Essay:
Revisiting ‘Chatrams’: The Indic Dormitories That Were More Than Just That
By Aravindan Neelakandan
Published in Swarajya - Jan 01, 2018

It is time to realise the cultural capital, actively pursue the cause of the endangered cultural assets that Chatrams are and if possible make them functional again.

There is a general belief that the institution of social welfare is a European contribution to India. Colonial studies of Indian culture and society repeatedly stereotyped traditional Hinduism as inward-looking, life-negating and hence lacking a social conscience. For almost two centuries colonialists and missionaries indulged in crude stereotyping of Hindus as uncaring for the fellow human beings. This view was further reinforced by scholarly missionary workers like Dr Albert Schweitzer. For him, Hinduism and Buddhism because of their doctrines of Karma and Maya negate life and this world. According to Dr Schweitzer, on the other hand, Christianity affirms the reality of the world along with the human situation in it, which in turn makes social service an ethical obligation for Christendom.

To this day many Indians, intellectuals included, have internalised these views. There are also ideological vested interests – Hindu-phobia that forms part of the academic and political discourse in post-independent India has its roots in colonial aversion to Hinduism and Indian culture. So, while the Vivekananda-Gandhi school rejected and resisted the negative stereotyping of Hindu culture and spirituality by the colonial-evangelical school of social studies, in post-independent India, the dominant Nehruvian-Marxist school, which has a stranglehold on the academic and political narrative, embraced and reinforced the stereotyping for decades.

From the fabricated image of Theresa of Calcutta caring for those dying on the streets of Calcutta, flashed across international media, to movies of Kollywood and Bollywood showing Christian institutions as the only place of solace and hope for the downtrodden victims, the concept of Hindu deficiency in social service has been reinforced again and again.

So what is the truth? For this writer at least, the moment of truth came while reading an obscure ‘Sthala purana’ – the puranic history of a sacred place, of what is now an ordinary village in Tamil Nadu but still the place of a traditional Saivite Math – Thiruvaavaduthurai. The name, in Tamil, means the place where the Goddess Parvati in the form of a cow, made reparations and became one with Siva. The Stala Purana was written in Tamil by a Saivaite seer-poet Swaminatha Munivar, 250-300 years ago. The Sthala purana itself is based on the ‘Go-Mukthi-Kshetra-Mahatmyam’ in the Rudra Samhita of Skanda Purana.

The Sthala Purana has quite a few verses which showcase the way the poet looked at how an ideal society and state should function. In these verses, the poet mentions the kind of social services that should be rendered by both individuals as well as institutions. Here are a few:

"Easing the sufferings of those struck with poverty or those who chant the Vedas, those in prison, and religious people of the diverse six sects; feeding the cow; cremating the unclaimed the corpses (or helping those who are too poor to even afford a cremation); providing medical care for unsupported pregnant women; nurturing the children who have no mothers; donating milk; providing ocular medications; providing people with medicine, palm leaves, oil and glasses; helping others to execute their duties; helping marriage ceremonies; running water donation points; creation of ponds; creating forests; laying of good roads; installing stones in which milch cows can rub their back; providing food for animals; donating dresses; giving butchers the just money and liberating the animals which they hold for slaughtering;installing chatrams; taking care of the welfare of washermen and barbers; donating good dishes to the (poor) who may desire to taste them; ..."

When I first read these verses, I considered them as just poetic hyperbole – the product of the imagination of an ideal charity-based society. Even as imagination, the caring for those who in jail, caring for the welfare of the barbers and washermen etc. struck one as very noble deeds, far ahead of the time, not only in India but anywhere in the world. Even more puzzling was the mention of ocular medication. Ophthalmologists – eye doctors in a utopian imagination? That is a bit too much.

But the records of the Thanjore Marathas did speak of ophthalmologists and paediatricians rendering medical services. There were medical professionals stationed in the Chatrams, which were famous in the Chola province that was then under the Marathas, three hundred years ago.

In other words, the poet was not only describing an ideal vision but was also approximating his vision with the day-to-day reality of his times.

In the popular imagination, ‘Chatrams’ are just inn-like service providers to pilgrims. Often they fed the pilgrims free of cost and gave them a place to rest. However, as one looks inside the Chatrams, they turn out to be something far more than just pilgrim inns. They were also centres of learning of various arts and sciences for local students – both Brahmins and non-Brahmins. Chatrams also provided medical services. Primarily, they provided shelter to pilgrims, and also acted as centres where the local people interacted with the pilgrims. Chatrams were thus educational and cultural networks across the pilgrim highway of Thanjavur – the old Chola capital. The highway itself led to Rameswaram – one amongst the most famous pilgrim destinations for Indians.

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Image:
A Madurai Hindu temple choultry or chatram (Daniell, Thomas/Wikimedia Commons)