Mahadev

by Renuka Narayan

  ‘“The time has come,” said Vishnu, “to churn the Ocean of Milk at the edge of the universe. Many things were made and hidden there for safekeeping until their hour arrived. Nobody remembers or knows what its waves hide. But you devas cannot churn it on your own, the task is too big. Go speak softly to Bali, the king of the asuras, and his generals Ilvala and Pauloma, and make the asuras your partners. You must churn the Ocean of Milk together to dredge up amrita, the elixir of immortality that lies hidden in it. Take Mount Mandara as your churn, for it has the most likely shape and I will ask my great serpent Vasuki to be your churning rope.”’

  ‘“Thank you, Lord. But I’m afraid the asuras are stronger than us, they will thrash us after the prize is won from the waves and leave us with nothing,” said Indra anxiously.’

  ‘“The asuras can’t be allowed to turn into Immortals. The universe couldn’t endure their ways,” said Vishnu. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there, won’t I?”’

  ‘Indra looked sideways at Brahma and back at Vishnu.’

  ‘“Don’t mistake me, Lord,” he said carefully, afraid of offending the almighty Preserver. “We know we will win, how can we not, with you on our side? But just in case something so terrible happens, that even you can’t manage . . .”’

  ‘A serene smile swept across Vishnu’s face.’

  ‘“Then there’s always Shiva,” he said.’

  ‘As advised by Vishnu, Indra made his way cautiously to Patal and, in the custom of kings, was courteously received by King Bali, though with the hint of a swagger. Ignoring this provocation, Indra was all cordiality, and complimented Bali on the shimmering beauty of Patal’s treasure-inlaid walls, its silver streams and scent-laden breeze. He humbly saluted Shukracharya, the learned and powerful asura guru, and conveyed greetings and gifts to him from Brihaspati, his own guru at the deva court. He presented King Bali an elephant-load of golden jars of mead. Then Indra diplomatically persuaded Bali to partner in the churning with artful hints about the treasures to be obtained. That hurdle cleared, he then cunningly set about securing an important advantage for the devas.’

  ‘Knowing the contrary nature of the asuras and their deep jealousy of the devas, he airily declared that the devas would take the serpent’s head side while churning. Ilavala and Pauloma, the asura generals, objected at once and soon the asura assembly was in angry uproar. So Indra pretended to give in unhappily and accept the “inferior” tail side, which delighted the asuras. Indra went away secretly laughing in satisfaction at having successfully negotiated which side of the great serpent his team would hold, just as he had intended all along!’

  ‘On the appointed day, the two teams first uprooted the indignant Mount Mandara and bore it away, kicking and spewing boulders, to the Ocean of Milk where Vasuki waited. They looped the great serpent around Mandara, the asuras to Vasuki’s head and the devas to Vasuki’s tail and began to churn. But they had not wound Vasuki tightly enough and Mandara began to slip through Vasuki’s loops. Vishnu had to hurriedly take the form of a kachhapa or giant turtle to provide a stable base on his back for Mandara in the wildly frothing ocean.’

  The child’s mother leaned forward at this point and held out her phone. She had found a picture of the enormous sculpture of this very scene that adorned the glittering airport of Suvarnabhumi, meaning ‘golden land’, at Bangkok. Everyone silently admired the brilliance of the powerful sculpture and the guru handed back the phone and resumed the story.

  ‘How many wonderful things came out of the Ocean of Milk!’

  ‘Ucchaisravas, the seven splendid steeds that galloped instinctively to Indra.’

  ‘Airavat, the great white elephant, which meekly made its way, too, to Indra, and raised its trunk in salute.’

  ‘Kamadhenu, Surabhi and Nandini, the bountiful wish-fulfilling cows, which ran mooing joyously to the devas and the watching sages as though to their natural protectors. The asuras barely noticed, heaving with all their might on the other side of Mandara.’

  ‘The great bow Sharnga appeared and went to Vishnu, which is why he came to be called “Sharngapani”, holder of the Sharnga. It’s “Sharnga”, by the way, not “Saranga”, which means “dappled”, like a deer.’

  ‘Some say that the beautiful dancers, the apsaras, came up from the ocean, too, but the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is Sri Krishna’s life story, says they were the daughters of a sage.’

  ‘Three rare gems came floating up—the ruby-red Kaustubh, which went of its own accord to Vishnu to live on his chest; the glittering white Chintamani with sparks of fire in it, a wish-fulfiller that Indra hastily tucked into his waistband, securing his wealth for good; and the elegant; and pale yellow Chudamani, which was to have its own poignant adventures.’

  ‘A flowering tree emerged, filling the air with sweetness and refreshing the exhausted devas and asuras. It floated over the devas, shedding its milk white- and-coral blossoms on them before heading to the Gandhamadana gardens in Indralok.’

  ‘A shining, handsome young figure rose up next, holding a golden pot. It was the divine healer, Dhanvantari, carrying the amrita or sudha, the elixir of immortality. A roar of triumph greeted him, but, receiving a silent command from Vishnu, he stood aside on the beach and signalled to the panting devas and asuras to keep churning.’

  ‘The moon rose up then and soared up into the sky where it palely hovered, clearly having decided to wait its turn.’

  ‘And finally, the greatest treasure of all, Lakshmi, floated up from the ocean, causing a stunned silence to fall on all creation, which had never seen a lovelier vision. The skies rained flowers on her and Varuna, lord of the waters, rose up himself to hand her the vyjayantimala, the rarest of rare garlands, made of precious gems and flowers.’

  ‘Lakshmi looked around her cautiously and saw the resplendent black form and beautiful face of Vishnu. In that awed cosmic silence, she went straight to Vishnu, put the garland around his neck and nestled on his broad chest next to the Kaustubh.’

  ‘A deep sigh went up from all around at the perfection of that sight, at the utter beauty of the divine couple. No more was Hari alone, he now had Sri, good fortune incarnate by his side, to bless earth with!’

  ‘They turned now to the business of distributing the amrita and such a quarrel broke out that desperate measures were called for. Vishnu, who had already taken the form of the kachhapa, tortoise and had also stood by directing proceedings in his godlike, four-armed form, now rushed to take yet another form as Mohini, the enchantress; and took up the pot of amrita, cleverly giving the devas almost every drop of it.’

  ‘The asuras went back fuming, to Patal while the devas cheered and cheered their commander and saviour, Vishnu.’

  ‘But Vishnu flung up a hand for silence.’

  ‘“Let us thank the one who saved us all,” he said and meditated on Shiva, who appeared, smiling calmly, with Parvati by his side.’

  ‘“Mahadev, if you had not done what you did . . .” said Vishnu gravely.’

  ‘The devas shuddered, thinking of it . . .’

  ‘When the churning had settled into a rhythm after Vishnu provided a stable base for Mandara, Vasuki had been squeezed so unbearably that he began to belch great gusts of poisonous breath. The asuras, whom Indra had tricked into holding the head side, suffered hideous agonies from the fumes. Vishnu had had to summon up a strong breeze to clear the air and cleanse the sky.’

  ‘But Nature had its own inscrutable laws by which every action had consequences and the churning had required them to take a great risk with nature. There came another, even deadlier danger that no one had anticipated.’

  ‘What had happened was that Vasuki’s poison had stirred up an even greater poison, the Kalakuta or Halahala, out of the depths of the ocean. It rose up in a foul gust, darkening the sky and threatening to destroy every living creature in all three worlds.’

  ‘Nobody knew what to do about it, it was so immense and overpowering, a gigantic cloud of death that shot up into th
e sky from the ocean bed and threatened to invade every pore of the three worlds.’

  ‘While the universe wilted helplessly, Vishnu had prayed to Shiva to come and save the situation. Without an instant’s delay, Shiva had appeared, waded into the ocean, cupped his hands and—drunk up the poison! There was nowhere in the universe to send the Kalakuta, aptly named “the bane of death itself”. Only the Great God could hope to tackle it and save the world. He had done so at once without a thought for himself.’

  ‘So strong was the Kalakuta that it had begun to burn even Shiva from within. But Parvati, who had followed him to the ocean, had stopped the poison with the power of her divine earrings, the tatankam, which bore the force of the sri chakra yantra, a power diagram. She had touched her earrings for an extra boost of energy and put her delicate hand on Shiva’s neck. The poison had halted with its fire spent, and pooled in his pale throat, turning it dark blue. Shiva was often to be hailed after that as “Nilkanth”, the one with the blue throat. But having done this unimaginably selfless deed, he had quietly gone back to his home on Mount Kailash . . .’

  ‘As Shiva stood with Parvati on the shore of the ocean, Vishnu looked up at the moon, which patiently awaited direction after floating up into the sky as a graceful crescent.’

  ‘“How cool and mild this son of the sea looks,” thought Vishnu. “It should go to Shiva for having swallowed that world-destroying poison without a word of protest or complaint, and quietly retreating after that, not wanting a thing for himself. How could anyone be so selfless? Chandra, the Moon, must go to him.”’

  ‘Vishnu nodded at the lovely crescent, which then sailed across to Shiva’s head and attached itself elegantly to his topknot of wild, matted hair. Shiva smiled and patted it in welcome.’

  ‘“Thank you,” he said charmingly to Vishnu.’

  ‘But Vishnu was not done yet. He presented the precious gem Chudamani to Shiva to wear as a shikhamani or crest-jewel. Shiva thanked Vishnu affectionately but since he did not really wear jewellery like others did, he handed it to Parvati, who clipped it gaily in her hair . . .’

  ‘But, Guruji,’ said the grandmother, after the guru paused to let his listeners enjoy the elation and wonder of the moment, ‘I never knew that the Chudamani had a connection with Shiva. I thought it was Sita’s.’

  ‘You’re right, and it became Sita’s in an interesting way. Once, when Parvati flew over the great curve of the earth, a high breeze blew her hair about. The Chudamani that she wore as a sort of hairclip was loosened and fell to earth. Parvati looked down to see where it had fallen. She saw that it had landed in the garden of the Janaka Seeradhvaj in Videha and a little girl had picked it up and was playing with it. That little girl was Sita Vaidehi, and that’s how she got the Chudamani. Parvati laughed when she saw who it was and flew on, thinking, “Let her keep it.” But that’s Parvati for you.’

  ‘Didn’t Shiva mind?’ said the child’s mother, smiling.

  ‘Not in the least,’ laughed the guru. ‘He would wear only rudraksha beads, if at all. He has no interest in finery. And we know it. While we love to dress up the idols of every other god and goddess as kings, queens and royal babies, we don’t dare festoon Shiva with frills. Instead, we tiptoe carefully around him. In fact, we say “abhishekha priyo Shiva, alankara priyo Vishnu”. This means that Shiva loves being offered just water and bel leaves, if we can get them, while Vishnu enjoys decoration, even if it’s just a small sprig of aromatic tulsi leaves. So we, as devotees, can keep our offerings to our gods as simple or grand as we want. It’s our love that they value. That’s why it was not out of character for Parvati to let Sita keep the precious Chudamani.’

  ‘Wasn’t Sita’s father’s name just “Janaka”?’ asked the child’s father.

  ‘Janaka was the name for a very wise and spiritually evolved ruler. Sita’s father Seeradhvaj was one such king, which is why he was called Janaka, it was actually a title,’ said the guru.

  ‘I’ve always wondered how Rama managed to keep his ring and Sita her jewellery in exile. I thought Kaikeyi personally supervised the removal of their royal finery before they left Ayodhya for the forest,’ said the child’s mother.

  ‘That’s a good point,’ said the guru. ‘That was because nobody could touch the jewellery that Sita brought from her father’s home, including the Chudamani that she would one day give Hanuman to give Rama, when Hanuman found her in Lanka. And Kaikeyi could not take away Rama’s ring either, the one he would give Hanuman to give Sita, because it was Janaka’s gift to him; a present from Videha, not Ayodhya.’

  ‘How the details interest us even after millennia,’ marvelled the grandmother.

  ‘These stories are in our very bones,’ laughed the young father, patting his wide-eyed child’s head.

  ‘There’s the strangest afterword, linking the Kalakuta to the Mahabharata as well,’ said the guru. ‘As you know, when Shiva drank up the deadly poison, it began to burn his throat. The vish purush or spirit of Kalakuta sprang out of Shiva weeping in shame at the outrage he had involuntarily committed by burning Shiva’s throat and in despair at the ferocity of his substance. So the Lord, who wanted nothing for himself but gave things away to others, blessed him with a boon, for it was not Kalakuta’s fault that it was so deadly. It had lain quietly at the bottom of the ocean, not getting in anybody’s way. It grew fierce only when fiddled with, and brought out just as so many other things are poisonous if we stir them up ourselves. So it couldn’t help being part of Nature’s chemical laws and neither could the vish purush as Kalakuta’s inner spirit person.’

  ‘Lord Shiva granted the vish purush the boon that he would return to Nature by being born on earth one day as the son of Drona and would kill his father’s enemies. So the vish purush was born as Ashvatthama; and Vishnu himself, as Sri Krishna, had to fend him off. Ashvatthama’s spirit is said to still wander the earth, quietly and is called out only if and when we stir up terrible world-destroying poisons . . . like nuclear bombs, I should think.’

  ‘That’s horrible!’ cried the mother.

  ‘I feel bad for Ashvatthama,’ said the father.

  ‘It’s a waste of pity, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ said the guru. ‘He wasted his human birth. He was very proud and vain, and at the same time, very much the fawning courtier to wicked Duryodhana. If Vyasa did not pity Ashvatthama, we need not either.’

  ‘I find that a remarkably matter-of-fact attitude, accepting both “good” and “bad” as just things that are,’ mused the grandfather.

  ‘And that there are always consequences when something is done,’ said the grandmother.

  ‘So now you know why Shiva’s throat is blue,’ said the guru to the child. ‘What do you think of it all?’

  ‘I think our gods do a lot for us,’ said the child seriously.

  3

  Vipareet

  ‘I’ve been haunted all week by the thought that Ashvatthama is still roaming about,’ said the child’s mother when the guru came by next. ‘Is there anything else on earth from when the gods are said to have walked openly amidst us?’

  ‘The whole universe is witness to the sport of the gods,’ said the guru mock-pompously, to make her laugh. ‘But where is the child?’

  ‘There’s an extra music lesson today, instead of tomorrow. She has a friend in class whose mother will drop her home soon, we take turns,’ said the mother.

  ‘Meanwhile, please won’t you tell us about witnesses on earth to epic times?’ said the grandmother. ‘I’m longing to know, too.’

  ‘Of course, I will. I’m so glad to have such a question to try answering,’ said the guru.

  ‘In the epics themselves, the seven most important witnesses to Vishnu, whom he personally saved, are Prahlad, Vibhishana, Gajendra, Draupadi, Ahalya, Arjuna and Dhruva. And on earth, there are four things in Mathura-Vrindavan that are celebrated as being from “before Sri Krishna’s time”, meaning he actually touched them in the epics: the river Yamuna, Mount Goverdhan,
“Brajraj”, the soil of the Brajbhumi region, and the temple to Parvati as Devi Katyayani.’

  ‘That’s a lovely swathe of sacred geography,’ said the mother. ‘What about Shiva? Are there such landmarks for him?’

  ‘Besides Mount Kailash, you mean?’ said the grandfather.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Besides Mount Kailash, there are many important epic witnesses on earth to Shiva. Top of the mind are the rivers Ganga and Yamuna, the twelve Jyotirlingas or ancient Shiva temples which make a grid across India, and Chidambaram, the only place on earth said to have witnessed his dance of joy, the Ananda Tandava. Shiva has been worshipped at Chidambaram for over two thousand years as “Koothan”, the Dancer, and as “Nataraja”, the Lord of Dance,’ said the guru.

  ‘I want us all to go there one day,’ said the grandfather. ‘I want us to experience these places together. It would be wonderful to see at least a few. Please come with us if that happens, Guruji, to make it complete for us.’

  ‘I certainly shall, if possible. But today, I feel I must tell you about the first of two most endearing and wise witness to Shiva. This god is also the most accessible deity that anyone ever had. Your questions have made him shine in my mind. No guessing, please, grownups! Let’s give the child a chance to guess when she gets home,’ laughed the guru.

  ‘I can’t resist asking just the one thing. Is he the god about whom some scholars made those Freudian interpretations that were in fashion decades ago in Western scholarship?’ asked the grandfather.

  ‘Meaning that there was jealousy about his mother between him and his father?’ said the grandmother, making a face. ‘One knows that there are many dark shades to many human relationships. But why would they want to try and force our gods through that filter?’

  ‘It was a passing phase out West that’s dated now. Meanwhile, the gods shine on for us undimmed,’ said the guru.

  ‘Good we got that out of the way without the child around,’ said the grandmother as the front door bell rang and the mother got up.