MIR TAQI MIR IS A UNIVERSAL POET

                                    

MIR TAQI MIR ( 1723-1810)

I consider Mir, Ghalib and Firaq three gems of Urdu poetry . Without doubt, I find  them tallest  amongst Urdu poets of India. They transformed the Urdu poetry  into a profound vehicle for human emotion, philosophy, and modern consciousness.

Dr Gopi Chand Narang calls Mir "Urdu's first complete poet" and Khuda-e-Sukhan, and says his whole 40-year work was to correct the myth that Mir is just a simple, sad love poet. For Narang, Mir was a multidimensional "poet of countless delights" whose simplicity was deceptive, he was the first ustaad poet who took Rekhta, an imperfect evolving medium, and turned it into a gem-like, highly aesthetic language, and he was not just a love poet but a metaphysical poet par excellence who created a rainbow-like synthesis of Bhakti and Sufi thought.

Mir lived in Ganga-Jamuni Delhi where his friends, ustads, and neighbours were Hindu Khatris and Kayasths. He wrote like a Bhakta with words like , Kashka (tilak) , Deir ( temple ), Buut( idol) Shyam( Sri Krishna ). He celebrated Holi, Diwali and Basant in his verses, and his closest poetic circle was mixed, so for him Hindu was not other, it was his own city's other language of love.Mir's Urdu is full of pure Hindi-Braj words because Rekhta was still half-Hindi then : he uses Papiha, Chaat, Chapla-chapak, Jhula, Hooli, Deep, Diya, Sindoor, Tikka, Kajra, Bindiya, Bansuri, Jamuna, Ber, Phag, Patanga, Chah constantly, which is why his Ghazal feels more Hindustani than Persian.

Mir doesn't say Vedanta but his Wahdat-ul-Wujud is pure Advaita : that all is one, that God is not separate but manifested everywhere as beauty, as in "labrez jalwa us ka saara jahan mein" and "har zarra us ka jalwa", which is why Gopi Chand Narang calls him a Vedantic poet in Sufi dress where the lover, beloved and love become one reality.

Apart from metaphysics, Mir is called Khuda-e-Sukhan for his deceptive simplicity where rough Rekhta becomes pure, conversational Urdu with no Persian showmanship, for being the poet of Sheher-Ashob who made Delhi's looting by Nadir Shah and his own homeless life the same lament, for his Karuna where there is no complaint against God or beloved but only pure surrender and weeping, for his gender-fluid idea of love where the beloved is sometimes a boy, sometimes a but-e-Hindu, sometimes God itself, and for his music of sighs with short beher and words like aah and haaye that makes his Ghazal feel like a song you remember, not a verse you read.

Mir did not write in modern Urdu, he wrote in 18th century Dehlvi Rekhta, when Urdu was still being born. It was the raw dialect of old Delhi, half Hindi and half Persian, before Lucknow made it polished and formal, so his words like yaan, etna, and his mixing of Persian phrases with pure Hindi verbs sound strange today. His grammar and vocabulary belong to a Delhi that no longer exists. Mir brings a different feel of Urdu of his age .See this couplet :

"Aafaaq ki manzil se gaya kaun salamat

Asbaab luta raah mein yaan har safari ka"

Who  has ever returned safe from the journey to the horizons?

On this very road, every traveller is robbed of all he carries." 

This couplet is not about travel in any ordinary sense. It is about the fundamental condition of existence. Mir chooses the word Aafaaq with deliberate grandeur. Aafaaq means horizons, the outermost limits of what the eye can see and the mind can imagine. By calling it a manzil, a destination, he turns the whole of life into a journey towards an unreachable edge. Every human being is a safari, a traveller on this road, whether he wishes to be or not.

The question 'Gaya kaun salamat ' is rhetorical and absolute. The answer is no one. No traveller returns from that destination intact. This is not a complaint but a statement of law. To go towards the horizon is to be undone. The body ages, youth departs, certainties crumble. In Sufi thought this is the necessary loss called fana, the annihilation of the self. Mir does not dress it in piety. He states it as fact.

Then comes the second line which is more brutal. Asbaab luta. Asbaab means not only luggage but all the apparatus with which we arm ourselves for life. Our plans, our wealth, our learning, our loves, our pride, our very identity. Mir says these are looted on the road itself, yaan, right here, in plain sight. There is no bandit to blame. The road itself loots you.

Thus the couplet offers a terrible liberation. If loss is inevitable, then clinging is futile. The traveller who understands that his Asbaab will be taken travels lighter. He is not shocked when grief arrives. Mir does not offer consolation. He offers clarity. In British understanding we might call this a stoic realisation, but Mir makes it more intimate. You came with nothing, you will be stripped of everything, and only then will you have completed the journey. That is why this verse still wounds after centuries, because every heart knows it to be true.

Firaq Gorakhpuri holds Mir in high esteem  because he saw in him the most Indian and the most human poet. Firaq felt Ghalib was a great thinker but Mir was a great sufferer, and Firaq himself lived a life of personal heartbreak, so he connected with Mir's real, lived pain over borrowed philosophy. He also believed Mir's simple Hindustani Rekhta was far harder to achieve than Persian complexity, and called him, 'the only poet whose wounded heart would be heard for centuries'.

Amongst many notable admirers of Mir, Nehru remains tallest because while others like Ghalib, Firaq and Gopi Chand Narang admired Mir as a poet, Nehru admired him as a civilization. For Nehru, Mir was not just Khuda-e-Sukhan but a living witness to the fall of Delhi, a poet who refused Persian courts and chose the language of the street, whose Ganga-Jamuni pain of Bhakti and Sufi mixed together became the perfect metaphor for the secular, wounded, composite India Nehru wanted to build.

Hindi poets came to Mir late through Firaq Gorakhpuri, the Allahabad professor who called Mir greater than Ghalib and taught him to Hindi writers; after him Chhayavadi poets like Sumitranandan Pant and Nirala loved Mir's Braj-like natural simplicity, Harivansh Rai Bachchan often quoted him in his autobiography, and modern Hindi poets like Kedarnath Singh and Ashok Vajpeyi admire him as India's first poet of the city and of Delhi's pain.

Mir is great because he did not decorate sorrow, he spoke it in its purest form. He took Rekhta, a common bazaar language that the elites looked down upon, and gave it a soul so deep that it could carry the weight of a ruined city, a lost love and an absent God all at once. He had seen Delhi burn, his home looted, his world end, so his poetry is not imagination, it is memory. He writes with such bare simplicity that you feel he is not writing a sher but confessing your own heart to you. And that is why even Ghalib, the most brilliant of all, had to bend his head before him and say:

"Rekhta ke tum hi ustaad nahi ho Ghalib

kehte hain agle zamane mein koi Mir bhi tha"

(You are not the only master of Rekhta, Ghalib,

They say there was a Mir too, in the times gone by.)

( Avtar Mota )

PS

I like this portrait of Mir.  Mir is shown  in a burnt orange jama, alone in a bare grey room. He is seated on a white masnad, smoking a huqqa, but he is not looking at the smoke. His long pipe points out of the small wooden window to a garden outside ;  lush, manicured, full of cypress and blossom, but completely out of reach. 

The painters of Delhi and Lucknow in Mir's time painted this mood again and again , the man at the window. After Nadir Shah and Abdali sacked Delhi, the poets and nobles had nothing left but to sit in empty rooms and look at a paradise that was lost.

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.

INDIANS IN CHINA : FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO PRESENT

                                                                           

                                                            ( Statue of Kumarajiva in China )

Indians in China: From Ancient Times to the Present

The presence of Indians in China is not a modern phenomenon linked only to trade and information technology. It represents a continuous civilisational dialogue of more than two thousand years. The earliest Sanskrit sources and Chinese court records together establish that exchanges between the two societies predate the Common Era. Textual and archaeological evidence demonstrates that exchanges between China and India date back at least 2,000 years. The Mahabharata mentions horses and soldiers who came from Cinas. The word Cinas also appears in the Ramayana. Cina is the name ancient Indians used when referring to China. It is conjectured that it is a transliteration of the Qin dynasty of China. This early nomenclature indicates that India conceptualised China as a distinct political entity well before the transmission of Buddhism.

Buddhism became the principal vehicle for Indian migration. Buddhism originated in India and spread to China during the Western and Eastern Han periods. Legend has it that Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han, after seeing the Buddha in his dream, sent an envoy to Tianzhu, India, to acquire Buddhist scriptures. Afterwards, Indian monks brought sutras and Buddhist images to China. In 68 CE, Emperor Ming built a monastery in Luoyang to accommodate the Indian monks. It was named the White Horse Temple after the white horses that had carried the sutras to China. From the Han to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and then the Sui and Tang dynasties, Indian Buddhism gradually spread and evolved on Chinese soil, assimilated into Chinese culture over time, and eventually took hold as Chinese Buddhism.

Routes of Migration

Three principal corridors carried Indians into China.

First, the Central Asian overland Silk Route. Monks and merchants travelled from Kashmir, Gandhara and Punjab through Bactria and the Tarim Basin oasis states of Kucha, Khotan, Karashahr and Turfan, then to the Hexi Corridor at Dunhuang, and onwards to Chang’an and Luoyang. This route explains why many early Indian names appear in Chinese records alongside toponyms such as Kucha and Dunhuang. Owing to the geographical location of Dunhuang, a few eminent monks travelling to and from the West not only left their footprints there but also engaged in the translation of Buddhist scriptures.

Second, the southwestern overland route via Assam, Yunnan and Sichuan. This lesser-known corridor carried ideas of astronomy and astrology and is referenced in Chinese histories as the Shu Shendu Road.

Third, the maritime route. From the Coromandel and Malabar coasts, Indian traders and monks sailed to Sri Lanka, then to Sumatra, Java and the Malay Peninsula, and from there to Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Fuzhou. By the Tang and Song periods, Quanzhou housed a permanent Tamil merchant guild. Inscriptions in Tamil and associated Shaivite imagery discovered at Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou attest to this settlement.

Ancient religious migration was succeeded by a secular diaspora. According to the Ministry of External Affairs data on the Indian Diaspora Abroad as of January 2026, there are 7,400 Non-Resident Indians, 1,060 Persons of Indian Origin and 8,460 Overseas Indians in China. Hong Kong houses 32,790 NRIs, 11,350 PIOs and 44,140 Overseas Indians. Most Indians in mainland China live in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Chongqing and Hangzhou. A majority work for multinational corporations, Indian companies and banks. There are also several students pursuing higher studies in China, with medicine being a particularly popular field of study. Recent concerns include professional visa constraints, spouse employment restrictions and online misinformation.

Kashmiri Savants in China: A Distinct Intellectual Lineage

Within the broader Indian migration, Kashmir occupies a uniquely influential position. From the first century CE to the fifth century, Kashmir was the intellectual centre of Sarvastivada Buddhism and later of Madhyamaka philosophy. The composition of the Vibhasa Shastras in Kashmir indicates that Kashmir grew into an academic centre attracting distinguished acharyas from other places. Chinese pilgrim records and Tibetan histories such as those of Taranatha repeatedly praise Kashmiri monasteries for their intellectual precision and disciplined ethos. This scholastic prestige made Kashmiri monks highly sought after as translators and Vinaya masters in China.

The first Kashmiri monk to go to China was Sanghabhuti. According to Marco Polo, Kashmiri monks went to China and spread Buddhism in other parts of the country as well. He mentions the Kashmiri monk Sanghabhuti, who reached the northern capital of China in 381 CE. His activities can be traced until 384 CE. At the request of Chinese scholars, he is reported to have translated the Vinaya Pitaka from Sanskrit into Chinese and also written an exhaustive commentary on it. Modern scholarship confirms this. Sanghabhuti is regarded as one of the earliest known Buddhist scholars from Kashmir to travel to China. He was particularly trained in the study of the Abhidharmavibhasa tradition.

Around 381 CE, he arrived in the northern capital of China, where he was received by prominent members of the Buddhist scholarly community. At their invitation, he undertook the translation of several Buddhist works into Chinese. By approximately 384 CE, he had completed the translation of three texts, among which the most significant was an extensive commentary on the monastic disciplinary code, namely the Vinaya Pitaka of the Sarvastivada tradition.

The next great Kashmiri figure is Kumarajiva, arguably the most famous Indian in Chinese history. Kumarajiva was among the renowned Kashmiri scholars who travelled to China. He hailed from a Kashmiri Brahmin family. His father, Kumarayana, was a Kashmiri Pandit who served as a royal priest in Kucha. He went to Kashmir to learn Sanskrit and Buddhist scriptures. After receiving his education in Kashmir, he achieved an international reputation as a great teacher of Buddhist doctrines. The Chinese emperor Fu Chien requested the king of Kucha, through an envoy, to send Kumarajiva to China. He was taken as a captive and became one of the greatest names in Chinese Buddhism. He went to the capital in 401 CE at the request of the Chinese Emperor. He carried on his mission there and was later joined by many of his Kashmiri fellows. He died in 413 CE. The members of his missionary group included two celebrated Kashmiri monks, Yasa and Vimalaksha, who succeeded in giving a real Chinese context to ideas that had hitherto been nebulous and elusive. In Chang’an, he presided over a translation bureau of more than eight hundred Chinese scholar monks. His translations of the Prajnaparamita, Lotus and Vimalakirti Sutras remain canonical in East Asian Buddhism.

Contemporaneous Kashmiri collaborators included:

1. Sanghabhuti and Gautama Sanghadeva.

Both were active around 381 to 398 CE. Gautama Sanghadeva journeyed to China around the late fourth century CE. He appears to have been present there during the same period as Sanghabhuti.

2. Dharmayasa and Buddhayasa.

Dharmayasa was another Kashmiri missionary who left for China at the age of thirty. He travelled extensively in Asia, converting a large number of people to his faith and writing books. He reached China in 401 CE and remained there until 435 CE. In collaboration with a large number of Kashmiri scholars, he translated several important works into Chinese. Likewise, among the celebrated Kashmiri monks who were adventurous enough to travel across the high mountains into China, the name of Buddhayasa stands high. Being the only son of a Kashmiri Brahman, he left for China at the age of twenty-seven. He reached Kashgar, where he captivated the mind of the chief, who became his devout follower. Here he came into contact with Kumarajiva. Between 410 and 413 CE, he translated four works into Chinese, among them the Dirghagama and Dharmaguptaka Vinaya.

3. Punyatara.

Punyatara joined Kumarajiva in Chang’an and contributed to the translation of the Sarvastivada Vinaya, which was rendered into Chinese in multiple sections. Another figure associated with this intellectual milieu was Buddhabhadra, who travelled to China via the southern route and collaborated with Kumarajiva for a period in Chang’an, producing several translations.

4. Gunavarman.

Perhaps the most romantic figure, he was a prince from the royal family of Kashmir. His father, Sanghananda, and grandfather, Haribhadra, were banished from the kingdom. Gunavarman left home at the age of twenty and became a monk, even though he had been offered the opportunity to head his paternal kingdom. He mastered the Buddhist canon in all its sections and the agamas. He first went to Ceylon and then to Java, where he converted the royal family to Buddhism. His name and fame attracted the attention of the Chinese emperor, who personally invited him. Gunavarman reached Nanking, China, in 431 CE. During his short stay of one year at the Jetavana monastery, he was able to translate eleven works into Chinese. Records indicate that the Kashmiri translated at least ten major Buddhist texts in eighteen volumes while he lived in China. These texts ranged from basic teachings to important sutras. He also helped translate incomplete texts that found their way to China through the Silk Road. Another Kashmiri scholar, Dharmamitra, helped Gunavarman translate some of the texts. Gunavarman also played a decisive role in establishing Bhiksuni ordination in China. He was approached by the Ying Fu nunnery to confirm dual higher ordination for a group of eight nuns from Sri Lanka. The ordination took place in 433 CE, two years after Gunavarman died, making Ying Fu the first Chinese nunnery to ordain foreign nuns.

5. Dharmamitra.

Dharmamitra arrived after Gunavarman and continued the collaboration. He translated meditation treatises and helped systematise dhyana practice in southern China.

Collectively, these Kashmiri savants gave China three enduring legacies. First, Vinaya orthodoxy. Kashmir was the headquarters of Sarvastivada Vinaya, and it was Sanghabhuti, Punyatara, Vimalaksa and Buddhajiva who established monastic discipline in China. Second, Abhidharma scholasticism. The Vibhasa commentaries composed in Kashmir formed the backbone of Chinese Buddhist debate. Exegetes such as Sanghabhuti, Dharmatrata and Buddhavarman enriched this tradition through the Abhidharmavibhasa and related commentaries, rendering complex metaphysical ideas accessible to foreign monastics. Third, Mahayana synthesis. Kumarajiva, trained in Kashmir, linked Kashmir Sarvastivada learning with the Nagarjuna Madhyamaka tradition learned in Kashmir, creating a complete curriculum.

Why Kashmiris were preferred is clear. Kashmir offered Sanskrit linguistic purity, royal patronage and high-altitude monastic training similar to Chinese conditions. Chinese biographies repeatedly note Kashmiri monks’ knowledge of both Hinayana and Mahayana, their mastery of recitation, and their skill in astronomy and medicine.

A Comprehensive List of Indians by Name Recorded in China

Beyond Kashmiris, Chinese Buddhist historiography preserves the names of several hundred Indians. The most significant are:

1. Kashyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna.

The first Indians officially invited in 67 CE under Emperor Ming. They introduced the earliest sutras on white horses, leading to the foundation of the White Horse Temple.

2. Lokaksema.

A Yuezhi monk of Indian descent from Gandhara. Active in Luoyang around 147 to 189 CE, he was the first major translator of Mahayana texts.

3. An Shigao.

A Parthian prince with Indian Buddhist training. Active from 148 CE, he introduced Abhidharma.

4. Kang Senghui.

Of Indian Sogdian parentage. He died in 280 CE and translated early Mahayana works in Jianye.

5. Dharmaraksa.

Known as the Dunhuang Bodhisattva. Born near Dunhuang to a Yuezhi family of Indian origin, he was active from 265 to 313 CE. He translated an early form of the Lotus Sutra and more than one hundred and fifty texts.

6. Kumarajiva.

Already discussed above.

7. Buddhabhadra.

A Kashmiri meditation master who transmitted Gandharan art to Yungang.

8. Buddhayasas, Dharmayasas and Dharmagupta.

Contemporaries of Kumarajiva in the Chang’an translation bureau.

9. Gunabhadra.

A Central Indian monk from Magadha. He arrived in 435 CE and was a translator of the Lankavatara Sutra.

10. Bodhidharma.

A prince said to be the third son of Pallava King Simhavarman II of South India. He brought Chan Buddhism to Shaolin.

11. Paramartha.

A monk from Ujjain. He arrived in 546 CE and translated the Abhidharmakosa in Guangzhou.

12. Gautama Prajnaruchi, Upasunya, Vinitaruci and Atigupta.

Translators active in the sixth and seventh centuries.

13. Prabhakaramitra, Subhakarasimha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra.

Esoteric masters from eastern and southern India who introduced Mantrayana to Tang China between 716 and 774 CE.

14. Bodhisena.

A South Indian Brahmin from Madurai who travelled via China to Japan in 736 CE and became central to Kegon Buddhism at Todaiji.

Temples and Sacred Geography

Indian presence is embedded in Chinese sacred architecture. The White Horse Temple at Luoyang, founded in 68 CE, remains symbolic as the first temple. The Yungang Grottoes near Datong, with their 252 caves and 51,000 statues, reflect Indian Gandharan influence mediated by Indian monks such as Buddhabhadra. Inside the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, murals illustrate Jataka tales and Indian cosmological concepts rendered in Chinese style. In Mogao Cave 249, dating from the Western Wei period, 534 to 556 CE, the ceiling has a truncated pyramidal design. All images were painted according to the contemporary artistic standard. Around the central ceiling, on the four slopes, are Buddhist images accompanied by immortals and gods from Hindu and Chinese mythology.

                                                                       

                                  ( Vishnu , Mahesha and other Hindu gods in Mogao caves  )

On the western slope, the four-eyed and four-armed giant at the centre is the King of Asura, who belongs to one of the six categories of sentient beings in Samsara. He is holding the sun and moon and standing on the ocean. Beside him are the gods of Wind, holding a billowing bag; Rain, Thunder, playing a circle of drums; and Lightning, holding a drill or vajra. These gods are all animal-headed, with forms directly taken from the Vedic lokapalas Vayu, Varuna and Indra. Other caves show Ganesha as Vinayaka, protector against obstacles, in Tang period tantric mandalas. Brahma appears as Fantian and Indra as Di Shi Tian, as twin guardians flanking Buddha in almost every major cave, including Cave 158, the Sutra of Brahma painting. Shiva appears as Maheshvara with a third eye on Nandi, Vishnu as Narayana with a chakra, Saraswati as Biancaitian with a pipa, and Surya and Chandra as sun and moon discs.

This inclusion was theological. Early Buddhism absorbed Vedic gods as Dharmapalas, protectors of the Dharma. When Kashmiri translators brought Sarvastivada Vinaya and Abhidharma texts to Dunhuang, they brought this inclusive pantheon. As cave construction continued, Dunhuang artists began to develop their own unique style, which made greater use of traditional Chinese imagery while retaining Indian iconography. The result is that Dunhuang is not only Buddhist art but also the largest surviving gallery of Hindu iconography outside India, preserved in Chinese style.

The statue of Kumarajiva at Kizil Caves, Kucha, Xinjiang, illustrates the Indian origin of the translation centre. Kings of Kucha bore Indian names such as Haripuspa, Suvarnapuspa, Haradeva and Suvarnadeva. Sanskrit was methodically taught in monasteries of Kucha. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda at Chang’an was built to house scriptures brought by Xuanzang from India. Shaolin Monastery at Songshan was associated with Bodhidharma’s meditation for nine years while facing a wall. Kaiyuan Temple at Quanzhou contains South Indian style pillars with Tamil inscriptions and images of Shiva.

Cultural Continuity and Festivals

Buddhism introduced Indian concepts that remain culturally active. The Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month derives in part from Magha Puja introduced by Indian monks. The Ullambana Festival, known as the Ghost Festival, originates from the Indian legend of Maudgalyayana rescuing his mother from hell. The use of incense, circumambulation, prostration and recitation of mantras transliterated from Sanskrit preserves Indian liturgical forms. Mantras such as Om Mani Padme Hum remain in daily use. The Chinese monastic curriculum from the Sui period onwards adopted Indian logical forms such as pramana and categories of consciousness such as vijnana. Faxian, Xuanzang and other Buddhist monks made pilgrimages to India and beyond in search of Buddhist scriptures and doctrines. Their translations significantly facilitated the spread of Buddhism and shaped the doctrines of Chinese Buddhism.

India introduced sugar refining, astronomical calculation, trigonometry and medical texts to China. In return, China transmitted papermaking and porcelain westwards. The modern Indian community has added new festivals. Diwali gatherings are now held in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Holi is celebrated in Yiwu and Shenzhen. Indian associations coordinate with municipal authorities to host International Yoga Day on 21 June each year.

Conclusion

From Cinas in Sanskrit epic literature to contemporary students in Zhejiang laboratories, Indians in China illustrate an unusually long and resilient transnational presence. Kashmiri savants form the intellectual spine of this story. Sanghabhuti introduced Vinaya, Kumarajiva gave China its philosophical vocabulary, Buddhayasa and Dharmayasa institutionalised the canon, while Gunavarman and Dharmamitra contributed to meditation and the ordination of nuns. Kashmiri scholars played a major role in transforming Buddhist texts into a living scholastic and monastic tradition in China. Temples such as the White Horse Temple and Mogao remain living proof of the multidirectional nature of dissemination. Understanding this continuity allows contemporary exchange to move beyond transactional frameworks towards civilisational dialogue rooted in shared learning.

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.

WHAT ARE WE FOLLOWING : CULT OR RELIGION OR SPIRITUALITY ?

                               

                                               

What Are We Following: Cult or Religion or Spirituality 

1. Cult

A cult does not convince you, it snatches your capacity to question. That is its only power and its entire method. It rarely arrives as oppression. It arrives as relief, as sweetness, as absolute assurance.

In the Hindu way of seeing, the mind is both instrument and obstacle. Manas can liberate and manas can bind. A cult attacks precisely this manas. It gives you readymade answers before you have even suffered enough to ask the real questions. It tells you who is good, who is evil, who to hate, when to smile, what to chant, what to forward. Slowly your own buddhi, your power of discrimination, is outsourced. You no longer think, you repeat. You no longer seek, you obey. You call it shraddha but it is bhaya dressed as shraddha.

This is entirely opposite to the Hindu spirit. Bharata has never respected blind obedience. Our rishis were not followers, they were seers, mantra drashta, those who saw. Seeing is primary, believing is secondary. A cult reverses this. It says first believe, then you will be allowed to see only what we permit. It sells certainty to people terrified of uncertainty. It gives identity, community and purpose, but only if you surrender the one thing that makes you human, your ability to say, No, I do not believe this.

A cult is therefore not religion. It is a shop. It is psychology weaponised. It is business in sacred clothes.

2. Religion

Hindu dharma is not a creed but a search. The very structure of our sacred literature is questioning. No other civilisation has enshrined doubt so lovingly in its own scripture.

Open the Rig Veda, the oldest layer. In the Nasadiya Sukta, the hymn of creation, the rishi does not declare, he asks. Ko addha veda ka iha pravocat, who truly knows, who can here proclaim whence this creation came. Kuto ajata kuto iyam visristih, where was it born, whence this vast creation. The rishi looks at the sky and does not give a sales answer. He says perhaps even the creator does not know, or perhaps he too gazes from afar. What humility. What courage. This is not dogma, this is wonder as method.

The Vedas constantly ask, who is the creator, where does he dwell, what is life, what is afterlife, what is wisdom that remains when everything else perishes. In the Kena Upanishad, the question is, by whom does the mind think, by whom does breath move, what is that unseen that makes seeing possible. In the Katha Upanishad, little Nachiketa confronts Yama, the lord of death, and rejects all offers of wealth, long life, cattle and kingdom. He says keep your gifts, I want to know what remains after death. Tell me the secret of life and afterlife. Yama himself says this question is subtle, even gods doubt it. Yet Nachiketa insists. That insistence is Hindu religion.

The best part of Mahabharata is Yaksha Prashna. After his brothers fall lifeless by a mysterious lake, Yudhishthira meets Yaksha who asks more than a hundred questions. These are not ritual questions. They are ultimate questions. What is heavier than earth, what is higher than sky, what is faster than wind, what is more numerous than straw. What is dharma, what is real happiness, what is wonder, what makes life meaningful. Yudhishthira answers not by quoting authority but by viveka, by discrimination. He says, what is heavier than earth is mother, what is higher than sky is father, what is faster than wind is mind, what is more numerous than straw is worry. He says happiness is health and contentment, wonder is that though death stares at us every day we live as if we will live forever. This is religion as dialogue, as examination, not as command.

And then comes Bhagavad Gita, the crown jewel. The entire Gita is structured around doubt. Arjuna, the greatest warrior, collapses on the battlefield. He says my limbs fail, my mouth is parched, my Gandiva slips from my hand, I see no good in killing my own kin. He questions war, he questions duty, he questions Krishna himself. He is not scolded for doubting. Krishna does not say obey me blindly. Krishna says, listen, reflect deeply, then do what you wish. Yatha icchasi tatha kuru. What more freedom can a scripture give.

Arjuna asks, what is life, what is death, what is the self that never dies, what is wisdom, who is a sthitaprajna, one of steady wisdom, how does he speak, how does he sit, how does he walk. Krishna answers not with threats but with knowledge, with Sankhya, with Yoga, with bhakti, with logic. He says truth must be known by pramana, by direct seeing, by reasoning, by experience. This is religion that invites you to argue, to ask, to wrestle.

That is why Hindu dharma can never be a cult. A cult says stop questioning. Vedas begin with questioning. A cult says surrender your intellect. Gita says use your buddhi to cut doubt with the sword of knowledge, chindhi samsayam.

3. Spirituality

If religion in Hindu thought is the path, spirituality is the destination experienced directly. It is called adhyatma, the knowledge of the self.

The Vedas and Upanishads call it Neti Neti, not this, not this. You peel away everything that you are not. You say I am not body, not mind, not thought, not emotion, not name, not fame. What remains when all Neti is finished, that is truth. That is Atman, which is Brahman. No priest can give it to you. No shop can sell it.

Spirituality in Hindu view is profoundly solitary yet not lonely. It is ekant, being alone with truth. The rishi goes to forest not because he hates people but because truth speaks in silence. There is no need for crowd, no need for slogans, no need for display. A man who knows does not shout. As Upanishads say, the knower of Brahman becomes silent.

This is why our greatest spiritual ideals are simple. A yogi with a little rice, a jnani under a banyan tree, a bhakta with tears while chanting. No gold, no throne, no marketing department. Spirituality does not need to prove anything. It is self luminous, swayam prakash.

Cult needs noise. Spirituality needs quiet. Cult needs followers. Spirituality needs seekers. Cult needs enclosure. Spirituality needs openness like sky.

Conclusion: The Roaring Shops

And yet, in this age, it is the cult shops that are doing roaring business.

They have understood Kaliyuga perfectly. People are anxious, rootless, overloaded with information. They do not want sadhana which is slow. They do not want tapas which is hard. They do not want viveka which is demanding. They want instant certainty, instant identity, instant community, instant salvation in instalments.

So the shops have come up. They sell spirituality in capsules, wisdom in weekends, enlightenment in uniform. They have logo, slogan, costume, headgear, stage lighting, social media handle. They tell you when to cry, when to laugh, what to wear. They convert questions into queues and seekers into customers.

Neither religion nor spirituality needs market space. They do not need noise. The Vedas were whispered in forests, not shouted from billboards. Gita was spoken to one trembling man on a battlefield, not to a stadium. Yaksha asked his questions beside a silent lake, not in a conference hall.

The Vedas asked, who is the creator, where is he, what is life, what is afterlife, what is wisdom that does not perish. Those questions cannot be answered in a shop. They can only be lived, meditated upon, realised in the quiet of your own being.

If we have forgotten how to question, we have already left dharma. If we still know how to say, I do not believe this, show me, let me see for myself, then the rishi still lives in us.

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.

THE HISPANIC AND LATINO IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

                                 

The Hispanics and Latinos Are the Labour Force That Makes America Run

Lately, Latin American immigrants in the United States are facing heightened challenges. Many immigrants have said that recent enforcement drives have made them feel less safe in their own communities, and that they worry a family member or close friend could be deported. This climate has been linked to broader pressures. An advocacy briefing published in March 2026 by the American Friends Service Committee and partners, citing Department of Homeland Security figures, estimated that more than two million foreign nationals had left the US as of 27 October 2025, including approximately 527,000 through enforced removal and 1.6 million through what it described as self-deportation. That estimate has not been published as an official DHS total and should be read as an NGO compilation, not a government statistic. Policy shifts, including changes to humanitarian parole, Temporary Protected Status and eligibility for Affordable Care Act coverage under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, have compounded insecurity.

                                        

The Hispanics or Latinos are the labour force of the United States. You see them everywhere. In shops, on public transport, on construction sites, on farms, in hotels, in warehouses, in kitchens and on the streets delivering food in every weather. They are the people who keep America running. They are the quiet engine behind the noise of the American economy. They are the hands that lift, the hands that carry, the hands that clean, the hands that cook and the hands that build.

Remove them and watch how major sectors that make the United States function are crippled. Shelves go thin because there are fewer people to stack them and to transport goods. Buildings rise more slowly because there are fewer people to lay bricks, to carry cement, to bend steel and to pour concrete. Crops rot in fields because there are fewer people to pick them. Restaurants close early because kitchens have no cooks and no dishwashers. Delivery applications falter because there are fewer riders to move through the city. Offices remain uncleaned. Homes remain unbuilt. The country that calls itself an engine of the world would struggle to keep its own engine running without their hands.

They are the backbone of the food industry in America. They cook in kitchens, they wash dishes till late at night, they serve tables, they prepare meat, they chop vegetables, they clean floors and they deliver food on bicycles and motorbikes through rain and snow and scorching heat. Walk into any restaurant from New York to California, from Texas to Florida, and you will find Latinos behind the heat of the grill. They are in fast food chains and in five star hotels, in taco trucks and in diners that never close. They work long hours without complaint, weekends and nights and holidays while others rest, often without insurance and without job security. Without them, America does not eat out in the way it has become accustomed to.

They are drivers, masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, welders, painters, roofers, gardeners, dog walkers, housekeepers and security guards. Many times I saw them dangling from a high rise while painting or cleaning the outer walls with only a rope to hold them. I saw them swaying in the wind many floors above the street, washing glass that others would not dare to touch. They build the skyline of America while remaining invisible in the story of America.

They brought food varieties that became part of American life. Today American food is unthinkable without Hispanic food. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, tamales, quesadillas, guacamole and salsa are no longer foreign foods. They are American foods. In 1992, sales of salsa surpassed those of ketchup in dollar value, a clear signal of its popularity. That does not mean Americans eat more salsa by volume. Americans still buy more ketchup by weight, about ten billion ounces a year, because a jar of salsa costs more than a bottle of ketchup. But the dollar figure tells the story of cultural transformation. Avocados, chillies, coriander, limes, black beans, corn tortillas and plantains have entered every supermarket. The tortilla has become as American as sliced bread.

They may be from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay or any country once a Spanish colony. That is why they speak Spanish. That is why they are called Hispanic because of their Spanish linguistic heritage and Latino because of their geographical origin in Latin America. In truth many are both. On official forms you see the combined term Hispanic Latino because language and geography have made them one community in the United States. They are united by language, by history, by faith and by a shared spirit of work.

They are an honest, religious and no nonsense people. They believe in early mornings, hard work, God and keeping their word. They believe that labour has dignity. They do not ask for handouts. They ask only for a fair chance to work and to live with dignity and to be treated with respect. Their churches are full on Sundays. Their homes are full of children, grandparents, uncles and aunts and respect for elders.

Yet many are exploited precisely because they do not have proper stay permission. They are paid less than promised. They are denied overtime, safety equipment, medical benefits and rest. Their vulnerability is used against them by employers who know they cannot complain. Their labour creates enormous profit for others while they themselves live in crowded rooms and save every dollar to send home.

At their heart they love family life, music and their indigenous culture. Family comes first, always. Their music, dance, food and festivals are not hobbies. They are memory. They carry centuries of indigenous and mestizo heritage, the traditions of Aztec, Maya, Inca and many other native peoples mixed with Spanish history.

America was built by immigrants. This is the fundamental truth that must be spoken without fear. Before any immigrant came, this land belonged to the native peoples. They had their own nations, governments, laws, languages and religions. Those native peoples were driven out. Their lands were captured by force and by fraud and by false promises. Their treaties were broken again and again. Their villages were burnt, their children were taken to boarding schools far from home where their hair was cut and their language was forbidden. Their spiritual practices were banned by law. The Trail of Tears where thousands died in forced marches, the massacres at Wounded Knee and Sand Creek, the deliberate destruction of food sources, these are not footnotes. They are the foundation upon which immigrant America was built.

After that destruction, everyone else who came was an immigrant. Some came from England and Spain and France. Some came from Germany and Ireland and Italy and Poland. Some came from Africa in chains and built the wealth of the south with unpaid labour. Some came from China and Japan and Korea. Some came from India and the Philippines and Vietnam. Only the timeline is different. No one except the natives can claim this land as originally theirs.

Therefore the pulling out of Latinos and Hispanics simply because they have no papers carries less logic and less justice. You cannot build a nation with immigrant hands and then declare those hands illegal. You cannot celebrate Ellis Island and the Mayflower while punishing those who cross the Rio Grande with the same dream of work and freedom.

The law must be respected but the law must also be humane and it must be updated to reflect reality. A just society does not use a man for ten years to build its homes and feed its people and then throw him out because he has no paper. It regularises him. It gives him dignity. It understands that labour that is essential must be respected as essential.

If America was built by those who came from elsewhere to work and to build a better life for their children, then Latinos and Hispanics are doing exactly what every generation before them did. They are keeping America working. They are keeping America fed. Protecting them is not charity. It is common sense. It is justice.

( Avtar Mota )

PS

Hispanic refers to language - someone with Spanish-speaking heritage, including Spain but not Brazil, while Latino refers to geography - someone from Latin America, including Portuguese-speaking Brazil but not Spain, so a Mexican is both Hispanic and Latino, a Spaniard is only Hispanic, and a Brazilian is only Latino.

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.