Book of Prayer

Renuka Narayanan

Description

Prophets, saints and ordinary seekers, some known, many anonymous, show us the way to a celebration of the Divine and a sacred connection with all life. Contained in these pages is the wisdom of the great religious texts, among them the Upanishads, the Bible, the Qpran, the Dhammapada and the Adi Granth. There are verses by mystics and saint-poets like Kabir, Bulle Shah, Lal Ded, Meera Bai, Jnanenshwar, Aandal, Maliadeviakka and St Francis of Assisi, and poems by famous literary figures like John Donne, Christina Rossetti and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Also included are songs of hope composed by people coping with the compulsions of everyday life - farmers, sailors, doctors and students. Compiled and edited by Renuka Narayanan, India's popular columnist on religion, this collection of the prayers of so many human beings across time and space offers moving proof that we all crave the same protection and deliverance.

Sujets

• Philosophy
• Worship
• Reference work

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351180227
• Langue: English

Extrait

Edited by RENUKA NARAYANAN


THE BOOK OF PRAYER
Contents
Dedication
Preface
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Footnotes
February
March
April
May
June
August
November
December
Copyright
Ae Malik tere bande hum
O Lord, we are Your people
P REFACE
This book of prayer is offered with love to my fellow Indians, especially those who are trapped in the English language. In every worldly sense, fluency in English is a boon from kismet. But when it comes to the deeply private business of prayer, we seem so cut off from our wealth of poetry and feeling.
I am a bazaar writer, not a scholar. So the very first thing I must do is to humbly ask my elders and betters to forgive me my inadequacies. This compilation of 365 items is meant to be a bedside and travel companion. It does not claim to be fully representative of region, history and religion.
Besides, though English is a beloved and useful language, it cannot grasp the many worlds hidden in even simple Indian words. We have to stretch further with the Indian-ness already encoded in us. So please use the translations here merely as ladders to climb a little closer to the originals. In some places, the originals sound so difficult-but have such lovely meaning-that only the translations are included. To enable a verse-of-the-day ease, several prayers, like Chalisas, have been distributed over the weeks, or special lines have been chosen from long compositions. I hope you are comfortable with the transliteration of non-English verse. Since this book is for everyday use, we finally decided against using diacritical marks, which many find tiresomely unfamiliar.
Essentially, this is a personal collection of verses and thoughts from seers, saints, poets and pilgrims -western and eastern, old favourites and new discoveries-that give me comfort and delight and help me bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with better grace. We all long to believe in God and have divine love translated for us through human kindness. Reading these verses makes all my blessings joyfully spring out to be counted.
Strange samskaras or past merits seem to have been at work in the making of this book. Two years ago, travelling through Uzbekistan, I was able to visit and pray at the graves of the Sufi leader Bahauddin Naqshband, and Imam Bukhari, the compiler of the Hadees or sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Sunni Muslims revere the Hadees as the second greatest authority after the Quran Sharief, and a pilgrimage to Imam Bukhari s tomb is called the Little Haj. When I went to see the tomb, the imam there thought nothing of taking me into the mosque, kneeling by my side and reciting holy verses aloud. It was a thrilling, moving experience. Why was this grace awarded to me, a Sanatani Hindu?
My faith tells me categorically: Aah noh bhadrah -Let noble thoughts come to us from every side ( Rig Veda, 1:64:46). The prayers in this collection, of so many human beings across time and space, offer moving proof that we all crave the same protection and deliverance.
You will also find precepts, poems and thoughts that are not strictly prayers in the accepted sense of asking or thanking. But prayerful words can be just as inspiring, and I would like to share their sweetness. Amir Khusro, for instance, sings lovelorn songs to his guru, Hazrat Nizamuddin, on several pages. Can you harden your heart against Khusro? I can t. Nor, it seems, can our filmi songwriters, who still borrow his words.
There are several Sikh prayers, which hold great personal meaning for me. I am grateful for the grace of Guru Tegh Bahadur, at the place of his martyrdom at Gurdwara Sis Ganj in Old Delhi. I had left off wearing jewellery for a whole year, mourning a personal loss. It was a sad private reaction, which nobody noticed. But in Sis Ganj, an elderly Sikh whom I was interviewing for a series on Delhi s sacred Sikh shrines during the Khalsa Tercentenary, silently slipped a fine steel kada on my bare wrist. I took it as a sign of the Guru s protection and retrieved my trinkets in affirmation of life. I was overwhelmed by this caring gesture, though in truth, I don t have much use for any organized religion or middlemen. They have unloosed too much pain on our emotionally needy world.
But what happiness to find an honourable precedent in multi-faith prayer books in the Ashram Bhajnavali (November 1922, Navjivan Trust) of none other than the Father of the Nation. I found it towards the end of preparing this collection and was fascinated to discover that Bapu had chosen precisely those suras from the Quran that I had (I have added the opening verses of the Surah Al Shams, which leapt with one bound into my Upanishadic heart). Many old national favourites are in that little book and it was no surprise to learn from its possessor, Mrs Madhu Deshpande, that whenever the freedom fighters went to jail they made sure to take the Ashram Bhajnavali along.
I have been blessed with generous help from many people. As always, my happy thanks to David Davidar. Ravi Singh of Penguin India has been staunchness personified as an editor with real interest in this book, and helped me find and translate some Hindi and Punjabi prayers. I greatly appreciate Anjana Ramakrishnan s enthusiastic work on the manuscript and Bena Sareen s charming book design.
Sardar Khushwant Singh affectionately threw several polished pearls my way from Sikh and Sufi prayers. Mr M.N. Deshpande, former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, patiently helped with Sanskrit and Marathi, besides sharing an ancient Jina verse. Anita Kaul Basu helped with Lal Ded, between howls of unholy mirth at my attempts to pronounce Kashmiri. I splashed about in the friendly but deep waters of my mother tongue, Tamil, thanks to the lifeline flung by my father, Dr S. Narayanan.
Whatever the language, its pravaha, or flow, never felt unfamiliar when it came to devotional verse. You can t help marvelling at the Upanishads for this: they are so internalized by an entire culture that every Indian seeker through time and space, even the reformer or iconoclast, seems to have repeatedly dipped into that endless well of sweet water and poured handfuls in arghya into the mother tongues.
Colleagues gave me a verse here and there; e-mails from friends abroad joined the swelling chorus. In fact, whenever I mentioned this effort, I got reactions like my neighbour Afsar s: Have you included the sayings of Hazrat Ali? I ll ask a friend to e-mail them to you tomorrow. (And the subsequent message from his friend Zainul Husain was prefaced: Allah s blessings on you for this work. ) Or, There s this really nice verse by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, tell me your fax. Hope you ve got the Twenty-third Psalm, it s my favourite. Did you know Guru Nanak compares the cosmos to a puja thaal ? And oftenest, I ve never found a multi-faith prayer book yet. At such times you feel so proud of being a modern Indian. Our Armed Forces, thankfully, have a multi-faith tradition, but evidently, civilians too are not averse to the idea.
Other debts, important to this book, must be honoured. Shekhar Gupta, CEO of The Indian Express, gave me new life with a tremendous chance to work in the subjects I love best: religion, art and culture. Mini Kapoor, though harassed frequently for opinions, gamely undertook to stay me with coffee, comfort me with cookies. Pavan Varma has been a wise, kind friend, who also shared poignant verses from Chacha Ghalib. Sunit Tandon, a friend since salad days, magicked up the glories of church music, especially Mozart s. Parvez Dewan has lent me his ear with heroic good humour, enlivened by the occasional snap or growl. Ludwig Pesch told me all sorts of things about Hildegard of Bingen, but she s in here nevertheless. Jyotirmaya Sharma sped me, with encouraging noises, to Father Gispert of the Vidyajyoti Theological Seminary, Delhi, who indulgently let me browse in its wonderful library and gave me a song book to share as I chose. Uma Chakravarti and Kumkum Roy kindly agreed to let me use their translations of the Therigatha.
If I have erred somewhere, I entreat my elders in every faith to forgive their daughter and correct her mistakes. Main nirguniari ko gun naahi : There is nothing worthy in this unworthy one. And yet, I thank God with a full heart for the chance to engage in such satisfying work: What do I have that I have not received?
Basant, 2001
New Delhi
J ANUARY 1
The verse that contains the central Sikh truth, composed by Guru Nanak:
Ik Onkar Satnaam Karta purkh nirbhau nirvair Akal murat ajuni sebhan Gurparsad jap.
God is One, Truth is His name. He is the Creator, complete in everything, Beyond fear and beyond hate Beyond time and beyond birth. He is the Light. By His grace shall you worship Him.

J ANUARY 2
Surah Al Ikhlas (The Unity), said at gravesides, funerals and in distress:
Bismillah ur Rahman ur Rahim.
Qul u Allahu ahad, Allahu samad Lam yilid walam yulad Lam yaqullahu quf wan ahad
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Say: God is One, God is Eternal. He begets not, nor is He begotten. There is none like Him.

J ANUARY 3
From the Rig Veda Samhita (10:7:22):
Hiranyagarbha samavartataagre Bhutasya jaatah patireka aasit Sa dadhaar prithvi dhyaamutey maam Kasmai devaaya havishe vidhem
From the beginning is God, the cause of elements. He is the One Lord of the Universe, Who upholds both Earth and Heaven. He it is to Whom we should offer our prayer.

J ANUARY 4
The Paternoster (Our Father), better known as the Lord s Prayer:
Our Father, Which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On Earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us as we forgive those who betray us Lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil, For Thine is the kingdom, Th