A beautiful bond: Krishna & Draupadi

Image Courtesy: TimeNowNews

Most prominent relationships in the Mahabharata are husband-wife, parent-child, or teacher-student. One relationship that is unique is that of Krishna and Draupadi.

Krishna and Draupadi appear to have come into contact for the first time during her Swayamvara. Krishna was a well-wisher of the Drupada family and it appears that they developed a bond during that time, which grew stronger over time. Krishna was, of course, the Pandavas' cousin.

During the vana vaasa, Krishna would visit the Pandavas and especially Draupadi in the forest so often that his wife Sathyabama became jealous of the attention she was getting and confronted her. Their conversation is one that reveals Draupadi's unique (platonic, of course) relationship with Krishna.

On an earlier occasion, when Krishna had injured his finger, Krishna's sibling Subhadra and Draupadi both saw Krishna's hand bleeding. Subhadra frantically looked for a cloth to tie as bandage, but Draupadi immediately tore a part of her saree and stopped the bleeding. It is this act that made Him so fond and protective of her, more special than His own sister.

Of the legends surrounding the modern Rakshabandhan, this may have been the first 'rakhi' tied by a girl to one she considered a brother.

There are several well-documented occasions in the Mahabharata when Draupadi sought Krishna's help, even when her own husbands were highly capable of protecting her.

Also at all times in the Mahabharata, Krishna appears to have never condescended to Draupadi; greatly valuing her intellect, scholarship, suffering, and womanhood in a world dominated by men, greed, and conflict.

The Two Popes - Dharma, Life Events, and Women

Image courtesy: Netflix.com, theconversation.com 

Recently, I began watching The Two Popes on Netflix, and found particularly interesting the conversations between the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the Pope - on the Catholic Church's dogma and position on marriage, divorce, etc.

People who look at religion superficially may conclude that if a Western religion was archaic, the older Eastern or Indic religions must be even more so, especially when fed on half-baked knowledge about the Hindu or Indic way of life.

There really isn't much Hindu or Indic dogma - of the 'thou shalt, or else' variety. The Vedas and Upanishads themselves make it amply clear that what is right or wrong (i.e., dharma and adharma) must change with the times. That certain communities tried to enforce voluntary practices such as Sati on unwilling widows during certain times in our history is very unfortunate.

You will see hundreds of prescribed samskaras, poojas, prayers, etc., but none that says you are banned from institutions if you don't do any of them. Institutions such as temples, mutts, etc., themselves are are very recent inventions (increasingly important, no doubt) to guide individuals who may not have the tools themselves. Still, if one particular Indic school of thought's institutions do indeed close their doors on you, there are always others that will open theirs. So, Indic institutions must not be compared to Western and or Islamic organized religion.

Note that the Ishavaasya Upanishad, for example, would rather have you do nothing than do a samskara or worse urge others to do it too, if you do not know what it is for. You are in fact warned about hell if you were to do that.

About the status of life events and in particular women, I heard in a recent lecture by a scholar that the Puranas actively recommend that men and women care about women's happiness, that men and women both be well educated (not necessarily in the same things), that men and women be disciplined and monogamous, and that men forgive their women even if they were to have carried out an affair. You might be surprised to hear that the Puranas actually go to the extent of recommending that a man even raise as his own a child that might have been born out of his wife's affair. I certainly did not expect to see such 'liberal' ideas expressed thousands of years ago in a tradition that continues to live on. Marriage itself, as an institution, was primarily intended to help the two individuals grow and evolve mentally and spiritually. Whether we hold the same ideals today or not is a different matter for our present generations to introspect. With our current lifestyles, we seem to focus more on who shall do the chores, making money, enjoying the moment, etc., with mental and spiritual fulfillment at best an afterthought.

The Indic way of life does not require you to give up your individual goals, ambitions, career, happiness, or fun. It just urges you to pursue them within some parameters laid down to suit your times and in keeping with the well-being of your community and future generations. Aspiring to higher ideals are recommended too, of course. e.g., aspiring for knowledge and the happiness that comes from contentment instead of wealth or fun, not showing off whatever wealth one has, etc.

If Indic communities rigidly hold on to practices that were more appropriate in earlier times, they run the risk of actually not adhering to Dharma, despite their best intent.

Rama doubts Sita? Part 2...

Rama & Sita. Image Courtesy:
https://1080wallpapers.wordpress.com/

In a previous post several years ago, I penned some thoughts around Rama 'abandoning' Sita. I've since learned some new perspectives after hearing scholars, and wanted to shared them.

Let's start with the context in brief: Princess Sita was abducted by Ravana, one of the most good looking kings ever and well-known womanizer, and held for a while in Lanka. Valmiki tells us that he kept appealing to her to forget Rama and to become his, which she kept spurning. Why does he need consent? Because he was cursed by the daughter of a rishi he forced himself on that he would die the next time he did it to any other girl. Sita is ultimately located, Ravana is slain, and Sita undergoes agni pariksha in Lanka before leaving for Ayodhya with Rama.

Now, the commonly told story appears to be that Rama (when surveying his kingdom incognito) overheard a fisherman tell his wife that Sita being trusted by Rama was odd, etc., and that Rama acted on this comment alone to banish his wife. Valmiki does clearly state that it was not one comment alone, but that his entire kingdom was gossiping about and doubted Sita.

As a loving husband, would it have been enough to simply ignore his subjects' comments and repose his personal trust in her? Perhaps, but that would not have improved her image any. The dent on her character would have remained. Self-certification was not going to be enough, even though Rama was held in the highest regard by his subjects. Although the agni-pariksha must have been reported in Ayodhya, it may have been considered just that -- a report; of an event from far away that may or may not be true, given that there was still widespread doubt in Ayodhya.
So, what choice did Rama have of restoring Sita's image? Someone impartial (not associated with Rama) and of impeccable stature must certify voluntarily. That person was rishi Valmiki who took Sita (left near his ashram by Shatrughna so she could be found) into his care, and who would go on to write the story of Rama and make famous his Ramayana. (Or had he already begun composing it by this time? How did Rama know about Valmiki? These are valid questions, and I'm unsure.)

Having Sita regain the true image of her spotless character must clearly have been more important to Rama than everything else.

Unlike a modern-day writer of a story who might rely on interviews and investigations, our puranas tell us that in antiquity some Rishis (seers) simply knew or had revelations. Our tradition accepts such relevations as valid knowledge. Also, there are many legends (some unsubstantiated) surrounding how Valmiki composed the Ramayana, his own background of a thief, seeing a bird die and instantly composing a verse in agony, etc. Let's not get into these for the moment...

2 Very Different Devars in the Ramayana

This one's a brief post after nearly 7 years on this blog.

I once heard a scholar say that during certain times in ancient India, it was acceptable or even the norm for the devar (originally devara or roughly backup-groom in Samskrita, and simply meaning the younger brother of a woman's husband in modern Hindi) to marry his elder brother's widow if she so desired for security or other such reasons.

Tara in the Ramayana. Image courtesy: Wikimedia.

In the Ramayana, there are two examples of devar for us to compare and contrast from the exact same time period:

1. Sugriva, Vali's brother
2. Lakshmana, Rama's brother

When Vali is presumed dead, Sugriva takes his place as king and also marries his wife Tara (not by Sugriva's deceit or for lust from either). This is per the societal norm of the times. That it got very complicated when Vali turned up alive is another matter. Note that it was not considered acceptable then to marry a younger brother's widow.

The scenario of Rama's death never arises in the Ramayana, but in Lakshmana we have a devar who would never even have considered marrying Sita whom he worshipped as much as he did Rama. Even if for her own security or other important reason, Lakshmana would have done everything else in his power but marry her.

Valmiki states that Lakshmana had never even seen her face and among all her jewels that were discovered after her abduction he was only able to positively identify her toe rings since he respectfully prayed at her feet every morning.
Remember that Rama was around 16 when he married Sita who was around 10. Lakshmana was around 15 and his own wife Urmila (Sita's younger sister) was around 8. I believe Sita was in her late 20s when their 14 year Vanavaasa began. Rama later ruled for around 30,000 years -- Rama Rajya.

While a certain marital societal norm may have existed (unacceptable today, of course), some like Lakshmana held the highest moral values transcending times with transient societal norms not really relevant to them at all.

Note: This comparison isn't intended to sully Sugriva's character, but simply to highlight Lakshmana's.

Conversations on God

Image courtesy: destinyontheopenroad.blogspot.com

In my last post, I urged that the definition of God is very important to man's inquiry and quest for knowledge.

I used this as the primary topic of discussion at an 'intellectual forum' at Sri Krishna Vrundavana in Toronto recently, attended by over ten. Here's an account of the discussion.

We started the discussion off by borrowing a question that was used in the wonderful Harvard course Justice.

The question, in a simplified thought experiment setting, is the following:

A train is going on a track that forks ahead. On the default path at the fork, the train will go on to hit a group of 10 people sitting on the tracks. If the train were to go down the other path, the train will hit a group of 4 people sitting on the tracks. You have the ability to do nothing, or flip a switch that will make the train switch paths (from the default).

Since this is a thought experiment, assume that you do not have the ability to communicate with the two groups of people in any way, that the train is silent enough that the people cannot hear it, and you cannot do things other than flip the switch. The only two choices available to you are clear:

1. Let the train proceed on its default path, and allow it to kill 10 people
2. Switch the train's path, and allow it to kill 4 people

This topic made for a wonderful discussion, with the majority preference being flipping of the switch. The argument made was that killing the smaller group of people was the less disastrous outcome.

The following questions and points were raised/made by different people in the discussion.

• In deciding that killing a smaller group of people was more desirable, what about the characteristics of those people? What if the 10 people were bandits, and the 4 were good people? We don't know anything about these 2 groups of people, so can we only go by their numbers? If we flipped the switch, and it turned out that the 10 were bad people who would cause additional damage to the world around them, are we willing to take responsibility for our 'flip the switch' decision? 
• Perhaps the 4 people were sitting on the tracks in the non-default path knew that trains do not use that path. If we decided to flip the switch, would it not be grave injustice to them? 
• Note that it is not at all possible to leave out the concept of justice. It is inherent in the world that we live in, human-enforced justice aside. 
• Whichever choice we made, it is to be assumed that it was that group's karma/prarabdha (destiny due to their own past deeds) that they were suffering their fate that day.
• It was interesting to note that from this though experiment emerged the concept of destiny/fate, and that of their deeds. Further, if the group that would get killed included a just-born baby, what deed had it committed in its present birth yet? The only explanation can be that in its part birth, the baby had committed deeds that resulted in its present punishment. And hence, there needs to be a soul in everybody which explains rebirth. 
• Following from the above point, if there was some (justice) system that kept track of the soul's deeds, surely there must be rules that are checked against? Every act of mine, even a good/evil thought, must be covered under this system?
• It is possible to argue that the system that pervades is just that - a system, and that there is no God-like entity who is controlling what happens.  

On to the concept of God..

If we did consider that there was a God, if He were simply a justice enforcement system, is He really necessary? It is useful to consider formal schools of thought to help us answer this and other questions.

At this point, the discussion moved on to some of the key Vedic schools of thought - that of Sankara, Ramanuja, Nimbarka, and Madhva. Here is my best understanding of these schools, and also what was presented at the discussion. 

Sankara's Advaita defines the world (that we see and experience) as a Maya, an illusion. Every sensory perception - sight, touch, etc., is an illusion. However, the soul that evolves by gaining knowledge of the truth eventually cuts through the Maya and realizes that it is part of the whole, Brahman (God; not to be confused with Brahmana, of the Varna system). Isvara, on the other hand is the God that we perceive due to Maya - the one with form and attributes, which He otherwise does not possess, for He is nirguNa. Souls (you and I) are part of the whole that is Brahman, and do not have a real existence, although we are required to escape Maya through knowledge. 

Ramanuja's Visishtadvita  defines the world as part of Brahman's body. The plants outside, the sky, our own bodies, the trash in our kitchen, etc., are actual parts of His person. The soul goes through an evolutionary phase, as in Advaita, and with the grace of God, attains salvation and an escape from the material world. Unlike Advaita, though, Brahman does exhibit plurality through the different souls, who are all inferior to Brahman Himself, Brahman being the all-seeing, knowing God with compassion. In salvation, though, the souls become one with Brahman, i.e, lose their difference with Brahman.

Nimbarka's Dvaitadvaita defines the world as at once being homogenous and plural. A common example given is that of the earth being homogenous while also exhibiting plurality with individual parts such as stones of different forms.

Madhva's Dvaita defines the world as being perfectly real, with the world around being part of jada, or a mass of lifeless material. Brahman, a distinct entity, is all-seeing, knowing, does have unique and an infinite, complete, positive list of attributes - compassion (the order of this attribute being infinite, and indescribable in its entirety), etc. The souls are all independent entities, at all times, and in various stages of evolution on their path towards their end state. The souls, are further classified as overall good/bad/middling, with the good souls proceeding on to bliss, the bad ones proceeding on to eternal damnation, and the middling ones in a permanent cycle of birth and death.

Each of these schools of thought has adherents, and a deeper study of each one is necessary to see where our own position on God might lie. You will be surprised how many assumptions you already have about His qualities, and of the world around you...

The All-important Definition of God

The definition of the entity that is God is all-important for any school of thought. The definition of God may be consolidated for any school from its core scriptures, commentaries and interpretations - whether the school of thought is based on the Vedas or not.

I've had people tell me that the definition didn't matter. Whoever, or whatever He was, they'd still pray to Him (or be indifferent). I'd urge that it does indeed matter, and is perhaps the most important topic there is to ponder over. Consider the following:

1. If you pray to Him, do you think He is listening to you? 
2. When you ask Him for something, and He doesn't give it to you, what does that tell you about Him?
• If you believe what you are asking Him is just (let's say you are fighting a case against a criminal who stole money from you, and you pray to God to win the case), and your prayer does not yield any results, will you conclude that His sense of justice is perhaps flawed? What kind of system might He have going on? 
3. Have you ever asked the question: "If He is all powerful, why does He not remove all the unhappiness and poverty in the world?"
• If you do not belong to the group of people that became atheists without receiving a satisfactory answer to this question, what kind of system do you think He might have going on?

I urge you to think about these questions. Try to formulate your definition of God. 

A 'definition' may include attributes (material characteristics, physical form, etc), abilities (all-seeing and knowing, omnipresent) and qualities (kindness, sense of justice, etc). 

My next post will put forth a definition of God based on a school of thought I subscribe to. I'll also present some alternate definitions.

The Beauty of Kamba Ramayanam

I began writing a rather long post titled "An Introduction to Vedic Philosophy in My Own Words", but as soon as I started I remembered a small portion of Kamba Ramayanam that I had read on a website a month ago. With Rama Navami just 4 days ago, I decided to simply write about Kamba Ramayanam. For full disclosure, I have never read Kamba Ramayanam, but after hearing this beautiful small portion, I now want to.

Image courtsy: dollsofindia.com

..angu un kAl vaNNam kaNden
ingu un kai vaNNam kaNden.. -(1)

This, and another portion that I remember my father referring to a long time ago:

kaNdanan karpinuk kaNiyai kaNgaLaal.. - (2)

In (1), Kambar refers to Rama killing Ravana, and His (hands') prowess with the bow, while also beautifully referring to the sanctity of His feet in redeeming Ahalya from her curse. Even an adultress is purified when Rama's feet touches her. As regards Rama's killing of Ravana, Kamba Ramayanam is said to describe the scene beautifully, and by the Wikipedia account to be experienced by reading!

Note that while every portion of Kamba Ramayanam oozes devotion to the Lord, it may not be fully accurate, for it is a recent retelling and there is obviously a lot of poetic freedom taken. I'm not complaining, though!

(2) refers to Hanuman reporting on his finding of Sita in Ravana's garden in Lanka. Kambar alludes to Rama's eagerness to hear good news about Sita, and Hanuman not adding to the suspense by starting his words with an affirmative kaNdanan. (The poetic license here, of course, is that Rama is portrayed as being vulnerable, which can not apply to an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God.)

I don't want to let this post go without a bit of a take on Vedic philosophy. While many may consider the Vedas to be focused on rigid rituals and inquiry, bhakti is really the most important aspect. With inquiry may come knowledge, but without bhakti to back it up, there will be no happiness in having acquired that knowledge. Even inaccurate knowledge must be acceptable to the Lord, as long as the bhakti is honest.

Happiness (Ananda) is really what all of us seek. Anything else that we believe we might be seeking is only a means to this end. The difference between each of us is that we seek it in different ways.

• For some of us, happiness must be permanent, and we seek lasting happiness and joy. This can only come from an understanding of the universe, of its creator, of the nature of the animate and the inanimate, and of the purpose of life. The pursuit of this happiness does not come without bhakti.
• For some of us, the eye cannot see beyond momentary happiness, and we seek pleasure whether physical or otherwise. Even happiness from work, from good health, from providing others food, from seeing one's kin flourish, etc., will all fall under momentary happiness, for eventually it will all go away. The pursuit of this happiness needs but a calculative mind and an organized lifestyle, and of course inexplicable luck. 
• For the lowest amongst us, happiness is not of the self but depends on others' suffering. This does not have to be dictators and mass murderers; even those that can say no good word or do no good deed (while still being within legal limits) can still qualify. The happiness thus derived will not even qualify as happiness but as the satisfaction derived from sadism, etc.