Most religions and new sects are only successful if they speak to the "modern
man" in colloquial language and talk about topics that matter "here and now".
If they don't do that, there is no reason for the masses to follow them or even
believe that this new version of the divine message has anything for them. As
time goes by, what is the "current norm" becomes an established "ritual" and the
expected norms of behaviour become formalized in a way everyone is expected to
behave. If the sect is to grow, there will be some congregational aspect to it,
encouraging current members to bring in new members to grow the group. No group
can "grow" unless it looks "cool" in some aspect or another.
Why would anyone join what looks "out-of-step" with society or community ? Ofcourse, the community you have may
be small, and it may be set aside from society at large, but, within that
particular community, you would have to be cool to attract people to you. So
for example, we may consider "Goth" to be an extreme look and not consider it
main stream. Yet, there are enough young people who consider it "cool" enough
to defy their parents and society to dress in extreme shades of black and white.
In religious terms, this would make "Goths" a sect of sorts. If they survived
long enough and managed to convince enough people to join them, they could even
become mainstream ! So all new religions and sects have something that
"attracts" its members to make them join.
Sects usually have charismatic leaders who are very lucid and articulate. They
often have an aura of "otherness" which attracts people to them. Unless they
have these and other wonderful characteristics, how can they help their sect
grow ? Usually such leaders provide cohesion and "we are a family" feeling that
makes the sect grow. Only successful sects, who keep choosing the right kind of
leaders to lead and grow them, generation after generation, survive beyond the
original charismatic leader. Once they have an established growth behind them,
sects usually start to "fossilise".
We all want to preserve that which is "best". Best in terms of clothes, food,
music, art, thoughts, philosophy, architecture etc. Sects are no different.
They preserve whatever was best at the time of their most impressive growth
period. They will often revert to the language of the founder or the most
charismatic leader(s) to try and recapture the "glory years". Manner of dress, conduct,
conversation, language, grammar etc at the time of its peak is considered to be
the "best time" and to recapture that, sects fossilise that period as the
"ideal" for everything.
So for example, Armenian was the popular language of commerce at the time of
Jesus. As Jesus never preached beyond the Jewish tribes, we won't know if he
spoke Aramaic or Greek or Hebrew or another dialect of the region. What we know is, the original church
papers were compiled in Aramaic and Greek because that was the language of new
followers outside Israel. To communicate with the cosmopolitan crowd of
Alexandria and Phoenicians and Greeks, the leaders had to use whatever language
worked for their new followers. When leadership shifted to Rome, they started
to use the lingua franca of the empire in order to communicate effectively with
the maximum number of people. If they kept to a dialect of Hebrew, they would
have had a very limited audience indeed !
Over time, the expansion of the sect was standardised by following the template
of their establishment in Rome. Others who felt they had templates that suited
them best split away into Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches. Each church
teaches in the language that was used at the time of its "glory years" –
Aramaic, Greek and Latin. Language, fashion and trends moved on, but having
fossilised their behavior to a specific period of time, sects stopped and kept
using language, mode of dress, forms of address etc to a very specific period in
time. Soon, what was the colloquial language, easy to approach and easy to
understand, became archaic and soon, "ancient". Its now become so ancient, some
of the terms in church Latin are lost in mists of time and they can only be
understood in context of the church and nothing else.
European Reformation broke that mould and established a new "norm" of language,
structure, ritual and iconography. Over time, this has become just as
fossilised as the Roman Church they broke away from ! Most people still quote
the Bible from King James, assuming it to be the "word of God", not realising
God or Jesus never spoke English !
Apply this to Pushti Marg -
Though the sect was established by Shri Vallabhacharyaji, it was made powerful
and popular by Shri Gusaiji. As a result clothes, language and form of seva
that have become popular is from Shri Gusaiji's time and not from Shri
Vallabh's. Shri Gusaiji moved to Vraj and employed local people to serve in the
temple. As a result the most common language in the temple was Vrajbhasha -
language of the people of Vraj. Due to its proximity to the capital of the
Mughal empire, Sikri and Agra, there were plenty of visitors from the capital to
the temple. They obviously wore the most fashionable clothes and jewels of
their time. Hence, the fashion of clothes and jewels used in the temple changed
from purely Indian to a combination of Indian, Persian and Mongol. Same thing
applied to food, music, forms of address, manners, pomp and ceremony used at the
temple.
When ShriNathji moved to Rajasthan, the sect adopted Rajasthani mode of living.
The temple structure changed from traditional Hindu temple design to a totally
different one in the form of a mansion - Haveli. This changed the concept of what a
temple should look like and how it should be organised. Instead of a
traditional arrangement of inner sanctum and adjoining halls, topped by spires
and domes, the new temple was constructed like a Rajasthani mansion, with rooms
and halls arranged around courtyards. Crucially, there were to be no spires or
domes in the new architecture ! Rajasthanis love tie-dye and so that was
introduced as a new material in the wardrobe of Thakorji. Rajasthanis also
love to paint horses and elephants outside their walls. This was also
added to the tradition of the sect.
Ofcourse, being human we can "justify" anything and make everything seem
plausible or reasonable. So all these changes and deviations from the original
were explained away in ways that sounded sensible and logical. Each time a great leader appeared in
the sect, aspects of his characteristics, modes of seva he introduced, were
added to the set format of seva fossilised in Gusaiji's time.
Pushti Marg is still evolving and now there is a new craze of using marble, white marble, in conspicuous amounts in the havelis. Design of the new havelis is more like a "hall" than a mansion. In new buildings, courtyards are avoided and everything is covered over to make sure the entire interior can be "air conditioned", after all, that's the new "cool" ! However, old modes of behaviour between priests and people is maintained. Even clothes of the priests hark back to Mughal times. Scent and sounds coming from the inner sanctum still reminds us of our original roots. If we peel back the layers of all that surrounds us in a haveli, we can see the evidence of things we have fossilised from different eras of history in our modern Pushti Marg.
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