04 – Fishing in Troubled Waters

Hi Friends!

Today let’s try and cover the first of the stories about adventures in the water, where “good” wins and/or survives, while the “bad” loses and/or is washed away. These are part of what can be termed as the Series of Ten Incarnations or Dashavataar (link is for your parents – a quick but slightly complex account in Hindi). The second and the third in this Series, are also mostly about aquatic adventures, so we will attack those in later posts. One interesting common feature in the first three of the Dashavataar Series is that they are also Genesis Myths, i.e. talk about new beginning(s) of creation. So let us begin with the First Legend of the Ten Incarnations!

As we have been underlining, especially in the last instalment of our discussion, Indian mythology believes in cycles of creation, and destruction. One of the cycles is the Intervals of Manu, or Manvantara. This story starts at the end of the sixth (out of expected 14) Manvantara. It was the 71st and last cycle of Mahayuga’s, which was obviously the Kali Yuga, when the Bull of “goodness” was weak, and standing on one leg.

In this “not-so-good” times, there was a good king, called Satyavrata, or the Truth-Promiser. He was just, and he respected intelligent and learned people. He may have had a few not-so-good characteristics, but we will come to that.

One day King Satyavrata was taking a bath in a water-body. Suddenly he heard a small voice speak to him: “O King, O Merciful King. Please help me!”

The Good King looked around, and couldn’t find anyone. Other than a small fish. While he wondered, this small fish cried out: “O King, please save me. I am a small fish. And in the Law of Fishes, small fishes are eaten up by bigger fishes; who in turn get eaten up by even bigger fishes. I have heard in the Law of Humans, the duty of the rulers is the protect the weak. So I would like to submit to your mercy. Please help me.“

Now Satyavrata, was impressed that a fish had such command over language, and rules of proper administration. But he agreed, so he said: “Worry not O Little One! I, King Satyavrat promise to take care of you, and will not just keep you safe, but keep you well-fed and comfortable. As a King of such immense capabilities, and such an able and learned cabinet of advisors, this would be an easy task for me.”

As I mentioned, the King was good generally, but his major deficiency was pride (in his power and the abilities of his advisors), and may be promising before understanding the issue completely. This seems to be a problem of people in power. Ask your parents!

So, King Satyavrata took the small fish, and placed him in a golden bowl in his palace. As soon as he had turned away to do some other task, the Fish cried out: “This vessel is too small, O King! I am not comfortable.” The King looked at the vessel, and realised the fish had grown, while he had blinked, and now was too big for the bowl.

So he got another much bigger vessel, in fact the biggest vessel he had, brought, and transferred the fish into it. As he planned to call for his breakfast, the fish interrupted him and said: “Even this vessel is too constricted for me, King. Was this the comfort you had promised me O Promiser-of-Truth.” The King was surprised, as when he checked the vessel, the fish had outgrown this even faster than the last time. (Ok… I reduced the number of times this happens as per the original myth, but you get the drift, right?)

So, he got his engineers to go dig up a huge moat in the palace grounds, and filled it with water. Into this with the help of his soldiers, he transferred the fish. Happy to have created one of the biggest man-made lakes to fulfil his promise, the King asked for towels to dry himself up. But even before he had dried himself… yes… you guessed right, in a booming loud voice the Fish (he deserves uppercase now!) intoned: “This tiny water body is too small for me. I will suffocate soon if you don’t take immediate steps, O King Who Promised My Comfort!”

King Satyavrata had an inkling that may be, just may be, there was more to this than just finding bigger and bigger water-bodies. But as was his wont once he had committed to something, he normally did not listen to even himself. So he called his whole army, and the best engineers, and together they built a path from the man made lake to the nearest river. Then the King helped the FISH move from the lake to the mighty river. The King had learnt that he was being taught that true goodness is humility and application of genuine effort, rather than (i) promising things without knowing the full extent of the problem, because of (ii) his pride in own power and the abilities of those he commanded.

Even before he could ask for forgiveness, the Mighty Fish, or Matsya had almost outgrown the mighty river. This time before Matsya could complain, King Satyavrata with folded hands bowed his head and said: “Forgive me O Lord Matsya, for you must be divine to be able to do all this. I accept my fault of undue pride and unplanned promises. I have learnt my lesson. But O Mighty Piscean Lord, please tell me the reason of all this, as I am sure you didn’t come over just to teach this haughty king this lesson in humility.”

The Mighty Matsya then explained to the King: “O King! You are one of the few in these times who had the goodness of heart to know that the Law of the Jungle, or matsya nyaay, should be intervened in by the powerful, as what is power when not used to protect the powerless. Hence I chose you to be the True Representative for the Good of Mankind.”

After a pause, as he swam towards the Ocean, the Great Matsya continued: “But you needed to know two things. (1) Pride in self is the seed of defeat; and (2) No big undertaking can be started without proper planning, and knowing your capabilities and limitations well. You needed to learn that fast, as you have to undertake one of the biggest projects. Within seven days this Interval of Manu shall end in the deluge of Manvantara Sandhya. While all the creation goes under the ferocious flood-water, you would need to build in-time a big boat (you can call it an Ark, if you so wish), and fill it with the seeds of all vegetation, and representatives of all animals, and also of all knowledge of the Spoken Knowledge (Vedas) and Remembered Concepts (Smritis).”

By this time Matsya reached the Ocean, with King Satyavrata walking along the shore listening intently, as he explained: “When all the land gets swallowed by the Great Deluge, I shall come alongside your boat, and you can connect with me using a strong rope (or a snake if you can’t find a one), and tow it along through the turbulent seas. When the Flood abates, I shall bring the Ark to shore, when you all can disembark and restart civilisation.”

Having said this, Matsya dove into the water, and King Satyavrata started on his assigned tasks. He followed the instructions well, and when the Deluge started, he along with his wife (called Shraddha, which means Reverence), and accompanied by Seven Wise Men, sat in a big boat with varied stored seeds and livestock, and waited for Matsya. As promised, Matsya came along and towed the boats through the vast oceans for the full duration of the Manvantara Sandhya, at the end of which he deposited them on the newly emerged shores of land.

As King Satyavrata was entrusted to bring back the humans in this Seventh Interval of Manu, he came to be known as Satyavrata Manu. As he was the husband of Shraddha, he is also known as Shraddhadeva Manu. His descendants came to be known as “of Manu” or manushya’s. The Seven Wise Men, became the Seven Sages, or Saptarishi’s, who helped the manushyas, or humans, to navigate their civilisation towards the Right, the Good, or Dharma.

As you can see this is a “genesis” story, of the beginning, or in our case a beginning among many. In fact very similar to a story in another Book of Genesis. This may even be a story included from a way-of-thought-and-belief (yes some call that a “religion”, I don’t!). It seems to have been part of the traditional stories of people for whom fish, and sailing on boats over oceans, was very important. It seems to have been absorbed in the main narrative of Indian mythology, and made part of the Vishnu legends, by making Matsya as an incarnation of Vishnu, in his role of the Preserver.

In fact when we see (i) the image of Seven Sages sitting in a boat that is connected to someone/something, (ii) which brings the boat safely through turbulent seas safely to land, this seems to be describing something in the skies. May be Manu’s Ship is the Big Dipper, which consists of seven stars, called the Saptarishi’s in India. The Pole Star, which can be seen to be pointed to by the Big Dipper, may be imagined as Matsya, as the navigators of ships in olden times used to get their sense of direction from the Pole Star to bring their ships safely from the seas to land. Nice, right?

A good story is that which entertains us, as well as tries and teaches us something. Whatever be the origin, or reason for it. My takeaway is the importance of using whatever abilities we have to help those who need it, and not let fish-eat-fish-world exist for humans. I also learnt that knowing your limitations is as important as knowing your strengths, and with proper planning, even humongous tasks can be done to the best of our abilities. What did you learn? Would love to know in the comments!

Next time, let’s learn from the story of the Turtle, and how the “good things” came to us all thanks to the “kachhapp”.