Paan – the Betel Leaf

During a recent discussion with a friend on food habits, the discussion veered towards, Paan or the betel leaf, the must-have after every meal. Paan is considered to be a medicinal plant with medicinal qualities, and aids digestion. My friend wondered, that here was a leaf which was known for its medicinal qualities and was a must in every religious ritual, but he has yet to find a father offering a paan to his child!

That sure was an interesting observation and the reason could have less to do with the paan itself and more with what went in making the paan, the main among them being tobacco. But was paan meant to be a medium of having tobacco, or did the latter find itself inside the paan more out of poor design? That’s for food-historians (if there was one), but the topic of paan did make me a bit curious. I have seen paan in every household as a child when I grew up in Kolkata, West Bengal. Offering paan made by the host was an honour and an indulgence by the host.

But my searches always head one way and this time too, I was looking for its origin, in mythology.

The Hindu mythology, does not talk about it much, except for the fact that it was one of the things that emerged from the churning of the ocean during the samudra-manthan. However, the Skanda Purana goes on to give a reason of its usage during every religious ritual. According to this, every god resides on the different parts of the leaf. Lord Indra resided on the top portion of the leaf, Goddess Saraswati in the middle and Goddess Lakshami in the lower tip, while Lord Vishnu resided inside the leaf, besides many other deities on the outer-side, left side and so on and so forth. Such association makes it a must to be used in any or every religious ritual. One more reason given for its use in all kalash or pots with water, is that its presence purifies the water in the pot.

Though this tale is from the Jataka Tales, it is also one of the most common tales associated with the betel leaf, in the region of Sri Lanka. According to this tale, during one of the incarnations of the Buddha as a hare, it offered itself to the God Sakra. Sakra took the form of a demon and appeared before the hare and asked it to prove its commitment to gods by preaching a sermon and offering it some food, however, he ate only roasted meat. The hare was worried, that where could he get roasted meat in the wilderness, so it offered itself. But the demon reminded it of the sermon too, which he had to deliver. The hare came up with an idea. It asked the demon to create a tall mountain and put the hare at the top of the mountain and light a fire at the base. The hare jumped from the top of the mountain, delivering the sermon and would reach the fire and get roasted for the demon to eat.

Sakra was impressed by its devotion and caught the hare just before it could land in the fire. Sakra then placed the hare in its arms and took it to the land of the gods. He then painted the likeness of a hare on the moon to commemorate the act of self-sacrifice by the hare and threw the brush away which incidentally fell in the Nagaloka, or the land of the Nagas, or snakes. The King of the Nagaloka, for some reason ended up swallowing it by mistake and died with pain due to the brush getting stuck in his throat, after seven days.

Soon a plant sprouted at the spot where he was burnt which was named the throat-burning-leaf (you might understand this if you try eating a betel leaf all by itself!). It is said that the branches of the creeper sprang from the tail of the Naga and the stem from its body and the leaves from its hood. This could also be one of the reasons why the the creeper gets its name in the vernacular as Nagarvel (Gujarati) or Nagavalli (Tamil/Sinhalese), meaning the serpent-creeper.

Many a times, paan is consumed by clipping its stem and the tip of the leaf. As a child I have observed many do this as a ritual, but none gave me any reason for the practice. However, the real reason behind doing this is hidden in another interesting myth.

According to this, the leaf was brought to land of the humans from the Nagaloka, by a snake, holding the stem and the tip of the leaf by its teeth. Since then it is believed that the stem and the tip bears the snakes poison and it is best to clip off the two before eating the leaf!

Next we will see an interesting myth of the betel leaf from a different culture! 

Keep reading……..

Scylla and Charybdis

Scylla and Charybdis were two monsters from Greek mythology, who have contributed enormously to the English language. But before we learn about their contribution, lets us read about them individually.

Scylla (pronounced ‘skylla’ as in ‘sky’) was supposed to be a beautiful nymph and the daughter of a sea-deity. Once Glaucus, a fisherman who had turned into a sea-god, saw her, fell madly in love with Scylla. But Scylla rejected his love. She ran away to avoid him and hid herself. Glaucus would not give up and approached Circe, a sorceress to make Scylla fall in love with him. But when Circe, saw Glaucus, she fell in love with him and tried to convince her that Scylla was not worth it. When Glaucus was not willing to change his mind, Circe, decided to make her magic work. She prepared a poisonous potion and spilt it in the sea, where Scylla used to take her bath.

As soon as Scylla dipped herself to take a bath, she changed into a six-headed horrifying monster, each of which had sharp teeth. She was now a so huge that she could barely move destined to live a life of loneliness and misery. If any ship came too close to her, then each of her heads would seize the crew and killed them on the spot.

Charybdis was the daughter of the sea-god Poseidon. She would flood the land and claim the region close to the sea for her father, thus depriving Zeus, land to rule. This angered Zeus and he cursed Charybdis to become a huge monster which was all mouth. Since then, she was forced to hide in a cave on a tiny island in the Strait of Messina, between Italy and Sicily. She would step out thrice a day and suck up huge amounts of water, and at times along with it, passing ships too.

Scylla and Charybdis were placed face to face and soon became a mariner’s nightmare. Scylla was personification of a rock which was never visible to naked eye till you got close to it and risked bumping into it and Charybdis was the personification of a whirlpool which would gulp out entire ships. Both were fatal risks that every mariner dreaded and few managed to avoid.

‘Between Scylla and Charybdis’ soon came to be referred to as being in a tough spot, where one was expected to choose between two evils. In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus had to make a choice of sailing too close to any one of them, and he decided to sail closer to Scylla. By his choice, he minimised the risk, as only six of his sailors were killed by the monster, as against risking the drowning of his entire ship.

Life does not necessarily give us simple choices between good and evil. Sometimes we are made to choose from two evils and then the choice has to be made for the lesser evil, like Odysseus did. In our lives too we come across such situations; when the doctor tells someone that they can save the life of any one, the mother or the unborn child. To choose between the closing of an entire vertical due to losses or continue with the support team but no scope of sales or expansion, risking an exodus. To shut down the factory or reduce the staff by a huge number risking closure anyways. Such and many similar decisions grip an individual in both his personal or professional life nearly all the time.

‘Between Scylla and Charybdis’ is a phrase that has given rise to many idioms, like, ‘between a rock and a hard place’, ‘between the horns of a dilemma’, ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’, etc.

Bharat Mata

India is a country with numerous gods and goddesses in its religious pantheon, especially in the mainstream Hindu religion. The religion became a part of the naming of the country at a point of time when identity of the nation got associated with its religion and thus the name Hindustan, the land of Hindus. Important to mention that the name was not coined during the Independence movement, but was coined by foreigners who identified the nation with the religion of the majority during their journey to our country.

The religion and certain aspects of the national religion got an impetus during the independence movement when mythological allusions were used to boost the movement. (Read more about it in the earlier articles on the subject  Independence Movement & the Myth of Markandeya ;  This is Utkarsh Speaking: Chourasi Devonwali Gaay ). These apart, new deities were also ‘created’ for a reference point and lend credence to the movement. One of the deities which got a focus was Bharat Mata.

Prithvi was a Vedic deity which was worshipped from time immemorial and was associated with earth. Worship of earth was an age old concept well ingrained in the Indian psyche. Soon ‘earth’ was associated with ‘land’ and during the independence movement; ‘land’ became synonymous with ‘motherland’. The concept of motherland was becoming a central focus in nationalistic literature of the times. Around the late 19^th century the idea of Bharat Mata was formed in a play by the same name in a play by Kiran Chandra Bandhopadhyay in 1873. In 1882, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel Anandmath introduced a hymn ‘vande mataram’, which became the clarion call for the Independence movement. In 1905, Abanindranath Tagore, the nephew of Rabindranath Tagore drew the first painting of Bharat Mata. The painting was actually drawn as Banga Mata, a personification of an undivided Bengal which was fragmented by the British. However, this Banga Mata soon became the precursor to many more representations of Bharat Mata.

 

Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore

Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata was however, quite different from the image that people had in their minds. His Bharat Mata was a beautiful young woman who was in orange coloured saree, and looked like a sadhvi (a Vaishnav nun), standing at the edge of a lotus pond. She was shown with a halo behind her head, and had four hands, giving her a divine look. In each of her hands she was holding a sacred manuscript, an akshamala, or a rosary of beads, a vastra or a piece of fabric and a bunch of rice foliage. She had a calm demeanor and was an embodiment of grace. She was a combination of both Saraswati and Lakshmi, deities who were highly revered, the former for knowledge and the latter for prosperity. Collectively, the deity seemed to imply that the motherland had gifts of shiksha, diksha, anna and vastra, i.e. knowledge, spiritualism, food and clothing.

Earlier too such goddesses were used to give boost to such movements. Shivaji was shown being blessed by Ma Bhavani (a variation of the fiery form of Mother Goddess), implying that his actions have the blessings of the goddess in his fight against the Mughals. The ideas of motherland and Bharat Mata were well accepted by Indians and soon numerous representations were made to stir the patriotic mindset of the people. Bharat Mata started being represented in more martial form, sometimes resembling Durga, with a trident and the national flag, while sometimes she was shown blessing Mahatma Gandhi and other nationalist leaders. Sometimes to rouse passions, she was even shown chained and with a sad face and a few white-skinned asuras attacking her or with whips in their hands, implying the exploitation of her wealth by the British. All this went on to give a huge impetus to the freedom movement and soon temples were opened giving the deity a sense of permanency.

 

Bharat Mata by P. S. Ramachandran Rao (1937)

In 1937, at the peak of the Independence Movement, a temple dedicated to Bharat Mata was inaugurated by Gandhiji in Benaras. Soon many such temples were being build across the country. A shloka was also uttered during the worship of the goddess, which was –

Ratnakaradhautapadam Himalyakirtitinim,
Brahmarajarsiratnamdhyam vande Bharatamataram

The above meant – “I pay my obeisance to mother Bharat, whose feet are being a washed by the ocean, who wears the mighty Himalaya as her crown, and who is exuberantly adorned with the gems of traditions set by Brahmarishis and Rajarishis.”

This personification was done for a purpose way back in the late 19^th century and the purpose has more than served its purpose in a largely illiterate milieu, but well-aware of its mythology.  While the concept of Bharat Mata has been kept alive by certain right-wing religious organization till date, it has lost its relevance in the modern times. Is the loss due to its lack of the original cause or due to a prevailing disenchantment, is a matter of debate. However, one can’t undermine the huge contribution of mythical themes in history of India’s Independence Movement.

On the eve of Independence day, here’s wishing all my readers a very happy Independence Day!

Pics courtesy - Wikipedia for painting by Abanindranath Tagore & The Hindu for the painting by  

                     PSR Rao.

Tarakeswar Affair

Last time we read about the temple of Tarakeshwar and its significance during the month of shravan. The temple of Tarakeshwar also has something very sinister associated with it, and that is an illicit relationship and a murder most gruesome.

At the onset, let me claim, that this has nothing to do with the temple, its presiding deity and mythology. I came across this, when I was researching for my last article and since not many outside Kolkata would know, I am writing about it today. Its importance will be dealt with later.

This refers to a famous court case by the name of “Tarakeshwar Affair”. The central characters are Nobin Chandra, a young Government employee, his wife, Elokeshi and the priest or the mahant of the Tarakeshwar temple which took place in the 19^th century under the British rule.

Elokeshi meets Mahant

Nobin used to work in Kolkata and his wife Elokeshi, stayed with her parents in the village of Tarakeshwar. The Tarakeshwar temple was known for curing barren women and so Elokeshi went to the mahant to seek his blessings. The mahant gave her a medicine which was drugged and then raped her. However, there blossomed an illicit relationship between the two and the whole village was soon discussing this. When Nobin returned to his village and learnt this, he was enraged and confronted his wife.

Elokeshi confessed to the relationship, but sought pardon from her husband. Nobin was deeply in love with Elokeshi and so he pardoned her and both decided to leave the village. However, the mahant came to know about it and sent his goons to stop both of them from leaving the village. In a fit of anger, Nobin severed the head of Elokeshi and then surrendered himself to the police.

The Fatal Blow

The matter reached the court and soon the locals started taking sides besides the English court having its own laws to cater to. The mahant was represented by an English lawyer and the whole city came to witness the court proceedings while the dailies carried every bit of the proceedings verbatim. The local population was of the opinion that Nobin was right in doing so and the fault lay with Elokeshi the seductress and the mahant for luring young women into relationships.

In 1873, the Indian jury of the local court acquitted Nobin on the grounds of insanity, but the British judge referred the case to Calcutta High Court which awarded life imprisonment to Nobin and three years to the mahant. However, Nobin was released after two years due to pressure from the locals, the intelligentsia and just about every section of the society.

This affair has been the basis of many a theatres and plays during the period following this incident. While many felt that Nobin was right and in doing so, some felt that Elokeshi was made to submit to the mahant due to the pressure from her father (an angle not worth pursuing). Many held the mahant solely responsible for everything as an aspect of increasing influence and power of the Brahmin class wherein they had started hiring goons, something which was considered to be very common in places like Benaras and other such akhada-oriented religious places. Many women of the nearby areas who visited for getting cured of infertility found themselves raped and dumped in the nearby red-light areas for a life of prostitution, but the matters never came out in the open.

There were social ramifications of this affair. The missionaries who saw this as a disillusionment of the masses with Hinduism and the Brahmin class, while the British saw in this a reason to monitor temple activities. The Bengali intelligentsia saw in this a cause for the upliftment of women and focus on their rights. Many saw Nobin’s love and pardon for Elokeshi as ‘an act of softness towards women, who needed to be controlled’ and his ultimate decapitating her as an act of manliness, albeit delayed. Such debates have raged from time immemorial and traditional way of thinking has not come a long way, though.

 

Mahant gives medicine to Elokeshi

The most important development of this affair was that this became a huge subject matter for the Kalighat painters. Kalighat school of painting was known for its unique style which had influenced the likes of Jamini Roy and even Picasso. While they generally depicted mythological characters and events, the painters took a break from that and depicted different aspects of the affair and created a different genre of the paintings, leaving behind a huge body of work.

 

The Tarakeshwar Affair

The case was discussed for many years to come and is referred to similar cases even today as a precedent. No other case had generated so much of debate in Bengal leading while giving a fillip to literature and art!

 NB - All the Kalighat paintings featured above have been taken from Wikipedia