The first time I saw him on a video, I heard him speak on the Mahabharata, connecting it with the Upanishads. I was truly impressed. Such clarity of thought was unusual. The next time I saw him on video, he was in bed, intimate with two women. To me, the latter was an invasion of privacy. People have the right to do what they wish in private. But this was a scandal: for the man in both videos was wearing saffron robes and claiming to be a celibate monk.

But for the costume, this sex scandal would not have generated such uproar. The fact is, despite the second video, the articulation is that the first video is still brilliant. But now when I see it, I am prejudiced by the second video. The words ring hollow. The costume he wore added weight to the words in the first video. And it is that very costume that gave more publicity and meaning to the second video than it deserves.

We need our teachers to wear costumes. We will not accept a guru wearing jeans and T - shirt or a business suit. It must be orange or ochre or white. They must have long hair and beard. They must give themselves fancy titles and insist they are hermits; never mind that they travel only in foreign cars and in business class on aeroplanes and eat only the choicest fruits served in the most expensive china. So, part of being a spiritual teacher is also about performance. One has to look the part and act the part. The students demand it and the teacher succumbs to it.

In imagery, clothes and colours are used as symbols. In Vedic times, the hermit was called Digambara, the sky - clad one, meaning naked. Clothes indicated being part of society. Exceptions were made. Some hermits wore clothes that nature provided them — bark, leaves or animal hide. Use of woven fabrics by hermits was forbidden. Woven fabrics was for householders. As hermits interacted with villagers, some hermits, so as not to discomfort villagers, started wearing kaupina or loin cloth. Otherwise, all hermits, even women, were naked. The idea was to express a thought — that they possessed nothing.

The story from the Jain chronicles informs us that Mahavira, when he renounced the world, did have a small piece of cloth around his waist. One day this cloth got stuck on a bramble bush. He wondered should he release the cloth from the clutch of the thorn. If he did so, it would mean he was attached to the cloth. So he did not and from that day went about naked. But mere nakedness does not indicate renunciation. Otherwise everyone who patronise nude beaches would claim to be a hermit.

Following Buddhist times, when monks interacted more and more with people, hermits adopted clothes, usually undyed cloth — usually white. Colour was associated with materialism. Overtime, one colour bhagua became increasingly associated with ascetics. The colour is known as bhagwa which is a light saffron that has over time become bright saffron.

Ideally, thought should express itself in form. But today, through form we are expressing thought. Thus, when we see a man dressed in saffron robes, we assume he is a holy man. We are becoming a culture where “packaging matters”. And so we end up with performers pandering to our spiritual needs.

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik
Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist
Courtesy: Star of Mysore

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