Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

cloth. Although the Hindus in Faridpur faced only minor
problems compared to the violence in India, they aimed
not to provoke the Muslims directly and therefore
avoided rituals involving the worship of statues.
Moreover, as they claimed, since Ram worshipped
Durga out of season, there was no statue for his puja,
and therefore he used the pot of water, coconut, and
cloth as the divine image and by this rite initiated the
practice. This explanation seems to be secondary giving
legitimacy to ritual changes. Thus, the conflict in
Ayodya at least triggered off changes in the temple
worship and the relative importance and relation
between statues and the pot of water and items as divine
images. The Hindus carefully resisted the tension, the
tumults silenced, and it has been the municipality’s
official policy to avoid fundamentalism and to keep the
harmony between Muslims and Hindus.
The ritual significance of the water pot with the coconut
and cloth has continued, but there are also other reasons
why the latter image kept its importance. Statues are the
most vulnerable objects in religious conflicts. In the
Noton Kalibari temple there was a stone Kali statue,
which originally came from Kashi. During the
Liberation War Pakistani forces open fired at the temple.
One bullet hit Kali, but it ricocheted back and allegedly
killed, one hundred and fifty Pakistani soldiers. The head
of the Kali statue broke, and the statue has ever since
been kept in security from fundamentalist anti-Hindus.
Moreover, old stone statues are valuable and precious
for Hindus, and therefore popular objects for thieves and
smugglers. If the police catches criminals with stolen
statues, then the statues are rarely returned back to the
original temples because their origins often remain
unknown, and the statues are placed in museums. In
museums nobody can perform and observe the
auspicious rituals for the gods and goddesses, and this is
a problem for Hindus who have started to fight for their
rights to use their holy statues. Thus, the images of the
water-pot with the coconut and cloth seems to be the
most practical and sufficient substitute during times of
crisis, but this image is not acknowledged as a secondary
substitute; it is always the crucial image integrated in the
worship. The different emphasis on which part of the
image is the most important may explain why there are
various understandings of where the actual divine
qualities reside in statues and temples.
Akar, sakar, nirakar
In the religious worship of gods and goddesses there are
three fundamental concepts: akar, sakar and nirakar. All
statues and divine images are comprised of these three
facets. Akar is “form, appearance, figure, or its symbol”.
Sakar is “having a form or a body, bodied,
corporeal…form of worship in which deities are
conceived as having forms; idolatry”. The one who
prays to sakar is an idolater. Nirakar is “formless,
unembodied, incorporeal, the sky – God”. There are,
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however, numerous interpretations and understandings
of the relation between akar, sakar, and nirakar. This is
a consequence of, at least partly, the different
emphasises on which part of the Kali images are the
most important; the statue or the water pot with the
coconut and cloth.
Among the sweepers, the Kali statues are divided into
these three levels or aspects of the divinity: Akar is
being, sakar is matter, and nirakar is spirituality. Akar is
the living being and appearance of Kali – the form of the
images. Sakar is the earthly matters and items, from
which the images of Kali are built. Nirakar is pure
spirituality, and nobody can see or touch this dimension.
It is spiritual like the soul in the air; it is non-limited and
without any boundaries. More important than the statue
is the ghata. This is the ultimate symbol of Kali. The
water in the pot – Kali’s drinking water – not in its
physical but spiritual form, is nirakar. When they pray
to Kali, water is always in front of the shrine and image.
The water is changed once a year in a ritual called
Manosha, which takes place in August/September. The
water is taken from Ganga and returned to the river.
When they pray they always start praying to nirakar,
then sakar, and finally akar, which means that they start
preying to the spiritual dimension, then the material
dimension, and then the living Kali as she appears in
front of the devotees. Ganga and Kali are seen as equal
sisters, and Ma Ganga is also nirakar. All gods and
goddesses stem from Ganga and they will return to
Ganga. Thus, Ganga might be seen as the only truly
spiritual dimension, but they worship Kali since people
now live in the time of Kali Yuga. It makes no
difference whether Kali is worshipped as a statue or as a
pot with coconut and cloth. It is believed that if the deity
is present in a statue image, then it contains the
divinity’s soul, and this soul dimension is also called
nirakar. The statue dimension of Kali (or the form) is
then called akar, and the image of the pot of water, is
called sakar. But as indicated, the spiritual substance of
the water in the pot is still believed to be nirakar. The
open room where there is nothing and where they pray
belongs also to the nirakar dimension: it is the sacred
space.
In the main Kali temple in town, the Nuton Kalibari, the
interpretation is the same; akar is the physical
appearance of the god, sakar is the matters of which it is
built, and nirakar is the spiritual part of the divine.
Moreover, the akar dimension is explained as what is
only visible, sakar is what is only possible to feel and
hear, and nirakar is what it impossible to see – the
spirituality. Akar is the statue, and ghata is sakar. They
pray to nirakar, and this dimension is not represented in
any of the images. Nirakar is the spiritual dimension,
which devotees focus on when for instance meditating or
worshiping without images. The akar, sakar, and
nirakar dimensions of the divinities are equally
important, or more correctly, they constitute a unity. If
Kali does not respond to the prayers, then everything is a