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Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming film ‘Pathaan’ has excited and outraged people in equal measure. For his ardent fans, it is his long awaited return to the big screen. However, the song Besharam Rang (literally, shameless colour) triggered certain sections of Hindu society, who objected to Deepika Padukone wearing a saffron bikini. Critics claimed that the song mocked Hindu sentiments. Social media outrage translated into real violence when, on January 5, members of the Bajrang Dal vandalised Pathaan posters in an Ahmedabad mall.
Saffron is a colour that is closely associated with Hindu religion and culture. From the robes of renunciant Hindu monks to the flag of the RSS, saffron holds a central place is Hindu imagery. Notably, while the adoption of saffron as a symbol for the Hindutva political project is a modern phenomenon, its salience in Hindu societies can be traced back to Vedic times. So what does saffron signify in the Hindu religious-cultural universe?
The power of symbols often lies in their ability to evoke resonant meaning via a simple image. Drawing from the colour of fire or flames, saffron has long symbolised sacrifice in Hindu tradition. Hindu ascetics and monks have been wearing ochre/saffron robes since ancient times. The colour stands for the renunciation of material life, which is an integral part of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy.
The Rig Veda is the oldest surviving Sanskrit text, dated to 1500-1200 BC by scholars. It contains over 1,000 hymns and invocations to deities that also give a glimpse into contemporary life, and address spiritual and metaphysical questions.
In the Rig Veda, Agni or the God of Fire is one of three central deities, alongside Indra and Soma. The very first hymn of the corpus is dedicated to Agni, and almost all Vedic rituals involve a ritual fire in some form. Agni is conceptualised as existing at three levels — on Earth as fire, in the atmosphere as lightning, and in the sky as the Sun.
This triple presence allows Agni to be the messenger between the deities and human beings in the Vedic scriptures. According to scholars, saffron as a symbol for Hindu religion comes from its association with Agni.
Another reason for the importance of Agni in the Vedas is the importance of fire in early societies. As humans waged their battle against nature, the harnessing of fire fundamentally altered the shape of civilisation. The Vedas recognise this. Fire is used to provide not just warmth but also to purify substances and human beings. In the Ramayana (which is a text that was composed much later than the Vedas) Sita undergoes an agni pariksha to prove her chastity after her time in Ravan’s Lanka.
Even today, fire is a central part of purification rituals practised by Hindus. Think of a havan or aarti. The holy flames are supposed to ward of impurities and evil, and purify the space of worship. The act of cupping hands atop the holy flame and transferring its heat on to heads and faces is essentially an act of ritual cleansing of the body and mind.
The adoption of saffron by ascetics also signifies purification, and the act of leaving behind the temptations of material life.
Saffron as the colour of renunciation
The earliest mention of ascetics donning saffron can be found in the 10th book of the Rig Veda. The line goes: “These ascetics, swathed in wind [i.e., naked], put dirty saffron rags on.” (Rig Veda 10.136, translated by Wendy Doniger)
Over time, Hindu ascetics would adopt saffron clothes also because of the relatively easy availability of the dye of that colour. Often robes would be dyed in a mix of turmeric and saffron, giving them a yellowish orange hue. In fact, certain translations of the Rig Veda — notably by Ralph T H Griffith (1896) — do not mention saffron/ochre, but rather use “yellow”.
As Buddhism emerged in opposition to the overly ritualistic Hindu religion of the time, Buddhist monks also adopted saffron robes. The Buddha and his earliest disciples are said to have worn cloth dyed with various spices that gave it a saffron colour. Monks from South Asia’s Theravada sect still wear these colours.
In many ways, modern Hindu monastic orders borrowed heavily from Buddhist orders. The religion of the Vedas mentioned ascetics, but not mendicant orders. As the Brahmanical religion responded to the growing popularity of Buddhism with multiple Hindu sects being born and organised, saffron became the colour of choice for renunciant orders.
Today, saffron is deeply associated with the politics of Hindutva. It is the colour of the RSS’s flag and in general, the dominant colour in any depiction of Hindutva issues and slogans. After Dalwai’s comment on Adityanath’s clothes, a spokesperson for Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (which has saffron as its party colour) said bhagwa (saffron) is “our soul”. “Bhagwa is not just a colour, but a symbol of India’s culture and tradition. It is the mark of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s Hindavi Swarajya…,” the spokesperson said.
While the colour white too has deep and resonant associations with ideals that are put on a high pedestal in the Hindu religion — it stands for the purity of the Brahman in the Rig Veda; red, yellow, and black stand for the other varnas, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra respectively — the political project of Hindutva has elevated saffron to being synonymous with Hinduism itself.
