Seals
from archaeological excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
Acknowledgment: The British Museum Collection http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/asia/s/indus_seal.aspx
The earliest Swastika, a symbol for Blessings of Abundance, is found in seals
from archaeological excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (approximate region of Sindh). These were the pre-Hindu and pre-Islamic civilizations of the Indus Valley between 2600 to 1900 BC. The symbol has been preserved for thousands of
years by many a culture, over many geographies, religions and ideologies. Today
it lives as a living tradition in Khoja women's memory when it is
re-created in the sapatia configuration in one of the elaborate ritual arts of
Ismaili Khoja marriage . The suu-astik reminds
the bride and groom of their origins as they are blessed stepping over the
threshold to make a family of their own and a new generation. Making of the swastika in rice grains is also called saathia puro.
Extract from Bead Bai (2nd Ed 2014)
Part Eight Chapter 31 pages 264 -269
Su-astik at the Threshold
I
step into the Devji family home, a sixteen year old bride in a pink velvet
frock on which flows zari vine at the side from the ankle to the shoulder.
People of the town come to see me, the wife of their own Nairowua born boy with
smallpox marks on his face. Haiderali was born of Khoja Momna bead
merchant family on the border of Kenya Colony and Tanganyika…
“She
is the wife of my first born son,” proudly says Ma Jena Bai to the women of her
jamat khana volunteer group called the Naandi Committee. The Naandi Committee
receives, sorts out and arranges the evening’s food offerings at the veranda
where the evening draught pushes the fragrance of the cooked curries and smoke
of loban over red hot coal into the open courtyard. “She is a blessed
Saurashtran devi,” someone at the back whispers. Yes, I am beautiful like the
ancient women of Ajanta, fairer than all the men and women of the Devji family.
I am of narrow waist on broad rounded hips and a backside bulge under my long velvet
frock…
I
stand on the patlo stool like a statue on a pedestal at the threshold of the
Devji home, listening to my sass, Ma Jena Bai, bragging how she found me.
However, she knows my Dadabapa gave me to Devji Momna, her husband’s father, to
seal their friendship with a tie of their grandchildren’s marriage, forever.
She talks about my accomplishments as a zari embroiderer and teacher’s
assistant at the religion school. “She is shy,” I hear someone say. In truth, I felt lonely. Uneasy among the
people I had never seen before. I was not shy. I keep my eyes down, screened by
my pachedi pulled over my forehead in laaj, avoiding any eye contact. Eyes that
are studying details of my symmetry. I feel like a prey, circled by a pride of
lions whose hungry yellow eyes are fixed on the impending kill and feast. I tense my body, push my shoulders in and
hold myself together standing on the patlo stool. In my hands is a coconut, the
seed of life awaiting fertility to birth. Meethi Bai told me I would be
bringing new life into the Devji family home to continue their progeny, honour
and name. Haiderali stands by my side on another patlo stool. He is laughing
and joking with the women who in turn laugh at him in fake mockery, lisping
audible whispers, “You are such an ugly toad. You are black. You are short like
an eggplant. Your nose is a trumpet. Your hair a mesh of wire. You don’t
deserve this bride! This jewel of Nairobi!”
Cold sweat trickles down my nape under the pachedi…
“Jari,
come and sit here beside me,” Ma calls Zarina her daughter. “The rice is for
fertility,” says Ma Jena Bai to Zarina, instructively, as she goes over the
su-astik with a second line of rice trickling from her funnelled fingers. She
performs the ritual of describing the su-astik before us speaking in resolute
sentences. “It’s the su-astik that connects the ancient religions of Saurashtra
- Jainism, Buddhism, Satpanth and the many panths descending from the Vedas
that hold pirs’ words sacred. Here in the centre where the four lines meet, we
place a piece of silver, the mark of Laxmi and Light of Satgurpir. Put it here
in the centre of the su-astik,” says Ma putting her finger on the point at the
union of the four sides of the su-astik. “The union is propitious. It’s the
meeting of the four directions. Marriage is such a union.” She gives Zarina a
fifty cents silver coin with the head of bearded King George, crowned and
cloaked in fur. “Now take this betel nut
and stand it on the fifty cents sumuni. The hard seed protects the shine of
prosperity in the house. Keeps evil away.”
I know the su-astik is the chakra’s centre of life’s energy from all
directions and a welcoming sign to the lucky bride, the incarnate Lakhsmi who
brings abundance as she steps over the threshold into her new life.
I
step over the threshold with my right foot and crash onto the inverted clay
saucers revealing the su-astik sketched in rice. Suddenly the sound of crashing
clay under my feet awakens me into a new life. Consummation of my marriage? I
ask myself. I step over my childhood and enter into the Devji home, a woman. I
have accepted the ancient sacrament of my forefathers and made a covenant with
the Earth below my feet to take me home.
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