Slakes thirst, powers rituals – and fills an iconic well with faith
Tomorrow is Navruz, new year for Iranians globally. On the same vernal equinox, India’s Parsi Zoroastrians have Jamshed-i-Navroz, named after the legendary Persian king whose ceremonial wine cup reportedly never ran dry. So it’s an apt day for trustees of Mumbai’s ever-flowing Bhikha Behram Well to celebrate its historic tricentennial. Like Lord Ram’s arrow at the city’s Banganga tank, Moses’s staff during the Biblical exodus of Israelites and Islamic Hajar’s ZamZam font, this sacred landmark is linked to the All-caring One. In 1725, a divine Voice, ringing forth in a dream, ordered an 18th century Parsi merchant to sink a well. When Bhikha Behram finally obeyed – after two successively sterner reminders – sweet water gushed forth, silencing sceptics who’d scoffed that the ordained sea-shore location could yield only the brackish. Ha! What chance unpotable against Omnipotent command?
For 300 years, Bhikha Behram’s proxy bequest has served Parsis thirsting for divine intervention, and other Mumbaikars merely thirsty. What fascinates me most is the Sacred Feminine, wellspring of its boon-granting powers. Zoroastrianism’s Ardvisura Anahita presides over all water, which is second only to fire in our hierarchy of reverence. Ava/Aban Yasht prayed to her is among the longest of Avestan hymns.
Awesome to behold, she is statuesque, strong and beautiful. Dressed in finest beaver skins and ornaments, mantle, even slippers of gold, she rides a chariot drawn by four Persian steeds representing clouds, wind, rain, sleet. Ardvisura Anahita gives ‘strength to men, knowledge to priests and teachers’; but women are ‘in her special care’.
Across cultures – our Ganga-Yamuna, Celtic Danu, Egyptian Anuket, Greek Thalassa – female divinities are obvious custodians of this life-source. The ancients knew what we can’t seem to learn. Water’s mystic power is subpoenaed in all-faith rituals. Before recent contenders waded in, it was the predicted cause of future wars. Indeed, sans water, the planet would have to depend on AI-assisted recreations of nature – like backdrop of recent ET awards – since the real thing would have withered away. Taking us with it.
All ends when wells end.
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Alec Smart said: “Aurangzeb, aur kaun? Razing history is grave mistake.”
Content retrieved from: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/erratica/waternamah/.