Wanted: Demon slayers

A couple of weeks ago, a young industrialist known for his outspoken support of a fledgling political party quipped that corruption was like a thousand-headed monster. The striking imagery apart, his simile released a new monster in our midst - quite like what a popular song from the Hindi film Peepli Live did a few years ago. The song which likened inflation to a dayan hit an instant chord with many, apart from notching up the number of sorceresses and witches of which we need to steer clear.

Hercules slaying the Hydra.Wikimedia Commons

Corruption and inflation took centre stage this election. Standing beside the triumvirate of proposed leaders, they played spoiler to the best made plans of those standing in the pulpit just as demons and dayans are wont to do. But, more interestingly, the two new additions to the family of subversive beings have helped reveal what Indian society fears most today.

Monsters, dragons, asuras, rakshasas, dayans, yakshis and such beings have walked the earth since the beginning of time. Demons manifest themselves in myriad forms and are repositories of immeasurable power. And some are even invisible like the 'Oni' in Japanese myth; they are spirits who attend on the gods of the underworld, can take on grotesque forms but are hidden to the human eye (World Mythology, Illustrated Guide; Edited by Roy Willis). As old as the gods, demons are universal and are seen as humanity's projection of its deepest fears.

Demons follow no rules and wilfully overturn regular life as we know it. Consider the Greek monster Hydra with nine heads, which is the inspiration for the thousand-headed monster of corruption. The Hydra lived in the swamp of Lernae. She would raid flocks and ruin the land. Her heads were regenerative; each time one was cut off, another grew in its place. She was considered immortal until Herakles's sword swept off her heads and his half-brother branded the stumps to prevent further growth. Perhaps, the Hydra grew out of mankind's fear of water and swampy marshlands. Geography and nature have played a vital role in the evolution of demons in our cultures.

Raktabija in the Vedic family of demons too had regenerative powers. He could produce clones of himself from every drop of his blood that fell to the ground. Durga slew Raktabija with help from Kali (her destructive form) who swallowed the blood before it fell to the ground. He was, perhaps, shaped by man's fear of blood and what its loss could mean for life. The body and its functions too have served as inspiration for demonic characters in myths.

Dayans, sorceresses and witches are lesser beings in the demon world. But they too reveal the fears of a society that was fast becoming patriarchal. Always a woman, they are treacherous, demanding and are known to demolish men who dare cross their path. Men feared the strong, sexually aware woman and imbued her with supernatural and fearful powers and hounded her out of the society that he created for himself. Demons were also born out of gender anxieties.

In the past, demons controlled the waters, the power of the sun, the might of the sky and the volatility of the earth. Most mythologies speak about how they used their powers to deny people access to these vital forces of life. Vritra, an asura who controlled the waters of universe, grew too powerful and decided to hold back the water from the people. He swallowed all the moisture in the atmosphere, all the water from the ocean and the rivers and from the earth. He also spread his large frame across the sky and hid the sun. Distraught the gods approached Indra who, with his thunderbolt (vajra), slew Vritra, released the waters and rejuvenated life on earth.

Universally, demons are subversive spirits overthrowing 'all civilised order, reason, rules and expectations'. (A Field Guide to Demons: Fairies, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits; Carol K Mack and Dinah Mack) They embody chaos and the untamed forces of nature and the psyche, which were the anxieties and concerns that ancient civilisations grappled with. But fortunately, demons were not unstoppable. They could be conquered because they lacked the human capacity to love, be compassionate and to reason and also because they were also prone to arrogant and aggressive behaviour. The modern demons of corruption and inflation may not have the same character traits. But what they do have in common with the rest of the demon family is that they hold a magnifying mirror to our darkest fears and passions.

(This article appeared in the Business Standard Weekend on 17-05-2014, http://goo.gl/6SpTzp) 

Neither friend nor foe

War was imminent. Drupada, father of Draupadi and father-in-law of the Pandavas, was addressing an assembly of kings in Virata's court. The Pandavas had just completed 14 years in exile with the final year being spent incognito in King Virata's service. Drupada thundered: "Let us send word to our friends that they may collect an army for us. Let speedy messengers go to Salya and Dristaketu and Jayatsena and the prince of the Kekayas."*

The Pandavas could not fight this battle on their own and Drupada was signing up allies. Marriage, old friendships and favours bestowed in times of need - the Pandavas played every chip they had as they readied for battle; just like present-day political parties. Smart alliances, data indicates, have helped increase vote shares of the national parties in every election.** No surprise then that the political landscape is bustling with frenetic parleys between friends, foes and strangers for seats and votes; quite like the way it must have been in the time of the ancient epics.

The Pandavas were masters at sewing up strategic alliances. Arjuna's marriage to Ulupi, the sea princess, and Bhima's to Hidimba from the rakshasi clan were hugely advantageous relationships. Ghatotkacha, son of Hidimba and Bhima, killed several Kauravas and forced Karna to use a weapon that he had been saving up for Arjuna against him. Ulupi provided access to the might of the Naga army. In the larger Mahabharata narrative, however, both were treated poorly. Krishna rejoiced at Ghatotkacha's death and Ulupi was never allowed to live in the main palace with the other wives. The victor does not always play fair.

Another powerful partner for the Pandavas was Virata - his daughter had married Abhimanyu, Arjuna's son. He supplied soldiers and elephants and his sons fought valiantly on the side of the Pandavas. Choosing the right ally was always critical. In Odyssey, Athena who plays mentor to Telemachus, son of Odysseus, tells him to seek out his true friends to find his father. He finds Nestor, Menelaus and Helen who help him by providing him with clues and moral support.

The Kauravas were not as fortunate in their choices. Few kings and princes were willing to ignore their deep familial bonds with the Pandavas and even fewer believed in Duryodhana's cause. Karna was the exception, but he sat out most of the battle because of his grouse with Bhisma; somewhat like Achilles in the battle of Troy.

To add to his woes, Duryodhana also chose poorly. He accepted and was even elated at the prospect of having Krishna's army by his side, while Krishna chose to be Arjuna's charioteer. Without their commander, the soldiers were not as effective; and Krishna provided a huge moral, tactical and psychological advantage to the Pandavas, even though he did not fight on the battlefield. Some of Duryodhana's choices also did more damage than good. Shalya, uncle to the Pandava twins, was tricked into joining him. Shalya was on his way to align with the Pandavas. But Duryodhana's men intercepted him and his army, asking them to rest a few days before resuming their journey. Unaware that he was Duryodhana's guest, Shalya and his men agreed. And so pleased was he with the attention and care he received that when he discovered that it was Duryodhana and not Yudhisthira who was his host, he felt obliged to ally with the Kauravas. However he asked to meet Yudhishthira and his nephews before the battle to which Duryodhana agreed. At the meeting, Yudhishthira asked Shalya "for my sake though it may not be proper to be done"* to break Karna's spirit in the battlefield. Shalya as Karna's charioteer did just that, demoralising him and shattering his resolve as he went to battle against Arjuna. Snatching friends of rivals is never a good idea or an enemy's friend is never a good ally.

Strategic relationships have been a critical aspect of the mythology of the subcontinent. Vishnu, for instance, who is part of the trinity and highest in the hierarchy of gods, rides on the Garuda (a mythical bird) and rests on the Ananta Nag (the world serpent). The two were strong animistic deities who were assimilated into the Vedic fold, albeit in positions lower than the main gods. Alliances with tribal gods helped spread the Vedic way of life. They widened their influence.

Fighting wars and elections can't be done without allies. Not only do they provide access and influence, they can also be invaluable in the propaganda war. Drupada, for instance, not only brought in an army of kings, he also sent his priest to Dhritarashtra and asked him to sing the glory of the Pandavas: "If you speak words of righteousness unto Dhritarashtra, you will certainly gain the hearts of his fighting men. Vidura will also make use of those words of yours and will thus alienate the hearts of Bhisma, Drona and Kripa and others." Breaking the enemy's spirit was important and Drupada knew that. Given the scramble for alliances today, Drupada would definitely have been a sought-after campaign manager for the 2014 elections.

---

*Mahabharata, Udyoga Parva, Translated by K M Ganguli
**"The mathematics of the Modi Wave,"Praveen Chakravarty, Business Standard, March 3, 2014

Arrogant ignoramuses and wretches in the third state...

With elections round the corner, abuse peppers the hyperbole and rhetoric employed by candidates to boost their image. They are calling each other frauds, imposters and murderers. Some have cast aspersions on their opponents' virility, some others have flaunted their own.

Interestingly, several examples of employing abuse as a battle axe can be found in the epics. In the Mahabharata, the Sisupala-Krishna encounter is a case in point. Yudhisthira was conducting the Rajasuya Yagna - a sacrifice meant for the gods at the end of which a king is anointed emperor - and he offers arghya (water from the ritual or fruit and sweets from the sacrifice) to the assembled kings. Yudhisthira asked Bhisma to point out the foremost among the kings gathered at his court so that he could offer him the first arghya. Bhisma pointed to Krishna. At this, the king of Chedi, Sisupala, let loose a barrage of insults. He called Krishna a wretch born in the race of the Vrishnis and Yudhisthira a mean fool who had abandoned the path of dharma. Bhisma he called arrogant and ignorant and an old and infamous wretch living in the third state (celibacy).

Sisupala had never forgiven Krishna for eloping with Rukmini, whom he had sought to marry, and for killing Kansa, Krishna's own uncle, and Putana, a rakshasi - he felt both had been wronged - and his friend Jarasandha. His hatred found release in the vitriolic attack which also caused his end. Sisupala, who had been born with three eyes and four hands and had brayed like an ass when he came into the world, was fated to be killed by Krishna. His parents had wanted to abandon him but were held back by a heavenly voice that assured them that the deformities would disappear once the baby was placed in the lap of the right person but that the same person would cause Sisupala's death. That is what happened when Krishna picked up Sisupala. At Sisupala's mother's insistence Krishna had agreed to forgive her son one hundred insults before he took his life. Sisupala tipped the scale and lost his life.

Pentheus, king of Thebes, faced a similar fate for his abuse of Dionysus. Pentheus found the Dionysian cult strange and horrifying and called Dionysus an "eastern stranger", refusing to accept him as a god. When Dionysus visited his kingdom, Pentheus insulted and imprisoned him. But Dionysus broke free and led Pentheus to a horrific death at the hands of his mother.

 

An ungainly sight: Duryodhana slips and falls

Harsh words are used in most epics as triggers and turning points. Duryodhana's desire for revenge was apparently hardened when he saw Draupadi mocking his gauche inspection of the Pandava's palace at Indraprastha. He mistook a crystal surface for a lake and then a lake for a crystal surface, tripping and falling as he made his way around the palace. Draupadi laughed out loud and, according to one version, called him "blind as a blind man's son". Overly sensitive, Duryodhana bore her a lifelong grudge, as did Karna against Arjuna and Bhima for calling him a low-caste interloper.

In the Iliad, an insult, at least a perceived one, was also the reason for Helen's abduction. Eris, the goddess of strife, was piqued at not being invited to the wedding of a mortal, King Peleus, and a sea-nymph, Thetis. She sent a golden apple for the nuptial feast inscribed with the words: "For the fairest". Athene, Hera and Aphrodite laid claim to the apple. Zeus appointed Paris as judge. Each goddess promised Paris special favours in return for the prize: Hera said she would give him royal power, Athene wisdom and victory in war, and Aphrodite said she would get him the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris chose Aphrodite and earned the enmity of Hera and Athene for life. The battle of Troy followed soon thereafter.

Epic literature is full of insulting words and acrimonious exchanges, some fatal and some amusing. Our modern-day politicians could use them to find new swear words and, perhaps, to learn when to stop.

(This article appeared in the Business Standard (March 8, 2014) under the headline Abuse of Power)

Disruption and Chaos

(This article was published in Business Standard Weekend, Feb 1 2014) 
Picture this: If we were to line up the tumultuous events that wracked the ancient world -floods, wars, creation of new cities and civilisations and that of the universe itself - there would be one thing in common. They were all seeded by the actions of disrupters. A disrupter was at times a hero, at times a god and in the most ancient of times, a natural phenomenon.

The great flood, for instance, was a universal fomenter of change about 3,000 years ago; unleashed by the gods who sought to destroy the old order because (take your pick) people had grown too powerful, too cruel or simply disrespectful of the powers that be. However, from the receding waters of the deluge stepped out heroes such as Noah, Manu, Utnapashtim and Deucalion; survivors and architects of a new world.

An act of creation is always depicted, in mythology, as that of bringing order out of chaos. A disruptive force wreaks havoc and, from the debris it leaves behind, emerges a world that is completely unlike the one that preceded it. A hymn in the Rig Veda says: there was water everywhere. In that primeval water the gods were already present. They danced in it and a particle of dust (Renu) was created. This was the earth (Towards Understanding Hindu Myths by S A Dange) and the Earth Goddess was thus named Renuka. Similarly, in Egyptian mythologies, the Sun God, Ra, appeared in the primeval ocean (also referred to as chaos) called Nun. From their tumultuous union emerged the gods of air, earth and sky. In Sumerian myths, Tiamat ,the chaos monster, is the creator of all gods. She has to be killed by Marduk, a storm god, who creates the heavens and the earth from her body. In some mythologies, the struggle between creative order and destructive chaos is formalised into a cycle where new worlds are brought into existence and thrown into the junk heap with recurring regularity. Aztec mythology, for instance, has had four worlds thus far. We inhabit the fifth one.

As in nature, so is it with the gods. Among the oldest disruptive gods in Indian mythology is Rudra. He is the god of storms whose worshippers pray for his mercy. He is later redefined or morphed into Siva who is both creator and destructor incarnate. He swallowed the poison that emerged from the churning of the ocean; he dispels darkness and disposes of demons with his tandava and also breaks the fall of the river Ganga when she is brought down from the heavens. Rudra's Greek counterpart, according to Richard Seaford (Department of Classics, University of Exeter) is Dionysus.

Buddha was another disrupter. He challenged and provided an alternative to Hinduism, the ruling religion of his times. His teachings threatened the establishment forcing them to try and put an end to his sermons and to his existence. For Joseph Campbell, the Orient was blessed by the teachings of Gautam Buddha just as the Occident was by Moses. The world changed but the transition was not smooth or peaceful. For the Greeks it was Prometheus, who by bringing them fire, changed their lives, and for the Romans, it was Aeneus, the founder of their civilisation. Heroes today, they were the disruptive forces of their age. Their actions threatened chaos and unleashed fear before restoring peace and order.

Scholars have struggled to arrive at a unanimous view of the ancient stories but what is understood is that myths weave an invisible web of ideas that have helped shape the world. Of these, the notion that disruption is a precursor to creation is an especially powerful one. We have seen it play out when new nations have had to be carved out of old ones or when revolutions have sought to throw out established power structures. In the world of business, the global financial meltdown which had a domino effect on economies around the world makes the case in point. On a different note, technology is a big disrupter, overturning accepted norms and standards in several industries. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Square are disrupters too. The people who led these organisations dismantled the messy marketplaces and workplaces of the past to build new structures.

Anarchy has always marked the shift from the old to the new, and as our political system gets set for a shakedown, we may well have to get used to chaos on our streets. As will countries across the continent. It will take a while and, perhaps, the intervention of a modern day storm god to restore balance under a new world order.

The picture shows Siva and his Pramatha Ganam, and Siva dancing at dusk of day(twilight), called Sandhya tandavam. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandhya_tandava_murthy.jpg

 

Right and Wrong

In the Ramayana, after the battle has been won and Ravana vanquished, the epic instead of winding down to a happy ending throws up a dilemma. Should Rama allow the words of one of his subjects to influence his life with Sita? Should he, as king, listen to his people who believed that Sita's chastity had been compromised due to her abduction, or should he, as husband, stand by her. Especially since she had put herself through a trial by fire at his request! Finally he chose his kingly duties over that of a husband and would-be father, and banished Sita to the forest.

The choices that stared at Rama were the choices society was grappling with at the time. Who is a good king? Should kings be answerable to their people more than they are to their families? And what makes the perfect man? Myths, epics and other literature of the time explored these issues in myriad ways and, in a way, helped communities deal with questions that had no straight answers.

Different people offered different perspectives. The concept of perfect man, for instance, was the concern of both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. While the Ramayana offered a template for perfection, the Mahabharata seemed to say there was no such thing. Wendy Doniger explains (The Hindus: An Alternative History; Penguin/Viking) that The Ramayana says, "There is a perfect man and his name is Rama," and the Mahabharata says, "Not really; dharma is so subtle that even Yudhisthira cannot always fulfill it." Dharma was an invigorating, but extremely complex concept. It meant making choices, taking stands and adopting behaviour patterns that were at times difficult to reconcile with other societal constructs such as family, love and loyalty. The epics reflected the quandary of the people over the concept of dharma: some believed that it had to be firmly defined while others imbued it with shades of grey.

The Occident was similarly preoccupied with the concept of justice. Homer grappled with it in Iliad and Odyssey as did Aeschylus in Orestia. The concept of revenge as a form of justice was explored in great detail in Orestia. Agamemnon was murdered by his wife. As per societal norms, he had to be avenged by Orestes, his son. Orestes was faced with a dilemma: not avenging his father's killing would be a crime as would be killing his mother. The code of ethics or morality that prevailed at the time said that a son had to act on behalf of his father but Aeschylus's plays sought a new form of justice, one that freed society from the cycle of revenge and retribution. Both Homer and Aeschylus were trying to offer an understanding of justice that looked beyond the immediate concerns of the family and tribe; one that was not tethered to the ancient Greek concept of 'miasma'. Miasma is envisioned as a cloud of pollution. It was believed that miasma hovered around evil deeds and stuck to one involved in an act of crime and to anyone who happened to be around the scene at the time. This was built on the philosophy that bad things do happen to good people and the only way to explain this is through miasma. By getting their heroes and other characters to deliberate and debate different ideas around revenge and fairness, the Greek epics helped build a more nuanced understanding of justice.

The epics - Indian as well as Greek - were also burdened with the task of defining what it meant to be a good woman. A woman's dignity, her position in society and her rights were issues that were dealt with through characters such as Kunti, Sita, Draupadi, Helen and Penelope. In the Mahabharata, the disrobing of Draupadi in a court full of people was meant to evoke anger as well as to fuel debate. Among the many questions that the scene raised were: what right did her husband have to wager her on the dice board? Are women the property of their fathers and then of their husbands? Did Draupadi have the right to be offended? While the Mahabharata was unequivocal in its condemnation of the act and understood her anger and desire for vengeance, it was less definitive about the culpability of the men who allowed this under their watch. Bhishma, when questioned by Draupadi, pointed out the difficulty of adhering to dharma at all times.

Interestingly, we live in times where the concepts of justice, role of women and a host of other issues are in a state of flux, yet again. It is not just India but people in several parts of the world are being forced to confront the knotty and tangled web of choices that circle these problems. Gordon Brown, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, put it most eloquently in a lecture to students at Edinburgh when he said, "We need to underpin the development of our new society by a global ethic that makes sense of our responsibilities to each other."

It may be time for communities across the globe to go back to the treasure chest of questions raised in our myths and epics.

(This article was first published in Business Standard Weekend) http://goo.gl/lkVvC8 

Gods of War

It is the season for festivals. A week ago, the festival of nine nights or Navaratri wound down to a close and the festival of lights, Diwali, will soon be upon us. Within these larger circles of celebration, numerous small ones too will make their place as different communities welcome different gods and goddesses. In a country with proverbially 13 festivals in 12 months, the September-December period is more crowded than usual. And, interestingly, most of these festivals are in honour of great warriors.

Durga slays the powerful Asura king, Mahisha, who had begun to wreak destruction on the three worlds. Backed by a formidable army and a power to change form at will, he remained unvanquished. Helpless, the gods turned to the divine trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Durga, according to common lore, was born out of their collective anger. She sprang into being, fully clad in armour and battle-ready, like Athene of the Greek pantheon.

(Image: Rajrishi Singhal)

Durga was created to kill Mahishasura and hence her name, Mahishasurmardini. Although her male counterparts assist her with weapons and protective gear, she was a one-woman army and led the battle into the Asura kingdom. Many scholars believe that she was worshipped as a powerful and mighty warrior in a timeless time. But with the emergence of a paternalistic social structure, the Durga-Mahishasur myth had to be incorporated within the Vedic framework where the divine trinity was supreme and goddesses were defined by their relationship to the three gods. According to E W Hopkins (Epic Mythology), "Durga is a late adoption of Visnuism; originally a goddess worshipped by savages (Savaras, Barbaras, Pulindas)." Whatever the story of her origin and her position in the pantheon, there is no dispute that Durga is a fierce goddess and was feared by her male counterparts. "Durga is a warrior goddess, unapproachable by suitors and invincible in battle." (World Mythology, edited by Roy Willis, Simon & Schuster, UK) And just as Athene became daughter of Zeus when the male gods became dominant in all societies, Durga became Shiva's wife.

Sekhmet and Anat are similar warrior goddesses in Egyptian mythology. Anat - imported into the Egyptian pantheon from Syria and Palestine - is shown carrying a shield, a spear and an axe. Sekhmet is a terrifying lioness goddess and is often depicted with a lion's head in sculptures. She was deputed by sun god Ra to quell his rebellious human subjects. The lion is Durga's vahana too. Another Egyptian war goddess, Qudshu, is depicted in paintings and sculptures as a naked woman standing on a lion's back. The lion is a common symbol among war deities and is believed to stand in for the sun. (The Dictionary of Symbols, J E Cirlot, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London)

Warrior goddesses were common to many ancient civilisations and their worship perhaps predates that of male warriors. These goddesses were ferocious, a far cry from the fecund profile of a mother goddess, also a powerful mythical-religious figure. According to scholar Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, these goddesses are not compassionate; "they are generally a pretty bloodthirsty lot." (http://goo.gl/DEMMBY). When goddesses took to battle, the lines between good and bad were blurred and often had to be reined in (Kali, Sekhmet are examples) to save humanity from complete annihilation.

The narrative changes when it comes to the male warrior gods. Indra, for instance, fights Vritra the demon for the good of man. Vritra assumed control over water and refused to release it for the gods and humans; Indra slays him with his thunderbolt and cuts a channel for the rivers to flow.

Another thing about recent male warrior gods - they are presaged to deliver mankind from evil. Rama, who will be worshipped during the upcoming Diwali celebrations, fights a moral battle and is worshipped as an ideal man rather than an inspiring warrior. He goes into battle, not because he seeks the blood of his enemy but because his hand is forced when Ravana kidnaps his wife. Ravana's death has been destined at Rama's hands. When the gods had approached Brahma for deliverance from Ravana, he tells them that Rama will be born to vanquish Ravana.

The era of male warrior gods is far from over. The last of Vishnu's ten incarnations is Kalki, the horse-warrior who is yet to grace this world with his presence and is preordained to restore order to a chaotic modern world. 

(This was published in Business Standard Weekend, 25 October 2013)

Speaking in many tongues

(My article in Business Standard on 17 August 2013)

Language is a deposit of thought, said Max Muller, without which the human species would be incapacitated in its quest for survival and modern-day nation states in their hunt for supremacy. By that rationale India is perhaps one of the richest countries in the world. According to the recently conducted linguistic survey of India, the country speaks in 780 languages and writes with 60 scripts. Few other nations and, perhaps even continents, have such a large basket of languages at their disposal.

The survey, which has taken 18 years and 3,000 people, is the first attempt in 100 years to map the country's linguistic diversity. Ganesh Devy, the force behind the 68-volume set of The People's Linguistic Survey of India (English publisher: Orient Black Swan) said at the launch of the Maharashtra survey, "The aim was to reveal the treasure we have. We have a forest of languages."

Creating a language takes centuries and it is the hallmark of great civilisations. Its characteristics cannot be described in a single statement and, in a way, it defies being defined. David Crystal, accomplished linguist and author, says even when we use short and functional sentences, there is a lot that is going on. (How Language Works, David Crystal; Penguin Books, UK) We use vocabulary, grammar, phonology, semantics and several other things to convey sense and relevance to what we speak and write.

Language is a complex machine. It is also one of the most distinctive features of the human race and has been used by civilisations to capture their myths and philosophies and weave them into literature, art and science. Scholars who have studied language and mythology have pointed out that myths were used to amplify the meaning of a word and to transform concepts into stories. Max Muller believed that mythology was the disease of language implying in a way that neither can do without the other.

Myths help layer words with multiple meanings. For instance, take the word zero. In India there are different kinds of zeroes. Ganesh Devy says, "We have the word 'kha' which is a zero that includes everything and which diminishes and grows with the things within it, we have 'shunya' in which there is nothing and we have 'purna' which has everything but it neither diminishes nor grows." The nuances that transform a complex mathematical construct into an equally complicated unit of language are unique to the culture that created the concept. If we lose the language, we lose the layers and the unique worldview of a civilisation.

Similarly language helps create myths that are rooted in the cultural context of a people. For instance, 'Uloopi', the water princess in Mahabharata who marries Arjuna, derives her name from the word uloopin which means dolphin. (E W Hopkins, Epic Mythology, Indological Book House, Varanasi 1968) The word is hardly used but as a character of a popular epic, it lives on. Another word with a forgotten past is Welsh. About 1,500 years ago, Germanic tribes invading Britain coined the term "welus", which meant slaves and outsiders, for the resident Celts of the region - the term lives on as "Welsh".

While losing a language may be in the natural order of things, it often means losing a bit of our past and for India, a wealth of literary compositions. The Bhils have four mahakavyas (epics), and the Sawra tribe, whose language is spoken by a small group of people, has plays, stories and songs. Given the utilitarian times we live in, the death of a language may not seem such a great tragedy. The logic is, if a language had any use, it would be used. But languages are not meant only to communicate (though that is a vital function), it has helped understand the world and create new languages. The binary system that our computers run on was derived from the metric compositions used by ancient poets and singers.

The word is more powerful than we can imagine. That is why most civilisations gave it a divine status. In India, Vac is the goddess of speech and the mother of the Vedas. The Irish god Ogma is said to have invented the Ogham alphabet. Hermes was regarded as the god of language, alongside Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory) by the Greeks. According to mythologist and linguist Ernst Cassirer, "Word in fact becomes a sort of a primary force in which all being and doing originate. In all mythical cosmogonies, as far back as they can be traced, this supreme position of the word is found." (Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth, Translated by Susanne K Langer, Dover Publications, 1946) He finds a direct parallel between what the Uitoto Indians believed - that in the beginning the word gave the Father his origin - and the opening passage of John's gospel: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." (Bible, John 1:1; King James version). Perhaps, all those who count themselves as masters of the word, may want to take another call on who really serves whom.

Divine Protectors

The column appeared in Business Standard on 27 April 2013. 
The Supreme Court, in a recent verdict on bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa, said the hills could be mined only if Vedanta Aluminium's exploration activities did not violate the local tribes' right to worship Niyam Raja. The Kondh community, indigenous to the region, believes that Niyam Raja is a permanent resident of the Niyamgiri Hills and he is their creator and protector god.

In mythologies across boundaries, the riches of the earth were seen as powerful forces. Humans were not strong enough to be entrusted with their care; these forces needed supernatural guardians. Thus, the mountains, the ocean and the rivers acquired the status of gods. For instance, the Lepchas, a hill tribe indigenous to India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet, believe thatKangchenjunga is a great lord created for their protection. Around him are other great lords, each with specific duties to fulfil. One such lord is Pun Yang Chyu who, it is believed, "holds within it a rich treasure of seeds which no mortal can ever find. When our world is destroyed by too many evil deeds, thoughts and actions, Pun Yang Chyu will release seeds to regenerate the world". (Lepcha, My Vanishing Tribe by A R Foning, Sterling Publishers)

Many protector deities were creators of the cosmos or, at least, principal actors in the creation process. The cosmic snake in Indian and African mythology is a case in point. In India, three aspects of the snake are worshipped - "as a dreaded enemy, as the protector of home and treasure and as the accompaniment and attribute of wisdom." (The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India by W Crooke, Government Press, North Western Provinces and Oudh in Allahabad). The serpent as a minder of treasures is a common motif and provides an interesting angle to the recent discoveries of gold and precious gems in the underground vaults of the Padmanabha temple in Trivandrum. The temple has an 18-foot long idol of Vishnu, reclining on the coiled serpent Ananta Naga with a lotus rising from his navel on which sits Brahma, the creator god. According to some versions of its origins, the temple was built on the site of serpent worship.

In many cultures, these divinities began their life as demonic beings. The rationale, perhaps, was that the guardians had to be even more fearful and awe-inspiring than the forces they controlled. They held the power to create and destroy. In Himachal Pradesh, for example, Hidim and Hidimba were rakshasas and are still worshipped as protectors of the forest. In Egypt, Geb was the god of the earth, and earthquakes were thought to be his laughter. And as a god of mines and caves, he is believed to have gifted the people with minerals and precious stones found in the earth. Bonbibi of the Sunderbans in West Bengal has the forests under her charge. She is worshipped by Muslims and Hindus and protects her followers from the wrath of Dokkhin Rai - the tiger in human form. Daughter of a Muslim trader, local lore says Bonbibi saved an orphan boy, Dukhu, from the jaws of Dokkhin Rai and even today one cannot go into the forest to collect honey or timber or set out to fish in distant waters without her blessings.

The worshippers believed that these gods were responsible for fire, flood, earthquakes and drought. They controlled the forests and seas and a few chosen ones among them maintained order in the universe. One such is Niyam Raja. He sets down the rules of life for the Kondhs by ensuring that the water they drink, the spaces they inhabit and the food they eat is pure and nurturing. In return, he expects to be worshipped and cared for.

As the gods guard nature's treasures from plunder, so do they keep the people of a city or a nation safe. Athena is the patron goddess of Athens. Mumbai takes its name from Mumbadevi (although there are many who dispute the etymological connection between the city and the goddess).

Myths helped people understand why nature behaved the way it did or how human character was shaped. The worship of Niyam Raja therefore is more than a ritual followed by a small tribe. It exemplifies the abiding belief in the power of protector gods and provides an insight into how ancient cultures engaged with nature. Bereft of security for hire, ancient civilisations depended on gods for safety; it's a sign of changing times when industrialists today get the CRPF to protect them and their wealth.

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!