Of mountains and men

There was a time, not recorded in historical annals or journals or gazettes, when the mountains had wings. They could fly anywhere they wished but when they did, they crashed continents, threw civilisations into tumultuous frenzy and created an environment of uncertainty and fear.

Naturally the people panicked. They rushed to Indra, god of all gods, for help. Indra mulled over their plight and although the solution occurred to him a flash, he mulled it over some more. For what he was about to do would change the mountains’ lives forever.

Indra sent down his vajra, the thunderbolt to clip the wings of the mountains. Their wings cut, the mountains could move no more and that is how in Sanskrit, they got their name achala (or those that can not walk). The wings floated up and Indra made them the clouds. Even today, there are some days, in some places, when the wings come down to meet their old masters.

Very similar to this myth is a myth cum folk tale from Orissa which I think I have put down on this blog earlier titled Elephants and wings.

The story goes that there was a time that elephants had wings. They flew the skies with free abandon and often, oblivious to the bulk they carried, perched themselves on trees, huts and mountain tops. While the mountains bore their weight with ease, trees and houses were not as fortunate. They came crashing down with a frequency that angered the men and the gods. And finally there came a day when man decided that enough was enough and appealed to the gods. The gods lent a sympathetic ear and a plan was hatched.

Now it is public knowledge that elephants like their food and drink. So the people got together and invited all the elephants to a feast that lasted several days and nights until all the elephants lay down in a drunken stupor. Man who had been waiting for this moment went around chopping off their wings. Naturally when sleep wore off, the elephants were outraged and went to the gods to seek revenge against man. But it was too late and they realised that they had been tricked by both man and god.

The myths, as they are wont to, lead us into uncharted territory and raise a load of questions:
Are these recordings of ancient events that survived in the collective memory of the people of the region?
Could it be that the mountains with wings are about earthquakes that changed the shape of the world as people knew it?
Were there creatures that were elephantine in their appearance and could fly?

We don't know but the myths will always force us to wonder and ask; what if...?

life and death

Ths is a lovely myth that i read in Myths and Legends of the World by Kenneth McLeish.
In Africa, a long time ago, Kalumba the creator god built a long single road that connected heaven and earth. Dog and Goat were positioned as guards on the road and had been trained by Kalumba Himself who had warned them about two visitors: life and death. They were to let life into earth but death had to be turned back. Of the two guards, Dog had been granted intelligence while Goat was given strength as its special characteristic.
One day, Dog was bored as the road did not have too many travellers and there was not much checking to be done and he decided to go for a short walk. This was just the opportunity that Death had been waiting for. Disguised as a bundle of dirty clothes, he sat upon the shoulders of his servants who walked him safely past Goat. A few minutes later, Life came by and Goat who took his job very seriously, pounced on her. Dog, who had chosen that very moment to come back from his stroll, ran to avoid a deadly disaster but was too late.
No amount of crying and begging by the guards worked on Kalumba who shut the road down with immediate effect and barred dog and goat from the gates of heaven. Ever since, we on earth have had to live with death while life goes on in heaven.

time and tortoise

Myths do a great job of marrying the verbal and visual in our imagination.

I found this one in a dictionary of myth describing Kasyapa from Indian mythology. (ref: Myths and Legends of the world, Kenneth Mcleish)Kasyapa was husband to the 13 daughters of Daksha (also believed to be the 13 months of the lunar calendar) and father to every living creature according to Mcleish's classification.

In some myths, Kasyapa is husband of Diti, father of the Daityas that include Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu and the 49 Maruts.

In Sanskrit, Kasyapa also means tortoise and is sometimes depicted as time creeping across the sky.

It must have been quite a fascinating journey for the mythmakers to convert concept to word and word to image or was it the other way around?

Art: Mekhala Singhal

krishna's inheritors

The papers yesterday had an interesting quote from a murder accused. Sentenced to life in prison, the accused man is said to have quipped that he was not too put out by his sentence. After all, he argued, he was a Yaduvanshi and inheritor to krishna's legacy!!
A case of selective reading of mythology, or perhaps, a reflection of how myths are misappropriated and misused in our country.

Alexander and Hercules

Myths have a strange way of uniting the most disparate forces, characters and events. Religion uses this quality of myth to unite the faithful and stir up a feeling of awe in doubt laden minds while others (a large group of unclassifiable, non labeled personalities like us…) are drawn to the marvelous stories that the quality invariably yields. Here is one such from a book that I am reading, On Alexander’s Track to the Indus by Aurel Stein.

Stein says that some of Alexander’s conquests in the Swat valley were inspired by the myth of Hercules. According to him, ancient accounts mention that after Alexander had captured several key points of the valley, the local people fled the towns to a 'rock fastness' in that country called Aornos. Alexander then made known to his troops that he wanted to conquer this rock by any means because it was believed that “this is a mighty piece of rock in that part of the country and a report is current concerning it that even Herakles, the son of Zeus had found it to be impregnable.”

Naturally, given Alexander's desire to be world conqueror, he was drawn to that place on earth where even Herakles or Hercules the great met his match. However Stein tells us, factual history can never corroborate the existence of Herakles let alone trace his journey across the world. Did Herakles come as far as India? We will never know. But, the story of Alexander’s obsession with the capture of the rock definitely makes the reading of history more wonderful.

Studying myth in India-2

My interest in myth led some of my teachers to suggest that I should enrol into a PhD programme. I hesitated at the thought of committing my time and energy into getting a degree or as many would say, a worthless piece of paper. But I saw this as the only avenue open for a regular and structured study of mythology and I found that I was more eager to work at a doctoral program than I was twenty years ago as a student.

In India, the only department that offers myth as a subject of study is the Sanskrit department at the University of Mumbai. However to enrol with them, I would need to know Sanskrit --- not learn it as I went along but be a master in it even before I could submit the first of the many forms that mark a PhD student’s journey. Alternatively, I needed to have an M A degree in a humanities subject with a minimum 55 per cent. I have neither and having worked as a writer and educationist, I am appalled that we still go by these ridiculous standards.

My graduation and post graduation studies were in economics. Today I want to study mythology – comparative mythology – an area that I had been studying informally for several years. In the interim, I have worked in various capacities in different organisations.

I tried telling the people concerned that work experience should make a difference and that I had co-authored two books. That should count?? I was also willing to sit for an entrance exam, if it were possible. However nothing has worked, nor is anyone willing to let me in through the door.

Mythology is not a subject that interests many (my class had five students) and the university admits that it may have to close it down for lack of students. And yet, when there is a student, there are no takers.

I am still trying and hoping for that crack in the door -- however thin it may be.

Studying myth in India-1

It is a year since i enrolled myself into a course in comparative mythology with the mumbai university. The course is conducted by the sanskrit department at the university of mumbai. I have had a great time reading and studying myth and having dithered over it for a long time, i am glad that i finally did the course and more importantly completed it and even sat for the exams!! Twenty years after my last exam which, by the way was disastrous, i never thought i would go through with it.

To spin back a bit in time, i have been a student of economics and never really thought that i would study further after the terrible time i had doing my masters. I cant seem to remember any other time in my life where a subject seemed so totally out of whack with my abilities!!

But then I fell in love with stories and writing and mythology careened into my existence. I was well into my adult life by then -- mother of two daughters and juggling furiously between managing home and part time jobs and reading up the various mythologies of the world. My first reaction which, i think is that of every person who is interested in myth, was that of joy, surprise and then amazement at the similarities in language and imagery used by disparate cultures from all over the world.

The more i read, the more i was drawn into the layers and layers of meaning held by a single myth. I wanted to know more, read more, discuss more. Thus began my hunt for a space that would allow me to do that. And that is when it hit me that in a country that is universally considered to be a grandmaster of the mythic dimension, there are no avenues open for a student of the subject. A one-year diploma conducted by Sanskrit department conducted over weekends is the only place where myths are studied. The course is great and is taught by people who are genuinely interested in the subject. Its content is varied and designed to provide an impetus for further research in the subject. However, if like me, you do want to research the subject further, then welcome to the abyss. You can study it as part of religious philosophy under a guru or a godman; you can study it as a byproduct of psychology or sociology but, there is no pure study of myth possible.

Strange, isn't it, for a country that prides itself on its mythological tradition!

Suns and Mothers

In ancient times, the sun, moon and the stars were prominent gods. They were honoured in sacrificial ceremonies and their power was feared as well as revered. The collective unconscious (to borrow from Jung) was rife with theories about the relationship that these celestial inhabitants had with the great gods of creation and between themselves.

In almost every culture the sun is a male god (except in Japan but, more about that later). The myths revolve around the sun’s life sustaining powers, its close links with life on earth and even its relationship with earth. Being male, the sun is shown to be a strong and everlasting source of life – however many cultures have struggled to depict another aspect of the sun which is its creative power. The sun sustains but, it also creates – as the early morning light that breaks darkness – and this creative power in all myths is feminine.

Different cultures have dealt with this in different ways. In India, for instance, we have separated the early morning aspect of the sun to create a goddess called Usas. She is dawn and in some stories, Surya, the sun’s great love. Surya spends an entire lifetime chasing her but is never able to catch up with her except in that brief interlude between dawn and morning.

The Chinese myths also deal with the feminine side of the sun in an interesting way. The story goes that the sky was home to ten suns and their parents. This led to chaos and commotion because every sun wanted its day in the sky. And thus the family squabbled until it became impossible for the world to go on with its task of creation.

Mother Xi He decided to take charge and as mothers are known to to do, she shouted her sons down. She said that there must be only one sun in the sky at a time. There was to be no argument about this -- she set aside a day for each of the ten brothers and in order to avoid any misappropriation of time spent in the sky, she announced that she would escort each sun across the sky.

Thus it came to be that the world was rid of the fighting suns and replaced by a family of ten obedient suns who are led by their mother in her chariot in a fair and orderly fashion, day after day. (World Mythology, Illustrated Guide: Sun, Moon and Stars, p94).

a hero's life

Joseph Campbell, the guru of all myth studies (at least in my book), says, “…(the) most critical function of mythology is to foster the centering and unfolding of the individual in integrity, in accord with himself (the microcosm), his culture (the mesocosm), the universe (the macrocosm) and the awesome ultimate mystery which is both beyond and within himself and all things…”

Could we then say that a hero is created by the circumstances that a society finds itself in time and time over? A hero is not born but made? And what is it that holds us back from becoming one?

what's the difference?

There are no two ways about this: heroes down the ages and across borders have an abundance of similarities. C G Jung who has contributed hugely to the understnding of hero myths has said that the collective unconscious drives mankind to create myths that are similar in outlook and content. This explains the similarities between the life cycles of heroes from Sumerian, Mayan, Chinese and Indian myths.

To explain the differences, we should perhaps look at the collective conscious which works in many ways. For instance, let us take the quest/adventure that takes a hero from his familiar environment into uncharted territory. Every hero has one and as Campbell has clarified in his book 'The hero with a thousand faces', every hero's journey is looped in this common cycle. But the quest itself varies from hero to hero and this is what is shaped by immediate and local concerns or waht we could call the collective conscious.

Consider the Sumerian myth -- Gilgamesh. After the death of Enkidu, his close friend and in some ways his alter ego, Gilgamesh the King of Uruk is devastated. he mourns the loss of his friend and fears the end of his own. This fear takes him on a journey into the unknown -- in search of the elixir of immortality.

Gilgamesh is told that there lives, in a land separated by cavernous gorges, shark infested oceans and uncrossable mountains, a grand old man called Ziusudra. This is the man who survived the great floods and upon whom the gods have bestowed immortality.

Gilgamesh decides to set out in search of this man and finds him after an arduous journey. But he is thwarted in his efforts by Ziusudra who tells him that “mankind is no more than a fragile reed and cannot expect permanence. Nothing is permanent on earth:

The dragon-fly emerges and flies.
But its face is in the sun for but a day.”

However not one to lose heart easily, Gilgamesh persists and finally wins the secret of the flower of immortality only to lose it to the snake who, ever since, has learnt to live on and on by simply shedding its skin! Gilgamesh loses the elixir because he is careless and in a brief moment of frailty, neglects to guard his gift as well as he should have. And thus as the clay tablets say, he fulfilled what the gods had in store for all men: ‘All men had returned to clay,’ said Ziusudra.

Take another hero: Hercules. He could have been an immortal hero but for the wrath of Hera, wife of Zeus. This is what made him human and ultimately even though he performed the 12 labours and fought hard, he could not overcome the obstacles placed in his path by Hera and her wily aides.

These stories reflect a concern over the end of human life. The characters carry the burdens placed by society in the form of social conduct, gender and duty and show the rest how to live their lives. However they also share what seems to have been a key concern of the times – immortality. Perhaps, we can say, that these societies were debating and theorising about death and what happens to us when we die.

Now let us move over to the heroes of Indian myth: Ram, Krishna, Buddha, Indra. Immortality is not an overriding concern in any of their lives. They fight rakhshasas, Asuras, evil relatives and cousins to emerge victorious and to always uphold the strength of good over evil.

One reason could be that the Vedic philosophy had grappled with death and life and created its own rationale that looked at life and death as the two milestones in a
recurring cyclical journey. Thsu there was already an acceptance of death as a temporary stop before the soul moved on and in most cases, lodged itself in another body. It was reborn and a hero's sould always went up and uniteds with god before it found the need to launch into an avatar. Mortality was not such a problem in a society that was dealing with assimilating different philosophies and cultures.

This is not to say that it never was a concern in Indian myth. It was and this is relfected in the battle for amrita and the samudra manthan. But the point is the cultural and social context that gave birth to the Indian heroes was at ease with the concept of mortality. And hence our heroes fought very different battles from their counterparts in the West

the hero is among us

C G Jung, whose work on archetypes has shaped much of modern day thinking on heroes believes that our myths conceal a valuable treasure in their structures and teachings. He believed that all human souls are tied together by an invisible thread which he calls the “collective unconscious”. This thread helps stitch a tapestry of images that reflect common desires, aspirations, fears and expectations.

Our hero myths draw on this collective unconscious to reveal a structure that is universal and laden with familiar motifs and symbols. We see the collective unconscious at work everywhere. This is also what draws our heroes into Campbell’s exhaustive list of stages that a hero must live his or her life through.

For instance every hero has a miraculous birth -- the birth of Ram and Krishna and Odysseus and Perseus are all miraculous conceptions.

All heroes are beckoned by the call of adventure -- whether it is Ram and his conquest of Lanka or Gilgamesh and his battle with Humbaba (the demon of the forests of Lebanon), or Perseus’ trials with Medusa – the stories demonstrate a common pattern.

Campbell tells us, in the context of the hero myth: “the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”

There is no disputing this at all. What Campbell and Jung were doing in their own ways was creating a frame within which all of humanity could find its place. For Jung, who was a student of Freud, the objective was to study myths with the tools of psychology and for Campbell, it was to establish the purpose of myth which, he believed was to convey a simple and effective message that was global in reach, content and outlook.

For many today, the concerns are different. There is a growing feeling that there are no more heroes to be had – they just don’t make them any more.

Perhaps it would help our search if we looked at the mythical hero as more than a global symbol. His life is important not only because it holds up a model for all of mankind to follow but also because it is a repository of the literary and storytelling traditions, cultural concerns and social norms of the time.

For example even though Ram and Krishna answer the call to adventure, Ram’s guide is Viswamitra in the first phase of his journey while Krishna is his own guide. That is why even though Arjun and Perseus are out to slay the demons of injustice, the evils they fight are very different and so are their lives and loves.

Yet their lives would fit into the frame of both Campbell and Jung. And that is what makes myths so fascinating – they dip into the same universe of values and life stories but they create their own distinct worlds within that universe.

If, for a moment, we do focus on the differences in cultures and traditions that are reflected by our hero myths, we may find it easier to build our modern day hero. He may not be very far from the ancient ones but the narrative cloak and the moral codes that we create for him would be drawn from all that is around us.

Calling for heroes

In recent times, there have been several articles – scholarly and speculative – about the lack of heroes for the young today. There is no one to look up to and hence no model to follow is a commonly expressed lament – albeit in different forms and at different levels of erudition.

It is somewhat strange given the array of search engines and technologies at our disposal today that we are unable to locate one man or woman who would qualify for this post. Who is this elusive heroic being that the world seems to have produced in abundant quantities once upon a time?

There are many definitions of a hero but let us go by that given by Joseph Campbell. A hero, he said, “is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations”. A hero shows us hope where there is none, he builds bridges where no man has dared to go before and is as close to human as the gods can get.

In many myths, especially in India, the heroes are gods incarnate or gods in their own right. For instance, Krishna was a god incarnate and Indra, a major god who later lost his lustre as newer tribes and modern cultures established their supremacy over the old. Indra was the prime deity as is evident from the many verses in the Rigveda (World Mythology, Illustrated Guide which has been edited by Roy Willis)

The lives of Indra and Krishna may appear very different from that of the Greek heroes like Perseus and Odysseus or the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh. But they follow a pattern. They all fit the frame of heroic journey as described by Campbell in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Very briefly: Their birth is miraculous, their boyhood feats, magical and supernormal. They follow a calling that takes them through a series of adventures which in some way or the other, end in personal destruction (as in the end of hope, loss of love or death) but, their lives hold up a candle for the rest of humanity.

What Campbell and many others have done is helped us look at a hero beyond his immediate social context. The cyclical path of the hero establishes a pattern that ties heroic personalities from all over the globe, across time and age. It allows us to place seemingly disparate characters such as Krishna and Gilgamesh on a single white board and dissect their lives for the principles they stood for. And in most cases, we find the principles live in a common basket of values. Societal good over personal greed, the end of tyranny, hope among despair and so on…These are the values our heroes lived for and these are values that are eternal.

If we accept that, there should really be no doubt about the existence of a modern day hero. For these are values that live within us and we can build the priciples that help realise them and as we do that, we may find that we have not one, but many heroes to guide us through our lives. And they are all living within us.

guardian gods

the concept of gods and goddesses as protectors or guardians of a place is common to almost every myth, especially if it belongs to a multi pantheonic culture.
just as bonbibi protects our forests, we have mumbadevi protecting mumbai. And in greek myth, athene is the patroness of Athens.
Athene, interestingly is believed to have been borrowed from libyan lore by the pelasgians (pre Hellenic inhabitants of greece)where she was known as neth. (Greek myths: Robert Graves)

jungle lore

Its been a long time since i posted anything -- but the new year brings new resolve and many resolutions.

Was in kolkata and the sunderbans recently where the myth of the bonbibi or the forest goddess is very popular. The goddess is worshipped by muslims and hindus -- as a sari clad, bejewelled deity in some places and as a salwar kameez wearing young girl in others (though we did not come across this idol in any of the places we visited, i believe that the villages closer to Bangladesh worship her in this form). The bonbibi protects her followers against the wrath of dokkhin rai -- the tiger in human form.

Bonbibi was the child of a muslim trader who looked after the people of the forest. In a story that shows how she came to prevail over the region, we see how an orphan boy, dukhu is saved from the jaws of dokkhin rai. Bonbibi fights off dokkhin rai with help from her brother shah jongli and rescues the boy. (the myth is detailed in The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh and several versions exist on the web too) In the end, dokkhin rai seeks forgiveness and bonbibi grants him his life. Even today when the locals go into the forest to collect honey or timber or fish in distant waters, they pray to bonbibi to protect them from dokkhin rai.

Good triumphs over evil.

Well, in this story it is not that simple because dokkhin rai is not really evil. He is the creator of the forest and all that resides in it. And bonbibi is the protector of the tribes that live off the forest. dokkhin rai has his reasons and bonbibi, hers and the two live in peace and harmony. Like man and nature -- they cant live without each other.

This myth also reflects the cultural and religious upheavals in the region and strongly establishes the secular credentials of the people of the region. It is still performed by local troupes on special occassions and for a week long festival in mid january during sankranti. And every performance is preceded by a brief reminder that bonbibi is worshipped by both hindus and muslims. Wish there were more such people sharing many more such stories all over the world.

frazer's web

I am reading J Frazer's 'The Golden Bough' and am totally caught in the web of magic, myth and mystery that he has put down in such detail. Of kings and priests, of trees and tree spirits, of goddesses and their lovers...all ancient civilisations were so rich and detailed in their practice of religion that it seems kind of a waste to let it all die out.

Dont get me wrong. Some of it had to. Thank god, we no longer kill our kings (or rulers/presidents/prime ministers), a year into their monarchy!! Or punish women for their husbands'lack of fishing skills -- some communities believed that if a man went out to fish and caught none, it was because his wife had been unfaithful!!

Naturally it would be disastrous to turn back the clock to such a horrific time in our history. What would be interesting however would be to know more, understand why these things were so commonly believed and followed among people living as far apart as India and Finland. What was it that tied our myths together? And what was it that kept them apart?

Aesirs and Vanirs

According to Norse myth, the mountainous regions of Asgard were once home to the principal gods or the Aesirs. A clan of warriors, the Aesir pantheon has gods like Odin, Thor, Baldyr and Tyr. They were tall, blue eyed and blonde haired and were known for their prowess with the axe and the sword.

The Aesirs were in constant battle with the Vanirs, a Nordic clan; also believed by some to be an older family of gods. The Vanirs were peace loving and agricultural while the Aesirs were always ready for a fight

The conflict between Aesirs and Vanirs is central to Nordic mythology. Some interpret this as a fight for supremacy between two tribes. Others believe that the Vanirs were an older cult that was forced to flee when faced with a warrior clan like the Aesirs.

It is not possible to pick one theory over the other simply because we don’t know fact from fiction. Like most myths, these too are short of documentary evidence or proof. But that is not issue really. What is interesting is that the Norse legends tell us about the way Aesirs and Vanirs interacted with each other. They fought over land, over women and for moral supremacy.

The myths tell us about the qualities that the tribes held dear and it indicates the compulsions behind the migratory nature of most ancient civilisations. According to one story, Iounn was the Aesir god of youth and beauty and held in high regard by the clan. Once, she was abducted by the giants and the Aesirs found themselves ageing like the normal folk. Iounn was rescued by Loki the trickster who changed his form and flew her back to the kingdom of Aesirs.

These myths make me wonder whether the Aesirs and Vanirs of Norse tales are even remotely connected to the Asur and Vanar in Indian mythology? Or are Aesir, Ahura and Asur part of the same family of myths?

Mircea Eliade, the well known Romanian scholar of comparative religions better known in India for his autobiographical novel, Maitreyi (a fictionalised account of his relationship with Bengali writer Maitreyi Devi) has said that the conflict between Aesirs and Vanirs reflect Indo-European myths of conflict between the gods of the sky and the gods of the earth.

Is it possible that we have more than just a name in common between Nordic and Vedic mythologies?

Ram, Ram…

Ram is in the news. What with various politicians laying claim to his legacy and historians debating his existence, Ram’s found a mention in the sound bytes. Was he a god that once walked the earth? Was he a king? Was he real? Or was he a composite character, drawn from heroic exploits of India’s many tribal kings?

We don’t have answers to any of these. The reason is that every time, we try and talk about our mythology, religion gatecrashes the party. Thus if we want to study the character of Ram, we cant. Because if we were to raise questions about his birth, it would be un-Indian. To question his moral authority, is disrespectful.

And yet, his sons did that in the Ramayana indicating a strength of character that we seem to lack today. His wife delivered the harshest judgement of all when she walked out on him, choosing death over her marriage. But, do we discuss this. Of course, not.

We cant debate any of these issues without holding up the invisible shield of faith. Mythology is rolled into the jumble of stuff that constitutes ancient Indian culture; the culture that we fail to uphold but never tire of eulogising. In the name of Ram, lets drop the blinkers. Let us talk about him, let us allow for an objective study of our myths and let's go with the Indian tradition of argument and debate. It would help us discover -- not whether Ram existed or not -- but the true meaning of his life story and a lot more about the times he lived in. I am sure that his creators – human or divine – would approve.

another goddess takes off...

Mrityu is the goddess of death. According to Vedic mythology, she was created by Bramha to prevent the universe from being overrun by his creation. Her duty was to ensure that all things born must die someday.

However Mrityu was not happy with the order of things. She didn’t want to do what she was being asked to and was so distressed at the thought of being forced to obey her father that she fled her home. She hid herself in the depths of the ocean, say some while others says that she tucked herself into the petals of the lotus flower. But you cant hide from Bramha and he found her and pleaded with her to come back.

Mrityu wept; “Why”, she asked her father, “should I have to be the one who destroys life?”

At that, Bramha, the story goes, cupped his palm and collected all her tears and said, “You are there to help preserve the balance of life itself. But your tears will not be in vain. They will do your work for you. They will spread disease and illness among mankind to ensure that life comes to an end and the universe keeps its balance.”
Picture by Mekhala Singhal

the boy who snared the sun

Shaiontoni says: You may like this story which also snares the sun and holds it down, in this case, to prevent it from rising. It was found in
American Indian Fairytales
Retold by W.T. Larned
Illustrated by John Rae
Derrydale, Randomhouse publishers

Iagoo the story teller tells the tale: “In the days of the great dormouse, In the days long long ago when there were many more animals than men on the earth, and the biggest of all beasts was Dormouse. Then something strange happened -- something that never happened before or since…….The story I am going to tell you is not so much about the dormouse as it is about a little boy and his sister. Yet had it not been for the Dormouse, I would not be here to tell you about it, and you would not be here to listen. The only people left on the whole earth were a young girl and her little brother.”

The boy was a dwarf and not more than three feet high but his sister was larger and stronger. She looked after him well but knew that he would have to take care of himself some day or the other. So she taught him the art of shooting and set him up with some bows and arrows. The boy was happy and one winter’s day he shot down some wild snowbirds. His sister sewed the skins together and made him a light coat to keep him warm. They boy strutted around “like a turkey cock” in his coat and one day decided to explore the world. He told his sister that he wanted to see whether, “you and I are the only persons living on earth? Perhaps if I look around I may find someone else. It will do no harm to try.” He walked and walked and walked and when he grew tired lay down to rest on the edge of a hill. Soon he was fast asleep and while he slept: “The bird skins of which the coat was made were still fresh, and …under the full glare of the sun they began to shrivel and shrink.”

The boy woke up and was very angry with the sun.” First he did nothing at all but stretch himself on the ground, where he lay for ten days without eating or moving. Then he turned over onto his side and lay there for ten days more. At last he rose to his feet…and said to his sister: “I have a plan to catch the sun in a noose. Find me something to make a snare.”

His sister got him some rough grass to twist into a rope but he said that would not do. She then cut her hair and braided it. This pleased him and he “drew it between his lips and as he did this it turned into a kind of metal, and grew much stronger and longer, until he had so much that he wound it around his body. In the middle of the night, he made his way to the hill, and there he fixed a noose at the place where the sun would rise. He had to wait a long time in the cold and darkness. But at last a faint light came into the sky. As the sun rose it was caught fast in the noose, and there it stayed.”

The rest of the world flapped around in the darkness. “Ad-ji-dau-mo, the squirrel, chattered and scolded from the branch of a pine tree. Kah-gah-gee, the raven flapped his wings and croaked more hoarsely than ever to tell the others that the end of the world had come. Only Muk-wa the bear did not mind, for it was winter, and the darker it was the better he liked it.”

“Wabun, the East Wind was the one who brought the news. He had drawn from his quiver the silver arrows with which he chased the darkness from the valleys. But the sun had not risen to help him and the arrows fell harmless to the earth. ‘Wake, wake!’ he wailed. ‘Someone has caught the sun in a snare. Which of all the animals will dare to cut the cord?’

The animals decided to go to Dormouse but he was fast asleep. So they went to An-ne-mee-kee, the thunder who went Boom! Boom! In the ear of Dormouse. “The biggest beast on earth slowly rose to his feet. In the darkness he looked bigger than ever, almost as big as a mountain. …………“’Now said Coyote to Dormouse,’ it is you that will have to free the sun. If he burned one of us, there would be little left but bones. But you are so big that if part of you is burned away there will still be enough. Then in that case you would not have to eat so much, or work so hard to get it.’

“Dormouse was a stupid animal and Coyote’s talk seemed true talk. Besides, as he was the biggest animal, he was expected to do the biggest things. So he made his way to the hill where the little boy had snared the sun, and began to nibble at the noose. As he nibbled away, his back got hotter and hotter. Soon it began to burn, until all the upper part of him burned away and became great heaps of ashes. At last when he had cut through the cord with his teeth, and set the sun free, all that was left of him was an animal no larger than an ordinary mouse. What he became then, so he is today…….”

when goddesses take flight...

This is a story from Japan.

The Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu was terrified of her brothers: Hurricane and Gale. They troubled her regularly. And one day, to escape their wilful hooliganism, the goddess ran away and hid herself in a cave.

As you can see, this led to chaos. The gods ran helter skelter looking for Amaterasu because she had taken away the light from their lives. Finally, they found her but, despite all their cajoling and pleading; she refused to step out of the cave. She wouldn’t even come to the entrance for fear that she may be dragged out by her brothers.

The god of wisdom came up with a plan. Go to the cave, he told his fellow gods, in great numbers. Take every musical instrument you can think up and a large mirror. Bang the instruments to create a racket that shakes every corner of the world.

The gods followed his advice and soon Amaterasu let curiosity get the better of her and peeped out. Look, the gods said, we now have a new sun goddess. She is brighter, braver and stronger than you.

Amaterasu saw the reflection in the mirror. Anger flooded her entire being and she stepped out for a fight. No sooner did she do that, the gods tied her up with ropes of dried grass and placed her back in the sky.

Gradually, Amaterasu came to accept her fate. But every night she finds her way back to the cave and lets the moon take her place in the night sky. The ropes of dried grass are the rays of the sun and even today, the Japanese believe that it is auspicious to hang up a garland of dried grass over the doorway during special ceremonies.