The Myth of Baba Dhokal

During one of my recent visits to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, I came across a rain myth. As mentioned earlier during the myths of Rain (See articles dated June, 7, 9 & 10, 2011) there are a number of general and local myths associated with rain. They could be the causes of rain or myths related to the need to rain. Sometimes they are also associated with causes of no-rain. This one is associated with no-rain.

This is a myth which is called the myth of Baba Dhokal. Sultan Ahmed Shah, who established the city of Ahmedabad, needed four Ahmed’s (meaning holy souls) and twelve saints to be a part of the ceremony to establish the city. Baba Dhokal, better known as Hazrat Sheikh Mahmud Chishty, who was a renowned Sufi saint of the times was chosen to preside over the ceremony. The myth is regarding him.

It is said that soon after the establishment of the city, the city did not receive rains. So people went to him and requested to do something to get the rains. On their request, he started chanting 'Baba Dhokal, varsad mokal' (Baba Dhokal, send rain), and according to the myth, the city received rains soon after. People were so pleased with his efforts that they made dhokla’s (a steamed food item, very commonly found in Gujarati cuisine) and distributed amongst the poor and needy. It is said that even today, when people fear a drought-like situation, they throng to his burial and chant 'Baba Dhokal, varsad mokal' and also distribute dhokla’s to all.

This is a small and localized myth associated with a person whose burial can be found in the city of Ahmedabad (in the Madhvpura area). He was no god and no imaginary character but a person who was living till about 600 years ago (the city was established in the year 1411). This is a case in point of the strength and importance of myths in our country and the universality and occasional secularity of the same.

(Why has the name Baba Dhokal been associated with the Sufi saint and its association with dhokla’s is unknown.)

Rainbow

Having gone through the rain gods and the myths associated with them, it’s now time for the Rainbows, the beautiful seven-hued arch that is seen in the sky sometimes. It is one beautiful natural phenomenon that is a pleasing sight for all. When science had not explained this occurrence, our forefathers had tried to answer this colourful arch in their own sweet way.

In majority of the mythologies, a rainbow was an occurrence after the massive destructive flood that destroyed all living things on earth. This flood was a punishment lashed out by the gods due to the ill ways of mankind. Post the flood, new life had sprung all around and the gods have not punished mankind ever since.



Noah and the Arc of Covenant

 According to the Biblical mythology a rainbow is a sign of the Covenant (promise) made by God to Noah after the massive deluge that had destroyed every living thing on earth, that there would be no such deluge again           

Ø  Seven Noahide laws that emerged out of this covenant came to be symbolically represented by the seven colours of the rainbow.

Ø  The Noahide laws are considered basic principles of living righteously in a civilised society and a path to achieving salvation.

According to the Sumerian mythology, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the rainbow is “jeweled necklace of Mother Goddess Ishtar” that she lifts on the sky, never to forget the destructive flood that destroyed her children

According to the Australian Aboriginal myth, after the floods, the rainbow was used by the Supreme Being to ‘tie’ the rain-clouds and thus to hold back the rains.

However, not all cultures relate the rainbow with the destructive floods.

As per the Greek mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by Iris, the messenger, between Earth and Heaven. The Navajo of the Red Indians too believed that the rainbow was a bridge that covered the distance between the earth and the heavens. Some called it the gateway to heavens and when it showed up in the sky, it meant that the gods had opened the gates of heaven for some souls. The colours of the rainbow depicted the magnificence of the heavens.

As per the Hindu mythology, rainbow or the Indradhanush is the bow of Lord Indra, the god of lightning, thunder and rains.

As per the Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by the Goddess Nuwa using stones of five different colours.

The Buddhists associated the seven colours of the rainbow with the seven regions of the earth. The rainbow is considered to be the next state to achieve before attaining Nirvana and the region where there was nothing individual. All related to ‘I’ and ‘me’ is eliminated in this region.

The Nordic believed that the rainbow was a bowl which god had used during his creation of the world. The Incas believed it to be a gift from their Sun god while the Arabians considered it to be a tapestry woven by the wind.

If you thought that all cultures associated good things with the rainbow, then wait till you read this.

There have been cultures that associated negativity with the rainbow. During certain period of the Japanese culture, a rainbow was seen as a bad omen, as it resembled a snake which was a symbol of evil. The people from Honduras and Nicaragua would consider the rainbow to be an act of the Devil himself and would hide inside their homes till it passed away. They would not even look at it, fearing that watching it would earn them some sort of a curse.

However, there aren’t too many references of negativity associated with the rainbow. Majority have seen this natural phenomenon as a beautiful and colourful aspect of nature. The mythological references of a rainbow too have something good to associate with as we have seen above.

So next time you see a rainbow, see it differently – put on your mythological cap and enjoy the beauty of a rainbow afresh!

Rain Gods – Lord Indra

Indra was the King of gods and also referred to as Devendra, god of gods. The Vedic Indra was a very important god of the Hindu pantheon but by the Puranic times, the status of Indra had been significantly lowered, especially due to the rise of other gods like Vishnu, Shiva and others. Our focus here will be Indra of the Vedic times.

During the Vedic times, Indra was amongst the most important gods along with Agni and Surya. Indra was the god of skies with thunder and lightning on two of his hands and according to some hymns was the twin brother of Agni, thus was the son of Heaven and Earth and as we saw earlier, Indra was responsible for separating the two from the eternal embrace.

Indra killing Vrtra

However, the most important aspect of Indra is his conflict with Vrtra who is variously depicted sometimes as a demon and sometimes as a serpent. Vrtra is derived from the root word vr which means “to cover or to envelope”. In the Vedic times when rains became a need of the pastoral life, then Indra became the heroic rain god. He was also seen as a fertility god with his consort Indrani who stood for earth. Indra thus was the god of rains as well as fertility (no different from the other cultures as we have already seen) and his principal adversary was the cloud demon who had hidden all the waters of the land within itself. There are numerous hymns depicting the battle between Indra and Vrtra after which Indra vanquishes the demonic Vrtra to release all the waters from Vrtra as rain. 

Another reference of this confict says that Vrtra had taken control of all the five elements of the world, viz. earth, water, lustre, wind and ether collectively the life-sap of the world. The battle rages and Indra releases one by one each element after smashing Vrtra with his thunderbolt. There are a number of references of Vrtra all in different forms, which come in conflict with Indra with the latter being victorious at the end of it. The entire conflict is to be seen in the form of natural occurrences, every aspect of which is found in nature. The clouds gather all the waters only to release at a point of time. When the clouds get heavy and they don’t ‘release’ the waters, thunder and lightning force them to release the same. The conflict between Indra and Vrtra brings out this seasonal phenomenon very beautifully.

Many scholars have opined that Indra was a mortal hero who during the Vedic times was elevated to a divine status. Acts of his heroism and valour are captured in numerous hymns in Rig Veda. He was demoted from his position during the Puranic times where his role was limited to sending apsaras to seduce sages and relatively minor gods too could hurt his much-maligned status. But that is another subject. All said and done, Indra continued to be the king of gods and the god of rains of the Hindu pantheon.

With this we conclude the myths of Rain gods.

After rains comes the rainbow…..Keep reading....

Rain Gods - Introduction

With the recent spells of rains announcing the arrival of monsoon the country is celebrating the much awaited and the most celebrated season of rains. The rainy season is a season of love and romance and poets have made the most of this season by singing paeans on this season. Romance blooms and love is in the air. But monsoon is not all about romance and getting wet in the rains. From time immemorial it is all about livelihood more so in an agrarian society which was probably the first occupation of mankind.

For people all around the world, rains was a much needed season and also the most dreaded one. Not receiving rains would ‘burn’ their livelihood just as too much of it would ‘drown’ the same. This led to the ‘birth’ of the often-dreaded Rain gods. Let us know more of the Rain gods from across the world.

Pictoral representation of the separation of Rangi & Papa

But even before there were gods and goddesses, the primeval man had his own interpretation of nature. A very interesting myth of the Maoris (the early inhabitants of New Zealand) explains this natural phenomenon in this manner. At the beginning, the primeval set of parents were Ranginui, the Sky God, and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother (Rangi and Papa in short), but both were in close embrace. Gods were born out of this confluence, but they did not have enough space to move around! One of the gods, Tane who was the forest-god, decided to stand up erect and pushed his head high in the chest of the sky father pushing the sky up above and thus separating the two from the eternal embrace. Tane till today stands erect as a tall tree of the forest and till date the two, i.e. the sky and earth cannot meet. Occasionally the father sheds tears of longing for his mate, the earth and these tears come in the form of rain on earth.

The Rig Veda has a similar myth which goes a step further to imply that the parents are brought together in a sexual embrace which results in rain, which is symbolically compared to the reproductive fluid of the sky-father. Some hymns even mention of this embrace as dev-vivaha or marriage of gods which results in rain.

Be it tears or reproductive fluids, these beautiful imagery tries to explain the phenomenon of rains so well at the times when there wasn’t any other way to explain this natural phenomenon. Water is a sign of life and the above imageries lend credence to the importance of rains for the primeval mankind.

Rains have been explained here from a very primeval form of thinking. In due course of time, specific deities came into existence as different cultures developed and people found the need to explain such phenomenon in greater details and needed more clarity. 

Next time we will discuss some of the rain gods from different cultures.

Keep reading…


The above picture is courtesy Tara Lemana
http://www.redbubble.com/people/taralemana/works/2763989-rangi-and-papa