women as the powerful, enlightened and divine.

            The reverence of women as Goddesses in this day and age of brutal violence, sexual harassment of women and increasing feminization of labor signifies the two faced nature of Indian society that on one hand worships women as Devis and on the other hand treats them as Dasis aptly described by Veena Das as the Devi- Dasi dichotomy in Indian society.

            The practice of Ezhuthinirathu in the South where the elders literally and metaphorically hold hands of the young ones as they script their first letters in the rice grain reflects a Gerontocratic practice straight out of Weberian typology of Traditional Authority and Traditional Action. An action that relates to custom of the yesterday that places the elderly in society on a pedestal of enlightenment as torch bearers of learning and amassing wisdom.

            Vidyarambham is also a reminder of what Malinowski famously termed as Rites de Passage, that are rituals performed to smoothen the transition in crucial stages of life of an individual- birth, puberty, marriage, death. The beginning of the journey of learning whether it be a new instrument, art or knowledge is one such crucial juncture in the life of an individual. Vidyarambham, its associated rituals, sermons in worship of the Devi and the collective familial and kinship presence throughout the days of Navaratri and on the day of Vijayadeshami thus readies the mind of the young one with confidence, peace, inspiration and the feeling of a divine helping hand as he or she kick starts the journey of learning.

           

            Navaratri is also renowned for the multiple art forms on display in devotion to the almighty. Music and dance may be ordinarily perceived as secular activities yet here they are subsumed under the sacred, created by, of and for religion. In this way, Navaratri also signifies the blurring of lines of Durkhemian Sacred and Profane and once again brings to the fore the question of viability of secularism as an ideology in a society as religious as India where there is no crude separation between secular and sacred with most secular subsumed under latter.

            Navaratri and Vidhyarambham thus provide a paradise of interpreting Indian society, its religiosity and associated functions, emotional familial jointness, the cultural lag of Gerontocracy and paradox of patriarchy and worshipping of women.