Indra, who does not practise control, loses Lakshmi. Keeping the indriyan in control can restore Lakshmi—an avataran of her is possible. Just like a fruit has a kernel which is very potent, this story too has a lot of philosophy packed inside it.
Indra invites the asuras to the churning. Why is that?
Today one political party would ideally not want any other party around—no opposition. But that’s not how the world works. You have to work with everyone. You have to befriend your enemies too. Likewise, in the Amrita manthan, the collaboration of devas and asuras is an important element. Devas are said to be afraid of the serpent so they stay on the side of its tail and the asuras near its head. In stories, the devas are usually depicted as weaker and more cautious, whereas asuras are strong and confident. So this force and counter force continues for many yugas. Slowly, like you get butter from milk, different treasures (ratna) emerge from the Kshir Sagar.
What emerged from the Kshir Sagar after the manthan?
The list changes from one Purana to another. Traditionally it’s believed that fourteen ratna emerged. In a wedding ceremony, when they chant the mantra describing marriage as a manthan, it is wished that these fourteen jewels also emerge from the couple’s marriage. These are symbols of dharma (governance, law), artha (economics) and kama (pleasure, bhog).
During the manthan, the symbols of dharma that emerge are the elephant Airavata, the horse Ucchaishrava and the bow Saranga. These are symbols of a king, who is responsible for dharma—to determine people’s role and responsibilities in society, to maintain law and order, etc. The symbols of artha that emerge are the cow Kamadhenu, the Kalpataru or Parijat tree and the Chintamani or Kaustubh jewel—animal wealth, plant wealth and mineral wealth. The symbols of kama or pleasure that emerge are the handsome and romantic Chandra, the beautiful and talented apsaras and the musicians or gandharvas. Though some are unsure since it is a controversial item, wine or alcohol (varuni or soma rasa), and Nidradevi (sleep), because sleep gives pleasure, are also believed to have emerged from the Kshir Sagar.
All these are then divided among the devas and asuras: one wants the horse, another the elephant, and so on. The concept of division (batwara) begins from here. As in a business, while there is collaboration in the effort, when it is time to share the profits, disputes break out about who will get what percentage—so it happens between devas and asuras.
Importantly, Lakshmi too emerged from the Kshir Sagar. She combines dharma, artha and kama. She sits on a lotus, is surrounded by apsaras and gandharvas, and she wears a lotus necklace (vyjayantimala). It is said that anyone who wears this necklace will always be victorious. After the manthan, the devas and the asuras both wish to marry her, but she says she will choose her own husband. She chooses Vishnu who had come up with the idea of collaboration, and managed to make two opposing forces work with each other.
Interestingly, when an enterprise brings treasures, it also brings problems. There is a dark element to this story as well. Several versions exist. One says that the trees on the mountain rub against each other and their friction causes fire, which produces smoke. The snake inhales that smoke and starts vomiting. When all this smoke, fire, vomit, and the tears in the eyes of the devas mix with the Kshir Sagar, poison or halahal is created. Neither the devas nor the asuras want this. Vishnu wonders what is to be done now. There’s only one being who can swallow it all and that’s the deva of devas, Mahadeva, or Shiva. He is Bholenath, the innocent one, and he does not care whether it’s milk or poison. He starts to drink it. He is a vairagi, an ascetic, but his wife, Parvati, is worldly (samsarik). She protests: How can you give my husband poison? She squeezes Shiva’s throat to stop him from swallowing the poison, so it just sits there. He becomes Neelkantha, the blue-throated one. Philosophically, the idea is that work will bring with it problems, which, like Shiva, you should have the ability to absorb, else you will not progress.
There’s always a concept of balance at play: force–counter force, nectar–poison, ascetic–worldly, etc.
Now, everything else has emerged, and the climax of the story is the appearance of Amrita. The commonest version of this story is that a god known as Dhanvantari emerges, bearing a pot of Amrita. Both devas and asuras rush towards it and start fighting for it. Eventually, Vishnu assumes the form of a beautiful apsara, Mohini, and deceitfully takes away the pot and gives all the Amrita to the devas.
I’ve heard that the Kumbh Mela is associated with the Amrita manthan story.
It is believed that at the Kumbh Mela, after the shahi snan (noble bath), the river becomes like Amrita, and if you bathe in this water, you’ll absorb the qualities of Amrita. All your paap (sin) and bad karma will be washed away and you’ll start with a clean slate. It is also believed that when the pot of Amrita was being carried towards heaven, a few drops fell to the earth—at Haridwar, Prayag in Allahabad, Nasik and Ujjain. That’s why the Kumbh Melas are held here.
When both devas and asuras worked on the manthan, why were the asuras cheated out of the Amrita?
The argument about this goes on forever. One simple, rather dissatisfactory, answer is that the devas are good, the asuras bad, so the good should benefit. But this doesn’t carry any philosophical depth. Another is about who started the enterprise. It began with the devas. The one who starts the enterprise brings everyone else in, so the fruit should go to the yajman, who’ll then decide how it is to be divided. Here, Indra is the yajman.
There is another aspect to this. When devas and asuras are fighting, Vishnu becomes Mohini and tricks them with beauty. The asuras aren’t aware that Mohini is pouring Amrita only in the mouths of the devas. Only one asura, Rahu, notices this. He stands among the devas and receives some Amrita. When Vishnu realizes this, he beheads the asura with his Sudarshan chakra—the head becomes Rahu and the body becomes Ketu. On the face of it, this is unfair. But while Vishnu gives the devas Amrita and immortality, he does not give them paramsukh, supreme happiness. Worldly pleasures and wealth cannot bring happiness. So who has actually been cheated? The devas merely got immortality, the enjoyment of bhog, not happiness. A philosophical gap has emerged here. In a move that complicates things further, Shiva grants the asuras Sanjivani Vidya, the knowledge by which they can bring a dead person back to life. So the devas have Amrita, the asuras have Sanjivani Vidya. Whether this will result in a manthan or a tug-of-war is an eternal question.
3
Forest and Field
There is repeated mention of van, forest, in the epics—in the Ramayana, Rama goes to a forest for exile, while Krishna is associated with Vrindavan. Why is the van so important in our texts?
It’s a basic part of Indian philosophy. Until we understand what this is, we cannot fully comprehend Indian sampradaya and parampara. Van refers to prakriti, or nature, where there is no human intervention, and everything is in its natural form. There are no rules. The stronger creatures survive—survival of the fittest, also called matsya nyaya in Sanskrit. The bigger fish eats the smaller one and that’s not wrong or a sin.
Van is the most natural form of existence. Man comes and changes this pristine state of being. He establishes villages, farms and controls the land. He decides which tree will live and which will die. He decides which seeds to plant, what is crop and what is weed. He creates boundaries; he brings fire and marks a space for havan (fire worship), another for his village, and so on—basically, he assumes control of the ecosystem.
This division, with the van or aranya on one side, and the village, town, fields on the other, separates prakriti and sanskriti. Prakriti does not have rules; only nature’s rules or laws. In man’s world, you have concepts of neeti, niyam (morals, laws), riwaz (customs), nyaya and nyayadheesh (justice, judge), and property. This separation of two worlds is the fundamental principle of Indian philosophy.
When was this concept first introduced?
It was first mentioned in the Sama Veda 3500 years ago. The songs of the Sama Veda are of two kinds—Aranyageya Gaan (s
ongs for prakriti) and Gramageya Gaan (songs for sanskriti). The grama will feature rules of family, kul, jati, varna and rajya (clan, caste, category and kingdom), that is, manushya or human rules. In prakriti there are no rules. This is mentioned again and again in the Sama Veda. In the Puranas, this has been elaborated further through stories and characters.
In the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Rama and the Pandavas are sent to vanavas (life in the forest) as a form of punishment. Why?
In a sanskriti, there are yajman who perform yagna with Brahmins. Anyone who does not want to live in this sanskriti, goes into vanavas. After completing his householder duties, he goes into the forest, into vanaprastha ashram, and becomes a sanyasi/tapasvi/shraman/yogi. This is a voluntary movement. In Jainism, a Tirthankara who is born to royalty goes to the forest after completing his duties; he leaves everything behind, even his clothes, becomes a digambara (one who wears the sky) and goes into the forest. Buddha too goes to the forest to meditate on the cause of suffering.
But, in the Puranic stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, going to the forest is a punishment. Staying in the city is a good thing; it has everything—rules, security, wealth, prosperity. When Rama is in Ayodhya, he is a prince; in the forest, he has no position, no status, no servants, belongings, no concept of dharma, rules, justice.
In the story where Lakshmana draws a line (Lakshmana-rekha) before leaving Sita to go and find Rama, the Lakshmana-rekha represents maryada, or boundary. Within it is the village, town, Rama’s rules, where she is Rama’s wife. The word patni (wife) is only applicable in sanskriti, not prakriti; there are no marriages or sanskar (morals) in a jungle. Once she crosses the boundary, she is no longer Rama’s wife because there are no rules, no neeti or nyaya beyond the line. Ravana, who is a Veda gyani (knowledgeable about the Vedas), knows this difference. So Ravana will say, I committed no crime. Sita crossed the line of her own volition, which means she gave up her ‘wife’ status voluntarily. I just picked up a girl from the jungle, where matsya nyaya applies. He does this by deceit. This story can be connected with the Sama Veda and the separation between grama and van or aranya. This contrast often appears in stories.
What is the significance of the van in the Mahabharata?
In the Mahabharata this concept has a more sophisticated meaning. In the Ramayana, Rama is from the grama, he goes to the forest for his education, comes back and gets married and is sent back to the forest for his exile. After he returns to the palace, Sita is again sent to the forest—the story keeps switching between the village and the forest.
In the Mahabharata, however, the Pandavas go first from the forest, where they were born, to Hastinapur for education; there their house is burnt down and they go back to the forest. Then they marry Draupadi, turn Khandavprastha into Indraprastha, become kings, lose their kingdom in a game of dice and go back to the jungle. When they go to the city next, it’s for war at Kurukshetra. They regain what they’d lost and, in the end, give that in daan (charity) and return to the forest—vanaprastha—where they die.
Each time they are in the forest, their attitude is different. The first time, they have nothing, they don’t know that they’re princes and are happy. The second time they’re unhappy, because their palace has been burnt, and they have lost their kingdom; the third time too they’re unhappy because they’ve lost everything in a game of dice. The fourth time, they have become more philosophical; they know fortune comes and goes and that in the jungle, nothing belongs to anybody. This is shown repeatedly during their exile.
Even a prince is just another creature in the forest. Shiva in the form of Keerat and Hanuman as a monkey repeatedly teach them this lesson that even if you burn down a forest and claim it as your kingdom—your land from where you get your power and ego—it is only maya, not the truth. You are creating an indrajaal, a delusion, and getting trapped in it.
Prakriti existed before your samaj (society) came into being and will continue even after it is gone.
What is the significance of the van in the Bhagavata Purana?
It tells the story of Krishna. He is born in Mathura, and is then taken across the river to cowherds in Gokul. Cowherds have no home, no basti where they settle; they wander with their cattle. That’s who Krishna becomes.
Vrind means tulsi so Vrindavan is a fragrant tulsi van. The jungle is a dangerous place, since you could become someone’s food any time. It’s an insecure place as you can be attacked by snakes, scorpions, ants, mosquitoes, etc., who will not care that you’re a prince. Krishna makes even such a dangerous place secure and happy. He doesn’t destroy the forest and impose rules. He inhabits it and you feel it has become fragrant—Vrindavan, Madhuban (like honey).
Raas-leela always happens in a van at night, when women leave their husbands, children, fathers behind in the village, wear ornaments, and dance around Krishna. It suggests that when god is with you there’ll be ‘jungle mein mangal’, joy even in a forest. When the most frightening place, where you have no rights or protection, becomes a happy liberating space for women, that’s a sign of god’s presence.
How is Shiva related to the van?
In the Buddhist tradition, Buddha left his palace and civilization (kshetra) and went to the forest and attained enlightenment. He established another world which is internal. The transition was from civilized society to the jungle and from the jungle to the mind. One of the meanings of the word nirvana is ‘away from the jungle’ (nir-vana).
Shiva’s story is the opposite. He lives on icy, rocky mountaintops, far even from jungles, and is brought into civilization by Devi; he becomes Shankara and marries. He comes to Kashi, has a family, but every time there is a disagreement with his wife—the famous quarrel of Uma and Mahesh—he retreats into the deodar forest. This is the forest associated with him.
How is Shakti related to the van?
Prakriti is considered a form of Devi. When we refer to the jungle/aranya/van, it is considered a roop of Kali. She is wild, uncontrollable, unclothed and drinks blood, and is considered the ugra (angry) or vibhatsa (horrific) roop of Devi. The same Devi, however, becomes Gauri when the reference is to sanskriti or kshetra/sabhyata (civilization). She ties her hair, wears a sari, flowers and ornaments.
Kali’s vehicle is an animal of the wild, a tiger, while Gauri has a domestic animal, a cow. The same Devi is both Kali and Gauri.
Who is the god of the van?
The van has many gods—yaksha, rakshas, gandharva, apsara. They are all unconnected with any one place (sthaan). Yakshas keep control over treasures, along rivers or in caves. The word rakshas, according to the Upanishads, has originated from rakshak or protector. Rakshasas protect the forests. In stories, they are always at war with the rishis who want to domesticate the forest by creating a space for their yagnas, while rakshasas reject this parampara. Apsaras are of the water (aps means water), and stay near the rivers. Gandharva means ‘of fragrance’ (gandha), of plants and flowers.
These are all creatures of the forest, they don’t follow any rules. So apsaras never marry; if you try to force them they run away. The Rig Veda tells the story of King Pururava and the apsara Urvashi, in which he (associated with civilization) complains to her (associated with the forest) that she left him when he had wanted to live with her, and asks her to make him a gandharva. This romantic story symbolizes the tension between prakriti and sanskriti.
4
Astik–Nastik
I’ve heard many interpretations of the word nastik; what is its true meaning?
It is difficult to say what its true meaning is because there are many meanings. It comes from the word asti which means ‘aisa hai’, or so it is. The meaning of ‘it’ changes, depending on the school of thought and the historical period.
At one point in time, astik were those who believed (aisa hai) that knowledge could be found only in the Vedas, that is, they were believers of the Vedas, so the nastik were non-believers of the Vedas (who thought knowledge could be obtained from elsewhere t
oo). Later in history, those who believed in karma were considered astik, so nastik were those who did not believe. At another time, there was another group that believed we should follow the path of God, and another that did not.
Usually the word nastik translates into atheist in English—are these terms related?
There’s a problem here. The word atheism comes from Europe; it means ‘non-believer of theism’. Theism comes from Theos (God). Here, it refers to the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—where the belief is in one God who created the universe, who also gave certain rules for people which were brought to them by a messiah. If you obey the rules, you’ll go to heaven, otherwise, hell.
Words may have different meanings in different contexts, like spirituality and religion. If you say you are religious (dharmic) but also an atheist, in Europe they will not understand it because they believe these are contradictory ideas. All these terms should be considered on their own.
For some, spirituality means that they do not think of the world (bhautik) and worldly matters (laukik) as the only reality, but feel that there’s something beyond it; some believe in the atma or the soul, which is beyond the body, beyond the physical world. Some may feel spirituality and psychology are the same—they believe in the mind, in people’s hearts.