Nine Lives. In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

Review by Mahadev Desai

The acclaimed and multiple award-winning historian and travel writer, William Dalrymple has written his seventh book, a compelling and erudite blend of travelogue, and oral history recounted by nine fascinating characters living on the periphery of modern Indian society, in places suspended between modernity and tradition. As the author describes in the introduction to the book,” in reality much of India’s religious identity is closely tied to specific social groups, caste practices and father-to-son lineages, all of which are changing very rapidly as Indian society transforms itself at speed.”


In this detailed account of the varied spiritual lives of nine people, each of whom represent a different religious path,” the narrator(author) is firmly in the shadows, bringing the lives of the people he has met to the fore and placing their stories firmly centre stage. And though he empathizes with the characters, he is not judgmental and lets the characters speak for themselves. The Nine Lives focuses on India’s heterodox, syncretic and pluralist religious traditions which are being eroded. The small gods and goddesses are falling away and out of favor as faith becomes more centralized. Yet he still finds that for all the changes and development that have taken place, “older India endures”.


Jain faith believes that you must embrace a life of world renunciation,non-attachment and extreme form of non-violence. In the pilgrimage town of Sravanbelagola,Karnataka, the author meets Jain nun Prasannamati Mataji. She and Prayogmati,her close friend for twenty years renounced the world at early age. At the age of 36, the latter had TB so she embraced sallekhana,(giving up food gradually and ritually starving oneself to death.) Prasannamati calmly reveals to the author that after her friend’s death, she too has embraced sallekhana to atone for her attachment.’ The Nuns Tale’ carries a wealth of useful insight into Jain religion.


The Dancer of Kannur is about a part-time Theyyam dancer, Hari Das,a Dalit.For nine months, he works as a manual laborer digging wells and at weekends as a jail warder. Discrimination against Dalits still persists but Theyyam has helped alter the power structure, because even the most bigoted and casteist Brahmins seek blessings from Theyyam dancers. It also instills self-confidence among the Dalits and inspires them to educate themselves to gain respect and social status. Villagers also have strong faith that Theyyam will help alleviate their personal misfortunes.


Ranibai and Kaveri take Dalrymple to Goddess Yellama’s temple in Saundatti,Karnataka. In the past Devadasis were drawn from respectable families and were literate. Many were accomplished dancers and poets and devotees who served in the temples. But now they are exclusively from lower castes and regarded as sex workers who practice their profession from homes.


In Pabusar, near Bikaner,Rajasthan,the author meets Mohan Bhopa, a bard and a village shaman. The illiterate goatherd can recite from memory the Epic of Pabuji,a 600 year old ,and 4,000 line courtly poem about a semi-divine warrior and incarnate God Pabu and his heroic exploits. The entertaining yet religious ritual is performed in front of a phad,(a long narrative painting on a strip of cloth), to the accompaniment of musical instrument ravanhatta. These priceless oral epics are under threat by proliferating DVDs, and cable channels broadcasting epics Mahabharata and Ramayana but Mohan is optimistic, “Phad will survive because it is at the centre of our faith and our dharma”.


In rural Sindh,dotted with Sufi shrines, he meets Lal Peri,(dressed in bright red and wielding a huge wooden club) an illiterate, simple Muslim female ascetic, born in Bihar and forced to flee to East Pakistan and then to Sindh, where she finds solace in Sufism of Lal Shahbaz Qalander. She dances with manic energy at the dhammal. “ When I perform the dhamaal,I feel as if I am in the company of Lal Shahbaz Qalander himself-and alongside Ali and Hassan, I live for this moment “, she says. Though these devotional dances are centres of Hindu-Muslim syncretism’ the fundamentalists resent this tomb worship, use of music, poetry and allowing women in shrines.


Tashi Passang is a Buddhist monk who fled from Tibet to Dharamsala in North India when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950. He temporarily renounced his monastic vows to take up arms against the Chinese to defend Buddhism but after training from the Indian army, he ended up fighting in the Bangladesh war instead of against the Chinese. Now to atone for his violence, he handprints finest prayer flags in India.

Srikand Stpathy in the temple town of Swamimalai is 23rd in a long hereditary line stretching back to the great bronze casters of the Chola Empire in 13th Century. He makes exquisite idols but laments that his son wants to be a computer engineer in Bangalore and give up the family business and break the lineage.


Manisha Ma Bhairavi lives in cremation grounds at Tarapith in Bengal, in the midst of human skulls, dreadlocked and ash-smeared sadhus,Tantric rituals and animal sacrifices and even cricket commentaries!. It is ironic that the politicians who persuade people to embrace modernity and reject Tantrics by depicting them as drug addicts, alcoholics and even cannibals, still come to Tarapith with sacrificial goats to seek Goddess Tara’s blessings when contesting for elections.


The last story is about the blind Baul, Kanai. The Bauls defy distinctions of caste and religion and wander about singing ballads of love and mysticism, divine madness and universal brotherhood and goal of Mahasukha-the great bliss. Once a year the Bauls converge at the Kenduli festival near Shantiniketan, with their ektaras and dugi drums. The author attends the festival and recounts his meeting with Kanai,and his great Baul singing friends Debdas,Paban Das;Mimlu Sen and his two younger sisters, to hear them sing and explain Baul’s philosophy and mystical devotion.


Dalrymple chronicles these lives with expansive insight and evocation of circumstance.” Heart –wrenching…Each of the nine stories speaks of the resilience of the human spirit when fighting against impossible odds…Dalrymple [is]among the most perceptive and humane of travel writers”Indian Express.


William Dalrymple is the author of six previous acclaimed works of history and travel including City of Djinns;the best selling From the Holy Mountain; White Mughals and The Last Mughal. He divides his time between New Delhi and London and is a contributor to the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The Guardian.