This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Blog Day :
5712
Post No. :
18230
A very Happy MAHASHIVRATRI to all our readers.
On this auspicious occasion, I am presenting a Shiv bhajan from the film Swami Vivekanand-1955.
There were two Hindi movies made on Swami ji. One was made and released in 1955 and the other was made in 1994 (released in 1998). There was also the movie The Light : Swami Vivekanand in 2013. It was made in Hindi, Bangla, Tamil and English. There were movies in Telugu and of course in Bangla also. Today’s film was made by Amar Mullick Production. It was produced by actress Bharati Devi (Amar Mullick’s wife) and Phani Mullick (Amar’s brother). The film was directed by Amar Mullick himself. The film was made simultaneously in Bangla and Hindi. All artistes were from Bengal. The Music Director was Rai Chand Boral.
This film was made in Hindi and Bengali at the same time and for Hindi version the Dialogues were by Pandit Bhushan. The entire film was in pure Hindi and partly this was a minus point for the film. Even in Bengali,people complained that,very old and pure Bengali language was used.
I had seen this movie,as I was and am an admirer of this great soul.
The main role of Swami Vivekanand was done by Ajit Prakash and his mother’s role was done by Bharati Devi. She had played a major role in Narendra’s life before he became Vivekanand. Ramkrishna Paramhans’s role was played by Manoranjan Bhattacharya.
In the film, major events of Vivekanand’s life were covered like, his early years,meeting with Ramkrishna,his turn around to Bhakti marg,going to America with help from Maharaja of Khetri,his famous speech at the Parliament of Religions,Chicago in 1893,visit to London,Bhagini Nivedita’s induction,few speeches and his Maha Nirvan on 4-7-1902.
There were 2 lyricists,Shankar Sen and Tandon Jodhpuri. I feel it was not a movie for entertainment but for bringing Vivekanand’s life to common people to inspire them.
Right from childhood I have been a devotee of Shiv ji. Maybe because of my father and our stay in Kashi for 2 years – very close to Vishveshwar Mandir. In later years, a big Shiv Temple was constructed, by our family, within the huge compound next to our Bungalow, in Hyderabad. Due to all these sanskars, I got interested in religion and started reading books about Hindu Dharma.
Over the years, after knowing deeply about other major religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism etc, I realised that Hindu Religion is unique. One may wonder what is so unique ? The simple answer is the elasticity of the Hindu religion. In other religions there is one God, one Holy book and strict rules of adherence. Hindu religion has the freedom to everyone about how to worship or be religious. There is no hard and fast rule or compulsion about any adherence to the methods or systems.
One has the freedom to choose his own form of God – Vishnu, Bramha or Shiva or any other God or Goddess like Laxmi, Parvati or Sarswati. There are hundreds of different forms of these Gods to suit all places and communities.In addition, almost every family has its own “Kul Devta” to worship. There are 10 Avatars of Vishnu, 12 Jyotirlingas of Shiva and every major place in India has its own temple of an exclusive form of God to worship. Gods are different for every caste and community and every Hindu bows to the variety of Gods wherever he goes and finds one.
It is said that there are 33 Koti Gods. This 33 Koti can mean Crores or Types. As per Shiv Puran, there are 33 types of Gods as follows….
12 Adityas (Anshuman, Aryaman,Indra, Twashta, Dhatu, Parjanya, Pusha, Bhag, Mitra, Varuna, Vivasna and Vishnu)
8 Vasus (Aap, Dhruva, Soma, Dhar, Anil, Anal, Pratyusha and Prabhasa)
11 Rudras ( Shambhu, Pinaki, Girish, Sthanu, Bhargav, Bhav, Sadashiv, Shiva, Hara, Sharva and kapali)
1 Indradev and
1 Prajapati or Bramhadev.
Now tell me which religion in this world gives so much liberty to choose one’s own form of God ? And the most important factor is that the Supreme Head of the Universe is One for all and all these are different forms of Him. There are 18 Puranas, 4 Vedas, Ramayan, Mahabharat and Geeta which describe the stories and knowledge from Mythology and also teach how to do Bhakti, in simple language. There is no compulsion of any Karmakand or a type of Bhakti one can do. There are 9 types of / ways of doing Bhakti, called Nava Vidha Bhakti….
1.Shravan – like Raja Parikshit
2. Keertan – Like Tyagraja
3. Smaran – like Bhakta Prahlad
4. Paad seva – Like Laxmi
5. Archana – also called Pooja
6. Vandana – Sashtang Namaskar
7. Daasya – like Hanuman
8. Sakhya – like Arjun and
9. Atma Nivedan – like Meerabai
One can choose the method convenient to him. Saints and Godmen in various periods kept on reviving the sagging religion with their Bhajans and deeds. In fact during the foreign invasions on Bharat, it was the saints in the Bhakti-Movement, who kept the religion alive. One such great soul was Swami Vivekanand, who crossed “the seven seas” to propagate Hindu dharma and awaken the sleeping people of India.
All this has made the Hindus highly tolerant and respectful of all Religions. Lord Shrikrishna said in Geeta ” All religions are different roads to reach me (The Supreme God) “. This is how, for the last hundreds of years, India has survived with so many religions, different cultures and languages, castes and sub castes. Major religions like Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christianity, Buddha, Jain and smaller religions like Jews, Parsis, Bahais etc have lived peacefully, in general, in Bharat. This is the greatness of Hinduism.
Maha Shivaratri is the festival in which it is believed that Shiv ji and Maa Parvati got married in the Midnight. A complete fast is observed for the whole day and Shiv Bhajans are recited. Here is one such Bhajan from the film Swami Vivekanand-1955. It is sung by Mohd. Rafi in this film. Let us enjoy this….
jab jag mein paatak badh jaata
tab avtaar tumhaara aata
Har ban kar tum har lete ho
jagti ki vipdaayen saari
hey Shivshambo hey Tripuraari
maaya aprampaar tumhaari
siddhi kaary ki jab ho jaati
jyoti jyoti mein tab mil jaati
jai jai jai devon ke dev ae ae ev
jai jai jai devon ke dev
hey Maadev Shankar upkaari
hey Shivshambo hey Tripuraari
maaya aprampaar tumhaari ee
hey Shivshambo
This is an excellent capsule on Sanatan Dharma (Hindu). It is such a bewildering mass of beliefs, ‘gods’, texts, deities, that some primer is needed to make some sense. BHU brought out a monograph on Sanatan Dharma about a hundred years back. This is in circulation now online. The objective was precisely to give a sense to foreigners as well as Hindus to help them understand their tradition.
Here I would like to add that ‘Dharma’ has no translation in English. ‘Religion’ as a codified system with one God, one Book, Church, 5 namazs etc. is alien to Sanatan. This comes out indirectly in your post. A closer equivalent to the words ‘Dharma’ is ‘righteousness’.
You have done a very good job of bringing out the core from a vast ocean. AK
Thank you so much for the informative post on the auspicious occasion of Mahashivratri.
When you say, “Sanatan is neither a Religion nor a Dharma. It is simply a way of life with attempts to decode the unknown or the Supreme” I agree with you. Very well put and very simple to understand too.
And thanks for the wonderful song too! I very recently heard it as a part of my series on Rafi’s association with composers from Bengal.
I could not watch the movie. During 55 to 57 I was living in A small city Faizabad ( Now Ayodhya). Perhaps the movie was not released there. Now through detailed narrative I could almost watch the movie and additional information by Shri Arun Kumar ji is a bonus. Thank you respected Arun Kumar ji for enlightenment. Much obliged. 🙏🙏🙏
It is an additional bonus for me to get a pat on the back from a storehouse of information and to whom I follow ardently on Fb. I am a fan of your write ups on various known, less known or unknown actors.
This blog discusses Bollywood songs of yesteryears. Every song has a brief description, followed by a video link, and complete lyrics of the song. This is a labour of love, where “new” songs are added every day, and that has been the case for over SEVENTEEN years. This blog has more than 19700 song posts by now. This blog is active and online for over 6000 days since its beginning on 19 July 2008.
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
March 8, 2024 at 8:20 am
Thank you for this song / bhajan on MahaShivratri Enjoyed the write up too.
On Fri, 8 Mar 2024 at 05:00, Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of
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March 8, 2024 at 10:03 am
Thank you.
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