Baahubali – A Spiritual Perspective

Podcast

Grants deep fulfillment thank you bahubali a spiritual perspective the movie bahubali the first part the beginning and the second part we said we leave the conclusion become amazing blockbusters and they have created a genre in itself of the depiction of fiction historical fiction based on indian dharmic themes and imagery and actually if you consider the fact that the human mind is creating it has a active faculty for imagination and this needs to be fulfilled since a long long time humans have spun stories to entertain each other and the more dramatic the stories the more riveting the stories the more attractive they are and especially children love to hear stories as do adults fiction novels and children also have the children’s stories so with the advancement of technology instead of dramas which were there earlier now we have movies and using the themes from the indian tradition for depicting it through the medium of videography was done for the first time in a big way in india with ramananda’s ramayana and it was such a immensely popular show in the 80s and the 90s especially in the 90s especially in the 90s that now when sunday morning to be there the traffic would stop people would be at their home the people had such a reverential attitude but often when ram would appear people at home would be waiting they would offer obeisances and they would do rps in fact much earlier in 1950s for the first time when a movie was made in the ramayana in the theater when that movie was shown people would get off their seats and offer obeisances in the theaters to the to ram when he would appear so within a culture that is pious which is religious and in such a culture it is important to note that any depiction of that which is considered sacred in the tradition it attracts a lot of attention often reverential attention and after the success of the ramayana mahabharata was depicted and thereafter it spun a whole genre of tv serials and movies of mainly ramayana mahabharata tv serials now ramayana was not so much celebrated for its special effects it had it used relatively primitive technology and the special effects were also quite rudiment rudimentary it was more the devotion the fact that devotional themes were being depicted through the electronic medium had itself attracted attention now this is one genre of you of using technology to give it devotional themes on the other hand there is the whole genre of using the best technology and having the most thrilling action with the most blinding mind being selfish special effects to rivet people to the screens and in the western world there are movies such as lord of the rings which people are attracted to simply because there’s such gripping action over there so if you see the movie in the western world judah ben har that became immensely popular and acclaimed movie and there are movies like that which are depicted biblical retellings in the medium of videography and these have had immense popularity in terms of presenting a spiritual cultural motive in the language of the contemporary culture the language doesn’t refer just to the verbal word that we speak language also refers to basically a medium of communication today people communicate through social media people they communicate using the image using movies in the sense that there are few mediums which influence people’s minds as much as as television as movies as what they watch through what is depicted in these movies now of course bahubali is not not a depiction of a devotional it of a devotional it’s not a retelling of devotional story it’s a fiction that is set in the indian context so it is replete with dharmic imagery and it uses the symbol symbols which represent characters sacred to the indian tradition and it is overall it’s the first time that it’s a movie that was first made in the vernacular language and then dubbed in hindi and it has become immensely popular so there is a immense rejuvenation of nationalistic pride at the capacity of the vernacular language and the indigenous indigenous art makers the producers directors special effect designers actors all of them to come together and make a movie that is acclaimed for its content and its quality not just in india not just in local language not just in india but all over the world so there is question about while there is a dharmic rejuvenation in the sense that the younger generation especially who live a life which distance from the traditional culture they often don’t see their own dharmic motives in a positive way when i’m here in america many parents tell me that the indian parents tell me that the primary introduction to indian culture that they can give to indian to the indian kids is through bollywood and bollywood offers not usually a realistic it offers a very romanticized and graphically violent sometimes depiction of what the indian lived reality so the fact is that today’s mind is going to be of people indians is going to be shaped immensely by what they see on tv in movies and because this genre of making movies is highly influenced especially when it comes to special effects and depiction of fictional themes it’s highly influenced by western western cultural influences for example the stories of julius caesar they would have been forgotten or just relegated to history pages and other characters like him but they were retold by shakespeare and subsequently they’ve been enacted in dramas made into movies and that’s why they are they are a part of the nude or living cultural heritage of the west and india because these are the kind of characters that are depicted the most so indians often know more about famous five then they know about the five pandavas they know more about the western fictional characters then they know about indian historical characters indian scriptural characters so unless we speak in the language in which people understand again by language i mean simply medium of communication which in this case is videos we will not be able to keep the traditional culture alive and relevant and appealing to people the mainstream of people who are influenced by these languages by these media of communication so therefore from that perspective the bahubali’s success is significant because it is replete with dharmic imagery drawn from the indian context it is set in the indian context and it has been immensely successful commercially as well as artistically in many ways and for from this point of view what it signifies is the capacity for the for dharmic themes and dharmic dharmic imagery to be depicted and for it to be commercially viable and this can inspire this can have two effects one is that it can invoke a nationalistic cultural pride or it can also invoke a universal spiritual awakening in the christian tradition one of the most prominent thinkers in the modern time was c.s lewis and he talked about how imagination the christian imagination can be nourished he said there are broadly three kinds of literature there are the biblical literature with their stories and they can be depicted sometimes dramatized and they can be presented to common people and then there is the mass fiction that is there which is often replete with anti-religious values or at least a non-religious context so that means that this kind of image where the sensuality and there is obscenity that is antithetical to those who would like to have some wholesome entertainment so in between the anti-devotional the sensual the obscene kind of entertainment and the entertainment coming from dramatic retellings of directly biblical themes there could be something which is which is which you could say is pious fiction pious fiction means that this is still fiction it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the bible or with the characters associated with god that are depicted in the bible but it conveys values it is entertaining in its own right but also conveys values that are broadly compatible with the values which are needed for a healthy religious and spiritual life so he wrote his own chronicles of Narnia in that genre many people read the Narnia tales simply as fiction and it’s entertaining in its own right there are animal characters there are children and there is immense adventure in it but along with that through and through it is permeated with christian motives and christian messages the the character of the loin in the center who rescues who redeems and who ultimately sacrifices himself for others that is very reminiscent of the character of jesus and that character is what uh c.s lewis intended for people by getting attracted to that they can become attracted to jesus they can better appreciate the sacrifice of jesus now there is so people have read younger generation at that time and even today they’ve read Narnia tales a lot some of them completely miss out on the religious import of them and some get it and some when they read it and then they read the bible then they get this oh this is similar this this is so similar and they can connect with it so this kind of pious fiction is helpful in directing the consciousness to towards higher spiritual literature spiritual values while at the same time offering entertainment which is not incompatible with higher spiritual values along with that there is always a danger in creating pious fiction but sometimes the pious fiction can displace the the central spiritual characters so for example the concept of santa claus in christianity is pious fiction and although some people might say that it’s just harmless pious children like to have imaginary friends children especially have a very active imagination all of that imagination and that imagination needs to be fulfilled so if that is fulfilled through having the character of santa claus what’s wrong with that yes just having the character of santa claus itself is not necessarily wrong but for many it’s christmas becomes more about santa claus than about jesus so jesus becomes displaced as a remote historical character who’s not really relevant to them and santa claus becomes the main show stealer at christmas so pious fiction can sometimes direct the consciousness towards higher spiritual reality sometimes it can become a substitute and distract people from higher realities so bahubali it has many motives which are similar to the mahabharata the idea of a disabled king who is not able to rule and then whose successors whose heir whose sons become become envious of those who become the successors and a conflict between cousins and having having of a maternal uncle who is a uncle who is a schemester all this is very strikingly reminiscent of the mahabharata with characters like the thrashtra the conflict with the pandavas and the kauravas with shakuni there are there are many parallels and through such depiction if people see the mahabharata they can see the mahabharata in more newer light and they can connect with it better so other thing can also happen bahubali becomes like a central imaginary character and the characters are there in scripture they are neglected and people start envisioning indian history not just in not in terms of krishna and ram and the pandavas and hanuman but they start re-envisioning indian history in terms of imaginary characters like bahubali so but at the very least the success of bahubali indicates that there is a huge market for attractive depictions of stories with indian themes with dharmic ideas dharmic imagery dharmic motifs and if the success of commercial success of bahubali inspires directors producers actors to make an equally sophisticated high-tech high-end depiction of the ramayan in the mahabharata till now whatever depictions are there they none of them have touched the scale the splendor the size of what is depicted in the mahabharata and if a high end a high tech high quality depiction of the ramayan mahabharata and other such dharmic directly dharmic spiritual themes are is inspired by the bahubali then that would be that would be a far more significant success and it will spark not just a dharmic cultural revitalization of the imagination but it will also spark a dharmic spiritual revitalization of the indian heart of the soul and of the world at large. Thank you.