Wading into Vedas: Bhujyu’s Rescue

Bhujyu’s rescue by Asvins. This vivid portraiture is similar to later day rescue of a devout lost in Ocean of Misery ( Samsara Sagaram) of this worldly existence by Mahavishnu borne on his Garuda.

9 August 2025

Rescue of Bhujyu is featured as an episode in the Amar Chitra Katha titled ‘Ashwins to the Rescue’. As a theme across the mandalas of Rig Veda there are riks mentioning Bhujyu, not just in Suktas solely addressing the Asvins, but in those where Asvins get a mention alongside others. So in subtle manner, the Rishis disproportionately hail Asvins for their rescue of Bhujyu who appears to be a merchantman and who is either sabotaged at sea or lost at sea, whose manner of rescue by Asvins is described vividly and specifically which we will examine successively.

In the 6th Rik of Suktas 112, याभि॒रंत॑कं॒ जस॑मान॒मार॑णे भु॒ज्युं याभि॑रव्य॒थिभि॑र्जिजि॒न्वथुः॑ । Yaabhirantakam Jasamaanamaarane Bhujyum Yaabhiravyathi Bhirjijinvathuh,

अन्तक Antaka- Lord of Death/Death, जसति Jasati/जस् Jas- Liberate/Go, जषति Jashati/जष् Jash- Hurt, मारण Maaran- Slayer/Killer, व्यति Vyati-Horse, व्यथिस् Vyathis- Tottering/Wavering/Insidious/Fallacious,जि॒न्वथुः॑ Jinvathuh- Rescue,भि॑र्जि Bhirji/भीरु Bheeru- Cowardly/Timid. So this reference translates as “ Whereby from the Lord of Death the Asvins liberated Bhujyu who was in the perilous grip of the Slayer ( ‘Grim Reaper’ in western parlance) and thereby they rescued the timid person.”

and in Sukta 116 in Riks 3,4 & 5.

तुग्रो॑ ह भु॒ज्युम॑श्विनोदमे॒घे र॒यिं न कश्चि॑न्ममृ॒वाँ अवा॑हाः ।तमू॑हथुर्नौ॒भिरा॑त्म॒न्वती॑भिरंतरिक्ष॒प्रुद्भि॒रपो॑दकाभिः ॥RV1.116.3

Tugro Ha Bhujyumasvinodamege Rayim Na KashcinmamruvaamAvaahaah, Tamuhathunorbhiraatamanvateebhirantarikshaprudibhirpodakaabhih.

दमे॒ Dame- Residence, कश्चिद् Kaschid- Someone, मम्रि Mamri-Mortal, आवाह Aavaaha- Inviting/Marrying, तामु Taamu- Praiser, तम Tama- To be distressed in body or mind/To desire/Gloom/Darkness, ऊह Uuha-To apprehend/reason, नौभिः Naubhih- To become a ship, आत्मन्वत् Atmavanta- Having a soul/Animated, अप॑ऽउदकाभिः Apaudakaabih- over the waters, अ॒न्त॒रि॒क्ष॒प्रुत्ऽभिः॑ antarikshaprutbhiḥ Intermediary region/realm.

This rik is translated as : “ O Asvins like how a dying man forsakes his riches, Tugra forsake Bhujyu, whose cry rose like a mortal’s cries for succour, distressed, you cause to rescue by transforming into a ship carrying his soul through intermediary realms and over the waters to land.” So Tugra, the Father of Bhujyu abandons him for dead in distressed seas, Asvins rescue him by transforming into a suitable boat, claiming his soul through intermediary regions ( this indicates that Bhujyu near drowned and was revived by the Asvins) and back above the waters to the shores.

ति॒स्रः क्षप॒स्त्रिरहा॑ति॒व्रज॑द्भि॒र्नास॑त्या भु॒ज्युमू॑हथुः पतं॒गैः ।स॒मु॒द्रस्य॒ धन्व॑न्ना॒र्द्रस्य॑ पा॒रे त्रि॒भी रथैः॑ श॒तप॑द्भिः॒ षळ॑श्वैः ॥RV1.116.4

Tisrah Kshapastrirahaativrajadabhirnaasatyaa Bhujyumuhathuh Pathingeh, Samudrasya Dhanvannaardrasya Paare Tribhi Ratheh Shatapadbhih Shalashveh.

तिस्रः Tisra- Three ( Again the numerical associated with Asvins as we have seen in Sukta 46, 47 of Rig Veda First Mandala), क्षेप Kshepa- Throwing/Transgressing, अहा॑ Ahaa/अह Aha-Day,अतिव्रजत्ऽभिः Ativrajat-abhih/अतिव्रजति Ativrajati- Flyover/ Pass by, नासत्या Nasatya- Friendly/Helpful/Asvins, ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, पतं॒गैः Patangeh-Wings, धन्वन् Dhanvan- Dry Soil/Shore, आद्रवति Aadravati/आद्रु Aadru- Approach with speed/ Run toward/Hasten toward, पारे Paare/परे Pare- To go or Run away, त्रिभिः Tribhih/त्रयः Trayah-Three, शतपाद् Shatapaad- Hundred Wheels/Centipede, षळ॑श्वैः =षट्ऽअश्वैः= षट् Shat-Six+ अश्वे Ashve- Horses.

This Rik 1.116.4 translates as: “For three days, Bhujyu was aided to transgress and fly over the waters/ocean to reach the dry shores by Nasatyas(Asvins) by propelling with wings at great speed and carried by the tri-chariot( ? Three Seated Chariot) of hundred wheels and drawn by six steeds”.

अ॒ना॒रं॒भ॒णे तद॑वीरयेथामनास्था॒ने अ॑ग्रभ॒णे स॑मु॒द्रे । यद॑श्विना ऊ॒हथु॑र्भु॒ज्युमस्तं॑ श॒तारि॑त्रां॒ नाव॑मातस्थि॒वांसं॑ ॥RV1.116.5.

Anaarambhane tadaveerayethaamanaasthaane Agrabhane Samudre, Yadasvinaa Uuhathurbhujyumasta Shataaritraam Naavamaatasthivaamsam.

अनारम्बण Anaarambana/ अ॒ना॒रं॒भ॒णे Anaarambhane-Intangible/Giving no support/Having no support, अ॒वी॒र॒ये॒था॒म् Aveerayethaam= यथावीर्यम् Yathaaveeryam-Heroic/ Manliness/ Act with courage, अ॒ना॒स्था॒ने/अनास्थान Anaasthaan- Having no fixed seat/fulcrum or Unstable, अग्र Agra- Top/Summit/Chief, भिन्न Bhinna/भ॒ण Bhana- Disjointed, ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, श॒तऽअ॑रित्रान् Shata aritraan =श॒त Shata-Hundred +अरित्र Aritra- Oar/Propeller, आ॒त॒स्थि॒वांस॑म्= आ॒त॒ +अस्थि॒ Asthi- Bone+वास॑म् Vaasam/वास Vaasa/वस् Vas- Stay/Live, पुरस्तात् Purastaat- In Front Of, अस्ति Asti- It is.

This Rik translates as: “ Intangible this act of Heroism with no support,no perch, no position (from the waters) in the ocean, the Asvins thrust Bhujyu upon a 100 oared ship and rescued him alive by carrying him in it.”

Riks apart from above that mention Bhujyu by name or as Son of Tugra are 1.117.14&15,1.119.4,4.27.4,6.62.6,7.68.7,7.69.7,10.40.7,10.65.12, 10.143.5.

यु॒वं तुग्रा॑य पू॒र्व्येभि॒रेवैः॑ पुनर्म॒न्याव॑भवतं युवाना ।यु॒वं भु॒ज्युमर्ण॑सो॒ निः स॑मु॒द्राद्विभि॑रूहथुर्ऋ॒ज्रेभि॒रश्वैः॑ ॥RV1.117.14

ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, यु॒वं Yuvam- Youth, तुग्रा॑य पू॒र्व्ये/पू॒र्व्येभिः॑ Tugraaya Purvaye/Purvayebhih- Whose forebear is Tugra, एवैः॑ Evaih- Even so/Certainly, पुनर्म॒न्याव॑भवतं Punarmanyaavabhavatam= पुनर्मन्य Punarmanya- Remembering + भवतं Bhavatam- Happening/Occuring, अर्ण॑सः Arnasah/अर्णस् Arnas- River/Water/Foaming Ocean, ऋ॒ज्रेभिः॑ Rijrebhih/ऋज्र Rijra- Reddish Brown/Leader.

“ The young scion of Tugra if you remember O’ Ever Young! From the foaming waves Bhujyu was rescued in the ocean by you two by propelling him on Tawny Horses.”

अजो॑हवीदश्विना तौ॒ग्र्यो वां॒ प्रोळ्हः॑ समु॒द्रम॑व्य॒थिर्ज॑ग॒न्वान् ।निष्टमू॑हथुः सु॒युजा॒ रथे॑न॒ मनो॑जवसा वृषणा स्व॒स्ति ॥RV1.117.15

ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, जोहवीति Johaveeti/अजो॑हवीत् Ajohaveet-To invoke/To offer oblations repeatedly, वा॒ Vaa- And, प्रोळ्हः॑ Prolahah/प्रोल्लस् Prollas- To bob to and fro/Shine brightly, अ॒व्य॒थिः Avyathih- Horses, ज॒ग॒न्वान्= ज॒ग॒न Jagan- World+वान् Vaan- Of this, निष्ट Nishta- Dependent on, सुयुज् Suyuj- Well Yoked/Well Placed, मनोजवस् Manojavas- Swift as Thought ( Invoked while chanting mantras for Hanuman as मनोजवं मारुततुल्यवेगं जितेन्द्रियं बुद्धिमतां वरिष्ठ ।वातात्मजं वानरयूथमुख्यंश्रीरामदूतं शरणं प्रपद्ये ।Manojavam Maarutatulyavegam Jitendriyam Buddhimataam Varista, Vaataatmajam Vaanarayuthamukyam Sriraamadhutam Sharanam Prapadye)/ Like a father/Fatherly, वृषणा Vrushanaa- Virile, स्व॒स्ति Svasti- So Be It.

“Invoking the Asvins repeatedly, Son of Tugra bobbing in the oceans was rescued by steeds of this world, their chariot propelled by well yoked swift as thought virile ones(steeds)that were as sure as auspicious benedictions.”

यु॒वं भु॒ज्युं भु॒रमा॑णं॒ विभि॑र्ग॒तं स्वयु॑क्तिभिर्नि॒वहं॑ता पि॒तृभ्य॒ आ ।या॒सि॒ष्टं व॒र्तिर्वृ॑षणा विजे॒न्यं१॒॑ दिवो॑दासाय॒ महि॑ चेति वा॒मवः॑ ॥RV1.119.4

भूरमण Bhuramań- King/Prince, विभिद् Vibhid/विभिन्त्ते Vibhintte-Split/Scatter, युक्ति Yukti-Device/Stratagem, निवह् Nivah/निवहते Nivahate- Support/Carry, पि॒तृभ्य॒ Pitrubhya= पि॒तृ Pitru-Father + अभ्यम् Abhyam- To Overcome/ To be angry with, आ Aa- Toward, यासा Yaasaa- Thrush/ Song Bird (यस Yasa யச தமிழ் சொல் யசபாட்டு Tamil word Yasapaattu meaning conversational song) + इष्ट Ishta – Desire/Wish, वर्तिन् Vartin/वर्ति Varti- Performing/Obeying,(चक्रवर्तिन् Chakravartin- Who is obeyed within a sphere),वृषणा Vrushanaa- Virile, विजेन्य Vijenya- Solitary/Lonely, दिवोदास Divodasa- Father of Sudas, who destroyed Sambhara after 40 year war at Udubraj, Was he an Ancestor of Rama,because his preceptor was Rishi Vashista ( The link between Sambara and Divodasa is mentioned at RV1.112.14 and we will study Sambara separately as his mentions are across Rig Veda), महित Mahit- Worshipped/Honoured, चेतिष्ठ Cetishta- Most Conspicuous/ Most Attentive, वा॒मवः॑ Vamavah- Rishi Vaama ( Vaama means dwarf, also an avatar of Vishnu), आवाहन Aavaahana- Invocation/Calling.

“ Bhujyu the youth was rescued by you Royals, Using self activated device to carry him- the one who was angry toward his father, with the Songbird fulfilling every wish with potency. The lonely Devodaasa ( literally servant of the Devas) honoured you with fullest attention along with Rishi Vaama”.

ऋ॒जि॒प्य ई॒मिंद्रा॑वतो॒ न भु॒ज्युं श्ये॒नो ज॑भार बृह॒तो अधि॒ ष्णोः ।अं॒तः प॑तत्पत॒त्र्य॑स्य प॒र्णमध॒ याम॑नि॒ प्रसि॑तस्य॒ तद्वेः ॥ RV4.27.4 Rajipya Eemimdraavato Na Bhujyum Shyeno JaBhaara Bruhato Adhi Shańo, Antah Patatpatatriyasya Parnamadhya Yaamani Prasitasya Tadveh.

ऋजिप्य Rjipya-Moving Upwards/Going Straight Upwards, ई॒मिंद्रा॑वतो॒= ई॒म Im- It/Him + इन्द्र Indra + द्वतो॒ Dvato – Twosome /अावतो Aavato/आवत्Aavat – Proximity/Closeness, श्येन Shyena- Eagle,भर् Bhar/ज॑भार Jabhaar- To kill/hurt,ज॑भार =ज Jha+ भार Bhar- Weight, बृहत् Brahat- Big/Large, अधि॒ष्णोः= अ + धिष् Dhish-Zealously, पतत्पत/पतत्- Alighting+त्र्य॑स्य Triyasya- Thrice, पर्णम् Parnam- Wing/Feather, अध Adha- Moreover/Therefore/Then, याम Yaam- Road/Way, यम Yama- Twin/Pair, अनि Ani-Do not Possess, याम॑नि॒ Yaamani- Without a Way, प्रसित Prasita- Occupied With/Engrossed by/Fastened, अस्य Asya- Of This, तद्वत् Tadvat/तद्वेः Taveh- Thus.

“Moving straight upwards, these friends of Indra (Asvins) rescue Bhujyu by a massive Eagle that aims to bear him with zealous effort, alighting thrice with wings therefore, the lost( Bhujyu) was thus rescued by the engrossed efforts!(of Asvins)”

ता भु॒ज्युं विभि॑र॒द्भ्यः स॑मु॒द्रात्तुग्र॑स्य सू॒नुमू॑हथू॒ रजो॑भिः ।अ॒रे॒णुभि॒र्योज॑नेभिर्भु॒जंता॑ पत॒त्रिभि॒रर्ण॑सो॒ निरु॒पस्था॑त् ॥RV6.62.6

In this Rik, the Hero Bhujyu is also mentioned as son of Tugra (त्तुग्र॑स्य सू॒नुम Tugrasya Sunum). ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, स॑मु॒द्रात् Samudrat- From the Ocean, विभि॑र॒द्भ्यः=वि- भिद् ViBhid- Put Out +अत्यः Atyah-Steed, रजस् Rajas- Dust/A particle of matter, अरणि Arani – Sun, अरेणु Arenu- Gods/Not Earthly, योजन Yojana- Alignment/Matching, भुजान्तर Bhujaantara/भुजन्ताBhujanta- Chest, पतत्रिन् Patatrin- Winged, अर्णस् Arnas- Foaming Ocean, निरुपस्थायक Nirupasthayaka-Unattended/ उपऽस्थात् Upasthaat- One who is near at hand.

“ That Bhujyu put out by thrusting forward from the ocean by the steeds, from the ocean, son of Tugra, was covered in darkness/dust.The Gods ( Asvins) despatched the broad chested wings, that attended to his rescue from the foaming ocean!”

उ॒त त्यं भु॒ज्युम॑श्विना॒ सखा॑यो॒ मध्ये॑ जहुर्दु॒रेवा॑सः समु॒द्रे ।निरीं॑ पर्ष॒दरा॑वा॒ यो यु॒वाकुः॑ ॥ RV7.68.7 Uta Tvam Bhujyumasvinaa Sakhaayo Madhye Jahurdurevaasah Samudre, Niree Parshadaraavaa Yo Yuvaakuh.

उत Uta- Or/Or Else, त्वम्/त्यं Tvam- You, सखा॑यो॒ Sakhayo( Dual form)- (Two) Friends, मध्ये Madhye- In the middle/Amongst, जहुर्दु॒रेवा॑सः= जहुः Junuh- Young Animal/Fawn or cub+ दुःDuh- Distress + एव Eva-Really+ वासःVaasah/वस्Vas- Live/Dwell, निरीह/निरीं॑ Niree- Motionless/Indolent/Indifferent, पर्षद् Parshad- Company/Society+ आरव Aarava- Humming/Shouting/Howling/Noise OR अरावन् Araavan- Horse/Steed/Hostile/Envious, कुह Kuha- Where, याYaa- Travel/Withdraw/Walk, युवाकु Yuvaaku – Belonging/Devoted to you both.

“ Or else, you both friends, O Asvins (would not have rescued) Bhujyu , a fawn stricken in distress in the middle of high seas. Motionless (Bhujyu was) travelled in company of swift horses, devoted to both of you.”

यु॒वं भु॒ज्युमव॑विद्धं समु॒द्र उदू॑हथु॒रर्ण॑सो॒ अस्रि॑धानैः ।प॒त॒त्रिभि॑रश्र॒मैर॑व्य॒थिभि॑र्दं॒सना॑भिरश्विना पा॒रयं॑ता ॥ RV7.69.7 Vyam Bhujyumvaviddham Samudra Uduhathurańaso AstriDhaaneh, Pataribhirastrameravyathibhirdasanaabhirasvinaa Paaryantaa.

अवविद्ध Avaviddha- Thrown down into, ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, उदूहते Uduhate/उदूहति Uduhati/उदूह् Uduh- To bring out/ Sweep out, उदूह Uduha- Broom, अर्ण॑सः Arnasah/अर्णस् Arnas- River/Water/Foaming Ocean, अस्रिधान Astridhana- The Same, पतत्रिन् Patatrin- Winged, श्रम Srama- Labour/Effort, अव्यय Avyaya- Not inclined to change/Imperishable/Indeclinable, दसन Dasana- Throwing/Tossing/Perishing, पारयति Paarayati- Reload/Recharge/Fill up. पा॒र Paara- Shore+यंता /यन्ता Yanta- Vehicle/Conveyance.

“ Thrown down into the foaming ocean, by thrusting upwards the young Bhujyu was brought out by efforts of Winged Ones that were determined to his rescue from being tossed about, (commanded) by The Asvins, conveying him to safe shores.”

यु॒वं ह॑ भु॒ज्युं यु॒वम॑श्विना॒ वशं॑ यु॒वं शिं॒जार॑मु॒शना॒मुपा॑रथुः ।यु॒वो ररा॑वा॒ परि॑ स॒ख्यमा॑सते यु॒वोर॒हमव॑सा सु॒म्नमा च॑के ॥RV10.40.7 Yuvam Ha Bhujyum Yuvamasvinaa Vasha Yuvam Shijaaramushanaamupaarathuh, Yuvo Raraavaa Pari Sakhyamaasate Yuvorahamavaso Sumnamaa Cake.

In this Rik, Bhujyu is mentioned along with Vasha, Shinjaara and Ushnaa, as youth rescued by Asvins.

उपा॑रथुःUpaarathuh/उपार Upaara- Transgression/Sin/Offence,ररा॑वा॒ =रव Rava-Yell/Roar+ राव Raava-Shriek/Any Sound or Noise,परितः Paritah/परि॑ Pari- From all directions, सख्याम्- Friends/Alliance, आसते Aasate- There is, यु॒वोर॒हमव॑सा= यु॒वोर॒ Yuvor- Youth+ हमव॑सा Hamavasaa- Stay together, सुम्न Sumna- Hymn/Happiness, चके Cake- Desire/Wish.

“ Youth like Bhujya, Vasha, Shinjaaara, Ushnaa are rescued from their sin/ transgressions by Asvins. These youth exhort their friendship (with Asvins) in all directions, congregating together desirous of singing hymns (in their praise).”

भु॒ज्युमंह॑सः पिपृथो॒ निर॑श्विना॒ श्यावं॑ पु॒त्रं व॑ध्रिम॒त्या अ॑जिन्वतं ।क॒म॒द्युवं॑ विम॒दायो॑हथुर्यु॒वं वि॑ष्णा॒प्वं१॒॑ विश्व॑का॒याव॑ सृजथः ॥RV10.65.12 Bhuyummahasah Piprutho Nirasvinaa Shyaava Putram Vadhrimatyaa Ajinvatam, Kumudyuva Vimadaayohathuryuvam Vishńaapvam 1 Vishvakaayaava Srijathah.

अंहसः Amhasah- Perplexity, पिपृथः Piprthah- Spring up, निरNira/निरम्Niram- To rest/cease/To gladden, श्याव Shyaava- Drawn by brown/tawny/bay horses, विधृत Vidrt- Saved, वध्रिमती Vadrimatee- Woman whose husband is impotent, आजिन्व् Aajinva/अ॑जिन्वतं Ajinvatam- Refresh/Renew, कम Kama- Desire +द्युवा Dyuvaa ( Form of द्यु Dyu)- Sky/Heavens, विम॒दा Vimadaa- Joyless,क॒म॒द्युवं॑ विम॒दायो॑-Kamadyuva Vimadaayo- Kamadyu of Vimada ( Spouse of Vimada- Kamadyu) ऊहथुः Uuhathuh/ऊह् Uuh- Push/Thrust, विष्णापू Vishńaapu- son of विश्व॑का॒ Vishvaka rescued by Asvins, सृजथः Srijathah/सृज Srija- Abandoned/Left behind.

“ Bhujyu’s perplexity was put to rest, the Asvins sprung him up (in a chariot) drawn by tawny horses, a woman whose husband was impotent was renewed by giving her a son/child,Desires of Heavens fulfilled by uplifting the joyless by them (or more specifically- ‘Kamadyu spouse of Vimada is united with her husband’) . Vishńaapu the son of Vishvaka who was left behind was rescued.”

यु॒वं भु॒ज्युं स॑मु॒द्र आ रज॑सः पा॒र ईं॑खि॒तं ।या॒तमच्छा॑ पत॒त्रिभि॒र्नास॑त्या सा॒तये॑ कृतं ॥RV10.143.5 Yuvam Bhujyum Samudra Aa Rajasah Paara Eekhitam, Yaatamacchaa Pataribhirnaasatyaa Saataye Krtam.

रजस् Rajas- Dust/A particle of matter, पा॒र Paara- Shore, ईङ्ख् Inkh/ईं॑खि॒तं Inkhitam- Shake/Tremble/Swing, अपार् Apaar- To remove, पार Paara- Shore, या॒तमच्छा॑= या॒तम Yaatama/ या॒त Yaata- Gone/Went/Obtained+अच्छा Accha- Close by/Towards, पतत्रिन् Patatrin- Winged, सातय Saataya- Who or What causes pleasure.

“ Bhujyu who, trembling in the stormy sea, was taken ashore by the youth (Asvins), carried towards it by Winged Ones, offers praise to the Nasatyas.”

Bhujyu’s rescue as a first aspect across riks is described as happening by varied means. It involves a boat that rides torrents, propelled by 100 oars, by tawny horses, by special self activated device along with a Songbird, by an Eagle that was large and bore him alighting thrice along the way. Winged Ones also find mention severally as instrumental in his rescue. The second aspect is whether Tugra was benevolent or malevolent as a father of Bhujyu. In one instance, the word ‘Sunum’ is used which is an affectionate way of referring to a child too. If Tugra felt his son was as useful as wealth at a time of dying and hence discarded him, the Riks also place Bhujyu as being thrown into the high seas to cement this malevolence. Of course, if Tugra forsake his son, then Bhujyu is like Sunehkshepa, whose father, Ajigarta, sold him for a sacrifice. We are not offered if Bhujyu became a Rishi or a great King later, though the riks describe at the instances enumerated here, about his rescue by the Asvins, making him an important non Deva persona in the Rig Veda.

Wading into the Vedas: The Fire

8 March 2025

It is perhaps an inspirational leap to think that the first gender to acquaint itself with fire was female. In transition from the animal means to what we now accept as civilisational, the use of fire as a tool, is perhaps the most important of all those aspects that we can think of, even much ahead of agriculture or wheel. Most mythologies treat the ‘fire’ as a secret of the Gods and in Greek mythology, it was stolen from them by Prometheus. However, even here, the story is of ‘return’ of the original after Zeus had forbidden humans from holding on to fire. In the Vedas, Medhathithi is the Rishi who invokes Agni first. Her hymns appear in the first mandala of the Rig Veda itself, and she is not to be confused with the later age sage Medhathithi who wrote a commentary on Manu Smriti. Parrot as she was named after, is linked through lineage to a ‘Kanva’ or ritual ‘praisers’ and as it is with Sanskrit, etymological dissections are wrought with quicksands that can engulf a commentator if the commentator cannot arrive at the connecting context. Most people versed with Indic tradition associate Kanva with a Maharishi in whose tutelage and care Shakuntala the daughter of Menaka and Vishwamitra grew and who went on to become mother to Bharata whose name is is associated with Bharata Varsha and Bharata Kanda. Today we mutilate geography by using one or the other as if they apply equally, whereas when these words were first coined, the arena that was Varsha was the arc that is today Central and Western EurAsia, that extended till the area identified as Bharatakanda which was the geographical extent from the mountainous regions of the Indian subcontinent from West to East and bounded by the Gangetic plains and delta. Subcontinental peninsular India was known as Jhambudvipa.

Why the need to understand this is because, we would fail to appreciate the majestic of the Vedic verses, if we do not understand the geographical and gender context of the one who first recognised ‘Agni’ (Fire). The parrot as she was, had composed perhaps a total of 13 hymns, and they were all about Agni, including the first hymn in the Rig Veda which is अ॒ग्निमी॑ळे पु॒रोहि॑तं य॒ज्ञस्य॑ दे॒वमृ॒त्विज॑म् । होता॑रं रत्न॒धात॑मम् ॥ The verse can be transcribed as ‘O Agni the foremost of sacrificers, ( priests), conveyor of oblations to Gods, the conductor of the sacrifices, possessor of gems.’ If we wish to further extrapolate on the word- Purohit, we should split this into Para- and Hita- one who has the welfare of others in his heart, or one who acts for greater common good. Then the use of the word- Hotaram as priest conducting Vedic sacrifice would not be superfluous as such. So the address is : O Agni, the one who has our well being at heart, conveying oblations to the Gods, verily our priest of sacrifices and possessor of gems! The word Ratna, is of many meanings and significance and not just gem. It means water, treasure, magnet, gift, loadstone, precious, amongst other things, so we trust that Medhathithi would have meant all those things that kept hearth and humanity going while using this word.

She is acknowledged author for the riks ( hymns of Rig Veda) in first mandala from 12 to 23, a dozen riks, of which two more are solely to Agni, besides one in which Agni figures along with Maruts, before her final verse which has Agni with Indra. She describes Agni as being kindled by Agni itself, ( fire that is kindled by fire) even though in a sacrifice, the first task is to kindle the fire by using ‘fire sticks’ which sparked and lit a clump of dried hay and twigs. From this flame the pyre for sacrifice would be lit. To the observer, the fire appears from nowhere, summoned by the priest who is creating it, and such was the difficulty in kindling a fresh fire that later injunctions to maintain various types of fires in households came up, such that one would never run out of a flame to start another.

स नः॒ स्तवा॑न॒ आ भ॑र गाय॒त्रेण॒ नवी॑यसा । र॒यिं वी॒रव॑ती॒मिषं॑ ॥ 1.12.11 RV ‘O Agni empowered by the new mantra Gayatri, bring forth wealth, strength and impelling force! ‘ So right here we know that Gayatri mantra is novel. That it was used to empower Agni, signalling how fire was sought to be seen as a source of energy and light just as the natural sun was, however, the sun was seen as omnipresent and all powerful, therefore the Sun’s benediction could be drawn upon to empower the Agni of the sacrifice as well.

She describes Agni as पावक purifying, hence capable of completing the sacrifice. Priyam प्रि॒यम॒ ‘Beloved is Agni. सु॒खत॑मे॒ Sukhatame The Pleasing One. घृतपृष्ठ Gritaprusta- Fire fed by ghee यत्रा॒मृत॑स्य॒ चक्ष॑णं Yatraamrutasya chakshanam – To see immediately immortality. स्तृ॒णी॒त ब॒र्हिरा॑नु॒षग्घृ॒तपृ॑ष्ठं मनीषिणः ।यत्रा॒मृत॑स्य॒ चक्ष॑णं ॥1.13.5 RV. असश्चत्- inexhaustible are it’s benefits as declared by the श्र॑यंतामृता॒वृधो॒ sryamthamritavridho respected immortals and elders नू॒नं च॒ यष्ट॑वे Noonam cha yastave Adored Indeed. Agni propitiated by सु॑जि॒ह्वा Sujihva ‘soothsayers’ will please the gods according to क॒वी Kavii ‘the wise’. इळा॒ सर॑स्वती म॒ही ति॒स्रो दे॒वीर्म॑यो॒भुवः॑ ।ब॒र्हिः सी॑दंत्व॒स्रिधः॑ ॥ 1.13.9 RV Ila, Saraswati, Mahi the trio of Goddesses unerringly offer bliss. Let them accompany us on this sacred grass. त्वष्टा॑र Tvastar – the Supreme Being is then summoned as वि॒श्वरू॑प॒म Vishwaroopam ‘Universal Form’ and अ॒स्माक॑मस्तु॒ केव॑लः Asmakamastu Kevalah -‘exclusively’. Just when you thought Medhathithi was now into ritualism, she next summons Vanaspati- a concept of divinity associated with wilderness and natural abundance to ‘awaken’ the sacrificer. अव॑ सृजा वनस्पते॒ देव॑ दे॒वेभ्यो॑ ह॒विः ।प्र दा॒तुर॑स्तु॒ चेत॑नं ॥ Ava shrija vanaspate deva devabhyo hyvih Pra dhaturstu chetanam 1.13.11 RV She concludes this rik by invoking Indra to the household of the sacrificer स्वाहा॑ य॒ज्ञं कृ॑णोत॒नेंद्रा॑य॒ यज्व॑नो गृ॒हे ।तत्र॑ दे॒वाँ उप॑ ह्वये ॥ Svaha Yagnyam krunoth Indraaya Yajvano grihe tatra devahum upa hvey ‘Svaha! Let the offering be to Indra in the home of the sacrificer and may all gods be in attendance’. Svaha is closest to ‘Hail’ or ‘Glory be’ as translated by most scholars. स्वहस्त – SvaHasta ‘from one’s own hand’, could be the etymological word for this, as it is in sacrifices that this exhortation is uttered repeatedly where the sacrificer offers to Agni oblations as directed by the Hotr/priest. So unlike Hallelujah, Svaha appears to have a more embodying connection.

So from the parrot sage, Medhathithi, we have a insight that Agni was not just an all consuming entity, it was the medium through which the offerings ritually were made to accepted gods, Indra chief amongst them, and to purify our thoughts and by the grace of Tvashtar the Supreme Entity, awaken to our fullest potential(Tvashtar like Ahura, disappears in later passages of Rig and other Vedas only to remerge as a deva born of Aditi and associated with Vishwakarma as a presiding deity of craftsmanship and artisanship). Agni in contrast to Greek mythology is not an object that could be stolen or retrieved, it had to be kindled by itself, a self forming one and fed best by clarified butter (ghee). इला Ila ‘flow’ मही Mahi ‘steadfastness/earth’ and सरस्वती Sarasvathi perhaps as a known river that she invokes, were later to become one Saraswathi the Goddess of Learning in all probability. Ila itself is with a hidden word Ida, perhaps Ida of the Nadi, (the left nostril, from the Tamil Idadu- Left), however in the context of these Vedic rituals, it is probably a goddess invoked in a ‘cake like offering’ probably made from wheat or rice with sesame. इडापात्री Idapatri ‘vessel for offering the sacrifice’, इडाचमस Idachamas- ‘Oblation spoon offering ida’, पुरोडाशाडा Purodashada ‘ida portion of sacrificial cake’ are terms that spring from this ritualism. If we take इला Ila ‘flow’, मही Mahi ‘steadfastness’ and सारस्वत Saraswat ‘eloquence’ together, then for वाक् Vaak that is speech, all three are indispensable as flow, steadfastness or earthy humility, and eloquence make a speech worthy of rapt attention! This is a timeless deduction from the Rishi as she summons them first to the side of the sacrificer.

Of course, the assessment of the poetic inspirations and meditations of Medhathithi Kanva are incomplete and limited to a very cursory glimpse into the subject of Agni. While there are many suktas and stotrams invoking Agni in Sanskrit liturgy as well as in Tamil liturgy, we would be amiss to gloss over perhaps this pioneer whose invocation of Agni transformed the fire into a portal, offering us glimpses of immortality even! The more we wade into the Vedas, the more clear that they are works of fine human minds, that attempted to transcend the trappings of their times, and offer their insights without prejudice to the extent possible. The outer limit to knowing is unknown, that is why we keep wading…

More than 700 suktas are presently available in Vedic anthology on Agni…that would be an ambitious task to summarise Agni’s glories as per the rishis. Will this wading get us there?

Wading into Vedas: Kernels Of Becoming Willed

20 February 2025

The word ‘agency’ would be perhaps more apt in the context of what we explore here. However for the purpose of what that word seeks to express, the more appropriate one would be ‘will’. The word is in most western philosophies, associated with a prefix ‘free’, which to the Wise of the East would be an oxymoron. Will is ‘a faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action’ is how dictionary expands on the term. So how can that by which the individual aims and acts upon, be ‘fettered’ or ‘free’. There must be ‘desire’ or Kama as the seed for offering an aim or purpose and that makes the individual move toward a particular requirement set upon. So why must that be caged, or set free, and why would an entire class of human thought offer a qualification to ‘will’ as ‘free will’? In the East, particularly in Indic philosophical tradition, the term ‘will’ is expressed as ‘thought’ since it is the mind that first expresses the desire which gets consolidated into aim and action and mind converses through thought.

We find a hymn called normally as Purusha Suktam, since it is about this ‘Purusha’ or Being, which is at the 10th Mandala of Rig Veda, where this verse occurs:

पुरुष एवेदं सर्वं यद्भूतं यच्च भव्यम्।उतामृतत्वस्येशानो यदन्नेनातिरोहति॥ १०.०९०.०२ Rig Veda. ‘The Purusha is all, what is to happen stems from what has, The Purusha is immortal and the sustenance of all.’

‘What was in the Past is in the Future(Becoming), this Purusha that is omnipresent’ is a better way to transcribe the first half of this sutra, for mysticism to gain more possibilities. From here the Rishis explore this idea of ‘destiny’- “सा वै दैवी वाग्यया यद्यदेव वदति तत्तद्भवति ॥” in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.5.18, which translates broadly as Speech Divine makes what is uttered to happen. While the connection between a poetic praise of Purusha of Rig Veda to this Upanishadic sutra may seem tenuous on the surface, the concept of happenings, of the future, is strikingly connective. (bhavin भाविन् is the root word for bhavyam in the Veda and bhavathi in the Upanishad) A study of Vedic liturgy is usually from Veda to Vedanga ( the Bramanas) to Vedanta (Upanishads and Aranyakas) and for the adherent, it allows this to flow as if from Spring to River to Ocean, as source and its expansion by accumulation.

Bhagavad Gita 8.6 “यं यं वापि स्मरन्भावं त्यजत्यन्ते कलेवरम् | तं तमेवैति कौन्तेय सदा तद्भावभावित: ||” Krsna offers Arjuna the concept of predetermination, by stating that what one contemplates upon at death comes about. However the ‘death’ here, is not a mere physical event, it is a spiritual metaphor for the extinguishing of bodily identification or prejudice. The eighth chapter of the Gita is near midway through the discourse between the warrior and his chosen charioteer amidst the array of armies ready to exterminate the other for their chose cause of ‘dharma’. It is called Akshara Brahma Yoga अक्षरब्रह्मयोग, it cases the cause for ‘conscious exit’, some thing which fundamentally makes ‘will’ inviolable. So whether it is when alive and to the human sensorium decidedly afar from death or when death is imminent, what Krsna lays out here is how necessary it is for liberation to exit consciously and to become ‘aware’ at least at the moment of death, of that which is not our physical self. Krsna offers a path of Light and a path of the Dark. He uses the metaphor of Sun’s move toward the Northern Apogee and the Southern Apogee which come about as Summer and Winter solstices and prescribes the path to Brahman for those who chose Light and path to Transcendental Yoga for those who chose Dark. Those with Light undergo sublimation and those with Dark return as vehicles for greater common good as Yogis. So in this Yoga of Eternal Brahman, Krsna offers the seeker a clear ‘choice’ of not just ‘conscious exit’ which is in the grasp of any human even at the very throes of dying, but also of opting to be with Light or Dark as per their inherent desire to embrace the Universe as an extension of their Self from within (Light) or Without (Dark). If one can see the BG as a coaching or coaxing method, Krsna after focusing on Karma in a sense of duty, where there is no choice for the doer, shifts gear and offers the warrior Arjuna this centrality of human choice and agency, our ‘sweet’ will to do and die as we choose! Again the connective word is Bhavati भवती.

In a stellar poetic epic titled Kiratarjuneya written by poet Bhaaravi that was chanced upon by serendipity, describes the episode in Mahabharata where Arjuna is seeking celestial weapons while the Pandavas in exile. Here his penance is sought to be disrupted by Indra, his ‘divine father’, with usual distractions by celestial nymphs and danseuses, then confronted by Indra himself where these quoted verses occur, spoken by Arjuna. Subsequently Indra withdraws, whereupon Shiva as Pasupathi, appears in the form of a hunter and challenges Arjuna in a hunt, which leads to a duel between the two. Worsted Arjuna realises this hunter is none other than The One Who Knows. Thereupon Pasupathi accepts Arjuna as his disciple, teaches him the deployment of celestial weapons and so pleased is he with his pupil that he rewards him as the only other who could summon his devastating Pasupathastra.

तावद् आश्रीयते लक्ष्म्या तावद् अस्य स्थिरं यशः ।पुरुषस्तावद् एवासौ यावन् मानान् न हीयते ॥ ११. ६१ ॥ As long as you guard your goals/aims, your reputation remains protected. A person pursuing until the result is never abandoned by honour! Thus speaks Arjuna countering Indra’s assertion that his seeking was futile and he must abandon his brothers and enjoy himself in the heavenly abode of his divine father. Now here is Arjuna disobeying his ‘father’ Indra, which for Eastern mores of filial piety would seem crassly disrespectful and wilful behaviour. For this purpose Arjuna offers a philosophical defence- कथं वादीयतामर्वाङ् मुनिता धर्मरोधिनी ।आश्रमानुक्रमः पूर्वैः स्मर्यते न व्यतिक्रमः ॥ ११. ७६ ॥ How can we not argue even with munis about mores that are against Dharma?Retreating in due order in past or even small concession is violation of established order! Arjuna uses the delectable ‘Dharmarodhini’-against the very idea of dharma, when he says that what is indefensible, even if there be precedent, or exception by scriptural tenet needs to be opposed unequivocally. So the adherent must be aware of the traps of exceptionalism, while adhering to Dharma, therefore the agency for defending Dharma is solely that of the adherent. Squarely it is upon the will of the human to uphold this value system.

Somewhere along the way, Vedic scholars further refined this concept to ‘यद् भावं तद् भवति’, where what one identified with transpired, before a more definitive -‘यद् ध्यायति तद् भवति– what one meditates upon comes about‘ arrived. Lest the reader assume the automaticity of mere thought to bring forth existence, we have a passage from the Katha Upanishad which is quoted by Swami Vivekananda famously as “Arise! Awake! Rest not Until the Goal is Reached!”

उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत,
क्षुरासन्न धारा निशिता दुरत्यद्दुर्गम पथ: तत् कवयो वदन्ति | Katha Upanishad 1.3.14

Yama advises young Nachiketas that he must ‘arise awake and seek the learned. Like the sharp edge of a knife, (alluding to its narrowness/clarity), focussed is this elusive path of knowing aver the Wise‘.

Swami Vivekananda on 12 November 1896 at Lahore in then undivided India said “Therefore, young men of Lahore, raise once more that mighty banner of Advaita, for on no other ground can you have that wonderful love until you see that the same Lord is present everywhere. Unfurl that banner of love! Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached. Arise, arise once more, for nothing can be done without renunciation.” Without digressing into the context where Swami Vivekananda uttered this exhortation, we can understand this much that it was far from a religious sermon, while remaining anchored in ancient philosophy of what is called Dharma. So if Desire as Kama is Arise, the clarity of aim is Awakening and the path to attaining the aim is why stop not till the goal is reached. A sentence that places Kama (Arise) Karma(Awake) Dharma(Rest not until) and Moksha(Goal) as a train journeying onward.

The concept of unqualified will is what is clearly Veda Pramana/ Vedic Aphorism. Lest the seeker be led astray into thinking that only mentation or meditation is sufficient, a call to action is enunciated even though to the Rishis it must have been superfluous. So in our age and times to qualify this ‘will’ as human agency with further precision we can add here यन्मय मानस तन्मय कृतवत्।।That formed in the mind, must be absorbed into action.

In Latin we find René Descartes in 1640 AD write down some thing close to this idea of will as an exposition of methodic doubt. “Dubito ergo cogito, Cogito ergo sum” goes the Latin translated as “I doubt therefore I think, I think therefore I am.” Is doubt not a form of ‘desire’? So for the West, from Divine Will, this idea of agency of a human, as an expression of will, is present here. Without comparing Descartes to Vedic thought, we can say that somewhere along the evolution of humans, the idea that our will was determinant as much as randomness or Divine one, came to us all. Only, in Vedic philosophy that idea of human will is that of an unfettered one. The choice always rested with us alone. In Tamil pre Vedic tradition, the divine itself is an expression of human will. ‘Aram’ is centred on human character, agency and action, embodying this understanding.

Surely more philosophies and traditions abound where the human is accorded agency where enshrined human will brings forth actions and their consequences. What we see here is how Vedic tradition while praising Devas and offering theories of cosmology that apparently portray the human as hapless byproduct of the desire of the Progenitor, offers these kernels about will that restore human agency entirely.

Wading into Vedas: The Wishes of Winters

6 February 2025

For those who have been viewers of The Game of Thrones series on Netflix or readers of that saga, the talk of winter has ominous connotations. In this series-“winter is coming” is a warning about some invasion inevitable that would threaten the existence of the tribes or clans that are claimants to the Throne. Winter historically is euphemistically titled as General Winter, the famous adversary who worsted the all conquering Napoleon Bonaparte of France. It is also a key factor in the Soviet defeat of the Nazi German Operation Barbarossa in World War II. So how would Vedas refer to Winter?

The verses we wade into today, are sung by stringing a series of wishes that all begin with ‘May we see a 100 winters’ . So why did two different sets of rishis or perhaps one Rishi as seen in Yajur Veda and in Atharva Veda sing this invocation to Winters? The earliest prayer as it appears is in the Sukla Yajurveda Samhita Chapter /Adhyaya 36 Mantra 24.

तच्चक्षुर्देवहितंपुरस्ताच्छुक्रमुच्चरत्।पश्येमशरदःशतंजीवेमशरदःशतंश्रुणुयामशरदःशतंप्रब्रवामशरदःशतमदीनाःस्यामशरदःशतंभूयश्चशरदःशतात्॥

Pashyema- May we see Sharadashatam- 100 Winters; Shrunyama- May we hear well, Sharadashatam- 100 winters; Prabhavama – Strong of body, Sharadashatam- 100 winters; Dinah Syama- Days in Reflection/meditation, Sharadashatam- 100 winters; Bhuyascha- Abundance, Sharadashatam- 100 winters.

The later version, if one accepted that the Atharva is a later collection of hymns as a Veda to the Yajur, has a different set of wishes but associated with the invoking of 100 Winters too.

जीवेम शरद: शतम् । बुध्‍येम शरद: शतम् ।

रोहेय शरद: शतम् । पूषेम शरद: शतम् ।

भवेम शरद: शतम् । भूषेम शरद: शतम् ।

भूयसी: शरद: शतात् । अथर्ववेद 19.67.2.8

Jive ma- May we Live to see a 100 winters; Budhyema- May we be intellectually engaged for a 100 winters; Rohema- May we be healthy (free from disease) for 100 winters; Pooshema- may we see gainful or joyous 100 winters; Bhavema- Lord over 100 winters; Booshema- Beautiful 100 winters; Bhuyasi- Abundant 100 winters.

So the rishis of this epoch where these verses find themselves spoken and become part of the Vedic anthology of hymns, found that Winters were not ‘harsh’ periods of shivering and strife from cold weather, but as a season to look forward to. There is no mention or hint of snow, of huddling around a fire, even though kindling fires were routine in Vedic times and most importantly the yagna as an act of propitiation was offerings made to the sacred pyre only. So if we consider that we are in a relatively stable climatic state for last 12000 years and if we go by the assertion of time lines for modern humans to have acquired a oral tradition as a linguistic expression, then this period of Vedic composition is within this 12000 years of Holocene Epoch. So where in India as this subcontinent is known would have had weather that was looked forward to? A season of intellectual productivity, of spiritual seeking?

Of the calendars of various regions and cultures that make modern India, only Tamils have designated a winter month in their lunar calendar as Margazhi. Margazhi is a month long festival of sorts, which involves waking up early in the wintry chill, taking a ritual bath, adorning oneself with flowers, ornaments and raiments, then going house by house along the streets leading to the local presiding deity singing pasurams as Thirupavai and Thiruvempavai, as part of what is called Pavai Nonbu ( Festivity of Pavai). There is passion in these songs, yearning to see Lord Krishna and goad the maiden who is asleep to stir and get ready to greet him the beloved of her heart, in a version of Bhakti Rasa where the devout imagines themselves as seeking the love of their divine, placing themselves as consort to their Lord God. For the Vaishnavite tradition, the legend of Krishna is relatable with Gopis and cows beseeching Krishna to attend upon them through his Rasa Leela and flute. The Saivaites imagine themselves likewise, seeking to pursue Shiva as their Lord. The Saivaite being an older tradition, is more circumspect in its adoration and veneration, offering more philosophical idioms than mythological ones. Invoking Nataraja at Chidambaram and connecting the sthala Puranas ( Legends behind Temples) of Shiva’s Realm is a feature of this tradition. The reference to how the beauty wishes to pursue her longed for winter sleep, snug and warm in her bedstead, is common to both traditions, which shows the universal effect of the climes that visited the peninsula in the period these hymns were composed, these can be dated with great accuracy to between the 6th Century AD and the 8 Century AD. So were the Rishis who composed the Wishes of 100 Winters, geographically and culturally relating to Margazhi or is it just coincidental? May be there was a more spiritual winter in the Gangetic Plains too once upon a time that is now lost to us, with North now celebrating festivities to herald the end of the long winter?

What ever else, the Vedas seem to have viewed winter as a season of exaltation, one that humans looked forward to for marking their life journey. The legend of the festivities surrounding Christmas in our modern era stems from pre Christian traditions and festivities, which made the Roman Catholic Emperor ordain Christmas to be 25th December every year, revealing how continents apart as Europe and Asia are, humans did celebrate winters.

The Vedic adulation of Winters is at odds with modern literature and culture that celebrates ‘Spring’ as renewal, and popular culture soon came to associate winter with old age and even death. In East Asian popular culture the marriage of a couple with considerable age gap is considered one between spring and winter, where winter denotes the older of the couple. The idiom ‘weary winter’ itself shows human emotional imbalance as we seek to shrug off the weariness of winter and wish to embrace spring instead. While the Wishes of 100 Winters may thus seem at odds with human aspirations as far as the season goes, the wishes of humans find a resonance across the ages. You can see how intellectual engagement or meditative state or contentment is as important to Vedic people as physical well-being and how modern humans find themselves yearning for similar mental and physical well-being. These wishes show how universal the Vedic orations were, as a cry of humans at the dawn of civilisation, finding expression in modern human wants as well.

Since we are talking of Vedic tradition, it must be noted that a form of these verses as wishes of 100 winters is chanted routinely during ‘Sandi Vandana’, daily ritual prayers offered by those initiated into Vedic learning, with these mantras coming in the Mid Noon prayer or Madhyanikam as mantras recited for Surya Prarthana/Worship of Sun.

Bodhittattva: The Brothers Bilva

8 March 2023

The muse wondered why the Women’s Day would lend itself to a title tattle about brothers, but the mind teased that phonetic echo of brothers rhymed more with the trees of this species more than sisters. Some how, plucking leaves of this unique triple floret foliage off from this brotherhood of trees of this species was easier to common sense and perception than if they were sisters, offered logic. Be as the case may be, the brothers who had arrived as saplings all the way from Kaladi ( yes the very patch of earth where Adi Sankara was born and brought up in God’s Own Country millennia ago!) to mingle their soil and root here in this small plot in parcel of land that was now a metropolitan city where I was born. They were planted in the very year I entered grihasthashram ( the stage of a householder as per the cannons called Kalpa Sutras), and now more than a score years later, they stood uniquely in their stead distinguishing the walled off building that rose from this plot of earth. This perch was brought about by the princely pension of the family elder, whose genes are mine and yet for the simple matter of prarabdha vasana, whose sharp tongue and erudition remains on paper with none of that legendary spartan or frugal life view, including the absolute command over indulgence of the palate. As a teenager I was aghast to see his discipline lord over his yearning for a particular menu, it could be a favourite sweet or savoury , it could be a vegetable side dish, it could be any craving, it simply ended with mere ‘tasting’ contrast to how I do the ‘feasting’ till I can drop dead…

The elder sapling actually grew first confused I thought, as he tried to adopt a course parallel to the ground at first, before gradually winding skyward and sharing the space with the younger twin who simply shot up vertically. The elder then turned my favourite for it was easy for me with my humble stature to reach out for and chose an appropriately fresh and well coloured ‘tritalam’ ( tri-leaved) end or twig from the foliage which their famous Kaladi ancestor Sankara had sung about in his Bilva Astakam: Tri Talam Trigunakaram Trinetrancha Treyayugam Trijanma Papa SamHaram, Eka Bilvam Sivarpanam…( The Tri Leaved has three gunas, viz. Satva, Rajas, Tamas; three eyed, like the Lord Siva himself, peering into the three dimensions of yester, now, and the morrow; the three yugas viz Kali, Dwapara, Treta; {I know that there is a fourth Satya or Krita, which is the ‘ideal age’ Utopian in nature, so Sankara perhaps ruled out the need for prayers in such an existence in his prescription? A version of this text transcribed this as Treyayudham- triweapon, which one can presume referred to trishoola of Shiva which is the only weapon the First Yogi is depicted as carrying. I discount this since the Devanagari script for ‘dh’ and ‘gh’ can be transposed/substitute one another easily by error and Sankara is describing the fruits of worship in this opening stanza and not the person of Shiva, so metaphorically Yuga is closer to his vein than Yudham.} Sins of three births were annihilated( the reference is to nature of the Brahman itself as being born as human is first birth, becoming an aware & inquisitive one is second birth, attaining Self awareness & Realisation or Mukti is the third birth) ; and all of this by the pious act of offering one such bilva frond to Siva!) If one grew up in my part of the world, on the peninsula that nurtured the cult of Siva in ways and means that are both occult and spiritual while remaining mainstream to organised religion itself, then in my time, one heard this in the rich timbre of Shri SPB as the legendary voice was called popularly, whose range transcended genres of music.

Change, they offer, is the sole constant. So when the Covid Pandemic receded, the temples and other activities opened up from lockdowns for regular business, the mask of reticence, Gandhian frugality, or secularism or whatever that you can ascribe the way Hinduism was once a private affair, now came off. In a congregational mode, the worship of even the Linga of Siva became more a communal affair, so instead of one frond of tri leaves, 108, 1008, and so on became the norm. Naturally now the tri leaves were in much demand, with the commerce in them suddenly shooting through the roof. Humans respond to grief and deprivation through greed and gathering instinct. There is never ‘enough’, especially when commerce allows the multiplication of supplications by purchase of special tickets for ‘darshan’ or special ‘poojas’ at shrines. The act of piety is now so simplified that there is no need to grow your own garden of special offerings, pluck the flowers right ripe and opened, or leaves as they are sacred offerings to go with the worship. All one needs is the purse to purchase the ‘prayer’ and stand as witness to the priest obtaining these accompaniments and stamping your name ( birth star is also included) while officiously declaring to your favourite deity of your fidelity.

The footfalls in temples and adherences to communal religious practices in congregational mode is a recent advent in the practice of Dharma now known as ‘Hinduism’. The ancient faith lines that offered a rich vein of human insight through pre Vedic Saiva and Vedic Upanishadic teachings, implored more of spiritual energies of an other worldliness in seeking than a more worldly and ritualistic outwardly piety that was communal in its outlet. Yet Hinduism was to under throes of change from time to time, forming and reforming, without deviating from its tenets, with the last major transformation that occurred under the tutelage of this very Kaladi son, Adi Sankara himself, in direct response to the then large allure and sway of Buddhism over what the Veda refers to as Bharata Varsha and Bharata Kanda, and which Sri Aurobindo of Pondicherry ( now Puducherry) termed as Akhanda Bharat. ( Northern Indic subcontinent described by ancient Greeks as India and peninsular India) So as India stunted and stilted by British Colonialism and at its departure trisected first into Burma, Ceylon and British India, before further dissected into India and Pakistan ( which further became Pakistan and Bangladesh), those who still called this ancient amorphous conglomeration of human insight their own, became more and more outwardly and overtly religious largely because of the way now she conducted her politics and largely in response to what was the theme of religious identity that destroyed an ancient landmass, one the Greeks and European colonisers called India and which today liberal American establishment tries to anoint as South Asia. I think the irony can never be lost on this denial of ‘India’, when just a mere century ago, voyagers called any peoples they chanced upon as ‘Indians’ ( as they searched for a sea route from Europe to India, they discovered the New World as the Americas were known to Europeans while seeking India) and they termed the Caribbean as West Indies, the Indonesian chain as East Indies, such was their desperation to claim their portion of this land of allure -India, and then flipping entirely upon that logic today, the politician smoothly erases this India or this Indic history and affixes the ‘South Asian’ term for this part of the Known World.

So the elder Bilva was now robbed off all his fronds. He stood naked and forlorn, shorn of all foliage, more helpless than Jatayu whose wings had been clipped by Ravana while attempting to save Sita from his clutches. ( Another clear reason the muse chose the right gender, for one shudders to think of this nakedness becoming unbearably unacceptable otherwise) His future appears bleak. There are traces in the soil that offer that fate of termite intervention could be an alternative or accessory theory as well, though embracing his trunk, one could feel the solidity and the health still, which seemed all the more miserable as the sky view was bald blue from underneath. His twin appeared to be in slightly better health, with green fronds toward the central clustering around the trunk with bare branches otherwise, as if a dangerous barber had decided to create a kind of ‘legionnaire cut’ imposing himself upon a hapless teenager who was seeking a new trendy hairstyle, offering it as an act of generosity…”Don’t fret thambi, you needn’t visit the saloon now for three months!”

Perhaps this level of disheveled crown was the only shock therapy that would thwart the urges of these pillagers! That now nothing was within reach unless one were a bird, for not even a monkey would be able to hoist up that vertical. To see this balding unfold over months was traumatic, leading to sentinel posturing, loudly proclaiming a ‘dog on premises on the loose’ and barring the otherwise open porch with a locked foreboding gate.

Will the Brothers Bilva revive? Will the sequestering help them heal? Time knows answers that humans can only speculate and pray for. Yet, was it not misguided human actions that lent to this trespass of the trees? One recalls a famous wisdom quote of a Red Indian Chief of how humans will one day realise that after the last tree had been felled, the last river polluted and dry, that they cannot eat their money… Yet most abhorrent was how in the name of Siva this was to visit the Bilva Brothers! The one easily pleased, the one who needs berries, wild fruits, leaves and wild flowers that ask little for their grooming and keep, ones that are found naturally in abundance and need to be offered as ‘one’…Decades ago, Swami Dayananda as a youth, was repulsed by this gay abandon of wanton indulgence at a Shivratri in his village temple where he found on that long night of vigil that rodents made merry with the copious offerings, that spurred him on a journey to reclaim the Vedic Wisdoms and offer a non ritualistic way of Dharma as Dayananda Saraswati. So would the Bilva Brothers here now release the arboreal version of pheromones that would mute these egregious tendencies, reverting to spiritual and not mere ritualistic piety by the faithful?

In the wee hours, I watch the breeze waltz and veer mocking the Bilva Brothers, the very breeze from over the Indian Ocean that would caress and carry flavourful moisture to each leaf of these mighty trees! There is no rustle, no eddy beneath, the stars appear to hoist themselves where once leaves laden upon the branches and twigs on trunk denied their view from beneath. Is this a strange comeuppance, or more familiar narrative of human excess? Is this foretelling of an ominous advent or is this signal of new tidings after the Pandemic lifted and left, unmasking humanity’s weakness like never before? My mind crosses swords with veins of thoughts more than my fingers crossed in hoping for new shoots for my Bilva Brothers…hapless, I must wait out their fate. In hope, I must keep them in my prayers. O’ Human Nature…if only you knew Him well, the one who is male, female and neither, ( whom I know as the first true gender bender) who is father, mother and offspring, whose half is feminine and other masculine, who encompasses existence itself as an ellipsoid…you would not seek him even as a Linga when he shines midbrow within you. Meditate on the self, that which houses and the holds within its thrall that which is all of existence, the sentient and insentient, of which he is the overlord…Spare your self the trouble of excess. For He offered priority to the one who build a ‘mind temple’ over a royal marvel of stone and masonry … Remember? ( The Legend of Pusalar, the 58th Nayanar whose mind temple was preferred by Shiva over the Pallava King’s grand temple.)

Bodhitatva: Ennui of Everydayness

10 January 2023

There is nothing that can beat the human and sap the soul than what is dubbed as ‘dreary routine’. That was perhaps the cruel reason for the Nazi pogrom that called the victims of its extermination camps to ‘work’, premised upon the dictum that ‘work makes one free’. ( Arbeit Macht Frie) At the level of the mendacious and malicious, this drum beat of routine, orchestrating tyranny upon fellow humans perhaps has no parallel in our collective history. Yet, in a very singular way, humans are psychologically drawn toward this in a self infliction by way of conformity, in our ordinariness, to express our being through such entrapment of routine, in our everyday.

If one can recall this as the earliest edict of ‘civilisation’, then it is understandable in its circumstances. That call to rise, to arm, to group, to forage together or hunt together, to partake of the meal and to obtain rest where and when possible, constantly on the vigil against elements and surroundings was perhaps the key to how our species came to the fore in this survival of the ‘fittest’ as Darwin proposed. There is quite another way of looking at human evolution and it is predicated on some or other form of dogma, of belief, and perhaps some science too. If one can stretch entropy and randomness, we can say, that the wiping out of Dinosaurs by way of a cataclysmic cosmic intervention, ( a meteor strike is the presently accepted science to explain the end of dinosaurs) offered simians the opportunity to climb up the ladder of creature hierarchies and amongst them, casting off perhaps other ‘cousin’ species, from the same genus of Homo, the sapiens have carved for themselves a status that makes them the undisputed arbiter of all creation that is today found on Earth, our lone blue dot in the vast heavens that we call our ‘near skies’.

So from once adhering to nature and environs, adapting to their circumstances, today the species has arrived practising what it preaches and driven by an invention of its own- value. The monetisation of value has made the human a slave of habits, dubbed as ‘winning’ habits, when there is again, proof that randomness was more at play than any sturdy and steadfast exertions for what we regard as ‘success’. For every kid that plays foot ball with rags on streets, just a handful of the thousands get to proper foot ball fields and play at club levels locally, let alone globally, and the minuscule out of those are the miracles that we cherish as ‘Pele’ as Maradona, as Messi… What is par for sport, is par for practically every field, from the arcane one of ancient grammar rules to active scientific pursuit, the ‘breakthroughs’ and the inventions or discoveries are often ascribed by humans as ‘intervention’, ‘inspiration’ and most often attributed to serendipity.

Why is serendipity not on tap? Why is inspiration or intervention of spiritual or epiphanic nature not abundant with us? Why despite what we can arguably accept as ‘greatness’ not more prevalent when ‘genius’ as fertile imagination and aspiration is not in short supply in terms of either IQ, EQ, or SQ or what have you! For the largest part, the stymieing of human ingenuity is self indulgent conditioning, this system of routine, this adherence to ‘established norms’ this abiding by laid down principles! It is from these weaves of human mental engineering that ennui is generated. It is in making our moments predictable, in the garb of affordable stability, that humans unwittingly embrace ennui in our everydayness.

One of the most solemn of moments that force us into reflection is death. I can aver that there is an established tradition within Indic philosophical core, that holds experience of ‘death’ whilst alive as the key to approaching the fundamental questions of ‘existence’ itself. In the last century, the Sage of Arunachala, Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi experienced and described his singularity, through death, when lying down in the first floor of his uncle’s home in Chokappa Naiackan Street just a few score feet away from the holy sanctum of Meenakshi and Sunderar at Madurai. The description is vivid, it is in his social milieu, where he finds his ‘corpse’ is carried in a procession to the funeral ground, prayers are offered and it is now cast into flames, but that flame that he identified as his ‘self’ continued undiminished and unaffected, effulgent of its own accord, without any affliction of the embodiment that had borne it thus far… Such an experience is seldom, so seldom that I would defer to it as ‘miraculous’ and attribute it to ‘grace’. Yet, the ordinary human, in the everydayness, encounters death. The human senses the loss of life instinctively. The first emotion that arises is mixed, it is part fear, part dread. Fear of the unknown that is beyond this bodily extinguishment and dread of being now left behind by the dear departed.

Across cultures, death is a way of ‘learning’. It is a seeking that when not calling for the construct of a pyramid or a Taj Mahal, does make all humans deal with it through constructions that are defined by their own limitations and understanding, particularly with respect to the character and value of the departed that is invoked in the survivor. As spouse or child, as most humans hope they will deal with death, ( dealing with death as a parent is what our folklore says is a curse one will not inflict even upon their worst enemy…) death brings our everydayness to a screeching halt. Abruptly what was a daily presence has become absent…Jolted out from the ennui of routine, the human bereaved have to pick up threads, to keep moving living out their days that are inevitable and inexorable in their arrival and departure. Yet, in the acute aftermath of death, the grief that is palpable is also our subconscious delivering a message, decrying amidst the tears that beseech us with memories, to pause and reflect, to go beyond reason to that space where humans often find inspiration…

The human finds the departed kin a presence, an effulgence glowing in memory, triggering unceasing waves of nostalgia composed of moments that are now tinted with sheer magic. Those frames of photographs now come alive with events that permeated those moments, the exuberance of that togetherness, the light heartedness spurred by that laughter whose cause is now forgotten. Suddenly we can smell the departed, our mind awakens to that fragrance that is unique and indescribable. ( I discovered a fragrance of my beloved grandmother in this fashion nearly two decades ago, after she passed on, a unique blend of her favourite talcum powder, her herbal soap and coconut oil says my rational mind, while my instinctive one offers me that this was just her ‘smelly love’ for her favourite grandchild… I wait for the day when science has a pheromone to offer as an excuse.) We can see their halos, especially around the places they inhabited. Their room, their every day items, their wardrobe, their footwear, all seem like balloons filled with their air, which release their presence back to us…

We can look at what Steve Jobs spoke about ‘connecting the dots backward’ as a way of human rationalisation. For the dots simply cannot get connected forward, can they? Only after an event has confronted us, worsted us after a fashion, can we survivors look back to make sense of it. Why we humans need to make sense of events? Without making sense, the passage of such time as those events were, would remain undigested by our consciousness. What we call ordinarily as ‘getting a grip’ or ‘coming to terms’ with an event, and most often, humans handle death this way alone, is to go back and connect dots, to assume that which has transpired as belonging to some mathematical model or curve, whose internal logic is superior to our longing, that it was the ‘best case scenario’.

If existence scientifically can trace back an event to the flapping of a butterfly wing, what humans in their warp of ennui fail to register is how in cosmic terms, there is no such thing as insignificant. That which they handle as mundane is actually stitched up series of moments. That which appears as ordinariness is actually at an atomic level a set of extraordinary things! Imagine if we could wire our psyche to view our existence differently, to escape this entrapment of ennui and embrace the magic of randomness?

Again, death comes to our rescue. When either we or a near one is ‘fortunate’ to arrive at impending death, the routine we trapped ourselves in is the first to get tossed aside. In the final days and hours, we surround ourselves with endearing presence, spoiling ourselves with our favourite tricks and treats, retreating into a zone of our choice, making ‘peace’ with ourselves. The fortunate are those who pass on in such predictive deaths as dying from disease for which doctors offer hospices and not hospitals, prescribing acceptance and not hope. The next of kin or care giver of the departed face a challenge that survives the physical departure of their dear one through such a count down. For they have to overcome that void which they anticipated would come about and which they hope would be lessened by all the memories of happenings that preceded the departure. At one level, this charade of making the dying feel special, feel celebrated, is in a sense an apology for neglecting them when they were robust in health, where the ennui of everydayness forced their disappearance upon us, made us take them for ‘granted’.

If the human can live each moment as fully as it was their last, they would find enough magic to stuff it with. That is what Zen or Dhyana or meditative techniques are ultimately striving for- mindfulness. How antediluvian you could argue, that I use Pharoahs’ obsession with death and dying to make a case for simple mindfulness. That to defeat the ennui of everydayness, I offer the magic of the moment.

For days now, the passing of a person has inveigled me with this reboot. For a muse, I would dub the week gone when Monday dawned, the month when it’s first day was born, the year when it heralding its New Year…I stopped looking at calendars altogether. This pandemic and era of conflicts triggered by uncertainty of climate and strategic climate broke this spell and I had stopped looking at moments as fragments of Time derived from Cosmic Magic. She physically had a most transient presence in my life, as a mentor, as a well wisher, a person who intuitively once served a favourite dish…I learnt after her passing, that she did more than notice my existence. It did not trigger any remorse in me that I could have made more time or presence, for such are the doings of destiny. What broke through me was a pure flood of emotion, of a sacredness of her presence that I realise now, I shall carry with me, until the end of my days.

That is why again, across cultures, we speak of dying as twice in occurrence. First is when we physically die as embodiment. We continue to live on as memories, as associated with artefacts, cuisines, occasions, seasons, songs or art or whatever else, as long as those who knew us are themselves around. It is only when the last of those who knew of us are gone are we truly gone, now invoked only as record if at all. It doesn’t mean we did not exist after that…the Time Space continuum that is exercising physicists and cosmologists will one day find a way to let the future know of our presence, eons after we are gone from human memory….That is existence. That is why we must not surrender to the ennui of everydayness…

#Bodhitattva: Nature of Nurture

27 September 2022

Thayumanaswami Temple in Rockfort Tiruchirapalli stands as human acknowledgement to parenting, built by Mahendra Varma Pallava the First in 6th Century AD as Deity of the Father who also became Mother.

The most evolutionary understanding about species is how generations pass on their code to the next, in ways that seemingly appear to be a relay of batons passed on, in an apparently unbroken chain, one that withstood the vicissitudes and vagaries of climes and centuries. Age of humans dawned long after the first act of parenting was performed upon the animal world. To the nature of this nurture, this must be said, that plants as a Kingdom bequeath their all at the time of seeding, when they enable them to be cast away and spread to newer grounds, to find root and shoot, to sprout to bring forth the next generation. Therefore suffice to say that it is to the animal world this nurture culture belongs, and most acutely to the highest class of mammalia this appears apparently to be the most evolved.

Yet, from the philosophical way of how earliest believers and diviners examined this act where the human brings forth life and parents their flock, the typical ‘go forth and multiply’ is a misnomer. In Africa they talk of how it takes a village to raise a child, so there must be an early understanding of humans as they foraged and hunted, of how onerous or divided this task of parenting would remain. One of the larger demerits of our post industrial world is how the community of humans has divided itself to become unitary family. In most urban settings where today majority of humans live and breed, the family is simply parents and children, more often, it is just parents and their child.

So how did the ancients from India look at parenting? A modern day Khalil Gibran offers a clear insight to that ancient thinking, so does the treatment of legends such as Astavakra, Dvaipayana Vyasa and Skanda or Muruga as it is told in Puranic literature. In the case of Astavakra, his stay in the womb was interrupted when a person approached his mother and tried intercourse with her. Apparently Astavakra kicked from within the womb and it hurt this person’s ardour and he withdrew, cursing Astavakra to be borne with 8 deformities. ( Asta-8 Vakra-deformity). Vyasa was borne when desire grew in Parashara who was being ferried by a fisher girl Satyavati, and she agreed to cohabit as long as she did not need to nurse her child. Muruga whose birth is from six sparks and who was actually a brood of six boys raised by Karthikas, and who was to actually instruct his own father Shiva on the inner meaning of ‘Om’ which is the primordial syllable in Dharma. So, the anthology of Siddhas (18 Cittars), the legend of Shiva, the story of Prahalada and Dhruva from the Bhagavad Purana and many more offer this clear understanding of Dharma that Nature is always, Nurture is overrated and dispensable. As if to further demote parenting, we have any number of Rishis of both gender who simply adopted matrilineal inheritance, my favourite being Jabala’s son who wrote an Upanishad after his mother. The notion of family, of patriarchy and of fatherhood is quite recent to the evolving narrative of Dharma, despite the Adiyogi being a clear masculine form as Shiva.

In Markandeya Purana there is the narration of Queen Madalasa who sings a lullaby to her new born whom she names Alarka…to whom she sings the sum subtext of Advaita. She asks her child to eschew attachment to relativity, instructing him about how superfluous his name itself was, and to seek his true identity…Consider this that Markandeya Purana is perhaps the oldest of the Puranas and approximately 2000 years before our present time, and if Madalasa’s lullaby can be extrapolated to her understanding of parenting, then see how it aligns with Gibran’s own conclusions that are part of ‘The Prophet’ where Gibran clearly says that parents and children are on different pages of the human story… “You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

For Madalasa it was enough to tell her Alarka that his name mattered not, that those who claim him as his father or mother, as their brother or husband, as their father or grandfather, mattered not. That his embodiment was but a transit of that inner self, one for whom that the outer conveyance mattered not. That which was apparent was not and that which are qualities that appear to possess him, was simply his conditioning imagination. The edifice upon which the society of that time sought to bind Alarka was demolished at his very infancy by his mother Madalasa. The Markandeya Purana mentions that Alarka finally renounced society and retired to enlightenment. Today this passage is marked as Madalasa Upadesha and its best rendition is by Gaiea Sanskrit.

Philosophy is actually clearly at odds with what we understand as parenting or nurture. The most famous line in English Poetry is ‘The Child is the Father of the Man’ from William Wordsworth’s ” My Heart Leaps Up”. It can be interpreted to say that innocence and joy that infancy and childhood possess so naturally are the true enduring states that humans seek forever as they go through the stages and stations of their lives. It tacitly implies that parenting is overrated and natural disposition of the human is what the human seems to seek to attain as life’s goal/ pursuit of happiness. ( Incidentally, a redeeming feature of the American Declaration of Independence is this singular reference and how it has been a source of inspiration for government.)

There is an oft quoted phrase in Sanskrit, on parenting that could offer a midway between our dogmatic norms of parenting and this philosophical mooring that abandons it all together. Often attributed to Chanakya, the Author Kautilya who last edited the Arthashastra and who was a minister and teacher to Chandragupta Maurya around 300 BCE, it is translated as ‘ Cherish{shower affection and attention} until 5 years, Chide {admonish and train} till ten, when they reach sixteen, Camaraderie (treat them as you would your friends)’. (लालयेत् पञ्च वर्षाणि दश वर्षाणि ताडयेत् । प्राप्ते तु षोडशे वर्षे पुत्रं मित्रवदाचरेत् ॥)

Ultimately as parents we would do better to remember how we were as children. Most parents fall into the trap of their own hagiography of being perfect in their childhood so that they set ‘examples’ for their children to follow. The crucial difference is ‘trust’. Of accepting this truth that children are as good as parents or far better and will fare better, because their times are far more different and challenging than those of their parents. Complexities of social environment have grown multifold across every decade in the last seven decades of this Age of Modernity and Materialism. It would be fair to surmise that our children may be better at coping with silos that social networking creates, the comfort of remaining anonymous while purveying the World Wide Web, the chaos of narratives that drown perspective across chat rooms and webpages. So our apprehensions and anxieties are ill founded, since relatively we have proved more capable of handling motorised commute ourselves, or adapted to assembly line manufacturing.

This rationalisation suffices for those who think they own the narrative, they control the future, and they, on their own, are most capable. If only one could look at the mirror and see how we have veiled ourselves by such arrogance. When illusions of our grandeur get frayed and set aside, we can clearly see why Madalasa and Gibran show only truth to our vicious power games, whose victims are we and our children alone. We should see Shiva as a wonderful parent, willing to learn at the feet of his child, Parvati as a wonderful mother, who gave Muruga the honorific of Swaminathan ( Swami- Guru/Lord, Nathan- Husband/Companion). Can we?

#Bodhitattva: Naraka’s Choice!

19 August 2022

Uncle Pai’s version of the Slaying of Naraka in the wonderful Amar Chitra Katha series.( Notably Satyabama is absent in this cover!)

The original Janmashtami was that of Krishna’s. Perhaps the first of its kind of festivity that centred around the ‘birth anniversary’ of a persona. We know from various sources, that Krishna was born to Devaki, brought up by Yashoda and Nanda as adoptive parents, and later returned from cattle rearing clan of Nanda to Mathura where he remained the power behind the throne of Ugrasena along with his brother Balarama. Krishna shifted the Yadus to Dwarka, he also built an army of invincible Vrishnis who were 7 Akshauhini in strength. In Mahabharata the reference to his offer of the Vrishnis to Duryodhana and his own services as a non combatant to Arjuna are there in the run up to the Great War of the Epic. In the hagiography that rose from the portrayal of Krishna, none perhaps is more summarily done as Sanjaya’s verse does in the Bharata- Yatra Yogeshwara Krishno yatra Partho Dhanurdharaha tatra Sri vijayor bhuthir druvanithir mathirmama…यत्र योगेश्वर: कृष्णो यत्र पार्थो धनुर्धर: | तत्र श्रीर्विजयो भूतिध्रुवा नीतिर्मतिर्मम || BG Ch 18 Sh 78|| ( whichever side Krishna is along with Arjuna, like how certain the Dhruva star is fixed in Northern Skies is certain the victory of that side)

The biggest opportunity of their lives was offered to not just Duryodhana, but to Naraka too much earlier. Naraka was the child of the Earth, one for whom, the Goddess sought boons from the Gods and for whom the Rishis offered sacrifice and sought benedictions. He was a great scholar, warrior and wonderful administrator. He led an all conquering army, campaigning all the way to the legendary realms of the Devas themselves- Amaravati. He wrested not just the Parasol of Varuna, but the Airavat elephants stabled by Indra. He also snatched the famous ear studs of Aditi who was mother to the Devas too! Perhaps he wished to acquire all that had emanated from the churning of the great ocean that was now in the possession of the Devas. His capital Pragjyothishpura was unrivalled, his dynasty of Bhauma was the progenitor of Kamarupa- Pragjyothishpura dynasties that are documented in Brahma Purana, Vishnu Purana and Kalika Purana. The seat of the Shakti at Kamakhya in today’s Assam can trace its genealogy to his person. So apart from the myth, there was also a person, a warrior poet, a Shakti worshipper, builder and more…

This person was challenged by Krishna to give up his ill gotten gains, including the forcible confinement of many princesses ( they were in their thousands…16000 as per one count ) Why this battle is worth recounting here is because enumerators described it as Krishna accompanied by Satyabhama on his aerial mount Garuda, armed with his discus and mace, on one side, while on the other led by Mara, 11 Akshauhinis of Naraka stood. Remember that in Mahabharata at Kurukshetra too the Kuru Army under Bhisma Pitamaha totalled an equal 11 Akshauhinis. So our Murari, ( Krishna’s most favourite title as vanquisher of Mura, used in bhajans and shlokas) slew them all. He slew finally Naraka himself. As he lay dying Naraka admits that he was blinded by his prowess, and held in the thrall of his ambition and power, he was in darkness. So as a boon he sought that his denizens be allowed to celebrate his death with a festivity of lights. That is why Naraka Chaturdasi is the Deepavali of Southern India even today. There is an alternate lore, that says that Krishna knew of a boon to Bhumadevi, Naraka’s mother, so he swooned in the heat of battle with Naraka. Seeing her Krishna fallen, Satyabhama rushed Naraka with the discus and slew him.

At any level, the telling is of excess. Innately what is good or what is evil? The nature of evil is the same as the nature of good. In simplistic reduction, to perform an act of goodness or an act of evil is one and the same. Both actions offer a sense of satisfaction to the doer, that is founded on a justification that is most unique to the doer. It extends to pleasure, to excitement and to a sense of fulfilment to the doer. However the choice of doing good or evil rests on the conscience of the doer. How the doer views the action as conscionable makes the doer chose to do good or do evil. Power is offered to both good and evil. To the good, power is tempering. To the evil, power is tempting. Power by itself offers the human the vileness to justify every evil they are capable of conjuring. There is no act of good or evil that is beyond the ken of human understanding. It is just that in our timidity, we confuse understanding the nature of evil with its acceptance and hence chose to ignore it.

That is how Naraka was led astray, Duryodhana was led astray. There is no portrayal in Puranas of demons, that is not complete without their positive attributes, without their human foibles and their very palpably relatable human pangs. There is sufficient evidence internal to those descriptions that offer us clearly that be they Daityas, Danavas, Asuras, Rakshasas, Paisachas, Bhootas or Bhaumyas, every ilk of what today we recall as ‘demon’ or ‘dark’, was once an illustrious tribe or race, it was with its own civilisation and culture and enriched the larger tradition that now survives as Indic.

If Naraka had in his reign reined himself, had not gone about collecting by force those that did not belong or volunteer to be with him, he would never have come to grief. Ultimately when he fell, he realised that what his wounded and pained body needed was merely the embrace of a few feet of earth. There are many who never quite travel even this distance of realisation when their bodily end is nigh upon them. To even attain this kind of liberation at the moment of death is a manner of Yoga. That was perhaps the blessing of Naraka’s good deeds, his karma before he was to go astray…

Krishna restored the possessions that were forcibly taken by Naraka. He placed Naraka’s son upon the throne of Pragjyothispura. He returned the maidens to their freedom and offered them to go home, when they requested that they remain in his care at Dwarka. Later day description makes the refuge that Krishna offered to these hapless women take a romantic turn, leading to the present numerical of Krishna having more than 16000 consorts! In one way, the legend of Krishna grew from his Puranic and Mahabharata enumeration to folklore, such that an entire Bhakti Movement centred upon the Persona came about. In medieval India we have a Princess Mira who ‘married Krishna’. Her story was reprised in cinematic immortality by MS Subbulakshmi in a pre Independence movie in Tamil and Hindi in 1945 which even today has the most stellar songs sung in her inimitable voice. In Sufi tradition, the concept of the Maker being the beloved besotted by the devout is more established, so in a sense, this aspect of Krishna’s dalliance with Gopis in his childhood or his acceptance of 16000 maidens later is best understood as a forerunner to this aspect of worship. Why this is not alien to Sanatana Dharma is because we already have priors in mythology of how Sati wooed Siva, how Aparna or Parvati wooed Siva, how they performed severe austerities to be accepted as consorts by Siva. In the Deep South, there are several temples and traditions that enumerate this love for Siva and aspiration to attain Siva, including most famously the Meenakshi Temple at Madurai.

So what the episode of Naraka demonstrated is that we can even discount Arjuna the peerless bowman, Krishna alone is sufficient to guarantee victory… I would prefer to refer to Krishna not as just a naughty cowherd or dynamic youth or statesman nonpariel, but as how Sanjaya christens him- Yogeshwar…For in the Gita Krishna has left the clues to questions that disturb the clarity of our conscience, confusing us with good and evil, leaving us in a dilemma of choices. If Naraka had chosen well, his end would have been better. His life more purposive and all the more treasured for his mighty contributions. He would not have experienced regret at the end of his days!

#Bodhitatva: The Tango of Tangibles and Intangibles

5 August 2022

The Golden Ratio explains the beauty of the Nautilus

Always the contemplative human is narratively captured as having ‘returned’ either from a mount, peak, cave or abode with ‘knowing’. The fanaticism with which we carry the tale of wisdom is such that it appears to us, that wisdom is ‘without’, that it must be received, perceived, partaken thereof, not something that is a wellspring within. Yet, this physical nature of Existential Reality is somewhat at odds, if not in utter variance with the Reality of Singularity. Wisdom ultimately can keep ‘knocking down our doors’ yet, will have no headway unless we are willing to open them inward, to accept them.

That is why at one level, the divide of the rational and the irrational have to converge, to ford this sliver of chance, to foist unto ourselves, this revelation of ‘revealed wisdom’, which arguably is euphemism for ‘self realisation’. That when probed to its roots, devoid of all the chaff that sensibilities and cultural moorings grain over, we find that this truth is about our acceptance of it. That only we matter, only that matters which matters to us. That is why singularity is inescapable at the core of every belief system, every religious approach, that is why despite the broad appeal of congregation and church, of what in Indic parlance is ‘Sangat’, the power of religious thought ultimately is not how it moves the masses ( Satsang), it is in how it moves the individual.

As Physics advanced in the last few centuries, as material sciences transformed the way we Homo sapiens live on this planet, Science has been seeking to enlarge its envelope, trying to pry into the secrets of Nature, offering us a tot of tangibles, allowing us to sip from the vast ocean of the unknown and mysterious that is the Cosmos, making us believe that in the culmination of all Scientific Advancement would be a measure for the very thing that has baffled the first Erectus amongst us and continues to engage both philosophers and physicists in equal measure- Existence!

The Fibonacci is dubbed as the Golden Ratio, a proportion that explains much of the Linnaean classification that is seen in floral plants. So we classify by seeing ratio of petals to leaves, to bark rings and roots, by recognising patterns in whorls. What is so tempting as ‘science’ could well be a clear example of scientism, where we retrofit what is to what ever curve or ratio that we can juggle with. The sequence of numbers that Fibonacci came up with apparently was like the very God Code, or the Creator’s Algorithm that generated all that which mattered in Nature. Now Fibonacci came from Pisa the one famous for its leaning tower. He perhaps appeared around the same time as the iconic architectural wonder. ( Approximately 1170s AD) He delved in a sequence of numbers based on a hypothetical rabbit generation, where the first two numbers when added up caused the third in the series, which when stretched toward infinity produced a phi ratio of 1.61803…( the more famous and mathematically useful ratio is Π which is 3.14159…) which is dubbed the Golden Ratio most famously seen as the ratio between the girth of shells in the Nautilus.

So if one were to venture, mathematical models that explain phenomena witnessed in Nature are simply retrofits. Concoctions of human imagination and understanding, which tailor a formulaic approach allowing us a condensate that is palatable from the vast amorphous Cosmic existence that overwhelms us. In effect, science has a series of aphorisms, theorems, that mandate a setting, an assumption of a constant of one or more variables, by which a particular formula or set of formulae can be fielded to show consistency of effect. Take Boyle’s laws for fluid dynamics as a classic example for this. Even Einstein’s famous Relativity is an assumption of the speed of light, that it is Constant, whereas we now know that light itself can appear to slow down around the gravitational fields of black holes as it is limited by the position of the observer… It is for little boys a kind of Monopoly, where there are clear rules, whereas in reality human nature remains unpredictable, human greed knows no bounds. So much has Physics advanced that today the talk of Anti Matter, Gravitational Waves, of both wave and particulate form for Light, and the search for ‘God Particle‘ is all considered within the realm of Pure Sciences, whereas these would be heresy to Science and “Dark Arts” or ‘Black Magic’ mumbo jumbo a few decades back! Stringing up a singular theory that explains all observed phenomena is where today lay Physical Sciences greatest challenge…a grand ‘Theory of Everything‘!

Ancient seers from India pondered over the existential phenomena with an insight that remains very unique. There remains no litany or ditty composed in any other religious order or belief system quite like the Indian ones, which welded over millennia to become what we now recognise as Sanatan Dharma. Whether it was the Siddhas who fielded questions about material manifestations or Yogis who tried to unravel the mysteries of cognitive limits, or Rishis who pondered and poetically spoke of Existence, the culmination point for all their approaches remained the ‘self’. So you could have Adi Sankara sing a hymn in praise of Bhavani a Goddess in Mythology and another in praise of Nirvana. Bhavani gets a 8 stanza ditty while Nirvana gets a six stanza ditty. Both appear to outwardly espouse the cause of their subject, which is Goddess Bhavani in the Astakam and Nirvana for the Shatakam. Yet, the works are nearly similar in how they use a clear construct founded on nihilism. They reject the bondage of family, they reject every aspect legitimised by society or philosophy, the Goddess is extolled as the refuge to become one with(Tvameka Bhavani) while Siva is extolled as the State of Bliss itself- Sivoham( Siva plus Aham). Adi in his stellar Saundarya Lahiri goes further to use the word Bhavanitvam ( Bhavani plus Tvam). Through his works, the unchallenged stature Adi Sankara enjoys as India’s finest and most authoritative metaphysicist, makes for clear understanding that Reality is Singularity, that the ‘Self’ must be attained which is the essence of his ‘Advaita’ ( there is no other) philosophy. So undeniable is this logic that Dvaita or Vishistadvaita are playing only a diversionary foil, trying to make a nuanced argument that whilst alive the ‘Jivatma’ ( embodiment) must distinguish itself from the ‘paramatma’ ( Cosmic Existence) and it is only upon death, by giving up the ‘Jiva’ the merger of the two into one entity under certain met conditions could be arrived at. Yet the end point is the same- Unity. Coalescence. Singularity.

To decipher the abundant random, the observing homo has used matrices they are comfortable with. It is like how the ‘Blind men of Hindoostan’ approached the elephant. They were unable to see the whole, comprehend its full nature, so they imagined parts of it variously, parts that they could grasp. The mysteries that are right before us, baffle us, so that we coined systems to reduce them into pocket size puzzles where the game rules allow us to sense a sense of order and discipline, not the actual chaos and spontaneity that is Nature. This desire for predictability has grown proportionate to the distance physically homos have placed between them and nature by way of civilisation. That is how in our religious orders or in our beliefs, we seek causes and effects, we seek ‘justice’, we see every vision as an interplay of ‘Light’ and ‘Darkness’.

It is not that our ancestors were unable to comprehend complexities. Studies of Neanderthal cultures as now exponentially reveal this fact that they herded and hunted despite the vagaries of climate that came to them through Ice Age and Mini Ice Age, when Europe today was marshy bog, Arctic frost or Tropical or Tundra by turns. They probably also saw periods stretching several seasons when giant volcanic spews shielded the sun from their earth. Contrast this with the challenges and responses of present Homo sapiens in the face of this Corona Virus Pandemic. Science today is evidentiary that much of our resistance to viruses is from Neanderthal heritage in Homo sapiens DNA.

The intangible is the spice of life. Imagine a cuisine without salt or spice, or sweet, or aromatic flavours or umami? The tangible is the bread, the cereal as rice or millet, lending solidity to the meal. Yet, as we learn to indulge our palette can we restrict ourselves to avoid all refinement? Would we not look down on such parochialism? That is why as humans, we owe ourselves, our future generations and to our ancestry, this allowance of intangibles and make them tango with the tangibles, getting ourselves entangled in neither! Reality is full of possibilities. It is poetic and profound. Unlike Relativity that an Einstein could coin into a neat formula, Reality is confounding. It does not mean we shy or be timid to its presence. Just as how the first hominid faced up to it, to produce this present civilisation by incremental and tectonic steps that were not always visible or logical, so must modern human remain alive to the guiding and abiding presence of this reality that remains for each one of us to explore…

#Bodhitattva: Moha, Droha and a shallow vessel (Donne)

16 July 2022

Sri Kanteshwara Temple pillar relief depicting Pashupati Shiva awarding the Pashupatastra to Arjuna at Najangud in Karnataka Image Credit Dineshkannambadi

It was a day that would have been the most celebrated. The enveloping wheel formation deployed by Drona was countered by the arrowhead of Drishtadyumna, with Arjuna at the very tip of the formidable arrow head, his right wheel guarded by his peerless son Shubadraputra Abhimanyu, his left by his friend and matchless Maharathi Satyaki, his rear held by his elder Bhima and his brother in law and supreme commander of the Panchalas and Pandava alliance, Drishtadyumna himself, the one born to slay Drona from a special Yagna conducted by Drupada. That day, the dark hued hero, the supreme bowman of his time, not withstanding Ekalavya, resembled his true guru, from whom he had learnt to deploy all manner of astral weapons, and from whom, most importantly, he had mastered the stillness of heart and head, whilst conducting his arms and torso in the manner of a wheel of Kala (Time ) itself, fetching from quiver an endless array of arrows, stretching the bowstring to mount them and unleash them. His upper torso had so darkened from his efforts that his sinews glistened and his very countenance was like a dark moon upon the clouds, the sweat tinged contours of his face, appeared very much like the sliver of silver that one could occasionally glance on the Dark Moon itself! He was like his guru, now, upon Kurukshetra- the Kala Samhara! His dance of death, laid low the very constellation of Maharathis assembled under the flag of the Kauravas, the Kuru banner, commanded by teacher- warrior Drona! Most Kuru foot soldiers knew those arrows were Arjuna’s, that they bore the stamp of emerging from the Gandiva. Many in the melee chose to rush forward and embrace the darting arrows that dropped like water through sieves from every where, like inebriated guests would rush to embrace courtesans at a brothel!

“ Behold O Krishna, I have laid low with my arrows, those whom you have already devoured and delivered to Time! Unlike in Virata when charioteered by Uttara, I have not deployed any celestial trance to obtain their upper vestments. My arrows have pierced their armour, and they now have release from their earthly gravity, the weight of all expectations is now lifted from them. Like infants satiated from their mother’s breasts, they lay upon the bosom of this holy earth of Kurukshetra!”

The war had ended on the 13th Day itself. The Kauravas had been vanquished. Much bloodshed had been avoided by this direct confrontation of Maharathis that was necessitated because that was the sure way to thwart the design of Dronacharya to lure Yudhisthira and entrap him into surrender.

Yet, this vision of Krishna so offered delectably with logic to Arjuna did not persuade him one bit. He stood resolute that he would respond to the challenge of fearless and fierce Susarman and the elite of the Trigartas- Samsaptakas! So the day ended differently.

Abhimanyu was said to have pronounced in his cloud boom youthful voice even as his life ebbed away from him to Dronacharya- “I die as a proud son of an indomitable and invincible father, who upheld the warrior code as supreme! What an irony, that I die at the hands of his teacher, you Dronacharya, who preached this code to him! You allowed many maharathis on your side of the Kurus to wage combat with the lone me! Fie upon you! May you never find merit in this life or in death or in the hereafter! Your Moha has led you to do Droha to your creed!”

Harsh words no doubt, disrespectful even. But many a times, Dronacharya found himself in the cross hairs of such accusation. Born, probably abandoned, near a cluster of bowls made from leaves, ( Tamil தொன்னை- Donne- A cup made of plantain or other leaf pinned up at the corners; , the root word is in most South Indian Languages, like Donne Biryani in Kannada means rice preparation served in leaf bowl), he was brought up as a Brahmin, educated as an acharya and became teacher of the Kuru grandchildren after being introduced as his brother in law by the Kuru patriarchal priest -Kripa to Bhishma their grandsire! ( Why I rely on Tamil root is because the Sanskrit one is not specific and Drona-द्रोण, “bucket” as offered translation for a measure bowl is not as authentic as the Tamil one that classifies what sort of vessel it is and how even today, such a vessel is made and in common use in Tamil country or areas of Tamil influence.) In the Gruhya Sutras of that Kalpa and Yuga, the right for choosing vocations was reserved for only the Shudras, who could do as per their convenience and temperament. The Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas being enthroned in their respective caste perches, were bounden to abide by the professions of their caste. So while Drona as an acharya could teach archery, he could not bear arms for an army. That was why Drona was often the target of ridicule in the Mahabharata as a person who defiled the social mores of conduct of his time.

So Dronacharya besotted by his son Aswaththama first went to Hastinapur after he was was turned down by his childhood friend Drupada who had promised to share his fortunes with him equally, when they were in the same tutelage. When Aswaththama danced around cheering that he had drunk milk after being duped by his companions with rice water, Drona’s Putra Moha, led him to become the chief teacher of the Pandavas and Kauravas. His desire to teach a lesson to Drupada led him to indulge in favouritism where he taught his best skills to his son and to Arjuna alone. To favour Arjuna further, he claimed the thumb of Ekalavya the tribal prince who had practised and perfected archery all by himself! He became a king by defeating Drupada and wresting half his Kingdom, by using the very same Pandavas who captured Drupada after the first attempt by Kauravas failed miserably. Now eager to prove his mettle to Duryodhana after taking over the Kaurava alliance, he crafted his diabolical plan to separate Arjuna by a warrior’s challenge from the main Pandava army and executed his Chakravyuha, where the Pandavas were able to stave off the challenge due to the sacrifice of Abhimanyu!

Yet, as the Mahabharata offers us, the father to a 100 sons- Dhirithrashtra, and father to one -Drona, both besotted fathers willing to flout every rule in the books to favour their offspring, ended up dying with no salvation. The Kuru died in the forest consumed by a fire, in the company of Gandhari, who had succumbed to his blindness by blindfolding herself! The fate of Drona was even worse, as he lay devoid of any desire to live after having heard of the death of his son, cheeringly conveyed by Drishtadyumna and not denied by Yudhishtira. His beheaded father would never be offered obsequies , as Aswaththama would end up cornered by Arjuna and cursed by Krishna to wander for ever the realms with pus sores and scorned by every society for his ghastly murder of Pandava camp’s resting warriors, who were without weapons and who like Drishtadyumna begged to be allowed to wield one before they gave up their ghost! Like father who had contempt for warrior codes in practice though he taught them religiously to his pupils, the son too found scarce use for such solemnity.

Today, few practitioners of Dharma themselves are aware of the true nature of Dronacharya and how he was reviled not just in his times, but for eternity as a paragon of Moha! Moha is simply ‘wrong belief’ or erroneous conclusion. In this land named after Bharata, a King who anointed not his son, but an eligible noble from his court as his successor, the worst of sins was to suffer this ‘Putra Moha’ or pangs of parenting where the father or mother cannot assess the qualities of their child. It is not to say that Kings were great only when they side stepped their children. Arul Mozhi Varman known in history as Raja Raja Cholan, appointed his first born, Rajendran as his heir apparent even when he was the emperor and groomed him as his befitting successor. The bottom line was merit. A merit that had to be dispassionately determined.

So it is irony that today no one quite understands the import and origins of the word ‘Drona’, fewer know that Arjuna’s true ‘Guru’ was the unique Shiva himself, who taught him the use of weapons and war strategy when he was in exile and sought to learn under the Pasupathi. It was Shiva who not only made Arjuna the sole proprietor of Astras from the Celestial Trance Charm to the most destructive of them all- Pashupathastra. Most importantly, Arjuna was taught the skill of shedding false ego and false equivalences, and embrace a universal empathy by Shiva’s Grace.

So governmental India names an award for teachers after ‘Dronacharya’ and this has amused me with its irony ever since the Mahabharata was first told to me at the knee of my family patriarch! A shallow unsure man, who struggled with the inner demons of his aspirations and his desires for his son’s success, who was not above flouting every cannon and rule to get to that end, is officially venerated as an exemplary teacher!

So remember, Moha ( blind/erroneous/prejudiced sense) leads to Droha( Betrayal of one’s true duties). And Drona epitomised that desire and its sad consequence in every telling of the Mahabharata. His aspiration to rise above his means, to offer his very creed and code as a teacher and warrior to further his aspirations, to sacrifice all that was held sacred at the altar of ambition is why Drona is draped in infamy and decried in his times and ever after by those who know better! That is why this example of Drona and Ashwaththama was never taken to inspire, while Arjuna’s and Abhimanyu’s was always!

Post Script:

Guru Poornima is celebrated on Maharishi Dwaipayana Vyasa.
Mahabharata’s Indonesian version the Javanese Wayang tradition celebrates Abhimanyu more elaborately. He is called Jaya Murcita or Angkawijaya, broadly he is son of Shubadra, has two wives, for which each marriage has its own puppet show, one wife is Siti Sundari the daughter of Krishna and the other is Utari ( Uttara). In their legend he is in the womb offered instructions on Knowing. He is noble and it is prophesied that his son will sit on the throne of Astina. (Hastinapura) In India there is a legend that he learnt half the technique of prising open the Chakravyuha in the womb.