A cautionary tale

Everything was hunky dory when others ruled them. Kingdoms after kingdoms came and went. Everybody lived within their space and thought they had everything taken care of.

Then, they even shared a sacred region, Katargama or Kathirgama. Each community claimed the local deity, Murugan, as their own. The Buddhists are told that Lord Buddha himself sanctioned Lord Murugan to protect Sri Lankans from the elements. The Tamils, with their ancestral affiliations, brought in their own diety and gave him his divine status.

Even the local aboriginal people there, the Veddas, the island's earliest inhabitants, claim the sacred area as theirs. Their DNA studies revealed their commonality with the tribals in Malaysia, India, and Myanmar, which is more apparent than their Singhalese and Tamil Indian brothers. The Muslims did not want to be left out. They built a mosque nearby to avoid missing out on the blessings.

So, they had a giant compound with a collection of temples of worship in a single area. It was heart-wrenching to see Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Veddas all congregating in one area to pay respects to the Almighty to gain blessings.

It went on fine when they were ruled by others - the Indian dynasties and the European imperialists. Trouble started brewing when the colonial masters left the roost for the colonies to determine their destiny. Every ethnicity had the fear that the other would dominate them. Everyone, through the democratically elected leaders, pushed for their respective agendas. When peaceful means failed, they had to resort to armed struggle.

The gods can only protect us so much. Above all, human intellect should prevail. Sri Lanka's experience over the last few years is a cautionary tale for other nations trying to establish a strong footing and elevate themselves to a higher level.

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The wisdom behind Murugan's Vel!

I have a confession. When I was young, at an impression age, when my guards were down, naive and the eyes of knowledge were still in slumber, I was ashamed whenever I attended religious functions. The theatrics showed by the professors of religions were, in my nimble mind, laughable. During Thaipusam and fire-walking ceremonies, the high decibels, high energies and activities that they emanated just took away any semblance of divinity from it. Now, I know better, I think, I hope.

Like the Oracles of Delphi, messages are transmitted in coded languages and double speaks. They are all symbolic notes to the secret of life. We have to understand that the religious leaders were spreading the good word to mostly illiterate simpletons and agrarians with primal needs.

The power, force, fire, sounds, noise, water and light are not as they are. The evil or dark forces are not from without but within; our naivety, ignorance and our inertia to progress. The sceptic in me, however, asks myself whether all these are just afterthoughts or justifications to our past history which is so full of carnage and evil?

The lady asks, "Murugan received the Vel (spear) from his mother Parvati to kill the enemies, right?"
"Yes," said the teacher.
The lady demands, "which mother would give a weapon to her child? Is it not irresponsible?"
The teacher sheepishly smiles to say, "It is all symbology." Whilst praising the Tamils, he replies,"... the Tamils were far ahead of their time, even more than 2500 years ago.
The Vel is actually a weapon, correct, but it is our thinking capacity. It should be sharp like the tip, wide like the blade and deep like the holder!"
To this, everybody applauded!!! Vel, Vel, Arohara!

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The power of imagination...

Dedicated to PC who wanted to know my barber's philosophy...

During our many hair-cutting sessions, I used to engage in deeply engaging banters about philosophy and religion, specifically religions of the Indian sub-continent. The barber shop is a simple establishment, in keeping with his simple philosophies of life, has seen much changes since the 80s when it was first set up. Starting life with a strict religious upbringing in his childhood and early adulthood, certain life changing events indeed changed his outlook on life, belief in God and attitude towards the self-professed upholders of the organised religion. In other words, there is the Maker (Nature, Cosmos, whatever) and there is him. That is all. A dash across two dates. The darkness before your existence and after, no previous lives and no after-life. Above us only sky and no cycles of re-birth and no book of Judgement too.

During one of our colloquy, he brought up the notion of the origin of Lord Muruga, the deity well known amongst the South Indian Hindus, specifically in Tamil Nadu. He asked me why the particular God is not seen as a member of the Shiva clan in the North but is prominently featured in the Southern part of the sub-continent. I put it to him about the legend that has it that an evil was terrorising that area and about the product of Shiva, the Destroyer, the six babies in six lotuses in Saravana Poigai, and about Sakthi, the nurturing mother, who provided him with the spear of destruction to douse the spitfire of evil!

He rubbished my understanding of the whole concept of Arumugam, the six-headed Peter Pan-like ever young, robust stalwart of truth and justice who could span the entire universe in a single swift in his majestic peacock.

In his books, legend has it that South India was faced some kind of epidemic. Many fell prey to this highly contagious communicable disease. The elders roped in many high notched medical practitioners of the day to find an immediate solution. The consensus was to build a big contraption with six medicinal elements into the city lake, the drinking source for its inhabitants. Sure enough, the disease got controlled, and the city dwellers were eternally grateful.

Over time, the genesis of the cure got romanticised. The ray of thoughts from the physicians became grandiosed as ray of fire arising from Lord Shiva's Netrikann (Third Eye); the train of thought wavelengths became Lord Agni who carried the ray; the six Karthigei pengal as the executors of the task; Goddess Sakthi as the alchemist who fused the ingredients and gave it potency. The invincible enemy, the disease, is, of course, the villain, the Asuras.

Guess we will never know the real story. Even though, the Tamilians claim exclusivity on the rights of Murugan or Saravana or Subramanya or Karthikeya, references to the deity had been traced back in Sanskrit literature in 1st millennium BCE. Even coins resembling Skanda with a silhouette of a peacock in the background were found in ruins of tribes of Punjab and Gupta kingdom!

Yaudheya coinage of Punjab (300-340 AD): 

Karthikeya standing facing, holding sceptre; peacock on right.

Oh Muruga! Where Art Thou?

Shiv family (North)

Siva family (South)

Coin, 200BCE, Indus Valley

Somebody said that Hinduism is amalgamation of believes of many in the one God with various manifestations and names. The earlier settlers who jump started the civilization in the Indus Valley had their own Gods of worship. Along came the culture from the North, either by cultural or physical invasion. Their mode of worship was forcibly or by diffusion infused into the society. Some society members never forgot their predecessor icons and continued worshipping them in their own way and stories were created to substantiate their practice.
With that background in my mind, I was not at all surprised when the secretary of the temple, on his routine weekly announcement of events of the following week, totally omitted Thaipusam in his list. He was faithfully reading out on this prayer and that prayer and Shivrathri. That's it!
Actually, Murugan (Kaarthikeyan) has been hanging around the scriptures since the first millennium BCE. Somewhere along way, Murugan who appeared as the elder son of Shiva disappeared in some scriptures and appeared in other the younger brother of Ganesh and the eternal manifestation of youth. From the middle ages, He disappears from the North but makes sporadic appearances in certain parts of India like Haryana, Punjab, Bengal and Maharashtra.

Happy Thaipusam! Just call his name and He will come flying down in his peacock....