Kancha Ilaiah, of whom I spoke earlier in this column, had a meeting yesterday to celebrate Narakasura Vardhanti. His logic was that upper caste Hindus – led by Brahmins – have oppressed the dalit bahujans (maybe Dravidians) of this country, to the extent that even the dalit gods have been represented as evil. Naraka is just one of them: so let us now celebrate his ascent to the ‘other world’.
OK, I do agree that history, and myth created out of history, has a slant favoring the victor; in this case, it is the upper caste Hindus. Why then wage a war against Hindu gods and goddesses? Like B R Ambedkar, why not convert to Buddhism (or, Christianity). Why remain a ‘Hindu’ on paper, and then cry aloud that one is not a Hindu. On another occasion, I had said that there is no ritual associated with converting oneself to Hinduism (so, I advised Julia Roberts to take it easy). So also, there is no need to ‘prove’ that one is not a Hindu: you just say so, and you are relieved of the burden of centuries of oppression.
Then again, all Hindus, upper-caste or dalit bahujan (and even some Christians) celebrate Onam, Which is the largest festival in Kerala. It marks the homecoming of the legendary King Mahabali. The festival lasts for ten days and is linked to many elements of Kerala's culture and tradition. Intricate flower carpets, elaborate banquet lunch, snake boat races, and kaikottikkali dance all play a part in the festival.
The Asura Dynasty of Prgjyothisha
Narakasura and his kingdom, Pragjyotisha, find mention in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, in the sections which were written not before the first century. His son, Bhagadatta, is said to have fought for the Kauravas in the Mahabharata battle. (Interestingly, the Andhra tribe which migrated to current Andhra Pradesh also fought with Karna: many people have names like Karan in the Telangana region.) The Naraka myth gets the most extensive elaboration in the Upapurana called Kalika Purana (10th century), which was composed in Assam itself. Here the legend of Janaka of Videha, the father of Sita, is embellished and added to the legend of Naraka. There are conflicting and entangled tales associated with Naraka. The word ‘naraka’ itself means the nether world in Sanskrit.
The legend of Narakasura is important in the history of Assam since Narakasura is cited as the progenitor of many dynasties that ruled Kamarupa in historical times. A hill, to the south of Guwahati is named after him. He is also associated with the myth of the shakta goddess and place of worship Kamakhya. My colleague Mr Talukdar (who hails from Assam) says that the mongoloid kings were the so-called asuras Thus, according to him Narakasura is not mentioned in relation to Diwali; it is celebrated as the day Ram returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana; this is the myth prevalent in northern India.
The festival of lights
I overheard someone from the front office asking a colleague how he celebrated Diwali. He said that he was a Christian. So what, the lady quipped, it is just a festival of lights! (Why do so many of us celebrate Christmas – mainly at pubs and night clubs :) Indeed, in neighboring China, there is the lantern festival (which, curiously, is celebrated more in Singapore than in Mainland China) around the onset of winter.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely…
The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were written and rewritten over centuries and various digressions got added to it, so the coherence of these stories is in peril. Other texts also have undergone changes over a period of time. Essentially, in most cases, we see that the epics and other texts talk about the victory of good over evil. Very often, we see that the ‘evil’ is nothing but a great person who gets powers from the Gods (like Ravana, Naraka, Hiranya Kashipa), and starts abusing his power: that is, the power gets into their head.
Often, it is written by the victor, and the victor paints the loser as evil. The point is, let us do reexamine these myths and legends: but let us not promote hatred for one another. It is the strength of India that a Malayali from Kerala, who believes that their King Mahabali visits them once every year and an Asomi who believes that Naraka was their deity, and a north Indian who believes that Vishnu killed both Bali and Naraka and that he was a part of the trinity – can share a table, at a restaurant, or the dais on the eve of diwali.
Three cheers to Narakasura!
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