Teachers Day

As we all know that Teachers Day is celebrated as the birth anniversary of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the second President of India. This is also a day when we remember and respect our teachers. As a child, we would look forward to this day, as on this day we got an opportunity to entertain our teachers with what we thought was our skill (and cover up for the poor grades they gave us!), besides enjoying no-studies!

However, this day reminds me of some great mythical teachers, rather the two most important and the first teachers – Guru Brihaspati and Shukracharya. Guru Brihaspati was the guru of the Gods and Shukracharya was the Guru of the asuras, and thus also referred to as Daitya-guru Shukracharya. A brief introduction of both –

Brihaspati is considered to be a Vedic deity and presides over ‘guru-var’, or Thursday. In astrology, he is associated with Jupiter and is considered to be the Vedic god of wisdom and eloquence and thus also referred to as the Guru of the devas or the gods. Brihaspati is depicted as a yellow or golden coloured deity. His immense penance and devotion to the gods is supposed to have earned him the position of a Guru and a position amongst the planets. Guru Brihaspati had many sons from his three wives.

Shukracharya was the guru of the asuras and he chose to be so, due to his enmity with Lord Vishnu, who was responsible for killing his mother, who was sheltering an asura who was being chased by Vishnu and the gods. In astrology, Shukracharya is associated with planet Venus and is associated with Friday, as he was born on a Friday. Shukracharya is depicted as a fair complexioned deity mounted on camel, or a horse or even a crocodile. Shukracharya was also well aware of the cunningness of Vishnu and he had tried to warn the asura’s many times about the potential deceit that Vishnu was playing, but they lost out on his cunningness. One of the examples of this is during the Vamana avatar of Vishnu. Shukracharya warns King Mahabali against granting any boons to the Vamana, but Mahabali wound not listen to him and the result was that Mahabali lost his empire. Shukracharya was a man of foresight and had a sharp sense of foresight and seeing deceit thru deception.

The enmity between the two gurus was always in the open and so was that of devas and daitya’s. However, the daitya’s always had an upper hand due to the powers of their guru. In comparison, Guru Brihaspati was never of great help except for the elevated position of a Guru. In times of crisis, the gods always had to depend on the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The daitya’s could always depend on Shukracharya, who was also well known for what came to be known as Shukra-niti, the norms of Shukracharya. In mythology, Guru Brihaspati’s son, Kacha goes to Shukracharya to learn the art of giving life to the dead, and in due course falls in love with his daughter Devyani, but doesn’t get married to her. Devyani later gets married to Yayati, who was the founder of Kuru dynasty. The story of Kacha, Devyani and Yayati is what fairy tales are made of, but we will keep it for another day.

Another well known teacher from History, Chanakya, was greatly influenced by Shukracharya, and a lot what came to be known as Chanakya-niti, was borrowed from Shukracharya. Chanakya was of the opinion that some amount of shrewdness and cunning-ness was integral to a political advisor. All the knowledge and greatness of Guru Brihaspati was relatively less effective when it came to political consultations and decision-making.

One might say, that all the knowledge and cunning-ness of Shukracharya was of no use in the long run, but then the deceit and shrewdness of some devas was impossible to match too!

Once again, thru this, I would like to thank all my teachers and guru’s who have taught me many things, both what to do and what not to!!

Earlier article on Teachers Day -

This is Utkarsh Speaking: Teacher's Day 

This is Utkarsh Speaking: Guru Purnima 

 

Self Sacrifice from Mythology to Modern Times

 Part 1

A modern and secular interpretation of sacrifice is the giving up of something valuable or important for somebody or something else considered to be of more value or importance. The need for a modern definition is important as we will see how the concepts have changed over time across the world.

Self-sacrifice can be defined as an act of deliberately following a course of action that has a high risk or certainty of suffering, personal loss or death (which could otherwise be avoided), in order to achieve a perceived benefit for self or others. Over a period of time Self-sacrifice has become a concept for broader meaning such as selflessness, or the readiness to inflict pain upon oneself to save others.

However, for our understanding we will not limit the phrase to just what can be referred to as ‘killing one self’. We will also encompass such aspects as ‘giving up’ an aspect of one’s self, or giving up something precious to one’s self and so on.

Let us examine cases of Self-sacrifice in Indian Mythology –

Indian Mythology

Before we list out the references of self-sacrifice in Indian mythology, it is important to understand that it has always been considered as one of the great virtues of mankind to be of help to the people around who were more needy. Many a person is considered brave for their virtue of giving away their wealth, knowledge, life, etc. all valuable possessions relevant for man’s existence. Indian mythology gives many extraordinary instances of people giving away their body parts and wealth in order to give preference to “daan” and “tyaag”. Let us take a few examples of such cases of self-sacrifice.

Sacrifice of Maharishi Dadhichi –

During a war between the gods and demons, the demons had dominated the battle and deprived the gods of all their weapons by using some magical powers. The gods were left with only a few but important ones and if they lost them too then the gods would definitely lose the battle. So the gods gave the weapons to Maharishi Dadhichi to keep them with him safe till they returned for the war. The demons tried to get the weapons from Maharishi, but could not. A lot of time passed but the gods did not return to collect them, thus depriving him of his regular penance. So with his magical powers he dissolved the weapons in water and drank them. This way the weapons were both safe within him and he could also carry on with his penance undisturbed.

Soon after, the gods returned asking for the weapons. To this Maharishi explained that the only way to take the weapons from him, which were now in the forms of his bones and even more powerful than before, was now to kill him, to which the gods refused to commit the sacrilege of killing a rishi. It was then that the Maharishi created a huge fire, entered into it and submitted himself to the fire. Then Lord Brahma appeared and converted the bones into various powerful weapons with the help of which the demons were defeated. This is till date considered to one of the greatest examples of self-sacrifice.

Puru's sacrifice of his youth to Yayati .

When Yayati’s wife Devyani came to know about Yayati’s illicit relationship she informed her father Sukra, who in turn cursed Yayati that he would suffer the infirmities of old age. When Yayati went and pleaded with him, Sukra lifted the curse by assuring him that one of Yayati's sons could accept his old age in exchange for the youth and the son would be crowned king after Yayati.

Yayati approached all his sons one by one, but all of them refused to barter old age with Yayati, except Puru who was out of the illicit relationship of Yayati with Sarmishta, and thus an illegitimate child too. This giving up of youth for his cursed father is considered an act of self-sacrifice.

Like above, there are many more references of such sacrifices made by many a hero in Indian mythology, some of which are:

·         Bhishma's vow of remaining celibate

·         The voluntary sacrifice of sight by Gandhari

·         Abhimanyu’s death within the chakravyahu

·         Self-immolation by Sati in King Daksha’s court

There are many more such examples, but we will stop here for the Indian Mythology.

Tomorrow, we will read about self-sacrifice in other mythologies.