Mythology and its Irrationality

Having read mythology since the time I started reading beyond school books and having taught Comparative Mythology for the last couple of years, one of the most common questions I come across is – why is mythology so irrational?

Why is mythology so irrational, unbelievable and at times scandalous? Were people in olden times inane or over-imaginative? Why did their flights of fancy cross borders of decency and sometimes reach zones of the depraved? Why did everything boil down to some sort of sex, at times both incestuous and bestial? The questions are not limited to Hindu mythology only. A study of different myths will reveal that the question could just be for any of the mythologies, be it Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian or even Mayan and Nordic.

When science had not found its way into civilisation but people had begun to ask questions, then mythology was man’s early science. Man’s basic questions of how, what, why, who, needed to be answered. Aspects of nature, like mountains, rivers, sunrise, darkness, seasons, thunder, lightening, rains, etc. needed to be solved which was an enigma for all. According to one school of thought, myths are tales and stories that have been imagined as against what actually is, or was. As mentioned by Dr. S. A. Dange – “…..it (myth) is an expression of an understanding that is imagined as true, and which has got rooted in the tradition…” In most cases, gods and divinities were attached to such phenomenon as anything unexplainable was attributed to some force beyond comprehension. (Not much has changed even today – when we don’t have an answer to something; we end up saying – God Knows!!).

To quote Dr. Dange – “The irrationality about the myth is due to the mysterious or wonderful experience that lies at the basis of its formation, or due to a non-regular problem, or situation faced by an inquisitive mind, which takes the form of a riddle”. Soon this concept of the riddle and the unexplainable was taken to matters beyond the natural phenomenon like social and cultural aspects and matters of life-style and as man’s thinking matured, the same was extended to his understanding of ethics and principles.

Cupid embracing Psyche (Greek Mythology)

Finally, there is a predominance of sexual activity in the primitive and early myths. This is more so, as sex was considered to be the most basic necessity or act of all animals, including humans. Sex was not only a release, but also a necessity, as man was moving towards an agrarian society. Procreation was an important requirement in every aspect of the living, be it man, animals and birds or plants. Also, when man was not such an evolved species, making the sexual act as the premise to explain a few things, is quite understandable. This was also an important mode to explain the concept of fertility and the most important need of man to produce and reproduce. What might seem scandalous today, was not so then. Myths have to be seen in context – context of the times and the culture. Myths should never be seen in the context of modern times. 
Needless to say, that the Victorian prudishness had not quite touched the primeval man and sex as a subject was not quite a taboo!

The subject of mythology is as vast as it can get and there is more to it than just fancy tales and magical moments. It tells us more about the people who told them and their culture. Mythology is like a small piece of cotton left on the floor full of different colours. As it rolls, it acquires something of every colour and while at it, it acquires new form and shades. The original cotton is the fact in the myth while the different colours it has acquired on rolling is the beauty and magic the myth has acquired over time!

Urvashi and Pururavas

In my last post, I have mentioned about the myth of Urvashi cursing Arjuna. Many have written back wanting to know about the myth of Urvashi and Pururavas, which actually led to the curse on Arjun. 

So here is the myth in brief.

Pururavas was the first of the Lunar Kings (Chandravanshi), and was the son of Budha and Ila. Budha was the son of Som (or Chandra, moon) and Tara (who was actually the wife of Sage Brihaspati!). Pururavas was a brave warrior and was many a times invited by Lord Indra to help them during battles with the asuras. After victory, he was also entertained by the apsaras, or nymphs of Indra’s court. When Urvashi, an apsara in Indra’s court would get bored of the heavens, she along with her friends would come down to earth and enjoy the difference there. She preferred the life of earth with its emotions and turmoil to the ever-happy life of heavens. While returning from one such trip to earth, during dawn, she was kidnapped by an asura. Around the same time Pururavas, was returning from one of his visits to Indra’s court. After a brief encounter, Pururavas, managed to save Urvashi from the clutches of the asura. During this brief meeting, the two fell in love. Urvashi was moved by the warmth of a man, which she had never experienced before. Pururavas, had never held an apsara as close as this, and fell madly in love, but was not sure of reciprocation, so went back to his court, absolutely love sick.

Urvashi too was longing for the manly Pururavas. During a drama where she was acting as Goddess Lakshmi, she took the name of Pururavas, as her lover, where she ought to have said ‘Purshottama’, a name of Vishnu. This annoyed Sage Bharata, who was directing the play and he cursed her, that since she was smitten by a mortal, she too would have to go and live with him as a mortal and beget his children, something unknown to apsaras. Urvashi was too unconcerned with the latter part of the curse and saw it as a blessing in disguise as she would get to live with her lover and that too on earth, which she found more interesting than the heaven.

Pururavas, on the other hand was not happy with his wife as she was not able to beget him any children. When Urvashi came to him, they decided to leave the palace and go and stay in the garden of Gandhmadan (meaning intoxicating fragrance!). However, Urvashi had set a few conditions of her staying with Pururavas. One, that the king would ensure the safety of two goats that were brought along with her, two, she would eat only ghee and the king would never force her to eat anything else, and third, that the king would never appear nude  in front of her, except when they were making love.

Pururavas and Urvashi started living together and years passed by. But Urvashi was too much of an apsara to be a mortal woman and soon started to get bored with her mortal life and longed to go back to the heavens. On the other side the gandharvas (the male counterparts of the apsaras and also the celestial musicians) in the heaven too were missing Urvashi. So they devised a plan to get her back. Late one night, the gandharvas, took away the goats. When the goats started bleating, Urvashi got worried and asked the king to immediately go and save them. Pururavas, who was wearing nothing at that hour, got up in a hurry, and just then, the ganharvas flashed some lightening, showing Pururavas, completely in the nude. This angered Urvashi so much that she decided to leave as her conditions were broken.

Urvashi leaving Pururavas - Painting by Raja Ravi Verma

Later, Pururavas found her in the region of Kurukshetra and asked her to stay back. Urvashi was then pregnant and asked Pururavas to come to the same place after one year and take their child. Pururavas, visited the same place after one year, and brought his son back with him, who was later crowned as the King.

This myth has been transformed into a romantic story by Kalidasa in his play by the name of ‘Vikramorvasiyam’, where there are many changes done to the above myth. A lot of hide and seek kind of events are there where Urvashi leaves and comes back again and again, in different versions of the myth, but the above is the most simplistic version of the same.

Many scholars have evaluated this myth in different ways. Scholars like D. D. Kosambi have written extensively on this myth, which has its origins in Rig Veda. Max Muller too during his translations of the Vedas has attempted to interpret the myth much more simplistically, which has been rejected by many as extremely childish. The most common interpretation of the myth, is that Pururavas represents the sun and Urvashi the morning mist, and just as the sun approaches and the mist vanishes, so does Urvashi vanish from the sight of Pururavas quite often. The romance has many versions of Urvashi leaving Pururavas frequently, as a part of the narrative. Also, Urvashi is compared with Usas, the goddess of dawn, who has been given a lot of importance in the Rig Veda. The authors of the epic Mahabharata have made a very judicious use of this ancient Vedic myth to enable Arjuna to achieve a realistic disguise which only goes on to add to the already beautiful narrative.

Finally, the noted Hindi poet, Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ too has his version of this story titled ‘Urvashi”, where he depicts Urvashi as a woman who was extremely moody, seductive and suspicious. According to him, women like Urvashi are the kind of women, who are extremely desirable, but cannot be possessed. As the name goes, ‘ur’ means heart and ‘vash’ means to control, such women conquer and control a man’s heart.

No further comments, I guess!!

Conflict – Team Anna

A well desired effect has been the cause of much merry amongst a section of people whom we call politicians in India. The cause of the merry making is the effect of discord within Team Anna. Anna Hazare has been making statements denouncing Arvind Kejriwal’s steps to form a political outfit, much to the embarrassment of Kejriwal and his supporters. Media has been reporting every action of both

Has Anna lost the steam when provoked to come to the forefront and fight the elections? After all, to make a difference in a system, one has to be a part of the system, isn’t it?

Has Kejriwal developed political ambitions, now that he has seen crowds swell in the numerous agitations that he has been a part of and in some cases led by him? Is it his firm belief that he has to be a part of the system to make changes in the system or is it plain avarice for power, as mentioned by a few of his detractors?

Is there a conflict between the well known crusader Anna Hazare and the new face of the corruption movement, Arvind Kejriwal? In the conflict, who is at fault?

Let me tell you a small story from the epic Mahabharata.

During one of the exiles of the Pandavas, Arjun, set out all by himself. The main objective was to form alliances with different rulers for the future confrontation with his cousins, where he would need support. During once such visits, he visited the abode of Lord Indra (also his father) and enjoyed the joys of Amravati. Among all the apsara’s in Indra’s court, he kept staring at Urvashi which was observed by all including Urvashi, who seemed to be smitten by the good looks of Arjun. Later Urvashi, who could not control herself, came over to Arjun and expressed her desire to make love with him. Arjun looked shocked and expressed his inability to do so. He referred to her past relationship with Pururava, Arjun’s ancestor, by the virtue of which, Urvashi was his mother and that’s exactly why he was staring at her. (The myth of Urvashi and Pururava is another interesting myth, which we will discuss on some other day)

Urvashi was enraged and informed Arjun that this was outrageous and such norms did not apply to the gods, but Arjun could not agree with her proposal. This spurn by Arjun insulted Urvashi so much that she cursed him, that henceforth, Arjun would be incapable of making love to any woman, if not her. (Later, with the intervention of Lord Indra, the curse was reduced to being in this state for just a year, which Arjun used to his advantage during the last year of the thirteen year exile when the Pandavas had to live in a disguise.)

Here is an example of conflict, where both were right. According to Urvashi, she was not a mortal and such rules of mortals were not applicable to her and thus she found nothing wrong in the proposition which Arjun found indecent. Also, what was a case of momentary passion for Urvashi was an unthinkable incestuous relationship for Arjun. This shows that conflicts do not always take place only when one is right and the other is wrong. It can occur even when both are right, as in this case, though, one had to suffer.

In the case of Anna-Kejriwal conflict too, both seem to be right. Anna considers himself to be a crusader whose role is to bring issues out on the forefront and stir a movement, in what he feels is a civil society agitation. But Kejriwal feels that, times have changed and people have opined that to make changes in a system, one has to be in the system. Civil society agitations today are seen as mere opposition, wherein the opposition does not offer much in terms of an alternative solution. There is also the case of difference of opinion due to generation gap. Anna is a Gandhian who has lived all his life under the influence of the apostle of non-violence. Kejriwal is a product of modern India, who believes that good politics and good politicians (an oxymoron in the present times) is a must and all he is trying is to usher in a new era in a pathetically gloomy situation created by the present set of politicians who have formed a ‘coalition’ to loot the country, irrespective of political affiliations.

In such a scenario, just who is right is the not the issue, since both are. Difference of opinion needs to be respected in this case and both need to move on keeping in mind the greater good behind the cause, detractors notwithstanding! 

The above painting of Urvashi cursing Arjuna is courtesy Ramanarayanadatta Astri (Wikipedia)

Ganesha and Ravana

Ravana, the demon King from the epic Ramayana, was an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva. Once Ravana went to Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva and after severe penance got a boon of invincibility from Shiva. Lord Shiva gave him a lingam (also referred to as atma-lingam) and told him to carry it to Lanka by foot and while on his journey back home, he should never put it on the ground and if he did, then the boon would not materialize and he would lose the lingam to the place he kept it. Some versions of the myth say that Ravana attained this boon after reciting the Shiva Tandav Stotram, which was composed by him in honour of Lord Shiva.

A statue from the temple premises

Seeing this, other gods were worried about the boon. They then requested Lord Ganesha to do something and somehow stop Ravana from getting invincible. Ganesha through his yogic powers filled Ravanas stomach with water. Soon Ravana could hold it no longer and he had to relieve himself. Ganesha took the form of a child and approached Ravana. Ravana asked the child if he could hold it for some time, till he relieved himself, but should not put it down. Ganesha in his disguise agreed to do so, but also mentioned that if the lingam got heavy then he would place it on the ground, but then he would call him before doing so.

Ganesha held on to the lingam and no sooner had Ravana left, he cried out saying he could not hold it as it was getting heavier by the moment. He called out for Ravana three times, but Ravana could not return on time. Ganesha then left the lingam on the ground and ran away. Ravana came to the spot, and tried to move the lingam, but could not. He put all the pressure of his twenty hands, but could not move the lingam. However, due to the enormous pressure, applied by him the shape of the region changed to resemble the ear of a cow and hence the place is now known as Gokarna (ear of the cow) which lies in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. Since then the lingam at Gokarna is known as the Mahabaleshwar lingam (maha – great, bal – power, strength and eshwar – god) as the lingam could not be moved even by the strength of the mighty Ravana.

Gokarna Mahabaleshwar Temple

When Ravana realized that he was cheated by a child, he chased the child to hit him on his head. Later Ganesha took his original form. It is said that the Ganesha idol in the premises of the temple has a hollow in the head which was formed after Ravana hit him there. The idol is thus also referred to as Kuttu (to hit with folded fists) Ganesha. The devotees worship the idol by gently tapping on the head of the idol with folded fists!

Some versions say that Ravana took the help of the child, as it was evening and time for him to perform the sandhya vandana (evening prayers).

This myth signifies the contribution of Lord Ganesha from stopping Ravana from becoming invincible. The myth also lends credence to the divine association with the region and the temple which has religious attractions like the temple. Gokarna is considered to be a centre of Sanskrit learning and many Hindus from the nearby regions perform the last rites of the dead at Gokarna.

The ten day festival of Ganesh Chaturthi comes to an end today, and so does my series on Ganapati.

As they say in aamchi Mumbai – 

Ganpati Bappa Moriya Pudhchya Varshi Lavkar yaa (meaning - Oh Ganpati My Lord, return soon next year)!!