Kartikeya and His Battle with the Soul Stealer

by Usha Narayanan

  4

  Skanda, the Divine Warrior

  The bird looked at him intently with pale yellow eyes and answered his question in a shrill voice. ‘I am Suparni,’ she said. ‘And I have been following you in order to protect you. I cannot bear to see an innocent child roaming all alone, amidst dark demons and fierce beasts.’

  ‘But I do not need protection!’ the child replied, sounding offended. ‘That too from a bird.’

  ‘I am not an ordinary bird,’ replied Suparni. ‘Can you not see how much larger and more powerful I am than other birds? I am a garudi, belonging to the clan of Garuda, the king of birds. You may not have heard of him, but he is the mount of Lord Vishnu, the guardian of the universe.’

  ‘So tell me, Suparni, where were you when the lion attacked me and Ulluck? Where was your Vishnu mounted on brave Garuda?’

  ‘I must beg your forgiveness for being away then,’ said Suparni, lowering her head in contrition. ‘I was guarding the eggs I laid in my nest some distance away. The snakes, who are our mortal enemies, creep up the tree and eat the eggs, endangering our species. These days, I am often hungry and weak as I have little time to hunt, torn between my duty towards my young ones and towards you. Soon, my eggs will hatch and I must then protect my chicks until they can take care of themselves. If you come with me now, I can show you my nest. I have tarried too long and must hurry back.’

  The child mounted the garudi’s back and held on to her neck. He laughed gleefully as they soared over the trees, deep into the forest, towards a giant shalmali or silk cotton tree with its bright red flowers. He could see several nests on the top branches of the tree, in which gleamed huge creamy eggs, many hundreds of them. But what was that? He could see the dark forms of serpents slithering upwards towards the nests. Alas, Suparni’s enemies had struck in her absence, and he was to blame for holding her back.

  Suparni shrieked an unearthly sound that made the child almost lose his grip around her neck. She landed swiftly on the ground and the child jumped off her back. He saw that a few snakes had already reached the nests and were busy swallowing the eggs. The garudi slashed at them with her talons and tore at them with her sharp beak, but there were too many for her to kill. While she was on one branch, they crawled onto the other branches and broke open the eggs. The child quickly pulled out the bow that he always carried. He let loose a river of arrows that sent the snakes tumbling to the ground, their backs broken, their heads shattered. He used his other arms to pick up and throw rocks and stones to knock them off the tree. When he ran out of arrows, he climbed the tree, pulling the snakes off and hurling them to the ground, unmindful of their venomous fangs. Together Suparni and he fought off the marauders until there lay a heap of coiled serpents under the tree, dying or already dead. The bird flew from nest to nest, crying over the broken shells, of which, fortunately, there were not many. They had managed to save most of them. She then came to the child, clasped him in her wings and shed profuse tears. She looked at his limbs, checking to see if the poison had entered his body and mottled his skin. But it seemed that he was unharmed, strangely immune to the snakes’ venom. ‘You look tired and hungry,’ said the child. ‘Feast on the snakes that we killed. And call me whenever you need to hunt so that I can guard your young.’

  Soon, the child began to come to the shalmali tree and sit with her on its highest branch, looking down upon the valley. She told him stories of the gods, though his favourites were those about Garuda, the king of birds. ‘As I told you, the snakes and we have always been enemies,’ Suparni said. ‘And it all began when Garuda’s mother was held captive by her sister, Kadru, and her thousand snake sons. Kadru told Garuda that she would free his mother if he got her amrit from the gods so that she and her asura kin would become immortal. Determined to do whatever it took to release his mother, Garuda flew at once to the heavens, but was attacked by the devas wielding divine weapons. Even though he was wounded and bleeding, Garuda still did not give up, as his mother’s freedom was at stake. He buffeted them with his huge wings, slashed at them with his beak and tore through their ranks. He was then confronted by a ring of flames that he could not pass through, however many times he tried. His feathers were singed, his eyes burned and his breath became a tortured gasp. “Water! I need water,” he murmured. He assumed a huge form with eighty thousand faces, flew back to earth and filled each mouth with water from a river. Then he returned to heaven and doused the fire with a flood. He flew onwards until he saw the pot of nectar, protected by a huge wheel that spun above it. The blades embedded in the wheel would cut him to pieces if he tried to get through.’

  ‘What did he do then?’ asked the wide-eyed child.

  ‘He knew that it was not strength or bravery that was needed now, but intelligence and enterprise,’ said Suparni. ‘He could not approach from the top, so he decided to get to the pot from beneath. There was just a little space below the wheel and he reduced his form suitably until he could slide under it. Two fierce serpents slithered towards him then, jaws open to reveal poisonous fangs.’ The child drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. ‘Garuda flapped his wings and created a dust storm that blinded the snakes. He then slashed their heads to pieces and seized the pot in his hands . . . ’

  ‘Hands?’ echoed the child. ‘An eagle with hands?’

  ‘Yes. Garuda has the limbs and body of a man,’ she nodded. ‘Once he grasped the pot, the wheel grew still, its blades vanished. He grew larger and larger, shattered the wheel above him and flew back towards earth. Vishnu intercepted him and praised his valour and his love for his mother. He granted him the boon of immortality and in return, Garuda said that he would return to him to become his vaahana. “Ensure that the snakes and asuras do not drink this amrit, my son,” said Vishnu.’

  ‘But he needed to give the amrit to Kadru to free his mother!’ exclaimed the child.

  ‘First, he did that. Then he advised the snakes and asuras to purify themselves before drinking the nectar.’

  ‘He flew away while they were doing this, did he not?’ laughed the child. Suparni nodded. ‘Tell me just one more story,’ he begged.

  ‘Garuda became so powerful that he could stop the spinning of the earth with just one flap of his wings. The birds venerated him as their king, for he was not only brave but also compassionate. The mark of a great leader is that he should take care of the lowliest of his subjects,’ said Suparni. ‘Once, the ocean carried away a sparrow’s eggs that she had laid in a hollow on the shore. The bird pleaded with the ocean to return her eggs but its cruel waves merely mocked her. Garuda heard her feeble cry and came to help her. He threatened to swallow the waters if the ocean did not return the eggs. Having heard of his prowess, the frightened waves brought the eggs back to the sands. Such is Garuda’s greatness!’

  Soon afterwards, the garudi’s young ones hatched out of their eggs, and the boy kept watch while Suparni hunted far and wide to find food to fill their ravenous mouths. It was not long before they learnt to fly and hunt, swarming around their mother as she followed the boy on his adventures. They were still only half-grown, but they were already huge, with the males exceeding the females in size.

  The villagers came to see him one day. Even though the little girl had told them he was friendly, they were still wary. They stared at his many heads and arms with awe and brought him offerings of flowers, fruits and cooked rice. He enjoyed the rice that was mixed with sweetened milk and asked them what he could do for them. ‘We seek your protection against the wild beasts that threaten us,’ they said.

  ‘They will not harm you any more,’ promised the boy. ‘I give you my word.’ And so it came to be. The jungle beasts kept away from the humans, confining their hunting to smaller animals in the forest. The villagers showed their gratitude by bringing him reverential offerings of honey, sandal paste and garlands of wild flowers. They sang simple songs in his praise and brought with them the wives of the rishis who meditated in the mountain caves. The rishi patnis were at first curious
to see the child with magical powers. They were then captivated by his charm. They brought him cooked food and sweetmeats each day thereafter and invited him to come live with them at their hermitage.

  ‘You are the first to offer me a home,’ he replied. ‘I do not know who abandoned me here, and feel bitter and angry at times. But now I am happy with my animal family. I no longer wish to return to my parents, even if they come to claim me.’

  ‘How could any parent abandon such a beautiful child?’ the rishi patnis exclaimed. ‘They must be heartless souls!’

  After they left, the child ruminated on this himself and grew enraged. He began tossing boulders around, frightening the mountain dwellers for he did not seem to know how powerful he was. When Suparni asked him what troubled him, he said, ‘I have no name, no parents, no one who can tell me why I was discarded on a mountainside.’

  Tears spilled from Suparni’s eyes and her heart filled with love for him. ‘I have been remiss in not giving you a name,’ she said and paused to think. ‘Perhaps we should call you Skanda, for you came leaping boisterously into the world. The name also signifies a mighty vanquisher of foes!’

  He liked the name and repeated it to himself—Skanda, Skanda. When he told the rishi patnis the next day, they too nodded in approval. ‘Skanda!’ they repeated. ‘The name suits you beautifully, for it signifies melting or flowing. You melt like butter when it comes to helping your friends and you flow like nectar in their thoughts.’

  ‘Skanda!’ echoed the mountain dwellers who worshipped the child as their protector.

  His friends, both feathered and four-limbed, praised and cherished him. It appeared that he was everywhere, helping them when they were in trouble. He swam into a roaring stream to rescue a fawn; he befriended a bear cub who then started following him everywhere. They saw him perched atop a tree one day, rescuing a chick who had been abandoned. ‘Your little leg is twisted,’ he whispered to the chick. ‘Maybe your mother flew away, leaving you behind like my mother did! But I will care for you until you are big!’

  But while he made many friends here each day, a potent enemy was stirring in a region far away, in the world of the gods.

  ‘His name is Skanda and his mountain is called Svetagiri, the silver-white peak,’ said Soma, the moon. ‘I was astonished when I saw the precious new ores that appeared when he was born. The peak is brilliant with veins of gold, the most auspicious of nature’s bounty. The child himself blazes with energy and lights up the mountain. He is so powerful that Agni says that he feels cold when he nears him! The people believe that he can fly through the air and slice off the tops of mountains; they say that he is so powerful that he can snatch the planets from the sky. I saw him myself, playfully damming up a river with his twelve arms. But he released the waters as soon as he saw the fish gasping for breath. He talks to all the animals and birds as if he were one of them, and they laud his compassion and worship him!’

  ‘Some men call him Guha, for his birth was guha or hidden from view, amidst a thicket of reeds,’ said Vayu. ‘When I hover over him, my breath grows perfumed with the fragrance of kadamba flowers and water lilies.’

  ‘Stop singing his praises!’ Indra shouted, disturbed by these reports. ‘He is not a god; he is not one of us! I do not want people to pray to him and forget us. I remember how the cowherds stopped worshipping me when Krishna was born. I will not allow another mortal to take the place of Devendra, the king of the gods. We are already oppressed by Sura’s tyranny and cannot allow this boy to become a new threat. We must put an end to him before he reaches his prime. Or he may appear one day in Amaravati, seeking my throne!’ He frowned and pondered awhile on the way forward. Then he said, ‘I cannot demean myself by fighting a child. Instead, I will send the spirits that cause fever and disease in children to destroy him.’

  However, the spirits he sent were awestruck by the child’s radiance and chose to worship him. Then they warned him about his celestial foe. ‘Be prepared,’ they said. ‘A great war may soon erupt upon this peaceful mountain.’

  Soma came to Indra with the news that the malevolent spirits had been tamed by Skanda. Indra did not want to lose the little power he still wielded and sought Surapadma’s permission to fight the young upstart. ‘Kill him at once!’ said Sura. ‘It is your duty as my vassal to eliminate any threat to my rule.’

  The devas thundered down from the clouds on their immense chariots to attack Skanda. Indra brought on fierce winds that shook the trees. Blinding streaks of lightning splintered the sky. Thunder roared, as if threatening to bring down the roof of the world. The mountain shuddered as if it would shatter and sink into the earth. A heavy downpour swept away boulders and trees in its wake. The mountain dwellers feared that the end of the world was near and huddled in caves and under rocky outcrops.

  Young Skanda stood on the mountain top, swaddled in a great red cloud that flashed with fiery flames. Around him stood fierce beasts—bears, elephants, lions and apes, ready to fight the army in the skies. As the devas descended upon the mountain peak, they were confident that the child would be intimidated by their retinue and fall at their feet in surrender. However, they were shaken when the child leaped on to the back of a giant garudi and flew fearlessly towards them. In his hands was a huge bow that twanged like Shiva’s Pinaka. The six-headed warrior’s roars paralyzed the advancing devas with an inexplicable fear. Indra, mounted on his four-tusked elephant, Airavata, attacked with his goad and javelins. But Skanda tossed them back at him with his powerful arms. He then grabbed Airavata’s tusks with his bare hands and hurled the beast away from him as if it were a mere feather. While Indra struggled to stay on the elephant’s back, Skanda turned to the other gods and rained arrows and boulders on them. He turned their powerful weapons aside with contempt, leaving them confused and fearful. The wild beasts also attacked the devas when they fled from the boy’s onslaught. Calming Airavata with soothing words, Indra returned to the battle. He focused his rage now on the garudi that carried the impudent youngster. He seized the rainbow that curved across the skies as his bow and showered a hundred arrows at the valiant bird. Her body was pierced many times over, and the bleeding garudi foundered and landed on earth. Skanda laid a healing hand on Suparni and asked her to take shelter in the copse until she was strong again. Her young ones flocked to Skanda and swore that they would avenge the attack on their mother. But he would not let them risk their lives.

  The devas grew bold again, seeing that Skanda lacked a suitable mount to continue the battle. Indra shouted at him from the skies. ‘Give up! Surrender! Foolish child, did you think you could win against the mighty gods? Look at your crude weapons, your tender body. Cast your eyes over your wretched army consisting of beasts and birds with little intellect or judgement. All of you will die at my hands, infant!’

  Was this the end? Would the young warrior be destroyed by the deva army? Ulluck, who had been forbidden to venture out on the battlefield, the little girl who often came to play with her jungle friend, the rishi patnis and the wounded Suparni wept in fear. It seemed that their beloved Skanda would die that day.

  And far away in a dark, moist corner, the creeper with the ominous leaves spread stealthily along the ground, growing stronger by the day. It wrapped its tendrils around an unwary squirrel that ventured near, unaware of its dark intent. Then it dragged it screeching into its dark centre to devour at leisure. Was this just a plant or something more . . . something evil?

  5

  A Mother, Not a Goddess

  ‘I long to cradle our child in my arms, my Shiva,’ Parvati would often say to her husband when the two were alone. ‘I yearn for the touch of a tiny hand, the smile on a little face, a rosebud mouth calling me mother.’

  ‘You have said this many times before, my beloved. But my answer remains the same,’ he would reply. ‘As Vishvanatha and Jaganmata, we are the parents of all creation. We do not need children of our own like mortals do, to toil with them and gather wealth. Nor are we desperate for a c
hild to light our path to heaven when we die, for we are beyond death. I know that having children is the surest way to invite trouble, and no sane person will desire that—especially a yogi like me! Did I not tell you all this when you sought to marry me? I told you that I lacked the qualities of a good husband and that I could never make you completely happy.’

  Parvati would still not give up, so he tore off a piece of her red sari and gave it to her. ‘Lo, behold your child,’ he said laughingly. She took the cloth, breathed life into it and played with it as she would with her newborn. But not for long. She knew that this was not a real child and that it could not bring her true love. She hoped fervently that one day the yogi would understand the importance of having children, just as he had realized that he needed Parvati to complete him, to unite Purusha and Prakriti for the well-being of the world.

  She had been so close to attaining her desire when Shiva’s tejas had emerged from his third eye. But the foolish devas had intruded and snatched away her happiness. They had gone their way now, to fight a war with a new enemy. But she herself remained desolate, looking for traces of the tejas that had disappeared without anyone’s knowledge. Would she ever attain what she longed for? The radiant goddess became a wan shadow of herself, shorn of her powers and her perception. She mourned the unborn child with desperate grief, weeping like a mortal woman.