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.

a game of dice

All the world’s a stage…or if we go by Indian mythology, a game board.

According to Indian mythology time can be parcelled into kalpas or eons that stand for one complete cycle of creation and destruction. At the end of each kalpa, the universe is destroyed by fire or flood only to spring back to life in the next kalpa. Each kalpa is further divided into four yugas: Kruta, Treta, Dwapara and Kali.

Kruta was the age of morality when gods and mortals lived in close proximity. The next is Treta or the age of the Ramayana where the hero occupies a high moral ground while the rest of the world struggles with good and evil. The third is Dwapara or the age of Mahabharat when heroes too have feet of clay. The final is kali – the one we are in right now – and it stands for strife and discord. At the end of kaliyug, the universe will either sink into the deep waters or burn to ashes and from its remains will rise a new world in a new kalpa.

Now the name of each yuga is also used to denote the different throws of dice in a traditional gambling game that was played in ancient India. The game is played with a dice that has four faces (like the one used in Mah Jong) and the best throw is the Kreta where the number is perfectly divisible by four. The Treta throw has a remainder of three, Dwapara two and Kali one -- when the number is divided by four. Interesting!

Marutta's challenge

Thousands of years ago, there lived a king called Marutta. There is not much that we know about his kingdom or his period of reign except that it marked a particularly prosperous time for his subjects. Marutta ruled with compassion and fair play and his people conferred upon him a greatness far beyond his mortal status.

Indra, king of the gods, was envious of Marutta’s growing popularity. And when he found out that Marutta was planning a yagna fit for the gods, he blew a trumpet. Marutta’s kula guru and the priest of the gods, Brihaspati, was to perform the yagna. But Indra warned Brihaspati that if he did take on the task, he would lose his priestly privileges with the gods.

Brihaspati valued his heavenly status far more than his kula guru duties and he informed Marutta accordingly. A distraught Marutta knew of none other who could do the yagna. He despaired at the thought of failing as a king as the yagna was meant to bring rain and a good harvest for his people.

In desperation, he sought to end his life. But Narada stepped in, just in time.

There was someone who could stand in for Brihaspati, he said. His brother, Samvarta. Plotted against by Brihaspati who was jealous of his brother’s abilities, Samvarta had left his home and had become a Naga Sadhu (naked sadhu). Narada advised Marutta to travel to Varanasi and wait outside the cremation grounds with a corpse. The naked sadhu who walked away from the body would be Samvarta, he said.

Marutta did that and as soon as he saw a thin wiry old sadhu make his way hastily away from the corpse, he knew he had his man. He followed Samvarta who was rude, abrasive and told Marutta that he wished to have nothing to do with man or god any more. Marutta persisted and finally Samvarta agreed. The condition was that Marutta would not go back on his word. Terrible times would be inflicted on the king for his decision to go against the word of Indra but, if he abandoned his venture, there would be a curse worse than hell coming his way.

Preparations for the yagna began. Marutta invoked Shiva with his tapasya and when he appeared, sought his support and blessings. With Shiva on his side, Marutta grew in confidence. Still he was ill prepared for what Indra would unleash. The weather turned against him, his people suffered, and every attempt was made to draw him away from his yagna.

The people grew weary and the gods, wary. For Indra was a mean foe and with Brihaspati on his side, there was havoc to be wrought.

As the day drew close, Marutta sent out his invitations. All gods were on the list; even Indra. The king’s advisors asked him to keep Indra away from the yagna but that would have rendered the yagna incomplete said Marutta.

The day of the yagna, all the gods arrived. Even Indra, but Brihaspati stayed away. With their wives, their vahanas and in all their heavenly splendour, the gods took their places around the fire. As Samvarta recited his mantras, the gods found themselves drawn into their spell. The yagna was a success as the offering made by the king was accepted and the gods participated in the great sacrifice.

Samvarta found his place in the world and Indra and Marutta, it is believed lived in peace thereafter.

rain and thunder

It’s the season for rain here and Mumbai is under water once again. I am resigned to a rain drenched day indoors, hoping for the sun and some cheer tomorrow. However there was another time and another place when the rain and thunder was cause for much joy as the devas vanquished the asuras amidst torrential downpour…

A long long time ago, in the kingdom of the gods, the Asuras had struck terror. They wrecked homes, burnt down the palaces and defeated the gods in every battle. They set every living thing, every home and every forest in heaven and on earth on fire.The gods were forced to turn to Brahma, their creator and saviour. Brahma asked Indra, the king of all gods to take action.

Indra agreed to battle the Asuras but he could not do that without help from Bramha and for that he sat in tapasya. Brahma, as is his nature, was pleased by his prayers and blessed him with a boon. “Dear Indra”, he said, “victory will be yours”. However it would not be a battle easily won because the weapon that would win him the battle had to be shaped out of the sage Dadich’s bones. In short, Indra would have to convince Dadich to self destruct and lend him his bones that would be shaped into the war-winning weapon.

Dadich, despite his thunderous name (or perhaps because of it, Da-Di-Da-Di is supposed to be the sound of thunder), turned out to be an easy ally. His bones were made available and Twashtri, the artisan of the gods shaped the vajra for Indra.

The vajra cleaved the skies in a flash of lightning. The sky opened up, unleashing its fury in the form of rain. The Asuras were no match for the devas who used thunder, lightning and rain to drive fear into the hearts of their enemies.

Vajra in Sanskrit is thunderstorm. It is also close in pronounciation to Vadha or Vadhar which used to mean fierce wind and now (in Marathi) means breeze. In German, the word Wetar, Anglo Saxon, Weter and English Weather -- originally all meant the same. They meant a change in atmosphere due to thunderstorm. Today weather has come to mean all states of air or climate. The vajra has come a long way...

Indra's pride

Indra was consumed by a desire to build the grandest palace of all. His recent victories against the Asuras had brought him glory and pride. It was time now to reinforce his supremacy at home and a palace built with the finest of craftsmen and the most expensive materials was the way to go. Or so he thought.
Vishwakarma, the architect of the gods was summoned and set to the task. Indra was a tough client. Not only was he a stickler for detail but he was fickle and nothing seemed to please him. Vishwakarma’s men were tired of building a new structure every day and having to pull it down by night just because Indra changed his mind. Vishwakarma realised that he would need the higher divinities to intervene on his behalf or else he would lose all his workmen and his peace of mind.
Vishnu was approached and he came visiting in the form of a rishi. An eager Indra led him to his palace where he showed off the glitter and the gloss with much pomp and fanfare. The rishi stood there distracted and an irritated Indra ticked him off for his insubordination. The rishi meekly mumbled that he had been taken up with an army of ants crossing the floor. He pointed them out to Indra.
Indra angrily asked him why he preferred the ants to his palace. To that the rishi said that he was only paying his respects to the many Indras who had ruled the devas before him. They were all ants now. One day, he said, the present Indra too would join the ants in their journey across the floor of another Indra’s palace.
The folly of his vanity was immediately clear to Indra who fell at the rishi’s feet and sought his forgiveness.

Narada's gift

The gods were unhappy. The world they had created for all living creatureswas being torn apart by strife. Men and women were always at battle and friends were turning into foes.
The gods knew that the biggest troublemaker of all lived among them. But who was to tell him anything. With Bramha for a father and Saraswati for a mother, there was no god willing to gather up the gumption to speak to him. So the gods kept their counsel. Their silence spawned more fights, more quarrels and more noise. Until the shrill noise of earthly squabbles pierced the heavenly sheath that protected the triumvarate.
Bramha sought advice from Vishnu and Shiv. But he knew even before they had answered, what he had to do.
“Narada!” “Narada”
Bramha’s voice rushed like a gush of wind and dragged Narada by his matted locks to his feet.
The perpetrator of all troubles. The master of all fights had been caught. His father’s anger had him crouching like a cornered tiger cub. He looked for his mother but Saraswati had been sent off by Bramha to keep her sister company.
“Narayana Narayana”, Narada muttered weakly
Narayana’s twinkling eyes offered him no help either.
In a flash Narada knew what he had to do. Bramha read his thoughts before they turned into speech and nodded his sagely nod. His son had got away lightly once again. But who was to deny that he had found the best solution?
Narada decided to gift the earthly beings with something to help them forget their troubles, their differences and their petty fights. Something that would let the human soul rise above the dull drab of daily existence. Something that would lift them into a personal heaven that no one else could penetrate. And the only thing he kenw that could do that was sangeet or music.
Sangeet was the perfect way to keep them from fighting each other. Sangeet was the best gift the gods could give the humans. And who better to spread the harmony than the first musician of the universe, Narada.
And that is how, myth has it, music came to this world.

What is myth?

Is it a story about gods and goddesses? Is it a flight of fancy or is it an older avatar of the fantasy genre of story telling? Can one study myth or perhaps more pertinently, should one study myth at all?

As I attended my first lecture on comparative mythology at Bombay University on Saturday, I found myself staring at many of the above questions. I don’t really have the answers to any and as the class progressed I realised that I am not really looking for them. I love stories and I am here to listen, understand, explore and write.

The class was interesting and sitting behind a desk for three hours without a break after all these years was, well a gentle reminder of how I was getting on in years. My knees crumbled and my back creaked ominously as I walked out after class. But these are minor glitches in what was an extremely enjoyable experience. Our lecturer is a storehouse of stories seemed game for new experiences and willing to answer all our questions.

My fellow course mates are an interesting bunch of people. A scientist, a sculptor, a school teacher, a historian – the mix is truly diverse. Everyone brings a unique point of view and a vast amount of knowledge to the classroom and I am just glad to be there.

Hidimb, Hidimba

Hidimb by Mekhala Singhal (10 years)

Hidimba by Revati Bose (12 years)