Shiva and Dionysus: Two sides of the same coin?

Richard Seaford, professor of Ancient Greek at the University of Exeter, England addressed a small group in Mumbai last week to talk about his ongoing research on two figures -- one from ancient Greece and another from ancient India -- Dionysus and Shiva. Both he said were part of henotheistic cultures. Most of us are familiar with monotheism where there is one Divine and polytheism where there are many gods. Henotheism lies between the two extremes. It describes a civilisation where people don't deny the existence of many deities but believe that one is more important than the other. Ancient India was probably a sum of many henotheistic tribes where some believed Shiva was the supreme deity, others felt it was Vishnu or one of his 'avataras' and so on. 

Shiva and Dionysus represent the unity of opposites which leads to a dissolution of boundaries between binaries such as male-female (Ardhanarishwara), human-animal (Shiva and Dionysus are mentioned as having taken the form of a bull in the ancient texts) and life-death. Shiva is creator-destroyer, an imagery we are familiar with and Dionysus, Professor Seaford said, has been compared with Hades (the Greek god of the underworld) in the ancient texts. 

Binaries according to Claude Levi Strauss convey how the human mind operates. A recent course that I did with University of Pennsylvania (via www.coursera.org) had some excellent lectures on the subject where Peter Struck, Associate Professor of Classical Studies with University of Pennsylvania said Strauss showed us how the human mind is structured in pairs of opposites. "All the other more complex forms of understanding that we have are the result of extra binaries layered on top of binaries. So for example, some folks will say, well not everything is black and white. There are lots of shades of grey. But every single shade of grey is made up of certain amounts of black and certain amounts of white." Binary language he said can code a lot of information. 

Binaries help us partially decode the thought and understand the culture which spawned the myth. Let us for a moment stick with the human-animal binary. Dionysus also known as Bacchus was originally a Thracian god. According to Bertrand Russel (A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russel: Unwin Paperbacks, 1984) Thracians were agriculturists and they had fertility cults and a god who promoted fertility who was known as Bacchus. Bacchus had the shape of a man or a bull -- it was never clear if it was one or either or both.  

It gets more interesting. Russel says: "When they (Thracians) discovered how to make beer, they thought intoxication divine and gave honour to Bacchus." Sounds familiar? Apart from the similarities between Shiva and Dionysus-Bacchus, the significance of intoxication and therefore an intoxicant is an intersection point between the Greeks and Indians. 'Soma' was the divine drink and its preparation was elaborate and ritualistic in ancient India where, like the Greeks, the spirit was accorded the status of the divine. Also devotees of Shiva and Dionysus had rituals which involved drunken revelry -- beer and then wine for the Greeks and various forms of weed and bhang in India. I must make it clear here that we are not talking of who influenced whom or whether they were influenced by another source but simply tracing the common thread that runs through civilisations.

To get back to the Shiva-Dionysus comparison, there are many other similarities -- the phallic symbol is important in the worship of both and so is their attraction to women devotees -- which I shall try and list on this blog (soon, I promise) but both represent a period of human development that was exploring the various facets of divinity.

Many cultures, one story...

My piece on death and immortality in Business Standard Weekend today:

Many cultures, one story?

Myths across cultures and continents reveal a preoccupation with similar themes - death, immortality, evil and virtue. Evidently, we are more alike than we are different

Arundhuti Dasgupta /  January 19, 2013, 0:49 IST

Here is a hypothetical exercise. Suppose we are tasked with mapping mythologies of the world on an atlas. Can you guess the outcome? The picture emerging finally is expected to be far more complicated than expected. We would end up with a criss-cross of arrows coursing through multiple continents. It would be as difficult to assign a nationality to these stories as it would be to date their origins. But, what this map could possibly establish without doubt is that the world was a global village way before Google or Facebook tried to stitch it together

Myths bind us in a web of big ideas, common themes and universal truths. Almost every culture, for instance, has stories about death and immortality. In some myths, death has to be vanquished and the heroes are on a quest for immortality. They seek the ultimate elixir, the plant or the root or the drink that will banish death from the land of the living. The theme of immortality is also central to the Kumbh Mela, the grand spectacle that is currently playing out on the banks of the Ganges in Allahabad.

The Economist, which recently reviewed a book on immortality (Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilisation; by Stephen Cave, Crown, 320 pages), had this to say: “…Stephen Cave, a British philosopher, argues that man's various tales of immortality can be boiled down into four basic ‘narratives’. The first is the simplest, in theory at least: do what the medieval alchemists never managed and discover an elixir to simply avoid dying. The second concerns resurrection, or coming back to life after dying, a belief found in all three of the Abrahamic religions. The idea of an immaterial soul that can persist through death dates back, in a formal form, at least to Plato, and forms Mr Cave's third narrative. His fourth narrative deals with immortality through achievement, by becoming so famous that one's name lives on through the ages.”*

The quest of many an Occidental hero, shaped by the philosophy and myths of these cultures, was born out of a need for understanding why we die. In the Orient too, there are similar heroic quests. Garuda, a theriomorph (deities represented in animal form), seeks amrita to free his mother. Gayatri, a popular mantra today but once a metre to which prayers were set to and also a bird, sought an elusive elixir (some myths speak of this as soma and some as amrita) for the gods. Similarly, the story of the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh (believed to be the oldest story ever told) describes his search for the plant of immortality. The plant is in the possession of an ageless man called Utnapishtim, the only survivor of the great flood that engulfed the world — remember Noah? — yet another myth that is common to all cultures.

Gilgamesh and Garuda have a lot in common. Garuda obtained the jar ofamrita for the “nagas” but tricked them out of immortality by giving them a set of contrived instructions. Gilgamesh, on the other hand, manages to get the plant but is tricked out of immortality by fate or by the gods because he fails to follow the instructions. The theme of immortality is also central to the story ofamrita manthan, which is the underlying myth of the Kumbh Mela that promises salvation and immortality of the soul.

But the narrative takes an interesting twist at this point. While the older myths record the quest for immortality, later ones tell a different story. Heroes in the Indian epics, for example, don’t seek immortality; they are avatars of the gods who are immortal. They look for deliverance of humanity at large and the defeat of evil (as they see it) in the hands of good. Arjun, Ram, Krishna, Indra, Yudhisthira and Karna are all heroes, all on a quest but not for everlasting life. Similar is the story with Homeric heroes Odysseus, Achilles, Agamemnon and others — none of them was in the hunt for immortality.

As philosophies across the world engaged with and analysed the concept of death, it was not seen as an end of life but as the means to begin a new one. Or, as a sceptic might say, death became a lost cause. The quest was therefore redefined. Like death, so it is with different aspects of life. The common thread that ties all the stories together creates a complicated, yet human and universal, tapestry. Myths are interesting as much for the fantastical worlds they describe as for what they reveal about humanity: that we are more alike than we are different. Or, at least we all love the same stories.

The other heroes of Ramayana

A professor I enjoyed learning from would begin her lecture on Ram by asking us what we thought about this hero from our epics. Most of us would groan and mutter about how Ram was no god. He was no hero. All he was, was a male chauvinist king who had no qualms sentencing his pregnant wife to death. Like dolls to a puppeteer, we had moved to her strings. She would gently tell us that is precisely why Ram is the perfect hero. He evokes passion. He has his followers and detractors and both defend and accuse him with equal fervour. He is revered in the religious texts and censured in folk songs and literature. He is the hero that makes the epic timeless. So many eons later we were still getting worked up about what he did or did not do!


But Ram is not the only interesting character in Ramayana. There are several but the Valmiki Ramayana pushed them to the margins and airbrushed the blotches and patches that would have made them real and memorable. One such character is Urmila, Lakshmana's wife. In the mainstream versions of the epic she has a minor role. But in regional literature, in songs and stories, she has an important part. For instance there is a Telegu ballad called Urmiladevi Nidra (In search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology, Ed. Malashri Lal and Namita Gokhale. Penguin Books New Delhi). The song sung mostly by women and composed by an anonymous bard tells us Urmila’s story.

Urmila was Lakshmana’s child bride -- in some accounts --  in some she is just referred to as a princess. She was left behind in Ayodhya while her husband followed Rama and Sita into the jungle. The song begins at the point when the three are leaving the palace for their 14-year exile. 

Urmila is grief-stricken. She asks Lakshmana to let her accompany them but he says that the scriptures won't allow that. A younger sister-in-law can not walk the same ground as her eldest brother-in-law. Nor can she be within his earshot. Urmila retires to the palace and then the bard asks, whose sacrifice was greater – was it Sita who gave up the palace but had her husband or was it Urmila who gave up her husband but continued to live in the palace.

A lonely and grieving Urmila slips into a state of comatose slumber. She lies like that for 14 years till the three come back to Ayodhya. But that is not the end of her woes. Because when Lakshmana comes back, he gets busy with Rama’s coronation. Sita rebukes him and forces Rama to send him to Urmila. But instead of waking her up gently Lakshman is rough and brusque. He walks into their chambers and asks her to look at how he, her moon faced lover, has come back for her.

Urmila is enraged but her character is that of a shy and bashful bride so she does not erupt with anger. But she does not recognise him and treats him like an intruder who has brought shame to the house of Rama. She warns him with stories about the fate of others who coveted other people’s wives. Indra, Ravana have all come to nought she tells him so why do you dare where they have failed. Finally when Lakshmana apologises for his behaviour Urmila gives in. And the two are feted and feasted in full royal splendour. They are treated like a newly-wed couple with their chambers decorated with flowers and songs sung teasing them about their future together.

The ballad goes on but there are two interesting bits here: one is Urmila’s sleep. Sleep in myths is death’s twin. We experience death daily when our souls roam free and when life takes a break from our bodies. In myths and regional literature, sleep brings life to a stop and it has often been used as a metaphor. We also see this in the fairy tales -- Snow White and the seven dwarves and Sleeping Beauty. The sleeping princesses have to be kissed awake. In India the kiss may have been too tame an awakening or it may have been too bold an imagery. One will never know but what is evident is that sleep mystified our ancestors and they were looking at possible explanations. Myths and stories allowed them to explore the options.

The other interesting bit is the fact that the ballad tells a woman's story from her point of view. Sita too is portrayed as a woman first and the perfect wife later. Also Urmila is no weak damsel. Her slumber is her choice as is the manner in which she wants to be woken up. Her disciplining of Lakshmana also shows that she is well versed in the scriptures. Thus learning was not the preserve of men alone. And no matter what we may think today, women could hold the stage too, even if they were bit characters in a play named after its hero.

The mystery of death

In almost everything we do in our lives, death is never far away. In the seasons, in our celebrations, in our relationships and in our rituals; death as an end, death as sadness, death as loss and death as a debt that we owe the ultimate creditor, Yama (in the Hindu pantheon) is omnipresent. It is the invisible thread that ties our lives together -- gives it a meaning so to say.


This is true of almost every culture in the world. As I read the myths that once defined these cultures, I was drawn by the similarities in the way death was depicted and the rituals that are associated with it. Equally interesting was the difference -- death is universal but the philosophy of mortality differs from culture to culture -- in nuance and character.

For instance in many ancient civilisations (Greeks, Mayans, Aztec), death is something man or humanity has always sought to conquer. To borrow a cliche: it is the final frontier. The heroes of these myths are therefore on a quest for immortality. They seek the ultimate elixir, the plant or the root or the drink that will keep death away from the living. Their adventures defy death but circumstance, manifest in many different forms, conspires them out of a victory.

The quest of the occidental hero, shaped by the philosophy and myths of these cultures, was born out of a need for understanding why we die. Why is it that the elixir is elusive? This has in turn given rise to literary characters and stories on what death means to us -- The Economist recently carried a brilliant report on a book on immortality (read it here: http://www.economist.com/node/21553411). But this is the story of the occident.

Indian myths tell a different tale. But since they are treated as children's literature fit for comic books and animation films or as religious doctrine, they are rarely examined for their underlying philosophy on death. But if they were, you will find that heroes in the Indian epics don’t go for immortality. They look for deliverance of humanity at large, their raison d’être is to topple evil from its pedestal and give good its rightful due. Arjun, Ram, Krishna, Indra, Yudhisthira and Karna are all heroes, all on a quest but not for everlasting life. There are some heroes that did: Garuda looks for amrita to free his mother, the Gayatri (a mantra today but a meter that could fly like a bird in the Vedas) finds it for the gods but these are older myths. Over the years, Indian myth gave up its search for immortality and looked for other causes.

What happened? Perhaps, as the philosophy of this region engaged with dying more closely, death was not seen as an end of life but as the means to begin a new one. Or the sceptic might say death became a lost cause. Whatever the truth, the cycle of life -- birth, death and rebirth -- gained currency among the gurus of the times and therefore their people.

The quest was therefore redefined. Mankind and its heroes began a search for things that would give them spiritual release and not tie them down to an illusory world. Heroes were mortal representatives of gods who were immortal but; in their earthly avatars, they were a part of the cycle of life and death and karma. The philosophy of the region freed the hero of his and her need to rescue mankind from death.

On a recent trip to Benares, I was once again shown the relevance and importance that dying has for us as a people. In that city, death lives among its people. It is not a stranger, leave alone an opponent that needs to be vanquished.

The yellow robed god

Vishnu is the yellow robed god or Pitambari. But how he became one is an interesting aside in the larger mythic play.

To begin at the very beginning, Prajapati the creator god had just finished creating and was sitting back, satiated, on a lotus leaf. The myths (in the Vedic hymns) tell us that he made all beings that inhabit this universe from the heat generated from his own body or his 'tapas'. The heat led him to perspire and from his perspiration, came the world.  This is a motif that many creation myths follow where the creation process is usually faciliated by a liquid -- it could be spit, sweat, rain, the foam on the waves in the sea and even sweetened milk. But that's not the point of this story.

As Prajapati watched his world go past, he called out to the tortoise. "You have been created from my body," he told him. But the tortoise was disdainful and perhaps, a tad dismissive.  "I have been here long before you", it said. The myths leave it there, capturing our society's collective inability, at that time, to verify the truth of who came first. That too is not the point of the story but, the tortoise is.

From being identified as a timeless creature, it moves on to becoming a symbol of the sun in later myths. According to folklore, once upon a time, very long ago, the sun grew afraid of his own lustre. He ran away from himself and sought refuge in the tortoise. He did go back as the world had stopped without him but, he left behind his heart in the tortoise. Thus an entire tribe of sun worshippers also became tortoise worshippers. The tortoise and the sun were now looped in a link and preserved as collective memory. Interestingly the tortoise family is among those animals that aestivate -- or monitor their metabolic levels by going dormant during dry periods where they conserve their energies by staying out of the sun.  






Vishnu on a tortoise, Thrissur Pooram procession

 Vishnu, the preserver god of the trinity, rests on water, lies on a snake and flies on an eagle. He is closely associated with the tortoise which is one of his avatars and a permanent fixture in all his temples. Given the association between tortoise and the sun, Vishnu also became a solar god. The disc in his hand and his yellow robes, the direct symbols of an indirect relationship with the Sun God.

(Photograph: Rajrishi Singhal)

Eternal mysteries

Myths were born when we tried to resolve some universal mysteries. Where do we come from? How did the universe come to be and why is the sky above and the ground below our feet? Frankly, some of these questions still have no answers but science has taken us close to the truth or, to put it more accurately, the facts of the case.

Still, the joy of some of old myths persists. A Maori myth,which is common to many civilisations, is one such. It explores the relationship between the sky and earth and their children.

The two, the story goes, were caught in a tight embrace. Darkness found itself trapped between the two. It wanted a way out as did the children of sky and earth who were the gods and human beings. They all pleaded with their parents for some air and some light but, sky and earth were unmoved. Finally the great big god (not sure if it was one or many) decided to stand upside down and push the two apart. The head pushed earth down while the feet shoved sky up and the two were separated and are kept that way till date. The two did not take this too well but had to give in to their children and even today, sky and earth pine for each other. Every monsoon, the sky sheds tears of sorrow for his wife, earth while she weeps all summer.

The separation of the earth and sky is said to be the genesis of the eternal separation motif which has found its way into all our stories -- myths, fairy tales and even contemporary fiction. So what if we now know that this is not how things came to be or that the seasons are explained by a water cycle; the story enthralls, perhaps even more today than when it was first told.

Sons and society

A son is a son is a son in English but in Sanskrit, he is known by many names. Each name symbolises an aspect or tells the story of his birth. Some examples are: Aurus which is the name given to a biological son or an adopted one; Pratram is not formally adopted but regarded as one's own son; Sahod Putra is a son who comes with marriage (he is a biological son but was conceived before the formal marriage); Gudo is a son born when the husband is traveling, but from one of the members of the family; Kaanani is born before marriage and is brought up by the maternal grandfather; Putrika is a daughter who is like a son and Putrika Putra is the daughter's son who may belong to the maternal grandfather or inherit his maternal grandfather's kingdom.

The names not only tell us how important a son has always been to Indian society and the cultural importance attached to bearing one but in some manner, they also indicate that we did not always apply a strict moral code to marriage. A woman could have a relationship before marriage and bear a child; the son was not called a bastard as he would be today but was given a name, a place in the family and a purpose within the broad societal framework. Of course, such a courtesy was unlikely to have been extended to the girl child. If it had been, we would have been a completely different country.

The M factor

The more I read about Mayawati, the more I am reminded about what a friend (Rukmini Gupte) once told me. She is the perfect Manasa archetype. And as my husband points out, so is Mamata. And there is more than just an ‘m’ connection.

Manasa, worshipped as a 'devi', is a semi divine being. Daughter of Shiv and a mortal woman, she is also a hero (the term hero in mythology stands for both man and woman). According to one of the definitions of hero, one of the many conditions that a hero must fulfil is to have one divine parent (Greek myths exemplify this best). Manasa, with Shiv as a father, fits the bill.

The story goes that Manasa was extremely beautiful but jealous Parvati (Shiv’s wife) scarred her face and blinded her in one eye. This did not deter Manasa or perhaps that is what set her on her mission: to upstage Shiv as the popular god.

Shiv was universally worshipped at the time; he was the reigning deity. Manasa wanted to take his place. She went about forcing, cajoling and threatening people to follow her. On the advice of a confidante, she sought the worship of the shepherd community. She believed that the shepherds, being nomadic, would help spread her influence to distant lands. The shepherds were not willing. But Manasa was determined. She poisoned their sheep and promised to revive them only if the community did her bidding.

Interestingly, in the Sunderbans where many of her legends still flourish, a poisonous plant named manasa is commonly found. And Otto Rank in his book ‘The Myth of the Birth of a Hero’ says that "nearly all authors who have hitherto been engaged in the interpretation of the birth myths of heroes find in them a personification of the processes of nature..." Is it possible then that a plant inspired a goddess and spawned these myths?

But I digress. Point is that Manasa was a vicious and vengeful goddess. In another legend popular in Bengal and Bihar, she drives a rich merchant Chand Soudagar to despair because he refuses to pray to her. She destroys his trade, kills his son and pushes him to brink of insanity until he gives in to her wishes. In return she brings his son back to life and restores his lost business.

Shades of Manasa are easy to spot in both the chief ministers: Mayawati and Mamata. They fit the archetype. They ride roughshod over all obstacles, real or perceived. Loyalty is rewarded, dissent is crushed.

An archetype, Jung says “is a kind of readiness to produce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas.” (Carl Jung, Psychological Types, Collective Works, Vol 6) Thus the Manasa archetype is characterised by a determination to rise to the top, born out of a sense of injustice. It is marked by mercurial and impetuous behaviour and a ruthless desire for power and control over everything else. In Greek myths, Medusa takes the evil and cruelty inherent in the archetype to an extreme level wheras Manasa is more in keeping with that of a benevolent despot that is commonly found in the Orient (Doubt: is there such a thing as a "benevolent despot" or is it an oxymoron?).

As the UP state elections draw close, it will be interesting to watch how Mayawati handles the electorate. And in Bengal, how Mamata deals with her new-found power. Will they temper down their anger to win fealty, or will they, in keeping with the Manasa archetype, terrorise non-believers into submission?

Temple treasures

Now that the Padmanabhaswamy temple has been found to be sitting on a sea of riches, it may be a good time to recollect that in the Orient snakes and dragons have always been regarded as guardians of treasure. The Vishnu idol in the temple rests on Ananta, the serpent and this temple was perhaps built on an ancient snake worship site. Also snakes and dragons must have played a huge role in keeping looters at bay for then, as now, fear is the best way to prevent crime.

The sea and the hero

 

Duryodhana, Kaurava king and arch rival of his cousins, the Pandavas, was said to have been well versed in the scriptures. Although he is the cause for the war that annihilated an entire race, Duryodhana comes across as an unfortunate character who felt he had been wronged by circumstance and his cousins. Although later renditions of the epic have made him out to be an evil and villainous warrior, Duryodhana did have several heroic qualities. He lost out on account of his vanity and uncontrollable temper. His character is brilliantly portrayed in a play called Dutavakyam by Bhasa, a Sanskrit playwright who lived sometime between 2BCE and 2CE.

Interestingly in the Mahabharata, it is Duryodhana who defines a hero's character. He speaks at length about what constitutes a hero and among the many points he makes is that a hero's might does not depend upon his lineage. Thus it did not matter that Karna was recognised as a Suta and not a Kshatriya. To him Karna was a brave hero because of his ability to challenge one as mighty as Arjuna. Caste did not cloud his judgement. Explaining his stance ( Mahabharata, Vol 1, Translated by KM Ganguli, p290) Duryodhana says:"The lineage of heroes like the sources of a lordly river are ever unknown."

He takes the water analogy further and says: "The fire that covers the world rises from the waters." Duryodhana was referring to the quality that allows a seemingly placid ocean to pull nations under. And perhaps what he was trying to say is that just as it would be foolish to judge the sea by its appearance, it would be wrong to identify a hero by his caste or by what he looks like. In other words, let actions speak for the man not his looks.

His words carry another truth which holds great significance for us today: the omnipotence of nature. The sea contains the fire that engulfs the world, he said. As the Tsunami wrecks Japan these words reflect an aspect of the ocean we have lost sight of.

Photograph by Rajrishi Singhal

Egypt's 30-year jinx

The protesters at Tahrir Square in Cairo, by asking for an end to their president’s 30-year rule, are perpetuating a practice that originated in Egypt sometime at the beginning of civilisation. The Egyptian myths about kings and pharaohs tell us that a ruler could rule for a maximum of 30 years; interestingly, the same number of years that Mubarak has been in power.

According to Donald Mackenzie (Egyptian myth and legend) Egyptian rulers were considered to be representatives of the god Osiris. During their reign, their word was law and their acts divine. But every 30 years the kings had to step down. They were then killed and in a gruesome cannibalistic tradition, feasted upon.

The belief, as we find in many myths, was that all that is old must die to create the new. Death was not seen as the end of a life but as a necessary requirement for a new one. Thus ingesting the old king was a way to ensure that his spirit lived on among his people and in the new king.

The ritual came to an end under the reign of King Zaru who said that killing the king was disrespectful of the god he represented. It would be far more effective, he said, if a representative of the king in the form of cattle or goat was sacrificed. And therein probably lies the origin of animal sacrifice and as anecdotal evidence suggests, the term 'scapegoat'. (The latter may be completely off track as I have found no etymological proof for this.)

However to come back to the point, no king lasted more than thirty years. If he did not voluntarily make way for his successor, he was forced to do so. King Mubarak may be spared the fate of the ancient kings but he may not be able to escape Egypt’s 30-year jinx.

Tricked out of immortality

Garuda and Gilgamesh are two heroes as unlike one another that one could find. One is a bird and the other human; Garuda belongs to the vast pantheon of Indian theriomorphs (deities represented in animal form) while Gilgamesh is the Sumer-Babylonian hero-king. Gilgamesh grapples with a series of adventures that take him closer to the divine principles of valour, love and compassion while Garuda’s heroic journey takes him close to Vishnu, the preserver god in the Indian trinity.

However both share a divine lineage. Garuda is the son of Kasyapa (sometimes referred to as Prajapati) and Vinata (daughter of Daksha Prajapati) while Gilgamesh is said to be the son of Lugalbanda, a god. And they are both heroes, albeit from two different species.

The two also have another, more interesting, aspect in common: both play a part in denying mankind and other species of this planet the right to immortality. But for them, we could have lived forever!

Garuda's story: Garuda is tasked with fetching the nectar of immortality or Amrita from the heavens for the snakes. In return, he is promised freedom for his mother who has been enslaved by the snake clan for centuries. While there is a long tale in how Garuda manages to get the nectar out of Indra’s clutches, we shall go into that later.

As Garuda is flying away with the jar of Amrita, Indra shoots at him but the arrow barely manages to graze his plumage. When weapons fail, even the gods resort to persuasion. So Indra appeals to Garuda. He tells him that the consequences of giving immortality to the snake clan will be disastrous. Garuda, a sworn enemy of the snake clan, is easily convinced. And the two cook up a plot to trick the snakes out of their end of the deal.

As promised, Garuda flies in with the jar of nectar for the snakes. But, he tells them, he will place the jar down only after his mother has been freed. The snakes release his mother and Garuda sets the jar of Amrita down on the patch of kusa grass, as planned.

However, before the snakes can get a taste of nectar, Garuda asks them to bathe and cleanse themselves in the holy river. The snakes scurry off and Garuda flies away with his mother leaving Indra to play out his part of the plot.

Indra swoops in, takes the jar away and thereby denies the snakes their promised jar of nectar. The snakes are furious but all they can do is lick the grass for a few drops of the Amrita. But so sharp is the grass that they get a forked tongue.

Gilgamesh's story: Gilgamesh on the other hand finds his way to Utnapishtim, the man-god who is the only survivor of the great flood. He has been granted the boon of immortality by the gods.

Shattered by the death of his friend and soul mate, Enkidu, Gilgamesh wants to defeat death. He goes through a series of adventures till he finds Utnapishtim and asks for the flower of immortality.

Utnapishtim is not willing to part with the flower but Gilgamesh persists. And he is finally granted his desire but there is a condition: the flower must be carried on his person at all times. He cannot put it down at any point in time.

As is the case with such stories -- in myth and in folklore -- the condition is not met. Gilgamesh fails the test as he leaves the flower on a river bank for a quick dip. When he comes back up, he is distraught to see the flower being carried away by a snake. And thus, immortality that was within the human grasp was lost. However in this story, the snakes emerge victorious and that is why it is said, they manage to live forever by sloughing off their skins!

Two tricks, two heroes but one result. In the Garuda story, the gods trick the snakes and, in a way, all living beings. In the Gilgamesh story, the gods trick men but the snakes, unwittingly though, emerge as victors.

In both cases, those who desire immortality are denied its fruits. Garuda, incidentally is granted immortality because he did not want it for himself. But all other beings on the planet are not granted the keys to the kingdom of eternal life. In retrospect, this may well be a blessing in disguise!

Birds and heroes

In the earlier post, I had written briefly about Garuda whose heroic feat earned him his place as Vishnu's vahana. Garuda, unlike Gayatri, is a male bird and he fetches Amrita for his mother while Gayatri gets Soma for the gods. The two myths use similar motifs but may have been developed for completely different purposes.

For one the Garuda myth is much longer and far more layered than the one about meters. Garuda's unusual birth is described in detail as is his journey to get the Amrita. He has to get it to free his mother, ensnared by her sister and her snake children. Gayatri has to get Soma because the gods want it, the myth does not offer a deeper rationale for the quest.

The other difference is that Garuda has to cross several barriers and fight the guards of Amrita to be able to get a jar for his mother. The meters, on the other hand, manage the exchange more amicably. Gayatri, in fact, (the myth does not say how) gets the nectar without giving up anything at all.

The Garuda myth also reflects the traditional rivalry between the snake kingdom and the kingdom of birds. The Gayatri-Soma myth does not directly touch upon any rivalries but, it is possible that the three meters or the tribes speaking these meters were in competition with each other.

So what were the myths developed for? It would be foolish to attempt a single definitive answer but it is possible that the myths were developed around the same time but by different people. Also the original Garuda myth, in all probability, has been embellished over the ages to serve different purposes. For instance, the bit about Garuda becoming a vahana for Vishnu may well be a later addition. It is possible that there existed a tribe of Garuda worshippers who were assimilated into the Vedic fold at a later stage.

The Garuda myth also goes into great detail about the birth of the hero, the call for adventure and the difficulties and the final quest. This shows that the myth has been developed over a long period of time, giving it a linear and somewhat logical narrative structure.

The Gayatri-Soma myth is not as detailed and since it deals with an abstract concept is not as easily grasped. It also seems to be created for the express purpose of establishing the supremacy of one meter or the tribe speaking in that meter over the rest. In that sense it is not a true hero myth but, in Malinowskian terms, a charter myth which is created with the sole purpose of explaining a social event or function or human behaviour.

The myth of meters

The story goes that the gods wanted Soma, the favoured drink of Indra. The gods lived on earth at the time and they knew that it would take a lot of persuasion and skill to prise Indra’s drink away from him. They approached the meters (the rhythmic beat of poetry or song or speech in the present context), conceptualised as female birds in the ancient texts.
Interestingly, in a myth from the Mahabharata (Astika Parva), another bird, Garuda has to get the drink of immortality (amrita) from Indra to free his mother; the idea that Amrita or Soma lies in the heavens, is out of reach of the ordinary mortal and even god; and has to be procured by one who can fly higher than the other creatures of the universe is thus an established one in Indian myths.
The first meter to fly out on the quest was Jagati. She had fourteen syllables in each of her four feet and was considered the most able among all meters. However she could not get Soma. Her journey was not entirely wasted though as she brought back sacrificial beasts and the method of consecration for the sacrifice in exchange for two syllables. So she now had twelve syllables in each of her four feet.
The next to fly out on the quest was Trishtubh with thirteen syllables in each of her four feet. However Trishtubh too came back without the Soma. She brought back penance (tapas) and sacrificial gifts (dakshina) but lost two of her syllables, retaining only eleven.
Finally it was the turn of Gayatri. She had just three feet with four syllables in each and was believed to be the weakest of all meters. But, she put all doubts to rest when she not only got Soma for the gods but also brought back the two syllables each that Jagati and Triṣhṭubh had bartered in exchange for their gifts. In this way she doubles the number of syllables in each foot.
At one level, the myth represents a heroic quest for an elusive drink. But it stands apart from other hero’s quest myths on the following counts: the hero is female and a bird and in the end, the hero brings home the drink.
How do we interpret this? Myths carry many meanings and it usually depends on the way it is told, the time it belongs to and the cultural context that it is set in. One way to look at this myth would be that meters marked the way we spoke in ancient times. In fact this is the way that many tribes, who have remained isolated from the mainstream civilisations, speak even today. I watched a recent programme on National Geographic (I think) where an old tribesman conveyed a great deal through mono syllabic sounds. It is therefore possible that the three meters that embark on the heroic quest for the drink of immortality represent three tribes that spoke in those meters. And ultimately the tribe that spoke in the Gayatri meter was successful in its quest.
What is the significance of Jagati and Trishtubh returning without Soma? It could be that these tribes were smaller or were giving way to the newer and younger Gayatri speaking tribe. Interestingly none of the meters come out unscathed in this journey. Gayatri does not survive in her original form. She doubles the syllables on each of her three feet from four to eight. The other meters too change, symbolising perhaps, the give and take that marked the early way of life in the region.
It would be fascinating to check out if there are similar myths in other civilisations. And if so, what are the similarities and differences?
(Image from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images)

War and peace

The iconography associated with Vishnu is quite fascinating. Typically he is shown reclining on the snake god Adi Sesha and riding on his vahana Garuda, the bird god.

As is well known, the serpent and the eagle are arch enemies. In the animal kingdom, the eagle preys on the snake and the snake, on the eagle's young. This relationship has been explored in great detail in folklore and myth -- the birth of Garuda and his subsequent journey to free his mother is a famous case in point.

However the enmity motif becomes inconsequential in the depiction of Vishnu. Both Adi Sesha (serpent) and Garuda (eagle) are his devotees and I haven't yet come across any stories that bring out their mutual antagonism in this role. Clearly though the two never meet -- Vishnu is unlikely to recline and fly at the same time and perhaps that is the reason why there are no idols that have Vishnu, Adi Sesha and Garuda in the same frame. Most Vishnu temples have sculptures of both but they are never shown together. If there is one, and if any of you have come across such a temple or painting or sculpture, please write in.

But to come back to the serpent-eagle relationship, how and when did things change?

Was it under the unifying influence of the Vedic pantheon? Or was it the outcome of the assimilating power of an old religion such as Hinduism? Or was it, the bulldozer effect -- where a majority sucks in minority faiths to make one composite whole, often assigning a deferential role to their gods?

It would be impossible to answer any of the above with authority. But, whatever be the reasons and the reasoning, the iconography records a turning point in the serpent-eagle relationship in the kingdom of myth. It represents an understanding that natural enemies can co-exist without one knocking out the other.

Finally, this is not the only explanation of the iconography. There are many more theories that are extremely relevant and perhaps far more popular and I would love to collect them all. My search has just begun but as and when the explanations pour in, will publish them on the blog.

Disappearing deities

The Padmanabha temple at Trivandrum has an 18 feet long idol of Vishnu; reclining on the coiled serpent Ananta Naga or Adi Sesha with a lotus rising from his navel on which sits Brahma, the creator god (more on the iconography later). It is a fabulous work of art and a rich source of story.

There are two texts that tell us about how the idol came to be the way it is and where it is today. One is the Ananthasayana Mahatmya (AM) and the other, the temple records of Granthavali.

The story in the AM is particularly interesting. It says that the idol was created and installed by a sage called Divakar from Mangalore, an ardent Vishnu devotee.

One day, during his daily prayers, Divakar saw a two year old boy playing under a tree. Drawn towards the child for some inexplicable reason, the sage took him home. And the two grew close.

Divakar, worried that the boy would disappear as suddenly as he had arrived, begged him never to leave. The boy agreed but under one condition: Divakar could not question any thing that the child did. Any sign of displeasure or, anger at the boy’s behaviour would lead to his departure.

Divakar agreed but as is typical in such stories, could not keep up his end of the bargain.

One day while he was busy with his prayers, the boy, in a deliberate act of provocation bit the shaligram (a black stone believed to be a symbol of Vishnu, found in the Gandaki River in Nepal).

An angry Divakar lost control and broke his contract. The child disappeared but he told the sage that if he wished to see him, he would have to come to Ananthan Kadu (the spot at which the temple stands today in Trivandrum). Divakar followed him to the place and saw him getting into a large tree. Before he could reach out and grab the child, the tree crashed to the ground in the form of the sleeping Vishnu.

This story carries a motif extremely common to marchën(folktales with magic or supernatural elements and which typically begin with ‘once upon a time’ according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) all over the world. It has been used in German folklore, in Native American tales and in Indian myths with great impact. Typically a divine being agrees to wed or live with a mortal under a condition which, if flouted will lead to disastrous consequences. Invariably the mortal falls short and the god has to leave but not without leaving a part of himself or herself behind – either in the form of a child or a special power or an idol.

Andrew Lang, anthropologist, poet and novelist says (in his book Custom and Myth, available online under project Gutenberg), the motif of the disappearing deity who appears as wife or child is a common one and has been interpreted in different ways by different mythologists.

It could be perhaps, as Max Mueller has hinted in his interpretation of the popular myth of Bheki (will upload this one soon) that the myths refer to the disappearance of the sun at the end of the day, every day. Maybe, but this is not the only interpretation. It could be, as GS Kirk points out in his analysis of the Gilgamesh myth that myths reflect social and cultural dilemmas. It is possible, using this rationale, that the motif reflects a common concern over the separation between the world of the gods and the world of men. It is based on the belief that an act of folly drove the gods away from us. It may also be a projection of a common perception of that time that man had everything in his grasp, even immortality, but lost it all because he was unable to keep his word or do what was expected of him.

These are but mere conjectures. I’ll be uploading similar stories, common to civilisations separated by geography but united in their antiquity, in subsequent posts. Let’s see if we can decipher the hidden code in their overlapping patterns. And perhaps, get closer to understanding the people who lived these stories.

(Image: shaligram stone)

A garden and a goddess

In the land of Sumer (modern day Iraq) there lived a gardener called Shukalletuda, a mortal. He was extremely unhappy because his garden was bare as the sun and the wind destroyed all his plants. He tried and tried but with little success. He grew weary and despondent until one day the idea of a tree divined upon him.

A tree called the sarbatu conjured itself up in his head, with its roots spreading deep into the soil and its trunk rising up to meet the gods in the sky. He planted the tree; and soon a garden bore fruit, spreading its shade and fragrance for miles and miles. Shukalletuda tended to his patch of green with pride and love and he never forgot to thank the sarbatu which had helped create a paradise on earth.

One hot summer’s day, the great goddess Inanna was drawn to the cool shade of the garden. She was taken in by its wild and unruly spread and the calm that lay within. She stepped into the garden, promising to leave after a few moments of rest. But she sank into a divine sleep and forgot all about her godly duties.

While she slept Shukalletuda came to attend to his garden. He saw Inanna sleeping under the trees and fell headlong in love with the goddess; the queen of heaven, of love and human fertility. He was mesmerised.

He could not resist but steal a few moments beside her. He was careful, he was gentle and he left quietly before the goddess woke up and discovered his impudent intrusion.

However his love left its languor behind. It stamped a sticky soft fragrance upon the goddess who, on waking, knew without doubt that a mortal had been close to her. And her anger burst forth in torrential fury. She sent strong winds and storms to destroy the world of men, filled the wells and lakes with blood and sent her armies out to hunt down the guilty one.

But Shukalletuda could not be found. He hid in the cities where the people had learnt to protect themselves from storm and hurricane. He ran away every time her men drew close and he slipped into the dark shadows where the sun and the moon would not be able to find him. And despite Inanna’s best efforts he stayed hidden.

Baffled the goddess went to Enki, the god of wisdom for help...

This Sumerian myth was found on a broken tablet. It is unfinished and leaves the end of what is commonly believed to be a fertility myth (or, according to some a myth about the hero, Shukalletuda) to the imagination. We could make up the rest of the story any which way we want to. I have put down one possibility but there could be hundreds of thousands and we could all be as far from the truth as we are from finding out about what came first, the chicken or the egg. But that is no reason to stop trying, is it?

Now what if....

Enki was waiting for Inanna. The gods had approached him for his help in bringing the goddess under control. Inanna’s unbridled anger was threatening the order of the universe.

Enki spoke to her gently, like a friend and not as a god to his queen. He told her that she had to stop looking for him. Shukalletuda’s love, he said, will bring him to Inanna. All she had to do was to wait for him to come to her.

So days rolled into months, and months into years; until one day, a lovelorn Shukalletuda could hold out no more. He went back to his garden and surrendered to the wind and the storm gods, he prayed and pleaded with them to take him to his love.

Word reached Inanna and she rushed to see the mortal who dared fall in love with a goddess. Her army of dust storms and hurricanes in tow, she was determined to break this man into minuscule particles of dust so that there would be no trace left of him and of his audacious deed.

But love can sway the best made plans of all, even furious goddesses. When Inanna saw this man waiting for her beneath the sarbatu, her anger turned into tears. She wept out of joy and sadness and out of love and helplessness. She wept so much that the water filled up all the lakes and the rivers and the oceans. Her tears rolled down the leaves of the trees, reviving all the plants that had curled up into the earth in her fear. The garden rose again, shedding the cloak of dust and destruction and displaying in full splendour, its rich green glory.

Shukalletuda prayed for forgiveness. He knelt in front of his goddess, begging for her love as she descended upon his garden in a shower of abundance and prosperity.

The temple of Artemis

A column towers over everything else reaching for the skies; a young girl, rushes about holding out tiny statues, bookmarks and postcards; two storks gaze out from the top of the tower at all of us as we stand awestruck in front of what used to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This is the temple of Artemis, formerly temple of Cybele and also known to some as the temple of Diana in Turkey in the town of Ephesus or Efes as the locals call it.

As we drive there, our guide tells us that Efes draws its name from Afeus (not too sure if that’s the way its spelt) which means queen bee and that it was a town that was first settled in by warrior women. The Amazonian settlers gave the town its name and a temple of fertility originally dedicated to the goddess Kybele (or Cybele).

Later Ionian settlers converted the temple into a place of worship for Artemis, twin of Apollo and goddess of fertility and hunting. Under their influence, the town considered Artemis as their protector and later, as the guardian mother of Alexander who, legend has it, ruled over the city for a long time with her blessing.

Today there is no trace of the temple except a large column and a few majestic boulders. The statue of the many breasted Artemis is in the museum while hawkers sell its tiny clones as postcards, bookmarks and refrigerator magnets.

keepers of myth

Myths across the world use an assortment of images, symbols and visual references to build lasting metaphors. Their power lies not only in the thought, the philosophy or the event that resides in them but also in the tools deployed to get the point across. Like the breadcrumbs used by Hansel in the well known German fairy tale or like the ball of string that Theseus used to find the minotaur, myths are a map of the real and the imaginary worlds that our ancestors built.

Myth speaks in a common tongue to a diverse audience. It reflects an innocent and yet complex engagement with the world around us and the world within us. It is metaphoric in form and structure; its meaning is layered in spirals that could take us an entire lifetime to climb but, it is so direct in its intent that a child can grasp at the colour and iconography that it dresses itself up in.

Poet and a great believer in the Vedas, W B Yeats once said: “I cannot now think symbols less than the greatest of all powers whether they are used consciously by the masters of magic, or half unconsciously by their successors, the poet, the musician and the artist”(W B Yeats in an essay called Magic in Essays and Introduction, Macmillan.) Yeats believed that the artist, the writer and the musician were inheritors of the legacy of magic and hence understood the potency of the symbols used in magic. His use of the word magic is similar to that of Frazer who describes the different kinds of magic that led to the development of religion. And it is this language of symbols and icons that myths have inherited or as some would believe, even created.

The language of myth is independent of religion and hence it appeals across faiths. It aims to challenge the human mind and is meant to evoke awe and shock and provoke further explorations of thought and philosophy. At the same time, it is deliberately wrapped in religious iconography and explicit imagery so that the stories and their messages leave a lasting imprint on the human mind.

As we leave behind a year riddled in bullets, we need to let this language speak to us. We need to understand the many tongues that roll in many different ways to speak the same truths and denounce the same lies. From the eye of Hathor to the third eye of Shiv, from the rage of Sekhmet to the rampage of Kali and from the ark of Noah to the boat of Manu -- we need to understand the signs and symbols that speak to us through the ages.

Image: A sculpture outside the monastery at Bylakuppe, a Tibetan settlement in Karnataka India
Picture by Rajrishi Singhal

Fortune hunters

The word adventure owes its existence to two words -- the old French word auenture which meant fortune or chance and the Latin word adventura which meant arrival. The two coalesced into one to enter the Middle English vocabulary as adventure which meant a perilous undertaking that would lead one to fortune. From one came many, as it happens with all creation and over time words such as, misadventure, adventurer made it to the lexicon. Over the years, the meaning of the word too changed – adventure mellowed down to denote the spirit that led men to climb mountains and cross the seas.

The spirit of adventure led Vasco da Gama to steer his motley crew to the unknown shores of a country that was still to meld its fragmented wadas and tehsils into a contiguous boundary. He was looking to spread the message of his religion and, in the process, take back the riches of the East that he had heard so much about. This is the spirit that infused mountaineers and explorers who felt that they owed it to humanity to go where no one had gone before.

Adventure mellowed some more and found itself curled up in books about swashbuckling heroes and villains and about children courting danger as they confronted thieves and evil. It aligned itself with fun and bravery and was almost always seen fighting on the side of good in its war against evil.

Today adventure seems to have reinvented itself yet again and in so doing reverted to a chilling shadow of its former self. As Bombay cowered under the nameless, senseless terror unleashed by a bunch of 10 terrorists, adventure seemed to wear the face of a young man who has no time for fear nor the inclination for contemplation and remorse. He is a soldier of fortune. A soldier who takes to battle not to defend his home or life but for the thrill of risk, for a charismatic leader, to fight against a perceived threat to his existence or that of his religion and for the sake of bounty.

Perhaps in the evolution of the word, lies a clue about the evolution of the human mind.