The Handicapped Ravan

This is a story that is part of the oral narrative traditions of the Kunknas, who have their own version of Ramayan. The Kunknas are a coastal tribe found in an area called Dangs which is a region located on the borders of South Gujarat & Maharashtra, states of India. Many of them speak a dialect known as Dangi, which is a mix of languages, namely Gujarati, Marathi and a bit of Hindi.

The Kunkna Ramayan starts with the story of Ravan and explores the life and times of the demon king for a significant part of the epic. The story goes that once there was a king, who had seven sons. Though he was a King he lived like an ordinary man and worked hard for a living. Out of the seven sons, six were able bodied, but the youngest one had no arms and legs, just the torso and a head. His name was Ravan. Ravan could do very little by himself. So all day, he would lie in a corner and depend on his siblings and parents for almost every task that he had to undertake.

Soon the six sons grew up and were married. While they did continue to take care of Ravan, they were beginning to get tired of looking after him. One day the six brothers and their wives decided to throw him out of the house and asked him to take care of himself. Ravan pleaded and cried, but the brothers threw him out saying that Mahadeo, their Lord must have decided his fate such, and who were they to interfere with his justice? If he wanted justice then he might as well go and approach Mahadeo.

Ravan had no choice and so tumbling and turning, he crossed fields and jungles and reached the shrine of Mahadeo. Bleeding and bruised, he started his penance. After about six months, Mahadeo who had seen everything and was impressed by Ravan’s ability to survive despite all odds, appeared before him and asked him to seek a boon. Ravan said that all he wanted was legs and arms. Mahadeo took him to his abode and asked him to rest for the night.

Next day, Mahadeo told Ravan that he had to visit Earth to feed the birds and bees and that he should wait until evening when he would be back. Before leaving, Mahadeo warned him not to enter a particular room, as that would bring him trouble. Ravan felt slighted. He was sad that Mahadeo cared less for him than he did for his birds and bees. He felt that there was no one in the entire universe that wanted him and life was not worth living anymore.

Ravan decided to end his life. He pushed open the door that Mahadeo had asked him to leave alone and entered the forbidden room. But before he could take a look around him, he felt himself falling down a well. He was drowning and in order to survive, he swallowed water from the well, one, two, three....nine mouthfuls. And no sooner had he done that, there sprang nine heads on this shoulders, nine arms on each of his sides and two legs. Ravan was shocked at this development. But he managed to pull himself out of the well and out of the room. He came out to find Mahadeo waiting for him. Ravan appealed to him for help, but Mahadeo threw his hands up in despair. He expressed his inability to do anything, since Ravan had drunk the water from the well of life which had given him all those heads and arms. Ravan didn’t know what to do. He was worried, who would give him work? Sorry for him Mahadeo said, that he would give him a piece of land called Lanka and he could rule that place. Ravan accepted the offer since there seemed to be nothing else that Mahadeo could do.

While leaving the abode of Mahadeo, Ravan saw Parvati climbing the stairs with a pot of water. Ravan again approached Mahadeo and said that since he had agreed to give him whatever he had asked for, he wanted Parvati for a wife, as he would never get any woman to marry him. Mahadeo reluctantly gave him Parvati. Ravan rushed to his land with Parvati closely following him.

All this was being observed by the assembly of the gods in Dwarka. Narandev, decided to intervene. He took the form of a local tribal and placed himself on the path that Ravan would take with an old buffalo. Ravan saw him pushing the buffalo and as he came closer, Narandev asked for help. On enquiring, Narandev said that the buffalo was a gift from Mahadeo, whom he had been serving for long, but as usual he had been cheated. The buffalo was old and useless. When Narandev learnt that the woman with Ravan was Parvati, Narandev told him, that he had been visiting Mahadeo for many years and he knew this wasn’t Parvati, but some maid, while Mahadeo’s wife was very beautiful. He should go back and check.

A furious Ravan, fell for Narandev’s words and decided to go back. Narandev in the meanwhile picked up a frog from the lake and changed it into a beautiful lady and took her to Mahadeo’s abode. On reaching there, he explained everything to Mahadeo and told him to hand over the woman when Ravan asked for her. But things did not go as smoothly as expected. One glance from Mahadeo made the frog woman conceive. She waspregnant. When Ravan came, he saw the woman standing who was better dressed and more beautiful than the one he had taken along. So he asked for the woman and returned Parvati. Mahadeo did as advised and Ravan decided to leave with the woman.

On the way, they decided to take some rest. Ravan laid his head on the lap of the woman and went off to sleep. The woman meanwhile was drawn towards a few frogs frolicking in the nearby lake. She decided to join them. She folded her saree neatly into tiny layers, kept it under Ravan’s head and joined the other frogs in the lake. When Ravan woke up and didn’t find the woman, he shouted in anger. The loud voice of Ravan shook the earth and created ripples in the water of the lake. The sound of his voice unnerved the woman and in fear, she aborted her foetus which fell out of her womb and was carried away in the waters. When she explained everything to Ravan, he didn’t pay much attention to her and decided to move on. And as the Kunkna Ramayan goes on to reveal, the foetus was later found in one of the nearby fields and the baby grew up to be Sita!

First published in Talking Myths Project – The Handicapped Ravan

Duryodhan Maharaj

Last week, we read about worshiping of Ravan as Mahatma Ravan in temples honouring him. As I mentioned earlier, in this, he is not alone. Duryodhan, the ‘villain’ from the epic Mahabharata, too enjoys similar adulation in certain parts of the country and he too is worshiped in temples that have come up in his honour and some of them exist since long.

In the ‘har-ki-doon’ valley of the The Jaunsar-Bawar region in Dehradun, is a place where Duryodhan is worshipped. It is said that during the dvapar yuga (the period of Mahabharata which ended with the ‘death’ of Lord Krishna), Duryodhan arrived at this place and was impressed by the natural beauty of the region. He requested the local deity, Lord Mahasu, for a piece of land for himself near the mountains of Himalaya, which the deity agreed, with a condition that he would look after the locals of the region. Till date the locals believe that the region is controlled by Duryodhan Maharaj. Some people believe that he passes his orders through his spirit which visits certain people in the village, and the orders are followed as a must. One of the villages by the name of Jakhol has a temple where an idol of Duryodhan is installed and it is taken out in processions during certain periods of the year.

 

Duryodhan Temple at Uttarakhand

The region of Mori in the same area, not only has an ancient temple dedicated to Duryodhan, but also has few temples in honour of the other Kaurava princes, Karna and King Shalya, all supporters of Duryodhan! It is interesting to note the region is also a contradiction of sorts, as one of the peaks is known as “Swargarohini peak” i.e. the gates to heaven. This is the region which the Pandavas had trekked and ascended to the heaven through the peak!

It is said that after death of Duryodhan in the battle of Kurukshetra, the people of the region wept so much that the tears became a river, known as Tamas, locally also known as the river Toms. Till date, people of the region do not drink water from the river, as they feel that the tears still flow in the river!

Finally and probably the most important temple of Duryodhan is said to be the Peruviruthy Malanada Temple in the Kollam district of Kerala, India. The region also has other temples dedicated to the other Kauravas, their sister Dusshala, mother Gandhaari, Shakuni, Karna and Bhishma and Dronacharya, but none of the temples have any idols. There are just platforms where the idols should have been.

 

The temple and on the right side is the altar without any idol

There is an interesting myth associated with the origin of the temple. According to this myth, during the exile of the Pandavas, Duryodhan set out to look for them and he traversed right up to the Malanada Hills in South. Duryodhan was very tired and thirsty and saw a woman drinking something and asked for water. The woman was drinking a local toddy and without realizing gave the same drink to Duryodhan who too drank it. As soon as he finished drinking, the lady realized that the person was of royal origin and around the same time Duryodhan realized by the dressing of the woman, that he had taken the drink form an untouchable tribeswoman, from the Kurava tribe.

While the lady was shivering from fear of royal retribution, Duryodhan was glad at the woman’s selflessness to offer him her own drink. Duryodhan pacified her that he was not angry and as part of his royal duty donated about 100 acres of land to them for cultivation. Since then, the priests in the temple of Duryodhan, built in his honour, and other Kuarava family have been from this untouchable Kurava class and the people till date venerate the ‘villain’ of the epic Mahabharata, Duryodhan. It is not surprising to note that toddy is an important offering in the temple!!

It is interesting to read about such myths as they bring out the other side of the villainous characters of such epics. Such myths in Mahabharata goes on to highlight the fact that certain characters were not absolutely negative in nature, but only had certain negative personality traits. While Duryodhan might have been a villain in general, fanned by his uncle Shakuni (who had his own justification for the villainy This is Utkarsh Speaking: Shakuni ), his ability to overcome a caste-bias was obvious in the way, he anointed Karna as the King of Anga. The above mentioned myth too goes on to prove the same thing, his attitude towards the lower caste people, especially in times when caste was the most important aspect of an individual.

Malanda Temple Picture, courtesy - www.sasthamcotta.com

Mahatma Ravan

A recent article in Times of India, after Dussehra, is the raison d'etre of this article. The said article referred Ravan, the villain of the epic Ramayana, as ‘Mahatma Ravan’ and projected him as the savior of women and the ‘protector of the Nirbhaya’s in the country’ (Read the full article - Ramlila refrain: Only Ravana can save Nirbhayas   http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-14/chandigarh/43025513_1_effigies-martyrdom-day-dussehra  ). For those who might not want to click on the link (!), the article went on to list a host of cities in Punjan abd Haryana, which traditionally observed the day of Dussehra as the day of Ravan’s martyrdom and even mentioned how Ravan ‘protected’ Sita when she was in his custody.

 

Ravan

While there seems to be a contradiction in the acts of the worshipers of Ravan, such contradictions are not absolutely out of place. While majority burn the effigy of Ravan, as a sign of the victory of good over evil, there are many who see him as a hero. While many feel that his pride and arrogance was his hubris, he nonetheless had much to be appreciated for. (Read more on Ravan Ravan - Part 1 ). In Ramayan, Ravan is pitted against Ram, a character created to depict what stood for everything right, a maryada-purushottam, a man amongst men. Ram was the vision of the author who created an embodiment of all the virtues in an ideal man, be he a son, brother, husband or a King. The negatives were all bundled in his main adversary, and in this case, Ravan, which was more to highlight the grave differences between the two adversaries.

While the article does sound a trifle oxymoronic when it says that Ravan ‘protected’ Sita in ‘custody’, it is not absolutely wrong when it says that women in Lanka under ‘Ravan-raj’ or the rule of Ravan were safe. Many might challenge this, by saying that Ravan was a confirmed womanizer, though there aren’t too many episodes to prove this except his violation of apsara Rambha, after he was smitten by her looks. It was after this violation, that he was cursed by Lord Brahma, that if he ever violated any other woman, his head would burst, and this was considered to be the main reasons for Ravan not violating or even hurting Sita. Some versions also state that he could not do so, as Sita was his daughter (Read more in Ravan – Part 2 ).

So could Ravan be considered to be the role model for being the savior of Nirbhaya’s of India? In spite of Ravan being one of my personal favorites, this choice is a bit far-fetched. A person, who lives in a world of his own, and believes in the theory of an eye-for-an-eye and risks the entire country for a personal issue, could not be considered to be the savior of Nirbhaya’s of India. While he might have kidnapped Sita to avenge his sister’s mutilation, waging a war and risking the entire nation for the same was not a very sensible thing to do. It was nothing short of a political suicide for an able and intelligent administrator like him. Call it a defect in his character, but it did lead to his downfall and immense loss to the nation.

Many known ‘villains’ of epics have followers in the modern day, Duryodhan of Mahabharat, being one of them. There are a number of temples dedicated to Duryodhan, in the region of Uttaranchal and even in Kerala. While we will discuss the logic of such temples in these locations on some other day, it is important to understand that such temples co-exist with the temples of the heroes from the same epics. Some of the temples have their genesis in the politics of the later days, and the oppression of certain classes. It is also important to note that while the villains are being worshiped in some places, the heroes are not criticized in the same places. This could be due to the lack of clarity in the exact position of the followers of an ‘alternate’ faith, or their inability to tackle the onslaught of offending the mainstream faith. Again, a religious-political issue.

While debates will always be biased one way or the other when we judge such characters, it would be unwise to debate on the basic premise on which such epics have been written. A few temples of Ravan or Duryodhan do not make them worth worshiping at altars, even if some of them have been wronged at some point of time. I am in no way suggesting that the heroes of the same epics are more worthy of being ‘worshiped’ in the traditional sense, as against the known villains, but worshiping of these can only be seen as biases which have gone beyond reason.

Pic courtesy - Wikipedia

Right to Snoop

The recent revelations by Edward Snowden that Big

Brother (read USA) has been snooping into mails, etc. of people across the world has sparked off a debate and outrage across the world. Do we as individuals and as a nation have the Right to Privacy? Can anybody, irrespective of the power they wield, snoop in on anybody? Should this be deplored as a breach of privacy or for the larger cause of flushing out terrorism, be endured?

Not negating an individual’s Right to Privacy, the basic debate leads to the question – can anyone be snooping into your life and learn your secrets, even if they do not threaten the nation or breach any law, both personal and national?

I draw my inspiration from mythology and seek answers in them. Let us analyse some of the characters and incidents that have raised the question of Privacy.

Kunti from the epic Mahabharata was amongst the most private of all the characters of Mb. Her life was shrouded with private moments that she could never share with anybody. Her secret of having a son, prior to her marriage weighs heavy on her throughout the epic and right till the end, when she has to reveal the secret only to benefit those from who she had hidden it all her life. Many scholars feel that had Kunti revealed the secret much before she actually did, the course of the Epic would have been different. None of us could vouch for the positive outcome of it, but then, Kunti had simply exercised her right to privacy, till she felt the need to reveal, and that too herself.

In Greek Mythology, Zeus was full of secrets; however, his secrets were all of an amorous nature and all to be kept away from his wife, Hera. Zeus, despite the fact that Hera was jealous of his extra-marital affairs, never gave up his habit of courting goddesses, nymphs and mortals, and keeping all of them secrets. But unfortunately, in many a case it was the partner, who had to bear the brunt of Hera’s anger or jealousy, if she ever found out, which wasn’t too often. Zeus guarded his privacy very well, very often by foul means, but manage he did!

Revelation of secrets has always led to action, and sometimes drastic actions. At times, they change the course of destiny and at times they lead to the fall of high and mighty. Let us look at an example where the revealing of a secret leads to the fall of the mighty. During the final war in Ramayan, Ravan was invincible and no amount of Ram’s right intentions could kill Ravan. Only Vibhishan knew that Ravan could be killed only by shooting an arrow at his navel. Had this secret been not revealed to Ram at the right time, the outcome of the epic Ramayana could just have been different. In case of Ravan, he had not guarded his secret well and had to pay the price with his life.

Sometimes, the revelation of secrets has led to funny incidents too. According to a Greek Myth, Midas (of the golden touch fame) was once asked to judge a musical competition amongst a group of gods. Though, Midas was honest in his judgement, he judged wrong, and as a punishment, Apollo, gave him the ears of an ass, which also stood for his stupid musical sense. Midas was quite ashamed of this and would usually hide the long ears under a cap. Though he managed to hide them from all, he could not do so from his barber. He had sworn his barber on oath, not to reveal this to anybody ever. But it was too much of a secret for him to withhold. So the barber dug a hole in the ground and whispered in it Midas’s secret and covered it back. During spring, reeds grew up there and during a light breeze, when it stirred the reeds, the reeds whispered the hidden truth to one and all. Along with the secret, it also sent a message to all that never arbitrate between gods and if one still has to, then side with the powerful one!

Going back to the basic question, should snooping, however harmless, be allowed by anybody, unless the person being snooped on has dubious credentials? Should a nation at large have rights superseding an individual’s right, even where there is no threat perception from the alleged target?

There is never the right answer to questions like these. There will be ifs and buts and exceptions to any rule. Modern times are more complicated than mythical times. The gods and goddesses didn’t have WikiLeaks and Phone tapping or Snowden in their times. In mythical times, a whistleblower could be killed, but today, you would have the Human Rights team after your life, for taking the life of a whistle-blower! And in more recent times, an enemy nation could offer asylum to the fugitive whistle-blower!

The mythical times didn’t have processes which were either democratic, theocratic or autocratic – they simply did what they thought was right, as they knew that the modern day mythologist would find some symbolism in it and justify their acts! But the mortals of today, take care – don’t speak and don’t do anything in private that you can’t do in public – but I can sense some exceptions here too!