The Hindus (69 page)
Authors: Wendy Doniger
Images of animals are very old indeed in India, as we saw in the Indus Valley, but they may have become newly attractive in the Gupta period because of the need to produce visual representation of icons and emblems to distinguish different gods under sectarianism. The
vahana
is also a vehicle in the sense that a particular drama is sometimes said to be the perfect vehicle for a particular actor, or in the sense of (according to the
Oxford English Dictionary
) “a material embodiment or manifestation, of something.” Or perhaps it is a vehicle in the sense that mosquitoes may “carry” malaria. Wherever the animal is found, the deity is also present. Thus the animals carry the gods into our world as a breeze “carries” perfume. This may be seen as a more particularized expression of the basic Hindu philosophy that the ultimate principle of reality (
brahman
) is present within the soul of every living creature (
atman
).
HORSE SACRIFICESvahana
is also a vehicle in the sense that a particular drama is sometimes said to be the perfect vehicle for a particular actor, or in the sense of (according to the
Oxford English Dictionary
) “a material embodiment or manifestation, of something.” Or perhaps it is a vehicle in the sense that mosquitoes may “carry” malaria. Wherever the animal is found, the deity is also present. Thus the animals carry the gods into our world as a breeze “carries” perfume. This may be seen as a more particularized expression of the basic Hindu philosophy that the ultimate principle of reality (
brahman
) is present within the soul of every living creature (
atman
).
In the horse sacrifice, as we have seen in the ancient texts as well as in the
Mahabharata
, the chief queen pantomimed copulation with the slaughtered stallion, which was said to be both the sacrificing king (to whom he transferred his powers) and a god, usually Prajapati or Indra. Indra is one of several gods designated as the recipients of the horse sacrifice, but he himself not only sacrifices (as the Vedic gods did, in “Poem of the Primeval Man”) but is unique in that as a king (albeit of the gods), he is famed for having performed more horse sacrifices than anyone else and is jealous of this world’s record (a jealousy that made him steal the hundredth horse of Sagara, whose sons dug out the ocean searching for it). Indra thus (unlike the usual human worshiper, who may combine the roles of sacrificer and victim) normally combines the roles of sacrificer and recipient. That paradox came to the attention of the author of this medieval commentary on the
Ramayana:
“There are two kinds of gods, those who are gods by birth and those who have more recently become gods by means of karma, such as Indra. The gods by birth receive sacrifice but cannot offer sacrifice; the karma gods, like Indra, perform sacrifice and pose obstacles to sacrificers.”
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The higher gods include not only the rest of the Vedic gods but the newer gods, the bhakti gods.
Mahabharata
, the chief queen pantomimed copulation with the slaughtered stallion, which was said to be both the sacrificing king (to whom he transferred his powers) and a god, usually Prajapati or Indra. Indra is one of several gods designated as the recipients of the horse sacrifice, but he himself not only sacrifices (as the Vedic gods did, in “Poem of the Primeval Man”) but is unique in that as a king (albeit of the gods), he is famed for having performed more horse sacrifices than anyone else and is jealous of this world’s record (a jealousy that made him steal the hundredth horse of Sagara, whose sons dug out the ocean searching for it). Indra thus (unlike the usual human worshiper, who may combine the roles of sacrificer and victim) normally combines the roles of sacrificer and recipient. That paradox came to the attention of the author of this medieval commentary on the
Ramayana:
“There are two kinds of gods, those who are gods by birth and those who have more recently become gods by means of karma, such as Indra. The gods by birth receive sacrifice but cannot offer sacrifice; the karma gods, like Indra, perform sacrifice and pose obstacles to sacrificers.”
68
The higher gods include not only the rest of the Vedic gods but the newer gods, the bhakti gods.
In the
Harivamsha
(“The Dynasty of Vishnu”), an appendix to the
Mahabharata
that functions much like a Purana, Indra combines all three roles: sacrificer, recipient, and victim:
Harivamsha
(“The Dynasty of Vishnu”), an appendix to the
Mahabharata
that functions much like a Purana, Indra combines all three roles: sacrificer, recipient, and victim:
JANAMEJAYA’S HORSE SACRIFICE
Janamejaya was consecrated for the sacrifice, and his queen approached the designated stallion and lay down beside him, according to the rules of the ritual. But Indra saw the woman, whose limbs were flawless, and desired her. He himself entered the designated stallion and mingled with the queen. And when this transformation had taken place, Indra said to the priest in charge of the sacrifice, “This is not the horse you designated. Scram.”
The priest, who understood the matter, told the king what Indra had done, and the king cursed Indra, saying, “From today, Kshatriyas will no longer offer the horse sacrifice to this king of the gods, who is fickle and cannot control his senses.” And he fired the priests and banished the queen. But then the king of the Gandharvas calmed him down by explaining that Indra had wanted to obstruct the sacrifice because he was afraid that the king would surpass him with the merits obtained from it. To this end, Indra had seized upon an opportunity when he saw the designated horse and had entered the horse. But the woman with whom he had made love in that way was actually a celestial nymph; Indra had used his special magic to make the king think that it was the queen, his wife. The king of the Gandharvas persuaded the king that this was what had happened.
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Like his snake sacrifice, Janamejaya’s horse sacrifice is interrupted. The
Arthashastra
(1.6.6) remarks that Janamejaya used violence against Brahmins and perished, and a commentator on that text adds that Janamejaya whipped the Brahmins because he suspected them of having violated his queen, though in reality it was Indra who had done it.
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At the start of this episode, Janamejaya defies Indra implicitly simply by doing the extravagant sacrifice at all, making him the object of the god’s jealousy.
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At the end, he defies Indra explicitly, by excluding him from the sacrifice because the god has spoiled it.
Arthashastra
(1.6.6) remarks that Janamejaya used violence against Brahmins and perished, and a commentator on that text adds that Janamejaya whipped the Brahmins because he suspected them of having violated his queen, though in reality it was Indra who had done it.
70
At the start of this episode, Janamejaya defies Indra implicitly simply by doing the extravagant sacrifice at all, making him the object of the god’s jealousy.
71
At the end, he defies Indra explicitly, by excluding him from the sacrifice because the god has spoiled it.
This story of Janamejaya, which
ends
with an exclusion of the deity and a refusal to worship him (reflecting the historical fact that Indra, a Vedic god, was not worshiped any longer in the Puranic period), is thus in many ways an inversion of the story of Daksha, which
begins
with the exclusion of the god Shiva and ends with the promise that Daksha will in fact sacrifice to Shiva, after Shiva has both spoiled and accomplished the sacrifice (reflecting the historical fact that Shiva, a non-Vedic god, was not worshiped until the Puranic period). This inversion was made possible in part because Indra, the god of conventional Vedic religion, the most orthodox of gods, is in many ways the opposite of Shiva, the unconventional outsider.
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ends
with an exclusion of the deity and a refusal to worship him (reflecting the historical fact that Indra, a Vedic god, was not worshiped any longer in the Puranic period), is thus in many ways an inversion of the story of Daksha, which
begins
with the exclusion of the god Shiva and ends with the promise that Daksha will in fact sacrifice to Shiva, after Shiva has both spoiled and accomplished the sacrifice (reflecting the historical fact that Shiva, a non-Vedic god, was not worshiped until the Puranic period). This inversion was made possible in part because Indra, the god of conventional Vedic religion, the most orthodox of gods, is in many ways the opposite of Shiva, the unconventional outsider.
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In the epilogue to the story of Indra and Janamejaya’s queen, the king is persuaded (by an appropriately equine figure, a Gandharva, a kind of centaur) that it all was an illusion. This is a common device used to undo what has been done in a myth, as is the device of the magical double that conveniently replaces a woman in sexual danger. (Or who is
said
to have replaced her; is the Gandharva telling the truth?) Here it also recapitulates precisely what the central episode of the myth has just done: It has revealed the illusion implicit in the sacrifice, the illusion that the sacrificial horse is the god Indra and not merely a horse. The horse sacrifice is similarly demystified and satirized in a twelfth-century text in which Kali, the incarnate spirit of the Kali Age, watches the coupling of the sacrificer’s wife with the horse of the horse sacrifice and announces, being no pandit, that the person who made the Vedas was a buffoon,
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which is to say that Kali takes it literally and misses its symbolism. As the cachet of the horse sacrifice and of animal sacrifices in general fell during this period (as satires like this suggest), kings often endowed temples instead of sacrificing horses
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—sacrificial substitution in a new key.
RESTORING THEsaid
to have replaced her; is the Gandharva telling the truth?) Here it also recapitulates precisely what the central episode of the myth has just done: It has revealed the illusion implicit in the sacrifice, the illusion that the sacrificial horse is the god Indra and not merely a horse. The horse sacrifice is similarly demystified and satirized in a twelfth-century text in which Kali, the incarnate spirit of the Kali Age, watches the coupling of the sacrificer’s wife with the horse of the horse sacrifice and announces, being no pandit, that the person who made the Vedas was a buffoon,
73
which is to say that Kali takes it literally and misses its symbolism. As the cachet of the horse sacrifice and of animal sacrifices in general fell during this period (as satires like this suggest), kings often endowed temples instead of sacrificing horses
74
—sacrificial substitution in a new key.
MAHABHARATA
Puranic rituals often replaced Vedic rituals. We have noted how Vedic rituals were devised to mend the broken parts of human life. Puranic rituals are devised for this too but also to cure the ills of previous ages and, indeed, of previous texts. Though many Puranas offer their hearers/readers Release, most of them are devoted to the more worldly goals of the path of rebirth, and the end of the line is not absorption into
brahman
but an eternity in the heaven of the sectarian god to whom the Purana is devoted.
Moksha
is ineffable, but the texts often describe the bhakti heaven.
brahman
but an eternity in the heaven of the sectarian god to whom the Purana is devoted.
Moksha
is ineffable, but the texts often describe the bhakti heaven.
The Puranas return to the moral impasses of the
Mahabharata
, some of which were resolved only by the illusion ex machina, and offer new solutions that were not available to the authors of that text. Yudhishthira’s dilemma in hell was occasioned by a kind of transfer of merit: Yudhishthira sent a cool breeze to ease the torment of his brothers and Draupadi, as well as a few other relatives. That concept, merely sketched there, is more fully developed a few centuries later in the
Markandeya Purana:
Mahabharata
, some of which were resolved only by the illusion ex machina, and offer new solutions that were not available to the authors of that text. Yudhishthira’s dilemma in hell was occasioned by a kind of transfer of merit: Yudhishthira sent a cool breeze to ease the torment of his brothers and Draupadi, as well as a few other relatives. That concept, merely sketched there, is more fully developed a few centuries later in the
Markandeya Purana:
MERIT TRANSFER IN HELL
Once, when his wife named Fatso [Pivari] had been in her fertile season, King Vipashchit did not sleep with her, as it was his duty to do, but slept instead with his other, beautiful wife, Kaikeyi. He went to hell briefly to expiate this one sin, but when he was about to leave for heaven, the people in hell begged him to stay, since the wind that touched his body dispelled their pain. “People cannot obtain in heaven or in the world of Brahma,” said Vipashchit, “such happiness as arises from giving release [nirvana] to suffering creatures.” And he refused to leave until Indra agreed to let the king’s good deeds [karma] be used to release those people of evil karma from their torments in hell—though they all went from there immediately to another womb that was determined by the fruits of their own karma (14.1-7, 15.47-80).
The episode is clearly based on the
Mahabharata
, and uses some of the same phrases. (It also gives the sexually preferred second wife in this story the name of the sexually preferred second wife in the
Ramayana
, Kaikeyi.) But significantly, the people in hell now are not related to the king in any way; his compassion extends to all creatures. Now also the text begins to speak of Buddhist/Hindu concepts like nirvana and the transfer of karma, making it possible for the real, heaven-bound king to release real sinners from a real hell. Karma and samsara have the last word, though: In the end, having passed through heaven and hell, the sinners are reborn according to their just deserts, a theory that the final chapter of the
Mahabharata
had chosen not to invoke.
Mahabharata
, and uses some of the same phrases. (It also gives the sexually preferred second wife in this story the name of the sexually preferred second wife in the
Ramayana
, Kaikeyi.) But significantly, the people in hell now are not related to the king in any way; his compassion extends to all creatures. Now also the text begins to speak of Buddhist/Hindu concepts like nirvana and the transfer of karma, making it possible for the real, heaven-bound king to release real sinners from a real hell. Karma and samsara have the last word, though: In the end, having passed through heaven and hell, the sinners are reborn according to their just deserts, a theory that the final chapter of the
Mahabharata
had chosen not to invoke.
The Puranas expand upon the basic
Mahabharata
concept of the time-sharing aspects of heaven and hell, adding psychological details:
Mahabharata
concept of the time-sharing aspects of heaven and hell, adding psychological details:
Sometimes a man goes to heaven; sometimes he goes to hell. Sometimes a dead man experiences both hell and heaven. Sometimes he is born here again and consumes his own karma; sometimes a man who has consumed his karma dies and goes forth with just a very little bit of karma remaining. Sometimes he is reborn here with a small amount of good and bad karma, having consumed most of his karma in heaven or in hell. A great source of the suffering in hell is the fact that the people there can see the people who dwell in heaven; but the people in hell rejoice when the people in heaven fall down into hell. Likewise, there is great misery even in heaven, beginning from the very moment when people ascend there, for this thought enters their minds: “I am going to fall from here.” And when they see hell they become quite miserable, worrying, day and night, “This is where I am going to go.”
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The misery of hell is thus somewhat alleviated by schadenfreude, and the pleasures of heaven are undercut by the attitude of Lewis Carroll’s White Queen, who cries, “Ouch!”
before
she pricks her finger.
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before
she pricks her finger.
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The sins that send you to hell and the virtues that send you to heaven are often described in detail that rivals that of the
shastras
, as the texts seem to vie with one another in imagining gruesome and appropriate punishments to fit the crime. After hearing the spine-curdling descriptions of the tortures of hell, the interlocutor (who is, as in the
Mahabharata
, built into the frame) often asks: “Isn’t there anything that I can do to avoid having that happen to me?” And yes, you will be happy to hear that there is: just as there was a Vedic ritual to protect you, now there is a Puranic ritual, or a Puranic mantra, or a Puranic shrine, or a Puranic pilgrimage, that the text mercifully teaches you right then and there. There are many pilgrimage sites described in the
Mahabharata
, particularly in the great tour of the fords (
tirthas
); but now each Purana plugs one special place.
shastras
, as the texts seem to vie with one another in imagining gruesome and appropriate punishments to fit the crime. After hearing the spine-curdling descriptions of the tortures of hell, the interlocutor (who is, as in the
Mahabharata
, built into the frame) often asks: “Isn’t there anything that I can do to avoid having that happen to me?” And yes, you will be happy to hear that there is: just as there was a Vedic ritual to protect you, now there is a Puranic ritual, or a Puranic mantra, or a Puranic shrine, or a Puranic pilgrimage, that the text mercifully teaches you right then and there. There are many pilgrimage sites described in the
Mahabharata
, particularly in the great tour of the fords (
tirthas
); but now each Purana plugs one special place.
For the moral dilemma posed by the massacre in the
Mahabharata
, the Puranic solution is a pilgrimage to Prayaga (Allahabad), the junction of the two sacred rivers (the Ganges and the Yamuna), above Varanasi, the site of the greatest annual festival in India, the Kumbha Mela:
Mahabharata
, the Puranic solution is a pilgrimage to Prayaga (Allahabad), the junction of the two sacred rivers (the Ganges and the Yamuna), above Varanasi, the site of the greatest annual festival in India, the Kumbha Mela:
AN EXPIATION FOR THE MAHABHARATA WAR
When King Yudhishthira and his brothers had killed all the Kauravas, he was overwhelmed by a great sorrow and became bewildered. Soon afterward, the great ascetic Markandeya arrived at the city of Hastinapur. Yudhishthira bowed to the great sage and said, “Tell me briefly how I may be released from my sins. Many men who had committed no offense were killed in the battle between us and the Kauravas. Please tell me how one may be released from the mortal sin that results from acts of violence against living creatures, even if it was done in a former life.”
Markandeya said, “Listen, your majesty, to the answer to your question: Going to Prayaga is the best way for men to destroy evil. The god Rudra, the Great God, lives there, as does the self-created lord Brahma, together with the other gods.” Yudhishthira said, “Sir, I wish to hear the fruit of going to Prayaga. Where do people who die there go, and what is the fruit of bathing there?”
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And the sage obliges him, in considerable detail.
Yudhishthira is haunted by the same problem that troubled Arjuna centuries earlier in the
Gita:
“Many men who had committed no offense were killed in the battle between us and the Kauravas.” In the
Mahabharata
, Yudhishthira performed a horse sacrifice to restore himself and the kingdom; in the Puranas, he makes a pilgrimage to Prayaga. The format of this myth—first a statement of a sin (the mess I got myself into), then the promise of a restoration, a solution—is a set piece, new Puranic wine poured into old Brahmana bottles.
Gita:
“Many men who had committed no offense were killed in the battle between us and the Kauravas.” In the
Mahabharata
, Yudhishthira performed a horse sacrifice to restore himself and the kingdom; in the Puranas, he makes a pilgrimage to Prayaga. The format of this myth—first a statement of a sin (the mess I got myself into), then the promise of a restoration, a solution—is a set piece, new Puranic wine poured into old Brahmana bottles.
The Puranas tackle other
Mahabharata
trouble spots too. In the
Mahabharata
, Balarama is the brother of Krishna, renowned for his physical power and his prowess with the mace. In the Vaishnava Puranas, Balarama becomes far more important and is sometimes regarded as one of the avatars of Vishnu. But he is also a notorious drinker, and the Puranas tell a striking story about this:
Mahabharata
trouble spots too. In the
Mahabharata
, Balarama is the brother of Krishna, renowned for his physical power and his prowess with the mace. In the Vaishnava Puranas, Balarama becomes far more important and is sometimes regarded as one of the avatars of Vishnu. But he is also a notorious drinker, and the Puranas tell a striking story about this:
A RESTORATION FOR DRUNKENNESS AND MANSLAUGHTER
One day Balarama, the brother of Krishna, got drunk and wandered around, stumbling, his eyes red with drinking. He came to a forest where a group of learned Brahmins were listening to a bard, a Charioteer, reciting stories in the place of a Brahmin. When the Brahmins saw Balarama and realized that he was drunk, they all stood up quickly, all except for the Charioteer. Enraged, Balarama struck the Charioteer and killed him. Then all the Brahmins left the forest, and when Balarama saw how they shunned him and sensed that his body had a disgusting smell, the smell of bloodshed, he realized that he had committed Brahminicide. He cursed his rage, and the wine, and his arrogance, and his cruelty. For restoration, he undertook a twelve-year pilgrimage to the Sarasvati River “against the current,” confessing his crime.
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