Feisty, fragile, fascinating: An interview with Chitra Divakaruni

 The writer paints her protagonists not as the meek and mild queens of traditional mythology, but as intelligent, firebrand women, who protested the wrongs heaped upon them, and took up cudgels on behalf of women around them.

As a child, Dr. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni spent her summer holidays with her maternal grandfather in Bengal, where he regaled her with stories from the epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, along with tales from Bengal.

“My grandfather had a huge influence on my writing,” she says. “The land, the customs, the folktales and fairytales, many of which make their way into my writing, all came from him.” 

As did the epics. Though in the narratives of Divakaruni, they came with a twist. The Palace of Illusions (2008) and The Forest of Enchantments (2019), two of the most ambitious novels she embarked on, were retellings of the epics where Divakaruni gave voice to the innermost thoughts of Draupadi and Sita. 

Growing up in Kolkata, the sense of Sita she got was of a “very meek and mild, obedient wife and daughter-in-law, who did not create any trouble. Elders would bless me and say, may you be like Sita, the epitome of all those qualities. That used to really annoy me! I thought there has to be more to Sita than that.” 

That’s the kind of fallacious thinking that Divakaruni hopes to address through her portrayals of strong heroines. In her books, she paints them not as the meek and mild queens of traditional mythology, but intelligent, firebrand women, who protested the wrongs heaped upon them, and took up cudgels on behalf of women around them. 

Author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Image Credit: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni)

In her latest book, The Last Queen, which was just released in the United States, Divakaruni continues to delve into the minds of powerful queens, this time with the story of Maharani Jind Kaur, the youngest and most beloved wife of the Lion of Punjab, Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the Sikh empire. 

Why Rani Jindan?

“She is an amazingly strong woman who was just pushed aside in the annals of our history,” says Divakaruni.

History books teach about the Sher-e-Punjab, and his son, Dalip Singh, who was deposed by the British, exiled to England in his childhood, and ultimately made a puppet of the British crown. But in between the father and son ruled Maharani Jind Kaur, as the Queen Regent, an astute young widow fighting to protect Punjab, the legacy of her beloved husband, and the birthright of her son Dalip, from mercenary courtiers and the avaricious British. 

“I thought Rani Jindan had a fascinating life and deserved to be in the limelight. She was very inspiring to me because of the difficulties she went through in a world that was pretty hostile to women who stepped out of their roles; I really wanted to tell her story,” says Divakaruni. 

Readers and critics have called her books, especially the epic retellings, “unputdownable.” 

“I love that word!” Divakaruni exclaims in delight. “I want it to be unputdownable.”

In this regard, The Last Queen doesn’t disappoint. The story has everything a fast-paced novel can be expected to have: royalty, romance, conspiracy, murder and mayhem. Divakaruni’s narrative style is fluid and accessible, with a sprinkling of wit and humor. 

Divakaruni herself is a disarmingly charming conversationalist; her humor belies her towering persona as a multiple award-winning author. Her work has been included in the Best American Short Stories, The O’Henry Prize Stories, and two Pushcart Prize Anthologies, among others. She is also Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Houston, a program that is rated among the top creative writing programs in the US. 

A strong advocate for women’s rights, she co-founded the San Francisco Bay Area-based Maitri, a nonprofit that provides support services to South Asian survivors of domestic violence. She is also an Emeritus board member of Pratham, a nonprofit dedicated to eradicating illiteracy in India.  

Both Draupadi and Sita were relegated to a corner in the traditional epic narrative, not given much of a say in terms of what they were thinking, feeling or their motives.

As in the Palace of Illusions and The Forest of Enchantments, Divakaruni continues to write The Last Queen in the first-person narrative. Why?

“The first person allowed me direct interiority into the minds of these women, and in these three books, that was important. These are all strong women; their world is important, and therefore their voice.” 

Both Draupadi and Sita, she felt, were relegated to a corner in the traditional epic narrative, not given much of a say in terms of what they were thinking, feeling or their motives, and so Divakaruni addressed them with first-person female perspectives. 

At the same time, she also made both gods and kings disarmingly human with a generous dose of humor. In the Forest of Enchantments, readers are treated to a delightful scene where Lord Ram is teased about his dark skin color by Sita’s friends, and he gives back naughtily in jest by saying that when they unite in love, some of Sita’s fairness might rub off onto him.

“Normally, our popular concept of Ram is not of someone who jokes,” says Divakaruni, “but I found this in the Krittibasi Ramayan [a popular Bengali retelling] and had to put it in.” 

In the Last Queen too, readers also get a sense of Maharaja Ranjit Singh as a person, in all his glory and his failings (with a fondness for both women and drink), who finally found true love in the twilight of his years with an extraordinary woman of very ordinary birth.

Divakaruni’s feminist message, while strong, is also delicately nuanced, and therein lies her appeal to readers across genders. This has earned her a fan following among male readers.

Retelling of epics and historicals can be literary landmines for any author. So, how does Divakaruni tread through those?

“I feel huge amounts of trepidation, and oh, there are a lot of landmines, but what helps is my mission, which is to tell the truth as best as I can see it. I really don’t have any agenda except to bring women to the center of the story.” 

Divakaruni’s feminist message, while strong, is also delicately nuanced, and therein lies her appeal to readers across genders. This has earned her a fan following among male readers, many of whom write to her and engage with her on social media, all of which she finds very gratifying. “Reading across the genders is a very healthy thing, mentally and psychologically, healthy for our communities and ultimately for our societies,” she says. 

Divakaruni also feels keenly about the current world situation, where ideas and opinions are polarized to the extreme, and different interpretations are unwelcome. “I think we are going through a period, all over the world, and also in India, where it seems like there is only one possible interpretation of things, and if you veer from that, then hey, you are a problem. I really feel that that was not in our Indian spirit. Our Indian spirit is very embracive of many different ways of interpreting, of living, of worshiping.”

  

Currently, she is working on her next book, about a family in Bengal caught in the calamity of the Partition, which echoes those very sentiments. “It is at once hugely inspirational and a warning story as well of what happens when people don’t come together. Bengal too felt the violence of partition very keenly, but those events are less documented than the western borders,” she says.

 

Divakaruni’s other enduring love is teaching creative writing. “Every time I critique a student’s work, I learn something new. My students read a lot of contemporary books and they are always recommending things to me to read.” 

Her message for aspiring writers out there: I want you to know that when I started writing, I was a very bad writer. I had to learn how to become a good writer. Sometimes, writers have to be prepared to do that.

(Source: India Currents) 

Geography of god

With this, one gets the feeling that Hindu gods privilege the Gangetic plain, writes Devdutt Pattanaik. Read on: 

In north India, as per politicians, three major pilgrimage sites are important. The first is Ayodhya, where Ram was born and the kingdom of Ram was established. The second is Mathura where Krishna was born. The third is Kashi, with which Shiva is associated. Ram, Krishna and Shiva form the foundations of modern Hindu practices. With this, one gets the feeling that Hindu gods privilege the Gangetic plain.  

The early Hindu scriptures were restricted to North India. There is reference to Punjab and Haryana in the Rigveda. The Upanishads refer to the wider Gangetic plain. The Mahabharata refers to Bengal and Odisha. Ramayana  speaks of a more southern movement. By the Puranic period, we get more familiar with river systems, like the Narmada and Godavari, indicating a southward movement. Tamil scriptures, of course, talk of Kaveri. The Himalayan region gets increasingly connected with Shiva and many forms of Shakti whose shrines are found atop mountains and in caves.

Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik

When the Parshuram mythology emerges, the western coast of India becomes more and more prominent. Very few people know about the connection of Anga, Vanga and Kalinga (modern-day Bihar, Odisha and Bengal) with the sage Dhirgatamas of the Mahabharata. The Godavari region is connected to the rishi, Gautama and his wife, Ahalya. Most southern rivers are considered to be extensions of the Ganga itself, brought from the north to the south by rishis. In the same way the southern mountains are considered Dakshina Kailasa, brought from the north to the south by rishis, like Agastya.

In a recent lecture, a guruji kept insisting that they have been able to date the Ramayana and Mahabharata, using astronomical data found in the scriptures. He was asked by a student whether this happened before the exodus of Moses or after? This irritated the guru. He retorted that he was not concerned about what happened in other countries. The student then countered this reasoning by saying that he thought god belonged to all countries, not just to India. The guruji had no answer to it, especially since he prided himself on getting white men from Europe and America to take part in Hindu rituals. 

This indicates how god is provincialised in religions. Even religions that claim to be universal such as Christianity and Islam are anchored in a holy land located in the Middle East, which seems odd to people, say, in the Artic circles who wonder why prophets are always in the land of sand, not snow.

As Buddhism spread to China, a new idea emerged. That there are many Buddhas with many Buddha heavens located in infinite worlds. This allowed Buddha to be located anywhere, not just India. So Buddhas were seen manifesting in Tibet, Japan, China and even Korea. Mormons did the same thing for America, by stating that hundreds of years ago prophets escaped from Babylon and took God’s word to America and this was rediscovered in the 19th century by Joseph Smith. While some religions stay anchored to geography, some choose to break the fetter, and others invent new stories to link geography to God.

Devdutt Pattanaik writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times.

(Source: Mid Day)

Mythology of maternal uncles

Ravana has close relations with his maternal uncles, Marichi and Subahu, who help him abduct Sita, writes Devdutt Pattanaik. Read on:

The maternal uncle plays a very important role in Hindu scriptures. He is called the ‘Maama’. He is the brother who visits his sister’s house during the rakhi festival. She visits his house during Bhai Dooj, the final day of Diwali. He watches over her welfare. It is an acknowledged phenomenon in Hindu families. In Purana, mountains are considered brothers of rivers. Many stories in the great Indian epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata involve maternal uncles. 

Ram’s maternal uncle is Kausalya’s brother. In some versions of the tale, it is said that Dashrata, king of Varanasi, fought the king of Kosala, and to make peace and merge the two kingdoms, he married Kausalya, the princess of Kosala. Nothing much is known about Ram’s maternal uncle though. We do know that Bharat is raised in the house of his maternal uncle, sometimes called Yudhajit. Ravana has close relations with his maternal uncles, Marichi and Subahu, who help him abduct Sita.

In the Mahabharata, we hear of Shakuni and Vasudev. Shakuni is the maternal uncle of the Kauravas, and Vasudev is the maternal uncle of the Pandavas. Kansa is the maternal uncle of Krishna. Each has a different character making us wonder what kind of maternal uncle we want in our life. 

There is Kansa mama, the one who wants to kill the nephew and is eventually killed by the nephew. This is a rare case in Indian mythology where the younger generation strikes against the older generation. Then there is Shakuni who is allegedly supporting the Kauravas, but his advice eventually caused the downfall of the Kauravas. Finally, there is Vasudeva who doesn’t play a direct role in the life of Pandavas but does lend his support through his son, Krishna. 

The Mahabharata war can be seen as a battle between two maternal uncles—Shakuni of the Kauravas and Vasudeva of the Pandavas.

Other significant maternal uncles include Shalya, the king of Madra, whose nephews are the twins Nakul and Sahadeva. He is shown as unable to decide on whose side he should fight, the Pandavas or the Kauravas. He is made charioteer of Karna but demotivates Karna by praising the Pandavas. Eventually, he becomes the commander of the Kaurava army and is killed by Yudhishtira. 

In Krishna lore, Krishna has a strained relationship with Rukmini’s brother Rukmi who opposes their wedding. But later they reconcile. Rukmi’s daughter even marries Rukmini’s son Pradyumna. This is a case of cousin marriage, common in South India, but not in North India. In some versions, we hear of a gambling match between Rukmi and Krishna’s brother Balaram which turns violent and Balarama kills Rukmi. 

Even though Krishna is the maternal uncle of Abhimanyu, he is unable to save his nephew during the Mahabharata war. Later Abhimanyu’s son, Parikshit, is the only surviving heir of the Pandavas and inherits Kurukshetra. This story is significant for it means a descendent of Krishna ends up ruling the kingdom of Hastinapur. Long ago, Krishna’s ancestor Yadu who was the crown prince of Hastinapur was stripped of his crown by his own father and the crown was given to his youngest brother Puru. Puru’s descendants Pandavas and Kauravas fight a terrible war that destroys each other, but thanks to Yadu’s descendent Krishna, whose sister Subhadra elopes with Arjuna, a child is born who inherits what was denied to an ancestor.    

(Source: Mid Day)

The legend of the Indian prince who is the forefather of all Cambodians

 The love story of prince Preah Thong and Naga princess Neang Neak is intrinsic to Cambodian culture, passed on to every child at a young age.

One of the most beautiful theatrical spectacles that a person can witness in Asia is the Preah Thong Boung Soung, a rendition of the story of Preah Thong and Neang Neak that is performed by the Royal Ballet of Cambodia. With elaborate costumes, gentle music and exquisite dance, the opera depicts the story that every single child in Cambodia is told at a very young age – the saga of an Indian prince and a serpent (Naga) woman who are the ancestors of all Khmer people.

Like the Indian epic Ramayana, there are several versions of the story of Preah Thong and Neang Neak. One of the most popular versions goes like this: Thousands of years ago, Cambodia was a small island called Kouk Thlouk, meaning the land of the Thlouk tree, a Cambodian species of Chrysobalanaceae. The island belonged to the Nagas (serpents) who lived in the ocean. One day, Naga princess Soma and her subjects transformed themselves into beautiful women and came to the island. The same night, an Indian prince named Kaundinya sailed with his followers to the island. The prince saw the Naga princess dancing in the moonlight and fell madly in love with her and asked her to marry him. She agreed under the condition that the Naga king, her father, approve of the marriage.

Representational image. The story of Preah Thong and Neang Neak is performed often by the Royal Ballet of Cambodia. | David Van Der Veen/AFP

Since the Naga palace was in the depths of the ocean, Kaundinya had to ride there by carrying Soma’s tail. The king found the Indian prince to be a suitable match and agreed to let his daughter marry him. After their wedding, the Naga king expanded the island by reclaiming more land from the ocean. This territory was then ruled by the Kaundinya and Soma, who were given the Khmer names Preah Thong and Neang Neak respectively. The Cambodians, or Khmers, consider themselves the descendants of the pair.

“The description of the land as an ‘island’ is linked with the idea that all of the country was formerly underwater,” German scholar Rüdiger Gaudes wrote in a paper titled ‘Kaundinya, Preah Thong and the Nagi Soma: Some aspects of a Cambodian legend’. “Determining the geographical location of Koul Thlouk is impossible, particularly since it is said to be situated near the Dangrek Mountains, near the town of Siem Reap (where, indeed the classical metropolis of Angkor Thom was located), or far to the south of Angkor Borei – its supposed location evidently depending upon the place of origin of the respective narrator.”

Scholars widely agree that the notion that ancient Cambodia was an island was because of the widespread floods that the country has been witness to for thousands of years.

Another version of the story says Kaundinya waged a war with Soma, while another claims he killed the Naga king who refused to allow his daughter to marry a human. One thing that is common between these and almost all versions of the story is the part about the Indian prince carrying the tail of his future wife to the depths of the ocean. It is such a part of the Cambodian ethos that it has been incorporated into Cambodian wedding rituals: while entering the honeymoon room, a Cambodian groom is required to carry the end of the long train of the bride’s dress. This gesture and the story behind it indicate that the woman is the head of the family. Cambodians consider Neang Neak as their matriarch.

Elements Of Truth?

Like many epics and legends of Asia, the story of Preah Thong and Neang Neak may have an element of truth. Chinese historical texts mention the Kingdom of Funan, a loose network of Indianised states in the 3rd century CE. Funan is probably a Chinese variant of the Khmer word Vnum, which means mountain. The state’s ancient capital Vyadhapura did not survive the ravages of time.

In his book Account of Foreign Countries at the Time of Wu, 3rd century Chinese traveller Kai Tang documented the existence of Funan and Vyadhapura. He mentioned that the script of the kingdom was similar to what he called the Indian script. Kai Tang wrote about Kaundinya in his book, while talking about the origin of Funan. The Chinese name for the Indian prince was Hun Tian.

German historian and Indologist Hermann Kulke was the first to suggest that the Indian king was a Brahmin and that Kaundinya was actually the name of his gotra. In his book The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History, Sanjeev Sanyal added that Kaundinya probably was from northern Andhra Pradesh or southern Odisha.

Tenth century Chinese encyclopaedia Tai Ping Lu Yuan says Kaundinya (Hun Tian) was a devotee of a Hindu god and dreamt of his god giving him a divine bow and asking him to take to sea in a vessel. The Chinese text that was translated by historian and academician Ramesh Chandra Majumdar said Kaundinya went to a temple of his god and found a bow the morning after the dream. “Then he embarked on a trading vessel, and the god changed the course of the wind in such a manner that he came to Funan,” the Chinese encyclopaedia said. “Liu Ye (Soma) came in a boat to plunder the vessel. Hun Tian raised his bow and shot an arrow, which pierced through the queen’s boat from one side to the other. The queen was overtaken by fear and submitted to him. Thereupon Hun Tian ruled over the country.”

The marriage of Kaundinya and Soma is mentioned in several ancient Chinese texts as well.

“These accounts undoubtedly reflect historical events from the 1st Century AD (that is two hundred or more years before Kang Tai’s visit) relating to the process of Indianisation: the influx of Indian religion, folklore, political and legal theories and other cultural elements brought by Indians into Southeast Asia in connection with social changes and the formation of states there,” Gaudes wrote.

Cultural Linkages

After Cambodia broke free of colonial rule, Cambodian stateman Norodom Sihanouk, who was first king then prime minister of the country, made it a priority to popularise the story around the world. Under the patronage of Sihanouk’s wife Norodom Monineath, the Royal Ballet of Cambodia performed the opera in several countries.

The ballet has since become an international symbol of the country and the dance depicting the story has been inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage list. It even survived the murderous and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which wanted to ban the story and ballet.

Sihanouk also developed a strong personal friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru, who he considered his mentor. During a 12-day visit to India in 1955, the Cambodian statesman spoke of both the influence of Sanskrit on the Khmer language as well as link the story of Preah Thong and Neang Neak created between the countries. “We [India and Cambodia] are cousins,” he said during the visit. “Khmer civilisation is the child of India’s civilisation, and we are proud of it.”

This story and dance, which are a powerful and important cultural link, can be the basis of strengthening India’s relationship with the most Indic of South East Asian countries. In a post-pandemic world, audiences in Indian cities would welcome the performance by Cambodian dancers of the story that shows the love between an ancient Indian prince and his Naga princess.

(Source: Scroll)

Was the Ramayana actually set in and around today’s Afghanistan?

 An examination of a book by physicist Rajesh Kochhar debunks the notion that the events of the epic took place in modern-day India.

History is said to be the original discipline in the faculties today known as humanities. This is owing to the fact that every discipline in knowledge discourse has a history – even abstract disciplines like mathematics or astronomy – and every piece of history has a geophysical contextuality.

Ever since Herodotus (484 BC - 425 BC, Greek-occupied Turkey) started the discipline, he recorded events during the reign of four Persian kings and chronicled life and society in their times. These were times of conflict between Greece and Persia and had a geographical contextuality.

Herodotus also speaks of “India”, where he saw the Himalayan marmot bathing in gold dust. Much later, deconstructing his text led to the conclusion that the great father of historical praxis must have passed through the North West Frontier province and reached the base of Hindu Kush.

This posed a question, which Herodotus did not ask himself: if he had indeed travelled to “India”, which “India” was this? For that matter, if he was “Greek”, which “Greece” did he live in? Similarly. if Ram of the epic poem Ramayana was an “Indian”, where was this “India” situated?

Wikimedia Commons

The so-called Ram Setu
A ship that wishes to sail from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal has to pass through the Indian Ocean to the south of Sri Lanka. The voyage would have been 30 hours shorter if it could have travelled along the Gulf Of Mannar, which separates India and Sri Lanka, but this isn’t possible. For there are thousands of small submerged rocks beneath its surface, stretching like a bridge across 47 km between the two countries. As a result, the sea is between one and 30 metre deep here, which isn’t favourable for sailing.

The British government of colonised India as well the government of independent India had often planned to dredge the channel to make it suitable for sailing; but the plans have remained elusive for various reasons. At present, for instance, Hindutva followers believe that this is the bridge built by an army of monkeys, as described in the Ramayana, which Ram and Lakshaman crossed to conquer Sri Lanka.

Their demand is that, far from dredging, let the Archaeological Survey of India declare this bridge a national monument. Not that the colonisers were any less fundamentalist. In 1804 a certain British cartographer named the structure Adam’s Bridge – according to him this was the bridge described in the Bible which Adam crossed to scale a mountain peak, where he meditated for 1,000 years while standing on one leg.

Even before this, we have seen Marco Polo describe the structure as a bridge, as did Al-Biruni in the book he wrote in 1030 CE. In other words, it has long been held that this row of rocks beneath the surface of the water is a bridge.

Not exactly a bridge
According to geologists this structure is actually a limestone shoal, the outcome of natural processes. Between 300 and 30 million years ago, a portion of the Indian subcontinent is believed to have broken off because of continental drift to form the island of Sri Lanka. The debris that this fragment of land left behind at birth in the water as it drifted away led to the creation of this so-called bridge.

It may have jutted out of the water at some point in history, in which case it might have been used as a bridge. But there is considerable doubt whether the users belonged to the age of the Ramayana. This is because the inhabitants of Sri Lanka went directly from the Stone Age to the Iron Age; the use of copper was not very prevalent here. On the other hand, the Ramayana is a tale from an advanced Copper Age – an epic in verse from a period two or three thousand years before the Iron Age.

Where was Ramayana set?
Let us drop the preamble and get to the point now. If the Lanka mentioned in the Ramayana was not the Sri Lanka of today, where was it located? Where did Ram belong, for that matter? Wherever he may have lived, he was certainly not an inhabitant of what is the Ganges valley today, or of “Ramjanmabhoomi” Ayodhya. For, civilised man did not live in the forest-infested Ganges valley before the Iron Age, since there were no axes with which to clear the vegetation before iron was discovered. There were no swords either, which proves that the Ramayana, unlike the Mahabaharata, is not an epic of the Ganges valley. It makes no mention of swords – the bow and arrow are the primary weapons in it.

The primary objective of this essay is to point to the geographical location of the Ramayana. It is not the writer who has arrived at the answer, nor an Indologist like Max Mueller or even a historian or archaeologist. The person in question is Rajesh Kochhar, a physicist with an inclination for history, who has broken through the traditional techniques of history in his work The Vedic People – Their History and Geography.

How the Ramayana is different from the Mahabharata
The primary difficulty of discussing the ancient history of India lies in the necessity of first demolishing several well-established inaccuracies, such as the Aryan Invasion Theory, for instance. Spun by white men and broadcast by colonial historians, this old wives’ tale is still taught in schools and colleges, with half of any written work – measured in terms of paper, ink and effort - being expended on it. We shall not entertain it. We will only examine whatever can be determined through the social and geographical pointers available in the Ramayana.

There are two other fundamental differences between the Ramayana and the Mahabharata – in the rivers and in the divine pantheon. In the Mahabharata the Ganga and the Yamuna are almost ubiquitous, but they’re completely missing from the Ramayana. In the Mahabharata we see the powerful presence of the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar – but they’re absent from the Ramayana. We do not find these two rivers and these three gods together in the Rig Veda.

However, the rivers and gods that are to be found in the Rig Veda are also to be found in the Ramayana – the rivers Saraswati and Sarayu, and the original trinity of Agni, Varun and Pavan. From this it is easy to surmise that the Ramayana is a Rig Vedic epic. Which period was this? It would not be correct to estimate this using our current calendar: it would probably not be possible either. An approximation can be made from the sequence of events.

The somras clue
Vedic nomads travelled from the Eastern Europe to Bactria (present day Afghanistan). From here they went to Persia (today’s Iran). During their migration to Persia there was probably a battle for power amongst the gods, which led to the birth of the Avestan religion. As a result, Indra, the king of gods, became an inferior figure in the Avesta, while Yama, the god of death, turned into the finest of the gods. Worshipping Agni is a prominent practice within the Parsi community, but Hindus do not worship this ancient god. This indicates that the Rig Vedic age predated Persia. Kochhar has provided clues to whether this was the Afghan branch of the Vedic journey.

The first such clue that Kochhar alludes to is the Vedic drink somras. It was so important in ancient Vedic life that an entire mandala or chapter of the Rig Veda has been devoted to it. The importance of soma is evident in the Avestan Zend scripture – it is referred to as haoma in Persia. It is seen that the closer the Vedic nomads get to the Indian peninsula, the more they seek continuously new alternatives to the soma plant; that was how important somras was.

But the original soma plant was to be found only in what is modern day Afghanistan and Persia or Iran. In 1951 the German historian Karl Friedrich Geldner proved that the ephedra plant was what was described as soma in the Rig Veda. Ephedrin or somras is not alcohol – this intoxicant is an alkaloid. Kochhar’s investigations led to the discovery of four varieties of ephedra, found in Afghanistan, Iran, the northern Himalayas, and the Hindu Kush.

What we learn from summer solstice
There are 49 cosmic hymns in the Rig and the Yajur Vedas whose meanings have not been explained. But one particular hymn from Vedanga Jyotish informs us that the longest day of the year, or summer solstice, comprised 18 periods of daylight and 12 of night. Day and night are of equal length on the Equator; in the higher latitudes, summer days are longer than nights.

The latitude at which the proportion of daylight and darkness is 3:2 is 34 degrees North. It is worth noting that the cities to be found around this latitude today are Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan. In other words, the place and time of the composition of the Vedanga Jyotish is the same as that of Vedic Afghanistan and Iran. This second piece of evidence offered by Rajesh Kochhar further strengthens the perception of the location and time of the Rig Veda.

In search of the rivers
Kochhar has deconstructed the Rig Veda in search of the Saraswati and the Sarayu, the two rivers also mentioned in the Ramayana. Here too our current history has come in the way.

There is a tiny river named the Sarayu in Uttar Pradesh, which flows into the Ghaghara, which in turn merges with the Ganga. Many people consider the rainwater-fed Saraswati in the Aravallis, flowing along the Ghaggar (not to be confused with the Ghaghara) basin the mythical Saraswati. On viewing the scans of North-Western India made by the Russian Landsat satellite between 1972 and ’79, it is natural to assume that the Ghaggar was a wide river. It flows into the Rann of Kutch.

The scan reveals the basin of a dried up older river, which is up to 8 km broad in some places. It was this that led to the hasty conclusion of this basin’s belonging to the original Saraswati.

From Neil Roberts’s The Holocene it is clear that the basin of this river widened to the north of the Rann of Kutch because of the accelerated movement of a glacier during the previous Ice Age. But deconstructing the Rig Veda doesn’t suggest any of this. The Saraswati has been referred to as non-perennial towards the end of the Veda. The original stream of the Ghaggar enters India from present-day Pakistan, drying up in the Thar desert. Kochhar believes this is the non-perennial Saraswati.

However, the Saraswati of the Rig Veda is extremely powerful, grinding rocks with sheer force. Its roar subsumes all other sounds. And the Sarayu of the Rig Veda is immensely wide and deep, the mother river. None of these descriptions matches the actual rivers in present-day India with those names.

Hymn No. 5 | 53 | 9 of the Rig Veda says, “May the Rasa, Krumu, Anitabh, Kuva or Sindhu not be able to stop you; let the deep Sarayu not be an obstacle.” The order of the rivers clearly moves from east to west. So the Sarayu undoubtedly flows to the west of the Indus.

Kochhar believes it is the 650-km river known as the Hari-Rud in Afghanistan, whose source is in the Hindu Kush mountains. It flows past the city of Herat and then for 100 km along the Iran-Afghanistan border before disappearing in the Karakom desert of Central Asia.

In the Avesta we find the Saraswati as the Harahaiti – the similarity in sound is noticeable – which enters Iran along the combined basin of the river Arghandar on the Afghan-Iran border and the river Helmand. According to Kochhar, it is this Helmand that is the Vedic Saraswati river.

The source of the Helmand is in the Koh-i-Baba mountain range. Flowing for 1,300 miles through the heart of Afghanistan, the Vedic Saraswati joins the Vedic Drijadbati or Arghandar. The Avesta identifies this wide river as the Hetumanta (or, in varations, as Setumanta). In Iran the Saraswati is named the Harahaiti, which flows into the inland lake Hamun-e-Sabari in the Saistan area of northern Iran.

The conclusion
The political map of the ancient world, of the Copper Age, provides an extraordinary realisation. The kingdoms of the two main political powers – the Persians and the Greeks – all lie between and around the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. None of these is a coastal civilisation, however.

This raises a question. What did ancient man refer to as a sea? The Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Campian Sea are all saltwater lakes, and not seas in the way we understand them today. This make us wonder: perhaps the Lanka of the Ramayana was an island in the Hamun-e-Sabri.

The one thing that’s obvious: wherever it was that Ram and Lakshman went from Afghanistan, it could not have been to present-day Sri Lanka, for that would have meant crossing the Indian peninsula. And since Ravana, the lord of Lanka, was also partial to somras, it is unlikely that he went very far from the land of soma after abducting Sita.

Although it is not possible to prove archaeologically, there is considerable reason to assume that the lineage of Dasarath (and of Ram), the Ikshvakus, were from western Afghanistan. For the Puranas say that King Kubalasa slayed a demon on the shore of the Sabari. Vishwamitra received his second birth where the Saraswati met the sea. And Valmiki discovered Sita on the shore of the Sarayu. This is why there is little room for doubt that today’s Hamun-e-Sabri is the sea mentioned in the Ramayana, one of the islands in which was the kingdom ruled by Ravana, lord of the rakshases.

The focus of attention for those studying the lost history of India is the contentious issue raised by Hindutva historians, who have repeatedly asserted that western historians have been unable to identify the roots of ancient India. We find these assertions in the writings of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, as well as in those of certain lesser-known right-wing historians. It is surprising how easily conclusions unsupported by the array of Vedic texts can be arrived at because of mindless adherence to a popular brand of politics.

The rock formation between India and Sri Lanka could well be preserved, but not as Ram Setu or Adam’s Bridge. Let it be protected as a geological feature. For no matter how far one looks, no relationship is evident between this Lanka and the Lanka of the Ramayana.

(Source: Scroll)

Shabari of Ramayana: The woman who broke norms

 The author longs to meet Shabari , not just the self-effacing old woman but also her free-spirited younger self, who displayed immense grace under pressure

I was rather young when I first heard of Shabari. My grandparents presented us with variations from Valmiki’s 2,000-year-old narration (Sarga 69 of the Aranyakanda) and from the 800-year-old Kamban Ramayana written in Tamil. Their Shabari was an elderly woman, a disciple of Rishi Matanga. When informed by Matanga that it was time for him to leave behind his mortal frame, Shabari had wanted to follow suit. Dissuading her, he instructed her to await Vishnu’s visit in human form and extend hospitality to Rama before embarking on her journey. Shabari was a kind-hearted and affectionate host who fed Rama and Lakshmana and then voluntarily relinquished her life.

Shabari’s life in the idyllic landscape of Lake Pampa, beside the Rishyamukha Mountain, was fascinating. The sand around the lake was soft and easy to walk upon. Abundant fruit and fish and boar provided for varied appetites to feed upon. Lotuses bloomed in profusion and birds nestled on trees. Possibly this was somewhere near modern-day Hampi, which still remains scenic and salubrious, despite continued human depredations.

A prayer: Rama’s acceptance of the jujube fruits oered by Shabari repudiated caste hierarchies   -  WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The weather was delightful all year round, and Shabari recalled for me the grandmothers we stayed with in Chennai and Chidambaram in the long summer vacations when we escaped from the brutal Delhi heat and the monotonous everyday schedules of school. My grandmothers were steeped in the Bhakti tradition, which translated into the devoted attention they extended in everyday life to all their near and dear ones.

I am sure that for them, in the mellow autumn of their lives, Shabari was a significant point of reference: She had made the ashram a welcoming place and the warmth and generosity extended to her visitors knew no bounds. Modelling themselves on Shabari, my grandmothers were extraordinary reservoirs of nurture and warmth, as they bustled around visiting families, making them feel welcome and presenting them with the delicious fruits growing in and around their homes.

I was a little older when I learnt that Sabara was a noun that described a socially disadvantaged community to which Shabari belonged, quite unlike the rishis and kshatriya princes she served with selfless devotion. If I ever meet Shabari, perhaps I’d ask her what she felt about another woman of a disadvantaged caste — brutalised and killed in Uttar Pradesh last month.

Some 500 years ago, in the Adhyatma Ramayana, Shabari speaks of her spiritual unworthiness due to her low status, and awaits Rama’s reassurance of its irrelevance before immolating herself to attain liberation. The Adhyatma Ramayana records the increasing rigidity of caste hierarchies while confirming the lowly status of women in the patriarchal society. By this time, the considerate and compassionate Shabari became for me the lode-stone of integral human values such as selfless nurture and unconditional love, which were increasingly being jettisoned.

My mother explained how the ecchal ber (jujube fruits touched by human saliva) that Rama accepted and consumed not only repudiated caste hierarchies but also how Shabari’s gesture broke with antediluvian practices. It was Balram Das’s 15th-century Dandi Ramayana (in Odiya) that first mentioned the jhoota (saliva-touched) fruit as mangoes. 

Arguably, this version of the saliva-flecked ber exists as oral narrative all over the Indian subcontinent, to provide direction. I’d like to discuss with Shabari the ‘touch-ability’ and ‘taste-ability’ she invokes through her biting into each individual fruit. It is, after all, an extraordinary metaphor reminding us of the urgent human imperative to transform and transcend hateful structures of class, caste, gender and race to a more egalitarian space.

An undocumented tale mentions the wealthy tribe Shabari had fled from in the days prior to her marriage, aghast at the wasteful culling of animals for the wedding feast, to seek refuge at Matanga’s ashram. It would be fascinating to discuss this with the younger Shabari, who rejected conjugality as defining or completing female identity. Shabari followed her heart’s desire and is a significant female role model, whose intellectual and spiritual prowess outranked or was on par with patriarchal men. Contributing to sustainable living and careful about what she consumed; she remained courteous and hospitable, while standing her ground in the face of great odds. Was she not victimised in those beautiful ancient environs for her free thinking, for her youth, for her lower social status, for being a woman, for wanting to be different? Shabari must have been made to suffer.

Although posterity has chosen to enshrine only the self-effacing aged woman, I have longed to meet the free-spirited young woman who valued goodwill and nurture as an intrinsic and extended largesse to all sentient beings, while displaying extraordinary qualities of grace and dignity under pressure. It is the countless articulate Shabaris around us — old, middle-aged, and young — that I continue to seek. May their tribe increase.

(Source: Business Line)

Why the rest of India should read Wayanad adivasis’ retelling of the Ramayana

 Their version of the Ramayana is less black-and-white, more feminist, and they reflect difficult histories.

For the adivasis of Wayanad, Kerala’s northeastern border district, the Ramayana is not a scholarly import from the Hindi belt, as is popularly imagined. It is a story they own, which is set in their villages, where Rama and Sita live a tribal life and suffer the same injustice and abuse they do as a marginalised community.

Wayanad’s adivasis make up about 38% of Kerala’s tribal population and their histories and identities are as varied as their telling of the Ramayana. Azeez Tharuvana, a Malayalam scholar and teacher who has written extensively on Wayanad’s Ramayana, had encountered this fascinating episode told by Mathe Vaidyar, the late elder of the Adiya (slave) tribe. As the story opens, Pakkathappan, the lord of Pakkam – a local area – is talking to Sita, a tribal woman. 

He orders her to leave his country with all her belongings. Tharuvana has an explanation for this unique story: the Adiyas had for generations been slave labourers for landlords in Thrisseleri and Thirunelli in Wayanad, and Kodagu in neighbouring Karnataka. Being bullied and thrown out of their homes and lands was a familiar story.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]

Poverty and landlessness are woven into the epic. “The rich people exhibited their wealth by bringing exquisite clothes in bullock carts and buffalo carts,” says the recounting of an Adiya Ramayanam story in Tharuvana’s book, Wayanadan Ramayanam. “The poor, who had no clothes except the ones they wore, stayed away watching all this drama. They did not lose any tree, because they were landless.” This is the point where Hanuman is setting fire to the trees of Lanka.

Tharuvana’s book has just been made into an award-winning documentary and was shown recently at a seminar at the history department of Delhi University. It reaffirms the point made so strongly by scholar and poet AK Ramanujan in his much-debated essay, Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation, that the Ramayana has always been open to interpretation by the communities that own it. It may be recalled that seven years ago the essay was dropped from the Delhi University syllabus after protests from hardline Hindu groups.

(Right) The late Mathe Vaidyar was an expert on Adiya Ramayanam.

“These stories are particularly significant in the times we live in when multiculturalism is under threat,” said Tharuvana, an assistant professor at Farook College in Kozhikode. “Ramayana is a literary text in the hands of Valmiki, Kamban, Tulsidas and Ezhuthachan, but it is a living oral tradition for many like the adivasis of Wayanad. The stories change with time and change from one village to another, staying fluid and real for those who believe in them. 

There are tellings where Sita is serving kaapi (coffee) to Rama, or taking a bullock cart to Lanka, or commanding Hanuman to bring kerosene to set fire to Lanka.”

Wayanad’s Ramayana stories are entirely orally transmitted. How they came into the adivasi folklore tradition is an interesting story as well. Up until the 1950s, temples and other sacred spaces where Ramayana readings took place were closed to all but the high upper castes. So where did the tribals, who did not have the education to read the text, encounter the epic? Likely, said Tharuvana, they heard them being recited at some distance as they worked as slaves in the homes of the upper caste landlords.

A good 18% of Wayanad’s population is adivasi and they are divided into around 12 communities – Adiya, Kurichiya, Kurumar, Karimbalan and Chetti among them – many of which migrated from neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Like most tribal pockets in India, they have been subject to denial of human rights across Kerala as the recent story on the lynching in Attapady showed. Up until 1975, Tharuvana said, there was no ban on the sale of slaves on the occasion of Valliyoorkaavu temple festival in Wayanad.

Valmiki Ashramam, Ashramakolly.

“Some of what is reflected in these stories could then be seen as a defiance of the mainstream narrative of the epic,” Tharuvana said. “For instance, Rama, Sita and Hanuman are not at the head of the divine hierarchy in Wayanad’s Ramayana. That position is reserved for the local deities like Nenjappan, Mathapadevva and Siddhappan.”

Sita, believe the Adiyas, called for the intervention of the local gods when her twin sons tied up the Ashwamedha horse let loose by Rama to establish his imperial might. The boys, according to local legend, also tied Rama and Lakshmana to a tree. The tribal deities arrive and hold court and question Rama on why he abandoned his pregnant wife. “This is almost unheard in any other Ramayana tradition,” Tharuvana pointed out.

Since the adivasis here led a fairly insular life up until recently, and Wayanad itself is sealed in by its geography, the stories are all set in a 40 sq km area stretching from Muthanga and Pulpalli, according to Tharuvana.

Papanashini pond, where Rama and Lakshmana performed rituals as per folklore

Valmiki’s ashram is in Ashramkoly and Sita is believed to have gone plucking flowers in Irulam (place of darkness). As Rama vainly clutches at her when she is being drawn into the earth, all he is left with is a fistful of hair. 

Jaddayettakavu is the grove where Sita lost her tresses. And Sita is called Chaddetilamma after the site of the story.

Irulam and Althara are both sites where local belief says a distressed Sita rested in her lone journey into the forest. 

Rampalli is where Rama stopped on his way to Alinkulam, where his sons had captured his Ashwamedha horse.

Every aspect of the adivasi life is pencilled into these Ramayanas – the rich biodiversity of the land, the hills, the medicinal herbs, local rivers and sacred groves. In Tharuvana’s Wayanadan Ramayanam, when Hanuman sets Lanka aflame what goes up are coconut trees, areca, coffee plants and banana plantations. When Sita and her children start life afresh at the ashram, it is rice, elephant yam, taro, coffee and pepper they grow, along with bitter gourds and beans.

Ramayana traditions of Wayanad. Credit: Sahapedia.

In some of these adivasi interpretations, you don’t see the stark black-and-white strands of stories as in the classical Ramayana – Ravana himself is not an arch villain and Sita, says Adiya Ramayanam, met him long before she met Rama, peaceably travelling to Lanka with him till Hanuman arrives on the scene to tell her of Rama’s love for her.

“These stories are ever-changing for Wayanad’s tribals,” said Tharuvana. “The bullock cart in the stories may make way for the auto – because Ramayana reflects everyday life.”

(Source: Scroll)

Indian mythology has a problem with disability

 Our epics teach us to discriminate against disabled people by portraying them negatively and telling us their condition is because of sins committed in past lives.

It is said that one can find every aspect of life in the Mahabharata and if one doesn’t find what one want’s there, then there is little chance that one will find it elsewhere. But while it is true that the Mahabharata contains elements of philosophy, life, war, intellect, passion, jealousy and treachery, one element is not discussed as it should have been – disability. The character associated with it is Dhritarashtra, who is negatively portrayed throughout the text. In fact, many believe that he is to blame for the epic battle between the cousins (Pandavas and Kauravas) because he adamantly insisted that his son, Duryodhana, should be king after him, instead of the more worthy Yudhisthira.

Since very few people in India have actually read the Mahabharata, the don’t know about the character of Dhritarashtra before he became king – an aspect that has been cautiously kept hidden. Both Dhritarashtra and his step-brother Pandu had a very cordial relationship. Pandu, being the younger brother, held Dhritarashtra in very high-esteem – and the feeling was reciprocated.

Both were disciples of the great Bhishma, their uncle who was also looking after the administration of the kingdom since there was no king on the throne at the time. Bhishma himself couldn’t take the throne because of a vow he had made earlier in his life. Since Dhritarashtra was older, he was trained to be a king, while the younger brother, Pandu, was trained as a warrior and lead the army and became the senapati. Bhishma trained the brothers so the kingdom could go into safe hands.

Sanjaya meets Dhritarashtra as his envoy for peace negotiations. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Bhishma’s idea was sage, because Dhritarashtra was visually impaired from birth and thus couldn’t fight wars. He was trained in administration, management, decision-making, delivering justice – all very important aspects of being a king, while the aspect of war was left to Pandu, who could militarily assist his older brother. As a team, they could have achieved wonders.

But when Dhritarashtra was being crowned, Vidur, the young prime minister, who was also taught by Bhishma, objected to him becoming king. How can a blind man sit on the throne of a king, he had argued. How could the kingdom be a great empire if the king is blind? How could important decisions be made on the battlefield if the king is sitting safe in the capital?

Nobody said anything to Vidur’s questions because a king with a disability was unprecedented. As a result, Dhritarashtra had to step down; his disability was taken as his inability. Denied his rightful place, this became a turning point for Dhritarashtra and guided the person he was to become.

After a short period of time though, Dhritarashtra was made the king because Pandu left his throne and eventually died. It was only out of compulsion that Dhritarashtra was accepted as king. Had he been made king the first time around, he wouldn’t have been made as conscious about his ‘disability’. Now, he was a ‘sloppy second’, someone’s ‘reject’ and he knew this very clearly. Now the question is, when Dhritarashtra sat on the throne, was the Kaurava empire anything short of a mighty empire? Was the administration poor, were people unhappy, was justice not delivered? The answer is no, because Dhritarashtra had people like Bhishma around him, along with Vidur, who took care of the intricacies of administration.

All the wrongs began to emerge later, when his son Duryodhana was born. Dhirtarastra wanted him to be king after him, even though Duryodhana was unworthy, simply because he wanted to ‘undo’ the injustice done to him. He wanted to ensure that his son wouldn’t be a ‘sloppy second’ like him and that’s why his son was raised believing the throne was his birthright.

Nobody is born bad but it’s society which ‘makes’ or ‘breaks’ an individual. Our society just saw the bad person Dhritarashtra became, but turned a blind eye to what led him there. Since he was disabled, people who have historically discriminated against differently-abled people were further encouraged to justify their attitude towards differently-abled people.

One may wonder what mythology has to do in this context. Indian society is deeply affected by our mythology and its characters. The illiterate know about these stories. The impact of our mythology is such that people identify with the characters and inculcate values drawn from them into their own lives. The depiction and characterisation of disabled people in Indian mythology is extremely negative and people have used the stories to justify their discriminatory attitude against differently-abled people.

The case of Dhritarashtra is not just about a disabled person who has been depicted in poor light. If one looks at the Ramayana, the character of Manthara has also been demonised to a great extent. In fact, she has largely been blamed for sending Rama into exile for 14 years. Manthara was the maid of the queen, Kaikeyi, and is seen as instrumental in convincing the queen to ask Dasharatha to grant her the two boons that he had promised her a long time ago. Under Manthara’s influence, Kaikeyi asked the king to make his son Bharat the next king of Ayodhaya instead of Rama. 

However, some folktales point out how Manthara didn’t have anything to gain by sending Ram to exile. Instead, she suffered heavy public scrutiny that linked her character to her orthopaedic disability, because of which she couldn’t stand erect.

Mostly, our mythological texts have shown disabled people either as powerful, cunning and mischievous characters or as beggars in a state of extreme pain and poverty. Also, disability and mocking disability is justified in the name of sins carried from their previous births. Rarely does one come across portrayals of disabled characters in a positive light. One such character was Ashtavakra, who was physically disabled since birth. Born in a Brahmin family, he mastered the Vedas and other holy scriptures at an early age. He was mocked by the intellectuals in King Janaka’s court on account of his disability, where he had gone to participate in a shastrartha (philosophical debate).

Ultimately, he defeated his mockers and earned a lot of praise from everyone. But this story from the Chandogya Upanishad sets a dangerous precedent, if observed carefully. The subtext is that if you are intellectually capable, your physical disability doesn’t matter.  The moral seems to be that a disabled person has to be extraordinary to earn basic respect, a phenomenon that continues today.

The time has come to ask tough questions, to point out the wrong messages which have been disseminated by these texts and to re-interpret these texts in the light of the present day so that differently-abled people are not judged by the wrong morals of our mythological texts that relegate disability and disabled people to the margins.

(Source: The Wire)