Abstract
The pursuit of kalyāṇ is pivotal for many Hindus. The Hindi kalyāṇ is close, yet not equivalent, to the English term “well-being.” It is a desirable, utopian, holistic state of being that facilitates a range of pursuits: worldly and extra worldly, secular and religious, mundane and soteriological, material and spiritual. In other words, kalyāṇ is the aim of their lives as Hindus. This article aims to establish the widespread everyday use of kalyāṇ in contemporary North India, despite its absence from the academic literature, and to trace its usages, meaning(s), and spread in the Hindi-Hindu public spheres, through three cases: the classic Indic theory of well-being (puruṣārthas), the Kalyāṇ magazine published by Gita Press since 1926, and the theology of kalyāṇ in everyday lived religion. The article argues that kalyāṇ, as it is rooted in urban and modern ideas of “the good life,” synthesizes the holistic fourfold aims of the puruṣārthas and broadens their meanings. Thus, kalyāṇ is an individual, self-achieved state that does not have much to do, at least in theory, with predetermined conditions such as caste, gender, destiny, and karma.
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Notes
Interview with Nita Arora, Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir complex, Shahdara, Delhi, October 2, 2016. All interviews and other field notes were recorded in Hindi; and translation is by the author.
Svāmī Rāmdev, “Kalyug meṁ logon kā kalyāṇ kaise hogā?” Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smjRK-GmmPk (accessed December 3, 2019).
Svāsthya evaṁ Parivār Kalyāṇ Mantrālaya; Kṛṣi evaṁ Kisān Kalyāṇ Mantrālaya.
Narendra Modi, “Yog behtar svāsthya aur kalyāṇ ke liye viśva bhar ke logon kī ākāṅkṣā kā pratīk,” June 20, 2017. Available at: https://www.narendramodi.in/hi/yoga-the-journey-from-me-to-we--535896 (accessed on February 12, 2018).
Narendra Modi, Address at the Civic Reception at Rāṣṭrīya Sabhā Gṛha in Kathmandu, Nepal, May 12, 2018. Available at: https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pms-address-at-the-civic-reception-at-rashtriya-sabha-griha-in-kathmandu-nepal/ (accessed September 17, 2019).
Narendra Modi, “Maiṁ bharāt ke śramikon ke kalyāṇ hetu aur kām karne ke liye protsāhit hūṁ tāki yah deś sabhī ke liye ek behtar kāryasthal ban sake,” February 2, 2016. Available at: https://www.narendramodi.in/hi/pm-s-speech-at-the-inauguration-of-newly-constructed-building-of-esic-medical-college-and-hospital-coimbatore--412194 (accessed February 15, 2018).
The term kalyāṇ is often connected with Hindu policies and with Hindutva ideology. This article does not directly explore kalyāṇ in this context, yet this is an important inquiry that I hope to address thoroughly in the future.
This article is only a small part of my dissertation project on local guru-bhakti communities in the peripheries of Delhi and the term kalyāṇ.
Narayanan discusses the terminology of auspiciousness in Hinduism. She writes that recognizing all the various vernacular terms in their specific contexts is central to “understanding the good life in the Hindu traditions” (2010: 693).
For a discussion of the semantics of dharma and the term’s evolution, see chapter 7, “Dharma as Religious and Environmental Ethos,” in Jain 2011.
The puruṣārthas scheme was articulated in the Dharmaśāstras around the first century CE and in other canonical Sanskrit texts dedicated to one or more of the four puruṣārthas, such as the Kāmasūtra and the Arthaśāstra. The puruṣārthas also appear in many other ancient texts, such as the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, and even in Jain and Buddhist texts, such as the Yogaśāstra and Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacharita. See Davis 2004: 4.
Davis’s argument here stands in contrast to the idea that the first three puruṣārthas (known as the thrivarga) are the aims of householders and that mokṣa is the aim of renouncers. For this reason, they are considered to represent conflicting ways of life. Mokṣa can be pursued only at the time of the fourth āśrama (stage of life), in which a man becomes a saṃnyāsa (renouncer).
I found no Sanskrit text that is fully dedicated to kalyāṇa as an aim of life.
According to the Monier-Williams dictionary (2003: 263), kalyāṇa is also a name of a rāga and of a gandharva (a celestial being) and at times it is also a noun, such as in Manusmṛti 3.60, where it indicates “good fortune.”
Evidently, kalyāṇa modifies the noun guṇāḥ (characteristics, virtues). I thank Rafi Peled for assisting me with the translation of this half-verse (personal communication, March 19, 2021).
For other instances in the Rāmāyaṇa where a different translation should be in place, see for example, 2.1.18a and 2.4.40a.
For more on the few appearances of kalyāṇ in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century bhakti texts, see Dictionary of Bhakti, where kalyāṇ is translated as “welfare; good fortune” (Callewaert and Sharma 2009: 337).
In South India the term kalyāṇa is deeply associated with marriage and prosperity. For example, the hall (maṇḍapa) for divine marriage ceremonies of the gods in southern temples is referred to as kalyāṇa-maṇḍapa (Thapar 2004: 69). A more contemporary example is the Kalyan Jewellers brand, founded in Kerala in 1908. It is now one of India’s largest and most famous brands specializing in wedding jewelry. It is beyond this article’s scope to cover the historical and contemporary uses of kalyāṇa in South Indian culture and languages—important work not yet done.
It seems that, even when kalyāṇ is used in relation to social issues, the Hindu religious connotation remains, as it is commonly used by ordinary Hindus and advocates of Hindu religious nationalism alike.
The bhajan “merā āp kī kṛpā se sab kām ho rahā hai” to the goddesses Vaiṣṇo Devī. A recording of a devotee’s singing in Katra, the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, September 9, 2016.
Interview with Naresh Malik, a forty-two-year-old devotee who grew up in a village in the state of Uttar Pradesh and now belongs to a guru-bhakti community in Shahdara, Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir complex, Delhi, November 12, 2016.
A monograph written by Goyandka entitled Kalyāṇ kaise ho? and published by Gita Press. I could not find the original date of publication.
The gurus and the devotees I worked with, like many other Hindus, call their religion Sanātan Dharma, which is nowadays the most common Indic language translation for Hinduism (Hawley 2009: 313). For further explanations on the usage and history of Sanātan Dharma, see Dimitrova 2007 and Hawley 2009.
For more on the subject of Hinduism as a world religion, see King 1999.
Goyandka, for example, wrote in Marwari, and his articles were translated and published in Sanskritized Hindi (Mukul 2015: 100).
For more on the connection between Hindu nationalism and Hindi, see Dalmia 1997.
Lutgendorf, in his books Hanuman’s Tale (2006) and Life of a Text (1991), discusses the significant role of Kalyāṇ and Gita Press in popularizing Lord Hanumān and the Rāmcaritmānas, not only at a textual level, but also in the ways they ought to be read, worshiped, and, in Rāmcaritmānas’s case, performed.
Varṇāśramadharma are the laws and duties (dharma) that govern the four castes (varṇa) during the four stages of life (āśrama).
On Kalyāṇ’s cow protection, see Gundimeda and Ashwin 2018.
Darśan is the auspicious act of seeing the divine (deity or guru) and being seen by it. For more on darśan, see Eck 1981.
Kali Yug (dark age) is the last and worst age of the cycle of the four world ages. It is also the age in which we live.
Mukul in his book (2015: 104–9) describes the initial and fast-growing distribution network of Gita Press publications and Kalyāṇ magazine through merchants Mārwārī, Agrawāl, Gujarātī, and other communities who bought thousands of copies and distributed them for free.
In the beginning, an annual subscription cost 3-4 Rupees, and today it is 250 Rupees.
Mukul (2015: 24–25) in his deeply researched account of the Gita Press wonders at the fact that this Press has not been a subject of any detailed study, except few monographs and articles, considering the above-mentioned distribution numbers and the Press’ continuous presence in India’s public spheres.
Interview with Naresh Malik, Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir complex, Shahdara, Delhi, November 12, 2016.
The Kalyāṇ magazine was meant for urbanites and villagers. From the very beginning of the Gita Press copies of Kalyāṇ and other publication of the Press, such as the Rāmcaritmānas, were distributed for free in the villages (Mukul 2015: 2, 111). However, it seems that more fieldwork might need to be done to find out the scope of village readership of Kalyāṇ and the magazine’s impact beyond urban settings.
All translations from Kalyāṇ magazine are by the author.
Paramātmā—the Supreme Self that is identical to the Brahman, that is, the absolute, eternal, formless, unchanging, nondual reality. Devotees also use the term paramātmā as a synonym for bhagvān (god).
Advaita Vedānta, a school of Hindu philosophy and religious practice founded by Śaṅkara, teaches “nonduality” between the Brahman/paramātmā and the Ātman.
As noted by Mukul, in his second editorial, in the end of the inaugural issue of Kalyāṇ, Poddar distinguishes between Hindus and (threatening) Muslims. While Poddar perceived Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs as branches of the “Hindu tree,” Muslims were to him the ultimate “Others” (2015: 233). In this second editorial, under the subheading “Hindu-Muslim Problem,” he calls on Hindus to form a saṅgh-bal (unity of strength), and thus to use strength, power, and courage to defend themselves from Muslim violence (Mukul 2015: 101–2).
For example, chapter 159 of the Kalyāṇ-sādhanā-aṅk, titled “The Whole Sum of Means of Kalyāṇ,” draws on religious practice from the Bhagavad Gītā, and chapter 169, titled “Means of Kalyāṇ,” lists five ways to earn kalyāṇ: pilgrimage, fasting, ethics, yoga, and selfless deeds.
For example, chapter 47, titled “Means of Kalyāṇ for the Beings of the Kali Yug” and authored by Shree Jairamdasji “Dean” Ramayani, claims that people living in Kali Yug should learn from the life of the poet-saint Tulsīdās, who lived at the end of the sixteenth century and accomplished kalyāṇ despite being born in Kali Yug.
Today, satsaṅg, which suggests “companionship of the righteous,” is one of the most dominant frameworks of doing bhakti in various Hindu (and Sikh) religious contexts, from local communities to pan-Indian organizations and international movements. Satsaṅgs come in many formats, and the term holds different meanings in different times and contexts. However, satsaṅg is always associated with religious practice. It seems that the term has not received enough attention in the academic literature.
Goyandka formed and led satsaṅgs in Calcutta and Bombay in which his business friends participated. One can even argue that the Gita Press was conceived during Goyandka’s satsaṅgs (Mukul 2015: 1–3).
One can think about the connection between spiritual and economic success in the terms laid out in Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (2001). However, the connection is more nuanced in the Indian case, since there is no Divine Judgment, and even in the more traditional theories, an individual’s current birth and situation have to do with past actions (karma). For that reason, it seems that the ethos of the capitalist modern city is more applicable to a tradition that emphasizes individual action (karma), except that now the framework of right action (dharma) changes—it is no longer about gender and caste but about hard work, dedication, and self-reliance.
“dharma kī jay ho! adharma kā nāś ho! satya kī jay ho! pāpiyon kā nāś ho! gau mātā kī jay ho! viśva kā kalyāṇ ho!” This is a part of a call-and-response that is loudly repeated by Rājeśvarānand and his devotees at the Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir at the end of their weekly gatherings.
bhabhūtī (also vibhūti) is ash from a sacred fire (dhūnī) that the gurus use to protect and heal devotees.
Underlined words were originally in English.
Interview with Rājeśvarī Devā, Śrī Siddha Bābā Bālak Nāth Mandir complex, Chhatarpur Extension, Delhi, February 2, 2017.
“Jay ho!” is a common Hindi phrase meaning, “May there be victory.”
Interview with Rājeśvarī Devā, house of Rājeśvarī Devā’s in-laws, Sarkaghat, Himachal Pradesh, July 23, 2017.
āj kā vicār, Rājeśvarānand’s daily WhatsApp message to his community, March 3, 2017.
The Indian business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani (1932–2002) was the founder of Reliance Industries.
“Shore” is a common metaphor for mokṣa.
Kabīr is a renowned fifteenth-century poet-singer and a saint in the Bhakti tradition.
Public talk of Rājeśvarānand, Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir complex, Jagat Puri, Delhi, August 1, 2017.
The devotees of Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir and Śrī Siddha Bābā Bālak Nāth Mandir fit well within Chatterjee’s definition of the urban poor: “unlike citizenship, which carries the moral connotation of sharing in the sovereignty of the state and hence of claiming rights in relation to the state, populations do not bear any inherent moral claim” (2006: 136). They are the subject of government welfare policies, yet rarely benefit from them (134–39).
Interview with Satya Sharma, Sharma’s home, Jagat Puri, Delhi, May 16, 2017.
Interview with Rājeśvarī Devā, house of Rājeśvarī Devā’s in-laws, Sarkaghat, Himachal Pradesh, July 23, 2017.
Public talk of Rājeśvarī Devā, Śrī Siddha Bābā Bālak Nāth Mandir complex, Chhatarpur Extension, Delhi, December 27, 2015.
Even if unconsciously, this model fits the guru’s wish for the continued existence of their community and its constant growth.
Interview with Rita Sharma, Rita’s home, Jagat Puri, Delhi, December 6, 2016.
Interview with K. S. Kaem, Śrī Siddha Bābā Bālak Nāth Mandir complex, Chhatarpur Extension, Delhi, April 23, 2017.
Interview with Sanjay Khanna, Śrī Siddha Bābā Bālak Nāth Mandir complex, Chhatarpur Extension, Delhi, April 30, 2017.
Using the term “agency” here, I do not mean free will or a form of resistance to social and religious norms. Rather, the ability and the choice to act in a certain way that results in kalyāṇ within the guru-bhakti community’s given framework.
Gurus commonly deflect praise away from themselves and toward the sources of their wisdom and powers (here, their ability to generate kalyāṇ). Usually, gurus do so in the direction of the guru institutions, such as the guru’s own guru or lineage of gurus, canonical texts, religious practices, as well as the gods. In this case, it is also done toward the devotees under the rubric of self-attained kalyāṇ. Whether this is only a rhetoric meant to clear the gurus from accusations of self-glorification and importance or whether it is in the heart of questions related to agency, responsibility, and guru-devotee mutual relations remains open-ended. I look carefully into this question in my thesis that hopefully will be published in the future.
Public talk of Rājeśvarī Devā, Śrī Siddha Bābā Bālak Nāth Mandir complex, Chhatarpur Extension, Delhi, May 16, 2016.
Interview with Rājeśvarānand, Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir complex, Shahdara, Delhi, April 24, 2016.
Hanumān Cālīsā is a forty verses long praise-poem to the deity Hanumān, which has been attributed to the sixteenth-century poet-saint Tulsīdās, “regularly recited by millions of Hindus throughout the world” (Lutgendorf 2007: 92).
Lutgendorf’s (2007: 397) translation.
Rājeśvarānand plays here on the double meaning of the word artha, as both “goal” and “meaning.”
Public talk of Rājeśvarānand, Śrī Rājmātā Jhanḍevālā Mandir complex, Shahdara, Delhi, April 3, 2016.
For more on the subject of the role of sevā in hyper-gurus’ international organizations, see Warrier 2003a.
Brahmacarya and saṃnyāsa are the first and last stages of life in the classic āśrama system. Both as a brahmacārin (student) and as a saṃnyāsin (renouncer), an individual has to abstain from sexual activity.
Many Hindu leaders are self-proclaimed celibates, including Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Narendra Modi. The full-time workers of the organization Rāṣṭrīya Svayamsevak Saṅgh are obliged to renounce householder life and live as celibates. For more on this topic, see Bacchetta 2019.
The “here and now” idea of Rājeśvarānand fits well into the spirit of bhakti. Scholar such as Prentiss (1999: 24) and Novetzke (2007: 257) argue that bhakti is a religion of participation. The Sanskrit root of the terms bhakti, bhakta (devotee), and bhagvān (god) is “bhaj,” that is, to share, to participate, to engage in, to experience.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the Azrieli Foundation for the award of an Azrieli Fellowship. I am deeply indebted to Ehud Halperin for his immensely valuable guidance and constant support and to Asaf Goldschmidt for his insightful queries.
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Erlich, M. Tracing Well-Being: The Rise of Kalyāṇ in the Hindi-Hindu Public Sphere. Hindu Studies 26, 1–35 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-022-09310-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-022-09310-5