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Talking Myths - An online archive of traditional tales from Indian subcontinent
Myth

The fruit of Shabari

The incident of Shabari in the epic Rāmāyana which I have chosen to illustrate here occurs during the course of the 14 years of Rama’s exile to the forest. Shabari, a tribal, Bhil woman, has been a devotee of Rāma over a number of years. In her heart, Rāma is constantly present and her most ardent desire is to meet him someday in person. Now, she is old, her hair is all white, but her devotion to Rāma is as young as ever.

One day, she hears that Rāma is likely to pass through the village where she lives. And this excites her no end. She can neither eat, drink nor sleep. Her mind is effused with the thought that she will finally see the delight of her soul, her beloved Rāma. She turns into a bundle of eager anticipation. Suddenly it strikes her that when Rāma truly does come, what in the world will she offer him? She would certainly want to welcome him with some offering, but what? She neither has wealth nor possessions and nothing that would be worthy of being offered to, Rāma. Just then her eyes fall on the ripe, juicy berries hanging on the tree before her and she is inspired! She runs to the trees and begins plucking the fruit. But, what if they are sour, her mind whispers. What if appearances are deceptive and they turn out to be rotten from the inside? That would never do! And she begins to bite into and taste each berry. She throws the ones not fit to be offered and keeps aside the ones which are as sweet and pure as nectar. Now she is at peace—she can now be sure that when Rāma partakes of her offering he will receive the best there is!

And Rāma comes. She offers him the half-bitten and from our point of view, infected and soiled berries. It does not take long for Rāma to see through these half-eaten berries straight to the intention of Shabari. He realises the essence of her offering: Shabari’s total absorption in her devotion to himself. And he begins to savour them, one by one, with great relish. Laxmana is shocked. He is outraged with Shabari’s effrontery and then to witness Rāma enjoying the fruits with such relish!. Rāma then enlightens him, makes him see the ‘bhāva’, the sentiment behind Shabari’s action and clears Laxmana’s confusion.

Comment: The intention of the poet seer behind this little episode is to create an appropriate body, or form through words, sound, rhythm and meter; a form which is capable of carrying the intended content and reaching it to the depths of the listener. The content, if we summarize it, is the nature of the devotion which pervades Shabari’s state of being, the oneness in body, mind and spirit which she has been able to achieve with Rāma. She no longer sees her own self and that of Rāma as separate, they have overlapped. No discrimination or distinction remains, no boundaries divide into I and You. And because this has happened, the only way for her to be absolutely sure of the worthiness of her offering is to taste the fruits herself. The nature of the content is the nature of love, one of the manifestations of love.

Location: Pan India
Story collected by: Bharti Kapadia
Story told by: Grandmother
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Devotee Sabari offering fruits to Lord Rama (Statues at Simhachalam, Andhra Pradesh)

January 1, 2015by admin
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Folktale

The Lullaby

Once a girl was born with a curse that she would marry her own son. As soon as she hears the curse, she vows to escape the fate by secluding herself in the dense forest, eating only fruits and foreswearing all male company. But when she attains puberty, as fate would have it, she eats a mango from a tree under which a passing king has urinated. The mango impregnates her; bewildered, she gives birth to a male child; she wraps the baby in a piece of her sari and throws him into a nearby stream. The child is picked up by a childless king of the next kingdom, and brings him up as a handsome young adventurous prince. One day the young prince comes hunting in the same jungle where the cursed woman lives. They fall in love. She tells herself her son is longer alive and she can marry the boy she is in love with. She marries him and bears his child. According to the custom, the father’s swaddling clothes are preserved and brought out for the new born son. When the prince’s swaddling clothes brought out she recognizes her sari, with which she had swaddled her first son, now her husband and understands her fate had really caught up with her.
She waits till everyone is asleep and sings her lullaby to her new born baby:
Sleep
O Son
O grandson
O brother to my husband
Sleep o sleep
Sleep well
She then hangs herself by the sari twisted into a rope.

Location: Karnataka
Collector: A.K. Ramanujan
Source: “The Indian Oedipus” (pp109-136), Vishnu on Freud’s Desk. Ed by J. Kripal, & T. G Vaidyanathan, Oxford University Press, 1999

January 1, 2015by admin
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Myth

The temple of Kheer Bhavani

Kheer Bhavani Temple in Kashmir is one of a kind. Dedicated to the goddess Ragnya Devi, a form of Durga, it is located at Tullamula of Srinagar district, in Jammu & Kashmir. Tullamula, itself has an interesting origin. The land at Tullamula is extremely swampy and it was once believed to be a floating island. Hence it was called Tullamula from the words, ‘tula’ meaning cotton, referring to the softness of the land and ‘mula’ meaning worth. Locals say that if they dig a hole one can find water underneath with fishes in it. The water and its marine life are fed by the Sindh River. Yet another version says that the town gets its name from two different words, ‘atulya mulya’ meaning great value.

The story goes that Ravan used to worship Goddess Shama (a form of Parvati/Durga). Pleased with his devotion, she manifested herself in nine different forms and Ravan worshipped her with all the devotion in all her forms. Things were fine till he kidnapped Sita leading to the familiar epic battle of Ramayana. When Ravan’s brothers and sons dies in battle, his wife Mandodari requested that he send Sita back, but Ravan was adamant. His behaviour incurred the wrath of the goddess Shama too who cursed him that he would soon meet his end.

The goddess then requested Hanuman to take her away from Ravan’s kingdom. Hanuman took Goddess Shama along with 360 nags, serpents, and brought her to Satisar (Kashmir) and installed her at the present location. Goddess Shama also known as Ragnya was fond of kheer, rice pudding, and thus all the devotees offer kheer to the goddess, leading to the temple referred to as Kheer Bhavani temple, the temple of goddess Durga who loves kheer!

Some versions say that Lord Ram was a devotee of Ma Bhavani and before he went to Lanka he had instructed Hanuman to shift the goddess from there and bring her to the present location.

Another interesting version:

According to this, Krishna Pandit, a pious Brahmin once had a vision where he was told by an angel to offer respects to Ma Ragnya who was in the swamps of Tullamula. On asking how he would identify the exact location, he was asked to hire a boat from a place called Shadipora and then follow a snake. On boarding the boat, he saw a snake guiding him, which disappeared at the spot where lay a tree trunk of a mulberry tree. Krishna Pandit offered milk and other things that he had brought along with him and was happy to discover the home of Ragnya.

Krishna Pandit placed a stick at the spot and later the place was filled with mud to form a temple structure. On completion of the worship, Krishna Pandit found a bark floating at the site. He took the bark to find a shloka in praise of goccess Ragnya. He is subsequently supposed to have composed a poem in her honour, which incidentally is recited till date.

Since Krishna Pandit had found the spring on the seventh day of the Hindu month of Ashadh (June-July) the place is visited by all the local population on the eighth day of Ashadh. The day is considered to be the most auspicious and it is said that all the Kashmiri Hindus consider this deity to be their guardian mother goddess. A festival is held at this time and people observe a fast on the Ashadhi Ashtami.

The temple complex houses a spring which has its own significance. A seven sided structure houses a spring which stretches from the eastern end of the temple to the western end. The offering of kheer is made into this spring. Devotees say that the water at the spring changes colour to different shades of red, pink, orange and green and others. Black usually is seen as a bad omen. The spring is mentioned in the writings Abul Fazal and Swami Vivekananda who are supposed to have visited this place.

In the present context, the temple is also a sign of Hindu-Muslim unity. On the day of Ashadhi Ashtami, many local Muslims line up outside the temple to offer kheer to their Hindu brethren. Even in such a communally charged atmosphere this practice is followed with a lot of camaraderie.

Story collected by: Utkarsh Patel
Source: Srinagar & its Environs by Samsar Chand Koul (published under a single book on Kashmir

January 1, 2015by admin
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Beliefs and Traditions

The shrine of Bullet Baba

There is a saying that it takes all sorts to make the world and the story I am about to tell you proves this.

About 50 kilometers from Jodhpur, Rajasthan, on the highway to Pali, near Chotila village, one comes across a deity called Bullet baba. On a raised platform, a Royal Enfield Bullet 350 motorcycle stands upright as people offer their prayers and donations. Travelers stop by to pray for a safe journey. People worship, and garland the old motorcycle and even light incense sticks without a trace of skepticism or disbelief. They believe in the Bullet Baba and his power to keep them safe.

The motorcycle god is a new entrant to the pantheon. As recent as 1991, one Om Singh Rathore, the son of the village head of Chotila, was driving from Chotila to Pali and crashed into a tree and fell in the ditch. He died instantly. The local police registered a case of accidental death and took the motor-cycle to the local police station. But next morning the motor-cycle was missing and when the police set up a search, they found it at the accident spot. The police thought it was a prank of some sort and took bike back to the police station, and this time, they chained it. But next day, the motor-cycle was found at the same spot.

Sensing that this was beyond their jurisdiction, the police handed the motor-cycle over to the family of Om, who in turn sold it to a resident of the neighbouring state of Gujarat. But no sooner had the new owner taken possesion, the motor-cycle found its way back to the spot, travelling about 400 kilometres from its new home. Spooked by this behavior, the buyer abandoned it too.

Soon news spread and people started visiting the site from far and wide. The motor-cycle was placed at a prominent spot and people began praying to it. And the tree which Om Singh (also known as Om Banna, Banna being an honorific in the local parlance) had crashed into also became an object of worship. Soon miracles came to be attributed to the site. According to one, a traveler crashed his vehicle not far from the site and claimed that Om Banna helped out of the crash, thus saving his life. Some locals even claim that they can hear the bullet revving at the dead of the night and according to them, it is Om Banna who does that as he loved riding his Bullet.

There is not a single trucker, biker or traveler who does not stop on the way to pay his obeisance to the Bullet and pray for his safety. Another interesting aspect is that among the many offerings that are offered to the ‘shrine’ is beer, and not surprisingly, Bullet Beer! Needless to say, that a market-place has come up in the vicinity all, doing reasonably good business.

While, this definitely beats all logic both rational and mythological, one must not overlook its ability to hold sway on folks. While this ‘deity’ does not hold allegiance to any existing deities from any pantheon, and is a creation of modern times, one marvels at the new induction of a tech-deity in the relatively over-crowded pantheon of ours!!
Story collected by: Utkarsh Patel
Location: Rajasthan

January 1, 2015by admin
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Folktale

The Devoted Crow

Kak Busundi (aka Kaka Bhusundi) is considered to be a great devotee of Rama and, in Uttara Kand of the epic Ramayana, he is found narrating the story of Rama to Garuda, the vahana of Vishnu. After listening to the story, Garuda was intrigued about the devotion and knowledge residing in the body of a crow and wanted to know more. It was then that Kak Bhusundi revealed his story and told him how he became a crow.

Bhusundi was born a human being in the Kingdom of Ayodhya. He was a great devotee of Shiva and at the same time he was arrogant. He refused to worship any other god or deity, rather looked down on people who did so. Once he met a saint who was charmed by the intelligence of Bhusundi and accepted him as his disciple. While the saint too was a devotee of Shiva, he had immense respect for Rama too. Over time as Bhusundi’s hatred towards the devotees of Rama grew, the saint grew visibly worried. He even noticed that Bhusundi had begun to insult the people who worshipped Rama. The saint tried to reason with him. He explained to Bhusundi that the benefits of worshipping Shiva would only lead to the feet of Rama, but this would anger Bhusundi who, at times, would end up shouting at his guru too. The saint never took offence as he felt that Bhusundi was otherwise a good disciple.

One day, Bhusundi was worshipping at the temple of Shiva. The belief that Rama was an inferior god had firmly entrenched itself in his mind by now. Bhusundi was doing his japa when his guru entered the temple. But Bhusundi decided to ignore the guru and went on doing his japa. Seeing this insult to the guru, Shiva was angered. His voice could be heard in the temple when he cursed Bhusundi that he would change into a snake and live in the hollows of a tree for showing disrespect to his guru.

When the guru heard Shiva’s curse, he was worried and immediately sang a hymn in praise of the lord (Namami shamishana nirvanaroopam….. Uttara Kanda 107) which seemed to placate Shiva. Shiva offered him a boon and the guru asked that may he always be devoted to Shiva and would he please offer him another boon? When Shiva agreed, he pleaded on behalf of his disciple requesting that he be pardoned. Shiva said that since he had uttered the words, he could not take them back; however, he could ensure that the curse in a way became a blessing for him. He would have to take one thousand such births till he assumed the form of a human; however, each birth would be like changing clothes for him. He would not have to undergo the agony of birth and death and would seamlessly assume forms and while at it, he would even retain the knowledge of his previous births. Also, since he was born in Ayodhya, he would end up being a great devotee of Lord Rama!

Soon, he changed about one thousand forms and at the end of it, he was born in the house of a Brahmin family. He became a great devotee of Rama and while he was growing up, he would not want to listen to any other gods or deities. His father would try his best to inculcate in him the devotion of other gods, but Bhusundi would not even want to listen to anything. Soon he grew up and went for his learning from hermitage to hermitage and from one teacher to another. Bhusundi ended up at the ashram of Sage Lomasa, who was renowned for his knowledge of religion and philosophy. Once, after telling some stories of Rama, the sage explained the concept of the formless Supreme Being and the concept of Brahman, as he felt that Bhusundi was ready for it. But Bhusundi was not interested in anything else and requested the sage that he wanted to know only about Rama and none else. The sage tried to explain the need for acknowledging the concept of a formless and an attribute less Supreme Being, but Bhusundi was not willing to listen. This led to an argument and the sage cursed him that he would turn into a crow for being stubborn and not willing to listen to anything and repeating only his point of view as this was how crows behaved.

When Rama came to know that his devotee had been cursed, he approached the sage and urged him to take it back. Sage Lomasa called Bhusundi back and blessed him for being the chosen one and recited the entire Ramacharitamanas and was finally blessed as one of the most ardent devotees of Lord Rama. Bhusundi was overjoyed and continued to sing the praise of Lord Rama and thus ended the story of the devoted crow.

Story Collected by: Utkarsh Patel

Textual Source – Uttarakand or the Ramacharitamanas, by Tulasidas

Location: Pan India

January 1, 2015by admin
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So She Danced to Kill

A few kilometers before Auroville, between the spiritual vibes and the foreigner-made Goa feel there is a small village with no significant name of its own. Perhaps as a visitor I have not cared to look for the name of the village. But by the side of a sharp turn in the road, I notice this small temple with a lot of idols. They cannot be missed because like in many Tamil Nadu temples, these idols also are painted in enamel colours. These anthropomorphic images are highly impressive with their rose bodies and multi-coloured costumes. I could have regarded this as one of those temples and invested my gaze into the silent wonders of nature around. But what attracts me is the main idol that lies down on the ground under a canopy, with guarding votive figures around it.

By the time I could take the details in my car has crossed the temple. Hence, while coming back I ask the driver to stop at the temple. I get down with my small camera and walk into the premises. I am very impressed by what I have seen there.

The signboard done in flex board says that it is ‘Arassummoottil Sree Ankala Parameshwari Amman Aalayam’. I look at the main idol that lies on the floor. It is the idol of a goddess and I recognize her as a Devi figure. Later researches prove that she is one of forms of Parvati worshipped in the Southern part of India. She is called Ankala Parameshwari. Ankala means Universe. This goddess who rules the universe. And she is in a relaxing posture after she danced to kill. According to the myth of Ankalamman it is said, once five headed Brahma performed a yagna to save men from two demons Sandobi and Sundaran. From the fires of yagna came Tillotama, an apasara who mesmerized the two demons by her beauty. To save herself from the clutches of two demons Tillottama fled towards Kailasa, followed by two demons and Brahma. When Parvati saw Brahma with five heads she mistook him for Shiva and feel at his feet. But when she realized the truth she was angry and prayed to Shiva asking him to destroy Brahma’s fifth head. Thus Shiva assumed the form of Rudra and beheaded Brahma’s fifth head.

Angry and humiliated Brahma cursed Shiva that his head would get attached to his hand and thereby Shiva would be affected by hunger and lack of sleep. Shiva as Kapalika- i.e. one with skull in hand, roamed the earth, slept in graveyards and smeared ashes over his body and started begging for food. Whatever food he would get the skull or Kapala began to eat most of it. Meanwhile Parvati was unable to bear her husband’s misery. She approached her brother Lord Vishnu and pleaded him to relieve Shiva from Kapala. Lord Visnu told her, “My dear sister, go to Thandakarunyam graveyard with your husband and make a pond there and name it “Agni Kula Teertham” then prepare a tasty food made by “Agathi Keerai” mix it with the blood and spread that food around the graveyard. With the smell of blood, Kapala would leave Shiva’s hand and eat the food. Then take your husband to the pond and wash him clean with waters so that Kapala would not get stuck to his hands again.”. Parvati did as her brother said and when Kapala got detached from Shiva’s palms she cleaned him with the water. When Kapala came back to Shiva it could attach itself, but now it attached itself to Parvati hand. She became so furious with anger and began to dance. As she danced she grew in size. bigger and bigger till she covered the universe. In this gigantic form she crushed the Kapala with her right foot. Only then she lay down to relax on the ground to relax.

In this fiercest form which destroyed Kapala, and which came out of Parvati is called Ankala Parmeshvari or more fondly as Angalaamman. Parvati then asked Angalaamman to stay in the same place and serve the people.

Ankala Parameshwari is worshipped in different parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In some places she is worshipped as a pregnant goddess. And most of the pregnant women from these regions travel to Ankala Parameshwari Amman Alayam for healthy children and painless delivery.

There is a beautiful mutative blend of Shaivite and Vaishnavite cults in this temple. The guarding angles of Ankala Parameshwari are the incarnations of Vishnu. And interestingly most of them are in the female form. So you see a Narasimha moorty and Varaha in female forms. Even the mutations of the cults are shown in the Ardhanareeshwara.

This particular village temple is called Arasummoottil because there is an arasu tree in the premise. And one interesting idol that I find is a small sculpture of a tortoise kept under a tree. And before this tortoise figure there are a row of bricks kept vertically smeared with turmeric powder and kajal. There are yellow threads running around it.
Women constitute majority of devotees in this temple. What interests me is the celebration of femininity and feminine principle including pregnancy as a centre of worship in this temple. Without controversy the transformation of male incarnations are made into female incarnations. This I feel is like a reading of the male scriptures from a female point of view; a sort of discursive cult that challenges the male point of view without breaking much of the ideologies built around the Hindu temples.

January 1, 2015by admin
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Myth

The Bear Of Jain Mountain

Near Madurai in Tamil Nadu, at the foothills of a mountain called Samanar Malai by the people who live there is a village called Nagamalai. The mountain is called thus because it houses many Jain caves and Samanar means Jain in Tamil. At the top of the mountain was a temple of Ayyanar Karuppannachami.

When the British ruled India, so the story goes, there was an army general who would regularly visit the famous Meenakshi temple of Madurai and insult the goddess. (There is no record of what he did that but there is unanimity in the belief that he did insult her.) This was unbearable for Karuppannachami. So every time the general made his way to the temple, he would knock him off his horse. Disturbed at this, the general consulted an astrologer who told him that this was being done by none other than Karuppanna Chami of Samanar Malai.

On the astrologer’s advice, the general whose name has been lost to history, brought Karuppannachami from the mountain and consecrated him near the Ayyanar temple in Nagamalai. No sooner than he did this, the problem disappeared. And a grateful general donated large amounts of land to the people who helped him do that.

Before bringing down Karuppannachami from the mountain, the Brahmins used to worship at the Ayyanar temple but afterwards the task was entrusted to the Velars. These people had to come through thick forest to reach this temple from their village Vilacheri and they believed that while walking to the temple from their villages and back, Karuppaannachami accompanied them in the form of a bear for their protection. The Velars gratefully named their children “Samanar Malai Karadi (The bear of the Jain mountain).
The village of Nagamalai however had other problems too. It along with its neighboring village of Keezh kuil kudi lay in a barren area. Famine forced its people to go to other villages for jobs. Two residents of these villages went to Karumathur and worked as priests at the Moonu Sami temple. After the famine when they were about to return , The gods Virumappa Chami and Kasi Mayan of Karumathur asked them to take one fist of mud from their temples to their villages. They took the mud and consecrated temples for these Gods near Karuppannachami of their village. They also consecrated Kazhuvanathan, Karuppayi Amman , Irulappan , Changili Karuppannachami etc as security gods.

Contributor’s bio.
P.R. Ramachander is a retired scientist. Apart from biometrics , he is interested in astrology, translating ancient scriptures to English, Hindu culture, and Story telling.

January 1, 2015by admin
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Myth

Sage Rishyasringa

Sage Rishyasringa was the son of Sage Vibhandaka and apsara Urvashi. Once Urvashi was sent by Indra to seduce Vibhandaka and disturb his penance which could bring him powers that Indra perceived would be dangerous to the gods. Having broken Vibhandaka’s penance, Urvashi managed to seduce the sage, and from their union, was born a child who strangely, was born with a horn on his head. (Another version says that the child was born out of a doe, who had consumed the life-giving fluid of Vibhandaka which fell into the river on seeing Urvashi, and thus the horn) The child was thus named Rishyasringa (rishi – sage, shringa – deer horns).

Soon after giving birth to the child, Urvashi left for the heavens, her task accomplished. Vibhandaka was very bitter about the role she had played in the entire episode and took a dislike to all woman-kind. Since, his penance had been broken by a woman, and he was left with a motherless child, he decided to bring up his son without any woman’s help or presence. Vibhandaka set up his hermitage in the midst of a jungle and brought up his son, Rishyasringa, educating him on all the scriptures and Vedas, but in complete isolation. Rishyasringa had not seen any human being (read women) besides his father.

Now there came about a famine in the nearby kingdom of Anga (present day Bihar) which was ruled by Lomapada. The king was advised that it would rain in Anga only if a Brahmin who had observed absolute chastity visited the kingdom. After much discussion, the king was told that the person he needed was Rishyasringa.

The king sent beautiful damsels to the forest to entice Rishyasringa who was taken by complete surprise as he had never seen women and that too of such beauty in his entire life. Fortunately, Vibhandaka was not in the hermitage at the time and Rishyasringa was easily convinced by the beautiful women to accompany them to their kingdom. No sooner had he stepped on to the grounds of Anga, there was heavy downpour. The king was pleased and so were his subjects.

The king decided to offer his daughter Shanta to Rishyasringa as his wife. Later when Vibhandaka came to know about the entire episode, he was extremely angry. But it was too late to do anything and he accepted everything as part of his son’s fate and concluded that this was inevitable and that the principle of male and female forces can never be separated, no matter what. Rishyasringa and Shanta got married and stayed on at Anga, till it was time for their vanaprashtha, retirement to the jungles.

But there are tales within tales. It is said, that King Dasharath of Ayodhya and Kaushalya, the first wife of the King (and Lord Ram’s mother) had a daughter who was born with a defective pair of legs, much before they had four sons. The medics of the times could not do anything till Sage Vasishtha suggested that the daughter be ‘donated’ or given for adoption to some other couple. Kaushalya’s elder sister Vershini, was married to King Lomapada of Anga. Shanta was given to the King and Queen of Anga, who too had no children after many years of marriage.

The famine in Anga was also partly blamed on Shanta. Once when Shanta and King Lomapada were busy talking, a Brahmin approached the King as he wanted some help to see him through the coming monsoon season. The king was too busy to speak to him, which infuriated the Brahmin, who left the palace. This angered Indra, who decided to withhold the rains!

It was also said that when Dasharath was advised to perform a Putra-kameshti (for begetting a son) Yagna, they decided to invite Sage Rishyasringa to perform the yagna. It was after this yagna, that Dasharath was blessed with four sons, Ram, Lakshman, Bharat and Shatrughan.

Though Valmiki has not mentioned Shanta in any detail, many local and folk versions of Ramayana have Shanta as one of the women who have an important say in many issues.

January 1, 2015by admin
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A Mythic Expression of Feminist Power

Last week on Women’s Day, there was the usual outpouring of celebratory messages, whether on the Google doodle or on Facebook or on chain SMSes etc… the world saluting our gender’s strength, creativity, compassion, fortitude. But, as in any other narrative on women, I struggle to find any references to a woman’s ambition that is unconditionally laudatory, without any undertones of prejudice or censure. So whether it is an analysis of ‘grandmother’ Hillary Clinton’s readiness to run for the US Presidential elections or the various headline-grabbing references to Anushka Sharma being the most stunning WAG for the men in Blue (never mind that she is a very successful professional in her own right), the discourse on women seems never to be conducted with focus on her ambitions and goals alone! Probably the only woman in the public sphere who has succeeded in transcending this ‘trap’ is ‘Didi’ or West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee. Much as I disagree almost entirely with her politics, I have to admire her drive and ambition that saw her realise power on her own terms in a country where women ascend to the ‘throne’ only on the strength of dynasty or marriage or patronage from powerful men (like Jayalalitha or Mayawati). And through these random ramblings on women and power, I am reminded of a singular character from the world of myth, whose assertiveness and formidable will is almost unparalleled in the female cast of Indian mythical characters. For, surely, one of the most unusual and arresting mythic personas in our mythic tradition is that of Manasa, the ‘Snake Goddess’ of Bengal–a vivid expression of an ‘anti-establishment’ feminist ambition and power!

I remember reading, with a mixture of fascination and curiosity, many tales in Bengali about Manasa and her epic rivalry with Chand Saudagar, the latter epitomized patriarchy. He was a merchant prince, who had the power of his gender, of capital and patronage from the most powerful male deity of all, Lord Shiva. Manasa, on the other hand, was a lone ‘woman’ who had command over the netherworld of snakes and serpents and her own unbridled ambition, and with these resources, she waged a relentless campaign for respect and recognition. Somehow even as a child, I realised that in the many versions of this tale that I read, there was often an overt and in some, a subtle tone in the writing, that underscored Manasa’s cunning, her rage, her ambition in a less than empathetic way. The final straw in the narrative is the introduction of Behula- the archetypical ‘Sanskritized’ feminine role model, a woman who will sacrifice everything, including her life, to resurrect her husband, because she becomes significant only as a wife. As long as the myth is a rollicking adventure chronicling the tempestuous turns of the struggle between Chand and Manasa, the audience can still choose to take sides, but the masterstroke of the patriarchy is to bring in the pathos of Behula-Lokhindor into the tale. No sooner is that done, audience sympathy is forced away from Manasa to Behula!

However, it may be topical today as debate rages on in India about women’s security and entrenched patriarchal violence against women, to remember and understand Manasa as a genuine feminist icon. Her myth signifies many anti-establishment profiles:

• A non-Aryan , lower socio-economic class cult struggling for patronage from people while up against upper caste Brahminical prejudices.
• A semi-divine female confronting the established patriarchy, be it the divine Lord Shiva or the temporal capitalist authority of Chand Saudagar.

Manasa raises uncomfortable questions on the role of feminine energy when faced with male power and authority. From her birth, Manasa has had to battle for her dues- Shiva first refused to recognize her, though she is said to have been fashioned out of his seed! She is a great source of energy, but unlike the Sanskrit Mother Goddesses, Manasa’s power has a sharp, vindictive edge! She does not hesitate to resort to trickery, coercion or brute strength to subvert her enemies. And if that is par for the course for and leadership attributes of the great patriarchal male heroes of our Puranas and epics, then why not laud the same in Manasa too?

The other interesting characteristic of Manasa is her independence. She may be born from Shiva’s seed but does not get any support from that illustrious divine lineage. There are references to her marriage with the powerful sage Jaratkaru in the Puranas. But in the principal source of the Manasa legend in the Bengali Manasamangalkavyas(thought to have been composed between 13th to 15th centuries), Manasa is a ‘lone warrior’. She fights for recognition from the ‘Establishment’, personified by Chand Saudagar on her own terms, with her followers (the snakes) and her own resources. She does relent finally, impressed by the steadfastness of the mortal woman, Behula and expresses her power by bestowing the greatest gift of all, life to Lokhindor. In return, she extracts the promise that Chand will be persuaded to worship her (albeit with his left hand). But that’s enough to win her a seat in the pantheon of deities venerated by the ‘establishment’! How refreshing this–the calculated negotiation by a determined goal-oriented ‘Goddess’ who uses her power to extract her dues rather than give it away in selfless benevolence that females are always expected to display.

In today’s Bengal, after centuries of Sankritization, the cult of Manasa survives in pockets but the ‘fighting spirit’ and commanding authority of Manasa has been subsumed in a gentler and more stereotypical deity who is about wish fulfillment for childbirths and prosperity. But maybe the time is right for us to re-appraise the true significance of Manasa. I personally feel it is worth celebrating, nay, even passing on to India’s daughters today, Manasa’s Feminine Spirit and Energy, which is not shy of pursuing self-interest and ambition even at the risk of being deemed too aggressive or unfeminine!

Our society is going through rapid change and in no sphere are the changes as ‘unsettling’ as in the roles and expectations from women. And while men, women, parents, guardians, one and all grapple and come to terms with these changes, it is our daughters, who need to be empowered with the confidence and self-belief that it is all right to choose one’s own path, whatever that might be. And it in this context that Manasa’s untiring quest for her rightful place can be an inspiring role model: choose your goal, whether conventional or ground-breaking and then, unabashedly pursue it and disdainfully ignore those carping voices who think there should be boundaries and limits and curfews and codes to transcribe a woman’s ambition!

RUKMINI GUPTE

January 1, 2015by admin
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