Devlok With Devdutt Pattanaik: 3

by Devdutt Pattanaik

  Did Surya have any bhakts (devotees)?

  The most famous one was Samba, Krishna’s son. There’s a festival called Samba Dashami during which Surya is worshipped.

  Samba is falsely lured by his stepmother, Nandini. He rebuffs her advances. Krishna sees them and, despite Samba’s explanation, curses him with skin disease. A rishi tells him that only one god can help him—Surya. When Samba is cured by Surya, he builds the temples in Konark, Modhera and Kashmir. Interestingly, in science too, sunlight plays an important role in healing skin diseases. There’s vitamin D, of course. It seems that Ayurveda doctors knew that skin problems could be cured with sunlight.

  What is Surya’s role in navagraha?

  In astrology, Surya is the central deity. Around him are the moon and other planets. The stars—his wives—are behind him. You worship the sun and all the others get worshipped too since he is the head of all the grahas.

  Is the surya namaskar connected with mythology?

  It is believed that the surya namaskar was invented by Hanuman for his guru, Surya. Yoga is always done facing the east. The east is very important for any major task. So in India, we say left is vama, but right is dakshina. That’s because when you face the east, the south is to your right, the north is to your left and the west is behind.

  3

  Fathers

  Brahma is considered the creator of Brahmanda, the universe. So would it be right to call him the first father of the Puranas?

  That would be correct. But the father concept is a bit complicated. Paintings show Brahma seated on a lotus, which emerges from the navel of Vishnu. So is Vishnu Brahma’s father? A father also has a father, his father too has a father, and so on. Who was there right at the beginning? Who knows? Even the gods came later. This is what the famous creation hymn of the Rig Veda says.

  Brahma is called Pitamaha or grandfather, not father. And all living beings may have a father like Kashyapa, Pulitsa, Saptarishi or Prajapati—whose father is Brahma. So he is definitely a father. But the words ‘creator’ and ‘father’ are different. Prakriti, nature, has no creator, because it is sanatana, eternal. It is the living beings—who experience hunger (bhookh) and desire (bhog)—who are created by Brahma. So he is the grandfather only of all living beings, not of all creation.

  The concept that prakriti is eternal is common to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Brahma arrives within prakriti. The story goes that there is an ocean called Kshir Sagar upon which lies Shesh Naga on whom Vishnu sleeps. From his navel arises a lotus on which Brahma sits. Brahma is the father of Prajapati and Saptarishi who are born of his mind, so are his Manasputras, and who marry several devis from whom different living beings are born. This long story exists to show the difference between creator and father.

  Who are the fathers of Vishnu and Shiva?

  The answer to this will depend on the book you read. In the Shiva Purana, Shiva created himself; he is svayambhu (self-created). In the Vishnu Purana, it is said that Vishnu created the world and Shiva appeared later. In the Shiva Purana, Vishnu comes later. These are sectarian differences. In the Shakta parampara, Devi is the mother of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and there is no father. The word ‘father’ does not occur here, so Brahma is not Shiva’s father. There is no relationship. He is self-created, and at best, he is Devi’s son. But the word ‘father’ is never associated with Shiva. In the Vedas, Vishnu is said to be the son of Aditi and is known as Kashyapaputra, while in the Vishnu Purana, Vishnu too is svayambhu.

  We can see images of Shiva as a father with Parvati and Ganesh.

  In art, in paintings from the mountainous regions, you’ll see Shiva as a loving father, although he shies away from responsibility. All responsibility lies with his wife. This is seen in folk tales—he is a vairagi, an ascetic, who does not know how to manage household responsibilities. But there are many images in which he is seen holding Ganesh on his shoulder, or playing with him and his sons while the mother cooks. You won’t find a similar story of Vishnu. Vishnu is a worldly king and the protector of the universe. You will not see images of him as a father although Kamadeva is shown as his son, who is an irresponsible god and converts everyone into a bhogi (participant in the world). But you won’t see pictures of him sitting on Vishnu’s lap.

  This is an irony. Shiva, who is an ascetic, is shown with a family life and as a loving father, while Vishnu, the preserver and protector of the world, is not depicted as a father. Nor are Rama and Krishna. This is something worth thinking about.

  So will you call god father or mother?

  In English, you’ll say god is my father. In India, in Hinduism, the word bhagavan is masculine, feminine and also neuter. When we talk of bhagavan it’s not one entity; we talk of prakriti and atma. If we consider atma as god, it is masculine; if we consider prakriti, it is feminine. In the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna says the world is born from me, we think it is masculine. But Krishna says he has two yonis (wombs)— purusha and prakriti, that is, atma and the material world. Here, the father becomes the mother too. So Krishna is called Vithai or mother Vitthal in Maharashtra. The gender gets mixed. Bhagavan has no gender. Once you give it a gender, one that is anant (eternal and endless) is made finite or limited within a boundary.

  What is the difference between the words pita, pitr, putra, etc.?

  The belief is that this is Bhu-loka, where we live. After death, we’ll go to Pitr-loka or the land of the ancestors. The dead ancestors wish to be reborn in Bhu-loka, which is possible only if they’ve left behind sons here. So during the shraddha ceremony, sons make pind-daan and promise their ancestors that as they gave them birth, so will they bring them back, creating the cycle of life and death (ritu chakra).

  The concept behind what happens to someone who does not have a child is very strong. In the Rig Veda, Yama is childless when he dies, so he gets stuck in Pitr-loka. In the Puranas, it is said that a childless person will go to a kind of hell called Putta. He’ll suffer there forever, as he’ll never be able to return to Bhu-loka. So the putri (daughter) and putra (son) are ‘those who will save you from Putta’. When you don’t have children you do shraddha in which you accept the entire Brahmanda, the entire next generation, as your children. You adopt them mentally. Sometimes, there is real adoption too.

  Having children is a very important part of manava dharma (human duty/morality). Kanya-daan also sends you to heaven. This is considered maha-daan because she’ll bear children for another vansh (lineage). So putra and putri are important: putri will look after another vansh and putra our own. In a patriarchal society, lineage is important because property travels through men. Varna (caste) and gotra (lineage) also travel through men. As the child saves the parent (pita) from hell, helping him in his rebirth, there is a strong relationship between the two generations. Thus we have the concepts of Putta, putra, putri and pitr (dead ancestor).

  The word preta also comes from here. If you don’t have a family, nobody will do your pind-daan. You’ll then be stuck in Bhu-loka and your atma will not achieve peace and will wander around like a ghost (preta). Pitr are those on the other side of the Vaitarni river and preta are those stuck on this side of the river in Bhu-loka. There is a Pitr Paksh that happens between Ganapati puja and Dussehra. Many shops are shut during this time. A puja is done at that time for all the pretatma. It’s the shopkeepers’ way of telling them, ‘We’ll help you, but please don’t wander around as bhoot and obstruct our business.’

  Pitr are given great importance in rituals. Living beings are alive because of food. During rituals, food is served to the gods, oneself, putra and pitr. The upper half of the right hand offers food to the gods, the palm bends backwards for oneself, towards the left for the putra and with the thumb on the right for the pitr. This is to tell them, ‘We’re feeding you, but don’t enter the house.’ Flesh is created through food and to convert preta into pitr food becomes very important. These are all correlated concepts.

  Dashratha was Rama’s father. Krishna had Vasudeva and
Nanda as well. Explain this.

  In the Puranas, the concept of father is complicated. To understand this, we should turn to a folk tale arising from the Vikram–Vetal stories. There’s a girl who marries a merchant who is soon killed by a king. She develops a relationship with a Brahmin and has a son by him. That child is raised by a king. When he grows up and goes to do pind-daan, three hands come up from the river—the merchant’s, the Brahmin’s and the king’s. He gets confused. All three claim to be his father. The merchant says, ‘I married your mother’, the Brahmin says, ‘I am your biological father’, and the king says, ‘But I raised you.’ This is a complex question because whoever you give the pind to, you’ll inherit his property, his varna and gotra, and you’ll be part of his kul (clan). So the child has to decide whether he is a Vaishya, Brahmin or Kshatriya.

  This concept is also associated with Krishna. He is born to Devaki and Vasudeva who are of the Yadava Vansh. The Yadavas were not allowed to become kings because they were cursed by Yayati. But he is raised by Nanda who is a cowherd. Vasudeva takes the newly born Krishna across the Yamuna and leaves him with the cowherds Nanda and Yashoda. When Shishupala insults Krishna, he does not give him the status of a prince but calls him a cowherd as he’s raised by one. This concept comes up repeatedly.

  Krishna’s stories usually involve Radha or the Pandavas, but we haven’t heard much about Krishna’s sons.

  Krishna has eight main queens (ashta bharya) and 16,000 junior queens. He has many sons, but only a few sons are mentioned like Rukmini’s son Pradyumna and Jambavati’s son Samba. Pradyumna has some of Krishna’s greatness, but Samba has a different personality. He is a prankster, mischievous, and can be seen as a weak character. Just because the father is great does not mean the son will also be great.

  We’ve heard stories of Rama and Dashratha but don’t know much about Rama’s relationship with his sons.

  It’s interesting that Rama is not seen as a father. Sita is seen as a mother as she is a single mother raising her sons in a jungle. Rama does not play a role in raising them. In fact, in the Puranas, you will find many stories where the father simply gives his seed and leaves. The mothers raise the children. Many sons are thus known as their mother’s sons: the Pandavas are called Kaunteneyaputra or sons of Kunti; Nakula and Sahadeva are Madreyaputra or sons of Madri. However, the legal and property rights and the varna come from the father.

  Are there any stories where the father has played the role of the mother?

  There are many stories of adoption and some in which a man adopts a girl. Janaka adopts Sita, Rompad adopts Dashratha’s daughter Shanta and Kuntibhoj adopts Kunti. Ours is a patriarchal society and we talk of Putrakameshti Yagna (the ritual seeking the birth of a son) but stories of girls being adopted are also there.

  4

  Versions of the Ramayana

  It is said that there’s Rama in every atom of India. In every part of India, the Ramayana is not just a story but also a tradition, which includes temples, music, theatre, art and devotees. Today, let’s travel the country and experience it. Does Mumbai have a Ramayana tradition?

  In south Mumbai, we have the Banganga tank. The Ban is an arrow that Rama had struck on the ground to get drinking water. You can find many such ponds (kund), streams and caves associated with Rama, Lakshmana and Sita. In Maharashtra, Nasik is important. Rama is supposed to have done the shraddha ceremony for his father at the Rama kund near the Godavari. Here the river flows in the opposite direction. Near Nasik, there is a place where Sita was supposed to have been kidnapped. The word Nasik comes from Surpanakha’s nasika or nose that was cut off by Lakshmana. Eknath wrote the Bhavartha Ramayana in Marathi in Maharashtra roughly during the same time Tulsidas wrote his. In Eknath’s Ramayana, Rama is presented through the feeling of bhakti (devotion). In Valmiki’s version, he is presented as a nayak (hero) in veer rasa (emotion of valour).

  What is the tradition in Karnataka?

  Many Ramayanas were written here, the earliest being Raveramayana. One of the earliest black-and-white movies called Sati Sulochana, a story about Meghnad’s wife, was made here. In their loka katha (folk tales) there’s an interesting story in which Shiva gives Ravana a fruit and asks him to give it to his wife to beget a good son. Ravana eats it himself and gets pregnant. In discomfort, he sneezes and a baby girl appears. A rishi tells him that the girl will kill him, so he sends her away on a boat. This girl is believed to have returned as Sita. This is called a Rama katha. The Ramayana is a Sanskrit poem but these are all folk tales, local stories. The main story does not change. Local variations appear that add flavour. This story, which comes from the oral tradition, shows rural simplicity as against urban sophistication.

  In the Lakshadweep islands, there are many Moplah Muslims from Kerala. Their poetry has elements of the Ramayana. King Rama is called Sultan Lama and King Ravana, Sultan Lavana. Ra is pronounced as La. Moplahs have a relationship with South East Asia. Their songs—called Maplaypattu—also have elements of the Ramayana.

  Now let’s go to Sri Lanka.

  You’ll think that Ashoka Vatika, Ravana’s palace, was here. Nobody knows whether that idea is for tourist consumption or whether there’s any authenticity to that claim. Academics won’t believe any of it but the devotees do. There’s a Sita temple here called Seetha Amman Temple made in the Tamil tradition that is very strong in Sri Lanka.

  What is the tradition in other South East Asian countries?

  Thailand and, in fact, all of South East Asia—Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos—have a strong Ramayana tradition. The Ramayana spread here around 1000 years ago through sea merchants. The identity of the king of Thailand is associated with Rama. The king of the Chakri dynasty (1782–1809) called himself Rama I and the subsequent ones, Rama II (1809–24) and Rama III (1824–51), and their capital city was called Ayuthya. In Thailand, they say Rama is from Thailand and he came to India later. They believe the Ramayana originated there. But the Ramayana and the Buddhist traditions get mixed there. Rama is king and the emerald Buddha is their ishta-devata (primary deity). Everywhere the poetry is of Rama. Ramakien was written by the king himself. In South East Asia you’ll see a lot of Ramayana stories but in the veer rasa, not in the bhakti rasa.

  What is the tradition in Tamil Nadu?

  Here, for the first time, the Ramayana was written in a local language called Eramavataram 1000 years ago. It is known as the Kambuki Ramayana. The Buddhist and Jain traditions travelled south from the north and the Bhakti tradition travelled north from the south. The Bhakti tradition is 1000 years old and is associated with the Ramayana because it was written in a folk language for the first time. Rama is an avatar of Vishnu here—he is associated with god for the first time. A story has Ravana getting scared of warring with Rama and wanting to go back to Lanka. But he can’t till he holds the bow, which means till he does not bow down to god. In these stories, god’s will prevails, not that of human beings. Like the boatman who does not know that Rama is god but whose simple hospitality moves Rama to alleviate his problems and give him moksha by a simple touch. Even if he doesn’t want it, he’ll get it because it is god’s will. This comes about in the Shri Vaishnava tradition.

  What about Andhra Pradesh?

  In Andhra, and also in Tamil Nadu, there is a form of shadow puppetry called Ravana Chhaya through which the artists tell the stories of Rama and Ravana. They say that when the merchants sailed in their ships to South East Asia, to amuse themselves at night, they’d light a lamp behind the sail and use leather puppets to tell the story of the Ramayana. In Andhra, and also in Karnataka and Maharashtra, you will find women’s stories of the Ramayana. Women sing these while cooking and cleaning the house and in these songs you find a new rasa. You can call this stree vad, not purusha vad. There are stories about Kaushalya’s morning sickness when she was pregnant with Rama, her emotions when she first held Rama, her feelings when she bathed her baby, Sita’s hardships in the jungle, Urmila’s pain and Surpanakha’s a
nguish and rage. You’ll also find a story of Shanta, Rama’s older sister. All these belong to the oral tradition. If women don’t pass these on to their daughters, these stories will be lost. I believe the first Ramayana one hears is always from one’s mother. Through her songs and stories, she instils her sanskar in her children.

  What is the tradition in Odisha?

  Here Balaram Das wrote the Dandi Ramayana. Earlier, all Ramayana puja–paath used to be in Sanskrit. At first, people did not accept the epic in local languages. So the Odiya Ramayana could be sung on the streets but not in the temples. Gradually, it started becoming popular in the temples too.

  What is the tradition in Bengal?

  In Bengal, there’s the Kruttibas Ramayana. Here you hear of the dhobi story for the first time and also the story about Lakshmana rekha. These are additions from loka katha. Now these have become an integral part of the Ramayana. There is a story about a rakshasa here called Taranisen, a Rama bhakt, who writes Rama’s name all over his body. Rama wonders how he can possibly kill him. So he asks him to shoot an arrow in his mouth. In Bengal there’s a form of Durga puja called Akalbodhon. It means worshipping god at the wrong time. Navaratri is celebrated during Vasant but Rama observed it in the Sharad month, praying to the goddess to give him strength to defeat Ravana. He promises to offer a thousand lotus flowers to the devi. The devi wants to test him so she hides one flower. When Rama can’t find the last flower he offers to cut off one of his eyes which are like lotuses (kamal-nayan). When he is about to do that with an arrow the devi stops him. Here you see the importance of the Shakt parampara (the sect worshipping Goddess Shakti). The devi starts playing an important role.