Ratha-Yatra – In India and Abroad – Part 2 Egypt

In the last post, we read about the Ratha-yatra in Nepal. Today we will read about a similar yatra in Egypt. But prior to that, we will briefly read about the Puri Ratha-yatra to better understand the concept.

Puri Ratha Yatra

In the Puri Ratha-yatra, idols of Lord Jagannath (Krishna as the lord of the universe), his brother Balarama and their sister, Subhadra are taken out in three huge and magnificent chariots pulled by thousands across the town of Puri. The yatra begins from the Jagannatha Temple and is taken to about 2kms away to the Gundicha Temple. The Lords rest at the Gundicha Temple for a week and then the same procession comes back to the Jagannath Temple in what is known as the Ulta-ratha-yatra, i.e. the reverse procession. There is celebration over these seven days and the procession marks joyous cheering all along the route.

Reference of the Ratha-yatra can be found in the Vedic texts thousands of years ago, though the present Jagannath Temple came into existence much later. The story of Lord Jagannath is mentioned in the Puranas too, carrying on the tradition of the yatra right from the Vedic times. In the earlier days, the King of Puri had a very important role to play and even today the descendants of the royal family are called in for the ritual sweeping of the chariot before the yatra begins. Without delving too much on this, let me focus on a similar yatra in another continent altogether.

Ancient Egypt used to host a famous festival called the Opet Festival. The Opet Festival was celebrated in the Thebes during the second month of Akhet, i.e. the season of the Inundation which in today’s times would be in the month of August/September. At this time the Nile would overflow and all the crops would be under the much needed water and there would not be much work for the then Egyptians. Initially the festival lasted for a week and later it became a two-week festival.   

Opet Festival

The most important aspect of the festival was the towing away of the Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu southward on their barques both by boats and by men along the shoreline amid much fanfare and celebrations. The procession would start from Karnak and end about 2 miles away in Luxor and would stop midway for the priests to rest as well offer prayers till they reached the final destination. The Pharaoh would preside over the rituals prior to the procession and would return along with the deities.

For the ancient Egyptians this was both a fertility ritual as well as a renewal of the Pharaoh’s right to rule. The timing of the festival during the Inundation signifies its association with the fertility rituals. Similar rituals were performed with the Pharaoh which established his ties with the deity Amun. The Egyptians had a belief that over the course of the year, both the deities and his representative on earth, i.e. the Pharaoh, would grow tired thus diminishing their powers. The rituals performed during the festival would ensure that the power of the universe would return to the deity and his representative!

Many scholars have dated the Opet Festival to a much later period than the Puri Ratha-yatra whose origins can be traced to the Vedic times. The opening up of the Silk-route and the intermingling of cultures and the great similarities between the Indians and the Egyptians, both cultural and mythological, gives rise to the theory that the idea of the Opet Festival is based on the Indian Ratha-yatra. The similarities are a many –

• In both the processions, there is a triad. In the Opet, it was the triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu while in the Puri yatra it is the triad of Jagannath (or Krishna), Subhadra and Balarama.

The Puri Triad

The Opet Triad

Amun

Krishna

• Amun has been depicted as a blue hued god with feathers in his headdress, similar to the depictions of Lord Krishna
• The Pharaoh has an important role to play in the Opet Festival similar to the importance of the King of Puri in the olden times

The Opet festival lives on in the present day Egypt in a different form, when a procession of a Muslim saint is carried out in a model boat.

The idea is not to establish the ‘supremacy’ of concepts, but just to highlight the fact that the world then was more open to cross-cultural concepts, be it philosophical or mythological and religious. People were not so rigid then and cultural assimilation was a norm. Modern times have undergone a sea change where rigidity and deep rooted faith and belief system has taken precedence in our day to day life. I go back to the introduction of the series where I said that the world was one; man broke it into pieces!

Akshay Tritiya

Today is Akshay Tritiya, or Akha Teej, one of the most auspicious days of the year. ‘Akshay’ means never diminishing or something that is perpetual, and ‘tritiya’ is the third day of a month, and in this case it is the Vaishakh month. The day is considered to be so auspicious, that any new beginnings need not be subject to any special mahurat, or auspicious time. Thus on this day, many embark on new ventures, marriages, etc. Any beginning today is thus considered to have begun on an auspicious moment, so the venture or the relationship would be fruitful and everlasting.

As a child, I have seen my mother performing many rituals on this day. One of them which caught my fancy was donning the photograph of Lord Krishna, with a white soft cloth which would be smeared with sandalwood paste! The reason would be that the weather was turning sultry and the cloth with sandalwood paste on it would sooth the deity who was confined to the closed ‘mandir’ for the major part of the day! It did seem quite amusing, but in those days faith was not something that was questioned with the remarkable alacrity that is visible now! Some Krishna temples do resort to similar rituals albeit in much more elaborate manner.

The day has a number of mythological significances which are as follows –

• This day is the birth day of Parashuram, the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu
• Kubera, who was the richest deity in the Hindu Pantheon, worshipped Goddess Lakshmi to maintain and sustain his wealth
• The day marks the birth of Goddess Annapurna (goddess of food), who was born to feed the hungry
• On this day, Ganesha and Sage Ved Vyasa got together to start writing the epic Mahabharata
• According to the epic Mahabharata, on this day Lord Krishna gifted the Akshay-patra, the bowl which would never be devoid of food, to Draupadi
• The river Ganga descended on earth on this day
• The day also marked the beginning of the treta-yug in Hindu Mythology
• On this day, Bengalis perform the ‘Hal-khata’, the beginning of the traditional book of accounts
• In Orissa, the farmers sow the seeds on this day with a lot of religious and ritualistic fervour. Women in Orissa also worship ‘Sathi Debi’ the guardian goddess of the children, who also has the power to bestow children to the childless.
• The construction of the chariots for the famous ratha-yatra of Puri, begins today after an elaborate ritual.
• One of the most significant legends associated with this day is that of Krishna-Sudama. Poor Sudama was supposed to have visited Lord Krishna on this day to seek material help, but could not say a word and returned without saying anything, except sharing some rice that he had got along with him. On reaching home, he saw that he was gifted with all the riches that he had hoped for, or rather much more.

Such myths seem to lend credence to the fact that good deeds get rewarded on this day, thus many also resort to charity.

Astrologically, this is the day when both the Sun and the Moon are at its radiant best, which by itself is rare and only on this day. This could have given rise to the popular notion of buying gold and silver on this day, though there seems to be no mythological or religious allusion to this notion. It is said that some years back a few jewellers publicised that buying gold and silver on this day is considered auspicious and soon this spread to the entire country. This could be just another marketing success, similar to what the greeting card industry did a few years back with the numerous Days being celebrated. The value of gold and silver seldom comes down and is considered to be a good investment, so buying it on this day (or any other day) is always beneficial!

Finally, before I end, it is important to mention that this day is also an auspicious day for the Jains. According to the Jain scriptures, Lord Rishabhdev renounced worldly pleasures and distributed all his wealth and land among his children and meditated without food and water for six months. On attaining enlightenment, he went back to his village to accept food. Since he was the first monk of his era, people did not understand that all he was seeking was a morsel of food. Instead of food, people offered their erstwhile king, gold, jewellery, and all sorts of riches, but not food. When he did not get what he needed, he retreated and started meditating once again. After about another six months or so, his grandson understood why his grandfather had visited the kingdom and on this day of Akshay tritiya he offered his grandfather a glass of sugarcane juice and helped him break his fast. Since then, the Jains fast on this day and break their fast with a glass of sugarcane juice on this day.

Vishnu’s Dashavatar & Charles Darwin – Part 2

Yesterday, we read about the similarities of the first five avatars of dashavatar with Darwin’s theory of evolution. Let us now go through the other five avatars to trace the cultural evolution of mankind.

The sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu was Parashuram, a rugged primitive warrior with a battle axe. This form could be a symbol of the cave-man stage of evolution and his usage of the axe could be seen as man’s evolution from the stone age to the iron age. Man had learnt the art of using tools and weapons and exploit the natural resources available to him.

The next avatar is that of Rama, a king who obeyed all the norms of the society as laid down, even at the cost of his personal discomfort. This form also displays a sense of altruism that was expected from a man amongst men – who was to set the ideals of living and even set an example of exemplary ethical standards. This also shows that society had started forming norms and rules and the life of savagery and might-is-right was over. Kings, government, rules and a distinct class system was beginning to fall in place.

This brings us to the next avatar of Lord Krishna, who was shown as a philosopher who taught the methods to deal with the contradictions of the society. He gave mankind the novel ways of handling ethics and evils both in an objective manner. Showing Lord Krishna’s childhood as a cowherd also depicts the fact that man had learnt the domestication of animals and had learnt to make use of the animal resources available to him and respect the same. Along with Krishna, is his brother Balarama, who is depicted with a plough, which goes on to show that man had also begun to depend on agriculture and had learnt to make use of land and earn from it. This also puts an end to the nomadic life style of the uncivilized man.

During the times of Rama and Krishna, there are a number of concepts introduced to man, which shows that man had begun to even think in a creative manner. The earlier avatars dealt with and depicted the baser instincts of man. But these two avatars had started giving wings to man’s thought process. Thus in Ramayana we find the mention of Pushpak Vimana (a flying machine), crossing of seas by Hanuman, sanjivani-buti (life saving drugs), etc. Similarly, in Mahabharata, which also deals with the life and times of Krishna, we see the evils of the society, games played by the people (chaupar), Sanjay relaying the battle from a distance through divya-drishti (divine-vision), mention and occasional usage of weapons of mass-destruction (brahmastra and divyastra), births which were not normal and which needed external help, all akin to modern methods of aided-reproduction, etc. (Please note that I am not saying that people had the ‘technology’ then; all I am saying is that man had evolved to a stage where he could allow his creative thoughts to think of such aspects of life – which too is a stage in the cultural evolution of mankind).

This brings us the ninth avatar of Lord Vishnu, i.e. Lord Buddha. The story of Buddha symbolizes the emergence of non-violence and human rights as viable doctrines. Till the stage of Rama and Krishna we have seen man thinking of rules and norms of living in a society. We have seen aspects of politics and forms of governing and the life of battles and its repercussions. Buddha gives man a meaning of existence. He gave man the ideals of a class-less society and that all were equal, irrespective of status. Buddha taught man to think beyond material comforts of life. He introduced the concept of Moksha and Nirvana, and made them the ultimate goals of life. We are supposedly still in this stage of evolution and each one of us are seeking our own ways of achieving individual Moksha, though we have not quite found the formula of world-peace!

This completed the entire evolution of man, which started from nothing, to an evolved evolution.

The tenth avatar of Lord Vishnu, i.e. Kalki, is an imaginary incarnation and is still awaited. Kalki depicts a warrior mounted on a flying horse with a sword who is ready to fight any extra terrestrial invader. The symbolism here is not very clear. Different scholars have opined different regarding this avatar, some say that this avatar will bring a complete destruction which will take us back to where we started, whereas some say that this could be the idea of a single leader who will unify the world under a single rule/ruler. (We will have to wait and watch and if something happens during my lifetime, please be ready to find it in this Blog!).

To conclude – it is important to understand that Lord Vishnu’s dashavatar came much before Darwin propounded his theory of evolution. However, this does not undermine Darwin’s efforts in any way, as his theory is more granular and with a lot of scientific evidence that our rational mind has got used to. On behalf of Charles Darwin, I would also like to mention that he had never read the Hindu scriptures and in no way did he use this to formulate his theory of evolution!

Vishnu’s dashavatar has definitely eliminated some stages of evolution, but one can’t overlook the beauty of presenting what today is scientifically an acceptable theory. Moreover, Darwin stopped at the evolution of man, but the dashavatar goes beyond the physical evolution of man, it traces man’s cultural and cerebral evolution too. Needless to say, that the theory has some overlaps, like Parashuram making an appearance during the times of Rama and Krishna, but if you leave such things to the theorists and as aspects of ‘creative indulgence’, then one can’t help but agree that this is definitely one of the best theories of evolution. 

Finally, my favourite statement, (at the cost of repetition) – all that we read in mythology is not without meaning and every aspect has more to it than what meets the eye!

Iravan – the South Indian Barbareek

In the last two articles, we read about Barbareek, aka Khatu Shyam Baba, a North Indian deity prevalent in parts of Rajasthan and adjacent areas. Today we will read about a similar myth from the South India. Please note the striking similarities.

This is the myth of Iravan which is prevalent in Tamil Nadu and the nearby areas.

Iravan was the son of Arjuna and Uloopi, the Naga princess. During the 13 year exile for the Pandavas, one year was spent by Arjuna as a penance and during this year he is supposed to have travelled far and wide. This was actually done for him to forge alliances and acquire weapons and powers. It was during this one year that, he visited what is present day North-East of India. There he came across Uloopi and they get married. However, the relationship was a very brief one as Arjuna had to move on soon after his marriage. Iravan was born out of this brief relationship. However, Arjuna gets to see his son only prior to the war of Kurukshetra and asks him to join the war, which the brave Iravan agrees to.

There are no major reasons or events leading to his sacrifice, except for the fact that he was a brave warrior and the principle of offering sacrifice prior to the war. There are different versions of the sacrifice in the case of Iravan. Some say that he offered to be sacrificed on the 18^th day of the battle to Ma Kali. The more prevalent belief is that he was sacrificed at the beginning of the war. However he was rewarded by a couple of boons for the heroic deed. One was that his head would witness the entire battle from a hilltop. The other boon was that since he wanted to die a heroic death, he wanted to be mourned by a widow after his death.

Ritual enactment of lamenting the
death of Iravan by eunuchs

Having agreed to the boon, there was one problem. No woman wanted to marry him and be his wife for a night as he was to die the very next day. Seeing this Krishna decides to take his previous form of Mohini, the enchantress, gets married to Iravan and spends the night with him. Later in the morning, after his death, Mohini mourns the death of Iravan like a widow. There are different versions to this aspect, in different parts of the state and its neighbourhood with some eliminating the episode of Mohini’s mourning completely. Even to this day, in a ritual enactment of the mourning, many transvestites and eunuchs enact the ritual mourning by crying, beating their chests and breaking bangles on the day of the said sacrifice of Iravan. In some Krishna temples, he is decked in a white saree for a day, to mark the day as the day of widowhood.

What is interesting to note is that more than worship or a religious following, Iravan is a very popular folklore and a common theme or subject of folk theaters and plays. This myth could just have been woven to lend divinity to Iravan the folk hero by associating him with Arjuna and Lord Krishna of the epic Mahabharata. His face makes for very colourful masks and is a great hit with the locals in the rural areas. He is also referred to as the god of the transvestites and the eunuchs who are locally referred to as Ali’s also referred to as Aravani (that of Iravan).

In some of the plays which dramatizes the whole episode of Iravan, he is compared with the likes of Puru and Bhishma who are known to have sacrificed for their fathers, Yayati and Shantanu respectively. Iravan’s sacrifice of his life for the victory of his father is seen as bigger than that of Puru who gave up his youth for his father Yayati and Bhishma who gave up the throne and matrimony for his father, Shantanu.

Though there are similarities with that of Barbareek, there are some prominent differences, besides the parentage of the two.

First and foremost, the heroic allusions are missing in the case of Iravan, though the same does find mention in the dramatic enactments of Iravan. Nowhere is there reference of his infallible arrows and his participation in the war having a pre-condition.

Second, Lord Krishna does not have the role of testing Iravan; rather here he is central to being part of the sacrifice. He does suggest the sacrifice, but he does not make it obligatory as a word given for charity as done in the case of Barbareek. Thus in this myth, Krishna actually comes out as a savior who bails out Iravan with his last wish.

Third, the association with the transgender and transvestites is a bit of an enigma. How this practice of Iravan being a god for the community and the ritual enactment of mourning by them came about is unknown. However, one can theory could be that the marriage could not be said to be consummated as ultimately Mohini was a male and the relationship was thus not normal. Also, except for the mourning by the widow of Iravan, there wasn’t anything of a marriage as he was still deprived of a coital bliss, something that the community is deprived of too. The identification of the Ali’s state with that of Iravan and thus the lament is quite understandable. (If there are any other theories, then please feel free to forward the same to the Blog..).

During this period a number of fertility rites are also performed. One of them is that prior to the ceremony, a goat is killed and the blood of the goat is smeared with cooked rice and the same is offered to idols of Iravan. It is believed that this rice eaten by women can help them conceive. The presence of such rituals actually bears testimony to some ancient practice (even tribal practive) which has got assimilated with the popular epic. The strong folk-connotation also refers to some folklore associated with a popular folktale.

An interesting myth, but localized as per the region.

It is said that there are similar characters in other parts of India like Bundelkhand, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh. There is a popular version of Iravan in Java too, but that’s for another day!

Barbareek aka Khatu Shyam Baba - Part 2

Yesterday we discussed the myth of Barbareek aka Khatu Shyam Baba. There are some small aspects of the same which are also quite interesting. Let us go through them.

One small aspect of the myth is that post the battle of Kurukshetra, the Pandavas started arguing amongst them as to who was responsible for the victory. After much argument, Krishna, suggested that they ask the head of Barbareek as he had had a ring-side view of the entire battle. On asking, Barbareek said that it was Lord Krishna who was responsible for the victory as during the entire battle his game-plan and his suggestions were crucial to the outcome of the whole battle. From the height of the hilltop, all he could see was Lord Krishna’s sudarshan-chakra simply killing all the enemies and Draupadi in the form of Ma Kali simply lapping up the blood of all the enemies, not allowing a single drop to fall on the ground. To dig deeper in this aspect, one can see two very strong suggestions. One is the supremacy of Lord Krishna and the other is the prevalence of the cult of Mother Goddess. It is said that the practice of offering a sacrifice before the battle was to appease Ma Kali, who has always been associated with sacrifices and such aspects. Finally, this also has traces of the myth of Raktabija (http://utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2011/11/raktabija-demon.html ) where Goddess Kali does not allow the drop of the demon to fall on the ground to avoid the multiplication of the demon from the drops of his blood. In oral tradition of mythology, such mixing up of myths is only human, is one guess. The other could be a harmonious co-existence of different cults at a given time.

We have read earlier that when Krishna disguised as a Brahmin tested Barbareek’s power of the arrows, the arrow hovered around his foot, which had hidden a leaf. Another version says that the arrow actually pierced his foot and had made it a vulnerable zone. Another version says that Lord Krishna had got a boon from Sage Durvasa (the sage known more for his curses than boons!) that his entire body would be immune to weapons except his foot. Later we have read about the death of Lord Krishna by being struck by an arrow of a hunter in his foot which he had mistaken to be the face of a deer. This aspect of the myth is similar to the famous Greek myth of Achilles and his vulnerable spot, his heel. Achilles was a brave hero in the Greek mythology who was invincible except for his vulnerable spot, his heel. He meets his end, by being struck by a poisonous arrow in his heel. Quite a few similarities, I guess!

A Painting depicting the sacrifice of
Barbareek

Finally the justification of Lord Krishna asking for the sacrifice! According to one version, once Lord Brahma and other gods approached Lord Vishnu to complain to him about the evil on earth and how wickedness was all over and innocent people were not being allowed to live in peace. They urged Lord Vishnu to do something to eradicate this evil. Hearing this, a Yaksha spoke out of turn and said that for these kind of acts, he himself was enough and it did not quite require the help of Lord Vishnu. Lord Brahma was insulted at his impudence and cursed him that whenever he reached a stage of eliminating all evil on earth, Lord Vishnu would end up killing him first. Barbareek was the same Yaksha in the later birth and Krishna was only doing what was pre-destined! This is an interesting aspect of myth-making. On the face of it, it seemed that Lord Krishna had been unfair to a brave hero and got him eliminated. He would have supported the Pandavas and would ensure the victory of the Pandavas. Some skeptics would say that Krishna did so to avoid all credit going to Barbareek if it so happened and thus got him eliminated, even when he was related to the Pandavas and was going to fight from their right side. Some of these thoughts are of modern-day thinking.

Epics are never like a once-written novel, where all instances are sequential. In the oral tradition, many aspects get inserted based on the orator, his preference and his biases as well as that of his audience. It is highly probable that this aspect of the Yaksha has been an afterthought when the hero of the story (Lord Krishna) begins to be misunderstood especially for his seeking the head of Barbareek. This could be an individual’s perception or a common notion. This aspect also highlights the process or the rationale of myth-making.

Next time we will read about a similar myth, prevalent in South India.

Keep reading....

Barbareek aka Khatu Shyam Baba

Every time I visit Delhi, I seem to get introduced to some aspect of mythology. Last time I came across a temple of Maharaja Agrasen(http://utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2011/10/maharaja-agrasen.html ). During my recent visit, I was introduced to another very important deity by the name of Khatu Shyam Baba. Spoke to some and read a bit and the following are the details of the same and the details are quite interesting and intriguing. As they say, let’s start at the very beginning.

The myth is from the epic Mahabharata.

According to this legend, Barbareek was the grandson of Ghatotgacha, who was the son of Bhima. Barbareek was a brave warrior and had learnt the art of warfare from his mother from the childhood. He had impressed Lord Shiva and had earned three never-failing arrows (teen baan) as a boon and a bow from Lord Agni, with the help of which he would never lose in any battle. The war of Kurukshetra was inevitable and Barbareek was keen to see and if possible participate in the war. He sought permission from his mother to go to Kurukshetra. While leaving he asked his mother that if required then which side should he join and his mother is supposed to have told him to join the weaker side.

On his way to Kurukshetra, he is supposed to have met Lord Krishna who recognized him and decided to test his capabilities. Krishna disguised himself as a Brahmin and made fun of him that he was going to a great battle with just three arrows. Barbareek said that for any battle just one arrow was enough which would return to his quiver after achieving the objective. He went on to explain that the first arrow was to mark all that needed to be destroyed, the second was to mark all that needed to be saved and on releasing the third, it would destroy all that had been marked to be destroyed and the same would then return to his quiver. Krishna was keen to see this and so he challenged him to prove it by tying all the leaves of the peepul tree under which they were standing. Barbareek accepted the challenge and shot one arrow with the specific instructions to tie all the leaves of the tree. What he had not seen was that Krishna had plucked one leaf from the tree and hidden it under his foot.

The arrow immediately tied all the leaves of the tree and then hovered around the foot of Krishna to seek out the leaf under his foot. Seeing this Barbareek said that there could be a leaf under his foot and if he did not lift his foot, then the arrow would have to mark his foot itself. The infallible nature of the arrows worries Krishna, since even if the targets were hidden far from human sight, the arrow would still seek out the targets and destroy them. During the war, if he wanted to save the Pandavas, Barbareek’s arrows could still seek them out and kill them, if such scenario did arise.

Krishna then asked him as to who would be support in the war of Kurukshetra. Barbareek mentioned that according to his mother’s instructions he would join the weaker side and in the war of Kurukshetra and since it was well known that the army of the Kauravas was much larger than that of the Pandavas, he would join the Pandavas. Krishna then probes him further and asks him that what would be the consequence of such act. Barbareek mentions that obviously the Pandavas would win.

Krishna then goes on explain him the actual consequence of his word given to him mother. The moment he decided to join the Pandavas, the Kauravas would become the weaker side since he could never be defeated. If he then decided to support the Kauravas, then the Pandavas would become the weaker side and this way, all would be destroyed leaving just him. This leaves Barbareek in a state of dilemma. So he asked the Brahmin to help him. Krishna then said that would he do some charity as required by him as a Brahmin which Barbareek agreed. Krishna then said that a before every battle, they had to sacrifice a brave warrior to Ma Kali and according to him, he was the bravest of all Kshatriyas alive, so he needed his head.

This left Barbareek in a state of shock and he soon realized that the Brahmin was no ordinary Brahmin, so he asked him to disclose who he was. Krishna appeared to him in his form and Barbareek soon understood it all. As a true Kshatriya, he agreed to keep his word and offered himself to be sacrificed, but he did have a condition. The condition was that he had left his home with a singular desire to witness the epic battle, so could Lord Krishna use some of his divinity to grant him that ability. So it is said that after the sacrifice, Barbareek’s head was installed atop a hilltop from where he witnessed the entire battle and thus he is also referred to as ‘Barbareek – the silent witness’.

After the battle of Kurukshetra, it is said that the head was immersed in the nearby river by Lord Krishna and blessed him that in the times of Kaliyuga, he would be referred by his own name – thus Barbareek is referred to as Shyam Baba. Later during the advent of Kaliyuga, the head was found buried in the village of Khatu, in present day Rajasthan. It is said that once a cow reached the spot where the head was buried and soon, her udders started oozing milk all by itself. When the villagers dug the place, they found the head there. Later a temple was build there, and from then onwards he is referred to as Khatu Shyam Baba.

In the present times, there stands a beautiful marble temple in Khatu and many smaller shrines have come up in the entire Northern parts of the country. In the main temple, the idol is just a head and nothing else. People have a lot of faith in his ability to heal or solve problems and the deity has a huge following, something similar to that of Shirdi Sai Baba in the Western parts of country.

This is an interesting aspect of faith. For any aspect of divinity an association with the epics or Puranas is a must. Barbareek is a relatively lesser known character but a hero nevertheless and the whole aspect has been woven very well. A few things that the myth might bring into attention –

1.   The myth signifies the prevalence of human sacrifice and the belief in it. Krishna asking for the sacrifice also lends credence to the fact that this was an accepted norm and there was no qualm about it. The myth might have also been added to make a hero of a brave warrior who might have been an unknown soldier who willingly (or even unwillingly) agreed to be sacrificed.

2.   Another aspect is the nature of the arrow. The ability to identify the target and return to its source sounds very similar to the modern day missiles which are meant to identify programed targets. I am not implying that the people of the times had the knowhow of such weapons, but this myth is testimony to the fact that such weapons had been thought about then, however fantastic it seems today.

Finally before I conclude, please note that this myth is from the Northern parts of India. A similar myth is available in the South India too. But before we touch on that myth, there are some small bits w.r.t. the myth of Barbareek. We will touch upon them next.

Happy Dooms-year!

If you have been hearing Happy New year since the last one week, then the heading of this article might sound erroneous or even offensive. Well the objective was not to offend, but to bring the most controversial aspect of the year 2012, which has been making headlines even before 2012 actually, arrived. The year 2012 is supposed to be the dooms-year as the world is supposed to come to an end, at least that’s what is made out of a certain prophesy of the Mayan’s. A recent Hollywood movie, titled 2012, also showed how the world would come to an end in the year 2012 after a series of unstoppable disasters and catastrophes.

So let’s start at the very beginning…..

Just who are/were the Mayans? The Mayans were the natives of the present day Mexico and Central America. They had a rich cultural and mythological heritage which was better known as the Mesoamerican civilization till the arrival of the colonial Spanish army. Some of them can still be found in the region of Gautemala, though much modernized and with a change of religion. According a certain prophesy of the Mayan’s, the world would come to an end in 2012, with the specific dates ranging from 21^st Dec to 24^th Dec 2012. How true is this?

So what happens to the civilization as it stands today? What happens to you and me? The only good thing that can happen to many of us is that we can stop paying our EMI’s, as what can anybody do in case of a default! But what if the prophecy is incorrect? In that case it is worth understanding the prophecy of the apocalypse.

The Mayan’s followed a complex calendar which was in existence before the world woke up to the present day Gregorian calendar. Like all ancient systems, this was based on certain local and mythological events which were of cyclical nature and the end of the calendar ushered in a new era. The calendar followed by the ancient Mayans was a combination of Tzolk’in implying ‘count of days’ which gave 260 days. There are different versions of this system. The most accepted version being that the Mayans had followed a combination of 20 and 13, both of which were auspicious for the Mayans and if you multiply the two you get 260. Some even say that this period was derived by the Mayan midwives to predict the exact date of the birth of a baby, as the number coincides with the number of days of human pregnancy.

The Haab was the solar calendar followed by the Mayans, which was made up of 18 months of 20 days each, followed by five days of no name, which corresponded to the then similar calendar of the Egyptians leading to 365 days. But this was considered a bit inaccurate as the prediction of the seasons (and thus the harvest) was never accurate for the Mayans.

The calendar system gets slightly more complex and we will not delve in the same beyond this. It is important to understand that a combination of the above two concepts along with some more gave a count of a cycle. End of a cycle brought in the new cycle.

As per the Mayans, on the winter equinox on 21/12/2012, the present cycle ends. This does not imply the end of the world. Time is cyclical and the next cycle begins at the end of the previous one. However, for the Mayans an end of a cycle is auspicious and not many get to see the end of a cycle during one’s lifetime and the this is probably the first time many might be a part of the change of a calendar cycle from the modern times. This has made the subject all the more relevant.

What has been witnessed in the movie 2012, is a modern interpretation of the Biblical Noah’s Ark, which occurs in the year 2012 along with a dash of message of how humans were responsible for bringing an end to the world, but ends with an optimism, that some good souls will stay alive to see the new world emerge out of the man-made chaos! Except for the date 2012, it had nothing in common with the Mayan understanding, rather mis-understanding.

Before we conclude, I would like to leave my readers with one more aspect of the comparative nature of the subject. The Hindu scriptures also follows a concept of cycle of eras and one such prediction made by Lord Krishna in “Brahma-Vaivarta Purana” was that a Golden Period would start 5000 years after the beginning of the Kali Yuga and would last for about 10,000 years. According to the Hindu calendar, the Kali Yuga began on 18 February, 3102 BC. The Mayans are in their Fifth Great Cycle which began in 3114 BC and is to end on 21/12/2012. The difference of the beginning is just 12 years!

The slight difference in the usage of the calendars which were a combination of the lunar and solar calendars and given the difference of the number of days in the usage of the two different calendar systems, the difference could end up being quite minimal and who knows we could just be close to Lord Krishna’s prediction of the end of the Kali Yuga and the beginning of the Golden Period! What is interesting and amazing is the similarity of concepts and the following of similar calendars of historically two different cultures, which did not have any contact!

With this, let me assure each one of you, that we are surely not closed to the dooms day, but could just be on the threshold of a new era.

Here’s wishing all of you a very Happy New Year!!

WMD’s in Mahabharat?

It was only yesterday, that we discussed a plea to ban Gita in Siberia. As many of you would have read it, the Siberian Court has dismissed the plea. I don’t want to take any credit for the dismissal of the plea (!) just as I don’t want to give the Government the credit, as it is an International law, which does not allow any court in the world to ban any religious book.

However, the point in discussion today stems from the same thought-process and similar accusations that have been levelled against the epic, Mahabharata.

In reference to the Trinity test of Atomic Bomb in New Mexico, the father of atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, famously recalled the Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendour of the mighty one. . . . Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” In the war of Kurukshetra, there is reference to weapons which can be seen as todays Nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction (WMD). If such weapons were used during the war of Kurukshetra, does it mean that the epic or the ‘champion of the war’, Lord Krishna gave a sanction to such usage? In view of the latest controversy of banning the Gita in Siberia, could it be seen that such usage had a sanction in what is now being termed as ‘extremist literature’?

Atomic Bomb Explosion

It is said that Oppenheimer made the statement when he saw the huge cloud of the blast reaching out to the skies. Oppenheimer was a scholar who in his 20s had learnt Sanskrit, besides many languages and considered Bhagavad Gita to be the foundation of his philosophical views. He had kept a copy of the Bhagavad Gita on his bookshelf and is supposed to have been giving copies of Gita to his friends as gifts.

The importance of Gita stems from its prescribed value of human life and fighting for its maintenance and resurrection. Human beings of those times, perhaps, not only knew how to destroy but also realised the peaceful use of WMDs.

The rules contained in the war of Kurukshetra governed issues ranging from the general prohibition of the use of weapons that caused unnecessary pain, to overcoming the enemy, to the treatment of the enemy’s property and persons in the conquered territory. If the modern laws of war were to require that when war breaks out fighting must be conducted on the basis of ‘like with like’ or by using like weapons, it would not only minimise the impact of war but would also deter aggression and make war more humane. I think our world would be a better place to live in, if the modern laws of war based on the Geneva Conventions were to incorporate some of the rules followed in Kurukshetra!

The concept of a just war was against the evil characters of that day, whether national or alien. In simple terms, the concept of a just war is based on right and wrong, on justice and injustice in the everyday life of all mortals. Unlawful and unjust actions, for example, the denial of the rights to which one was entitled, give rise to just wars.

This brings us to the point of the use of WMDs (called divyastra e.g. Brahmastra and Pashupatiastra) in the battle of Kurukshetra. Before Arjuna acquired the divyastras from the respective gods, he was strictly advised by them to use it as a “threat weapon” rather than a weapon to be actually used in the war. There are extensive dialogues between various characters in the war of Kurukshetra on not using the divyastras which were the ultimate weapons that any warrior could then possess.

At the end of the epic war, when Aswathama, son of Drona, frustrated by defeat in war used such weapon he was cursed by Lord Krishna, and the same was diffused by him to result in minimal devastation.

Besides the numerous references of such weapons, using them was never an alternative then and nor does Gita advocate such weapons, rather it has chastised the single use of such weapon.

The problem lies in interpretation out of context. One of the most important things to keep in mind is the times and the rationale of such writings. When was it written and in what context? If we look back at the times of the Mahabharata, then many things might look normal, but the same things in the modern context would seem out of place and at times quite sacrilegious. Again, when something is being said and some event is taking place, if seen in the chronology of events, it might seem justified. But the same scene out of context would seem as a misfit.

What was right then need not be right now, when we have a different thinking which is tempered with a lot of modern concepts like – human rights, feminism, equal rights, etc. Take the essence of it, draw lessons from it and look for the symbolism in it. Don’t take it literally and above all, don’t debase such esteemed thought process with ignorance and an ulterior motive.