Sheeba Shivangini Shah's debut historical fiction, Loyals of the Crown, was an excellent work on King Rajendra and his wives with the writer emphasizing how loyal relatives and courtiers spoiled Nepal's royals. Recently, she has come up with her second book Beyond the Illusions — "a saga of sexual slavery involved in tainted Tantric rituals". Here, she deals particularly with Shakta Tantrism, which includes the worship of the matrikas and fierce goddesses.The violent death of her parents-in-law and the loss of her own elder brother left a deep scar in Shivangini's psyche, prompting her to devote the book to her late brother's memory. Her in-laws — Kumar Khadga Bikram Shah and his wife Princess Sharada — died of bullet wounds sustained during the Royal Massacre. Similar was the fate of her elder brother, who died at the hands of Maoist rebels. The young writer's weary heart has sought solace in writing about the power of death and destruction as represented by Kali and the quest for the ultimate truth beyond life. Shivangini's conclusion: "Life is a mere illusion, the truth is beyond it, and to connect with this infinite truth, a complete renunciation of illusions must be made."
The story begins with an omnipresent narrator who is Shivangini herself in the form of a young television producer for Kasthamandap Channel. As the plot unfolds, the readers are told that she has a special mission in Delhi — meeting a Tantric yogi named Swami Satyananda. Once the meeting takes place, the writer switches over to a third person narrative and there is a metanarrative of a barren woman, Bhairavi, and her transformation into a deity.
Bhairavi—the flamboyant daughter-in-law of the "illustrious" Dhodi family who loves to adorn herself in richly embroidered saris and neatly-cut kurtas from Shahab Durazi to Manish Malhotra and Neeta Lulla—is the protagonist of the story. Why is Bhairavi barren? It was her destiny to be childless, to lose her husband and go searching for him to the holy city of Rishikesh in India, to be initiated into Tantrism and get transformed into a living incarnate of the fiery Goddess Kali or Adi Shakti
Swami Shri Maharaj Satyananda initiates Bhairavi into Tantrism. The period of initiation described in the book probably lasted over several weeks. It starts with some basic teaching from the Swami that "the self is important" and that Bhairavi should "learn to love herself". The yogi tells her that Kali is the great delusion; she is the void into which the entire universe is submerged, and it is the realization of this very truth that is taught at the ashram. He also tells her that she is the "chosen" one and that she must be his disciple; to do otherwise would be to deny the human race the eternal knowledge that she possesses. He teaches her that sexual energy is an integral part of Tantra and that she must overcome shame to indulge in pure sex and unite with the primordial energy.
A cursory reading is enough to gauge the amount of research that Shivangini did on Tantrism before writing the novel. She has boldly narrated the complex Tantric ritual involved in Shakta Tantrism, which particularly believes in the worship of different parts of the female body before engaging in sexual union. Below is a paragraph from the book that gives an example of Shivangini's fine prose and her superb handling of Tantric terminology.
"One night Swami Shri Maharaj Satyananda took Bhairavi to the inner courtyard, the secret and much concealed area where only the privileged were allowed. As she followed him, enveloped in the same void, she watched the reflection from the Swami's lantern sweep across the walls of the long corridor… There, in front of the stone image of the goddess, he undressed Bhairavi. He made her stand naked by the divine figurine and started touching each bare part, reciting the mantras of Kama-Kala."
The basic tenet of Shakta Tantrism is that a woman possesses more spiritual energy than man; therefore, man can achieve realization of the divinity only through sexual and emotional union with woman. Swami Satyananda wants "to invoke the Goddess in humans and worship the Great Mother in living form" so as to attain cosmic consciousness. To fulfill his petty motives, he goes on raping "innocent" women whom he calls the 10 living incarnates of the Goddess Kali. The first was Dhoonka and the second, Bhairavi. Ironically, the third victim is deemed to be Shivangini herself. It must be noted that the alluring words the Swami uses for Shivangini are actually the same that he uses for Bhairavi. Both are the names of Shakti deities. That means the fictional Shivangini could have been the next victim of the Swami's lust had he not lost his sanity after his intense erotic misadventures with Bhairavi.
There are places not only in India but also in Nepal where hundreds of innocent women are brutally raped by sex-starved swamis or followers of some stupid cult in the name of religion. Therefore, the revelations in Beyond the Illusions on the Swami's penchant for raping women in the name of religion will certainly inspire readers to give a second thought to many such cults prevailing in Nepal, such as the Badi and Deuki traditions where sex is part of the religious rituals.
The inherent message of the novel is that Tantra alone is not enough without Mantra and Yantra. The trinity as a whole is not to be fragmented in the universal and cosmic scheme of things. Otherwise, the cult of the occult will produce dangerous and destructive results, which will devour the perpetrator or practitioner himself, as seen in the demented end of the Swami.
By Monica Regmi, Kantipur Publications
