Indian Gods.

INDIAN GODS

DEAR NANA,

I AM GETTING IN CONTACT WITH YOU AFTER SOOOOOOOOOOO LONG PERIOD. NEVERTHELESS, I AM ALWAYS AWARE ABOUT YOU, NANI, BINA, KALA AUNTY AND AJAY MAMA THROUGH MY MUM AND DAD. THEY ALWAYS KEEP ME UPDATED ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT´S GOING ON IN INDIA WITH OUR LOVELY FAMILY.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A VERY WEIRD EMOTIONAL SITUATION FOR ALL OF US, SPECIALLY FOR JAY, RAVI & ME, AND ALSO RAKESH (GOPAL CHACHA´S SON & OUR DEAR COUSIN-BROTHER), TO LIVE SO FAR FROM OUR ROOTS. WE DONT FEEL NEITHER INDIANS, NEITHER SPANISH. ONE DAY PAPA SAID ONE SENTENCE THAT HAS BEEN RECORDED IN MY BRAIN: "DOBI KA KUTTA, NA GHAAR KA, NA GHAAT KA" (SORRY FOR MY SPELLING!!, IT MIGHT NOT BE WRITTEN THIS WAY). I GUESS YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. WITH THE YEARS, WE HAVE LEARNED HOW TO FIT AND FEEL FAMILIAR IN ALMOST ANY COUNTRY OR WITH ANY KIND OF PEOPLE. HOWEVER, WITH SOME OF THE PEOPLE THAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FOR US (ALL YOU IN INDIA) SOMETIMES WE CAN FEEL AS STRANGERS, OBVIOUSLY, DUE TO LACK OF CONTACT.

YOU & NANI ARE OUR GRANDPAS, AND WE ALMOST HAVE NO CONTACT IN YEARS. OUR FEELINGS TOWARDS YOU ALL ARE ALWAYS OF PURE LOVE AND ADMIRATION. HOWEVER, DUE TO DISTANCE, WE ARE JUST NOT ABLE TO SHARE OUR DAILY LITTLE THINGS WITH OUR NANA AND NANI. WHEN I SEE HOW CLOSE VENITA´S FAMILY LIVE IN MAURITIUS, I GET A BIT JELAOUS, BECAUSE WE HAVE NEVER LIVED THIS WAY (ALTHOUGH I DONT HAVE ANY COMPLAINTS IN LIFE, SINCE MY PARENTS AND BROTHERS ARE THE BEST COMPANY WITH WHO I COULD HAVE BEEN GROWN AND RAISED). IN MAURITUS, EVERYONE IS SO CLOSE, SINCE EVERYONE LIVES TOGETHER. FOR VENITA, FOR EXAMPLE, HER DAADI IS EQUAL TO HER MUM, SOMETHING WHICH I FIND VERY BEAUTIFUL.

I ADMIRE MY PARENTS MORE THAN ANY ONE IN PLANET EARTH, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THEY ADMIRE YOU AND NANI MORE THAN ANY ONE ELSE. MY PARENTS ALWAYS TALK ABOUT YOU. FOR ME, YOU ARE SUCH AN AMAZING MAN. THE WAY IN WHICH HOW YOU HAVE LEARNED EVERYTHING BY YOURSELF MAKES ME BE MORE PROUD OF MYSELF, SINCE I KNOW THAT DEEP INSIDE, SOME ESCENCE OF YOU LIVES INSIDE ME. AS MEN, YOU AND MY FATHER ARE THE ONES I RESPECT AND ADMIRE THE MOST.

WELL, I DONT KNOW WHY I HAVE WRITTEN ALL THIS, IT JUST CAME OUT WHEN I STARTED WRITING TO YOU. I NEVER REVISE WHAT I WRITE WHEN I SEND EMAILS TO MY FAMILY,  SO I WONT DO IT THIS TIME AS WELL. PLUS, I AM AT WORK, SO I AM WRITTING QUICKLY QUICKLY IN ORDER TO CONTINUE WITH MY JOB!!  SO, IF THERE IS ANY MISTAKE OR SOMETHING THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE AT ALL, JUST FORGIVE ME!!

I HAVE READ SOME COMMENTS IN YOUR BLOG AND I HAVE GOT SO AMAZED ABOUT HOW INTELLIGENT AND WISE YOU ARE. I HAVENT SEEN NO PHD THAT WRITES AS GOOD AS YOU. YOU ARE REALLY INCREDIBLE!!!!!! SINCE YOU ARE HUGELY WISE, I WANTED TO ASK ONE THING:

- THE OTHER DAY MY DAD WAS EXPLAINING ME DIFFERENT STORIES OF THE INDIAN RELIGION. WELL, HE WAS EXPLAINING ME BECAUSE I ASKED HIM. YOU KNOW I DONT BELIEVE IN NO RELIGION, BUT I AM ALWAYS AMAZED ABOUT HOW PEOPLE HAVE INVENTED SO COMPLEX "NOVELS" AND MYTHOLOGIES IN ORDER TO EXPLAIN THE UNEXPLAINABLE.

- WELL, AFTER LISTENING CAREFULLY TO MY DAD´S EXPLANATIONS, I GOT SO INTRIGUED ABOUT CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE INDIAN RELIGION. SO, I STARTED SEARCHING BY MYSELF AND READING A BIT MORE ABOUT THIS TOPIC, THE DIFFERENT INDIAN GODS, DEVILS, THE HISTORIC CONTEXT OF INDIA WHEN THE RELIGIOUS BOOKS WERE WRITTEN, ETC.

- AFTER READING ABOUT THE PURANA VEDAS, I CAME OUT TO FOUND THE CHARACTER OF "BRAHMAN", & NO "BRAHMA" OF THE DIVINE TRINITY.

- WHEN I TOLD MY FATHER ABOUT THIS, HE DID NOT BELIEVE ME, SINCE HE HAD NEVER READ ABOUT ANY DIVINITY CALLED "BRAHMAN"

- ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA: In the Hindu religion, Brahman is the eternal, unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe. The nature of Brahman is described as transpersonal, personal and impersonal by different philosophical schools. In the Rig Veda, Brahman gives rise to the primordial being Hiranyagarbha that is equated with the creator god Brahmā. The trimurti can thus be considered a personification of Brahman as the active principle behind the phenomena of the universe.

- THE SAME OR SIMILAR IS WRITTEN IS SO MANY WEB PAGES.

SCIENCE EXPLAINS THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE WITH EXPERIMENTS BASED ON THEORIES OF COSMOLOGY, PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY AND OTHER RELATED SCINECES. WE BELIEVE IN THOSE BASED ON EMPIRICAL FACTS THAT DEMONSTRATES WITH EVIDENCES THAT WHAT SCIENCE EXPLAINS IS TRUE. LIKE, WHY WE FALL IN LOVE, OR WHY DOGS ENTER IN SEASON OR HEAT, ARE EXPLAINED BY SCIENCE ACCORDING TO THE PHYSICAL REACTIONS OUR BODIES SUFFER. HOWEVER, THESE EXPLANATIONS DONT LEAVE US SATISFIED ENOUGH. IT IS LIKE SUCH A PERFECT DESIGN OF SOME EXTRAORDINARY FORCE (NATURE, GOD, OR WHATEVER). WE FALL IN LOVE, THEN WE HAVE SEX, THEN SO MANY PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL REACTIONS HAPPENS INSIDE OUR BODIES, THEN A NEW LIVING BEING IS BORN. IT IS THIS CHAIN OF DESIGNED COINCIDENCES THAT SCIENCE CANT EXPLAIN.

RELIGION, ON THE OTHER SIDE, FOCUSES ON ONE CREATOR THAT HAS DESIGNED EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS IN THE UNIVERSE FOR SOME "UNEXPLAINABLE REASON".

LIKE RELIGION DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF THIS CREATOR-GOD, SCIENCE DOES NOT KNOW TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF THIS FIRST ATOM, NEUTRON, PROTON OR ELECTRON THAT EXISTED BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE. NONE OF THESE TEACHINGS OR DOCTRINES GIVES US THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER.

WHILE WE DONT HAVE DOUBTS OF WHAT IS SCIENCE, WHICH IS KNOWLEDGE BASED ON FACTS, I THINK RELIGION (AND NO GOD), COULD BE TWO THINGS:

- AN INVENTION OF STORIES OF SOME WISE AND INTELLIGENT PEOPLE USED TO CONTROL THE MASS.

- FACTS TAKEN INTO EXAGERATION AND PERFECTION, TO MAKE PEOPLE ADMIRE SOME LEADERS THAT GIVE MEANING TO THEIR EXISTANCE. WITH THIS I MEAN THE FOLLOWING: SAME AS ALEXANDER THE GREAT (WHO WAS CONSIDERED BY MANY ALMOST LIKE A DIVINITY) TOOK A BUNCH OF WRITTERS WITH HIM IN ALL HIS TRIPS AND WARS, TO DESCRIBE HIS ADVENTURES AND FOLLOW ALL HIS STEPS, AND TO BE ABLE TO BE DESCRIBED AND RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING FIGURES IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY, MAYBE SOMEONE LIKE KRISHNA OR JESUS CHRIST EXISTED CENTURIES AGO IN REALITY, AND SOME WRITTERS UNDER THEM, JUST DESCRIBED THEM AS REINCARNATIONS OF DIVINITIES. ALSO, AT THAT TIME, THERE WAS NO EDUCATION AND CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE AT ALL, AND THE MASS JUST BELIEVED IN THEM AS REAL DIVINITIES, ALTHOUGH THEY WERE ONLY AMAZING MEN, BUT ONLY MEN. SOMETHING SIMILAR HAPPENS WITH THIS SATHYA SAI BAABA, BUT WITH THE CULTURAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES OF TODAY, NO MAJORITY IS GOING TO BELIEVE IN HIM AS A DIVINITY. BUT MAYBE 2000 YEARS AGO, THE MASS WOULD HAVE BELIEVED IN HIM LIKE THEY USED TO BELIEVE IN JESUS, AND MAYBE TODAY WE COULD HAVE HAD A DIFFERENT RELIGION  THAT BELIEVED IN SAI BABA AS A GOD.

WELL, I HAVE REALIZED THAT I HAVE WRITTEN QUITE A LOT!!! I DID NOT WRITE NOTHING SERIOUSLY AND I HOPE IT IS WELL WRITTEN FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING, SINCE NOW I DONT HAVE PATIENCE TO REVISE EVERYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN.

I DONT EXPECT ANY SPECIFIC ANSWER FROM YOU. I JUST FELT LIKE WRITING. THE ORIGINAL TOPIC I WAS GOING TO TALK YOU ABOUT WAS "INDIAN GODS", SPECIALLY TO HAVE AN IDEA ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE IN THE EXISTENCE OF "BRAHMAN", BUT I GUESS I GOT SO DIVERTED FROM THE ORINAL TOPIC I WANTED TO ASK YOU ABOUT.

I SEND YOU, NANI, BINA, KALA AUNTY AND AJAY MAMA, LOADS OF LOVE. HOPEFULLY, ME AND VENITA (AND IF BINA GETS MARRIED, THEN ALL OF US!!!!) WILL COME TO INDIA AND MEET YOU ALL.

YOUR GRANDSON,

RAJESH

Oct.21, 2010

Rajesh Dear,

I was reading and re-reading your letter so that I could respond to it in a proper manner. I don’t know you and anyone else should feel rootless in ‘a foreign country’. I think that my family and I also should feel like outsiders in Mumbai since we left our original home while we were out of our teens. If you mean to say that religion, region, or language defines your roots, the same will have to be taken true for people all over the world. Archeology, anthropology and sciences have established that human race is one and the same having trekked up down the several continents thousands of years back from the original home in North African deserts. During their trekking, they picked up several traits making them different in their physical and mental make up. The Australian aborigines and tribes of Andaman & Nicobar Islands were from the same roots but did not go beyond a stage while so many others progressed up several steps in the ladder. I for one am against differentiating people on any basis. Unfortunately, today people are being divided and discriminated in almost all countries around the world on these really fictitious grounds by people supposed to lead them ie. Politicians mainly and sociologists in general. I would like you to read some writings of Richard Dawkins, Karl Sagan and others on the evolution of humans. Evolution is not a lineal process but multifaceted and moving back and forth-in line. Some progressed and slid back in more occasions than one. Only in this sense, human beings are seen different. Therefore, while everyone’s root is same they branched off into several shapes, sizes and colours. The families in Mauritius are insular as the case in many other groups. This has resulted in inseparable differences among religions through historical times ending in mutual killings that has yet to see an end.

Man evolved from his animal ancestors and carry vestiges of that origin and tradition. I have a slim book titled “Naked Ape” by Desmond Morris a zoologist, where in he has convincingly mapped the evolution from ape to man. I have also copy of “Ancestors’ Tales” by Dawkins, which starts from present to back in time through evolution. Another one (just now, I don’t recollect the title & author) which details the life from its beginnings as single cell organism to present day human.

The term Hinduism is an indefinable word. While other religions could be defined more or less precisely Hinduism is an amalgam of several ways. The most earliest seem to be based on Vedic rituals and practices. It was prevalent for some centuries. In time it slowly under went a transformation to be philosophical during the years of Upanishads. Crude Vedic rituals were refined and some of them diminished. The third stage starts with several separate sects claiming authority to separate gods based on Puranic lore or may be that the puranic came into being after the sects. In between the second and third there were several prophets who advocated their views completely in contradiction to earlier two. The main trends were that of Jain and Buddhism. According to historians, these two dominated most of land from north to south. However, the Brahmanical Hinduism gained again after Ashoka and Mauryan dynasty collapse. The Puranic face also had several sectarian conflicts in it. There were efforts at isolating one another since the kingdoms were in conflict mode after the great Gupta period. Todays Hinduism is the results of conflicts and conciliations among all sects facing with foreign invasions.

Now let me try to explain my own understanding about the gods of Hindus. The Vedic corpus are a collection of family hymns supposed to have been heard (Sruti) from the mouth of Brahma which is not specifically mentioned in any texts at that time. The later texts attributed such an origin. The Rigveda hymns are not of uniform view. There are several versions of the origin or creation. There are down to earth prayers to obtain wealth of cattle. There are praises of chieftains for bestowing wealth and cattle to Brahmins. There are some which a discerning reader might find evasive about life here in earth. A few are some kind of exorcisms from perceived evils. There are hymns with sexual connotations etc.     

There is no Brahman mentioned in the earliest Rigveda. The word Brahma occurs very rarely as compared to the word Prajapati. Prajapati is the priest of the gods born much before the gods. The Vedic gods are Indra, Agni, Varuna, Soma, Maruts (seven in number), Rudras (eleven), and Adityas (twelve) and so on. None of these gods remained in their position in later day Hinduism. Instead some selective ones like Vishnu, one of the Adityas, Shiva one of the Rudras and some goddesses. Each of the Puranas upheld one or other of these deities as the sole and omnipotent etc.  

The word Brahman comes in the upanishads and later in Vedanta philosophy. The other strands of philosophical thoughts do not subscribe to any Brahman. Nagarjuna the scholar of Mahayana Buddhism conceived the world as Sunya (void) which then borrowed by Sankara to mean Maya or false image. For centuries, the philosophies were debated using rhetoric among great scholars. However all these debates and discussions were confined to learned Brahmins in the main. The vast majority of the populations were denied access to any literacy and they were innocent of learning those philosophies.

But people cannot be kept out of thinking for themselves for too long. This might have been the reason for puranic lore to spread among common people. Lore was the making of Brahmins mainly though some contributions might have come from others. It is also possible for local lore of deities getting mixed and absorbed by Brahminical ones making those Puranic gods and goddesses. Still, the literates were Brahmins the contours of these lore became Brahminical, There seems to be a lot of mix up which we are unable to unravel. For example, for years no one outside Kerala seems to know or understand the origin of Sabari Mala Ayyapan.

(The legend is that a chieftain or king of Pandalam a very small region in Kerala prayed to gods for a heir in his family. His queen remained childless for too long. Once king went on a hunting trip as usual, found a baby boy abandoned in that forest. He took the boy as a gift of the gods and presented him to the queen to care. He was growing with lot of love and care bestowed on him. The boy was christened Ayyapan. As years passed, the queen became pregnant and delivered a boy. The love and care changed from forest boy to her own. But she was not satisfied. She expected the king to bestow the kingdom to Ayyapan. Then she pretended to be sick and restless. Ayyapan took note and asked the queen about getting some medication. She told him that her sickness would not go without taking tigress milk. It is said that Ayyapan went inside forest and brought a herd of lactating tigresses riding himself on a tiger. King, queen and all people present were astonished and prayed to Ayyapan to calm himself and protect them. Ayyapan conveyed that he has finished with the kingdom and going back to the forest. He got a friend named Bava a muslim to accompany him and keep guard at the foot of the hill Sabai Mala.)

The legend completely Keralite transformed as Brahmanic in the form of Shasta a son to Vishnu as Mohini and Shiva. Similar is the transformation of Murugan or Andavan of Tamils into Kumara or Karthikeya etc. 

As I said earlier gods and rituals differ from region to region and caste to caste. I might refer to another Kerala ritual. Almost all the Kerala temples celebrate an annual festival with caparisoned elephants with elaborate accompaniments on them. Trissur Pooram is biggest show of them. They are taken in procession accompanied by drummings that are specific to Kerala alone. Panja Vadyam & Chenda Melam. You have to witness it to know its specifics. This system of temple celebrations were adopted in Tamil Brahmin temples in Kerala. Such celebrations did not go anywhere outside Kerala.      

Just completed Navaratri/Dassera celebration, though spread all over India; has differences from region to region. It is observed as Durga Puja of nine days in Bengal ending with immersion of murthies in rivers or ponds. Little further, west it is celebrated as part of Ramayana battle against Ravana. On tenth day evening the effigies of trio ie. Ravana, his brother Kumbhakarna and son Meghnad burned publicly to the delight of the people with fire works added. In Gujarat the nine nights of group singing and dancing are performed. Women alone take part in Garba Dance while Dandiya is for the mixed men and women of young and elders. Nowadays all these are commercialized. In the south the Nava Ratri is performed more soberly, people visiting all nearby temples. At home they prepare a Kolu an exhibition of metal and ceramic figurines of animals, birds, humans and gods. Neighbors and families visit each other in the evenings. The ninth day is observed as Sarasvati puja when books and manuscripts are gathered from shelves and made puja for them. Tenth day morning is auspicious for initiating children to start learning. It is called Vidyarambham. In Kerala, they conduct Aayudha puja devotion to weapons. I have not conducted any investigation on many other ways of celebration in other regions. The concepts of gods and goddesses so varied among Hindus, it is impossible to list them all by any group of individuals.

You could find more of my thoughts in the blog.    

N B. For Trissur Pooram photos try click in google.