Aangirasi: Woman who Changed Rama’s Ancestry

We do not know her name, so we will call her Aangirasi. It is the Mahabharata that tells her story – and in the story she has no name. Like so many other women in our epics – Rama’s mother Kausalya, Bharata’s mother Kaikeyi, Duryodhana’s mother Gandhari, to name just a few important women – she is a woman without a name. And yet her story is powerful in itself to be told here, apart from the fact that she plays a decisive role in the ancestry of Rama. Since her time, the blood of the Ikshwaku’s would no more be pure kshatriya blood, assuming it had so far been so. It would be mixed with brahmana blood, through an act of niyoga – the same act through which at a later time Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura would be born in the Bharata family through Sage Vyasa, through which the founders of Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, and Paundra would be born to the family of Emperor Bali through the sage Deerghatamas.

We would call her Aangirasi because her husband, whom the epic simply calls a brahmana and who has practically no role in this story, is mentioned as belonging to the Angirasa gotra.  

The story is related to an ancestor of Rama – King Saudasa, also known as Veerasaha,  Mitrasaha and Kalmashapada. His father was Sudasa, hence the name Saudasa. Both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata tell us his story. And, as it usually happens in Indian culture where authors and story tellers enjoyed endless freedom to tell stories in their own ways, the stories they tell are significantly different. The Mahabharata tells his story in much greater detail than the Ramayana does. However, for our purposes, I shall follow the shorter Ramayana story for the first part of Aangirasi’s story that deals with the curse Kalmashapada receives and for the second part the Mahabharat since, Aangirasi does not appear in the Ramayana story.

King Mitrasaha Saudasa was doing what was expected of every righteous king in those days – killing wild animals of the jungle that were a threat to the people of his land. Thick, wild jungles abounded everywhere and villages and cities were built on land claimed from the wild. He had been camping in the jungles for several days and had killed a large number of ferocious animals when it happened. He saw all on a sudden not far from him a particularly ferocious looking pair of lions roaming fearlessly in the forest, sending all other animals scattered all around. Animals just fled screaming at their sight – a rather unusual sight since animals usually fled from a lion only when it began chasing them, not at its sight. These lions had to be dealt with instantly. Mitrasaha’s hands went effortlessly at the thought to his quiver and by the split second it took for him to fetch an arrow from it, his left hand was already holding the bow ready for the arrow. The next instant the arrow pierced one of the two lions and lo! what fell, its vitals pierced by the arrow, was not a lion but a terrifying looking rakshasa.

The jungles were the favourite haunts of wild rakshasas in those days – they loved to terrorize animals.  And the pair was in fact two rakshasa friends who had the ability to assume any form – as most people of this race of awesome power had. They were enjoying themselves in the jungle, spreading terror wherever they went, killing animals at random for fun.

Before the king had time to fully realize what was happening, the other rakshasa had turned upon the king in explosive fury. “Wretch,” he said. “You killed my friend! What harm had he done to you to deserve death?”

The king did not know what to say. Of course, as the king he had the right to kill anyone or anything within him kingdom that he considered a threat to his subjects. And the rakshasa deserved death, though it was mistaking him for a wild lion that Saudasa had killed him.

In any case, the rakshasa did not give him a chance to speak. “You deserve to die for what you have done,” he said. “But that will be letting you off too easy. You deserve a punishment worse than death. And that’s exactly what you will get.” Saying this the rakshasa wept over his dead friend for a while more and then, carrying his body with him, disappeared into the darkness of the jungle.

A few months passed. Since nothing happened that he could relate to the killing of the rakshasa, the king forgot all about it. After all, a ruler of the land has a thousand things to think about every day that it is not always that he gets time to ponder over things that no longer mattered.

The next incident in the story of Saudasa takes place towards the end of a sacrifice that the king had been conducting with Sage Vasishtha as the chief priest. In those days, life moved leisurely and Vedic sacrifices lasted months, sometimes years. It was the concluding day of the yajna, people were waiting for the ritual avabhrita bath that marked the conclusion of the sacrifice when the king received instructions in person from Vasishtha himself – on that day his meal should be prepared with meat.

The king was shocked. The great sage asking for meat in the last meal of the sacrifice? What a sacrilegious thing! How can you even think of something as shocking as that? The perplexed king looked again at the sage and the sage repeated his words: “You heard me, rajan. Today I need my meal to be served with meat.” And the sage walked away.

Unknown to the king, it was the rakshasa he had left alive who had given this instruction to the king, appearing in Vasishtha’s guise and speaking in his voice. The revenge the rakshasa had spoken of.  The worst thing a king could do in a sacrifice was to insult the chief priest – and that too by serving him a meal with meat in it! The rakshasa wanted the king to do precisely that. An act so unholy that it would be no wonder if the sage laid a curse on the king along with seven generations of his children.

Such was the authority and reverence Vasishtha commanded, the king could of nothing but to obey his words, however strange they were. Though it puzzled the king deeply, confused him, disturbed him, even angered him. What was the sage doing? Trying to destroy him? Destroy all his merit acquired through the sacrifice? Destroy the kingdom with all its people? What was he punishing him for? What Vasishtha was doing would certainly destroy him with all his family. The kingdom was nothing but an extension of the king. It will destroy the kingdom too, as other angry sages had done with other erring kings.

The king called the chief royal cook and gave instructions that the meal for the sage that day should include meat. The royal cook listened in shock to what the king was saying and walked away silently. He was not going to do something as evil as that.

But the rakshasa will not be discouraged by the cook’s lack of cooperation. When the time for the meal to be served to the sage came, the rakshasa himself brought it to the king in golden plates, this disguising himself as the chief chef. What he had brought in one of the plates was cooked human flesh. When the cook decided not to obey the king, the rakshasa had gone even further than he had instructed earlier.

Of course, there was no way the king could find out the man standing in front of him was not the royal cook but the rakshasa in disguise.  

The king accompanied by his wife offered the meal to the sage and the sage immediately recognized the food for what it is. He couldn’t believe a king would do something like that to him. His eyes burning in anger, he cursed the king: “Since you feed me human flesh in place of sanctified food, Oh king, from today your food shall be human flesh. I lay this curse on you – you shall be a rakshasa living the life of a cannibal from this very day.”

Saudasa was no ordinary king. He himself had done years of tapas and acquired great yogic powers through it. As far as he was concerned, all he had done was obey the rishi’s shocking order. And yet now he was being cursed. This was completely unjust.

In a moment of flaring anger, Saudasa took sanctified water in his hand and raised his hand to sprinkle it on the sage laying a counter course on him. His wife, Queen Madayanti, though stopped him and brought him back to his senses. She told him the person in front of him was his guru, his preceptor, and he cannot curse him back. Cooling down, the king sprinkled the water on his own legs – mantra empowered water couldn’t go waste. As the drops of water fell on his feet, his feet developed spots everywhere. That is how he acquired his new name – kalmashapada means dark spotted leg.

Struggling to master himself with great difficulty, the king now explained to the sage that it was he himself that had ordered for the meat and all he had done was to obey him. The rishi realized what exactly had happened. But the words of a sage cannot be waste, even if uttered in anger. The sage felt sorry for the king and did the best he could do under the circumstances – he limited the power of the curse and said that after twelve years of life as a rakshasa, he could regain in original nature and once again become the virtuous ruler of men that he was. Vasishtha advised him that nature as a rakshasa was wicked and powerful and he should try his best to retain his mastery over himself, an essential virtue for any ruler, and refrain from evil in spite of becoming a rakshasa. Perhaps regretting what he had done without understanding the full picture, Vasishtha blessed Saudasa with eternal fame – so long as the sun and the moon lasted, his name would remain in the world.

Saudasa thanked his guru for the blessing but knew what the sage was asking was impossible. He had already seen the power of rakshasa nature. Hadn’t he taken water in his hand and empowered it with mantras in order to curse his guru in a moment of anger? He also knew the rakshasa has already had his revenge. He, Saudasa, the noble Ikshwaku king, would now live for twelve years as a rakshasa. And what evils wouldn’t he now commit as a rakshasa? He knew he was doomed. The vengeance of the rakshasa was a thousand times worse than death.

There is a saying in Sanskrit that when Time wants to punish a man, it doesn’t take a stick and beat him up with it. Instead, what it does is to corrupt his brain. And that is what the rakshasa had done. Corrupt not only the brain of the king, but his heart too, his very nature.

As darkness began taking greater grip over his soul every second, Kalmashapada left the kingdom to the care of his ministers and hurried out of the capital before he could do any more harm.

The next twelve years he would live in the jungle the life of a rakshasa, thinking the thoughts of a rakshasa, feeling the feelings of a rakshasa, eating the food of a rakshasa.

It is in the jungle while he was in this sad state that his encounter with the brahmani
Aangirasi takes place.

Incidentally, the story the Mahabharata tells us about how Saudasa became a rakshasa is very different from this story and far more complicated. We shall skip that story to move on to the story of Aangirasi and how she changed Rama’s ancestry – the blood of all the Ikshwaku kings following Saudasa, beginning with his son Ashmaka.

0o0

One day Kalmashapada was roaming the thick jungles that were now his home. Since he became a rakshasa, his hunger had become intolerable – the more he ate, the hungrier he felt. And he would eat anything that came to his hand – there were no more any rules for him as to what to eat and what not to eat. Food that he wouldn’t once touch with a barge pole was okay with him now. Of course he ate fruits and roots if they came to his hand, but he had a strong preference for meat. Any meat would do – usually meat eaters preferred the meat of animals that fed on vegetables – like the deer, the wild buffalo and so on. Kalmashapada felt no such compunctions about his food habits. Anything was okay, anywhere was okay, anytime was okay with him now. It was as though he was obsessed with food and eating. He lived for eating and relished the killing that prefaced eating. Violence thrilled him, blood thrilled him. He enjoyed giving pain, even his own pain seemed to please him. All that he once considered dirty, evil and untouchable was what he relished now. As he sunk into the darkest of evil deeds the very thought of which would have shaken him to his soul earlier, he laughed uproariously, sending terror throughout the jungle, making even the most ferocious of animals run for their life.

On that day too he was terribly hungry – it is not that he hadn’t eaten anything, but hunger never seemed to leave him. He had just woken up from sleep after a heavy meal and was roaming the jungles searching for food, already tormented by hunger. As he roared in hunger, wild animals fled, their eyes wild with pure terror. He could lay hand on not a single animal and his eyes, maddened by the raving emptiness he felt in his stomach, roved everywhere. It was then that he saw them – a young brahmana and his beautiful wife, lost in the games of love.

It was such a beautiful sight – a loving young couple surrounded by all the beauty of a wild jungle. The season was spring, trees were in blossom, the breeze intoxicating, their passion for each other riveting. But to Kalmashapada none of these existed. When one sinks into the world of tamas, all beauty disappears from one’s life, all sensitivity disappears, all refinement disappears. All one is left with is the most basic urges of the body and mind. We become like pigs that enjoy themselves in offal.

Kalmashapada, the once beloved king who was always surrounded by the best of comforts and enjoyed the most refined pleasures, did not feel the spring breeze, did not see the lovely flowers that hung thick from every bough, did not breathe in their intoxicating fragrance that filled the whole jungle, did not see the beauty of the young couple lost to this world in the sweetness of their love. All he saw was food. And he jumped at it and seized it.

In a mighty leap, Kalamashapada grabbed the brahmana in his mighty rakshasa arms and lifted him up in the air, ready to sink his teeth into the flesh of the hapless man.  Aangirasi screamed in anguish, her bloodcurdling wails shattering the peace of the jungle. Her tender body shook in violent tremors. Eyes wild with pure horror, she looked at what was happening unable to comprehend it, unable to believe it, unable to accept it.  Her man had been violently snatched away from her arms while their bodies were still united, while they breathed in union, while their hearts beat as one.

And then she understood. This was Kalmashapada, their once noble king, turned into a rakshasa by a curse.  She had heard that the king now lived in the jungle, but hadn’t imagined he would come anywhere near where they were. And there he was standing, his appearance monstrous, his body mighty as the sal trees in the jungle, every limb of his exuding violence and brutality, his roars shaking the very earth, his arms holding her beloved in a mighty grip, his mouth open with his teeth ready to sink into him. The brahmana’s body twisted about in his hands, the terror of the grasp of the rakshasa taking away all his senses, his mouth open but not a sound coming out of it – his dread so great.   

Aangirasi stood straight, mastering herself with superhuman will. Looking steadily into the eyes of the abominable monster standing in front of her, she said, “Great king, you are the son of King Sudasa, the performer of a hundred holy sacrifices. You are a descendant of mighty Ikshwaku, who name will be taken with reverence by all so long as the sun and the moon last. Your ancestor is the sun god himself – Vivaswan, to whom millions pray every morning chanting the very soul of the Vedas, the gayatri mantra. And Manu, the first law-giver of humanity, the one who taught us all what is right and what is wrong, what to do and what not to do, is your ancestor. True you have been turned into a rakshasa by a curse, but should you sink so deep?  In the name of the honour of your ancestors, in the name of all that is sacred, I beg you: please let go of my husband.”

The words of the gayatri mantra came out of the brahmani’s heart, seeking solace as she had done in a thousand crises in the past, reminding through it once again the rakshasa his unsurpassed noble heritage.

“Om bhur bhuvah suvah,” she chanted. “Tat savitur varenyam. Bhargo devasya dheemahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat!”

But it was not Mitrasaha Saudasa who was standing in front of her, but Kalmashapada, Saudasa who had been turned into a rakshasa by a curse.

Wild, terrifying laughter that shook the very vitals of the jungle was Kalmashapada’s only response.  

But the brahmani stood her ground, with great will power mastering her violent emotions, holding together her being that had been shattered into a thousand fragments by the rakshasa’s act.  “No one kills even animals while they are in the middle of the act of mating,” she said addressing the erstwhile king. “And you! You have pulled him away from my very arms while I was united with him in my passion. We are humans – who deserve to be protected by you under all circumstances. Don’t do what you are doing. Let him go, let my husband go. Show mercy to us. Or else eternal shame shall fall on you and all your posterity and all your ancestors. Raja Mitrasaha Saudasa, remember who you are and release the brahmana in your hands. Remember who you are in spite of what has happened to you, in spite of the curse on you.”

At those words Kalmashapada sank his teeth into the flesh of the brahmana. His strong arms tore the brahmana from limb to limb. Tearing his chest apart,  Kalmashapada pulled out the dying man’s heart and tore a mouthful of it, relishing the taste of human flesh, a rakshasa’s favourite delicacy. As he swallowed the bite, he roared again thunderously.

There was a moment of stunned silence from the brahmani. And the next instant tears of unendurable agony fell from her eyes.

As the first drop of tear fell on the forest floor, the grass on which it fell caught fire. The next moment she was surrounded by mighty flames that leapt up all around her. The roaring fire began to spred in all directions, engulfing the jungle.

Aangirasi had made up her mind. She would live no more! Separated so monstrously from her husband, her man snatched away from her arms while they were in the act of making love, his heart torn out from his chest and eaten up by a rakshasa, she would destroy herself.

But there was something that she would do before that.

Her eyes blazing, Aangirasi turned to the rakshasa, “Raja Saudasa,” she said, “what you have done is unforgivable, even for a rakshasa. And what you have done to others – like eating up the one hundred sons of Sage Vasishtha – cannot be forgiven either. With great grief in my heart, with deep anguish, I curse you. You have snatched away my man from my arms and killed and eaten his heart like common meat. For that sin of yours, I lay this curse upon you. When your present curse is over, you will go back to Ayodhya. There, filled with desire, you will approach your wife. But the moment you touch her, that moment shall be your last on earth. You shall die as painful a death as I am going to die now. And I lay this further curse upon you. You have made me childless – my life is wasted. And you have made the Sage Vasishtha chidless, by eating up all his children. For that sin you shall pay in the worst possible way. The only way you can have a child will be by sending your wife, your queen, to Sage Vasishtha, for your eternal shame. And your son will not have your blood in him, nor any of your future generations in them. No more will Ikshwaku blood flow through the veins of your future generations. Ikshwaku blood in your royal family shall end with you!”

The next moment the fire that had leapt up from her tears and was roaring all around her swallowed her. Soon nothing but a small heap of ashes lay where the brahmani stood.

0o0

Later when the curse is over Kalmashapada goes back to his palace and takes over the administration of his kingdom once again. The first night he approaches his wife Madayanti filled with desire for her and for a child, she reminds him of the curse on him and begs him not to touch her, for fear of his death. Eventually Kalmashapada begs his guru Vasishtha whose sons he had eaten up to give him a son through his wife.

The next king of Ayodhya to succeed Kalmashapada is Ashmaka, Vasishtha’s son born to Madayanti.

Aangirasi’s is a powerful story – the story of the power of a woman’s tears. Through this story ancient India tells us that no earthly power can stand the might of a woman’s grief.

There are other valuable lessons in Aangirasi’s and Kalmashapada’s story. In the story, Vasishtha is impulsive in cursing Kalmashapada without looking into the whole picture behind his action, violating the ancient injunction: krodham kuryat na chakasmat – do not explode in sudden anger. The price he has to pay for this is the death of his one hundred sons and endless suffering to him. So deep is his grief that he attempts to end his life at least half a dozen times, failing each time. Eventually his daughter-in-law Adrishyanti sustains him by giving him hope in the form of his grandson growing in her womb.

Kalmashapada’s first failure is trusting appearances and failing to see the reality hidden behind appearances. A king should have eyes to see what is not visible to others. And his subsequent failure is impulsively attempting to curse Vasishtha, his guru, himself. And then, in spite of the warning given him by Vasishtha, he fails to retain his mastery over himself – he becomes a victim to his rakshasa nature. Atma jeyah sada rajna – says the Mahabharata, advising kings and leaders of men: a king should always be a master of himself. True, the curse of the rishi is powerful and all of us are slaves to the power of our nature – but Kalmashapada had the responsibility to retain his self-mastery. He had been warned, he was an Ikshwaku king.

We also wonder if Kalmashapada’s eating up the sons of Vasishtha as well as the brahmana was not at least in part a decision taken by him under the spell of his need for vengeance – the man who had cursed him and turned him into a rakshasa was a brahmana. And the victims were all brahmanas. The Mahabharata tells us another story of Kalmashapada being cursed by another brahmana, this time for feeding him human flesh. Vengeance can be a powerful force and destroys boys the perpetrator of vengeance as well as its victim.

0o0

    

Uttara Ramayana: How Jaimini Tells It – Part 2

[An analysis of how Jaiminiya Ashwamedha Parva differs from Valmiki Ramayana in telling the Uttara Katha of Rama. Continued from part 1.]

As we proceed further, the changes Jaimini introduces become more fascinating.

When Valmiki sees Sita who is wailing aloud in the hair-raisingly terrible jungle filled with fearsome animals, Jaimini tells us, he approaches her and asks her who she is, whose daughter and whose wife she is and why she has come to the uninhabited jungle. She introduces herself as Janaka’s daughter, Dasharatha’s daughter-in-law and Rama’s wife. She also tells him she has been abandoned by Rama for reasons she does not know. Valmiki consoles her telling her not to worry and introduces himself. He then takes her with him to his ashram and Sita goes with him quietly.

Valmiki

In Valmiki Ramayana these scenes are different. While Jaimini’s Valmiki has to ask her who she is, in the Ramayana, Valmiki knows everything about her without asking. In fact, he consoles her by addressing her as Janaka’s daughter, Dasharatha’s daughter-in-law, and Rama’s wife and tells her not to worry, the ashram is like a home to her. He tells her he knows everything about her with the power of his asceticism, knows why she has been abandoned, and knows she is pure.

Later, Valmiki Ramayana tells us in what is perhaps a later interpolation that Sita gives birth to the twins the same night as Shatrughna reaches the Ashram on his way to slay Lavanasura. Hearing of the birth of Sita’s children, Shatrughna goes and meets Sita and speaks of the grace of God. Next morning he leaves the ashram. It is twelve years later that Shatrughna comes back to Ayodhya and this time again he pays a visit to the Ashram and listens to the Ramayana composed by Valmiki. We are not told who sings it, but we are told that both the text and the narration is so realistic and powerful that Shatrughna faints while listening to it because of the emotions it awakens in him. The soldiers with Shatrughna pass through the same emotions.

One surprising thing here is that Shatrughna does not enquire about Sita or her children – there is no mention of them. It is this that first makes us wonder if the chapter in which we are told that Sita gave birth to the twins on the night Shatrughna reaches Valmiki Ashram is not a later interpolation. Otherwise it is impossible that Shatrughna does not ask any question about Sita and her children. Also, there is another thing suggests this chapter might be an interpolation. In the chapter describing the birth of the twins and Shatrughna visiting Sita and them, we are told this happened around midnight – other ashramites come and tell Valmiki about the birth at midnight. But the next chapter begins by saying that as night appeared, Shatrughna asked Chyavana about Lavana. The narration here is chronological and it is impossible that after the midnight events of such importance are mentioned, you suddenly start talking about be beginning of the night and a conversation like this. It is also indicated that the conversation with Chyavana went on the whole morning. Shatrughna does not say a word to Rama when he meets him in Ayodhya about meeting Sita in the ashram, either on his way to Lavana or on his way back.

Soon Rama performs the ashwamedha in Naimisharanya. It is done so that Rama is freed from the sin of brahmahatya, which he had accrued by slaying Ravana, a brahmana. And it is from here that we find some of the most amazing changes Jaimini introduces in telling the Uttara Rama Katha. He adds some dramatically powerful scenes to the story and drops other equally, if not more, powerful scenes.

The Ashwamedha begins in Naimisharanya on the banks of the Gomati, with a golden statue of Sita taking the place of Sita. While the Ashwamedha is in progress, Valmiki arrives there accompanied by his disciples Kusha and Lava. Valmiki orders Kusha and Lava to go around the whole place, singing the Ramayana – at the hermitages of the rishis, the dwellings of the brahmanas, royal palaces, highways and byways, everywhere. If Rama asks them to sing the Ramayana in front of him, Valmiki tells his disciples, they must do so to the best of their ability. “If Rama asks you whose sons you are, tell him you are disciples of Valmiki,” the sage instructs them.

As expected, Rama hears their singing and is fascinated. He invites them into the assembly and asks them to sing it there. At the end of the day, by which time they have chanted twenty cantos, they are offered a reward and but they refuse it, as Valmiki had instructed them, saying that they do not need money since they live in the forest. To Rama’s enquiry about the author of the poem, they say it is composed by Valmiki and consists of twenty-four thousand verses. It is arranged that on subsequent days the singing of Ramayana will continue in between the Ashwamedha.

It is through the song [Ramayana] that they sing, that Rama learns Kusha and Lava are Sita’s sons. He sends messengers to Valmiki, telling him that if Sita is pure and if there is no sin in her, with the sage’s permission she should take an oath to that effect in the assembly the next morning. The messengers go to the sage and give Rama’s message to him and he tells them to inform the king that Sita will do as desired by Rama because to a woman, her husband is her God. A pleased Rama sends out messages to the sages, brahmanas, kings and all others to be present in the assembly in Naimisharanya the next morning.

The next morning Rama himself goes and invites the great sages present in Naimisharanya and everyone else available to the assembly to witness Sita taking the oath of purity.

What follows is one of the most powerful scenes in world literature, modern and ancient. Maybe there are other scenes equal to it in power and emotional intensity, but none surpasses it. And one of the most amazing things about it is that, it is achieved with a minimum use of words and devoting very little space

While the assembly and invited guests are waiting, Valmiki walks in, followed by Sita quietly walking behind him. Her eyes are overflowing with tears, her palms are joined as in prayer, and her heart is on Rama. The Ramayana sees it as the beautiful picture of Shruti following Brahma. Great sorrow rises up in the assembly at her sight and people give expression that their grief.

Addressing Rama, the great sage says, “Oh son of Dasharatha, here is Sita, pious and practicing religious vows. Because of censure, you had abandoned her near my ashram. To you who fear the censure of the world, she will give proof [of her purity]; permit her to do so. These two are Sita’s children, born twins. These are your children – I vouch for the truth of it.”

“I am the tenth son of Pracheta, of scion of the Raghus. I do not remember ever speaking a word of untruth and I tell you, these are your children. I have done ages of tapas, and if Sita is evil, let me know attain the results of that tapas. I have not once in my entire life committed a sin in thoughts, words or actions. And let good results of that not come to me only if Sita is sinless. Every element that forms Sita is pure and so is her mind. I meditated upon this and saw the truth of it before I accepted her on the banks of the river in the forest. She is pure in conduct; she is sinless; to her, her husband is God. And now she shall give the proof of it to you who fear the censure of the world.”

A sage does not take oaths lightly. The greatest sage of the age vouches for Sita’s purity in the name of everything sacred to him. He speaks words I am sure he has never uttered in the past, but for her sake he speaks them.

Rama assures the sage he knows Sita is pure – she has proved it before the gods themselves. And he knows the twins are his sons. But, says he, the censure of the world is powerful and for that reason he will accept her when she proves it again there, in the assembly. And he asks the sage’s forgiveness for saying this.

The Ramayana says all the gods in heaven appeared there to witness Sita taking the oath of purity.

All this while, Sita has been standing behind Rama silently, her hands folded, her face cast down. As a sacred breeze starts blowing through the assembly, Sita, dressed in ochre, steps forward. She does not look at Rama once, though she hasn’t seen him after that evening in Ashoka Vatika years ago. She does not look at the men in the assembly. She does not look at Valmiki. Her eyes remain on the ground at her feet.

And then her soft spoken words ring out in the silent assembly. “If I have not once thought of a man other than Rama in my mind, then, Mother Earth, open up for me. If I have always worshipped Rama by thoughts, words and actions, then, Mother Earth, open up for me. I know no man other than Rama – if these my words are true, Mother Earth, open up for me.”

There is no begging for acceptance here. There is no hesitation. There are no more any longings in her heart. She wants to rest now – rest in the lap of Mother Earth.

Her words stun the assembly. They stun the sages and brahmanas. They stun the ministers and common men. They stun Rama.

With unbelieving eyes they see the earth splits open before them. From the opening rises up a divine throne adorned with divine ornaments, borne on the head of powerful serpents. On the throne is seated Goddess Earth. The Goddess stretches out her arms and speaks words of welcome to her daughter. She seats Sita beside her and the throne descends into the earth.

The heavens and the gods shower flowers upon Sita. The sky and the earth are filled with the sounds of approval. And in the middle of all that, while a stunned audience watches, Sita disappears into the earth.

She gives proof of her purity in a way no one will ever again question.

Rama will no more have to worry about the censure of the world because of her.

Jaimini

That is how Sita’s story ends in Valmiki Ramayana.

In Jaimini’s story, there is no mention of Shatrughna reaching Valmiki Ashram on the night Kusha and Lava are born. The children are of course taught the Ramayana by Valmiki, but it is as warriors that they grow up in the ashram and it is as warriors that we see them in the story. Valmiki gives them two bows and his friend Rishi Raibhya gives them two quivers that never go empty. Other sages give them all kinds of weapons empowered by mantras.

In Valmiki Ramayana we do not hear about the wanderings of the sacrificial horse. But in Jaimini, this is described in great detail. The most significant part of the ashwamedha story begins when the sacrificial horse, guarded by an army headed by Shatrughna, reaches Valmiki Ashram.

The sage is away at Patala, invited there by Varuna for a sacrifice. It is Lava who sees the sacrificial horse and captures it. He is challenged by the note tied to its forehead, which says, among other things, that Rama is the only true hero in the world and his mother Kausalya, the sole mother of a true hero. This infuriates Lava who asks: “Is our mother barren then? Hasn’t she given birth to an unsurpassed hero?”

It is refreshing to note here that Jaimini uses highly colloquial language much of the time in his telling. Lava’s speech here is charmingly colloquial.

A fierce battle follows, in which Lava proves himself an amazingly skilled warrior who is no less than Shatrughna in the battlefield. Eventually Shatrughna uses a sacred, infallible arrow. Though Lava breaks the arrow in two, he is wounded by one half of the arrow and faints. Shatrughna had been feeling great compassion for Lava throughout for two reason – for one thing, he is no more than a child, and another, he resembles child Rama in every way. He gathers the wounded, fainted Lava in his arms and carries him to his chariot.

Sita hears from ashram children that Lava has been wounded in the battlefield by some great warrior and wails at the news. It is then that Kusha who was away in the forest returns. She sends him to the battlefield. in the battle that follows, Kusha kills Shatrughna’s commander-in-chief and his bother. Shatrughna faints at the fierceness of Kusha’s attack. The rest of the soldiers run away to Ayodhya to give Rama the news.

By the time Lakshmana, sent by Rama, reaches the battlefield with a fierce army, Lava regains consciousness and joins the battle. Together, the two boys rout Lakshmana’s army. Kusha kills Lakshmana’s commander-in-chief Kalajit and renders Lakshmana unconscious, in battles described in at length by Jaimini in passages that remind us of the Mahabharata battle scenes.

Rama cannot go to the battlefield, since he has taken diksha for the sacrifice. Bharata now volunteers to go. But before he does so, he has a few interesting words to say to Rama.

He tells Rama not to grieve about Lakshmana – what has happened to him is exactly what he wanted to happen. He had no desire to live ever since he took Sita and left her in the jungle. In fact, he did not want to come back to Ayodhya after that but did so only to give Rama the news. But in spite of all that, Rama showed no kindness either to Sita or to Lakshmana. He has ever since been courting death. Lakshmana has voluntarily chosen death along with his brother Shatrughna. Lakshmana has finally freed himself from sin and now it is his turn to do so – he too is a sinner. In fact, he says, he had thought of killing himself when Rama abandoned Sita, but he did not want to do it in Ayodhya. Today his desire to end his life will be fulfilled and Rama should permit him by letting him go to the battle.

The strong guilt the brothers feel about Rama’s abandoning Sita is an additional feature of Jaimini Bharata. They see Rama’s action totally unwarranted and unjustified and their guilt about it is so strong, all three of them want to kill themselves. Though Jaimini does not expressly say it, they feel they too are responsible since they did not stop Rama from doing it.

In the battle with Kusha that follows, Angada, Nala, Jambavan, and Bharata fall into deathlike unconsciousness, seeing which Hanuman attacks Kusha and he too is becomes unconscious in Kusha’s counter attack. When Rama in Ayodhya is informed of this, he too reaches the battlefield, accompanied by Sugriva. Initially Rama refuses to fight with Kusha and Lava, seeing they are mere children, but they force him and Sugriva and a fierce battle ensues between the two sides in which the children become victorious and Rama and Sugriva become unconscious, wounded by their arrows.

Kusha and Lava have an idea now. They will tie up Hanuman and Jambavan and present them to Sita, who, they believe, will be entertained by them. Hanuman and Jambavan come out of their swoon by then, but they pretend to be still unconscious. When Sita seem them, she asks her sons to take them back into the battlefield and release them, fearing their death if they saw her.

Having described the valour of Lava and Kusha and the battle scenes in great detail, Jaimini now, with almost shocking abruptness, ends Rama’s Uttara Katha, which he calls Kusha-Lava-Upakhyana.

As Sita and her sons are talking, Valmiki reaches back from Patala. The children tell their guru all that has happened. He straight away goes to the battlefield, sprinkles empowered water on all and brings back all from death and unconsciousness. “These are your children,” he tells Rama. “Please accept them. And if you consider Sita innocent, please take her too with you.”

An amazed Rama gets up and goes back to Ayodhya to continue his sacrifice. While the sacrifice is in progress, Valmiki reaches there with Sita and her sons. Rama completes the sacrifice with them beside him and they all live ‘happily ever after’, their lives filled with love.

As an afterword to his story, Jaimini adds that Valmiki did not describe the tale of the battle between the father and his sons because he did not want the world to drown in an ocean of sorrow.

0o0

Jaimini’s telling of the Kusha-Lava-Upakhyana caught the imagination of India. Ever since he told it, it became an integral part of the Uttara Ramayana story. I remember watching scenes of the battles of Kusha and Lava with their uncles and with Hanuman. I watched them holding my breath as a child in second and third rate reproductions of them in movies. Five decades later, I can still recall the scenes with vivid intensity, in spite of the movies being of very poor quality; such is the power of Jaimini’s narration.

It is interesting to consider why Jaimini gives so much importance to these battle scenes which do not exist in Valmiki Ramayana.

Perhaps Jaimini was writing for a different audience than Valmiki [and Vyasa] did. There are several strong indications that Jaimini’s is a much later composition than the Adi Kavi’s and Vyasa’s. For instance, in both Valmiki and Vyasa, all messages are sent verbally, suggesting the absence of writing at the time of the composition of their works. Whereas in Jaimini we clearly see that writing exists. The ashwamedha horse carries a written message, probably on a plaque, on its forehead, which people read. In the story of Chadrahasa, the girl Vishaya changes the word visha [poison] in a written message to vishaya [her name]. [A very interesting episode! Chandrahasa who was supposed to be given visha on arrival is given Vishaya instead.] The social milieu and the customs described are very different too. Perhaps Jaimini’s audience relished the details of the ashwamedha – both in the case of Rama Ashwamedha and Yudhishthira Ashwamedha – more than the audience of Valmiki and Vyasa did. Perhaps he was writing in, and for, a medieval India that was torn by constant wars.

Also, perhaps poetic and literary conventions had undergone great changes and people expected happy endings to stories. In the case of Jaimini, he very obviously had in mind a happy ending for the Ramayana, even if it forces him to drop one of the most powerful scenes in the Ramayana and in world literature. He therefore drops the dramatically awesome scene of Sita’s rejection of Rama and entering the earth. Instead, he makes Sita tamely go with Valmiki to Rama and live with him ‘happily ever after’.

I do not see the Uttara Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana as a later composition than Jaiminiya Ashwamedha Parva. To me, it has to be that Jaimini chose to omit Sita’s entering the earth, a story he was familiar with.

But it must be said that while Jaimini’s ending of the story comes as a big disappointment, his war scenes in the Kusha-Lava-Upakhyana are thrilling. He transforms two young boys who are really just talented singers in the Valmiki Ramayana into awesome warriors who defeat between themselves such a mighty line of warriors as Shatrughna, Lakshmana, Bharata and Rama, apart from Hanuman, Jambavan, Sugriva, Angada, Nala and numerous others, each a legend in his own right as a warrior.

While in the earlier part of his telling of the Uttara Rama Katha, Jaimini focus on pathos and succeeds in moving us to great depths of karuna, in the later part of the story what he wants is to thrill us with veera rasa – with the valour of his heroes – and he succeeds admirably in it too.

0o0

Parashurama: When Absolute Power Corrupts

This is a story we are all familiar with in India. For ages, every Indian child has grown up listening to it, usually from his mother or grandmother, or father or grandfather, and at times from a professional storyteller in a temple or on the village grounds – and the more recent generations from their Amar Chitra Kathas or the television serials.

In a display of valour and strength, Rama has broken Shiva’s bow that had been in the family of Janaka, thus winning Sita in marriage. The wedding is over and he is on his way back from Mithila, Sita’s place, to Ayodhya. The group returning consists of the sage Vasishtha, who is the royal guru of the Ikshwakus, a few other sages, Dasharatha himself, Rama and Sita as well as Rama’s three brothers and their brides. They are just out of Mithila when all on a sudden the sky begins to darken unexpectedly. Birds begin to shriek frightfully everywhere, some from the trees and some flying above the moving party, sending terror to the hearts of all – for they all know it is a dark omen. Confusing them further, they see deer crossing their path from the left – which is a good omen.

Soon there is no time left to analyse omens. For now the shrieks of the birds have become deafening and animals are running in a mad riot everywhere. The earth begins to shake. A storm begins and soon gathers speed and terrifying power. It pulls out mighty trees by their roots, with the ease of a mad elephant pulling up plants from the ground. The storm sends the trees whirling up into the sky and then hurls them down with stupefying force. The storm gathers dust from the earth and sends it up into the skies. The dust covers the sun and darkness envelops everything. No one is able to see anything. Under the impact of the storm, the whole army accompanying Dasharatha and all the servants and attendants with the party fall down unconscious. In the middle of it all, a few people are left standing: Sage Vasishtha and the other sages with him, Dasharatha, his four sons, the four new brides.

And then they see the cause of it all. Like a whirlwind, the dreaded ascetic-warrior Parashurama appears before them from nowhere. He is terrifying to look at. His eyes burn red and spit fire, his beard flows wildly in the wind, and his matted hair is tied up in a bun over his head.

Here is how Valmiki’s Ramayana describes him: “He was as unassailable as Mount Kailasa and as unbearable as the fire of annihilation. Blazing as he was with his effulgence, he was difficult to be seen by common people. With an axe resting on his right shoulder and a bow on his left, he held in his hand a spear that was like a bolt of lightning. Thus he resembled Shiva, the destroyer of the three cities of demons.”

The very name of Parashurama – Rama with the Battle Axe – is pure dread to every kshatriya. For this is the man who had went round the earth and wiped out every kshatriya in sight, not once, but twenty-one times. He needed vengeance and he needed justice. A kshatriya, a king – Kartaveerya Arjuna, also known as Arjuna with a Thousand Arms for his might – had, in his arrogance of power, desecrated his father’s ashram and he had killed him in a fierce battle that became a legend for all times to come. But the arrogant man’s sons sought vengeance for their father’s killing and finding a time when Parashurama’s father was alone in his ashram, had brutally killed him. It is then that Parashurama decides to wipe out kshatriyas from the earth – and wipe the earth clean of kshatriyas he does.

Power in itself is neither good nor evil. In the hands of the good, it becomes good, and in the hands of the bad, it becomes bad.

Power can turn you good, and power can turn you evil.

One of the ways power corrupts its possessor is by turning him arrogant. When the man who possesses power becomes arrogant, power becomes evil. And evil power has to be wiped out. If not, it will consume the earth itself. Rama with the Battle Axe made destroying such power his life mission. It is said that Rama’s righteous anger was calmed only when he filled five lakes in Kurukshetra – the Syamanta-panchaka – with the blood of kshatriyas and did tarpana to his manes with that blood.

Vasishtha quickly consults the other sages with him. Why has he come? Hasn’t his anger already been quenched a long time ago after he wiped out the warrior caste from the earth? Hasn’t he been meditating ever since on the Mahendra Mountains, living a hermit’s life?

Vasishtha and other sages take water in their sacred vessels – kamandalas – and approach the ascetic warrior who was standing blazing like the fire at the end of the world. They make the ritual offer of water to wash his hands and feet. Bowing down deeply to him, they try to appease him with soft words.

Parashurama accepts their offering of water but otherwise ignores them completely. Instead, he turns to young Rama.

0o0

As I write these lines, words from the Malayalam Ramayana that I listened to as a child come to my mind. There Rama begins his speech with these words: njanozhinchunto raman ittribhuvanattinkal? His powerful words, spat out in fury and contempt, question the right of another Rama apart from him to exist in all the three worlds.

Parashurama is one of the seven immortals of Indian legends. This warrior who decimated kshatriyas is a brahmana by birth, born to practice serenity and meditation, to study and teach the Vedas, and to perform sacrificial rites.

The ascetic-warrior whose mission it was to wipe out arrogant power from the face of the earth had himself become arrogant power.

The fiery ascetic-warrior turns to Rama and asks him, in the words of the Valmiki Ramayana: “O Rama, son of Dasharatha, I have heard of your wonderful prowess. I have heard all about how you broke Lord Shiva’s bow. It is inconceivable that someone could have broken that bow. Hearing of that, I have come here, bringing another excellent bow. To this awesome bow which was given to me by my father Jamadagni, fix an arrow and draw it. Show me your strength. After seeing your strength in drawing the bow, I shall offer you a fight which will give credit to your valor.”

Parashurama’s words shake Dasharatha with dread. His dear son, his heartbeat, young Rama, is just about sixteen years of age – a mere boy, a child. And the man standing before him is dread itself – the one who went around the earth and wiped out kshatriyas from the earth twenty-one times. No warrior has ever existed equal to him in might. And now he was challenging his young son.

Dasharatha rushes to Parashurama and bowed deeply to him. He says: “O glorious brahmana, after giving up your anger against the warrior caste and becoming pacified, you should assure the safety of my juvenile sons. Born in the line of the Bhargavas, who are distinguished in erudition and asceticism, you put down your weapons, promising so to Indra. You then dedicated yourself to piety, giving the earth to Kashyapa. Going to the forest, you took up residence on Mount Mahendra. You have come here to totally destroy me, O great sage. If you kill Rama, we shall all be unable to live.”

Rama of the Battle Axe does not so much as look at Dasharatha. He does not think the old king deserves an answer. He has slaughtered a thousand kings like Dasharatha, and so many of them have fallen at his feet and begged him to spare the lives of their children. He hadn’t listened to a single one of them, nor had he spared the life of a single male kshatriya, however young he was.

Ignoring the begging Dasharatha, he says to young Rama: “Two divine bows honored by the whole world are superb, firm, strong, outstanding and well-made by Vishvakarma. The first is the bow given by the gods to Lord Shiva when he wanted to fight the demon Tripura, which has now been broken by you, O descendant of Kakutstha. The second unassailable bow was given by the foremost gods to Lord Vishnu. This is that bow of Vishnu, O Rama, which can destroy the enemy’s stronghold. It is in fact equal in strength to Shiva’s bow.”

Parashurama then tells Rama the history of the bow and explains to him how it came to his family and eventually to him. He then commands Rama, binding him to his vows as a warrior, “Take this excellent bow. Put an arrow to it and draw it. If you are able to do so, I shall thereafter engage you in battle.”

Rama, who was silent all this while, speaks for the first time. With his first words he pays his respects to the aged ascetic-warrior brahmana. He commends him on what he did to avenge his father’s brutal killing by arrogant men. And then, he tells Parashurama that to prove that he is not worthy of the contempt in which the ascetic holds him, he will accept the challenge and prove himself.

What Parashurama had done was ask Rama to accept an impossible challenge. No man living, other than Parashurama himself, was capable of handling the bow Vishnu which he was asking Rama to draw.

Rama swiftly grabs the bow and arrow from the old ascetic. And the next instant he stands ready to shoot, the bow fully drawn and the arrow in place.

Having done the impossible in a flash, Rama again turns to Parashurama and speaks to him. And there is anger in his voice as he speaks to the ascetic-warrior. Rama says: “You deserve my worship because you are a brahmana, and also because of your kinship with Vishvamitra. Therefore, I cannot shoot the deadly arrow at you, O Parashurama. I shall therefore take away either your ability to move swiftly everywhere, or the unequaled worlds which you have attained by dint of your austerities—this is what I intend to do. This transcendental arrow of Lord Vishnu, which can crush an enemy’s stronghold or smash the pride of an adversary by its power, never misses its target.”

A humbled Parashurama now speaks slowly in his deep voice. He needs his power to move about, he says, and asks Rama to destroy the worlds he has gained through his austerities.

Rama shoots the arrow and the arrow empowered with great spiritual power destroys all the worlds Parashurama had acquired through his tapas. The old ascetic bows down in humility to Rama and then circumambulates him in an action reserved to those whom you revere at the highest level. He bows down to Dasharatha and the other ascetics too and returns to Mount Mahendra, his abode, to engage in tapas again. As he departs, says the Ramayana, all directions were cleared of darkness.

0o0

Through his victories, Parashurama had acquired absolute power. And absolute power can corrupt even the greatest of men. That is what had happened to Parashurama. His power went to his head, and he became what he had lived to destroy.

Every leader is in danger of being corrupted by power. Wisdom is to guard against this. For once power goes to your head, your doom is decided.

There is another lesson for all of us in this. Vengeance is tamasic. True, there are times when vengeance is right, and called for. But one has to guard oneself against the power of vengeance to turn one into those against whom one is taking vengeance.

Parashurama always had an element of tamas in him. Without that tamas, he would not have been able to carry out the order of his father to chop off the head of his mother – an order that all his four elder brothers had refused to obey. And then, seeking revenge for his father’s death, he kills not only the perpetrators of the crime, but all kshatriyas of the world. And not once, but twenty-one times. And fills five lakes with their blood. And filling five lakes with their blood, he offers a dark tarpana – a propitiatory rite – to his ancestors with that blood. That is deep, dark tamas indeed.

It is this tamasic power that the Ramayana describes graphically in terms of shrieking birds and running animals at the approach of Parashurama. The earth shakes, storms uproot mighty trees and hurl them about, dust storms arise and block the sun – all signs of the destructive power of sinister tamas.

Power and tamas – that is the most terrifying combination. That creates monsters. In modern times we have had this in leaders like Hitler and Stalin.

All of us, says the Gita, have an element of tamas in us. And we have to be on the guard against it. When we allow tamas to take over us, we destroy ourselves and harm everyone we come across. And the more powerful we are, the more will be our destructive power.

When Parashurama leaves Rama at the end of the story, humiliated and humbled, the power of darkness too ends. The sun is revealed again, and nature becomes calm again.

In Indian legends, Parashurama is a great warrior and a great ascetic. And what he destroys is arrogant power. Arrogant power needs to be destroyed. It was the great mission of his life. But after he completes that mission, the stories we hear of him all have an element of darkness in them – whether it is his attempt to battle with Bhishma, his disciple, seeking what he believed was justice for Amba, or in his cursing Karna, another disciple of his, for his kindness to him, for his devotion to him, for Karna’s enduring unendurable pain for his sake. True, the reason given is that Karna had told him a lie about who he was in order to learn from him since he would not have accepted Karna as a disciple otherwise.

Many leaders of men today have unlimited power with them. That power should be used for the good of the world – lokasangraha – says Indian culture. And on no account should we use it in arrogance and haughtiness to satisfy our ego. If we do, what will happen to us is what happened to Parashuurama: destruction of all the worlds we have acquired. That is apart from the harm we cause the world.

0o0

The Mahabharata too tells us its own version of this story of the encounter between Rama and Parashurama. According to this telling, when Rama’s fame spread everywhere from Ayodhya, “impelled by curiosity” Parashurama takes his bow with which he had killed the kshatriyas and goes to Ayodhya to meet him there and to test for himself how great young Rama is. Dasharatha hearing of the arrival of the ascetic-warrior sends Rama to receive him at the outskirts of Ayodhya with all respect due to the great hero that he is. When Parashurama meets Rama, he offers his bow to him and asks him with a smile to string the bow. Rama accepts the challenge and eventually Parashurama’s pride is humbled.

This telling of the encounter differs in many significant details from Valmiki Ramayana’s telling. But here too, the essential message is the same: when power gives birth to arrogance, it is evil and ultimately it harms oneself, apart from harming others. In this telling also Parashurama loses all his powers and the great master who conquered the earth so many times, is reduced to nothing.

0o0
Valmiki Ramayana translation courtesy: Robert Biggs

Daivi Leadership

The Daivi Leadership model is based on the daivi sampad discussed in the sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. It is also based on the life of Krishna as a leader and on his teachings. Besides these, in developing the Daivi model of leadership, I have used insights from the wisdom of the Vedas and the Upanishads as well as from Indian leadership philosophy as discussed in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Arthashastra, Tirukkural and other ancient Indian literary works. The Daivi model of leadership is a contrast to the Asuri model of leadership, which I have developed from the asuri sampad as discussed by the Bhagavad Gita and leadership thoughts in the texts mentioned above. These two twin leadership models form the extreme ends of a continuum, the Daivi Leadership being the best and the Asuri Leadership being the worst. In the ultimate analysis, Daivi Leadership focuses on light that ennobles the life of all people involved, whereas Asuri Leadership focuses on power for its practitioners, utilized for dominating others and creating wealth through exploitation. Eventually however, Asuri Leadership leads to all-round misery.

I have been teaching both the Daivi Leadership model and the Asuri Leadership model for the last couple of years at XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur. These models are taught in detail as part of my course in Indian Philosophy for Leadership Excellence. What follows is a brief summary of the Daivi Leadership model.

The Bhagavad Gita lists daivi sampad as fearlessness, purity of heart, generosity, sacrifice, compassion, absence of covetousness, vigour, fortitude, etc. Asuri Sampad is described as hypocrisy, arrogance, self-conceit, anger, harshness, ignorance, etc.

As other types of leaders have, the Daivi Leader too has a powerful vision and mission, which in the case of the daivi leader is a noble one. He is passionate about his mission and his commitment to his mission is total. The Daivi Leader shows the willingness to sacrifice his name and his life itself at the altar of his cause.

While the Daivi Leader is highly moral, his morality is often different from that of the society to which he belongs because he functions from a higher moral plane. He also raises his followers too to a higher moral plane, as the transformational leader does.

The Daivi Leader shows the same deep commitment to his followers as he shows to his mission and never abandons them. He treats their needs as their needs and their problems as his problems. He sees his happiness in their happiness, his success in their success. He considers as good not what pleases him but what is good for his followers and sees their welfare as his welfare. His care for his people is that of a pregnant woman to the child in her womb. Just as she constantly thinks about that child and lives for it and does nothing that will harm it even if she loves to do it for herself, he too lives for his followers and does nothing that will harm them.

The Daivi Leader has all the qualities that the Bhagavad Gita lists as daivi sampad and suffers from none of the evil qualities the Gita speaks of as asuri sampad. He is highly autonomous and has both great strength and vulnerability. He does not believe in hiding behind masks or playing helpless but accepts himself as he is.

In spite of problems facing him, the Daivi Leader retains his self-mastery. This helps him in retaining his serenity, which is a basic requirement for clear perceptions, unerring intuitions and right decision making. He has the energy and freshness of youth, has the quality of flowing, is childlike and is highly creative. Because of his originality and creativity, he is an expert in thinking outside the box.

For the Daivi Leader, his mission comes before his ego. For this reason, he is willing to accept injuries to his ego in the process of achieving his mission. He is also willing to serve, without occupying positions of authority, as the servant leader does. He can let go of things, which makes him very flexible where required. Because of his flexibility, he knows when to be firm and when to yield. He knows when to assert himself and when to gracefully surrender in the interest of his mission. Though he is generally gentle with people because of his sensitivity, he can also be tough if the situation requires it.

While being passionately in love with the world and life, the Daivi Leader also knows how to withdraw into himself and remain contented in the solitude of his inner sanctuary.

He is interested in what the Upanishads call preyas – immediate satisfaction, short term goals – but never loses sight of shreyas – long term good, which is his real interest. In the same way he is interested in both abhyudaya and nisshreyasa – prosperity in the material sense and prosperity in the spiritual sense. He sees life as a sacred yajna, a holy sacrifice, and looks upon his leadership too as such. He has both the passion of a devotee and his humility. In work he is a karma yogi.

The Daivi Leader trusts people and in their essential goodness. Because of his trust for people, he creates an atmosphere of trust in his organization. The Daivi Leader’s presence is that of a sattvic person – unlike the tamasic person who sucks up your energy and leaves you drained, and unlike the rajasic person who both energises you and makes you restless, the Daivi Leader energises you and at the same time help you reach your inner serenity. Like Krishna in the Mahabharata, at his highest level, he is gunatita, beyond all the three gunas.

Nyasa – the sense of detachment and renunciation – is part of the Daivi Leader’s attitude towards people and life. While he passionately cares for his people and is intensely concerned about them, he is not carried away by his care and concern. He is able to detach himself from them and is able to look at them objectively and make clear assessment of them and their situations.

The Daivi Leader is motivated more by the need to give than by the need to get. He is not driven by deficiency motivation. At the organizational and at the personal level, he has the three purusharthas of dharma, artha and kama – virtue, wealth and pleasures – balanced.

Speaking of the effectiveness of Daivi Leadership, ancient India had achieved great economic, cultural, educational, ethical, philosophical and spiritual heights and high standards of living for its people. This was possible because of the Daivi Leadership it practiced.

O0O

Ahalya’s Story: Parched Earth, Pouring Rain 2

Continued from …1

Life went on. The wheels of time rolled on.

It was one of those days that I first started looking at Indra with new eyes. He had come back to the ashram for a visit. One day I was sitting on a rock near the river where I had gone to fetch water when Indra came to the river for a swim. The sound of his diving into the water penetrated the world of my reveries and quickly turning my head in the direction of the sound, I noticed Indra rising up from the water.

For a moment I had a feeling I was looking at male beauty – male beauty personified.

I had seen Indra bathing in the river many times in the past. But never had he fascinated me like that.

Suddenly Indra seemed the centre of the universe. Everything seemed to revolve around him.

I was being drawn to him irresistibly, helplessly. My entire being clamored for him. Deep down within me I knew Indra was not my fulfillment but my death, my humiliation. I was being drawn into the vortex of some dark, abysmal non-existence from which nothing escaped. Indra was a whirlpool of darkness. And yet I wanted Indra. I wanted to be taken by him. I wanted to surrender myself to him, to be consumed by him, to be swallowed by him, to be annihilated by him, even as a moth offers itself to the burning fire at night.

Indra was now standing before me, his whole body wet, water dripping from his hair, from his chest, from his limbs. Magnificent Indra. Magnificent male.

Sadyasnata – freshly bathed, just bathed. The sadyasnata male is no less desirable to the female than the sadyasnata female is to the male, I discovered.
I looked up into his eyes. Long. Wordlessly. As he stood looking into mine.
And then I shook. Shook all over, a sudden fear possessing me, exulting fear, intoxicating fear, maddening fear, fear that at once made all my senses stop functioning and made all of them sharp as never before.

I had a feeling a word spoken would explode me. The sound of a leaf falling from the nearby tree and I would explode. The smallest movement and I would explode. I had become so intense that if he so much as stretched out his hand at me, I felt I’d explode into a million pieces.

Time stood still. The sun in the sky had stopped. The wind wasn’t blowing. I knew even the plants and trees around me, the grass around me, had ceased to grow, had ceased to breathe. As I had ceased to breathe.

The pulsation of life within me had ceased. And yet I had never ever been so intensely alive. An eternity lived in a moment.

And then I found myself getting up and walking away.

We hadn’t spoken a word.

But I knew I had been transformed by that moment. I had been made new. I had been made whole. I had suddenly become what I really was. A woman. Not in the physical sense, not in the social sense, not in the sexual sense that Gautama had made me. But in a spiritual sense, in an existential sense.

In that moment I metamorphosed once again. In that moment I received into me the agonies and ecstasies, the desires and cravings, the hopes, the passions of ten thousand generations of women. These had been poured into me.

I was now sufficient unto myself – whole, complete and sufficient. I felt healed – healed of all that was inflicted upon me since sage Gautama took me for a wife.
I felt like a virgin again – pure, sacred, inviolate. And inviolable.

Early the next morning, while the sage was away for his bath, Indra came to me. And I received him, took him into myself.

I did not feel I had violated anything by my taking Indra into myself. I did not feel I had wronged the sage in any way. I felt as though I had always been Indra’s – sage Gautama was the outsider, the intruder. Adultery was what the sage and I did together not what Indra and I did. Sin was what the sage and I did together. Our coming together was what was repugnant. But Indra and I belonged to each other. I felt I had always been waiting for him – even as the earth awaits the rains so that she could bathe in the ecstasy that inundates her and the seeds in her could sprout.

Indra came to me day after day while the sage was away for his morning bath and ablutions. He came to me at that sacred hour when the scriptures forbid men and women uniting – the brahma muhoorta. He came to me as the first rays of the sun reached to thrill the earth each morning, as the fore-glow began brightening the eastern sky. At the hour full of mystery and magic, the hour full of wonder, and he filled that hour with ecstasies.

I knew this could not go on. I knew we were bound to be discovered. I knew suffering would follow – unspeakable suffering. And yet we kept meeting morning after morning.

As days passed, a suspicion grew inside me. Did Gautama know what was going on? I had started observing subtle changes in him. The sage had begun to grow withdrawn. He was never very fond of talking, was always reserved, but he had always been more lively and cheerful when he was near me. I felt that he had not only been not talking to me as much as before, but had perhaps been avoiding me.

Were these changes real? Or was I imagining them? I did not know.
Besides, I myself had changed since that first encounter with Indra by the river. Maybe it was my dread of the sage, or maybe it was my guilt – but whatever it was, I had definitely begun to avoid Gautama.

I was now living in two worlds. One was a world of unrealities, in which I lived with Indra constantly. The time I spent with him each morning was short, but in that world of unrealities, I lived perpetually with him. It was a world of brightness, almost ethereal brightness, a world full of vivid colors, fantastic shapes, full of fervent touches and smells almost consuming in their intensity, a world of burning passions, fascinating emotions and feelings, a world filled with unbelievable ecstasies. The other was the world of realities that intruded into this world occasionally, though as a physical presence it was always there, far more real that the world I had brought into existence with Indra. It was a world that oppressed me, that made it difficult for me to breathe, a world from which I shrank away in horror, which I wanted to disappear, cease to exist, so that I would be liberated into the world of Indra and me for ever.

I knew the two worlds could not exist together for too long – one or the other had to end.

And then one day it happened. The sage was returning from his bath when some of his disciples told him: “How great you are, Master! Great indeed is the power of your austerities! You are standing here before us and yet you are inside with your wife!”

That is when I became Ahalya – the unploughable one. On the day his disciples told him that.

The sage’s curse.

Did he discover about Indra and me on that day? Or had he known it all along and was tolerating it, accepting it, admitting his failure to give me what I deserved, out of his guilt, acting only when his disciples taunted him about it? I never discovered. And, in any case, it did not matter any more.

The sage had already cursed me.

I accepted the curse. Deep in me, perhaps I was relieved. For I had always known the curse was coming. I had known it even before that first morning when Indra had come to me. I had known it that day when I sat on the rock and Indra stood before me, our eyes lost in each other’s.

Perhaps I wanted it to come – come as soon as possible, so that I would be relieved of the anxiety of waiting for it to strike me. Also, perhaps, the intensity of the world, the world in which I lived with Indra, had begun to frighten me. That was a life no woman could live for long, endure for long.

I became Ahalya. Ahalya – the unploughable. Earth that is cursed to be barren forever. Earth that receives no rains.

Perhaps I was relieved for another reason too. After Indra had touched me, had taken me, I did not want the sage to touch me anymore. Now he wouldn’t.

The sage cursed Indra too.

I did not receive rains anymore. The winds were the only thing that nourished me now. Hot winds. Dry winds. Moisture less winds.

I had become a desert. Uninhabited, neglected by men, forgotten by them, invisible to them.

I shall not touch you any more – that is what Gautama had said. I do not need you any more, that is what Gautama had said. Your presence is repugnant to me, that is what Gautama had said. Before he walked away leaving me behind. Before he went to the mountains for tapas.

He had declared me unfit for ploughing. And his declaration made me land unfit for ploughing. Accursed earth.

Repent, he had said. Purify yourself, he had said. Purify yourself through repentance and tapas, he had said. Purify yourself through your loneliness and suffering, he had said.

The creator had played a trick on me. The creator had dealt a blow to me, had betrayed me. He had given me to the man I considered my father all the years of my growing up. My beauty had been punished. My youth had been punished. My womanhood had been punished. All for no fault of mine. Except for that I was a woman, and beautiful.

Youth should be the reward of youth, not old age. Young life should unite with young life – not with old age.

I knew I had sinned by men’s standards. But my crime, my sin, was that I gave in to the longings of the young life in me, to its young cravings. What I had done was to answer the call of life from within me.

I searched deep within me – and I found no sin in me, no hala. They say ahalya also means without fault, impossible to find fault with, without blemish. I found it impossible to find fault with me. I was without blemish. Ahalya.

But I felt deeply guilty, too. True, the sage should not have taken me for a wife. Perhaps, he should have given me to Indra, who had always loved me. Or to someone else, maybe that emperor that the sage talked about when I was a child. Or to someone else. He should not have taken me for himself.

But I couldn’t help feeling guilty. For, I had betrayed him. He was my husband, whether I liked that fact or not.

So when the sage pronounced me guilty, made me ahalya, unploughable, I did not protest. I did not plead for myself. I accepted his curse. And I lay without receiving rains, subsisting on the winds, accursed earth where only barren winds blew. Fallow. Dead.

Until all longing for rains ceased in me. Until the earth in me no more thirsted for rains. Until Indra and our love became just a long ago memory.

By the time the two youths came to me I had become luminous, they say. I was lit up by the glow of my austerities, they say.

Suffering is a kind of penance. Self-denial is a kind of penance. Burning within is a kind of penance.

The two princes of Ayodhya were very young then. Two adolescents. Rama, the elder, was clearly the leader. It was he who had come and touched my feet first. And then Lakshmana did the same.

They were my first visitors in ages. The world had rejected me all these years.

And then they came. Life touched me once more. And I felt I was alive once again.

I welcomed them to the ashram and offered them hospitality. The ashram came alive once again.

And then Gautama too came back to me.

O0O

That was eons ago.

I am an old woman now. With no hungers of youth.

Gautama and I live quietly in our ashram. Two very old people. Sufficient unto ourselves.

At times when I think of my past I wonder if Indra ever was. Indra and all that followed.

I feel I have been living like this with the sage always.

Gautama and Ahalya – two very old people.

Gautama and Ahalya – the bright, scorching sun and the fallow, unploughable earth.

We were never made for each other. Though we were given to each other. Which, perhaps, was our tragedy.

In my old age, I often think of the worlds to come. This world, following Gautama, named me a sinner. But will I be treated as a sinner in those worlds too?

I do not know. But I know one thing. If they asked me there if I had lived the life that was given to me, if I had used that most precious gift of all and not thrown it away, if I had been true to my innermost instincts and impulses, if I had been true to my flesh and blood, if I had been true to the woman in me, then I’d say, with all honesty:

Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Yes, I have…

O0O

Ahalya’s Story: Parched Earth, Pouring Rain 1

I had always known Indra. I grew up watching him. He was one of the sage’s students. And I was the sage’s daughter. Or at least so I thought. For, I had known no father other than Sage Gautama. I had always thought I was born in the ashram, born to the sage. It was only years later that I discovered that this was not true, that I was only brought up by him.

The discovery disturbed me highly. And brought up a number of questions to my mind. Who, for instance, was my father then? Who was my mother? Why did they give me up? Or is it that something had happened to them? Where did the sage find me? An endless number of questions.

One thing I was sure of. That they hadn’t given me up. I was an orphaned child – not an abandoned child. To be an abandoned child was shameful – and too painful. No, I wasn’t that. I was orphaned. Something had happened to my parents and I was orphaned. And the sage had found me and brought me up.

One day I gathered the courage to ask the sage some of these questions. I overcame my awe of him and asked him the questions that were foremost in my mind. Who were my parents? Where did the sage find me?

How old was I when I raised that question? I do not remember. Maybe six, maybe seven. And the sage looked at me sweetly and smiled, treating me as he had always done – like a little baby. And he told me a story – not a word of which I believed, of course. It was the kind of story grownups always told children – especially a grandfather told a granddaughter.

The sage told me that I was created specially by Brahma, the creator. No, I was not born of man and woman. The creator chose all that is most beautiful in all creatures and out of that he created me. “That is why,” he told me, “you are the most beautiful child in the world. And when you grow up, child, you are going to be the most beautiful woman in the world. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the mightiest emperor in the world himself would be tempted by you.”

How prophetic the sage was!

Another time I pestered him, sitting in his lap and pulling at his long beard, with all his disciples watching, he told me that Brahma created one thousand women first – and from each of these women he selected the most beautiful part and out of these he formed me. And the sage added – “the one who gets you for a wife will be getting all that is best in a thousand women. He will be marrying a thousand women in fact.” And he laughed.

I, of course, never believed any of these stories and kept asking him the same questions again and again. He told me many more stories about my birth. Once he said I was the daughter of the earth. Another time he said I was the earth itself.
I never learnt who my parents were. What I came closest to believing was that I was the daughter of King Bhadryashwa and the Apsara Menaka.

But I doubted even that was just another story and the search for my parents – that is, the desire to know them, the question who they were, remained in my heart.

In those days I often asked Indra that question. We were friends then, though Indra was older to me, much older. I asked him if he knew who my parents were. And he too repeated the stories that the sage had told me. When I rejected one of the stories told by him, he told me another. And when I rejected that too, yet another – just as the sage did. And Indra too ended every story he told me with – “that is why you are the most beautiful girl in the whole world, and that is why when you grow up you are going to be the most beautiful woman in the whole world.”

And then he added: “And that is also why when you grow up I am going to marry you, make you my wife.”

I pushed him away from me when he said that. I was deeply embarrassed. Shy. Marriage was something every girl had to do – but a girl did not think of marriage before it was time for it and certainly I did not like Indra talking to me about it.
Indra finished his studies and left our ashram. It was only years later that I met him and by then I had become the wife of the sage whom I had looked upon as my father all my growing up years.

I had asked the sage how I could be his wife. I had asked him how he could have me for a wife when he had brought me up in his ashram and he had always treated me as a daughter – even as a granddaughter. And he said the creator, Brahma, had given me to him as a daughter when I was a child and he had looked after me as such. And now, he said, when I had become a woman, the same creator, pleased with his self-restraint, had given me to him as his wife. He had rewarded his self control towards me by giving me to him as a wife.

I wanted to ask Brahma if restraining oneself from one’s daughter, not being tempted sexually by one’s daughter, was an act of such merit that it deserved to be rewarded by giving the man the same daughter as his wife.

Besides, it was as though I had no say in these matters. That my opinions did not count. That my feelings did not count.

As though the creator could give me to whomever he wished – as a daughter to bring up, or as a wife. And if they so desired as both to the same man, one after the other.

And in any case, I did not believe this creator story, the story of the creator giving me to him as his wife, anymore than I believed the other story of the creator specially creating me and giving me to the sage for bringing up.

O0O

I do not know what a man feels about making one’s own daughter his wife. But I do know what a woman feels when she is forced to make her father her husband.
It is disgusting. It is revolting. It is obnoxious. It is against all that I hold sacred in life. Only animals do that.

The day he announced he was taking me as his wife obeying the order of the creator, something broke in me. I could feel it breaking in me – physically feel it, though I did not know what it was that broke in me.

Upanayana, it is said, gives a second birth to a person. I was already twice born with the upanayana the rishi had performed for me, the sacred initiation of the thread that I had undergone with the sage as my guru, by which act he had become my father in yet another sense. And now, with my marriage to him, I had been reborn once again.

For, marriage is a rebirth to every woman.

In marriage, a woman gets a new father and a new mother, new brothers and sisters, new uncles, aunts and grandparents, and a new home. It is like being born again.

But in my case I was reborn in a different sense, too. The rishi’s announcement had broken me, had killed me.

And then I was reborn again.

But the new I was completely different from the old one.

The old I was an ephemeral creature. A creature born of airy substances. Of one woman’s smile, the glow in another woman’s eyes, the gait of a third woman, the sweetness in yet another woman’s voice, someone else’s laughter. But she had no soul, no substance. She was not a person.

She was a thousand things that men found beautiful in women. Made up of a thousand things that male fantasies of women consisted of. She was the stuff of their longings, of their dreams. But she was not real, she was not a woman. She was not a person. Dreams are not persons. Fantasies of women are not women.
That day, the day the sage took me as his wife, a new I was born.

This I was made of flesh and blood. She was a person. A female person. A woman. And as a woman, she was heir to all that was real about women – not just what men found beautiful in her, not just what men fantasized about her, but all that was real about women.

A woman of flesh and blood. And an heir to all women’s heritage on the earth and the heavens.

On that day I grew roots into the earth. On that day I discovered in me arteries linked with the sky, with the air, with fire and water. I was floating in the air so far – suddenly I grew roots and these roots began nourishing me, filling me with longings I had so far never known, with thirsts that I had so far never known. It was as though I had just remembered who I was, discovered, realized, who I was and what I was meant for. I began receiving powerful, life-giving messages from deep within me, a fire was ignited in me, a fire that thirsted for many things, but above all
I had suddenly discovered great strength within me – strength and courage. The strength and courage to be what I am, the strength and courage to desire what I needed, the strength and courage to go after what I desired and to get it. I had never felt fettered before – but now I suddenly felt I had always been in fetters, fetters so fine I had never realized I was in them – and suddenly I felt free of those fetters.

With freedom came longings – longings of the earth in me. Longings of the earth that thirsted for rain, life-giving, life-sustaining, life-generating rain. When the wind blew I did not want it to be just a wind, a wind that soothed and refreshed you, that cooled you, but I wanted it to be a wind that brought seeds that would sprout into fresh life.

I had discovered my kinship with the night and the earth – the fecund night and the fecund earth.

I suddenly wanted to belong – no, not just belong, but to be thirsted for.

My insides had suddenly begun to speak to me – in the language of life, in the language of women, in the language of women everywhere – the language of passion, of dreams, of instincts and impulses…the language of the earth, the language of the night.

It seemed as though so far I was leading an ephemeral existence, living in a dream world, and suddenly I had become real.

Rishi Gautama adored me. And I hated his adorations. I hated his attentions. I hated his look. I hated his touch. His very presence grew repugnant to me. For, all the time he was with me, something deep within me whispered – this is an unholy union, this is a union that should not be. Incest – my mind screamed. This man was my guru – my guru and my father.

And yet I submitted to him. I wanted to get up and run, but I lay there, not a muscle in my body moving.

Gautama’s was an old man’s love for a young woman – the obsessive, compulsive, adoring, self-sacrificing, self-surrendering, self-effacing love.

And yet with the control developed by ages of penances, he controlled himself, restricting himself to the days and hours that tradition permitted. Sex was to be limited to the ritu period, the fourteen days following my ritual bath after my periods, that is, to those fourteen nights.

And I? While I hated his very touch with all my being, my body began longing for it with hunger in every inch of it. My muscles, my nerves, my flesh, my blood, began longing for it. I had begun living for what I hated, what I detested, more than anything else in the world. The very thought of what disgusted me more than anything else filled me with thrills. I dreaded with every cell in my body the days the rishi could take me and I longed for those days with every cell in my body. It was as though I was not one person, but two. Twin selves, twin bodies. I often wondered which of the two was more real and I knew both were equally real. The rishi had transformed me from a girl to a woman and it was that newly born woman in me that was seeking fulfillment.

I knew the fulfillment my body sought, my senses sought, my instincts and impulses sought, my existence sought, will not come through the rishi.

For, to receive that fulfillment in the arms of a man, the woman has to give herself to him – give herself to him totally and completely, freely and happily, in an act of celebration. But I couldn’t give myself to the rishi. Part of me rejected him, part of me detested him. There was no celebration in me.

Which did not prevent me from becoming a mother, though.

Continued… 2