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But that was not punishment enough. Creon, Jocasta’s brother, drove Oedipus out of Thebes for only with him gone would the epidemic that plagued Thebes end.

  The story of Oedipus led Sigmund Freud to construct the Oedipus complex: the unconscious repressed male desire to compete with the father for the mother’s affections. Indian psychoanalysts have argued that in India, the story reveals a Yayati complex: the repression of sons by their fathers. The Yayati complex is the opposite of the Oedipus complex.

  In Euripides’ play The Phoenician Women, Jocasta does not kill herself.

  The story of Oedipus is one of fate, free will and tragic flaw.

  It is ironic that Tiresias who is blind can see more than Oedipus who has eyes. That is why Oedipus blinds himself, for he cares not for human eyes that do not reveal the truth and instead present delusions.

  Oedipus

  Abandoned by his people and his sons, despised for committing patricide and incest, the blind Oedipus—once a king and husband and father—wandered all over the land, shunning the company of people, fearful of their reaction if they discovered his identity. Only his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, stood by him, serving him without judgement.

  After many years of wandering, he came to Colonus, a grove near Athens, that was sacred to the Furies, ancient spirits who punish those who disrespect their parents.

  ‘This is a good place to die,’ Oedipus told his daughters.

  The guardians of the grove tried to drive Oedipus away but he insisted on meeting their king, Theseus. When the king arrived, Oedipus revealed his identity and begged Theseus to let him die there. The king, feeling sorry for Oedipus, agreed. Only then did Oedipus reveal a secret: ‘It has been foretold that the land where I am buried will always stand safe, never succumbing to any assault by its enemies.’

  The idea of fate is found in both Greek and Hindu mythologies. But while the gods determine man’s fate in Greek stories, in Hindu tales it is the outcome of our own past actions which attract boons and curses.

  If in the play Oedipus Rex Oedipus is shown as wanting to challenge and escape fate, in Oedipus at Colonus there is resignation, or rather acceptance of the idea that fate is a necessity and inescapable.

  While Oedipus’s sons fight over Thebes, his daughters take care of him; thus ancient playwrights and mythmakers presented the tendencies of the two genders.

  Eteocles and Polynices

  After throwing Oedipus out of the city, his two sons began fighting over the throne. Finally, it was decided that each brother would rule the kingdom alternately for a year, beginning with Eteocles in the first year.

  Unfortunately, after he ruled as king for a year, Eteocles— with the support of Creon—refused to hand over the crown to his brother. A furious Polynices declared war on Thebes, raising an army of seven commanders—each ordered to attack one of the seven gates of the city.

  It was around this time that news of the powers Oedipus’s grave would grant the land reached Thebes. Creon, now regent, rushed with Eteocles to meet Oedipus. They begged him to return and protect the city threatened by the armies of Polynices, but Oedipus refused to indulge the opportunists.

  Then Polynices came to his father, purportedly seeking his blessings. While Creon wanted Oedipus to be buried within the walls of Thebes, Polynices wanted to bury Oedipus outside. For Polynices hoped that the power of Oedipus’s grave would help him defeat his brother, Eteocles, who had been declared king of Thebes by Creon.

  Oedipus was disgusted as to how those who rejected him while he was alive wanted control over his grave. And he was not even dead yet! He refused to forgive his sons and reiterated his curse that his two sons, who had humiliated him and driven him out of Thebes, would die at each other’s hands.

  Both Creon and Polynices tried to force Oedipus to change his mind by dragging Antigone and Ismene back to Thebes with them. But Theseus thwarted their attempts. In gratitude, Oedipus told Theseus to follow him deep into the woods to the spot where he would die. ‘Bury me and keep the location of my grave secret so that no one can desecrate it. May it protect Athens forever.’

  And so Oedipus, rejected by his sons and his subjects, finally died alone and in secret, genuinely mourned only by his daughters. Theseus, who buried him, never told the world where the grave stood, for the sake of Oedipus and Athens.

  If the Ramayana is about following rules, then the Mahabharata is about breaking rules. This epic contrast is mirrored in Greek mythology through the cities of Athens and Thebes. Athens is seen as a place where boundaries and roles are strictly adhered to while Thebes is where there is transgression, allowing for themes of incest, rape, murder and hubris.

  At Colonus, Oedipus is no longer a tragic figure but a hero sought after by two forces, those inside Thebes and those exiled from the city. When he dies, it is in secret and only Theseus knows his gravesite. Those who first mocked him, then sought him, do not ever find him.

  Antigone

  Polynices raised an army of seven commanders, each of whom was to storm and take control of one of the seven gates of Thebes. The attack, however, was unsuccessful; all seven commanders were killed.

  Then Polynices fought his brother Eteocles and ultimately these two sons of Oedipus ended up killing each other.

  Creon was declared king of Thebes. He ordered that Eteocles’s body be brought into the city and buried with full honours. Creon also decreed that Polynices, who had raised an army against his own city, did not deserve a burial and that his body would rot in the battleground outside the city walls, to be claimed by wolves and vultures. Thus while one son of Oedipus was given due respect, the other was stripped of all dignity.

  Antigone and Ismene, Oedipus’s daughters, who had returned to Thebes after the death of their father, mourned both their brothers. Unlike Creon, they believed that both sons of Oedipus deserved to be given decent burials, not just the one. But Creon refused to change his mind: the traitor Polynices who had disrespected Thebes deserved neither honour nor a proper burial.

  Ismene submitted to the will of the new king but not Antigone. She defied Creon, walked out of the city at night, and cremated her brother with full honours on her own on the battlefield. When this was discovered, she was arrested and Creon ordered that she be buried alive.

  Rather than submit to Creon, the defiant Antigone hanged herself. Creon’s son, Haemon, who was engaged to marry Antigone, could not bear the loss of his beloved betrothed and took his own life. In despair, Haemon’s mother also killed herself. Thus, Creon found himself all alone as a result of attempting to impose the will of the city over the wishes of family members.

  Conflicts between the rules of the city and the rules of nature dominate Hindu thought too. The Sama Veda classifies all its melodies into forest songs and settlement songs. In the forest, there are no rules, no ruler, no regulating authority. In the city, there are rules, rulers and regulating authorities. Which is better? The freedom of the forest, where no one helps anyone, or the rules of the city, where the strong are expected to help the weak?

  Antigone embodies the heart while Creon embodies the head. She is all about compassion where he is all about rules; she symbolizes feminine ‘divine law’ and he, masculine ‘human law’.

  Epigoni

  Each of the seven commanders who had attacked one of Thebes’s gates and failed had a son. These sons grew up and called themselves the Epigoni. They attacked the city and razed it to the ground, and with that Thebes, established by Cadmus, ceased to exist.

  Greek mythology informs us how Thebes came into being and how it collapsed; Hindu mythology describes the rise and eventual demise of Dwarka. Both cities were established by refugees: Cadmus, who is searching for Europa and cannot go back home; and Krishna, who is escaping the wrath of a Jarasandha determined to destroy Mathura. Both cities are annihilated by war: the Epigoni devastate Thebes; and the civil war of the Yadus, together with the curse Gandhari—mother of the fallen Kauravas—hurls on the Yadus, destroys Dwarka.

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