Ramayana: The Greatest Story Ever Told

AK Ramanujan, the great folklorist from India collected  a folktale in which a story and a song once escaped from the mouth of a sleeping woman frustrated that she refused to share them with others. The next morning, when she woke up, she had forgotten both the story and the song that she had kept all to herself.  

This folktale illustrates the importance of story-telling for Indians. Stories have a compelling need to be told, listened to and shared. With time, as these stories get told and retold innumerable times in different formats, they evolve into a tradition. 

And if there is one story that has been told, retold and continues to be narrated relentlessly some 2,000 years after its composition, it is the Ramayana. No other piece of world literature has fired the collective imagination of a people as much as Ramayana has.  

Great epics were composed in Greek (Illiad and Odyssey) and Akkadian (the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh) too. But today, they remain merely as distant memories from a forgotten past. Whereas, Ramayana remains a living tradition and continues to fascinate and enrich the minds of every passing generation.

Ramayana, the first Indian epic

In the Indian culture, the Valmiki Ramayana, dated to approximately 3^rd century BCE, is considered the Adi Kavya or the first poetic composition in Sanskrit of epic proportions. No other composition earlier had had the vastness or richness of the plot that Ramayana had.  No other story had reflected the ethics and value system of a society as the story of Rama did.

Everyone loves a good tragedy, as Aristotle’s idea of catharsis would tell us. The most enduring stories told, we often find, are either tragedies or love stories. Ramayana, brimming with karuna rasa, was both - a tragic love-story - and therein lay its eternal appeal. The message that God too was bound by the laws of destiny and suffered very human problems struck a chord with the common man facing societal pressures and challenges.

How the epic spread across the Indian subcontinent….

As Adi Kavya, Ramayana became the first or the basic template of a story for all future stories and epics. Several later mythological compositions and religious texts borrowed the textual template from Ramayana. The influence of Ramayana was so profound that almost all the Hindu religious literature ever composed including the Mahabharata and the Shaiva and Vaishnava Puranas narrate the story of Rama.

But imitation, as they say, is the best form of flattery. Valmiki’s composition set forth an explosion of texts, in Sanskrit, Prakrit as well all as the vernacular resulting in at least 300 different retellings of the epic. With every retelling, Rama’s story diffused into the local culture and gradually emerged as the common denominator that united people of diverse ethnicity and culture across the Indian subcontinent.

Ramayana presented the retellers with a staple story and a set of archetypal characters that were suitably altered to fit the milieu. The language changed, the names changed, the relationships between the cameos changed, but the key characters (Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Hanuman and Ravana) and episodes from the epic more or less remained the same.

The mode of transmission of the Ramayana was not all textual. Apart from oral renditions, the story of Rama reached the largely illiterate audience in the form of folk and classical dances, songs, theatre, shadow-plays that used puppets, etc. The Ramayana was also presented as the theatrical re-enactment of Rama’s life (Ramlila) and through scroll painting traditions (that support oral story telling with visual props) such as the Phad tradition from Bhilwara, Rajasthan and Kalamkari painting tradition from Kalahasti, Andhra Pradesh. 

These art forms borrowed the epic’s basic idea and adapted it to suit the local belief systems, social structure and values. Characters such as Lakshmana and Shurpanaka were assimilated into the native culture and embedded into the local tales, where they freely intermingled with other indigenous characters.  For instance, in the Phad story telling tradition, the protagonist Papuji is believed to have been Lakshmana in his previous birth and had married Shurpanakha.

Architecture too developed around the characters and episodes from the epic. The relief at the Prambanan temple complex at Java depicting episodes from the Ramayana and the relief work showing Ravana trying to lift Mount Kailash at Ellora caves are some of the finest examples of story-telling in stone, that were inspired by the epic.

From classical to folk renderings, the story gradually travelled inlands and diffused into the mythology of the tribals too. Gond Ramayani and Bhil Ramayan are two well-known tribal versions of the epic. While Gond Ramayani narrates the story of Lakshmana’s hunt for a bride, in the Bhil Ramayana, Ravana does not battle Rama but returns Sita to him after realizing his blunder.

In a sense, Ramayana, which literally means the path of Rama, is a travel story. Rama travels through a very long route called the Dakshinapath that ran from Ayodhya in the north to Rameshwaram in the south, on his search for Sita.

Even as Rama’s adventures took him down south, Valmiki wove into it previously unknown details of the geography, and flora and fauna of peninsular India, along with an account of the lifestyles of the smaller clans and tribes that inhabited these parts. In as much as these details added to the epic’s novelty value, they also widened the reach of the epic through associations of certain sacred geography with specific episodes from the epic.

….and beyond

With the spread of Buddhism and the colonization of lands such as Sinhala (modern day Sri Lanka) by Indian kings, the story of Rama entered the South East Asian kingdoms.  Late professor and Sanskrit scholar Dr. V Raghavan once pointed out that the epic’s popularity in the predominantly ‘Buddhist’ South East Asia can be attributed to its seamless integration into Buddhist writings where Rama was depicted as a Boddhisatva. The Dasharatha Jataka, the Buddhist retelling of the epic, leveraged on the persona of Rama to propagate Dhamma.

Just as Tulsi’s idea of Ramarajya led to the establishment of Rama as the archetypal king for the Indian ruling class, in Thailand, the monarch takes on the title of Rama and rules in his name. In certain Sanskrit inscriptions from Champa (in today’s Southern Vietnam) and Cambodia, we find the local king being compared to Rama.

But this is not to say Rama, was the protagonist in all the versions of the epic. In several versions, the heroic role of vanquishing Ravana was often handed over to Lakshmana, who was perceived to be the more macho of the two. The values that Rama stood for in India (Maryada purushottam and eka patnivrata) were not necessarily endorsed or cherished by every society. In several south Asian versions of the epic, Rama’s commitment and fidelity to Sita is not upheld as a desirable trait and was looked upon as an oddity and often discounted.  However, these variations, sometimes small and sometimes significant, enabled the epic to cut across cultural barriers and find root in diverse societies having different value systems.

 What makes Ramayana a timeless classic?

Whatever be the composer’s raison d'être for the epic, the popularity and timelessness of this evergreen epic can be pinned down to a single notion - its unequivocal endorsement of the family system. For the society at large, the story of Rama is one of domestic relationships, of familial obligations, fraternal bonds and romantic love. Indian women, for instance, identify with the character of Sita, and the sufferings she underwent, which finds reflection in the Telugu folk song tradition and in the Madhubhani paintings of Bihar. Sita bidai, the departure of Sita for her in-laws’ house, is a common theme in the Madhubani paintings tradition carried on by the women of Mithila, believed to be Sita’s birthplace.

Thus, in the folk art and tribal adaptations of the epic, we often find that the focus is on domestic relationships, and esoteric contemplations on dharma are absent.

Individual ambitions and aspirations have never mattered much in the Indian context. On the contrary, obedience and conformity to a clan’s social structure is encouraged. That is why Ravana’s lust for a woman was punished. Ravana’s was an individual’s aspiration for which he compromised the interests of his clan. Whereas, Rama, even as a manifestation of the divine, did not act for himself, but as a torchbearer for his dynasty and the values it stood for. It is this idea of the superiority of the clan over the individual, endorsed by the epic that continues to resonate deeply with the common man even today.

Ramayana, the greatest story ever told

The question whether Rama existed or not is one we endlessly debate. Maybe Rama did exist, and his incredible life story gained the proportions of a magnum opus with time. Or maybe, he didn’t, and was but an embodiment of an ideal man, a society’s idea of a perfect monarch. Either way, the answer does not matter. Historic figures rarely reach the zenith of adulation that mythological heroes do. As the hero of an eternal epic, Rama, the Kavuyapurush, remains immortal in the collective imagination of all the listeners of the Ramayana. As long as we keep telling stories, Ramayana will continue to be told and heard...

Death and what happens after: The Indian Thought

Science may have conquered various myths relating to our lives in the course of human evolution, but there is still one aspect of our existence that science is yet to decipher and give us convincing answers for….and that is death….and what happens after!

World over, cultures have tried to explain the horrifying reality called death using mythology. Some, like the ancient Egyptian civilization, left such a strong trail of their belief in afterlife in the form of lofty pyramids and grand tombs that have survived 3000 odd years to tell us the dead man’s tale.  

Afterlife and life thereafter….

Just as the ancient Egyptians, Indians too believe in afterlife. In Indian thought, the deceased enters the heavens (Swarga) or hell (Naraka) depending upon the accumulated reward of his good deeds (punya) and bad deeds (paapa) but does not become a permanent resident there. He/She spends a short while there till his/her accumulated rewards/penalties are exhausted. Thereafter, the deceased takes on another body and life (not necessarily human) to be born again on earth. The cycle of births and deaths continue till one day, having exhausted all its karma (fruits of its actions), the life attains moksha (or birthlessness).

How the beliefs and rituals evolved through the Vedic and Puranic times….

While the Vedic texts do express the ancient man’s fears and beliefs around death, their key intent seems to have been to ensure the safe transport of the dead persons to the land of their forefathers (pitrulok or yamalok as yama was considered the first man to die). Towards this end, they lay down meticulous specifications for conducting elaborate funeral ceremonies.

The Vedic texts do not, however, deliberate much on the concepts of rebirth, paapa/punya and accumulated (sanchita) karma. These ideas seem to have evolved later, and are dealt with in detail in the Puranas. The Puranic texts that were composed later, thus discuss at length the various expiatory rites. These rites, if performed during the lifetime of an individual, promise to alleviate the toils faced by the aggrieved soul on its journey to pitruloka and also ensure his/her next birth in a better stratum of the society.

Some of these rituals seem to have their basis in the idea of the gift economy (dana), created to sustain the livelihood of the priestly class. The texts prescribed several danas in the form of cows, umbrellas, pots and vessels (in gold and silver) to be made to the Brahmins, who had no means of income of their own, but lived on the charity and magnanimity extended by the other three varnas (the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras). Thus, we find the idea of the benefits arising from making dana to the Brahmins gaining strength through the Puranic times.

While the Vedic people offered the things that they believed the dead person would need on his upward journey as oblations into the fire, from the Puranic age, these items have come to be donated to the Brahmins who collect them on behalf of the dead persons.

The period of the Puranic age that coincides with the Gupta era saw a further evolution of the ideas around afterlife with increased emphasis on certain beliefs that the priestly class shared with tribals.    

Vijay Nath in her book, Puranas and their Acculturation says that the need to bring more and more peripheral lands under farming during the Gupta era led to the grant of these lands to Brahmins. The movement of the priestly class to the countryside put them in close contact with the tribes that occupied the lands identified for agricultural development. This resulted in the exchange of several ideas between the two communities, including the elaboration of the tribal ideas of hell and retribution in the Puranas.

The Puranas talk about some 100 different types of hells (Naraka) specific to the sins committed by the deceased. These texts present a picture of these purgatories in great graphic detail using elaborate imagery and supporting mythology, and seem to have been used as deterrents against deviation from tradition and norms in the fast expanding society.

The journey of the lone soul….. 

According to the Garuda Purana, the deceased’s soul is believed to set forth on a long and arduous journey to yamaloka pulled away from the memories of his surviving kith and kin by yama’s assistants. The Purana gives a detailed account of the soul’s journey and the travails it faces along the way, before it reaches yamaloka where its paapa/punya accounts are maintained.

This journey of the soul is supposed to take a whole year during which time it experiences hunger and thirst just like the living. To satisfy the needs of the soul, the heir of the deceased (or any other karta) is expected to offer it a rice ball (pinda) every month during the course of its year-long journey. Feeding on these rice balls, the soul gradually regrows a part of the body every month, and by the end of the year when it reaches yamalok, it has regrown its complete body. At the yamaloka, judgement is awarded and the soul begins the process of its re-entry into the mortal world, all over again.

Today, to many of us, these rituals and the mythology behind them may seem macabre and belonging to a dark, primitive past. But the truth is that today, even as we talk about the colonization of outer space, we don’t have better answers for the two primal questions that have nagged mankind over eons – where do we come from and where do we go?  Here, mythology scores by giving you an answer that is as good as any….

How ancient are these rituals?

According to scholars, ancestor worship was essentially a primitive custom, remnants of which can still be traced in the Hindu funeral ceremonies of today. In his book, Socio-Religious study of the Hindu Samskaras, Rajbali Pandey says that in no other aspect of Hinduism have such primitive beliefs survived unbroken as in the case of the funeral ceremonies.  A fragment of evidence supporting the antiquity of these rituals can be found in the food that is served at the Shraddha ceremony. The dishes are prepared out of vegetables and spices that are native to the sub-continent’s geography and culture, while vegetables that found their way into the Indian subcontinent from other parts of the world are not used. For instance, til or sesame seeds and sesame oil is used extensively in the food items prepared for these ceremonies. That’s possibly yet another proof of the antiquity of the ritual as sesame seeds and sesame oil are known to have been part of Indian cuisine even in the days of the Harappan civilization.

Why is black til (sesame seeds) used in the funeral ceremonies?

Considered to be the tears of Vishnu, black sesame seeds are used extensively along with water during funeral ceremonies. Black symbolises death and darkness. That explains why a lamp is lighted next to the dead body as it is believed that the path (in the southern direction) that the soul takes is dark and the lamp helps with lighting its path. The association of the colour black with death is also the reason why Yama, the lord of death, is depicted as having a dark skin tone. The association of our dead ancestors with crows could possibly be due to the same reason.

Why are dead bodies cremated?

Ever since the Vedic times, cremation has been the most popular and efficient mode of disposing the dead. This practice of offering the mortal remains of a dead person to the fire stems from the Vedic belief that Agni as the carrier of the oblation offered to the gods, transports the deceased’s body to the gods in the heavens. Moreover, fire was believed to have the power to purify and was believed to cleanse the deceased of all his sins. So there were exceptions to the cremation rule – for example, infants, persons who died in their childhood and sadhus are considered sinless and hence don’t need the purification by fire. So, they were buried, not cremated.

The Silence of Buddha: A tribute to the Guru

गुरु गोबिंद दोऊ खड़े, का के लागूं पाय।
बलिहारी गुरु आपणे, गोबिंद दियो मिलाय॥

In one of his popular couplets (dohe) Kabir wonders, “Both my guru and my god stand before me and I wonder who I should salute first”, and clarifies saying, “I salute my guru first as he was the one who showed me my god.”'

And it is not just Kabir who puts his guru before his god. It is the gods themselves who put their gurus above their own selves. Thus we find that, in their human avatars, Rama and Krishna bow down to the advice and good counsel of their gurus. In fact the entire text of Yoga Vasishta, is in the form of a discourse between Rama and his guru Vasishta who instructs Rama on the principles of Advaitha or non-duality of the universe. Again, without the able mentorship of Sandipani, would Krishna have evolved into the Gitacharya, as we know him, is a question worth asking. Not to forget the Indic religion of Sikhism that is founded entirely on the teachings of Guru Nanak.

Thus, in the Indian tradition, we find that a guru is held higher up even above the almighty, as he is the one who leads his/her students towards the path of enlightenment. (In Sanskrit, the syllable ‘gu’ means darkness and the syllable ‘ru’ means to drive away).

God, Guru & Shishya and their magical relationship

There is a very endearing story that illustrates this magical relation that exists between god, a guru and his disciple.

In the temple town of Thirumazhisai near the ancient Pallava city of Kanchi, lived an Alwar saint. The Alwar was an ardent devotee of Vishnu, who was the presiding deity at the local temple. Vishnu’s idol in the temple is in a reclining posture and the lord is seen lying on the coils of Shesh nag immersed in his Yoga nidra.

The Alwar had a disciple named Kanikannan, who was his most favourite. Kanikannan was as illustrious as his guru, and one day, he happened to see an old hunchback lady deeply engrossed in cleaning the temple. Impressed with the lady’s single-minded devotion, Kanikannan touched her back and lo! by magic, her bent back straightened out and she turned into a beautiful young lady that she had once been. Although deeply grateful for her physical transformation, she, however, decided to continue her life in the services of her lord, Vishnu, at the temple.

Hearing about the miracle performed by Kanikannan, the ageing king of Kanchi approached the disciple and requested that his youth too be restored so that he could indulge in worldly pleasures once again. Not surprisingly, Kanikannan refused to help saying that youth had no use for somebody who only wanted to indulge in the base pleasures of life. Angered by his response, the king ordered that Kanikannan be banished from his kingdom. Kanikannan was more than happy to comply with the order.

But what’s a guru without his pupil? So, when the Alwar got to know about his shishya’s fate, he decided to follow suit and leave the kingdom as he didn’t want to be away from his favourite disciple. But, he also had deep love for the lord of the temple, whom he had tirelessly served for long. Not wanting to leave his lord behind, he commanded Vishnu to gather his serpentine mat (Shesha nag) that he was lying on and leave the city along with him.

And, what’s god without his devotee? So, Vishnu implicitly obeyed the Alwar’s orders. Gathering Adisheshan’s coils, he set out along with the Alwar to leave Kanchi. Soon, the three of them – god, guru and shishya left the city and reached its outskirts where they decided to halt for the night.

Meanwhile, the city of Kanchi descended into darkness and misfortune, as Lord Vishnu, when he vacated the temple, had taken his consort, Shree (Goddess Lakshmi who lived in his bosom), along with him. As a result, all the city’s riches and wealth took flight and the kingdom soon became derelict of prosperity.

Terrified by the turn of events, the Pallava king at once rushed to Lord Vishnu, who was camping on the city’s outskirts, to seek forgiveness and begged him to return to Kanchi. But the good lord replied that he had no choice in the matter and it was really up to his devotee, the Alwar to take a decision. Disappointed by the lord’s response, the king then approached the Alwar and requested him to return to the city along with the lord. But the Alwar threw up his hands saying that he had no say in the matter and if his disciple Kanikannan was willing to return to the city, he too would gladly do so. So, the king was left with no choice but to approach Kanikannan and seek forgiveness for his own thoughtless act.

Approached by the king himself, Kanikannan relented, and decided to forgive him and return to Kanchi. The guru, of course, did not want to be left behind without his disciple. So he too decided to return. Having decided thus, he commanded his dear god to once again fold up his serpentine bed and return to Kanchi along with him.  

The trio thus returned to the city of Kanchi, and so did Shree (prosperity) along with them!

If the Alwar was a guru truly devoted to his disciple, Cheethalai Chattanar, a Tamil poet, took his commitment to his pupils to a different level.

The guru who punished himself for his pupils’ mistakes

Cheethalai Chattanar was the poet who is believed to have composed ‘Manimekalai’, counted among the five great Tamil epics and also considered the sequel to Silappathikaaram, the epic story of Kannagi.

Legend has it that for every mistake his pupils made, Chattanar would punish himself by striking his head with the stylus that was used for writing on palm leaves. So his head was seen perennially bruised with pus and blood covering it. It is said that he derived his name from the punishment that he gave himself, ‘Chee’ meaning pus and ‘thalai’ meaning head in Tamil.

With time, Chattanar’s students, for fear of punishing their guru, began to learn their lessons diligently and perfectly!

Both Alwar and Chattanar were indeed extremely dedicated gurus who held their disciples higher than themselves.

In Indian mythology we find gurus appearing in different avatars, and not always in the form of old, stereotypical Brahmin males. Here are some stories about some atypical gurus who taught a valuable lesson or two in the most unconventional ways.

Some unconventional gurus

The deity Dakshinamurthy, popular in the south, is considered an incarnation of Shiva and is held as the Supreme Guru, the God of Ultimate Knowledge. The iconography of Dakshinamurthy depicts Shiva, sitting in an ascetic posture under a banyan tree, in a gesture of imparting knowledge to his disciples who are significantly older than him. And this guru does not instruct; he remains quiet, yet his disciples attain complete realization of the eternal truth.  The sight is indeed strange, as Adi Shankaracharya in his Dakshinamurthy Stotra points out, ‘it is indeed peculiar to see the old disciples (sages) and their young guru (Dakshinamurthy) sitting under the banyan tree; the guru sits in silence, but all the doubts in the minds of his disciples are cleared.”

Indeed, the reversal of roles as depicted by a young guru teaching his old disciples and the magical transmission of knowledge between them is beautifully captured in Shankara’s hymns.

The idea that the age of the guru need have no relation with his competence to teach is further reinforced in the sthalapurana of two temples in Tamil Nadu -  Kumarakkottam and Swami Malai. In Swami Malai, the deity Murugan is depicted as a precocious child who punishes Lord Brahma for his ignorance of the knowledge of the Brahman and takes over the job of creation upon himself. Murugan subsequently goes on to impart knowledge of the primordial mantra ‘Aum’ to his own father, Lord Shiva. The deity in the temple is thus referred to as ‘Swami Nathan’ (Sanskrit) or ‘Thagappan Swami’ (Tamil) both meaning ‘his father’s lord’.

The iconography with respect to both these stories is very interesting. In the Swami Malai story, Murugan is seen sitting on the lap of his father, who bows down reverently to listen to his son’s discourse on the significance and meaning of ‘Brahman’. In the story of Kumarakottam, Brahma Shastha or the teacher of Brahma - as Murugan is referred to (Shastha means teacher) - is depicted as giving a knock on Brahma’s head as a punishment for both his ignorance and vanity.

                

                                  

The Upanishads and the Maha Puranas too talk about four kumaras (young boys), the mind-born sons of Brahma who live on as children, but are considered the epitome of wisdom – the gyanis, the yogis or the siddhas. In the Chandogya Upanishad, Santakumara instructs sage Narada and in the Mahabharata, he is referred to as a sage who dispels all doubts. In Buddhist mythology, we have Aushada Kumara, who is considered a Boddhisatva, coming across as the equivalent of the Sanatkumara.

What a householder, a butcher and a Chandala had to teach

And it was not that the guru could only be a Brahmin or a man or that he could come only from the upper echelons of the society. A guru was someone who opened one's eyes to the truth, irrespective of his social standing.

There is the story of a virtuous butcher who instructed a Brahmin, as told in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata. According to the story, one day, deep inside a forest, a Brahmin monk sat in deep meditation. Unfortunately for him, his deep deliberations were disturbed by a crane perched on the tree above him  that defiled his head with its droppings. In a fit of anger, he burnt the bird with his mere look, using his yogic powers.

Shortly after this, he came to a household begging for alms to feed himself.  But the lady of the household was busy attending to her sick husband and asked him to wait till she was free to give him alms. Heckled by being made to wait, the monk threatened the lady of the house to use his yogic powers against her. But the unperturbed lady shot back saying she was not a crane who could be burnt down by him and that he must learn to keep his composure. Hearing her response, the monk was shocked. How had the lady come to know of the happenings inside the forest? The lady replied saying that she did no austerities like the monk, but had acquired the power to read his mind by simply doing her duty to her husband. Her unflinching and unwavering commitment to her duty vested her with miraculous powers.  

Her response humbled the monk who realized he had a lot more to learn in the world. The lady then directed him to an enlightened butcher, Dharma Vyadha, in Mithila who could instruct the monk on the pursuit of dharma. Surprised and initially unconvinced over what a lowly butcher could teach him, the monk nevertheless approached the butcher and asked him how he could have achieved enlightenment by doing such ‘filthy, ugly work’. To which, the butcher responded saying, “no duty was ugly or impure, but the manner in which the work was done decided its worth.” The detailed discourse between the butcher and the monk is referred to as the Vyadha Gita and has valuable insights on swadharma (one’s duty), detached performance (nishkamya karma) and on virtuous conduct.  

The message that a guru is anybody who has something to teach us is conveyed once again in the story of Adi Shankaracharya, who once had to cross paths with a Chandala in the holy city of Varanasi. As the Chandala was an untouchable, Shankara and his disciples gestured to him to move to the side to give way to them as they did not want his tainted presence to sully their sacred selves. 

Refusing to move immediately, the Chandala asked him, “Do you want my body or my soul to give way to you? If the atman is the same in all, unaffected by the body, how do differences such as Brahmana and the Chandala arise in the non-dual existence?” 

Shankara was stunned by the Chandala’s response and realized that this was no ordinary man. Shankara accepted him as his Guru even though he was of a low caste. Legend has it that the Chandala was none other than Lord Shiva who had taken the form of an outcaste to drive home a point. Shankara has composed the conversation between him and the Chandala in the form of five verses called, Maneesha Panchakam, which brings out the essence of Advaitha or non-duality of the universe.

Just as a householder woman, a butcher and a Chandala assumed the role of a guru in the above stories, there is the story where King Janaka, living the life of a householder, still had a thing or two to teach Sage Shukha, the son of Veda Vyasa.  

The story goes that Veda Vyasa sent his son, Shuka, for tutelage to King Janaka who was considered a brahmagyani or one who had attained self-realisation. But, Shuka, who was an ascetic, was not convinced that the King, mired in his hedonistic pursuits, could impart any valuable insights on brahmagyan to him. When presented before the king, the sage asked Janaka how the king, who lived amidst all the worldly pleasures could ever consider himself a jivan muktha or a renunciate.  To this, Janaka responded by giving Shuka a bowl filled to the brim with milk and asked him to carry it around the palace without spilling a drop. As instructed, Shukha set out circumambulating the palace. His trip around the palace was filled with various sights of sheer debauchery and self-indulgence that was characteristic of life in the palace. But, none of these sights distracted Shukha, as his mind was focused on carefully carrying the bowl of milk without spilling it. 

After having completed his task successfully, he returned to Janaka, who, after acknowledging Shuka’s accomplished mission, asked him what he had seen on his trip around the palace. Shukha replied saying that he had not paid any attention to any of the sights as his mind was focused on the task given to him. Hearing this, Janaka responded saying that this was exactly how he lived his own life too. Despite living a life of royalty, he kept his mind focused on carrying out his duties justly and dispassionately, without allowing himself to be swayed by the revelry around him.

Hearing Janaka’s reply, Shuka bowed down to him and accepted him as his guru and went on to acquire brahmagyan from him. The discourse that Janaka gave Shuka is found in the Maha Upanishad.   

Of course, the list of unconventional gurus is long and there are stories of Hemalekha (in Tripura Rahasya) and Chudala (In Yoga Vasishta) who took their pleasure-seeking husbands on the path of brahmagyan and how Yama, the lord of death instructed Nachiketas on the nature of the soul and the brahman (in Kathopanishad). And then, there are stories about the eccentric Zen masters who chose very unconventional means to teach life lessons to their pupils.

  

But, will keep them for later. Now, to end with a story on one of the greatest teachers India has ever had…the Buddha.

The Buddha’s silence

Once, a disciple of the Buddha approached him with the question, “Is there a self?” But, the Buddha did not answer. Eliciting no response from his teacher, the disciple quizzed on, “Does that mean, there is no self?” To this question too, the Buddha remained silent. Frustrated by the absence of any response from his teacher, the disciple walked away. After he had left, Ananda, another of Buddha’s pupils asked him why the Buddha had remained silent and not answered the questions. Buddha responded saying, “if I had responded with a ‘yes’ to the question if there was a self, I would have been siding with the eternalists and if I had answered with a ‘no’ I would have been siding with the nihilists. And if I had answered with a ‘yes’ my answer would have been inconsistent with the knowledge that there is no self and if I had answered ‘no’ I would have confused the disciple who believes that there is a self. And that is why I chose to remain silent, and the disciple is better off with no answers from me.”

And so it is that a guru need not always teach through instructions, sometimes, the silence of the guru can be itself be a great teaching!

  

On what kind of disciples befitted these great gurus… in my next blog!

Knights in Distress and Damsels to the Rescue

Damsels in distress and knights rushing to rescue them from the clutches of wily witches, scheming step-mothers and dangerous dragons has been the common theme of most fairy tales from our childhood.  

These stories from medieval Europe have largely presented women as delicate, helpless beings, incapable of defending themselves, and waiting for a valiant prince to arrive and liberate them from their miserable existence.

Surprisingly for a patriarchal society, this theme of men rescuing women is quite rare in Indian mythology, other than, of course, the famous story of Rama who goes out in search of his kidnapped wife.

On the contrary, Indian mythology is full of stories of women who go all out to rescue their lovers or consorts, with or without their shining armour. These women often save their beloveds from tricky tribulations and sticky situations, accompany them to the warfront, and at times even bring them back from the dead. 

Here are some stories of such gutsy women who displayed enormous valour in their quest to bring back their loved ones from the brink and beyond of disaster. What is interesting about these stories is that, unlike men, these women chose to rely entirely on their moral courage, wit and wisdom rather than swords and daggers to assist them in their quest.

Take the case of Kaikeyi. She was a skilled charioteer, who once accompanied King Dasharatha to a battle. The fact that Dasharatha, who (as his name implies) was himself an expert at flying his chariot in ten directions, allowed Kaikeyi to drive him talks volumes of his faith in her charioting ability.  During the battle, when the king was wounded by an enemy arrow, Kaikeyi deftly maneuvered the chariot to safety and later nursed the king back to health.

Stories of such female bravery may be few and far between in the Ramayana. But the Mahabharatha, unlike any other work of world mythology, is replete with stories of women champions.

Let’s begin with Ulupi, who revived her dead lover Arjuna with the Mrithasanjivani gem. As Arjuna lay dead, killed by his own son Babruvahana owing to a curse of the Vasus, it was Ulupi, Arjuna's Naga wife, who summoned the jewel of the Nagas, placed it on Arjuna's chest and brought him back to life. According to one version of the story, Ulupi plotted the entire drama of the son killing his father in order to redeem Arjuna from the curse of the Vasus for having slain their brother, Bhishma.

Shachi or Indrani, Indra's consort, was yet another courageous woman, who was believed to be the source of Indra’s powers. Once, after having killed the demon Vritra treacherously, Indra was so overcome with guilt and shame that he fled Amaravathi, and hid himself in the stem of a lotus in a pond so far away, where he could not be found by other gods.

Unable to find Indra, the gods replaced him with a human, Nahusha. Unfortunately, Nahusha turned out a bad choice as he harassed the gods and the sages, and also tried to persuade Shachi into marrying him.

However, clever Shachi managed to get rid of Nahusha by having sage Agasthya curse him into becoming a serpent. She also sought out Indra and convinced him to come out of his hiding and resume his position as the lord of the Devas. Thus, Shachi not only saved her husband from eternal damnation and but also became a kingmaker of sorts, giving back the Devas, their leader.

What makes Shachi’s story interesting is that, in her search for Indra, she is described as having undertaken a long and arduous journey, navigating high mountains and deep seas through darkness and difficulties, very similar to the journey undertaken by Joseph Campbell's hero.

Equally critical was the role of Damayanthi in tracking down Nala, her husband, who had been banished from his kingdom and forced into hiding. Damayanthi hatched a clever plan to track down Nala. Using a difficult riddle which only Nala could solve, she traced him to King Rituparna’s court. There, Damayanthi’s messenger spread false news about her second swayamvara. Hoping to prevent Damayanthi’s remarriage, Nala rushed to her, and was thus reunited with his family.

Of course, the list of heroic women from the Mahabharatha cannot be complete without the mention of Savithri, who got none other than the Lord of Death to rewrite the destiny of Satyavan, her beloved. After Satyavan’s death, Savithri followed Yama over long distances on his journey to the land of the dead, till he was forced to yield to the persuasive Savithri and agree to return Satyavan alive to her.    

It’s not just the epics, but our Puranas too talk of such valorous women.

Rati, was one such braveheart, who managed to have her consort Kamadeva resurrected after he had been burnt to ashes by the wrath of Shiva. According to the Skanda purana, Rati undertook severe penances to bring Kama back to life, in order to ensure the union of Shiva and Parvathi. Although the popular story goes that Shiva agreed to revive Kama, albeit in a disembodied form, the Bhagawata Purana says that Rati’s efforts bore fruits when Kamadeva returned to her in the form of Krishna's son, Pradyumna.

To conclude, it would be unfair to dismiss these mythological women as pativratas, to be lauded merely for their sexual fidelity. It is feminine nature to fiercely protect the loved ones, whatever the cost! And loved their men, these women did! To the extent of even choosing them over gods (Damayanthi) and mighty kings (Savithri) sometimes!

More importantly, like Campbell’s hero, many of these women (Savithri, Shachi) stepped beyond their conventional role, crossing the threshold from the ordinary into the extraordinary, thus undergoing a significant transformation in their personalities in the course of their quest.

In light of these stories, maybe our perception of Indian mythology as having no female heroes needs a serious rethink!

Andal : The Lover Saint - Part 2

As mentioned in my previous post, evidence of Andal is purely literary. We do not know for sure if such as person ever existed at all. Or whether ‘Andal’ was merely the pseudonym of an accomplished poet who didn’t wish to reveal himself/herself. Rajagopalachari, it is said, believed that it was none other Periyalvar (Vishnuchittar) who wrote as Andal. On the other hand, certain studies on Andal opine that she was a devadasi who was attached to the temple at Srirangam. Whatever the theories about her life – they are just that, theories, most plausible at best!

But even going by popular beliefs, Andal’s life story and her poetry were both non-conformist, given the social environment of her times. Large parts of 8^th century Tamil lands were under the influence of the monastic religions, particularly Jainism, whose philosophy was a total antithesis to the devotion of the Alvar saints. While Jainism was atheistic, the religion of the Alvars was centred around a very personal God. Where Jainism preached detachment, both physical and mental, the Alvars’ religion was founded on an intense emotional attachment to God. With Andal, the Alvars’ bhakthi reached the pinnacle of unorthodoxy in religion, for her poetry is manifest with primal emotions of sexuality – the intense urge of a woman to unite with her lover.

In fact, some scholars like Champakalakshmi (Religion, Tradition and Ideology: Pre-colonial South India) go as far to say that the chief enemies of the Bhakthi movement were not so much the Vedic-Brahminical traditions as the ‘heretic’ faiths of Buddhism and Jainism, especially the latter, which enjoyed significant royal patronage, especially among the Pallava Kings. If it was indeed so, it further strengthens the case for Andal as a social maverick of her times.  This is because while the Buddhists and Jains believed in negation of the human body, its sexuality, and in breaking free of the desires of the flesh, Andal was singularly cognisant of her sexuality and saw it as an instrument to unite with the divine.

While it was not uncommon to find sexual undertones in the poetry of male saints (eg., Nammalvar first and Jayadev later), who used the Nayaki bhava (imagining themselves as the God’s lover) to give form to their emotional expression, Andal was the first woman saint to give words to her bodily needs and sexual desires. Her desire to wear the garland before offering to the god suggests that in her mind, she was already in a physically intimate relationship with her lord, as exists between married couples. Andal’s poetry thus expresses her constant longing and yearning to unite with her divine lover. Some of the verses in her poetry are explicitly erotic in nature.

It is possible that Andal’s erotic expressions made her immediate society uncomfortable. Even today, some explicitly amorous verses of her poetry are skipped when her poems are recited in temples.

This discomfort could explain the stories around the origins of her birth, her subsequent canonisation and eventual deification. The story that she was found as a baby in the garden (like Sita) logically culminates in her final deification as Bhudevi, daughter of Mother Earth and consort of Lord Vishnu.

Nevertheless, in Indian culture, Andal's is the first female voice that dared to express the most intimate, erotic and sensual feelings of a woman!

It is interesting that while other girls of her probably age chose to settle down with a partner in flesh and blood, she refused to offer herself to any lesser mortal, instead choosing to dedicate herself, in body and spirit, to her celestial paramour.

In a particular verse, she says that ‘her voluptuous breasts will swell for the lord alone, and scorns the idea of making love to mortal beings, comparing that with the sacrificial offering made by Brahmins being violated by jackals in the forest.’

This sentiment resonates once again, four or five centuries later, in the verses of Akka Mahadevi, a Bhakthi saint poet from Karnataka. Believed to have lived in the 12^th century AD, Mahadevi too walked out of her wedded life, seeking union with the divine. Akka Mahadevi describes her love for Lord Shiva as adulterous, viewing her husband and his parents as impediments to her union with her Lord. Terming relationship with mortal men as 'unsatisfactory', Akka Mahadevi describes them as 'thorns hiding under smooth leaves, untrustworthy.’

From their verses it appears that both Andal and Akka Mahadevi refused to be confined to the shackles of a restrictive family system and sought to break free from it. As Romila Thapar, in her History of Early India– From the origins to AD 1300, says “Women participants in the Tamil devotional movement renounced their social obligations….They created alternative possibilities within the society by their poetry, their activities and their sublimation of eroticism.”

And Andal did just that – she rejected the mortal world and its restraining social contracts to explore an ‘alternate possibility’. In this pursuit, she aspired for the unattainable divine and was even successful in realising it. Her disdain for an unremarkable mundane life, a life that every other girl of her age lived in her society, made her an undisputed outlier of her times.

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Andal – The Lover Saint - Part 1

Counted as the only female Bhakthi saint among the 12 Alvars (who were staunch devotees of Vishnu) Andal is known for her exquisite devotional poetry – poetry that bursts with longing and desire, intimately physical, often erotic, an intense expression of her desire to unite with her lover, her lord, Vishnu.

Believed to have been active in the years spanning 7^th-8^th century AD, Andal was the predecessor of Meerabai, who followed nearly 7 centuries later. As with Meerabai's, evidence of her existence is only literary. An accomplished poetess, she is credited with two compilations – Thiruppavai and Naachiyaar Thirumozhi – parts of which are  still recited by devotees in temples even today.

Experts point out that Andal’s poetry borrowed both in form and spirit from the legacy of ancient Sangam love poetry called ‘Agam’ poetry.  (The entire corpus of Sangam literature is dated between 500 BCE to 400 CE.)  But the scope of these poems was limited to expressions of mortal love affairs. In contrast, Andal’s poetry was replete with her desire for divine love, a seeking for physical intimacy with a supreme being.

The story of Andal

The story goes that Andal was found as a baby lying in a garden by Vishnuchittar also known as Periyalvaar, who is also counted among the 12 Alvars. It happened that one day, Vishnuchittar, who was in the habit of gathering flowers from the garden at the temple of Lord Vatapathrashayi (Vishnu) at Srivillipuththoor (a village in South TamilNadu), found a beautiful baby under a Tulasi plant in the temple garden.

Naming the child Kodai, Vishnuchittar brought her up as his own. Breaking away from tradition, he imparted to her the education that is typically imparted to a boy. And soon enough, as she grew up, like her father, Kodai too blossomed into an accomplished poet.

Even in her childhood, Kodai was deeply impressed by Vishnuchittar’s devotion to Lord Vishnu. She helped him gather flowers and make beautiful garlands out of them. One day, when Vishnuchittar had left the garlands that he had made in a basket to take to the temple, Kodai found them and was at once tempted to try them out on herself, first. She felt that when she wore them, the flowers (in the garland) would take on her (bodily) fragrance and the garlands would smell sweeter when they were offered to her lord. Indeed, when the idol was adorned with these garlands, it shone like never before! The temple goers were awestruck by the sudden aura emanating from the temple idol and attributed it to the pure devotion that Vishnuchittar wove into the garlands he offered.

                                      Image Source: htttp://guruparamparai.wordpress.com

This routine continued for a while. Every day, thereafter, Kodai would try the garlands on herself before they were taken to the temple. For a while, Vishnuchittar was unaware of this till one day, he happened to see her with the garland on. He was aghast!! He chastised Kodai for her act of blasphemy. He was shocked to know that all these days, he had been unknowingly offering his lord, a garland already worn by a mere mortal! This was sacrilege!!

Admonished severely by her father for her presumptuous act, Kodai had to stop trying out the garlands on herself first. But it turned out that the garlands adorning the deity, unworn by her, were never the same! They had become bereft of fragrance and splendour. However, Vishnuchittar, who was filled with guilt and remorse over his daughter’s misdemeanour, continued to beg for forgiveness from his lord.

On a following night, Lord Vishnu appeared in his dream and asked His devotee not to fret over Kodai’s deed. Instead, He commanded His devotee to bring to Him only those garlands that Kodai had worn, saying that only her garlands pleased His mind and senses. 

Vishnuchittar was both amazed and pleased by the lord’s reaction! From that day on, Vishnuchittar allowed Kodai to wear the garlands before he took them to the temple to adorn the Lord. Following the incident, Kodai came to be known as Andal, its Tamil meaning being, someone who ruled (the heart of her beloved).

The story goes that, as she grew up, Andal grew very thin and lacklustre, pining away for her Lord. (There is a particular verse in her poetry where she confides to her friend about a dream that she had had in which she married her beloved Narayanan in a grand festive setting. The verse is often quoted for its lyrical beauty and for being among the finest expressions of divine love in Bhakthi literature.)

Refusing to marry any mortal, Andal expressed to her father her desire to have none other than Lord Ranganathan of Srirangam (a temple town in South Tamil Nadu where Lord Vishnu is seen reclining on the coils of Adisheshan in yoga nidra) for her husband. Predictably, this got Vishnuchittar very worried, and he prayed to his lord for a solution.

Soon enough, one day, Lord Vishnu appeared in Vishnuchittar’s dreams and asked him to bring Andal, decked as a bride, to His temple at Srirangam where He would accept her as His wife. Overjoyed, Vidhnuchittar arranged for his daughter to be dressed in bridal finery and had her brought from Srivilliputhoor to Srirangam in a palanquin. The story goes that on reaching the temple, the father-daughter duo entered the inner sanctum where Andal climbed on to the altar near the feet of the reclining Lord and simply disappeared! Vishnuchittar understood that his foster daughter had united with her divine consort.

And thus was Andal’s love consummated – through her union with her Beloved, both in body and spirit.