Devlok With Devdutt Pattanaik Read online

  In the story, when Valmiki hears about Hanuman’s Ramayana, he visits him and asks to see it. Hanuman shows him the banana leaf on which he has written it. After reading it, Valmiki bursts into tears. Hanuman wants to know if it’s that bad! Valmiki says that, on the contrary, it is so good that nobody will care for his Ramayana after reading Hanuman’s version. On hearing this, Hanuman tears up the banana leaf, chews it and swallows it. When Valmiki asks him why he did that, Hanuman says that his reason for writing the Ramayana was different from the rishi’s. While Valmiki composed the Ramayana so that people would remember him, for his own fame and fortune, Hanuman wrote it to remember Rama, to discover Rama. This is a loka katha describing Hanuman’s complete devotion.

  This concept can be applied to everything. What is the reason for doing any work? Is it for one’s own name and fame, like Valmiki, or to discover god, Rama, in the work itself, like Hanuman? It is a story of bhakti, dedication and devotion.

  Turning to the Mahabharata, was it narrated by Vyasa and written by Ganesha?

  This is a popular story. When Vyasa conceived the story, he realized he needed a writer to write such a vast, complicated narrative with so many verses. He prayed to the gods and they sent Ganesha to write it for him. Ganesha agreed, but on the condition that Vyasa would narrate the story non-stop. Otherwise, Ganesha would leave. Vyasa agreed but put a condition of his own, that Ganesha would write only when he understood a verse. And so, Vyasa would intersperse his narrative with such complicated verses that made even Ganesha pause and think. That would give Vyas some time to breathe! It became a sort of competition between them.

  Who first narrated the Mahabharata?

  In the Mahabharata, it’s said that the story is being told to rishis in a forest called Naimisha Van by a sutradhar known as sauti (simply, the storyteller). Those who listen are called shaunak. The sauti is Ugrasrava (one with a booming voice) who had heard the story from his father, Romaharshana. Romaharshana got his name from the fact that he told stories in such a moving way that his listeners got goose pimples (rongte khade hona). He in turn had heard it at a yagna held by Janmajeya. The yagna was called Sarpasatra, where one of Vyasa’s students, Vaisampayan, narrated the story of the Mahabharata.

  The story goes that Janmajeya is trying to find Takshak, the snake who killed his father, King Parikshit. He is told that Indra is shielding him. Janmajeya decides to hold the Sarpasatra yagna, which will destroy all the snakes in the Brahmand. Rishi Astika comes to visit him and asks him to stop the yagna, because it’s immoral. He then tells Janmajeya that a week before his death, Parikshit had broken the tap (deep meditation) of a rishi by garlanding him with a dead snake. The rishi cursed Parikshit, saying he would die of snakebite.

  When Janmajeya’s grandfather, Arjuna, had burnt down a forest to establish Indraprastha, many snakes’ homes had been destroyed. So, Takshak had sworn revenge and bitten Parikshit. The rishi warns Janmajeya that the cycle of revenge and counter-revenge is unending. His ancestors, the Pandavas, fought the Kauravas not for revenge but for dharma. And yet it was the Kauravas who attained Swarga, and the Pandavas, Naraka. He counsels Janmajeya to hear the story of his forefathers and learn from it.

  In this negative atmosphere, where snakes are being burnt to death, Vaisampayan narrates the Mahabharata to Janmajeya to drive home the truth that hinsa (violence) does not solve any problem. So, Vaisampayan tells Janmajeya the story that Romaharshana hears and tells Ugrasrava who tells the rishis, and then we hear it.

  So we are the shaunaks?

  Yes.

  How was Vyasa a participant in the Mahabharata?

  In both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the narrators participate in the story. In the Ramayana, Sita stays at Valmiki’s ashram after being abandoned by Rama, during her second exile. In the Mahabharata, Vyasa has intercourse (niyoga) with Vichitravirya’s widows, Ambika and Ambalika, who give birth to Dhritarashtra and Pandu, respectively. The Kauravas and the Pandavas are thus Vyasa’s descendants, and he is watching his own grandchildren fight and destroy the dynasty over land and property. Perhaps he composed the Mahabharata to show that violence does not solve problems. He narrates the stories to his disciples Vaisampayan, Jaimini, and his son Shukamuni.

  Jaimini’s story comes from the Markandeya Purana. Jaimini had some doubts about the story so he went looking for Vyasa who had taken sanyas by then. So he went to Rishi Markandeya who was considered chiranjeevi (immortal). But he had taken a vow of silence (maun vrata). There were four birds who had witnessed the Mahabharata, and Jaimini was directed to clarify his doubts from them.

  The story of the birds is quite fascinating. During the war at Kurukshetra, one of the arrows hits a pregnant bird who was flying overhead. The bird drops dead but its eggs are saved by an elephant’s bell that falls over them like a protective covering. The birds thus hear and witness the entire war, and they know the reasons for it, the inner thoughts of all those involved.

  Jaimini is famous for writing the Jaimini Ashwamedha Parva, which is about Yudhishtira’s Ashwamedha yagna that takes place after the war. The parva is a long poem in itself.

  Did Shiva hear all these stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata from Brahma?

  Interesting question. These stories are told in the time–space continuum of the yugas. The Ramayana is set in the Treta Yuga and the Mahabharata in the Dvapara Yuga. Shiva is beyond, outside this continuum. He is timeless or outside time (akaal). He watches the world at all times. Because our time is cyclical, the Ramayana does not happen just once. It’s an eternal (anant) story, which happens again and again. In one story, when Hanuman goes to Naga-loka (the land of serpents), the king of snakes, Vasuki, asks him, ‘Which Rama has died?’ Hanuman is taken aback. Vasuki then tells him that a Rama is born and dies in every yuga, after which a Hanuman comes to Naga-loka, just as he has now.

  So Shiva has heard the Ramayana many many times. There was a Ramayana, is a Ramayana, and the Ramayana will continue to happen, over and over again. Similarly, the Mahabharata. This is what is itihaas (history).

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  Lakshmi and Saraswati

  Have Lakshmi and Saraswati been mentioned in Vedic times?

  Yes, but these words have several meanings. The Vedas have a poem called Sri Sukta. Sri is Lakshmi’s first name as in sriman or srimati. In the Sri Sukta, the yajman (patron of the yagna) prays for the goddess to come into his life with cows, horses, wealth, grain, etc.

  Saraswati is associated with rivers in the Vedas. There are two schools of belief: some believe that there was a real river, and others, that it is a metaphor for gyan (river of knowledge). The word for her is Vagadevi, where ‘vak’ means language. If you go deeper into Vedic samhita, you see that language is given a lot of importance. Today, we associate Saraswati with knowledge, but in the Vedas, she was mainly associated with language.

  What is their story in the Puranas?

  In the Puranas, they acquired roop, physical form. In the Vedas, they were mentioned in the mantras, and you had to imagine what they might be like. The Puranas had a visual culture of darshan (seeing), which followed the Vedic culture of shruti (aural). In that, statues and pictures are made; they appear as characters in stories, are described. You learn about the Brahmand and prakriti (nature) from their behaviour. Other characters, such as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Durga, Indra, asuras, rakshasas and yakshas appear in the stories. A new ecosystem is created and we acquire knowledge from their relationships and interactions.

  How was Lakshmi born?

  There are two ways of looking at this: one, from the philosophical or evolutionary angle, and the other through stories. In the beginning, there was no prana (life) in prakriti, no living creature, only the pancha mahabhut (five elements—earth, fire, water, ether, wind). Lakshmi appeared along with the first organism because every living being is hungry and looks for food. Food is ‘laksh’; from laksh came Lakshmi.

  From the need for food arose the need for power—to enable the acquisiti