22 – Of Mountains, Rivers and Stars

Hi Friends!

Today let us explore some background stories that would help us understand the further stories better.

Let us (for the time being) leave the Saviour Strong-One (Taraka-Asur) and his army facing the King (Indra) and the other Guardians of various Directions, and the various Devas, with the support of the Preserver (Vishnu).

In another thread we leave the recently bereaved Destroyer who is Auspicious (Shiva), who lost his true strength (Shakti) who was the embodiment of truth (Sati), as she refused to be known as the youngest daughter of the Skilful Master of Creation (Daksha Prajapati).

Daksha Prajapati, with his wife Prasuti, had many daughters whom they wedded to the major deities or Deva’s, other Prajapati’s and SaptaRishi’s.

Two of these daughters were Svadha and Svaha, whose names are repeated many times in the ritualistic chants, though their stories are not. Let’s know a little about them.

• Svadha was married to the celestial being(s) called Pitridevas. In some stories (or versions) they are representatives of the forefathers, and offerings to them is made in an attempt to make our regards (and subsistence as believed by some) reach the respected ancestors. In fact the name of Svadha is supposed to be suffixed to any invocation and submission to Pitridevas, to ensure it reaches them properly.
• Svaha on the other hand was married to AgniDeva, the god of Fire. AgniDeva (also known as Vahani or Anala) is the mouth and representative of all the Devas, and accepts offerings on behalf of them all. Similar to Svadha, the name of Svaha is supposed to be included whenever any offering is submitted to any Deva through AgniDeva, to ensure proper acceptance.

Next time you chance upon any yagna or rituals, try to catch the mention of the names of these two important female deities.

We shall meet Svaha later on, when she plays an important part as one of the nine mothers of a warlike god child.

Svadha, the wife of Pitridevas, was mother to their three daughters. They were Mena (“knowledge”), Dhanya (“wealth”) and Kala (“art”). Once these three daughters were visiting Vishnu. There were many fascinating things around Vishnu, and they were fully immersed in their appreciation of them. Coincidentally the Kumaras, the learned mind-born sons of Brahma, visited Vishnu’s abode in that time. The three daughters of Svadha were so engrossed that they did not rise to pay their respects to the four Kumaras.

The “wise” Kumaras were ancient (“Sanaka”), eternal (“Sanatana”), ever-young (“Sanatkumara”) and ever- joyful (“Sanandana”), yet they lost their temper at this disrespect. They cursed the three divine maidens to be exiled to the mortal world. This wasn’t the first time they exiled divine individuals to mortal lives.

When Mena and her younger sisters begged for forgiveness, the Kumaras, converted the curses into boons.

• Mena would be the wife of Himacala, the Lord of Mountains. She would be blessed to be mother to Parvati, the consort of Shiva. Mena would get back to the divine realm through Kailasha, the abode of Shiva.
• Dhanya would be the wife of Janaka, the king of Mithila. She would be blessed to be (foster) mother to Sita, who would be the wife of (Raghava) Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, in the Treta Yuga. Dhanya would reclaim divinity in Vaikuntha, the grace realm of Vishnu.
• Kala would, in Dwapar Yuga, be the wife of Vrishabhana. She would be blessed to be mother to Radha, who would be the companion and beloved of (Gopala) Krishna, the eighth (or ninth) incarnation of Vishnu. Kala would return to divine status by achieving Goloka, the heaven for Krishna’s devotees.

Mena was thus happily married to Himacala, also known as Parvateshwara (or Lord of Mountains).

They had many sons, who were mountains. Originally all these mountains had wings and could fly and change locations. This was quite unsettling for everyone involved. As the concept of a huge mountain landing atop any place as per his whim should be of concern for those who lived there. So everyone’s favourite god, the king of devas, and lord of thunderstorms and rain, Indra decided to cut off the wings of the sons of Mena and Himacala.

There may be three “reasons” behind this part of the story.

• Firstly, this may be a way to reconcile the various stories where the same name of a mountain is mentioned for geographically disparate locations. (May be the itinerant storytellers moved their locations, but forgot to change the names of the places in their stories).
• Secondly, earlier the people would worship the geographical features, like mountains and rivers, as these were source of their subsistence and security. Later when the sects which considered Indra as supreme, being king of gods, became “stronger”, this type of worship wasn’t “acceptable” any more. Then, Indra’s act of shearing the wings of upstart mountains may have been a way to show his superior strength. Interestingly there was a reversal of that in a later tale, when (Gopala) Krishna convinced his villagers that the hill called Govardhan (“increaser of cows”) was more suitable of their worship rather than Indra. When Indra tried to “correct” this reversal of worship-supremacy, by bringing torrential rains there, Krishna helped utilise Govardhan as shelter against the same. Coincidentally I am writing this a day after a festival meant to commemorate that incident.
• Thirdly, this may be “inspired” by the imagery of lightning seemingly striking the mountains during thunderstorms. A vivid imagination could interpret this as Indra, the wielder of vajra (lightning), striking off the wings of the mountains to ensure they can’t fly away.

Out of the many mountain sons of Mena and Himacala, was the one called Mainaka. He was a friend of Vayudeva, the god of winds. The god who controlled winds, also known as Pavan, pushed his friend, Mainaka, out of harm’s way, and hid him in the ocean between the mainland and the island of Lanka. So only Mainaka retained his wings amongst all the mountains, while the rest were shorn of their ability to fly due to strikes by Indra’s vajra. In Treta Yuga, when Hanuman, the son of Vayudeva, was travelling towards Lanka (on a mission for Rama), Mainaka repaid his friend’s favour by providing PavanPutra Hanuman a place to rest mid-flight.

The attack and injury to her many sons, would have definitely saddened Mena. Another incident would have saddened her further. That was the death of someone dear to her.

Shiva was married to Sati, the youngest daughter of Daksha Prajapati. Due to the proximity of Kailasha with Himacala’s abode, Mena and Sati knew each other, and met regularly. They were extremely fond of each other. If you think of it, Sati was Mena’s maternal aunt, being Svadha’s youngest sister.

Due to a series of unfortunate incidents, Sati chose to renounce the body that was a daughter of Daksha, or Dakshayani. Influenced by Sati’s fond relationship with Mena and Himacala, as well as the Kumara’s boon to Mena, Shiva’s Shakti was destined to be reborn as a daughter of Mena.

The question that became important was “which of her daughters?”. As Mena was blessed with more than one daughter. The numbers vary, so let us synthesise various versions, and stick with three. They were Ragini, Ganga, and Kali. Kali was the youngest.

Brahma and the other gods knew that Sati was to be born as a daughter of Mena, so all the daughters were tested for suitability. All three started intense penance from an early age.

Ragini, who had a reddish complexion, was found too prone to anger. She became the personification of the color of dusk, or Sandhya. She was henceforth seen as a reddish river in the sky during dusk.

Ganga was fair complexioned and very beautiful. She was also not found suitable by Lord Brahma. She was transformed into a river and flowed in Brahmaloka. Due to her strength she started flooding Brahmaloka. She flowed in many turns, and in some stories this sister is called Kutila. Brahma coaxed her material river form into his kamandalu, and her divine form stayed in devaloka as Ganga Devi.

After two of her elder daughters turning into heavenly rivers, Mena tried to stop her youngest daughter, who was dark complexioned from further penance. The sound she made was “u, maa!” (or “oh don’t!”). So Kali was also known as Uma. As she was the only remaining daughter of Parvateshwar, she was also called Parvati. We shall follow her story in detail in future. Spoiler alert, Parvati was the prophesied reincarnation of Sati. She is the most important (and accepted) mother of the warrior-god-child, who was destined to be devasenapati. He, who was the child of nine mothers.

Meanwhile, Ganga as a river had the power to purify everything she touched. When her river form was needed on earth (we shall cover this story later), it was feared her strong flow would cause major devastation. The only way she could be controlled, was that her river form flowed from Brahma’s kamandalu into the mass of hair or jata on the head of Shiva. The Great Lord (or Mahadeva) holds and controls the power of Ganga, and lets her mighty flow to trickle down in a more manageable form.

In some versions Ganga achieved closeness to Shiva, in this way, as she also was a partial reincarnation of Sati. She also plays an important part in the birth of the warrior-god-child who had nine mothers, two of which are Svaaha and Parvati.

Ganga also flowed in the heavens as SwargaGanga (“the heavenly river”) or AkashGanga (“the sky river”).

AkashGanga is the name by which the Milky Way galaxy is called in India. Within this galaxy is a constellation, called Pleiades in the western astronomy.

In the Indian astronomy, six of the seven major stars in the Pleiades constellation together are called the Krittikaa, or “the ones who cut”. These six stars were born in the mortal realm as the wives of six of the seven great sages or Saptarishis. These six pious ladies, who had in them the power of “the ones who cut”, were the remaining six mothers of the warrior-god-child who had nine mothers.

Interestingly the seven star constellation called Ursa Major in western astronomy is called Saptarishis in Indian astronomy. The six Krittikas were married to six of these sages. The name of these six sages (and the stars in Saptarishi constellation) are

• Marichi,
• Pulastya,
• Pulaha,
• Atri,
• Angiras, and
• Kratu.

Just one more astronomical trivia before we end. The seventh star in the constellation is actually a twin-star. The brighter one is called Vashishtha, and its companion star is called Arundhati. The lady Arundhati (wife of Sage Vashishtha) was NOT one of the mothers of the warrior-god-child. The one who was also called Kartikeya, to honour six of his mothers, the Krittika.