Scale and Grandeur Increase Faith..

Image courtesy: aaadelhi.org

Man will forever be fascinated by the world around him, and mystified by what lies beyond.

Whatever the extent of scientific accomplishment and discovery in astronomy and related sciences, I believe the night sky will remain a mystery till the end of humanity. The belief in some that somehow the origins of the universe can be discovered using better telescopes and inference techniques only amazes me. The more one learns about what lies beyond, the more one ought to realize that there will never be any significant body of knowledge on the origins of the universe, however much we progress. Science, at least astronomy, shall remain a string (no pun intended) of hypotheses and theories, perhaps each one better that the previous at explaining observed phenomena. 

Still, my purpose is not to belittle those that dedicate their careers to extending our body of knowledge. It is important to continually explore and enlighten the rest of humanity. However, it is more important for man to realize his limitations and see the many things that point at the divine as the cause of the universe. If nothing else, the Mahabharata drives home this one point over and over again. Amid a galaxy of mighty and (many divine) warriors capable of conquering heaven and earth, Krishna gently shows not once, but at least twice in the vishwaroopa form, that He pervades all, that nothing moves without His grace, and that He transcends time and space.

We are awed by scale and grandeur of things like the night sky, the deep oceans, volcanoes, mighty animals, the mountains, the instincts in a mother, the wonders of the human body, and by the tininess of the microscopic world. How many of us has not felt the presence of something beyond man when admiring such grandeur?

Still, I believe that comprehending what might be the cause of all this scale and grandeur, requires a leaving behind of the endless investigation of the material world. Of the 564 Brahma Sutras, the first reads ' Om athaato brahma jignaasa Om'. Lengthy treatises have been written on the meaning of this and the other sutras, but one of the simpler meanings is that the most important jignaasa (investigation/study) one might do is on Brahman, the supreme being. This implies a study of the qualities of Brahman, not a fixation on His material creations (which are grand, no doubt) and the trivialities that abound for the lesser mortal to be fixated on. A man that does brahma jignaasa is of the highest order, and naturally one that focuses on the material is of lower order.

Kunti, in a request to Krishna during the Mahabharata, asks Him to keep her in sorrow. For, she tells him, that is the only time man tends to think about God. Sorrow might evoke anger in some, leading one to question the existence of God, but in the one doing brahma jignaasa, it provides experiences that takes them closer to comprehending the supreme being.

Sites from the epics in Pakistan..

Hinglaj Mata, Hingol, Balochistan, Pakistan
Image courtesy: Wikipedia

Today, an article showed up in my news feed, tagged with Pakistan Hindu League.

The article was about the Hinglaj Mata (Durga) temple in Hingol, Balochistan, Pakistan. I already knew about this temple, but the article interestingly started by mentioning that this place was also the home of Shabari, a character that Rama meets when He and Lakshma first go north in search of the kidnapped Sita.

Long story short, Shabari, an ascetic woman is told by her ashram guru that Rama will visit and bless her, and she waits all her life until the day Rama and Lakshmana visit her. Her goal of receiving the Lord's blessing completed, she also suggests they go south to seek Sugreeva's help for searching Sita.

It was interesting to learn that Shabari's ashrama was in Hingol. For one, when after Ravana is defeated, someone suggests to Rama that because Lanka was so beautiful they should stay back there, Rama replies saying that however beautiful a foreign land, it is one's homeland that one must go back to. Puranic geography puts the boundary of India as the Sindhu (Indus) river and its tributaries on the northwest, the Himalayas on the north, the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries on the east, and the oceans on the south. So, perhaps we should not draw the boundary of India in the middle of Punjab, but extend beyond even to Balochistan. Maybe there was an Indus tributary there before that has dried up since. Or simpler yet, maybe it didn't matter whether was inside India or outside at that time.

Image courtesy Wikipedia

On the topic of Puranic accounts of the border of India, legend has it that two cities - presentday Lahore and Kasur in Pakistan, were built in honour of Rama and Sita's sons Lava and Kusha. There is even a temple for Lava in Lahore fort.

Interestingly, the two districts - Lahore and Kasur, are neighbouring districts (numbered 17 and 14 on the district map of Punjab, Pakistan) and both border India.

From the Mahabharata, there's also the Katasraj temples (Chakwal district, Punjab, Pakistan) near which the Pandavas are believed to have spent several of their 14 years during the vanavasa. 

Why Bhima is the real hero of the Mahabharata - part 2

"Chhota Bheem"
Image courtesy: birthdaybless.com

Recently, I heard more than one kid that I ran into singing the "chhota bheem.. chhota bheem" title song from a cartoon of the same name on the Pogo channel in India. The show is not related to this post, but it was amusing to see its popularity with the kids of this generation.

I read an interesting article here about Bhima and wanted to paraphrase some of it here.

Verse 1-10 of the Bhagavad Gita describes Bhima as the strongest of all warriors on either side of the Mahabharata war. Mind you, this is the Lord's own words.

"aparyaaptam tadasmaakam balam bhiishmaabhirakshitam;
paryaaptam tvidam eteshhaam balam bhiimaabhirakshitam"

Here's a list of his accomplishments which completes shadows everybody else's:

1. Bhima kills each and every one of the 100 kauravas, none excluded. 
• In fact, before killing Dusshashasana on the battlefield, Bhima calls out to the rest of the Kaurava army to see if anybody wanted to stop him from proceeding. Warriors including Karna stay silent, perhaps due to fear of Bhima in general, and awareness of Bhima's pledge during Draupadi's humiliation of personally killing and drinking Dusshashana's blood.  
• When Bhima indeed rips Dusshashana open and drinks his blood Karna is described in the Mahabharata as swooning at the sight, and the rest of the Kaurava army scattering in fright.
2. When discussing whether to fight a war or not (after Duryodhana refuses even 5 villages to the Pandavas), Krishna tells the Pandavas and Bhima that Bhima was the one on whom most of the burden of the war would fall to. Arjuna and the rest were only nice-to-have warriors in the war. 
3. Bhima kills every other major villain in the course of events leading up to the Mahabharata, being used as Krishna's hero of choice - to rid the world of Jarasandha, for example. Jarasandha, in fact, mocks Arjuna (the other available fighter) as being an insult if he were chosen to fight him. He declares Bhima as the only warrior fit to fight him. Not muchkingd credence should be given to Jarasandha's words, of course. For, he also declares Krishna a coward. (Krishna moves his entire kingdom from Mathura to Dwaraka to avoid unnecessary bloodshed with the frequent battles with Jarasandha.) 
4. During Draupadi's humiliation in the Kaurava court, Bhima's patience is not to be mistaken for being merely obedience to his elder brother, Yudhishtira. His confidence in Krishna saving her from complete humiliation is all that we can infer. Bhima is also the only one that vows to rout the entire Kaurava clan, including his pledge for Dusshasana in particular.
5. On Arjuna being the person who strung the bow and won the Draupadi swayamvara, this article describes the story of the events leading up to the swayamvara. Veda Vyasa visits the Pandavas prior to the swayamvara and tells them that they were all going to marry Draupadi. So, Arjuna is chosen consciously to be the one that contests on their behalf. The article goes into why Bhima was not chosen to be the suitor at the swayamvara, with an interesting connection to Shikhandi and a curse on the garland that Draupadi was going to use for the winner of the swayamvara. In short, the wearer of the "Amba-Shikhandi-Draupadi" garland was destined to kill Bhishma, which Bhima was not going to do, as Bhishma was a Vishnu bhakta. 
• I'm not entirely sure I agree with the article's argument. Krishna advises Arjuna to kill everyone on the enemy side since they represented evil. If that applied to Arjuna, it must apply to Bhima as well, Vishnu bhakta or not. There were several not-fully-evil players on the Kaurava side, including Drona, for example. Still, an interesting thought, and perhaps there's more to the reasoning due to Bhima 's (Vayu's) standing in the Dwaita school of thought.

When looking at the events in the Mahabharata in greater detail, every key accomplishment of the Pandavas comes down to Bhima, no doubt the real hero of the Mahabharata.

Deepavali is really dedicated to Mahalakshmi...

Narakasura Vadha
Image courtesy: Wikipedia

While the Mahabharata gets most attention due to the events and politics leading up to the Pandava-Kaurava war, episodes involving Krishna, their impact and scale establish His role as the undoubted protagonist despite several claimants.

The 3-day Deepavali festival begins with Naraka Chaturdashi, the middle day being the most important day, and the last day being Bali Padyami. The significance accorded to these days have wide variation, but here are the common ones.

It is interesting to note that of the 3 Deepavali days, the most important is actually dedicated to Mahalakshmi.

• Naraka Chaturdashi is the day Narakasura (son of Hiranyaksha - Varaha avatara) was killed by Krishana. For the Narakasura Vadha, Satyabhama (an avatara of Lakshmi) accompanies Krishna and stays with him throughout the war. It was a war, for entire armies of Narakasura are vanquished by Krishna, and finally felled by his chakra.

• Bali Padyami is the day that Vishnu as Vaamana ends the asura king Bali's reign. This is probably the most peaceful episode you can find of an 'evil' king being vanquished. Bali offers Vaamana (in brahmin form) anything he might desire. He ends up committing three measures of land, measured by the tiny Vaamana's feet. After Vaamana grows and grows to cover earth and the skies, Bali keeps his commitment by offering his own head as the third measure. Vaamana blesses Bali, the grandson of Prahlada, but puts his reign to and end by pushing him to the nether world. It is important to note that while Bali himself was pious (though an asura), it was his fellow asuras that were out of control, which brings Bali his fate. A lesson to be learned here about turning a blind eye to wrong deeds.

These two major events, flanking the main Deepavali day, commemorate the elimination of two key villains that even Indra and the devas are unable to defend against. In both cases, boons granted to the two villains allow their day of exit to be celebrated.

Now to what I think is the main significant of Deepavali. 

Rukmani and Sathyabama, both contemporary avatars of Lakshmi, form actors in an episode that we can learn from. The episode is described well in this Wikipedia article (see Tulabharam section). In this episode catalyzed by Narada (he tries to kindle a rivalry between Sathyabama and Rukmani for Krishna's attention), Sathyabama depicts wealth (focusing on gold to match Krishna's weight in a tulabharam) whereas Rukmani finally matches Krishna's 'weight' by using a non-material-focused devoted offering of a tulasi leaf. 

I don't believe that Sathyabama was some material-focused princess who somehow ended up marrying Krishna. For, if Krishna is omnipotent, any of His consorts, in whatever yuga or avatara, can only be avataras of His eternal consort, Mahalakshmi. I strongly believe Lakshmi shows, through the Tulabharama episode, that the material-focused Sathyabama is not dearer to the Supreme being. It is the non-material focused, but devoted Rukmani.

This leads us to why Mahalakshmi might be the focus of Deepavali. It might be okay to treat Her as the goddess of wealth, which is not incorrect. However, the key reason to celebrate Mahalakshmi's role is for her lesson that devotion to God is more important than the pursuit of wealth. 

After the Mahapralaya, when creation has ceased, and everything is made dormant, Mahalakshmi is believed to plead with the Lord to wake from his yoganidra and restart creation for the benefit of the souls that may be awaiting their turn for saadhana and salvation. Because it is due to Her grace that souls, good and bad, get put into creation by the Supreme being, She is the mother of all. And that is why celebrating Her motherhood in this vein is the main significance of Deepavali. 

Dreams and Reality..

What do you make of your dreams?

Several people try to interpret their dreams, that is, if they can remember their dreams.

Throughout a lifetime, there are perhaps a handful of dreams that people remember for a long time. A dream might have been extremely dreadful, pleasurable, memorable for the actors in the dream, etc.

But, do you ever think of dreams as carrying any value beyond just your own subconscious imagination playing out in some random order?

Here are some observations on the characteristics of dreams (before I get into arguments on whether dreams might correlate to reality):

1. Dreams seem not to follow earth time
• How often have you gone to sleep and woken up after 8 hours, wondering how that short sequence that played out in your dream had lasted so long?
2. Actors in dreams
• Several of my dreams have involved actors from my own life. Friends, family members, etc. Sometimes actors have the appearance of a friend or family member but may play an entirely different 'character'.
3. Real experiences
• A friend once described how he dreamed of coconut chutney and how when he woke up he still had the taste in his mouth. Clearly, while the dream may have been all virtual, the experience was as real for him as eating a spoonful of coconut chutney. 
4. Nightmares
• A lot of us remember dreams because they had a scary sequence. We feel real fear, sometimes sweat and shriek for real, and ultimately wake up to relief.
5. No rules or logic
• If you try to piece together your dream, based on what you remember of it, you may only remember bits and pieces. Sometimes, we remember nothing (which perhaps indicates deep sleep, which is good!). Most of my dreams make so sense. Either the location, or the people, the dresses, the situation - so many things about my dreams make no sense.

The Dwaita Vedic school of thought lays out dreams as being one of the tools that Brahman (God) uses to give souls different kinds of experiences. Real-life experience, ones that we experience in our waking state, are what they are. However, our dreams many a time surpass our worst waking state experience.

If you believe in God, Brahman's use of dream as a tool becomes easy to appreciate. If God can put non-earth space and time into play for an individual's dream, then He does not have to apply rules and logic the way He does for the real world we inhabit. A range of experiences can be administered to the soul, hastening its journey through the cycle of birth and death. Belief in a compassionate God may also help one see dreams as being easier punishments to one's sins.

Whatever you make of schools of thought such as these, and your level of theistic fervour, that dreams provide us real experiences is undeniable. That dreams are entirely due to one's imagination is difficult for me to believe.

By the way, we've not discussed our own actions in our dreams - whether we are accountable for them or not in some way (perhaps in the court of Yama?), etc. We've also not included day dreaming our discussion here, for obvious reasons, since they occur in more or less a waking state.

There is a somewhat tangential example from a Purana (I don't remember which, but I remember this from researching the topic of Kali) where a lady is tricked into believing that an impostor was her husband, and they proceed to make love. The child thus born is considered to be the true husband's son, according to the Purana, since the wife was imaging that it was her husband with her, not the impostor. Make what you want of this account, but 'dreaming' or 'imagination/attribution' in this particular case indeed equates dream with reality. 

Creation doesn't necessarily have to conflict with evolution

Image courtesy: smithsonianmag.com

I see endless debates between creationists and evolutionists, and have always felt that there doesn't necessarily have to be a debate.

Usually it's a Christian church vs atheist debate, where the atheist pooh-poos the Christian theory of God creating the world over a few days, due in part to the existence of fossils that suggest evolution over millions of years.

Hindu traditions have theistic theories of creation that do not necessarily go headlong against evolution. The 4 yugas, starting with the pristine Satya yuga, play out endlessly in a cycle of creation and destruction over a period of millions of years.

Vishnu, on Lakshmi's urging, creates the universe, and in it the planets and stars, from primordial matter (jada) and puts some of the endless numbers of souls (jeevas) into a cycle of birth and death, starting with Brahma, who is delegated this task. Several puranas describe different aspects of how the universe ('bhoogola', 'brahmaanda') and the elements, and so on, are created. The souls themselves are said to progress from lower forms of life, such as microbes, and on to higher forms of life, such as mammals and ultimately human. The souls, of course, all are said to be given 'equal opportunity', a fixed number of (something in the lakhs) births through which they do 'saadhana' (a process of self-realization) and progress on to their rightful destination.

The puranas and the Ramayana and Mahabharata describe men of different heights and gaits that we see today, ape-men ('vaanaras in the Ramayana'), fruits and vegetables, and other food items such as rice and mustard of different sizes, indicating that there has been evolution through the yugas.

None of what the puranas and other epics in the Hindu tradition describe need fit exactly well with our current geological evidence and scientific understanding, for we learn something new every day. Our interpretations of the puranas and epics may also not be accurate, due to missing portions or the lack of tools necessary to unambiguously interpret ancient (even somewhat recent) works. And, of course, the 18 puranas have conflicting accounts of the same events, making reconciliation difficult.

Still, that an omnipotent God could not 'create' by setting off an evolutionary process, is a major weakness in the Christian theory of evolution, which has allowed the prolonging of the creation vs evolution debate, and made the atheist position stronger by default. 

Does (should) God have a gender?

Courtesy: godofindia.blogspot.com

Does God have a gender, or should He?

Of the many takeaways from our epics, one is that of Vishnu (or his avataras such as Rama or Krishna) being the male protagonist and Lakshmi (or her avataras such as Sita or Rukmini) being the subordinate female protagonist. Of the lesser divine beings in the epics, couples abound, with the female usually being the subordinate consort.

So, it is clear why in Indian society (and families) the female, while not slighted (at least in theory), is still somewhat lesser in stature to the female; the male being at least the first among equals. 

A better way to think about the role of gender is through the prism of division of labour. Yet another   prism is that of the needs of society and its future generations. The father provides protection to the family and procures resources, the mother make decisions on allocation of resources, feeds and raises the children. The mother and father also usually play good cop-bad cop with the children to provide them the right stimulus, usually gender-sensitive as well. The daughter is taught certain things, the son others. 

Beyond the family, it is clusters of males that usually conduct public life, governance, and more. Still, beyond societal imperfections, if any, in theory or practice, past or present, does God have a gender? Why do we refer to God as He/Him?

My theory is that God chose to create society, natural order, reproduction, the whole nine yards (in conformance with the Vedas, of course) in a form where the male dominates (or can dominate) public life and the female dominates the home; and it is for this reason and His incarnations are as male, and that of his consort are as a female. 

Still, God provides us several examples where his incarnations are not male, why, not even human, in some cases. The first few incarnations in the dashaavataras (an evolution of sorts) are Matsya (fish form), Koorma (turtle form), Varaha (boar form), Narasmiha (male+lion form). The Vedas and Upanishads describe God (Brahman/incarnations such as Rama, Krishna etc.) not in physical terms but variously as 'satyam-gnanam-anantham', 'gunabhrun-nirguno-mahaan', etc. meaning that He is essentially composed of boundless non-material characteristics such as knowledge, happiness, compassion, etc., in infinite quantity and in blemishless fashion. i.e., He is not just a 'great guy' but completely independent of any other being or thing. Of His boundless qualities, Lakshmi is described as being in a perpetual state of discovery. 

Therefore, if God had a gender associated with Him (being male/female) there would be something material about him, and the physical limitations and needs that come with being male/female. All the boundless qualities described cannot, therefore, be ascribed to a 'mere' male. Further, in all the avataras where God is described as being born, e.g., as Rama or Krishna, the epics also describe a birth without any garbhavaasa ('immaculate conception'). For, if garbhavaasa was involved, that would be a material occurence, not something the God that we've defined can undergo. 

I'm unsure whether we should classify His consort as female (yes, perhaps), but still that he provides Himself to her in male form could not be for His own sake, but her's, given the independence from everything that is ascribed to Him as a quality.

In reference to God, it is always 'sriman' not 'srimaan', the latter being a reference to a male, while the former, not. Still, for common purposes, it is good to focus on a male God, while diving into the philosophical (Brahman) requires us to stop ascribing any gender to Him to get anywhere meaningful. 

The Mohini avatara is an interesting case of Vishnu incarnating in female form during the 'samudra manthana' (churning of the ocean for divine nectar) where Mohini 'outwits' the ashuras and distributes all the nectar to the devas. During the Mahabharata (Dwapara yuga), Vishnu's incarnations all appear to be aimed at doing whatever it takes (usually in sly fashion) to outwit evil. Krishna avatara proves this over and over, and Mohini avatara proves this too. In addition, it is for us to not ascribe a gender to God, and to not treat Mohini as a case of perversion involving God.